Gooding, David: 3 - We Have Found The Messiah

In practical living, then you will need to let God make eternity real. How can he make eternity real? One of the ways is to study these ancient prophets. And let the evidence sink in onto your mind that these men were in fact speaking beyond themselves. To feel and sense the inspiration of God, the living voice of God in those Old Testament prophets. Don't you say prophecy is not a practical subject? It is an exceedingly important part in turning, uh, Christians into holy people, making them realize that they do have to do with the living God of eternity, who has a plan for time, who has brought us into this world and given us these temporary tents to live in, that living in them we might prepare for eternity. It will give us that sense of God's eternity and make him and his eternity so real. We shall find that in. Power, motive for patiently continuing in the school of developing. I have uh three observations to put into the pool of your thinking. If you get your copy. In this chapter, as we have seen, Peter makes reference to the Transfiguration. It would be a very interesting thing to do, therefore, we haven't got time to do it this morning, have we? But I submit it to you as a possible thing to study if you haven't studied it like this before. I submit that it's a good thing to go to the Gospels and read the three accounts of the Transfiguration. You'll find that they are all prefaced by the promise that after, uh, there there be some standing here that shall not taste or see death until they see the kingdom of God. After that, the promise is worded differently. Matthew says, in fact, until you see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. And Mark says, until you see the kingdom of God come with power. And Luke says, until you see the kingdom of God. Then follows the description of the Transfiguration, same in its essentials, different in its, um, points of emphasis. Then there comes, in all three accounts, the story of how they coming down from the mountain, they were met by a father and his boy. And that story, of course, is an integral part o- o- o- of this whole thing. Let me try and demonstrate that last fact too. When you come down from the mountain and you meet this boy in his need, according to Matthew, Matthew says the boy was lunatic, moonstruck, something wrong with his mind. Only Matthew tells you that. But then it's only Matthew who tells you that, uh, just before they went up to the mountain, our Lord had to turn around to Peter and say, Peter, there's something wrong with your mind, you know. What you said now is altogether askew. You mind not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. That poor boy in his lunacy didn't intend to, but he fell into fire, and he fell into water. Didn't intend to, but he lost control and nearly destroyed himself. And you know Peter's attitude of mind was so wrong. He was trying to avoid suffering, but, uh, his attitude was so wrong that he would have fallen into eternal loss. In trying to save his life, he would have lost it. Getting up that mountain is a corrective to our outlook, to our mind. Or you might, uh, notice, um, things like this. Take Luke's account. According to Luke, at the Transfiguration Mountain, our Lord, Moses, and Elijah held a discussion, and Luke is the only one that tells us what was the topic of that discussion. They talked about our Lord's exodus. They talked about our Lord's decease that he should accomplish at Jerusalem. It's a pretty little story, isn't it? There they were up there, appeared in glory, and they were talking about our Lord's, uh, going away, about his exodus. Talking how he was going to go to Jerusalem, he was going to leave, he was going to leave our world, he was going out into the world beyond. And while they were talking about this, Peter and company got sleep, which anybody could see. When they woke up, Peter thought he had got to say something, know exactly what to say, and said, please, Lord, let's stay here. Obviously, he'd missed the conversation, hadn't he? The Lord was talking about leaving. We're like that sometimes, aren't we? You want to stay. In a life in which there is no shame, we leave it. But particularly, you may find Mark's account interesting. For Mark tells us what here Peter is concerned with. They saw the kingdom of God come with power. They went up a mountain and they saw the garments of Christ so transfigured that they became unearthly white, so white that no fuller on earth has the power to whiten them. Peter in his second epistle is saying just that. Do you know that that divine power is available to us to whiten our garments? How do I get hold of that power? Well, perhaps we may find hints in the story of that boy the Lord cured when he came down the mountain. Oh, said the Father to the Christ, if you have power to do anything, do it. Said our Lord, it's not so much a question whether I have the power, you know, it's a, can you believe? All things are within the power of him that believes. I throw out those hints. It's a vast gift. God help us and encourage us to study them further, but above all, may God make eternity real to us. Now, this uh session, as far as I'm concerned, will be shorter, uh, so do have your contributions, uh, questions, and of course criticisms read. Uh, Second Peter chapter two is one of the most gloomy parts of the whole of the New Testament, and therefore, I suppose, not so often read publicly. While it is gloomy, nevertheless serves a very happy, uh, uh, um, uh, purpose. It describes the perversions of Christianity that took place very early on, but against those perversions, it preaches the true version of Christianity. Therefore, the very contrast between the perversion and the reality makes it the easier for us to see what the reality is. The particular form that this perversion took led in the direction of permissiveness and immorality. As Jude would put it, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. The terms in which this permissiveness and immorality are described are lurid indeed. Then any part of God's word that talks to us about permissiveness perhaps has, by a turn of things, become very modern. There are certain schools of thought that preach to us love and not law as the Christian ideal. While they do not go to the same excess as obviously these ancient people went, nevertheless do seem to me, at any rate, to have set more than one foot on that slippery road that would lead to the same abyss. As gloomy as the chapter is, its warnings are not unnecessary. As I say, let me repeat it. Observing what are the abuses of grace, the perversions of grace, the perversions of true Christianity may help us, uh, the more clearly to see what true Christianity is. Then shall we notice from this chapter, first of all, that Christianity is a way, W-A-Y, I mean, a way. It is a road, it is a path. We get the term used several times, do we not? Verse two, it is the way of truth. Verse fifteen, it is the right way. Verse twenty one, it is the way of righteousness. And it stands in contrast to our false way that is here called in verse fifteen, the way of Balaam. Christianity is a way. Remember that, uh, Luke himself, uh, also describes Christianity as the way in his Acts of the Apostles. What do we mean by that? Well, Christianity is more than a gateway, more than the door that you enter in. It is a door, thank God, into which we enter at the beginning, but it isn't only a door, it is a door, it is a gate followed by a way. We should, uh, be reminded that just as there are imitation gates, so there are imitation ways. The subject is introduced