It's been a real joy to be with
you today. I thank the Lord for this opportunity and this privilege
that I've had to be with you folks. As mentioned this morning,
there is the fellowship of the gospel. And it's just a delight to be
with you. Take your Bibles tonight and
turn with me to the first Peter, the second chapter. I want to speak from the last
part of verse 9, but we'll look at a couple of things before
we get there tonight. 1 Peter, the second chapter. We have the blessed testimony. God, the Holy Spirit is given
of the Lord's people in this passage. We notice in verse number
four, it talks about verse two, as newborn babes desire the sincere
milk of the word that you may grow thereby. If so be it you
tasted, the Lord is gracious. To whom cometh? That is the Christian life. To
whom cometh? We come to Christ. There's a
continual coming to Christ. Whether you're young or whether
you're old, to whom cometh, we come to him. From the new child
that has been born into the family of God to the eldest believer. Actually, I think we, as we grow
older, we see more need of coming to Christ. And we come to him
and for his fullness. It's our emptiness, but it's
to Him for His fullness. And that is the blessed life,
to whom cometh. And I like to think of it as
that of the Christian life, to whom cometh. And it just shows
forth that we come to Him and there's a continual coming. That's
the blessed life. We notice the Lord Jesus Christ
has said that He is a living stone. And as we look at him,
it says here to whom cometh as unto a living stone. He has life
in himself. He's the first and the last in
the building. That is his church. And he says
here that he's chosen of God and precious. And We continue
to look at this and it goes on and says that ye also were lively
stones, build up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer
up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. So the child of God, he's taken
out of the quarry of nature and he's built upon the Lord Jesus
Christ and He becomes a living stone. He derives life from him. He's our life. Then he says to
offer up through him and in him that are spiritual sacrifices. We just read a few minutes ago
about spiritual sacrifices, that a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving
and, and, and, And that's to be our lives also, praising the
Lord and giving thanksgiving. And we have so much to be thankful
for. We'd appraise him for his redeeming
love. We'd appraise him, just continually
appraising the Lord. We also see in this the Father's
esteem of the Lord Jesus Christ, that in verse number six, he
says, behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone. elect precious,
and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded, that
is, defeated. And so he is one the Father delighteth. Also that there is a people,
we esteem him precious. Unto you therefore, look at verse
seven, unto you therefore which believe he is precious. Now take
that verse tonight and And I think you can tell where you're a believer
or not by that verse. Doesn't it say, if you believe,
Christ is precious. He's precious to you. You're
a believer. So we can look at it tonight.
He's altogether lovely. The scripture says the fare is
not 10,000. But the passage of scripture goes on in verse number
seven and eight. It talks about the world and
says that Christ is a stone of stumbling, a rock of a fence. That he is, as the scripture
prophesied, he is despised and rejected of men. Then he comes
back to verse number nine, and that's the verse we're trying
to speak from tonight. It says, you're a chosen generation.
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that you should
show for the praises of him who has called you out of darkness
into the marvelous light. First, it says you're a chosen
generation. The Bible tells us in the book
of Ephesians that we're chosen in Christ before the world began.
We're chosen for Christ and to be his people in the eternal
sovereign election. And Christ says, I've chosen
you, didn't he? Out of the world. And we, we,
we look at some passages and I'd like for you to turn to Ephesians
chapter number two, just for a moment. And. We notice in this
passage of scripture, and I want to just point out, read down
a few verses, and I want you to notice verse number four.
