Richmond Community Church

Sermon: Precious & Magnificent Moments – Better to Never Have Known the Way
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: II Peter 2:11-22
Duration: 26:55
Size: 12.3 MB

Precious & Magnificent Moments
Better Never to Have Known the Way
II Peter 2:11-22

The chapter intends to do in a negative way what chapter 1 aims to do in a positive way, namely, make us earnest about the business of confirming our call and election.

I. Boastful and Reviling

The false teachers are so brazen and cocky and self-assured that they revile the evil spirits as though they were safe from any supernatural evil influence at all.

So I am inclined to think that the “glories” which the false teachers revile are the glories of God and Christ, especially associated with the second coming.

Their reviling at the glories of Christ is like a wolf howling at the moonrise.

II. Carousing and Greedy

Here the brazen willfulness of the false teachers is seen in their doing in the daytime what other sinners only dare to do at night.

Let’s be a church where we are constantly helping each other to send our roots ever deeper into the rock of God’s truth.

III. Waterless Springs and Mists

O what a need there is in the church for discernment between waterless springs and springs of living water!

IV. Distorting The Gospel of Freedom

The way the false teachers entice new and unstable converts is by promising them freedom.

So Peter blasts the trumpet of warning: they are twisting the Scriptures to their own destruction, and their promised freedom is a bondage to corruption.

V. Storing Up More Judgment

So it is in the Christian life; if you stop trusting the heavenly doctor and disobey his prescription for your redemption, your latter state will be worse than the former.

The whole New Testament is agreed; there is no salvation apart from persevering faith.

Next Week
Where Is the Promise of His Appearing
II Peter 3:1-10

Sermon: Precious & Magnificent Moments – Destruction Is Not Sleeping
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: II Peter 2:1-10
Duration: 26:09
Size: 11.9 MB

Precious & Magnificent Moments
Destruction Is Not Sleeping
II Peter 2:1-10

The confirmation of God’s Word leads to confidence in his promises, which brings power for godliness, which gives us a personally experienced confirmation of our call and election.

I. Same Goal, Different Approach

If chapter 1 is the carrot, chapter 2 is the crack of the whip over our heads.

Here in chapter 2 he says, if you contradict the doctrine and the character of God’s elect, you will fall, and there will be no entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord, but instead eternal destruction in the gloom of hell.

II. Not Playing Games

This chapter is no accident in Holy Scripture. It is the Word of God, that all of us might become very, very zealous to confirm our call and election.

III. False Prophets Who Deny the Master

Even though Peter says these false teachers will arise in the future, it is clear from the rest of the letter that the prophecy is already being fulfilled.

To be bought by Christ is to be freed from the domination of sexual passions that drive one into sexual preoccupations and illicit sexual intercourse.

There is nothing new about the contemporary assault on the sanctity of sexual intercourse in marriage.

IV. God’s Past Judgment

The point of verses 4–10 is to warn us that since God has punished unrighteousness in the past, he will punish it in the future.

If the case of the fallen angels and the case of Noah’s generation do not deter people from following the false teachers, then surely the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah will wake them up to God’s wrath.

V. Lessons for Today

We must make every effort to keep ourselves rooted and grounded in the Word of God.

There is nothing new about free sex. And we should resist it today as resolutely as the apostles of old.

Heaven and hell hang on whether we follow Christ in righteousness or deny him in immorality.

If you put your trust in Jesus Christ and press on to love what he loves, then you will never fall, and there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Next Week
Better Never to Have Known the Way
II Peter 2:11-22

Sermon: Precious & Magnificent Moments – Men Moved by the Holy Spirit Spoke from God
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: II Peter 1:20-21
Duration: 21:49
Size: 9.98 MB

Precious & Magnificent Moments
Men Moved by the Holy Spirit Spoke from God
II Peter 1:20-21

Be a people empowered by hope to lead lives of love. Let your confidence in the coming day of joy make you compassionate in the present night of woe.

