2 Peter 3. I thought we might look at a
few things here this morning. 2 Peter 3. I'm hoping that maybe in the
next week or two begin a study, a study again on the church.
I mentioned that a few weeks ago that we'd probably do this
study and, uh, uh, second Peter, second Peter chapter three to
Peter. So maybe in the next couple weeks
I'll begin that series on the church and I'm going to do a
pretty thorough whack at it again. I even expanded it off of what
we did the last time I preached on the church, because I want
to talk about, we'll get into the different officers, talk
about the roles of the pastor, the roles of the deacons. We'll
talk about the gifts of the church, and we'll talk about a few things.
We're just going to talk about ecclesiology altogether, that
big fancy word, ecclesiology, the study of the church. But
we're going to talk a little bit about that. There's a lot
of misunderstanding, You know, a lot of people that, you know,
come and go here and fellowship with us and everything, especially
among old school Baptists and stuff like that, you know, they
have a different understanding of the church. And as much as
I like to identify with them, I just can't agree with them
on what they say about The term, ecclesia, they use that as a
term of everybody that's elect. And the scriptures are very clear
that that's not the meaning of that. But anyway, we'll get into
all that and everything, maybe, Lord willing, in a couple weeks.
So until that time, we'll probably, I'll just speak on a few things
here and there as the Lord leads. 2 Peter chapter three. Matter
of fact, before I get to reading in here, I just want to point
out at the beginning of this letter, this is the second epistle
or the second letter that Peter has written to these brethren
and reminding you that in the first letter, Peter writes at the beginning
of the first epistle, he says, Peter and Apostle Jesus Christ
to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father through sanctification of the spirit and obedience and
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace,
So we see that this letter is written to those who have been
scattered, those who have been sent out and dispersed, and strangers
in all these lands, those originally who had come from Jerusalem.
We remember back in Acts that the church at Jerusalem was dispersed
or was scattered out. One of the things we may talk
about when we get into churches that word dispersed when it talked
about they were scattered abroad. spread out, but it is an intentional
spreading like a sower, how a sower sows seed. A sower, whenever
you sow seed, you know, you do it intentionally. You have certain
soil and certain way that it has to be planted. Certain seeds
have to be at certain depths. Some can be more shallow than
others. Some need to be more deeper than others. Some need
to have certain kind of soil. Some need to have other kind
of soil. And so it's an intentional sowing, but we'll talk about
that. But anyway, this is who he's talking about, is a second
letter to these believers who have been scattered all across
the area. Now they're scattered out into
the Gentile areas. They're not here right close
to Israel, but they're scattered throughout the Gentile nations.
And so if you remember, whenever they were scattered, the Bible
says that they went preaching the gospel everywhere they went. And so here we see that this
is the, The ones that he's writing to are the ones who have carried
out or is continuing to carry out the very thing that Jesus
said. He said in Matthew 28, talking
about, go and teach all nations. In Mark, he said, go and preach
the gospel to every nation and to every creature. And then he
says to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Well, it all started
there in Jerusalem and the gospel was being preached in Jerusalem
until the dispersion. Then at the dispersion, then
it went out to all the Greeks or the Gentiles. So we see this
very act being done that the Lord said would happen. And Peter
now is writing to those people who have been scattered, who
have been out, planted in all the nations to spread the gospel. And in 2 Peter chapter 1, he
says, Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge
of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power
hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory
and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious
promises, that by these promises you might be partakers of the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust. And besides this, giving all
diligence, add to your faith virtue into virtue, knowledge
into knowledge, temperance to temperance, patience to patience,
godliness into godliness, brotherly kindness into brotherly kindness,
charity. For if these things be in you
and abound, They make you that ye shall neither be barren nor
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, so
we see here that there's some precious promises that's been
given to us. Now these promises spread very
broadly. There is the promise of salvation.
