1 Peter 4

CHAPTER 4THEME: Suffering produces obedience to the will of God

1 Peter 4:1

SUFFERING PRODUCES OBEDIENCE TO THE WILL OF GODIn this passage of Scripture Peter makes it very clear that when life is easy there is danger of drifting into a state of mind which accepts every blessing in life as if it were owed to us. We come to the place where we do not prize or value life as we should. As a Christian, what value do you put upon life? God permits His children to suffer in order to keep us from sin and to give us a proper value of life. I hear so many young people today say that they did this or that in order to find a new direction for their life. May I say to you, suffering will give a new direction to life.

David discovered this and wrote in Psa_66:10, “For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.” God puts us through the test that it might draw us to Himself and give us a new direction and drive for life. Such is the purpose of suffering. I must confess that I have recently been given new insights into this verse. Over the years it is a verse that has disturbed me a great deal, and I have never gone into a great deal of detail in my teaching on it. I have been rather amazed to discover that other commentators have likewise more or less bypassed it rather than dealing with it in detail. I trust that the Spirit of God will give us an understanding that will make this verse helpful to us. “Forasmuch” refers us back, I believe, to 1Pe_3:18, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” These two verses go together, and this is again a reminder that in His human body Christ not only endured pain but He was actually put to death in the flesh. In recent years there was a very popular book, When God Died, as well as a popular theology which said, “God is dead.” Well, God never died, my friend, and He is not dead todayHe hasn’t even been sick. Christ died in His human body, which He took yonder at Bethlehem. As the writer to the Hebrews put it, He was “in all points tempted like as we are.” He knew what it was to suffer. He knew what it was to bleed. He knew what it was to shed tears. He knew what it was to be brokenhearted. He was perfectly human, and He died in that human body. Christ brought an end to His relation to the sins of man when He died on the cross because He bore the penalty for sin in His own body. We are told back in 1Pe_2:24, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” Three times (1Pe_2:24; 1Pe_3:18; 1Pe_4:1) Peter says that it was in His flesh and in His body that Christ paid the penalty for man’s sin. That leads me to say this: Christ did not die in sin, nor did He die under sin, but He died to sin. He took my place, He took your place, and He paid the penalty for our sin. From that point on, Christ will not come back to die for sin. He will no longer have any relationship to sin Himself because of the fact that He arose from the dead.

When He came back from the dead, He came in a glorified body. He was “quickened by the Spirit,” or “made alive by the Spirit” is the better translation (see 1Pe_3:18). He has a life that now lives in a body. He is up yonder in a body that is completely devoted to the service of God, for He is God and He is in the enjoyment of full and free access to God and to all creation. Now Christ is able to make over this benefit to us. Peter tells us, “Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” “The same mind” actually means “the same thought.” Some people have said that it means resolution, but that is not quite the idea. This refers to the thought which leads to a resolution. This is what Paul spoke of when he said, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Php_2:5). “Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh,” Peter says, and those of us who have suffered in the flesh have “ceased from sin.” The translation of the word ceased is a very unsatisfactory one, and this is what had disturbed me about this verse. The Greek word translated as “ceased” is pauo. In the active voice, pauo means “to stop or to cease.” It is used like that in 1Co_13:8, “Whether there be tongues, they shall cease”; that is, tongues are going to stop, and that is something I have emphasized in my teaching.

When I was in Athens, Greece, I took a walk from the Hilton Hotel down to Constitution Square. As I would come to a corner, I would see a sign like our “Stop” sign, only there it said, Pauo. Pauo means “to stop” when it is used in the active voice. An active verb means that the subject does something; a passive verb (or the middle voice in the Greek) means that the subject is acted upon and the subject itself doesn’t do anything. In this verse which we are studying, pauo is in the middle voice or the passive. Therefore Dr.Joseph Thayer, in his lexicon of the New Testament, translates this literally as “hath got release.” In other words if you have suffered in the flesh, you’ve got release from sin.

Just what does Peter mean by this? First of all, I would say that God will use suffering to keep you from sin. I am confident that many of us have experienced that personally. Suffering will keep us from sin, but Peter is saying more than that here. Peter says we have got release from sin. That means that God has made an adequate provision for you and me to live the Christian life.

