For a scripture reading, turn
with me to the book of 1 Peter. I'll be preaching from 1 Peter
chapter 2, but I'd like to read chapter 1, being the basis of
what he says in chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 1. Peter, 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 the 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 unto 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 day, 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 under praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not
seen, ye love. in whom, though now we see him
not, yet believing, you 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 water 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, 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
lust 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. And if you 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
you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things of 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, who by him, I want to repeat that,
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 is the flower of the grass, the grass and 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. Wherefore, laying aside all malice,
and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and evil As newborn
babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow
thereby. If so be you've tasted, that
the Lord is gracious. May the Lord add his blessing
to the reading of his word. I invite you to turn back with
me now to 1 Peter chapter 2. I want to look at verses 2 and
3. And my subject this morning is
the sweet milk of Christ. The sweet milk of Christ. There are three things that I think
need to be said concerning the verses leading up to my text. I want first to dispel of some
misgivings about those he's writing to. And then secondly, I want
to establish the subject in context. It's important that you know
the context of a statement. You can quote bits and pieces
of Scripture and make it say anything you want it to say.
My pastor used to say, Judas, he went out and hanged himself.
He went out and hanged himself. Go ye and do likewise. You can
take a piece here and a piece there and just make it say anything
you want it to say. But it's important that you establish
the context, what it is he's talking about. And then thirdly,
I want to set before you the sweet milk of Christ that Peter
gives us. So first of all, let's deal with
some of these misgivings surrounding our text. What are these misgivings? Well, first of all, what he means
by strangers. I read to you, he's writing to
the strangers. They're scattered, we know that.
They're scattered over what is known in modern day as Turkey.
And that area, the Dead Sea is located up north and the Mediterranean
Sea is down south and this little strip of land that comes up across
there is called Asia Minor. And that's where all of these
churches were that he listed here, and he's writing to. But
there's way more than that. Philippi was there. Ephesus was
there. And you can go on. Both churches
of Antioch was there. There's a lot of the New Testament
churches that were scattered throughout all this place. But
why did Peter call these beloved saints strangers? Did he not
know them? Is he just writing? He heard
there's some believers up here in these places, so he's just
going to sit down and write a general epistle and he's going to send
it out to whom it may concern, and he calls them strangers. Well,
they weren't strangers because he didn't know them. He did know
some of them. You remember when Paul had to
withstand him to the face, where was he perching? Where was he
at? He's in Galatia. Galatia is part of these churches.
Peter mentions them in his opening address. He's writing to them.
I'll give you another example, Caesarea Philippi. Peter preached the gospel there
and the Gentiles received the Holy Ghost for the very first
time. So these weren't people that
he didn't know, he knew them. So why did he call them strangers?
Because they were Gentiles. They were Gentiles. In Ephesians
chapter 2, Paul tells the Gentile believers at Ephesus. Ephesus
was located way down here in the corner next to the Mediterranean
Sea, but still up here in Asia Minor. And he tells us in Ephesians
2, To these Gentiles, he said, you
remember where God found you. You remember where you were when
God preached to you and what you were. You were Gentiles.
You were what God's people referred to as uncircumcised. The circumcision
called you uncircumcised. They were without Christ. Isn't
that what he tells them? You were without Christ. You
had no promise of Christ. Who gave you a promise of Christ?
The Christ is a promise given to Israel. You're Gentiles. It's not right to take the children's
bread and give it to dogs. Isn't that what our Lord told
that Gentile woman? You were without Christ. You
had no promise of Christ. You had no hope in Christ. Christ
is the hope, but you were without Christ. Aliens, it says, from the commonwealth
of Israel. Strangers from the covenants
of promise. What covenant, David? I grew
up in religion, and I went to church every time the doors opened,
sometimes five, six times a week. I went to all the young people's
meetings. Anytime that church was open,
I was there. And we'd even go over to the
mission churches. And I'd listen to them preach
to winos and sit on feed sacks. All the time that I was in religion,
not one time did I ever hear the term covenant mentioned.
And yet everything God has done with men is by way of covenant
promise. He established his covenant with
Abraham. He established his covenant with
Jacob. With Isaac. Huh? All down through time. With David. He established his covenant.