here in verse one by the reminder that there were false prophets among the people in times past. There shall be false teachers in the church. That mention of false prophets would call to my mind as something our Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, beware of false prophets. He said it in this context. Lord is the way. Broad is the gate, broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. Many there be that go in there. Straight is the gate and narrow the way that leads unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets. Because your false prophet will come, and his deception is this. He doesn't say this business of a gate that you have to enter is all nonsense. He doesn't say that, uh, there shouldn't be any way, that's all nonsense. He says, oh yes, there's a gate. Oh yes, there's a way. But it's an imitation way, and it's an im- imitation gate. We all know that there are imitation gates around at the beginning of the Christian pathway. Some of them are very wide indeed. Some of them so wide you can get through without knowing it. Some of them are so wide that we're told nowadays they would embrace everybody, even if they reject Christ. Good old honest atheists in heaven, just you imagine, what hope. Just as in Christendom there have been false teachers with false gates, there are false teachers with false ways. Notice the order of our Lord's warning. The gate comes first, the road comes after. True Christianity, then, is a gate followed by a way. What kind of a way is it? It is described as the way of truth, the way of righteousness, and the right way. The way of truth. Perhaps you think that's a Hebraism and merely means the true way as distinct from the false way. Maybe you're right. Personally, I think it means more. I think the way of truth is not just, uh, another way of saying the way of righteousness. I think those two terms are complementary. Christian living, the Christian way, the Christian discipline is concerned with two things. It is concerned with truth, and it is concerned with righteousness, practical righteousness. And you must have two of them. You must have both of them. We hear sometimes people say, oh, let's not bother about this doctrine. What does it matter what your doctrine is? Let's have some practice. And we understand sometimes the considerations that lead people to talk like that, but we need to be careful about it, don't we? If you're going to have right living, if you're going to have the true thing, then first of all, the way is concerned with truth. And if you abandon that truth, in the end, your practice will go wrong. We need to be warned about it. Deny the virgin birth if you like. Deny the pre-existence of Christ if you like. Deny his sinlessness, deny his atoning death, deny his bodily resurrection, deny his literal ascension. But don't be surprised if in the end you come up with a permissive morality over that lot. You cannot surrender Christian truth and expect to retain Christian morality. Christianity is not just a collection of maxims and ethics. Be good, old chap. I should if it generally pays. Christian behavior is based in Christian truths. In revealed truths. You can't have a Christian morality without a Christian revelation. It is not, of course, merely concerned with truth. It is, on the other hand, concerned with righteousness, practical righteousness. You see what the context of verse twenty one is. It's talking about people that have escaped from wrong ways of living through coming to know the way of righteousness, the way of right kind of living. It is concerned with practical righteousness. The two things go hand in hand. In the middle, it is described in verse fifteen as the right way. The Greek word is quite different from the one used in verse uh twenty one. It means the straight way. And the way of Christianity is not complicated, it's generally pretty obvious because it is so straight. That, of course, is the trouble with it in some people's eyes. Particularly Balaam's eyes. Jolly well knew where he ought to go. It wasn't because the thing was all beclouded with difficulty and complicated, and what ought I to do next? Jolly well knew what he ought to do. But, but there were all sorts of other considerations, and he left the straight way, found another way. If I may be blunt, you don't have to ask, do you, whether fornication is wrong? With stupid and piffling arguments about in some cases it could be right. Christianity is a straight way. It's the bailiffs of this world, prophets though they are, that think up all sorts of clever answers and arguments and situational ethics to have an excuse to go on devious routes instead of keeping to the right way. Marks Marx then then. of the false prophets. It's just we've had marks of the true way, it's a way of truth, way of righteousness, it's a straight way. What are the marks of these false teachers? Well, in the first instance, says verse one, they deny the master that bought them. It's a very strong word for master. Implies that the master has absolute rights over them. They deny it. They deny him. If not explicitly with their mouths, then implicitly by their behavior. It follows, doesn't it, that the right way starts with acknowledging this master. I think that is why, in God's wisdom, you know, every profession of faith in Christ is immediately met in Holy Scripture with the master's demand that we be baptized. Oh, says somebody, I don't see the need of it. Oh, but wait a minute. We get this thing clear right at the beginning? Christianity is a way. It involves accepting the absolute unquestioned rights of the master. Alas for that Christian theology that says that sometimes Jesus was mistaken and you don't have to do everything he said. It is well and happiest for us in the end if from the very beginning we get the matter clear in our sights that conversion means submission absolute to the sovereign master. And what next do they do? Well, many shall follow their lascivious doings by reason of whom, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. Notice it's the way of truth that is evil spoken of. It's very easy to cause this kind of scandal. Justification, says the Bible, is by faith, through grace. It's not works. Now, you know, that's a very difficult concept for the unregenerate man to swallow. He says that, look, if you could be saved by grace and know it and be sure of it, uh, you'd go and indulge in all sorts of, uh, permitted living. We as believers know that that isn't so, not where God's grace has truly been apprehended. Or, as Paul puts it, the grace of God teaches us and trains us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust and to live soberly and righteously in this present age. Salvation is by grace, yes. But true grace does not lead to careless living. Even so, our gospel message of salvation by grace is very, very hard to swallow for many people. Roman Catholic friends with whom I move find it exceedingly difficult. They find it all the more difficult when they see so-called Protestants professing to believe Christ and indulging in all sorts of questionable immorality. The way of truth becomes evil spoken of. Perhaps you can think of certain moral issues that have been raised very widely. It doesn't help the gospel, for instance, when professing Christians accept ideas on divorce that unregenerate Catholics wouldn't. Christ's High standards standards. still stand. If we would commend his gospel of grace, we must seek his help that we maintain those moral standards. A third mark of these, uh, false, uh, prophets. In covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you. I can safely