And then he says, you need to be on guard so you don't fall from your own steadfastness.
This is a call to discrimination. He is saying as you live in anticipation of the coming of the day of God, you've got to realize that there are going to be a lot of people coming along who are going to try to confuse you about that. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Miles upstream, the Niagara River is a great place for a boat ride. But there comes a point down the river where even powerful motors won't keep you from going over the deadly Niagara Falls. That notion of drifting toward danger parallels a warning from Scripture, a warning that can keep you safe from future destruction. John MacArthur equips you to withstand false teaching that can sweep away your spiritual stability, teaching that will only increase as history unfolds. John calls this study, Where in the World is History Headed?
And now to start off with some review, here's John. Second Peter chapter 3, we're looking at the section from verse 11 down through verse 18 under the title, Living in Anticipation of Christ's Return. We've been asking the question since we have throughout this third chapter been dealing with the return of Christ. The question, what does it mean to us as Christians that Jesus is coming? With what attitude do we await that final glory? With anticipation, looking for it, eagerly anxious that it come and come soon? In pacification, that is dwelling in perfect peace because all is well with the Lord.
The account is settled up to the moment so that should He come there would be no shame and there is no fear for assurance guards our hearts. Purification, living in virtue, purity of life both in character and reputation. And then evangelization, making sure that as the patience of God lingers, our zeal to lead men to salvation carries us through the time of His patience.
Number five, discrimination...discrimination. This too must characterize us and I want you to be very careful as we go through this section because it is an exceedingly important text. It could lead us on a lot of different subjects, but I want to resist that, subjects which we have discussed in the past and shall in the future, and stick with the flow of Peter's thought. Verse 15, not only are we, since we look for these things, to be diligent in regarding the patience of the Lord to be salvation, but follow what He says, just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him wrote to you, as also in all his letters speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand which the untaught and unstable distort as they do also the rest of the Scriptures to their own destruction, you therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard lest being carried away by the error of unprincipled men you fall from your own steadfastness. On first reading, you got lost, I know.
But I want to take you back and find you somewhere in this because it is absolutely crucial. Just as there in verse 15 in the middle, I believe introduces a new idea. He says, just as also, and I really think you could start a new sentence there and transition into a whole new concept. He says, just as also our beloved brother Paul, and then he launches off to discuss something about Paul and Paul's warning about false teaching. And then he says, you need to be on guard so you don't fall from your own steadfastness. This is a call to discrimination. He is saying, as you live in anticipation of the coming of the day of God, you've got to realize that there are going to be a lot of people coming along who are going to try to confuse you about that.
And you've got to use good judgment. Our beloved brother Paul warned about that even as I have been warning you. That's the general flow.
Now let's look at the parts of this separately. He calls Paul our beloved brother Paul. Really Paul was a fellow apostle. Peter uses gracious terminology to describe Paul. That's wonderful, really...wonderful. So he says, just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him...that's a marvelous statement.
Fritz Reinicke calls it a divine passive. The wisdom given him by God wrote to you. Now he is referring back to a letter from Paul. He's looking to Paul for some support for this next point that he wants to make about discrimination. He says, let me remind you about Paul and about what God gave him by way of wisdom that he wrote to you. What's he talking about?
What is this? Was it a letter? Well, he doesn't say it was one letter. He doesn't say if it was a special letter just to them.
We don't even know that they were an easily identifiable group. He's simply saying, Paul, according to the wisdom given him from God, wrote to you. But I like the fact that in verse 16 he says, as also in all letters. So I would take it that he is simply referring to the writing of Paul. It is possible that Paul had written a specific letter to this group, but it's such a hard group to identify. That would be hard to discover which letter and it's perhaps best to say they were just familiar with the writing of Paul.
What's the point? Well, he's saying Paul wrote you about the Second Coming. Paul wrote you about the glories of heaven.
