Good Friday to you my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends all around the world,
One of the most terrifying experiences a person can have is being swept away in a raging, flooded river or swept out to sea by a rip tide. Have you ever seen or experienced that? Today, as we rejoin the apostle Peter, he describes for us what that experience might be like spiritually. Could it ever happen to you or me?
Peter is writing in about the year 67ad to Christians under great persecution living all across the Roman empire. All too often an unexpected knock on the door resulted in angry soldiers ransacking the house and dragging off suspected Christians to be interrogated and possibly persecuted. It was a frightening time to be alive and Peter was attempting to both encourage and strengthen men and women who were followers of Jesus Christ.
While Peter wrote 2000 years ago, his two letters have been sources of great encouragement to Christians living in difficult times all around our world ever since. So, let’s rejoin Peter as he writes: “…our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him… His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:16)
It’s true that spiritual truth can be sometimes difficult to understand, but in 1 Corinthians 2 Paul makes it very clear one of the important roles of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian is to help us understand the Scriptures, God’s Word. I wonder if you’ve also found it to be true that some people who do not understand God’s Word, nor do they have a desire to know God, will often distort or reject God’s Word, and as Peter writes, that leads to their own spiritual destruction. An authentic relationship with God is nurtured, my friends, by a regular diet of God’s Word. Rejecting or ignoring or discounting God’s Word will result in an anemic spiritual life.
Peter continues: “Therefore dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position.” (2 Peter 3:17) The primary theme of this, Peter’s second letter, is that Christians need to be on the alert for anything which counters or rejects or distorts or denies God’s truth.
In reality, most of what we hear or read every day is NOT in alignment or agreement with God’s truth. Why? Because we live in a sinful world which is under the profound influence of the devil, (1 John 5:19) and the devil is totally opposed to God, God’s truth, and God’s people. Do you see the warning of Peter that if we are not careful, we could be ‘carried away by the error of the lawless.”? That does not mean a physical kidnapping by a criminal or a violent terrorist gang, although that does happen frequently to Christians who live in places that are strongly opposed to Jesus. Peter is referring to a person being swept away emotionally into desperation; or swept away intellectually into such confusion that you would reject God’s truth; or swept away spiritually so that a person would actually renounce God and any relationship they ever had with God.
Do you know anyone who has been ‘swept away’ like that? Has it happened to you, my friends? This why I opened my comments today with the terrifying picture of being swept away by a torrential river or rip tide.
When Peter uses the word “lawless” he’s not describing violent criminals, but rather those people who have rejected God’s truth and refuse to live their lives in alignment with those God truths or even in relationship with God. Peter urges us to be alert to the influence any such persons have in our lives, even if we claim a relationship with Jesus Christ.
This warning is especially appropriate today with the powerful influence of social media, internet and peer pressure. I therefore ask us all... how effective are we at discerning truth distortion and recognizing the torrent trying to sweep us away?
Did you notice the very interesting phrase Peter uses to describe the horrific conclusion of being swept away when he writes “fall from your secure position.” Again, using the picture of a raging river or a rip tide, we can understand how a person can be swept off their feet or ripped away from whatever solid thing they are grasping. Emotionally and even intellectually we have probably experienced suddenly being overwhelmed with paralyzing fear, or overwhelming doubt, or boiling anger, or such confusion that we can’t think straight. But do you see Peter’s use of the words “secure position”? Peter is assuring us that our God accomplished redemption, salvation from our sin condemnation, our justification, our adoption by God are all secure IN Jesus Christ because God accomplishes them all in us!
But our GRIP or our CONFIDENCE in those certain God accomplishments can be strained or shaken by terrifying events or convincing arguments or especially if we have allowed ourselves to drift spiritually away from God and into the quagmire of popular public opinion. Now did you get that my friends? It’s very important! That’s the warning of Romans 1:18-32 or Ephesians 4:17-24 or several other Scriptures which warn us of our vulnerability to the devil’s temptations IF we allow the spiritual vitality of our relationship with God to wane due to our ambivalence or our boredom with God.
I think we’ll pause right here, and we’ll come back tomorrow to close out our time with Peter as he writes his final words of this, his second and his final letter. Because this warning is so important you might want to rewind and listen to this entire “Walking with Jesus” edition again. And then I’ve found a powerful song that will challenge us to recognize how much God wants to hold us firm and secure even if raging torrents are swirling all around us…
Today’s Scripture is 2 Peter 3:16,17.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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