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Sunday school from August 23rd, 2015

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All right, let us pray. Oh Christ, our defender, protect us from those whose plans would subvert your truth through heresy and schism.
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That as you are acknowledged in heaven and on earth as one and the same Lord, so your people gathered from all nations may serve you in unity of faith, for you live and reign with the
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Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. All right, have any of you ever heard or even thought or maybe even taught that, listen, this whole idea about sound doctrine, that's all head knowledge.
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And we as Christians, we need to have heart knowledge. Have any of you ever heard these distinctions taught this way?
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What was the first part, knowledge? Yeah, head knowledge. Yeah, doctrine is bad because doctrine is head knowledge.
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Doctrine is bad, theology is bad because that's head knowledge. What Jesus is really looking for is heart knowledge. You sit there and go.
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You say phooey, okay, all right. Yeah. Well, right, you know,
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Jesus says things like out of the heart come all kinds of sin. You know, it's what comes out of the heart that makes somebody unclean.
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That's next week's pericope, by the way, in Mark 7. You know, it's not what goes into you that makes you unclean, it's what comes out of you that makes you unclean.
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And it comes out of your heart. And of course, then you sit there and you go, heart knowledge, what on earth is heart knowledge?
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And you know, what is the cash value of such a phrase? Work with me here for a second here because if we're talking about thinking versus feeling,
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I think that's kind of what the distinction is, right? Okay, I don't know about you, but my feelings have a tendency to deviate from thought.
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Does this happen to you too? Okay, you know, sometimes you feel something really bad and your head's going, knock it off.
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You know, you're not being rational here. Sometimes my feelings can lead me astray.
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And of course, we all, we kind of live in a society where feelings are sacrosanct, and yet feelings can be wrong.
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But try that out on somebody sometime. When their feelings are really wrong, you sit there and go, you know, your feelings are wrong on this.
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You'll hear the explosion probably from Fargo, okay? I'm just saying, people at Fargo will be going, whoa, what was that?
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The windows just rattled. You know, was that an earthquake? What was that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Somebody just said that somebody's feelings are wrong. Feelings can't be wrong. Oh, yes, they can.
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And you know, you think about, you know, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount talking about adultery and the fact that adultery is not just something that you do, it's something that you feel.
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It's something that begins in the heart. Well, the reason I'm bringing this discussion in to kind of begin with is that it's important for us as Christians to have our distinction and understanding of the importance of sound doctrine be grounded in what
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Scripture says, not what some theologian says, not even what Luther says, or a church father.
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The idea here is that Scripture actually tells us the importance of sound doctrine. And you'll notice a few weeks ago, we talked about the book of Jude.
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We went through the epistle of Jude, short little epistle. We're gonna spend a little bit of time in 2 Peter, especially in light of the sermon today, where we worked through the distinction between the
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Pharisees, the tradition of the elders, and how Jesus put the emphasis and basically said that secondary source of authority, those are commandments of men.
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And keep this in mind, Scripture is clear that the devil just continues to harass the church.
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Where there is a church, the devil's gonna harass it. And he harasses it not only through violence and bizarre things like that, but he sends his people to come and twist the truth, to teach things other than what
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Scripture says. And I kind of work from this assumption. If Scripture makes a big deal about something,
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I need to think it's a big deal. Does that make sense? If Scripture doesn't make a lot of something, maybe
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I don't need to overplay that hand. Does that make sense? The idea here is that we as Christians, we talk about the importance of sound doctrine.
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Well, let's adopt the same idea about sound doctrine and false doctrine that Scripture has.
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And these are passages, these are sections of Scripture that a lot of people don't spend a lot of time on, which I think is to their detriment when they then come up with these ideas.
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Well, you know, Chris, you're just awful cranky. And, you know, you have a lot of head knowledge, clearly, but you clearly don't have a lot of heart knowledge.
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That'd be, if I had a dollar for every time somebody said that to me,
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I would be a millionaire. So, I mean, seriously, it's part of the hazard of being a theologian and a
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Christian apologist, especially if you're doing any kind of comparative doctrine within the visible church. It just kind of goes with the territory.
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So we're gonna take a look at 2 Peter, an entire epistle, especially that second chapter, really focused in on this problem.
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And Peter, just so you know where he's at, he's in jail in Rome, he's about to die.
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That's where he's at. So, and any of you know the details of Peter's death?
