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Verse 40 by thy Holy Spirit reveal in US thy love shall inherit with thee are head above. May all this consolation our trembling heart sustain sure though through tribulation the promised rest to gain.
187.
It started the first six of our chapter.
First Peter one verse 6.
Brandy greatly rejoiced, Though now, first season if need be, you're in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith be much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found under praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Whom have we not seen Elon, And whom, though now ye see Him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable.
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Full of glory, receive the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently. Who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, Searching what or what manner of time? The Spirit of Christ.
Which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand, the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, unto us, they'd administer the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
As obedient children not fashion yourselves according to the former lusts and your ignorance, but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.
For if you call the Father, who without respect a person judges according to every man's work.
Past the time of your soul journey here in fear, for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Father's, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world. What was manifest in these last times for you, who by Him do believe in God?
They raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.
Senior, purified your souls and obeying the truth through the Spirit, unto unplanned love of the brethren.
See that you love one another with a pure heart, fervently being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof faileth falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.
There are two things that God has always done for His people in every dispensation, and that is He has always set before them a goal and a hope and the end of things. And then He has always provided for them in their present need. And I believe in the book of Peter and in this chapter we have this brought out very beautifully. Yesterday we spoke of our hope as a living hope.
We spoke of the inheritance and that which is yet future, that which we're looking forward to and he's going to, again, as we go through these verses, bring before us the appearing in the day of manifestation and so on.
To keep our souls focused on what is ahead. But He's also going to bring before us the present pathway.
And these verses that we've begun with, they bring us really back to the reality of where we are now.
We're not home yet. We're not in the full good of what we spoke of yesterday. Our hope is not uncertain. It's referred to in Hebrews 6 as sure and steadfast. Only hope in Christ can be referred to in that way.
But it's only hope in the sense that we're not in the full reality of it yet. It's a certainty, but we aren't there yet. There are trials. We've been reminded both mornings and our prayer meetings of the trials and difficulties that some are passing through. But you know, everyone of us here are going through something. We all have something young and old that we feel some little trial to various degrees that we feel in the path of faith and service.
Now these brethren were going through fiery trial. They were going through things that I've never been called on to pass through Indiana, the path of faith and service.
And so the apostle Peter now is going to bring this before them and encourage them in the trial. We're not going to see the removal of all the difficulties. Brethren, we're not immune to sin and its effects and the trials.
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That affect our neighbors and others just because we know the Lord Jesus. No, there is no temptation taking you.
Or trial taken you but such as this common demand. But what Peter is going to point out is the rest of that verse in first Corinthians. But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tried above that ye are able to bear, but will with the trial make a way of escape that she may be able to bear it. So I say again, we're not going to see the removal of the trials and difficulties. They're going to be with us till we get to the end. But there is full provision for, uh, for us as we go through the circumstances of life that he allows in his wisdom.
Is all in love.
It's in wisdom that's true.
But the behind it all is the love of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father.
He he cares that we are going through testing times and what a delight it is that he's behind it.
The President of the United States.
Is there because he chosen appointed him to be the president of the United States. And when I think of the criticisms that the president is getting, and that may be true that he deserves it. But behind this all there's the love and the wisdom and the power of God himself.
Don't forget that God is behind all of this, His love.
It is working for my good and for yours.
So he could say to them in the beginning of the verse we started with, we're in you greatly rejoice. Well, at the end of last reading meeting we, you might say, ended on the high note of thinking about our inheritance. And you can't think about your inheritance with the Lord in glory and whatever measure in which we understand it and enjoy it without bringing joy to the heart. And so we look forward to something and we're encouraged as Jim said.
By that hope, which is a sure hope to us, and by the provision of God that we're not going to come short, but we're going to get safely there eventually. But then he goes on to say, though now for a season, that is a period of time if need be.
If need be.
Trials often are necessary.
We often pray to get out of them and that they be short and they be done with quickly. But as Peter recognized, he said if needed. And brethren, the trials of life are very often necessary for our good.
Is another in the past it said there's always a needs be on our part and a purpose of love on God's part in them. But if we go back and see in the children of Israel in the wilderness.
The Lord said I'm putting you in the wilderness, but I'm going to test you.
I'm going to humble you and I'm going to prove you and we're going to see what's in your heart. And it's the trials of life that bring out what's really there. Many times when everything is going the way we would like it to go, it doesn't really test us in the same way that you bring a trial into our life and then it manifests what's really there.
As to the hope of that person?
I wouldn't say it if he was here this morning, but a couple of times I had the privilege of visiting Lemoyne in the hospital. And the characteristic that I most appreciated and enjoyed in visiting with Lemoyne in the hospital was he was the same Lemoyne. He was the same Lemoyne. The trial hadn't changed his focus. It hadn't changed his enjoyment of the Lord. That same quiet spirit that tends to characterize Lemoyne was present.
In the trial, what is it? It says here in the next verse. It's the trial of your faith.
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That is.
The first thing that separated man from God.
Was unbelief.
Unbelief entered into the heart of Eve and Adam, and it resulted in a act of disobedience, sin. But the root of that disobedience came from unbelief. And when we are in trials, it's a test of faith. Do I fully, as I did, went out when there wasn't any trial? Do I have the same unchanging confidence?
In the heart of God or does the trial expose that my confidence in God is depending in some way on the circumstances of life, in which case it really isn't depending on faith at all. And so it was for them, he says, the trial of your faith and goes on to say that's precious.
