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Can we sing hymn 190?
The stream that from the fountain flows.
The fountain of eternal love.
What's the number 190?
To be profitable rather than to take up second Peter chapter one.
Has a lot of practical things in it, like our brother was.
Bringing out this morning.
Peter, chapter one.
Read the chapter together. Second Peter chapter one.
Simon Peter.
A servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power had given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
Through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us, exceeding great and precious promises, that by these He might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, and beside this giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue.
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And to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance.
And to temperance patients. And to patients godliness. And to godliness brotherly kindness. And to brotherly kindness charity.
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you, that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind.
And cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his own sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if ye do these things ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be minister until you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom.
Of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth. Yeah, I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly.
I must put off this my Tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shown me.
Moreover, I will endeavor, that ye may be able after my disease, to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we may know unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but where eyewitnesses of His Majesty, for He received from God the Father.
Honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, that we heard when we were with Him in the Holy Mount, we also We have also a more sure word of prophecy. Where unto.
Ye do well.
That you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place.
Until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy man of God, speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
You doubtless had some exercise, Bob, in suggesting this chapter so.
Maybe you could tell us a bit about it?
Well, we certainly, I think all realize that we're getting close to the end of this present age.
The things that are happening all around us.
In this chapter speaks of.
The.
Everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's something that should thrill our souls.
We see things getting increasingly confusing and.
Out of control, as far as man's apparent.
Vision of it. We know that there is a purpose that God is working.
Towards and. So it's interesting to me.
A comment that was made some time ago, I don't remember where I heard it, but it was a help to me.
That first Peter, you have the government of God in the House of God.
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And the verse that I would give for that is first Peter 4 and 17.
Time has come that judgment must begin at the House of God.
And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
But in Second Peter, we have the government of God in this world and.
So in the third chapter, second Peter, you have.
The day of the Lord brought in, and the day of God.
And it's very interesting how God is working.
But in this first chapter he begins, and at the end of the chapter we have what evidently is what Peter witnessed with other disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration.
What a picture it was, and, brethren.
We think of the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ that millennial day.
That is going to be introduced. It's going to be a complete change of venue for this world.
We have little clue of how much things are going to change.
But Scripture talks a lot about it, especially in the Old Testament, but also in the new.
But there are things that relate to.
Us presently, brethren, And I suppose that's what my desire was in suggesting this.
And I want to learn as well as anyone else I think.
Going to pick up on Bob's last comment. I want to learn as well as anyone else.
And make a remark on how Peter's first epistle begins and his second epistle begins with respect to learning what Peter springs out to us.
He his first letter first Peter begins Peter.
An apostle of Jesus Christ.
This one begins slightly differently, so.
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle. And I'm going to suggest that in the intervening time, Peter was going through the process that Bob talked about of wanting to learn a little more. And hopefully as we learn, we learn more about the heart of God and we learn more about ourselves as well in contrast to that heart.
When Peter writes his first epistle, he uses the name that the Lord had given him.
We learn from Luke's gospel, I think, that the name Peter was given to him by the Lord, but his natural name was Simon.
And we have a little bit when I can I say a more elevated way of referring to himself, Peter, an apostle.
In this particular it begins and I suggest that Peter was going through the learning process that in a different way is reflected in the way that the apostle Paul referred to himself as he went through his own Christian life. We see different ways that he was learning as well as Peter was in that regard. He says Simon Peter. When Peter is converted in Luke chapter 5, the story starts Simon.
That's all just Simon and they go out on a boat and on that boat I believe is when Peter is truly converted and.
In the story it refers to him then as Simon Peter. I'm not sure that the Lord had actually given him the name publicly yet at that point. I don't think he had, but nonetheless he went from being just, you might say, Simon, his natural name, to a name that had been given to him by the Lord and suggests.
His new relationship with the Lord Jesus and.
Here, in the one little sense, Peter refers to himself in a more humble way.
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Than even he had in his first epistle, although both are of course divinely given by the Spirit of God. And in simply saying he's an apostle, which is a more elevated title than bondman, he says Simon Peter a servant or a bondman.
Of Jesus Christ. That's a very low way of referring to oneself. I'm a slave.