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Anyone know those? Crucified upside down. Let me kind of give you the idea here is that we know from church historians at the time that Peter and his wife were both crucified.
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She went first the day before him, and he got to witness that.
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And one church historian records that his words to his wife were, remember the kindness of our Lord, remember the kindness of our
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Lord. So he gets to see his wife be crucified, and then the next day he goes. He was crucified in a place called the
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Circus of Nero. Now, you know what a hippodrome is? Back in the day they didn't have
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NASCAR, but they had chariot races. And there was a place where they held chariot races during Nero's reign, it was called the
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Circus of Nero. So it was kind of this elongated track, if you would.
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Very dangerous sport, lots of people lost their lives doing it. And Peter, he was crucified in the infield of Nero's circus, which
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I think is an appropriate name now that I think about it. In fact, have y 'all seen any photographs of outside of St.
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Peter's in Rome where they have that big open plaza? You know, when the Pope comes out and he does his thing, that big area right there, there's an obelisk.
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You know what an obelisk is? You know, the Washington Monument is an obelisk. There's an obelisk there in the center of that plaza, and that was the obelisk that was next to Peter while he was being crucified.
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That was Nero's obelisk. And so there's fascinating things that kind of go along with this. But as Peter's being, they're getting ready to crucify him, he has a fit and basically says that he's not worthy to suffer and die the same way
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Christ suffered and died. You know, his own sin, he says that he's not worthy of it.
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And so they said, fine, have it your way, we'll do it different. And they crucified him upside down. That's how he got crucified, upside down, because he didn't think himself worthy to die in the same manner that Christ died.
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As a result of it, it took him several days to die. And while he's upside down, crucified, they're holding the games and they're having these chariot races.
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And Nero was actually one of the participants in it the way the history goes. And so those are the details of how he dies.
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And this epistle is written, this is his last, and he's about to go to his death for preaching
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Christ. Okay, just for preaching. Oh yeah, yeah, well, the
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Romans interpreted the message that Jesus is Lord as being subversive, because Nero is
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Lord, Nero is king. So they heard the allegiance to Christ as being politically subversive.
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And part of that had to do with the fact that the Romans still had this idea that the emperors were, in a sense,
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God and divinity, and you had to pay homage to them and worship them, and Christians wouldn't.
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This is part of what led to the persecution. So think of it this way. If we're talking about like, you're getting ready to die, you know your execution's coming, and these are my last words to you.
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The words of somebody who knows they're gonna die, they're gonna talk to you about really important things.
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So think of it like that. This is like last will and testament. This is like, I'm about to die, I'm about to go, these are my last thoughts, remember what
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I'm saying here, is the ways of talking. So here it says, Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ to those who obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Oh, I could preach a whole sermon on that text, okay? Notice here that you
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Christians have a faith that has an equal standing before God as the faith of Peter.
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There goes this whole pantheon of saints, right? You, because you are in Christ, and notice what he says, by the righteousness of our
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God. There's the righteousness of God given to us by grace through faith and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
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May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our
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Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature.
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Now, real quick here, it's a loaded phrase, partakers of the divine nature. Let me tell you how the church has historically understood this statement.
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Where do you partake of the divine nature? Answer, Lord's Supper. When you read, not
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Hippolytus, oh, I'm forgetting his name.
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Cyprian, Cyprian, when you read Cyprian's baptismal letters and his catechetical letters on this, he makes it very clear that to be a partaker of the divine nature, you partake of the divine nature when you come to the
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Lord's Supper, because Christ is truly present there. So his divine power has been granted to us that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
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Over and again, and I find it fascinating here, that Peter and Paul both talk about our corrupt, sinful nature and its sinful desires.
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This is, I mean, this shows something that's kind of important here. One of the ways in which people deceive is they teach, no joke, this has been something that's been in vogue since before the 20th century, that Paul is the creator of Christianity, not
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Jesus, and that there's different Christianities. Paul's Christianity is different than Peter's Christianity, and John's Christianity is different than the both of them.
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They all have different, they have different, that's nonsense. There's one church, one
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Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, and you'll see the fact that these guys, their message, they're the same.
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For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue. Notice that virtue doesn't give you saving faith.
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Virtue is the thing that happens because you have faith. So with virtue and virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self -control, self -control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love.
