Rout 66: 2 Peter - The Final Charge: Grow, Discern, Endure

Hello, family.

Please open your Bibles to page 1079.

2 Peter.

Peter wrote this letter from prison.

He was in Rome.

It was somewhere between 64 and 68 A.D.

Tradition has it that Peter was martyred at the hand of Nero, Emperor Nero.

He writes this letter a short time after the first letter that he writes, 1 Peter.

So why the urgency?

Let's look at verse 114.

Since I know that I will soon lay aside my tent, as our Lord Jesus Christ has indeed made clear to me, he knew he was about to be martyred.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 21, our Lord describes in detail how and approximately when Peter would experience physical death.

John 21 · chapter mention

Peter writes the same believers he wrote to in 1 Peter.

Exiles.

Exiles from northern Asia Minor.

This is modern-day Turkey.

The region had both Jews and Gentiles.

Let's look at verse 1-1.

To those who have received a faith equal to ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

So he's writing to Christians, but he's not just representing himself.

Notice the word ours.

Peter is writing on behalf of the apostles.

The recipients of his letter had become Peter's flock.

We know from the book of Acts that Paul planted these churches in Asia Minor.

But at some point in the past, Peter had assumed responsibility for them.

The apostle wanted to get one last message across to his faithful.

What did they need to know?

What was the most important thing for them to know?

His believers were being persecuted.

We know that from 1 Peter.

So he wrote 1 Peter to encourage them to endure their suffering.

He wrote 2 Peter to expose false teachers and instruct his readers how not to be seduced by their deception.

1 Peter emphasizes the eminency of Christ's return as a means of encouragement.

2 Peter, dealing with scoffers, emphasizes the reasons why Christ's return had not yet occurred.

2 Peter is a farewell speech, a swan song of Peter.

Much like 2 Timothy is a swan song of Paul.

2 Peter is an instructional letter.

It's structured in four parts.

Part 1, verses 13 through 111.

The importance of growing in holiness.

And lastly, part four, verses 3-1 through 313, the importance of trusting God's promises.

Notice in each part that Peter is looking forward.

Before we open God's word, let's go to him in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we just ask that you illuminate your word for us this evening, that your precious word is understood, interpreted, and most importantly applied to our lives.

In your Son's name we pray.

Amen.

So part one the importance of growing in holiness.

Let's look at verse 13.

His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.

By these, He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.

There is so much theology in this passage.

But what jumps off the page here?

We read it twice.

Given us.

By these he has given us.

Given us what?

Given us everything.

The one who has given us everything has called us.

This is the effectual call to salvation.

We didn't earn it.

It was given to us.

We are incapable of sharing in the divine nature unless the Holy Spirit is given to us.

He wants the believers to know that God has chosen them.

In the two verses we just read, we move from justification to sanctification.

Justification is a one-time event when God made us alive by giving us the Holy Spirit.

Sanctification is a process, a lifelong pursuit, a process of becoming holy, becoming like Christ.

We share in the work with the Holy Spirit that indwells us.

Reformed theologian and author Jerry Bridges wrote, To be holy is to be morally blameless.

The word holy signifies separation to God and the conduct befitting those separated.

That's hard.

That's why it's a lifelong pursuit.

Lifelong.

Let's look at verse Oh, how does Peter instruct his readers to become holy?

Let's look at verse 15.

Make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affections, brotherly affection with love.

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The person who lacks these things is blind and short-sighted and has forgotten the cleansing from past sins.

Failure to diligently pursue these qualities, such as these, produce spiritual amnesia.

A believer lacking these qualities will live in fear, doubt, and anxiety.

Verse 110 is the bullseye Peter has been shooting at in verses 5 through 9.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things, you will never stumble.

And he will never lose his salvation.

Some call that perseverance of the saints.

That believer will never stumble into fear, doubt, and anxiety, but instead have total assurance, total assurance of eternal life.

Peter needs them to know this.

Very important.

But there's more.

Let's look at verse 11.

For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be richly provided to you.

Peter is pointing forward here.

For those who do these things, eternal riches await.

Amen.

Part two.

The importance of trusting God's Word.

The importance of trusting God's Word.

Verse 112 through 121.

God must be known, otherwise he won't be trusted.

Four times in the first eight verses, Peter uses the word knowledge.

The word or a derivation of the word is mentioned a total of 16 times.

Where does a Christian acquire knowledge of God?

The scriptures.

This is an allusion to Psalm 119-105.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Peter is exhorting his flock to grow in the faith so that they will never walk in darkness.

And he's given them the method of how to achieve this.

Knowing God, knowing God by knowing his word.

Instead, we were eyewitnesses to his majesty.

This is a transitional verse in the letter.

He turns his attention to a problem.

False teachers are the problem.

But Peter has the solution.

But he must first defend his apostleship.

We just talked about this.

In verse 17, he appeals to the transfiguration, a foreshadow of the coming eternal kingdom.

Again, he is pointing forward.

The Lord Jesus Himself chose Peter, John, and James to witness this monumental event, an event which clearly proves that Jesus is God the Son.

