John 8:30-44
Christ as Our Prophet Part 2
In 'Christ as Our Prophet Part 2,' Pastor Albert N. Martin expounds on the nature of saving faith, specifically focusing on Christ's prophetic office. Drawing from John 8, John 6, 1 John 2, and 2 John, he argues that true saving faith involves not only an initial submission to Christ's words but a continuous, lifelong adherence to them. Martin applies this truth individually to unbelievers, young people, and students, urging them to embrace Christ's challenging words about sin and salvation, and corporately to the church, emphasizing the necessity of submitting all doctrine and practice to the infallible Word of God.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 10 sections · 51 min
- The Nature of Saving Faith: Christ as the Object 0:01
- Christ's Prophetic Office and Submission to His Authority 5:38
- Continuance in Christ's Word as Proof of True Faith 8:00
- Biblical Evidence for Continuing in Christ's Word 12:12
- Individual Application: To the Unsaved 26:56
- Individual Application: To Young People and Students 33:36
- Confessing Christ on the Burning Issues of the Day 41:15
- Individual Application: To Adults and Parents 43:32
- Corporate Application: To the Church 45:21
- The Blessings of Corporate Submission to Christ's Word 48:17
Key Quotes
“But the hungry mouth, the open hand which lays hold of Christ is called in the Bible faith or believing.”
“The liberal would have the person of Christ without his work. They want to be followers of the Nazarene. They want Jesus, only one part of him.”
“Anyone who wants to be saved by Christ and yet will not bow to the words of Christ is an impenitent rebel sinner and has no power. He has no part in his salvation.”
“We are not his because we continue in his word. But we continue in his word because we are his.”
“There is no remaining in Christ apart from remaining in his words if what you've heard and the Son and you can't separate the two can't separate abiding in Christ abiding in his words the two and the Son are inseparably joined in the words of the Apostle John”
“The only Christ who saves men is the one who tells us how bad we are the only Christ who saves is the one who taught something not only about how bad we are but about how we can be saved”
“Be prepared to have the truth you preach spattered with a little of your own blood.”
“He that hath my commandments and keepeth them. John 14, 20 He it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will manifest myself to him.”
Applications
Believers
- As a church, submit every practice, doctrine, teaching, and tradition to the sacred light of the book of God, becoming like the Bereans who searched the scriptures daily.
- Do not simply swallow everything preached from the pulpit, but bring everything to the touchstone of divine revelation.
Parents & families
- Be willing to stand in your high school and junior high school and confess your allegiance to the words of Jesus Christ, even if it means being the laughing stock.
- Take a clear, biblical stand on the burning issues of the day, such as the necessity of turning from sin and bowing to Christ as Lord for salvation.
- Take your stand on the infallibility and inerrancy of the Word of God, declaring that every word breathed of God is your Bible.
All listeners
- Submit to the definite, limited authority of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, for anyone who will not bow to them is an impenitent rebel sinner.
- Embrace Christ as your only hope of mercy, accepting what he says about your depravity and the sovereign nature of salvation.
- Plead for mercy like the poor blind beggars, recognizing your helplessness before God.
- Be willing to walk down any path which the words of Christ lead you doctrinally or practically, even if it brings scorn from the world and the professing church.
- Take not only your message from the Bible but also your methods, resisting popular but unbiblical approaches to ministry.
- Order and direct your home according to what Christ said by his own words and the words of his apostles, with the husband ruling in love and the wife submissive.
- Prove that we are believers by not only initially bowing to Christ as our prophet but by continuing to believe in him as our prophet, committing ourselves to his revealed word and walking in its pathway by the power of his Spirit.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 114 paragraphs, roughly 51 minutes.
The Nature of Saving Faith: Christ as the Object
For several Lord's Day mornings, we have been looking into the Word of God, seeking to bring into focus what the Scripture teaches concerning the aspects of saving faith. Most of us gathered in this building this morning are sufficiently acquainted with the Bible to know that no one is saved apart from believing.
Now, faith is not our Savior. Christ is our Savior. If I were to come to a starving man and give him a meal that was his physical salvation, he would not brag on his mouth for the rest of his life. He'd brag on the meal and the man who gave it to him.