It says in you, who hath be quickened, who were dead in trespasses and
sins, where in times past you walked according to the course
of this world, According to Prince and Pirate of the Hour, the Spirit
did not work within the children of disobedience, among whom also
we had our conversation in times past in the lust of their flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Then Paul says,
but God. Now here's the difference. But
God, who is rich in mercy, and His
great love, for He and He loved us. You see, the state and now ours,
joint ours with the Lord Jesus Christ, justified, sanctified. Scripture says glorified. Here
in the book of Ephesians chapter number one, it says, He hath
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. He hath. Few years ago, I heard a TV evangelist,
and he was looking at these verses here in Ephesians, and I just,
out of curiosity, I said, well, what's he gonna say? And he got
down to this verse, and he read it. Who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heaven and the places? He said, if you'll
let him. He'll bless you. as his interpretation of that
verse. It says here, he hath blessed you. You have these blessings
and the cause is grace. It's sovereign kindness to us. He goes on and says you're a
royal priesthood. The Bible tells us in Revelation
that we've been made kings and priests of God. He's made us
where we're qualified to offer up spiritual sacrifices. And
as I said a while ago, thanksgiving and praise, and they're acceptable
in the Lord Jesus Christ. It says royal, that is children
of the King. Every time I think about this,
I think of my uncle. He used to stand in church and
sing that song of a child of the King. I don't know, it just
triggers in my mind as I think about a child of the king, children
of the king, royalty. Not with a spirit of bondage,
but of liberty. Adopted sons in the family of
God, and he's our authority, king of kings and lord of lords,
and we have one. We call no man master on earth,
but we have one master in heaven, don't we? one master. Then he
goes on and says, a holy nation. And that is at the church, his
people, they are completely separated and they are completely distinct
from all worldly societies. It's different. The church is
different from anything else. You have all the world societies,
but the church is different, isn't it? It's the body of Christ. It's a kingdom, not of this world,
the scripture says. It's a flock. God's flock. They've been sprinkled with the
blood of atonement and they've been washed with the water of
regeneration, sanctified and set apart. The scripture says
that Christ loved the church and gave himself for it that
he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water
of the word and present it to God a glorious church, not having
spotted wrinkle or any such thing, that it be holy and without blemish.
It's a holy nation. Then he goes on and he says that
there are peculiar people That is, that they're God's property.
That's what it means here. They're His people, His property. I understand that the word means
to surround with a circle. That's what God does with His
property. He surrounds it. His peculiar,
says here, people. That they're His. They've been
bought. They're His possession. Tonight,
as a believer, you're the Lord, you're not your own. You've been
bought with a price, the scripture says. You've been redeemed by
blood. You've been delivered from the
wrath to come. And you are God's special, as
the scripture says, his treasure. His jewels. And that's what the grace of
God has done for his people. It's raised them. Now, this is
the part I wanted to speak to you about tonight. The last part
of the verse. Marvelous light. Show forth the
praises of him who has called you out of darkness into the
marvelous light. Been called. Now, This very verse,
everything in here, as you look at it, as you think about a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people,
all of this is blessings. It tells us that we've been brought
from misery to a desirable state. You go back and this in one way
refers to the Old Testament, but yet it's speaking of God's
people now, but you can make some references back to the Old
Testament and that of God calling Israel out of Egypt. Egypt was
darkness, wasn't it? God called them out and he made
them a peculiar people unto himself. See, a child of God, it says
here, marvelous light. They are a marvel. Those that
make themselves Christians by their own free will, apart from
the Spirit of God, there's nothing marvelous about this. They're
man-made, and as they're man-made, they can be man-unmade. But those
that are God-made, twice born, partakers of a divine nature,
that's a marvel tonight, isn't it? We're children of parents. But yet we're children of God.
