ES2PEJ15 2 Peter 3:13–18, Jude 24-25
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13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
14 Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; 15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
25 To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen.
This week we are going to close out the letters of 2nd Peter & Jude. We interrupted this study to look at Matthew 24-25, Jesus’ sermon on the Mount of Olives, the Olivet Discourse, which is also about the last times. They will be terrible times but we, who are God’s, are left with hope.
13
Verse 13 speaks of great hope; we ‘look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.’ For your readings check out the last 7 chapters of Isaiah which speaks a great deal about this hope.
The New Heaven and New Earth has God’s total reign over it; where His Kingdom is here; and where His will is done on earth as it is in Heaven. Only good things will happen and His righteousness will be displayed in all our dealings with God and with each other. Nothing will be remembered of the former times. Our slate is wiped clean – and so is the earth and the heavens. It will be like they never happened such will be our joy in the new life that is given to us.
Whatever people promise you, if it is too good to be true, then it probably is, it is just a fantasy. But when God promises, if it is too good to be true, we only know the half of it! It is more than we can imagine! This is something we really can look forward to and know that it will happen.
What great promises we have. God is great and good in all things. The Lord has opened the door to us and invited us in.
14
Verse 14 says: Look forward to these things! Revelation speaks of this great hope:
1 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. 2 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
5 Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”
6 And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. 7 He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.
Are you an overcomer? Could we possibly fail? Well, John does not keep us hanging, for in a previous letter, he writes:
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
The NIV Application Commentary: 2 Peter, Jude Original Meaning
God has a plan, that it unfolds just as he wants it to, and that it culminates in blessing for his people. What Christians look forward to is “the coming of the day of God”
Since we have that hope in our new life with Christ we should be heading towards it with ever increasing sanctification. A word that means being made holy, which is to be more and more yielded to God and His will and doing His works. In looking forward to this new perfection in creation we are to get started now.
It is because we have the inside information that Christ is coming back and, as we heard Jesus speak in Matthew 24, we also now know the signs of the times and that time is almost, if not immediately, upon us.
So, now, there needs to be an urgent desire and watching and waiting for His coming back again.
In chapter 1 Peter says that we should give all diligence in adding to our faith goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly-kindness and love. And in today’s passage uses the same word when he says we should be diligent to be found by Him, when He comes again, in peace, without spot and blameless. All our effort needs to go into our Christian life with the help of the Holy Spirit.
We certainly want to be ready at his coming as John also exhorts us:
28 And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. 29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
This is, of course, the same John who says
8 If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The Christian life is more to be one of onwards and upwards, of a life that is adding to our faith. We have God’s power, His promises and His nature so we should be growing in Christ towards more Christ-likeness.
Peter is saying again that we should be giving all our effort to achieving this goal. The first mentioned is peace: we need not fret about the future for when troubles come, as it does, He is in control. We can only have peace in Christ.
Then Peter says we are to be without spot and blameless. Who here can say that this is the case? No one can. We are all with spots and we all can be blamed. The only way to be spotless and blameless is to continually have God’s forgiveness and cleansing of His blood. We have to turn from our sin and accept His forgiveness. He forgives and forgets our sin so that it is as if we had never sinned. In this only can we be blameless.
15
We have spoken before of God’s longsuffering with the world not wanting to close the door before every single one who will believe believes.
Peter tells us that Paul speaks of this too and indeed we find that Paul says in:
4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
Destruction will come swiftly upon the unsuspecting but that day has not yet come. Why? Because God is patient and wants the world to hear of the Good News. The main role of the Church is to be a witness, to declare that there is a way of escape. We are to join God in His mission.
16
Peter then goes off at a tangent to say that Paul’s writings are not exactly easy to understand. Remember that Peter was a fisherman and Paul was a theologian. But Peter had the advantage of doing his theology with Jesus which led to an interesting situation with the Sanhedrin after he and John were arrested due to a man’s healing in:
13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.
Peter says that it is not right to stay untrained or untaught because you can make mistakes about what God is saying through the teaching of Paul. People can twist Scripture to say what they want it to say and that has been the history of the Church but never more so than today. And again we find that people who do this are setting up their own destruction as well as those whom they convince. Let me be clear here. It is one thing for us not to understand what is written and this can cause its own problems but another for those who deliberately twist what they do not understand to make it say what it does not say.
Let us be careful to hold all of Scripture in high regard for note that Peter places Paul’s writings alongside all Scripture. It is on an equal plane.
I remember when someone wrote an article in a local newspaper having a go at Paul. So, I wrote in, and said that if he does not accept Paul he does not accept any Scripture. He had right of reply, of course, and came back and said that I am like all these other Bible nutters out there. That person was deliberately trying to undermine trust in the Word of God and he is in danger as well as those who listen to such people for they can prevent people from coming to salvation.
There are so many so-called Bible teachers who are really false teachers and prophets who have taught that it is OK to criticise Scripture and tear it apart…and in so doing they can destroy the faith of the faithful.
If we do not understand what is written then we should ask the Bible teacher or Pastor what these things mean if they have a reputation for sound teaching. We are to be genuine seekers of the truth of what God is saying.
Some Scripture is hard to understand but God has given the Church gifted people to help in such situations. And Scripture is hard in places seeing that God is God after all and to understand His things must be difficult but, let us not be wrong here, just because it is hard and difficult does not mean that it is impossible to understand if it has been revealed in Scripture. He especially opens the eyes of the spiritually humble.
Even Jesus with Nicodemus, who was well taught, and a teacher of Israel, found it hard to grasp things that we take for granted today:
7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? 11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
No one here would seriously contend that being born again means to enter again our mother’s womb but that is how you would have understood it when you heard it the first time for that is the literal translation. We were born of the flesh but now we need to be born of the Spirit.
18
The antidote to all error is growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. Grace is given to us as a result of the work of the cross of Christ. The more we realise what we have gained in Christ the more we live for Him because we realise just how poor and needy we are without Him but with Him we have all spiritual riches.
And so, let us grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We can grow in head-knowledge and in experimental knowledge. How? The more we understand God’s Word the greater head-knowledge we gain but it is when we apply that knowledge to our everyday lives that the knowledge become experimental and as a result we truly grow in knowledge of Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.
Growth takes time, and it often comes in spurts. Trees grow rapidly during a 4 to 6 week period in early summer, when woody fibres appear between the bark and the trunk. During the remainder of the year, these fibres solidify into the sturdy wood from which furniture is built, which will last several lifetimes.
And we are told by Peter as well as Jude in his concluding words (Jude 24-5):
6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;
The end of all things is to bring glory to Jesus. We can achieve nothing without Him. He is our Creator and our Saviour, all things were made by Him and for Him. Therefore let us be those living for His glory for:
To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
Communion
Communion
God places a great deal of value in us to love us so much that He gave the greatest of all gifts: His only begotten Son. If He was just simply sent to us to show us how we should live, then that would have been good but not good enough. And God knew this. His greatest gift had to be destroyed by the ones He had come to save. That is human nature: to destroy what good we have. But it was in this destruction that God made a way for us to have life. He knew sinners could only do what came natural to them, that is, to sin. And so Jesus became our sacrifice for sin. The wages of sin is death - and Jesus paid this in full for us. And instead of death we gained life, so much does the Holy One love us. And if that was not enough He has also given the chance to live with Him in a new creation. Bless the Lord, O my soul!
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
Benediction
Benediction
18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
25 To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen.
Bibliography
Bibliography