A Ready Reminder
2 Peter 1:12-15
Tonight as we come to our study of the Word of God for the time that we have, I want you to turn to 2 Peter chapter 1. We're going to look at verses 12 through 15. This is one of those passages that really gives us insight into the author's heart. It's kind of going behind the scenes, a little bit, in the life of Peter to find out what makes him tick, as it were.
Let me read you this marvelous text of insight into his life. Second Peter 1:12, "Therefore I shall always be ready to remind you of these things even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you. And I consider it right as long as I am in this earthly dwelling to stir you up by way of remembrance, or reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you may be able to call these things to mind."
Now let me give you a context in which to set this passage. As we have been saying throughout our study of 2 Peter, Peter lays stress on knowledge as the safeguard against false teachers and their destructive heretical lies. Really the heart of this letter is the second chapter in which he discusses and describes the false teachers. But he surrounds that in chapter 1 and in chapter 3 with a discussion of the importance of knowledge. If we are to defend ourselves against false doctrine, heresy, we are going to have to have knowledge. It's reminiscent of the words of Hosea who said, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." If we are successfully to survive the onslaught of demon doctrine brought by demonic, seducing spirits through hypocritical lying false teachers, we must have knowledge. We must know what we believe. We must know our spiritual condition.
In fact, in this beautiful epistle, this wonderful letter, there are three primary things we need to know. We need to know our salvation and we've already discussed that in the first eleven verses of chapter 1. We need to know the Scripture, and he's going to get into that starting in verse 16 in our next lesson. And finally, in chapter 3, we must know our sanctification. To know our salvation, to know our Scripture and to know our sanctification is to insulate us against the onslaught of false teachers and their false doctrine.
Now we have already covered this initial discussion of the knowledge of salvation. You remember in verses 1 to 12 the theme is to know you're saved. And now Peter begins to turn toward knowing the Scripture. And in verses 16 through 21 is one of the most significant and important passages in the entire New Testament for it speaks about the inspiration about Scripture.
But before Peter goes into that second area of knowledge, he digresses a little bit in these few verses to let us look into his heart. He shows us the tenderest part of him in this whole letter and really reveals his pastoral passion. Here is why he wrote the letter. Here we get an insight in to what was motivating him.
And as he speaks about his ministry, four things flow out of this text, and you might want to jot these down as we go. They'll kind of be the hooks we hang our thoughts on. He reveals the urgency of ministry, the spirit of ministry, the duty of ministry and the brevity of ministry. Given the urgency of it, given the spirit of it, given the duty of it, given the brevity of it he has written. That's what's underlying this letter. This is the passion that moves him.
To sum it up, this letter is a valedictory message. This letter is a final statement from the beloved Apostle, a legacy, a statement of divine truth which set in pen and ink under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and included in the canon of Scripture will go on bearing eternal fruit as long as time exists. And it will go on even beyond that to bear fruit because it will lead people to holiness, virtue, obedience which will result in eternal reward.
So here we see the affectionate heart of the true shepherd, Peter, telling us why he is saying what he is saying and why he is writing it down. This is his swan song, this is his final moment, this is his legacy, this is his last message.
Now he's like any good teacher and any good teacher has to realize one very important fact and that is this, people forget what you told them. On the several occasions when I have had the privilege of visiting the land of Israel and particularly the city of Jerusalem, I have had the opportunity to visit a very important historical sight. It is not a sight that has any relationship to the Old Testament. It is not a sight that has any relationship to the New Testament. It is a matter of modern history, it is The Museum of the Holocaust in a very strategic location in the city of Jerusalem, that museum exists. It has to be one of the most moving experiences that anyone can have to just pass from room to room and be thrust, as it were, into the inside of a concentration camp by graphic visualization, to see huge pits filled with masses of dead bodies, to see replicated the barbed wire and the fences and the towers, the instruments of torture. It's a very moving, moving experience. And you see the utter indescribable inhumanity of the Nazi system against the Jews, everyone from little children to the elderly.
The images of that museum are still imbedded in my mind. They're very difficult to forget. All of the names of the various concentration camps where Jews were murdered are engraved upon the floor and when one sees the engraving it's somewhat indelible. And by the time you have gone through that museum in somewhat stunned silence and you come out the other side, they put a little pin in your lapel and that little pin has a Hebrew letter that indicates the word "remember...remember."
The school children of the land of Israel go there every year. They are taken through that museum and they watch and they listen to all of the things that went on and they are told "never forget...never forget." And their little shirts and dresses bear the little pin that reminds them to remember.
