When we're studying the epistles,
particularly this first epistle of Peter, as it was with our
study through James, I find it to be helpful in quite a few
of the epistles, is that when you read the first words, then
go to the end of it and read the last words, and draw a line
from the first words to the last words, And that's the theme of
the book, and it'll help you stay on the theme of the book
as you read the epistle. In verse 1, Peter writes, he
says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered. The believer is a stranger to
this world. A weird thing to this world. doesn't conform to this world,
doesn't think like this world, doesn't act like this world,
doesn't get along like this world, and therefore doesn't get along
with this world. And we suffer tribulation because of that.
We will suffer tribulation. If you believe on Christ and
you know the truth of God, and stand for the truth of Christ,
you will suffer tribulation. You'll suffer in your own household,
from your mothers and fathers, from your sons and daughters,
from your dearest friends and companions. You will suffer tribulation. That's so. I've known that to
be so. You know that to be so. That's
so. In this world, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, Whoever,
nearest relations, will persecute you. Persecution doesn't always
mean, as the saints in this day were under the rule of Nero,
sewed up in a bag of animal skins and thrown into a river and watched
to sink. It also means pushed away. That's what the word means, pushed
away. That's why they're scattered. They were pushed away. Pushed
away. Now look at the last word in
the letter. This is the last word of exhortation in the letter.
1 Peter 5 verse 10. But the God of all grace who
hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. That's
where we've been called. After that you have suffered
a while. Make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. To Him
be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. That's the theme
of this epistle. The theme of this epistle is
the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.
Christ has suffered. He suffered. He's come to a world
where there was nobody in this world like Him. He's holy and
we're all together unholy. He is God and we're everything
that God is not. He came into a world like that,
and that was a suffering. He came, and he lived with a
great contradiction of sinners against himself, persecuting
him, pushing him away, raising accusation against him, constantly
trying to ask him questions, not for knowledge, but simply
to trip him up in his words so they could accuse him of something.
That's how religion works, and that's how they work toward our
Savior. And he went to the cross and he bore the wrath of God.
He was made sin. That's actually stronger language
than to be made a sinner. He was made that which he was
not, because God's just and God will not clear the guilty. If
God ever punishes one who has not been made guilty, then you
don't have any hope. I don't have any hope, Joe, because
he might do it again. But God never has done that.
He justly poured out His wrath on His Son when His Son was made
sin. And in doing so, He justly redeemed His people from their
sin and purged us of all our sin so that now He justly may
be merciful to those who He put in Christ. And Christ has entered
into His glory. He's risen to the right hand
of the Father. And He is upon His throne. He is ruling. He is reigning.
So that we see, He suffered and He's entered into His glory.
Now when you're called by God's grace. The believer didn't have
any troubles before he was called. Oh, you might have suffered and
you might have had some trials and things didn't just go like
you wanted them to, but it wasn't suffering, it was just things
not going like we wanted them to go. But when God calls by
His grace, trouble starts. That's when trouble starts. Because
now within your own self, you've got a new man and an old man.
You've got two spirits within you, two diametrically opposed
natures that can't stand each other within your own body. And
not only that, in your own house, there's some that believe and
there's some that don't. And when it comes to this Word and
this Gospel, you're not going to get along until God puts you
together by His grace and Spirit. And in this Work our work and
in this world the same holds true The same holds true, but
we're called to suffer for Christ But after we've suffered a little
while We're going to enter into glory Just as Christ did just
as Christ has so shall the believer. I The believer's life is one
of following Christ and suffering for His namesake. And yet at
the same time, trusting Christ fully, trusting that He shall
save us in great glory to follow. Look at 1 Peter 2. Look at verse
9. ye are a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should
show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light." Look at verse 21 of that same chapter. For even hereunto were ye called,
because Christ also suffered for you, The Word is for us,
for you. Leaving us an example that you
should follow His steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile
found in His mouth. Who when He was reviled, reviled
not again. When He suffered, He threatened
not. But, and here's the key, committed Himself to Him that
judgeth righteously. 1 Peter 2 verse 23. He committed Himself to him that
judgeth righteously. That's what He did in the midst
of His suffering. That's what we're called to do
in the midst of our suffering. In the midst of His suffering,
He committed His care into the hands of His Father, as the righteous
Son of Man, as the faithful and just One. And He's called every
believer, as we suffer in this life, to commit all our care
into His hand, into Christ Jesus, the hands of Christ our Lord.
Who His own self, This was what he suffered. He bare our sins
in his own body on the tree. That we, being dead to sins,
should live unto righteousness. And righteousness is a person.
