I shall read verses 21 through
27. Matthew 16 verses 21 through 27. You'll remember now, our Lord
Jesus has just received from Peter a statement concerning
the fact that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God. And
he told Peter that flesh and blood had not revealed this truth
unto him, but the Father who was in heaven. And having revealed
his essential person, who he was, the very Christ, the Son
of the living God, we read in verse 21 that he begins to unfold
the essential purpose for which he came. Having revealed who
he is, he now begins to specifically reveal unto his disciples why
he has come. He has given hints at it before,
this concept that Jesus came to the Jewish nation and offered
unto them an earthly kingdom, and because they rejected it,
then he decided to die and come as a savior is utterly unfounded
in scripture. Jesus said early in his ministry
in John 2, if the first miracle performed in Cana of Galilee
destroyed this temple, and in three days I'll raise it up,
this spake he concerning his body. Our Lord Jesus came as
the Lamb ordained from the foundation of the world. He came to die.
But it was not until now that he began to unfold clearly and
specifically and in detail the manner in which he would die. And so we have in verse 21 this
clear statement, and I shall read now verses 21 through 27.
From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how
that he must, I want to underline that word, how that he must go
unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and the
chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again
the third day. Then Peter took him and began
to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall
not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter,
Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offense unto me,
for thou savest, or thou thinkest not the things that be of God,
but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples,
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take
up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake
shall find it. For what is a man profited if
he shall gain the whole world and lose his own life? It should
not be translated soul, his own life. It's the same word in the
original as is used up in the preceding verse. What is a man
profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own life?
For what shall a man give in exchange for his life? For the
Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his
angels, and then shall he reward every man according to his works." In verse 21, we have announced
to us that Jesus began to declare unto his disciples the imperative,
the absolute necessity of his death. We read from that time
forth, began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must,
and it's a strong word, it's a word of intense imperative.
He began to show unto them how that he must go to Jerusalem,
and that he must suffer, and that he must be killed, and that
he must be raised again from the dead on the third day. Now
I want to ask you a very simple question tonight. Why did Jesus
speak of the imperative of his death? What made the death of
this One who was just confessed to be the Christ, the Son of
the living God, what made His suffering and His death and His
resurrection imperative? Oh, you say, because God loved
us and in our sin God planned to provide a way of escape and
so Jesus had to go to the cross. Yes, I know that. But I wonder
if you've ever penetrated beyond the mere shell of those words
and laid hold of the real root cause of why Jesus had to go
and die. Because of man's sin? Yes. But what is sin? What is the
essence of sin? Until I understand what the heart
and the essence of sin is, I will never understand the heart and
the essence and the real throbbing goal of God in sending a deliverer
from sin. If my conception of sin is just
some bad things that I do that sort of make God frown, then
I can never understand the core of the purpose of God's redemptive
work in which He plans to deliver men from sin. What is the core,
the essence, what is the boiled-down characteristic of sin? Andrew
Murray in one of his books says this, and I'm quoting freely,
not verbatim, Sin consisted in nothing but this, but that man
refused to have God as his all in all, and redemption has as
its goal nothing less but that God shall become to his creatures
all in all once again. When Adam and Eve sinned, what
was their sin? In essence, their sin was this,
they would not have God be everything to them. They would not have
his will be the limit of their desire. They would not have his
wisdom be the limit of their wisdom. They would seek a wisdom
outside the wisdom that God knew was best for them. They would
be like God, knowing good from evil. They would have a desire
that fell outside the sphere of God's desire. He had said,
my desire for you is do not touch that tree, do not eat of it,
for the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
And when they reached out and took of the forbidden fruit,
they were casting off God as their all in all. Sin has as
its greatest crime that the creature has done what we read in Jeremiah
2. My people have committed two
evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,
and they have hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold
no water. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
what? To his own way. Do you get this? The root, the essence of sin
is this rebellion in the human heart which refuses to let God
have his rightful place as all in all. That in the viciousness
of our sinful nature and the rebellion of our hearts that
God says are wicked, desperately wicked, deceitful of all things. And the greatest wickedness of
the human heart is that it has passed off God and has hewn out
broken cisterns. that can hold no water. Now,
we read in this passage, Jesus says, I must die, I must suffer,
I must be raised again from the dead. Now, what was his goal?
Will you get hold of this? Why the imperative of the death
of Christ? Why the necessity of his sufferings
and that terrible baptism of agony and blood and tears? Why
the groans of Gethsemane and the piercing cry of Golgotha? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? What's the divine purpose in
all of this? Here it is. Jesus said, I have
come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.
What kind of life? The very life for which the creature
was made. Life in which God is all in all
to the creature. Life in which the creature wants
nothing beyond the fear of the will of God. Life in which the
creature desires no wisdom, but that which falls within the sphere
of the wisdom of God. Life in which the creature desires
nothing more than the fellowship of his God, and anything that
must mar that fellowship, he wants it not, no matter how delightful
a marshal it might be. Jesus died that we might have
life. What life? The very life for
which the creature was made. Life in which God's person is
the central focal point of our existence. Let me repeat that. This is not poetic language.
