An affectionate request

Q: What does the Bible say about abstaining from fleshly lusts?

The Bible instructs believers to abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the soul, as seen in 1 Peter 2:11. In 1 Peter 2:11, Peter urges believers, whom he affectionately addresses as 'dearly beloved,' to abstain from fleshly lusts because they wage war against the soul. This instruction emphasizes the importance of maintaining a holy and pure life in light of God's call. It acknowledges the ongoing internal struggle believers face, recognizing that while they are saved, they still contend with their fallen nature and its desires. The struggle against these lusts is crucial for sanctification and glorifying God with their lives, urging them to turn away from these desires and towards faithful obedience.

Q: How do we know the Gospel is different from the Law?

The Gospel presents a message of grace and love, contrasting the Law's demands, as seen in Hebrews 12. The Gospel, as articulated in Hebrews 12, is distinctly different from the Law. While the Law comes with demands and terrors that lead to fear and condemnation, the Gospel presents God as drawing His people with love and grace. Peter's exhortation to the believers echoes this sentiment, highlighting that God's call is not one of mere law enforcement but of a relationship characterized by affection and longing for their spiritual growth. It's not about following commands out of fear but embracing a loving plea to rise above sin, indicating that the Gospel empowers believers to live righteously by the Spirit rather than by the flesh.

Q: Why is being a stranger and pilgrim important for Christians?

Being a stranger and pilgrim reminds Christians that their true home is in heaven, not in this world. The identity of Christians as strangers and pilgrims is significant because it frames their earthly existence in light of their eternal destiny. Peter reminds believers that they are not of this world, and their life on earth is temporary. This perspective aligns with Hebrews 11:13, where the faithful are described as confessing their pilgrim status, indicating that their hopes and affections are set on heavenly promises, not earthly desires. Recognizing themselves as pilgrims helps Christians navigate life's trials and temptations, compelling them to resist worldly influences and honor God in their conduct, knowing their true citizenship lies in heaven.

Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayer for attention to 1 Peter chapter 2, reading for our text verses 11 and 12. This is our 11th in the series of the epistles of Peter, an affectionate request verses 11 and 12. Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day. of visitation. 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 11 and 12.

Before we come to some main points I want to look at three things that need to be observed first. Firstly, the affectionate way that Peter addresses those to whom he writes. He says, Dearly Beloved. It's very evident right from the beginning of this epistle that he had a real love and goodwill toward those to whom he was writing, consistent with the Lord's Command to him to feed the sheep and feed his lambs and to strengthen the brethren. Peter not doing it just out of duty as a command, but out of having a real love to those that he wrote to. I no doubt that he viewed them as those like him that were in the flesh and weak, subject to fall, those that knew the infirmities of the flesh, and had that bond and love and union toward them, especially realizing as well as he puts in the first chapter, a people that were bound together by the election and foreknowledge of God, who were each being worked on in the same way, sanctified by the Spirit and the work of the blood of Jesus Christ. And so when he writes to them, we are not left in any doubt that his motive, his desire, is only good for them. As he loves them, he views them as his brethren, dearly beloved, and expresses it in this way.

Sometimes such endearments or ways of speaking are just reserved to the beginning of a letter, but here he sees fit to use it before giving them a real kindly and needful exhortation and beseeching. But I want to note, secondly, the way he seeks to move them to obedience. He says, I beseech you. I beseech you." That is, implores them, exhorts but exhorts really lovingly. He's entreating them.

The things that he's dealing with, the Apostle Paul, as listed, as we read in Galatians, they're things that, they that do such things or live in such things, they shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And yet, Peter comes not as the law, not as the commandments of God, but as in loving, beseeching, pleading, in a very different spirit than what the law comes. We get a little glimpse of the spirit of the gospel, how different that is. We have in the epistles of the Hebrews a real contrast in chapter 12 between the law and the gospel.

We read in the 18th verse, you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, that burnt with fire, nor went to tempest, and darkness, and tempest, with the sound, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated, that the word should not be spoken to them any more. For they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. Then we have the contrast.

But ye are come unto Mount Sinai and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels. And then on verse four, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. And then there's the exhortation, see that ye refuse not him that speaketh. But the voice, the speaking, is very different than that of the law. It is the same God that was on Mount Sinai. It is the same one that spoke from heaven, but now through the gospel, He speaks as entreating and loving and drawing. The gospel draws, it doesn't drive. It doesn't come with terrors. It doesn't come with not feeling as to those to whom it is being addressed.

