If there is one sin that hallmarks our modern era more than any other, it is also the most ancient as well. Rebellion is its terrible name. In the ancient garden did the Lord God place Adam and Eve, with only one commandment: "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2: 16-17) The snake well tempted the first couple through the human weakness of curiosity: "Then the serpent said to the woman: 'You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'" (Genesis 3: 4)

I once heard tell of a joke that demonstrated a young man's readiness to join the Armed Forces, where lives are laid on the line whenever orders are given and received. According to the teller, much time, effort and misfortune could be avoided if each new recruit could be sincerely tested on his ability to obey orders. The test scenario ran something like this: Place the soldier candidate in an enclosed room for forty-five minutes, hand him a live grenade and tell him not to pull the pin! The ones who passed the initial test would be qualified for service provided their health and physical condition met the necessary standards. Believe me, I know hundreds of people who would not be able to pass that test, not only because of gross ignorance on what would happen if the pin were pulled, but because of a great desire to prove their empty minded independence.

If you think my evaluation of mankind too cruel, we have only to consider the fatalistic fascination with drugs of every sort that denigrates our culture and society. While it is not as timely or crude as handing someone a hand grenade, the final result is still the same! "Just say no!" was the supposed mindless admonishment of Grandfather and Grandmother Reagan twenty years ago, and amazingly drug usage went down by measurable amounts. "I didn't inhale," wisecracked another presidential pretender and the temporary trend of moderation reversed itself immediately.

Of course we well know that there must be laws that describe consequences which are quickly enforced if we are to able to maintain some decorum of civilization. However, this is precisely where our culture fails to put any meaningful breaks on personal behavior, no matter how innocent or perverted the premise of the offender is. Just imagine that those responsible for policing specific behavior were admonished not to be so diligent whenever they actually enforced a rule, and you have a vivid picture of where our society has arrived in our day and time.

Rebellion, social, moral, judicial and all the other countless kinds, (which for Baby Boomers can almost be traced to the anti-authoritative antics of Howdy Doody in the fifties) is the social norm for the vast majority who more and more resent any public or private limitations on their personal search for absolute and total freedom to think and to do anything their little hearts desire. The Peanut Gallery has grown up, taken power and abused that power beyond imagination. It is from this socially normative culture that we must be called if we are to have any hope beyond the grave. Little does the vast worldly and earthy majority believe, comprehend or understand of eternal things and it is showing more and more as our once enlightened civilization debases itself with the rapacious culture of hell.

It is good therefore, that those being rescued are admonished by the heavenly wisdom given to Peter and the rest of the company of Saints who not only know Jesus Christ but fully understand that the body is not an amusement park but a temple for the living Spirit of our Father God. Like Abraham, Moses, Isaiah and John who suddenly realized the intimate personal presence of the Holy One, we need to learn from the passage before us the absolute and perfect holiness of Him who calls us to be Holy even as He is Holy!

Who can read verse seventeen with any personal confidence? "And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear." Only damned fools can hold their head high in the face of that admonishment, and of those there are aplenty in our time and place! Fear of God is almost unknown in the public sector. Continually in my secular employment I must try and temper the constant swearing that grows louder and coarser year by year. A young lady I know of, who sought to invoke the sexual harassment legislation now made meaningless by presidential perversions, was simply told to get used to the language that had offended her!

Never in the history of countries touched by the Reformation, have so many felt so good about being so bad. The only real fear abroad in the land is that material necessities for someone else's self esteem will limit the material necessities for the selfish imaginations for one's own aggrandizement. "Be afraid, be very afraid", runs a popular cultic theme, which is not applied where it truly needs to be applied - before the awesome throne of the Most High God!

But the fear of the Lord is truly the beginning of spiritual wisdom as you here today already know. What is of even more import are the phrases that follow after Peter's admonishment to stand in fear before the Lord of all the earth. "Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."

Thirty pieces of silver was the common price of redemption or corruption as Judas finally realized it! Not so was the true value of the Christ who was crucified. The blood price paid for all the sinners washed in His blood was and still is incalculable. Here was the One without sin, the perfect and second Adam - who being tempted did live a life without sin. To Him alone we, the precious Bride of Christ, do belong - redeemed in the blood of the Lamb. In the context of our passage, Dr Keener notes that "Peter may specifically allude to the Passover: once God's people had been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, they were to be ready to follow God forth until he had brought them safely into their inheritance the Promised Land. Thus they were to be dressed and ready to flee."

In this sense, we as spiritual pilgrims are to be dressed and ready at all times for the coming of the Bridegroom, whenever all heaven breaks loose and Christ returns. And this is the seeming purpose of the text before us today. Like Moses, Isaiah and John, we too stand before the Lord of all the earth. And like all of the worldly, if the text is true and we are judged according to the holy standards of our God, our only chance and plea is the amazing grace and mercy that is ours only because the perfect Son of God died on the cross in our place.

Peter admonishes us through this latter verses of our text to show forth the fruits of the divine spirit who has called us to live a life in gratitude for the mercies given freely in and through the Son. "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever."

At one time, farmers collected their own seed from the crops that they harvested from their own land. Often farmers would trade with another to improve their strain and in time, with careful and observant husbandry, the very best seed for specific acreage could be attained. However, blights, weather conditions and natural disasters could erase the work of a life time. The Waldof Astoria Hotel in New York once prided their table with the muskmelon of one particular farmer who had stumbled onto a special cultivar of his prime crop. One winter, however the whole seed collection for that specialty crop was lost and those once tasty melons became just another urban legend. In our day, crops are much improved through hybridization. Specialists work over the winter months in the Southern hemisphere to prepare the next year's crop. A few years ago, a specific corn fungus got established in the fields of the mid-west, so over the winter the seed companies developed a hybrid seed specifically to be immune to the dreaded disease!

Yet, the hybridization also has its own dangers as men learn more and more how to manipulate and manage the genetic codes created by an all knowing, perfect and holy God. Well does Isaiah, who is quoted in verse twenty-four and twenty-five acknowledge the imperfection of all worldly pursuits and even the impermanence of the material universe itself. What is needed for our spiritual benefit is a hybrid seed, an incorruptible seed to point us to the eternal benefits of heaven.

That incorruptible seed is the Word of God by which we may know the heart of the Gospel and the Messiah by whom we are saved. That precious word if it is truly sown in our hearts causes us to study the wisdom, the laws and revelations that can sanctify us through and through. Therefore, it becomes us to lay "aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking" to prove the Fatherhood of Him who calls us by His Spirit to know and worship the only Son - Jesus Christ.

Today and all days, as we stand before the Lord of all the earth, we are to feed on "the pure milk of the word, that [we] may grow thereby." If, and this is an important if - "if indeed [we] have tasted that the Lord is gracious." Do you know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ today? If you do - you need to go on and apply the Word of God richly to your life, not as if your Christian life earns your way into heaven, but living before the Lord day by day in gratitude for the grace received and the great mercy shown through Christ. Amen.