And yet, brethren, to lay hold of what this chapter brings before us and to enter into it, there's a certain aspect of it in which there's a necessity of coming into that more humble understanding that makes us more ready to receive what the Lord has to say to us.
The Lord Jesus could say, I am among you as he that serveth.
If the Lord of glory could take that position, brethren.
As a servant here in this world.
Where do we stand in relation to that?
What a privilege to be servants, and may the Lord give us to always.
Be exercised in value that place. What can we do to serve others?
I really think a lot of the.
Dissatisfaction you see amongst young people, maybe older ones too, is because they're so focused on themselves.
Let's turn around, brethren, and lookout. There's so much to be done for the Lord, for others.
To be a servant. What a blessing it is.
We're seeing in different ways in the New Testament as to our present position.
In the highest place we're seeing as in Ephesians, as seated in heavenly places in Christ. But what Peter brings before us, we are seeing as Peter was writing as people on earth who have a hope ahead of them, and they're in that path toward that hope that has been assured and promised to them. And so they had to go through daily life.
And the trials and the exercises and temptations and service connected with it for the Lord Jesus. And so he even when he refers to.
The Lord himself, he says, Jesus Christ, our Savior, Jesus Christ. It reminds us of the man who had been here ahead, and Peter had known him in that way.
And Peter recognized that Jesus Christ was now had gone on.
And was in the glory, but he wasn't. And those he was writing to weren't. And so he writes to them these things to help them along in the present circumstances in which they were, and particularly, as Bob already said, the world in which they were. And to it's the world's messed up and it's a difficult place to live and it's this country is becoming increasingly.
Openly dark in its moral character and in its decision processes and so on. And Peter's giving us things that help to safely get through the journey to the promised end, which is seen in itself Here is salvation.
From Peter's way of looking at it, we're not fully saved until we're saved, spirit, soul and body. And so that he's saying the Lord is going to make sure that what he's promised to bring us into a deliverance, a salvation that has to do with our spirit, our souls and our bodies, then we have to get safely to the end and to the point of the glorified body.
It's not a question of not being eternal, saved in us to our souls, but Peter brings it out in this way.
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First Peter 19 where he got speak of the salvation of our soul.
You comment.
Places like you say it looks at it at the end, but it looks like first Peter one and 9 receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your soul. There he looks at it as a salvation of your soul, but every other place like you say, it's when we get our glorified body.
With this.
I shouldn't be talking by a microphone, but we say that this is the new nature in action.
You know, we are accepted and acceptance can never change. That's based upon the work of Christ. We get that in the in the second verse of the first chapter. But here it's our acceptability that the Spirit of God is seeking to work out in US, not just having the new nature, but have it active in our life so that we don't end up like the ninth verse. But he that lacketh these things is blind.
And cannot see afar off. He only sees the situation around him right now.
And he's forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. There's like the brother was talking about, he met brothers who at one time were enjoying their Christianity, but now?
You couldn't tell them from the world and that we're all susceptible to that. And so this is really the new nature in action.
Is that right, Bob?
I'm sure brother, go ahead.
It's beautiful to see how many precious things Peter talks about in his two epistles. Here we have precious faith in verse one. We have exceeding great and precious promises in verse 4.
Verse one, Peter chapter one is the trial of our faith that is much more precious.
And a goal that perishes.
And then we have the precious blood of Christ. O brethren, we have things that are very precious. First Peter two is unto you therefore which believe he is the preciousness.
Something to be treasured in the soul. And so here in verse one, it's precious faith.
Faith is not the portion of all it tells us in Second Thessalonians chapter 3.
How do you get faith? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
Oh, how important it is, brethren, to cultivate a hearing ear. Sometimes you can tell that people are listening to what you say, but they're not really hearing the message. I'm not a judge of how that is in people, but how important it is.
When God speaks, I can understand if people want to challenge what I say.
But when God speaks.
Let His word penetrate because it's going to bring blessing. That's the way faith comes, and it's precious. It connects us with God. Wonderful, wonderful thing.
