The following sermon was delivered
at the Trinity Baptist Church in Monkville, New Jersey, by
Pastor Albert N. Martin. This is another sermon
in the series of expositions in the First Epistle of Peter. Now let us turn together to 1
Peter 1, 1 Peter 1, and follow please in your Bibles as I read
verses 3 through 9. 1 Peter 1, beginning in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy,
begot us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and
undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for
you. who by the power of God are guarded
through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last
time. Wherein you greatly rejoice,
though now for a little while, if need be, you have been put
to grief in manifold trials, that the proof of your faith
being more precious than gold that perishes, though it is proved
by fire, may be found unto praise and honor and glory at the revelation
of Jesus Christ, whom, not having seen, you love, on whom, though
you now see him not, yet believing, you rejoice greatly with joy
unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith,
even the salvation of your souls. Now let us again ask God's help
and blessing upon our own hearts and minds as we were reminded
in the previous hour the great principle resurrected under the
ministry of Luther and the other great reformers that the spirit
of God who gave the word alone can teach us inwardly and accurately
that truth which he himself is given. Let us look then to God
to grant us that present aid of the spirit. Again, our Father,
we delight to come to you as the Father who is pleased to
give good gifts to those who ask him. And that great gift
for which we now ask is the present powerful ministry of the Holy
Spirit, taking the dullness from our minds, undressing our eyes
that we might behold wondrous things out of your law. Give
us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of yourself,
that we may understand your ways, that we may be given the grace
to be honest with the state of our own hearts, that we may accurately
know you, know ourselves, and know the way of blessing marked
out in the Scriptures. Meet with us then, we plead,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Now I'm confident that there
are many Christians here this morning who, over the years of
your Christian experience, have committed yourselves to some
course of regular, systematic reading through the Scriptures.
You may not read through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation
every year, but over the course of two, three years, you find
yourself going through the entirety of the Word of God in some kind
of systematic order. And if that's true of you, then
you have found, as I have found, many times in that regular, programmed,
scheduled reading of the Word of God, some portion in that
particular day's reading was tailor-made for the need of that
day. Had you been searching for a
passage somewhere between Genesis 1.1 and the last verse in Revelation
22, you know you could not have found a more appropriate passage
than that which came up in your regular systematic reading through
the scriptures. And what is true of the individual
believer is true in the life of this congregation. Ever since
we began in 1967, we committed ourselves to the consecutive
reading through the New Testament in our morning worship services.
Some years later, we began to do that with the Old Testament. And we have found as a congregation,
time after time, the regular, consecutive, public reading of
the Word has brought forward a passage, an incident, a principle,
a precept that was tailor-made to our congregational life. And
that's also been true of the systematic preaching through
books or large sections of the Bible, or the systematic unfolding
of certain themes in the scriptures. And unknown to the one who began
that series, God who knew the end from the beginning, tailor-made
something in that consecutive exposition that was specifically
addressed to a critical concern in the congregation that no one
could ever have anticipated. And surely that has been our
experience in recent weeks. It was six Lord's Days ago, March
the 8th to be precise, that in the consecutive expositions of
Peter's first epistle, it was my privilege in this pulpit to
attempt to open up in your hearing verses 6 and 7. Having laid out
before these elect sojourners of the dispersion in Asia Minor
their great and glorious salvation, Peter says in verse 6 that in
this salvation you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while,
if need be, you have been put to grief in manifold trials. that the proof of your faith
being more precious than gold that perishes, though it is proved
by fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation
of Jesus Christ. I expounded the text six Lord's
Days ago under the heading, Abounding Joy and Crushing Grief, A Paradox
of Genuine Christian Experience. And little did I know, and little
did you know as a congregation, just how relevant these words
would be in the following days and weeks between then and now. I can say without fearing that
I'm embellishing facts with rhetorical devices, these verses were nothing
short of exquisitely timely in the life of our congregation. In the course of opening up the
text, we had occasion to note that the trials which occasion
the crushing grief are purposeful. We looked at that little phrase,
though now for a little while, if need be. And that need is
rooted in the inscrutable wisdom and the sovereign purpose of
God. And we noted the immediate purpose
of that trial, and that is that our faith may be put to the test
and validated as real. This manifold trial is to the
end in order that there may be a proving of our faith. untested
faith is worth little and the immediate purpose Peter says
for which manifold trials come is to put our faith to the test
