2 Peter 3:14-16

2 Peter 3:14-16
(A Bible Study Led by Dr. Larry Reynolds)
July 17, 2014

We have seen over the past few weeks that 2 Peter 3 is built around the promise of the Lord’s return to our world.  This is a recurring promise that is emphasized again and again in the New Testament. 

I want to begin this session by directing your attention to the first part of 2 Peter 3:14 – “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent…”  Each word in that statement has significance. 
  • “Therefore…”…that word looks back to all that Peter has said in the first part of this chapter about the promised return of the Lord to this world…
  • “…beloved…”…that’s a term of affection…means “dear friends”…used four times in this chapter and each time it is followed by some important instruction in light of the Lord’s promised return…
  • “…since you are looking for these things…”…that is, since you are looking for the Lord’s return…
  • “…be diligent…”…this is the fourth use of this word in 2 Peter (see 1:5, 10, 15)…have told you the word means to be characterized by a sense of urgency that moves you to action…it’s the difference between having a passing interest in doing something and a burning desire to do something…caries idea of earnestness, zeal, or haste…
And then in verses that follow Peter explains what we are to be diligent about…look at 2 Peter 3:14b-16…(text)

T.S. – Built into our universe is the principle of accountability and judgment...we just seem to know intuitively that a time will come when we will give an account of our lives...virtually all world religions have built into them a theology of judgment...and in these verses Peter reminds us that because the Lord is coming back and because we will give account of ourselves to Him, there are some areas of life in which we should be extra diligent…for example he tells us that…

I.  In light of the Lord’s return we should be diligent in our relationships
  1. We are told in middle of v.4 to “…be diligent to be found by Him in peace…”…Peter doesn’t explain with whom we should be at peace…there are two obvious possibilities…
    • Could be referring to peace with God which is the result of our commitment to Christ…as Paul said in Romans 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”…salvation is a covenant, a peace agreement between us and God…it is the end of the enmity, strife, separation between us and God which is the result of our sin…and Peter could be saying, “In light of the fact that Jesus is coming back, make sure you have made your peace with Him.”
    • But there’s another way to interpret that phrase…could be referring to the peace which should exist between believers and other people…Jesus came not just to reconcile us to God, but also to reconcile us to each other…and Peter could be saying, “In light of fact that Jesus is coming back, make sure you are living in peace with each other.  Don’t get bogged down in petty conflict and strife.”…think that interpretation best fits context of this passage…
2.   There are some people who seem to enjoy being in conflict with others...they seem go out of their way to have someone in their life at whom they are upset or with whom they are at odds...no doubt you’ve known people like that...they are not happy unless they are in a dispute or fight with another person...however, that’s not the way Christians should live…Christians should make it their goal, their aim to live in peace with others…that principle is emphasized over and over again in the NT…
·         Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemaker, for they shall be called the sons of God.”
·         Romans 12:18 says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.”
·         Hebrews 12:14 tells us to “pursue peace with all men…”
  1. And I believe Peter is saying here that the promise of the Lord’s return should motivate us to live in peace with each other…

1.   An ancient legend says that Hercules became irritated by a strange/‑looking animal that blocked his path in a threatening manner.  In anger he struck it with his club.  As he went on his way, he encountered the same creature again several times, and in each instance the beast grew larger and more fearsome than before.  At last a "heavenly messenger" appeared and warned Hercules to stop his furious assaults, saying, "The monster is Strife and you are stirring it up.  Just let it alone and it will shrivel and cease to trouble you." [InforSearch]

1.      And in light of the Lord’s return we should be careful not to stir up the flames of strife and dissension and backbiting in our families, communities, and certainly not in the fellowship of other believers…to do so is to awaken a monster which can devour us…
2.      And Peter practiced what he preached about this…notice the reference in v.15 to “…our beloved brother Paul…”…it is interesting that Peter would refer to Paul in that way…earlier Peter and Paul had an intense conflict…Paul publicly rebuked Peter for yielding to Jewish pressure not to eat with Gentile Christians…yet Peter speaks of Paul here in glowing terms…he didn’t allow conflict and strife characterize how he related to others…and in light of the Lord’s return we should be diligent in our relationships…

