Peter's Last Will And Testimony

Good morning. I want to take a minute just to thank everybody who's been praying for me. I'm sure you all have. Things are going really good, so I want to just thank everybody for that and let you know. You know, it's Father's Day, so I want to wish everybody a happy Father's Day, all you fathers out there. I didn't really write anything for that, but as I was looking at Peter, I thought, What does a father want for his children except to live a good life, to know what's right and what's wrong, to know where to turn for answers?

And that really, thinking about Father's Day and looking at 2 Peter, that's what he wants for his people. And so, let's pray. We do thank you, Father, that you have blessed us with hearts that are no longer dead in sin, but that you've given us life in Christ. Father, we plead with you today that if there's anyone here who does not know Christ, that you would open their heart to the truth, Lord, that you would give them life.

Show them Christ, Lord, who was by your side for all eternity. And you sent down here and he willingly came down to live a perfect life, one that we did not live, and yet you had commanded us to not to sin. Father you also pronounced the penalty for sin and that was to be deserted by you and Christ also took that penalty on him and on the cross he he prayed my God my God why have you forsaken me and so Father those who don't know Christ will be forsaken for all eternity and we would pray that we would have hearts for them Lord and pray for them we thank you again Lord that we have the assurity of your spirit that it's not by what we've done but it's by what Christ has done that we can go to heaven we ask Father that you would give us understanding of your word not only today but whenever we read it we pray Father that you would bless as Greg prayed that you would bless me with your spirit that I could proclaim the truth that you've given us and so we thank you in Christ's name Amen you know before we look at any scripture it's always good to remember who the authors are so the number one author is God the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3 All Scripture is God and is useful for teaching rebuking correcting and training in righteousness so the servant of God can be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So we need to know God's Word and know it clearly so that we're able to help one another with that, and so that God can teach us with it. The second author is the man that God used to write that whatever book it is. And so we want to understand the man who wrote it because God uses particular people in particular ways. I like the way John MacArthur put it.

John MacArthur said when God wanted to write poetry, he grabbed a poet like David. And when he wanted to write a book of wisdom, he would grab someone like Solomon and he would write that. He used Moses to write the law. so God's given each one of us personalities and it helps to understand the scriptures if we understand the human author and his personality just consider Paul what do we know about the apostle Paul he was out to destroy the church he was there when Stephen was stoned he went out and he drug people off to the high priest so that they could either be put to death or just imprisoned until God appeared to him on the road to Damascus and at that point He was as passionate to spread the gospel as he was to destroy the gospel.

So what do we know about Peter? And how much do we know Peter? Peter was a fisherman. Jesus called him at the beginning of his ministry. We know that Peter was often quick to speak, often putting his foot in his mouth. He said a lot of things that he shouldn't have said.

He acted as the spokesman for the apostles often. He was one who would confront Jesus. When Jesus was walking on the water and the other disciples in the boat thought he was a ghost, and Jesus said, don't fear, it's me. Peter says, if it's you, call me to come out and walk to you. Can you imagine saying that to Jesus as he's walking towards the boat? Hey, if it really is you, let me come out there with you.

Well, he said, come on out. Peter comes out. He looks around. He gets scared. He starts sinking. He cries out for Jesus to save him. when Jesus says that the disciples are going to to desert him Peter corrects him again not me I won do it even if everybody else does it I won do it and of course we know that he did three times you know when when Jesus told the disciples that he must be must suffer and be killed peter said no way it not going to happen we won let that happen and jesus then says get behind me satan so peter was pretty pretty outspoken often saying things he shouldn't have said jesus was close enough to him that um that uh he took him up on the mount of transfiguration where Jesus was his glory started to show if you know the story of the transfiguration you have Moses and Elijah show up representing the law and the prophets you have God speaking from heaven about Christ and so Peter is there of course again he's ready to jump in and do something he wants to put tents up for everybody he wasn't getting what was going on and so So Jesus tells Peter that Satan wants to sift him like wheat.

And Jesus granted that to Satan, to sift Peter like wheat. Are we ready to be sifted like wheat? If Satan were to request from Jesus to sift us, how would we handle that? So think about that with Peter as we're thinking about who he is. Peter was outspoken. What did he say at his first sermon, really, in Acts chapter 2?

