It's nice and quiet. We miss
having Joy play piano to kind of quiet everybody down, but
I feel like everybody's quiet and ready to worship. It's good. So let's all join together. We'll sing hymn number 42 from
your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn book, number 42. And let's all
stand together. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
prophet, priest, and sovereign King. To him render adoration,
laud and homage to him bring. Let us praise the name of Jesus,
God incarnate from above. Came to save his chosen people,
Sent by God in covenant love. ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? ? Who upon Mount Calvary ? ? Shed his blood and sealed our pardon
? ? Died for sin to set us free ? ? Let us praise the name of
Jesus ? ? Risen conquering gracious friend ? Advocate and mediator
? All our hopes on him depend ? Let us praise the name of Jesus
? For he brought us to his fold Come exalt his name and worship. May the Savior be extolled. Let us praise the name of Jesus. ? Till we see him face to face
? Then throughout the endless ages ? Praise him for his love
and grace Please be seated. Good morning. Our Lord said that he inhabits
the praise of his people. We just sang a hymn in prayer,
encouraging us to praise his name. And he said, if I'm lifted
up, if I'm lifted up, I'll draw men to myself. Might he be pleased
to give us the grace to do just that. We're going to be in Mark
chapter 8 this morning in the first hour. And before we begin,
I'd like to ask the Lord's blessings. So let's pray together. Our merciful
Heavenly Father, how thankful we are that we're
able to come into Thy presence, to Thy throne of grace, knowing
that the throne of justice and the throne of law has been satisfied
by thy dear son. And Lord, that we can plead his
name for all our acceptance into thy presence. We ask, Lord, that
you would send your Holy Spirit in power. We pray that you would
rend the heavens. We pray that you would open what
no man can shut. We ask, Lord, that you would
open our hearts and open your word and give us understanding
enable us to see the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that we look
through a glass dimly now, and Lord, we pray that you would wipe that mirror clean
and enable us to see more of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you
would cause us, Lord, to find our rest and our hope and all
our salvation. in his glorious person and in
his accomplished work. For we ask it in his name, amen. I've titled this message, A Contradiction,
A Contradiction. And before we go any further,
I want to make it absolutely clear that I'm not talking about
a contradiction in the scriptures or a contradiction with God.
He is not a contradiction and cannot be. I'm talking about
Peter. I'm talking about you. I'm talking about me. We are
a contradiction to ourselves. And there's such a beautiful
picture of that given to us in Mark chapter eight. You remember
last Sunday, We saw where the Lord asked the disciples, whom
do men say that I am? And Peter said, well, some say
that thou art John the Baptist. Those people had a guilty conscience
about the way they treated John and came to the wrong conclusions
about Christ because of that unrepentant guilty conscience.
Some say that thou art Elijah. Even the disciples were confused
about the coming of Elijah, because the Old Testament promises and
prophecies were very clear that Elijah would come before Christ
would come and be the forerunner. And the Lord taught the disciples
and told them Elijah has come, that was John the Baptist. But
because men had a wrong understanding of scripture they came to the
wrong conclusions about who the Lord Jesus Christ was and is. And then he asked them that That
most important question, whom do you say that I am? And Peter
said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And the Lord commended Peter.
He said, oh, Peter, you've been blessed. You've been blessed. You've been blessed of my father.
You didn't come to this conclusion on your own. Flesh and blood
did not reveal it unto you. And upon the rock, the confession
that you just made that I am the Christ, I'm gonna build my
church. And all the building stones in
my church are going to be united to that foundation stone, believing
that I am the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Immediately
after that, immediately, I mean, right, I mean, they're still
in the same place having the same conversation. It's just,
it's right on the heels of that wonderful accolade and affirmation
that the Lord gave to Peter for having made that confession,
Peter begins to rebuke the Lord and the Lord turns around and
says to Peter, get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savorest
the things of man, not the things of God. how quickly we can go
from hearing the voice of God to listening to the voices of
men. Do you have that experience? God can speak to you in your
own private worship. God can speak to you when you
come together in corporate worship and your hearts are so warmed
and you're so encouraged. How long does it take? before
you lend your ear and your heart to the voices of men. How difficult
is it for you to be turned from the things of God to the things
of man? Not hard at all, is it? Not hard
at all. Now I don't make this point in
order to excuse our sin. but rather in order to make us
to be aware of our frailty, of our weakness, of our total dependence
upon the Lord to keep us looking to Christ. Because if He allows,
if He takes His hand off us, one minute, one minute, we're
gonna turn our hearts, our minds, and our eyes from the very glorious
Word of God, and we're gonna start listening to the words
of men. We're going to start listening to our own words and
to our own opinions, aren't we? Now, in Proverbs chapter 24,
the scripture says, A just man falleth seven times, and he riseth
up again. So here's the encouragement,
brothers and sisters. Yes, we do. We're so prone to
wonder. We're so prone to leave the God
we love. We're so easily attracted by
the opinions and the things of this world. But the difference
between a believer and an unbeliever is that God will use that experience
to cause us to look back to Christ. A just man falleth seven times. Now, word seven is perfection.
