We're working through the three main themes in the first letter of Peter, and in the last talk we looked at the salvation which we need to have as a sure foundation when the pressure comes. We looked at the suffering and how to handle that, but the surprise in the letter is the emphasis on submission, on learning to give in, learning to accept what happens.
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Now that does not mean that you do everything you're told. There is a limit to obedience to civic authorities. And it was Peter himself who once said, we must obey God rather than men. So there is a limit to submission and that limit comes when the authority tells us to do anything immoral or illegal against the law of God and so there are limits but a Christian must be a loyal subject and should not be arrested because they are rebellious, because they're aggressive towards the authorities.
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You know, some people believe in submission provided the person you're submitting to is a good person. But he said, no, even the harsh masters. Then thirdly, another great source of suffering was Christian wives of unconverted husbands and that is a very difficult situation and causes great heartache. Wives be subject to your husbands, even the unbelieving ones. And in fact, Peter gives great advice on how to win your unconverted life. converted husband for Christ. And it's totally contrary to what we tend to do.
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He says you've got to win him without a word. And so many Christian wives go home after church and say, you should have been in church tonight, that pastor might have been just going through your life, you know? And most Christian wives after about three months regret having preached to their husbands. You do it without a word. Well how do you do it? The answer is Peter says become more attractive to look at and more attractive to live with. That's a simple program for Christian wives.
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There's a beauty column in chapter 3 of 1 Peter, how to become beautiful. Not how to be glamorous, but how to be beautiful. Glamour belongs to the under 40s, beauty belongs to the over 40s. I'm serious. The most beautiful woman I ever knew was a Miss Harris. She was 84 when I met her. She had enough lines on her face to supply a British telecom with all their wires. But anyway, I said to her, do you mind my saying, Miss Harris, you've got the most beautiful face? And her response was surprising. She said, you're not the first man to have told me that. Then she said this, when I was young I was so plain, so ugly, I never got a date, I never got asked to dance at the school dance. But she said, when I was 27, I fell in love with Jesus. And she says, for the next week I was up in the clouds. In fact, she said, I was so happy that he loved me. I said to him, please Jesus, take the joy away or I'll trust the joy. the joy rather than you. I've had so many Christians pray that God would take the depression away. She was the only one I've ever known, take the joy away. But she said, you know, you get to be like the people you love. She said, that's how I got this face. I'll never forget that.
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You may leave your glamour behind, but what's glamour? Well now, he says, become more attractive to look at and more attractive to live with, and your husband will say, I got a better wife from Jesus. But you know what many husbands say? Jesus ran off with my wife. She doesn't belong to me anymore. And it's very important that wives learn to go with their husbands, husbands. But far too many women go to coffee mornings and Bible studies and they become spiritual racehorses while their husband is still at the starting post, and he feels less and less the head of the house.
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I said, all you need is a little bit of faith that God will speak to you through your husband. But how can he? He's an unbeliever. I said, listen, God once spoke to a man through his donkey. And if God can speak to a man through his donkey? Okay? God can speak to you through your husband.
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But 18 months later, I'm down in the same lower western valley and there she is again. She came up and she said, I've got another problem, Mr Pawson. But she says, it's my husband this time. I said, oh, what's your problem? She said, what do you do with a husband who's way ahead of you spiritually? I said, are you serious? She said, very serious, he's at the back of the meeting. I said, what happened? She said, for a whole month I was angry with you and then I went to my husband in desperation, told him the problem, he gave me the answer. He said, I don't know who was more surprised, him or me. But he began to get interested from that day. Now he's a believer. But he said, she's run so fast to catch, he's run so fast to catch me up, he's gone shooting right past me and he said, he's way up, she said, I don't like him, he's way up here now.
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I've told wives who've said to me, how can I get my husband saved? I've said, stop going to church. They say, no seriously, how can I get my husband converted? I said, I was serious. It's amazing how many husbands have started coming to church because their wives stopped. See? And Peter is very wise in this. He said, wives, you bring unnecessary suffering on yourself because you're getting further and further away from your husband. But when your husband says, I've got a much better wife from Jesus, she's much better looking now, she's much easier to live with now, he's much more likely to come.
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Peter's saying is in all these areas of life, develop the attitude of not fighting back, of not retaliating, of not being aggressive, of not asserting yourself or your rights, because that's a whole attitude which will mean that when the suffering comes you won't be able to handle it. So get ready now.
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David, if you are faithful in the little battles now, he will give you the grace when the big crunch comes. That was wise. I've never forgotten what he said because… … … … set. Peter, he's an elder and I looked to him and it was wise advice. So develop this attitude, have this foundation, develop this attitude and when this comes you'll be able to handle it.
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And in its simplest way. plainest sense it says that between his death and resurrection, Jesus was active, conscious and actually communicating with others who were also fully conscious and communicating with him. Now of course you never hear about this in church because all Holy Week services finish on Friday and start up again on Sunday, so you're never told what Jesus was doing on the Saturday, right? But you see we tend to think of Jesus doing nothing between his death and resurrection, being just unconscious, inactive in the tomb. But it says only his body was dead, but his spirit was very much alive and he went to the world of the dead and he was preaching.
