Matthew 16, beginning with verse
13. When Jesus came into the coast
of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying,
Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? What do men have to say about
me? And they said, some say thou
art John the Baptist, and some Elias, that is Elijah. I read that scripture to you
where Malachi prophesied of the coming of Elijah. And then in
Matthew 11, you can read the fulfillment of that prophecy.
He was talking about John the Baptist coming with the spirit
of Elijah. And he said, if you will, this
is Elijah who was for it to come. So some men said that this was
Elijah. And then some others said Jeremiah,
or one of the prophets. A great man, a godly man, a true
messenger of God. Verse 15, He saith unto them,
But whom say ye that I am? This is what men say. This is
what's being said around the countryside where I preach and
where I've done the miracles and things that I've done. Healed
their sick and so on. Whom say ye that I am? And Simon
Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ. the Son of the
Living God. And Jesus answered and said unto
him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood
hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that
thou art Peter. And upon this rock I will build
my church, And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It's a sad commentary on so-called
Christians today that they have so little understanding of the
Bible and Bible doctrine. It's hard to talk to folks. It's
hard to find a place to talk to them. They're so ignorant
of Bible doctrine, so ignorant of the Word of God, so ignorant
of the things prophesied in the Word of God, that you can't even
find a starting place to talk to them. It takes forever to
lay some kind of a foundation for some little comment that
you're going to make to them, because they're ignorant. They're
ignorant of the Word of God. What made Peter's confession
of Jesus being the Christ, what made that so profound? Our Lord
answered him as though this was a profound statement that he
made. Thou art the Christ. All these
hundreds of people who were brought up in religion, all these men
and women in this country, all of them saying that he's this
one and he's that one and he's something else, giving him different
names and different titles and different things. Peter said,
Thou art the Christ. And Christ turned to him and
acknowledged that this was a profound answer that he gave. What made
Peter's confession of Jesus being the Christ so profound? What is it that he said that
caused our Lord to say, Blessed art Thou? And give him a name after this
confession? Thou art the Christ." Who is
the Christ? What is the Christ? What is so
significant about Him and His coming? Throughout the Word of
God, there's promised and prophesied, figured and typified the coming
of a man. It begins back in Genesis. It
begins all the way back in Genesis, back in the garden, with this
prophecy in Genesis 3, verse 15. He said, And I will put enmity
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. And it shall bruise thy head,
and thou shalt bruise his heel. Talking to Satan. The first prophecy
of the coming Redeemer was given in the garden and then typified
right after that It was typified by the slaying of a lamb and
the covering of our first parents with its skins. And again, he
was typified in the ark of Noah, God preserving all that he purposed
to save by his grace within its confines. In a vessel made to
withstand the very wrath of God, and yet was able to preserve
life within. And then again, he's prophesied
to Abraham, telling him that through his seed, all the nations
of the earth shall be blessed. And then he tells us the fulfillment
of that in the book of Galatians. In Galatians 3, verse 16, he
tells us that he saith, He saith not unto him any seeds as of
many, but thy seed, which is Christ. That's how all the nations
of the earth will be blessed in Him. Isaiah said he'd be born
of a virgin. Who ever heard of such a thing? Been thousands, hundreds of thousands,
millions of births since the Garden. Millions upon millions
of births. Only been one virgin birth. He
shall be born of a virgin. A child shall be born and a son
given. His name shall be called Immanuel,
God with us. We're talking about the Messiah,
the Christ, this One that Peter stood before Him and looked upon
a man, a common, ordinary man. And He looked upon him and said,
Thou art the Christ. What was he saying? What made
that so significant? Well, this man was promised and
prophesied from the garden all the way through the Old Testament
Scriptures he was talked about. God and man in one person. He shall be a priest like Melchizedek,
a king priest without beginning of days or ending of time. The
70 weeks, so much talked about over in the book of Daniel by
profiteers in this day, was a messianic prophecy talking about the Messiah,
talking about His coming and the accomplishing of His work
of redemption. And having recognized Jesus to
be the Christ, the apostle Peter proclaimed boldly to Him, To
Him, you know, having made this statement, the Christ confirming
that statement, blessing Him, appearing to Him, being kind
to Him, showing His grace to Him, as a witness of Christ,
He proclaimed this. To Him, He said, give all the
prophets witness, that through His name, whosoever believeth
in Him shall receive remission of sins. That's over in Acts
chapter 10, verse 43. Jesus Christ the Lord is His
name, this is His office, and this is His position. When our
Lord said, upon this rock I will build my church, He wasn't talking
about Peter. The Catholics have twisted that
verse around and made it sound like upon Peter He's going to
build His church, because His name means rock. But his name
signifies piece of a rock. That's what the name Peter means.
