Good morning, everybody. If you'd
like to turn over to Matthew chapter 17. Last two and a half years have
been a blessing to me. I hope they've been a blessing
to you. I've always enjoyed meeting with you all. It's good to see
everybody here this morning. Matthew 17, and if you would,
pick up in verse 24. Matthew 17, verse 24, and when
they were come to Capernaum, that's Christ and his disciples,
they that received tribute money came to Peter and said, does
not your master pay tribute? They have a disrespectful tone
about them in that, don't they? Verse 25, he saith yes. And when
he was coming to the house, Jesus prevented him. The Lord spoke
before Peter could say anything. Saying, what thinkest thou, Simon?
Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Who do
they tax? Of their own children or strangers? Peter saith unto him, of strangers.
Jesus saith unto him, then are the children free. Notwithstanding,
lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea and cast a 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. Now I want to give you
the point of these four verses. before we do anything else and
then we'll travel the path to get there afterwards. But here's
the point. For every believer, that's who
I'm speaking to right now, believers. For everybody, all your hope
of salvation is found in Christ and him crucified alone. That's
all you have. Your only hope is that Jesus
Christ bore your sins in his body and he put them away on
that cross. That's all you have before God. If that's your hope, you're a
believer. If you're a believer, if your hope is in Christ, this
is true of you. Christ has paid all of your debt. Everything the Father demands
of you this very day, right now, has been paid in full in Christ,
and you are free. Completely and utterly debt-free. That means you don't owe anybody
anything. The children are free. And the whole thing is summed
up in Romans 8, 1 and 2. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. How much condemnation is there?
None. How free are we? Free from the
law of sin and death. There is no sin. Therefore, there
will be no death. That's how free you are. Now,
how do we get there from here? You say that's an interesting
point. How do we get that from that? Well, let's travel the
path and see how we get there. The first thing I want to talk
about is this tribute, this tribute. So these men, they come to Simon
Peter. These men come, and they say,
doth your master, speaking of Christ, doth your master pay
tribute? Is he going to pay our tax? Now,
this was not a Roman tax. These were not Roman tax collectors.
In fact, none of this had to do with Rome at all. These were
Jews. These were men from the temple. They were representatives
from the temple. And what they wanted was a temple tax, a poll
tax. This was a man-made institution.
The Lord did not order this. But that's what they were coming
for. They wanted their money for the temple. And from what
I read about these gentlemen, here's what they would do. Here's
how they were employed. They were employed to guilt and intimidate
and bully people into paying this tax. And it was under the
guise that we're going to use this money to repair the temple
and for the things of the temple, and that's why you should pay
us this tax. And they'd go along, they'd guilt people, intimidate
them, and things like that. And I'm sure some of that money
probably did get used for the maintenance of the temple. But
I'm doubly sure that the majority of that money went to the lining
of the pockets of the men who were in charge of that temple,
because that's the way of men in this temple at this time was
in complete and utter disarray. What they were doing in the temple
at that time is a picture of false religion in our day. They
were making worship more convenient. They told men, you come down
here to worship God. You don't have to bring your
sacrifices with you. You don't have to bring the doves. You
don't have to bring the lambs. We got these tables set up in the
temple and you can buy them right here from us, right? With a markup,
make sure they're making some money off the deal. But come
on in, we're gonna make worship more convenient, make it more
palatable to men, make it more appealing to men. That's false
religion. Watering down the gospel, watering down the truth of who
Christ is and what he's done to make it palatable to men.
And if you think about it, and you remember, you go just four
chapters up, and what does the Lord do in that temple? He made
a whip. Catanin tales, and he went in
that temple, and he threw over the tables of the money changers,
and he drove them all out. He says, my house is a house
of prayer. You've turned into a den of thieves. These men were
coming from a bad place, and they had bad motives, bad intentions. Now, question here, and I found
this interesting. Why did these men go to Christ?
Their question is, Peter, doth your master pay tribute? The
question was not, Peter, do you intend to pay this tax? The question
was, Peter, your master, does he pay tribute? Is he going to
pay us this money? We think he owes us. Why don't they go to
Christ and just ask him directly? Because they were asking about
him. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with what happened in Matthew
chapter 12. I look back. I wanted to see the first time
the world ever called the Pharisees a generation of Ivers. Well,
that's where it was. And I have no doubt that these men either
heard about that or they were standing there in the midst when
they saw it. And they thought, you know what? Our job is to
guilt and bully and intimidate, and that one's not going to be
guilted or bullied or intimidated. We'll go after the fisherman.
