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Yes, brethren, that in this reading meeting we take our first Peter chapter one. I believe it's a very suitable.
Follow on on what we've had in the first two readings taking the subject that was before us there another step in the pathway. I think they're very companionable and related chapters.
Do you think we should read the whole chapter done even though we might not have time for it all? Is that good talking is profitable because it gives us the context of what we do take up.
First Peter chapter one.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia.
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, whose sanctification of the Spirit.
And obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ praised unto you in peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away preserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith and the salvation.
Great to be revealed in the last time, where Andrew greatly rejoice, though now for a season if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the hearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen He loved, and whom though now you see Him not.
Yet believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently. Who brought, Who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you? Searching what? For 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, but 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 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 fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in 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 holy, for I am holy.
And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time under sojourning here and here. For as much as you know that you are 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.
But was manifest in these last times for you, who by Him do believe in God.
That raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.
Seeing you have purified your soul in obeying the truth through the Spirit and to unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart, fervently being born again, not a corruptible seed, but incorruptible.
By the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grasp, and all the glory of man as a fountain flower of grass. The grass wither it, and the flower thereof calleth away, but the Word of the Lord endureth forever.
00:05:01
And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.
In Philippians chapter 3.
We had the apostle Paul speaking to us by the Spirit of having the Lord Jesus Christ as the one and only and supreme object of our hearts and of our lives, and the fact that the Lord Jesus is now not here, but he is a man in the glory. And so that's where our heart is. That's where the object of our lives has gone. And so our hearts affections are drawn away from this world.
To the one who has them.
Of the hymns of eternal Lover, and that our Lord Jesus is there at God's right hand this afternoon, at the center and source of our lives.
And we are not yet there in that sense. We're not yet perfected, but we have the calling on high of God that that is our destiny. There's a similarity in this chapter that brings a little different aspect of these same thoughts before us in this way Peter was addressing.
Jewish. I didn't say it had previously been Jews believers.
Who had had their hope in the earth?
And through the acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is bringing before them the fact that the earth was no longer the sphere of their hopes. They no longer had anything that they could look for with respect to earthly blessing for themselves. But rather Peter, as it were, says, brethren, your home's not here anymore, it's in heaven.
And as far as this earth, you have to look at yourself as a stranger and a sojourner here on a journey on your way to the goal which is before you, and you have been called to it by God, as it says in umm, verse 15, he which hath called you. And so they had been called of God out in the world.
And out of the earthly hopes to have before them the glory.
The calling on high really in Christ Jesus. And here in this chapter he brings before them repeatedly. They are not there yet.
But the provisions for them have been made, and they can now, even though they don't see the Lord Jesus.
Boom, as he says. Umm.
Not having seen or you don't now see them, but you love them, and believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. And so they had a choice that before them, and they were on what we would call a very dangerous journey, but they had the assurance that God would safely take them all the way to their inheritance.
Reserved in heaven for them. And so it is with us this afternoon. We weren't Jews, and at least I don't know anybody here that was born a Jew. But regardless, we don't have anything in this world that we should look upon. But we do have repeated exhortations not to be drawn aside, not to allow the enticements of an earth that is judged by God to draw us away.
But rather to set our sights upon our object, which is the Lord in glory, and to go on if need be, going through the sufferings that God appoints at times to our lives for our good, but always with the thought that we're not to become overwhelmed by them.
But to have that trial of our faith because we have to go on the journey in faith.
00:10:02
To the end.
And in enter into the.
Placed an inheritance that God has appointed for us at the end of this journey.
As in all things, it begins with God.
Everything that's worth anything, everything that's permanent, begins in the heart of God. And so this chapter begins with God, as it says, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
God begin this whole process that results in our salvation here, our being started on this journey that we take.
That the purpose of God for us might be realized at the end of the journey. And it begins with the foreknowledge of God according to His own heart, that He purposed us for this place which is going to be ours to enjoy for eternity. And so we, we begin, if you will, with the certainty of the One who has appointed us.
To take this place, to have the Lord Jesus as the eternal object of our souls and to start out. And not only did God purpose it, but we see in the rest of that second verse, He did the work too that would be needed for us in setting us apart by the working of the Spirit and bringing us under the shelter of the blood and so on.
What is the force of the verse three? It says, Hath begotten us again unto a living hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why do you again?
I can suggest a thought and.
That is, uh, that's what you were just saying. They there were those of the Jews before Christianity came in where they were born again, but not for, umm, heavenly things. So born again or begotten us again to a living open now that's the heavenly thing. Is that the thought?
For them.
It was of course, under the law, and their hope was as to the earth.
But it's a change now there's a very different thing for us because our hope comes first. There was death.
