The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and
now they are seeking to trap him.
And they desired that he would show them
a sign from heaven.
And he answered and said unto them, When
it is evening, you say it will be
fair weather, for the sky is red.
And in the morning, you say it's going
to be foul weather today, for the sky
is red and luring.
Oh, you hypocrites!
You can discern the face of the sky,
but you cannot discern the signs of the
times.
Now, the Lord is rebuking them for their
inability to discern the signs of the times.
They said, Show us a sign from heaven.
And he said, You're able to look at
the sky in the evening, and when it's
all red, you say, Oh, it's going to
be a good day tomorrow.
Wherever you get up in the morning, and
the sky is all red, you say, Oh,
oh, we're going to have a windy one
today.
It's going to be a bad day.
He said, You have enough sense to be
able to tell the weather from looking at
the sky, but you don't have enough sense
to know the signs of the times.
They should have known.
Had they been up in their scriptures, they
would have known that this was the time
for the coming of their Messiah.
For in the book of Daniel, he promised
that 483 years after the commandment had gone
forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, the Messiah,
the Prince, would be coming.
And they did not know the signs of
the times because they weren't really up in
the scriptures.
And I wonder how many times Jesus might
say to people today who are so blind
to the fact that he's returning soon, You
fools!
You know how to give weather reports?
By studying the atmosphere, the atmospheric pressures, the
direction of the wind and so forth.
But you don't know time of the coming.
And then he said, A wicked and adulterous
generation seeks after a sign, and there shall
no sign be given unto it but the
sign of the prophet Jonah.
And again, he repeats this as he did
before.
And he left them and he departed.
You've asked for a sign before.
I told you the sign of the prophet
Jonah.
That's the only sign you're going to get.
And when his disciples were come together on
the other side, they had forgotten to take
bread.
And Jesus said unto them, Take heed, beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees and the
Sadducees.
Now, we told you that whenever leaven was
referred to, it was referred to in an
evil sense.
It was that agent, actually the starter that
they would use to leaven their loaves of
bread.
It caused the rising by deterioration and decay.
And so it's been a type of sin
or hypocrisy.
And in this case, he said, Beware of
the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,
according to another gospel.
And they reasoned among themselves saying, Oh, he
knows we forgot to bring the bread.
And when Jesus perceived what they were thinking,
he said unto them, Oh, you have little
faith.
Why do you reason among yourselves?
Because you forgot to bring the bread.
Don't you yet understand?
Don't you remember the five loaves and the
5,000?
How many baskets did you take up?
Don't you remember the seven loaves and the
4,000?
And how many baskets you took up?
Do you forget?
Do you think that I'm worried because you
don't have bread?
Don't you realize that we're able to provide
the bread?
I'm not talking about you're forgetting to bring
bread.
How is it that you do not understand?
That I speak it not to you concerning
bread, that you should be aware of the
leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
Then they understood how that he was bidding
them not to be aware of the leaven
that is in bread, but of the doctrine
of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
And now they leave the Sea of Galilee
and they come to the upper part of
what is known as Upper Galilee, the area
that is today called Banias.
In those days, it was Caesarea Philippi.
There are the headwaters of the Jordan River
springing out from the base of Mount Hermon.
And when Jesus came into the area of
Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples saying, whom
do men say that I, the Son of
Man, am?
And they said unto him, some say that
you are John the Baptist.
Some say that you're Elijah.
Others think you're Jeremiah or one of the
other prophets.
And he said unto them, who do you
say 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, or Simon Bar
is son, the son of Jonah, for flesh
and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,
but my Father, which is in heaven.
And I say 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.
Now, we have one of two choices.
The church is built upon Peter or the
church is built upon Peter's confession that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of the living
God.
Now, the Catholics assert that the church was
built on Peter.
There are problems with this.
Number one, Jesus said unto him, thou art
Petros, which in the Greek is a little
stone.
And then he declared upon this Petra, which
is a giant stone, I will build my
church.
And the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it.
The church was not built upon the little
stone, but upon the giant rock.
Thou art Petros, a little stone, upon this
Petra.
Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 3.11
tells us, for other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid, which is not
Simon Peter, but Jesus Christ.
No other foundation can man lay but that
which is laid.
Now, men have tried to lay another foundation,
Peter, but it seems quite obvious that Peter
is not the foundation of the church and
it's not built upon him, but it is
built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ and
Peter's declaration that Jesus is indeed the Messiah,
the Son of the living God.
And that is the true foundation of the
church.
The church is built upon the fact.
Well, it's built upon Jesus Christ.
He is the foundation upon which the church
stands.
Now, the interesting thing to me is that
Peter had here, and I'm sure he did
not realize it.
