[0:00] How long do you wait?
[0:12] I mean, it's 25 to 11. How long do you wait? Do you need to wait as long as Godot did in Beckett's play? How long do you wait when somebody's late for lunch?
[0:24] It happened to me yesterday. I had people coming for lunch, and I was in this dilemma knowing that we had to go to something after the lunch for the Ridley graduation, and time was running out, and do we start to eat or do we wait?
[0:38] You're waiting for a bus or a train and it doesn't come. How long do you wait before you decide to give up on the bus or the train and catch a taxi or walk or whatever it is? Waiting.
[0:51] To wait or not to wait? That could be the question. I saw Miss Saigon a couple of weeks ago, and one of the themes of that is that the Vietnamese girl who's got married to the American GI, she's determined to wait forever for him to come for her.
[1:10] But there's a sense in which he, in a sense, gave up waiting after a year, part of the dilemma and the emotional tension of the musical. To wait or not to wait?
[1:22] When do you decide to give up waiting and get on with something else? Peter writes his letter to a church who are facing scoffers and false teachers who are ridiculing the Christians for still waiting for Jesus' return.
[1:40] We're not sure exactly when the letter was written, but probably about 60 AD, thereabouts. So probably about 30 years after the resurrection of Jesus and his ascension to heaven.
[1:54] Christians are waiting for Jesus' return. But the scoffers are saying, as verse 4 quotes them, where is the promise of his coming?
[2:06] That is, you're wasting your time. He's not coming. You've been waiting all these years. Haven't you realised it's a fake?
[2:16] It's a sham? Haven't you realised what the truth is that he's not coming? And of course for us, it's another 2,000 years nearly. Jesus' resurrection was 1,975 years ago approximately.
[2:32] And he predicted that he would come back and return. Are we wasting our time if we are waiting for that event? After all, it's so long.
[2:44] Surely now we'd say, well, Jesus must have meant something else. Or the scriptures that say this, we should ignore them, tear them out. They're wrong.
[2:55] Can we really believe that he's coming again? And can we really keep on waiting? And Peter's response to that is unequivocally, absolutely yes.
[3:08] He is coming and keep waiting. This letter of 2 Peter that we've looked at the last two weeks and today we finish is a reminder.
[3:19] In one sense, there's nothing new there. The things that Peter is teaching these Christians, they already have known and he makes it clear throughout the letter, I am reminding you of these things. If you remember back two weeks ago to chapter 1, I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, verse 12 said.
[3:36] Verse 13 says, As wrong as I'm in this body, I think it right to refresh your memory. Peter's aware that he may be dying at some stage in the near future, so that after his departure, he says, you may be able at any time to recall these things.
[3:53] And he says at the beginning of chapter 3, this now, beloved, is the second letter I'm writing to you. In them I'm trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you that you should remember.
[4:06] That is, it's nothing new, but keep on remembering because these things are true. In particular, he says in verse 2, that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, that is the Old Testament, and the commandment of the Lord and Saviour spoken through your apostles.
[4:24] And that is, to that date, what existed of, what was evolving into the New Testament. Some of it written earlier, of course, than this letter. Words of Jesus, he seems to be alluding to, as well as the words of the apostles, and later on he refers to Paul.
[4:40] So, some of, many of Paul's letters, if not all, were written before to Peter. What Peter is doing then, is reminding them, not of things that he said to them in the past, but of things that the scriptures have said, and still say to them, and with a particular focus on the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[5:02] Peter's purpose for doing that, remember, is, as that song we've just sung, which comes from 2 Peter 1, reminds us, he wants the Christians there, by holding fast to the truth of Jesus' return, to grow in godliness, as they wait for that day.
[5:19] Now, Peter's argument here, is quite profound, actually. It's not too complicated, but it's very clever. He describes the false teachers, in verse 3, saying this, first of all, you must understand this, that in the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming?
