Last words of Peter

This is the Truth Network. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Welcome. To the Wednesday in the Word podcast, equipping our leaders of this great weekly Bible study held at Dario, our wonderful, gracious host. all across North Carolina.

This is to equip, encourage, and guide you as you prepare to teach the word and guide the discussion at each location each week. And we continue our journey now through the book of Daniel. Here we are with today's special guest, Dr. Sam Horn. The power of last What were the final words?

that we have in Scripture from The great Apostle Peter. We're looking at those this week as we tackle. Our final section. of 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 10 through 18. Doctor Sam Horn.

This is uh This is some sacred ground we're kinda we're walking on, isn't it, brother? Oh man, growing in the grace. And in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ's amazing statement. You know, so it's so common. We say it all the time: grow in grace.

um but if you lived in the first century this would have been new shocking language How in the world do I grow in grace? If I lived in the Old Testament, I didn't know a whole lot. I felt it because God was always gracious. And it's not like there's two different ways to Christ. One in the Old Testament, one in the new, but I felt the weight of the law on me.

And so all of a sudden, here's Peter and he's writing to people who grew up under that. Or maybe I maybe I grew up in the Roman Empire and all I knew was the fierce burden of the Roman military might and the imposition of its inflexible tax system. The whole world in Paul's and Peter's day didn't know about grace. And here is Peter now saying, let me talk to you about grace and grow in that grace. And then, sadly, as we've seen in the book.

Here are people who are coming in and taking this beautiful doctrine. that is designed to transform us and liberate us and they're using it for their own ends. And so Peter has had to take some time in this little book to warn us about that. And to help us guard our hearts and our lives and our ministries against that, so that the true grace of God would not be warped or twisted or robbed from us. And so He's done that.

And here we are in the final. Paragraphs of the book, and Peter comes back to this amazing reality, and he says to us. Be strong and grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and now. and to the day of eternity.

So what a wonderful way to end a letter. Yeah, he opens with grace and The greeting and the gracious, warm words of growing in grace, actually, and how his divine power is giving us all things to grow in grace. And then he closes. With this this charge and a really beautiful Uh doxology. At the end of his book, Dr.

Horn, there's a whole lot going on in between. The grow in grace at the beginning of this epistle, and the growing grace at the end. Can you tell us a little bit about in terms of context? We'd love to do a little review before we jump into a preview and getting our leaders ready to teach this final lesson in 2 Peter. What's happening in this book leading up?

We got a lot of false teachers. Peter. Excoriates and scoffers. We have believers who need to make sure their election sure. We have the importance of God's revelation on the Holy Mountain and such.

Give us a little bit of a review of where we've been leading up to now.

Well, you know, this is really incredible, Stu. You know, I know you guys did 1 Peter sometime back. And if you come to the end of 1 Peter, this is a book about suffering, what it's going to be like to live for God in a fallen world. And at the end of that book, Paul says, or Peter rather says to his readers, Be strong in grace. Find strength in grace.

Stand firm because of grace. And then we come to 2 Peter, and now instead of suffering, there is the error of false teaching that is going to get in the way of believers who are adding to their faith. Who are listening to the word that God gave through his prophets that's not of any private interpretation? They're going to be denying the Lord who bought them, they're going to be defiling the truth that he gave to them, and they're going to be sort of mocking the promises, these great and precious promises. That God gave.

And so, all along the way, for two and a half chapters, Peter has been helping us. Guard grace so that we can grow in it.

So we stand in it in 1 Peter and we grow in it. in 2 Peter. And the way we grow in it is that we don't let somebody come along. and take away the truth that was given to us in scripture. particularly these great and precious promises.

That God has given to us. And we looked at some of those promises earlier in our study through this book, but there is no greater promise, is there? Then the promise of his coming. Jesus said. I will come again so that where I am, you may be with me also.