Faith is but the hungry mouth feeding upon Christ. Christ is our salvation, and so faith is likened in John 6 to eating of Him. If a man were drowning and I were to place a life preserver, one of those donut life preservers, and throw it out to him and he laid hold of it and I'd drag them ashore, he would not erect a monument to the hand that laid hold of the life preserver. He would be forever indebted to the preserver and the man who threw it to him.
But the hand was the instrument by which he laid hold of that which was his deliverance and his deliverer. And so Christ is our Savior. Christ is the only one who can rescue us from the doom that is sure to come apart from His salvation. But the hungry mouth, the open hand which lays hold of Christ is called in the Bible faith or believing.
Now what is that faith which is unto salvation? What is that faith which by its very nature is not the product of man's natural abilities, but is the product of a supernatural work of grace? For we read, By grace, you save through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. We read in Acts, of those who believed through grace.
Paul speaks of the faith of God's elect. This is something that is the peculiar possession of those who are drawn by the work of God in their hearts. What is that faith which is unto salvation? This is the focus of our studies in these mornings.
For I am convinced, as I've mentioned in the two previous Sunday mornings, having been out a good bit more this summer in conferences and in Christian camp ministry, that on this most basic issue, what is the nature of saving faith, there is a depth of confusion that is almost unbelievable, not amongst the worldlings, but amongst professing evangelicals.
Now the definition we've been working with is that given by John Murray in his little book, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, Saving Faith, is that act of self-commitment to Christ in all the glory of his person and the perfection of his work as he is offered to us in the gospel. What does it mean to believe on Christ? It means that there is a self-commitment to him in his person and his work as he is offered to us in the gospel. And the principle that I have been emphasizing, and I trust sufficiently so that it's gotten through, is that in saving faith,
there can be no dividing of the person and the work of Christ. The liberal would have the person of Christ without his work. They want to be followers of the Nazarene. They want Jesus, only one part of him.
They don't want him on a throne by way of a cross, but suffice it to say, for sake of clarification, they want his person, but they want nothing to do with his work, with his blood atonement, and with his literal, physical resurrection. Well, you can't have him thus. And we in evangelical circles have suffered because we've offered to people the benefits of his work apart from his person. And so you have people who say, well, I'm trusting in the blood of Christ to save me, but there has been no act of self-commitment to Christ as sovereign and as Lord.
And this is utterly impossible. For faith is commitment to him in the glory of his person and the perfection of his work as he is offered to us in the Gospel. So, to summarize, the object of saving faith is not any act done by Christ. It's not his cradle.
It's not his cross. It's not his open tomb. But the object of saving faith is Jesus Christ himself. Jesus Christ himself.
Jesus Christ, the incarnate, crucified, resurrected, living, sovereign Lord. He is the object of faith. This is why throughout the entire Scriptures men are bidden not to come to the cradle, not to come to the cross, not to come to the tomb, but they are bidden to come where? Come to Christ.
Him that comes to me, Christ says. Jesus said, Woe everyone that thirsteth, come to me. This is the constant appeal of the Gospel. So we cannot separate his person from his work and faith is that whole-souled response to the Lord Jesus in his person and his work as he is offered to us in the Gospel.
Christ's Prophetic Office and Submission to His Authority
Now we have been seeking to consider his person and work under the threefold division as given to us in the Word of God and wonderfully summarized in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. Christ is the Savior of sinners and as such is presented as prophet, priest, and king. All that he is and all that he has done and is doing is wonderfully summarized in those biblical concepts of Jesus Christ the Messiah, the anointed prophet, priest, and king of God, the only Savior of lost men. Last Lord's Day morning, we defined the prophet as a mouthpiece for God.
We saw in Acts 3 and in Hebrews 1 the fact and the finality of Christ's position as a prophet and then we concluded with some of the implications of this. In the first one, we gave you and we'll mention it and then move on now to develop the theme. Those who are God's children, those who have true faith, have submitted to the authority of Jesus Christ as their prophet. In John 17, verses 6 and 8, these are the key texts, Jesus said, describing those for whom his salvation had been purchased and to whom it had been applied, he said these words, I have given them thy words and they have kept them.
