Sermon Central
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Studies In Ii Peter
Contributed by Glenn Pease on Mar 30, 2021 (message contributor)
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1. A Title Of Honor
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
This is the greatest and highest title available to those in the kingdom of God. That is why you will find the Apostles proud to declare themselves to be servants of God.
In the old days when people traveled in coaches the driver would charge three fares. The first class, second class, and third class. All passengers were placed in the same coach and those who paid the first class fare would often complain that there was no difference, and that they receive no ...read more
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2. The Foundation Of Faith
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
Faith is the basis of all progress into the unknown. Faith adventures into the unknown and unseen believing that there is more to reality than is presently known.
In 1781 Sir William Herschel, the English astronomer, discovered the planet Uranus. He plotted the course that this new planet should follow, but for some mysterious reason Uranus did not follow the predicted orbit. Other astronomers checked his calculations and found no mistake. It was necessary ...read more
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3. Multiple Meanings Of Marvelous Grace
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
Most often Christians define grace as only unmerited favor, but this is putting a limit on the word which the New Testament does not do. It should not be surprising that grace can also mean merited favor.
A snowstorm made it impossible for a guess speaker to get to the church where he was to preach. Therefore, a local man was asked to come in as a substitute. The speaker began by explaining the meaning of substitute. If you break a window he said, and then place a cardboard there instead--that is ...read more
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4. The Knowledge Of God
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
Let us never reduce God to our image, and our puny righteousness. We never will if we obey the words of Peter, and grow in the knowledge of God. This is the way to the mature, abundant, and powerful Christian life.
Columbus was on his fourth voyage in 1504. His ships were grounded in St. Ann's Bay in Jamaica, and the natives revolted and refused to supply the Spaniard with food. There seemed to be no way of escaping the agonies of starvation. Columbus was looking at the almanac, and he learned that a ...read more
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5. The Oil Of Peace
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
Peace is the lubricant that keeps a good thing going. It keeps us in flight, and protects us from the heat of frustration, and the wear and tare of worry and tension that can cause us to lose altitude, and even crash.
Years ago a visitor returning from Dublin told of how he put MacDuncan, the village fool, to the test. He poured the contents of his purse out on the ground, and told him to take any coin he wished. MacDuncan's eyes lit up, and the people of the village gathered around for another ...read more
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6. The Power Of God
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
Everything necessary for the abundant and godly life is potentially ours through the knowledge of God. Knowledge of God is the means by which we gain the power of God.
In may of 1883 strange noises were heard over a hundred miles away coming from the island of Krakatoa between Java and Sumatra. Some Dutchmen chartered a boat and visited the island to investigate. They heard rumbling deep in the earth, and saw geysers of steam shooting up here and there. They ...read more
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7. Hasten To Be Heroic
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
Peter is saying here, hasten to be heroic. The Christian life is a battle, and it is no place for idleness and indifference, or cowardice. God calls for energetic excellence in every believer.
In the days when there was little freedom of speech in England Thomas Paine spent sometime in prison for speaking his mind. Benjamin Franklin urged him to come to America. He did so in 1774. The difference was so great, and he so fell in love with the value of freedom that he caught a vision of ...read more
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8. Equipped With Knowledge
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
A vast infinite reservoir is what we have to dip into with our finite little minds while we recognize the importance of knowledge, we must also recognize its immensity and our limitations.
When Julia Ward Howe toured a battlefield during the Civil War her heart was heavy for things were not going well for the union cause. The soldiers were trying to keep their moral up by singing snatches of then popular army song-John Brown's Body. Mrs. Howe's minister, James Freeman ...read more
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9. Godliness
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
What is godliness? According to the Interpreter's Bible, "...it is strong awareness of the God-relatedness of all life. It is that attitude which sees all things in their relation to God."
Feodore Dostoevski in The Brothers Karamazov brings Christ back to earth in imagination to a 16th century setting in Spain. It was during the terrible Inquisition when so-called heretics were being burned at the stake in great number. Jesus began at once to heal the sick, make the blind to see, ...read more
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10. Self Control
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
All the boldness and knowledge in the world will not keep a man from going down in defeat if he lacks self-control.