He's a softer target. What I thought about that when
I was thinking about it was this. It's a very beautiful thought.
The only people who ever felt intimidated or uncomfortable
in our Lord's presence were self-righteous men who thought they were better
than everybody else. They were the only people who felt intimidated
around him, didn't want to be around him. But if you were a
sinner, if you were a nobody, you felt just perfectly comfortable
sitting down next to him and sharing a meal with him and being
around him because he is the friend of sinners. This man eats
with sinners and how thankful we are for that. Where did they
get this idea though? This is a man-made institution,
this temple tax, this poll tax, where'd they get this from? They
had molested something that the Lord had instituted a long, long
time ago. Back in the days of Moses in Exodus chapter 30, it
was the ransom money. It was the atonement money. I
looked up that word tribute as it's used in our text here. What
it means is it's a value, it's a half shekel. Half shekel was
the exact value of the atonement money back in Exodus chapter
30. They had molested this concept.
They molested this idea. So we're going to make some money
off this. We're going to get something out of this. But the
Lord had instituted something very similar to this way, way
back. And it's a beautiful picture.
Now turn over to Exodus chapter 30. Exodus chapter 30 and pick up
in verse 11. We'll read a few verses here. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
Exodus 30, 11, saying, When thou takest the
sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall
they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord. When
thou numbers them, that there be no plague among them when
thou numbers them. This they shall give everyone
that passeth among them that are numbered half a shekel after
the shekel of the sanctuary. Shekel is 20 giras, an exact
weight, and half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord.
Everyone that passes among them that are numbered from 20 years
old and above shall give an offering unto the Lord. The rich shall
not give more and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel
when they give an offering unto the Lord to make an atonement
for your souls. And thou shall take the atonement
money of the children of Israel and shall appoint it for the
service of the tabernacle of the congregation that it may
be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the Lord to
make an atonement for your souls. So here's the sum and substance
of everything we just read. Back in these days, Israel, anytime
a census was taken, anytime they numbered the people, they had
to take up the atonement money. When they numbered the people,
every male, 20 years old and over, they would come, and they'd
write their name down in a book. And when they'd write their name
down in the book, every male, 20 years and older, had to have
the atonement money, had to have that half shekel. They'd write
his name down in the book, and he would be numbered among the
people. And this was very serious business.
David, in 2 Samuel 24, he did a census. He numbered the people,
and he didn't collect the atonement money. You know what happened?
Lord Santa Pest wants it killed 70,000 people. This is very,
very serious business, but the scripture tells us why they did
this. The purpose of this, it tells us it was one for the maintenance
of the tabernacle for the service of the tabernacle, the worship
of God and the things of God. But it was more this. This is
the greater issue. It was for a memorial that they would remember
something. Remember what they would walk
up to that person taking that census. And they'd pass underneath
that bar, and they would write their name in that book, and
they'd take that half shekel, that atonement money, and that
was memorial. The only name, reason my name
is written in that book, that Lamb's Book of Life, that book
where there is no stain on my name, where I have a clear ledger,
is because Christ has made my complete atonement. It was a
memorial just for that. Why is my name in the book? Why
am I a child of the kingdom? Why do I stand before God without
blame, without guilt? My ledger is clean in this book.
Why? Because Christ paid my full atonement
and I don't owe anything. That was the point of the entire
thing. Now I'm gonna give you a few
things to chew on here. Number one, everybody had to
pay. Every male, 20 years old and
over, they had to pay. They had to come up with this
half shekel. A patriarch could not pay for
his sons. A rich man could not come along and pay for a whole
swath of people. You personally, when you stepped
up and you had your name in that book, had to hand over that half
a shekel. What's that talking about? It's
talking about how personal this thing of the atonement of Christ
is for individual people. That's called particular Redemption. Did our Lord die for all men?
