Serving also as a background
passage for our text, which will come out of Matthew 22, you'll
turn to Psalm 21. Psalm 21. Our text will basically
be a question out of Matthew 22, 42, that question
is, What think you of Christ? And here is a wonderful passage
to help us determine just, in fact, what we think of Him. is about the Lord Jesus from
beginning to end. Now, you might say in looking
at verse 1 that this king could be King David, but before we
get three other verses into the passage, we discover this is
far more than David. This is David's Lord, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And if we try to say that these
statements belong to David as well as Christ, we take the life
right out of the statement. We bleed it of its glorious meaning. We do a terrible injustice to
ourselves and primarily to the holy scriptures of God. So let's look at these statements
reverently and carefully. There are only 13 verses. Maybe
we can make this without putting ourselves in too big a bind later. Let's pray before we read this
passage. Lord, we come before you again
this day. We have an open Bible in front
of us. But Lord, an open Bible is not
enough. We must be given the wherewithal
to read and understand what we read. work of grace must pass upon
our souls to enable us to love what we
find in your book and in this psalm. Lord, if it pleases you, do that which we need to love
worship and serve the Lord Jesus. Help us, we pray. Bless this
passage to our understanding, and meet with us in this hour
around your precious Son, the Lord Jesus. We beg in his dear
name. The King shall joy in your strength,
O Lord, and in your salvation how greatly
shall he rejoice, for Christ is himself that salvation. You, Jehovah God, has given him
The Lord Jesus is heart's desire. And if I depict to you a Jesus
who is not satisfied with the way things are going, I find
myself in direct contradiction to this statement. The Lord Jesus He is not frustrated. He is not disappointed. He is
not discouraged. All he has to do is ask, and
it's granted. Read the second Psalm. It's right
there. The Father says to him in Psalm
2, if you'll ask, I'll give you the heathen for your inheritance.
I'll give you the Gentiles. And he did, and God has. And you have given him his heart's
desire, and you have not withheld the request of his lips." And
that word, seelah, means for us to ponder that statement. Man, I tell you, that's a mouthful. You have not withheld the request
of his lips. For you have prevented him,"
now that King James word, prevent, means to go in front of or to
go before. For you go before him, that is,
the triune God goes before God the Son with the blessings of
goodness. Christ is Himself the essence
of goodness, and everywhere He goes, goodness goes. If He comes
to you, He comes with goodness and mercy and grace. You go before Him with the blessings
of goodness. You set a crown of pure gold
on His head. King of kings and Lord of lords. Ah, what a Savior indeed. Verse 4, He, the Christ, asked
life of you, and you gave it Him. Life, life. human life and everlasting life. The Lord Jesus is the author
of both. And that ain't all. He is everlasting
life. Paul describes this for us in
2 Peter chapter in regard to this wonderful statement. 2 Timothy 1.10. He asked life of
you, and you gave it him, even length of days, forever and ever. And the Lord Jesus, as revealed
to us in the four Gospels, communicated life to men by the simple utterance
of a word, of a word. His Christ glory is great in
your, as in God's, salvation. Now, words cannot do that justice. The glory and greatness of the
Lord Jesus Christ in God's salvation is infinite. It is beyond knowing. It is beyond comprehension. His
glory is great in your salvation. Honor and majesty have you laid
upon Him. God has put on His Son all majesty
and honor. What a marvelous statement. Verse 6, For you have made Him
most blessed forever. God has made Christ most blessed
forever. You have made Him exceeding glad
with your countenance, with God's smile. For the King trusts in
the Lord. King Jesus trusts in the Lord
God Almighty, and through the mercy of the Most High, he shall
not be moved. Now beginning at verse 8 and
taking us through verse 13, we have these further accolades
that are bestowed upon our Lord Jesus Christ. David's heart and
mind are overflowing with these wonderful statements of David's
King and Lord, the Lord Jesus. Make no mistake about it, David
knew Jesus Christ. savingly in his soul. We must
forever be done with this ignorant notion that God in previous days,
in Old Testament times and so forth, saved people one way and
now he saves them another. That's just pure hogwash. That
is utterly, utterly untrue. Verse 8, Your hand shall find
out all Your enemies. Your right hand, not just His
hand, but now His right hand. Now what's the difference? The
right hand is always the hand of His salvation, of His power,
of His grace. Your hand shall find out all
Your enemies. Your right hand shall find out
