Good evening.
First Peter chapter four this evening.
It's good to see everyone out this evening.
We've got a few stragglers coming in.
Oh, I meant Michael.
I meant Michael, not Philip.
I believe it.
All right, First Peter chapter four.
We'll begin with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our study.
Gracious Father in heaven, we come before your throne grateful for this day that you've blessed us with, for the mercies that you shower upon us.
We're grateful for the provision that you give to this world that we live in, the universe around us.
And we are grateful that you uphold all things by the word of your power.
Lord, we...
consider the life that we have, we consider the world and the nation that we live in, and we are grateful for the bountiful opportunities that exist everywhere around us.
We're grateful for your blessings that we see each and every day, and we're mindful of those who are not as blessed in physical means, but we are also mindful of uh the need for
our own hearts and our own minds to consider the spiritual
blessings that exist around us and pray that we might always be conscious of those things.
Lord, we ask that you forgive us when we sin and fall short of your glory.
We pray that you be with good works that are going on throughout the congregations in the area this week and the gospel meetings and events going on.
We pray that they will be beneficial and prosper.
We also pray for the evangelism work that is going on here, for the names of the individuals that each of us have on our bookmarks.
and we pray that we might be conscious and mindful of those names, that we might be praying for them, and we encourage uh and exhort that we might be able to have open doors
and opportunities to reach the lost.
May we always be ready to speak, ready to present a reason of the hope that is within us.
And Lord, we are grateful for this book that we have here, as we know as First Peter.
We are grateful for the lessons that it teaches us and we pray we might be mindful of these things and apply them to our daily lives.
All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name, amen.
Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should
live
the rest of his lifetime in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
For we have spent enough of our past lifetime doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness, lust, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable
idolatries.
In regards to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation.
speaking evil of you.
They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit.
But the end of all things is at hand.
Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers."
and above all have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins." As Peter shifts into this next area of his discussion, he opens it by saying, but the end
of all things is at hand.
Well, if the words at hand mean soon to occur or right nearby or approaching soon, for instance, let's examine, John the Baptist said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Jesus preached the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
The disciples, while Jesus was on the earth, preached, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Was it 3,000 years later when the kingdom arrived?
No.
At the end of Jesus' lifetime, around 33 AD, within just a few short years of that beginning to be preached, the kingdom had arrived in the form of the church in Acts
chapter 2.
on the day of Pentecost.
So when the kingdom was presented as being at hand, it was just a very short period of time until at hand became here.
Huh.
So should we assume that Peter was under the impression that in just a few short years, the world, the universe, and everything in it was coming to an end in just a few years
from the time he wrote this?
is that the only possible interpretation of his statement.
Maybe we should ask it that way.
All right, assumptions are a bad idea.
All right.
Okay?
Okay, there were, we do know there were some that Paul encountered, because he writes to the church at Thessalonica, and he had told them about the return of Christ, and then by
the time you get to 2 Thessalonians, he writes to them and tells them, you have people who are a part of your congregation who have quit their jobs, who are sitting around doing
nothing, waiting for Christ to return.
He says, that's not what I taught you.
And if a man will not work, neither should he eat.
So he says, you've got people who are making an excuse saying, I don't need to work, but by the way, they were telling the church, you need to support me while I wait for Christ
to come back.
But Paul said, that's not what you were taught.
He said, there are departures, there are other things that have to occur before Christ is going to return.
So from the teaching of the apostles, from the teaching of Paul, Peter, and others,
They didn't expect Christ's return to be imminent within just a few years, but they were saying you ought to be ready for it because there is no indicator of Christ's return.
But this statement doesn't say we don't know when, be ready, it says at hand.
So as we break down a statement, first of all, do we only have the time?
reference in the statement at hand or do we have the time reference and something else?
You just think about it from a grammatical, huh?
Okay?
When someone says all things,
Does that necessarily demand, because of the use of those two words, that he means all things that exist in all the physical universe?
Let's evaluate it this way.
Parent walks into a child's bedroom and says, I want all of the things put away.
As they walk into the bedroom, does it potentially negate the garage things?
