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Bro. Bill Nichols
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God?
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well -doing, as unto a faithful Creator?
Our most gracious Heavenly Father, thank You for once again bringing us together in Your house that we may collectively search for Your will in our lives.
Thank You for endowing us with the indwelling Holy Spirit, without which we could have no understanding of Your Holy Word.
Thank You for the promise that You have made to keep and protect us when we commit our souls unto Your hands.
Guide me through this morning that I may not be an impediment in any way to what You have in store for us.
We ask in Jesus' name, Amen. Let's go back and look at the beginning of this section.
For the time has now come that judgment must begin at the house of God. And if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of it for those that obey not the gospel?
Peter was talking about a whole set of judgments that were to fall on the people of Israel, but he was also,
I think, dealing with judgments that may befall us.
I need someone to turn to Amos 3 .2. Clarence, would you do that?
David, would you do Jeremiah 25 -29?
And Greg, could you do Matthew 24 -9?
And Diane, did I give you one? And John, do John 16 -2.
And these are some judgments that are going to come on to the house of Israel.
Clarence? Amos 3 .2. You only have I known all the times of the earth, therefore
I will punish you all your sins. And Jeremiah 25 -29?
For although I would get to bring evil upon the city which is called by my name, should you be utterly unpunished, you shall not be unpunished, for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth.
And Matthew 24 -9? Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted from all nations.
And John 16 -2? They shall put you out of the synagogue, yea, the time cometh that whoever killeth you will think that you were
God's servant. So it's a very serious time that he was talking about, and it's a very serious time for us.
But there is one, there are two things really that we can keep in our minds and our hearts.
Number one, God's eternal covenant has made the outcome sure for us as to where we stand in judgment, but it has also made the outcome sure for those that do not have the
Lord. In verse 18, and if the righteous scarcely be saved, so we're going to be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
This is both an indictment for the world and a glimmer of hope for those of us who have in our future
God's salvation, or I guess in our presence, God's salvation. It's something that's done already.
Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well -doing as to a faithful creator.
The one who made us will preserve us. And although sin destroyed the original relationship that we had in the
Garden of Eden between man and God, our relationship will be restored by this salvation.
In 2 Peter 2, I'm sorry, 2 Peter chapter 4, but verse 1 and 2, it says,
For so much then as Christ, I'll wait for you. 1 Peter 4, 1 and 2, it's just the beginning of this chapter.
For then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourself likewise with the same mind.
For he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God.
So we have a judgment ahead of us.
Everyone will face that judgment. The outcome is already assured. We will not be judged for our misdeeds.
We will not be punished for our misdeeds. Christ has stood in our place and He's going to be judged for us.
But the unsaved world does not have an intercessor to go between man and God.
And they don't have a substitute to bear the punishment. Because we all, all of us,
I've seen it, all of us are deserving of punishment.
But the punishment that is ours by rights. See, none of us should ask for justice.
If justice is what we ask for, then we will all be condemned. What we need to ask for instead of justice is mercy.
And that concludes chapter 4, but it kind of needed to be done in order that we go into chapter 5.
I want to read just a few verses and then I'll come back. The elders which are among you
I exhort, who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker in the glory that shall be revealed.
Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of ready mind, neither being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock, that when the chief shepherd shall arise, you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
Now that is quite an injunction. Greg, who are the elders that he's talking about?
The elders which are among you I exhort. Who is he exhorting? He could be talking about the apostles.
I kind of took that to mean just the basic church leaders of which he associated himself.
Maybe as a way of identifying himself by coming down to their level rather than staying above them.
I am also an elder, but if you kind of look through the passage, it at least seemed to me that he was talking about the elders of the church, the pastors, the elderly people in positions of responsibility.
Now he does talk about I also am an elder and a witness of the suffering of Christ.
They would not all have been witnesses of the sufferings of Christ.
And also a partaker in the glory that shall be revealed. Now partaker there is an interesting word.
I was able to look that up on the Greek dictionary and it comes from kounonios, which means fellowship or partnership.
So it's more than just something is laid out in front of you for you to partake of, which is wonderful enough that righteousness and salvation is laid out there for us to partake of, but we are partners in it.
And that gives us a stronger position and to me it's a more wonderful thing.
Yes sir? Wouldn't the elders also include those among us who are so well -experienced that they give us more help?
It's like the phrase, he's not an oaf, I wouldn't call him an elder, but certainly he is so helpful to all of us.
Is that wrong? I think that's absolutely right. I don't think every position in the church is an appointed position.
I was just thinking, the reason I was smiling was I was thinking it's a matter of the perspective that you look at.
I look at Greg as a young guy too. But you and I are probably the only two that do.
