The End of All Things is at Hand is a sermon teaching us that what we do in this life has eternal impact, and we will answer for it in eternity.

Key verses:
1 Peter 4:1-7

I’m going to ask you to take your Bible now, and if you will, turn with me to 1 Peter chapter four, we’ll begin our reading at the first verse and read down through verse seven, 1 Peter: 4:1-7:

1 Peter 4:1: “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;”

1 Peter 4:2: “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.”

1 Peter 4:3: “For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:”

1 Peter 4:4: “Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:”

1 Peter 4:5: “Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.”

1 Peter 4:6: “For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”

1 Peter 4:7: “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.”

I want to call your attention to that seventh verse, “the end of all things is at hand.”

The Apostle Peter

I want to talk to you just a little bit about Peter. Peter, along with James and John, was one of the disciples who were mentioned most often in the Gospel narratives about the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. Many people call them this. You won’t find this term in your Bible, but many people call them the inner circle because Peter, James, and John are with Him in times that no one else is.

A case in point would be at the Mount of Transfiguration when He went up into the mountain and was transfigured, seen in His glorified state rather than his earthly state. Peter, James, and John were with Him, and none of the others were there. Often that was the case.

Peter speaks more than any of the other apostles in the Gospels. When we get to the book of Acts, it is Peter who is the great preacher on the day of Pentecost. And then a couple of chapters later, he preaches again, and both times thousands of people come to the Lord. He continues preaching. He first takes the Gospel to the gentiles to Cornelius. Peter is used of God as few men have ever been used of God, and yet he failed the Lord as many of us do. Many of us fail the Lord Jesus. Though he failed Him, he came back, and the Lord forgave him, and the Lord used him again as mightily, if not more so, than he did before near the end of Peter’s life.

He wrote two letters. We call them 1 and 2 Peter. Our former president, when he was in office, somebody criticized him for saying one Corinthians, and they said, “Well, what an ignorant man. It’s first Corinthians. It’s not one Corinthians.”

Well, it really depends a great deal on where you’re from, where you go to church. I’ll tell you what I mean by that. Here in America, and in most churches in America, we say first and second Corinthians, first and second Peter, and so forth. If you’re in England, they don’t say that. They say one Corinthians and two Corinthians and one Peter and two Peter. And you have the Church of England, which would say one Corinthians, two Corinthians, one Peter, two Peter, and one Timothy, two Timothy.

The Episcopal Church in America is the American version of the Anglican church, and so they say one Corinthians, two Corinthians, one Peter, two Peter, and so forth. So, it’s not incorrect to say it that way, and it isn’t. It depends on where you’re from and where you go to church. So, I just wanted to point that out to you. We say first and second Peter.

In these letters, Peter taught us many things, and his letters have many themes. One of the themes that Peter has in both of his books is that the end is near. So, I want you to look with me now at these first seven verses of this chapter, and in these first seven verses, I want you to see what Peter has to say to us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Of the Same Mind

In verse one, Peter says:

1 Peter 4:1: “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;”

“For as much then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind,” – similar to what Paul says in Philippians chapter two, when he says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

He says, “Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.” Now, that’s an interesting statement, “He that suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.” Does that mean if you go through some suffering in your body, that you will not sin anymore? Well, yes and no. It doesn’t mean that in the sense that you might think. You could have tremendous suffering in your body and still continue to sin. The suffering that he’s talking about is the suffering of death. Once you’re dead, you’re ceased from sin.

One of the best preachers I have ever heard in my life was evangelist Fred Brown, and Fred Brown said this, he said, “If you are dead to sin, then you will not sin anymore.” He said that you not only won’t sin, you are not even tempted. He said, “If I were to bring a coffin in here, and in that coffin was the corpse of a man, that the spirit is gone, the body is here. No matter what that man’s temptations were in life, you couldn’t tempt him with anything now. Suppose he had a temptation to drink. You could not offer him a drink. He wouldn’t want it. He wouldn’t even respond to it. Suppose he was a gluttonous man. You could offer him his favorite food. He wouldn’t have any interest in it. Why? He’s dead, and that’s what Peter is saying here.”

