Believers are called to grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, preparing for His return by living diligently, peacefully, and blamelessly. The sermon emphasizes understanding God's long-suffering as a means of salvation, providing time for both the unsaved to be redeemed and believers to mature in their faith. It warns against twisting Scripture, as false teachers do, and urges steadfastness and continuous spiritual growth as a safeguard against error and apostasy. The ultimate application is to actively remove hindrances and improve conditions for spiritual growth, reflecting Christ's character and awaiting His coming.
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Sure, good to be back with you again. Now, I'll be here every night next week. I will not be here on the Lord's Day. Brother David Morris will be with you, and I trust that you're much in prayer, and I sure would like to see many more people out next week than he's out tonight, because people need to hear the gospel, beloved. And we need to do some inviting if you haven't. You need to get busy. And we need to pray. Because we're dealing with eternal things. We're dealing with the most important thing in life. And it isn't money.
It's soul. We can do without money. But we can't do without seeing sinners saved. We cannot. And beloved, we need encouragement in this area. And we need to be much in prayer. And I trust that the Lord will come in in rich blessings beginning Sunday morning. I had one of the greatest times of blessing at Greenwood Hills. The greatest compliment I ever received in my life I received at Greenwood Hills. The first person I met when I went in the inn was a young man in his early thirties.
He said to me, you don't remember me. I said, you're right, I don't. Well, he said, I was ten years of age when you were my counselor at camp. And he said, I can still remember you sitting on the bed with an open Bible and talking to us boys. He's a second doctor that has told me that. Another one was a doctor from Sanford. He's now a medical doctor. I think he graduated from Duke. I think it was at Duke Medical School when I was visiting the hospital that I met him. And he said, I can still see you sitting on the bed.
And one of the reasons is I never was a counselor like counselors are. I didn't sleep out in the little thing where the counselors slept. I was with a boy. Of course, I got in trouble with a boy. I got in trouble because we were having, you know, we had a few tricks and our cabin wasn't always as clean as it should have been. You know, they came around with a flashlight looking for a cobweb down between two boards or something. I could care less about the cobwebs. I'd sooner talk to the boys about eternal things. But the compliment was this.
This young fellow remembered my sermon. that I preached up there when he was ten years of age. He told me what the outline was. And I'll tell you something. He was right. He was right. I mean, you can speak to children that a ten-year-old boy remembers your sermon. That was amazing to me, and it thrilled me through and through. This young man is now married to another doctor. That was a good place to get sick. There were plenty of doctors there, but the problem was they weren't medical doctors. They were the other kind. PhDs and doctorates in health and other areas, but it was a delight to minister the Word of God.
Next Monday, this coming Monday night, and I hope you don't forget to announce that Sunday, we're going to have... The couple from Raleigh with a viola and the violin playing for us this coming Monday night. So keep it in mind, those of your friends who enjoy music by professionals Monday night, we're going to have that couple with us. We're in Second Peter three. Second Peter chapter three, we're beginning at verse fourteen. I trust we shall finish this chapter tonight. There are many things in these closing verses of Peter's second epistle.
In verse fourteen he says, Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless. And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest, as they do also the other scriptures to their own destruction.
Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware. lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen. Now here in the closing verses of this epistle we have the two duties that relate to the personal conduct of believers and their personal attitude toward the Lord and also toward the Lord's people.
And you have that in verses fourteen and fifteen. And then, of course, we have Paul's epistles mentioned in verses fifteen and sixteen. And then we have exhortations to growth in the final two verses. First of all, the exhortation to personal purity in verse fourteen. He says, since you look for these things, the coming of the Lord is the theme of this third chapter. And the anticipated new world wherein dwells righteousness that you have in verse twelve, where he speaks of looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God.
And then in verse thirteen, looking for a new heaven and a new earth where indwells righteousness. And this anticipated new world where indwells righteousness is that which genuine believers are looking for. Genuine believers in this age are the seed of Abraham. And just as Abraham looked for a city that have foundations whose builder and maker is God. Those who are the Lord are looking for the coming of the Lord. Now the total picture in verses ten through thirteen means that we as believers are committed unto such a glorious hope.
