Now I hope that you'll all be able to hear me as the dishes are being cleaned up and things are tidied up in the kitchen. Yesterday afternoon I was speaking about Peter in the beginning of his ministry as a fisherman of men, one who went out after souls. This afternoon we're going to turn to the second epistle of Peter, to the first chapter, and we're going to see what an old fisherman has got to say for the people of God. There's no question in my mind what Peter preached as far as the gospel is concerned, but in this epistle we notice what Peter has to say to God's people as he comes into the closing days of his life. See, Peter knew how he was going to die. knew that his life would be taken from him. Peter had not only a great love for souls, but he had a great love for God's people. I think in the first chapter of the second epistle we have some of the greatest truths that can be unfolded to the heart of any Christian. I only wish that I knew more about them. Reading from verse one. Simon Peter. a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained light, precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. According as he has his divine power, according as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by thee you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue, knowledge, and to knowledge, temperance, and to temperance, patience, and to patience, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren, nor unproofful, in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sin. Wherefore, the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling in election sure. For if you do these things you shall never fall, for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Wherefore, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet as long as I am in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me. I wonder if you've ever noticed in reading this first chapter, and when you come to the twelve verse, have you ever noticed how Peter speaks? He says, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things. Now ordinarily, we were trying to cause a person to remember something, that he has forgotten. But this isn't the case here. This is not a matter of Peter trying to recall something that the saints of God had heard and had forgotten. Not the thing that we ordinarily think it might be, but this is a matter of calling to remember something that they know. something they already know. I wouldn't minimize what our brethren were saying yesterday about the enemies of the truth of God. And certainly there's a lot of pressure against God's truth and God's people today. And we need to be on guard and we need to beware. And we need to be on our toes, spiritually speaking. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't believe that outside opposition is ever going to put a route to the church of God. But I believe that it is deterioration from within that's going to give us the most trouble. And that is what Peter is thinking about here. Later on he speaks about the false teachers, but right here he's thinking about God's people and he says, I want to remind you of the things that you already know. If you and I that know true, let them slip from our fingers or from our lives or from our hearts, then we're an easy mark for any kind of a false teaching that comes around. He's going to remind them of something they already know. And it's altogether important that they do because he says, you'll make your calling an election sure, for if you do these things, you shall never fall. Now let's look at these few things this afternoon. Here's a man that has reached the end of his life. I'll tell you a man that has reached the end of his course and has had a chance to survey things from the beginning to the end and to analyze his own life and to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus has generally got something worthwhile to say. And here are some things that he would like to see added to the faith of every believer. Notice what they are again. He says to your faith add virtue and knowledge and temperance and patience and godliness and brotherly kindness and love. Now, isn't it interesting and isn't it striking that the very things that Peter would like to see added to the lives of God's people are the very things that he himself failed in. Peter had learned that in the things that he was lacking in his own life were the things that were needed so much in the lives of God's people and especially in himself. First of all, it says, add to your faith. Did Peter's faith ever fail? Did it? I see several heads nodding, but I want to disagree with you this afternoon. Peter's faith never failed. You nodded your head at the wrong time that day. I asked the children a question, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they'll say, Jesus. Because that generally is the right answer. Peter's faith never fail, and I'll tell you the reason why. The Lord Jesus said, Peter, I prayed through thee that by faith fail not. You may be a failure in other things, Peter, but he says, Your faith is not going to fail. I prayed for you, and I'm glad to say that the one that prayed for the Lord Jesus, or prayed for Peter, is the one that has prayed for you and me. The believer's faith is not going to fail. Well, what about the other thing? We're told that to add to faith virtue, that's strength, that Peter's strength or Peter's courage ever failing? It certainly did. You remember when the little maid was surveying Peter one day and she says, you know, that man looks like somebody that I saw following that man, Jesus. And the little last steps up, he says, do you know that