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All of this is because of the gospel, because you are in Christ. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
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Yeah, a Christian that doesn't mortify their sinful flesh, a
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Christian who lets the desires of their sinful flesh have reign in their life, makes them unfruitful, and Peter says that person's blind and forgets that he was cleansed from his former sins.
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Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.
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For in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Therefore, I intended always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have.
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I think it right, as long as I am in the body, to stir you up by way of a reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our
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Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me, and I will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things.
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So notice, he's anticipating his death, it's coming, and he's gonna make sure that the things that he's spoken, the things that he's taught, that they will be preserved, and this is preserved in this letter.
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Four, and here's the reason why, this is fascinating. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. Now, so here's the idea.
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Jesus, in his wisdom, has made it clear that we are to know about Jesus, not directly.
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He doesn't come to us directly. He comes to us through the preaching of the apostles. So when
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Jesus says, go and make disciples of all nations baptizing and teaching, notice that that's specifically given to the apostles.
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The apostles are still discipling today because we have the apostolic message.
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They were eyewitnesses of these things, and Jesus says to the apostles, the one who hears you hears me.
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There's no way to get to Jesus except through the apostles, which drives the world crazy, which is one of the reasons why every
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Christmas, every Easter, the History Channel has these things where the historical Jesus, can we actually find out who
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Jesus really was? Oh, and the reason why is because the Jesus that's presented in the Bible, he's a miracle worker.
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He claims to be God. He walks on water, raises the dead, gives sight to the blind. That has to be the
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Jesus of mythology, right? There has to be a, the real Jesus couldn't have done that because, well, we live in the age when we have smartphones, and that means you can't believe in a
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Jesus that does these miracles, right? And so that's why they do these things. But notice here, Peter, through the
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Holy Spirit, who inspired him to write these words, we did not follow cleverly devised myths.
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Everything written in the Gospels is history. It's eyewitness testimony. When we made known to you the power and the coming of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the
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Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son with whom
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I am well pleased. This is a reference to the experience that they had on the Mount of Transfiguration.
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Remember that account? They ascend up on a mountain. Jesus has Peter, James, and John with them.
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And then, boom, there goes the glory. Jesus lets it shine through. And then
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Moses and Elijah come and talk with Jesus to talk about his exodus, is the way the Greek says it. Talk about his exodus, his departure.
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And so this was their, and then they heard the voice. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.
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And notice that that was quite an experience. And what Peter is doing here, he's making a contrast between their experience and something that's even more sure and more certain than experience.
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And that's the written word of God. Did you have a question, Mark? Yeah, right under the teaching, but it's a question of history.
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Did Lucas Paul work in prison also? Did they know these guys were writing?
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Yeah, they didn't have a problem with that. Yeah, they were like under house arrest. Yeah, but still in chains with a guard.
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Yeah, you have to keep in mind that they weren't considered to, they weren't like murderers or robbers or things like that.
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These were men who were known for being meek and loving and kind and not seditious in a way where they were causing an uprising, but so they were kept under house arrest.
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The Romans were humane, but they were still crucified. Oh yeah, they were kind to you prior to giving you this death sentence.
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And then once they executed you, they made sure that you experienced the most exquisite suffering and pain.
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So notice the contrast here then, the contrast is between his experience and he's gonna point you to something that's even more sure.
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For we received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory.
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This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, and we were with him on the holy mountain.
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And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you do well to pay attention.
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Now this is a slightly convoluted translation. I wanna see what the NIV does with this real quick.
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Hang on. What verse is that? It was 19. And we have the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it.
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Not bad, it's a little bit better than the ESV there. Let me see something here. And so we have the prophetic word made more sure.
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The NASB gets it a lot closer to the Greek. And so we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your heart.
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So here's the contrast that Peter's making. We heard this voice, we saw the glory, we had this experience, but the prophetic word, the written word of God, that is even more sure and more certain than the experiences that we had.
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And he says you would do well to pay attention to these things as a lamp shining in a dark place, which is a reference then again to the
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Psalms. Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path, the psalmist says. So the idea being then is that experience, not more sure than the written word of God.
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Written word of God trumps experience. So here's the idea, is never as a
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Christian are we to let experiences be the thing that dictate what we believe. Because then you put your experiences being more sure and certain than the written word of God.
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And if your experiences contradict the word of God, you must believe
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God's word over your experiences. I'll give you a recent example. There was a Roman Catholic who did a lot of hospital visitation ministry, that was his thing.
