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2 Peter 3, and we'll read verses
15 and 16. And account that the longsuffering
of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also
according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you,
as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things
in which are some things hard to be understood, which they
that are unlearned and unstable rest. as they do also the other
scriptures unto their own destruction. And may God bless his word to
us this morning. In recent days and weeks, there's
been some furor over some prominent pastors in America, one of them
by the name of Andy Stanley, a megachurch pastor, the son
of Charles Stanley, a well-known Southern Baptist. And this Andy
Stanley, who's been really deviating from scriptural Christianity
for a long time, promoting this free grace idea that God is not
concerned with your lifestyle or your sin, that you have this
grace and you can live as you please. Well, now he's taken
the next logical step, which is the affirming of sodomy, or
as they call it, LGBT, and all these these terms are used, but
scripturally it's sodomy. And he actually said, this Andy
Stanley, that LGBT individuals who go to church have more faith
than a lot of you, which he said to his congregation. He said
a gay person who still wants to attend church after the way
the church has treated the gay community He says, I'm telling
you, they have more faith than I do. They have more faith than
a lot of you. A gay person who knows, you know
what? I may not be accepted here, but
I'm going to try it anyway. Have you ever done that as a
straight person? Where do you go that you're not sure you're
going to be accepted and you go over and over and over? Andy
Stanley said. He acknowledged that there were
verses in the Bible that condemned homosexuality, but then added,
oh my goodness, a gay man or woman who wants to worship their
heavenly father, who did not answer the cry of their heart
when they were 12 and 13 and 14 and 15, God said, no, and
they still love God. We have some things to learn
from a group of men and women who love Jesus that much and
want to worship with us. I know the verses, I know the
clobber passages, right? We've got to figure this out.
And you know what? I think you are. And so you get
the idea. He's more or less holding up
the Sodomite as an example for other Christians to follow. This
is how twisted and perverted modern day Christianity has become.
What does God say about sodomy? Thou shalt not lie with mankind
as with womankind. It is abomination. God says it's
detestable. And here's this man saying, no,
these are people, these sodomites, we should look up to them. We
should try and emulate them and their faith. Okay, this is what
you call a wolf in sheep's clothing. This is a false teacher, and
this is the very type of person that Peter is warning about in
his second epistle. We are seeing increasing apostasy
in our generation. People who once seemed to stand
for the truth are now capitulating to the world. And second, Peter
deals with the problem of false teachers infiltrating the church
and spreading their errors. We saw that particularly in chapter
two. He said, there'll be false teachers in that first verse
among you. And so even as first Peter was
about attacks from without, persecution and opposition from outside the
church, well, second Peter is about error from within, false
teachers rising up within the flock to turn them away from
the truth. And so his warnings in 2 Peter
are much needed today as error runs rampant among churches. And so in this third chapter
you'll notice that he deals a lot with the second coming of Jesus
Christ. And here we have a particular
type of false teacher and they're called scoffers in verse 3. In the last days they rise up
and their scoffing is about the promise of Christ's coming in
verse 4. And they say, you know, he's not really coming back and
they view the delay of Christ's coming as evidence that he is
not coming at all. that there will be no judgment,
and that the world will simply continue in its present state.
All things just continue as they always have, and they always
will. And this idea that God is going
to directly intervene in this world and judge the world, they
scoff at it, but they forget. And they're willfully ignorant,
in fact, that God actually has intervened in the past. He destroyed
the world with a flood, and they're also ignorant that God will destroy
this world in the future by fire. And so this is the answer that
Peter gives to the scoffers, how he refutes them. And he shows
that God's view of time is altogether different to man's, and that
the delay of Christ's return is a demonstration of God's mercy
and long-suffering, giving space to sinners to repent. And we
saw that in the last few weeks, and how that the Lord is long-suffering,
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,
in verse 9. And so this is the truth about
it, and so this answers the scoffers. And then we saw last week knowing
that this world will soon come to an end and will be replaced
with an entirely new world, it should provoke us to prepare
for that world, and we do that by walking in godliness, being
obedient to God and preparing ourselves for that world, the
new world where there's no more sin, that wherein dwells righteousness,
and that's what we look to and we should be living for. Now,
In verse 14, you see at the start of the verse, sorry, not verse
14, verse 15, you see the opening of the verse there, an account
that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation. And so this
is actually more or less repeating what was being said there in
verse 9. But he says you need to account something. The word
account means to deeply consider and to regard something. And
so you need to really think about this truth and meditate upon
this truth. and it will shape your thinking and your lives. And in fact that word, that verb
for account, it's an imperative. That means it's a command. This
is a command from the scripture. You need to account something,
what? That the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation. We
often read the scriptures and we take it in a little bit and
we think about it for a while But do we really account, do
we really regard and meditate upon truths and let them sink
in, not just on the surface of our minds but in the depth of
our hearts so we can account it and then it becomes a part
of our being and then starts to shape our lives. We need to
do more accounting of the scripture and regarding of the scripture.