Dr. Griffith Thomas has said that in this verse Peter puts Paul’s Romans 6 into a nutshell of just one verse. Romans 6 is that chapter which speaks of the provision God has made for you and me to live the Christian life. Peter has made it very clear that we have been born again by the Word of God. The Spirit of God using the Word of God will produce a son of God. And that son of God now has a new nature, a new nature that is not going to live in sin. The Bible’s illustration of this truth, which I use a great deal, is the story of the Prodigal Son (see Luk_15:11-32). The Prodigal Son got down in the pigpen, but, you see, he wasn’t a pig. He had the nature of his father who lived down the road in that wonderful mansion. Because that boy had the nature of his father, he didn’t like eating out of a trough. He didn’t like eating the swill that the swine ate. He enjoyed sitting down at a table covered with a white linen tablecloth and eating with a knife and fork. He liked having a nice steak or prime rib before him, with all the other delicacies, topped off with ice cream. That boy didn’t care for the pigpen for he had the nature of his father. Peter says you are now identified with Christ. When you came to the Lord Jesus and were born again, the Spirit of God baptized you, that is, He identified you with Christ. Now let that mind, that thought, be in you which is in Christ. Christ is up yonder at God’s right hand in a body totally devoted to the service of God for you and me. Do you think, my friend, if you have really been born again, if you are really a child of God with a new nature, that you can go on living in sin? Now I am a Calvinist and I emphasize the security of the believer.

However, I think that there is such an overemphasis on that point that many of our Arminian friends also need to be heard today. This is one reason I feel as kindly as I do toward the Pentecostals; they are preaching a doctrine that has been largely forgotten, the doctrine of holiness. They emphasize that believers should live a holy life for God today. My friend, you cannot be a child of God and go out and live in the pigpen. Let’s face itif you do, you are a pig. Pigs live in pigpens and they love it, but sons do not love the pigpen. Peter says that God has made every provision for you: you are born again, indwelt by the Spirit, baptized by the Spirit, identified with Christ, and you can now live life by the power of the Spirit of God. In Romans 7 Paul shows how the Christian is defeated when he lives in the flesh, but in Romans 8 he tells how God has provided the Holy Spirit that we might live by the power of the Spirit. Again I come back to this word pauo. It is not used in the active voice; what we have here is a word that does not mean “cease,” but means “hath got release.” God has made every arrangement for you and me not to live in sin today. It would be impossible for us to live in sin. Oh, the son might go to the pigpen, but you can put this down for sure, he will not stay in the pigpen. One day he has to say, “I will arise and go to my father …” (Luk_15:18). If you are living in sin today and you are comfortable in it, I would surely question your salvation. Someone may ask, “Can a Christian do this or do that?” He might do it one time, my friend, but if he lives in sin there is something radically wrong. A child of God with a new nature longs to please Christ in all things. This is the reason that I believe the study of the entire Word of God is essential today. I know that I will be accused of playing on an instrument of only one string. Well, since I’m no musician, I have an instrument with only one string on it, and it is this: You need the total Word of Godnot just a few little verses to draw out some little legalistic system by which to live the Christian life.

You cannot live the Christian life by following rules. You can live the Christian life only by having the mind of Christ, by having the Spirit of God moving in you to please God and to refrain from those things which bring disgrace to Him.

1 Peter 4:2

Paul speaks very strongly in this connection in Romans 8: “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom_8:5-6). What does Paul mean when he says “to be carnally minded is death”? Do you lose your salvation? No, it means you are dead to any fellowship with God. “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (1Jn_1:6). My friend, you cannot live in sin and have fellowship with God.

Sin is what is keeping people away from the Word of God today. I have to confess that Christians are a minority, and in teaching through the entire Bible as I do, I appeal only to the minority of the minority. A great many folk are trying to find a shortcut to living the Christian life, and there is no shortcut. God says that He will use suffering in your life in order to keep you from sin. “That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.” We no longer take life for granted, for we have suffered, and God will use that suffering to keep us from sin. As he continues, Peter begins to look ahead. Life is short

