We're turning in our Bible to
Matthew chapter 22, and I'm taking the title from what is said down
here in verse 42, Matthew 22, verse 42. Saying, the Lord said
to these Pharisees, ask them this question, what think ye
of Christ? What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he? Well, they answered
immediately, and they said, they said unto him, well, Messiah's
gonna be the son of David. How then does David in his spirit
call him Lord, saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, he quotes
Psalm 110, tip thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies
thy foes to, if then David call him Lord, how is he his son? That's a mystery. They didn't
understand that. They couldn't understand those
things. So I'm taking the title from verse 42. What think ye
of Christ? I want you to consider this personally
in your heart before God. Take inventory. What is your
estimation of the Lord Jesus Christ? What is he to you? What
is he to me? personally take inventory, accounting
of our thoughts about the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul
put it this way in 2 Corinthians 13, examine yourselves, whether
you be in the faith, prove your own selves, know you not your
own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be a reprobate. So the question here for us this
morning, and to personally consider it in our heart, What do you
personally believe and think about the Lord Jesus Christ?
And your thoughts and your thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ reveals
the true state of your heart before Him. What you think of
Him and how you view Him reveals the state of your heart before
God. What do you think of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is He everything
to you or just just inconvenience or convenience? What do you think
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Now let's go back and consider
some of the points in this chapter here, the last part of Matthew
22. We find the Lord Jesus Christ
again surrounded by those enemies of the gospel. It says in verse
15, they went to Pharisees and took counsel how they might entangle
him says in Matthew 12 verse 14, they went out and took counsel
how they might destroy him, destroy him. We find the Lord Jesus Christ
in the temple preaching the gospel surrounded by his enemies. These
were the most religious folks of the day, the Pharisees and
Sadducees. They did not come seeking salvation,
They did not come to the Lord as sinners seeking salvation.
They only came to discredit his ministry and to destroy his person,
to destroy him. These folks were not on a mission
to seek and find mercy. They were not on a mission to
seek and find forgiveness. They were on a mission of seek
and destroy. That's what they were all about,
discrediting the Lord Jesus Christ. And they came to him with many,
needless and useless questions, and the Lord put them to shame
and to silence, didn't he? The first attack, as we read
through this, and I'm not going to go back over it in detail,
the first attack were the Herodians. It's not really clear who these
people were, but evidently they were friends of King Herod. They
worked for King Herod. and Pharisees and Sadducees used
them to do their dirty work. And they came to the Lord Jesus
Christ proposing this question. First of all, they said, well,
you know, we know you're from God. We know you tell the truth
and you don't have any respect of any man's person. Oh, tell
us, should we pay our taxes? Now, you see where they start
and what they ask. It just really doesn't even make
sense, does it? Should we pay our taxes? Well,
we have what's called in this country the IRS. And if you don't
pay your taxes, well, you're in trouble. You're in trouble.
So our Lord says, bring me a piece of money and whose picture, whose
inscriptions on this piece of money? And they said in him,
Caesar's. And he said to them, you render
therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, all he has
is money, but you render unto God the things that are of God. You give God the glory for salvation
is of the Lord. You give God the glory in creation,
providence and salvation. You give God the glory. And when
they heard this, When they heard these words, they marveled and
they left him. They left him. Now, how sad.
How sad. Instead of inquiring, Lord, I'm
a sinner in need of mercy. I need to know the way of salvation. Would you please help me? They
got disgusted and turned their back and walked away and walked
straight into hell. They went their way. There is
a way that seemed right unto me, and the end thereof is a
way of death. The way of death. And then we have the Sadducees. The Sadducees ask the most absurd
question about the resurrection. And it's interesting that the
Sadducees, they didn't even believe in the resurrection. The Pharisees
did, but the Sadducees did not even believe in the resurrection.
