To those who will accept it, Merry Christmas.
Our Father, we want to again thank You for Your grace to us in Your Son, Jesus Christ. I want to thank You that it was You who, in the counsels with the Spirit and the Son, decided to send Your Son to us to become man, become flesh, and in His flesh to live before Thee perfectly, before man perfectly, and to offer that life up for us, that we might be brought to You holy and blameless, acceptable because His offering was acceptable.
We thank You, Lord, that You did not leave us alone, that You gave us Your Spirit. And we ask, Lord, for the ministry of Your Spirit even now, as we open up Your Word and come to You, that You would encourage us to walk with You; that You would let us know that the door is open; and that we would, Lord, be encouraged to come in. We ask this in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
I have been speaking, when I have spoken, on the last letters of certain apostles in the Scriptures. I did a section on Paul’s last epistle, 2 Timothy, and I have been doing Peter. I am going to continue—I am going to finish Peter out today—and, Lord willing, maybe John next time.
But I have chosen to do these apostles in their last epistles because it was the last thing they had to say to people—the last thing they had to say. And if they were the rocks and the pillars of the church, then what would they have to say to us last? I mean, you would think the last thing they had to say would be the most important. They did not want us to escape; they did not want us to go on without knowing these last things they said.
Just in a brief review, as far as Peter goes, I just want to say the key verse in 2 Peter, which was his last verse—verse 18—he says:
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever.
And so, that is the key. Peter asks us to grow in grace. In looking at these last couple of times I have spoken about Peter, that is what we have kind of looked at.
We have seen, first, the grace in which we are to grow. In saying that, we noticed that Peter, in his last letter, calls himself Simon Peter, saying that the Lord knows me wholly, and the grace is that He knows me wholly and still has taken me to be His disciple.
Secondly, divine power has been given to us, and we know that we have been given the Holy Spirit. Thirdly, we have been given great and precious promises, that His will, His plan, and His purpose might be fulfilled in us.
And then last time we spoke about the outworking of that grace. We looked at two words in particular: the word add on. We start with faith, but then we add on. And be diligent, which means—well, add on kind of means to do business with, and be diligent means kind of make it your business to go on, to grow in this grace.
And today, I would like to look at the end of that grace. What is the end of the grace in which we are to grow in? So with that, let us look to the Word of God, shall we? In 2 Peter 3, let us start with verse 10.
I know this will not sound very Christmassy.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat.
Both the earth and works that are in it will all be burned up.
Therefore,