1 Peter 4:3

After we have been converted, we would be very foolish to spend our lives in the things which we did before. In fact, we cannot do that. We are now joined to Christ; we are united to Him, and we cannot run with the world to sinning. We must live today for God. What a tremendous truth this is! Life is short; time is fleeting, and we must recognize that we are going to come before Him for judgment before long. “When we walked in lasciviousness lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.” Simon Peter spells out the sins here. Homer Rodeheaver was a personal friend of mine, and I loved him in the Lord. Years ago as we were having lunch together, I said to him, “Homer, you were with Billy Sunday for so many years. What do you say was the secret of his ministry?” He replied, “He preached on sin, and he always was specific when he spoke about sin. He spelled it out.” Simon Peter spells it out here. “Lasciviousness"that’s living in sexual sin. “Lusts"that includes a great many things, lusting after the things of the flesh. “Excess of wine” is drunkenness. “Revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.” “Banquetings” should be translated “carousing.” “Abominable idolatries"the Scriptures tell us that the love of money is the root of all evil; covetousness is idolatry in our day. These are the things which will take you away from God, and Peter clearly spells them out. I am afraid that today we have a great many preachers who are pretty indefinite about sin. Some wag wrote: “If you’ve got religion, you don’t know it. If you know it, you haven’t got it. And if you’ve got it, you can’t lose it. And if you lose it, you didn’t have it. And if you never had it, you can’t get it.” Some of the talk I hear today sounds as vague as that. My friend, sin is spelled out here. It is written in bold letters; it’s in neon lights in the Word of God, and there is no way of missing it.

1 Peter 4:4

Either you are going to please God or you’ll please men. And if you are pleasing men, you will not please God. The Lord Jesus said, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you” (Joh_15:18). If the world does not hate you, then there is something radically wrong. When I was sixteen years old, I began to work in a bank. They put me on the teller’s cage when I was seventeen and promised me that the next year I would be made a junior officer. I felt that I was well liked and popular in that bank. Then I went to a young people’s conference where I made my decision for Christ and to study for the ministry. I came back to the bank and resigned, yet they let me have a part-time jobthey were good to me in that way. But I found out that I was no longer the popular boy in that place. As a Christian I became very unpopular. In fact, the fellows with whom I had run ridiculed me, and they did a good job of it because they knew what my life had been before. That was a very difficult decision I made at that particular time. I hope that I am not misunderstood when I tell this little story. In those days I went to dances; in fact, I was chairman of a dance committee. After I made my decision for Christ, I thought I would break off my old ties gradually. I went to the next dance with the idea that I would not dance but I would just stand around in the stag line. As I was standing there, I felt very much out of place. There was a fellow there from the bank above whom I had been promoted.

He didn’t care much for me, especially when I announced that I was studying for the ministryyet he was an officer in a church himself. He came over to me at that dance and said, “This is a h____ of a place for a preacher to be!” Do you know, that was the first time he had ever told me the truth. I agreed with him. I found out that you cannot break off gradually. The world is not going to appreciate you very much when as a Christian you try to continue on with them. I walked out of that place, never to walk back in again. My friend, I do not believe that you can go on in sin if you are a child of God. You have the nature of Christ; you are joined to Him. He suffered down here once; He is suffering no more, but He can help you. He sent the Holy Spirit down to indwell those who are His own. We have been baptized into the body of believers, as Peter has pointed out to us, and now, being filled with the Holy Spirit, we can live for God. We cannot do it in our own strength but in His strength.

1 Peter 4:5

“Ready to judge the quick [the living] and the dead.” The whole world, the living and the dead, are going to be judged by the Lord Jesus someday. Will He judge believers, too? He sure will! Not for salvation, which was assured when they became children of God, but He will not let a believer get by with sin since He is judging the world for sin. Because God does judge Christians in the worldHe chastens His childrenthe unbeliever had better beware. He is warned that he will come up someday for judgment.

1 Peter 4:6

“For this cause"that is, because of coming judgment, the Gospel was preached. God wants the Gospel preached to all men. And if they don’t hear the Gospel or respond to the Gospel, He makes it very clear that they are already dead in trespasses and sins, and they will be judged as men in the flesh. But if they accept Christ, they can live according to God in the Spirit. The Lord Jesus said in Joh_5:24, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life"he was in a state of death. He further amplified this thought at the time of the death of Lazarus: “Jesus said unto her [Martha], I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

Believest thou this?” (Joh_11:25-26, italics mine). In other words, you and I were dead in trespasses and sins. Paul meant the same thing when he wrote to the Ephesians, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph_2:1). We were spiritually dead. Paul went on to say, “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world…. fulfilling the desires of the flesh …” (Eph_2:2-3). Peter is saying the same thing here in this verse.

The gospel is being preached, and when the gospel is being preached, two things happen. Some accept it, and if they accept it, they are going to live for God and live throughout eternity. Others reject it, and those who reject the gospel are the men who are dead in sins and are dead to God throughout eternity; that is, they have no relation to Him whatsoever.

