THINGS WE MUST NEVER FORGET

The Apostolic Message

2 Peter 1:12-18

Dr. J. Drew Conley, Pastor

Kennerly Road Baptist Church, Columbia, South Carolina

I cannot think of a more appropriate song for our consideration this morning as we look at God's Word than "I Love to Tell the Story." We love to tell the story -- we know it's true. It satisfies longings as nothing else can do. It is better than all the fanciful dreams of all the world's philosophers. It works.

Please turn in your Bibles to the book of 2 Peter chapter one. We have a number of students in our congregation and the rest of the congregation is made up of those who are glad they are no longer students -- at least students matriculating somewhere! There are lessons you learn in school that are lessons for life. Some are a little humorous now, but they were not so humorous then. Do you recall listening to the teacher lecture in a particular class and being quite sure at the time that you already knew the facts he was sharing and that you understood what was being said, so you did not bother to take notes. But, lo and behold, when exam time came around, the things you thought you knew, you found you didn't know well enough to be tested on them. You also found that the things you remembered the teacher teaching, he did not bother to ask on the test.

It is easy to live the Christian life that way, too. Not only in failing to know what is important to know, but in failing to see the connection of those things to how I am to be living my life day in and day out. I suppose it is because of our sin nature that we tend to remember the things we would be best to forget, and forget what we ought best to remember. This can cause us problems in school and in our everyday secular affairs, but it can be downright disasterous in spiritual matters.

I would like to speak to you this morning on "Things We Must Never Forget." 2 Peter 1 verses 12 - 15: "Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ that showed me. Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance."`

Note first with me the urgency of Peter's message: I am going to call it The Apostolic Message. You might put in your notes, The Urgency of the Apostolic Message -- the things he wanted them to remember. He says, "Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things." Whenever you see the word wherefore you know something has gone before that has bearing on what he is going to talk about now. In this case he is referring back to the previous verses (2 Peter 1:1, 5-8) that talk about "the like precious faith" and about adding "to your faith virtue (moral courage). . . knowledge. . .temperance. . .patience. . .godliness. . .brotherly kindness. . .charity (love)" so you will not be "barren (unworking) nor unfruitful" but glorify God by your growth in Christlikeness, and so that you will be settled in your assurance that you actually belong to God. When he says wherefore, or on the basis of what I have already said, he wants to stir up your memory.

What we are to remember (these things we are never to forget) has at stake whether or not we belong to God. At stake is our confidence of God's lavishly supplying us an entrance into the everlasting kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our energetic and fruitful walk with God evidences spiritual life that springs from saving faith in Jesus Christ as proclaimed by the Apostles. If we don't know, if we don't remember and have the assurance that what they taught is so, then we have nothing on which to base any Christian growth: we have no guarantee that we shall enter that heavenly kingdom. That is why he says, "Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and be established in the present truth." In other words, they have a mental grasp of the gospel truth -- they know the facts of the apostolic teaching -- and, more than that, they have the stability that comes from personal

experience of these truths. In other words, they are people like the average believer in churches today: people like you.

Peter speaks to them with a pastoral concern. He says, "I know you know these gospel truths; I know you know the message; and I know you have experienced the reality of them. You have been established in the present truth." Notice how he refers to the gospel as "the truth" in the singular. It is not just a collection of facts that can be different for different groups of people. It is the truth -- a singular distinct body of facts, unified in the gospel message -- totally reliable. It is identifiable as the truth, and in the truth we have placed our faith. I would have you note further that his use of this terminology means that he is not talking just about a testimony to the truth. He is not saying, "I just want you to be established in what I have taught you about the truth." He says, "I want you to be established in the present truth." In other words, "What I've given you is not something that could be in error because of its human messengers. It is the truth." When God says, "I breathed out my Word," it is the product that is inspired -- it is the product that is God-breathed -- it is not just the process that He is talking about. There are people today who say we have a record of the apostolic gospel, we have a record of what those early Christians believed, but it is just a record, and it has been tainted by the messengers that brought us that record. No, Peter says, "I have given you the truth." It is the present truth; that is, they already have it--they have already received it from the Apostles. Here at the time he is writing this book -- this letter -- Christian doctrine is already established. It didn't evolve over the course of the first two or three centuries. There wasn't a group of redactors or editors who decided what the Christian church believed. No, it was delivered. The gospel truths were the message from the very beginning, and this epistle is not introducing some new doctrine. It was what the Apostles preached since the day of Pentecost -- it is present with them.

