A Call to Greater Things
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
1. The author of the Epistle. It is most refreshing and certainly inspiring to open the Bible and find an Epistle which is indited by the Holy Ghost, and which begins with the two words, "Simon Peter."
The opening verse says, "Simon Peter, a servant and an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith."
How blessed that the fisher of men, the rough, rugged, headstrong, backsliding, cursing Peter, who said, "I know not this Man of whom ye speak," should have his name enrolled thus at the beginning of one of two remarkable Epistles found within the Word of God. It plainly shows us what grace can accomplish.
Simon Peter, erstwhile fisherman and wanderer, became Simon Peter, under God, the writer of an Epistle. Simon Peter, also, will have his name, along with the others of the twelve who served Jesus, emblazoned in letters of gold upon the walls of the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, which cometh down from God out of Heaven.
Perhaps, we, too, may press our way to some position of Divine recognition, and to some recognition in God's eternal glory, if we now prove faithful to our Lord.
2. The saints to whom the Epistle is addressed. These are called "them that have obtained like precious faith," The Apostle did not say "attained," but "obtained," because faith itself is a gift of God.
The method of their obtaining is written down thus: "through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."
Thank God for such a statement! Our position in faith did not come to us through any righteousness of our own. It was faith by which we were justified, and it was faith through which we were proclaimed righteous.
The extent of our righteousness is the righteousness of God, and of Christ. We read He was made sin for us "that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."
3. Future multiplications. Having announced the fact of their faith, Peter in the second verse adds, "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you." A little later we will talk about things being added to our faith. When we add, it is by an addition table. When God works, however, He works by the multiplication table.
Being saved, we have grace and peace. This was the result of our salvation. It was immediately received. However, grace and peace are multiplied more and more as we enter into the knowledge of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ.
4. Exceeding great promises. 2 Peter 1:3 mentions one of God's gifts to us. It tells us that "all things that pertain unto life and godliness" have been given unto us. 2 Peter 1:4 tells us that "exceeding great and precious promises" have been given unto us. How enriched we are!
The Apostle Paul wrote, "all things are yours." He then specified, whether "life, or death, or things present, or things to come." The Apostle Peter now adds the statement we have just read. It is a joy to know that all the promises in the Word of God are ours.
We would like to follow the example of the aged saint who wrote in her Bible opposite many a verse "T" and "P." When asked what these letters meant, she said they meant "Tried" and "Proved." She had placed these letters beside many precious promises. May God help us to do the same.
I. A CALL TO DILIGENCE (2 Peter 1:5-7)
The Apostle Peter saw something in the Christian's life beyond the things which have been noted heretofore. He saw something beyond grace and peace, something beyond being made a partaker of the Divine nature, something more than escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust. Weigh well the words of 2 Peter 1:5; "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue," etc.
1. What the Christian should add. The very word "add" is suggestive of increase; not only of increase, however, but of our own increasing. "Add" is not something that God does for us, it is something that we do for ourselves. We are to add to our faith virtue; to our virtue knowledge, etc. Perhaps, we might put it this way:
"We are building every day
A temple the world may not see:
Building, building, every day,
Building for eternity,"
Jesus Christ is the foundation upon which we build. We are saved by grace. Upon this fountain we may build gold, silver, precious stones, or we may build hay, wood, and stubble.
2. To this adding God wants us to give all diligence. We are not to be unmindful of the. part which we must play in our own destiny. We are saved apart from works, but being saved, we may work with all energy and with all skill.
Did not Christ say, "Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal?" Have we read: "Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be?" Beloved, let us add to our "faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity."
II. A STRIKING CONTRAST (2 Peter 1:8-9)
1. If these things abound in you. Some one may ask, "What is the ideal of Christian living?" It is not half so much the work that we do as it is the life that we live. When we think of rewards, we think of them as being given, unto us by virtue of our service. However, rewards lie pre-eminently in the realm of holy living.
It is through the addition of spiritualities that we may abound in spiritualities, becoming neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mark you, 2 Peter 1:9 tells us something else that is very serious. Let us notice it as our second point.
2. "He that lacketh these things." What does God say? He says that such an one is blind and cannot see afar off, and that he has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
A little babe is supposed to grow. A Christian is supposed to develop. He is to add, day by day, to that which God gave him when he was born again.
