Martin Luther. Don't you love
Martin Luther? Never met him. But I know him. Do you know who and what all
was against Martin Luther? I love that hymn. Don't you love
that hymn? We're not the right man on our side. Oh my. I look forward to talking
to Martin Luther. Here's the amazing thing is,
he's looking forward to talking to me. And you? He knows us. Luke 22. Go back to Luke 22 now. And let's just read these verses.
It's only seven verses. Luke 22, verse
47. You have it? Luke 22, 47. While the Lord spake to his disciples
in the garden, behold, a multitude, and he that was called Judas,
one of the twelve, went before them and drew near
unto Jesus to kiss him. And Jesus went out front and
said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?
And when they were with him, the rest of the disciples saw
what would follow. They said unto him, Lord, shall
we smite with the sword? One of them, Simon Peter, smote
the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. Our Lord answered and said, Suffer
ye thus far. That's enough. And he touched
his ear and healed him. And then Jesus said unto the
chief priests and captains of the temple, the elders, which
were come to him. Be ye come out as against a thief,
with swords and staves. When I was daily with you in
the temple, he stretched forth no hands against me. But this
is your hour in the power of darkness." It's a story here,
the title, The Power of Darkness and the Power of God. The story,
the gospel story, begins in darkness and, boy, it ends in light. I
don't want, this is not going to end right there with verse
53. We're going to go on through
light. I hope that this story will make
us both sorrowful. The disciples slept for sorrow,
it says. But he said, joy is not going
to come anymore. I hope it will make us sorrowful
and joyful. I hope it will make us watchful. He started by saying,
watch, pray. He entered out in temptation.
And thankful, I hope. Sorrowful. This happened at night
time. All of this took place at night
time. Our Lord wrestled with the thought
of being made sin in the darkness, in the darkness at night. The
Son of God had come, light in a dark world. The light of the
world had come. And here's condemnation. He said
it. Here is condemnation. Light has
come to the world. But men love darkness rather
than light. They rejected Christ, the light. I did. I did. And he said down in verse
53, the last thing he said, he said, this is your hour and the
power of darkness. It's fitting that in this hour
we look at this. And I didn't plan all this. The Lord in Providence, this
comes up right now, okay. Nice sunny day. It's fitting
that we look at this because things are not as they appear.
This is a time of darkness. It really is, isn't it? Do you
remember the story in Exodus of the children of Israel? Right
before they were to leave, it says there was darkness over
the land, Exodus 10. There was darkness in all the
land of Egypt, darkness so thick it could be felt. Can't you feel
it? Can't you see it all around you? But the children of Israel had
light in their dwellings. They had a cloudy pillar that
obscured them and hid them from the Egyptians. By day and then by night, a pillar
of fire. They had light in the darkness,
as Christ did. Darkness be filled. Isaiah 8,
we've turned there so many times, I'll have to turn again. It says
the world is going to look to the world and it'll be darkness,
dimness, anguish of spirit, darkness, confusion, trouble, sorrow. There's a sense of helplessness
everywhere. God won't remove this plague fully. Our Lord said there's not going
to be peace for the wicked. Ever. He sent plague after plague
after plague after one thing after another, didn't he? But
the children of Israel, the children of Israel had peace. Power of darkness. Power of darkness. You know, it's a power that grips
this world and holds captive people in this world, though
they know it not. Because it's an unseen power. And I don't
want to dwell too long on the power of darkness. And we'll
get to the light as quickly as we can. The power of darkness
is one of deceit and betrayal. Look at it, verse 47. This begins,
While he yet spake, behold, a multitude, and he that was called Judas.
You know what the name Judas means? It's Judah. It's the Hebrew
word Judah. What's that mean? Praise. This man held a name that meant
praise. Judah. Deceit. Betrayal. A multitude. Who was it that came out against
him? Down in verse 52. The chief priests. Captains of the temple, rulers
of the temple, elders, Bible scholars, scribes, people read
the Bible, that's all they did, they quote the Bible, religious,
zealous, A whole multitude, a big, whole multitude of people came
out against the Lord and against His anointed. They were out to
get the disciples too. This is what we're going to see
in this story, okay? We're not the right men on our
side. Oh, deceit. Our Lord said this,
many will come in my name. Many will prophesy my name. Many
will say Lord, Lord. Many. The Lord says many. That's
a lot of people. Most. Many false prophets. He said evil men, seducers, shall
wax worse and worse, deceiving and what? Being deceived. so
convinced what they're saying and believing is true that they're
totally deceived. They think what we believe, the
truth, is evil. They came out against the Lord
and against His people. Saul of Tarsus was that one,
wasn't he? He was zealous, exceedingly zealous
of the Lord, but he was deceived. He was morally blameless. He
looked like a morally blameless fellow, but he was evil. Satan, sin, the world is deceitful. Everything is not as it appears.
