FAMOUS LAST WORDS
KNOWLEDGE AND SELF-CONTROL
DR. JIM DIXON
2 PETER 1:3-5
JUNE 20, 2010
“My God, what’s happened?” Those were, allegedly, the final words of Diana, Princess of Wales, when she died on August 31, 1997, in the city of Paris, in the nation of France. “My God, what’s happened?” In her final moments, with her final breath, seeking a little information, a little clarification, a little bit of knowledge in her final moments. Of course, what had happened was that her driver, who was named Henri Paul, was out of control. His life was out of control, his private life and his public life. That day, as they were pursued by the paparazzi, Henri Paul drove that Mercedes Benz twice the speed limit in the city of Paris. Of course, he was drunk, his blood alcohol level more than three times the legal limit in the nation of France. So, “My God, what’s happened?”
This morning we are going to look at knowledge and self-control: two subjects Peter was very concerned with as he left this world, two subjects he wanted us to understand. In this world, it is very dangerous if you don’t have self-control. If you don’t have knowledge, it is very dangerous. If you don’t have self-control, life can be very short. So, Peter is speaking to an audience of Christians, he knows that. He is writing to an audience of Christians. He acknowledges that they have a faith of equal standing with his own, and that they are Christians, they are saved; they are bound for heaven by God’s grace. But he wants them to know that they need to supplement their faith. If they are going to experience sanctification, if they are going to partake of the divine nature, they need to supplement their faith. He tells them they need to supplement their faith with virtue, and we looked at that last week. We saw that the word for virtue was, arete, and that it means excellence. I know some of you have NIV translations, and in the NIV, it translates arete as goodness. That is a bad or poor translation. If the thought was goodness, then Peter would have used agothos, the normal world for goodness; or he would have used kalos, another word for goodness. He wouldn’t have used arete. Arete can refer to excellence in the realm of goodness, but arete means excellence, excellence in all areas. If you are going to pursue sanctification, you need excellence in the sight of God. We studied that last week.
This week, Peter is going on to say you must supplement your faith not only with excellence but with pursuit of knowledge and with the pursuit of self-control. Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, knowledge and self-control. So, we look at knowledge and self-control today, and we begin with knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge.
The word the Peter uses is the word gnosis. You may be somewhat familiar with this word. You might have seen the word gnosticism; you might have heard of the Gnostic gospels. These are built on the Greek word gnosis, the word for knowledge. What was gnosticism, and who are the Gnostics? They were a religious group that existed in the second, third, and fourth centuries. They were a religious group, the beginnings of which were in the first century. They were enamored with Greek philosophy, and they dabbled in Asian philosophy, and they combined the two and they were dualists. The Gnostics viewed the world with a platonic dualism. They viewed the world as evil and good. All matter, all the physical, all of creation itself, the creation of the physical universe is evil. Matter is evil, but spirit, pnuematicos, things of the spirit, are good. So, the goal of the Gnostic was to escape creation. The goal of Gnostic was to escape his or her body. The goal of the Gnostic was to escape the physical world and become pnuematicos.
Now, Gnostics were not Christians, but some of them infiltrated Christian churches. When they infiltrated Christian churches, they found that the world was created by God, called Yahweh Elohim. They said that this god must be evil, this god made the mistake of creating the physical universe and material, physical things are evil. So, they called the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh Elohim, the demiurge, and they said he was an emanation from pure God, which they called bithos, and so corrupted that he made the mistake of creating this physical world. They rejected him.
But they were enamored with Christ; they were enamored with Jesus. They didn’t believe that Jesus had a physical body, because that would have been evil. They didn’t believe that Jesus died on the cross; they didn’t believe that Jesus paid for the sin of the world in substitutionary atonement, and they didn’t believe in the resurrection, nor did they believe in a resurrection body. They were not Christians, but they were enamored with Jesus. They thought that Jesus offered gnosis, secret knowledge that could enable them to escape the physical and creation and become pnuematicos. These were the Gnostics.