If the Christian remains a babe and fails to give all diligence in adding to his faith, God says that he is blind.
Alas, alas, how many Christians seem to be satisfied with being born again. They give but little, if any thought, to developing the glories and the beauties of a Christian character.
Why is the Holy Ghost dwelling within us? He is there in order to make us more and more like unto our Lord. Have we not read how we are changed from glory unto glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord? God wants us to be no longer children tossed to and fro. He wants us to grow up in Christ "in all things."
III. AN ABUNDANT ENTRANCE (2 Peter 1:10-11)
Once more Peter says, "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence." This must be a very vital matter. There is seme reason for Peter's great urge. God has a calling and election for saints, but He wants us to give diligence to make that calling and election sure.
Paul speaks of laying hold upon that for which he had been laid hold upon by Christ Jesus. The Lord places a wonderful prospective before us: a goal. He wants us to press towards that goal until we reach "the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
1. There is placed before us the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord. Our election has something to do with this Kingdom. Our adding to our faith, virtue; to our virtue, knowledge, etc., has something to do with this Kingdom. The Kingdom is the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the earth. This reign is the great consummation of the Saviour's anticipated glory.
2. There is placed before us an abundant entrance into that Kingdom. Peter, in the Holy Ghost, definitely said, "Give all diligence, add, * * For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom."
This expression carries nothing less than this truth: saints may enter into the Kingdom, and saints may enter abundantly into the Kingdom. We may be saved, as it were, by the "skin of our teeth," and we may be saved with added crowns and glory.
It is not just getting in that appeals to the true believer; it is getting in "abundantly."
Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
Life will have an entering in, but an abundant life will have an abundant entering into the Everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
IV. PETER'S AMBITION (2 Peter 1:12-15)
The Apostle Peter, and the Holy Spirit in him felt so deeply about the need of adding to our early Christian experience, and felt so deeply the truth of the possibility of an abundant entrance into the Kingdom of Christ, that he experienced an holy ambition.
1. That ambition was to put the disciples always in remembrance of these things. Of this, in 2 Peter 1:12, Peter said, "I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things." He even told them that, while they were established in the truth, he still would press the truth more strongly upon them.
2. That ambition was to stir up the saints by putting them in remembrance. This is in 2 Peter 1:13 : "to stir you up by putting you in remembrance." This shows added fire, added energy, and added ambition. He would not merely remind them, of how they might obtain an abundant entrance into the Kingdom, but he would stir them up about it. The Apostle Peter would endeavor after his own death to have these things always in remembrance.
3. That ambition was to be in operation after Peter's death. In 2 Peter 1:14 Peter acknowledged that he must shortly put off his tabernacle, as Christ had showed him. In 2 Peter 1:15 he said "Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance." Thus, we have a very remarkable threefold urge on the part of Peter. Twice the saints are called to give diligence. Three times Peter speaks of putting them in remembrance, or having them in remembrance. The Coming of our Lord, and His Kingdom, and our abundant entrance, therefore, should hold no small place in the conception of the Christian.
V. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST (2 Peter 1:16)
1. The Lord's Coming is not a fable. In 2 Peter 1:16 Peter comes out plainly to tell them of that of which he speaks. He has urged them to give all diligence, and to add to their faith virtue, etc. He has told them that through addition to their faith they might receive an abundant entrance into the Kingdom of Christ. Now, he tells them that that Kingdom is related to the Coming of Christ.
His first statement is that the Lord's Second Coming is not a cunningly devised fable. Paul gave warning against those who invented fables. With this Peter thoroughly acquiesced, because he spoke also of scoffers who would come in the last days. These scoffers were to deny the Lord's Coming, and to invent fables.
Here are Peter's words: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
2. The Lord's Coming is the power of Jesus Christ. It is a fact, and not a fable. The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God." Jesus Christ said, "If I go * * I will come again unto you. Speaking in the same connection He said, "If it were not so, I would have told you."
