1 & 2 Peter Review

Alright, so this morning we're going to review, if you haven't got a handout yet, 1st and 2nd Peter. So open your Bibles up to 1st Peter, and then we like to read in unison, so we'll just read the whole book together in unison. I think that'll just make it more fun, really. I'm going to use the BIV, that's the Bradley International Version.

It's shorter, it's expurgated. So anyway, awesome, awesome. We don't have any specific verses to read this week. But we are going to go through it. I just think it's been it's been a very exciting study for me. And I know. Yeah, I mean, I just hope that it has been for everybody else.

So I broke the rules. I forgot that when you teach, you got to wear a button up so you can clip this thing on and put this thing in your pocket. I know I just need a big roll of duct tape or something. My penance. So forgive me if I bump stuff and make all sorts of weird noises.

All right, so anyway, briefly I just wanted to, and I think, I don't know, Vern, are you going to hit a little bit, you might be hitting a little bit of hermeneutics in the main service, but just talking about how as we've looked through, I hope that we've seen as we studied very clearly that we observe first. And the word pair that Vern talked about was objective observation, that hopefully we're taking objective observation. We're not observing things through our own or trying not to observe things as much as we can through our own bias, our own experience, but objective observation of the text and the history and the culture that is therein, which should lead us to logical interpretation.

And a logical interpretation, this is so wildly missed. I mean, so many Bible studies that I've been to in my past, you know, they all read a verse and everyone says how they feel. And the two may be totally unrelated. And that's not the way to find out what the Lord's Word says.

So I hope that as we've gone through this book, we've all been able to see and see where the observation is. We've been able to observe Peter and his life as an author and who he was writing to and how that affected it. And then the logical interpretation that comes out of that. Being able to clearly understand what God has said.

Because God has used language as an effective tool that He made in order to communicate Himself, the thoughts and ideas that He wants us to have and to know. God didn't make a wimpy tool or a tool that makes us go, huh? But in fact, we can come up with a logical interpretation. Not come up with, I'm sorry. We can come to a logical interpretation.

And finally, leading to biblical application. being kind of where the rubber meets the road, where it all plays out in our lives. So at the end of the study today, and I don't so much anticipate going over today. At the end of the study, if you've got something on your mind, a certain thing that, oh I always thought this, but after the study I see that it's this, or I always thought Peter was a mystery. So if you've got any comments like that, that you'd like to share, that you've been holding in for the last, what is it, five, six months that we've been doing this? How long have we been doing this?

Nine months! So you've been holding your breath for nine months. Breathe out. If you have a comment, have something you wanted to share, something you've been holding back, or an application that was specifically powerful, please prepare that. You've been forewarned.

It's coming near the end. Alright, so what we saw when we were there, 37 weeks. My, that's a lot of study. 37 weeks and today we're just going to review and the way that we decided to review this was to take out these five main points. So you can kind of hold them on your hand. You got five main points and the great thing about these five main points is that they're all interrelated.

Peter didn't write in little boxes, okay, now I'm going to write about this, now I'm going to write about this, and then with a table of contents. If you want to know about suffering, turn to page 37. No, Peter wrote, you know, through the whole thing, and they're all very well intertwined. So, if you're counting them off this way, you'd say that our main points that we're going to focus on today are growth, the Word of God, trials and sufferings, practical living and progress, and to beware of false teachers. So this is five of the really big ones that Peter hit. Of course, other stuff along the way, absolutely. But the great thing about them is that they're all connected.

You can't study growth and not study the Word of God. Even as we talk about trials and sufferings, it's going to go back to growth and its purpose in growing us. So it's really cool that you can't... get out of, you know, just cut one of these parts from the other. We can't be, you know, so scientific and just go, okay, take that out, that's the trials and suffering.

Okay, take that out, that's, no, they all live together, they're all intertwined, which is really awesome. It's also important to know that they're all, Christ is the, if you like, the binding feature of them all. They all relate to our position in Christ, to who we are, and living that out. So with that said, we'll move forward into growth. So growth is obviously a key theme in Peter's letters. We talked last week about that imperative to grow and how almost bizarre it sounds at first blush to say, well, you're being commanded to grow? You can't command your child to grow, per se.

