1 Peter, Chapter 4, starting at verse 7.
But the end of all things is at
hand, be ye therefore sober and watch unto
prayer, and above all things have fervent charity
one among yourselves.
For charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
Use hospitality one to another without grudging, as
every man hath received a gift, even so
minister the same one to another, as good
stewards of the manifold grace of God.
If any man speak, let him speak as
the oracles of God, and if any man
minister, let him do it as of the
ability which God hath given, that God in
all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ,
to whom be praise and dominion for ever
and ever.
Amen.
Men who are stumbling in darkness look for
light, and because the child of God is
living in the midst of the encircling darkness
of this world, God has given him light
that he need not stumble.
The light that was given to the child
of God to illumine his pathway was the
promise of the word of God, coming from
the lips of our Lord, if I go
to prepare a place for you, I will
come again and receive you unto myself.
The light, the hope that was given to
the child of God, was the light and
the hope there is in the promise of
our Lord's return.
The Apostle Peter is writing to a generation
of believers who are being severely persecuted because
of their faith in Jesus Christ, and the
Apostle Peter has been writing to encourage them,
to instruct them, to explain to them the
use that God makes of suffering in the
life of his child.
But now, in the portion of his epistle
that occupies our attention this morning, 1 Peter
4, verses 7-11, the Apostle gives the
light that the believer has on his pathway
as he endures the sufferings of this present
life.
Peter says, the end of all things is
at hand, and the phrase, the end of
all things, is Peter's way of reminding these
believers that the Lord Jesus promised that he
would come again and would translate believers out
of this sphere of darkness and bring them
into the glory of his presence.
The hope that the believer had was that
his present sufferings might immediately be terminated by
the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ to
take them out of this veil of tears,
out of this place of suffering, into his
own presence.
Peter held before them this hope as a
present hope.
This was not a hope that he moved
to some distant time that was irrelevant to
his hearers, but rather he told them the
end of all things is at hand.
That is, it may be anticipated any day,
it may be expected any moment, it may
be before we can draw the next breath.
And in the light of that which was
a consistent teaching of the Apostles, that this
natural order of things would at one moment
be terminated by the appearance of the Lord
Jesus to take us into his presence bodily,
he now wants to draw a conclusion and
apply the truth of the Lord's coming to
the present sufferings of those believers.
And as I examine verses 7 and 8,
I find there are three results that should
be evidenced in the life of the child
of God, because he has the hope of
our Lord's coming as a present hope.
Peter said, first of all, be ye therefore
sober.
Second, watch unto prayer.
And third, have fervent love among yourselves.
These three characteristics were to be evidenced in
the life of the suffering saint who lived
not in the light of his present sufferings,
but who lived in the light of the
hope that he might be delivered from his
present sufferings by the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who would cause the sufferings of
this present age to cease.
His first conclusion is that be ye therefore
sober.
This was a relationship of the child of
God to the suffering through which he was
going, and sobriety had to do with a
serious-mindedness.
It had to do with a true evaluation
of things.
It had to do with seeing things in
their true light.
As we've emphasized so often, sobriety does not
always have to do with abstinence from intoxicants
when it is used in the New Testament.
Frequently, it has to do with an attitude
rather than an act, and it has to
do with the attitude in which one can
see beyond the present and see things in
their true light.
The Apostle has pointed out to us in
the previous chapters that God is a sovereign
God, and that God is controlling all things
according to his own perfect will.
The Apostles point out that nothing happens to
us in this life by fate or by
accident or by happenstance, that all things are
working according to God's predetermined plan that was
devised in infinite wisdom and infinite love.
God is using the circumstances through which he
takes his child to mature his child, to
develop his child, to produce holiness and godliness
in his child, as well as to correct
or discipline his child.
And since God uses suffering in so many
different ways, if the child of God focuses
his attention only on what the suffering costs
him, he will learn nothing, and God's purposes
will never be experienced in the life of
the suffering saint.
But when one can see beyond the immediate
experience of suffering and see that this is
God's means unto God's end, and then begin
to evaluate his experiences in the light of
God's purpose and program for him, then God's
will can be and will be accomplished in
his life.
And so, Peter says in the first part
of chapter 4 and verse 1, as we
saw it last time, "...he that hath suffered
in the flesh hath ceased from sin."
Peter was reminding these readers that God was
taking them through some of their present suffering
in order that his righteousness might be reproduced
in them, and that they might be set
apart unto God.
