I know what you mean in your
prayer about how sometimes we just don't feel like the words
that we can come up with are efficient in describing how much
we appreciate what our Lord and Savior does for us. You know
folks, our God is so good He provides everything we need. I can't tell you how often I
get up on a morning and all of a sudden the Lord will just give
me what needed to be said. I come to this pulpit Just as
Pastor Gene did, to be quite honest with you, Pastor Gene
and I speak on a daily basis, except for on the weekends, Monday
through Friday, in my long commute to West Sacramento, which I'm
starting to become more and more thankful for. And I apologize
that I complained about that. It's a miserable thing. I'm not
going to deny that. It's absolutely miserable getting
out there in that traffic and sitting there for 45 minutes
to an hour just to get to work. But it gives me the time to spend
a little time with Pastor Gene, and we have so much in common. He's better looking, I know,
I know, I know. But he's more tolerant, I know,
I know, I know. But so many times I have gotten
out of bed in the morning And the Lord just gives me what He
wants me to say right then and there, just before services. So often I come to this pulpit
with just a few pages of notes, but yet the Lord gives me the
words to speak, words that you folks need to hear sometimes.
How often have you sat here and said, you know, I needed to hear
that today? Those are words that come from God. This is God using
His Word to apply it to your hearts. This is our Lord and Savior speaking
to each and every one of us. I know it's the voice of John
you hear, but it's God using His Word and applying it to your
heart, blessing you with what's being said. It's not me. There's
no wisdom in John Reeves. I'm just a sinner saved by grace,
just as you are. We all have been given certain
gifts. And our Lord encourages us and
gets us and brings us to that point to where we use those gifts
that He has given us for His glory. And I don't want anybody
to ever think that what they do here, no matter how little
or no matter how great it is, that they're not appreciated
by everyone else here. I have come to know so well an
appreciation for what you folks do. Every single little or large
bit. Nothing has gone unnoticed or
that I'm not thankful for. Well, let's get on with our Bible
study, shall we? Turn to Matthew chapter 17 if
you would please. We're going to continue this
morning in our series of studies, Simon Peter, an apostle of Christ. We're looking at the road, the
pathway that our Lord leads Peter through. And we're taking that
road and those steps along with him through the Word of God,
showing us these things that Peter must go through so that
when Peter gets to that point where he writes his two epistles,
we've got a little bit more understanding of his experience in giving him
the ability to write what he does in those two epistles. In
our last study, our Savior having returned from the mountain where
He had transformed, where He was transformed, showing a select
few, Peter, James, and John, a portion of His glory. Christ
healed a boy who was vexed with a demon. And the other disciples
were under much harassment when they returned, when they came
down off the hill. They were being harassed by religious
leaders. Scribes, as it says in Scriptures.
Saying things like, if you be of Christ, if you're one of Christ's
disciples, how come you can't save this boy? You saved others
over here, how come you can't save this boy? You must not be
real. You must not really be of Christ. There must be some
fault with you after all, is what they're saying. I could not help but think of
these same scribes and what they are about to say when the Lord
of all creation is to be hung on the cruel cross. How many
shouted out, if thou be the Christ, save yourself. Do you know that's
what the devil said? The devil said, if you have all
the power, then call your angels together and have them save you
from this high pinnacle. Thrust yourself off and see what
happens. Temptation of God is what they're
doing. Tempting God. If you be the Christ,
if you be of Christ, and they say the same thing in today's
world, don't they? If you're truly of the Lord Jesus Christ,
then you should love everybody. If you're truly of the Lord Jesus
Christ, you should give everything you have and help the poor. If you're truly of the Lord Jesus
Christ, I wouldn't have heard those words come out of your
mouth. You see, the people who really
think of God's people being holier now are those who aren't holy
at all either. They're the ones who think that
you should be holier than now. We know better, don't we? We
know that no matter what we do in this life, no matter how we
walk, and I'm not saying that as a way, and it's got to be
stated this way, I'm not giving permission, and neither is any
of God's children, for us to go out and sin. That is not what
we're saying. To be very clear though, to be
very clear, it is not how we walk that shows what we are,
it's what we believe. Whosoever believeth in me, the
Lord says, What's the Believer's Rule of
Life? What is it? Glorify the Lord
Jesus Christ. Glory in His cross. That's what
we read a couple weeks back. I'm sorry, Donna, you might have
missed that. Let me see if I can remember where that was. Does
anybody remember where we read that? The Believer's Rule of
Life? I think Donna was gone, and I
want her to read that in her presence right now. We're catering. Where was that? Oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Second Thessalonians, I think? The second Thessalonians? Hang on,
we're getting there. We're not in any hurry this morning,
are we folks? Second Thessalonians 5, I think
it was. Nope. Nope. Nope. It wasn't 2 Thessalonians.
