Not Willing that Any Should Perish?

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. This is the Ruled Church Podcast.

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Periodically, we like to share sermons. Eddie and I are pastors of ruled churches.

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Sometimes we're busy. We don't always necessarily get the opportunity to record on Wednesdays like we want.

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And so this week, we're going to share a sermon from Eddie. Eddie's sermons are hard to find. But I found this one off Sermon Audio, the only one on Sermon Audio.

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I was actually in attendance when he preached this sermon in 2019. This is from the

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Preachers of Grace Conference by our friend Harold Smith. And Eddie is going to expound for 2

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Peter 3, verses 1 through 13. And the topic of, or the title of this sermon is

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The Reform Promise. You'll be blessed by hearing our brother Eddie preach the word.

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So here we go. Well, greetings from beautiful Searcy County, Arkansas. If you've never had the pleasure, there's not a more beautiful place in the world,

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I don't think. I'm a little biased. But if you would, open your Bible to 2

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Peter 3. 2 Peter 3. We're going to look at verses 1 through 13 this morning.

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Before we go to the word of the Lord, let's go to Him in prayer. Father, we come to You and we thank

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You for being our great God and our awesome King. Father, I plead with You right now that as we come, that You would fill all of us with Your Holy Spirit.

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Father, I pray that Lord, not only during this sermon, but Lord, all weekend long as we listen,

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Lord, we need the filling of Your Holy Spirit so that we can hear and receive, Lord, what

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You're giving us in Your word. And Father, I need now the filling of Your Holy Spirit that I can preach

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Your word to Your people. I pray, Lord, that You would cause us to have eyes to see those things contained in Your word.

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I pray, Father, that we would have ears to hear, Lord, that the message of Your word would go down into our ears.

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And Lord, that it would take place in our heart. Lord, that You would give us hearts to understand and to rightly appreciate and appropriate

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Your word to our lives. Father, please, we beg You through the power of Your Holy Spirit to do through Your word what

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You have promised that it will do. And Father, we plead that You would do these things in the precious name of our

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Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, I want to say thank you to Harold and to the saints here at Lee Creek Baptist Church for this amazing conference.

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You know, we were just discussing, you know, you guys don't have to do this. You guys could go,

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Harold, you could take some of your guys and go to a conference somewhere and spend this money just on yourself. But you don't.

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You give it away to us. And that is an amazing gift and blessing. And so, as we come to this text,

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I just want us to see what the Lord is revealing to us through the Apostle Peter.

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Well, beginning in verse 1, the word of the Lord says, This is now the second letter I am writing to you, beloved.

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In both of them, I am 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 this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires, they will say,

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Where is 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, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

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But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

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But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

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The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

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But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

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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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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.

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Well, I told the brother, he made me nervous, he got up here and I could tell that he was pretty far back in the

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New Testament, and he said, second, and I went, he's going to preach my text, but it's 2

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Timothy where he was at, so praise the Lord. I told Harold, I said, does everybody, like I haven't been here every year,

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I said, does everybody preach on 2 Peter chapter 3 every year, and he said he didn't know if anybody had done that, and I actually went back and checked the archives, and I did find where Brother Clark preached, but he didn't preach this first part, he picked up and preached from verse 11 on, and I would commend you to go and to listen to that sermon.

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But we know that this is a text that is often thrown back at us as a reason that we should not believe the things that we believe as men that believe in the doctrines of grace.

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But if we take this text as what it is, what Peter is actually saying in the context of Scripture, I think what we find is a real promise given to believers.

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This text is a promise given to believers. The title that I've given to this message is the

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Reformed Promise, and I think this is a promise that we especially can appreciate as men who believe in the doctrines of grace.

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So beginning in verse 1, let's look at what Peter has to say. Peter says, this is now the second letter that I'm writing to you, and we need to take into account that Peter is pointing out the fact that the context of what he's about to say as he ends this second letter is all of what he has written in the first and second letters.