and to validate it as real but then there's an ultimate purpose
that your faith may be purified and vindicated in the last day. The ultimate purpose is that
this proven, tested faith may be found unto praise and glory
and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, given that
aspect of the opening up of the text, one of my final observations
and applications was couched in these words. True saving faith
will always become a tried and tested faith in order that it
may be a praiseworthy faith in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. and given the dispositions of
divine providence that have placed us in a six-week classroom to
learn this lesson or to change the imagery, a six-week laboratory
in which the Spirit of God has been testing our faith as a body
of God's people and for many of us as individuals We have
faced what to some of us has been the most severe test of
our faith since we first professed to lay hold of Christ as our
Savior and our Lord. And as we ease back into our
verse-by-verse study of 1 Peter, What I want to do this morning
is taking what I've already done by way of review of the heart
of our study in our last exposition, I want to speak to you on the
subject, how our recent trials have been the smelting furnace
of our faith. How our recent trials have been
the smelting furnace of our faith. It was one thing for me as a
teacher of the Word to seek responsibly to open up the text. It was one
thing for you to sit with a discerning critical mind in the right sense
and to see if what was expounded was indeed true to the language
and the connection of thought. It's quite another thing to have
understood the principles of God's purpose in manifold trials
with respect to the purifying of faith. It has been quite another
to be in a six-week furnace. It has been quite another thing
to have been thrust into a six-week laboratory experience engineered
by the God of Heaven. And it would be tragic to come
out of the laboratory and out of the classroom and wonder what
it was all about. And so what I'm going to attempt
to do this morning without any claim to direct revelation, no
angel has come in the middle of the night and whispered in
my ear, But by examining the scriptures, seeking to be true
to my sense of what God has been doing with us, I want to speak
to you very pastorally this morning on how our recent trials have
been the smelting furnace of our faith. And I want you to
consider with me three ways in which the recent trials have
been calculated by God to put our faith into the smelting furnace,
and to test it, and to purify it, and to develop it, not only
with a view to proving its present validity, but with a view to
it being praiseworthy in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I will give a disproportionate
amount of time to the first heading, so when it takes me a good 25
minutes to get through, don't get nervous, you're not going
to be here to 115. The first thing that I am convinced
with all of my heart God has been teaching us through this
present trial is this. Our present trials are testing
the depth of our believing attachment to the person of Christ. Our
present trials are testing the depth of our believing attachment
to the person of Christ. Now please note that all of the
words have to do with us. I am saying nothing about those
who have left us. I am thinking nothing about those
who left us. My concern is with us. our, our life, our perception
of God's dealings with us. And I'm prepared to assert that
our present trials are testing the depth of our believing attachment
to the person of Christ. Now if I'm going to carry your
judgment, you've got to think with me as I try to take several
building blocks of biblical truth and set them out in your hearing.
According to the scriptures, saving faith has as its peculiar
or special object, the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now
that's a simple statement. The failure to grasp it has created
tremendous confusion among many professing Christians. Let me
repeat it. According to the Scriptures,
saving faith has as its peculiar or special object the person
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Saving faith includes belief
in many other things. But saving faith has as its peculiar
object the person of Christ. Familiar texts clearly teach
this. John 1.12, He came unto His own,
His own received Him not. But to as many as received Him,
to them gave He the right to become the children of God, even
to them that believe on His name. Saving faith has as its peculiar
object the person of Christ, as many as received Him. It doesn't
say as many as received His finished work, as many as received the
atonement. No, it says as many as received
Him who finished the work and made the atonement. When the
jailer, out of agony of conviction, cried out, Sirs, what must I
do to be saved? What did Paul and Silas tell
him to do? Believe in the finished work
of Christ and you will be saved. No, they didn't say that. Acts
16.31 does not say, believe in the finished work, any more than
it says, believe in the resurrection, believe in the incarnation. It
says, believe on what? The Lord Jesus Christ, and you
shall be saved. Oh yes, it is the Christ who
was incarnate. It is the Christ who died and
rose and is ascended. But the peculiar object of saving
faith is never a facet of the work of Christ. It is always
Christ Himself who accomplished redemption for sinners. Right
here in our text, 1 Peter 1.8, having mentioned the revelation
of Jesus Christ, the subject of the pronoun whom is Christ. Whom not having seen, you love,
on whom though you now see Him not yet believing. Peter says
these Christians are those who believe on Jesus Christ. Now it is never Christ apart
from his work, but it is not his work apart from his person.
