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Bro. Bill Nichols
Okay, I'm ready. This morning, we're going to begin a new chapter.
2 Peter 1. We just finished 1
Peter and everything, I thought, went reasonably well. Now, in 2
Peter, we have a little bit of an issue. At least there was an issue for a time as to who actually wrote 1
Peter. The first thing we're going to do after we read it and pray, we're going to look at, for a minute or so, who actually wrote 2
Peter. It might surprise you to know that Peter did. Okay, I'm going to allow the
Blue Letter Bible to read this for me. That way, you don't have to listen to me as much.
It just takes a second. Here we go. The 2nd Epistle General of Ephesus, chapter 1.
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ. To them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our
Savior Jesus Christ, 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 now given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Beside this, giving all diligence, 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.
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his own sins.
Wherefore, the brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure.
For if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly, into the everlasting kingdom of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Wherefore, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.
Yea, I will not be sick and beat, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you well, by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly
I must put off this white tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me. Moreover, I will endeavour that ye may be able, after my decease, to have these things always in remembrance.
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 eyewitnesses of his majesty, for he received from God the
Father honour 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. This voice, which came from heaven, we heard, when we were with him in the holy mountain.
We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your eyes, knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
For the prophecy became not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost. Let us pray.
Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, and thank you for the grace and peace that you have given us.
Thank you for your Son, that you gave us, who came into the world to live and to die, to live the perfect life, and die the death that would take the place of ours.
Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to help guide us and lead us in these times of turmoil, and thank you for giving us your reference book, your standard, your holy scripture, that we may always have it available to study, and with the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, come to the lessons, come to the conclusions that you would help us reach.
Go through the services today, and as we go through the week, this week, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Well, I began with Matthew Henry. He was a Puritan, actually not a
Puritan, he was an English preacher who lived from 1662 to 1714.
And what he said was this, the penman of this epistle appears plainly to be the same who wrote the foregoing, that's 1
Peter. And whatever difference some learned men apprehend, they discern in the style of this epistle from the former, this cannot be sufficient argument to assert that it was written by Simon who succeeded the
Apostle James in the church at Jerusalem, insomuch as he who wrote the epistle called himself
Simon Peter, and an apostle. And he says he was one of the three apostles that were present at Christ's Transfiguration, and says expressly that he had written the former epistle to them.
The design of this second epistle is the same as that of the former, as is evident from the first verse of the third chapter, which observe in things of God we have need of precept upon precept, and line upon line, and all little enough to keep them in remembrance.
And yet these are things which should be most faithfully recorded and frequently remembered by us.
So that's what he said about who wrote 2
Peter. There was a reluctance from early church leaders to accept the authorship of 2
Peter as being Peter. In fact, some of the early reformers still resisted
Peter. Dr. MacArthur said this, the author of 2
Peter is Peter. And I tend to agree, maybe we say make too much of it, but in case you run into any issues about who wrote 2
Peter, there is too much alike. 1 and 2
Peter, MacArthur said were even more alike than Titus and Timothy, which everybody assumes and is written by Paul.
And Paul didn't say that he wrote them in the course of the letter.
Peter said he wrote this one. So in any case, 2
Peter chapter 1 verse 1. Simon Peter, a servant and apostle.
Take note of that. A servant and an apostle. We talked about this a little last week when we talked about Peter not holding himself to any higher level of excellency than the other apostles.
He doesn't even hold himself any higher than what? A bondservant, a slave.
The first thing he calls himself is what? A servant, a bondservant. And then an apostle.
The order is important. His standing as a bondslave was more important to him than his status as an apostle, even though he was both of those things.
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our
Savior Jesus Christ. So who did Peter write to in this letter?
He wrote to the same people that had the same experience that he had, the same
Savior salvation that he had, which he called a precious faith.
And how did you get that precious faith? It was obtained not by the efforts of men, but by the righteousness of God.
Matthew Henry said, we have an account of the people to whom this epistle was written.
They are described in the former epistle as elect according to the foreknowledge of God, the
Father, and here as having obtained precious faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, the faith mentioned here is vastly different than the false faith of the heretic or the vain faith of the hypocrite or the fruitless faith of the formal professor.
However orthodox he may be, it is the faith of God's elect wrought by the
Spirit of God in effectual calling. That was what Matthew Henry had to say.