Yes, I think the elders are, we have in our churches today, we have official assigned positions and say, well this person has this role and this one has that role and this one does that.
I don't know that that was the case in the early church. I think that the people that had the wisdom, the people that studied, that were mature in the faith,
I think that's what he's talking about. I may be wrong. Brother David, what are your thoughts?
It was less official from a human viewpoint. We're not always called the elders, but that's the divine viewpoint.
Your point was, from a human viewpoint, it's not like they went out and hired these people to be professional speakers, like we do in the church today.
That's the point that I think Brother Fred was taking and certainly
I was. Verse 2.
Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of ready mind.
Do you know what constraint means? You're compulsed.
Compelled. Well, it would have been a good word. You're compelled to do something.
Not that you are forced to do it. I'm sorry. Well, we're not to do things because we're compelled to do them.
We should do them willingly. And not for filthy lucre. George, you know what filthy lucre is?
I didn't think so. That's kind of a strange word, isn't it? Your dad can tell you. Money.
And you know, really, it doesn't just have to be spending money. It doesn't have to be greenbacks. It can be whatever worldly gain that you have.
Some of the TV ministers who maybe don't take a salary but live in a huge mansion and have all their expenses taken care of, you have to wonder about whether they are doing it for the financial, for the worldly things, or for the spiritual things.
Yes, sir? Some of that is just for fame and power. It's not for worldly gain.
Yes, and fame and power would be a, I guess it could be defined as filthy lucre too, couldn't it? But that we do things not for worldly gain but because they have been put upon us to do by the
Lord. Yes? Not to get ahead of you, you might mention this in the verse, but it's like these people, because they're taking their position as a way of gaining this stuff on the backs of the lay people, they're using their position to defense themselves in worldly instances.
And we see that everywhere. We see what we call Christianity flourishing at this time.
People are jumping in. Who is that gentleman that says, well, I want that, how much will it cost me?
If you look at a way of gaining, it would be very easy for people to jump in and say, well,
I think this is a money maker. I'm going to write, I'm going to jump in here and on the backs of these individuals and see this stuff that they're doing.
And isn't that the tragedy of it all? Because as we look out, God has blessings for those people to do
His will. But He has those blessings for those people who do His will to do
His will, not to gain things. And so we see one person that does God's will and God blesses him, and then somebody else says, oh, that looks really good,
I want to do it too, because I want to bless him. And they've already started off on the wrong foot.
That's not at all what they should be doing. But we are human and we do that, Brother Fred.
The television evangelists are a great example.
Those folks, evangelists, they just have to get what they can get for people to believe in heaven.
I don't know why it came to my mind, but it was Jesus wearing a bowtie on his television show.
And I've noticed that Catholics in Dallas have come out and said so many things.
You know, all the way from Romans, back to the beginning. Robert Hilton. Well, yeah, and again, that's the tragedy because a man of God, for the right reason, doing the right things, can be blessed.
And I think that there are TV evangelists and there are radio evangelists that are doing
God's will, and they are being blessed. And I think that they're in a definite minority
There's a lot of people that are trying to piggyback on that and they're getting the blessings here.
But that probably is true.
I mean, I'm sure that's true. God's word is God's word. He's not dependent upon the person that's reading it.
That's why I was willing to do that this morning. If it depended upon me,
I certainly wouldn't be able to go forward. So, yes,
I think that even those people are doing things for the right reason, I don't think they will get a blessing. But I think the person that hears it might.
But that's my opinion. Well, yeah, the true blessing is the spiritual blessing.
Whatever those things that you have that are physical blessings, material blessings, that the
Lord has bestowed upon you, they are for your enjoyment, I believe. I think
Solomon said that in Ecclesiastes. That God gave them to you, you're to use them.
But those are not your true blessings. They'll be gone. The true blessings are the ones that are the spiritual blessings.
So what happens is we get trapped in looking at these physical blessings that we don't emphasize enough, the spiritual blessings that we have.
The spiritual blessings are the ones that we really need to concentrate on.
I don't remember the place, but what profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul?
That certainly puts the pin right in the correct spot.
Verse 3, Neither being at Lord's over God's heritage, but being in samples to the flock.
Now I know Brother Otis has told us many times what an example is. I know what it is now. It's an engraving or a dime.
It's more than just an example. It's a physical model.
I'm curious about in this statement, neither being Lord's over God's heritage.
Does anybody have an idea of what God's heritage is? Greg? That's us.
Yeah, I think so. I didn't want to prejudice that answer. Yeah, I think it's us.
And so if we have oversight, you go back and you look at the previous verse.
Feed the flock of God which is amongst you, taking oversight thereof, not by constraint but willingly, not for filthy lucre but of ready mind, and not being as Lord's over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock.
