Suffering: Past to Present Motivation

Introduction: The Non-Negotiable Accompaniments of Following Christ

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, October 10, 1999, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. May I encourage you to turn in your own Bibles with me to 1 Peter, 1 Peter, and follow as I read chapter 4 and the first six verses. 1 Peter, chapter 4, 1 through 6. For as much then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God. For the time past is sufficient to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles, and to have walked in, bless, lasciviousness, lusts, wine-bibbings, revelings, carousings, and abominable idolatries, wherein they think it strange that you run not with them into the same excessive riot, speaking evil of you.

1:26 Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the living and the dead? For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit.

1:46 Now, having together prayed in the singing of that hymn, let us once again unite our hearts in prayer, asking the aid of the Spirit of God in our study of his word.

2:01 Our Father, we are humbled when we read in the Scriptures the words of our Lord Jesus, who said to those studious Bible searches, You search the Scriptures, for in them you think, you have eternal life, and these are they that testify of me, but you will not come to me that you may have life. Lord, we do not want your word to be a barrier to heart dealings with you. We desire that it will be the means in your hands to bring each of us to experience in this hour real heart dealings with you. We believe, Lord, that you have chosen to contain, your mind in the Scriptures, and in the Scriptures you have determined to teach us of your ways. We come then asking the aid of the Holy Spirit, that we may be taught of you by means of the word. We wait in expectation for the answer to our prayers. Amen.

3:12 Frostbearing, persecution, self-denial, hatred of the world. These are some of the things which are, our Lord Jesus states very clearly, are the non-negotiable accompaniments of a saving attachment to himself. The Christ of Scripture knows nothing of inviting men to himself for life, for soul satisfaction, for all of their spiritual needs, without also inviting men to share with him, in frostbearing, persecution, self-denial, and hatred of the world. Furthermore, the Lord Jesus and his apostles, who spoke and wrote in his name, did not hide these realities from those who were serious about following Christ in the way of discipleship. It should not surprise us then to find in the letters that were written by these spirits, inspired apostles, and those who had their approbation, letters written to the young churches to find the themes of frostbearing, persecution, self-denial, and hatred of the world,

4:42 a major theme in certain portions of their writing. And this is precisely what we find in the book that we call, or the letter that we call, 1 Peter. As Peter writes to these believers, in what to him was the far-off reaches of the Roman Empire, in that area of the world now designated as the land of Turkey, he writes to them assuming that they have already experienced some of these gospel commodities of persecution, hatred of the world, and he is persuaded that they are going to face yet more of this in days to come. And so he comes in the middle of his letter to that which is one of the major, if not major, but the major burden upon his heart as he begins in chapter 3 and verse 13 to address the subject of suffering for the sake of Christ, or in the language of 3.14, suffering for righteousness' sake. Now remembering that in his letter there were no chapter and verse divisions, we must not think of chapter 4 as something that is introducing us to a new subject, for it is not. It is carrying on, on the theme of how we are to face suffering for the sake of Christ.

Arm Yourselves with the Mind of Christ: Suffer Rather Than Sin

6:03 And in the course of giving his instructions to these believers, Peter again and again brings forward the Lord Jesus as the perfect model of suffering, underscoring not only repeatedly that Christ's sufferings have a unique dimension in that they are the basis of our salvation, but he emphasizes again and again, that Christ's sufferings are the pattern for our sufferings. Christ suffered, leaving an example that we should follow his steps. And he has done that in chapter 3, and then he does it again in the opening words of chapter 4. Here in chapter 4, the central thrust of Peter's exhortation is found in this imperative, arm yourselves with the same mind. As he is instructing these believers as to how they are to respond to their present suffering for Christ's sake, and how they are to be prepared for their future sufferings, he tells them that they are to arm themselves, furnish themselves, equip themselves with the same mind. What mind? The mind that Christ had as he faced his sufferings.

7:26 For as much, then, as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind. Have the disposition Christ had when he faced his sufferings. And what was that disposition? It was precisely this.

7:42 He would rather suffer than sin.

7:47 Very simply stated. He would rather suffer than sin. And even when he faced his deepest suffering, and there in the garden of Gethsemane is pleading with his father with intense, agonizing prayer, O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. This suffering is the suffering of all sufferings.