Look at those next two words. By whose stripes you were healed. For you were a sheep going astray,
but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls.
Look at chapter 3, verse 22. Christ is gone into heaven and
is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers
being made subject unto him. For as much then as Christ had
suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with
the same mind." The same mind that Christ has. That's that's
he says arm yourself with that. That's a great weapon to be resolute
resolved steadfast knowing Christ is gonna I'm gonna suffer for
his name's sake for this, but he's gonna glorify me He's gonna
save me from all the trial now, but more importantly from the
trial to come He may not save you from the trial right now
there was many in Hebrews chapter 11 that died and I've been reading
Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Just cruel, cruel treatment in
every age, in every generation. But in doing so, and not delivering
them from the trial, he delivered them from their suffering into
eternal glory. Arm yourselves likewise with
the same mind, for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased
from sin. Christ has ceased from sin. He's gone. He's in the heavens. And He says, arm yourself with the same mind,
that you're in the heavens, that you're ceased from sin, that
you're with Him right now in glory. Can you arm yourself with
that mind? That's good armor right there. Good armor. Alright, now let's
turn to our text. 1 Peter 1, verse 13. 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. This is a double metaphor that
has a lot of meaning to it. Gird up the loins of your mind. Whenever they were in the Orient,
Men there wore long, flowing garments. And when they would
go walk on a journey, those garments would get in their way and they
could get tangled up and tripped up in those garments. And so
they would take those garments and they would gird them about
their loins, actually their private parts, where the life is. The
believer, you who are born of God, You're born of incorruptible
seed. The life is not in our flesh. It's not in our fleshly desires.
It's not in this world. It's not in those old fleshly
wants and cravings which we get ourselves into absolute slavery
in this world because of that. Because of that. but it's not
in that. Our new man, the incorruptible
seed, is within. This is the new man of the heart.
And we're sojourners. We're on a journey. That's what
we're doing. Look down at verse 17. If you
call on the Father, if He's your Father, who without respect of
person judges according to every man's work past the time of your
sojourning, here in complete and total reverence to God. Be
committed to Him, have your minds made up, have your loins girt
about in the inner man, trusting God alone. Passing your time,
your sojourning here, trusting Him. The word be sober here means
in thought. It means setting your affection
on things above. Meditating on the things which
Christ has done for you continually. Be continually thinking about
the sufferings of Christ and where he is in his glory. There's
nothing I suffer, nothing you suffer that Christ hasn't suffered.
Absolutely nothing. Nothing. And he suffered it many
times more than what you and I have suffered. And he says
here, verse 13, and hope to the end, that means perfectly, without
wavering. And it also means to the end,
from now to the end. Hope steadfastly, without wavering,
for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ. When Christ comes, Peter said
there in 1 Peter chapter 1, Verse 7, he talks about the praise
and the honor and the glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,
when Christ comes. He speaks of verse 9, receiving
the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. This
is the grace he's talking about. That's to be brought unto you
at the revelation of Jesus Christ, when He returns. He's coming.
And when He comes, He's going to save us entirely. body, soul,
and spirit out of this world. That's right. Now, how are we
going to do that? How are we to do that? How are
we to gird up the loins of our mind? What are we to meditate
upon? How are we to hope to the end
for that grace that's to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus
Christ? How is it that we're going to be edified and fed and
strengthened and encouraged to do that? Where's Peter going
with this? Look at 1 Peter 1, look over
at verse 23. He says, You're born again, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, the word
which liveth and abideth forever. Verse 25, he says, This word
of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. And he says, wherefore lay aside
all malice, all guile, hypocrisies, envies, evil speakings, as newborn
babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow
thereby. That's how we're gonna grow.
If so be you've tasted the Lord is gracious. Now let me ask you
something. When you suffer a trial, when
you, you know, those that don't have root in themselves, parable
of the sower, the parable of the soils, those that don't have
root in themselves, They spring up, but as soon as tribulation
comes, because of the Word. As soon as they're offended and
they bear a little persecution because of the Word. They fall
away. This seed, this gospel, this
word is Christ. The word which by the gospel
is preached unto you and this is Christ in you, the hope of
glory. He's the root. He's how we're
going to be rooted and grounded and settled is by Him. And it
pleased God to do it by the foolishness of preaching. Now the first thing
that we tend to do whenever we enter into suffering of any kind
is we stop reading the word of God. We stop going and hearing
the word preached. And we give it all kinds of silly
reasons and all kinds of pie-sounding reasons why we stop. But there's
no excuse for it. That's exactly what the world
wants us to do. That's exactly what Satan wants
you to do. That's exactly what those who
would push against you and push away when you set forth the truth
before them and they reject you and push you and push you. I
don't care who they are. The exact thing they want is
for that word not to be spoken to them again and they prefer
for you not to walk in that word again either. Now, Peter gives
us two things to encourage us. He gives us the prophets, and
he gives us the law to encourage us. Let's go back. He said here,
wherefore? So let's go back and see what
he said before that. In verse 10, and I'm just going
to read verses 10 through 12, and I want to point out something
to you. In verse 10 he says, of which salvation the prophets
have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that
should come unto you. This is the prophets of old,
the prophets who preached of the grace that has come now unto
us and that has come unto you. They searched this salvation.