repeat this bit because Peter said it of his contemporaries. They weren't altogether pure in their motives. They made a lot of money out of it. I must be careful when I come to the contemporary scene, not to impute motives where I have no right to impute them. But I can tell you this. Have you got a flair for writing? Well, there is a way open to you of making a very big sum of money. Write a book that's pretty blasphemous. Suppose you wrote one like mushrooms, you know, on mushrooms. The newspapers would give you ten thousand pounds for the rights. And that reputable old firm of Hodder and Stoughton, that has published much delightful Christian literature, will publish your blasphemy because you say, after all, business is business, isn't what? You won't make quite so many thousands if you stick to the truth. But life is a sacred thing, you know, and money isn't everything. God will have something to say about men that made money, be they publishers or authors, out of perversions of Christianity. But I said as I began that against the gloomy background of these perversions, we are taught some delightful things about God's salvation. Shall we look now at that long argument that starts in verse four and goes down to verse nine? There are three ifs. If God did this, if he did that, if he did the other, and two conclusions are drawn. The conclusions in verse, uh, nine: the Lord nursed to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. Oh, what lovely conclusions. Let's take the happy one first. The Lord knows how to deliver the righteous out of temptation. You might gather from the words it's a difficult thing to do. He knows how to do it. We are set as believers in a difficult world full of pitfalls and temptations, but God knows how to deliver. You may care in your studies to look out instances this of this throughout the word of God. I think of one often quoted. The morning that Abraham came ro- came home after a night of fighting, weary and worn. Unbeknown to Abraham, he was about to be tested. The king of Sodom was about to arrive. Sounds very much like these people here. He said, you give me the life and you will have all the goods. It was the rich Abram who said, I willingly give you all these goods. Quite valuable, you know, amount of quite a bit of money. But you'll have to give me the life. Ten thousand pounds in newspaper rights. At the price an uncountable number of young people stand. For believing the lie. Stumbled. Lives besmirched, broken. Oh, that was a very insidious, uh, test, wasn't it? A very tempting offer, all those goods. God who foresaw the temptation coming, had Melchizedek arriving in the nick of time just before. With his wonderful spiritual sustenance, his blessing from God to fill Abram's life with a sense of blessing from a God, the God who was Lord of heaven and earth. And Abram's soul, weary as his body was, was so filled with a sense of God's glory and greatness, his unparalleled wealth. When the temptation came, said Abraham, thank you very much, King of Sodom, I couldn't take a shoelace from you. The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation. Something else he knows how to do, if you look at the story of Lot. Lot was living in a peculiarly wicked city. So wicked that in spite of Abraham's intercession, God's judgment had to fall. And the angels were sent to Sodom. The judgment was about to fall. There was Lot. God was very kind in his description of him here, I must say. He got more involved than the author got. His family perished as a result of it. But listen to the angels. Lot, they said, come out, Lot. Come out, Lot. God can't do anything until you are. Lot, Lot basically was a righteous man, and because he was a just man, justified by faith, as Paul would put it, God's judgment could not fall while he was there. And not one tiny little bit of God's judgment fell on Lot. A wonderful thing. God's judgments are going to come on this earth tomorrow, but it remains true. There is no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus. God has not appointed you to wrong, but to the obtaining of salvation. Not one drop of God's wrong will ever descend on the believer. We wait for his son from heaven, our deliverer from that coming wrong. Having beguiled ourselves with that, um, lovely statement of salvation. Let us notice the other conclusion, and it's a exceedingly solemn conclusion. If God spared not the angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved unto judgment. And take the second thing. If he spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. And take the third thing. Turn, if he turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes and condemned them with an overthrow, having made them an example unto those that should live ungodly, then from those three facts, draw the conclusion that the Lord knows how to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. What is Peter saying? I suggest to you this. In chapter three, he's going to talk to us about the end of the world. The day of God, destined in God's calendar for the destruction of wicked men. When heaven and earth that are now shall disappear, the earth and her works shall be burned up. That great day of judgment. To be followed forthwith by the great white throne. How long is that away? I can't tell you. But look here, said Peter, don't you get into your head that until that day of judgment comes, uh, well, you might as well do what you like. For God has intervened within history before. He'll do it again. Within history. Before our world began, or after it may be, who knows, God didn't wait for that final day of judgment. He took those angels which sinned, and he put them in prison until that day of judgment. And he didn't wait for the end of the world, but he overthrew Solomon Gamaliel with a special visitation of judgment. He knows, you see, how to keep the unrighteous under punishment, being Being punished punished unto. until. And what God has done before, God is going to do again. You mustn't think God will necessarily wait to the dissolution of all things and the passing away of this heaven and earth. Christ is coming long before that. Christ is coming, and he's going to take the beast, and he's going to take the false prophet, and he said, I have enough of you false prophets. And he shall put them in the lake of fire, that they deceive no more. It's coming a time when God will say, well, that's enough now, Satan, thank you very much. Command one of his angels, and they shall take him and put him in the abyss until that thousand years be fulfilled. God shall get on with his glorious program. The rest of the dead, however, that do not partake in the first resurrection, um, shall not be raised, they shall be kept. In some exceedingly solemn verses, the Bible tells us that when Satan at last, having been released, is plunged into the lake of fire, he's put into the lake of fire where the beast and the false prophet have already been these many, many, many years. It is false thinking to think that God is going to wait to the dissolution of heaven and earth. History tells us, divine history tells us, that God has interfered in a catastrophic way, not by just taking individuals quietly out of this world when they died. God has intervened in a catastrophic way within history to restrain evil men, and he knows how thus to do and to keep them being punished until that final day. And because of that, says Peter, you see what verse three is saying, don't you? These false prophets, their destruction from of old, uh, slumbereth not, their sentence now from of old lingereth not. Please, I say it again, this is very important. There