1 Peter chapter 2.
We'll wait for Dr. Pentecost to get it.
1 Peter chapter 2.
Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile,
in hypocrisies and envies, and all evil speakings,
as newborn babes desire the pure milk of
the word that you may grow by it,
if so be ye have tasted that the
Lord is gracious, to whom coming as unto
a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but
chosen of God and precious, ye also as
living stones are built up a spiritual house
and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
Wherefore, also it is contained in the scripture,
Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone,
elect, precious, and he that believeth on him
shall not be confounded.
Unto you, therefore, who believe he is precious,
but unto them who are disobedient, the stone
which the builders disallowed, the same is made
the head of the corner, and a stone
of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even
to them who stumble at the word, being
disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed."
Let's look to our Lord in prayer.
God the Father, God the Son, God the
Holy Spirit are one, and the believer, the
one who has received Jesus Christ as his
own personal Savior, has become one with God
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
A believer should experience a oneness with a
fellow believer because he is one with God,
and that oneness of believer with believer will
manifest itself in love for the believer, just
as the oneness between the Father, the Son,
and the Spirit manifests itself among the members
of the Godhead.
The Apostle Peter, writing to these persecuted saints,
reminds them in the first chapter of his
epistle, in verse 18, that they had been
redeemed.
That redemption was not purchased with corruptible things
such as silver and gold, but they were
redeemed with precious blood.
The redemption that had been provided for them
in Jesus Christ had brought them to a
purification of their souls.
Peter will tell us in his second epistle
that we are given by the new birth
a new divine nature.
The nature of God is imparted to us
by the new birth that we have in
Jesus Christ, and it is God's desire to
reproduce himself and his children.
That Peter has emphasized in verse 22 of
the first chapter, seeing he have purified your
souls and obeying the truth through the Spirit
unto unfeinded love of the brethren, see that
ye love one another with a pure heart
fervently.
God's love has been manifested to the world
in the provision of Jesus Christ to be
the Savior of the world.
God's love for his child is manifested in
God's constant care in the provision which he
makes for his child.
And the child of God in whom the
nature of God is imparted by a new
birth is to manifest a love not only
for God, but also a love for the
brethren, those whom God loves.
This is foundational to Peter's response to the
persecutions and sufferings that his flock is passing
through.
But when we come into chapter 2, verses
1-3, the verses to which we direct
your attention in Peter's epistle this morning, continuing
this great theme of unfeinded love of the
brethren, the Apostle gives an exhortation.
The fact was presented in the previous verses.
We have been loved of God.
God is love, therefore we have a responsibility
to love another.
And Peter's exhortation is found in the first
word of the first verse of the second
chapter, wherefore in the light of these great
truths, in the light of the truth of
what God is and of what God demands
of us, this is our responsibility and our
response.
I drop down to the third verse where
the Apostle Peter builds a basic assumption, and
this is the basis of his appeal.
He is not asking unbelievers to be like
God.
He is not asking men who are strangers
to the love of God to imitate the
love of God.
It is as impossible for an unbeliever to
manifest the love of God toward a believer
or toward another individual as it is for
a fish who lives in the sphere of
the ocean to communicate intelligibly with an individual
who lives on the land.
They live in two entirely separate spheres, and
it is impossible to communicate across the barriers
that separate the fish kingdom from the animal
kingdom.
What Peter's appeal, we repeat, is not to
an unbeliever.
You begin to live like a believer ought
to live.
You begin to have affections such as you
think God has, and somehow this love will
grow and increase and develop.
The Apostle Peter's exhortation to love for the
brethren is based on the basic assumption that
they have tasted the new life of Christ,
that they have been born into the family
of God.
Peter says that I make this exhortation to
so be that ye have tasted that the
Lord is gracious.
The taste here is more than just a
little sampling.
It's more than what you wives do over
the cookstove in the kitchen when you dip
a spoon into what you're preparing for dinner
to see if it is seasoned.
You put just enough on your lips and
your tongue to tell you whether it has
enough flavoring or you need to add more.
The taste that Peter has referenced to here
means to actually partake so as to have
enjoyed what has been provided.