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That's why he says this is now the second letter that I'm writing to you. So there's three things that I want us to see in these first couple of verses that I think will help us to understand everything that Peter is going to say in the rest of these verses, finishing out even this chapter of his second letter.

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So he says this is now the second letter that I'm writing to you, beloved. The first thing that we need to see is who is the audience that Peter is writing to?

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Because the assumption I think often made is that this is written to humanity at large.

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But he doesn't write this to humanity at large. Specifically, Peter says, I'm writing to you, beloved.

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If we look back at the beginning of Peter's first letter, he says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the

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Father in the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for strengthening with His blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

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Peter says specifically that the audience that he is writing to is not humanity at large.

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It is these elect exiles. Peter begins his second letter by saying,

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Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, and I love these words, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our

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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's how he began this letter.

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And so if that's the case, then when Peter says, I am writing to you, beloved, he means these people who have obtained a faith of equal standing with his.

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Even as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, he says your faith is of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our

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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So when he speaks of them, he speaks of those who are beloved in the

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Lord. He's speaking of brothers and sisters in Christ. And so today we have to see that this would only be applicable to those people who are in Christ, or if we do want to broaden it, is only applicable to those who are elect in Christ.

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So Peter says, this is now the second letter I'm writing to you, beloved. In both of them, I am 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. So the first thing we need to understand is

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Peter's audience. The second thing we need to see is Peter's authority. Where is Peter getting the authority to speak these things?

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And we might say, well, he's an apostle. He doesn't need other authority. And that would be true. However, Peter appeals here to Scripture.

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And I'll not belabor this point because the brother already preached on the authority of the Scriptures, the priority and power that it possesses in our lives, but I would just point out exactly what

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Peter says in this text. Look at verse 2. That you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets.

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Here, Peter is pointing them back to what has God said in the Old Testament.

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He's spoken to you by His holy prophets. And then he says, and the commandment of the

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Lord and Savior through your apostles. Speaking of the apostles' doctrine that we know from the book of Acts that they were teaching and that we have preserved for us today in our

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New Testament. Peter's clearly pointing out the fact that he is grounding the things that he is saying and what

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God has said and even here is revealing in His Word. Peter, even as an apostle, is appealing to the sure

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Word of Scripture. Brother Clark mentioned this text last night, but in 2 Peter chapter 1, he says that we have a more sure

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Word. That text amazes me. Because Peter is talking about himself and James and John on the mountain of transfiguration.

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And he says to those saints, you have a more sure Word. Right? We think,

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I think so often Christians think, oh, if we could have been like the apostles. If we could have walked those dusty trails of Jesus.

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Well, Peter says no, the indwelling Holy Spirit in this completed Bible is better. It's better.

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And Jesus said that too, if I don't go, the Helper won't come. The Spirit won't come.

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It's better for you if I go and you get your completed Bible and the Spirit living in you. That's better.

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So we need to see that Peter is pointing to the fact that this authority is grounded in the person of God and what

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He has said in His Word. So we see Peter's audience. We see Peter's authority.

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And the third thing that we want to see in this text as we get into the sermon is

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Peter's adversaries. Peter's particularly pointing us to those who would say that God is not saying what is true.

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Look at verse 3. Knowing this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires, they will say where is the promise of His coming?

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He says that they are scoffers, they are mockers, they are deriders, they are people who say that's not true.

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They disregard the very things that God has said or listen to the way that Jude put it.

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This is Jude 17 -19. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, in the last time, there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions.

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It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the Spirit. Now that doesn't mean they'll claim to be worldly people.

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It doesn't mean these people will claim to be outside. Particularly, Peter may have been speaking of those who claim to be inside, but deny the

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Lord's coming. The point being made both by Jude and by Peter is that these people are those who cause divisions in the true body of Christ.

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They divide brothers and they upset the body so as to nullify, or they would attempt, the preaching of God's Word.

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The fact is that Peter's adversaries are those who have this nature of scoffing, mocking the very things of God.

