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When Peter wrote his second epistle, he tells us he was getting elderly, though you never would have guessed it from the way he writes. Looking at these sheets of questions, however, is another story. You might, as you look at them, guess there's something wrong with the man who compiled them, because under session two, questions for session two, questions five, six, and seven should belong to the third session. They've got themselves on the wrong sheet. On the sheet for session three, questions one, two, and three shouldn't be there at all. They should be on the second sheet. There is an explanation for these things. I am the man who got it wrong, you'll see. But, uh, you will be given both two and three when you come to your next, uh, discussion, uh, session. Uh, you may find it therefore much more convenient in session two to take questions one, two, three, and four off that sheet, and one, two, and three off the second sheet. And then, when you come to the final discussions, take five, six, and seven off sheet two and carry on with four to ten of sheet three. As Mr. Dornan has remarked, you do need to pray for me, all sorts of reasons. I was asked to say, uh, to make a comment just at the beginning of this session on one of the questions that I put for your first session about the image of God and whether the image of God is totally destroyed, eh, in the unregenerate man. I think we may take some evidence about that, uh, here from the, uh, passage of Genesis that we were looking at. As we saw in the first section here, man was made in the image of God. That image became exceedingly depraved. God destroyed man. Here's the story of the flood. Now you come here again, when you come to the section dealing with God's blessing, one of the items is the command that whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. Why is that? And the answer given is because man was originally made in the image of God. It would seem to me, therefore, that if one were to say that that image has been totally destroyed, uh, in the unregenerate, well, then it would seem to follow, perhaps, that it doesn't matter so much if such a man is killed. That couldn't perhaps be the message of the passage. Man is originally made, made in the image of God, even though he be much depraved to kill him is an insult against Almighty God, and, uh, that, uh, the law must be vindicated. What I take to be the position, perhaps, is best put in the words of Paul, Ephesians chapter four, where he describes the Gentiles that, uh, uh, uh, walk in the vanity of their mind. His description runs as follows: being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart, who being past feeling gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness, and so forth and so on. Perhaps, uh, uh, not unsuitable to be used as a description of the men before the flood. And Paul goes on to say this, that as Christians, you are to put away as conform- as concerning your former manner of life, the old man which waxes corrupt after the lusts of deceit. Now that phrase, I suggest, might help us in our thinking. Man originally made in the image of God, but, uh, alienated from the life of God, his thoughts and his imaginations were only evil continually. He was waxing corrupt. And God says, all flesh has corrupted its way upon the earth, and all flesh was corrupt. That is, the image was exceedingly seriously corrupted, if you like, but not totally. And therefore, murder, uh, remains as serious as ever it was, because man originally made in the image of God. The New Testament does talk, however, doesn't it, as God's salvation is not so much a restoration of the man's original state, but a putting on the new man, uh, in Christ. Let's leave it at that, therefore, and come now to our second, our third and final chapter of the epistle. And, uh, I put here again, just to refresh our memories, first of all, the general contents of, uh, that chapter three. Peter is going to warn his fellow believers that not only shall there arise teachers advocating permissive morality that would be destructive of all true Christian character, but he forewarns them that there will come men mocking the assertion that the one day the Lord Jesus shall come. They deny the second coming of Christ. They deny the possibility of any divine intervention, and therefore they deny, of course, uh, that God will intervene to destroy, uh, the earth. They say, where is the promise of his coming? And of course, if their arguments were valid, then exit all we have been talking about, the coming of Christ and the eternal kingdom. Now Peter seeks to, um, talk to his fellow believers about these things. Now, therefore, notice, shall we, as we look at the text itself, how Peter begins this chapter three. This is now the second epistle that I write unto you, and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by putting you in remembrance, that you should remember the words which were spoken before by the holier prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles. First of all, Peter, calling the believers beloved, appeals to them to remember the authoritative words, one of the prophets, two of the apostles, and three, the apostles as being apostles of the Lord Jesus. Why do you suppose he begins hi- this passage with that appeal? Why he is thinking of his dear fellow Christians, some of them young in the faith, going out to face the attacks of the world, with all this world's ideas, and before they go to face them, he appeals to them to remember what the Lord Jesus has said, what the prophets have said, what the apostles have said. It seems to me to be exceedingly important. I know you may say, but that's an appeal to authority instead of to argument. But then that is important. You young folks are going out into the world. You're going to meet scientist X. He has about twenty six letters