1 Peter 4:7

“But the end of all things is at hand.” That has been true since the day the Lord Jesus went back to heaven. Paul could say that the coming of Christ was imminent: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Tit_2:13). Peter says, “The end of all things is at hand.” God is going to bring this world to a standstill one of these days while He judges it. He will take His own out of the world, and there will be a lot of things to straighten up in the lives of believers. They will go before the judgment seat of Christ, not regarding salvation but regarding rewards, regarding the life which they have lived for God. This is another reason we should live for Godwe are coming up for judgment. “Be ye therefore sober. and watch unto prayer.” “Sober” should be translated “soberminded.” Peter uses this expression a great deal. He actually means, “Be ye therefore intelligent.” Be an intelligent Christian. An intelligent Christian is one who knows the Bible; that is, he will know it the best he can. (I often make the confession that I marvel at my ignorance of the Word of God. The more I study it, the more I see how little I really know about the Word of God.) But, my friend, an intelligent, sober-minded Christian is going to know all he can about the Word of God. The Christian is also to be intelligent in this evil world. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples, “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and helpless as doves” (Mat_10:16). You need to have the wisdom of a serpent today; if you don’t, another snake around the corner is going to bite you, I can assure you of that! “Watch unto prayer.” In other words prayer should have in it that anticipation, that expectation of the coming of Christ. Our prayer meetings are dead today because we are not looking for Him. He is the living Christ. We ought to talk to Him now for we are going to talk to Him hereafter. And at the judgment He is going to talk to usthat is the thing I’m not so sure I’m looking forward to!

1 Peter 4:8

“Have fervent love among yourselves, for charity [love] shall cover the multitude of sins.” Peter is talking about our relations as believers today. The writer of the Proverbs said, “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins” (Pro_10:12). Hatred in a church will stir up strife. This little clique will be against that little clique, and these folk will be against somebody else, and all that type of thing. But love covers up all that. Maybe you don’t like the way your pastor combs his hair.

I knew a pastor in Texas who told me that he had a lock of hair right on top of his head which would always stand up no matter how he combed it. He said that the choir threatened to quit because of it. They sat behind him and could always see that hair come up sometime during his sermon. They actually became angry with him because of that lock of hair. Every time he went for a haircut he had the barber cut it off because he did not want to offend his choir. Imagine that type of thing!

If they had had love in their hearts, that lock of hair wouldn’t have bothered them one bit.

1 Peter 4:9

I think hospitality can also be expressed in ways other than entertaining in your home. The minister who is traveling and speaking in conferences needs to be alone. He and his wife need to have a room in a motel where he can study and pray rather than be in a home where he has to carry on conversation all the time. May I say, if you want to extend hospitality to your visiting speaker, take care of his motel bill. Maybe you could also invite him out for dinner. “Without grudging.” However we extend our hospitality, it should be done with real warmth.

1 Peter 4:10

“As every man hath received the gift"“the gift” means a particular spiritual gift, and there are many gifts. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that there is one body and many members and that the church is a body in which there are many members and many gifts. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what your gift is; I do know that if you are a child of God, you have some gift and you are to be using it in serving one another.

1 Peter 4:11

If a man is not speaking the Word of God, he has no business standing in the pulpit. We have no business saying we are teaching the Bible when we are not really teaching it. “If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth.” In other words, here is one man who teaches the Bible one way and another who teaches it another way, and you say, “I like this one, and I don’t like the other.” Well, the other man’s method may appeal to someone to whom your man doesn’t appeal. We should let each one minister “as of the ability which God giveth.” “That God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” Peter says that we are to teach the Word of God in such a way that God may get glory through Jesus Christ. Peter is now going to talk about a different type of suffering. The people to whom he was writing were now moving into the orbit of the hurricane of persecution which broke out during the reign of Nero. Nero had already begun the persecution of the Christians in Rome, and it was spreading out through the empire. Peter warns his people that they are moving into that orbit of suffering. Many of them would become martyrs. You and I may not become martyrsI trust we won’tbut we are going to suffer in this world, my friend.

1 Peter 4:12

“Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try [test] you.” When suffering comes most of us react as if it were something strangewe feel that nobody else has ever suffered like we have suffered. When I was a pastor in Cleburne, Texas, I went one day to a home on one side of the railroad tracks to visit a family in which there had just been a suicide. I went there to minister the Word to them. They said to me, “Dr. McGee, why in the world did this happen to us? No one has ever been called upon to suffer as we are suffering.” When I left their home I crossed over to the “wrong side of the railroad tracks” to visit another family.