And then the resurrection. And so now we have a hope which lies the other side of death, and we have been born again, Brother Chuck said. To this new and living whole for us lies.
For us by the resurrection.
Israel's hope was the earth.
And continuing to live upon the earth and the blessing of God was seen in earthly prosperity. But with respect to that, if a person died, that was the end of it. I'm not saying they didn't have the idea of the resurrection, that it hadn't been revealed in measure to them. They knew there was to be a someday down in the future, some kind of resurrection, but that isn't really what was before him here.
But we have Our hope begins with the resurrection of Christ from the dead, so that we look forward to a glory over which death is irrelevant. It has no power, no place. There will never be that for us.
00:15:12
OK.
Before God, when we put our faith in the Lord Jesus were never looked again upon from God's perspective is dead.
Among men, if a man dies, we say he died, but from God's perspective he just sleeps. The Lord Jesus took that view when Lazarus died and he said he sleeps and they couldn't understand. So he had to switch, if you will, from God's perspective of things to their own and said, well, Lazarus has died.
But we participate in a living home over which, by the resurrection of Christ is the proof of it. And the same power of the Spirit working in US puts us in a different sphere of things altogether into the new creation.
A Anyone that, uh, enjoys the coming Kingdom, which is an earthly thing, has to be born again.
Any St. of the Old Testament has to be born again, otherwise they are not the same. They don't have divine life. But what is the difference between in Christendom Born again is the sum total, the way it's presented, of everything. But it's not, it's the beginning, a Cornelius.
His his arms, his prayers went up before God. He was a born again soul I believe. But.
He didn't He didn't come into the knowledge of Christianity, the coming of the Holy Spirit and indwelling them, and so on until the.
The full gospel was preached and the full gospel is not you must be born again. That's just an essential, but it's the beginning, so to speak. And for Christians it's it's through the resurrection, at the resurrection of Christ. Now the Old Testament Saints were born again, but the Christ had not been raised.
He hadn't come yet, but still they needed a new life. And the Lord said that they could do this. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. And that's an essential, basic, fundamental thing. But we, we've got so much more. It's just step one, so to speak. And then his death and then his resurrection, and now our associations of life are there, not here. That's what you've been saying. And what a difference. Yeah.
So in that sense, the hope that they had in the Old Testament was not really termed a living or lively hope, was it? They had a hope. And it's true that there were those of whom it says in Hebrews chapter 12 or 11 rather that.
They looked for a city which had foundations whose builder and maker is God. That is, they did look beyond this present scene.
But they didn't know anything about the details of it. They didn't know what God had in store for you and for me, did they? And so here there is a whole dimension put upon it, which they knew nothing of in the Old Testament, and now it's been revealed through the Spirit of God after the resurrection of Christ.
I'm gonna ask you, Chuck, would it be like a little bit like what you referred to yesterday in Matthew 16?
Verse 31 Where is the Lord asked us.
Uh, sign here. Do you say that? I asked. He says the Christ there aren't the Christ, the son of the living God. He said blessed in our town for push a button. Don't reveal it. My my father, which is in heaven. Peter got I mean, you know, Peter got the.
I'm talking about meters. Yeah, Peter, you got that revelation from the Father, the living God, kind of a new thing. Although the Jews had some kind of a hope, didn't they? Like you said, they had a hope of the earth. They were.
Verse two speaks of election according to the foreknowledge of God. It's interesting words. Election is choosing, He's chosen as.
When did He choose us? Did we find out in Ephesians? It was before the foundations of the world. How could he have known us before the foundation of the world? There's no world in existence, no human being. That's where the word foreknowledge comes in. God knows everything beforehand. God inhabits eternity, and so He knows everything beforehand and according to that foreknowledge.
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He chose and then it says through sanctification of the Spirit. That's a wonderful thing too, being set apart.
There were people who were set apart by sanctification of the Spirit.
And the fossil Paul says of himself that he was set apart from his mother's womb so that he was a vessel specially chosen. And the Spirit of God began that work before he ever realized what was going on and set him apart.
For a specific purpose that God had in mind.
As Christians, I think the verse in First Corinthians 1:30 at the end where it says of him, that's God, are ye in Christ Jesus?
Who of God is made of us? Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption tells us a lot.
That's where where our we came from too. God is a source of all things.
And the sanctification comes before they in this verse 2, the sprinkling of the blood.
Remember an illustration that Gordon Hayhoe gave that helped me to understand this is that good of the grocery store? And I get a card and I start pulling things off the shelves, down the rows. Box of cereal and some cans of this and that and other things and what, what are you doing?
I'm separating that for a purpose I have in mind.
That sanctification, God had us in view and he separated us. But you haven't paid for it yet. No, I haven't paid for it yet. But when I get up to the front checkout counter, I'll pay for it. And so in time came the question of redemption, the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. So those are things that God works in those ways. It's it's interesting to see it the way it's put.
