1 Peter chapter 4, let's begin reading with verse number 16. 1 Peter 4, 16. If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time has 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. We ask, Heavenly Father, your direction, your guidance, as we not only consider this verse or these verses, but the application which might be drawn from them. We pray that your spirit would work among us, touching each and every heart here. You know what our needs are. We pray, Father, that you would supply them, even to the salvation of souls in some cases. Bless, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. You and your friend have just entered the newest Italian restaurant in town. It looks like you have stepped back into 19th century Italy. The menus are well designed. They have fancy lettering. There are a few illustrations here and there, but not like the Chinese place or the Mexican place where they have pictures of the food. These are illustrations of Italy. You're not an expert in the cuisine. So the names are not particularly familiar to you. After a few minutes, you make your choice of pinay agratin, $25 a plate. The waiter goes off and he brings you a big bowl of salad drenched in Italian dressing and a bowl of hot bread. The alfredo sauce goes with the bread just perfectly and you're chomping away. Almost full. You probably couldn't eat too much more. And then along he comes with your penne agraten. Sets it down in front of you. You take one look at it and realize you have been duped. This is nothing more than mac and cheese, except the noodles aren't curled, they're straight. And there's nothing gourmet about it. You're furious with the restaurant. You're furious with yourself for not knowing what it was that you ordered. You're not going back to that restaurant again because there are plenty of other places you can go to eat when you do go out to eat. Your decision makes sense in this case. It is sad to say, but we see the same thing in churches, churches that we visit. How many times have you experienced that in the house of God? You come to the church to hear an exposition of the word of the Lord, only to find that the text has been taken out of the context. The title of the message suggested that the subject would be something from the Bible, but it was nothing but a feel-good philosophy class for some reason or other. It makes you wonder how often has the message been completely off point and you didn't realize it until later. You came to taste of the bread of life, but you were fed macaroni and cheese straight from the box. I don't know how many times I have heard verses 17 and 18 taught, but not taught as the way Peter is speaking to us. Peter is not telling us to examine ourselves before the observance of the Lord's Supper or before we do some sort of service for God. This is not a declaration that unless we improve ourselves, the Lord is going to destroy the church of which we are a member. That's not what he's saying. This is not a reference to self-examination at all, but rather it is to the ongoing judgment of God that is the entire context before and after these two verses. Let me be more specific. What is the Holy Spirit telling us in this scripture? Admittedly, it's not very crisp. It's not easy to discern. For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God. Like nearly all other preachers, I understand the house of God to be referring to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, that church of which we are a part. But the reference to judgment is a little more difficult to pin down until we consider the context. Two verses earlier, Peter referred to Christians suffering as potentially murderers, thieves, evildoers, busybodies. Many of these young Christians in Asia Minor had come from various heathen backgrounds with different morals than what Christ taught or what the Jews had been practicing for hundreds and thousands of years. For example, some of them had been habitual liars, compulsive thieves, perhaps constant gossips. and pointing to their current fiery trials that they are enduring, the apostle says that corrective judgment for sins begins, must begin at the house of God. We have to deal with these things if they're a part of our lives, if they're a part of our congregation among the saints of the Lord. But if you suffer for your faith, it is one thing. That is one thing. But let none suffer as a sinner. Verse number 15. Then he makes a different kind of application. If God's children receive loving, corrective punishment for their sins, what shall happen to those people who hate God? What shall happen to those people who are already under the wrath of God? If God's children suffer for committing sin, what about these out there? If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? There are people who interpret, if the righteous scarcely be saved, as teaching some doubt about the saint's eternal outcome. They teach that if they don't straighten up and fly right, they won't get to heaven. You better deal with this. But the teaching of the New Testament is that every child of God is eternally preserved by Christ himself. Salvation is not left to chance. Salvation is not left to us. It's not started by the Lord and concluded by us in any sort of way. We have no strength. We have no righteousness. We have nothing to offer God even as Christians. We are absolutely dependent upon Him. So, Jesus said, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. It's not in doubt. It's secure. As Peter told us in chapter one, Christians are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. So, the apostle is not talking about eternal salvation. Rather, he's talking about us safely making it through our fiery trials. persecution if that be the case, and our chastisement if there is sin in us, chastisement which the Lord is trying to teach us to get rid of, deal with. The word scarcely in this second verse refers to difficulty, hardship. It doesn't suggest any doubt. It isn't saying barely saved. As in, wow, I didn't think you'd make it. The Christian life is difficult to live. It's difficult, it's full of testing, it's full of trials. It can be full of persecution. It's not for sissies. Those who have been declared righteous by God, those who are justified, will often find living a victorious Christian life to be hard. Difficult. That's what Peter is saying here. That's the meaning of the word. Hardship. Then on the other hand, The disobedient, the ungodly, may not suffer a single rebuke while in this world. No spankings whatsoever as they pass through this world. The world, generally speaking, loves sin, and it has little interest in judging sinners unless they be really horrible sinners according to the world's rules. But when the lives of the wicked come to an end, and they appear before the divine judge, things will change. They may have had a wonderful earthly existence, but it's over now. They're standing before the Holy God. Standing before Jehovah's alabaster throne, the book shall be opened, including the Lamb's book of life, and the wicked shall be judged out of those things which are written in the books according to their works. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Revelation 20. This is what I believe the Holy Spirit is telling us in these verses. I should have brought one. I don't know that we have any anymore. I should have brought a box of macaroni and cheese. Opened up that box and now we're going in a different direction. This is a different box of macaroni. The words scarcely be saved opened the door to another kind of message, not the one that Peter was saying, and I admit that. Making no apology for it. This is not Peter's message. This is my message using a couple of the words that Peter gives to us here. Without apology, it's difficult for God to save people. The righteous have been saved with great difficulty. They have been scarce. They have scarcely been saved. There's not a person on earth who is not a sinner in the sight of the Holy God. It is impossible for any human being to become sufficiently good or righteous to go to heaven. The Bible makes that declaration over and over and over again, which we saw in our Sunday school lesson this morning. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none, not one, that doeth good. No, not one. Romans 3. Moreover, by the deeds of the law, by the works that those sinners might produce in their lives, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be made righteous, justified in God's sight." There's nothing we can do to be right with God, nothing. There's no ointment or pill that can cure our sin disease because our problem is deeper than the flesh. Our sinful actions are just symptoms of the real problem. We are sinners by nature. No psychiatrist, no therapist who can reform or transform or conform anyone sufficiently to please God. Furthermore, if we were able, if it was possible, which it is not, if we could live a perfectly righteous life from this day until we leave this world, it could not undo what we have committed in our sins against God. Nevertheless, deal with the nature of sinner that we are. In the addition to our inability to cleanse ourselves, there's no person or earthly organization which can wash away our sins. There are no priests in this world who are righteous in themselves. They can't save themselves, let alone anyone else. There are no churches. There are no Christian denominations. There are no non-Christian religions in this world that can cleanse us from our sins. Baptism may imperfectly cleanse the body, but it can't touch the heart. Eating the flesh of the Son of God in some physical way cannot satisfy the eternal need that we have. We need divine help because nothing human or earthly can meet our spiritual needs. The point is, We have sinned against God and therefore we need God's forgiveness. Let's say that I was angry with you and I went to a third party and I lied in some way about you to that other person. And then I realized what a horrible thing that I had done. And I want to make it right. So I go to that third person and I say, please forgive me. I should not have said that about Mara or whoever. Please forgive me. And I try to make it right. It really, there's really no point in the third person forgiving me because my sin was against Mara. I need her forgiveness, your forgiveness. I hope you can see the illustration. Far more important would be your forgiveness because my sin was against you. And we have a biblical example of this in King David. David stole a man's wife, he slept with her, and then he caused the death of her husband. When the fruit of his sin, a baby boy was born, that child became ill and died. It appears that for 9, 10, 12 months, David wasn't too upset, wasn't too concerned about the sin that he had committed. But after the death of the child, or during the process, Nathan, the prophet of God, came to David and showed him the depth of his sin. And shortly thereafter, with a broken heart, repentant David began to plead with God for his mercy. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity. Cleanse me, Lord, from my sin. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight. Wait a minute, David. You sinned against Bathsheba. You sinned against her husband, Uriah. Actually, While David committed crimes against Uriah's family, his sin was against God, who said, thou shalt not commit adultery. He was theologically correct in saying, against thee, God, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy side. Since ultimately all our sins are against God, only God can forgive our sins. And to extend that illustration just a little bit, how could Uriah forgive David for getting him killed? He's dead and gone. Since ultimately our sins are against God, only God can forgive our sins. And that's why David begged the Lord to have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy love and kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. Please, Lord, blot out my transgressions against you. While only God can forgive sin, there is a huge obstacle in God doing that. The Lord Jehovah is infinitely holy. He is not simply righteous in the things that he does. He does not lie. He does not sin. Even more importantly, God is holy at his core, if I can put it that way. He is completely infinitely holy, righteous in every cell of his body. Please forgive me. In every part, he is holy. Just as you and I are sinners by nature at our heart's core, God is holy at his heart's core. Poor terminology, but I hope I'm conveying what I'm trying to. It is a part of his being. Holiness is something which he cannot deny. He cannot ignore, he cannot transgress. It is something that he cannot dismiss in order to forgive a wretched sinner. He has to deal with that. So how is it that anyone could be forgiven? Paul deals with that divine dilemma in Romans chapter three. Please turn to chapter three. Romans chapter three. Verse number 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. However, as we see in the next chapter, there are people like King David, the murderer, the adulterer, and the idolater Abraham, whom God forgave, cleansed, saved. In Paul's words, they were justified freely by God's grace. This is verse 24 of chapter 3. Justified freely by God's grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. To