How about Timothy? It might have been Timothy. What are you looking for? The believer's rule of life. No, it wasn't 2nd Timothy. It wasn't 1st Timothy. I'm going to find that for you,
Donna. Scripture tells us what the believer's rule of life is. It actually declares, and I'm
going to have to just paraphrase it for now because I'm not able
to look it up, but we'll do that before the day is over. I want
you to see this in Scripture. It says whoever walks by this
rule And then back in verse 14, it says what that rule is, and
that rule is to glory in the cross of Jesus Christ. That's
the believer's rule of life. Many believe that the Ten Commandments
are that rule, and that's not true at all. So back to our subject that we're
talking about here. These scribes would cry out,
if thou be the Christ, save yourself. In John 10.24, our Lord says
this, then came the Jews round about him and said unto him,
how long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ,
tell us plainly. Now hear what the Lord says.
And Jesus answered. He says, I have told you. He's
speaking to these scribes and these Pharisees who are hollering
out, if you're the Christ, tell us plainly. And the Lord Jesus
says, I told you, and you believed not. And then He says, the works
that I do in my Father's name, all the miracles that He had
performed right before their very faces, The feeding of the
5,000. All the works that I do in my
Father's name, they bear witness of it. They prove who He is.
He raised Lazarus from the dead. Could any other man do that?
They proved who He was right there before these very ones. But ye believe not, because ye
are not of my sheep. Plain and simple. There's no,
well, this is what I think that means. There's no, well, it could
mean this. No, this is plain and simple.
God's Word, right to each and every one of us. But ye believe
not, because ye are not of My sheep. As I said unto you, My
sheep hear My voice, and I know them. We hear the voice of God
saying, I have an elect. We hear the voice of God saying,
these are my people, and I will be their God, and I will write
my laws upon their hearts and I will save them, and they will
be with me for eternity. We hear the voice of God, do
we not? And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them Me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
My Father's hand. I and My Father are one." These religious hypocrites,
they were rebuked by our Lord where He said, O faithless and
perverse generation, how long shall I suffer? How long shall
I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?
Oh, oh for the patience. Aren't you glad for patients? I like that. I like that saying,
I'm a work in progress. I surely am. Ask Kathy. She can
tell you. She's been progressing for 40
years. I'm still not quite right yet. Maybe in eternity, I'll be right. Oh, for the patience our Creator
has with the wicked and with us. In Psalms 86.15, it says this,
but thou, but thou, O Lord, art a God full, full of compassion
and gracious, long-suffering and plentious in mercy and truth. Oh, what a God we have who is
full of compassion and long-suffering. In Romans 9.22 we read, what
if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known,
endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction? What if He, What if, what if
God was willing to endure with long-suffering the vessels of
wrath that were fitted to instruction, that He might make known the
riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy? You and I. That's what we are. Vessels of
His mercy. vessels of His grace, vessels
of His love, which He had aforeprepared unto
glory. We closed last week with the
Lord instructing His disciples where He said, how be it this
kind, speaking of the child who was vexed with a demon, His disciples
came to Him and said, Lord, why couldn't we cast this one out? We had done others. These Pharisees,
these scribes who were beating on us about whether we were of
you or not, we were embarrassed. Why couldn't we do this? And
our Lord said, how be it this kind goeth not out but by prayer
and fasting. So therefore, let us serve Him. serve our Lord with prayer. You know, every Friday night,
we have a prayer time. And we have a list. And on that
list, sometimes things change, but for the most part, they all
stay the same. We always pray for our elderly, and we list
a few. We always pray for our loved
ones. We always pray for our country,
the leaders of our country, our services, our ministries, our
bulletins. We include Rick Ward and the
Saints in Marysville. The power of prayer cannot be
described. We've even talked about this
just recently. Mike Loveless brought it up. We're not sure
really what that power is. But oh, how many things of God's
ways we are not sure of. Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. Now, you all explain that to
me. You can't, can you? No. There's so many things that
we try to explain in the Bible, but we can't. Prayer is one of
those things. We don't change God's ways. We're
not changing anything. You know, when the Lord walked
through the Garden of Eden, He knew exactly where Adam was,
but yet He asked Adam, where are you? Why? So that Adam would know where
he was. All of a sudden guilt came upon
him. The devil beguiled us and did
this and did that. And all of a sudden he began
to come up with all the excuses. God knew right where he was.