I have made them, made known unto them thy words. And so the description of a Christian, those to whom eternal life has been given, is one which describes them as people who have submitted to a definite, limited authority, the authority of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Anyone who wants to be saved by Christ and yet will not bow to the words of Christ is an impenitent rebel sinner and has no power. He has no part in his salvation.
For what is faith? It's commitment to him in all the glory of his person and all the perfection of his work and part of the glory of his person and work is that he is the prophet. And so God says, the Lord shall raise up unto you a prophet like unto Moses. To him shall ye hearken and it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto him shall be cut off from among the people.
Continuance in Christ's Word as Proof of True Faith
Now the second great principle that flows, and this is the focal point of our study this morning, only those who continue in submission to Christ's word are his.
The first principle, only those who submit to Christ as prophet are his children. Only those who continue in that submission have grounds to believe that they are his. Now I want to make something very clear because if I don't, somebody's going to say, somebody's going to go out and misquote me. We are not his because we continue in his word.
But we continue in his word because we are his. Now you say, now wait a minute, that's a little bit like a riddle, isn't it? No. Follow now.
The fact that I continue in his word does not make me his. It's not as though I've got to be in question, am I his or am I not? And if I keep his word for 20 years then I can know I'm his and I'm his because I keep it. No.
But the fact that I am his will be evidenced in that I do continue in his word. Someone would have said to me, take my car please and drive it down to Bloomfield. There's enough gas to get all the way down to Metuchen or some other place. Well, if I run out of gas right down here in Verona, it shows me something.
There wasn't as much gas in that tank as you told me. Now the fact that I run out of gas or that I stop doesn't make the gas tank empty. It simply reveals that it was empty when I left or almost empty. So when someone, someone professes to receive Christ in the act of saving faith, professes to commit themselves to him in his person and work and there seems to be a bowing to his authority as prophet and then they run out of gas down the line and they repudiate the word of Christ, what does that reveal?
That reveals there was never a full tank to start with. Now the fact that they peter out is simply a revelation of a condition that was there. So I hope that word of caution will be helpful to you. Two verses that make this abundantly clear.
Romans 1 verses 16 and 17 the latter part the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth for therein verse 17 is revealed the righteousness of God from faith what? Unto faith. You see the faith that is genuine in its beginning will be manifested in its continuing. A faith that simply begins and doesn't continue is not true faith.
First Peter 1 and verses 4 and 5 we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. So a true believer is one who continues to believe unto the consummation of salvation when faith shall give way to sight and there shall be no more need of faith. And Hebrews 11, 38 and 39 are another key text that make this principle very clear. Hebrews 11, verses 38 and 39.
I'm sorry, Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10, 38 and 39. Now the just shall live by faith. Now notice the faith by which they came into the possession of spiritual life becomes the principle of their living.
It doesn't say now the just shall be justified by faith. That's true.
Now the just those who are justified by faith they shall also live by the principle of faith. But if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him but we are not of them who draw back unto perdition but of them that continue to believe to the saving of the soul. You see what the writer to Hebrews is saying? He's saying where the faith is genuine the faith will continue to the consummation of salvation.