There is the promise of keeping. There is the promise of ultimate
salvation as far as being saved completely from the presence
of sin. We've already been saved from the penalty and the power
of sin, but we still have to be saved from the presence of
sin. That's whenever the Lord comes again. and death and hell
are eradicated and we are glorified. And so there is some promises
still to come for us. Now, these promises, as we've
seen in that first portion there, do talk about the receiving of
the divine nature. That's part of the promises in
the New Covenant. Remember back in Jeremiah and
Ezekiel, the Bible speaks of the New Covenant. that those
who are born from above, those who are the elect of God, are
born from above. He takes out that heart of stone,
puts in the heart of flesh, and causes them to walk in His statues. That's part of that precious
promises that was given. But brethren, there was also
some other precious promises that the Lord give before He
ascended, and those were also found in Matthew, was the fact
of His return, that He would come again. And matter of fact,
of the day of his ascension, whenever Jesus bodily went back
into heaven where he came from, the angels that stood there around
said, you know, why are you looking into the sky? You know, this
same Jesus that has went away in like manner will return. And so we see that Jesus is gonna
come back, and that's a promise that he has given to us. Now,
in 2 Peter chapter three, We're gonna look here at this very
thing, the second coming of Jesus Christ and how that since Jesus
has left over the period of years, and of course at this point in
time, it hasn't been too long because Peter's still alive and
writing this. So it hasn't been too long of
a time, but even at this point, there are already scoffers saying,
well, Jesus isn't coming back because look how long it's been.
And so there's these scoffers, and so Peter is addressing this
here. So I'm going to go ahead and start reading in chapter
3 and verse 1. And it says, This second epistle,
beloved, I now write unto you, in both which I stir up your
pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the
words which are spoken before by the holy prophets, and of
the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior. Knowing
this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers,
walking after their own lust, 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.
For 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, whereby the world that then was being overflowed
with water perished. But the heavens and the earth,
which are now by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto
fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day
is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as
one day. The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise, as some may count slackness, but is longsuffering
towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass
away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein
shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye be in all
holy conversation and godliness? Looking for and hastening to
the coming of the day of God wherein the heavens being on
fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent
heat? Nevertheless, we according to his promise look for new heavens
and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved,
seeing that You look for such things, be diligent that ye may
be found in him in peace without spot and blemish. And account
that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our
beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him
hath written unto you. as also in all his epistles,
speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard
to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable
rest as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction. Yet therefore, beloved, seeing
you know these things before, beware lest you also be led away
with the air of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness,
but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord. and Savior
Jesus Christ to him be glory, both now and forever, amen. Okay,
so we see here that Peter returns to kind of the same theme as
he had in chapter one. And that being the theme of God's
precious promises. God has made some promises to
his people and here in chapter 3 Peter is Reiterating the fact
that these promises are still true that they haven't Been broken
that God hasn't lied that he hasn't failed in any way. And so, excuse me. I And so he's kind of holding these
promises out in front of the believer. Now, these promises
are given, as we've seen in chapter one, that these precious promises
are given to us. And because of these, that we
should give all diligence to add to our faith, virtue, virtue,
knowledge, knowledge, temperance, temperance, patience. In other
words, Because of the precious promise given to us, that ought
to be a catalyst. It ought to be a motivation for
us to not only continue to look for his coming, but to also walk
with a right walk, that we ought to walk in obedience, that we
should walk in virtue, that we should walk in righteousness
as we go through this time that the Lord has given us on earth.
Now, back in chapter three, you can
see there, look if you would down at verses 13 and 14, you
can see here there's a connection that Peter makes between the
hope and the power. Now, it says, nevertheless, we
according to his promise, according to His promise, look for new
heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore,
beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent
that ye may be found of Him in peace without spot and blameless. So if you'll notice there, you'll
see that these promises of Christ's return should not only give us
hope, but it should also tell us that there is power that is
given to us for godliness. That whenever we read these precious
promises, it helps empower us to live godly lives. You know, there's a big There's a big split among a lot
of sovereign grace believers today over whether or not, of
course, we believe that we're not under the law anymore, that
Christ has fulfilled the law, and that we are not under the
law anymore, but that doesn't mean that we live lawless. However,
there are many that are out there today that says because we are
no longer under the law, it doesn't matter what we do. We can do
anything we want and it doesn't matter because all of our sins
have been forgiven. There is no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus. There is no law to be kept. And
so we can just do whatever we want as long as our conscience
is okay with it. Well, that's not true either.