There's a lack of that today. And what's the point? Well, far
from God having a lack of regard for mankind, his delay shows
his love for mankind because the long-suffering of our Lord
is what? Salvation. His long-suffering equals salvation. How does that work? Well, it's
salvation because it graciously gives time for sinners to repent.
That's salvation. He doesn't just judge us and
send us to hell immediately. No, he gives us space and he's
patient. And we sin and we might reject
the gospel, but what a merciful God. He doesn't just send us
to hell. And then it leads to salvation. It's salvation because
it allows the believer time and opportunity to progress in sanctification
as well. There's a present tense salvation, which
is sanctification. And so we can think of it that
way. God's long suffering towards us is salvation even as we are
believers and we grow in grace. But how wonderful that God is
long suffering to all of us. to us would, even to wicked sinners,
and he'd give space to repent. I was reading about John Bunyan,
and you're probably familiar with some of his life story.
He wasn't saved in his younger days, and he went the way of
the world for many years, and he relates in his biography,
his autobiography, about different incidents in his life and how
closely came to death at numerous instances. At one stage, as a
young man, as a youngster, he fell into a creek and then he
fell out of a boat into the River Ouse and he was saved from drowning.
He said, you know, I could have died and gone to hell at that
moment. At one stage he was travelling between towns and an adder, a
snake crossed his path. He stunned it with a stick, forced
open its mouth and with his fingers plucked out its tongue, which
he supposed to be the sting, this boy playing with an adder's
mouth. And he said about this, by which
act had God not been merciful unto me, I might by my desperateness
have brought myself to my end. That's a long-suffering of God.
Long-suffering with our stupidity and putting ourselves at foolish
risks, especially as young people. Then when the Civil War was on,
And he was a soldier in the parliamentary army. And he was drawn to go
to the siege of Leicester. And when he was ready to go out
to battle, he says, one offered to go in his stead. And Bunyan
says, when I consented, he took my place. And coming to the siege,
as he stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket
ball and died. That's where he should have been.
And his substitute was killed. And he was 17 years old. And
he said about this, here were judgments and mercy, but neither
of them did awaken my soul to righteousness, wherefore I sinned
still and grew more and more rebellious against God and careless
of my own salvation. And yet he still rebelled against
God, but God was what? Long-suffering. And in due time,
grace abounded to, as he calls himself, the chief of sinners.
And we have the fruits of that in Pilgrim Progress and others
of his writing. And we could all testify of how
God has been gracious to us over the years. And he didn't just
strike us down and how he persevered and he allowed us to, and he
gave us time to repent. Yet what effect should that have
on us? It should humble us to think about God's long-suffering
being salvation. And we should say, as Paul said
in Romans 11.33, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways
past finding out. We should marvel at the wisdom
of God and the mercy of God and his long-suffering to us would.
It should also cause us to trust in God more. God's got it under
control. And his timeframe is not our
timeframe. His long suffering is salvation. That's how we should think. God
doesn't make mistakes. He's in control. He oversees
all these things. And his plan is being carried
out. And it's always right on time. We should never doubt him.
We should trust him. It should cause us to persevere
faithfully as we wait for his coming in his timing. And you
think, well, why doesn't Jesus come back? Even so, come, Lord
Jesus, and it turns from a desire, it turns into a demand, Jesus,
come back and deliver us from this situation. But no, we shouldn't
need to be patient. He'll come in his timing. His
long-suffering is salvation. and we should simply wait for
him to come. And because so often we can get
impatient, we could be, you think of the children of Israel, and
they came out of Egypt, and they're in the wilderness, and they're
waiting for Moses to come back down from the mount, and they
should have been patient. But what did they do? They said,
you know, he's not coming back. Let us make gods. And next thing,
they make these gods and they're worshipping idols. and we should
not follow that example. We should be patient and wait
for his timing. It should also promote the same
patience in us towards sinners. What's he saying here? God is
long-suffering and patient towards sinners. How should I be towards
those sinners around me? I should be long-suffering and
patient. Are we always that way? Not always. We're not God-like
in that regard. We should have the heart of God
towards sinners that he has. And yes, they reject our presentation
of the gospel to them. And they even blaspheme and they
mock our faith. What should we do? We should
be patient and long-suffering, even as God was towards us. And
so we need that heart of God in these areas. We need to account
the long-suffering of God in salvation. And then as we come
to the remainder of verse 15 and 16, which we're looking at
now, Peter refers to the inspired writings of the apostle Paul
and the rest of the scriptures. And so the focus here comes to
the writings of the scriptures. And one of the recurring themes
in 2 Peter is the centrality of the scriptures to the believer.
Peter is focused on the Word of God. Way back in the first
chapter, you see in chapter one, verse four, he says, What's that? It's the promises of the scripture.
He says, believer, all these things are happening in the world,
but you know what? God has given these promises that you can plant
your life upon. You can stake your soul upon.
