If you'll turn back with me now
to 1 Peter chapter 3, the apostle instructs us on how a believer
is to behave in this world and why. He gives us plain and easy to
be understood directions on how wives are to act toward their
husbands and how husbands are to act toward their wives. And
if they both be believers, for them both to remember that they're
heirs together of the grace of life. And then he moves to a
little broader audience than just the husband and the wife.
And he talks to the church and their conduct toward one another.
And he tells them to be of one mind. One mind. I'm going to say it again, one
mind. That one mind is the mind of
Christ. He said, let this mind be in
you. That's pretty plain, isn't it? I don't have to speculate on
what this mind is. Let this mind be in you that
was also in Christ Jesus our Lord. In 1 Corinthians 2, verse
15, Paul says, He that is spiritual understandeth all things, yet
he himself is understood of no man. And he quotes this Scripture
out of the Old Testament, and he says, For who hath known the
mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the
mind of Christ. Believers are of one mind. They
don't debate about how a man is saved. He's saved in Christ.
They don't debate about righteousness. Righteousness is in Christ. They don't debate back and forth
over spiritual issues. They are of one mind. They're
in total agreement over these basic things that are in Christ
Jesus. Be of one mind. And then he says,
have compassion one on another. Where the mind of Christ is preeminent,
compassion is plentiful. That's right. Where the mind of Christ is,
it is. He tells us to love the brethren. Love is commended to us in that
Christ died for us while we were yet enemies. So had we not ought
to love our enemies. Do you know that your enemy Barabbas
was an enemy? But Barabbas was marked for release. Nicodemus, he was an enemy. He took offense at what the Lord
told him. And almost mockingly returned
things back to the Lord when He told him a man must be born
again. But Nicodemus was marked for release. love the brethren. And love is
commended to us in that Christ died for us while we were yet
sinning. We love Him because He first
loved us. And on this basis, we're to love
one another and as best we can to love all men and be at peace
with all men. Does anybody here know who God's
elect are? Then I better be kind to everybody.
I just better be kind to everybody. freely and graciously and without
expecting anything in return. Love them. Love them. And be
pitiful. Is it so difficult to pity having
been pitied? Remember what I told you earlier
about faith being born out of desperation and need? Being pitied
of God, is it so difficult for me to pity? I think I could To be pitiful is to see someone
in need and identify with him and be merciful toward him and
willing to understand and be compassionate. And he tells us
this, be courteous. Be civil. Be civil. Be friendly. Be kind. Prefer
your brothers and sisters to yourself. Don't walk up to the
door and stand like this and wait on him to open the door
for you. Walk up and open the door for him. Go around him when
he comes to the door. Open the door for him. Come on
in. Be courteous. Be courteous. Do not, he said, render evil
for evil or railing for railing. Now let me tell you what this
is all about. But contrary-wise, in other words, just the very
opposite of that, blessing. And what this is talking about
is when somebody's in disagreement with you, their voice starts
going up. And what do you do? Your voice
goes up even more. And then their voice goes. He
said, don't do that. Don't do that. When they raise
their voice, lower yours. Lower yours. Don't push it to a division.
You see what's going on? Lower your voice. The volume
of your voice is not going to convince anybody of anything
except that you're wrong. That's all it's going to convince
them of. All it's going to do is cause a division. Do not have
railing. That's what that is. When you
rail on something, don't rail. Don't continue. Don't feed the
fire. Just lower your voice down. Get a deep breath. Get a deep
breath. Don't raise yours in return,
but rather lower your voice so that you might be a help to them
and not a means of division. Don't be drawn into someone else's
anger, and don't let yourself be put at odds if it's at all
possible. And we've got one that watches
over us, one who will set things right and protect us from all
evil. Verse 12, listen to this, For
the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are
open unto their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against
them that do evil. Alright, here's the second thing.
