Turn with me to 1 Peter 2. I
want to go into a little bit more detail in verse 9 and then
talk a little bit about verse 10. I titled the lesson, We're Not
Then, But Now Are. And I think that's the story
of every believer. We discussed briefly last week
some of the divine benefits which are bestowed upon chosen sinners
through the merits of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He begins in verse
9 by telling us we are a chosen generation. 1 Peter 2, 9. A chosen generation. Now, whenever
you and I think about a generation, we think about a man's life.
My dad was born right around the turn of the century, had
nine children. He lived 86 years on this earth,
and he had, I forget how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren
and great-great-grandchildren, almost 50. in total. And we look at that, at his death,
as a generation. But that's not what he's talking
about here. It kind of is and kind of is
not. He talks about a chosen generation. And he's not talking here about
the generation of a man like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's
talking here about the generation of Christ. and all that was accomplished
in him and his family and his kingdom, his people, his children,
their chosen generation. Back in Psalm 22, and speaking
of the ages to come when the revelation of the Gentiles would
be manifested, David the prophet said this, All of the ends of
the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord. And all the
kindreds of the nations shall worship Thee. For the kingdom
is the Lord's, and He is governor among the nations." Now watch
this down here in verse 30, Psalm 22. Now what's he talking about here?
He's talking about all these nations and all these peoples
and tongues and kindreds all over the world. A seed out from
among them shall serve him. It shall be accounted to the
Lord for a generation. They shall come and shall declare
his righteousness unto a people that shall be born. And they're
going to tell him that he's done this. We are a chosen generation. You see what he's talking about?
We're children of the living God. For thousands of years,
salvation was only considered as something God promised to
the Jews. Whenever the Bible or the living
God, he was called the God of the Jews. The God of the Jews. Your God, Pharaoh told Moses. Your God. Not mine. Your God. And that's the way all the nations
felt about it. He was a strange God to them. But whenever you're talking about
the scrolls that the Jews read or you're talking about their
prophecies or you're talking about the promised redeemer and
all those things, all the Gentile nations attributed all that to
the Jews. It had no bearing on them whatsoever. And this world, if I understand
Romans 1 correctly, had only a perverted knowledge of God
from conscience and creation. Not that God's knowledge in our
conscience is perverted, but our fallen nature perverts God's
witness in our conscience. And he perverts our, when we
look around at creation, that knowledge is perverted also.
It's perverted because we are. And it left men worshiping man
and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. They knew
nothing about a promised redeemer. Isn't that what Paul wrote to
the Ephesians and told them? At that time, you were in the
world and you were without Christ, you were without God. You didn't
know about any of these things. They knew nothing of the promised
Redeemer. They knew nothing of a covenant of grace. I'd be willing
to wager if you asked the average religionist, no matter what church
he went to, something about a covenant of grace, he wouldn't have the
slightest notion of what you're talking about. And yet David's
dying words were in reference and in connection with that covenant
that God established with him. And they knew nothing about the
living God or his demands for his creatures. I used to hear
the old preachers say this all the time, and I never understood
what they meant until I started preaching it. Men say to them,
my God wouldn't do like that. They had no knowledge of the
living God. They have the God of their imagination.
And they had no law except one of their own making, and they
were a law, the Scripture says, unto themselves, their thoughts
accusing or But meanwhile, excusing one another. Salvation, revelation,
and the word of God came for thousands of years to no one
but the Jews. Just to the Jews. And then at
the dawning of the gospel age, the Lord began to reveal the
mystery of the Gentiles. He said, I must need to go through
Samaria. Why? What's the point in going
to Samaria? They're Gentiles. They're heathens.
Our Lord told that woman at the well, that Samaritan woman, He
said, she started telling him, you worship in Jerusalem and
we worship in the mountains. He said, you worship you know
not what. Gentiles. Our Lord saved a Roman
centurion. And then, in the vision, He gave
to Peter. You remember that? He let down
a great sheet, and on this sheet was all sorts of forbidden meat. And he told Peter to arise and
eat. And he said, nay, Lord. He said,
that's unclean. That's forbidden by the law.