New nature we have not to jump ahead, but just answer the question in verse four. We have whereby are given unto a succeeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that's in the world through lust. The thought there is living out the life that we have. It's not about acquiring that life. The word partakers communion as I was walking in communion as it were, or in fellowship consistent with that new nature.
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So we have there in the fourth verse.
And in that sense, I would suggest not to keep going over it. But first, Peter one and nine brings before us a similar thought. That is, that, remember, Peter was writing to the Jews and they didn't know what it was to have.
A definite and clear salvation. At the end of the journey, they could believe the promises of God that there was blessing coming in the millennial day.
But when and how that would happen, they didn't know, and they were used to the Lord delivering them from various problems and difficulties in their lives. But now you and I have a clear and definite hope before us. And yes, it is at the end of the journey, but God wants us to live in the good and in the enjoyment of it now. Very, very important.
Like to refer back to a verse in Romans chapter one connection with the last half of verse one of our chapter.
Romans chapter one and verse 17.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written. The just shall live by faith.
And Old Testament saying.
Who put their trust in the Lord Jesus could not, I'm sorry in Jehovah and what had been revealed to them.
Could not have explained.
To anyone.
Why God would be able to accept them in a righteous way.
They could say I'm a Sinner and I've done a lot of bad things and I if I'm a Jew, I've kept the best I could. I've followed the sacrifices that are required when I've sinned. But if you said, well, how can God righteously accept you?
And he would have had to say, I don't know.
I don't know.
Now.
In Christianity and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, as explained to us very carefully in the book of the Romans, we learn how God can act consistent with himself in his own righteousness and be righteous and make us righteous in his presence, so that the faith we have that is in itself a God-given thing.
Is that which is a faith and a righteousness of God.
That blesses.
And we can rejoice in the absolute knowledge and certainty that when God comes to bless us and give us a home with himself in heaven and make us his children and justify us and so on and so on, that it's all according to his own character of holiness and righteousness. And that was perhaps a real joy to Peter that had been born a Jew under the old. And if you said to Peter as a young man, Peter what?
Or Simon what?
How can, how can you really be expected to God to accept you and so on. But here he says, well, that faith that connects me to the righteousness of God is a precious thing. And it's been it was revealed from faith to faith that is a man of the world doesn't understand it has no interest in it doesn't really care about the righteousness of God.
But if we come to know him, we do care, and then through faith we enter into an understanding of that which God has brought us into. And with Peter we can rejoice in our common life. Precious faith.
Both for the Jew and the Old Testament, it was important that they have faith to believe God in his word and no hope without faith. We also have to lay hold of it by faith. It isn't enough to just mentally assent to the truth that the New Testament teaches to be saved. You can know all about the doctrine of the New Testament and be lost in your sins if you don't believe it.
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So faith is an important ingredient, and there's a danger of those of us that are brought up in the teaching of these things to know it mentally, but to not lay hold of it by faith and walk in it. Then it's a practical way.
Possible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and there is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him and I think that is really important. Doug. Faith is based on the revelation that we have from God.
And what kind of a revelation do we have of God in the Scriptures? Tremendous to think about it. And it seems to me that that's what's slipping away from us in this culture that we live in. More and more, it's focusing on what we are. People want to be God.
And if they believe in God in an outward way, they want to pray and have God serve them and do what he asked them to do without any recognition that maybe God knows a little bit more than he does.
Oh, if we don't have the proper revelation of God, that's what faith is based on. At least that's the faith of God.
And it's so important that we get God's revelation of himself.
That's what we have in the next verse. I really enjoy this chapter if you think of it as the mathematics chapter.
Because in chapter verse two we have multiplication.
And in verse.
Five, we have addition.
But God's the one that does the multiplication.
We are the ones that are exhorted to do the addition.
Can we do it, brother? Are we doing it?
But what is it that God multiplies to us? Notice this in verse two. It's so beautiful.
Grace and peace.
Be multiplied unto you.
Through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
The more you get to know God and the Lord Jesus.
The more grace and peace are going to be multiplied to you. Beautiful. Beautiful for troubled hearts. For people that are worried to think about this, it's the knowledge of God. What kind of a God do you have anyhow?
And so if we look into the Word of God, and yet God's revelation of himself.