In our natural faith, we pride ourselves on
our self-sufficience and our independence, and we
reject any concept that we must depend on
another, even God himself.
And one who depends only on himself will
never be set apart to the will of
God and experience the strength of God, or
the peace of God, or the joy of
God in his testing.
But God uses these experiences to bring us
to the end of ourselves in order that
we might learn the sufficiency of his grace.
Now, one who approaches suffering with the question,
Why have you sent this to me?
and then examines his own life and his
own experience, and the light of the sufferings
will be matured as he learns what God
has for him to learn.
That is biblical sobriety.
That is seeing things in their true light.
If one does not have this attitude toward
suffering, he certainly will give way to despair,
to discouragement.
He will have no sense of Christ's presence
and of Christ's purpose through the sufferings, and
in his heart there will be generated a
rebellion against God that says, God, if you
could have done something about it, why didn't
you do it?
Why did you let this come to me?
And there will be a bitterness that will
be destructive of any spiritual development whatsoever.
But when he has the attitude of sobriety
toward God, when he sees things in their
true light, he turns to God and says,
God, I thank you that you have not
abandoned me as your child, and that you
love me and care for me and are
bringing the experiences to me that are going
to reproduce Jesus Christ in my life.
That's sobriety, seeing things in their true light.
Then he says in the second place that,
since we know that the Lord is coming,
we ought to be watching unto prayer, and
as sobriety summarizes the believer's attitude toward suffering,
so prayer summarizes the believer's attitude toward God
who sends and permits the sufferings.
This is the Godward aspect of the believer's
response to the suffering that God sends.
Watch unto prayer.
Praying is an exercise in dependence upon God.
A man who is independent never prays, he
never asks God for anything.
A man who considers himself self-sufficient never
turns to God to say, God help me,
God direct me, God strengthen me through the
present experiences.
The individual who prays goes to God, and
in his weakness claims God's strength, and in
his ignorance claims God's wisdom.
In his restlessness, he claims God's peace, and
in his burden he claims God's joy, a
sense of dependence upon God.
And one of the purposes of suffering in
the life of the child of God is
to bring the individual to the end of
himself so he is totally cast on God,
and that attitude of dependence upon God naturally
manifests itself and expresses itself in a prayer
of dependence.
Now, I think in the immediate context where
Peter has said, end of all things is
at hand, watch unto prayer, he has particularly
in view the coming of the Lord, and
he is telling us that it is perfectly
legitimate for the child of God to ask
the Father to send Jesus Christ to get
us out of the mess we're in.
But I wonder how many of us in
a time of desperation have ever thought of
the Lord's coming as God's perfect and complete
and final deliverance from the circumstances that overwhelm
us.
You see, for us the coming of the
Lord is so far down the road it
has no relationship to our daily experience.
But if we go to the Father and
talk to the Father about sending the Son
to deliver us from the experience that seems
to overwhelm us, it gives us anew and
afresh the hope that the Lord could come
at any moment to take us, to be
with Himself, to gather us as believers home
to glory.
But this watching unto prayer is more than
just praying for the Lord's coming that will
terminate our time of suffering as saints here
and here, but it has to do with
an attitude of careful dependence upon God and
all the circumstances through which we go.
I cannot help but think of the prophet
Daniel in this connection.
One of the most fascinating stories in that
book is the history of Daniel's night in
the lion's den.
Who can forget the audacity of Daniel as
he stands up before the mightiest monarch of
his day and defies him and refuses to
give worship to man who directs his worship
openly and publicly to God?
Because of his complete devotion to God, Daniel
ends up in the lion's den.
The scripture gives us one interesting word that
gives me a clue as to what Daniel
was doing all that night.
The next morning, when the king came and
called him to the mouth of that pit,
is thy God able to deliver thee?
Daniel said, God hath sent his angel and
hath sealed the mouth of the lion.
I believe the angel there is the angel
of Jehovah.
This is a pre-incarnate revelation and manifestation
of the Son of God.
How did Daniel know that God had sent
his son to seal the mouth of the
lion?
He saw it.
He saw it, and that's why he could
tell how he had been delivered.
Will you tell me what Daniel was doing
when he was in the presence of the
Son of God revealed to him?
Daniel, in that lion's den, was enjoying the
most intimate, personal, sweetest fellowship that he had
ever known with God all the days of
his life.
