Participants: Tom Shepherd & Deyvy Rodriguez
Series Code: PBOTB
Program Code: PBOTB00004A
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00:22 Welcome to "The Books of the Book."
00:23 The program that focuses on a deep Bible study 00:26 of the word of God. 00:27 will be taking a closer look at 1 Peter. 00:30 Bring out your Bibles, so you can join us 00:31 in this very interesting study. 00:34 And with us is Dr. Tom Shepherd. 00:35 He's a professor at the theological seminary 00:38 at Andrews university. Dr. Sheppard, welcome. 00:42 Before we begin our study I want to ask you this question 00:45 that I've been willing to ask you. 00:47 What's with the bow ties? Is there a story behind that? 00:52 I just started wearing bow ties probably 00:54 about 10 or 15 years ago-- kind of a personal signature 00:59 and sure enough I'm known as 01:01 the professor who wears bow ties. 01:03 If they say, "Oh, you have a class with Shepherd? 01:05 Shepherd, who is he?" "The one that wears bow ties." 01:07 Immediately, they know who I am. 01:09 The bow tie guy. The bow tie guy. 01:11 Well, what are we studying today? 01:13 What passage we would be looking at? 01:14 We'll be looking at 1 Peter 1:10-12 01:17 We should turn right there and get into the word of God. 01:20 1 Peter 1:10-12. This is what it says, 01:24 "Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied 01:28 about the grace that was to be yours searched 01:31 and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time 01:35 the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted 01:38 the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 01:42 It was revealed to them that they were not serving 01:44 not themselves but you, in the things that have now been 01:48 announced to you through those who preached the good news 01:51 to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, 01:53 things into which angels long to look." 01:56 Okay. Now how do these verses link up 01:59 with what we've been talking about before? 02:01 All right. So we started our study 02:03 with the first couple verses and we found 02:06 that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. 02:08 Actually, it says the Father, the Spirit, 02:10 and the Son are working for our salvation to draw us 02:14 to God that they have created a covenant with us. 02:19 That harks back to the Old Testament covenant 02:22 idea of the people of God with Him 02:26 at Mount Sinai that links them up. 02:29 Then He unpacks this through a description of the blessings 02:34 of rebirth where he talks about our past 02:39 and then the experience of the hope and the inheritance 02:44 and salvation that talks about our future. 02:48 It might be good to see that link to the Old Testament. 02:52 If we turn to Exodus 24:3-8, we can see some of that language 02:57 that we've been talking about all along. 02:59 Exodus 24:3-8. 03:05 I guess, I can read it. Yeah. 03:07 "So Moses came and told the people all the words 03:09 of the Lord and all the judgments. 03:11 And all the people answered with one voice and said, 03:14 "All the words which the Lord has said we will do." 03:17 And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. 03:22 And he rose early in the morning, 03:23 and built an altar at the foot of the mountains, 03:26 and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 03:30 Then he sent young men of the children of Israel, 03:34 who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings 03:38 of oxen to the Lord. 03:40 And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins 03:44 and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 03:47 Then he took the Book of the Covenant 03:49 and read in the hearing of the people. 03:53 And they said, "All that the Lord has said we will do, 03:57 and be obedient." 03:59 And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, 04:03 and said, "This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord 04:07 has made with you according to all these words."" 04:11 Okay. Now this is exactly the same kind of idea 04:14 that we have in the Book of 1 Peter Chapter 1 verse 2 04:20 where it talks about the foreknowledge 04:22 of God the Father, the sanctification of the Spirit, 04:24 for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling with his blood. 04:29 Obedience and sprinkling. 04:30 We think those are mixed up, that those are backwards. 