Here is the great purpose of God’s long-prepared and long-promised salvation: that we come to reflect certain of the very attributes of God. Not, of course, his incommunicable attributes of self-existence, unchangeableness, omnipresence, and omnipotence; but definitely his communicable attributes of love, sacrifice, faithfulness, and service.

In 2016 the Australian demographer and social commentator Bernard Salt stirred up a cyclone over smashed avocado.
He observed that many young Australians, instead of saving money for a home deposit, spend their money on expensive café luxuries like “Smashed Avo on Toast.”
This is opting for the immediate gratification of a tangible though fleeting luxury over restraint and self-denial for the sake of an intangible but substantial long-term benefit.
Peter’s letters show how aware he is of the fierce rivalry and struggle between the visible, passing pleasures of this world—many of which are immoral—and the invisible but permanent good of forgiveness, freedom, and eternal life with Jesus Christ.
This is the daily conflict that every Christian since the first generation of eyewitness disciples faces. We have not seen, and do not now see Jesus (1 Peter 1:8). The full enjoyment of his Kingdom lies in the future. Until then we face persecution, alienation, and fierce inward threats to our faith.
But we do easily see the pleasures of this world, pleasures to indulge in right now, pleasures in which there seems no real harm. We are told to “live your best life now.”
Dodgy pastors tap into this conflict with half-truths and obscuration, not because they really want people to believe certain (false) doctrines but because they’ve worked out a way to make a comfortable life and living from the church by teaching a feel-good evisceration of the Christian message. This preaching accentuates self-affirmation and easy-going positivity and downplays self-condemnation—the “blood, toil, sweat, and tears” that true faith demands.
We can hear them now: “Yes, Jesus said that he was about to return. Yes, he said that we must give up the passing pleasures of the world and be keenly watching and waiting for his arrival. But he hasn’t come and won’t come in our lifetime. And didn’t Paul say that we are justified by faith alone? Relax! Enjoy the pleasures of this world!”
The result? Too many utterly ineffectual Christians and churches, “waterless springs and mists driven by a storm” (2 Peter 2:17). This is the woeful state of affairs that Peter tackles: a worldly, lazy, self-indulgent, and ineffective church. He tackles it head-to-head.
Remember that you have been saved to godliness.
[You] have obtained a faith of equal standing (privilege) with ours.(2 Peter 1:1)
The Greek verb for “obtained” (λαγχανω, lanchanō) means “to obtain by lot” and emphasizes that faith is God’s gracious gift (cf. Eph 2:8).
The Greek adjective for “equal standing” (ἰσοτιμος, isotimos) refers to someone who is “equal in value, equal in privilege, status or rank in civil life.”[1] Perhaps you thought that the first generation of Christians, who saw Jesus face-to-face, was the hard-core, sacrificial, persecuted church which gave everything for Christ; but that we who haven’t seen Jesus—“who hasn’t yet returned and doesn’t look like he’s going to”—can relax and settle in to a life of compromise.
Not at all. You have the same privileged standing as the first disciples, and you share the same responsibilities.
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.(2 Peter 1:3a)
The Greek word for “godliness” (εὐσεβεια, eusebeia) is a rich word encompassing “awesome respect accorded to God, devoutness, piety, godliness.”[2]
The power of God is just as available for the church today as it was for the first disciples, granting the same spiritual life and capacity for godliness.
Through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.(2 Peter 1:3b)
In fact, we have an advantage over the first generation of Christians. Though Peter, James, and John saw the transfigured Jesus (Mat 17), subsequent generations have “the prophetic word more fully confirmed” in the Holy Spirit-given, permanent, stable, and unquestioned truth of the Scripture (2Pe 1:19-21).
…he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you might become partakers of the divine nature.(2 Peter 1:4a)
Here is the great purpose of God’s long-prepared and long-promised salvation: that we come to reflect certain of the very attributes of God. Not, of course, his incommunicable attributes of self-existence, unchangeableness, omnipresence, and omnipotence; but definitely his communicable attributes of love, sacrifice, faithfulness, and service. The sixteen-century Protestant reformer John Calvin writes, “This thought alone ought to give us abundant cause to renounce the world entirely and be borne aloft to heaven.”[3]
Having escaped from the corruption (rottenness) that is in the world because of sinful desire.(2 Peter 1:4b)
Just as the Lord freed Israel from Egyptian idolatry and slavery to obedience and pure worship, he has rescued us from the punishment and corruption of sin to joyful obedience lived in the coram Deo, the presence of God.
Therefore, pursue godliness.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith.(2 Peter 1:5a)
The prosaic “supplement” translates the poetic Greek word ἐπιχορηγεω (epichorēgeō). In the ancient world it described gifts given by rich patrons of the arts. It means to supply generously and lavishly.[4]
Peter uses the Greek word for earnestness (σπουδη, spoudē) to convey the idea of both earnest commitment, eagerness, and diligence; and haste and swiftness.[5] The whole phrase “make every effort” conveys the idea of lavishly and urgently employing “every ounce of determination we can muster.”[6]
We want to “make every effort” to strive forward in a life of faith, to build the eight Christian qualities that Peter describes in 1 Peter 1:5-7.
You would never fly to Paris and sit in the Charles de Gaulle airport. You would never, after twelve years of schoolwork, be accepted into your chosen university and then not proceed with the course of instruction.
Having been saved from corruption to new life with God, we would never be content with bare faith and belief in Jesus. We want to “make every effort” to strive forward in a life of faith, to build the eight Christian qualities that Peter is about to describe: “a chain of deep, internal, and experiential changes that will meet our hunger for God’s reality.”[7]
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.(2 Peter 1:5-7)
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I recently read ‘How to Bring Men to Christ’ and found that it met me where I needed spiritual guidance. The book was written to urge God’s people to have a love for souls and to help those whom God’s Spirit has awakened to personal evangelism. Torrey continually proclaimed Christ through preaching, evangelistic meetings, as well as many thousands of personal conversations. He was a man immersed in God’s Word.