In 1949 the Honorable Harold R. Medina was the judge who presided at the trial of 11 communists charged with plotting to overthrow our government by force. In his book Power To Become Lewis Dunnington gives an account of an interesting sidelight to that great trial. For 9 months the judge was ...read more
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11. Stand And Strive
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
Paul said to put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Without this weapon of endurance we will not stand but fall wounded from his fiery darts of affliction.
William Lloyd Garrison was born in 1805 and when he became a man he had the audacity to think he could remove a mountain and altar the flow the river of history. Slavery was that mountain, and what a mountain it was. Slavery had existed from the dawn of civilization, and it was one of the most ...read more
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12. How To Measure Love
Contributed on Mar 30, 2021
Love is only effective and truly Christian love when it is built on the foundation of all the other virtues. As soon as this is forgotten love becomes sentimental, and is reduced to an emotion, and its power is gone.
Tradition says that John the Apostle of love was carried to the Christian assembly when he was so old he could not walk, and his constant advice was, "Children love one another." When he was asked why he told them one thing all the time he replied that nothing else was needed. On the ...read more
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13. The Supreme Virtue
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
Paul made it clear in I Cor. 13 that he could have all gifts and powers that anyone could ever hope to have, but if he lacked love he would be nothing. Peter agrees with Paul, and that is why he puts love at the top.
Pitiram Sorokin in his book The Ways And Power Of Love tells of how in 1918 he was hunted down by the Communist Government of Russia. He was imprisoned and condemned to death. Everyday he expected to be shot as he witnessed the shootings of his friends and fellow prisoners. For 4 years he ...read more
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14. Brotherly Love
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
That is the New Testament demand, and you are to learn to love all who claim Jesus as Lord and Savior. Brotherly love is not a matter of affection, but of duty to Christ, and commitment to His purpose.
D. L. Moody has related a tradition concerning the sight of Solomon's temple. It seems that the land was occupied by two brothers. One had a family and the other was unmarried. One evening after harvesting the wheat, as they sat in their separate dwellings, the elder brother said to his wife, ...read more
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15. Fruit Is Success
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
Fruit is one of the key themes of the Bible. God is a God of fruit, and all that is in harmony with His will is fruitful.
Two young brothers, Nathaniel and John Chapman, entered the Black Bear Tavern, the largest building in Pittsburgh back in 1788. They were looking for a place to sleep in this little village on the Western Frontier. All of the rooms were filled, so they had to sleep on the floor in the corner of ...read more
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16. Nearsighted Christians
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
A Christian with spiritual myopia is all caught up with an entangled with what is under his nose, but he has lost the vision of the distant past and the upcoming future in God's plan. He is forgetful of the cross, and blind to the glory of the future.
F. W. Boreham, the famous Australian preacher, had an instructive experience in St. Paul's Cathedral. He and a friend were looking at Holman Hunt's well known painting, "The Light Of The World." The Savior stands before a closed door with a lantern in His hand, and He is ...read more
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17. A Sure Election
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
God does not elect some so as not to elect others, but that He might have someone to reach the others.
One of the principle characters in the book Darkened Doors is Adrian Mallard, who is a brilliant but skeptical lawyer and sportsman. He learns that he is the victim of a serious heart disease. His friend, Professor Boyd, a distinguished psychologist, was one day singing the praises of the open ...read more
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18. Our Eternal Reward
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
It is the reward of heaven, however, that motivates us to add these values to life, and to apply them so that we bare fruit, and become profitable servants of Christ.
Among the Kamba people of East Africa there persists an ancient legend. The story goes that the people of that region long ago were very embittered by death's merciless destruction. They sent messengers to all countries of the world to seek a place where death did not reign so they could all ...read more
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19. The Warning
Contributed on Mar 31, 2021
The Bible makes it clear that men are responsible for how they respond to warnings. If they choose to ignore them and are unprepared, their blood will be on their own head.
On a Friday afternoon, May 31, 1889 a man by the name of Daniel Peyton came galloping down the road in Johnstown, Penn. Sparks were flying from the hoofs of his big bay horse. He was shouting for all he was worth that the damn had broken. Some believed his warning and fled to the hills. Others ...read more