The complexities of the hour in which we
live lead us to believe that men have
never lived under such shadows before, that we
are the first generation to have to cope
with the problems of lawlessness, of riots, of
crime, rebellion, that seems to occupy our attention
so much today.
We have forgotten that the situations and the
conditions that we observe in the social world,
the economic and political world, are only an
extension of what man is in himself.
Society is lawless because men are lawless.
Society sees rebellion because man is a rebel
against God.
Society witnesses crime because men, by nature, are
sinners.
That which is so prevalent on every hand
today has been evident and visible in every
generation from the time of Adam's sin to
the present day.
While the Word of God does make it
clear that as we approach the end of
the age, iniquity shall wax worse and worse,
and that lawlessness and anarchy will prevail to
an unprecedented degree, we need to remind ourselves
that we are not the only generation, nor
the first generation, that has had to live
in such a society and surrounded by such
circumstances.
The Word of God, and those who preach
the truth of God in the Scriptures, made
no effort whatsoever to change society in which
they lived.
The Apostle Paul lived under one of the
cruelest, most dictatorial governments that the world has
ever seen, but Paul did not speak a
word against the political situations of his day.
The Apostles lived in the midst of a
society that recognized slavery as an acceptable manner
of life, and the Apostles had not a
word to say about that great social issue.
Crime, unbelief, rebellion and lawlessness was rampant, but
the Apostles had no word directed to society
as a whole, for the Word of God
and those who were the Apostles of Jesus
Christ made no effort whatsoever to change the
course of society in which they lived, for
they recognized that society was not to be
redeemed.
Society was under divine judgment, and that God
in his own time would bring judgment upon
the godlessness of the day.
But what the Apostles did do was to
equip the faith of God to live in
a corrupt society, in the midst of the
social, economic and political evils in which their
lives would have to be lived.
There are great portions of the Word of
God that are devoted exclusively to giving help
to the saints of God to live the
life of Jesus Christ in the day and
in the age in which they found themselves,
and it seems that the message of Peter
contained in his epistle is particularly relevant for
us today.
For Peter, the Apostle by divine appointment, is
writing to those whom he in 1 Peter
1 calls the strangers who are scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.
These geographical locations mentioned in the introduction to
Peter's epistle were areas found across what we
know today as Turkey, known then as Asia
or Asia Minor, and the Apostle is writing
not to a geographical group, to the saints
who find themselves in that one particular area
of the earth's surface.
He is writing to a group who are
in their geographical location because of the political,
religious and economic pressures which were exerted upon
them in the land from which they had
come.
I believe that if we were to think
through the epistle of Peter to get the
Apostle's message to suffering saints in his own
day, and to the provision which God has
made to live a Christian life in the
midst of those trying circumstances, we will have
for ourselves that which will sustain and equip
us to do that which God requires of
us to be life in the midst of
the present darkness.
To that end, I would like to begin
with you a series of studies in the
epistles of Peter in order that we, through
Peter's instruction, might be prepared, that we might
be equipped through a knowledge of these portions
of the word of God to stand fast
in the adversity which must come upon believers
in such days as those in which we
live.
Peter had been called from fishing for fish
and had been commissioned to be a fisher
of men.
He had undergone a period of instruction as
throughout his life he had sat at the
feet of Lord Jesus.
The words that Christ spoke and the life
that Christ lived were both in the face
of adversity and affliction.
For when Christ walked among men, he walked
in the face of the opposition of the
Roman government who condemned him to death as
one guilty of treason because he made himself
a kid.
Jesus Christ also lived in the face of
adversity that arose from the nation in which
he was born, to which he had come
to offer himself as a kid.
For religious Judaism rejected him, his offer of
salvation and his offer of deliverance.
The Lord Jesus lived a life under the
shadow of adversity.
The words that he taught were against the
background of opposition by both Rome and by
religious Judaism, and that which Christ lived and
that which Christ taught was Peter's education in
order that he, the apostle to the scattered
saints, might have a message of hope and
comfort and consolation for them.
In the upper room where our Lord secreted
himself away with the disciples, we find a
preparation for such suffering as Peter was to
endure and the saints themselves would endure.
I direct your attention again to John chapter
15, beginning at verse 18.
Our Lord said, If the world hates you,
and it most certainly will, ye know that
it hated me before it hated you.
If ye were of the world, but ye
no longer are, the world will love its
own.
But because ye are not of the world,
but I have chosen you out of the
world, therefore the world hateth you.
Remember the word that I said unto you,
The servant is not greater than his Lord.