Paul wrote you about the day of God, if not using the term, certainly speaking of eternity. First and Second Thessalonians, for example, are the earliest writings of Paul. They deal extensively with prophecy relating to the coming of the Lord Jesus. The second set of letters would be Romans, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians. All of them have passages anticipating the coming of Jesus Christ, passages outlining the future plan of God for Israel and the church. Then the third wave of letters would be known as the prison epistles, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Philemon. Again there are statements about the future, about Jesus as head over all things and how all things are headed toward a glorious climax and conclusion in Him, the final reconciliation of all things. Then the last wave, the fourth wave of letters would be the pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus and even those things anticipate the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Peter is saying, as Paul has written in all his letters, including the one that you have or the ones that you have about the return of Christ, about the glories of heaven and the eternal state...in other words, I'm leaning on Paul here for a little support. What I'm saying has been confirmed by him. He wrote about the day of the Lord, he wrote about eternity, he wrote about the fact that God will keep His promise, judge the wicked, change the universe, bring in ultimate glorious eternal righteousness.
Peter's not done. He's going to go deeper into this, follow this and very interesting in verse 16, in which are some things hard to understand. Now in some of Paul's writing about the future, it's hard to understand. The verb actually means difficult to interpret. Please note this, not impossible, did you hear me? Some people say, oh, we just can't know.
I claim no view, I just don't think we can know. He doesn't say it's impossible, he says it's difficult. Some of Paul's passages about the rapture of the church, the time of the Tribulation, the coming of the man of sin, the return of Christ in judgment, the great age we call the millennium, the final glorious eternal heaven, some of what Paul says about that is hard to understand, literally difficult to interpret. You say, does this mean Peter didn't understand it? No, I'm sure Peter did understand it as much as could be understood. He doesn't say that he didn't understand it, follow this. He simply said it's hard to understand, difficult to interpret, so the untaught and the unstable distort it and I'll promise you, Peter didn't put himself in that category with the untaught and the unstable.
He's saying it's just difficult. Therefore people can be easily deceived...they can be easily deceived. I tell you, folks, there is an unending proliferation of stuff written about prophetic truth regarding the future.
It just comes out all the time. And of course, for the unstable, the untaught, it can deceive them, particularly when it's perpetrated by unscrupulous false teachers. Now they don't do this just with prophecy. He says the untaught and the unstable distort as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
They do it with a hold of the Bible. Untaught means they lack information. Unstable means they are therefore vacillating in their spiritual character.
The untaught and the unstable are victimized by error. To distort, literally, if it was used in a physical sense would mean to put a body on a rack, a torture rack and wrench that body. And people, as it were, take the truth, put it on a rack and wrench it. They twist it. They torture the truth.
They're hucksters, conning people. The lack of simple clarity on all prophetic issues gives place for the ignorant and the immoral to confuse the truth. They don't do it just with prophecy, he says. They do it with all the rest of the Scriptures also. Now you remember, don't you, back in verse 3 that the reason false teachers deny the Second Coming isn't because they've come across some great prophetic truth, it's because they walk after their own lusts and they want a future that doesn't hold them accountable for their immorality.
So along with their twisting and perverting and distorting of the teaching of the future, judgment and the future glory of the saints and all that's involved in the coming of Christ, along with twisting that, you can be sure they twist teaching on judgment itself, teaching on the law of God, teaching on righteousness, teaching on holiness, teaching on repentance, teaching on salvation by grace through faith, they will be antinomian and so they distort all kinds of things. By the way, as a footnote, did you notice that he says they do the rest of the Scriptures? That means that he is calling what Paul wrote Scripture. Paul wrote in all his letters, he says, speaking of these matters of prophetic themes, they're hard, difficult to interpret, the untaught and unstable distort these as they do the rest of the Scriptures. That is the most clear-cut statement on the pages of Scripture to affirm the writings of Paul are Scripture. That's Peter's testimony that Paul writes Scripture and the false teachers distort it all. The end of verse 16, to their own destruction...to their own destruction.
If you go back into chapter 2 for a moment, that's pretty clear. The end of verse 1 says, the false prophets and false teachers bring upon themselves swift destruction. Verse 3 says, their judgment from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep. They will be destroyed with those creatures also who will be destroyed, those unreasoning instinctive animalistic creatures. Chapter 3 verse 7, there is a day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. Four times the word destruction, all four times referring to false teachers, false prophets and those who follow them. In Jude, verse 10, it says they will be destroyed like unreasoning animals. Verse 13, it says, for them the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever. Now listen carefully. He says those people who distort the teachings of Paul will be led to eternal destruction.
