Alright, let's take our Bibles
and turn to 2 Peter 1. I want to continue our study
this morning beginning with verse 3. 2 Peter 1 verse 3. 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." Now, I think the place to begin
is right here at the beginning of the verse, according as His
divine power hath given unto us. Salvation is the gift of
God. Salvation, there's not salvation
and he gives it in such a way till it's up here almost out
of reach and then you have to work your way up to it. It's
freely given. It's the gift of God. Salvation
is the gift of God. It's not the reward of your labor. You can't earn it. I don't care
what you do. I don't care what you sacrifice.
I don't care if you give your body to be burned. You cannot
earn salvation. Salvation is the gift of God. It's not as old Billy Sunday
used to preach years ago, payday someday. It's not payday. It's
the gift of God. And everywhere where salvation
is mentioned, he tells you it's a gift. in any part of salvation. If he's talking about faith,
we're saved by faith. All right? He said, by grace
are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God. And every gift, James said this,
every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights,
with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Every
good gift comes down from him. Then he says, of his own will
begat he us with the word of truth. That's the gift of God. It's not, and I cannot emphasize
this too much, the fruit of man's so-called free will. Not of the will of the flesh,
the Scripture said, nor of the will of man, but of God. Not of him that willeth, Paul
said in Romans 9, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. It's the gift of God. He said,
I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I'll have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So salvation is the free and
sovereign gift of God. You know, to the woman at the
well, you remember our Lord went up there and he sat down on the
edge of the well and this Samaritan woman came to the well. And the Lord, being a Jew, asked
this Samaritan woman for a drink of water and she said, How come
thou, a Jew, you don't have no dealings with the Samaritans,
why did you ask of me for a drink of water?" He said, if you knew
the gift of God, isn't that what he said? And who it is that asks
you for water, you'd ask me for water, living water. And I'd
give you water that'd be a well in you bubbling up unto everlasting
life. Salvation is the free and sovereign
gift of God. In Romans chapter 6, verse 23,
the Scripture says the wages of sin is death. If you want
to talk about payday, that's the payday. You're looking for
a payday. You're looking to work your way
into glory. This is what you're going to find out. You're going
to find out what the wages of sin is. All have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. But
now listen, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord. And then Paul said this, he wrote
this in his second letter to Timothy. He said, God hath saved
us and called us with a holy calling not according to our
works. but according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. Salvation is the free and sovereign
gift of God. Well, preacher, how do you deal
with people who are convinced that man has a free will? They
believe that salvation is theirs for the taking. How do you deal
with that? How do you approach somebody
like that? How do you talk to them? Well, first of all, the
scripture says this. You're going to have to come
to this place. A man who won't come to this place, I've got
nothing for him. I can't do anything for him.
God has to bring him to this place. But the scripture said,
let God be true and every man a liar. That's where you're going
to have to start. It's not what I think. It's not what my mother
thinks. It's not what my granddaddy thinks.
It's not what the First Baptist Church thinks or their confessions
of faith in whatever denomination. Paul said, let's go here. And
he was talking to Jews. And he said, let's go here. Let
God be true and everybody else a liar. Let's do that. Let's see what God has to say
about this thing. Believe God's Word and let that
settle it. Secondly, know this. Men are
spiritually dead. They're spiritually dead. And
you say, well, yeah, but the majority, the majority of religion,
the overwhelming majority of religion, Believes that man has
a free will. Preach that man has a free will.
Let me tell you something. The overwhelming majority has
always been wrong. Huh? That's exactly right. You go back to the flood. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. He preached for 120 years. Preached
repentance and faith in Christ. Righteousness. He imputed righteousness
by faith in Christ. And he preached to this world.
But this world, the whole world, believed this man's preaching
to be foolishness. Believed this man to be out of
his head. Why? Because he didn't think like
everybody else thought. And the majority was wrong. Israel
out in the wilderness. Somebody decided Moses had too
much on him. He couldn't possibly be God's
ambassador. The things that he was telling
them didn't make sense, seemed like foolishness. They all got
together and voted. The majority vote was against
Moses. They were all wrong. Their carcasses,
God said, none of them going to enter into the promised land. Their carcasses are going to
fall right here in the wilderness. He didn't let any of them come
in. The majority has all looked at the death of Christ. The Gentiles
got together, the Jews, which was the only godly religion in
the world at that time, the Jews, the Gentiles, the scribes, the
Pharisees, the teachers, anybody that was anybody turned thumbs
down on Jesus Christ. They all got together and voted
and decided this old pilot stood up and he said, now wait a minute.