And he said, what I've cleansed, let no man call unclean. And then the Apostle Paul specifically
called to minister to the Gentiles. All of God's elect from beginning
to end are counted as a generation. This is what Peter's telling
us. Ye are a chosen generation. He's talking about those divine
benefits of grace. Grace has bestowed this, that
you're chosen. Why you and not somebody else?
How come you believe and the guy next door won't have any
part of it? How come this seems to be clear
to you? You seem to have an understanding
of it, and they can't understand it no matter how simple you make
it. Why is that? It's an act of sovereign grace,
an act of sovereign grace. We are a chosen generation. Listen to what Paul says. that
all these spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
were given to you according as He hath chosen us in Him before
the foundation of the world. Secondly, Peter tells us in verse
9 that we are a royal priesthood. In Revelation chapter 5 verse
9, John saw the redeemed of God. And he heard them singing a new
song as they gathered around the lamb. This lamb was worthy
to take that book of all God's eternal counsels and purpose,
not only to take the book and to look on the book, but he was
worthy to loose the seals that made it a sealed book. And they
sang this song, thou art worthy to take the book and open the
seals thereof for thou was slain and has redeemed us unto God
by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. Now listen to this. This is the
verse I want you to key in on. And has made us unto our God
kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth. If I were to tell the average
person on the street, God has made me king, he'd laugh at me. Well, you don't look like a king.
I might not look like one, but I am. I'm a priest. You can't see my
robe. I have a spiritual robe. I have the robe of his righteousness.
And I'm a priest. But see, this verse doesn't say,
He hath made us kings and priests unto men, although we manifest
that office. I minister to men as a priest,
common priest. But He doesn't say here, He's
made us kings and priests unto men. He says here, He's made
us kings and priests, now listen, unto God. Now, I want you to think about
this. I've never seen this before. I want you to think about this. Isn't that all that really matters?
If God acknowledges me as a king, I'm a king. Who cares what men
and women think? Huh? That's what really matters,
isn't it? God acknowledges me as a king. He made me king, and
He acknowledges what He made. He made me a king, and He made
me a priest. We're kings and priests unto
our God. It doesn't matter so much how
men recognize me as long as God acknowledges me in the offices
to which He called me. says it over in Ephesians chapter
4 verse 1, the vocation. We're with you. We're a royal priesthood. And
then thirdly, he says we're a holy nation. God's people makes up
His kingdom. When we're talking about His
kingdom, that's when we're talking about His people. Kingdom of
God is within you. Isn't that what he said? It's
not out here. You don't see it out here. It's
in you. in you, and God's people make up His kingdom. And we are a kingdom or a nation
as such in this world. And He tells us here that this
kingdom is holy. Now, we're not holy in or of
ourselves, and we cannot, in our fallen state, produce anything
pure. Now, the person who talks about
being holy and promoting personal holiness and telling men to keep
the law and that type of thing to produce a holiness is ignorant
and don't know God. But we're holy by virtue of our
union with Christ. God chose us in Christ, he tells
us. He put us in Christ that we might
be holy. That's why he did it. We're a holy nation, and then
he tells us, fourthly, we're a peculiar people. God's people
stand in contrast to this world, black and white, night and day.
They stand in contrast to this world. God's people rest in Christ
alone. Try to find somebody else that
does that. Well, yeah, we receive Christ
as our personal Savior, and we bow to Him as Lord, but we don't rest in Him alone. We
have to work. If we don't work, God's people rest in Christ alone. God's people find the Holy Scriptures
alone to be the basis or foundation for all they believe. That stands
in contrast to this work. God's people give God all the
glory in their salvation. Every part of it, He gets all
the glory. And God's people have an understanding
of the true and living God and of His Son, Jesus Christ. They
stand in contrast to this world, and God's people stand separate
from this world. I don't know whether it's proper
to use this word, I believe the truth of it will allow me to
do that. God's prejudiced in his dealings with this world.
He doesn't deal with this world the way he deals with his people.
Does he? Huh? He doesn't call this world
with an effectual calling. They're told the gospel. The
gospel's declared unto them, but they're not given assistance.
