Please open your Bibles this morning to the book of 2
Peter. 2 Peter. Peter was a Jew, and a good bit of his ministry
was among the Jews." As a matter of fact, he uses this description
in the first verse. He writes, "...to the strangers
scattered abroad." And not only that, but if you read just a
little bit about this man, Simon Peter, You'll know that he knew
from personal experience the struggles that Jews would have
with salvation by grace. He struggled with it himself. On one occasion, Paul had to
rebuke him. Correct him. But God the Spirit
used him to give these Jews and Gentiles
and us His Word. He used him to give us His Word. And not only that, but to show
us the importance of it. You see, he confesses here as
he writes, that he knew that he would soon die. And so, he writes in this first
chapter, and he says this, verse 13, "'Yea, I think it meet, as
long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you
in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this my
tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover, I will endeavor that
ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in
remembrance." He wanted them to remember these things long
after he was gone. He wanted to remind them that
if he died, it would not be the end of these things, or the end
of the importance of these words, but that they might have them
in remembrance." And then he says this in verse 16, "'For
we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made
known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but were our witnesses of His majesty." He said, we did not
teach, nor do we write, Things that are simply man's opinions,
or man's ideas, or our own philosophies, or our own man-made doctrines
and such. No. He says, we were eyewitnesses
to His majesty. And He's speaking here particularly
of that hour when Both himself and James and John went up into
the mount that has come to be called the Mount of Transfiguration. And there on that mount they
got a glimpse, just a wee glimpse of the glory and the majesty
of the Lord Jesus Christ when He shone all around as a great
light. He says, "...for he received
from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a
voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son
in whom I am well pleased." And this voice, which came from heaven,
we heard when we were with Him in the holy mount." We heard
God the Father speak audibly from heaven. And this is what
He said. He said of Christ, this is My
beloved Son. in whom I am well pleased." But
notice what Peter continues saying in that 19th verse. He says,
we have also a more sure word of prophecy. Now wait a minute. Is he saying that there is something
better, even more sure, than hearing by your natural ear God
speak audibly from heaven? That is exactly what he is saying. And he calls it a more sure word
of prophecy. He said, "...whereunto you do
well, that you take heed, as unto a light that shineth in
a dark place." In other words, You do well if you take heed
to this word, just as you would a light that shines in a dark
place." This world is a dark place. And the reason it is a
dark place is because it is inhabited by men and women who by nature
and birth are dark in themselves. They are in darkness so far as
God and truth are concerned. And so he says, you would do
well to take heed of this word. To listen, to hear, to study
this Word until the day star arise in your hearts. What is the day star? The day
star is the sun. And this is simply a reference
to the Lord Jesus Christ who the prophet Malachi said would
be just exactly this. He says, but unto you that fear
my name shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings,
or healing in His beams of light." In other words, only if that
sun of righteousness rises in our heart, we may be in the natural
sun, which we haven't seen much of lately, but we can be in the
natural sunlight and still be in the dark. But oh, he says,
if the sun of righteousness if the light of Jesus Christ, if
Him who is Himself the light, if that sun rises in your heart
that day, star, you'll have light. Because the Scripture says, in
His light we shall see light. As a matter of fact, God Himself
is described concerning His people as being a son and a sheep."
In other words, in our darkness and in the darkness of this world,
the only real light there is, is the light of Christ, and that
is the light that He reveals through His Word, through this
more sure Word of prophecy. And so he says, knowing this
first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation. On the one hand, that means you
don't decide what it means, and I don't decide what it means.