And he points the saints to the Word of God, the promises of
scripture. You see that there in chapter
1, verse 4. And then as he goes through that first chapter, he
says in verse 16, we don't follow cunningly devised fables. And
that's what men creates. No. But rather than follow these
cunningly devised fables, We trust in verse 19 the more sure
word of prophecy. This is sure. This is steadfast.
This isn't the words of men. This is the words of God. Why
is it the word of God? Verse 21. The prophecy did not come in
old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost. He says this book, the words
of the prophecy, they aren't the words of men, they're the
words of God given by the Holy Ghost. Every single one of them,
you can trust them. You see his focus on the scriptures?
And when you come to chapter 2, talking about the false prophets
there, He makes a lot of references to the Old Testament, historical
events and accounts in the Old Testament, whether it's Noah,
whether it's Sodom and Gomorrah, whether it's Balaam and all those
things. And he's pointing back to the
scriptures. That's his foundation. And then you come to chapter
three. In verse two, he talks about the be mindful of the words
which are spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment
of the apostles of the Lord and Savior. What's he talking about?
The word of God. You see his focus. It always
comes back to the scriptures. And so the centrality of the
scriptures, I would say this. It is impossible to hold the
scriptures with too high a regard. It is impossible to hold the
scriptures with too high regard. Do we ever need to be careful
we don't esteem the words of God too highly, that we don't
sort of make an idol out of the scriptures? I don't think that's
ever been a problem for any person ever. Our problem is lightly
esteeming them, not having them in high enough regard because
in Psalm 138 verse two, it says this, thou hast magnified thy
word above all thy name. How magnified is the name of
God? It's the most magnified thing in the universe. And it
says, God has magnified his word above all thy name. We should
magnify it also. And so that's how it should be
in our lives. Yet from the beginning, Satan
has sought to remove from men the foundation of faith in the
Word of God, whether by destroying it outright and trying to just
wipe it off the face of the earth, or corrupting it. And we see
that in different ways. Liberal theology, textual criticism,
casting doubt that whether we really have the preserved words
of God. Modern versions, they cast doubt on the Word of God.
and just casting down on the scriptures generally. This is
what Satan has been doing and is doing today. Sin and error
in a church begins by departing from the centrality of scripture
and replacing it with something else. Any church that departs
from truth and from righteousness, they've departed from the word
of God and they've brought something else in place. Catholicism. Catholicism
has put the scripture over here and has replaced it with tradition.
Tradition is the main thing, and the scripture has to submit
to tradition, the church tradition, you see. Orthodoxy, Greek orthodoxy,
replaces scripture with the liturgy. That's their foundation. That's
what they rely upon. Pentecostalism replaces scripture
with experiences. Well, I felt this and God spoke
to me and I had this experience. Well, it doesn't matter what
the Bible says, this is what happened to me and I've had people say
that. You know, I received this word, and God gave me this word,
as if they were receiving direct revelation from God. I don't
really care what you think you heard from God. What did God
say in the word of God, in the Scriptures, in black and white?
See, they replaced Scripture with their experiences. The cults
replaced Scripture with extra-biblical teachings, and so they have the
Bible, a lot of them. But then they'll have their other
book. They'll have the Book of Mormon, or they'll have the writings
of Ellen White, or they'll have these extra writings of man which
replace the scripture, you see. Liberal churches replace scripture
with man's opinions and all these things. You see how every time
it's removing the scripture and replacing it, that's where they
depart. And so that's why in a true church,
it's the pulpit that takes the central place in a true church. You'll see other churches, they'll
have an altar, that's the centrality in the Catholic Church, it's
the altar. You'll see other churches, they'll have the drum kit and
the electric guitar, that's the centrality of what the church
is about. No, the pulpit, where the word of God is read, where
it's expounded, that should be the centrepiece of the church.
And that's what we seek to do. And I would also say this, in
a lot of churches where there's a pulpit, It's merely just there
for appearance. And maybe the scripture is read
or a portion of the scripture is read, but then the Bible is
set aside and man's opinions come forth. It's not scriptural
preaching. What we seek to do here, what
biblical preaching does, is to bring forth what the Word of
God says and set forth the meaning from it, not to force our opinions
upon the Word of God. You see, now as we come to these
two verses, we'll consider the great unity throughout the scriptures,
the difficulties in understanding them, and the misuse of them
by unbelievers. So the first point we'll consider
is there is consistency in the scriptures. Now this is the second
part of verse 15. Now he talks about there, even
as our beloved brother Paul, our beloved brother Paul. Now
this is something worth thinking about for a few minutes. You
have Peter and you have Paul, and what different people they
were. You think of their different backgrounds they had. And how,
you know, what's Peter? He was really an uneducated fisherman. And he was, you know, a rough,
burly man. And he was a fisherman. And you
think of his impulsiveness. And even as a disciple of the
Lord Jesus Christ, how he'd just blurt things out. And he'd just
step out into this. And the impulsiveness of Peter. And you think of that fisherman's
background. And then you come to Paul, this well-educated man. I mean, he was just highly educated.