II.  In light of the Lord’s return we should be diligent in our conduct
1.   Notice the words “…spotless and blameless…” at end of v.14…these are the exact opposite of the words Peter used to describe the counterfeit Christians back in chapter 2…in 2:13 he says the false Christians lived in such a way that their lives were like “stains and blemishes” on the Lord and the church…now Peter says that true Christians are just the opposite…they are not stains, they are “spotless”…not blemishes, they are “blameless”
3.      Not saying here that Christians will be perfect…the only one who is perfect is Jesus…He is the “…lamb without blemish and without spot…” as Peter put it in 1 Peter 1:19…He is the Lamb of God Who is worthy to be the sacrifice for our sins…and in using these two words I think Peter is making a veiled reference to Jesus…our character should be reflect His character…His character is to be the pattern, the goal for our character…

1.   Christians should constantly be asking themselves, “Does the way I live my life reflect well on the Lord I claim to whom I claim allegiance?  Can people look at me and see a reflection of Jesus, the Lamb without blemish and spot?  (Met a longtime friend Monday morning of this week and he made an interesting statement.  He said, in effect, that years ago the Lord had gotten him out of the business of judging others.  How they live and what they do is between them and God.  However, he said, I am constantly judging myself because I want to make sure I am living as the Lord desires.)
2.   And point want to make here is that the clear teaching of Scripture is that followers of Jesus are to have different values, different loves, different priorities than those values, loves, priorities which characterize the world…
3.      In light of the Lord’s promised return we should be diligent in our conduct…

III.  In light of the Lord’s return we should be diligent in our desire for others to come to know Him
1.   That’s the essential meaning of the phrase at the beginning of v.15 – “…and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation…”…saying look upon the fact that the Lord has not yet returned as an opportunity to share with more people the wonderful news of salvation—of forgiveness of sin, of abundant life, of eternal life—available in Jesus...
  1. And as an example of the kind of diligence, the kind of urgency which leads to action, we should have in desiring for others to come to know Jesus, in the last part of v.15 and v.16 Peter points to the Apostle Paul…it’s interesting that even in 1st century Christians were already beginning to look at Paul’s letters as Scripture and that then, as now, some were distorting what Paul wrote…but as you read Paul’s letters in NT one things is perfectly clear…Paul was driven by a desire for people to come to faith in Christ…and Christians today should have that same desire…

Conclusion

1.   There is an interesting legend about a wealthy merchant traveling through the Mediterranean world looking for the distinguished Pharisee, Paul.  This merchant came into contact with Timothy who arranged a visit with the great apostle.  Paul was, at the time, a prisoner in Rome. Stepping inside the cell, the merchant was surprised to find a rather old man, physically frail, but whose serenity and magnetism challenged the visitor. They talked for hours. Finally the merchant left with Paul's blessing. Outside the prison, the asked Timothy, "What is the secret of this man's power? I have never seen anything like it before."
   “Did you not guess?" replied Timothy. "Paul is in love."
    The merchant looked bewildered. "In Love?"
    "Yes," Timothy answered, "Paul is in love with Jesus Christ."
    The merchant looked even more bewildered. "Is that all?"
    Smiling, Timothy replied, "Sir, that is everything." [G. Curtis Jones, Illustrations For Preaching And Teaching, Nashville Broadman, 1986, p. 225.]
2.   And if we are truly in love with Jesus and if we are looking forward to His coming, we will be characterized by diligence—diligence in our relationships, our conduct, and our desire to see others come to faith in Him…



2 Peter 3:3-13


2 Peter 3:3-13

(A Bible Study Led by Dr. Larry Reynolds)

July 10, 2014

 

1.      I remember hearing some time ago a story about man who was fishing along bank of a Louisiana bayou… beside him was tub which contained a number of live fish…game warden appeared and asked man if had license for fish he had caught…said, “I haven’t caught any fish.”…what about these fish in this tub…man said, “Those?  I didn’t catch them.  Those are my pet fish.”…of course game warden was skeptical and said he had never heard of someone having pet fish…man said, “Yeah.  Every night I bring them down to the bayou and let them swim around for a while.  Then I whistle and they jump back into this tub and I take them home.”…of course game warden didn’t buy that story…man said, “It’s the truth.  Here I’ll show you” and he dumped the fish into the bayou and silently waited…after several minutes game warden said, “Well?”…man replied, “Well what?”…game warned said, “When are you going to call them back?”…man asked, “Call who back?”…game warden said, “The fish.  When are you going to call the fish back?”…and man said, “What fish?”