It's not, as men say, your interpretation of the Scriptures. No. It says
what it says. And not only that, God means
what He says. Our problem is not in seeing
or having a natural understanding of what He says. Our problem
is in a natural enmity and rejection of what He says. But then on
the other hand, it means this also. It means you do not go
and pick you out one verse of Scripture here and memorize it,
and one verse of Scripture over here and memorize it, one verse
of Scripture over here and maybe make a wall plaque out of it. and say that you know the truth
because you believe John 3.16 or any other verse. Every verse
of Scripture is interpreted in the light of every other verse. And there have been more false
doctrines, more false hopes given, more false religions established
on one verse of Scripture taken away from all the other verses
of Scripture. There have been more of that
has gone on in all the world than you and I could ever imagine. But we interpret. We look at,
we view, we believe one verse of Scripture in the light of
what every verse of Scripture says. And so, he says, knowing
this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private
interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will
of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost, or the Holy Spirit. When Paul writes to Timothy and
he says, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, that literally
means all Scripture is God-breathed. It says God said it Himself. Because the Holy Spirit moved
these men to write what God spoke, and they bore what they called
the burden of the Word of the Lord. They simply said what God
commanded them to say. And it is the same in the New
Testament. These apostles, they were moved
by the Spirit of God, and they wrote those things that God moved
them to write. They did not write them of themselves. And no man can just stay over
here and say something like this. Well, that's what Paul's view
of it was. Or that's what Peter's view of
it was. No. They each one spoke as they
were moved of the Spirit." Not only those Old Testament prophets,
but these apostles through whom God gave us the gospel of Jesus
Christ. And then he says this, You know that there is no chapter
division here, except for our sakes, by ourselves. He continues
in this same vein of thought, and he says, "...but there were
false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be
false teachers among you, who privately shall bring in damnable
heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon
themselves swift destruction." You see, until Christ came, those
prophets and those things that they wrote, they wrote concerning
the prophesied One. And when He came, The message
that God gave the prophets, the way it was received, Peter is
saying here, the gospel that he gives through his apostles
in that day, it will be received the same way. And I'm here to
tell you this morning, That same gospel is still received the
same way. It still meets not only with
natural opposition, it meets with satanic error and falsehood. Counterfeit. And so that's what he's talking
about here. He says, just in the same way
that among these Jewish prophets when God gave His Word to Israel,
and there were even then in the midst of them false teachers,
false prophets, false doctrines, he said it is the exact same
way in this Word that God has given not only to myself, Peter,
but to all the apostles. And that simply means that in
every age, in every age, God has blessed and given His Gospel,
given His Word. He has, in grace and mercy, spoken
to a people. But there was always in the midst,
there was always around them, and there was always among them
false teachers, false prophets. And you know, one of the amazing
things is, even in a verse, And even in a context where the Spirit
of God is directly dealing through this man Peter about these things,
men and women go to that verse. And guess what they try to do?
They try to teach error using the truth of God. And one of
the ways that they do it is to say, and I must have read this
in a lot of commentaries this week, not the kind I use, but
the kind I know are generally accepted. They use this verse
and this text to somehow show that the redeemed of Jesus Christ
they can still ultimately and finally fall away and perish. That is a blasphemous lie. And it is wrong from so many
ways that I have not the time this morning or any time to really
go through them all, but just a simple examination will show
that when Peter speaks of these as having been bought, he is
not talking about them being actually spiritually, by Jesus
Christ, redeemed. Let me give you just a few things.
One thing is this, the word in that verse that is translated
as Lord, is not the word that is most commonly used in the
New Testament when speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hold your place here. I'm just
going to show you one verse in the book of Jude. And it is not surprising that
here in the book of Jude, this apostle Jude is talking much
about the very same thing that Peter was talking about. Look down in Jude verse 4. Jude says, for there are certain
men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this
condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness
and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the word Lord is used two
times in that verse, isn't it? And it is saying here that there
are these individuals who deny the Lord God. What is that word
for Lord in that verse, first of all? Well, that word Lord
means despot. It has to do with this absolute
slave owner. And because he owns these slaves,
or owns this property, he can tell it to do whatever he wants. And then the second word is the
word kurios, which is most often used of the Lord Jesus Christ."