In verse 2.
We have the Trinity elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
Through sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. That's Christianity, The whole Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It's not always put in that order. It's put in various orders to show that not one of those three is superior to the others. They're all one in the deity. And uh, that's, it's the only, I don't like to use the word religion, but I don't know what else I could use. Faith maybe.
That believes that the Jews don't believe in the Trinity, the Muslims don't believe in the Trinity, and other religions believe in a multiplicity of gods and so on. But we believe in one God, three Persons, and one of those persons. One of the things that Cornelius had to learn when he was sealed by the Holy Spirit, just like the Jews had been sealed and they spoke in tongues and so on, the Gentiles were brought in.
Umm, the Spirit of God, the book of Acts is not titled properly the Acts of the Apostles. It's properly titled the Acts of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit through the apostles and men of God was bringing out these new truths. But one of the most thrilling experiences I've had, and you can have it too. It goes through the New Testament and put your finger on the the Trinity, the Trinity.
The Trinity, it's there all through the New Testament. Sometimes it's the Father and the Son, and then a little bit later down, it's the Holy Spirit is brought in. It may not always be in one verse, but here it's in one verse and many others in one verse. But, uh, it's, it's in the, it's in the chapter, it's in the, the, the, the truth that's being brought out. All three persons working together in perfect harmony and each one equal to the other, no one superior to the other.
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But it didn't come out in that fullness until one of those persons came down.
To where we are and became one of us. God was manifesting the flesh justified in the spirit scene of angels priest under the Gentiles believed not in the world and received up into glory God coming down and God man going up. That's Christianity and it's it's it's just precious and wonderful that it's all here so important, especially young people.
To read the whole word of God, yes, but more important than anything else, read the New Testament.
That's where the full truth is gonna hit you and, and, and, and teach you and the Spirit of God dwells in you. How many times a day? Shame on me. Maybe you have to say the same. Do I even think that the Holy Spirit do? I was in there. Do you? But he dwells in each one of us collectively in the church and then individually in each one of us. And he's here to, uh, to magnify this Father and the Son. Beautiful.
MMM.
This living hope that we have that.
That we are all of God too.
It's the.
Spirit of God chooses to tell us something else about the way in which it started. In verse three it says according to His abundant mercy. Mercy is the love of God in action according to me.
Grace is the love of God in action according to the heart of the one who acts. Say that again. I have missed the first part. Say it again. Grace is the love of God in action according to the need.
Mercy, mercy, all right. And love is, I'm sorry. Grace is the love of God in action according to the heart of the one who acts that is gone.
Mercy keeps me from hell.
My knee as a Sinner would take me to hell, but God steps in and says, well, no, you're not going there. I'm going to take you, save you from hell. That's mercy. But when God says I'm not just going to save you from hell, but I'm going to make you one of my children and take it out and live with me, that's great.
Mercy is Grace is great in the greatness of the need her see. Grace is great in the greatness of the giver.
But I as I was in this particular verse three, it's it's his abundant mercy because.
What condition or what state were we in when God began this work to fulfill His elect purpose of taking us to heaven to the glory to have an inheritance there? We were sinners in our sins.
We were people who delivered who in our condition.
And the holiness of God acting on that would say we have to be banished from his presence forever. And hell.
But according to his great mercy, he stepped in, just like in the first verse.
And or the second verse it says, speaks of the foreknowledge and election of God unto obedience.
Because Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden were in relationship with God as to obedience. But then they rebelled.
And then Israel under the law was under the covenant relationship of obedience, but there was nothing that produced it in them. It only manifested their state that they couldn't keep it and wouldn't keep it, no different than we would have been.
But God stepping in and giving us a purpose and inheritance that I'm going to produce.
And obedience that wasn't there before. And so by new birth, God gives us the life and nature that is that of Christ, which delights to obey. And so we've not only been called to an inheritance, but God has done a work that we can and should be. And obedient preachers, it's not the basis of our relationship. That's the sprinkling of the blood.
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But man as a creature was always intended of God to be obedient to him. And that's true even in a coming eternity. We will always be before God is obedient children in heaven. It's not the basis of our relationship. That's the work of Christ, but it is the character of the child before God to be obedient. And so as he says in that second verse.
We were elected, according to the foreknowledge of God, unto obedience.
And now we can be in proper relationship to God in that living new relationship where before and Adam all die. There was no hope for obedience in Adam's race after Adam and Eve sinned. Don't leave out the true sanctification of the Spirit. You can't have obedience without that. Well, that was what separated us to it. It was the working of God separating us to the two purposes, obedience.
Well, I should say to the unto obedience and the sprinkling of blood. God the Spirit was the work behind unto obedience and unto the sprinkling of blood.