But he asked the question so that Adam would know. Why should
we pray so that we know what to pray for? Lord, Thou will
be done. Everything else, we already come
to God with our petitions. We are to come to God. Lord,
help me. Lord, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief. Lord, as You have so wisely called
me out of the darkness when I was 40 years old, Father, I pray
that there is wisdom and that You will call my son or my daughter. Deep inside of myself, I have
a prayer right now that my daughter and her husband may join us. I have no inclination that they
will. My expectation is that they'll
stay over there in the house over there and won't even bother
to set foot in this side of the building. But oh, oh. Oh, how I pray. that my Lord might do something. The fasting part that it was
talking about is not from food, although I understand fasting
can be good for your body, but the fasting part our Lord is
talking about here is spiritual. putting away, refraining from
looking to ourselves and look only to the One, only to Him. Fast from your own works and
look to the works of our Savior. Let us therefore serve Him with
prayer, trusting Him and fasting by denying if I may understand
this correctly, by denying the strength, goodness, and power,
or ability of ourselves. Seeking not our will, but His. Seeking not our own gratification,
but His glory. Lord, please do something in
my daughter and her husband's hearts. But not my will, Lord,
Thy will be done. Do you get the point? Can we see what this is talking
about to us? Let's take that into consideration
as we go forth into verses 22 and 23 of chapter 17. Matthew
chapter 17 verse 22, And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus
said unto them, The Son of Man shall be betrayed in the hands
of men, and they shall kill Him, and the third day He shall be
raised again, And they, speaking of the disciples, were exceeding
sorry. Now our Lord's heart was focused
upon his death from eternity. He came into the world to suffer
and die for his people. And every step that he took moved
him with a predetermined pace to the appointed place and the
appointed hour in which he would lay down his life for the people
that he had loved from everlasting and had came to save. How many
times we read in the Scripture statements like this, where He
was speaking to His parents. You'll recall that Christ had
gone off as His parents were returning from, I don't remember exactly where
it was, they were on their way back from one of the feasts, and Christ
had stayed. And they got to read, where's
Jesus at? He's not with us. And they were
worried, and they came back and they found Him. They told Him,
what are you doing? What are you doing making us
worry like that? And Jesus said to them, How is it that ye sought me?
Wished ye not that I must be about my Father's business? Here
he is, a teenage boy, and he's telling his parents, don't you
know that I'm here to do my father's business? You see what I'm saying?
