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Now, in these meditations so far, we have been concentrating on the sufferings of Christ, with particular reference to the first epistle by Peter, though not restricted to what he has written there. Tonight, we consider still that same theme, but in our last meditation, we happened to notice what an emphasis Peter himself lays on the question of time, which for him was radically enlarged by the resurrection of our Lord from the dead. As we consider our topic this evening, we shall come across in our reading two more instances of Peter's special interest in the question of time. And we begin to read, therefore, this evening in one Peter chapter four beginning at verse one. One Peter chapter four and verse one: For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. For he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. And perhaps we should reread that to bring out its force of verse two, that he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but that he should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the will of God, because the term to live, uh, uh, do you say, uh, our time in the flesh is referring to our existence here on earth in this present stage all the way through. Carrying on then in verse three: for the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries, wherein they think it's strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you. Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. But the end of all things is at hand. Be you therefore sober and watch unto prayer. And then a little lower in the chapter, verse seventeen: For the time is come, the judgment must begin at the house of God. And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Let them therefore that suffer according to the will of God commit their keeping of their souls to him in well-doing as unto a faithful creator. Peter's interest in time, therefore, as we see from our reading, uh, comes from his observation that what Christ has done for us has divided our lives into two parts, into two very distinct parts. What Peter here calls, uh, the past time and the present time. And if we ask Peter, what is it that has divided the believer's life into two distinct parts, the time past of our life and the rest of our time in the flesh? What has caused it? What has marked that division in the time of our lives. Then I suppose the answer of the immediate context is that it is baptism, our Christian baptism, that has marked our lives into two parts. That, of course, immediately raises the question of what baptism means exactly. It's no harm for us who have long since been baptized to reconsider the significance of our Christian baptism. And for any who are believers in Christ and not yet baptized, it might prove a very good stimulus to consider the significance of baptism and why all believers ought to be baptized. And if any of us, uh, uh, think that somehow baptism is a mystical thing that somehow cleanses us, then again we shall find profit by reading Peter's own description of what Christian baptism signifies. So we go back now to chapter three and do we read in verse 21, the like figure whereunto, he's talking about Noah's flood and its significance, and he says the like figure to that, even baptism does also now save us. Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but... but then here we shall have to pause. But, and because our translators are not all of them quite sure how it should be translated. The older, uh, uh, uh, the the newer versions read it like this. The ESV, for instance, puts it that baptism, you'll see, is an appeal to God for a good conscience. But that cannot be true. Then the Revised Version puts the interrogation of a good conscience towards God. I'm not quite sure what that means even. The older King James Version or Authorized Version comes nearer the mark, and it says that baptism is the answer of a good conscience toward God. Good as that is, it doesn't quite get across the meaning of the terms that Peter uses. The term he uses goes back to the ancient law practice among the Greeks, and then particularly among the Romans. If, for instance, two farmers have a, a, a row over a particular cow, you see, as sometimes farmers do. Ha ha. And it was came to the law courts to decide it. Then in those far off days, the uh courts would appoint a an official of some kind to collect the facts of the case, what the dispute was about and what it uh each side claimed. So he would get the two farmers in front of him, and he would put questions to them, formal questions. And when each farmer was, uh, questioned, he had to reply. So, farmer one, is this your cow? Yes, of course, he says, it's my cow. Then he put the same question to farmer two, uh, is this your cow? And he would say, of course it's my cow. And then he might ask the first one, where did you get it? I bought it at the sale, of course. Yes, and he stole it. And farmer number two would say, that's nonsense. I was given it by my father and had it ever since I was a boy. Hm. And so they would collect the facts of the case. The process in Latin is called a stipulatio. At its heart, therefore, is this formal putting of a question that then the person involved has to answer. We find examples in the ancient papyri of some people who, to use the term, being questioned, confessed this or that or the other. Baptism is the formal reply to a question. You say, who puts the question? Well, God, of course. It is God through his servants, that are challenging the person concerned. Do you admit that you are a sinner before God? Do you admit that you never could clear your own guilt. Do you admit before God that you deserve his divine indignation? To which the person is meant to reply, yes, I do confess it. And do you further receive and accept and trust the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, that he died for you at Calvary, bore your sin in his body, and suffered the penalty that you deserved and died for you? And