Stablish, strengthen, settle you (Quality: Good)

[0:00] As the Lord should be pleased to help me, I shall call your attention to a subject you will find in the first epistle of Peter, chapter 5, and the 10th verse.

[0:15] But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.

[0:40] Chapter 5, first epistle of Peter, and the 10th verse.

[0:51] Each of you who have the mercy to be sinners born again will contemplate a subject like this with longing eyes and desire that you might participate in the benefit and blessing set forth therein.

[1:21] Nothing can be more desirable than to be established in the truth, to be settled in an interest in the things of God.

[1:35] And I would like, as grace is given, to look at this subject from three or four viewpoints of it, hoping it might be a word in season for many of us.

[1:50] And in approaching the subject, I look at the setting of it, remembering that it is found in the first epistle of Peter.

[2:04] And now when Peter was with the Lord Jesus Christ, when he dwelt on earth as verily man, verily God, journeying about with him from the time when he was made manifest as a disciple, at that time, Peter was not able to pen such an epistle as this first epistle of Peter is in the word of God.

[2:39] Because he was not qualified to do it. Many things which are set forth in this epistle of his, he had not entered into deep down.

[2:52] And therefore it could not be that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. I find it very helpful, instructive, encouraging, to compare the apostle Peter as he is revealed in the Gospels, and then as you read of him as Peter the Aged, in these two epistles of his.

[3:18] And it might be helpful if I say just a little about it in approaching the subject. And now Peter, as a disciple, when he journeyed about with the Lord Jesus, was a disciple indeed.

[3:37] He had got the root of the matter within, and he was right at heart. But he was not very clear in his judgment on some viewpoints of truth.

[3:53] And when Jesus began to speak about the sufferings that awaited him as the climax of his life on earth, and which he came down into the world to do, for for sinners like you and me, the apostle Peter, hearing about the Savior's suffering, sought to rebuke him as verily man, and said, Be that far from thee, Lord.

[4:27] I do not like to hear this subject of suffering awaiting thee. And he did not realize the absolute necessity for it.

[4:42] And so much so, that Jesus rebuked him and said, Get thee behind me, Satan. What you are saying to me, Peter, comes from hell, and not from heaven.

[4:57] Therefore, something has happened to the apostle Peter, that now he is Peter, the aged, he should write like he does in this first epistle, Beloved, think it not strange, concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.

[5:24] But rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's suffering, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

[5:35] And he says in our subject, but the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.

[5:53] And now there are two things, which happened to Peter, when, he was, a disciple first of all, which afterwards was overruled by God, to make him, the great man of God that he was in the ministry.

[6:16] You will remember, Jesus Christ said to thee, Apostle Peter, Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.

[6:36] The Saviour could see that Peter was altogether too big of Peter, to preach the gospel to purpose and profit, and he needed to be brought down, and his self-confidence, his self-sufficiency, Satan, that he might learn his absolute dependence on the God of all grace, to be made useful in the ministry.

[7:08] And he went into Satan's test, and he failed oh so solemnly, therein, he went in and out sized Peter, he came out a very wee Peter, and he could never be a big Peter again.

[7:27] He had only got to close his eyes, and go back in his mind to the kitchen in the kitchen maze, and remember what happened, and his behaviour then, and there he came, to the right side.

[7:39] The poor, guilty, helpless, hell-deserving, sinner, dependent on the God of all grace, to live a right.

[7:51] Learning what you and I must learn, myself I cannot save, myself I cannot keep, but strength in thee, I say, and would have, whose eyelids never sleep.

[8:02] And now that lesson was needful to the apostle Peter, that he might preach the gospel with a right understanding of it.

[8:16] But there is another side, also. When Jesus Christ rose from the dead, the word of God tells us that the message was, go and tell my disciples and Peter.

[8:36] Peter was named especially because the Saviour knew that Peter would be so troubled about his behaviour that he might be no longer regarded as a disciple or an apostle.

[8:53] But when the message was carried to him, then it could be said that the Saviour especially mentioned his name, to encourage him still to hope in God.