You know, he looked at the Jews who were there, and he said, you, with the hands of wicked men, crucified and killed Christ. Now, there's a testimony to bring people to Christ, isn't it? Hey, you killed him. And yet, that's the way he handled it. So we need to keep in mind that when Jesus started his public ministry, he was around the age of 30, So Peter also probably would have been around the age of 30.

Jesus' ministry lasted about three years, and then he was crucified. Peter's ministry lasted about 30 years. So he's about 60 years old when he's going to be executed. He has had 30 years of ministry before he writes 2 Peter. Keep that in mind as we're looking at 2 Peter. At the time that he's writing this second letter, Nero was the emperor.

Rome had burned, 70% of Rome had burned. And it's the time where they say that Nero was playing the fiddle. He didn care that the city was on fire He blamed the Christians for it So there was a lot of hatred for Christians And the fire actually lasted for six days Seventy percent of Rome was burned Many people didn't have homes after that. So with that in mind, do you think that Peter would write something about standing firm in your faith?

You know, you're going to have the world coming against you. Stand firm. That's not what he writes. It is what we see in chapter 10 of Hebrews. Let's just look real quick at Hebrews chapter 10. And Hebrews was written within 10 years of 2 Peter.

So the same things are going on. When we look at the scriptures, the New Testament, you're going to see 13 letters of Paul written primarily, really all to Gentiles. And when you get into Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude, it's written to Hebrews or the Israelites or the Jews. They're different names for the same people. There's a whole different way of understanding God when you were raised as a Jew versus raised as a Gentile worshiping pagan gods.

And so when we're reading the letters to these people, we need to just kind of have a different mindset. Well, what the writer of Hebrews writes to the Jews is, starting in 1032, Recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. You had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had better possessions than an abiding one.

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward, for you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. You know, what would we do if our property was being plundered because we were Christians? Maybe not outwardly because we're Christians, but just being plundered. You know, we have a tendency to really protect our property.

Get too close to somebody on the freeway and see how angry people get sometimes. Unfortunately, I drive too much. Paul Haynes and I talk a lot on the phone and he has a situation where people you know you can just see it on the road if you're on the road a lot you can really see how angry people get not when you hit them just when you get close to them unintentionally and I'm probably I'm more guilty of that than anyone, so I need to be patient when people do it to me.

But these guys were publicly exposed to reproach and affliction. They were being put in prison. And the writer encourages them not to throw away their confidence. But it's not what Peter does. He did that in his first letter. But in his second letter, which was written about ten years before that, in his second letter, he's following more the lines of Jude.

What we've got in the church at the time of Jude and 2 Peter is we've got false teaching coming in. we have lies being told about Christ not ignoring Christ and bringing in a different God but bringing in a different Christ that's where we are today let's start off I just want to do a quick overview of 2 Peter and hopefully this isn't too clunky but when we're going to look at a book of the Bible we should look at the whole thing first try to figure out who the author is, what he's trying to say, why he's trying to say it. So let's look at chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. Simeon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Christ Jesus, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord. it's interesting how he says Simon Peter a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ when you think of false teachers do they generally appear to be servants or are they out to get what they can look at some of the mega churches that we have not all mega churches are bad but there's many that are the big goal of a mega church is to bring people in in any way you can the idea is you got to bring people in and so you bring people in and you look at some of the things that go on in the churches today and how much money is spent on these ministers who are proclaiming a gospel that is really no gospel at all as the scriptures say so we've got to be careful as we're listening to ministers and we've got to really understand the word now look at how the idea of an apostle is one who was sent Apostle means one sent Today we have people who claim to be apostles Now is that proper terminology In Christian circles it's really not.

When you think of apostle, you should think of the 12 apostles that Jesus appointed to found the church. Is it okay to use the term apostle if it's just one being sent? Yes. But you've got ministers out there who claim to have gone to heaven. We'll talk about them in a little bit. Who's the audience?

That's the next thing that we need to look at when we're going to understand the book. Who is the audience that 2 Peter is written to? He says, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Do you think that your faith is equal to Peter's? He does. Faith is a gift from God, and so the faith that you have and the faith that Peter has is one and the same.

