You might have heard this trick question: ″Have you stopped beating your wife?″ If you say ″yes″, it means that you had been beating your wife in the past. If you answer ″no″, it means that you are still beating your wife. If you have never beaten your wife, you cannot answer this question, because it is based on a premise that is not true in your case.

The scoffers in 2 Peter 3:4-5 also base their argument on a false premise: that nothing has changed since the beginning of creation and nothing will change, so there will be no second coming of Jesus Christ. But this premise is false because there have been major changes in the natural world which the scoffers deliberately ignore.

First, Peter reminds them of creation (2 Peter 3:5). In Genesis 1:1-2, we read that: ″In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.″ By God's word, the water gathered to one place and dry ground appeared, forming seas and land (Genesis 1:9-10). All this was done by God the Creator: He caused a major change in the natural world, a fact which the scoffers intentionally disregard.

Secondly, Peter reminds them of how God destroyed the world through a massive flood in Noah's day (2 Peter 3:6; Genesis 6-8). As humankind was very sinful, God caused a great flood to destroy them. Only the righteous Noah and his family were kept safe in the ark that God commanded him to build.

God had caused these two past events of massive change in the natural world. Peter warns that the same God will bring about judgment and destruction on the heavens and the earth (which includes humankind) in the future (2 Peter 3:7), this time using fire instead of water. We will look at this in the next reading.