Look it up. In the original it means piece of a rock. This rock
upon which he said, I'll build my church and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. It means massive rock. Not a
piece of a rock. A massive rock. A mountain of
rock. A huge rock. But what he is talking
about here is about Peter's confession that Jesus was the Christ. This
is the rock. Christ is the rock. This is what
I'm going to build my church on. This is a profound thing
for a man to say in his heart and understand what he's saying.
perceive what He is saying and to hear this gospel preached
and to perceive that this one man, Jesus of Nazareth, is that
Christ. He is the difference between
annihilation and salvation. There is no hope anywhere else
for mankind. God would have destroyed this
world like a moth flying into a bonfire back in the garden
had it not rested in the hands of Christ. That's what made that
beginning prophecy such profound and such great consequence. All through the Scripture, he
talks about Christ. He's not talking about reforming
men's characters and all this kind of stuff. Your character
will reform if you ever see the Christ. It'll turn. It'll change. It won't stay the
same. And if it does stay the same,
you haven't seen Him yet. When you see Him, and He convinces
you of sin, and then convinces you of righteousness and judgment,
your character is going to change. It's going to change. When He
said, upon this rock I'll build My church, He wasn't talking
about Peter. He was talking about Peter's confession. He was talking
about Christ. Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. Moses wrote all through the Old
Testament. See, this is what I'm talking
about. We're ignorant of... Men today are ignorant of the
Old Testament Scriptures. They don't know when he starts
talking about a rock. They just start fabricating things
in their head about a rock and this and that. It don't have
any bearing. But you go back and read in the
Old Testament. Moses wrote, he is the rock. Moses said that. He is the rock. His work is perfect for all His
ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity,
just and righteous is He. David sang in the power of the
Holy Ghost, the Lord is my rock. He is my rock and my fortress
and my deliverer. And again he sang, the Lord liveth
and blessed be my rock and exalted be the God of the rock. of my
salvation. It was the smitten rock that
provided water for Israel in their journey through the wilderness.
And Paul tells us over in 1 Corinthians 10 that that rock that followed
them was Christ. Here's the rock. This is the
rock, he said, upon which I'll build my church. This is the
stone, Peter said. which was said it not of you
builders, which is become the head of the corner. To be faithful to my calling,
to be faithful to minister to the souls of men, I must preach
this rock. He's not going to build his church
on anything else. He's not going to build his church
on men's ideas of reformation. He's not going to build his church
on men's decisions and man's free will and all this nonsense. Upon this rock will I build my
church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Our Lord said to His hearers
over in John chapter 8, many of them followed Him, being devout
Jews, and they followed Him, and they questioned Him, and
argued with Him, and did many things. And some of them, it
said, believed. And our Lord said to those Those
hearers over there in John chapter 8, He said, if you believe not
that I am He, He that was prophesied of from the beginning, He that
was set up from everlasting, if you believe not that I am
He, you will die in your sins. Now that's how important this
revelation is. And that's why I don't preach
other things. I'm going to camp out here, God willing, And God
being merciful to me, I'm going to camp out here at Calvary,
and that's where we're going to stay until we see Him. This
is where it's at. This is where life is. This is
where blessing is. This is where forgiveness is.
There's nothing else anywhere else. My friend, you and I live in
a day when Jesus Christ means little more than a curse word.
That's about the only time I hear it used. Oh, everybody goes to... they
get all sentimental around Christmas time and talk a little bit about
the Lord. And they do on Easter. But His name means very little
to men in general. Yet to those who truly believe,
His name means everything. It's everything. Brethren, the
church today, the so-called churches of Jesus Christ, are just a little
bit more than halfway houses. That's all they serve to do.
A little bit more than a place to learn how to live and raise
a family and preserve my marriage and be a good businessman. They
minister to men and women's physical needs. Housing and food and medical
help and orphanages for unwanted children and so on. The Church
of the Living God ministers to your soul. We're here to talk
about eternal things. Eternal things. Eternal issues. We're here to minister to their
spiritual welfare. And it goes without saying that
we're mindful of the sick, We're mindful of the hungry and the
homeless and no believing saint will ignore these things. He's
not going to do it. He can't see somebody next door
to him without food and not give it to them. Could you? I can't.
I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I couldn't
see a bunch of little kids out there with no clothes on and
me over there with suits hanging in the closet. I couldn't do
it. And that just goes without saying. I'm not saying that we're
ignorant of these things or that we overlook these things or have
no care about these things. Sure, we have care about those
things, but that's not what we're about. We're about trying to
minister to your soul. I'm trying to tell you there's
a judgment coming. A day's coming. I read it to
you out of Malachi. The day's coming. Nothing's going
to be left. It's going to be burnt to a cinder.