[9:06] And the word of God tells us that the Saviour had an interview with Peter, but the Spirit of God goes into no details about it. But we do know this, that Peter had all his sins, his base back sliding, blotted out, so that he had that beautiful viewpoint of the Gospel in his own soul's experience, through this man there is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.

[9:40] The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sins. And those two experiences, learning what he was by nature, deeper down than he ever realized, learning to, the grace of God in the fullness of it, superabounding over all that he was by nature, enabled him to preach the Gospel to purpose and profit.

[10:11] And in our subject, he speaks of God as the God of all grace. and he could speak feelingly about grace, superabounding over all that he was by nature as a sinner.

[10:28] Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth could speak. And now, I believe that every man God ordains to preach has got something like that in the dealings of God with him.

[10:44] He has got hidden in his background what he may never speak about in public, of how sad his state by nature is, and how far down he has gone to learn it, which it might not be prudent to put into words in public, but he has got the reality of it, the knowledge of it, and it keeps him little in his own eyes, and he needs to be.

[11:13] Yes. but he knows also that God is the God of all grace, and his aim is to proclaim it, encourage poor sinners to believe in him as the God of all grace.

[11:32] And there I open up the subject, there is just one thought here, which I want you to treasure of, God. And now, go back to Peter in the Gospels as he lived his life then, when he was a learner of the truth, when some things he said were not edifying, some things he said were.

[11:59] We believe and assure thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Lord, to whom can we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and that was worth listening to.

[12:10] And that was the real Peter underneath, the godly Peter. Yes. But this is what I want you to remember, dear friends. Be very kind in your judgments of men or ministers in their youthful days, wherein they may sometimes say things not altogether that should be said according to the word of God, or even do things which a better judgment would not have allowed them to do, because it may be as the days unfold in the dealings of God with them, they will learn their lessons well, and they will come forth like Peter did, as Peter the ages, and be very useful in their day and generation.

[13:08] Do remember that! And judge righteous judgment. It is like this.

[13:21] Here is an orchard. It is filled with apple trees. the trees are loaded, but the apples are still green.

[13:34] And you know, as you pass by and look on, that a few more storms, and much more sunshine, and harvest time will come, and the apples will be ripened, and eatable, but not before.

[13:52] And now it is like that, in how you learn the things of God. It may be in the early dealings of God, when we are young, there are things said, statements made, and you listen, and you realize, so far he's right, but he must know farther than this he yet must go.

[14:20] Which is just this, that the apple is green in his soul's experience, but wait a while, yes, and pray a while, and there shall be ripeness, and it shall be seen, he is an apple tree, and that which he brings forth of the dealings of God with his soul, are the things that God has done for his soul, and to be remembered, and prized, yes.

[14:51] grace, and now let us start fresh, but the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you, let us contemplate as grace is given, the God of all grace, grace, what a beautiful title it is, all grace, whatever characteristic there is in grace, and there are varied characteristics in grace, suitable for whatever our journey through life may be, all grace, whatever its characteristic, comes from God, as the God of all grace, the grace of God, all how often you hear about it, the great thing is, do you possess it, what evidence do you find in your soul as you were here before God, that you were the subject of grace, there is no greater mercy that you can know, than to possess grace, to say with the apostle

[16:20] Paul, and he called me by his grace, you say alas I cannot say much about it, I wish I could, maybe you were like the hymn writer, marks of grace I cannot show, all polluted is my breast, yet I weary am I know in the weary long for rest, oh grace is very alluring to poor sinners when they are born again, and they are ever on the stretch in a right mind for more grace, and they never realise that they have got it, it is grace that makes men feel their need, and cry to God for more, and however much grace God may bestow upon you, you will only realise deeper down your need of more grace, to reduce to practice that grace which he has communicated, the God of all grace, and that means you want grace to apprehend who he is as the God of all grace.

[17:28] As I thought on this subject, it came to my mind what you read in the book of Zechariah, and the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me as a man that is wakened out of his sleep, and said unto me, what seest thou?

[17:50] And I said, I have looked, and behold, a candlestick ball of gold with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof, and two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl, and the other on the left side thereof.

[18:12] So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, what are these, my Lord? And now here is the answer. Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, this is the word of the Lord unto his irubbable, saying, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

[18:41] And that means this, while we in the means are found, and the means are the pipes, the oil flows.

