John 21, you remember the two
characteristics of clean animals in the ark? You remember that? They parted the hook and they
chewed the cud. Who wants to chew the cud a little
bit tonight? Let's go back over what you just read and what we've
studied and chew it a little bit. It's always good. Meditate. Scripture speaks a great deal
of meditate. That's what that means. And we
read so much and we don't get much out of it. We need to go
back and read and meditate on it. Meditate on it. Now, verses
1 and 2, after these things, the Lord showed himself again
to the disciples at the Sea of Galilee. They were together.
He showed himself again at the same place he showed himself
to them before. And they were all together. And the Lord's
true to his word. If you gather together, he's
going to show himself. And here we are at the same place
after all this time, and how many times has He shown Himself
to us? How blessed we are. Verse 4,
the morning came. It was dark. They had toiled
all night, caught nothing. Remember their answer to Him?
Have you had any meat? No. After all this labor, all
night in darkness, toiling obscurity, no, nothing. But He was standing
there on the shore watching them, and they didn't know it was Him.
You know, how many storms and how many dark nights and how
many doubts and fears did the Lord bring them through, those
disciples? How about you? How many storms? have we weathered by His grace? How many dark nights? How many
troubles? How much toil? How much sorrow?
How many has He brought us through? Yet He's been with us. He's been
watching over us the whole time. Times we thought He'd forgotten
us. No way. No way. Disciples, the Son came up and
they heard His voice. He called them again. And John
said, it's the Lord. And Simon dives in and he's got
to get to Christ. What about you? What about you? He's got to get to Christ. To
whom shall we go? Remember what Simon said? Will
you go away? He said, to whom? To whom? So he dove in. And the others
were following Him. They were all coming to Christ.
I hope we've all come here tonight to hear from our Lord, to see
Him. And they came to land, verse 9, they came to land. You know,
the church is like the land of Goshen. If we compared it to
the land of Goshen that the Lord put Jacob and his family in. Land flowing with milk and honey.
The best land in all of Egypt. That's the church. We're in Egypt,
the world, but man, we've got an oasis in the wilderness, don't
we? We sure do. Well, they came to
land and the first thing they saw was a fire. Cold, they're
cold, tired. The Lord had a fire waiting on
them. Oh, may he cause our hearts to
burn within us as he opens a word unto us. If we come cold, if
we come cold, he'll warm us. If we come hungry, he's going
to fill us. Oh yeah, he waits to be gracious. All we need to
bring is an appetite and need. Fish and bread. He fed everybody
the same thing all the time. Fish and bread. A few loaves
and fishes by a young man like me. So they come, and they're sitting
around the fire now, and they're not saying much, which is a good
thing. It's always a good thing to not
say much. And they're sitting around the
fire, and what are they waiting on? Him to speak. They want Him to speak. And now from here on, the Lord
is talking to one man throughout the rest of this chapter.
He's talking to Simon Peter, right? But they all hear it. But he's
directing it at Simon, and I'm making a point here. They all
hear it, but he's directing it at Simon, and Simon knows he's
talking to him. A Sermon on the Mount, multitudes
heard it, but did they? How many people have heard the
Word of God? How many people have Bibles? But who really has
heard it? The Sermon on the Mount was directed
at the disciples. You know that? He calls them
the salt of the earth. He talks about their father.
He was directing that at the disciples. You know who the Lord
will give ears to hear? His people. If you have ears
to hear, if you're receiving this personally, you're one of
the Lord's. You belong to the Lord. Over
in Luke 12, one time the Lord was speaking to people everywhere,
and after he finished, Simon Peter, he's always talking. Simon Peter spoke up and said,
Lord, you're speaking to us, you're speaking to everybody.
He actually asked him that. But the point is, everyone hears
and reads the Bible, but you and I need to hear this as if
we're the only ones in the room. You know that? We need to hear
this personally. I know it's so. It was so with me. When you first
heard the Gospel, you thought you were the only one in there.