So we talked about how almost bizarre that sounds at first blush, but then when you realize, or when we take into account 1 Peter 2.2, where we're told to long for the pure milk of the word, that we might grow, it just sheds all sorts of light on that topic. So, we need to, by an act of will, choose to long for the Word. Or it's better put, Peter calls believers to choose to long for the Word. Peter calls us as believers, with that imperative, with that act of will, to choose to long for the Word. it still strikes me as a difficult thing to do.

I mean, I think of something I long for, I don't have to tell myself to long for it. I think of something I desire, I don't have to say, okay, I want to desire brussels sprouts. You know, I mean, at most I can usually tolerate brussels sprouts. So, not to say that the Word of God is to be compared to brussels sprouts, please don't misunderstand me, but at the same time, chocolate, there we go. Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.

You know, one of the things that strikes me is that this longing for the Word of God, this is something that the Holy Spirit will also be... He gives us the imperative, at the same time the Holy Spirit's going to be drawing us to that very longing as well. It'll be a ministry of the Holy Spirit to which we'll be responding, you know, when we choose to long for the Word of God. So it's not like, here it is, it's all up to you, you know, and yet there is a Jesus. Oh, it's fantastic. If you couldn't hear Vern, he said that the Holy Spirit is also doing His part in the ministry and calling us, so really it's a response. Responding to that imperative, or to that appeal to the will, is really saying, take the response. The Holy Spirit is drawing you to the word. And all it's asking of you is that you would respond to that calling, respond to that drawing.

The illustration that I like is that, if you put a kid who hasn't eaten lunch yet, and it's already three o'clock, and you put before that kid a candy bar, and an apple and a sandwich, most likely, what's he going to go for? The candy bar! Even though some part of him might even say, you know, it's lunch time, I should eat that, and then maybe that. But he'll always reach for the candy bar first.

And just like a child needs to learn, and you know as we get older, at least in my life I've noticed, that I'm not compelled to reach for a candy bar at lunchtime anymore. I don't think, oh, it's lunchtime, I really want to eat a big bag of chocolate candies. It doesn't even seem satisfying, it doesn't even seem fulfilling, and that's part of growing up and becoming more mature and knowing, okay, if I have an apple, that'll sustain me through until, five o'clock and if I have the candy bar, I'll just kind of feel hungry and maybe get an artificial little sugar boost and feel bad. But I don't know, maybe sugar doesn't have that effect on you.

It does on me. So in any event, just like that kid needs to learn, I think it's the same thing with us. as we continue to make the correct choice, like, okay, I'm hungry, I'm spiritually hungry, I can feel it, I can either turn to, you know, my flesh or the world or something to satisfy that, or I can turn to the Word of God and actually have a meal that will really satisfy that.

And as we continue to make that choice and continue to find, I mean, I think it was in that tape that Gene handed out to a couple of us, he said, it was Chester McAuley who said, the hardest step is right here. That's the hardest step, is just getting the book open. Once it's opened, and I'm into the meat, the sandwich, the steak, whatever it is, and the milk, I'm ready.

I realize it. I'm so thankful that I finally did. But all the way up until that point, I'm thinking, maybe I'll just watch TV, pop in a movie, whatever your specific general default is. Even still. So, I think that is also a big part of our growth, because we can definitely know what the Holy Spirit is calling us to. We can feel it, and it's that response that's so important. So, another interesting thing about these passages is that Peter seems to be referring to personal spiritual growth in these.

You are personally spiritual growth, but the Bible also talks about corporate growth, like growing as a body, growing as a church in Christ. And the catalyst, the tool for both of those, the food for both of those, is the Word, amazingly enough. It's not as if, you know, individually we need the Word and the Holy Spirit, and then corporately we need you know, the best five-piece band you can find in the Holy Spirit, and maybe the Word. Corporately, we need the same thing that we need individually, which is the Word. The Word helps us grow together, the Word helps us grow individually, the Word helps us grow, and both are imperatives of Scripture.

