Let us read together from the
Holy Word of God. The reading is on the second
page of your hymn sheets. There are two readings, one from
Matthew chapter 16, verses 13 to 20, and the other, 1 Corinthians
chapter 3, verses 10 to 17. Firstly, Matthew chapter 16,
reading from verse 13. When Jesus came into the coast
of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, Whom do
men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Some say that
thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremias, or
one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom
say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and
said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto
him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood
hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that
thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will
give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, And whatsoever
thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then charged
he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus
the Christ. And now from 1 Corinthians chapter
3 verses 10 to 17. This is the Apostle Paul writing
to the Corinthians. According to the grace of God
which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the
foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take
heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this
foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every
man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it
Because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try
every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide
which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned,
he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so
as by fire. Know ye not that ye are the temple
of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man
defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple
of God is holy, which temple ye are. Thus far the reading
of God's most holy and infallible word. Now the word that I decided
to bring before you is in the first reading, though there is
a verse very applicable in the second, and that is these words
of our Lord to Peter, And upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. When the true Church of God that
is holding the inspired, inerrant Word of God and the faith that
was once delivered unto the saints, when that Church is attacked
by Satan through the world and through men, through those without
and through false brethren also within, it is good to remember
of the church's foundation. What is the foundation of the
church? And also the promises that are
given in that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And it is with that desire I
bring this word before you this morning. We have three things
that are set before us in the text. There's the church's one
foundation, and then we have the Lord building his church,
and lastly the promise of its victory over hell. The church is one foundation. You know we have our Lord speaking
here and some have taken it, well the Lord is referring to
Peter. Well if Peter is the foundation
of the church, the church is in a very poor and terrible state. Yes, the Lord did use the apostles. They were spoken of as foundation
stones and Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone. But we have
in the Word of God, if we read further from verse 20, we have
our Lord showing to the disciples how He must go to Jerusalem,
suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and the scribes
and be killed, and that the third day he would rise again. And
we read that Peter then he took him and began to rebuke him,
saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto
thee. And but he turned, that is, the
Lord turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offence unto me,
for Thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that
be of men." And what a humbling experience for Peter. Immediately
before the passage we've read, the Lord is saying that it was
His Heavenly Father that revealed to Peter so that he could testify
that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And now
we have Satan speaking through Peter, or Peter thinking that
he himself is speaking, he won't have his Lord to suffer, he won't
have him to walk in this path. And we need to be very careful
in this that we don't even do this with dear brethren. Instead
of saying like the apostles did to the disciples in the early
church, that ye must through much tribulation enter the kingdom,
if we are all the time saying to the disciples, no, you won't
have a path of trial, you won't have difficulties, you won't
have troubles, don't go into this path, it's too painful to
the flesh. Really, this is what is Peter
saying to the Lord, escape the cross, don't walk the path of
the cross, instead of what we should say to one another, we
shall have the cross. The Lord give us grace and help
and strength to bear that cross and to walk in that way and this
is satan all the time escape the cross but no the lord he
must go to the cross and we also must take up ours and so we need
to be reminded that the true church of god is the church that
is built upon one foundation which is not man but christ god
man We have the beautiful types in the Old Testament, the Lord
saying to Moses when he desired that his glory would be shown
to him, Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock
in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock, there shall come water
out of it. This is when the They brought
water out of the rock, later on it was, when the Lord showed
His glory in Exodus 33. But we have the type of the smitten
rock, we'll sing that later in our last hymn. We have that in
Exodus 33, placed by me, thou shalt stand upon a rock, shalt
come to pass while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in the
cliff to the rock, will cover thee with my hand while I pass
by." And we have the Lord Jesus Christ typified there as the
rock, our hiding place. When Hannah would sing and praise
to the Lord, when The Lord had given her Samuel. She says, There
is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside Thee, neither
is there any rock like our God. And David, he says in Samuel,
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. The God of
my rock, in Him will I trust. He is my shield and the horn
of my salvation, my high tower, my refuge, my Saviour. Thou savest
me from violence. And this testimony runs right
through the book of Psalms. Psalm 18 for who is God save
the Lord or who is a rock save our God and the psalmist testifying
in Psalm 27 for in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his
pavilion in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me he
shall set me up upon a rock and there is An individual, the psalmist,
placed upon a rock, the Church of God is placed upon the rock,
Christ Jesus. We have in Psalm 78, they remembered
that God was their rock and the High God their Redeemer. And a beautiful prophecy in Isaiah
28, Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion
for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone,
a sure foundation, he that believeth shall not make haste. And the
apostle writing to the Corinthians He says that they drank of that
spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. And so we are to remember the
Church's one foundation is the Lord Jesus Christ, He of whom
we are chosen in Him from the foundation of the world, He who
has redeemed us on Calvary's tree, He who shall present us
faultless before the throne of glory, He whom the Apostle says,
I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Our hopes for heaven are built
solely upon Christ, upon what He has done. The Church is His
Church, it is His bride, it is His chosen people, and He is
the foundation that they are built upon. The Apostle warned
in our reading that people take heed how they build upon that
foundation. And we can look in the Christian
world, many, many will say they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
but many are building in very, very different ways upon Him.
