Good morning. I invite your attention to the
gospel according to Matthew chapter 10. The gospel according to Matthew
chapter 10. My text will be found in verses
32 and 33. My message is titled, Confessors
Confessed deniers denied. There's good reason for Jesus
to say what he's going to say in verses 32 and 33 to give you
some idea as to the necessity of him saying so Let me begin
reading from verse number 16, Matthew's Gospel, chapter 10,
verse 16. He says to his disciples, Behold,
I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore
wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men,
for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will
scourge you in their synagogues. And ye shall be brought before
governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them
and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up,
take no thought how or what ye shall speak. For it shall be
given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not
ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh
in you. And the brother shall deliver
up the brother to death, and the father the child. And the
children shall rise up against their parents and cause them
to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all
men for my name's sake, but he that endureth to the end shall
be saved. But when they persecute you in
this city, flee ye into another. For verily I say unto you, ye
shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son
of Man become The disciple is not above his master, nor the
servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple
that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they
have called the master of the house Beelzebub, ruler of the flies, how much more shall they call
them of his household? Fear them not, therefore, for
there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hid
that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness,
that speak ye in light, and what ye hear in the ear, that preach
ye upon the housetops. And fear not them which kill
the body, but are not able to kill the soul. but rather fear
him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 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, ye are
of more value than many sparrows. Now my text. 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. In a very similar account, Jesus
said that whoever confesses me, I will confess before the angels
of God. Whoever denies me, I will deny
before the angels of God. There's no contradiction here. If he confesses us to the Father,
he'll be confessing us to his angels because they are around
his throne. Another point that should be
stressed here is that Jesus' confession of his people, that
is those who confess him, is not to the Father privately. It is not as though he goes up
to his Father's throne and says, give me your ear, I've got something
to say. Do you want to confess somebody to you? No, no, no.
It is as though the Father is on his throne And all the holy
angels around him, and the son says, I want to confess this
one to you. And it's good that he confesses
to the angels, because at the last day, he's
going to send them forth to gather all his elect. Now who are his
elect? Those whom he confessed before
them. So the angels, having heard whom he has confessed on the
last day, go forth across the earth and say, ah, there's one
he confessed, get that one, he must be spared, he must be spared. So therefore, bear this in mind,
if you publicly confess Jesus before men on this earth, He
will confess you publicly in heaven before all its occupants. But if you deny Jesus publicly
before men here on this earth, He will deny you publicly in
heaven before God's throne and his angels. What dreadful words
it would be to hear him say, depart from me, I never knew
you. You never confessed me. I will
not confess you. You denied me. I deny you. Depart. I hope that no one here
will hear our Lord say such words as those. Depart, I never knew
you. This matter is important. The happiness and the bliss of
your soul depends upon it. Confessors of Jesus will be confessed
by him. Deniers of Jesus will be denied
by him. So therefore, seeing the import
of this matter, let us consider an answer for questions. What is it to confess? Whom are
we to confess? Before whom are we to confess
him? And fourth, how are we to confess
him? Look at that first question.