be justified is to be declared righteous, as Paul explains using David and Abraham as illustrations. Sinners can be declared righteous, but only through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God. God has sent his own righteous son to establish a way to satisfy or to propitiate the demand of death against David the sinner, Abraham the idolater, me. God has determined to use Christ's righteousness and his sacrifice to meet the sins of people like David and you and me. And in this, God can maintain his perfect, holy righteousness while still forgiving the sinner. It does not mar his righteousness to save anyone because the price has been paid in Christ Jesus. To declare, I say at this time, his righteousness that he might be just as well as the justifier of them which believe in Jesus. Again, here's the eternal problem. How can the just and holy God declare a sinner to be righteous while still maintaining his own perfect righteousness? The answer is in the death of his only begotten son, someone as holy as God the Father. When the blood of God's chosen sacrifice, Jesus Christ, is imputed to the sinner, exchanged for his sins, God maintains his holiness and still can forgive that sinner. Only through Christ can sinners like you and me be delivered from the penalty of our sins. Herein, Peter's words are true when we apply it to salvation, which was not Peter's intention. Sinners are saved scarcely, difficultly. But if the righteous are scarcely saved, what about the ungodly, the unbelieving sinner? The answer is, as we said earlier this morning, There is no hope for them. There can be no other way of deliverance except through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. And again, I point out that there hasn't been a person born since Adam who was not an ungodly sinner. There's no hope for any of us outside the grace which is found in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who gave his life on the cross. Now, Peter uses several words to describe the hopeless sinner. First, he says they are ungodly. This English word is most often used to suggest how awful some evil deed is. We see that in the book of Jude. It's almost... I'll just read it. Behold, the Lord cometh with 10,000 of his saints to execute judgment upon all, to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Here in Peter, The apostle doesn't describe the nature of our sinful acts. He says there is a certain group of people which are, by nature, ungodly. Here the word is an adjective, not an adverb, describing not what we do, but who we are. And this is that case, and Which simply means that they are without God and any of the blessings and the character of God. They are ungodly. They are without God. And that explains why those people are called sinners. To be a sinner is to miss the mark. To come short of God's standard of righteousness. We are like a one-armed blind archer shooting at God's target. It is impossible for us to hit the Lord's bullseye. We're sinners. We are gone out of the way. We are together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good. No, not one. Peter says something else in verse 17. They have not obeyed the gospel of God. How can someone disobey good news? There's no command in the gospel, essentially. How can they disobey the good news of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection? They disobey by not believing it, by not heeding it, by not listening to it. To hear the evangelist exhorting people, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and not to believe on Christ is to be disobedient to the gospel. And even when there's no evangelist, simply to live and die without faith in Christ is disobedience to the gospel. And where shall the ungodly and the sinner then appear? What shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? Please turn to Revelation 20. Revelation 20, verse number 11. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, And death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged, every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Matthew 25 verse 41 says, then shall he say unto them on his left hand, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. This is a very simple message this morning. Again, I make no apology for that. I'll close with what Paul tells us about David and Abraham in Romans 4. You might have your fingers still there. What shall we say then that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but he has nothing with which to glory before God. There was nothing Abraham, the idol worshiper, could do to create a situation through which God could or would declare him righteous. There were no works which he could use to undo his sinful past. It was impossible for him to live sinlessly in the future. But what's that the scripture? Abraham believed God and that, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. God applied his grace and righteousness to Abraham, that sinner, who believed him, who trusted him. He, Abraham, believed God's promise even though at the time Christ had not yet been sacrificed. But he had God's promise. That was good enough for Abraham. It was good enough for David. Now to him that worketh is a reward not reckoned of grace. but of debt. But to him that worketh not, like Abraham, like David, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness, even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works. It was so difficult for God to forgive David and Abraham that it took the death and blood of God's own son to make it happen. Couldn't come any other way. There's no other way to be saved from our sins but through the blood of the Savior. You and I may appreciate what Jesus did on the cross. We may shed a tear every now and then as we think about what he suffered, but our understanding of that sacrifice is in no way comparable to the pain that God endured to redeem us. Scarcely saved is any righteous person. And in the light of that, Those of you who are outside of Christ, outside of that sacrifice that the Lord has made, I appeal to you to turn around and come back to the Lord. Come to the Lord. Through faith, the same way that David and Abraham did. Repent of the fact that you are a sinner. Repent of the fact that you have hated God and not served God for so many years. Turn to the Lord. Acknowledge that you are undeserving of the least of His blessings and reach out by faith to accept that greatest of all blessings. the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Put your trust in the greatest of all God's mercies, what took place on Calvary so many years ago. There is no other way of salvation. Please stand.