And I was away last week, so
we'll take up our lesson again. And the lesson this morning is
about those who would come not only to Christ, many people came
to Christ, but he's talking about coming after him. That involves
more than just a You know, folks like to go back and talk about
their experience and talk about when they were saved and all
this kind of stuff. To me, that's like talking about
when I was born. I really didn't know anything
about it. They let me in on it when I was about six or seven
years old. But this is, people like to talk about that as though
it was a one-time thing. And faith is not a one-time thing,
it's a continual thing. And that's when he uses these
terms, if any man would come after me, that's what he's talking
about. He's not talking about a single coming as when you come
to him, but you're going to keep coming. And when he leaves, you're
going to go with him. If he goes here, that's where
I'm going. If he goes over here, that's where I'm going. And that's
what these multitudes were doing. So let's read these several verses
together. Luke chapter 9, beginning with
verse 18. And it came to pass as he was
alone praying. Now, we've already covered the
part where he fed the 5,000 men plus the women and children.
And there was a great multitude there. And then he went away
from the multitude. His disciples came with him,
as we'll see here in just a second. But he'd left that multitude
and he was alone. He didn't mean that he was all
by himself. because his disciples. And it
came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with
him. And he asked them, saying, whom
say the people that I am? He's not talking about everybody
in the world, but he's talking about this multitude. They were
out there feeding the multitude. They were out there dispersing
the food, taking up the scraps, waiting on the people, if you
will, ministering to the people. And he hears them talking, and
the Lord knew that they'd heard. And he said, whom do the people
say that I am? They answering said, John the
Baptist. But some say, Elias, that is,
Elijah. And others say that one of the
old prophets is risen again. And he said unto them, but whom
say ye that I am? Peter answering said, the Christ
of God. And he straightly charged them
and commanded them to tell no man that thing. Saying the son
of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders
and chief priests and scribes and be slain and be raised the
third day. And he said to them all, If any
man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his
cross daily and follow me. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake,
the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged
if he gained the whole world and lose himself or be cast away. For whosoever shall be ashamed
of me and of my words, that is his doctrine, of him shall the
son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory and
in his father's glory and in that of the holy angels. So let's
look at these several verses and see what the Lord has for
us to learn. In verses 18 through 20, he deals
with the personal knowledge of the apostles versus the thoughts
of the crowd. The knowledge that believers
have is totally contrary to what the knowledge that this world
has. It's totally contrary. We don't, once you come to see
Some things about the truth, you find out that there's as much difference as
black and white. There's no, what we thought at
one time was just a misstatement or a, you know, we're swatting
at Nats and swallowing Campbells, all that kind of stuff, but what,
it's night and day. There's all the difference in
the world and how we perceive God and how they perceive God.
All the difference in the world. And people get so aggravated
because they're trying to find this common ground, this ground
that they can sit and talk to you about. But there is no common
ground. There is no common ground. Peter said, Thou art the Christ
of God. What's he saying? Well, we don't
know anything about Christ except what God has promised in the
Old Testament. Before there was a New Testament,
God would have these apostles, these men that he appointed to
that office and gave special gifts to, he's gonna have them
establish who the Christ is, and that Jesus was the Christ.
And this is what they do, and how'd they do it? Through the
Old Testament scriptures. They didn't have a New Testament.
They were writing the New Testament. And who Christ is is the very
foundation of the gospel of Christ. And Matthew, in Matthew's account,
is the same thing. He says, thou art to Christ the
son of the living God. This is God come into the flesh. And who he is is the very foundation
of the gospel of Christ. Somebody asked me one time, how
much knowledge does a man have to have to be saved? How much knowledge? What does
he have to know to be saved? Can you give me a .1, .2, .3?
No, no. I'll tell you how much knowledge
you have to have, enough to rest your soul on Christ. How much
is that? I don't know. It may be different
for you than it is for me. Enough to rest my soul on Him. And this was an accurate and
a beautiful confession of Christ that Peter gave. The Lord tells
him in Matthew, blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jonah. Flesh and blood
didn't reveal this. You didn't sit in your closet
one night and figure this out. Flesh and blood didn't reveal
this to you. Your best friend didn't whisper
in your ear and tell you this. He said, but my father which
is in heaven, he granted you to know these things. And then he both charged them
and commanded them not to say anything about this. Now that
threw me in a tizzy. I had to really stop and think
about this. This is very heart and soul.
This is what I'm trying to do every Sunday when I get up here.
I'm trying to tell you that Jesus is the Christ. I'm trying to
tell you this is the Son of God. This is God come into the flesh.
Salvation's in Him. Redemption's in Him. Righteousness
is in him. I'm trying to point men to Christ. And this was his confession,
thou art the Christ of God. He said, shh, don't tell anybody.
What? What do you mean don't tell anybody?