From the day he was born, that's what he was here for. That's
why he was born. to fulfill the covenant that
was made before the world began. God the Father gave God the Son
of people. God the Son redeemed and paid
the price for those people. And God the Spirit comes to each
and every one of us and calls us in the day of His love and
reveals those truths to us. Our Lord was all about His Father's
business. It was set before the world was created and God didn't
just become a man to satisfy a whim. No. It wasn't just for
the fun of it. He had a purpose. And this was
His purpose. The purpose, the Son of Man shall
be betrayed in the hands of men. And they shall kill Him. And the third day He shall be
raised again. As I spoke to you in last Sunday's
message, there is only one salvation from the wrath to come. Salvation
is of the Lord. Christ Jesus had to be betrayed
by the hands of men. In John 1 verse 11, he says,
And He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. You
may recall, back in chapter 6, our Lord began telling His disciples
this very point. And they found it a very hard
thing to bear. In 16 verse 21, from that time forth began Jesus
to show unto His disciples how that He must go unto Jerusalem
and suffer many things as the elders and the chief priests
and the scribes, and be killed and be raised again the third
day. And look what happened. took him and began to rebuke
him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto
thee. And then we remember what our
Lord rebuked Peter, didn't we? Get thee behind me, Satan. This
is what Christ has come here to do. That's what the devil
was trying to do. Defeat Christ by not letting
him get to the cross. Peter was trying to say, Lord,
no, no, no, you can't go to that cross. No, no, no, I can't let
you die. Oh, yes. I'm glad He did. It's a bitter sweetness, but
it's a sweetness for sure. Because if He didn't, then where
would our sins be, but still be upon us, right? A sacrifice
had to be made. Blood had to be shed. And we
all know that the blood of bulls and goats doesn't do anything,
does it? But the blood of God cleanseth
all his people from their sins. Because his heart was fixed upon
us from eternity, he was determined to die upon the cursed tree.
And he spoke often of that event. Here He tells the disciples now
for a third time how He must go to Jerusalem and be betrayed
by the hands of men and die. Don Fortner wrote this. He says,
our Savior was not the helpless victim of circumstances beyond
His control. He voluntarily laid down His
life for His sheep, as we read in John 10, 17 through 18. Therefore
doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might
take it again. No man taketh it from Me, but
I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down,
He says, and I have power to take it again. This commandment
have I received of My Father." Is He not doing the Father's
will? Is that not what He was doing? Exactly. This is My beloved
Son, the Father says, of whom I am well pleased. The only one
to ever walk the earth who did everything exactly the way the
Father was pleased to see it. And he did so by the will and
the purpose and the determinate counsel of God the Father. In
Acts 23 we read him being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain. And Fortner goes on to write
about that. He says, but let it never be forgotten that the
Lord of glory was betrayed and slain by the hands of wicked
men. The Son of Man came into the world to save men and was,
by a man, betrayed into the hands of men. For men He lived, and
by men He was betrayed. For men He died, and by men He
died. Nothing would satisfy the rage
of men against Him but His own blood. God hating man ever cries
out, Give us His blood. Yet nothing could satisfy the
wrath of justice of God but His blood. When justice found our
sins upon Him, justice cried out, give me His blood. And by His precious, senatoning
blood, divine justice is fully and forever satisfied." Folks, I have a peace. I have
a peace within me. I quit watching news. I actually
got up and turned it on this morning for about 15, 30 seconds. That was all I could handle of
it. There's so much chaos in our world around us right now. Evil is good. And good is evil. Tell me you don't see that in
the world around us. Your Lord said it's going to
wax worse and worse, right? We ain't seen nothing yet. Imagine what those true believers
were thinking when the Lord, just before the Lord had Babylon
come down into Jerusalem and destroy it. You know, the prophets
of that time warned, this is coming. This is coming. This is coming. The prophet of this time right
now says, it's coming. It's coming. It's going to wax
worse and worse. I don't think we've seen anything
yet. We're probably going to go through
things sometime in our life, that we're
going to look back at this very moment and say, whew, man, I
had such peace then. Sure wish I had that peace now. I have peace in this chaotic
world. And my peace is that Christ is the Lord. And He provided
Himself a sacrifice for me, a sinner, condemned, unclean, and unworthy."
So let's close this morning's study, shall we, with these last
verses of chapter 17. At verse 24, and when they were
come to Capernaum, that means speaking of Christ and the disciples,
that they received tribute, money came to And when they were come to Capernaum,
they that received tribute came to Peter, and said, Doth not
your master pay tribute? He saith, speaking of Peter,
Yes. And when he is come into the
house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon, of
whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Of their
own children or of strangers?" Notice that the Lord said to
Peter before Peter could ask anything about the tribute. He's
just coming to the house. What does it say? It says, Jesus
prevented him from saying it. Our Lord knows already everything.
