Joy, Purpose, and Reward through Trials - 1 Peter 1:6-7

Kootenai Church

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All right, let's pray together. Father, we are so grateful for your word and that you've given it to us, this great blessing of teaching and learning that we can glorify you through it.

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And Lord, I pray that as I speak today, I speak as one who speaks the utterances of God, because that's what we're doing.

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And so Lord, I pray that as we listen, we listen as people who listen to the utterances of God. Lord, your believers are indwelt by your spirit.

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And so Lord, I pray that your spirit would be at work as we listen and learn from your word. And Lord, to the extent that I fail, and to the extent that I go to the left or the right,

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I pray that you would cause me and those parts of this message to be forgotten.

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May the truth of your word be spoken, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen. So turn in your Bibles to 1

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Peter 1 if you're not already there. Anytime I teach, I'm teaching 1 Peter 1, that's what

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I'm doing. I've been doing, this is lesson six, and we're all the way to verse six. So that's pretty good.

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We're gonna read the first nine verses together of 1 Peter 1.

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Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the

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Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

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In this, you greatly rejoice, even though now, for a little while, if necessary, you've been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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And though you have not seen him, you love him. And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice, with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

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So today, our focus is gonna be on verses six and seven. We'll see that the gospel of our salvation brings great joy.

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We'll see some truths about trials, the relationship of joy to trials, and the benefits of trials.

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Now, ordinarily, since I preach infrequently, I start with some type of review. And if you look at verse six, exposition of verse six requires a review.

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In NESV, it starts off with, in this, you greatly rejoice. You might have wherein you greatly rejoice, in all this, you greatly rejoice.

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You rejoice in this. Peter is telling us, we greatly rejoice in something, but if we just drop into verse six, we have no idea what it is.

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So, exposition of this verse requires that we answer the question, what is this?

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What is the this in which we greatly rejoice? Well, this is all of the blessings that are enumerated in the verses ahead, the verses one through five, and especially three through five.

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And I listed at least 10 different blessings. Of course, anytime you do a listing, it's arbitrary. You might come up with a different way of listing these.

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But there are at least 10 different blessings that are enumerated in the first five verses. So, let's look at those briefly as review.

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The first blessing that's enumerated is election, that the sovereignty of God in election. Verse one in the

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ESV is to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion. The first adjective applied to the readers in the original language is the word for chosen or elect.

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It's in the end of verse one in the NESV. You see it there, chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.

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So, remember, this is a letter to persecuted believers. Remember that? Suffering believers, Christians who are suffering under the persecutions of Nero, and the sovereignty of God in election would be a great comfort to them, the sovereignty of God.

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The second blessing listed is sanctification. That's in verse two. You see it, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey

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Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. This is a reminder to the persecuted believers that life has a purpose.

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It's a sanctifying, a holy -making life. The third blessing is mercy. You see that in verse three.

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again. The mercy of God.

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The fourth blessing is right there, too, regeneration, in verse three. God has caused us to be born again, but regenerated, made spiritually alive to respond to the gospel.

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This is the first of my messages that is not gonna dwell on regeneration for the entire time.

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So, if you're interested in regeneration, there's five other ones you can go back to. The fifth blessing enumerated is our being made right with God, our justification.

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The justifying work of the Lord Jesus Christ, seen in verse two, and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. And in verse three, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the justifying work of Christ.

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The sixth blessing is heaven itself, the inheritance of the believer. That's in verse four. To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.

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All the glories of heaven. The seventh blessing is our security, the certainty of the security of our living hope.

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You see that promised heavenly inheritance, that's in verses four and five. Reserved in heaven for you.

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It's reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

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There's no uncertainty around that. The eighth blessing is faith, the gift of faith.

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It's in verse five. Who are protected by the power of God through faith. It's a divine faith, an eternal faith, a

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God -given faith, an invincible faith. Let's see what I'm on. Number nine, the ninth is glorification, our ultimate salvation, or glorification.

