Which Is Worse? What Is Best?, Part 2

In this day of artificial intelligence and all the exciting applications it brings, information has become more accessible than ever before.

But as we drown in all the data, it's easy to forget, with more knowledge comes greater responsibility. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll continues his study in 2 Peter called Conquering Through Conflict. In this portion of our study, we'll focus on a passage that addresses those who've been exposed to knowledge about Jesus and responded by walking away. Chuck titled today's message, Which is Worse, What is Best? The second chapter of 2 Peter is focusing on false teachers, people who traffic in religious things, but they are counterfeit.

They look real, but they are false. It would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn away from it, from the holy commandment delivered to them. Ignorance, I repeat, is better than defection. Ignorance is better than apostatizing. Question is, why is it worse?

And I would ask that if I were you. Why is ignorance better than apostasy? Why does he say it would be better for them not to have known the way of truth than to have known it and turned away from it? I've come up with three reasons.

I found these nowhere else. It occurred to me while thinking about these answers to that question, these things, it seems to me, make sense. First, because the one who is ignorant can be taught and won to the Lord, but the one who knows is less teachable and not as open. Second is this, the ignorant are not as influential as the learned.

Those who are teachers influence other people in false teaching. Three, in the final judgment, I am convinced there will be less punishment for the ignorant than for the learned who apostatized. Let me show you from Luke twelve forty seven. It's been in the slave master context of this parable. And he wraps it up by saying that as the Lord does, and that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will shall receive many lashes.

But the one who did not know it, this is ignorance. He didn't even know the master's will and committed deeds worthy of a flogging will receive but few. And from everyone who has been given, much shall much be required.

And to whom they entrusted much of him, they will ask all the more. I don't know what you do with that parable, at least the conclusion of that parable, but I find there are degrees of punishment. Yes, I believe all lost will spend eternity without God.

Yes. However, I can't help but to have the same reservations that our Lord seems to suggest here for the one who does not know. I do not believe there will be to that person the same degree and measure of judgment as will fall upon the person who, let's say, will hear the gospel again and again and again and will not receive it. That is the one who will receive, in the words of Jesus, many lashes, but the one who has not known will receive few.

Now, in verse 1 and verse 2 of 2 Peter 3, Peter turns to the reason he wrote the book. And this answers the question, what is best? We looked at which is worse. It is worse to have known and rejected than not to have known at all.

Here, what is best? Now, why did Peter write the letter? This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder.

Ready for this? He wrote them this letter to stimulate wholesome thinking. He wrote to those people who had sincere minds, pure and free from deception.

He must have loved to write that. Having written an entire chapter on the downside of life, those false teachers, he looked at his readership and he said, my beloved, I write to you stirring up your pure minds, sincere minds. Isn't it wonderful to be in a ministry where you are affirmed rather than skinned alive? If you have ever been in a ministry where you are beaten as sheep, you know what it feels like to leave with your tail between your legs, bleeding and broken and down.

I think Peter would have been one who ministered a message of affirmation. He tells his readers, you have sincere minds. You know, we tend to live on the standard of those who are the people we respect. And if our teachers are constantly putting us down, we begin to live down lives.

If our teachers believe in us and affirm us and encourage us, we want to reach higher and do better. I'm caught up on this word sincere, which is otherwise rendered pure minds. Years ago, let me give you a little background. Unscrupulous potters would take their wares to the street and display their jugs and vases there in the streets. And wise buyers would come and would take that piece of pottery and hold it up to the sun and turn it as they look and hoping not to find cracks that unscrupulous potters would have covered with wax.

And once they, it was called sun judging, sun judging, they would hold up this piece of pottery to the sun and they would look for the cracks that the bright light of the sun would reveal. It would cut right through the wax. In fact, the word sincere is from the Latin word sincera, which means without wax.

Without wax. And the Greek word translated sincere, eilikrinēs, means sun judged. I write to you whom I could lift up before the sun and find there is no wax, no hidden cracks, no deception. You are pieces of pottery that the Lord is working on and you have pure minds.

You are sincere to the core. Now, a sincere mind may not be all that alert. So Peter is taking us by the shoulders and he is shaking us awake and he's saying, I'm writing a letter to stimulate your pure mind to wholesome thinking. I tell you, there is nothing like the reading of scripture to bring you back to reality. News fluctuates.

Good and bad news come and go. But the word of God keeps you wholesome in your thinking. So the apostle says, I'm writing this letter to stimulate you who have sun judged minds to be wholesome in your thinking. Now, secondly, how should we respond? Verse 2.

What is best? I write this way, verse 2, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand. And then he gives us three sources. The holy prophets, the commandment of the Lord Jesus, our Savior, and the words spoken by your apostles. If the truth were known, more of us need to be reminded of what we already know than need to be given new knowledge.

