Hello, friends, and
welcome to "Books of the Book."
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Do you believe that
the word of God has power.
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If you are not too
sure of that answer
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please join us as we take a look
at this very interesting topic
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here in the first book of Peter.
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And joining me is Dr. Shepherd.
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Dr. Shepherd, last
time we were talking-
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last program we were talking
about the secret to holiness.
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Yes.
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What's this idea of
holiness and how do we get it?
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Yes.
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We didn't quite finish
here everything up there
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and it actually might
be best to show the graphic
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that we have to
go along with this.
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It helps us to see
this in relationship
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to two different roles
that God has in our world.
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So we just put this graphic up.
You'll see two truths about God.
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The one on the left mention
here is "Impartial Justice"
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and the one on the
right is "Unmerited Grace".
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God has both of
these characteristics.
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You remember
when we met last time
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we talked about
God as the judge.
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He impartially judges.
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Well, His unmerited grace speaks
to us about His power to act,
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to save us, the saving
relationship we have with Him.
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The individual
value we have to Him
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and it's a reminder of
our connection with Him.
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But when we
think of Him as judge,
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there are
consequences to our actions.
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And it talks about
a broken relationship
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if you get that
negative judgment
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and the responsibility
that you have towards God
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and what happens
if you forget to take
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this relationship
with God seriously.
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So the power to holiness
really comes from the God.
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What is our part?
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Our part is to be
sensitive to respond.
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Remember He says to
be completely awake,
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to be willing to and accept
the power that He sends our way.
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If we do not, Peter warns us
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that there are
consequences to that.
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That's why He, you could say,
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He has the carrot
and the stick, you know,
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the stick is regard as the judge
but the carrot is that-that
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He has His grace there
that gives you the new birth,
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that gives you the
power to be obedient to Him.
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But we are not really
done with this because
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the following
verses all the way-
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or you could really
say all the way through
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chapter 2 verse 10 which were
eventually going to arrive at,
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but all the way
through he sets up
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the series of
depictions of Christian life.
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We say metaphors
of Christian life.
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And from chapter 1 verse
18 through chapter 2 verse 3,
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He has 3 pairs a fall, 3
pairs of mixed metaphors.
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So that's a
total of 6 metaphors.
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3 pairs of metaphors.
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And the pairs don't
match, they are mixed metaphors.
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Now we might be kind of a
little upset with him and say,
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"Peter wanted to mixture
metaphors using keep them,
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you know, going down
the same path, you know."
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But he just did okay.
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And we can draw some
knowledge of what he is doing.
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So let's read verses
18-21 again that comes
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from the first-the last
section but it really fits
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with this section and
understand this metaphors.
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"Knowing that
you were not redeemed
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with corruptible
things, like silver or gold
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from your aimless
conduct received by tradition
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from your fathers, but with
the precious blood of Christ,
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as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot.
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He indeed was foreordained
before the foundation
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of the world, but was manifest
in these last times for you.
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Who through Him
believe in God who raised him
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from the dead
and gave Him glory,
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so that your faith
and hope are in God."
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All right.
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So again he is reminding
the Christians of the importance
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of obedience, the
importance of being serious
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about this
relationship with God.
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And he says,
"you need to remember,
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you need to know
that you are ransomed
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from the futile ways
inherited from your forefathers,
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not with perishable
things like silver or gold."
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So the first metaphors he uses
is the metaphor of redemption.
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Now we have made
this into-it's okay,
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but we have made this
in to a religious word.
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But the word redemption in that
time was a slave market word.
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And to be redeemed
was to be bought back.
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And there are three
ideas that are inherent
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within the concept of slavery,
of this idea of redemption.
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There is the state of slavery,
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there is the act
of being set free
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and there is the
price that was paid.
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Okay.
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So the state of
slavery is slavery-
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let's say slavery to sin.
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Peter calls it
the futile ways of-
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inherited from your forefathers.
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Okay.
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That was the
slavery that held you.
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Now this is again
kind of oxymoron for Peter
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to use here because the
ways in a traditional culture,
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the ways that you wouldn't heard
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from your
forefathers were very positive.
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You-these are the
traditions that your forefathers
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have passed on to
you and these things
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that you would value highly.