2.      In 1st century church some people were asking something like that about the promised return of Jesus to our world…they were asking, “What return?  Where is He?”…notice the question in 2 Peter 3:4 – “Where is the promise of His coming?”…in other words, “Why hasn’t the promised been fulfilled?  Why hasn’t He returned yet?”…want begin by reading 2 Peter 3:3-7…(text)…

3.      Many 1st century Christians expected Jesus to return in their life-times…as Christians began to die and the Lord had not come back, come begin to question whether He was coming at all…they succumbed to a philosophy which one writer calls uniformitarianism [Stedman, p.2]…it’s a philosophy which has long gripped both the scientific and scholastic world…basically this philosophy asserts that if something has not happened before it cannot happen…it is a way of saying that a supernatural occurrence cannot break the ordinary course of nature…Peter refutes their thinking by reminding them that God has the power to break into our natural world at any time… in vv.5-7 mentions two times that God has done so—at the creation of the universe and in the great flood in the days of Noah…and says will do so again when Jesus comes back…

4.      Then in vv.8-13 Peter tells us some things we should do to avoid being misled by those who are skeptical of Christ’s return… and it’s those verse on which want us to focus today…look at 2 Peter 3:8-13 (text)…

 

T.S. – In these verses Peter points out some things we should remember in preparation for Christ’s return…while don’t have time to deal in-depth with all that is in this passage, want to point out three things we should remember to be ready for Christ’s return…

 

I.   To be ready for Christ’s return we should remember that God’s view of time is different from our view of time

  1. The statement in v.8 “…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day…” is a reminder of one essential difference between God and humans…we live in the realm of time, the realm of beginnings and endings…God, on the other hand, lives in the realm of eternity, no beginning and no ending…one writer points out that eternity is not just time which lasts forever, it is existence above and apart from time… [Wiersbe, p.83]
  2. What appears to be a long time for us, is a mere instant in the eyes of God…we see this principle at work on much smaller scale in the differing perceptions of time between small children and adults…And point Peter is making in vv.8 is that while it may appear from our perspective that the Lord is taking forever to fulfill His promise to return to our world, from the perspective of eternity it is not taking forever at all…
  3. Now look at v.9…“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness…”…that is, He is going to fulfill His promise to return at the appropriate time… but there is a reason His coming has not yet happened…
  4. The last part of v.9 explains the reason by saying the Lord ”…is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”…that is, the reason Christ’s return has not yet happened is the Lord wants to give all people the opportunity to be saved…want point out two things about that statement…

--doesn’t say that all people will be saved…is not teaching universalism here, the belief that in the end everyone will be saved…means that anyone who turns to Christ in repentance and faith will be saved…

--nor does say that God is waiting for certain number to be saved… find no Scriptural evidence for belief that God has fore-ordained or pre-destined certain number of people to be saved and will not come until that elect group has turned to Christ…this verse says God does not desire “…for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

5.      And main point of vv.8-9 is that to be ready for Christ’s return we should remember that God has always kept His promises and He will keep His promise of Christ’s return to our world in His time, not ours…

 

II.  To be ready for Christ’s return we should remember that it is futile to predict when the return will occur

1.      Reminds us in v.10 that “…the day of the Lord will come like a thief.”…Peter, no doubt, took that statement from the teachings of Jesus…in Matthew 24 where Jesus taught His disciples about the pending destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (which happened in 70 A.D.) and about His return to this world at the end of the age, they wanted to know when His return would take place…Jesus said in Matthew 24:36 – “…of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, not the Son, but the Father alone…”…and then He told a little story about how the owner of a house not knowing when a thief may come…and the point of the story and point of this statement in 2 Peter 3:10 is that no-one knows when the Lord is going to return…