Used speaking of this Lord Jesus Christ and His personal and affectionate
relationship with His people. Now, when Peter writes what he
writes, when he speaks of that word,
bought, in that text of Scripture, He does not anywhere in it mention
what we find in the other places where redemption is talked about. And by that, I mean He does not
speak of the price of redemption. And I say that because this same
man in the first epistle Before he ever gets out of the first
chapter, in verse 18 I think it is, he talks about redemption
and how we're not redeemed by corruptible things such as silver
and gold, but by the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot. Not only does he not use that
word, it is a different word, the word here, bought, from the
word redeemed that we find there. Not only is there a difference
in the words, but there's no mention of Christ here, is it?
You see, Christ is the Redeemer. And what he's saying is this,
he's making an application that we find Moses, already led by
the Spirit of God a long time ago, making reference to the
nation of Israel. You can write these down if you
want to. But in Exodus 15, he says this,
"...Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast
redeemed, and Thou hast guided them in Thy strength, unto thy
holy habitation." Israel as a nation was a redeemed people, but they
were not redeemed in this spiritual and eternal sense. They were
redeemed as far as temporal and material things are concerned,
But the most of that generation that came out in this redemption
out of Egypt, out of this bondage of Egypt, the most of them, with
the exception of two men, died in the wilderness. Paul says
in unbelief. They were a redeemed people.
He calls them a redeemed people. But they were not spiritually
redeemed. Not only that, listen to this
in Deuteronomy 32, "'Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people
and unwise? Is not He thy Father that hath
bought thee? Hath He not made thee and established
thee?' Was he talking about redemption from sin? Was he talking about
redemption of the soul? Absolutely not. They were redeemed
as a national people from among the Egyptians. They were delivered
out of that Egyptian bondage, and they are a picture of the
redeemed. But they are not themselves redeemed,
especially if they all but two died, that first generation died
in the wilderness, Paul says, in unbelief. So what Paul is
saying is this, when God all through the course of that nation
gave His Word through the prophets, they spoke amazingly, they spoke
boldly, they spoke truthfully, they declared the Word of God. But even amongst the people,
There were those who, like these false prophets and teachers,
they denied the redeeming God. They denied that deliverance. They denied the Lord that bought
them in that sense. And Paul tells us of that. But Peter himself having all
his difficulties as a Jew with the grace of God like he did,
and struggles, he knows these people, these Jewish converts,
they're going to have the same kind of difficulties. They're going to meet the same
kind of lies, and the same kind of false prophets, the same kind
of false teachers, the same kind of errors, They're going to come
and always do the same kind of things that He's already shown
us has taken place ever since God began to declare His Word
to men. These men and women, were miraculously
delivered out of that Egyptian bondage. They saw things that
you and I will never ever see. They saw God work wonders in
their midst. And they came out on the other
side of people, and what is going on amongst them? They're denying
the Lord that bought them. They're denying the redeeming
God. They're denying the One who calls
them to be brought out of Egypt. And they're denying Him by denying
what He tells His prophet to speak to Him. Moses spoke. And they said things like this,
they said, Moses has taken too much to himself. They said things
like this, Moses says this, he says God says this, but this
is really the way it is. Moses says that the only way
that we can come before God, the only way that we can be accepted
by God, is through this one man that he's raised up by the name
of Aaron, this high priest who goes in once a year in that holy
of holies that we can't go in, They've taken too much to themselves. And one day, there were a group
of people. Now, he describes in these verses,
he speaks of heresies. Heresies are simply sex. That's
what the word means. Sex. Divisions into sex. Well, there was this sex that
rose up amongst the people of Israel, and they were led by
the sons of Korah. And they said things like this,
Moses is speaking for God, he says, but God speaks to us also. We've got our own views on this
thing. And that is naturally, basically,
the attitude that every one of us are born with by nature. Don't shut me up to one way.
