All right, back to 1 Peter chapter
four. As we were setting up the live
stream for this service, you know, you're supposed to type
in a title. And so I was trying to think
of one. So I said, well, let's just put the end of all things
is near part two, because last week I preached a message on
the end of all things is near. And I got started, and then I
got distracted from what I intended on delivering as the message.
I don't apologize for that, because it was a good distraction. Because what I preached on, the
direction it took was to sort of remove this statement of the
Apostle Peter out of its context. and apply it to us, knowing this,
that without any reference to prophetic events, the end of
us is near. And that's true whether we're
nine or 90. If with the Lord a day is as
1,000 years, then what's the difference between being nine
and 90? And I am supposing by the direction
of God's spirit last week, instead of taking the direction I thought
I was gonna take, I preached what in other circles might be
called a much more evangelistic type message, in which I urged
each person young and old alike, with all the urging power that
I've got, to be clear-minded, clear-thinking, knowing that soon you will stand
before God. And that should sober your way
of thinking. Now this morning, I want to put
this statement of Peter back within its context, and it has
some very important things to say to us from that viewpoint
as well. Remembering that Peter, who said
he was the primary apostle to the Jews, as supposed to Paul,
who was a primary apostle to the Gentiles, This letter was
written with Jews in mind. Even though it begins with, to
God's elect, strangers in the world, he was talking about that
election according to the remnant of grace out of the seed of Abraham. Now that doesn't mean we could
do not apply it to all of God's elect scattered throughout the
world. But when Peter was writing this
down, I believe that's who he was thinking about. is those
Jewish brethren of his who've been scattered all over the place,
and he says to them, the end of all things is near. And I
don't think that Peter was here trying to prophesy that the universe
itself was about to come to an end. If that's what he meant,
then we've got a lot of explaining to do. And I know that there
are forms of prophecy, versions of prophetic things that, views
that say, you know, well, It's near the way God thinks of near.
Well, come on. I realize you can use that to
some degree, and indeed Peter does when he says, with the Lord,
a day is a thousand years, but that's in the context simply
with the promise of his coming. It isn't within the framework
of some timetable that had been given out. And he said, oh, by
the way, when the Lord said soon, he really meant a long way off.
That's not what he means. Here, Peter says, the end of
all things is near, and he meant that. Just as if you said the
end is near, you wouldn't be meaning any time within the next
million years. You'd mean it's near enough.
You need to do something about it. You need to make preparations.
And when he says the end of all things is near, this is an example
of how the scriptures use the word all and quite frankly the
way we use the word all. Once again, not talking about
the whole universe, speaking to Jews, he's essentially saying
all those things associated with being in that nation which God
chose to bless as he had the Jews. He says the end of all
of that is very close. And while we do not know the
exact date that this book was written, it is assumed that it
was sometime in the 60s A.D. and on 70 A.D. God sent the Romans
and they tore down Jerusalem and the temple. And that was
the end. An end they should have been
willing to bring to pass. If the Jewish nation had, according
to the prophecies of the Old Testament, recognized Jesus to
be the Christ, and recognized what all that meant, then they
themselves with their own hands would have torn the temple down.
They would have said, we don't need this anymore. The reality
of these types and shadows is present. Or if they'd have left
it up, they'd have said, this is just a museum. Anybody can
go in now. Doesn't matter. The system that
God put in place that involved this temple worship, that's done.
It's over. The types and shadows are gone.