those that hate you. Now, today's generation doesn't
think that the Lord Jesus has any enemies. Whether you worship Allah or Buddha or whomever and whatever, We are all headed to the same
place, going in the same direction. No, no, no. It is not so. This God, this Lord Jesus Christ
is a distinctive God. There is none like Him. He said himself, there is not
another, a just God and a Savior. But this eighth verse is intriguing. It is telling us that when the
Lord Jesus Christ comes to men, I mean even in saving mercy,
it reveals what we are. You walk with him through the
pages of the four Gospels and find out when he encountered
me and what took place. The thoughts and intents of our
heart is exposed. And we discover, apart from God's
grace and mercy in Christ, we do not love God. We love our
own God, the God of our own making, but not this God. But it is also
gloriously true that when our Lord comes to us in mercy and
grace, he takes away that hatred for
the true and living God and gives us in its place a genuine love
for him. Let's read it again. Your hand
shall find out all your enemies. Your right hand shall find out
those that hate you. And those to whom mercy is not
given, you shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of your
anger. The Lord shall swallow them up
in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them." Now, our enlightened
day would most likely skip over that verse. It offends too many
people. It upsets too many people. Verse 10, Their fruit shall you
destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children
of men. For they intended evil against
you. They imagined a mischievous device
which they were not able to perform. And one single example of this
that is more revealing than all the others put together is when
men conspired to put Christ to death on Calvary's tree, expecting
to be rid of him once and all forever, and indeed did nothing
except fulfill his own purpose his own aim, his own mission, and brought about their own ruin. That's true of the devil, that's
true of the scribes and Pharisees, and anybody else that thinks
that we can stop God in his tracks and keep him from doing what
he's purposed We shall find when everything
is said and done, all we have done is to aid and help bring
to pass the very things that he has purposed. For they intended evil against
you, David said about Christ. They imagined a mischievous device
which they were not able to perform. Therefore shall you make them
turn their back. When you shall make ready your
arrows upon your strings against the face of them, be you exalted,
Lord, in your own strength. So will we sing and praise your
power." And so will we. Chapter 22 of the Gospel of Matthew. Now, this twenty-second chapter
of Matthew is, well, out of all four of the
Gospels, it is a singular account, to say the least. It is an attempt
on the part of those that despised and even hated and proposed putting
to death the Lord Jesus Christ, but the The real group that is behind
this in the twenty-second chapter of Matthew are the Pharisees
themselves. They are the ones that put up
the others. They are called Herodians, that
is, the party that followed Herod the king. Then there was the
party of the Sadducees in the middle part of the chapter twenty-two.
They basically differed from the Pharisees in that they declared
that there was no such thing as a resurrection. So even in
today's professed Christianity, you have all these kinds of persons. You have people that are—everything
to them is the relationship between the church and the state. And
these are the issues that they spend their time on, and they
just run them in the ground. And then there are plenty of
persons in the professing world of Christianity who do not believe
many things that are in the Bible, not only the resurrection, but
a great many other things. And then finally, the Pharisees
themselves come to our Savior last of all when they saw that
these other two groups had failed in their mission. And they come to the Lord Jesus
beginning at verse 34, and one of them who was a lawyer, not
in the sense of what we think of as a lawyer. The other word
for this kind of lawyer in the Scriptures in the New Testament,
in the Gospels particularly, is a scribe. That is, this person
is a lawyer in the sense that he has studied and claims to
be an expert on what the Old Testament teaches and what the
commandments of the Jewish religion are. And so they call them on
occasion, like here, a lawyer. And he brings a question, what
is the greatest commandment in the law, which is another way
of asking what is the greatest sin, and our Lord dispenses with
that. It is to love God with all your
heart and your neighbor as yourself. Neither this man, nor you and
me, or any other human being other than our Lord Jesus Christ
can claim to have done so. So the Lord Jesus does not let
them go after they finish questioning Him. But in verse 41, while the
Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What
think you of Christ? What do you think of Christ?
