After Ye Have Suffered a While

Turn back, if you will, in your
Bibles to the book of 1 Peter chapter 5. And I want you to
look at the 10th verse, verse 10. But the God of all grace,
who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after
that we have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, settle in you. I was thinking of all this text
of scripture and it came to my mind that it seems to be that
Peter has left off exhorted when he gets to verse 10 and he's
went to pray for the people of God. And I thought that this
would be a good New Year's benediction for the people of God. It would
be a verse of scripture here that we could use this morning
that I believe that it would be a good prayer for me to pray
for you. And certainly the preacher has
two things to do for the people that God has given him, that
are under him in the church. I believe number one is to speak
for God to them. And number two, he is to pray
for them to God. He is to ask God to undertake
and to bless them. Now in verse 10 he says, but
the God of all grace, who has called us into his eternal glory
by Christ Jesus, after that we have suffered a while, I make
you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. And so the pastor
has only fulfilled half of his sacred commission when he has
declared the whole counsel of God unto his people, just half
of his commission. The other part is that is to
be performed, I believe, in secret in the closet, praying for the
walks and the trials and the sins and the weaknesses of the
people of God, pleading to God for them. It seems to me that
that's what Peter is doing here in this 10th verse. Now, there
are, however, I believe, special seasons When the preacher finds
himself constrained to pronounce an unusual benediction upon his
people or over his people, and I think that when one year's
trials are over and another year of mercy has commenced, I believe
that this is just such a time for such a prayer as this to
be prayed on the behalf of the Church, of the Lord Jesus Christ. A prayer like this, I think,
is good to pray, this prayer, at the beginning of a new year.
Now I know that last Sunday morning was the first day of January,
and it was the first day of the new year, but I believe that
this is timely, and I hope this morning that the Lord will bless
the thoughts of our hearts and the thoughts of this verse to
your soul and encourage you with it today. There are two things
that I'd like to talk about this morning from this text. Two things.
Number one, we'll kind of take it in reverse. I want to talk
about what Peter asked of God, what it was that he prayed for,
for these people. And then second, why did he expect
to receive what he asked for. Those two things we want to talk
about this morning. Number one, again, what Peter
asked of God, what he asked of heaven, and number two, why he
expects to receive these things that he asked for. Now the reason
of his expecting to be answered is contained, I believe, in the
title by which he addresses the Lord his God, the God of all
grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. Well then, first then, what has
the apostle asked? for all, for whom this epistle,
or to whom this epistle was written. What has he asked the Lord to
do for them in their lives? What has he asked God for? Well,
I mean he asked four things here, and the number one thing that
he asked for here is perfection. Look at it in the last part of
the verse. He says, after that you have suffered a while, make
you perfect. Number one is perfection. Number
two, that you may be stablished. Number three, that you may be
strengthened. And number four, that he may settle you. That
he may settle you. These are the things for which
Peter asked God for these people to whom he was writing this epistle. Now, I want to say this because
I believe that this is a point that many people mention or miss,
and I want to mention it this morning to you. And this is very
important to see, and I know that it's not always something
that we want to notice, and it's not something that we're fond
of, and not something that we really want to hear a whole lot
about. And many times in the messages of men around this time
of the year, there's nothing said of it, or there's nothing
in their words that would even in any way, shape, or form refer
to this. For an example, people say, Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year. There isn't anything said or
mentioned in their words to us about suffering. Suffering. But I want you to notice this
before I get in to talking about these four things because it's
very important that you see this and that you notice this in the
text. He says, after that ye have suffered
a while. After that ye have suffered a
while. We know that men must suffer. We know that there is
much much suffering in this world. We know that it's impossible
to live in this world and to escape out of this world without
suffering. And we believe that men are born
to sorrow and to suffering as the sparks fly upward. We believe
that in this life, man's days will be few and they'll be full
of trouble. We know that compared to eternity,
man's days are few. Man remembers how long he lived.
