The Second Letter Of Peter- 9

Subtitle: Scoffers In The Last Days

2 Peter 3:1-7.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, September 20, 2026. A link to the audio can be found at the bottom of this article.

We have reached the last chapter of this letter.  In some ways, the message in this chapter can be connected to the false prophets and false teachers warned against in chapter two.  However, there is a clear transition here in chapter 3:1-2. Although the case can be made that false teachers and false prophets are clearly scoffers of the truth of God’s Word, Peter is separately warning of scoffers that will exist particularly in the Last Days.  He is stating that such people will particularly be a problem in the Last Days, and we must not let them influence our faith.

Let’s look at our passage.

A call to remember (v. 1-2)

The first two verses establish a clear break from chapter two.  Verse one establishes that this is Peter’s second letter (to the people of Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey).  Of course, 1 Peter is the first letter.  In both letters, he desires to stir up our sincere minds by reminding us to remember some things that they (and hopefully we) had been taught.

Let’s talk first about the idea of a “sincere mind” here.  The emphasis in the Greek is a pure, clean, undefiled mind.  This is not a statement about perfect control and never having a thought that you have to take captive.  It is a statement about our faith in Christ and embrace of His Gospel.  The Word of God (both Old and New Testaments) has a purifying effect upon our hearts and minds.  There is an immediate cleansing that happens as our faith switches from self, false gods, and false philosophies to the commands of Christ.  However, there is a daily and life-long cleansing work as we listen to the Holy Spirit and follow Him.  Our minds are pure because of the presence of the Spirit of Christ by faith.  Much of the Christian life consists in the battle to keep our hearts and minds free from the influence of the world and to keep them tethered to the Spirit and the Word of God.

Verse two highlights two things that Peter wants us to continually remember: the words of the prophets (Old Testament) and the commandments of our Lord and Savior, Jesus, given to them by the apostles of Jesus.

There are some issues in the text that are not important to theology.  However, Peter is most likely emphasizing that they had received these things by “your apostles.”  Peter is recognizing that the apostolic work of Paul and Barnabas who had founded many of these churches.

Peter warns against scoffers in the Last Days (v. 3-7)

The phrase “first of all” in verse three can be used to introduce a list that includes secondary and tertiary issues.  However, we do not find in the rest of the letter such phrases as “second of all,” or “secondarily,” etc.  Peter is simply emphasizing that the following is an area that is of primary importance.    Believers must not forget the warning he is going to give about scoffers.

Several versions use the word “mockers” as opposed to “scoffers.”  There is no true difference between them.  The idea is that they treat certain Christian teachings with derision and ridicule.  They both scoff at the teachings and mock them.  This is a very different person than someone who expresses arguments of disagreement but are willing to seriously engage the arguments of God’s Word.

There is a Hebrew idiom employed here.  In English, it comes across as redundant to say that scoffers will come with their scoffing (or mockers).  However, in Hebrew, this is a way of intensifying the expression.  This scoffing will be more than individuals here and there who are keeping it to themselves.  Rather, it takes on the nature of an assault of many scoffers flooding the public discussion with their derision and ridicule of the Scriptures.

Peter also emphasizes that he is speaking about “the last days.”  This is a phrase that connects to the same phrase in the Old Testament along with a whole group of similar phrases.  “The Last Days,” “the Latter Days,” “End Times,” and even the “Day of the Lord” generally point to the same things but also have some particular emphases that can distinguish them.  They are not necessarily synonymous.  You need to pay attention to the point the author is making, whether it is general or specific, etc.

In fact, prophecies that are forward looking have an effect that is sometimes called the Mountain Peak Effect.  When you look at a mountain range, it may appear that many of the peaks are about the same height, but experience teaches us that there may be large distances between them.  A peak may actually be taller than all the others, but it is farther away.  Prophecies in the Old Testament sometimes will speak of things that clearly point to the first coming of Christ and then also include things that are clearly from His second coming.  We know this because the first coming of Christ gave us more information from Jesus himself through his apostles.