Does that not show us that very thing right here? He knew what
Peter was going to ask. He knew what Peter was coming in for. And Peter saith unto him in verse
26, Of strangers Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children
free, notwithstanding lest we should offend them. Go thou to
the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh
up. And when thou hast opened his
mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money that take and give unto
them for me and thee. Robert Hawker wrote this, He
says, it should seem that this tribute money was not what the
publicans gathered for the Roman emperors, but for the temple
service. The son of God had no right to
pay it, strictly speaking that is, for he himself was the lord
of the temple. But as the head and the husband
of his people, becoming debtor thereby to the whole law, it
was justly due. But what a beautiful occasion
Jesus took thereon to manifest His power and the Godhead by
the fish with money. And reader, don't miss out this. If to supply this pressing occasion
Jesus wrought a miracle, then will He be inattentive to any
of the wants of His people now? Our Lord says in Romans, He gave us His only
begotten Son. He gave up His only Son. How shall He not give us all
things? Jesus wrought a miracle. Oh,
how blessedly doth every incident in the life of Christ minister
instructions of grace and comfort." End of quote. We don't have to
go far to see how wonderful our Lord provides, do we folks? There's
a brand new roof on that building over there. And you men know that I've talked
to you about how we were going to go to a bank and borrow money
to put that roof on so we could go to get into construction.
But yet our Lord provided a better way. He came to us with the love
of a person who gave us the money to take care of that without
interest in repayment. You tell me the Lord doesn't
provide all of our needs. Look at what He did with this
air conditioner heater unit that we're just about ready to go
into another winter with. Folks, we're such a small group
here, but yet our Lord provided us the money for that in three
months' time. Cash. I anticipate. I expect. I expect my Lord will continue
to do such things for me. I expect He'll continue to do
very such things for us. Why? He says He will. And I believe God. Right here in my life, I can
see the miracle of God's provision for His chosen people. What do
we have that He has not given us? Yet even if it be His will
to take it all away, my praise will still be due Him for His
wonderful gift of mercy and grace in saving my soul. Again, I quote
Don Fortner where he writes, beyond those simple plainly revealed,
beyond those things plainly revealed in this passage, there are beautiful
spiritual blessed truths beneath the surface. Notice that our
Lord Jesus Christ willingly came under tribute for our sakes. by His one payment, a payment
which He provided, typified in the ransom money required under
the law. It was required for people to
give tribute to the temple. That was part of the law. If
you didn't give tribute, you were breaking the law. You see
what we are beginning a picture of here? Our Lord fulfilled all
of the law, not just part of it. And He could have said, no,
I'm the Lord of the temple. But he fulfilled the law for
us, for Peter and himself. By his one payment, a payment
which he provided, it typified the ransom money required under
the law. By the sacrifice of himself, he cleared our debt
completely. Notice there were not two coins.
I almost said this. I knew what Don Fortner had written
and I was this close to saying it when we were reading it a
moment ago. I said, no, no, no, wait, hold up. Notice that there
were not two coins. One for Peter and one for the
Lord Jesus, our substitute. No, there was one piece of money
which made payment for both. What a picture this is of our
complete union with Christ in redemption. Our debt became His. His payment was and is ours. Oh, does that not just bless
your heart? By His one sacrifice, both the
surety and those for whom He died must go free. In all things, folks, If He did not withhold the sacrifice
of His own Son, how shall He not give us all things? In all things seek the glory
of God, even in our troubles. Lord, how can I glorify You in
this trouble that I am dealing with right now? Lord, how can I glorify You in the trouble that I am dealing
with in life right here, right here in front of me? Let us live in the awareness
of His presence with us. He says, I'll never leave you
nor forsake you. And that means right now. Right
here. Right this moment. Let us live
to honor His name. Let us seek to help others by
our behavior, molding our lives to the example that Christ has
laid before us." End of quote. Stand with me if you would, please.