(3.) But this is not all; for the next clause shows _they will scoff at the hope of the Advent_, and they will say, “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.” This does not mean, “Where shall we find the promise in the Scriptures?” but rather, “What has become of it? Everything is going on just as it always has done, and He is not come yet. The winter comes and goes, the sun rises and sets, the business of life goes on as in former days, and the Lord has not yet appeared; so what are we to think of the promise?” St. Peter points out the true answer to all this; viz., that God’s time must not be measured by man’s scale; for that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,” and he might have added that prophecy of our Lord Himself, in which he taught us that everything will go on exactly the same right up to His return; viz., “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” (Matt. xxiv. 38, 39.) It is most important that we bear this well in mind; for there is an undoubted tendency in us all to settle down into an undefined feeling that things that have gone on without a change will go on still without a change, and so to allow our hope of the Advent to grow weary, or to burn itself out through delay. There is this tendency in even the Christian mind, and in all probability there are few amongst us who have not felt the need of watching against the temptation. So in this prophecy the scoffer is predicted as availing himself of this natural tendency in our hearts, and turning it against the promises of God; as attacking the Christian in His blessed hope; as striving to shake the faith of believers; and as endeavouring to pull down those who are looking for the Lord to the dreary level of utter hopelessness on which he finds that he himself is standing. It seems a very cruel thing, and I often think that if I were an infidel I could not endeavour to shake the faith of other men. It seems a horrible thing, that because a man is without hope himself, he should endeavour to take away hope from others; and a most especially horrible thing that he should endeavour to poison the minds of children, and so harden their young hearts against the reception of the truth of God. But though it seem so cruel, so unnatural, and so contrary to any principle of ordinary benevolence, the prophecy teaches quite plainly that so it will be in the “latter days.”