David come to die. And so prominent was the subject
of covenants that David's dying words was, although it be not
so with my house, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant
Ordered in all things, ensuring this is all my salvation and
all my desire, though we make it not to grow. Covenants. I never heard the word covenant.
Why? Because you're a stranger to it. You're a stranger to the
covenants of promise. And you had no hope because all
hope's in Christ. Christ in you, the hope of glory. And you was without God. in the
world. A stranger, then, is one without
a history of God. That's what a stranger is. He
has no history of God. He grew up in idolatry, worshiping
images born out of a fallen imagination. Images, images, images. When
God described in Genesis 6 the evil for which he was about to
destroy the world, he said, it repents me that I ever made it.
I'm going to destroy everything in it. Why? Why? Well, he describes that wickedness
and he said, I saw that every imagination of the thoughts of
men were only evil continually. Those images in their minds where
only evil continued. They had no idea who God was. They worshipped images of their
imagination. Let me tell you something here. The only revelation we have of
God is Christ. That's the only revelation we
have. Now there's bits and pieces of his character that's declared
in creation. You can know God's power in creation. Something's wrong in things out
here. And it ain't mother nature. Something arranges the days and
the revolutions and all that's going on in creation in this
complex universe. There's a power behind it. And
it's too uniform to just be chance. Everything depends on the next
thing, depends on this and so on. There's a uniformity about
it that declares to you that there's a God who created it
and there's a God who manages it and maintains it. You can know something about
the wrath of God. The wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness of men. You think these storms
hit by chance? Huh? Oh no. No, God sends the
storm. He sends the storm. The wrath
of God is revealed from heaven with catastrophes and illnesses
and on and on and on it goes. But our Lord said this, John, I'm sorry, John said this. And we know that the Son of God
hath come and given us an understanding that we might know Him that's
true. That's 1 John 5 verse 20. That
we might know Him that's true, that we're in Him that's true,
even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. This is the
true God. God will reveal Himself in truth. He'll be worshipped in truth.
And now what it says, in spirit and in truth. You can't worship
the God of your imagination and say, well God will, I'm just
going to worship how I want to and God will work it out. No,
He won't. He'll send you to hell for it.
It's an abomination to Him. He told Israel, He said, Who
told you to get up here and wave your hands? I turned the television
on the other day on Sunday morning. Big mistake. Don't do it. Never
done this. Who told you to do that? Where
did you find that in the scripture? Where they stand and wave their
hands? He said, this is an abomination
before me. And they get up and talk about their
God. They talk about this imaginary God that they had this image
that they formed in their mind. You start forming an image of
a tiny, about this big, and you meet a friend. And they don't
go to the same church you do. They go to this church. This
church talks about speaking in tongues, and they talk about
this and that. Or this one over here, you have to be all dressed
up. This one over here, come as you are, and it goes on and
on, there's no end to it, all these variations in churches,
and you're meeting this one and listening to them, and you're
listening to them, and you're catching a few words from the parents,
and all the while you're building in your mind this image of God. You throw this out and put that
in, and you throw this out and put that in, and then you settle
down on this image that you have, and you worship Him. That's not
God. Well, why are you telling us
this, preacher? Because I want you to know I'm preaching to
the same kind of people that he's writing to. They've had
no history of God. None. They grew up in rank idolatry. It's idolatry to worship anything
less than God who reveals Himself in His Son. It's idolatry. Listen to this. Our Lord said,
No man knoweth the Father, Save the Son, and He to whom the Son
will reveal Him. Only way you can know God is
in Christ. That's the only way. Now you can see a storm come
along and destroy a city. I was in Willard, Ohio back in
the 60s, 70s, I'm sorry, back in the 70s. And it was a spring,
and it rained, and I couldn't do any work, and man, we were
hungry. I hadn't worked all winter. They had severe winters up there.
I went up to this little town, Willard, Ohio, and I was looking
around for something to do. And it was raining and cold,
and you just couldn't do anything. So I started home. And I looked
back in my mirror. I was about two miles out of
town. I looked back in my mirror, and it was solid black, just
Black as coal. I'd never seen it like that in
the midday. And so I went on home, and when
I got home, my friend, a contractor from up there, called me. He
said, Willard's gone. I said, what do you mean Willard's
gone? He said, the whole city is gone.
