[Music] Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barber Carmac. This is Jimmy Lakey and I'm delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at box 370367 Denver, Colorado 80237 or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a word-powered daily reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll-free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let's join Barbara in the studio. On this encore program, Darren and I study more in the life of Peter and his rapid growth from being a wishy washy on again, off again coward, to a dynamic disciple of Jesus Christ. Second Peter 1-3 tells you to be ever learning about God's divine power that he has granted to you and everything else pertaining to life and godliness. This second book gives the believer an incentive to grow up to maturity in Christ. May this message give you motivation to become a student of the word and learn more about our Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's join the program. Well, Barbara, I've enjoyed this study on Peter so very, very much and I have to be honest, I've never taken the time to really dig into Peter like we have this time. And when I think about the scriptures have been written, the least the copies that we have here written over about the period of 1500 years by 34 writers. And it's just awesome to me how God brought all of us together. When we look at Peter in the time that he was writing this, the church was really under persecution from the Romans because they were really pagans and they were in absolute conflict with the way Christians were living and preaching. And then they were also under persecution by really the known church, religious persecution by well, we would say probably Pharisee types. And Christians were being killed and persecuted and massacred and during this period of time and Peter writes from that point of view and is warning of a future persecution is to come. Well, the first book of Peter is so very much more loving in context, Darren, and there are scriptures like for a year, chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. And when it goes on to talk, we talked about 1 Peter 2, 24 and he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness for by his wounds you were healed. And he went on to discuss personal relationships, the relationship of husband and wife and how they should love one another, hold their tongue, not return evil for evil. Now we're getting into the fifth chapter. I'm so glad whoever put this Bible together and it isn't chronologically but Peter is kind of riding between the wonderful book of James and first, second and third John. And I believe it's in a perfect place because Peter grew so much and we can learn so much from this mighty man of God. Here in the fifth chapter of 1 Peter, he says, "I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ and our partaker of the glory that is to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion but voluntarily according to the will of God and not for sorted gain but for eagerness. And not yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge but proving to be examples to the flock. And you younger men likewise be subject to your elders and all of you clothe yourself with humility toward one another. For God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble." Now he knows this from personal experience, Darren, that there were times that he was very proud and he realizes that humility comes before honor. It really does and it says that in Proverbs, before honor comes humility. And he says here that we need to oppose the proud or being proud ourselves because God gives grace to the humble. And would you read verse 6? That is so good. Well, I was going to say, "Humble yourselves, therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you. Be sober of spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. And I think that's putting the two worlds there on one stage, so to speak. Here you've got the world of the godly, humble yourself under the hand of God. And then He's giving us a warning about the devil who prowls about like a roaring lion." And he says, "Resist Him in verse 9. So one of your favorite verses as you're listening to this is probably 1 Peter 5, 7, casting all your care on Him for He cares for you. And I have to do that on a daily basis. And I know probably you have to do that on a daily basis because sometimes when we get involved with situations, we don't look at casting it. We keep it at holding it in. And here he is saying casting all your anxiety upon Jesus because He cares for you. And then be sober and spirit vigilant towards the attacks of the enemy. Be wise. Don't let the enemy just side swipe you. Be wise about what his tactics are. And Darren, as we grow in the Lord, we've got to realize the enemy is going to come to you in a different way than he comes to me. And we've got to start being on guard with that. Well, one of the things I'm thinking about right now is that people that take so much responsibility, they say, "Well, I've got myself into this mess. I've got to get myself into it." Oh, I've heard that, yes. Well, I've even said that at times, certain things. Maybe some of you are fighting a battle of the credit cards. You say, "Oh, man, I've got myself into this." Or maybe I shot my mouth off at work. And I just made a fool of myself and ended up hurting people and hurting my witness and so on. I'll tell you, we need to give those complex and they are complex issues to the Lord. We need to put it over in His lap and say, "You know, I'm sorry I did this or I'm sorry I did that or presented myself in this way." And I need your help getting through this thing. And it goes on to say, "Resist the devil, stand firm in your faith knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren and who are in the world." And then he goes on to say, "After you've suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory and Christ will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you." Now, I believe that God allows these persecutions to come against us in these hard times. I do too. Because that's when we're pumping iron spiritually and that's when we will be perfected, we'll be confirmed and strengthened and established according to His image and likeness. And He wants us to be like Him. We're called His children, we're to be like Him. And then it goes on to say to Him, be