So, what he says is that the Lord Jesus suffered in the flesh. Look at it again, “For as much then as Christ Jesus has suffered in the flesh for us,” – He suffered in the flesh, and He died, “Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” In other words, what Peter is saying is we need to learn to think like Jesus thinks. It’ll be a tremendous day for all of us if we can do that if we learn to think the way the Lord Jesus thinks. Learn to think as Jesus thinks. He suffered in the flesh. Yes, that means He died – all that could die of Him, that is.

I don’t know if you’ve thought about this. One of the reasons, one of the main reasons for the incarnation is the fact that God became man. God walked on this earth as a human being so that he could die. God is a spirit. John tells us that in John chapter four, how Jesus tells us that in John chapter four.

God is the spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And what that means, ladies and gentlemen, is that God is a spirit. Spirits don’t die. Spirits are eternal. God is eternal. God lives outside the realm of time where everything has a beginning and everything has an end. He lives in eternity where nothing has to have a beginning, and nothing has to have an end. It goes on forever as a spirit. God cannot die. So, He took on human flesh. He came in the form of a man so that He could die. And why did He want to die? So that you don’t have to.

“Well, preacher, I know a lot of Christians who have died.” You do, and they died physically, but their spirits did not die and their spirits go to be with the Lord.

Now, death is separation. Physical death is the separation of the spirit from the body. That’s what happens when a person’s body dies. That’s why that corpse isn’t interested in temptation. The spirit is gone. Paul writes about it in 2 Corinthians chapter five. He said, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Absent from the body – the spirit has left the body, but the spirit still exists and is with the Lord. That spirit is the real you.

I’ve quoted this many times, but C.S. Lewis, the famous author of The Chronicles of Narnia, and you won’t find this in the book, but in other books that he wrote, he said, “You do not have a soul.” Think about that. You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body because the real you is not the body. The real you is the soul and you need to take care of your body because it houses your soul and your spirit. You need to take care of it. But the real you is your soul and spirit.

Once the spirit’s gone, the body is dead. So, he says, “For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise in the same mind: for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. Now, Jesus bore our sins on the cross. He had no sin of his own. He was the sinless, perfect Son of God. He’s the only one who ever walked this earth who fulfilled the law of God. He was the only one who was tempted but without sin.

And so, He died for our sins. But when He died, He ceased from sin. He had no more connection to it at all. And when you and I die, we will be finished with sin. Our sins are committed in the flesh, and when the spirit is gone from the flesh, it will sin no more. The body will sin no more. The flesh will sin no more.

Dying to Self

In verse two, he says, “That he [the one who has suffered in the flesh and ceased from sin, he] no longer should live in the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.” And that’s a wonderful situation when you get to the point where you have learned to die to self, to die to selfish ambition, to die to selfishness, the number one sin in the world today, the number one sin in America, the number one sin in Delray Beach, the number one sin with you and I, is selfishness, self-centeredness.

You think about that. I can prove it to you very quickly. If a person were not selfish, they would not steal. A person steals, takes from somebody else because they don’t care about the other person. They only care about themselves. If a person were not selfish, they would not commit murder. If they cared about the life of the other person, they would not take it. They don’t care about the life of the other person. They only care about themselves. We could go on and on with that, but I think you have the idea.

Selfishness is the root of all evil, and yet he that has died to self died to the desires of selfishness, put away selfishness, has died to sin so that we live our lives not in the slavery of sin but in the service of God. We live our lives not in the slavery of sin but in the service of God. Sin binds us. Think about it.

What is the story of Moses all about? You have the people of Israel. They are called to follow God. They go down to Egypt because of a famine. Now, they were living in the land that God had promised them, but they left the land that God had promised them, and they went down into Egypt. And in the Bible, going down into Egypt, which many people did physically, is a type or a picture of going down into sin.

Let me show you. Mankind was created and put in a garden that was perfect. God made it just for them. They were in a perfect environment, and yet in that perfect environment, mankind sinned, and they were put out of the garden.

The people of Israel left their land and went to Egypt. In Egypt, they became slaves. When we are in sin, we are slaves to sin. I encourage you to read Romans chapters six and seven. And it’ll tell you all about how we are slaves to sin. Romans six and seven. You study it. They’re slaves to sin, and they’ve been in that situation for approximately 400 years.

