I want to read the first five verses. The first five verses. Peter,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers gathered throughout
Pontius Galata, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia and anywhere else
in the world where the people of God have, because of their
love for the gospel, their love for Christ, have been uprooted
and have been, as it were, dispersed to other places to minister the
gospel of the grace of God. Elect, according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you
and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively or living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible,
and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven
for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time." These verses were very much impressed
upon my heart the last couple weeks, and I felt greatly burdened
that I should speak from these verses this morning. And there
are many things that I would like to say and I trust that
God in His mercy will enable me to say those things that ought
to be said. We know that there are several
things in these verses that relate to the riches of God's salvation.
I relate, or I think we could rightly call this chapter the
chapter that sets forth the riches of God's salvation. Now the first
question that I would like to ask and answer this morning,
if I can, is found in verse 1. I would like to ask, to whom
did Peter write these things? Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
We're told to the strangers, we're told that he wrote these
things to the dispersed, to the refugees that were scattered
throughout Pontius, Galata, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. He wrote
this to a people that had been scattered through persecution
and through suffering. And these people had been uprooted
from their homes, and they were in an awful plight physically
and materially. They were without the goods of
this world, and they were cast, as it were, just simply upon
the land, living in dens and caves. They were persecuted by
an awful impure, one that was no friend of believers, no friend
of Christians. Now all of you have heard of
halls of fame. You know there are sports halls
of fame, and there are music halls of fame, and there are
many others, but I suppose this morning that if we were to erect
a hall for the infamous, a hall for those that are infamous.
I suppose we would put Adolf Hitler's picture in that hall,
and probably Mussolini's, and probably Saddam Hussein's picture
would go up there, and maybe we would put Ted Bundy's picture
there, or Charles Manson's picture there. But there's one other
picture that we would put up there in this hall for the infamous,
And that man's name would be Nero. We would put his picture
up there and we would shine a spotlight on old Nero because he was absolutely
nobody's hero. His name was Nero. He was nobody's
hero. Now this Nero was one who had
fed the Christians to lions. He was one who had taken Christians
and he would stand them or post them, dig a hole and set them,
as it were, in his garden, and he would soak them in oil, and
he would set them on fire in order to give light in his garden. He hated with a passion, a terrible,
vehemence passion, all believers. Now this man Nero was the one
who fiddled while Rome burnt, And then he blamed the whole
affair upon believers. This man, Nero, was the one who
had inside of his army, there was a small little group army
that were believers. And this man Nero, finding that
out, why he commissioned this little army to go out and persecute
other Christians. Well, they would not do so. They
would not obey the order. And so he went through and had
every seventh one of them taken out and slaughtered before the
others. And they still would not go.
And so he had them go through and pick out every seventh other
and slaughter them. They still would not go, and
they did so until the entire army of believers, that army
of approximately 300, until they were all slaughtered. Now Peter
then is writing to these people that have been dispersed, have
become refugees fleeing from Nero and his persecution. And as we said, they had been
robbed and they had been put out, they had been put into situations
that was terribly, terribly uncomfortable. And so Peter is writing to them. Now he does not write to them
to tell them that they ought to march on the government in
Rome and try to change the government. No, he doesn't do that. Neither
does he write to them telling them that they ought to all of
them get together and have a pity party to discuss how awful things
have fallen out to them in this world. No, my friend, but he
writes to them to make known to them the riches of God's salvation. He writes to make known to them
their position before their God and in Jesus Christ. He writes
to them in order that they may truly be comforted, in order
that they might truly come to that place where they can rest
in the Lord in this world regardless of their circumstances, regardless
of their condition. Now, the riches of God's salvation. You see, in verse 2, there's
three things that I think I'll talk about. I'll divide this
portion of Scripture up, these first five verses, like this. First of all, we want to talk
about the plan. of salvation in verse 2. And
then we want to talk about the plan of salvation and I think
that we may not get any further than that but nevertheless there
are two other things that we will get into if we do and so
I will announce them at that time. But first thing then is
the plan of God's salvation. Here's these people and they're
in this awful fix And they're, like we are, they're the kind
of people that are tested and tried, and when they're tested
like these people were, they have a lot of doubts, and they
have a lot of difficulty in trying to reconcile why they're being
treated like this, and why the providence of God is allowing
it. And so Peter said, I just want to take you back, and I
want to give you something of what God's plan is for you. And so he begins by saying, you're
elect. You're elect. meaning that they
had been selected of God. Now don't we believe in the doctrine
of election? The word election is found, or
its equivalent, is found 75 times at least in the New Testament.
