Please be seated. Our Scripture
reading this morning is the 73rd Psalm. Psalm 73. This is the Word of the Lord. Psalm 73, beginning at verse
1. Truly, God is good to Israel,
even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, my feet
were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped, For I was
envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For there are no bands in their death, but their strength is
firm. They are not in trouble as other
men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore, pride
compasses them about as a chain. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with the
fatness. They have more than heart could
wish. They are corrupt and speak wickedly.
Concerning oppression, they speak loftily. They set their mouth
against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.
Therefore, his people return hither, and the waters of the
full cup are wrung out to them. And they say, how doth God know? and is their knowledge in the
Most High. Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the
world. They increase in riches. Verily, I have cleansed my heart
in vain and washed my hands in innocency, for all the day long
have I been plagued and chastened every morning. If I say I will
speak thus, behold, I should offend against the generation
of thy children. When I thought to know this,
it was too painful for me, until I went into the sanctuary of
God. Then understood I their end. Surely thou did set them in slippery
places. Thou canst cast them down into
destruction. How are they brought into destruction?
As in a moment, they are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream,
when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt
despise their image. Thus my heart was grieved, and
I was pricked in my reins. So foolish was I, and ignorant
I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless, I am continually
with thee. Thou hast holden me up by thy
right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy
counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven
but Thee? And there is none upon earth
that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For lo, they that are far from
Thee shall perish. Thou hast destroyed all them
that go a-whoring from Thee, but it is good for me to draw
near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord
God that I may declare all Thy works. Amen. 1 Peter 1 I don't want to declare a series
in the book of Peter because we're not going to go word by
word or verse by verse like we do in a Bible study. But it has been a source for
me to study and consider of what the next message will
be. And I continue to be led in this manner, I believe, in
this week. We looked a little bit about the elect. The first five
verses there are speaking of God's people. And then last week we spent a
little time considering the trials of our faith and how the Lord
uses our trials to teach us, to guide us, to guide His elect,
those who are kept by His power. And even though that faith can
be difficult when it's tried, The trial can be very difficult
to go through. God's people look at it and see
the truth of it, and the truth of it is this, He's brought us
to this point. He's brought us to this point.
Last week we considered the depth of our trials and how precious
they are, the shining of light on our weaknesses, revealing
His strength in keeping us, Peter set us up with verses 3-5 of
chapter 1, 4 verses 6-9, and he prepared us for the meaning
of our trials. Then in verse 17, he brings us
back from our trials to a hope that only Christ can give. And
that hope is this, that salvation is of the Lord from start to
finish. Read with me verses 2-5 first,
and then I want to read 17. Elect God's call, the very strangers
that Paul is talking about there in verse 1, God's people who
are scattered throughout all time, throughout all the time
of this world. Elect you, who according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the
Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling, not of you, but of the blood of Jesus Christ,
grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope." A living hope. A hope
in a living Savior. One who is not in that grave
marked death, but one who was raised up because God had accepted
His sacrifice. A lively hope, it says, by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Verse 4, to an
inheritance. incorruptible and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, you who are
kept by the power of God through faith, through belief unto salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time. Now look over at verse
17. And if ye call on the Father,
who without respect a person judges according to every man's
work past the time of your sojourning here in fear. Believers in this world are pilgrims
and sojourners. We know this is not our home.
Remember a time when you didn't know that? Remember before the
Lord called you out of darkness and shined the light of His Son
in your heart? Remember how where your home
was was where you made it, wasn't it? We saw the birth and our death
as the beginning and the ending of everything about us. Well, when I die, that's it,
it's over. Now we see it for what it truly is, and that is
that we're just on a path through this valley. We're just on a journey on the
highway going down to San Diego. We're just coming through the
valley of the shadow of death. A shadow of death because our
death was taken by our substitute. We're pilgrims. We're sojourners. Though we are in this world,
we are not of it. I'm a child of God. I belong
to the Most High who purchased me with His own blood. We're natives to this land by our first birth, but our second
birth makes us citizens of the heavenly country. We're here
for a little while only. So if we call God our Father,
And if we call on God for His mercy and grace in Christ Jesus,
His Son, through His Son's life, the life to come, let us do so
in true reverence and fear of God with the sincerity of heart. For God, without respect of persons,
is a true judge and of the works of men. He looks on the heart,
not on the outward flesh, speaking to some unbelieving Jews, Righteous
religionists, the Lord said these words in Luke 16, 15, Ye are
they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your
hearts. In Ezekiel 36, verse 26, we read
this, A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within
you. and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh,
and I will give you a heart of flesh." Does the Lord God give
everyone a new heart? Did He give Pharaoh a new heart? If I recall the words correctly,
He hardened the heart of Pharaoh, did He not? Did He give Esau a new heart? Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. Is that not the word of God?