We are technically in the last days of God’s work of bringing in the Kingdom of His Messiah.  It involves the offer of peace to any person in any nation with God the Father through Jesus His Son.  At some point, this age of God’s peace offer (an Age of Grace) will come to an end.  His Son will then come forth to take up control of the nations.

Yet, we can also recognize that this period is coming up on 2,000 years in duration.  Thus, there are the end times, latter days, where we approach the final years before Christ’s second coming.  If we are not in these now, we are rapidly approaching them.

It is of no surprise that we see all kinds of scoffing and mocking towards Christians who believe God’s Word, as Peter told us- really as the Holy Spirit told us through the Apostle Peter.

Peter says in verse three that they do this “following after their own lusts.”  There is a repetition in the use of the pronouns “their” and “own.”  Again, this is not redundancy but intensification.  Their strong desires are leading them, pulling them along.  In fact, there is a willfulness involved in this as well as a bondage to it.  This cycle of choosing something that then becomes a shackle and stronghold in your heart and mind is as old as humanity itself.  There is nothing wrong with having questions about God’s Word and the things it teaches.  However, be careful that you are not willfully following the lust of your flesh.

In verse four, we are given a particular scoffing that will be prevalent.  It is not the only one that will exist in the last days, but it is the one the Holy Spirit emphasizes.  “Where is the promise of His coming?”

Remember that this is not the question of a heart that is seeking truth.  This question is being asked by someone who holds such an idea in derision and ridicules it.  They reject it and deny it.

Such a scoff definitely comes from some militant atheists who believe that religion is holding humanity back from greater evolution.  However, it can come from a person from a false religion as well.  Finally, I would warn that it also can come from within the Christian community itself.

There are those who interpret the second coming of Christ as an allegory of a person accepting the way of Jesus.  They do not believe in a day of judgment in which the nations of the earth will be judged for what they did with the Gospel of Jesus and the truth that God has anointed him as the King of kings and the Lord of lords.  Such people often boil the message of Jesus to this.  Love everybody.  However, it is always in a non-judgmental way that embraces all kinds of things that Scripture calls sin.  It is as if Jesus died so that nothing can be called sin anymore.  True love helps promiscuous heterosexuals as well as homosexuals to face their sin and turn to Christ.  Christ taught us to love God by listening to His Word.  If you love such people as I have listed, then you will warn them of the destruction that comes from following your flesh over the boundaries designed by the Creator.

Such “Christians” see those who believe in a literal return of Christ as the problem that is holding us back from Utopia.  This is the foundation approach of people like James Talarico in Texas and the strange things he says as a “Christian.”

Verse four continues with support for their questioning the return of Jesus (why they think it so ridiculous).  Their evidence is that everything continues as it always has since creation.

This appeal to the uniform character of what we see today is prevalent in the science of today.  We extrapolate long periods of time because we require a natural solution.  Yet even that does not naturally require long periods of time.  Huge canyons can be carved out in a day by large catastrophes.  Erosion that would normally take a million years can happen in a matter of hours in catastrophic conditions.

This leads to a greater problem.  We don’t see God “creating” new things today, so we refuse to let that be the explanation for why anything exists at all.  We tell ourselves that we must use what we see today to explain what happened yesterday. 

In all of this, there is a hidden motivation. If we weren’t trying to get rid of any connection to God and Jesus, then perhaps we could carefully let what we see today help us understand what happened in the past.  The question of nature is wrapped up in a moral issue.  Is Jesus who God says he is?  If so, then what does that mean for me and my life now?

The early leaders of the scientific method were generally Christians.  They believed that the same God who gave us reasoning powers also made the world around us in rational ways, ways that we could discover.  Without that common bond, there is no rational basis for believing that we can figure everything out on our own.