are many people who talk about the coming of Christ, and they say it will be an event outside history, it must be outside history. Please, gentlemen, it is not outside history. If God did, well, he did within history, Noah's flood. And if God did, and he did within history, Sodom and Gomorrah. What God has done before he'll do again, and his son shall come. And he shall stop false prophets. Long before the end of the world. Now let's notice another feature among the very many of these false teachers. Says verse ten, chiefly then that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise dominion. Daring, self-willed, they tremble not to rail at dignities, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, bring not a railing judgment against them before the Lord. They are mere animals. It seems to me that what he's saying is this, that these false prophets poo poo the idea of spiritual beings in a spiritual realm that is beyond the natural physical. Or if they believe in its existence, I'm not afraid to talk irresponsibly about it. And we're back, aren't we, where we've been so much with Peter, to the question of the reality of that world beyond. Is there a world beyond? Is there a spirit world? So I said, do you believe in Satan? Wow. Ah. Some Christian theologians are not quite so sure nowadays, are they, what? Whether we are really to believe in Satan. They don't believe, so they're happy to talk about the devil this and the devil that. Michael doesn't talk like that, I tell you he doesn't. Michael doesn't say, what the devil are you doing? Because to Michael, the devil is a most solemn and awful reality. Lose your sense of the reality of that spirit world. Lose your sense of the reality of those spirit powers. And then two things will happen. You will begin to descend in stature. And from being a man, a true man, who though he is animal, is not mere animal, but is spirit and was made to have spiritual concourse with that spirit realm, you'll become a mere animal. Prey of your desires, bounded by your desires, with no other world to keep you in the pull of its gravity. And losing that spiritual realm and its pull and influence, you will find as an animal you haven't got the strength even to control properly your animal lusts. It is not an accident that this permissive theology would in fact deny that world out there. They don't believe in any literal devil, do they? Wha-ho. Nor in the literal world out there. Do, do that old three-decker universe thing, which the Jews didn't believe in anyway, all right. There isn't a world out there from which Christ can come down here. Oh, isn't there really? And there isn't a world out there to which he can go back again. Oh, really? And, uh, when the Bible talks about demons, it only means what we would call viruses. Oh, really? I said it isn't an accident that when men begin to think like that, they then talk about permissiveness and morals. Oh, if we want to be holy, we must let the living God who is there make himself known to us and make that spirit realm real to us. For it is real. That hardened, beaten, scarred old warrior Paul who went to places like Corinth. You'll have a difficult job to find a more permissive city than Corinth. Right behind, as you know, the speaker's rostrum and the old marketplace at Corinth on which Cle- uh, Paul probably stood. Behind it in the distance is the temple consecrated to the goddess of love, served by a thousand priestesses, open to all comers in the name of religion. As the Greek guide told the party I was in when I visited that place, Paul had it a little bit difficult here. I think he did. Let him tell you that not all his scars came from men, but he wrestled against principalities and powers in the world, rulers of this darkness in heavenly places. I'll ask for these prophets like Balaam that know better, but for me a money driving place and power and influence. Leave the right road. He couldn't see so much as his ass saw. Animal that it was, it could see that that spirit realm was real. The ass saw the angel standing in the way. Balaam had by this time descended lower than the mere animal. The old, old argument that love means freedom. We've long since seen, haven't we? When people bandy about those terms, they prove their point by first of all emptying the terms of what they really mean. These ancient people that preached this kind of permissive behavior, they preached it in the name of freedom. It is, says Peter, in the end, a form of bondage. Fall ever more steadily into the grip of animal passions to be controlled by them instead of controlled. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not freedom. This is bondage. And finally, I hope you've got your, your contribution made, because this is finally. What shall we make of, of verses twenty, twenty one, and twenty two? What about these people? First of all, through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, through the very close knowledge, epignosis, somebody who knows the Greek will tell me, so I better say it right now. Through the close knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they escaped the defilements of the world. Then they again became entangled therein and overcome. Their last state was worse than the first. It were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered unto them. This happened unto them, according to the true proverb, the dog turning to his own vomit again, and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire. I suppose we all want to know who are those people, what were they? Were they believers, genuine believers, who fell away and were lost? And the last state worse was worse than the first. Or if they're not genuine believers, what were they? Now, I hold the view, and here you may wish to at length dispute me, so I put this humbly to you. I hold the view that they never were genuine believers. So let me argue my case for what it's worth. My, uh, opponents will say, oh, but, oh, but, oh, but, but, but, but, but. Um, it says not merely that they knew, it says through the epignosis, doesn't it? Let me check my terms. I mustn't give you a point if it isn't near mine. Hmm, so it is. Through the epignosis, the very close knowledge. Oh, you say, surely that must mean a genuine believer. Really? Listen to Paul describe his conversion. He said, you know, I was a bad fellow once, but I obtained mercy because I did it in ignorance. Oh. What does it mean? Wasn't he an intelligent man? Well, of course. Didn't he know what he was doing when he was persecuting Christians? Yes, he knew what he was doing. He was persecuting Christians. Well then, what do you mean? He did it in ignorance. And because he did it in ignorance, he, he claimed mercy. Well, you see, in the technical sense of the term, until a man has been illuminated by the Holy Spirit of God, though he be as intelligent as Saul of Tarsus was, he's in ignorance. There's mercy for a man like that. But let God by his spirit shine into a man's heart and illumine it so that that man knows. Knows that there is a God, knows that Jesus is his son, knows that he ought to repent. Now, whatever he does now, he's no longer doing in ignorance. He has been brought not to a superficial knowledge that there was a man called Jesus, but that he died on a cross. He has been brought to that close knowledge produced by the Holy Spirit, called in scripture illumination. He knows. Am I to understand that everybody that has so been illuminated by God's Holy Spirit has, uh, reacted the right way and believed? Why, of course not. Otherwise, there will be nobody ever in hell, everybody will be in hell. For the true