Therefore, the most helpful description of saving faith I have ever found
is given by Professor Murray in his lovely little book, Redemption
Accomplished and Applied, in which he states, is self-commitment
to Christ in all the glory of his person and the perfection
of his work as he is so freely and fully offered to us in the
gospel. What's it mean to believe unto
salvation? It is to commit yourself to this
person, the person of the sinner, committing himself to the person
of the Savior in all the glory of his person and in all the
perfection of his work. That's building block number
one. Building block number two, and you've got to keep your thinking
cap on, is this. The same scriptures that teach
that the person of Christ is the unique object of faith, also
teach us that whenever the Lord Jesus becomes the object of saving
faith, he becomes the object of supreme devotion and unrivaled
love. Whenever he becomes the object
of faith, he becomes at the same time the object of supreme devotion
and unrivaled love. Look right here at verse 8. Peter
assumes that not only is Christ the object of their faith, but
he says, whom not having seen, you love. And God willing, next
week we're going to preach on that. Christ, the object of the
faith and the love of all true believers. Peter cannot conceive
of someone believing upon Christ who does not love Christ. because
Peter understands that it is morally and spiritually impossible
to be brought by the Spirit of God to saving faith in Christ
and not to embrace him as the object of supreme devotion and
unrivaled love. Therefore, whenever Christ was
calling people to himself, he made this abundantly clear. If
you are not coming to me, and you do not see in me that which
is worthy of your unrivaled devotion and love, you cannot be my disciple. Luke 14.25 and following. He
saw great multitudes coming to him, and he turned and said,
If any man come to me, and hate not father, mother, brother,
sister, yes, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Matthew 10, 34 and following.
Do not think that I came to send peace on the earth. I came not
to send peace, but a sword. I came to set a man against his
father, the daughter against her mother, the daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of
his own household. You say, that's not like Jesus.
Then you better get to Jesus of the Bible. He said, I came
not to bring peace, but a sword. I thought he was the prince of
peace. He is, but he's the prince of the sword. Why? Because when
he calls people into a saving relationship with himself, he
always does so in such a way that he becomes the object of
their supreme devotion and unrivaled love. And if the dearest human
relationships, father, mother, brother, sister, and the attachment
to my own life stands in the way of the demands of attachment
to him, he says he must take precedent or we are not worthy
to be his disciples. Now if you doubt that, look at
it in your own Bible, Matthew 10, 34 and following. I've not
read something in, I've quoted the text. Now, do you see where
we're going? Building block number two in
place. This being true, that in all saving faith, the person
of Christ is the unique object of faith, and wherever Christ
is believed on unto salvation, he is embraced in a disposition
of unrivaled love and supreme affection. In the devil's effort
to keep people from getting saved, what does he focus upon more
than anything else? He focuses upon putting something
between the sinner and Christ as the object of faith. And something
between the sinner and Christ as the supreme object of devotion. So you have people thinking they
can bring their brownie points to God. Like the Pharisee in
Luke chapter 18. I do this, I do that, I don't
do this, I don't do that. God is not interested in your
brownie points. He's only interested when the
sinner in the nakedness of his need lays hold of Christ himself. But what did we read about in
Matthew 19? We found someone that wanted to go to heaven by
Jesus. And Jesus said, you won't go
to heaven by me until I become your biggest, most precious treasure. Go, sell what you have. Give
to the poor, you will have treasure in heaven. The treasure I'm going
to purchase as I continue to make my way up to Jerusalem,
there to die upon a cross. But Mr. Rich Young Ruler, listen
to me. You will never believe on me
unto eternal life until you see in me the one worthy of your
unrivaled devotion. Mark 10 says, Jesus looking on
him loved him, but he let him go. He would not deceive him
to think he could have eternal life by faith where Jesus Christ
was not to be embraced as the supreme object of devotion and
unrivaled love. Now follow closely, just as the
devil does everything to keep the sinner from coming to Christ
in the naked grasp of faith, and in the abandonment of unrivaled
commitment to love Him supremely, when He's lost His ground and
the Spirit of God has overcome those things, and we have embraced
Christ as our only hope of life and salvation, and He has taken
the place of unrivaled affection and love, The devil spends the
rest of his time until we go to heaven trying to beat us off
that ground. And he gets us to put something
else between us and Christ as we live the Christian life. And
he attempts to bring something or someone else between us and
Christ in the realm of our affections. Now you see where we're going.