And I just think it's so fascinating that the Word is so consistently put. Verne actually printed out a series of verses, what he did was went into his computer and if this is correct, I presume this is how you got to the list, and said, find the word growth and the word of God or word in the same sentence. And it just, I mean, verse after verse after verse, it was just shocking. Here's the word, here's growth. Here's the word, here's become perfect. Here's the word, here's become mature. Here's the word, I mean, just again and again and again, the Bible makes this claim to us.

And the apostles were so sure of it. So, it's a fairly impressive correlation. The Ephesians passage, specifically in that list there on the bottom, is one that you'll find will address corporate growth, I think. Some of the others, I mean, it was a pretty intense thing. Okay, the Word of God. Peter obviously put a large emphasis on the word throughout his letters.

And I especially loved 2 Peter 1.18 and 19, which is written for you out at the top of your thing in the New American Standard. Excuse me.

It says, And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven, when we are with Him on the holy mountain. So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. I love this.

Here's an apostle. who's writing to these people, and he's writing Scripture, and he knows he's writing Scripture, he knows he's writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and all this business, fantastic, and he says, I've had this experience, maybe you've heard of it, I heard a voice coming down from heaven, and this is an experience that I keep in my mind of a defining moment, of seeing what Christ was, personally, experientially, to me. And yet, even though that experience is recorded in scripture, and it is scripture, and it's profitable for our growth, it's fascinating that even he, an apostle, says, you know what?

Even my experience, even my emotions, I'm not going to hold above the Word of God. I'm going to interpret my reality through the word of God. Yeah, one of the things that strikes me is that Peter and the other apostles did not as we have the experience, but as testifying. We testify. And the Lord himself says, you will be my witnesses, right?

Yeah, the testimony and the word over. just experience, it's not as if they were saying, hey, I got to level 10 tongues interpretation and level 14 healing. They weren't running each other off and comparing each other based on experiences or those sorts of things. It was about the testimony, it was about the word.

So, it's a pretty fantastic thing, I suppose to say. So, as Peter continues to talk about the objectivity of the word, that is to say, in today's, you know, we've been blessed with the theory of relativity and it kind of working its way into our social thinking. Everything is relative, everything is relative to where you're standing and your point of view and your path and your perspective and all this. So, all of a sudden, you know, what I say the word of God means is not necessarily what you say the word of God means and there's no No, there's no delineator to say, well, you're right and I'm wrong, or I'm right and you're wrong, or, well, ultimately the Word of God is right, right? So, I think what Peter says in 2 Peter 1, 20-21, saying that Scripture speaks for itself and is not a matter of any man's private or subjective interpretation, is so fantastic.

Because it's, one, it's so clear and it's so straightforward. If someone is to come up and tell you, oh, come on, the Bible can mean anything. I mean, it'd be bad enough if it was non-Christians, but you'll hear Christians saying things like this. Oh, you can prove anything with the Bible. Oh, you can make the Bible say anything.

And the reality is that, no, you really can't. You really, really can't, unless you want to do immense harm to the text, right? Unless you're just going to pull a sentence right out of context or Yeah, and they're more than happy to do it, a lot of the time.

So anyway, I love that Peter is just so straightforward and just, this is where the reality is. This is where the text is. And he's not willing to even indulge the idea that there's a second interpretation or that a guy could come up and make his own special house on it and that that would stand. So it's really cool. Really cool stuff.

And finally, in terms of the word, Peter also especially affirms Paul's writing. And I think there's an immense importance to that. We studied that two weeks ago. Immense importance to that in terms of, one, it gives us the knowledge that Paul's writing is fully acknowledged by who would have been, I think, Paul referred to him as a super-apostle, the super-apostles. He was fully acknowledged by the super-apostles that he kind of felt like he had to defend himself, not against, but in contrast to. I mean, they were fully behind each other, and fully in belief of each other's doctrine, and they were in full accordance. They weren't, you know, fighting it out and disagreeing and constantly, you know, okay, well, Peter, why don't you go over here and Paul, you go over here and we'll just not talk to each other and just, no, they're absolutely in one accord. And, yeah, it's another thing that we see in modern interpretation.