There is law that's given to us, but it's the law of Christ.
It's a different law. We're not under that Old Testament
law, but we are under the law of Christ. Whenever we're told to live in
certain ways, that doesn't mean that there's some way in our
flesh that we can work that up and do it ourselves. But what
these promises do, one of the ways that God has worked this,
is that through the scriptures, whenever we read these promises,
It incites in us, excites in us and incites in us, a desire
for godliness. It incites in us the desire to
reject temptation, to live in obedience, to do these things.
Of course, we're never gonna be able to do those perfectly,
brethren, and that's why we always look and trust and we don't use
our works as evidence that we are anything, but It's faith
that is given to us as the assurance. It's faith that's given to us
as the hope. In Hebrews, the Bible says that
faith is the hope of, or excuse me, faith, I'm gonna misquote
it, I better turn to it. Hebrews chapter 11. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. Substance was the word I couldn't
come to my mind. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. The evidence of things not seen.
So that is where our hope comes. That is where our grounding or
our foundation comes from. And having that hope is the evidence
that the things unseen that God has done for us is there. So faith is where our assurance
lies, is not in our works, but in faith. And if you remember,
I preached a message a couple months or so ago, on faith being
the substance, that word substance meaning foundation. Faith is
the foundation of things hoped for. Well, this is what we're
looking at in 2 Peter. We're looking at the precious
promises of Christ brings us hope, and so how does that work? Well, by faith, we look at those
promises, and by faith, we reckon those promises to be ours. If
Christ said that they were ours, they're ours. Okay? And so if
he said that through the new birth, through being born from
above, we are free from sin, then by faith we believe that
to be so, and we look at that, we believe that we've received
all the things that pertain to our salvation, we believe that
his coming is imminent, that at any time he could come back.
I mean, a lot of people are looking for all these signs before Jesus
comes back. Brethren, we're looking for him
to come back. I mean, his coming is imminent, meaning at any moment,
Christ could come back right now and it's over. Things are
over. There's no more. No more striving,
no more preaching, no more confessing, no more gospel, no more nothing.
It's all over with. He's come back and that's it.
And so there is this link here between hope that the promises
are given to us for so that we might have hope and the way that
we grasp those things is by faith, the faith that's been given to
us. Now the reason these scoffers wasn't being able to find hope
in any of these things is because they hadn't been given the faith
of Christ. Because the faith of Christ would have clung to
those promises and then they would have hoped in what was
to come. And then also we see that it's tied to the power to
live a godly life. Those who have this hope of Christ,
those who have this great and precious promises by
faith, that is again a motivation for them to walk godly. I made
this statement down at Brother Raines They do their fifth Saturdays
a little different than we do in all of ours. They have a couple
of guys preach in that morning, then they have lunch, and then
afterwards they set up a row of tables and the preachers,
whether they preached or if you're just a preacher in the deal,
they get up there and then everybody in the congregation, if they
have any questions, They ask those questions, whether it's
over what you preach, something being what you preached, or if
they have anything, then they open it up after that to everything
in general. And you gotta be, whenever you
get up there, you're gonna be put on the spot probably of what
you believe. You gotta be ready at all times to give an account
for why you believe what you believe. But in that, we got
to discussing a couple of these things about assurance and about
hope. And I made this mention to one of the brethren there
that asked the question that whenever I see the love of Christ
for me, Whenever I see his promises that he gives me, and especially
whenever I see the fact that he says at any time he can come
again, I don't look at all of what Christ did, whether it be
his life of obedience so that I don't have to obey the law,
whether it's his death so that I didn't have to die. whether
it was, you know, God's wrath being poured out on me. I didn't
have to have the wrath of God poured out upon me. When I see
all these things that Christ done for me, that doesn't make
me say, awesome, I'm gonna go out and sin. No, whenever I contemplate
and I, Think of the things that Christ has done for me that makes
me want to love Him and to serve Him and to obey Him and to witness
and to tell others about Him. The love of Christ constrains
us from being lawless. It compels us to obedience. And so we love him because he
first loved us. And he said, those who love me
keep my commandments. Okay, so that's part of what
receiving the new birth and receiving that new life is in us. It compels
us to love him and to obey him. Those things are tied together
and Peter is making that link here between hope and power. We have power to live godly lives
because we've been given a hope and that hope produces these
things. Look if you would, it says, according to his promise, we
wait for the new heavens and the new earth. Hang on just a second, am I in
the right spot? Yeah, again, 13. According to his promise, look
for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness."