He had here a spiritual revelation when he
said, thou art the Christ, the Son of
the living God.
Jesus said, all right, Peter.
Flesh and blood did not reveal this unto
you, but my father, which is in heaven.
Peter, you've had a spiritual revelation.
This didn't come out of your own chemical
juices that, you know, flash the little electronic
impulse across your brain.
This came from God.
And I'm certain that Peter didn't realize that
this had come from God because it just
came to him, I'm sure, as just a
flash.
Peter, as we said, was impulsive.
And I'm sure that when Jesus said, who
do you say that I am?
He just said, well, you're the Christ, the
Son of the living God.
Jesus said, all right, blessed are you.
You've had a revelation from God.
Flesh and blood didn't reveal this unto you,
but my father, which is in heaven.
God speaks to us in such natural ways
that usually we're not aware that God is
speaking to us.
We expect God to speak in some supernatural
way.
We expect to go into a trance and
hear the prelude of the angelic choir and
feel all of these tingling sensations and our
hair is standing out, you know, on end.
And then we hear, my child, you know,
God's talking to me.
But God speaks to us in such natural
ways and God leads us in such natural
ways.
There is the beautiful supernatural within the natural.
But because we are so dull in our
spiritual sensibilities, we are usually not even attuned
or aware to the fact that it is
God speaking to us or God leading us.
And that's just put down to our spiritual
dullness.
And there are a lot of times you
say, well, God's never spoken to me or
I've never heard the voice of God or
I've never had any experience.
And it's because you're looking for some kind
of, you know, super kind of, uh, hocus
pocus, uh, you know, and the vibrations that
come and everything else.
But God works in such beautiful, natural ways.
And the real ability is discovering the supernatural
in the natural.
And more important than that and more difficult
than that is to be able to discern
the supernatural from the natural.
Now that's the hardest part.
Did this come from God or did this
come from me?
God, are you speaking to me or is
this just something I'm dreaming up, you know?
And that is difficult.
There's no, there's no easy way.
That is extremely difficult because the supernatural comes
in such a natural way.
If the supernatural came in a supernatural way,
I'd have no problem with discernment, you see.
But because the supernatural God, you see, is
a superior Trinity, father, son, and spirit.
I'm an inferior Trinity of spirit, soul, and
body.
I meet God in the realm of the
spirit.
And so God's spirit bears witness with my
spirit that I'm a son of God.
Now my spirit has to bear witness to
my consciousness.
And when my spirit bears witness to my
consciousness, it comes just like a thought from
within, an awareness, an inspiration from within.
Now I have my own inspirations too at
times.
Now how do I know if this inspiration
is coming from God or coming from me?
Because they flash into my consciousness from this
same level as the spirit comes from the
area of the subconscious.
So does my imagination come from the area
of the subconscious?
And because it comes to me consciously, the
difficulty is to discern.
Did this come from my own imagination or
did this originate?
Did this thought actually come from God?
Is he the one planting the thought in
my mind?
And so here's Peter.
He just expresses the thought that flashes in
his head and Jesus says, hey, all right.
Spiritual revelation, Peter.
My father revealed that to you.
So Peter's got a roll going.
Jesus said, and I will give to you
the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
And whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall
be bound in heaven and whatsoever you shall
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
We have power as the children of God
to bind the forces of darkness and to
loose the work of God.
God has given us that authority over these
spirit forces, these spiritual entities that as children
of God, we do have authority over them.
We can bind these spirit forces and we
can loose the work of God.
Then he charged his disciples that they should
tell no man that he was Jesus, the
Messiah.
The reason being, he did not want a
premature attempt to acclaim him.
There was a day in which the Messiah
was to be revealed.
That day came when Jesus made his triumphant
entry.
At this point, he is saying, now, look,
don't tell anybody.
This is a revelation that came to you
from God, but don't tell anybody.
Now, later on, he set the stage.
He said, go in the city and you'll
find the donkey.
Bring him to me.
And he sat on the donkey fulfilling the
prophecy of Zachariah.
Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, but he
is lowly.
He's sitting upon a donkey, but now was
not the time for the revelation.
The perfect time of God had not yet
come.
So he's saying, look, don't tell anybody yet.
No premature kind of forcing of the people
or trying, the people trying to set up
the kingdom prematurely.
Now, from that time on, Jesus began to
show to his disciples.
At this point, now he reveals himself.
I'm, I am the Messiah.
Peter, you're right.
Now, the Jewish people have been looking for
the Messiah to come and establish the kingdom
of God and overthrow the Roman yoke and
bondage.
And when Jesus acknowledged, yes, I am the
Messiah, don't tell anybody.
