1 Peter 1

1 Peter 1:1-2

THE LIVING HOPE 1 Peter 1:1 to 1 Peter 2:10. IN beginning an exposition of the First Epistle of Peter it hardly seems necessary to dwell upon the controversies which have been created by modern critics, namely, those relating to the age, authenticity and authorship of this Epistle. It is old enough for Polycarp to have quoted from it; and he, you will remember, sat at the feet of John. It was accepted also as authentic by Eusebius, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian and others. It is found in the best ancient manuscript, and it has never seemed a matter of serious concern that the fragment of the canon called Muratori’s should have omitted it.The style of this Epistle is not Pauline as some have contended, but Petrine instead. It gushes with the impetuous utterances of the bold fisherman, and glows with the warmth of his enthusiasm; and particularly is it characterized by his method of making lengthy sentences. The evidence is in favor of assigning it to Simon, the son of Jonas, or Peter, whose conversion changed the vacillating soul into one of granitic stability.It has been claimed that you could construct a biography of Peter from this First Epistle.

Christ had called him “a stone”. He in turn speaks of his fellow-saints as “lively stones” (1 Peter 2:5).Christ had reproved him for drawing his sword and striking the high priest’s servant; and he reminds his readers, “If, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God” (1 Peter 2:20).To the little maid’s question he had answered with confusion and denial, and in the memory of it, he urges upon his brethren, “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).Suddenly overtaken by temptation himself, he urges, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you” (1 Peter 4:12).Being commanded to feed the sheep, he says, “The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, Feed the flock of God” (1 Peter 5:1-2).Having once been a man of boasting, only to be humbled by his own conduct, he urges upon his brethren, “Be clothed with humility” (1 Peter 5:5).And having been the subject of Satan’s successful attacks, he pleads, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). And so on.This all sounds far more like the Apostle Peter than any other; and we propose to discuss these Letters as from his hand.Looking into that portion selected for consideration to-day, see firstTHE LIVING HOPE His salutation has occupied the first and second verses. Beginning with the third verse he says:“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, “To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you, “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: “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 honour and glory at the Appearing of Jesus Christ: “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: “Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. “Of which salvation the Prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: “Searching what, or 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. “Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven; which things the angels desire to look into” (1 Peter 1:3-12). Some things are clearly set forth in these ten verses.This “living hope” is begotten in us by the mercy of God.“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”. Peter is a man who knows how to magnify the mercy of God; and how that mercy relates itself to the resurrection. It was the mercy of God that forgave him his sin and saved him; it was the mercy of God that pardoned his apostasy, reproved and restored him; and it was the mercy of God that took a despairing heart and energized it with a “lively hope”, born of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It may seem a marvelous thing that the men who crucified Jesus should have had His mercy preached to them, and been privileged salvation by the same. No less a marvel is it that the man who was brought to Jesus by his own brother, received by Jesus as a pupil, appointed to the office of Apostle, privileged three years and a half at His feet, taken into the little inner circle of the three intimates, who had leaned on His bosom, yet when His hour of trial came, turned against Him, and denied Him with cursing and swearing—that he should have known the mercy of God, what marvel!It is no wonder he associates it with the resurrection, for though penitence immediately fell upon his spirit, his faith never revived till he had heard from the risen Lord a special message sent to him immediately after the resurrection, involved in the phrase, “Go * * tell His disciples and Peter”. The very words addressed to him, “Lovest thou Me”?—“Feed My sheep”; the special privilege of communion accorded him with the Risen One, these are all such manifestations of mercy as to make a profound impression, and have the most salutary effect upon character.Louis Albert Banks tells the story of how Oliver Martin, a dissipated fellow, living his wretched life in California, stumbled one day, in his wanderings, upon that great gold nugget too large for a single man to carry. Going into camp he persuaded a man to go with him and help carry it.

When they had brought in the chunk of gold weighing eighty pounds, and the testing had proven it genuine, the drunken fellow fell on his face, and in penitence confessed his sins, saying, “Such a finding as this is truly of the grace of God.” From that hour he never touched intoxicants again.But greater wealth did Peter discover in the forgiveness and favor of God. What marvel that he should praise “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope” and put the same mercy upon all them that trusted in Him?This living hope involves for us a blessed inheritance.“To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you, “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: “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 honour and glory at the Appearing of Jesus Christ: “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:4-8). Let it be remembered that an inheritance is something that comes to us without merit. There is a perfect harmony between the mercy of God and the believer’s inheritance. As Dr. Guthrie once said, “The reward of toil and skill, they are earned by the hands that receive them; but the saints hold Heaven not by purchase, nor by conquest, nor by service, but by inheritance. Won by another arm than theirs passed out by a hand that has no obligation; bestowed upon those who presented no claims.Dr. John A.