The Apostle, you see, is assuming that these
people have been redeemed with the incorruptible, the
precious blood of the Christ, the Lamb without
blemish and spot.
They have heard, and to them has been
imparted the truth of the nature and character
of God, and what God is through the
preaching of the word.
They have obeyed, verse 22, the truth.
Now, on the basis of this basic assumption,
Peter is able to build his exhortation.
You remember the psalmist in the Old Testament
speaks in words that are very similar to
those that Peter used in Psalm 34, verse
8.
We read this instruction of the psalmist, 34,
8, O taste and see that the Lord
is good, blessed is the man that trusteth
in him.
The psalmist has been extolling and magnifying the
Lord.
He has said in the first verse of
that psalm, I will bless the Lord at
all times, his praise shall continually be in
my mouth.
Now, why was David extolling and exalting the
Lord?
It was not because of a testimony that
he had heard from somebody else as to
how good the Lord was.
It is a blessing to us on the
evening to have man after man share with
us a word of personal testimony concerning what
the Lord has done for him.
And frequently we leave the service after that
testimony with words such as, Isn't the Lord
wonderful what he has done for so-and
-so?
But, you know, you never can base your
testimony as to how good the Lord is
on what he has done for somebody else.
The only real testimony is a testimony as
to what the Lord has done for you,
and when the Lord takes you through some
trial, through some testing, through some experience, and
then shows you the sufficiency of his grace,
you can say, I can praise the Lord
for what he did for me personally.
Now, you see, these believers whom Peter is
writing are going through intense persecution and suffering,
and they're almost to the point of being
crushed by it.
And Peter reminds them that what they have
tasted of the Lord's goodness is going to
enable them to give a personal testimony as
to what the Lord does for those who
trust him.
For the psalmist, you recall, said there in
34a, Oh, taste and see that the Lord
is good, or if I could paraphrase it,
taste and see just how good the Lord
really is.
Blessed are they that trust him, and the
man has a testimony who trusts.
Testimony and trust go hand in hand.
Now, Peter is writing to those in whose
lives the basis for a testimony is being
laid, and he assumes the fact that they
have trusted.
They have exercised faith in God not only
for their salvation, but for God's daily sustenance
of them in their suffering.
They have seen the Lord's sufficiency.
They have seen his grace at work in
their lives.
When the trials and the persecutions well-nigh
overwhelmed them, the Lord put his hand unto
them and lifted them up and proved himself
sufficient.
They had actually partaken so as to have
enjoyed the Lord's graciousness and his graces, his
sustaining grace to them day by day.
Now, on the basis of that assumption, the
exhortation or application is given in the first
verse.
Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile
and hypocrisy and envy and all evil speaking,
as newborn babes desire the sincere, pure, uncorrupted
milk of the word.
In the first verse, the apostle says that
there are five things that are to be
laid aside.
Malice, guile, hypocrisy, envy, evil speaking.
And these five things are manifestations of the
nature of our old father, the devil.
Do you recall the teaching of the word
that when we were born into this world,
the first time we were born with a
fallen nature?
We were born as children of Adam.
We were born as children of Satan.
Christ, speaking to the religious leaders of his
day, said to them, He are of your
father the devil.
Now, don't sit back hypocritically and complacently and
say how wicked and bad those men were.
You're their child,
and you like they were born of your
father the devil.
And it is natural for the child to
imitate his father, and it is natural for
the child to manifest the nature that he
received from his father.
And so, if one is to manifest love
for the brethren, he must put off all
manifestations of his old man, of his old
father the devil.
And these five things that are to be
laid aside are all things that characterize Satan,
and will you observe, please, they are all
sins against love.
First one, lay aside malice.
Malice is a summary word, or an all
-inclusive word, that refers to every kind of
wickedness.
Malevolence, bringing together in the compass of his
character all sorts of wickedness against love, or
sin against love.
If we turn into chapter five of this
first epistle of Peter, we see something of
Satan's persistence in wickedness.
He exhorts them, there, be sober, be vigilant,
because your adversary the devil as a roaring
lion talketh about seeking whom he may devour.