light, sometime or other, lights every man. He did it before his incarnation. He does it still. Some stage in life, that true light lights every man. The man is given to know. There will be multitudes that respond and believe, but I'm afraid there will be others that don't respond, and after that there is no mercy. Secondly, I would say these people knew, yes, because they'd been illuminated, there was the danger of the situation. I would want to argue, and here you will oppose me, of course. Right, subtlety, never mind, permit me to put my view. I would want to argue that the two illustrations that Peter gives are not just, uh, illustrations, they are have deeper significance. He says it's happened to these people like it's happened to these two animals. Well, if you are content to take them, I suppose, as just a very shallow sort of analogy, well, that's not too bad. Would you be happy to liken a believer to a pig, or a believer to a dog? Do please remember that to the ancients, and Peter in particular, pigs weren't nice little red, uh, things that you want to scratch their tails and, you know, cuddly little objects. Pigs were unclean. A Jew would spit at it. And dogs weren't nice little well-behaved house-trained lap dogs. They were mangy old flea-ridden scavengers. And Peter, please, was a shepherd. I have to admit to you, he never likened his sheep to pigs. There is, of course, a fundamental difference between a sheep and a pig. If one of nature, isn't it? What you think we've been talking of in chapter one? We have been given the divine nature. The trouble with this pig and with this dog was just this, that their nature wasn't changed. It remained what it was before. They both had some cleanup experience, but it didn't change their inward nature, and nature will prevail. There was nothing to stop it. So if it comes to the very heart of the Christian gospel, it's not religionizing people you want, oh dear me. Nothing short of regeneration, the receiving of a new nature. Is any good? Anything short of that leads to disaster. I submit then that these people were people that came under Christian experience and illumination of the Holy Spirit, went along with God's people for a time, their lives were cleaned up. But there was no root in them. They hadn't a divine nature. They were never regenerate. They were merely Christianized. But whether you agree with that interpretation or not, perhaps you will agree at the, at the more superficial level. Why do psalms behave like this? I used to think that pigs were dirty old animals. Uh, they are not really. A modern method of farming. They put pigs down without any straw on nice concrete or marble, as the case may be. Um, and they train these pigs from youth upwards to be nice, well-behaved little pigs, to live their lives in orderly fashion. You sprinkle their food over the floor, you see in some parts, and so they reserve that for eating on. And if you keep them like that, you can keep all the little pigs. You wouldn't be afraid to to scratch their backs any day of the week. But why is it that when you let them out, they'll go and find an old dirty squashy pond and uh uh uh and turn upside down and squash in it? They do it, so I'm told. I I I'm no farmer or anything like that, but they do it because in the heat of a summer day, if they can find a squashy old pond, it's nice and cooling and refreshing, you know, it's one of their ways of taking recreation. It's a funny way of doing it. It cools them, you know, makes them feel good. It's their recreation. I know some very respectable people. They'd be heartbroken if immorality invaded their homes. But what they will look at and read for purposes of recreation. I must speak to my own heart. Although I have a divine nature, I still have that old one. And I would be an utter unrealist if I didn't make allowance for that and say, oh boy, you must remember you could get caught out any five minutes of the clock. And who hasn't been caught out? God give us grace to act wisely. And this old dog, what's a filthy business, isn't it? I, I, I, I, we're far off for coffee to mention it, perhaps. Uh, he's been eating a lot of very unhealthy stuff, and presently it got on his chest. He decided to get rid of it. So he vomited the whole lot up. But presently he went back to it. You wouldn't mistake that vomit for a repentance, would you? That wasn't repentance. He just felt a bit uneasy for what he'd done, and so because it was uncomfortable, he got rid of it for the moment, but it wasn't repentance. And the genuine work of God will ever insist on repentance. Not just come to Christ and he'll get you out of the jam you happen to be in at the moment, but a repentance that is basic. And I've done. It's time for your contributions. Criticisms. I don't know whether your Bibles had that translation or followed the manuscripts that would give us that translation of the final words of chapter three. To whom be the glory both now and unto the day of the age, unto the day of eternity. Seems to me to be the, the right reading and a very fitting conclusion to this epistle, that everywhere is urging upon us the reality of eternity to which we move. That eternity, the implications of which, if we grasp them, will profoundly affect the way we live our lives here. It has been and is Peter's thesis that there is an eternity, that this life is only temporary. Far from that being pie in the sky, a form of escapism, running away from life, it is the utter opposite. If what I do now has eternal implications, then every bit of time is made eternal in its significance. This is the view, of course, that instead of emptying life, fills life with an importance so great that apart from God's grace, it would be overwhelming. Therefore, Peter, in this final chapter, gives himself to answer certain objections made by ungodly men that would tend to undermine our faith in the reality and certainty of God's promise that one day eternity shall dawn. We must watch our scientific, or rather pseudo-scientific. We must be careful not to let our thinking get departmentalized, as though there were a divide between the word of God and our scientific studies. It's God's word, it's God's world. It is quite wrong to think that when we come to the word of God, our basic, uh, condition must be one of faith, that when we go out into our laboratory, we can afford not to be men of faith. It's God's world that we are studying in our laboratories. And because it's God's world that we are studying, the only attitude that is less than sinful when we come to the laboratory is an attitude of faith. Let us not do the divide. God's word, God's world. The arguments brought by these particular people in Peter's day against the doctrine of our Lord's coming, the final dissolution of this world, were these. In the first place, they invoked what they were pleased to call the law of uniformity. That since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they did from the beginning of the creation. That there have been no interferences in the natural cycles. And that from the word go, things have gone on by ordinary physical law and will continue to go on. Whereas, of course, the Christian, uh, uh, revelation tells us that they won't always continue to go on. Now, this is a very important issue. None of us, as far as I know, you might, I don't know, but it's quite probable anyway, that none of us will be living upon the earth when the earth goes up in smoke. We shall have gone off ourselves into eternity long before then, maybe. What does it matter then to me whether the earth goes up in smoke or whether it continues indefinitely and forever lasting? I