Don't tell me that there's just one God, or one faith, or one
Lord, or one baptism. Don't shut me up to this one
way of salvation. And so the flesh that wants to
have all these ways, make all these choices, guide themselves
by what they call free will, It leans an ear and it seeks
to hear what men want to hear. They heap to themselves teachers
having itching ears. And Peter says, that's the way
it was when the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt When He bought
them, when He redeemed them in that sense, and that is the way
it is now, and the way it will be. That's the way it will be. But there were false prophets
also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers
among you, who privately, deceitfully, cunningly bring in damnable heresies. What does that mean? What's a
damnable heresy? That's a lie that's going to
bring you to endless eternal damnation. even denying the Lord
that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction."
I mentioned those sons of Korah. It wasn't so much that Noah was
a great man or this kind of man. The only thing that really characterized
Moses and gave him authority was the fact that God said, He
speaks for me. He speaks for me. And so these
people came along. They had their followers. And one day, They came to Moses
and they said, look, we've got a say in this thing too. We've
got our own idea. We've got our own opinion. We've
got doctrine too. It might have been something
like this. I hear it all the time. Let me
tell you what I believe. So they stood before Moses. God
commanded Moses to tell them to all come together. So they
all were gathered together, them and all that pertained to them,
and all that followed them, they all gathered together. And God opened up the ground,
and they fell straight into hell, as one fellow said, with their
shoes on. Now Moses was weak. Moses was
in many ways a failure. But there was just one thing.
God told Moses what He wanted Moses to say. Now, how many do
you suppose over the years have stood up and they have made that
claim? God told me what to tell you. Must have been a zillion of them.
But here's the thing. The Bible says that God has in
these last days spoken unto us by His Son. And Peter says that
more authoritative, Necessary. Especially for us as we are in
the midst of the situations we are always in with all these
false teachers and false prophets in error all around us. Has He
just set us adrift on a sea to wonder and figure out for ourselves
how things are, who God is, how He saves sinners? No. He's given us a more sure word
of prophecy. His Word. It's not what I say
about His Word, it's what His Word says. And it's really not
all that difficult. These passages, they become difficult
to us, they become difficult to me whenever I don't look at
them in their entirety. Don't ever let anybody take one
verse of Scripture and try to prove anything to you. One verse
of Scripture is all that's necessary to prove anything, but he hasn't
given us just one verse, has he? I was telling Bob this week,
something helped me a long time ago. I read where an old preacher
said, don't ever let what you don't know become the enemy of
what you do know. And let me tell you what we know
about redemption. We know what the Redeemer Himself
said. He said, I lay down my life for
thee sheep. It says He gave His life Himself
a ransom for many. He says that the church is what
He purchased with His own blood. Now, until we begin to find out
who the Redeemer is, until we begin to believe what He says
He's done, we don't know anything about redemption. But there are some serious problems. You see, In verse 2, Peter says,
"...and many," do you see that? "...and many shall follow their
pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be
evil spoken of." Let me tell you, if you read the New Testament,
and if you go back and look at the Old Testament examples, And
you think that God is going to save all or even most of the
people in this world, you have not read the same book I've read. You haven't. Straight is the
gate that leads to life. Few there be that find it. Broad
is the way that leads to destruction. Many there be that go therein.
And it's so much easier on our flesh if we say, well, I think
we're all going the same way. No, we're not. Well, we believe
basically the same. No, we don't. And it's not because
we have any superior intellect or any greater natural conviction. It's simply that God's people,
they believe God. I never forget what Paul said
when he was on that ship and it was beating and banging and
about to shipwreck and do all these things, and these men were
about to throw everything on board and abandon ship themselves.