Now, they wrote the Gnostic gospels. Some of you have children in institutions of higher learning, secular institutions. Some of you yourselves, are in colleges or universities. You may be told that the Gnostic gospels have equal value with the biblical Gospels, and the Gnostic gospels should have been included in the Bible. Your kids will be told that. It is bogus and it is a lie. The Gnostic gospels are not Christian Gospels. They came out of this other cult. The Gnostic gospels were written fifty, one hundred, two hundred, and three hundred years after the biblical Gospels. It is very important that you understand the truth.
Now the Gnostics were right about this: Jesus is the source of gnosis. Jesus is the source of knowledge. For this he was born, and for this he came into the world, that he might bear witness to the truth. He is truth. For this reason, he gave us the Bible. He said to his disciples, When I am gone, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. The Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance all things that I have spoken to you, so you can write it down. He said to the Apostle John, Write what you see and hear in a book. So, he wanted to give to us his gnosis. He wanted to give to us the Word of God.
Peter, in his famous last words, reminds the household of faith that they are to grow in gnosis, in knowledge of Jesus and knowledge of the Word of God. In Ezekiel 3:1, the Word of God comes to the prophet Ezekiel. God says to Ezekiel, Son of Man, eat what I will give to you. Eat the scroll of the book. Ezekiel 3:3, Ezekiel eats the scroll of the book and it tastes as sweet as honey. This in Hebraic language is a way of communicating the thought that the Word of God is sweet as honey. The scroll of the book is the Word of God. You look at it contextually; there is no doubt about that. So, this passage of the Bible, Ezekiel, chapter 3 is telling us that the Word of God is sweet as honey, sweet as honey. Now, the Word of God, however sweet as honey, does not necessarily give knowledge to you—not gnosis as Jesus wants it to be—unless you are in relationship with him, and indeed, understand his rabbinical teaching. There are many people that have Bibles, and they don’t understand the meaning.
Of course, there are many people that have knowledge in the sight of the world. We live in a world where a lot of people are in a pursuit of knowledge. Some people are well read, and it is good to be well read. It is great to read books of great diversity. The knowledge of the world is questionable. Some of you have heard of Thomas Phillips. Thomas Phillips was a bibliophile; he was a lover of books. He lived in the nineteenth century. Thomas Phillips resolved when he was a kid that he would purchase a copy of every book ever written. He almost did it. Thomas Phillips was amazingly wealthy, one of the wealthiest people in the world. He lived in England. He owned this vast estate called Middle Hill, and the estate was so vast that his driveway to his mansion was three miles long. In his mansion he began to accumulate the books of the world. He accumulated thousands of books, tens of thousands of books, hundreds of thousands of books so that, historians tell us, he developed the largest private library in the world—many historians believe the largest private library in the history of the world. The library of Thomas Phillips at Middle Hill was larger than the combined libraries of Cambridge University.
He also collected ancient scrolls and manuscripts from all over the world. He had over 60,000 ancient manuscripts. Today, we are told that books and manuscripts from the Phillips library are still being sold and distributed. An amazing reality. This man was well read; he had a lot of knowledge as the world views knowledge. He was multi-lingual; he studied and knew many languages of the earth. This guy had great knowledge in the world’s eyes, but his life was a disaster. His life was a ruination. He had three daughters; though he was extremely wealthy, he abused them. They never had more than one dress. He alienated them when they were married; he alienated his son-in-laws; he did not like them. He lived a profligate life, a selfish life of sexual immorality. Well read, but it is the world’s knowledge. Understand that the Word of God provides a greater knowledge, and it is sweeter than honey, sweeter than honey.
All of you have Bibles. Some of you have many Bibles. Some of you have ten, fifteen, twenty Bibles if you were to search all of the rooms of your house, all the cabinets and closets. It doesn’t necessarily do any good to have a Bible. It doesn’t necessarily do you great good even to read the Bible. I want to explain this.