What's so important about this, John? Why are you making such
a big deal of this? Because that's what you and I
could have been left to if we had been left to ourselves, that's
why. My job is to stand before you
and do one thing, and that is to magnify the grace of our Savior. That's what God's people want
to do. I don't have anything to tell you about what John has
done. John hasn't done anything. If God left it up to John to
do something, I'd mess it up. I know that. Do you? Do you know
that about you? Oh, pray the Lord takes your
sin and makes it the worst trouble you have in this world. Because
in doing so, he takes us and shows us our only salvation.
Our only peace. I've thought about this often.
Please don't take this as I'm making light of anything, but
knowing what I know now about life, If I didn't have the hope
of the Lord Jesus Christ, I could understand suicide. What hope? There is none. But today, I have great hope. I've got a lively hope. I've
got a living hope in my Savior, the Lord Jesus. One who's sitting
on His throne today. He's not dead in that tomb, folks.
He's not laying in a manger somewhere like they celebrate on Christmas. No, He's sitting on His throne
now. He's not coming back to the earth
to make a throne for Himself to sit on. He's already sitting
on it. God accepted the sacrifice of
His Son because it was perfect. There was no blemish in it. There
was no sin in it like there is in you and I. His ways are not
our ways. His ways are perfect. That goes
a whole different... That not only describes how we
can't really comprehend everything, but it describes Him. He's perfect. We can't understand perfection.
My father was a... My dad, Calvin Samuel Ellis,
he was what some folks call a perfectionist. He admitted it. He said, man,
I just cannot stop until I get every piece of that chair, when
he was refurnishing a chair, exactly perfect. He can't get
it any better. And it would drive him crazy.
It would just literally drive him crazy. There's a little flaw
there. Oh, I have to go back and do it over again. Yet he knew that he would never
get it perfect. Only one, the Lord Jesus. Does the Lord give everyone a
new heart? Did Saul, the king of Israel,
the first king of Israel, did he get a new heart? Did Judas get a new heart? No. That makes the fact that I got
a new heart something special. Something to praise my savior
for. It was not a new heart that I
had gotten on my own. by doing something, committing
myself to Christ, showing up to church on Sunday, getting
baptized, no. It was a new heart given to me
just as the Lord said it there in Ezekiel 36. A new heart also
will I give you. Hath not the potter power over
the clay? of the same lump to make one
vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor. What if God, willing
to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with
much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction
that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels
of mercy? which He had aforeprepared unto
glory, even us, whom He hath called Romans 8, verse 21-24. Look with me at verse 18 of 1
Peter chapter 1. For, forasmuch as ye know that you
were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from
your vain conversations perceived by the traditions of your fathers.
Now that last part was basically talking about the religious Jews
of that time, but it can go, it can apply to just about every
religion since then. They all put their conversation,
their walk of life, and their vanity of being saved. And they
all teach their children through tradition, the tradition of your
fathers, it calls it there. They all teach their children,
but we know better, don't we? We've been given the revelation
that there is nothing in this flesh that is worthy of salvation. We are not redeemed with corruptible
things as silver and gold. We know that God did not redeem
us from the useless way of life filled with traditions, ceremonialisms,
ritualisms, or vain and useless things like silver and gold. No, the price of redemption is
higher than this. The price is perfection. Man has the mark of the beast,
666. That's short of the mark of perfection, God the Father, God the Spirit,
and God the Holy Son. Nothing in this flesh is good
enough. With man, it always comes up short. Our only confidence
is in the works of our substitute. Listen to Philippians 3, verse
2-3. Beware of dogs. Beware of evil
workers. Beware of concision. You know,
I used to be told, why do you always got to beat up on these
other religions, John? Why would you always beat it
up on them and tell people to beware of them? My Lord tells
me right here, beware of dogs. I'm just reading to you from
God's Word. Beware of dogs. What's He talking about? He's
talking about the dogs of religion. The ones who feast on their own
vomit. Beware of evil workers. Beware
of concision, those who take the Word of God and separate
with it. For we, you and I, are the circumcision. We've had that old stony heart
that won't receive God, that won't even look to God, won't
even come to God to have life. He's removed that old heart and
given us a new heart. Isn't that what I just read a
moment ago? He says, I will give you a new heart. Also will I
give you in a new spirit, will I put within you. And I will
take away the old stony heart of your flesh and I will give
you a heart of flesh. Beware, we are the circumcision
which worship God in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. Look at verse 19. You know, I want to read 18 again.