man over there? And my, you know, poor Peter looked into the face of a little girl and he says, no, I don't know. Peter's courage failed him. Peter had gotten away from the Lord. And if there's anything in the world that's a miserable failure as far as courage is concerned, is a child of God that has gotten away from God and is cold at heart. You'd be surprised how clever we can get with our truth, that we can conceal our cold hearts today with scriptural form and rightness. Poor old Peter couldn't even witness to a little girl. His courage failed them all right, but not his faith. Then again, you know, it mentions knowledge. Did Peter's knowledge ever fail him? Yes, it did, because when Peter suddenly speaking to the Lord, he says, why, Lord? He says, we're going to build three tabernacles. We'll build one for you, and we'll build one for Moses, and we'll build one for life, because it says he whips not what to say. So his knowledge even failed him, and he didn't know what to say. Generally we say the wrong thing. I've proved that many a time. Then again it speaks of self-control. I wonder if Peter's self-control ever failed him. I know mine does. Remember the time when Peter got very angry and he pulled out his sword and he made a slight whip and he cut off Malchus' ear? If you think he was aiming for his ear, you've got another guest coming. And then again I read that we're to add patience to our self-control. That Peter's patience ever failed him? I know mine does. Well, he failed him too. He ran out of patience. One day he says to his brethren, he says, well, he says, I tell you. He says, I'm going to go back fishing. And so they got on the boat with Peter and they went out and promptly caught nothing. And I'm sure glad they didn't catch anything because God doesn't put any premium upon restlessness. Then again it says there to add godliness. I wonder if Peter's godliness ever failed him. You remember the time when the Lord Jesus said, Peter, I'm going to have to lay my life down. Immediately Peter got all up in arms. He says, Lord, he says, this will never happen to you. He says, I'll never take your life. And he began to rebuke the Lord Jesus. His godliness failed. What about his brotherly love? We're to add brotherly love. Well, I know oftentimes I failed in that. Remember how he and the rest of the disciples, as the shadow of the cross is growing darker across the path of the Savior, right in the very shadow of the cross, Peter and the rest of them had a violent argument as to who was going to be the vice president of the coming corporation. and Peter Parker thought he was ready for nomination. They quarreled as to who was going to be the greatest. Then again, he speaks of adding love. I wonder if Peter's love ever failed. Well, he says the rest, he says, may deny you, Lord, he says, not me. And then the time came when the Lord Jesus, after having given them nice roasted fish, Taps Peter on the shore, he says, Peter, he says, do you love me? Peter says, well, Lord, he says, you know I like you. Well, that isn't what I said. Do you really love me? Peter says, well, Lord, you know I like you. I'm a friend of yours. He admitted that his love had failed. And every one of these things that Peter is encouraging to be added to the lives of God people were things that he had failed in himself. And Peter the agent comes along and says, These are the things we need that our lives be not barren nor unfruitful. We don't want to be barren and unfruitful Christians, do we? Let's just think for a little while this afternoon on some of these. I won't go into all of them. I don't have time, but let's look at the first one, if you will. Keeping in mind that Peter's faith never failed, thank God for that. But he failed and all the others, but now he's going to speak about them. He says, in verse four, he says, there are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises. I should have read verse three, according as His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life. Do you know, dear friends, that the Lord Jesus doesn't save us in this old world and leave us here to go off on our own strength? There's a lovely phrase here. I understand that it means it was used in the times in which Peter wrote in that period. It was used by men who supplied the costumes for those that acted in theatrical performances. This word where it says, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things. It was a word that was used at that particular time when wealthy men underwrote the performance of some kind of a play. Sometimes there were as many as two thousand actors to portray these Greek dramas. And it took a wealthy person indeed to supply the costumes and so on. This was the word that was used. When a wealthy man says, all right, I'll underwrite this play and I'll supply all the costumes for all these hundreds of Greek actors, that was a term that was used. And so it is with the Lord Jesus. He has underwritten, He has guaranteed to supply everything that the child of God needs in order that He might present the greatest thing in the world, and that is Christ in dwelling, a sinner saved by grace. Paul says that we are made unto the world a spectacle, and my margin tells me that is a theater. God has given us all of the spiritual essentials that we might present to the world a theater or a real picture of God operating and living in men and women today. I wonder what kind of performance we're giving. Then again it was a term that was used whenever an army was outfitted to go into combat. And again I see how the Lord Jesus, according to Ephesians six, has given every child of God the armor and the