If they're saying to the person in the bedroom whose bedroom it is, I want all the things put away.
Are they telling them go to the garage immediately and go clean the garage or are they telling them clean the room?
Clean the room.
Whenever we use the term all in language, we must give a context to the scope of all, right?
because we don't mean universal affirmative everything that exists every time we use the word all, do we?
Like, hey, I got all my work done today.
Doubtful that any of us got our to-do list all the way from needing to be done to nothing left to do today, but I got all the things that I intended to do done today, right?
So anytime we're dealing with language, you've got two things you need to understand.
Number one, the scope and the time reference.
That hand indicates, doesn't demand, but it indicates that whatever he's talking about is very close by.
But all things is a contextual statement.
So we need to get an idea what context is Peter discussing all things coming to an end and that being at hand.
Okay?
As you examine a statement like this, the reason why this is important is someone will come along and they'll say, Peter said that all things were at hand.
He wrote that in the 80s, 60s.
And we know that Peter anticipated the end of all things, including the return of Christ, therefore,
That is why I believe that Jesus Christ returned in AD 70 and the world ended in AD 70.
And there are people who believe that, who claim to be members of the Church of Christ, who believe in the AD 70 theory, they believe Jesus returned in AD 70.
And part of the passages they'll go to is this one saying, all things were coming to an end and it was at hand.
Now wait a minute.
Just because he says all things, does he mean all things, the universe, all things that exist?
Is that what we're talking about?
Are we talking about something else?
Notice the passage itself.
He says, but the end of all things is at hand.
Therefore be serious and watchful in your what?
Prayers.
He's writing to a group of people who he has told, you're going to suffer, you're going to suffer, you're going to suffer, you're going to suffer, you're going
Chapter one, you're gonna suffer.
Chapter two, you're gonna suffer.
Chapter three, you're gonna suffer.
All throughout, Jesus is your example of suffering, Jesus is your example of suffering, Jesus is your example of suffering, and chapter four, opens up to tell them, you're going
to suffer.
But Jesus is your example of suffering.
Is it possible that the all things that are going to come to an end is him indicating that the suffering, the context in which he's disgusted, the suffering that they're going to go
through isn't going to be forever, but there will be an end to these things?
There's an option, okay?
One thing that's important is you're studying a context is you may not know
the right answer.
But you don't have to accept all of the wrong answers just because you don't have a good answer.
You may have one good answer and another good answer and another good answer, but you can discard the bad answers.
You say, you know what, if it's that interpretation, I could live with that.
Because it matches the context, it doesn't disagree with anything else.
This one, well, that one.
I don't know that the argument for that's nearly as strong, but it doesn't disagree with the rest of Scripture and it's an adequate answer to what the passage means.
But then you get this one over here, like, Jesus Christ returned in AD 70 and all things ended then, and that's a really bad answer.
So we can discard that one because it disagrees with a ton of other passages in Scripture.
The point of this as we study is you look for what's option one, how can I understand it?
How do I make sure I don't destroy the language to come to a conclusion?
But then what maybe is option two?
What's option three?
What are the things that I don't know that I would have to know to demand that everyone believes it the way I do?
And in this case, it is a rather vague statement that relies on a context.
Here's another context.
Which group of people by way of nationality was Peter writing to?
He was writing to Christians, but was it Jews or Gentiles?
Choose.
A number of times throughout 1 Peter, you have a number of references where Peter approaches and discusses things from a very Jewish perspective.
Well, uh if Peter's writing this in the 80s, 60s, what is about to end?
And that end is at hand.
just a few short years ahead.
Judaism and Jerusalem and temple worship and their national religion was about to end.
All the historical things that were part of a Jew's life were about to come to a very abrupt halt.
So, my personal opinion in the context is he's talking about the fall of Jerusalem.
He's talking about the same thing Jesus prophesied about in Matthew chapter 24.
He's talking about the end of the nation because they uh had a dual heritage.
They were Christians, but they were Jews.
And as a result of their Jewish background, they were suffering.
and in view of their Jewish background they were suffering as a result of their own brethren persecuting them.
