Lesson 9

December 22, 1888.

2 PETER 3:7-12.

  1. STATE the argument which the apostle Peter says the last-day scoffers will urge against the doctrine of Christ’s second coming.
  2. Show the falsity of their statement.
  3. How is it that these scoffers are so blind? Compare 2 Peter 3:3, last part, with 2 Thess. 2:10-12 and Heb. 3:13. See note.
  4. What has the word of the Lord spoken concerning the fate of this earth? 2 Peter 3:7.
  5. What is said of God’s relation to time? Verse 8; Ps. 90:4.
  6. What important lesson may we learn from this? See note.
  7. Why is it that God has so long delayed his threatened judgments? 2 Peter 3:9.
  8. Yet how are the majority of wicked men affected by his merciful patience? Eccl. 8:11.
  9. What effect does the favor of God have upon these wicked scoffers? Isa. 26:10.
  10. Because the judgments of God are delayed, how does the condition of the wicked often appear, as compared with that of the righteous? Ps. 73:3, 4, 12, 13.
  11. What do they themselves think? Ps. 49:11.
  12. But how will it be in reality? Eccl. 8:12, 13.
  13. At what time shall the proud be humbled? Isa. 2:12.
  14. How will the day of the Lord come upon them? 2 Peter 3:10.
  15. What will they be saying when the time of their destruction thus suddenly bursts upon them? 1 Thess. 5:2, 3.
  16. What will take place in the day of the Lord? 2 Peter 3:10.
  17. What does ‘the prophet Isaiah say of that day? Isa. 13:6, 7, 9, 10.
  18. What is the testimony of Zephaniah? Chap. 1:14-18.
  19. Is it a time to be desired? Amos 5:18-20.
  20. What was said about it by a righteous man to whom the Lord granted a prophetic view of it? Hab. 3:16.
  21. Who will pass through that terrible time unharmed? Ps. 91:1, 5-10.
  22. What will protect them? Verses 2-4.
  23. In view of the great events that are surely coming, what should be our constant thought? 2 Peter 3:11,12.

NOTES

LEST your hearts be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” This is a most forcible expression, and the truth which it suggests should receive far more attention than it does. When a man deliberately resolves to pursue a certain course, even though he knows it to be wrong, he will very soon come to the firm belief that that course is right, and will, of course, be incapable of receiving the truth on the subject:All are familiar with the story of the old Indian chief who was quite favorably inclined toward Christianity as the missionary talked with him, until he was told that all men would rise at the last day. “What!” said he, “ will all who have died in battle rise again? And shall I have to meet those whom I have slain? “ Being answered in the affirmative, he exclaimed, “ It isn’t so; I won’t have it so; they shall not rise.” After that no amount of reasoning could convince him that there would be a resurrection. In Dr. Mark Hopkins’s “Evidences of Christianity,” Lecture s, occurs the following apt statement of the way in which men’s desires overrule their reason:—

“`Men,’ says Hobbs, appeal from custom to reason, and from reason to custom, as it serves their turn, receding from custom when their interest requires ,it, and setting themselves against reason as oft as reason is against them ; which is the cause that the doctrine of fight and wrong is perpetually disputed’ both by the pen and the sword; whereas the doctrine of lines and figures is not so, because men care not, in that subject, what is truth, as it is a thing that crosses no man’s ambition, or profit, or lust. For, I doubt not, if it had been a thing contrary to any man’s right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, that the three angles of a triangle should be equal to two angles of a square, that the doctrine should [would] have been, if not disputed, yet, by the burning of all books on geometry, suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able.’ This,’ says Hallam, from whose work I make the quotation, does not exaggerate the pertinacity of mankind in resisting the evidence of truth when it thwarts the interests or passions o( any particular sect or community.’ Let a man who hears the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid announced for the first time, trace the steps of the demonstration, and he must believe it to be true; but let him, know that as soon as he does perceive the evidence of the proposition, so as to believe it on that ground, he shall lose his right eye, and he will never trace the evidence, or come to that belief which results from the force of the only proper evidence. You may tell him it is true, but he will reply that he does not know, he does not see it to be so.” The same thing is usually the case when the truth cuts across one’s cherished sins. Says Hopkins: “Let the mists that steam up before the intellect from a corrupt heart, be dispersed, and truths, before obscure, shine out as the noonday.” No man can think the thoughts of God, unless he walks in the ways of God.

THE “ sure word of prophecy “ tells us again and again that this earth shall be destroyed by fire, and that in that fire the un- 3 1 godly shall be burned up. Scoffers say that they see no evidence that any such event will ever take place; but the apostle Peter assures us that the instrument of the earth’s destruction is already prepared, and is stored within it. Just as surely as the earth was once destroyed by water, so surely will it again be destroyed by fire.

“But these prophecies were spoken hundreds, and some of them thousands, of years ago, and there is no more evidence of their fulfillment now than there was when they were uttered.” Thy argues the scoffer; but it is a vain argument; (1) because it is not true, and (2) because of the following statement:—

“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” 2 Peter 3:8.

God “inhabiteth eternity.” The flight. of time makes no difference with his plans. Compared with his eternity, the entire 6,000 years of earth’s existence is but a span. Says the psalmist, “ For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night.” Ps. 90:4. Therefore the apostle concludes that “ the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness.” That which seems to men forgetfulness of the promise, is only a kindly delay to allow dilatory men to secure the promise. In God’s reckoning, it is only as the three days’ grace, which men allow for the payment of a promissory note.

It should not be forgotten that while a thousand years is with the Lord as one day, one day is as a thousand years. This is too often overlooked. While he may take a thousand years for the fulfillment of a promise, .and then it will be the same as though performed the next day, he can do in one day the work of a thousand years. Therefore there is no warrant for settling down to carnal ease, thinking that it will necessarily be a long time yet before the work of God on earth can be accomplished: “ For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness; because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.” Rom. 9:28.

“FOR when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them.” This refers to a time when men will not simply be predicting peace and safety, but will proclaim that it has actually come. For many years men have been teaching that a millennium of perfect peace and righteousness mould precede the coming of the Lord. The members of the National Reform Association say that when Christianity is recognized and enforced by law, then the millennium will have come, and that wars, famines, and pestilence will cease:1n the National Reform Convention held at Monmouth, Ill., Sept. 29, 1884, and reported in the Christian Statesman of November 6, M. A. Gault said:

“We do not flatter ourselves when we say that the glorious millennial day will he ushered in by the triumph of this movement.”

So when they shall have gained their object, the Scripture will be fulfilled, which says: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the-nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Isa. 2:2-4. Thus they will be saying, “ Peace and safety,” and then suddenly, like a thief in the night, when they are unprepared, destruction from the Almighty shall come upon them. Read the remainder of Isaiah 2.

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