There is no greater promise that will sustain us in the dark days of life, in the trials of life, in the tribulations of life, in the devastation of illness and sickness, and even at the end of our life, there is no greater promise. than the promise of his coming.

So it shouldn't surprise us. that one of Satan's greatest priorities. is to take that promise away from us. To make us doubt it, to make us discount it, to make us deny it. If he can take away the promise of the coming of the Lord.

For his saints to be with his people, he has undermined the entire purpose of the gospel. The purpose of the gospel. is to redeem us so that we can be with God. And if he's not coming to do that, if it's just, it's over at death. Then there really isn't a hope.

Paul is going to actually say, Peter's buddy Paul is going to say, if that's really true, we are of all people most miserable. And so Peter is guarding this great promise. And by the way, Stu, you and I and those leaders who teach this material have got to help people understand this is the most immense promise outside of salvation. This is the most immense promise that we have in the Bible for our lives. Again, it's the greatest event yet to happen in history.

It's an event that, you know, Dr. Horn won out of five versus roughly. Talk about prophecy, some sort of end times. 25% of scripture is dedicated to this important topic. And the scoffers, of course, are like, where is the promise of your coming?

What's going on here? And Peter, he confronts them, reminds them in verse chapter 3, earlier on in chapter 3, about that, hey, God judged. For 120 years, faithful Noah preached. And there was not, it had never rained before. There'd never been a boat built, much less gone out on.

There'd never been an ocean for the boat to ride on. No, no fishing and no cruising and no. No boating and angling. And yachting, and yet God came, and it came suddenly when the rain came, the door was shut. From the outside, by God Himself, and the judgment came.

Peter reminds him of that in chapter 3. And so. The coming at the end of times. When Christ comes, it will be sudden, but it won't be with water, Dr. Horn.

Fire is mentioned many times in Scripture as a metaphor for judgment, and it's really hit hard here by Peter, isn't it? This idea of fire and burning and whatnot.

So, the best way for us to kind of go at this with our leaders. Is to start where we ended last time, where we ended in our last study was in the reality of the coming day. And that's in verse 10: 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 the works that are in it will all be burned up. And so when Peter comes to us and he says, guard the truth of his coming, what he wants us to remember is that the first time Jesus came, he didn't come in the world to condemn the world.

That's what John wrote. Remember in John 3:16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him would not perish but have everlasting life. The next verse. Reminds us that when Christ came to do that, he didn't come to condemn the world that time, he came to save it. And that's what he's been doing for 2,000 plus years and what he will do and continue to do until the day of his second coming.

When he comes the second time, he's going to come to judge the world. And that's what Peter is talking about here. This day is sure. It will come. It is certain.

It will be sudden. It is going to come like a thief in the night. Nobody knows when a thief is going to come or we would be awake and ready. It's going to come like a thief in the night. And when it comes, here's what that day is going to be like.

It is going to be God's day. It is the day of the Lord. Right now, everybody has their day. If you listen to the news, so-and-so has their day. President Trump has his day.

The Democrats have their day. Putin has his day. Everybody's got their day. But Peter says you need to know something. There's coming a day.

And when that day arrives, it's going to be God's day. And the thing God is going to do on that day is he's going to evaluate the world and he's going to judge it. And when he judges it, he's going to judge in righteousness. He's going to judge in justice. And he is going to put an end to wickedness.

He's going to put an end to sin. He's going to put an end to the curse. He's going to destroy the destroyer. Everything that destroys us. God is going to one day destroy.

and he's not going to leave it destroyed look at verse 13. In verse 13, nevertheless. We, according to his promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth. And that new heaven and that new earth isn't going to be under the control of the things that destroy us. It's not going to be under control of the false teachers.

It's not going to be under the control of the devil and his forces. It's not going to be marked by sin. It's not going to be ruled by death. We're not going to need the condemnation of the law to remind us that God is holy when that day comes. And God destroys the destroyer, and he removes the things that destroy us, and he takes death and sin and removes them entirely from the picture on that day.