He then began to tell them, now, look,
I must go to Jerusalem and suffer many
things from the elders and the chief priests
and the scribes and be killed and be
raised again the third day.
And Peter took him and began to rebuke
him saying, be it far from thee, Lord,
or Lord, spare yourself.
This shall not happen to you.
Peter, the rock.
And Jesus turned and said unto Peter, get
thee behind me, Satan.
You are an offense unto me because you
cannot tell the difference between those things that
are of God and those things that are
of men.
Move over, Peter.
I want to sit down.
A problem that I have.
The inability to always be able to tell
what is of God and what is of
my own heart.
Notice that Peter in one moment has a
divine revelation and in the next moment is
expressing Satan's philosophy.
The philosophy of hell.
Spare yourself.
Be that far from thee.
Literally spare thyself.
It shall not be to you.
The philosophy of hell.
Take the easy way.
Take the easy path.
Escape the cross.
The philosophy of hell is to encourage you
to escape the cross.
But the cross was important for our salvation.
Without the cross, we could not be redeemed.
And the cross is also important for us,
for our spiritual development.
And Satan is saying to us, escape the
cross.
Live the easy path.
Indulge yourself.
Escape the cross.
You don't want the cross.
But it is important that I recognize that
I was crucified with Christ.
And that old man, the old nature, was
there crucified with him that I should no
longer live unto the flesh, but now live
unto the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me.
But Satan is still saying, spare yourself.
You don't want to come to the cross
in your own life.
Live after your flesh.
Go ahead, indulge yourself.
And Jesus is just pointing to the cross
and saying there's no answer except the cross.
You must reckon your old nature to be
dead, crucified with Christ.
You can't live after the flesh anymore.
Paul the apostle said, how can we who
have been dead, who are dead to the
flesh, how can we then be living any
longer therein?
So, Peter, having a divine revelation, then the
inspiration of his own heart, inspired by Satan
as he expresses the philosophy of hell, shows
what is a common problem with us.
The ability to know the difference between when
God is speaking and my own heart is
speaking to me.
God help me, I don't have any easy
answers for you.
This is a question that I'm faced with
so many times.
People say, how can I tell if it's
God or me?
And God help me, I don't know.
In my own life, I seek to measure
it by the scripture.
Does it keep with the word of God?
If it doesn't keep with the word of
God, then I know it's not of God,
because God's consistent, always consistent, and whatever he
says will be in perfect harmony and in
keeping with what he has said.
Then said Jesus, you see, Peter had just
said, spare thyself.
And Jesus is saying, Peter, that's the philosophy
of hell.
If any man's going to come after me,
he can't spare himself.
He must deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me.
The path of discipleship is the path of
self-denial.
The path of discipleship is the path of
the cross.
I must come to the cross in my
own life.
I must come to the end of my
own ambitions, my own goals, my own desires,
my own self way.
And I must just reckon that old life
of the flesh to be dead, crucified with
Christ, that I might live a new life
after the Spirit in Christ Jesus.
I cannot live the life that Christ would
have me to live apart from the power
of his Holy Spirit.
And I cannot be living after the flesh
and living after the Spirit at the same
time.
I've got to reckon that old man to
be dead.
And that is a process that I have
to do day after day because the old
man is still trying to get on the
throne.
Paul said that there is a war that
is going on within us.
The flesh is lusting against the Spirit and
the Spirit is against the flesh.
And these two are contrary and we don't
always do even the things we want to
do.
And Paul expressing his own conflict in Romans
7 said, and that which I do, I
would not.
And that which I would not, I do.
Oh, wretched man that I am!
Who shall deliver me from this body of
death?
And all of us having seen the divine
ideal and consenting to it and saying, yes,
Lord, that is the right life and that's
the life I want to live and that's
the life I'm going to live, have experienced
that weakness of our own flesh.
And those things that we promised we would
do, we are not doing.
And those things we said I'll never do
again, we're still doing them.
Oh, wretched man that I am!
Notice at the end of chapter 7 in
Romans, Paul has thrown off now any self
-help formulas.
How can I change?
No longer is that his cry.
And as long as you're crying, how can
I change?
How can I do better?
I'm looking for another formula.
Doesn't anybody have any dietary aids to help
me, you know?
Nothing's worked.
I've tried them all.
He's not looking for another formula.
He's not saying, how can I help myself?
Doesn't anybody else have any more ideas, self
-help program, how to be a better me?
But he's calling for outside help.
He's come to the end.
Who shall deliver me?
I can't do it myself.
I've tried, I've failed.
Who shall deliver me?
And therein is the answer.