But the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the Herodians are all ganged
up on the Lord Jesus Christ to put an end to him and to his
ministry. The same day, verse 23, came
the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, but
they ask him about the resurrection, saying, Master, Moses said, if
a man die having no children, his brother shall marry his wife
and raise up seed unto his brother. Now, there were with us seven
brothers, and the first we had married, a wife, died having
no children, left his wife into his brother. Likewise, the second,
the third, the seventh, last of all, the woman died. Here's
one woman married to seven brothers, and she died, and they all died.
Now, in the resurrection, now these folks don't even believe
the resurrection. In the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the
seven? For they are all married to her.
I love the Lord's answer in verse 29. He said, you do err, you're
ignorant, not knowing the Word of God, not knowing the power
of God. You see that? For in the resurrection
they're neither married nor given in marriage, but are as the angels
of God. But as touching the resurrection
of the dead, have you not read that which is spoken unto you
by God, saying, I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the
God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead.
He's the God of the living. And when the multitude heard
this, they were astonished, astonished at his doctrine. All error and
false doctrine are born of ignorance of a scripture, as it says there
in verse 29, which leads to being ignorant of who God really is.
He has all power in heaven and in earth. And they were ignorant.
The Lord has all power in heaven and earth. In John chapter 5,
it's recorded, the Lord said to those Pharisees, you do search
the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life,
but there they would testify of me. They were ignorant of
the lesson of the scripture, the lessons of the scripture,
and the message of the scripture is the Lord Jesus Christ, his
person and his work. These Jews had the scripture,
but they missed the message, didn't they? Many today have
a Bible, they even memorize many of the scriptures of the
Bible, but they missed the message because they missed the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. They talk about everything here
and there and all these different things, but they missed the person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. They missed his person, who he
is, and his work. They missed who he is, God Almighty. They missed what he did, accomplished
salvation. And they missed where he is now.
seated at the right hand of the throne of God. The resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ and his people, the resurrection
is all about Christ. You ask me what is the resurrection?
Christ. Christ. You remember he said
to Martha, whose brother Lazarus had died, and the Lord said,
he's going to rise again. And she said, I know in the resurrection
that he's going to rise again. And he said, I am the resurrection
and the life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall I live. Whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Christ is a resurrection. We
are raised up in Him, aren't we? When God raised Him from
the dead, He raised us from the dead. When He ascended to glory
and is seated on the right hand of God, you know who's seated
in Him? Believers. Every believer is already seated
in the heavenlies in Christ. It says that in Ephesians 2.
But I love what the Lord does here. He takes him right to the
word of God. In Exodus chapter 3, when the Lord Jesus Christ
speaks unto Moses from that burning bush, he said, I'm the God of
thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of
Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he
was afraid to look upon God. Who spoke from that bush? God
spoke through that bush. The resurrection. It's not about,
I'm going to meet my wife in glory someday. That's not what
the resurrection is about. I'm going to meet mama someday
in heaven. You missed it. The resurrection is about the
glory and beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. The resurrection
is not about seeing family again. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the resurrection of His church is not about the
street of gold, mansions in the sky, or rewards. I'm going to have a bigger reward.
I'm working here, I'm laboring hard, so I'll have more rewards
there. You missed it. Christ is our reward. Christ
is our resurrection. If you have Him, you have everything. He was delivered for our offenses
and raised again because He justified us. We sing unto Him who loved
us and washed us from our sin in His own blood. When they heard
this, verse 33, they were astonished at His doctrine, but they rejected His truth.
They rejected His way. They were astonished at His teaching,
but they did not believe His word. They did not believe Him.