This precious, isn't it? We don't covet trials in our lives. And trials are very real, as we've already said in these meetings. And uh, no chastening for the time seemed to be joyous. But I would like to just say this about trials. Trials, as you say, brother Dawn, are allowed for different reasons in our lives. You know, sometimes the tendency of our hearts is to look at somebody that's going through a trial and say, well, the Lord is chastening that person. There must be some sin or something in that person's life.
You know they came to the Lord Jesus concerning the blind man in John nine, and they said, Who hath sinned this man or his parents, that he was born blind? The Lord said, neither this man nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifest in him.
There was going to be glory brought to the Lord Jesus and to God the Father through the healing of this man through the circumstance.
That had been allowed in his life. And God allows trials in our lives for different reasons. But the real blessing comes when we get before the Lord in our own souls. Not judging a trial in another's life, but get before the Lord in our own souls. Now why did God allow this in my life?
Why has he allowed this circumstance in my life? Because.
It may be in his chastening, but it might be for another reason. It might be to, uh, bring out what's in our hearts, as you say. It might be to prepare us for something. Sometimes we go through a trial so that we can comfort others with the same comfort where with we ourselves are comforted of God. And there's a need to be and I need to be exercised because when I learn in my own soul before the Lord what the needs be in my life is then there's going to be submission through the trial to the trial.
There's going to be peace through the trial, there's going to be the lesson learned, and there's ultimately going to be fruit and glory brought to himself and then blessing to to others. And so it's the truck, it's the faith that's precious. There are a number of things in Peter's epistles that are precious to the heart of God. And one thing is this, when the when the faith goes through the fire.
And it comes out and it's pure. It's gold. It's, it's refined, he says. It's precious. One little story. Brother was visiting a sister and she was in a convalescent hospital and she hadn't moved from that bed for a long, long time.
And she said to the brothers, she said, there's nothing I can do here to get reward, nothing I can do for the Lord. Well, he quoted her wisely that verse in Hebrews that says cast not away. Therefore thy confidence for of such is great recompense of reward. And when there's confidence and faith through the trial and it comes forth as as gold, it's precious to the heart of the Lord Jesus and he's going to reward us for it in the coming day.
That love of the Lord Jesus is manifest in every bit of it, and not only love, He is wisdom as well, and he has power and He has the ability to do what He wants to do to display that wonderful, wonderful, wonderful love of His.
The Daniels, Three friends.
It was evident that God was able to deliver them from the fiery furnace, but instead He delivered him through the fiery furnace. And if you would have asked them afterwards, I'm sure they would say we would not have wanted to miss that experience, to walk in the company of the Son of God through that fiery furnace. What would have been better, brethren, for them, for the Lord to deliver them from the fiery furnace?
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I think it was far better that He delivered them through the fiery furnace. And so the Lord submits us to those terrible fiery trials. In life. We don't know much about persecution, but the Lord is not limited. He's going to allow trial in one way or another. He's going to test the faith that He puts into our hearts. He gives us the faith to begin with, and then He tests it.
Abraham, what a man of faith. He was the father of the faithful.
But what a tremendous test he gave Abraham, that son, your only son, the one in whom all the promises of future descendants rusted. Take him and offer him as a sacrifice.
Was there any back talk with Abraham? As far as the Scripture says, there's nothing, just simple obedience. He rose early the next morning to put into effect what God had asked him to do. And I I often think, brethren, that when God puts a fiery trial in our lives, it's because He wants to share something special with us.
And so let's not miss it. We want to like Don says. We want to get out of it. We ask the Lord to deliver us from it.
Lord, help us, brethren, to see God's thoughts in the fiery trial. But what impresses me in these verses, brethren, is what gives us rejoicing in the midst of trial. He seems to be contradictory. How can you rejoice in that same verse six? It mentions heaviness, heaviness and rejoicing. Do they go together? They're doing this verse.
How's that?
And in the end of ver or in verse five, it speaks about faith.
To me that's the secret. It's that confidence in God. Notice in verse eight as well, whom having not seen, ye love, in whom though now ye see him not yet believing.
Ye rejoice with joy, unspeakable and full of glory. It's the believing. It's that trust in Him that brings the rejoicing.
Look at another verse that seems.
So clear in that way as Romans chapter 15.
And verse 13.
Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace.
In the living, that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.
It's in believing in that confidence in God.
I don't know. I often think of that test that the Lord gave to Abraham to offer up his son.
What a tremendous test. Far rather, I would take that knife and plunge it into my own breast and into my son.
But, brethren, did Abraham grasp the picture that we see so beautifully in that chapter? I don't know.
Perhaps.
But if we could just see that that God in these trials is bringing us into something that it will be enriching in our Christian pathway. So let's accept them. Let's give thanks for them. Let's trust them even when it hurts terribly.
It's the trials that strengthen our faith, isn't it? That's how our faith grows.
Sometimes we might pray and ask the Lord to increase our faith. The disciples did that. They said, Lord, increase our faith. But the Lord answered the disciples to show them that how our faith grows is to put it in operation. And it's interesting in connection with the trial that Abraham had, the test that he had in offering up his son Isaac, that it didn't come just after he was called out of earth, the Chaldees.
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Because God never tests us above the faith that He gives for the test.