What's going to characterize that world is righteousness. It is a world, a new earth in which righteousness dwells. That is an amazing thing. As you stop and think about it. And so Peter is talking here not just about a cleaned up world.

You know, you can take the forces of a nation into a smaller nation and clean up all the corruption. and remove the you know remove the dictator and and take out you know the the forces that are oppressing the people and and feel like you've cleaned up a nation And 10 years later, you go back to that nation and it's worse than it was. when you came in the first time. This isn't cleaning up the earth. This isn't fixing poverty with some temporary solution like education or digging wells in Africa or providing medicine or redistributing the wealth of the world.

This is a brand new world. A world of a completely different kind and nature than the world we have today. It's the world God originally created in Genesis 1 and 2 when he looked at the end of every created day and he saw that what he had done was good. It was the word tov means it was beautiful. It was morally right.

It was beneficial to all that dwelled therein. And there's coming a day when God is going to send his Son Jesus Christ to pass judgment. On the leaders and on the destroyers who have so broken this present world that they're going to be destroyed themselves. And then he's going to remake the world and it's going to be a world of righteousness and peace. It's going to be a brand new, fresh world marked by purity and righteousness.

It's going to be like Genesis 3, the first part.

So a new heaven, a new earth.

So Peter is going full apocalyptic on us here. In this final chapter. And he's, of course, he's, you know, earlier he's touched on it, and which is fascinating because we went from 1 Peter. to Daniel the exiles of 1 Peter to the exiles of Daniel. To the exiles of Second Peter, But Daniel had all this apocalyptic and all this prophecy, and this the Son of Man is coming in the new heaven, the new earth, the future, and the judgment.

And so Peter picks right up on that in 2 Peter. Dr. Horne. Not only is there this beautiful reference to the new heaven and new earth, of course, Revelation 21, you know, that's what John saw in his great vision. And it's just going to be Absolutely amazable, incomprehensible to our human minds, our frail, finite minds, but.

There's some strong Uh compunction. Bye, Peter here.

Some imperatives to live holy, to live blameless, without spot. Without without blemish, as though how. What's going to happen in the future? Should impact how we live right now.

Now, you have a little outline that touches these final. Nine or so verses, Dr. Horn. Can you share that with us as our leaders get ready to teach? The end of 2 Peter this week.

Absolutely. We kind of touched on the first point, and that was... We need to just remind ourselves of the reality of that day. That's verses 10. And verses 11.

And then, secondly, we need to cultivate the right reaction to that.

So, what is the reaction when somebody says to you, God is going to judge the world, He's going to burn it up with fire? What is the normal reaction? that somebody has when that's the way this idea is presented. And the natural sort of reaction to that is You know, a recoiling. It's like, what?

How could a God of love do that?

Well, that's actually not what Peter is saying. We're going to have to react in such a way that helps people understand why we're excited about this concept, that God is actually going to show up. And he is going to deal permanently and righteously and justly and lovingly and beneficially with everything that is destroying us. There are things, like we just said a moment ago, that are destroying the world. The devil.

The flesh. the worldly system. All of the power brokers that are using their power in corrupt ways, all of that is going to be dealt with. God is going to destroy all of that. He's going to judge it.

The word fire there, I personally believe there's going to be a judgment of the earth, and it's going to destroy the current earth that is. But the word fire there is not necessarily getting us to think about flames in our fireplace or flames that are out of control in a forest. It's designed to get us to think about the evaluation. and the judgment, the fierce judgment of God. God is going to come in wrath.

And he is going to take care of all of those who are destroying his people, his creation. And his purposes. And our reaction to that, Peter says, is we're to look for that day. We're to anticipate That day, notice how he says here in verse 11: since all of these things are thus to be dissolved. What sort of people ought you to be in the lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of that day?