And he was brought up and trained at the feet of Gamaliel. He was
a Pharisee. He was quite the opposite of
Peter there. Highly intellectual, able to
speak well before crowds and different things, and a great
debater in different things. These two very different men,
and yet they're both used by God in the work of God in the
Church of God. I think that's an example for
us. The Lord's Church needs Peters and the Lord's Church needs Pauls
as well. with their diverse and different
backgrounds, their different skills and gifts. And God just
hasn't got one type of person that he uses in the church, he
uses all types of different people, different gifts, diversity of
gifts, but the one spirit in the one body. And so you see
the two different characters of Peter and Paul, and Peter
refers to him. You think about the relationship
that these two men had. A very interesting study to go
through the course of their relationship. And I'll just go through this
quickly. If you want to turn to Galatians chapter 1, you can
see that Paul himself relates about his encounter with Peter,
or a couple of encounters, in fact. Now, Paul was converted. You know about that in Acts chapter
9. But he says here in Galatians
chapter 1 verse 15, Galatians 1.15, but when it pleased
God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by
His grace to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among
the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither
went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me,
but I went into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. Then after
three years, and so three years had passed, he was converted,
he didn't even go to the apostles straight away. You think, why?
He's been converted. He's a Christian now. Why didn't
he go straight up? No, the Lord had different plans for him.
He went into Arabia and, you know, going out into, you know,
really the desert. And what happened there? The
Lord instructed him. The Lord himself, the Lord Jesus
instructed Paul and gave him these direct revelations. A very special person, this Apostle
Paul. But he did go up after three
years. He went to Jerusalem, it says there in verse 18. And so he's gone up to Jerusalem
and he says, I need to see Peter and I'm going to see him not
just for a day, but for 15 days. You just imagine what the things
they talked about and just the back and forth that would have
gone on between these two men. And Paul, giving his testimony,
said, this is what happened to me. I was going to Damascus.
I was going to destroy every last one of you. But the Lord,
he revealed himself to me and his grace was bestowed upon me.
And I believed and he's changed me. And now I don't want to persecute
the church. I want to build up the church.
I serve Jesus Christ. He's my Lord. And this is, you
know, just giving that testimony. Just imagine Peter beholding
this. What was Peter's response? Well,
all we get here is in verse 24, the last verse of Galatians 1.
Well, verse 23, but they had heard only that he which persecuted
us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed
and they, including Peter, glorified God in me. And so, what's Peter's
response? Glory to God. Glory to God for
God's grace upon the last person we ever would have thought would
be a Christian. And now here's one of us, and he's an apostle.
And they said, glory to God. And I just love the way it's
worded there. They didn't glorify Paul. They didn't glorify Paul. No, they glorified God in Paul. It was all glory to God through
what he had done in the apostle. And so you see that first meeting
there. 14 years later they met at the Jerusalem council and
that's in Acts chapter 15 and you know we won't refer to that
you know that what happened there there were the Judaizers who
are saying you need to if you're a Christian you need to keep
the law of Moses you need to be circumcised to be saved And
this created a great problem in the church, and they had to
get their heads together, they sought the will of God, and they
defended the doctrine of justification by faith without works. And they
came down very clearly on that, and Peter and Paul were working
together on that one. And then, at the same time, Peter
and the other apostles publicly received Paul into the fellowship
of the church and commissioned him and Barnabas to take the
gospel to the Gentiles. In Galatians, if you're still
there, Galatians 2 verse 1. So this is talking about that
same time. Then 14 years after, I went up again to Jerusalem
with Barnabas, and took Titus also with me, and went up by
revelation, and communicated unto them the gospel, that gospel
which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them, which
are of reputation, lest by any means I should run in vain, or
I should run, or had run in vain. But neither Titus, who was with
me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised." And then,
yeah, it goes on there. and just talks about his going
up to Jerusalem, verse 7. The same was mighty in me toward
the Gentiles. So it seemed the way God had
worked it out, Peter was the apostle to the Jews and Paul
was the apostle to the Gentiles. Just how God had divided the
things. And verse 9, And when James and
Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace
that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right
hands of fellowship, that we should go to the heathen. And
they, under the circumcision, only they would that we should
remember the poor and the same which I also was forward to do. And so they said, Paul, we're
extending the right hand of fellowship. You're one of us, and we believe
the Holy Spirit wants you to go with Barnabas out to the heathen
and to go on your missionary journeys and so forth. There's
the next stage. Everything seems to be going
pretty well between Peter and Paul to this point, right? But
then you see Galatians 2 and verse 11. But when Peter was come to Antioch,
I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.
For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the
Gentiles. But when they were come, these
Jews came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were
of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled
likewise with him, dissembling is hypocrisy, insomuch that Barnabas
also was carried away with their dissimulation. Peter was influential. When Peter made a choice, often
others would follow him. He was just that type of character.