The sun of righteousness has appeared. It's the noon day. And we're leaving this building
up just so you can come and see what it used to be like. But
they didn't do that. They clung to those things. They
clung to what they thought was their favored status within the
world. Not accepting the gospel truth
that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. They wanted
to keep saying there's something special about being a Jew. They
kept right on offering sacrifices there at the temple. And even
though they had corrupted all of that, they were still going
through some kind of outward form of it. I mean, I don't even
know that it was Sons of Aaron occupying the high priesthood. History says that the high priesthood
was up for sale. And a person would become high
priest, and instead of holding that office till he died, like
he was supposed to, he'd hold it for a year maybe, and then
sell it off to somebody else. But nonetheless, they were clinging
to that old covenant system, wouldn't let it go, and had our
Lord Jesus Christ not prayed, Father forgive them for they
know not what they do, God would have destroyed that place right
after the resurrection and ascension of Christ. That would have been
the end, or maybe the day of Pentecost. That would have been the end
of it. But because our Lord pled for his father to forgive those
of that generation, God waited till nearly all that generation
was dead. And then he did what their rejection earned them,
the utter destruction of everything that they had known before. So Peter says to these Jews,
And they're scattered all over the place. They're scattered
because of persecution. But he's saying to them, understand
this, you were driven from home. You were driven from the temple. And I know that you're still
homesick. That's just natural. But understand
this, God's about to destroy it. He's about to bring an end
to everything that you remember. in your life as a Jew. And you think that it was bad
for you when your Jewish brethren persecuted you. You ain't seen
nothing yet. Now that's what he means here.
The end of all things is near. You were able to flee to the
Gentile nations when your brethren persecuted you. Now the Gentiles
are going to turn on you. Your city's gonna be destroyed.
And you know the way those military people are, they love to gloat
over their victories. And even though you weren't in
Jerusalem when this, or aren't gonna be in Jerusalem when this
happens, when once people find out you're a Jew, they're gonna
mock you for being a Jew, and they're gonna hate you even more
for being a Christian Jew. Things are going to get bad,
that's what he's saying. The end of all things is near.
And therefore, the only good advice, be clear minded. Declutter your thinking. Declutter
it of all your love of this world and the things that pertain to
this world. And the reason was they were
about to lose most of it. Some of them would die. Some
of them would have all their property taken away from them.
Some of them, they had moved to one area and established a
new home and they were going to be driven away from there. What do you do in such times? That's hard times. You and I, I mean, I'm sure that
we get frustrated when we see what's going on in our country,
but so far nobody's told us we can't go on worshiping. I realize
you can't have more than a handful, but that's never been a problem
to us. That's all we got. And some of them, you know, you
can't sing because you're going to spread that virus more if
you sing and they do all that. But still, we can worship God. And none of us, at least in this
place, are worried that when we're done and we walk outside
that there's going to be a bunch of policemen ready to arrest
us and throw us in jail and seize our property. That's not going
to happen. At least I certainly don't expect it. That's what
was going to happen to these people. How were they, as Christians,
And that word had become popular by then. They were first called
Christians in Antioch. Now that name was known all over
the Gentile world. That's who these weird religious
people were. Christians was not a word of
honor. It started out as simply a descriptive
word because this new religion had popped up there in the city
of Antioch and the unbelieving Antiochians or whatever you call
them had said, One thing they noted about them, they were always
talking about somebody whom they called to Christ. Their whole
religion was wrapped up in this person called to Christ. They
said, wow, they're Christians. But in time, it became a name
of contempt. Christians. Silly people. Meanwhile, they went and bowed
down to a piece of rock. But nonetheless, we were the
silly ones. They were going to suffer for
being Jews, and they were gonna doubly suffer for being Christians.
What do you do? You gotta be clear-minded about
what's important and what's not. Self-controlled, the word there
means a saved mind, or a healthy mind. You know, the world has a sick
mind and sometimes it looks more sick than at other times. Sometimes
the sickness of the world's mind is put on such display that like
with Lott, and like I said, you know, none of us would set forth
Lott as an example of how to live, but even he was sickened
by the sickness of the minds of the people who lived in Sodom. But it doesn't require that the
world engage in such perversions as was going on in Sodom and
going on in the United States and other places. The world could
be very moral and it's still sick-minded because it is still
self-centered. anything other than faith in
Christ is being sick-minded. And so he says, you be healthy-minded
or saved-minded. You be possessed of a way of
thinking that has been rescued from the worldly way of thinking.
