Peter chapter 1. The first chapter of the book of
Peter. Let me begin reading at verse
1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ
to the strangers, foreigners and strangers, was
such a scarcity of the people of God that he referred to them
as strangers. And a child of God is In fact,
in a sense, a stranger in this world. For this world is not
his home. He is just passing through. He is of a new creation. The Bible says that a man that
is born again of the Spirit of God, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away and
all things become new. Now, when he says old things
have passed away and all things become new, he's not talking
about our nature, our bad heart. We're born with a bad heart.
Not just a weak valve or two, but a bad heart, a dying heart. A heart by nature is prone to
sin. And when we are born of the Spirit
of God, we are as much a sinner after
being born of the Spirit of God than we were before we were born
again. So when he says we are new creatures
in Christ Jesus, new creation. He does not mean that all the
vileness of our nature has been taken away. We are still sinners. We are still sinners and we sin
against God in word and in deed. And certainly we are not proud
of it. We detest it, but yet we do it. But he is talking about We are
new creatures in Christ Jesus. We belong to a new creation,
and that new creation he refers to in some places as the little
flock. Fear not, little flock, for I
am with you. Strangers, this world is not
your home. You are looking for a better
world to come. That is the desire and the hope
of the believer. But anyhow, he said to the strangers,
to those that are in Christ that have
been born to the Spirit of God, that are followers of the Lamb
now, they're strangers and they're scattered. There's one here and
one there, and three or four here, and twenty-five or thirty
here, and they're scattered all over the planet, all over the
earth they're scattered. And there's a number of them.
There are few in comparison to the majority. Those people that
are right, people that are right in about everything, are in the
minority. You'll always find that those
in the minority, generally speaking, are right. It's not the crowd
that's right, it's the minority. And these here are the minority. indicate there's few of them,
they're in a strange place. They don't belong to this world.
But yet, on the other hand, in comparison to the world's population
from start until the finish, we are a minority. There's few,
be it, that find this way. Broad is the way that leadeth
to destruction. But narrow is the path that leadeth
unto life. So there's a few in this narrow
way. But yet he says that in the end
time, he talks about that great multitude. He said there's a
multitude out of every tribe, every tongue, and every nation.
They're in that great throne, that great place at God's right
hand at the judgment. There are so many of them that
no man can number them. But yet now, in reality, they
are in the minority. A few scattered here, a few there. How long have we been gathering
together? We've been gathering together here for almost 45 years. We've got about as many now as
we had when we started. Rare that anyone ever drops by
here. If they do drop by, they're here
one time and then they're gone. They never come back. We're in
the Menard to hear strangers, strangers here passing through. This world is not my home, just
passing through. So Peter, an apostle of Jesus
Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia, and Benithia. He said, Well, there ain't no
such thing as election. Well, you're going to have to tear
down the Bible because it's there. Whether we agree with it or whether
we don't agree with it, election is in the Bible. And a man is
a plumb fool who denies that it's not there. He's writing
to these strangers, to the children of God that are scattered, they're
strangers, and he calls them the elect. And they are the elect
not because they elected themselves. They are elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctification of
the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. They are those favored ones. that God sanctified and set apart. God viewed everyone that would
be born of Adam's fallen race. God viewed them and knew them
before the foundation of the world. And out of that great
billions and billions and billions and multiplied billions of people,
that are members of Adam's race. He chose a number out of Adam's
fallen race. He elected them in Jesus Christ. And he gave that number to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And they're going to be saved.
Everyone that God sanctified and set apart and fixed His love
upon before time ever was, They are certain and sure to be saved
by the grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. They're going to be willing to
be saved. He's not going to have to get them by the hair of the
head and drag them into his kingdom. But He's going to make them willing.