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You see that alluded to in verse five. Who are protected by the power of God through faith for our salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

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So we are saved, if you have repented of your sins and put your faith in Christ, we are saved. We're also being saved and we also will be saved.

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There is a future tense, and that's what's given here is our glorification, where we're united with our perfect glorified bodies.

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Get to serve our master and king. The 10th is then the return of Christ. You see that sort of alluded to in verse five.

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It's maybe a bit obscure. The language is there. It speaks of the apocalyptic, the revealing of the revelation of Jesus Christ, and the eschatos, the end.

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We see it clearly in verse seven, the revelation of Jesus Christ. So that's a very brief review of 10 blessings associated with our salvation.

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In this you greatly rejoice. In all this, and the NIV adds the word all, in all this you greatly rejoice.

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You rejoice in everything having to do with your salvation. Don't you? With the mercy of God, that God has shown us the redemptive work of the triune

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God with the application of that redemption to our lives to the children of God. We get to be his creatures.

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We get to be called not only his creatures, his subjects, but his children. He even calls us his friends. Calls us to greatly rejoice, doesn't it?

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There are three parables in Luke 15. They all teach the same lesson that we find here.

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All three of these parables are intended partially as a rebuke to the Pharisees because Jesus was a friend to sinners.

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They were criticizing the Lord. The first is the parable of the lost sheep. You remember that?

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Man had a hundred sheep and he lost one. And then he found it and he was excited and joyful and he threw a party and he had everybody come over and they celebrated together.

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And Jesus says, I tell you that in the same way there'll be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

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There is joy in salvation. The second is the parable of the lost coin. You remember that?

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Lady has 10 coins and she loses one and she sweeps her whole house trying to find the coin. I never really quite understood how sweeping the house would help you find a coin, but maybe it did.

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And so she finds it and she calls her neighbors over and she throws a party. And Jesus says this, in the same way

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I tell you there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. There's joy in salvation.

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The third parable is the most familiar. It's the parable of the prodigal son. You know that story, the younger son, he wants to get away from his dad and go out and live his life and so he secures his inheritance early and he goes out and squanders it on sin.

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He ends up eating pig food and he kind of realizes at that point, and pig food isn't good.

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I don't mean that he's eating pork. He's not eating pig, he's eating the food. Okay, so he's eating garbage in other words.

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So we would call it garbage. So he's like, this isn't the best and he realizes that he sinned against his father and he's sorry and he goes back and he repents.

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He admits that he had disgraced his father and the father does what?

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Throws a party. Remember that? Throws a party. And the older son, the older son who represents the

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Pharisees in this parable is upset and he says, this isn't right. This kid's an ingrate.

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You never threw a party for me and you're throwing a party for this kid. And Jesus puts these words in the mouth of the father in the story.

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But we had to celebrate and rejoice for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live.

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And was lost and has been found. We had to celebrate and rejoice in salvation.

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There is always joy in salvation. All of these parables have that same moral.

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There is joy in salvation. Great joy. Not only on the part of the one who receives the great gift of salvation, of course, and we'll talk about that.

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But also on the part of the one who gives it. Great joy on God's part. There's also joy on the part of those who have already received the gift of salvation when they observe someone else turn from their sins and put their faith in Christ.

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Great joy. There also seems to be great joy on the part of the angels who've never needed salvation, the holy angels.

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Yet they marvel at God's love and justice that he would do such a thing, such a genius in the gospel, that he would do this for depraved image bearers.

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Salvation and joy just go together. Let's think about why. What does it mean to be saved? Well, a person realizes for the first time the great depth of the depravity of their sin, the great burden of their sin debt.

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They fear God, and what a liberating fear that is. For the first time, they understand the wrath of God. They fear him.

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They see the insanity of their disrespect and disobedience. For the first time, they understand the justice of eternity in hell, apart from the grace of God.

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They cry out to their judge to be their savior. And indeed, he is the savior of all those who have put their faith in him.

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We sang this earlier, and I love, this is like, I usually criticize songs, and I shouldn't do that.

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This song we sang today is one of my favorites, this particular part of it.

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It is well. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.

