Address—Don Rule
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
We'll start by singing #100.
And 32132 The person of the Christ unfolding, every grace, once slain but now alive again in heaven, demands our praise. Someone started.
Young people.
On behalf of all of us who've noticed it, and I'm sure there have been quite a number of us and appreciated it.
Thank you for being here.
You're more of an encouragement that you know by your very presence here this weekend.
And on behalf of whoever else feels it like I do, I want to say for them, thank you very much, we appreciate it. Let's pray.
Turn with me to a verse in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 4.
Or several verses.
Matthew, Chapter 4.
Verse 17.
From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. And Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea. For they were fishers. And he said unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their Nets.
And followed him. Now turn with me to John's Gospel chapter 21.
Convert John 2121.
Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, And what shall this man do?
Jesus saith unto him, If I will, that he tarry till I come.
What is that to thee? Follow thou me.
On our way up here we were coming across 407 across the top of Toronto and I looked out on the left hand side of the car and I saw a sign and as best I remembered it said this.
Your eternity is on the left.
Well, that was enough to catch my attention sufficiently so that as the car drove or I drove past that point, I looked back at the sign and on the other side of it it said your eternity is on the right.
I didn't pay much attention to the small print, but I think the small print was advertising a cemetery.
00:05:05
Your eternity, young people, is straight ahead.
Neither on the left nor is it on the right.
Traveled on down the road, stopped at a service Plaza.
And at the service Plaza.
I was going out with Grace, my wife, and there was a lady who came through the door and, uh, immediately following her, I think it was her son. And he came through the door after her and when he saw us, he backed up, went back to the door and opened it up for us to go out.
And I said thank you to him. And we went on toward our car. But as we were going toward our car, I wished, like a lot of times we do, thought came to my mind it was too late to do anything about it. But I would have liked to have said to that young man, young man, your credit to your mother.
Several hours later, we stopped at another service Plaza.
And we went in.
And then our business, and as we came out, a man in his 50s was there at the door, and he opened the door and I said to him, Sir, your credit to your mother. You looked a little surprised.
But he had a good answer. He said to me, smile. And he said, well, I think it's more credit to my wife.
Dear young people, it's the desire of the Lord Jesus, the desire of God.
That when you straight ahead leave this world and go into eternity.
There could be beside your name.
I don't wanna say tombstone. We look for the Lord to come. Death is not in itself our expectation.
But it'd be wonderful if it's can be said beside your name.
She followed the Lord.
Or he followed the Lord.
Better than he or she Put your name in there.
I'd be quite satisfied if that could be said of me, the only words of my whole life.
Don followed the Lord.
Can you put your name in there? Is that a desire this afternoon that is presently in your heart?
We're going to look at the life of Peter as a follower of the Lord.
And learn, I trust, or at least remind ourselves that we already know them, some lessons that are necessary for us as those who want, as young people particularly, but as we were older too, to follow the Lord.
Turn with me to Luke's gospel.
You know, before you can follow the Lord, you've got to come to the Lord. And I believe here in Luke's Gospel chapter 5, we have what properly could be called Peter's conversion. This is where Peter.
Gets converted where he becomes a follower in his life of the Lord Jesus.
Luke chapter 5, verse one. And it came to pass, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, that he stood by the lake of Genesis, and he saw two ships standing by the lake, but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their Nets. And he entered into one of the ships which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people out of the ship. Now when he had left speaking.
He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your Nets for a draught. And Simon answering, said unto him, Master, we have toiled all night, and have taken nothing, nevertheless that thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes in their net break, and they beckoned under their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them.
And they came and filled both the ships so that they began to sink. When Peter, Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus feet saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord, For he was astonished.
00:10:07
And all that were with him at the draught of the fishes which had been taken. And so also was James and John the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.
We won't look at all the places, and perhaps it could be looked at a little bit differently by someone else, but.
We know the Lord Jesus was raised in a little town called Nazareth. He grew up there. That's where he was raised. That's where he became, learned the trade of his father of a Carpenter and became a Carpenter.
But later, before or at about the time that he was going to go into his public service and that God had given to him, at about 30 years of age, he moves to a town on the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee called Capernaum. We also know that Peter and his brother were from the town of Bethesda, which is a couple of miles farther along the same shoreline.
And the Lord Jesus living in Capernaum on several instances, obviously.
Peter makes his acquaintance. He becomes to know who he is.
And in fact, it would seem from John's gospel that Peter's brother Andrew is the one that first.