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And in the course of his time in the hospital, he had the opportunity to interview people who were at one point clinically dead and then medically brought back from death and talk and pray with them about what they experienced when they were dead.
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And as a result of listening to their different experiences, he abandoned his belief in the doctrine of hell.
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Yeah, well, it doesn't matter what those persons were, whether they're Catholic, atheist, or whatever, when they were experiencing death, they saw light, they heard voices, they had conversations, and he surmised from this, that has to be more sure and certain than what the written word of God says.
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And so he abandoned his belief in the doctrine of hell. What becomes the word of God for him then? These other people's experiences.
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And then you have, another example, you have within academia, you have those who are philosophical materialists, who are also scientists, and they follow what we call scientism.
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This is where science becomes an ism. Scientism basically says, all there is is what you see.
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There is no God. It has this as a presupposition. And scientism teaches that the universe came into existence by random chance, and that we're all the products of some primordial ooze, where something, some little critter crawled out of it and then evolved into who we are.
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Yet there is no scientific evidence for that. And but what happens is, is that people who buy into this, now this is the most popular view out there.
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Ask the average American, where did human beings come from? We evolved. Since the majority believe it, to go against that, well, you know, you look like an idiot.
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Or a Christian. Yeah. Or both, they're synonymous with some people. And then there's
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Christians in the church who are uncomfortable with what scripture says.
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And so they begin to adopt the worldview of scientism and try to find a way to make
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Christianity and evolutionary theory work together. You have two conflicting authority structures that are just doing this, and there is no way to bring them together, and there's a real simple reason why.
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Is because the problem that we all face as human beings is that we're all born dead in trespasses and sins.
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We are all sinners. We have the law of God written on our heart, and when I preach the law, you all sit there and go, yeah, that's me.
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I see you nodding your head from up at the pulpit. I don't rat on you guys individually because I see you all doing it, right?
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I do it too. And so you have the law of God written on your heart telling you that you're guilty and that you stand condemned, and the solution to this is the forgiveness of sins won by Christ.
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And there's clear passages that make it clear that Christ's death is specifically for those who are direct descendants of Adam and Eve.
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Without a historical Adam and Eve, first parents that God created, there is no sin problem.
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Without a sin problem, there is no need for a crucified and risen Savior. Christianity just falls apart.
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All the churches that adopt and try to work these two things together, it always results in churches that are incapable of reproducing
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Christians, always. And that's ultimately what it means to be unfruitful. Unfruitful means you are not making disciples.
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You're not being salt and light. You've been desalinized. Does that make sense? All right, so we go back to our text.
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So we ourselves heard this voice, verse 18, from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart.
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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.
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All of the books that you have in the Bible, those are theonoustos. They are God -breathed. They are not the product of the author whose name is attached to it.
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The book of Isaiah contains the word of God, not the philosophical theological musings of a guy by the name of Isaiah.
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The Torah was given by direct revelation from God to Moses. And although Moses, everybody knows
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Moses is the author of the Torah, they do not contain Moses's speculative ideas and thoughts regarding theology.
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Does that make sense? For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the
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Holy Spirit. Chapter two, now the fun begins. Remember, Peter's writing this, he's going to die very soon.
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But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.
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Notice he doesn't say, potentially there could be, maybe at some weird time, some false teacher that might kind of sort of sneak in.
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No, we got a lot of them, lot of them.
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It's like a roach infestation right now. It's really bad.
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There will be false teachers among you. By the way, you know why? Because we're the church militant right now.
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We are. We're called to take up the full armor of God, which we're gonna hear about next
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Sunday too in our epistle reading. If we're to take up the full armor of God, who are the only people who necessarily must take on and put on armor?
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Answer, soldiers. And women, you're in this fight too. We're all soldiers in this.
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We are not the church triumphant until the consummation of time. A good way to think about it,
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Christ's death and resurrection is D -Day. That's D -Day. Jesus makes a beachhead on that day.
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The war is already over at this point, but it still has to be fought. Does that make sense? The conclusion is certain.
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And here's the idea. Each generation of Christians, they are the soldiers then that are fighting, working their way towards Berlin.
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The outcome is inevitable. But the battles still have to be fought. And everyone who is a soldier in that army is a soldier of the present and future coming kingdom of God.
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That's us. So we are literally soldiers of the future.
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And I mean that. We are soldiers under a king whose kingdom right now is invisible but will be visible.