And Paul said, stay with this ship. There's not a man going
to be lost. How do you know that? He said,
because I believe that it shall be as it has been told to me
by God Himself. Why believe anything in this
book? Because God said it. You say, how do you know this
is any different? Well, all the various men over hundreds of
years writing in different times, in different circumstances, having
never met each other, having never read anything that the
other wrote, and yet they're all saying the same thing. You
cannot believe that and die in your sin if you want to. It's
just like creation. I mean, you can stand up and
deny the Creator God, and you can adopt all these various philosophies
and schemes of how the earth came into existence. You can
do it if you want to, but you're just really stupid. It would
be like me looking at this watch and saying, oh, that's a nice
watch it evolved that I've got now. There is a master design
behind that. You know there is. Somebody drew
the plan. Somebody had the idea. Somebody
made the parts and pieces. Somebody put them together. And
this watch is nowhere, anywhere close to the intricate creation
of God. Sometimes science says, well,
we've made a new discovery. That's the key word. That's all
men can do. They cannot create anything. I think that's one of the basic
laws of physics. That matter cannot be created
or destroyed. Men change it, but it can't be
created or destroyed. Here's this creation. Why is
it the way it is? Men are always discovering. They get to the end of the problem
and find out they're on just the frontier of a new... Oh, when we found out cells,
that was really the end of it, wasn't it? Now we're to DNA,
now we're even beyond that into things that you and I can't even
imagine. Always discovering. Discovering
what's there. And discovering when God is pleased
to reveal it to us. This Word, He says, is forever
settled in heaven. This isn't my opinion about this
book. I'll be honest with you, the
flesh often times fights against what it says in this book. And
I know it's true. But my believing it's true doesn't
make it true. That's one of the errors of our
day. That your faith becomes that which makes something true. No it doesn't. You can believe
something that's not true all you want to. It won't make it
true. I've heard people in a lot of
places say, we're all going to get together and we're going
to agree on this. Have you ever heard that? We're all going to
agree on this. And if we all agree on this,
and if we all assault the throne of heaven with our prayers, it's
going to change everything. It's not going to change anything. No, He's in His last days, spoken
of us by His Son. And He says, "...and many shall
follow their pernicious ways." Do you see that? Plural? Ways. In Christ's day, the Romans,
the Jews, then the Jews, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and
all these other groups, they hated each other. They fought
and bickered about points of doctrine and this, that and the
other every day of their lives almost. But they all joined together. All their ways joined together
against Him who is the way. He says through the book of Proverbs,
there's a way that seems right to a man, There is a way that
seems right to a man. The end thereof are the ways
of death. You see, all these various ways
that false prophets and false teachers say, all these ways,
they're really just one way. The wrong way. The wrong way. And the way of death. The end
thereof are the ways of death. So what do they do? He says that
they speak evil of the way of truth. That's what they do. You see,
there's just one way of truth. That's in Christ alone, plus
nothing. Not your works, not my works.
Not your opinion, not my opinion. Not your philosophy of life,
nor mine. Not anything done by us, good
or bad. One way. And that's what this
book sets forth. One way of salvation. One hope. No other name given under heaven
among men whereby we must be saved. One mediator between God
and men. The man Christ Jesus. One Savior. One redemption. Just one. I'll tell you what, if God doesn't
convince us that this is His Word, I don't mean in just an
intellectual sense. Most everybody who passes under
the modern disguise of so-called Christianity, they all say we
believe that the Bible is the Word of God. They don't even
know what the Bible says. They don't know. They read it,
maybe occasionally, maybe a few Psalms for inspiration. I told you today that if you
would be at a certain place at 3 o'clock, that God was going
to speak. He was really going to speak.
If you'd stand up on this rock in this place, God would speak
to you. You'd say, well, I don't know,
but you'd probably find yourself going. I'm not going to tell
you this. I'm going to tell you God has
spoken. And he says, he that hath an ear, let him hear. Hear. The way of truth, which
he describes elsewhere as the way of righteousness, all of
which is in Christ who is Himself singular, the way. It's not a matter of choice. It's
not a matter of decision. You see these set in contradiction
their ways against the way. In the garden, there was one
way. God's way. Don't eat of that
tree. In Egypt, there was one way.