He is persistent, he is incessant, he is
destructive in nature and character, he does not
seek the good of those who are under
him, but he seeks their destruction.
And those who have taken themselves by faith
out of his family and kingdom, and put
themselves by faith into the family of God,
are the special objects of his attack.
He stalks them as a lion stalks its
prey in order to devour and to destroy.
He is malevolent, he is incessantly and persistently
destructive and wicked, and the apostle says that
you God's children, if you manifest the nature
of your father the devil, will be as
persistently malicious as he is malicious.
You see that the word malice and malicious
are related words, and there is the possibility
that one will not manifest the fruit of
the Spirit, which is love for the brethren,
and will become a malicious individual so that
his life is characterized by the maliciousness of
Satan.
But then, Satan is characterized in the second
place by guile.
Guile has to do with a deception.
The word literally means to catch with bait,
or to ensnare through the use of bait.
I think a good illustration of this is
found in the third chapter of Genesis, in
verse 1.
The serpent was more subtle or crafty or
full of guile than any beast of the
field which the Lord God had made, and
he came to offer Eve through guile something
which it was impossible for him to fulfill.
He offered to make Eve like God.
He offered to set Eve free from any
responsibility to God whatsoever.
Now, he was wicked and malicious in his
temptation, but he did not reveal his maliciousness.
He closed his maliciousness with this subtlety, this
craftiness, this guile, or he caught Eve with
bait.
And it is possible for a child of
God to leave the guile-lapped neck, the
transcendent purity that belongs to the love of
Christ, and to use hypocrisy and guile in
dealing with other believers to cover our true
desire and true intent.
And selfishness is a sin against love which
closes itself with guile and subtlety to catch
a fellow believer with bait.
The third word that describes the character of
Satan in 1 Peter 2 on is the
word hypocrisy.
This is the word that came from the
stage into the language, for the Greek actors
did not depend on facial expressions to convey
to the audience the part they were playing.
The Greek actors played their part with masks,
and the hypocrite was one who spoke from
under a mask.
It has to do with speaking down so
that one's true identity is covered up.
What the actor actually looked like meant nothing
on the Greek stage.
It was the mask that he put on
that was the significant thing.
And the apostle said that when Satan comes,
he puts on a mask and covers his
true character, his true features, he disguises his
true intent, and he speaks from under that
mask so that one who looks only on
the surface is subject to deception by Satan.
And the apostle says that it is possible
for God's children to clothe themselves with hypocrisy
and to feign love for the brethren when
down underneath there is maliciousness and guile and
evil speaking and envying.
And he says that this hypocrisy is a
sham of the devil into which you have
fallen and has no part in the life
and experience of the child of God.
It is impossible to love the brethren with
a pure heart fervently from under the hypocrite's
mask.
The fourth word that he uses is the
word envy, and the word envy literally means
to talk down, means to defame or to,
I'm sorry, the envy has to do with
jealousy.
I'll drop down to the last word.
Envy is jealousy where one resents what God
has given to another believer because God has
not given us the same thing.
It is not as difficult for a believer
to weep with those who weep as it
is difficult to rejoice with those who rejoice.
For somehow, when we fellowship with a believer
in some testing or some sorrow, we consider
ourselves lest we be likewise tempted or walk
through that valley of dark shadows.
But when God sends a blessing to a
man and he shares that with us, we
naturally and instinctively react with jealousy.
Why did God give that to him and
not to me?
I deserve it as much or more than
he does.
And it is so difficult sometimes to share
the Lord's choicest blessings with the saints because
the saints envy, and they do not know
how to rejoice with those that rejoice.
And the apostle says that such a response
and reaction is a manifestation of the old
nature, and the one who envies is reproducing
in his conduct that which is the nature
of his old father, the devil.
Then the final word is evil speaking, and
as I said a moment ago, this evil
speaking means literally to talk down.
It has to do with defaming, it has
to do with slandering.
This was the method Satan used, you remember,
in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 5 in
his testing of Eve, when he accused God
of jealously withholding from Eve something that would
have made Eve an equal with God.
He slandered God's love, and the inference was
that if God were not so selfish in
his love, he would share that which he
delights in for himself.