They cried out to God, “God, deliver us. Send us someone to save us, to take us out of this slavery and bondage that we’re in.” And God sent Moses. Moses goes down. Moses is just a human being. He is not supernatural. He is natural as any human being ever has been. But he goes down as a picture of the Savior, the deliverer. He leads the people up out of slavery and bondage. He does contest with Pharaoh. Just as the Lord defeated Satan, the Lord defeated Pharaoh.

It’s all a picture of the Gospel. He leads the people of Israel, out of Egypt, through the wilderness, that would be through this life as a saved person goes through this life. We have many difficulties, trials. Jesus said, “In the world, you shall have tribulation: be of a good cheer; I’ve overcome the world.” And then, he leads them up to the promised land.

Now, they’re on the east side of the Jordan River, in the area that today would be the country of Jordan. There was no country called Jordan in those days, but he’s on the east side of the Jordan River. All they have to do is cross the river and be home in the land that God has promised them.

We just sang, “On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand, and cast a wishful eye,” – it’s looking, it’s wishing, you were in that other place. “To Canaan’s fair and happy land, where my possessions lie.” – and what is he saying? All we’ve got to do is cross Jordan, and we’re home. Jordan River, in that case, is a picture of death, and once we are at the end of our life, we’ve made the journey through the wilderness. We’re at the end of our life, and we’re going to cross Jordan. We’re going to go through death and finally be at home in the Promised Land.

Isn’t that interesting that God had the people of Israel do that? And God wrote, had Moses and others write all of that down for us thousands of years before Jesus came? A perfect picture of mankind going into sin, being lost in sin, calling on the Savior, being brought by the Savior out of sin, living a life in this old sinful wilderness world, standing at the brink of death, the Jordan River, and then crossing into the promised land to be home forever.

“Do you mean to tell me, preacher, that God, thousands of years before Jesus came, used millions of people to paint a picture for us?” Yes, that’s exactly what I mean to tell you. And that’s not the only picture in the Old Testament. Again and again, and again, and again, for approximately 4,000 years, the Lord told us exactly what He was going to do and how He was going to do it. He even got down to telling us when He was going to do it by sending us the Savior.

I don’t know about you, but I’m of the opinion that if the Bible was not true, and I assure you it is, it is the most masterful piece of literature ever written because it tells this entire story over a period of thousands of years with no inconsistencies. It tells it perfectly so that everything that we read about in the Old Testament is explained in the New Testament though they were written hundreds of years apart. The last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament are approximately 400 years apart in their writing. Then it continues on in the writing of it for another, approximately 100 years, and you have no inconsistencies. It tells the same story. Every aspect of it points to the same story.

It is God telling us about His love for us. It is God telling us about hope in Jesus Christ. It’s God telling us that He’s coming as a redeemer, that He has come as the Redeemer, that He will save us. He’ll take us through the wilderness. He’ll take us to the Jordan and cross over with us until we’re in the Promised Land. That’s what the Bible’s all about, all of it.

And so, it says in verse two that He, the one who is dead to sin, He suffered the flesh, “no longer should live in the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.” We should not live in the lust of the flesh. We should live in the will of God.

Be Separate from the World

Now verse three:

1 Peter: 4: 3: “For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:

“For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles.” What does that mean? It means before we were saved, we lived, and it was sufficient for us. We thought it was okay. We were happy with it, for the most part, to live as the world lives.

“Well, what’s wrong with living the way the rest of the world lives? Don’t I want to be like the rest of the world?” I’d encourage you to go back and listen to Wednesday night’s message. You don’t want to be like the rest of the world. Israel wanted to be like the rest of the world, and it was to their detriment.

But I’m going to tell you why, in very simple terms why you don’t want to be like the rest of the world. Because they’re going in a different direction. Have you ever been on the road? I suspect most, if not all, of you’ve had this experience. You’re on the road and on the side of the road where you are, there is not much traffic. That doesn’t happen often here in South Florida, but occasionally it does. On the side of the road you’re on, there’s not much traffic. On the other side, there’s a lot of traffic. And my mother used to joke about that when we’d see that there’s just a few of us going this way and lots of cars going the other way, and she says, “Well, I don’t know what happened, but it must be over. Everybody else is coming back.”

