There's an awful lot to say here
in these verses, and I hope I can deal with them rightly, deal
with them the way they ought to be dealt with. But this is
the second, it says, the general epistle of Simon Peter. Simon
was one of the first apostles. He was one of the very first
that the Lord Jesus called. In fact, his brother Andrew Was
following John and he started following Christ and he'd run
home and got Peter said come I found him who? Moses wrote
about I found the Messiah And the way they win and then next
person they find is Philip sitting under a tree but he's one of
the very first and he's And he's old he's getting old now. In
fact, he said down here in verse 14. Look what he says He says
the time of my death is right on me. I He's getting to be old. He knows that his time's fixed
to go. He said, knowing that shortly I must put off this,
my tabernacle. Got to put off this, my tent.
That's what he's talking about. Put off this, my tent. And listen
to what he said. Even as our Lord Jesus Christ
has shown me. So he knows his time's just about
up. Last thing he has to say, he's getting old. Got to first,
shortly he's going to pass through this world. And he calls himself
a servant. a bond-servant, a slave of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And then he saw himself an apostle.
An apostle was one that saw Christ, witnessed Christ, followed Christ,
given great power and given a commission by the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
And he had the power to work miracles. In fact, there was
times that they laid people in the streets. You remember in
the book of Acts, they laid people in the streets, in their beds.
If perhaps just the shadow Peter would pass over them and they
would be healed by shadow. So God used him in a very very
miraculous way and Then he's addressing this epistle to believers
in Christ Look what he says. He says an apostle of Jesus Christ
of them them Believers that obtained like precious faith with us and
He's talking about his faith being precious. Now this is an
apostle. And he says, like precious faith
with us. We have precious faith. God gave
us faith. And it's precious to me. And
it's precious to all the other apostles. And he says to them
that have obtained like precious faith with us. What he means
is we have the same faith that the apostles have. They had to
believe Christ the way we do. They had to trust Christ the
way we do. They had a greater degree of faith, no doubt. But
it's called precious faith, and it says there's only one faith.
And Simon Peter said, I'm glad you got the same faith as we
have, precious faith. And I tell you, there's only
one faith. There's not, you know, where people say, what faith
are you? There ain't but one faith. One Lord, one baptism,
one God, one Father, who is above all, through all, and in all,
through Jesus Christ. That's all there is. One. Our
Lord Jesus Christ said there's one way. He says there's no way
to come unto the Father but by me. He made it as exclusive as
He could possibly make it, and as broad as He could possibly
make it. Now it's as broad as Christ,
but as narrow as Christ. And this precious faith, there's
one faith and you call it the common faith. And what does he
mean by common faith? That means it's common to all
believers. This faith is common to all believers and it's precious.
And you know everybody's got a different degree of faith.
Some's got more than others. Some is stronger in faith than
others. But I tell you what makes it precious and makes it the
same and all of us have the same because it comes from the same
place. God gave it to us. God gave us our faith. God gave
us that faith. He gave Abraham faith. If we
have faith, God gave it to us. It was not natural to us. People,
preachers say, you know, if you've got the faith, if you'll just
exercise it. Faith is not a muscle. You exercise
it, you have. It's not natural to this human
nature. It's not natural to us. And God
comes and He gives us this faith. He blesses us with this faith.
And then look what else, not only does it come from the same
place, but this faith, this faith that he's talking about, it has
the same object. All faith, all true faith, this
faith he's talking about, has the same object. And who that
object is? The Lord Jesus Christ. Our faith is not our object.
Christ is the object of our faith. See, that's one of the people,
you know, Our faith, Christ is the one who died, not our faith.
Christ bore our sins away, not our faith. But because of who
He is and what He did, God gave us faith to believe Him and trust
Him and look outside ourselves to Him for everything. And why
we know we've got true faith? Because it goes outside of us
and goes to Christ and Christ alone. It never looks to itself. It never looks to a work. It
never looks to obedience. It never looks to anything it
ever does. It always looks outside itself. Always. And not only that, but it all
has the same results. You know what the same results
are? Salvation. Salvation. Salvation. And that's what we have. We all
have salvation. And it's all in the same person,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And they call it precious faith.
We're all, my, is this faith? If you've got it and God gave
it to you, it's worth more than 10,000 worlds like this here.
