Well, we've kind of got to the
end of the book of James. Continue here with the book of
1 Peter. Or we might more properly call
it the first epistle of Peter, first letter of Peter. Begin reading there in verse
1, it says, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Elect according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification
of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling 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 to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. who are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though
now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold
temptations. that the trial of your faith,
being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though
it be tried with fire, might be found unto the praise and
the honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having
not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see him, yet believing
ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving
the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. of which salvation the prophets
have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that
should come unto you, searching what or what manner of time the
Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should
follow. unto whom it was revealed 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 the angels desire to look into. 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. As obedient children, not fashioning
yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. But
as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner
of conversation. Because it is written, be ye
holy, for I am holy. If ye call on the Father, who
without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work,
pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. 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. Seeing ye have purified your
souls, and obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned
love of the brethren, see that ye 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. For all flesh is as grass, and
all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth,
the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord endureth
forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached
unto you. Now that's a glorious passage
of scripture that surely contains much instruction, exhortation,
and admonition that we are to be the followers of Christ because
of who we are. We're not, we don't We don't become the followers
of Christ by doing the things that we do, but we do the things
that we do because we are the followers of Christ. Now, there
is a difference in that. Today, in our modern era, it
is a primary function, supposedly, of preaching to try to get God's
people to do the things that they're supposed to do. Now,
there are things that God's people are supposed to do. But the only
way that they'll ever do those things is if the Spirit of God
moves in them to cause them to do those things. And as they
do those things, they manifest themselves to be the sons of
God. And so there is a work of God in the people of God. There's not a work in men that
causes God to do that work. But God is the one that does
that work. And it has manifested then in
the children of God. And the reason for that is that
he might have the glory. Because you see, if there's something
you can do that causes God to take notice of you, then the
glory Some of it belongs to you, does it not? I mean, did you
not do something that earned you the favor of God, if that
be true? And we know that can't be true. I mean, if the scripture
plainly says, there's none that seeketh after God. We're not
born into the world desiring to walk in the way of the Lord,
but we have to be brought to the place. where we would seek
the Lord. No man, the Lord said, can come
unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. And that
is the work of God. So Peter's writing to, let's
look at who he's writing to. It says Peter, an apostle of
Jesus Christ. Now of course, Peter is a very
prominent person. in the Gospels as we see him
quite often in great vigor and he has much, what would you say,
inner strength. Peter knows himself to be a strong
man. I've always viewed Peter as being
quite a large man. who was very sure of himself,
and he was not the kind of fellow that you would want to mess with. He kind of spoke his mind, and
he went about doing what he wanted to do, and not many people could
stand against him. And yet, of all the disciples, none of them were ever humbled. in a greater way than Peter was. I mean, Peter was brought down.
Peter had no place to glory, and he knew it. You know, it's
one thing when we learn through studying the Bible or somebody
tells us that we don't have anything to glory in. That's one thing
we can learn that kind of in our mind and we know it. I mean,
if you ask most people, they would probably say that, that
they know they don't have anything to glory in. But it's quite another
thing to be brought down by the Spirit of God and taught that
in the heart. so that you know, you know, it's
not just rhetoric. We're not just saying we don't
have anything going on. It's actually been demonstrated
to us. And we look at ourself and find that there is no good
thing dwelling within us. As David, you know, he was a
man who was brought down. And you read the 51st chapter,
or the 51st Psalm, and you see that very work of the Spirit
of God in David to strip him of all expectation of anything
within himself. And so Peter is a man well acquainted
with what he's writing to these strangers scattered abroad. And
he was an apostle. Now we've spoken of what the
apostles were. The apostles were 12 men whom
the Lord chose. I'm of the belief that there's
only 12 apostles. Only ever have been 12 apostles.
Won't ever be but 12 apostles. Now I know you got a lot of guys
running around out here. You know, you see them, hear
them on the radio and stuff. This is apostle so and so and
all this kind of stuff. Well, they're lying because they
cannot be an apostle. because an apostle is someone
who is hand-selected by the Lord, taught by the Lord personally. and receives the word of God
directly from the mouth of the Lord. There's only ever been
12. There was 13 men that were chosen,
but one of them the Lord chose as a devil. He was never to be
ultimately considered among the apostles, though he was chosen
out in that initial group. But Paul came along and he says
he was as one born out of due time. And remember the Lord took
Paul into the desert for three years and he was there with no
one and the Lord taught him. And he said that he was called
up into the third heaven and he saw things that he couldn't
tell you. He saw things he said that were
unlawful to speak of. because the Lord Jesus Christ
taught him directly. And of course we know that it
is actually through Paul that most of those things that we
have in the New Testament as far as the letters and teachings
doctrinally came through the mouth of Paul. Now Paul was no
different than anybody else. He said he was the chief of sinners.