In other words, we should be longing for that day. The word wait there is not talking about what you do. In your doctor's office or at your dentist's office, when you're dreading being called back there because you know you're gonna get a root canal or you know you're gonna have a surgical procedure that you have to have. That's not the kind of idea that is being described by that word. It's the word wait.

in the sense that at the end of the way is this unimaginably amazingly good thing for you and you can't wait for it to get here That's our reaction.

So when Peter says God is going to dissolve the earth and judge it, God's people who understand what Peter really is saying are going. Lord, I want that day to come. I want that. I can't wait for it to get here. But in the meantime, While we're waiting for that day, we're not supposed to be sitting on our hind ends, right?

We're supposed to be out doing something.

So, what is the responsibility? That God has for believers. He says it this way: in light of. The fact that all of these things in the world are gonna be dissolved. What manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness while you look for and hasten?

the coming of the day of the Lord.

So what kind of people Should we be? Stu, in other words, when I read this, if Peter was looking across the table, drinking a cup of coffee with me, he would say, Sam, in light of everything I've written to you in this book, and especially in light of the coming of the Lord, where he's going to evaluate and judge the world, you need to be a certain kind of person. And the kind of person that you need to be. is someone who is marvelous. When people look at your life, they should say, That's a marvelous life.

This is the same word that Jesus used in Mark 13. Or reacted to in Mark 13 when they were walking by the temple. I'm sure you've been to the remains of that temple, Stu, and you've seen the massive stones there that Herod put up. And in Mark, one of his disciples, as they're walking by, says to Jesus, look at the wonderful stones that are here and the buildings that are on top. Look at these marvelous stones.

They are ginormous. This is what John was talking about when he points to the love of God in 1 John 3:1. Behold, what manner, what great, marvelous love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called His children. And here, Peter is saying to you and to me, Stu and Sam, in light of everything I'm saying, you should live the kind of lives that when people look at them, they would say, Those are marvelous lives, and they're marvelous in holy conduct, and they're marvelous in godliness. Holy conduct.

Is conduct that is different than the conduct of everybody around us. And I'm not talking about what you wear or what you listen to or how you comb your hair. I'm talking about how you treat one another. I'm talking about how you do work and business. I'm talking about how you love your wife and how you serve your family.

I'm talking about how do you use your money. and your resources. Everything about you. ought to be marvelous when it's compared to other people around you. Not that you're doing this for pride, but other people around you should look at you and say, you know, I don't get how you love your wife that way.

I don't understand how you love your kids and serve your kids the way you do for all of these years that I've been your neighbor. I don't get it. It's marvelous to me. I wish I could do that. I don't know how you've had a 40-year marriage and you still hold hands and you still love each other and you still can't hardly stand to be away from each other.

I don't get that. You know, I don't understand why you took the bonus that we all got this year at the office that was so unexpected. And why I found you in the great break room and you were almost in tears. And I said, What's up? And you said, I've been praying that God would give me some money to give to this missionary that's taking the gospel to people in Spain.

And I didn't have any money and God answered my prayer. And I'm going to be able to take these $5,000 and give. And I don't get that because I've already got these $5,000 spent. And it's not on some missionary preaching the gospel. It's on a boat.

I've had my eye on a boat. I don't get you. You live a marvelous life. You live a godly life. This, the word godly there is not talking about our outward performance, it's talking about our upward look.

It's talking about living for the purpose of making God smile. I want God when he looks at my life. To smile, like I smile at my kids. You know, I come home and I see my young son out in the backyard, and he's doing his very best to pull weeds out of the yard because he knows daddy wants weeds out of that yard. And I didn't have to tell him, and I'm smiling at his efforts.

Or I go in there and I see my little daughter standing on a stool next to her mom, drying the dishes, and I'm smiling. And that's the point. When I live my life, however weak and small and insignificant and broken it might be, I want God to smile. I want him to smile. You know, he's not going to smile if I'm living for my own self, right?

Or if I'm just running off and doing sins that nobody else knows about. I want God to smile in my life. I want other people to marvel at God's grace in my life, and I want God to smile. On my life. And so that's one big reaction.