That's my question to you and me this morning. Whose son is
he? Oh, they say that's easy. He's
the son of David. Our Lord said to them, How then
does David in spirit, by the Spirit of God, call him Lord,
call the Messiah Lord? And he quotes Psalm 110. The Lord said to my Lord, the
Lord God Jehovah said to my Lord, the Lord Jesus, You can easily
see the difference in the spelling of the two words LORD. One is
in all capital letters from beginning to end and the other just begins
with a capital. The Lord said to my Lord, the
Lord God Jehovah said to the Lord Jesus, look what he said
now. Sit on my right hand till I make
your enemies your footstool. Now that sounds like it came
straight out of Psalm 21. But this comes from Psalm 110. The
father said to the son, sit you on my right hand until I make
your enemies your footstool. That's what he's doing right
now, every day that passes by. If David then call him Lord,
how is he David's son? They could not answer, and no
man was able to answer him a word, neither dared any man from that
day forth ask him any more questions. Now there must be dozens of ways
to approach this question in verse 42. What do you think of
Christ? This morning I simply want to
take one of His names, and there are many in our Bibles, names
and titles, His purpose, His glory, just keep right on down
the list. But let's just work on one. Let's take His name as the Son
of God and probably can't get by without discussing for just
a moment this other name that is Put side by side with that
one, if he's the Son of God, he's also the Son of Man, and
the scripture demands that we believe both. That is, he's God
and man in just one person, that glorious Christ of whom he attaches
this question, what think you of Christ? All right, so let's
take this name, the Son of God. The first place I want you to
turn is right here in the Gospels to the Gospel of John, the very
first chapter. Now, if I have to, I won't take
but one scripture or two or three or ten, but I can read my watch. It's a minute fast, so I'm going
to shoot for twelve o'clock. If you think mine is broke, you
just take yours and hit it on the pew like that and I'll get
the hint. I'm joking. John chapter 1. Here's what I want us to see. The importance, the significance
the majesty, the glory that belongs to Christ in this one single
solitary name, the Son of God. Now sometimes in the Bible, believers
are called the children of God and maybe even the sons of God.
But we are not sons in the same way that Christ is the Son of
God. We are told that he is the only
begotten of the Father. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. So there is no debate now that
this title in this sense belongs to Christ exclusively. Here is a beautiful picture of
it in John chapter 1 beginning at verse 44. Our Lord is calling his disciples,
or apostles perhaps would be better, and we're told in verse
44, well let me back up to 43, the day following Jesus would
go forth into Galilee and he finds, lost my place, he finds
Philip and said unto Philip, follow me. And guess what? He followed him. Now, Philip was of Bethsaida,
the village, the town of Bethsaida, which is also the city of Andrew
as well as Peter. And you know what the normal
reaction of men would be? That's not fair. He should have
called his apostles from twelve different places, but he didn't. Can the Lord Jesus do wrong? Can he? Did he have any sin of
his own? No, not a one. Listen, if he
did it, it has to be right. Why? Because he did it. Because he did it. Verse 45, Philip finds Nathanael
and said unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the Law
and the Prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said to him, Can
there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip simply said
to him, Why don't you come and see? Jesus saw Nathanael coming to
him and said of him," this is what our Lord said of Nathanael
before Nathanael ever saw Christ, "'Behold, an Israelite indeed,
in whom is no guile.'" And the only way Nathanael can have no
guile is to see him in Christ. You will never find a man in
his natural state without pretense and hypocrisy in God. That is
like looking for a man without sin. The only one there was is
the one who is here speaking, the Lord Jesus. He said, ìAn
Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.î Nathaniel said
unto him, ìHow do you know me?î either having heard our Lord
say these words or being told that he said them. From where? Whence? Know you me? Jesus answered and said unto
him, Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree,
I saw you. Nathanael answered and said, You are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. Why would he say that? Because for the Lord Jesus to
see him without being where he was, means that he must be God. He's omniscient. He knows all things, sees all
things. So when people today say that
Jesus is not God Almighty, what do they mean? They mean that
he doesn't know everything, he doesn't see everything, he
does not have all power, and he's not everywhere present. Now, I leave out the hard words.