Well, you know, Paul had his thing going and Peter had his thing going and Jesus was a whole different thing and none of them really would have seen eye to eye. If you got them in the same room, they'd just fight. That's not the reality at all. It probably sounds just silly to those of us who have been in the Word for the bulk of our lives, but it's bizarre how out there in the world where no one knows anything about the Bible, and they'll just take anything they see on TV, anything they hear in casual conversation as authoritative. So they hear someone say or someone write some silly book that, you know, Jesus and Paul radically disagree or Paul and Peter radically disagree all the time. And they'll just, they won't check it out, they won't look for it, they won't, they'll just say, oh, okay. Fully willing to accept it in order to get away from the word. So, does anyone else have anything else to add on that? Amen. It's out there. Okay, fantastic.

So now we move on to trials and sufferings. This is one that kind of was a surprise and kind of cut right to my heart because I like to whine in my trials and sufferings and I'm not allowed to anymore evidently. So this was one that was pretty powerful in my life as we studied it and kind of one that even as we did the study kept running, jumping back to it and going, wow, is that really there? Wow, that's so cool. That's so amazing.

The Holy Spirit gives us some great insight into trials and sufferings, especially in 1 Peter. and realizing that it's indispensable for living as mature Christians in 1 Peter 1, 3-12. It's just so fantastic, because even today, as we've gotten maybe a little bit further from the pagan roots, where it's like, okay, if God likes me, I'll be blessed and I'll have everything I want, and if the gods don't like me, then I'll have trials and suffering my whole life. Right? Peter comes, and Paul as well, they come and completely turn the whole thing on its head.

And say, if you have trials and sufferings, it's because the Lord loves you. It's because the Lord wants to do a great work in you. It's because in this case, or in the early section of 1 Peter, it says trials and sufferings are like a furnace which God tests us as a blacksmith would test gold. And that testing is with a view to approval.

Can you imagine, obviously, a blacksmith buys a big chunk of gold and sets in his pot and starts to boil it, and he's going, oh, I hope it's not really gold. I hope it's not really gold. He's trying to disapprove it, like, I really hope I got ripped off today. No! He's hoping that as much of what he purchased is gold as could possibly be.

And then when he finds something that's not, he's going to carefully scrape it out so he doesn't lose any gold with it. That's the element, the nature of the trials and sufferings in our lives. That God is using those to bring all the dross and bring all the impure elements up to the surface so He can take them out. And yeah, it's painful and yeah, it's frustrating, but it definitely brings to light the passage in James chapter 1 and says, consider it pure joy, or what was it that your brother, how your brother translated it? Consider it ultimate joy when you face trials.

I'm bad at that. I'm really bad at that. I feel like I want to write something on the back of my hand, like get it good and tattooed on there, although I'm really not... No, no, if you've got the five points on the front, you want to tattoo those. You're going to have a busy hand by the end of this.

But I just would love for someone to... I think it would be an act of mercy, although I don't know if I would... Receive them as well as I should if someone just walk up when I'm whining and moaning about my problems to slap me in the face and go consider ultimate joy Okay, I'll consider ultimate joy because it's so easy to lose perspective that oh now this is exactly back to spiritual insanity I am getting out of this church and driving my car into a tree. Yes Just kidding.

It's marvelous. Another thing that Peter, I think, brings out to us is that I have a tendency to see people in real like real deep or powerful suffering, or real deep or powerful trials, and say, wow, that's a real trial. My trials aren't really trials. My trial is just this. And downplay the things that the Lord's bringing us through in our lives. And downplay the trials that we're going through in our lives. Like, well, you know, man, that's a really hard situation. He's really got to depend on the Lord, but I should be able to handle this on my own. It's hogwash, right? Really, the Lord has us going through our trials right now to rely on him.

