Turn back to Matthew 16. Committed to Christ. Committed to Christ. That's the
title of the message. Committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 21, it says, 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
of the chief priests and of the scribes. These are the ones who
should have acknowledged Him. They were the ones who studied
the Scriptures. They were the religious leaders. They should
have acknowledged Him, but instead they are going to reject Him. And He says He has to suffer
many things. You and I are guilty of many
offenses. Therefore, our substitute must
suffer many things. Many things. And be killed. Be killed. And raised again the
third day. Now, after Peter's confession
of thou art to Christ, our Lord began to show them more plainly,
more openly, reveal to them The purpose of His coming. The work of the Messiah. What's about to happen to Him.
He's going to reveal this to them now. What is about to happen
to Him. They were expecting Him to set
up the kingdom. They were expecting Him to come along and to deliver
them from Roman rule and everyone else's rule and set up the kingdom
and they would be glorious people, powerful people. But instead,
he says, I must go to Jerusalem. You see, Peter said, Thou art
the Christ, the Savior, the Anointed One, the Son of the living God. That's who you are. And they
were expecting him to do some great things. He says, I must
go to Jerusalem and suffer and suffer. No doubt, this just baffled them.
It just absolutely baffled them. He must go there and He must
suffer. He must die and He must be killed. And He must be raised
again the third day. It says over in Romans chapter
4, He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. If He does not rise, We are not
justified. We are justified in a risen Lord.
If these things do not happen, Peter, no one is saved. No one is going to be saved.
No one from that time forth or from that time back, no one would
be saved. Abraham would not be saved. Isaac,
Jacob, David, none of those patriarchs would be saved if I do not do
this. And you will not be saved, Peter, and none of us will be
saved if our Lord does not go to Jerusalem, suffer many things,
and be killed, be rejected, despised and rejected of men, says in
Isaiah 53, despised and rejected of men, and die and rise again
the third day. If He does not do this, no one
is saved, and God is a failure. God is a failure if He does not
do this. And Peter shows his ignorance
here concerning the work of the Messiah. Remember, Paul said
this, we know in part, we preach in part. And Peter is showing
here his ignorance of the work of redemption that the Messiah
is going to do. And he says, this can't be, Lord. This can't be. This just can't
be. You can't do this. You cannot
go and die. You cannot go and be killed.
You cannot go and suffer. Far be it from thee, Lord." Listen,
salvation can only come through the substitutionary life and
death and resurrection of our Lord. That's the only way it
can happen. There's no other way. Our Lord in the Garden of
Gethsemane said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me. Did it pass? No. No, because there's no other
way. There's no other way for God
to save a sinner, to save me or you, except through the life,
the death, and the resurrection of His own Son. That's the only
way it can happen. He must suffer rejection. He
must suffer insult. He must suffer everything that
I deserve to suffer. He has to. He has to. He must suffer at the hands of
justice. It says over in the Old Testament, Awake, O sword! That's the sword of justice.
Awake, O sword against... My fellow, the Messiah, the sword of God's
justice awoke against Him. It was taken out on Him in the
place of His people. He must die. The Scripture says,
the soul that sins shall surely die. But He didn't sin. He knew
no sin. That's what the Scripture says.
He knew no sin. But we did. Every last one whom
he represented were nothing but sinners. Ungodly. Ungodly. And therefore, he must
die. He must die. He must be raised
again after he dies on the third day. A dead Christ cannot save
anyone. Cannot save anyone. Only a risen
Christ is able to save. Because I what? He didn't say
because I died, you live. He said because I live, you shall
live also. Now because He died, our sins
are put away. Justice is satisfied. But because
I live, you shall live also. A dead Christ can't save anyone,
but a living Lord can. He sure can. But Peter, out of love to Christ,
now this is out of love to our Lord and to His Lord, this is
out of love, took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. He began
to rebuke the God of heaven and earth. Can you imagine that?
He began to rebuke Him saying, no, you cannot let this happen.
It says over here, be it far from thee. Now look in the margin.