You remember when Peter was talking to the Lord, he said, Lord, how
many times do I forgive my brother? Seven times? Seven times? And the Lord said, no. Seven
times 70. What was the Lord saying? Now,
if the Lord tells us to be forgiving to those who transgress against
us, how much more is he forgiving to his children the transgress
against him so though we are like peter we're we're we're
so easily taken from the words of god to the words of man here's
your courage brother just man though he fall seven times to
rise again you rise again by the grace of god you'll be brought
out of that it will be put back on the rock and that proper goes
on to say but the wicked shall fall into mischief. They will be completely taken
over by it. They'll have no interest in the
words of God. Their rule of life will be the
words of men. So here's the lesson. The Lord
has given us this picture. Man at his very best state is
altogether vanity. And I know that that that truth
relates first and foremost to the Lord Jesus Christ. He was
the best man and yet he made of himself no reputation. He
emptied himself on Calvary's cross. The best man became altogether
vanity. But man, man at his best is at
best a man. And here we have the man that
God ordained to lead the apostles. Peter rebuking the Lord about going
to the cross and the Lord saying to Peter get thee behind me Satan. Now I don't know what to completely
think about that. Peter was a was beloved of the
Lord but Peter was speaking words that came from the pit. And the
Lord was hearing them as they were spiritual words that came
from the devil. I don't think that he was calling
Peter Satan, but the words that Peter was speaking were certainly
coming from the devil. And how we're prone to be just
like Peter. Let's read this. Let's read this
together. Begin in verse 30. And he charged them that they
should tell no man of him. And he began to teach them that
the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the
elders and of the chief priest and the scribes and be killed
and after three days rise again. And he spake that saying openly. This is not being bailed now
with parables. You remember the Lord often taught
in parables and the disciples asked, Lord, why do you speak
in parables? And the Lord said, because it's not for them to
know, it's for you to know. The mystery of the gospel is
hidden in the parable. But now he's alone with his disciples
and he tells them openly. He tells them very clearly, it
won't be long, I'm gonna be rejected of the elders. And they're going
to crucify me. And Peter took him and began
to rebuke him. How foolish it is for a man to
rebuke God. And yet, every time in our hearts,
we entertain the thought, why me, Lord? Why is this happening? This isn't fair, this isn't right. Are we not rebuking God? Are
we not acting like our father Adam in the garden, saying the
reason I did this is because the woman that thou gavest me?