Here is my point. Through sanctification of the Spirit comes first and then then comes the obedience, then comes the blood that.
You seem to leave that out.
It helps to, uh, connect this, uh, Exodus 24, you have, uh, under the law when the law is given.
It says here in verse 6, Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. He took the blood of the covenant and read it in the audience of all the people, and they said all that the Lord had said, Will we do and the obedient.
And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words. And this is what relates to Christianity. So they knew what that meant, the sprinkling of the blood. It was an obedience. They were to be obedient to the law. That, like you said, there was not the motivation. Now in Christianity we get a completely new life. We get the life of the Lord Jesus.
And so there is a delight to do the will of God.
Edit a little bit but it.
Expresses that in verse four. It's all to an inheritance.
The Israelite had an inheritance, but it was corruptible.
And it had to be passed on to the next generation. When he died. It was only his for as long as he lived, and then it even in itself, could be spoiled. It wasn't a perfect thing. And then sometimes, even in the governmental hand of God, he put his hand upon the people, and the land didn't produce.
The place of their blessing and they were constantly concerned about that, if God would put his hand upon them and spoil, if you will, their inheritance.
Through his government. But in a contrast, Peter is bringing to these dear believers, he said, But brethren, we have an inheritance through this living hope, which is.
Can't be spoiled. It can't be corrupted. It's an incorruptible one. It can't be defiled, it can't be tainted. It's not gonna fade away from us.
And it's reserved. It's ours. Nobody's gonna take it away from us. But it's not here. It's not here. It's reserved in heaven for us.
Sometimes we act like, or maybe some of us would say we act like.
We wanna have an inheritance now as long as we live here, and then when we have to leave here, we can't enjoy it anymore. Well, we're thankful we've got one in heaven and we'll have one there. And you might say we want the best of both worlds.
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But that's not.
A right attitude, that's not a right thought. The Lord Jesus was cast out. This world said you don't have an inheritance here.
And if we want to follow the Lord Jesus, we have to follow him where he is. And so the inheritance for us is not get the best you can now until you've got to leave it, and then you'll have something in heaven. But it is more, as Peter emphasizes in the rest of the chapter, you must take hold of these things only in faith. There's no other way to enjoy them but to go on.
And so he says in verse five, you're kept through faith.
And multiple times in the rest of the chapter, the issue of faith is wrought before them, because everything in this journey to the office before them, as it says in Hebrews 10 and then is illustrated in Hebrews 11.
The just shall live like they.
Could could someone contrast that inheritance there in first Peter one and verse four to the comparison that Paul speaks of in Ephesians one verse 11 in whom also we have a faith and inheritance?
There it seems like the inheritance maybe more present tense. I'm wondering if I'm perhaps an interpreted man incorrectly.
Well, I would suggest for us that it is the same inheritance because we have the conscious sense of.
Shall we say, being the inheritors? Now that is, we have it.
In the sense that it is just as sure to us as if we did have it in hand. Sometimes in this world people look for an inheritance, and I've known more than one person who thought that a particular will had been made out, usually of some member of the family, and that they were going to share in the inheritance. But then somehow things didn't work out that way and they didn't get it when the time came that the person in question died.
But God has that inheritance, as it says, reserved for us. I remember, and I'm quoting Clarence Lundin, I appreciated the remark. He said don't forget the words for you at the end of verse four, because he said the inheritance is not in that sense in heaven, nor is it heaven itself. What will make heaven the place that you and I will enjoy?
Will be the person of Christ and all that he is.
But the inheritance is all created things, and God in the purposes that he has for his Son, has made him an inheritor, or not made him, but given him an inheritance of all created things. And you and I are going to be privileged to share in that, aren't we? And so I believe what we get in Ephesians is similar in the sense of what we get here. It's just a different way of looking at it because in Ephesians.
We are already looked upon as risen and seated in heavenly places in Christ, and in that sense God wants us to enjoy in our hearts. Now what will be ours, you might say, in actual fact in the coming day. Is that is that correct? Let me add.
In Peter, the inheritance is in contrast with what they have as an earthly thing. Yes, the Gentiles had nothing. They have now an inheritance. Ephesians is written mostly to the Gentiles.
And to the Gentile believers, and they didn't have anything they could compare this new inheritance to like the Jew had. But what they're brought into is.
Is is beyond, uh, beyond, uh, compare. You might say it's the same inheritance, but it's looked at differently. One for the Jew, one for the Gentile. But I think the the greatest one is the if you can say one's greater than the other is the one in features.
00:40:02
Asians is the broadest view of the inheritance, I think. I like that too. Look at it there in the Ephesians one and verse 10:10 and 11:00 go together and I think it shows you that it is the broadest picture of the inheritance that we will inherit when Christ takes his inheritance, when the Lord Jesus is told.
Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth is thy possession. But here it says in the Ephesians 110, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, the millennial day, he might gather together in one all things in Christ. Now look at this, but both which are in heaven.
And which are on earth even in Him. So every created thing is part of that inheritance. Inheritance in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the council of His own will. Now look down at verse 14, Speaking of the Holy Spirit in verse 13. And he says in verse 14, which is the earnest of our inheritance.
Until the redemption of the purchased possession into the praise of his glory so that we haven't, uh, possessed the inheritance. It is ours in the promise of God. We're going to have it all. But he's given us the Holy Spirit now as the earnest, the down payment of our, of the inheritance so that we can enjoy the fact that we will be.
Possessors of all things, together with Christ.
Been helpful to me to consider where these two apostles saw the Lord and Paul was caught up into heaven and he saw things from that perspective. Peter saw the glory on the mouth on earth and he saw the glory there And, uh, it was a future, uh, revelation of the glory of those who will be here on earth. And so he speaks of it in, in that perspective. And you know, whereas Paul speaks, says the inheritance says.
As enjoyed in heaven or from heaven, Peter, as were from earth noticed in our chapter, uh, uh, in continuing on in the, uh, fifth verse, uh, inheritance is in verse four is reserved in heaven for you. And then verse five, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. That's when it's going to come down on earth, as it were.
And we manifested on Earth. And so Peter looks at it from that way.
And so salvation in Peter is always looked upon as that which we get at the end of the journey, isn't it? We are saved, it's true. And in that sense we know our sins forgiven through the work of Christ. In another sense, we're being saved, if we could say it, from the power of sin on a continual basis in our Christian lives.
But then Peter generally refers to it as that which we will get at the end of the journey.
When we enjoy it to its full, when we have our glorified bodies, when we no longer have the flesh in us, and when we actually have the possession of that inheritance of which it speaks here.
Ephesians 3 add to what Bob said.
Ephesians 3.
14 For this cause I bow my knees under the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole or every family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you according to the riches.
Of His glory to be strengthened with might by His Spirit and the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that she may be achieving, rooted and grounded in love. May be able to comprehend with All Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, the dimensions of the mystery, the breath, the length, the depth and height. We have a head that we sing and apply that and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.
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It applies it to the, that dimension, it applies to the load, but really it applies to the mystery. And, uh, that's, that's more than the Jews had at all in the Old Testament. It's more than that. It's, you might say God exhausts himself and what he's bringing us into.
If you inherited $1,000,000, what would you do with it?
Ask me after I get it.
Stop.
Well, I think a good answer is you just keep going with what you've got and give the rest away.
There are people in the world today who know that they are to inherit somebody else.
So it's the state, but they never get it.
They may die in some cases ahead of that person and then they die with maybe having lived their lives in anticipation of what Saddam was going to be great and they never never realized it because they don't live outlived the person that is going to give it. And I think that's part of why here is God is saying to us I called you to this purpose and I will oversee.
To be sure that you don't miss out, I'm going to see that you are brought into the full blessing that I have promised to you. And if God be for us, it says who can be against us? We have the one that the only one that could come in.
To state for sure you know, and the things of man nobody could tell a person well, you'll outlive so and so and.
With assurance that they were ever gonna get any inheritance that had been, I'll say, promised to them, but not so with God.
He, he tells them and, and it's given here to encourage our hearts, to encourage our souls not to give up in the journey, not to become discouraged and fall out by the way, and not enjoy. Some people have something but they don't or anticipate something they're going to get, but they can't enjoy it in anticipation.
But God has said to us, I want you to enjoy it.
A lot of things that we enjoy, we enjoy in anticipation of them.
You tell a young child they're old enough not to say now, now, now is now the time. But you say on Tuesday, God willing, we're going to have a picnic on Saturday and we're going to do this or that that they like and they'll enjoy it for the whole week.
In anticipation of it, and if we're looking forward to some events that's really a that we want to see happen, a wedding or something, then often times just the anticipation of it helps the spirit through the day.
Until the day the event comes, it's, I believe partly what is brought before us in this chapter is let's enjoy it. It's ours and it's ours to enjoy in anticipation and encouragement to our hearts. At the same time, sometimes God sees the need to put His hand on our lives and allow us to, as He says.
Experience heaviness.
In things that happen to us.
My wife's father used to make an application of a verse in the Old Testament, I believe the Psalms. It says my heart and my flesh pryeth out for the living God. And he used to comment with respect to the Lord's coming, that God would woo our hearts concerning his coming. My heart cryeth out for the living God. But he said sometimes God also sees the need to wean us.
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So that our flesh cries out for the living God, so that we are drawn away from finding a false sense of enjoyment and things that are going to be, that are corrupted, that are defiled, that are going to fade away. And instead of being occupied improperly and unnecessarily with them, sometimes God sees the need in our hearts to wean us.
