All right, brethren, John 18. Verse 10 tells us, as they came
and he said, I am, and they fell back and he asked them again. So they come forward now, they're
going to arrest him and it says, then Simon Peter, verse 10, having
a sword, drew it and smote the high priest's servant and cut
off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus.
Then said Jesus unto Peter, put up thy sword into the sheath.
The cup which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it? Now, I don't know what Peter
was thinking. I'm sure he did this with good
intentions. I'm sure that he probably had
heard the Lord and it was fresh on his mind when the Lord said,
you're going to deny me three times, Peter. Peter said, no,
I won't. They said, I'll die with you.
And I'm sure Peter thought this is my chance to show him. I'm
not going to deny him. So he drew out his little fisherman's
knife and tried to cut this man's head off and missed and cut his
ear off. And the Lord said, put up thy sword into the sheath,
the cup which my father hath given me. Shall I not drink it?
And then the Lord reached forth, put the man's ear back on and
healed it. healed it. And then he let them arrest him,
bind him, take him away. Now, why did the Lord do this?
Why did he tell Peter to put his sword up? The Lord is not
forbidding people, believers from having weapons. He's not
forbidding you to have a gun in your house or a sword in your
house or whatever to protect your home from criminals invading. He's not forbidding you to join
the military and go fight in a foreign land for your country.
People have jumped to outlandish conclusions He's the Lord that
healeth thee and people will say, oh you don't have faith
if you go to a hospital. Go on and go to a hospital if
you're sick. And he's not saying that you can't have a weapon.
Men have said that. This has to do with salvation.
This has to do with the Lord Jesus saving His people, and
what He's showing us here is the work of our Lord in redeeming
His people, in regenerating His people, calling us, establishing
His kingdom. It is all of the Lord. It's of
the Spirit of our Lord, and it's through the preaching of the
gospel of Christ and Him crucified, and it is not by carnal means,
carnal weapons. Earthly carnal kingdoms are created
by the sword and by other carnal means. The Roman Empire was founded
in blood, and there have been a lot of
kingdoms founded in blood with a sword. The main religions of
this world are founded and maintained by the sword and by all sorts
of carnal means. Earthly Israel was founded by
the sword. They came into Canaan and killed
the Canaanites by the sword. But that was a earthly kingdom.
It was a political kingdom. It pictured the true Israel of
God. But the Lord said in Hebrews that their priest was made after
a carnal commandment. And if you look, the promises
he made, he never said they could keep the covenant of work. But he said if they did, he would
give them earthly, he made earthly promises to them. And though
they didn't, he did. He kept, he delivered them to
those earthly promises. Those are all spiritual, instructive
spiritually. So when Christ came the first
time, men were looking for him to establish an earthly political
kingdom in Israel. And probably much of that was
still on Peter's mind because they still were thinking he's
going to restore a kingdom. So they were ready to fight for
that kingdom. But Christ's kingdom is spiritual. He has to produce
the righteousness he produces. He fulfills the spirit of the
law, which is spiritual and we're carnal. He fulfills it in perfect
righteousness for his people with a perfect holy nature in
thought, word, and deed, which we couldn't do. And then he comes
and creates a new spirit within you by being formed in you. We
couldn't do that. It's a new man, a spiritual man.
He's made in you by Christ being formed in you in spirit. Then
for the first time we worship God who's spirit. We worship
him in spirit. We worship him in truth, from
a true heart. And all the grace, the fruit
of the spirit, spiritual. It's what he works in his people.
And one day he's going to take us into a kingdom, a heavenly
Jerusalem that is made entirely by his creation, a new heaven
and a new earth. And so that's one reason the
Lord told Peter, put your sword up in his sheath, Peter. Look
down at John 18 and look at verse 36. Jesus answered, my kingdom's
not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered
to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence. So this was all
what our Lord's showing. Now let me look at three things
here. First of all, Unregenerate, carnal man does not and cannot
understand spiritual things, and he'll never understand them
by carnal means, ever. Verse 3 says, Judas then, having
received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees,
cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. The
chief priests and the Pharisees, along with Judas and his band
of officers, they thought Christ came to set up a political kingdom.
