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The End Is at Hand
1 Peter 4:1–19 · Matt Miller · Balkan Baptist Church, Novi Sad
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The roof of the ark
You’re standing on the roof of a giant ship.
A ship you have spent years building. Most of your life, actually. Every board, every beam, every wooden peg went in because God told you to. You were warned of God of things not seen as yet, and you believed Him.
The sun is shining. The air is warm. But far off on the horizon, low over the hills, lies a grey line of cloud.
Below you, you hear murmuring. You walk to the edge and look down. They are there again: the neighbors, the men from town. Pointing. Laughing. Shaking their heads. A ship? Out here? Where there is no sea? Some of them used to be your friends.
And then you see it. They are not only pointing at you. They are laughing at your wife too. She trusted you to lead this family, and now she carries the shame with you. Guilt presses on your heart.
You look down through the window. There she sits at the table, and the children are peacefully soaking their bread in a pot of soup. And you remember their questions from that morning:
“Daddy, why can’t we go outside and play with the other kids? Why can’t we be like every other family? Daddy… are you sure God said this?”
The questions of your children, your neighbors and your old friends echo in your mind. You turn and look out over the bow. The clouds are darker now. Lightning flashes in the distance. Then again.
The end of all things is at hand. What will I do with these last days?
“But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.”
— 1 Peter 4:7
That is where 1 Peter chapter 4 finds us. Peter was writing to ordinary Christians scattered across Asia Minor, people who had turned from their old lives to follow Christ and were now being laughed at for it. They knew what it felt like to stand on that roof.
Peter does not tell them to panic, and he does not tell them to sit on a hill and wait. He walks them around the whole ark: the crowd outside, the family inside, and the storm overhead. And underneath it all is one question worth asking before we start. If the world looked inside our ark, would they want to come in?
Christ is our ark
Last week, at the end of chapter 3, Peter took us back to Noah, when God waited patiently “while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved” (3:20). The water did not save Noah. The ark did. And Christ is our ark: He “suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (3:18).
So chapter 4 opens with “Forasmuch.” Because Christ has done that for us, here is how people who are safe in the ark live while they wait for the rain.
Where does 1 Peter 4 fit?
Peter writes to “strangers scattered” (1:1) who are suffering for their faith. Chapter 1 gives them a “lively hope.” Chapter 2 makes them “lively stones” and calls them to follow Christ’s steps. Chapter 3 takes those steps into the home and into a hostile world, and ends with Noah.
Chapter 4 brings it to a point: “the end of all things is at hand.” Chapter 5 will finish with the shepherds of the flock and the roaring lion. The thread through the whole letter: suffering now, glory later.
The crowd outside
The crowd did not go away. Day after day they came back, and the jokes got sharper. Noah could have climbed down, shrugged, and said, “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.” The laughing would have stopped that afternoon.
He didn’t. And Peter tells us why a believer can stay on the roof.
Decide before they laugh
“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 4:1
Arm is a soldier’s word. A soldier straps on his armor before he walks into the battle, not after the first arrow hits. Peter says the armor a Christian needs most is a mind already made up. Christ had that mind: He “stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51), knowing exactly what waited for Him there.
When you have decided ahead of time that you would rather suffer for doing right than sin to be accepted, something breaks. Sin is no longer the master giving the orders. That is what Peter means when he says such a person “hath ceased from sin”: not that he never sins again, but that sin has lost its rule. The rest of his time belongs “to the will of God,” not “to the lusts of men” (4:2).
And honestly, haven’t we given the old life enough already? “For the time past of our life may suffice us,” Peter says (4:3), and then he names it: impurity, drunkenness, wild parties, idolatry. May suffice means that’s enough. Like closing an old photo album and putting it back on the shelf. It took plenty and gave nothing back.
The armor you need most is not a sword. It is a mind made up before the crowd starts laughing.
Why the crowd can’t stand it
Picture a crowd of runners pouring down a street in a wild race. One runner steps out and stands on the sidewalk. Nobody cheers him. They jeer: What’s wrong with you? Why won’t you run with us anymore?
That is exactly what Peter describes: “they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you” (4:4). Noah wasn’t hurting anyone. But every board he nailed was a silent sermon to people running the other way, and they hated it.