Can we communicate with the dead? A lot of people seem to think so. They go to graves, make social media posts to deceased loved ones, perform rituals, and worship ancestors.
Christians should know that direct communication with the dead is impossible. Trying to do so is sin against God (Lev. 20:6; Deut. 18:10-11; 1 Sam. 28:3). But what if I was to tell you that in a certain sense, the dead can speak, and we can listen?
How, you ask? Through the medium of reading their writings.
Old Books and Communing with the Dead
There are ways to commune with those who have gone before. We can listen to the voices of those who have passed beyond this world through their writings or recordings. There are the Scriptures, those writings directly inspired by God. But there is more that God uses. When we read the works of faithful Christians, we can fellowship with them around the unchanging Truth that challenged and shaped them. When we know their acts of faith and the overall tenor of their life, we can approach these voices of the dead and expect to be encouraged in our own life journey!
Books written by now long-dead believers may be just what we need. Let’s not fall into the trap of thinking that books written for Christians in different times aren’t for us today. Yes, there are some real issues with reading older books. You may have to deal with reading archaic language at times. There are vastly different cultural contexts represented. Denominational differences held by some writers can also be distracting. Having said this, don’t miss out on what godly writers in days past have left for us (like Richard Baxter)!
Sometimes we can allow our present life and ministry context to lull us to sleep. Some areas of our theology become dormant. Devotionally, we walk in circles. Reading sermons and books from believers of other times, especially when those writers have endured much for the sake of the Gospel, can be used of God to re-kindle our hearts.
I would like to draw your attention to two books that I have recently read that have stirred my soul about evangelism. The Lord knew I was desperately in need of this emphasis, so He led me to read some older works that have greatly helped revive me, including these two.
Words to Winners of Souls
Horatius Bonar was a Scottish preacher who lived through times of spiritual revival. He lived from 1808-1889. Bonar was well-known in his time as a preacher of God’s Word and leader in the Free Church of Scotland.
He was also a prodigious writer of books and hymns. He wrote over 140 hymns, including some more well-known titles, one of which is “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.” I have seen him referred to as “the prince of Scottish hymn writers.”
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Although the best comfort comes from God’s word, Christians have for centuries reflected on the hardships of life in light of the truth of God’s word in those seasons and written beautiful poetry shaped by the ideas and principles of the Scripture to find perspective and hope in God.
God’s people have never been strangers to sorrow and suffering. In His final instructions in the Upper Room, our Saviour warned us,
Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world (John 16:32–33).
Those words had particular application to the scattering of the sheep after the Shepherd was struck (cf. Zech. 13:7, Matt. 26:31) in His arrest by the Jewish Priests and condemnation by the Romans, but nonetheless we have come to know all to well the abiding application and truth of the Saviour’s words: In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
Affliction and tribulation are not unique to the New Covenant Church. The faithful in the Hebrew Church suffered greatly at the hands of their pagan neighbors and the wicked within the Old Covenant Church as well.
The ancient foe of God’s people works with hateful cunning and power to drive God’s people to despair. In the face of the rage of the devil and his minions, God’s people have for millennia cried to Him in song seeking both aid and solace, for they have learned: He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.
During my time at Grove City College, I spent many hours in Harbison Chapel playing hymns and psalms. Apart from reading the Scripture, there are few things more spiritually fruitful than meditating upon the prayers and praises offered by God’s people from of old.

I. Comfort from the Psalter
Growing up Lutheran, we chanted from the Psalter each Lord’s Day, but Presbyterians have a special love for the Psalter and singing from it is an essential part of the worship of God. It is right that in sorrow we turn first to the Psalter for words to sing and pray, since they are words given by God’s Holy Spirit to the Church expressly for our use in prayer and singing.
The Old Covenant saints were often acquainted with affliction at the hands of the wicked, and their experiences can teach us how to suffer and grieve well as God’s people. In their sorrows, the Old Covenant saints found comfort from God’s coming victory. The Trinity Psalter Hymnal provides an excellent resource for Christians who are grieving and lamenting to call out to God in faith and hope.
Psalm 68
Although the enemies of God’s people may have their day and inflict horrible wounds upon God’s holy ones, the psalmist instructs us to draw comfort from the certain glorious triumph of our God.