the person would, in fact, reply, I do. Baptism is the God-appointed formal answer to God's question, where the individual standing before God and all the holy angels and the company of believers on earth, in reply to God's question, says, I do, by being baptized. That is one of the things that baptism signifies. That raises another big question. If baptism is the response to God made by good conscience. How do you get a good conscience? Now, this is exceedingly and fundamentally important. You don't get a good conscience by being baptized. For Peter is at pains to point out to us what baptism is not. It is not the washing away of dirt from our bodies. It's not that. Christian baptism stands in contrast to the practices of ancient Judaism, where they had innumerable ceremonies of washing in water, and they were for cleansing the person from defilement of one kinds and another. Our Lord Jesus himself commented upon those ceremonies on one occasion, and he pointed out that well-intentioned as they were and good as symbols, they didn't actually get to the root of the problem. You see, said Christ, it's not what goes ca- uh, into a man defiles him. It's what comes out of a man or woman defiles them. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts and all that sinister brood that defile us. Mere ceremonial washing in water, however ritualistic and religious, cannot remove that defilement or produce within us a good conscience. How then does one get a good conscience? The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us explicitly how we can get a good conscience. And it runs like this, you'll see, that if the blood of bulls and of goats sanctify to the cleansing of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Oh, what a magnificent gospel it is. Notice the emphasis. How much more? Grasp it with both hands if you are seeking to have a conscience cleansed. If the blood of bulls and goats under that old Israelite system sanctified to the cleansing of the body, the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. We ought to notice in passing what those last words are saying. It's not merely that the blood of Christ cleanses my conscience and makes me feel comfortable. It is that my life is supposed to serve God. And how can I serve him acceptably with a conscience burdened with the guilt of sin? And we listen gratefully to scripture. How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. On that ground, we come into God's presence to serve him and go out in the world to serve him. Someone will ask, what, how, how does it exactly work, the blood of Christ cleansing your conscience? Is it like some cleaning fluid or something? No, of course it's a metaphor. When we sin and fall short of God's holy law, our conscience, if they are working, not all consciences work, you know. They're like my alarm clock. When my alarm clock goes off in the morning at the prescribed hour, and sometimes I'm not willing to get up at that hour, I just bash it on the head. If you do that with alarm clocks, sooner or later they stop ringing anyway. And some people do it with their consciences, don't they? Till the conscience scarce works. It's a marvelous thing when conscience still works, and when we do wrong, our conscience registers the fact and creates a sense of guilt within us. How does the blood of Christ remove that stain? Well, it removes it because of what the blood of Christ signifies. We have forgiveness, we have redemption through his blood, says scripture, even the forgiveness of sins. Well, the fact is, and the wonderful fact is, it will never cease to fill us with praise and wonder, even when we get home to glory, that Christ shed his blood at Calvary, paid the penalty, paid it in full. And upon repentance and putting my faith in him, I see it. My conscience sees it. That the penalty of the sin I have committed, Christ paid for it. At Calvary. It's worth singing a personal hallelujah over it, you know. How much more shall the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living and the true God? That's how we get a good conscience. And therefore, when we are challenged by God, where do you stand? Do you admit you are a sinner and have broken my law? That you cannot save yourself? That you deserve the penalty? And we say yes. Do you accept and put your faith solely in God's Son as Savior who died for you personally as the grounds of forgiveness? And we say yes. Then says God, you will publicly witness this. You will make your response to me as I put the question to you by being baptized. You say to me, I don't see the need for that. Do you see, I, in my bedroom, you see, I, I, uh, uh, you know, last year perhaps, I got down on my knees and I needed forgiveness, and I repented of my sin, and I received the Savior, and uh, and uh, he forgave me. So why should I go through the rigmarole of public baptism? Well, let me take an analogy. Not that I'm an expert in the matters I shall now mention. But you see, we have this same procedure, or we used to until recently, in marriage, do we not? The happy couple come before some official, you see, and he says, pointing to the man, do you, Maximilian Smith, take this woman, Chytanistra Brown, as your wedded wife? And he says, I do. And then he turns to the lady and puts a similar question and gets a similar reply. But I have to tell you that that isn't the first time they decided among themselves to get married. Who knows when it was done? Probably by some five-barred gate out in the country with the moon shining and all that, do you see? And he plucked up courage to put the question, and the dear lady plucked up courage to say yes, do you see? So, why have a public ceremony? Why isn't that enough? Well, no, it's not enough, because marriage is a social thing with all sorts of social implications. And therefore, it is arranged that there shall be a public ceremony at which the man will be questioned and will give his formal answer, I do. And the woman will be formally questioned and give her formal