Don't say one word about this thing. Don't say anything. If knowledge of Christ is the
is one of the primary things concerning faith. How come they
were charged not to say anything? And I read many reasons given
by the old writers, and they're all pretty good, but if you start
to think them out and apply them, they kind of fizzle away. He
didn't want any harm to come to his disciples. Well, I know
that he didn't want any harm to come to his disciples, but
that ain't why he told them not not to say these things, because
he'd already told them that they were going to suffer for their
knowledge of this, and many other reasons. But to me, the next
verse, see, that's not the complete sentence. It just pauses there
for a minute. And then the next verse is the
most compelling reason that I could find. He straightly charged them
and commanded them to tell no man this thing, saying, the Son
of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders
and the chief priests and scribes and be slain and be raised the
third day. There's a time to speak. He sent them out to preach, and
they went out and preached. And I guarantee you, the power
of God went with them. They come back saying even the
devils are subject to us. And so we know that the power
of God went with them when they went. But there's a time to speak
and a time to be silent. There's a time to say nothing.
Our Lord had preached, and the Pharisees and the scribes had
rejected it. Turned her back on it. Mocked
him for what he said. And the disciples said, you've
offended them. You've made them mad. You know
what our Lord said? He didn't say, now you go over
and put your arm around them. No. What'd he say? Leave them
alone. Don't talk to them. Don't reason
with them. Leave them alone. They'd be blind
leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind,
they'll both fall into the ditch. Leave them alone. And there's
a time to speak to people, and there's a time to leave them
alone. What is that time? God's providence will declare
it. He'll declare. God in his providence uses ungodly
men to fulfill his purpose of grace. What am I talking about? Well, Pharaoh. A perfect example. He wasn't
a believer. Pharaoh hated God. He hated Moses
because Moses talked about God. All of Israel, which were known
as the elect of God, Pharaoh turned thumbs down on them. Made
them go collect their own straw and make his bricks. What did
he do with Pharaoh? Pharaoh said, I'm going to kill
all the children under this age. That way, I know the deliverer
is going to be gone. I'm going to kill every one of
them. No, you're going to raise the deliverer. God, in his providence, put Moses
in a basket, shoved him down the river. And the current of
that river took him right around where Pharaoh's daughter was
taking a bath. And she picked that little baby
up and fell in love with him. God uses ungodly people, those
cursed of God. He'll use them to accomplish
his purpose of grace. And we need to get used to that.
I've said this over and over. Our men in free will religion,
their doctrines and their ways, they stick to us like flies on
flypaper. We can't, you know, maybe some
of you ain't old enough to know what flypaper is. It's a very
sticky tape. We used to hang it up when flies
would lie on it. That's it. They couldn't get
loose. But taking it down, you couldn't get rid of it. And that's
the way all this ungodly luggage that we've carried over from
religion, we can't get rid of it. Here's a man up in his 90s,
and he'll tell you the same thing. You catch yourself thinking just
like you used to think. We don't really believe that
way anymore. Why can't we just get rid of
it? Well, that's what the Lord's teaching us. That's what He's
telling us. He's telling us the difference. He said to leave them alone.
And God in His providence uses ungodly men to fulfill His purpose
of grace. Over in Acts chapter 4 verse
27, let me read this to you. He said, for of a truth against
thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and
Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, everybody
that was involved in the cross, everybody, all of them, he named
them all. He said they were gathered together, verse 28, for to do Whatsoever God's hand and God's
counsel determined before to be done. God's using these ungodly
men to accomplish his redemption. I tell you, I'm amazed. The more
I know about God's providence and his purpose of grace and
how he works, the more amazed I am. I get lost in the wonder
of it. It's not given to those ungodly
men to know that Jesus is the Christ. I don't know if you've
ever read Matthew 13, but when asked why he spoke to the scribes
and Pharisees in parables, this is what our Lord said to his
disciples. He said, "'Cause it's given unto
you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God." Now listen,
but unto them, it's not given. It's not given. Never forget that the grace of
God is sovereign grace. It's the grace of a sovereign.
He gives it to whomsoever He will. It's given to whom He will, and
it's withheld from whom He will. Gospel truth is not yours by
right, it's yours by grace. We need to think of that continuously. It's ours by grace. By grace
are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. It tells us in Romans 11 that
Israel, as a nation, or as a religious sect, however you want to look
at it, never obtained that which they sought for. But the election
obtained it. And what'd he say after that?
The rest were blinded. They were blinded. And as God
had an ongoing work in that day and arranged his providence to
carry it out, even so there are times that our speaking would
interfere as well with his purpose of grace today. Brother Don once said, ever be
ready to speak for Christ, regardless of the cost, regardless of the
consequence, but seek to be led of God. If God will have us speak for
him, he'll open the door. I didn't call you to ask for
an invitation to California, you called me. When I start calling folks, if
I were to do that, I'd wonder the rest of my life, was that
me or was that God? I like for God to open that door,
and then I know. Man, I can start right that second,
and I can start thinking, now, what am I going to say to them? Paul said in Colossians 4.3,
he said, pray for us. that God would open to us a door
of utterance to speak the mysteries of Christ.