Your days are few. And Jacob said, my days have
been few and they've been full of evil. They've been full of
trouble. They've been full of sorrow. They've been full of
sadness. And I believe that in our prayers we are to understand,
and if we pray for each other, we're to understand that the
people of God are suffering, that the people of God are being
tested, the people of God are being afflicted. We know that
folly is bound up in all of our hearts, and it's so bound up
in our hearts that without the rod of affliction and the rod
of test and the rod of trial, without a lot of chastisement
comes upon us from the Lord that we will never be able to make
the progress in this world and we'll never be able to have the
heart toward God that we ought to have and we'll never be able
to have these blessings. that we find here mentioned in
the text, that Peter's praying for the people of God apart from
experiencing some suffering in our lives. Now, beloved, you
cannot divorce yourself from suffering. And I want to say
that more than just believing that suffering will be in our
hearts, and including that, when we remember the Lord's people,
we believe that the sorrow, even the sorrow that we have in our
lives, will assist us in, as it were, working out the blessing,
or the blessing will come to us and be worked in us by the
sufferings of this life. that the blessings of God, that
they'll come to us through these sufferings. After that, we have
suffered a while, Peter says. And so the people of God, then,
are called to suffer for Jesus' sake. And if we suffer with Him,
then we'll also be glorified together with Him. And, beloved,
there is no crown apart from suffering, and there is no possible
way of victory apart from a cross. that we must bear in this life. So as we look at these four things,
understand that they'll come to you after you have suffered
a while in this life. And so I believe that this would
set the stage, and the first thing that he prays for is that
God would make us perfect. Is that God would make us perfect.
Now I recognize that many, many times we meet people that have
a misunderstanding about perfection, They do not understand that in
this life that there is anybody in this body of flesh that's
ever perfect. You never meet anybody. You may
meet some people that think they're perfect, but they are not. But
Peter here actually does pray. that God will make these people
perfect. And I will say to this, beloved,
it is necessary that we ultimately, that we ultimately arrive at
perfection. It is necessary that sooner or
later that God bring us to full perfection in His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I believe that God makes
us perfect in Christ Jesus and that we are now as we stand in
the Lord Jesus Christ We are acceptable unto God and that
we are perfect in Christ Jesus as we are complete in the Lord
Jesus Christ. We are accepted in Him. Now if sanctification has begun
in our lives, it will most surely end in perfection. Has God taken
a block of stone when He took you and I? And as he began to
chisel on that block of stone, and does he mean to bring out
of that Figure, well certainly if God ever lays a chisel on
you, my friend, it is to the end that He will ultimately bring
you to full perfection and you will finally someday be perfect. And God's will for you is that
you will end in His Son, that you will be absolutely perfect.
Now I know that you feel, well, I've got a long way to go. before
I'm ever going to be perfect. Let me remind you that the way
God will bring you finally and lastly to full perfection is
whenever you put this body off. When this body is put off and
is put into the grave and he gives you a new body, there is
going to come a time when we're going to be perfect. And so,
beloved, it is a legitimate prayer that we pray for one another
that God will make us perfect in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there is no such thing as
being called by the grace of God and being forsaken before
we finally reach perfection. I'm telling you, if God lays
a chisel on that block of stone, that he's going to finish the
work. Has God ever begun a good work that he's not finished?
Well, the grace of God must and will carry us to the end and
will take us safely into heaven. My friend, it would be no blessing
for God to begin to bless us if he did not finally bring us
to perfection. It would be no blessing. I believe,
my friend, that I would rather go to hell for all eternity than
to be loved by the God of the Bible and for Him to begin a
work in me and then to reject me and to quit His work in me
and to forsake in me and to abandon me. I'd rather that I never know
His love than I never know Him. his heart's love toward my soul
than for him to begin a work in me and then for him to quit
that work. I will say with no blessing for
God to begin to bless me if he were not going to bring me to
full perfection. But grace will see the work done.