The doctrine of election is one of the most important doctrines
in all the Word of God. And we need to be aware of what
this doctrine means to a child of God. Beloved, it's a foundational
truth that God has selected His people. He has chosen His people. He has set His love and affection
upon His people. And whatever falls out to them
in this life, they're to go back to that and they're to rest themselves
in the fact that they're shut up, not to their selection of
God, not to their choice of Christ, but to His choice of them. And so God's people are a selected
people. Now we know that there's a lot
of people in this world who do not understand the doctrine of
God's elective grace. Let me just try to say a couple
of things about it. We know that the word election
means to pick maybe one from many. The word means to pick. It means to choose. And so we
know that, let me illustrate it like this. If a man was building
a building, and our Lord certainly is building a spiritual building,
and he's putting in that building living stones, and he's choosing
the material for his building. And we will allow, we will all
allow anyone who is building a building to pick the materials
that he puts into that building. And nobody uses all of the material
that is available when they build a building. No, the architect
or the engineer or the carpenter is given the liberty to make
a list of material, and he says, well, I need this for that, this
for the other, and so on. And so he uses the material available. He doesn't use all the material
available, but he uses material that he picks and chooses, that
he knows that he must have in that building. Now if he didn't
do that, if he used all the material available, then the house would
get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and spread
out until he wouldn't be able to know where it was going to
end. But God has selected, he has chosen the material that
will go into his house. Now there are many people who
get their hackles up when the doctrine of election is mentioned.
But we know that those same people will gladly talk about how God
chose the ancient nation of Israel and turned away from all of the
Gentile nations and would have nothing to do with the Gentile
nations but set His love and affection upon one nation, the
nation of Israel. But whenever you suggest that
God picks and chooses individual sinners to put into his spiritual
house, they get their hackles up. And they cannot accept that.
They cannot understand that. But my friend, that's exactly
what the Bible teaches. So one from many, some from many. Now in 2 Thessalonians 2 and
verse 13 it says God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Paul was talking to the individual
believers at Thessalonica and said God has from the beginning
chosen you to salvation. Now beloved if God said his love
upon me and chose me in Christ before the foundation of the
world, and he did, Then, my friend, I have a great deal to rejoice
in and to be glad about this morning, regardless of what my
state is in this world. God loves me, and he set his
affection upon me, and he chose me unto himself. Now as I think
about this, I want to mention a verse over in the second chapter.
I want to mention verse 5. It says you also, as lively stones,
are built up a spiritual house, holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. This is talking about that house
that I referred to a few minutes ago. Now beloved, the question
that I want to raise this morning is, We notice that God has chosen
his people, and I would say quickly that everybody God chooses, he
draws, he draws, he draws them unto himself. We're told that
in John 6, that no man can come to the Father except to be drawn,
no man can come to Christ except to be drawn and taught of the
Father to Christ. So seeing then that an individual
is chosen of God, drawn by God. And oh, I tell you, when you
put these two doctrines and teaching together, it's a bombshell in
a lot of churches. It's a bombshell. They just don't
know how to deal with the fact that God chooses and that He
also draws. But let me say to you that everybody
God chooses and draws, those He converts. He converts them,
and they become living, living stones. We're told in Ephesians
2 that we were all dead, and that He has quickened us. If
we be Christians, if we be believers, we have been quickened unto life. We have been made alive in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Well, here in this second verse,
talking about the plan of salvation, we have here the Godhead all
working together here. We have the Father mentioned.
