If you will, take your Bibles
and turn back with me again to 1 Peter chapter 5. We call it the book of 1 Peter
because God has preserved it and we look into it and we're
taught from its words, but it was actually an official. An epistle is a letter. So this
was Peter and he wrote a letter. And it's called, if you look
at the title of the book in your Bible, it's called the First
General Epistle. So he wasn't writing this as
Paul did and sending a letter to a group at Rome or writing
a letter and sending it to a group called the Ephesians or Philippians
or Colossians. 1 and 2 Peter and 1, 2 and 3
John are general epistles. kind of to whom it may concern.
He's writing to little groups. He describes them as scattered
throughout Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. Just little groups much like
we've got here today, some even smaller. And many of these groups
were laboring to see a gospel witness established and to continue
and be there where they were raised and around for the benefit
of their family and their friends and their neighbors and people
they grew up with. And as it is today, Satan was
actively engaged to put out the light that God had been pleased
to turn on. Whenever God brings a light into
a community, Satan labors to put out the light, put it down,
get rid of it. and thus the persecution of those
who preach it. The religion of this world, which
is nothing less than Antichrist, considers these little churches
as an infectious disease. These people have been duped,
they've been deceived, and they can cause damage. They're
going to cause damage to our churches. And their thinking is, as long
as they're isolated, kind of quarantined, if you will, way
out here or way out there, so they're not in town and they're
not really affecting anything in town, or kept at bay, kind of under
treatment, so to speak, that it's okay. It's okay. But when they see men and women
being drawn from their midst or their children going there,
then they do all they can do to destroy them. And so these
little groups suffer all kinds of indignities and persecutions. And the opposite causes even more,
even more suffering. when believers see their own
children carried away, usually by marriage, and peer pressured,
so to speak, into going into these places who preach not the
gospel. That's putting it about as easy
as I can put it. They're preaching lies. And you
see your children go in there because they've married this
wife. And what that Lord warned the
Israelites of, when he told them, he said, now don't you join yourselves
to these Gentile women, because when you do, they're going to
put pressure on you. And you're going to go out here,
and before you know what's happened, you're going to be committing
adultery and idolatry. So don't do it. Don't do it. And on top of that, consider
all the other things that come our way through the providence
of God, sickness, death, loss of income, inner family divisions
and controversies, car wrecks, thieves, fires, many other things
just too numerous to mention. And what about stress? What about stress? Oh, the stress,
the everyday stress of trying to survive in this high-tech
world. I'm telling you, I get on my
soapbox sometimes. I know Brian gets tired of hearing
me sometimes when he's over there helping me. But there's a whole
generation forced to conform to a technology that's totally
alien. It's alien to me. I didn't grow
up with that. We had a clock. You set the clock, you pull the
knob out, it rings at 5 o'clock. Not now. You can't even figure
out how to set the clock, let alone set the alarm. And then
when it rings, you don't know how to shut it off because it
don't tell you. I grew up in an age when your
stove said low, medium, and high. When a timer was a timer, you
just dialed it around to 50 minutes, and when 50 minutes was up, it
rang. You didn't have to do all of this. And I appreciate technology. I have a library of books that
there's no way I could have compiled. But I have them free on the internet. So I do appreciate the technology,
but it's stressful for my generation because we didn't grow up with
it. And we got this stress we have
to deal with on an everyday basis, and not just the stress of a
high-tech world, but just general stress. There's stress going
on all the time. I grew up reading a McGuffey
Reader. When you high-tech kids go home
and look that up, you'll see what it is. A McGuffey Reader,
and we learned to read. And now you can't buy an appliance
that's without a computer and usually has a Bluetooth to go
with it. You know, Bluetooth, when I was
growing up, somebody didn't brush their teeth. That's Bluetooth. Stress, stress, everywhere stress. We live in one of the most stressful
generations that's ever been. What can we do to escape it?