Denial of the deity of Christ, denial of his second coming are the cleverly contrived myths being propagated by these false teachers.

Peter poses a challenge to his readers.

Who are you going to believe?

Me?

Or men who never knew Christ?

The apostle now appeals to Scripture again.

The absolute necessity for his believers to trust God's word.

Verse 20.

Above all, you know this.

No prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet's own interpretation.

Because no prophecy ever came by the will of man.

Instead, men spoke from God as they were carried by the Holy Spirit.

You know this, Peter exclaims.

God is the author of the scriptures.

You know this.

Don't trust man-made myths that deny the deity of Christ.

Trust the divinely inspired men that wrote the Bible, who spoke for God.

Peter understands that if the people could trust the prophecy spoken of in Scripture, it would not only provide a defense against the false teachers, but it would also motivate them, motivate them to holy living.

The greatest defense against false doctrine is knowledge of true doctrine, God's Word.

We now move to part three, which is the entirety of chapter two.

And that is the importance of recognizing false teachers and their false teaching.

Let's look at verse 2.1.

There were indeed false prophets among the people.

Just as there will be false teachers among you, they will bring destruction.

I'm sorry, they will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, and will bring a swift destruction on themselves.

Many will follow their depraved ways, and the way of truth will be maligned because of them.

They will exploit you in their greed with made-up stories.

Their condemnation, pronounced long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep.

Just as Israel dealt with false prophets, so too Christians will deal with false teachers.

In this section, Peter describes the false teachers in detail, but he doesn't spend much time on the specifics of what they are teaching.

What is motivating these teachers to cleverly contrive these myths?

Take a look at verse 2.3 again.

They will exploit you in their greed with made-up stories.

Go down to verse 14.

They have eyes full of adultery that never stop looking for sin.

They seduce unstable people and have hearts trained in greed.

They exploited people through their lies.

Peter needs his readers to know that these men will be judged.

So he appeals again to the scriptures.

Verse 2, 3.

Their condemnation, pronounced long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep.

The apostle now moves on here to give three examples from the Old Testament in verses 4 through 9.

His first example speaks of the judgment pronounced on the demons who followed Satan's rebellion against God.

His second alludes to the time of Noah, when God wiped out sinful mankind.

And lastly, he recalls God's judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah.

But Peter also reminds his readers that the Lord will deliver the godly, represented here by Noah and Lot.

There is always a remnant.

In verses 12 through 19, Peter spares no words in his rebuke against these false teachers, describing their depravity in stinging accusations.

Verse 12.

But these people, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct born to be caught and destroyed, slander what they do not understand, and in their destruction they too will be destroyed.

Verse 15, abandoning the straight path and have followed the path of Balaam, the son of Bozor, who loved the wages of wickedness.

Verse 17, these people are springs without water.

Verse 18, they seduce with fleshly desires and debauchery.

Verse 19, they themselves are slaves of corruption.

What Peter is describing here are men who do not walk with Christ.

They walk in the pollution of the worldly system.

This system is Satan's spiritual realm, a system that is in opposition to God and rebellion against his kingdom.

These false teachers claim allegiance to Christ, but despise his lordship.

They know the true path, but have chosen the corrupt path.

Motivated by personal gain, they create their own self-willed interpretations of Scripture that contradict God's word.

What does the future hold for them?

Take a look at verse 20.

For if, having escaped the world's impurity through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in these things and defeated.

The last state is worse for them than the first.

For it would have been better for them to have not known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy command delivered to them.

It had happened to them according to the true proverb.

A dog returns to his own vomit, and a washed soul returns to wallowing in the mud.

To a Jewish mind, there is nothing lower than a dog.

The apostle cites Proverbs 26, 11 as a graphic, ugly picture of false prophets, false teachers.

These men have purposefully and deliberately chosen to teach a false gospel.

Peter makes it very clear that these unrighteous, wicked men will ultimately experience the most severe punishment.

The most severe.

Verses 3-1 through 313.

The importance of trusting God's promises.

Trusting his promises.

So this letter is Peter's last will and testament.

In this final section, he speaks like a pastor, a pastor who is pouring out his heart to his congregation.

He has just terrified them with his words in the previous chapter.

He now points believers to their future, their assured hope, hope of what God has promised them.

He begins chapter 3 with a greeting.

Dear friends, we see this greeting repeated three additional times in the verses to come.

Most Bible translations take that instead of dear friends, they use beloved, beloved.

As we look at this last section, let's substitute beloved in place of dear friends.

I think you'll feel the heart of Peter more.

So let's look at verse 1.

Beloved, this is now the second letter I write to you.

Scoffers will come in the last days, scoffing and following their own evil desires, saying, Where is his coming that he promised?

Ever since our ancestors fell asleep, all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.

Here Peter refers to the false teachers as scoffers.

Can't you just feel their arrogance in this passage?

Where is his coming?

All things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.

So many prophets have spoken of the coming of a new day.

The day of the Lord.

Did they miss this?

The prophesied day of the Lord is a day of judgment.

A day of judgment.

Peter needs the flock to know that this is no time for complacency.

But the prophets are not the only ones speaking.

Look at verse 1 again.