That's a marvel tonight. My dear mother, she's 82 years
old. And I said, well, I'm going over
to Danville, Kentucky. And she says, how long will it
take you? I said, I think it's about six and a half, seven hour
drive. She reached out her arms and
hugged me. Says, I love you. Children of parents. but yet
we're children of God. We live in this world, but yet
we're citizens of heaven, the scripture says. We live a life that is spiritual,
and yet we have a natural life also, don't we? See, all this
is a marvel. But it says now in the light,
where we were in darkness, There's a time that we were dark about
the future. There's a time, didn't we wonder
what's going to happen to me? What's going to happen when I
die? What about the wrath of God? What about meeting God,
a holy God, a holy and a just God? What about judgment? How
can I escape? Isn't that darkness about the
future? There is darkness if the author
of true knowledge and holiness and happiness does not shine. We look today at the earth regarding
God, who he is. If you go out and ask people about
God, who he is, you get all kinds of answers. And I say, outside
of knowing God, there's no true happiness. There is no light. Here's this light and we find
this light of knowledge and it's of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ, the scripture says. That we've been brought
to understand and believe the revelation of God and His character,
who He is, and the person and work of the only begotten Son. Now that's why the revealer, Christ, reveals
the Father. Isn't that what He said? He's
the one that reveals the Father. And one has the light of life.
when they know that God is, and He's a rewarder of them that
diligently seek Him. This light, it is life eternal. We read in the 17th chapter of
the book of John, that is, life eternal is to know God and Jesus
Christ whom He has sent. God's light, we know that he's
the author of it, he's the father of lights. The Bible says, from
whom cometh down every good and perfect gift. I'm reminded of
that so much when I think about the things of the Lord, that
everything that we have, everything spiritually that we have, comes
down from above. It's God's gift to us. It comes from Him. It's the gift
of God. God has showed us light and give
us light, and as He gives us light, He's the subject of this
light, isn't He? You think about it. He's the
subject of it, and it's light that we see things that we have
never seen before. It's gospel light to our very
souls. It's enlightening grace to us. It's like, my friends, when you
bow to the Lord Jesus Christ, light has come. Light has come. When you say, Christ, take me. When you look and you say, I'm
unworthy, Lord, but yet take me and you cast yourself upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. Light has come. Marvelous light, supernatural
light. Light from heaven above. It's
like one, if one lived underground and all of a sudden they're brought
out in the noonday sun. There's light. Or one blind,
the light and the scales falls off their eyes and they see for
the first time. It's light. Oh, this light we
see things and we see that God is reconciled by the death of
his own son. Now here's light that God is
reconciled. He's not angry anymore with his
people. We find it that Christ what he's
done. God's not angry anymore. That
the atonement Oh, here's light that he died for me. I like that
scripture here in the book of Peter where it says in his own
body he bore our sins. That is atonement. That's a definite
atonement. He bore our sins in his own body. See, the atonement not only came
to us, but the atonement went to God. It satisfied him. It turned his anger away, didn't
it? There's light to see that He's
our Father. We call Him Father. That's light
today, just to think about the Father's love, the Father's care
for us. One of my favorite verses in
all the scripture is, I've loved you with an everlasting love.
Love and kindness, I've drawn you unto myself. That's pretty
hard to beat, isn't it? I've drawn you with an everlasting
love. There's light concerning a father
and his children. I think of my dad and my dad's
passed on. And there's his care for me as
I grew up. But I think about my heavenly
father's care for me, how great it is. That's a perfect carrier,
isn't it? Oh, how great is that carrier
of what He has done. He's wise in all that He does. This Father is. It's light that
brings truth to the soul. And the Bible, listen to what
the Bible says. It says, buy the truth and what?
Sell it not. Get the truth. Sell it not. We see the grace of God. We see
the mercy of God. We see it's all of grace. So
it brings that of the truth to our very souls. We see the truth
of the doctrine of election, and we didn't know of our election.
Peter says, make your calling and election sure. I thought
about those words, make your call and election sure. Looked
like he would have put election before calling, doesn't it? But He's telling us how we know
of our election, it's by your calling. That's why He puts it
that way. He's the God of all grace. The
Bible says, who has called us unto His eternal glory by Christ
Jesus. Oh, I like to know the great
truths of redemption. As Peter points out, that we
are redeemed with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
as the Lamb of God. And we see these great truths
of substitutionary atonement. That's a great truth of the Scripture,
isn't it? That He was foreordained before
the foundation of the world, the Scripture says, and manifested
these last times for us. that we see light concerning
regeneration, the new birth. I wrote in my Bible this. Regeneration is not the result
of believing, but believing is a result of regeneration. Most
people has a cart before the horse instead of the horse out
front. The truth of it, the new birth.