[5:42] For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were, from the beginning of creation. His description of the false teachers, as scoffers, picks up some of the language of Old Testament, and indeed, also in the New Testament.
[5:58] People who would ridicule the truth, the false teachers who would come in. It's there in Old Testament, prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah and others, where they expect there will be false prophets, to come in the future, scoffing at what is true.
[6:13] The same in Jesus' words, quoted in the New Testament, in some places. What Peter's actually implying then, is that the very existence of people, who are doubting, or mocking, the return of Jesus, is actually evidence, that Jesus is coming.
[6:34] That is, it's evidence of the reliability of the Bible, in the Old Testament, and the early bits of the New Testament. So the very fact that there are people saying, he's not coming, give up on waiting, the very fact that they're there, is actually evidence, that the Old Testament scriptures, and the early bits of the New Testament, are actually true, because they predict such people would come.
[6:56] And, Peter writes in this verse, in the last days. That's the language of Old Testament, and Jesus as well, and elsewhere in the New Testament. So by using that language, Peter is also saying, the very fact that the scriptures predicted, that in the last days, these things would happen, and they're happening, shows that the scoffers are actually wrong, but ironically, their presence is evidence of the truth.
[7:19] Jesus is coming. Keep waiting. These are the last days. Jesus is still to come. The scoffers, he says in verse 3, and about them, they are scoffing, meaning that they are ridiculing the truth, and they are indulging their own lusts.
[7:43] And as we saw two weeks ago, and last week, there is this synergy between wrong belief, and wrong practice, and a synergy between right belief, and right practice.
[7:55] When the truth is taught, it commends and empowers godliness. When falsehood is taught, it is a friend of some sin or lust. So false teaching, in this case, to do with the second coming of Jesus, and the lack of judgment on the final day, is actually opening up all sorts of avenues, of sinful, lustful, lawless behavior.
[8:18] And that's how he describes them in verse 3. They are the wrong teachers, and you can see it by their lives. They are practicing the wrong things as well. They're indulging their lusts.
[8:30] You see, their motivation for denying the return of Jesus, is actually fueled, by their desire to live sinful lives, and to think that they are not under, the future judgment of God against sin.
[8:41] Now be comforted here, that the scoffers have not made innocent mistakes. It's not just that they've been reading their Bibles, and somehow have misinterpreted it innocently.
[8:54] Peter writes in verse 5 at the beginning, they deliberately ignore. They deliberately ignore. That is, these are people who choose, to disregard some aspect, of the scriptures.
[9:09] They don't like it, so we're not going to have it. And how dangerous, but yet how common, that actually is. I remember when I was at university, there was a Christian group on campus, called the Student Christian Movement.
[9:23] It was a fairly liberal theological movement. And I remember some of my friends, going off on their camp. And at their camp, their job was to together, read all four Gospels, and decide amongst themselves, by taking a vote, which bits of the Gospels they believed, were Jesus' real words.
[9:43] And so they ruled out, whole swathes of the Gospels, that they really didn't like. Now that awful exercise, is actually something that's replicated, in so-called clever scholarship, around the world.
[9:56] In groups called the Jesus Seminar, and other types of groups. Where people say, well Jesus couldn't have said that, or wouldn't have said that, or Paul's not recorded this rightly, so we actually leave it out.
[10:06] We prune it. We don't like these words, is actually the motivation that's going on. It's a sinful desire, that's at practice. And yet in so much of theology, that's written and taught, around our world, sadly that's what's happening.
[10:21] What's happening is that, people are setting themselves up, over God's word, and in effect, it's breathtaking arrogance. It's saying, we are the ones, who control and determine, what actually God's word is.
[10:34] Rather than as it should be, God's word over us, and we submit to, trust and obey it. Now, it's not just in those sort of, theological circles that happens.
[10:46] But for any of us really, the temptation is sometimes there to say, well I don't like that bit of the Bible, I don't like that challenge, or that rebuke, I'm going to ignore it. But we do it at our peril.