But anyway, verse 14, Why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as
do the Jews? We who are Jews by nature and
not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ,
etc. And so he rebukes him. And it's
a public rebuke. And moreover, Paul writes by
inspiration and records this so that we are still talking
about Paul's rebuke of Peter publicly 2,000 years later. Now,
how's Peter going to respond to that? I mean, that was a real
blow. That's humbling to have a public
rebuke from Paul. He might have resented Paul for
a number of reasons. He might have resented Paul for
being this latecomer to this apostleship. I mean, Peter was
there from the beginning. He was with Christ for about
three years, receiving teaching, seeing the miracles, and here
comes Paul long after, and now he's one of these apostles, and
he thinks he can boss me around? You know, that's how a lot of
people would have responded in the flesh, right? He might have
resented Paul for that public rebuke. Why didn't he just do
it privately? I mean, why did he have to? How
embarrassing for me. I'm going to hold that against
him. I'm going to resent that and I'm going to be bitter towards
Paul. And a lot of people would do
that, even professing Christians who've got that carnality within
them and who are operating in the flesh. But no, Peter harboured
no bitterness or animosity towards Paul, but rather he esteemed
him as what back in 2 Peter? Our beloved brother. He could
have just said there in 2 Peter, even as Paul. Or even as our
brother, Paul, where he says, no, our beloved brother, I love
him. I love Paul. He's a beloved brother. And he's a brother. In fact,
we're both brethren because we're both children of God. And you
see that response to rebuke. What an example to us, how Peter
responded to that rebuke. In Proverbs 9, verse 8, it says,
Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee. You ever reprove someone
and they hate your guts and they just never want to talk to you
again and they hold it against you? What does that prove? It
proves they're a scorner because they hate you. But the next part
of Proverbs 9 verse 8 says, Rebuke a wise man and he will love thee. Rebuke a wise man and he will
love thee. What's Peter showing? He's showing he's a wise man
because he loves Paul even though he was rebuked by him. And to
tell you what, we can learn a lesson from Paul. There's times we need
to rebuke a brother. And it's not pleasant. But we
can learn from Peter how to receive rebuke. And just to say, you
know what, I was wrong. I needed that. Faithful are the
wounds of a friend. And just to receive that and
to take that correction and to get things right. and love that
one who gives the rebuke because they're doing it for our good.
Well, so what an interesting relationship between these two.
But here, Peter is holding up Paul as our beloved brother.
But then he refers to the writings, the inspired writings of Paul.
He says, according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto
you. And so the Apostle Peter here
confirms the truth of his message by referencing the writings of
Paul, which are in complete harmony with Peter's. So Peter said all
these things, but you know what? Paul said the same thing. That's
what he's saying. It's not just me saying this as if I'm something
different. No, Paul said the same things. We're on the same
page here. Now Paul is said to have written
those same things to believers, as he says there, he's written
unto you those, and so what is he talking about? Is he talking
about a certain letter that Paul addressed to these same believers
who were scattered around, you know, that we read about at the
opening of 1 Peter? I think it's more in the sense
of his writings generally. In all his epistles, it talks
about in verse 16, which those epistles of Paul were often just
addressed to a certain church or churches or a certain individual,
Timothy or Titus. They were distributed and read
among all the churches as they are today. Just like today, well,
that letter was written to the church at Corinth, but we read
it and we are benefited by it as well. And so I think he's
just talking generally about Paul's writings. And I think
it's fair to assume that when Paul would write a letter to
a church, and he knew he was writing by inspiration, he wouldn't
just send it to that church, he'd send it especially to the
apostles. And I think Peter would have had in his possession most,
if not all, of Paul's writings. And he had those inspired writings
and he's referencing them here. And you can see how they were
being distributed even in the early days of the New Testament
being written. So Paul wrote the same truths
about the second coming as Peter, this is the theme here in chapter
3, as well as the truth that God's goodness and forbearance
and longsuffering leads to repentance. So just in the context here,
what's Peter been talking about? Well, the longsuffering of God
is salvation. Paul said the same thing in Romans
2 verse 4, the goodness of God leads thee to repentance. See,
it's just the same message, different people. And so we need to realize
that, because some people say, well, you know, there was a certain
message Paul had, and then there's a certain message Peter had,
and it's sort of, there was progressive revelation through New Testament,
and it's called hyper-dispensationalism. And so they divide acts up, and
they say, yeah, there was salvation this way, and then it was sort
of a Jewish form of salvation, and then, no, it's a unified
message. We need to be careful about dissecting
and dividing scripture where it should not be divided. All
right, same gospel, same doctrine, and the doctrines of the Godhead,
of the Trinity, the doctrine of salvation by grace through
faith, the doctrine of sanctification, of spiritual warfare, of warnings
against apostasy and false teachers and the return of Christ, they
all are in harmony. You know, the Bible contains
66 books. written over about 1600 years, over by about 40
different authors. I mean, you think, you know,
what a diverse book, but it's one book, and it's all a unified
whole. Why is it unified? Because, you
know, you think of all the different authors, all the different time,
all the different things. Why? Because ultimately it's
one author, the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, it's one author,
and so therefore, obviously it's going to be unified. He inspired
every word of this book, and it's just a marvellous miracle
that he could use these different people, even use their styles.
