“Those whom Peter addressed in his first letter were in great need of comfort. They were strangers, strangers scattered far from home; they had in consequence to suffer manifold trials, and therefore needed abundant consolations.
“Such is our position in a spiritual sense. We, too, are strangers and foreigners; we are pilgrims and sojourners below, and our citizenship is in heaven; we also require the word of comfort, for while our banishment lasts, we look for tribulations. Those whom Peter addressed were God’s chosen, ‘elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,’ and one sure result of divine election is the world’s opposition. ‘If you were of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you’ (John 15:19).
“So you too, my brethren, chosen out from among men, to be the peculiar people of God, must expect to be partakers of the cross, for the servant is not greater than his Lord; since they persecuted him they will also persecute you. Therefore to you, as to those of old by Peter, the word of consolation is sent this day. The apostle also addressed the sanctified. Through the Holy Spirit they had been sanctified and set apart; to the ‘obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus’ they had been brought. They were a people who had ‘purified their souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit,’ and rest assured no man can do this without encountering fiery trials.
“He who swims with the stream shall find all things go easily with him until he reaches the cataract of destruction; but he who stems the torrent must expect to breast many a raging billow; and therefore to such, the strong consolations of the gospel are necessary. To such, Peter assures them that they have ‘a living hope.’
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