He's the one who does the electing. We have the sanctification of
the Spirit. That is, the Spirit of God sets apart all of God's
elect by drawing them and teaching them to Christ. And then we have
Jesus Christ, that one who has shed his blood. All believers
are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. This is the
Holy Trinity. And every member of the Godhead
are equal in power. and in essence they're the same,
one God, three persons, but they have different roles. They have
different roles. And so the Father does the electing
or the selecting, and the Spirit does the drawing and the moving
of the heart unto Christ, and Jesus dies for His people. Okay, but we see that this sanctification
of the Spirit is unto obedience. It's unto obedience. The Spirit
of God has called us and set us apart unto holy living, those
that are the people of God. They're alive unto the Lord and
they're making up this spiritual house, this house that belongs
to the Lord. But they have been called into
obedience. Now you see there are so many in the churches in
our day and time and every once in a while I hear I've talked
to different preachers that are lamenting this and you can see
it clearly if you go out among the churches. You can see clearly
that there's a lot of people who claim to be the children
of God whose lives have never been affected by the Spirit of
God and who have never been changed. Now we can only, only, I say
to you, we're driven to it We can only conclude that those
people were never chosen, those people were never drawn, those
people were never converted by the Spirit of God. They have
no spiritual appetite, they have no desire for the things of God,
they have no desire for the truth of God, and you can talk to them
until you're blue in the face, and they do not know anything,
hardly of what you're talking about. All the language of the
Word of God is, it's a mystery to them. And the only conclusion
we can draw is that they're not alive. That they're not alive.
And that means they've not been drawn. And that means they've
not been selected or chosen to the Father. That's evident, although
they're in the church, and they profess a relationship with God,
and profess to be in Christ, They have not been affected by
God's calling, and by God's drawing, and by the work of the Spirit.
You see, whom the Spirit of God draws, He convinces, and He convects,
and He converts. Now the question this morning
is this, to this religious generation, is, my friend, not whether you're
breathing the breath of life or not, not whether you're alive
or not. That's not the question. The
question, my friend, is are you alive spiritually? There's a
lot of people who profess to be alive spiritually, but they're
not. They're not. They're still dead
in sin, and they've never been brought out of the death of sin
unto the life and liberty of the gospel. And so the question,
not that we want to raise doubts, but that we want to raise questions
that would cause you to be challenged. Are you alive this morning in
the Lord? Have you been begotten by the
Spirit of God? Are you awakened and convinced
and convicted and converted? That is the question in my mind. Now, the other question I would
ask is this. You say, well, I've taken Jesus.
Well, you see, I'm not interested whether you've taken Him or not.
I'm not interested in that. Listen, here it is. Has He taken
you? He is the one that does the electing. All in this chapter it is evident
this is the work of God from the beginning to the end. He
does the choosing, and He does the drawing, and He does the
converting. And I say to you this morning,
has He taken you? Do you belong to Him? Have you
felt the power of His wooing? Have you felt the power of His
drawing? Have you felt the Spirit of God
upon your heart and in your heart bringing you out of death into
life and you having the joy of the Spirit of God in your heart? So the question is, has he chosen
you? You see, you say, well, what
can I do, preacher? You know, I do profess. I do profess to be saved, but
what can I do? Preacher, I really know that
what you're saying is right. My life has never really been
changed. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. All things
are passed away. Behold, all things become new.
The sanctification of the Spirit is unto obedience. And you say,
I've never been changed. I'm not obedient unto the Lord. I do not follow Christ. I do
not walk in the light of the Word of God. I do not submit
myself daily to the Lordship of Christ. What can I do, preacher? What can I do? Well, my friend,
let me suggest to you in 2 Peter chapter 1. Turn over there with
me. 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 10. Verse 10. Wherefore, the rather,
brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you
shall never fall. So, my friend, what we need to
do, he says, give diligence, give diligence to make your calling
and election sure. We must give diligence and this
is something that we can do and must do. We must make our calling
and election sure. And the way we do that is as
we hear this morning the word of God, ask ourselves the question,
have I been chosen? Have I been drawn by the Spirit
of God? Have I been convicted, convinced that I'm a sinner,
a lost sinner? And have I been converted by
the power of the Spirit of God? And my friend, you need to examine
yourself as to whether you've received a call Or have you been
set apart unto obedience unto the gospel? Is your old worldly
life just like it was? Do you go to the same haunts
you used to go to? Nothing changed in your life?
