Gooding, David: The Son of the Living God

A number of short passages of scripture will hold our attention for this evening, and you may care to turn with the- to them with me, or else to listen with your books shut. But whichever way it is, we begin to read tonight from the Gospel by Matthew and chapter uh uh thirteen. The Gospel by Matthew and chapter thirteen. Verse fifty four. And coming into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished and said, "Whence has this man this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son?" Chapter fourteen and verse thirty two. And when they were gone up into the boat, the wind ceased. And they that were in the boat worshiped him, saying, of a truth, thou art the Son of God. Chapter sixteen of that same gospel. And verse fifteen. He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am? And Simon answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Chapter seventeen and verse five. While he was yet speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And behold, a voice out of the cloud saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Hear you him. And finally, for the moment, from verse twenty four of that same chapter seventeen. And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received the half shekel came to Peter and said, does not your master pay the half shekel? He said, yes. And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke first to him, saying, what thinkest thou, Simon? The kings of the earth, from whom do they receive toll or tribute? From their sons or from strangers? And when he said from strangers, Jesus said unto him, therefore the sons are free. But But lest we cause them to stumble, go thou to the sea and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up, and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a shekel. That take and give unto them for me and for thee. And God give us good understanding of his word. And now, Mr. Chairman, sir, my first glad duty in the name of all your visitors here this evening and in my own name is to thank you heartily and your fellow elders and all the members of this assembly here in Caridaf for your delightful generosity in inviting us to come with you here tonight to share your joy. This, as we all understand, ladies and gentlemen, this is an anniversary, uh, occasion, a time for celebration and for joy, surely. And it has been very gracious of our friends to invite us to come along and to share their joy in the Lord as we witness what the Lord has done for them. We think not only of the long years ago when this assembly was first formed. We think of more recent days when, in strong faith and courage, you took your decision to move your premises from where they were before, that they might be in a better place from which your light should shine forth from a hill, so to speak, rather than hidden in the valley. And it is a delight for us and an encouragement to see the way the Lord has honored your faith and initiative and added his blessing to your efforts. You are an encouragement to us, sir, uh, and an example for many of us that we should do likewise. So thank you for the joy that you give us in being present with you here this evening. We have good biblical precedent, do we not, for sitting down from time to time and remembering the past. It was so with Moses and the Israelites, when Moses had got them as far as he could and had got them now within inches of the Promised Land, and Moses could take them no further. Yet Moses took advantage of the last hours that were given to him and called upon Israel to stand at that critical juncture in their experience and remember the past. Tomorrow, maybe next week, a year's time, and they will be over Jordan into their Promised Land, but let them first stand still and remember the way that the Lord had led them thus far. They would remember all his gracious acts, his wonderful miracles. They would remember the days of their progress, and their hearts would be filled with joy. And then, at Moses' command, they were to remember all the days of their stupidity and their sinfulness and their failings, lest when they got into their promised inheritance, they should get falsely puffed up in their heads and imagine that it was their valor that brought them into the land. They were to remember all their stupidities and failings, that when they arrived in the land, their grapes might s- might seem the tastier to them and the sweeter as they ate them, convinced in their hearts that it was only grace that had brought them now into their promised land. It was so in Israel's yearly celebrations, was it not? With the festivals that God designed for them. The very first festival in the year took them back to Passover days, to the very beginning of their redemption as a nation out of the thraldom of Egypt that set them free and on their way to their inheritance. And the last festival of the year, according to the Pentateuch, was another of those festivals that made them look back, as with joy in their hearts they left their settled abodes, not a bad idea at any time in life or in any country, and made themselves boons and worked in these temporary structures for a while to look back upon the past and all the way that God had led them. And now at last and at length, they were in their promised land. So shall it be, my brothers and sisters, surely when we get home to glory, and seeing it all and believing it and saying yes to ourselves, yes, we always believed it was going to be wonderful, but who could have believed and known it will be, it would have been as wonderful as this? And we shall look back with astonishment in our hearts to all the way the Lord has led us and brought us to our eternal inheritance. We shall remember the story of our redemption. We shall remember the story of the progress that, by God's grace, we were able to make. We shall remember, surely we shall not forget it, the days of our wanderings and stupidities and failures, and all then shall contribute