Blessed Extras

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing all right today? I trust so, bless your heart, and I know some of you may have struck a rough day and things aren’t going the way they should, and if that be so, look up and say, Lord Jesus I’m yours, see me through this one and He will. You have the privilege of always being a winner. Thanks be unto God which always, not sometimes, always causeth us to triumph in Christ and maketh manifest the fragrance of His knowledge by us, in every place. You could be God’s perfume in a tough situation. Trust Him to do that for you today.

Well, you and I are looking at Mark chapter eight; we talked about the blind man who was healed. The Lord Jesus took him out of town and dealt with him and there was that what do we call it, the second touch, and I gave you two points to remember. One is sometimes God has to get you away from the crowd to deal with you. Solitude with God is something you must not go without. Solitude with God. Structure some solitude with God every day. God had to take him out of town to do something for him.

The second thing is, wait for the second touch, wait until God has really penetrated into your own heart and mind and motives and purposes and desires and until you know, not only that you’re blessed and happy in the Lord, but that somehow He has touched you and things are clarified and motives are rearranged and your own will is now bent into submission to His. Wait when you pray for the second touch.

Now in verse 27, Jesus went out and with His disciples into the towns of Caesarea Philippi, and by the way He asked His disciples saying, “Whom do men say that I am?”, and they answered, “John the Baptist, but some say Elias and others one of the prophets”, and He said unto them, “But whom say ye that I am?”, and Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ”. He charged them that they should tell no man about Him. He had to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and of the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, oh that chills your blood when you read it even, be killed and after three days rise again. He spake that saying openly. Well Peter, he wasn’t going to stand for that. He began to rebuke Him. Because Peter had just said, “Thou art the Christ”. “Thou art the Christ”, and so in Peter’s mind, in Peter’s mind, to be the Messiah also meant the kingdom would be established, and Rome would be defeated and Christ to be King, all of this, and so he said, Lord you’re on the wrong track, “But our Lord when he had turned about and looked on His disciples, rebuked Peter saying, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan’”. See, He recognized the temptation of Satan even speaking through one of His own disciples, “For thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men”.

The same story of course is told him in other Gospels, Matthew particularly, “Whom say ye that I am?”, Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God”. Then you have that beautiful passage in Matthew 16 verse 17, “Jesus answered said, ‘Blessed art thou Simon bar Jonah”. Isn’t this an interesting contrast? Matthew 16 verse 17, “Blessed art thou Simon bar Jonah”, and Matthew 16:23, seven verses later, “He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get thee behind me Satan’”, which says that the tempter can oftentimes speak through friendly lips. Our Lord Jesus understood that this wasn’t just Peter talking to Him, but Satan tempting Him again to detour around the cross, but that beautiful passage in Matthew 16:17, “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 thou art Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”.

Now, we evangelicals believe that the expression, this rock, refers not to Peter is a person, but to his confession, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God”. That’s the rock upon which the church is built, “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”. In a very real way, in a very real way, this is true not only of Peter and of the apostles, our Lord Jesus spoke to them, “Whatsoever shall be shall be bound on earth shall be bound in heaven”, and so on, you find that passage I think in the closing chapters of the gospel of John. “Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whosoever sins ye remit they remitted, whosoever sins you retain they are retained”. The power of the church is the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, that deals though you the believer, in establishing the eternal destiny of other people.

Now, that’s kind of a mouthful, but there it is. The Holy Spirit of God indwells the believer, we know that, do we not? And so, what the Lord Jesus said to Peter, as being the person who could bind things in heaven and in earth and so on, is also extended to the rest of the disciples in the post-resurrection appearance of our Lord, and we take it that believers everywhere have this same wonderful privilege of the Holy Spirit of God, in having Him work through us, in presenting the claims of Christ to people, and in that sense then, when they received Christ, their sins are remitted, and when they reject Christ, their sins are retained. It’s not that you and I have the right to say, your sins are not forgiven and therefore you are lost.

We are not to judge, “Judge nothing”, says Paul, “until the time come when our Lord shall be revealed in flaming fire, taking vengeance upon them that believe not”. You don’t do any judging, you’re not the person who does the determining of eternal destiny, but you are God’s instrument through whom the Holy Spirit of God works, as people respond or failed, sadly to respond to the gospel invitation. Does that make sense to you? Now that’s our point of view, and I know that we have many precious listeners who may differ with me, but then we’ll be in heaven and it’ll be straightened out. We’ll understand.

The rock that our Lord Jesus referred to, on this rock, the rock is the confession, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God”. The privilege of determining eternal destiny was given not only to Peter, but to the other disciples, as you find in John and John’s Gospel, and to the believer in working through the ministry of the Holy Spirit of God. How do I know that? Why, Jesus himself our Lord said, “When He, the spirit of truth is come to you, He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment”. See, “The Holy Spirit of God, through the believer”, this is, I’m reading from John chapter 16 verse eight, “When He the comforter”, that’s the Holy Spirit, “is come, He will reprove”, and that’s our word convict, “the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they believe not on Me, of righteousness because I go to my Father, of judgment because the prince of this world is judged”.

Now, do you follow me there? The rock is the confession, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God”. The leverage, is the power of a Holy Spirit of God, indwelling the believer. The point of destiny is the point at which people either respond to the Holy Spirit of God as he convicts, or resist him and rebel against Him. You follow that?

All right now, Peter, he had good intentions, but he was on the wrong track wasn’t he? The Lord said, “From that time forth Jesus began to show unto His disciples how He must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised again, the third day”. There is no doubt about the fact that the Lord Jesus tried to tell His disciples what was going to happen. All that they could hear it was that he was going to be, that he was going to suffer and be rejected to be killed, and I think Peter and the rest of them completely messed the idea, after three days rise again. They never did that because the resurrection was such a surprise to them. It just did not register.

Small thought here; do you have any idea of how many wonderful truths you’re missing as you are being subjected to the teaching of the Spirit of God in the Word of God? Try to get the things that God is saying to you and not miss some of the important, the important and blessed and wonderful things that He has to say to you. Oh beloved, there so many precious things. Just like Peter may have missed the phrase, “After three days rise again”, never registered. So it is with you and with me, oftentimes we just, we just don’t get it, do we? As a result we are short of God’s purpose for our lives and for the lives of others. Don’t miss the extras, be sure you get the extras, all right?

Well Peter, with the with the best of intentions, began to rebuke Him and said, “Be this far from Thee, Lord”. Well, our Lord Jesus said, “Peter you don’t understand”, You’re reasoning on purely human reasoning, and you just don’t understand. Well it said, “When He had called the people unto Him and His disciples also, He said unto them, ‘Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me, for whosoever will save his life, shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospels, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his father, with the holy angels’”.

Here is some very deep truth and we’ll only have a chance to begin it because time will run out on us today. The first thing He said, “Whosoever will come after Me”. Now you have a number of whosoever’s: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believe within Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. That’s the whosoever of salvation. This is the whosoever of discipleship, “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me”. Make up your mind whosoever will, deny himself, get rid of your own ideas and be willing to subject yourself to the Will of God, be willing to be identified with the Lord Jesus, take up His cross and be willing to take orders from Him, follow me.

Dear Father today, help us not to miss the blessed extras that Thou does drop into our life and understanding, in Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!