2 Peter 1

 

God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him

He has given us His great and precious promises that we might partake of His divine nature

 

1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those that have obtained the same precious faith with us through the righteousness of our God and our Savior, Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue: 4 by which are given to us exceedingly great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

 

  • His grace and peace are multiplied to us in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.
  • “2 Peter was written because the pure doctrine of faith was being corrupted.” Martin Luther
  • Notice also that our faith is obtained through the righteousness of God, not our own works.
  • Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself also in the LORD; and he will give you the desires of your heart.
  • Matthew 17:20 … If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, … nothing will be impossible to you.
  • Revelation 3:21 To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

 

5 Beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6 And to knowledge self-control; and to self-control patience; and to patience godliness; 7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are in you, and abound, they make you neither idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

  • Earthly life is short. We can make choices each day that will last forever if we choose more of God and His word and less of other things.

 

9 But he that lacks these things is blind, and cannot see far off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. 10 Therefore brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, you will never fall: 11 For by this you will be richly furnished upon entering into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 12 Therefore I will not be negligent to always put you in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and are established in the present truth.

 

  • Notice that the abundant entrance into His everlasting kingdom is not based on our works but on His character inside us produced by the Holy Spirit through His word inside us (verses 4-7, John 15:5, Isaiah 26:12).

 

13 Yes, I think it fitting, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; 14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15 And I will also be diligent that you may be able after my departure to have these things always in remembrance. 16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 18 And we heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him in the holy mount.

 

  • Jesus was transformed before their eyes into His infinitely beautiful and majestic, pre-incarnate self for a brief time in Matthew 17:1-6.
  • Matthew 17:5 While he still spoke, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him.
  • Psalm 45:2 You are more beautiful than the children of men: grace is poured into your lips: therefore God has blessed you forever.

 

The Daystar arises in our hearts

The Holy Spirit wrote the Bible

 

19 We have the more reliable prophetic word; unto which you do well to pay attention as to a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the Daystar arises in your hearts: 20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is a matter of ones own interpretation. 21 For the prophecy never came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

 

  • The Word of God is more solid than what they saw and heard the day Christ was transformed before them.
  • Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful
  • Psalm 33:6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of hem by the breath of his mouth. 9 he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.

 

                                              2 Peter 2

 

The Lord also bought the false prophets though they deny Him

 

1 But false prophets arose among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their destructive ways; by whom the way of truth will be spoken evil of. 3 And in their greed will exploit you with false words: whose judgment of old does not linger, and their destruction does not slumber.

 

  • People who make their living ‘serving’ the church but who don’t give God’s people the truth are exploiting God’s people.
  • Without truth the people are sold into evil for the leaders to make their living just as if you were livestock or a shirt.
  • 2Corinthians 2:17 For we are not as many, who corrupt the word of God: but sincerely, as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.

 

God cast the angels that sinned into hell

 

4 For if God did not spare the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, thrust down to Tartarus to be reserved until judgment; 5 And did not spare the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; 6 And turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemning them with an overthrow, setting an example to those that intend to live in an ungodly way.

 

  • Tartarus in greek mythology was the lowest part of the underworld reserved for the worst of evil doers.
  • Cronos and the Titans are imprisoned there.
  • These are some of the angels of Genesis 6 that intermarried with beautiful women of earth.
  • Parts of mythology are based in fact.

 

7 And delivered just Lot, oppressed by the lawless lustful conduct of the wicked: 8 (For that righteous man, dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, his righteous soul was tormented from day to day with their lawless works;)

 

The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation

 

9 The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of testings, and to reserve the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished: 10 Especially those that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of glories. 11 Whereas angels, greater in power and might, do not bring reviling judgment against them before the Lord. 12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of things that they do not understand; and will utterly perish in their own corruption.

 

  • In their ‘own corruption’ says that they did it to themselves by their freewill.
  • God made some people for destruction, His perfect purpose in making some for destruction was to make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy.
  • Romans 9:21 Doesn’t the potter have power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to honor, and another to dishonor? 22 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory

 

13 And will receive the reward of unrighteousness. Those that consider it pleasure to riot in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, reveling in their own deceits while they feast with you; 14 having eyes full of an adulteress, and that cannot stop sinning; alluring unsettled souls: they have a heart busy with covetousness; cursed children: 15 who have forsaken the right way, and have gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; 16 But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbid the madness of the prophet.

 

  • Balaam is found in Numbers 22-24. He was a prophet of God but loved money more than God, the source of all wealth.

 

17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. 18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were escaping from them who live in error. 19 While they promise them freedom, they themselves are the slaves of corruption: for by what a man is overcome, that enslaves him.

 

  • Many false teachers promise freedom from the yoke of God’s commandments.
  • Psalm 2:1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

 

20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the full knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 But it happens to them according to the true proverb, The dog has returned to his own vomit again; and the washed sow to her wallowing in the mire.

 

                                                2 Peter 3

 

God formed the heavens and the earth by His word

 

1 Beloved, I now write to you this second letter; to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: 2 that you may be mindful of the words that were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment, the apostles of the Lord and Savior: 3 Knowing this first, that in the last days scoffers will come, walking after their own lusts, 4 and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing/consisting out of the water and in the water:  6 By which the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

 

  • The world being overflowed with water, perished, speaks of the flood of Noah’s day.

 

God is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any perish

 

8 But, beloved, do not be ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any perish, but that all come to repentance.

 

  • Those who scoff are the very reason that the Lord hasn’t come yet.
  • He is suffering their blasphemies against Him, trying to get them to turn to Him, their Maker and sustainer.

 

God is going to make a new heavens and new earth in which dwells righteousness

 

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements burning will be dissolved, the earth also and the works that are in it will be burned up. 11 Since all these things will be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in all holy behavior and godliness, 12 looking for and rushing to the coming of the day of God, in which the heavens being on fire will be dissolved, and the elements will melt with intense heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. 14 Therefore, beloved, looking for these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, without spot, and blameless. 15 And regard the longsuffering of our Lord as salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given to him has written to you; 16 in all his epistles speaking in them of these things; in which some things are hard to understand, which they that are unlearned and unstable pervert, as they do the other scriptures, to their own destruction.

 

  • Blessing comes from understanding and following what our Lord has said (Psalm 1). Judgment or discipline comes from twisting or perverting His truth.
  • 1 Corinthians3:15 If any man's work is burned, he will suffer loss : but he himself will be saved ; yet so as by fire.

 

17 You therefore beloved, since you know these things in advance, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. 18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.

 

  • Grace does not mean that we can get away with everything.
  • It takes no strength to do evil…evil is the easy, natural thing for us to do.
  • God’s power to overcome evil comes to us through His grace.
  • We do not deserve it. We do not earn it.
  • The more we know of Him through His word the more we will want to avoid evil and love Him with all our hearts.
  • God is who He says He is in His word, not who people make Him up to be.
  • Ezekiel 1:26 And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and on the throne was the likeness of a man above upon it. 27 And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from his loins upward, and from his loins downward, I saw the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. 28 As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.

 

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SUMMARY: 2 Peter 1-3

 

  • God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him
  • He has given us His great and precious promises that we might partake of His divine nature
  • The Daystar arises in our hearts
  • The Holy Spirit wrote the Bible
  • The Lord also bought the false prophets though they deny Him
  • God cast the angels that sinned into hell
  • The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation
  • God formed the heavens and the earth by His word
  • God is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any perish
  • God is going to make a new heavens and new earth in which dwells righteousness