26th October
Read Psalm 132
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
This Psalm tells of David saying he won’t sleep “till he finds a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob” (v5). He was speaking about a future temple for the Ark of the Covenant of God he wanted to establish the Lord as King in his capital city of Jerusalem. The Lady Visitor of Carrubbers Close Mission in the Hight Street of Edinburgh used to ask people not, when did you become a Christian? or when did you join the Church? but, “When did you give your heart to the Lord?”. In other words when was the Lord brought right into the hear of your life. Let’s not sleep until we have him as King in our hearts.
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Monday 2 Peter 1:5-9
Read these verses slowly and over again because they tell of the character and true nature of the Christian believer who has grown into the likeness of Christ having put on the clothing, the garments of his very nature. Read, ponder and pray for all these things in your life.
Tuesday 2 Peter:1:10-11
If there is one thing that puzzles and perplexes Christians who try to understand the background of their salvation it is the subject of the sovereignty of God and the free-will of Man. Did I step into the grace of God because I exercised my will and chose to receive his salvation or am I saved because in his eternal counsels before the world began, he chose me? If we fall on one side we are told we are Calvinists (or hyper-Calvinists) after John Calvin the Swiss Reformer of the 17th Century, if we fall on the other we are called Arminians (after Jacobus Arminius, 17th Century Dutchman) though we shouldn’t hang extreme views of either around their necks.
We need to say, if we hold fast to the Bible, that we have reason to believe both doctrinal statements are true even if we cannot forge them into one easily digested doctrine. Peter in v10 tells his hearers to “make their calling and election sure or confirmed” and in that he is accepting that our salvation is all of God – He sovereignly elected and called us – but that we have to exercise our will in working it out and so proving it to be true.
The apostle Paul says a similar thing in Philippians 2 when he tells his hearers to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (v12,13). Salvation is all of God and all of us.
Wednesday 2 Peter 1:12-21
I need reminded about things because I forget, and in the Church our doctrine and faith needs repeating because we can easily forget crucial truths. This is what Peter starts to say from v12 because he wants to leave things such that when he is gone the Churches will have a record of true apostolic teaching. It’s why we have a Bible and why the Church has made it the rule for its doctrine. We are in danger if we forget its teaching.
Peter wants his hearers to know that he and his fellow apostles “did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of the Lord Jesus in power” (v16). He begins by telling them of the experience he, with James and John, had with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, who was transformed in front of their eyes and the voice from heaven that said, “This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (v17). We were eyewitnesses of his majesty there Peter said. On top of this he says we also have the prophetic message – referring to the scriptures in the Old Testament – which are completely reliable as lights shining in a dark place until the coming of Christ in the hearts of those who believe. He says that those prophecies never originated in the minds of men but they were carried along by the Holy Spirit and so spoke the Word of God. These are reasons why we hold to the scriptures of the Old and New Testament as God’s word to us to keep us from going astray, a subject which he is going to turn to next.
Thursday 2 Peter 2:1-3
Having spoken highly of the prophets of old, Peter also reminds them that there were false prophets. For example Jeremiah speaks to the King of “Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying a lie to you in my name” (29:21). And he says that as there were false prophets then so also there will be false prophets in their present time and they had to look out for them. It must also apply to us today. He defines them as introducing destructive heresies, denying the sovereign Lord being chief amongst them. What would you see as denying Jesus as Sovereign Lord today? Think about it.
He goes on to talk about following ‘depraved conduct’. The Greek word is aselgia; Strongs Topical Greek lexicon describes it as unchecked sensuality and whereas other words for sexual sin may emphasize the act, aselgia highlights the insolent attitude that celebrates vice and entices others to join. The way of truth is brought into disrepute by this kins of false teaching. We notice that Peter speaks about such false teachers ‘secretly introducing’ these godless ways and Churches always need to watch out for such things creeping into doctrine and practice.
Friday 2 Peter 2:4-12
Peter views the false teachers as just waiting for judgement from God and compares them with others in the past. He looks at three areas, fallen angels (which might refer to Genesis 6:1-4) being the angels who fell away from their proper position and the judgement God gave them, he then speaks of the ancient world before Noah and the judgement they suffered at the flood, and finally the judgement that God brought upon Sodom and Gomorrah in a fiery destruction.
These things were examples nevertheless even in terrible situations which call upon the judgement of God, Peter says he is able to save the righteous out of those judgements – Noah and his family from the flood, Lot and his family (apart from his wife) from the catastrophe that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah.
But there is no doubt that God will judge the ungodly. Good Angels, no matter how powerful, do not seek to judge fallen angels but leave the matter to God himself, yet some of these false teachers deign to put themselves in God’s position and curse angels. The angels who haven’t fallen leave all judgement to God. The false teachers, he says, are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct and they will perish.
Saturday 2 Peter 2:13-22
Peter speaks of these false teachers saying what they were like, carousing in broad daylight, no wonder they were a danger to new believers. They were seducers revelling in their pleasures and sinful adulteries and teaching others to follow them especially those who were unstable. He refers back to the history of the people of Israel in the Old Testament when they were in the wilderness and Balaam, having been asked to curse them by Balak, the King of Moab, turned them away from the Lord.. (Numbers 22-24 )
He describes them in the darkest of terms and says they turn people away from the Lord by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh when they are still trying to escape from that kind of life that surrounded them in the society around. People are enticed to think that this is the way to freedom whereas they just become slaves of depravity following that way.
We may say, but surely we don’t have these kind of teachers and leaders in the Church today? Scripture is always written for our learning and we ought to take heed if this is given for us in whatever age. Let’s always be wary of teaching that leads to carnal abandonment.
