Wednesday Devotional
January 24, 2024
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES
THE SCOFFERS OBJECT
R. Dehaan
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation (2 Peter 3:3–4).
I anticipate some objections to these remarks immediately. Peter foretold nineteen hundred years ago that scoffers would come in the latter days. We shall answer these critics at once. These men who deny the imminent return of Jesus tell us, “All these signs that you have mentioned—wars, pestilences, famines and earthquakes, wickedness, apostasy, antisemitism, etc., have always been here. They are nothing new. There is not a century nor a decade since these words were spoken that these things were not present upon the earth. How can they mean the coming of the Lord is near? He has not yet come. Things are no different now than they always have been.” Peter told us that people would say exactly those things. (See 2 Peter 3:3-4 above)
These scoffers, you notice, are partly right, yet tragically wrong. It is true that in every age we have had wars, rumors of wars, pestilences, famines, earthquakes, race hatred, violence, false teachers and deceivers. But, never before in history have they been as intense as today. There are more earthquakes recorded today than at any other time in history. This is the word of seismologists, not the word of a preacher. There are more rumors of wars, more false teachers, more race hatred, more evil and immorality than ever before. The real significance lies in the fact that all these things are present now for the first time in history at one and the same time.
Let me refer you to one word in the statement of Jesus in Matthew 24:33, “So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.” The one word I would have you notice is all. Jesus says when all these things happen, then know. Today for the first time in human history all the signs of the times are present, at one time. I do not know of a single sign which needs to be fulfilled before the Lord Jesus Christ will return.