All you've done is made a profession of religion? No! That's not the
religion of the Bible. These people were sanctified
unto obedience and to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
These people had the blood of Jesus applied to them by faith. They had believed on the Lord
Jesus, and they trusted Him, and His precious blood had washed
them. It had covered, it had atoned,
it had remitted their sin. The blood of Jesus had covered
their sinful souls. Now then, he says, Peter does,
to these people, elect, sanctified, sprinkled by the blood of Jesus.
He said, grace unto you. And they needed it. They needed
it, brother, sister. And he said, grace and peace
be multiplied. Well, that would be wonderful,
would it not? Wouldn't you like to be in a place where grace
and peace was being multiplied? It'd be wonderful to be in that
place and to be a participant in this. Well, so Peter says
this to them. We must go on to verse 3. So
we've talked here about the plan of salvation, and in verse 3
we have the praise of salvation. He says, blessed be God. He tells
these people that what they're to do, and this word blessed
comes from a Greek word that means to eulogize, to eulogize,
and so he says to these people that are in this awful state
in the world, having been scattered and been dispersed, He says to
them, What you ought to do now, he says, seeing that God has
included you in his eternal purpose and plan, and that in this world
God has affected you and touched you by the Spirit, and he's actually
applied the blood of his crucified Son to your soul, he says, to
them, you ought to eulogize God. Eulogize God. Blessed, he says,
and this means that what we should do is take words and eulogize
him that he is worthy. and the only one in the creation,
the only one in the universe that's worthy is God Almighty
Himself, God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you ever
bless God, my friend, beginning, you need to begin with blessing
Him who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful thing that He
blessed us. He blessed us in the way that
He did, by sending Christ. by applauding Christ, by anointing
Christ, to be our Savior and our Redeemer. Okay, so he says
you eulogize God. Take words and begin to eulogize
God. And let me pause just a moment
to say that regardless of what our situation is, God is to be
eulogized. Regardless of where you are this
morning, out on a limb, You may be in desperate straits, you
may be poor, and you may be so poor, you may be living in an
area like I did when I was a boy. It was so poor there, ground
was so poor, lived on an old farm that you had to stand on
a sack of cement to raise an umbrella. It was very, very poor
conditions and situations. And my friend, listen to me.
I'm here this morning to tell you God is to be eulogized even
if Nero and his army is chasing you. You need to eulogize God. He's worthy to receive all of
the praise and the honor that we can heap upon Him because
He is indeed the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
then He says, which according to His abundant mercy, which
according to His abundant mercy, Oh, the mercy of God. Psalm 136,
I believe it is, tells us 26 times that the mercy of the Lord
said, let the mercy of the Lord endure forever. Let the mercy
of the Lord. Oh, how wide, how deep. is the
abundant mercy of our God. My friend, any one of us that
have spiritual eyes to see can look yonder to Calvary and see
the suffering, the agonizing Jesus as He dies in the room
instead in place of sinners and see the abundant mercy of God.