Born again, that we've been born from above. That is, that we've
received the Lord Jesus Christ and those that have received
Him. The scripture says they were born of God over the book
of John, doesn't it? As many as received Him. There's
the light of the truth of the atoning blood, that there's forgiveness. And not only forgiveness, but
cleansing. Isn't that something that God,
what He does? Not only forgiveness, but He
cleanses us. Didn't He say He cleanses us
from all sin, doesn't He? How great is it, this light concerning
that. There's a burden of sin and a
weight of sin and sin is heavy. But oh, when we have light that
Christ has taken away, the Lamb of God has taken our sin away. Just as that picture in the Old
Testament where they laid their hand upon the ram and confessed
their sins, and they took that ram out and put him out in the
wilderness never to be seen again. Oh, what light is just in that passage,
isn't it, of what God has done for us. We rejoice in it. Oh, the light has changed people. Down through the years, it's
changed many of our people. We look at the Old Testament
saints, how it changed them. And we look at the New Testament,
how it changed people in the New Testament, how it changed
the disciples. One of the great examples of
a change at light was that of Paul. Old Saul that became Paul,
didn't it? What a change went there. Light. He was in darkness, wasn't
he? Oh, he was in religious darkness,
wasn't he? But now the light of the Lord
Jesus Christ, in the face of Christ, has shined. And we see
Paul serving the Lord. He's serving the Lord instead
of putting Christians to death and having them stoned. And now
when they're stoned, he's serving the Lord. He calls Christians
to suffer and the Lord said unto him, he said, I'll show you the
great things that you're going to suffer for the Lord's name,
didn't he? And we see his life honoring
God. He gave his life for the Lord.
In this life, he denied himself, didn't he? Isn't that a great
example of denial? John the Baptist had a great
statement on that. He says, I must decrease, and
he must increase. Boy, that's a pretty good thing
to live by right there. If you want something for your
life, and you want a motto for your life, right there it is.
I must decrease, and he must increase. Light. And only light causes this, isn't
it? The light of God. This work of
God. You know, the best light that
one gets by their own efforts, it's nothing. It's not even a
flicker. The best light that one gets
for their own efforts. The light of God is like no other
light. One may know much about this
world and be smart in this world, but by this light, One is acquainted
with things that the world is a stranger to. They are a complete
stranger to this light, God's light, that marvelous light. We see under this light, there's
the word. We have this word, the Bible.
We know it's the living word. We know it's the true word. That's
marvelous light. We see spiritual things. We see
bread, and it's not the bread that the Bible speaks of. It's
not that for our nourishment, but it's for our spiritual nourishment,
isn't it? We see the spiritual things of
the Bible. When the Bible speaks of Lazarus
coming forth from the tomb, that's a spiritual lesson for us. One
that has the arm that's withered and that's restored, or the feet
or the legs. That's all spiritual lessons
for us, isn't it? Well, what about this? The Lord
said, if you eat of me and drink of my blood, we know it is a spiritual lesson,
doesn't it? It's receiving the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's Him. And there's these spiritual
things, these eternal things. And light reveals and here's
a light that reveals and we see the invisible. The Lord Jesus
Christ is real to you, even though he's not here in person tonight.
He is real to us. He's in heaven. We see interceding
for us, not. We see there is king of kings
and Lord of Lords. We see Him there. The saints are before Him, worshiping
Him. That's what heaven is going to
be about. Oh, we see Christ. We see God
as the creator of this world. Let others have their theories. But we see Him as a creator. making it out of nothing. I don't
know how many worlds he's made, but ever how many, he makes them
out of nothing, doesn't he? It's like we see that his hand
is in all of history. You know, a lot of people just
can't see God in anything. But we can go out here and look
at a flower and we can see God. We can look at the water that
rolls down from the mountains and goes to the coast. We can
see God. We can see the clouds, and I
don't know how heavy they get with all that water in them,
but we see God, don't we? We can look at the little honeybee.