2.      There are people who think they know…there are those who make predictions about His return and even make important life decisions thinking He is about to return…remember during my seminary years met young man and young woman who were engaged to be married… asked if I would perform their wedding ceremony and I agreed…called one day and said the wedding was off…asked why and their response was that they had decided the Lord was going to return before their wedding date and they saw no reason to continue with their plans…I’ve often wondered what became of them and what they now think about their decision not to marry…

3.      No-one knows when the Lord is going to return…anyone who says they do know, run from that person as quickly as possible…and while we don’t know when the Lord is going to come back, Peter tells us in the last part of v.10 that whenever it occurs, it is going to be a cataclysmic event…he tells us on that day “…the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up…”…seems to me that the point of all that is that when the Lord returns it is going to be a time of great upheaval…

4.      I know that there is a lot of interest among Christians about what may or may not happen at the time of the Lord’s return…and I know that there are a number of views, each supported to some degree or another by Scripture, about the events which may surround the Lord’s return…

5.      My personal opinion is that it is not particular helpful to speculate about such things…what we know for sure is that no-one can predict when the Lord is going return, but when He does return it will be apparent because cataclysmic changes are going to occur…and that leads into the third thing that Peter says about being prepared for the Lord’s return…

 

III.  To be ready for Christ’s return we should remember to live for Him                    today

1.      It is important to understand that Peter’s reason for mentioning the coming return of Jesus was to motivate his readers to godly living… came across interesting statement in my study of this passage this week…”The purpose of prophetic truth is not speculation but motivation … It is unfortunate when people run from one prophetic conference to another, filling their notebooks, marking their Bibles, drawing their charts, and yet not living their lives to the glory of God.” [Wiersbe, p.89]

2.      In v.11 Peter reminds us that since the Lord is going to return at some point in the future, we have every reason to be characterized by “holy conduct and godliness” today…the word “godliness” is one of Peter’s favorite words…uses it four times in the three chapters of this letter… it is another of those compound words Peter often uses…first part is a word which means “well”…second part is word which means “to worship”…literally means “to worship well”

3.      Not speaking of just public worship services…speaking of an attitude toward God which should permeate our lives…in the secular Greek world this word was used to describe an attitude of respect for and awe of the many Greek gods…and the idea behind the word is to live in such a way, to make decisions, to have personal values which reflect genuine awe and respect for God…

4.      And knowing that the day is coming when Jesus will return to this world should motivate us to live in that way…

Conclusion

1.   In the book And the Angels were Silent Max Lucado tells about one of Sir Ernest Shackleton's expeditions to the Antarctic Circle... left some men on Elephant Island with intent of returning and taking them back to England...but Shackleton was delayed and by time could go back for the men, the sea had frozen and he had no access to the island...three times tried to reach them and each time was prevented by the ice...finally, on fourth try broke through ice and found a narrow channel leading to the island...

2.   Much to his surprise, when arrived found crewmen all packed and ready to board the ship...in amazement he asked them how they knew he was coming that day...they told him had no idea what day would return, but knew one day would come back...so every morning when they awakened, their leader rolled up his sleeping bag, packed his gear, and said to the crew, "Get your things ready, boys, the boss may come today."

3.   Not a bad way for Christians to live...each day should say to ourselves, "Get ready, the Lord may come today."...and how do we get ready?...by--

--remembering that God’s view of time is different from our view of time…

--not getting bogged down in speculating when He might return and what all is going to happen when He returns…

--living in godliness today…

 

 

 

2 Peter 3:1-2


2 Peter 3:1-2

(A Bible Study Led by Dr. Larry Reynolds)

July 3, 2014

 1.      I remember reading about man who was fairly wealthy who suddenly became ill…taken to hospital and over period of couple days his conditioned worsened…doctor came in and said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.  We can’t figure out what is wrong and there is a good chance you will die.”…this, of course frightened the man and he said, “Doc, I don’t want to die!  I know you’re trying to build a new hospital here, and if you pull me through this I’ll donate $100,000 to the new hospital fund.”…fortunately over the next couple of days the man began to improve and after a couple of weeks was released from the hospital… several months later the doctor ran into him and asked, “How are you feeling?”…man replied, “Great!  I’ve never felt better!”…and the doctor said, “That’s good to hear.  Now what about that $100,000 you promised to donate to the new hospital fund?”…and the man replied, “I said that!  I guess that just goes to show how sick I really was!”