What's God been teaching us? in this six week classroom what
has God been doing in this six week laboratory when some of
the deepest ties of human affection have been fractured and broken
and ripped apart I'll tell you what he's doing he is testing
the depth of our believing attachment to the person of his own dear
son That's what he's been doing. Because all true faith is a faith
that is not only attached to Christ as the only hope of salvation,
but is attached to Christ as the object of supreme devotion
and unrivaled love. And God has thrown us into this
furnace, put us into this laboratory, to do what? Test the depth. of our believing attachment to
the person of Christ. Precisely how has this been true
in this present trial? Well, let me try to outline it
for you. Christ, by his grace, has brought many of you to himself
by the mighty work of the Spirit. John 10, 16, Other sheep I have
that are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall
hear my voice. There shall be one fold, one
shepherd. God has said in his word that
it's Christ himself who gathers the sheep for whom he laid down
his life. He comes, Paul says in Ephesians 2, he came and preached
peace to you who were far off and those who were near. Christ
through his servants speaks his word and his word lays hold of
his sheep for whom he died. And it is Christ who brought
you to himself in the bonds of spirit wrought faith and love.
But now listen carefully. It is the same Christ who by
his providence incorporated you into this particular body of
his people. It was not some accident or mere
personal preference that you became a part of this body, not
this religious club, this body. This family of God, this living
temple with living stones, you remember in Acts chapter 2, it
says, and the Lord added to them daily such as should be saved.
You found yourself in the Jerusalem church, you were to regard your
presence as a revelation of the activity of the risen Lord. The
Lord added to them. And when you read in chapter
5, believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes of men
and women. What do they mean added to the
Lord? They were added to the church in Jerusalem. So the same
Christ whose word found you and drew you to himself, securing
in your heart that place of the sole trust for your salvation
and the supreme object of your love and devotion, that same
Christ brought you into this assembly. this family, this living
temple. Now, some have chosen to leave
this body. I say nothing about them, that
some have chosen. That's a statement of fact. For
anyone to go out and say Pastor Martin spoke, that's a lie. I'm
saying nothing negative. I'm stating a fact. Some have
chosen to leave this assembly. None have been excommunicated.
None have been disciplined out. Some have chosen to leave this
body. some have chosen to excise themselves
from this family they have chosen to extricate their place as a
living stone in this living temple for whatever reason to his own
master or servant stands or falls that's a fact but now you sit
here still a part of this body into which Christ has placed
you by his spirit still a part of this family still a part of
this living temple and as you sit here today you have no compelling
reason from Christ speaking in his word or through inescapable
providence to believe that God wants you to leave this body
to cut yourself off from this family or to extricate yourself
as a living stone in this living temple That's true of many of
us here today, right? We have no compelling reason
from the word of Christ or from the providence of Christ. The
only way to provide for your family is to take a job transfer
and you must transfer to another church somewhere else. That's
what I'm talking about, the providence of Christ. You're convinced that
had no one left us in the last six weeks, your leaving us would
never cross your mind. Okay? There's been nothing from
the word in terms of the ministry, in terms of the providence of
God that would have caused you to even begin to think, shall
I cut myself off from this body? Shall I take myself out of this
family? Shall I extricate myself as a
living stone from this living temple of Christ? But what's
happened? While others have cut themselves
off from the body, taken themselves out of the family, extricated
themselves from the living temple, you now feel tensions that are
very uncomfortable. You now have interaction with
people, the mark of which is awkwardness and unnaturalness. That's very real. Anybody say
amen to that? Am I in la la land or am I in
the real world, folks? I think I'm in the real world.
Where once you greeted people and never thought about how you're
going to greet them, you just greeted them. Whether it was
a hi, a hug or whatever. And now you see them 30 yards
away and you're all tense and you break out in a cold sweat.