He that hath begun the good work will complete that work. He will
continue that work until the day of Jesus Christ. God will
make His people perfect. Shall God fail? Shall He leave
His work imperfect? Well, the answer to that, of
course, is no. Shall it ever be said that the
Spirit began to work in this man's heart? But the man was
mightier than the spirit, and sin conquered grace. God was thrown out of the man's
life. Satan triumphed. And the man
was never brought to perfection. My friend, such a thing shall
never be said, not of God's work. When God begins the work, God
will complete the work, God will bring you to perfection. And
so my prayer for you is that God will make you perfect in
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. No prayer will be fulfilled after
you, this prayer, I want you to understand, will be fulfilled
after you've suffered a while. In this life, you must suffer
out the days of your life. And as you suffer with sin, and
as you plead with God, and as you deal with your own heart,
crucify the flesh, as you put off as it were daily, experientially,
this body of sin, as you take yourself to the cross, as you
crucify yourself daily, dying out to yourself in this life,
suffering for a while, then you will have this blessing, my friend,
this blessing of perfection in the Lord Jesus Christ. Final,
full perfection in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, as I said, there's
no way to rid our hearts of the falling, but by the rock. It
is through the bliss of the wounds that your heart, my friend, is
made better. But it is through the blueness
of the wounds, through God's chastening upon our life throughout
our days, And it is as He has brought us into relationship
and union with His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that He will finally
present us wholly unclaimable and unreprovable in His sight
in the end. My friend, Peter said, I pray
God will make you perfect. And He will. God will make you
perfect. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
Even such people as you and I. that God's taken up the cause
and put the chisel on the block, and he's not going to finish.
He's not even going to break until he's finished. One of these
days, the likes of you and I are going to be perfect before God
in Christ Jesus, and that's a wonderful blessing. Well, the second thing
that Peter prays for for these people is that they might be,
he said that they might be established. Or I think it means establishment. And beloved, this is very important
because certainly it's important that we be rooted and grounded
in the truth of God and that we be established. And that we
be not as the rainbow painted upon the clouds. That's here
just for a little time and then you look at it and say, Oh, we
got rainbow there. We'll come in a hurry. Look at
this rainbow. Why do you need to come in a
hurry? Well, it's because he's going to be there very long.
It's not established in the heavens, don't you see? And it'll be gone.
It's like the smoke that comes out of the chimney. You see it
coming up out of the chimney, but then it's gone. My friend,
we don't want to be that way as the people of God. I don't
want you to be that way as a child of God. I want you to be established
in the Lord. We want to be rooted and grounded
in love. We want our convictions to be
deep. We want our love to be real. We want our desires to
be earnest. And with our whole life, we want
to be so established in this life so fixed that all the blasts
of hell and all the storms of earth shall never be able to
in any way shake or remove us from our walk before the Lord.
We want to be established. Now, those of us that are getting
older in the Lord, I think that we ought to be very much concerned
about being established in the faith. The older you get in the
Lord, I was mentioning last Sunday to one of the younger people
in the church, that the Lord, I think, expects us to act our
age when it comes to the truth of God. And how old are you in
the Lord? It's not necessarily how old
you are in the flesh, but how old are you in the Lord? My friend,
how much have you traveled with the Lord? What's your experience
with God? How long have you known the Lord?
How long have you been reading the scriptures? I mean, how much
do you know about Him? That's the question. Well, God
expects us to act, I believe, our age in the Lord. And you
wouldn't expect your five-year-old boy to go out and do a man's
work. You wouldn't expect him to act like, as far as having
a mature character, like you would one that's 18 or 19 or
20 years old, no. And so the Lord would have us to back our
aims. But if we are older in the Lord, my friend, we ought
to especially be concerned about this business of being established
in the things of God, about our convictions, about the sincerity
of our hearts, about the sincerity of our practice, about our being
faithful to God and being, well, you know, it's kind of like,
It's kind of like the oak tree. And how, you know that oak tree,
when it's young, of course its roots are not very deep, but
after it's suffered for a while with the March winds and the
storms of life blowable, And this is the older children of
God. I mean, they've been in this
world. They've been in the pilgrimage for a while. They've had some
experience dealing with the problems of life and the tests of life.