after his name. Scientist Y, on the other hand, has thirty three. His nibs over there hasn't got any science degrees, but wow, does he get up and pontificate with great authority and tell you what modern science is. Some of them who do that in the name of the church and foreverlastingly tell us that we've got to revise our notions because the modern scientific man couldn't, uh, accept the doctrine of the virgin birth or the resurrection. Some of the dear theologians that talk like that are talking scientific bilge. Their science is exceedingly old fashioned and wouldn't be acknowledged by any creditable modern scientist. They learned this stuff twenty five years ago, thirty five years ago, forty years ago, when they were in their theological colleges, and they are just spouting the old-fashioned kind of science. In that kind of welter where there are all sorts of voices, we must listen to scientists, of course we must, and we must certainly listen to what has been actually proved. We are not on the side of obscurantism. We do believe that our blessed Lord was the one through whom the worlds were made. We honor him when we study his handiwork and do so by rigorous scientific method. We are not against science. But on the other hand, we need to notice areas that are fact and have been proved, and areas upon which there are many theories, interesting and important and working hypotheses to be followed in our investigations, but please, we don't confuse hypothesis with fact. And certainly we need to distinguish, uh, between what is proven fact and what is in fact, uh, not science at all, but rather old-fashioned ideas put forward by some theologians of the past. And in all this matter, if we're going to listen to authorities, most of us have to. Hm. When it comes to digesting the results of modern science, the most of us aren't scientists, and we got in the end to listen to the authorities. Recognizing as we do their importance and their limitations. It is therefore important for us that if we're going to listen to authorities, we should in the first place listen to the supreme authority. Oh, do remember, says Peter, remember the words of the prophets, remember the words of the apostles, remember the commandment of the Lord. You're going to listen to authorities. And pray don't go naked into this modern world. Do remember the words of the Lord Jesus. And what had he to say upon the topic? What about the topic of the Second Coming? You will find, in fact, that if you look at his parables, a very high proportion of our Lord's parables are devoted to talking about the Second Coming. I must leave you to check upon my statement, though it is the fact. I repeat, a large proportion of our Lord's prophecies concern themselves with the fact of the Second Coming. Let alone all those plain forward statements that he gave most solemnly, and in particular in those last days in Jerusalem, when he talked to us of his Second Coming. Heaven and earth shall pass away, said he. My word shall never pass away. We have the authority of our blessed Lord for it. That he who suffered at Calvary and rose again from the dead and has risen and gone back to heaven, he shall come again. You should remember then, he says, says Peter, this commandment of our Lord and, uh, and, uh, Savior. Why drag in the matter that our Lord is a Savior in this kind of context? Because, please, the doctrine of the second coming and of the new heavens and the new earth, this is not a little sort of icing to be put upon the birthday cake of Christianity. Certainly not just a few matter of hundreds and thousands to make it look pretty, but you can dispense of it without doing much harm. The body of the cake is the real thing. No, no, no, it isn't that. The doctrine of the Second Coming is an integral part of our salvation. So much so that if you remove it, exit salvation itself. We wait for our Lord from heaven as the Savior, says Philippians chapter three. Conversion is expressed in these terms. You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven. The Thessalonians, at least, when they got converted, knew from the start that the second coming was involved in this thing, and being converted and being saved meant, among other things, waiting for God's son from heaven. Thus, the epistles speak to us and say, yes, in some sense, by grace, you have been saved, and you are being saved, but in another sense, your salvation is not yet complete. Your salvation is nearer now than when you believed, but it isn't yet complete, nor will it be complete until the Lord comes and finishes his great work of salvation. The second coming of Christ, then, is not just a deluxe edition of Christianity, a further doctrine that you can take or leave as you please. It's an integral part of our Christian salvation. And whatever views you have of its details and its chronologies and all those kind of things, profitable as those discussions and questions are, pray let us not forget what lies at its heart is the question of salvation. And more than that, it is impossible if Jesus Christ be God. If Jesus Christ be God's son, I repeat, it is utterly impossible that this world should murder him, put him on a cross and in a grave, and nothing more ever be heard of him. Well, that's quite impossible. If Jesus Christ is indeed God's son, this world will yet hear a lot more about him. He is the son of the owner of the vineyard. You don't throw him out, take the vineyard over yourself, and that's the end of it. The owner's son will come back, and he will take position. But now we turn to the arguments, uh, that these people use against the notion of the promise of his coming. So let's look at their arguments in more detail. Where, they say, is the sign of his coming? And their argument is based, first of all, upon history. For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they did from the beginning of the creation, so they say. What