Pity thyself. You raised the dead. You gave
sight to the blind. The lame to walk. Fed the 5,000. Lord, you can stop this from
happening. You can stop this from happening. You don't need
to suffer. You don't need to die. You don't
need to let this happen to you. Peter loved Him. He didn't want
to see this happen to him. He didn't want to see it at all.
Lord, don't let this happen, don't do this. Well, if it does
not happen, He fails and we perish. It has to happen. But now our
Lord, listen, this is a sobering statement here and situation. He turned and He said to Peter,
looking straight at, looking into the face of Peter, looking
right into his eyes. And he said, Get thee behind
me, Satan. Looking right at him. Get thee
behind me, Satan. It's scary how easily we can
come under the influence of Satan. Even a believer. If God allows
it. If God allows it. Scary. It only seemed right that Peter
was so concerned for his Lord. That only seemed right. to be
so concerned. But Satan, listen, Satan is so
subtle. He's so subtle. He will use something
that seems so good. I mean, it just seems so good. It just seems so right to achieve
something so bad. He didn't want him to go there.
Because if he doesn't go, he fails. And we perish. But our
Lord is not deterred from His mission. He doesn't turn aside from fulfilling
the will of His Father. That's what He came to do. I
came to do Thy will, O God. That's what He came to do, to
fulfill the will of His Father and our Father. And our Father. He fulfilled the will of His
Father and our Father. And He said, Satan is an offense.
You're just an offense unto Me. He rebuked Peter, saying, Be
it far from them, Lord, it shall not be. And in verse 23, But
he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou
art an offense unto me. An enemy. An absolute enemy. This is one
who doesn't even know what mercy means. Doesn't even have an inkling
of it. It's absolute evil. He said,
You're an offense unto me. For thou savest not the things
that be of God, but those that be of men." You're an offense
unto me. There's a much greater warfare. I wish we could really see this.
There is a much greater warfare going on than what we can see
with these eyes. It would be astounding if we could see the
warfare that's going on, that unseen warfare that's going on
that's far greater than these fleshly battles that we fight. I want to show you something
over here in Daniel. There's a battle going on over
here in Daniel chapter 10. Let me find the verse here. This angel appears unto Daniel
in verse 12. Then said he unto me, Fear not,
Daniel. This angel speaking to him. Fear
not, Daniel. For from the first time that
thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself
before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy
words. Now listen. But the prince of
the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days. For twenty-one
days he's withstood me. But lo, Michael, one of the chief
princes, came to help me, and I remained there with the kings
of Persia. There's this battle going on, and there's this unseen
battle that's going on. Here's an angel saying that he
is battling with the prince of Persia. Now look over in the
latter part of this chapter. Then verse 20. Then said he,
knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? And now when I return
to fight with the prince of Persia, and when I am gone forth, lo,
the prince of Greece We shall come. Do you see here what's
going on? Here's what I'm trying to get
across. There's a battle going on, but there's a greater battle
going on. An unseen battle. This angel says here, he says,
Then said he, knowest thou wherefore I am come to thee, and now I'll
return to fight with the prince of Persia. Well, nobody can see
those angels. No one can see that unseen battle
that was going on. The battles we fight now. The
battle that's going on over here in Iraq. We see flesh. We see men. That's
what we see. And men and women die and we
see these things, but there's a spiritual battle going on that
we can't see. Always. Far beyond our understanding. And that's what's going on here.
There's a much greater warfare going on, Peter, than what you
see. You're just looking at the scribes
and the Pharisees at Jerusalem. You're just looking at Jerusalem.
There's an unseen battle going on, Peter, that you can't see.
And that's why he looked at Peter and he said, Get thee behind
me, Satan. Did Peter see Satan? Did he see
him enter the room? He didn't see it. He didn't even
comprehend that Satan was behind what he was seeing. Scary. Satan cares nothing about those
things that give God all the glory. Not at all. Then said
Jesus unto His disciples, if any man will come after Me, he'll
come after Me, follow Me, committed to Me. You don't want to live
to be committed. I mean, sold out and committed.