The use of “the fathers” in this argument from uniformity- i.e., that the rates of natural processes today can help us explain the past- is a reference to the patriarchs of the Old Testament.  This would be the list of men from Adam down to Jacob.  These men lived with an expectation that God would send a “Seed of the Woman,” an “Anointed One,” who would fix all the issues of sin and our domination by Satan.  The use of this phrase is likely an indication by Peter that these scoffers would be led by people from within Christianity.  It is possible that it is simply using Christian language for something that a person from outside of Christianity would say in different language, but I would lean towards the first interpretation.

Verse five has a grammatical issue.  There is one word that can be paired with either verb, which gives a subtle change to the meaning.  Peter is either saying that these scoffers willfully ignore the fact (of the flood), or he is saying that, as they assert the fact of uniformity, it is hidden from them how God’s Word has always been the foundation to all that happens.

I don’t think this is a critical difference because Scripture speaks of both scenarios being a problem for those who reject God’s Word.  The first interpretation simply emphasizes that these scoffers are willfully ignoring critical evidence for whatever reason.  God has shown them, but they refuse to see it or recognize it.

The second interpretation emphasizes how willfulness (to follow our flesh) not only holds a bondage within it, but also a debilitation.  “It is hidden from them,” is the flip side of the spiritual blindness that happens to those who willfully push aside God’s Word.  Sin hardens hearts and minds to truth.  Truth becomes something that is harder and harder for them to see.  Without God’s grace of revelation and salvation, we would all be stuck in that condition.

Peter reminds us that the world hasn’t gone on the same without interruption (vs 5 and 6).  The heavens and the earth came into being, existed, by the Word of God.  “Let there be light!  And there was light.”  This is an interruption of what was (or wasn’t) before it.  God speaks and it interrupts the current uniformity.  Again, at The Flood, God’s Word of judgment interrupted the ancient world.  If not for Noah and the ark, humanity and the animals would have ceased to exist on this planet.  Yet, Noah and the others stepped onto a world radically different from the one on the other side of the Flood, a Great Interruption of the Uniformity.

This brings us to the point.  God’s Word also speaks of another Great Interruption that is coming upon the heavens and the earth.  They are currently being reserved for a fire that will destroy all ungodly men (even melting down the universe- see 1 Peter 3:10).

Peter is speaking in general terms. 

In Revelation 20, we are given more specific information about how this fiery judgment will connect with the second coming of Jesus.  I believe it is clear that Christ’s second coming will institute a kingdom of peace for 1,000 years.  During this time, God fulfills all His promises to national Israel, to the nations, and to the righteous.  Yet, at the end of that millennium, a final rebellion will be instigated by Satan.  It is then that we are told of a fire that comes down out of heaven.  The scene swiftly moves.  The rebellion is devoured by fire.  The devil is cast into the Lake of Fire.  The Great White Throne appears causing the heavens and the earth to flee away.  If we couple this last statement with 1 Peter 3:10, it appears that they melt down to a plasma and are moved away.  Then all who have ever lived that have not been resurrected yet (mostly the wicked) are resurrected, judged and sent into the Lake of Fire (if their name is not in the Book of Life).  The very next statement is that there are new heavens and a new earth.  It seems logical to see that the old has melted down to a plasma and then remade.  You might think of it as a purification, renewal, even a rebooting of the Creation.  This Great Interruption lays ahead of humanity and the spiritual hosts of heaven (wicked and righteous), all of Creation.

In the last days, scoffers will attempt to dissuade believers that these things are coming.  If we are dissuaded of that, then the impulse to live righteously is greatly undermined.  The hope for humanity becomes something of our own making, led by our own lust, and led by a devil who hates humanity.

Let us hold fast to the faith and hope that we have been given by the apostles of Jesus!

Scoffers audio

Evangelist Ernie Salinas- PM

We will only post the audio for this sermon preached on Sunday evening, September 13, 2026.

We apologize that a few minutes are missing from the beginning of this audio.

There Was A Church In Antioch audio

Evangelist Ernie Salinas- AM

We will only post the audio for this sermon preached on Sunday morning, September 13, 2026.