Their own nation was persecuting them and their suffering is going to occur.
They're going to be accused and yet Peter saying
The end of that cause for the suffering that is the Jews, it's coming to an end.
All these things are going to be dealt with, but in order to get there, in order for you to go through the suffering, you need what?
Seriousness, watchfulness, and prayer.
Yes.
Would they have understood it immediately after he prophesied it?
No, but there's enough indicators from enough of the different writers that they had gotten clarity from the Holy Spirit of what was coming.
They understood that Jerusalem and the Israelite nation was coming to an end, which is part of what Jesus prophesied, because Jesus gave them specific signs.
He said, when you see these things happen, you get out,
and you leave.
You get out of Jerusalem.
And so as a result of those signs, as all of those things, you you think about dominoes, as the dominoes start falling on the list of signs that Jesus gave, you would have had
Christians going, yep, that one, that one, that one, that one, to where you get down to AD 68, AD 69, and the Roman troops show up.
and all of the dominoes have now fallen.
So the moment that those troops go away for a period of time to go deal with a revolt in Rome, all the Christians left Jerusalem because they knew what Jesus had prophesied.
And the moment that opportunity came to get out, they were gone.
Correct.
So you've got a number of these details that are all important.
Now again, I'm saying here's an option.
It could be, he's talking about the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the Old Testament Jewish system and the national Jewish system of which they were all apart as Jews.
He may be talking about the end of their suffering.
that he's told them over and over and over they're gonna go through saying, hey, there is an end to this, but the only way you get to the end of it, watchfulness, prayer, and being
concerned and focused on these matters.
But he says, above all things, have fervent love for one another.
For love will cover a multitude of sins.
As Peter,
readjusts their thinking about all the things he's telling them.
He's telling them this is going to be hard, this is going to be difficult, this is going to be painful, this is going to involve a lot of sacrifice, but as you consider that, he
says, be watchful, pray, and live out love toward one another.
the strength of their bonds to one another, was their resiliency to overcome whatever he's discussing.
Their willingness to demonstrate their love for one another was going to allow them to overcome not only this thing that he's describing, but also
overcome sin inside the body of Christ.
He says love covers a multitude of sins.
What does he mean by that?
If you love somebody, you never tell them they're wrong, you let them just continue in sin because love covers it, right?
How does love cover sin?
Alright, so if you love someone and then you're going to have willingness to forgive them and you're not going to constantly bring all of those things back up, what else?
Say again?
Thought I heard somebody say
Turn back to Proverbs chapter 10 because this comes from Proverbs chapter 10 verse 12 and it is an uh antithesis statement.
Here's one side, here's the opposite as a lot of the Proverbs are.
Proverbs chapter 10 verse 12.
Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins.
Here's the contrast to, he says, love covers a multitude of sins.
The contrast to that is hatred stirs up strife.
Now, put this together with that idea that we have just been discussing about the fall of the Jewish nation.
If the end of all things was at hand and that referred to the fall of the Jewish nation, what was going to be the situation of the Jews around them who weren't Christians?
could be hatred, but up until this point during this time they're being persecuted, they're receiving the hatred, right?
The Christians are on the blunt end of the hatred.
But when Jerusalem falls, what happens to a nation when its capital city falls?
Shock, distraught, I mean, imagine we woke up tomorrow, you open the news, you open the email, you open a website, and the only thing you see everywhere you look, nuclear bomb
explodes in Washington, D.C.
What happens?
Everything changed.
I you think back to just the situation that we all have having lived through 9-11, and how every single one us remembers where we were.
We know what we were doing.
We know every, you know, moment by moment what was going on that day.
And that was two towers, 3,000 people in one city.
Imagine.
uh army walking in to the most sacred city a nation has, rolling over it, besieging it, decimating it, destroying it, disassembling your religious site, stone by stone, melting
the gold out of it, and leaving nothing but rubble behind.
You think there's going to be some Jews that are a little distraught and a little unknowing of what in the world they're supposed to do now?
Now what if the Christians who those Jews had been persecuting?