What it does is multiply grace and peace, and it's interesting how much in this chapter it speaks about the knowledge of God. Notice in verse three as well.
According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain into life and knowledge.
And godliness through the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue.
Verse 8. These things be in you and abound. They make you that ye should be neither.
Barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think there are others too. But brethren, it is amazing to think that we have been brought into the knowledge of God.
And our Savior Jesus Christ often mentioned it. But to me it is so wonderful where we are in Christianity because.
The Muslims say that God is unknown and unknowable.
You tell me you know God, Brother Don.
Isn't that wonderful?
Amazingly wonderful.
That there's not a glimmer of light and the inky darkness of eternity.
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Except in this book, the book that you hold in your lap is the word of God.
Where we get the knowledge of God. What a wonderful thing to have this book.
And we might mention in connection with that.
To a mere, shall we say, literal knowledge of what is in the word of God is not what is before us here, is it? Men down through the ages have read the word of God simply to be able to talk intelligently, simply to be able to mouth good moral platitudes and to be able to say, well, the Bible says this and.
These.
Other religions, they have their sacred books and they say this and so on.
But what characterizes, and I think it was well brought out what you said, Bob, what characterizes Christianity is the knowledge of God and of his beloved Son. And when we have that, as it says in verse three, we have all things that pertain until life and godliness. There isn't one problem, there isn't one question, there isn't one difficulty that you and I will face.
In the pathway of pleasing the Lord, for which we don't find an answer. In the knowledge of God through His Word.
But it takes the knowledge of God to walk with him, as one of our old writers said.
We need more than right principles. We need God Himself. And that is so true because Christianity brings us into a relationship. It's not simply going to a right place to worship, although very important. It's not simply adherence to certain principles, even if they're scriptural. It's all of that and much more. It is having fellowship with God through his beloved Son and knowing God.
In that sense, that could never have been known before God revealed himself in Christ.
And what a, what a precious privilege that is, and especially in the midst of a world that is going on to judgment, which is what is brought before us in this book. Peter is showing, as Bob mentioned earlier, that the world is under judgment and showing how that his purposes through that judgment would be carried out. But then he says to you and me, and now I'm going to show you how you can walk through that kind of a world and make your way in it.
And as it says further down in verse 10, not fall.
God created man. He made himself known to man by the spirit. Man is a special part of God's creation, unlike animals, because he has a body, soul and spirit. And his spirit makes him God conscious, and he knows God in that way. And when he looks at the creation and sees a flower, he sees a fellow human being. God has so made us that we don't need to go to school to learn it.
But we recognize we have a God, a God who is, and we also know something of his power, the tremendousness of his power in comparison to ourselves and beyond that, their God is by given to us. They made us that we know we have to do with them, that we are morally responsible to him for our behavior. And so man has a sense of good and bad in connection with God.
But all those things said.
Man naturally doesn't know God in the way that these verses are describing it. They go beyond that. If I were to place an Ant on this table in the the center here.
And say, does anybody in the room understand that aunt? I suggest there's not a single person in this room could say, yes, I understand that aunt. I know just how it feels. I know just what it thinks. And I have good fellowship with that aunt.
No, we don't share a common nature and as such we do not know that Ant in that way we need it. The Ant may know us in its limited little way that.
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It doesn't feel responsible to us. It doesn't have a moral nature, but it it can know we're a little bit bigger than it is and it's afraid of us and so on. But if you ask the aunt, do you know that thing called human? And it would say, no, I don't know. I don't have any real knowledge of it except this, that and the other.
But in what's Peter's bringing out, when the when God decided in his perfect time to reveal himself to us in his heart, he sent the Lord Jesus. And the Lord Jesus is the revelation that man previously did not have of the fullness of what's in the heart of God toward him. But without faith, it wasn't a benefit to him, and he didn't really enter into it. We have a precious faith.
That has enabled us to recognize that, in some measure at least, that God loves us.
But, brethren, it's better than that because.
If someone said to you, do you know how God feels?
Do you know what God thinks about this or that?
We should be able to say, yes, I know how God feels and I know what he thinks about this or that because because he is imparted to us the divine nature and the nature that he has imparted to us is brought out in verse four is the nature which loves as he loves, which feels as he feels, which sees things morally consistent with himself as to what is good and bad and so.