What I'm saying is the core of the purpose of that terrible
scene that's recorded in detail in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and
John. That scene, which interpreted
in the epistles, is called the message of the cross, which is
the very heart of the gospel. What is the goal of all of this?
that you, my dear friend, might be brought to the place by the
grace of God where God's person becomes the all-absorbing focal
point of your existence, where you might say with the psalmist,
all my springs are in thee, and any spring that is not in God
is polluted and I don't want it, where God's will becomes
the one consuming desire of your life. Jesus died that he might
have a people to whom the will of God is precious, who can say
with the psalmist, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea,
thy law is within my heart. And when Jesus sealed the new
covenant in his precious blood, one of the blessings of that
new covenant was not merely a changed record in heaven. God says, there
are sins and iniquities I will remember no more, but he says,
I will write my law upon their hearts. Whenever there's the
changed record in heaven, there's the changed heart on earth. And
God inscribes His law from the heart so that He has a people
who delight to do His will. Jesus came that He might purchase
and enable a people to enter into this life where God's person
is the central focal point, where God's will is the one consuming
desire, where God's glory is the incentive, the motive, the
goal of all that I do, even down to us, whether therefore ye eat
or drink, to all the glory of God. Paul says the goal of redemption
was to take the most common acts of eating and drinking and make
them sacred by this motive, the glory of God. If that's to be
true of eating and drinking, it goes without saying that this
should be the only method, the only motive for which a man ever
stands behind the pulpit. Dear preacher friends, don't
ever make the pulpit a pedestal upon which to parade your flesh,
and your intellect, and your abilities. Don't do it. It's wicked. It's wicked.
Jesus died that we might have life. What kind of life? A life in
which God's person is all-absorbing, a life in which God's fellowship
is our longing, a life in which God's will is our delight, in
which God's glory is the motive that underlies all that we do
and are, a life in which God's likeness is reflected in us. For whom
He did foreknow, He did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son. Jesus said, I must go and die. Why? That I might have a people
who reflect the very nature of my Father and of myself. This
is why He died. He died to purchase unto Himself
a people to whom God Himself would be all-absorbed. Now, did
He do this? Yes. He went to Gethsemane, He
went to the cross, and He cried out upon that cross, It is finished.
And in that death, what did He do? He satisfied the justice
of a holy God that demanded that upon us should burn and break
through all eternity, eternal wrath. Cursed is everyone that
continueth not in all things that are written in the book
of the law to do them. God's curse was upon us. And as long
as the curse of God was upon us and the wrath of God burned
toward us, and may I say this, dear people, you've heard the
little shibboleth, God loves the sinner but hates his sin.
That's not true. God hates the sinner. My Bible says in the
book of Psalms, Psalm 5, thou hatest all workers of iniquity. He that believeth not the wrath
of God abideth on him, not his sins, him. I cannot disassociate
myself from my sin, neither does God. Who does God send to hell?
Who, to whom does God say, depart from me? Not to sins, some abstract
thing, but to sinners, men who've been rebels against him. How
can God love with perfect love and hate with perfect hate? I
do not know. But it's not for me to know.
Nor is it for me to adjust the Word of God to make a little
shibboleth that seems to answer the question. Listen. You've
never known Holy Spirit conviction until you've seen yourself as
an object of the pure wrath of a holy God. Until you've taken
the place of a condemned, guilty criminal. We're not to be pitied.
We're to be blamed. Paul said, after arraigning the
whole human race before the bar of God's law in Romans 3, that
every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty
before God. It's a picture of the whole human
race standing before the tribunal of God. And after the evidence
of the law of God and the testimony of conscience and light rejected
has been arraigned, everyone hangs his head as a guilty criminal
and pleads guilty of the child. Cursed is everyone that continues
laughing all things that are written for the law. So as long
as the curse of God was upon us. God could not have a basis. I speak reverently. God had no
basis upon which He could enter the life and begin to work out
His purpose. Here's this creature that has
turned from Him, that has turned to His own way, to His own lusts,
to His own desires, to His own wisdom, to His own will, to His
own passions. God wants to take that creature
and make it a creature who will live to the praise of His grace.
who will live in fellowship with Him and to His glory. But sin
stands as a barrier because thou art of pure eyes and to look
upon iniquity, the prophet tells us. John tells us God is light
and in Him is no darkness at all. And so in the death of Jesus,
God has satisfied His own wrath. For we read in Galatians 3, Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a
tree. But now will you listen carefully? That cursing of Jesus
Christ, and remember the secret of the cross is found not in
what the Roman soldiers did and what the Pharisees did, but in
what God did. Isaiah 53 tells us, The Lord
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He, God, hath made
him Jesus. to be an offering for sin, it
pleased the Lord to bruise him. Listen, when you look at the
cross, see beyond the soldiers and the pharisees and the scribes,
and even beyond the physical wounds, until you see that here
in the person of the Son of God, God the Father found his wrath,
finding its object in him, so that the Son of God said, all
thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Thine arrows stick
fast within me. I'm quoting from the Psalms.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so
far from my roaring? Our fathers trusted in thee,
and thou didst hear them, but I am a worm and no man." What's the meaning of all of
this? God's telling you how He feels about your sin. For if
ever God was to be lenient with sin, He would have been lenient
with sin when that sin was being born in the person of His Son!