8:12 And there was a revulsion at the thought of that suffering. Yet he says, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And now Peter says, arm yourself with the same mind. That you, as the people of God, must determine that in your suffering you will not sin.

8:36 If the only path that is cut by righteous obedience to your Savior and your Master takes you through the crucible of suffering, then suffering it must be. And then he tells them that when this is true of you, this is an evidence that the dominion of sin has been broken, in your life. For he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. The man, the woman, the boy or girl, who is prepared to suffer for Christ's sake, rather than sin for comfort's sake, demonstrates that his Master is not his feelings, not his own comfort, not his own ease.

9:18 He has come to the place where the dominion of sin has been broken in his life, and the purpose for which he was saved is being manifested, namely, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God. So in those first two verses, as we saw three Lord's days ago, Peter sets before these Christians the mindset of Christ that equips us to suffer for Christ. But recognizing that this is no easy thing, that this is something very contrary to our remaining sin and to our natural fears and to our native desire for self-preservation, here in verses 3 through 6, Peter is going to buttress that central exhortation with motives that will further strengthen the believers as they seek to have the mindset of Christ in facing their sufferings. And so verses 3, to 6, could be entitled Motives to Move Us to Maintain the Mindset of Christ in the Face of Suffering for the Sake of Christ. Motives to Move Us to Maintain the Mindset of Christ in the Face of Suffering

Motives to Maintain the Mindset of Christ: Overview

10:47 for the Sake of Christ. And as I attempt to unpack these verses this morning and again this evening, I say at the outset I'm greatly indebted to the commentator Edmund Hebert for the main headings by which I'm going to organize the exposition. I'm sure you realize by now that in opening up the scriptures many times finding the exact meaning of the text is not even the greatest burden of the preacher, but having ascertained the meaning of the text, how to lay it out in something other than a kind of rhetorical hash. How to separate its component parts and to do it in a way that is helpful, yet do it in a way that does not in any way distort the emphases of the Spirit of God in the text itself. And that was one of my great struggles in this passage. There were great struggles ascertaining the meaning. I'm still not sure I understand verse 6.

11:45 I will only point you in the direction of what I feel is a reasonable possibility of what it may mean when we come to that tonight, for this end was the gospel preached even to the dead. But he, Ebert was most helpful in pointing out that the tenses of the verbs give us at least a framework within which to understand Peter's motivational pressure from this section of the letter. You have first of all a motive drawn from the past, verse 3, for the time past may suffice. And then you have in verse 4 a motive drawn from the present, wherein they are thinking it strange that you are not running, with them.

12:27 There's the present. And then you have a motive drawn from the future, verses 5 and 6, who shall give account, a future verb is used, to him that is ready to judge the living and the dead. So then we'll seek to think our way through the passage under those headings. This morning we'll take up the motivation from their sinful past and the motivation from their pressured present and then, God willing, tonight the motive drawn from the awesome future.

Motivation from the Past: The Sufficiency of Sinful Living

12:59 First of all, then, the motivation from the past. You will notice that verse 3 begins with the word for. And whenever you find the word for in scripture, it is either telling us that there is a logical link with what has preceded or there is a logical explanation of something that is going to follow. And when he says for, he is linking verse 3 with what he has written.

13:27 In verses 1 and 2. Arm yourselves with the same mind, the mind that Christ had when he suffered. In so doing, you make it evident that the dominion of sin has been broken in your life and that you're committed to the very purpose for which God saved you. Namely, that you should no longer live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God.

13:51 And when you choose the will of God, even when it takes you through the crucible of suffering, you may not be able to live. Make it evident that there's something regulating your life beyond your own lusts and comforts and your own personal desires. Now, what's going to help people to maintain that posture? Peter says, look to your past.

14:13 And there is a powerful motivation to be drawn from their sinful past. And the three verbal constructions in this verse are all perfect tenses. That tense that points to an action that begins with a point and it continues and extends to the present. Peter is saying, I'm going to describe by way of reminder to you Christians in Asia Minor this sordid chapter in your life, but blessed be God, this closed chapter.