According to His promise, we wait for a new heaven and a new
earth. And why are we waiting for that?
Because in that, righteousness dwells. See here, we're all unrighteousness,
right? The Bible says all of our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. And I've made comment here before.
He didn't say all of our bad deeds are filthy rags. He said
all of our righteousness, the very best that we can produce
in the flesh, is filthy rags. So the child of grace, one of
the things that's given to them in this hope is a hope for a
place wherein dwells righteousness. We look for a place where we
want to be righteous. We long to be righteous. We desire
to be those things. But yet we see in us dwells no
good thing, like Paul said, oh, wretched man that I am. So we're
longing for that day for his return. When the new heavens
and the new earth comes, we dwell in righteousness and not in unrighteousness. We desire for that to be done.
So then he goes on, therefore, beloved, since you wait for these
things, And I'm paraphrasing here. Since
you wait for these things, be zealous to be found by Him without
spot or blemish and at peace. Okay, so because we desire for
righteousness and a place where it dwells, let us be zealous
to walk circumspectly, to walk uprightly, to do all that we
can to walk as best as we can. Not that it's gonna make anything
or make us any greater with God or make us justified or anything
like that. But our mindset should be, whenever
we see these things that are about to transpire that are coming,
that we are hoping in, hoping for, then let us walk without
spot or blemish. So it should give us a confident
expectation and so because of that we should live uprightly
in this world. Now that's the purpose for why
he's kind of writing this. Now in this we see there's a
lot of things kind of tied together in what he's writing here and
one of them is the fact that there is a denial of the second
coming. I'll be honest with you, I haven't met too many people. Maybe you guys have, I don't
know. I haven't met too many people. But I have heard at a
few of the conferences here lately a couple of men that are talking
about that there is kind of a rise of preterism. I don't know if
you guys know what the term preterism is. But the term preterism is
kind of a theological term. It's a... a position of eschatology, you
know, you have premillennial, you have gospel millennial or
amillennial, you have postmillennial, pre-tribulational, you know,
all these eschatology words. Well, preterism is one who believes
that everything has already been done, all those promises are
fulfilled, that all those things are done, that And even the preterist
even says that Jesus has already come back again. And so I was
kind of surprised to see that that viewpoint, which was deemed
as heretical for centuries now, is making its way in again. But
that's kind of what we're talking about here. These people that
Peter is writing about, these scoffers, are ones who are saying
that there is no, Christ isn't coming. Not that he's already
come, but that he's not coming back. Now, for us, the promise of Christ's
second coming and that new world wherein dwells righteousness,
it brings us joy and it causes us to be filled with hope. It gives us power for godliness,
as I said. We really believe it's going
to happen. But there are people who believe that that's not going
to take place, that that's not going to happen. And that's kind
of the thing that's been going on here, is these false teachers
have come in. Look, if you would, at chapter
2 and look at verse 1. Peter writes, but there were
false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be
false teachers among you, who privilege shall bring in damnable
heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon
themselves swift destruction. So we see here that these churches
that Peter is writing to are these saints that are, these
elect people that are scattered throughout the region, that there
are false teachers that are creeping in among them and beginning to
teach damnable heresies. And they are the ones that he's
addressing in chapter 3, who says, as it says over here, There
shall come in the last day scoffers walking after their own lust
and saying where is the promise of his coming for since the father's
fell asleep all things continued as they were from the beginning
of the creation so these These false teachers are coming in
and saying that you know Nothing's changing everything's gonna keep
everything's the way it is is the way it is and it's gonna
stay like this Forever and ever okay now This is possibly something
