When Circumstances Do Not Work Out Well or Go Very Wrong, People Look for Someone to Blame
What might happen and what can happen when circumstances appear to go seriously and tragically wrong? Peter in the New Testament is writing to disciples of Jesus Christ during a time of sore persecution.
Do read his letters.
They are profound and relevant and highly practical.
When we go through persecution and trial and tribulation and suffering because we belong to Jesus Christ, if we keep on, and continue faithful, it will bring praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ returns.
These people to whom Peter is writing are bathed in suffering and they could not see Jesus Christ in the same way as he saw the physical Jesus and the risen Jesus having been crucified and brought back from the dead.
Peter is man of experience and with experience and he is inspired and motivated by the living God.
We cannot see Jesus Christ in that concrete physical sense.
We cannot see Him until we have a body like His? Who else could you love without seeing Him? Jesus Christ is called the living stone, which holds everything else together in the building.
Men rejected Jesus, but He was chosen by God and was precious to God.
Peter quotes from Isaiah and from Psalm 118, refers to the coming of Jesus Christ and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.
Now there is a word for these days and weeks which lie ahead.
To you who believe Jesus Christ is precious.
This letter is being written during a time of real persecution, by a fisherman who had been so transformed by Jesus Christ.
Peter, having been chosen by Jesus Christ and having been alongside Jesus Christ for some three years, is perhaps realising that he had not served and loved Jesus Christ enough, but now he is different.
The source of his message is Jesus Christ, and the transformed messenger is peter who had known some difficult days.
His target audience is the isolated elect, which at that time was the persecuted Church.
Yes, we are very different indeed, and it is Jesus Christ who works that transformation within a man.
People are always looking for someone to blame and accuse when there is something wrong or very different.
It was in September 1666, that a baker's oven in Pudding Lane in London, set fire to the baker's shop, and the great Fire of London began.
It raged from the 2nd September to 6th September, and spread to some 400 streets, and around 13,000 homes were destroyed, with around 200,000 people being left homeless.
The famous St Paul's Church and 89 other church buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged.
Rumours arose.
People were looking for someone to blame, and in London people began to blame the French Catholics.
When disaster strikes people try to find a scapegoat.
In A.
D.
64, on July 19, another fire began, and this time it was in Rome.
Rome was built mainly of wooden houses, and the fire raged for two weeks.
Nero watched from his balcony.
He said the flames were as charming as flowers! Some said Nero started it, but he began to look for a scapegoat.
He noticed a group of people called Christians, and all this can be found in secular history and documented by Tacitus.
Emperor Nero falsely diverted the charge upon the Christians.
They were accused of cannibalism, eating the body and blood of this man Jesus.
These cannibals had come to Rome, with love feasts and lust.
They preached that the world would be dissolved by fire, and so here they were practising what they preached.
Nero had some of these dear disciples of Jesus Christ crucified, then Nero put the skins of wild beasts upon others, and set his hunting dogs on them.
At night he would hold a garden party, and to light the dark night, he rolled these crucified Christians in tar and pitch, and set light to them! These two letters of Peter come out of this wave of persecution.
This is the background to what was going on as Peter wrote to these disciples of Jesus, and Peter probably died for his faith in Jesus at this time.
Peter wanted to prepare Christians for suffering.
He not only led people to the Lord Jesus Christ, but he followed it through, and he wrote to his own converts Sandy Shaw
Do read his letters.
They are profound and relevant and highly practical.
When we go through persecution and trial and tribulation and suffering because we belong to Jesus Christ, if we keep on, and continue faithful, it will bring praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ returns.
These people to whom Peter is writing are bathed in suffering and they could not see Jesus Christ in the same way as he saw the physical Jesus and the risen Jesus having been crucified and brought back from the dead.
Peter is man of experience and with experience and he is inspired and motivated by the living God.
We cannot see Jesus Christ in that concrete physical sense.
We cannot see Him until we have a body like His? Who else could you love without seeing Him? Jesus Christ is called the living stone, which holds everything else together in the building.
Men rejected Jesus, but He was chosen by God and was precious to God.
Peter quotes from Isaiah and from Psalm 118, refers to the coming of Jesus Christ and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.
Now there is a word for these days and weeks which lie ahead.
To you who believe Jesus Christ is precious.
This letter is being written during a time of real persecution, by a fisherman who had been so transformed by Jesus Christ.
Peter, having been chosen by Jesus Christ and having been alongside Jesus Christ for some three years, is perhaps realising that he had not served and loved Jesus Christ enough, but now he is different.
The source of his message is Jesus Christ, and the transformed messenger is peter who had known some difficult days.
His target audience is the isolated elect, which at that time was the persecuted Church.
Yes, we are very different indeed, and it is Jesus Christ who works that transformation within a man.
People are always looking for someone to blame and accuse when there is something wrong or very different.
It was in September 1666, that a baker's oven in Pudding Lane in London, set fire to the baker's shop, and the great Fire of London began.
It raged from the 2nd September to 6th September, and spread to some 400 streets, and around 13,000 homes were destroyed, with around 200,000 people being left homeless.
The famous St Paul's Church and 89 other church buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged.
Rumours arose.
People were looking for someone to blame, and in London people began to blame the French Catholics.
When disaster strikes people try to find a scapegoat.
In A.
D.
64, on July 19, another fire began, and this time it was in Rome.
Rome was built mainly of wooden houses, and the fire raged for two weeks.
Nero watched from his balcony.
He said the flames were as charming as flowers! Some said Nero started it, but he began to look for a scapegoat.
He noticed a group of people called Christians, and all this can be found in secular history and documented by Tacitus.
Emperor Nero falsely diverted the charge upon the Christians.
They were accused of cannibalism, eating the body and blood of this man Jesus.
These cannibals had come to Rome, with love feasts and lust.
They preached that the world would be dissolved by fire, and so here they were practising what they preached.
Nero had some of these dear disciples of Jesus Christ crucified, then Nero put the skins of wild beasts upon others, and set his hunting dogs on them.
At night he would hold a garden party, and to light the dark night, he rolled these crucified Christians in tar and pitch, and set light to them! These two letters of Peter come out of this wave of persecution.
This is the background to what was going on as Peter wrote to these disciples of Jesus, and Peter probably died for his faith in Jesus at this time.
Peter wanted to prepare Christians for suffering.
He not only led people to the Lord Jesus Christ, but he followed it through, and he wrote to his own converts Sandy Shaw
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