He knew himself to be that. And the Lord used him. And I
believe he was the twelfth apostle. And so Peter speaks here an apostle
of Jesus Christ, not a boast. Peter would have told you, no,
he didn't do anything to become an apostle. I mean, the Lord
came along and he said, follow me. Now, you know, the free will,
the people that just fall down and worship at the altar of free
will, they say, well, you know, Peter made a choice, though.
Well, I wouldn't say that he didn't, but I'd say this, that
he was compelled. Peter couldn't have done anything
else. You know, it's so foolish when men look at the Scripture
and see the things that the Lord did and the Lord chose men out.
And it just so happened that all of them that the Lord chose
decided to follow Him. Isn't that an amazing thing?
I mean, all of those twelve apostles. Now, don't you think that it
might have been one of them that said, well, you know, I ain't
going to do it. And then he had to go back and find another one.
Now that's kind of how most preaching today, how it presents the gospel,
is that this is all up to men, and you know, the Lord might
be disappointed. He might want you to do something,
and he just can't get you to do it. Well, that's foolish. You know, and so the fact that
he chose 12 apostles proves that. I mean, look at Paul. Did Paul choose to follow Christ?
Well, he did ultimately, didn't he? But he wasn't seeking the
Lord. But when the Lord said, Paul,
or he said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art
thou, Lord? You see, the Lord changed his
mind. And that's where the idea of man having a free will runs
afoul of the sovereign grace of God. The Lord can change the
will of a man. I'm glad that he does. Thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power. And that is the work
of God. You can't change another man's
will. You can do anything you want to. But you can't change
his will, but God can. And thanks be unto God that he
does do that. Because if he didn't do that,
not a one of us in here would seek him. Not a one of us in
here would desire to follow him. But he does that according to
the good pleasure of his will. And so, Peter, an apostle of
Jesus Christ to the strangers. scattered throughout Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Now, most of those
areas, I believe, are in Greece, at least in towards that way. Now, who are those strangers?
Well, primarily, they are Jews who were scattered abroad at the persecution that took
place in Jerusalem at the time of Stephen's death. It says that
there were many that were dispersed into all of these different places,
even names these places. And then on the day of Pentecost,
We know that many of those nations that are spoken of here were
represented there on the day of Pentecost of Jews that came
that had been in prior dispersings of the Jews into other lands,
into the world. And so they came to Jerusalem
that day and the scripture says that 3,000 were added to the
church that day. Now those people didn't continue
to live in of Jerusalem, but they went back to their the lands,
the places that they had come from. Just like the Ethiopian
eunuch, I mean, he didn't turn around and go back to Jerusalem,
he went on back to Ethiopia. And the Lord dispersed his people,
and he has, the scripture says that the Lord has people out
of every kindred, tribe, and tongue on the face of the earth.
There's no land, there's no nation, where there is not somebody.
Maybe few, maybe hard to find. You might have a hard time gathering
them out. But there's not a place on earth
where the Lord does not have a people according to his good
pleasure. He calls his own. He knows them
that are his. And so Peter writes this letter
to these strangers. Those who are strange to the
land that they're living in. Now they're a part of that land.
Now those people on the day of Pentecost, you see, when they
didn't consider themselves to be citizens of these countries. Now they might have in the natural
sense, but their greatest allegiance was to Judaism and they came
back on the day of Pentecost to worship the Lord as he had
described for the Jews to do. And so it is that they're strangers
in that sense. Now, and looking at it in another
way, as this is primarily who he's addressing himself to, but
he's speaking to them as strangers, even in those lands, even if
they were in Jerusalem, they would still be strangers, because
we are strangers and sojourners in this world if we belong to
Christ. We're not of the world, the Lord
said. He said, you're not of the world, you're in the world.
You can't get out of the world, except at such time as he sees
fit to take you out. But we are indeed oddballs in
the world. We don't think like the world
does. We don't look at things like the world does. And we find
ourselves quite often at odds with the world around us. And
we say, what in the world is going on? What's wrong with people?
