Deceived and Destroyed

DEVOTION 2 PETER DECIEVED AND DESTROYED 2 Peter 3:3-7 3 First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." 5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the Day of Judgment and destruction of ungodly men. NIV Whenever people take God out of the equation they make a terrible mistake. It appears some might have been thinking that the days they lived in were the last days and now here we are some two thousand years later and we really have a whole lot of scoffers now saying just what those did in the day this letter was penned. They refuse to see the truth regarding the end result of their living for their own evil desires. They think if they refuse to accept the existence of God then they have to limitations on the way they live. It is as though we could say I do not believe there is a government in the country and therefore there is no law that I need to obey live by and so I can speed as fast as I want, I can take whatever I want from whoever I want to, I can kill whoever I dislike, and the such, but simply believing the law does not exist does not make it not there. This is how it is with their scoffing, or refusal to accept God, He exists even if they do not believe it. It is by design they forget the truth that God destroyed everyone once before because of they had allowed their evil desires to run rampant, unchecked and had been corrupted by them, with no conscience of God. Today this world is not much better, even in our country where people are attempting to remove any evidence of God from the public square, under the guise of fairness to all beliefs, but in reality they desire to live without what they believe are the restraints of the Word of God. If they think because they do not believe they will escape the end result of judgment and destruction they are sadly mistaken. It is clear the only escape is in Christ Jesus, as the ark was the only means of escape in those days. We must be diligent in our faith, not allowing the thinking of these people to infiltrate our thinking, our beliefs, and our church. It may already have happened to many believers, those who have not grounded themselves in the Word. They may have allowed their belief to be shaped or shaded by some silver tongued scoffer who is in disguise as a follower. We must all engage in due diligence regarding the truth, making sure we are not deceived, distracted and destroyed.