equipment and able to go out to enable him to face the enemy because we have an enemy to face. It was used also in connection with the athlete as he was to face the training and to make the long run. He has given us all that we need in spiritual food so we can be good runners. He's going to present a right kind of performance in the eyes of the world. That we can be men and women able to face the enemy. That we can be men and women able to run the race. He said he's given us liberally all these things. Now he says, add to your faith virtue. You see that word virtue comes from a Latin word which means courage or strength. Now I'm so thankful today. that you don't have to have strong faith to be saved. If we were to go through the audience of people that are in this room, who are saved and on the road to heaven, I wonder how many of you could pray that you were saved because you had such a strong faith in the Lord Jesus. I question whether you could find one man or one woman in the entire company that would be willing to stand up and say, I'm saved today because I had such a strong faith in the Savior. I believe that for everyone that could stand up, we could produce ten thousand people who could say, well, when I got saved, it was with a real weak, trembling kind of faith. You remember that man that came and said, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief? Many of us are like that. I don't believe that there are very many people who are saved with a real husky faith. I think most of us are saved with the kind of faith that just reaches out and touches the hem of his garment. It isn't the amount of faith we put in Christ that's saved. It isn't how bold our faith is. It's where is your faith today? Young man or young woman sitting here in this audience, I ask you, where is your faith? Maybe I'm speaking to someone today and you're not a Christian. You say, well, I'd like to be saved, but I don't know whether I could put enough faith in the Lord Jesus. Friends, it isn't the amount of faith. If you put even the weakest faith in the mighty Savior, the work is done. So most of us are saved by a weak kind of faith. Nicodemus came by night, but later on at the end we find Nicodemus came and asked for the body of the Lord Jesus. You see, to his faith had been added courage and strength. God doesn't expect us to stay timid and weak all the time. We're to add to our faith courage. In other words, there should be the manifestation of courage and strength in the believer's life. A boy was saved in the Bible camp a few years ago, a Catholic lad. And when he got home, he told his father and mother that he had trusted Christ as a Savior. And when I saw that he really meant what he was saying, the father promptly opened the kitchen door, he says, Frank. He said, if what you tell me is true, that you have put your faith in this Jesus as your Savior, and you can say you're saved now and have eternal life, which we can't do. He says, you're no son of mine. He says, get out of the house and never come back. And a sixteen-year-old boy stepped out of the door and before he walked out into the darkness, he says, Dad, you can kick me out of this house. But he says, I've got a house up there. I've got a home up there. He says, you'll never kick me out of that one. And Frank Martin walked out into the night all alone. But he had the Lord Jesus with him. Save by a weak faith. Save kneeling down under an old cedar tree on the side of the hill. Add to your faith curves. Rather than sisters today, I wonder whether our faith is a kind of faith that is growing in strength. We ought to be a lot stronger in our faith after years instead of growing weaker. We ought to be more realistic in the Christian path now. We ought not to be cooling off. I was in a little place one time to have a few little meetings. And I remember one of the brethren said to me, you know, brother, I don't understand why it is, but Sunday night comes around, we've only got about twelve people out to the gospel meeting. I kept that in mind. And seeing I was there for just a young people's conference, and it ended on Sunday night with the gospel meeting. I noticed that night we had about seventy-five or eighty people there. And so I looked down into the faces of these people and I said, I'm certainly happy to see so many of you folks out tonight. I said, they tell me there are some places where there's only sometimes twelve people out at the gospel meeting. I'm certainly glad to see that the disease hasn't got into this assembly and to see you all out there good and strong going on for God like that. And they were all looking up smiling until I said that and then they began to drop their eyes. I was going out of the door. One man crept up to me and he took me by the hand and says, he says, Brother, I'm afraid. You've got us a little overestimated. I wonder what God's people are doing after they meet around the table and remember the Lord Jesus and sit there and are supposed to be in company with the Lord Jesus. I wonder what they do with the rest of the time. Can you tell me anything in the whole wide world that any child of God ought to be more interested in than getting the gospel of the grace of God out? If it meant anything to your soul, my friend, it ought to mean something to you to get it out to somebody else. Add to your faith courage and strength. We ought to be a lot stronger now than the day we started out. We started out with a weak kind of a faith. Then again he said, add to your strength knowledge. Well, you know, this is an interesting thing. I understand that there are two words used for knowledge in the Bible. I didn't know that