You thought, he's talking to me. And it's like Samuel, young Samuel,
came in to Eli, remember? The Lord was speaking to Samuel,
and he came in to Eli and said, did you call me? He said, no,
I didn't call you. He goes, who lied to him? Three times, three
times. And finally, Eli said, this is
the Lord speaking to you, Samuel. So that's the way we need to
receive it. Lord, are you speaking to me? Yes. I want them to, don't you? Reproof,
rebuke, correction, humbling. We need it, don't we? Conviction.
So we need to hear everything personally. I've told you this,
but everybody, there's some people in here that haven't heard all
of my illustrations. You will soon. But my dad, there
was a woman, her name was Opal Clark, and she came, her husband
didn't believe the gospel, and she came faithfully. And she
was always trying to get her husband to come. And finally,
he came with her. He came with her. They heard,
and on the way home he was fuming. And he wouldn't say anything.
She said, Champ? His name was Champ. What's wrong? He said, you've been talking
to that preacher about me, haven't you? She said, I've never had a conversation
with him about you. She said, oh yeah, the very thing
we were talking about last night he brought up. That's the Lord, isn't it? Who
looks on the heart. No roofs over our houses with
the Lord. No darkness. Darkness and the
light are the same in Him. So, we need to hear this as if
we're the only ones in the room. Not for another. We often do
that, don't we? We listen through the eyes. A
visitor comes and we listen through the ears of that visitor and
we're thinking, boy, I hope they hear this. Boy, I hope I hear it. Don't
you? Now, three times Simon Peter
denied him. And they all, you know, they
all caught it. That when the Lord asked him
three times if he loved him. You know they all, you know Peter
now is hanging his head. Don't you know? He knows why
the Lord's asking him three times. He denied him three times. Simon
vehemently denied that he would deny. And he did, not once, not
twice, but three times. And now the Lord, three times,
asked him, love us, Salome. And you know he did it in such
a kind way. A gentle, but firm rebuke. And Simon's hanging his head,
and I believe the other disciples are hanging their head for him.
Don't you reckon? They all know that Simon needed
this. But you know what? They all knew
they needed this. They all knew. They all knew.
He said they would. And they did. They all acted like they didn't
believe him. All of them. You know, many... Many times I prepare messages
as a pastor that this is the way I'm supposed to feel toward
the sheep. Well, so-and-so will really need
this. This will really help so-and-so.
This will really help. I can't tell you how many times
that that person doesn't even show up. It's almost without
fail that if I have one person in mind, they won't be there. But you know what? I need it. I get a blessing out of it. I
need it. I need it all. The seven letters to the churches
in Revelation in chapter 2 and chapter 3 are first addressed
to the pastor of that church. Every single rebuke. You've left
your first love. Have you ever done that? Have
you ever When the gospels preached of Christ dying on the cross
and God's great mercy and grace to you, you acted like I've heard
that before. Anybody? Everybody. Have you ever become
lukewarm? Every one of us. Are you not rich and increased
with goods? And have you not been at times
in need of nothing? And all along it goes. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. So the Lord is talking
to Simon as if he's the only one. And every one of them hear
it. And may we all hear it and say, Lord, speak to me. Speak to me. Now here's what
he said. Verse 18. Verily, verily, truly, truly,
I say unto you, The Lord said that throughout the Gospel of
John. Verily, it means truly. The Lord can't say anything that's
not the absolute truth. The Lord didn't exaggerate. The
Lord didn't imply. The Lord spoke truth like arrows. And he said, Verily, truly I
say unto thee, Simon, when thou wast young, Thou girdest thyself,
and walkest whither thou wouldest, when ye were young." Now, what
he's doing is he's preparing Simon Peter to die. Isn't it? I want to talk about it.
They didn't want to talk about the Lord dying. He was preparing
them for years, three and a half years, for his death. They didn't
want to talk about it. Remember? And when it came, they
were distraught. I should have believed him. I
shouldn't have been full of fear. I should have said, well, just
three days later, he's coming out. They were torn all to pieces.