[10:58] And that's what Peter is describing, these scoffers and false teachers as doing. They deliberately ignore, ignore, is what he says. Now in this particular case, one of the things they deliberately ignore, they're saying that, life has just gone on, from the beginning onwards, that's the end of verse 4, ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were, from the beginning of creation.
[11:21] It just rolls on and on and on. And it'll just keep doing it forever, Jesus is not coming to end history. And Peter says, what they deliberately ignore, is this, verse 5 and 6, by the word of God, heavens existed long ago, and an earth was formed out of water, and by means of water, that is, there was a beginning, under the authority of God's word.
[11:45] And, verse 6, through the same word, which the world of that time, was deluged with water, and perished. That is, it's not just, as it was in the beginning, it'll continue on forever.
[11:59] Creation began with God's authoritative word, and at a point, in the flood of Noah, in Genesis 6, God actually brought an act of, almost universal judgment, when he swamped the earth, with water, by way of punishment, against sin.
[12:13] Now, what's the point of this? It's to deny, that everything will just continue on forever, and Jesus isn't returning. And it's to show, as he makes clear in verse 7, by the same word, that is, God's word, in the scriptures, the present heavens and earth, have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment, and destruction of the godless.
[12:36] That is, the act of the flood of Noah's day, as judgment by God, against sin, is a paradigm, a prototype, of what the Old Testament predicts, what Jesus predicts, what the New Testament predicts, when Jesus returns, judgment against the whole universe, by fire, not flood, as God's judgment, against the sins of the world.
[12:58] It's happened in the past, God's word says it will happen in the future, and Peter is saying, they deliberately ignore, what the scriptures are teaching, and therefore, they deliberately ignore, the return of the Lord Jesus, still promised.
[13:12] So Peter says, remember the scriptures, in effect. Remember what the Bible teaches. God will come, in Jesus Christ, to judge the world, at the end of history, to end this creation, and to bring in the new creation.
[13:28] Peter's using language here, of the heavens being reserved, for judgment by fire, in verse 7, which is Old Testament language. He's not making it up. That sort of language, you find at the end of Isaiah, for example, and in many other places, in the Old Testament, as well as in Jesus teaching, for example, Matthew 24.
[13:46] Indeed, countless predictions, Peter is reminding them, of what the scriptures say. Well then it begs the question, why hasn't he come? Especially for us, 2,000 years later, why hasn't he come?
[14:02] Have we got this promise wrong? Peter says in verse 8, do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day, is like a thousand years, and a thousand years, are like one day.
[14:16] It's a famous verse, it's a quote from Psalm 90, in effect. It's often been misunderstood, it's often been used to say, that God's got no sense of time, or God's outside time, that's not what it's saying.
[14:31] When you're a child, waiting the week before Christmas, or Easter, or the week before you start school, is an inordinately long time.
[14:41] I don't know whether you can remember, back to that, but you're counting off the days, the sleeps, the hours, thinking this week is never going to pass, Christmas is never going to get here, or my birthday is never going to come.
[14:54] But if you're my age or older, well, one week just sort of seems to zip by, and even when you're looking forward to something next weekend, say, it'll zip by, you're not thinking all week, oh what a slow week this is.
[15:08] The older we get, the smaller time seems, the faster it goes. I mean, those who are older than I, probably experience this much more than I do, but, you know, in my mid-forties, I sort of think, my gosh, my life is actually very short.
[15:21] And by the time I get to, who knows, three score years and ten, which the same psalm quotes, I will think it's been just, but, you know, click of the fingers really, a fleeting breath.
[15:33] What this verse is saying, is that in God's perspective, God of eternity, who's been here for eternity, and will be here for eternity, there's a sense in which a thousand years is not a long time. It's a bit like a day.
[15:46] I mean, they're all short periods of time, when you put them in the perspective of eternity. So what Peter is saying here, is that waiting for 30 years in his case, for 2,000 years in our case, it's not a long time.