You put in your mind, or I realize it's God that does it, but since
this is being given as an exhortation, we've got to take it as an exhortation,
and that is that we make certain that we think like
people whose minds have been changed by the grace of God to
value different things than what we valued before. and to seek
the Lord differently than we did before we believed when we
were really religious people. To set our affections, as Paul
says, on things above, or set our minds on things above, and
our affections on things above, and not on things below. Understanding
that our citizenship is in heaven, it's not here. And if you think
that your citizenship is in heaven, and Peter said, just give it
a little while, the world is, excuse me, if you think your
citizenship is in the world, give it a little time, the world
is gonna tell you you don't belong here. This isn't your home. And so put on this saved mind. Make yourself ready to lose it
all. Because it's quite possible,
even likely, that you will. And he said, do this so you can
pray. Why would we have to do this
so we can pray? Have you ever noticed that when
you're confronted with problems, the first thing that happens
is you get kind of, and I mean serious, I mean, I'm gonna lose
my job, or this is gonna, and all at once, anxiety creeps in,
and your mind begins running in 100,000 different directions.
And whether you do it literally or just in your mind, you do
as the old phrase was, you run around like a chicken with your
head cut off. And in such a state of mind,
you can't pray. You gotta take possession of
your mind. You gotta quit, that's what the apostle's saying. You
can't do that. You can't just throw up your
arms like all is lost. No, not all is lost. Just those
things pertaining to this world, that's gonna be lost, but nothing
involving your spiritual life is going to be lost. Therefore,
take good possession of your thinking. Grab a hold of it. Do as it were. You know, you've
seen the thing where someone does get, you know, kind of loses
control and somebody grabs him by the scruff of the neck, slaps
him back and forth, you know. So get control of yourself. That's
what he's saying. Why? So you can start doing that which
will help you through that time. So you can pray. Because when
you're running wild, you're not praying. And you know how I know
all that? Because that's exactly what I
do. Problems come up and it's amazing how long it takes before
finally that voice of a saved mind comes to us and says, now
just settle down and pray. Now, knowing that this is the
context in which he's writing all this, notice what he says
to the people in the church. He says, above all, love each
other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins. Now,
here when he speaks of sins, he's not speaking of sins against
God, at least not directly. But he's talking about the offenses
that we commit against one another as believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And these offenses only get aggravated and become more
serious and irritating when we are under persecution from the
world. And so Peter says you better
learn how to love each other deeply because it's going to
be pretty soon the only people in this world you're going to
have is one another. And if you're going to have friends,
it's going to be your brothers and sisters in Christ, because
they're the only ones that are going to want to have anything to do
with you. And if you haven't learned to love them, they're
going to irritate you to the point that you can't enjoy them. But if you love them, I remember back when I was a
kid, There was a song that came out, what the world needs now
is love, sweet love. Love's the only thing that there's
just too little of. Even the Beatles sang, all you
need is love. They keep singing that, but they don't do it. Even the world, the natural world,
understands that love is the answer to virtually everything. Yet in all of our relationships,
in all our conflicts, the answer is to love one another.
Because love never fails. Love, as we practice it, is never
perfect, because nothing we do is perfect, and yet you'd be
amazed at how wise love is. You say, I just don't know what
to do. I imagine there's not a parent in the world that has
not at some point in their life thought, I just don't know what
to do with this kid. You love them. You love them and from that love
will come the wisdom and power to do what's right. Again, it's
not going to be perfect. But I've noticed this, those
children raised in love, For all the mistakes their parents
make, they pretty well turn out okay. And those children raised
by a system of law, and there's legalistic homes. It doesn't matter how good the
rules were that they were taught. Once they get out from under
the rules, boom, trouble. Well, what works in the home
works in the church as well. Love covers a multitude of sins. Now, the proof of that is us. God loved us and sent his son to die for us. Christ died for our sins. God
commences love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. Christ loved the church. and
gave himself for her. Love by itself does not cover
our sins. God could have loved us and we
would have still perished were it not that Jesus Christ came
and died for us. That intervening, mediating aspect
had to be put in there. But there's nothing wrong with
saying that God's love covered our multitude of sins because
God's love moved him to do that which was necessary to put away
our sins. But with us, it's a little different.
See, we're not the moral governor of the universe. We don't have
to demand that the offenses against us be paid for. We can just let
them go. Now God can't do that, and I
don't mean that he doesn't have permission. His nature as a just
and righteous being cannot allow for sin to go unpunished. Consequently,
for his love to cover a multitude of sin, there must be the intervening
work of Christ that justifies his love covering a multitude
of sins. But you and I, you can sin against
me. And I can just love you and forget
about it. And never bring it up to you.