All of you have heard of Ethiopia. Ethiopia has a long history, and a very great history; it is proud nation. Ethiopia has 1900 years of history in which Christianity has thrived. Virtually every ruler and emperor and king of Ethiopia has been at least nominally Christian. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church remains strong to this day. Now, Ethiopia, which has sometimes been called Abyssinia, was brought into the modern era through Menelik II, King Menelik II. You can read about him in any encyclopedia; you can download him on the internet. Menelik II brought Ethiopia into the modern age. He ascended the throne in the year 1889. At that point in time, Ethiopia had been divided into a whole bunch of kingdoms, and he united them. Such was his charisma, such was his authority, he united the separate nations into one empire. Then he ascended the throne and ushered in the modern era, building hospitals and schools and helping Ethiopia catch up with the world.
Now, he was a professing Christian, Menelik II, and he loved the Bible. He always kept the Bible by his head when he slept. Every night when he went to bed, he always had the Bible right by his head. This, by the way, was also true of Elvis Presley. If you have been to Graceland and Memphis, you go through the tour and they will show you the Bible that Elvis always kept by his head or by the bedside. The exact Bible is still there. Elvis loved to sleep with the Bible right by his head.
It doesn’t do you any good to have the Bible by your head when you go to sleep. Doesn’t make one bit of difference. Menelik II viewed the Bible as a kind of talisman. He believed it had magic powers. Whenever he became ill, he had many Bibles in his mansion, which still exist in Addis Ababa. He had many Bibles. Whenever he was sick, he would tear a page out of the Bible, put it in his mouth, chew it and swallow it, thinking it would make him well. It is the Word of God. Later in his life, when he died of a horrible illness, he was so sick he ate a whole book of the Bible. Doesn’t do you any good.
Now the Jewish people understood that the Bible was important; they understood the importance of Torah. So, they included the Bible in Jewish education, as you can imagine. There is a great mystery in Jewish education in the period of the judges, and there is even a great mystery to the Jewish education in the period of the kings, the divided kingdom. Even during the period of the prophets, a great mystery to Jewish education. In the time of Jesus, we know a lot about Jewish education. We know that it was patriarchal, and that for the most part it was only offered to boys. We know that Jewish education began for a boy at the age of five. The boy at the age of five was sent to the synagogue, where the boy was instructed by the rabbis in a school called Bet Sefer, and I have explained some of this to some of you in times past.
So, the boy at age five would go to the synagogue, the rabbis would teach the boy in Bet Sefer, which means the house of the book, Bet, house; Sefer, of the book, house of the book. And what is the book? The book is Torah. What is the Torah? The Torah is the Pentateuch; it is the five books of Moses, the first five books of what we would call the Old Testament. So, Torah, is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. This was Torah. Bet Sefer from age five to age ten was all about the Torah and these kids were instructed to memorize all of Torah. So, from age five to age ten, these Jewish boys would memorize Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy—pretty impressive. Some of them couldn’t do it. They couldn’t do it. Even over the course of those five years, they couldn’t do it. So, they were told by the rabbis and the people at the synagogue, “You can go to your home and you can learn the family trade and the family business. God loves you, but this is not for you.”
Those who did well, at age ten graduated to Bet Talmud; they graduated to Bet Talmud, which is the house of instruction. This was also at the synagogue, also rabbinical. There they learned the whole Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi, all 39 books; and they had to memorize all of it from age 10 to age 15. That blows my mind! I know something about memorization; I know how incredible that is. 35 years ago, God convicted me and instructed me to memorize the New Testament. I began to work on that. It took me years. Then when I was done, I started in on the Old Testament and after I memorized a few of the books of the Old Testament (you know the Old Testament is much larger than the New Testament in size), I thought, Wow! This is never going to happen. This is never going to happen in the midst of my life and all the things I need to do. I know how hard it is. It is amazing. I hope I make this clear. Memorizing the Bible does not make you right with God. Memorizing the Old Testament, memorizing the New Testament, doesn’t make you right with God. It doesn’t make you special in God’s sight. Remember that the Pharisees memorized Torah. They memorized every word of the Torah, and Jesus didn’t like them very much. So, remember that.
I want to move forward with Jewish education. Most of these kids in Bet Talmud, by the age of 15, didn’t get it done. They didn’t memorize the 39 books of the Old Testament. So, they were told, “Go back to your families, join the family business, join the family trade, this is not for you.” But those who succeeded at age 15 were invited to join Bet Midrash at age 15. This is where it all culminated, this was the big deal.