dominion forever and ever, amen. Amen. I'd like to talk about verse 10 about God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory and Christ will Himself perfect. Now that word perfect therein is 2675 and it means to adjust to fit in, to equip with great wisdom and propriety. And therein I believe is children of the most high God, we need to adjust ourselves to His pattern for us. We need to fit in to His working for us. He is making us and establishing us and we need to humble ourselves and adjust ourselves to His plan. We really do. But now here's what a lot of people say and I've said it. What do I have to do to change? Now a more appropriate way to approach that is what changes would you like to make in me Lord? Oh yes. Because we really can't change ourselves and become compliant and fully acceptable to the Lord. It's beyond us. So we need to allow Him to be our teacher, our changeer, our change agent. And so that we're conformed and then we're strengthened and established according to His plan for us. Yes. And when you say something like what do I have to do to change that puts so much stress and again anxiety and He's saying casting all your anxiety or care on Him because He cares for you. And so that's making us putting us really in the throne on the throne of our lives. And we're saying what do I have to do to change Lord? You're so right Darren. It's Lord, what do you want to do in me? See I believe Carl Gertis when we interviewed him on the air gave us a great key. Now he was in jail and all of his options have been taken away from him and he says he lost his family and he lost his vehicle. He just lost everything. He was there in jail and he finally said to God when he hit the wall, fix me or kill me. He didn't say tell me how to fix myself. He knew he was out of resources. He was out of options. And really if we stop and think about it in a human sense, we are out of options already. We may still think we have some way to get out of certain things or way to work it out. But you know, it's really wisdom when we come to the end of ourselves and say, God, I can't even fix myself. I can't fix the situation. I mean, here I need your help. And I believe Peter was talking about that in a way. He was saying, come on. Let's do it this way. So besides the word perfect in this 10th verse, we see the word confirm. And that's number 4741 in the Strong's Concordance. And if you have a Dr. Zodiatis Bible, you can look in the back and it's 4741 in the New Testament. Steadfastly set strong to set fast, to turn resolutely in a certain direction. So you're allowing your creator and father to turn you in the direction he wants you to go. And that's so good. You're humbling yourself and you're allowing him to change you. And then the next word is... Before you go on, I want to say some people do not have a moral compass and you're struggling with issues of immorality. And Peter talks about that quite a bit. You need to ask the Lord to help you fix the compass of your life in a moral way so that you do have a moral compass, a moral basis for making your decisions. And you're going to be pressed in that area. If that was an old area of weakness and sin, the devil is not going to give up. He's going to still try to come through those doorways and try to drag you back down. And he'll argue with you like, well, it's just too hard. You just can't live the way that some people think you ought to live. In fact, probably in their private lives, they don't live that way. I mean, the devil is going to commit you with all kinds of arguments. But I'll tell you, if you ask God to help you and for him to set your moral compass, you'll be weighed down the road. Yes. Now this third word, strengthened, is 45.99 in the Strong's Concordance. And it's the only time this word is used as a verb. It means strengthened in body. You're being strengthened in your body by doing the will of God, by humbling yourself to what God wants you to be. And establish you. God is going to establish you as you humble yourself before him and cast all your care on him. Darren, this is such a wonderful book. And we're going to go into this second book of Peter. And it's a second Peter. And in this book, I'll tell you, he gets right down and dirty with the false teachers and the false prophets. But this first part in chapter one is absolutely wonderful. Well, I'd like to begin by reading that it says here in verse one of second Peter, Simon Peter, a bond servant and a apostle Jesus Christ of those who ever see faith of the same kind as ours. By the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God. And that's what we've just been talking about. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. And hear this verse, I love you. See that his divine power has granted to us everything pertained to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellent. For by these he has granted us his precious magnificent promises in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in world by lust. Well, what he's saying is that Darren, he's provided everything for us to be strengthened and confirmed and to grow in him. Now, you know this makes me say, okay, now what inventory do I have that I've not recognized? And that is such an interesting study. That's where I am right now. My personal walk with the Lord. I'm saying, okay, in the name of Jesus, if I could take a tabletop here and I could say on top of this table is all inclusive. Everything is there that is in the name of Jesus that belongs to me. And here I am an underachiever. I am under recognizer. Let me see if I don't know if that's probably the wrong word, but I've only recognized a piece of the pie, not the whole pie, not the whole tabletop here. And Jesus, you have granted to me all of these magnificent promises, what in the world are they? There are some of these areas I've never probed into. I've never tried to find out what they're all about. But they're there when you do open the door. That's right. You know, it's like when you have hamburgers and you've got the bun, but you need all these other little extras to make that hamburger taste so good. And you need the pickle and the lettuce and tomato and the mustard and the ketchup and all these extras. And God has all these extras for us as we open the door and call on him. Well, you know, some people say in getting another person, they say, you know, you're really deficient. You're