But He brought down wrath unmixed with mercy. He hath been made
a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. And now the justice of God has been satisfied. Jesus
Christ has gone back to the right hand of the Father, and there
He sits. And according to the hymn, five bleeding wounds He
bears. Received on Calvary, they pour
effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me. Forgive
Him, O forgive! They cry, nor let that ransomed
sinner die. This is familiar ground to many
of us. I trust our hearts are warmed as we consider it again.
But now will you listen carefully? Why did God satisfy His justice
in the person of His Son? Why has God dealt with sin? Why has He made Him who knew
no sin to be sin for us? That we might become the righteousness
of God in Him, yes. That we might have a perfect
standing in Christ. We read there in 1 Corinthians
that He has made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption, but that was not an end in itself. God has given to every repentant
believer who has been born of the Spirit of God, God has given
to him a perfect standing in Christ, why? That now he might
begin to work in him by the Spirit the goal of that redemptive work,
which is what? that God might now, in the experience
of the redeemed, be all in all, that His will might be their
absorbing desire, that His glory might be their incessant and
constant and burning motive, that His fellowship might be
their greatest delight, that His service might be that for
which they're willing to sacrifice and to toil and to deny themselves. God has given to those who are
in Christ a perfect standing in heaven, He might by His Spirit
begin to work in them and through them the very goal and this redemptive
purpose that God might be all in all. Don't you stop with the
perfect record in heaven. You're a child of God. God won't
let you stop there. The Holy Spirit has come for
what purpose? To make valid and real in the
experience of the redeemed what Jesus died to purchase. All that Jesus prays for at the
right hand of the Father, that His own might be sanctified to
the truth, that they might be one, that ultimately they might
be with Him and behold His glory. Get the beauty of this, what
Jesus purchased with His blood and His death, what He prays
for at the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit works
in the hearts of the redeemed here on earth unto the praise
of God. What a marvelous plan, what a
marvelous working of our God, so great salvation. God's purpose is that you and
I might know what it is to have God, all in all. When redemption is completed,
we read in 1 Corinthians 15 that even the sun in his place as
Redeemer, in his place as the God-man who's worked out redemption. It says, then even the Son shall
be subject unto the Father, that God might be one, all in all. And redemption's goal is finally
attained, God, all in all. You say, Brother Martin, you've
gone a long way from the text, haven't you? No. Jesus must die
to bring this to pass. He must suffer. He must be killed. He must be raised from the dead.
And now all is in readiness that God might work this out. But
how is it going to be true of you? Let me be practical, now.
How can you come to the place, by the grace of God, where the
person of God, God's person, He is loved for what He is. He
is served for what He is. God's person becomes all-absorbing
to you. where God's will becomes the
most precious delight of your heart, where God's glory becomes
the incentive and the motive undergirding all that you do,
where likeness to God begins to be a vital experience, where
fellowship with God is a constant reality, how can you enter into
this kind of life that Jesus died to purchase? Verses 24-27
tell us, having spoken of his death, Jesus then turns to his
disciples and says, if any man will come after me, let him deny
himself. Take up his cross and follow
me, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it. Whosoever
will lose his life for my sake shall find heaven. These verses
are vitally, they're organically tied in with verses 21 through
23. Will you lay hold of this tonight? Will you ask God right now, O
Lord, open mine eyes that I might behold wondrous things out of
thy law? Listen. Jesus said, I must die, I must
be killed, I must be raised from the dead, I must die if the creatures
of God are to know the purpose of God in their lives. Now he
turns to the creature and he says, in essence, you must die
if you're to enter into the benefits of my death. Now get this. Listen to what he says. Let's
look at the text. If any man will come after me, let him deny
self, take up the cross, and follow me. What will that mean,
practically speaking? Verse 25 tells us, for whosoever
will save his life will lose it, but whosoever will lose his
life for my sake shall find it. To deny myself, to take up my
cross and to follow Him in vital spiritual experience, practically
speaking, means this. I will lose my life. Not my physical
life. I'll explain what it is. Let's
get hold of the words and then we'll seek to get an understanding.
