Suffering for Jesus Part 11
1 Peter 4:3-5 "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: Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." KJV Note: AMP=Amplified Bible; ESV=English Standard Version
Here are these same verses of 1 Peter 4:3-5 as translated by the ESV=English Standard Version: "For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead."
Here are these same verses of 1 Peter 4:3-5 as translated by the AMP=Amplified Bible: "For the time already past is [more than] enough for doing what the [unsaved] Gentiles like to do—living [unrestrained as you have done] in a course of [shameless] sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and wanton idolatries. In [connection with] all this, they [the unbelievers] are resentful and surprised that you do not [think like them, value their values and]run [hand in hand] with them into the same excesses of dissipation and immoral freedom, and they criticize and abuse and ridicule you and make fun of your values. But they will [have to] give an account to Him who is ready to judge and pass sentence on the living and the dead."
The writers of the New Testament were men born with the same corrupt nature as you and I, also as well as all human beings born into the earth realm. They as well as we received this corruption to our nature from our earthly Father Adam when he sinned against God in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, how utter ridiculous and foolish it is for people who have rejected, refused, or resisted God/Jesus to declare that the Bible was written by mere men 🚹, when we see that the words of the Bible condemn, compel, and command men to a higher 👆way of life or living on the earth 🌎. No sinful man would write these words from his fractured, filthy, and fallen mind. Every natural man and woman (1 Corinthians 2:14) loves to indulge in the gratification of their flesh in the very things that the Apostle Peter here writes that the born again son or daughter of God must desist, destroy, and denounce in their/our lives. It is obvious that the Bible is written by the Spirit of God through men who were inhabited by Him and moved along by Him to write 📝what is the Divine Will of God. So, we have here these words written by the Apostle Peter as he was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, that is to mean as God's Holy and Divine Word was breathed into Him giving to all of us His sons and daughters what His will for us is and what it is not, as it is written, "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: Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." (1 Peter 4:3-5) (KJV). Peter wants to remind us of the filthiness of our past lives before we were resurrected from spiritual death by our Lord, Master, and Savior Jesus Christ. Peter knew himself to be a vile and wretched sinner before Christ chose him as one of His Apostles, as we remember him speaking these words to our Lord Jesus directly, "But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, 'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.'" (Luke 5:8) (ESV). Peter spoke these words right after our Lord Jesus had performed a miracle of several boat loads of fish caught in their nets after they had spent all night fishing and catching not one fish. Peter at that very moment knew that he was in the presence of Almighty God and acknowledged his extreme sinfulness to Him/Jesus. However, now this Peter writing to us is filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered by God the Holy Spirit to live a higher form of life on the earth 🌎, as is everyone of God's 'born ones', so Peter communicates to us that that old man 👨and old woman 👩must be put to death by us in the power of the Holy Spirit that we would 'walk in newness of life' (Romans 6:4). The Apostle Peter list six (6) types of sin that were a natural and normal part of many of our lives before we were 'delivered from the power or domain of darkness' (Colossians 1:13) and that none of them should be a part of our way of living 'in Christ' now at all: (1) Peter declares the English word 'lasciviousness' which is translated by the Greek word aselgeia which means morbid sexual desire or a propensity to lewdness; indulgence in sensual pleasure; every species of lechery, lewdness, and impurity. (2) Peter declares the English word 'lusts' which is translated by the Greek word epithumia which means a longing (especially for what is forbidden): - concupiscence (sexual desire), lust (after); strong irregular appetites, and desires of all kinds. (3) Peter declares the English phrase 'excess of wine' which is translated by the Greek word oinophlugia (which is used this one time only in the entire New Testament) meaning an overflow (or surplus) of wine, that is, (drunkenness): - excess of wine; to be hot, or to boil; to be inflamed with wine; they were in continual debauches. (4) Peter declares the English word 'revellings' which is translated by the Greek word kōmos which means a carousal (as if a letting loose): - rioting; lascivious feastings, with drunken songs. (5) Peter declares the English word 'banquetings' which is translated by the Greek word potos (which is used this one time only in the entire New Testament) meaning a drinking bout or carousal: - banqueting; wine feasts, drinking matches. (6) Peter declares the English phrase 'abominable idolatries' which is translated by the Greek words athemitos eidōlolatreia which means illegal; by implication flagitious (extremely wicked, deeply criminal, brutal or cruel): - abominable, unlawful thing; image worship (literally or figuratively): - idolatry; that is, the abominations practised at their idol feasts, where they not only worshipped the idol, but did it with the most impure, obscene, and abominable rites. Now Peter was here speaking of the things done during the era or time in which he lived. These same type of sins are practiced today, just in different ways than was done in Peter's time ⌚, for example there are still some form of statues that people worship as idols, but we have idol worship today in the form of sporting events, concerts, art museums, cathedrals, plays, and even famous people. The sensual and sexual sins are the same in