So that we keep fixed on himself, the Lord Jesus.
And the inheritance that he will share with us.
Rejoicing in verse 6 and heaviness go together in an interesting.
Seemingly contradictory, but I, I appreciated what you mentioned before, Don, in verse five, you get faith and that's really what brings the joy is believing God. Sometimes we look around and we place our enjoyment as to our outward circumstances. If they're all what we like, then we have a major joy.
But that is not the reality of the Christian pathway in this world. There is a lot of things that are not to our enjoyment, but we can still have joy. We can rejoice in the measure that we believe. Look at verse 8. Whom having not seen ye love the Lord Jesus, in whom? Though now you see him, not yet.
Believing there's the key.
Ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Oh, how important that is to let our hearts be.
Resting in God, not in a certain set of circumstances that we like.
So important. There's another verse that says basically the same thing in Romans 15 verse 13. That is such a beautiful verse.
The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace.
In believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Remember, Brother Smith used to tell us that his first wife.
To whom he was married for five years before she had cancer of the brain and the Lord took her home. She wanted to go back to Julo amongst the Indians to die. And as she was dying on her bed, she said please open my Bible to Romans 1513 and lay my head on it. That's my pillow to die on.
The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.
You may bound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. That's the key is believing you believe God.
Kennedy trusted. He's told us about some magnificent things. Do you believe it?
And he does not diminish the difficulties of the way in verses 6 and seven, does he? They're real.
They're very real. And so as you say, Bob, there is heaviness sometimes. And here it says in verse six if need be.
Sometimes there is a need be as there was with the people of God in the Old Testament.
But then the other aspect of it is in verse 7, the trial of your faith.
I have suggested sometimes that in most of the trials that you and I experience, there is a mixture of the two.
And only the individual going through the trial can say in the Lord's presence where the needs be leaves off and the trial of our faith takes over, and vice versa. We sometimes, for example, hear dear believers who blame everything in their lives on some sin or getting away from the Lord or something like that. And it is well to be exercised about that because that can certainly be there.
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I have heard others who seem practically to blame everything or blame everything on an attack of Satan, as if it's the devil and their faith is being tried, never thinking that maybe the Lord is dealing with them for something. But here we get both brought together, don't we? Sometimes there is a need be, and I'm in heaviness through manifold temptation. Doesn't mean I can't rejoice. No, it doesn't.
But it does bring me into the Lord's presence to say, is there a need to be and do I need to deal with it? But then there is the trial of our faith. If a believer always had comfortable circumstances and everything went well, it would provoke the world to make the same comment as Satan did to the Lord concerning Job. Well, Lord, no wonder he is behaving so well and being such a good man. Everything's going his way.
You've put a hedge about them and health and wealth and prosperity are all his, so no wonder. But when there is a real trial of our faith going on, as it says here.
That faith is more precious than gold that perishes, and that trial is going to be found under praise and honor and glory. It is appearing because it proves the reality of what is within, doesn't it? It proves that that faith can sustain the trial and come through it.
And the world doesn't understand that. So I would suggest that many times in our lives there are both of these things, perhaps even combined in the same trial and in the Lord's presence. You and I can appreciate the trial, but at the same time deal with the needs be.
I would suggest that everybody in this room has benefited personally in your life.
From the trial or the proving of Abraham's faith?
That has stood through the Word of God right down to us, and every one of us have seen and in some sense entered into our souls of what it must have meant, whatever capacity we have when God decided to try or test the faith of Abraham to prove it.
And it's a precious thing, far more precious than any gold that will ever perish. Is that testimony to his faith? We learned the secret of what he thought in his soul in Hebrews 11 when he went through that trial. You don't, I don't think, finding it in the Old Testament. But what was he thinking?
He said, well, God promised me a son. He promised me that I that I think would be the seed of promise and the blessing. So to fulfill that promise, if he needs to, you'll raise him from the dead.
As we learn in Hebrews 11, tremendous test of his faith, he'd never seen anybody raised from the dead, never heard of anybody raised from the dead, but he believed God, and God was honored. God was glorified in that.
Acts of faith of Abraham and if I could put it this way, I believe that every act of faith in your life and mine is being treasured of God.
Treasured up of God, he finds great pleasure even though he's the source of it.
As he is, of all things still, God finds a pleasure, a joy. It's a treasure to his own heart when he sees the expression of faith in the children of God.
It's important to realize that the start, the absolute beginning of all dishonor to God and man, started with unbelief that led to the act of disobedience.
But he mistrusted the goodness that's in the heart of God. She listened to the liar and trusted the liar more than God, and brought all the grief that has come into mankind since that moment and ever since then. It's the heart of God to, as it were, have again in His creature.