So, these select few who had gone through it all, at age 15, they would pick a rabbi. They would pick a rabbi and they would go to the rabbi and they would say, “Rabonni, my rabbi, I want to join your talmidim. I want to join your disciples. I want to learn of you. I want to follow you.” The rabbi would say, “Do you accept my Semikhah? Do you accept my authority?” Semikhah is the Hebrew equivalent, not of the Greek word dunamis, which means raw power, physical power. It is the equivalent of the Greek word exousia, which means authority. Jesus said, “all authority, all exousia, in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” He is the rabbi of rabbis. Semikhah referred to authority. So, the rabbi would say to the perspective student, “Do you accept my Semikhah?” The potential student would say, “Yes.” Then the rabbi would say, “Do you receive my yoke, my interpretation of Torah? Can you learn it? Will you further it? Will you promote it? Will you submit to it, my yoke?” The young man would say, “Yes. I am able.” If the rabbi was satisfied, he would say to the young man, “Follow me.” That was the beginning of Bet Midrash.
You understand, Jesus lived in this world at that time. He is rabbi—as I said, the rabbi of rabbis. He chose his disciples; and he is still choosing disciples today, you understand that? In every century, in every generation, Jesus, the world over, is choosing disciples. He didn’t just choose guys. We know from the New Testament that Jesus had many disciples in his larger band. Remember the words of Mary Magdalene; she called Jesus, “Rabboni,” my rabbi. She had entered his talmidin. He also chose women disciples. He said, “All authority on heaven and earth is given to me.” He said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn it. Take my interpretation of Torah.” If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, you approach Torah, you approach the Bible in a whole different way. Jesus’ yoke, his interpretation of Scripture is this: it is all about love. It is all about the Shema. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your might. It is all about Leviticus 19:18, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
No other rabbi every taught this, not in any other literature. It is all about love. The Old Testament, the New Testament, is all about love; the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, is all about what it means to love God, what it means to love your neighbor. Now this isn’t easy teaching, because the Bible explains, sweet as honey, what it means to love God and what it requires of you. It explains what it means to love your neighbor and what it requires of you. So, if you are going to grow in knowledge, if you are going to strive, make every effort to supplement your faith with knowledge, you have got to run it through the rabbi, through Jesus, through his authority and through his yoke. You have to understand everything in the Bible as having to do with love and what it means to love God, and what it means to love your neighbor. You know the whole world believes in love, but it is sentimentalism. It’s short-term compassion. The whole world believes in love, but the Bible explains what love really requires, what Jesus requires, what God requires. This is gnosis, this is knowledge. If we are ever going to grow in sanctification, or partake of the divine nature, we have got to pursue the knowledge of Jesus.
Secondly, and finally, in his famous last words, Peter tells us we must make every effort in the pursuit of self-control. We live in a world where self-control is respected, but not often practiced. I am sure most of you when you left the house today you weren’t thinking, Boy, I sure hope I can hear a message on self-control. You weren’t thinking that. But all over the world, all cultures and religions have some kind of respect to self-control. Virtually every arena of life, there is some appreciation for self-control.
Some of you might have seen the new Karate Kid starring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. In that movie, you see Jaden Smith’s character is a kid who wanted to learn how to control others. His teacher tells him, “You cannot control others. You can only control yourself. If you are going to control yourself, you need focus and your focus needs more focus.” Now, this is true in the martial arts, that it requires a great deal of self-control, a great deal of focus. It is also true in the religions of the world. The religions of the world have great respect for self-control. It is true in Buddhism, it is true in Hinduism, it is true in Islam, it is true in Judaism. The religions of the world all value self-control. The religions of the world do not believe in Jesus Christ. They do not believe in the cross, they do not believe in his blood shed in substitutionary atonement for sin. They do not believe in salvation by grace through him. The religions of the world do not believe in Jesus, they believe you must save yourself. All the religions of the world teach you must save yourself by your own goodness. Your goodness must outweigh your sin; you must be relatively good and that requires self-control. This is why self-control is so important in all the religions systems of the world, because self-control is the key to salvation.