And he knows exactly where we are in our Christian experience. If I can put it this way. Suppose Abraham had had that test very shortly after he came out of UR. I suggest he may very well have not been up to it. He may very well have failed the test. But he had proved God in the other smaller tests and trials along the path of faith and service for many years.
And those tests and trials had caused his faith to grow, so that when the great test came, he was up to it, accounting that God was even able to raise him from the dead. I think he had every expectation that he was going to have to plunge that knife into the heart of Isaac, his son. But did he stagger at the promise? No, in his mind he knew that God was able to raise him from the dead.
And that the promises were still in Isaac, as God had said, but his faith had grown because he had proved the Lord in all those circumstances. And brethren, that's one reason we're given trials.
So that our faith will grow, so that it will be proved. And let's not not that we go out and look for trials, but let's not shun the trials and the difficulties. Let's learn and be exercised. And they're only for a season.
And what are they, brethren, in relationship to what's ahead in Romans 8, He says. I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in US.
When we look back and view it in a coming day of manifestation, oh, we're just gonna marvel at his ways with us. And what are a few little trials and difficulties, not that they're not real, but what are they going to be in comparison to the glory in that day and the reward that he gives and that which is going to be revealed in in US and we're going to share with Him for all eternity.
The greatest?
Test.
That anyone has ever gone through.
Was endured by God Himself.
At 12 noon.
On Friday.
On the Jesus His Son was on the cross of Calvary.
Jesus had prayed before the before he went there. Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
Nevertheless.
Not as I will, but as thou wilt.
So at 12 noon on Friday.
The iniquity of.
Every believer in this room and.
God laid on him, now that I'm telling you.
Jesus suffered.
What we all deserve to suffer.
Without end.
We'll never suffer a stroke.
Because at at least at 12 noon.
All the suffering of all the believers.
And let's leave it at that. All believers, their suffering was over with.
But us we. But we still have suffering here, not there.
Not when we after we have stopped breathing and our heart stops beating, there are no more strokes.
For a single one of you us.
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And at 3:00, it was dark when he, when he did that, got dark.
But and it will start until 3:00 in the afternoon.
Sail on the cross.
Jesus said 3 words and you all know what they are.
It's finished.
It's finished.
No more suffering for any of you.
That's where the test came for God Himself.
He laid on his son.
The iniquity of us all, it's over with.
The suffering.
After we die, not a stroke He can. The heaven and the earth and the sea and all that in them is.
But he can't put a stroke on me or you.
Believers, our suffering is over. Jesus did it, he said. It's finished.
Uh.
Marvelous, marvelous words.
It's finished.
Our suffering is done.
And maybe some suffering between now and and the time our heart stops beating.
S.
As all these other tests are.
And we might complain there be some complaints when it's carried on.
But after it was over with with Abraham, he gave thanks. He was thankful for the test.
And we are thankful.
For the test for Abraham, if if God tests him, he'll certainly be kind enough and wise enough and full of love enough.
To test us too. Now complain that complaining generally goes on while we're suffering, but when it's over with, let's give thanks.
It would take away our complaining if we realize that He's doing it for something so tremendously positive. Look at what it produces in verse seven. Rather than the suffering that may be allowed in our lives, it's that it might be found. And to praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ when the Lord Jesus comes back in power and glory from heaven.
And all His Saints are with Him. Every eye shall see Him, and we are going to be manifested with Him in glory. Then it will be evident what He was producing in US through those sufferings. It was something that would shine in that day of manifestation and glory when we come back with the Lord Jesus.
Oh, what a day we look forward to.
It's important to realize that because we don't always see the end of the thing, now do we? We don't always understand exactly what the Lord is it has been doing in our lives. Maybe there's someone here and you say the Lord allowed a trial and I just don't understand what the Lord has had for me in the trial. Now it's true that many trials and circumstances in our lives, we look back and we say I see what the Lord was doing, but I think there are many things we're never going to really understand this side of glory.
When the children of Israel were in the wilderness, there were many things they never really understood while they were in the wilderness.
And they often questioned the ways of God. Why did Moses bring us this way and that way to kill us with hunger and thirst and we're tired and we're weary and so on.
But when it's all summed up in the Psalms, it says he led them by the right way.
Now, brethren, that's the way we're gonna view it. Sometimes we maybe question the ways of God in our lives and we don't see the full end of the the thing, but there's a day coming when it's all gonna be manifested.
And we're going to say, like Israel, he led us by the right way, and we're just going to praise him for the perfection of his ways. Because when we see it in the light of his presence, I suppose that the judgment seat of Christ, it's going to show the perfection of all God's ways with us. And at the end of Revelation 4, the four beasts said, Amen, Those beasts that represent God's governmental ways in the earth, they just say we see it all now.
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Everything was working out As for a purpose. And brethren, that's what we're gonna say too. We're gonna say Amen to all his ways. Are you and I content to wait that day? There's so much we don't understand, like you say, but I've often thought, Jim, even the things we think we understand, we will understand so much better when we stand at the judgment seat and the Lord pulls back the curtain says, now I want to show you what I had in mind.
Through that trial, oh, the glory that's going to be given to God when we see what he was doing in our lives. We can't really fully understand it here. Even those things we think we understand now, we're going to understand so much better then.
I'd like to think about the trials in a little different way too.