2.      Some people are not very good at keeping their promises…but, of course, it is not what way with Jesus…He is 100% reliable…completely trustworthy…what He promises, He will do…and one thing He promised His followers in the NT is that the day would come when He would return to this world…He said in John 14, “…I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

3.      The NT is literally permeated with references to the return of Jesus to this world… according to one writer about 1/20th of NT speaks of His return...23 of the 27 NT books refer to it...are over 300 references to second coming Christ in Bible [Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent, p.135]

4.      2 Peter 3 is written against the backdrop of the promise of the Lord’s return to this world…interspersed throughout this chapter are references to the Lord’s return…for example—

            --v.4 quotes those asking, “Where is the promise of His coming?”

            --v.10 says “…the day of the Lord will come like a thief…”

            --v.12 speaks of “…the coming day of God…”

            --v.14 describes Christians as looking “…for these things…” meaning the Lord’s return…

5.      For the early Christians the return of Christ to this world was not something to fear, it was something to which to look forward with great anticipation…it is described as “the blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) for which Christians are anxiously waiting…using the promise of Christ’s return as a motivator, Peter concludes the letter of 2 Peter with some words of encouragement for Christians…

6.      There is an obvious difference in tone and style between 2 Peter 2 and 2 Peter 3…as we saw that 2 Peter 2 focused on the false prophets, the counterfeit Christians infecting the early church…in that chapter Peter is harsh, blunt, and to the point…however, chapter 3 is directed toward believers…it is much softer, much more conciliatory in tone…four times in this chapter Peter addresses his readers with a word the NASB translates “beloved”…you’ll find that word in v.1, v.8, v.14, and v.17…some Bibles translate the word “dear friends” others translate it “beloved brothers”…the root of the word is agape which is the highest, most noble kind of love…it is a term of endearment designed to snag the attention of the readers…

7.      And each time Peter uses the word “beloved” he gives his readers some important instructions in light of Christ’s return…for example in vv.____ tells us to--…

v. 1-2     Be informed in preparation the Lord’s return

v. 3-13  - Be alert in anticipating the Lord’s return

v.14-16 – Be diligent in preparing for the Lord’s return

v.17-18 – Be on guard to persevere until the Lord returns

We’re going to explore each of those ideas in the weeks ahead…in this session want to direct your attention to 2 Peter 3:1-2…(text)

 

T.S. – Will Rogers, the famous philosopher/humorist, once said, “Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.” [Wiersbe, Be Alert, p.76] …Peter says at the outset of this chapter that in light of the fact the Lord is going to return to this world, he does not want his readers to be ignorant…and to avoid being spiritually ignorant, we must do two things…

 

I.  We must “stir up our minds” (v.1)

1.  Begins chapter 3 by reminding his readers he was writing them for the purpose of “…stirring up your sincere mind…”

                  --we come across the verb translated “stirring up” earlier in our study of 2 Peter…the same word is used in 1:13…told you the word means to arouse, to awaken, to bring to life…what is it Peter desires to awaken in us?…

            --he wants to arouse or awaken a “sincere mind” in us…that little phrase could be basis for an study in itself…the word translated “sincere” means pure or uncontaminated…it is a compound word… first part of word comes from word which means “sun ray” and second part comes from word which means “to judge”… literally it means “sun-judged”…was used to describe process of holding piece of pottery up to light of the sun to see if there were any flaws are cracks in it… [LABC, p.206]

2.  And what Peter is saying here is that in light of the fact that Jesus is going to return we need to think right…our thinking needs to be able to stand the scrutiny of the light of God…all kinds of implications in that for our lives…