We cannot live in idleness and indifference. It is impossible. So he tells us in verse fourteen that Be diligent that ye may be thought of him in peace without spot and blameless. In view of that day we commit ourselves now to holy living. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians in Second Corinthians five, we henceforth live not unto ourselves, but unto him who died and rose again. Spotless and blameless in our text, in verse fourteen, It doesn't have reference to our present standing in justification.
Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. That's not it. Thank God for that present standing, however. But it has reference rather to the revealed character that's going to be manifested in that day. John, when he writes in his first epistle, he tells us as believers that we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his appearing. It is possible, friends, to be ashamed when we stand before the Lord in that day. John, he exhorts us in the close of the second chapter of his first epistle not to lose confidence, but rather that we should have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his appearing.
Spotless and blameless and in peace are the way that Peter speaks. Now in peace speaks in the full sense of harmony that is both Godward and manward. All things in harmonious activity. manward and Godward. Now in the pursuit of holiness, believers should put out of their lives those things which would evoke the condemnation of Christ in that day. That's exactly what he's telling us. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, the coming of the Lord draw us nigh.
And seeing we're looking for that city that has foundations, we are looking for the new heaven and the new earth. We need, you see, to be found in him in peace without spot and blameless. And then in the beginning of verse fifteen, we have the exhortation to have a right view of the delay in our Lord's coming. God's patience or long-suffering looks back to the explanation of the delay. Why hasn't the Lord come yet? You see, in verse nine, he says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise.
And some men count slackness, but he's long-suffering to uswards, not willing that any should perish. In other words, the Lord Jesus is not going to come until all that he has the Land to redeem are saved. Not one he's going to be missing. All his own will be there. He is not slack concerning his promise. The promise is the coming of the Lord. And he is not willing that any of his sheep will ever be lost. It is the sheep of Christ that are in view in verse nine. The usward are believers to whom he is long-suffering.
Now, believers are not to misinterpret the delay. The scoffers, the ungodly, according to verses three and four, do. That's the attitude of the world. They make fun of those who look for the coming of the Lord. You see, they say, oh, you Christians, you believe there's going to be pie in the sky by and by. But we want ours right now. That is the attitude of the world. You see, and the word of God here says, don't misinterpret why the Lord hasn't come yet. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise.
He is long suffering. In other words, he says, account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation. It's a saving process of God that has delayed the coming of the Lord. He's waiting for all his own to be gathered in. Now God is doing two things while he is waiting. You see, he is giving time for the unbeliever to be saved, and he's giving time for the believer to work out his own salvation, as Paul wrote to the Philippians in Philippians two.
The long-suffering of our God is salvation. And the more time you have to work out your salvation with fear and trembling before the Lord, the better it is going to be in that day. The more days you have to love Christ and to show forth His praise is far better for you. For you're going to be rewarded for every day that you live for Christ. And you're going to lose a reward for every day that you live for yourself. You see, when you came to Christ, everything changed. We are no longer our own.
We have been bought with a price. The world does not own us. No one else owns us. We belong to Christ. And while the delay, our Lord hasn't come, we have an opportunity. We have an opportunity to tell sinners how to be saved. for that's a great reason why he hasn't come, and we have the opportunity to work on our own salvation with fear and trembling in the midst of the place where our blessed Lord was rejected. That brings us to the confirmation of Paul's epistles. This appeal here in the end of verse fifteen indicates that the false teachers were appealing to their own twisted interpretation of Paul's letters to support their teaching in opposition to Peter.
You see, that's what they were doing. And Peter's writing, he sees what the false teachers are doing. And because they don't understand what Paul was saying, they were giving it their own interpretation, and they were... leading God's people astray. Now Peter uses something very precious here. In the middle of verse fifteen he says, Even as our beloved brother Paul. That expression, brother Paul, recognizes Paul as a fellow worker and evangelist.