Is there anywhere we can go to get some relief? Is there anywhere I can go and
get some help? Is there any place I can go and
find rest for my soul and my weary mind? Well, if you'll look
with me here at my text in 1 Peter 5, I think I can offer you some
help. Now, this chapter's addressing
pastors primarily, but the same thing that will relieve my problems
will take care of yours. It'll take care of you. He tells
us, first of all, in verse 5, for the younger to submit to
the elder. This is how it is in the kingdom
of God. This is how it is. And it goes
without saying that in most cases, a man in his 60s, 70s, or 80s
is gonna know a whole lot more about life than those in their
teens and 20s. I told my kids, I said, I've
been down the road. I can tell you where all the
holes are, but if you wanna go down there and fall in them,
there it is. Go down the road. I can help you if you let me. I can show you the vanity. You
think Solomon couldn't have told his children about the vanity
of things in this world? We know the pitfalls. We know
Satan's devices. We know how easily we can be
drawn into them. Submit yourselves to their wisdom. And of course when I say that,
I'm saying prove all things. Prove all things in the word
of God. Everything that they tell you
in the book of God. And then next he tells us in
verse five, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed
with humility. We read a few books and boy,
We're somebody now. No, you're not somebody. You're still that sinner saved
by grace. Boy, and if somebody gives you
a degree, shame on you. Hang it up in the office. There's
my degree. You question what I'm saying?
Look at my degree. So we think we're somebody. No,
we're not. And we need to be reminded of
it daily. We're not, we're sinners being
saved by grace. Now it's not this way in the
world, but it's this way in the kingdom of God. All of you, the
elders and the least among you, submit yourselves one to him. Don't be so quick to look at
him and say, you know, he kind of weird anyway. I don't believe
nothing he says. Just keep your mouth shut and
listen. Listen. I was a young preacher, and I
was just jealous to do something, you know, to impress my pastor. And I was traveling with him
and driving for him and going to all these places. And I said,
Henry, I said, give me some advice. He said, OK. Learn to be quiet. Boy, that wasn't what I wanted
to hear. But you know what? He's right. You want to learn
something? Shut up and listen. Just listen. It'll cost nothing
to listen. Don't cost a thing. All of you be subject one to
another and be clothed with humility. It really disappoints me to see
someone write off another as though he were some ignorant
heathen just because they don't meet up with their specifications. And as I said, it don't cost
you anything to listen. And it won't hurt you to lay
aside your prejudices and hear what somebody say. And it's ever
the lot of the young man to think he knows more than he really
knows. And it's ever the lot of the
old man to shut off the young. But in the kingdom of God, he
tells us, submit yourselves, all of you, all of you, one to
another. And we're to do so in love, and
kindness and longsuffering. Why? Look at verse five, the
last line. For God resisteth the proud, and he giveth grace to the humble. That's why. So clothe yourself
with humility. Now I'm not talking about your
relationship with the world, I'm talking about our relationship
with one another, believers. Believers. I was talking to another
pastor one day about these things and he said concerning, we were
talking about temper, being quick tempered and different things. being obnoxious and pride and
all of these things, and he said, well, you can take it or leave
it, that's just the way I am. Oh? You think God's satisfied with
you just the way you are? You really believe that? You're not even satisfied with
yourself just the way you are if you're a believer. I thought there was a warfare
going on inside the believer because what he really wants
to be, his flesh don't want him to be. What he wants to do, he
can't. What he wants to resist, he can't.
And there's a constant warfare going on in there. And you're
not gonna find peace by saying, I'll just let myself be the way
I am. Everything I read in the epistles
tells us to labor to be like Christ, not to be just like I
am. We're engaged in a warfare not
to let the flesh have its way, but to see the fruit of a new
life manifested in it before me. Listen to this, Paul said,
I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest that
by any means, when I preach to others, I myself should be a
castaway. Now I know that God works in
us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure, but his will
and good pleasure is not working in you to let you be what you
are. Is that clear? That's as clear
as I know how to make it. And in the fourth chapter of
1 Peter, he says this in 1 Peter 4 verse 1, that he that hath
suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin, that he no longer should
live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men,
but to the will of God. Now listen. For the time past
of your life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the
Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, that is loose living, lust, whatever
they might be, excess of wine, revelings, banqueting, and all
kinds of abominable idolatries, looks like that would have been
enough for you, don't it? Wherein they think it's strange
now, your old friends that you used to run with. They think
it's strange now that you run not with them to the same excess
and riot, and so they go speak evil of you. There is a visible change in
a person that is turning from this world to the living God,
and it's not just in outward habits, but in spirit and mind
and affection. Oh, but this It's so strong and
the opposition so great. How can these things be accomplished? Verse Peter 5, verse 6. Humble
yourselves therefore. You can't do it. You can't do it. Humble yourselves
therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you
in due time. How you gonna do it? You just
gonna bow to him. Do what he tells you to do. It's not so much that I'm humbling
myself to another, though we are to do that, but in so doing,
we're humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God. If this
is what God has instructed us to do, and we do it, then we're
not just humbling ourselves to them, we're humbling ourselves
under the mighty hand of God. Is that right? So then the question is, whose
servant are we? Who's your master and Lord? In
Romans 6.16 it says, Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves
servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey? Whether of sin unto death or
of obedience unto righteousness. Believers submit themselves under
the mighty hand of God. Now I want you to listen to me
for just a minute. It was the power and person of God that
intervened in you in the beginning, was it not? You wasn't just sitting
around and saying, you know, I really need to serve God. I
really need to seek God. No. Satan may work in you to that
end to get you to go to what he calls going to church and
go hear false doctrine and so on, but that's not what brought
you to this place. Arranged it and intervened in
your life and draw you here. That's how you got to be It was the power of the Holy
Ghost working in you to create Christ in you being born of him
and the seed of the gospel You didn't do that. God did that It was God who chose you and
made provision for you before the foundation of the world.