He didn't listen. Didn't take a dollar. And he's
preparing Simon Peter to die. To die. You know, I try to preach
life in Christ, a life of faith, and I want you to live joyfully.
I want these young people to live a joyful life, but I want
them to know Christ more than anything. But more than that,
more than that, I'm preparing you to die. It's important how
we live, but it's more important how we die. In Genesis, it talks
about all those people that lived 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 years.
But every single one of them, it says, and he died. No matter how long. 50, my friend, 15 years,
my brother, 21, my sister, 42, 54, 62, 74, her dad, 93, my dad,
going to die. Now, wouldn't it be wise? Oh, that they were wise, Moses,
and would consider their latter end. Psalm 90, I tell us to read
that all the time. When's the last time you read
it? I'm telling you we need to read it once a week. He talks
about our infinite God, the finite life we live, and the frailty
of the flesh, and the sinfulness of man, and the mercy of God,
and how we've got 70 years, maybe 80. Maybe 80. I was counting,
trying to get the ladies to help me before service. What did I
do with it? Anyway, I was counting up the
people, the old people in this church. And I'm not one of them. But there's a bunch of us in
our 70s. Several. We got several in their
80s. Right there. Right back there. Roberta. Erlene's going to be
80 in December. And who else? John, Nancy, Roberta,
Erlene will be soon. Ed, Barry, Jeanette. 80. How much longer? Seriously. And the Lord, Brother Stephens,
the Lord says death is better than birth. If we could only
believe Him, we wouldn't be so distraught. There was a man down
in Crossville that the Lord revealed Himself to him. He was about
70 years old. And he went fishing. And right
before he went fishing, the day before, he heard somebody in
their 70s moaning and groaning and worried about dying and all
that, and he said, I don't understand that. He said, we ought to be
looking forward to dying. He died the next day. He went
fishing, and they found him behind his truck laying on the ground. He just said, we ought to look
forward to it. Lord said, come on out of here, Enoch. So, I'm preparing us to
die. These all, in Hebrews 11, it
says, these all died in the faith. I want everyone in this room
to die in the faith. Now, I trust him, believe him,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's going to be very soon
for most of us. It just is. We might have five
funerals next year. I might not hold them. I might
be one of them. Right? I want us to die in the faith.
He's preparing, signing people. Verily, verily, I say unto you
now, Simon Peter, you were young, but now you're getting old. And
you did what you wanted, you thought, when you were young.
And went where you wanted to go, and do what you wanted to
do. Simon Peter, you belong to me now. And I'm going to do with
you what I will for you to do. And they're going to get you,
and they're going to lay hold of you, and they're going to put you
on a cross, and you're going to die for my sake, for the glory of
God. And you're going to die. And
you're going to glorify me in doing it. Now Simon had just
not long before that said, I'll die for you. Didn't he? And now the Lord's saying, yes
you will. Remember he had already said
that. You cannot go with me where I'm going, but you will. Remember
that? So, all right, think about this
with me. Galatians chapter 2. I want you,
all of us, to hang on a cross. I want all of us to be crucified.
You know that? And we will. All of God's people
will be crucified. Have been and shall be. Crucified. Galatians 2, look
at this, for the glory of God. Galatians 2, it says it three
times. Galatians 2, verse 20. You have
it, I am crucified with Christ. Are you? What's your hope of
glory? Christ crucified. You know what
we found in Christ? You hope that what Christ did
for you on Calvary's tree, that you were in Christ when He was
crucified on that tree. That your sins were laid on him.