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That trust of himself. And so if He allows in our lives something that is on the side of not the need to be, but the proving of our faith, it's a precious thing. It's a precious thing. It's not. It's more precious, I think, on God's side than it is on ours. But it's a precious thing to God. And yet he'll turn around. And if you will honor us in the coming days for what was there, just like we honor even now Abraham, and we will honor Abraham in the glory.
Giving the credit where it's due to God, but still it will be a eternal joy in heaven.
The proving of Abraham's faith. And perhaps in our lives there will be lesser things. Probably none of us would ever rise to that in the same way. But still every little thing God sees in us, that is, honors Him by trusting Him is.
Precious.
Abraham did say in Genesis 22 This he said, I and the lad will go Yonder and worship and come again. Not only was he talking about himself coming again, but he's talking about Isaac.
Mm-hmm. This was threatened to Jews, that Jews could have been scattered and they were being persecuted and then looked for the Kingdom to be manifested here and then and it was postponed until the Lord came back. So Peter is is describing here. Not only that the wind is going to be revealed. He's been telling them that.
They inherited, this cap is reserved in heaven. They are also kept in the interval and they held them a third thing, the trials. The tests along the way are only for your good, to test your faith, to prove it real.
To to make it good things are not out of control God allowed it isn't just because the enemies at work and God has this frustrated and has to wait until they can make his Kingdom known. It's a wonderful thing to know that the trials.
That He lets us go through or for a purpose of testing, improving our faith so that it can be put on display when He comes back.
It really should encourage it, shouldn't it? We sometimes don't see the reasons of the trial. This really tells us the reasons of it.
Abraham, he didn't have to give his son.
Found a ram, caught the thicket.
But with Joe.
He lost everything.
And he says in the middle of the book, he says, I will not give up my righteousness.
And that's what all of us are guilty of.
All guilty of pride and when he conduct the judge that.
I have heard of me by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see if thee will, before I have for myself.
When we really get in the presence of God, what can we do but abhor ourselves?
And then he got twice as much as he had before. Yeah. And he did have faith, didn't he? And he and it and it, his faith carried him through. God carried him through. So there's a witness there.
Says in verse 8, Whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now you see him not yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, And make a little application of this from the life of Mephibosheth.
David had shown his love.
In his love for Jonathan.
Kindness toward his family. And so he takes up Mephibosheth, and he brings him to sit at his table and enjoy his love and his care of him and David.
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Please uh, because of the rebellion of Epsilon.
And my purpose is separated from David.
And as of where he lives in Saquon, nothing mattered to him.
As long as you David didn't have his place.
And when David is restored to his place, that's enough from artificial.
He's satisfied he doesn't need anything for himself, but David has his place.
Brethren.
We should be satisfied with the Lord Jesus presently at least in the heavenly side as its place.
God has raised him from the dead. God has seated him at his right hand.
And if our hearts are in any measure like that of Mephibosheth.
Even though we don't see them yet face to face.
Just the knowledge that he has his place there, he's going to have his place on earth, and we are rejoicing in anticipation of seeing him have it here. But even as we await our place with him, there can be with us a joy that satisfies our souls. Not only in the anticipation of it. Can I say for ourselves, but there's a better motive. There's a higher motive than that.
And that is to say, he has his place at the right hand of God.
Exalted there. And if he's everything, if he is truly the object of the heart, that's everything.
It's not whether I'm gonna have anything. My physician didn't need anything for himself to satisfy his heart.
Let's vibrahathy inheritance, Stephen.
He, he, he, he didn't care.
And, and, and, uh, in the best sense of the word, we don't need to care whether we get into the inheritance anyways. Yes, we're encouraged by it. It's brought before us here. It's really his inheritance that he wants to share with us that forms the basis of it all. He said, well, I won't take my inheritance without letting you be part of it. And so I'm going to have it in you and you're going to be part of my inheritance too. But the other side to me, the more wonderful side is.
The heart can be full of joy now, just thinking about what he has.
That's that's present, isn't that verse?
The salvation of your soul.
Hard to know how to answer that. I'd always taken it to be the present enjoyment of what we will get in the future, but is there more than that there?
There's something a lot more than what we're going to get. We're going to be in his presence.
Well, I'm including that.
Well, man is a tripartite thing. We have not decided only the body, but we've got the soul and the spirit and.
For the southwest of the body, we got to wait until the end of the journey, but I don't think we have to wait for the celebration of the soul and spirit until the end of the journey.
He had all the people on the boat with him. He got a vision.
Anisha Square, for I believe God that shall be, even as it was told me, as faith in what God had said.
And they were all saved. Escape shaped land.
Mr. Darby has a footnote that I think is helpful. He says literally salvation of souls in contrast with temporal deliverances to which, as Jews, they were accustomed to look, that is.