You know, when we look at it, but we know what's wrong with
it. You know, but we are indeed strangers. And so God's people
have always been strangers. That's what the book of Hebrews
says. They confessed that they were not uh... part of this world and they were
pilgrims and they look for a city which has foundations. See, we
want something that's more than what this world has to offer.
Everything this world has to offer is vain. It's passing away.
It's empty. It's nothing to it. It can't
offer us anything lasting. And so it is that we look for
a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Now this is those who he's speaking about here. To the strangers
scattered throughout these lands. And then he describes what makes
them separate. What makes them set apart. He's
not telling them you're a stranger because of something you've done. But he said elect according to
the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification
of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. Now that word elect, that causes
a lot of of consternation among people. Because, there again,
coming back to the idea of free will, most men, by nature, I've
never met anybody who just embraced the concept of God's sovereign
election of a people in Christ that just never had a problem
with it. They just Oh yeah, okay, that's
great. No, it's only as the Lord shows
a man what he is by nature and his inability to seek the Lord
by his self that the concept that God has chosen some in Christ
from before the foundation of the world becomes a glorious
thing. Because if there had been no election, dear brethren, there
would be no salvation. Nobody would be saved. See, men
want to think, well, you know, I would have. But, you know,
it's like the person who says, well, you know, if I'd have been
back there in the days of the Lord, I wouldn't have never crucified
him. Yeah, you would. If you'd have been among that
crowd, you'd have done just like they did. But so he speaks about
some who are elect, that is chosen. Now there is one fact, we sang
a song a moment ago about the Lord's first elect. Who is the
Lord's first elect? Jesus Christ. He is the chosen
redeemer of his people. But he has a people in the earth
that he came to redeem. Now if he didn't have a people
that he came to redeem, what did he do? Now again, those that
worship at the throne of free will, they say, well, he came
and he just kind of went to the cross and he just died for everybody's
sins. Well, the question is, if he
died to satisfy the claims of God's law against every man,
woman, boy, and girl that's ever been lived in the world, why
are they not all saved? Why do they not all love Christ?
Why do they not all seek to follow Him? Why do they not come out
of the darkness and into the light? So his work on Calvary's cross
is tied to the concept and the doctrine of election that Paul,
Peter is writing about here. That he chose some. And it is
for them that Jesus Christ came into the world to die. Who are they? They're sinners.
Are they any different than anybody else? No. You see, it's all of
grace. See, there's not a thing in the
world that a man can ever boast of. A man can't say, well, buddy,
I'm chosen and you're not. You know, the Lord really, He
looked on me and He liked me and He chose me. No. He didn't
choose me because of anything in me. Now, what does it say?
He says elect according to what? The foreknowledge of God. Now,
of course, you know, there again, there's this great explanation.
Oh, yeah, we understand it. See, God looked down through
history. And He knew who was going to follow Him. And He chose
them because He knew what they were going to do. Well, that
makes man sovereign. Does it not? I mean man's the
one that determined what God was going to do. Now when the
scripture speaks about the foreknowledge of God, it's not talking about
something God knew would happen, but it is speaking about what
God did. His foreknowledge is his forelove
according to the fact that he loved the people in Christ. He
knew them. Does not the scripture say, the
Lord knoweth them that are his? That's because of his foreknowledge. See, he didn't start loving his
elect when they said, I'll follow you. He didn't start loving his
disciples when they said, we're gonna follow you. No. He went to, he found them where
they were. And he said, follow me. He said,
my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. Now how can we know who the elect
are? That's it. It's those whom the Lord knows.
And those whom He knows, He calls. Now we don't know it right now.
See, somebody, you can't tell at any particular point in time
who the elect of God are. But you can ultimately tell,
because ultimately, all of those who are chosen in Christ from
before the foundation of the world will be found on the right
hand of the Father. in the glory of heaven. That's when the elect will be
fully revealed. But the Lord is pleased to manifest
them now in the present time because they are those that believe.