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Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh, my soul. What a blessing. How could you not be joyful?

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Joy and salvation are inseparable. They go together, and yesterday, we had a baptismal service out at the camp out.

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A lot of you were there. There were a lot of people out there. It was great, and we had six saints who were baptized, and there was a lot of joy in that.

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There were people clapping, and there was actually some, I think you call it hooting and hollering. There was some of that going on.

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There were tears. It was great, and not just in the baptism.

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We're not necessarily rejoicing in the baptism, but in what it represents, the salvation of lost sinners.

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Great joy. I wrote this down. From hell to heaven. These are some of the things that happen.

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You go from hell to heaven, from slavery to sin, to slavery to Christ. You go from serving the devil to serving and being served by Jesus Christ, the

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King. From death to life, from ignorance to wisdom and knowledge. From eternal misery apart from God's grace and love to eternal bliss in the kingdom presence and the majesty of the glorious, perfect, and blessed

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God, our King, our Lord Jesus Christ. Joy in salvation.

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In this, you greatly rejoice, and indeed, you do. Now, with that in mind, and we can't forget that, there is joy in our salvation.

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We gotta go through the rest of the verse. But there's verse seven that's coming to help us out.

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In this, you greatly rejoice, even though, now, for a little while, if necessary, you've been distressed by various trials.

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So the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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You greatly rejoice in your salvation, even though you have to deal with trials. You have to deal with trials.

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Now, trials are just a reality in the sanctifying life on earth. And Peter's gonna give us here in this small section a pretty deep and thorough theology of trials in the

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Christian life. What can we learn about trials? So, first of all, what are trials? The word for trials refers to events that try us or test us.

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Verse seven says our faith is tested by fire and proven. So trials are the fire. They're those unpleasant events in our life that help to sanctify us, to make us more holy, to mature us, to cause us to grow in our sanctification, our holiness.

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So depending on how you do your list, Peter gives us seven facts about trials in these two verses.

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I'm gonna divide it into five characteristics of trials and then two reasons for trials or two benefits of trials.

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So let's look at the five. The five characteristics of trials that you see here in the verse. Trials, first of all, trials are now.

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See that? Even though now. Trials happen on this earth. They happen now at this moment.

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In the moment in which Peter was writing to the persecuted believers, but also by extension now for us who are reading this inspired book.

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Now we're not subject to unlimited official persecution as were the first readers. They were subject to the persecutions of Nero.

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They were being tortured and killed, eradicated. We're not subject to that kind of trial yet.

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Not here, not yet. Our brothers and sisters throughout the world are very often subject to those kinds of trials, but we're not, not yet.

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But there's trials. You know that there's trials. If you get the prayer chain, if you're any way involved in the lives of the other people here in the church or in your communities, you know that there are trials.

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There are trials. They're just different. Maybe not persecution, but there's injury, there's illness. Just this weekend, we've known two people that have passed away.

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Death. Just today we found out about a dear saint who has an illness, potentially serious illness.

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Trials are just a part of our life, everyday part of our life. They're now.

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We have things like financial hardships, relationships. We have our own failures, our own temptations.

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All those things. And so while we may not suffer persecution, we suffer trials. Trials are now, but they're also temporary.

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See that? All trials are temporary. It says for a little while. For a little while. A little while can be a lifetime, but that's a little while relative to eternity.

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Some trials only last for seconds. I had to go to the dentist this week and the only part

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I really hate about the dentist, he goes, little pinch, and then you know what's coming. It's a needle. I don't know how long it is because I close my eyes, but it just lasts for a second.

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If I get passed out, the rest of it actually doesn't bother me. Just for a second. Some last a little longer, right?

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Some last for hours or days, months, years, decades, a lifetime, but they're all temporary.

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Any particular trial, and you may be going through a particular trial today, it's temporary. That trial's temporary because they all are temporary.

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For the believer, there comes a time when all trials have ended, when all pain and sorrow is done forever. So trials are now, they're temporary.

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They're also necessary. If you're suffering a trial, it's necessary. You can gain great comfort in this.

