Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, July 15th. God's message of salvation spans the entire Bible. Let's continue the study of First Peter chapter one as it highlights the incomparable value of the Word of God.
In the beginning, Peter identifies himself and addresses who this letter is written to. And then he reminds us that we have been chosen by God. We have been born again and that this new birth results in a great inheritance, which is ours in Christ Jesus, and that we have been protected and are protected by the power of God. Then he says, beginning in verse six, that right now they were going through a time of tribulation and trial and heartache, time of distress and various trials, he says, which is going to work out for them something extremely profitable in their behalf. Then he comes to the tenth verse and he says, as to this salvation, ten, eleven, and twelve of this chapter where we are tonight, as to this salvation, which salvation? The salvation that began with God's choice of me, as he says, according to his great mercy, his choice of us, the new birth he brought about in our life and his protection. He says, this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, made careful search and inquiry into this, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, that is, his readers and to us, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven things into which angels long to look. Now, if you just read that one time, you probably might not get it. So, I want us to examine the revelation of our salvation. And let me say something in the very beginning here. If somebody says, do you believe that one part of the Bible is inspired as the other?
Yes, it is. And what Peter is doing here in this passage is simply saying this, he's saying, this message of salvation that has brought about this dramatic change in your life, this newness of life and now has made you aware of the fact that you have an inheritance imperishable waiting in heaven for you, this message of salvation is a message of salvation that the prophets were looking into and proclaiming though they did not fully understand everything they were proclaiming. They were preaching a message not of works but of grace but they didn't understand it like you and I understand it. They didn't understand it in the days of when Peter was writing here, even as you and I understand it today.
So, he says, as to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry, he says, seeking to know what person or time. Now, I want us to look at two or three passages here and first of all in, let's look in 2 Peter chapter 1 for a moment. 2 Peter chapter 1 and I want us to notice two verses here.
I want to clarify something. In verses 20 and 21, Peter says, but know this first of all that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. No prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. Now, the Bible, the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation is God's God-breathed book to men and through men acknowledging their personalities, their makeup, guiding and governing them through the power of the Holy Spirit to write down the message of God to the people and for the people of their day and listen, to the people and for the people of that day and for all of us who would come thereafter. It is not a book of errors. It is an infallible book. God has protected the message of the Scriptures down through the years. Now listen, that doesn't mean that these men who were receiving the revelation always understood what it meant.
And I'm going to show you why in just a moment. Turn, if you will, now to 2 Timothy and look, if you will, in chapter 3 and verse 16 and 17. He says, all Scripture is inspired by God, breathed by, that is the Spirit of God, moved in the minds of these men in a protected manner.
All Scripture is given by inspiration or is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness that the man or woman of God may be adequate and fully equipped for every good work that God calls us for. And the truth is, if a person does not know the Word of God, they are not equipped to do the work of God. I want you to turn, if you will, to John chapter 16. Here's a good example of what we're talking about, that Revelation is progressive now. Jesus has taught these apostles many things, but He's not finished.
That is, they haven't learned it all, but He's got to go. In other words, His schedule requires Him to ascend to heaven before long. Listen, 16th chapter, let's come on down to verse 12. He says, up in the upper room now, giving Him the upper room discourse, He says, verse 12, I have many poor things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak and He will disclose to you what is to come.
So what do we have? We have all the rest of the New Testament, all the epistles, and what's happening? What is happening is the Holy Spirit now, through the apostle Paul and Peter and James, He is expounding to these godly men who are prophets and apostles of their day. He is expounding to them truths and enlightening them to understand things that Jesus said, look, the reason I can't tell you this now, you wouldn't get it. For example, let me give an example, something they would never have figured out.
Listen how ridiculous this statement would have sounded to them. I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives within me. And the life which I now live, I live with the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Crucified with Him. That statement would have been mind-boggling because so many things that Jesus said. You see, the Holy Spirit brought it back to them and then as Revelation progressed and God continued to open their minds and their hearts and their spirits to perceive and understand, they grew. Now listen, where the Revelation is complete, there isn't anything else God needs to tell us and God doesn't ever tell us anything that is not in keeping with the Word of God. You can mark that down.
That's the final acid test. If it violates any principle of the Scripture, God didn't say it. Now, God revealed to these same men in the upper room wonderful, marvelous truths, but He says, you're not ready yet. Do you know why you and I don't understand some things that God wants us to understand for the same reason?
We're not ready yet. Haven't you looked back in your life and you've said, man, I wish I'd understood that then. God, why does it take me so long to catch on? Because of either our spiritual growth, something in our life, somewhere along the way, we're not there yet. These men in the upper room before the crucifixion were not where they would be after Pentecost. They could not understand what they could understand when the apostle Paul came along and began to expound these great truths that God gave to him. You see, God revealed some things to the apostle Paul that nobody had understood before then.
And what he said, he was caught up into the third heaven and God gave him such revelations that in order to keep him from being proud, God gave him a thorn in the side buffeted by Satan. Because, listen, the apostle Paul was receiving directly from God visions and revelations of truth that nobody had ever heard. Now, when Paul says mystery, he does not mean something that is mysterious, but it means, listen, a mystery, according to the apostle Paul, was a divine truth given by God that could not be received any other way.
That is no other way to get it. That is revelation, divine revelation is truth. God hands down to man truth that man could never have reached up, no matter what he did, he could never in his mind ever have gained that knowledge any other way except that God handed it down.