We know that affects the individual under the trial to the greatest extent and then his immediate family, his friends, the local assembly. Just like you throw a rock into a still pool of water. The greatest splash is right there where the rock hit, but it goes all the way to the to the shore. If one member suffer, all suffer with it. But are we suffering with that one in the trial? Are we just saying, well, I'll pray for you and I don't mean to minimize prayer.
Don went and visited.
Our brother Lemoyne added in his trial he ministered to them that way. Turned back a page or two to James. James chapter 2. It talks about faith and faith and action. Verse 16. If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food.
And what did you say unto them? Depart in peace, be warmed and filled. Maybe that's praying for him, notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body. What does the prophet Even so, Faith, if it hath not works, is dead.
Being alone, you know it's an opportunity for the rest of us, too.
To minister to and help that one that is in, in that trial. Now, I'm not saying, uh, if it's a financial need, we ought to just open up our checkbook and, uh, totally re leave them of that trial because the Lord has allowed that, but he's also allowed it for us. So we have that opportunity to be a help. Jehovah's friend sat with him when they start opening their mouths, they weren't too much help, but initially they sat with him, just, uh, being with him.
You know, sometimes that's what we need to do for one who is in a trial is just to be with them.
So we do have that opportunity as those who might be observing.
First, Peter about Peter himself.
And defend these words. I wonder if you look back in his past life, remembered how he had denied his blessed Lord. Remember how he cut the servants right here? He did that.
Wanting to to hinder the Lord from going to that cross and he did many things and his wonderful to see as he progressed in the trials and testings of life in John chapter 21.
This has been very touching to my heart in John 21, and I'll just read a few verses. And so they die. And Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He says unto him, Yeah, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lamb.
You said him again the second time, Simon's son of Joseph lovest on me. He said on him, Yeah, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Thee my sheath unto him. The third time Simon, son of children, Jonas lovest now me. Peter was grieved because he intended to him the third time, lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
Very, very I seem to the youth thee, when thou was young and walketh with it, I wouldn't. When thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall third thee, and carried it without. It's not this fake. He signified by what death he should glorify God. When He had spoken him death, he said unto him, Follow me. And I thought about that in my own soul, and I thought of what a wonderful ending he had, because He humbled Himself.
He took the trial, He benefited from these trials of his testing, his faith.
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And the Lord brought him through, and now the Lord could use him.
Till yeah, they're not wonderful. Oh, that speaks to my own soul that we might go on well for him through all these trials and testings because our hearts might be touched, and that we might learn what he has for us and the blessing he gives us to all these different trials, that we might end well, our life.
Our parents, or perhaps some are grandparents.
And I guess what I'd like to just think about for a moment is.
I think Speaking of for those who are parents.
One of our greatest trials.
Yes, the agony that we often go through.
That our children would go on to follow the ward.
And sometimes those children might be not just under 20 years old, but even in their 20s and 30s and.
Perhaps more.
And I just like to encourage each one of us who our parents or grandparents.
In these trials.
Of wishing and hoping and praying that our children would go on for the Lord.
So just keep praying. Pray without ceasing.
And trust that the Lord will work in their hearts.
In the hearts of our children and grandchildren to follow the Lord.
When they get to be.
25 or 30 years old.
We can't really tell them what to do.
Sometimes we feel like we've failed when they were younger.
Perhaps we have.
But we don't need to give up praying for them and trusting the Lord.
Robert said with Moses he was 40 years of age before he came out for the Lord.
It was a long time, wasn't it, Moses? Mother had him for justice a short time, and then she had to send him off to the palace to be trained as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. And I say it was 40 years of age before there was fruit from those early days and were not even told whether she was around to see it. Maybe she'll have to wait for that coming day of manifestation to see the results of her early laborers and no doubt her prayers. And so I think it's an encouragement, as you say, to parents, not to give up.
And as we said earlier, we don't always see the end of the story here in this life. But it's interesting, isn't it in this chapter, that in the midst of it, Peter puts before them the perfect example and the perfect object. And you have it at the end of verse seven and then connected with verse 8, Jesus Christ, whom not having seen ye love, in whom, though now ye see him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy.
Unspeakable and full of glory, Paul said, sorrowful yet always rejoicing. Bob was talking about things that don't seem to go together, contrasts and we would say oxymorons and so on.
That's one too, isn't it? Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. But I believe the joy comes in the trials and circumstances of life, in the measure in which we have the enjoyment of Christ in our souls. That's what's going to give us joy. When Paul and Silas were in Philippi and put in prison for preaching the gospel, it was a difficult circumstance. They felt the cold, damp floor of the prison.
They felt those chains and their backs bleeding and so on, but they could rejoice in the trial, not because they didn't feel the trial, but because they had the joy of the Lord in their souls. And what's going to carry us through, brethren, is not the removal of the trials, as we've said, but it's Jesus Christ whom not having seen ye, love, and in the measure in which He is real and precious to our hearts.
And the object and example before our souls were going to be spurred on. In fact, in the next chapter he speaks of it again. He speaks of the sufferings of Christ, and who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered, He threatened not. You say, how could he do such a thing? He committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. He had the fault, the fact before his soul, that God had the record down properly.
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That there was an end and that there was a day of blessing and manifestation and fruit ahead. And he was looking forward to that, knowing the import of the verse that says weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Now do we have Christ before us as that perfect example, an object. And so I say, it's not the circus, it's not circumstances that give us joy in our Christian pathway. We're thankful for nice circumstances, but it's the enjoyment of Christ in our souls that lifts us above the trials and carries us through.