One of the ways that I picture it is the Lord writes the prescription. He's the one that writes the prescription for the trials. Because if I go and design my own trials, it isn't going to work. He writes the prescription. It's just a question, do I understand that this is the medicine I need?

Absolutely, yeah. Because if I write my own, Brad needs one stubbed toe, And no other problems. I can write my own prescription. Also, I think Peter puts it in terms of gold, which we all enjoy. And Paul says that it's those trials and sufferings that transform us or conform us to the image of Christ.

I used to not like it when people would quote Romans 8.28, because they would just quote 8.28. But when you read 29 and 30 also, and you see that the whole purpose of these trials is to conform you to the image of Christ and to make you look like Jesus, that's the only good reason to go through the trials of life. Thank you very much. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time. Isn't it? Can you read those three verses for us, if you've got them there?

For we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom He predestined, He also called. And these whom He called, He also justified. And these whom He justified, He also glorified. Amen. So, isn't that it? I mean, we don't need to be ashamed in our sufferings that, you know, God has abandoned us, or God is the world might see. But... Does that apply to black guys in some way? Most certainly.

Someone gave me a tape at the time that I was going through, I think it was my husband anyway, about this young pastor in, I think it was Indiana. And the church was kind of out in the country. And his wife was, he was preaching on Romans. And he was to the point that Romans 8-28, everything you understand of the book, goes with the Lord. And his wife was driving their three children to school one morning. And some high school kids decided to race up a hill. They fell over the hill, and it killed the whole family.

He really did wonder, you know, look, I've been studying this all my life. I should be able to handle this. I should be able to preach on this, you know, and all this. But then this was years later, and he's saying, you know, of the joy that came out of all this horrible, horrible tragedy. At that time, there was something the Lord was putting through that at the same time that he was Preaching through the congregation. I'll say 28 and all this.

You don't see everything, but wow. But if you don't see it, that's awesome. I mean, you can't see that. Really, you're in too much grief. You're in too much grief. You don't understand it all. Leader. That's what I get. If the Lord would have put me through this, if he hadn't put me through this, I would be the person that I am today. I really appreciate what you just shared. I think that so often, when we really get an intense trial, it is overwhelming. And we don't comprehend it in the middle of it. But what scripture still says is true. And all we can do is take it on faith that it's true at times. We are not going to comprehend it at all.

I think the other side of heaven's gates will be a phenomenal time. It will be an eye-opener, an understatement. Wow, what you were doing. This was tough at the time, but I see what you were doing. That is amazing. Yes, that's exactly right. That's another good point of what Roger taught last week. Anyway, thank you. That's just wonderful. Amen, amen, amen. We're right on schedule. I just got to tell you. This is awesome.

So we don't have to be ashamed. And the other thing is that we're assured that sufferings will come. There's no maybe and it's not an if. Peter assures us, you're going to go ahead and suffer. Expect it. Count on it. Don't go looking for it. We don't need to go running our car into trees. It's going to be great. We don't need to do that, right? We're promised that we're going to get those sufferings, that they're going to come and they're going to have a great purpose in our lives.

And as Nancy put forth, I always wonder how a non-believer suffers. It's got to be, okay, just got to get through this, or just got to ignore this, or just got to... whatever. That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and that's all they can see. What if it kills you? No more stronger. That's just it. We know if it kills us, we'll be stronger than ever. More like Obi-Wan, right?

Do you think that an unbeliever that goes through terrible suffering, he may benefit from that suffering in the way that he would look to the Lord for the only salvation that he gets? Amen. Yeah, I probably didn't mean that. It was so coveted up to me that probably all you're going to hear as you download is, But to repeat that, what Bob said, he said that suffering's maybe the tool that the Lord uses to bring an unbeliever to Him. That's a really neat point, and I was thinking, people either, through a point of suffering, respond to it and say, you know, I really do need the Lord. And you've seen this too, people get more bitter and harder. I can't believe in a God that would allow this. It's God's responsibility to keep you from all harm. This ain't heaven, folks. And that's it. That's it completely. It's fantastic that the Lord, in all His mercy, would see to work things out that way. So, we know that our struggles are not without meaning, but are full of purpose.