[16:00] That is, don't think that because Jesus is yet to return 2,000 years after he first came, that somehow we've got the promise wrong, that it's too long to wait. It's not too long to wait. It may be millions of years before he comes.
[16:13] It might be before this afternoon. We don't know. But 2,000 years is not too long to wait for the return of Jesus.
[16:24] And indeed, Peter, by keeping on going back to the Old Testament, as he does in this verse, quoting Psalm 90, which actually speaks of the judgment of God, and the fleeting nature of human life, 70 years being a short period of time in effect.
[16:38] Peter is actually going back to the Old Testament, to actually say, the arguments there, read it. He's not making up a new argument here. And when you think of the Old Testament story, we realize, God promised Abram and Sarah a baby.
[16:50] When did the prey become? Not nine months later, 25 years later. That's a very long period of time, given that Abram was 75 when the promise was first made. But think, today's Palm Sunday.
[17:03] Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. Something that's predicted in the book of Zechariah, the prophet. Zechariah prophesied exactly the events of Palm Sunday when? 520 BC.
[17:16] Took 520 years to fulfill Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a donkey. Indeed, there are prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament that go much, much earlier, back to the time of Moses, 1400 years before Jesus came to fulfill the prophet like Moses, for example.
[17:30] So for us to think in terms of, Jesus isn't coming 30 years, it's gone by, it's 2000 years, it's gone by, it can't happen. No, Peter says.
[17:41] God's perspective on time is different from ours, because he's been there from eternity, and he'll be there for eternity. And when we've been into heaven, you know, 10,000 years, we'll look back and think, gosh, my life on earth was so brief.
[17:55] Why did I get so fast? So Peter is bolstering the argument from the Old Testament, that we can still trust the promise of God, that Jesus is coming back.
[18:08] So verse nine, the Lord is not slow or slack or lazy is the sense of that. It's not as though God's forgotten or he's been distracted, that he's fallen asleep in front of the TV and forgotten to tell Jesus to go back.
[18:20] None of that at all. God's not like that. He's not slow about his promises. Some think of slowness, clearly referring to the false teachers and scoffers. But the reason why Jesus is yet to return when Peter wrote this letter, and the same reason why Jesus is yet to return today, is that God is patient with us.
[18:41] Patient with us, because he does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance. That is to be ready for the day when Jesus returns.
[18:53] Jesus could come back anytime. He could have come back in 60 AD. But Peter is saying, God is patient. Therefore, you be patient. You see, God is actually waiting in a sense for people to repent and be ready for the return.
[19:08] Therefore, you must keep waiting. And the longer history goes on before Jesus returns, the greater God's patience in waiting for people to repent. But all the more incentive for us to keep waiting for Jesus to return as well.
[19:24] The trouble is with patience. Sometimes we think that God's patience will never run out. And this may be part of the scoffers as well. It's easy to presume upon God's patience, to think God will keep being patient.
[19:38] Jesus is not going to come back in my lifetime. I'll sort my life out at the end of my life. I'll live for myself today and on my deathbed, I'll just sort it out. There's great danger in that sort of thing.
[19:50] Because patience, in the end, must run out, if it is patience. You see, if God is never going to send Jesus to judge, that's not patience, that's indifference.
[20:04] If God is patient, there will come a time when he will stop being patient, and act. Like he did in various occasions in the Old Testament, in judgment against the people of Israel.
[20:17] So we must not presume upon the patience of God. It will run out. And Jesus will return. We know he'll return, but not when. So Peter says in verse 10, quoting Jesus even, the day of the Lord will come like a thief.
[20:31] We know it's coming, but we don't know precisely when. It'll be sudden, and in a sense, then unexpected. If we know when a thief's coming, we won't leave the house, will we?
[20:42] The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth, and everything that is done on it, will be disclosed.