Anybody like that? I cast my vote, I don't like
it. grief and pain and emotional
distance and the only way you see to get rid of the pain the
grief the tension the awkwardness is to cut yourself off from this
body to take yourself out of this family and to extricate
yourself from this living temple and in your present judgment
you say that would ease the tension that would relieve me of the
awkwardness, but now you've got a problem. Who put you here? You say, Christ joined me to
this assembly, and if Christ does not remove you, and He only
works by His Word and His providence, not by subjective feelings, then
for you, This is a test of what? Of the depth of your believing
attachment to the person of Jesus Christ. Now notice I've chosen
my words carefully. I did not say that any who left
us, their attachment to Christ is suspect. I said no such thing. That is for God to judge. But
if I can't minister to my own sheep, may God have mercy on
me. That's what I'm supposed to do. I'm talking to you, my
dear people. And I am saying, unless the clear
Word of Christ in which He judges false shepherds on facts, not
rumors, and false teachers by what they teach contrary to the
Word of God. And a church that is no longer
a true church because it won't discipline, it won't order its
worship. That's how Christ delineates
when you ought to leave a church. For when by His providence He
extricates you and it's unavoidable As he did at the Jerusalem church. They had an exodus that makes
ours look like kids play. Overnight. Read Acts chapter
8. They that were scattered abroad
upon the persecution. It was let loose by Saul and
came to its focal point in the death of Stephen. The church
was more than decimated. Technically that means a tenth.
They were blasted. Went to the four winds. That
was divine providence. So you see, folks, and I speak
especially to you women who've been peculiarly vulnerable at
the emotional level. Cut through the smoke of your
emotions and look into the face of your Savior and say, Lord
Jesus, Can I say, based on Your Word and Your unavoidable providence,
that You, Lord Jesus, who called me to Yourself, You who by the
Spirit placed me in this body, in this family, in this living
temple, You, Lord Jesus, are taking me out of the body, away
from the family, and out of the living temple. If not, then what
our Lord is doing is putting to the test the depth of your
believing attachment, not to the church, but to his own person. You see it? I hope you see it. For some of us, that's helped
us to keep a very steady course. I never entered the ministry
or assumed the pastoral office in this church because I thought
it was going to be easy. Nor did I do it with fine print
that said, I'll hang in there until the going gets hot and
the rumors get vicious and murderous. No, I said in principle, till
death do us part or until God, the head of the church, through
the spirit and his word, puts me somewhere else and these people
know it, I'm here till I die. See, it's a matter. of who you're
attached to. And you remember what happened
in that incident in John chapter 6? Now I want us to turn there
now. I've quoted all the other verses to you. I've not misquoted
them. But I want you to see this. You remember the incident in
the ministry of our Lord? One of the high points of his
popularity, multitudes following him, pressing even to make him
a king. Then the Lord begins to unfold certain truths that
are offensive And then we read in verse 66 of John 6, upon this
many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.
Jesus said, therefore unto the twelve, would you also go away? Do you will to go away? And Simon Peter answered him,
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. Now the principle that I want
us to see in the passage I am not saying that those who have
left us or if you should leave this church it's a proof you're
leaving Christ I say no such thing I think no such thing but
think of this situation It says, many of his disciples, these
are people who had attached themselves to Jesus, were following him
when he went from place to place to teach, so much so that he
had to perform the miracle of multiplying the loaves and the
fishes. They'd gone three days without eating. Now, when you're
with people day and night, day after day, attached to the same
ministry, Do you develop some sense of camaraderie and interaction
at the human level? Of course you do. So when it
says many went back and walked with him no more, there was a
fracturing not only of their relationship to this rabbi, to
Jesus, but the relationship to those who were still attached
to him. These are not a bunch of plastic
wooden men. No doubt they felt some of this.