a pickler too shy of a happy meal. Well, it's kind of the way I feel using your illustration there. Sometimes I say, do I have the passion I need to follow the pursuit that I need to have to find you Jesus? So sometimes I just throw everything down in a way and I say, all right, listen, I don't have our roles mixed up. I'm the student, you're the teacher. You know exactly what lesson I ought to be in right now. Now there's some things I think I ought to know about, but you have the perfect plan for me. Now when I was a teacher in the public schools, in fact, when I went out and did my, as they called it, practice teaching, we had to make lesson plans. We said, what is your goal here and how do you, how do you plan to get there? You know, you want to teach children certain things. Now how are you going to get there? And we had to write it down in detail. And it was, it was really quite a, quite a hard exercise. Sometimes a disgusting exercise because they checked our lesson plans. All right, what is our plan here for learning? Well, it talks about this in verse five and six and it is a lesson plan, a spiritual lesson plan for all of us. And because he has just told us now by God's divine power, we're going to obtain all this. And here it's, here's a step by step. Now for this very reason, also applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence. Now you can, you can actually circle that moral excellence. Your, your goal here is to get into moral excellence. And that's virtue. That's being a truthful person. That's, that's striving to be an honest person. That's striving to lay down lies, lay down exaggerations, lay down things that you may have had in your life and seek for moral excellence in your life. And in your moral excellence, knowledge. Now Darren, when we begin to ask God to make us a truthful person, an honest person with those around us in that we're going to gain knowledge. He's going to give us knowledge of how to be truthful and moral and honest. And verse six, in your knowledge, self control. Well, here we go. One of the fruit of Holy Spirit is self control. And do you need self control when you're trying to get rid of old habits? Absolutely. That's step number three in this, in this goal. You know, if you're talking about old habits, one of the best ways to do that is with confession. And if you confess the word of God and you put it in your heart, you will, the word of God is stronger than your old habits. That's one of the things that you need to do to renew your mind is to get into confession. So God's word, which is stronger than your attempts at self control, your attempts at perseverance. I mean, folks and human beings, we just don't have it in our own selves. That's right. But perseverance in its own right, Darren, is confessing scripture. And when we persevere in confession of scripture day after day, it's going to come that breakthrough that we've wanted that godly character that we've wanted of ourselves. It is going to come because we're persevering with our confession. I'm so glad you introduced the confession of the word because that's so important here. And that's what's going to give us perseverance, that confession of the word. But let's take a look at Peter's life when he first finding was a fisherman. And then of course, when he was we're going to talk about that in a little bit, but when he was up on the mountain of transfiguration with Jesus. Okay, he still had unrenued flesh. He still had some characteristics that were absolutely stink go. But you know, he met Holy Spirit and he was changed. And you can look at Peter before the Pentecost experience. And you can look at him afterwards, a totally different man. I mean, not even the same guy, we'd say it that way. What happened? How was he so transformed? He was transformed by the baptism of the Spirit. And I know I'm speaking to some of you today as we teach this lesson. You're having a hard time assimilating and understanding. And I would take you to first Corinthians 2 that says, natural man does not understand the spiritual man. Well, Peter was a natural man running around with Jesus even even though a great close contact with Jesus, he was a natural man until Holy Spirit came on him. Then he became a spiritual man. And the difference in his life is absolutely nothing shorter profound. Now in this walk that we're taking through the different goals and self control and perseverance into godliness, Darren, I see a metamorphosis of a certain kind saying, now I'm going to take the focus off of myself. And as we grow in the Lord, the focus does go off of our self. Before that, it's usually a self focus. Me, I, you know, people who are growing in the Lord, it's always I'm sick. I have a pain. I have an ache. And they can't get over that hump to get into others because that's what the Christian walk is. It's becoming other focused instead of self focused. But here when we get into perseverance and into godliness, then we're going to step right into brotherly kindness. And that's going to get us over that hump of always looking and concentrating on our own little piddly needs and getting into the body and saying, what does my brother need? So brotherly kindness is the next step. And then eventually we're going to I believe we can really step into an unconditional love here, Darren, that Jesus knew that Peter knew I believe each and every one of us can get into unconditional agape love. But it has to be given to us by the Lord. Absolutely. It's not something we figure out, not something we earn, not something we always suddenly start doing. Folks, I want to tell you one of the deceptive things about our life here on earth is this flesh that's hanging on us because it reasons against you. It reasons against the word. And when I think about I think it's Romans 10 to says you have a zeal for God, but not in relationship with knowledge in accordance with knowledge. We need to develop biblical knowledge so we know where we're going. We cannot make the decisions and do it on our own. And here in verse 8, Peter agrees with you, Darren, he says for if these qualities say the other way I agree with Peter for if these qualities are yours and are increasing they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. What are these qualities? They're moral excellence. That means you are striving to become an honest person, a truthful person, no more exaggerations. You are