14:46 This chapter that can be called your past. This chapter that is a door that has been shut and the padlock of grace has been placed. But Peter says, I want you to go and I want you to stand before that door and remember what is behind that door. And he draws this motivation from their sinful past.

The Nature of Their Past Life: General Pattern and Grosser Particulars

15:12 Now, what was the nature of their past life? Look at the text. For the time past is sufficient to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles and to have walked in lasciviousness, lusts, wine-bibbing, revelings, carousings, and abominable idolatries. He describes their past life in two categories.

15:36 First of all, in its general pattern and then in its grosser or its more sickening specifics. Notice the general pattern. For the time past is sufficient to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles. You who are reading from the New King James Version, have found this in your Bibles.

15:58 We have spent enough of our past lifetime. You have spent enough time in the past. And he describes the past in a general pattern with these words. You have been working out and fulfilling the desire of the Gentiles.

16:22 Now, what is the desire of the Gentiles? What the NIV, translates as doing what pagans do. Now, the word Gentile could be used by Peter to describe non-Jews. And the sins that were peculiarly and in a horrible way manifested with heightened expression among the non-Jews.

16:47 On the other hand, that's the way it's used, of course, in Romans 2.14, the Gentiles who have not the law do by nature the things of the law. Those are non-Jews. But in this very book, we have seen that again and again, Peter describes the new covenant community as the new Israel.

17:05 He takes term after term that was applied to ancient ethnic Israel and he applies it to the church. So he may be doing that with the word Gentile, hence the translation in the NIV, doing what pagans do. Whether Jew or Gentile, those who have rejected the regulating power and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, and do not believe in God, but whichever the word Gentile means, this much is clear. He describes the general pattern of their past as one in which they were regulated by the desire of the Gentiles.

17:43 In other words, their life was framed by the standards, the goals, the perspectives of a fallen, wicked, degenerate society. He says, he says, he says, that's in a nutshell what your sinful past is composed of. What John says in 1 John 2, all that is in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

18:14 That's Peter's generic description, but then he goes, secondly, into the ugly, the grosser particulars. Look at the text.

18:24 Time past is sufficient to have lived like pagans and to have lived and to have walked in. And then he lists these six particular categories of sins. And as we spend just a few moments trying to explain what these words mean, we must understand that in a setting like this, we must not look for mathematical precision where every single thing is listed that has an airtight compartment that would be an artificial way to approach it. For example, if someone were to ask me, what did I say?

19:00 What did I see when I happened to drive by a group of half-drunk, lawless bikers? All right? Now, God can save lawless bikers. I'm not saying they're beyond God's salvation.

19:13 I might say, I saw a bunch of profane, ungodly, wild, booze-guzzling, lecherous men. And you'd get the feeling from that accumulation of words that this is not a bunch of men with whom you'd like to sit down and have your Sunday lunch. Except it provided an opportunity to preach the gospel and tell them that Christ Jesus came to save sinners. That you'd welcome.

19:38 But any other opportunity you would not welcome. Now, for you to try to find some specific meaning, airtight category, no, in describing the thing, it's broad stroke to give that overall impression. By the Spirit of God, that's what Peter is doing here. And here are the ugly particulars.

The Impact of Peter's Description and the Power of the Gospel

19:57 And one can imagine how many of these believers must have felt when this letter was read for the first time. You've come to church to be blessed. You've sung hymns of praise concerning God's great salvation. The fact that you're cleansed and washed and accepted in the Beloved.

20:14 Your heart has been taken up into the heights of legitimate joy and ecstasy in terms of what you are as a new creature in Christ. And then one of the elders stands up and begins to read the letter. And the letter says, the time past is enough to have brought the desire of the Gentiles to heaven. I walked in.

20:35 And then as these words are mentioned, I have no doubt that some necks began to be red and cheeks began to flush and heads began to drop as they looked onto the rock from whence they were hewn into the hole of the pit from whence they were dug. He says, this is what you were. First of all, he said, you walked in lasciviousness. The Greek word is aselgia, lewdness, debauchery, lasciviousness, licentiousness.