[20:53] That is judgment day. Every act will be brought before the judgment throne of the Lord Jesus Christ. This earth, this heavens, they will pass away in fire. All of it is the language of the Old Testament again.
[21:07] It'll come suddenly, and it'll be a day of blistering destruction. It'll be a day of destruction on a vast scale. This heaven and this earth passing away.
[21:19] The end of God's patience will be the arrival of his fierce and proper wrath at the judgment and judgment against sin in this world and universe.
[21:30] Well, what might we ask? If that's what that day is going to be like, why are we looking forward to it? Why do we even want Jesus to return? Who can stand against such a fiery onslaught of God's wrath on that final day?
[21:45] Peter says in verse 11 onwards, Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you be? In leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved and the elements will melt with fire.
[22:06] Well, there's the answer embedded in those two verses. We look forward to that day living lives of godliness and holiness. That's what hastens the day.
[22:17] Our repentance from sin and our pursuit of godliness and holiness. That's why this letter is written, so that the Christians may pursue a greater growth in godliness and holiness.
[22:31] Beyond that day, verse 13, gives us more incentive to live godly lives. In accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth where righteousness is at home.
[22:48] Not just new because the old's gone and it's the next one, like this year, 2007's a new year, but it's just like 2006. It's just the next one in the sequence. Rather, the word new here is like how it's used in a supermarket.
[23:02] New Omo, new fab, new Kellogg's cornflakes, new taste, new whatever. That is new in quality is the idea. It's not just new because it's the one that's there this week compared to what was there last week.
[23:15] It's new in quality is what they mean by that advertising. So when Peter writes, it is a new heavens and a new earth, he uses the Greek word for new that suggests new in quality and the reason for the difference in quality is that righteousness will be at home there.
[23:29] Unlike this earth, this candy store of seductive sin and evil, where righteousness actually is not at home anymore, in the new heavens and the new earth, which we do await when the Lord returns, righteousness will be at home.
[23:43] That is, it will be a new heaven and a new earth that will be marked by righteousness. It will be perfect. It will be great. There will be no sin or evil, no crying or pain, no death, no suffering, nothing, none of the consequences of any problem or flaw or decay.
[24:00] It'll be righteous through and through. Peter again is using the language of the Old Testament, again from the end of Isaiah, where the judgment on the old heavens and the old earth gives way to the new heavens and the new earth.
[24:16] And again, by using Old Testament language, he's exposing the falsehood, the deliberate ignorance of these scoffers and mockers who are leaving out bits of the scriptures, being selective in their choice of the Bible.
[24:29] And he's in effect saying, trust the Bible. It's reliable. What it says will happen, will happen. The length of time is not a problem for God.
[24:39] It ought not to be for you. And this righteous new heaven and new earth, that is the lemon tart of God's promises that we are to be salivating for and longing for and eagerly awaiting at the end of history.
[24:53] That is to drive us now in righteous lives. That is, if righteousness is at home there and that's what we long for, how do we live for that and be ready for the Lord's return?
[25:05] By growing in godliness and holiness and righteousness, by getting ready for life where righteousness is at home. Hence he goes on in verse 14.
[25:16] Therefore, because of that promise, while you are waiting for these things, how do we wait? Strive to be found by Jesus at peace. That is at peace with God, being a friend of God, not an enemy of God.
[25:29] That is, having repented of our sins and turned away from them and turned back to God. And secondly, without spot or blemish, language that's used of something that's perfect for an Old Testament sacrifice.
[25:40] Back in chapter 2 verse 13, the false teachers were blots and blemishes. No, no, don't be like that, Peter is saying. Be without spot and without blemish. That is, be righteous in your life so that you're ready for the home of righteousness when it comes and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
[25:59] That is, when he comes, when Jesus returns, though there is this universal destruction and judgment against sin, like the saving of Noah, as we saw last week, or the saving of Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah, as we saw last week, so you will know the salvation that comes when the Lord Jesus returns and rescues the godly from the ungodly, as the Old Testament keeps giving us examples of that we can trust and rely upon.