Broadus in class, commenting on this Epistle, used to show how different from human inheritance it is.“How often,” he said, “have I seen a rich estate corrupted, defiled, and faded away through the follies and sins of the heir or heirs! How often have I seen the heir, for whom the gold was waiting, fade under the hand of sickness and fall away! Neither of these things can come to pass concerning the Christian’s inheritance. It is incorruptible, undefiled, fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for him. The same power that reserved it for him, preserves him for it, for he is guarded by the power of God through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”No wonder the Apostle, in anticipation of the riches that should be his through all eternity, says,“Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: “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 honour and glory at the Appearing of Jesus Christ: “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory”. Years ago I clipped from the morning paper a statement about Patrick Kern, a window-washer of Philadelphia, whose uncle had just died in the county of Galway, Ireland. This nineteen-year-old lad was scrubbing hard at the plate-glass window in the Broad Street entrance of the hotel when a lawyer walked up to him and said, “Are you Patrick Kern?” “I am that,” answered the boy. “I bring you news that your uncle has died in the old country, and left you $100,000.” The Press said Patrick was excusable for spilling his pail of water as he scrambled down the ladder, saying, “Uncle always seemed to like me. I thought it was because I was named for him.” Sudden change—to pass from window-washer to man of commanding wealth! but, after all, a poor inheritance as compared with that of the humblest believer.This living hope effects, in our behalf, a full salvation.“Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. “Of which salvation the Prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: “Searching what, ‘or 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. “Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven; which things the angels desire to look into” (1 Peter 1:9-12). If you go back to the introduction of this Epistle you will find that Peter addressed it “to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”. There has long been a controversy as to who were meant by “the elect”: whether it involved only the Jews that were now scattered abroad, or was addressed to all those in these provinces who were subjects of the Divine grace?If it were addressed primarily to the descendants of Abraham, let it be understood that every subject of God’s mercy is equally proffered this full salvation. They tell us that in India the question of drinking water is seriously complicated by the castes. The high-caste Hindu believes that the touch of the low-caste weaver is defiling. He cannot, therefore, receive water from the hands of the latter, drink from his well, or permit him to drink at the well of the Hindu. The result is that many an East-Indian suffers thirst in the very sight of the refreshing liquid, debarred from it by this senseless prejudice.

The wells of salvation, of which Peter here speaks, are open to all who thirst. “The sufferings of Christ” is only another phrase to describe the fountains of salvation, and if the Prophets who spake of them could not understand their depths, nor realize their power to cleanse, they, at least, had the unspeakable privilege of announcing what the Apostles of the Gospel more fully published under the guidance of the Holy Spirit sent forth from Heaven. Truly does this salvation involve things into which angels desire to look.“Salvation! O the joyful sound! ’Tis pleasure to our ears, A sovereign balm for every wound, A cordial for our fears.” But the Apostle passes from this to discuss:A In 1 Peter 1:13-25 this holiness is made the subject of appeal, counsel and a call to conduct.The Divine character calls to its practice. “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind; he sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; “As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: “But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; “Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy”. There is nothing unnatural in that call, “But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy”.A good man would hardly expect to dwell for years with a chosen companion, and yet exhibit a conduct at variance with the character of his friend. Aside from the incompatibility of such conduct it would show that comradeship in no wise influenced character, and we know that in human experience such is not the case. We are influenced by those with whom we fellowship.It is said that Alexander the Great always kept a copy of Homer under his pillow; and that Caesar, by merely looking upon the statue of Alexander, was fired with an unbounded ambition. It is claimed also that Sir William Jones could infuse a literary spirit into the agents of a grasping commercial company. One of the counsels of Seneca, to a friend, was this, “Imagine yourself always as in the presence of Socrates, Plato, or some distinguished worthy, and it will help you to reform your life.” The Apostle Paul seems to have been thinking along this very line when he suggested that a contemplation of the Son of God is that which transforms us “into the same image from glory to glory”. And, is not John speaking of the same subject when he declares, “Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure”?

If, at the revelation of Jesus Christ, we are to receive “the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls”. In this, the time when He has gone to receive His Kingdom, we are to gird up the loins of our minds, be sober, and set our hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought. As children of obedience, we are not to fashion ourselves according to the former lusts in the times of our ignorance, but as He is holy, be holy in all manner of living.The cost of our salvation should incite to the same conduct.“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; “But with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, “Who by Him do believe in God, that raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God” (1 Peter 1:18-21). Truly, as Joseph Parker has put it:—“Men in these latter days seem to be afraid to speak the word ‘blood’. ‘A dainty piety has forced upon us a dainty vocabulary’. * * We speak of the ‘life’ of Christ and the ‘love’ of Christ; but we too seldom speak of ‘the precious Blood’ of Christ.” And yet, beloved, with that we are purchased! Peter will have none of your equivalents for the phrase, “The Blood of Jesus”. As Parker puts it, “Even your reverent paraphrase is in danger of becoming profane.” No other word can take the place of “the Blood,” for the life is in the blood, and Christ laid down His life for us. What a call to personal holiness!Every child ought to feel that good behaviour is expected of him; and that society will require it, and has a right to do so. But that boy, that girl, whose father or mother, or both, have made the greatest sacrifices in his or her behalf, has a corresponding obligation to good behavior. But who shall measure the sacrifice of the Son of God in behalf of our souls?