We're going to see in this story that the real power that was
at work in this time was an unseen power, powers of the darkness
of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. And the one doing
the battle was not the disciples, but one man. Deceit. Judas was his name. I was going to have you turn
back there. But it means praise. The good name in it is a discipling
name on man. Am I a Christian? Am I? Has Christ my life? Is
He really? Lots of deceived people, aren't they? People can deceive
others. Judas. Judas betrayed him. Judas sold him. Judas was offered
a better job and he took it. Judah's preferred world and family
and money and this and that and the other over Jesus Christ.
And it's going to be known in the end. Right. It's going to
come out. And we're going to see in a minute
that old Simon Peter, he denied Him, but he didn't betray Him. Alright. Betrayal, as I said. And He came to our Lord, look
at verse 47, with a kiss. And our Lord said, Judas, betrayest
thou the Son of Man with a kiss? You know these verses. I'm not
going to keep you long this morning. I'll do all the turning for you.
But in Proverbs 27, It says this, faithful are the wounds of a
friend. Oh, we have a friend that sticketh
closer than a brother. Who's that? The Lord Jesus Christ,
who was wounded for our transgression, bruised for our iniquity. You don't hear of him kissing
his disciples very often do you? In fact, I can't think of one
time that says he kissed him. Did he love him? Oh, my greater
love. Did he love him? Oh, he loved
his own. He loved him how long? To the end. To the end. But this
proverb says the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Religion. That's one thing that you can
see right through religion. It's a phony, fake affection. I love you, brother. Yeah, right.
Master. He came up to our Lord, Master,
and kissed Him on the cheek. Can you imagine? Fully intending
to do away with Him. One time he said, you remember
when he resented a woman without a master box, breaking that over
Christ's head? He thought, what a waste. You're giving out all that money
for the preaching of the gospel. What a waste. Let's give it to
the poor. He didn't care for the poor.
And he didn't care for Christ. He wanted everybody to know,
I care about the poor. No you don't. He wants some credit. Well, get your picture in the
paper. Send in a check to the local mission for $138.53 when
you've got a million dollars in the bank. Right. That's religion. That's religion
then. Yes, it's everywhere. We're doing what we're doing
for Jesus. No, you're not. You're against His glory. In
the name of God, yeah, name only. You have a name. Our Lord said,
well, Isaiah prophesied this, people will draw near with their
lips when their heart is far from them. This world is a dark
place, and the greatest darkness is religion. Our Lord said, if
the light in you be darkness, oh, how great is that darkness.
Refuge of light. If Christ is not really your
refuge, you're in double darkness. Betrayal with a kiss. This is
why our Lord said, you love one another. One of the last things
he said. You love one another as I have loved you. How? To
the end. Lay down your life for your brethren.
By this shall all men know you are my disciples. You have love
for one another. What kind of love? Love that
sticks. Right? As I said, Simon Peter's
going to deny Him, but he's not going to leave Him. He's not. He denied our Lord, he denied
his brethren, but he's coming back. Never to leave again. Not Judas. Truth's known. Christ is not his love. Christ
is not his life. Money is. The multitude came
out against him. That's why we read Psalm 2. Don't
you love that? Why do people raise two multitudes
to assemble? Why are all these meetings getting
together? Why is everybody getting carried away and all that? What's
it all about? It's not the glory of God. It's just a feel-good
religion. Why are the people supposed to
be God's people? Imagine a vain thing, professing
Christian. Vain thing, vain doctrine, vain
belief. Why, why, why? Well, God's people
know that He sent Christ on His holy hill of Zion, and they've
come to worship the Lord. And they that are with Him are
called, chosen, and faithful. Judas, betray me with a kiss?
And as we've said before, even tears can be deceitful. Don't
be deceived by them. You notice how this all started.
Our Lord said, don't sleep. Pray, rise and pray, lest you
enter into temptation. He started out by saying, it's
a dark, dark time. Don't sleep, let's do others.
