Two points in this remarkable prophecy deserve special attention: 

1.  It is a description of the religio-scientific problems of the “last days”; and the class of people referred to are represented as “mocking” at the second coming of Christ, because they have grown accustomed to denying, or “wilfully forgetting,” the former destruction of the world by the waters of the Flood.  This prediction, as we have seen, is in complete and accurate accord with the present situation; for the doctrine of Evolution is chiefly supported by the accepted theories of geology that there never was a universal Flood.  Belief in the current theories of geology and in a universal Deluge cannot be held by the same mind, for they are mutually exclusive:  either one makes the other meaningless.  And as the popular geology is the foundation of the Evolution theory, so does the latter render useless and incredible what the Bible calls “that blessed hope,” the second coming of Christ and the purification of the earth by fire.

2.  The mockers here described certainly talk exactly like our modern uniformitarians; for they argue that “from the days that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”  They imply that in the days of “the fathers” some people were foolish enough to believe differently; but since they “fell asleep” we have learned better.  It should also be carefully noted that their theory of uniformity stretches back, not to the close of Creation, but to “the beginning of the Creation.”  Plainly, then, Creation itself is embraced in their scheme of absolute uniformity; and according to their view all distinction is smoothed out between Creation and the present perpetuation of the world by second causes.  How could we ask for a more accurate word picture of the modern popular doctrines of the evolutionists and their characteristic methods of reasoning than is here given us by an inspired prophecy nearly two thousand years ago?

VI

The call of the hour to the Church of Christ is for a renewed confidence in that Guide Book which she has brought with her down the centuries.  As her Divine Lord went away, He commissioned her to carry His good tidings to all peoples; and so long as she remained true to this commission and to her instruction book, the world’s cunning sophistries could not deceive her, nor could the cruel power of a world empire stifle her voice.  And now when her absent Lord is about to return again, it surely behooves her to set her house in order, and to return with candor and fidelity to that written code of instruction left with her by her departing Master.