3.  Obviously means our thinking should be pure…one writer translates the phrase “sincere mind” as “wholesome mind” [Brian’s Lines, J/F, 1998, p.16] …we live in world which does not lend itself to wholesome thinking…the proliferation of pornography in our nation has become epidemic…Came across an interesting quote this week from Beth Moore, the well-known Bible teacher from Houston…she wrote: "We can now sit in our Beaver Cleaver homes with our white picket fences and open the attic door of pornography through the Internet. ... The rate of Christians being snared daily is staggering...
4.  Thinking right obviously means Christians should avoid the lure of such things…but it also means that we should avoid succumbing to the prevailing secular wisdom of our day…wisdom which includes such popular ideas as:
·         There is no such thing as absolute right and wrong.  What one person may see as wrong, another person may legitimately view as right.  As long as you feel good about what you do, that’s all that matters.
·         Religion is good only if it doesn’t make people feel guilty or bad about themselves.  Religion that calls for personal responsibility and sacrifice is out of date and hurtful to people.  Religion that speaks of sin and the need for forgiveness is medieval.
·         The worst sin of all is to be intolerant of someone else.  No-one has the right to question anyone’s life-style.  All life-styles are morally the same.  Such things are just a matter of personal choice.
5.  Those are the kinds of things with which we are constantly bombarded in our culture…they are woven into popular music, television shows, movies, and even the daily newspaper. 
 
T.S. - And Peter tells us here that in light of the fact Jesus is coming back to our world, we must think more clearly than that…we must have “sincere minds” – minds that are pure and wholesome and minds that can stand the scrutiny, the light of His coming…now how do we develop such minds?… the answer to that question is in v.2…
 
II.  We must focus on God’s Word
1.  Look at what v.2 says…“…you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.”…if look carefully at that statement can see a reference to the OT and the NT...
            --“…the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets…” refers to God’s Word in the OT…
            --“…the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles…” refers to God’s Word in the NT which was still being formed when Peter wrote this letter…
2.  The instruction in v.2 is that we are to “…remember the words…” of the Scripture…thought struck me this week that we cannot remember what we don’t already know…and truth is many Christians are ignorant of the Scripture…even some of the people who have made it their passion to defend the Bible, to fight over the Bible, to argue about the Bible have not made a serious effort to understand and apply God’s Word to their lives…
3.  Focusing on God’s Word, taking the Bible seriously means much more than merely waving the Bible and saying I believe this book because it is God’s Word…(several years ago went to drove some distance to hear a nationally famous preacher…and must confess that was very disappointed in what I heard that night…was sitting behind and above the podium so had clear view of what was happening…this man walked podium carrying large Bible…place Bible closed on top of podium and began his sermon…for 30 minutes mocked and fumed and degraded those people who differed with him over biblical interpretation…but the thing which struck me as strange is not one time did he open the Bible and not one time did he quote from the Bible…)
4.  And what I want to say to you today is that focusing on God’s word means more than just talking about the Bible…it means to read it regularly, to meditate on it, to study it carefully and prayerfully, to allow the Spirit of God penetrate and change our lives with its truths…doing as Colossians 3:16 instructs us:  “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you…”
Conclusion
1.      Will Rogers was right…“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.” [Wiersbe, Be Alert, p.76]…but in light of the fact that Jesus is coming back to this world whether it is in our life-times or beyond… and in light of the certainty that we will all one day stand before Him, Christians cannot afford to be ignorant of God’s Word…
2.      Simon Peter’s challenge to us is that we “…stir up our minds by the words of the prophets and the apostles…” found in this book!
 