And they've been brought to a degree of patience. They're like this
older oak tree that the roots have grown down deep, deeper,
deeper, deeper into the ground because the hard winds and the
storms have blown against it. And these trees are very, very
strong. And so my friend, this is what
Peter's talking about here. He said, I'm praying for you
that God will make you like this old oak tree that the roots are
just reached out and they went damn deep. And my friend, if
you think you're going to come up to an oak tree and just saw
it off with a stump and that you're just going to dig around
a little bit to get it out, you're sadly mistaken if it's very old.
Because I'm telling you, you're going to have a time. You're
going to have to have some dynamite, and you're going to have to blast
and blast and blast and dig and dig and dig and pull to get that
stump out of the ground. And you may end up just setting
a fire around it and burning it out. That's the only way you'll
ever get it out. Because it is established in the earth. And
that's the way the older saints of God ought to be when it comes
to the truth of God, when it comes to the love of God in their
convictions, in their soul. They ought to be established.
And that's what Peter is praying for here in this verse. Now the
next thing is strengthen. These are, as it were, pearls
upon a string. And we have the first one, perfection,
the second one, established, and the third one is strengthened,
that the Lord might strengthen you. Now we must have, and it
may be that we have a degree of establishment in our life,
and we may feel that the Lord sometime will bring us to perfection.
But we have no force in our lives. We have no vigor about our lives. Brethren, we all know what it
means to be weak. Weak is what? We know what it
is to be weak in this world. But I want you to understand
me this morning that there is not in this world a creature
that is as strong as a Christian when God is with him. Now, you
mark that down. You may think of some of the
great preachers that have roamed this earth in ancient times as
well as now, but my friend, listen to me. There is not a stronger
preacher in this world as a Christian when God is with you. If God
is with you, my friend, you are strengthened and you are strong.
You say, well, I just feel weak. Well, you may feel weak, and
the scripture says, Paul said, when I am weak, then am I strong.
And you may certainly feel weak in yourself, but if God is with
you, you are strong, you are strengthened. And Paul spoke
of being strengthened with might by the Spirit of God in the inner
man. And so, brethren, the people
of God are strong in the Lord. And we're told to be strong in
the Lord and the power of His might. And so my prayer today
is that we will be strong, that we will be strong enough. And
one of the great examples of the people of God being strong,
of course, is found in the 11th chapter of Hebrews. And let me
just read here a few of these verses to you. It talks about,
in verse 32, about some of these characters. And it says in verse
33, who through faith subdued kingdoms, brought righteousness,
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the
violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword. Out of weakness
were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to fight the
armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised
to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting
deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. Others
had trial of cruel markings and scourgings. gave them over bonds
and imprisonments. They were stoned, they were sawed
asunder, were tempted, were slain with a sword. They wandered about
in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented,
of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and
in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth." Now that's
talking about the people of God, my friend, and it's talking about
the people of God in a strengthened state. When they were strong,
our weakness remained strong. You say, well, I don't think
I could ever suffer like this. I don't think I could ever go
through these things. I don't think I could ever put
up with this. I don't think I would ever be able to endure such times
as these. Well, my friend, listen to me.
After that, you've suffered a lot. You'll be strengthened. And even
in the suffering, you will become strong in the suffering. You'll
think, well, this is going to get me. I cannot bear this. I cannot endure this. And for
a child of God, whatever they face, Make no difference what
another day brings. My brethren, what you're called
upon to do, if you're called upon to take that little casket
out to the cemetery, if you're called upon to bury one of your
loved ones, if you're called upon to suffer persecution and
great trial for the bereavements that afflict other people, we're
not exempt from that. And we're going to have some
of that. And it may be that this very year we're going to have
some of that. And so my prayer for you is that you'll be strengthened
and that you'll be strong in the Lord and the power of his
might. And that seemed to be Peter's
prayer for these people, that they'd be strengthened. and that
they'll be able to stand and endure whatever it is that God
calls upon them to endure. And in this coming year, only
the Lord knows what will befall us, what it will that will become
of our lives and what will come our way. Only God knows the stress
and the difficulties that might fall out to each one of us in
this coming year. And we need to be strengthened.