I would trade my faith if a man offered me all the gold that
there is in the United States. It would not be worth me giving
up faith. Gold can't save me, but faith. Trust Christ to save me. Nothing
in this world can save me. And that's why it's so precious.
Oh, to have it. Our Lord said if you had the
faith of a grain of mustard seed, You could say, under this mountain,
be removed. Under this tree, be plucked up.
Now he wasn't talking about mountains, he wasn't talking about real
trees. He's talking about obstacles that got in your way. You could
say, Lord, I believe you that you're going to move this. I
believe you that you're going to get me through this. This
mountain looks like I can't get over it, but you can move it.
This great tree, this great obstacle in my way, I can't get it up,
but you can get it up. And that's what faith is about.
And that's why it's worth 10,000 worlds like it. Through faith,
we're justified. Through faith, we're made heirs
of God and join heirs with our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how precious
faith is. Oh, how precious it is. It's
all precious, precious. Oh, my soul is so precious. And
this faith, look what he says, obtain like precious faith with
us, watch it now, through We got this faith through the righteousness
of God in our Savior, Jesus Christ. What does that mean? That means
that God gave us this faith in a righteous way. He didn't just
say, I'm going to give faith to this and just throw it out
here and let everybody catch it. No, the righteousness of
God and through the Lord Jesus Christ and the righteousness
of Him through Christ dying, through Christ suffering, through
Christ paying our debt, through Christ putting our sins away,
God righteously gives us faith to believe Christ. Everything
God does, He does it righteously. We owe as much to the justice
of God as the grace of God for our salvation. We owe as much
to the righteousness of God as the mercy and love of God for
our salvation as anything else. Everything God does for us, He
does it on the basis of His righteousness. He didn't lay His righteousness
aside to save us. He upheld His righteousness in
His blessed sermon. And so He could come and give
us faith. We'll see that in a minute. He
came to give us faith and He gave it to us righteously. The
devil won't be able to say, well, you know that fellow there this
way and that way and you gave it to him and he ain't deserving
of it. None of us are deserving of it. But God gave it to us
not because we deserve it, but because Christ did. And that's
why it's given to us on the basis of righteousness. Does that make
sense? I love it like that, don't you?
Huh? Oh my. Faith is this gift of
God. Righteousness is the gift of
God. The righteousness of Christ. The righteousness of Christ imputed
to us. Then He gives us the faith to
receive and believe it. Oh my. And that's why the Lord
said, My sheep hear My voice, and a stranger they will not
follow. They won't do it. And oh, bless His name. Then
look what else He says. Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of God in us and our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now what does he mean for a multiplication? You know God's grace and peace
is infinite. It's infinite. And we have perfect
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have that perfect
peace. But when he prays, Lord, let
their grace and peace be multiplied to them. He says, given them
abundance of it, huh? Given them abundance of it. And
there's, you know what he means is that as we hear grace and
learn of grace and learn of God and learn the things of God,
grace becomes more and more and more and more and more. And look
how you get this grace to be multiplied unto you through the
knowledge of God and of our Jesus our Lord. Now this is so. The more you learn about God
and the more you learn about Christ, the more grace you give
and get and get and get and it grows and it grows and it grows
and it grows. Peace. You understand more about
grace and have more grace of love and kindness and humility
and generosity and patience and all these graces in us inwardly.
And you have this faith and you have this love for the gospel.
And how did you get that? Through the knowledge of God
in our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's how it's multiplied.
That's how it grows. You know, you start out, that's
what our Lord says, you receive grace for grace. You start out
believing, and then it gets more, and then it gets more, and then
it gets more, until you're established in it. You're established in
it. And oh my! And one of these days,
and there is an increasing in spiritual peace and believing,
even when we have trials and afflictions, and we have troubles
and heartaches, there's an abundance, the grace is multiplied to see
us through that. God's going to see that we have
plenty of grace to get us through whatever we have to go through.
And I tell you, everything boils down to this. Through knowledge
of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it is. Everything
that we have is going to be boiled down to that right there. And
then watch this. And according, this grace and
peace be multiplied unto you according as His divine power
hath given unto us all life and godliness. Now this grace, this peace, this
precious faith, this grace be multiplied, this knowledge of
God through our Lord Jesus Christ is going to be according as His
divine power has given us. Everything we got was given to
us. And look what it says, all things that pertain unto life. Do you know how many times it
says all things in the scriptures? We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them that are called
according to His purpose. God also freely give us all things
with the Lord Jesus Christ. When it says all things, everything, all things that's
necessary, all things that's necessary, and needful, that's
what you're going to get. And he says, according to his
divine power, God's power bore on us. God's power came to us.