What is it to confess? The word in the Greek text simply
means to say the same things as another. That's the basic meaning of the
word. To confess Jesus is to say the same things He does. That's what we do when we confess
Him. We admit that He is right and we declare what he said and
we deny nothing about him with regard to his person or his words. That's what it is. Second point, whom are we to
confess? Jesus says we are to confess
me. We are to confess him. Our confession
is not of something. Our confession is not something
written out and called a confession of faith. That is not what it
is. That is not what we are told to confess. Neither is it a creed. We do not confess a denomination. We do not confess this or that
or the other. Our confession is Christ. We confess Him. He says, confess
me before men. We are to confess Jesus Christ
for all the years. Well, that is a subject Far too
great for us to consider today, but I'm going to give to you
five of the most important things about Jesus Christ that we must
confess. Five very important things to
confess regarding Jesus Christ. First, confess Jesus Christ as
God. And again, the scriptural proofs
for His deity are far too numerous. for us to consider today. I'll
just give you 10 brief declarations of His deity, given by God the
Father and His holy prophets and apostles. He is God. God the Father said so in Hebrews
chapter 1, verse 8. God the Father called his son
Jesus Christ God in saying, oh God, your throne is forever. I'm not sure I understand all
that, but it's true. God the Father understands it,
and that's good enough for me. God the Father called Jesus Christ
his son God. I'm not going to disagree with
God the Father. I'm going to confess what God
the Father declared. I'm going to let His words be
my words. I'll confess Jesus Christ is
God. In Isaiah 9, verse 6, He is called
the Mighty God. In the same text, He is called
the Eternal Father. Thomas declared in John 20, verse
28, that He is my Lord and my God. Paul the Apostle in Romans
9.5 called him the eternally blessed God. Paul called him
in Titus 2.13 our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. John the
Apostle in his first epistle, chapter 5, verse 20 called him
the true God in eternal life. Paul the Apostle in 1 Timothy
3.16 called him God manifested in the flesh. The angel of God
said his name shall be called Emmanuel, meaning literally,
with us is God. And Jehovah said, this is his
name by which you shall call him Jehovah, our righteousness. Now that's just ten declarations.
I could have given you more, but time and space here do not
permit. But if God the Father and the
Holy Spirit and the holy apostles and prophets declare Jesus Christ
to be God, I'm going to agree with them. That's my confession.
I would say to you that if you deny the deity of Jesus Christ,
and I assume I'm talking to no one here in this room, but any
who deny the deity of Jesus Christ have denied Him. You may claim to be one of His
disciples. You may claim to be one of His
witnesses. But if you deny His deity, you
have denied Him. It's that important. It is that
important. Furthermore, we must confess
Jesus Christ as our only mediator with God. For there is one God
and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Consider, there's only one God and there are many men, but there is only one mediator
between the many men and the one God. Only one mediator. What is a mediator? Literally
a go-between. A mediator goes between two parties
to make peace between them. Now, we by nature are at enmity
against God. Our sins are rebellion against
Him. They have put a distance between
us. They have separated us from God. We are too sinful to approach
Him and He is too holy to even look upon us. How can there be
any peace between those who are at enmity against each other
such as this? Sinners who refuse to approach
Him and God who is too holy to even look upon them. They need
a Mediator. If there is ever to be peace
between them, they need a Mediator. And they need Him soon, because
God's wrath is coming after them right now. They need a Mediator,
and this only Mediator is Jesus Christ. Being God, as we just said, He
represents God to men. Being man, As God manifested
in the flesh, he represents men to God. And being the God-man,
he takes the hand of God and the hand of man and brings them
both together and there is peace between them. And there's only
one who can do that. Only one mediator between God
and men, the man, Christ Jesus. Therefore, if any should say,
I want Mary for my Mediator, or I want the saints for my Mediator,
that is a denial of Christ. That is a denial that He's the
only Mediator. Let there be none of such sort
among us this day. Third, confess Jesus Christ as
your only prophet from God. Now a prophet is God's spokesman
to his people. When God speaks to his people,
he does not come down and do it personally. He has a prophet. He calls the prophet and he says,
this is my word to the people, you go deliver it. That's why
a prophet always prefaced his words with, thus saith Jehovah. The prophet comes and speaks
to the people. God in ancient times spoke to
the people by prophets such as Moses, Elijah, Elisha. The prophets who wrote the books
in the Old Testament toward the end. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk,
and Malachi. All of these were prophets. They
were sent by God. And then let us include the last
of the Old Testament prophets, who also is the first of the
New Testament preachers, John the Baptist. These were prophets. But then we read in the epistle
to the Hebrews, that God, who in other times and in various
manners spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,
has, in these last days, spoken unto us by his Son, Jesus Christ. And when Jesus Christ spoke,
God could say, I'm done speaking. I've said enough. No more revelation. My Son has given it all. He is the final prophet. God
sent no prophet with revelation from Him after sending Jesus
Christ. We confess Jesus Christ as Jehovah's
final prophet. We do not deny Him by following
some other man or woman who claims to have had new revelation from
God. And they abound. They abound.