shall be here, I shall already have gone off to heaven, so what does it matter anyway? Oh, but it matters. It matters for what concept you're going to have of human life and its significance. Is this present planet a thing that goes on and on indefinitely, or is the whole caboose only a temporary phenomenon? And the answer of scripture is that the whole caboose is a temporary phenomenon. History is not one long, endless line or a constantly repeating series of circles. It is a temporary thing. That mark of temporariness is stamped upon everything in this world, and it is that mark of the temporariness of life, the deliberate temporariness of life, that is going to affect our Christian behavior. And I shall come back to that in the final, uh, considerations of this little talk. Now, uh, Peter's observation then against their argument of a historical uniformity, all things have continued. And quite bluntly, he says that here they are being obscurantists, having willingly ignorant, all things have not continued. There was a catastrophic deluge within historical time. On that occasion, says Peter, you will observe that there were two basic factors in that deluge. There were one, the natural, uh, forces operating, and on the other side there was the supernatural word of God. What God did at that deluge was to speak his word. That word let loose the very natural forces of which this world was, uh, composed, and God destroyed the world by its own constituent elements. The world was, a- a- as we have it here, compacted out of water and amidst water. It was done by the word of God, by that same word, when God spoke it, those very elements of which Earth was composed and compacted turned to its destruction. So point number one is all things have not continued. The evidence is there to be seen if people want to see it. But two, we all perhaps to notice this, uh, double factor that I have mentioned. It is a common argument against, uh, uh, uh, the Bible, when the Bible says that God has intervened from time to time in affairs. It is a common argument that dismisses this, saying, ah, we can explain those happenings by natural physical forces. Take the crossing of the Red Sea. The Bible says that at the word of God, Moses lifted up his rod, held it up, and the waters of the Red Sea parted, and the Israelites went through. Innocent souls used to think that was a miracle. Or your more sophisticated man says, oh no, no, tut, tut, tut. We can explain that, you know? Uh, certain times there is a wind that blows and that it heaves the water out. That and other such explanations have been offered us, and they say, why, it wasn't a miracle after all, fancy that. It was physical forces that did it. What chance? Of course, it was physical forces that did it. What do you think did it? The Bible is saying it was physical forces that that were at action in this deluge. The world was destroyed by its own physical constituents. It's going to be destroyed once more by its own physical constituents. The very elements, the very atoms are going to suffer fission. And with colossal heat and colossal noise, the world will pass away, destroyed by its own very constituents. And if you were a brainy enough scientist and knowledgeable enough, you'd be able to describe the atomic process. Does that prove it isn't a miracle? Well, look what it says. God used those physical forces to destroy the world, but it happened at his word, and it happened at his word timed to do a particular job of work. That thought came upon the world of iniquity. It was the word of God that triggered off the mechanism, and the word of God timed that deluge to deal with these evil men. The mechanism is there, all waiting in our earth. The mechanism's already there that's going to destroy it. And God is waiting for the time when man's iniquity shall be full. When that time comes, he will trigger off the mechanism by his word. Let the mechanism do the job of destruction that he has found necessary. Oh, don't let us be deceived. Sometimes some people remind me of a couple of crooks that have broken into a jewelry shop. I was just going to take the, uh, gold rings out of the case, and a colossal, great, clanging old bell went off. And Crook George says to Crook Tom, he says, I think there's a, I think somebody's seen us and has rung this bell. I think there's somebody on the premises. There's a man here. He's seen us, he's rung the bell. And at first they feel scared. And then George says, oh no, no, no. Look, I see a wire here. Ah, let's follow this wire. It follows us up to a funny electronic contraption up in the roof there. Ah, he says, I know there's no men here at all. I can explain to you how this, how that noise came. I can explain to you from first to last how it came. There are the wires, the electric current, there's the old electronic device. I can explain it from start to finish. Oh, there's nobody here. Let's get on with the loot. Silly chump. Of course you can give a physical explanation of how the bell went off. What about the prior question? Who put the bell there and the wire there that it should happen to go off when they were about to commit this crime? Yeah. Mechanisms there, and if you're of interest, it's a fascinating job, isn't it, studying it. Don't make your false deduction that it just happened, just because you understand the physical processes, that's all there is to it. It has been thus designed, this world, as a temporary affair. It only takes a word from God, and its own mechanisms will destroy it. Argument number two or three, whichever you please. When they say that we've heard this stuff before and it's never happened yet, oh, my grandfather said it, his great-grandfather said it, a thousand years ago they said it, 2,000 years ago they said it, old Enoch was a pessimist and he said it, uh, and it hasn't happened yet, kind of argument. Don't be deceived by that either. Learn that there's a difference between time and eternity. Learn that God doesn't look at things as we look or count time as we count it. One day is as with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. The Lord isn't slack concerning his past. But you see, God isn't moved simply by timetable and 60 minutes to the hour considerations. God's timetables run according to moral principles. It's moral and spiritual ends that determine his action, not hands of a clock. And the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, but he has these merciful moral ends in view. He wants to bring us to repentance. He wouldn't that any should perish, but rather that all should come to repentance. Therefore, we are to believe his word. Our world is temporary. One day, its very elements shall melt with fervent heat. It shall pass away. The earth and the works that are therein shall be destroyed, says some manuscript, and another manuscript says that the earth and the works therein shall be discovered. Whichever reading is the original way, both are true, aren't they, in actual fact. At that great fiery end, our work shall be discovered. There shall be discovered what works abide the fire. What works for only hay, wood, and spile. And they finish. Do see, we preach it to the unconverted. Life is a temporary thing. You were made for eternity. Upon your decision to receive Christ or reject him depends an eternity. Let us preach it to ourselves. Life is but temporary. On the way I live, as a believer, will depend my reward, my eternal reward, and the quality of my eternity. I wish then to say no more about this particular chapter. I want to conclude my part in these studies by referring you now back to the first epistle. Just to demonstrate