For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with the corruptible
things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received
by the tradition of your fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ. Is the blood of Christ precious
to you? That's what I want to talk to you about this morning. I want to tell you how precious
the Lord's blood is to me. And I pray that in doing so,
the Lord will relate to you the preciousness of that blood as
well. There's no other blood that can
be shed to pay for the sins John Reeves. You can take my blood until every
drop of it comes out and there is nothing left. Let it dry upon
the ground as long as it lasts and it still is going to do nothing
but sit there and stink. I like to talk about the preciousness
of the Lord's blood as sweet and sour. Kind of compare it to that phrase, sweet and sour. It's
sweet, but yet it's sour. Why is it sour? Because it means
that my sin, my depravity, had to be laid upon Him who is
perfect. Had to be laid on the one who
never sinned, who was perfect in everything
he did, and that includes making himself my sacrifice. Wrap your mind around that for
a moment. Him who knew no sin, being made
sin, was perfectly made sin. That's almost If you try to wrap
your mind around that too much, at least for me, it's almost
like it's going to pop like a balloon. That's deep. He who knew no sin
was perfectly made sin for me. And he paid that price perfectly
in shedding of his blood. everything He did was according
to the will of His Father and it pleased God Almighty. This is My Son in whom I am well
pleased." Isn't that amazing? He did that for you, Paul and
Mary. He did that for every single one for whom the Father gave
Him from before the world ever was made. Every person's name
who is written on His breastplate before the world was created
shall be saved. He went to the cross and paid
the price. He went to the cross and shed His own blood. That's
why it's precious to us. He did something we couldn't
do. He saved us from our sins. The whole world is running about
trying to figure out what they can do to save themselves to
an angry God. But our God's not angry with
us anymore. He threw all of His wrath, all
of His anger upon His Son. And He took it perfectly. My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken me? He said, for my sake. For your sake. Is His blood getting precious
to you yet? Is it? Oh, I pray it is. Folks, we were purchased. We
were purchased with the precious blood of Christ, the Messiah,
the Deliverer. Like that of a sacrificial lamb
without spot or blemish, though. The Lord Jesus, His blood is
human blood. But it's not tainted. with the
sin as you and I, as ours is. His blood is the one of one who
is God as well as man and was freely shed in the stead of his
people. His blood is sufficient, paid the price in full for our
redemption because of he of whom it was from. It is precious blood. Precious to the Father and to
the believer, and priceless, priceless for the purchase. Listen to Matthew 26, verse 28. For this is My blood of the New
Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Listen to Acts. I'm going to
give you several verses here, so just set your Bibles down
for a moment. If you want to mark in your bulletin
these verses and you want to go back and look at them another
time, I suggest you do that. But listen and hear. Hear how
precious the Lord's blood is to His people. Take heed, therefore,
unto yourselves and to all the flock over that... This is Acts
20, verse 28. "...and to over which the Holy
Ghost hath made you the overseers, and feed the church of God, which
He purchased with His own blood. Listen to these. Here's another
one. Romans 5 verse 9. Much more than
being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved, saved from
the wrath through Him. See how important God's The blood
of Christ is? Pretty important here. Here's another one. Ephesians
2 verse 13. But now in Christ ye who sometimes
were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Oh, how
precious. How precious the blood of my
Savior is to me. Colossians 1 verse 20-22, and
having made peace through the blood of His cross by Him to
reconcile all things unto Himself, by Him I say whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometimes
alienated and enemies in your own mind by wicked works, yet
now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death
to present you holy, to present you holy and unblameable
and unapprovable in His sight. How precious is the blood of
the Lord Jesus to you Is it getting more and more precious? Are you
growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus? Hebrews 9-12
tells us this, that neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by His own blood He entered once into the holy place, having
obtained. That's past tense. That means done. He said it kind
of like that from the cross. He said it is finished. It's
a done deal. If I do anything to try to add
to that, then I've kind of messed it up. I've tainted it with my
sin. He's done it perfectly. If he's
done it perfectly, then why should I need to try to do anything?
Revelation 1, chapter 1, verse 5. And from Jesus Christ, who
is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and
the prince of the kings, of the earth unto Him that loved us
and washed us from our sin in His own blood. For as much as
ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot. Is the blood of the only begotten
precious to you? Look at verse 20, speaking of
this one, speaking of the precious blood of Christ, the blood of
a lamb without blemish, the blood of a lamb without spot. Verse
20 of our text, 1 Peter chapter 1, who verily, verily was ordained... I want to stop there. who verily, speaking of this
Lamb, this Lamb that was without blemish, this Lamb that was without
spot, was foreordained." Do you know what that means? Ordained,
means to be sent out. He was sent. He was sent of God. Over in John, it talks a little
bit about that. John chapter 17. You can turn
over there if you'd like for a moment. Mark your spot there
in Hebrews. I mean, 1 Peter, we'll come back to it. But over
in John 17, it talks about the Lord Jesus Christ being sent.