He said, we've got a loophole here. We grant you that one of
these men might be released." And he said, so this man Jesus,
he was trying to get him released. Those Pharisees and scribes went
out into that audience and they stirred up the people and they
said, crucify him and give us Barabbas. The majority was wrong. And they're always wrong. Always
have been. They've been wrong since the
beginning. John said this. You can find this over in 1 John. It's chapter 5 and verse 19. He said, We know that we are
of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. The whole world lieth in wickedness. In Ephesians 4, verse 17, it
says, Walk not, as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their
mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from
the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the
blindness of their heart. This world is spiritually dead. They're spiritually dead. The
last thing in the world you want to do is listen to the reasoning
of a dead man. You understand what I'm saying?
So you want to know the truth about things? Right here. Here
it is. This is God's Word. He's confirmed this book by miracles,
wonders, and signs. There's no question mark can
be put on the Word of God. This is God's Word. All you have
to do is go to it. All you got to do. And when they
want to go somewhere else, just back out of the talk. I'm not
going to talk to you about free will and what Confucius had to
say about it. If we're going to talk about
free will, let's go to the Word of God and see what he says. Men are spiritually dead. They're
ignorant of the truth of the gospel. And then thirdly, know how to answer men who oppose
the truth. We do not teach salvation apart
from the will of man. Make them understand. I'm not
saying that God saves a man unwilling. I'm not saying that at all. What
I'm saying is his will is in bondage to his nature and he
has to be made willing. And I don't have the power to
make him willing and you don't have the power because it's not
of the will of the flesh and it's not of the will of man,
of somebody else. You can't make this man understand
and see and agree with the things that you're saying. But he says
this over in Psalm 110, he said, my people shall be willing, now
listen, in the day of my power, in the day of his power. Well,
what is the power of God? What's he talking about there
in the day of his power? What day is he talking about?
He's talking about the gospel day. You know, he tells you over
in Hebrews 3, I think three or four times the word today is
used. Today, if you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts like they did in the day of provocation. Today is the day. This is the
gospel day. Paul prayed for freedom to preach
this gospel because he said this gospel, the preaching of this
gospel, is the power of God unto salvation. Here's the power.
You want to know where the power is? The power is in the gospel,
and the gospel is attended by the Holy Ghost. So it's the day of the gospel.
It's the power of God unto salvation under those called of God. Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God. And men are made willing
by hearing and understanding the truth. Until a man understands
the truth, he's going to stay in bondage to his will. That's
just exactly right. You put an infant down on the
ground. Take him out here somewhere out here in the marsh and set
him right down next to a rattlesnake and see what that infant does.
He'll just crawl right over that rattlesnake and reach out and
try to pet it. Why? Because he don't know what it
is. Huh? Same thing with man who's spiritually
dead. He don't understand the danger
of false religion and he don't understand the danger of being
under the wrath of God. He don't understand those things.
That's why he does and reacts the way he reacts. He don't know.
He don't know. The natural man, the Scripture
says, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God because
of their foolishness unto him. All right, 2 Peter 1, 3. 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. Eternal life, which is the gift
of God, is to know God through the manifestation of himself
by the person and work of his son in the salvation of sinners. That's the only place where God
reveals his true character. You can go out here on the lake
and you can look at the trees and you can see the creative
power of God. You can understand that there's
a, you just look, I was watching that hurricane come up the coastline
and just, it wouldn't do what they said it was going to do.
Every time they'd say this is what it's going to do, it did
something else. I watched that thing go up through
there and my thought was this, there's power and order. in creation. If there wasn't, this place would
just blow up. I mean, it would, if there wasn't
some order to the meteors that are flying around and the revolutions
of the earth and all of these things around the sun, if there
wasn't some order in creation, this thing would just implode.
It just, but there's order. And you can go out on the lake
and you can look at creation and you can know that there's
a God who sits on the throne who has order in creation. But
it won't reveal His grace and it won't reveal His mercy and
it won't reveal His kindness or His love. It'll just tell
you there's a God that sits up there. And your conscience, which
God has given every man, will bear witness that this God who
sits on that throne is going to punish sin. If you didn't bear witness, your
conscience would never bother you. You could do anything you
want to do. Your conscience would never bother
you. And some men, God has given over. He's taken that effect
of conscience away. It's been seared, the scripture
says, as with a hot iron. Just lay a hot iron down on it,
and now it's gone. It's gone. Eternal life, which is the gift
of God, is to know God. And it's to know Him through
the... He manifests Himself to men through the person and work
of His dear Son. Turn with me to John chapter
17. Let me show you that in the Scripture. Contrary to religion, eternal
life is not born out of catastrophe. It's not born out of emotion.
