Notes of a Lecture on the First Epistle of Peter.
In this epistle we get the sorrows of the saints detailed, and the consolation provided for each character of sorrow. We may call it the epistle of the lamp and the girdle—light and strength. The more sorrow, the brighter is hope; sorrow is the parent of hope. If in a path of sorrow, we are prisoners of hope. What has a prisoner to do but to hope when the dungeon alone surrounds him, and chains keep him fast? He is shut up to hope. And this I believe is the condition and calling of the saints down here.
The wilderness lay between Egypt and Canaan. There was no green meadow. Judgment was behind, glory before them—the land of death behind, the place of rest before.
This epistle takes up the wilderness character. It takes up present sorrows, but abounds in hope.
We like to go on too often in easy and smooth circumstances, our lusts and desires gratified, but God cannot go on with you in this path. How much better to have God with you though in the path of sorrow.
In this epistle we do not get the sorrow of penitence and confession of sin, though this humbling of ourselves, this sorrow for sin, is blessed indeed, when our conscience has got defiled; but here we get sorrows connected with our walk with God, and the needed strength and comfort for each one.
In Chapter 1:6 is the first character of affliction—the trial of faith. This belongs to you because you have the faith of God’s elect. Faith must be put to trial; it is, as it were, a heavenly stranger in an earthly world; it cannot escape affliction when faith is put to the trial. What is the comfort? “It shall be found,” &c. If our hearts were set on God’s object, would not that be comfort? The trial would re-appear in that day in a new character altogether. Are saints now looked down upon? reproached? despised? Wait a little. All this will pass through a beautiful transfiguration. There is a transfiguration for our circumstances and sorrows, as well as for our vile bodies; they shall be changed. Be assured all we want is a heart for Christ—to value what we have in Him. All is provided—the comfort, the strength. We can never want Christ to do more for us than He has done. If I had the heart for Christ, I should welcome each trial of faith. Again I say, if we had a heart for Christ, we should welcome poverty, shame, reproach, dishonor.
In Chapter 2:18 the character of sorrow is more ordinary. It is in common with the world. It comes not from the saint’s faith, as in chap. 1. My ungodly neighbor may suffer the same, and we think there is no comfort in it, because of this. If Job had argued so, he would have lost all the consolation. He might have thought the same wind and lightning might have caused the same disaster to his neighbor; but to my own soul, the beauty of the history of Job is its being the ordinary wear and tear of everyday life. The very commonness of the trial raises it if we take it up as saints. Job’s circumstances were not touched till all had passed under the view of his heavenly Father. What consolation this gives in ordinary trials. The very relationship of life causes us trial, but we see patience under these sorrows is acceptable with God. (1 Thess. 4:11Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. (1 Thessalonians 4:1).) Oh! beloved, is there any richer consolation than this, to know that I, a poor feeble saint, walking amid the circumstances and relationships of life, can be acceptable to God?
Oh! we want hearts for God, for these things, beloved! It is not the moralist who can talk of the dignity of our nature, and of exercising patience, but it is the loving child that can please his Father.
In Chapter 13:13 we get sorrow which comes from our maintaining a walk, in righteousness in the midst of evil. This often costs a good deal. What are we to do? Refuse temptation at all hazards, and maintain a walk of integrity before God. Where is your comfort amid such circumstances? When doing this you are entitled to sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Oh! beloved, is there nothing in this? To have Him occupying our hearts—to be able to retire into His presence with confidence? If you look up, you have an approving countenance meeting you; to have Him unfolding the secrets of His love. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” Ah! how well we know what it is to humble ourselves in His presence—to confess our failure in dust and ashes—to cry, “unclean, unclean;” needful work at times, but miserable work. I can never sanctify the Lord in my heart if I have not a good conscience. How blessed to have our heart His sanctuary, where He dwells! Here, then, we get sufferings connected with righteousness.
In Chapter 4:11, they are connected with holiness; the one an outward thing, the other an inward. Ah I what inward conflicts I have the moment I have life. All that is of nature is against me. I carry a nature which is sensitive to the least touch of defilement. We must count upon conflicts between flesh and spirit. “Arm yourselves with the same mind.” Here it is living to the will of God. The nature I get in Christ is in collision with all that is of the flesh. The child of God is taken out of the morals of the world; he is not called to walk merely as a moral man, but according to the thoughts of the Holy Ghost. He is separated unto God. Everything of Christ is peculiar. I love such mysterious truth, I love peculiar morality, it has the stamp that it belongs to God.
In Chapter 4:12 we get martyr-sorrows. Do you take the place with a rejected Jesus, or with the proud world? If there is a single thing that is blessed, it is to take our place with a rejected Jesus. The glory is set before us here for our comfort. The glory is not yet seen; while Stephen was being stoned he saw the glory of God.
All we want is a heart for all these things; a heart to value what we have in Christ. You may have sorrows here, but do you ever transfigure them? Then the first shall be last, and the last first. We want power to walk with God in the midst of these sorrows. To remember the Church is in the wilderness, the pillar and ark are with you, and rest is before you.
This lamp, through all the tedious night
Of life, shall guide our way:
Till we behold the clearer light
Of an eternal day.