Look at verse 6. No, let's start at verse 5. And
now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the
glory which I had with Thee, notice, before the world was. Folks, Jesus Christ is the eternal
Son of God in the flesh. He's always been the Son of God.
He just didn't have a body. We've talked about that just
recently. In Hebrews chapter 10, the God Almighty had provided,
had prepared a body for His Son. That body would come through
all kinds of people. He'd come through Ruth. He'd
come through David. He'd come through Jesse. All the way down through the
line. God had declared where that body would come from, and
it came exactly from whom He said it would come from. Our Lord has always been the
Son of God. He just didn't have a body. And
now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self in the glory
which I have had. with thee before the world was,
that I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest
Me out of the world." There's that Word. There's a Word that
shows us, elect, chosen, thine they were, and thou gavest Me
them, and they were kept by thy Word. Now they have known that
all things whatsoever thou hast given Me are of thee, for I have
given unto them the words which thou gavest Me, and they received
them. and have known surely that I
came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst
send me." That's what that word ordained means. To be sent. When a pastor is ordained, he's
ordained of other ministers, meaning that he's been sent to
go and pastor a church under the authority of other ministers.
Back in our text, who verily was for ordained, when? Before the foundation of the
world. I've used the words in Revelation, the lamb slain from
before the foundation of the world. But this is saying the
same thing. It's saying the exact same thing
right there. He was foreordained. The precious blood of Christ,
the Lamb without blemish, without spot, was foreordained from before
the foundation of the world, but was manifest, what? In these
last times for you! For us! Manifest! That means He was shown! Revealed! This very One who was
sent of God was revealed to us. Christ was chosen, sent to be
our surety, our Savior from the foundation of the world. Redemption
of sinners by the blood of Christ was no afterthought of God when
Adam fell. Folks, this is not Plan B. The fall of Adam was not an accident. It was natural men natural man
doing exactly what God had purposed to be done. He's not the author
of sin. That's ours. That's ours. And we know it,
don't we? Our Lord was brought up to a
public view and to a public rejection and to a public crucifixion in
the last days. Look at verse 21. Who by Him
do believe in God that raised Him from the dead and gave Him
glory, that your faith and hope might be where? Where does it
say? In God. Seeing ye have purified your
souls, and obeying the truth through the Spirit, unto unfeigned
love for the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure
heart, fervently, being born again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever. It is by our Lord that we believe,
for faith is the gift of God, as we read in Ephesians 2, verses
8-9. It is by Him that we can approach God. You can read that
in John 4 verse 16. It is by Him that we are accepted
by God in Ephesians 1 verse 6. It is by Him that we can know
God, our faith and hope, have this sure foundation Christ has
both risen and entered into glory. My Lord and representative has
won the battle and has already occupied heaven for me. We've
been born again and belong to the same family, being born in
the same father, therefore, we ought to love each other as brethren. It was my greatest heart's desire
over the last two days to see my sister Cheryl arrive home safely. If you thought
about how far that is for that Dear friend, that would be like
you, Pauli Marie, trying to drive from here to Utah tomorrow. Yeah. And she did it. She drove all
the way to San Diego. She's going to drive all the
way out here from Utah in July, Lord willing, to be with us for
the conference. I'm going to be sitting on needles waiting
to see her face. And I'll be sitting on those
same needles until she gets home safe, just as I was yesterday.
This is the love of brethren, folks. This is the love of the brethren. The love that we have for each
other. I know you folks prayed for us. Because Kathy and I drove
to San Diego on Wednesday, or Tuesday, and drove home. I know
you were praying for me. You've told me. Look at verse 24. All flesh is
as grass, And all the glory of man is the
flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower
thereof falls away. Folks, every bit of what we could
call glory for our own is nothing but a flower that's going to
fall away into the dust of the wind. Verse 25, but the word
of the Lord endureth forever. Isn't that good news? And this is the Word by which
the Gospel is preached unto you. The Word of God by which He created
the world and all the things by which He created us anew is
the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it abides forever. Listen
to 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6, and I'll bring this to a close. This is the Word we're talking
about right here. The very Word of the Lord Jesus, the very Word
that is spoken of in John 1. In the beginning was the Word. That's the Word that the Lord
Jesus referred to when He said on that road to Emmaus with those
two disciples. He went, and starting at Moses
and all the books of the prophets, He expounded the things concerning
Himself. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts. Is his
blood precious? Is it precious? Oh, how I pray
it is. This very one who has commanded
the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6. This
Word is the Gospel which was preached unto you, so then faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Romans 10,
verse 17.