Let me give you a consequent thought. If that is true, then the writing of Paul must be Scripture. Because if you distort it, it leads to eternal damnation. It must be Scripture if any distortion of it leads to eternal damnation. Sounds like Revelation 22, 18 and 19, doesn't it? If you add anything to this book, it shall be added to you the plagues that are in it or if you take anything away. Now let's get the sum of this, that therefore comes in verse 17, you therefore beloved, knowing this beforehand...knowing what?...knowing that there will be false teachers who will come along twisting and distorting the Scripture and who therefore will lead people to their own damnation, since you know this beforehand, since you have this information, be on your guard...be on your guard, against false teachers, against their destructive heresies.
That's why Paul says to Timothy, study to show yourself approved unto God. Be on your guard...why?...lest being carried away by the error of unprincipled men. There's another title for the false teachers. Their victims are the untaught and the unstable who distort the Scripture. But the ones who lead the distortion are the unprincipled men, the false teachers.
Unprincipled is lawless...lawless. It says, don't be carried away. It's the same word used in Galatians 2 13 when it says that Barnabas was carried away with the hypocrisy.
Don't get carried away with their error. These unprincipled men, these lawless men, these men who live apart from and without God's law, listen, any time you hang around or listen to lawless false teachers who distort the Scripture, you run the risk of being led astray. You can't sit in a church where somebody is twisting and distorting the Scripture without running the risk of being led astray. You can't sit in a college, be it called Christian or not, and listen to people distort the Scripture without running the risk of being led astray. You can't go to a seminary for the sake of its academic reputation, sit there and hear error all the time without running the risk of being led astray. By unprincipled lawless men, only truth sanctifies, only truth brings righteousness.
You must then be discerning. End of verse 17, or you might fall from your own steadfastness, literally fall out of. You could be seduced and fall out of your own steadfastness. What's that word, steadfastness?
Firmness. It's the opposite of unstable, the very opposite of unstable. Peter has in mind a firm stance on truth, taking a firm stand. Remember when Paul wrote 1 Timothy at the end of the first chapter, he talked about Hymenaeus and Alexander who had led people into shipwreck in regard to their faith, falling out of steadfastness. He's not saying losing your salvation, that's eternal.
But you fall from your stability. You fall from your steadfastness in doctrine, in truth, conviction, confidence. So Peter says, look, living in the light of our eternal destiny calls for discrimination. Paul wrote all these things about the Second Coming.
False teachers called unprincipled men will come along and take these things that are hard to interpret, twist them, distort them, and with that twisting and distorting lead people astray who will also twist and distort other parts of Scripture and will fall out of their steadfastness into confusion, double-mindedness, doubt, chaos. Don't let that happen. You live in the light of your eternal destiny with discrimination. Guard, he says, guard yourself.
Be on guard. The only way to do that is to study the Scripture and show yourself approved. So he adds discrimination to evangelization, purification, pacification, and anticipation. Quickly there are two left in verse 18, very simple, maturation, verse 18, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He's saying while you're waiting, while you're anticipating your eternal glory, be growing toward that.
Paul had said, be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine through the crafty, cunning operations of Satan, Ephesians 4.14. Peter had said that in 1 Peter 2, too, as babes desire the pure milk of the Word that you may grow by it. And so here he just reminds us that since we're going to spend our eternity with the Lord Jesus, we need to be growing in the grace and knowledge of Him. The verb axano means to advance in the sphere of grace through the knowledge, the sphere of grace through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
How do we gain that knowledge? Coming to know Him better through the study of the Word, through intimate fellowship with Him. All this means a deeper and deeper knowledge of Christ.
Paul cried that I may know Him. Grace is the sphere of our growth. Knowledge is the component of that growth. In the sphere of grace where God forgives our sin and overlooks our weaknesses, we feed on the Word of God and communion with the living Christ and thereby grow in our knowledge of Him in the sphere of grace which deals with our failures and our shortcomings. This is an essential safeguard. If I'm going to be on guard, I'm going to have to be increasing in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Please note that He is both Lord and Savior, not just Savior and not just Lord.
This is an essential safeguard. If I'm going to live in the light of my eternal glory, then at this particular point in time as I live my life in this world, I pursue in the sphere of God's compassion and mercy and grace a deeper and deeper knowledge of the fullness of the person of Christ both in His lordship and His saving work. That's the only way that I can prevent being led astray. And there's one final word as Peter closes, and that's adoration...adoration. He says, to Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity, amen. It just calls for adoration.