If they have persecuted me, and they certainly
have, they will also persecute you.
If they have kept my sayings, and they
certainly didn't, they will keep yours also.
When we come again into chapter 16, verses
1 to 3, our Lord reiterated the expectation
before the Apostle.
These things have I spoken unto you, that
ye should not be offended.
They shall put you out of the synagogue.
Yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you
will think that he doeth God's service, and
these things will they do unto you, because
they have not known the Father nor me.
In order to understand the enormity of our
Lord's warning in 16.2, we have to
understand the relationship between the synagogue and the
life of the individual Jew.
The synagogue was the center of every area
of the life of the faithful Jew.
It was his religious center.
It was there he went for instruction by
the rabbis in the pharisaical interpretations as they
had been codified in the collection of rabbinical
interpretation.
It was the educational center, for the schools
were in the synagogue, and the children of
the Jewish home were sent or taken to
the synagogue in order that they might receive
not only religious instruction, but instruction for living
as well.
It was the center, then, of both their
religious and their educational system.
The synagogue was the center of the economic
system, for unless one were a member in
good and regular standing of the synagogue, there
were no opportunities for employment open to him.
They had what we would call today a
closed shop, and it worked very, very effectively,
and if one were put out of the
synagogue for some disciplinary reason, he lost all
rights that being in the synagogue gave to
him.
It was the social center of the community.
Social life revolved around it, and if one
were out of the synagogue, he were excluded
from any and all social contact in the
community in which he lived.
It is impossible to think of a single
area of life for the Jew that did
not have its center in the synagogue.
To be put out of the synagogue meant
to be excluded from that which made normal
life possible.
Exclusion was a form of punishment that was
meted out by the elders of the synagogue,
and if for sufficient reason the man had
been deemed to have lost his rights in
the community, he was voted out of the
synagogue.
He was put out of the synagogue.
That meant he was cut off from any
religious instruction in Judaism.
His children no longer had a school where
they could go for instruction and training.
He lost all economic rights, the right to
employment.
He lost all social rights in the community.
He was considered an unclean Gentile.
He was considered a leper who was to
be totally excluded from the community.
This was the strongest form of social pressure
that could be possibly brought upon an individual,
and our Lord, warning the disciples here in
the upper room of the persecutions that they
would face and the hatred that they would
endure, says that time will come when they
will exclude you or put you out of
the synagogue, and if it is possible they
would go the final step and put you
to death.
When we turn to the book of Acts,
we find there a record of the development
of this hatred against the believers.
Mind you that in the opening chapters of
the book of Acts, the believers are all
Jews.
Any Gentiles who were included were proselytes.
Those who had by circumcision become members of
the Commonwealth of Israel had gone through all
of the initiatory and introductory rites and were
considered as Jews, so that the persecutions in
the opening chapters of Acts are not persecutions
by Gentiles of Gentiles.
They are persecutions against Jewish believers by both
Jew and Gentile.
When we come to the fourth chapter of
Acts, for instance, in verses one to three,
as Peter and John spake unto the people,
the priests and the captain of the temple
and the Sadducees came upon them.
You will notice that these are representatives of
the religious and the political authorities in Israel,
and they came upon Peter and John as
they were preaching, being grieved that they taught
the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection
from the dead, and they laid hands on
them and put them in hold unto the
next day, for it was now even time.
They are deprived of all of their civil
rights.
They are shot up in prison as common
prisoners.
Why?
Because the political religious authorities in Israel would
not tolerate the preaching of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ and the proclamation of life through
the resurrected one.
In verses 15 to 17 of this same
chapter, they commanded them to go aside out
of the council they conferred among themselves, saying,
What shall we do to these men?
For that indeed a notable miracle hath been
done by them is manifest to all them
that dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny
it, but that it spread no further among
the people.
Let us straightly threaten them that they speak
henceforth to no man in this name.
Let us threaten them."
Now, what was the limit of the threat
that they could impose?
Since Rome retained the right of death penalty,
they could not threaten them with death, but
they could threaten them with excommunication or separation
from the synagogue, and that is what they
did.
We turn to chapter 5 in verse 17,
and we find a wave of persecution coming
again.
Then the high priest rose up, and all
that were with him, which is the sect
of the Sadducees, and were filled with indignation,
and laid their hands on the apostles and
put them in the common prison.
The Lord had said in John 15, They
shall hate you, and Luke testifies in Acts
5.17, they were filled with indignation or
bitter hatred against the apostles.
In chapter 6 and verse 8, we read
of the persecution against Stephen.