It's not born out of dreams and visions. Eternal life is born
out of knowledge. Spiritual knowledge. That's how it's born. John 17,
verse 2. Talking about himself. This is
his prayer. This is his high priestly prayer
for his people just before he goes to the cross to give himself
a sacrifice for sin. He calls upon the Father and
He tells him, He said, Glorify thou Me with thine own self,
with the glory that I had with you before the world was. And
then He says in verse 2, As thou hast given Him power over all
flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given Him. Now watch this. And this is life
eternal that they might know thee. the only true God and Jesus
Christ whom thou sent. It's born out of knowledge. It's
not born out of emotion. Now, I guarantee you, after all
this catastrophe up and down the coast and near-death experiences
and all this, there are going to be hundreds and thousands
of professions of faith born out of that. And an old wise preacher told
me one time, he said, that which is born in the storm will die
in the calm, and that's exactly what will happen to them. Our
Lord said, if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples? Indeed. And you shall know the
truth, and the truth shall set you free. It's by His divine
authority and according to such appointments as God has given
to Him that all things are given unto us that pertain unto life
and godliness. It wasn't me. I tell you, the
man that God saves by His grace, he asked this question and just
keeps asking it all the way to the grave, why me? Huh? Don't you ask yourself that sometimes?
You come up to men that you've known all your life and they're
wise and they're talented and they're well-known in the community. They've got every advantage known
to man. And this man don't know nothing
about the grace of God. And here you are, the old rebel
who had his fingers into everything, did everything he ever did wrong.
God reveals His grace to you. Huh? That's the glory of God's
grace. This was a faithful saying. Worthy
of all acceptation, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,
Paul said, of whom I am chief. So it's by divine authority,
and it's according to all these appointments which God has given
to it, that all these things are given to us. Now watch this,
2 Peter 1.4. whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that's
in the world through lust." Now, the reason I went into such detail
in the beginning of this message, even though this is my main subject
right here, I don't want you to lose sight
of the context of this verse. We're talking about all things. We're talking about salvation
itself given to us. All things that pertain unto
life and godliness given to us through the knowledge of Him
that's called us to glory and virtue. Now, whereby are given
unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might
be partakers of the divine nature. Peter's talking about saving
knowledge. He's talking about eternal life
and this life given to us through the knowledge of him that's called
us to glory and virtue. He's talking about receiving
and embracing great and precious promises, promises of free justification. Election unto salvation. Predestination
to adoption. Imputed righteousness. Redemption
through the blood of Christ. Regeneration of the spirit. Faith
and repentance. Preservation of my faith. The
working of providence. A hope of life after death. These
are all things beyond our reach, beyond our ability, and beyond
our understanding. But it's not beyond his. Huh? And it's not beyond him who is
both God and man and one person. This person, Jesus Christ, had
divine nature. Did he not? He thought it not robbery to
be equal with God. That's what the scripture said.
Scripture said he's God over all, blessed forever. Scripture calls Him God our Savior. He's God. And this verse is not
talking about believers being imparted the very essence and
nature of God. I'm tired of hearing about it.
I've got the nature of God. If you did, you'd never think
sin, you'd never do sin, you'd never go contrary to the Word
of God. You'd walk a perfect life exactly
like Jesus Christ. But we, by these, these great
and precious promises, are partakers of the divine nature. Well, I don't understand what
you're saying, preacher. All right. I personally have never
kept the law, not a single statute of it. Not one single statute
of the law have I ever kept to the full satisfaction of a holy
God. But I have an absolute flawless
righteousness before God. And I have it in Christ. I'm
a partaker of his divine nature. Isn't that what this is talking
about? Through these, through these great and precious promises,
we're partakers of his divine nature. In Christ, I have a perfect righteousness. And it's according to the promise
of God. Abraham believed God. It counted
to him for righteousness. You think Lot was a holy man
down there in Sodom? But here's what Scripture said,
that righteous man. Now, there's no way he's talking
about some kind of personal righteousness He's talking about that imputed
righteousness of Christ given to that man and charged to that
man. Secondly, I personally have nothing to offer an infinitely
holy God in payment for my sin. And I'm telling you, if you think
you do, you're deceived. What are you going to give God
to redeem yourself from your sins? Huh? What would you offer
him for that? Yet in Christ, I am redeemed
fully and perfectly by the sacrifice of his son. When he died, I died. When God raised him from the
dead, he raised me from the dead. He was delivered for our transgression. He was raised again for our justification. Thirdly, I personally have no
strength and no hope in myself that having died, I should by
my own strength and will raise myself from the dead. Anybody
in here foolish enough to believe that when they bury them and
put them in the coffin and shovel the dirt on you, that somehow
you're going to dig your way up out of the hole and come out
of there? I don't have any kind of strength,
but I have a perfect hope in Christ that in that day and at
his command, I'm going to come out of that box. Job said, though after this body,
worms devour this flesh, yet in my flesh, I'll stand on this
earth and I'll see God. Huh? That's what it means to be partakers
of his divine nature. that by these, these great and
precious promises, we might be partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that's in the world through lust. And we do that through our knowledge
of God our savior, we've escaped the corruption that's in the
world through lust. And this can't be talking directly
about our depraved nature and our corruption of flesh. If we
say, the scripture said, if we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth's not in us. So that can't be what
he's talking about here. No man should be fully eradicated
from sin this side of the grave. It's not going to happen. You're
going to keep right on sinning until you go to the grave, and
God raises you incorruptible out of that grave. And any man
or any woman who claims to have a personal, sinless perfection,
he's deceived. And any man who teaches something
like that is antichrist. That's just so. All right, preacher, what is
Peter talking about? Well, first and foremost, he's
talking about the deceit, the lies, and the false concepts
which are the fruit of corrupt men. That's what it is. It's the fruit of corrupt men. We've escaped these things by
our knowledge of Christ who made an open show of Satan and his
lying ways. You see what he's saying here?