We do not follow them. We have nothing to do with them.
We would not deny Jesus Christ as the final prophet from God
by following somebody else who's got a new revelation or claims
to have done so. Furthermore, we must confess
Jesus Christ as our only priest to God. Now the prophet and the
priest were mediatorial offices. The prophet was God's spokesman
to the people. The priest was the people's representative
to God. The prophet represented God to
the people by declaring God's word. Well, When he did that, they
learned what great sinners they were. We need sacrifices and God said,
I won't accept your sacrifices. You'll have to have my priest
make them for you. So God ordained a priesthood. Aaron and his sons And it was the priest who made
the sacrifices to God. You had to have your sacrifices
made by the priest. It was the priest who interceded
to God in your behalf by the sacrifices that he made. Then
we come to the epistle to the Hebrews. Not only do we there
find that Jesus Christ is the final prophet from God, but there
we also find he is the final priest to God and every priest
stands daily offering the same sacrifices which can never take
away sins but this man Jesus Christ having made one sacrifice
for sins forever there on Mount Calvary on that tree he has found his altar. And on
that altar, the Lamb of God has been slain. And the Lamb of God
has been slain by the priest of God. The altar and the Lamb
and the priest, all of them are Jesus Christ. All of them are
Jesus Christ. He made one sacrifice for sin
forever. And then he did something no
other priest before him ever did. He sat down. He sat down. Why? No more sacrifices to be
made. He's done it all. By one offering,
he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. Now
that's the priest, after he has made his sacrifice, no more need
for a mortal priesthood. Since that is true, when this
priest had made his sacrifice for sin on Mount Calvary, God
reached down from heaven, and there's the temple in Jerusalem,
and there is a priest getting ready to make a Passover offering. He's going to go into the holy
place and make an offering. God reached down from heaven
and took the veil of the temple and tore it in two from top to
bottom and said, don't come in here again. There on Calvary,
my son has made an offering and no more priesthood is needed.
He is the final priest. Well, if he is the final priest,
surely we should not deny him by following some man or woman
who claims to be a priest and makes sacrifices for the people's
sins. Call it the mass, call it the
whatever you wish. It is a denial of Jesus Christ
as the final priest from God. to follow anybody who claims
to make any sort of a sacrifice for sins or claims to have the
power to forgive you of your sins like the priest could in
his offering. Furthermore, we must confess
Jesus Christ as the supreme ruler. He is King of kings and Lord
of lords. King of kings and Lord of lords. The blessed and only potentate. And God of gods. That's Him. That's Jesus Christ. He is the
supreme ruler. God has exalted Him and given
Him the name which is above every name. Placed Him in power over
authorities and principalities. He's King of kings and Lord of
lords. Now, we are to obey kings, civil
authorities, the president, the magistrates on the federal, the
state, and the local levels. Obey them. They are God's ministers. Romans 13 is very clear on this. Obey them. unless they require to do you
that which is contrary to Christ. Now when they require you to
do something that is contrary to Christ, whom should you obey? Him or them? Well, the apostles
of our Lord were told by Jesus Christ, go and preach in my name. And the civil authority said,
We forbid you to preach in His name. Oh, what shall we do? They said, we must obey God rather than
men. Jesus Christ is our supreme ruler
and I say to you that we confess Him when we esteem Him higher
than any other moral authority on this earth. But if we should
follow the dictates of men in ceasing to follow Jesus Christ,
we have denied Him. Let there be none of that sort
among us today. But come to the third point. Before whom are we to confess
men? Jesus said, whoever confesses
me before men and women, we understand. This means that confession of
Jesus Christ is not a private matter. Confession of Jesus Christ
is not something you do only in your heart or only in your
closet. No, no, no. confess me before
men. And now the fourth and final
point, it's not a brief one, but it is the final point. How
are we to confess him? Well, I'll give you five ways.