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And the battles that we are put into, we don't get to pick them. No soldier gets to pick their battles.
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The reason why we face this is because we are still the church militant. So false teachers, they're gonna come among you, and they will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them.
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This text, by the way, denying the master who bought them rules out the Calvinist idea that Christ only died for the elect.
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You'll notice here it says that the heretics, that Christ also bought them.
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It's what the text says. Calvinists are, they're not correct on this. They believe that Jesus died only for those who are going to be saved.
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John the Baptist says behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And here,
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Peter says that the heretics, they're denying Jesus and Jesus actually also bought them.
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Which means they're totally foolish. Bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
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Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
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That is a huge word right there, sensuality. Let me show it to you in the Greek, asalegia.
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Lack of self -constraint which involves one in conduct that violates all bounds of what is socially acceptable.
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Total self -abandonment. I'm not even gonna resist sin,
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I'm just gonna go for it. And pursue it with total recklessness.
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Many will follow their self -abandonment, their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
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Do you know how many times I have had to say, so you're a pastor, yeah
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I'm a pastor. I'm a pastor. I pastor a Lutheran church and people go, oh. We know what that means.
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Yeah. Oh, you think I'm gay affirming, right? No, I'm not. Yeah. You gotta keep this in mind.
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You say the word Lutheran to most of the people out there, Lutheran means somebody who's in favor of abortion and supporting
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Planned Parenthood in the name of God, who blesses same -sex marriage and thinks
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Caitlyn Jenner is actually female. Yeah, I know.
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Bruce, that Bruce is really a female, correct. And so many times I have to say,
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I'm not that kind of Lutheran and those aren't Lutherans. They're Lutheran in name only. It just bugs me.
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Sometimes if I'm feeling particularly cranky, and I will confess that that happens from time to time, if somebody asks me what kind of church
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I pastor, I'll say a first -century Catholic church. And they'll go, what's that?
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And the reason I do it is because they don't have a category with that label. And it gives me the ability to not be misconstrued.
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Yeah, kind of sad. Yeah, small c, small c, small c.
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And see, that's the other thing. As soon as you say the word Catholic, people go, oh, you're with the Pope.
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No, I'm not. Or they'll see me in a clerical column and say, he's a Romanist. There's just no way around it.
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And here's the thing, all of this confusion has been caused by whom? The devil, okay?
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There was a time when Catholic had a good meaning and it doesn't. There was a time when Orthodox had a great meaning and it doesn't.
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There was a time when Evangelical actually had a great meaning and it doesn't anymore. He hijacks all of our labels.
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And these people who are bringing in these destructive heresies, the way of truth is being blasphemed because of them.
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And in their greed, over and again, the false teachers, you know what they're all about?
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Money. Money. In their greed, they will exploit you with what kind of words?
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False words. You mean, not everybody who says they're a
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Christian is bringing me and teaching me the truth? Right. You mean, not everybody who's on television is actually a straight shooter when it comes to God's word?
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Few are on television. And not everybody on the radio is either. You always have to listen with discernment.
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Their condemnation from long ago is not idle. Their destruction is not asleep.
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Notice that Peter puts them in the category of those who are headed to hell. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world but preserve
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Noah, a herald of righteousness, that's preacher, by the way, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.
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Pay attention. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by what? Fire. In brimstone.
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That's a picture of what's coming. That's a picture of hell. If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what's going to happen to the ungodly, if he rescued righteous
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Lot, and there it is right there. You sit there and you know what happened to Lot after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and you sit there and go, righteous.
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Scripture's clear on this. He is righteous by grace, through faith. Though greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, sensual conduct of the wicked.
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Now notice here, there's that term again. That term, asal gia.
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Total self -abandonment. What was the sensual conduct of Sodom and Gomorrah? What does it mean to be a
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Sodomite? Immoral, sexual. Yeah. Immorality. Yeah, but a Sodomite is one who is homosexual.
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Oh, yeah. Okay? So notice here. The sensual conduct of the wicked, same word, asal gia.
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Talking about those who, the heretics up here, secretly bring in destructive heresies.
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Many will follow their asal gia, sensuality. What's Peter prophesying here?
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Heretics who are going to bring in the same kind of teaching and try to wink at what the same kind of thing that we saw going on in Sodom and Gomorrah and put
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God's blessing on it. Same words, sensuality, sensuality, self -abandonment.