Verse two, grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our
Lord. Grace and peace. These two most precious gifts are ours in the knowledge of God and of Jesus as our
Lord. When we draw near to God, we gain these essential foundations for living.
What are they? Grace and peace. You might note that Peter, like Paul in his letters, listed grace first and then peace.
Why do you think that is? Why do you think he listed grace and then peace?
Because peace comes from grace. If you don't have peace, you don't have grace. There was a group of people in the protest not so long ago, maybe they still do, that would go out on the street chanting, no justice, no peace.
Remember that? A better watch call might have been no grace, no peace.
If you don't have grace, justice won't matter, nothing will matter, you won't have peace.
No grace, no peace. Verse three, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.
Now, here's something from Charles Spurgeon. Divine power, what a stupendous, what stupendous issues are grasped from that term divine power.
It was this which digged the deep fountains of the earth and sea. Divine power, it is this which guides the marches of the stars in heaven.
Divine power, it is this which holds up the pillars of the universe and which one day shall shake them and hurry all things back to their native nothingness.
That's kind of a restatement of one of Paul's writings where he talks about Jesus being the glue that holds all things together.
He says in him all things consist, all things are held together by what? By the power of Jesus Christ.
This divine power, that's what holds everything together and without it everything would be gone.
And where do we get this divine power? We get it through knowledge of him.
We get it through knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ. But as natural men, we're willing to try almost anything except knowledge of him.
Now you tell me this, how many times have you or I gone into a problem and the first thing we did was we tried to figure it all out, put it all together, make plans, look at all possibilities and then proceed without doing the one thing we needed to do.
Instead of relying on our plans and our schemes, we should rely on our knowledge of him.
We should try knowing ourselves, knowing him ourselves, instead of just having a knowledge of him.
And there's a difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing
Jesus. You can know about Jesus by reading a book about Jesus.
You can know about Jesus by reading the Bible. But you can't know about Jesus without having an intimate knowledge of Jesus himself.
We should try knowing ourselves instead of knowing him ourselves instead of knowledge about him. We need to come to the same place that the
Apostle Paul did when he said that I might know him. That is in Philippians 3 verse 10.
And that's a verse I'm going to read and it's one that I, if I had written the
Bible, I might not have put this verse in. Let me just read it to you.
Okay. I'm going to go back a verse earlier.
Philippians 3, 9. And be found in him not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, not know about him, but know him, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto death.
I'm going to read that last verse again a little bit slower. That I might know him, not know about him, know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering.
Think how Jesus suffered. And what Peter, what Paul is saying here is he's talking about fellowship in suffering.
And my only comment to that is, ouch. I don't really myself want to be in the same kind of suffering that Jesus is in.
Jesus had to go through. But that's not what
Peter said. Peter said that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death.
But here's the problem. The knowledge of Christ only comes to those that are called.
It is knowledge, but it is not near intellectual understanding or intuition.
That's why there are people that can take the Bible and read it and read it and read it and read it and come to an absolutely opposite conclusion of what the scripture is saying.
The Bible is written that way. It's written so that the knowledge of God comes only to those that are called.
It is a knowledge that comes by experience. But it is the experience
God's people have of God himself, not the experience they have of themselves in the world.
It's not worldly experience. It's not how many times you read the scripture. It's how many times you read the scripture with the guidance of the
Holy Spirit helping you to understand what the Bible is saying. And there's a difference.
Matthew Henry said knowledge of God and faith in him are the channel whereby all spiritual supports and comforts are conveyed to us.
But then we must own and acknowledge God as the author of our effectual calling for so he is described here.
Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. Observe here the design of God in calling or converting men is to bring them to glory and virtue.
That is peace and grace as some understand it, but many prefer marginal reading glory and virtue.
And so we have effectual calling set forth as the work of the glory and virtue or the glorious power of God which is described in Ephesians 1 verse 19.
It is the glory of God's power to convert sinners. This is the power and the glory of God which are seen and experienced in his sanctuary.
This power or virtue is to be extolled by all that are called out of darkness into his marvelous light.
So it's not just the, according to Matthew Henry, it's not just the preacher or the teacher that needs to extol the virtues of God.
It is everybody that has experienced the virtues of God. Everybody that has been called out of darkness into light needs to preach forth this message, the message of the gospel of Christ.