And by the way, notice that we are not told to profess him,
we are told to confess him. Many professing Christians are
not truly confessing Christians. Jesus said, confess me before
me. And how shall we do it? Well,
first, we shall join a confessing mouth to a believing heart. The scripture says, if you confess
with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that
God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the
heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. Now it is not enough to merely
believe in your heart in Jesus Christ. The devils do that much. You say there's one God? Well,
they also believe, but they will not confess Him. What does our mouth do? Our mouth
confesses what our heart believes. We believe in Jesus Christ. God
is raised from the dead, and we declare that, and we confess
that with our mouths. God not only gave you a believing
heart, he also gave you a confessing mouth, and he intends us to use
both. Furthermore, we are to confess
Jesus Christ in baptism. Now in this sacred ordinance,
and it is a sacred ordinance, we obey Jesus Christ in symbolizing
that we have died with him, that we consequently have been buried
with him in a watery grave, And then we have been raised from
the dead with Him to walk in knownness of life through Him. It's all a symbolism, but it
is important. It is our confession of faith. Baptism is a public confession
of faith. In fact, although we are to confess
Him with the mouth, Baptism is our public confession. It's not
to be done in private. It is a public confession. And it should be done as quickly
as possible when one has believed in Jesus Christ. Ananias comes
to Saul of Tarsus, who has just been converted on that road to
Damascus. Saul of Tarsus is now a believer. And what does Ananias say? Why
are you tarrying? Arise and be baptized. It should be done quickly. You'll
notice as you read the New Testament, particularly the book of the
Acts of the Apostles, no such thing as an unbaptized believer
unless it was one on his way to the water. Baptism is the confession of
faith, should be done as soon as possible after one has believed
the gospel. And we have no confidence in
the confession of one who refuses to be baptized. I've met a few. I don't think it's that important,
they say. Really? Really? Well, you have
not confessed Christ until You have followed him in baptism.
It is your public confession of faith and it is only for believers. This is seen in the conversion
of the Ethiopian eunuch when the gospel had been preached
to him by Philip the evangelist. And the eunuch said, see here
is water, what hinders me from being baptized? Then Philip the
evangelist said, if you believe with all your heart you may.
And the answer then said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God. So he commanded the chariot to
stand still. Now listen, and both Philip and
the eunuch together went down into the water and Philip baptized
him. They both went down into the
water and Philip baptized him. Why? He's a believer. He's a
believer. I listened this past week to
a message by your late pastor John Mitchell. He's answering
some questions. He says, people ask, which is
right, infant baptism or adult baptism? And he says, one's as
good as the other. And I go, OK, John Mitchell. You got my attention. One's as
good as the other. Then he says, neither is right. It's not infant baptism versus
adult baptism. It is believer's baptism. Believer's baptism. Okay, John
Mitchell, we are in complete agreement. Believer's baptism. A woman on St. Thomas many years
ago, back in the 80s, she knew that I refused to baptize infants. But she had a newborn. She thought
maybe I'd make an exception for her. And she says, would you
baptize my infant? And I said, yeah. Yeah, I will. Oh, I took her completely by
surprise. Under one condition, if your infant believes in Jesus
Christ, I'll baptize your infant. That dropped the conversation
right there. It is believers who are to be
baptized. It is believers in Jesus Christ. If you believe, you may be baptized. And baptism necessitates immersion. Now that point has already been
made, has it not? It is a burial. into a water
grave and raising from the dead. Philip and the eunuch both went
down into the water. The very word baptized means
immersed. Nothing else suffices. Nothing
else suffices. It is a burial, and I tell you, that dropping a few drops of
water on somebody's head does not picture burial and resurrection. No way can be done. Therefore, you have not confessed
Christ at baptism unless your believer and you have followed him into
a watery grave, having died with him, and then being raised with
him, to walk in newness of life through him. Third, we are to confess Jesus
Christ by telling all others what he has done for us. A foremost
example would be that Gadarene demoniac we preached about him
a couple of weeks ago. The Lord delivered him from his
demons, exorcised them from him, and this man wants to go with
Jesus. And Jesus said, no, I have something
better for you to do. Go to your home and tell what
God has done for you, how he has had mercy on you. Go tell
what God has done for you. Go home, tell your family what
God has done for you. He did more than that. The scripture
says he published throughout Decapolis what Jesus had done
for him. Well, That's what we do. That's a confession of Christ.