They thought he came to set up an earthly kingdom. And so they
came with these carnal weapons because they expected the Lord
would fight. They expected that. And they thought they were going
to have to take some carnal weapons with them to arrest him. They thought
he would put up a fight, defend his kingdom with a sword, but
the Lord gave himself to these men. He told Peter, put the sword
up, and he gave himself to these men and permitted them to bind
him and take him away. The carnal man, the unregenerate
man, doesn't understand spiritual things and he can't know them
by spiritual means. As we come into this world, we're
carnal, we can't know God. Now, man has formed a lot of
civil establishments that men call churches. They use every carnal means imaginable
to do it. Ceremonies and programs and all
kinds of activities. They want to attract you with
those. They want to entertain you with those. They want to
try to keep you there with those. Because a carnal man doesn't
know anything of the spirit. If he can't see it with his eyes,
he can't enter into it. They give the ministers pompous
titles and use their accomplishments and their degrees to attract
people. They take the offense out of
the gospel and all this is supposed to be in the name of making religion
more respectable or more palatable to carnal man so that men aren't
disdained by the masses like the Lord's people was. It's like
men are saying the Lord just wasn't really that smart. He
chose fishermen, the lowest class of people there was. uneducated
men, men that nobody was going to admire. And it's like the
world today saying, we figured this thing out a little better
than that. We don't want to use men like that. We want men that
will be respectable and people will like them and be attracted
to them. God's going to use sinners saved by grace to have no attraction
to them whatsoever. And if men can start lifting
up men too much, he will put them down and stain the pride
of men to show you and keep showing you don't put your trust in a
man, put it in the Lord. The carnal man can't know spiritual
things because they're spiritually discerned by the Holy Spirit
alone. These men came with these lanterns and these torches, and
I think it was Pink that said this. He said, what an anomaly,
seeking out the light of the world with torches and lanterns. That's who they came with, looking
for. But the Lord made it so, like He did those men on the
road to Emmaus, their eyes were holding. That's what it looks
like He did here, because they, Judas didn't recognize Him. Two
times, even after He said, I am, He said, who do you seek? They
said, Jesus of Nazareth. They didn't say, we're looking
for you. Judas didn't say that to them. What is God teaching you by this?
A carnal man can't know Christ by carnal means. Not even them
coming to arrest him could they know him by these torches in
his lantern. He's the light. Here you have in this illustration,
the light shineth in darkness and no man comprehends it. These
men illustrate the warning Christ gave. They're literally doing
what Christ gave this warning about concerning us putting confidence
in our works and our will and men and church denominations
and anything we've built in this earth that's carnal and of our
flesh. These men are literally illustrating it. Our Lord said,
Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about
with sparks, walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks
that you've kindled, this shall you have of my hand, you shall
lie down in sorrow. That's illustrated by these men.
They couldn't know Christ with these lanterns and these torches.
They illustrate the truth that when attacks are made on the
truth of God, they're made by artificial light and carnal weapons. Men try to reason things by the
light of their reason. And they try to look at things
with carnal sight, and it don't make sense to them. And they
try to use their carnal wisdom, and they can't figure God out
what he's doing. And when everything else fails, they use carnal force,
just like they were doing right here. But in order for a sinner
to discern the Lord Jesus and to believe Christ alone is the
righteousness of his people. We're going to believe him and
really believe him and trust him and know he's the righteousness
of his people and we shut up to him only. God himself has
to shine into the heart, Christ the light has to give the light.