As the Lord Jesus said in John 17, this is life eternal.
That they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent. And so God has brought us into a relationship with himself, that we know Him in a way that we had not known him before. And we know his Son, the Lord Jesus. This is life eternal. That they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou is sent. And so.
Thus, there's the flesh in us. There's imperfection. We're not divine in our beings as God is, but when we're with the Lord Jesus and we look at each other, we'll feel toward each other in the same character of love that He has, and we are to do it now as well. We're to live out, as has already been said, that divine nature. And it's a humbling thing. It's not a proud thing.
When we realize that we don't practice it or live it out in its fullness.
Could just emphasize just one point that's already been made.
In verse two we have the multiplying of grace and peace and then verse.
Verse five, we have the adding these things. We're going to be getting to the adding of these things, but what we're Speaking of right now is, is the the importance of grace and peace.
The soul being established.
In really who God is, who God is for his own glory, and who God is for us, the place of acceptance we've been brought into.
How God values and sees the the work of Christ and how it satisfied his demands, how it's glorified him and it says.
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you.
Other places it speaks of being established.
In in grace that the heart be established in grace.
And if that work doesn't take place first in the soul of.
Young Believers.
Then there will not be.
A. There will not be.
The the blessing to follow in the adding of the things that we have.
In the last part of the other, the further down in this chapter.
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So I just bring out the importance of the grace and peace being multiplied.
In the soul, through the knowledge of God, grace and peace can only.
Come, come into the soul through the knowledge of who God is and what the work of Christ has done to satisfy him. How can a soul have peace if he doesn't understand how satisfied he is with the work of Calvary and what his Son has done for meeting the need of man sins?
Should be on God, shouldn't it?
Who God is and getting to know Him more. You hear about people trying to figure out who they are and trying to figure out their identity.
You can't know yourself unless you know him first of all. To know him properly. Then you have the basis of all other relationships, who you are, who your family members are, what it means to be married to.
An individual, what it means to have children, all that has meaning in the measure that we know.
God Himself to me it is so precious, brethren, to see that right from the very first chapter of the Bible.
We have God presented right in the very first verse of the Bible.
Yellow in plural. And in that chapter let us make man in our image after our likeness, who's talking God in the fullness of a being, His being, the different members of the Godhead speaking together. God is a communicating God, and that's the way He's made us as well.
And I find that people that isolate themselves lack that. We are made as social creatures. We need to cultivate.
Relationships, but it's only in the measure that you know God properly that those relationships will be in their proper place.
What they found in God.
You might say.
Some of us maybe that are younger, we don't know God very well. We'd like to know him better. Help us.
You have ours, brother Steve to talk about it.
Even that wouldn't be a start. So wonderful to think of all the attributes of God.
Wonderful.
Two of them, or one of them? One of the, as Bob said, many, many. But in verses 3 and 4, something wonderful to know about God. He's a giver.
He's a giver, God is the great giver and everything. A lot of times people who.
Not very satisfied with their thoughts of God are I wanted this and God didn't give it to me.
And don't understand what's really valuable in what God has given. But in verse three he says has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. That's God. He's given absolutely all things having to do with life and godliness. And then in the next verse he says, has given unto us great and precious promises.
And so part of coming to our knowledge of God is to appreciate.
God is a great giver.
God so loved the world that He gave his.
His only begotten Son.
There's nothing in man that compares with the greatness of God as a giver.
And.
We do well to recognize.
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And enjoy and appreciate those things that Scripture brings out to us of our God and how he gives and in fact in the ads that come later here have to do with some of the things that are carried out the divine nature practically in our lives.
But is this very characteristic of God? He first tells us what he's given us.
And then he tells us how to live consistent with what he's given in the Old Testament and the way it once was. God says you do this, this, and this, and I'll give you that, or I'll let you have that.
As a result of it. And so the giving was conditional upon the doing. But in Christianity it's turned around and God is free to act in his own righteousness now.
That the work has been done. Now he can come out and reveal his heart as a giver and a greater fullness and say I'm going to give you. And then based on what I've given you, I'm going to tell you and exhort you to live consistent with it so that you and I can have communion together in that which I have given.