Who laughs last
The crowd has a loud voice, but it doesn’t have the last word. Every one of them “shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead” (4:5). Quick means the living, and ready means the bench is already set up. The laughing outside the ark had an end date. The judgment didn’t.
Some of those who believed the gospel have already died, Peter adds, and men called them fools. But they “live according to God in the spirit” (4:6). The world’s verdict was wrong.
Was the gospel preached to people after they died?
No. Peter is speaking of people who heard the gospel while they lived and have since died. The Bible gives no second chance after death: “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). That is why the open door matters so much today.
PAUSE AND REFLECT Is there an old way of life I keep going back to because I don’t want to look strange? |
Life inside the ark
Now step inside. Think about what life in the ark really was: eight people and a boat full of animals, shut in together for more than a year. The same faces every morning. The same small rooms. Every tired word and every bad mood right there at the table.
Some of the hardest tests on the ark didn’t come from the crowd outside. They came from the people inside. Peter knows that, so he turns from the world to the church family.
Eyes on the horizon
First: “be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer” (4:7). Sober means clear-headed, not drunk on fear or on the news. Watch unto prayer means stay alert so that you can pray. That is Noah on the roof: eyes on the horizon, knees bent before God.
Knowing the end is near is not meant to make God’s people panic. It makes them clear and prayerful. As this message goes out, our country is voting. Whatever the result, the church’s first work is not to worry or to argue. It is to pray “for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life” (1 Timothy 2:1–2).
Love that covers
“And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.”
— 1 Peter 4:8
Above all things. Not above some things. Peter puts love at the top of the list for people living in the last days, because close quarters reveal everything. Fervent means stretched out, like a runner straining for the finish. This kind of love doesn’t keep score. It throws a blanket over a brother’s fault instead of broadcasting it, just as Proverbs says: “love covereth all sins” (10:12).
Remember the question we started with. The world is watching the ark. If they hear fighting through the walls, why would they ever want to come in?
The world will not want into an ark where the family is at war.
Does love “cover sins” so that we are forgiven?
No. Only the blood of Christ cleanses sin (1 John 1:7). Peter means the way believers treat each other’s faults: love forgives, and it doesn’t keep bringing old offences up or spreading them around (Proverbs 17:9).
No passengers, only crew
Love opens doors. “Use hospitality one to another without grudging” (4:9): a meal after church, a spare bed for a visitor, coffee with someone who is lonely, and all of it without a sigh.
And love goes to work. “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (4:10). Every believer has been given something, and manifold means many-coloured. Like light through a prism, one grace of God shines out in many colours, and you are one of them. Some gifts speak, and they must sound like “the oracles of God,” not our opinions. Some gifts serve, setting up chairs, cooking, translating, playing the piano, visiting the sick, and they run on “the ability which God giveth” (4:11).
Either way the goal is the same: “that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” On this ark there are no passengers. Everyone is crew.
PAUSE AND REFLECT Is there someone in my church family whose fault I need to cover with love, and a gift God gave me that I have left unused? |
When the storm breaks
Then the day comes. The family is inside, the animals are in, and there is a new sound on the roof: a single heavy drop. Then another. The children look up from the table. Outside, for the first time in years, nobody is laughing.
Every believer reaches a day like that, when the storm that was far off is suddenly overhead.
“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.”
— 1 Peter 4:12–13
Don’t be surprised
Noah did not build the ark for sunny days. He built it because the storm was coming. So Peter says, when the fiery trial comes, don’t act as if something strange has happened. A goldsmith’s fire burns, but it doesn’t destroy the gold. It purifies it (1:7).
And Peter goes further than endure it. He says rejoice, because sharing Christ’s sufferings now means sharing His glory later, “that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (4:13). The cross comes before the crown, for Him and for us.
Make sure it’s for Christ
When people mock you for the name of Christ, Peter says you are actually blessed: “the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you” (4:14). The same glory that once rested on the tabernacle rests on the believer they are laughing at.
But be honest about why they are laughing. Peter puts the murderer, the thief and the evildoer in one line, and right beside them, the “busybody in other men’s matters” (4:15). Meddling, gossip and a sharp tongue bring shame on Christ’s name too. “Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed” (4:16). The world first used that name as an insult (Acts 11:26). Wear it without shame.