to you this great link between these two epistles, Peter's concern with time and eternity. It is a subject in which Peter seems to have been overwhelmingly interested. Perhaps it was because he was interested in this question of the salvation of the soul, and as we were saying on Saturday night, our souls have a time element built into them. It's the salvation of our souls, including the salvation of that time element that Peter is interested in. It may be that, uh, because Peter was living at that great change in history, the moment to which all the prophets had looked forward to, and he actually saw the Christ. Whatever the reason, it is demonstrable that Peter is very interested in this matter of time and eternity, and the relation of time to eternity. Let's look back into his first epistle. In his greeting, he starts in verse one with people that are elect according to the foreknowledge of God. He goes on in verses three and four to talk about an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation. And then he describes a salvation. It is ready to be revealed in the last time. Until that, however, there is another little thing, another little period, wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while. You are in heaviness. Then he says in verse ten, to comfort us in the time of this trial, concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. Searching what time or what manner of time. They weren't searching what did the words mean, they could see what the words meant. They were searching what time it referred to. What time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto when it testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. All right. Well, now it says verse thirteen, we are to hope perfectly for the grace that is to be brought at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Therefore, says verse seventeen, we are to pass the time of our sojourning here in fear. Knowing that you were redeemed not with corruptible things, with silver or gold from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ, who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifest at the end of the times for you. Oh. Huh. We'll look on, shall we? Um, into chapter four, Verse three. Oh, sorry, verse, verse one, perhaps. For as much then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind, for he that has suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin, that ye should no longer live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but you should live the rest of your time in the flesh to the will of God. For the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles. Verse seven: but the end of all things is at hand. Chapter five, verse ten: and the God of all grace who called you unto his eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while, shall himself perfect, establish, strengthen you. It is, you know, the same man writing the second epistle that wrote the first. He is more than ordinarily interested in the relation between time and eternity. So let us just sit back for a moment, in the last few seconds of each of my talk, let's think of the implications of these verses we have read. Peter writes to these people whom he calls strangers, resident aliens, of the dispersion. They are resident aliens, they are pilgrims, and they are strangers now in a spiritual sense. They have an inheritance laid out for them in heaven. To that inheritance they move. It is a, it is a timeless, it is an incorruptible inheritance. It doesn't fade away. It belongs to the permanence of eternity. They are pilgrims walking to it. Oh, how lovely to look forward to it. Half a minute, says Peter. Just let's look back a minute. How did I become a pilgrim in Australia? Long before you set foot on this earth, God chose you according to his foreknowledge to be a stranger. He who is from eternity to eternity designed my little life here, and from the very start he designed it as a temporary thing. It should be a stepping stone into the permanent eternity. All this is no haphazard journey. Let us not quake and fear before the dissolution of our tabernacles. We are but strangers and pilgrims anyway. It was only a temporary earth. It was only meant to be a temporary experience. But behind it is the planning of eternity. Elect strangers according to the foreknowledge of God. That salvation to which we move, that inheritance to which we move, is ready to be revealed in the last time. Well, let's have a little word with the Lord all reverently, shall we? Lord, let the conversation run. Lord, that's very nice, that salvation you've got there reserved for me. Beautiful inheritance. Did you, uh, did I overhear you say it was already? Yes, it's already. Well, if it's already, why can't I have it now? Why wait? What would your answer be to that? If you said to me, don't be selfish, old boy. You're saved and right ready for heaven. A lot of folks aren't saved, and if the Lord were to to to cause that eternal inheritance now to dawn upon you and give it to you right now, there's a lot of folks who will be lost. So I'm afraid you'll have to wait. Oh, I see. Well, that is quite true. Never mind, it's only some rain. This is not a flood, as far as I know. Is it just then a matter that, oh well, because there's a lot more folks, folks to be saved, I shall have to wait around and kick my heels until the Lord comes? No, it is not even that. It's ready to be revealed, but for a moment there is a necessity, a crying out necessity. If need be, there must be experiences to prepare us for that coming inheritance. If need be, a while of suffering, of burning, of fire for the purifying of our faith. It's a need be. It's an essential part of the plan. Our faith must be purified. The inheritance is all right, but if you're going to enjoy it to the full, you will need a perfected faith. Let me mention again what I mentioned this morning, but do it very briefly. It is quite true, in a sense, that now we walk by faith, and then we shall see face to face. But of course, it isn't true that when we get home to heaven, we can stop believing the Lord. We can't have to trust him anymore. We can choose not to believe him. And because we shall always need that faith, and it will always be the key to the enjoyment of God and our inheritance, God must allow a time for the faith to be perfected before he takes us to enjoy the inheritance. Ah, but having one's faith, uh, uh, tried is a painful experience, as we all doubtless know. A very, very painful experience. And sometimes at the onset of the fire, it looks to us if not only the dross, but the faith as well is going to be consumed. The emotional upset of a big disease or an unexpected bereavement. The emotional upset can be so big that faith seems to be utterly swamped. God made any provision? Oh yes. You see, in the time of trial, my faith that there is an inheritance after all to come to, my faith might be overwhelmed. So God has taken the trouble to provide for it, and for centuries he sent prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet, and he made them speak things, and he made them write things, and they were wonderful things. They were about the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. And when the prophets had spoken them and written them, then they sat down and scratched their heads. And they said, I don't know what, who this is talking about. And it was revealed to them that not unto themselves, but unto you they did minister these things. And the idea was that if God wrote it beforehand, that the program was going to be thus and thus, if he wrote it beforehand that first there should be suffering