We know Paul has a certain style and used a certain language,
John has his own style, Peter has his own style, and yet the
Holy Spirit used even their styles, and yet every word, every syllable,
every letter is given by the Holy Ghost. Now he says there
in verse 15, Paul, according to the wisdom given unto him.
And so that's how Paul wrote that it was divine wisdom that
was given unto him. And that tells us something about
wisdom. Divine wisdom is not something we develop from within
ourselves. But it is the gift of God. See, only God can give
wisdom. And if we want wisdom, we have
to get it from God. James 1 verse 5. If any of you
lack wisdom, that's me, and that's you if you're honest, let him
what? Ask of God. That giveth to all men liberally,
and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. God gives wisdom
through our humble prayers for it. God also gives wisdom through
wise companions and counsel. In Proverbs 13 verse 20, He that
walketh with wise men shall be wise. And so it's still God giving
the wisdom, but we get around wise people and God uses them
as instruments to impart wisdom to us. God gives wisdom through
our fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. And God gives wisdom through his word. In Psalm 19,
verse 7, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The testimony of the Lord is
sure, making wise the simple. And so this is how we come to
the word of God and we seek God and we say, God, open my eyes
that I might behold wondrous things out of thy law. And he
will give us that wisdom through the word of God. But Paul was
given wisdom and I believe Paul and the other writers of scripture
understood that they were writing by inspiration because there's
a theory out there that says, you know, they were just writing
letters and just thinking, you know, I'm going to write this
and that and they sent off a letter and next thing, People decide,
oh, this is actually inspired by God, and they didn't realise
it. No, I don't believe that. I believe Paul, when he wrote,
understood that God was writing through him. And different times
you can see that in his writings. You see that in 1 Corinthians
2, verses 10 to 13. We won't read that, but he talks
about the Spirit of God how he received the spirit, which is
of God, and so forth, which things also we speak. And Peter also
and others, and so they understood that God was inspiring them to
write the scripture. And so here's Paul, he's got
this wisdom, and he's writing things. Now, you notice there,
moving down in verse 16, there's a little phrase there, they're
resting the Scriptures as they do also the other Scriptures. So he's talking about these people
resting and twisting the Scriptures, or actually twisting the writings
of Paul as they do the other Scriptures. So what is that saying? Paul's epistles are put in the
same category as other scriptures, showing that Peter regarded Paul's
writings as inspired scripture. So this is a very important verse
to say, well, how, why would we think that the letters that
Paul wrote are inspired and they are scripture? Peter himself
said, no, they are scripture, just like other scriptures. Okay,
so that's an important verse. If you ever come across someone
who says, you know, did Paul really write scripture? Yep,
Peter said so. OK, so. We need to be very careful and
we need to be aware of those who put more weight to some parts
of the scripture and less to others. For instance, someone
says, oh, the gospels, and especially whether you have the red words
in the gospels, there's more inspiration in them than, say,
the things that Paul wrote, those letters that he wrote to Corinth
or Galatians or whatever. And I've actually had someone
say this to me when I was debating about a teaching, and he said,
well, Jesus trumps Paul. As if to say, well, the words
of Jesus have more weight than the words of Paul. And see, that's
a dangerous place to be. What he's saying is he doesn't
regard some parts of the Bible as being inspired or at the same
level of inspiration. And that's just a downward path.
If you're rejecting parts of the scripture, soon you'll reject
the whole thing. But is that true or is that even possible?
What did Paul say in 2 Timothy 3 in verse 16? All scripture
is given by inspiration of God. So if it's scripture, And these
66 books of the Bible are scripture. All of it is given by inspiration
of God, whether it's recorded in the Gospels, or in the Epistles,
or Revelation, or Genesis, any book of the Bible, it's all given
by inspiration of God, and it all has that same weight. All right, so we need to be careful
about that. So we see, first of all, there is consistency in the scriptures. And then we'll see, secondly,
there are complexities in the scriptures. Because he says there
in verse 16, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of
these things, in which are some things hard to be understood. There's some hard things to be
understood in the scriptures. So let me just make a few points
about that so we don't misunderstand it. Some parts of scripture are
hard to understand, but not all. Because he says there's some
things, some things. He doesn't say all things in
the scripture are hard to understand, but he says there's some things
are hard to understand. Now there's something that's
called the doctrine of perspicuity, which is clarity. It means simply
that the Bible is an open and plain book. It's not a hidden
shadowy book, it is a clear book. In Psalm 119 verse 105 it says,
thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. It
says in Psalm 119 verse 130, the entrance of thy words giveth
light, it giveth understanding unto the simple. So even the
simple can understand the words of God. The doctrines of the
gospel are simple and straightforward, easily understood by those willing
to receive them. The gospel message is so simple,
isn't it? That Christ died for our sins, he was buried, he rose
again the third day, and if we repent and put our trust in him,
he will forgive us our sins, and he will justify us, and he
will grant us eternal life. What a simple message that is
understandable by those who are willing to understand. But in
contrast to this milk, now those gospel doctrines are called milk,
there is the strong meat of the word that requires much divine
light and diligent study to comprehend. Hebrews 5, 13 and 14 talks about
the contrast between milk and the strong meat. And the strong
meat belongs to them that are of full age, it says, even those
who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both
good and evil. And so you've got those milk
doctrines, but then there's some meat doctrines, which takes some
real understanding. You think about the doctrines
of God's sovereignty and human responsibility, election and
free will. Those are some deep doctrines.