But he gives assistance to his people. Does he not? That's how Paul said he knew
the election of Thessalonians. He said, when my gospel come,
it didn't come in word only. It comes in word only to this
world. And it's an offensive word. But it's word only. And way back yonder in the Corinthians,
when Paul was talking about this ministry that God had given him
in 2 Corinthians 3, he said, he made me a minister. An effectual
minister, he made me this, not in the letter, but in the spirit. It's not the dead letter, it's
the spirit of God revealing what those words mean. Everything God purposed to do
in redemption, he did for a particular people. The good shepherd giveth
his life for the sheep. He said, I pray for them in His
high priestly prayer. He told the Father. He said,
I pray for them. I pray not for the world. I don't
know how words could be any clearer than that, do you? I pray not
for the world, but for them which Thou hast given me, for they
are Thine. He prayed that His Father would
glorify Himself through His suffering and death that He had appointed
to Him. And that by his substitutionary death, he might in turn do the
same toward his father. And then he spoke these words
in connection with that. He said, as thou hast given him
power, talking about himself, over all flesh, that he should
give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. If the
salvation of God's people were not particular, it could not
be said who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect,
could it? You'd have to strike that out
of the Bible. You just have to take it out. If his death and
resurrection were not particular, it could not be said what Paul
said, he was delivered for our offenses and raised again for
our justification. You'd have to strike that out
of scriptures. His people are a peculiar people
in that they stand in contrast to this world. And because they
stand separate from this world, and they are all these things
that they should show forth. They are. They are a peculiar
people, a holy nation, a chosen generation. They are all those
things. that they should show forth the
praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his
marvelous light." 1 Peter 2 verse 9. Darkness is how God describes
this present evil world. Having their understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts. He tells us this is condemnation. Light has come into the world
and men love darkness. Where were they at? In darkness.
And they loved that darkness rather than light. And when God
finds the sinner, He always finds him in darkness. Always. Finds him in ignorance and paganism. But God doesn't leave him there.
Not if he's one of his own. If he's a member of that chosen
generation, God does not leave him there. He calls him. How did you get out of this darkness?
What made the difference in your life? What all of a sudden, why
did you quit walking in darkness and start walking in light? Because
God himself called you out of your darkness. That's the only
way you can get out. Only way you can get out of this
darkness is for God to call you. I was thinking about that when
I prepared my notes. You know, this is the value,
because God's ordained it to be so, that a preacher be sent
to you. Because when God calls you, He
calls you through His gospel. Isn't that what He says in the
Scripture? Paul said, God has from the beginning
chosen you unto salvation through sanctification of the spirit
and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel to
the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's a lot of pretense
going on in this area. There's a lot of pretense going
on in the churches of our day, pretending to be ministers of
God and so on. But our Lord looked at the Pharisees
who had convinced everybody on the face of the earth, including
the disciples, that they were ministers of God. And our Lord
finally just turned to them and He said, leave them alone. He
said, if the blind... What are they? Blind. if the
blind lead the blind. I was talking to Kathy about
that coming up here this morning. I said, can you imagine, here's
a blind man. He can't see anything. He don't
have a speck of light anywhere in his vision. But somebody's
convinced him that he can see. So he takes a hold of another
blind man, and he's going to lead him. And he tells him, now,
Step up, because there's a step right here. Well, how does he
know there's a step right there? He don't. He's blind. And the
results of that kind of preaching is this. They're both going to
fall in the ditch. He's going to tell this man, you're safe
now. Boom. They both fall in the ditch. Called us out of darkness. The
same God who Commanded the light to shine out of darkness, Paul
said, and creation hath done the same for us. He shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. All of God's sheep, all those
chosen by the Father and redeemed by the Son, shall be called by
His Spirit. No possibility that one of them
won't be called. Whom He did foreknow, He also
did predestinate, and those He did predestinate, them He also
called. And whom He called, He justified,
and whom He justified, He glorified. They shall each one be granted
the good and perfect gifts of the Father of lights. No wearableness
with Him, no shadow of turning with Him. Sovereign and unchangeable
gifts, gifts ordained of God, arranged by God, and made effectual
by God. Paul said, our sufficiency is
of God. That's our sufficiency. You know,
people come to visit. I hope we're going to have some
here this morning. Never been here before. They come to visit, and they've
never heard anything like this. Never heard anything like this.