[26:29] When he says in verse 14, strive to be found by him at peace, it's the same word that he used, we saw two weeks ago, make every effort. Make every effort.
[26:40] Chapter 1 verse 5 said, to add to your faith goodness, and then goodness to knowledge, etc., and that sequence leading up to love. Chapter 1 verse 10 said, make every effort to confirm your call and election.
[26:55] Verse 15 of chapter 1 said, make every effort so that after my departure you recall these things. And now he says, in verse 14 of chapter 3, make every effort to be found by him at peace.
[27:09] You see, our waiting for the Lord's return is not an idleness. I'm so impatient as a person. I hate waiting. So I like to have things to do and have my books to read and all that sort of stuff.
[27:22] I don't like wasting time. And our waiting for the Lord's return is not sitting by idly, you know, chewing our fingernails, watching TV, just thinking how many more hours till Jesus returns. Our waiting for him to return is full of our effort to growing godliness, holiness, righteousness, so that when he comes we'll be ready to meet him and to go where righteousness is at home.
[27:48] When Peter's writing this, he knows that he's not writing something new. Not only has he appealed all the time back to the Old Testament and Jesus' words, but he says Paul says the same things in all of Paul's letters.
[27:58] And here is a very early glimpse, maybe 60 AD, that already Paul's letters are regarded as Holy Scripture in effect. He says at the end of verse 15, so also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him.
[28:11] We don't know which letter in particular that may be referring to. Speaking of this, as he does in all his letters, indeed in most, if not all of Paul's letters, the second coming of Jesus is something firmly to be trusted and believed.
[28:25] There are some things in Paul's letters that are hard to understand. Well, what an encouragement that is, that even Peter should say that. But he doesn't say by that, because they're hard to understand, ignore them.
[28:36] He doesn't say leave it out, therefore. Indeed, he warns us that the things that are hard to understand, the false teachers, the ignorant and the unstable, they twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures as well, the Old Testament, that is, and other bits of the New Testament.
[28:53] You see, there are things that are hard to understand in Paul and elsewhere, but we have no excuse to evade them. Indeed, to make every effort to grow in our knowledge of them.
[29:07] Before the Gulf War in 1991, when Kuwait was liberated, Margaret Thatcher made some, what became, very famous words to George Bush Senior, then President of the United States.
[29:19] Now is not the time to go wobbly on me, George. You may remember those words. You can imagine the intimidating Margaret Thatcher saying that and turning George Bush Senior's knees to jelly, I'm sure.
[29:33] Now is not the time to go wobbly on me, George. Peter's saying the same at the end of this letter. Now is not the time to go wobbly as a Christian.
[29:46] Verse 17, he says, you therefore, beloved, since you're forewarned, that is, about the things to come and Jesus' return and what false teachers will bring, beware that you're not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability.
[30:01] That is, become wobbly. Beware that you don't get seduced by false teachers because as we've seen the last two weeks, they are seductive, they are enticing.
[30:13] They're enticing because they actually allow us to keep sinning with impunity and that's always attractive. Beware their false teaching. Beware their error is the word that's used in verse 17.
[30:26] A word that means wandering away. You see, it's rare that a Christian will actually sit down and say, right, I've decided today that I'm going to pursue theological error and heresy. But what happens is that we're like little kids at a fair and we just wander away with the distraction of the lights and the temptations of what's around us and we realise, looking back, how far we've wandered from our parents who we can't see.
[30:51] Well, sadly, that's what Christians are like sometimes. That we're not stable and anchored enough in the Bible's truth and we're seduced by the lights and the tastes and the temptations of our world, the false teachers of our world and we wander away gradually and then further.
[31:14] That's error. It's following the lawless ones as they're described in verse 17 and it's going wobbly, being carried away by the pied piper scoffers.
