Reading this morning is from
1 Peter chapter 3 and I'm going to read from verse
15. 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 15. Sanctify the Lord God in your
hearts. And be ready always to give an
answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that
is in you with meekness and fear, having a good conscience that
whereas they speak evil of you as of evildoers, they may be
ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better if the will
of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. For Christ also hath once suffered
for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. by which also he went and preached
unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when
once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while
the ark was a-preparing. Wherein few, that is, eight souls,
were saved by water, the like figure whereunto even baptism
doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of
the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven
and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers
being made subject unto him. Amen, may God bless this reading
to us. In this third chapter of Peter,
as we have been working through it, we have seen that Peter speaks
of the believer's hope, the believer's conscience, and the believer's
conversation. The people of Christ are a people
of good hope, good conscience, and good conversation. Our good hope flows from knowing
the high privilege of being the children of God. Knowing that
we are heirs of all the blessings of God and the promises of God
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing God's gift of grace to
us and having that good hope through the grace that he has
given. How wonderful it is to trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ to see Him as our everlasting consolation
for all the trouble in this world, for all the sorrow that it must
bring to us as we make our pilgrim journey through it. Here is our
consolation, not in our works, not in our ways, not even in
our fellowship, but in our Saviour. in the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is our comfort. He is our consolation. And we
are a people of hope as we trust in him. We are people of good
hope. And we are people of good conscience. See, our faith is not make-believe. No, it's real. It's real. It is founded upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. We don't come here to tell one
another that we are all right and we're all going to heaven
and everything's going to be fine. We come here in order to
point to the Lord Jesus Christ who himself gives us a good conscience. We don't pretend that the Lord
Jesus Christ has taken away our sin. We know he has. We believe he has. More than
that, we know that God does not impute sin to us any longer. We know that we are clean. Nor in this flesh, nor in this
body, nor in the vileness of this fleshy body which must die
and must go to the grave and must experience all the sickness
and the troubles of this life and will hound us until the day
of our death. But in our souls, clean, pure,
perfect, holy, We know it to be so. How do we know it? Because Christ has purged our
conscience. Christ has shown us that our
sins have been taken away, past, present, future, and laid upon
his own shoulders. That we are no more answerable
for them, as if we had paid for them all ourselves. because the
Lord Jesus Christ has carried them away. And therefore our
conscience is clear. Our conscience is clear. Last
week we were reading, I think in Psalm 4, about how the psalmist
there said he went to bed and slept. He had a clear conscience. There was no guilt there. No
gnawing anxiety. because he committed his care
to the Lord. We have a clear conscience when
we trust in him. Our sins are gone, and one of
the greatest blessings on earth is to have a good conscience.
Perhaps it is one of the rarest blessings upon earth as well. A good conscience is a gift from
God. Peter tells us we're a people
of good hope, and we're a people of good conscience, and we're
a people of good conversation. Now that is certainly true as
we come together and talk about the grace of our God. And we
come together and talk about our experience of his mercy.
That is certainly true. We share together in the gospel.