Secondly, we've escaped the corruption that is in the world through
lust, chasing after false treasures, pleasures, and self-glory. John
said all that's in the world. All of it, everything that's
in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes
and the pride of life is not of the Father. What's it of? Of the flesh. Of the flesh. Believers, Paul said, seek those
things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand
of God. Not things of the earth. He said,
don't lay your treasures up down here. These things are going
to be burned up. Face not a get-out-of-jail-free
card, and face not the magic words, if memorized, that'll
cast a spell on God and cause him to forgive about your sins.
That's the way people view the doctrines of grace sometimes.
They memorize the doctrines of grace and quote them, but they
don't really believe them. And somehow speaking the magic
word, you know, is going to do it. That's not faith. Faith embraces the Savior. Faith embraces Christ, and it
embraces Him as He's set forth in the Word of God and through
the preaching of the Gospel. And by faith, Christ is found
in you, which is the hope of glory. When does a man truly
believe? When he can say from his heart,
Christ is all. Christ is all. If you embrace Him and the Scriptures
set Him forth as all, and you embrace Him, He ought to be all,
shouldn't He? All my hope, all my wisdom, all
my understanding, all my righteousness, all my redemption, all my sanctification,
all my desire. Paul said for me to live is Christ,
to die then is gain. Faith embraces the Son of God,
and embracing Him, everything else loses its luster. Have you
found that to be true? Sure you have. You can't see
the glory of God in Christ, the glorious treasure of heaven,
and everything else still have its luster. There's no other way of escaping
the corruption that's in the world, including the lust of
the flesh, except by faith in Christ. Here is the victory which
overcometh the world, even our faith. 2 Peter 1, verse 5. And beside
this, Beside my soul, I just touched
on these things. You think about just the things
that I told you that we have in Christ. What glorious things. We can preach on that from now
on. All those glorious things that God has given us in Christ.
But Peter says, besides this, giving all diligence to add to
your faith, virtue. And to virtue, knowledge. and
to knowledge, temperance, and to temperance, patience, and
to patience, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness,
and to brotherly kindness, charity." Now, Peter's not suggesting here
that faith alone in Christ is not effectual to the saving of
our soul. What he is telling us is that
faith without works is not true faith. That's what he's telling
us. It's dead, like James said, being
alone. True saving faith is of transforming
power. Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica. I think it's in 1 Thessalonians
1, verse 6. And he said, I know your election
of God. How do you know that, Paul? Our
gospel came not in word only, but it came in power. And it came in the Holy Ghost. When the gospel comes, it comes
with an irresistible power and light that turns men from the
direction they're going. He said, He turns you from your
idols to serve the true and living God. That's how he described
that power. You become followers of us and
the Lord. Used to follow every wind of
doctrine. But you become followers of us and the Lord. That sounds
like transforming power, don't it? That don't sound like something
a man memorizes and just quotes every time somebody asks him
if he's saved. And James goes so far as to say
this. Abraham's faith was justified
when he willingly put his son on the altar. His faith was justified. That's
faith. That's faith. Rahab's faith was
justified when she entreated God's messengers and helped them
escape their enemies. That's what James said. Her faith was justified. And
he said, you show me your faith without your works, I'll show
you my faith by my True faith has works. It has works. And it works in us. Don't settle
for a faith that has no effect on your heart. That's what I'm saying. Faith
is a heart work. From the heart man believeth
unto righteousness. Do not settle for a faith that
has no effect on the heart. This is a faithful saying, and
these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they
which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works,
for these things are good and profitable unto men.