It means they inquired and searched diligently. It means they searched
it like a miner digging for gold. searching what or what manner
of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify,
when the Spirit of God would come to them. I think this has
much more instruction here than just that they was wondering,
well, when's Christ coming? It's much more than that. When the Spirit of God would
dictate to them what they were to prophesy, They looked into
what the Spirit of God said and searched for themselves what
it meant. What it meant. When it testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should
follow. unto whom it was revealed to these prophets that not unto
themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are
now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel
unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which
things to angels desire to look into." Now you see, Peter had
seen the Lord face to face. He had heard the Lord speak.
He had seen Him transfigured in that mount, in that glorious
of parents and heard the Lord speak from heaven and say, this
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him. He
had seen Christ, but those to whom he is writing hadn't seen
Christ. You to whom he is writing and me to whom he is writing,
you to whom I am preaching, you haven't seen Christ with the
eye, with the natural eye, but you behold Him by faith. Well,
do you realize that the prophets of old didn't see Him with the
natural eye either? None of the prophets of old saw
Him with the natural eye. They believed Christ by faith
just like we believe Christ by faith now. They were looking
for Him to come the first time. We're looking for Him to come
again. Now, let me set down a few things
for you here in this, first of all. The prophets of the Old
Testament were sin of God. And they were given by the Lord
to prophesy of the grace that has come unto us. In other words,
they wrote the Old Testament Scriptures. That's what they
were given for. The prophecy, 2 Peter, look over there, we're
close to it. 2 Peter verse 1, verse 21. I want to say these things to
you and then we're going to get back to our point here in just
a minute. The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man,
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."
That's how they spoke. The Spirit of Christ was in them. And you notice here in our text
it says the Spirit of Christ was in them. The Spirit of Christ. He hadn't come in human flesh.
But he was beforehand in spirit. He has always been the Son of
God. He is the Christ. And these preachers, these prophets,
these ministers were men, but Christ was the teacher. It's
called the Gospel of God. He is the Son of God. Christ is. And they spoke as
the Spirit of Christ gave them utterance to speak. You see,
he is the mediator. He always has been. He's the
one that gave the law to Moses, of whom Moses, as a mediator,
is a picture. That's right. This whole work's
been trusted into Christ's hand from the beginning. from the
beginning. And by that same Holy Spirit,
the apostles who, after He ascended, they spoke by the Holy Ghost,
sat down, and the same Spirit, Holy Spirit of God, is why we
have these Old Testament and these New Testaments. They are
in harmony with each other. The same God gave them. So they
all speak of the same subject. Everything in here speaks of
the same subject. And the message of the prophets,
and the message of the apostles, and the message of anybody who's
born of the spirit of God and sent forth by the Lord to preach
the gospel in our day is one message. the sufferings of Christ,
and the glory that should follow. That's what we talked about in
the beginning here tonight, is Christ has come. He's accomplished
the work God gave him to do, bearing everything that holy
wrath could throw at him, and everything that hell could throw
at him, to glorify God the Father, to declare him just and justifier
of all who believe, That's why I did it first, for the glory
of God the Father. And because of perfect, perfect,
holy love for His Father and for His brethren, which is the
fulfillment of the law. He did that and He's entered
into glory. God is pleased with Him and He's risen to the right
hand of the Father because God's satisfied. Now, here's what I
want you to say. The prophets searched these things
as they were taught them, comparing what they had been moved to write
with what they were being taught. In other words, they would have
already been given something, and then the Spirit of God would
dictate to them something else to prophesy. Very often we see
in the Old Testament where He said, and the Spirit said, write,
and He wrote. He didn't know what he was writing.
He's writing and he's prophesying of what he said. And then, what
Peter's telling us is then these prophets actually searched and
inquired about what it was the Spirit of God had them to prophesy.
You see, they were believers just like we are. though used
of God to write the Scriptures, they're believers just like we
are. And he searched the Scripture to see what these things meant.