In Psalm 68, David looks forward to the day when all those who hate God and His people will be scattered and perish and God restores joy to His people in His glory:
God shall arise, and by His might Put all His enemies to flight;In conquest shall He quell them. Let those who hate Him, scattered, fleeBefore His glorious majesty, For God Himself shall fell them.Just as the wind drives smoke away, So God will scatter the arrayOf those who evil cherish. As wax that melts before the fire,So vanquished by God’s dreadful ire, Shall all the wicked perish.
But let the just with joyful voice In God’s victorious might rejoice;Let them exult before Him! O sing to God, His praise proclaimAnd raise a Psalm unto His Name; In joyful songs adore Him.Lift up your voice and sing aloud To Him who rides upon the cloudsHigh in the spacious heavens. The LORD, that is His glorious Name.Sing unto Him with loud acclaim; To Him be glory given.
The Trinity Psalter Hymnal uses a setting from the Genevan Psalter for Psalm 68, which is both profound and powerful in the way it emphasizes the words and gives hope that God will set all things right.
Psalm 80
As Book III of the Psalter (Psalms 73-89) draws to a close, the psalms seem to focus increasingly on the plight of God’s people as the pagans from the nations come in and oppress the servants of the Living God. Book III (Psalm 89) even seems to end with the question, “Is God still King?”
Psalm 80 calls out from deep anguish to God as the “Shepherd of Israel.” The psalmist (Asaph) reflects on God’s mighty throne “above the cherubim” and on God’s past grace toward His Church: “you who led Joseph like a flock.”

While God had planted His people in a good land and shown great care for them in the past, the psalmist quickly turns his attention to the urgent need for restoration and help, because the nations have come in and ravaged God’s helpless people (organ setting):
A strife you have made us to neighbors around,Our foes in their laughter and scoffing abound.O LORD God of hosts, in your mercy restore,And we shall be saved when your face shines once more.
When the enemies of God have come into the Church, His people can be assured their Redeemer will restore His people and give them peace afresh.
Psalm 94
In our grief and sorrow at injustice, God’s people’s thoughts inevitably turn to vengeance. But God has reserved vengeance for Himself (Cf. Deut. 32:25, Rom 13:4), and so He has provided psalms and prayers for His people to use for this very purpose. One of them is Psalm 94. The Book of Psalms for Worship contains an excellent setting (Tune: Austria):

We have already witnessed the media transition from reporting on events to now seeming to imply the victims of a mentally ill woman are somehow to blame for an act of unspeakable horror because she comes from a more culturally acceptable community of people than those who are part of a Christian school.
As the wicked use the slaughter of children and elderly to advance an agenda of demonic mutilation of the human body and effacing of the imago Dei, God has provided in the Psalter words both of abundant comfort and prayer:
God, the LORD, from whom is vengeance, God, Avenger, O shine forth!Judge of all the earth, O rise up! Pay the proud what they are worth.O LORD, how long will the wicked, How long will the wicked gloat?From their mouths they pour out violence, Of themselves all wicked boast.
Who the ear made, can He hear not? Who formed eyes, can He not see?Who warns nations, will He strike not? Who men teaches, knows not He?All the thoughts of men the LORD knows; Knows that but a breath are they.Blessed the man whom You reprove, LORD; Through Your law You point his way.
God is aware the wicked seem to be on the ascent and they sit in power for too long. But the saint can take heart, God sees, hears, warns, and teaches. And one day God will give His people rest:
Give him rest from days of trouble Till the wicked are brought down.For the LORD stays with His people, He will not forsake His own.Righteous judgments will be rendered, Justice will return again;Those of upright heart will follow In the way of justice then.
The psalter is our best comfort in affliction, because the words come from God Himself. It is said that when Martin Luther, when he received news of his father’s death, he took his Psalter and went to his room for the rest of the day, and there he found the sufficiency of God’s comfort.
As we sing the Psalter in affliction, we are joining a great company of God’s people stretching back thousands of years who looked to God and His word when they lack the strength to press on.
II. Comfort from the Hymnal
Although the best comfort comes from God’s word, Christians have for centuries reflected on the hardships of life in light of the truth of God’s word in those seasons and written beautiful poetry shaped by the ideas and principles of the Scripture to find perspective and hope in God.
This Is My Father’s World
A well-loved hymn whose third stanza seems especially appropriate for the past week (organ setting):
This is my Father’s world: O let me ne’er forgetThat though the wrong seems oft so strong,God is the Ruler yet. This is my Father’s World!The battle is not done. Jesus who died shall be satisfied.And earth and heaven be one.
The reign of God does not immediately nullify our sadness and sorrow. But Christ who died will make all things new and will have the last say. These words point us forward to one of the closing visions of the Scripture:
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:2–4).
The Scripture does not tell us our grief is something to suppress or to dismiss as “worldly,” but God does promise us there will come a day when all the causes of grief and sorrow are removed forever. That is something to sing about!
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