Peter is concerned that this divine revelation have its full effect on its readers' lives. He wants to put us always in remembrance of these things. What is he talking about? Is he saying, I'm going to institute a Bible memory program, or a Bible doctrines' program where you memorize a catechism, and that way you will have them always in mind? Certainly that could be a useful tool, but there is more going on here than that. The idea is to make these truths central in your thinking. When the Scripture speaks about remembering it is not just the idea of recalling, but it is the idea of keeping your mind focused on the things that have been delivered to you beforehand. So it is that we are to make these things central in our thinking. There are tragic results that issue from failing to do so. He has noted them in verse 9: "He that lacketh those things [this spiritual growth that he outlined before us earlier] is blind, and cannot see afar off and hath forgotten and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins." Perhaps it is that word forgotten that spurred him into talking about remembering. I don't know, but the fact is that we have to keep these things central in our minds.

In the New Testament letters to churches and individuals, we find the Apostles always teaching the organic link between the great truths of the gospel and the Christian life that flows from it. In other words, Christ's person and His work empower our Christian living and they demonstrate for us how it is to be lived. We exercise sacrificial love to others because He demonstrated it to us on the cross. We forgive graciously because He for Christ's sake forgave us. We are kind to even our enemies because God sends rain even on the unjust. We speak the truth because God our Father is no liar and in Christ was no guile. We are humble because Christ made Himself of no reputation for the sake of others. We run the race with endurance because Christ for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross and thought lightly of the shame (Hebrews 12:2). We do not retaliate when we are mistreated because Christ, though He was perfect, endured reviling and reviled not again. We are enabled by the indwelling Holy Spirit to keep our thinking actively centered on gospel truths, and thus undergo an ongoing transformation of our attitudes, our words and our ways.

I used to think when I was younger that you learned God's simple plan of salvation -- you knew these basic gospel truths -- and that was the beginning and the end of it, and it all became boring and old hat after that, but what I have discovered as I have grown in the Lord, is that these things continue to supply and run through the most mature of Christian lives.

Indeed, what you find in those that wander from the Lord, and those that run into great difficulty in their relationships and great difficulty in living godly and in a manner that is consistent with how the Scriptures says we should live, is that they have forgotten the implications that the gospel has to it. They have forgotten, by the very fact that we were forgiven, that we ought to forgive others. They have forgotten the kind of spirit that Christ had toward other people. Therefore, when I accept the gospel, when I am saved through faith in Christ, it is not just a matter of adopting or signing up to a certain creed, it is having that creed or those truths work out all of their implications in my life. That is why you find in the epistles that they are dealing with doctrine (it is all doctrine -- it is all teaching), the great theological truths, and then crossing over to say, as Paul so often said, "I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God" [I am exhorting you on the basis of these truths] to live in a way that is consistent with the truth. That is essentially what Peter is saying: Look, you are not going to be fruitful, you are not going to be assured of your salvation, you are not going to be absolutely sure that you are going to enter heaven's gate and be part of that heavenly kingdom, unless you take these gospel truths and make them central in your thinking; and, because they are central in your thinking, then live out those gospel truths in all of the vicissitudes--in all of the ups and downs, all of the small matters--of life, being informed by that gospel.

For Peter, there is particular urgency to convey the importance of this mindset because he knows he is not going to be around much longer to encourage them. He says in verse 13, "Yea, I think it meet [or fitting], as long as I am in this tabernacle [this tent--this body], to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me." Even in his terms for his death, Peter demonstrates the kind of change in outlook that the gospel brings to a person. Of all the things in life, death is the most certain--they say, death and taxes, but I suppose if you are below a certain income level, even taxes are not certain--but, rich or poor, you are going to die. Death is certain for all people. Yet most people live as if death will never come, and once it finally grips them that they too are mortal and they shall follow in that train--it doesn't just happen to everybody else, it will happen to them--it often terrifies them.

The nearness of death for Peter makes him diligent in the business of life: there are things he wants to share, there are things he wants to teach, there are things he wants to drive home because he knows he does not have much time. The certainty of death should spur you and me to do what we know must be done. We don't have forever to accomplish what God has given us to do. There is not time to waste. We number our days not because we are morbid but because we want to apply our hearts to wisdom (to skillful living). Peter thinks of his mortal body as just a tent. A tent is not a permanent dwelling, it is for those who are living in a temporary situation--for traveling people, for pilgrims, people passing through, strangers and foreigners living in a land to which they do not belong, people who are citizens of another kingdom.