We are to live marvelous lives. And then, secondly, Paul says we're to hasten this coming. And that bothered me for a long time. How in the world do I hasten the coming of the Lord? And that's the fourth thing, right?

That's my responsibility. I hastened the coming of the Lord. in three important ways number one i pray for it remember what jesus said Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. What's the second request? Die what?

So I pray for this. Secondly, I live. And demonstrate and display and announce repentance. In Acts 13, I'm sorry, Acts 3, verse 19. Peter said, repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before.

You know, I'm not just supposed to pray for the kingdom. I'm supposed to exhort people to repent. And I'm supposed to exhort people around me to repent. I'm supposed to exhort my family to repent. By repent, I mean come to Christ.

I'm supposed to exhort the nations to repent, but there's one particular nation. that God really is interested in, and it's the nation of Israel. And Stu, I'm not trying to be politically inappropriate here, but all of us should be praying for the repentance of Israel. Because this is the nation to whom God sent the Messiah. This is the nation for whom God sent the Messiah.

And they are the ones who rejected him and orchestrated his crucifixion by the Romans. And the grace of God is so amazing that before God judges the world, he wants this nation to turn and repent. And so, you and I need to pray for the coming of the kingdom, and we need to work for the repentance of the nations, and we need to pray for the repentance of Israel. And then, number three, we need to evangelize. Matthew 24, 14, and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

You know why God is taking so long to return? Because there are nations who don't know the Lord. There are nations where the gospel hasn't gone. And people like me who spend our lives learning theology and studying theology and teaching theology, we can sort of content ourselves with, well, I'm actually teaching people the gospel. And people who sit in our pews and who attend our classes or maybe even go to Bible studies.

Can content ourselves by saying, Oh, we're learning the truth. Lloyd, look at all the notes I'm taking. Look at my study Bible with all the notes I've got in it. I got a study Bible full of notes. And Peter would look at us and say, So when are you going to go and share all of that with somebody that's lost?

Wow. Wow. When are you going to get on a boat like Ed Nira Judson did and say goodbye to everything you love and everybody you love and go to a country and spend your entire life there and bury a wife and bury children for the sake of the gospel? When are you going to do that? When are you going to go where the gospel isn't?

So that the gospel can come to people who desperately need it. And when we are doing that, there will come a day when God will look over at the archangel and say, okay. I know you've been puckering up for centuries and you've been sort of fidgeting over there. It's time. I want you to blow that trumpet and I want you to blow it loud because my son is coming.

Amen.

Well, Dr. Horn, you know, along those lines. It's fascinating. That Warren Wearsby, a great quote from his commentary series. This one's called Be Alert on 2 Peter.

He says: The language and the information about prophecy and Christ's return isn't to stimulate. Speculation, but it is to cause motivation. Absolutely. To cause us to go. And I can't help but think of that verse.

And it's touched on again, I think, here in verse 13, where God's long suffering is mentioned again by Peter. It's mentioned in verse 9: you know, He's long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish. And there's a sense to which You know, yes, we're waiting on God. We are Eager, we're expectant. It's the blessed hope of Titus 2:13.

There's an expectancy, a holy expectancy that changes our life, but there's a real sense to which God is waiting on us.

Now, I'm not making God out to be this impotent, weak.

Well, I've got to wait till these sinners repent. No, he is sovereign, we are not. But there's a sense to which his long suffering and in his patience and grace He is allowing more people. To come to know Jesus. Today, someone will receive Christ as their Savior.

Well, He hasn't come back yet.

So there's a window of mercy. The the the door on the ark of God's judgment, Dr. Horne. hasn't closed yet. There are still souls on our planet who've never heard the gospel.

A la Matthew 24:14.

So there's a merciful forbearance. And think about how he waited for you. And for me, he could have zapped me. He could have zapped me really good in the eighth grade, you know? Yeah.