to that overwhelming sense of the richness of the grace of God that has brought us at last home. So we rejoice with our brethren tonight and our sisters as they celebrate their sixth anniversary. We look back with them and congratulate them on their faith and courage and initiative and venture, and are pleased to record with them the blessing of God that has rested upon it. But anniversaries, you know, I've found, I won't tell you how many anniversaries I've celebrated of life here on Earth, but they mount up, curiously enough, relentlessly, and every one every year, in spite of my attempts to ignore them, you'll see. Uh, but um, they're a long while, you're a long while looking forward to them, aren't you? And then they're no sooner here than gone. Have you noticed that? It's like that with Christmas, isn't it? And birthdays. And so tonight, the anniversary is with us, and it's no sooner here, we'll be gone, and we shall be launched on yet another uncharted stage in our pilgrimage towards our great inheritance. I thought, therefore, it would be a good thing tonight if, first of all, we look backward. And I took you back in thought, not only to the origin of this particular assembly, but to the origin of the whole church of God, and to that foundation rock upon which the Church of God is built. We shall presently consider the programmatic words of our Lord Jesus Christ in answer to Peter's confession of his deity. On this rock I will build my church. It is clear enough from the context, let the exegetes argue how they will. It is clear enough from the context what that rock upon which the church is built is composed of. The great confession first given by Peter himself to the Lord Jesus, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. In thought, therefore, tonight I take you back to that great rock upon which the church is built historically, which is the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to do more, however, than simply remind you of the doctrine of the deity of Christ. I want us tonight, with Matthew's help, to go back into those early days when men first discovered that Jesus, the man Jesus, whose hands were horny from the use of the plane and the saw in the carpenter shop at Nazareth. To the days when men first woke up to this astonishing fact that the man Jesus with whom they walked the dusty roads of Palestine, the man who traveled with them in their boat, was none other than the Christ, Son of the living God, Son of the owner and creator of the whole universe. They were dumbfounding days. Astonishment built upon astonishment and wonder, and sometimes perplexity. As the evidence mounted, and the divine grace began to open their eyes to show it to them, who this Jesus really was. But we shall not look at it merely as an historical study. How did the first Christians come to realize that Jesus was the Son of God? We shall be looking at it from a practical point of view, and we shall ask, what did that discovery mean to them in practical terms? What difference did it make when they discovered the deity of the Lord Jesus? If you put that question to the Apostle John, tell me, venerable apostle, tell me, do, you exhort us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Tell me, John, what actual practical difference does it make to you that Jesus is the Son of God? And John in his epistle would say, but my dear children, the difference it makes, the practical difference it makes, that Jesus is the Son of God, why therein lies your secret of overcoming the world. Who is he that overcomes the world, save he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Here then is a massive secret, is it not? For the world is ever with us, either with its apparent pleasures enticing us to be disloyal to God and to go far from him. Another day with its hostilities, hating us and persecuting the believer, trying to drive us from God. Other days acting like a ton weighed, not necessarily hostile to us, but making it very difficult for us to keep the commandments of the Lord, because the world isn't geared to keeping the commandments of the Lord, as any businessman will tell you who knows a thing or two about this world. And what is the secret of overcoming it? Oh, says John, can't you see those maidens over there, those Christian girls, now being led out into the amphitheater? Can't you hear the roar of the lion? Can't you even hear the crunching of the bones? What gives that slender girl the courage to surrender all she has for the sake of Jesus Christ? Says John, here's her secret. You see, she believes that Jesus is the Son of God. You see, if Jesus is the Son of God, and you sacrificed everything you had for him to your last farthing and to your last gasp of breath, if Jesus is the Son of God, you've lost nothing really, have you? For you have all in him. Heir of God and joint heir with Christ. Whereas if he isn't the Son of God, you would be a fool to sacrifice anything for him. That's what it comes down to. If you ask John, therefore, what difference does it make to you, my good sir, that Jesus is the Son of God? He would say, here is my strength. Here is the strength of the Christian church to overcome the world. And ever since I noticed that as a young man, I got into the habit of tucking under my cap, so to speak, all the evidences I could possibly muster, to show me and prove to me and to maintain my faith that Jesus is the Son of God. But tonight we shall not be following John, we shall be following Matthew and using his help. And as we relive those wonderful days when men were beginning to discover that Jesus is the Son of God, we shall also ask, what difference did it make to them? Four things it meant to them, I pick out four by a preacher's prerogative to choose. Four things from this passage of scripture, among the many others that it meant to those early men. Discovery of the deity of Christ. Open to those men a new dimension of living. A new dimension, a new level of life that they had never known before. A new