I would also suggest that the end of verse three in that sense is part of it.
Read it at the end of verse three, as I believe it is in the Darby translation. He has called us to glory and virtue. That's true, but more accurately it should read by glory and virtue.
It's God's glory that we are called to. We are called by his glory because God.
Is going to glorify his beloved Son as head over all things and there's going to be a glory displayed in that day.
That this world has never seen anything like before, and you and I are going to share that glory.
And Brother Steve, I believe that's one thing we learn as we get to know God is we learn more of all that He is going to share with us in that coming glory.
But then He calls us by glory and virtue and virtue, I suppose, simply stated, we could stay instead of that word, moral courage. Moral courage, and that is needed in a world of today. Moral courage to stand up for what we know would please the Lord moral Kurds not to succumb to the ways of the world around us needed more than ever.
But whose moral courage is before us here, the Lords?
Who displayed that moral courage above anyone else? The Lord Jesus in his pathway through this world? Who went through this world suffering every kind of.
Insult and sin from without, from every direction, and yet maintained that moral courage in grace in every possible situation, the Lord Jesus. And so He has given that to us, and it will be ours.
In the knowledge of Him, in the knowledge of God our Savior Jesus Christ. And then of course, there are promises, as we have in the fourth verse. But God has given us all those things. And the more we walk with the Lord, the more we know Him, the more those things become a present, living reality in our lives.
I enjoy thinking of Peter as an example to us of a person who and whom God worked these things. When you think of how Peter behaved when they was here with the Lord on earth and he failed in so many, so many ways, even though he won the argument, maybe I suppose, of who was the greatest and and there's a lot of moral things that you you admirable about Peter, but.
What a different man. You see him here as he ministers on these things. He talks about the amount of transfiguration in this, in this chapter in a total different way than he did when he was there. He really spoiled it when he was there by what he spoke unadvisedly asking to make 3 tabernacles. But now he's, he's walking in the power of this new life and he's obedient and he is a man that's a humble as a servant of Jesus Christ. Instead of boasting who's the greatest, he's just the opposite. He's a servant.
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And so he's a beautiful example to us of these things that we're talking about. He is the human author that God gave us to reveal what we're talking about, about knowing God. It's beautiful to see it coming out of a Peter.
And all he was before and now what he is, how he bold he was on Pentecost and standing up for the Lord.
That moral courage that he lacked on the day of the Lord's crucifixion, later on he independence and as a follower of Jesus Christ, what moral courage he had and so on. And so we can't ask one another how to how to know God. We got to go to him ourselves and find it out. And Peter is one of the witnesses that.
Tells us these things that we have part of our New Testament by, and so it's good to see how God gave us what kind of author he gave us to write this book about these things.
Can we say?
Asking this is a question, but when it says according to the divine power.
Given us all things that pertain unto life, that is eternal life and godliness. What does these things? Is it the Holy Spirit that dwells within us? Is it at this moment that the Lord Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father praying for me that I do not stumble? Is it is it that when I do stumble, He's the advocate? Are all are these the things that pertain unto life and godliness that He has given to us?
Keep on.
The old brother used to say that.
One of those verses you should say that we have all the virtues of Christ undeveloped, but we so we do have these different things that God has given us to that we might be able to live like one brother said, live the life that we have. We have a life that nothing can take away from it. I remember Chuck Kendrick saying we have a life that we cannot even sin away.
But this is talking about practically living that life that we have and so God has given us.
Weapons or supplies that we might. So we have the very a divine being living within us. The Lord is up there praying for us that you've got great high priest. And as I say, he's there for the advocate. If we fail, he's there to restore us. So no excuses.
I don't can add to that.
2 words I think are a good explanation. God gave us no reason to fail. He's provided everything, and if there's a failure, it's never God's fault. I think Bill emphasized that in the last meeting too. God has given us everything we need to walk the Christian path. Wonderful to hear Peter saying that.
And I believe it includes, Brother Vern, those things that you mentioned, the Holy Spirit come down and Christ in his high priestly character and advocate. But I would suggest too, that what we have here goes beyond that in the beyond it in one sense, that it brings it right down to the problems and difficulties and situations of everyday life in God's Word and through the knowledge of our Lord.