Moving to Practical Living in Progress, we talked a lot as we went and said, oh, it's an unusual thing about Peter's writing. We said it again and again, unusual thing that he uses these participles. If you were like me, you weren't totally sure what a participle was to begin with, but if you didn't know then, you know now, right? Because it was almost a weekly thing for quite some time in our study. It wasn't in every verse, obviously. These participles manifest themselves in what we call a verb with an "-ing ending".

You, rest in the Lord. You'd say, I know you're resting in the Lord. Right now you're resting in the Lord. I know what you're doing. Talking about process, process, process, process. Practical, here and now, this is what you're doing. He doesn't take the time to divide things up in the same way that Paul does and have this huge doctrinal dissertation in the beginning and then, okay, now we're going to talk about your condition and how that's lived out. But it's very practical and every verse is for right now. Not to say that it's not the case with Peter, but just a difference in style. That Peter is focusing on the process more than the product. as amazing as that is.

We start to see these participles, or one place where we see these, and there were so many of them that I couldn't find the best or couldn't decide which one was the best, so I just grabbed 1 Peter 1, 6-9. All the italicized words in your handout are these participles. So even though they may be translated as something that sounds more like an imperative or something that sounds more like a... what? a past tense or something to that effect, they're actually participles, as we talked about.

So, as we read, in this you greatly rejoice, even though for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found in result And praise and honor and glory to the revelation of Jesus Christ. And though you have not seen him, you love him. And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice in the joy and inexpressible and full glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. So, all those things that you see italicized are participles.

They are focusing on process. They are focusing on, or Peter is focusing on, as we talked about, the practical living and progress. that's going to go on. It's not as if we become a believer and all of a sudden everything's perfect and we never sin again and we never have to confess our, once again, same word with God and we never have to be reconciled in our resting with Him. We'll never walk in the flesh again. I think Peter is a great book to read if you're worried about some sort of perfectionism in your faith, thinking, oh, if I don't get absolutely perfect before the rapture, I'm going to get skipped. No. Thank you, Lord.

No. So, anyway, that's just something that that is very, I don't know if it's entirely unique to Peter, but it's very distinctive about Peter's writings. He's talking about progress, he's talking about our day-to-day walk, and the way that we're going. Something to add? Okay, cool. Honestly, grammar is not my strongest point in life. That's why I've not got a whole lot of illustration on this one.

Beware of false teachers. Beware of false teachers. Peter draws the very clear distinction between the Old Testament period and the Church Age. We saw in 2 Peter 2.1 is a clear summation, the switch on either side of the cross. It reads, and you may have to make a correction, I've got on my one, I put a W in the word false, which is like a southern, false.

Did it get, it might have gotten, it did? No, no, all the way down in the quote and I can pull it up. You may not have to bet it got caught because it's I'm almost positive. It's out. Scratch that last. It's all good. I had a W in there and it was kind of like false. And if you wanted to be Southern, you got the Southern English. You got false teachers. That's fine, too. We're multicultural, and that's good.

But the verse clearly says, but there are false prophets. also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." I only had it authorized in front of me at the time when I was writing this, so I just thought, ah, that's kind of nice. So, I didn't use the NASB there, and I didn't notate it. I'm sorry about that. Nevertheless, Peter draws that distinction that before, In the Old Testament period, when God was in his dealings with Israel, they had to worry about false prophets.

False prophets are someone you have to look out for, but oddly, we're not told to look out for false prophets. So we're supposed to believe any prophet that comes along then? If we're not supposed to be looking out for false prophets? That doesn't seem right, to just believe anyone who says they're a prophet and say, oh, well, if he's a prophet, we're not called to look out for false prophets, they're poor.