That's a worthy way to confess Him. Tell what Jesus has done
for you. Tell others how He's had mercy
on you. Tell others how He justified
you and sanctified you and reconciled you and saved you. And don't tell them what you
did. because you did nothing that was worthy of your salvation. I tell you, you show me a person who does
not want to tell what Jesus has done for him or who would rather
talk about some other personal thing, I'll show you a person
for whom Jesus has done nothing in the way of salvation. If He
has done something for you, you'll tell it. You'll tell it. You
will not make a pest of yourself in it. You will not cast your
pearls before swine. You will not give that which
is holy unto the dogs. But you're just looking for an
opportunity to tell somebody what Jesus has done for you. And last, we are to confess Jesus
Christ until death. Confess him until the day that
you die. Judas Iscariot confessed Christ,
but later denied him by betraying him, and then died in unbelief
and went to his own place. Judas Iscariot denied Christ. Christ denied him. Peter the apostle confessed him,
then denied him. Jesus said, I pray for you. You're going to deny me, but
I'm praying for you. Oh, if I could just know that
Jesus is praying for me. But Peter confessed him. You
are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Then denied him. I don't know that man. I have
no idea who he is. I'm not one of his. Then went
out and wept bitterly, repented of his denial. And on a few days
later, He stood up on the day of Pentecost and preached one
of the greatest confessions of Jesus Christ. You'll find it
in all the scriptures. Read it in Acts chapter 2. Who
is this one confessing Christ on the day of Pentecost? It's
a man who denied Him just a few days ago. But look what has happened. He's repented of his sins and
Jesus has forgiven him. He's confessing Christ. and now
crosses in heaven confessing Him. That's Peter down there. He's mine. He's preaching the gospel, confessing
me. He's mine! Therefore, God forbid, but you
may deny Him. But I'll tell you this, if you
repent, He'll forgive you and then confess
you. Polycarp. He was born probably about the
middle of the latter part of the first century. He was an
associate of John the Apostle. Polycarp probably pastored a
church in Smyrna. faithfully followed the Lord
for many years. And then the Romans came. They're
going to kill him because he's a preacher. He confesses Christ. At first he hid and then was
ashamed of doing so. Let himself be taken by the authorities. They hauled him into the arena.
And there before the thrones of people, the old man is brought,
put on public display. And the Roman proconsul, the
governor of the place, told him, we can't deny Jesus Christ. or be burned to death. Polycarp is an old man. Here's
what he said. Eighty and six years I have served
him and he has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King
and Savior? Eighty-six years and you want
me to deny him? I can't do it. I'm incapable
of doing it. How can I do that? They told him to bind him to
the stake. He said, you don't need to. I'll
take hold of the stake myself. They set the stake on fire to
burn him. Believing that the flames were
not doing a good enough job, they had him stabbed and pierced
until he died. And he confessed to Christ until
his dying breath. I have no doubt that Jesus did
for Polycarp what he did for Stephen. When he says, I see
Jesus standing at the right hand of God, come home. Come home. Polycarp confessed Jesus Christ
until the day he died, made his greatest confession in his death,
and now Jesus confesses him in heaven and will do so forever. Now do you see how important
this matter is? If you deny Jesus like Judas
did, he'll deny you. He will deny you entrance into
heaven and then say, I never knew you. I never knew you. He'll say to his father and to
the holy angels, not one of mine. not one of mine. You may deny Christ, but if you
confess and repent of doing so, Jesus will say, you're mine. Father, he's one of mine. Holy
angels, he's mine. And like polycarp, until the
day you die, confessing and know that He will confess you. O God, our Father, be pleased,
we pray, to bless this Word. Give us believing hearts and
confessing mouths. May we confess You till the day
we die and then be confessed in Heaven forever. To Your glory
in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.