04:32 But if you go back to that story in Exodus 24, 04:36 first Moses goes, God sends him down 04:39 with the words and the people say, 04:41 "All the Lord has said, we will do." 04:43 They say they will obey. 04:44 And then they're sprinkled with the blood of the covenant. 04:47 They have agreed to be God's covenant people, all right. 04:51 Now, of course, we know that they failed to obey 04:54 and that actually broke the covenant 04:57 and then it had to be restored through God's grace to them. 05:02 So some people get the idea that, 05:05 "Oh, you got the wrong idea of obediency or something" 05:07 that this is entering into a covenant with God, 05:11 a new relationship with God, 05:13 the rebirth experience now empowers us. 05:15 Okay. So that brings us to this passage. 05:18 The first passage talked about God the Father 05:22 'cause he said, "Blessed be God the Father 05:26 of our Lord Jesus Christ!" Who has done all these things, 05:28 given us hope and everything. 05:30 And when we came to verse 6 05:34 and onwards he says, "In this you rejoice." 05:37 And he talks about in verse 8, "Though you have not seen him." 05:40 You have not seen Jesus. Okay. "You love him. 05:44 Though you do not now see him, you believe in him 05:46 and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible 05:48 and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome 05:51 of your faith, the salvation of your souls." 05:53 So he's talked about God the father and His role. 05:56 He's talked about Jesus and His role. 05:58 Then he comes to our passage here where he talks 06:00 about the Holy Spirit and the role of the Spirit. 06:02 So that's how this passage fits into and goes before. 06:08 And what is the sanctification of the Spirit all about? 06:13 Okay. There are different meanings. 06:16 We've already said some about this of the word sanctification. 06:19 Some people will say sanctification 06:22 is the work of a life time. 06:23 That's the purifying work of God's Spirit 06:25 that works in our lives, all through life. 06:28 There's another sentence for sanctification 06:29 is the act of a moment. 06:31 That's where you are set apart for God to be His people, 06:36 to belong to Him. 06:38 But in Peter, this idea of sanctification, 06:42 I would say is rather holistic. 06:44 It kind of puts it all together. It links it all together. 06:49 It cannot separate it out. 06:52 Salvation is not only the accepting of Christ 06:57 but also the living for Christ idea, 07:01 looking forward to His return. 07:03 So it's the new experience of the new birth, 07:07 it's also living for Him and it's particularly 07:10 looking forward to His return. 07:13 So it's especially focused on the end, the idea of salvation. 07:18 But this passage here that we just read 10 through 12 07:21 doesn't seem to talk about sanctification by the Spirit. 07:25 Why is that? Yeah. That's really interesting. 07:27 You know, it talks a lot about the Revelation, doesn't it? 07:31 That they received. And so you think in your mind, 07:34 "Well, wait a minute, 07:35 I thought this was all about sanctification. 07:37 Why does it emphasize so much about 07:39 the giving of the Revelation, the word of God? Why is that?" 07:42 Well, that's because of the role that the word of God 07:46 that the Spirit gives, the role that the word 07:49 of God has in sanctification. 07:52 So there's a passage that we can look at 07:55 that can help us to understand this a bit. 07:58 Ephesians 5:25 and 26. 08:04 Ephesians 5:25 and 26. 08:11 I teach students at the seminary how to read the Bible aloud 08:15 and how to talk about the scripture. 08:20 I tell them they should always list 08:22 the reference to the scripture three times. 08:25 Before they read it? Yep. 08:26 And when you're giving a sermon, 08:27 it's always good to read it three times. 08:29 Is there a purpose to that? What? Is there a purpose to 08:32 making a reference? There is. There definitely 08:33 is a purpose to that. 08:35 That's because you want people to bring their Bible to church 08:37 and you want them to open the Bible. Okay. 08:39 So that they not only hear it but they see the word of God. 08:43 See, and actually if you watch great evangelists like 08:47 "Mark Finley", he invariably 08:50 will reference it three times. Really? 08:52 Yep. He'll say quickly twice, then he'll tell a little story 08:54 or something and then he'll say it again and then he'll read it. 08:57 So here we go third time. Ephesians 5:25 and 26. 