The lesson this morning is in
1 Peter 2, verse 9. The subject of this verse, I
believe, is a chosen generation. That's who Peter's talking about.
We've been talking about, ever since his introduction in this
letter, he's been talking to the children of God, to the church
of God, to those born of God, to those who've heard the gospel,
to those to whom Christ is precious. He's telling us all about these
people. And he just stated the content,
I mean the contempt of this world for the Christ of God. That's
what we talked about last week. This world holds the Christ of
God in contempt. There was a lady who visited
here not too long ago and hasn't been back. And she told Brother
Winston, she said, well, I just don't believe what you teach.
I'm against that. I don't believe those things.
And that's what Peter's doing and what he has done here. Those
who believe not the gospel hold God in contempt. They hold this
gospel in contempt and they hold those in contempt who preach
this gospel. It tells us in verse 4 that Christ
was disallowed indeed among men. Webster says that word disallowed
means rejected, not permitted. not admitted. He's disallowed,
indeed, among men. He's not permitted. This type
of Christ is not permitted to be preached in their churches.
They're not going to have it. You can preach it here, and you
can preach it in a few places around this country, but you
go to the average church. If I was invited to go to one
of the local churches around here and preach, they might even
tolerate it one time, but I'd never get invited back. That's
what this means, disallowed indeed among men. It's not permitted
and it's not admitted. It's not welcome. And then he
further tells us down in verse 7 of this chapter that those
of whom he is disallowed are disobedient. These are disobedient
men. They've not obeyed the gospel. They're not in obedience to God. They're not in obedience to the
gospel. They're not in obedience to God's
messengers. They're disobedient men. They're
disobedient to the Word of God, to the messenger of God, to the
Spirit of God, and to the gospel of God. He tells us in Hebrews
chapter 10 and later portions of that scripture that those
who reject this gospel do despite unto the Spirit of grace, unto
the Spirit of Christ. And then he goes on to tell us
that they've stumbled over the stone of stumbling, which is
the Christ of God. They've stumbled at the stumbling
block. What is it they stumble at? Everything. They stumble at the virgin birth.
They stumbled over his relationship with the Father. They said, this
man is crazy. We know he has a demon because
he thinks God is his Father. He thinks he comes forth from
God. He thinks he is God. They stumbled
over his relationship with the Father and they stumbled over
his baptism. They stumbled over his doctrine. You have to understand, these
men have been deceived for years. They weren't just deceived in
that minute, in that instant. They were deceived for years.
Same way the religious generation that we live in have been deceived
for years. And that's why when you hear
these things, it's almost like it's totally new to them. It's
almost like it's a shock to them. There was no baptism until John
came. Now, all of a sudden, there's
a baptism. And this man who claims to be the Christ, he's being
baptized. So they stumbled over that, and
they stumbled over his doctrine. Everything he taught was contrary
to what they taught. They stumbled over his example
of manners. He eats with unwashing hands.
And he told them, he said, it's not that which goeth into the
mouth that defiles a man. It's what comes out of his heart. You might get sick eating with
unwashed hands, but you're not going to be defiled by it. They stumbled over all these
things. They stumbled over his interpretation of the law. He said, you say that the law
says To murder a man, to kill a man,
that's murder. He said, I'm telling you, to
be angry at your brother without a cause is to be guilty of murder.
This law goes deeper than what you think it does. And they stumbled
over his interpretation to the law. They stumbled over his authority
to forgive sin. Christ said that you might know
that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins. He said, I said
unto him, thy sins be forgiven them. And they stumbled over his relationship
to vile sinners and his, I guess you would say, disassociation
with the mainstream of Israel. He didn't go to the Pharisees'
house He may have gone on occasion, but he didn't, it wasn't his
practice to go to the house of the Pharisees for fellowship
and rest. He went to the houses of vile
sinners, saved by grace. And that's where he was welcome.
That's where he was fed. That's where he came with his
presence to bless. You just, you cannot enter into
any real appreciation for grace, any real rejoicing in Christ
or any real sense of the glory of God in salvation till we have
some sense of this Adamic nature and our condition before God.
This is, it's a, I'm not trying to put conditions in the way
of salvation. I'm simply saying it's a fact.
