And we're back to
"Books of the Book"
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with Dr. Tom Shepherd.
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Dr. Shepherd, we were going
to read a Psalms, is that right?
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Yeah, we were
going to read Psalm
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part we'll read--
we'll read part of the Psalm.
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It Psalm 22 and this
is a messianic psalm.
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You will notice when we read it,
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it'll immediately
become clear that Jesus
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quotes from this Psalm,
when He is on the cross.
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So it's clearly
this messianic sense.
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I want you to notice
as we read through it,
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how it goes down to depths
and it comes back up and then
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goes down into the
depths and comes back up, right?
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It starts this
way, "My God, my God,
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why have You forsaken me?
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Why are you so
far from saving me
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from the words of my groaning.
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O my God, I cry by
day, but You do not answer,
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and by night,
but I find no rest.
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Yet You are holy, enthroned
on the praises of Israel.
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In You our fathers trusted.
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They trusted and
You delivered them.
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To You they
cried and were rescued.
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In You they trusted
and were not put to shame.
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But I am a worm and not a man,
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scorned by mankind and
despised by the people.
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All who see me mock me.
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They make mouths at
me, they wag their heads.
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He trusted in the
Lord, let Him deliver him.
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Let Him rescue him,
because He delights in him.
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Yet You are He who
took me forth from the womb.
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You made me trust You
at my mother's breasts.
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On You was I cast from my birth.
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And from my mother's
womb You have been my God.
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Be not far from me,
for trouble is near.
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And there is none to help."
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"Many bulls have surrounded me.
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Strong bulls of
Bashan have encircled me.
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They gape at me
with their mouths
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like a raging and roaring lion.
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I am poured out like water,
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and all my bones
are out of joint.
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My heart is like wax.
It is melted within me.
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My strength is
dried up like a potsherd,
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and my tongue
cleaves to my jaws.
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You have brought me
to the dust of death.
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For dogs have surrounded me,
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the congregation of
the wicked has enclosed me.
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They pierced my
hands and my feet.
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I can count all my bones.
They look and stare at me.
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They divide my
garments among them
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and for my
clothing they cast lots.
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But You, O Lord,
do not be far off.
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O my strength,
hasten to my help me.
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Deliver me from the sword.
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My precious life
from the power of the dog.
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Save me from the lion's mouth.
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And from the
horns of the wild oxen."
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Okay, so it's very clear.
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You get this
pattern of almost like
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total despair and
then a remembrance,
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no, but God is the deliverer.
God will come to my aid.
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Totally left alone,
no, but God will rescue me.
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And it's very interesting that
the words of Jesus on a cross
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quote from the
psalm that's verse one.
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He quotes from that.
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So even His words
of anguish are a prayer
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as He, you know,
looks to God for help.
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And you get this back and
forth so it has two poles.
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The pole of despair and
the pole of hope, all right?
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And here back in,
this was your question
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that you had asked
about what Peter does?
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And you just want to repeat
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that question again
so that we are clear.
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So what I noticed in
the Psalms we just read
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and mentioned a
lion twice. Yeah.
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As an enemy and I don't
think I could have come up
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with a better illustration
than the one Peter did
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as the devil being
like a lion roaring around
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and so what has Peter
recommended in response to that?
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Well, if I were out in
the open field with a lion,
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I would run as fast as I could.
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Hopefully, I'll
have a jeep nearby
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and I get inside my
jeep-- That's right.
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Put the windows close.
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But that's not
what Peter says to do.
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It's really kind of surprising.
He says to withstand him.
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You think of David, you
know, he was a brave young man
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and then he said, when there
was a lion and took the lamb.
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He says I went,
grabbed it and killed it,
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you know, if it was a bear,
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I would hit it with
my club or whatever.
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Peter talks here
about other Christians.
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He's been talking to
the group of Christians
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he's been writing to
all through this time.
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And now he refers to
other Christians around them.
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He says there's this brotherhood
through out the world
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that's going
through similar sufferings.
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It's not misery loves
company. That's not the idea.
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It's rather the great
crowd of faithful witnesses
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that these people
are encouraged to stand
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shoulder to shoulder
with to be firm and strong.
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It's not just the brotherhood
we are to take as our example,
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but Peter
indicates that in verse 10,
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God is the one, who
will see us through.
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So in that contrast of
despair and hope in Psalm 22,
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now we come to the contrast
between the devil and God.
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And so my question is
what is God's role in this?
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God's role is very
beautiful in this passage, okay.
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Peter reminds us of who God is?
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He is the God of all grace.
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He is the God who called us
to His eternal glory in Christ.