Now, look, if you will, beginning in chapter 3 of Ephesians, verse 1. For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace, which was given to me for you, Gentiles, apostle of the Gentiles, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. And by referring to this, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit. So he says, now, what I'm telling you, he says, they didn't understand, they didn't know that it wasn't revealed to them then. Now, he says, to be specific, what is this? This mystery, to be specific, is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus, the Messiah, through the gospel of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace.
Now, here's what he's saying. Now, the prophecies in the Old Testament, those prophets for, they, God gave them revelations of the Gentiles being able to be saved. But, Paul says, one of the mysteries that was not revealed at that time was that both Gentile and Jew will have an equal share in the body of Christ. God is going to treat Jew and Gentile alike. That is, if you'll recall in Ephesians 2, he says, there was a time when the Gentile body, strangers from the covenant of promise, but God opened the door, grafted us in, and now he says, this middle wall of petition between Jew and Gentile has been broken down. The cross of Jesus Christ shattered that wall so that now both Jew and Gentile come together in the body of Christ and now the body of Christ is made up of all who place their trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sin. He says, this is one of those mysteries that now God has given him the privilege of revealing to them.
Well, I can't bypass one other mystery that I just love dearly, one of my favorite ones. Turn to Colossians chapter 1 for a moment. Let's start with verse 24. Paul says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of his body, which is the church, in filling up that which is lacking in Christ's afflictions. Of this church, listen now, of this church I was made, he's not talking about a particular church, of this church, the body of Christ, I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God, this was a responsibility God gave him, bestowed on me for your benefit that I might fully carry out the preaching of the Word of God. That is, listen, the mystery, the mysterious, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations but has now been manifested to his saints.
They didn't know it then, now we know it. To whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is, hallelujah, Christ in you, your hope of glory. He says that's one of the mysteries. That's why, listen, you and I can stand up and preach and talk and teach and say, listen, the Bible says that when you are saved, Christ Jesus comes to live in you.
You're in him, he's in you, wherever he is, there you are. He says that was a mystery that was not revealed in times past but now it is revealed. He says, for example, that you and I sit in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, where he is, we are. He says this, listen, he says this is a great mystery. To whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you the hope of glory and we proclaim him admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom that we may present every man complete in Christ and for this purpose also I labor striving according to his power which mightily works within me. I'm going to tell you, Paul was a great student of the word of God. He says I strive in labor and study. He kept his life clean because, listen, he knew that it was only in a pure heart that God's great divine revelations would come.
Now listen to this difference. Revelation is the truth that God gives that man could not receive apart from God. God has given us his revelation in the word of God. Illumination, listen, illumination is what God does to you and me today. That is when we get into the word of God, the Holy Spirit does what? He opens the truth of the word and that is he takes the top off of it and he reveals the truth of it.
That is illumination. God isn't handing down any more great revelations. He has given us the ultimate revelation in the word of God so we get illuminations and we get inspirations about things and we say, well, God gave me this great revelation.
If you mean by that, he took the top off of something, let you look in and get the true picture of it, that's okay. But God isn't adding to this book. In fact, the last book of the Bible warns against adding to it.
Now think about all these folks. These cults that have their Bible, they haven't just added to this one, they've got their own. Now, revelation is progressive, listen, so that today we have the final revelation of God in his word.
Now what about in your life? These men felt deeply responsible to speak the truth. Listen, deeply responsible to so live that God could speak the truth to them and they would be able to perceive exactly what God was saying because they felt responsible to speak the word. They didn't have a Bible like, listen, all they had were scrolls, parchments, and they didn't have all this together. These men diligently studied the truth. And as they studied and as they sought and as they lived and as God spoke to them, he opened the great revelation that you and I have today of the whole Word of God.
And here's what I want you to see. And you see, when I think about this, I didn't wait till I went to college or seminary to get in this book to ask God, Lord, speak to me and show me how to understand the truth of this book. Anybody can pray that prayer and ask Him. But thanks be to God, and I couldn't ever take any credit for it.
God knows I won't even think about the possibility of it. But all of my life, as I've gotten in the Word, I have kept asking God, Lord, I want you to show me the truth, not to preach to somebody else. I want you to show me the truth. I want you to teach me the truth. I want to know who you are. I want to know what your ways are.
I want to know how you operate. Now, I have an awful lot to learn. And what absolutely amazes me and fascinates me and gets me into the Word every week is not to get a sermon to give to you. You know what I'm studying for? I'm studying to find out what I can learn and what you just get the overflow of that. But I'm studying for what I can learn. God, I want you to speak to me.
I want you to show me. Now, listen, God is willing to expand your understanding of Scripture on the basis of your hunger, thirst, and yearning, desire to know Him, not to impress other people, and your desire to follow after Him. Listen, your desire to know Him and your desire to follow after Him, it is amazing what God will show you. These prophets were never satisfied with what they learned. They knew there was more.
The apostle Paul was never satisfied with what he learned. He knew there was more. And I want to ask you, be deadly honest, are you satisfied tonight with what you know about God? If you're not satisfied, there are two requirements. Number one, a deep, hungering, thirsting, yearning desire to know Him. Listen, and side by side with that, a commitment to Jesus Christ will fail, fall flat on our face again and again and again.
God knows that, doesn't bother Him. But listen, a deep, sincere, yearning, hungering, thirsting commitment and desire to obey what we learn. You put those two together, the desire and the commitment, and you'll be amazed what happens to your understanding of the Word of God. Thank you for listening to The Revelation of Our Salvation. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by, InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
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