But the fact of the matter is you see that, and you’re on, let’s say, you’re heading east on the road, and just you and maybe a few others, and on the west side coming back, there may be hundreds of cars. And you wonder what in the world, what’s going on? Well, they’re all going one direction, and you’re going the other direction, and that’s how it is in life.

My friends, if you have been saved, if you’ve been born again, you are going a different direction in the world, and it’s not east and west. What you’re doing is you’re going to Heaven, and they’re going to Hell. It’s an entirely different direction. So, if you’re on this road going to Heaven and other people, the majority of people, are on the road going to Hell, why would you want to turn around and go in that direction? Why would you even want to live like you were headed in that direction? Why would you even want to look like you were going in that direction?

So, that’s what Peter’s saying here, “The time passed of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles.” And what did we do when we walked in the will of the Gentiles? What’s going to tell us when we walk? Peter uses this term in the same sense that Paul did. To walk is your daily living.

Why do we want to live daily in lasciviousness, lust, excessive wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries? What is that all about? Well, lasciviousness, according to Vines Expository Dictionary of the Bible, is, “whatever is disgraceful, that which is characterized by moral impurity, that which is defiling by soiling the clean. It takes that which is clean and makes it dirty, that which is an insolent disregard for decency.”

I want to ask you a question. Can I read that list to you again? Not my definition, but W.E. Vine’s definition. But let me ask you about this. Listen to it again and ask yourself, does that sound like our present-day society? “Lasciviousness, whatever is disgraceful, that which is characterized by moral impurity, that which is defiling by soiling the clean, take that which is clean and make it dirty, that which is an insolent disregard for decency.” But that’s not all. That’s lasciviousness.

They walk in lasciviousness and in lust, and lust here means desiring that which God has forbidden. I mentioned mankind in the garden. Imagine Eve before the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God has told them, Adam and Eve, they could have all the fruit of all the trees in the garden, and they not only could have any of the fruit they wanted, they could have all the fruit they wanted. They could have as much as they wanted. There was no limitation on it. The only limitation is there’s one tree that I don’t want you to eat from, and it is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

I’ve said it many times, and I’m going to say it again, I’m going to stand by it. I get to eternity, and I find out I was wrong; well, then I’ll be wrong. There’s no question about that. But what I believe personally is there was nothing magical about the fruit on that tree. I don’t think that fruit had poison in it that made you evil. I believe what this was is God put a limitation on that tree, and it was the taking of that, and breaking the Word of God and disobeying the will of God, that became sin and caused mankind to plunge into sin, and mankind to become acquainted with death, and mankind to be separated from God.

Disobedience. The sin of disobedience. So, lust is desiring that which God has forbidden.

The third one is the excess of wine. I don’t think I have to define that for you. Most of you know full well what excess of wine means. And then it talks about revelings. Now, what are revelings? Reveling is behaving in a manner that is out of control, as in when one is being controlled by wine or drugs. In other words, revelings are the result of an excess of wine.

“Well, preacher, I know people who drink. They don’t all behave the same way when they’ve had too much drink.” And that’s true. I know that you know, that we’ve all seen it. Some people get totally out of control, but not everybody. Some people become very remorseful and sullen. Some people become very philosophical. Some people actually become very tender and kind acting. It affects different people in different ways. Well, if it affects people in different ways, is it always bad? Yes. Why? Because you are no longer in control of you. You have given that substance, whether it be alcohol or some other drug, you’ve given that substance control over yourself, and you’re not in control anymore, and you do not behave as you would normally behave.

I remember reading a story a magazine article, actually, many years ago, decades ago, when I was a young man. I engaged a little bit in automobile racing, and I thought I was a great driver. I probably was never as great as I thought I was, to be honest with you, but I had a few wins, and I thought I was a great driver.

I read an article about a man who was one of the most famous race drivers in America at that time, and they gave him a test. They set up a course of cones, and they told him to take an automobile and drive that course. Well, being a professional driver, it was no problem for him. He drove the course and didn’t knock down one cone.

