As the Holy Spirit may be with
us and bless us together this morning, I will speak to you
from a few verses that you will find in the first chapter of
the first epistle of Peter. The first epistle of Peter, as
I've said, comes after James, which comes after Hebrews. And
we'll read verses 18 to verses 21. That's the first chapter
in the first epistle of Peter, and reading verses 18 to 21. For as much as ye know that ye
were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from
your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation
of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who
by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead and
gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. Well, Peter here is addressing
the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia and Bithynia. In his day those were the places
that he was concerned that this message may get to and of course
today we're thankful that this message can be proclaimed worldwide
and we're very thankful that we today are able to consider
the wonderful truths that Peter writes in this epistle and of
course in his second epistle. And Peter had a very wonderful
experience. You may remember that it was
Peter that denied the Lord Jesus Christ when he was in the judgment
hall, when he'd been captured, and he was in the judgment hall
And he was asked, well he was said, you are one of those that
was with Jesus. And Peter vehemently denied it. And that wasn't on one occasion,
it was on three occasions. And it was interesting to know
that Jesus had previously, the previous day or the end of that
day, had said that he would deny Lord Jesus and Peter said he
wouldn't at all in actual fact he would be very happy to die
well we see how weak people can be and how his intentions were
good but face them with the real situation he denied the Lord
Jesus Christ on those three times and the Lord had told him that
he would do so and that when that occurred the cock that means
the cockerels would crow and that occurred and the cockerels
crowed. And therefore Peter realized
that he had done that which Jesus told him he would. And we're
told, you can read that in the Acts of the Apostles, he went
out and he wept bitterly. He wept bitterly that that which
had occurred, that he had denied the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
Also, in the life of Peter, when Jesus was on the earth, Jesus
took Peter, James, and John, three of the disciples, and took
them up a mountain. And we're told in that mountain,
on top of that mountain, that Jesus was transfigured before
them. And that means that he was clothed
with a white garment, bright and glistening, and a wonderful
light shone about him. And the three disciples, Peter,
James and John, witnessed that wonderful thing. And he spoke
then also with Moses and Elijah, who had come down from heaven
for that occasion. So it was a wonderful miracle
that occurred in the life of Peter. So Peter was blessed,
really, with these amazing testimonies in his life. And he was able,
therefore, to write these two letters, the first and second
epistle of Peter, from his own heart, knowing the very relevance
and the very importance of the things that he wanted these people
to understand. And so today we are also privileged
with such great and wonderful things that we might understand
the great truths contained in the Word of God, and to realize
that they are written for each of our good. They're not just
a whole list of stories, they are a record of what God instructed
these people to write. Peter was one of them. The Bible
was written by some 40 people, and Peter was one of those people. So it was a very wonderful that
today we have the Bible in our own language. It was, of course,
written in Hebrew, the Old Testament, and for the most part, Greek
in the New. There was some Aramaic, but it
was basically those languages. And we can be thankful that it's
been translated into our language, that we today can read it. And
of course, it was translated centuries ago, back in the 15th
century and sometimes a bit before that and therefore we should
be very thankful that we have the Word of God now today in
our language that we can read and so we come down to these
verses that we read this morning as Peter wrote them and he says
for as much as ye know well it would be a good thing if you
and I know today the wonderful truth of these simple statements
which are made. You may think, well, I don't
think they are very simple. Well, it's a wonderful blessing
if we realize what they really mean. And he says here, for as
much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible
things. Now you may say, well, why do
I need to be Redeemed what does redeemed mean? Well, let's put
it this way all of us every person that is born into this world
is a sinner and when you when I say that it's to explain it
like this a sinner is somebody who has disobeyed the Word of
God disobeyed the Bible disobeyed the commandments of God and The
first people who lived on the earth were Adam and Eve and they
were the first people to sin. They very sadly disobeyed God
and you may remember most of you that what happened Satan
in the form of a serpent came to Eve and told her that she
could eat of a tree which had fruit and it was a tree which
was specified they should not eat the fruit of that particular
tree and Eve told Satan that they weren't allowed to but Satan
told her she could and that the result was she did and because
of that she sinned against God she had offended God and because
of that sin passed upon everybody that's ever born into this earth
and it's passed on to you and it's passed on to me and therefore
before God you and I are a sinner now we believe that when we die
we have an eternal soul and that eternal soul will either go to
heaven or go to hell Heaven is a holy, most glorious place. And on the other hand, hell is
the most terrible, evil, wicked place. So I'm sure we would all
desire to go to heaven. Well, heaven is a holy place,
and there is no sin in heaven. So therefore, what that means
is that you and I If we still have our sin, we cannot go to
heaven. And therefore, we need to have
our sin taken away. And you and I can't do that ourselves.