I think it's another pretty clear indicator that the gift of prophecy in the New Testament sense, or in the Old Testament sense, is something that the Lord is not currently using. It's not the way He's doing it, because He's given us the whole thing. He's given us the whole revelation. We don't need...

I had a prophet come by my work the other day, He's a prophet, and I'm a prophet, and I'm from some sort of more Pentecostally denomination. He read everybody, he told everybody their prophecy and what was going to happen to them, and it's like, yes, it's a fortune teller, isn't it? I mean, so I just, I walked away, didn't have anything to do with it, and yet those people are out there. the other day of this prophetic gift, and so we don't just take them on credit. In fact, I think if they were to subject themselves to the Old Testament test of prophets, there wouldn't be many of them around anymore, which is part of the...

Yeah, the discreditability of them all. But in any event, we are called very clearly and very seriously to look for false teachers and to evaluate what's coming in and what's being taught. And that's a big emphasis here. Peter highlights the great danger of listening to the false teachers and even ends his second... I'm sorry, I lost my place. Even ends his second letter with a warning to watch and guard ourselves carefully. The result of not heeding this warning are grave indeed.

They can put the believer in a place of bondage, as 2 Peter 2.19 says, and impede our spiritual steadfastness and growth, in 2 Peter 3.17. So, the stakes are high. The stakes are very high.

And it's so easy to even just flip on Christian radio and take all that in indiscriminately. You know, even the most popular Christian radio stations put some stuff out that if you're paying attention at all, you go, oh, I'm not, that doesn't sound totally biblical or that doesn't sound exactly right. But, you know, you think there's people out there who just take that all on credit. That's, yep, uh-huh, uh-huh, I believe that, I believe that, I believe that.

And as a result, some of them find themselves in bondage. I mean, maybe they go to a church and they're not discriminating properly what is good teaching and bad teaching. They find out they live their entire lives under law. entire spiritual lives under law. I think someone, it was a friend of mine, but he was telling me about someone else who read Watchman Nee's book, The Normal Christian Life, which whatever else you can say about Watchman, you can certainly say he understood position, as was laid out in that book. And finally read about his position in Christ and his understanding of his freedom from law and got through all that and says, wow, I feel like I've wasted 15 years of Christian life living under law. I mean, the stakes are high. You can live that entire time as believers, with access to all these blessings, but not take hold of them. and live absolutely in bondage. So, the stakes are incredibly high.

And then also, it will impede our spiritual steadfastness and growth. As we talked about, Peter's telling us, hey, you want to grow, you've got to grow. We use trials and sufferings to grow, to grow, to grow, to grow, to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as Vern pointed out, and I thought I put it in here, but I begin to wonder if I didn't. It's pretty amazing. Here's Peter. The guy who says to the servant girl, says that pretty much on the night Christ is crucified, pretty much anyone who asks him, and I don't know him, nope, I don't know him, and even by the end he's getting so mad he's swearing at people, and I don't know that guy, I don't know him.

And now here he is, not too many years later, at the end of his life, obviously, but saying, that's what you need to grow in. What I denied back there, that's what we need to grow in. That's what I need to grow in. That's what we want to grow in. The grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that in any situation we say, yeah, I do know Him. I know about that guy. I know that guy. Finally, in closing, and we are going to have time to share, so get your comments ready. In closing, there's two exciting letters. It is important that we notice that all these points of Peter are directly related to our relationship with Christ.

Grossness is something that can only be accomplished in Christ by abiding in Him, by His life lived out in us. The Word of God is the means of revelation of Christ to us and the means by which we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by trials and sufferings that we are conformed to the image of Christ and are made like Him. Furthermore, the practical process of living out and conforming our daily condition to our eternal position is something that comes through the resting in Christ.

And only knowing the truth can strengthen us against false teachers. So while the themes in this letter are particularly powerful, Peter never loses sight of the most central fact, which is Jesus Christ. And to Him be the glory, both now and forevermore. Amen. So as as we as we wrap up this study, who has anything else, anything to add, anything to subtract, anything? What do you want to what do you have to say?