And my prayer for you is that God will strengthen you And I
believe, and I'll show you why I believe that God will do these
things and why Peter believed that God would do these things
for his people in a few moments. But first, let me mention settling.
Because here we find in this 10th verse the last thing, and
like I would say, I believe, just to more or less convey here
to you, the importance of this is that this maybe is the last
jewel on this strand. We've had four jewels here. This
last jewel is settling. And I believe this is often the
result of the gradual attainment of the three preceding blessings. It's the gradual attainment,
this settling, God actually settling you to where you're settled in
your soul. Now, some people are never settled.
I pray God will settle you, that he'll settle me, and that we
will have the attainment of all of these three preceding things,
the perfection, the establishment, and the strengthening, and these
three things, when we attain them, then I think this will
tend to settle us. in the faith, settlers, as the
people of God. Now, some people are never settled.
They're never settled. They just never are. And let
me remind you that a tree which is transplanted every week, even
though the gardener may be most skillful, that tree very likely
will die. And if a person is not settled,
Then they're jumping from one thing to another. They're up
one day, down the next. They're always confused, and
they're seemingly double-minded, and they're unstable in all of
their ways. They're unsettled. And my prayer
for you is that you'll reach a state in your life where you
will be a settled person. Many people are, I believe, unsettled
after their doctrine. They're unsettled. They just
don't know what to believe. They do not know where they stand
doctrinally on the Word of God. They do not know what they believe
about how God saves sinners. They don't know anything about
the doctrines of grace. They don't study them. They don't
seek out material and literature where they can study the truth
of God's grace, and they're unsettled. Now, beloved, if your doctrine
is wrong, then you ought to change it. But if you believe the truth,
then, my friend, believe the truth and be settled on the truth. Now, let God be true, but have
a man alive. Stand, my friend, on the Word
of God and do not be moved. What God says is right, and you
ought to be settled on that. You ought to have some settled
convictions, some settled doctrines, some settled truths. And I think
you ought to stand firm and be steadfast in the spirit of Paul.
He said that if any man preach any other gospel than the gospel
that I preach to you, let him be anathema maranatha. My friend,
if there's any one thing we ought to be settled on, and that is
on the truth of the gospel, how does God save and reconcile poor
lost sinners unto himself? Well, it's by imputation. It's
by God imputing and accrediting all of our sin unto the Lord
Jesus Christ, Him dying in our womb and standing in place on
Calvary's tree, and all His righteousness, all of His merit, all of His
faithfulness to God, all of His victory being imputed to us and
to our account, being accredited to us on the books of God. He's
our substitute. And everything He is, I am before
God in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how God reconciles and
saves poor sinners, in that He accepts in their place the work
of Jesus and the faithfulness of Jesus. and the love and the
devotion of Jesus. He accepts His work for them. He did it for them in their place. This is how they become righteous
before God. And my friend, if any man preaches
any other gospel, if any man preaches a gospel that in any
way hints that our merit or our works has got anything to do
with our standing before God, turn thumbs down on it. Be settled
on the matter. Salvation is of the grace of
God, the grace of God alone. God will have mercy on whom He
will have mercy. God will save every sinner that
He purposed to save through the merits of His own Son. There
is no life, there is no salvation, there is no acceptance before
God on any other basis or on any other ground. It's Christ
and Christ alone. He is our salvation and our Savior
to the full. And so we rest in that. We're
settled right there. We're settled there. And nothing
can move us away from that. We're settled on that issue.