21:08 Perhaps the best rendering is unbridled and unrestrained living. One has explained it this way. It is the spirit that knows no restraints, that dares to do whatever unbridled lust dictates. The spirit that dares to do whatever unbridled lust dictates.

21:35 Whatever path is cut by unbridled lust, lust and desire let loose with no regulative power.

21:46 What a horrible thing to have walked in aselgia, in lewdness, debauchery, lasciviousness, licentiousness. The next word is lusts. Standard word for lust, epithumia. Sometimes in the Bible, in a few instances, it's speaking of good desire.

22:07 It is strong desire. But Peter uses it eight times, in his first and second letter, and never once, in terms of anything that is noble and legitimate. It is always used with the meaning of base and sinful desires, a comprehensive term that denotes all of the depraved cravings of the unregenerate heart. There is lewdness.

22:36 There is lusts. And then the third word, translated in the Old Testament, the old ASV, wine bibbings. It's a term that occurs only here in the New Testament, and it's a compound word. The word oinos, standard word for wine, and then a verb that means to bubble up and to overflow.

22:59 It's the picture of someone so besotten with his liquor that it's oozing out of him. Wine bibbing. The picture is clear. To be soaked to overflow, with wine, with intoxicating beverages.

23:16 Were Peter writing in our day, I have no question he would have included some word that touched upon that other form of intoxication that is just as epidemic in our country, the abuse of illicit drugs, the abuse of drug use, illicit and non-illicit. Then he goes on, and this is not pleasant for me, dear people, but this is the word of God. He goes on from ashelgia to epithumia, and to drunkenness, to wine-bibbing, and then notice the next that he identifies is revelings. Revelings.

23:54 Translated in some of your Bibles a different way, but revelings, komois, it means festive gatherings, merry-makings, revels, either private or public and religious. The term was generally used of festivities held in honor of a god, particularly Bacchus. Bacchus. And in those, in those gatherings, there was usually a climactic expression of their pagan and idolatrous abandonment to sin when the party who were partying would sally forth from their banquet room to parade the streets and indulge in every form of uncleanness.

24:35 Revelings. And then he uses the word carousings, potos, carousings. What are the carousings? Again, it occurs, it's only here in the New Testament, and it means drinking parties.

24:49 The picture is that of people who go to a banquet and they start their drinking not to have their wine as an accompaniment to enhance their meal, but they start their drinking with a view to getting smashed. Carousings.

25:07 And then he concludes with the words abominable idolatries. And all of these are in the plural. Not one of them is in the singular. So he's saying, you walk in these things.

25:18 And in the many horrible manifestations of each one of these things. You walk in lasciviousnesses, in lust, in wine-bibbings, in revelings, in carousings, and abominable idolatries. And the commentators differ. Is he using the term abominable idolatries?

25:38 In the sense that they were abominable, lawless idolatries condemned by God's law? Or were they forms of idolatrous worship that were even under the censure of the law of that day? And I'm not certain the commentators debate. But this much is clear.

25:57 That Peter holds this at the end. And rather than using one word idolatry, says abominable idolatries. A two-word description. And most likely, he's underscoring that at the base of all of these other sins is the fact that they believe the lie.

26:14 Worship and serve the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. And in Romans 1, 18 to 32, we have an extended commentary on what happens when that is the experience of man. Now, is Peter asserting that each and every member of the churches in those Roman provinces to whom this letter came, that each and every member was guilty of one or more of these particular gross manifestations of a sinful lifestyle? It would be hard to prove that's what Peter is saying.

26:50 We just read a chapter this morning, 1 Corinthians 6, where Paul says, be not deceived. And then he describes these manifestations of a sinful lifestyle. And then what does he say? And such were some of you.

27:04 He doesn't say all of you. So we have no right to assume that when Peter lists these particulars of their abandonment to the lust of the Gentiles, that each and every one of them, every member, was involved in one or more of these kinds of sins. But on the other hand, if many had not been, this description would not form a motive for them to arm themselves with the mind of Christ. So Peter had sufficient information to know that many of the church members in those provinces had been immersed in this kind of a lifestyle.