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The nature of the scoffer or the mocker is to deny and insult the promise of God in favor of his own ungodly passions.

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It's to say the things that I think are more important than the things that God has promised.

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That's the nature of the scoffer and the mocker. Well, the point this morning.

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I always try to give a singular point in every message. And the point this morning is this.

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It is a fact that God always has and always will keep His promise. We're going to get into particularly verse 9 because we know that's what's sitting there, right?

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But as we talk about all of this, I hope that you walk away from this message with nothing more and nothing less than this firm assurance that God always has and always will keep

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His promises. Always. This text is not about a blanket possibility of salvation or atonement, but rather it is about the rock -solid reality of the faithfulness of God.

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That's what Peter is pointing us to. What God has said He will do. What God has said He will always do.

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So I want us to look at three ways that we see the promise of God in this text. First of all, we see the promise of His return.

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Look at verses 4 -7. It says, So those scoffers, those mockers, they will say,

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Where is 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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These people are questioning whether or not God will keep His promise. They are not questioning.

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They are not even like the scoffers and mockers of today. Questioning whether or not

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God has promised. They say, We accept that God has promised, we just don't know if He is going to come through.

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Today, we can't even get people to admit that God has promised. Right? But here, these people are saying,

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We accept that He has promised, but we don't know if He will come through. Whether the issue is whether or not people believe that God has even promised, or whether or not the problem is whether or not they believe that He will come through.

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In either case, by questioning the return of Christ, all the enemies of God, both then and now, are saying that the

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Father is a liar. When they question God, they say, God, I think you're a liar.

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They are telling the Son that you are a fraud. Jesus, you're a fraud. An imposter.

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You're not a true Savior. If you were a true Savior, you would be coming again. But you've not come again, so you must not be a true

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Savior. And they are saying to the Holy Spirit that you're impotent to accomplish the things of God. And I'm sure we think about those that it makes our blood boil, doesn't it?

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That people would say that the Father is a liar, the Son is a fraud, and that the Spirit is powerless.

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But that's exactly what anyone, whether they claim to be a believer or not, is saying when they do not believe what

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God has promised that He will accomplish. These mockers and adversaries are presuming upon the continuing of God's common grace without recognizing the day of God's righteous judgment.

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They are saying, oh, it's just going to keep going the way it's always went. Look at what they said. They said, for ever since the

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Fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. Oh, it's just going to keep going this way forever.

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No, it's not. There's zero possibility that it's going to keep going this way forever.

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And so they are saying, we assume that God is going to keep being gracious with us even in our unrepentance.

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Ever since the Fathers fell asleep. Ever since the furthest time back that we can recall. All things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.

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Acknowledging God has the power to create but not the power to fulfill all that He is going to accomplish.

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These foolish scoffers are deliberately overlooking and dismissing the fact.

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Look at what he says in verse 5. For they deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the

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Word of God. And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

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But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

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These foolish scoffers are deliberately overlooking and dismissing the facts of God's sure word.

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They're deliberately overlooking the fact that God has said something that will happen.

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He says, the earth was formed out of water through water by the Word of God. And they are dismissing that fact.

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And they are also dismissing the fact of real judgment that is to come. Because not only did he say the earth and heavens that then existed were made by the

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Word, but he goes on to say, and by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished, but by the same word, meaning the same word that had power to create then had power to create now the heavens and earth that now exist.

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And by that word, they are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

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Which means, that as surely as creation happened, Christ is coming again to judge the world in righteousness.

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As surely as God created the world, Christ is going to return. The fact that we exist right now means

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Christ is coming. If He wasn't coming, we wouldn't exist. That's Peter's argument.

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So I want us to grasp, first of all, the warning that Peter's giving us here.

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We need to catch this. The promise of Christ's return is a warning to everyone who would scoff and deride at the reality that He is coming again.

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He is coming again. I don't know where you're all at in your millennial positions, and I don't care, but He is coming again.