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You can gain comfort in trials by understanding that your trials are given to you by God. They are necessary.

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They are part of the sovereign decree of God, right? They have a purpose.

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It's necessary. Your trials fit into his eternal plan, his eternal decree. It will result in his glory and ultimately in your happiness.

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So trials are now, trials are temporary, trials are necessary. This necessity, it puts the light of the notion that God merely permits trials.

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Sometimes we say that God permits this thing to happen. God does more than that. God has planned it.

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And I'm willing to say, if we understand this rightly, that God has caused it. God is sovereign over all trials.

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It puts the light of the Arminian notion that trials arise because the will of man is opposed to the will of God.

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There's a sense in which that's true. There's a will of decree and a will of precept. And some trials are against the will of God in precept, but not in his decree.

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All things are subject to his decree. Demonstrates the falsehood of the word faith notion.

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All trials and illness, financial hardship, the result of lack of faith. People can be very uncharitable in that movement.

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As they see trials as being due to a lack of faith, it's not true. Trials are necessary. They're necessary.

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The whole modern evangelical notion that there's some promise of freedom from trials in this life, that if you just try

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Jesus, that your marriage will get better and your health will be better and your finances will be better.

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There is no such promise in scripture. It's a horrible notion that there is such a promise.

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And it makes a lot of false converts. People who put on Jesus because they think it's gonna make them feel better, doesn't happen.

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And then they put him off. Trials are necessary.

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Now the next one represents a major insight on my part. I'm sure you guys will all appreciate my hours of study.

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Lots of commentaries looking at the original languages. Trials are bad. Trials are bad.

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They bring real pain, real distress, it says here. They cause distress. Or some of you have grief or sorrow.

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Or the King James has heaviness. Trials cause heaviness, real distress. Now that's obvious, right?

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But there's a point to be made. We don't always just go on singing and dancing and laughing through the trials, right?

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They cause real distress. The great example of this, of course, is our Lord Jesus Christ.

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When he was anticipating the suffering of the cross, you remember that? He was in great distress. He was in great distress.

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He faced it. Yes, he did. He went through with it for the glory of God and for your good, for the good of the elect.

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He went through it. But he didn't go through it without any distress, without deep sorrow, right?

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Even to the point that he asked that if it were not necessary, in other words, if possible, remove this cup from me.

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He asked if it were possible within the Father's will to remove that from him. It was necessary.

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It was also very distressing. He didn't go smiling and laughing to the cross. We shouldn't deny the truth that trials are heavy.

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They cause distress. Either our own trials or if we come into contact with someone, we have an opportunity to provide some comfort and compassion.

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Trials are real. They cause real pain, real distress, real grief. They deserve real compassion.

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There's a whole cult that's set up to deny the reality of pain and suffering and death of Christian scientists.

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That's not us. Trials really do cause distress. Trials are also various.

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See that, various? The word is literally multicolored. It means multicolored. Trials come in all shapes and sizes.

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There's a lot of them and they're different. Just when you deal with one, here comes another one from a different direction.

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Just when you've kind of finally dealt with this person, here comes somebody else.

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Your back pain's gone and you lose your job. You're done with your cancer treatments, your car breaks down.

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You're always between a rock and a hard place. It's always something, right? That's life.

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As you get older and more mature and you've dealt with trial, they become more familiar. I got this one.

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But there are new colors that can still come your way and new shades of old colors.

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You learn to remain joyful in this type of trial and then here comes, I've never dealt with this before. It's difficult.

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Now something really interesting about this word, the word that's translated various, and we'll talk a lot more about this when

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I get to chapter four. Because it's used here and in chapter four, and in chapter four, it's used to apply to grace, the multicolored grace of God.

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So it's as if Peter is saying for every shade of trial, there's a corresponding appropriate shade of grace to help us work through that.

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So those are the five characteristics. But Peter then tells us why we have trials. What is it that trials accomplish?