How merciful is our God! Now, my friend, I was reading
sometime back and there was a man by the name of DeWitt Talmadge
who was a preacher and he was quite an orator and DeWitt Talmadge
was getting a sermon together on the mercy of God and he wanted
to preach on it in the worst of ways and so he was praying
about it And that night when he retired to bed, he had a dream,
and he wrote about this dream. And he said he dreamt that he
was standing on an ocean, he was standing on the shore of
a vast ocean. And as he stood there, he could
see anchored out in the water four ships. And he saw himself
crying out to those four ships. How, he said, how boundless is
the shore of God's mercy? How boundless is the shore of
God's mercy? And they at once lifted their
anchors and put up their sails. One of them sailed to the north,
one of them sailed to the south, one to the east and one to the
west. and as in the dream he said they sailed for a thousand
years and they came back and they dropped their anchors in
the water he yet standing there in the dream yelled again how
broad is the shores of God's mercy and they yelled back from
the boats and said there is no shore to God's mercy And the
dream went on, the dream went on and he saw himself in heaven
and he was before the throne of God and there was four seraphims
there before the Lord. And he said to them, he said,
how wide is the sphere of God's mercy? And they had wings to
fly and to serve God. And so they began to fly, one
of them to the north and one to the east, one to the south
and one to the west. And they flew for 10,000 years
in his dream. And they came back exhausted,
falling before the throne of God, saying, Holy, holy is the
Lord God of hosts. And he asked them and said, How
broad is the scheme or the sphere of God's mercy? And they said
there is no sphere to God's mercy. God's mercy is boundless, it's
eternal, it's forever, it is abundant mercy. And my friend,
I say to you this morning, that that is a, to me, that just touches
my soul to know about the abundant mercy of God. The abundant mercy
of God. And you say, well these people
surely wasn't thinking about the abundant mercy of God at
this time. Peter reminds them of it. according
to His abundant mercy. Whatever, however your situation
is this morning, the mercy of God has been abundant toward
you. And he goes on to say, He's begotten
us again unto a living hope. He's begotten us. That word begotten
there means to be born again. He has brought us out of death
into life. He turned the light on in our darkened soul. He flipped
the switch. The light came on. And we now
have a living hope. There are many, many who have
a false hope. There are many who have a dead
hope. But bless God, there is a living, a living hope that
God is the author of. Are you alive this morning again?
I asked you that. Makes all the difference in the
world. It'll make a difference in eternity if you're alive,
if you've been begotten again unto a living hope. And then
we see it's all predicated upon the resurrection. Notice what
he says, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We've been, listen, the Lord
Jesus, I believe, was raised from the dead. Some people, the
resurrection don't mean much too. But I'll tell you, you ever
getting to fix these people in, Peter was writing to, the resurrection
will mean something, something to you. Because you see, there's
not going to be, there's not going to be, there's no hope
apart from the resurrection. There's not going to be, listen
to me, we're all still dead in our sin if there's been no resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no hope Now, as we say,
all future happiness is predicated upon the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. You believe in the resurrection.
I believe in it. I think every child of God believes
in it. You take a miracle in your old
soul, you'll have to be born again to believe in the resurrection. Nobody's going to believe in
the virgin birth, the resurrection of Christ, who is not a Christian. Only if you're a Christian can
you really believe that. And we take note here that this
has been to an inheritance incorruptible. To an inheritance incorruptible.
Now here, he's talking to these people who dead sure ain't going
to have no inheritance in this world. He's talking to people
here that are out on a limb, as the saying is, and they're
poor and destitute and they're refugees and they're dispersed.
from home, they've got no roots, and they've got nothing. But
he says that you, this is all, what's involved in this is that
God has an inheritance awaiting you. To an inheritance. You say,
preacher, what on earth is the inheritance? Well, I believe,
if you want me to give you what I believe about this, is that
it's not something that you can hold in your hand. It is not
something I say to you that you can hold in your hand. If you
can hold it in your hand, my friend, that's not the inheritance. And Peter, I believe, was saying
all of this in order to help these people to see that whatever
they had lost, they really never had really lost anything. Because
what you have in this world, and I know some people coming
after it, and I know that some people have their hearts set
upon it, and I know that there's some things that people says
and swear that they cannot live without, but everything these
people lost, they come to see that really and truthfully hadn't
lost anything that was really, really important. That they couldn't
do without, they could do without it, and Peter said you got an
inheritance coming, and the inheritance is, as I believe that we can
explain it like this, is everything that God has for sinners. Everything
already given in Christ and everything that He will give to those that
love Him and love His appearing. It's everything that God has.
We're joint heirs with Jesus Christ, and we shall have an
inheritance in eternal glory. And we're told here, in this
verse of scripture, that it's pure. You say, where'd you get
that? Well, it says here that it's undefiled. This inheritance
is undefiled. And then, he says, it's eternal. It doesn't fade away. It'll never
fade away. In this world, you can lose it.
You can lose it. Friend, what you're holding in
your hand, You can lose it, and you will. One day you're going
to leave in or it's going to leave you. It's coming, my friend.
But there's an inheritance that is eternal and that doesn't fade
away. All the true inheritance right
now is in the hearts of God's believing children. It's in the
hearts of the saints of God. Those that believe that everything
that God has for a sinner, He's given them in the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ, my friend. They have the inheritance, and
they have it in their possession, if they can truly believe that.