Oh, in silence, I don't think.
Uh, saying immediately, did they? It was at midnight. So it may have taken a little while for them to come around to that. And sometimes it there is times of heaviness, brethren, Scripture speaks of it here, but it's the believing that gives the joy that's so marked there in verse 8. Yet believing ye rejoice. So when we get our focus around to.
God is in this circumstance. Where is He?
What are we supposed to do now and all this problem?
Remember old brother John saying that maybe Silas said to Paul, Paul, did you really see that vision about us coming over here? We're in a problem now. Who is going to get us out of this fix? And I'm sure they must have had their times when they were really down. But it's believing the promises of God that bring joy. And then.
They could open their mouths and pray and sing praises to God.
Brethren, it takes a little bit of time sometimes to get around to that, but when we do, that's where the rejoicing comes in, in belaving.
The joy and peace comes when we acknowledge and God what happens. Because as you mentioned yesterday, the just briefly there that first Peter is the government of God with believers and 2nd theater is the government of God with the world. So when God deals with the world, we look around, we see all the wickedness and we might be confused by it. In Second Peter there the believers, we are told that the government is over this world.
And it's going to fall, but it hasn't fallen yet, but it will, God will judge it in first Peter, we see the hand of God and the Lord and everything that happens to us. So it's not always chastisement, as was mentioned, but every circumstance we can really take from the Lord and, and acknowledge his hand in it. So Paul and Silas, uh, we don't know what went on in the prison, but what is going to give them peace is not saying there is a ruthless, hateful enemy out there and the Lord is going to.
Come in and deal with that. But that the Lord's hand is in this. He allowed this, and so then you can have peace. And that's the one I know for myself. And I'm sure everyone of us acknowledged that when we wrestle an unhappy and are discontented is when we are struggling against the fact that the Lord allowed this and we're trying to find a way out of it and trying to get the Lord to take it away. And the Lord's hand is in it. And as pilgrims and strangers, perhaps the confusion that these poor Jewish believers had is that they.
Seeing the government shifted from the world placed into the hands of man into the to Israel to administer judgment on disobedience, and then it's placed in the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, and Lord dies and all is lost. Just all of their expectations are gone. Humanly speaking, they're perhaps confused now they're scattered. Well, God and the Lord, if we can put it that way, still loves them, and His hand is directly upon them so that they can.
Acknowledge that every single thing that happens, Lord's hand is in it and it's for their blessing and because he loves them. And so you think of the Midianites there when they went through the Canaan, there is pilgrims and strangers. They make a deal and take Joseph into Egypt. They had no responsibility to anybody, their pilgrims and strangers. But for ourselves as pilgrims and strangers here, we, we have to get it out to someone and uh.
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To always remember that.
Faith honors God.
Faith honors God. We may not understand everything in trials, and we do not, and we recognize the trials bring with them a heaviness in the spirit and in the soul many times. But God is always honored when He's trusted and in order to motivate us, if you will, to the greatest possible degree to trust Him.
God manifests himself as worthy of trust.
And so if there's ever a question in our souls as to whether God's ways with us are fair, or whether the trial is too severe, or why it's happened to me, and so on, it's a great blessing to the soul to go to the cross and see God's Son die for us. And there God, as it were, says.
This is my love to you. This is how far I will go for you. Will you trust me?
When we have here in the chapter in the the Lord Jesus and then we rejoice because He is placed before our souls as an object of the heart that is perfectly, completely worthy of trust.
Look at me, he says, or God says to us. Look at my son. Is he worthy of your trust?
And consequently, when the day of manifestation comes.
God will be honored and appreciate and so reward everyone who passed through a trial.
In trust.
Because it was to his honor, it was to his glory that he was trusted. And he will delight to manifest as it were. He'll say now this one here went through this trial and they trusted me. And oh, what an honor. I appreciate it. And I wanna say I appreciated that in that one of my children to trust me in that way. And so much of the process of life and many of the trials of life are teaching experiences.
To teach us to trust so that we can honor God. We had a little a few minutes ago read to us by Brother Bob Peter.
And about Peter and John 21.
Peter love the Lord Jesus. He wanted to follow him, but his trust, his confidence was in himself.
I can do it and I will do it and if needs be, I'll go to death with the Lord Jesus. And then the Lord had to put him. There was a needs be to teach Peter that his confidence, his trust wasn't in God.
It was in himself and he fails in the trial, in the testing, but the consequence was, is that the Lord?
So taught him to trust in him.
And to not trust in himself that the Lord, as it were, says now, Peter, I'm going to entrust, I'm going to entrust to you the most precious of things that are precious to me, my sheep and my lambs. And you're going to care for them for me, Peter. And so when we learn, even in the trials by failure, if we are with the Lord in it, we learn from it, we grow by it to learn to trust. And then.
The Lord in turn uses us in that way, in being helped to others and so.
Even failed testings, God has a purpose in good that can renew, result in blessing to our souls and others through us.
About the cross is illustrated beautifully when the children of Israel came to Mara.
The waters of marrow were better, and sometimes we come to what seems like bitter experiences in our lives.