Practically speaking, Jesus said, if anyone will come after me,
deny himself, take up the cross, follow me, it will be a losing
of his life. Now when you lose your life,
what's happened to you? You've died, right? If you lose your life,
you die, right? Yes? No? All right, good. Wiggle your head or nose or ears
or something. Let me... I want to see now if
we're getting through. All right. Losing a life is dying. Now,
Jesus said this. If you save your life, you'll
lose it. If you lose it, you'll keep it. How do I lose my life? By denying myself, taking up
the cross, and following Him. Jesus said, just as surely as
I had to die a literal, physical death and taste the wrath of
the Father in order to purchase this life, you must die in vital,
personal, spiritual experience, not physical death, if you are
to enter into the benefits of my death." That's what he's saying. That's this teaching boiled down
in a nutshell. You say, well, I don't understand.
Well, I trust God will help us to see it as we move on. But
get the principle. If any man—let's look at it now,
phrase by phrase—if any man will come after me, now get this,
everything that God purposes to do in redemption, He does
through the person of his Son as applied by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. God does not dispense any spiritual
blessing apart from attachment to Jesus Christ. Now let me explain
this. Failure to lay hold of this has
produced untold confusion. Ephesians 1 says, God has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ is God's reservoir of spiritual blessing. Forgiveness, reconciliation,
adoption, all of these blessings are stored in Christ. Now, when
do they become mine? God does not reach into the reservoir. I trust I'm not being irreverent,
but I want you to see this principle. God does not reach into the reservoir
and take out a little bit of forgiveness and give it to a
sinner. And then if he wants a little bit of holiness, reach
in and take it out of the reservoir and give it a little bit of holiness.
No, no. God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the
heavenly places in Christ. Colossians 2 says, ye are complete
in him. Now listen. The only way God
dispenses spiritual blessing is to unite a man to Jesus Christ
in faith. And when he's united to Christ,
then he becomes heir to everything that Jesus purchased in his blood,
and everything that the Holy Spirit wants to apply in his
experience. Now, that's not playing with
words. Let me labor at this just a minute. Here's a prince who
goes from a kingdom where there's a very upright, moral, just kingdom. A kingdom in which there is righteousness
and peace, in which there is full provision for all of his
subjects. And this prince goes out to another
kingdom in which there is nothing but poverty and squalor and filth
and death and decadence and need. And in this kingdom he finds
a young woman who captures his fancy. He begins to unfold to
this young woman the glories of His Father's kingdom. He speaks
of the tremendous amount of wealth in the Father's kingdom and compares
it to her poverty. He speaks of that in His Father's
kingdom by way of health and blessing that is in such contrast
to the squalor and the filth. And so He unfolds to this young
woman all that is in His Father's kingdom. And then He says this,
If you'll give me your hand in marriage, you'll become mine.
All that I fall heir to, as son of the king, will be yours. On one condition, that you give
yourself to me." He says, oh, I'd love to somehow get out of
the terrible mess and squalor and filth that I'm in. I sure
would love some of the beautiful things that she begins to talk
about in that kingdom. The prince presses the issue, will you have
me? Will you have me? And if she says no to the prince,
she'll have none of that to which he is rightful heir. If she will
not have him, she will not have his blessings. Listen, the natural
heart can want forgiveness if all forgiveness means is getting
fireproof from hell and getting into a heaven that's sort of
a glorified 20th century America without unions and without income
tax and without burglars in the movie shows. But listen, God
does not give forgiveness apart from His Son. God does not give
peace apart from His Son. God does not give any spiritual
blessing apart from His Son. And if you'll not have Him on
His terms, you'll have none of the blessings of God. If any
man will come after me, Jesus said, after me, after me. You see this? Now, what are the
conditions of coming after Him? coming after him, thereby entering
into the very purpose for which he died and rose again and sits
at the right hand of the Father. If any man will come after me,
let him what? Deny himself, take up his cross,
and follow me." Jesus said the first requirement of losing your
life in order to find it, of entering into a life in which
God himself His central, His will, His precious, His glory,
the driving motive, His fellowship, the precious delight, this life
that I've repeated again and again, trusting that somehow
God will filter it down through by the Spirit and begin to lay
it into the beams and fibers of our hearts. How can I enter
into this life? Only one way. I must lose my
life. What does that involve? It involves,
number one, denying self. Now, what is self? Any man will
come after me, let him deny himself." Deny himself. What is self? It's what I am because of my
roots in Adam and the rebellion of my own heart that puts me
at the center instead of God. That's what self is, basically.
2 Corinthians 5.15, and that he died for all that they who
live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him
who died and for their sakes rose again. Every man, apart
from the supernatural grace of God, basically lives for one
purpose, whether he's a drunkard or whether he's a deceived religionist. Whether she's a harlot, or whether
she sits and rocks in a chair and reads a Bible but has never
known supernatural grace, every one of us, by nature, has this
in common. Here it is. That they should
not henceforth live unto themselves. By nature, you are the focal
point of your own life. Your will, your thoughts, your
wisdom, your desires. What has Jesus come to do? He's
come to replace that. Not patch on something to it. No, no. not to patch something
onto it, not to merely change the direction of self from bad
self to good self, he has come to replace the whole focal point
and foundation of our living from self to God. That's what
he came for. Now, how can I enter into this? I've got to come to a place where
I deny self. And the word deny is strong.
