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Peter’s Counsel to Parents
whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we
heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.“
Prophecy a safe guide in times of peril
Yet convincing as was this evidence of the certainty of the be-
lievers’hope, there was another still more convincing in the witness
of prophecy, through which the faith of all might be confirmed and
securely anchored. “We have also“, Peter declared, “a more sure word
of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light
that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise
in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is
of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time
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by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost.“
While exalting the “sure word of prophecy” as a safe guide in
times of peril, the apostle solemnly warned the church against the
torch of false prophecy, which would be uplifted by “false teachers,”
who would privily bring in “damnable heresies, even denying the
Lord.” These false teachers, arising in the church and accounted true
by many of their brethren in the faith, the apostle compared to “wells
without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist
of darkness is reserved for ever.” “The latter end is worse with them,”
he declared, “than the beginning. For it had been better for them not
to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known
it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.”
World conditions prior to Christ’s second coming
Looking down through the ages to the close of time, Peter was
inspired to outline conditions that would exist in the world just prior
to the second coming of Christ. “There shall come in the last days
scoffers,” he wrote, “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.” But “when
they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon
them.”
1 Thessalonians 5:3
. Not all, however, would be ensnared by
the enemy’s devices. As the end of all things earthly should approach,