27:49 And what in the world changed them? It was the gospel. In chapter 1 and verse 12, he says, to whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister these things which had been announced unto you through them that preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. Further on in chapter 1, he says in verse 22, seeing you've purified your souls in your obedience to the truth, verse 23, having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God that lives and abides forever.

28:32 Chapter 1 verse 18, he speaks of them being redeemed by the blood of Christ. How in the world do you take a people who walk, look at the text, wherein they think it strange you run not with them. Verse 3, you have walked in these patterns, what took them out of such a lifestyle? It was the proclamation of that gospel which is the power of God unto salvation.

29:04 And that ought to say something to us. We ought not to despair when in the providence of God we are brought into contact with those in whom these sins are manifestly and evidently displayed. We ought to go back to a passage like this and say, Lord, if you moved your servant Peter to write to these people in these various churches and to buttress their commitment to be armed with the mind of Christ in the face of persecution by looking back and remembering what they were, then surely, Lord, what you did then, you can do now. We can in faith confront those whose lifestyle is marked by all of these things, by lewdness, by lust, by wine-bibbings, by riotous banqueting and abominable idolatries and believe that the gospel can transform them. You know where my faith was tested in this very area? I taped the two-hour synopsis of the recent so-called Woodstock 99. I videotaped it.

30:18 And on my day off, I sat and I made myself watch it. And you know what I was seeing? Here's the list right here. Here's the list right here.

30:30 Oft times the camera had a filter on it. When bare-breasted women were in its eye, they put the filter so you couldn't see their bare breasts. People going around with their beer cans. And you talk about idol worship?

30:50 These base, depraved, lawless, screaming, screeching, bizarrely dressed men come on the stage and everybody yelling, waving, swaying. Abominable idolatry. And I asked myself, God, do I believe that if I had the privilege of standing on that stage and preaching the gospel, you could take those people and bring them broken and predetent and believing to the feet of Jesus so that someone could write to them and say, the time past is sufficient to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles and to have walked. Yes, God is able. God is able. He did it then.

31:46 He can do it now. And furthermore, if you sitting here this morning have not been guilty of these sins, it's no thanks to you because the potential for all of these and more is in your heart and in mine. And it was only God's common grace that restrained us or his prevenient grace that restrained us that there is any of us here this morning, that there is any of us here this morning, that can read a list like this and with judgment day honesty say, no, by the grace of God, I was not lewd and lascivious and debauched. I was not guilty of wine-bibbing and this kind of lawless partying and abominable idolatry. But oh God, what I see in my heart is such that I know it's no thanks to me, but only to your grace. Well, that's what he does. To give a motive.

Motivation from Present Opposition: The World's Astonishment and Blasphemy

32:49 To assume the mind of Christ. To be armed with this mind that Christ had. That when suffering stands before me in the way of obedience to Christ and I'm tempted to back off from that way because of the pressure brought upon me by other people and from my own lust and remaining sin. What am I to say to myself?

33:15 I'm to say, you've had enough of that old life. The old life more than sufficient. That's the Greek word he uses. More than sufficient is the past.

33:29 And that's what I need to say to myself. I am under no obligation to add to that which is dishonoring to God and shameful to me as a child of God. The time past has sufficed. Sin has had enough of me.

33:43 Sin shall have no more of me in that way. Well, that's the motive then drawn. From their past sinful life. Now notice, secondly, the motivation drawn from present opposition.

33:57 The motivation drawn from present opposition. Verse 4. Wherein, that is, in this thing. It's a relative neuter pronoun and it refers to this whole transformation that has occurred.

34:13 In this thing, they think it strange that you do not run with them into the same excess of riot speaking evil of you. With the relative pronoun standing at the forefront, Peter is saying, in which thing, that is, this marvelous transformation that has occurred, that all of these other things are now in the past. The door is shut and the padlock is upon it. You have this present opposition and it's described in two ways.

34:47 What their former ungodly companions, think and what their former ungodly companions do. Peter describes what they think and what they do. Look at it in the text. In which thing, they think it strange that you run not with them into the same excess of riot.

35:11 They think it strange. Now this verb can mean to receive someone as a guest. Acts 10.23.

35:20 Hebrews 10.23. Or it can mean to be surprised or astonished when faced with something new or unusual. It's used that way in Acts 17 and verse 20.