That's your hope. That's my hope. Paul said, I am crucified with
Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet the life, not I, but Christ
liveth in me. The life which I now live in
the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. Chapter 5, Galatians 5, look
at this. Verse 24. Galatians 5.24, they
that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections
and lusts thereof. Brothers and sisters, don't you
want to mortify these old members on this earth? Don't you? May
God through the gospel kill these fleshly appetites before they
kill us. And we need to see them as put
on the cross as Christ paying for them. And that'll deter it,
that'll mortify it. Galatians 6, look at this, Galatians
6 verse 14, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. That's the cross that we need
to glory in. That's the cross we need to bear.
When our Lord said carry, bear your cross, our cross is His
cross. And read on, it says, By whom
the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Don't you want to be crucified
to the world and the world to you? Don't you? Don't you want to be so sold
out to Christ that the world sees you like
old Noah? Oh, Noah, the last seven days
when the ark was completed, and the ark's completed, the work's
completed, and Noah went inside that ark and his family and sat
in that ark, and when it was dry, not one drop of water had
fallen. And they sat, eight of them,
inside that ark while the sun shined. And they're saying, rain's
coming. And the whole world went by laughing
and scoffing at that stupid fool named Noah sitting in that ark
in dry weather. I want to be just like him. I
want the world to call me a fool for Christ's sake. And Noah was
cut off from the world. He wasn't interested in who was
going to be elected next. What's he talking about? The
promised land. I want to be crucified to the
world and the world to me, don't you? Do you? Peter, you're going to be crucified.
Some say that the tradition has it that he was crucified upside
down. I don't know if that's true.
Have you read, some of you read that? It was said that Simon
Peter, when he came to be crucified, said he didn't deserve to be
crucified like the Lord, so he had him crucified upside down. I don't know if that's true.
But I know when the time came, the Lord gave him the grace,
and he considered it a great honor. Not long after this, he
was beaten and he was so glad that he was able to suffer shame
for the Lord's name because he caused him so much shame. Now
he wanted to glorify. And they do that. So he told Peter, here's what
he told him. In verse 19, he spake signifying by what death
he should glorify God. May we glorify God in whatever
death He caused us to face, right? And when he spoke of this, he
said unto him, follow me. Follow me. And what was the very
first thing he said to Simon Peter when he found him? Follow me. Didn't he? When he found Simon Peter, what
was Simon Peter following? Fish. The weather forecast. The stock market. He's a businessman,
right? Everything. What was Levi following?
The stock market. You know, Dow, the exchange money,
you know. What's a dollar worth now? What
did it matter? You know what, I'll tell you
what the dollars were. I'll tell you what the dollars were. Nothing. But that's who they were following,
that's what they were following. And when Christ came, he said,
follow me. Now here in the end, he tells
them the exact same thing. Are you with me? Christ saying
to you, in the end, follow me. Do we need to be told time and
time again to follow him? Does he have to tell us that
again? If you're a sheep, you do. Don't we love that hymn? Come thou prone to wander, Lord,
I feel. That's the nature of sheep, isn't
it? To wander off. I had a dog. You've heard about
him so many times. I loved him, and I taught him
to follow me, and for the most part, he did follow me. But every
now and then, he'd run off, you know, and go after when I wasn't
around. I was around. And he'd go after what dogs do. He's acting like a dog. And he got in trouble. He got
in danger. One time he ran off and I had to put out a bounty
on him and go get him. And what about us? Well, we need
to be told time and time again. Our Lord said, follow me. That
means follow him, not anyone else. Doesn't it? Follow Christ,
listen to Him, heed Him, go after Him, follow Him, no one else,
no one else, unless except those that are following Him. When
Paul said, follow me, he said, follow me as I follow Christ.
Those who have the rule over you, follow them, whose faith
follow. Those who follow Christ, you can follow them. But follow
me, Christ said, not the world. There's nobody in this world
worth following. They're blind leaders of the blind. You know
where everybody's going to end up? In a ditch. You see, that's where he found
us. And that's who we were following, wasn't it, Brother Kelly? That's
who we were following, that's where he found us, and what did
he do? Brought us out of the ditch. He said, now follow me. Surely after all these years
we wouldn't listen to this world and get all tore up. Follow me, Christ said. Listen to me. Put your fingers,
be like the pilgrim. Put your fingers in your ear.