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Right? I mean, we can have different millennial positions, but orthodoxy says, the

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Word of God says, we have to believe He's coming again. He absolutely is coming again.

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You may be post -millennial and think He ain't coming for a long time, but He's coming. Right? He is coming.

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So we see the promise of His return. But the second thing that I want us to see is the promise of our repentance.

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Peter's grounding the fact that Christ is coming is also a promise of the repentance of all the elect.

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All those who are Christ's people will repent. All of them will. Absolutely everyone will.

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And we see that in these next verses. So first of all, we see that they, those scoffers, those mockers, they were deliberately overlooking this fact.

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But now He turns to speaking to these people, to these beloved people. And look at what

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He says there in verse 8. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved.

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They were overlooking a fact. In fact, don't you overlook this fact that with the Lord one day is as 1 ,000 years and 1 ,000 years as one day.

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Peter wants to bring a faithful warning to believers. He brought a warning to the scoffers, to the mockers, but now he wants to bring a faithful warning to us that we wouldn't fall into the same trap they've fallen into where we're forgetting the very things that God has told us and where we're not relying upon the promise of God.

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Do not overlook this one fact that the eternal, omniscient God operates on a timeless table and not on our timetable.

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Right? A timeless table. God is not slow. He is not tardy. You know,

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I'm often late. I have a brother in my church. Faithful, godly guy. But man, he's a good teacher.

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Can't let him teach a class though because he's going to be 20 minutes late for it. God is never like that.

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He is never tardy. He is never ever late. God is always perfectly prompt and punctual.

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He always shows up and He shows up at exactly the right time. You see, the problem we have is as temporal finite beings we necessarily judge wrongly when we attempt to understand the eternal, infinite

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God by measures as meager as a single day or a thousand years. Because we think there's a big difference between a day and a thousand years.

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There's not a difference in a day and a thousand years to an eternal God. What's that? And so when we think about these things if we think in our terms we will necessarily be wrong.

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But if we rather believe what God has said in His Word while we don't have the ability to imagine the eternal things of God we can believe what

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God has promised about the eternal things of God. With God it is not a matter of being fast or slow.

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God isn't rushed or in a hurry and He's not dragging His feet and plodding along. No, it is neither of those things.

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Rather, providentially in the unfolding of His eternal decree and His perfect will He is accomplishing

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His purposes all the time. So God's not waiting and He's not rushing but He's patiently enduring these things to bring us to repentance.

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Patiently. Not lethargically. So, Peter says with the

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Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is one day. And then verse 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill

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His promises as some would count slowness but is patient towards you not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance.

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I told Wade last night he asked what I was going to preach on today and I said, well, tell all these

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Calvinists don't they know that it says God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

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I mean, I don't know what you guys are believing out there. Except it doesn't say that, does it? It doesn't say

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God is not willing that anybody would perish but that all people would come to repentance.

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Except it doesn't say that, does it? You know, Greg Koukl of Santa Rosa Ministries says never read a

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Bible verse. Well, it's especially bad when people don't even read the whole verse. And I would agree.

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You should never read a Bible verse. You should also always read a passage. But please don't quote half a verse and think that it establishes some theology.

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Look at what is said in this verse. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promises as some count slowness.

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This is about atonement but it's not about atonement the way people think. It's about God's patience in bringing about repentance.

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So, it says, slow to fulfill

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His promises as some count slowness, but is patient toward you not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance.

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Now this idea of being patient means to be long in spirit. It means to persevere.

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We think often about how God calls us to persevere in persecution as the brother preached.

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And that's true. That's true. But listen, God perseveres with us. You remember the

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Lord Jesus Himself? He said, how long must I be with you? The Lord persevered with His people when

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He was on the planet and the Lord perseveres with us now to bring us to repentance. And if you think that we are called to persevere in persecution but that God can't persevere to bring us to repentance, think about that.

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He calls us to do something He won't do or can't do. Absolutely not. No, He is patient.

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He is long -suffering. He can persevere to our repentance. And it says

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He's patient toward you. Now remembering where we began. Who is the audience? It is those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours.