It's the same word used of Peter when they're in the court and
the young woman came to him and said, oh, you must be one of
them. Thy speech betrayeth thee. It says Peter, cursed and denied,
saying, I know not to man. What did he do? He pointed to
Jesus Christ and said, I bear no identification with him. I
have no allegiance to him. I do not want to be identified
or associated or considered as one of His. I disclaim all devotion
and relationship. I disclaim all attachment. I
deny Him. I repudiate Him. Now God says,
if any man would come after Me, he must repudiate self. come
to the place where there is from the bedrock of the heart a turning
from this principle of loving myself, pleasing myself, glorifying
myself, serving my own will and serving my own ends and accepting
my own motives and thinking my own thoughts. There must be a
repudiation that is basic and bedrock and thorough, a denying
of self. The mere lopping off of a few
sins will not do. The mere turning away from a
few manifestations of self and then replacing it with more subtle
ones will not do. There must be a dealing with the fruit. Say, Brother Martin, on what
basis can I? This thing is so vicious, so strong, so alive.
How can I know that if I repudiate it, God will bring deliverance
from it? Hallelujah. Listen. This is the second aspect
of the cross. For when Jesus died, not only
did God judge my sin, but He judged me. Book of Romans, chapter
6, was written to unfold the blessed truth that when Jesus
died, God judged not only this thing that we call sin or sins. He bare our sins in his own body
on the tree. The Lord laid on him the iniquity
of us all. But Jesus Christ so identified
himself with his own, and they are identified with him, that
when he died, we died. So the book of Romans chapter
6 opens up and says, What shall we say then? Shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? Or are ye ignorant,
he says, that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ
were baptized into his death? We are buried therefore with
him by baptism into death, that, now get this, that like as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so
we should walk here and now in newness of life. Jesus died not
just to give us a newness of record, but newness of life. Get it? Not only newness of standing,
newness of experience. What is that newness? We read
down and God tells us by the Holy Spirit. Listen as I continue
reading from Romans chapter 6. For if we've been planted together
in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness
of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man is crucified
with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, better translated,
that the body of sin might be rendered inoperative, ineffective,
that henceforth we should not serve sin. My Bible says, knowing
this, that our old man, not just our sins, but our old man, this
natural self which has itself as its goal and object, our old
man was crucified with him, that the body that is liable to sin
might be rendered inoperative, that henceforth we should not
serve sin. And what is the root of sin?
Listen, it's this disposition to please myself in opposition
to pleasing God. The disposition to honor myself
instead of honoring Him. The disposition of gratifying
myself instead of gratifying Him. The disposition to seek
my own goals and aims and wisdom instead of His goals and aims
and wisdom. And in the cross, this was judged. This was put to death. For what
purpose? That henceforth I should no longer
be its servant. 2 Corinthians 5 again. that He
died for all that they which live should not henceforth live
unto what? Unto the sounds, but unto Him. This is why He died. And there's deliverance from
the power of self through the cross, so I can come to the place
where I with God agree with Him about what He says about self.
Lord, Thou hast judged it and put it to death in the cross,
and so I judge it. And put it where thou hast put
it. This is the verse 11. Likewise, reckon yourself to
be dead indeed unto sin. I don't go about and crucify
myself. God has already done it. This is a historical fact.
Now I must enter in in vital experience and reckon it to be
so, repudiate myself. Now I want to be specific tonight.
I don't want to deal with just theory. If you are to know the
purpose for which Jesus died, you must repudiate self. Self
as manifested in rival affection. Jesus said in Luke 14, great
multitude coming after him. When he saw a great multitude
coming after him, it says in verse 26, he turned and said,
any man come after me and hate not, father, mother, name the
closest human tithes of affection. And then he went even deeper
and he said, and his own life also. He cannot be my disciple. How different from modern evangelistic
methods. When the multitudes began to
press, Jesus knew that when multitudes begin to press, people are most
liable to deception. There is a psychological pressure
in masses. I sat a few years ago when I
was in high school at the Army-Navy football game. No, it wasn't.
It was Army and some other place in Yankee Stadium in New York
when I used to live near Connecticut. I don't remember exactly when
it was now. Just seeing those soldiers, those
cadets come out in that block of 14th Square, whatever it was,
and marching across there and sitting amidst thousands of people,
there was an emotional stirring that made me just want to do
something. I didn't care what, just do something. You know what I'm
talking about. You get in a crowd of people.