Peter tells us in this chapter that all who will live godly
in this evil world are going to suffer. Get ready for it. You can't live this life of faith
and not suffer. It's an impossibility. If a perfect
man, that's what Christ is, if a perfect man with perfect motives
and perfect love and perfect compassion and perfect kindness
and perfect longsuffering, if he suffers at the hands of this
world, what makes you think you're going to be extinct? And when we suffer, we have to
say we had it coming. Because we're not perfect. But you're going to suffer. Because
believers are not of this world. We're in it, but we're no longer
of it. We're children of light, children
of the day, free from the law, free from its bondage, free from
the oppression of Satan, wise to his deceitful ways. We know,
1 John 5, verse 20, that we are of God and that the whole world
lies in wickedness. We know that. The believers do.
And you're going to suffer for it. You're going to suffer for
it. Most likely, your own family is going to be the biggest source
of it. Your own children, your own parents, your own brothers
and sisters. Our Lord said, your enemies shall be they of your
own household. That's what He said. My relatives, I'm talking about
me personally, I'll let you make your own applications, but my
relatives don't understand why I would want to leave my family
and move halfway across the country. Why would you want to do that?
There's churches right here that need pastors. Why don't you pastor
here? My family cannot understand why I can't worship with them
where they go. I don't understand that. My family
does not understand why I would travel 2,000 miles to preach
the gospel to six people, but I wouldn't drive 12 hours to
attend a family reunion where there's going to be 400. They
don't understand that. Why would you do that? And if our kinfolk, our blood
relatives, cause us to suffer, Where does that leave the rest
of the world that has no interest in you whatsoever? You see what
I'm saying? You're going to suffer. You're
going to suffer. But this suffering is due to
a lack of understanding. And to successfully minister
to men and women, you must be willing to suffer. If you're
not willing for somebody to say, I don't believe that, then don't
say it. Just don't say it, because that's what you're going to hear.
and you're going to suffer for it. They're not going to let
it die there. They're going to go tell their neighbor, you know what
he said. If they're a man of recognition,
they may take an ad out in the paper. I'm told they did against
James one time here. Took out an ad in the paper down
around Mendon. But Paul said, in order to answer
them, Who in some form or fashion brings suffering into your lives.
Who don't understand why you do what you do. He tells us in
verse 15 to sanctify the Lord God in your heart. That is to
set Him apart. Set this thing of God apart. This work of God in you. This
revelation of God in you. Set this apart. Set it apart. Think on it. Don't
just leave it lay. Don't just take it for granted.
But think on it. Meditate on it. Sanctify the
Lord God in your heart. And be ready, verse 15, always
to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for
the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Why do you think you have hope
and the rest of the world are deceived? Why do you think that? Have you got a reason? That's
what Peter's telling us here. You sanctify these things. You
sanctify this revelation of God in your heart and be ready to
give an answer. If you can't answer them, you
can't answer your own heart. Why just believe? No, you don't. No, you don't. Virgin talked about a fellow
one time that he asked, he said, are you a believer? He said,
I am. He said, what do you believe? He said, well, I believe what
they believe. And he said, well, what do they believe? He said,
they believe the same thing I believe. Well, he said, what do you both
believe? He said, the same thing. That's where most of this world
is. They can't tell you. Why do you think you have a revelation
of God and everybody else has a lie? Why do you think you know
the truth of the living God while the rest of the world only think
they know God and walk in the vanity of their minds? Why do
you think you of all people are an heir of God? Why do you think
you're heard of God and that He answers your prayers and closes
His ears to ours? Why do you think that? Have you
got an answer? Peter said, you better get one.