And without doubt, this is an example of good conversation. We're speaking about holy things,
divine things, glorious things. That's a good conversation. But
of course, Scripture not only directs us to be able to give
a reason for the hope that is within us, but it has to do not simply with
what we say, but how we live. And we live by faith. We live
by trusting the Lord Jesus Christ for all our standing, for all
our righteousness, for all our sanctification. It is Christ that affects our
life for good, whether it's our works, whether it's our deeds,
whether it's our lifestyle, whether it's our attitudes, whether it's
our affections, whether it's our motivations. All of these
things are our conversation here upon this earth. And all of these
things draw their goodness from the Lord Jesus Christ. Many people make a mistake on
that point. They imagine that they can recommend
themselves to God by the things that they do and the things that
they say. So they work as best they can to have a good conversation. But what do they find? They always
fall short. Our good conversation comes from
the fact that we speak with Christ and Christ speaks to us. conversation
in scripture is more than just our words. It has to do with
the way that we act and our conduct. And our conduct as the people
of God is not measured against some standard of behavior, but
it is a motivating principle of Jesus Christ in us. We're not regulated by Moses'
law but by the life of the Lord Jesus Christ as he lives in our
souls. And so our good hope and our
good conscience and our good conversation all flow from that
union that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ. The interest that
we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. His example, his headship over
us. and there's a substance to that
comfort and that consolation that he gives. It is established
by hope, yes, but it is substantial, it is foundational, it is real,
it has an effect, a tangible effect in our lives day by day. The believer's hope is not a,
I hope it will turn out all right in the end. kind of hope. It's a confidence, a confidence
that when hardship comes, as it will, our hope is founded
upon substantial, objective promises from God and the accomplishments
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's no accident that here
in this passage, that Peter is turning us to Christ. It's no
mere circumstance that he has come down to the end of this
passage where he is talking about the fact that the Lord's people
have to be aware that they will face trial, they will face difficulty,
they will face problems, that he brings us to the Lord, and
specifically he brings us to the death of the Lord and the
crucifixion of the Lord. Because he says in verse 17,
If it be so that you suffer, and it will be so, God will bring
suffering into your life. He does it with all his people.
There is an affliction that comes against all the people of God
because we are being taught not to hold too tightly to the things
of this world, but to look increasingly to our Savior. And affliction
is God's tool of doing that in your life and mine. If you're
having a good time right now and don't have any troubles, you just wait because they're
coming. But Peter directs us to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He shows us that it is Christ
to whom we must look, for he has once suffered for us. And so in verse 18, he begins
to speak about the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that love of the Saviour, that sacrifice of the Saviour that
took the Lord to the cross on our behalf, is being set before
us as an example both for our incentive to endure and to bear
the trials of this life and our enabling to live for Him in them. You see, when we concentrate,
when we look to the Lord Jesus Christ, when we look away from
ourselves and look to the Lord Jesus Christ and His accomplishments,
it incentivizes us to follow him ever more closely because
we see what he has given for us. We see what he has done. And it also enables us because
we understand the blessings that flow to us through the sacrifice
that he made on our behalf. We trust him and we follow him. We speak of him and we suffer
for him. and out of a heart of love for
all that he has done for us, we seek to honour and worship
him in all our ways. So Peter again returns where
we must always return, to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. For not only is it our ground
of hope, but it is our rule of life. He gives us five statements
here, the Apostle, that speak to us of what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done. He speaks to us here in these
five things of the Lord's suffering on our behalf in order to both
motivate and enable us to follow him and serve him no matter what
experiences come to us. The first one he gives us is
this, that the Lord Jesus Christ once suffered for sins. He explains that. He says that
he suffered the just for the unjust. He suffered substitutionally. He put himself in our place. He took himself to the cross.
While there were many things going on around about him that
made it appear that there were forces at work and powers at
work that wanted to do away with the Lord Jesus Christ, yet we
understand that there was a voluntariness, there was a willingness on the
person and part of the Lord Jesus Christ to go to the cross for
his people. He went for us. He put himself
in that place for us. He substituted himself for us. And He took our sin. He took
our sin. He suffered for sins, the just
for the unjust. And here at the cross, we see
our redemption accomplished. We see the great transaction
effected. We see the work of salvation
finished in its entirety. And the Saviour interposed Himself
between God and us. and he bared his back, and he
received that sword of the judgment of God, and he died in our place,
the perfect one, the holy one, the sinless one, bear our sins
in his body on the tree, became sin for us, suffered for us. And that great transaction of
suretyship, where he stood and said, all their debts are mine,
All their offences are mine, all their sins are mine, all
their indebtedness. Those for whom he died, that
particular people, that covenantal people, that people from before
the foundation of the earth chosen in Christ and elected to be conformed
to the image of our Saviour. The Lord Jesus Christ took all
that weight of sin upon himself and there he died in our place. He represented us before the
holiness of God. He bared his own shoulders and
he took upon himself that burden and he died for our sins. He carried our sorrows, Isaiah
says. He bore our sins and carried
our sorrows and he paid our debts to the last cent. Second thing that Peter tells
us is this, that the Lord Jesus Christ died to bring us to God. He died to bring us to God. That's
what we call reconciliation. He died to bring us together,
who were at enmity. We don't use enmity very often,
but we often say enemy, and it's the same word. An enemy is someone
who has enmity against us. And these pictures that we have
in scripture of God in his holiness. being at war with us in our sinfulness
and we being opposed to him such that we are angry at him and
such that we will have nothing to do with him and such that
we raise our fists against him. And okay, we can moderate and
modify our behavior so that we can hide our clenched fist from
God underneath our nice suits and our best behavior. The heart
of man is deceitful and desperately wicked. And it opposes God at
every point unless and until God changes us and we are reconciled
to him. And that was what Christ accomplished
on the cross. He died to bring us to God. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
not merely opened a way of salvation. He has. But not merely that,
that's what the free willers would say, that he's opened a
way of salvation, and now all you've got to do is believe.