dimension of life in which the gravity of Of Earth earth lost lost. its power. They learned that. As Peter learned... from our Lord himself, the ability to walk upon the water. After which, when they got back into the boat, all said, verily, surely, this is the Son of God. A new dimension to life, in which the pull of Earth's gravity lost its power. In the next chapter, from which we did not read, we shall find that the discovery of the deity of Christ gave to the apostles an ever widening horizon for the possibilities of their evangelism. As the Lord Jesus took them right to the borders of their country, where now for the first time in his company, they came front to front with Gentiles. And to their astonishment, they watched him convert a Gentile. Unheard of thing to Peter. Then as they climbed the mountain, and there came hundreds and perhaps thousands of men and women from the Greek cities of the Decapolis, from those northern parts where the Gentiles bordered the Israelites, and they came in their thousands, and our blessed Lord healed them and blessed them and taught them, and they glorified the God of Israel. Which shows you, of course, that they were Gentiles. It would be no significant thing, would it, if Israelites glorified the God of Israel. It was a mightily significant thing that day when Gentiles in their hundreds glorified the God of Israel as they came under the power and blessing of the dear Son of God, who was Israel's Messiah. He gave them an enlarged horizon for their evangelistic vision. And then, of course, if you ask what the discovery of the deity of Christ meant to them, it meant an extended concept of history. As they learn now from the Lord Jesus, not merely about his first coming, but about his second coming. When they first learned that this present age shall not last forever, there shall be an age to come, a glorious age to come for this sorry old world, when the Lord Jesus shall return again in the glory of his Father and with the holy angels, and set up his kingdom and rule from shore to shore. An extended concept of history. And finally, if you say, what did the discovery of Christ mean to these men in the days they first discovered it? It supplied them with an altogether new motivation for behavior in the Church of God. These four things I wish to suggest to you this evening, and of course, I have my preacher's eye on myself first and then on you. While these are stories about the past, they are stories meant to be, aren't they, about our present. And I shall be asking myself, and I shall be asking you, my brother, my sister, you believe the deity of Christ? Tell me honestly, what difference does it make to you? What practical difference? So then it gave them in the first place a new dimension for life. The story I quote is the one you know so well, hence I can omit much of its detail. It's the lesson that Peter learned that dark night when the waves were roaring and the wind are howling. When in answer to the invitation of Christ, he dared get outside the boat and found that at the command of Christ he could walk upon the water. To see the significance of it, perhaps we ought first to sketch in the context. As Matthew takes us by the hand and says at this stage in history, there arose quite a questioning, a hubbub of questions amongst his own people in Nazareth and beyond, as they saw the mighty works of the Lord Jesus. And they said to themselves, whence has this man this wisdom and these mighty works? Isn't this the carpenter's son? Whose son is it? For they knew his mother, they knew his uncles and his aunt. They've grown up with him, playfellow in their little childish games. They knew he was human. Their problem is, how did you reconcile that with these astounding works of power that he did? Whose son is he, they said, and found as yet no answer. It wasn't only the people of Nazareth that began to get perplexed. Herod the King himself got e- uneasy, for he heard of him and heard of his miracles, and his royal legs began to shake of a night. He said to himself, you know, this must be John the Baptist come back again. Interesting, isn't it, what tricks the ungodly man's conscience plays with him? You'll see there had come John the Baptist, and Herod had admired his kind of preaching, man for man that he was. Herod admired it. John the Baptist didn't tickle people's ears with funny little stories and entertain them. He put his fist in Herod's face and said, it's not lawful for you, sir, to have your brother's wife as your wife. In the name of the coming Messiah, he bade him desist from his adultery and dared to call adultery sin, which wasn't popular sort of a term to use. It wasn't politically correct in the court of Herod, you'll see. And Herod secretly admired the man's, uh, manliness, but his so-called wife didn't. And like not many another man, in the end, to keep his wife quiet, he tried to keep John quiet and put him in prison, thinking he could thus shut God out of his life. And at first he seemed successful. And one day at his birthday, he put on a great feast for his lords and ladies. And you know the story, and halfway through the feast, Salome's daughter came in to do her dancing and incited his lust. So carried away with his wine and his passions, he swore an oath that he would give her anything she asked. Oh, how big he looked before his courtiers. Anything she asks he could have to the half of his kingdom. And she went and consulted her mother, and the mother said, ask for the head of John Baptist on a meat dish. And Herod was caught. Caught by his own dallying with his lusts. And now obliged to keep his face and not lose face before his courtiers, he gave the word. Oh, what a banquet it was, when the main dish, the pièce de résistance from the chef, was the gory head of John Baptist on a charger. And at last he was dead at least, so Herod thought, and dead men don't speak. And then he heard of Jesus. That's a very interesting piece of history, that is. It's a piece of modern psychology, if