And I think we should be settled in our faith. We ought to believe
God. We ought to believe God. We ought
to trust the Lord. And I know people have trouble
with just trusting the Lord, being settled. You know, let
me illustrate this a little bit. Say, for example, that you've
got quite a large sum of money in your pocket. And you want
that money deposited in a certain bank, and you live out in the
country like I do. And you can't get into the bank.
And so, therefore, there's another individual, your neighbor, he's
going to the bank. He's going in town. And you say,
well, maybe I should let him take this deposit and deposit
it in the bank. Now, my friend, there's one thing
or two, a couple things that's got to be settled. in your mind
before you turn that money over to that individual. Number one,
you've got to believe that he is able to get to town and get
to the bank and that he's able to make that deposit for you.
And number two, you've got to believe that he will know it
when you give it to him. And therefore, when you release
it, when you turn loose of it and you put it into his hand,
you've got to believe that he's going to take that money and
he's going to do exactly with it that the thing that you want
done with it, that he's going to take it to that bank. And
my friend, that's the way it is about our lives. If we believe
God, we believe, number one, that He's able to take our burdens.
He's able to take our cares. He's able to take our concern.
He's able to take everything that has to do with our lives.
He's able to take it and do with it what's right with it. And
we turn it over to Him. We put it into His hands. And
we believe that he will perform that thing, he will do that thing
that he will bring to pass, and we trust him with it. Now, it
wouldn't do a bit of good for us to run alongside. Now, here
we give this guy the money, our neighbor, and he's heading for
the bank, and we run alongside of him and follow him all the
way into town, making sure he goes through the thing that we
wanted him to do. My friend, that's the way we
do it many times about the war. We say, well, we turn this over
to the Lord, but we run alongside of Him and say, well, what are
you going to do? How are you going to do this?
Are you going to do this? What are you going to do this? How are
you going to do this? And so on and so forth. My friend, once you turn
it over to God, once you believe God for something, then you leave
it with Him however He does it. It's His business and it's your
business to accept the way God does it. Believe the Lord. Believe
Him. Finally get settled on it. I'm
going to trust God with this situation. I'm going to believe
God with it. And if the Lord don't do anything,
then that's all right, too. But I'm going to trust Him with
it. And I'll die trusting Him. It makes no difference what becomes
of the situation. I'm going to trust the Lord.
I'll trust Him. I'm settling on it. I've come
to that place. where I'm not going to run after
that man that I give that deposit to all the way to town, follow
him, and check him out at every turn of the road to see whether
he's going to do it or not. I believe God, and He's going
to do it one way or another. He's going to do my business,
take care of my business for me. Now then, we must be settled
in faith. You believe in Christ, then you
trust Christ. You rest in Christ. Don't lose
your joy. Don't lose your comfort. Trust
Christ. Believe that he saved you. Believe
that he died for you. Then remember this, too, in this
business of being settled, that he who serves God must sometimes
serve Him alone. David had to kill Jephthah the
lion. He had to do it alone. The rest
of the army stayed up on the hill. David had to go down there
and get them stones and take on that giant by himself. Of
course, God was with him. And we know that's why he had
the victory. But my friend, he had to serve God alone. And it
may be in this business of being settled, that it may come to
the place where you just have to serve God alone. But if you
have to serve Him alone, be willing to do it. Be not weary, the scripture
says, in well-doing, for a new season you'll reap, if you faint
not. You must be settled in your intentions. to serve God, to honor God, and
to bring glory to God, most of all, to live for His glory. You
must be settled in this. Now then, I must hurry on because
the time is really getting away. I want to give you the reasons
why Peter expected that his prayers would be heard. And this is a
blessing. This is a blessing. I wish I
could preach. I really wish I could. Because
if a man could preach, brother, sister, he could preach on this.