And there's something about the psychological pressure of a mass
movement. Jesus recognized that if there
was to be deception, here was the place at which deception
was most liable to enter the hearts of men. So what did he
do? Encourage the deception by saying, thank you, thank you
all for coming. You're all mine and you're all
in the kingdom of eternity. Now wait a minute. You count
the cost. Right now it's popular to follow
me. In a little while I'm going to die. And I'm going to bring
in my train a host of men and women who will be willing, for
my sake, to seal their testimony in their blood. Listen, I'm not
tolerating rival affections. Come to me. In the heart, it
is unworthy for me to occupy a supreme place above father
and mother in your own life. Also, you can't be my disciple. He said, I will not tolerate
rival affections. Dear ones, human love is a precious
gift from God. but it can become a vicious idolatry. When the desire to please any
creature goes beyond the desire to please the Creator, that person
has become an idol. When the joy derived from the
presence of any individual is deeper and more vital than the
joy derived from the presence of God, that person has become
an idol. When the desire to please any
individual is more intense and more deep than the desire to
please the eternal God, that person has become an idol. Listen,
by nature, the human heart is full of idols. Jesus said you
must repudiate self. Self, what aspect is this? The
idolatry of human friendships must be repudiated. Jesus Christ
must take the place of absolute sovereignty, an absolute and
sole object. of affection. You say, well boy,
then it means I'm going to hate my wife. No. The man who knows
Christ as the supreme object of affection is most tender and
loving in the love of his wife, for he loves her with a pure
love, unmixed with selfish idolatry. And when he must exhort her concerning
her own good because his love for his Lord is deeper than his
love for his wife, then for her good he loves her with a pure
love, that will exhort her lovingly and tenderly, will not overlook
her faults. We're to love our wives as Christ
loved the church. How? He nourishes and He cherishes,
and part of His nourishment and cherishment is His chastising
for whom the Lord loves and chases. It's His comfort, it's His exhortation.
Now you see, love that is not cleansed of self is spineless
sentiment. It isn't love at all. You'll
never know how to love your wife. This is intentionally practical
until you repudiate yourself. Rival affection. Secondly, any
moral perverseness. We read in Colossians 3, 5, put
to death therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication,
uncleanness. Then he goes on to say wherefore
put off anger, wrath, and malice. And the verb used here is a decisive
verb, put to death. Don't dilly-dally with this thing.
Don't go around and just pick at them and try to tolerate them
and have a little peaceful coexistence with them. God says, come to
a brutal place, a place of brutal dealing. Put to death, therefore.
And where do I do this? By a repudiation of self, recognizing
that these moral perversions, whether they be anger, wrath,
malice, uncleanness of thought or desire, whatever they be,
those things were judged at the cross. God says, put them to
death. Knowing that our old man in all
of his manifestations was crucified with him, all moral perverseness
must be put to death. No man or woman will ever know
the life in which God is all in all, who tolerates any known
sin. Do you hear me? I did not say whoever
experiences sin, I said who tolerates sin. I do not believe the Bible
teaches that there is such a thing as sinless perfection. A state
to be arrived in this life whereby it is no longer possible to sin,
and whereby temptation is no longer real. No, I do not believe
any such thing. I believe some folk who say they
believe that, earnest, godly people, and if there are any
present, I'm not mocking you tonight, I love you. But you
probably have a more limited definition of sin than what the
Word of God has. If you mean by sin, deliberate,
overt, willful acts of rebellion, knowingly, deliberately, resolutely,
premeditated, I believe with all of my heart, God can bring
us to a place where we do not deliberately, willfully, knowingly,
premeditatedly, persist in sin. In fact, if we do, there's good
evidence. We have good evidence to believe we're not his. For
whosoever is born of God does not practice sin habitually,
deliberately, willfully, premeditatedly. No, no. But there is such a thing
as having that hard attitude whereby the moment conscience
has been made aware by the Word of God and by the Spirit of God
that there's the presence of sin. I do not tolerate it. See? The moment there's awareness
There is hard repentance and brokenness and confession and
putting aside. Any man will come after me, let
him deny himself. Self manifested in rival affections,
moral perverseness. Thirdly, self manifested in carnal
ambition. Me, mine, ours. God says you must repudiate that.
come to the place where there's that desire for nothing but the
will of God to be accomplished. Fourthly, there must be a repudiation
of self as manifested in perverse motives. Let's be done with this
idea that we can use God and make Him a servant boy. Be done with this idea that God
is our servant and when we need something we clap the hand and
God serves us. No, we were made for His service. Not He for ours. I venture to say there's some
of you tonight, your only concept of God is He's sort of a divine
conductor, a train that goes to glory. That's your only concept,
dear friend. You're not on the way to glory. Deny self, and how does self
manifest itself? By making God its servant. Asking
God to bless me for my sake and my reputation and my name. No,
no, no. Be done with all of that. Come
to the place where you know from the depths of your being your
only motive is that God might be glorified in you and through
you. And you're committed to that purpose. Anything you ask
of Him, you ask for that purpose. You've got no grounds of believing
your prayers will be answered on any other condition. Listen.
whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the
Father may glorify his Son." You just can't tack that on your
prayer if that isn't woven into the workings of your heart. Unless you repudiate itself in
the realm of these pernicious, evil motives of of perverse desire
to use God and make God sort of your benefactor who blesses
your family and helps your home. Yes, God does all of these things,
but He does them to those who come to the place where they
long to be and to do all that they do for His praise. When
they ask God to meet their needs, it's that He might be praised.