So those people that were enjoying to lead the church, the official leaders of the church like David, the pastor of our church, the deacons, the elderly folks, the psalm leaders, people that have official positions, also the people that Fred was talking about, just the elderly people or the mature people that have something to contribute.
If you have oversight of anything, it's not your role to be the
Lord over God's people. The Lord is the
Lord. And we are all servants. And what we should live and what we should do is we should live and carry our way in a way to be an example to the rest of the flock.
One other thing that I found interesting about these two verses, and I forgot it as I went past verse two we had, is this phrase, feed the flock of God.
Greg, would you please read for me John 21, 15 through 17? John 21, 15 through 17.
This, while he's looking, the idea of feeding the flock and why would
Peter go to this particular or use that particular instruction?
Okay, John 21, 15. So when they did die before their knees, he saved them from the
FDA ward. I know it's not of me. He saved them and gave them to feed my lamb. He saved them and gave them to feed my sheep.
So I know it's not of God. I know it's not of me. He saved them from the FDA ward. I know it's not of me.
He saved them and gave them to feed my sheep. He saved them and gave them a third time,
Simon, Solomon, Jonas, Moses, Thamid. Peter was grieving because he saved them and gave them a third time,
Moses, Thamid. He said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things.
Thou knowest that I love thee. Peter saved them and gave them to feed my sheep. So Peter never forgot that set of instructions, but as I was going through this, for the first time, because I was checking
Greek meanings of words, and I don't know if I've heard this before. I probably have.
David's probably said it. But all of those mentions of love were not the same word. The first time
Jesus asked him, Do you, agapeo, do you have
Christian love for me? And Peter answered him, I have phileo, which is brotherly love or friendship.
And then the second time, Jesus asked him, Do you have agapeo? And he said,
I have brotherly love. And the third time Jesus asked him, Do you have brotherly love?
And Peter was grieved. And to me that was,
I guess Jesus was grieved too. I don't know what to make of that.
I know that it meant a lot to Peter. Peter, here years later, is probably still the most important thing on his mind.
Because he had rejected Jesus. He had claimed, he had claimed that he was,
Peter was brave. He was braver than any of us. And he told Jesus he would stay with him through thick and thin.
Nothing will drive me away from you. And within hours, he had rejected him.
And this meeting came after the resurrection. And if you read that section, you will see that the
Lord talked about the disciples and Peter.
Almost as if Peter wasn't one of the disciples. And here what he was doing was gathering
Peter back to him. And I think that's something that maybe all of us go through.
Anyhow, that was, to me that was a very moving message.
Yes sir. It was the cross that drove
Peter. But all of us, that's what we have to contend with.
Does that drive us away? Well, that would be the message, as a matter of fact.
But when he's down at the bottom line, that's what Peter feels. Remember when
Peter told him, far be it from you that he would die. He was so gifted,
Peter could not stand the idea of the cross. Yes.
Yes, and the beautiful part is that even though he could not stand the suffering, the offense of the cross, and he rejected
Christ, at least temporarily. Jesus never rejected him.
It's like the prodigal son. The prodigal son ran away and rejected his father. But the father never rejected the prodigal son.
And of course there were two of the prodigal sons, not one. It was not about physical bravery, was it?
It was about something else altogether. No. And of course we don't either.
And we don't want to seek Christ on the cross either. But he had to be there. Or we had to pay this penalty that we were talking about earlier, but he paid for us.
I think you could do a whole series of sermons on that verse. That was very powerful.
And then finally, in this little section, and when the chief shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
I think that goes back and talks about the kind of spiritual blessings that we have. That if you do the kinds of things that the
Lord wants you to do and that you should do, the blessings that you will have will be the real blessings.
They won't be the kind of temporary blessings that some of the
TV evangelists have. Let's look on down to chapter 5.
Likewise ye younger, submit yourself to the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility.
For God resisteth the proud and gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care on him, for he careth for you.
Yes? I like the way this begins. It's too easy to take this literally. I think it's kind of like so we need to give way to those who are more advanced spiritually and we need to pay attention.
Absolutely. You peaked on my notes. No. That's exactly what
I was thinking, and I didn't do it as well as you did, but I'm going to read what I have anyhow. When you look back at this beginning that says yea, all of you be subject to one another, and it kind of goes through your mind, all the times, all the people that have been asked to be subject to one another.
Wives are to be subject to submit to their husbands, and we say young you submit to the elder, and elder you submit to Christ.
Everybody submits to somebody, but children submit to your parents. Employees submit to your boss.
Slaves submit to your masters. But there's one part of that that we never read.
All of you be subject to one another. So there is no you kind of think
I do, I kind of think this person submits to that person, and this person, and you have like a chain.