It pictured the way. Take that blood of that lamb,
sprinkle that blood on the lintels and doorposts, and God said,
when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. He slayed the firstborn
in every household in Egypt except those in the households covered
with that blood. And Peter, he goes straight to
that in that first epistle. He said, you were not redeemed
with corruptible things such as silver and gold under the
traditions of your father, but you were redeemed with an incorruptible
thing by the precious blood of Christ. In other words, the soul
that sinneth, God said, shall surely die. But a sinner cannot
die for a sinner. You can't die for my sin. I couldn't
die for you. So God sent His Son. Perfect
man. And He came to purchase. He came
to actually buy. He came to buy back that which
already belonged to God. That's why it's called redemption.
To buy back by the paying of a price. You see, it says, "...and through
covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise
of you." I see that all the time. It makes me so sad. I get angry
at false religion. The first thing that angers me
is that it's against God. But the second thing is how these
preachers and religions, they use and make merchandise of people,
get them under their power, take their money. They use the flowery language
of piety. False piety. They're like Satan
himself, transformed into angels of light. How will we know them? I believe so-and-so is a good
man. He might be. But he might also be a liar.
How would you know if I'm telling you the truth? There's only one
way. This more sure word of prophecy. It's better. It's more precious
to us. More so than if God had sent
an Elijah to us, or if God had sent a John the Baptist to us,
or even if in the flesh Christ Himself spoke. Because in this
book, He speaks much more to many more. And men deny Him. But He says,
whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their
damnation slumbereth not." God's going to deal with them. I sat
down this morning and just flipped through some videos, live videos
of preaching church services and all on my phone. It's all emotionalism. It's all
getting people worked up. It's all a religious service
without the gospel, without anything that glorifies God, without anything
that truly speaks peace to a woman or a man's soul, because it's
without the gospel. But there will always be. There
will always be. He says it will be that way all
the way to the coming of Christ. God says to His people, He's
given you a more sure word of prophecy. You
just stick with listening, hearing, reading His Word until that day
star arises in your heart. Until that sun of righteousness
arises and gives you understanding and gives you to know the way
and faith to believe the way. and heals you. Healing for the
soul. By His stripes, you are healed. Not you will be healed, but the
stripes that He's already borne in His own body on the tree,
He says to His people, by those stripes, you are healed. My death is your life. My loss is your gain. And then he gives some examples. But I don't have time for that
today. Maybe next Sunday. But this word is a more sure
word of prophecy. What does a prophet do? Do you
know what a prophet does? A prophet speaks for God. A priest represents men to God. A king rules over men for God. We have a more sure word of prophecy. The written word of God. The objective standard by which
every doctrine is to be tried and tested and proved, every
preacher try the spirits, see if they be of God or not? How
do you do that? It's by what does saith the Lord. And there are a lot of people
who say, well, we believe salvation is of the Lord. That's what separates the sheep
from the goats, the budding. But, but, but, but. I'm telling
you, look outside of yourself to Him who is the way. Put all
your eggs, as we say, in one basket. Christ and Him crucified. Every hope, every sin, every
prospect, all in Christ. and rest." None that he bought
in the sense of redemption, the redemption of the soul, which
also includes the redemption of the body. But all he bought,
all he truly redeemed by his blood, he's not going to lose
one of them. What an affront to the justice
of God! to say that someone he redeemed
could be lost. That would be a great injustice
with God. What an affront to Christ Himself
to imagine that He as the Great Shepherd would lose any of His
sheep when He said He wouldn't lose any of His sheep. But to
imagine that He shedding His precious blood would not get
what He paid for? Could not keep what He got? So many things wrong with such
notions when all the time Peter is warning that just like it
was in the days of the prophets when God bought, redeemed Israel
out of that bondage as a nation, he said, even so there shall
be false prophets and heresies. Not only in Peter's day, he says,
but until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a more sure word. Preachers
sometimes say, I've got a word from the Lord. I've got a whole
book of them. Hear ye Him. Hear ye Him. Father, this day we give You
thanks for Your precious Son and for Your precious Word. Cause that Word to shine in our
hearts calls it to be that more sure word of prophecy revealing
Christ and His glorious salvation. We pray you'd bless and honor
yourself and save your people. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.