Jews all over the world remind their children repeatedly of the Holocaust. In fact, they would want to remind the whole world of it all the time. They don't want to forget. They don't want their children to forget. They don't want anybody to forget.
In thinking about that there's a certain sadness there. The sad reality is that they are teaching their children to remember what they might be better off to forget and failing to teach their children what they should remember. Way back in Deuteronomy chapter 6 God said, "I am the Lord and I am one and I am your God." And He said, "Don't forget. Talk about Me when you rise up and when you sit down and when you lie down and when you walk in the way, teach about Me to your children. Bind My law on your forehead between your eyes, on your arm, put it on the doorpost of your house, do not forget." And so I say it is somewhat sad that the Jewish people are so eager to remember what they might be better to forget and seemingly so eager to forget what desperately need to remember, namely the character and the law of their God.
Back in Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 18 the Scripture says they were told, "You shall well remember what the Lord your God did." In Deuteronomy 8:2 they were told, "You shall remember all the way which the Lord led you." In Deuteronomy 8:18 they were told, "You shall remember the Lord your God" In Deuteronomy 9:7 they were told, "Do not forget." In 1 Chronicles 16:12 they were told, "Remember His wonderful deeds which He has done, His marvels and His judgments from His mouth." In Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 19 and 20 we read, "And it shall come about if you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you shall surely perish, like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so you shall perish because you wouldn't listen to the voice of the Lord your God." It's so sad that all they can remember is the perishing and not the God they forgot.
Isaiah said in indicting Israel, "You have forgotten the Lord your maker," Isaiah 51:13. You have forgotten the Lord your maker. In the seventeenth chapter of Isaiah and verse 10 comes a similar reminder by the prophet Isaiah, he says these words to them, "For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the rock of your refuge." And then one of the saddest statements in the Psalms, the psalmist in Psalm 88 verse 12 calls Israel the land of forgetfulness. It seems as though Israel has had a great memory for the wrong things and a very poor memory for what is most important.
When God gave the Passover, the Passover was to be an annual reminder, the symbol of remembrance to remember not Egypt but to remember the God of redemption, the God of deliverance, the God of salvation, the God of covenant, the God of grace and mercy, the God of judgment and justice. Even now when Passover is observed, they remember Egypt and they remember escape but they do not know the God of salvation.
Why is it we have such a great memory for things we should forget? Why is it that the flesh wants us to remember what we would rather not remember and the flesh seemingly loses the memory of what we should never forget? Jesus said to the Twelve in John 15:20, "Remember the word which I said unto you." Paul said, "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, "Acts 20:35. And he said to Timothy, "Remember Jesus Christ born of the seed of David, risen from the dead according to my gospel." John records that when Jesus was risen from the dead, His disciples had remembered that He had said He would do that and they believed the Scripture. Jude wrote to his readers, "Remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." And then he said, "I will put you in remembrance, though you once knew this." Peter said in Acts 11:16, "Then I remembered the Word of the Lord." And he wrote in 2 Peter 3:1, "This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you in which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance." James put it another way but meaning the same thing, said, "Do not be a forgetful hearer."
We don't have the time to go through all of those Old Testament texts in which God said "do not forget Me, do not forget Me, remember Me, remember Me." Nor do we even have time to go through all of them in the New Testament in which we as believers are reminded to remember. We forget so easily.
Some years ago I read a wonderful little book called God's Forgetful Pilgrims. It was an indictment of Christians, written by Michael Griffiths. He says in the book, quote: "Christians have a strange amnesia. A high proportion of people who go to church have forgotten what it's all for. Week by week they attend services in a special building and go through time-honored routine but give little thought to the purpose of what they're doing. The Bible talks about the bride of Christ, I might add pure and chaste, but the church seems more like a ragged Cinderella, hideous among the ashes who has forgotten she's supposed to be a beautiful lady," end quote. He is simply saying we forget. We forget what we're all about. We forget why we do what we do. We forget what we're supposed to be. Any teacher knows that people forget. And so a teacher is very much aware of forgetfulness.
There's a second and corollary truth, reality to that that teachers also know and that is familiarity. While you must, because they forget, remind them over and over and over and over of the same thing, it you do it in the same way they will think they heard it before and they'll tune you out. So the challenge of teaching is to repeat in a different way the same great truth so people hear it freshly. This is very challenging.