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4.3, if our gospel be hid, it's hid
to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world has blinded
the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. We have to have this gospel Christ
the light shine into the heart, into the new spirit to give you
a light to see. This thing is entirely about
Christ, entirely for his glory, entirely his work. To make you
start speaking of his work, just like Brother Ben read, speak
of his works and trust his work. Alright, secondly, the Lord told
Peter, put your sword up But you shored up because God's people
must not use carnal means. We only must use the means God's
ordained. Paul, they began to reject Paul
and summit Corinth. He didn't appear mighty to them
in person. He wasn't a good auditor. He
went there with much fear and trembling. And then he'd write
them a letter and they'd say, well his letters are bold. And
they used the very thing that God did to show Paul was speaking
through the power and wisdom of God, and they took those very
things because they weren't appealing to their carnal eye and their
carnal ear, and they said, He walks after the flesh. He's not
a child of God. He's not even an apostle. And
Paul wrote to them, and he said, The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal. In other words, I'm not trying to impress you. Our weapons are mighty through
God to the pulling down of strongholds. The gates of hell shall not prevail
against this method. The devil's trying to put up
his gates and keep the Lord's gospel from penetrating those
gates and entering in and calling out his people, but it'll never
happen. We're walking around Jericho right now blowing the
gospel trumpet, and God's gonna make the walls fall down, and
he's gonna pull out his rehabs. The Lord said, this is the word
of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might nor by power, but by
my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Christ is revealed by
the power of God the Holy Spirit, and he's revealed in the heart
that he's made, and he's revealed through the preaching of the
gospel. And this word of God is quick and powerful and sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit of the joints and marrow, and it's a discerner
of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Somebody pointed out
this. using the carnal sword, Peter
cut off the soldier's ear. But on the day of Pentecost,
using the gospel sword, Christ picked men in their hearts, thousands. And here the Lord reached forth
and healed the man's ear. At Pentecost, the Lord made them
every widow through faith, through the gospel. So in our text here,
in order to give God all the glory and to give man none, our
Lord told Peter, put your sword up. What sword are we using? What is this one weapon we're
using? God chose the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. It's foolishness to the world. It's foolishness to
earth. Men who are carnal do not value
the preaching of the gospel. They do not. Men who are saved
under a false gospel, saved under some other means without the
preaching of the gospel, do not value the preaching of the gospel.
They can do without it. It's just a dime a dozen to him.
It's not the important thing to him. God can say it clearly
in his word that it pleased him to save through the foolishness
of preaching. And men will say, well, sometimes. God said that's
how he saved. It's why the message is Christ
and Him crucified, and that's the thing. It's this bloody cross. It's God sending His Son from
heaven, and Him not taking the form of a man that would impress
people, but taking a form without comeliness, nothing that would
make men desire Him. You get the purpose of what He's
doing? He's showing that it's not going to be by us just being
attracted by our fleshly attraction. It's got to be all of His Spirit.
Him going to a bloody cross and declaring to men that He had
to lay down His life because we're sinners. There's nothing
we can do to please God. He had to lay down His life to
make His people the righteousness of God in Him, and that's what
He did. And men don't want to hear that because men think they're
righteous by their works. And so he sends this message
forth to manifest his God's righteousness. He justifies his people, and
it's the Spirit of God blessing that word into the heart that
sanctifies his people. And when you've been really,
really, really sanctified, that's when we know that in my flesh
dwells no good thing, and Christ is my sanctification. That's
the proof of true sanctification. When Christ has really been formed
in the heart, and a new spirit has been put in the heart, men
stop looking at themselves, and they start glorying in the Lord.
They follow Him, they do follow Him, and He grows them in that
state of sanctification, but they quit glorying in what they've
done. It's why He chose the apostles
from among the basest, lowest class of men, uneducated men. He didn't choose royalty. He
didn't choose men skilled in war. He didn't choose men skilled
in academics. And Paul, who was educated in
the school of Gamaliel, he had to make him dumb in himself before
he could go and preach the wisdom of God. He had to blind him on
the Damascus road so he quit looking at the things he put
his confidence in and that he might give him spiritual sight
to see what really mattered. It's not politicians, it's not
philosophers, it's not even men that are eloquent in preaching
that our Lord calls. Why not? Because it's going to be of his
power, it's going to be of his spirit. Men in our day, you think
about this, in most circles in religion today, think about this. We'd probably do this too. If Peter, Paul, James, John,
any of them came into our midst today, we probably wouldn't want
to be associated with them. If we didn't know who they were,
we probably wouldn't. There's probably men just like
them that come into the orbit of your life that you won't have
anything to do with, and that's who the Lord used to preach the
gospel. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels, Paul said, that the excellency of the power may be
of God and not of us. Not of us. Alright, here's the
last thing I want you to see. The Lord told Peter to put up
this sword because Christ overcame the world by meekness. He didn't overcome the world
by sword, by force, but by meekness. What is that? Submission to God. Submission to God. Every time
Moses, he's called the meekest man in the earth. And every time trouble came in
Israel and they were ready to string him up and kill him, you
found Moses on his face praying to God, asking God to save. And the way God saved in every
single instance from the Egyptian bondage, the Passover lamb, the
Red Sea, the bitter waters of Mara, the riffidum, everything
he did, the manna from heaven, it all said the answer and the
cure is Christ. It's Christ. Everyone up, it's
Christ. Our Lord, in obedience to the
Father, willingly drank the cup His Father gave Him. He said
there, Peter, put up thy sword unto the sheep, the cup which
my Father has given me, shall I not drink it? See, Christ could
not let these men find Him. He couldn't let these men come
with these carnal means and recognize him. And he couldn't let Peter
use that sword in any way. Why? The Lord Jesus had to be
the willing substitute of his people. All those Old Testament
sacrifices where God said it must be a willing sacrifice,
they all pictured the Lord Jesus and his willingness to lay down
his life for his people. This has to be of him. It has
to be him in control doing this willingly for God and for his
brethren. And that's what he was doing.