And our God is a God of purpose, and according to this purpose,
he sends his preachers. He said, how shall they preach
if they be not sent? False religion has left us with
a false notion that he wants every living soul to hear his
gospel. That's just not so. Not so. What God wills, you remember
this. If you don't remember anything
else I said this morning, you remember this. What God wills,
God does. He does all his will at all times
and in all places and unto all people. And if this were the will of
God, every living soul would hear. I don't have a doubt in
my mind. And I'm not anti-evangelical,
nor am I trying to throw water on any man's zeal to preach the
gospel. But preaching is the means to
call out God's elect, and none but he knows who they are. He knows. And God hath from the
beginning, he said, chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you
by our gospel. Of his own will, James said,
begat he us with the word of truth. Whose will? God's will. And how thankful we are that he directed us and directed
that preacher who came to us and crossed our paths that we
might know him. All right, look at verse 23 now,
back to our text in Luke chapter nine. And he said unto them all,
that is, he had rejoined himself again to the multitude, or called
him to where he was, I don't know which, but now he's addressing
everybody there. And he said, if any man will
come after me. As I said in the beginning, salvation
is coming to Christ. All that the Father has given
me shall come to me, Christ said. And he that cometh to me, I will
in no wise cast out. That's what salvation is, coming
to Christ. Coming to Christ, it's all in
him. all in him, there's nowhere else to go. And those who come
to Christ are sheep. They're sheep. That's who comes
to him. They said, if thou be the Christ,
tell us plainly. He said, I told you. As plain
as words can be, as plain as parable, illustrations, whatever
you want to call them can be, I told you, I'm the shepherd.
The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. I told you
who I am. But you believe not, because
you're not of my sheep. As I sit unto you, my sheep hear
my voice. And I know them. He knows who
his sheep are. They don't even know who they
are, unless he lets them in on it. Huh? That's right. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them. Now listen, and they follow me. They follow me. True believers
come after Christ. They follow him. And he said,
if any man will come after me, let him deny himself. So what that means is, I need
to go out here somewhere in the mountains and find a cave and
get up in the cave and just eat wild rabbits. No, that's not
what he's talking about. So what is he talking about?
Well, he's talking about self-denial. What do you mean? Well, let me
give you several things. First of all, we're to deny our
sinful self. When a man learns the truth,
learns who Christ is, learns who he is, And he sees himself in all those
negative comments that God makes about the sinner. Actually, what
happens when God begins to convict the sinner, he gets on God's
side concerning his sin and his judgment. David said, I've said
these things that you might be just. I'm against myself. Everything you said about me
is true. I'm on your side in this thing. You ought to send
me to hell. We deny our sinful self, our
fallen nature with its lusts and its appetites. Fallen man has an insatiable
appetite. You can't satisfy that appetite. Some of you older folks know
what I'm talking about. Some of you younger folks still
have that yet to learn. You can't satisfy the want of
the flesh. I don't care what you give him. If you had the world, he'd want
another one. He'd want another one. You can't
satisfy the flesh if you just, oh, if I just had that job, or
if I could get that job, I'd be satisfied. No, you wouldn't.
No, you wouldn't. I could just reach that point
in my bank account. I'll tell you what you're going
to do when you hit that point. You're going to say, well, I know what
I need to do. I need to tear down my barns and build bigger
barns. That's what you're going to do. It's an insatiable appetite. You cannot satisfy it. I just
had that job, that bank account, that house, that office, and
on and on and on it goes. It's never ending. My neighbor
back in Kentucky was a surveyor, and I used to help him part-time
with his surveying. And we were up surveying this,
I don't know, almost 400 acres that he bought. And he just bought
50-some acres on the other side of his property. And I said,
you fixing to go into cattle ranching or something? I said,
what's going on? Oh, he said, now, don't get the idea I'm greedy.
He said, I just want the property next to mine. That self. Self. Deny yourself, your sinful self. And to deny one's self, he must
deny sinful self. Paul said we're to put off concerning
that former behavior, that conversation, that old man which is corrupt
according to deceitful lust. Deny sinful self. You don't have
to do everything you want to do. Well, I just want to eat. I just
want to do this. I just want to do that. It's
okay to deny yourself. The fact is, it's the commandment
of God. And then secondly, deny righteous
self. Uh-oh. That's a little harder, isn't
it? Paul warns us about false religion,
anti-Christ religion. And he uses it to define this
world's religion. And he tells us their working
is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and
lying wonders. Now listen, this is 2 Thessalonians
2 verse 10. And with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness because they receive not the love of the truth
that they might be saved. Deceivableness of unrighteousness
is making folks to believe that their unrighteousness is righteous. Is that right? They think that their giving
attains a degree of righteousness. And that their church attendance,
that's another degree of righteousness. And they read the Bible three
times a day. Another degree of righteousness.