The Afterlife audio

The Second Letter of Peter- 8

Subtitle: The Problem of False Prophets 5

2 Peter 2:17-22.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, September 6, 2026.

Peter continues with more descriptions of false teachers that the Church will potentially face.  However, we also get a description of those they target.

Let’s get into our passage.

They promise freedom but deliver bondage (v. 17-22)

The main point of these last verses is that these false teachers cannot and will not deliver what they promise.  They are offering freedom to people while they are slaves to corruption.  They can only deliver that same bondage to those who follow them.

Verse 17 gives us two metaphors that picture this.  Peter calls them springs without water.  A person goes to a spring because they believe they will find water there.  These teachers claim to be a source of water, but you will get none from them.

It is important to point out that water, rain, and dew are used as a metaphor for God’s revelation, or truth.  We see this in Deuteronomy 32:2. Of course, Moses can share these things because God has revealed them to him.

These false teachers talk like they are giving you God’s Word, but in the end, God’s Word is not in them nor coming from them. 

Peter also calls them mists driven by a storm.  There is a parallel to this in Jude 1:12. Jude describes them as clouds without water, carried about by the wind.  This would work well with what Peter is describing.  If you prayed for rain and saw dark clouds on the horizon, you would be excited in hope for rain.  However, these teachers pass by without leaving any true, word of God behind.

Yet, Peter’s words are a bit different.  The clouds or mists are being pushed about by a violent wind.  This is not a good thing, but a destructive thing. No one who wants rain rejoices when a hurricane approaches.  In fact, though a cloud can be a good metaphor, mists tend to give a negative image.  Like truth (water) broken up, atomized and aerosolized, their teachings often employ just enough truth to sucker you into believing them.  Yet, there are always destructive lies riddled throughout their teachings.

The true prophets of God are pictured in the Old Testament (see Deut. 32:2) as delivering the life-giving truth of God from heaven.  It causes the lives of those who receive it and believe it to become fruitful with good things.  The promises and teachings of false prophets bring nothing but destruction and corruption.

Verse 17 ends with a phrase that is similar to that about the angels who sinned before the flood (1 Peter 2:4).  Those angels are being held “in chains of darkness reserved for judgment.”  Peter speaks of an even greater darkness that can be translated as “the black darkness” or “the blackness of darkness.”  In the prior case, the darkness is a temporary holding cell.  Those beings are held there being reserved for God’s coming judgment upon the rebels of heaven and the rebels of earth.  In this case, Peter says that these false teachers are reserved for the black darkness.  This does not seem to be the same place as verse 4, which is called Tartarus.  It is something that is their final destination.

I believe that this black darkness should be connected to the outer darkness that Jesus referenced several times.  In Matthew 25:30, the outer darkness is spoken of in the parable of the talents.  “[C]ast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Jesus then teaches what will happen when “The Son of Man,” (himself) comes in his glory.  This is often called the Second Coming.  This teaching is what the parable of the talents is picturing.  Notice in verse 41 that those who are judged are cast “into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels…”  In other words, the parable (the symbolic picture) of being cast into outer darkness is connected to the teaching that the wicked are cast into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  This is generally connected to the Lake of Fire mentioned in the book of Revelation.

How can darkness be used for an everlasting fire?  In truth, both of these are probably metaphors.  The Lake of Fire is not a place on earth or even on a planet or sun somewhere.  It is a unique place that is walled off (firewalled) from God’s good creation.  Fire on earth is known for its destructive properties to that which is burned.  Darkness is generally connected to the absence of light, which is the truth and goodness of God.  This would make the Lake of Fire, the outer darkness (the black of darkness), to be a place bereft of any truth and goodness of God, a place that destroys those who are put there.  Would you like to live in a society where there is no truth or light of God in anyone?  Would you like to live in a society that is a destroying destruction at all times?  This is a place where no sane person would want to make their goal.