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We know that we have presently the salvation of our soul. We presently in have eternal life. But sometimes Scripture uses the word soul as to that which distinguishes between the body and the spirit.
But I think Mr. Darby's footnote suggests that in this particular verse, it's referring to the soul as the whole person, not as a distinguishing between spirit and body. And in that sense it's still future because.
We're Peter looks at it as you're safe when you're safe home and you're on a journey and it's going to be a journey that.
Will result in the safely getting home to glory and the inheritance and the presence of the Lord Jesus and he says the footnote says it's a contrast to the Jew whose deliverance is on earth is deliverance was from temporal things.
Our deliverance is that which delivers us fully and completely and forever from everything that sin has ever spoiled.
So we look for that still, uh, to be in that place of deliverance, full deliverance. And Peter later speaks, uh, of the body when he's making it as a separate thing. And he says, umm, as to our bodies, to wit, the redemption of the body. Uh, we still wait for that.
When the Lord Jesus paid the price on the cross for us, he not only redeemed our souls, but he redeemed our bodies too. He paid for the body as well, but the results of that payment are still future, Peter says. And so we wait for that.
As a future thing, the redemption of the body. And uh, it's not as Brother Clem says until we're in heaven that it will be, umm, the payment will be realized in its full results. So it's still that which is before us. But when I just make that comment, if anyone's ever been questioned or wondered about the matter of cremation as well, to dwell on that verse that Peter says.
As to the Lord's saying, I paid for that body.
We need to always treat the body with the respect of recognition that it belongs to the Lord Jesus, not to man that is of a believer.
It's hard to think of getting deliverance.
Think of anything better than this.
Because when we're there.
And everyone of us thinks highly of ourselves in some way.
I'd like to mention I mentioned that before, but it helps me greatly in the matter of Jones case.
Job was really everything he said he was.
As far as God's view of it, and God says it multiple times in the book of Job, that there was nobody like him, he was righteous and sense that's given there.
The problem with respect to Job and his pride is that God is the one that had made him what he was.
But Joe turned around and took the credit for it.
And that was the place where his pride came out. And that is the greatest. At least one of the greatest places where pride can come into our hearts and into our lives is the very thing in which God has worked in us, to His glory perhaps, but not certainly always to His credit. And then we turn around in our hearts and take it the credit for it, as if we had been the one.
That made us that way. So Joel said. I won't give up my righteousness. I.
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I don't care what God says or does, He can't take that away from me.
But he didn't recognize in the beginning was Job. God gave you that.
God's the one that made you that.
And it's to God to credit belongs, but you're taking it for yourself.
And that's pride, and that's wrong, and I'm going to have to teach you otherwise. And there are many, many subtle spiritual ways in which pride can creep into us. Suppose we know a little something more than some other believer.
Why do we know more? If we do? The credit belongs to God and He's the one that's to be honored in it.
Do we walk in a path that is according to His Word and we can look at somebody else and point to Scripture and say they don't? Well, perhaps in some things we do, they might on something else. Do the backs reverse with us?
But in some other truth different than the one we tend to emphasize, and whatever thing we think we do right. But God's not pleased with us if we take to ourselves the credit of that which belongs to Him.
Because we're robbing Him of his glory.
Joe was robbing God of a glory that belonged to God as having made Jove a righteous man. And if we take in pride credit to ourselves for things that are really the source of the menace is God, then we rob God of his glory. And he says, I will not give my glory to another.
The word glory is used in this next verse, the 11 and our old brother Potter used to teach us that he should make that word plural. The glories that should follow.
And they are infinite. And I believe that's true. There's no end to them. The glory that should follow the sufferings of Christ.
In the Old Testament, they were able to look upon his hindrance parts.
They couldn't look upon him directly.
One where? In his presence.
Insomuch that the creature can look upon him directly, will have that privilege. There's something that's beyond that. I know that, First Timothy.
He dwells in light unapproachable, which no man has seen nor can see. But whatever we can see, it is the fullness of it that we mere creatures can see will rid us of pride. Got you.
They shall see his face, it says.
It's interesting here. The prophets, the Old Testament that prophesied.
The says of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently. He prophesied in the grace which should come unto you. They wrote those things by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
And then they looked at what they had written, and they didn't understand what it meant, David wrote. They pierced my hands and my feet. They wrote that he must have looked at that.
They didn't understand what that meant.
Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us, they'd administer the things which are now reported unto you by them which have preached the holy, preach the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Which things the angels desire to look into. So the prophets of the Old Testament times didn't understand the angels desire to look into it.
But here we are, brethren, we can enjoy it. The Holy Spirit has made these things known to us. Oh, how wonderful is the position that we occupy now in this present time.