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And so the heretics are the ones, according to Peter, who are bringing in destructive heresies who follow their sensuality, just like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah followed their sensuality and their conduct was accordingly.
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So what's Peter prophesying here? False teachers who are gonna come in and say God doesn't care, or God blesses.
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Same -sex marriage and all kinds of sexual immorality. That's called sensuality, asal gia, self -abandonment.
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Peter here is prophesying the exact state of the church that we're in right now, right?
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They're denying that God has wrath. And this text, does this text make it sound like God actually punishes sin?
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Okay, now, let's say Pastrix Frau Brücke decides to come visit and give us a message telling us that God is love and he has no wrath in him.
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Pastrix Frau Brücke, has she spent time actually studying at the feet of Jesus for three years in the
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Judean wilderness? Is she an apostle? Who are we to believe,
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Peter or her? I'm gonna go with Peter, I'm going with Peter.
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I think that's the safe bet. Because Peter, in this passage, is describing her.
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And this is how we think. And Peter, he's an eyewitness to the resurrection of Christ. He saw him ascend into heaven.
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He was restored in his relationship with God and put in ministry after he denied
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Christ three times. I'm gonna go with Peter on this one. So when
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Pastrix Frau Brücke tells me that God blesses same -sex marriage, and I don't care how well she's liked in the community, she's wrong and she's telling us false words.
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And worst of all, like I said this morning, she's blaspheming, she's lying in the name of God.
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Rather than calling sinners to repent and to be forgiven, she's basically saying, God is love, he blesses this, this is beautiful.
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Is that person feeling the condemnation of God for their sin? No, they're being comforted with a false assurance.
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The result of that is that Pastrix Frau Brücke and all of the people listening to her go to hell.
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That's what's at stake here. You know, none of this is going to get through right now, you know, that everybody believes that the
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Bible is true. No, no, not even, it's not even, that isn't even universally accepted within churches that call themselves
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Christian. Well, they need to hear it. I mean, what I'm saying is, you know, as if I say, well, then this is, you know,
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Peter said this, Peter said, well, that gets nowhere. Oh, but see, the thing is, is that Peter is writing the very words of God.
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This is found in scripture. I know, and I. And you could say God says this, but when
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I say Peter says it, not as I'm giving his apostolic office, but the reality is this, this was written by inspiration of the
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Holy Spirit. These are God's words, not Peter's at the end of the day. And the thing is, is that God's word, not mine, it's living and active.
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And so here's the idea, is that when you're dealing with somebody who is an atheist, or dealing with somebody who is an unbeliever, or somebody who is confused about their
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Christianity, kind of have to approach it differently. Right, I would like to, if you would please approach it for me, for those that are, they are a
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Lutheran, let's say. Okay. Of the E .C .L .A. and the Lutheran.
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Lutheran, right. Whatever. The ilk kind, got it. The ilk. How do we talk to them?
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They are following their pastor. Oh, this is real simple. This is real simple. And I mean this.
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And you gotta be this forceful. What you're saying are words of men, not the words of God.
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Scripture is clear. Let me show you the passage that I quoted from this morning, okay. It's Revelation chapter 22.
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And what they've done is they've omitted, okay. Verse 18, 22,
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I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to them the plagues described in this book.
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If anyone takes away from the words of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life.
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Here's what they're doing. They're taking away words of God. It's not that they're saying the
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Bible isn't God's word. They're just saying certain parts of it are more God's word than others.
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So when they get to the part where Paul says, and that's how they'll put it, a woman is not to exercise authority over a man in church.
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They'll say that was Paul's opinion and he was a misogynist, so we don't have to obey that.
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When it says wrath of God, well, that's Peter talking. That's not Jesus. So what they're doing is they're playing this game.
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And what you basically have to do is call them out. You say, you are subtracting words of God and the message that you are giving people is perverted and wrong.
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You need to repent because God's gonna throw your scrawny little butt in hell. And I mean that, repent.
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Stop this nonsense and preach the truth and ask Christ to forgive you for all of your heresies.
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And you have to say it that way. And I guarantee you, you will not be invited to their birthday parties or Christmas parties, okay?
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I'll just get written off. Yeah, you might. But here's the thing, they know what you're saying is true.
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That's the dirty little secret. Because Romans chapter one says they're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
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And so here's the thing. Existentially, scripture tells you what's gonna happen inside of them.