And we have the third attack of the Pharisees with their religious
lawyers, which is the great commandment of the law, verse 36, which is
the greatest commandment of the law. And the Lord said to them,
thou shalt love the Lord thy God, verse 37, with all your
heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, all of it. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it,
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets. Love God, love one another. That's what the law of God demands,
doesn't waver, doesn't vary. Every commandment of the law
of God is great. Every precept of the word of
God, and some say there's between 650-700 precepts, not just the
big ten, 650-700 precepts of the law, every precept, every word of
the law is great. It's a great commandment. The Lord Jesus Christ quotes
from Deuteronomy 6-5 as a reference there, Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy
might. The Pharisees, they sought salvation
by the deeds of the law, and they thought they had accomplished
salvation by keeping the law. You remember the Pharisee prayed
in Luke 18, God, I thank you, I'm not like other men. I tithe,
I fast, I give alms, I do all these things. He's saying I've
kept the law, I've kept the law, and I'm certainly not like that
old publican over there. He justified himself, didn't
he, before God. And that's what the Pharisees
always do, and that's what the self-righteous always do. I love
what the Lord said of those Pharisees. He said, you are able to justify
yourself before men. God knows your heart. That which
is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight
of God. Those who go about to justify
themselves, That is nothing but smoke in his nose, obnoxious
smoke, smelly, smelly. Oh, Saul of Tarsus, he was a
Pharisee, remember? He called himself the Pharisee
of Pharisees. Saul of Tarsus thought he kept
the law. You remember in Philippians chapter 3, he talked about what
he was as Saul of Tarsus. He said that concerning the law,
he said, I'm blameless. But when God taught him the gospel,
he said, that's nothing but dung, rubbish. And then in Galatians
chapter four, when Paul the apostle, Galatians chapter one, talks
about being exceeding zealous of the tradition of my father's,
he was exceeding zealous. But when it pleased God, who
separated me from my mother's womb, revealed Christ in my heart. Did you know, and you know this
because I've preached this here for 30 years, and those who stood
before me in this pulpit preached the same thing, you know that
the law of God, the holy law of God that thundered from Mount
Sinai was never given to save sinners. It was given to condemn
sinners. It was given to declare them
guilty before God. It is impossible. Now listen
to me. It is impossible for any fallen
son of Adam to love God with all his heart, with all his soul,
with all his mind, and to love his neighbor as himself. Impossible. God made it that way on purpose,
to shut us up to Christ, to shut us up to the Lord Jesus Christ.
By the deeds of the law shall, by the deeds of the law shall,
By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in the
sight of God. For by the law is just declaring
that we are guilty before God. Guilty before God. Guilty before
God. What does the law say? The law
says let your mouth be stopped and all the world become guilty
before God. Guilty before God. Cursed is
a man that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. To do them. You want salvation by the works
of the law? You're condemned already. Well, I'm going to keep
the Big Ten to offend in one point is to be guilty of all
the 690 other precepts of God's law. If you're going to seek
salvation by the deeds of the law, you better get in the livestock
business. Get you some lambs and goats
and bullocks. And start slaughtering animals.
And you better find you a priest from a tribe of Judah to represent
you before God. And you better find a mercy seat.
You see, all that's been fulfilled in Christ. The good news of the
gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ has honored the law of
God for us. He said that in Matthew chapter
5. He came not to destroy the law of the prophets, but to fulfill
all. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
redeem us from the curse of the law. You all live under the curse? I don't. Christ came to redeem
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that
we might be justified by His blood. He came to redeem us with
His blood. Now in verse 41, through the
end of the chapter, the Lord turns the table on them. While
the Pharisees were gathered together, the Lord asked them, now, this
is publicly happening in the temple. This is not something
done in private and in secret. While the Pharisees were gathered
together, the Lord asked them, saying, what think ye of Christ,
whose son is he? And they said, the son of David,
the son of David. The Lord turned the table on
them, these who had so many questions, and he asked them the one all-important
question, the most vital question of all questions, what do you
think of Christ? How can he be David's son? And
how can he be David's Lord? How can he be the son of David
and the son of God? Good question. They, being ignorant
of the message of the scripture, were put to shame. As it says
in verse 46, they didn't ask him any more questions. He put
them to shame. To those who have questions,
one wise old preacher gave this advice. If you have questions
about the gospel, about how God saves sinners, about who God
is, and how God justifies sinners. Just sit still, listen to the
gospel as it's preached, and in due time, Christ will answer
all your questions. He'll answer your questions.
Just sit still and listen. Sit still and listen. Don't say,
what about this? What about that? What about that?