[18:54] While we in the means are found, we still alone on thee depend to make the gospel's joyful sound effectual to the promised end.

[19:05] And that you learn in the pew. You need the God of all grace to help you to hear to purpose and profit in your soul's feelings. then it can be said, blessed are your ears, for they hear, and not otherwise.

[19:24] The sermon may be correct as the doctrine, set forth a gracious experience, and acceptable in the wording of it, but the grace of it comes from God.

[19:39] A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. Hence, you can hear a preacher, and hear him, and your heart be warmed in hearing, and because you had such a hearing, you go and hear the same preacher again, and you get nothing.

[20:04] In the first hearing, you were dealing with the God of all grace. In the second hearing, you were not looking beyond the man, and they say, no man, but Jesus only.

[20:19] This is the way, dear friends, there is no other way to good hearings, and for the gospel to be unto you what your soul desires, the power of God unto salvation.

[20:32] You must learn, none but Jesus, none but Jesus, can do helpless sinners good. The God of all grace. As the God of all grace, it is difficult to find words to set it forth as it ought to be.

[20:52] I say, as the God of all grace, he has an infinite fullness of grace, grace all sufficient, for that vast host ordained to life eternal down through the ages, for them to be called by grace, equipped by grace, saved by grace, and found at last before the throne of God on high.

[21:20] It is a tremendous consideration, the God of all grace. It pleases the Father that in him should all fullness dwell, and in him there dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

[21:41] The God shines gracious through the man. Thus that grace is communicable. Remember that. It can be said, as the God of all grace, it is as though grace is in a fountain which is ever flowing, full and free.

[22:05] Or it can be likened to what the psalmist declares. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God.

[22:17] And what does he say in another psalm? A beautiful saying it is. The river of God which is full of water.

[22:27] water. And of all the millions who have drunk of the streams thereof, there has been no diminution in that river of God. And this Sabbath morn, it is as full of water as ever it was.

[22:43] Because it is the God of all grace who is the source thereof. The God of all grace.

[22:54] it can be likened to a root. I am the root of David, the Savior declares.

[23:07] And speaking with great reverence, is he not the root of the tree of life, giving sap to it, wherever its branches wave, and wherever poor sinners shelter under it, to learn the leaves of the tree shall be for the healing of the nations?

[23:31] Yes. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life. Much might be said along that line of thought.

[23:43] As you read the word of God, do notice and memorize what you notice, how God is referred to by the apostles.

[23:54] in these epistles to the churches. In our text it is the God of all grace. Paul speaks of God as the God of hope and he refers to him as the God of peace and again as the God of all comfort and there is one name which to me is very beautiful.

[24:30] You think honest dealings with you and you know what your behavior has been sometimes. I'm not fitting any caps on. Each of you descend into your own hearts and look back over your lives and you know that your behavior has not been all it should be.

[24:47] God weren't. But what has his behavior been toward you? I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. The God of patience.

[25:00] He has been wonderfully patient with some of us. we have been sometimes impatient and wished we could hurry God up, speaking with great reverence in some things that came into our lives that he would appear for us.

[25:15] We needed more grace to be patient and wait his time for the Lord to appear on our behalf. And he did not fail us, but we were not always like the psalmist when he said, I waited patiently for the Lord and the margin reading is, in waiting I waited.

[25:36] No, but he is the God of patience because he is the God of all grace. If you search out these titles, there are many more given to God, you will find they have everyone got to be linked up to him as the God of all grace.

[25:56] Is he the God of hope? Hope is a grace, which his people are the subject of. God of peace? He makes that peace known because he is the God of all grace.

[26:08] Peace known and felt in our hearts is a grace. Is he the God of all comfort? It is because he is the God of all grace, and that comfort is a grace known and felt in our soul's experience.

[26:23] Is he God only wise? It is as we look on and observe his dealings, who so is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord.

[26:41] Is he the God of patience? It is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

[26:52] And he is the God of patience, because he is the God of all grace. And he says, rebellious thou hast been, and art rebellious still, but since in love I took thee in, my promise are fulfilled.

[27:06] Yes, the God of all grace, dear friends. Oh, do let us try to worship him aright. All grace.