If you were to ask Daniel at the
close of his day, Daniel, what was the
high point of your life?
Daniel had so many experiences that he could
look back on.
Think of it.
In Daniel, chapter 2, he was able to
recall a dream that was locked up in
the secrets of King Nebuchadnezzar, and he was
able to interpret the dream, and he was
able to unfold all of Gentile history that
was stretched over thousands of years.
My, what a high point.
He was able to give that great prophecy
in Daniel, chapter 9, telling us the exact
time when the Lord Jesus Christ would come
to this earth so that men could count
the years until Jesus Christ came.
But if you were to ask Daniel, Daniel,
what was the most precious experience of your
life?
I am confident Daniel would have said, the
hours I spent in the lion's den, and
Daniel would not have escaped it for anything.
Why?
Because the lion's den brought him into personal,
intimate fellowship with the Son of God who
walked with him through that experience.
And instead of asking for a revelation of
the Son of God to you in your
sufferings, you spend all your time crying out
for deliverance from them.
That's why Peter says, Watch thereunto with prayer.
The third thing that ought to be produced
in the life of the child of God
in his sufferings, because the Lord is coming,
is a fervent love among yourselves, love of
the breath.
He talks about love of his coming and
love of fellowship with this person, and now
love for the brethren, produced by the love
of his coming.
And once again, Peter gives us in verses
8 and 9 three things that love for
the brethren will do.
First of all, love shall cover the multitude
of sin.
Now, the apostle is not saying that if
we love one another, our sins will be
forgiven us.
That's not the basis of forgiveness of sin.
Sins are forgiven because we trust Jesus Christ
for salvation, not because we love one another.
What, then, does he mean when he says,
love shall cover the multitude of sin?
What I think he is saying is this,
that love will not dwell upon the sins
of the brethren.
Love does not seek out the weaknesses of
the brethren to criticize them and to impugn
them in their Christian walk.
See, here are brethren who are being tested,
and some of the brethren fell under that
testing.
They were overcome by the persecution.
Why, the apostles had to write the epistle
to the Hebrews, because some of the brethren
were even going back into the old customs
and associations in the temple.
That's how far they had stumbled from the
doctrines of the grace of God, and they
were fellowshipping back in Judaism to escape temptation.
Now, the apostle says that true love will
not point an accusing finger at the weaker
brother and expose his sins.
This is what the apostle is talking about
in 1 Corinthians 13, that great section on
love, where he says in verse 5, Love
doth not behave itself unseemly, that is, is
not bitterly critical.
It seeketh not our own, that is, is
not selfish, is not easily provoked or become
irritable, thinketh no evil, that is, is not
suspicious about the object of affection.
Now, Peter, paralleling what Paul said in 1
Corinthians 13, says that in the light of
the Lord's coming, if a believer sees another
believer stumble, he does not multiply the sin
and spread the knowledge of that weakness or
that stumbling.
He does not develop a critical, bitter spirit
because the believer has succumbed to those testings,
and he hasn't.
Love will cover the multitude of sins in
other believers.
The second thing he says that love will
produce in verse 9 is hospitality one to
another without grudging.
In the days when believers were dependent upon
other believers, when they were separated from loved
ones at home, hospitality was an essential Christian
virtue.
Hospitality had to do with a care and
concern with a physical need, the material needs
of a brother in Christ, and as Peter
has told, that love will cloak over the
sins of a weaker brother.
Love also will provide for the need of
the brother sacrificially.
The Apostle John told us that if we
profess to have love for a brother and
see a brother have a material need and
shut up our love and do not contribute
to him in his physical and material need,
how can we say the love of God
dwells in us?
So, Peter is reminding thee that there may
be some of these suffering believers who, because
of economic pressure, have lost their livelihood, and
they are destitute.
And he says that those believers who have
not suffered so materially and economically ought to
share that which God has given to them
with those who are suffering in that way,
and it is love for the brethren that
will open up the pocketbook so that we
contribute to the physical or the material need.
Then in verses 10 and 11, he emphasizes
the fact that love will minister according to
the gifts and abilities God gives a man
so as to glorify God.
He is emphasizing here the great truth that
the Apostle presents in 1 Corinthians 12 and
14, that the Spirit of God gives every
believer a spiritual gift, and blessing in the
Christian life depends upon a spiritual use of
the spiritual gift entrusted to a man.