How have you been? How is this study affected things? I also really love to hear applications, because that sometimes is the hardest thing for me. As I read the word and read the word, I say, oh, this is so fantastic, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and then sometimes there'll just be a disconnect as I'm walking through my day-to-day life, and then someone comes to me and says, you know, remember that passage you talked about, or that we talked about the other night when we were hanging out? Doesn't that kind of apply here? Oh, yeah, it does. How embarrassing. So I mean I would love to hear any applications that even if they're personal, but not so personal as to make you blush. Does anyone have anything else to add or say? Totally open for them.

Well, Peter is the apostle of hope, I think. He's been called the apostle of hope, you know, and he draws us to the living hope, and the hope that's in us. And it's wonderful, I mean, the Old Testament has a verse that says, the heavens join all the living, there is hope.

A living dog is better than a dead lion. Well, that can be a comfort to some who, a poor sinner like even David, who said, Lord, I've been as a beast before you, but if thou, Lord, should mark and make with the Assyrian stand, there's forgiveness for me that thou mayest be feared. So, you know, it's wonderful to know as Christians we have hope, even as we face and see our that our soul nature's still there, we still have failures, that still, you know, to be disappointed with yourself is to believe in yourself and realize the righteous man crawls seven rounds of yourself again.

You know? It's just a wonderful thing to know. We see the example of this judge who recently was found to have evidently stolen something and all other things accused against him, but he had no hope, evidently. Now, he didn't have any sense of hope that there was any future for him. But as Christians, we have a wonderful hope, and Peter has drawn us to see that hope that we have in Christ, and that hope that's within us, by having him who is the God of hope, you know, or the God of who is living, and gives us that wonderful future and present. Amen.

Thank you. That's it. I feel like I should be sitting this way. And I suppose we'll give you extra hope. I just I just think it's going through this. It's been really neat for me to see. Here's this guy. We know how he stumbled today in Galatians. We'll see how he stumbled again after, you know, the day of Pentecost and, you know, phenomenal things. And yet, here's a guy, he can turn around and share such neat things. The guy who many times, I don't know him. I don't know him. And yet to turn around and to give us powerful insights into knowing him. And seeing after having denied the Lord himself, to see that There's nothing to compare with knowing Him.

That's just, that's a phenomenal thing. That's amazing. I think it's noteworthy to bring the mind to treatment. The Lord does say, in the case of Moses, And the idea is that there should be a lot of ideas that go into something that's very comprehensible and unbearable, but no, it's all because of this sort of man. He doesn't mean that he's stashed his heart out there. He's not. That is just that he's been working out his way in our life.

And if you can listen to this, instead of to a man about this size, I would say, It has purpose and meaning in the world. I've said this to a lot of people. There's no such thing as a smart accident. Well, I guess there is smart accidents, in a large way. But on the other hand, I see it that way. Age is correcting you, and you're away from the truth, and all that stuff. The suffering is just a part of the meaning, and we're not too willing to accept it.

I'd like to get into a position where I could. I suppose I'd like to repeat all these for the tape, but I can never get it down. So you'll just have to come and enjoy it in person. It's great if you have four or five people in your house, you can send a representative to every class and then report back to each other.

Alright, we are fully and completely out of time. We've overrun it. I would hate to finish Peter and not have gone over, because it's been our habit so often. Let's pray real quick though. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the fun and the wonder of these words that you wrote through your vessel, through Peter. Lord, all the amazing things that you did in him and through him. And Lord, what an encouragement that is to all of us who very often perhaps have our feet in our mouths or very often are foolish or caught up in our fleshly ways, walking in the flesh. And what an encouragement it is that with the amazing things you did with and through this man, Peter, and the power of your Holy Spirit, Pray that we can continue to keep these things in mind, love them out, Lord, and submit to you in joy and in suffering, Lord, in all situations, and consider it pure joy and perfect joy and eternal joy that we might suffer as you have condoned it. In Jesus' name.