Staying Faithful
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11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
Holy conversation - Character - Your way of life.
Godliness - Conduct - Your reverence for life.
Is there a difference between salvation and holiness?
Is there a difference between going to heaven and holiness?
Why are we so scared of holiness?
Holiness literally means we are different from everyone else, the world.
Peter started his first letter on this premise.
15 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;
15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
When you’re holy, you’re like God. You’re to have a God-like reference, a God-like view to this world. You are to be a follower of Him, an imitator of Him, as He lives in you; you are to be devoted to pleasing Him. Now having said all of that—that’s the general sphere—then Peter gives us five things that ought to be true about us, as we wait for Jesus Christ—five things that can help us stay together until the world comes apart. Here they are.
Looking for His Coming.
Looking for His Coming.
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
Has more to do with expectation than examination.
To be looking for Jesus literally means we are anticipating His coming, and expecting His coming, at any moment. You see, the Bible teaches the imminent, any-moment return of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth.
36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
Laboring for His Coming.
Laboring for His Coming.
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
Prayer
20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Witnessing
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
Living for His Coming.
Living for His Coming.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
That’s your lifestyle now. Your lifestyle is to be a lifestyle of purity and peacefulness. Live in peace, without spot, and blameless. Peacefulness and purity: that’s your lifestyle. You’re to have peace with God; you’re to have the peace of God, as much as life is in you, to live peacefully with one another. I think what He is saying is, “Don’t get all upset about what’s going to happen to the world; don’t get headline hysteria.”
Peace:
You know, I’ve said before, there are three categories of people in the world: those who are afraid, those who don’t know enough to be afraid, and those who know their Bible. Now if I were not a Christian, if I did not understand the Word of God, I am telling you, I would be a royal first-class pessimist. I mean, I would be the king of pessimists. I’m telling you, we are digging ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole—just the AIDS epidemic itself. And you say, “Oh well, we don’t have the Russians to worry about any more.” Oh, tell me who has that bomb—their bombs, their nuclear weapons? I’ve told you before that the old bear is still there. The only difference is she’s wounded and hungry. That arsenal is still over there.
I mean, from the ozone to the “you name it”—if you didn’t know the Lord—but, he’s saying, “When He comes, you’d best be found in peace.” There are those who are afraid, those who don’t know enough to be afraid, and those who know their Bible. You say, “Well, it’s getting bad.” Yes, but it is getting gloriously dark:
28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
It’s so great—it’s so great that we understand what is happening, that we know these things. And so in the light of this, we’re to have peace.
Purity:
You see, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is not something ominous, unless you’re lost. It’s something glorious, if you’re saved. It’s to give you peace.
When the Apostle Paul spoke of the rapture of the Church, when he finished, he said this:
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
“Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18).
Comfort be found in peace, and be found in purity. When Jesus Christ comes, I don’t want Him to find His tithe in my pocket, whiskey in my cabinet, pornography in my bookshelf, hatred in my heart. I want to be blameless. You can’t be sinless; but you can be blameless. Blameless means that you’re looking to Him, loving Him, no unrepented of, unconfessed sin in your heart. He that “hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3).
3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
You ought to live for His coming.
We are to be living for His coming. Look for it. Labor for it. Live for it.
Learning of His Coming.
Learning of His Coming.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
I like that that he says “our beloved brother Paul,” because Paul had scolded Peter on one occasion, told Peter he was acting like a hypocrite, and yet Peter says—“And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things;”—he’s saying, “You know, remember Paul wrote his epistles, and in his epistles, Paul told you about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ; he spoke to you about these things—“in which are some things hard to be understood” (2 Peter 3:15–16).
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Peter is saying, “Hey, it’s not easy always to understand the Bible.” If you get the idea that you can just pick up the Bible, and read it like you can a magazine and understand, or read it like you can a math book and understand it, or like you can a history story, oh no.”
The Bible is a difficult book. It is the most difficult book I have ever read. I have been studying the Bible now seriously for over 40 years; and, friend, I feel like I’m in kindergarten. There is so much in this Bible that I have to say, “O God, I don’t understand that. God, help me to understand it.”
And don’t feel badly if there are parts of the Scripture that you don’t understand. Peter said, “Listen. A lot of what Paul wrote is hard to understand.” Peter didn’t say he didn’t understand it; but he’s saying, it is difficult, it is “hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest” (2 Peter 3:16).
That word wrest—do you see it? It means, “to torture.” It’s a word that means, “to put on the rack and torture; to twist; to distort.” There are those that bring the Bible into the horror chambers of ignorance and instability, and they torture—they wrest, they twist—the Scriptures to make the Bible say things that it doesn’t really say.
And the apostates are the chiefs among these, torturing the Word of God. One way that I know that the Bible is the Word of God: it has stood up under so much shoddy preaching. Friend, I mean, we still have it: these people who put the Bible in the dungeon of their stupidity, and put it on the rack of their midget mentality, and their insufficient spirituality, and torture the Word of God.
What is he saying? What is Peter saying? Peter is saying, “You had better learn of His coming.” And he says, “Don’t twist the Bible. If you do, it will blow up on you. These people do it to their own destruction, their own damnation.” Friend, be careful how you handle the Word of God.
One man was translating the Scriptures, and he said, “As I translated the Scriptures, I became so aware of the power of the Word of God, putting it from one language to another language,” he said, “I felt like a man trying to rewire a house without turning off the main switch.” Power. The Word of God. And by the way, Peter called what Paul wrote Scripture—his epistles, the great affirmations of the writing of Paul—to equate them with the Old Testament Scriptures.
All right, look. What? He’s coming. It is all going to be dissolved. Look for His coming. Labor for His coming. Live for His coming. Learn of His coming. Then, very quickly, look, if you will, in the verses 17 and 18:
Locking Onto His Coming.
Locking Onto His Coming.
17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
“Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before,”—that is, you’ve already been warned—“beware”—now, watch it; he’s taking to us now—“beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:17–18).
Here is the last thing lock—l-o-c-k—lock onto His coming. Get a bulldog grip on it, so you will be steadfast.
Do you see it? You’ll know it. “Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness” (2 Peter 3:17).
17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.
He is saying that you can fall from your steadfastness. Many of God’s people have been led away by the apostates into error, because they have not gotten a grip, a lock—a bulldog grip—on the Word of God.
Now how do you lock onto the Word of God? How do you lock onto the teaching concerning the second corning of Jesus Christ? Well, verse 18, the last verse, tells us: “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18)—to grow.
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
And the Greek word literally means, “keep on growing, keep on growing, keep on growing.”
Are you a growing Christian? Do you know what my great prayer is? It’s that I’ll be a growing Christian; because, when you stop growing, you start dying, my dear friend.
Physically, that happens to us; but it doesn’t have to happen to us, spiritually. “Though our outward man perish, [our] inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).
16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
And you can grow, and grow, and grow. And why do some fall away? Because, they stop growing.
A little boy fell out of bed. His mother said, “What happened to you?” He said, “I went to sleep too close to where I got in.”
A lot of folks get saved, and then they go to sleep. No wonder they fall out of bed.
Jesus is coming, and you’d better be ready.
Only the blood of Jesus can remove sin from your heart. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
A few short years, whether Jesus comes or not, you’re going. I see a lot of grey hairs out here today. Fifteen or twenty years from now, a lot of folks in this building will be dead. Two or three years from now, many more; a few days, some, perhaps.
Do you know Jesus? God brought you here today to be saved.