you notice it and dare practice it. Uh, coming alongside of Jesus makes people think of the eternal world. You watch it. And Herod, hearing at a distance of Jesus' miracles, said to himself, this must be John the Baptist coming, coming back from the dead. And you can see the kind of terror that got hold of him, can't you? He tried to keep out the word of God, but that great eternal world was coming in on him and shut the prison door as hard as he could. He couldn't keep it out. The world has to learn it, doesn't it? You cannot keep God out of God's world. You can bar Jericho with all its walls and doors, you will not keep the Ark of God out of Jericho. You will shut up God's apostles and prophets in prison. You will not keep God out of his world. When Jesus heard of Herod's interest, turned his back on Herod's bright, beautiful, gaudy palace and its sophistications. If people like that kind of entertainment, pandering to their lusts and pleasures and their high life, with its ghastly result, the head of the prophet on a charger, well, let them have it. Our blessed Lord took the people out in their simplicity to the desert, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, brought down the very blessings of heaven upon earth. Oh, what a day was that. When he took the little boys' loaves and fishes, and in his creatorial hands they multiplied. As a hymn writer put it, was seed time. When he took the lo- when he blessed the loaves, 'twas harvest. When he broke. And fed the multitude. Oh, see them seated there in that desert place on their comfortable grass cushions, being fed from the very hand of the Creator. They were days of heaven upon earth. You say, ah, could we only see it again? Ah, could only I have been with him then, when he called the little children and put them on his knee, when he fed the thousands. Oh, if only I could have been with him then. My extraordinary fate is to be living in Belfast. Belfast. But there was something more, wasn't there? More and bigger and better than days of heaven upon earth. Something more that the following night his apostles were to discover. He was not only the Messiah who could put on the messianic banquet and feed the hungry of earth. He was God's son, owner and maker of the universe. That night he sent the crowds away, sent his apostles across the sea, and went up the mountain. And as his apostles rode their boat in the darkness of the night, and the waves began to rise and the wind howl, and the going was tough. They looked, and through the darkness and the spray they saw this figure coming, coming and overtaking them from the behind, and they thought it must be a ghost and cried out with fear. You'll see they, they believed in spirits, and their opinion of spirits were that they were pretty unsubstancial, so they could walk on water. But when they saw this figure walking on the water, they first of all thought it must be a spirit. But as it drew near and they cried out with fear, there came the voice across the water, don't be afraid, it's I. It was the Lord Jesus. Human? Well, that they knew. But walking on water? How could it be? They found the answer rising in their hearts when eventually Christ and Peter got back in the boat, and they said, surely, surely this is the Son of God. Not merely Messiah, but deity's son. Human, but divine. And that would be marvelous if that were all the story, that Christ walked on water and demonstrated his deity, but there was more to it than that, wasn't there? Peter, with that delightful kind of logic of which he was possessed, which generally argued things missing out all sorts of steps in the argument, he said as he heard the Lord's voice in his eye, be not afraid. He said, Lord, if it's you, bid me come to thee on the water. I'm surprised that the other apostles didn't rebuke him, aren't you? And say, Peter, what are you a thinking of? Peter! But Jesus can walk on water. But Peter, don't be so impertinent to think that you can do what he does. Where else did you get this idea from that you could walk on water just because Christ walks on water? Peter, get back into your kennel. You can't do what he does. Mercifully, they didn't say that because our Lord's response was, yes, Peter. Yes, that's right. You come, Peter. I mean, those marvelous moments. Peter, I don't know how unsteadily got out of the boat. If I'd been Peter, I would have been a long while letting go of the boat, I have to confess, to say. But eventually he let go of it. And yes, and yes, ye- yes, one foot, and then the next, yes, and he was still up. Marvelous. Learning to walk, even as he walked on the water. You say, what has happened to gravity now? I don't know. But here was a walk and a level of living where gravity had lost a lot of her accustomed pull, wasn't it? You say, oh, but it didn't last, and Peter fell. Yeah, I shall have words to say to you in a moment about that. Let's be positive, he did walk some yards, didn't he? And showed it was possible. And showed this wasn't human excitement and impertinence. This was according to God's intention. They had discovered that Jesus was the Son of God. They had discovered that he could walk on water, and they had discovered that he meant them to do likewise. You say not literally, of course not. What use would that be if all of us now were to go down to the lag and then all of us walk across it? Uh, I mean, what, so what? It would create a stir in Belfast, but what use would it be? I mean, walking on water, what use would it be? Quite so, ladies and gentlemen. But the thing was a demonstrated parable, wasn't it? And we might notice how wonderfully the Lord Jesus taught these men, and by what vivid illustrations did he prepare them for what was about to happen after he died and rose from the dead and went up to glory. I can imagine Peter, when at last he met Saul of Tarsus, now become Paul, and listened to his epistles. And Peter's comment, like the comment of so many congregations, is, well, that was good, but I didn't understand a lot of what he said. You know how congregations do. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, and Peter would say, yes, my brothers, well, there's a lot in what Paul says that is, uh, difficult to understand. Thank the Lord. But when things are difficult to understand, that means there's a lot more in them than we get at the moment, doesn't it, Otto? Thank the Lord for that. But when Pete, when Paul began to speak that Christ is now risen from the dead and ascended into glory and is at the right hand of God, angels and principalities and powers being made subject to him. And Peter would be nodding his head and shaking his beard. Yes, that's right, my brother Paul, that's right. Oh, I saw him go that day on Bethany's Hill. I saw him. He rose into heaven. I saw him literally go. Gravity was overcome that day, Paul. And then as Paul would go on and say, my dear brothers, ponder this wonderful thing that not only is Christ risen and ascended and seated in the heavenlies. Ponder this, my dear brethren, Paul would say, the exceeding greatness of God's power towards us when he raised Christ and raised us up too, and has seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I can imagine Peter saying, yes, yes, my brother Paul, and I'm inclined to believe you, sir, that Christ is risen and gone up. Let me tell you a story, Paul. You weren't with the Lord Jesus when he was here, were you? Let me tell you what happened to us one night. Paul, it was the night after he had fed the multitudes, and we thought this is the Messiah, and he's brought down heaven to earth. This is the messianic banquet. But that night he showed us something more wonderful. Paul, my brother, he went up the mountain, and we wondered why he'd gone up the mountain and left us all alone, and we had to cross the sea all by ourselves in our rowing boat, our fishing snack, you know, and we were rowing, and the difficulty got, um, very difficult, Paul, and uh, we wondered why Jesus had left us alone. And then, Paul, my brother, we saw him coming, and he was walking on the water, and there was a miracle. He seemed no longer to be attached to this earth. Human though he was, he was defying gravity itself. And, and, and Paul, let me tell you, you must believe this. For when I suggested to the Lord that he invite me to come on the water, he said, yes, Peter. And I got out. And I walked to the Lord. And as Peter said it, I can imagine, uh, James saying, yes, Peter, go on, tell the whole truth. You started to sink, didn't you? You know, somebody's bound to spoil it. They love doing that, don't they? Well, I did, James. Yes, I did. He keep quiet. I, I, I, I, I, I, yes, I did fall, but the Lord saved me and took me up, and I walked back to the boat with him, arm in arm, in fact. Hm. You say, you didn't dare get out, did you, James? I seem to remember. Hm. Mm-hmm. Ha ha. I walked. I did, Peter. Paul, really, I walked on the water with Christ. Arm in arm with him. I begin to see what you mean, Paul. There was a picture, wasn't it? Preparing us for this wonderful thing that Christ is risen, and we're risen in him, and he's ascended and at the right hand of God. And so we are ascended in him and seated at the right hand of God with him. And we walk in those heavenly realms, and it's not imagination. It is real. Discovering the deity of Christ. We'll say if he were merely Son of God and not human, it would be not a, no wonderful thing at all that he's now in heaven, would it? But if he's really human and Son of God at the same time, and he's in glory, think what it implies, that in raising him, God has raised us up too. Seated us in the heavenlies. Have you got over the shock yet of being there? You say, I, my dear preacher, you make it sound so easy, but I'm often living below that level. So am I, actually. And I have to tell you that I sink down more often than Peter did. That doesn't deter the Lord, for he's in process of teaching us to walk where he walks, in the heavenlies, in Christ Jesus. Well, that doesn't mean that they lost hold of reality. They got back in the boat that night, didn't they? They were still on Earth. They still potted at their work. They went back over the solid land. And to be seated with Christ in the heavenlies doesn't mean that we take leave of Earth. We walk here still, still get the toothache, and the waves blow and the wind shrieks. And yet, and simultaneously, we have a life that's linked with Christ, to walk arm in arm already with the Lord in heavenly places. And if you'll be risen with Christ, says the apostle, see those things that are above. Set your thoughts on things that are above. For you are dead, and you're raised with Christ, and your life is hid with Christ in God. What a wonderful thing the mind is, isn't it? God has given us minds that, if you notice, can stretch to infinity. I can see with my mind not only what has happened, I can see what would happen. For instance, if I was standing on a tile floor and I had a cup in my hand, I can see what would happen if I let the cup drop. What would happen? You say, well, it would smash. Oh, how did you know that? Can you see it? No, yes, it would happen if you did it, if you let it go. It would happen, it would fall and, uh, smash. Well, I'm not going to let it fall. Ah, yes, you say, but I could see what would happen if you did let it fall. You've got a marvelous mind then. You just imagine that. Can you think of any kind of possibility? Wow. Yes, you say, I can sit here in Belfast, and I can think about the planet Jupiter out there and look at that, and and on the whole I'm, well, I'm in one sense I'm there. I'm looking at Jupiter. Oh, good for you. Yes, you said, I can imagine the galaxies right at the edge of the universe. Wow, God has given you some mind. You really can. So can I. Yes. We're only partly hinged to this earth, aren't we? With minds that can travel eternity. You say, but thinking about heaven is mere fairy story, that's imagination run right. No, it isn't, my dear brother, for that's the