that like, and if you wanna turn there, you can, if not, I'll
read it to you real quick. But over in 2 Timothy, we find
that Paul warns the preacher Timothy of these two men who
are causing divisions and preaching falsehoods. In 2 Timothy chapter
two, I'm gonna be reading verses 17 and 18 here. Paul warns Timothy and it says,
I'll start in verse 15, it says, Study to show thyself approved
unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth, but shun profane and vain babblings, for they
will increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat as doth
a canker, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning
the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past
already, and overthrow the faith of some." So here, Hymenaeus
and Philetus have said that the resurrection is already over
with. It's already done. And so they're coming in, and
Paul here says that that preaching is like a canker. It just kind
of eats away at you. And it increases in more ungodliness. Now, let's think about that.
What is he saying here and why, you know, again, Peter's, Paul
is warning about the negative side here. These guys are creeping
in and they're saying that the resurrection to come and that
word is like a canker that eats away. Peter is saying the preaching
of the second coming is beneficial because we find hope there, we
find power for godly living there. So we see the two sides here.
Why is it important that we preach about the second coming? So that
your hope might be fed, that you might be edified, and that
your power for godly living, that you'll see that there is
power for godly living as Christ enables us, but also to combat
against the eating away. If I were here today and I would
be preaching and every time we meet or every time it comes up
in a conversation, I keep saying, well, the resurrection is over,
it's done. It is what it is and now we're
living here and this is gonna be the way that it is from now
on. Well, let me ask you, for those who are nominal, or those
who are just lit profession Christians, what's going to happen whenever
you say, well, there is no coming of Jesus, everything is as it
is, and it's going to just continue the way that it is from now on?
What's going to happen? They're going to be saying, Well,
then it doesn't matter if I live this way or that way. I'll just
live this way if I want to live this way. And there's no consequences
at the end. There's nothing coming. Nothing
to look forward to. Everything will be as it is.
And so what happens? Well, it begins to eat away.
At hope, it begins to eat away at any power for godly living.
As a matter of fact, our flesh will begin to eat away, as a
canker does, will begin to eat away at any desire for holiness
or godliness, and they'll just want to live the way that they
want. But for the child of grace, they're kept. How are they kept? They're kept by these great and
precious promises. They're kept by the Holy Spirit,
enabling them and keeping them from falling. The scriptures tells us that it is He that will keep us from
falling. It isn't anything in our own power, but how does he
do that? How does he keep us from does
the Bible tell us that we is he tells us one of the ways he
does that is to continue to give us hope by speaking of the second
coming so that's why Paul that's why Peter are combating these
things is because one of the things that Preaching that the
resurrection has already happened or talking about. Well, that's
Christ isn't going to come It's probably gonna be another million
years for it come. We don't know it may be another million years.
We don't know and But whenever we scoff at His coming, all that
does is breed apathy. It breeds contempt. It breeds
just, you know, I just don't care about
anything, you know? What's the use? What's the use? But whenever we think at any
moment the Lord may come, not that If He comes and catches
us in the sin, you know, I used to remember when I was a little
kid, I always thought, you know, well, if Jesus comes back and
I'm doing this, you know, or sometimes my parents might even
say, you know, you don't want to be caught when Jesus comes
back doing that, do you? You know, and well, that's while
that would be true. I would hate for Jesus to come
back and I'd be flat in the middle of a big fat sin of some kind
because I don't want to I don't want to grieve him. I don't want
to hurt him or anything like that. But the fact remains that
he has removed all those sins and paid for them. They were
paid for. But see, again, that doesn't give me the license or
the desire to go out and live ungodly. It should be the opposite.