[31:26] Rather, instead of bewaring and wandering away, we are to grow, verse 18. To grow. Because actually, in the end, if we're Christians not growing, we're not actually standing still, we're slipping back.
[31:42] we're to grow because our godliness is never at God's standard. We're to grow because our righteousness is not yet at the level for the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness is at home.
[31:55] We're to grow because we are always to be preparing for life where righteousness is at home, the new heavens and the new earth. But we're to grow in grace, verse 18 says.
[32:10] That is, our growing is not actually, in the end, reliance upon our own effort. We're to grow in grace because God has given us everything we need for life and godliness, as chapter 1, verse 3 and 4 said.
[32:22] We're to grow in grace because salvation is a gift, not an achievement. We're to grow in grace because God has given us all we need. We're to grow in grace as a way of summing up that section of chapter 1.
[32:36] For this reason, make every effort to support your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge self-control, self-control endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with mutual affection and mutual affection with love. That's growing in grace.
[32:48] They are the gracious characteristics that God gives us but we're to make every effort to grow in them. Not only grow in grace, verse 18 says at the end of the book, but also to grow in knowledge because the scriptures are our infallible and reliable word of God's promise.
[33:06] We're to grow in knowledge from the scriptures. Not just knowing them, memorizing them, although they're great things to do, but through our knowledge we will trust them and thereby grow in godliness for that final day.
[33:21] We're to grow in knowledge because the scriptures are powerful to make us wise for salvation in Christ. We're to grow in knowledge through the scriptures because all things sufficient for salvation are found therein.
[33:33] Indeed, as Peter made very clear back at the beginning of this letter. Chapter 1, verses 3 and 4. Jesus' divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness.
[33:46] How? Through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. And thus, Jesus has given us through these things his precious and very great promises.
[33:56] That is in the scriptures. That's how we grow in knowledge so that through them, the scriptures, you may escape from the corruption that's in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature.
[34:13] And yet, all too often, we Christians let dust gather on our scriptures. We don't meditate on them day and night as we ought.
[34:25] We don't read them thirsting for God's truth. We don't study them with others in small groups sufficiently or take heed to them in our daily lives.
[34:37] And when we ignore them, we are actually showing the same breathtaking arrogance that the scoffers and false teachers showed. We are saying, I don't need God's word.
[34:49] I don't need to live on it every day. When we ignore it, we're showing contempt for God's promises. We're showing an arrogance about our own state of godliness or lack thereof.
[35:03] We are showing scant regard for the Lord's return and our need to prepare for it. Since all things needed for life and godliness are given to us by Jesus Christ, since Jesus' divine power is given to us to equip us with power to live godly lives, since Jesus gives us his word that is powerful to make us wise for salvation, then in the end we claim no credit.
[35:34] In the end, as Peter says at the end, to Jesus be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. In the candy store of our world that bombards us in every way and to every sense, enticing us to wander from the truth and into ways of corruption and lust, it is so simple to be seduced into sin.
[36:00] It's so easy to be led astray by scoffers, so easy to be enticed into indulgence. We are so prone to pursue the fleeting pleasures of our world.
[36:13] But as Peter makes clear, as the Bible makes clear, they always fail to deliver. They always end in slavery, not liberty. They end in death and destruction and not salvation.
[36:29] But Jesus' divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness and he's given us through these things his precious and very great promises so that through them we may both escape from the corruption that's in the world because of lust and may also become participants of the divine nature.
[36:52] So therefore, brothers and sisters, we are to make every effort to add to our faith those virtues crowned by love. We're to make every effort to grow in godliness, make every effort to grow in knowledge, make every effort to strive to be at peace with God as we wait for the day of the Lord's return.
[37:13] Don't give up waiting is what Peter's saying and wait by growing in godliness for he is coming he's coming to judge and punish and destroy the ungodly but at the same time coming to rescue the ungodly the godly from the ungodly.
[37:31] He is coming. Come Lord Jesus. Come soon. Amen.