God's power gave us all things that pertain unto life. And he's
talking about spiritual life here. What did we need for spiritual
life? We needed a new birth. We needed
a new heart. We needed a new mind. We needed
a new nature. We needed new ears, new eyes,
everything. We had to have everything. And
He gave us this to have a life. We needed forgiveness. We needed
sins put away. We needed righteousness. We needed
justification. We needed acceptance. We needed
everything that's necessary. He said He freely gave it to
us, all things. And I'll tell you one thing,
if He ever gives it to you, it ain't never gonna be took back.
Oh, you just think about all the things that's necessary for
your spiritual life. And that's what He gives you.
And He gave it to you in Christ for the foundation of the world
and His power come and worked it in you in time. Huh? And look
what it says there. Pertain unto life and godliness. Oh my. And look how did He do
this? Through the knowledge of Him. There we are, back to knowledge
again. Knowing Christ. Knowing God, knowing Christ.
That's why I said, did He give us this life and Godliness through
a knowledge of Him? Oh, listen. Oh, God made Christ unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And you are complete
in Him who is the head of all principalities and powers. And
we have been delivered from the power of darkness and translated
into the kingdom of the Son of His love. And oh God called us,
and look what it says, Him that hath called us to glory. Called
us to glory. called us to enjoy the glory
of the gospel, to enjoy the glory of Christ, to enjoy the glory
of all the promises, to enjoy all the promises that we have,
have called us to glory and virtue. And He's given us everything
that pertains to eternal life. and I tell you everything that
gives us and keeps us and preserves us till that time comes and he
done it by his glory and he did it to glory and virtue and then
he says by this same power that gave us this life and Godliness
to acknowledge of him in this same power through Christ whereby
are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises oh my By
the power, the glory, the righteousness of Christ, God gave us great
and exceeding and precious promises. And all the promises of God.
And the first promise He gives us is eternal life. When we believe
on Him, He gives us, He said, He that cometh to me, I give
unto Him eternal life. He promised to keep us. He promised
to preserve us. He promised to come after us.
He promised us grace. promised to preserve us, promised
to take us to glory, promised to change this body, promised
us a resurrection, oh exceeding great and precious promises,
promised to never leave us, never forsake us. When you don't know
how to stand, He said, you just stand, I'll stand with you. When you don't know what to do,
just be still, I'll tell you what to do. Oh, I'll never leave
you. If I were anybody, Lord, whatever
I left, you'd have left me years ago. But He said, I'll never
leave you. Oh, Lord, I'm the miserable, oh,
you just don't know. Lord, I'll never leave you. Boy, you're sorry, aren't you?
You're just as sorry as anything and every daughter. And I'll
never forsake you. Oh, that promise in and of itself
is worth 10,000 worlds like this. Ain't it? And you're talking
about when you don't know who you are. When you are in a coma and you're
laying in a hospital bed or you're laying in your bed at home and
you don't remember your name and you can't open your eyes
and you can't do nothing, you don't know anything going on
around you. I'll never leave you. And I'll never forsake you. I won't do it. It's not how much
we know about Him. And we know all God teach us.
But it's what He knows about us. And He knew us before we
were. He knows everything we are and everything we do. He
knows it. I wake up in the morning and say, Lord, I'm the biggest
fool that ever been. And He said, I ain't gonna never
leave you. How can I be like I am? I'll
never forsake you. Do you all ever do that? Huh?
And oh, what a great, exceeding, precious promises. And oh, He
promised us this new and everlasting covenant. I'm going to give you
an everlasting covenant. Forgiveness and sanctification. And I'll join you to my Son.
And I'll give you eternal life. And then look what, by these
exceeding great and precious promises, look what it says.
That by these, by this precious faith, this righteousness of
God, this divine power, that give us life and these great
promises, we might be partakers of the divine nature. Oh my! We believe these promises and
as God revealed them promises to us like He did Abraham, He
made us partakers of the divine nature, the very nature of God
Himself. He gave us this new nature, made
us a new man, gave us a new life. And this Christ formed in you
is what it is. He's supposed that I'm crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet it's
not I that live, but it's Christ that lives in me. And the life
I now live right now, I live it by the faith of the Son of
God who loved me and gave himself for me. Huh? And Paul said, I
pray that Christ be formed in you. And I tell you, by this
power of this new nature, look what it says here. By being partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruptions that's in the
world through lust. Do you hear how he says that?
