Where Is the Promise of His Coming?
by Terry Wane Benton
Peter predicted that scoffers would ask this (II Peter 3). The Lord has promised to come again. That is one thing that has not happened yet. The scoffer wants you to forget all “the prophetic word made more sure” (II Peter 2:19f) by amazing fulfillments, but they think they have found a promise that has taken too long in their estimation to come about.
They start their reasoning with a flawed assumption that everything continues as always. In the science world, it is the premise of “uniformitarianism.” They assert that all things continue as they have for millions or billions of years. However, this premise is not factual. There have been catastrophes that have interrupted and changed things in drastic ways. Already mentioned in chapter 2 is “the ancient world” in the days of Noah (II Peter 2:5). The flood event was still so obvious, etched in the legends of every culture, and marked out in land formations and fossil remains everywhere. Also mentioned in chapter 2 was the “ashes” that remained of Sodom and Gomorrah. The evidence of the remains still testified to and helped people remember the wrath of God. Yet, the scoffer will downplay all of that and try to explain it all away with naturalistic explanations and will exploit the subject of Jesus’ coming again.
But why would God build toward the first coming of Jesus with 4,000 plus years of preparatory history and then cut off the redemptive program in less than 100 years? Two thousand years since Jesus came, the first time is not much time for such a redemptive plan. Why would we doubt the second coming when only half the time has passed compared to the time before His first coming?
The Lord has never failed in one promise He has made, and you can be more certain that the world will pass away before God fails to keep the promise of His coming again. You can either scoff as they did in the days before the flood or entrust your soul to the God, who cannot lie or fail in any promise. As for me and my house ...