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And he calls them futile.
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So he is teaching
them- they have rejected
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the ways of the past,
they've rejected the pagan ways.
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This is a big change of life
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that has
happened for these people.
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And Peter says, "You
will redeem from those.
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You thought it was so good,
you thought it was something
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you should value,
it was destroying you."
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You see?
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And so that's
the first metaphors
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the metaphors of redemption.
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Well, then he mixes it because
he goes in to the next verse,
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he talks about the precious
blood of Christ in verse 19.
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"Like that of a lamb
without blemish or spot."
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Okay?
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So here is a
sacrificial metaphor.
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He is talking about
Christ as though he was a lamb.
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And again this links us back
into the Old Testament concepts.
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The Old Testament
sacrificial service,
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where if somebody
did something wrong
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they had to bring a lamb
or goat or ox or something
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and they would sacrifice
it, they would kill it.
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And then the
blood of that animal
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would be
sprinkled in the sanctuary.
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Of course this
was pointing forward
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to the great sacrifice
that Christ would give.
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That's what Peter
says, "He is like a lamb
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without spot and
without blemish."
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He is that perfect lamb
that protects you or saved you.
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It's like the
Passover, when the Passover lamb
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was offered they
would kill the lamb,
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they'd take the blood,
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and they put it on the
door posts of the house.
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And when the
angel came that night
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to destroy all the first born
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the angel would see
the blood on the door
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and would Passover that house
and not kill the first born.
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So it was a saving experience
but it cost something.
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And so when the cost was
the precious blood of Jesus.
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And it's kind of
funny, you know, he says,
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"You were ransomed
from your futile ways
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not with perishable
things such as silver and gold."
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Now of all
things you in our world,
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there are two things that
are considered imperishable.
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And they are silver
and particularly gold
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because gold doesn't
lose its luster, you know.
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Some medals, they will
give lusty or they will tarnish
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or something, but not
gold, it always shines.
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Especially,
nowadays that the economy
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isn't so- not doing very good.
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People are going
after the imperishable.
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That they say, you know it's
something you can hang on to.
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And Peter is
kind of like saying,
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"Is that the best you
got? That's not gonna save you.
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That doesn't help you."
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You see there is
nothing we can do
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to save ourselves
from the pit of sin.
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I heard one time about a
man, when-it's a poor, sad,
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sad story, but when
he died he had them put
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his tithe of receipts
in his pocket of his suit.
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And think about that.
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Put your tithe receipts
in the pocket of your suit.
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Are you gonna
show these to the God?
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You know what,
when the time comes
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you're gonna say, "But
I gave 40 years of tithe."
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I'm sorry, that cannot save
you. Gold, silver it cannot do.
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Only the precious blood of
Jesus can do that, you see.
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So that's the first
metaphor that he brings to us
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"The precious blood of Christ".
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And in verse 20 he
says, "He was foreknown before
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the foundation of the
world, but was made manifest
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in the last times
for the sake of you."
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Notice it's very
cosmic, it goes all the way back
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to the beginning, before
the beginning in other word
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and it goes down
to the last times.
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So it's this cosmic
great controversy picture.
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All of time is encompassed
by the sacrifice of Christ.
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"And he is
foreknown before them,
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but manifested
now who through Him
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you are believers in God,
who raised him from the dead."
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Notice there the emphasis
again on the resurrection,
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the importance
of the resurrection.
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It's an
interesting study to go through
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and trying to see, you know,
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where the New Testament
talks about the resurrection.
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You will find it in places
you wouldn't expect sometimes.
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And here again the
resurrection of Jesus
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is the affirmation
of our belief in him.
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God raised him from the
dead and gave him glory.
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Set your faith and hope in God.
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So that's the
first set of metaphors
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The redemption metaphor combined
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with the sacrificial
metaphor of Jesus as the lamb.
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Well, Dr. Shepherd, should
we continue on the next verse?
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Yeah. Why don't
we read verses 23-25.
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I think we
skipped 22, didn't we?
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22, I'm sorry.
You are exactly right.
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"Since you have purified
your souls in obeying the truth
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through the spirit in
sincere love of the brethren,
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love one another
fervently with a pure heart.