Escaped. Escaped. You know, if I was in
jail or in prison, I'd try to escape. Well, we was in the world,
and we was held by that world's corruption, the rottenness of
it, the stink of it, the death of it, the deadliness of it,
that made us corrupt in our minds, in our hearts, in our souls,
in our mind, everything about us. And he says, we escaped it. It's like Lot. The Lord got him
and took him out of Sodom. He escaped. And we escaped the
world. It's like being held in bondage
and all of a sudden you see a way out and that way out is Christ
and you run to Him and you escape that. All that corruption, that
deadliness, that sinfulness, all that awful things that's
in the world. And it was through lust. Oh my. You know, it is something when
you start thinking about, I escaped the world. escaped. That would be in a hog lot. And the
Lord changed his nature. You escaped the hog lot. He changed
your nature. You're not a hog. You're sheep. If you was a hog,
you'd go right back to that slot. But we're not that. And oh, look
what it is. And then he says, We've escaped
and all these precious promises, this power that gave us life
and this knowledge of God, this precious faith, the righteousness
of God. And besides this having escaped and having all these
precious promises, and besides all this, He says, giving all
diligence. Give all diligence. He says,
boy, since God done all this for us, and he said, be diligent
about it. Give all diligence. Pay attention
to this. Be up and about doing these things. Give diligence to them. Pay attention
to them. And add to your faith, this precious faith that's been
given to us. Add to your faith. Faith is the foundation of all
things. And faith is what God gives us.
And besides faith, add to your faith virtue. And this virtue,
let me say something about it. This is not morality that he's
talking about. He's talking about strength,
honesty, integrity, scruples. Liking that which is good. Loving
that which is good. And enjoying that which is good.
And that's why I said, and he told the Philippians, he said,
if there be any virtue, any faith, and he went down through a whole
bunch of things. He said, you prove these things. And so this
virtue, it's not just morality out here. This is love for good. It's just love for what's right.
It's a love for honesty and integrity and strength and living to the
glory of God. And then he says, to your virtue
and knowledge. Oh, there's a lot of things we
need to know Knowledge of the will of God. Knowledge of the
Scriptures. Oh, to know the Scriptures, that
we can walk in the Scriptures. For God to give us wisdom and
knowledge and understanding. And that we might honestly know
the Scriptures and be a good witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. And knowledge. Add knowledge. Listen, pay attention and grow
in knowledge. He said, add to your virtue,
add some knowledge to that too. Knowledge of the scriptures,
knowledge of the will of God. And then add to knowledge temperance.
This word temperance, it means don't be excessive in anything.
Don't be excessive in eating. Don't be excessive in drinking.
Don't be excessive in materialism. Don't be excessive in the world.
Don't be excessive in materialism. Don't go to excess in anything. And people can do that. People
can eat too much, drink too much, talk too much. It's like, you
know, we can go to the excess in lots of things. And that's
what he says, you add temperance to that. Don't be excessive in
your life. Don't be excessive in where you
go and what you do and how you act, what you eat, what you drink,
what you wear, materialism. Don't be that. Anything that
would hinder your spiritual growth and fellowship with Christ and
fellowship with one another, be temperance. Be temperance.
And then he says, add to temperance patience. Oh my. Patience is not like you
go to go to meet somebody and you have to wait and wait and
wait on them and you just patiently wait on them. That's not the
patience he's talking about here. He's talking about the patience. That
whatever is going on, you just keep on living your life, waiting
on God. You know, patience works experience. and let patience have her perfect
work. That when you attempted and tried,
you come through that thing. And patience is necessary for
us to walk as believers in this world. God said, be still and
know that I'm God. He didn't say stand still. He
says, you go on living and you just be still in your heart,
be still in your mind, be still in your soul. And He says, I'm
there. I'll be with you. And just be
still. I'll take care of these things for you. And that's what
it is. When these trials come, patience just keep on going. That's what it means. Just patience,
patience, patience, patience. That's why it says you know the
patience of Job. After he suffered, then he received
of the Lord twice as much as he had. But he patient. He went
through that with patience. Patience. And oh my, there's
always, we have these difficulties in ourselves. We have difficulties
from God. And prayers and difficulties
and trials. And oh listen, a man, he may
have a lot of troubles in his life. Anger, pride, envy, jealousy
and all that. But with patience, God will help
him. And he'll just be patient and
God will work with him and he'll get through these things. And
then add to patience, godliness. Oh, you know what this godliness
is? This means the fear of the Lord. This godliness is you think
about God and you hold Him in such awe, you hold Him in reverence,
you hold Him in fear, and you worship Him. This includes our
outward worship, our inward worship. And we come with thanksgiving,
we submit to Him, we praise Him, we're active in our prayers,
and we actively hear the Word of God. That's what godliness
is. Godliness is not in an outward show. That's why they didn't
know Jesus. As I heard Scott say so many
times, they didn't see Jesus in Jesus. Everybody says, boy,
they didn't see Jesus in you. They didn't see Jesus in Jesus.