You had nothing to do with it. It's God who came into the flesh
and accomplished our redemption. We didn't accomplish anything. And it's God who reigns through
the Lord Jesus Christ who secures us and arranges all things to
preserve us and make intercession for us. And it's God who shall
raise us up from the dead and seat us together with his son
at the last day. Is it unreasonable then to command
us to submit ourselves to his care? You see what I'm saying? We've not done anything for ourselves. It's God who's been working,
working all things after the counsel of His own will, and
that will is a redemptive will to redeem His people from their
sins. And He's working constantly,
working around us, arranging things before us, and His providence,
and His Word, and preachers, and I could go on and on. His
Spirit. Is it unreasonable then that
we should Feel humble before Him and submit
ourselves under His mighty hand. Do what He commands us to do
and be glad to do it. Huh? Is it asking too much for us
to trust Him who loved us and gave Himself for us? Is it so hard to submit ourselves
to our Heavenly Father who's blessed us from the very beginning
with every blessing that there is? To trust Him who chose us
in Christ and predestinated us to the adoptions of sons according
to the good pleasure of His will? I'm telling you we ought to hang
our heads in shame for even entertaining the thought of disobedience to
God. let alone not believing, he's
sustaining us and preserving us and able to save us to the
uttermost that come unto God through him. Now watch this. First Peter chapter five, verse
seven. Casting all your care upon him. Why? For he careth for you. What cares do you have? What cares do you have today? I'm talking about anxious cares,
cares that trouble you. Cares that keep you from sleeping,
cares that disturb your day. What cares do you have? Are you
troubled about losing your soul? Does that trouble you? Do you
have anxious cares about your soul? Do you constantly fear
winding up in hell? Cast these cares on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Cast this care upon your Heavenly
Father. Christ by His own blood has entered
in to heaven itself having obtained eternal redemption for us. You
can't lose your soul because you never had it. It's in his
hands. Is that not what he said? I give
unto them eternal life and no man shall pluck them out of his
hands. No, no man shall pluck them out
of my hands. Where they at? They're in his
hands. And even if they could, he said,
they couldn't pluck you out of my heavenly father's hand, because
he's greater than all. Do you anxiously cast that care
on him? You see what I'm saying? You're
not going to find any peace in, I'll tell you what it is. We
skip church. We go do this. We go do that.
Then we get feelin' bad, and then we don't pray enough, and
we get feelin' bad, and we're not givin' enough, and we get
to feelin' bad, and then we violate somethin' else, and we get to
feelin' bad, and then comes the anxious thought of losin' your
soul. Brethren, take that care and
lay it in his hands. He cares for you. He cares for
you. He cares for you when you don't
care for Him. He manifested His love while
you're yet in a mission. Now what's that? Sure it is. The salvation of God's elect
is safely secured at the right hand of God, and there's nothing
and no one who can pluck you out of His hands. Do you anxiously
fear what is to come? Cast that care upon Christ, who
worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. And
know this, that he who spared not his own son, but delivered
him up for us all, will spare nothing else. He's not going to spare anything.
The only thing he's not going to let you do is what he knows
could be harmful to your soul. Some of you kids, you get mad
at your parents because they won't let you do this or do that.