Now, this is tremendous. Notice it if you will. The reason
why people, number one, we see it here in this 10th verse. He
says, but the God of all grace, that's the God to whom he's praying,
the God of all grace. Now, has he asked too much? Somebody
in Satan might have said to Peter, well, Peter, you was always a
presumptuous person, and you've asked too much when you've asked
that God's people would be made perfect, that they would be established,
that they'd be strengthened, that they'd be settled. You asked
too much. for this poor, afflicted family of God, that these people
would get out of the hospital, spiritual hospital, and they'd
finally be strong in the Lord. You've asked too much. Well,
he's asking it of the God of all grace, my friend. He's asking
it of the God of all grace. Not the God of little grace,
but the God of all grace. He's asking that God would do
this. The God of all grace. The God
of quickening grace. the God of convincing grace,
the God of pardoning grace, of believing grace, the God of comforting
and supporting and sustaining grace. This is the God that he's
praying to that he would fulfill his request. Now, when we ask
of him, we cannot ask for too much because he's not the God
of one, two, or three graces, but he's the God of all grace.
And there is in Him an infinite and boundless and limitless supply
of grace. And so my friend, if God is in
this position, if He is the God of all grace, then surely He
can fulfill and answer this prayer. Is there anything too hard for
the Lord? The Lord can answer this prayer. He can make you
perfect. He can establish, He can strengthen,
He can settle the weakest of us. He can do it because He's
the God of all grace. Now the next thing is, He's called
us. He says, but the God of all grace, you have called us. The
Lord has called us. Now my friend, calling is the
first drop of mercy that comes to the poor dying sinner. Calling,
God affectionately calling him, calling him to me. coming to
me. And there was a day at a time and an hour when every child
of God hears the voice of God calling him out of the world
and out of sin unto himself, called us, effectually called
us unto himself. Now calling is the first link
in the endless chain of eternal mercies. God begins the work
in us and he continues to work in us and bring us more and more
to experience his mercies. Now God has called me, I may
ask for these other mercies and they are mine because I'm in
line to receive them. If so be that God has started
this work, if he has called me, then my friend, I'm in line to
receive all of these mercies. And it's not too much for me
to ask them of God and for me to expect that God's going to
give them to me, because He called me. He called me. And I'm shut
up, not to my choice of Him, but to His choice of me. And friend, if you can ever get
that settled, that God chose me. God chose you. And it was
not that you chose Him, but He chose you. And because He did,
then you were in line. for all of these mercies and
blessings in Christ. And we are needful of that. Now,
the next thing is that he's called us to his eternal glory. Now,
why, Peter, do you believe God's going to answer this prayer?
Well, because God has called us to his eternal glory. God has called me to walk the
streets of gold. God has called me to eternal
heirship with His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God has called
me to eternal blessing, and God has called me to be in heaven.
God has called me to sing with the angels. God has called me
to His, His, His glory, is what it says, His glory. He's called
me to His eternal glory. And so I'm going to be in His
presence. He's called me to that. And so why would He not answer
this prayer to perfect me? Why would He not establish me?
Why would He not strengthen me? Why would He not settle me if
He's called me and if I'm predestinated to walk the streets of gold and
to be in His fellowship for all eternity? Well, why, if I'm going
to have a body, like into the body of His own Son, why? Would
he not hear, if in heaven I'm to have all of this, why on earth
would he not fulfill this request and grant these blessings to
his church here in this world? Why would he not do that? Well,
he will do it, because he's called us unto his eternal glory. And all of this is in between,
and so God will provide. And the next thing I'll conclude
here is that this is all by Christ Jesus. It's by Christ Jesus. Now, beloved, it is not hard
for me to believe, and I want to impress this in you, and I
would never preach to you like this. I would never bring your
mind to anticipate and to desire and to covet after blessings
like this without bringing you to this place, and that is that
it's all by Christ Jesus. It's by Christ Jesus. And it's
not hard for me to believe that His blood has purchased these
blessings for us. It's not hard for me to believe.
And I would be afraid to ask God for any blessings like this.
I'd be afraid for God, for me to ask God to make me perfect.