You better get one. And in verses 17 through 22,
he outlines the answers to all these questions that I just proposed. He outlines the hope of all that
believe. And to illustrate this hope,
he goes all the way back to the days before the flood to illustrate
this faith that he's talking about. All the way back before
the condemnation of God on this world where He flooded it and
drowned everybody except eight souls. And one man in his house
stood alone in the world of evil men and ministered to them for
120 years. And nobody was converted except
his own children and not all of them were truly converted. He stood and he preached, it
says, And I'll show you this here in a minute. He preached
to spirits in prison. In prison. I Peter 3, verse 18, For Christ
also hath once suffered, once suffered for sins, the just for
the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death
in the flesh and quickened by the Spirit. I want to give you
three things this morning about our suffering Savior that ought
to comfort us, especially in our sufferings, and make us willing
to suffer more. The first thing I see here is
the sufficiency of the substitute. The Holy Ghost moves Peter to
write this glorious Word once. Christ once suffered for sin. You see that? He wants. Now this word has a two-fold
meaning. First of all, it's a declaration that He actually did appear in
the world and suffer and die. The whole of the Old Testament
Scriptures tells us that one is to come and suffer for sinners.
The Acts of the Apostles through the revelation of John tells
us that one suffered and was victorious. We'll return. And
He tells us in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that Jesus of
Nazareth was this Christ. And he tells us, once, he says,
once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away
sin by the sacrifice of himself. So once is a declaration that
he actually did come, did suffer, did die, and was raised from
the dead. But also once has to do with
the sufficiency of what he did, the sufficiency of his person. Once is sufficient. Once was
enough. It's enough. Listen to this,
Hebrews 9, verse 11. But Christ, being come a high
priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, that is His body, neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once. Ain't that
what that says? once into the holy place, having
obtained eternal redemption for us. Hebrews 10, verse 10. He says, we are sanctified through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, listen now, once for
all. Once was enough, John. Once was
enough. That's what He's telling us here.
Not only does once tell us that He did come, but it tells us
that what He did do was sufficient. Once for all. And based on His
sufferings and His priestly work and based on His righteousness
alone, the Holy Spirit purges our conscience and writes the
full pardon and satisfaction of the law upon our hearts and
our sins and iniquities, He says, I remember no more. I want you to hear me. You cannot
believe in the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ and universal
redemption. It's impossible. It's impossible. Because the sacrifice of Christ
was sufficient to cause God never to remember sins again. Isn't that right? Now, if He put away my sins to
the point where He can't remember them, Then, and he died for everybody. Then what's judgment for? What's
hell for? You see what I'm saying? You
can't have it both ways. It's never, his sacrifice is
never presented as a partial work or a work dependent on something
else. It's always presented in its
sufficiency. If He offered Himself for all
men and all men are given this benefit, then there can be no
reason for God to send anybody to hell. Christ once suffered. Now here's the second thing I
see in the text. It's the cause of His sufferings.
He suffered for sin. He suffered for sinners. Not
good men, not wise men, not noble men. Sinners. It says he suffered
the just for the unjust. Paul said, this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all exceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. He not only suffered
poor sinners, but he suffered being surrounded by sinners and
suffered at their hands. And he suffered not only by those
of this world, but by those He came to save. Did He not suffer
when Mary and Martha ran out to Him, and their brother was
dead in the tomb, and they ran out and said, if you'd been here,
He wouldn't have died? Says Jesus wept, groaned at Himself. He suffered. He suffered. Our inability in sin, And here's
the third thing I want you to see is the accomplishment of
these sufferings. They are to bring us to God.
Our inability in sin forbids us from coming to God. We must
be brought. Brought. And there's a world
of things involved in this bringing, but there's only one that I want
you to see this morning. If you can get a hold of this,
I'm telling you, you'll be blessed. And that is the justification
accomplished by his life and death and resurrection that opens
the door for everything else that follows. Men are taught
and believe that we're innocent until some so-called age of accountability. I have no idea where men ever
first bring that up. It's not in the scriptures anywhere.
Then as our minds and consciences are mature, And we're able to
make these voluntary decisions, these so-called rational decisions
concerning right and wrong. Then we become sinners who are
now accountable for their transgressions. But what the Bible says is that
we come forth from the womb speaking lies. That's what the Bible says. David said we go astray as soon
as we be born. Not at 12 years old. Why is that? Why do even little children lie
and covet and exhibit these evidences of sin? Because in Adam all die. That's right. They all die. Romans 5.12, by
one man sin entered into the world, death by sin, and so this
death passed upon all men, all his descendants. and death by this sin. How do
I know that? Because all sinned. All of them
sinned. Every last one of them sinned.