They too had just had a suicide in the family. Do you know what they said to me? “Dr. McGee, why should this happen to us? No one has ever been called upon to go through anything like this.” We all tend to think that our suffering is strange, that it is unlike anything that has been suffered before. My friend, I do not know what your problem is, but I assure you that it is not something strange. Others have gone through the same thing, and you will never be the one who will suffer more than anyone else. When Paul was chosen as an apostle, the Lord said, “…I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Act_9:16). Paul has gone the limit of suffering; therefore you will not be going the limit, and you should not consider your suffering a strange thing. All of us fall into this fallacy in our thinking. I know that I could not believe it when the doctor told me that I had cancer. I thought you could have cancer, but I never thought I could have cancer. I thought that cancer was something for somebody else but not for me. “The fiery trial which is to try [test] you” should be “which is testing you"that is, it was going on right then"as though some strange thing was happening unto you.” These believers were already being tested by suffering. Suffering is not something which is accidental; it is the normal Christian experience. Peter says, “Don’t think it’s strange, because this is the normal experience of believers.” “Fiery trial” is literally smelted in a furnace. David spoke of the fact that God’s testing of him was like putting silver into a furnace to purify it. We find this thought throughout all of Scripture. Peter has now mentioned this fiery trial several times. He had personally endured suffering, and he was yet to die a martyr’s death by crucifixion. This little poem expresses it the best Out from the mine and the darkness, Out from the damp and the mold, Out from the fiery furnace, Cometh each grain of gold. Crushed into atoms and leveled Down to the humblest dust With never a heart to pity, With never a hand to trust. Molten and hammered and beaten Seemeth it ne’er to be done. Oh, for such fiery trial, What hath the poor gold done? Oh, ’twere a mercy to leave it Down in the damp and the mold. If this is the glory of living, Then better to be dross than gold. Under the press and the roller, Into the jaws of the mint, Stamped with the emblem of freedom, With never a flaw or a dint. Oh, what a joy, the refining, Out of the damp and the mold. And stamped with the glorious image, Oh, beautiful coin of gold! “In the Crucible” Author unknown God has a purpose in our suffering, my friend.

1 Peter 4:13

Why are we to rejoice in trials? Because suffering prepares us for the coming of Christ. Paul wrote in Rom_8:17, “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” I think we need to face up to the fact that there is no shortcut to living the Christian life. There is no easy way. Let me repeat, the Christian life is a banquetbecause He has invited us to the table of salvationbut it is not a picnic. We are to suffer for Him and with Him.

And we will know the reason for each testing when we stand in His presence someday. I tell you, I would be embarrassed to sit down with Paul in glory and be on the same level with him, because he suffered so much. And today some folk criticize Simon Peter, but we are also going to look up to him when we get to heaven. The Word of God makes it very clear that suffering is a part of the Christian life. Suffering is what develops you. We hear so much talk about how everything is supposed to be smooth and lovely in the Christian marriage and in the Christian home.

My friend, I do not agree with that at allsorrow and suffering will come to the Christian home. I know of nothing that drew my wife and me together like the death of our first little one. And believe me, we wanted that little one. We sat in that hospital room and simply wept and prayed together. That is still a sacred memory in our livesit did something for us.

1 Peter 4:14

This is strange language, whether it is in the Greek or in the English. “If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you ought to rejoice in it,” Peter says. “For the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.” Again may I say, suffering is a token that you are a child of God. The greatest proof that you are a child of God is that you can endure suffering. If you are being carried around on a silver platter with a silver spoon in your mouth, you must not be God’s child because that is not the way He does things. “On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.” You can glorify God whatever comes. It is said that during the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906 there was a dear, wonderful Christian lady who came out and was singing praises to God. Everybody else was crying, and some were praying for the first time in their lives. Someone asked her, “What do you mean by singing praises to God at a time like this?” She replied, “I thank God that I have a God who is strong enough to shake this little earth!” I say “amen” to that. However there are very few people who could praise God during the time of an earthquake.

1 Peter 4:15

Peter puts murder right down with gossiping and criticizing others; he makes no distinction between them at all. Paul did the same thing. Actually, Paul and Peter and James agree on everything. They are all preaching the same gospel that produces the same kind of a life. Peter says that we ought not to be suffering for our own sins. God never tests you with sin, my friend; He never tests you with evil, as James makes clear to us in his epistle. Peter says, “Let none of you suffer as a murderer.”

