Joseph Hart, writing that hymn, spoke of those scourges that tore his flesh. And yet he said there were sharper scourges that tore his heart. And we need ever be mindful that the soul sufferings of our Lord far exceeded the pain that he endured in the flesh, though that was more than any man, according to what the scripture says. He was marred more than any man. And yet the grief that he bore in carrying our sins and bearing our sorrows cannot be comprehended, the depths of it. He has not expected us to be able to bear that or contemplate those sufferings, for he bore it, that we might not have to. But he did remind us and he did command us to remember that he did die for us. And that's what we come here today to do in that method in which he told us to do it. We're looking in 1 Peter. 1 Peter. chapter 1, and we looked at the first two verses of this chapter, and we're going to continue there in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you who were kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Now we'll look at those verses, perhaps we'll go further, but blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we read in the scriptures that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God. And of course over time, men have set forth many theories as to exactly what that means. And I wouldn't be here today to tell you that I can completely and fully explain what that means, but I do know this, that it means that Jesus Christ came forth from the Father in humanity in a measure which no other man has ever been. Because he came forth from the Father as God in the flesh. He didn't come into the world born of a man and a woman's union together as all other men are. He was solely begotten by God in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Now, that is a very important point for us to believe because it is of the essence of two things. Number one, that He is the absolute God. He is the Creator. He is the King of Kings. He's the beginning and the end. We have one God. And yet the Lord has seen fit to reveal Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Now a lot's been written on that, I've said some things about it. I don't ever want you to believe that I don't believe God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But I don't ever want you to believe that there's three gods either. Because there's one God. And he is, from the beginning, he said the Lord our God is one. And yet he has revealed himself in a plurality. Now again, men have often taken that and in their quest to be able to explain that to the thinking of men, they have sought to explain something that cannot be explained. And they've said things that are more confusing and give people more misunderstanding than what it is. I believe this, that we should say what the scripture says about it and nothing more. And when the Lord reveals himself as the Father, we rejoice. When the Lord reveals himself as the Son, we rejoice. When the Lord reveals himself as the Holy Spirit, we rejoice. But we do not entertain the notion that there's some kind of a three-headed being, you know, that's all separate, because there's no separation. between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost insofar as what we would define as separation. Now it is indeed true that the Lord spoke to his Father. He prayed to his Father and he sent his Spirit into the world. We deny none of those things. But we just pause in what we say about these things and realize that there's more about this that we cannot understand than there is that we can. And so when somebody comes to you and they say, well, I've got this simple explanation of how it is you need to walk on, because nobody has a simple explanation. Nobody's ever written a book. Nobody's ever put down on paper the glory. that is in this God whom we speak of. It can't be. And it is foolish for men to argue with one another over this point about it and that. In fact, men have been put to death because they chose to say something a certain way that was not in keeping with those who were in places of ecclesiastical power that they agreed with. And they said, well, he's a heretic. He needs to be killed. The subject of what's called the Trinity and baptism by immersion, believers' baptism by immersion, more people have died over those two things than any other thing among religious men. And religious men are those that have persecuted other religious men over them. How foolish. Because brethren, None of us have any real understanding. I mean, this is the mystery. The mystery of godliness. I mean, it can't be explained. I can't fathom it. And yet I know that it's true. It says here, and we read it, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was begotten of his Father. And in a way in which no other has ever been begotten or ever will be. He is the only begotten Son of God. And he's blessed because he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The only way that any man will ever know God. is through his son, Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ is the revelation of God to men. The Lord said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. There's no other way. There's no other way he can be seen. No other way he can be known. There's no other way he can be entered into fellowship with. but in Jesus Christ. And so we rejoice in him. We rejoice in him who is the father of the Lord Jesus Christ because the Lord Jesus Christ rejoiced in him. He said, I came not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. Now that's a glorious thing. If you just pause and think about that simple thing, It can blow your mind completely. He came to do the Father's will, not his own will, and yet it was his own will, because his own will was to do the will of the Father. Brethren, these things are beyond us, and they cause us to fall down and worship. You see, when men can define God, it lessens the glory of Him. You know, a lot of men think they can define God and increase the globe. Men go about always, as Paul said, they go about to make God in their own image, how they think about Him. And often men will get mad with you when you tell them something about God that doesn't fit in with what they think about God. You see, a lot of people, they believe God, you know, well, He just, it wouldn't be fair. if God didn't do this or he would never do this or he'd never do that because it would impugn his character. The only thing that the Lord has ever said