increasing in knowledge, in self control, in perseverance, in godliness, in brotherly kindness and in love. Circle all those in your Bible in the first chapter of second Peter. Then he goes on, Darren, in verse 9 to say for he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Now I don't know what goes on in your mind, what you say about yourself, what you say about the Lord, what you say about other people. But here is something that would just challenge us to say okay outwardly I'm a moral Christian man or Christian woman. But what am I in my private thought life? Am I pornographic in my thoughts? Am I devious in my thoughts? Am I lusting after someone else's money or occupation or their position in life? See I think when we say okay how can I grow it am I really? If everybody around me could just really read my mail as we would say in other words know what's the inner man of the hearts really thinking and doing how would I measure up? Would they say will you phony balloon to get out of here? Would they say that and they might if you're living a double life? And I think we have to bring our secret life into congruence with the word. I think we have to say okay I choose to have a moral standard both privately and my most I would know not even my wife or my husband would know this but I know it. How congruent am I really and am I really living the word? And in verse 10 it says you practice you practice and you practice and you practice and I want you to I want you to circle that way it's really good Darren because we've got to get straight with God both inner man and outer man and here in verse 10 it says therefore brethren be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you for as long as you practice these qualities you will never stumble and it's exactly what we've been talking about. Let's say for example you're tempted in the very moral part of your secret life you're tempted to get into pornography or you're tempted to lust. I'm going to recommend what you really need to do here is a scripture Matthew 5/8 that says blessed are the pure and heart for they shall see God. So when that pornographic temptation comes to you or that lustful temptation comes to you you need to fire scripture at it. And that means the inner man of the heart in time is going to be conformed to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ and his purity. Yes. And let me tell you folks you can't straighten that out you can't change that by willpower will power is not as strong as say the power of lust and the power of temptation or pornographic or perversion or thoughts in that way. You have to take the word of God and go after that and then it's going to take some time it'll take some discipline. You have to say okay now when I'm tempted there now let me tell you a little secret when you put that word blessed are the pure and heart for they shall see God down in your heart. Holy spirit knows when you're being tempted he's going to recall that to your remembrance and then you can agree with it and speak it out of your mouth, you're going to be a winner and you're going to become becoming morally congruent with the word of God inside and outside and in your most private thought life. Well and this confirms this here in verse 20 I'm going to skip over to verse 20 and 21 what you were just talking about Darren know this first of all that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. That means we don't just glibly and generally say a scripture God wants us to be very specific in saying the scripture and confessing his word to become who we are to become in Christ Jesus for no prophecy was ever made by an active human will but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. And this speaking from God is when we speak the word when we speak the pure unadulterated word of God that's when he begins to move and that's what we're going to see great changes. You know I believe that people that really want to see God really want to see Jesus can go to the 16th and 17th 18th verse of this chapter. It says we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. Now what he's talking about is when he was standing on the amount of transfiguration with Jesus verse 17. But when he received honoring glory from God the Father such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory I've never in scripture remember the Father God referred to as a majestic glory. This is my beloved son now this is what the Father said about Jesus in the presence of the disciples when Jesus was being transfigured there and he was also there with Moses and Elijah standing on the mountain. This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. So there's no doubt about this book was written by Peter. Here's what I'm going to suggest we can have a majestic experience with the Father of glory the majestic glory it says here if we ask for it if we press in and say Jesus I want you to make yourself so real to me I don't care if you come and stand in my bedroom you wake me up you sit out on the edge of my bed and I know it's you say I believe if you press in you're going to have that kind of intimacy with with Jesus he obviously had that that's how he could write these marvelous scriptures. That's right. Thank you for listening to the broadcast may you ever be mindful that it is entrusting in Jesus that you will advance in the kingdom for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit speaking from God I hope that you've gained new insight into God's word and may he bless you and keep you until the next time. Thank you for listening to call to freedom with Barbara Carmack you may get in touch with Barbara at call to freedom box 370 367 Denver Colorado 80237 or you may leave your message at 1 877 917 725 6 call to freedom is a listener supported radio ministry Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up call to freedom ministry power partner support call to freedom with prayer and monthly financial support you will be blessed supernaturally we invite you to visit call to freedom's website www.freedomstreet.org where you can hear Barbara's daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials you may share your phrase reports and heart prize by mailing them to call to freedom box 370 367 Denver Colorado 80237 or you may email us at barbra carmac at freedom street 4 until next time remember Jesus loves you Barbara loves you and take joy you you you you