It's an impossibility, because we have no ability to do that. And we need, therefore, our sin
to be taken away. And that's why Peter writes here
when he says there is this need to be redeemed. Redeemed means
to have our sin taken away. And we can't pay to have that
sin taken away. We can't pay for it. But we need
it to be taken away. Just to give you, perhaps, a
very simple illustration. Well, we don't see it very much
nowadays, but there have been, and there still are a few places,
of people that are called pawnbrokers. A pawnbroker. I don't know who's
seen pawnbrokers. But a pawnbroker, to know if
they are pawnbrokers, they would often have three balls outside
their premises, which would hang up in a triangular fashion. And
if people became very hard up and needed money, they would
take one of their things to a pawnbroker who would value it and then give
them money for it. But he wouldn't sell it, he would
keep it. And they could then come in time
and redeem it so they could get it back. And of course, in order
to redeem it, they had to pay what the money they'd been lent
and also Interest on that to be able to get their item back
and it was to redeem their item well Many people could do it. Not always people could do it.
Sometimes they never did it because they couldn't ever raise the
money to do it well here we're talking not about something which
is natural but something which is spiritual and so Peter tells
us for as much as ye know that you were not redeemed with corruptible
things as silver and gold silver and gold could not deliver us
from the condemnation of our sin doesn't matter how wealthy
we are how much money we have we could not pay the price to
take away our sin. We are still a sinner, and we
need that sin to be taken away. Well, the apostle then tells
us a little more about this. And he says, for as much as ye
know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things Because
silver and gold are really corruptible things. And then he goes on,
your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. And you know, a wrong conversation,
speaking about wrong things, swearing and cursing and telling
lies, that is a vain conversation. And that is sin. And that is
things that you and I need, therefore, to have taken away. We need to
be redeemed. And so, the apostle says, you
were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from
your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. Just a mere tradition. There
are many things in our lives which are mere traditions. and
people follow those mere traditions. But the Apostle comes and tells
us now what will redeem us, something which is far more valuable than
silver and gold. He tells us what it is. But with
the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot. Now you may Wonder what that
really means. The precious blood of Christ
as a lamb without blemish and without spot. Well, first of
all, we know that the blood of Jesus Christ or put it this way,
the death of Jesus Christ. The Lord died, the Lord Jesus
Christ died. He was crucified upon the cross
at Calvary. to pay the price, to redeem all
of his people, the church of God, to take away all their sins. So just to get some idea of the
value then, silver and gold will not do it, doesn't matter how
much, but the blood of Jesus Christ, his death, takes away
all of our sin and what a great and wonderful truth that is because
here we are today on the earth after many years the Lord Jesus
Christ died and yet his death at death upon the cross at Calvary
was carried out so that you and I might receive the forgiveness
of our sin. Now, let us realize, therefore,
how valuable that is. That's why the Bible is written
to describe it to us, because such things you and I would not
appreciate and we would not understand naturally But the Bible tells
us so clearly, and in these words here, so clearly, that it is
only the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that can redeem
us, that can take away our sin. So, when we think then of the
Lord Jesus Christ, perhaps we begin to understand how valuable
his life was and how valuable his death was. And if the Lord
Jesus Christ had not been born into this world, let us not forget
who he was. He was God himself. He was the
second person in the Trinity. Again, we believe that God is
three people, three persons in one. God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
the second person. He was the Son of God. And he
came voluntarily, willingly, into this world with the sole
purpose of giving his life as a sacrifice for our sin. Therefore, through that sacrifice,
we are redeemed. The price has been paid to take
away all our sin. Now, surely we can appreciate
in some way, therefore, the importance because we're not talking here
of something which is just for a little time a few years we're
talking about that which the Bible describes as eternity and
eternity has no beginning and it has no end and again Our minds
cannot really understand such vastness, because we live in
time, we're born in time, we understand time. Time is dictated
by the clocks and watches and the sun. We know the time, we
know when it's daytime, we know when it's nighttime, but eternity
is forever. Relevance is that you and I possess
a never-dying soul. A never-dying soul. You know, we have a body, don't
we? All of us, you can see, you can feel our body. But we all
have within us what the Word of God describes as a soul. And
that's something which we have when we're born, and that never
dies. It never dies. To have some appreciation
then of that. Our body dies, we know. Our soul
will never die. It lives forever. And so how
important it is that our soul lives forever in heaven and not
in hell. A place of everlasting happiness. What a wonderful truth it is. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ, he
came into this world to redeem our souls, to pay the
price, to take away our sin, because there's no sin in heaven.