6.8 Stephen, full of faith and power,
did great wonders and miracles among the people.
Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which
is called the synagogue of the Libertines, the
freedmen, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and then of
Cilician Asia, disputing with Stephen.
They were not able to resist the wisdom
and the spirit by which he spake.
Then they suborned men which said, We have
heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and
against God.
They stirred up the people, and the elders,
and the scribes, and came upon him, and
caught him, and brought him to the council.
They set up false witnesses which said, This
man ceases not to speak blasphemous words against
this holy place and the law, for we
have heard him say that this Jesus of
Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change
the customs which Moses delivered.
And all that sat in the council looked
steadfastly on him, and saw his face as
it had been the face of an angel.
Persecution against Stephen, as he is dragged before
the council on an accusation based upon false
witnesses.
Then, when we come into chapter 7, verse
54,
when they heard these things, they were cut
to the heart and gnashed on him with
the teeth.
But he, being full of the Holy Ghost,
looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the
glory of God, and Jesus standing on the
right hand of God, and said, Behold, I
see the heavens opened, and the Son of
Man standing on the right hand of God.
Then they cried out with a loud voice,
stopped their ears, ran upon him with one
accord, and cast him out of the city,
and stoned him.
The witnesses laid down their clothes, and a
young man's feet his name was saw.
The rise of hatred against the believers.
Now, what was the response of the believers
while this rising tide of persecution was taking
place?
We find that it was necessary for the
believers to sustain themselves, because they were being
put out of the synagogue.
They had no right to employment.
They had no social contacts with their own
people.
So when we go back into Acts 2
and verse 44, all that believed were together,
and they had all things common, and sold
their possessions and goods, and parted them to
all men as every man had need.
Now, we find that because they had been
put out of the synagogues and lost their
livelihood, they soon began to get hungry, and
the way of meeting this need was for
each man to put into a common treasury
that which he had, and they lived out
of the common treasury, distributing to each individual
in the family as a member of the
family had need.
This was not a political system.
It was not a governmental thing.
It was not compulsory.
It was a voluntary family relationship, and each
one put into the treasury so that each
one, according to need, might take out of
the treasury.
And we find that this system continued at
the close of Acts 4.
In verse 32, we read of this same
thing, "...the multitude of them that believe were
of one heart and of one soul.
Neither said any of them that all of
the things which he possessed was his own,
but they had all things common."
Verse 34, "...neither was there any of them
that lacked, for as many as were possessors
of lands or houses sold them, and brought
the prices of the things that were sold,
and laid them down at the apostles' feet,
and distribution was made unto every man according
as he had need."
Now, you will notice that this manifestation of
love of believer for believer was the believer's
response to the hatred by the world, and
when the world hated them and cut them
off from all economic and social contacts, they
were bound together in this family relationship, and
the love of believer for believer was the
answer to the world's hatred.
They were not under compulsion to bring the
price of their houses and lands into the
treasury other than the compulsion of love.
So, on the one hand, you have the
hatred of the established religious system and the
hatred of the world against believers, and the
believer's response to that hatred was to manifest
their love by sharing that which they had
one with another.
But as we continue on into the eighth
chapter of the book of Acts, we find
that this persecution by unbelievers continued and intensified.
After the death of Stephen, a great wave
of persecution broke out against believers, and in
8.1 we read, Saul was consenting unto
his death, and at that time there was
a great persecution against the church which was
at Jerusalem.
Now, notice these next words, and they were
all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea
and Samaria, except the apostles.
They were all scattered abroad, and those who
were scattered abroad were called the scattered ones,
the dispersed ones, or the diaspora.
And after they had fled from Jerusalem and
left the apostles behind, they went northward out
of Jerusalem as far as Samaria.
But they were not safe in Samaria long,
because it took only a short time to
go from Jerusalem to Samaria, and as persecution
continued against the saints of God, the saints
went further and further away from Jerusalem.
They went northward up the coast of the
Mediterranean to Antioch, and then from Antioch they
went northward into those regions entirely away from
the authority of Jerusalem that were known as
Asia Minor.
Now, the apostle Peter had been ministering to
these saints down in Jerusalem.
They were his sheep, if you please, and
he was their shepherd.
The fact that he, in the will of
God, was left to face the opposition in
Jerusalem, and these saints were scattered as far
away as Asia Minor, did not sever the
ties between the shepherd and the sheep.
And so, Peter is writing to the strangers,
or the sojourners, or the diaspora, the scattered
ones for whom he had been responsible, who,
because of the persecutions in Jerusalem, have now
gone far beyond the land itself.
