“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” (2Peter 3:3-4).
Three years before I was born the Sydney harbour bridge was completed; an amazing feat of engineering. The father of a friend of mine was the engineer working on its construction.
Twenty four years later, as a young theological student, I sat in the class as the Principal recalled the day that he was travelling in a car near the Sydney Harbour with Pastor William Lamb of the Burton Street Baptist Tabernacle just before the two parts of the bridge were joined. William Lamb had exclaimed, “See that bridge. I believe Jesus could come before it is joined!”
The Principal was scoffing at that remark. Twenty four years had past and Jesus had not come so the inference was that we can’t expect the Lord to return any time soon. William Lamb had died and was buried so it was folly to expect Jesus to return in our time!
Actually William Lamb was right. He was obeying the exhortation of Scripture to be watching, waiting and ready for the Lord to return at any moment. Jesus warned us about those who would say,
“My Lord delayeth His coming … The Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers” (Luke 12:45-46).
William Lamb had good reason to believe that the coming of the Lord for His saints was imminent. World War one had concluded in 1918. Germany was smarting after being forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles and was in a state of unrest in the 1920s. By 1930 the Nazi Party was causing problems and in 1933 Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany!
If WWII should break out that would be worse than WWI and could be the Day of the Lord or the Great Tribulation that Jesus said would come immediately before His return to reign. Furthermore Antichrist must arise out Europe; the Revived Roman Empire and Hitler looked a possibility. All the signs pointed to the fact that the last days were approaching.
Also Antisemitism was rife and there was hate-mongering propaganda that unfairly blamed Jews for Germany’s economic depression and the country’s defeat in World War I (1914-1918). Kistallnacht followed in November 1938.
Furthermore the Balfour Declaration was a statement made on November 2, 1917, of British support for ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for Jewish people and Scripture clearly stated that the Jews would return to the land in the last days! The signs were abundantly clear but the Principal of the Theological College apparently could not see them and so 24 years later was scoffing.
Seventy years later we can now see a world preparing for WWIII and that war will be the mother of all wars! It will be the Great Tribulation. Technology has increased dramatically, weapons are so horrific, Communism and Islam are threatening, Europe has joined all the nation states of Europe in the European Union ready for Antichrist. Israel is now established in the land and anti semitism is raging. All nations are joining the arms race and world population has quadrupled.
William Lamb saw what was coming and the reason for the delay is that God is “longsuffering to us-ward not willing thany should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2Peter3:9).
If William Lamb could see the day of the Lord’s return approaching in 1930 how much more should we see it!
Why Do Churches Scoff at the Lord’s Return?
Peter clearly told us the reason that churches would scoff at the truth of the Lord’s Return.
“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2Peter3:5-7).
The fact is they don’t believe the Bible. As a young theological student 70 years ago I was suspended from College for naming two recent graduates of being modernists. Both of them denied the historical record of Noah’s Flood and that Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale! The Vice-Principal unashamedly taught that the Garden of Eden was “only an eastern story”! That was in 1954 and the leaven has spread through Christendom today.
Today the unbelief in a verbally inspired Bible is rampant and these churchmen are like the Pharisees to who Jesus said:
“O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?” (Matt.12:34).
We can’t expect the denominations to preach the imminent return of Christ because they don’t believe the Bible. They don’t believe in traditional marriage of one man and one wife so how could they be looking for the Lord to return. Jesus said they will be appointed their portion with the unbelievers.
BY John Ecob