We are bought, not only with “blood,” but with “precious Blood”. Aye, by the blood of One who was without spot, or blemish,— even Jesus Christ. With the Blood of the very God, for He was before the foundation of the world. With the Blood of the Son of God—for He “raised Him up from the dead”. Truly, to realize “that becomes the regulative power of our whole life.”Beddome was probably thinking upon the price with which he had been purchased when he wrote:“O Lord, if in the Book of Life My worthless name shall stand, In fairest characters inscribed By Thine unerring hand,— “Then I to Thee in sweetest strains, Will grateful anthems raise; But life’s too short, my powers too weak, To utter half Thy praise. “Had I ten thousand thousand tongues, Not one should silent be; Had I ten thousand thousand hearts, I’d give them all to Thee.” The revelation of this holiness is with human conduct.“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the Truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of mm as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: “But the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you” (1 Peter 1:22-25). Professions are no proof; demonstrations are desirable, and even demanded of God. By “love of the brethren”, by incorruptible conduct, by the consciousness of our own frailty, and by the grace of the “good tidings” which have been preached to us, we are to conform life to the holy precepts of His Word.I am speaking of victory over conscious sin, and a close walk with God. There are few better examples of holiness, revealed in human conduct, than that recorded in the history of Abraham. He was not perfect. The Bible lays bare his errors, deceptions, falsehoods; but after all, he was a holy man. Dr.

Guthrie once said, “Each important transaction of his life was entered upon by a holy spirit, and hallowed by religious exercise. His tent was a moving temple; his household was a pilgrim church. Wherever he rested, whether by the venerable oak of Mamre, or on the olive-slopes of Hebron, or on the lofty forest-crowned ridge of Bethel, an altar arose; and his prayers went up with its smoke to Heaven. Such daily, intimate and loving communion did this grand saint maintain with Heaven, that God calls him His ‘friend.’ He lived on terms of fellowship with God, such as had not been seen since the days of Eden. Voices addressed him from the skies; angels paid visits to his tent, and visions of celestial glory hallowed his lowly couch and mingled with his nightly dreams. His life was one of holy devotion and consecrated righteousness.”What was possible to Abraham, is within your reach and mine, by the grace of God; and this appeal to personal holiness to be manifested forth in human conduct is one for our response to which we shall be held accountable.But the Apostle continues.

In the ten verses of the second chapter he presents:THE ROYAL “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby: “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 lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a 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 Sion a Chief Corner Stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded. “Unto you therefore which believe He is precious: but unto them which be 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 offence, even to them which stumble at the Word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: “Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy”. This priesthood is made possible by response to the Spirit. It is in vain to call upon us to put away all wickedness and all guile except we be able to do so: to long for “the sincere milk” which is without guile except we be able to obtain it. Our ability is the result of the work of the Spirit in our hearts. To that work we are to respond. We are to “work out” that which God works “within”.Joseph Parker calls attention to the fact that the word “sincere” here really means “rational”— “The rational milk which is without guile.”These are days in which men are telling us that the Word of God makes unreasonable demands, presents unreasonable propositions, and demands an unreasonable faith. On the contrary, some of us find the Sacred Scriptures “the milk of reason.” And, without desiring to charge any with falsehood, we must confess our conviction that in proportion as men put away wickedness, guile, hypocrisies, envies, evil speaking, the Scriptures become such to them; and having “tasted that the Lord is gracious”; having come to Him—the “Living Stone”, they become “lively stones”, and are built up a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, “to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ”.In the Old Testament economy priests must be born to the priesthood.

The office was not by promotion; but by birth. In the New Testament economy except one sustain the relation to God of being His child through Jesus Christ, he knows nothing of priesthood.

The work of the Spirit is the uniting of the soul with God’s Son, “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood”.I shall never forget how in one of Gordon’s books he employs that marvelous illustration of what he entitles, “Natural Grafting.” He said, “In a part of New England where I spend my summer holidays I have seen a parable of nature. Two little saplings grew up side by side. Through the action of the wind they crossed each other; by and by the bark of each became wounded and the sap began to mingle, until in some still day they became united together. This process went on more and more, and by and by they were firmly compacted. Then the stronger began to absorb the life from the weaker. It grew larger and larger, while the other grew smaller and smaller.

Then it began to wither and decline, till finally it dropped away and disappeared. And now, there are two trunks at the bottom, and only one top.

Death has taken away the one; life has triumphed in the other. There was a time when you and Jesus Christ met. The wounds of your penitent heart began to knit up with the wounds of His broken heart, and you were united to Christ. Where are you now? Are the two lives running parallel, or has the Word been accomplished in you, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease’? Has that old life been growing less and less? Blessed are ye if such is the case. Then you can say, ‘I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20).”Oh, if such a union has been yours, you understand this morning the meaning of the Apostle when he talks about the holy priesthood.

And in the joy and dignity of this union you are become “a chosen generation”, a “royal priesthood”, an “holy nation”, a people for God’s own possession.This priesthood is made glorious by the grace of God. It shows forth the “praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy”. It was the grace of God that took the despised Jew and made him the heir of all things; and it is the same grace that took the “dog of a Gentile” and exalted him to be a child of God, which grace is yours.An author, speaking of this phrase, “A peculiar people”, as it appears in the old version, calls attention to the idea brought out in the new version by the translation, “for God’s own possession”, by saying; “One would say that ‘peculiar’ seems to mean ‘singular’, ‘odd’, ‘eccentric’, ‘whimsical’, ‘fantastic’. That is not the meaning here; the meaning is of something which belongs to Him and not another; it is His own. That is what the Revised Version says: “A people for God’s own possession”. “I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession” (Psalms 2:8).Ah, then we are not our own; we are Christ’s. We belong to Him; and while we may be conscious of the price with which we have been purchased, we may also rejoice in the blessed ownership under which we have come, for being His permits that we should enjoy the bounties of His grace.Guthrie reminds us that “mountains have been exhausted of their gold, mines of their diamonds, and the depths of ocean of their pearly gems.