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But what was it that made the water sweet? The only thing was to throw the tree into the water. And sometimes, perhaps as we go through the trials of life and the tests, the only thing that will make the water sweet is to go back to the cross, as Dawn said, and to see what the Lord Jesus paid for us. To see what it cost God, To see what it costs the Lord Jesus. And can we doubt his love in the trials and circumstances of our lives when we see the great cost? When we see God so loving us that He gave His Son?
When we see the Lord Jesus who loved us and gave himself for us. And then I was thinking too, in connection with the comments about Paul and Silas and what our brother Graham said.
Often wondered when they sang and praised at midnight, if they didn't recall that verse in the 119th Psalm. It's the 62nd verse that says at midnight will I arise and give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments. They realized by midnight that what God was doing was right and just, that he had a purpose in it. And so if we can realize has been said that God has a purpose.
And that what He is doing in our lives is right. And for our good and for His glory, we're going to be able to arise even at those midnights in our lives. And there's lots of midnights in our lives. Lots of.
Dark experiences in our lives, but if we realize that what he's doing is right and justice.
Then and trust Him, then we can arise and give thanks as well.
Reason umm we've commented that God is honored by faith. The another important benefit of trial is through it we get to know the Lord Jesus better. Just to show that turn over to another wilderness book, Hebrews Peters of book of the wilderness and so is Hebrews really I just not going to take very many minutes. I hope to show something here.
That we learn the Lord Jesus in the trials of life if you go to Hebrews chapter 10.
And verse 35 says, Cast not away, therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Here's the particular verse. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them which draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. That statement that just shall live by faith is the introduction to the next chapter that we all know so well.
The 11Th chapter of Hebrews. And then we have this whole chapter about faith.
And people who live their lives in faith and people who died in faith, people who suffered in faith and so on. And then you get in chapter 12 verse one, it says, wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, and let us run with endurance, the race with patience is set before us. In other words, in the 10th chapter he says.
We got a race to run. We've got to we've got to go through it in patience, but let's not draw back. Don't give it up. Don't say I can't do it as it were, as man would say. And then he gives us a cloud of witnesses of people who've gone ahead of us and gone through the path of faith and the trials that are connected with such a life. And then he, he says, listen to the witnesses. But this is the verses. I want to get to verse two of chapter 12.
Looking unto Jesus.
The author and completer of faith, that is. He says, OK, you've seen the witnesses, but now I'm going to put a supreme example before your souls. Look at the Lord Jesus.
He is the man who went through the whole path of faith.
He completed it. He didn't draw back.
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But He went right through as a perfect example for us. And then it says, well, what? How did He do it? For the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. This is not atonement here. This is not looked at as our sins being paid for, but rather in His life of faith. How great were the trials that He had to go through. He endured the cross.
The shame.
The rejection, the suffering that was connected with it and as an encouragement to his own soul as he did it, he could look beyond it and he could say, well, I see the joy, I see what's before me. And now having endured that and turned aside from the shame of this, of his life rejection, then he says he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Where's it all going in, brother?
It's going to end in the glory, It's going to end at the presence of the Lord Jesus. So then he says, how about you verse three, You consider him, you think about the Lord Jesus and what he suffered. And then that's so that you won't be faint and give up and be weary in the trials that come before you. And he says you haven't resisted unto blood. Nobody in this room is resisted under blood.
That means nobody here has died.
To maintain the faith.
Many of our brethren have, but none of us have gone to the ultimate step. And so it's put before us in a way that.
If we're in it and feel it, we're going to at the end of the road when we get to heaven and we look back at these trials of life that we've passed through.
We can say, oh Lord Jesus, thank you.
That I was able.
Or I shouldn't say I was able, but you passed me through the trials of life so that I could know your heart and you wouldn't know His heart the same way if you didn't pass through them, brethren, you could not. It's the shared experience that brings the commonness of appreciation of what another has gone through. Do we want to know the Lord better? We'll never know that extent of.
His trial of faith. But in any little measure in which we pass through the trials of faith, when we get home to glory, we will. And even now as we pass through them, we get to know his own heart better. It's worth it. We would never wish when we get to heaven and look back and say, the Lord said, well, it was kind of tough, so I spared you from having any trials of faith. We'd have to say then, oh Lord, I wish I could have known you.
As I do not because I didn't experience the same.
Mentioned Abraham offering up the son. Uh, he actually expected to slay his son and to receive him back in resurrection. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, umm, if you read there, he very, they're very careful about how they answer the king because as was said, they could have been delivered from ever going through the fire. They could have been delivered through the fire, but they also said that they would be delivered even if they passed through death. They didn't say that directly, but it's, it's very well implied there that they would be delivered from Nebuchadnezzar.
No matter what happens and they were going to be obedient and Paul and Peter were delivered from prisons. They weren't always the last time they weren't umm, as was mentioned, the Lord, he was obedient unto death. And even in first Peter the same line of things is brought up that we often read Lord's Day morning about him in chapter 2 or even here unto verse 21 where he called because Christ also suffered for us.
Leaving us an example that's not in substitution or in atonement, but that you should follow in the steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who when he was reviled, reviled not. Again, when he suffered, he threatened not.
But committed himself to him, the judges righteously, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should live under righteousness by whose stripes we are healed. He had to go through death for that and so he we aren't always delivered from the specific trial that the Lord puts us through, but there's another aspect of that God is glorified through it and so we don't do things.
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As a testimony or for a testimony?