Our life in this world and what we do with it is of great importance because it is a journey to the next life. As the Puritans used to say, "It's the front porch." I want to make sure I walk across the front porch the right way to get into the house. Every action counts, every moment is of significance, for we shall give an account even of every idle word that we speak. There is no way then that I as a Christian can approach life here in a sort of animalistic fashion: eat, drink and be merry--indulge myself with no thought of the consequences. I am thankful to God for the good things He gives us to enjoy, but I can't fall to the false notion that this is all there is--because this isn't all there is: the best is yet to come.

The man who says, "Life doesn't get any better than this" is using too short of a yardstick--he is not measuring eternity. The Christian knows it is going to get better, but yet he knows the significance of this life: it's fleeting, it's fast, it's temporal, it's transient, but there is a job to be done, and there is a urgency about getting that job done. So death to a believer like Peter is just folding up the tent because you are finally going home--you don't need a tent when you are moving to a palace, and that is why the Christian doesn't despair when life on earth brings trouble, pain, illness and sorrow. He doesn't fret and wring his hands and consider he has lost everything that really matters. He knows that all these things are rooted in sin's curse, and he knows that God will one day wipe the universe clean of these corruptions--though God slays him, the believer continues to trust the Lord because the next life is full of joys forevermore with nothing to taint the experience.

Peter says, "Look, I know I am going to be folding up my tent--I am going to be moving on--because the Lord Jesus has shown me these things." He remembered the conversation he had with the Lord on the seashore when Christ asked him whether he loved Him or not after his betrayal and restored him to service. In John 21:18-19, Christ told him, "Verily, verily I say to thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify God. [History tells us that he was crucified.] And when He had spoken this, He saith unto him, Follow me." So, Peter says, I know I am dying soon--I am folding up my tent; I am moving on; my life has been a journey and that journey is about over--and there are some things I want to get across to you. There are some things I want to nail down for you to stir you up--wake you up completely--like shaking someone from sleep and seeing that they stay awake and vigilent. There is implied here that there is great danger in spiritual drowsiness and there is great reward for spiritual vigilance.

It is Peter who says in 1 Peter 5:8, "Our adversary the devil walks about seeking whom he may devour." It is easy to be distracted from what is most important; it is easy to be lulled into forgetting how high the stakes are. So Peter wants to stir them up. He wants to focus their minds on the things that are important--the things that will change them and transform them. He intends to arm his readers further yet as the ability of the enemy to distract, to deceive and to destroy is vast in scope--it's varied in its technique--and he is going to discuss these false teachers in this particular letter. It is not always the onslaught of persecution, sometimes it is the deceptive charm of twisted teaching that diverts a Christian from what he ought to be doing. Within a couple of years Peter will have been executed and by the end of the century all of the Apostles will be gone. How will the churches continue to live out the apostolic teaching when the Apostles are no longer there preaching it to them week in and week out? How will they survive? How do we know the Christianity that we have today is anything like what the Apostles taught and preached? Verse 15 states, "Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance." How was he going to endeavor after his decease to have these things always in remembrance? Most scholars and Bible students believe Peter is referring to the written Word of God--the New Testament writings. Some believe he is referring to what he is going to write in this letter, and others note that he is very possibly (and I tend toward this view myself) referring to the gospel of Mark, which according to the oldest historical testimony was written by Mark during the final period of Peter's life (Mark was serving as a kind of a secretary to him) and Mark wrote down Peter's preaching of the gospel so they would have a record of it. It is very likely the gospel of Mark is a product of what Peter is referring to here in verse 15. Either way, we know Peter was alluding to how the Apostles would preserve the purity of their message after they were gone. It would be through the written Word of God. They preached these truths for some twenty years.

Those who talk about the gospel undergoing some change and New Testament theology changing over time, and this is just a product of all that change, don't really understand what happened. These men were preaching the gospel from Pentecost on. Pentecost was only fifty days after Christ's death (that is what pente refers to). Fifty days after Christ died, they are preaching the gospel-- less than a couple of weeks from when He arose as He was with them forty days after His resurrection. So we are talking about a week or so after His ascension that they began preaching, and they preached the gospel for twenty years--but they are going to die like everyone else. So as the twenty years are going on and they are getting into their 50s and 60s, they start writing down the record so generations like ours may have the apostolic preaching--the message, the gospel--even today. Notice again, he refers to his death this time as a decease, an exodus--a way, or a journey, out. In other words he does not think of his death as doom, or as the end of it all, or being dragged down into the tyranny of death, but as a deliverance just like God granted Israel from slavery in Egypt. There is an unshackling that happens to the believer when he dies for "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord," and he no longer has to deal with the effect of sin, with the weakness of the body. Death is a deliverance for the Christian. In my Dad's own words that he wrote about six years ago, he noted that "the pain, the conflict, the fatigue of my life will be done," and I know he could say it even more eloquently now. Life is tough even when you serve the Lord, but that is okay because life is short and the best is yet to come. There is only one other place in the New Testament that refers to death as an exodus, and that is when Moses and Elijah converse with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration about His upcoming decease in Luke 9. It is very likely that this is one of the reasons Peter uses this word here for he is about to refer to that stunning event (the transfiguration) as evidence of the true identity of Jesus Christ, the one who will come and reign on earth.