until I made a little inspection of it. I'm not any Greek authority. I can hardly master the English language. But I found out this, that there are two words used for knowledge in the New Testament. One word means to know something theoretically. The other word for knowledge means to know something experimentally. Now this is the word that is used here, add to your virtue, that is add to your growing strength, add to your courage, add to that experimental knowledge. Did you know that a lot of us are getting by on theoretical knowledge. Let me illustrate. You take a father and mother who brings into the world children, and from the time they're little infants, they hear the gospel, and they're brought to the assembly, and they witness the Lord's Supper, and they hear the teaching, and theoretically, they nod to it. They say, yes, I believe that. Do you believe that? Yes, I believe that. Now, do you believe that? It's an unscriptural thing for a Christian to be unequally yoked together with a non-believer. I believe that's unscriptural, they say. And so a lot of young people, our children, are growing up with a theoretical kind of knowledge up here in their head. Then they step out into the old wide world, and the first thing you know... They find out that theory is not enough. The convictions of mother and father will not suffice for the son and daughter. You young people sitting here this afternoon looking at me, the convictions that Daddy has about his place in the assembly, you have followed along in the strength of his conviction. You have come along in the far and the width of his conviction. But what are your convictions about these things? I see you come out to the prayer meeting with mother and dad. Mother and dad says we should be at the prayer meeting. I see some of you youngsters come out to the prayer meeting. But is that your conviction that you should be at the prayer meeting? Theoretically, yes. Experimentally, oftentimes there's a great big no going on. And mothers and dads, parents are horrified when they begin to discover in their children a kind of rebellion against the truth of God. You see what has happened? I think we parents have been a little bit careless in understanding that maybe the children innocently have, in that it isn't enough to learn the truth. I've got to make that truth mine so that it dominates me. Add to your courage, he says, experimental knowledge. That's why you see a nice Christian girl... who's been raised in the Christian home and seems to be what you say, oh, she's a wonderful Christian girl and she goes off to school somewhere. And the first thing you know why you get a letter from her and she says, well, you know, Dad, I found a very nice friend. And then Mom and Dad write back and say, well, honey, is he a Christian? The next letter avoids the issue. You write again, you say, well, is he a Christian? And finally he says, well, I'm not sure. And you begin to tremble. And you begin to wonder. And the first thing you know, the Christian and the unchristian are walking side by side. And let me tell you something, you young people sitting here today. If you want to take a step in the wrong direction, you make the wrong kind of a connection in your companionship. You're making a down payment on real trouble, young man, if you go out and link up in fellowship with an unconverted unbeliever. I know that people say, well, Lindsay, you're so narrow that you could look through a keyhole with both eyes at the same time. Well, I'd tell you, I'd rather be that narrow as to be so broad-minded that I could straddle a fence no matter how wide it is. Some people are so concerned about that their children be popular and that we don't give any offense. That anytime the devil says anything, we say, amen, devil, and we go right along, we never question it. And then you give them the word of God and sit and say, well, now does God really mean that? Listen, God has had plenty of experience with the human race. He knows what's best for him. How about the truth of God, you young people sitting here today? One of these days you're going to have to cut loose from mom and dad. Their coat, tail, and their apron strings aren't going to be strong enough to pull you through the rest of your life. What do these things mean to you? A young college girl told me the other day, she says, Glenn, she says, for years I followed along in what my mother and dad believed. And I went off to college and I thought I was all set. And I found out that I wasn't settled on anything. She said, I had to get down before God and say, well, do I really believe it? What kind of believers are we? Well, it says believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's true. Another place it says, He that believeth on the Son has everlasting life. That's true. But mind you, it doesn't say, Who that believes on the Son has life. It says, He that believeth on the Son. Now, don't get afraid and say, well, you mean that if you quit believing you don't have eternal life, no, I don't mean that. I mean that when a person believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, it's only the beginning of a life of continual faith in the Lord Jesus. Some of us have got a historical kind of faith in Christ and say, well, I believed on him twenty years ago. But what have you been doing for the last nineteen years and three hundred and sixty-four days? Are we really believers? Are we really believers or are we just kind of skimming along theoretically believing? Then he says, add to your knowledge. Add to your knowledge self-control. That's moderation. You know, it'd be nice to... to start out and be a