It just calls for worship. Give Him the glory now and on into the day of eternity. Paul had said, whatever you do to all of the glory of God, we are to live to His glory. Paul had written to the Ephesians and said that God should get glory, Christ should get glory through the church, that means through you. We are to be the praise of His glory.
There's a marvelous truth here, however, that's not something you can resist commenting about. To Him be the glory, who is Him? Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the modifier, obviously.
That's quite important, folks. Glory belongs to God. Glory belongs to God and God alone. The Old Testament says that God said, my glory will I not give to another. And here the Holy Spirit is saying, give glory to Jesus Christ.
What does that tell us? It's a great affirmation of the deity of Jesus Christ, His equality with God. In John chapter 5 and verse 23, that statement is so important, in order that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father, he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
They're equal. Romans 11, 36 is a great doxology given to God. Jude 25, a great doxology given to God. Second Peter 3, 18, a great doxology, doxo is the word for glory, a great doxology given to the Lord Jesus Christ. We therefore conclude that God and Christ, both deity, are worthy of our praise.
Christ must be God's equal, worthy of glory. How then do I live? How do I live in the light of some day entering into eternity and living forever in the day of God, the day of eternity, the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness eternally dwells? How do I live in the light of that in this life? Peter says, what kind of person should you be? At what level of excellence should you live?
He answers his own question. You should live in anticipation. You should live in pacification. That is in perfect peace because you're assured that the day of the Lord will pass you by even as the angel of death did and you'll enter the day of God. You should live in purification, both spotless and blameless. You should live in evangelization, realizing that essential to the use of the time you have is to preach the gospel to the lost.
You should live with discrimination, that is being very careful and on guard lest someone coming along and distorting divine truth would lead you away from your steadfastness. You should live in maturation continually growing in the knowledge of Christ in the sphere of grace and you should live in adoration, living a doxology as it were, being an instrument of praise to the God of glory, the Christ of glory who has planned the day of eternity for you. This then is how we live in the light of our glorious future.
It's a glorious future for those who follow Jesus. John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, reminded you of that today on Grace to You as he continued his study titled, Where in the World is History Headed? Now, John, let me ask this, how can our listeners stay encouraged when we live in a world system that's convinced that history is some meaningless and unending cycle? The message that assaults all of us is that there really is no point to this thing we call life. Yeah, you know, that's just a defense mechanism on the part of humanity to look at life and decide that it has no meaning, that there is no God, there is no Creator, therefore there is no judge, there are no consequences for behavior, there is no punishment, there is no future. That's a very popular message for irresponsible people who want to cultivate sin to the maximum degree of their own personal fulfillment.
But it is tragically wrong. Those people who decide that there's no point in life have rejected the warnings of Scripture. The Bible tells us exactly where history is headed. Of course there are cycles. Those cycles are the familiar cycles of sin. People born into the world since Adam's fall have been sinners. Others cultivate a certain kind of life, it accumulates consequences, and nations come and nations go. People groups come and people groups go, cycling through sin and its consequences.
There's an inevitability to that. But there is an end and there is a point. History is headed in the direction of God's purposes being fulfilled.
We have drawn our series now to a close titled Where in the World is History Headed? We've been looking at 2 Peter chapter 3. It brings so much to light, exposing arguments that people use to deny ultimate spiritual truth and responsibility before God.
You need to have this series. It sheds light, as you know, if you've listened on evolution and what's behind it. The study is available in five MP3 downloads available from Grace to You. Thanks, John.
And, friend, even in uncertain times, you can enjoy unshakable confidence that Christ will return. To see how promising the future is if you're a Christian, and how terrifying it is if you're not, download John's study, Where in the World is History Headed? from our website today. Our web address is gty.org, and all five messages from Where in the World is History Headed?
are available in MP3 and transcript format. In fact, all of John's verse-by-verse Bible teaching, over 3,600 sermons, are available free of charge. Our website again, gty.org. And just a reminder that nearly everything we sell is currently available at 25% off the normal price. That includes popular books like The Gospel According to Jesus and The Vanishing Conscience, as well as our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible. But keep in mind that the sale ends Friday, May 9th, so place your order soon by calling 800-55-GRACE, Monday through Friday, 730 to 4 o'clock Pacific Time. That number again, 800-55-GRACE, or you can order from our website anytime, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace To You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, and then be here next week as John begins a study for wives, mothers, and wives and mothers to be. It's called God's Design for a Successful Woman. Don't miss the next 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.
