Daily Devotional | Scoffers in the Last Days

The Chicago Tribune reported that last year Chicago drivers spent 104 hours, or more than four days, stuck in traffic. That’s “more time than drivers in any other major U.S. city.” The economic impact is $1,622 in wasted time per driver and $5.8 billion for the city as a whole.

Waiting for Christ’s return can sometimes feel like being stuck in traffic. Are we getting anywhere? Yet faith-filled waiting for the Second Coming is an essential part of discipleship, especially when “scoffers” are doubting that it will ever happen (vv. 3–7). Such people pridefully mock Christ’s promises and follow “their own evil desires”—their lifestyles give them away. They judge based on personal experience, which is limited and flawed (v. 4).

For example, they “deliberately forget” Creation and the Flood (vv. 5–6). In those events, we see that God exercises sovereign and just power over the entire world. He is both able and willing to keep His promises. He has the right to do as He decides and can be trusted to do so righteously. To “forget” here is not a failure of memory, but of moral and spiritual discernment. Such people choose to disregard God’s words and actions and trust their own opinions. In essence, they have become their own little gods. On the “day of judgment,” they will be sentenced accordingly.

Waiting with patience and integrity for Christ’s return is part of “wholesome thinking” or study of God’s Word (vv. 1–2). The words “reminder” and “recall” are not referring merely to memorization. Biblically, to “remember” also means to value and obey within the context of a relationship. The purpose of both of Peter’s epistles has been to stimulate us to do this!

>> Are you interested in additional study of 1 and 2 Peter? Edmund P. Clowney has written an excellent commentary on The Message of 1 Peter. Former Moody faculty member Louis Barbieri has also written on 1 and 2 Peter for the Everyman’s Bible Commentary series.