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They're gonna be mad at you. And the reason they're gonna be mad at you is because you're saying the thing they're feeling.
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And the reason why they're getting away with this nonsense is because we now live in a politically correct society where the worst sin that you can commit is to actually hurt someone's feelings.
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How dare you hurt their feelings? Their feelings need to be hurt.
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And as long as what they say doesn't hurt anybody else, it's okay. No, it's not. That's a lie from the devil, right?
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And say it like that. I know it. Listen, this is gonna make you seem like you're a raving maniac.
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They're gonna call you John the Baptist. They're gonna give you grasshoppers and say, would you like some honey with this? I mean, this is the kind of stuff they'll do.
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But it has to be said, because here's the thing. God's word is living and active. So you tell them, you preach the law.
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Call them out on their idolatry and their blasphemy. Call it what it is. Call them to repent.
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Tell them Christ bled and died for it. Here's what's gonna happen. They're gonna go home, and they're gonna be, I can't stand that Judy Santas.
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I can't believe she told me to. Okay? And inside, the law of God written on their hearts going, she was right.
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She's telling you the truth, and you know it. And here's how the internal dialogue's gonna go. Shut up. I'm not gonna admit that.
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Right? But see, the thing is, is you've planted now a seed of the word of God. And God's word never returns to him void.
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Okay? Now, I don't talk about my radio program often here, but let me give you an example.
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Okay, I've been doing this long enough that we get a lot of emails. And the emails begin with this.
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Pastor Roseborough, I used to think that you were the biggest jerk in the whole wide world. First time
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I listened to your radio program, I thought you were the most arrogant, and then expletive, expletive, expletive.
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And I couldn't stand you. But I had to listen again.
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And so the next time I listened to you, I heard you say, never to listen to me with an open mind. Always listen with an open
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Bible. So I opened up my Bible, and I set out to prove you wrong. Because I couldn't stand that you were going after my favorite pastor, preacher, teacher, whatever, right?
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And I'm calling, I'm emailing you to say thank you. Because when
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I searched God's word, I realized you were telling me the truth. And the people I was listening to on television were lying to me.
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And now I've found a good church, where I'm hearing Christ crucified for my sins. And the pastor is comforting me with the gospel.
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And I can't tell you what a difference it's made in my life. But you know what?
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For each one of those, there's a lot of people out there who say I'm just critical. That's the way it is.
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The truth is divisive. I'm not trying to be divisive. But it divides between light and darkness, between truth and error.
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And Christ has commanded us to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins. This is
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Luke 24. So we have a message, we have a gospel. Our gospel is that Christ died for our sins and was raised again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, which means we have to preach the truth.
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And that means both law and gospel, sin and grace, eternal life and hell.
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God's love and his wrath against sin. You can't get rid of them.
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The whole thing comes together. And it's hard, because we all know, we all know.
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We don't even have to try this. We know what's gonna happen as soon as we do this. Why do we know that?
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Because you feel that same tension inside of you. You are a sinner as well,
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I am too. We know how our sinful nature bristles against the truth.
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This is not something you experience just because somebody out there reacted badly. You know this because you react badly internally.
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Christian girlfriend, you know?
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Yeah, yeah. Who knows any stuff. So I listened to it, it's like 50 minutes.
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I'm not for sure if you could see it, but if you could Google Ray Comfort's Audacity. Yeah. And it's a short
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Christian little story about this Christian man and he's got a girl and she says, you have the audacity to say that God's word says, blah, blah, blah.
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Yeah, yeah. And he says, yes I do. Yes. And it's a whole witness story on homosexuals.
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Mm -hmm. Because he's, it's a pretty good 50 minutes. And Ray, he's not a Lutheran, but he's learned from the
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Lutherans how to preach law and gospel. And I give him credit for that. He actually does a really good job. He does street evangelism in Santa Monica.
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And I mean, he will never give the gospel without first preaching the law. Because the gospel makes no sense without it.
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And so I give him a lot of props. And so. Unbelievable how many of the people. Yeah.
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Yes, you know, just everybody and their mother is. Yeah. My cat's a Christian.
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No. My daughter is. Yeah. Yeah. She's been baptized. Yeah. It was a lot of blood after that.
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But yes. Yeah. All right, let's keep reading.
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Okay. Verse seven. And if he, God, rescued righteous lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard.
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This is what we're experiencing too, is it not? So then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and we're gonna have them, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, especially of those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.
