What Think Ye of Christ?

In Matthew 22 verse 42 we read
these words, While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus
asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? Now this question straightened
to the point followed several questions that these men had
asked the Savior. One of them came to him and said,
trying to trap him, trick him in his talk, he said, is it lawful
to give tribute to Caesar? We're Israelites, we're children
of God, sons of God, we're in bondage, enslaved by pagan, heathen
rulers, is it right for us to pay taxes to these pagans, these
idol worshipers, these heathen rulers, is that lawful? Well,
Christ dealt with that. He said, do you have a coin?
One of them handed him a coin. He said, whose picture is that
on there? And he said, well, that's Caesar's.
Well, he said, you render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,
and to God the things that are God's. And then another one came
to him and asked him about marriage in heaven. As I say, they were
trying to trap him. The Sadducees did not believe
in the resurrection. And so they were trying to trap
him in his doctrine of resurrection. One of them said a woman had
several husbands, they all died. Now when she dies and goes to
heaven, who's going to be her husband? And our Lord dealt with
that. He said they neither marry nor
are given in marriage in heaven, but are like the angels, and
you do err not knowing the power of God and the scriptures. And then another came to him
and asked him this, which is the greatest commandment? Out
of all the commandments that constitute the law of God, which
is the greatest? Now, what this man is asking
is this. What law, if broken, constitutes the greatest sin?
In other words, is it worse to kill somebody or to steal? Is
it worse to take God's name in vain or commit adultery? Is it
worse to tell a lie or is it worse to bow down before a graven
image? Which is the greatest commandment? And our Lord said,
The greatest commandment is this, Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and the second is likened to it, Thou
shalt love thy neighbors thyself. On these two hinged all the law
and the prophets. And then, in my imagination,
he put them to silence, but in my imagination, I can see them
begin to drift away. They didn't want any more of
him. part of him. He was making a
fool out of them in front of all these people. But before
they left, while they were still gathered together, our Lord put
a question to them. And this was the question. What
think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? Now will you
listen carefully while I make an observation right here. When
we go forth to preach the gospel today, and that's what I'm trying
to do. the gospel. There aren't many people who
reject us outright, who just say, well, I don't believe in
God, and I don't believe in your Bible, and I don't believe in
the existence of heaven, and I don't believe in hell. No,
there are not many people who do that, because the natural
man is religious by nature. You find that. I've traveled
all over this world, and wherever I go, I find religion, pagan
religion, false Only religion, pure religion, off religion,
but everybody's got some kind of religion. And the natural
man is religious by nature, and he feels the need of some sort
of religious foundation, some kind of religious experience,
or some kind of religious refuge. So, when we go forth preaching
the word of God, which is the revelation of God, God can only
be known by his word. in saving power, in redeeming
power. Now, we can see the wisdom of
God in nature. The heavens declare the glory
of God. But the mercy of God is only
found in the word of God. The grace of God in saving grace
is only found in the word. That's the only source by which
we can find out if God will forgive sin, if God will pardon the guilty,
if God will give eternal life. The only source is the word of
God. But men, instead of flatly denying
the word of God, you know what they do? Most of them are taken
up with foolish questions. That's right. Foolish questions. Unusual miracles or genealogies
or prophecy. What's going to happen in the
future? Anything but the gospel. They love to argue. People say
to me all the time, well so many, the denominations are so divided.
You're right. You're right. And people in religion
are so divided. People in Christ are not divided.
They have one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. People in Christ
are not divided. They know they're sinners, and
they know God saved them by the blood of his Son, and they love
each other, and they long to please God, and they seek the
kingdom of God, and they consider themselves less than the least
of all the saints. They consider themselves chief
of sinners. They look not on their own things, but on the
things of others. They're an honest people and a godly people
who are walking a pilgrimage, sojourning on this earth, waiting
for God to call them home. But the religious world is divided. Men love to argue, they love
to debate, they love to split hairs, they love to divide over
all these insignificant things. That's the way these Pharisees
were, these religious men. They asked all these hard to
understand questions. They were concerned about whether
it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar. It doesn't matter
a nickel's worth. And whether or not, what's in
heaven, now who's going to be her husband in heaven? And this question of which is
the greatest law. And all of these, you know men
today are more interested in where Cain got his wife than
where Jesus Christ gets his bride. That's right, they're much more
interested in that. You can get a whole lot bigger crowd if you
announce in the paper next Saturday that Sunday morning you're going
to preach your sermon on where did Cain get his wife. But now
you announce in the same paper instead you're going to preach
on the bride of Christ, you won't have near as many people. Not
near as many. Because men are more interested
in speaking in tongues than they are in knowing the Lord in their
hearts. You announce you're going to speak on what it means to
speak in tongues, and they'll pack your auditorium. But announce
you're going to preach on what it is to know Christ in the heart. They're not interested in that.