Turn off the news. Put your fingers in your ear
and look toward the celestial city and cry, life, life, eternal
life. I'm not listening to anybody.
Look right. Look straight on. Don't look
back. That's what Simon did. Follow Christ. Walk with Him.
Follow Him means to walk with Him. Commune with Him. Talk with
Him. Talk with Him. Call on Him. He's your Father.
He's your Lord. He's your husband. He's your
friend. He's a faithful friend that sticketh closer than the
breath. You can trust Him. Follow Him. Oh, that we would
follow Him implicitly. Huh? Follow His instructions.
Everything our Lord tells us is good. It's right. He said,
My commandments are great. Follow Him. Follow His example. Peter wrote in 1 Peter, the whole
chapter, the whole book of 1 Peter is talking about suffering. Talking
about suffering. Christ's suffering and how the
believers are called to suffer. And he said, Christ has left
us an example to follow. And we'll be safe and happy and
content and have peace if we follow, just follow Jesus Christ.
You know it. Well, Simon Peter, he's doing
okay. He's following. He's hanging
his head, you know, and he's believing. And then he gets to
thinking about being crucified. And he looks back at John. He says, Lord, now what about
him? Am I the only one that's going
to have to die? What about John? What an illustration this is,
how merciful and gracious our Lord is, and how fickle and how
sinful and how selfish we are. boasted of dying for the Lord,
and all he did was deny the Lord. Okay? And the Lord graciously,
mercifully received him back and tells him that he's going
to die for him now. Now you are going to die for
that. This is what you said you were going to do, and now you're
going to do it. And now Simon starts feeling sorry for himself.
I said, well, what about him? Is it just me? Or me? Anybody? Or me? What about him? Look. What's John doing? What's John saying? Nothing. That's John. The Lord made it
a point here to say this is John who leaned in on his bread. It
was real close to Him all the time, following Him. John was
the only one that followed Him to the cross and didn't leave.
Right? John, the only one. And the Lord
told him something, didn't tell the others. Simon Peter boasted,
this right here will get you in a world of trouble. The Scripture
says, he that keepeth his mouth keepeth his soul from troubles. The multitude of words are wanteth
not sin. Peter's got to speak up. He's
feeling self-pity. You know, if we start pouring
me in it, we'll start being resentful of other people. Oh, that we would just quietly
submit to our Lord's Word and His dealings with us and not
open our mouths. If we do, let's be like Job.
When he gave it to me, he took it away. I know Simon Peter loves John.
You know what, I know he loves John. But shouldn't we say this, shouldn't
we say this, Lord I deserved that, I deserved that. Don't
let anything bad happen to John. You say I'm going to be crucified?
Fine, I need to be. But bless my brothers, don't
let anything bad happen to them. Isn't that love? Isn't that what
Christ did? If you seek me, he said, let
them go. So the Lord rebukes Simon Peter. And that rebukes us, too, that
we need to think on things of others, not ourselves. We need
to esteem others better than ourselves. We need to quit pouring
me in it. And don't we have enough sins
and faults and self-inflicted troubles of our own without trying
to figure out what somebody else ought to do? What the Lord ought
to do with so-and-so. Lord, you really need to take
care of that person. Will I take care of you? If we really saw ourselves for
what we are, we wouldn't be looking at anybody else. Our Lord said, follow thou. The next thing He said, you follow
me. Don't look at him. Look to me. He said this in verse 22. If
I will that he tarry till I come. What is that to thee? In other
words, he's saying, it's none of your business what I do with
John, or anybody for that matter. You follow me. You just, as someone
said, just shut up and follow me. Mind your own business. You
know, there's a scripture in 1 Thessalonians 4 that says this
very thing, and we need to study to be quiet. We need to practice being quiet. Simon Peter wishes so many times
he hadn't spoke up. We need to study to be quiet.