Those can be hard to be understood. You think of the doctrines concerning
the Trinity and the Godhead and how there is one God in three
persons. And you know, is that easily
understood? It can be hard to be understood.
What about doctrines of prophecy? And how is this going to happen?
And we read Revelation and we read about these things that
are going to happen. Some of them can be hard to be understood.
What about the nature of the eternal state? What is heaven
going to be really like? And what is it going to be like
when the new heaven and new earth are going on forever? Well, we
understand some things, but there's a lot hard to be understood about
these things. And so we know that there's doctrines. They're
deep and hard to be understood. But you know what, it should
comfort us when we encounter difficult portions and doctrines
of the scriptures, that even the Apostle Peter confessed that
there are some hard things to understand in the Bible. Even
Peter said that. And if there are things hard
for him, there's going to be some things hard for me. And
if someone says, yeah, I understand all the stuff in the Bible, all
the doctrines, then you're talking to someone who knows nothing,
and they don't know themselves. Because we need to admit there's
some hard things. Now, I'd also say while some parts of scripture
are hard to understand, they are not impossible to understand,
all right? Because there's another way of
thinking, some say, you've heard people say this, oh, there's
so many interpretations in the Bible, and there's so many different
ideas, you can't really understand what it says. You've had people
say that to you. Well, that excuse is mostly used
by those who do understand it but choose not to obey it. It's
an excuse. They know the simple truths,
but they say, yeah, it's too hard to understand. I'm just
going to ignore it. It's just made up. It's not true. Mark
Twain put it this way. It ain't those parts of the Bibles
I can't understand that bother me. It's the parts I do understand. And that's what bothers most
people. But God gave us the Bible that we might understand it.
And so all parts of the Bible can be understood. They can be
understood. It's not impossible, but they
can be hard to be understood. And it requires study, it requires
all these things. We require God's illumination
to understand anything of the inspired word. It's a revelation
of God. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 14, So if we're to understand anything
in the Bible, it requires God and the Holy Spirit, who's the
author of scripture, to give us the understanding of these
things. So therefore we should pray when we come to the Bible.
Psalm 119 verse 18, and that God would enable us
to understand these things. But the fact is, there's some
hard things to be understood. The writings of Paul, particularly
that Peter says, there's some things hard to be understood.
And so there's some complexities in the scriptures. We need to
realize that. But then thirdly, there are corruptors of the scriptures. which they that are unlearned
and unstable rest. So what are these people? Well,
they're unlearned first of all. That word for unlearned, it doesn't
mean a lack of intelligence or even a lack of knowledge, but
a lack of training in the word to interpret it correctly. Their
ignorance is a willful ignorance and a rejection of the truth.
You know, there's people, and these people are around today,
they possess the truth. They have Bibles. In fact, they
may study the Bible, and they study it intellectually, and
yet they receive not the love of the truth. And that's, if
they don't love the truth, if they just study it as any other
book, and they just seek to get knowledge from it, they will
not receive the truth. and they are therefore unlearned
in God's sight. They do not approach the Bible
with the desire to hear what God says, but to use and abuse
it for their personal advantage. This is what these people do.
They come to the Bible, they say, I'm going to pervert this,
I'm going to corrupt it for my own advantage, to give myself
power over people, to give myself wealth and position. They're
resting in the scriptures. But so they're unstable, or sorry,
they're unlearned, but they're also unstable. The word for unstable,
it's an unsteady person who's not established, and they're
not steadfast in their souls. You see that same word is used
in chapter two and verse 14, beguiling unstable souls, they
deceive unstable souls. So while the true believer is
to be disciplined in self-denial and obedience to Christ, this
person is subverted, Titus 3 verse 11, led by their lusts, and they
use the scriptures and religion as a means of gratifying their
lusts. That's the type of person that
we're talking about here. They're unlearned, they're unstable,
and they therefore rest the scriptures. It shows the importance of spiritual
maturity and scriptural training for those who are shepherds over
God's flock. That's one of the requirements. A bishop is to
be apt to teach. A bishop is to be not a novice,
1 Timothy 3 verse 6, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall
into the condemnation of the devil. That's why a bishop or
a pastor is also called an elder. There's spiritual maturity there.
