By Dennis Pollock
Today, we are going to look at some of Peter’s concluding words to believers in his little epistle, which we call 2 Peter. He gives the believers a warning about what to avoid and what they must do. The great apostle writes this:
…beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked… (2 Peter 3:17)
Believers are being warned by Peter not to fall away from their stable position of faith in Jesus. This may come as a surprise to some, who suppose that it is not even remotely possible for Christians to fall away from Christ. But if you read the New Testament carefully, you will find numerous cautions along these lines. Paul writes: “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:12). And in Hebrews we read: “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away.” (Hebrews 2:1)
If Peter, Paul, and the writer of Hebrews warn believers to beware or take heed not to fall, it must surely be possible to fall away from Christ. It would be foolish to warn someone of a danger that does not exist. Suppose a friend told me that he was going out for a walk in the afternoon, and I told him, “You’d better be careful while you’re out walking. Watch out for spaceships. An alien spaceship may hover over your head and suck you into it and then take you off to another planet.” Well, that’s stupid. I’ve never warned anyone about watching for alien spaceships because that is not a real danger. It just never happens.
Necessary Warnings
On the other hand, when my children became teenagers and started driving, I would warn them to be careful while on the road, not to drive too fast, and to give themselves plenty of space between themselves and the car in front of them. I gave the warnings because teenagers who drive cars have a very real danger of getting into car accidents, due to a lack of caution and wisdom. So I told them to be careful. But of course, despite my warnings, all my kids still had accidents!
The point is that we warn people about very real dangers, not about things that can never happen. So when the Bible warns us repeatedly to be careful not to fall away or drift away, it is clearly implying that this is a real possibility.
But let’s get to the more positive and encouraging part of this passage in 2 Peter. Peter goes on to say:
…but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 3:18)
Spiritual Growth and Natural Growth
The idea of spiritual growth is neither novel nor controversial in the body of Christ. The Bible speaks about it often enough that nobody could dispute that growth in Christ should be a normal part of the Christian life. I want to talk about several parallels between natural human growth and spiritual growth.
First, growth requires life. Dead things do not grow. Cut down a tree, and it is done growing. Perhaps it has grown ten feet over the last year, but once that tree is dead, growth is impossible. One basic truth about growth is that living things grow, but dead things, animals, plants or people do not. And this is also true in the realm of the spirit. When you have put your faith in Jesus and received the life of God in your soul, you now have the capacity to grow. Before this, you could not grow spiritually. You could grow physically, you could grow mentally, you could mature in your personality, but true spiritual growth was impossible. And if you do not receive the life of Christ in your soul, you will never grow. You will live out your years and be no more spiritual at the end of your days than you were at the beginning. Spiritual growth is impossible for the non-Christian. The apostle Peter, in his epistle, is not writing to sinners and unbelievers; he is writing to disciples of Jesus Christ. But the sinner and the secular man are not alive; he is spiritually dead. The Bible says: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1)
A second principle of growth, both spiritual and natural, is that growth is natural. No parent, holding that little newborn baby, worries about whether that baby boy will grow up and one day become a full-grown man. Parents have many responsibilities toward their children, but their number one priority, which vastly overrides all other responsibilities, is to keep that baby alive. If he stays alive, growth will be virtually automatic. Again, living things grow; dead things do not. When a child adds pounds and inches with each passing year, the parents are not shocked. This is exactly what they expected. We have a growth principle built into our bodies. We do not have to try to grow or go to college and take growth lectures. If we can just stay alive and healthy, we will grow, like it or not.
Healthy Children Grow
And health is the other thing. Sickly children may grow, but they often suffer from stunted growth. One major contributing factor to stunted growth is a poor diet. Suppose out of a warped desire to please your small child, you are determined to constantly feed him a diet of doughnuts and sodas. Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it’s going to be a plateful of doughnuts and a large glass of Coca-Cola. There is no way that a child can remain healthy for very long. He needs eggs, meat, salads, and vegetables. Cramming his little body with sugar, sugar, and more sugar will destroy him and ensure that sickness and weakness will be a permanent aspect of his shortened life.
God is a good parent. Once He becomes our Father through our faith in Jesus, He is determined to a) keep us spiritually alive, and b) keep us healthy. And this has largely to do with abiding in Jesus Christ and abiding in the word of God. As we focus on Jesus, and trust Him as our Savior, Good Shepherd, the Keeper of our souls, our Fountain of living waters, our wisdom and our strength, we will be spiritually nourished, and we will grow strong.
And as we spend time daily in the words of God through reading the Bible, slowly and methodically, we will be healthy, which will cause us to grow even more. No spiritual junk food for us, no shallow television preachers who constantly tell us that God wants to make us all millionaires, or insist that we should ignore Jesus and listen to Paul. We will feed on the writings of Moses, David, Isaiah, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, and Peter and we shall develop a vibrant spiritual immune system which will enable us to fight off all the spiritual viruses that blow through the earth. Jesus is the true Bread of life, and feeding on Him and His word, we shall grow strong and bear much fruit.