You can find them in the dictionary, omnipotence and all that stuff.
You don't need to know that. You need to know what they mean,
what they mean. People who deny the Godhood of
the Lord Jesus Christ do not know Him and do not love Him. And unless God does something
for their soul, they'll perish in hell forever. Now, is that
too strong? That's just how it is. Nathanael said, You are the Son
of God? You are that King of Israel that
David was talking about in Psalm 21. Jesus answered and said to Nathanael,
Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, you mean
because I told you that, you believe? You shall see greater
things than these. And he said unto him, Verily,
verily, amen, amen, I say unto you, hereafter you shall see
heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending."
Now watch this, upon the Son of Man. Son of Man. My, what a mystery. What glory
indeed. Let's move a little further to
the right, John chapter 4. Now this time I'm going to do
you a favor and myself a favor and just take one verse. Because
I already see we won't ever get through. One verse. John chapter 4, I'll give you
the verse and just say it. Our Lord has deliberately purposefully taken a route to go from Jerusalem
to Galilee. He's taken a route that leads
him through Samaria. Now, a respectable Jew would
avoid that part of the world if it meant going way out of
his way to get to his destination. But our Lord goes on purpose
to Samaria. He's gone there to meet a woman
at Jacob's well. We don't know her name. We know
some things about her because of the story that's here in John
chapter 4. But in verse 4, he said he must
needs go through Samaria. That is, a divine appointment
has been made. That appointment says, oh, it
is eternity that the Lord Jesus is going to meet this woman at
Jacob's well. And he's going to reveal himself to her as God's
Christ, his Messiah. She does everything she can do
to try to change the subject and keep him from pursuing the
end for which he came. And he keeps bringing her back
to the central question. And finally, he says something
to her that he said to nobody else recorded in our Bibles.
You'll find it in verse 26 of John chapter 4. I need to read you the 25th just
so you catch the significance of the way that he says it. The
woman said to him, I know that Messiah comes. Now, think of
the word Messiah and the word Christ as synonyms. I know that Christ is coming,
she said. I'm no dummy. Well, she's looking
straight at him and doesn't know him. Sure, we're all dummies. I know that Messiah comes, which
is called Christ. He will tell us all things. Now you find me a place in your
Bible where the Lord Jesus said this. Jesus said to her, I that
speak unto you am he. I that speak unto you am he. My soul, it took the apostles
a long time to grasp this. And when they get back from town
from buying groceries, they don't have a clue as to what our Lord's
doing talking to this woman of reputation. She came to draw water, and he
gave her the water of life, which is himself. Words cannot be any plainer than
I that speak unto you. and the Christ, the Messiah,
the Son of God and the Son of Man. Let's try another one. John chapter 6. We're going to buzz through this
one because you're more familiar with this one. John chapter 6. People in John 6 get upset with
Christ and they quit following Him. The Lord Jesus, still content,
satisfied, pleased, not disappointed. So He says to the twelve in verse
67 of John 6, The Lord Jesus said to the twelve apostles,
Will you also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him,
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life, and we believe and are sure that you are that Christ,
the Son of the living God." There you have it. Plain as day. Let's try another one, John chapter
9. Here's a man that was born blind. Most people say that that means
he was born even without the dead organ of the eye, just empty
sockets. But be that as it may, the Lord
Jesus healed this man of being born blind. And this is significant
because it is a picture of this man as well as ourselves spiritually. We don't achieve spiritual blindness. We are born in that state. That's why it's universal. And only an act of God in grace
and mercy in Christ can bring us out of such a condition as
that. He must do for us spiritually
what He did for this man physically. And I want you to take careful
note of this. It will save you from many a
heartache by the deceivers of this age. who pass themselves
off as being able to heal human sickness and disease and so forth.
The fact that our Lord gave this man physical eyesight, we are
told in no uncertain terms in John chapter 9 that he had not
done anything for this man's soul. To be healed in body is not the
same thing has to be healed spiritually. We're talking about a different
world. We're talking about a different matter altogether. Physical healing
is a picture, a description of what spiritual healing is. But
they're not the same thing. They weren't then and they are
not now, and never have been. This man is called before the
Jewish religious authorities. They want to inquire into how
it is that he came to see. They first tried to deny that
he was ever blind, but too many people knew him, saw him, you
know, grow up blind, never could see. And so they call this man. And he gives them some answers,
and they're still not satisfied, so they call his parents. And
they're smarter than he is, so they just simply say, we don't
know. Because they know what's going to happen if they tell
him they do know. They don't want any problems.