And if we have sin, we shall never go to heaven. So all of
us need to have our sins taken away so that we have no sin. Now that's why Peter here, in
this letter he's writing, speaks so importantly and so powerfully. And he tells us the only way
that we can be redeemed is with the precious blood of Christ. And then he describes the Lord
Jesus Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot you
may say well what's the relevance of that? well we need to go back
really back to the Old Testament and the Old Testament of course
tells us about all the things that occurred before Jesus came
into this world. And you may remember, you may
know, you may not know, but there was a time when Israel, that
was the Jewish people, were in a place called Egypt, which is
still of course about today. And those people had lived in
Egypt for some 400 years, and they'd gone there when they were
just a little company of 70 people. And they'd gradually expanded
until they were a very large company over those 400 years.
And they were under the jurisdiction of the king who was pharaoh. What they did was to make bricks
for the Egyptians, so that the Egyptians could build houses. Well, it was a very hard task
they had to do. And a man called Moses, who was
raised up by God, came into this place of Egypt and into the place
where the Israelites lived, And he told them that God had told
him that he was the person who would lead the Israelites out
of Egypt where they'd been having to make bricks for this long
time and to free them. And he would go to Pharaoh and
ask Pharaoh to let them go. Well he did this and each time
he went before Pharaoh he was able to do a miracle or bring
a miracle to pass. And you can read about it in
Exodus, the early chapters in Exodus, of all the various things
which occurred, the various plagues which came upon the Egyptians. But they would not let the Israelites
go. They didn't want them to go.
So they were still there. And then the last thing that
happened was God told Moses, to do a very special thing and
that was to take a lamb for each household each household had
to take a lamb and the lamb had to be as perfect as possible
without any blemish they had to take the lamb and they had
to kill the lamb and they had to put the lamb and roast the
lamb and to eat of the lamb, but before
they did that, they took of the blood of the lamb and they put
that blood on the doorposts and the lintels of their house. And
the Lord said that there would only be safety inside the house
as the people went into the door, under the blood, on the lintel
and doorposts, went into their homes And then they would be
safe because God was going to kill all the firstborn of all
the Egyptians. And if they were therefore safe
in the house, under the blood, they would not die. Now, why
have I said that? Because the lamb that was taken
depicted the Lord Jesus Christ and depicted the shed blood of
that lamb which we have before us here in this account of this
redemption. And so we realise that what the
Apostle Paul tells us here about the Lord Jesus Christ, but with
the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb, without blemish
and without spot. A perfectly healthy lamb and
the Lord Jesus Christ was that lamb. Not a physical lamb, but
represented by this lamb which had been taken. And every year
after that had occurred, the Israelites had to remember that
day and it was called the Passover day and every time they actually
carried out this ceremony because they need to be reminded that
they needed to be redeemed and they needed to be redeemed with
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ who would come the Messiah who
did come As we know, he'd been prophesied right from that day
in Eden's garden when Adam and Eve sinned. He'd been prophesied
he would come as the Saviour. The one who would come to redeem
them from all their sins. And today, we can look back to
that one who has come. The Lord Jesus Christ has come. He was born from that Virgin
Mary. all those years ago some 2,000
years ago and then he was crucified he gave his life as a sacrifice
he shed his blood he gave his life so that today you and I
might be freed from all our sin we might be forgiven and that's
why we have such a statement as this that we can't be saved
with silver and gold. We can't have our sins taken
away with silver and gold, but we can with a precious blood
of Christ. And so the apostle goes on and
says, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the
world. Now again, there's a great truth here because what we're
told is that Jesus therefore lived before the foundation of
the world before the world was created he was foreordained before
the foundation of the world but he was manifested in these last
times he was shown to be the saviour of sinners he was shown
to be the one who would die in order to take away all the sins
of his people, who verily was foreordained the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is a great mystery,
really, and difficult for us to understand. And you and I,
we can't really understand these things with our natural mind.