Secondly, look with me at the certainty of the apostolic message. We have seen the urgency, and there is great urgency that we proclaim the gospel because life is short and the stakes are high, but there is also the importance of the certainty of the apostolic message. We love to tell the story because we know it's true, and all the spiritual growth and security that Peter speaks about is rooted in the absolute reliability of the gospel. In verse 16, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty." What does he mean by "the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ"? This is the message of the Apostles which centers on who Christ is and what He has done. You don't really have a gospel if Christ is not at the center of it, and what does the gospel say about Christ? Note first the term he uses for Him: he calls Him "Lord." In the New Testament when quoting from the Old Testament, the term "Lord" is more than just "Master," it is "Jehovah"--it is a testimony to Christ's deity as Jehovah God. In the Old Testament when you find a passage which talks about the Lord, it is Jehovah, and in the New Testament it is applied to Jesus Christ. Then he calls Him "Jesus"; you will recall the Angel announced that name in Matthew 1:21: "He shall be called JESUS [Jehovah saves] for He shall save His people from their sins." So He is Jehovah God, the Savior from sin. There has not been any man who has ever lived who could save anybody from sin, who could free them from sin's curse, who could assure them that before God the record was clean--no one but the Lord Jesus could do this. Then the term "Christ"--He is, in fact, the promised Messiah, He is the one who fulfilled all the Old Testament prophesies. The Jews for the most part rejected Him, and when another comes claiming to be the Messiah, they will accept him. But Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah--He is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice Peter says, "We made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." The word "power" is dunamis, the word we get "dynamite" from, and refers to the miraculous might of the Lord Jesus; and, in particular, in conjunction with His coming--not His first coming, but His second coming. The word parousia means "to be along side of" or "presence." We might say that he is just talking of the first coming and the power demonstrated in the miracles and the fact that He was present with us. The fact is that this word parousia is used commonly in the secular Greek language for "a royal visit to a certain city or district," and is most often used in the epistles for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. When used in referring to Christ, it always refers to His return in glory at the end of the age. The New Testament writers all agreed, the angels at the ascension speak of it, Peter before the Jewish authorities preaches about it, Paul writes about it in his epistles as does John in the Book of Revelation: Jesus Christ is coming in glory and power. There is a consummation of God's purposed goal for all history: a personal, visible, powerful, glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing short of that will do the job. All the congresses, all the laws passed, all the efforts of man, will not clean up the universe the way it needs to be cleaned up. Jesus Christ is the only one who can do that, and He will complete His great redemption plan: the restoration of the universe from the curse of sin. Nothing will stand in the way: not a sagging church, not an unbelieving world, not a virulent enemy--Satan and all of his demonic hoards--can stop it. In the words of Martyn Lloyd Jones, "Everything that God has ever planned has come to pass, and what God has still planned will yet come to pass."

We might ask the question as Peter talks about such a glorious event, "Peter, how do you know that Jesus was more than just a wonderful teacher, just a mighty prophet or a humble holy man? What basis do you have to expect more than what He has already done? How can you be so certain that these things are going to turn out as the New Testament teaches? How do you answer the scoffers that you write about in chapter 3 who exclaim 'Where is the promise of His coming?'" When you tell the average man on the street that Jesus is coming again, he will think you belong in the "funny farm." Besides Christ's own explicit teaching about His return, Peter knows whereof he speaks because he saw the Son of God in His unveiled glory: he saw it. "(We) were eyewitnesses of His majesty [we closely observed it, we carefully inspected it, we saw His splendor and His magnificence.]"

During most of Christ's earthly ministry, the splendor of the second person of the Godhead was veiled--no visible distinction from the most common of men. Isaiah 53 says there is no comeliness about Him that we should desire Him--He did not seem to be particularly unusual, but a very common sort of looking man--but on the Mount of Transfiguration His true radiance shown forth like the sun in its strength, shining like blinding lightning. "We beheld His glory," the Apostle John says in John 1:14, "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." Why should we pay any more attention to the things that Peter and the other Apostles taught rather than what other religious teachers taught? Peter answers that the teaching of the Apostles is more than just a helpful perspective, it is more than just one group of men's ideas about God and life, because he says, We saw who this person is and we are confident that when He said He is coming

back in glory, He can make good on His promise.