[27:21] He has that grace whereby it can be said, and you have he quickened. who were dead in trespasses and sins, quickened in grace. What a wonderful mercy it is if it has reached you and me.

[27:38] Out of earth's mighty millions, who maketh thee to differ from another, and what hast thou that thou dost not receive? It just comes to you and to me if it has come, a sovereign grace or sin abounding.

[27:55] I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. Quickening grace. Yes.

[28:06] And if God calls you by his grace, quickens you, if you can say, thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit, you will know what pardoning grace is sooner or later.

[28:25] It may be later. Glad I should be with some of you if it could be sooner, but you will not miss it. The God of all grace delights in mercy, and his grace is pardoning grace.

[28:44] What do you sing sometimes? You sing it very beautifully too. Plenteous grace with thee is found, grace to pardon all my sin.

[29:00] Let the healing streams abound, make and keep me pure within. Thou of life the fountain art, freely let me take of thee, sprung thou up within my heart, rise to all eternity.

[29:16] The language is beautiful, the prayer is sublime, and where it comes forth from an honest heart, the answer will not fail to come also.

[29:29] The God of all grace, quickening grace, pardoning grace, think too of supporting grace, and that you may not always realize, grace.

[29:45] If you sit down at the end of the year and look back over it, and seek as well as you can to record the dealings of God with your soul, you will find it is only a few days, in the 365 days of the year, that you can put down something special, I hope you can, or outstanding.

[30:10] the other days are just ordinary days, but you continue following on to know the Lord, although you have got nothing to record concerning those days, you receive support in grace, and it seems imperceptible in its action, but it is real in its working.

[30:43] He lends an unseen hand, he gives a secret prop, you cannot record any details about it, but there it is, there is not a day from the time you were born again, but what you can say at the end of it, or any time during the day, by the grace of God I am, what I am, it is supporting grace, and sometimes you realise it too, when you come into that beautiful scripture, where sin hath abounded, grace shall much more abound, supporting grace, and how wonderful too, is restoring grace, I wonder how many of you could say amen to this petition of David's, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, you do hope you are born again, you do believe you were followed on to know the Lord, you're in, you're out, many of you, but how glad you would be if you could feel like you have felt, in bygone experiences, when you have rejoiced in the Lord,

[32:03] God, and felt my Lord, my God, but there are the years which the locust and the canker worm and the caterpillar and the palmer worm hath eaten, and you would like your soul to be restored to what you have known and felt it to be in your early experiences.

[32:30] The God of all grace has got restoring grace laid up for you. Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee?

[32:42] What did the Savior say to his disciples? And ye know therefore have sorrow, that I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.

[32:59] Restoring grace is very beautiful when it is communicated. The hymn writer says, when we are wounded by sin and scarcely a prayer can repeat, the mercy that heals us again is mercy transportingly sweet.

[33:20] The God of all grace delights to do that. He healed all them that had need of healing when he dwelt on earth as Emmanuel God with us.

[33:35] Think too of grace as humbling grace. And know that goes back to what I said earlier on about the Apostle Peter and what he felt in Satan's sin.

[33:45] And he could never think of that experience without being humbled before God. I can never think of some places where I have been in my early life, especially when I sold wild oats before I was called by grace, without being humbled before God in the remembrance.

[34:07] humbling grace, all which is essential to have it. And it makes you feel, who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that thou hast brought me hitherto?

[34:21] who? What you really need summing up this grace, much might be said about its characteristics, you need grace to live and grace to die, and the God of all grace will not fail to be stolen.

[34:41] Grace to live, to live the life of the righteous, to follow on to know the Lord, and then when that hour shall come, when heart and flesh shall fail, to realise then grace all sufficient, to find the bottom to be good in Jordan's swelling, dying grace in a dying hour, to be able to say with Asaph, though my heart and my flesh fail, God is the strength of my life and my portion forever.

[35:18] but the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while.

[35:33] And now, that sentence, after that ye have suffered a while, brings us to realise our need of suffering grace, grace to receive our cross, and acknowledge it to be the gift of God.