Takes Peter to meet the Lord Jesus and the Lord looks at Peter and he says something to Peter that I am confident Peter had no idea what he meant.
But the Lord looks at him, and he tells him something about his own future.
But Peter still.
In this particular little account that we read here, when they when the Lord says to Peter, I want to use your boat, that's OK, He knew him and they go out on the lake.
And Peter was a fisherman. He knew fish. Lord had been a Carpenter, he knew wood. But Peter looks at him and the Lord says, after the use of the boat, let down your net.
Peter says to him, Master.
The word Master indicates that he recognized that he had perhaps heard the Lord Jesus preached about the work of repentance, and he recognized in him some authority.
And I respected it.
And did as he was told.
A lot of you young people have been brought up in Christian homes. Not all of you have perhaps, but from the time you were a child, you've learned something about the Lord Jesus. And perhaps you've learned enough that in similar language you wouldn't use the word, but you were able to say about a master, somebody who has authority, somebody that you perhaps respect in your life, someone that you might even.
Do something if asked.
If he were present here this afternoon.
But Peter's heart.
Wasn't tuned up with the Lord at this moment.
He says, OK, I'll do it, and he lets down his net and the number of fish that was caught sufficient to break the net and so on. And Peter, at that point, if I could use this expression, the light bulb turns on in him and he sees himself.
For what he is, or at least he starts to see himself. For what he is, he sees himself enough.
That he takes his place before the Lord, and he says.
I'm a sinful man. I'm a sinful man.
That's the starting point of a relationship. You cannot follow the Lord Jesus. The Lord doesn't ask you to follow Him.
Up to this point in time, the Lord Jesus had not asked Peter to follow him.
There was nothing in Peter that the Lord could use.
And there was no basis for a relationship between the Lord and Peter until Peter comes to this point in his life where he says I am a sinful man.
Dear young people, there's no way to God. There's no way to the Lord Jesus.
00:15:06
Until you have come and acknowledged.
Your own sinfulness.
There's only one way to salvation. There may be many ways to repentance, but Peter here is expressing his own acknowledgement of himself and is before the Lord. And in fact, it's a wonderful way. It works sometimes he says, depart from me. I'm a sinful man. Oh, Lord, that is, he felt unworthy. He was unworthy. It's not wrong that he felt that he wasn't worthy, and he felt it. And he says depart from me. I am a sinful man.
But he didn't go away.
It didn't go away. He was a sinful man, but the Lord Jesus expression of the love of God. And this is how God works. He drew his heart. God is here this afternoon by the Word to draw your heart. He loves you and He wants to draw your heart to Himself.
He's wanted to do it since before he ever created the world. And so Peter says depart from me, for I'm a sinful man, O Lord and.
He was astonished, he saw this miracle to his eyes. He knew fishing, and the Lord steps into his life.
I trust, I hope we're not going to talk more about it, that the Lord Jesus has come into your life and you can sit in your seat this afternoon with the joy of saying I'm a sinful man that the Lord saved.
And I'm trust that you know the way of salvation.
And so here it is with Peter.
As we had in the map, the account in Matthew, Lord Peachtree preaches repentance.
Then we see Peter.
Here, who repents?
And the next step, if you will, in the life is He comes to the Lord.
And the Lord gives him now the first instruction of his Christian life. Follow me.
That's the first thing after salvation.
When the Lord Jesus chose his disciples, it says that they might be with Him. That's the first thing they might be with him. That's the first thing the Lord wants in your life. He wants you with Him.
To go through life together.
Follow.
Thou me.
Follow me.
Those words, hard to understand. You know, sometimes young people we say, and I'm very conscious of it this afternoon, to seek before the Lord, not to say something that'll go over the head.
But I challenge you.
Are those words difficult to understand as you sit in your seat? Follow me.
I don't think you can honestly object to them being difficult to understand.
Follow.
Me and so the Lord Jesus, I said to the Lord Jesus, I wish he came.
And stood here this afternoon so that you had the sense directly in your heart from himself that he was saying to you, not me. You might look at me and think, I want to say it to you. I'm not asking you to follow me. I'm not telling you to follow the Lord either. I'm standing here As for the Lord Jesus who says to your heart this afternoon, follow me.
Follow.
Me. I hope you can't get those words out of your soul.
You know, we come to have meetings like this for all kinds of reasons.
Whether we're young or whether we're old, some of them are good and some of them not so good sometimes.
I thought one of them I remember try to remember your age and wanting to speak to you.
When I was your age, sometimes some of us that were young people, we came to see and be seen.