And so this is what he's dealing with here. Now, so we see Hymenaeus
and Philetus though, they had crept into the church. And they
were telling others that this is true. Matter of fact, they
may even be the ones that Peter is talking about in this passage
because Hymenaeus and Philetus were among the Gentile churches
that Paul was writing to. And he's talking to Timothy. I just was kind of going back
here and looking. No, Ephesus wasn't in there. That's where
Timothy was. But anyway, given warning of
Hymenaeus and Philetus just like Paul was doing. Very well could
be. Now, so there are some that are
saying that there's no bodily resurrection. There's some that
are saying that there's no coming of Christ again. That it's only
a spiritual resurrection. In Colossians chapter 2, Paul
makes a statement that can easily be misconstrued. Let me read
that for you real quick. Colossians chapter 2 and verse
12. Matter of fact, I had a conversation
with a guy this week over this very, very verse. It says buried with him, but
it wasn't over this topic, but it was about covenantalism and baptism and circumcision. It
says, buried with him in baptism wherein also ye are risen with
him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised
him from the dead. Now Christ's resurrection was
an actual resurrection. I mean he actually died and rose
again. Okay? And we died in him and
we was raised in him. And so, that dying and rising
is a spiritual dying and rising on our part. And so, Hymenaeus
and Philetus, possibly what they were doing, is they were looking
at that and saying, see, Paul even said that we died and we
rose, so it's over. The resurrection was talking
about a spiritual resurrection, not an actual physical resurrection. Well, brethren, it's true that
we are born again, but let me remind you that whenever we are
born from above, that's a new creation, not a recreation. It's a new creation. The Bible
says, for you are a new creation in Christ Jesus. It's something
completely and totally new. We didn't have the Spirit. That's
why I believe it's so important. And some guys disagree with me
on the fact that Adam wasn't created spiritual. They believe that he died spiritually.
Adam didn't die spiritually because he wasn't made spiritually. He
was made natural. without the spirit, without the
capability of being obedient to God, without the capability
of doing the things of God, he's made natural. He wasn't made
spiritual. If he would have been made spiritual,
matter of fact, the Bible says that that incorruptible seed
that's put in us cannot sin, okay? So if Adam would have been
spiritual, and natural without sin in either case, then he would
not have done what he had done. But he was made the way that
he was made. So whenever we're born from above,
or we're born again, we're not born again because we were born
once already spiritually, but we're born again spiritually.
No, we're born again, meaning we had a physical birth, but
we need a spiritual birth. That's what Jesus meant by born
again. And so whenever we are born again, we are born as a
new creation. So to say that we had a spiritual
resurrection is really not completely the truth of the matter. We had a spiritual birth, not
a spiritual resurrection. We were dead spiritually, but
we never had spiritual life. So it was just like my physical
life. You could say before I was actually
conceived in my mother's womb and then born, that I was dead. I didn't cease to exist. I had
no existence. I did not exist. I was not alive. But soon as I was conceived,
then I was come alive. I was given life. Okay. And so
whenever we're talking about being resurrected with him, and
everything, we're not talking about that's it. They were saying
this is it. It's only talking about a spiritual
resurrection. That's not the case. It's talking
about a physical resurrection. Whenever it says you were buried
with him through baptism in which you also were raised with him
through faith, That is talking about a spiritual thing, but
we are also going to be bodily raised at the end whenever Jesus
comes again. Now, I tell you what, why don't we take a
break and I'll start this next thought here, but we'll meet
back in here in just a few minutes and pick back up where we left
off.