The two shining ones said. "This same Jesus, * * shall so come in like manner." That the Lord is coming we have no doubt. He has given us His promise. His Apostles have restated it time and time again and, for our part, we freely voice our anticipation of Christ's Return as follows:
'Tis but a little while, and Christ will come,
A little while;
He's waiting in His high and Heav'nly Home
A little while:
He'll surely come; let not the world beguile,
He'll greet us with" His favor and His smile,
He'll tarry not, "His promise knows no guile,
"A little while."
VI. THE LORD'S COMING ESTABLISHED BY THE TRANSFIGURATION (2 Peter 1:17-18)
As soon as Peter had spoken of the certainty of Christ's Coming, he gave two proofs which established it, and carried it out of the realm of fables. The first proof we will consider.
The first proof is this: "But were eyewitnesses of His majesty." We remember how the Lord said, "There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom."
It was only shortly after Christ so spake, that Peter, James, and John went up with Christ into the mount where the Lord was transfigured. Peter now distinctly says that he was an eyewitness of the Lord's majesty, and then he adds, "For He received from God the Father honour 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 we heard, when we were with Him in the holy mount," The transfiguration, therefore, is a revealing of the Second Coming.
1. We remember that Christ was transfigured before them. His raiment was white and glistening. His face shone with a radiance surpassing that of the sun. Christ will thus appear in His Second Coming.
2. With Christ upon the mount stood Moses and Elias in glory. These men may well represent two classes who will be present at the Lord's Coming. Moses stands for the dead and buried in Christ whose bodies will be raised. Elijah stands for the living and raptured in Christ who will never die.
3. Peter, James, and John represent a third class: the earth-dwellers who will behold the glory of the Lord.
Thus we see that Peter knew of Christ's Coming in a very definite way. He. was an eyewitness of His majesty.
VII. THE LORD'S COMING ESTABLISHED BY THE PROPHETIC SCRIPTURES (2 Peter 1:19-21)
Peter insists that he has not followed cunningly devised fables, for this simple reason, the Word of God is not a fable.
1. Peter calls the Word of God "a more sure word of prophecy," that is, a word of prophecy made sure. We dare not put any question marks by the side of the prophetic Scriptures.
There is a verse in Acts 13:1-52 which reads, "And when they had fulfilled all that was written of Him, they took Him down from the tree, and laid Him in a sepulchre." In other words, all of the prophecy was surely and literally fulfilled.
The prophecy of Christ's Second Coming is just as sure, and will be just as literally fulfilled. Christ said that not a jot nor a tittle would pass away until all should be fulfilled.
2. Peter calls the Word of prophecy a lamp in a dark place. He says that the prophetic Scriptures shine in a dark place. The dark place is the earth filled with sinful men. Truly it is dark just now, but, thank God, the saints have a Light in the darkness.
3. Peter stated that the prophecies were written by men of God "moved by the Holy Ghost." This is in the last verse of the lesson. "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."
How we thank God for such a statement! In this day when so many decry the Prophets, and seek to give us a shorter Bible, abbreviated, and with the vital light, the very core of the prophetic Scripture eliminated, we stand with Paul stating that we believe all things which were written in the Law and in the Prophets.
AN ILLUSTRATION
THE BEST OF WAYS TO THE BEST OF POSSESSIONS
"If a man should offer a lordship or a farm to another, and he should say, The way is dirty and dangerous, and the weather very troublesome, I will not look after it; would you not accuse the man of folly who thus loved his ease and pleasure? But, now, if this man were assured of a pleasant path and a good way if he would but take a little pains to go over and see it, it were gross folly indeed to refuse it." Such is the folly of those who refuse the. great inheritance of God. It were worth while to spend a lifetime in prison if thereby we could obtain the Kingdom of God; but we are not called to such suffering, the. way to eternal life by Christ Jesus is made plain and easy by the Holy Spirit who bids us believe and live. To believe that which is most surely true cannot be unpleasant to a sincere mind; to trust in One who cannot He cannot be a hardship to an honest heart. In fact, the way of true religion is the path of wisdom, and we know that her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. Who would not go to Heaven when Christ is the Way? the dearest, holiest, and happiest Way that can be conceived. Since the way to Heaven is heavenly, and the road to bliss is bliss, who will not become a pilgrim? My soul, be thou in love with the way as well as with the end, since thy Lord is the one as well as the other.