God and Savior Jesus Christ, there is the wisdom of God for every kind of difficulty and situation that you and I will face down here in the modern world. Sad to say, and we don't want to point the finger because we can all be guilty of it, but Christianity in some cases has embraced the wisdom of man, has embraced things that have to do with psychology and all the rest of it.
To try and figure out how to live a happy, fulfilled Christian life.
01:00:01
And as her brother used to remark many years ago, the wisdom of man is.
Or no, he used to say it in another way. He said the wisdom of God is not merely an improvement on the wisdom of man. It is the exact opposite of man's wisdom. And so when we when we look to man's wisdom, unless that wisdom is founded on what we have in God's Word, it will always lead us in the wrong direction.
And there is a lot of so-called wisdom circulating around out there today that, sad to say, many believers are being caught up in. And it's disastrous because it's contrary to what God gives in His Word. But I would suggest that it's not only those major things you might say that undergird at all that we've already mentioned, but it's the wisdom of God in not merely reading His Word, although it comes through His Word.
But in the knowledge of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, and then we find there isn't one single situation, one single problem, one single difficulty that you and I can ever face. But what we don't have wisdom from God to don't know how to act in it for his glory.
I've enjoyed this week meditating on the verse where the Lord said to Peter, Peter, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fell not.
Who, who better, who more would be want to pray for us at anytime except the Lord Himself? We enjoy the prayers of our brethren, certainly, but to have God Himself.
Pray for us that our faith fell not in one sense, it's almost impossible for us that our faith would fail when you think where that power is coming from and not from us. But I really enjoyed that this week.
Make this comment as well on the 1St 4 verses of the chapter and that is it starts with.
Our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
And.
We see the Lord Jesus as a man here on earth having all things that pertain to life and godliness and He lived out a perfect life here on this earth with all the resources as a man.
Of that which depends upon God and in His own.
Divine nature as a man, and now because it's the purpose of God that each one of us is. I love what Doug's dad used to say. God is so pleased with his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that he wants heaven filled with people that are just like him. And in that sense, even before we get to heaven, God wants the same character of life in US going through the same difficulties.
If you will of life, that the Lord Jesus lived out as a man here on earth, and so he has given to us.
In giving us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, He's given us that life, that divine nature.
That as the Lord Jesus lived in the power of the Spirit in his own life, we have in Romans 8 and chapter one the same thing with respect to ourselves, that we are to walk in the same character. And so as our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, we have been given all those things that characterize the life of the Lord Jesus.
That we too might go through life with the same resources to the same destiny. And these first four verses are bringing out particularly that side of it, you might say, preparing us to do the actual living out that the subsequent exhortations.
Emphasize, but I think the 1St 4 verses are more particularly the preparation of a God and Savior saying OK I know what's ahead of you.
And I know your destiny and I'm giving these things to you and it's a perfect provision for you.
4 verses are what God brings to us, and from 5 on through 7 is what we bring to God.
01:05:01
Is that right?
Because if those things are not.
Cultivated in our life, then it tells us that we'll like these things will be blind and cannot see a far off myopia is just seeing what's around us. The woman in the 13th of Luke, what did she do? She was bent over. What could she see? She could just see herself and she could just see that which was right around her. The circumstances were around her. She couldn't see a far off so the Lord healed her and what did you see? The first thing she saw was a was a face of the Lord.
Wasn't it? Now she's right. And I think that's what's here. We often pray for five or four or five brothers that we've broken bread with, that we've prayed with.
Hours. Where are they today?
One is in the Greek Orthodox Church, the other one is on his third wife.
The other one has.
Gone off and feels like he can never come back because he's left his wife and he's married.
You know and.
He's they've lost their view of what's ahead of them and that's what Peter is putting before us.
Were called to glory, or by glory and virtue.
So it can happen to anyone of us. I, I'm, I, I believe that we're not home yet. So any of us can fall into this category, can't we?
Oh, come thou stricken.
The Lord.
In my mercy.
Do I die?
Every day.
Goodbye.
For.
All About me.
Thy glory.