We came to see and be seen.
We were very conscious, more conscious of who else of our own age group was there than we were of what was taking place in the meetings.
00:20:07
And there is a place for that.
This is where a lot of us have found our wives or our husbands found for us.
But the Lord wants to talk to us too.
And I believe the Lord wants each one of us.
To respond to his own heart when he says follow me.
If we are with the Lord Jesus and we follow Him, then yes, He has things for us to do in life.
He says to Peter, I'll make you a Fisher of men.
And Peter became a Fisher of men.
But in that process, Peter, I don't know how old Peter was. The Lord is about 30 years old. I'm going to let him be still a young person or nearly a young person at that age. First afternoon's purposes.
And I would guess that Peter was a contemporary of the Lord. He was somewhat of the same age bracket, maybe a little younger.
And we're gonna look at a few incidents now in the life of Peter that take place over a period of 3 1/2 years.
And I just want to say to you, I'm impressed with Peter at how well he learned so much, so many lessons in his life in a short period, at least to me, a short period now of 3 1/2 years. You know, you can learn a lot in a short period of time if you're serious about it, if your heart is right and you've got a lot to learn, you've got a lot to learn.
The world, usually.
Willing to for about 12 years.
Pay to have us learn some stuff.
And then beyond that, some of us may go on and spend a few more years paying to learn some more.
And then the expectation is that we've learned enough to go out and as the world says, we say earn a living.
With God it takes a lot longer.
For most of us.
Sometimes I hear the statement made and I thought about it today or last night or something. The statement, uh, we in God's school, we, it goes all the way through life.
We don't graduate until we come into eternity.
But today I think it was God corrected my thought.
God says no.
I have so much to teach you that eternity won't be long enough.
I've got so much to teach you about my son the Lord Jesus Christ that I'll be.
Teaching you forever.
You're just a little vessel and, uh, it takes a long time sometimes, but this is lessons for life that Peter is learning and I'd like to turn over for the first lesson, if you will. I hear people talk about teaching moments. I'm not sure what those words mean. They're not of my generation, but I'm going to tell these teaching experiences.
Uh, turn with me and we don't have time to look at a lot of the experiences, but.
I'd like to look at a few of them that are given to us in Matthew's Gospel, and the first one we'll look at is found in, uh, Matthew chapter. I think it's 14.
This is a teaching experience that Peter, a follower of the Lord Jesus, needed to go through, and so do you. Or maybe you've been through it, I don't know. I find it's one that you're going to have to learn over and over again. Some things the Lord teaches us, we have to go over and over and over the lesson.
So here Peter in chapter 14.
Uh, it says in verse.
19 Or BR verse 18 He said, Bring them, hit her to me. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to have any blast and break, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled, and they took up of the fragments that remained 12 baskets full. And they that had eaten were about 5000 men beside women and children.
00:25:03
Fantastic experience, right? You would have liked to have been there, right? You would have been awed, right?
Imagine it. It's not hard to imagine. Here's 5000 men plus women and children on a hillside, I think, overlooking the lake of Sea of Galilee. And there's two.
Little fish and five loaves of bread not to put in a lunch sack.
And the Lord Jesus tells them to put them down and put the people down in orderly fashion, and he gives thanks for the food and gives it to them, and they start to hand it out and the the miracle takes place.
Now I think, quite rightly, that if we had been there we would have said the Lord is awesome.
You can trust him, he can do anything.
Right. Well, he is awesome. You can trust him, you can do anything.
But that isn't the full picture.
The Lord knows the heart, and He knows what's necessary and so.
As soon as this is over.
He says verse 22, and straightway that means immediately. Immediately Jesus constrains disciples to get into a boat to go before Him under the other side, while he sends the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray, and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves, for the wind was contrary.
And in the 4th watch of the night, Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.
They were troubled, saying, It is a spirit, and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer is I be not afraid? And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come.
And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink. He cried, saying, Lord, save me.
And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou a little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
The Lord sent Peter and the others out to learn a lesson.
He knew what was necessary. He knows what's necessary for you. You're here at the conference this weekend and you may enjoy it immensely. I hope you do.
And the Lord may show certain things to you in your heart and life this weekend, young people.
But he may also see the need soon as Monday or Tuesday comes.
Put you in a little boat. He may send you in a little boat.
You may not be aware of it quite as definitely in this way as the disciples were.
But the Lord Jesus controls the circumstances of your life.
And he knows how to put you in a little boat.
And send you out in the dark at night.
And make the wind boisterous.