I'll give you a personal testimony, this is extremely challenging for me because what I say is not only heard here and then heard on tape, and then heard on radio, but often heard in pubic places where I have opportunity to minister. And even though you know people have forgotten the truth and need to be reminded, if you don't say it in a fresh way they will think they already know it well, it comes through in familiar terms and it tends to be water off a duck's back. This was graphically illustrated to me in a somewhat painful experience. Patricia and I flew up to Calgary-Alberta, Canada, and a gentleman picked us up to drive us to Prairie Bible Institute. Prairie Bible Institute is in Three Hills Alberta, which is not near anyplace and in and of itself is no place. There were a couple of markets and a drug store and that's about it, and the Prairie Bible Institute, a very fine and kind of historic place for training missionaries. And I was to be the speaker at the missions conference.
It's a rather primitive place. Patricia and I remember very vividly that there were no facilities in our room and we had the best room. We were the guests. It had been a long time since we took gang showers, so it was a unique experience. There was one gang shower and one for ladies, but...so we were up there way in the middle of no place. And I spoke all week, every day, and we had a wonderful time. I think there were about 3,000 people for the conference, which amazed me.
And after the week was over, I came back, I received a lady's letter. "Dear Pastor MacArthur, I want you to know that I drove 600 miles to hear you and after coming 600 miles you had the audacity to give the same illustration in one of your messages that I heard you give on the radio. You should take these things into consideration. Some of us have gone to great trouble...see, I almost memorized the letter, it's indelible in my mind...some of us have gone to great trouble to hear you speak and don't expect to hear something you said before." So I wrote her back and asked her forgiveness.
But, you know, if we hear something and we've heard it before, it just kind of sluffs off. One of the challenges that I face, to be very honest with you, in staying at Grace Church is trying to say the same things, the same great truths in different ways for those of you who have patiently endured me for all these many years. That is very challenging. I suppose you realize that if I were to pick up and go to another church, I would have enough sermons to keep me going for another twenty years without studying anything and a group of people who had not heard them unless they have been listening to the radio, or whatever. But God keeps me here to keep me fresh and the challenge is ever before me. And the challenge that I have to face is that I know you forget what I say, I know that because often I test people two or three days after I've said it only to find out they can't quite remember but they did enjoy it. So I know you forget, but I also know I can't tell you the same things in the same way or you will think you've heard it all. And so any good teacher has to remember that people forget but avoid being too familiar.
Young men always say, "Do you use notes when you preach?" When I preach at Grace Church I use rather extensive notes because I would tend to gravitate back to familiar ways of saying things when, in fact, I want to say them in fresh ways. And so I have to think through how to say them differently. And there's a new challenge for me because I want people to walk away and say that was fresh and that was new and that was exciting and I never heard that before. And the truth is, it's the same great truth in another package. You know, there aren't that many different truths in the Bible. It's just that the Bible has a wonderful way of packaging them in all unique different forms. In fact, I would...I would almost dare a man to be a pastor like I have for nearly twenty-two years in the same church and preach fifty-minute sermons for twenty-two years and try to be a topical preacher. You'd have to have left long ago because you'd run out of topics. But if you're an expositor, you can go on forever and ever and ever and ever...as you well know. So we are touching at the heart of this matter of ministry when we touch the issue of remembering.
Now the first thing that we note as we sense the heart of Peter for his people not to forget is the sense of the urgency of ministry. Notice verse 12, this is a very simple text, straightforward, you'll understand it very clearly. "Therefore I shall always be ready to remind you of these things." "Therefore," of course, reaches back to the prior text in which he had been discussing the greatness of salvation and the blessedness of assurance. His discussion of the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ in verse 1, his discussion of multiplied grace and peace through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord, his discussion of the fact that we have received everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence, the discussion of the great and precious promises that we have received that have made us partakers of the divine nature because we've escaped the corruption of the world...all of that is the discussion of the great reality of salvation.
And then beginning in verse 5 he began to talk about how you experience the assurance of that salvation by adding to your faith moral excellence and knowledge and self-control and perseverance and godliness and brotherly kindness and love. And when these qualities are there, and increasing, you're not going to forget your spiritual condition, you're going to remember that you're saved. And so because of the greatness of salvation and because of the glorious blessedness of assurance, he says, "Therefore I shall always be reminding you of these things." I don't want you to forget how great salvation is in order that you might thank God for it, praise God for it, glorify God for it and take advantage of all its resources. And I don't want you to ever forget how marvelous it is to have the assurance of salvation and so I am going to be always ready to remind you about these things.