answer, I do. So it is with baptism. But then to help us grasp the significance of baptism, Peter reminds us that baptism is a figure. You will see. It is a figure, not of death. As you know, when Christians are baptized, they are put down, immersed in water, and then raised up. You don't put them in water to make them die. That would be against the law. You put them in water to signify that they have already died and had better be buried, you see. You say, when did, when did they die then? Well, when they accepted Christ and came to see that he died for them. As a great apostle Paul saw that not only is Jesus the Son of God, but Jesus died for him. And he says, if that is so, then I died with Christ. God counts it that when Christ died, I died. And God's law is satisfied. But baptism is not only then a symbolic burial, it is followed at once, thank the Lord, at once by a symbolic resurrection. Because, do you see, the soul that is united by Christ through faith is not, can not only say, I died with Christ, he died for me, you see. And as far as God's law is concerned, the penalty's paid, I died when Christ died. But Christ rose again. And so the person being baptized is brought up out of the water to walk, as the Bible puts it, in newness of life. That's not just an empty, vain wish. It is an illustration of the sheer fact. The person that has trusted Christ not only gets forgiveness, but Christ imparts to that person his own very life, the life of the Holy Spirit, if you will. The believer has a new life. You have to spend a lot of time practicing how to live with this new life. But he receives it, she receives it, when they first trust Christ. So baptism is a figure. But, says Peter, with his usual generosity, there is another figure that you could take to illustrate it, you see. That's taken from the Old Testament, and the story of the flood and the way God saved Noah and his family from drowning. We shall remember that hideous time in human history when the world was so corrupt and so distorted by spirit manipulation, by evil spirits, that to save the very human race itself, God had to destroy the whole lot, except Noah. And he destroyed them by bringing a flood upon the world. It was nothing less than the judgments of God, for the waters of the deep were broken up, and the skies let down the rain. But God provided a salvation for Noah and his family. There were eight of them. And that was an ark. And when it was built, and the door still open, God invited Noah to come into the ark. And when they were in, plus all the necessary animals and birds, God shut the door. So Noah was saved, and his family. But mark just how he was saved. You perhaps say, yes, I can see that he was saved from the judgment. Well, you're partly right, he was in a sense, but it would be more exact to say he was saved through the flood. Ha. Noah and his family went through the flood, you know. Because the ark was so built that it could do what Noah couldn't do. Noah could not have survived the flood himself. So God provided him an ark, and that ark could go through the flood. The waters came up and lifted it up, and the storms thundered down on the top of it. But the ark stood it and bore it and brought Noah and his family through the waters of judgment. What a magnificent picture that is of Jesus Christ, our Lord. You'll say he saved me from the wrath of God. So he did, my dear brother, my dear sister. Ah, but he saved you from the wrath of God by going through it, as your representative, as your savior, and bore the wrath that would have destroyed you, but bore it and brings you through to the other side. It is an interesting thing to observe, that when the flood waters began to subside, Noah wanted to know whether the land was dry enough and firm enough for him to get out and walk on it. So he did what ancient mariners used to do in those far off days. They had no compasses, and if the clouds were bad, they couldn't see the stars, nor the sun, nor the moon. And if, uh, they got driven out to sea, uh, a bit, they couldn't any longer see the land. What they did was to carry birds on the ships. And in that situation, uh, the captain of the vessel would release a bird, and uh, a a a land bird, and the bird would rise up and with its instinct would work, and the ship's mariner would try to follow where the bird was going. That was an ancient device, was that? And Noah used it, of course. He sent about two old birds out. One was a raven, and that, uh, fed on the corpses and didn't come back. He sent out a dove, and eventually the dove came back with an olive leaf in its mouth. And Noah was told it was time, uh, he could get out safely out of the ark. I said incidentally for the Bible students present, there are multitudes of them. Uh, when our Lord was baptized, you may remember, John first said to him, oh, how is it you're coming to me? I ought... I ought to be baptized by you, said he. Not fit for you to come and let me baptize you. For Christ had no sins to confess. But our Lord said, suffer it so it full- uh, it is right that we, uh, uh, perfect all righteousness. Went down into the Jordan. Not because he had sins to confess, but all the magnificent grace of Christ. He went down into the Jordan, along with evil men and women, proud sinners, and the rest of them, and stood in the mud of Jordan with them, symbol of what he was to do at Calvary for us. But when he came up out of the water at John's baptism, God saw to it that there would be no misunderstanding of what has happened. For there came the Holy Spirit in form as of a dove and abode on him. And the voice from heaven cried to make sure there was no misunderstanding of the situation. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. The spirit, we are then told, guided him into the desert, where he was tempted of the devil and came through gloriously and sinlessly. I wish I could say the same about Noah. He was given the ark. The ark went through the flood, and he was saved through the waters to the other side. Guided by the bird, he came out on dry land. God made a covenant with him. The time past of his life ought to have been sufficient to have done ungodly things and practiced unholiness and lack of self-control. Should have been enough. Turned out it wasn't. Noah planted a vineyard, got drunk. And lost control. And bared himself to his shame. It is an ugly story. But we read it... with a conscience still at work, I hope. We who have been baptized, we have made our formal reply to God and received Christ as our Savior. And we have been baptized. And says Peter, the time past of your life, it ought to be enough, isn't it enough? To have wasted it on selfish living and questionable acts and sinful deeds. Wasn't it enough? We were meant, says Peter, you see, to live the rest of our time in the flesh. Not flesh in the nasty sense there, but the rest of our life here on earth. Since our baptism, we're meant to live to the glory and honor of God. And we hear, do we not, the challenge. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. It doesn't give us permission to carry on sinning. And so Peter reminds his fellow believers of the style of life that is expected of us who have professed Christ, had our consciences cleansed, have made our formal reply to God in baptism. Then how are we to live? Let me read some of the things that he says, you'll see. The end of all things is at hand. Be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent love among yourselves. For love shall carry, shall cover the multitude of sins. That doesn't mean that love will, uh, excuse sinning. It does mean that if we really love a sister or a brother, and we see they are falling short, we don't blab it around. We seek to pray for them, and elders to shepherd them and counsel them. But it's a world of mighty temptation. And then he says, use hospitality one to another without grudging. As everyone has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. We notice the term steward, and we shall come back to it in a moment. Christ has put his riches in our hands, the riches of the grace of God, and we are stewards of it, not merely to hoard it for ourselves, but to share it with others. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man serve, let him do it as the ab- of the ability which God gives. That God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. That is our duty. And Peter expands it more as he proceeds. Yes, we all come short. And thank God for the verses that say, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But now let Peter talk to us very gravely. The time is come, he says, one Peter four and verse seventeen, And we prick up our ears. This is Peter with his interest in time. The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God. And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if wa- if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? We might be inclined to question Peter, aren't you being a little bit severe? Are you denying the eternal security of the believer? You say, but doesn't your fellow apostle Paul tell us that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus? He does indeed. Then what does Peter mean that judgment must begin first at the house of God? Let me illustrate the point, if I may, by referring to what the Apostle Paul says about the Lord's Supper. There are two ceremonies that Christ left us, you see. There is baptism, there is the Lord's Supper. We should fulfill both. And P- Paul says to us, the body of Christ represented by the bread at the Lord's Supper. The wine represents his blood. As our blessed Lord said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for the forgiveness of sin. What does the new covenant say? It says this. I will write my laws on their hearts, and on their minds will I inscribe them. That's a wonderful message. That's distinct from the first covenant that was given through Moses, when God wrote with his finger the Ten Commandments on tables of stone. That was excellent, wasn't it? Written with the very finger of God. It had a weakness that while it told you what to do, it didn't, didn't necessarily give you the puff to do it with. And when it told you what not to do, it didn't of itself give you power not to do it. Oh, see the marvelous superiority of the New Covenant, says Paul in two Corinthians three. For what our blessed Lord has promised to do is to write his laws, not on tables of stone, but on our very hearts. That is regeneration. That is putting within us a new power, a new life. It is the power of God's Holy Spirit. And he's writing our laws on our hearts. They shall not teach every man his brother, saying, know the Lord. That is not to say that people, Christians, don't need teachers, they do. What it is saying is this, that every believer has direct relationship with God. Lovely, isn't it? Two-year-old in a family, he may not know so much about, uh, physics as his sixteen-year-old brother does and can talk learnedly to his father, who's a physicist, about physics and nanotechnology and such like things. But two-year-old, ah, not to be beaten, knows who daddy is and nestles in his arm and has direct relationship with daddy. Of course he does. And I've written unto you, little children, because you know, says John. I mustn't use the word daddy, because you know the father, yes. Personal relationship with the Lord. And then he adds, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. What a marvelous thing it is to come to the Lord's Supper without judging myself, without, as the Bible puts it, discerning myself. We're meant to do that. You'll see my friends, though they don't often tell me, but they do suggest some things a little bit slantwise on sometimes, that my friends can discern that I'm not all I should be, you see. And I, I could do with quite a bit of change in certain directions. We are expected to discern ourselves and confess it to the Lord and seek the fulfillment of his word. I will write my law on their heart, on their mind will I inscribe them. And as