The demand has emptied the supply. Over once busy scenes, silence and solitude now reign; the caverns ring no longer to the miner’s hammer, nor is the song of the pearl-fisher heard upon the deep.

But the riches of grace are inexhaustible. All that have gone before us have not made them less to those who follow us. When they have supplied the wants of unborn millions, the last of Adam’s race, that lonely man, over whose head the sun is dying, beneath whose feet the earth is reeling, shall stand by as full a fountain as this day invites you to drink and live.”

1 Peter 1:3-5

THE ’S HOPE AN EASTER SERMON 1 Peter 1:3-5. THERE are not a few men among us, who, seriously and with some reason, object to the growing custom of Easter sermons and services. We can hardly blame them when we remember the origin of the name that will figure most largely in the world’s religious round today. Easter is not a term of Biblical birth, nor indeed of Biblical use. It is doubtful if any inspired man ever employed it, much less indorsed it. In the King James Version of the Scriptures we read of Peter’s imprisonment, that Herod intended “after Easter to bring him forth to the people”. But in our Revised Version the word Easter is displaced by its better substitute, “the Passover.”Easter is a word of heathen origin, and came to us from Saxons, whose custom it was to make annual offerings to the goddess Estera, about the same time in the year that the Jews commemorated the Feast of the Passover night.

In the progress of events, the dates were claimed as identical, and the religious services celebrating the death and resurrection of Christ were continued, but the heathen term, rather than the Jewish word, came to be employed as its description.According to Bingham’s Church History, the early Church kept the seventh day of Passion Week, with fasting and prayer. “Religious worship was celebrated by night, and the vigils continued until cock-crowing, the hour at which it was supposed our Lord arose. At this hour the stillness of these midnight vigils was broken by the joyful acclamation, ‘The Lord is risen indeed’.

The day of Easter was celebrated with every demonstration of joy as a second jubilee.” The Lord’s Supper was celebrated; baptisms were administered; charities were dispensed; prisoners were set free and slaves were given their liberty. If a comparison between the then and the now was made, it might prove indeed that though the earlier Christians suffered the heathen name to fasten itself upon this feast, they yet celebrated with more Christ-like service than now engages many who make the most of the sacred hour.Before Dr. Howard Crosby’s death he expressed his sadness at the sight of Christians doing those things that degraded our holy religion to a level with the deeds of the world, and then trying to make reparation for months of worldliness by emphasizing the ideas of Lent, Easter, Good Friday, and other church ornamentations. He sounded for us the needed alarm when of such business he said, “It is the old trick of Satan. The Jewish Church struck on that rock; the Roman Church was wrecked on the same; and the Protestant Church is coming to imminent danger of a kindred doom.”If there was no other reason, then, why I should preach an Easter sermon, I would do it to show that this heathen term can be compelled to honor our Lord, by becoming the occasion to set forth the fundamental faith that “Christ is risen indeed,” and in Christ alone is the believer’s hope.What text could more perfectly express this fact? In this text we discover, first of all,The Ground of the Believer’s Hope.“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”. In searching for a subject and text for this hour and this sermon, I came upon this suggestion given as one Easter theme: “What Christianity Would Be Without the Risen Lord.” I halted over that topic only a moment, because I found myself saying, “Nothing!” Take the fact of Christ’s victory over the grave out of our system of faith, and the bottom is gone from the believer’s hope; and a hopeless religion is dead; yes, worse than dead; it is festering with doom.But this text goes back of the hope itself to its Author, and that Author is God. No wonder Peter said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”, for indeed it was God with whom our salvation from sin originally rested. I have often thought that in our gratitude to the Son, we forget our obligations to the Father; and while we can never magnify the love of Christ too greatly, we can fail to appreciate the sacrifice that God made when, in the gift of Jesus, He laid the basal stone of our eternal hope. For do we not read that:“We were children; were in bondage under the elements of the world: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a Woman, made under the Law, “To redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:3-5). How can we read that; how can we read, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only Begotten Son”, and yet fail to join with Peter in exclaiming, “Blessed be the God and Father”?Before faith can come in fulness to the soul, that soul must understand something of God’s love as expressed in His priceless gift.It is related that years ago, two gentlemen, who had been riding together, came to the point where their roads separated. The one was a joyful Christian, the other a cold and despondent one. The happier believer said to his brother as they were about to part, “Do you ever read your Bible?” “Oh, yes, but I must confess I get little benefit from it because, to be frank, I feel I do not love God.” “Neither did I,” replied his friend, “but when I read it, I find that God loves me.” He then turned his horse and rode away. That sentence was a revelation of the most gracious fact. The despondent man said it seemed to lift him out of his saddle into the skies. It opened up to his soul the great truth that faith depends, not so much upon the measure of the soul’s love for God, as it does upon the Father’s love for His poor, erring child.

After all, it is that fact that we need most to understand. In delivering the farewell words to the graduating class at Morgan Park in 1892, Dr.