is that he would not lie. And what he meant by that was that he would do what he said he would do. You can be sure of it. Whatever God has said He will do, He will do. He will not go back on that thing. He's ever faithful to that. And so He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the world as the Savior of sinners. And had He not been human, had He not been the same flesh and blood that we are, He would not have been a suitable sacrifice for the sins of his people. The blood of bulls and goats could never take away our sin. Why? Because they're just goats. I mean, they're just animals. They're not humans. Had he not been God, he could never have accomplished it. Because it required that there be one who is without sin. Now, to be without sin means to be even as God. Now, you and I, we have been, we've had the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and in that way, we're without sin, but you see, our being without sin is because we're in Christ. Christ is the only one who is without sin. as a man, only one that's ever lived. But he was tempted in all points. That is, he was tried in every fashion as a man. He walked among men as all other men walk among men, and yet he was without sin. He came into the world without sin, and he left the world without sin. because he carried our sin away as far as east is from the west. Now that's a glorious thing. And the only way he could have done that was by being that eternal Son of God who is triumphant over all things. And so we rejoice today as we read, blessed, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then we read about what it is that he's done. Which according to his abundant mercy, Now listen to this, He hath begotten us again. He has begotten us again. Now we said that Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God and He is. But we have been begotten by God. That is, we have been born again. That's what he says here. We have been begotten again. This word here, born, or begotten, means we have been born from him. You know, you read in the, over in the Old Testament, there's a couple of chapters, and we call it the begets, because it's just a whole chapter of so-and-so begat, so-and-so begat, so-and-so begat, so-and-so. It means that was his offspring. And so it is that we have been begotten of God. And he says we've been begotten again. That's what he said to Nicodemus, was it not? Nicodemus, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And so it is, it's true. That's the work of God in men to cause them to be born, not of flesh and blood, well they are born of flesh and blood by his decree, but they are born again by him according to his decree. And not all men are born again. And so he speaks of this here. By according to his abundant mercy, he has begotten us. Now why is it? that we have been the objects of his grace. Mercy. See, mercy, there's no such thing as a man earning mercy. You can't gain mercy. No way to do it, because mercy is that which is bestowed without anything in the person. Grace is unmerited favor. And the Lord has given us more than just simply restoring us. He has raised us from the position we were in. You see, Adam, many people think, oh, well, you know, that was a glorious thing. Adam was in the grandest place he could be. No, Adam was not in the grandest place he could be. But those who've been redeemed in Christ, they are in the grandest place it could ever be. Now indeed, because you see, Adam, he was still merely a man of flesh and blood who was placed in paradise, but it's not the paradise. I mean, we're not gonna be brought back to the same garden that Adam was in. We've been given something much greater than what Adam was given. And it says here we've been begotten again, we've been born again unto a living hope, a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we do have a hope. Our hope is Christ. You see we have, our hope can be defined in many ways. Our hope, number one, is Christ. See, we don't have a hope outside of Christ. There's nothing that we can gain beyond this world that is not found in Christ. He is our hope. But what he's speaking of here is not only has he awakened us to see that Christ is our hope, he has worked in us a hope that is real within our bosom. so that we actually hope in Christ. This is an activity that the Spirit of God works in us so that we see that and we delight in it. In other words, it's just not something that's out there, but it's something that he has given to us at the present time. As Peter goes on to say, I believe it's in the second chapter, unto you therefore which believe he is precious. I mean, that's a glorious thing. See, we love to contemplate that which Christ has done because it's precious to us. It's that which we delight in. It's that which makes us to have rest in our soul. And that's what he says here. which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again, born us again. Because we didn't have that by nature. We couldn't gain it by nature. See, a man can, you can read the Bible a hundred times and never have the hope that is here through natural ability. You can't ever do it. But when the Spirit of God gives a man that hope, Not that he would ever want to, but he can't be free from it. See, he has that hope. We have a hope in him because it's a living hope. That's what he says here, a lively hope. That hope which is alive within us. And why is that hope alive within us? He says, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now the Lord said to his disciples that they should remember him. until he comes again. Paul said, do this until we remember his death, until he comes again. Because we have a lively hope. That is, we believe that Christ was raised from the dead. Now there are those that say that was just kind of a, he wasn't really ever dead, number one. They say, a lot of people say, he wasn't really ever actually dead. He was just kind of fainted. He was kind of just laying there in a coma, and you know, laying there in the coolness of the tomb and everything, and his consciousness came back to him. Well, that's contrary to what the scripture says. Scripture says he was dead. He died. He was just as dead as anybody that's ever lived in this world in flesh and blood, he died. He poured out his blood, even unto death. And he laid in that tomb for three days and three nights as a dead man. Now, how can I explain that? I cannot. Because you see, that can't be explained. Neither can it be explained