He said, right after you left the restaurant, not more than
three minutes after you left the restaurant, this tornado
come through. It was almost a mile wide, and it just looks like
a bush hog run over the town. There's nothing left. Isn't it? Wrath of God revealed from heaven.
You can see those things. You can know those things. You
can see the order of things. But what's God's curse on men?
They knew God, but then they changed the glory of God into
an image. That's what they did. Made like
unto man. His own ideas, his own reasoning. And then the birds. And then
four-footed bees. He just keeps going back and
finally creeping things. Worship the dumb beetle. Huh? Oh, my soul. What are you saying,
preacher? I'm saying worldly religion's
anti-Christ. And if it's anti-Christ, it's
anti-God. And all those who practice it
and participate in it are without God in the world. They're strangers.
They're rank idolaters. And then the second area I want
to dispel is the idea that Peter is only talking to babes in Christ. Babes in Christ. Oh, no he's
not. He's writing to these churches.
There was babes in those churches. But he's not just writing to
babes in Christ. Don't take everything he's saying
here and say, well, that's just for babes in Christ. We need
something more than that. No, you don't. No, this is what
you need. And when he says newborn babes
in verse 2, he's simply restating a fact settled in chapter 1,
verses 23 through 25, where he's talking about us being born again. Born again. Born of gospel seed. And to be born of God is to be
awakened into a new environment, just like a baby comes forth
from that womb. The mother's water breaks and
this baby is born and comes into this world. It's in a brand new
environment. There's light. For the first
time, it sees. There's light. And there's sound. And there's feeling. It's in
a brand new environment. And that's the way the sinner
is. When he's born of God, he awakens unto a new environment.
He awakens to things he never knew. He awakens to feelings
he's never experienced. He's awakened of God. And then the third thing I want
to dispel is that of the context of this whole thing. His subject
is not the new birth. I've actually preached on this
and used this as a subject, and it does state it here, don't
get me wrong, you're not wrong by stating it here or using these
things in that, but that's not the context of what he's writing.
What's Peter talking about? He's talking about the love of
God in Christ, that's what he's talking about. You purified your
souls by obeying the truth. Unto unfeigned love of the brethren. Huh? That's the subject. See
to it, he said, that you love one another with a pure heart,
fervently. See to it. Don't let it slip. Well, that's an option. Oh, no
it ain't. He that loveth not knoweth not
God. His subject's not the new birth,
though he does define it. His subject is the unfeigned
love of the brethren. And listen to this. How did this
love come to be? Being born again. That's how it come to be. That's
how come you know it. You know it. They were to love
one another with a pure heart, perfectly bubbling up. That's
what that word means. Bubbling up hot. Hot. Boiling, no reservations, no
limitations. I'll love him if... Is that how
Christ loved you? He loved you and gave himself
for you. That's how we're to love one
another. Beloved, he said, let us love one another, for love
is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God. That's the evidence of his birth
is the love of God. And knoweth God. This is why
he loves him. The new birth is not so much
a sensual thing as it is a mind and heart thing. He gives you
an understanding. You're not left out there in
your imagination. You're not left out there to
the spirit of this world or to the antichrist religion. He gives
you the truth and you know it's the truth because he presses
it on your heart. I write my laws in their hearts. That's right. They were to love one another
with a pure heart perfectly, bubbling over, boiling up, Alright, these are the errors.
Men come into this with these errors and they start trying
to apply all these Scriptures to those things. All these Scriptures
don't apply to those things. What's he talking about here
in this first chapter? He's talking about the sweet
milk of Christ. So what is this sweet milk of
Christ? What is it he tells us about these elect strangers?
What are these sanctified ones scattered abroad? Oh, he said
they're blessed, oh God. Oh, ain't nothing sweeter than
that. Nothing sweeter than that, because you think you're cursed,
oh God, when you learn what you are by nature. You learn that
you're a member of a cursed generation, that God has cursed you and Adam,
that you're a lost man born with an evil nature, following after
the God of this world, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience, were by nature children of wrath even as others.