Never ask you to apologize for it. Never ask you to make up
for it. And you can do the same with
me. And the world isn't going to fall apart. Love covers a multitude of sins. How do we know that in human
relationships love covers a multitude of sins? I look around, I see
people been married to each other a long time. And I know one thing,
I don't care how much you love somebody, I don't care how wonderful
you think they are. You put two people in the same
house, there's going to be friction. That's just how it is. And I,
well, that's just how it is, you know. And, you know, people
talk about honeymoon love or sweetheart love, you know, the
first, after people first get married, you know, it just seems
like for a little while, everything's okay. But before long, somebody
does something that's not the way the first person thought
it ought to be done. And then it's a hundred things, and then
a thousand, and they just keep, and then kids come in. And before
long, you've got the group of people, and I'm not, I'm not
saying this to make us feel bad. I just want that all of us will
be able to relate to this. In families, there's a whole
lot of sinning against each other, a whole lot of selfishness. You got cases where parents sin
against their children by being too harsh and letting their anger
get out of hand towards them. You got children sinning against
their parents by disobeying when they turn into those teenage
things. We did it, too. Don't worry,
young folks, I'm not just picking on you. I mean, I was a teenager
once, and I managed to survive it, and so did my parents. But it creates friction, doesn't
it? And yet, the families go on. Why is it that in our families,
we continue to live with, associate with, closely embrace, protect
and provide for those who do things to us, that if anybody
else did them to us, that'd be the last time we ever spoke to
them. Why? We love them. That's why. There's not a parent here who
hasn't had their kid mouth off to them. If anybody else did
that to you, that'd be the end of your relationship with them,
wouldn't it? What if the neighbor kid mouthed off to you? Well,
you just go back to your yard, you know? Well, you may discipline
your child, but you're not gonna kick them out for doing it, are
you? You're gonna love them. And love
is gonna cover that sin. And I've known people that grew
up in harsh households, and it was difficult, and yet they reach adulthood,
and as time goes by, they realize they love their parents. The
parents loved them, did the best they could, but their love covers
the multitude of sins that their parents did against them. Now, if we can do that in our
natural families, We certainly ought to be able to do it within
this spiritual family. I love my natural children. And I give thanks to God they
are my spiritual brothers and sisters. So I get to love them
on two accounts. But I know this, there's not
a natural relationship I have in this world that competes with the spiritual
relationships that I have, or it shouldn't be that way. Love covers a multitude of sins. And then he goes on and says
this, offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Now
that word hospitality, you know, when we think about hospitality,
we just think about, you know, somebody can put on a good party.
You know, she's such a good hostess. Or they can have a guest in the
house a little bit. You know what he's talking about
here? It's in the end of all things is near. Some of you are
going to lose your homes. And those of you that don't,
you're going to have to open up your homes and let them live
in there. You remember the phrase, the
thing, you know, good fences make for good neighbors? Why
is that? That lets everybody be their
own way in their own house. And he's saying, but you're not
going to have that privilege. You're not going to be able,
you can't build up fences between you and your brothers and sisters.
When times become hard, you've got to open up your house and
say, well, we got room, move in. And they're going to do things
differently than you do them. And Peter's saying, get ready
for it. It's going to come. Don't grumble. Don't fuss at them. Just open up your house. I'm
not saying that, you know, in such situations you got to put
up with everything, but you come to terms. You find a way to get
along under whatever circumstances the Lord creates. Verse 10, each one should use
whatever gift he has received to serve others faithfully administering
God's grace in its various forms. Now I say to every believer here,
God has given you a grace of some kind. You may not know what
it is, but he has. He's given you a grace that enables
you to be useful to your brothers and sisters in Christ. You don't
have to know what it is. You just live in love and whatever
that grace is, it will manifest itself and you will have been
helpful. But here's the thing. You've gotta go ahead and do
it. And that means being involved with each other. That means whenever
you can, you come together for worship. Because here, and I
went through this in the Sunday school class, but it's the same
principle here. This business of worship is not
a spectator sport. It's not a matter of you all
come and watch me worship. That's not how it's supposed
to be. It's we all come together and
each one of us functions in whatever capacity God has enabled us to And like I said, you may not
even know what it is, but you're here and you are personally entering
into the worship. You're singing along with the
songs. You're praying along with the prayers. You're following
along with the sermon. And maybe afterwards you talk
to your brothers and sisters about it and say, boy, did you
catch that point about such and such? And in so doing, We are all ministers
to one another, building up the body of Christ. And we no longer
become these isolated disconnected people who just happened to go
to the same church. We become members together of
one body. And I'm not talking about members
like when the people say, are you a member of that church?