So they call the man back again. And this time he gets more explicit. He doesn't know who it is that's
given in his sight. but he knows enough to make them
mad. And so they kick him out of the Jewish religion, out of
the temple, out of the synagogue. And in verse 35, John chapter
9, Jesus heard that they had cast him out. Shucks, that's an honor to get
cast out. And he didn't have to say much
because he didn't know much to get put out. When our Lord had found him,
he said unto him, Do you believe on the Son of God? Now that's a question I want
us to ask ourselves. Do I believe on the Son of God? Now this man is a very candid
fellow. He didn't pull any punches when he was answering the Pharisees'
questions. They said, who healed you? He said, I don't know. But he
said, it's never been heard of before that anybody's healed
a man that was born blind. He must be real special. They
said, he's a sinner. He said, whether he's a sinner
or not, I don't know. But I know that whereas I was
blind, now I see. And they kicked him out, put
him out of the Jewish religion. So the Lord asked him, Do you
believe on the Son of God? And he said, Who is he, Lord,
that I might believe on him? And Jesus said to him, You have
both seen him, and it is he that talks with you. And the man said,
Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. He worshipped
him. What do I think of Christ? Do I believe on the Son of God? I'm going to jump over some things
and ask you to turn back to the Old Testament again, to the book
of Job this time. Job chapter 40, because I want
us to examine how it is in the Scriptures that we can answer this question
concerning our own individual selves, what do I think of Christ? Because we live in a world in
which men are deceived. I mean, not only have others
deceived us, we deceive ourselves. We give ourselves a good bill
of health spiritually, and we're dead in trespasses and sins.
We say, I love God. Well, when do you start loving
Him? I've always loved Him. That's too long. You can't do
that. There has to be a before before there can be an after.
If I've never hated God, I do not now love God, but in fact
still hate Him, though I won't admit it to myself or confess
it. So the Scripture gives us a means
by which we can know what it is that we think of Christ. What think ye of Christ? Whose
son is he? Do you believe on the Son of
God? Here's the answer in short order. Chapter 40 of the book of Job,
and look at verses 1 through 4. Now Job is undergoing tremendous
trial and at the same time persecution from people that are supposed
to be his friend. But Job is not altogether innocent in this
thing. He said some things that were
pretty far-fetched about himself, but we're getting toward the
end now of the book of Job and things are beginning to come
together. And here they are, chapter 40, verse 1. Moreover,
the Lord answered Job and said, Speaking about Job to Job, shall
he that contends with the Almighty instruct him? Job said earlier,
if I could have an audience with God, I've got some things I need
to tell Him. Do you ever hear anybody say
stuff like that? Sure you do. Talk about their buddy upstairs
and their co-pilot and all this kind of Tommy Rotten. You know
all about it. You've heard it. You can't escape
it. He that reproves God, which is
what people do with such asinine statements as those, let him
answer it. So Job gets his opportunity to
talk face to face with God. But look what he says, Then Job answered the LORD, and
said, Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer you? I will
lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken But I will
not answer, yea, twice, but I'll proceed no further." We can determine what we think
of Christ by what I think of myself. Job said, Behold, I am vile. right across the page, chapter
42. It may not be in your Bible,
but it is in mine. Verses 5 and 6, to the same amount. I have
heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees
you, not talking about physical eyes, but the eyes of the soul. I abhor myself and repent in
dust and ashes. What I think of Christ can be
determined by what I think of myself. Simply put, that is the
case. One more verse and I'm finished.
Oh goodness, I'm already over two minutes. Isaiah 53, just
one statement. The very first word in Isaiah
53, which is the preface to that wonderful chapter that we're
all familiar with. Isaiah asks this question before
uttering that glorious prophecy of the death of Christ. Who has
believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord? You want the answer? Just ask
that person what they think of themselves. That's what