And so when he talks about this godliness, he's talking about
how you are before the Lord. The worship, the praise, the
prayer and that are before God himself. hearing the Word, giving
praise, being submissive to Him, worshiping Him inwardly and outwardly,
and look what else it says, and to godliness, brotherly kindness. Brotherly kindness. Now without
brotherly kindness, without godliness, everything
else, brotherly kindness, godliness, everything else is just a waste
of time. Your profession would be just nothing but vain. And
loving and brotherly kindness they are fruits and evidence
of regeneration. By this shall all men know you
are my disciples. Why? Because you'll have love
one toward another. And all forgiving one another
and loving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath loved
us and forgiven us. And then look what he says. And
to brotherly kindness charity. He ends this thing up with love. Start out of pure faith and it
will end up with love. And love covers a multitude.
Love covers everything. Love covers even our enemies. Even our enemies. And then look
what He says here. Look what He says. For these
things be in you and abound. Now he's talking about going
all the way back to verse 1, precious faith. And after that,
you have all these things. You'd be diligent to seek these
things, desire these things, grow in these things through
the knowledge of Christ. And if these things be in you
and abound, abound in you, this faith and virtue and knowledge
and difference and patience and godliness and brotherly kindness
and charity, if they be in you and abound in this precious faith,
You'll neither be barren. You won't be barren. No. And you won't be unfruitful in
what? The knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. These things being
here, you'll know some things about God. You'll know some things
about Christ. You ever met anybody that's barren
that can't tell you anything? That's what he says. You won't
be barren. You won't be barren. But look
what he says. And that's what we want. We don't want to be
barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what we want to be. Abound in these things. To be
fruitful in our Lord Jesus Christ and His knowledge. But he that
lacketh these things. Look at this. He lacks these
things. He's not being diligent after
these things. He's not abounding in these things. He's blind. And he can't see very far. And
he's forgotten that he's purged from his old sins. What happens
there is that a person can get so selfish and get so self-centered
and get taken up with something they always see is what's happening
to them right in front of them all the time. They can't see
it far off. They're blind to everything going
on around them except what's happening to them. And they're
consumed with what's going on with them. They can only see
and be selfish in what's going on around them. And they ignore
what God... You can tell them, well, God
done this and God... I know it, I know it, I know it, but you
just don't know. Listen, they're just short-sighted. They can't
see far off. And they ignore what God's done
for them and what His profession He's done. They get so taken
up with things that goes on in their life that you can't... They even forget that God even
forgave me of my sins. They get so consumed with sin.
And there's people that have done that. I'm sure I've done
that back in the years. We get so taken up with self
that we forget where God brought us from. That's what he told
Israel. He said, Israel, don't you look
back to that rock from which is you. And he's talking about
Abraham. Look at that pit from which you
dig. He's talking about Sam. He's had to remind them. And
that's what the Gospel does. It reminds us where God brought
us from. where we are and where you're going to take us. Good things to think about, ain't
it? Oh, our blessed Father in heaven.
Oh, Lord Jesus, our great and great and blessed Savior. Thank
you for this evening. Thank you for these blessed scriptures.
God, they bless my heart. They encouraged me gave me some
light, gave me some understanding, gave me some hope. And I pray
they did for the rest of the saints of God gathered here tonight.
Lord, key again, I pray for those who are traveling, pray for those
who are sick. Keep them for your glory till
we can meet and worship again. And our Lord Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amazing grace, how sweet
the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now and
found was the light but now I see. See you Sunday, Lord willing.