You remember when Paul went into a Gentile city?
Was it the Gentiles that would persecute him or the Jews?
Was it the Gentiles who would stir up the government against him or the Jews?
What if the Jews who were Christians had allowed that to build up hatred towards their own brethren because of the pain,
and the persecution that had been brought upon them over and over and over again by their own nation.
And yet then the city of Jerusalem falls, but because they've allowed that to build up hatred, they won't reach out to them with the gospel.
because they hate them for all the persecution.
Consider if the viewpoint is the fall of Jerusalem, that the love one another isn't necessarily love your fellow Christian, it's love those who are about to go through this
enough to still provide them forgiveness.
Who did the sinning?
That's one way to think about this.
If this is just, you know what, Brother Fred, uh he's always done me wrong.
We're members of the same congregation, but every time I go do business with Brother Fred, the price has changed every other minute.
Is that what Peter's talking about?
Or is Peter in this whole discussion always been talking about the persecution from the outside?
the sins coming against them from the outside.
Didn't he just describe, notice, in regards to these, verse 4, they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.
They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
Peter has just said, you're gonna have persecutors, you're gonna have those who accuse you of evil because you do good, you're gonna have those who lie about the good that you do
and accuse you of evil, and the Lord is going to judge them.
He then immediately follows that with, for this reason the gospel was preached.
God might judge them,
but the gospel wants to save them.
Now he says the end of all things is at hand, but you better have love in your hearts to forgive.
So who are the ones that need to be forgiven?
The ones who are lying about them, mistreating them, accusing them falsely, calling them evil when everything they did was good.
You see how the context helps us shape
our view of the statement?
When we just bother to back up and go, wait a minute, who's he been talking about?
Who is the one another in this statement?
Who's been committing the sins?
It's those who've been lying about the Christians.
It's those who have been persecuting the Christians.
It's those who have been doing wrong to the Christians.
Well, who are those?
They were usually the Gentile powers
stirred up by the Jewish antagonizers.
And therefore when the Jews now go, I thought we were going to worship in the temple forever.
I thought the Messiah was coming back and that the thousand year reign of the Messiah was...
I thought that we were going to reconstitute the Kingdom of Israel back in Jerusalem on the Mount, on David's throne.
I thought God made all these promises.
And they say that to a Christian who says, let me tell you about the promises that you've completely misunderstood.
But instead the Christian says, got what you deserved.
You see, Peter is helping them to remember that they are still brethren with those who persecute them.
And they're not just brethren because they're both Jews, they're brethren because they're both humans.
They are the offspring
of humanity and no matter who does you wrong or what nation they're from or what background they're from or what injury they cause you.
When suffering comes to them, not only do we as Christians need to be there ready to forgive, but we need to be there ready to provide them the salvation that the door of
opportunity of their suffering has now opened up.
Peter is helping these Christians realize that there's an opportunity coming.
And the opportunity is going to be to reach their own nation with the gospel, a nation that had wholly rejected Christ, but was about to see their entire religious structure
gone.
He says, be hospitable to one another without grumbling.
As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
Peter's already told them that Christ suffered in the flesh.
He's already told them that because Christ suffered in the flesh, we need to be about not fulfilling the lusts of men, but doing the will of God.
And as you consider that, as you think about what Peter's writing to them, he's telling them, you've received these things.
How are you going to use them?
You know, if the context here likely has to do with the miraculous gifts, the gifts of the Holy Spirit that they had in the first century by the laying on of the apostles' hands, as
he considers this, he says, you've received these things from God.
What are you going to do with them?
How are you going to use what God put in your hands to benefit those who are in need?
Are you gonna ignore it?
Are you gonna ignore the need?
Are you going to ignore their state?
Or are you going to show them hospitality?
Are you going to use these gifts?
Are you going to minister?
That is the word there is to serve.
Are you going to serve?
one another as good stewards.
God put something in your hand, and it doesn't matter what context we're talking about.
If we're talking about the miraculous gifts, or God's talking about $1,000, or $100,000, or a million dollars, or a billion dollars, God put something in your hands.