Verse four, whereby are given unto us great exceeding and precious promises that by these ye may be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Matthew Henry again. Those in whom the holy spirit works, the divine nature are freed from the bondage of corruption.
Those who are by the spirit of grace renewed by the spirit of their mind are translated into the liberty of children of God.
For it is the world in which corruption reigns. Those who are not of the father but of the world are under the power of sin and the world lies in wickedness.
The domination of sin, the domination that sin has in men of the world is through lust.
Their desires are to it and therefore it rules over them. The dominion that sin has over us is according to the delight we have in it.
That's something to think about but not too long.
Charles Spurgeon. God's promises are both exceedingly great in the sense of being large and imposing but they're precious in the sense of being valuable.
Many things which are not precious such as great rocks which are of little value.
On the other hand, many things are precious which are not great such as diamonds and other jewels which cannot be very great if they're going to be precious.
But here we have promises which are so great that they are not less than infinity. They're infinitely great and so precious that they are not less than divine.
God's promises exceedingly great and precious. So great that they're infinitely great and so precious that they can only be divine.
That's my paraphrase of Spurgeon's. Yes. That is a quote by Matthew Henry and it would not be something
I could get back to easy but it is worth looking at again.
That was Matthew Henry. It was Matthew Henry and his whole commentary is in the
Blue Letter Bible. Everything that he has is in the Blue Letter Bible or you can go straight to Matthew Henry and pop it up in other places and it's readily available and it's free for everybody.
It is beautiful. He is one of the people that I look to frequently.
The people I look to when I put my stuff together are Dr. MacArthur since I've lost access to my logos.
I don't get to as much. Matthew Henry, Spurgeon, and Chuck Missler.
These are people that I go to often. I'll get Chuck Missler later today too. In any case, that was
Matthew Henry. The dominion that sin has over us is according to the delight we have in it.
Wow. Second Peter 2 verse 5.
And besides this giving all diligence 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 I couldn't resist looking up brotherly kindness again and when
I went to the Blue Letter Bible to check that it was Philadelphia from whence it came from Phileo.
The same kind of love we talked about last week that Peter had for Jesus but not the kind of love that Jesus had for Peter.
And it turned out in this verse that it's almost the same word but in the
Greek the kind of sometimes tag on who the love is to to the word love itself and this is actually brotherly kindness is actually the word
Philadelphia. Love of the brothers and it is the highest form of love that a natural man can possibly hold.
If you're a natural man apart from God the highest form of love that you can have is the kind of love that one has for one's brother and that would be like everybody in this church would have brotherly love to everyone else in this church.
But there's a higher form of love than that but it won't come as easy. I'm gonna go back and read the 2nd
Peter 1 7 again. And to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity.
Now you pop on charity and what do you find? A higher form of love agape.
It's a form of love that is made possible by God only for the elect and it has been given to the elect by Jesus Christ.
And if you don't have Jesus Christ you can't have agape love to anyone. You can't have that kind of love.
The best you can do is brotherly love. That's why Peter was so sad when he in the in Luke passage we talked about when the final time
Jesus said to Peter do you have brotherly love for me. He had asked him three times two times if you had agape love for him and he said
I have brotherly love and this time third time he said do you have brotherly love and Peter was sad because he said the third time do you have brotherly love for me because he knew there was a difference.