They are those who receive Him. They are those who delight in
Him. They are those who follow Him. They are those who believe
the Word of God to be true. He's precious. Peter says, in
fact a little later on in the book, he said, to you which believe
He is precious. See Christ is that which we,
the one whom we love, the one whose way we love. So he says
elect according to the foreknowledge of God. So it's all in the wisdom
and purpose of Almighty God. I don't know who he has chosen
and who he hasn't. I know Those whom he does are
those who desire to follow him. And it's not going to happen,
see a lot, they always bring up these red herrings, they say,
well what if a man wanted to follow Christ but he wasn't one
of the elect? Well that's ridiculous. See because what that does is
denies what men are by nature. Nobody is seeking the Lord. And
nobody will seek the Lord. Nobody's kept out of heaven That doesn't want to be kept
out. Now, that might sound strange
to you. Well, does anybody want to be
cast from the presence of the Lord? Well, no, not in the natural
sense if men think about it in that way. But they don't want
to follow Him. They're like the little boy who
didn't want to go to heaven. Well, their Sunday school teacher
said, well, how many people want to go to heaven? And all of them
raised their hand but one. And the teacher said, well, Johnny,
you don't wanna go to heaven when you die? He said, well,
yeah, I wanna go when I die. I thought you was getting up
alone to go right now. So, you know, it's not, everybody, when they think of
the alternatives of those two things, obviously, a man had
to be a fool. But you know the person who'd
be the most miserable person? in him would be a person who
doesn't love Christ. Just like they are now. I mean,
the people who don't love Christ, they don't want to gather with
God's people and worship the Lord. They want to be doing something
else. Because it's not a delightful thing to them. That's the work
of God. And it says here that we're elected,
we're chosen according to the wisdom of God, the knowledge
of God, and the love of God, the purpose of God. We're chosen
in Christ before the foundation of the world, before Adam was
ever created. See, the Lord hadn't lined up
humanity in a long line and went eeny, meeny, miny, moe. But he
knew his people when he created them, because he created them
to be his people. And he loved them from that time. Now, it wasn't a time, because
it says from before the foundation of the world. But we can't comprehend
anything that's not considered in time, can we? I mean, Paul
speaks about the ages to come. But there's not gonna be any
ages in the strictest sense of the world, because time is not
a realm in which those things which are eternal are defined. But that's the only way we can
think of it. That's the only way we know it. Now I believe
our understanding will be changed in a moment in the twinkling
of an eye. And we'll see those things for
what they are. But elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit. The Lord's calling
is manifested by the setting apart of the people of God by
the Spirit of God. The Lord sets them apart. He
makes them holy. Now Christ has made us holy. He's made us justified by His
blood. In other words, he has satisfied
the claims of the law which were against us. Every one of us was
born under the law, condemned. Every one of us was born in the
darkness of Adam. We had no desire to follow the
Lord or anything else, and the Lord has set all of that stuff
aside. through his blood. He satisfied
all of that and he's made us accepted in the blood. And it
is through the sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience. The Lord has set us apart for
a purpose. The Lord didn't just choose people
and say, well I'm going to put this one in hell and this one
in heaven. But he chose a people, he created a world, he Caused
all the things that happened in the world to happen just according
to the good pleasure of His will. In order that He might magnify
the glory of His grace in the redemption of that people which
He loved from before the foundation of the world. And He calls them
out. And He manifests that glory and
that grace in the calling of them out. And that's what He's
speaking about here. Through sanctification of the Spirit
unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. He has brought us out to a place
where we desire to walk according to the good pleasure of His will.