Their sins have been put away. Their salvation is not dependent upon their observing the law fulfilling the law, they know they cannot fulfill it. They know that they're not in a position to, and they do not need to, for Christ has fulfilled it. But it is vital that they walk lovingly, willingly, not driven to the honour and glory of God. Really, when God sees the works of his people, when the Gentiles or unbelievers see the works or fruit in God's people that understand these things are not being done under sufferance. They're not being forced to do these things. They're not having over them that if they don't do them, they shall perish eternally. But they are lovingly doing them. They've been besought to do them. They've been begged to do them. They've been pleaded, but it's been a loving drawing, not in a hardness of law and tariffs.

And so it is important to see the very way that he uses here, I beseech you. Very important thing. But the manner is in the gospel manner, as to sheep, as to lambs, as to little ones, as to those that already attend her, as to those, no doubt, some of them already bruised and battle-worn and troubled in their souls, and doing this warfare and battling with inward sin, battling with the world and the flesh and the devil, And he doesn't want to add anything to them. He's not going to lay any more weights upon them, but just lovingly beseech them. And we need to notice this voice, this voice of the gospel. And as the people of God as well, imitate that one with another, considering ourselves, lest we be tempted and also needing such beseeching.

The third thing to notice is how he describes them and entreats them to receive the word as strangers and pilgrims. I've no doubt he's not referring that there are so much strangers to him, he may not know them in the flesh, but referring to what God's people are actually in the world. Going back to Hebrews, in Hebrews 11, we have those in verse 13 spoken of as dying in faith. not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." And these are those that Peter is referring to here. those that have embraced the promises, those that are walking by faith. This is not their rest, this is not their home. The Lord said that they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. And Peter, he beseeches them as such, as if he would remind them and remind us that we have a heavenly home.

We are passing through here. We are but pilgrims. And we have before us a glory and a blessing that these things here below, they are counted as nothing. They are but short pleasures full of flesh, but nothing for our eternal comfort, a reminder of the The contrast in the glory. Sin always has a pleasing effect. The world, we see it. And sin, it draws and we feel it.

But Peter would direct us to think upon what is set before us in the gospel and the hope beyond the grave. And reminding us too of those times that we have when being in the Spirit, especially when first quickened by God's grace, that we felt this world to be not our rest. We were feeling as strangers. We did willingly walk in the Lord's ways and put him on in open profession. and made profession that this world was not our home.

But yet, as time goes on, we need to be reminded of that, because the world pulls strong. We read again in Hebrews that if they had been mindful of that for which they came out, they have opportunity to return. He's round about us all the time. For every one of God's dear people, there is an opportunity. that they could just cast everything away and go back to the world.

Why don't they? Those are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. That is why the world is there still and solemnly used as a sieve. And there are those who have made a profession that have gone back and that have walked no more in the ways of the Lord. This is why Peter sees the need of strengthening the brethren in their most holy faith, reminds them what they are, strangers and pilgrims, reminds them what a warfare they have, what adversaries they have, what need for care and watchfulness. These things are to be. sat before the people of God. And this is what Peter is doing here.

But in such loving terms, reminding them they have a Redeemer and a Saviour. Their warfare in one sense is accomplished. The Lord has finished that work. He shed his blood. He's redeemed them. He set them free. They're not fighting that battle. They're fighting a battle, as it were, of sanctification. that which is to be for the honour and glory of God.

I wonder how much we feel and walk as strangers and pilgrims, that day by day we are reminded that this is not our rest, it is polluted, or does that distinction gradually get blurred And we forget what a privileged and blessed people the people of God are. Who their God is, what he has done for them, what he is providing for them, what is set before them within the veil. It's easy for us to forget sometimes and live as if this world was all it was. But Peter here, sets before us in loving terms how we are to walk in this world to the honour and glory of God.

I want to look then at three main points. Firstly, a vital inward preparation for a walk glorifying to God. A vital inward preparation. for a walk glorifying to God principally as seen in verse 11. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshy lusts which war against the soul. And then secondly, a walk glorifying to God, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, They may, by your good works which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. A walk glorifying to God.