Make sure they mock you for Christ, not for your sin.
The God who shut the door
Peter then says something sobering: “judgment must begin at the house of God” (4:17). Like a father who starts the spring cleaning in his own house, God uses trials to purify His own family first. And if His own children go through the fire, Peter asks, what will happen to those who “obey not the gospel of God”? “If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (4:18).
So what do you do when the storm is overhead? “Commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator” (4:19). Commit the keeping is a banker’s phrase. You place your most precious treasure in the vault of someone you trust, and you keep on doing good.
When the rain finally came, Noah did not have to hold the door shut against the flood. The Bible says, “and the LORD shut him in” (Genesis 7:16).
The God who shut Noah in is the same God who keeps your soul.
Can a Christian be condemned in this judgment?
No. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). This is the Father’s discipline, not the Judge’s sentence: “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” (Hebrews 12:6).
Does “scarcely saved” mean a believer could be lost?
No. Believers are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1:5). Scarcely means with difficulty, like a ship that reaches harbour battered but whole. The voyage is hard; the arrival is certain.
PAUSE AND REFLECT When the fiery trial comes, do I think it strange, or do I commit my soul to my faithful Creator? |
Bringing it home
Back to the table
Go back to the children at the table and their question: “Why can’t we be like every other family?”
Because every other family was outside the ark. Being different is not a burden when the rain is coming. One day those children would understand that their father’s strange obedience was the very thing that saved their lives.
When the door was shut
Jesus said, “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:37). For years the door stood open. People ate and drank and married, and “knew not until the flood came, and took them all away” (Matthew 24:39).
The people outside that door were not people who had never heard. They had heard Noah, “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5), year after year. Their problem was not that they didn’t know. It was that they kept saying later. And one day God shut the door.
If you have never come inside
“All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). But Christ is the ark. He “suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (3:18). He died for your sins, He was buried, and He rose again the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3–4).
You don’t enter the ark by church membership, by being baptized, or by trying harder. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works” (Ephesians 2:8–9). Baptism and membership are steps of obedience for people who are already saved; they are not the door. Christ is the door (John 10:9). Turn from your sin and trust Him alone. “Behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
The door is open today. Don’t wait outside for the rain.
If you are already inside
Then live like the end is at hand. This week:
Pray soberly every day for our nation and its leaders, without fear.
Love fervently: choose one person in your church family to forgive, encourage or help.
Open your door: invite someone to your table once this week.
Use your gift: ask the Lord what He has given you, and put it to work.
TAKE THIS WITH YOU Outside the ark, arm your mind. Inside the ark, love and serve. When the storm breaks, rejoice and trust. The door is still open, but it will not stay open forever. |
A prayer you can pray
Words don’t save anyone; Christ does. But if you are ready to turn from your sin and trust Him, you can tell Him so right where you are, something like this:
“Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and I cannot save myself. I believe You died for my sins, were buried, and rose again. I turn from my sin, and I trust You alone to save me. Thank You for bringing me into the ark. Amen.”
If you prayed that and meant it, we would love to hear from you. You can reach us with the buttons below.
Questions you might have
Does “he hath ceased from sin” mean Christians stop sinning?
No. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:8). It means sin no longer rules. The believer who chooses to suffer rather than sin has broken with sin as his master.
Peter said the end was at hand 2,000 years ago. Was he wrong?
No. Christ’s coming is the next great event on God’s calendar and could happen at any moment. God’s delay is mercy, not slowness: He is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Who will be taken when Christ comes for His church?
Everyone who is in Christ: “the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). Not everyone who attended church or was baptized, but everyone who has trusted Christ alone, like the thief on the cross (Luke 23:42–43).
What is a spiritual gift, and how do I find mine?
It is an ability God gives every believer to serve His church (1 Peter 4:10; Romans 12:6–8). Start by serving wherever there is a need. Over time you, and the people around you, will see where God gives joy and fruit.
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ABOUT THIS MESSAGE This message is part of our series through 1 Peter, preached on Sunday mornings at 11:30 at Balkan Baptist Church, Ćirila i Metodija 42a, Novi Sad. You are welcome to join us. |
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