Willful and Dispicable

Such ridiculers ignore a vital fact.  They deliberately ignore it and try to cause others to forget it. Why?  In order to more easily seduce the people.  "For according to their wish," Peter writes, "this fact escapes their notice." What fact? That there  were heavens from of old and an earth standing compactly  out of water and in the midst of water by the word of God; and by those means the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water."  (2 Peter 3:5, 6)  Yes, Jehovah did rid the earth of wickedness during the Flood in Noah's day, a fact that Jesus also emphasized.  (Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26, 27; 2 Peter 2:5) So, contrary  to what ridiculers  say, all things have not continued "exactly as from creation's beginning." 

Ridiculers may well have mocked faithful Christians because these had  as yet unrealized  expectations.  Shortly before Jesus died, his disciples   "were imagining that the kingdom of God was going to display itself instantly." Then, after his resurrection they asked whether the Kingdom would be set up  right away. Also, about ten years before Peter wrote his second letter, some were "excited " by "a verbal message" or "a letter," reputedly from the apostle Paul or his companions, "to the effect that the day of Jehovah is here."  (Luke 19:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:2; Acts 1:6) Such expectations of Jesus' disciples, however, were not false, only premature. Jehovah's day would come! 

Next time: God's Word Is Dependable

From the Watchtower magazine, 1997