Absolutely not. Who did he die for? He died for
the elect. That is the teaching of this
book. He died for the people that his father gave him in divine
election before the world ever began, and he made complete and
total and full atonement for those elect people. Why do we
make such a big deal about that? Why do we scream that from the
rooftops? I'll tell you why. Because if universal redemption
is true, that God can love a man, and Christ can go to the cross,
and he can die for that man's sins, and he can will that man's
salvation, and that man end up in hell anyways, that means he's
a failure. That means he is thwarted in
his purpose, in his execution, and is maligning his character
because he is no failure. It also means the Godfather is
unjust. That means he can punish my sin
in Christ, and then he can turn around and punish me for it too.
That means he's an unjust God. It completely and utterly maligns
the character of God, that just God who will not punish sin twice.
That means if I've been punished in Christ, I can't be punished
in myself. The justice of God won't allow
it. We have a Savior who accomplished our salvation. He didn't try.
He purposed, He executed, and He did exactly what He said He
was going to do. That's why we make such a big
deal of this thing of particular redemption for this reason too.
That's our only hope. If you tell me that Christ can
die for me, and God can will my salvation, and I can end up
in hell anyways, well, I'll tell you what, that robs me of all
my hope. What is the believer's hope?
That I have that atonement. that he may complete atonement
for me and I stand before God without guilt. That is my salvation. Not only did everybody have to
pay, but everybody had to pay the exact same thing. The rich shall not pay more and
the poor shall not pay less. Everybody had to pay the exact
same thing. Why? What is the value of the
natural man? nothing by nature. This is our value. Absolutely
nothing. We have no value before God. Every man born in this world
completely and utterly depraved, completely and utterly wicked
heart. Who can know it? That's our value
before God, naturally born in this world. Therefore, this because
we have no value, Christ had to provide all the value. The
thing that it took to save Moses, took to save Abraham, is the
exact same thing it takes to save every member of the elect.
The exact same value for all of them. Christ had to do it
all. He had to pay with his blood. He had to keep the law perfectly
for everyone he saved. The value was the exact same.
He had to give himself and he had to give all of himself. This true, this also. I noticed
it was a particular shekel you had to bring. He said, you bring
a half a shekel. But it was a particular one.
He says, you bring the shekel of the sanctuary. Now, what's
this all about? There was a standard that was
kept in the temple, or in the tabernacle. It was the standard
shekel. It was minted in that sanctuary. And when you came up, it couldn't
just be any shekel. It had to be the shekel of the
sanctuary. That standard shekel, your shekel
had to match up with that just perfectly. What does that tell
us? Tells us the only thing God will accept is God. The only
thing God will accept is His offering for sin. His manner
of salvation. He's not going to accept anything
from you and me. This is Isaiah 64, 6. It says,
but we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities,
like the wind, have taken us away. He's not going to accept
anything from you and me. The only thing God will accept
is God. The only thing that will save
a man's soul is what God provided. He provided his only begotten
son. It is the only ransom. It is the only atonement. And
this is the only way you and I will be received. The rich
shall not pay more, and the poor shall not pay less. If you come
with anything more than Christ and Him crucified alone, you
will not be received. Well, I have Christ and. I have
Christ and, and I've got some good works here. I've got Christ
and I made some good decisions along the way. I have Christ
in my Bible reading. I've got Christ and. The rich
shall not pay more. You won't be received. If you
have more, Christ and ain't gonna do it. if you have less than
Christ. I think it's interesting. The
question that these men asked Peter, they said, doth your master
pay tribute? I think it's an interesting question.
Peter, he was flustered, probably caught off guard, a little intimidated.
He just immediately answered yes. Yes. He probably thought,
yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course he does. Yes. Never
was a better answer ever made. Doth not your master pay tribute?
Yeah. He does. My master pays all the
tribute. He pays all the cost, and he
leaves absolutely nothing left undone. Good question for a man
to ask himself. Doth your master pay tribute?
Man says, well, my master, he paid part of the tribute. I mean,
he started the work for me, but I got to finish it. You know,
I got to keep up with this. I got to do some good works,
and I got to do this. He paid part of the tribute. You got
a bad master. You got a master God won't accept. Doth your master
pay tribute? Yes, he paid it all. If you have anything more than
Christ, you won't get in. If you have anything less than
Christ, you won't get in. The only thing he'll accept is
that half shekel, Christ and his atonement alone. That's it. Now, how do I know if I have
this shekel? That's a good question. And we
said, this is particular, particular redemption. Christ didn't die
for old men. He died for his people. He died for the elect.