I'm talking about it in the way that Paul used it when he talked
about the various parts of our bodies being members of our body. Now, you know something? If my
arm, if my left arm just disconnected itself and went somewhere, it'd
no longer be a member of my body. Would it? And it'd be useless
to me. Well, we're not to do that. We
are to worship together as much as we can. We ought to, when
possible, seek out each other during the week and establish
what otherwise might be called social relationships with one
another. So often we come to church and
we associate with our brothers and sisters, but then we leave
church and we spend the rest of our week associating with
the world. Now I realize we got to go to
our jobs, can't do anything else about that. And primarily we're
going to be associating with people that don't believe as
we believe. And we got our families and all
of that, but we ought to be seeking each other out. We ought to be thinking, boy,
I sure wish I could spend some time with someone that believes
the Lord like I do. Because you see, when brethren
live in love towards one another, there's no conflict. I tell you,
there's so much conflict going on in our country right now,
you hardly want to go out your front door. You don't want to read the newspaper.
You don't want to watch the, why? Just fighting, fighting,
fighting, fighting. I love being among the people of God. I don't
have a fight with them. Verse 11, if anyone speaks, he
should do it as one speaking the very words of God. One of the most sobering thoughts that I have from time
to time is that when I stand up here and speak to you or talk
to you on the phone about spiritual things or across the table over
a cuppa. Whenever I am speaking on the
things pertaining the truth, I am to be as careful with what
I declare as though I were saying, thus saith the Lord. Most folks think it's a wonderful
thing if anybody decides to become a preacher. Really? I've heard a lot of people in
the pulpit never should have got up there. I've heard believers in the pulpit
that should never have gotten up there. And I'm not saying
that to put them down. If a man is enabled to teach
the very words of God, it's because it's a matter of grace. And so nobody can take credit
for doing it. Nonetheless, let no one ever enter a position
of teaching the people of God unless he is willing to say,
as much as I can understand it, thus saith the Lord. And if you
don't have that level of confidence in what you're saying, don't
say anything. Now I understand sometimes I've
spoken to you and I've said, I'm not really sure, but this
is what I think. But that's why I make that point.
I want you to understand I'm doing the best I can on this. But on this particular point,
I'm not as sure as I'd like to be, but here's what it seems
to be saying. But most of the time when I'm preaching to you,
I'm preaching to you what I believe absolutely to be the Word of
God concerning that subject. That's why to me it's so sobering
when someone who has listened to me dies, because they left
this world believing what I taught them. and they're going to meet
God, trusting what I said. And sometimes that makes me want
to go crawl in a cave and never say anything to anybody again.
The apostle said in the book of Hebrews, obey them that have
the rule over you, as they who must give an account, for they
care for your souls. There's two things that make
me want to be sure that what I tell you is the truth. First,
I love you and I don't want to lead you astray. I would rather
die than lead you astray. And number two, I must give an
account. I'm responsible for what I say
to you. So if anyone speaks, don't be anxious to speak up.