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Not the whole world. Not all human beings. Not every set of ears and every beating heart.

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But every person whom God has elected in His sovereign grace. Every one of those will reach repentance.

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If we interpret this verse to be a general sort of atonement, then it is no promise at all.

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Because billions, billions have died and not reached repentance.

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This verse is not hope if we interpret it that way. It's only hope if we understand it the way that Peter is preaching it to us.

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Which that it is for a specific people. And that it is effectual for those people.

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That's the only way that this verse is hope or a promise to anyone. And so we look at this text and we see that God is not wishing.

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You know, some translations even like the ESV does here, they use this word wishing.

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And I think sometimes if we're unstudied, we're likely to read that and think, well

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God's just hopeful. He's just hopeful. Like He doesn't know and like He has not ordained what will be.

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This is not the idea of God not being willing for any or all to perish, but it is not that any of those for whom

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Christ died, God will not lose them. This statement is not a statement of God's general disposition toward all humanity, nor evidence of a general view of atonement, or worst of all, universalism, but rather this text is a definite promise to all

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God's elect that His patients will endure for their complete repentance. I want to repeat that last part.

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A definite promise to all God's elect that His patients will endure for their complete repentance.

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I was listening to the briefing yesterday morning on my way home from our church to start heading down here, and as Dr.

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Mohler was discussing the recent apostasy of Joshua Harris, he said this,

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Can one lose their faith? Can one ultimately fall away if one was genuinely regenerate?

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The answer is no. The Bible is very clear about that. Once one has been regenerated by the power of Christ, once one has become a genuine

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Christian and been united to Christ, nothing can separate us from Christ.

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Not even our own sin. The historic Protestant confessions make very clear the biblical truth that even though after conversion and coming to faith in Christ, after regeneration one may sin, indeed will sin, and may even grievously injure the church, it is impossible for one who has been truly regenerated to then fall back away from Christ and to be severed from Him.

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There may be even some who sin by repudiating

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Christianity, but if they ever were genuinely Christian, I want you to hear this last sentence by Mohler, they will return by repentance at some point, and that is a gospel promise.

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And that's Peter's point here. Now, listen, the jury's out on Josh Harris.

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We don't know if he'll repent or if he'll show himself to be one who was never one of us because he went out from us.

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Could be either one. We don't know that about him. But here's what we do know. Everyone who is truly in Christ is a repenter.

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Everyone who is truly in Christ is a repenter. That's a gospel promise. Listen to what the

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Lord Jesus Himself said in John 6. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me

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I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.

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And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

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For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise

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Him up on the last day. So listen, if you're Christ's, you will be raised up on the last day.

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There's absolutely no way for that to not be the case. Jesus didn't give any ambiguity there.

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He didn't say, well I'll raise most of them up on the last day. I will raise Him up on the last day.

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And because this wouldn't be a Reformed Baptist sermon without a Spurgeon quote, Spurgeon said, the

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Lord has not forgotten a single promise to a single believer. The Lord has not forgotten a single promise to a single believer.

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So in verse 10, Peter then says, but the day of the

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Lord will come. You remember what they scoffed at? Where is the promise of His coming?

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The promise to us is that in repentance, the Lord is coming. Absolutely. We will repent.

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The Lord is coming. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

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There's a definite day coming when Christ will come. The day of the Lord will come. This is absolute certainty.

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There's no doubt Jesus is coming, and that day is any time ahead of us.

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The fire of God will dissolve all that is passing away, and the earthly carnal works that were taking place on this place will be fully exposed.

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And I think that's why people want to deny that He's coming. Because in His coming, all the earthly works will be exposed.

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And nobody wants the works to be exposed. Right? People hate the light,

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John chapter 3. They don't like the light because the light exposes the deeds done in darkness.

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And that's the very point that Peter is making. So, we've seen that we have a promise of His returning.

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And listen, as believers, we have a promise of our repentance. He's going to be patient to our repentance.