What I'm trying to show you, beloved of
God, is that this epistle was written against
a background of political, educational, social and economic
pressure far beyond anything that you and I
have experienced today.
And Peter, as a faithful shepherd, is writing
to them to sustain them in their suffering,
to encourage them who are undergoing persecution, to
tell them how they might live a victorious
life of Christ in the midst of such
surroundings.
And then he desires to relate their suffering
to the whole program of God.
Why do believers suffer?
Job had wrestled with that problem ages before,
but the answer to Job's suffering needed to
be brought home to them.
Why do believers suffer?
What is God's purpose in it?
And perhaps when believers suffer, the first question
that comes to mind is the question, is
this suffering really in the will of God?
Is God sovereign in this area, or has
God somehow abdicated His throne and turned me
over to forces of evil and of sin
and of Satan?
Have I gotten beyond His care and His
concern?
And so, it was Peter's desire in writing
to these who were scattered abroad to reveal
to them how God will use suffering in
their lives to conform them to Jesus Christ.
The apostle Peter wants to remind them, first
of all, that they are elect of God.
They are elect of God, and these who
were strangers from their homeland because of the
persecution of the day, are still the elect
of God.
This election is based on a plan, for
Peter says they are elect according to the
foreknowledge of God, and when Scripture refers to
the foreknowledge of God, it has to do
with the infinite wisdom of God that has
mapped out a perfect program, a perfect design
for a man's life that includes all the
individual segments and parts of that life.
God, as a sovereign God, is in authority
over every area of a man's life, and
God has not treated us as isolated individuals.
God treats us, the beloved of God and
the elect in Jesus Christ, as a family,
a body of believers, and God works out
the detail not only for my life, but
for your life as well.
And Peter wanted these who were scattered to
have this confidence that even in the midst
of these sufferings, these sufferings fit into the
plan of an infinite God, all wise in
his counsel, who has brought into their experiences
the very thing that will accomplish God's purpose
for them and in and through them.
And so he does not remind them that
as strangers they are loved of God, for
they were not questioning God's love, they were
questioning God's wisdom in letting these things come
to them.
And so he assures them that they are
elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father.
But this election operates through setting them apart,
or as our text says, they were elect
through sanctification of the Spirit.
Now, sanctification means essentially to set apart.
One may be sanctified unto God, or set
apart unto God.
One may also be set apart unto suffering,
and that is the emphasis the apostle has
here.
We were not only electing Christ so that
we were set apart to be Christ, but
our election in the foreknowledge of God included
all the sufferings and the details of life,
and he wanted these saints to be reminded
of the fact that when God works according
to his infinite wisdom, he sets us apart
by the Spirit to those very things that
God brings into our experience.
Then he tells us that we were elect
unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood
of Jesus Christ.
Obedience is the response of the individual to
the provision which God has made through the
death of Jesus Christ.
God has set forth Jesus Christ to be
a sacrifice for our sins.
2 Christ has shed his blood in order
that salvation might be available to sinners, so
that the song could be written, There is
a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's
veins that sinners plunge beneath that flood whose
all their guilt is paid.
The fact that that fountain has been provided
avails the individual sinner nothing unless he is
obedient to the gospel, and that which Christ
asks of the individual is faith.
This is the will of God that ye
believe on him whom God hath sent, for
God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on
him should not perish but have everlasting life.
And so, Jesus Christ has been set forth
before us as one crucified, but God asks
the individual in obedience to the gospel to
receive Jesus Christ as his or her own
personal Savior.
These who are suffering have been set apart
by the Spirit of God.
They have been obedient and have experienced the
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
In the Old Testament order, the blood that
cleansed was applied to that which was unclean
by dipping a hyssop branch into the blood
and shaking or applying the blood to that
which was defiled, and that sprinkling by blood
rendered that which was defiled clean and acceptable
before God.
God pictures for us here the benefits of
the death of Jesus Christ, that the one
who obeys the gospel has the blood of
Jesus Christ applied to him by Almighty God,
so that the one who was unclean and
unacceptable in God's sight is now made clean
and acceptable to the Father.
All this included in the election according to
the foreknowledge of God.
Then Peter, in this brief introduction, having reminded
these strangers, these scattered ones, of the fact
of their election that includes in it the
sufferings that unfold before them, assures them, grace
unto you and peace be multiplied.
Grace does provide salvation, but grace is used
in another sense in Scripture.