False religion convinces you that that is righteousness. It's
not. It's not. God looked over all the earth.
Looked down from heaven. God who sees everything. There's
nothing he misses. He looked down from heaven and
here's what he said. He looked down to see if there
was any righteous. And you know what he said? There's
none. There's none. None righteous. No, not one. So if I do this,
then I obtain a righteousness. No. No, you can't obtain a righteousness. You're a sinner. The good that
you would, you do not. Read Romans chapter 7. And once you realize that, you'll
cry out with Paul at the end of chapter seven and say, oh,
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death, this
old man, this flesh? It corrupts everything that I
do. How God gonna save me? He gonna have to give me a righteousness. Not my own, but it is my own
if he gives it to me. Huh? Oh. It says in the Corinthians, Satan
transforms his ministers into ministers of righteousness. And
that's no big thing, because Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light, a minister of light. People think Satan
appears in this world in the bars and in the brothels and
in this and in that, in the dope runners and all of this. No.
No, Satan's in the church. He's in the church. The saints
of God were gathered to worship. Satan came with them. He came
with them. And Paul gives this very thing
in Romans 10 to show us the lost estate of the Jews. He was praying
that they might be saved. Everybody in the world understood
that the Jews were God's children. This is his elect. What are you
praying for them to be saved for, Paul? He's saying they're
not saved. For they, now listen, they being
ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone. They believe him. That's his
only hope of righteousness, is Christ. And then thirdly, we
must deny sovereign self. I'm a self-made man. Oh, my soul. I told our congregation when
we were studying through Daniel, I could just almost picture Nebuchadnezzar
up on the hanging gardens of Babylon. Gave that as a gift. It was one of the seven wonders
of the ancient world. And I picture him up there with
these big old suspenders on. He's got his thumbs in behind
that. And he's saying, it's not this great Babylon that I built
with the glory of my name, the glory of my majesty. It's not
this. What are you doing now? He's crawling around on all fours
out there eating weeds with the oxen. Oh my soul, deny sovereign self. We're rulers of nothing. And
the man who takes charge of himself, he'll govern himself right into
hell. We're to submit ourselves, who
to? One to another. Don't get so far up on that ladder
you can't submit yourself to one another. Fact is, it better
stay down here than it is to go up there. Just stay down here. Submit yourselves one to another.
You know why he said that? He said, because in so doing,
you're gonna submit yourself under the mighty hand of God. This is God's way. There's only
one ruler, God. God. He'll take care of it. He'll take care of it. Whatever
the situation is, He'll take care of it. Our Savior is Lord. He's not trying to get you to
vote Him into the office. He's Lord, and He's your Lord
whether you're saved or lost. He's your Lord. The scripture
said, whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we
die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or
die, we are the Lord's. We belong to Him. And unbelieving
men and women are being used of God to accomplish His sovereign
will, just as He used Cyrus, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Pharaoh,
and even Pilate. But oh, what hope it works in
us to know that He's on the throne. He's, the government's on his
shoulders. Oh, what if it was on Washington's
shoulders? Then I'd want to go find that
cave and move it. But it's not, it's on his shoulders. On his shoulders. And I'm gonna
hurry, I'm past my time. But fourthly, deny proud self. God hates a proud look. What
in the world would we have to be proud of? Huh? Having said the just and righteous
redemption of Christ is our propitiation, over there in Romans chapter
3, he now asks this question. Where is boasting? If salvation is of the Lord,
and the Lord has accomplished our salvation, and have saw to
it that that salvation came to us and was applied to us, where's
the boasting? What are you going to boast about?
What have you gotten that you haven't received? And if you
received it, why do you act like you didn't? It was the gift of
God. Scripture said it is a faith
that it might be by grace to the end that the promise might
be sure to all the seed. We got nothing to brag about.
Humble, thankful, obedient, these are all terms describing believers,
but never does he use the word proud. Proud. And then let me finish verse
23 and we'll take this up next week. It says, let him deny himself,
take up his cross daily, and follow me. When our Lord was
on the road to the cross, that company of Roman soldiers spied
a man over on the side. He was leaving the country. He
was journeying out of the country, and he came by during the crucifixion
of Christ. And they said, hey, his name
was Simon. He was a Cyrenian. I said, Simon, come over here. Carry this cross. And he followed
the Lord and carried the cross. You going to come after me? You're
going to come just like Simon, carrying the cross. You're going
to carry the cross. We'll take that up next week.
All right, thank you.