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You see that here. Trials are opportunities to demonstrate the genuineness of your faith. You see that in verse seven. So that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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So the word trials implies that something is tested or tried. That something that is being tested, we see here, is our faith.

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It's our faith. Now Jim always does this. I've told you this every time and now you can observe it.

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Over the past two weeks, he's attempted to steal my thunder in two completely separate ways. One of them was last week, he talked about Abraham and the matter of Isaac and how

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Abraham's faith was tested. And I told him what I was going to preach on before that.

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So, nice. But it's okay because, you know, some people are trials and you go through it.

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It's a great example, the matter with Isaac. It was a great example of a test of the genuineness of the faith of Abraham.

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That's what trial does, any trial does that. It tests the genuineness of our faith. Our belief in the promises of God.

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In our case, it tests our faith in the person of the promise of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Tests our faith in him.

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They test it and they prove it to be genuine. Prove it to whom? To whom do trials prove our faith, through the genuineness of our faith?

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To God? You think God's out there like, I don't know, man. I don't know if this guy's really got a genuine saving faith or not.

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We throw a trial out there, we'll see how he does. And then he kind of watches and he goes, hey, yeah, whew.

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God is omniscient. He knows whether your faith is genuine. He either gave it to you or didn't.

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He knows if your faith is genuine. These trials prove our faith to us, for the most part, to ourselves.

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Also to those others who might observe it, but to us mainly. Prove it to you. Your trials prove your faith to you.

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Now, the proving here, it echoes the refining of metal, of heating it to remove impurities.

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Testing the genuineness, the purity of the metal, the quality and purity of it. It's compared to the refining of gold by fire.

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It says that your faith, the gift of God given at your conversion, that faith, is more precious than gold.

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Genuine faith is more precious than gold. Why? Because it's the instrument of your inheritance.

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Remember, your inheritance is protected by the power of God through faith, through faith.

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Faith is the instrument through which God delivers your inheritance. He protects that faith.

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He gives you that divine faith. It's more precious than gold or anything else. And so trials prove its genuineness.

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Matthew 13 is the parable of the sower. It's part of that. Some of the seed fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil.

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But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.

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Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. So trials are sun and thorns.

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They try and test the genuineness of your faith. If the scorching sun and the choking thorns can cause you ultimately to leave the faith, then your faith wasn't a divine faith.

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It was just a human faith, a groundless faith, a rootless faith. So these trials test the genuineness of your faith.

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Now, this is a little bit of a side note. One of the things that has bothered me about this, and when I first taught 1

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Peter, I had to kind of think through this a little bit. This book was written to persecuted believers.

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They were suffering under, again, the persecutions of Nero. They were suffering under official Roman persecution.

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They would be put on trial for their faith. They were being tested against the truthfulness of the faith itself.

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They were being asked to recant that, to worship emperors and things like that. And we hear about that today.

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The martyrs around the world today, where they're being persecuted for their faith, because of their faith.

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And I can see how that kind of suffering would prove the genuineness of someone's faith. I can see that.

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They're standing up for the faith, so it proves the genuineness of their faith. But our suffering isn't like that.

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Now, I'm not saying it's less severe. Our suffering is not necessarily less severe. We deal with death.

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We deal with the death of loved ones. We deal with serious illnesses, terminal illnesses. I mean, we deal with severe things, and I'm not diminishing that.

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But it's a different type of faith. I'm not on trial. I'm not suffering for my faith. I'm just suffering.

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It doesn't feel like I'm suffering for the faith. My trial is not a literal trial, where I'm being asked to recant some fundamental of the gospel, to deny something fundamental to the

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Christian faith. That's not my trial. I just go through things that are hard, but they're not that.

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They don't have anything to do with my faith. So how do I connect these things? Is this a book that ought to only be read by persecuted believers?

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Well, no. Listen, whether you are suffering for your faith like that, or you are just suffering well, proves the same thing.

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It proves the genuineness of your faith. Why? It is the fact that you believe

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God's promise of an eternal inheritance, because of the work of Christ, it's the fact that you believe that, that allows you to go through trial in a way that demonstrates your faith, that proves your faith.