Matthew Henry again in these words the words we just read the apostle comes to the chief thing intending in this epistle to excite and to engage them to advancing grace and holiness and having already obtained that precious faith and had been made partakers of the divine nature this is a very good beginning but it is only a beginning it's not to be rested in as if we're already perfect when you walk down the aisle actually as brother
David says when you get up before you get up before you stand up to walk down the aisle to announce to the church and to everybody present that you've accepted the
Lord as your savior because he called you to him and now you know by the time when you stood up at that point you already had that divine nature you already had that grace you were already partakers in the divine nature but that's a beginning not an ending
Peter is exhorting them to press forward for the obtaining of more grace we should as we have opportunity exhort those we pray for and excite them to the use of all proper means to obtain what we desire
God to bestow upon them and those who would make any progress in religion must be very diligent and industrious in their endeavors without giving all diligence there is no gaining ground in the work of holiness those who are slow in business of religion will make nothing of it you could say that in every endeavor those who are slow in their business will make nothing of it we must strive if we're to enter in at the straight gate verse eight for these things for if these things be in you and abound they make you that you should neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ but he that like of these things is blind and cannot see afar off and have forgotten that he was purged from his old sin this is kind of the flip side of a coin that we looked at a couple of weeks ago we looked at this if you know what is right and you fail to do it then it's a sin if you have if you're in a situation where there's something for you to do and you know what is right to do and you fail to do it that's a sin but the flip side of this is if you don't know what is right then the only thing you can do is sin so we're left with this how do you know what's right do you know what's right because somebody told you this is right or do you know what's right because you studied the scripture and the holy spirit told you that this is right you study the scripture you study the word of God and you will be led to what is right to do and once you know what is right to do then to refuse to do it is a sin but if you read and you can't get any understanding from what the scripture says all you can do is sin verse 10 we're for the rather brethren you have diligence to making your call and election secure for if you do these things you shall never fall and Spurgeon said this it will be asked however why calling here is put before election remember the order in which things are brought up indicates something about the nature of them and he's asking this why is the calling put before the election since election is eternal and calling takes place in time so why did he say calling and then election was that a mistake should he have said election and then calling were you elected first or you were called first were you elected first or you called first you were all elected first we were all elected first but what
Spurgeon is saying here is you can't know that you can't know that you're elected until after you're called you're called then you understand that you're elected so for us the calling and then the election for God the election is before anything
I thought that was so profound we can't know we are elected until we're called that's why we can wander around as a lost sheep for years and years and years and never recognize that we are a sheep except for the
Lord will always keep prodding us we will do something and we'll know that it was not right to do we'll know our conscience will tell us it's not right to do but we won't know we won't know why but after we are called after we call then we know we're elect and then we know all of the things that we get from or some of the things we get from God we'll never know them all it's there's a a music thing that's popped into my head just now
I hear it all the time on radio I can only imagine have you heard that song I can only imagine every time
I hear that I want to rename the title I can never imagine we cannot possibly imagine all of the things that God has in store for us it's a beautiful song
I understand exactly what you're trying to say but it wasn't divinely inspired so I'll accept the fact that I can only imagine and I will add to my head some of the things that God has in store for me
I can never imagine them all okay now you'll never enjoy that song again
I've performed one of my missions sorry about that it is a beautiful song
I love it and it and it it plagues me every time I hear it okay second
Peter 1 11 for so an entrance must be ministered unto you abundantly and to the everlasting kingdom of our
Lord God and Savior what he's saying here is entrance will be supplied to you to the everlasting kingdom of our
Lord Savior Peter is reminding his readers of the great reward of calling an election made sure that they will enter heaven gloriously not as something to be snatched out from the fire
Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians 3 15 if you want to go there a second
I will and I'm going to go back three verses to 1
Corinthians 3 13 and start reading every man's work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is and if a man's work abide which he hath built thereon he shall receive a reward but here's the key verse if any man's work shall be burned he shall suffer loss now
I don't want to end there because there's a a colon but he himself shall be saved so as by fire he's talking about those that are called and those that are elect and those that proceed after they're called and elect not to work diligently not to do all the things they should do not to progress toward building up rewards in heaven they themselves will be saved but as as if they're snatched from a a twig snatched from a burning fire okay so Peter says wherefore
I will not be neglect negligent to put you always of remembrance of these things though you know them and be established in the present truth established is the same word that Jesus called was translated strengthen in Luke 22 32 when
Jesus told Peter when you have returned to me strengthen your brethren maybe we should read that one as well
Luke 22 32 and again
I'm going to drop back a couple of verses to give you context Luke 22 31 and Lord and the
Lord said Simon Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fell not so who do you think is going to win this battle
Satan or Jesus Peter or Satan Peter's going to win because Jesus prayed for him and Jesus said
Simon Simon behold Satan hath desired you that he may sift you as wheat but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fell not and when thou art converted strengthen the brethren that's the same word that he's using here as establish and here
Peter fulfills the commandment of God he would establish and strengthen us by reminding us of the basics of Christian life things which we already know he is just reminding us of verse 13 yea
I think meet as long as I am in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance
I think it meet
I think it's right because of what was at stake Peter knew it was right to remind people constantly especially since he knew that his earthly life was coming to an end knowing that shortly
I must put off this tabernacle that's like a tent knowing that shortly
I must put off this my tabernacle even as our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me we might consider the question how did
Peter know that I must shortly put off this tabernacle how did he know maybe it's because Peter was simply getting old or maybe it's because persecution the flames of persecution were getting hotter around him in any case church history tells us that Peter did die as a martyr just like our
Lord Jesus Christ showed him or told him in John 21 18 and 19.