False teachers cannot lead you to any good place though they surely promise such.  You will be like Pinocchio being tricked to go to Pleasure Island.  In fact, this brings up verse 18.  They entice, or allure, people with fleshly desires and sensuality.  Of course, we have already established that they are full of their own fleshly desires.  However, they find purchase within your heart because you also have desires of the flesh.  The temptation is to realize those desires in actions that please your flesh. 

By the way, the word for sensuality here simply means unrestrained lust.  There is a powerful pull within us when we are offered the chance to release our lust in action.  It is even more powerful if there is a logic or teaching that promotes it as acceptable to God in some way.

These lusts can be for food or sex or money or power, etc.  They can manifest in a variety of ways among false teachers.  A person may be the epitome of control in the areas of sex and personal wealth.  Yet, a false teacher always wants power over people.  Even this cannot be known completely.  A teacher may be quite adept at hiding their lust by satisfying it in secret.  The Christian must always be careful not to put their trust in a teacher over that of Christ and His Word.

Verse 18 describes these false teachers as speaking arrogant words of vanity.    The words are empty (vain) in that they cannot deliver anything good for you from God.  Vanity always includes a puffed-up sense of pride. They are enticing you towards things that pamper your flesh and puff up your pride, but they are empty of any of the goodness of God.

At the end of verse 18, it mentions that they are enticing “those who barely escape from the ones who live in error.”  This is essentially saying that their target, or those they have success in capturing, are those who are newly saved.  “Barely escaped” can have the sense of distance, i.e., they were close to falling short of being a Christian.  However, it most likely is meant to be taken in the sense of time.  They have just (barely an amount of time) escaped from those who are living in sin.

A predator would love to take down a large adult prey, but they have more success with prey who are newly born, sick, or dying.  If you are a new Christian, stay close to those who are spiritually mature Christians.  Learn and grow in the things of Christ so that you will not be a successful target of false teachers.  Of course, on the other hand, mature believers need to go out of their way to help new believers be discipled.  We must help them to become savvy to the schemes of false teachers and become stronger in their faith.

Verse 19 puts the fine edge on this whole area.  They promise people freedom while they are slaves to corruption.  This brings up the whole issue of freedom.  Many people don’t realize that freedom can be speaking of different things.  The false teacher is promoting the freedom to sin, whether in all areas or particular ones.  Whereas Christ came to give us freedom from sin.  Sin brings death.  We see this detailed in Galatians 6:7-8.  “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.  For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”

A slave offering freedom is an impossibility or an empty promise.  Like Lampwick resisting Jimny Crickett and encouraging Pinocchio to plunge into pleasure, these false teachers lead weak Christians to ignore the Word, ignore the Holy Spirit, and transgress their own conscience.

Christians are not perfect, but this does not mean we abandon the ways of Christ.  We pursue the righteousness of Christ as the Spirit of God leads us.  When we fall short, we repent and ask for forgiveness.  We are still tempted, but we draw moral lines empowered by the Holy Spirit and the truth of Christ.  Any teacher trying to convince you that it is okay to sin, or it is okay to cast off restraining yourself in these areas, is a false teacher.

Verse 19 ends with a statement in the NASB that reads, “[F]or by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.”  You will see other versions that have the sense of a person being overcome, controlled, or mastered.  This is not the complete sense of the word.  It also has the sense of something that you do to yourself.  You yield to a powerful force and end up being a slave to it.  You succumb to the lust of the flesh that these false teachers promote, ending up as a slave to it.  To give in is to become a slave.

The best defense against seduction is to go into relationship with God, loving Him, loving His things, and walking in His love.  Some may counter that this is just being a slave to God.  However, being a “slave of God” is a thing of freedom because it is He who has made us and not we ourselves.  He knows what is good for us versus what is bad for us, enslaving to us.  A person who becomes a slave to their flesh, this world, or the devil, may speak of a moment of “freedom,” but in the end, they manifest as a person tormented by their slavery.