And then lastly, the day of visitation in which God is glorified. Remember the context here is that at this time they speaking against you as evildoers. But Peter's reminding, there will come a day when God visits. And one way or another, we look at some of those ways, and that is when they will glorify God. Don't always think that. If we do good, that they'll glorify God at that time. But a future time, they will.

Firstly, then, an inward preparation. The hypocrite is a person who walks outwardly to be seen of men, but inwardly they are not doing those things that they profess outwardly. Our Lord Jesus and the teaching here is always the inward first. Out of the heart proceed. The work first is an inward work, a cleansing of the vessel, a renewing of the heart, a work hidden from men. And then the outside will flow forth from that. We tend to concentrate on an outside.

But the Lord and Peter here says no. The outside might be the easiest part. The most difficult battle is the inward one. And it's the inward one that will result in a real close walk with God, or if the battle is not taken seriously, a distance from God and a lack of the grace and help to rightly glorify him outwardly.

So the Apostle firstly identifies. He identifies what needs to be dealt with, and that is fleshly lust. The Apostle Paul, when he was converted from a Pharisee The Lord used those inward lusts as to bring him under conviction of sin. He said, I had not known sin but by the law. For I had not known lust except the law had said thou shalt not covet. But sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence or evil sexual desire. For without the law, sin was dead. I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

That's Romans chapter 7 and verses 8 and what follows. We read in Paul's epistle to the Galatians, where he again says how the works of the flesh are manifest. And really every list that is contained in scripture, it always begins with the works of the flesh as adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. Those are the chief ones, the first ones that are identified. And then he follows on with many others. Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, endings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like.

Those he identifies as the flesh, the works of the flesh in any warfare, it's vital to identify the enemy, the adversary. Where is the battle going on? We have that in our nature, especially in a spiritual battle. If something is very difficult, very hard, then we tend to ignore it or not take it head on and not deal with it. But Peter here, is very clear.

And he identifies these fleshly lusts, that which belongs to our own old nature, that which again the apostle Paul speaks of. And he says, as in the conflict in chapter 7, he says that I find a law that when I would do good, evil is within me. He says then, if I do that which I would not, I consented to the law that it is good, now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. And he's very clear of what is in us.

In a believer, in a redeemed soul, he still has the flesh. This is one of the great differences, the wonder that will be in the resurrection, in the life to come. There will not be a conflict between our flesh and the spirit. Here below, there will always be a conflict between our flesh and the spirit. That which the flesh wants to do, leans to do, looks after, lusts after, and the spirit, which is from heaven, which is pure and perfect, there will always be that conflict.

The second thing here that is highlighted is these lusts are exposed as that which wars against the soul. Going back to Paul's epistle to the Galatians chapter 5 verse 17. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh These are contrary, the one to the other, so that he cannot do the things that he would. The warfare is very clearly set forth. It is also in Romans 8, in Romans 8, verses 5 through to 8.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh, cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.

Principally, the warfare is carried on in our hearts, in our minds, in our affections. Though our outside may be kept clean, the Lord's people feel the pollution, the corruption, the evil that is within. And just when we think that, well, that wouldn't touch us, we only need something to be as a spark, and then it flares up the evil within, rises envy and anger or lust or pride, those things that are contrary to the spirit of God. And these fleshy lusts need to be identified. They war against our souls. They're not neutral. They're not of no consequence. They're not of those who can be said, well, they can just stay in the heart. We don't need to touch them. We don't need to, because they won't hurt us. Yes, they will.

Peter says they war. They war against the soul. So then he gives a scriptural remedy. What are we to do? Himmleiter says, in this perfection we deny the chief of Satan's wiles. The war is there. The lusts are there. What are we to do? Well, he says here that we have to abstain from them. All of God's people are to learn to cry unto God and to seek unto God for a inward discipline, to be self-disciplined.

The apostle says, I keep under my body, lest when I preach to others, I myself am a cast away. He says in Romans chapter 8, again going back to that chapter in verse 13. For if we live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. And so the abstaining from is not just Stopping or refusing to walk in the path of the lust of the flesh is replacing, replacing that with spiritual things. Very often, it is time that is spent either looking or meditating or thinking on evil things, is to use that time instead in prayer, in reading, in begging of the Lord, For help, it is that way that the flesh is mortified.