There is the reality that Christians can forget the blessedness of salvation and wander off into sin, right? That we can turn our back on the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ, that we can turn our back on multiplied grace and peace, that we can turn our back on all of the divine power that grants to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. We can turn our back on the precious, magnificent promises that are ours as partakers of the very nature of God and we can wander off into sin. And so he says I'm always ready to remind you about this. And we can by also wandering into sin forfeit our assurance and so he eagerly will remind us of the crucial, essential, important, greatness of salvation and blessedness of assurance.
By the way, would you notice also in verse 12 there's a future tense here, "Therefore I shall always be ready to remind you." And he is simply saying whenever I am given the opportunity at any point whenever I can do it, I will do it. But there's another thought in his mind here and that is that he is now writing this letter and he is looking not at the writing of the letter but the future reading of the letter. And he is anticipating that everyone who reads the letter he is going to again find him again ready to remind us of these things. Every time 2 Peter is picked up and the first chapter is read, Peter is reminding us of these things. And so both preaching and writing is reminding.
Peter wanted to have his people avoid the hazards of negligence. He wanted to work hard to press home the issues. And so he says I'm always ready to remind you. I will remind you in my preaching, I will remind you in my teaching. I will remind you by penning this letter which will go on throughout the future whenever read to remind you again. He wanted to leave a legacy, he wanted to leave a final will and testament to remind people of the greatness of salvation and the blessedness of assurance and to make sure that false teachers and false doctrine didn't steal any of that away.
Much of the ministry, beloved, is reminding you. I know that it's not uncommon for you to walk away from Grace Church and say, "Well, I heard that before." Good because the day I announce some new truth to you that you've never heard before, you can throw me out. There are not new truths to this generation, only a clearer understanding of the Word of God, perhaps a truer interpretation, but it is a ministry of reminding, reminding you of doctrinal truth and reminding you of moral requirements.
Peter was really no different than the others. Listen to what Paul says in Romans 15:15, "I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again." Paul knew that every time he spoke or every time he wrote he was not necessarily saying something new, but that was all right. In Philippians 3:1, "Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord," he says, "to write the same things again is no trouble to me and it is a safeguard for you."
Paul had the same thing in mind that Peter had in mind, repetition for the sake of safeguard. Even though, and I want you to listen to this, even though your conscious mind says I've heard that before, somehow it stacks another brick on your subconscious mind to hear it again. And you build a strong and fortified foundation through repetition.
That dear lady up at Prairie Bible Institute perhaps needed to acknowledge that truth that having heard it a second time might have driven it more deeply into her mind and heart. It's almost as if the first time you hear a truth it sets the nail in the wood and the second and third and fourth time you hear it are the hammer blows that drive it deep.
Peter knew we forget very easily. He knew the urgency of being ready, even eager to remind people. It is frankly discouraging if you think about it very long how fast we forget. There have been surveys done in the past that I don't even like to read that say within an hour after a given sermon, people have forgotten ninety percent of it. That is a frightening statistic. You say, "How do you overcome that?" By repeating the same things over and over again in different ways, just as the Word of God does. And any faithful minister feels the urgency of doing that. Why? Because of the greatness of salvation, because of the blessedness of assurance, because we want you to live godly lives so that you can participate in the fullness of salvation and participate in the blessing of assurance, and so we want you to remember and so we are set about to remind you. That's part of...that's part of the pastoral duty.
Secondly, Peter not only understood the urgency of ministry which is to remind people as a matter of warning them against the hazards of error and sin, but he secondly understood the spirit of ministry. While you are reminding people you have to recognize that they do know some things. Peter shows that proper spirit, that spirit of graciousness, that spirit of gentleness, that spirit of meekness, that spirit of tenderness. And so he speaks in that way, look back to verse 12. "I shall always be ready to remind you of these things," that's the urgency of it, but look at the spirit of it, "even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you." There's a sweetness in that as he says to his people...I know you know these things, I know you've heard these things, I know these things have been built into your life and I know that they are present with you, but still I remind you of them. That's the spirit.
When I went away to seminary, I'll never forget my first experience in speech class. They wanted to teach us how to speak. And usually when you first go to seminary in your class there are some people who are timid, they don't want to speak. They have a very difficult time getting in front of the class of twenty guys and speaking. You know the number one fear that people have is the fear of public speaking, that's a number one fear. It can be very frightening. And so when you're in seminary you have to overcome that. Personally I never had a problem with that, but some people do.
And I can remember that in those classes they would try to get us to get out of ourselves