Scoffers Dilemma

Scoffers Dilemma

By Richard P. Joseph

According to the common futurist doctrine that nearly all preachers adhere to, the return of Christ is still in the future; but that’s as far as they know.  Of course the scammers keep predicting that it is right around the corner and all you need to do is buy their CDs and books and you will be able to know for sure.  But in reality it could still be 10,000 years away which leads me to one basic question;  When should the unbelievers start scoffing?  As you all know, Peter predicted that there would be scoffers in the last days.

 2 Peter 3:3-4 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming?

If the scoffers are to come just before the parousia then all we need to do is wait for them to scoff.  Right?  It’s been 2,000 years already, don’t you think that is long enough for people to start scoffing?  I do.  I mean, how much time do you give someone who says that they will return within one generation?  If Jesus did not give us time markers then that would mean he was probably a scam artist and didn’t really have a legitimate plan.  He would be in the same boat as the evolutionists are who use millions of years to sway the uneducated into believing that they are legitimate even though you can’t see it.  But the fact remains that Jesus did give us a timetable to work with and that was clearly within the generation of the Apostles and no later.  That is why Paul was already getting scoffed at in his lifetime.  Paul finally warned them by quoting Habakkuk 1:5

‘BEHOLD, YOU SCOFFERS, AND MARVEL, AND PERISH;

        FOR I AM ACCOMPLISHING A WORK IN YOUR DAYS,

        A WORK WHICH YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE, THOUGH SOMEONE SHOULD DESCRIBE IT TO YOU.’”

Habakkuk warned his people in his day about the impending destruction coming upon them by the Babylonians.  Paul used the same verse to warn Israel about the impending doom that they would suffer by the Romans.  

Peter clearly identified that he was certainly living in the last days of “the present age” and knew the “age to come” was at the very door.  

1 Peter 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.

So, we are now in a dilemma.  If Peter said the end of all things was at hand, then why are we waiting for the end now?  Who is right, Peter or the preacher?  In fact all preachers since I was young have been preaching that the end was near.  Somebody has to be wrong and I don’t think it was Peter.  In fact I think that if anyone scoffs today they actually have a legitimate gripe.  However, if Jesus did return in the first century as history confirms then the true scoffers were those that harassed the apostles in the first century.  They were all left to pay the horrible price when Jerusalem was besieged and leveled to the ground.  Once you familiarize yourself with the writings of Josephus and other first century historians, the second coming of Christ will finally make sense.   You would finally conclude that Jesus Christ is who he said he was and that he made no mistakes when he predicted that some standing and listening to him would not taste death until he came in his glory.  You can see that this solves the problem of the scoffers dilemma.