How could How could he have said this to you last time? He could
have just easily walked away when they fell down. But he didn't
do that. He's fulfilling the will of the
Father. He's fulfilling the law and the prophets. He's declaring
God's righteous. He's justifying his people. In
Matthew 26, 52, Jesus said to him, Put up again thy sword into
his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with
the sword. We try to use any carnal mean,
we're gonna perish. I don't want to do that. I want
it to be all of him, all of him. Thinkest thou, he said, that
I cannot now pray to my father, and he shall presently give me
more than 12 legions of angels. Our Lord said, if I did need
some help, I wasn't gonna ask you for it, Peter. But he said, but how then shall
the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be? That's what
he was showing. I have to do this willingly.
It must be done. That's why the Lord Peter, look
back at Matthew 16, I believe. He told Peter, this was a devilish,
it was a devilish thing. He told him that back in Matthew
16. Peter's trying to keep him from going to the cross. by pulling
out that sword. This is what he said earlier,
Matthew 16, 21. From that time forth began Jesus
to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem,
and suffer many things of the elders, and 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 he said to
Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offense unto me.
For thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that
be of men. He's got to be crucified. He's
got to lay down his life. He's got to. How did Christ overcome
the world? How did he overcome the world?
He did it by meekness. That's so contrary to how the
world tries to overcome each other. The world tries to overcome
by carnal wisdom and force and ingenuity and all this stuff.
Our Lord overcame this world by meekness, submitting to the
Father. That's how he did it. in faith and in love to God,
his Father, and to his people. That's not the way of the carnal
mind. That's not Judas' way. That's
not the soldiers. They didn't expect our Redeemer
to even give himself to them. They thought there was going
to be a fight. But Christ believed the Father. He believed the Father
was going to fulfill every covenant promise the Father made to him.
He really believed the Father. And as a man, he submitted to
the Father, drinking of the cup the Father gave him. He didn't
say, well, if it wasn't for Judas, I wouldn't have to do this if
he hadn't have betrayed me. He said, the Father gave me this
cup. And he said, I have to drink it. I must drink it. That's so
of me and you and all our little light afflictions. He believed
God though and he was fulfilling all the covenant obligations
that he agreed to fulfill for God and for his people. And he
believed when he had finished that work and redeemed his people
and made his people the righteous as God in him, God the Father
was going to raise him to the right hand, his right hand. Our Lord conquered Satan, sin,
death for his people, not using one carnal weapon. not resisting
at all, but in meekness, submitting to what these men wanted to do
to Him, knowing that it was the Father ruling it all, bringing
His eternal purpose to pass. That's what He submitted to.
That's what He submitted to. And when we're born of the Spirit,
that's when He makes us, begins to make us meek. Begins to make
us meek. We are brought to submit to the
Lord in faith because he creates us in his people. But that old
man's a lot older than that new man is. He's been around a lot
longer than the new man. And the Lord, sometimes He does
it quicker, like we saw with the Thessalonians, and immediately
you're persecuted, and He makes you submit to Him and trust Him.