Northrup said: “Young men! Seek to know God! If you can understand Him, and your obligation to Him, it will help you to love His Son, and serve your fellows.” How true! Peter was right when, in contemplating the ground of the believer’s hope, he saw it resting in the very nature of God, and seeing that, felt constrained to bless or praise the Infinite Father of our Lord.But our hope seems the more secure when we remember that mercy is the largest element in the Divine life. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope”. I don’t know how great that mercy is. In reading after one who drank deep at its fountains, we hear him singing:“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy Like the wideness of the sea,” and the inspired man of God finds the rolling oceans too small to employ in this comparison, and so he leaves the earth, and surveying the very heavens, stretching away as they do to infinite distance, he says, as he thinks on this attribute of God, “Thy mercy is great above the heavens” (Psalms 108:4), and again, “The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalms 103:1),—infinite in stretch, eternal in duration! How secure are those who make it the ground of hope! All availing pleas are made in mercy’s name, and no plea that cries for that manifestation of God shall go unheard. The Publican prevailed because he pled for mercy. Such a prayer makes the vilest of sinners into the noblest of saints. Someone has correctly said, “We are shocked when men talk of dealing with God on the basis of personal merit.

To so speak is to manifest either ignorance or self-deception.It is related that when Napoleon was first Consul of France, a well-dressed girl of about fourteen summers, made her way into his presence. Falling at his feet she cried between great sobs, “Pardon, Sire! Pardon for my father!’ “And who is your father,” asked Napoleon, “and who are you?” “My name is Lajolia,” she said, and with tears added, “but Sire, my father is doomed to die.” “Ah, young lady,” replied Napoleon, “I can do nothing for you; it is the second time your father has been found guilty of treason against the state.” “Alas I” exclaimed the poor girl, “I know it, Sire; but I do not ask for justice; I implore mercy. I beseech you, forgive, ah, forgive my father!” Napoleon was a man of heart. His lips trembled; his eyes caught the misty light in hers and grew moist; he struggled a moment between duty to state and mercy toward the child, and then taking her hand tenderly he said, “For your sake I will pardon your father.” Ah, it was Christ that asked mercy for us, but it was God who showed it when we were saved, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy”.In what way could the great God ever have manifested His mercy and love than by lifting up Christ from the grave?When Paul was writing that wonderful fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians, in which he draws the sting of death and robs the grave of her supposed victory, he gives us what might seem a commentary on our text:“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His Coming” (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). It is that thought that emboldens the Apostle to enter the very haunts of our enemy and inquire of him, “O death, where is thy sting”? to enter the shades of the deep, to defy its chill with the question, “O grave, where is thy victory”? Paul had no fear of either. The first he looked upon as his transporting angel; the other as the darkly curtained toilet room in which he would dress to enter Heaven.Arthur Garrison was right when he objected to the custom of speaking of the Christian’s departure as having been hastened by the “dread and awful monster.” Truly, as he said, if on the graves of our loved ones we must write, “All is at an end,” then death is dark and monstrous. But if we are enabled by the mercy of God and the power of His Son, to carve on the monuments, “He is risen”, then the dark angel is dark no more, but is resplendent with the glory and light of immortality. Death, for the Christian, is a translation from earth to Heaven, from darkness to light. It is passing from the fleeting pleasures of time to the endless and certain bliss of eternity; it is a journey from a foreign land back to the Fatherland. The fact is as Whittier said,“Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through the cypress trees.” Those stars; aye, that star, the “Star of Bethlehem”, is the living and the dying hope of them that believe; for, “How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things”? (Romans 8:32).But let us see what we shall have beside the victory over death and the grave. Our text sets forth in the second place:The Character of the Christian’s Inheritance. It is “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time”, I am glad our coming possessions are so perfectly described.“Incorruptible!” One of the difficulties about all worldly possessions is the fact that they are easily corrupted. Jesus warned His followers against laying up treasures in the earth, “where moth and rust doth corrupt”; but encouraged them to lay up treasures in Heaven, “where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt”. We wonder how it all can be! We stop before that verse in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians, wherein the Apostle speaks of the believer’s resurrection, and says, “So also is the resurrection of the dead.

It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory”: and we ask, How can it be? Perhaps the whole answer is not given in this life.

But some things we know; some things we can understand. Paul, in Romans, speaks of “the glory of the incorruptible God”, and we wonder how glory will come to us. By natural law in the spiritual world, perhaps!When the tendrils of faith take hold on the everlasting God, why should not that man begin to draw some life from Him who is Divine, and as he feeds on Him, become himself transformed.We cannot lift ourselves up to the rose, but “the Rose of Sharon” comes to us, and we are lifted up.“Undefiled”! The Christian has, as one distinguishing trait, a longing for Christlikeness. John exulted in the thought that, “when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).It is doubtful if any phase of the Christian life was so attractive to John as its sinlessness. It was to be “undefiled”.

Lorimer likens Christ’s life to the Gulf Stream. “As the Gulf Stream passes immediately from its home into the waters of the stormful Atlantic, and, while flowing through them, never mingles with them, but preserves its own course, its own density and color, compressed, inclosed, yet never penetrated—so the Son of Man enters the more treacherous and tempestuous ocean-wastes of life; and though touched on every side, never takes on the moral hue of His surroundings, nor in the least is swerved from the direct line of duty by their variations. Who can tell by what mystery of attraction the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico are so closely bound, or who explain why the emerald walls through which their way is channeled should never be able to invade their sanctity, every effort to do so only pressing them into a ridge, rising high and sloping both to right and left? and who can account for the fact that this peasant-preacher not only preserves unstained His righteous character in an evil world like this, but even develops a loftier and grander righteousness the more closely He is hemmed in by wickedness and environed by temptation?How John must have admired that!