What about this? Sit still. Listen and ask God
to show you and reveal unto you the gospel. Now, in closing, let me give
you this. What do you think of the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ? We see in these verses that our
Lord Jesus Christ is totally, fully God and totally, fully
man. never has been nor ever will
be anyone like this person. He's called in scripture the
Son of God. He's God the Son. He's also called
in scripture many times the Son of Man. How can he be the Son
of God and the Son of Man? One preacher friend of mine said
years ago, the Lord Jesus Christ is as much God if he were not
man at all and as much man as he were not God at all. He's
the God-man mediator. That's what the old timers called
him. According to his human nature, he is the son of man or the son
of David according to the flesh. You read Romans chapter 1. He's
made of the seed of David according to the flesh, but declared to
be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead. He became a partaker
of flesh and blood like unto us. The body of the Lord Jesus
Christ had a beginning. He doesn't have a beginning.
I'm saying the body of the Lord Jesus Christ had a beginning.
It was created by the power of God in the womb of a virgin. The Holy Spirit shall overshadow
thee and you'll conceive in thee that holy thing which was born
of God. One old preacher said years ago
about the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, he became
what he was not, flesh and dwelt among us, but he remained what
he was. The word that was with God that
was that is God, the word would make flesh and dwelt among us. So according to his human nature,
he's the son of David, apart from sin, he had no sin, he did
no sin and knew no sin, such a high priest became us, who
was holy, harmless, separated from sin, he had no sin, That's
the only way He could represent us, to be made sin for us. The Lamb of God had to be spotless.
Secondly, according to His divine nature, He is the eternal Son
of God, or God the Son. Who is the Lord Jesus Christ?
He's God our Savior. He's God our Savior. Those who
deny His deity, those who deny that He is God, have no hope
of salvation. Because our Lord said this, John
8, 24. I said therefore unto you that
you shall die in your sins, for if you believe not that I am,
you'll die in your sin. Remember our Lord said to those
Pharisees, I give my sheep eternal life
and they will never perish. And then he said, I am my father,
we are one. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, these
three are one. Our Lord said in John 14, he
that has seen me has seen the Father. Great is the mystery
of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Now put these two together. Put
these two natures together. They make up one glorious Savior. Who is the Messiah? The Christ
of God. He's the anointed one, Son of
God. He's the God-man. These two natures in one person.
I can't explain that. I can't explain that. I declare
it. I believe it. In the fullness of time, God
sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem
them that were not under the law, that were under the law.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our only God and Savior. He's never
not been God our Savior. He's the only Christ. Neither
is there salvation in any other. He is a successful Christ of
God. Isaiah 42 says he cannot fail. Revelation 6 talks about the
Lord Jesus Christ, a mighty warrior that went forth conquering and
to conquer. He defeated all our enemies.
When the gospel is revealed and made known unto us, we see the
Lord Jesus Christ is altogether lovely. To you who believe, he
is precious. He let it be both man and God
and one person to put away our sin. Man alone cannot satisfy,
God alone cannot suffer, but the God-man did both. Hallelujah. We're going to close our service
with that song. Hallelujah, what a Savior who
can take a poor lost sinner, set him free, free from his sin. Those who reject his deity have
no hope of salvation. It is who he is that gives power
to what he did. It's who he is that gives power
to what he did. If he's just a good man from
Nazareth who died a horrible death, we have no hope of salvation. It's who he is. God bought the
church with his own blood. The blood of God was shed to
put away our sin. Can you say with Mary, my soul
doth rejoice in God my Savior. Can you say with Thomas, he's
my Lord and he's my God. What do you think about the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you think that His coming
and taking humanity to Himself was absolutely necessary for
our salvation? Or do you think it a needless
thing, an unnecessary thing? To those who are perishing, Christ
and Him crucified is nonsense. You see your need of Him coming,
don't you? and establishing righteousness
for us and putting away our sin for us. There's no other way
for God to justify the ungodly than for the Lord Jesus Christ