Rise and pray, lest you be caught up with the multitude. Alright,
look at verse 49. And in they that were with him,
about him, his disciples saw what would follow. They said
unto him, Lord, shall we smite with a sword? And one of them,
This was Simon Peter. Look at John 18 here. Well, no,
don't. We're going to turn to Matthew in a minute. But this
was Simon Peter. Simon Peter's the one that drew
that sword. Where is Matthew? Go to Matthew
26. Yeah, go there, Matthew 26. Simon. Simon's the one that did
this. Yeah, Matthew 26. But it was
Simon, Peter, who drew this sword. Now you're going to love this.
You're going to like this. You're going to love and like
it. Simon loved his Lord. He really did. He said, I'll
lay down my life for you. He almost did. He did. The Lord allowed him to do that,
take his sword out. Didn't he? He meant it, Kelly. You can't have my Lord. over
my dead body. Didn't he? He took that sword out. He was
going to fight the whole multitude. Bless God. There was a time when
Simon Peter didn't know Jesus Christ, didn't care about Jesus
Christ, didn't follow Jesus Christ. He was in that multitude. He
would have been with that multitude. Called him out of darkness into
marvelous light. And put him in this little remnant. Took
him out of the multitude that God is going to judge by Christ
someday. And put him in Christ. Be saved
by Christ. Be with Christ. Be kept by Christ. And Simon Peter is with them.
He is with them to the end. And he took his sword out. Too often we pass right over
my list, don't we? The Lord made it clear in John
18. This was Simon Peter. He took that sword out. He meant
it. Because God put a love for Christ
in his heart. A defense for Christ's honor
and glory. A love for him that was there.
That God put there. Let me ask you something. And
this was early on. Peter is only 30 some years old.
Maybe 40. Do you not believe or think that
you were more zealous for the truth in the beginning? Was it not so? I remember, I
was standing, working construction. And the Lord had just revealed
himself to me, working on me. And I was working construction,
and I was down in the basement of a building, digging out this
basement for a construction company. Another man with me, and we started
talking about the gospel. And buddy, we were coming to
blows. I wanted to take that shovel
and just hit him across the head. Honestly. Thankfully, the boss
came down and said, I'm not paying you to preach, I'm paying you
to dig. But I wanted to defend my Lord, why wouldn't he defend
me? And that's what old Simon did. But look at this, look at
this. So Simon drew his sword, and
cut off that man's ear. Look at Matthew 26, verse 50. Our Lord said unto him, Friend,
wherefore art thou come? Then came they, laid hands on
Jesus, and took him. Behold, one of them which were
with Jesus stretched out his hand, this is Simon, and drew
his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest and smote
off his ear. The man's name was Malchus in
John 18. Then said, Jesus, honey, put
up again thy sword in thy place. All that take the sword shall
perish with the sword. See, right there, he's showing him and us,
your defense is not a carnal weapon. He meant well, but Simon
Peter, this is not the battle that's raging here, and it's
not yours to fight. Now just let it, you know, a
secret there. Put up your sword. This is not
a battle that you can, uh, that the foe is unseen and the battle's
not yours. It's mine. Read on. Thankest thou not that I can
now pray to my father, he shall presently give me more than 12
legions of angels. Don't you love that? He could
have called 10,000 angels. Destroy the world and set him
free. But he died alone. The scripture
might be for you. Why? For you and me. He died
in battle. He died in a warfare. And you
know what, Brother John? He won. 10,000 angels. Oh, what all is seen
there. Don't you know? Put up your sword.
You're not protecting yourself. You sure can't protect me. This
is not your battle. It's mine. And don't you know,
the enemy you see, that's not the enemy. It's an unseen enemy.
It's a power of darkness. We wrestle not with flesh and
blood, Paul said, but spiritual wickedness and high places, rulers
of the darkness of this world. We're no match for him. I go back to our text, but Peter drew this sword and cut
off this man's ear. And look at this, verse 51. He cut off this man's ear, named
Malchus, and the Lord answered, That's enough. That's what he
said. That's enough. And he touched
the man's ear and healed him. This is marvelous. And we've
been talking about the fire of darkness. And people, it's very
real. But it's an unseen power. It
holds captive the people of this world that only he that now letteth
will let. He's still under the power of
our Lord. He reigns and rules over all things. Okay. But the Lord leaves this world
in darkness, but he has a people that dwell in light, kept by
the power of God. And we're going to see the gospel
is the power of God, the salvation. But the power of God, light and
darkness. Here we see this man named Malchus
was in that multitude with the rest of them. Okay? He had ears
to hear. He was with that multitude. He
came out against the Lord. And his name means king. That
means he was of some kind of noble heritage or whatever. He's
a nobleman. He's in the right. He's with
the multitude. Can all these people be wrong?