But when Jesus turns to question them, he does not say, what do
you think of those who have gone away? What is your assessment
of the rationale for their going away? In a sense, Jesus forgets
those who went away. And that's not my concern this
morning. I keep repeating it, because as often as I do, If
someone sits here like the Pharisees did, waiting to catch Jesus in
his words, they'll go out and report and say, Pastor Martin
lambasted those who left and I'll just have to live with the
lie. But I hope you won't believe it. You were here and you heard
it straight from the horse's mouth. Saying nothing about those
who go away. But Jesus turns to those who
remain and says, are you going to join them? That's the question
he asks. Would you also go away? For whatever
reason, have you seen that in me, Jesus says? Have you heard
that from my lips, which will cause you to defect and go away? And Peter's answer is, Lord,
to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. What is the principle? The principle is not that we
are Christ. The principle is that Christ has called you into
attachment to himself. And in that attachment, He has
attached you to this assembly of His people. And it is in this
assembly that Christ speaks by His word and through His servants.
He has given to this assembly specific pastors and teachers.
To do what? To help perfect the saints unto
the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ. Oh,
but you say, I hear Christ in my devotions. I hope you do.
but the voice of Christ is to be heard in the assemblies of
his people in a way that is distinct and unique I didn't say necessarily
better I said distinct and unique and if you love the voice of
Christ in the secret place in your own devotions and family
worship you will love those aspects of the voice of Christ in which
he utters that voice in the assemblies of his people and in those whom
he has given as pastors and teachers You're prepared to say, unless
the Christ who speaks in scripture gives me compelling scriptural
reasons to leave this assembly, I will not leave the voice of
Christ that I hear in this place. The presence of Christ that I
see in those to whom he has joined me as members in a body, not
signees of a club. members of a body, members one
of another with a common nerve system and a common life, members
of the same family, living stones in the same temple where God
by the Spirit comes and draws us out to worship Him and praise
Him when as a company of new covenant priests we bring our
sacrifice of praise and adoration and of worship. And when the
Lord Jesus says to us, will you go away? You must answer the
question, not looking at the human relationships, but looking
your Savior in the eye. That's the point I'm making.
This present set of trials is a testing of the depth of our
believing attachment to the person of Christ. And you remember the
incident in John 21, very similar Principles are underscored. The
Lord Jesus is tenderly restoring Peter. The same mouth that denied
him three times took oaths and maledictions, saying, I don't
know the man. The Lord is drawing out of that
same mouth the confessions of love and allegiance. You remember
the sequel, he says, if you love me, Feed, bosco, give food to
my lambs, shepherd my sheep, give food to my sheep. And then
he tells Peter, in the course of doing that, you're going to
face some very unpleasant things, Peter. After Peter affirms his
love, and the Lord Jesus said, here's the path in which your
love will be evidenced to me, doing my will in feeding and
caring for my sheep and my lambs. Verse 18, Truly, truly, I say
to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked
where you would. When you were young, Peter, you
were a carefree kid. But when you shall be old, you'll
stretch forth your hands and another shall gird you and carry
you where you would not. This he spoke, signifying by
what manner of death he should glorify God. Peter, in the course
of following me, things are going to get hot. You're going to be
martyred. Anyone like the idea of being
dragged off against your will and being martyred? But Christ's
will for Peter was clear. And when he had spoken this,
he said unto him, follow me. Now Peter, I've told you what
you to do in generic terms. You are to feed my lambs. You
are to shepherd my sheep. You are to feed my sheep. And
in the course of obeying me, things are going to get hot and
rough and are going to end up in martyrdom. Now Peter, fall
in line behind me. You profess to be attached to
me in faith and love. You said earlier, lo, we've left
all to follow you. We read it this morning. I'll
go with you even to death. Now the Lord says, well, you
dropped the ball the first time. The going got rough. And now
Peter, the time is coming when you will pursue your attachment
to me even to martyrdom. Follow me! Now at that point,
there was only one thing for Peter to do. Say, Lord Jesus,
out of love to you and confidence in your grace, By your strength
I will follow. But what did Peter do? Look at
the passage. Peter turns about, sees the disciple whom Jesus
loved following, that's John, who also leaned back on his breast
at the supper and said, Lord, who is he that betrays you? Peter,
therefore, seeing him, said to Jesus, Lord, what shall this
man do? right at the point when the Lord
was saying there's only one thing that matters Peter that's my
will for you and I want from you Peter a fresh open unqualified
affirmation you're attached to me for good no bailing out Peter
what's Peter doing? he turns around and says what
shall this man do? what about John? what did the Lord say to
him? well that's a good question Peter and since he's been your
buddy for a long time it's a no no Jesus said unto him, if I
will that he tarry till I come, what is that to you? You notice
the is that in the old 1901 is in italics, it's not in the original.