They are still sinning. Now here is what I want you to
see. Romans 5 verse 18. Therefore, as by the offense
of one judgment. Let that word sink in. By the
offense of one Now, you're guilty in yourself. You can just set
Adam apart. You're guilty in yourself. But
you fell in him. By the offense of one judgment
came upon all men to condemnation. That is, when that baby is born,
that grandbaby, your baby, your neighbor's baby, your favorite
baby, You pick that baby up, that baby is under the condemnation
of God in Adam. Its nature is already fixed. It's fixed because Adam was condemned
in the garden. It's going to be a fallen man
is what it's going to be in its time. And it is, by the judgment
of God, a fallen man. We were by nature, he tells us
in Ephesians chapter 2, The children of wrath, even as others. The sinner. Now listen to me. He's a prisoner of the court
of heaven. It's not his ways that hold him
in bondage, although he's bound by his ways. It's not necessarily
the influence of Satan that holds him there. It's the court of
heaven that prevents him from breaking loose. It's the court
of heaven. Nothing happens. Not a bird can
fall to the ground apart from God. Nothing happens apart from
His decree. Satan's not doing something contrary
to the will of God. The devil's God's devil. And
he holds us in bondage because the court of heaven has pronounced
us guilty. That's why you're held. That's
why you can't break free. Why you can't go nowhere. That's
why God allows that nature to be passed. You see what he's
saying? By the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to
condemnation. He's a prisoner of the court
of heaven. Like the fallen angels, they're
kept in chains of darkness. You can find that over in Jude,
verse 6. Reserved in everlasting chains of darkness unto the judgment
of that great day. Peter writes in his second epistle
that the heavens and the earth, which are now by the Word of
God, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of
judgment and perdition. That word perdition means dead
while you live, of ungodly men. And to illustrate
this justification of life, Peter takes us in our text here in
1 Peter 3, He takes us and tells us something
of this message of the suffering substitute and how it was carried
by Noah and preached in the days of God's judgment on this world. You see the line he's drawing
here? He's drawing a line from the preaching of this back to
the days of Noah when he preached to the world that God said, I'm
going to drown them, every last one of them. But Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. And Noah preached to them. He
took this suffering substitute and he went out and preached
to them and they were not a part of it. They weren't a part of
it. But some of them did. Some of
them did. To illustrate this justification
of life, Peter takes us back into these days. God held these
men in chains of darkness. He holds them in strong delusion
and they laugh at Noah while he's preaching. And he keeps
right on preaching. And he keeps building that ark.
And I don't know if he pointed to the ark and showed them the
pattern. It doesn't say. It just doesn't
say. But it does say that he preached
to them. And here in 1 Peter 3, he tells us what he preached.
The suffering substitute. He went with Noah in those days
as he ministered to those spirits who were in prison. There's not a shadow of hope
that they can break free. Most of them don't even understand
that they're bound. The sinner imagines that he can
set himself free and walk with God anytime he wants to. But
he walks, Paul said, in the vanity of his mind. That's wishful thinking. His bars are not visible to the
natural eye. I'm not bound. You're not? Then
quit sinning. Huh? That's what I thought. You're bound. I'm not bound. Then why won't you receive the
gospel? Huh? Because the door's shut. That's
right. The door's been shut. I'm not bound. Then why, when I pile up Scripture
as high as the moon to you, declaring plain truth in plain four and
five letter words. Why won't you receive it? Because
you're bound. You're bound. His prison is such
that he isn't even aware that he's bound. And it is the accomplishment
of Christ and his righteous obedience and death on the cross that alone
can set him free. He was delivered, the scripture
said, for our offenses and raised again for our justification.
