Hello and welcome
to "Books of the Book."
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I'm Deyvy Rodriguez and I'm glad
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you're able to join
us in our study today.
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We're studying the
books of 1st and 2nd Peter.
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Dr. Tom Shepherd is with us.
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He is a Professor of
New Testament Interpretation
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at the Theological
Seminary of Andrews University.
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Dr. Shepherd,
welcome. Thank you.
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You know, when I
became a Christian
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there were many
things I had to leave behind
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and some of them were friends.
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And actually they left me behind
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because they just simply
didn't like my new lifestyle
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and so some of them decided
to just go their own way.
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And at some point they
just didn't like me anymore.
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I don't know if you'd
an experience that way or--
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Well in my life I
was raised up as--
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in a church going
family, Adventist family.
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And so my group of friends
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were friends that
were already in the church.
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So I didn't have
that shift take place.
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But I know many people do.
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And it's quite
startling to them sometimes,
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especially if there old
friends give them a hard time.
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And that's really what our
passage here is talking about.
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So we jump right into it.
Let's read 1st Peter 4:1-6.
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"Therefore, since Christ
suffered for us in the flesh,
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arm yourselves
also with the same mind,
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for He who has
suffered in the flesh
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has ceased from sin,
that He no longer should live
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the rest of His
time in the flesh
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for the lusts of men,
but for the will of God.
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For we have spent enough
of our past lifetime in doing
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the will of the Gentiles,
when we walked in lewdness,
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lusts, drunkenness, revelries,
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drinking parties, and
abominable idolatries.
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In regard to these,
they think it strange that
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you do not run with
them in the same flood
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of dissipation,
speaking evil of you.
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They will give an account to Him
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who is ready to judge
the living and the dead.
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For this reason
the gospel was preached
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also to those who are dead,
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that they might be judged
according to men in the flesh,
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but live according
to God in the spirit."
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So how does this,
what we've just read fit,
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with what we've
read before? All right.
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Now that's a
great question, too.
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Because in a way it kind of
builds on what's gone before.
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We saw in our
previous 2 times together
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that 1st Peter
3:13-22 are a description
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first of the
Christian experience
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of sharing faith and
being persecuted for it,
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followed by a support
from the experience of Jesus
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where He suffered as well,
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where He died
to bring us to God,
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that He was raised
to life in the spirit
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and that He proclaimed victory
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and ascended to
the throne on high.
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So we have that wonderful
victory to look forward to.
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He begins
chapter 4 then by saying,
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"Since therefore
Christ suffered in the flesh."
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This concept of since
Christ suffered in the flesh
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is like a summary of all
that he said in those verses
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about Christ's
experience in verses 18 to 22.
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But then that's, of
course, not where he stops.
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He goes on.
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And what does Peter mean
in verse 1 when he says that
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"we should arm ourselves
with that same thought?"
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Yeah, he now talks about a
mindset or a way of thinking.
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We've seen Peter talk
a lot about, you know,
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things that go on in the mind
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because these Christians
in this setting of Asia Minor
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in the 1st
century were many of them
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by themselves, you know,
away from other Christians.
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And they needed to be
fortified in their minds
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in order to face the
experience around them.
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So we aren't exactly told.
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We are said to arm
ourselves with that same thought
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but we aren't told
exactly what that thought was
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because in verses 18 to
22 what we're told is actions
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that Jesus went through.
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If we want to think
back to any thoughts of Jesus
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we have to reach all the
way back to chapter 2, verse 23.
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So maybe we should read 2:23
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'cause it's probably
a good parallel to this.
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"Who when He was reviled
did not revile in return,
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when He suffered
He did not threatened
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but committed Himself to
Him who judges righteously."
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All right, remember
when we talked about this
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we said that in that experience
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Jesus handed
Himself over to God.
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This is in the Garden
of Gethsemane where He said
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"Not My will be done
but Your will be done."
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And so He
delivered Himself to God.
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He handed Himself over to God.
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That same kind
of concept of Christ
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submitting Himself to God,
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of being willing
to go to the cross,
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of being faithful to God
in a trying an experience,
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that's probably the idea
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that we are to arm ourselves
with in this experience.