He does that because he loves you.
And he wants you to be a Fisher of men.
But you have to learn to follow first.
Probably spend the whole time on this one little incident, but I just want to pick out for you a couple of thoughts.
Uh.
You need to learn to walk on water.
You need to learn to walk on water.
The life of the believer.
Is a life that has to be lived by faith.
And you will find in the path of life that there are times in life that nature, that is your natural self and what you can provide and do for yourself is not enough.
We all recognize that we weren't made physically to walk on water.
00:30:04
And I don't suppose that any of us that are present here will physically walk on water as Peter did.
But Peter was learning that he needed to trust in the Lord and have his eye on the Lord to sustain him where faith, where nature could not go.
He wanted to learn. I hope you want to learn, he says to the Lord. Command me.
Come down out of this boat.
And the Lord says, come down.
You wanna walk with the Lord, the Lord's gonna take you through it and you are gonna have to get out of the boat.
And walk in faith.
And be sustained by himself.
And while it doesn't have to happen, I dare say you'll see the boisterous wind and you'll start to sink.
And the Lord will look at you. You'll say, not real calmly, Lord, save me.
And he will, He will, He will not let you sink.
Positive. Absolute. He will not let you sink.
And I dare say, if your desire of your heart is to follow the Lord, and you say, Lord, if it's you let me get down out of the boat, he will say, come.
And you will go.
And you will learn.
And so he did.
Turn over to Chapter 16.
Verse five And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread. Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye a little faith, why reason ye among yourselves because ye have brought no bread? Do you not understand? Neither remember the five loaves of the 5000, and how many baskets you took up.
Neither the seven loaves of the 4000 and how many baskets you took up. How is it that you do not understand?
That I spake.
It is not to you concerning bread, but that you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
Then understood they how that he bade them not to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
Another teaching experience for Peter as a follower of the Lord Jesus.
The moment you leave the ground of faith in your relationship to the Lord Jesus.
You will reason.
The moment faith isn't at work in you in your relationship with the Lord Jesus.
You will reason.
The Lord said beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Is that hard to understand?
Maybe some of the details a little bit.
But when he said Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, you think he was talking about physical bread?
I doubt you do.
Why did they start to think about physical breath?
Why did they reason among themselves?
Because there was something in them that was hindering them.
They thought of their own failing. They forgot to take bread, or at least they looked at it as a failing, and they had forgotten to do something. So immediately what was in them and the state of what was going on in their own hearts is there and present when the Lord wants to say something to them.
And instead of accepting it in simplicity for themselves, they reason about it.
And the Lord has to deal with them, and the Lord is able to communicate with them.
00:35:00
Perfectly and they.
Say, oh, he's talking about the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees, and they get it.
Is there something this afternoon that causes you to reason about what's being said to you?
When the Lord says follow me, is that hard to understand? I'm going to emphasize that.
I don't think so.
But maybe you start in your soul to reason about it.
Well, I'd like to follow the Lord, but that's reasoning.
I do follow the Lord but.
And so on.
Stop yourself.
Then you're following the Lord when it leaves simplicity, when you can't just deal with it simply.
Because reason is coming in.
And that takes you off the proper ground of your relationship with following the Lord.
Follow the Lord with simplicity.
Peter was learning to do that. He was learning to follow the Lord in simplicity.
In faith.
You will find that in almost everyone of the teaching experiences in the life of Peter is recorded in the Gospels. Something of faith or unbelief is found in the experience.
And I want to elaborate on that for a few moments.
The root failure of mankind is springs from unbelief.
In the Garden of Eden, doubt.
With Satan at work behind it resulted in unbelief.
Which resulted in disobedience.
And ever since that moment, God has been working with mankind on the issue of belief and unbelief.
To talk about the for a moment, what we had in the end of the Bible reading this morning of the Holy Spirit coming into the world, it says the very first thing He shall convince the world of sin because they do not believe on me.
The ultimate test of whether there was any natural faith in man toward God left.
Was would man believe in the perfect expression of one worthy of belief?
His son.
And when the world turns in unbelief from the Son of God, the perfect.
Expression of one worthy of belief as a man in this world.
It's the end, absolute end, before God, of the whole creation.
And God has to work in a new creation, and so he gives us life, eternal life.
And we believe by faith and the work of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. But because they're still in us, that natural heart, much of the life of following the Lord Jesus is the life of learning to trust.
In simplicity.
And what God says and in the Lord Jesus that we follow. Dear young people, if you're left here.
