Flood Witness
Uniformitarianism as a scientific paradigm became popular in the 18th century. However, it has been the worldview of scoffers from time immemorial.
They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”
2 Peter 3:4
Things are as they’ve always been, according to the scoffer. Because things will continue as they always have, judgement will never come. The age of lawlessness will never end. The problem they must overcome is that world changing judgement is a matter of history.
For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
2 Peter 3:5-6
Not only was creation a dramatic event unlike the slow, constant passing of time that characterizes much of history, but God has already once judged the whole world in a cataclysmic event that reshaped existence on this planet.
The flood is a witness against the scoffer, therefore they deliberately deny it.
Stored Up For Fire
While God has promised never to flood the whole world again, he also promised that world changing judgement was still on the way.
But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
2 Peter 3:7
This is the heart of the denial. While the Spirit is a witness to the world that judgement is coming (John 16:8), the unbeliever rejects that conviction and intentionally suppresses the truth. The fear of God’s just wrath is transformed into a will to deny at all costs that judgement is coming.
Patient, Not Slow
However, it’s all a delusion. The reason there are long stretches between the coming of global judgement is not because God is delayed or unaware of the wickedness, but because he is long-suffering.
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2 Peter 3:8-9
While many like to use this verse to baptize the doctrine of scoffers that creation was a long, uniform event, the point of this verse isn’t that the word “day” found elsewhere in scripture potentially means “a indeterminate, long period of time”. Instead, it is that God’s judgement may arrive in a day or a thousand years, but it will arrive and he waits only for his people to be drawn in.
He’s not unwilling to judge. He’s not unaware. Our Lord does not sleep. He knows that judgement is needed and is prepared for the very moment when the last of his fold has been drawn into his embrace.
Do not mistake his patience for hesitation.
Prepare Yourself Today
If you have been a scoffer but feel the conviction now that judgement is coming, it is not yet too late. The judgement which is coming will upend all of creation and it could happen at any moment. It will come when few are expecting and there is no way to hide the wrongs you have done.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
2 Peter 3:10
Your situation is not hopeless. Jesus died for the sins of all who will believe in him. If you will follow him, your debt is already paid. There is no condemnation left!
How To Live
For those who have put their trust in Christ for their salvation, that the scoffers are wrong is our great hope! It is undeniable that this world, for all it’s created beauty, has been twisted by the effects of sin. We live lives full of pain and death is the expected end. However, this world full of suffering is passing away. The fire which serves as a judgement for sin also purifies creation for eternity.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
2 Peter 3:11-13
Though the heavens will be dissolved and the planets will burn, yet God does all of this to prepare a new heavens and earth in which righteousness will remain forever. The effects of sin will be destroyed and sin will never again enter into creation.
Far from mourning the loss of what is now, we are to live for what will be, where righteousness dwells forever!