Paul was not one of the twelve. And more than that, Paul rebuked Peter to the faith at Antioch. He had a good open argument with him, and he won. For Peter was wrong. You see, in other words, this tells me something about Peter's heart. Peter didn't hold a grudge against Paul. He'd have every reason to. Peter stood him to the faith. And I'll tell you, it was a real fight. And you can read it in Galatians chapter two. Now, that's very interesting. He says, our beloved brother Paul.
And that's how our attitude in the family of God should be one toward another. Now, the remark that Paul wrote to them, and you have that in this passage, verse sixteen. as also in all his epistles speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to be understood we read but that's not the verse that I wanted oh yeah the end of verse fifteen it says according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you who are the you here it is written to the scattered ones in Asia Minor That would include the churches of Galatia and of course Ephesus and Colossae and maybe some of the other churches that are even addressed in the second and third chapters of Revelation.
They had heard from Paul. Now whether they had a direct message from Paul or whether they have reference to the Galatian epistle. the Ephesians and the Colossians, or if they had a copy of all the letters that Paul had written to the various churches, we don't know. One thing we do know, they heard from Paul. Peter knew that they heard from Paul, and that's what he said. And then when he uses that expression in all his epistles, in the beginning of verse sixteen, it widens the appeal that he makes.
Now what is it in Paul's epistles that is so important? It is an exhortation to holiness, holy living. And this is what Peter is writing about, that we with holy living should await the coming of the Lord, holy living. And then he adds that Paul wrote things hard to be understood. Things that are difficult to grasp. Paul had a theologian's mind, and he wrote in such a way that you have to think it through what he's saying.
You have to examine the rhetorical questions that Paul asked. But something was happening to his epistle. For our text here says that these false teachers, he calls them unlearned, and unstable. In other words, men without a foundation, unlearned men, men who were not able to grasp because they were natural men, and the natural man receive us not the things of the Spirit of God. These false teachers were taking difficult passages and playing blacksmiths with them. They were twisting them like a blacksmith twist Hot iron.
My father was a blacksmith. And I was always amazed at how he was able to form almost anything. When we were walking down the main street of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, I said to Phyllis, I said, look back at the third floor of the Farmers Trust Company. Did you see that beautiful iron work that's not around that bay window up there? My grandfather did that. And when he was finished, he had it all in pieces. And there wasn't anyone around, he got sick, and there wasn't anyone around that could put the pieces together and make up the puzzle. It's intricate ironwork. And when he got well, he went there and put it together, and they put it up.
And there it is in the third story of the farmer's press company. I showed it to Phyllis. But there was a lot of twisting and bending. But you don't do that with Scripture. The unlearned and ignorant twist. And the thought here is they rest the Scriptures, W-R-E-S-T. In other words, they take, and this is what the Greek says about it. The Greek word for resting the Scriptures means to torture them, to put them on a rack. In other words, The statement is that they twist and torture them like victims that are tied to a rack to force them to say what they want to say.
That's the thought. And you and I have been aware of people who have taken the word of God and twisted it to make it say what they want to say. The Jehovah's Witnesses do it with the doctrine of hell. The Jehovah's Witnesses do it with the doctrine of the resurrection and the doctrine of the deity of Christ. And you can go down the list. They rest. They twist the scriptures to their own destruction. Now, friends, if they are false teachers, we're doing it already in the first century. What about the twisted exegesis that the various cults put on the Word of God today?
Peter says they've done this to Paul's epistles and they have done it to other scriptures to their own destruction. In other words, Peter takes the writings of Paul and he puts them alongside of the other scriptures. And he says they are of equal inspiration to the other scriptures in the Word of God. So when you meet someone who says, oh, that's what Paul said, as though Paul didn't speak with authority and with inspiration. But Peter did because Peter is one of the twelve. Here's what Peter says about Paul's writing. This is a very important portion of the Word of God to substantiate the New Testament canon because Paul wrote most of it.