I can, I think, guarantee you you'll have some experience to teach you trust.
Peter went through multiple experiences. He didn't know his own heart.
Had to learn to trust and it seems in one instance, well, we'll come to it if we have time. Let's keep going.
Here in the 16th chapter.
And uh.
Verse 12.
He they understood how he bade them not to beware of the leaven of the bread, but of the doctrine of the scribes and Pharisees. When Jesus came into the coast accessory of Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man AM? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias and others Jeremias are one of the prophets. He saith unto them, By whom do you say that I am? Dear young person? Who do you say he is? Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
00:40:12
Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee.
But my father, which is in heaven, And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church in the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Keep your finger here.
I want you to turn over with me to Second Chronicles chapter 4.
2nd Tyrannical Sorry, Chapter 3. Second Chronicles, Chapter 3.
Then Solomon began to build the House of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornam, the Jebusite Umm.
Verse three. Now these are the things where in Solomon was instructed for the building of the House of God. The length of the cubits after the first measure were three score cubits in the breadth 20 cubits. And verse umm. 8 And he made the most holy house that length, whereof was according to the breadth of the house, 20 cubits, and so on, and umm.
Verse 17 And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and the other on the left, and he called the name of that on the right hand Jacob, and on the left Boaz.
What do you want to? What do you do when you want to talk to God? What do you call it?
We call it prayer.
What do you do when you want God to talk to you?
You know what it is to talk to God. What do you do when you want God to talk to you?
You'll open up the word, and you say, speak, Lord, thy servant heareth.
This is one of the most important ways that God is using today to speak to you.
Every day we need to talk to God and we need God to talk to us.
What I just read to you happens to be.
Where God speaking to me in my morning reading.
What did he have to say today?
Every one of us has to have a foundation to our lives.
Peter's confession in Matthew 16.
Was a confession as to who the Lord Jesus was, that the Lord said on this rock I will build.
You have to have a foundation on which your life is built.
And that foundation is the rock, which is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is the solid foundation of your life. You have no other.
On that foundation is built a house for God.
And, well, in some places, it's a collective view of it. This afternoon I'm going to use it in a personal way.
As it God has, I believe, brought it before my soul this morning.
Your heart is a temple, a dwelling place for God to live.
And in that temple.
He wants to put treasure for himself.
You're pretty important person.
You are a temple.
Built on the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In which God wants to keep treasure.
That's where God kept his treasures, isn't it?
In the Old Testament, that was the temple.
And David put what he gave, and it was placed there. Solomon put what he gave, and it was placed there.
00:45:08
Eternity is ahead of you and when you enter the presence of God.
God is that we're going to have.
Treasure.
Yourself.
And what he's put in you.
Every little bit of the Lord Jesus Christ and His loveliness that resides in your heart is a treasure.
To God.
Every little appreciation and response in you that is carried in your heart is treasure to God.
And at the door of your heart.
Or two pillars.
Jacon and Boaz.
And your margin?
If you happen to have a merchant Jake and Mains, he shall establish.
And Boaz, it is strength.
At the door of your heart, God says, I'll establish, I'll keep.
And I'm the strength too.
Of it, of that treasure.
You have an important journey.
To make.
Through life.
And when the journey is over?
You know, we talked about the world, Hezekiah. When some people from the world came, he opened up the treasure house.
And he showed it, and he lost it.
You can't show the world your treasure that way. It will take it from you if it can. We don't have time to go there. But back to our chapter.
Matthew 16.
God gives to Peter this wonderful truth of a revelation that never man had ever known before him. Be a follower of the Lord Jesus and.
God will open his treasure house so he can put some of it in you, so that you can enjoy it with him. And so God opened up his treasure house, if you will, and put this in the heart of Peter and the thoughts of Peter, and he says it and he enjoys it.
And he says, Peter, this rock will last for eternity.
Speaking of the church, it'll last for eternity. Nothing is going to rob it.
It's on a solid foundation that will go on. Satan can't, the gates of hell won't prevail against it, and so on.
Wonderful, tremendous truth. Now what happens immediately after he says verse 20. Then he charged his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ seems almost strange, fantastic, wonderful statements. And now he immediately turns around and says, now don't tell anybody.
At least now.
Verse 21. From that time forth Jesus began to show unto his disciples how that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.
And be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from the Lord, This shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offence unto me. For thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever shall save his life shall lose it. Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it so on.
Peter had another lesson to learn as a follower of the Lord Jesus, and it's a good lesson. It's one you've got to learn. I've got to learn. You can't escape it, really.