But God gives what the Bible tells us is faith. to believe
the things which are seen to be to us impossible. Well, what a great blessing it
is then for us today to receive faith, to believe that the Lord
Jesus Christ existed before the world was created. And let us remember the Bible
is true. The Bible tells us in Genesis,
the first two chapters, how the world was created, how Adam and
Eve were created. And that is the great truth of
God. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
before that. He was again eternal. It's a great mystery. You and
I cannot really fathom out with our minds, but we can believe
it as God gives us faith to believe in these great and wonderful
truths, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the
world, but was manifested in these last times for you. So
it's wonderful for us today to have this explained to us in
the Bible. And then the Lord also calls
men to preach the gospel, to explain it, to people explain
it we're all sinners we all need the gospel we all need to be
forgiven we all need to come and to as the next verse tells
us to believe these great truths the 21st verse tells us who by
him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead and gave
him glory that your faith and hope might be in God. Now these are tremendous truths
for us this morning. To understand that they are true
and that God gives you and me faith to believe these great
truths. You and I need faith. God gives
faith. It's a gift of God. It's a wonderful
blessing. And how great it is if you and
I have the evidence in our hearts that God has given us his grace
and grace is the free unmerited favor of God to believe these
great truths who by him The Lord Jesus Christ, do believe in God
that raised him from the dead. We've spoken about the Lord Jesus
Christ dying upon that cross at Calvary. But that wasn't the
end. If it had been the end, there'd
be no hope for us today. There would be no point in us
meeting together like we are on this Sunday morning. There'd
be no reason for it. But what a blessing it is Therefore,
to believe that God raised Jesus up from the dead. And that was
what we refer to as the resurrection. Jesus was put into a tomb, a
sepulcher, a cutout in the rock after he had died upon that cross.
And he was there for three days and three nights and then were
told he rose again from the dead. Death could not hold him. He
rose from the dead. What had he done? He'd conquered. He'd conquered sin. He'd conquered
death. And there was the glorious Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was revealed to his disciples
and a number of people. He lived then on the earth for
some 40 days. And after those 40 days, he then
ascended up to heaven. He was taken up into heaven. And we're told that this same
Jesus will return, will come again onto the earth. Well, that time hasn't come yet,
but it will come when the Lord Jesus will return. And we're
told every eye shall see him. You will, I will. Everybody that's
ever been born will see the Lord Jesus Christ returning in all
his glory. And for all those who are the
people of God, who've had their sins forgiven, will then be forever
with the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's a wonderful thing,
isn't it? To think of that. And here, in a nutshell, In these
few verses, Peter explains it and the great truths they are.