And this is a done deal. It's already all said and done.
And he gives it to us by grace. You know what that means? That
means I can't earn it, and I can't do anything to merit it. And
he's a sovereign God, which means he can give it, and he can withhold
it, and no man can twist his arm or bully a human trying to
do it for him. We're completely and utterly
in his hands. So the question is this. Right now, do I have
Christ, or do I not? Do I have the shekel when I walk
up to the book, or do I not? It's the only question that needs
to be asked. Here's the answer. Do you need it? If you need it, you have it. If you need him to be your savior,
if you're a sinner and your only hope is that he bore your sins
in his body and he put them away and he made full atonement for
you, leaving absolutely nothing undone, nothing left for you
to do. If that is your only hope before God, you have the shekel. You know what that means? It means your name is written
in that book, and it's a clean name. There's no strikes against
you. In the eyes of God himself, the one who sees things as they
really are, you couldn't get any more accepted, you couldn't
get any more beautiful to him, because you have that shekel. Now, question. What did they
do with that atonement money? They collected all this silver,
all these shekels back in Exodus 30. What'd they end up doing
with it? Well, you can read about it on your own in Exodus 38,
but I'll just tell you about it this morning. This is what
they did. They melted all that silver down
and they used it to make the sockets and the hooks of the
tabernacle. Say, what's the significance
of that? Tabernacle was a portable temple, right? Children of Israel
were always on the move. Huge structure, enormous. The
Lord put them in one place, they built a tabernacle up. He'd say,
you're going to move over here. They'd tear the tabernacle down,
pack it up, they'd move it on to the next place. And they didn't
dig a foundation every single time they moved that tabernacle.
The sockets made out of the atonement money were the foundation. They
sat on the earth, the walls were put inside these sockets, and
it held the entire structure up. It was a portable foundation. The atonement money made the
portable foundation for the tabernacle. Every time they walk in that
tabernacle, that huge building that was so weighty, so much
weight involved in that, what was holding that structure up?
The entire thing. The atonement money. What holds
up salvation? What is the foundation that holds
the entire thing up? It's the atonement of our Lord
Jesus Christ. This is the point I'm trying
to make here. Now, salvation is a big word. It's a big word.
And it involves many things. It involves the eternal love
of God for people. For people. For individual persons. If you're one of his, he's loved
you with an everlasting love. And it's not a generic love.
It's particularly for you. And it's always been there. And
it will never go away. And out of that love, he chose
a people. He chose them unto salvation. They gave him to his
son. That's all involved in salvation. At God's appointed time, everybody
he chose, he sends that Holy Spirit in regeneration, giving
him a new heart and a new man that believes the gospel, that
has no confidence in the flesh, that repents, that actually loves
God, completely contrary to the old man. All those are part of
salvation. But what holds the structure
up? What is the foundation of everything? What does it all
flow from? It's the atonement. It is Christ and him crucified
alone. It is the blood of Christ. It
is everything in our salvation. And you look back through the
ages of the scripture, go to the first death, the first recorded
death. Adam and Eve sinned against God. They fell, took on a sinful,
wicked nature. And what'd they do as soon as
they fell? They saw their shame. They saw that they were naked.
They hid from God, and they made themselves fig leaf aprons, tried
to cover their shame before God. And I find this interesting.
They made themselves fig leaf aprons. They tried to cover their
shame before God. They still hid from Him. They
hid because they knew those fig leaf aprons could not hide their
shame from God. The Lord called them out. He
said, that covering's not going to do. Your works, what you do,
that covering you make, it's not going to work. It does not
hide your shame from God. He said, that's not going to
work, but I'll give you a type that's going to work. And he
took an animal, a lamb, no doubt, and they saw the first death.