Well, I actually have more recent times. You were my student, brother. I have more times in eighth grade when you could have been zapped. And I could be zapped as recently as last week.

Well, I called, it's interesting. I called a Calvary Chapel pastor who I never talked to. Last week, just to return call. We were talking about something unrelated to any of this. And the wild thing, I don't know why he said this to me.

At the very end of our conversation, he says, Stu, just think about it. Just think about the last sinner. that comes to know Jesus. before he returns. And I thought, what a thought.

I mean, why aren't we? Why aren't we contemplating that? Why isn't if it's such a big event and Christ's return is so real and people need the Savior so much? Dr. Orn, why aren't we?

I mean, we need to live in these final verses of 2 Peter. We need to internalize them. Because this is real, and he is coming back. And what a beautiful picture of people, you know, these people in other cultures who don't even have the Bible in their language when they receive the word of God from a Wicca translator missionary or from someone else who brings them a copy of God's Word in their language for the first time, and the eyes are opened. And those scales of sin fall off.

And I mean, this is all about not just the ends of end of times, but the ends of the earth that's advancing. It's that is hastening God's return, Dr. Horne, just by being missionaries and being great commission. warriors for the for the king of kings heralding his message wouldn't you say Yeah, the older I get, Stu, the closer I get to the end, the more I see that what you're saying. You know, listen to your voice.

we start talking about the gospel, it just. you come alive. You know, it's just such a part of who God. it's it's the grace of god at work in you and i hope in me but here's here's the thing brother I think Peter is going at something really huge in our life. And then maybe this is a great way to end our series on 2 Peter, but really even to tie back to the original study on 1 Peter that you did, think about why most people become Christians in their mind.

I don't want to go to hell. That's reason number one. Number two, my life is so messed up. Sin has just destroyed me. It is destroying me.

My marriage is a mess, my kids are a mess, my job is a mess, my life is a mess, and I need somebody to fix it all.

So I'm going to get saved. I'm going to bring Jesus in. And he's going to fix it, you know. And I'm going to give him, I'm going to give him a lot of space in my life, man. I'm going to give him like, he's in the front seat, not the back seat.

And if I get in trouble, I'm letting them drive. But basically, most of us. Look at the Christian light. As a way to avoid all the bad stuff we don't want in our life, we don't want to go to hell. We don't want to suffer.

We don't want our lives to have pain. And if they do, we go to God as quick as we can to get it out. Like we're all repenting when there's a cancer diagnosis. Like, oh, God, if you'll just save me from cancer, if you'll heal me from cancer, I'll start living for you. I'll start doing this.

I'll go back to church. And so God becomes the great fixer. in our lives. But if you really stop and think of what Peter is saying in his first letter. He's telling us something amazing.

When God wanted to bring the gospel to the world, he sent his son into the world to suffer. And his whole life was a life of self-denial and suffering. He did not hold on. to what it meant to be the second member of the Trinity. That's Philippians 2.

Right. He came and he didn't come as a king. He was a king, but he didn't show up in a kingly manner. He didn't show up, he wasn't born in a palace. You know, he didn't have a bunch of people around him giving him pampered education and going before him, blowing trumpets.

He came and he lived a very humble life, the life of a humble son of a carpenter. A stonemason. And his whole life was about suffering. And when God wanted to bring the world the gospel that would remove ultimate suffering. He sent his son to suffer.

Here's the thing. When Jesus Christ suffered. In first Peter 2. That's how many souls came back to the shepherd.

So, it shouldn't surprise us that God is going to use suffering in a great way in our lives to take that gospel to the world. And it's the one thing we do everything we can to avoid. I don't want to suffer the loss of my money. I've worked too hard. I'll give God five bucks.

I'll give God. You know, a hundred bucks, but to the idea of emptying out my bank account, that that's gonna put me in a really bad spot. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to deny myself a ton of things that I have right now. And so we have this aversion to the very thing that God used to bring us to the gospel and to the thing that he wants to use in our lives to take the gospel to the world. And so we got it all backwards, right?