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He set before us then is a--
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His resolution of
our past by His grace.
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That's where he
started the letter.
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This is kind of like the closing
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book end on the
letter, you know.
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He started by talking
about what God did for our past.
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How that He has
secured our future?
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And so we can face the present.
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So even here His resolution
of our past by His grace,
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the experience of eternal
salvation that is going to come
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at the return of
Christ helps us now
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in our present
experience of facing the devil.
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So understanding who God is
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and what He has done for us
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and what He is calling us to?
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Does not deny our
present experience of suffering,
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but it does modify our view
of that sufferings magnitude.
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Peter says it's
for a little while.
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And then he uses four
beautiful verbs to describe,
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what God is going to do and how
He's going to carry things out.
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And these verbs
are found in verse 10,
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if you would read verse 10?
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"But may the God of all grace,
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who called us to His
eternal glory by Christ Jesus,
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after you have suffered a while,
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perfect, establish,
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strengthen, and settle you."
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All right, now we
got to kind of slow down
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on those verbs and, you know,
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open them up a little bit, okay.
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The first one is the
Greek verb is katharizo
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and it means to put
in order or to restore,
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okay, so and to make compete.
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This verb was used to
refer to mending nets.
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When they had been torn or
to set-in a dislocated limb,
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if your limb got out of
joint and the doctor would take
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and get it back
into joint, okay?
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So we can say that God
is going to restore things.
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He is going to put
things back in order.
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Remember, He is the
moral orator of the world.
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So all the things in our lives
that have been put out of place.
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All of the things where
people have done us wrong,
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its never been set
right, where we've suffered
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and gone through trials
because of our Christian faith.
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He is going to
settle all those things.
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He is going to set it right.
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The next verb is
sterizo, it means to setup
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or to establish, to fix firmly.
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It's used to refer to
setting something firmly down
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like taking a stone and
setting it firmly in the ground.
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You have a big stone
and you make a hole for it.
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You set it there, so
it's not going to move.
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It also means to
support, to collaborate,
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to establish and
ground something.
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Then the third
verb that he uses.
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Nice that he uses
four verbs together,
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you know. It's a tough one.
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Sthenao, sthenao and
it means to strengthen,
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okay and it's related to a noun
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and that means
strength or might,
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especially of bodily
strength like bodybuilding.
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You see, you can go to the
YMCA and you lift your weights.
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And the last verb is
themalio which means to,
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to found or to lay a
foundation, to establish.
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So if we think of all of
these four verbs together,
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you know these great ideas.
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We kind of get a
pattern that goes like this.
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God is going mend the
broken nets of your life.
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He is going to set
the dislocated limbs
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that had been
pulled out of place,
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by our life's
trials and troubles.
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He is going to set the stone
of your life in a settled place.
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It's been moved
from here to there
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by all kinds of
trials and troubles.
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He is going to set it
in place in a firm place.
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He is gonna build up your body.
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He is gonna take you
to the YMCA and make you
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one of those body building
people with the big muscles.
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I go to the
YMCA to lift weights.
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And one time I saw
a guy wearing a shirt,
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one of these guys with the
great big muscles, you know.
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And he had something written
on the back of his shirt,
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so I was kind of looking at it
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and I looked at,
little more closely
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and this quote on the
back of his shirt said
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"pain is weakness
leaving the body."
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Pain is weakness
leaving the body.
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So God is taking you to the YMCA
and He is gonna build you up.
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He is gonna give you
strong muscles again.
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And He is gonna
lay the foundations
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of a new building for you
and make your life secure.
00:10:23.78\00:10:26.86
I mean, God
will put it in order,
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He will establish you,
He will strengthen you,
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He will lay the
foundations of your life.
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I mean, you can hardly
think of a better way for Him
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to bring things to a conclusion.
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Okay, so what role
does verse 11 play then?
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But when you see,
what God has done,
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let's read verse
11 it says. Sure.
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"To him be the dominion
forever and ever. Amen".
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It's a praise, he
turns back to praise to God,
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just like he began, you know.
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Blessed be God who has
given us this new birth.
00:10:54.70\00:10:56.90
So when you see
what God has done
00:10:56.93\00:10:59.01
just like Peter began
the book with blessings
00:10:59.04\00:11:01.51
so here he ends the book
with this wonderful doxology
00:11:01.54\00:11:04.97
"To him be power forever. Amen".
00:11:05.00\00:11:08.04
Okay, and we are just
about to close this letter,
00:11:08.07\00:11:11.29
how does Peter
finish off his letter?