I. Why or How?

“Pay attention to the prophetic word … knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation.”

Peter is either giving us a why to pay close attention to the prophetic word, or is telling us how to pay attention to the prophetic word.

II. Whose Interpretation of What?

You can’t just give Scripture any old meaning you please.

No individual is entitled to interpret prophecy, or Scripture, according to his personal whim.

III. The Way in Which We Should Heed the Word

The meaning of Scripture does not change with every new reader or every new reading. It cannot be twisted to mean whatever we like.

IV. God’s Meaning not Man’s

The meaning of Scripture is not like putty that we can mold according to our desires. It is the work of the Holy Spirit and carries a solid, firm, divine intention.

Do you need encouragement that the day is really going to dawn—that the life of self-control, patience, brotherly affection, and love is really leading to glory? Then go to the Scriptures.

V. Three Implications for Our Lives

And to that end you submit yourself to the severe discipline of memory and analysis and construction, until you have assurance that his meaning and not your own has been found.

If you believe that the Bible is the Word of God with authority over your life, it takes a good deal of humility to interpret it correctly.

The work of the Spirit is not to add new information to the Scripture, but to make us sensitive and submissive to what is already there.

Next Week
Destruction Is Not Sleeping
II Peter 2:1-10

Sermon: Precious & Magnificent Moments – Listen to the Eyewitness of His Majesty
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: II Peter 1:12-19
Duration: 27:02
Size: 12.3 MB

Precious & Magnificent Moments
Listen to the Eyewitness of His Majesty
II Peter 1:12-19

The main point has been to urge Christians to make sure that they are truly saved.

God’s divine power has already given us all things which lead to life and godliness.

I. Peter’s Thought Process

His readers are well grounded and established in the truth.

No matter how tragic the death of a believer seems to us, God has universal perspective and does all things well.

It means that even we who know the truth and are established in it need repeated reminders of its greatness, unless we fall asleep or forget.

This letter is Peter’s last will and testament.

II. Myth Versus History

The reason Peter’s word to you is so weighty-is because it is not based on a myth but on an eyewitness account of Christ’s majesty.

If our faith is not grounded in reliable observations of historical reality, it is a “cleverly devised stories” and unworthy of acceptance.

III. The Glory of the Second Coming

Thirty years after the event the revelation of the majesty of Christ fills the mind of Peter with awe, and he wants more than anything to share the hope of that vision with us before he dies.

IV. The Lamp of the Prophetic Word

The world is covered with the darkness of sin and deceit and fear and greed.

What is the hope that lures us on to walk in the light as he is in the light, two things: dawn without and daystar within.

Next Week
Men Moved by the Holy Spirit Spoke from God
II Peter 1:20-21

Sermon: Precious & Magnificent Moments – Confirm Your Election
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: II Peter 1:5-11
Duration: 25:34
Size: 11.7 MB

Precious & Magnificent Moments
Confirm Your Election
II Peter 1:5-11

Our goal is: life and godliness, the source of strength to become godly is divine power, and the activating connection between the goal of godliness and the source of divine power is knowing and trusting the promises of God.

I. The Logic of Godliness

Since God has given power for godliness, strive to become godly!

True Christians do not stop pursuing growth in grace. They go on. They advance.

II. Don’t Float, Swim Hard

We must strive even to stand still, the tide of temptation is so strong.

If the knowledge of God’s glorious promises does not spur us on to strive against the tide, then we will be barren and fruitless and drift to our destruction.

III. The Consequence of Not Swimming

The problem with the person who does not strive toward all the fruit of faith is that he is blind in two directions, the future and the past.

The assumption is that the whole world lies under the righteous judgment of God because of sin. But because of His great mercy, God ordained that a people for his own be saved by grace.

IV. Sanctification and Assurance

The confirmation of your election is your progress in sanctification.

Therefore, the Word of God warns us against being lazy in our faith and drifting away from Jesus Christ our only hope.

Next Week
Listen to the Eyewitness of His Majesty
II Peter 1:12-19