35:33 I'll read the verse so that we have a feel for the significance of it. For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We would know therefore what these things mean. They said, Paul, we're hearing things we haven't heard before.

35:49 These are registering, not as something we've heard, but we have no existing category, no mental file draw into which to put what we're hearing. These are strange things. We are surprised with what we are hearing. And since it's in a passive form, it is the picture that these former ungodly companions are assailed with astonishment.

36:14 They have seen their former drinking buddies sober. They've seen their fellow lecturers puke. They've seen their fellow partiers living responsible, sober lives. And it won't compute.

36:29 They can't put it into an existing category. It seems strange to them. It seems weird to them. They have no reference point, especially because he's described these former drinking buddies, these former partners in lechery and rival behavior and all forms of abominable idolatries.

36:51 They've seen them. As Peter describes them. Rejoicing with joy, unspeakable and full of glory. They're happier now sober than they were when they were dead drunk.

37:01 How in the world does this happen?

37:06 They've got a sense of focus and purpose they never had when we were planning our next party. What in the world has happened? They think it's strange. It's exactly what some of you do.

The World's Incomprehension and Blasphemy

37:18 You can't figure out some of us. You think it's strange that we believe these things. We love these things. We're committed to these things.

37:29 And in your heart of hearts, you know we're right. But from your reference point, you can't figure us out. You're still clawing and clamoring and scratching to try to find something to fill the God-shaped hole in your soul. And you haven't found it.

37:47 You hear some people say they have. But in finding it, the things that are important to you don't mean diddly to them. And you say, how can life be meaningful without this, without that, and without the other? They think it's strange.

38:04 If some of you are honest, you'd say a sinner's amen. Don't say the amen. That's a sinner's amen. You are a just-shaped bastard.

38:14 You're telling the truth. That's where I'm at. You can't figure it out. That's what happened here.

38:19 They're forming ungodly companions. Think. We can't sort this thing out. Listen to what one commentator writes.

38:28 They knew well what life in the fast lane was like. They had been Gentile pagans, wild drinking parties, sexual perversion. Idolatrous cults. They had drowned in that flood of dissipation.

38:40 But now they knew a better way, a way that their scornful friends could not imagine. Fervent love of brothers and sisters in Christ replaced lust. Alert awareness of the times had replaced drunken stupor. But above all, the joyful adoration of a risen Lord had replaced the folly of idolatry.

39:01 And they could not figure it out, and they thought it strange. Look at the language of the text now. They thought it strange that you run not with them into the same excess of riot. They think it strange that you will not join them in their mad dash.

39:25 They think it strange that you run not with them into what? The language translated here in my American Standard. Same excess of riot. The word excess occurs only here in the New Testament, and it means a pouring out.

39:44 A wide stream. They think it strange that you run not with them into this wide stream of that which is described, the other word is used twice in the New Testament, in addition to the place here. Ephesians 5.18.

40:01 Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess. And Luke 15. The adjectival form. The adjectival form of this is used of the prodigal when it says he wasted his substance in riotous living.

40:13 Now what happens? Here is someone who once was jogging right along with them, and plunging into that stream described in its particulars by those six words in the previous verse, called here this excess of riot. And they can't figure out why are you not running with them, joining with them, plunging yourself into the stream. In the stream of their ungodliness they simply cannot figure it out.

40:43 That's what their former ungodly companions think. They think it strange. Now what is the action of their former ungodly companions? What do they do?

40:53 Now look at the text. Speaking evil of you. And in our translations that's an effort to translate one Greek word. It's the word transliterated into English, gives us our English word blaspheme, and it's used in a present tense it just says blaspheming so if we were reading a literal rendering wherein they think it's strange you run not with them into the same excessive riot blaspheming that's what they do they blaspheme now what is the word blaspheme mean well when it is used with respect to what people say about men the word blaspheme means to slander it means to speak evil of to revile when it is used with reference to God it is a speaking instantly concerning God or at God so here they are blaspheming as one has stated it they spoke evil of those whom they could not understand and whom they could no longer persuade or coerce into a companionship in sin they called them ungenial proud morose despised of the gods and of the ancestral customs they accused them of practicing in secret even more foul orgies than those from which they had publicly