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Now it's interesting that
verses 18 to 22 of chapter 3
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are kind of pivotal
because they form the support
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for verses 13 and 17
which come before them.
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But now they are the premise
for verses 4--chapter 4:1-6.
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So they
supported what goes before
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but they become the basis
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for his argumentation in
verses 1 to 6 of chapter 4.
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So it's kind of a pivotal kind
of a pattern there in 3:18-22.
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Very interesting,
very important passage,
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challenging, takes a lot
of study to really get into.
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We really just kind of
touched on things there.
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You can go read commentaries
where you can read pages
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and pages and pages to try
to understand those verses.
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So what we present here
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we hope it's a great
blessing to God's people.
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But in a sense it's
kind of the hors d'oeuvres
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for a great meal of digging
into God's word for ourselves.
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What does the last
part in verse 1 of chapter 4
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mean that when it says
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"that the one who has
suffered has ceased from sin?"
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Boy, isn't that a
great little phrase?
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Just sticks in your mind.
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"That one who has
suffered has ceased from sin."
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People get this idea "Wow, I
want to have victory oversin.
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So what I better do
is I better go suffer."
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Because it says here
the one who has suffered
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has ceased from sin.
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Well, who is this
one who has suffered?
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That's the first question.
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Some people wanna say
"it's Jesus" because it says
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in the verse that
"Christ suffered in the flesh."
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You know, so arm yourselves
with the same way of thinking
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for the one who has
suffered in the flesh.
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Well then Jesus
suffered in the flesh? Sure.
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But then the last
phrase "has ceased from sin."
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What's the problem of
applying that to Jesus?
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That he was sinning at one point
and now he stopped sinning.
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Yeah. So it doesn't seem to work
with applying this to Jesus.
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So it probably is
applying to the Christian.
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And saying the one who
has suffered in the flesh
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has ceased from sin.
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And some
commentators take this to teach
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that suffering is
a way of disciplining
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the Christian to
root out sinful behavior.
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And that's one possibility.
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I mean, we think
back to 1st Peter 1
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where it talks about
the testing of your faith
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and it says in verse 7.
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So that the--
this is 1st Peter 1:7.
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"So that the tested genuineness
of your faith more precious
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than gold that perishes
though it is tested by fire
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maybe found to result in
praise and glory and honor
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at the
revelation of Jesus Christ."
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That's one possibility.
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Certainly suffering can
show you the badness of sin.
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But the suffering he's talking
about here is probably suffering
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because you're being persecuted
for being a Christian.
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And it's a little hard
to see how if you're doing
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what's right and
you're suffering,
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how that is that which
cleanses sin out of you.
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I mean, it's possible.
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You might want to say "I'll
never go back to that again.
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I'll never go that way."
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But actually the
ceasing from sin concept here
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may instead of being, you know,
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headed towards
cleansing sin out of the life
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actually, a sign of it
being cleansed from the life.
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Now how can that be?
What do we mean by this?
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It goes like this.
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The person is converted
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like you had talked
about your experience.
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Their lifestyle changed. Okay?
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And so they were
now following Jesus.
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I sometimes say to
people that becoming a Christian
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is like changing
teams on a football team.
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And you used to
wear the black shirt
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of death or whatever,
you know, of Satan's team
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and then you put on the
red shirt of Jesus' team.
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And He says "we're
going this opposite direction
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than you used to go.
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You used to be going that way
and now you're headed this way."
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It sounds like a
traitor. New team.
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Like a traitor, you
know. Yes, of course.
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Betray your-- Yes, of course.
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And the other team,
what they're going to do?
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They're gonna
knock you right down.
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They're gonna
persecute you. All right.
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So you left the way of sin
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and you started
to live for Jesus.
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And what do they
do? They persecute you.
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All right, so the persecution,
the suffering is a sign
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that you left the old way
and you're walking with Jesus.
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That's another way to
understand this verse.
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So we tend to
internalize this a lot and say,
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"Wow, he has ceased from sin.
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Ceased. He's
sinless. He's perfect.
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You have to remember that Peter
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when he talks about sin
is talking about actions.