It may be a plot of land, it may be a tool, it may be a resource, if God put something in your hands, you're now a steward.
And, he's going to hold you accountable for what you do with it.
So Peter saying, you've received a gift, what are you going to do with it?
How are you going to give an account to the master who put that thing in your hands and say, here's what I did with it?
Go back in your minds to the parable that Jesus gives concerning the man who gives the talents to his servants.
And to one, he gives 10 talents.
And to another, he gives five talents.
Now bear in mind, a talent is a what?
All right, it's a unit of measure.
It's not a skill, the way we use the word talent today.
It's a unit of measure, all right?
So if you had a talent of gold, you had a measurement of gold.
If you had a talent of silver, you had that measurement of silver, all right?
So to one, he gives 10 talents.
To another, he gives five talents.
To another, he gives one talent.
He goes away.
He comes back.
He brings the...
stewards before him, says, what have you accomplished while I was gone?
And the man with 10 talents comes back and says, I have 10 more talents.
He's managed to take the money that he was given at the outset, the asset that he was given at the outset, and double it.
So he returns back to his master, not 10, but 20.
The master then says, make him ruler.
Over more, why?
Faithful steward.
The one with five returns five.
Now he's got ten.
Give him more.
Faithful steward.
mean, don't sell your success.
Don't back out of that trade.
Hey, this is working.
Do more of it.
The guy with one talent comes to the master and says, um I was afraid.
know what kind of harsh master you are, that you reap where you didn't sow.
And because of my fear, I went, I dug a hole in the ground, here, here's your one talent back.
You didn't lose anything, Master!
except what does the master say?
wicked and slothful servant.
You could have at least done what?
handed it over to the money changers and got an interest.
The least you could have done was get interest on it.
You didn't do anything with it because you're lazy and because you're wicked.
And who does he give the one talent to?
The 10 Talent Man.
And Jesus' statement, to whom much is given, much will be required, and to him who doesn't have, even that which he has will be taken away.
Somebody says, you know what?
I want to be someone who God trusts with more opportunities.
then what are you doing with the ones you've already got?
How are you being a steward of the gifts that are already in your hands?
Can you provide to God a reconciliation of whether or not you're already being a good steward?
Because if you can't be a good steward of what you already have, why would anybody give anything else to you?
Peter says, as each one has received a gift, minister it to one another.
as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." Word manifold, what does it mean?
The word in the Greek means many-sided.
The manifold, the many-sided grace of God.
It's all encompassing.
It's surrounding, that's where the shield idea comes from.
It's all around something.
As you look at what Peter has said, he said, persecution's coming.
You can go through it.
The end is at hand.
and the many-sided grace of God has already prepared to help you through this.
Their obligation was be serious and be watchful and pray and be good stewards with the gifts they've already been given.
Peter saying, but God's already taken care of his part.
God's grace is already there for you.
God's grace has already been given to you.
You're already able to uh have access because you are a steward of that grace.
Now watch this, do not miss this as we close.
He says, as each of you has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of.
the many-sided grace of God.
One of the things that we often do not think about, we often think of grace and we think grace is what God gives us.
But that's not what this passage is talking about.
This passage is saying that God gives His grace to others through us.
So now put that frame back on of the context.
Here are these persecutors.
They're harming you.
They're causing you to suffer.
They're hurting you.
They're lying about you.
They're doing everything they can to destroy you, and now they're suffering.
and you can either respond with hatred in return, that's Proverbs 10, or you can cause love to cover a multitude of sins.
You can be hospitable, you can extend the gifts of God to them, and through your stewardship of His grace, His grace can be extended to them.
All right?
So, he says, if anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.
If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies.
That in all things God may be glorified through Christ Jesus to whom belong glory and the dominion forever and ever.
Amen.
Peter says if you're going to do this, if you're going to open your mouth to speak to those persecutors, let the Word of God come out.
If you're going to serve, let the ministry of God come out.
If you're going to take action, let the grace of God come out.
Why?
So that God is glorified in your life when you deal with those who hate you most.
All right, thank you for your attention.