The Christian is not delighting in mud baths! They may be good for physical health, but ruinous to spiritual. They drown the brightest hope. Christ’s glory is to be ours, “undefiled”. “For such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens” (Hebrews 7:26).Undefiled! For a long time the mud baths of Germany have been famous. Indiana also has its mud baths of national note. Twenty miles out of Minnesota we have a hotel, famed for the mud baths associated with the same. These baths may be good for the body.

On the testimony of people who have enjoyed them, we are disposed to believe that they are. But the mud baths for the soul are all about us, and unfortunately men and women plunge into them daily and come out of them unclean— defiled, spiritually enervated, and in sore need of the Blood bath which can alone make them clean; in sore need of the cleansing in the Water of the Word. Undefiled! But we have another word—Eternal! After all, how poor our inheritance but for that! Houses have been rich for generations, and yet when poverty came, it pinched hardest.

But our inheritance is eternal; eternal as the Heavens where it awaits us. “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). Eternal as Christ who hath prepared it!

He is the Everlasting One. He was from the beginning, is now and ever shall be. So our possessions in Him are imperishable and eternal. Though the heavens and the earth pass away, God abides, and not a jot or tittle of all that He has spoken shall fail. His Word is His will for us. His precious promises are destined to be our possessions. Eternal as God, whose power keeps it and us.

1 Peter 1:24-25

THE BIBLE AND THE CENTURY 1 Peter 1:24-25WE are well into the 20th century. One of the questions which is disturbing certain Christian minds today has to do with the Bible and the faith of this century.There are those among biblical critics who boldly assert that the children of the 20th century will rid themselves of the religious superstition (?) of an inspired book.There are certain Christians who seem to tremble with fear lest this prophecy prove true. Some of us are strangers to any such alarm.If this Book can be overthrown by critics, or outgrown by civilization, we would give it up without a tear; considering its rejection no serious loss to the sons of men, for that would be proof positive that it was not from God.If, on the contrary, it be from God, men may come and men may go, but as our text declares, “The Word of the Lord endureth for ever”.It is not my thought then to attempt buttressing the Bible. It has no need. It is not my purpose even to speak one word in its defense. It has always been its own best advocate.

But to keep men from going afloat, having their anchor lines cut by the knives of critics, or snapped by the winds of infidelity; that is a primal duty of every preacher, a solemn obligation of every Christian. To discharge that duty and establish the faltering faith of any present, I bring to you the great Apostle’s words:“The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: “But the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you”. To me there is abundant evidence that our Bible is God’s message to men. Some of you may recall the first sermon it was my privilege to preach from this pulpit; and you may remember the arguments presented then in defense of my faith in the Word. They were arranged under these heads: “The Bible is incomparable in its origin; in its historical standing; in its moral beauty; in its ethical codes; and, in its saving power.”I am not disposed this morning to rehearse any of that discourse. The peculiar language of this text does not demand it, but calls rather for an additional word on the permanence of this Book as a proof of its inspiration.The assertion of the Scripture is that, though men are mortal and must fade, God’s Word is immortal and will stand; “the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever”.To my mind the record of endurance which this Book has made is a mighty proof that it is God’s message to men.Dr. John Cummings said concerning the survival of the Scriptures: “The Empire of Caesar is gone; the regions of Rome are mouldering in the dust; the avalanches that Napoleon hurled upon Europe have melted away; the pride of the Pharaohs is fallen; the pyramids they raised to be their tombs are sinking every day into the desert sands; Tyre is a rock for bleaching fishermen’s nets; Sidon has scarcely left a rock behind; but the Word of God still survives. All things threatening to extinguish it have only aided it; and it proves every day how transient is the noblest monument that men could build, how enduring is the least word that God has spoken.

Tradition has dug for it a grave. Intolerance has lighted for it many a fagot.

Many a Judas has betrayed it with a kiss. Many a Peter has denied it with an oath. Many a Demas has forsaken it, but the Word of God still endures.”There is little occasion for alarm lest the future century hold destructive critics in any great esteem.It will hardly accept stupid ignorance as its instructor. The time is going by in which the scoff of unbelievers is understood as an argument. No thoughtful man can even now be influenced by the sneers and questions of those carrion crows of literature, who try to bring the Bible into contempt by tearing certain sentences from their connections and holding them to ridicule. There are societies in Chicago and New York and other parts of the world which exist for that contemptible thing.

They may influence the ignorant, but the thoughtful know that such a method of Bible study does as great violence to its moral beauty and its practical worth, as the men who engage in it do violence to their own sense of right, their own immortal interests.But little better than these is the school of infidels who, having first given themselves over to a reprobate life, seek to distract attention from their own shame by attacking the sacred Scriptures.Of this class, Astruc, Voltaire, Hume, Payne, and Ingersoll were once leaders—men, the most of whom made no study whatever of the Word. Payne and Ingersoll boasted that they gave the Bible but a single reading.