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And the third thing I want us to see in these last verses about the promise is the promise of eternal righteousness.

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The promise of eternal righteousness. As I said, I think it was 2015, Brother Clark preached on this text beginning in verse 11.

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I would tell you to go back and to listen to that. I meant to say this at the beginning of the sermon, but if anybody is listening to this on sermon audio, you should stop listening to this sermon and go back and listen to his from last night and the brother's from this morning because they are great preludes to this message,

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I believe. But coming to verses 11 -14, look at what it says. 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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There ought to be application of these things. If Christ has made promises, those promises ought to change the way we live every day.

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What sort of lives ought you to live in holiness and godliness? What sort of people ought we to be in holiness?

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This means distinction. Being set apart. In 1 Peter chapter 1, he tells us that we are to be holy as God is holy.

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We are called to live in holiness. We are called to be set apart from the world the way that our

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God is set apart from all the false gods. He is not like any other.

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And if we're his people, we're to be unlike any others. If you need a greater understanding of the holiness of God, I was going to tell you to pick up a copy of Before the

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Throne, but you already have a copy. It's in your bag, so you need to read that. But secondly, he tells us that we are to live in godliness.

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We are to live reverently. We are to live worshipfully. Every day we are to live to the worship and glory of God.

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We are to live that Christ would be worshipped by our lives and by our witness.

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That Christ would be exalted in everything that we do, the way that we study, the way that we preach his word, the way that we care for our people, the way that we love those who don't even know that we're believers ought to be a worship to our

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God. Reverence for his greatness and awe for his power. Well, look at what it says in this text.

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In verse 12, he says, Waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God. We are waiting in eager anticipation.

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Christ is coming, and we are eagerly looking for him to come again. I think we ought to be like the apostles were when he ascended, staring up into heaven, looking for his return.

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Hastening it. How is it that we ought to hasten the Lord's return? Well, we're hastening his return through seeking in every way to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to every nation, tribe, people, and language.

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That they would all come to worship the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. In the book,

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Let the Nations Be Glad, John Popper begins the book by saying that missions exist because worship doesn't.

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The reason we evangelize and the reason we do missions is that people would worship Christ. That all over the world, people would worship

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Christ. If I have any word to say that might be hard for us to hear, it is this.

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If we are not on mission to get access to the gospel to all the peoples of the earth, we cannot rightly call ourselves preachers of grace.

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If we're preachers of grace, we're seeking in whatever context and way that we can to get the gospel to everyone that we can.

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I was so thankful to hear the testimony of you guys preaching the gospel to these kids. There are people all over the world that need to hear the gospel and we need to be getting the gospel to their ears.

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Getting access to people who don't have access to the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's why.

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Because we know there are people there who will repent. They'll hear the gospel and they'll repent. Why? Because they're

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His. They're His. And so if we get the gospel to them, when they hear it, they'll believe it because they're chosen.

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Right? So let's preach the gospel to them. Finally, Peter says this,

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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, so this entire message has been about His promise, right? But according to His promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

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A new heavens and a new earth. John in the book of Revelation says this,

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Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.

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And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

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And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

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He will dwell with them and they will be His people. And God Himself will be with them as their

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God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more.

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Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.

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There is coming a day when we are going to live where righteousness dwells. You ever get sick of just being in a world full of sin?

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I mean, and not just everybody else's sin. Like, I'm tired of my sin.

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I'm just sick of my sin. But we are His people.

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And He is our God. And there's coming a day when we are going to dwell where righteousness dwells.

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My favorite scriptural doctrine is the imputed righteousness of Christ. Right now, brothers and sisters, we stand with all the righteousness of Jesus.

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We enter boldly before God's throne because we wear Christ's righteousness. But someday, we will dwell where that's all there is.

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All there is, is all of Christ's righteousness all around us, all the time. So I would end with Jesus' words in Matthew 5, 6.

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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

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If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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God's doing. This is His work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemos, the masterpiece of God.