Men are more interested in the Antichrist and who he is and
what he is going to do than they are in the living Christ and
who he is and what he did. Why do you think these preachers
try to come up with all the sensational subjects? Will America fight
Russia? Who is the Antichrist? What is
666? They don't know and nobody else
does either. But they get a crowd that way. Fill the offering plates
that way too, you know. Men are more interested in the
healing of their bodies than they are in the healing of their
souls. Of course that's true. And men are more interested in
finding their place in a church than they are in finding their
place at the cross. They're more interested in arguing
the old creation than they are in studying the new creation
in Christ Jesus. I'm telling the truth, and you
know it. And men are more interested in
rules and regulations and laws of morality in the church than
they are in love and mercy and grace. And they're more interested
in disciplining people and excluding them from the church and kicking
them out of the church than they are in loving them and forgiving
them and showing some affection and embracing them in Jesus Christ
our Lord. That's the way these Pharisees
were in the days of our Lord. They came with all these silly,
hard to understand questions. They wanted to deal with prophecy
and all these other things. And then our Lord put a question
to them. Here's the heart of the matter. Here's the foundation.
what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?" Now, if you
want to get a crowd today among the religious people of our day,
if you want to get a hearing, then you talk about something
sensational. Don't you talk about substitution.
You talk about the dignity of man, not the depravity of man.
You talk about the weakness of God, not the sovereignty of God.
If men want to be entertained today, they don't want to be
exhorted, they don't want to be rebuked, they don't want to
be reproved, they don't want to be edified, they want to be
entertained. And if you're going to hold your audience, sing 50
minutes and preach 10. Don't sing 10 and preach 50.
Because the sinners of today don't want to be edified, they
want to be entertained. And one of these days this tragedy
is going to backfire, this tragedy is going to blow up in our faces.
God's going to take the word. Christ said, this book will judge
you. But Lord, we don't know anything about that book. Well,
you could have. You could have. What think ye
of Christ? A preacher one day went to the
hospital to visit one of his members. This is a true story.
The member, a lawyer, had had a heart attack. He was dying.
He knew he was dying. A man less than 40 years of age.
And his pastor went by to see him, and this is what the man
said to his pastor. He said, I've listened to you
preach for over ten years, and he said, Preacher, I'm dying. I'm going out to meet God, and
you've failed me. You haven't prepared me for this
experience. You haven't prepared me for this
hour. You haven't prepared me at all. Now, my friends, we may
prepare men to argue religion, and we may prepare them to discuss
church doctrine. and we may prepare them to claim
a religious creed. But we have miserably failed
and we have mocked God and mocked our congregation unless we prepare
men to die, unless we prepare men to meet God, unless we prepare
men for that day when they shall stand at the judgment seat of
Christ. And the only way I know to do this is to preach the word
of God. God is chosen by the foolishness
of preaching. to save them that believe." Preaching,
preaching. And the center of that preaching
is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul said, I'm determined to
know nothing among you save Christ and Him crucified. God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. All right, let's take this statement
that our Lord, this question our Lord asked these religious
men, and let me ask you the same statement. We are ambassadors
of Christ. I beseech you in Christ's name. He's not here, but I am
in person, in bodily form. He's here, present by his Spirit,
but he speaks through a human being. And I ask you today, what
think ye of Christ? And let's center our attention
in the first place, let's make it personal, as Christ made it
here. ye of Christ?" I'm not asking you what your pastor thinks
of Christ. I'm not asking you what your church believes. I'm
not even asking you what John Wesley believed, or what Martin
Luther believed, or what John Calvin believed, or Alexander
Campbell believed, or Charles Wesley believed. I'm asking you,
what do you believe? What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? Most of us are
experts in the art of judging other people. Well, I think she's
saved. I think he knows the Lord. I
don't think she knows the Lord. I don't think maybe he knows
the Lord. Well, have we judged ourselves?