Now it is all different in Christianity. You are not saved by self-control. You are not saved by your goodness or your works. You are saved by his goodness and his works. You are saved by grace through faith. You are saved by faith in him that you believe in Jesus who died for you and for your sin, and who forgives you and who becomes your savior. So, you’re saved in Christianity by faith in Jesus Christ, who died for his own, who died for you. You are saved by grace through faith. Self-control is still important in Christianity—not for salvation, but for sanctification. Self-control is critical with regard to sanctification and the pursuit of the divine nature. So, in the Bible, in the book of Proverbs, in the wisdom literature in Proverbs 25, it says, A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls and without self-control cannot defend himself. In Proverbs 16, it says, A man who rules his own spirit is greater, mightier, than he who conquers a city.
So again, in the sight of God, it is a great thing to have self-control. The biblical word for self-control is enkratos: kratos, which means strength and en, the prefix, which means within. Inner strength. The Bible tells us that self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, so you should pray for it. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is self-control, so you need to pray every day. I need to pray every day that God would empower the Holy Spirit in my life in the form of self-control. Do you ever do that? Do you ever ask the Lord to give you more self-control? More inner strength or strength within, enkratos? Do you pray that way every day? Do you have any area of your life where you need a little more inner strength, a little more self-control? You need to be praying every day for this fruit of the Spirit. But even when you pray for the fruit and the power of the Holy Spirit you are still going to need to make every effort. That is why Peter says, in his famous last words; Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control. It takes every effort. Today, you must strive.
All of Kaiser Permanente’ s advertisements say “Thrive.” They want us to thrive. That is good. We all want to thrive, but the Bible makes it clear you can’t thrive if you don’t strive. That is true in every area of life. It is true in your health. It is certainly true in godliness. You must make every effort.
Now, some of you maybe have heard of spoonerisms. You know that word spoonerism? Maybe not so much. Spoonerism is a phrase where a word or phrase is misspoken. It is a word or a phrase where the syllables and the letters and even the words themselves are confused. For instance, the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, was once introduced to a vast crowd, and the man introducing him said, “It with great joy and honor that I present to you the President of the United States, Hoobert Hever.” That is a spoonerism. Hoobert Hever is a spoonerism.
Now here is the irony: Spooner, the guy that spoonerisms are named after, William Archibald Spooner, was a brilliant man. He was a brilliant man. He was a professor at Oxford for 39 years, esteemed and honored at Oxford University. After 39 years, in the year 1903, he became the president of Oxford University, and he was the president of Oxford University for 21 years, until 1924. So, for 60 years William Archibald Spooner served at Oxford University as an esteemed professor, and as a valued president of Oxford University. He was also an Anglican priest and he was very devout and had a great love of God. So, this man was brilliant and also deeply spiritual. Yet he did tend to conflict his words. He did tend to get his phrases all confused.
For instance, as an Anglican priest, he once began a sermon with these words, “We worship a shoving leopard.” That is how he began. “In this church we worship a shoving leopard.” That is what he said. I am sure many people thought, We have got to get out of this church. Of course, he meant loving shepherd. We worship a loving shepherd. He would marry couples and he did countless weddings. When he was done and he pronounced the bride and the groom as husband and wife, on one occasion he said, “It is kisstamary to cuss the bride.” That is a spoonerism. When he was introducing the Queen of England to the Parliament of Great Britain, he stood before the Parliament and gathered people, and he said, “it is with great joy and honor I present to you,” (this was in Queen Victoria’s elderly years), “our queer old dean.” Of course, he meant our dear old Queen. That is a spoonerism.
We live in a world where we are all flawed. We are all flawed and we are all fallen, and we all make many mistakes. Part of being human is to confuse words. I do it, you do it, we all do it. Some of us do it more than others, but we all do it because we are just human. Now the Bible said in James, chapter 3 that it is hard to control the tongue. James, chapter 3, Let not many of you become teachers, brothers and sisters. For we know that those who teach will be judged with greater strictness. We all make many mistakes. If anyone makes no mistakes in what they say, they are perfect.