Very important. But when you get to those words, to their own destruction, this willful distortion of Scripture as placing men face to face with a sure result, and the result is going to be their own destruction. In attempting to destroy the Bible, men destroy themselves. It is not because of the nature of the Scripture, but rather their own deceitful handling of the scriptures that will destroy them. They'll be destroyed in their own net that they have made to catch others.
As our Lord says in Matthew fifteen verse thirteen concerning the Pharisees he said let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind. But now in the last two verses we have exhortation concerning spiritual maturity. In verse seventeen he says, No, therefore, because of these things, because of the attitude of the false teachers, because of the resting of the words of Holy Scripture, he says, Ye, therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware, lest ye also be led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. He says, Beware, lest you fall from your own steadfastness.
Keep on guiding yourself. Now being carried away with the error of unprincipled men, don't keep close company with these false teachers. Don't keep close company with those who teach error. Examine the word of God. Now that word carried away. Remember when Paul had his debate with Peter in the second chapter of Galatians, and Paul withstood him to the face. Because of Peter's unsteadfastness, Barnabas was carried away, and that's the same word, carried away with their dissimulation, with their hypocrisy.
It is easy to be carried away if you're not steadfast yourself. It is easy to be carried away by a fast-talking salesman. If you're not steadfast yourself, it is easy to be carried away. This word steadfast denotes a condition of firmness and stability. It is derived from a firm commitment to God's revealed truth in Christ Jesus. Now we have to guard against falling. What an exhortation. But then in verse eighteen there's an exhortation to continued growth.
growth is a safeguard against falling. Now, when he says, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, what he's really saying here is that continuing to grow carries with it the idea of a prior implantation of life. A person who has no life can't grow. Only those who have the life of God can grow in the grace and knowledge of God. So there is an implantation of life. But here it's an appeal to the will.
An appeal to the will. And growth in the physical and in the spiritual doesn't happen because we assert our will. A person can will to be six foot five because they want to play basketball and never get over five foot four. You see, what does this really mean? Can we just will to grow and then grow automatic? No. That's not what Peter means at all. You see, Peter is saying remove the hindrances to grow.
What's hindering your growth? is what he says. And then improve the conditions that muster growth. That's what he's saying. Remove the hindrances and improve the conditions. I heard Eric make a statement tonight from the platform. He was watering the new shrubbery. What was he doing? He was improving the conditions for growth. And in our lives, If we're going to grow in grace, we have to remove any hindrance to grow. And that takes an act of the will. If you're going to remove a hindrance to reading.
You know, one of the hindrances to reading is, I just don't like to read. You know, you're going to have to remove that hindrance. That calls for an act of the will. And of course, if you're going to have a time with the Lord every day in devotion, you're going to have the will to have it. It just isn't going to happen automatically. You're going to have to will it. So he says, but grow in grace. Not when you think of grace. Grace is that free and unmerited favor of God. And we apprehend grace with an ever-increasing faith.
but grow in grace. And to grow in grace is a manifestation of grace in life and in character. And here we come to the word knowledge. Grow in grace and knowledge. And it's Christian knowledge that plays a vital part in the development of a believer's character and conduct. When you come to the close of this second epistle of Peter, He says, but grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To him be glory, both now and forever. Amen. Growing grace in which Christ is the author and in knowledge of which Christ is the object.
Now let's pray. We pray to our God and Father, if you'll take this study of Second Peter's my what a privilege to look for the coming of the Lord but to know the reason why you haven't come yet you're giving us an opportunity to live day by day and show forth your loving kindness but also you're waiting to save precious sinners who were given to Christ before the foundation of the world and not a one of them will be missing And we thank you for it. In the meantime, we're conscious of the fact that those whom you've given to Christ are brought through the preaching and the witnessing of your people.
Graciously, our God, use this testimony here to bring some of your people in this area to a saving knowledge of Christ. We ask this. For Jesus' sake. Amen.