Let me tell you something. They care for your soul, and
they're watching for your soul. Now here to make you happy and
everything you want to do, they want you to be happy, but they're
watching for your soul. Christ loved us and gave himself
for us. Shall we now fear he's going
to arrange his providence to harm us or destroy us? No, he's
not going to let that happen. Do you fear Satan who is a roaring
lion and he seeks to devour you? Well, know this, both he and
his servants is going to make war with the Lamb, but the Lamb
shall overcome them. Isn't that what it says in Scripture?
For he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and all that are with
him are called chosen and faithful. You know what his name is? Emmanuel,
God with us. God with us. Do you fear your future welfare? Listen to the scripture. David
said, I've been young and now I'm old, yet have I not seen
the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. Do you fear your sinful flesh
and attitude will one day bring you into judgment? Paul cried,
oh, that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having my
own righteousness, which is of the law. but that which is through
the faith of Christ, the faithfulness of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith. Yes, we're sinners, we are. We
are. And yes, we do sin. But Christ came to save sinners,
didn't he? Huh? That's the good news. Christ came to save sinners,
Paul said, of whom I am chief. Our Lord said, I came not to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Do you fear leaving the faith,
losing your appetite for the gospel? Listen to this. Paul said, we're not of them
who draw back unto perdition. We're of them who believe to
the saving of the soul. You see, faith is not of man,
it's the gift of God. So if faith was taken away, who
would bear the shame of it? You? No, God. He gave you something that failed.
That can't be. That can't be. If God gives faith,
he'll maintain that faith. He'll preserve that faith. He'll
work in you so that that faith becomes not only a possibility
but a reality. And that's what Paul said, we're
not of them. If we were of the world and we're
not born of God and God didn't give us the gift of faith, yes,
we'll perish. No doubt about it, we'll perish.
Our foot will slip and do season. But brethren, when God gives
a man faith, that faith's never going away. It's the gift of
God. God's going to be glorified in
that faith. He's going to test it. He's going to put it through
the fire. He's going to put it under the flood. He's going to
cause the wind to blow on it. But it ain't going nowhere. And
you know what? When it don't, you won't get
the glory he will. And you'll be the first one to
glorify. You believe God gives faith and
is then disappointed by seeing his gift come to naught? Listen
to this scripture. This is Luke chapter 11, verse
11. I want you to listen to this. If a son shall ask bread of any
of you that are a father, that's what our Lord said, will he give
him a stone? Your little baby comes to you.
And wants a piece of bread, you gonna hand him a rock? Or if he asks for a fish, will
he for a fish then give him a serpent? You gonna hand him a snake back
in return? Or if he asks for an egg, you gonna hand him a
scorpion? If you then being evil know how
to give good gifts unto your children, How much more shall
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask
him? Every good and perfect gift cometh
down from above. It comes down from the Father
of lights, with whom is no wearableness, neither shadow of turn. Is that
right? Where'd your faith come from?
It came down from above. James 117, ever good and perfect
gift. That's what I just quoted to
you. Faith is maintained by its giver. And part of that maintenance
is in giving us a desire and strength and will to persevere. And give us the means to mature
it and see it established in us. The hymn writer put it this way.
He said, old soul, are you wearied and troubled? No light in the darkness, you
say? There's light at a look at the
Savior, and life more abundant and free. So what? So turn your eyes upon Jesus
and look full in his wonderful face. And the things of this
world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and
grace. Huh? Isn't that what he's telling
us here in this chapter? Humble yourselves. Humble yourselves. To the elders, humble yourselves
one to another. Humble yourselves under the mighty
hand of God. You got no reason not to. And he'll exalt you in due time. There's that old sinner. And
here's these glorious angels. I mean, we can't even imagine
the glory of God's angels. Never seen creatures in his presence,
created to be ministers to those who shall be heirs of salvation.
And they're looking on, and they're seeing this redemption. This
holy God has redeemed these sinners, these fowl, these maggots. He's
redeemed them. And in that day, he'll present
you, and you'll be just like his son. And those angels will
look at you. You think you won't be exalted
in that day? You'll be exalted. Paul said,
no you not, you shall judge the world. You'll sit with Christ
in his judgment seat looking upon this world. And you'll say
amen. You'll say amen. Humble yourselves therefore under
the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time, casting
all your care upon him. And how could we doubt this?
For he careth for you. We're not gathered here to save
God. We're gathered here to worship
him who saved us. He saved us. And he's enabled us to know him
and love him and serve him. May God teach us to do so. Teach us the importance of it,
the value of it, and the beauty and the glory of it. All right, Walter.