every era and generation, so to is the use of alcohol and now all kinds of drugs and toxins used to alter the chemicals in the brain making people act or behave in very weird and lude ways. Peter wants to stir up the born again son and daughter of God the Father to put away all of these things that were present in our former selves when we knew not God, even as Paul the Apostle wrote these words to the Colossian Church ⛪, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them." (Colossians 3:2-7) (ESV). Paul the Apostle also wrote these words to the Church ⛪@ Rome, "The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." (Romans 13:12-14) (ESV). You see there is a war at hand and we are to be soldiers of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 2:3-4) waging warfare against our old nature and yielding to the Spirit of God and our new nature we were given by Christ when we were 'born again of incorruptible seed by the Word of God' (1 Peter 1:23) and live the higher life being true 'partakers of the Divine Nature' (2 Peter 1:4). They who think we are strange or odd or weird that we do not listen and walk after the lies believed and lived out by today's so-called 'Progressive Christians' who are not true Christians at all will mock us and call us hateful and bigots because we believe the truth and design and desire to walk and live after the truth of the Word of God the actual Word of Truth, for they are those who have done exactly what the Apostle Paul wrote to Brother Timothy and warned him to look out for even during his time ⌚and nothing has changed since then, as it is written, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared," (1 Timothy 4:1-2) (ESV). A seared conscience is a dead conscience that can no longer discern between good and evil 😈. Let us remember that man's corrupt nature without the influence of the Spirit of God always wants what is against God and truth, for this is true for every generation and era of mankind, as it is written here, "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9) (ESV). We must commit ourselves to being good stewards of the grace of God. Amen!!!
Here is what Alexander MacLaren had to say of this passage of Scripture from the Apostle Peter 1 Peter 4:3-5, "The sins in view are those most closely connected with ‘the flesh’ in its literal meaning, amongst which are included ‘abominable idolatries,’ because gross acts of sensual immorality were inseparably intertwined with much of heathen worship. These sins of flesh were especially rampant among the luxurious Asiatic lands, to which this letter was addressed, but they flooded the whole Roman empire, as the works of poets like Martial and of moralists like Epictetus equally show. But New York or London could match the worst scenes in Rome or Ephesus, and perhaps would not be far behind the foul animalism of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lust and drunkenness are eating out the manhood of our race on both sides of the Atlantic, and, if we have ‘the same mind’ as the suffering Christ, we shall put on the armour for war to the knife with these in society, and for the rigid self-control of our own animal nature. Observe the strong motives which Peter just touches without expanding. A sad irony lies in his saying that the time past may suffice. The flesh had had enough of time given to it,—had not God a right to the rest? The flesh should have had none; it had had all too much. Surely the readers had had enough of the lower life, more than enough. Were they not sick of it, ‘satisfied’ even to disgust? Let us look back on our wasted years, and give no more precious moments to serve the corruptible flesh. Further, the life of submission to the animal nature is characteristic of ‘the Gentiles,’ and in sharp contrast, therefore, to that proper to Christ’s followers. That is as true to-day, in America and England, as ever it was. Indeed, as wealth has increased, and so-called ‘civilisation’ has diffused material comforts, senseless luxury, gluttony, drunkenness, and still baser fleshy sins, have become more flagrantly common in society which is not distinctively and earnestly Christian; and there was never more need than there is to-day for Christians to carry aloft the flag of self-control and temperance in all things belonging to ‘the flesh.’ If we have the mind of Christ, we shall get the same treatment from the world which Peter says that the primitive Christians did from the idolaters round them. We shall be wondered at, just as a heathen stared with astonishment at this strange, new sect, which would have nothing to do with feasts and garlands and wine-cups and lust disguised as worship. The spectacle, when repeated to-day, of Christians steadfastly refusing to share in that lower life which is the only life of so many, is, perhaps, less wondered at now, because it is, thank God! more familiar; but it is not less disliked and ‘blasphemed.’ A total abstainer from intoxicants will not getye therefore of sound mind.’ The prospect of that end will sweep away many illusions as to the worth of the enjoyments of sense, and be a bridle on many vagrant desires. Self-control in all regions of our nature is implied in the word. Our various faculties are meant to be governed by a sovereign will, which is itself governed by the Divine will; and, if we see plain before us the dawning of the day of the Lord, the vision will help to tame the subordinate parts of ourselves, and to establish the supremacy of the spirit over the flesh. One special form of that general self-control is that already enjoined,—the suppression of the animal appetites, especially the abstinence from intoxicants. That form of self-control is especially meant by the second of these exhortations, ‘Be sober.’ How could a man lift the wine cup to his lips, and drown his higher nature in a flood of drunken riot, if the end, with its solemnities of judgment, blazed before his inner eye? But this self-command is inculcated that we may be fi
If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...
Sincerely in Christ,
Clifford D. Tate, Sr.
Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reade, Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…