They'd never seen death before. Can you imagine how Horrible
must have been for them to see that as he cut that animal's
throat. And they saw that blood spill out. They'd never seen
that before. And then he skinned that animal,
he made them coats of skins, and he covered them. Now, Adam,
I can talk to you. Because you have my covering,
the covering of my providing, now I can talk to you. Now you
can stand before me. And spiritually, it's so much
better. Christ, our sacrifice for all the elect, He doesn't
just cover our sins, he actually made propitiation, actually took
them away. We don't have a covering, we're
clean in Christ. Why? By the blood. The blood
is everything. Cain and Abel go a few chapters
up. Cain comes, he's a farmer, makes
an offering unto the Lord, he brings the best he can bring,
the fruit of the ground. Beautiful vegetables, fruits,
flowers, the best he can bring, he puts it on the altar and God
had not respect to Cain and his offering. Abel comes up. Abel
has one thing, just one thing. He has a slain lamb and he puts
it on that altar. He says, this is all I have before
you. My only hope, Messiah is going
to come. He's going to die in my stead. He's going to put away
my sins. He's going to make me perfect before you. That's the
only thing I had. God had respect for Abel and
his offering. Passover. Lord said, I'm coming
through Egypt. I'm going to kill all the firstborn
in all the houses. But you, my people, Israel, here's
what you're going to do. You take a lamb without blemish,
without spot. That's Christ. Spotless lamb.
You take him, cut his throat, catch that blood in the basin.
You take that hyssop. You put the blood over the top
of the door, on the sides of the doorpost. And you get inside
the house. And here's the promise, the decree.
When I see the blood. I will pass over you. What was the one thing? It's
always one thing, folks. One thing. What was the one thing
God was looking for? The blood. No question. What's the severity of the sins
of the people that are inside that house? Never once asked
that question. What is the strength of the faith of those people
inside that house? Never once asked that question.
He didn't ask any questions. He made a decree. When I see
the blood, I will pass over you. The only thing that mattered
was where you were physically at. You were either in the house,
in Christ, or you were not. Looking into one thing, the blood. And we have a very peculiar illustration
of Christ and his sacrifice in our text. Now turn back over
there to Matthew 17. Look at verse 27. Verse 27, our Lord says, notwithstanding,
lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea and cast a hook. Notice, it doesn't say bait the
hook. It says you cast a hook, a bare metal piercing 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 who? For me and for thee. This is one of the most peculiar
pictures of the cross I've ever seen, but that's exactly what
it is. That fish was down in the depths. Where did Christ
go? He went to the depths, the depths of the Father's wrath,
the depths of being made our sin. The atonement was where?
It was in the fish. It was in Christ. That hook,
it was a bare hook. Don't bait that hook. There was
no deceit involved in this. There was no enticement involved
in this. You know what that means? Christ was willing to sacrifice
for his people. There was no deceit. There was no enticement.
He went into this thing, his eyes wide open, and he bit the
hook. The hook didn't hook him. He
bit the hook. He did it willingly. He did it
voluntarily, out of love for his people. And the Father brought
him up. He said, you take the one, Peter,
that first cometh up. Now, it leads you to believe.
Other fish are going to come up too, Peter. You take the first
one that comes up. Christ is the firstborn from
the dead. You bring him up first. And what
do you find in him? He goes, you're going to find
enough money in him, Peter, to pay my debt and your debt. That first one that came up,
what did he do? He paid the debt for himself
and for everybody he died for. Bring him up. The atonement's
in him. All those other fish, they're
saved too. That's about the strangest illustration of the cross I've
come across in the scripture yet, but it's there, right there.
Now, what are the effects of our Lord's atonement for his
people? Look down at verse 25. These men had come to Peter and
said, doth your master pay tribute? He saith, yes. And he was coming
to 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 strangers. What he's asking Peter is this.
He said, Peter, kings, magistrates, people who have the authority
to tax, to take up taxes and things like that. He goes, do
they tax the common people or do they tax the children? And
logically, you can work through this the same way Peter did.
They don't tax their kids. Their kids inherit everything
they have. Everything that king has, he's going to give to his
son. He's not going to tax his son. He taxes the common people. Peter
came to that conclusion. Look at verse 26. Peter saith
unto him of strangers, of the common folk, Jesus saith unto
him, then are the children free. What are the effects of this
great atonement, this great shed blood that actually appeased
God? The children are free. Christ died for you, you're free.