Yes, always. Was he noble? He was a nobody
from nowhere. A nothing. Mouthless. Just a
sinner. It's going to take the same power
to save him as it did Simon Peter. But he's with the multitude.
He's a servant, it says in John 18, a servant of the high priest.
He's serving the wrong priest. Right there stands a high priest
who he's come out against. A high priest serving the wrong
person. He's with the multitude. He's
running with the wrong crowd. And such were some of you. Such
were some of you. You were in religion. You're
serving the wrong God. Praying to a God that couldn't
save. Some of you, some were in Catholicism, literally praying
to and confessing to a priest. Imagine that. It's hard to imagine
right now that you could sit in a little booth and pray to
a man to forgive your sin. People do it all the time. What's it going to take to bring
him out? Well, the Lord, this man had
ears. So what's the Lord do? He lets
Peter take a sword and cut his ear off. Are you with me? This is a marvelous
picture of salvation. He said in Isaiah 6, he said
to Isaiah, she said, you go and you shut these people's ears.
Make their ears heavy and their eyes blind. Fatten their hearts,
because they can't see. They have ears to hear, eyes
they can't see, and a heart to make them blind. He said, how
long, Lord? He said, until there's a remnant coming along. And I'm
going to, they're going to hear. I'm going to give ears to hear,
eyes to see, a new heart. I'm going to do this work. Well,
here Peter took the sword and cut his ear off. And he's going
to take another sword, put his ear back. And our Lord reached
down and picked up that man's ear. What's that man's hope of hearing
it again? It's in the Lord's hands. He put an ear on him. Do you
think that had an effect on this fellow? I think so. You know, everything that happened,
not written. Kelly Shirley, this man went, Surely! I remember the Lord took the
sword of His Spirit and began to work on me. Oh, He's talking
to me! Remember? The Lord allowed Simon Peter
to strike this blow on the show. Now, Simon was aiming at his
head, wasn't he? He didn't even have his head.
He didn't kill him. He could have killed him. The
Lord could have allowed Simon Peer to kill him right then,
didn't he? But no, the Lord healed him. He showed him so many things
yet. The hearing ears of the Lord.
Life is in his hands. Can you look back on your life
and see how often the Lord has spared you by his mercy and grace? Do you know how many... You talk
about darkness. Do you know what's all around
us? And you're not aware of it? You know, this world is playing
with darkness. Young people dress in blackness and dress, and they
love, people love skull and crossbones and death and dying of the dead
and all that, and they're playing with something evil. But it's
only the grace and the mercy of God, His tender mercy over
all humanity, that keeps this stuff back. It's not a thing
we play with. I'm not preaching against Halloween
here, but I'm just saying. People just don't know. We just
don't know what the Lord keeps from us. The Lord preserved this man's
life. Peter was going to take his head off. Oh, how he's preserved
my life so many times. And he gave him ear to hear.
Could be. Could be. I don't know what happened
to him, but I know this. His life and his ears were in
the Lord's hands like ours and like our loved one. And he said,
Suffer it so to be so. Suffer it, that's enough then.
All right, now look at this. It says in verse 52, it said
to the chief priests and captains of the temple and the elders
which were come to him, be ye come out as against a thief.
With swords and staves, I was daily with you in the temple.
You stretched forth and no hands against me." No, they couldn't.
They tried, didn't they? They tried to kill him many times. They'd take him often. They'd
grab hold of him. All of them would lay hold of him, wouldn't
they? Not for salvation. All that lay hold of him for
salvation are saved. But those that try to put him
away, This is the Lord for glory. You're
not going to stop His Word. This is God. You're not going
to let Him do anything. You're not going to make Him
Lord. You're not going to make Him King. You're not going to
even kill Him. It's God that's done all this. And our Lord showed that, that
His life was invincible and ours too. And don't you love the next
part of this, that the Lord went out and formed, you seek Me.