And thereby he girded up the loins of his mind in the midst
of his own suffering, which he suffered for Christ. Did they
suffer for Christ? Whenever Paul said, Think that
nothing that has come on you is not common to man. He's not
talking about the sufferings of all mankind. He's talking
about everybody that's ever believed on the Lord Jesus Christ has
suffered for His namesake. Let me read you this in Acts
chapter 7. You don't have to turn there
if you don't want to. But Acts 7. Stephen said this
when they were stoning him to death. He said, Acts 7, verse
51, You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always
resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did, so do you. Which
of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? Which of
the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? They've slain them
which showed before of the coming of the Just One." Let me illustrate this for you.
Look at Isaiah 46, what I'm saying here. In the midst of their suffering,
this is Peter's exhortation. You gird up the loins of your
mind. And he gives the prophets as the example. They searched
and inquired diligently. How do you think they endured
their suffering as they were suffering? How did they gird
up the loins of their mind? How were they sober-minded and
not moved and tossed about, but hoped steadfastly unto the end
for the grace that was to be brought at the revelation of
Jesus Christ? How did they do that? This word, the very word
they were used to prophesy of, and to preach. Look at Isaiah
46. Look at verse 13. This is what the Lord gave Isaiah
to preach. Now you think of Isaiah. Isaiah
is sitting there in a day and he doesn't have the revelation
we have. He's before Christ to come and
he hasn't seen Christ come yet. But here the Lord, the Spirit
of God dictates this to him just as if If I was to say, Christine,
write this down. Take a note. The Spirit of God
is doing this with Isaiah. And here's what he told him to
write. I bring near my righteousness. It shall not be far off. And
my salvation shall not tarry. And I will place salvation in
Zion for Israel my glory. Now Isaiah gets this and he starts
thinking on that. There's a righteousness, which
God calls his righteousness, that's distinct and different
from this righteous, so-called righteousness by the law of Moses.
Something different. This is a righteousness, he says,
he's gonna bring near. This is a righteousness, he says,
won't be far off. This is a righteousness, he said,
the Lord Himself is going to place in Zion for Israel His
glory. And he searched, and he inquired,
and he asked God that very word. He asked God, what does this
mean? And he set his mind on these
things, and he asked the Lord to know more of the Savior that
was to come. And then look over at Isaiah
53. So he's thinking on these things.
And the Spirit of God dictates to him something else to write
now. And he writes this now. Now he already had this other
prophecy the Lord had given him. Now he's got something else the
Lord gives him. And the Lord tells him here that this one
was going to be despised, verse 3, despised and rejected of men. If I may say, I'm thinking, I
wonder if that has something to do with this righteousness. He's going to be a man of sorrows
acquainted with grief. And we, as it were, and we hid,
as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. And he's writing this down and
he's reading, but surely He hath borne our griefs and carried
our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted, but He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes
we're healed. And Isaiah's thinking of this
and he's thinking, this is the righteousness he's talking about.
It has something to do with this Christ who's coming, who's going
to bear for me what I owe to God. This is what this righteousness
has. And he searched these things
and he inquired about these things, comparing what he had already
been told with what he's now being told. And he goes on here and he says, Oh, we like sheep have gone astray,
we've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid
on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He's sitting there thinking,
I know what that suffering's like. I'm being oppressed and
afflicted as I sit here and deliver this gospel that God gives me
to deliver. And yet in the midst of this
gospel, God gives me to deliver. He tells me, this one will be
afflicted and oppressed without cause, and yet he won't open
his mouth. He'll suffer it. He'll suffer
it. He's brought as a lamb to the
slaughters, a sheep before a shearer's dove, so he openeth not his mouth.
You think Isaiath, when he heard that, you think that he immediately
flew to the Mosaic Law and thought about the lamb? And thought about
the lambs that had been brought for years and for years and had
been slain? And those lambs that had been
killed and their blood poured out because they were slain in
the room instead of another? And he reads here though, verse
10, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. This is how God's going
to be satisfied. He put him to grief. God did
this Himself. And when thou shalt make his
soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. This is how life's coming. This is how eternal.
This is the glory he's going to enter into. God's going to
be satisfied with him. And He's going to enter into
glory, and in Him all of His children are going to be saved,
and they're going to be brought into everlasting, endless days
by His power and by His grace. Because, verse 11, He shall see
of the travail of His soul, and He'll be satisfied. By His knowledge
shall my righteous servant justify many, for He shall bear their
iniquities. Therefore I'll divide him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong. Because he poured
out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors,
and bared the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."