And God's blessing comes on an individual who
so exercises his spiritual gift.
But the Apostle is emphasizing in this context
that this gift must be exercised in love.
If God gives a man the gift of
giving, it must be exercised in love.
If God gives a man a gift of
dealing with other men who have been overcome
by spiritual weakness or sin, that spiritual oversight
must be exercised in love.
If God gives a man a gift of
ministering the word, the word must be ministered
in love.
That is why right in the middle of
teaching spiritual gifts, the Apostle Paul in 1
Corinthians 13, the first reminds us that though
we have the tongue and the gift of
speaking as angels speak and have not love,
we have become a sounding brass and tinkling
cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, though
I have all faith so that I could
remove mountains and have not love, I am
nothing.
Though I bestow all my goods to feed
the poor, though I give my body to
be burned and have not love, it profiteth
me nothing.
And the Apostle in those first three verses
of 1 Corinthians 13 is moving in the
same areas that Peter moves in 1 Peter
4, verses 7 to 9.
Though we minister the word, though we minister
to material needs, though we minister to the
spiritual needs of men, yet do not have
love in that ministry, and though we are
not energized by love for the Lord and
the brethren in that ministry, it will be
a profitless ministry.
The Apostle Paul testified concerning his life and
second Corinthians 5 verse 14, that it was
the love of Christ that constrained him.
Verse 9 was irresistible for us, and if
you were to ask the Apostle Paul why
he was willing to suffer so much at
the hands of Jews and Gentiles, why he
was so faithful over long periods of his
life to minister the gospel, it was because
the love of Christ carried him along the
same way a boat is carried along that
drifts in the stream.
And the Apostle Peter wants to drive this
fact home that one who believes that the
end is at hand and that the Lord's
coming to deliver us into his presence out
of this wicked world is at hand.
That one will be characterized by a serious
-mindedness in his life.
He will be characterized by a prayerfulness in
his life.
He will be characterized by a love for
Christ and a consequent love for the brethren
in his life.
May I remind you, beloved of God, that
God has provided but one basis of fellowship
for believers.
That one basis of fellowship is not the
church.
It is not because we are members of
the same local assembly of believers that we
enjoy fellowship one with another.
It is not because of our background that
we have left the same organization or church
and have come together here that binds believers
together in fellowship.
It is not economic status that binds together,
but because we are of the same social
or economic status, we have fellowship one with
another.
It is not the education that provides basis
for this blessing of fellowship of believer with
believer.
These are often made a superficial basis of
fellowship, but that's not biblical fellowship.
Biblical fellowship is provided for on the basis
of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
There is no other basis for fellowship.
When we make organizations a basis or attempt
to fellowship, when we make personalities a basis
or attempt to fellowship, when we make economic
status or background or privilege or anything else
a basis of fellowship, we are excluding the
only basis of fellowship which the word of
God is.
That is, may I repeat, the person and
work of Jesus Christ.
And whenever division comes in a fellowship of
believers, it comes because something other than the
person and work of Christ is placed as
the basis of fellowship.
If we turn our eyes from the Lord
Jesus Christ, turn our eyes from the word
of God and from the truth of Jesus
Christ as it is presented in the word,
and look to any other tie to bind
us, that tie will break in mass.
But only when we are bound together in
the Lord Jesus Christ can there be a
true fellowship of believers that satisfies the requirements
of Peter when he says, have fervent love
among yourselves.
May I exhort you to look to the
Lord Jesus Christ, to center your eyes upon
him, to focus your affection upon him, for
when you love him with a pure heart
fervently, you will love his appearance, and you
will be watchful unto prayer, and you will
love the brethren, even the weakest and orneriest
and most unlovable.
Wouldn't it be a tragedy to have the
Lord Jesus come and take up two believers
who are trying to settle an argument on
their way into glory?
Instead of manifesting that which Peter commanded, a
fervent love among yourselves.
Our Father, may the Spirit of God bring
the truth of this passage home to our
hearts, so that we realize that the Lord
Jesus Christ has been put in a place
of preeminence in order that he might bind
us with self, that in him we might
enjoy fellowship one to another.
We pray that the love of God for
us might so permeate us that we will
have love, one for another, that will strengthen
us in our suffering, that will cover the
weaknesses and failings that we discover in our
brethren, that will give us a serious-mindedness
that we might live our lives in the
light of the truth of the Lord's coming.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.