The Apostles' teaching was not the result of having pursued "cunningly devised fables." The ancient world was full of legends of the gods coming to earth in human form, but the gospel is not derived from that source. It is not a cleverly composed myth. All the theological studies that try to find parallels in pagan literature are totally off the track as they are looking in the wrong place. Source criticism is debunked by the Apostle Peter himself: the source is God-- it is revealed, not composed. You would think Peter had been browsing through 20^th century theological journals where they love to call these things "myths"--a myth is a fictional story that teaches a spiritual truth. With great hypocrisy the modern theologians praise the New Testament writings as valuable in terms of the history of religious thought, in terms of literature, and in terms of fictional stories with important truths to teach; but they deny that they are truth, that they are grounded in reality, and that they shall be fulfilled in reality. Peter's testimony will not allow us to so degrade the gospel. The gospel we preach is not just promoting a more healthful state of mind--it is not just a tool for moralizing--it is not just an instrument of social and political change--it is not just a profitable niche for music and drama--it is the power of God unto salvation. It procures for the believer a clean record in the court of heaven itself. It reconciles him to God. It changes his relationship to God: no longer is God his condemning judge but his loving Father. It changes a person from the inside out in ways no mere philosophy or therapy can. It acquires for him the indwelling Holy Spirit who begins the operation of sanctifying--setting him apart--right on to the day in heaven where he is glorified to experience sin and its effects never again. It guarantees his resurrection from the dead. It puts his name in the Lamb's Book of Life and saves him from the Lake of Fire. It unites him to the Kingdom of Christ which shall one day dominate all of the universe. It is powerful stuff! It is no fable, or piece of fine literature: it is revealed truth.

Finally, we look at the authority of the apostolic message. "For He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory [in words harking back to the Coronation Psalm in Psalm 2], This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (2 Peter 1:17). Whenever you do research you are taught to always cite your sources and, if you have primary sources, those are the ones you want. This is the most primary source you could ever have: God, the Father, who says, "This is my beloved Son. I am well pleased with this man. Hear Him" (Matthew 17:5). His voice came from the excellent (greatly befitting) glory, the dwelling place glory, the glory cloud of God. God gave Jesus Christ honor and glory not in the sense that He did not already have intrinsic glory and intrinsic honor, but God the Father confirmed before men the great worth of Jesus Christ and His inherent radiance as the divine eternal Son of God. "And this voice which came from heaven we heard," Peter said in verse 18, "when we were with Him in the holy mount [the Mount of Transfiguration]." No one but Jesus Christ is approved by God as Savior and king. Never forget it, never let it slip, never be distracted from Him, because all other sources are inadequate. That is why we can say to the Muslim, or the Morman, or the Jehovah's Witness, or anyone else who claims to have a way to Heaven, "No, you must receive Jesus Christ for whom God says He is: 'My beloved Son.' You must receive Him as the glorified king. You must receive Him as the Son of God." Flesh and blood does not reveal that to you--God the Father reveals it to you. You can talk all you want about "our heavenly father" as these cults do, but unless they receive Jesus Christ, they are denying the Heavenly Father: they are not taking His witness as true.

The authority of the apostolic message is not men--it is God. God stamped this person Jesus Christ as His unique Son, as His beloved Son, as His well-pleasing Son. God could say that about no other person, and it is only when we are in Christ through faith that God is pleased with us: "we are accepted in the beloved" (Ephesians 1:6). In the words of Matthew Henry, "The way of salvation by Christ is the counsel of God." God has given His counsel--His advice--and He told the Apostles that day when they suggested some other way of worship, "Listen to Him--pay attention to Him--obey Him." Note the power of this apostolic message. The Things We Must Never Forget: it has authority, it has certainty and there is urgency.

Closing with the words of Matthew Henry, "Try to dissuade the covetous worldling from his greediness, and one ounce of gold weighs down all reasons. Offer to stay or stop a furious man from anger by arguments, and he has not the patience to hear them. Try to detain the immoral man, and one smile is stronger with him than all reason. But come with the gospel and urge them with the heart blood of Jesus Christ shed to save their souls from Hell and to satisfy for their sins, and this is the powerful pleading that makes good men confess their hearts burn within them and bad men, even an Agrippa, to say they are almost persuaded to be a Christian." The Things We Must Never Forget: the gospel truth--the truth we have already received from the Apostles: it is certain and has the authority of God and it will save your soul. May we never forget.

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