Have we spent some time standing at the bar of God's law and cried,
guilty, guilty? Have we spent some time standing
before the holiness of God, the immaculate, heavenly, infinite
holiness of God, and then made to cry in our own souls, unclean,
unclean. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. Have you ever stood there? Have you stood at the
altar and cried with the publican, God, be merciful to me, the sinner? Have you seen the Lord Jesus
Christ in his redemptive glory? Have you seen him? I'm not talking
about with these eyes. I'm not talking about a dream
or a vision or an experience when you're under the influence
of some type of medication. I'm talking about have you seen
him by faith in his redemptive glory? The scripture says, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that seeth the Son, seeth the Son,
and believeth on him hath eternal life. Peter saw him. Our Lord
said, Whom do men say that I am? And well, they said, Some say
you're Elijah, and some say you're John the Baptist, and some say
you're one of the prophets. But he said, Whom do you say
that I am? And Peter said, Thou art the Christ. Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God. And our Lord said, Blessed
art thou, Simon. Flesh and blood didn't reveal
that to you, but my Father which is in heaven. Have you seen him?
seen him in his redemptive glory, seen him in his redemptive work,
seen him in his precious atoning sacrifice? And then have you,
and I'm talking to myself too, have we lovingly, willingly,
intelligently, not under some kind of emotional experience,
but have we intelligently received Jesus Christ as our Lord and
Savior? Have you? I have. I can say that.
I trusted him, I believed on him. I do now. By God's grace,
I will. But I'll tell you this, if we
never pray, Lord, receive my soul in grace, we'll never at
death cry with Stephen, Lord, receive my spirit. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
come to me and rest. Lay down, thou weary one. lay
down thy head upon my breast. Well, I came to Jesus just like
I was, weary and worn and sad, and I found in him what I found
nowhere else, and what is revealed nowhere else, and what is given
nowhere else. I found in him a resting place,
and he has made me glad." What do you think of Christ? I'm not asking you what do you
think about the Bible, or what do you think about the doctrine
of election, or what do you think about the doctrine of predestination,
or what do you think about the doctrine of the church, or what
do you think about baptism by sprinkling or immersion. I'm
not dealing with that. I'm talking about this. What
do you, you, you think of Christ? Now watch this. Listen carefully.
This question has to do with thoughts. Not only has to do
with you, it has to do with your thoughts. Think ye of Christ,
he said. Now religion today consists of
everything but thinking. You know it and I know it. Everything
but thinking. The average person can go to
a church. Try yourself on this. Test yourself. The average person
can go to a church and he can sit for one hour in that service
and come out. And a few minutes later he couldn't
tell you to save his life what he heard. He was there in body,
but he doesn't remember a thing. He doesn't think. Most religious
ceremonies and rituals and forms and all of this carrying on in
the name of God, most of it enables men to play church without thinking.
That's right, they can go and sit down and sit there and doze
and a song leader can wake them up and tell them to turn to 243
and to turn to 243 and to stand and sing the verses he says,
and then they sit, and some fella gets up and makes some announcements,
and sits back down, and then they stand again, and somebody
brings a special, and then while they're praying, the organ plays
softly. You don't want any silent time, you know, because men don't
want to think. They don't want to be disturbed. They pay somebody
to preach for them, and pay somebody to pray for them, and pay somebody
to study for them, and pay somebody to win souls for them, and pay
somebody to do this, that, and the other for them. They don't
want to think, and they go through all these forms and ceremonies
and don't have to think. Don't have to think. But I'm
telling you this, we'd better start thinking. We'd better start
thinking about sin, inability, condemnation, thinking about
death, thinking about judgment, thinking about the Word of God.
We'd better start thinking. What do you think of Christ?
Think. What do you think? Well, I've never given it much
thought. You'd better. What think ye of Christ? What do you think
of Christ as Almighty God? Is he God? I'll have to ask my
preacher. Well, the word of God says he's
God. The scripture says the word was made flesh. In the beginning
was the word and the word was with God and the word was God
and the word was made flesh and we beheld his glory, the glories
of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 2 Corinthians
5.19 says God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.
God was in Christ. What do you think of Christ as
your representative? Adam was your representative,
he was mine. In Adam, all die. In Christ, we're made of life.
By the disobedience of one, we were made sinners. By the obedience
of one, we were made righteous. But think about that. Christ
is our representative. You can't trust an unrevealed
Christ. You can't believe in an unrevealed
hope. You can't build on an unrevealed
foundation. You've got to know. Paul said,
I know whom I have believed. I know who he is. I know what
he did. I know why he did it. God told
me so. What do you think of Christ as
your substitute? Isaiah said he was wounded for
our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity. What do you think
of Christ? What do you think of him as your
mediator? The Bible says there's one God. and one mediator between
God and men. And it's not Mother, and it's
not Mary, and it's not St. Jude, and it's not Peter, James,
or John. Who is it? What does this picture
say? One mediator between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus. That's what the Bible requires.
What do you think of Christ as the Lord? Paul said, Lord, what
will you have me do? Peter, Christ set him down after
the resurrection. He set him down. Do you love
me? Do you love me? Now, if you do,
you feed my sheep. Now, I'm telling you, this thing,
I picked up a church bulletin today that was sent me from another
city, and the preacher said in that bulletin, don't you wish
every Christian loved the Lord? Well, now, my friends, every
Christian does love the Lord. And men who do not love the Lord
are not Christians. If any man loved not our Lord
Jesus Christ, the scripture said, let him be accursed when Jesus
comes. Well, now, that's what it says,
Preacher. That's what I'm saying. We need to do some thinking.