how that on the third day, that same life, which he had from all eternity, came into that flesh and blood body and he came up out of that state of death, and he laid aside the windings that were put upon him, and they were folded up, the scripture says, there where he lay. Now how do we explain that? You know, of course, there are those that claim that they found those windings, you know, and they have that this has got his imprint on it and all of that stuff and people get all worked up about it. Oh, is it real? Brethren, our hope is not built on the shroud of Turin. Our hope is not in what men have told us. Our hope is built on Jesus Christ and His righteousness. And it's built on the fact that the Spirit of God has convinced us that He has been raised from the dead. Now you can't convince a man that Christ was raised from the dead any more than you can convince him that God created the world. But the Spirit of God can. And the Spirit of God does. And He does cause men to believe. And He gives men a hope, begottenness again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now what is our hope? Our hope is that because He has been raised from the dead, we too shall be raised from the dead. Now how's that gonna be? You know, the scripture says the graves will be open. Now, I don't have any problem believing that's a literal thing, that the ground's gonna burst open, then people's gonna come out of it. Well, people say, well, there ain't nobody in there. Oh, yes. You see, the resting place of every one of God's people is marked out. And known unto him, the scripture says known unto the Lord are all of his. He doesn't forget them when they die. The scripture says precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. And he took Moses, even though Moses was not allowed to go into the promised land. The scripture says that the Lord buried Moses. Now, you know, and this is a point that I think needs to be made in our society because it is a common thing that men feel that it is proper and good to burn a body when it's dead. Now I don't think there's anything, nobody's under condemnation that would do such a thing, nor does the burning of a body prevent it from being raised in the final day. But we don't have any example in the scripture of any of God's people burning bodies. The Lord buried Moses. He could have burned him. He didn't burn him, he buried him. the Lord Jesus Christ. They could have took his body out and burned it. They didn't. They buried him. And so it is, dear brethren, if for no other reason than to follow the example of Christ, I believe that that is the proper method of disposing of the bodies of the deceased. Now you don't have to agree with me on that, but I'm telling you, you're gonna search hard to find a scriptural reason why bodies should not be buried rather than burned. It may be convenient, it may be cheap. All those things might be true. But it can't ever erase the fact that there is prescribed in the scripture a means of the disposal of the bodies of, especially God's people. Now the pagans have always burned bodies. That's all, I mean, the Vikings, you know, you've all seen the movies where they put the old guy on the ship and they send it off out there and burn it and everybody's, oh, this is great. And over in India, they pile them up and burn them like cold wood. You know? That's going to be the way that that is, but I'm talking to God's people here, see. Because God's people are separate from the world. We're not taking our clue from what the world is, but from what the scripture would say to us. Now that's not here in the scripture, but it just came to my mind as we think about the body of the Lord Jesus Christ being laid in a tomb. and being brought forth from that tomb. And in the day of the resurrection, the Lord's gonna gather all of the bodies and He's gonna raise them. Now, I believe that all men are going to be raised. Some are gonna be raised to the resurrection of damnation, the scripture says, and some are gonna be raised to the resurrection of life. Those who belong to the Lord have a resurrection that's quite different from the reanimation of the bodies of the damned. Now those are things that, you know, they're fearful in some ways to consider, but nonetheless true. But the people of God, you see, death is not the end. The death of these bodies is just another chapter in our lives because actually, when we were born into the world, we were progressing towards death at that moment. We've never been getting further away from it. Now, I know you listen to all these guys, they talk about, well, pretty soon we're gonna have a pill you can take and you're not gonna die. Well, it's not gonna happen because these bodies were designed to live and to die according to the good pleasure of God. It's appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment. So if anybody needs to go, somebody asks you about do you believe in reincarnation? The best answer I can think of, you can give them. It's appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment. And so it is. We have a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for us. We have an inheritance. Our inheritance is in Christ. Now, we would not have an inheritance if it wasn't that Christ was the heir. Never forget this. Christ is the heir just like he is the first begotten, the only begotten. He's the first begotten from the dead, but he's the only begotten son of God. And he is the heir. But you know what he's done? He's made us joint heirs. See, he's the one to whom the promise was made. Not to Abraham and his seed, his seeds as of many, but to his seed as of one, even Jesus Christ. He is the only begotten heir of God. But the glorious thing is that what he has done for us, by his death, burial, and resurrection is that he has ascended into the heavens and made us heirs and joint heirs with Christ. And that's our hope. And you know, the critics of what we believe will say, oh, well, he believes in the pie in the sky, by and by. And you know, that's kind of a crude way to put it, but we do believe that we are going to live again. And the reason that we do is because we believe Christ lives in the present hour. And I believe that he lives in the present hour in a body that can be seen. If you could get there. You can't get there. There's only one way to get there, and that's through the portal of death, or to be among those whom the Lord will translate at his coming who will not taste death. Don't