Our faith is to be solely in what Christ has done, pure, not
added anything of our own or man's work within. It is Christ's
blood that is shed, that full atonement is made, sins are put
away there. It is the Lord's righteousness
that we shall stand in at the last day, not our own, our own
but filthy rags, and so Christ is everything to us and if we
build in that way we're building in a right way as Christ the
foundation. But then secondly we have the
Lord building his church. In the early church we read that
the Lord added unto the church daily such as should be saved. not man added, not Peter added,
not the apostles added, but the Lord added. And we need to remember
this, that every believer, everyone converted, everyone born again
of the Spirit, is added by the Lord to that church, to the visible
church here below, and to that one church that is His bride. At any one time, at this present
time, there is part of the church in heaven already, there are
part of the church not yet born, there's part of the church on
this earth that have had a natural birth but not yet a spiritual
birth, and there are those that are spiritually born again and
visibly in the church of God as believers, and so The Lord
is doing that. He is building that church. He
which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the
day of Jesus Christ. This is our encouragement, our
strength in the ministry. The Lord will bless it. This
is your strength when you speak to your children, your grandchildren.
The Lord will bless it. When you speak one to another,
It is the Lord that adds to His church. It is the Lord that builds
His church. The kingdom of God standeth sure,
having this seal. The Lord knoweth then that are
His. A nun says, Our Lord, come unto
the Father, except by me. And none can come unto me except
the Father which sent me draw him, and I will raise him up
at the last day. It is Christ that is everything. And if your religion, if my religion,
has not been begun by God, begun by Christ, and not founded solely
on Christ, it will never endure unto the end. It will never be
accepted in heaven. It is only Christ's work on Calvary
and Christ's work in us that will be owned and accepted at
that last great day. Well then we have the third point,
which is a beautiful promise of the Church's victory over
hell. The Church is here in this world,
And yet the seed of the woman, the promised seed that should
bruise the serpent's head, came into this world. And men, they
exacted their utmost in wickedness. Satan tried to destroy the Lord
even right from His birth with Herod. And yet the Lord was preserved
through the early church. We think of the first 300 years
and the 10 great persecutions And yet the church flourished
and was truly blessed and there was still added to it. It wasn't
extinguished. God is in control, not man. And
Satan shall not prevail. He is bruised. He is a beaten
enemy in that way. Yes, he annoys the people of
God. He tries them. You see what he
did with Job, and how much Job went through the fires and lost
so much. But the latter end of Job was
better than his beginning. Job wasn't consumed, he wasn't
destroyed. The Lord said to Peter, Satan
hath desired to have you, to sift you as wheat, to have thee
to sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith
fail not. Satan desires to have all of
the children of God, all of the people of God, and he attacks
the particular ones, but the Lord prays for them, and the
Lord delivers His dear people. And this is a beautiful promise
then, in whatever temptations and tossings and trials you have
at this time, The Church is built up of individuals, poor, broken-hearted
sinners, redeemed sinners, sinners that struggle with their sins,
sins that need the Saviour, but they have a great Saviour. They
are built upon a solid foundation, and the promises of God shall
ensure they get safe to the end at last. Upon this rock I will
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it." Well, may this word give you something to plead through
the day, a setting again, feeling in your own soul upon this rock,
and to be assured again that the Lord will keep the feet of
His saints, and He will fulfil that of which He prayed, Father,
I will, that they whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am,
that they may behold My glory.