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He talks about things you do.
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And he talks
about-- he makes lists.
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He tells you "don't
do this. Don't do that.
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You know, don't
go down that way."
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And it's always
rather action oriented
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in his descriptions of sin.
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So we tend to, you
know, sort of get it all
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in our hearts and
minds and say, you know,
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just--he's not even
sinning with the thought
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or something if he's suffering.
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And while the suffering has--
perhaps it's disciplining them.
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I'm thinking maybe that
this is more just a sign
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that the person is a Christian.
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People are
persecuting them. That's a sign.
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They are persecuting him.
Why are they persecuting him?
00:11:28.58\00:11:31.02
Because he's doing what's right.
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That's the sign he's
going down the right path.
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Now verses 2 and 3, how
do they fit in with verse 1?
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All right, it's a good question.
00:11:38.23\00:11:39.66
Let's just take a look
them again just briefly.
00:11:39.69\00:11:41.97
Verse 2 says, "So as to
live for the rest of the time
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in the flesh no
longer for human passions
00:11:44.80\00:11:47.20
but for the will of God.
00:11:47.23\00:11:48.60
For the time
that is past suffices
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for doing what the
Gentiles want to do,
00:11:50.52\00:11:52.67
living in sensuality,
passions, drunkenness, orgies,
00:11:52.70\00:11:55.87
drinking parties,
and lawless idolatry."
00:11:55.90\00:11:59.52
Verse 2 gives the
purpose of the mindset
00:11:59.55\00:12:02.69
that has led to the
suffering in verse 1.
00:12:02.72\00:12:05.45
So verses 2 and
3 stand in contrast
00:12:05.48\00:12:08.47
with one another actually.
00:12:08.50\00:12:10.00
Verse 2 talks about the future,
00:12:10.03\00:12:12.19
what this whole
mindset is gonna lead you to.
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And verse 3
talks about the past,
00:12:16.47\00:12:18.92
what was living
like a Gentile was like.
00:12:18.95\00:12:21.50
The future is
bright with living for God.
00:12:21.53\00:12:24.63
The past is what you used to do
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for the-- in the
Gentile lifestyle.
00:12:26.93\00:12:30.20
In between these
two, in between these two
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is the present in which
the Christian is out of step
00:12:33.45\00:12:36.63
with the pagans around them
00:12:36.66\00:12:38.14
because they were converted
and they became Christians.
00:12:38.17\00:12:41.27
Gentiles don't like that
00:12:41.30\00:12:43.11
and they make the
Christians suffer.
00:12:43.14\00:12:44.56
The list of vices
that we find in verse 3
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is still typical
of our world today.
00:12:47.66\00:12:50.96
You look at the
entertainment industry
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and all the things that
they focus attention on.
00:12:53.36\00:12:56.51
See Hollywood has discovered
00:12:56.54\00:12:58.42
that sex and
violence sells their films.
00:12:58.45\00:13:02.84
Sells their programs.
So what do they focus on?
00:13:02.87\00:13:05.37
Sex and violence.
00:13:05.40\00:13:06.77
And when they
put the two together
00:13:06.80\00:13:08.17
it sells them more.
00:13:08.20\00:13:09.57
They're all
about making the money.
00:13:09.60\00:13:10.97
They're not about establishing
Christian character, you see.
00:13:11.00\00:13:13.35
So this is just like
reading the newspapers today.
00:13:13.38\00:13:16.74
And still with us to this day.
00:13:16.77\00:13:19.21
And perhaps you can also share
00:13:19.24\00:13:20.61
what reaction
does the world have
00:13:20.64\00:13:23.00
when Christians or
when people decide to,
00:13:23.03\00:13:25.63
you know, follow Jesus?
00:13:25.66\00:13:27.62
And maybe you can answer
that after the short break.
00:13:27.65\00:13:30.86
Well, friends, we're studying
00:13:30.89\00:13:32.26
1st and 2nd Peter and
with Dr. Tom Shepherd.
00:13:32.29\00:13:34.91
This is a very
interesting Bible study.
00:13:34.94\00:13:37.64
And be with us
after this short break.
00:13:37.67\00:13:40.13