When you learn that, the sweetest thing that will ever come into
your heart is to know that God has blessed you. Not me, I'm cursed! No, you're
blessed. He's blessed you in making you
know that you're cursed. I tell you, when the wrath of
God abides on a man, he don't know he's cursed. He thinks he's
blessed. Isn't that what our Lord told
them over in the book of John? He said, you say you're righteous,
therefore your sin remaineth. You don't know you're cursed.
If you were cursed, your sins would be gone. If you knew that,
your sins would be gone. But you don't know that. You're
still measuring yourself with men. That's like one maggot comparing
himself to another maggot. Oh, I tell you to be blessed.
He said they are blessed of God. Brethren again, begotten again
unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The whole of
the Christian hope is in a person. It's all tied up in him. It ain't
in you. You look and tell yourself, I
don't pray enough. I don't do this enough. I don't
do that enough. No, you don't. And you never
will. Now, you want to get out of that stupor? Look to Christ. He did it all. He did it continually. And He did it for you. And when
you look to Him, you will copy Him. You'll long for it. You'll love because He loved
you. You'll walk with God. That's
the motivation. It's not fear. It's love. And
where does it come from? It comes from Christ. The whole
of the Christian hope is in a person, sink or swim, all or nothing,
Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ is all, He said, and in
all. He's the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. He was delivered for our offenses,
raised again for our justification. Am I justified? I don't know.
Is Christ still in the tomb? No, he was raised from the dead,
but I'm justified because that's where my hope is. He came to fulfill, accomplish,
and reveal the redemptive will of the Father, and so He did
and continues to do even to this day. He came, He said, that we
might have life and that we might have it more abundantly. And
God's election, Peter writes, His election is made known as
Christ is revealed, believed, and trusted in the heart. And
all of the fruit of the Spirit comes only As we're grafted into
the vine. Isn't that what he tells us on
the book of John? My father's the husband, man,
and I'm the true vine. Any branch in me. You say, well,
I'm in him. If there ain't no fruit, you
ain't in him. Because every, every wild olive
branch that God the Father grafts into the son produces fruit.
If it don't, he's never been grafted in. Never been grafted
in. Our hope is a living hope. It's
not the inspiration of a dead martyr, but a living man, victorious,
raised from the dead, ascended up, crowned, and seated at the
right hand of God. And there's no connection to
forgiveness, blessings, righteousness, or eternal life apart from Christ. There's no believing on Him.
or knowing Him apart from the hearing of faith. How shall you
hear without a preacher? I didn't say that. The Holy Ghost
said that. How are you going to hear? These ancient covenant promises
and pictures are now, verse 12 of 1 Peter chapter 1, reported
unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the
Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. How do you know about it? You
heard the reporter. And what did he report? God was
in Christ, reconciling us unto himself, not imputing our trespasses
unto us. Oh, He's given Him power over
all flesh to give eternal life to as many as the Father gave
to Him. And it's expedient for you that
I go away, He said. It's necessary for you, absolutely
necessary. For if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you. But if I depart, now listen,
I will send Him unto you. Why is He coming to me? Christ
sent Him. That's my sheep. I justified
Him. I died for Him. I put His sins
away. I've loved Him in covenant union
before the foundation of the world. And He sends the Holy
Ghost to you. It's expedient, he said, that
I go. Everything in the salvation of God's elect has to do with
the person of Jesus Christ. Prophecy came not to the prophets
who prophesied, The only way they prophesied is because the
Spirit of Christ that was in them did talk about these future
sufferings and things. That's how they knew about it.
And our hope is a living hope. Our hope is a person seated at
the right hand of God. Our life, he said, is hid with
Christ in God. And when Christ who is our life
shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory.
He's all our hope. And this living hope, Hebrews
6.19, He said we have as an anchor of the soul. It's an anchor of
the soul, both sure and steadfast, in which entereth into that within
the veil. This anchor, my anchor, it don't
just drop down here on earth and hook into something. It goes
all the way into glory. And it's fastened to the throne. My anchor. He's the anchor of the soul,
both sure and steadfast, which entereth in that within the veil,
where whither the forerunner is for us entered in. Even Jesus,
made a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, had no
beginning or end, this priest. What are you saying preacher?
I'm saying there's a man in glory. You want the sweet milk of Christ?