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It's the fact of what you believe that allows you to go through trial with some joy of your salvation and some endurance.

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It's exactly the same. Maybe it's not as direct, but it's exactly the same. If you can suffer well through any trial, it demonstrates that you, as a

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Christian, believe the gospel. Supports the truth of the gospel.

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You can, as Peter says later, you can entrust your soul to a faithful creator. There's even more good to trials than that sanctifying, assuring effect.

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Trials bring another benefit to the Christian, eternal reward. We'll talk more about this later,

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Lord willing. You can be assured, though, that the trials that are put in the way of the Christian result in reward.

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Look at the last part of verse seven, referring to the genuineness of your faith as revealed by the fire of trials, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Now, there's some question you might have in your mind. Is this praise and glory and honor given to Christ, or is it given by Christ to those who have suffered well?

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Well, in context, it's praise and glory and honor that is given by Christ to the believer.

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The believer has proved the genuineness of their faith. Now, that's kind of mind -blowing, but that's what it says.

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Now, undoubtedly, if you receive honor, praise, glory from the Lord for having endured trials, you will turn that back to him, the one who gave you the strength to endure the trial, the one who lived and died so that you would have the belief that gave you the strength to endure the trial, you would give all of that back to him.

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But isn't the thought of hearing a word of praise, some sort of honor or esteem from the

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Lord just too great to imagine? Well done, good and faithful servant.

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You've been faithful over little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. That's what we want, right?

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That's it, that's the pinnacle. So how do we put all this together?

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In this, or in all the glorious truths that are related to your salvation that have been enumerated in the preceding verses, in this, you greatly rejoice.

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We don't want to forget that part. In this, you greatly rejoice, even though, now, for a little while, if necessary, you've been distressed by various trials so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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This is a passage about trials in a book about trials, about living through trials, living as a

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Christian through trials. And kids, the word of the day is trials. Trials. Trials.

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Responding, if you can respond then to trials in a way that provides a good testimony, good result, proven faith, a clear conscience, for and to the glory of God.

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And this tells us how to do that. Rejoice in your salvation. Remember what

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God has done and what he will certainly do. You can rejoice in his power. He's protecting your salvation, protecting your heavenly inheritance.

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Understand trials for what they are. Okay, they happen, they're temporary, they're various, they're necessary.

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And understand they have a purpose, right? They have a purpose. They prove the genuineness of your faith.

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They provide you assurance. And then you just look forward to the reward of a trial that's well endured. Now, I've been talking a lot about how believers can endure trials.

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What about unbelievers? You may be here today, you've never repented of your sins, you've never put your faith in Christ, you're here because you're visiting, or who knows why you're here.

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I think I might. What should trials mean to me?

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You might be wondering that. I don't believe in heaven and all that mumbo jumbo stuff. That's nonsense, evolution.

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When you die, you die, that's it. You're just dead and you're just in a hole and that's it. Don't believe in that junk.

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You know, yeah, I see the evidence of a universe of creation. And yes, my conscience cries out to me that there's a

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God and I'm gonna have to face him one day. But I can't admit that because then I'd have to turn away from sin.

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I'm not ready to do that, I don't wanna do that. So what hope have I, how do I deal with trial?

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What hope have I, preacher? None, you don't have any, you have none.

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Your trials are meaningless. They only serve to demonstrate the justice and mercy of God, you don't believe in him.

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Listen, the fact that you, if you're here as an unbeliever, the fact that you receive any blessings at all, any relief from trial, any pleasure or fun or happiness, any good at all, it's a gift of common grace from God to you.

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It's a gift you don't deserve, it's a gift you don't appreciate, it's a gift you likely abuse. It's given by a giver whose existence you deny, you pretend to deny,

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I got nothing to offer you. There's no comfort or hope for you in trial. Nothing that I've said up to this point applies to you.

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You may contemplate suicide, you think at least that would be a release from suffering. No, I guarantee you that would only make it infinitely worse.

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Death is not the end of suffering for the unbeliever. It is, in a real sense, the beginning.