It is no wonder then that this school should have trusted to smart sayings rather than to any logic in their forms of argument.But as Arthur Pierson once said: “There is little danger that the Eternal Word shall go down before this fusilade of ridicule. Voltaire may have many disciples who follow his method and seek to cover the Word with caricatures just as a modern smart boy disfigures with charcoal the face and form of some antique Apollo; but as the statue remains in its ideal perfection when the mischievous markings are washed away, so the pure celestial beauty of the Word survives all attempts to invest it with blasphemous absurdity.”The man who attempts to pick flaws out of this moral sun of the universe and hold them to the attention of his fellows, will be treated by this century just as the professed scientist, who rejects the light of day as evil, because the sun of the physical universe has spots on its face—that is, with scorn.The men who can sneer at the Book which has furnished moral sinew and bone to the bravest and best of all centuries, would grimace at God, if they came before His face in Heaven, and they do openly insult Him upon His own earth. I would as reasonably have accepted my ethics from Jack Johnson; my instruction in science from the late celebrated John Jasper of Virginia, as my religion from an Ingersoll or Payne—men who have assailed the merits of the Scriptures, but who confess that they never studied them.So far as our observation goes, there are but two classes that follow such teachers, and those two classes are often merged in the same individual, the ignorant and the iniquitous. A man may know a good deal of some things and yet be profoundly stupid touching the sacred Word. Years ago at Columbus, Indiana, I was introduced to a young man of good mind and a locally famous biblical critic, who had excited some terror in the hearts of his Christian associates by his sharp arguments against the Word.At the instance of his Christian parents, I called upon him. He plunged easily into an argument and gave me whole phrases from Ingersoll.

Without answering, I said, “You have read the Bible?” “Oh, yes.”“I take it you are fairly familiar with it?” “Quite,” he answered.“All right,” said I, “relate to me the story of Joseph.” When he acknowledged that he had forgotten about Joseph, I said, “Well Abraham will do,” and when he could not recall anything about Abraham, I attempted to make it easy by saying, “Ruth or Esther then.” “Well,” he said, “those are in the Old Testament, aren’t they?” “Yes,” I replied.“Well, I am not so familiar with the Old Testament as with the New.”“Very well,” said I, “tell me some of the parables of the New Testament.”—“You have forgotten them?Well report to me some of the miracles, in mere outline.”“You cannot think of any now? Well, what are the Epistles of Paul?”—“You never learned those by heart, and yet you say you are familiar with the Word?

I am afraid you are only familiar with Ingersoll’s flings at the Word!”With confused face he confessed that he had given no attention whatever to the Scriptures. He came to meeting that night, and he showed that he had manliness about him by coming to the front seat for prayer, and by saying that he had been making a fool of himself. He stopped imagining that he was a Scripture critic confessing himself only an ignoramus!It is no sign because one is sharp in business, successful in a profession, capable of argument and defense, that he may set himself up as a critic of the Scriptures. Information is the first essential to criticism. If you doubt the Word, I ask how much have you studied it? How many years have you put in, trying to master it?

How many months even? Is it necessary for me to ask how many minutes?

When did you see it last? I do declare some of the critics of the Scripture remind me of a certain Miss Elder.Spratts and Hunker met one day, and Spratts said to Hunker, “Miss Elder is much older than I thought.” “Impossible,” answered his chum. “Yes, she is,” said Spratts. “I asked her the other day if she had read ‘Ӕ ?sop’s Fables’ and she said, ‘Yes; I read them when they first came out.’”The future, I repeat, will laugh to scorn such ignorance, and when it has done that, four-fifths of the present-day Bible critics will be out of a job.Dr. Arthur T. Pierson has been in his grave for many years, but his words are still apropos. In his “Many Infallible Proofs,” he says: “Modern skepticism, with the lofty air of profound learning and philosophic doubt, approaches the Divine Word. Under pretense of a careful, conscientious, impartial investigation, as though reluctant not to believe that the Bible is all it claims to be, it applies its strictly scientific tests, and, like a physician who feels a feeble pulse, sounds a decayed lung, or tests a diseased heart, turns away with a sigh of disappointment and an ominous shake of the head.

And yet the more we see of scientific and philosophic skepticism, the more we are satisfied that, like Lord Nelson, it covers the only sound eye, and declares it can’t see with the blind one. Underneath all this assumption of judicial coolness and fairness we detect voluntary suppression of the truth, partial pleading, desperate corruptions of the doctrines and perversions of the facts of Scripture, and the same hot hate of the religion of the Bible, the same passion to overthrow it, the same resolute hostility to everything supernatural, as in the bolder and more defiant forms of attack.

You may find this plausible skepticism in the sanctum of the editor, the silver tongue of the orator, the chair of the university professor, and even the pulpit of the nominal preacher. The Bible is, by the confession even of skeptics, the best of books, and, on the whole, most marked by all that gives permanent value; but they would have us believe that it is scarcely abreast with our advanced age, and that its claim to infallibility is absurd.”The so-called scientific assertions will fare little better in the 20th century. As Dr. Pierson further says, “A falsehood is no more true because loudly spoken and with gesticulation that attempts to pound conviction into the hearer.” And if anything has been demonstrated by the past, it is that science is unscientific. She is shifting upward, I grant you, into larger light; but she is a millennium removed from the perfect day. Her assumptions may be loudly spoken, but I am not sure that they will, on that account, make any deeper impression upon intelligent men and women.I was reading awhile ago of an Irishman, who was writing an epistle at the public desk of a county post office.

A friend, glancing over his shoulder, saw that every letter was a capital of enormous size, and so he asked, “Pat, why do you make your letters so big?” The Irishman’s instant reply was, “Sure, and your honor! this woman I’m writin’ to, is dafe!” The bold hand of so-called scientists, the big letters of higher critics, will carry no more conviction to the enlightened eyes of faithful Christians, than if they were less pretentious.It is not our ears that are to be moved, else eloquence and high-sounding phrases might convince us; but it is our spiritual vision, our minds and our hearts. To convince these against this Book in its claims to be God’s Word, something more is required than is being presented at present.