whole point. This Jesus Christ is the Son of God, both human and divine, and he is risen, and he is in glory, literally in glory. You believe that, don't you? That's not imagination. And if he's in glory, then in a very, very real sense, you are seated with him in heavenly places. Oh, may God make it real to you, my brother, my sister, and teach us a dimension of life that the ordinary gravity of life down here cannot pull us down. It gave them then a new level of life, a new dimension of life, while they were still on earth. It gave them an enlarged horizon for their evangelism. That is shown us in chapter fifteen of this gospel by Matthew. And again, we look at the context. Chapter fifteen of Matthew's gospel starts off by telling us about a dispute that arose when the Pharisees complained to the Lord Jesus that his disciples were eating without washing their hands before meals. The concern was nothing to do with hygiene. It was concerned with ceremonial ablutions, you'll see. They were very keen on all those food laws in the Old Testament and all the ceremonial washing of hands and feet and mikvis and baths and goodness knows what else, you'll see. And that to them was the whole essence of the religious life. So keen were they on it, they had added all sorts of rules and regulation, like religion often does, far beyond what was in the Bible itself. And life to them was the meticulous weighing of all these little rules and regulations about when you had to wash your hands and how far up the arm did you have to wash before you ate the meal and, and all these kind of things. And Christ was allowing his disciples to eat and not insisting on it, you'll see. And when, uh, they challenged him, he not only rebuked them and showed them how unauthorized was a lot of their interpretation of the Old Testament, and not according to the Old Testament at all, but he went further than that. And using his divine prerogative of son of God, he cancelled the food laws. Cancelled them completely. And Peter came to him. He said, Lord, do you know what you've said about these food laws being, uh, no longer in operation? That's offended the Pharisees. Oh, let it, said our Lord, let them be offended. There were bigger things to do, weren't there? You see, those old food laws were originally God-given, all those oblations God-given in the days of Israel's spiritual infancy. You'll see, you mothers will know better than this old bachelor that stands before you. How do you teach children about, uh, moral cleanliness and moral uncleanness? What is a filthy sin? How do you teach a child of what a filthy sin is? Well, you say, dear bachelor, you first of all have to teach a child what literal filthiness is, and when it comes to the table with its hands full of muck, you say, oh no, you can't eat like that. Why not? Well, that's dirty, see. And you first of all teach him about literal dirt, don't you? And when he's got the idea of literal dirt, then you begin to get the idea across that certain behavior is, in a deeper sense, dirty. Yes? And so did God with Israel. First of all, he taught them their infantile lessons and used physical things and literal water and literal animal sacrifices. God teaching the rudiments to Israel in their spiritual infancy. But now, with the coming of the Son of God, a new stage in history had arrived. God was about to lead his people out of their infancy into their spiritual adulthood. For the Son of God had come. You know, a great mathematician, he probably began life, if he's my age, learning to count with bricks, colored bricks. That's how they taught my infancy. No wonder they didn't get far. But they say they they they taught me, uh, one and one made two by putting this in physical terms. One brick, another brick, and one brick and another brick, one and one brick made two bricks, you see. And so they taught me, lo and behold, I discovered later on, it didn't matter whether it was bricks or gold bars or people, the same principle apply. And then I learned to be abstract, you see, and say one and one, not just one apple and one apple, but one and one. You see how I was progressing, you see? And I began to do some simple equations, and then I stopped, of course, the thing got too difficult. But you know what I mean. Uh, you have to start with the simple things and the physical things and work up to the deeper things, don't you? And so God was too. And from literal and physical cleaning to ceremonial cleaning, and now to the real thing, not mere external cerem- ceremonies, but the real thing. The days were coming that believers in Israel would be asked to step out of their spiritual infancy to adulthood, no longer relying for their holiness upon mere external ceremonial ablutions, but learning as grown up sons of God to be led by the Holy Spirit of God, and therefore free to leave the shelter of the Israelite nation and go out to the Gentiles and mix with Gentiles. And because this was what lay ahead, now Christ this day began to teach them this lesson. Look, said he, those old physical ceremonial laws are finished. They belong to the infancy. Now you'll better learn to grow, be grown up. And he took them deliberately up there to the north, to near Tyre and Sidon. And there came a woman. She was a Syrophoenician, absolute Gentile. Can Gentiles get converted? This was news to Peter. What? Jews could get converted, of course, because they were, by definition, saints, but they were the people of God. But Gentiles get converted? They listened with both ears and a bit more, as this Gentile woman came to the Lord and said, Thou son of David, have mercy upon us and heal my daughter, she's grievously afflicted with a demon. Well, here was real uncleanness, wasn't it? She was a Gentile, child of wrath even as the others. Her daughter grievously afflicted with an unclean spirit. Here was real uncleanness. And could Christ heal a Gentile? Peter, I don't know whether he was, uh, about to tell her, look here, my dear good lady, now let me tell you, you are