That slander, that defaming is a temptation which
may come to the child of God.
Usually slander somebody else.
Defame, seek to belittle a brother in Christ
in order to elevate ourselves in our own
eyes.
We think that we lift ourselves up by
widening the gulf between us and the brother
by putting him down, and when we fall
into such evil speaking, we sin against the
love of the brethren, we fail to fulfill
his command of verse 22, love one another
with a pure heart fervently, we manifest the
nature of our father, the death.
Now, would you see a similar vein of
thought develop for us, please, in the book
of Ephesians chapter 4?
Ephesians 4 and verse 30 gives us God's
command through the apostle, grieve not the Holy
Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto
the day of redemption.
Now, I want you to notice in this
context very carefully what it is that grieves
the Spirit of God.
We know that the Spirit is the Holy
Spirit of God, and any sin grieves the
heart of the Holy Spirit, but as the
apostle is presenting this truth, he has one
specific category of sin primarily in mind.
In fact, at the beginning of the fourth
chapter of Ephesians, the apostle has exhorted us
in verse 3 that we are to keep
the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace, for there is one body, and
it is the Spirit ministry to unify the
body of believers.
It is the Spirit ministry to promote love
in the family of God.
Now, since that is the Spirit ministry among
believers, any sin that destroys or disrupts the
unity of believers brings peculiar pain to the
heart of the Spirit of God.
Look at verse 29 of chapter 4, "...let
no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth."
That would be the evil speaking of 1
Peter 2.
Verse 31, "...let all bitterness and wrath and
anger and clamor or loud, incessant talking and
evil speaking be put away from you with
all mouth."
I find in verse 31 that the same
categories as are covered in 1 Peter 2
stated by the apostle as the sins that
peculiarly grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
The apostle was concerned about this division and
this manifestation of the nature of their father,
the devil.
Therefore, he devoted this extended portion of this
major epistle to that essential element of the
conduct of the child of God, for he
was concerned lest a lack of love for
the brethren should dissipate the testimony of that
group of believers, and that the sin of
failure to love the brethren should destroy the
life of the individuals in that assembly.
Now, Peter, dealing with the same basic problem,
looks upon a scattered flock.
They are away from Jerusalem, which had been
the center of their life.
They are away from fellowship with the body
of believers.
They are separated from the oversight of the
apostles who administered to them.
They are undergoing rigorous persecution.
Now, what was the apostle afraid of more
than anything else?
Not that they would fail in their faith
in God, not that they would repudiate the
doctrine that God had delivered to them through
the apostle.
But Peter was concerned lest in their testing
they should lose love for the brethren, and
the loss of love for the brethren would
remove from them that which bound believer to
believer to give them strength in the Lord.
He has assumed that they have tasted the
graciousness of the Lord.
Now, he makes the application of their experience
with Christ.
They are to lay aside every manifestation of
their father the devil, and all maliciousness and
guile and hypocrisy and envy and evil speaking
is to be put aside.
Now, what is the antidote to this manifestation
of Satan's nature in God's children?
We come to verse 2.
As newborn babes desire the sincere or pure
milk of the word that ye may grow
thereby.
The apostle is viewing these believers as spiritual
infants.
They are immature in the love of Christ
and in the knowledge of the word.
Their immaturity is evidenced by the very fact
that Peter has to give commandment concerning love
for the brethren, and in the face of
this immaturity, Peter gives the antidote as he
says, desire the sincere or pure milk of
the word.
The word desire is the word for appetite,
and it has to do with that craving
of nature for that which sustains.
You do not teach a newborn baby to
become hungry.
The sign of life is an appetite, and
Peter desires that the appetite which they have
because they were born into God's family should
be cultivated.
It should develop, it should expand so that
through the word of God they can fulfill
the obligations that are laid upon them by
the fact that they have been brought into
the family of God.
The apostle does not stand up and say,
if you are convicted that you do not
love the brethren, then you begin to practice
loving the brethren.
Just turn on love and start loving them
and everything will be fine.
Love is not something that can be turned
on that way.