He's going to send His Spirit and Word and Spirit And the Word
is going to so operate on their hearts that they're going to
say like Rupert Reichenbach when he preached up here the other
day, Behold, we see Jesus. He's going to give them the eyes
of faith that they can lay hold of this man called Jesus. And they're going to believe
in him and they're going to believe in what he's done. that He did
it in their behalf. And they're going to come willingly,
willingly. All right? Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just let me pause here
a second and say, God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, of the person of
God. Three in one, one in three, but
they all are equal. They are equal. They are equal. It is a great mystery, and I
certainly cannot solve this great mystery, but I can believe the
great mystery. Three in one, one in three, all
equal in authority and power. Blessed be the Lord God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy,
much mercy, hath begotten us, quickened us unto a lively hope
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance. The people of God have an inheritance.
They have earned no inheritance. Their inheritance is in Christ.
Christ earned their inheritance. and they are one with him, to
an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not
away. And it is reserved in heaven
for you. For who? To the strangers scattered
throughout Pontius, Galatia, and Cappadocia, to the elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. That is who
they are talking about. That is who he is writing to
and about. and it's reserved in heaven for you. And it says,
who are kept by the power, the omnipotent power of God, the
power of God who spake in all things that we see. He said, let there be light,
let there be darkness, let there be grass, POWER! UNLIMITED! UNLIMITED POWER! That's kept by this POWER! Who
can condemn these people for whom
Christ died? None can because of the title
kept by the POWER! the certainty, the assurance
of it, kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed at the last time, wherein we greatly rejoice. Though now for a season, if need
be, Peter says, ye are in heaviness now. through manifold temptations
at the trial of your faith. True faith is always going to
be tried. One place here it says, it talks about the precious blood
of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, verse
19. Precious, precious, precious.
What makes Christ so precious? There's none like Him. There's
a scarcity of Christ. There's only one. That's what
makes Him so precious. Not only because there's just
one makes Him precious, but who He is. He's God. He's as much
God as if he was never man, as much man as if he was never God,
and he condescended and took upon himself our humanity. And
all the virtues of the Lord Jesus Christ are ours because of our
vital union with him. And so he talks about the trial
of your faith being much more precious than gold. Precious
blood? Precious. Your faith is more
precious than gold that perishes. Well, let me make a comment on
this. Precious is gold. Gold is precious upon the scarcity
of it That is, there is but little
of it to be had. It's scarce. It's hard to find. There are prospectors out in
the West in Idaho and Utah and parts of Colorado and California
and Montana and those places, prospectors. Some of them have
spent a lifetime out there in those mountains digging for gold
And most of them who have dug for gold all their life, if they
put all that they ever got, would probably fit in your hand. There's
a scarcity of it. I remember one time reading an
article in the paper written by a woman who had the highest
IQ of any woman in the United States. And she used to write,
She used to answer questions in the little piece of paper
that comes with the Sunday paper. I forget what they call it now.
There's a little piece that always comes there. She's not in it
anymore. But anyhow, she had it figured
out how much gold there was that people had recovered. from biblical days up until the
20th century. And she said all the gold, if
you put it in one particular place, would just about fill
up an ordinary barn. She said that's all the gold. Scarcity of it, there's not much
of it, that's what makes it precious. Gold is precious because of the
scarcity of it. There is but little of it to
be had and it is hard to come by. True faith is precious upon the
account of the scarcity of it. Faith is precious in respect
from the fountain from which it flows, the trial of your faith. being much more precious than
of gold that perishes. Though it be tried with fire,
gold's always tried by fire to burn away, to burn away the what,
Pat? The impurities, the straws, to
burn it away, gold, to put it in the fire. The hotter the fire,
the better the gold is. And your faith will be tried
with fire. and the more difficulties and
hard times and trials and troubles that you have, the stronger your
faith is going to be. That's what he means. It might
be more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried
with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory. at the appearing of our Lord