a Gentile, and you've got your dispensations mixed up. Do you understand that? You can't come to the son of David. Now that would be doctrinally wrong, you'll see. So keep quiet, woman. Wouldn't have made a very good beginning for a gospel message, would it? Not really. But he didn't have to say that, for our Lord was already talking, and he said, my dear good lady, as she kept on asking, and he ignored her, apparently, but she kept on asking. So eventually he said, uh, my dear good lady, I was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And then with astonishing faith, she said, yes, Lord, yes, I know I'm not a sheep. It's not meat to give the children's meat to food to dogs, said the Lord. In second astonishment, she didn't turn around and say, you beastly man, you politically incorrect. Fancy daring to call me a dog. No, she said, yes, Lord. It's right what you say. I am a dog. But even the dogs eat from the crumbs that fall from their master's table. I come to believe you are the son of David and you're Israel's Messiah, but I can't bring myself to believe in a God so small that he would only have grace for Jews and not for Gentiles. Why, even in an earthly home, when the man is a big and rich man and a landowner or a king, and his food is laden for his children, some of the crumbs fall off, and the dogs under the table eat it, don't they? When it's a rich man's table. And if you're the Messiah, son of David, then the bountiful grace of God that you've come to bring us is so bountiful that I can't believe that no crumb would ever fall off the table and fall to us Gentiles. And our Lord, with delight in his heart, had achieved his purpose. And he said, great is thy faith, dear woman. And her daughter was healed. Wish I could see Peter's face at that moment, uh, looking on what a Gentile cleansed? How? By... by washing? No. Her heart cleansed by faith. And shortly after that, our Lord took them up the mountain, and there came Gentiles galore in their hundreds, if not thousands, from the Decapolis, the Greek cities, and all around, and they came to the mountain, and the blessed Jewish Messiah healed them, and they glorified the God of Israel. It was an unusual happening in our Lord's life, but once more you see how our Lord was preparing Peter, don't you? For after Pentecost, the time would come when Peter must be taught that lesson. He was to be sent to Cornelius the Gentile, and God had to give him a spectacular object lesson to show that the food laws were finished. And Peter was free to go out to the Gentiles. And Pahita had that astonishing experience as he preached the gospel to the Gentiles about the Lord Jesus who died and is risen again, that the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles, and God purified their hearts by faith. His brethren weren't quite so sure of it, you will remember the story. And it took a little while for Christianity to adjust itself to the discovery that Jesus is the son of God. What does it mean, you say? Well, if Jesus is the Son of God, then the salvation that Jesus brings must be big enough for the whole of God's creation. There isn't one creature of God upon the face of the earth, nor has there ever been. But what God has loved that creature because he made him, he made her, and loves them with a maker's heart, and gave his son for them. That they might be saved. Oh, my brethren, God help us, lest at any time we should be engrossed with the inner little details of rules and regulations, important as they are in the church, and lose our concept of who Jesus is, son of the creator, of a God who so loved this mighty, vast world, men and women, white and yellow, black and red, whatever they be. God give us so to discover the deity of the Lord Jesus. I shall enlarge the horizon of our evangelical enterprise, and we not be satisfied until the whole world has heard of Jesus. The two other stories can be briefly told because you know them so well. Discovery of the deity of Jesus not only opened to them another dimension of life, not only the extended the horizon of their evangelistic mission, it extended their concept of history. When first our Lord told Peter that he must go to Jerusalem and be rejected and crucified, Peter rebuked him, you'll remember, because Peter had got into his eye that there was just this one age, and he was hoping that Christ would be a success in this age. And the thought that our Lord would be rejected, that to Peter was unmitigated disaster. He would have lost everything he had invested in Christ, so he thought, if Christ were rejected. It was in that context that our Lord Jesus took Peter up the mountain of transfiguration and gave him a vision of the Son of Man coming in the glory of his Father with his holy angels. It revolutionized Peter's concept of history. There was not just this age then, there was an age to come. And that settled for Peter another conundrum. For our Lord said that if you want to save your life, your soul life, you must lose it. And if you try to save it, you will lose it. The way to save your soul is to lose it, said Christ. And that struck Peter as double Dutch. Had not all the evangelical preachers preached to him that he had to save his soul? What was Christ talking about now, telling him he had to lose his soul? What would this Jesus say next? No, you have to save your soul, that's what the preachers tell us, isn't it? Save yourself, make sure you don't lose your soul. And here was Jesus saying, if you want to save your soul, you'll have to lose it. How could you make sense of the whole notion? That day, it was settled in Peter's mind. The conundrum was solved. You'll see, and the answer was this: there's not just one age, there are two ages. There is present age, there is the age to come. And now that Christ has saved your soul in the sense that you are forgiven and born again and redeemed, you've got to make up your mind for which age are you going to live. You live for this age, then everything you invest in it, you will lose. If