well-balanced Christian all of one's life. You know, we're all extremists at best, aren't we? I've noticed that, well, I don't know how it is up here in Iowa, but in Kansas, it's worked like this sometimes. I see a young couple, they have a nice little addition to the family, and dad is, oh, he's strict as all get-up. He beats the daylights out of that kid. That's number one, and I tell you, he works it over just beautiful. But I've watched the years come and go, and I saw, I see that at the end of maybe three or four or five children, the last one gets away with murder. And I see him as his face is turning red. He says, why, you know, if Jimmy would have done that, I'd have beat him. Well, you know, five kids have come and gone along the trail, and he's as easy as toast on one, and he was hard as slink on the other. And then, you know, there's some brethren they start out after God says, and they're so hard, and they're so rigid and firm on the thing. Well, I knew one man, he was so scriptural, he wouldn't even have a telephone in the home. That's pretty scripture, isn't it? Well, you know today why he has not only got a telephone, but he's got one of the biggest TVs he can buy. Now, that isn't my issue, but I'm showing you how lost sighted we can get. He says, add to your knowledge self-control. Knowledge should be of a kind that keeps us well balanced. Let me go to another little scripture. It's about time I digress. Look at Colossians chapter three and verse fifteen. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also you are called in one body and be assigned for. Let the peace of God ruled in your heart to the which also you're called in one body. Now, you know, God saves a lot of sinners, and He puts them together in a marvelous thing, the church. And we see them pictured as one body. Look at Ephesians chapter four. And verse three. Well, let's look at the second verse. With all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now, wherever there is a lack of temperance, self-control, you can bid goodbye to peace. you can bid goodbye to harmony wherever this element is lacking. Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, mind you, the Lord doesn't tell us that we're to make the unity. He says, we're to keep it, you know why? Because God made it on the day of Pentecost. In Wichita, one of our largest denominations... divided over some kind of issue and eighteen hundred members are meeting over in the Southeast High School. I read in the paper the other day where because they couldn't get along they had split off into this group that they're coming together to do three things. First of all they're coming together to draw up a creed, something to believe. Secondly they're coming together to resolve themselves into a church. Third they're going to name it. They're going to name the baby. What kind of a kid is it going to be anyhow? Just another monstrosity, that's all. Endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Isn't it a lovely sight to see a group of Christians that are meeting together? going on together, working together, loving one another, enjoying the blessing of God. Isn't that nice? And wherever self-control is evident, we can get along with one another. Let me go to an Old Testament picture. Second Chronicles chapter five. I believe God had this in mind way back in the olden days. Second Chronicles chapter five in the last part of the twelve verse we read of a hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets that must have been a nice sound in verse thirteen we were told it came to pass as the trumpeters and singers were as one to make one sound to be heard and praising and thanking the Lord when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and symbols and instruments of music and praised the Lord's King for he is good for his mercy endures forever then the house was filled with a cloud even the house of the Lord a hundred and twenty men blowing on trumpets and it was as one sound they didn't get that one sound by accident that must have been a beautiful thing to hear If we endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, we're going to have the same kind of sound in the assembly. Do we have it? I was in a band of a hundred and thirty-two members when I was in high school and we had a fellow that we nicknamed Horse Face for obvious reasons. And he played a trombone. Rather, I'll take that back and try to play with him. And I don't know. He never should have had a combo in his hand. That's for sure. But he lost it to state championship. Because horse face was playing when the rest of us were not playing. And when we were playing, he was in the wrong place all together. And we lost out. It only took one horse face to cause a hundred and thirty-one others that were trying to stay together to lose out. This took one fellow out of key, out of tune, to ruin it for the rest. And you know that's the way it is oftentimes in an assembly. It doesn't take a whole lot of people to throw the things out of tune. Oftentimes it can be one disgruntled Benjamin that is very unhappy because nobody rises up to see what he alone sees is the way to be said. keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Sometimes it's very humiliating. Not too long ago, I was in a supply room of one of the gospel chapels, getting some material ready for some children, and the door opened up and an old Christian walked in. And I said to him, Brother, I didn't see you out to the meeting last night. He says, Well, he said, I have a reason. I said, what was that? Were you sick? He says, no, I wasn't sick, but I didn't feel too good. I said, what do you mean? Well, he