It would be nice if we had buttons
that could be pushed to turn it on,
then we could appoint a committee in the
elders as the button pushers for the congregation.
There is a relationship between the word of
God and love for the brethren, because there
is a relationship between the word of God
and spiritual growth and spiritual development and spiritual
maturity.
Love for the brethren is an evidence of
the new birth.
It is also an evidence of maturity in
the things of the Lord, and there can
be no maturity in Christ apart from the
ministry of the word of God to the
believer.
When there is danger that they will manifest
the nature of their father the devil, Peter
says, get into the work.
When the persecutions and the trials that they
undergo will get them so obsessed with themselves
and what they're going through, they will lose
their concern for the brethren, Peter says, get
into the work.
When they find themselves selfish and thinking only
of their own things, Peter says, get into
the work.
Peter says, if you see yourself hypocritical in
your attitude toward fellow believers, get into the
work.
When you find yourself tempted to some maliciousness
toward another believer, get into the work.
When you find yourself envying the blessing of
God on some other believer, get into the
work.
When you find yourself tempted to speak evil,
to gossip of another brother, get into the
work.
As newborn babes desire the sincere pure milk
of the word that ye may grow thereby.
Back in chapter 1, Peter told us that
we were redeemed not with corruptible things, but
with the incorruptible seed, the word of God.
1 Peter 1.23 Being born again, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the
word of God, there Peter referred to the
incorruptibility of the word of God.
Now, in 2.2 he refers again to
that incorruptibility, referring to the sincere or the
pure word of God.
See, God reveals himself.
That revelation is given to us in the
word.
Satan has reproduced his nature within us, and
if we are to learn of God and
God's nature and what God demands of his
children, we must go to the revelation that
God has made.
So, Peter says, if Satan is doing a
work in you and is reproducing his maliciousness
and his lovelessness, then you get into the
word of God, because through a knowledge of
the word of God you come to a
knowledge of God, and through that knowledge of
God you understand what God expects of his
children.
We affirm again that the inerrant word of
God is the believer's defense against the onslaught
of Satan.
It is the garrison for a believer's life,
the foundation upon which his feet must be
planted if he is to be triumphant and
victorious in his daily life, and if love
was to be the testimony to a loveless
world concerning the truth of the gospel, then
we need to take care in our assembly
of believers today that we fall into that
snare of Satan, lest the love of God
for Christ which should be manifested in the
love of believer for believer should not be
portrayed to those whom we profess the desire
to win to Jesus Christ.
You will not argue a man to Christ,
but you can love him to Christ.
You saturate yourself with the word of God
not so much to be able to meet
the arguments of the unbeliever, saturate yourself with
the word of God that the word of
God might produce love for Christ and love
for the brethren in you that that love
that the word produces in you may in
turn reach out love men for Jesus Christ.
You're not going to win man by your
vast knowledge of the scriptures.
You're going to win man because of the
love of Christ for them, and love of
Christ for the brethren manifests in your daily
experience.
There's only one way a man can come
to know the love of Christ, and that
is by faith in him as a personal
Savior.
You can't read about it.
It's not something you can study about, and
thus learn.
You learn his love by experience.
When a man recognizes that he is a
sinner, that he is a child of Satan,
he comes to Jesus Christ as Christ.
I trust you for my salvation.
The love of God that was poured out
for that one at Calvary is poured out
into his life, and his heart is flooded
with the love of God for him.
And if you are a stranger to this
infinite, gracious love of Christ this morning, I
point you to the one who loves you
and who will flood your life with his
love if you trust him personally for your
salvation.
Have you ever trusted the one who loves
you unto death?
Will you do it now?
We pray, our Father, that God the Holy
Spirit, desires to reproduce his own nature in
the life of the child of God, may
reveal to us our lovelessness for Christ, for
the Word, for the Brethren, that we might
put ourselves under the Word, saturate ourselves with
the Word so that we might grow in
grace and the knowledge of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ.
May the Word reveal to us our needs,
and may it do its work of supplying
that need as we love one another by
the Spirit's power with a pure heart, fervently.
This must us, we pray thee, with the
riches of thy grace and mercy and peace
upon us, in Jesus' name, Amen.