we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive our sins. But suppose I come to the Lord's Supper, and I'm being, I live carelessly, and I come without discerning myself. What will the Lord do? Says Paul, if we do that, the Lord will chasten us. For this cause, in fact, he says, you in Corinth, many of you are weak and sickly. Some have passed away. We must not suppose that every believer who passes away or gets an illness does it because he has sinned or something. That is not ours to say. But what we can know is this, that if we come carelessly to the Lord's Supper and live carelessly, then our Lord will honor his covenant. He has pledged himself to write his laws on our hearts. He will do it. He will do it the joyful way. But if he can't do it that way, he'll do it the painful way, because he's covenanted himself to do it. Why does he therefore chastise people that are true believers but are living carelessly? He does it, says Paul, that we should not be condemned with the world. The world goes on its way to the coming judgments of God. First, the Lord will deal with us, his people. And, if need be, chastise us, to bring us to a better frame of mind, and so that we shall not be condemned with the world. And then there is what has come to be called the judgment seat of Christ, where the Lord will call us to account as stewards of the riches that he has put into our hands. For this purpose, our Lord told a parable. Perhaps the parable has many applications. Let me use just one of them. There were these, uh, servants, some had been given ten talents, and they were able to tell the Lord that they'd used their talents and gained other ten talents. And the Lord said, well done, good and faithful servant, and rewarded the servant. Uh, you have... uh, charge of ten cities. Which moves me to give you a warning. Don't work for the Lord if you don't like work, because the reward of work is more work. The idea that when we get home to heaven, we shall at last be able to put our legs up and sit in a heavenly armchair and put our legs up on the pouf, you see, that they make in heaven, they're very comfortable, and just lie there forever and sing choruses forever. Nonsense, of course. The hymn singing will be lovely. But as stewards of our Lord and faithful in his work here, the reward will be more work there. Man had only ten talents, he gained ten more talents. As a reward, he was given ten cities to look after. But that was silly advice I gave you, wasn't it? Because, you see, in heaven, everybody likes work, and they don't want to retire either. There came a man with five talents, and he had gained five more talents, and he was rewarded. There came a man with one talent. When he was brought before his master, he said, you see, well, what, what, what said the master, what have you gained? Nothing, he said. You see, I knew you were a hard man, always expecting something for nothing, always wanting to reap where you've never sown. So I went and hid your money. Here is. The Lord said, you wicked son. You say, was that man a believer? Find it difficult to think he was, don't you? But when he was asked by the Lord why he didn't work for him, he said to the Lord, it's your fault. Can you imagine any believer standing before Christ at his judgment seat? And when Christ says, and what are you, what did you do? How did you use your talent? A believer would reply, I didn't. Because that's like you. Always wanting something for nothing, Lord. Always wanting to reap where you never sowed. Will ever any believer talk to Christ like that? But the Christ who died for us, when we were spiritual bankrupt and couldn't pay our debts, paid our debt for us. It's time, says Peter, the time has already come, that judgment begin at the house of God. If the righteous scarce be saved, what do you mean? Well, Peter give- Paul gives another example of it in one Corinthians three. Says Paul, I've laid the foundation which is Christ, others build on it. If a man build good material, he will get a reward, and his work will abide. So he gets two things, his life's work, and then a reward for it. If anyone builds bad material that will not, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, will not survive the Lord's criticism, he shall suffer loss. And his work be burned up. He himself shall be saved, because salvation was never dependent on works anyway. But he shall be saved, though his whole work is burned up, and he gets no reward, he shall be saved as through fire. It won't be a joke, will it? To stand before the Lord, and he said, what did you do for me, with what I entrusted you to use. And you'll have to hang your head and said, say, I didn't do anything. He himself shall be saved. But so is by fire. The Lord uses words. Bring us ever deeper sure- deeper assurance of salvation. In gratitude to him. For his wonderful death at Calvary. And that his blood has purged our consciences. And given us the assurance that we shall never come into condemnation, but pass from death unto life. And given us his Holy Spirit. Yet the Lord encourages in gratitude and in the grace of his Holy Spirit to work our fingers to the bone, if need be, to serve him gladly until he returns. So may he bless our studies together. Let us commit ourselves to him in prayer. Lord Jesus, we are conscious that as we have talked here together and read thy word, thine eye has rested upon us. Help us ever more clearly to understand thy word, to show gratitude to the unbounded, and to seek thy grace, to serve thee well. Lord, we confess our weakness to thee. We live in a perilous world, in modern society that grows more corrupt each day. Where to stand aside from their corruption is to invite social ostracism or even persecution. Lord, help us now, we pray. We want to say, oh, not boastingly, that though we have never seen thee, by thy grace we love thee. Help us to turn that love into active devotion to thee, that we might do thy will to thine own praise and glory and eternal honor. We ask it for thy name's sake. Amen.