But these people, no, they're unlearned, they're unstable.
And what do they do? They rest the scriptures. That
word rest means to twist, to wrench, to distort. And it was
used in the process of torture, where limbs would be dislocated.
They're torturing the scriptures. They're tearing at limb from
limb. And the Apostle Paul, he experienced this resting of even
his own words by his enemies. They accused him of encouraging
people to continue in sin. You see that in Romans 3 verse
8, they are slandering him. But Satan is the chief wrestler
of the Scriptures. He did that back in the Garden
of Eden. You read about that in Genesis 3. Just perverting
the Scriptures, casting down the Word of God. You see that
in the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. And he even used
the Word of God in Matthew 4, verse 6 and 7. He said unto the
Lord Jesus, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for
it is written, He had the scripture behind him, he shall give his
angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall
bear thee up. He's quoting from Psalm 91 there, tempting the
Lord Jesus. And but the Lord Jesus refused
and he used the word of God properly. And so we know the devil does
this. We know his people do this. The Pharisees, they misused the
scripture to justify their wicked behavior. They had this thing
called Corban where they could get out of honoring their parents
by saying, you know, it's a gift. It's a gift. And so on there. And so these false teachers,
they rest the scriptures. They don't handle it the way
it should be handled. They don't use the proper rules
of Bible interpretation. They come with a preconceived
idea and they force it into the scripture. It's called eisegesis,
reading something into the word, instead of exegesis, taking it
out of the word and drawing from the word of God. And we see that
all the time. People just using a proof text,
a single verse out of context. And they pervert the whole meaning
of the scripture. We need to be careful of these
people who rest the scriptures. People who deny the literal creation
week. They say, no, well, it is ages
and different things. That's resting the scriptures.
Allegorizing of the word of God. Finding meaning that's not there,
and on and on. We see it everywhere. But it
says, you see at the end of verse 16, they do this unto their own
destruction. They don't realise it, but they
think, I'm doing this for my own personal benefit. I'm going
to make myself better, but they're actually destroying themselves
by what they're doing with the scriptures. And Peter talks a
lot about destruction and damnation and perdition, the same word
there. And what ultimately is it? It's damnation. They're going
to send themselves to hell by arresting the scriptures. And
there's some solemn warnings in the Bible for those who pervert
the word of God, who take away from it and who add to it. In
Proverbs 30 verse 5 and 6, every word of God is pure. He is a
shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto
his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. That's
a solemn warning. We've got to be careful we don't
add to the word of God. and Revelation 22, 18 and 19. For I testify unto every man
that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any
man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues
that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away
from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take
away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city
and from the things which are written in this book. Someone
would dare add to or take away from God's words and rest the
scriptures, God will take away their part from heaven and he'll
send them to hell. They do it to their own destruction.
What a solemn warning, a solemn warning. Now, John Chrysostom,
he said a long time ago, the lack of scriptural knowledge
is the source of all evils in the church. The lack of scriptural
knowledge is a source of all evils in the church. And that's
true for a church, that's true for our own lives. If you're
going to guard yourself against evil, against error, and against
sin, you need to have a firm knowledge of the scriptures.
Not just coming to church and hearing a sermon, it's daily
study of the Word of God. Let me ask you, can you say that
the Bible is at the centre of your life, which you turn to
for guidance continually? Or is it just something you have
a casual relationship with? That it's just something, you
know, I've got other interests and I've got other priorities.
The Bible, I still turn to it occasionally. But is it the centrepiece
of your life? Let me ask you, what do you do
when you come to a teaching of the scripture that goes against
your thinking or behavior? That'll come up all the time.
And you read something in the scripture and you think, you
know what? Something in my life is not lined up with the Bible.
What do you do? You've got a choice then. One
choice is to rest the scriptures and say, you know what? I don't
think it actually means that. That doesn't apply to me in this
age. Or that word sort of means something different. And besides,
all these other Christians, they're doing the same thing. We rest
the scriptures. And they make the scriptures
agree with themselves. But then there's another option.
It's to conform my life with what the Bible says, regardless
of the cost. And often there is a cost. I
might have to give something up. I might have to offend some
people. I might have to receive some
ridicule of the world if I'm gonna conform my life to this
book. But which one is it gonna be? We don't wanna be these people
who rest the scriptures. It's to their own destruction.
But if we conform our lives to the word of God, yes, it will
cost us, but it will bring the blessing of God upon us, both
in this world and the next. Amen, let us pray.
The Use and Misuse of Scripture
Series 2 Peter
Here we consider the great unity throughout the Scriptures, the difficulties in understanding them, and the misuse of them by unbelievers.
I. THERE IS CONSISTENCY IN THE SCRIPTURES
II. THERE ARE COMPLEXITIES IN THE SCRIPTURES
III. THERE ARE CORRUPTERS OF THE SCRIPTURES
| Sermon ID | 21923738107612 |
| Duration | 55:12 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | 2 Peter 3:15-16 |
| Language | English |
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