then is their argument? It has to do with the way nature, if I may use the term of the whole caboose, heavens, earth, and everything else, the way that nature works. It has always worked by an unbroken uniform chain of cause and effect. Everything that happens can be explained by those natural explanations. There has never been, say they, any interruption in this uniform chain of cause and effect. How do you know? Well, mercifully, the men at least appeal to history. Pray notice that therein they are wise, of course, so they've got it wrong. People talk so very frequently, don't they, of the laws of nature. We know what they mean. These are good scientists that have investigated the way that nature works, and they find regular patterns in the way that nature works, and they formulate what they call laws, and they call them laws because now they're able to test them, and they find, yes, on thousands and thousands of times, this is the way things happen. Do X and you'll get Y. So they call them laws. But we ought to notice very carefully, shouldn't we, what these laws are. They are descriptions of what able scientists have found happening normally. You don't find these laws written up on the sky. The laws, as we call laws, are, I repeat, descriptions of what we find happening. How do you know those laws are universal? Well, all we can say is within history, wherever we have observed, it happens this way, we can point to the mechanism by which it happens. That's what happens normally. Yes, but in as much, uh, then as our descriptions depend in part on history. What we have learned as having happened all down the many centuries, then of course here history's got to have the last say, hasn't it? They maintain history has shown that the chain of cause and effect has gone on utterly unbroken. Since the Father's fell asleep, all things continue as they did. That's their contention, therefore. And therefore, what they are now building upon that o- observation of history, according to them, is that therefore divine intervention coming in and breaking that chain of cause and effect, and intervening in our world, divine intervention in the future is therefore unlikely. They say it's never happened in the past, and it's unlikely therefore to do the same, to do it in the future. Is therefore unlikely or impossible. The whole notion of a coming of Christ within history, they say, is impossible. I point out to you that not only scientists, many of them would hold that view, but a good many theologians are afraid of the doctrine of the second coming on similar grounds. They don't mind the idea that one day the whole universe will blow itself up, because science itself seems to teach the same thing, that one day the universe will burn itself out. So they don't mind thinking in those terms and then saying, well, after that God will have another show. What they cannot stomach, some of these good men, theologians, is, uh, not all theologians, of course, but some theologians, is that Christ will come within the course of history. And thus intervene. That is why, of course, some of them will not accept the doctrine of the virgin birth. Because the virgin birth is the biggest intervention of the divine into history that ever has been. And that's why some of our modern- modernist theologians do not like the doctrine of the virgin birth and prefer to talk of it as a myth, not an actual historical happening, but a way of looking at Jesus and saying he was somewhat special. In this matter, therefore, we are at, uh, an exceedingly important point in our faith, the question of whether it is possible to have divine intervention within this creation. These men, they say that history in the past has shown there's been no such thing as a breaking of the chain of cause and effect. Therefore, in the future, they hold, uh, there's not likely to be divine intervention, and therefore the idea of a second coming which will break into nature's closed system, they say is absurd. So much then for the argument against. And what will Peter say about it? Well, here's what he says about it. A number of observations that we may take from the subsequent verses. First of all, the observation that nature owes her existence not just to natural causes. He says, verse five, this they willfully forget, that the there were heavens from of old, and earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God. Notice, first of all, that observation, therefore. I repeat, nature owes her existence not just to natural causes, but to the creative word of God. You say, how would you know that? By faith is the answer. But let us for the moment, um, think about our scientific friends. One can but admire the tremendous work that they have done and the tremendous insights they have achieved into the workings of nature, and have got such understanding of nature as is able to make the, make it possible for them to go to the moon and beyond, and all such ma- modern marvels as we see happening around us. They tell us, at least the majority theory nowadays, if you ask where the universe comes from, the majority theory is called the Big Bang theory. There is a book written of what happened in the first two or three seconds, and very interesting book that is written by a leading cosmologist and tremendous fun to read. And maybe something what like what they say did happen. The interesting thing, however, is if you get the chance to ask them, righto, it all started with a big bang, and from that big bang there came photons and this and that and other, and you can trace what happened to them. That's marvelous. Now, ask them a simple schoolboy question. That's the only kind of question I can, you know, rise far enough to ask. Now, this big bang thing, hmm, where did the stuff come from that went bang? No, no, they they got that's a silly question. Because they can only deal with what's there. Where it came from, as far as