You have no other choice. Other times He grows you a little
slower. But He's gonna keep His people
submitted to Him in meekness, trust in Christ, and He's gonna
make His people use only the means God's ordained, and that's
the preaching of this gospel. Whenever Paul, he's an example.
Paul, you know, he was using force and he was trying to force
people into compliance and force people to obey and force people
to do what he thought they ought to do. And forcing along in the
glory of God. And after the Lord put him face
down in the dust, blinded him, and then gave him spiritual eyes
to see, He goes to Corinth, and they're rejecting him. You know, we like to hear Apollos. We don't like to hear Paul. And
he said, that's just carnality is all it is. And they're denying
him being an apostle and saying everything they can say negative
against him. Here was Paul's answer. Imagine how Saul of Tarsus
would have handled that. Here's how the apostle Paul handled
that. He said, Now I, Paul, myself,
beseech you, I beg of you, by the meekness and gentleness of
Christ. That's what the Lord had made
Paul be, meek and gentle. And he beseeched them using the
gospel of the meekness and gentleness of Christ. to work the same in
them that God had worked in him. That's what I'm saying, this
meekness, this gentleness, that's what we see in Moses. It's submission
to the Lord. Submission to the Lord. We just
won't submit to him until he hedges us up on every side and
forces us to bow. That's just so. That's just absolutely
so. But when he sends us forth now,
he bids us don't use any carnal means but this gospel, none but
this gospel. He makes us meek to believe on
Christ, our own selves, and then he makes us meek to preach and
bear witness of him and his accomplished redemption, and the works that
he works in his people, and he makes us meek to pray to him
and to wait on Him to send the Spirit of God to work in the
hearts of those He's calling out of darkness and to those,
our brethren, who He's already called. That's meekness. Asking Him, begging Him to make
the Word effectual in the hearts of His people by the Holy Spirit,
and then when He's done it, giving Him thanks for everything, for
doing all the works. Every bit of it. to use any other
means or to force sinners would be the power of sinful flesh
and nothing spiritual is accomplished by the arm of the flesh of man.
It's just devilish. It's devilish. Bodily exercise profits a little.
You're going to come here in body, carrying that old body
of death here. But if you worship, you're going
to worship in spirit. in what Christ has created. The
Apostle John, he's that loving prophet. And when the Samaritans
rejected Christ, this loving prophet, you know what he said?
Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and
consume them? But he turned and he rebuked
them. And he said, you know not what manner of spirit you are
of. The Son of Man's not come to destroy men's lives, but save,
and they just went to another village. Had our Lord used carnal weapons
and carnal means, if he'd have done that, think about this now,
his people, his church would go about taking out swords and piercing
and killing everybody they don't believe. Breaking down idols, going out
and just breaking down every idol we see. Burning down houses
where they worship a false god, burning them to the ground. Taxing
believers and making them, forcing them to pay a tax to support
the ministry and support the preaching. Now there's a lot
of churches that have done that. A lot of religions have done
that. We never read of anything like that in the Gospels. We
don't read of anything like that in the Acts of the Apostles.
Those things are done by those who don't know Christ. God's
people are made to believe Him and to preach Him and to pray
to Him and to wait on Him to save our own selves and to save
His people. Here's the truth of it, brethren.
If you look in Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2. I'll end with this. This is the truth of the whole
thing. Just like the kingdom of God
is spiritual, our enemies are spiritual too.
They're spiritual too. It's going to be by the Holy
Spirit from a new heart that we're going to trust the captain
of our salvation and we're going to depend entirely upon him to
make us more than conquerors. And all the weapon and all the
armor is of Him. And it is Him, really. Look here,
Ephesians 2.10, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in
the power of His might. See that? Not in ours, in His. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the
whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the
evil day, and having done all, to stand. Now notice, this is
spiritual armor. Stand therefore having your loins,
your inner man, girt about with truth, the gospel of Christ,
Christ the truth. Having on the breastplate of
righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel
of peace, above all taking the shield of faith, wherewith you
shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. and take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying
always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto
with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. That's the spiritual
weaponry we have of God. That He'll bless and He'll keep
us protected. It's all of our Lord. It's all
of our Lord. All right. Brother Greg.