The Word of God plainly tells us “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.” (2 Peter 3:3, 43Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4And 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. (2 Peter 3:3‑4).) And what is the reason for such a state of things? The Word answers this question too. They are “willingly ignorant”. (2 Peter 3:55For 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: (2 Peter 3:5).) It isn’t because God hasn’t been faithful through the centuries in warning men as to the end. He has. It may surprise some of our readers to know that the second advent of the Lord is referred to, more or less distinctly, 730 times in the Bible, namely 345 times in the Old, and 385 times in the New Testament. Yet nine out of ten professed Christians not only do not know anything about the Lord’s coming, but they do not want to know. They are “willingly ignorant.” O, dear Christian, let none of us be willingly ignorant.
The world may be boasting of its Grand World’s Fair, and there demonstrating the proud advancement of mankind in every, line of skill, education, and scientific achievement. They may even have the heartlessness to do it while one half the world is baptized in blood, even while civilization is tottering on its very base. But the true child of God knows that all this boasted progress is doomed. Christ is coming; wrath is on the way. Then “let us not sleep as do others; but let us watch and be sober, for God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thess, 5: 6, 9.)