I've used the example sometimes of perhaps a family that's got two children. And they're going to go for a day out. And one of them wants to go maybe to the seaside. The other one wants to go to the zoo. They can't go to both places. So the parent makes a decision which way to go.

And the one that gets their request, they're nice and happy. But the other one is mortified because they've got to go and do something they didn't want to do. They've got to go along enduring a request that they didn't ask for. And it's hurtful to pride. It deals a blow to that one. that he's dragged along, not wanting to go along that way. And in one sense, the Lord's people are to say, by all nature, you're not getting your way. You're going to come along with me. You're going to come to the throne of grace. You're going to come to the word of God.

Or maybe it's even, you've gone out. And you've been intending to go in a way of temptation, a way you shouldn't go. And it comes to your mind. It's laid upon your heart. This is wrong. You should not be going to this place at all. So you turn the car around, and you go in the opposite direction. You go to a different place in a different way.

In that way, the flesh doesn't get its way, and there is keep under. It is a battle, a constant battle. It's not one that we say, we've won today, we won't have to fight it tomorrow. Or we've won this morning, we won't have to fight it this afternoon. It's absolutely constant all the time. And I believe I know this.

God knows the struggles that are within. He knows, He sympathises. There's a great, great difference between unresistingly just going with the flow or even indulging it and providing all of the fuel that it needs, than in seeking to abstain and keep back from that way and from that path. There's a real acknowledgment here that God's dear children have this battle. A real acknowledgement that their old flesh loves those evil ways. A real acknowledgement that it is a daily and hourly battle for the people of God.

And Peter here, he beseeches them, beseeches us, that we abstain from these fleshly lusts. these pulls, these desires, these affections. The hymn writer says, affections wild, by sin defiled, oft carry me away. And then turns it into prayer that the Lord would subdue it and deliver from those ways. Another hymn writer, crucify this self that I know more that Christ in me may live. The Apostle Paul, he says, I am crucified with Christ, yet I live, yet not me, but Christ liveth in me.

This is the part of taking up the cross, a slow, painful death of self, of the old nature, because we run the race as looking unto the Lord Jesus. Going back to Hebrews 12, we read there, ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. That is how much it is, striving against sin, even to resist unto blood. So that is the preparation. That is what needs to be attended to first. Then secondly, a walk that is glorifying to God.

The first thing that Peter says is having your conversation, or conversation in this context, is walk honest among the Gentiles. takes in our talk, our conversation in words, all that we do. When we think of the devil, he's a liar from the beginning. Deceit, lying, subtleness, that is the picture of the flesh. We go forth from the worm speaking lies. And the very great mark here is a walk glorifying to God is that we walk in an honest way.

If we go a chapter or two along in 1 Peter 4, then we have in verse 12 through to 15 a passage that was really blessed to me in a work situation when I was 24. And there were those that were baiting me, reviling my faith, and goading me. It was a very hard path. I was a teacher teaching students who were not much younger than me. And I felt that, as I was their teacher, I was responsible for all things that they were saying and that they were doing. But the Lord spoke these words so clearly in my mind, right in front of them. On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.

And we never forget those times. But then after that, Peter, he makes this warning. that none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as an evildoer or a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed."

We need to be very, very careful that where we may be suffering, to think, well, it is because I'm a Christian, because of my faith, And yet it might not be that at all. It might be just that we are being dishonest, we're being rude. There'd be other things that even a natural person would say are rightly judged, that we are not walking honestly or uprightly. And so, our Lord, he exhorted that let your light shine before men, that they may glorify me or glorify your God. And it is important for us that, like with Daniel, they said that they could find nothing at all against him except concerning the Lord his God, except his faith.

And so we read together Hebrews, sorry, Romans chapter 12, and right through that chapter, he's really giving those directions. We have not time to go through it now. Perhaps, at your leisure, go through that chapter again. It begins with, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And then he goes through all of those different things. the situations that we are in. He speaks of them as differing gifts in verse six.

But if we then are prophesying, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith, or ministering, let us wait on our ministering, or teaching on teaching. Whatsoever you do, we do it to the glory of God, the best of our ability. Working as unto the Lord, not as unto men. And so whether, whatever we are, to be the best husband, the best wife, the best employer, the best employee, the best parent, the best grandparent, that those that see us, they see that which flows out from our faith and what we believe.