Here it is. There's a man in glory. A man. God robed himself in human flesh. He took not on him the nature
of angels, but the seed of Abraham. He was manifest in the flesh,
entered into a permanent union with men. And there's a man in
glory. He's God, but he's man. In one
glorious body. One mediator between God and
men, the man, Christ Jesus. And everything else is idolatry,
rank heathenism. It's all about Christ. Through
this man, Paul said, is preached unto you the forgiveness of sin.
To him, Peter said, give all the prophets witness. And to
be born of God is to be wakened unto a lively hope, a living
hope, a good hope through grace. just like a baby born into this
new environment, made conscious of an inheritance. And this election
of God made provision for him in all things. Paul said to the
Thessalonians, God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of spirit and belief in the truth. And
because he did these things, because he ordained them, he
sent me to you with the gospel. Isn't that what he said? where
unto he called you by our gospel. And the very providence of God
opens every door, every opportunity, every circumstance is ordered
and carefully arranged for our good and his glory. It's an inheritance, he says,
Peter calls it incorruptible. Satan can't touch it. He can't
touch it. He can't ruin it. He can't alter
it. Huh? It's incorruptible. Sin
cannot taint it, diminish it, or corrupt it in any way. It's
incorruptible and it's undefiled. Unsoiled. It's pure. It's unmixed. And then Peter said, it fades
not away. It's not going to fade away. Why? Because it's alive and seated
at the right hand of God. It's not going to fade away. Sometimes a thing is not what
it first appears to be. You buy it and you bring it home,
and all of a sudden you start to see its flaws. Package it
back up and send it back. Or it doesn't have the effect
on you that you thought it would. But that's not so with the salvation
of God's elect. It fadeth not away. And it's reserved, he said, in
heaven for you. Boy, I love going out. They don't
do it much anymore, but I love going to a restaurant. We used
to go to one called the Brown Derby. And you had to have reservations. Didn't have reservations, they'd
put you over here and you'd sit for three hours. Had to have
reservations to get in there. But I loved going to that restaurant.
Oh, yes, Mr. Brooke, we have a table waiting
for you. Reserved in heaven for you. Yes, yes. We have a seat at the
table for you. Huh? Oh, I tell you, that's sweet
milk to my soul. Blessed, he said. How are we
blessed? Our name's written in the book
of life before the world was. written on the shoulders and
across the heart of our great high priest. Blessed with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. There be no
empty seats in glory. No empty seats at the table of
grace. No glass turned upside down.
Every seat there has a son or a daughter. How do you know they're going
to make it? 1 Peter 1 verse 5, because they're kept by the power
of God through faith. Oh, you thought the power of
faith was you. No. No, it's of God. If it was of you, you'd lose
it. I can't keep nothing. I get all
the way over to the house and I left my wallet at home or my
keys or something. I lose everything. I'd lose my salvation if it was
in my keeping. But I'm kept by the power of
God. And some way, in the wisdom of God, His keeping is joined
with your keeping. Huh? If any man turns, go back. I have no part with him. But,
he said, we're not of them who draw back under perdition. We're
of them that believe to the saving of the soul. We keep this faith,
but we keep it because it's kept in us by the power of God. How
long is he going to keep it? Unto salvation ready to be revealed
at the last day. He says they're predestinated.
You're talking about some sweet milk. They're predestinated unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to
the good pleasure of His will. And when the fullness of the
time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. Why?