Then the passage goes on to say we can use our tongues in such a way that we lack self-control and we sin. Spoonerisms are innocent; they are just innocent. It is a reflection of flawed humanity. But totally innocent, no sin in spoonerisms. There are times it says in James 3, when we actually use our tongues to curse people. In James, chapter 3, it says, Every kind of beast and bird, reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by human kind. But no human being can tame the tongue, a restless evil full of deadly poison. With our tongue we bless our God and Father and with it we curse man who is made in the image and likeness of God. From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. It ought not to be so my brothers and sisters.
It is saying in James, chapter 3 that we use our tongues not only to bless, but we use our tongues to curse and it is sin. It is hard to control the tongue. You know gossip is a sin that has great attraction. There are some of us who love to get together with friends, have a little food, maybe sip a cup of coffee and tell a few stories. Pretty soon you are talking about people. Pretty soon you are gossiping. If the Lord convicts you, and you actually make the decision, I am not going to gossip anymore, and you actually try to control yourself, you will be amazed at how tough it is. You won’t have anything to say. You will just be amazed at how tough that is because self-control is so hard. Yet gossip and slander, these are grave sins in the sight of God. It’s hard to control the words we say.
I don’t know how many of you love horse racing. Probably not a whole lot. Most of us have some interest in the big races like the Kentucky Derby. I am not a big fan or aficionado of horse racing but I do watch when I can, each year, the Kentucky Derby. The horse, the trainer, the jockey, the owner, there is a lot of money and fame at stake in the Kentucky Derby. It is a huge deal. If you see it on TV, you see the vast stadium, the vast arena where the horses run. The crowd is over 200,000, I believe, at the Kentucky Derby. All the women are in bonnets. It is just great pageantry.
What do they sing at the Kentucky Derby before the race starts? They sing My Old Kentucky Home and it is beautiful. As you look as the camera pans the crowd, every mouth, they all know the words. This song is beloved in Kentucky and it is a beautiful song written by Stephen Foster. Stephen Foster wrote many wonderful songs. He wrote Beautiful Dreamer, which is incredibly wonderful. He wrote I Dream of Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair. He wrote Oh, Susana! He wrote Camptown Races.
He was born on the 4th of July, 1826. Born on the 4th of July, kind of a gift to America. God had blessed him with amazing talent. He fell into alcoholism. He died at the age of 38. So much potential, and so much wasted. He was a savant, taught himself musical instruments and how to play them when he was in single digit years, wrote pieces for virtually every instrument and even for concerts and oratories. He had tremendous skill, but he became an alcoholic.
They found him in the Bowery, the slums of New York City. This was 1864. They didn’t even know who he was; they just found this man in his beat-up hotel in the slums. He was on the floor, he was bleeding profusely. He had fallen into the sink and it had shattered and his neck was cut. They took him to Bellevue hospital (that is where they took all the bums in the Bowery, to Bellevue hospital), not even knowing who he was, this man, 38 years old. At Bellevue hospital, they tried to revive him and when he became conscious, he would just beg for a drink. “Please, give me a drink” After three days he died. They found 38 cents in his pocket. The hotel where he was staying was 25 cents. He could have stayed there one more day.
They found a piece of paper in his pocket. They found these words on the piece of paper: Dear friends and gentle hearts. They believe it was maybe the beginning of a new song that he wanted to write. It was only after a period of days that they even discovered who he was. Stephen Foster, dead of alcohol related causes at the age of 38. What a tragedy. We live in a world where alcoholism is huge. We live in a nation where millions and millions and millions of men and women are struggling with alcoholism and destroying their lives and their relationship. You might think, Well, that is not really about self-control. Alcoholism is a disease. I understand what you are saying. God loves us all and we love each other.
The truth is, everything is about self-control. Everything is about self-control, and if you drink excessively, and you are destroying your life, you are sinning against God. You might not be able to stop in your own power. You might not have the enkratos, you might not have the inner strength, even though you beg in prayer. You might not have that self-control, but you do have this, you do have the self-control to get help. You have enough self-control to get help and to go to AA or to seek a counselor or to do both and to get some friends who will hold you accountable. This is true in so many areas of life. It all has to do with what Peter is telling us in his famous last words, that we would make every effort to supplement our faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control.