When they ask God to touch the little sick child, it's that
He might be praised. When they ask God to protect
the family, it's not merely out of a carnal animal fear of harm. The animal has this. The animal
has no capacity to seek protection for the praise of his Creator.
He has no soul. God made us that in all who we
ask of Him, the motive might be to His praise. Some of you
will have a real Gethsemane if you come to the place where you
let God deal with perverse motives. This perverse, selfish motive
runs through the warp and whoop of much of your experience. When
God begins to lay it bare to you, it isn't going to be pleasant.
It won't be pleasant. But this is the only condition
upon which I can know how to enter into that life which you
provided. And there must be death. There
are other things I could mention. I want to mention one more. A
repudiation of fleshly wisdom. What did Jesus say, or Paul say,
I'm sorry, The wisdom of God is foolishness with man, and,
listen carefully, the foolishness of God is wiser than man. My
thoughts are not your thoughts, Isaiah 55. Neither are my ways
your ways, for as the heavens are high above the earth, they
are a whole different plane. So are my thoughts above your
thoughts. God's thoughts are not just more of ours. We have
a little wisdom, God has much, just like at the beginning of
a triangle moving out this way, God's wisdom is a lot more than
ours. No, no, God's wisdom is on a whole different plane. God takes the foolish things
to confound the mighty. Listen, we're cursed in the church
today with the wisdom of man seeking to do the work of God,
and it can't be done! The reason there are so many
carnal methods and unscriptural and ungodly, we could call them,
practices in the Church of Christ today is because hell, in its
own wisdom, has not been repudiated. Let me illustrate. If you tell
men that they are rebels against God, if you tell men that God
hates them with holy hatred in their sins, If you tell men they
can never become the children of God until they repent and
turn from sin and submit to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you'll
never get any comforts. So what's happening? We have
the positive approach to the gospel. The Bible says you're
a sinner. Will you believe it? Now, you
remember you did some bad things as a child. Oh, yes, I remember
that. All right. But don't get too upset. We want to comfort
you. Jesus loves you. Boy, now I wonder why. You didn't do bad things. Jesus
loves you. All you've got to do is believe
He died on the cross for you, and if you say that, go to heaven and you die. In the mind of that man, what's
his thought of heaven? I said it before, I repeat it.
It's a materialistic, even concept of heaven. Streets of gold, gates
of pearl, no sickness, no unrest, no fear. He has no thoughts of
a heaven where God is all in all and where there is righteousness
and holiness and purity and worship. His holy concept of heaven is
a materialistic concept. So that man is brought in, makes
his profession, and is called a child of God and incorporated
into the work of the Church on the basis of fleshly, uncrucified,
carnal wisdom. And we're cursed with this. Some of you are the prophets
of this. But I'm not being untimed. My
heart bleeds. What's God's way of saving souls? God's way is
for His Word to be preached in its fullness, not just a few
verses here and a few verses there, wrenched out of context
and formulated into a little formula, and then presented again
and again, which the whole counsel of God is the job of His servants. In the power of the Holy Spirit,
and I have seen God bear witness to it, when the terrors of God's
holy law are held over the heads of men, And when men know that
God hates them with holy hatred in their sin, they come trembling
and cry out, what must I do? Then the Holy Spirit causes the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ to dawn upon the smitten
soul. And they're wonderfully transformed
by the grace of God, and they become new creations in Christ,
attached not to the personal worker, to the preacher, but
to the living God. And they rise from the bench
to love Him, and to serve Him, and to pander after Him, and
to glorify Him. Any man will come after me must
repudiate fleshly wisdom in the matter of saving souls. Fleshly
wisdom in what's good for the church. People say, well, if we get too
strong, we'll offend people. If we do this, we'll do that.
Ah, listen, that's all fleshly wisdom. Fleshly wisdom. We must
repudiate it. Now, I want to ask you tonight,
dear people, are you at the place where you're ready to repudiate
self? its ugly characteristics, its
tolerating rival affections, tolerating moral perversions,
carnal wisdom opposed to the wisdom of God, carnal ambition.
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself. Secondly,
take up his cross. This is a beautiful picture.
Here Jesus is told his disciples, I'm going out to die. And in
my train I will bring with me a host of men and women who are
going out with me, living dead men, that's the picture, living
dead men, dead to their own ambitions and carnal wisdom and carnal
desires, but alive unto their Lord who's captured their affections.