And so he thinks back then, and he goes back in and he thinks
back on this other word that the Lord gave him back in Isaiah
11. And he thinks, I remember that
the Lord, He told me this, and He had me write this down. There
shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch
shall grow out of his roots. This one's going to come through
the house of Jesse. He's going to come through Judah. That's why God's saving Judah
now. Because this one that's going
to be our Savior is coming through the tribe of Judah. And he says,
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, and the Spirit
of wisdom and understanding, and the Spirit of counsel and
might, and the Spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. He
won't judge after the sight of the eyes or after the hearing
of the ears. Look at verse four. But with
righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity
the meek of the earth. And he shall smite the earth
with the rod of his mouth, with the breath of his lips, and slay
the wicked. And righteousness shall be the
girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. And
so as he searched these things, and he inquired into these things,
comparing what he had been given with what he was being given,
he not only testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and
the glory that should follow, he not only was used to give
the Scriptures, so me and you would have the Scriptures, But
the Spirit enlightened the prophets and fed their faith in the midst
of their own sufferings, so that the prophets themselves, rested
by faith, assured that as the Savior would suffer and enter
into His glory, so the prophet was assured he'd be saved after
suffering just a little while. And it was revealed unto them,
our text says, that the things that they were being given They
were ministering to somebody else. In other words, it was
revealed unto them that Christ wasn't coming in their day. You
know, if it was revealed to you and me that Christ was coming
next week, this trial that we're going through right now, whatever
it is, whatever yours is, probably wouldn't be that difficult to
bear. You only got about seven more days and it's done, right?
But they were told, well, He's not coming in your day. But they
searched and they diligently inquired, and by the Spirit of
God that was in them, by faith, He revived them so that they
could set their affection on Christ to come. And they could
gird up the loins of their mind and hope unto the end for that
grace that they knew, even though He wasn't coming in their lifetime,
when they died, when they reached their dying day, they knew that
Christ would appear and that same grace would be given to
them. And that made them, that put a hitch in their giddy up.
That made them be able to say, you know what? I can go out and
I can preach this word again. I can go out tomorrow and I can
go to work tomorrow in the face of that one who just keeps railing
on me and railing on me and railing on me. I can go out tomorrow
and I can bear it. I can bear it. I'm going to bear
it in such a way without opening my mouth that I'm going to make
him, I'm going to force him through kindness. I'm going to force
him to ask me, how can you possibly react that way when I treat you
the way I do? And then I'm going to say, I've
been waiting on you to ask me that. Now let me tell you, here's
how I can bear it. Here's how I can bear it. And
it might just be that God will save him. Might just be God will
save him. So Peter encourages the saints
in his day, rather than being depressed and rather than becoming
feeble in our minds and worried in our hearts, rather than setting
our affections on everything else in the world to try to combat
the opposition of the world, rather than do that, just have
your mind firmly fixed Christ is coming and He's going to save
me from all this. And feed upon this search and
inquire diligently as the prophets did. Well, that's probably enough. That's
probably enough. We didn't get to the second part.
We'll look at that next time. He uses the law, the law to do
it. Well, throughout the rest of
the epistle, this is what He does. He encourages us in faith,
revives us in faith. You know what He does throughout?
He sets forth our afflictions that we encounter in this world
in the light of what Christ suffered. Just what we read before. You
see there? Verse 15. 1 Peter 3, 15. Sanctify
the Lord God in your hearts. That's what he's saying. Be ready
to always give an answer to every man that asks you of the reason
of the hope that's in you with meekness and fear. Having a good
conscience that whereas they speak evil of you as evildoers,
they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation
in Christ. For it's better if the will of
God be so that you suffer for well doing than for evil doing.
We're not talking about now suffering when you've been a horse's behind. We're talking about when you've
been meek in the midst of suffering. And you have set your face towards
Christ and you have hope to the end. It's better. Look at verse 18. For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins that just for the unjust. that
He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but
quickened by the Spirit. This is what we're talking about.
So, use the prophets as an example. They didn't know everything.
They didn't know everything. You have more of a revelation
now than what they had. You know that? In our day. But
this is what they did have. They have the grace of God working
in their hearts, so that they searched and inquired diligently. Wherefore, gird up the loins
of your mind. Be sober. Meditate on these things. Feed on this word. Feed the inner
man with this word and hope to the end. Hope steadfastly for
the grace of God that shall be revealed when Christ comes. And
the God of all grace, after you've suffered a little while, he'll
establish you. He'll perfect you. He'll settle
you. and He'll get all the glory because
all the dominion and all the work is His now, right now, and
forever. Amen.