There shall come in the last days scoffers.
2 Peter 3:3, 4

I. THE PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS OF THE DISPUTERS HERE DESCRIBED. To be a scoffer is sure no very laudable character, being the joint result of pride and malice, the doing mischief, and the doing it in sport. But as this temper is most injurious, it is also ignorant and indocile. The sure effect of knowledge is an humble sense of the want of it; the deeper we immerse ourselves in any art or science, the greater difficulties are started by us. But over and above the ingredients, of pride, ill-nature, and incorrigible folly, the mockers of the text are branded with immorality and vice — "to walk after their own lusts." And sure there cannot be a more prodigious impudence than that guilty persons liable to the severest punishments should dare to awaken observation by being sharp on others.
II. THE FORCE OF THEIR DISCOURSINGS. "Where is the promise of His coming?" The delaying of performance is no prejudice against it. With Almighty God everything, however distant it may seem, is actually present. First, the apostle denies the proposition that all things continue as they were since the Creation; and secondly, he denies the consequence drawn from thence, Though all things did continue, it no way follows they shall for ever do so.
III. AS THEY ARE A RECITAL OF A PROPHECY. The appearance of these scoffers in the world is itself a very signal mark of its approach (Jude 1:17, 18; 1 Thessalonians 5:1; Matthew 24:37). Will they find arguments of mockery and laughter in the place of weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth? If they can do this, in God's name let them mock on, deny a future judgment, or what is more brave, let them dare it.
(John Fell, D. D.)

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