That means you don't owe anybody anything. I was looking at some
scriptures this thing of freedom. I'm gonna read some of these
to you. This is Galatians 5. Paul says this, he says, stand
fast, therefore, in the liberty, the freedom, wherewith Christ
hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke
of bondage. He tells him this, he says, you're
free, you're free from the law. The law has absolutely nothing
to say to you but justified. Christ kept the law, and when
he kept the law, you kept it in him. The law has nothing to
say to you but completely and utterly justified. The punishment
that the law demanded under God's perfect justice, it's been taken
care of. Christ was punished under God's
justice under the law. Taken care of. The law has absolutely
nothing to say to anybody who is in Christ. The law has been
put away. It has been satisfied. Don't
go back to it. You've been freed from that law.
You've been freed from that bondage. Don't go back to it. And if you
look for the children of Israel, the whole time they're traveling
through the wilderness, every time things got rough, you know
what they did? They started talking about Egypt all over again. Telling
good stories about Egypt. Well, at least we had the flesh
pots back then. Egypt? Where the taskmasters beat you?
Egypt, where you made bricks without straw all day long? You
had a master who didn't care for you? Didn't care if you died?
Egypt, you want to go back there? Yeah, that's the natural inclination
of that old man. Always wanted to go back to Egypt.
Always wanted to go back to that law. Don't be tangled in that
yoke of bondage again. That law has been put away. It's
been satisfied. Leave it alone! Leave it alone! Stand fast in
that liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free. I've already
read you this, but I'm going to read it again. It's Romans
8, 1 and 2. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus
hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For everybody
who is in Christ, there is no condemnation because of that
shekel, because Christ paid the debt. And what he does is this
in his appointed time, he sends that spirit of life to every
one of his people. And this is what that spirit
confesses in a man. I live. I live. I have that spirit
of life. I live for one reason. I live
because he lives. That's it. Because God raised
him from the dead because he did exactly what he said he would
do. I live simply because he lives. That's my only hope right
there. And you know what? Everybody
who confesses that you are free from the law of sin and death. Is there any sin? There is therefore
now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. If there's
no condemnation, there must be no sin, because there's only
condemnation where there is sin. And if there is no sin, you know
what that means? That means there is no death. Now there's a physical
death we're all going to experience sooner or later, but that second
death, that wrath of God, we will never know anything about
that. We talk about it, we talk about
it as fools because none of us have any idea what that was like.
Christ knows. Because he suffered it. But we'll
never know anything of that. We're free from that law of sin
and death. I recognize this thing of being
free from sin is completely contrary to our experience. Because we're
sinners. We live as a sinner every single day. But this is
the truth. This is the truth. You're free from the law of sin
and death. Right now, Christ died for you, you have no sin.
Say, I just sinned while I was sitting here. You don't have
any sin. That's the truth concerning you.
This is one I had never considered before. Paul said this, he says
in 1 Corinthians 9, 19, he said, for though I be free from all
men. I've never considered that before.
Paul said, I'm free from all men. What does that mean? It
means nobody has the right to judge you. Nobody has the right
to put you under the law. Men's opinions of you doesn't
really matter. I'm free from all men. There's
only one person who it matters how he thinks about me. That's
my master. That's it. As long as he's good, I'm good.
And the opinions of other men, it doesn't really matter. Paul
said, though I be free from all men, but listen to what he did
with that freedom. Yet if I made myself servant unto all, that
I might gain the more. He would go on in that chapter
to talk about becoming whoever he needed to be in the moment
to have an audience with man. If he's a Jew, all of a sudden
Paul's a Jew. If he's a Gentile, all of a sudden Paul's a Gentile.
Never once compromised the message of the gospel. He made himself
endearing to everybody he came across, became whoever he needed
to be for this opportunity for an audience, for an audience
that they might hear him as he would preach the gospel to them
because he loved those people and he wanted them to find the
same mercy he found. That was it. You want to know
how it is to love your neighbor. How do you love your neighbor
as yourself? That's how you do it right there. You preach the
gospel to him. You do everything necessary to get that message
out about who your savior is and what he's done for you. Now, how does a child of God
find out he's a child of God? I was thinking about this last
night. I have two kids, Macy and Tucker Greenleaf. They are
my children. And we had them. We did not consult
them. Nobody asked them if they wanted to be our kids. We had
kids. They are them. They are ours.