He's going out and going around. We see God, don't we? We look
at the history of man and we see God. By this light, we see
His hand and we see His hand today. Don't you see His hand
in your life? As you travel down this road,
there's been His hand. That wise hand, that strong hand. I like that when the Savior went
out and He put the Lamb upon His shoulders, don't you? Upon
His shoulders. Oh, but it's like you see that
He's the Sovereign One, that He's the Supreme One, that He
does as He pleases in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of men. He's so great that Says the nations
are just like a drop in a bucket, doesn't it? Like the dust on
the balance scales. It's how great that He is. We
see Him. We know His presence. That God is over all. Ruling. You know, everybody gets so upset,
and they wonder about what's going to happen, this, that,
and the other. But it's all in God's hand. And He rules, and
He overrules. He sets up kings, and He takes
down kings, the scripture says. And something else, it says the
king's heart is in His hands, doesn't it? Doesn't it say that? Even the king's heart is in His
hands. And it's all going to serve His
purpose. Now here's light. It's all going
to be to His glory. There's been His hand that has
gone before us today. I believe we're here tonight
with the providence of God. Just as we're here, I believe
there's the providence of God. So there's this light. Now, when
you have this light, You're not trade places with anyone that
doesn't have the light, would you? You wouldn't trade places
with some of the richest men, Buffett or Gates or some of them. You wouldn't trade places with
them when you got this light, would you? You wouldn't trade
places with those that have the fame of the world with this light? or the highest status in the
world, you wouldn't trade places. You may have toils and you may
have pain and heaviness of life and you might be weary and worn
and depressed. Yet in the worst, you not trade
places with those outside of this light. You wouldn't trade places. It's
a marvelous light. It's marvelous. It says in His
marvelous light, it'll never go out. He gives it and it'll
never go out. The devil are devils. They can't
put it out. They can't blow it out. It's
God's light and nothing can quench His light. Never lose it. That of His light. You say, well,
I just have a little light. Well, that's good. It'll increase. It'll increase. You know, the things of the Lord,
they keep coming, don't they? They keep increasing. You say,
well, I don't know a whole lot. It'll increase. Thank the Lord
for that. If there's a little divine light,
there's more to follow. It'll fully develop. Now within
this light, all the elements of eternal happiness and joy
is within this light. All of the eternal blessedness
is within this light. For this light, one will live
forever blessed. Can we see how valuable that
it is? How valuable is this light? It says here, show forth the
praises of Him who has called you into this marvelous light.
Praise Him. You could be here without this
light tonight. You ought to ask God to give
it to you. Ask Him. Seek this light. Lord, get me
light concerning eternal things. Get me light concerning Your
book. Make it real unto my heart. And
I say unto you, those that seek the Lord, do not seek Him in
vain. Just show forth the praises of
God who has called you into this state and this light and this
liberty. The scripture says, Thou art
worthy, O God, to receive glory, honor, and power. The psalmist
says, I will praise Thee, O Lord, my God, with all my heart, and
I will glorify Thy name forevermore. For great is Thy mercy to me. Thou hast delivered my soul from
the lowest hell. Thou givest me light. marvelous light. I want to close
with this verse right here, found over in Colossians, if you want
to turn with me to verse 13 of the first chapter of Colossians. What a great verse this is. He's
called us out of darkness into the marvelous light. It says here, who has delivered
us? The word delivered means rescued.
Did you know that as a child of God, you've been rescued?
You have. That's what the word means. You've
been rescued. You've been delivered from the
power of darkness. You've been rescued. And has
translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. Boy, that's some deal right there,
isn't it? Taken from the power of darkness. Translated. Rescued from over
here and placed in the kingdom of God's dear Son. Lord's blessings upon you. It's
been a joy to be with you. I thank you.