I'm not going to read that moreover I will endeavor that you may be able after my deceased to have these things always in remembrance now
Peter seemed to be aware of the passing of all the apostles and the need to preserve the teaching of the apostles and the prophets this the written teaching of the apostles and their associates is the foundation of the church and is preserved by God for all generations
Paul says in Ephesians 2 20 and are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone and these things must be preserved for all generations the scripture is preserved for us that we may have it even today verse 16 for we have not followed cunningly devised fables whom they may known unto you the power and coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ but were eyewitnesses of his majesty for he received from God the
Father this is Jesus honoring glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory this is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased now what Peter's doing here is he's remembering part of what
Jesus said to him on the Mount of Transfiguration now he didn't include something that I know he remembered
I want to include it for him in just a second but he he put a period there and it is well for him that he put the period there so the question is when did
God when did Peter eyewitness the majesty of Jesus well many times he witnessed it when he walked on water he witnessed it when
Jesus fed the 5 000 people he witnessed it many times but it seems to be that here it was the transfiguration of Jesus and and we know this because Peter quoted here what
God the Father said to Jesus at the transfiguration this is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased now at the transfiguration the
Father spoke from heaven to declare his approval of and joy in God the
Son and as Peter wrote this we sense the words are still ringing in his ears because at the transfiguration he made the mistake of calling
Jesus equal with Moses and Elijah who appeared along with him for which he was soundly rebuked from heaven after that comma where Peter put his period after that comma this is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased hear ye him don't be listening to Moses and Elijah when you've got
Jesus himself to talk to now when you don't have Jesus himself to talk to what do you do where do you go you listen to the words of Elijah and Moses and the apostles and other things that you do have access to and the
Holy Spirit will guide you in your understanding of the words that you need to hear it was awesome for Peter and the disciples to see the transfigured glorified
Jesus it was awesome for them to hear this voice from heaven yet the experience itself did not transform their lives what transformed their lives only being born again by the
Spirit of God did that giving them boldness beyond measure remember at the crucifixion
Peter was afraid and ran off denied
Christ three times and ran off within within six months he was willing to preach the gospel to tell it all to declare his allegiance to Jesus Christ right there in prison knowing that he could be taken out and be crucified the next day and probably was the transfiguration was awesome but it was a passing experience until they were born again verse 19 we have also a more sure word of prophecy for until you do well to take heed as the light that shineth in a dark place until the dawn and the until the day dawn and here also we have a more sure word of prophecy but until you do well that you take heed as to the light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your heart
Peter's experience at the transfiguration was amazing but God's testimony about Jesus in his word is even more sure than Peter's personal experience now when we consider the prophetic testimony of Jesus we will do well to heed it there are at least 332 distinct
Old Testament predictions regarding Jesus the
Messiah that Jesus fulfilled perfectly the combination of this evidence together from simple statistical perspective is absolutely overwhelming
Chuck Missler has calculated the probability that any one man fulfilled eight of these prophecies is 1 in 10 to the 17th power to get a feeling for that number it would take if you took silver dollars about that big around painted one of them red mixed them with this many silver dollars and poured them out in a container let's say the container is the size of Texas the pile would be two feet deep of silver dollars that's for eight that's one chance in 10 to the 17th power if you consider 48 and remember how many are there 332 if you if you consider 48 of these prophecies the probability becomes 1 in 10 to the 57th power
I didn't say 57 I wanted to 10 to the 157th power now to model this silver dollars would be too big in fact atoms would be too big if in your model you used atoms instead of silver dollars the entire universe which we now believe is finite not infinite that's not not the sun the moon the stars not our solar system not our galaxy the entire universe would be too small to hold that many atoms that gives you a perspective of why it would do you well to heed what the scripture says second
Peter 2 1 uh 120 second Peter 120 knowing this first that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation even in Peter's day enemies of Jesus twisted
Old Testament prophecies giving them personal and bizarre meanings attempting to exclude