What made the release of Barabbas sure was that another was chosen
to die in his stead. That's right. And once it happened, the soldiers
went down, turned the key in the door, and said, Barabbas,
you're free to go. Huh? What do you mean? Another has
been chosen to die instead. That's what this is talking about.
Justification unto life. He was delivered for our offences
and raised again for our justification. There's nothing universal about
the sufferings of Christ. He died for His own. John 10,
verse 11, He said, I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth
His life for the sheep. For the sheep. Therefore, the
sheep hear His voice." They have been given the privilege
to hear His voice. I must go through Samaria. Why? Because one has the right and
privilege in Samaria. Based on my death, by virtue
of my suffering, she has the right and privilege to hear this
gospel preached. Ephesians 1, verse 4, "...having
chosen us in Christ, to be recipients of all spiritual blessings and
being predestinated by the Father to the adoption of sons. Verse
6, He makes us accepted in the Beloved in whom we have redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, and therefore abounds
toward us in all wisdom. That's why the abounding wisdom
comes. It's because of what Christ purchased
in His life and death. Because of the victorious Christ,
The courts of heaven declare the release of all those prisoners
held captive by their sins. Otherwise, death is going to
continue to pass. One morning, the book of God
was brought and put into the hands of one that some believe
were the Christ. And he carefully turned in the
scroll. They were on the scroll. And
he rolled that scroll until he got to Isaiah chapter 61. And
he stood up. Back then they stood up to read
and they sat down to preach. Maybe we ought to start that. But in verse 1, here's what he
read. He went back and got this old
prophecy of Isaiah. And he stood up before those
men. And he read this. The Spirit
of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good things unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted. Now listen to this. To proclaim
the liberty of the captives and the opening of the prison to
them that are bound. To proclaim the acceptable year
of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that
mourn. This day, he said, he sat down
and he just sat there quietly and looked around the room. Finally,
he said, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Today,
I have the key. Turn the door. Set the captives
free. Wherever this gospel is preached
and received, the prisoners are set free by the commandment of
God. All who oppose it are left bound in their chains awaiting
certain death and certain doom. And he goes all the way back
to the days of Noah to show that to you. And to show you that
he stood there and he preached for 120 years to who knows how
many thousands of people came by to see this crazy old man
building his ark and listen to him babble on. And he sat there
and he preached and he pointed and he worked and he preached
and he pointed. And people gathered to hear him
in 120 years. And a handful walked into the
ark. They walked into the ark. 1 Peter 3, 19, by which also he
went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were
disobedient when once the long-suffering God waited in the days of Noah
While the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls,
were saved by water. That is, they acknowledged what
was preached unto them by getting on the ark. That's right. That I know they believed. They
got on the ark. Verse 22, talking about this
Christ that was preached to them who are in prison, having finished
His work, He's gone into heaven, is on the right hand of God,
angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him.
It's not a difficult thing to suffer if you know that your
suffering is not in vain. Christ didn't suffer in vain.
Believers don't suffer in vain. That's what Peter's telling us
here, that the sufferings of Christ was not in vain, but brought
about to release all for whom he died. And neither shall ours
be in vain, but it'll accomplish the same end. I hope this will
be a hope to you and a source of comfort to you, because that's
the spirit in which I offer it to you. He tells us that by the
authority of God, you see what I'm trying to tell you here,
this Christ came down and He suffered one time. And that one
time of suffering was sufficient to justify all for whom He died. And because they're justified,
because the courts of heaven no longer hold a charge against
them, but was charged to Him and fully paid by Him, So the
word goes out from that court of heaven, having ascended into
heaven, that word goes out through the Holy Spirit of God in the
preaching of the gospel and proclaims liberty to the captives. How'd
I know they'd been set free? They believe. They believe. They rejoice. They rejoice. They feel the fetters gone. He applies that blood to the
heart of a suffering sinner. And he understands those fetters
are gone. And he believes and he rejoices
in Christ Jesus.