What to you? Very terse language, in other
words Peter, MYOB. Peter, mind your own business.
If I want him to live until I return, what in the world does that have
to do with you? You're going to live if you maintain
your attachment of faith and love in me. You're going to live
long enough to feed my sheep, to shepherd my land, shepherd
my sheep, and feed my sheep. And in the course of it, you're
going to die the death of a martyr now, Peter. Fall in line behind
me. Forget John. What is that to
you? If this is my will for him, what
in the world is that to you? Is there any ambiguity in my
will for you, Peter? If not, fall in line, Peter. Forget John. You follow me. What
is that to you? Follow me. Dear people, you could
have a thousand questions. What about this friend who's
left? What about that one who left with him? What is that to
you? What does that have to do with the will of Christ for you?
Does the loss of a few friends have anything to do with the
revelation of Christ's will in this book? Is he coming down
to rewrite the book because you've had a few fractured human relationships? I don't want to be unkind, but
may I say, please grow up spiritually, dear people. Which of these friends
went through Gethsemane for you? Which of these friends sweat
great drops of blood for you? Which of these friends was crushed
to the ground and cried out, O my father, if it be possible? Which of these friends let his
hands be stretched out? Which of these friends had a
crown of thorns pressed upon his brow? Which of these friends
went under the blackness of the darkness of being plunged into
the abyss of abandonment and cried out, my God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Frankly, I'm grieved that anyone
professing to be saved by Christ would totter for a moment of forsaking the clear will of
Christ for you because of a few friends. Is the pain real? Yes. Is the grief deep? Yes. Some of us know far more than
you what it is to pour your life into someone and have them walk
away. But does it cause us to think
for a moment we'll leave the post of Christ appointment? Never. By the grace of God. So you see it comes back to a
trial of faith. the faith that is attached to Christ as the
sole object of trust for life and salvation, but at the same
time, the faith that is always attached to Christ as the supreme
object of love and devotion. If that attachment is a saving
one, then you love Christ more than father, mother, brother,
sister, and your own life. And there sit here this day some
who have learned this in the last six weeks there sits a young
man who had held before him this carrot leave this church and
you will have the woman on whose finger you put a ring and with
whom you set a marriage date refuse to leave this church and
she'll be taken from you and she has been taken And he sits
in this place today, not out of blind loyalty to a church,
but out of principled loyalty to his Savior. There sit parents
and relatives in this place who have felt the tear in the wrench
of the deepest tides, but they have not contemplated for a millisecond they would in any way abandon
what they know to be the will of Christ for them because they
love him more than son, daughter, daughter-in-law, son-in-law I stand here only because of
that commitment when I've had to leave my wife weeping for
fear of my life when she has been made privy to things you
know nothing of, of the murderous, vicious things. And that's not
true of all who have left. I make it plain. It is not true
of all, but it is true of some. I don't imagine the phone calls
and the letters dripping with hate and the spirit of murder. Touch me is one thing. Touch
my beloved wife and leave her weeping. in a paroxysm of fear
for my life. Is it unstubborn that I stay?
No. There's a savior captured my heart 46 years ago and he
has been nothing and done nothing to be worthy of less than my
full allegiance. If people will say, it is the
will of Christ for me to leave, should we be embarrassed to say
it is the will of my Christ for me to stay? I marvel how the
playing field doesn't get leveled. It's alright to say, after praying
and searching the scriptures, Christ has bid me leave. But
for you to say Christ bids me stay, that's an idolatrous attachment
to the church and to people. My friends, look through and
see through that brittle And don't be bullied into a false
sense of guilt. But say, no, God has thrown my
believing attachment to my Savior into the crucible of trial. He's
thrown it into the smelting furnace of testing. And I bless Him that
He has let me see coming from my own heart a devotion to Him
that makes me say with Peter and the others, to whom else
can we go? Lord Jesus you tell me forget
John and follow you by your grace I will follow you I told you
I'd take a disproportionate amount on the first head now you're
comforted I wonder I've already preached
long enough I'll save heads two and three for tonight God willing
this stuff is too crucial we don't want the trial to be lost
without learning the lesson. And I want to add to this in
the light of what was preached. I caught a little of my own sermon
on the radio this morning. You see, dear people, unless
God visits this country with a mighty outpouring of the Spirit,
the increasing tide of wickedness coupled with the increasing shallowness
of the brand of Christianity that is in vogue in our day These
two things are not going to exist side by side much longer. The
time is going to come, if the Lord doesn't visit this nation
with a powerful revival, when to claim attachment to Christ
and his church is going to cost us something dear. And Jesus
said, if your faith in him is real, you've already settled
that you're willing to pay the ultimate price, even martyrdom. For he said, if any man comes
to me and hates not father, mother, brother, sister, yes and what?