When we come to the end of ourselves
and we begin to cry out for that
outside help, Paul responds to his own question,
thanks be unto God that through Jesus Christ,
we have the victory.
I don't have to be a defeated Christian.
I don't have to be in bondage to
my flesh.
And chapter 7, you find the I, I,
I, I, I all the way through.
But in chapter 8, it disappears as he
begins to talk about the Spirit and the
glorious, victorious life that he is now living
by the power of the Spirit.
There is a cross.
If any man's going to come after me,
he's going to have to deny himself the
self-governed life.
He's got to bring it to the cross
and reckon the old nature and the old
man to be dead, yes, crucified with Christ.
And then Jesus said, follow me.
And then he gives a rationale.
First of all, an explanation, then the rationale.
The explanation is amplifying, for whosoever will save
his life will lose it.
If you're trying to find life apart from
Jesus Christ, you're going to end up losing
your life eternally.
But whosoever will lose his life for my
sake, he'll find it.
He'll find what real life is.
Then the rationale, for what should it profit
a man if he would gain the whole
world and lose his own soul?
Now, if you could have anything, here we
are now, the genie's popped out of the
bottle, and you have three wishes.
If you could have anything that you wanted,
if there were the magic genie, and you
could have anything you desired, anything you wanted,
what would it be?
What would it be?
Now, if you were able to achieve or
to attain that wish, that desire, but it
cost you your soul, what would it then
really profit you?
What would it profit you if you gained
the whole world, but you lost your own
soul?
So, you see, Jesus is saying, look, you've
got to deny yourself, take up your cross,
and follow me.
For what profit is it if you would
gain the whole world and yet lose your
soul?
Secondly, what will a man give in exchange
for his soul?
Now, as far as God is concerned, your
soul is worth more than the whole world.
As far as God is concerned, if you
were offered the whole world in trade for
your soul, and you took the whole world
in exchange for your soul, you'd be making
a bad deal, a stupid deal.
For your soul is eternal.
The world is going to pass away.
The world and the lust thereof, he said,
is going to pass away.
Your soul is eternal.
You're trading your eternal soul for something that's
just going to pass away.
And as far as the Lord is concerned,
you've made a bad deal.
Then the question, what will a man give
in exchange for his soul?
What would you take for your soul?
Now, every once in a while, these plots
are developed by the movies of Satan coming
and offering a guy, you know, sell out,
you know, and the guy names his price,
you know.
What would you exchange your soul for?
What will the man give?
You know, I am always shocked at what
men often give for their souls.
I'm shocked at how cheap man often values
himself or his eternal life.
I see people exchanging their soul for such
foolish things such as pride or pleasure for
a moment or fame or glory.
They sell out so cheap, and it always
amazes me that people value their soul so
lightly when God places such a tremendous value
upon it.
For Jesus said, the Son of Man shall
come in the glory of his Father.
Jesus is going to come again in the
glory of his Father with his angels.
Now, he says, this time I'm going to
be crucified.
I'm going to be turned over into the
elders.
They're going to crucify me.
They're going to kill me.
Third day I'm going to rise, but I'm
going to come in the glory of my
Father with his angels, and then he shall
reward every man according to their works.
Verily I say unto you, there are some
who are standing here which will not taste
of death till they see the Son of
Man coming in his kingdom.
What does he mean by that?
Well, it's unfortunate that there is a chapter
break there, because what he meant by that
is explained as we go right into chapter
17.
But with the chapter break there, they should
have made the chapter break at the end
of verse 27.
So we'll start our lesson next Sunday night
with verse 28, and it really belongs to
chapter 17 of the book of Matthew, and
we'll go on next Sunday night on through
to chapter 20.
Shall we stand?
May the Spirit of God take the word
of God tonight and continue to minister it
to your heart and to your life as
you deal with those issues of your own
soul and of your own relationship with God
and of your own life, the flesh life
versus the spiritual life.
And I pray that God might work in
your heart.
And if you have not yet been brought
by the Spirit of God to the cross,
our place of victory in Jesus Christ, I
pray that the Spirit will lead you to
the cross this week.
That you might come to the end of
self and the self-governed life and put
it there on the cross.
Recognize that the old man was crucified, that
the body of sin might not rule over
you anymore, but that you might be ruled
now by the Spirit of God.
That new life, that life of victory in
Christ.
And some of you who have been wandering
in the wilderness in your Christian experience, has
been a wilderness barren experience that you might
pass over Jordan and come into the promised
land, the life of the Spirit and begin
to know the victory and the power of
the Spirit in your life, in those areas
where your flesh has kept you in defeat
before.
And so may this be a week of
spiritual development and growth as you continue your
walk with Jesus Christ.