I know, they have no answer. They don't pretend to have any answer. Please observe it. They don't pretend to have any answer that I ever heard of. Where did it all come from to go bang in the first place? Who knows? You are here, therefore, up against the question that the scientist cannot answer you and doesn't pretend to if he's an honest scientist, and most of them are. We know, because we have it on authority of God's revealed word and the authority of the prophets, and the authority of our Lord Jesus. The way it came from was the word of God. He created it by his word. As Hebrews says in its chapter eleven and verse one, by faith we understand that the worlds were made by the Word of God. That is a glorious statement, for it tells us that this universe is not one mighty great accident, mindless in its origin and purposeless in its end. It says that he who is the Word, by his Word, intelligence, purpose, planning informed this great universe in which we are. That's how it came into its function, i- into being. That's how it functions. Those codes that you find written into the human genetic system, what marvelous things they are. Um, years and years ago, just allow me to se- sidestep a minute. Years and years ago, ladies had washing machines, only they weren't the modern marvels that our modern ones are. They were a little bit ancient. And to make them go, there was a slit in the front of the the machine, and you had a little square plastic affair, and you put it in, and that made the thing go go go go go go go, and the handkerchiefs come out white. Ah, now that thing you put in, uh, that made it go, if you looked at it closely, it had a lot of funny looking notches on the side of it, round the edges. They didn't look any regularity in them. They were all apparently haphazard, but different sets of notches on different sides. And what happened was, if you put the thing in one way, it was one program for washing the woolies, and if you put it in the other way, it was another program for washing, uh, the whites, and one went gurgle gurgle, and the other went ju ju, you see, and they came out differently. And, you know, it controlled it. First the water, then the rinse, and then the soap, and then the rinse, and then the hot, and then the spin, and all sorts of things it did. Marvelous affair. And when you talk about these bit- these square bits and look at it, all it was was a bit of plastic with some notches in it. You say, well, that's all it is, plastic. No, it ain't all it is. It weren't just a bit of plastic, and they weren't just notches. Some brilliant chappy put the notches there and stamped onto the notch the information that the machine needed to get about its business. Our universe everywhere is stamped with all sorts of codes. The human genetic material is stamped with an exceedingly wonderful code, controlling you from the moment of your conception to your death. It isn't just stuff. It is stuff informed with information. Say if you must, believe if you must, because it will be an article of faith. Believe if you must that it happened out of nothing without any intelligence behind it or planning. Believe, if you must, it's one colossal great accident. It will be not science now, that's your faith. We believe on the authority of our Lord, upon the authority of the prophets, the authority of God's word, that it didn't come about as an accident. Behind our universe stands God, who by his word not only created matter, but informed it, put its notches into it, so to speak, and all those business bits of information that it needs to develop and do its task. It follows, therefore, that if nature owes her existence not just to natural causes, but by to the word of God, the word of God that created can destroy. By that same word, eventually, says Peter, our present world shall be destroyed. Now notice Peter's appeal to history. History records that at one stage in its course, the course of nature was interrupted, and that by a catastrophic flood. Witness thereto is to be found not only in Bible, but in the literatures of other people. Nature's course has been interrupted. The story of the flood in Genesis is interesting for the terms it uses. Let me paint in for you, if I may, briefly, the background of the flood. In Creation Story, chapter one, we're told that the God created the earth, but at this stage the earth was covered with water. Then God separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament and gave earth its atmosphere, and he called the firmament heaven. If you would have known about it as a primitive man, you might have been a little nervous, mind you. What happened if the old firmament wasn't quite so firm as its name suggests, and the stuff were to come down on us? You say they're not waters up there anyway, are there somewhere? Well, you'll have to ask a scientist about that. I'm no scientist. Uh, to the very present, there's some things up there that are pretty lethal to human life. When they tell us that there are all sorts, even to this presence, of bands round the earth that shelter us from the utterly lethal and destructive cosmic rays that would be outside. There are all sorts of belts that keep those streams of whatever they are, particles, outside. Do you know our Earth is a crazily dangerous place to live on? I wouldn't have recommended you come if you weren't here. Here you are standing upside down, aren't you? Or is it the Australians? And beneath your head is an almost limitless gulf of nothing. Isn't it nothing? Beneath your head? That's how the Australians look at it anyway. We have an atmosphere. We have all sorts, even to this day, we have all sorts of belts outside that keep those lethal things out and make human life possible. An amazing contraption it is. And in those days, we were told there were waters above the firmament. Then God took the earth, and it was covered with water. He called the whole