What Frank was talking about this morning is nothing but a
total, all-out commitment to the Gospel. You support a pastor
or you support missionaries, that's commitment to Christ.
That's following Christ. If any man will come after me,
committed to me, let him what? Deny himself and take up his cross and follow
me. Our Lord is very plain and truthful
to his followers. He's saying this. You must, if
you're going to follow me into this battle, and it's a battle,
if you're going to follow me, you must deny yourself. Self
has to go. Self-interest has to go. Ambition
has to go. Christ is first. He's first. There's an old saying, don't
burn your bridges. Well, in business, that's good
advice. Don't burn your bridges. You might have to go back across
them. And in life, don't burn your
bridges. And following Christ, burn your bridges. We're not
going back. We're not going back. Not going
back to the life, not going back to the world, not going back
to any of those things. In that sense, burn your bridges.
You're not going back. Self-denial is the hardest thing
on human nature, isn't it? It's the hardest thing. to deny
yourself. Everything that a man does is
for himself one way or another, isn't it? It's not one way or
another, it's for ourselves. We love ourselves more than anyone
else. By nature we do. Now, we do by
nature. But if a man is going to follow
the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, deny yourself. You cannot love
self and Christ equally. He said you can't do it. Do you remember that rich young
ruler who came to our Lord? And he said, what good thing
must I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord said, well, keep
the commandments. He's going to teach him something here.
And he said, well, I kept all these from my youth up. You know, it's
strange that he felt that there was still something missing. He still knew there was something
missing. Before I heard the gospel and came down here, moved down
here, I was going to a place up in Milton and made a profession. I remember this one member that
I would talk to often, and I kept saying to them, there's something
missing. I could not put my finger on
it. But for probably a year or two,
I kept saying, something's missing. I heard Henry preach on television.
That which was missing was Christ. That young man, he had three
strikes against him. He was young, he was a ruler,
and he was rich. And he said, I've done all these
things. I've kept all these commandments from my youth up. But there's
something missing. What good thing? What else? Tell
me what else? You know, works religion never
gives peace, does it? There'll always be something
missing. Because it is Christ. He could not... Our Lord said
this to him. He said, sell all you have, give
it to the poor, come follow me. You know, I would just about
suspect That if he had said okay, he'd probably not had to sold
a thing. Probably wouldn't have had to sold a thing. He would
have probably said, well, go back to your home. But this young man, he couldn't
do it. It had him. It had him by the
throat. It had him by the heart. That's where it had him. It had
him by the heart. He could not do it. He could not deny himself
of his possessions. He could not deny himself of
his position as a ruler. A leader. He couldn't do that
and join up with those fishermen and this poor Nazarene. He couldn't
do that. He could not give up his authority,
his riches, and follow Christ. He loved himself more than he
loved God. Here's what he wanted. And this is what religion as
a whole wants. Here's what religion wants. Religion
wants to go to heaven. That's an eternal vacation. That's what most people see it
as, eternal vacation. You don't have to work anymore.
That's the way most people see it. He wanted to live forever
in a happy place and with happy bliss. Well, who doesn't? Who
in the world doesn't? That's why we take vacations.
You go to places like Hawaii. You're trying to find someplace
where you can be happy for a week. That's the way most people see
happiness. He knew that one day he would die. And when that day
came, he wanted to be sure that he ended up in the right place.