Now, someone may be more of a mature Christian than another Christian, and we may be growing at different rates, but that's not what gets us to heaven. What gets us to heaven is faith, and faith is a gift. So we've all got the same level of faith. And as Peter says, we are in equal standing with the apostles. That's pretty neat. so as as we think about that you know the judge of the universe of angels and of each person grants salvation to each believer and the faith that he requires is a gift no one gets more than anyone else we stand with equal we stand equal with Peter unworthy and in complete need of God's divine power it's important for us to understand that this letter along with the first letter was written to the same group of Christians who was first Peter written?

We know that because if you look at chapter 3, verse 1, it says this is now the second letter I'm writing to you. So let's look at the first letter to see who these people are. First Peter, chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who are elect exiles of dispersion in Pontius Galatia Cappadocia Asia Bithynia According to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience To Jesus Christ for the sprinkling with his blood so when we look at these guys they came from these cities Those cities are in Asia Minor which is present Turkey And if you look in Acts chapter 2 you see that group of people were there Those are the ones that Peter said, you, with the help of wicked men, killed Jesus and crucified him.

So he's writing to people who have, some of them have had faith for 30 years. they've been walking in the faith for 30 years. Now, there's going to be new believers there, too. When we think about Turkey and Jerusalem, it's about 6,000 miles away from each other. Sorry, it's about 800 miles away from each other, not 6,000. It's about 800 miles away from each other.

In those days, it would have taken about a month and a half to get there. Everybody walked. You carried everything you needed on your back. There weren't too many holiday inns. And the inns that were there were usually not very clean, and they were ripped off a lot. Which is why when you read about Peter moving around, he stays with believers.

And we're told to host people who are traveling because the inns were not honest innkeepers. So they would have only made that trip probably once in their lifetime. when you're looking at Pentecost you're looking at that being about 50 that is 50 days after Passover so Jesus was crucified at Passover those Jews that came down at that time would have stayed probably for more than a month they would have understood what Peter was talking about they would have seen Christ crucified they may have even been the ones yelling for him to be crucified so when you're reading second peter think about it from a jewish mindset like i was saying as we read through second peter you're going to hear a lot of things that if you're not a jew you wouldn't understand if you haven't been raised a christian you you wouldn't understand and as we as as more mature believers are talking to less mature believers or people who haven't been in the faith as long we've got to be careful because people may not always understand who noah is They may not understand who David is. We take all that for granted.

But if you're going to be out witnessing, you've got to be thinking, now wait a minute are they going to understand what Sodom and Gomorrah is Who was Lot Who was this guy called Lot We not in a Christian society anymore where these kind of things are talked about the way they used to be. And so people just aren't familiar with the stories of the Bible. So when Peter writes, he is writing as though they understand all these stories.

And they probably did because I believe he's writing to Jews. The older commentaries say that 2 Peter was written to primarily Jewish churches. Newer commentaries are putting it that it was written to Gentile churches. And looking at everything, I really believe it was written to Jewish churches. Not that there weren't any Gentiles in those churches, but I think as you look through, looking at Acts chapter 2, and looking at the cities it was written to, it would have been Jews who took the message back to their home cities.

And the churches were developed off of that. So when Peter's writing this, he was also the apostle to the Jews. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. Peter was the apostle to the Jews. And so the scriptures seem to back up that it was written to Jews. Now, when we look at, I suppose, I put in my notes here, there's not enough time to explain all that. maybe it went into a little more explanation than I should have.

So, hold on just a second. Now, I do want to say that when we come to salvation, there's no benefit to being a Jew or a Gentile. We're all wicked sinners in need of God's salvation. It's just that we come from different backgrounds. And since we come from different backgrounds, we have different understanding of who God is. So if we're going to be good witnesses and testify about Christ, we've got to understand that when we're talking to people.

The question really isn't, here's something when we're talking to people, the question really isn't, have you accepted Jesus? The question is, has Jesus accepted you? God doesn't need us to accept him. We need God to accept us. And it's different theologies that lead into that way of thinking. And what we've got to understand is that we're sinners in desperate need of a Savior to accept us.