Isn't it the truth? As I have said so many times, I already know so much that I don't practice. To get more information is not that helpful. What I need to do is lay hold of what I already know. And you're probably the same way.

And yet, haven't you found this true? We are constantly on a quest for something new. We'll travel across the city. We'll go miles to hear some new thing.

It's just part of our nature. And the apostle says, I suggest to you that the best response to what I have written is that you remember the words that have already been spoken. The things you already know in your mind.

Three sources. Words spoken by the holy prophets, that's the Old Testament. Words spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ, that's the gospels. And words that have been spoken by the apostles, those are the letters. In other words, that you get hold of the word of God and you call to mind the things that are helpful for you.

That you can put to use. That is why I believe it is a timeless hunger in every country, in every part of the world. This hunger for truth. For orthodox truth.

It's even greater than hunger for new things. Before I look at the practical side of this, let me bring a warning to you. Be careful about searching out information that has a sense of extravaganza to it. Be careful about those who offer visions, dreams, who study the stars and get their messages. Who read in all kinds of external things the direction for your future.

Watch out for people like that. I spoke recently to a group of missionary candidates. And one of my purposes was to bring them back, many of them seeking God's will for their future. One of my purposes was to bring them back to the sound teaching of the word of God.

We do not need visions, we do not need dreams, we do not need close friendships with those who study the zodiac. We do not need extravaganza information, we need orthodox truth. And we need to act upon what has been written. All of this brings me to a practical response. Having discovered the things that are worse and the things that are best, you could probably say, so what? Well, I want to talk about three things in conclusion. I want to talk about knowledge, I want to talk about responsibility, and I want to talk about accountability. Those three things.

Here's the first. Since knowledge brings responsibility, we should put into action what we already know. Since knowledge brings responsibility, we should put into action what we already know.

You know, every time we gather for a Bible study or for a worship service where there will be preaching, every time we gather in our community for a home Bible class or perhaps Bible study fellowship or community Bible study or whatever you may be a part of, you're increasing your responsibility. Do you know that? See, knowledge was never designed to be an end in itself. That will only lead to heresy. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge will initially lead you to pride and ultimately lead you to heresy. Paul himself said it, knowledge pops up. The whole purpose of getting knowledge as far as biblical knowledge is concerned is to responsibly act upon it.

Question, are you doing that? While I'm grinding this ax, I have noticed an interesting thing about our standard kind of Bible conference. The idea is if it's really a good conference, we have a lot of teaching time, a lot of meetings. One Bible study after another, one teacher after another. I've been involved in one that has five, even six in one day. By the third day, you're just bleary eyed and interestingly, no one can remember what the first day was all about because we are taking in more and more and more. I don't know where we got hung up on that. Almost as if it is really evangelical and really conservative truth, we need to get more and more truth.

Why? How about the afternoon spent just thinking about what one has taken in? Most of you would be hard pressed to remember what I said, what, three days ago, three Sundays ago. In fact, I don't remember what I said three Sundays ago. You get so involved in coming up with new truth and fresh information and new insights that you can't even remember it. You realize if you took one truth you heard in this session and put it into action, God would be more pleased than if you learned five new truths, none of which got into your life over the next week. Getting new truth does not please God, not unless you act on it. He has not given his word to satisfy idle intellectual curiosity.

He has given us his word to change our lives. Since knowledge brings responsibility, we should put into action what we know rather than simply seek more knowledge. Second, since responsibility means accountability, we should be able to endure examination.

Since responsibility means accountability, we should be able to endure examination. I love the story of Daniel because the man after walking with God those many years raised the ire of his colleagues and peers because his life was pure and godly. He didn't bow to that image that they had raised up and they hated him for it. They hated him for his faith, his walk with God, and they began to search his life to find flaws. They sun judged him.

They put his piece of pottery up to find a flaw. They checked his files. They talked to people who knew him. They tailed him. They spied on him. They examined him.

You know, Daniel never lost a minute's sleep because his life could stand examination. This, by the way, is where false teachers fail. You look deep enough, you look long enough in a false teacher's life, and you find flaws. You find whacks. You find cracks. Sometimes the world ultimately discovers it more often than not.

Not even the world knows it. Since responsibility means accountability, we should be able to endure examination. Third, and it builds on the second, since accountability is to be expected, we should return often to orthodox truth. Rather than visions and dreams and extra biblical extravaganza, come back home to the truth.