Peter, the whole book of 1 Peter is stand firm, be strong in grace. Why? Because God is going to bring suffering into your life as a godly person. And that's the way the gospel is going to go to your neighbor. It's going to go to your son.

It's going to go to your daughter. It's going to go to your cousin. It's going to go across an ocean to India, to China. That's how God is going to do it. And His grace will strengthen you if you continually entrust your life to a faithful creator.

That's 1 Peter. Second Peter is, you do this. With a motivation that there is a coming day when God's gonna put an end to all of this. He's gonna bring judgment on all the things that create this brokenness and the suffering. And before he does, he wants to bring many souls to glory, and he wants you to be a part of that.

So Grow in that. Grow in your commitment to that. Be the kind of person whose life is marvelous in the sight of others in the midst of all of your pain and suffering. And allow that grace to strengthen and flavor your life so that all around the world, I mean, student, just think about what if everybody in our Bible studies, what if each one of us just said to the Lord this year, God, this year in 2026. I want to live in such a way that people would look at the grace of God in my life and say, wow, I want that.

I want to learn more about that. Would you allow me to share the grace of God with one person? You know, let's just say there are 500 people in these Bible studies. Is that a fair number? Yes, sir, surely.

Maybe more. All right, so let's use 500. What if everybody just did? one person and at the end of the year now there are a thousand worshipers who have found grace and are living in grace and have this mindset. And they did the same thing in 2027.

And by the end of 2027, now there's 2,000 people. And by the end of 2028, there's 4,000 people. And by the end of 2029, there's 8,000 people. And by the year 2030, there are 16,000 passionate people who are living out the grace of God because of this Bible study that we've done in 2 Peter. Wouldn't that be stunning?

16,000 people, and it's not complicated. I've just got to reach one. And next year, I got to do it again. And the year after, I got to do it again. And the exponential power of that by the time you get to 2040.

You were talking about Hundreds of thousands of people. who are on mission. With the grace of God, because we just decided in 2026, we're going to take this little Bible study, these three chapters of Peter, and put them to work in our life. And we're actually going to believe God. That's why I love doing these podcasts with you.

That's why it's not a burden to do this. That's why it's a delight because I want to be part of that army.

Well, and this is the church, the church is triumphant, the church multiplies. This is what God does. And as people, so many pastors are a part of this outreach because We're trying to get folks from the Dario into the local church, God's Plan A, the discipleship factory that God has put on earth to mobilize, to send. into the world to plant more churches. To bring more people to him.

Dr. Horn, we gotta wrap up a couple verses in this passage. That are really powerful on the inerrancy and the inspiration, authority, veracity of scripture. Where Peter says, hey, There's another apostle who's our dear beloved brother Paul. who also testifies of this.

Peter is not some lone voice of Revelation, he bundles in the holy prophets. A few verses earlier. The law, the prophets, the revelation of the Old Testament. Himself is an apostle in the authority he has from Christ himself. And then he says Paul also gives the authority.

And even some of Paul's words, which Peter's were too, by the way, were hard to understand. Doesn't mean they were impossible because we study the word. But so this is a you know this is a nice a nice tribute. To his, he said, to Paul. They had a few run-ins, and they had some things, you know, Galatians 2 to the very least language, right?

You know, but it's just a pro, just a quick one sentence or two on that, and then we're going to wrap up. All right.

So all through our study of 2 Peter, we've been going back to Paul, right? We talked about Romans at one point. We referenced what he said to the Corinthians. We've talked about what he said to the Philippians and to the Colossians.

So Peter's exactly right. Paul is the theologian in the New Testament out of which all of this doctrine that Peter is applying and talking about comes. And he's right. Peter does not. Kid when he says some of Paul's writings are tough.