Until the Holy Spirit convinces a man of sin, grace doesn't mean
anything. It's just another doctrine. It's
just another teaching. It's just something to argue
over. But when God convinces him of sin and shows him who
he is and where he is and what all this means and the God he's
going to have to face in this condition, then grace means something. Men reject grace because they
have no need of it. Old John Brown, he was one of
the Puritans. I don't know if you've ever read
anything by John Brown, but the old Puritan said it's one thing
for a noble man to be given a higher degree of nobility, but it's
quite another for a penniless slave to be appointed to such
a privilege. Now, that's the difference. That's
the difference. We've been called out of utter
poverty. There was a time when we were
still ignorant of our poverty. We didn't understand. We thought
we was rich and increased with goods. I had a good job. We were making out pretty good,
and the kids was all well and clothed. We had a fine home,
and the kids were going to school, and everything was fine, putting
a little money back for retirement. You know, everything going, had
no idea of my spiritual poverty before God. And like those that
he writes to at the church there in the book of Revelations, he
said, your confession is that you're rich and increased with
goods and you don't know, you're blind and naked and poor, poor. And knowest not, he said, that
thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. And believers know this by the
power of the Holy Ghost convincing them of sin. They learn what
it is to be a sinner. On this very subject, Paul penned
these words. He said, for you know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your
sakes He became poor, that you, through His poverty, might be
rich. Believers know something of the
grace of God as God the Holy Spirit takes the Word of God
and makes it their experience. Now I know, and I teach this,
and it's why I teach these things, why I'm standing before you this
morning and we're going through this lesson here in 1 Peter.
I know that we must hear these things with these ears and it
must register in this mind. It's not going to go straight
to the heart. It goes through the head, goes
through the ears, goes through the head, then it goes to the
heart. But if it don't go to the heart, nothing effectual
will ever happen to you. When it goes to the heart, it
becomes the experience of the grace of God. And this experience
of grace is what causes God's people to be gracious. It's what
causes them to love. He that loveth not knoweth not
God. He found us in utter poverty
and redeemed us, paid all that we owed. And Peter reminds us
that it was not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood
of Christ, a Lamb without blemish and without spot. And then secondly,
He found us in utter darkness. In our text here in 1 Peter 2.9,
He tells us He called us out of darkness into His marvelous
light. That's where He found us, darkness.
I tell you, I look back on the religion that I was raised in.
It was utter darkness. Isn't that how you see it? Utter
darkness. I didn't believe that at first. I didn't see it that way. I thought
we might have been off on a few points, but I didn't see it as
utter darkness. But I've come to see what it
is. See it for what it is. It's utter darkness. Utter darkness. And that's where he found us
and called us out of it into his marvelous light. out of the
darkness of paganism. You know, the old Gentiles were
pagans. That's what that word Gentile
means. They were pagans. They were pagans. They worshipped
the gods of their imagination. Romans 1.21 said that they refused
the light of creation and conscience and refused to acknowledge God
in the light that He had given them and became vain in their
imaginations. Their foolish hearts were darkened,
and they changed the truth of God into a lie, and they began
to worship man. Began to worship man and four-footed
beasts, birds, and creeping things. What is the religion of this
world if it's not paganism? It's utter paganism. That's what
it is. Worshipping man and serving man
and bowing to men and submitting to men. Man is the author of
his own destiny, men say. Salvation is all up to man. God's
done all he can do. It's all up to you. I've heard
preachers say that from the pulpit. God's done all he can do. Well,
I tell you, if God Almighty has done all he can do, ain't nothing
going to be done. What are you going to do that
God couldn't do? That's paganism. That's what it is. It's utter
paganism. Darkness and ignorance. Imagine a world full of ministers
with no gospel knowledge. A world full of them. No sense
of mercy, no idea of who God is, who Christ is, or why he
must come into this world as a man and live and die and be
resurrected. ascend into glory. It's all paganism. Our Lord said to the Pharisees,
these were the most educated in the light of the Word of God.
They had more knowledge of the Word of God than anybody else
on the top side of God's planet, the Pharisees, these doctors
of the law. And He told them one day, He
said, if the light that be in you be darkness, If what you
call light is darkness, how great is that darkness? He said to the most renowned
theologians of his day, he said to his disciples, he said, leave
them alone. He said, if the blind, who's
the blind? These master theologians. He
said, if the blind lead the blind, they'll both fall in the ditch. And then our Lord said to His
hearers over in John 9, 39, for judgment, I'm come into this
world that they which see not might see, and that they which
see or think they can might be made blind. And the Pharisees
said, are we blind? And Jesus said unto them, if
you are blind, you should have no sin. But now you say, we see. Therefore, your sin remaineth. God found us in judgment, found
us under condemnation. There are two things on this.
The gospel and this particular redemption accomplished by Christ. He tells us, first of all, by
the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation.
speaking to the whole race, whole race of Adam without exception.