And so he says, what good thing must I do? Oh, it's what good
thing Christ does for us and in us. He was not concerned. Listen,
this young man was not concerned about being made holy. When God
awakens a sinner, That sinner wants to be saved, what? Not
from hell, from sin. From sin. A young man asked me
years ago, right after I first heard the gospel. It's been 30
years ago. And he was talking to me and
he said he didn't want to go to hell. And I asked him, I said,
what do you fear most? Going to hell or God? He says,
I fear hell. I don't want to go to hell. He
said, I fear that. He said, I fear going to that
place. I said, well, if you find favor
with the judge, you don't have to worry about the prison. If
you can find favor with the judge, the one who can cast you in there,
you don't have to worry about that place. I told him, I said,
you're fearing the wrong thing. Victor says, fear Him who is
able to cast both body and soul into hell. That's not a slavish
fear, but it's a respect, it's a reverence, it's a falling down
and a worshiping Him. That's what that is. But he wanted
to make sure he went to the right place. He was not concerned about
being made holy. He thought he was. I've done
all these things. I've been a good boy. That's
my parents. I've been a good boy. He was not concerned about divine
life. He was concerned about not divine
life, but long life. People get this so confused. When the Scripture talks about
eternal life, it's talking about the quality of it. It's talking
about the life of God. But the average person thinks
eternal life is how long it is. No, it's the life of God. Eternal
life is to what? Know God and Jesus Christ whom
He has sent. That's eternal life. But even
that wasn't enough. He still couldn't sell out and
follow him. Couldn't do it. There's no sinner ever saved
who did not deny himself. None. Now, we do not deny what
we are as sinners. That's not what he's talking
about. We don't deny what we are as sinners. Paul says, nor
do we deny what we are as believers. Paul said, I am what I am by
the grace of God. To deny that is to deny God His glory. Thou hast made us and not we
ourselves. We are His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus under good works. We do not deny the gifts and
ability that God gives us. You know, God gives a man the
ability to preach or to teach and he says, I can't do that. No, I can't do that. That's denying
God the glory of the gifts He's given you. If He's given you
a gift to give or pray, I mean, we don't brag about it, but we
don't deny it either. We don't deny it. And we do not
deny what God gives us providentially. He gives us homes and jobs and
families. And you know what? He gives us
these things to enjoy. We are to enjoy the fruit of
our labors. that is God given, we are to
enjoy it. But self-denial is to forego
anything that is in competition with my Lord. Anything that takes
me away from Christ. Anything that comes before Him. He said, seek ye first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be
added unto you. Do you believe that? He said it. He said it. And He'll
do it. These things will be added. If
we do not deny ourselves, I'll tell you this, we do deny Him.
If we cannot deny ourselves. Here's what self-denial involves.
It involves some of these things. We deny our own understanding. Lean not unto thine own understanding,
Solomon said. We deny our own understanding.
Lord, teach me. Teach me. That's what David said.
Lord, teach me thy ways. Teach me. We seek his guidance
and his directions. Then we deny our will. Not my
will, but thine be done. Lord, make me willing. Isn't
that what he told his disciples to pray? That Lord, thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven. We deny our righteousness. That's
the hardest thing to deny, isn't it? Our own goodness, our own
righteousness, and submit to His righteousness. Paul said,
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but His.
His righteousness, not mine, His. Then we deny the flesh and
its appetites. The Scripture says this, make
no provisions for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. The grace of God, as Titus said,
teaches us to deny ungodliness. It teaches us to do that. And
then we deny ourselves of those who would keep us from Christ. Those who would keep us from
coming to Him. Abraham, separate yourself from
your father's house and from your people. God called him away from his
family, those that would keep him away from his Lord. Our Lord has given us Himself
as our example. I want to give you a few things
that He's given us as an example. He denied Himself of glory and
came into this world. Who in here would leave this
place and go to the most poverty stricken, and this is not even
a comparison to what he left and came here. If we left this
place and went to the most poverty stricken place on this earth to have a ministry, that's not
even a good comparison. But he left it heaven, glory,
and came into this sinful place for us. It's like, I kind of
think it'd be like going into a sewer. It'd be like us leaving
this place and going into a sewer. I watched this on a program the
other day. This man has this job, terrible
job. You ever see that movie that
says some of the worst jobs that they got? This guy's job is to
constantly, every day he goes down into the sewer of London
and walks through those pipes and stuff. We were watching that
and rats, rats crawling everywhere and the stench of that thing.