Now the obedience spoken here is the obedience of Christ. See
we are obedient because Christ was obedient for us. Because
you know if I looked and I said, well you know I've got to be
obedient. I'd give up tomorrow because
I'd find out pretty quick I'm not gonna be very obedient. Now
others may look and say, well, you know, he's obedient. Well,
but see, they don't know who I am. See, when people pat you
on the back and they say, well, he's a good man, they just don't
know. See, I mean, as we look at one
another, sure, we can see the good qualities that the Lord
has brought in his people, and we can say, you know, such and
such was a good man. But you know, the reality of
that is if you tell the man, see, a man that you pat on the
back and you tell him he's a good man and he really thinks he is,
you see, he's never been come to know what he is. But when
the Lord teaches us to know what we are, we know that we have
no obedience. And the only obedience that we
have any confidence in is the obedience of Christ. I know that
he has satisfied the law. I know that he has satisfied
the claims or the requirements that God has placed upon mankind. I know he's fully done it. And
what's the need of mine? Now some would say, oh, well,
if you do that, let's just go over and do everything. Well,
there again, the man that has that notion about what grace
is, he doesn't know what grace is. Not in the operation of it. He might think he can define
it, but you see, if a man says, well, I'll just go sin that grace
may abound, he doesn't know what grace is. He's never been awakened
to see what he is. He's never seen the glory of
what it is to be chosen in Christ. To know that Christ is that one
who is our salvation. Sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ. That's our washing, is it not? We take a shower every day. I hope you do. I think most of
you do. You probably couldn't be around one another long if
we didn't. That's a sprinkling, that's a washing, see? But Christ is our ultimate washing,
is it not? I mean, he's that one who sprinkled
us. We've been sprinkled with the blood of Christ. And it is
that blood which washes sinners clean. Nothing they can do but
what Christ has done. And the blood of Christ cleanseth
us from all sin. Grace unto you. and peace be
multiplied now this is the message of the gospel to the children
of God grace unto you and peace see
we're not trying to scare people we're not trying to put a burden
upon the people of God to try to get them to do something but
we're telling them what Christ has done And the work of the
Spirit of God as that gospel goes out and that message is
brought to our ears and put in our heart is that we're constrained
by the work of the Spirit. And the peace, the peace of God
that passes understanding is applied to us. Not simply in
a way, you know, like you read it on a greeting card or something
like that, but it is that which is real to our mind and heart. And it's that which we desire.
And do we ever have all the peace we want? Of course not. Why? Because we're imperfect beings.
But the peace which Christ gives is perfect. It's never failing. We might fail. We might fall out of our mind. We might draw a blank and forget
that. But when the Spirit of God is
pleased to apply it back to our mind and heart, it's the most
precious thing there is. And sometimes the Lord does,
just like he did with Peter. See, he never, his concern and
dealing with Peter was never different from the moment that
he saw Peter till the end. And so when Peter was there denying
him in that crowd of people, the Lord didn't love him any
less. The Lord didn't have any different regard for him than
he had from the beginning. Nor did he have any different
regard when he said, Peter, do you love me? Because what he
was doing was drawing that out of Peter. See, Peter didn't feel
worthy to say, I love you, Lord. Because he knew the Lord knew
what he'd done. And it seemed so empty to him. It seemed like it didn't mean
anything. But you see, the Lord was teaching Peter. He was bringing
Peter. He was drawing Peter. He was
showing Peter, Peter, you don't have love within your heart that
is of you. But he said, it's of me. I give
it to you, Peter, and you enjoy it. And so as time went on, Peter
was brought back, was he not? The Lord said, when you were
converted. Now, a lot's been made of that. You know, well,
Peter wasn't saved. Well, conversion and salvation
are not the same thing. See, Peter was changed. He was
turned from looking inward and seeing that which he thought. See, Peter thought he had strength,
didn't he? I mean, he said, Lord, if all
of these other disciples depart from you, you can count on me,
I won't. Peter, you need to be converted, and when you are,
now see, Peter said, oh, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
I'm strong, I'll be able to stand. He thought he could, and he demonstrated
in the flesh that he was ready to fight, was he not? I mean,
he pulled out his sword and would have cut the guy's head off,
but the Lord directed it to cut his ear off. So I mean, Peter
wasn't trying to give a little precision cut there, he was just
trying to whack the guy. and the Lord just caused it to
cut the man's ear off, that he might again demonstrate his mercy. Because I mean, think of the
trouble Peter would have been if he'd have cut the man's head
off. Oh, what a glorious God he is,
that he has chosen his people, and he ever watches over us,
directs our steps, keeps us, draws us to himself, works in
us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. And so who
is it that we're going to give the glory to? It's going to all
be to Him, because He is our salvation. It's not of ourselves,
but it's of Christ. Somebody have a question or a
comment? Well, we're thankful that we
got some lights and everything's working. And we do need to be
prayerful and, of course, mindful of those that are in places of
need. And, of course, I would encourage you to have that on
your mind as things you might could do to help people that
are in these places. It's almost impossible for us
to imagine some of the devastation, you know, that occurred in some
of these places where people lost everything. I mean, just
everything they had is gone. I mean, just wash down the river. You know, you look out on the
lake that's got all this debris and stuff on that. Well, that's
stuff that belonged to people. You know, it's just out there.
It's not recoverable. There's nothing left. And so
as we think on those, you know, the Lord has people among them. Not everybody that those things
occurred to were worshipers of Christ, followers of Christ,
but a lot of them were. May the Lord help us to know
what we need to do.