I want to stir up your sincere understanding by way of reminder so that you recall the words previously spoken by the holy prophets and the command of our Lord and Savior given through your apostles.

Did you pick up on the and in that passage?

Peter is not only appealing to the Old Testament, he also is appealing to the available writings of the apostles.

These writings record and explain the words of the Savior Himself.

The New Testament is now starting to come together.

It's about 35 years after the Lord has ascended.

Take a look at verse 15.

Just as our dear brother Paul has written to you, according to the wisdom given to him, he speaks these things in all his letters.

Paul's two letters to the Thessalonians, highly end times focused, were likely written at least a decade prior to Peter's letters.

To refute skepticism about Christ's return, Peter reminds readers that God has faithfully kept every promise since the first day of creation.

In verses 5 through 13, Peter presents a three-in-one world.

The past world, the present world, and the future world.

In the past, the unrighteous were rightfully judged.

Water destroyed civilization, and the wicked perished in the flood.

But Noah and his family found favor and were saved.

By grace, through faith.

In the future, God will destroy the unrighteous through fire.

But believers will be saved by grace, through faith.

Take a look at verse 7.

By the same word, the present heavens and earth are stored up for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly.

Look at the words Peter uses in verses 10 through 13.

Heat.

Amidst this cataclysmic language, Peter also speaks of assurance and hope.

It sounds a lot like a prophetic book.

Take a look at verse 8.

Beloved, don't overlook this one fact.

With the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.

The Lord does not delay his promise, as some would understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

He reminds his flock that the one true God that they worship is an eternal God who is patient, who wants all to come to repent in faith, saving faith.

He wants all to share in the promise.

The unrighteous will be destroyed, but those who find favor, those who are declared righteous through the blood of Christ will be saved.

Verse 13.

But based on the promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells.

Amen.

Peter implored his believers to know the Holy Scriptures, to trust the words spoken of by the prophets regarding the second coming.

Such as these spoken words of Isaiah.

Isaiah 60, verses 19 through 21.

Isaiah 60:19–21

The sun will no longer be light by day, and the brightness of the moon will not shine on you.

The Lord will be your splendor.

Your sun will no longer set, and your moon will not fade.

But the Lord will be your everlasting light.

And the days of your sorrow will be over.

All your people will be righteous.

They will possess the land forever.

They are the branch I planted, the work of my hands, so that I may be glorified.

What a beautiful picture.

So let's summarize Peter's letter.

Let's draw some conclusions of our own.

Peter's death is imminent.

In his final exhortation in verses 314 through 18, he provides a recap of what he's just instructed them.

He reminds his flock to be on alert for lawless people.

People he describes as untaught and unstable, to be on alert for unrighteous men who will twist the meaning of both the scriptures and Paul's letters.

In verse 17, he reminds them that they are stable.

His believers, they are stable.

They have the firm foundation of Old Testament scriptures, as well as the letters of Paul.

But they must grow.

They must grow in the knowledge of God.

Just as he urged them at the beginning of the letter, he closed with what he believed was the most important thing for them to remember.

Verse 18, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Reformed theologian and author Curtis Braun wrote, A false teacher is one who holds to unrepentantly and persistently teaches and preaches a false gospel that damns men's souls by attacking, twisting, misrepresenting, adding to, or leaving out essential components of the gospel.

Or essential components of the bad news of sin, death, and hell.

A false teacher could also be one who teaches the true gospel, but lives a life in contradiction and opposition to the gospel, and thus blasphemes the gospel through their life.

False teachers are damned, and they damn those who embrace their false doctrine.

That's a tough passage right there.

Tough quote.

Peter's letter speaks directly to us.

What have we learned from this letter?

We need to know the Bible.

We need to be doctrinally stable.

The more we know and trust God's Word, the more easily we will recognize false teachers and their false message.

The less likely we will be fooled by them, or even worse, fleeced by them.

They prove text, they twist God's word to propagate their agenda and glorify it.

They tickle the ears of the unstable with promises of health and wealth.

Name it and claim it.

They have no interest in feeding the sheep with the pure milk of the word.

Doctrinal stability will prevent the sheep from being led astray.

Doctrinal stability will help believers to discern if the message, if the messenger is glorifying God.

Equally so, doctrinal stability will give us a greater confidence to share the gospel.

Peter reminds us that the Lord that we serve is patient, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

Sounds like a call to evangelism.

We are the means to his eternal end.

We are commanded to make disciples by sharing the gospel.

God does the rest.

The day of the Lord will come like a thief.

Peter warned us.

Paul warned us as well.

He said, like a thief in the night.

Today is the day of salvation.

Today.

Let's pray.

Father, we look at this book and as we meditate on it and study it, we recognize the horror of false teaching that is so abundant in our culture.

Whether it's legalism or easy believism, there are false gospels everywhere, Father.

And we just we lift every one of those souls up to you who are being taught on Sunday mornings with a false message.

And we just pray, Father, that the gospel somehow gets to them and that they are saved.

Father, as we go out into the world, give us the strength, give us the strength to apply these wonderful words that we have learned tonight to our lives.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.