Take up this cross. Luke tells us, take it up daily
and follow me. Follow me. When Jesus announced
his death, Peter moved in to say, Lord, you can get your purpose
accomplished some other way. Get it now. Peter said, Lord,
be it far from thee. Don't die. You can accomplish
your purpose some other way. Jesus said, Get thee behind me,
Satan. There's no way to the accomplishment of the Father's
purpose but through death. The minute you begin to set your
heart to seek God and say, Oh God, I don't understand all that
preacher talked about tonight, but I know this. I've never come
to the place where I've seen the wretchedness of self, self-wisdom,
self-desire, self-ambition. Lord, I want to see it. I know,
in the light of what Your Word says, if I don't lose this lower
life, I'll never gain the higher life. If I don't die to the lower
life, I'll never enter into the higher life that Jesus purchased.
And the minute you begin to say there's no way but death, denying
self, there'll be a thousand Peters to rise up and say, be
it not so, be it not so, be it not so, there'll be the Peter
of your own heart, your own flesh that'll do anything but die.
The flesh will be educated, cultured, Bible taught, but one thing the
flesh will not do is die, but that's the one thing God says
it's got to do. Culture the old man, dress him
up, teach him Bible verses, teach him Bible stories, teach him
to preach, teach him to pray, teach him to deep, teach him
to do everything else, and he's brightening the church! And his old, dead
carcass of uncrucified flesh. God wants there to be the freshness
of his own life. There's the Peter of modern evangelism,
who gets people in on no repentance. There's no structure, no undergirding.
foundation upon which they can be taught how to live under God.
There's the terrible thing, and I want to speak to you, young
people. There's the terrible Peter of unspiritual advisors.
Young people's work is cursed with this. They say, oh boy,
look at that fellow, broad-shouldered football hero, let's get him
saved. If I work with him, he'll be modest. God will reach down
and take the little old crippled-faced fellow away for a hundred pounds,
get him so in love with himself, get him so empty of self that
he doesn't want anything with Jesus. God moves him into the
school and he begins to open his mouth in demonstration of
the spirit of power in God's works. This whole idea of take
the person who's popular and push him and set him up, make
him an example. No, no, no, no. God says he takes
the weak things of the world to confound the mighty and the
things that are not, to bring the not, the things that are,
why? There's no flesh to glory in his presence. Unspiritual
advisors, young people, listen. Don't let anyone tell you God
needs your talents. He doesn't need them. Don't anyone
tell you that you'd be a great boon and a great help to the
kingdom of God. Your flesh is telling you that
already. You don't need someone else to tell you that. God doesn't need
you. No, no. That make you uncomfortable?
How about it, does it? Let's stick a pin in the old
balloon of pride, hallelujah. I don't mean to be irreverent,
dear ones, but somehow God could get this truth through to us.
Don't listen to the Peters who say you can enter into what Jesus
provided in the cross any other way but through death. Death
to self, death to self-interest, death to the rivaling affections,
death to the petty sins, death to the carnal lusts, death to
the carnal ambitions, death, death, death. Only then will
you know what it is to walk in newness of life. Well, I trust we'll pray, and ask God
to make this truth clear to us. I don't know how well the servant's
been helped in the Lord to get it through. But Jesus still says,
as he said back then, if any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever
will save his life. All right, you want to save that
self-life? You want to save it? All right, you want to spare
it? Spare that self-life with its own wisdom and own abilities
and own thoughts and own ends and its own glory and its own
desires. You want to save it? You say,
no, no, I'm going to keep it. Jesus said, all right, you save
your life, you'll lose it, the life that I purchased for you.
But if you lose that life and consign it to death, then you'll
find the higher life for which I died, which I died to make
you experience. And if you're tempted to just
cast this off and say, oh well, so what if I don't? Remember
what Jesus said to close this passage? One day he said, I'll
come to reward every man according to his deeds. What you do with
this truth is going to meet you in the day of judgment, don't
forget. This is not optional. I dare
not close without mentioning that verse. Jesus tied that verse
at the end. Son of man shall come. The glory
of the angels will reward every man according to his works. If
you spare this self-life, you lose the life that Jesus has
provided. If you're willing to consign this to death and look
to Him who bled and died and rose again, not only that your
sins might be blotted out and that you might have a perfect
standing in Him and have Him as your righteousness, but that
He might become, through His grace, the object of your life
and the goal of your existence. If you're willing to lose the
lower life to gain this, one day you'll hear Him say, well
done. Now our Father, who thou not
by the Holy Spirit give us understanding, Lord Jesus, we hear thee saying
through thy word again, if any man will come after me, he must
repudiate himself. O God, may there be a repudiation
of self tonight, a turning from self in its manifestations, a
glad consigning of self to the cross, that out of this place
tonight There might go forth men and women who can say, in
vital experience, I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. In the life that
I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. Lord, don't let this fall as
so much dead theory. Grant that thy words may be spirit
and light.