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You will be fully conscious one minute after you're dead. You will know who you are, you will have your memory. It's only your body that dies, not your spirit. Death separates body and spirit. Later, spirit and body will be reunited in the resurrection, but much later for us. But Jesus went through all three phases in less than a week.
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But I believe it's better rather than to try and twist scripture to fit our system, to accept it in its simplest, plainest value, but limit it to what it says. And there is no ground here for a second chance for anyone else. What Alfred Lord Tennyson, whose centenary we celebrate this year, called the larger hope, the hope that we'll all get a chance after death. That's universalism and that's not taught in the scripture.
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There are two kinds of pressure we face, the pressures from outside the church and the pressures from inside. And it's the ones from the inside that are the more dangerous.
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I told you earlier that Satan has never destroyed the church from outside. The more he hits it from the outside, the bigger and stronger it gets and that's why during the first three centuries of Christianity, when Christians were being thrown to the lions regularly, the church never grew so fast.
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But Satan can destroy it from the inside and I'm afraid hostility is one thing, that's a simple pressure, but heresy is a subtle pressure and 2 Peter is about this bigger danger.
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A syncretistic view of the person of Christ. They were saying, he is not the only Lord, he's just one among others. Comparative religion. He is a way, but there are many other ways to God. He is not the only way. That's that word only which is the offence, you know. So they were corrupting the person of Christ and saying he's a way, not the way.
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And then they had a sentimental view of the love of God, the grace of God which says, God loves to forgive you so it doesn't matter if you sin. Now you can imagine what that would do. A corrupt creed means secondly, a corrupt conduct. What you believe affects your behaviour. And invariably, when you change Christian faith, you introduced immorality into the church.
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But when conduct has been corrupted, the next thing that is corrupted is character and there's a description of the effects of all this on the character of people and they become more animal than human, operate by base instincts. They become greedy and lustful and their character changes. They are no longer reliable, they're like clouds driven by the wind, waves of the sea. All these descriptions are there. It's vivid of weak character.
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Now all that's devastating and I'm sure as I go through it, you recognise that this is happening in many churches. And both 2 Peter and Jude fought this thing hard. They saw that it would finish off the church and it wouldn't need suffering from outside. The thing would have collapsed from within and a church like that under persecution will not stand.
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So now we have entered the household of God, the household based on faith, by taking these steps. But now there's a staircase inside and he says, to your faith add virtue, to your virtue knowledge, to your knowledge self -control, to your self -control patience, to your patience godliness, to your godliness brotherly kindness kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. And in climbing that staircase, you are building up your hope. He's talking about a grand entrance into glory, about making your calling and election sure. If you want to make your calling and election sure, you can't do it at the bottom of the staircase. You do it by climbing up those stairs. That's how you make it sure, by reaching the upper room of love, which is where the church should be living.
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In other words, the answer to heresy is maturity. People down here are vulnerable to false teaching on the ground floor. The higher you go, the more you're living up here, then the less you are vulnerable to heresy and false teaching. But if you listen to false teaching, you'll find yourself going out a back door and slipping down a slippery slope and falling.
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It's better never to have known than to fall away. To fall from grace would be better if you'd never heard about grace. Better for someone who's never heard than someone who has and goes back to their own sick and their own mud. And that happens through false teaching, which erodes the foundation of faith.
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And our hope is this, that one day all this universe is to be dissolved in fire. There's to be another holocaust and it's not this time to be a flood of water, but a flood of fire. I just imagine, not that it would be a nuclear war, but that God would just release all the energy in every atom. He packed the energy into the atom, all he'd need to do would be to unlock it. The whole thing goes up in smoke. And then it says, but out of the fire like a phoenix rising from the flames, there's a new heaven and a new earth.
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We look for a new heavens and a new earth, but there is going to be something about the new heaven and the new earth which will be so different from this planet we have known and the difference will be this, it will be a new heaven and earth in which righteousness dwell. There will be no vice, no crime, no sin, nothing dirty, nothing filthy, nothing.
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If you really believe that, Peter says, you won't listen to all these scoffers, you know it's coming, but what manner of people, what manner of people ought we to be if we know all this, that all this world is going and a new world is coming in which no sin will ever be allowed? Well the answer's simple, you live holy and godly lives, you get ready, start packing.
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So live up here in faith, hope and love and get ready for glory. When you hear the sound of the trumpet, you'll have your first free flight to the Holy Land. Thank you. Thank you. What a meeting! That's the word on my grandfather's tombstone in Newcastle. Three words from an old Methodist hymn. There is his name, David Ledger Pawson, and underneath, what a meeting! If you don't like noisy worship, don't be around. The archangel will be shouting, the trumpets blowing, it'll be enough to raise the dead. That's exactly what it'll do. And those who've died will get front seats, so don't worry if you die first, you'll get a front seat then because you rise first and we shall all meet him in the end. Beyond that, a new heaven and a new earth. Peter says, keep your hope fixed on that and you will live the way that you will need to live to be part of that new world.
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