But it is a testimony that Abraham did what he did, that the three friends of Daniel did what they did, that, uh, Daniel went through the lion's den, that they were faithful. It was not a testimony of them, but of God and of his faithfulness and of his righteousness. And, uh, it's, it's good to remember that because a lot of times we are, we have to live with things and, uh, the Lord allows it. And we need to see the Lord's hand in it and not only just submit, but see the Lord's hand in it and glorify the Lord in it.
So Peter presents the end of the thing here. And when Peter takes up salvation.
It's usually in view of that which is yet future. It's interesting again because remember he's writing to Jewish believers.
And in the Old Testament, when they turned to the Lord and they were faithful, they expected and looked for physical deliverance from their enemies and the circumstances. But what Peter is seeking to bring before these believers now is that don't look for deliverance down here. You're not always going to see deliverance from the circumstances. Again, they might have thought, well, we've tried to be faithful to the Lord.
We're trying to go on for the Lord and it's just one trial and difficulty after another.
Peter says you're not going to see the removal of the difficulties down here just because you're faithful to the Lord. But there is an end in view. And brethren, that's what we have to keep in view too. We have the salvation of our souls as far as our sins being gone, we're saved from wrath through Him. It tells us in Romans 5, thank God we are on the basis of the work of Calvary, not one charge of sin can ever be brought up against us.
But there is a salvation that's yet future. Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. It's the salvation of the body and the complete deliverance from all the circumstances of life and the trials that we have been Speaking of. And so Peter is going to go on in these verses now to bring this before them, to encourage them to quietly go on. Simply trust in the circumstances. You might not see the end of it in this life.
But there is certainly a glorious end in view.
Important to recognize that the Lord Jesus is presently a rejected man.
And that to be identified with him brings with it that same position of rejection which results in the present world in trial.
I say that because we live in an age when it's when the trust is in the Lord Jesus as Savior. We look forward to the glory and we say, wonderful, I'm going to glory. It's going to be a wonderful time. But our lives often seek subtly, perhaps to avoid the identification with the Lord Jesus because it brings trial with it.
We've talked about different kinds of trials and so on, but one of them that comes, and Scripture is very definite that suffering comes before glory.
And so, brethren, let's not be unwilling to be identified with the Lord Jesus. Let's not be unwilling to speak about Him to our fellow man because he might think less of us if we do, and so on, recognizing that.
He being rejected, we being in that place with him, is a place that brings with it the trial.
That is every uh says it says all that will live in godly in Christ Jesus.
Shall suffer persecution because that's his place now, and it's a privilege in that way. And that kind of suffering brings with a joy, not so much the heaviness that we see in this chapter, but the disciples counted it.
A privilege and a joy to their souls.
To be counted worthy, to suffer for his name's sake.
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So each one of us is tested in that way too. Yep, I'm going to glory. But while I'm I'm there, I'd like to go down the path just as easy as I can so that, well, I get there. But that's not really the path of faith. The true path of faith is to identify with the Lord Jesus and take what comes until.
Glory at the end.
Putting what Mr. Rule was saying in slightly different words, we often speak of the exchange life, that we exchange our fallen life for his risen life, and that we live by the power of the resurrection. I no longer live in the flesh, but I live in the spirit, and the power of his resurrection lives through me, creating good works in my life. But in this exchange, we not only exchange for the good, well, it's still good.
But our sufferings we exchange for his sufferings, my terrors for His cares, as we enter into our relationship in a risen Savior in heavenly places we set aside.
We consider dead to the things of this world, to my sufferings are set aside. But in setting aside my sufferings and my cares and my worries, I enter into his sufferings. And what does he care about now? The church? Do I feel the pain of the division, the divided church that we live in the midst of? Do I feel the pain when a brother falls into sin?
I feel the pain that he feels and the cares that He cares. This is where Christ wants to take us while we're on this earth to where we care. As He cares, He takes our burdens and we experience His burdens. To suffer with Him here is to suffer in the things that He cares about. Not whether I have a nice car, not whether I'm well or sick, but how the body of Christ is prospering.
How my brethren are growing in the things of Christ.
And how we go on and honor him here.
We shall also reign with Him, and so He is coming to be glorified in His Saints, and admired in all them that are about Him in that day.
And so, brethren, are you and I willing to be identified as Don said, with a rejected Christ?
The Corinthians were seeking to reign before the time, and Paul said, would that we did reign, that Christ did reign because we'd be reigning with him. But he said this is not the time now. Christ is the man who took a journey into a far country to await his Kingdom, and he's still waiting for that. And so with the Kingdom in view and the fact that we're going to reign and be glorified with him and so on in that day, that gives us then the moral courage, doesn't it, to be identified with him now.
If Jonathan had only identified with David in his rejection, he would have sat next to him on the throne, but he wasn't willing to suffer the reproach that David did. David's a picture of Christ in his rejection, fleeing as a bird to the mountain, sleeping in The Cave of Adalom. And you know, there were many men who associated with David in his rejection. You say, why did they do that? Why did they leave the comforts of home? Why did they flee with David and sleep and live in circumstances?
That perhaps weren't as comfortable as they were used to or would have liked all they knew.
That David was the Lord's anointed. They knew that though he was rejected and haunted by Saul at the time, that the day was coming when he would reign in the palace and they would be associated with him. And so, brethren, this I say, gives us the courage to identify now. Not to look for the easy path, not that we go out and look for opportunities to suffer, but not to look for the easy path, but to identify with the rejected Christ, knowing that He's going to identify us with Himself in that day.