And then he'd come out of there and he had to go home with that
stench all over him. I don't know how he stayed married. I mean
really, you come home with that on you every day? I thought now that's a terrible
job. Our Lord came into this cesspool
of sin. Our Lord came into this cesspool
of hatred. No one was ever hated as much
as Jesus Christ. No one. Despised and rejected. And you know what it says? Of
men. Jews and Gentiles. Not just the Jews. We can't just
blame it on them. Jews and Gentiles. Despised. That's where He came. He came
into this cesspool of sin and wickedness. He denied himself
of a place to lay his head. Every one of us have a comfortable
place to lay down at night. We all have a comfortable place
to lay down. The Scripture says he had no place to lay his head.
He who made the world had no place in the world to lay his
head. None. He denied himself of riches. It would be something for one
of us to just become poor. I mean, to purposely just become
poor so that we could preach to the rich. I mean, to the poor. If we were rich, if we would
become poor so we could preach to those who are in poverty,
wouldn't that be something? Our Lord, it says over in Philippians,
it says, He became poor that we through His poverty might
be made rich. He became poor. He had one suit
of clothes. I've got five or six suits hanging
in my closet and a lot of other shirts and pants. He had that one garment he had. He became
poor. We through his poverty might
be made rich, enriched, Oh, he denied himself. He denied
himself of relief when he was in the wilderness forty days
and forty nights. Forty days and forty nights.
It says after that he was hungry. He hungered. And Satan came and tempted him
and said, turn these stones into bread. You know you can do it.
You know you can turn these stones into bread. You fed 5,000 with
a few fish and a few loaves. You fed 5,000 plus the women
and children. Probably 10,000 plus people.
You know you can do this. You know you can stop that hunger
right now. But he didn't do it, did he?
He didn't do it. As a man, as our substitute,
not one time did he ever relieve himself of any suffering. Not
one time. He relieved many others. Cast
out demons. Healed. He relieved many, many
others of their infirmities and sicknesses. But not one time
did He ever relieve Himself. Not once. Then He denied Himself
of life when He gave up the ghost. When He gave it up. The Scripture says the disciple
is not above his master. Did He deny Himself? Well, how
much more ought we to deny ourselves? A man or a woman who will not
deny themselves, He says, cannot be, cannot be My disciple. Cannot be. Our ambitions have
to go if they are in competition with Christ. We must take up
our cross, He says, Follow Him. We have a cross to bear for Christ's
sake. Christianity is not a stand still
easy religion. Not true Christianity. Not true
Christianity. I'm not talking about this fake
stuff going on. I'm talking about true Christianity. We have a cross to bear and we
have a person to follow. Remember that blind man who followed
the Lord? He went to a certain house? And
that blind man had to follow Him all the way to the house.
And then say, Lord, give me my sight. That wasn't easy to do,
was it? It's not easy following Christ
in this life. It's not easy. I've told my boys
this different times growing up. It's hard to do right in
a wrong world. It's hard to do right in a wrong world. That's
not easy. Following Christ in this life
is not and never will be an easy task. It is constant self-denial. And then there's some suffering
to be done for Christ's sake. And He'll choose the suffering.
We don't have to go looking for it. We don't have to go looking
for suffering so we can feel like we're suffering. It'll come. I'll tell you this. You be a
faithful witness of Christ and it'll come. That's all you have
to be, just a faithful witness, a faithful follower. And we have
a death to die. Whatever death He chooses for
us, whichever way, it's fine. It's fine. The servant does not pick his
place of service, nor does a soldier pick his war. The Lord does. The Lord does
that. He fights the good fight of faith
where God puts him. Wherever God puts his servant,
that's where he fights the good fight of faith. And whosoever
will save his life, our Lord says, and I'll wind this down,
whosoever, listen now, will save his life shall lose it. Whosoever saves his earthly life
is going to lose real eternal life. Hang on to this one and
lose that one. Hang on to this one and lose
that one. And whosoever will lose his life for my sake, he'll
find it. He'll find real life. Real life. The way to find eternal life
is to lose this one. This temporal sinful life. To
deny ourselves is to find Him. It's to find Him. And our Lord asked this question,
what is a man profited if he gained the whole world? What
if he profited? Someone asked me one time, they
said, if I played the lottery. I told them, no, I don't play
it. They said, well, you think it's wrong? I said, no, I'm afraid I'll win
it. What would I do if I won it? I'm dead serious. You win a hundred million dollars. I'd better destroy your life.