That we might receive that predestinated adoption. Isn't that what He
says? And because you're sons, because
you're sons, God sends the Spirit of His Son into your heart and
you cry, Abba, Father. We have God for our father. That's
what them Pharisees told him. He said, if God was your father,
you'd love me. You're looking at God. I proceeded
forth and came from God. We're redeemed by Christ that
we might receive the adoption of sons. Galatians 4, 5, and
6. Kept by the power of God through
faith. And God not only gives faith, but he maintains it. And
so full and complete is this salvation that even the means
of it are set into place and ordained of God. We're ministers,
Paul said. Ministers by whom you believe
even as the Lord gave to every man. And this salvation, this
sovereign grace in Christ is something when truly experienced
in the heart that totally transforms the believer. God gives him power
to become sons of God. He's our son of God. He's not
just a son of God on paper. He becomes a son of God. His soul is purified in obeying
the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren,
being born again. All believers are distinguished
by an extremely intimate and indissolvable relationship. All
born of the same seed. brought into birth by the same
mother. In the book of Galatians, he
likens Sarah unto the church. She's a picture of the true church,
and she's called in Galatians 4.26, the mother of us all. When Zion prevails, he said,
sons and daughters will be born. We're all children of God by
faith in Christ Jesus. And the bond of our relationship
cannot be broken because it's secured in the Word of God and
by the Son of God, whose name is the Word. And in verses 23
through 25, he's not talking about one thing in verse 23,
talking about the abstract Word of God. And then down here he's
talking about the Son. No, he's talking about the Word
of God. which is nothing in the world
but a testimony of the Son whose name is the Word. This is the
Word which by the Gospel, verse 25, first people, that's preached
unto you. See that you love one another.
What is this love? This love originates in the possession
of a peculiar mode of thinking. A peculiar mode of thinking.
And this by the Holy Ghost through the knowledge of the love of
God in Christ for us. We have a sympathy of mind and
heart, cherishing the same things, longing for the same end, and
exercising the same means. Ephesians 4.15, he said, but
speaking the truth in love, you may grow up unto him in all things,
which is the head, even Christ. How does this love grow? It grows
in knowledge. In knowledge. If so be, Peter said, or Paul
did, I'm sorry, in Ephesians 4, if so be you've heard him
and have been taught by him as the truth is in him. And unbeliefs
are very opposite. They receive not the love of
the truth. that they might be saved. We
love one another in truth, the scripture said, and for the truth's
sake. And the end of all love, this
is what I want you to get to, this is where I'm going with
this. The end of all love is the good and happiness of its
object. The great end which Christian
brotherly love contemplates is the happiness of its object viewed
as a saved man. I don't understand what you just
said. I'm interested in your deliverance. That's what I'm
talking about. If I love you, my interest for
you is your deliverance. Your deliverance from ignorance
and error. Deliverance from sin and all
of its forms and all of its degrees. Your conformity to the mind of
Christ and the redemptive will of God. And the unclouded sense
of divine favor, uninterrupted enjoyment of divine fellowship.
Truly, John said, our fellowship is with God. And if you say you have fellowship
with him and hate one another, you don't know God. You're a
liar. It's not that we overlook people's
interest in things. But we view all other things
in a subordination to the salvation in Christ, to our salvation in
Christ. That's what we look for. And
to love with a pure heart is to love as you are loved. It's a love that flows from a
sanctified heart. It seeks such things as only
sanctified hearts could seek. And it should be fervent enough
And listen to this. Old John Brown, he was a Presbyterian
minister. Have you ever read John Brown?
John Brown said this. He should be fervent enough that
many waters of neglect, infirmities, offenses, and petty injuries
should not quench him. It should be like the sacred
fire which descended on Elijah's sacrifice and licked up all the
water and the mud in the surrounding ditch, absorbed a whole trenchful
a whole trench full of like stuff, and still retain strength enough
to send up to heaven a grateful fumes of the sacrifice of which
God is well pleased." Ah, that's love. That's love. Oh, this is the sweet milk of
Christ, and that which the heart desires and longs to hear. And
that's why Peter said, if so be ye tasted. Just like that
little baby, you don't have to take the baby out of breast feed,
just pick it up, hold it in your arms, he knows what to do. And
he said just as that little baby knows what to do, how to drink
that milk, so as believing men and women desire that sweet milk
of Christ, be ready to drink it, ready to eat his flesh and
drink his blood and hear his word and enjoy these things,
the sweet milk of Christ. Is it necessary? If you want
to be saved, it is. That's what salvation is. It's
drinking the sweet milk of Christ. And that's what Peter's trying
to get across to him. Oh, Peter. He got in trouble
all the time, didn't he? Just like me. Sticks his foot
in his mouth. But I tell you, Peter knew God.
And he loved Christ. Christ looked at him and said,
Peter, do you love me? He said, yeah, Lord, you know
all things you know. Can you do that? Can you say to God, I know. You
know all things you know I love you. Feed my sheep.