Verses 20-22 highlight a great problem.  Peter warns us.  If you have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of Jesus, but then are entangled in them and overcome, your resultant state is worse than when you started.  Though this would be a warning to any Christian in danger of deception, Peter is talking about the false teachers.  This is what has happened to them (at least the ones who are not complete liars).

It is good for people to hear the Gospel of Jesus, be confronted with their sin problem, and put their faith in Jesus.  This is what Peter means by the “knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”  He speaks of this as an escape from the defilements, which are caused by living for the lust of the flesh.  1 Corinthians 6:11, after listing all kinds of defiling sins, reads, “and such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

Yet, Peter is speaking of a person who has become entangled in these things again.  You might describe this as a shipwrecked faith (1 Timothy 1:18-20).  Peter’s point is about the person’s resultant state.  It is better not to believe in Christ in the first place, then to believe for a time and then fall back into sin, rejecting Christ or redefining him.  The voluntary act of Jesus to sacrifice himself for our sins is God’s means of shocking our hearts back to faith in him.  If we then trample that sacred ground with unbelief, we make our hearts and minds that much more insensitive to God’s love.  What more can He do to break through to us than to lay His life down for us?  Of course, nothing more can be done.

It may sound unthinkable for Peter to say in verse 21 that it would have been better for them not to have known the truth at all.  But he is recognizing the great spiritual damage we can do to ourselves.  This kind of hardening of a heart following its softening by the Gospel is extremely dangerous.  Such a person becomes insensitive to God’s conviction.

Hebrews 6:4-9 even states that it is impossible for those who do such a thing, “if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance.”  I believe the writer’s emphasis of impossibility is on our human ability to bring them back to repentance.  If the Gospel is no longer drawing them, what else do we have to draw them back?  Yet, what is impossible for us is not impossible for God.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks about the man who was sleeping with his stepmother (1 Cor. 5:5).  Paul writes to “deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”  Essentially, the Church, believers, can’t do anything more, but cast them out of the Church (deliver to Satan).  To coddle them in this condition would be even worse.  If the impenitent person is cast out of the Church, the destructive nature of sin itself will be God’s last leverage on their souls.  The destruction of their flesh does not guarantee the salvation of their souls but is their only hope at this point.  Only God can reach them now, and even that is questionable.  To be hard towards God is bad, but to be hard towards the Gospel of Jesus after having believed it is worse.

Peter ends this chapter with a quote from Proverbs 26:11, which is the part about a dog returning to its vomit.  The vomit is analogous to the person who has a bad reaction to what the world has been feeding them.  The world has been feeding them the lust of the flesh.  Vomiting is a moment of deep-seated rejection of the bread of wickedness.  Yet, what do I do next?  Do I find good food, or do I follow my flesh and keep gobbling up the same stuff?

Peter adds a similar picture of a pig that has been washed (for the fair or what not).  If you release a washed pig, it is only going to go back into the mud.  It is the nature of pigs to love wallowing in the mud.

Both of these images speak to the heart of our identity.  Christ is saving us out of our chosen identity of being a dog and a pig, spiritually speaking.   We animalistically live to please our flesh appetites.  That is all we know.  Christ calls us to become the Children of God by the work of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit in us begins a process of expelling the lies of this culture and a process of washing us from the defilements of a life of fleshly pursuits.  However, to turn away from the Spirit, from Christ, and to go back into sin is to choose to be a dog, a pig, spiritually.  It is to choose to eat the very things you have vomited from your life.  It is to wallow in the defilement that Christ has been washing off of you (remember 1 Corinthians 6:11).

God is able to take us from among the dogs and pigs of this world.  He is able to make us real, live children of God because He is not willing that any should perish, and Christ has paid the price for your redemption.  However, false teachers, who may look good on the outside, are themselves dogs and pigs trying to draw you back to the vomit, back to the mud.

Be alert Christian.  Stay in fellowship with mature believers and do not be led back into the bondage of sin!

False Teachers 5 audio