No, that's not reconciliation, that's not dying to bring us
to God, that's dying to see if we'll come to God. No, he died
to bring us to God, and so he carries us, he carries us. like the Lord carried on his
shoulder that little lamb that was lost from the ninety and
nine in the fold. And he went out and he found
that lamb where it was and he picked it up and he put it on
his shoulder and he carried us home. He brings us to God. If you only made it as a way,
if you only made it as a means of salvation, then more must
be required on our part. but he died to bring us to God. There is the effectualness, there
is the power of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The third
thing that Peter tells us about here in this passage is that
he was put to death in the flesh and quickened by the Spirit,
and then a little bit later on in the passage, and raised again. And I think that the Apostle
Peter has identified these three aspects of the Lord's crucifixion,
his death, his quickening by the Spirit, and the resurrection,
because he wants to emphasize the parts to us. The Lord Jesus
Christ was put to death in his human nature. It was the man, Christ Jesus,
that hung upon the cross. It was our flesh. It was the
fact that he had joined himself to us that enabled him to represent
us there on the cross. And in his human nature, the
Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, bearing all our sins, bearing
the punishment of God, and yes, Undoubtedly, he was sustained
by his divine nature as he hung there, for what man could have
borne what he bore there on the cross? But it was his humanity
that died there for us. And in his divinity, because
I take it to be not the Holy Spirit as the third person of
the Godhead, but rather the divine nature of the Lord Jesus Christ
that is being referred to here by Peter, where he says that
he was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.
The Lord Jesus Christ has power to lay his life down and to take
it again. This was given to him. This was
the Lord himself, raised himself from the dead. Now I do not doubt
but that the Father and the Holy Spirit in their mediatorial or
in the roles that they fulfilled in the mediatorial work of the
Lord Jesus Christ were party to this whole work. But this
was Christ's work on the cross. He gave his life willingly and
he took it again. So the Lord Jesus Christ was
quickened by his spirit, his own divine nature. And this divine
power is that which is active now in giving to the church all
the good gifts of grace. In 2 Peter, Chapter 1 and verse 3, the Apostle
alludes to this. He says that, according as his
divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto
life and godliness through the knowledge of him that hath called
us to glory and virtue. All things are given to us. We
don't have to earn thing. We don't have to accomplish a
thing. We don't have to do anything. These are all gifts of God's
grace to us through and by the Lord Jesus Christ. His divine
power hath given unto us, not conditionally, unconditionally,
given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. People say that The Lord Jesus
Christ justifies us, but we have to sanctify ourselves. No. All
things appertaining to our godliness have been freely given to us
by the Lord Jesus Christ. More. This raising of the human
body of the Lord Jesus Christ reminds us of our blessed union
with Christ in our humanity, because that's what you are.