But if God moves you to do that, you believe you've been called,
then study, prepare, and when you speak, speak as one who is
confident that he's speaking the very words of God. Otherwise,
don't speak. If anyone serves, helps, ministers
in any way, let him do so with the strength God provides. Now, there is nothing spiritual that can be done in
the strength of the flesh. Now, when we do naturally helpful
things for one another. And we do it in the name of the
Lord. And because of the love that
we bear for one another, then there is a spiritual component
added to what we did that's just a natural service. I think one
of the greatest examples of this is that woman named Dorcas. And
I can't remember which of the churches she was associated with,
but she died. And Dorcas, whose name I think
means gift, I'm not sure, but she was known for that. She made
people cloaks, robes, clothes. She made things for people and
gave it to them. Now, naturally, anyone can do that. But Dorcas
did this out of love. She did this as a ministry to
her brothers and sisters in Christ, and it gained a spiritual component
to it that helped them far beyond what help you can get out of
a coat. You understand what I mean by
that? Can you imagine what it was like
to be a member of her church? Maybe you were poor. And they didn't have any programs
for the poor. And your coat was kind of ragged. And winter was coming on. And here comes this beloved sister. And she says, I made this for
you. Now, that coat won't make you
any warmer than if you went down to Salvation Army and picked
it up. It won't make you any warmer in your body than if you
went down, almost said Sears, but I don't even know if they're
still in business. Any store, if you went down to Walmart and
bought it yourself, won't make you any warmer. But it will warm
your heart. It will cause you to rejoice
in Christ. It will make you give thanks
to God who promised you that he would provide you with everything
you need if you seek first the kingdom of God. Do you see how
that woman making coats was a spiritual work, not a fleshly one? And
that has to be done in the power of God, in the strength of God. And it's done so that in all
things, God will be praised for it. Now, if anybody does anything
for me, I say thank you. I mean, when a waitress brings
me my food, I say thank you, even though I'm going to pay
for it and she's doing it because she's getting paid. That's just
polite. And when we do things for one
another, we should thank one another for that. Whatever it
is they did. I've had many a people, many
a times y'all thanked me for the message. But you and I both
know that whatever goods you got out of it didn't come from
me. It came from God. And we give Him praise. As the
song says, praise God from whom all blessings flow. If you got
a blessing, that's where it came from. Even if I was the pipe
that it came through, the blessing came from God. Let me move on,
see if I can finish up this little thing. Last phrase, to him be
glory and power forever and ever, amen. Brethren, that's where
everything's headed. Everything. When all is said
and done, here's what's gonna be said and done. Praise and
glory to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessing and honor
and glory and power be unto him that sits upon the throne and
unto the Lamb. That's where it's all headed. And so he says, the end of all
things is near. Get your mind uncluttered from
all the stuff that's coming to an end anyway. Love one another
deeply because you all are going Be rubbing shoulders closer than
you're accustomed to, and it's gonna take love to get it done.
Be ready to help each other out however you can. And when you
speak a word of God, you be sure that's what it is. And when you
help one another, you do so out of love for Christ, love for
them, do it in the strength of God, so that in all things, God
will get the praise, because no matter what you do, that's
what's gonna happen anyway. He's going to get the praise.
And I ask you, do you want it any other way? I remember Henry preaching on rewards
one time. And he said, he talked about
those who would make a big deal out of when they go to the temple
and give their gifts. You know, they'd have somebody blast a
trumpet or hit a gong or something so everybody would notice. And
he said, well, they got their reward. And he said, you ever
buy a pew in the church? That's the way churches raise
money. He said, all right, these pews, they're going to cost us
$250 apiece. You give us $250, and we'll put
your name on a plaque on the end of that pew. Henry said,
if you've done that, he said, you better enjoy that plaque.
You got your reward. That's it. We're not interested in that,
are we? You really want a plaque? Do you not, from your heart,
desire that the one who shed his blood for you get the credit
for any good that ever came through you? Isn't that what you want? Well, if you believe him, that's
what you want. So get ready. I don't know what's going to
happen with our nation. When I was a kid, they thought
it was all going to fall apart to communism, and it didn't.
And we look at some disturbing trends now, and who knows what
the Lord's gonna do, I don't know. I can see a path to it
all falling apart. Seriously, I mean, I can see
how that can happen, because things have gone, you know, things
have happened in such quick succession, it's startling. I can also see
God just say, okay, that's as far as I'm gonna let it go this
time, in restoring things. But Paul said it this way, no
matter what happens, Conduct yourselves in a manner consistent
with the gospel. Prepare yourselves. Get ready.
Be ready and willing to lose it all, because you might. And set your heart and your affections
on the spiritual things, which are the things above and the
only spiritual things below are your brothers and sisters in
Christ and the word of Christ. Well, may the Lord gain some
benefit or gain