thing earth, but then he divided the waters, and he put the waters here and the dry land here. Now earth was divided into two bits. There was the dry land, which he called the earth, and there was the waters, he called them the seas. Do you know what? We say we own the Earth as humans, but most of it we don't, do we? I mean to say, the bits we can stand on are limited, aren't they? What if another ice age should come and the oceans overflow again. Do you know our life on this earth is only possible because of these restraints that act at the moment? If some of the mechanism were to change or be flooded tomorrow, that would be the end of you. If the earth should tilt drastically on its, on its axis, life would be impossible. The waters would return. What we are told happened at the flood is that when man went from God and broke moral restraint and spiritual restraint, then God said, very good, I will break physical restraints. The windows of heaven were opened, and the fountains of the deep erupted, and the whole thing returned to chaos. If man is going to rebel against God, and I repeat, man is going to break spiritual restraint and moral restraint. Why shouldn't God let go of the physical restraint? And he did. And temporarily Earth returned to its watery chaos. God will one day destroy heavens and Earth again. Now let us notice what Peter further says. He says that when God does that, he will do like he did the first time, he will use natural means. At the flood, as at creation, it is God's word that was the initiatory thing. But at the flood, God used natural means. There was an earth standing in and out of water. The earth that had been caused to appear by the word of God, and God setting the bounds of the waters to make our life possible on earth, and an atmosphere, and so forth and so on. When God destroy- punished human sin, he used natural means. He used, in fact, the very constituent parts, the parts that went up to make our universe. He used those very parts to destroy it with. He will not destroy the earth eventually with water anymore. He will destroy it with fire. Present earth and heavens that are now are stored up for fire wi- uh, for fire. And in the following verses, Peter talks in terms that, even if he didn't mean them so, must remind us of what we now know nowadays about the constituent parts of our universe. The very elements, he said, shall melt. He seems to be talking about something that we should call atomic fusion. It will cause great noise and vast heat. He will use natural means. With that, of course, the really modern scientist hasn't got a lot of fo- fault to find, because he tells you likewise that the most likely end of our universe is going to be by fire, and our planet in particular. When in the normal course of events, and our sun burns up to a certain stage, it will explode and become a great red giant, like Betelgeuse is at this moment in the sky and sundry other stars. It will become a great red giant, and in that moment it be- it explodes and becomes a great red giant, Earth will disintegrate. The almost incalculable heat that will be produced. Ah, but, says the scientist, we can understand it, you see, simply by the natural means and by the physics of it. We don't have to believe in divine intervention. Ah yes, but there's a point, isn't it? Peter's saying that when the judgment comes, it will be natural means, but pray notice, says he. God, though he will use natural means, pray notice that he has timed it and planned it for a moral purpose. In other words, it doesn't just happen. You can explain it, perhaps if you're there to see it happen and you've got your physics book ready, you can, you can give a good physics account of the end of the heaven and earth when it happens. But God will use natural. That the way of understanding how it is happening won't tell you by itself why it is happening. I will use the nat- the natural means. That's how it happens. Why it happens is that God has timed it for the day of judgment and the res- destruction of ungodly men. Yes, you can explain, I repeat, the natural causes and effects. But just because you can un- explain the natural causes and effects, that doesn't mean you've understood everything there is. You've now got to under a- ask, but what is it all for? You can boil a kettle on your electric stove if you like, and the physicist will be able to explain to you, in terms of natural causes and effects, how the water is boiling. What he won't be able to tell you by his physics is why the kettle is boiling. Is it boiling because you're going to make a cup of tea? Or is it boiling because you're going to wash your husband's socks or something? Yes, God will use natural means. That's how. The why of it will be that God will use it and time it, because this is a moral universe. He'll time its very destruction to coincide with the day of judgment and the destruction of ungodly men. The Lord is coming. The day of the Lord will come. There is a day of judgment. Remember the words of the Lord, won't you? Don't be led away by specious science, nor by science, scientists who don't know where science finishes and faith begins. I repeat, they can tell you what happened after the Big Bang. They can't tell you where the stuff came from to go bang in the first place. They may be able to tell you how and by what means the whole thing will end. Science itself can't tell you why, or if there's any moral purpose and significance in its end. If they tell you there's no purpose, then they're not talking as scientists, they're merely expressing their faith or their lack of it. We as believers trust the authority of Christ. And with that, I tell you a little story. Forgive me. But just before you go to your classes, I want to tell you a silly story. Just to break out, for we've been talking about solemn things, haven't we? So let me tell you a silly story. There once were, once upon a time, two