The fact that you're sitting here today means that you are
still living in this human frame, this human body, this human age. Here we are in our humanity and
we know all the problems of this body. The Lord Jesus Christ raised
his body. That tells us that he is united
to us for the resurrection of our bodies also. He was the first
fruits. The raising of the human body
of Christ reminds us of our union with him in our humanity, such
that as he was raised as the head of the body, so the body
will be raised. to be like him. This old body,
this old body of flesh and corruption is first destined for the grave. And then it is destined to be
raised again, a glorious body. You know that the Lord Jesus
Christ looks after your body. That's why you should look after
it. Because he's looking after it every day. He needs to know
where it is. He needs to know what's happening
to it. He needs to know what's going
on because he is going to take that body and he is going to
change it into a glorious body. The selfsame body such as our
union with the Lord Jesus Christ. We will be raised to a glorious
body, we are told, fashioned like unto his glorious body. We're going to be made like him.
What an amazing thing. We will be like him. and our
very bodies will be fashioned like unto his glorious body. Here's the fourth thing that
Peter tells us about the Lord's work here on the cross, that
he has gone to heaven and that he is now on the right hand of
God. The human body of the Lord Jesus
Christ is in heaven now United to his divine nature, but a human
body nonetheless. And there, the human body of
the Lord Jesus Christ in his person of divine and humanity
is worshipped by angels. Worshipped by angels. All authority,
whether that's in heaven or in earth, has been given to him,
the God-man, Christ Jesus. It's all been given to him. And
there in heaven he reigns, he rules. He rules in his church.
He rules in this country. He rules in this world. He rules
in the very courts of heaven because all authority has been
given to him and all powers are subject to him. All powers are
subject to angels, good and bad. Good and bad are subject to the
Lord Jesus Christ. You don't have to worry. You
don't have to fear. You don't have to be anxious
about what's happening in your life, what's going to happen
tomorrow, what's going to happen when you go to work, what's going
to happen when you go to school, what's going to happen when you
grow up. You don't have to worry about these things. Because all
power is given to Him. All power on earth. Kings. presidents,
prime ministers. They can't hurt us. They can't
touch us. Except the Lord for our greater
good allows them to try us, that we might in turn go closer to
him. Friends, no one can touch you. No one can hurt you. Everything
is subject to Christ because he's risen and he's exalted and
he's at the right hand of God and all authority and power is
his. Circumstances, eventualities,
consequences, the timing, and there's no collateral damage
either. Not the devil, Not demons. Not man. Not beasts. Not circumstances. Because Christ
holds everything in the palm of his hand. Our Lord Jesus Christ
has done everything. He has accomplished and secured
everything by his death. Nothing is left to chance. Nothing is outside of his control. Nothing outside of his purpose.
And we are safe. And that's why the scriptures
call this so great salvation. Anybody like to trade it in?
Anybody like to swap it out for something else? Big car, big
house or something? What would a man give for exchange
in exchange for his soul? Now I said five things, didn't
I? I said five things that the Lord
Jesus Christ has done for his people, and that's four that
I've given you. Let's read verse 19. Here's the
fifth one. So we're talking about that he
was quickened by the Spirit, his divine nature, by which also
he went and preached unto the spirits in prison. which sometime
were disobedient when once the long-suffering of God waited
in the days of Noah while the ark was a-preparing, wherein
few, that is eight souls, were saved by water." The Lord Jesus
Christ, says Peter, preached to the spirits in prison. Now
I've kept this to the end. so that you would say, don't
tell us all the things that doesn't mean, just tell us what it means. Just tell us what it means. There
has been so much written about what this means by men who have
no understanding of the scriptures that it would take us probably
multiple sermons to even touch upon the breadth of man's foolish
imagination. So I'm just gonna tell you what
it means. This verse is telling us that
the Lord Jesus Christ always preached the gospel. It's not
a silly notion of limbo or purgatory or Christ going from the cross
to hell and preaching to lost souls. No, it's much clearer
than that. It is simply this, that the gospel
of grace and righteousness has always been preached to men. From the Garden of Eden to the Book of Malachi, the testimony
of Christ was clearly presented to the men and women to whom
it was sent. We spoke last week, last Wednesday
evening, I think, about what benefit is there of being a Jew,
what benefit is there of circumcision. Paul says, march every way, because
to you were granted the oracles of God. You got the word of God
given to you. How? Well, God sent prophets
to speak to the people of Israel. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. But
the Lord Jesus Christ also went himself to preach. And we know
this to be true because the Lord preached righteousness. He preached
by Noah as he preached by Moses, as he preached by David, as he
preached by Isaiah. The message of righteousness
went to the men and women to whom this gospel was sent. Just go back to Peter chapter
1 with me and I'll show you something there. Because this spirit of
Christ that raised him from the dead is spoken of here in verse
11 of 1 Peter chapter 1. He says, Well let's look at verse
10. 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. This is the Spirit of Christ.