Adam wasn't accusing Eve, he was accusing God. Oh Lord, keep us from disagreeing
with you. He began to rebuke him, but when
he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he, the Lord
Jesus Christ, rebuked Peter. Lord, guard us from rebuking
you, and when we need rebuking, rebuke us. saying, get thee behind me, Satan,
for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things
that be of man. Savorest. You can look that word
up. It means understand. It means
opinion. It means to think. That's our
problem, isn't it? We got a lot of opinions. We
got a lot of stinking thinking, don't we? We think things that
aren't right. Isn't that what Naaman said to
his servant when Elisha sent his servant out and he said,
I thought the man of God would come out and perform some great
ceremony and that I would be healed. That was Naaman's problem,
wasn't it? He thought. I thought. I thought. Oh, how Banar. Our thoughts are,
and the Lord said, you savorist, or you think, your thoughts are
not the thoughts of God, but the thoughts of man. And they
are mutually exclusive, aren't they? It's not that we have to,
that we have to tweak the thoughts of man in order to get, to come
to the thoughts of God. God's thoughts and our thoughts
are mutually exclusive. They are on opposite ends of
the scale. One's going one way and the other's going the other
way. What does the Sanhedrin, when they arrested Peter for
preaching the gospel at the Day of Pentecost, and they said,
you've turned the world upside down. No, we've declared the
truth. The world is living a lie. The
world is living a lie and we have declared the truth. The
world was already upside down. We just turned it right side
up. Oh, that we would have God's
thoughts, that we would believe what God says, and how quickly
we can go. How did Peter know that Jesus
was the Christ, the Son of the living God? The Lord said, God,
the Father gave you that. And then he turns right around,
tries to rebuke the Lord. The Lord said in Romans chapter
8 verse 5, they that are after the flesh do mind the things
of the flesh. How often we mind the things
of the flesh, because we're after the flesh, aren't we? But oh, what comfort in knowing
that every time a just man follows seven times, God's not going
to leave us there. He's not going to leave us there.
He's gonna rebuke us. He's gonna correct us. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
chapter four. 1 Corinthians chapter four. There we go. And we'll begin reading
at verse 5. Therefore, judge nothing before
the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light
the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels
of the hearts. And then shall every man have
praise of God. And these things, brethren, I
have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for
your sake, that you might learn in us not to think of men above
that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up one against
another." The thoughts of man. Paul said,
I've written these to you that you don't think, that you don't
have that you don't have that thought, that man is more than
he is. Yet we fall into that way of
thinking, don't we? How much of your time do you
spend thinking? We're always thinking, aren't
we? We're always talking to ourselves, aren't we? When the Lord said
in Genesis chapter 6 that when he looked down from the heavens
he saw that the whole world was given over to wickedness and
that every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts were
only evil and that continually. How evil, how vain, how empty,
how misguided are our thoughts. Here's what the Lord is saying
here, and yet we have very few of the
Lord's words recorded in the Bible. He lived here on earth
for 33 years. And out of those 33 years, we
have what John said in John chapter 20. He said, if all the things
that the Lord had said and done have been recorded, the books,
the world will not contain the books thereof. But we looked
Wednesday night at the Psalms and the thoughts that the Lord
Jesus Christ had on Calvary's cross. And I just love thinking
about the fact that every thought, every thought that the Lord Jesus
Christ had was a holy thought. You and I have never been able
to have a holy thought. He was in fellowship with the Father
every moment of his life. And the Psalms tell us what he
was thinking. The Psalms tell us what he was
thinking. And so, they that are after the flesh,
they do, oh, savorist, savorist. That's the word that we're looking
at. The Lord rebuked Peter. He said, you think, you savorist,
you have the opinions of man, but they're not the thoughts
of God. They're not the thoughts of God. You remember our Lord said in
Philippians chapter 3, He said, let this mind be in you which
is also in Christ Jesus. And then another place we have,
we've been given the mind of Christ. And so the Lord enables
us when we read the scriptures to see how they reveal the Lord
Jesus Christ and enable us to think on Him. Finally, brethren,
whatsoever things are Just whatsoever things are holy whatsoever things
are good if there be any virtue in them what think on these things
How are we gonna think on those things that are holy and just
and good and perfect and righteous? only by thinking on him and that
only what we're gonna think on him is to is to go is to have
him rebuke us and Bring us to his word because his thoughts
are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways They're
just the opposite aren't they? So here we have Peter going from
the thoughts of God to the thoughts of man. Peter, you save us the
things of man, not the things of God. It's not the only example
of that in the scriptures of Peter, is it? You remember in