We need to do some thinking. You men can't keep your job without
thinking. You men who are electricians
and miners and plumbers and carpenters and contractors and dentists
and doctors and lawyers, you have to think. And this most
important part of your life, this most important phase of
your whole life, you haven't given it a moment's thought.
You've let some preacher or some priest or somebody who's been
dead 300 years dictate what you believe. You better buy you a
Bible and see what God says. It can be found in God's Word.
And then last of all, what do you think of Christ? We're talking about a person
here now. I want Paul to speak. Paul says in Colossians 3 verse
11, Christ is all. He's all. That's what he thinks
of Christ. There was a time, Christ is all,
Paul says, all and in all. There was a time when this world
had no being. There was a time when the world
had no being. The earth, the seas, the trees,
the mountains, they didn't exist. When Christ is all, where was
he then? Well, the scripture says, in
the beginning was the Word, capital W-O-R-D, that's Christ, and the
Word was with God and the Word was God. And the scripture says
in Proverbs 8, before the mountains were settled, before the hills
were brought forth, while as yet he had not made the earth
nor the fields, I was there. That's Christ talking. He was
with the Father. He was with God and was God.
Well, there was a time when God made the heavens and the earth,
hurled them into space, brought them into being. There was a
time when all these things were created in the wisdom and the
purpose and by the word of God. If Christ is all, where was he
then? Well, the scripture says in Colossians
1.16, for by him were all things made that are made. All things
in heaven that are visible and invisible and principalities
and powers, all things were made by him and for him. And he's
before all things, and by him all things consist. He made all
things. Well, there was a day when sin
entered this world, when God's man that he created, Adam and
his helpmate Eve, there was a day when they sinned and darkness
fell on this earth. and sin bested God's world, and
death and sickness all came upon this earth. What a dismal, dark,
depressing day. Well, if Christ is all, where
was he then? He was the one ray of light. He was the announcement
of light in a day of death. He was the light in a day of
darkness. God said to the serpent, I'll put enmity between you and
the woman, between your seed and her That's the virgin son,
virgin born son of God. Her seed, not man's seed, her
seed. Through his heel, his lower part,
his human nature, but he'll crush your head, your power, your government. Christ was the announcement of
salvation in that dark hour. Well 4,000 years passed, darkness
and superstition and error ruled this earth and religion was perverted
and twisted. It was a dark day, but if Christ
is all, where was he then? I'll tell you. He came down here
to this earth in Bethlehem's manger in the fullness of time. God sent his Son into the world,
made in the likeness of sinful flesh, made of a woman, as he
announced 4,000 years prior to that time, made under the law
to redeem them that were born under the law. He was right here
on this earth, and he went to that cross yonder on Calvary,
and he gave his life to pay for our sins. In his life, he's our
representative righteousness. In his death, he's our Savior,
our Redeemer. Well, there's a time when the
world shall end. God said there's going to be
a new heaven and a new earth, and this is going to melt in
a fervent heat. This whole world and everything
about it, God's going to destroy it, utterly, ultimately destroy
it. Well, if Christ is all, where
will he be then? The trump of God shall sound,
the voice of the archangel, and Jesus Christ, our Lord, who went
away, shall come back to this earth. He's coming back again. Philippians chapter 2, verse
10 and 11 says, And every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall
confess that he's Lord, to the glory of God the Father. All
right, there's coming a day of judgment. Scripture says that
all men shall stand before God. Death and hell were delivered
up, delivered up their dead, the sea gave up its dead, heaven
gave forth its living, and they all stand before the judgment
bar of God. If Christ is all, where will
he be then? Now listen, can you answer that? In John 5, verse 22, the Scripture
says, The Father judgeth no man. He hath committed all judgment
to the Son. We shall all stand before the
judgment seat of Christ. It's all Christ. That's right,
from before the foundations of this world it was Christ. The
Christ of the covenant, the Christ of creation. Here on this earth
it was the Christ of the cross. and the Christ of the tomb, and
the Christ of the resurrection, and right now it's the Christ
of intercession, and one day it shall be the coming Christ,
and one day it shall be the judging Christ, and from then on through
the countless eons of eternity it'll be the reigning Christ.
And throughout eternity the employment and enjoyment of the sons of
God will be to praise that Christ. I'm not going to praise you that
much, sir.

What Think Ye of Christ?

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What Think Ye of Christ?

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