So it was the Lord Jesus Christ, it was the Spirit of Christ,
not in his humanity, in his divinity, that preached righteousness by
Noah to the men and women of the Noaic age. Before the rain
started, While the ark was a preparing, while it was being built, what
an object lesson that was. It would have been enough simply
to say, this guy's building a boat. Do you think we should maybe
get some Wellingtons? But the Lord Jesus Christ was
preached to them because Noah was a preacher of righteousness.
and Christ is the Lord, our righteousness. So here was the spirit of Christ
in them, testifying beforehand the sufferings of Christ and
the glory that should follow. Now here's a little solemn conclusion
to what I've said today. Despite the Spirit of Christ
preaching to those men and women in the days of Noah, only eight
were saved. Only eight were saved. During that flood that came,
everyone else lost their lives. And those souls who perished are in hell right now. They're
in hell right now. They were in hell at the time
that Peter wrote this book to the scattered church, and they're
still there today. What is that? I don't know, 1,800,
1,900 years, 2,000 years. All these years, those people
who had Christ preached to them, are still in hell, and that's
where they will continue for all eternity. Why? Because they're
separated from God, because they're still at enmity with God, because
there never was any reconciliation, because the blood did not avail
for them, because Christ didn't complete the salvation of those
people. They rejected him, and they went
to a lost eternity, and they're in a lost eternity now. Christ
was preached by the Spirit of Christ in the days of Noah, and
still those people are in hell. It's a solemn message, because
Christ is preached for righteousness. Today, wherever he is lifted
up on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is declared as the only
way of salvation, and our Savior is set forth as the redeemer
of sinners. And what will they say? What
will you say? Men persist in going to hell. Noah and seven others were saved
by water. Baptism saves us. Not in the outward ordinance. That's just like the cleaning
of the flesh. That's just a picture. It's a
symbol. but in what baptism represents. in being united with Christ,
in being joined together with Him in His death, in going to
the cross with Christ, in being raised up again in Christ, in
being seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That picture
of baptism, that picture of dying and resurrection, that is what
saves us. The blood of Christ, as He has
joined together with us, has cleansed us from all iniquity. and brought us into reconciliation
with God. The symbol is of a believer being
raised from the watery grave and it attests our spiritual
resurrection together with the Lord Jesus Christ by the power
of his spirit. Disciples once asked, are there
few that be saved? Only eight. Only eight. That's
all it was in the whole world. Only eight were saved. How many
perished? How many of them are still in
hell today? A whole world of men and women. They rejected righteousness,
they rejected Christ, but he was preached to them. So I ask
again, are there few that be saved? Luke 13 verse 24 says,
Strive to enter in at the straight gate, for many, I say unto you,
will seek to enter in and shall not be able. Who then can be
saved? And he said, The things which
are impossible with men are possible with God. So let me be plain
in conclusion. Without God's righteousness,
without Christ, Soon you will be joining the damned legions
in hell, forever lost. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Gather thy people, deliver thy
church, draw weary sinners to thyself, and give us the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ as our own and personal saviour. Amen.