Jesus Christ. That's what I want to talk to
you just a little bit here this morning, about faith, faith,
faith. I read to you there in the first
chapter of the book of Leviticus, over there in the book of Leviticus,
about the man, the bringer of the sacrifice, to the priest
and to the tabernacle? Well, the bringer of the sacrifice
into the tabernacle was to lay his hand upon the head of the
sheep, whether it was a sheep or an ox. When he brought it
in, he was to lay his hands upon his head. Now, otherwise, if
he did not lay his hands upon the head of the victim. If he
didn't do that, the offering would not have been accepted
for him if he hadn't been identified with him. So the laying on of
his hands on the head of the victim identified him with the
victim. And what he was saying was, this
sheep, this lamb, or this oxen stands for me. He stands in my
place. I identify with him. I put my
hand on him. If you don't put your hand on
him, then it won't be accepted for you. See what I'm talking
about? Now listen, but the laying on
of his hand on the head of the victim was not the same thing
as the victim on which he laid his hand on. See the difference? Here is the man's hand and here
is the victim. His hand is not the same thing
as the victim on which he laid his hand on. Two different things. Now, the snake-serpent-bitten
Israelite, you remember they got bitten with these serpents,
poisonous serpents. And they were dying. And Moses said, Make a serpent
of brass and hang it on a pole. And whoever
is bitten by this brazen serpent has got this poison in his veins
and is about to die. If he wants to live, let him
look. at the brazen serpent there on
the pole. You remember that? Now, this snake-bitten Israelite
was to look at the uplifted serpent of brass in order to be healed. Now, looking at the serpent of
brass, We may say it was his looking
that healed him. Just as the Lord Jesus Christ
said, Your faith has saved you. But this is a figurative saying. It was not his act of looking
that healed him, but the object to which he looked. Two different
things. The hand and the victim are not
the same. Looking and the object is not
the same. Your look didn't save you. It
was where your look was fixed that saved you. See what I'm
saying? So it was not the act of this
man who was bitten by these fiery serpents. It was not his act
of looking that healed him, but the object to which he looked. So, you see, brethren, faith
is not our righteousness. God requires a righteousness. He requires a righteousness without
flaw, without blemish, He requires a perfect, pure, unadulterated,
spotless righteousness, a sinless righteousness. A perfection of
perfection is what God requires to entitle us to his heaven. If we have not this perfect,
righteousness, this perfection, we will be denied access to God's
holy place, which he calls heaven. So it was not his act of looking
that healed him, but the object to which he looked. So faith then is not our righteousness. Faith in this figurative saying
is the looking. Faith doesn't save us. Faith
is not our righteousness. It joins us to the Righteous
One, the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith doesn't save us. We're
saved through faith. We're saved by the grace of God
through faith. in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith
is the gift of God, which he gives his children, that they
might look to the fire serpent, that they might lay their hand
on the victim. The looking and the laying does
not save them. It's the object that the hand
touched, and it's the object to which the eye looked that
saves. So faith, then, is not our righteousness. It joins us to the Righteous
One. The Righteous One is the Lamb
of God. The Righteous One is the sinless
sacrifice. The Righteous One is Him whom
God hath sent. It's Him, the Lord Jesus, who
consented and become a man, took our humanity and vitally joined
us together with him. He's the Savior. And the gift
of faith that God gives makes us willing to look to him and
renounce everything else and say, He alone is my Savior. Well, it joins us to the Righteous
One and makes us partaker of his righteousness. He imputes the righteousness
of the Righteous One to our country and makes us righteous in the
Righteous One. And God accepts us on the ground
of the righteous one. We're not righteous in ourselves. If you lived to be 500 years
old, you couldn't produce a righteousness
equal to the demands of Almighty God. But God has provided this
righteousness freely to whoever wants it. If you want Him, if
you hunger and thirst after Him, you can have it. If you're a
sinner and concerned about your soul, and need this offering,
this sacrifice, he's yours for the asking. He makes us partaker of his righteousness. Now, by a figure of speech, faith
is always or sometimes magnified as something great. Anytime the airplane falls down
in the water and drowns or burns, kills two or three hundred people,
and after it's over with, and there is some reporter interviewing
a survivor or a relative of one who was in that fatal crash. They always say, now how do you