And so he says, who by him do believe in God. So the vital
thing for all of us is that we do believe in God. We do believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We do believe that he is Our
Savior, my Savior, He is the one who has redeemed me, who's
taken away all my sin, that He gave His death, that He shed
His precious blood, so valuable, in order to redeem my soul. Now then, this is really the
glorious truth of the gospel. And so we come today, and what
a blessing it is that we can freely meet here on this Sunday
morning to worship God. Many people in the world are
not allowed this privilege. Many laws of many countries do
not allow people to gather to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. But what a blessing it is if
the Lord comes in today and shows us that we have sinned, that we
are a sinner, that we have disobeyed God and that we need all our
sins to be taken away and to realise there's only one way
that can occur and that's through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
when on that cross at Calvary he shed his blood referred to
in this same chapter as the precious blood of Christ. I hope I've
explained to you how valuable therefore this is because without
it We have no hope of heaven. With it, and given faith to believe,
then we can believe that one day when we die we shall go to
be with Jesus forever and ever in happiness, eternal happiness. And the great thing is that there
is no sin there. Everything is perfect. Perfect
happiness. Well, surely there is. tremendous
prospect for every true believer. So today you and I have this
great need to be amongst those who do believe the gospel, who
do believe these truths that the Apostle Peter here tells
us. For as much, for as much as you
know well he was able to speak to these people who did know
and it's good for us today therefore if we do know these great and
wonderful truths for as much as you know that you were not
redeemed no we couldn't pay for our salvation silver and gold
money, diamonds, whatever it was would not pay for our salvation
would not take away our sins no good at all that's why he
tells us very clearly we're not redeemed with corruptible things
as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by
tradition from your fathers but he then tells us the great truth
but all that is negative but this now is positive But with
the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb, without blemish
and without spot, and just to go back perhaps on that point,
Remember, he was writing here to these people, many of them
were Jewish people, the Israelites, who would have been familiar
with this Passover night when they remembered what had occurred. So many years ago, when that
lamb was slain, representing the Lord Jesus Christ, as they
would have realised what it meant. And there we have then, this
great truth, without blemish and without spot. The Lord Jesus
Christ lived a perfect life. He never sinned. If he had sinned,
his death would not have been acceptable with God to take away
our sins. But he never sinned. He lived
a perfect life. And he didn't live an easy life.
He didn't live an easy life. You can read about his life in
the New Testament, how often he suffered. He didn't have any
home himself. He didn't have any money himself.
No, he just lived, as it were, we might say hand to mouth. And
yet what he did, he did his father's will. And his father's will was
that he should die upon that cross to take away our sins. We might say, well, why was that? Why was that? Let me tell you
why it was. Well, we can read it in the epistle,
sorry, the Gospel of John, in John 3, 16. This is what we're
told. For God so loved the world that
he sent his only beloved Son into the world, that whosoever
believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. God so loved the world. God so
loved his people. If our sins are taken away, it's
because Jesus has loved us with an everlasting love. Wonderful
truth, isn't it? To think that God loved us, especially
when we disobeyed God. when we turned our back upon
God when we didn't want to obey Him we didn't want to acknowledge
that He was our Lord and yet the Lord was still very kind
and very gracious and He didn't deal with us as our sins deserved His love the love of God my friends
it's a great favour And if you and I are amongst those who are
redeemed, it's because God has loved us. If you and I believe
the gospel, it is because God has loved us. What a debt you
and I owe, don't we? Just try and evaluate it, to
think that God has done all that for you and me. And what have
we done in exchange? We haven't done anything, have
we? Really. And yet you know that the Word
of God tells us very clearly what we are to do if we do believe. Do you know what that is? The
Bible tells us. We are to take up our cross and
we are to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to follow His
great and glorious example. Well, what a privilege it is
to be a true follower of such a Saviour, of such a God. Such a great and glorious God.
And a God who has prepared a place for all those who He loves in
heaven at last. What a wonderful prosper that
is. for you and me to think upon. You and I live on this earth,
a sinful earth. We're sinners. We need salvation. That means our souls to be saved. And here we have before us that
way, the only way the Lord Jesus Christ has laid down his life
that you and I might be given eternal life oh my friends praise
God this morning for it well these are glorious verses and
you can go home and you can think upon them and meditate upon them
great truths for as much as ye know see this great blessing
when you and I know and we must know before we die we must know
for as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with
corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation
received by tradition from your fathers but with the precious
blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot
who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world but
was manifest in these last times for you who by him do believe
in God, that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory,
that your faith and hope might be in God. Amen.