They took the same man in the same course, and they gave him some alcohol to drink. And the article stressed that it is not enough to be legally intoxicated in most states. He couldn’t drive the course. He couldn’t do it. He was knocking over the cones, a professional driver. Why? Because he’s no longer in control. The substance is in control. The substance affects the chemical structure of the brain, which conducts, and affects, your thought processes. And the substance is in control. That’s revelings.

And then banquetings. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been to some banquets that I really enjoyed. Usually, you go there, a lot of people are there, they’re in a good mood, and they’re there for a good cause, and they’re having a good meal.

I will tell you about one that I went to, and this was many years ago. It was over in Tampa Florida, and it was a Christian educators conference. I was involved in Christian education at that time. By the way, I’m a great proponent of Christian education. Why? So that you get taught a Christian philosophy. “Well, I can get an education elsewhere.” You certainly can, but what will be missing is the Christian philosophy.

Now, what I’m trying to tell you is this. I went to the Christian Educators convention and a state convention. People were there from all over Florida. On the last night of the convention, they had a banquet, and everybody was looking forward to the banquet. The guest speaker at that banquet was evangelist Lester Roloff. Now, he’s long since gone to be with the Lord. Lester Roloff was from Texas.

He had gone through a bout with cancer, and he had done what is called the Hallelujah diet. Are any of you familiar with that? Okay, a few of you are. He had done that, and his cancer actually went away. “Are you telling me to eat that diet?” I’m telling you to think about it if you have cancer. Yes, I am telling you that, but that was his diet.

They told us ahead of time at the banquet that we were going to eat what brother Roloff eats. Now, I guess a lot of people didn’t know his story because it came to the banquet, and we all sat down at the table, and they brought salad out there. They put a salad in front of everybody, and some people ate their salad. Some people ate part of their salad. They didn’t eat the whole thing. They ate part of it. I ate all of mine. I ate the whole salad. I generally do that. I sit down at the table, and I eat everything that’s set in front of me because I’m hungry and I want to eat it, and I don’t know what I’m going to eat again. So, I’m thankful to get it.

I went through a period in my 20s where food got hard to come by, and ever since then, I was glad to get what I could get to eat, so I ate my salad, all of it. Some people didn’t eat all of their salad. They ate part of it. Some people didn’t eat it at all, and they sat there, and they said, “Well, I don’t care for salad. I’ll wait for the main course.” And they waited, and they waited, and they waited because that was it. They said you’re going to eat like brother Roloff eats. He was vegetarian. He did not eat meat. There was no main course. The salad was it. Oh, some people got upset about that. They didn’t like it.

Well, that’s not the kind of banqueting that it’s talking about here. I told you that story because I think it’s an interesting story, and it helps us with our thinking, but that’s not the kind of banqueting he’s talking about here. Banqueting here does not mean simply sitting down to a large meal with friends. It means self-indulgence and wild behavior. I’m going to use a word that many of you will understand, some of you may not. In place of the word “banqueting” think of the word “orgy” and you’ll have the picture. Now, if you say I don’t know what that word means, look it up. I’m not going to define it for you here, but that’s what he’s talking about there.

And then finally, abominable idolatries, abominable idolatries. Abominable. The word “abominable” means that or an abomination. The “abominable” means that which makes God nauseous. Do you remember the last letter of the seven churches, the seven letters of the churches in Revelation chapters two and three, and the last letter?

God, the Lord says to the church at Laodicea, “I would thou wert cold or hot, … but because thou art lukewarm, … I will spew thee out of my mouth.” Do you remember that? Well, that’s what it means here. Abominable, it means that which makes God nauseous, that which He would spew out of his mouth, that which makes God sick, abominable.

And then idolatries, abominable idolatries, make God sick. Why? Because it is the worship of that which is demonic. It is the worship of the demonic spirits as if they were God. We talked about that this morning. There’s only one God. There are many gods, little “g,” those who proclaimed themselves to be gods. They’re many like that. Many rulers of countries and rulers of empires throughout history have claimed themselves to be gods. All of them are dead. Many religious leaders have proclaimed themselves to be God, and they’re all dead, every one of them. Abominable idolatries, that which makes God nauseous. Worshiping that which is demonic.