Peter had just gotten wonderful truth from God.
And he enjoyed it and others profited by it.
00:50:04
But as it were.
Peter enjoyed the wonders of the truth of coming glory.
And when the Lord talked about present sacrifice and death, Peter says uh-huh, No, Lord, not that.
We delight to look forward to what's coming when we're in the presence of the Lord Jesus in heaven, when we reign with Him, when we are seen as His bride. These are wonderful truths.
But then the test is what about Tuesday?
What about Tuesday?
Peter thought about it and as it were, and he said, No, Lord.
I gonna be somebody when you reign, but.
I really don't want this.
Peter didn't recognize that unless the Lord Jesus died, none of it could happen.
That the future glory depended on the present.
Dear young person, when the Lord says, follow me.
He also has to say to you.
Follow me right into eternity, and there's this wonderful glory for you.
But on Tuesday, there's the cross. There's the denial of yourself.
Are you willing to follow the Lord Jesus with this?
Peter was after he learned his lesson. I trust you will be too, if you haven't already learned the lesson.
To follow the Lord Jesus required.
The giving up of self.
And all its aspirations as to this world.
Is it worth it? Are you willing?
It won't be from me.
But can you listen to the heart of the Lord Jesus? Follow me.
Lord says to you this afternoon, follow me.
Follow me.
I think we have time for one last lesson. Turn to the next chapter.
Verse chapter 17 verse one. And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James and John his brother, and bringeth him up to a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them and his face to join us. The sun and his raiment was white as light.
And, umm.
Verse five. While he yet spake, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold a voice out of the cloud which said, This is my beloved son, whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him.
Verse 7 Jesus came and touched them and said, arise be not afraid.
Or should read verse six. When the disciples heard it, they fell on their face and were sore afraid.
And, uh, now down to.
Verse 15 A man with the child's in need comes and says, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he's a lunatic and sorvex for of times he followeth into the fire, and OFT into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.
Now we're back to faith again.
Jesus answered and said, Oh, faithless and perverse, He isn't talking to the world here. He's talking about his own followers, faithless and perverse generation. How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you bring him hit her to me.
Verse 19 And the disciples come to Jesus apart and say, Why couldn't we cast him out? Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief. For I say unto you, that if you have faith of a grain of a mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to Yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing should be impossible to you. Just a couple of quick thoughts here.
The disciples see a vision of the tremendous.
Coming glory. And in the state in which they were in at that moment, instead of making them happy, it makes them afraid.
We can't enter in, in our souls into the immensity of whatever measure of the glory our souls enter into if we don't have the cross before us. And having taken place and now young people, we can enter into it as a as with unveiled faces. But if we really enter into it, if it really gets grips, our souls will recognize that it's in such a purity and such a brightness of light that other than the fact that we're redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, it would make us afraid.
00:55:29
Make us afraid. It made the disciples afraid to see it when they didn't have the foundation of the cross, to understand, to recognize they were in the presence of holy, holy God.
But.
They're on this mountain and they see this beautiful revelation and they enter into it and appreciate it, and then they have to come down off the mountain and get back into the valley or the world.
And they made something that requires faith.
Can't handle it.
They fail.
We've been given immense revelation of truth, tremendous revelation of the truth of God.
Among us and in us. And we enjoy it too.
We love it, we love to be together and go over it.
But it's hard to walk.
In the everyday holding of it.
My faith.
And that's something to learn.
Most of us have learned it to shame.
But it's something we have to learn.
There wasn't. There was the Spirit of God. We talked about the Spirit of God.
The Spirit of God is greater than us than it is in the world. But the disciples through unbelief had not learned.
To walk by the power of the Spirit of God. And so while there was a power given to them to overcome, they couldn't overcome.
And the Lord says, oh please, when will you learn to trust?
The power of the Spirit of God is present in everyone of us. The shining of the coming glory is before our souls. But oh the need.
As the Lord might have to say to us, how long?
How long before you'll walk in true faith?
Well, you may see some of us that are older. You may see some of the consequences that have come upon all of us because of these things. The dear young people, I want to say one last thing to you.
The Lord Jesus at the beginning of the lessons of Peter's life, he said, follow me.
At the end of the recorded messages, 3 1/2 years later in Peter's life, he adds one word.
Follow thou me. It's an intensely individual thing that the Lord is asking of you. And he says, are you tempted to look at the other young people or your elders or somebody else and say, well, what about them?
My last comment to you from the Lord is the Lord says to you individually follow thou me.
That's great.