Now Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3, he said that all things are
yours, whether it be the world, whether it be life, death, things
present, or things to come, all are yours. It's all yours in
the Lord, as you stand in the Lord. but we have an inheritance.
You know, I like to think about what that father, you know, of
the prodigal son, and he had another son and he's spoken of
as the elder brother. And you know about that elder
brother, he was a sad case. He was a miserable case, is what
he was. He really was. Well, I don't
really have the time this morning to describe that legalistic rascal,
but I want to tell you this. Listen, the father, who was a
type of God in that story, he said to that elder brother when
he was complaining about the fact that his father never killed
the calf for him, and, oh, he's having such a terrible time.
so afflicted. But the father, listen, he spoke
to that elder brother and he said in the story, he said, Thou
are ever with me. And he went on to say, All I
have is Thine. All I have is Thine. That's the inheritance, my friend. And even you, you may be sorry
as all get out this morning, but if you've been selected If
you have been drawn, if you have been convinced, if you've been
converted, if you are a child of God, listen, the Father would
say to you this morning, He would say, you're ever with Me. I'm never going to depart from
you. I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to forsake you.
And He would say, everything I have is thine. All I have is
thine. We have an inheritance that fadeth
not away. It's reserved. It's reserved
in heaven. Isn't it wonderful? It's reserved
in heaven. And as we go on to see here,
listen to it. It says reserved in heaven for
you who, you who, you who are kept by the power of God through
faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
And in this verse, we have the power of salvation. The power
of it. Listen to it. Who are kept, who
are kept by the power of God through faith. And so the inheritance
is reserved in heaven for us, and we're kept down here for
the inheritance. Listen to me, what a blessing
that'd be if you were standing in the shoes of those that were
scattered off, dispersed, those refugees. To know that the inheritance
is reserved in heaven for them, nobody can touch it, and that
they are kept down here by the power of God through faith unto
salvation. Well, I have been thinking some
about this keeping and the Greek here is a military term that
is guarding, standing guard. The Lord said, I stand guard
over you who have this inheritance awaiting you, those that have
been begotten by the Spirit, those that have been called and
those that have been chosen I stand guard. I stand guard. Kept by
the power of God. The power of God stands guard
over God's people. They're garrisoned about by the
power of God. Now, there are three ways in
which the people of God are kept. Three ways. We're kept by sovereign
power, by the power of Almighty God, and the believer is kept
in three ways. First of all, he is kept internally. He is kept internally. Philippians
chapter 4 and verse 7 says this, And the peace of God, which passeth
all understanding, shall keep your hearts and your minds, your
hearts and your minds, through Christ Jesus. That's the same
word. Shall keep. God's going to stand guard over
your heart and over your mind. You're in this world and you're
afflicted and poor and tried and tested and tossed to and
fro upon the sea of life, but the Lord is going to keep you
internally. And then externally He will keep
you. Jude 24. Now unto Him that He
is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless
before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. So God is
going to say, and same word, unto Him who is able to keep,
to keep, He will stand guard over you to keep you from falling.
Now the righteous do fall, but they're always lifted up. That
means that you will not fall eternally, that you will not
fall and be lost after having been quickened to life, after
having been saved. And so therefore He will keep
us externally. And then there's a third way.
that He will keep us, and that is eternally. Internally, externally,
and eternally, God's people are kept by the power of God. You say, Preacher, I don't think
I can hold out. Well, Paul said this, 2 Timothy
1 and 12, he said, For I know whom I have believed, and am
persuaded that He is able to keep, there's the same word,
that which I have committed unto Him against that day. I know
He's able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against
that day. So the Lord is able to do that. Now my friend, I don't know how
many of you, I have been there, a few of you have been, I'm sure,
been to Niagara Falls. They have there, well, built
years ago one of the biggest electric generating power stations
in the world. And they used to be, I don't
know whether they still do it or not, But they used to, when
they would cancel a letter at the post office in Niagara Falls,
they would put the stamp on there and they had a round circle there,
and inside of that circle it would say, located at the seat
of power. Located at the seat of power. Now my friend, I want to say
this to you this morning. I want you to turn with me to
a verse of scripture that I think that I should read to you at
this time. I hope I've got that verse of scripture down here.