Since accountability is to be expected, we should return often to orthodox truth. It's a good time for me to ask you, just like you and I were sitting together in your family room or your living room, your apartment, are you still on your own taking in a portion of scripture regularly? You're doing that, aren't you? On your own, with no one else as a guide or a motivator, or even with no tape on, no one else talking in the silence of your own place, you're still opening your book and taking a look, aren't you? Every once in a while, do your children interrupt you while you're taking a look into the scriptures? Does the phone ring on occasion and interrupt your time in the Word of God, time in prayer?

I hope so. I got up real early the other morning and came down to fix the coffee and found that it was already on and it percolated and looked out in the back and our younger daughter, she would be embarrassed if she knew I was telling you this, was sitting there all alone. It was about five after five with her Bible open, reading it.

What a thrill. I don't know of anything that thrills the heart of a parent like finding one of your kids, searching the scriptures for direction. You see, if our hope is to be sincera, without wax, we need to get the kind of information that'll keep the cracks out, and that information is between the covers of this book called a Bible. What's worse? Well, it's worse to have known and lived a life of unbelief than never to have known it at all.

What's best? It's to have your sun-judged mind stimulated to live a wholesome life so that you don't fear accountability, examination. In fact, you welcome it.

You have nothing to hide. In order for that purity to take place, you just have to spend time in this book. It's better than any book anybody has written, and you take just enough of it for you to get a hold of a truth, and I suggest at that point when you finish that little section, that paragraph or chapter, close it up, don't keep reading, and ask the Spirit of God to take that truth you just discovered and to give you that very day strength to act on it.

Mothers of young children, there's nothing that will give you patience like a little time with God. Busies, career people, there's nothing to give you wisdom in dealing with the hardcore stuff of our competitive world like the Word of God. Counselors who lead others with insightful comments and a listening ear and helping them with their depression and discouragement, you need the Word of God to give you a sharp mind so that you can give wise counsel. You can pick up wrong thinking, and you'll have the right words. Words fitly spoken are like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

As an earring of gold, an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover on an obedient ear. May God cause the things we have heard to give us life beyond knowledge and a sense of responsibility that welcomes accountability and then an accountability that drives us back to the truth so that we might live sin Sarah without wax. Let's bow together, shall we? Just before I pray, I just have to ask, are you really sure? Are you absolutely certain that you have a faith in Jesus Christ and not in some religion and not just faithfulness to a church or not just a good habit that's wholesome and clean of being with Christians? Are you absolutely certain that your heart is pure because it's been cleansed by the blood of Christ? You've come to the cross and you acknowledge his death for you, that he was raised victorious over the grave, and he lives. By faith, you've taken him personally as your own Lord, God, and Savior.

Be absolutely sure of that. Only then can we live sin Sarah without wax. Father, thank you for speaking so directly in a time when there are many voices, much noise, and so many choices. Bring us back again to the simple things of the pure word of God, a walk with Christ, a life marked by sin Sarah, a without wax mind. Give us a sense of confidence in a world that wishes to examine and probe and find a flaw and announce it for the world to read. Free us from fear, our Father.

Thank you for giving us your word in our language we can understand. Now we pray for help in applying it in a world that doesn't know. Use us as models, as advertisements, so that our lives do indeed make a difference and form answers for people rather than raise questions regarding Jesus Christ.

I pray in his wonderful name. Amen. Today's message from Chuck Swindoll gives us a whole new understanding of what it means to live a sincere life.

A lot of us are learning for the very first time the phrase that Chuck used today, without wax. You're listening to Insight for Living. To learn more about this ministry, you can visit us online at insightworld.org. Well, we thought you'd be glad to learn that Insight for Living has produced a variety of resources for you. First, you'll be pleased to hear that our study on 2 Peter is available right now. It's called Conquering Through Conflict, and the complete set is in stock and available for purchase when you visit us at insight.org slash store. Or give us a call.

If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888. In addition to listening to these sermons in their entirety, Chuck has written a complete study Bible to guide you. In fact, every book in the Bible begins with historical context, so you understand when the book was written, who wrote it, and how the book fits into the complete story of the Bible. It's called the Swindoll Study Bible.

It comes in a variety of formats and font sizes, plus you can choose the cover you prefer. To purchase a copy of the Swindoll Study Bible, go to insight.org slash store. Please bear in mind it's your voluntary donations that make it possible for us to provide Chuck's teaching on the radio and the variety of different outlets that feature Insight for Living. Your gift will be channeled directly into providing the teaching for someone who's ready to learn more about God's love. To give a donation today, give us a call. If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888. By the way, we've received hundreds of comments here at Insight for Living recently, and we read every single one of them. The outpouring of love and support is so greatly appreciated. So why not connect with us today by going online to insight.org. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us next time when Chuck Swindoll presents a message called Skeptics and Sinners Beware. So be listening for more here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Which is Worse, What is Best? was copyrighted in 1989, 1990, and 2011, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2011 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.