They don't have any say in this. Being a child of God is the exact
same way. Nobody consults you. Nobody asked
your opinion. You were either a child born of the king or you
are not. That's it. How does a child of
God know that he is a child of God? Because the children are
free. That illustration in verse 27,
it works that way too. Lord told Peter, go out there,
go fishing. Remember when the Lord first
found Peter and his brother? He said, you follow me, I'll
make you fishers of men. That's the preaching of the gospel.
He said, you go out, Peter, and you throw out a bear hook, a
bear hook. You don't bait that hook at all.
What's bait? It's a lie. It's deceit. We don't dress up the message
at all. We don't say anything that would be enticing to men.
We don't water anything down. We preach the bare, unadulterated
gospel of God's free grace. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came to this world
to save sinners, the chiefest of them. That's our message.
It's only for the chiefest of sinners. If you're not a sinner,
this is not for you. Your works don't count for a
thing. God's going to get all the glory in the salvation of
his people. He's sovereign in doing this. We preach that, that
bare hook, unadulterated. You know what? Every sinner,
by the grace of God, that's made a sinner, by the grace of God.
The world sees that hook and says, I never bite on that. I
want absolutely nothing to do with that. But the sinner, it's
the best news he's ever heard. And he jumps up and he bites
that hook. The Lord brings him up. But I find it very interesting.
Where's the atonement? It was in his mouth. It was in
him. That atonement money was in that
fish's mouth long before the hook was ever set. Now, what
do I mean by that? When you find out that you've
been saved, you find out you've been saved. But the Lord has
been with you the entire time. He is the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. We've always had the atonement
of Christ for us. Every member of the elect, he
has always been our lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
We don't find out about it until he calls us by his grace. But
it's always been that way. Now, final thing I want to talk about.
These men came to Peter and said, doth not your master pay tribute? And they have an accusatory tone.
And Peter answers, yes. Best answer anybody has ever
given. Yes, our master, he paid tribute in full. In fact, he
is the tribute. In fact, he is the temple. He's
everything. And when you see it in that light,
what audacity these men had to ask such a question. Doth not
your master pay tribute? My master doesn't owe you anything.
My master is the tribute. But look what the Lord tells
Peter to do. Look at verse 27 again. He says, notwithstanding, Although
I paid all, although I am the tribute, notwithstanding, lest
we should offend them, we're gonna pay them. Told Peter, lest
we should offend them, we're gonna pay them. Now, if you're
a believer, all your hope is in Christ, you're free. Christ
has paid all your debt, you owe no one anything. You've been
paid up in full. Salvation has been accomplished. It's all sealed up. It's all
been done. Now, how am I to conduct myself
while I'm here? What am I to do while I'm here? I'm to be
non-offensive. Now, there's a good offense.
That is the gospel offense. The gospel is always offensive
to the natural man. It offends men's sense of free
will, because it tells them he doesn't have any. He's shut up
to God in his will. He doesn't have any righteousness.
Man doesn't like hearing that. Righteousness of his own. Those
are all good offenses. The gospel is naturally offensive,
and we wouldn't take away from that at all. Preach that as loud
as we possibly can. But here's the offense we don't
want. I don't personally want to be offensive through my conduct.
Why? Why is that such a big deal?
This is what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6, 1-3. He says, We then, as
workers together with him, beseech you also that you receive not
the grace of God in vain, giving no offense in anything, that
the ministry be not blamed. Paul's saying this, I don't want
to be offensive. I don't want to be offensive
to my conduct. I don't want to be offensive to the people around
me for this reason, because if they're offended in me, they're
not going to blame me. They're going to blame my ambassador
and his gospel. And that name is too great. His
glory is too great. We don't want to bring any shame
upon him. And this is the hope, the hope. Peter said this, be ready always
to give an answer. to every man that asks you a
reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. This is the hope. In my non-offensive
conduct, maybe someday, never happened yet, somebody might
ask me about the hope that is inside of me, and I might have
an audience. I might have an opportunity to preach the grace
of God to that fellow sinner. That's where I'm going to leave
you all.