42:19 withdrawn and we know from secular literature that in the early church there were accusations that they met in secret and the Lord's Supper celebrated by males and females in the same place they attributed to that the vilest most evil and the most vile and the most vile and the most vile and the most vile and the most vile and the most vile and the most vile and the most vile and the most vile things they blasphemed and because Peter simply uses that word with no object doesn't say blaspheme you blaspheme God most likely all was included when they saw these people they couldn't figure it out it doesn't compute with their sphere of reference so they had to attribute something evil as that which lay behind the transformation and when they got close enough to know that in their explanation they brought in God and Christ and Christ, and Jesus, and the cross, and those sacred gospel realities, they no doubt railed upon them as well.

Why the World Hates: Darkness Hates Light

43:18 Now, why did they do this?

43:21 Why did they not simply say, different strokes for different folks? We'll be broad-minded. You want to leave our drinking parties? That's fine.

43:33 Still got plenty of drinking buddies. You want to leave my carousings and my partying? You want to leave this lifestyle? Fine.

43:40 Why do they, first of all, say they're crazy, they're weird, we can't figure it out, they think it's strange, and then they engage in blasphemy, speaking evil. Why do they do this? Why are not sinners simply content to let fellow sinners who become saints be saints?

44:04 They're broad-minded, aren't they? Tolerance, aren't they?

44:09 Well, you know why?

44:11 Turn to John chapter 3.

44:14 Very simple explanation. John chapter 3. Verse 19.

44:42 There's the answer. Darkness hates light. You take a mole, genetically programmed in God's mysterious created world, to love the darkness, to put him out in the light of the noonday sun, is to do him no favor. He hates, he hates those bright rays of the noonday sun.

45:07 We creatures made to know God and to live before the sunlight of his face, who have turned from him and plunged ourselves into darkness. We love the darkness. And when any glimmer of light begins to pierce the darkness, we react against it. John says this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and in this context, it is the light of the world himself, the Lord Jesus.

45:31 And why did not all men fall at his feet and embrace him? Because men love the darkness rather than the light. For everyone who does evil hates the light, will not come to light. Why?

45:42 Lest the things he cherishes be exposed for what they are. That's why so-called broad-minded people, they don't read their Bibles. They parrot what somebody else in his arrogant unbelief says about the Bible. And people say, oh, well, you know, I don't discuss, argue religion, politics, and you're talking about the Bible, you know, the Bible's full of contradiction.

46:03 I've said more than once, I said, look, I've been studying the Bible seriously for decades. Read it every day. I've never found anything that was an unmistakable contradiction. I must be a careless reader.

46:14 Since you say it's full of it, I hand them my Bible, say, show me one.

46:20 And the average person can't tell Genesis from Revelation. Why do they delight to pass on that kind of drivel? Because they...

46:29 They hate the light and do not want to come to the light because they know if they do, it's a moral and ethical issue. It's not an intellectual issue. Their deeds, their evil deeds will be exposed by the light. So what do they do?

46:43 They've got to do something to try to put a shroud over the light. There is light emanating from those former lecherous, drinking, partying companions.

46:56 They see them now going sober with a joyful countenance, with stable families, monogamous marriages. And they see them going to the places where they gather. And they worship and praise God and come away. And they're honest to a penny in their business dealings.

47:13 Scrupulous in every area. What happens? It exposes, it exposes, it exposes. And they think they're weird.

47:22 They think it's strange that they won't run with them into the same excessive riot. And then they speak evil of them and of their God. Now, how...

Clinging to Christ in the Face of Opposition

47:31 Why should that form a motive for these believers? Well, that's what Peter's doing. He has, in the central imperative of this paragraph, directed them to arm themselves with the same mind that Christ had when he suffered. If the will of God leads to suffering, I will suffer rather than sin.

47:55 And when I'm tempted to weaken in that resolve, I remember my time past. My past was enough time to serve sin. My time past was enough to pursue those base and foul patterns of life that were dishonoring to God and were only putting me in the way to destruction and damnation. And now, as I'm seeking to live to the will of God and it brings me into the crucible of suffering and I see around me those who think I'm weird, think I'm strange, and they speak evil of me.