you live for that age, everything you invest in it, you will keep. You see, our souls are interesting things, aren't they? If I were to ask you, sir, madam, is your soul saved? I hope you would say, yes, of course my soul is saved. I'd say, thank the Lord. Then suppose I ask you, where do you keep your soul? Where do you keep it? Have you got it in a, in a box in the bank for safekeeping? So that you say, well, now let it be there until the Lord come, and when the Lord come, I say, half a minute, Lord, I just have to go and fetch my soul. It's down in Barclay's bank in the vault there to be safe. Let me go, and I'll just collect my soul, and then I shall be ready to come home, Lord. Well, of course, you don't talk like that, do you? A soul isn't one of those things you can't put it in a box. A soul is a life. It's got a time element to it. It's got energy in it. It's got love in it. It's got ambition in it. It's got abilities of all kinds in it. And our souls are things that you have to spend. You can't keep them in a box. Your life is redeemed, but you've got to use your life. Your time is redeemed, you've got to spend your time. Your love is redeemed, you've got to use your love and spend it on something. What are you going to spend it on? Listen, says Christ, all do get this. There's not just one age, there are two ages. In this age, our Lord is rejected and by the world disowned, by the many still rejected and by the few enthroned in this age. But thank God there's a coming age. And Jesus, risen from the dead, shall one day come again with the glory of his Father and with his attendant angels, and then shall he give to every man according to his works. Do I believe it? What difference will it make? Well, if I believe that, it will give me a new sense and enlarged concept of history, and it will constantly well up in me as a motivation. Now, careful, careful how you spend your soul, how you spend your life, your love, your time, your energy, your everything. Lest we should at times become like Demas, who loved this present age and invested his life in it, only to find at length that he had lost it all. And finally, discovery of the deity of Christ gave them a new motivation for behavior in the church. It happened like this. One day Peter was out, as usual, in the marketplace or somewhere, and those who received the temple tax came to him, and they said, uh, Peter, doesn't your master pay the temple tax? And Peter breezily, as usual, replied, yeah, yeah, yes, of course he pays the temple tax, yes, yes, yes, yes. Ah. When he came in the house, our Lord accosted him. Peter, tell me something, Peter. The kings of this earth, from whom do they take tribute or toll? From their children or from strangers? Oh, said Peter, obviously, Lord, from s- from strangers. Oh, yes? Well, then the children are free, aren't they? You wouldn't expect, would you, uh, Peter, that the king would demand, uh, tribute from his son, would you, the prince in the palace? Uh, you don't suppose the king would demand the prince to pay tribute to live in the palace? Oh no, said Peter. No, the children are free, aren't they, Peter? Yes, the children are free. Oh, I see, Peter. Then what are you doing telling your neighbors that I have to pay taxes to my father's house, the temple. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I hadn't thought. Yeah, how like we are to Peter, aren't we? We believe the deity of Christ with all our hearts, and then five minutes down the road, we haven't worked out the logical implications of it. And neither is Peter, who believed the deity of Christ. He hadn't worked out its implications. Peter, said our Lord, I don't have to pay taxes to my father's house. Don't you really know who I am, Peter? I'm a son of the Father. I have to pay no tax. And as for paying redemption money, Peter, I don't need to be redeemed, Peter. So what then? Ah, but said our Lord Peter, you see. Go down to the sea, cast your hook in, bring up the fish, you'll find a silver piece in his mouth, and go and pay that, and tell them it's for me and for you. You see, Peter, I don't have to pay it myself, but if I refuse to pay it, the crowd won't understand why, and they are- will think that I'm insulting the God of that temple. And rather than give that in false impression, Peter, I'm going to pay it, though I don't have to. But Peter, when you caught the fish and brought it up, you'll find the coin in its mouth is so big it can pay for me and you. Oh, magnificent discovery, wasn't it? It was going to revolutionize Peter's life. He discovered the Son of God, loved him, and paid the redemption price for Peter when he didn't have to. What practical difference does it make? Makes a huge difference in the life of the church. For now, when my brother sins against me, what shall I do? How can I refuse to forgive him? When he comes and asks for forgiveness. When Christ has paid the redemption money for me. How can I, in a conference at one stage, I won't tell you where, and the organizers had a little bit of a trouble. You see, they were going to invite elders and teachers from many different assemblies to come to this week-long conference, and they had to put them up, and several of them had to share two or three to a room. And the elders had a problem. How could they put in the same room two men that wouldn't speak to each other? And they were believers. Can you credit it? Oh, but how often this has happened. We profess to believe in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me and forgave me all that debt, all my bonds. How could I then turn around and refuse to forgive one that repented and asked forgiveness. The discovery of the deity of Christ. God bless our evening meditation, that we may have a firmer grasp on the deity of Christ as an objective doctrine, but more than that, that we might increasingly learn in our own experience the difference it actually makes to living to discover that Jesus is the Son of the living God, for his namesake. Or shall we sing a cub-