All right, let's go to Matthew
chapter 10, verse 26. The Lord's teaching His disciples,
He says, fear them not therefore, for there is nothing covered
that shall not be revealed and hid that shall not be known. Now He's talking about those
who stand in opposition to the gospel. Those who hate the truth,
those who are the enemies of Christ and his church, enemies
of the gospel, those who seek to persecute and even kill Christ's
disciples. And so he says, fear them not. Now, I've got in your lesson
here, this is the first thing I thought of in dealing with
these passages. It's only natural for us as sinful
human beings to be frightened and even alarmed over those who
stand in opposition to us. And we've seen last week in the
lesson, that even our family members who do not believe the
gospel, it's only natural for us to be apprehensive about that.
I put in here, it's part of our natural desire for self-preservation. Nobody wants to be persecuted. We're not masochists. We're not looking to be martyred
for the gospel. But as we know in the past, that's
happened with many of God's dear children standing for the truth.
We know that that's only by the grace of God. None of us would
go that far in our natural way of thinking. It takes the grace
of God to bring us to stand so firm that we would die for the
truth. So he says, fear them not, for
there's nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid
that shall not be known. Many times those who persecute
believers do it under the guise of religion. The most severe
persecutions that the first disciples had to endure came from the Pharisees,
the Sadducees, the lawyers, those who claimed to be in the service
of God. You remember the Apostle Paul
before he was converted. He was a great persecutor. He
made havoc of the church, it says. But what he's saying is
that be assured of this, that it's all going to come clear
eventually in the end. That which is covered up is going
to be exposed. And that which is hidden is going
to be known. They're going to be exposed for
what they are. It's like those in Matthew 7
that I refer to so many times. They come to Christ at the judgment
and they say, haven't we done all these wonderful things? And
he says to them, depart from me, I never knew you. Evil deeds. So rest assured that in the end,
and I think this is one of the things that we need to think
about often. Consider the end of all things. God's true people will be manifested
before this whole universe. However few they are, however
many they are, however people saw them or viewed them, and
those who outwardly appeared righteous unto men, they'll be
exposed for what they are. And so our concern in all of
this is that, listen, Keep your focus and your eyes on Christ,
who died for our sins. Take up our cross and follow
Him. And don't fear what man can do
to our body. He says in verse 27, He says,
what I tell you in darkness, what He means that, what He privately
taught the disciples, that speak ye in light, let it out. Don't put it under a bushel.
Preach the gospel. Tell the truth of how God saves
sinners by His grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't
hold back on it. Don't water it down. Don't compromise
it in order to gain the approval of men, even family members. As offensive as the message is,
Preach the gospel. And he says, what you hear in
the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. You remember back
in Matthew 5, he says, you're the light of the world. You're
the salt of the earth. And so this gospel of how God
saves sinners by his grace through the righteousness of Christ,
that exposes how everything that the natural man highly esteems
is an abomination unto God, let it out. Not just to be different, not just to
be offensive, but let it out because that's what men need
to hear. I've often said that the very
thing that I was offended when I first heard the gospel, the
very thing that offended me was the very thing that I needed
for salvation. And so don't fear them, and he
says in verse 28, and fear not them which kill the body. Now
that's the worst thing that man can do to us if God allows him
to do it. Kill our bodies. And again, I'm
not boasting that I'm not apprehensive about this or have no natural
fear of death and the like. But here's one thing, he says,
they're not able to kill the soul. They can't kill our souls. Our
souls live eternally. When we die, we go to be with
the Lord in glory, but rather fear him which is able to destroy
both soul and body in hell. That's God. Fear God, not with
that legal natural fear that stirs men and women up trying
to seek to establish a righteousness of their own, but with that reverence
and that respect. This is the kind of fear that
no man has by nature. Romans 3, and I think it's verse
18, says, there's no fear of God before their eyes. And when the Holy Spirit brings
us to faith in Christ, he puts within our hearts that fear of
God that we need, that is consistent with faith and assurance and
peace, because we plead the righteousness of Christ. We plead his blood,
and so we know that that honors every attribute of God's nature
and character. And so we truly fear God with