Now, there’s a progression to what Peter is writing here. He didn’t just give us a list and leave it at that. Listen to the progression: lasciviousness fans the flames of lust, which leads to excessive wine, and giving ourselves over to drunken and or drugged behavior, which in turn leads us to that which is demonic. By its very nature, there’s a progression that starts with the lasciviousness and progresses up to the abominable idolatry.

When you start down the road of sin, it takes you, and this is not a Bible verse. It’s certainly not original with me, but sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and charge you more than you want to pay. You can count on that once you start down the road. There’s almost no limit to where you will stop.

Now, Peter’s talking about this is the behavior of the gentiles. And by gentiles, he means the world in general, those who are not believers, those who are not part of the nation of Israel. They’re not believers. They’re not part of the church, so the rest of the world. And he talks about how their walk leads to these abominable idolatrous actions.

A Changed Life

He says this in verse four, “Wherein they,” – “they,” meaning those people who before you were saved, those people before you are Christian that you used to be associated with and you used to live like. We haven’t sung this song in years over in the summer camp or children’s church, and I don’t think we had the music to it, but we sang a song many years ago over there. It was a really simple little tune. It went like this, “The things I used to do, don’t do them anymore, and the things I used to do, don’t do them anymore, and the things I used to do, don’t do them anymore, there’s been a great change since I’ve been born again.”

Folks, that’s how it ought to be. There’s been a great change since I was born again. I don’t live like I did before. I don’t. I was saved just before my senior year of high school. One day, I was in school, and a fellow classmate, a friend of mine, told me a dirty joke, and I didn’t laugh at it. Do you know what he said? He said something like, “What’s wrong with you?” He said, “You didn’t think that joke was funny?” I said, “I didn’t.” He said, “Well, you used to, you used to. I remember you and Bob. You sit in the back class and tell those jokes all the time.” I said, “That’s right, not proud of it, but it’s true.” He said, “You don’t think it’s funny anymore?” I said, “No.” He says what’s different?” I said, “Let me tell you what’s different, I trust the Lord is my Savior, and I know Jesus now. That’s what’s different.”

See, that’s what he’s talking about. Now, I said all that to get you to verse four, “Wherein they,” – the people that you used to associate with, the people whose behavior used to try to match or outdo – “Wherein they think it’s strange that ye run not with them to the same of excess of riot, speaking evil of you,” – the people you used to hang out with before you were saved. They think it’s strange that you don’t want to do the things that you used to do, that you don’t want to engage in the same acts that they engage in. They think it’s odd that you don’t party with them. Notice I use the term “party with.”

I had a co-worker years ago at a car dealership where I worked, and he would always be talking to me about how that after work, almost every evening after work, he said he was partying. Now, you know what I thought? I was so ignorant I thought that he meant he was getting together with friends, and they were going out and having a good time. That’s what I thought he meant. I found out he told me one day that wasn’t what he meant. What he meant was every evening after work, he was getting high on drugs. That’s what he meant. That’s what he meant by partying. What Peter is saying here is for this, verse four:

1 Peter 4:4: “Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:”

They think it strange because you don’t do this anymore, and they think there’s something wrong with you, and they think that there’s maybe something not quite as it should be with you. The people we used to be with think that it’s strange we no longer participate in their idea of the pursuit of happiness. But what is their idea of the pursuit of happiness? Well, he told us that in verse three: lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.

And so, because we don’t want to participate in those things anymore, they speak evil of us. What do they say? He thinks he’s too good for us anymore. He thinks he’s better than us. You know, he always talks about religion. What a hypocrite. He remembers what he used to do. Do you remember how he was? Do you remember how he was worse than all of us? What a hypocrite. She’s gone crazy. She must be going to some religious cult. They become haters of people because they don’t do what the rest of us do anymore, and they speak against it. Let’s catch him in something. Let’s trap them. We know they’re fake. Let’s prove how fake they are. Let’s embarrass them as much as we can. I mean, they’re always judging, and they’re always criticizing.

Now, you may not be judging or criticizing, but the fact that you don’t participate in the same sins anymore, they’ll say that about you, always judging, always criticizing. It’s a sad truth that our friends and our family who are lost are the ones who don’t understand. They say, “What’s wrong with you? You don’t get it anymore.” No, you’re the one who doesn’t get it.