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Having been born again,
not of corruptible seed,
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but of incorruptible,
through the word of God,
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which lives and abides forever."
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Now here it says, since
you have purified your souls,
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what is this mean,
purified your souls?
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Well, we can
refer back to verse 2
00:11:09.50\00:11:12.10
that we read
earlier, chapter 1:2.
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That says,
"According to the foreknowledge
00:11:15.24\00:11:16.91
of God the father
in the sanctification
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of the spirit for
obedience to Jesus Christ
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and for the
sprinkling with His blood."
00:11:22.21\00:11:24.11
So obedience and
sprinkling, put together, okay?
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So you purified your souls
by your obedience to the truth.
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There is this truth about
salvation that comes in Christ.
00:11:31.75\00:11:35.49
And so there is a
really cool word for this.
00:11:35.52\00:11:40.06
When you have
two terms that refer
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to the same thing
is called hendiadys.
00:11:42.16\00:11:45.83
You like that word?
Is that a Greek word?
00:11:45.87\00:11:47.74
Yeah. Okay.
00:11:47.77\00:11:49.14
Hendiadys. Hendiadys.
00:11:49.17\00:11:50.74
It actually means
hen, is the word one,
00:11:50.77\00:11:53.68
dia is the word
through and dy is the word two.
00:11:53.71\00:11:58.11
Dys is two. One through two?
00:11:58.15\00:12:00.25
I'm trying to make sense of it.
00:12:00.28\00:12:01.65
One through two, you're saying
one thing using two terms.
00:12:01.68\00:12:03.59
Oh, okay. Okay.
00:12:03.62\00:12:04.99
So when you have this idea
of obedience and sprinkling
00:12:05.02\00:12:11.13
that's a hendiadys to
refer to making a covenant
00:12:11.16\00:12:13.70
with God, that you
have become His children
00:12:13.73\00:12:16.50
through making this covenant,
that He has becomes your father,
00:12:16.53\00:12:19.33
you becomes His child. Okay.
00:12:19.37\00:12:21.67
So you know sometime you
can say we were just discussing
00:12:21.70\00:12:24.34
the hendiadys of
covenant with God, you know.
00:12:24.37\00:12:28.04
Sounds pretty cool you know.
00:12:28.08\00:12:29.44
But you can go look
it up in the dictionary.
00:12:29.48\00:12:32.08
It begins with hen like
the word hen like the one
00:12:32.11\00:12:34.85
that went around on that
on the farm yard, hendiadys.
00:12:34.88\00:12:38.42
Okay. So that is the
idea of this purification
00:12:38.45\00:12:43.09
of your souls
through your obedience,
00:12:43.12\00:12:45.49
to the truth you are
making this covenant with God,
00:12:45.53\00:12:49.46
and he says that it produces
a sincere brotherly love.
00:12:49.50\00:12:53.50
You have to love one another
earnestly from a pure heart.
00:12:53.54\00:12:58.84
This is about the
practical relationship
00:12:58.87\00:13:02.38
or the practical
ideas that come out
00:13:02.41\00:13:07.45
of a saving
relationship with God.
00:13:07.48\00:13:11.05
Some people think
that- I don't know,
00:13:11.09\00:13:13.96
they get the idea
that is saving relationship
00:13:13.99\00:13:17.09
doesn't have to have
any practical implications.
00:13:17.13\00:13:21.80
That they can be saved by grace
and be mean to their brother.
00:13:21.83\00:13:29.57
Peter says, "No,
you can't do that."
00:13:29.60\00:13:32.84
If you are mean to people,
00:13:32.87\00:13:35.41
you are not in the right
saving relationship with Jesus.
00:13:35.44\00:13:38.18
You are not following
what he has taught you to do.
00:13:38.21\00:13:41.22
You are not living
out what He has given you.
00:13:41.25\00:13:44.22
You see, by grace- He
has given you that grace
00:13:44.25\00:13:46.55
so now, you must treat
other people differently.
00:13:46.59\00:13:50.53
Grace is a new set of glasses
00:13:50.56\00:13:53.80
that we cannot look
at in a different way.
00:13:53.83\00:13:56.87
We'll have to come back
to this after a short break.
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