chaps. One was Bill and one was George. Bill and George belonged to the honorable profession of burglars. They, for their part, made a speciality of jeweler's shops. That was their line. They knew where to dispose of the loot. There was this particular jeweler's shop that they had been to several times, now and again, suitable intervals, and taken this and that. One day, when they went back to this burglar shop, carefully got in the window, there went off an enormous buzzer and a bell, and they ran for their lives. Said George to Bill when they got to safety, there must have been somebody in there. He saw us come. When he saw us come, he rang a big bell affair. Phew, better not go back there anymore. There's a man in there. He saw us and rang a bell. Now, George and Bill, they weren't very bright on the whole. Bright enough to to sell jewelry, but they weren't too bright. One day they were at their pub, and they came across a very bright chap. He also was in the trade, only he went in for bullion and things. He had a degree in science. And when they were talking to him, they told him this story. They said, you know that jeweler shop where we normally go? This time when we went, when we got in, there was a man there, and he saw us, and he rang a bell. And their friend, the bullion man, he said, nonsense, now that is superstition. Wasn't any man there. Oh, says George. Oh. Why, it must have been because the bell rang. No, he says, no, you see, you're living in a pre-scientific age. You see, there wasn't any man in the shop. Nobody saw you. Oh. No, he said, I can explain to you how it all happened. I can explain the, the, the technology of it. You see, all there was, there wasn't any man there. There was an electric thing on the wall here and an electronic device this side, and that was giving out a, a ray, do you see? Electronic ray. And what then? Well, he said, when you chaps went past it, it broke the ray, and that set up a reaction in the electricity, and it caused the bell to go. Oh, says Bill. You mean to say there wasn't any man there? No. You can explain it all by technology? Yes. Oh. Well, we could go back again then, couldn't we? If there's no man there. So they went back. One Thursday night it was, they got in the window, they broke the beam, the bell went off, you know, and George says to Bill, never mind, Bill, there's no man here. We can explain it all. There's the thing on the wall, what the man said, you see, it's a ray coming out there, says Bill, and it's going there. Now you stand there, George. Now you're stopped at sea. There ain't any man. So they filled their pockets with loot because they could explain what made the bell go. And they turned around to go out of the door, there were a half a dozen men dressed in green. Yes, of course, they could understand what made it go. But behind all that, there was a mind that designed it on purpose, not just to make a bell go, but for the catching and punishment of ungodly burglars. Oh, be sure you don't make the same mistake. You can understand how the physical universe works, how it works. That doesn't settle the question of why, or whether there's a mind behind it. Our authorities tell us that behind nature there is a mind. He will use the natural means of this universe to destroy it with, yes, but there's a purpose behind it. He'll do it for the capture, the judgment, and the punishment of ungodly men. And now to our classes. These are the study questions for the tenth seminar, Answering the Mockers. These questions are being given in the revised order. Question one. What words and commandment do you suppose Peter is referring to in chapter three verse two? What words and commandment do you suppose Peter is referring to in chapter three verse two? Question two: Consider the following comment on the titles of Christ in chapter three verse two. To deny the second coming of Jesus is to deny Jesus as Savior, by Michael Green. Say A, if you agree, and B, what the second coming of Christ has to do with salvation. Question three: What nowadays is the principle called to which the objectors appeal in chapter three, verse four? How does Peter answer this argument? What nowadays is the principle called to which the objectors appeal in chapter three verse four? How does Peter answer this argument? Question four: By what means, according to chapter three verse five, was creation brought into being? Do you see any connection between this verse and Hebrews chapter eleven verse three and Genesis chapter one verses three, six, nine, eleven, fourteen, twenty, twenty four, and twenty six. By what means? According to chapter three verse five. was creation brought into being. Do you see any connection between this verse and Hebrews chapter eleven verse three and Genesis chapter one verses three, six, nine, eleven, fourteen, twenty, twenty four, and twenty six. Question five: According to chapter three verse five, and six. at the flood, God used the elements out of which the world was made to destroy it. Do you think that chapter three, verses ten to twelve indicate the means by which God will destroy the heavens and earth in the future? Question six: Consider this comment on chapter three, verse seven: The important thing to grasp is not the means by which God will destroy the heavens and earth, but the purpose that will be served by this destruction. Consider this comment on chapter three, verse seven: The important thing to grasp is not the means by which God will destroy the heavens and earth, but the purpose that will be served by this destruction. Part A. What does this comment mean? What does this comment mean? Part B. Do you agree? Do you agree? Question seven: Where else does the New Testament speak about the events mentioned in chapter three, verse seven, and verses ten to 13? Where else does the New Testament speak about the events mentioned in chapter three verse seven and verses ten to thirteen?