They're all born by natural generation having a fallen sinful nature. And he tells us in Adam all die,
all die. And then secondly, there's a
particular application to this also. He said this is the condemnation. Now we're not talking about Adam
anymore. We're talking about that nature we inherited from
Adam. This is the condemnation that light came into the world
and men love darkness rather than light. The same thing is
true of every man who sits in these pews and hears me preach
the gospel and walks out that door in total rejection and rebellion
against it. They love darkness rather than
light. They hear what you have to say and they go right back
to the darkness. Men are condemned because they're
sinners by nature, they're sinners by choice, and they're sinners
by practice. And those who fell in Adam inherit
this nature, and they are, according to Ephesians 2, verse 3, by nature,
the children of wrath. It's not just by the fall of
Adam, but it's through that inherited nature of Adam that each individual
manifests his own guilt and his own sin. God found us under condemnation,
and he found us cursed. I wish, I tell you, God really
made this go home to me. when I was a sinner and began
to seek God. When He began to move in me and
caused me to seek Him, He really made this go home to me. Cursed
is everyone who continueth not in all things written in the
book of the law to do them. Now, I don't know what your experience
is, I think all men at one time or another, they'll do something
or say something or think something and that one thing begins like
a splinter and you can't get it out. It just festers and hurts
and causes you pain and that one thing. What this verse says
is cursed is everyone who continues not in all things. Not one thing,
all things. A continuance in it, a continuance
from the time you're born until the time you die. Any place in
there where this law is not fully obeyed in motive, thought, and
deed, anywhere in that space where this law is not done by
pure motivation of the love of God, the curse of God falls on
you. That's what this is saying. And
that's why Paul said, you that seek to be under the law, do
you hear the law? Do you hear what the law is saying
to you? Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things
written in the book of the law to do them. Paul said, the hearers of the
law are not just before God, but the doers of the law should
be justified. And let me say this, my friend,
believers have received the testimony of God concerning their condition. Absolute poverty. They'll say
amen to that. I will. Can you? Absolute poverty. I have nothing. Nothing to offer
God. Nothing. You know, people talk about offering
their service to God. He said if you kept the whole
law, if you did all that, all you did was what you were supposed
to do, start with. You haven't done anything. Because
there's no reason for you to break a single precept. We've received the testimony
of God. We understand our absolute poverty,
our utter darkness, our condemnation and Adam. We understand that
we're cursed of God. We say amen to it. And the fact
that we're dead in trespasses and sin. You know, leprosy is
described in the scriptures as a living death. No cure, highly
contagious, all-consuming, dead while you live, separated from
the people of God, the worship of God, and the means of grace.
There they were. They were out there in the leper
colony with the other lepers. They weren't even permitted to
come in. Dead while you live, that's how
that, when Moses pleaded for his sister, that's how he pleaded.
Don't let her be as those who are dead while they live. Mankind
is cursed of God in his sin and in his sin as a sinner, he cannot
change his condition and he'll live out his days as untold millions
in the past, walking the course of this world and walking according
to the prince of the power of the air, dead while he lives. Leprosy. There's only one hope
for any cursed son of Adam, and that is that God, in sovereign
mercy and grace, has determined to intervene on his behalf. I said all that to say this.
Here's what Peter's telling them. But. See that word in there? That thing ought to jump off
the page at you. But. Ye are a chosen generation. That's why you're not disobedient
still. That's why you're not still out
there in their congregation. That's why you're still not over
there in their reunions rejoicing over things that's contrary to
God. That's why. You are a chosen
generation, chosen by an election of grace, chosen to be blessed.
by the Heavenly Father, chosen unto salvation, chosen to be
blessed with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ,
chosen to be predestinated unto the adoption of children, chosen
to be appointed a divine representative, chosen to be put in covenant
union with the Son of God, chosen to be clothed in His righteousness
and redeemed by His blood. Chosen to be kept by the power
of God through faith. Chosen to hear the gospel. Chosen
to a new birth. God has from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. And therefore called you by our gospel. Try to picture old Saul of Tarsus,
blinded, having been arrested by God. Now he's experiencing that blindness
that he would have denied till his dying day that he was blind. He was right in there with that
bunch of Pharisees over there and John who said, are you saying
we're blind? Now he's blind. Now he's blind. Oh, Saul of Tarsus, arrested
by God. made to experience his blindness,
led about by God's servant to a preacher. And there in his
ignorance and darkness, old Ananias said to this old Saul of Tarsus,
this old rebel. Listen to what he tells him.
The very first words that comes out of his mouth to Saul of Tarsus,
this old rebel. Listen to this. The God of our
fathers hath chosen thee. Oh, my Saul. He's chosen you. That's what Peter is saying here.