09:00 "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved 09:04 the church and gave Himself for her, 09:07 that He might sanctify and cleanse her 09:10 with the washing of water by the word." 09:13 Okay. Mine says, "The washing 09:15 of water with the word." Okay. 09:18 Now he's talking about Christian marriage 09:21 but he's also talking about Christian life in the church. 09:24 Because he said that Christ is the head of the church. 09:29 His body and He's the savior that's back in verse 23 09:34 and as the Christ submits to the church, 09:36 the wife is to submit to her husband. 09:37 So he talks about this relationship of husbands 09:41 and wives and he ties it all to the church. 09:44 And when he comes to this interesting passage 09:46 where he talks about husbands that they are 09:48 to love their wives, he says, "As Christ loved the church 09:52 and gave Himself for her that he might" 09:56 here is the term, "sanctify" her. All right. 10:00 Now how does He sanctify her? 10:02 Having cleansed her by the washing 10:05 of water with the word. 10:08 What does that sound like to you in Christian life? 10:13 Well, it sounds of a, I don't know, 10:16 maybe you can help in better understanding. 10:18 Well, washing with water. Where do we use water? 10:21 Maybe like taking the shower. 10:23 Yeah, but in the Christian church, 10:25 we use water for--. Baptism? 10:27 Baptism. Okay. 10:28 Yeah, we use baptism. And when we baptize somebody, 10:30 we say "I baptize you in the name 10:31 of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." 10:34 Those are the words that are spoken. 10:37 The words of sanctification. 10:38 The words of them now being 10:40 dipped in water to experience that. 10:44 We can say baptism is their faith taking physical form. 10:52 It's a public testimony we say of their faith. 10:56 And here it is, it's the washing of water with the word. 11:02 When you're baptized, that's the washing of water. 11:07 It's like your sins are washed away. 11:12 We did some evangelistic meetings 11:13 in a little church where I go, it's the Clare Michigan church, 11:18 and the pastor, we did a Revelation seminar. 11:23 And we had about 30 to 50 people coming regularly 11:26 to the meetings, both church members 11:28 and people from the community. 11:30 And we had a baptism where we baptized someone 11:34 and we have people who are coming to church. 11:35 It is really exciting, you know, to see us having so many people 11:38 in the church were involved in this ministry together. 11:42 And that lady was just so, you know, 11:45 she was just so happy on the day of her baptism, 11:48 washing of water with the word of God. 11:52 So we go back to 1 Peter. 11:54 This is what we see happening is that there's all kinds 11:58 of reference to this word, this prophesy, 12:04 these phrases that are going on, you see, 12:07 concerning the salvation the prophets who prophesied 12:10 about the grace but, was to be yours, 12:14 searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time 12:17 the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted 12:21 the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12:24 So it's a beautiful expression of this revelation. 12:30 So the revelation becomes the place, 12:33 the word of God is that which takes and cleanses our life. 12:38 If you're not reading the word of God on a daily basis, 12:43 your life just won't be as clean. 12:45 You won't have the same kind of, should I say closeness, 12:51 the feel of closeness to God. 12:54 Most people find the beginning of the day 12:56 as a great time to read the Bible. 12:57 Others, they'll do it in the middle 12:59 of the day or the end of the day. 13:01 Doesn't matter when. But we have to make sure 13:02 that we have that experience with the word of God. 13:05 Because it continues not just in baptism 13:08 that it washes us, but it continues 13:10 to wash us through our life experience. 13:13 Every day I open my Bible. See and the light shines up, 13:18 you know, helps to clean out 13:19 the cobwebs that too often get in there. 13:23 So reading it, memorizing it, sharing it, 13:28 this is the experience of salvation. 13:31 Well, Dr. Shepherd, thank you for these very insights. 13:34 Why don't we go ahead and take a moment here? 13:36 Take a brief break and then we'll be right back 13:39 after these short messages. |
Revised 2014-12-17