Now, as a general rule, a scoffer is not a reasoner. It requires some knowledge and logical power to argue, but any fool can scoff. In fact, it seems the peculiar attribute of folly; for we are distinctly told that “fools make a mock of sin.” Now in this passage it is clearly foretold that in the last days men will scoff. But when St. Peter wrote the words he must have thought it almost impossible. For let any man look around at the visible effects of sin—the ruin, the misery, the wretched homes, the miserable wives, the pitiable children, the sickness, poverty, crime, violence, and every species of abomination resulting from sin—and can any wise man scoff at sin? Or look at the majesty of God, at His omnipotence, His omnipresence, His omniscience, His infinitude, His holiness, His sin-abhorring character, and it seems impossible that there should be anyone bold enough to presume to scoff at the Most High God. Or look at His love in Christ Jesus; in the provision of such a salvation for sinners such as we are; in providing such a Lamb for the burnt-offering; in making to the guilty such an offer of such a salvation on such terms of magnificent generosity, and can it be possible that any man should scoff at that? Will they scoff at the love that prompted it, at the sacrifice made for it, or at the pardon and life presented through it? We might as well expect to see the condemned criminal scoffing at a free pardon from the Queen. But notwithstanding all that, the prophecy says plainly that in the last days there shall be scoffers. (2.) The next clause throws further light on their character; for it teaches that _they will walk after their own lusts_. Now “lust” does not mean merely the low, vicious, depraved passion of the profligate; but the word in old English expresses exactly the meaning of the Greek—the appetite or will of the natural man. A person, therefore, may be what “the world” calls a moral man, and still be walking after his own lust. Such characters are described by the prophet Isaiah in the words, “We have turned every one to his own way.” (Chap. liii. 6.) And again, chap. lxvi. 3, “Yea, they have chosen their own ways.” They make of themselves their own god. They set up their own understanding as their teacher, and their own will as their law. Their religion consists in one letter of the alphabet, that one most absorbing letter, “I.” “I know,” “I think” “I choose,” “I will,” “I am,” and “I act as I think proper;” and thus it is that their own will becomes their only god. Oh what a miserable god! Oh, what a contrast to the life of him who knows his Saviour! to the blessedness of the man whose life is hid with Christ in God, and whose daily prayer is, “Thy will be done!” But though it seem almost impossible, the words of the prophecy are perfectly clear that the rise of such characters will be amongst the anxious trials of the latter days.