[35:53] Remember that. Grace, whereby in everyday life you can take up your cross and follow him whose name you profess, and sometimes realise tis my happiness below not to live without the cross, but the Saviour's power to know, sanctify him, every loss, cross-bearing grace, you and I need it, otherwise we are like Buried says, I cannot well abide the cross's galling load, too oft I start aside and murmur against my God.

[36:35] Yes, God of grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory. The apostle Peter, as Peter the aged, was wonderfully favoured, for he says in the opening word here, the elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed.

[37:03] He does not say, as you might think it would be worded, who hath called us by his grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory.

[37:14] He looks beyond the grace to the glory that is to follow. And if you and I are called by grace, then we are called to share in that glory when the work of grace is done.

[37:30] But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while. And now whatever your suffering may be, I cannot go into many details about that, because I will soon come to the amen to this sermon.

[37:50] But whatever your sufferings may be, and they will ever be that which the flesh dislikes, but if you could only remember it is for a while.

[38:06] There is a limit in the covenant of grace to your sufferings. Not only what your suffering shall be, how long your suffering shall be.

[38:18] Like you read to the church at Smyrna, one of the seven churches to whom godly John was inspired to pay an epistles and he says to that church you shall have tribulation ten days.

[38:35] It will not be nine, it will not be eleven. Ten days. God has set a limit to it. And it says in our subject, after that ye have suffered a while, you will not get the benefit before you have suffered.

[38:57] No. No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

[39:10] Listen, to them which are exercised thereby, having grace, desire more grace, that whatever their sufferings are, they shall get good for their souls.

[39:26] Feeling like the Selmist, let my soul live and it shall praise thee, and let thy judgments help me. Yes. After that ye have suffered a while.

[39:40] How long have you suffered? Count the days when your sufferings began, and where you are suffering still. All those days are to be counted off.

[39:53] of that time God has appointed. Although the end may not be yet, after that ye have suffered a while, you will get something in your soul worthwhile.

[40:06] You will say, it is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. You will get this fulfilled to you here.

[40:19] After that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect. Establish, strengthen, settle you. Dear friends, I ask you, which of those words would fit in anywhere with Peter as you read his life in the Gospels?

[40:37] Perfect will not come in at all. Neither will establish because he was unstable. He did not stand the crucial task. and he fell.

[40:50] Strengthen, settle you. He had not got well understood views of truth until after he had suffered a while.

[41:03] But now he is Peter the ages. And here are these words which he uses. And he could have preached to you on each word. Make you perfect.

[41:13] It simply means that you are mature. right in your judgment. Make you perfect.

[41:27] How many people nowadays know what that is to be matured in their soul's experience and right in their judgment? are sanctified, right in our judgment.

[41:43] But preacher and people alike must all plead guilty here that we do not know as much as we should like to know about being matured in our soul's experience and right in our judgment.

[41:56] judgment. Therefore, we hope when we have suffered a while, we should go deeper down into it as our sufferings, whatever they are, are sanctified to that end.

[42:07] Make you perfect. You find here in this Hebrews epistle a word which will fit in. the apostle Paul told these godly Hebrews, for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again what be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat.

[42:38] Here you are old and gray headed, and you have got no father than the infant class. you've still got to be taught the ABC, but strong meat.

[42:59] Even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. And now, this maturity of experience, rightness of judgment, gives you senses, exercise to discern good and evil.

[43:18] And I can tell you this, it makes you very kind and tender in your judgment of others, because you know what you are inside. Make you perfect, established.

[43:35] To be established in the truth is just what you and I desire, if you're sinners born to be like the wise builder who digged deep and got down to bedrock and to have that in our soul's experience, that you might say, that which we have tasted, handled, and felt of the good word of life, declare we unto you.

[43:58] We are established in it. We are strengthened in what we believe. and he says, settle you.

[44:10] And what does that mean? We speak that which we do know. I believe and therefore have I spoken. And now dear friends, this is what I wish for you and what I desire to know in my own soul's feelings as pastor and people go on in this new year, that we might enter deep down into what this subject unfolds.

[44:39] But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.

[44:57] And how does the apostle Peter sum it all up? Just what you will find in your hearts and amen unto. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

[45:11] Amen.