Yes, it's in 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 3. Turn there with
me. Let me share this with you and
I'm done. I'm just finished. And so let me get this to you.
Verse 3, listen to these words. According as His divine power,
according as His divine power hath given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Him
that hath called us to glory and virtue." Now, this verse
of Scripture tells us that according to the divine power, God has
given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. You say to me, Preacher, I will
not hold out. I don't think I'm going to make
it. I'm too weak. Satan just works me over from
day after day. Well, brother, sister, you join
your brethren who are being tested throughout the world. We are
all in that same situation. And I'm going to tell you that
I felt the power of God upon my soul, this power that gives
all things and delivers those that are the people of God. You
say, well, I don't believe I'm going to make it. Well, who are
you, my friend, when God says His divine power gives you all
things that pertain to life and godliness? Why are you sitting
around saying, I can't make it? I can't make it. I can't live
a Christian life. I cannot be what I want to be. I can't walk with God. I can't
truly be one of the Lord's people in this world because I don't
have the strength to do it. He said according to divine power.
He said we're kept by the power of God. And so it is the divine
power. It's God's power that gives us
all things that pertain to life and godliness in this world,
my friend. And so you can make it. You see,
God spoke the world into existence. I'm talking about God's power.
I'm talking about divine power. He spoke the world into existence.
He put the stars in place. God is that God who said, let
there be light. There was light. God created
the sun and the moon and God has created All of this creation
speaks of His power and of His glory. And you, my friend, are
a product of divine power. And you know it's awful hard
for the old flesh to turn loose and capitulate unto God and to
divine power. We still are holding on saying,
we can't make it, I can't make it. My friend, quit looking at
yourself and look away at God. Look away at His power and believe
that His power is able to make you what you ought to be. able
to keep you in this world. His power is right there. And
let me tell you, we don't have to go to the post office in Niagara
Falls. Every believer is in union with
the power of God. And we can say today, located
at the seat of power. All of God's people are right
where the power of God is. God's power is upon you today. And so believe that. and trust
that, and give up in your own heart, and stop all of this foolishness
about I can't hold out. I don't think I am going to be
the... You don't enter into the picture, my friend. The power
belongs to God. Look to God, trust God, and believe
what the Word of God says. Well, you know, I can see how
these words, I can see how these words could mean such Tremendous,
such a tremendous, how they could be used of God in the hands of
the Spirit to be of such tremendous help to these poor people. Can't
you see that? How they could, in this world,
shaking and trembling, cold, wet, starving, people running
for their lives. What little of it was left. How
much, how much my friends, should you and I, how we should take
delight Oh, how the Lord set my soul on fire with these words
here in this chapter. And I'll tell you, it's been
a blessing to me to be able to talk to you about it this morning.
And I trust that God will never catch me whining again, that
we'll not whine and carry on, regardless of what our situation
is in this world, that we shall look past it all and believe
the Word of God. I have a sister in Indiana. She's
ill. We should pray for her. Sister
Jeanette. And I went over some things with
her the other day, telling her how that when we come down to
this place in life where she is, and maybe, but who knows,
we may all be there. But we're in a place where we
need to go over and over again, foundational truths. We need
to believe our beliefs and doubt our doubts. We need to stand
firmly on what the Word of God teaches. Because the devil's
trying to wear the saints out in this world. He's trying to
wear them out. He's been trying all along to
wear them out. He was trying to wear them out
with old Nero. And maybe next week I'll be able
to talk a little more about why these people, why it was necessary
for them to suffer. Maybe we'll talk about that,
if God gives the liberty to do it. But I trust that you'll be
able to take what has been said. I know that we've spoken rapidly,
but I hope you've been able to take it into your heart, your
soul, and I hope it has done your heart good. I hope it has.
Father, in the name of Jesus, for Thy glory, bless these people
with the ability to remember the Word, and I pray their hearts
may be refreshed and strengthened mightily by Your holy, holy Word. I pray it in Jesus' name, for
His sake. Amen.