Acts chapter 10, when Peter went to Cornelius' house Peter was
there in Joppa at the Tanner's house and God gave him that vision
and the Lord said with those unclean animals that came down
the Lord said don't call that unclean which I have called clean
and God was preparing Peter to go to Cornelius's house who was
a Gentile and preach the gospel to Cornelius and God spoke and
God saved Cornelius and his household and manifested his presence with
miracles and signs and wonders and And Peter, what an experience
Peter had, seeing the hand of God, blessing even the Gentiles. Peter left Cornelius' house and
went to Antioch. I mean directly. And when he
got to Antioch, there were Jews in Antioch that had separated
themselves from the Gentiles. And Peter sat down with the Jews and wouldn't have anything to
do with the Gentiles. And Paul had to come and rebuke
Peter for that, didn't he? Peter, you're calling into question
the very essence of the gospel by what you've done. Peter's
not the only one that did it. Paul himself did it. No one understood
the fact that the blood sacrifice was finished, the shed blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. No one understood it better than
the Apostle Paul. that the shed blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross put an end, put an end to all
the Old Testament blood sacrifices. Never was that to be practiced
again. The Jews were still doing it. Paul comes back from missionary
journey in Acts chapter 21 And James, who's the pastor of the
church in Jerusalem, gets Paul aside and says, Paul, the word
is out that you're teaching men against the law. And so we figured out that you
can take this Nazarite vow and convince all the Jews that you're
not a lawless Jew. And Paul agreed to it. shaved
his head, fasted, did everything, and right up to the moment that
Paul was going to go in and the end of the Nazarite vow was to
make a blood sacrifice. And Paul, the apostle, was about
to make a blood sacrifice and God arrested him. Oh, Paul, you're not savoring
the things of God, you're savoring the things of men. You're savoring
the things of men. God stopped him in his tracks.
Abraham left the earth of the Chaldees, forsook his land and
his nation, came to the promised land. And as soon as he got there,
God struck the land where he was with a famine. And Abraham
took Sarah, his wife, and went down to Egypt. And as he was
entering into Egypt, he says to Sarah, Now I know that when
Pharaoh sees you, he's going to want you. So let's just tell
him that you're my sister. And Pharaoh did. And Abraham
gave Sarah over into Pharaoh's harem. But before Pharaoh could
do anything with Sarah, God struck Pharaoh with a plague. And Pharaoh
realized, and Pharaoh went to Abraham and said, why didn't
you tell me this was your wife? Well, why didn't he? Because he was
savoring the things of men, not the things of God. A just man can fall seven times.
God will keep raising him up. wicked man. The unbeliever will
fall headlong into his sin and into unbelief. Noah. What an example we have of a
righteous man believing God. How many years did it take Noah
to build the ark? All those years. Preaching and
building the ark and believing God against against all the gainsayers
of his generation. He believed God, and he was right,
wasn't he? And the deluge came, and the world was wiped clean,
and Noah and his family were the only ones saved. And then
the waters began to assuage, and the ark finds its resting
place on Mount Ararat. And what's the first thing Noah
does? He plants a vineyard, makes wine, and gets drunk, doesn't
he? savoring the things of men. And here's the good news, brethren.
In the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, the Lord tells us about a
lot of these Old Testament saints. And He calls them men and women
of faith. And He never brings up their
failures. Why? Because all their sin was
covered by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you find yourself being like
Peter? You hear the voice of God, confess that Jesus is the
Lord, and turn right around and hear the voice of men. The other thing we see in this
passage of scripture is the Lord's earnestness to go to the cross. Nothing would deter him from
that end. Nothing would discourage him. Nothing would distract him in
his mind. Nothing would defeat him in his
purpose to go to the cross. That's what he came to do. Now
he explained to the disciples that I'm going to die. And Peter
comes and rebukes him lovingly. Peter didn't want to see this
happen to the Lord. He was wrong in what he did. And the Lord would not use, would
not hear of it, not for a moment, not for a moment. In John chapter
12 verse 27, now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father,
save me from this hour? Oh no, but for this cause came
I into this hour. I'm not going to pray for the
Father to keep me from the cross. The cross is the reason that
I came. He set his face like a flint
towards Jerusalem. No man took his life from him.
He laid it down willingly. for his sheep and nothing would
keep him from accomplishing his purpose. Look in our text in
Mark chapter 8 verse 31, and he began to teach
them that the son of man must, must suffer many things. If you were doing something that
depended on someone else's participation for its success, you could always
blame someone else if it didn't work out. But if the whole project from
beginning to end was on you, no one else to blame. The whole
thing's on you. How diligent are you going to
be to do it right and to finish it? The Lord Jesus Christ did not
come into this world making an offer of salvation. He did not
need the participation of anyone else to make what he did successful. He took the whole thing on himself.