And here's the thing. Paul wrote hard stuff under inspiration. It's not like God didn't know simple words and God didn't know how to make concepts simple. He inspired Paul to write the way he wrote. And so here's my exhortation: Our tendency is to run over hard places in scripture because they're too hard, they're too complex.

I'm not a theology dude, I don't get it. It's not kind of what, you know, it's not my thing. I'll leave that to the theologians. And God says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, stop. I put that there and I made it hard so you would slow down and study it.

I made it tough because I want you to read it over and over and over and over. And I want you to wrestle through it and I want you to dig around it so that you understand it and it gets in you. That's why I wrote it that way.

So, hard things are not there because God wants to confound us or confuse us. Hard things are there because God wants us to stop. and study and ask questions. And dig deep so that the truth digs deep into us. And so let me end, let me end with this thought.

About Peter and living our life for the gospel. This is the month, January is the month when we observe. the incredible sacrifice that five men made back in the late 50s. When they went to Ecuador for the sake of the gospel. And one of those men was a guy named Jim Elliott.

The whole world knows his wife. And there was a whole generation that was mobilized by him. And my generation and your generation, Stu, were impacted by that generation that came out of his life. When Jim Elliott went, he had no idea that he was going to die for the sake of the gospel. But he wrote this.

He said this. He is no fool. who gives up what he cannot keep. namely his earthly life. for that which you cannot lose.

Well, Jim Elliott's been in heaven now for more than 70 years or 80 years. Can you imagine? What happens in heaven every single time somebody comes to Christ because somebody read a story about Jim Elliott. Or somebody was motivated by Jim Elliott's example to give up their earthly possessions and go to the mission field and lead people. I mean, Jim Elliott is making a spiritual bank in heaven.

Because of the sacrifice that he made one day on the Kouray River. In the late 50s, God's math and God's reward system is incredible. It is incredible. We are fools if we hang on to that which we cannot keep. and lose out on that which we cannot lose.

And so that's what Peter is actually saying as we hasten. The day of his coming by praying for it and announcing and compelling people to be reconciled to God through repentance and evangelizing people with the gospel, it may cost us our life. Wow, it will cost us everything. But But Jim Elliott And Peter and Paul and James and Jude and a thousand other voices would all stand at the battlement of heaven and look down and say, Don't be a fool. You aren't a fool when you give up what you can't keep.

To gain what you can't lose. And so I pray that that'll be true in your life and mine and the life of our listeners. The Grace he opens with, Peter does. The growing race he closes with. And just want to read one little sentence from Chuck Swindahl that you will really enjoy.

He says, with these final words of doxology, to God be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

With that, Peter puts down his pen. We have heard the last of him for now. One day the experi the expected knock came at his door. Nero's Attendant and attention had been drawn To him at last. He was arrested and sentenced to death by crucifixion.

It was a cruel way to die. The end came soon enough. The gates of glory opened, and Peter was absent from the body and present with the Lord. We can almost hear him. His voice rising in unison with all the other ransomed saints of God.

To God be the glory, both now and forever. Amen.

Followed by the resounding Amen.

So, the last words of Peter, Dr. Horn, pray us out here. I'm sorry, this has just been a blessing and just a rich journey through Peter. Yeah, excited about what we've learned and looking forward to our next journey and the next book that the Lord has for us to study together. Lord, I pray that your good hand would be on us.

I pray that you would bless everything that we've learned from the Apostles' pen. and that we would grow in the knowledge of your Son and be firm in the grace that he has imparted to us. Lord, help us to use our life. For the things that matter most, for the kingdom that matters most, and in ways that will advance the gospel the most. And we'll give you praise and glory for all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you, Dr. Horn, and thank you for joining us for this Wednesday in the Word podcast. Learn more at wedintheword.com. Follow us on YouTube. Facebook and all social media, including Instagram, and be encouraged, stay in the word.

Read it. Share it, study it, memorize it. Meditate on God's Word. Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in him.

Proverbs 30, verse 5.