stand up under all this turmoil and all this great calamity that
you've just lost your daughter, you've lost your son, you've
lost your wife, your father, and all that? You must have great faith. Great faith is often magnified
to be something great. Well, the truth of the matter is, in
reality, Faith is really nothing as far as salvation goes. It is, in reality, nothing but
our consenting, our being willing to be saved by another. magnitude of greatness comes
from the greatness of the object which it lays hold of, the Lord
Jesus. It lays hold of the excellence
of the righteousness which it accepts in the Lord Jesus. So it is precious, not its value,
Preciousness is not of its own, but it's the preciousness of
Him to whom we're joined to. Now, faith is not our position. It only
brings us to the position. It's not the position itself. Don't get this business of being
saved by faith and think faith is your savior. It's not. Faith is that which brings you
to him who is your savior, who is your righteousness. Faith
is not your righteousness. It brings you and I to him who
is righteous. and becomes our righteousness,
and we become the partaker of his righteousness by imputation. Faith is not the doctor. Faith
is not the physician. It only brings us to the physician. He's the great physician. It's
not even our medicine. Faith is not our medicine. It
only administers the medicine prepared by Him who healeth us
of all our diseases. In all of our believing, let's
remember, let's not forget the Word of God to Israel who said,
I am Jehovah who heals you. Your faith doesn't heal you. faith that brings you to Him
who does here. Our faith is but touching the
Lord Jesus, and what even is this in reality but the Lord
Jesus Christ touching us? Faith is not perfection, yet
only perfection, either our own perfection or another's perfection
can we be saved. Faith is not our perfection, yet only by perfection can we
be saved, either in your perfection or somebody else's perfection. But that which is imperfect cannot
save and cannot justify. And imperfect faith could not
in any sense be a righteousness. If it's to justify, that is faith. If it's to justify a man before
God, it must be perfect. It must be like the lamb of God. without blemish and without spot. It's got to be like that. An
imperfect faith may join us with the perfection of another, but
it cannot of itself do anything for us. It can't protect us from
the wrath to come. or it cannot secure a divine
acquittal at the judgment bar of God. But faith can bring us
to one who is perfect and in him can we be saved from
the wrath to come and be pronounced righteousness at the judgment
bar of God. You see, all faith here is imperfect. Your faith's imperfect. My faith
is more imperfect than your faith. We all have imperfect faith. But our security is this. It matters not how weak or poor
My faith is, or your faith is, if it is so small and so puny
that it can only bring us to touch the perfect one, I'll quit. The touch draws out the virtue That's in
him, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're saved. Though it be a puny
faith, a weak faith, a poor faith, imperfect faith, but if it can
get us to touch him, who is perfect? Now, faith is not satisfaction
to God. Satisfaction. Satisfaction is
a word of the kingdom. It's a heavenly word. God's got
to be satisfied. Nothing can satisfy God except
it be like God. Only God can satisfy God. The Lord Jesus Christ was God. consented and took upon himself
our humanity. So as God made one person, he
satisfied God. He satisfied God for those he
represented. For those who believed in him,
he satisfied God. Faith is not satisfaction to
God. And in no aspect can faith be
said to satisfy God or satisfy the law. But if it's to be our
righteousness, if faith is to be our righteousness, it must
satisfy. But being imperfect, it can't
satisfy. Only that which is perfect can
satisfy God. So where does that point us?
That points us to him again, the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith
can only join us to Him. I believe. That fellow cried
out, this thou believer. And he said, I believe. Hell,
thou my unbeliever. Now faith has saved him. Faith
didn't save him. Faith joined him to one who could
save him, the Lord Jesus. That which satisfies must be
capable of bearing our guilt. And that which bears our guilt
must not only be perfect but be divine, must be God and man
in one person. It's a sin bearer that we need. Faith cannot be a sin bearer. Faith cannot bear our sins. We
need someone to bear our shame and our guilt of who we are. We're criminals. We're criminals. I know people don't like to be
told that. You associate a man who's a thief
or a liar, who's killed somebody, who's a rascal from start to
finish, you say, well, he's a criminal. But you're a criminal. You're
a criminal. You're as much a criminal as
he's a criminal. You robbed God. He just robbed a bank or a storekeeper
or somebody. That's all he robbed. But who'd
you rob? You robbed God. You're trying
to slip up on God and stab God in the heart and kill God and
do away with him. You rob God, you're a criminal.