There's a difference that is to be marked between us and the world. The world and unbelievers, they may never read the Bible. They may never go into a house of prayer. But they see the lives of those that do. They hear what they say. They see their attitude. They see how we act. how we talk, that is what they view our faith by.

Again, going back to that time when I was 24, well known what my faith was in that firm. But there's one time I did speak very unwisely and was reproved by a worldly man for it. And immediately, I fell under it. And I confessed it. I said, no, that was wrong. I should not have spoken in that way. And really, the only way, when we are found out like that, when we do trip up, is to immediately undo that damage by confessing it, humbling ourselves before the world, saying that, no, that was not right. I should not have spoken in that way.

May we help then, as Peter here exhorts, that our conversation honest amongst the Gentiles. They speak evil against us for our faith, by what we believe, but then they see our works. They see our good works. And though they may not immediately, yet Peter says here, there is a day when they will glorify God.

I want to look at this as our last point. The day of visitation in which God is glorified. A day when the Lord begins to work, when he does things. What kind of a day might that be? Well, it might be even in our case as the Lord's people. It might be like Job.

He was known by all of those around him as a godly, as an upright man. And suddenly evil comes in his life. How is he going to react now? The devil thought that he would turn around and curse God. A natural man would. But instead, the Lord gave and the Lord had taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And Jo went right through that trial. At the end of the trial, the Lord justified him, blessed him, brought him out, blessed him with more than he had at the beginning.

What about Naomi? She goes down into Moab. She loses her husband. She loses her two sons. And she feels that. She says, call me no more. Naomi pleasant, but Mara bitter. But she goes back, she humbles herself, and the way that she walked recommended her faith to Ruth. Ruth glorified Naomi's God such that she wanted that God to be her God. And it was in the contrast of bitter bereavements and sorrows. In that sense, God visited not only Naomi, but Ruth.

And that's another way of visitation, where the Lord visits, where he will call a person, call them by grace. And then they see, and it's no doubt the apostle Paul, He persecuted the people of God, put them even to death. But when the Lord met with him on the Damascus Road, he went right back to all what those people had said, had done, all their witness, and he would have glorified God, it would have greatly humbled him. But it needed the Lord to be, the day of the Lord, a day of visitation for the Apostle Paul before he could glorify God for what he'd seen in the lives of others and the people of God. There will be a time at death or at judgment where God is glorified, glorified in his saints, those who have walked as a witness of salt and light here below, And there'll come a time when the Lord will say openly that these are my people.

Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom. God is glorified. And those of the enemies of the people of God, they shall see it. They shall have to own that the lives of the people of God had been a fruit of God's work in them. Paul says, what I am, I am by the grace of God.

And so we are to be encouraged that though there is speaking against us as evil doers now, in consistent, patient, working, in a way glorifying to God, there will come a time that God is glorified. They shall, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. How needful that we commit our works, our thoughts, our affections, all unto God. And it be a thought to us, Lord, and a prayer, Lord, let not anything I do or say Discourage any of thy children from walking in thy ways. That there be nothing I do that takes away from the glory of a work of grace in the sinner's heart, a change that God makes in a sinner, and that makes them tell to all around, I'm a stranger, I'm a pilgrim here.

My hope is in heaven. Paul says, if in this life only we have hope of Christ, with all men most miserable. The message that many, even with a profession of religion, is you have faith and give you a good courage, a good job, an insurance policy. The people of God testify our hope is beyond the grave.

Having food and raiment, let us therewith be content. And our warfare and our fight is with the flesh and with the things of this poor dying world and our own fallen nature. This is a needful beseeching, a pleading of the Apostle Peter in such loving terms. May I, may you receive it in the way that it is given. the way that is set before us here, and may it be to the honour and glory of God and the comfort of our souls. Amen.

An affectionate request

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about abstaining from fleshly lusts?

How do we know the Gospel is different from the Law?

Why is being a stranger and pilgrim important for Christians?

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About Rowland Wheatley

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An affectionate request

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about abstaining from fleshly lusts?

How do we know the Gospel is different from the Law?

Why is being a stranger and pilgrim important for Christians?

Sermon Transcript

About Rowland Wheatley

Comments

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