says, you know, there's a Christian in the meeting that has done me dirty. And he says, I don't aim to come out. He says, as long as he's done me nasty. He says, he cheated me out of some money too. Well, I said, that's too bad. I said, what are you going to do about it? He says, I don't know, but he says, one thing he says, I don't aim to come out as long as that fellow comes to this meeting. He says, I don't aim to come. If he's done me that, he's cheated. I said, did you ever read that scripture? Why not suffer yourselves and be defrauded? I said, is the harmony and the assembly worth that much? I said, have you talked to the brethren of the body? He says, I did, but they thought it would cause more trouble to try to settle it than to leave it go on. That's pretty good oversight, isn't it? Just smooth it over with a coat of white wash and let it go because we think that kind of harmony will be the best. That's the only kind of harmony we've got in some places today. And I said to him, well, if you want to stay home, you can, but I said, if you stay home, it'll make everybody think you're guilty. Never thought of that before. I said, if you're in the right, I said, let him have his few measly dollars. I said, you come out to the meeting and hold your head up and go on for God anyhow. I said, don't let this thing wrinkle in your breast and make a crawling, creeping, no-count Christian out. And the old man broke down and cried. And I want to tell you something, before I left that place, I saw that same old man going up to the brother that he had this difference with. And I happen to hear because creatures sometimes are blind, but they can sometimes hear pretty good. And I heard him say, brother, he says, I want to go and get this thing straightened up. And the other man, he says, yes, he says, we ought to go and get it straightened up. And I saw those two men run as fast as they could to a little side room and they went in there and shut the door. And I believe that they went in there and got the things straightened up, endeavoring to keep the spirit of unity and the bond of peace. It takes a little self-control to put down our fleshly emotions and our feelings about these things. Then the last, and I'm not going into these, just notice them, and I'll bring it to your close. They're to add to their self-control patience and godliness and brotherly kindness. Sometimes I wonder, brethren, whether we've forgotten how to be kind to one another. You know, we can be so hard sometimes. We can hurt one another. I used to do it so often. In my younger days, I was so jealous to set things right. I remember one dear Christian says, oh, brother, Lent, she says, you've scraped all the hide off and there isn't anything left. Instead of making me feel happy, I went home and I felt ashamed. I thought I was the only policeman that God had and I was going to set everything right. Then like Peter, I found out I've been failing so much myself. I've had a lot more sympathy with the rest of my brethren ever since. Brotherly, kinder. Sometimes Christians tend to be kind to one another. They're sacrificing truth. And then he says, Lot, if these things be in you and abound, they shall make you that you neither be barren or untruthful. But he that lacks these things is blind or myopic. That means near-sighted. He can't see afar off. And he tells us further, he said, if these things abound in you, he says, why, he says, it'll make your calling an election sure. Do you know, dear Christian, that every single one of us saved by the grace of God today have the same place in the family of God? That's relationship. Nothing can ever change that. But our place in the kingdom is not based upon our place in the family. It's based upon our faithfulness and how we go on after God's faith. I wonder, as Peter drew to the end of his life, and he looked into the faithful of those he loved the most, oh, brethren, he said, I failed in these things. He says, these are the things he says that will make your life full and have a real need. Add to your faith. Add to your faith strength, courage. Add to it knowledge. Add to it self-control. Add to it patience. Add to it godliness. Add to it brotherly love. Add to it real love. If these things evolve, he says, will not be unsealed. One last thing. The last desire of Peter's heart was that his God's people be a growing people. Did you know in the Bible camp in Kansas there's a tremendous elm tree? It's one of the largest trees, I suppose, in the state of Kansas. It's on the campground. And one day when Richard was out looking at the tree with some of the boys, they noticed that there were no new leaves on the tree. And so he got in contact with some man from Kansas State University, and this is what the man said. He came out and infected the tree. It's a tremendous tree. It would go way beyond this building and with tremendous tree. He looked at the tree. He says, Mr. Burson, he says, this tree is going to die. Well, why? Why should the tree die? It looks so healthy. It looks so green. It looks so flourishing. He said, there's no new growth this year. It was an old tree, possibly close to a hundred years of age, and that was something for an elm tree. But he says there is no new growth. He says it will die. An old tree in order to keep living that's got to have additional growth. The thing that's going to keep us worthwhile in this poor or ungodly world is fresh growth in the things of God. Otherwise, we're going to die. Peter desires. that his children be growing Christian. May the Lord help us to be the kind of Christians that are going to add spiritual graces to our life by God's help us.