You have to let Him go. They were coming out after all
of them. But no, one man. The battle was his. Christ is
showing that you can have no power over me except that we're
given you from above. And there's no power but of God
in this world. The powers that be are of the
Lord, good and evil. And Christ is the power of God
and the salvation of God. And here's what I want you to
see in closing, okay? We live in a world of darkness.
He says, watch and pray, lest you enter into the temptation,
lest you be caught up in the crowd, lest you be caught up
with them and you betray the Lord like Judas. Ask, keep asking,
Lord, is it I? Is it I? Is it I? Keep asking. Keep praying. Let us not sleep
as do others. And if it wasn't for the sovereign
love and mercy and grace and power of our God to keep us,
we wouldn't be kept. Why didn't the chief priests
and the elders and all of them grab hold of Simon Peter? They
saw this. Later on, witnesses came. You're
one of them. Three witnesses. You're one of
them. We know you are. What kept him by the head? The
one standing there with him. There's another power coming,
and the powers were after Peter also, but Christ said, you can't
have him. You can't have any of them. You're
going to take me. You're going to deal with me.
The surety, like John prayed. Full responsibility. This is
a captain of our salvation. Now, we're not fighting this
thing together. No, no, no, no, no. Christ is going to, by Himself,
defeat the powers of darkness. Yes, He is. Christ is the power
of God. Oh, isn't that wonderful? In
the wisdom of God. Christ has made the power of
God. And it's the sovereign love and mercy and grace of our God
that saves us. And that mercy and love and grace
is in Jesus Christ, who came. The gospel is the gospel of Christ.
who come to call us out of darkness in His marvelous light. The enemy
is deceitful. Satan's sin in the world and
self is deceitful. Powerful foe and we're no match,
no match whatsoever. Our weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.
What is our weapon? Christ. Arm yourselves. Salvation
is up the Lord. And our warfare is spiritual.
It's not carnal. The battle is not ours. It's
the Lord's. This is what I want to leave
you with. Salvation is up to the Lord. His kingdom is not
of this world. If it were, we'd have to fight.
There's not going to be a battle over there in the Middle East
called Armageddon where everybody gets together and fights against
each other for Jesus. No, no, no, no, no, no. Jesus
Christ fought the battle on Calvary Tree and won. That's what the
Scripture says. Long before that, he said, to
comfort my people, tell them the warfare is over. There's
some skirmishes and all, but you're not fighting for your
soul. Jesus Christ did that. And he won. He won. Sacrificed himself, laying down
his life, laid sin by his blood. He redeemed his people. Faced
Satan and all temptations, like as we are, second Adam from above,
covenant head, and Christ said, Convince me of sin. One sin.
I can't. Okay? I'm doing this for my people.
I'm standing before the law. No charges. Holy, unblameable. He's doing this for his people.
Before the power of darkness. You want them, don't you? Yeah,
you can have them. Take me. I'll be made sin. and brothers and sisters were
kept by the power of God. Simon Peter wrote that, didn't
he? Right off the bat, 1 Peter, they were kept by the power of
God. The Lord's going to allow him,
the Lord allowed him to show he really did love the Lord and
he really did Zealous for his truth. Christ was his life. He said that. You're my life.
These are words of life. To whom shall we go? You're my
life. The Lord knew that and Peter knew it. He meant it, didn't
he? You can't have my Lord. You can't
take anything. Judas said, take him. Thirty
pieces all of that. Saves him nothing. I'm selling
for nobody. Isn't that wonderful? That's
true faith. Like Hebrews 11, all they stopped
the mouths of lions. You know what? They stopped Daniel. Throw me in the lion's den. Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego. Put me in the furnace. They believed
God didn't they? They loved Christ. How'd they
make it through the furnace? Somebody in there with them.
Who really stopped the mouth of those lions? Who was it? The
lion of the tribe of Judah. Now here's the thing. By faith, through Christ who
strengthened us, we stopped the mouths of liars. But without
Christ, we're weak as a kitten. Simon Peter is going to show his true
love, what God has really done for him, in one act of faith
and strength, isn't it? To the honor and praise of his
Lord. But shortly thereafter, he's got to say, without Christ,
you're nothing. He won't stand for a minute. You see, the paddle's not ours. Salvation's not ours. We're not
going to keep our sins. We can't. And we pray, lead us
not into temptation. Deliver us from evil. Thine is
the power, the kingdom, the power. and the glory. If we're kept,
Simon Peter's right now standing in glory saying, oh my, I've
been kept. Kept by my great Lord. All right, let's sing in closing
number 51.