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It's the end of common grace. It's the end of any escape from suffering for the unbeliever.

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So your only hope is to believe. Your hope is to change. Your hope is to not be an unbeliever when you leave here.

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Your hope is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to turn and be saved. Listen, you know you're guilty. You know you're guilty.

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You know you lie, you know you covet, you know you lust, you know you've sinned before God, you've failed to give

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God his due, you've blasphemed his great name, you rejected the suffering and death of his son on your behalf.

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You're guilty, you know you're guilty, and you know that it's justice that you'll suffer eternal conscious torment in hell.

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You gotta turn from your sins, you gotta admit finally that all of your stupid justifications for your sin are just that.

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You gotta give that up. Understand you're a sinner, fear God, and turn to the

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Savior. That's your hope. That is your hope and that is the reason you are here right now.

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That's the reason, all right? So you've heard it. Believers, I'm gonna leave you with an account of somebody who understood and applied this passage very well.

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Now I was gonna tell you quite a little bit about Jerome of Prague, but a certain someone who is a thunderstealer also, you remember he mentioned

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Jerome of Prague a couple weeks ago. He said you probably wouldn't remember. I guess he was right.

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But I won't say much about it. Prague was an associate of Jan Hus. Jan Hus was martyred in 1415 for his faith, or an early pre -reformer.

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He had a great influence on Martin Luther. I won't say anything more about him. His courage, and I won't say anything more about him.

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He's a little bit more well -known, and if you don't know anything about Jan Hus, I would encourage you to check it out.

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He had a great influence on the Reformation. He's one of our heroes of the faith. But he had a friend,

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Jerome of Prague, and Jerome came to support Hus, and he saw things weren't going well, and so he tried to leave, and they captured him and dragged him back to this council.

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And he recanted at first, and then he rethought his recantation, and he refused to recant, and he was martyred.

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And here's the account of his martyrdom. This is from a man named Poggio. Poggio was an enemy of Hus and Jerome.

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He agreed with their martyrdom. But this is what he wrote. Persevering in his errors, he went to his fate with joyful and willing countenance, for he feared not the fire nor any kind of torture.

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Never did any Stoic suffer death with so constant and so brave a mind as he seems to have sought it. When he came to the place of death, he removed his clothes.

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Then falling down on bended knee, he greeted the stake. This part blows my mind.

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Listen to this. When the flames were started, he began to sing a hymn, which the smoke and fire interrupted.

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When the executioner wished to start the fire behind his back, that he might not see it, he said, come here and light it in front of me, under my eye, for if I had feared the fire,

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I would never have come to this place, for I had the opportunity to flee. He had already recanted.

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He could have just stuck with that and he could have left. But he didn't. Light it in front of me.

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And according to Fox's Book of Martyrs, his last words were, this soul in flames, I offer Christ to thee. Now here's somebody who understood how to go through trials as a

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Christian. A little bit of an understatement. He died for devotion to the word of God. He faced his last trial with the joy of his salvation.

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He understood what trials were about. He looked forward to the hope of heaven. In this case, his faith was proven, though tested literally by fire.

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And of course, I pray that none of you will ever have to face that. I'm afraid someday some of you will. But of course, we pray that that never happens here.

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But even though we may not suffer that kind of trial, I hope you see your own trials for what they are.

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You rejoice in your salvation through them. You remember their purpose and the reward that awaits. This is 1

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Peter 4, 12 through 13. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you.

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But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of his glory, you may rejoice with exultation.

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Let's pray together. Father, we remember the joy of our salvation, and I pray,

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Lord, for all these saints in hearing of things that are going on in their lives. I know there's a lot of suffering, a lot of things

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I will never hear about. And I pray, Lord, as they go through these trials, that you would help them to remember the joy of their salvation, that they would remember the purpose of these trials, what their trials are like, that they're necessary, that they're temporary.

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And Lord, I pray that they would look forward to the rewards of heaven, to hear those words from the Son. And it's in his name that we pray, and we wanna continue to rejoice in him as we sing,