For me to ask God to strengthen, establish, and settle me. I'd
be afraid to do it. If I did not believe, if I did
not believe that it was, it was because he deserved it, and I
do not. He deserves it. Beloved, everything
comes through Christ. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also through
him freely give us all things? Everything comes through Christ. And He deserves, He deserves
it. He purchased it with His own
blood. He's blessed. He purchased it. And so I bring it to you this
morning. Now is the keeping, the stability, the preservation
of the blood-bought wands too great of a reward for the terrible
agonies and the sufferings of the God man. Is it too much? No, my friend, it is not. God
keeping you, stabilizing your spiritual life, preserving you
is not too much of a reward for Jesus Christ. It's not too much. My friend, it's settled. God
is gonna grant these blessings unto your life, unto your heart.
God's gonna do it. So we may with confidence plead
with the Lord like Peter did. that he would grant these blessings.
We can, with confidence, because Christ deserves it, my friend.
It's through Christ Jesus he deserves it. He deserves that
his bride be adorned in this manner. That his people be blessed
in this way. He deserves it. He'll do something
for himself. He's gonna do this. Now, may
we live near the Lord Jesus Christ. in this coming year. May we live
near Him. Everything comes through Christ,
my friend. May we live near the Lord Jesus
Christ. May we be thinking much of the
Lord Jesus Christ because it follows as a truth that no one
can contradict. And that is that when one thinks
much of Christ, they always think less of themselves. And they
always think less of men when they think more of Christ. You
get the preacher that preaches Christ, Christ, Christ. And he
doesn't have time to talk about himself. He doesn't have time
to talk about other great men, or if there is such a thing.
He doesn't have time to talk about him because he's talking
about the great one, the Lord Jesus Christ. My friend, listen.
Every day of your life, go to Gethsemane sometime during the
day. Go to Calvary sometime during the day. Go, my friend, to that
empty tomb sometime during the day. Go, my friend, if you will,
unto the Lord Jesus Christ as He's seated in heavenly places
right now at the right hand of the Father. Go to Him. He's there
making intercession for the Lord's people. Go to Christ and meditate
upon Christ, fellowship with Christ, because it is through
Christ that all the blessings of God flow out unto you. Every
spiritual blessing is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the reservoir. The bucket, if you please, that
holds all spiritual blessings. Go to Christ. Go to Christ. Say, well, Preacher, you know,
I like to go to a church sometime where I feel good when I left
that church and after the service is over, I like to feel good.
My friend, listen. If you can go to a church where
that you yourself After you've been there, you get up to leave,
you say, well, I don't think much of myself. But there's one
thing about it. I think more of him than I ever
did. I think more of the Lord Jesus than I ever did in my life.
My thoughts are more about him. That preacher somehow or other
made me think about Christ and brought me to see him in such
a way as I haven't seen him before. That preacher's brought me to
Christ. My friend, listen. If you go out of a church building
and your thoughts are more of Him than they are of yourself,
the victory's been won. The victory's been won. This
is exactly the way God would have it to be in your life. And
if your mind and heart can be set on Him every day, that's
the way God would have it. Thank much of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Bye. Christ Jesus, that's what Peter
says here. He's called us into his eternal
glory by Christ Jesus. It's all the Christ. It's all
through him. Everything through the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to our hearts. May we be fervent in prayer,
praying this prayer for each other, praying that God will
be pleased to perfect our brethren and sisters in Christ. assured
of the fact that He will sooner or later. Many shortcomings now,
but God's going to perfect them sooner or later. And that God's
going to establish us, He's going to strengthen us, and He's going
to settle us. He's going to do it. He just
will. It's your right in Christ. to have these blessings. May
the Lord be pleased to hold the message. Father, thank you for
this privilege. Bless, we pray, each one of our
hearts, and may we be encouraged, all of us, by these truths this
morning, and may you win great victories and prepare us for
whatever lies ahead of us, and may this coming year, may it
be a blessing here as we are settled in the Lord. We pray
it for Jesus' sake, amen.

After Ye Have Suffered a While

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After Ye Have Suffered a While

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