Prof. Sayce, himself a long time at the forefront of higher criticism, reformed and wrote, “I can see no possible good to come from a criticism which sets out with preconceived ideas and assumptions, a criticism which treats imperfect evidence as if it were perfect, and builds its conclusions upon theories which have yet to be proved.”Years ago I was talking with one of America’s greatest archaeologists, a man who, in the judgment of many, is one of the most competent Bible students of this country, and he said to me, “The little craft of the higher critics is coming more and more into turbulent waters. At no distant day its fragile frame, built of bits of ancient and doubtful tradition, and bolted up by Chaldean words and Hebrew phrases, will go to pieces, once for all, on the rocks of archaeology.”“All flesh is as grass”, and so with the glory of man—his wisdom is arrogance; his pride is presumption. “All flesh is as grass * *. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever”.The future will recognize the Holy Ghost as the only competent guide in Scripture study. It was not of the higher critic that Christ spake, “He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you”. “When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all Truth”, but it was of the Spirit.If this Book is inspired by the Spirit of God, it is clear enough that its language can never be fully understood and rightly interpreted by an appeal to lexicon, languages, or other human learning.No one understands Whitcomb Riley’s poems as James Whitcomb himself understood them. A deacon in this church came into my study one day with a new volume of poems from the pen of Dr.

F. S.

Smith, and one present remarked, “When he was in this church, at the Baptist anniversaries, he read one of his own poems.”He could best interpret it. The author is always the best interpreter, so far at least as thought and meaning are concerned. It may seem very credulous to some, very verdant to others of my learned brethren, but I have a profound conviction that the safest interpretation of the Word, the interpretation that shall seem most scientific to the coming centuries, does not emanate from those students who approach the Bible with scalpel, but rather from those men who are Spirit-filled, and who speak forth what He has first spoken to them. Beloved! prayer is essential to preaching, and the help of the Holy Spirit is the one we need as guide in the best Bible study.From the beach you bring a conch-shell, and whenever you will, you may put that shell to your ear and press it until other sounds are shut out, and in it you will hear the voice of its author, the sound of the sea. The Bible also has its voice, the proof of its origin. Listen to it with attentive ear, shut out the sounds of worldly wisdom, selfish pride, and scientific conceit, and from it you will hear, what Pierson calls, “the music of the celestials,” but what I prefer to name, “the still, small voice of the Spirit of God.”The future will have place for preachers of the whole Gospel.

God’s Word is the Gospel, and the Gospel is God’s Word. Not the New Testament only; not the Old Testament merely, but the New and the Old, one Book—God’s Book, man’s only Bible!

Hence Peter’s saying, “This is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you” (1 Peter 1:25).There are those who make the mechanical division of Old and New Testaments a point of cleavage in moral and religious instruction. They openly say, “We don’t preach from the Old Testament,” and some have made advance upon this and are not preaching the New Testament, but the Gospels only, and the latest fad of these limiters of the Word is this, “We do not preach what Paul says, nor yet what Peter says, nor yet John; the words of Jesus are our only Gospel.” Apparently it has not occurred to these progressives (?) that if Peter and Paul and John are not inspired men whose words are inerrant, we cannot possibly tell what the words of Jesus were, since we must trust these same for a report of them.For me, the Gospel is commensurate with the Word. Peter held the same conception, hence our text, “This is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you”. The Gospel in the Old Testament? Yes, plenty of it! The Gospel of repentance in Moses and the Prophets!

The Gospel of faith there also! The Gospel of atonement; substitution in Leviticus and in Isaiah!

The Gospel of Blood everywhere! What a Gospel!If I understand my commission, it is this: “Preach the Word”, and as I understand preaching the Word, it is to “Preach Christ as man’s only Saviour.”That is what every preacher must do who stands by the Scripture. As all Roman roads lead to the Eternal City, so all Scriptures center in God’s Son, even Jesus the Saviour of men. He is the hope of the world. When we mark the so-called sermons of Liberalists, Universalists, Higher Critics, and such, we wonder if they have ever seen Jesus; if they have ever come into living touch with God’s saving truth. It seems almost impossible that a man who has searched the scroll of Revelation until he has found, at its, center, Christ, could ever consent to preach another Gospel than that of God’s Word.

To us, it is so much above the man-made philosophies that to turn back to them and offer them to sin-sick souls, in lieu of this Gospel, is the most terrible of all sacrilege.Some summers ago, a speaker in one of our B. Y.

P. U. Conventions told how Dannecker, the great sculptor, had a vision of the Christ, and sought to realize it in marble. After many years of toil, the statue was finished, and seeking a child from the street, the sculptor asked, “What is that?” The little one answered, “A good man, Sir!” And Dannecker burst into tears, dissatisfied. Back into his studio he went, and when his ideal was again materialized, he called a child from the street and said, “What is that?” The child looked at it in wonder; the light of revelation spread over the little face; then every feature softened and, bursting into tears, she said, “Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of God”, and Dannecker was content. When, afterward, Napoleon I summoned him to Paris to make a Venus for his gallery, the sculptor sent this reply, “It would be sacrilege, sir; I have had a vision of the Christ.”