The Quick and the Dead

But what does it say in verse five?

1 Peter 4:5: “Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.”

The word “quick” there doesn’t mean fast. It means living. So, let’s read it that way, “Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the living and the dead.” God’s ready to judge the living and the dead, and that’s just what people don’t want. They don’t want to give an account to anybody. They don’t want anybody telling them what they cannot do or what they should not do. They don’t want anybody telling them what they should do. They just want to do what they want to do, and they don’t want to be accountable to anyone, and they certainly don’t want to be accountable to God.

They don’t want to be judged by anyone. They especially don’t want to be judged by God, and so they say there is no God. There is no God. If there is a God, He doesn’t care, or if there is a God, He’s okay with what we’re doing. But no, I really don’t think there is a God. Listen to Romans 14:11 and 12. Paul says:

“For it is written,” – anytime in the New Testament you read those words, “it is written,” it means it’s written in the Old Testament. Quoting from the Old Testament, in this case, Isaiah 45 verse 23, you might want to mark that down, Isaiah 45:23.

Romans 14:11: “For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”

Romans 14:12: “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”

Do you understand that every one of us is going to give an account of ourselves to God, whether you like it or not? We’re all one day going to stand before God and account for the things that we’ve done. Verse five:

1 Peter 4:5: “Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick [the living] and the dead.”

For This Cause

Verse six:

1 Peter 4:6: “For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”

“For this cause,” because we’re going to stand before God and be judged. “For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead,” – “You mean you went out to the cemetery and preached to the dead people?” No.

I heard about a preacher who did that once, and I did. I heard about a preacher who did that. It used to be that churches would have associated with them on the property of the church. They’d have cemeteries. You still see some old churches where that’s still true. It doesn’t happen much anymore.

I will tell you this. In Palm Beach County, I ought to be really fast with this because I’m in overtime. In Palm Beach County, there is no property that is zoned for churches, so every church has to apply for special exception zoning. And that means when they give that to you, they can custom design your zoning.

I could go into a lot of detail about what that means, but that’s not the point. The point is churches, in general, don’t have cemeteries. But there are special exception zoning, and at least one other church I know in town. I suspect more than one, but one that I know for sure is that we are allowed to have a columbarium. If you don’t know what a columbarium is, that’s an area where you can put the cremains or the ashes of those who have been cremated, and you can put them there in a memorial.

Now, we don’t have a space set aside for that, but the reason I know this other church has that in their zone is they have one. They have an area on the church property where people place their cremains, and they’ll put a marker there, and that’s what that is. Now, let me help you with something else. A lot of, and I’m sure many of them do, but there are also many government officials who when they write things like that, do not even know what the word columbarium means. So, they just put it on there and they’re authorizing something that they’re not even conscious of.

Now, I said this to say the old-time churches used to have cemeteries, and there was an old preacher, this is many years ago, more than a century ago, who was preaching to a congregation one day. Nobody seemed to be listening, and nobody seemed to be paying attention. Nobody seemed to care what the preacher was saying. And the building was laid out something similar to ours, and it had doors on the side like this, and that one led out to the cemetery.

And so, the preacher was up there preaching, had his Bible, and he’s preaching. He realizes nobody cares and so he just turns and walks out the doors, kept preaching. The whole time he’s preaching away, he walks out the door, and he starts preaching out there in the cemetery, and somebody came out there and said, “Preacher, what in the world are you doing?” He says, “Why are you out here?” He said, “Well, I might as well preach to one dead crowd as another.” Now, that’s a true story, folks. I didn’t make that up.

1 Peter 4:6: “For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”

What I’m trying to help you see is this. That’s not what Peter is talking about here. He says, “For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead.” He means the Gospel was preached to those who have since died. That’s what he’s saying. “The Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh.” What does that mean? People are going to judge you. As long as you live in the flesh, you’re going to be judged. “But I don’t care what other people think.” Well, you may not, but they’re still going to. Thinking they might be judged, “that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”

So, however, man judges you while you’re living in the flesh. Live to God. Those that are dead before they died heard the Gospel, and had the opportunity to turn to God and be saved. Men are going to judge us in the flesh whether we live right or we live wrong. They’re still going to judge you. But if we come to Jesus, we have the opportunity to live according to God in the Spirit and to live forever in Heaven.