I'd be afraid I'd win. What would I do? How would I
handle that? What is a man profited? What
is the profit of gaining this whole world? The fame of it.
The fortune of it. All the gold that's in the ground. All the gold that's in Fort Knox.
All the stuff that goes with it. What do you have if you gain
it all? How many people, you know these
athletes and stuff, these multi, multi, multi millionaires, and
they go out and do some of the most stupid stuff. You think,
well if I was that rich I wouldn't put in the jeopardy like that.
Human nature. But what do you gain if you have
the whole world? If you gain the praise of men?
If you gain their honor, their respect? If you gain their substance? I'm serious. The Word of God
says, what have you gained? It's all going to be burned up.
Really, is it? Well, if not, you're going to
die anyway. If it's not burned up, you're going to leave it.
You're not going to take it with you. If you gained their approval,
what have you gained? They too shall die. They too
shall die. If you could gain the whole world
and lose your soul, what have you gained? Absolutely nothing. What can you gain from this world? Now listen, what can you gain
from this world that is worth more than your soul? Name it. Just name it. You wouldn't even
dare name it. There's nothing. People on their dying bed would
give up all their riches to live another day. Nothing. What's worth more than
Christ? Nothing. Nothing. The greatest
loss in the world is, you know what the greatest loss is? My
soul. Your soul. That's the greatest
loss. You haven't lost anything until
you've lost your soul, until you've lost your life. You've
not lost anything until you've lost that. Everything we do ought to be
weighed in the light of eternity and judgment. Man, every time
I talk to somebody, when I see them, the first subject that
comes up is how much older we're getting. And they say, man, didn't
it go by so quick? Well, wake up. I'm talking about
people that do not believe the gospel. Wake up. See how fast
it's going? The next time we'll probably
see each other, well, one of us won't see you, but you'll
be at a funeral. One of us will be in a casket and the other
one will be standing there saying, well, that happened fast. Wasn't
that over with quickly? What shall a man give in exchange
for his soul? What's the exchange rate for
your soul? What is it? Even we put a greater price on
our souls than we can afford. We put a greater price on our
souls than we can afford to pay. I'll close with this. What is
worth more than your soul? Your job that keeps you from
the gospel? The children that keeps you too busy to be here?
What is it? What's more important than your soul? Absolutely nothing. Absolutely
nothing. And he says here, verse 27, the
Son of Man is coming back. Christ is coming back. I heard
one person say, this is not the opium of the people. It's not
something we give ourselves so we can deal with each day. This
is real. He's coming back. He's coming
back. We don't know when, but we know
He's coming. And when He comes, He will come, He says, in power
and great glory. I've got to go to Jerusalem. I must go to Jerusalem. I must
suffer. I must die. I must rise again
the third day. He went back and seated at God's
right hand, the Father's right hand. He's coming back. Personally,
He's coming back. And when He comes, He said He'll
come in power and glory, great glory, and He will give to every
man what he deserves. That's right. Every person will
get what he deserves. And you know what every believer
gets? What Christ deserves. What our substitute has brought
out for us. Everyone outside of Christ is
going to get their life's work. That's what they're going to
get. What it deserves. The wages of sin is death. Everyone in
Christ is going to get what their substitute deserves. Their Lord. Their Master. That's what they'll get. And
he says every one of them will get it. Right to the jot and
till. Committed to Christ. I can't emphasize that enough.
He's all I need. He's all we need. As we pass through this life,
however much longer I live, I do. I pray, Lord, I want to be totally
sold out and committed to You. Totally sold out and committed
to the glory of His person, His grace. Just totally committed
to Him.