This is 1 Thessalonians 4, 10 through 12. And to mind our own
business. Keep out of other people's business. Not try to take care of everybody
else's troubles. Or straighten everybody else's
out. We can't straighten ourselves out. Now, now. Shut up and mind your own business.
Start to name it. Title this. Follow me and mind
your own business. I said I wasn't going to say
this, but I will. There was a country music star
years ago, Hank, Hank, what's his name? Hank Williams.
He wrote a song called Mind Your Own Business. And it goes like
this, if you mind your own business, mind your own business, because
if you mind your own business, you sure won't be minding mine.
That's good advice, isn't it? Good advice. And so, and here's
the problem too. He looked back, instead of following
Christ, he looked back at somebody else. You know, if we look at
other people, We'll either be discouraged or we'll be proud. You know that? We look at... John was full of faith. John
followed the Lord like Caleb. And that man... I'm glad Peter's
in the Bible. That gives me some hope. But
John... If we look at some that follow Christ like... It'll discourage
us. If we look at some that follow
the wayside, we'll get proud. I haven't done that. Right? Just don't look at anybody. Just
look to Christ. Don't look to the right. Don't
look to the left. Don't look at those in front of you. Don't
look at those behind you. Look to Christ. Examine yourself. So, somebody said, if you look
within, you'll be discouraged. If you look at others, you'll
be disappointed. If you look to Christ, you'll
be encouraged. You'll have peace. So, the Lord said, mind your
own business. That's good, good counseling.
Then went this saying, they spread this rumor among the brethren
that that disciple should not die. Verse 23, but Jesus said
not unto him he shall not die. John is quoting the Lord exactly. Did you read this over and over
again? He quoted the Lord exactly. He didn't leave out a word, he
didn't add a word. He didn't paraphrase. He quoted the Lord
exactly. There's no misunderstanding what John said. This is what
he said. You know, that's how I want to
preach. Well, that's what it said, but
that's not what it meant. Yes, it is, too. John, if you ever
preach again, if you ever preach again, you tell people what this
book says, not what John Calvin said it says. Barnard used to
say, God says what he says, not what you think he means. That
way, the Word of God is up to everybody's opinion. This is what it said. Eve added a couple of words and
it changed everything and plunged her and her husband into sin. So here's, you know, there's
all kinds of error comes from not clearly declaring what God
says exactly like he says. He did not say he shall not die,
but if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
That's pretty clear. And he said in verse 24, This
is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these
things. John was a true man, a true disciple, followed the
Lord faithfully. And the Lord used John to write
this blessed gospel. What a gospel. What a book. Don't
you love every word in it? What about 1 John? The Lord used
this blessed man to write 1 John. What about 2 John? 3 John. And then put him on an
island and wrote that revelation of Jesus Christ. I, John, was
in the Isle of Patmos, exiled, all alone. Nobody on earth on
that island but me. Hold on. Hold on now. He could never have been better
off. But the Lord did to him on purpose
for his glory. And he said, I know his testimony
is true. His testimony is true, verse
25, and there are also many other things which Jesus did to which
they should be written, every one. I suppose not that even
the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
And you know, I personally believe that when we all get to glory,
that, you know, we love the Lord, and we're going to know Him even
as we've been known. And the Lord Peter said, One
thing have I desired, and that will I seek after, that I may
dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold
the beauty of the Lord. Now, the Lord's going to gather
all His people into His house one day. All right? His Father's
house. And we're going to behold the
beauty of the Lord. And Peter said, and I want to inquire in
his temple. I've got a lot of things I need to ask. And I believe
the Lord's going to be showing us everything. And I believe he's going to preach.
He might just start in Genesis 1, 1. And we're all going to
say, the half was never told me. My, my. We got all eternity. We'll never
grow tired. And the greatest preachers that
ever lived are going to preach it to us. And we're just going
to be messiahs. Okay. And the last word is what? Amen. Stand with me.