"Peter, Feed My Sheep” (12 Of 21)

When some Christians say that, it makes you wonder why they say that.

I say this because their life-styles do not reflect that they believe He is going to come very soon.

Many live their lives as we did as children.

Illus: If our parents had to go somewhere, before they left they gave us chores to do while they were gone. But once they were gone, we did pretty much what we wanted to do.

But then someone would say, “Here comes Dad and Mom!” All of a sudden we stopped doing what we wanted to do, and got very busy doing what our parents wanted us to do.

WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE?

Knowing WHO THEY WERE, and that they were COMING, is what made the difference!

And when God’s children truly come to realize WHO HE IS, and that He is COMING BACK, it will make a tremendous difference in how they live their lives.

As we have already learned, Peter is telling us to control our appetite for temporal things because all these things will soon pass away. Christ's coming is at hand.

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

However, if any generation of people has a right to believe that they are the generation to be living when He returns, it is our generation.

If we truly believe that, it will cause us to live holy, fruitful lives.

However, if we are not the generation that will be living when He returns, then every day, we need to live our lives as the psalmist said in Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

Illus: God had a purpose in creating us in such a way, that as we grow old, our bodies begin to show signs of wear and tear.

Each day, as we look at ourselves in a mirror to comb our hair, shave our beard, and to brush our teeth, we can see things, such as:

• New wrinkles

• That new gray hair

• We can not move as fast and freely as we once could

WHY DID GOD DESIGN THESE BODIES SO THAT AS THE YEARS GO BY WE CAN SEE THESE CONSTANT CHANGES OCCURRING IN OUR BODIES?

So we would be constantly reminded, "...the end of all things is at hand...".

That includes dispensations, and even life itself for us as individuals.

The Lord told Peter, "Feed my sheep!" That is, teach them that life is short, and that Christ is coming soon.

Let’s look at -

I. THE PREACHING OF GOD’S WORD

One of the reasons we know that many churches are not looking for Christ to return anytime soon, is because if they were looking for His return, they would be PREACHING and TEACHING His Word.

Two things to consider concerning God's Word:

(A) THE MANNER IN WHICH IT IS TO BE PREACHED

Look at verse 11. We read, “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

Every time a Christian is given an opportunity to stand before others and teach or preach God's Word, he or she should "speak as the oracles of God…"

Illus: For example, during the Persian Gulf Crisis, Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, spoke often before the public, but he made it clear as he spoke that he was speaking for the President of the United States. He thoughtfully selected the right words to convey the message to the American people.

In essence, no one wanted to hear what Mr. Dick Cheney had to say; they wanted to know what President George Bush had to say as he spoke through the Secretary of State.

Likewise, it serves no purpose when a preacher expresses what he thinks, but when he preaches the powerful Word of God, people can know what God is saying.

One of the tragedies in our churches today is that so little of God's Word is being preached and taught. People are literally spiritually starving.

Illus: It was brought to the attention of Dr. Odell Belger, that a family had six children and one on the way. It is great to have a nice sized family, but the problem was that the mother was strapped down with all the children to take care of, and the husband was trifling and couldn’t keep a job for much more than several months before going on to another one. And the children in this home were literally starving. The mother and the children were a pack of bones. If the children got around food, they would stare at it, and the little ones actually would ask if they could have some. Every one of them, except the dad, hardly had any color in their body at all. They were pale and looked anemic.