00:11:11.32\00:11:14.46
Oh, in verses 12 to 14,
00:11:14.49\00:11:17.88
Peter describes a
helper, who is working with him.
00:11:17.91\00:11:22.85
And then he gives a
greeting to the church in Rome.
00:11:22.88\00:11:25.45
And he has a final reminder
about love within the community.
00:11:25.48\00:11:28.85
The name of the
helper was Silvanus
00:11:28.88\00:11:32.23
and this turns out to be Silas.
00:11:32.26\00:11:36.51
In the book of Acts Chapter 15
00:11:36.54\00:11:38.93
and over in 2
Corinthians Chapter 1
00:11:38.96\00:11:41.38
and 1 Thessalonians 1
and 2 Thessalonians 1,
00:11:41.41\00:11:44.00
this guy got around, he was
a traveling companion of Paul.
00:11:44.03\00:11:48.23
And evidently, he
ends up Peter is in Rome.
00:11:48.26\00:11:52.13
He calls the place
Babylon where he is so,
00:11:52.16\00:11:54.99
you know, it's
that linkage to Rome.
00:11:55.02\00:11:57.07
And Paul ends up there
as well, but Silas does too.
00:11:57.10\00:12:02.00
And so, Silas helps Peter
in some way with this letter.
00:12:02.03\00:12:06.22
Now some people
think that this means
00:12:06.25\00:12:08.12
that he helped
to write the letter.
00:12:08.15\00:12:11.10
But actually the
terminology that is used here,
00:12:11.13\00:12:13.33
the Greek terminology
through whom I wrote,
00:12:13.36\00:12:16.83
doesn't actually mean the
person who wrote the letter.
00:12:16.86\00:12:20.93
What we would
call an amanuensis,
00:12:20.96\00:12:22.54
the person
taking the words down,
00:12:22.57\00:12:25.18
rather this is
referring to the person,
00:12:25.21\00:12:26.88
who would carry the letter.
00:12:26.91\00:12:28.88
So Silvanus is
not in jail or stopped
00:12:28.91\00:12:32.09
from moving in
place and he can go.
00:12:32.12\00:12:34.10
So he takes the letter
for Peter after these people.
00:12:34.13\00:12:38.98
But Peter can't resist
just one more expression
00:12:39.01\00:12:41.85
summarizing what
the letter is about.
00:12:41.88\00:12:43.47
He says this is
the true grace of God
00:12:43.50\00:12:46.79
in which you must stand.
00:12:46.82\00:12:49.13
God's action is summarized
by reference to His grace
00:12:49.16\00:12:51.89
and this epitomizes all that
He has done for us in Christ.
00:12:51.92\00:12:56.85
Then Peter summarizes
what our response must be.
00:12:56.88\00:12:59.82
He says stand in this truth
and he affirms its validity
00:12:59.85\00:13:05.02
by calling it the
true grace of God.
00:13:05.05\00:13:06.91
Peter then does greetings
from the church in Babylon,
00:13:06.94\00:13:10.98
the fellow sister church
and he refers to his son Mark,
00:13:11.01\00:13:15.73
who is also becomes the
writer of the gospel of Mark.
00:13:15.76\00:13:19.39
And finally his last phrase is
00:13:19.42\00:13:21.90
"Peace to all of
you who are in Christ."
00:13:21.93\00:13:26.49
It's such a
wonderful book 1 Peter.
00:13:26.52\00:13:29.61
I just love its wonderful power
00:13:29.64\00:13:31.57
and its wonderful
theology in the mixing of ideas.
00:13:31.60\00:13:35.41
But now we've
come to a conclusion
00:13:35.44\00:13:37.43
of looking at this book.
00:13:37.46\00:13:38.84
And so next time, we
will look at 2 Peter.
00:13:38.87\00:13:41.04
And I'm looking
forward to our next study.
00:13:41.07\00:13:43.83
And I hope you, too, have
been blessed by these studies
00:13:43.86\00:13:45.96
with Dr. Tom Shepherd as I have.
00:13:45.99\00:13:48.68
Well, we hope to
see you next time
00:13:48.71\00:13:50.23
in this series of
"Books of the Book".
00:13:50.26\00:13:52.89
We are studying
now the next series
00:13:52.92\00:13:55.04
on our next program
"The Second Book of Peter".
00:13:55.07\00:13:58.33
Till next time, we hope
that you have been blessed.
00:13:58.36\00:14:00.87
And don't forget.
Pick up the Bible.
00:14:00.90\00:14:02.89
Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you
00:14:02.92\00:14:04.29
as God speaks to you. God bless.
00:14:04.32\00:14:06.90