You are a chosen generation, a chosen kindred from the lowest
to the highest, from the poorest to the richest, from the sickest
to the wellest. You are a chosen generation,
chosen under the praise of his glory and chosen even above angels. What a statement Paul makes there
in the first part of Hebrew. I think it's Hebrews chapter
2. He said, for he took not on him the nature of angels, but
the seed of Abraham. Oh, my son. And then he tells
us we're not only a chosen generation. He said we're a royal priesthood.
A priesthood chosen of God, set apart to minister the things
of God. What did the priesthood do? Do
you remember? Have you ever read it? We studied
through these things in Exodus. What did the priesthood do? They
carefully carried the tabernacle from one place to another. Is
Christ not our tabernacle? Isn't that what He tells us over
in Hebrews chapter 9? These things were just a picture.
But this tabernacle not built with hands, not of this building. What did this priesthood do?
They reared up the tabernacle. They put everything in its place.
Isn't that what we do when we preach the gospel? We take these
things that that set forth the Son of God as the Father has
set him forth. In picture, we take these things
and we present them to the people. We rear up this tabernacle exactly
as God instructed us to do. There was things to be put up
first and things to be put up last on that tabernacle. There
was an order to it. What else did they do? Well,
at the appointed times, they offered the sacrifices which
God ordained. And we set before the people
that sacrifice of Christ. And they labored to maintain
such things as God told them to do. They put in the showbread
on the table, and they put the oil in the light, in the candles. And then in Hebrews 9 and 10,
He tells us that Christ is our tabernacle, our sacrifice, our
blood atonement, and our propitiation for sin. It's Christ that we
carry from place to place and Christ we rear up before the
people. He's our tabernacle and we're
his priest. We're a royal priesthood. And
then he tells us this, we're a holy people. And I talked to
you about this not too long ago. There's only one way you can
be considered holy. You can't look yourself in the
mirror and say, boy, there's a holy man. You can't do that. The only place you can do that
is when you see Christ in the mirror of His Word. There's a
holy man. And if I'm in Him, I'm holy. That's what He's telling us here.
That's what Peter's saying. You're a chosen generation. You're
a royal priesthood. You're a holy nation, a holy
people. And we're not holy in ourselves,
but by virtue of our union with Christ. In Colossians 1.21, he tells
us this. He said, in you that were sometimes
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to
present you, to present all believers, everybody in this holy church
of God to present you holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in God's sight. Isn't that something? We're a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, and fourthly, we're a peculiar
people. In Bible context, this word means
particular. particular. It means we belong
to him, he's ours, and we're his. We've been bought with a
price. And I believe one of the biggest
errors in modern theology is that salvation is universal.
That's a lie. It's a lie. It's something that's
not taught in the Word of God, that Christ died for everyone.
But you're not going to find it in the Word of God. You're
not going to find it pictured in the types, and you're not
going to find it in the plain declaration of the Word of God.
You're not going to find it. Everybody, every man, woman,
and child that that high priest represented when he went beyond
that veil was represented in those 12 tribes that was written
on his shoulders and on his breastplate. That's who he made that atonement
for, not for the The Gentiles out there, not for the heathens,
not for those who hated God, but for the children of God,
he went beyond that veil, offered up that sacrifice. Everything about the salvation
of God's elect denotes particular redemption. I want you to think
about these things. I don't have time to go into
any depth with them, but think about this, the love of God.
God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. If this love is universal and
his sacrifice offered for all men, then his love and his sacrifice
made no difference. Is that right? Made no difference
at all. He might as well not loved us
at all. Might as well not offer himself at all, because some,
if he died for all men, some for whom he died, ultimately
are going to perish. Think about this, the justice
of God. If Christ died for all men, then
one of two things must be true. Either God lied, who declared
our justification in the resurrection of Christ, or God will, after
all, condemn the just. One another. The resurrection. The Scripture
said He quickened us together with Christ and raised us up
together and made us sit together in Him in heavenly places. Now
you try to picture the angels of God going into glory right
up there surrounding the throne and say, you, you, you, and you,
come with me. You're going to hell. But that's what we say, isn't
it? Isn't that what universal salvation teaches? Redemption. If we're redeemed
by the precious blood of Christ, how shall God then demand more
than what he's already said he was satisfied with? We are a
peculiar people, that is, a particular people. And the good shepherd
giveth his life for his sheep. God chose us and He made us kings
and priests. We're a royal priesthood. Made us holy before Him. Made
us, in the Scripture it says, His inheritance. I can't imagine. I just can't imagine. His sons, His people, that we
should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out
of darkness into His marvelous light. You know, believers are
called in the scripture, saints in light. That's what you're
called, saints in light. And what that really means in
our modern day language is enlightened saints. That's what it means.
They came to the light, they rejoice in the light, and they
walk in the light, and they're called the children of light. Next week, we'll look at the
next few verses. Thank you.