He didn't make sinners redeemable. He actually redeemed his people
by the shedding of his blood on Calvary's cross. He actually
accomplished their salvation. The whole thing was on him, and
he wasn't going to be deterred. He was determined to be successful. He would not be distracted. No,
Peter, you savors the things of men, not the things of God.
The Father has sent me. with the purpose of saving my
people. I'm going to accomplish what I came to do. The third thing that we see in
this passage of scripture is that the Lord graciously prepares
us for upcoming trials. The greatest trial that the apostles
experienced in their entire life was not their own martyrdom,
was not their own death. It was having all their hopes
and all their dreams and all their faith dashed to the rocks
when the Lord Jesus Christ hung his head on Calvary's cross and
gave up the ghost. Have you not heard The one that
we thought was the Messiah, the prophet, he's been crucified,
he's dead, he's in a tomb, he's gone. Everything we hoped for. What's the Lord doing here? He's
preparing them for that event, isn't he? You ever had him do that for
you? He knows what he has ordained
for our future. And he will do whatever is necessary
to prepare us for that event. I know the thoughts that I think
toward you, saith the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of
evil to give you an expected end. God knew that Moses had
to be raised in Egypt for 40 years. God knew that Moses had
to spend 40 years on the backside of the desert serving Jethro.
The Lord spent 80 years preparing Moses with great trials and great
suffering in order to equip him for the trial that he would face
in bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt, didn't he? You
remember David when he went up against Goliath and Saul tried
to put his armor on him and the armor didn't fit? And David said,
just give me my sling. When I was tending the sheep,
I took the bear and the lion and God enabled me to kill them
with my own bare hands. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine
compared to that? Can you imagine how terrified
David was? David was a boy and a lion comes
and threatens the sheep. And yet those experiences of
defeating the lion and the bear gave him the strength and the
grace to stand up against that Philistine. The Lord sent that
lion, the Lord sent that bear, just like the Lord has sent everything
in your life and in my life in order to prepare us for our expected
end. Simeon told Mary, When Mary and
Joseph brought the Lord Jesus Christ at eight days into the
temple to have him circumcised, Simeon said to Mary, a sword
will pierce thy heart. And the scripture says that Mary
kept these sayings in her heart. She didn't forget what this prophet
had told her. So that when Jesus, the Lord
Jesus Christ, her son was hanging on Calvary's cross, don't you
know, as she reflected back on those words that Simeon had spoken
to her. You see, truth is not really
learned until you experience it. And the Lord will teach us things.
He'll teach us precepts in order to prepare us for the experience
that he has ordained for us. that's what he was doing for
the disciples here he's preparing them for that great trial that
was about to come and in Luke chapter 24 then they remembered
his words oh that's what she meant now we understand you see
truth is only experienced truth is only really known when you
experience it you can you can Believe doctrine? Well, you don't really believe
it. But you can recite doctrine. You can say, you can recite total
depravity. You can show the scriptures of
total depravity. You can say you believe in total
depravity. But you don't believe total depravity
until God's made you be a sinner. You don't believe it. You see,
it has to be experienced, doesn't it? And the Lord strips you of all
of your righteousness and you have no hope of salvation outside
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And finally, the fourth lesson
I want us to draw from this passage of scripture is that the Lord
mercifully corrects His children. And the Lord tells us in Hebrews
chapter 12, if you are not If you're not corrected, if you're
not rebuked, if you're not chastised, you're not a child of God. And in Proverbs chapter 13, he
that spareth his rod hateth his son. You show me a man raising
a child that doesn't discipline that child, I'll show you a man
that hates a child. He hates his child. It's what God says. Oh, I love
him. No, you don't. If you loved him,
you'd do what's right for him. Now, if that's true in our relationship
with our children, how much more it's true in God's relationship
with his children? He that spareth his rod, hateth
his son, but he that loveth him, chasteneth him often. Often. The Lord's chastening Peter here,
isn't he? How quickly we go from hearing
the voice of God to listening to the voices of men. Christ
would not be deterred from his purpose. The Lord graciously
prepares us for upcoming trials and the Lord mercifully corrects
his children. All right, let's take a break.