Our Savior is not in desperate need of us to accept him. Paul says if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, Lord, you will be saved. So if you've never come to Jesus for salvation and he's calling you, don't put it off. If you're here this morning and you're an unbeliever and you're thinking, you know, I do need this Christ, talk to a Christian here.

Every one of us in this congregation should be able to lead someone to Christ. It's easy. Confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and you'll be saved. That's a public confession of faith. There's more as we're growing. it's done it says Paul says this sorry Peter says this in 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 2 may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord how do we have God's grace and his peace multiplied within us what does Peter say by the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ where do we get this knowledge The knowledge has to come from scriptures, right?

So there's more than a few lessons in this, but let's just read it real quick. Look at verses 3 to 11. This is Peter giving some definition on what it means to be a Christian. His divine power, God's divine power, has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires.

Break that apart for a minute. God's divine power is the first thing. It is helping us with life and godliness. And the way his divine power helps us with life and godliness is through the knowledge of God, who called us to his own glory and excellence. It's not our glory and excellence. It's not what we're doing.

He has, by these things he's granted to us, his precious and very great promises. What other promises has he given us? There are a lot of promises in the scriptures, and we should probably write them out sometime. We think right away, we think, well, we have eternal life in heaven. But if you read 1 Corinthians 3, Paul tells us that there are going to be rewards.

In Revelation 14 verse 13 it talks about the rewards that we have So we should understand that God promises rewards and they are great promises so that through them we can become partakers of the divine nature What does it mean to become partakers of the divine nature? Do we think that during the week? When you're at church, if you're going to be partakers of the divine nature, what would you look like?

Or what do you look like? We've all seen godly people. Well, hopefully we're all godly when we're out there. It's going to be a struggle. So here's the answer to that. Here's how Peter says to do it.

I'm really familiar with Paul, so forgive me if that's Peter. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. for if these qualities are yours and increasing they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ for everlaxes qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins therefore brothers be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure for if you practice these qualities you will never fall for in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the kingdom into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Again, we're going to be richly provided for when we go into the kingdom.

If we do all these things. Now salvation is not earned, but the way that we live is rewarded. I mean, we need to do it anyway just because God has given us a new heart, so we're supposed to look like Christ. But it's really neat as you think about the fact that God has promised us rewards in heaven. Now, the idea of Peter here writing his last letter, he is in prison.

He knows that he's going to die. He says that in a minute. Again, as I'm thinking about Father's Day here, he sounds like a father with his children. Look at verse 12. Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities. though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. Sounds like children when you say, listen you need to do this And it like okay dad we know We heard this a hundred times from you How many of you dads get that from your children You trying to explain to them something that they need to know They already know it.

They already got it down. You've said it so many times, they can't miss it. Sometimes they can say it faster than you can. But here's a man who loves his congregation, which is in many cities, just like we would love our children. and we keep reminding there's these things in life that you really need to know and that's what paul's doing here peter is doing here therefore i intend always to remind you of these qualities though you know them and are established in the truth that you have i think it is right as long as i am in this body to stir you up by way of reminder since i know the putting off of my body will be soon as our lord jesus christ has made clear and i will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things.

He writes a very short letter when you think about everything he wants them to remember. Did you notice something here? He knows he's going to die. And how does he phrase that? How does he phrase that? He's going to die.

And he says this in verse 14, I know the putting off of my body will be soon. do we think of death as putting off our body you know when you go home and you're getting ready for bed you put off your clothes time to put on different clothes that's what death is we don't cease to exist our spirits will go on for all eternity and we need to think about that when we have family or friends who don't know Christ as their savior there's a point at which they're going to put off their body and they're going to go somewhere. And so we want to help them understand the truth of the gospel. Now it takes God to open their heart, but it takes us to voice it to them.

And he goes on to say in verse 16, For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. for when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice borne to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased, we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the mountain Okay so here Peter he on the mountain he saying wow you know we got Moses got Elijah we got God Jesus glowing with his divine nature rather than his human nature He's now showing some of that divine nature to them. And look at what he says in verse 19. we have something more sure the prophetic word to which you will do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart knowing first of all that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit so again when scripture when scripture was written it's not some man going oh, I want to write this. But it is God saying, I'm going to use your personality and I'm going to direct you.