48:32 Let this be an incentive for me to cling all the more tightly to my Savior. For though it is not explicit here in the text from the analogy of Scripture we learn, this is to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings.

48:48 Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1.9, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And part of that fellowship, of that shared life, is what Paul describes in Philippians 3, as the fellowship of His sufferings. Not in any way thinking that my sufferings in any way touch upon the perfection of His redemptive sufferings, but in communion and fellowship with Christ.

49:18 We are able to be identified with Him in His sufferings.

49:26 Arm yourself with the same mind. He that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that no longer we should live the rest of our time in the flesh, not in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God for. Remember the motive from our sinful past. Remember the motive from the opposition we presently experience as it draws us into fellowship and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus' Words on Worldly Hatred and Persecution

49:56 We have spent enough time in sinning. And further, I've confessed my allegiance to the one who said in John 15.18-22, and I want us to turn to John 15.18-22, and I want us to turn to that passage as we draw our study to a close this morning, John 18 and verse 22.

50:16 I'm sorry, John 15, beginning with verse 18.

50:22 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out, of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his Lord.

50:52 If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. Now this passage is not a quote, all to go out into the world and to try to be as nasty as we can to get persecuted.

51:18 No, Jesus is simply stating the fact that if we are his people, we will share in the world's hatred. Because the world cannot compute how we function and why we function the way we do. They cannot figure it out. And they are in the depth of their being exposed and threatened by it.

51:40 And so they strike out in words. They speak against us. And when that happens, the Lord Jesus said, don't be surprised. If the world was perfectly comfortable with you, it's a sign you're a part of it.

51:57 And I would simply ask every professing Christian sitting in this place today, does the world love you? What is the world? Well, in that place where you work, where there are sinners, real live sinners of all stripes and sizes and all different manifestations, is there anything about you that exposes who they are and what they are?

52:22 If so, to one degree or another, you're going to feel the world's hatred. When someone is in the world who is not of the world, Jesus said, hatred will be drawn forth from the heart of those who love darkness rather than light. And I fear that in our efforts to be tactful, there are times we simply compromise the standards of God's word.

Conclusion: Preparing for Future Opposition

52:48 Only you can sort out in your own heart and life before God, whether that's true of you. But Peter assumes that there in Asia Minor, when he writes to these believers, calls them to arm themselves with the mind of Christ in the face of suffering, that there would be those around them who would think it strange that they did not run with them into the same excessive riot and will speak evil of us. And may God grant when that is our experience, we'll come back to this portion of the word of God and we'll be able to say, and seek to buttress our souls with the truths that it contains. God willing, tonight, we'll look at verses 5 and 6, the motive drawn from the future, the judgment that is to come, who shall give account to him and try to sort out, at least make an effort and an attempt at explaining the possible meaning of verse 6. Let us pray that God will seal his word to each of our hearts.

53:50 Our Father, we thank you for this portion of your word. We thank you for, your Holy Spirit, who does help us to understand it, who does give us grace to apply it. And we pray that you would take the words of this passage and write them upon our hearts. How we thank you, our Father, that sitting here today, there are those whom you have rescued from the gross manifestations of sin described in this very passage.

54:22 And there are others of us who, though in your common grace, were kept from these sins. O Lord, we know it is only your grace that kept us. We're shocked and ashamed when we think of the potential for sin that is yet within us. And we cry to you that you would give us grace so to be devoted to and live in communion with your beloved Son, that when the path of doing your will is leading into an intense crucible of suffering, we may be able to that we may be armed with the mind of Christ, that we will rather suffer than sin.

55:01 O God, help us. Help us, we pray. And as we see the growing, aggressive, negative attitude towards real Christians and toward all that is upright and noble and sacred, when we see the profaning of your name, the blasphemy of leaders within our country, our Father, we cry to you. Prepare us for what well may be far more intense seasons of open opposition to your people.

55:33 Help us that we will not enter such a season ill-prepared, but may we be well-armed with this portion of your word and with the very mind of our Savior. Hear us and seal your word to our hearts, we plead. In Jesus' name, amen.