Not even a hint of these. I remember the first time I heard
it. I'd never heard anything like this in my life. I was raised
in religion. Sat on feed sacks at the mission
and listened to those evangelists preach to the winos. I was in
church all the time. Never heard anything of any of
these things mentioned from the pulpit. Called us out of darkness. All right, let's go back to 1
Peter 2 and look at verse 10 before I run out of time. He
said, which in time past were not a people, but are now the
people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have
obtained mercy. Arminian preachers like to use
this verse as a proof text for the concept of men being chosen
in time. by their decisions and works. Peter's not talking about the
elect from God's perspective here. He's talking about men and women
being called into the marvelous light of Christ to discover God's
election and their part in it. There was never a time when God's
elect were not his people. Huh? Never a time. They were his people when he
chose them and put them in Christ. They were his people when he
predestinated them unto the adoption of children. They were his people
all through time. They were his people. Never a
time when Christ was not their representative, not their mediator,
all down through time. God spoke of that day of salvation
for the Gentiles. He spoke about that thousands
of years before it ever comes to pass. Never a time when God's
elect were not known by him. They were called, Paul told Timothy,
not according to their works, but according to his own purpose
and grace which was given them in Christ Jesus before the world
began. They were blessed by God the
Father according as he chose them in Christ. before the foundation
of the world. The fact of the matter is, whom He did predestinate, them
He also called. And every time when God's people
were not known and loved of God and made full provision for No
matter what aspect, I want you to think about something here.
No matter what aspect of their salvation you consider, you can
find it in connection to the beginning being ordained of God. No matter what aspect of it you
want to talk about. But not so from our perspective. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
2. There was a time, Peter reminds us, when we were
not the people of God. Ephesians 2, 1. Now, I'm talking about from our perspective,
not from God's. And you hath equipped who were
dead in trespasses and sins. What were we? Dead. Wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit who now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation. That's an old English term meaning
our walk or our behavior. We all had our walk in times
past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath
even as others. In that same chapter, he tells
us in verses 11 and 12 that in time past we were Gentiles, uncircumcised
heathens that had no promised Redeemer, aliens from the nation
of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having
no hope and without God in the world. But now, verse 13, Ephesians
chapter 2, now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were afar off
or made nigh by the blood of Christ, because he, verse 16,
or verse 11, I guess it is. I don't know what verse it is.
I can't read my own writing. reconcile both Jews and Gentiles
in one body by the cross and sent to us the word of their
salvation. And now we're no more strangers
and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household
of God." In the Old Testament, the mystery
of the Gentiles was hidden from the world. They're calling an
election stated there. But it was kept hidden by God
until this present gospel age. In time past, we were not a people,
but we're now the people of God. How do we know we're people of
God? Because the spirit of the living
God has been sent to us through the gospel. And what does that
spirit do? Huh? It cries, Abba, Father. That's what it does. And now we know we're children
of God. And then the last part of this
verse, who have not obtained mercy, but now have obtained
mercy. I want you to listen to me. This
is very important. Believing in election and even
being able to discuss or teach election does not mean you are
elect. I'm really looking forward to
listening to a message that Tim James preached at a Bible conference
in Nashville years and years and years ago. Somebody found
it and sent it to me on the internet. Talks about those old dry Calvinists. Our election is made known by
faith in Christ. That's how it's made known. That's
what Paul said, I know your election, my gospel didn't come to you
in word only. And knowing the doctrine of mercy
does not make you a recipient of it. Mercy is obtained by faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who have Christ have God's
mercy. You don't have mercy, God not
merciful to you, and then somewhere down the road you find Christ.
Mercy is in Christ. God has purposed to show mercy
to all his elect, and Christ made it sure by his life, death,
and resurrection. And so Paul tells of our union
with Christ. And then he tells us this, that
in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of
his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For
by grace are you saved through faith. He lets us in on it. He lets us in on it. I know there's
hundreds and hundreds of people out here in our day, maybe thousands,
I don't know, teaching that men are justified by their faith. But we're justified by Christ,
and faith lets us in on it. He lets us in on it. And so Peter
tells us. There was a time when we were
not, but now we are.