When you read in 2 Timothy 3.16 that God breathes it out, the Holy Spirit indwells us. When we come to be a believer, the Holy Spirit indwells us. And with these men, he breathed out the scriptures. Now, the reason Paul is saying this is because what he's going to get into in chapter 2, there's no division in the original letters. But he says, but false prophets also arose among the people just as there will be false teachers among you.

So he's telling us, don't go with your feelings. Don't go with those things that excite you like the mountain, your mountaintop experience. Maybe it's from God. Maybe it's not from, his was from God. But we have these mountaintop experiences where I'm just sure God was speaking to me. Well, if God was speaking to you, it's going to line up with the scriptures.

If the scriptures are against what you're thinking God told you, go with the scriptures. But there are many preachers out there today who go with their feelings. We have many false teachers out there today who tell you what you want to hear, who tell you what your desires are. Is it sin in the Bible? Well, not anymore. That was back then.

Well, you know, you need to go with the Bible. And you wonder, why would God do that? What's the purpose? If God is all-powerful, why does he let false teachers and false prophets occur? Let's go back to 2 Chronicles. If you heard the reading that Levi did, it's kind of interesting.

2 Chronicles 18.21 The prophet Micaiah says about this spirit speaking to God, well, let's back it up to 20. A spirit came forward and stood before the Lord saying, I will entice him. And the Lord said to him, by what means? Here's a spirit talking to God about how he's going to entice Ahab to go to his death. 21. The spirit said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets. and God said, you are to entice him and you shall succeed.

Go out and do it. That's pretty tough. That's pretty tough language there. Let me catch up with my notes here because I... Actually, I got... Read chapter 18, 2 Chronicles 18, 1 to 7.

Jehoshaphat had great riches and honors and he made a marriage alliance with Ahab now Jehoshaphat is in Judah and Ahab is in Israel and so it's the two kings Israel was split apart we have one nation that's been split apart and so sometimes the kings would get together and work in alliance and sometimes they would fight each other so what we've got now is the two kings getting together so Jehoshaphat had great riches and honor and he made a marriage alliance with Ahab after some years he went down to Ahab in Samaria and Ahab killed an abundance of sheep and oxen for him for the people who were with him and induced him to go up against Ramoth Gilead Ahab king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah will you go with me to Ramoth Gilead and he answered him I am as you are and your people as my people we will be with you in the war. And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, inquire first for the word of the Lord. Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, 400 men, and said to them, shall we go to battle against Ramoth Gilead or shall I refrain?

And they said, go up for God will give it into the hands of the king. Look at what Jehoshaphat does. He says, is there not another prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire. Jehoshaphat picked up, these are false prophets. Ahab, you've got 400 prophets here who are not speaking for God. Don't you have one who does?

And look at what King Ahab says in verse 7 And the king of Israel said to Josaphat there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord Micaiah the son of Imlah but I hate him for he never prophesies good concerning me, but always evil. So what do we know about Ahab? Is Ahab wanting to honor God, or is he wanting to honor Ahab? It's a really neat story as you read through there, what happens with Ahab and how he dies.

He tries to hide, so he puts on just a soldier's armor. And God has one of the enemies shoot an arrow up in the air, and it comes between his plates. And to fulfill a prophecy that you can read about, he bleeds all day. Let's look at a character reference for King Ahab. Go to 1 Kings chapter 21. So if we want to know what kind of man Ahab is, 1 Kings chapter 21.

Verse 25. Verse 25. This is about Ahab. There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel, his wife, incited him. You can read the stories of Ahab and Jehoshaphat and, sorry, Ahab and Jezebel. It's just a good plot.

If you like murder mysteries and like these kind of movies and stuff, read about them. It's in 1 Kings chapter 16 and it ends in 2 Kings chapter 9. It's great to see what God does with these people. And as God is working things out in the Old Testament, we need to see that he uses evil. and so when we look today when we look today let's go back to Thessalonians look at what God says through Paul in 2 Thessalonians he says the coming of the lawless one will be by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders This is going to be deception.