that reverential respect that we didn't have before. That's
where false gospels come from. No respect, no fear of God. They
don't consider, we don't by nature, consider how that reflects on
God's character. You know, they say God loves
everybody, Christ died for everybody, now the rest is up to you. How
does that reflect on the very nature and glory of God? That
denies His glory. That gives man room to boast. That's why Paul said, God forbid
that I should glory, save in the cross, let he that glorieth
glory in this. And he knoweth the Lord and understands
God's way of saving sinners, which is all of grace, salvations
of the Lord. And it honors him as both a just
God and a savior. And that's what we need to think
about. How does this reflect upon God? And God's able to kill
the soul and the body in hell. Man can't do that. They can kill
our bodies, but they can't kill our souls. And look at verse
29. He says, are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one
of them shall not fall on the ground without your father? But
the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not, therefore,
you are of more value than many sparrows. What's he talking about
there? He's talking about the absolute
sovereignty of God, who is the governor of this world, who controls
all things even down to the sparrow. Sparrows are very common birds,
numerous, plentiful. And if God's providence and his
care reaches down to the very sparrow, then what does that
mean for God's children whom he sent his son to die for? How
much more valuable are we not because of any innate goodness
or worthiness in us, but because we are the recipients of God's
mercy and grace through Christ that glorifies Him and manifests
every attribute of God's nature before the whole universe. A
sinner saved by grace. The Bible says there's more joy
in heaven over one sinner that's brought to repentance than over
90 in nine that need no repentance. You realize that as a sinner
saved by grace, you're a trophy of God's grace, God's mercy,
God's glory. And that's the most valuable
thing in this world. And so he says, look at verse
32. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will
I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. but whosoever
shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father
which is in heaven. Now this is not saying that our
confessing Christ before men is a condition we must meet in
order to be saved, in order to get Christ to confess us before
his Father. What does Christ do when he confesses
his people before the Father? It's simply this, he says, this
sinner is mine. I bought this man, this woman,
with the price of my blood. He belongs to me. He's a sinner
saved by God's grace. And so he cannot perish. He stands
before God in the blood of Christ, in the righteousness of Christ.
And he confesses this before the Father. Well, what do we
have to do to get Him to do that? It's not what we have to do.
God chose us before the foundation of the world and gave us to Christ.
Sent His Son to die for us. It's not what we have to do to
get Him to confess us before the Father. It's what He has
done for us. But our confession before men
is the evidence that he bought and paid for us, that we belong
to him. And that confession, and in your
lesson, I listed several things. In summary, what is it to confess
Christ before men? It's to declare that Christ is
the one and only way of salvation, and there is no other. There's none other name given
among men under heaven. whereby we must be saved. He's
it. It's to say that his work on
the cross, his blood, his righteousness is our only ground of salvation. Nothing added. Our decisions
do not save us. The blood of Christ saves us. And we confess that before men.
It's to repent of everything else. Turn away. Turn to Christ. Turn away from anything else.
Even the things that men highly esteem. Because we say they're
an abomination before God. The first act of public confession
for a believer, you know what it is? Believer's baptism. Baptism in water. Identifying
ourselves publicly and confessing publicly that when Christ died,
we died. When he was buried, we were buried. When he arose again, we arose
with him. And he's our only hope. Taking
the Lord's Supper is part of our confession. Identifying with
God's people in a local congregation. If we have a local congregation
in our area, we confess Christ publicly when we unite with that
congregation. We have people who watch us on
live stream who have no local congregation to go to where the
gospel is preached consistently. And so they're hindered from
that. But they identify with us as we identify with Christ. But if there's a local church
where the gospel's preached, we're to unite with those people.
That's confessing Christ publicly. And we confess Christ publicly
with our attendance, again, taking of the ordinances, the continual
ordinance of the Lord's Supper. This is all part of confessing
Christ before me. And when a door is open for us
to witness to others of how God saves sinners by one way, And
that's by His sovereign grace in and by the Lord Jesus Christ.
We confess Christ before men. Okay.