And declare I and the children whom God hath given me.
On the illustration of Jonathan, because I think it's very apartment.
Jonathan's father saw is a type to us of man in the flesh and the best that man can be in the flesh, actually, and the best that man can be in the flesh is really the worst. But just as that's why Saul in the New Testament, who is a picture of the same to us before he saved, truly was the worst because he was more advanced in what man can be in the flesh than anybody else had been.
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And the consequence was, it took him farther from God in his soul than any other man can go.
But in Saul.
Had a son.
David, I'm sorry, Jonathan. And we learned that from a New Testament sense of it.
Jonathan loved David. That means in this application Jonathan trusted in David and loved David and it tells us of his love for David.
But he also was a son of Saul, and he would not give up the palace.
To be identified with David in his rejection and he lost his life over it. And brethren, if we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and love our David but won't give up the palace, we can lose our lives over it. That is, we can have a life that goes through this world and the consequences. No fruit for God because we are unwilling to separate.
From Saul, the man in the flesh, at least as far as the honors and the good things that come from the life that Saul had. And that's what it is. When we won't identify with David and take the place of suffering and rejection with him until he reigns, we put ourselves in Jonathan's place and it is a sad history.
God says the powers that be are ordained of the Lord.
We have and and this this country a man in the place of leadership.
Umm, not everyone seems to agree with his ideas and so forth. Well, I don't know whether they're right or wrong personally, but this I know the man who is speaking.
His mind and bringing things through, uh, to be part of his rule, uh.
Are coming from the man whom God ordained. Uh, so while we are going through a testing period, if you want to call it that, uh.
We can be sure that we when we kneel before God or we speak to God as you might mention his name.
And pray for him that he will be used of God in the in the office that God put him in his uh, and uh, in the end.
Will be thankful.
To the praise and glory of God. It is God's deposit in US and as you go further down we see the angels are even impressed with this. It is what God is depositing us. The faith that God has given us at that day. It is that which is going to be found to his glory and to his praise. It is what God has given us When it's fully tested, it's fully goes through trial and the beauty of it comes out then God receives the glory. That is what this portion is about. That is why fellow down there able to.
They are believing in Christ, full of glory. Feel as amazed when he sees these people. You guys did not see Jesus Christ. I saw Jesus Christ. But when I see the way you, you've responded to me, You love him, and you believe into this one and the glory, the beauty of that faith comes out. It is weighty and it is impressive.
So as much as the trials may be sorrowful, the greatest joy or the things that brings God, the glory is the faith that is being tried and you know it. It is that which brings, I think that celebration. It is that which brings the the happiness. It is that which brings the glory. Let us, let us be grateful the opportunities God gives us to go to trial that his own glory might be exalted or his own glory might be manifested. And that is where you can rest. And this is where you can relax that Father, whatever it is.
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And it's all be to your glory.
Is our position, brother, and that we are brought into understanding these things. The prophets in verse 10 that wrote those things down searched them and didn't really fully understand them.
I often think of David, who was a prophet, wrote in the Psalms. They pierced my hands and my feet.
He probably wondered what did that mean? Crucifixion wasn't in practice at that time. He probably looked at those scriptures and says, I don't understand this. My hands and my feet haven't been pierced. So they searched those things and it wasn't revealed to them. Verse 12 Says, unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto us.
We now understand those things unto us.
They did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them which have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. And not only the prophets, but the end of verse 12. The angels desire to look into these things. Angels do not have the Holy Spirit to understand these things like we do.
What a privilege. We look back into the Old Testament and we see that God.
Had seen this all beforehand and that he had written it into the scriptures.
Those Old Testament prophets were mighty men of God.
They were mightily used of God, but they did not have the understanding that we now have.
Yeah, in this day.
But the spirit of Christ was in them. So whether it was Abraham or Joseph or, uh, the prophets, uh, they really had limited understanding as to what they're writing, but it was the spirit of Christ that we recognize in them. It wasn't just a coincidental story that we can make an application to. Like, you know, if a brother preaches in the gospel, he might use an example of something he observed and then make an application. And, uh, but if you actually question the people, they.
You know, that's the last thing you're thinking about. But I suppose in the coming day, it's when those Old Testament states are there in the glory and it's all revealed to them, they're going to recognize why they did it and why they were, why they behaved as they behaved. It wasn't that like when Isaac, you think of him being bound upon the altar, he submitted to that the measure that he was obedient and he took his place as he should have taken his place as his son.
Was a spirit of Christ being displayed in him, And Christ was fully displayed, but Joseph?
Uh, his behavior through his life, it was the Spirit of Christ, uh, that was displayed there, not just because it's a story that we can get something out of and make an application, but God, the Spirit of God was working in them and he had a nature and he was given instruction by, uh, the word of God and by what was revealed to him and measure, of course, but uh, we see in Joseph, the Spirit of Christ wasn't the Spirit of Joseph.
With the spirit of Christ that was seen in him, it's a marvelous thing to read those Old Testament types and figures and where their conscience was involved. Not like a balaam, but, uh, the other of the Saints there when they behaved for a reason out of obedience to the light that they had. But Christ knew fully what he was displaying.
Day by day at the last verse. Help me then.
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I'm 84.
Psalm 84, verse 6.
Who passing through the valley of Vaca?
Make it a well.
The rain also filleth.
Pools.