I find it, for instance, in Hebrews chapter
4 and verse 16, where the Apostle writes,
"...let us therefore come boldly unto the throne
of grace, that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need."
The grace that is referred to at the
conclusion of this verse is, as the Apostle
said, a grace that helps in time of
need.
And the Apostle, by saying to these scattered
believers, grace unto you, is reminding them that
when God in his infinite wisdom chooses to
bring sufferings into their experience, God promises his
help and his assistance, that we may find
grace to help in time of need.
God has yet to ask one of his
children to walk through suffering or testing or
persecution alone, for he walks with them through
it.
Grace, God's help, is our portion, and the
child of God who understands the purpose of
God in the persecutions and the tests of
life can go through those experiences with the
peace of God upon him.
For peace is that quietness that comes from
knowing that God is in sovereign control, and
that these things that are brought to me
are brought because it is God's will.
The Apostle Paul, in those familiar words in
the eighth chapter of Romans, summarizes that which
was also Peter's concept, for he tells us
in verse 29 of Romans 8, whom God
did foreknow, he also did predestinate, to be
conformed to the image of his Son.
Conformed to the image of his Son.
No individual by nature is like Jesus Christ,
nor is he conformed to Jesus Christ.
When one is born into the family of
God by obeying the gospel of Jesus Christ,
God necessarily begins a polishing process to make
him like Jesus Christ.
Going recently through a shop that displayed a
large number of unmounted, semi-precious and precious
stones, I saw there on the shelf a
number of uncut and unpolished gems.
The gemstones as they were taken from the
earth, and as the rocks that contained these
gemstones were cut and exposed there, one could
see no brilliance, no beauty, no light, no
fire in those stones whatsoever.
What a contrast between the rough, unpolished stone
and the unfinished, polished gem.
Peter recognized that we are in the state
of those rough, cut, unpolished stones, and if
we are to reflect the glory of Christ
and bear the image of Christ, there is
a long process necessary before we realize God's
purpose for us to be conformed to the
image of Christ.
There can be no glow apart from an
abrasion, and the abrasive process could be long,
difficult and painful.
But Peter tells us that God, through sufferings
and through persecution, is working according to his
own purpose and will to conform us to
Jesus Christ.
Look, for instance, in 1 Peter 1, verse
6.
He greatly rejoiced that now for a season
of need be ye are in heaviness through
manifold testing, that the trial of your faith,
being much more precious than of gold that
perisheth though it be tried with fire, might
be found unto praise and honor and glory
at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
How can a believer be found unto honor
and glory and praise at the coming of
Christ?
By going through the polishing process.
Look again in chapter 1, verse 11.
The prophets were searching, wondering what manner of
time the Spirit of Christ which was in
them did signify when it testified beforehand the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should
follow.
What is Peter telling us?
That the glory that came to Christ at
his ascension was the result of the sufferings
that preceded his ascension.
That there is a vital relationship between suffering
and glory, and without the suffering there can
be no glory.
Or look again, please, in chapter 4, verse
12.
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery
trial which is to try you as though
some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice
inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's suffering,
that when his glory shall be revealed ye
may be glad also with exceeding joy.
And there the apostle tells us that as
the sufferings of Christ were the means of
the glorification of Christ, so the sufferings of
the saint will be the means through which
Christ is glorified in the life of the
saint.
May we remind you as we give thought
to these introductory things in approaching this book,
that God is at work in your life
to conform you to Jesus Christ, and God
chooses his own polishing agent, his own abrasive.
He knows when and how to put you
to the polishing for you, because God has
chosen you and elect you according to his
foreknowledge, and as a result of your obedience
to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and God
has begun a process that will continue until
the time of your glorification in his presence.
But how do we live in the midst
of the trials and the sufferings and the
circumstances?
We live by faith, we live by grace
assured of his health, we live in peace
knowing that God is sovereign and is controlling
all things according to the counsel of his
own will.
I trust that God will give you a
passion to delight Christ, give you an overwhelming
desire to reflect and bear the image of
Christ, and then give you a hunger to
know how God can use those testings in
the life of his child to accomplish his
will and purpose that will drive you to
this book, to see God's answer to the
problem of testing in the believer's life.
We pray, our Father, that the Spirit of
God may so create a hunger for the
Lord Jesus Christ in the lives of those
who have been obedient to the gospel that
we shall cry out unto thee for practical
righteousness and holiness.
That we shall submit to the polishing work
of God, that we might bear the image
of Jesus Christ.
May the blessing of God rest upon each
one that we might be conformed to Christ
in our walk and in our talk.
In Jesus' name we pray.