And you got up here, everybody submits to God, and you kind of work your way down. Jesus submits to God. The Holy Spirit submits to God, I guess.
The apostles submitted to Jesus. The other people submitted to the apostles, and the preacher submits to the, and you kind of work your way down to you know, somebody down here at the bottom submits to everybody.
But that's not what it is. It is not a chain. It is everyone submit to everyone.
And I think that's exactly what you said, but I may be wrong.
God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Georgette, could you,
I'm sorry. I just have a thought before you go. That part of the verse is about the only thing in the whole
Bible to keep the verse free from happening. In the negative sense, verse 3, he was being born over God's heritage.
Pastors who didn't do that, if they don't understand that they have to also submit to everyone else.
And a lot of our independent pastors, churches, that whole faith is ripped out. That pastor isn't a dictator.
But see, don't you think that's human nature? That's why this is in here for us because without it, it would all tend that direction.
Because we do. We want to make a chain. And so what we're trying to do is work our way up the chain. And that's getting back to doing things for the filthy lucre, for the power of moving up that chain.
You don't have to have physical blessings, just moving up the chain. And that's what we're trying to do. We've missed the whole idea if we're trying to move to higher status.
Georgette, could you look up James 4, 6 and Greg, could you get
Proverbs 3, 34? God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
So James also makes this same statement. Both of them are quoting from Greg's Go ahead,
Greg. Proverbs 3, 34. Surely he has spoken of grace unto the
So all of the Bible is tied together and the authors of the Bible, I guess you even view it as the authors of the
Bible did their research and they all came to the same conclusions or maybe you can make the claim, and I think that's the claim that we make, that is that the same person wrote
Proverbs James and Peter. And that's kind of an interesting thought in itself, isn't it?
Yes. Is that true?
Well, I think it does. I think it's absolutely true. Yes, and I kind of lost my thought and that's the reason
I was quiet for a second because I was thinking as you began we all, that's the way we all should be.
All of God's children should be that way. Unfortunately, we're not always that way.
But that's something we certainly should strive toward. Yeah, I think so.
I think that we're instructed to submit to in some areas of our lives to the law and to maybe even evil people that are in positions above us, but not to the extent that it brings evil upon us that we do evil.
I think there's a line where you have to say, no, I will not submit to this because this is an immoral or an ungodly act and so I can't do that.
And I think we're it's my personal opinion that we're moving close to the point where we will have to as a
Christian community say no, I will not do that. There are several issues that I can think of that maybe the church ought to take a position of rebellion and say no we won't do that.
What the pastor mentioned is that it seems the older we get the more cynical we get. Because we realize as young, as Christians, we treat everybody kindly, with brotherly love.
We realize later on that these people are not adopted children.
These people are Satan's children. They don't care about us. And we submit ourselves to people of this nature then bad things will happen.
We need to be involved in the business world we're having to deal with people of that nature, we have to realize that we have to what you say we might be promises to God, we have to be wiling to realize that these people are not looking out for our greater good as we would other brotherly people.
Yes because ultimately we have to follow God's truth and God's plan not the plan of the world.
Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time casting all your care upon him for he careth for you.
Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God that mighty hand of God is the hand that is going to save us and is going to protect us but that is also the hand that may in some cases bring suffering into our life not all of the suffering that we have is the result of some sort of bad influence, some evil influence on the outside some of the bad things that happen to us are
God's way of disciplining us. If we quickly turn to 3
Peter 3 .17 For it is better if the will of God be so that you suffer for well doing rather than evil doing.
Now what that tells us is sometimes the suffering that we have is the will of God and if you'll turn on to chapter 4 1
Peter 4 .1 and 2
For as much then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh arm yourself likewise with the same mind for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin that he no longer should live the rest of his life in the flesh to the lust of men but to the will of God.
So not everything bad that happens to us is the result of bad things some of the bad things, some of the discipline is at the hand of God but chapters of a chapter but verse 7 is the most maybe the most beautiful verse in the
Bible and I have never seen it before casting all your care upon him for he careth for you
I don't think there's anything to be said about that. I had a thought there that I -N -G the word cast certainly isn't true it doesn't say that we cast our care on him once and we're alright it's an ongoing process for us we just take the care back so then we don't have to ask for anything and then when it says he cares that's ongoing as well he always will it's actually probably those two may be different it probably has a continual sense of it on his part it certainly does in English but essentially we're continually having to cast our cares maybe not on the neighbor well
I thought I had it but I don't it doesn't tell me the tense I was going to research that for you but I couldn't do it quick verse it doesn't
I've got one that does but I don't have that one up I think that's a good stopping point
I had planned to go a little bit further but time flies when you're having fun Greg could you offer up a word of benediction please
Father God thank you for everything you've done for this place thank you for sending your