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The two go together. How does a church get to the point where they affirm homosexuality?
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They despise the authority of Scripture. That's the thing that goes first, and then that opens the door to the defiling passions.
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Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones.
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Whereas angels, by contrast, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the
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Lord. But these, these false teachers like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant will also be destroyed in their destruction.
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Suffering wrong is the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions while they feast with you.
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Reveling in their deceptions. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin.
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They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. They are accursed children.
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Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Baal who loved gain from wrongdoing.
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This is a prophet for profit, P -R -O -F -I -T. But he was rebuked for his own transgression.
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A specious donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness. Now watch this about the false teachers.
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They are waterless springs, mists driven by a storm. For them, the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.
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For them, for speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.
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They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
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For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
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There goes once saved, always saved. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness and after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered them.
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What the true proverb says has happened to them. The dog returns to its own vomit. And the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.
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Peter here is saying figuratively, these are dogs and pigs. They return to their vomit and their mud.
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This is now the second letter that I'm writing to you, beloved. In both of them, I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the
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Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing first of all that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
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Scoffers within the church, really, does the Bible really teach hell? Love wins, man.
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Peace out, dude. These are scoffers in this church scoffing at the very word of God.
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They will say, where is the promise of his coming? Not out in the world, but in the church.
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Where's the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.
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For they deliberately overlook this fact. Notice that he's saying, he's putting the onus on them. They are deliberately doing this.
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They deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God.
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But that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
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And there he goes. Really, you believe in Noah and the flood and stuff? Yeah, Peter did.
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So did Jesus. Who are you? But by the same word, the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire and being kept until the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly.
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And now we know the means by which God will destroy the earth on the last day. Not with water, but with fire.
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But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as 1 ,000 years and 1 ,000 years is one day.
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The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some account slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
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This should give us hope. Christ is tarrying, taking his time, because it's not his will that any should perish, and that includes you and me.
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But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a roar.
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The heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and all the works that are done in it will be exposed.
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Yeah, all of this is going bye -bye. If all of this is going to be destroyed by fire, what's the point of setting up a monument to your memory on this planet?
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There's no need for it, is there? No one will remember you after that day anyway, because you're nameless.
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Those who go to hell, their names are not written in the book of life. Their name is not written anywhere.
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Those who are in hell are nameless. The day of the
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Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will pass away with a roar. The heavenly bodies will be burned up.
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Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?
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Notice eschatological godliness here. All of this is coming, so think it through.
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In light of the eschaton, in light of the end of this world and the universe and everything being burned up, how should we live our lives?
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Waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn.
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But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, where we will dwell, because we are in Christ.
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No sin, no death, no heresy, no lies, no blasphemy. Therefore, beloved, since we are waiting for these things, be diligent, be found in him without spot or blemish and at peace, and count the patience of our
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Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all of his letters when he speaks in them of these matters.
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There are some things in them that are hard to understand which the ignorant and the unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures.
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Notice Peter here says that Paul's writings are what? They're scriptures.
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Yeah, they're hard to understand and some people twist them, but he says, Peter says, that Paul's writings are scripture.
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You see it? Which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures.
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Paul's writings are scripture, according to Peter. You, therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away by the error of lawless people.
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There it is, error of lawless people. Heretics are really lawless.
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And lose your own stability. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.
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Grow in the grace and the knowledge. Where am I going to grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? Bible only, period.
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Head knowledge versus heart knowledge, phooey, nonsense. I'm going with Peter on this one because he's writing the very words that the
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Holy Spirit wants us to hear. And he pointed us to the scriptures, the prophetic word as a lamp shining in the darkness.
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That's what's going to keep you from becoming unstable and unfruitful. So do you think
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Peter, in this final letter of his, thought that sound doctrine was important?
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For sure. Did he make a distinction between head knowledge and heart knowledge? Not really, no.
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He did talk about the importance of false teachers and true teachers, of truth and error. And he spoke in very unflattering terms regarding those who were teaching false doctrine.
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They're lawless, following after sensuality, and the utter darkest, gloomiest parts of hell are reserved for them.
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Not only are we not to listen to them, we need to do everything we can to snatch as many people out of their clutches as possible and preach the truth to them.
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Because we too have been plucked from the fires of hell by God's grace and his mercy. We are not better, we are forgiven, helping people find the forgiveness of sins.