and then there should be glory, then when the suffering came along, we should say, hi, yes, that's according to the plan. Good. Put a tick against that. That's being fulfilled. That's like good stuff. Righto. And if that bit's been fulfilled, well, the other bit will be fulfilled. That's how the argument runs with Christ himself. Are Christ's claims genuine? Oh, what about the sufferings? Have they not been fulfilled? Just as those sufferings have been fulfilled and he has entered into his glory, so we may be certain, according to those ancient prophecies, that our suffering shall end in glory, and that his sufferings and our sufferings together shall end in that coming age of glory. Thus, to buttress our faith, God spent centuries inspiring his followers. We neglect Jeremiah at our risk, you know. We neglect Genesis and Isaiah and Daniel at our peril. It can be too late sometimes, you know, when suffering comes, it can be too late to read your prophets then. There were some Christians, we read of them in the New Testament. When they got converted, they started with great gusto. They proclaimed their faith, they weren't afraid of anybody, they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. They said to themselves, Christ will be here. It'll only be a little time, yet a little while, and he that shall come will come. But he didn't come. And they lost their homes, and they lost their loved ones, and they lost their jobs. And their elders died and passed away, and still Christ hadn't come. And they were beginning to get jittery, and their faith was beginning to get shaken. Was Jesus the Son of God after all? And in their spiritual peril, there was one thing above another that would have helped to have anchored those men. It was knowing all about the typology of Melchizedek, says the writer. About our Lord's priesthood after the order of Melchizedek and what it means when it says it's after the order of Melchizedek. Well, I'm sorry, I can't do it, he said. I have many things to say, but you see, you just couldn't take them in. For what time you ought to be teachers and be able to take the meat of God's word. You're still babies, and all you can take is milk, and I'm sorry there are many things I can't say. Sad, wasn't it? They weren't of the spiritual stature that they could take the prophecies of Genesis, though they were the very things they needed. Will God give us wisdom? Not to despise his word and his prophecies. All that Old Testament is prophecy, you know, in the broader sense. While we are young and before the evil day comes, let's get that word of God into us, that when the evil day comes with something to fall back on and to get hold of. That will start us our faith and bring us through. That day is coming, says Peter, meanwhile. Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. Why should I? That little time between the two eternities. Well, for these various reasons, says Peter. First of all, God is critical. If you call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth each according to his work. God is critical. Past the time of your sojourning here in fear, therefore. God has every right to be critical, hasn't he? For consider, says Peter, how much he paid to get your life. You were redeemed not with corruptible things like silver, but with the precious blood of Christ. And if God has paid so much to get your life, God is going to be critical how you spend it. Seventy years, twenty of them spent unconverted, at least fifty. God spent the precious blood of Christ to get those fifty years. Moreover, this Lamb, says Peter, through whom you have been redeemed, he was foreknown before the foundation of the world. Oh, well, now that's a point. If he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, why didn't God manifest him as soon as man sinned? Why didn't Jesus come as soon as Adam sinned? Everybody could have known about him then. I wouldn't attempt to give an answer off my own bat to that one. Nor would I say that the answer that Peter gives here is the only answer that can be given. But he does give the answer, doesn't he? The lamb was indeed foreknown before the foundation of the world. But the timing of his manifestation was determined for this reason, he was manifested in these last times for you. It's a staggering thought, isn't it? Who would pretend to understand the mysteries of God's providence. Why Jesus Christ was born at that time he was born in. Why the gospel, instead of going east from its eastern origin, came west. Why, instead of staying in Africa and going south, it came north to Europe. Why in Europe it came to England and to Cambridge and to you. And it has done so, and not by accident. Hey, see what that means, says Peter. With all that wealth of investment and with all that wealth of eternal preparation, God was looking for your tiny suffering. You've been waiting a long time for it, and when it's past, it's past. Never come again. And there's a father in heaven, and oh, he's filled with all the emotions that a father can have, but he gets critical when he paid precious blood for our five minutes. And he's very critical of the way we spend it. Half the time if you're soddening here in fear, knowing you were redeemed. And you see, as Peter says in chapter four, you've had enough time, haven't you? To waste. We've wasted enough time already, haven't we? The time past of our life ought to be enough, didn't it? Or would you like a few more days off to enjoy the world before you settle down to enjoying Christianity for full pepper? You know, I have given way to that stupid thought sometimes. I wish I hadn't been saved so soon. I was saved when I was ten or a bit earlier. You know, there are a lot of things in the world like this. Interesting things, enticing experiences. You know, I found myself wishing, I wish I'd been saved quite so soon. A stupid idea. And sometimes other folks behave as if, well, they are saved, but they would like a little bit of time off to go back and enjoy, and then take Christianity seriously later on. Look, says Peter, the time past ought to have been enough to you. Life is divided by a great flood. As it was for Noah, so for us. Noah's life was divided in two, the time before the flood and the time after, and so will ours to be, the time before our baptism and the time after. So we don't live the rest of our time in the flesh to the will of men, but we live the rest of our time in the flesh to the will of God. For the end of all things is at hand. Therefore be sober. And that's it. We're left with just words on the page. And there's no voice from heaven this afternoon that you can hear with your literal ears. Just that word. What do we do with it? Is it true? How true? So what do you mean how true? I mean, is it real? Is it the living word of God? Is there an eternity? Have I been elect? Has my life been the subject of eternal planning? Is it of eternal significance? How true is it? Can I afford to say, oh, well, I don't give myself to it too seriously now. I wait a little while, and when I settled down and got married and got home, then I, I really give myself to it. How true is it? For minutes fly by, and they grow into days and months and years, and they fly oh so quickly. For all is but temporary, and we're moving on. If this book is true, every tidiness is of eternal significance. God so speak. That we might know it not merely from reading those printed passages, but know it and be convinced of it by having heard in our hearts through that word, the living word of a living God, that we may hold, lay hold of eternal life here and now. By God's grace, keep our souls unto life eternal.