 
 
 
 

2 Peter 2:20-22


2 Peter 2:20-22

(A Bible Study Led by Dr. Larry Reynolds)

June 26, 2014

 

1.      There is something inside us which cries out for justice…we have built into us this innate desire for good to be rewarded and evil to be punished…that’s why we applaud novels, movies, television programs where, in the end, the good people prevail and the bad people are brought to justice…

2.      And I think this desire built into us for goodness to prevail and evil to be defeated comes from God, Himself…throughout the Bible God is portrayed as a God of justice…can’t read the Scripture without seeing that in the end, God is going to bring His creation to a time of judgment…the purpose of judgment is to reward faithfulness, obedience, and good…and the purpose of judgment is to punish unfaithfulness, disobedience, and evil…listen to these representative statements from the Bible:

·         I Samuel 2:10a“Those who contend with the Lord will be shattered; against them He will thunder in the heavens.  The Lord will judge the ends of the earth…”

·         Psalm 50:6“And the heavens declare His righteousness, for God Himself is judge.”

·         Psalm 98:9b“He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.”

·         Galatians 6:7 -  “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”

·         Hebrews 9:27 -  “…it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment…”

·         James 4:12“There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy…”

Share all that to remind you that God’s judgment is an absolute reality that has been built into our universe…

3.      Peter was well aware of the reality of God’s judgment…in this session we are going to conclude our study of 2 Peter 2 by focusing on the last three verses of the chapter…told you several times that these verses tell us of the fate of the false teachers, the counterfeit Christians who had infected the early church…actually, throughout chapter 2 of this letter Peter refers to the fate of the counterfeit Christians…look at 2 Peter 2 and let your eye just kind of fall down the chapter…notice al the things Peter says about their fate…

·         V.1 – “…bringing swift destruction upon themselves…”

·         V.3 – “…their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”

·         V.9 – “…the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment  for the day of judgment.”

·         V.12 – “…will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed…”

·         V.17 – “…for whom the black darkness has been reserved…”

4.      Now, Peter concludes this chapter by explaining why such a fate awaits these counterfeit Christians…look at 2 Peter 2:20-22…(text)

T.S. – That is one of the most difficult passages in 2 Peter…the difficulty comes in identifying precisely what Peter is saying about these false teachers…

            --Is he saying that the false teachers had at one time been genuine Christians?  Were they people who had come to faith in Christ, been saved, then turned away from Christ and lost their salvation?  A surface reading of these verses would seem to support that.

            --Or, is he saying that the false teachers were people who only claimed to have a faith relationship with Christ, but in reality had never really known Him?  I think a more careful reading of these verses indicates that is the case.

      These verses describe to us the kind of people who should live in fear of God’s judgment…they describe the kind of people on whom God’s judgment will fall…want you to see two things to you about that…

I.    God’s Judgment will fall on those who choose the way of reformation over the way of transformation

1.      Problem of the counterfeit Christians in 2 Peter 2 is that they misunderstood the nature of real salvation…they viewed salvation as an “outside/in” process…that is, they felt if they cleaned up the outside of their lives, if they stopped doing certain things, avoided certain vices, that meant they were right with God… v.20 speaks of them as having “…escaped the defilements of the world…”…word translated “defilements” in the NASB and “pollutions” in some other translations refers to defilements from the outside…literally the word means “outward stain”

2.      But true Christianity is not an “outside/in” process…it is an “inside/out” process…we saw back in 1:4 Peter describes true Christians as “…having escaped the corruption that is in the world…””corruption” is a much stronger word than “defilements”…it refers to corruption from within…”corruption” deals with inward causes…”defilements” deals only with outward symptoms…

3.      What want you to see in that is God does not call us to life of reformation…calls us to life of transformation…genuine relationship with Jesus changes the very core of our being…it is not what we do, it is what God does…as Paul put it in 2 Cor. 5:17 – “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

4.      And instead of being transformed, made into a new person, by the power of Christ, the false teachers only temporarily reformed their lives in their own strength…and invariably, as we always do operating in our own power, they fell back into their old ways…became entangled once again in ways of world and ended up in worse state than in which they began…

5.      The phrase in v.20 “…the last state has become worse for them than the first…” is virtually a direct quote from a strange little parable that Peter no doubt heard Jesus tell…recorded in Matthew 12 and Luke 11…about man from whom unclean spirit was cast out…but instead of allowing God to enter his life to occupy the space vacated by the unclean spirit, the man kept that place empty…Jesus said unclean spirit returned with seven other unclean spirits…and he ended up in a worse condition than before…point of that parable and point of this passage in 2 Peter is that self-reformation is a dead end street…it is an effort in futility…we will never be truly changed by reformation…we must be changed from the inside out by the power of God…