It's a sin bearer that we need to bear our sins away, to make
an end of them, to cast them as far as the East is from the
West. If you send a man out to look
for them, he can't find them because they're gone. That's
what we need. A man will do that. He's the
only one who can do it. Faith cannot do away with our
guilt and our shame. Faith cannot accomplish propitiation. Faith cannot pay the penalty
required. Faith cannot wash away no stain. Faith cannot provide no righteousness. But faith can bring us to Christ
crucified where there is propitiation and righteousness and cleansing
and forgiveness. But faith in itself has no merit. It has no virtue. Faith is not
Christ or faith is not the cross of Christ. Faith brings us to
Christ and we're shut up to faith. You can't make it. You can't
manufacture it. It's sovereign faith, sovereign
grace. It's a gift of God, and God is
sovereign in his giving of this gift. He gives it to whosoever
he pleases. You shut up to that. You can't
make God do anything. You can get down on your knees
and flail and cry and go into all sorts of fleshly gyrations,
but you don't move God one bit. You ain't going to change God's
mind. God's unchangeable. What he said then stands forever. God's sovereign. We talk about
sovereign grace. We're saying that God does what
he wants to do, when he wants to do it, and to whom he wants
to do it to. That's what we're talking about. You say, well,
I don't like that. Well, you have to argue with
God about that. That's who he is. He ain't going to change
to suit you. He ain't going to change to suit
me. Faith is not the blood or the sacrifice or the altar or
the labor or the mercy seat or the incense. Faith does not work
but accepts a person and his work and his righteousness that
was done 2,000 years ago. That's what faith does. Who is our righteousness? He's
the fountain that cleanses from all sin. Faith does not wash
us clean but leads us to the fountain of grace and love and
mercy and blood and righteousness and forgiveness where we will
be made clean. It does not create, faith doesn't. But it does join us to him who
is our everlasting righteousness by imputation. Through faith
is not the righteousness that God requires. It is the tie that
binds. It's the tie between it and us. It brings us to him. and to his
everlasting righteousness which can never change. It can never
change. It doesn't grow old. It's a garment. The righteousness of God is likened
unto a wedding garment. It never grows old, never is tattered
or torn. It cannot be torn or it cannot
be worn out and it doesn't fade or rot away. In the great things of eternity,
nothing but certainty will help us. The certainty of who God
is and the certainty of what God says. That's what will help
us. If we can come to know God in
Christ, if we come to know the crucified Christ, then God's
for us. And who can be against us? And
if God's for us, all is well. And if God's not for us, then
all is ill. If God is for me, and I'm for
God, all is well. If not, watch out. Let me ask
you this now, quickly. Are you satisfied with the Lord
Jesus Christ? Are you satisfied with his gospel? Is your heart content with Christ
himself? Is your conscience satisfied
with what he's done? If you're not content and if
you're not satisfied with the Lord Jesus Christ, what bothers
you about him and what he's done? Would you kindly tell me that?
If you're not satisfied with him and with what he's done,
what bothers you about him? Would you like to tell me this
morning what bothers you about the Lord Jesus Christ and his
work? If it was left up to you, would you add something to what
he's done? Or would you take something away
from what he's done? Is not the righteousness that
I've talked about here this morning in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, Is not His righteousness exactly the thing I need? It's exactly the thing I need. Am I not right now exactly the
person to whom it suits? I am. I am a sinner, and as a sinner, I'm hopeless
and helpless to do anything about it. But if God will give me faith
to reach out and touch Him, who is everything that God requires
of me, then I'll be all right. If you've got this faith, that
joins you to Him, I think that you'll recollect a time when
you didn't have it. If you've got it, if God gave
you faith to lay your hands on the sacrifice, and you said,
this is me bleeding and dying in Him, He stands for me, if
you looked to the fiery It's the object that you look
at. He's mine. He's mine. I stand in Him. I receive Him. I accept Him. Well, the Lord helped me see
what I'm talking about.