to come and take our sin to himself, bear our sin, our guilt, and
his own body on the tree to satisfy his own broken law. That's what
happened at Calvary. The law of God says the guilty
must die. The Lord Jesus Christ being made
sin for us as the Lamb of God, our sin was laid upon Him, God
made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him. Christ won't suffer for
our sin, the just for the unjust, that He might, that He might,
what's that word? That He might bring us to God. He brings us. No man can come
to me except the Father which sent me. Draw him. What do you
think about His coming? Oh, thank God He came. This is
a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. The Lord
Jesus Christ came to save sinners. I'm the chief one. I'm the chief
one. Lastly, what do you think of
His victory, His redeeming work, His person? What do you think
of his redeeming victorious work upon the cross? Verse 44, it
said, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand till I make
thine enemies thy footstool. When he by himself purged our
sin, what happened? He ascended to glory. After three
days, his body lay in the grave. After three days, it came forth
and he ascended to glory. And the God-man mediator, think
about this, the God-man mediator, our real body, our real body,
soul and spirit seated in the heavenlies right now making intercession
for us. That's our hope, is it not? God has given him a name which
is of every name, that at that name every knee shall bow, every
tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Saving faith
never entertains low thoughts and wrong thoughts of his person
or his priestly work. We think of the Lord Jesus Christ
as being successful. We think of him as being victorious. We think about him as a conquering
king, don't we? True faith, the faith of God's
elect, always look to the victorious Christ, who conquered all our
enemies. Thanks be to God who's given
us a victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He appeared once
in the end of the age and put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. The Lord Jesus Christ honored
the law of God for us, satisfied the justice of God for us, and
brought in for us an everlasting righteousness. I must not only
have redemption, my sin put away, but I also must have righteousness
imputed to my account. Christ is both. He's my redeemer
and he's my righteousness. He's called the Lord, our righteousness. Blessed is that man to whom the
Lord imputed righteousness without works. What do you think of the
Lord Jesus Christ? Let's shuck right down to the
cob. Shuck right down to the cob. What do you really think
about the Lord Jesus Christ? Is he everything to you? Everything
to you? What you think of him and how
you view him reveals the state of your heart before God. To
many, the Lord Jesus Christ is nothing. To the atheist, he's
just a joke, isn't he? He's just a joke. The Pharisee
called him a winebibber, a gluttonous man. They called him the prince
of devils. To the self-righteous and the
religionists, Christ is just a bunch of rules and regulations.
To the hypocrite, the Lord Jesus, Christ is only a convenience
to be religious at certain times of the year, maybe Christmas
time or maybe Easter, they get religious for a while. Ah, but
to the believer. Like the Apostle Paul said, Christ
is all and in all. The believer can say with David,
as David said upon his deathbed, God had made with me an everlasting
covenant ordering all things and ensure this is all my hope,
all my salvation. The believer can say with Thomas,
he's my Lord and my God. The believer can say with Job,
I know my Redeemer liveth. The believer can say with John,
behold the Lamb of God that takes away our sin. The believer can
say with Peter, he is precious. He's altogether lovely. The believer
can say with the Apostle Paul, I count all things lost that
I may win Christ and be found in him. What do you say? What do you
think? Don't tell me. I don't want to
know. God knows your thoughts. God
knows the thoughts of your heart. What do you think of Christ?
The Christ of God, the Sovereign Christ, the Sufficient Christ,
the Almighty Christ. Do you rest a total weight of
your salvation upon Him? Oh, may God be pleased to reveal
the Lord Jesus Christ to your heart. May God give you right
thoughts, high thoughts, scriptural thoughts of him, and then grace
to trust him and bow to him and submit to him at all times. To say with Peter, when our Lord
said to those who walked away from him, the Lord turned it
to the 12 and said, will you also go away? I like what Peter
said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life, we believe and we're sure thou art that Christ, Son of
God. Thou art that Christ, Son of
God. What think ye of the Lord Jesus
Christ? The most important question any
sinner can consider. May God give you the right answer
in your heart.