1.      The first car I ever owned was an old, beat up 1962 Ford Falcon…it cost $300 and I was extremely proud of that car…I took care of it as if it were a very expensive car…every week I washed it…on a regular basis I would wax it and carefully clean the interior…I learned to change the oil and tune the engine…but not matter how much a pampered that car, it was never anything but a Ford Falcon…that was all it was and all it ever could be…

2.      And no matter how much we work on our lives, apart from a radical transformation which comes only through a faith commitment to Jesus Christ, we will always be less than God intended for us to be and always stand under God’s judgment…

1.      Another way of looking at it is the difference between treating a symptom and a cause of a medical condition.  Merely treating or masking the system does not get to the root of the problem.  The root of our spiritual problem is that we have a sinful, rebellious nature.  No matter how hard we try to change it, we are not going to be successful.  (See Paul’s discussion of his struggle in Romans 7.)  The answer is not reformation; it is being transformed by Christ. (See Romans 8.) 

2.      And no matter how much we work on our lives, no matter how hard we try to change our lives on the outside, apart from a radical transformation on the inside, a transformation which comes only through a faith commitment to Jesus Christ, we will always be less than God intended for us to be and always stand under God’s judgment…

II.  God’s judgment falls on those who choose the way of head knowledge about Jesus over personal relationship with Jesus     

1.      The false teachers, counterfeit Christians described in 2 Peter 2 certainly knew about Jesus…they are described in v.20 of having “knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…”…v.21 tells us they knew “the way of righteousness” or the way of salvation…

2.      But, they obviously did not have a personal, life-changing relationship with Jesus…while they knew Him in the sense of knowing about Him, they did not live in daily relationship with Him…they probably could—

--recite the facts of His life…

--quote some of His most well known sayings…

--stand in a public assembly and say elegant prayers…

--even preach a sermon about Him…

      But truth is, they didn’t really know Him…they had not allowed Him to penetrate their hearts, to change their lives, to make them new creatures…

3.      And in v.21 Peter makes a startling statement about such people…says “…it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness…” than having known it only to reject it…think about that…it’s an amazing statement…ignorance of the way of salvation is preferable to rejecting the way of salvation…why?…because those who are merely ignorant have at least not turned their backs on the only way to relationship with God…

4.      What want you to see in all that is it is not enough merely to know about Jesus…not enough merely to have a head knowledge of Him… in our culture, it is rare to find a person who does not at least know something of the facts of Jesus’ life…most people in our culture have heard about Him…many have studied His life…read that Joseph Stalin, the brutal Russian dictator attended seminary as a young man…Nikiti Khrushcev, the Russian Premier during the height of the cold war, even memorized the four gospels as a youth…but just knowing about Jesus is not enough…until we have welcomed Him into our lives, allowed Him to have a resting place, a home in our hearts, live in relationship with Him, we stand in danger of God’s judgment…

1.      And the question we must ask ourselves is, “Do I really know Jesus?”…not do I know about Him?…but do I know Him?…do I live in relationship with Him?…do I know Him in the way I know I husband/wife…father/mother…son/daughter…it is that personal,  relationship which enables us to stand in the day of judgment…

2.      And the evidence that we know Him is a changed life…if we live in relationship with Jesus, our lives will give evidence of that relationship …that’s point of proverb Peter quotes in v.22 about dog returning to its vomit or pig wallowing in mud…when we enter relationship with Jesus, He begins to change our nature…we don’t go back to the old ways because He is constantly leading us into new ways…

Conclusion


1.      The Scripture tells us that “…it is appointed unto men once to die and after this comes judgment…” [Hebrews 9:27]…it also tells us that “…we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God.” [Romans 14:10]…

2.   But for those who live in personal relationship with Jesus and whose lives have been transformed by Him, judgment is not a time to fear or dread…instead, it is a time to hear the Master say, “Well done.  Well done good and faithful servant.”