ask me to explain all of that, because I can't. But he has a body in the present time. In many ways, it's very similar to the body that he had when he was born from the Virgin Mary, except he has a body that is no longer susceptible in any wise to death. His body actually was never susceptible to death except for one reason, that he willed it to be so. He could never have been put to death. I mean, that was nothing that men could have ever done, but according to the ordained purpose of Almighty God, as Peter said on the day of Pentecost, ye have taken him by wicked hands, have slain. But it was according to the purpose of Almighty God, not because men were able to overcome him. Even as he said to Pilate, you could have no power at all, except it were given to you. And so the Lord is that one who ever lives to make intercession for us in the presence of God. See, he is at the right hand of God. Now there's not God and he's over here on this little throne on the right hand. That's not what it means. It means he is in the seat of power of almighty God. And he is that one who intercedes for us. That is, He is our substitute. He is that one who has bled for us. And He doesn't make prayers. There's no prayers in heaven. The only prayer that's in heaven is the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ at the throne of God as the eternal substitute for His people whom He loved with an everlasting love. He is our resurrection. He's our hope. And we have a hope in Him. And so it is that we know that He dwells in a body because what happened outside of Jerusalem 40 days after He was raised from the dead, He ascended up before them in their eyes. And now what did he ascend in? He ascended in a body that had walked with him, talked with him, and even ate with him. And yet he walked through the doors of the building where they were sitting. And how could that be explained? And yet, he was in that body and the angel said, why men, why are you gazing up at it? He said, this same Jesus shall come in like manner as ye have seen him go. The same one. Now if they could see him go with these eyes, when he left here, is it not true that they will see him with these eyes when he comes back? Oh, didn't Job say, in my flesh? He said, though the skin worms eat my flesh. Men don't like to think about that, do they? But that's what's gonna happen if any worms can get in there. Now you might can get you one of these, I saw these, you go down to the funeral home and they got these vaults that's got lifetime guarantees. And they say, you know, this thing's sealed up, buddy, you're gonna be in there and nothing can happen to you. But I'll tell you this, if time goes on long enough, that the skin worms will ultimately get there. and they will eat your flesh and you will go back to the dust from whence you were made. But he said, though the skin worms eat my flesh, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Because he's coming back. You see, and Paul said, brethren, if the dead rise not, we're of all men most miserable. We're of all men most miserable because we don't have any hope. But more so than that, if the dead rise not, then it means that Christ was not raised. Now what did he mean by that? He said because if Christ has been raised, he will surely raise those whom he loves. And so we have a hope. See, we don't have a hope just in this life. We do have a hope in this life. And it is that which gives us encourage that we might continue on looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of God. And he is coming again for his people. And we have that reserved in heaven. for us. May the Lord help us and ever keep us mindful that what we do here this morning is a temporary thing. We remember his death. Now we use photographs, do we not? To remember someone. But a photograph is not the fullness of it. You see, if you have a loved one that goes off for a long journey, you might be comforted in looking at their picture, but the picture's not the thing that you want, is it? It's the one whom you love. And the Lord Jesus Christ has given this to the people that he loves so that they might know that this is a temporary thing till he comes. Oh, that the Lord might give us a mind to do that today, to think on this work that he's performed in our behalf. Even as we have these common elements, they're of the earth. You know, this is made from flour and oil. All products of the earth, they come from the earth and the wine. And the Lord used these things to represent his body. Now his body was a fleshly body. It was made up just like yours is, mine is. And he used these things, and he said, I want you to partake of this, and I want you to do it to remember me until I come to get you. Now, when will he come? He'll come when he's ready to come. When did he come the first time? He came when he was ready to come. Now, it was a long time from the time that Isaiah said a virgin shall conceive It was over a thousand years before he actually came. But he came in such a time as men didn't think about it. They didn't know it. And the same will be true when he comes again. The scripture says that or delivered this to Paul, said the same night in which he was betrayed the Lord took the bread and he blessed it, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and he told them to eat. And that's the same thing we found. See, God's people through many ages have done exactly what we're gonna do here today because this is what the Lord commanded us to do. And I know some have corrupted it and all these different things. But it is a supper that God's people are commanded to take. But it is that which no one should take without a proper regard to what it is. This isn't just bread. It's not just some ritual that we go through. It's not gonna take away your sin. It's not gonna do anything for you except that by as the Spirit of God ministers the truth that Jesus Christ spoke it causes us to be reminded in our minds of the actual reality of the fact that his body was broken for our sake and his blood was poured out. So may the Lord give us a mind to partake of that even as he said. So let a man examine himself not to see if he's He's worthy, but to see that He is taking it worthily, that He has a proper regard, that He has a regard to what Christ has done, do we believe that? And if we do, then we must protect of this, because He commanded us to. And we testify that His body broken and His blood shed is our hope for both now and forever.