It's not going to be the Muslims doing these kind of things, or the Satanists doing these kind of things That wouldn deceive us We would know that not of God Instead it going to have people doing these things If you look in verse 10, with all wicked deception for those who are perishing. Because why is God going against them? Same reason with Ahab. Because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

So do we love the truth? even when the truth is opposed to what we want. Sometimes, sometimes we've just got to step back and say, God, I'm sinning again. We talked about this in Sunday school. I'm sinning again, God. Romans chapter 7. Paul says, the good I want to do, this I don't do.

But the evil that I don't want to do, this I keep on doing. But Paul recognizes it is evil. I want to do good. I keep doing the evil. If you're struggling with things in your Christian walk, just continue to love what is good. Even when you're doing what is evil, step back and say, I hate this.

Why am I doing this again? Don't say, oh, it's okay. It's okay. God's a forgiving God. He'll be okay with it. It's just a little sin.

There's carnal sins and there's menial sins with some theologies. The truth is, sin is sin. The only sin that is set apart is one in Corinthians, but you can look that one up. And sin is sin, though. The penalty of sin is what? Death.

And death is when you put off your body, you spend eternity away from God. And we need to grieve with that. So, okay. So do you see the connection between Ahab and the 400 false prophets? Because Ahab wondered what was evil. And when we look at 2 Thessalonians, the same thing.

God is going to allow false prophets. In fact, if we read it, it says God sends them a strong delusion so they may believe what is false. And so God sometimes gives us just what we want to our demise. So that's pretty tough, pretty tough when you read that. So we looking at those false teachers in 2 Peter If you jump to chapter 3 we look at the scoffers How many of you, I guess we're a show of hands on this, probably everybody to some degree, how many of you have had somebody scoff at you because you say you believe in Christ?

If that's never happened to you, you're being too quiet. You've got to start talking to people. You've got to start talking to people. Tell them who your God is. We have a God who says, proclaim my name to all the nations. And we can't all do that aggressively.

And sometimes at work we need to be careful. But there's all kinds of opportunities that we have for it. And you're going to have people scoff at you. Oh, yeah, you believe in that Noah's Ark thing, don't you? What do you think of when you hear about Noah's Ark? Do you think about the little thing back in the nursery where you've got this little boat and you've got a couple of giraffe heads sticking out of it?

Maybe an elephant trunk sticking out? or do you know what the Bible says about the ark? It's larger than a football field. It's three stories tall. And there was enough room in there to handle all the animals. If you read the dimensions, it took 100 years to build it. So when we're talking about the ark, we're talking about a real floating warehouse.

Now, do you believe that? Do you believe that the whole world was flooded? people say oh that was a regional flood well the Bible says it was a whole world flood so which is it? we need to really determine which one it is that we need to think about so we need to be careful with false teachers they're going to give you what you want, keep that in mind they're going to give you what you want so you need to love the truth, look at the truth and see how their teaching lines up with the truth we're going to have scoffers who come and those scoffers are going to scoff at you because you think there's a heaven and a hell. You're going to have people who...

Just look at the last paragraph there in 2 Peter chapter 3. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found at peace with Him without spot or blemish, and count the patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, just as our beloved Paul also wrote you according to the wisdom given to him as he does in all his letters when he speaks of these matters. There are some things in Paul's letters that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people twist. their own destruction as they do the other scriptures.

So these people who are taking Paul's letters and twisting the truth in them, they're doing it with the other scriptures. They're not giving you something new. They're taking the truth and twisting it. Verse 18 says, Grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

So let's pray. Father, we do thank you that you've given us your word, that you have given us the truth, that you've given us your spirit that we can understand and grow in the knowledge. You are not a God who is too far to reach or too far to understand. You have shown us that you have loved us with an everlasting love, that you've given us Christ on the cross. you have shown us that there is an enemy out there who desires to defeat us not that he can take us to hell but that he can defeat just our joy Lord and our understanding of your word Father we know that we can never fully understand who you are you're greater than we will spend all eternity getting to know you and loving you more and more but Lord I do pray for each of us here today that we would take your word that we would look into it that we would discover more things about you.

It's a living word. You've given us that, that as we read it over and over, we'll gain more and more out of it, Lord. And so we pray that you give us a desire to read it. We pray that we would understand the environment that it was written in, the society that it was written in, just the time and the author who wrote it, who you used, and his personality so that we can rejoice more and more in what you've given us, Lord.

So we thank you. In Christ's name. Amen.