1 Peter 4:16

My heart goes out to the Christian who is in prison today because he is truly suffering punishment. However, if he is suffering because of his own sin, he cannot glorify God for the fact that he is in prison, but he can glorify the Lord and witness for Him in the midst of it.

1 Peter 4:17

“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.” Believers are going to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Paul wrote, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2Co_5:10). “We"Paul is talking about Christians. “That every one may receive the things done in his body"that is, the things done while you were living down here. “According to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad"we all must come before Christ’s judgment seat. Peter continues, “If it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” Christ has paid the penalty for our sins, but suppose that we have lived a life that has not brought glory to Him? My friend, we are to be judged. And if God is going to judge His own, what about the lost world which would not hear or obey the Gospel of God?

1 Peter 4:18

In other words, we as believers just barely made it. The righteous are saved only by the death of Christ and their faith in Christ. That is the only way we ever got saved, and we just barely made it, my friend. During a recent period of physical recuperation, my wife and I reminisced about our past lives. We really got acquainted in new ways, and I kidded her, “My I’m just now coming to know you. I think maybe we ought to get married now that I know you!” But I also said to her, “When I look back at my life, how I started out on the wrong track, the wrong foot, it is nothing but a miracle that God ever saved me. I just marvel at it. I just barely made it.” John Wesley spoke of himself as “a brand plucked from the burning,” and that is true of most of us. When John Wesley came to America, he was not saved, he was not a Christian. He made this statement, “I came to America to convert Indians, but who is going to convert John Wesley?” His biographer tells us that at the governor’s court in Georgia he met one of the noblemen of Great Britain who had been sent over to administer that area. He was a very wealthy man with a name, and he had married a beautiful, young wife. That young woman and John Wesley began to eye each other, and evidently John Wesley fell in love with her. He asked her to leave and go with him to live among the Indians.

And he thought he was a Christian and a missionary! But she sent him back to England, saying, “John this won’t work. I love you, and I’ll always love you, but God has called you to do something for Him.” She evidently was a Christian, and so she sent him back to England. It is said that three times he started up the gangplank, and three times he started to walk back. But she motioned him to go, and he went back to England. One night walking down Aldersgate, he went upstairs and heard a man speaking on Galatians.

Later, he could write in his journal, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did trust Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation, and there was given to me an assurance that He had forgiven me of my sins.” Now if the righteous scarcely be saved, if they be but brands plucked from the burning, “where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Peter asks. My friend, if you are not a Christian, and if Vernon McGee just barely made it and made it only by trusting Christ, how do you think you are going to make it? There is not but one hopethere is only one way of salvation. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the way” (see Joh_14:6).

1 Peter 4:19

Those who have really suffered know what it is to commit themselves to God. Paul spoke of this when he said, “…I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (2Ti_1:12). What had Paul committed unto Him? Some people believe this refers to the gospel which God committed to Paul. I’ll agree with that, but I think the deeper meaning is that Paul is saying, “I came to Christ and simply committed everything to Him. I made a deposit.

What things were gain to me I counted loss, and what was loss became gain to me, in order that I might win Christ.” Paul listed about eight different things that he formerly trusted for his salvation (see Php_3:1-6). Then he said, “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Php_3:7-8). In effect, he was saying, “I flushed all that down; I trusted that no longer. I only trusted Christ.” Peter says, “Let them that suffer …commit the keeping of their souls to him.” Have you really trusted Him? You probably have a safety deposit box in which you keep your valuables. When you go to sleep at night, you don’t worry about them at all. My friend, I went to sleep last night, and I didn’t worry about Vernon McGee’s soul. Do you know why? I went to sleep last night in peace because Christ has taken care of all that. I’ve made my deposit with Him, and I trust Him today. Have you made a deposit with Him? Have you committed your soul to Him? May I say, if you have done that, even when trouble comes to you, even when the dark day comes, even when you are called to go down through the valley, you can do it knowing that He will take care of you. God hath not promised skies always blue, Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through; God hath not promised sun without rain, Joy without sorrow, peace without pain. God hath not promised we shall not know Toil and temptation, trouble and woe; He hath not told us we shall not bear Many a burden, many a care. God hath not promised smooth roads and wide, Swift, easy travel, needing no guide; Never a mountain, rocky and steep, Never a river, turbid and deep. But God hath promised strength for the day, Rest for the laborer, light for the way, Grace for the trials, help from above, Unfailing sympathy, undying love. “God Hath Not Promised” Annie Johnson Flint Have you made your deposit, my friend? Have you committed your soul unto Him?