It's over. That day is coming. But he said, there's some of
you hoping in my name. Some of you do. And that's what
I'm trying to preach to you. I'm trying to show you that Jesus
Christ is the only hope there is. There's nothing else. There's nothing else. Our primary function is to preach
Christ. It's to set before men the revelation
of the Word of God and the Spirit of God, that Jesus of Nazareth
is Christ. And to do this, I've got to focus
on three things. I've got to focus, first of all,
on the man, Christ Jesus. The man, Christ Jesus. And then
secondly, on his office and appointments. And then thirdly, on the objects.
of His coming. First of all, let me try to deal
with His glorious person. Jesus Christ is God Almighty. Just let that sink in. Let it
rattle around there for a little while until it sinks in. Jesus
Christ is God Almighty. He's not a son of God. He's the
Son of God. The Son of God. When Peter looked
upon Him, he said, Thou art the Christ, now listen, the Son of
the living God. Did you know that the Scripture
attributes creation to Him? Do you ever think about that? We
think about this mystical, invisible God creating the heavens and
the earth. That's not what it says in the
Scriptures. What it says in the Scriptures is, He spoke, and
it was. That word, done, that doesn't
appear in the original. It said, He spoke, and it was. And He commanded, and it stood
fast. It's talking about Jesus Christ.
John said that the Word in the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. And everything that
was made was made by Him, and there was nothing made that wasn't
made without Him. He made it all. All things, John said, were made
by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
Paul said all things were created by Him and for Him. And He's before all things, and
by Him all things consist. Jesus Christ is God Almighty. I don't know how else to say
that. I'm awed by it, aren't you? This baby that lay in Bethlehem's
manger spoke and created a world out of nothing, if I'm reading
Hebrews 11.1 right. He made this world out of things
that didn't even consist. He spoke this world into existence
out of nothing. God Almighty rested all His labors,
having trusted all things into the hands of His Son. This world continues to exist,
is preserved from annihilation because it is in the hands of
God's mediatorial king. Jesus Christ is God Almighty. As this world was destroyed by
a flood and only a few preserved, so now by His Word, the Scripture
said, by His Word the heavens and the earth are kept in store.
By His Word. Waiting on His Word. What's keeping the end from coming? What's keeping man from this?
I mean, we look around and we're shook up and we see countries
and nations and things. Boy, I'm telling you, just a
little bit more and it's going to be world war every day. And were it not for the fact
that I know, I, Lord, all these things are in His hand, and the
heart of the King is in His hand, and like the rivers of water,
He turneth it whithersoever He will, I couldn't have any peace. I'd be upset pacing the floor
all night, every night. I mean, it just looks to me like
the thing is going to fold up any minute. But that's not what
Peter said. It's kept in store by His Word. Is that the Jesus you know and
trust in? He's Lord. This is God Almighty. Turn with me to John chapter
14. Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords
and King of Kings. He's God over all, Paul said,
blessed forever. I want to show you something
over here in John chapter 14. Hear what our Lord said to His
disciples over here in John 14, verse 3. He said, If I go to prepare a
place for you, I'll come again and receive you unto Myself,
that where I am there you may be also. Now just picture yourself
for a minute looking at this man, and he's kind of come to
the end of things. He's about to go to Jerusalem.
about to be turned over to the will of the people, and about
to be nailed on a cruel cross, and he's talking about going
away like he's going away on a temporary trip somewhere, and
he's going to be back. And you kind of envision yourself
sitting there with these apostles listening to him say that. How can he do it? Where is he
going that he's going to be right back? He said in verse 4, and
whither I go you know, and the way you know, Thomas saith unto
him, Lord, we don't know where you're going. We don't know where
you're going, and how can we know the way? Jesus said unto him, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. If you had known me, you should
have known my Father also, and from henceforth you know Him
and have seen Him." Who'd they see? They seen God. They seen the Father. Philip
said unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth
us. Jesus said unto him, Have you been so long time with me?
Yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen
the Father. And how sayest thou, Show us
the Father? Believest thou not that I am
in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak
unto you I speak not of Myself, but the Father that dwelleth
in Me, He doeth the works." Jesus Christ is God Almighty. And secondly,
Jesus Christ is bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh. He is
a man. In every sense of the word, he's a man. Philippians 2, verses 6 and 7
tells us that he, being in the form of God, that's what I just
showed you, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made
himself of no reputation, took on Him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men. He was a man. He was found in fashion as a
man. Galatians chapter 4 verse 4 says,
When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His
Son, made of a woman, made under the law, just as He was prophesied
to be. And He did it to redeem them
that were under the law. To redeem God's elect, God Himself
must become one with His elect and live in their place under
the law, and then die bearing their sins in His own body on
the tree. I suppose you could say, if you
wanted to, hated Scripture over in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21,
Christ being made sin, I suppose you could look at that in one
respect, that He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. God cannot suffer. And man cannot
satisfy. But the God-man can do both. He can do both. Hebrews 2, verse 16, said, Verily
he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him
the seed of Abraham. And I read it to you a while
ago in Galatians 3, verse 16, that this seed is Christ. Jesus
Christ is the God-man, and as the God-man, He can save sinners
and yet not compromise the name of God. So to confess Him as
the Christ of God, we must see Him as the God-man. God and man
in one glorious person. And then secondly, to see Him
as Christ, I must to some degree acknowledge His appointments
of God. God appointed, according to the
Scriptures, one Mediator. One Mediator. He alone will mediate
the peace. Nobody else, He will. He alone
will mediate the will of God. I come not to do my own will,
but the will of Him that sent me. He alone will mediate the purpose
of God. What do you know about the purpose
of God? I don't know anything apart from Christ, do you? That's
the first time when I heard who the Christ was and began to see
some things about the Christ, that's the first time in my life
I ever realized anything about God's sovereign purpose. And Mary, she's blessed among
women. The Scripture said she is, but
Mary's no mediator. Popes and cardinals and bishops
are not mediators. Contrary to what they claim.
God appointed him as King. He's the Mediator. So if I look
to him as the Mediator, I must acknowledge that God appointed
him as the Mediator. That one Mediator between God
and me and the man Christ Jesus. Secondly, God appointed him as
King. Jesus Christ is not waiting in
the wings for somebody to make Him king. I get so tired of hearing
that it makes me sick. I wonder if people who say such
things ever read the Bible. He's king. He's not waiting to
be king. You got no say-so about Him being
king. He's king. He's king if you go
to hell. He's still king. Romans chapter 14 verse 8 said,
Whether we live, we live unto the Lord. Whether we die, we
die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or
die, we are the Lord's. We belong to Him. We are His
property. For to this end Christ both died
and rose and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead
and the living. So the question is not what you
are going to do with Him. The question is, what is He going
to do with you? You are in His hands. Boy, I
tell you, your prayers will change 100% when you find that out.
Yeah, they will. Paul said, in His times, those
times before ordained of God, in His times, times ordained
for His glory, in His times, He shall show who is the blessed
and only potentate, the King of kings. and Lord of lords. David cried under the inspiration
of the Holy Ghost. He said, let the heathen rage
and the kings and the rulers of the people take counsel together
against him. Go ahead and let them. Let them
all bundle up in one big bundle. Let them all with one accord
try to break his bands and cast away his cords. He that sitteth
in the heavens alive. Who is he talking about? He that setteth in the heaven,
He'll have you in derision. He'll put you in public stocks
and make a laughing stock out of you. Yet have I set my King upon my
holy hill in Zion. He can't. And I tell you, what
He says for us to do, best thing for you to do, kiss the Son. That's the best. Don't kiss the
Pope, kiss the Son. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
and you perish from the way." To confess Him as Christ, I must
to some degree acknowledge His eternal appointments of God.
And we could go on and talk about Him as the Savior, Him as the
Substitute, and so on. But thirdly, to confess Him as
the Christ is to acknowledge yourself as blessed of God. The man who can see this and
say this in his heart, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God. He's a blessed man. That's the first thing our Lord
told Peter. He said, blessed art thou. Whoo! Blessed art thou. I'm standing here this morning
remembering back on my days of religion and all of the determinations and all of the
decisions and all of the things that I did and wanted to do and
thought I was doing for the Lord and all of these things. And
one day I saw Him as the Christ. And when I saw Him as the Christ,
God made it known in my heart that I was blessed. And I knew
I was blessed. Blessed by His grace. No reason
for it, but His grace. Blessed art thou, he said, for
flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father
which is in heaven. Oh, that rock, that smitten rock. David said, in the time of trouble
he'll hide me in his pavilion, in the secret of his tabernacle
shall he hide me and set me upon a rock. The revelation of Jesus
Christ being the Son of God allows us to see God's rock. To see Him who is sufficient.
That is what that rock signifies. He is sufficient. All sufficient. And able to save us to the uttermost
who come unto God by Him. And blessed is the man who can
see this rock. and build upon it. Oh, my soul. Blessed is that man. Best work
is of God.