Romans 8:1 Paul says:

Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

End of All Things

Verse seven, and we’re finished:

1 Peter 4:7: “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.”

“But the end of all things is at hand,” – that’s a simple statement, isn’t it? The end of what is at hand? All things. “Oh, preacher, you mean the end of the world.” Yes. Peter meant the end of the world in his next letter, his second final letter. Peter would write this, “But the day of the Lord will come as the thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with a fervent heat. The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” Yes, my friend, Peter meant the end of the world is coming.

Let me read the last part of that verse that’s in, again, 2 Peter. Let me read the last part of that to you again, “The element shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also and the works therein shall be burned up.” Now, not as the world thinks it’s going to happen, but that, my friends, is global warming. It’s going to get so warm. It’s going to turn the whole planet into ashes, not because you’re driving a gas-powered automobile, but it’s going to happen. The end of all things is at hand.

Peter says the end of all things. Do you know what that means? Let me encourage you a little bit. It means the end of your trouble is at hand. It is the trouble you’re having right now. The problems you’re having right now are going to come to an end. It means the end of your school days, your education, is at hand. It means the end of your job or career is at hand. It means the end of all things is at hand.

We live in time, as I said earlier. Everything has a beginning, everything has an end, and one day everything that you know and relate to in this world is going to end because everything in this life is temporary. So, look at verse seven again:

1 Peter 4:7: “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.”

“Be ye therefore sober,” – now that means more than just quitting drinking. Yes, do quit drinking, but that’s not all it means. What he’s saying here is, to be serious. Being of a sober mind, being serious doesn’t mean you have to walk around with a long face all the time, but what it does mean is that you need to take life seriously.

And then he says, “Be sober and watch,” – “watch” means to be on guard. And then he says, “Watch under prayer.” Peter knew about this. He knew what it was like to be asked to be watching under prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. He and the other Apostles, the others, the rest of the eleven, Peter and the other 10, Jesus asked them to watch and pray while He went farther to pray.

And He came back, and He found them praying. Is that right? No, He found them doing what? Sleeping. See, Peter knows what he’s talking about here, and he was one of them. He had learned that lesson in the Garden of Gethsemane. And so, Peter says watch, that means be aware, don’t let down your guard.

And pray. Oh, my goodness, folks, we need to pray. We need to learn to pray. We need to pray about those things that are troubling us. We need to pray about our loved ones. We need to pray about the condition of society, which isn’t going to change by the government. It’s not going to change until people change in their hearts one at a time. They need to be saved. They need to come to the Lord Jesus. They need to follow Him. They need to live by the principles of God’s Word, and then things will change in a positive direction. We must live each day as though it was our last.

Let me say that again. You need to live each day as though it were your last because one day it will be. And we don’t know when that is. We must live each day as if there is something more than this life because there is. We must live each day knowing that there is, that what we do and say in this life has eternal impact, and it does.

Jesus said, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

A lot of people misunderstand that verse, and they go around and bind and stuff. I’m binding this, and I’m losing that, and that’s not what it means. It means what you do in this life, what you do in this life, has an eternal impact. What you do in this life, you’re going to answer for in eternity. Be careful. Be careful. We must live each day knowing that the end of all things is at hand.

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Let’s pray. Father, thank you so much for blessing us. Thank you for this time we have together. Thank you for each and every soul who’s here tonight. Forgive us, Lord, for the times when we’ve fallen asleep when we should have been on guard. Forgive us for the times when we’ve thought about going back to walk with the world. Forgive us, Lord, for our faults and our failures.

And help us, Lord, to live in the light of eternity. Help us, Lord, to live knowing that the end of all things is at hand. Help us to make our lives count for Jesus Christ, to be all we can be, and do all that we can do for Jesus Christ.

Our heads are bowed, and our eyes are closed. No strangers here tonight. We’re going to sing a hymn of invitation. If God’s spoken to your heart, you need to come and pray, come. You need a word of counsel, come. You want me to pray with you. I’ll be there.

Father, bless and move in this invitation time. We do pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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