His own life also. He cannot be my disciple. Whosoever
confesses me before men, him will I confess before my Father.
He that denies me before men, and he goes on to say, don't
be afraid of those that kill the body. Or he previously said
in verse 28 of Matthew 10, fear him who can destroy both soul
and body in hell. What's the context? He said,
I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. It's not going
to be easy. And if we allow the pressure
of a few fractured human relationships to make us tremble, and hesitate
on what our course of action will be what will we do if it
means being thrown in the hot box and tortured and starved
for confessing Christ God said to the prophet Jeremiah if you've
run with the footman and you've grown weary how will you contend
with the horseman in the swelling of Jordan if you're pooped out
and ready to quit jogging along with a footman what are you going
to do to keep up with horses the question is clear could it
be and here I claim no prophetic insight could it be that the
God who tenderly deals with his children does not suffer them
to be tempted above that we are able has brought this trial the
most severe trial some of you have faced in order to strengthen
your spiritual muscles for yet greater trials to get you a little
bit custom to the heat of a match before it puts you in a furnace
seven times hotter than it ever been made before Could it be,
I look at some of you young men and women, God has worked faith
in your heart and you're claiming to be identified with Christ.
Could it be that this is God's classroom for greater suffering
in the way of attachment to Christ? I plead with you, weigh the issues,
not in the light of this relationship and that, but in the light of
your professed attachment to the person of the Lord Jesus. For the present trials are testing
the depth of our believing attachment to the person of Christ. God willing, tonight we'll take
up the other two heads. They are testing the believing
submission to the ways of Christ and our believing apprehension
of the promises of Christ and let us pray that God will teach
us all that we may learn vital lessons and we may look back
upon the language of Peter in 1st Peter chapter 1 and never
forget what God taught us from his word and validated in our
own experience that if need be we are in heaviness through manifold
trials that the trial of our faith, being more precious than
gold that perishes, may be found unto praise and glory and honor
at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And for you who profess no attachment
to Christ, I hope if you've gotten nothing else you understand being
a Christian is serious business. We're not in the business of
getting people psychologically conditioned to crank up a hand
and pray a little prayer and tell them they're all fixed up.
You give yourself to Christ, you're a suicide bomber. You're
like those 16-year-old kids in the Second World War that were
strapped in their fighter planes, dive bombers, back there in Tokyo
and took off with only enough gas to get them out to the US
fleet. And the bomb was there in the
nose of the plane and when they'd dived on the deck, they'd had
it. They weren't coming back. When they left the decks of the
carriers, to the shouts and praise of their comrades. They were
one-way pilots. That's what a Christian is. No
gas for the return trip. You dive on the deck, sink or
swim, live or die. I belong to Christ and he belongs
to me. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank you
for your holy word. Oh, how we bless you for our
dear Savior, who loved us with the ultimate love that he laid
down his life for us, and now calls us to so give ourselves
to him that if we must forfeit life itself, we would count it
a privilege by his grace and to his praise to lay down the
very life that he sustains. O Lord, do help us to be honest
in your presence, and where you have exposed the meager measure
of our believing attachment to the Lord Jesus, may it not discourage
and dispirit us, but may it drive us to your face in repentance
and in earnest prayer that we would have such fresh discoveries
of the loveliness and the preciousness of Christ that to be bound to
him in unquestionable bonds of allegiance would be the very
breath that we breathe. O Lord, seal your word to our
hearts. Have mercy upon any who are even
tempted to look over their shoulder because of the few tensions of
fractured human relations. Gracious God, deal with us in
truth and in mercy. as we plead these mercies through
our Lord Jesus Christ.