Biblical Evidence for Continuing in Christ's Word
Now if faith involves and it does commitment to Christ in the glory of his person and the perfection of his work then faith which comes to Christ and bows the mind to him as our prophet if that faith is genuine then we will continue to submit our minds to his words and we will go on in obedience to the revelation that he has given. Now that's the principle that we want to look on today that saving faith involves not only an initial commitment to Christ as our prophet as well as our priest and king but saving faith will produce a continual
submission to Christ as our prophet. And there are five verses or text passages several verses in some of them that are key passages in this regard and all I want you to do is take your Bible in hand and go with me quickly through these passages. John chapter 8 John chapter 8 as our Lord is speaking the Jews are listening and it says in verse 30 John 8 30 that as he spake these words many believed on him now what kind of faith was this? Well our Lord
says in the next verse then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him there was some kind of faith if ye continue in my word then are ye my disciples indeed and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free verse 33 they answered him we be Abraham's seed and were never in bondage to any man how sayest thou ye shall be made free Jesus answered them verily verily I say unto you whoever commits sin is the very servant or bond slave of sin and they begin to answer and say verse 39 Abraham is our father he said if Abraham were your
you were your father and you were his children you do his works but now you seek to kill me a man that hath told you to the truth you do the deeds of your father verse 41 they say we be not born of fornication talking to the same people now quote believers and he ends up by saying in verse 44 ye are of your father the devil you study this out on your own this afternoon and you'll see that the very people whom Jesus called in verse 44 sons and daughters of the devil are people who say of whom it is said in verse 30 they believed now what was the problem there seemed to be some profession of allegiance to Christ as prophet we will accept him as the anointed prophet
we will believe what he says but then when he began to talk about people being spiritually bound by sin and the devil we will accept because these people had never had a revelation of their own hearts they couldn't take this and said oh wait a minute we don't want that truth and the evidence that their initial faith was not genuine faith is it did not lead to a continuance in his word and Jesus said this continuance in his word is the proof of true discipleship now notice he did not say if you continue in my word then you will become my disciples now notice he did not say if you continue in my word then you will become so he said if you continue in my word
then are you the proof that you have got a full tank of gas is that you make it to Bloomfield see and he said if you run out in Verona it just shows you never had a full tank to start with to go back to my original illustration if you continue if you continue this will explain to some of you why I never get too excited when someone says oh I have accepted the Lord and everything is wonderful I say fine I want to see where you are two years from now three years from now four years five years ten years and each year I see someone going on in the word of Christ then my joy deepens intensifies because I see the continuance is a proof of the reality of faith
well we can't spend all morning on that flip back to John 6 for a moment if you will please we made brief reference to this last week John chapter 6 verse 60 many therefore of his disciples when they heard this said this is a hard saying who can hear it when Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured he said unto them does this offend you what and if you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before John 6 63 it's the spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life but there are some of you that believe not for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not
and who should betray him and he said therefore said I unto you that no man can come to me except it were given him of my father from that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him then said Jesus to the twelve will ye also go away then Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life and we believe present tense and are sure that thou art the Christ Lord you're the anointed Messiah the anointed prophet and any words you speak they're true and Lord though we cannot understand
and though we cannot fathom we can submit and believe and embrace your truth whereas this other crowd who professed to be his disciples and believers the moment they confronted some truths that jarred human reason and that cut the fiber and nerve of human reason pride and self-sufficiency the moment Jesus began to talk to them of the fact that of themselves they didn't even have the ability to come to him there had to be a drawing of the Father this they could not stomach and they said this is a hard saying our minds can't reconcile this with the dignity of human freedom we don't like to be told we can't come unless the Father does something
why this is humbling to us too hard can't swallow that and so they go away and they go and I love the picture of Peter and the others do you think they understood it any more than those who turned away of course not he didn't say Lord to whom else can we go we understand everything so well why should we turn away he said no Lord to whom else can we go thou hast words of eternal life hard words as well as blessed words words that cut the nerve of human pride as well as words that fill the soul with holy joy and so the fact that that little motley crowd continued to be continued on was proof that they were truly his you see their initial
reception of Christ was proven to be genuine by their continual walking in the word of Christ turn please to the book of 1st John for a few moments way back toward the book of the revelation 1st John chapter 2 verse 24 and 25 let that therefore abide or remain in you which you have heard from the beginning now notice he's exhorting them to continue to walk in the light of truth that they've heard if that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you
ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father and this is the promise he's promised to us to whom to those who continue this is the promise that he's promised to us even eternal life who's it promised to to those who continue to those who continue not to those who simply make the profession oh yes I take Christ as my prophet priest and king but he says if that which you've heard remains in you ye shall remain in the Son there is no remaining in Christ apart from remaining in his words if what you've heard and the Son and you can't separate the two
can't separate abiding in Christ abiding in his words the two and the Son are inseparably joined in the words of the Apostle John and again I warn you when seeds of doubt would come concerning the utterances of our Lord remember that those are damning doubts for to forsake his word is to forsake him and without him there is no salvation and we may say without any injustice to the word of God without his words there is no salvation for he is the one who is inseparably joined to his words turn to the book of 2nd John for a moment
if you will please 2nd John this little book I must admit 2nd and 3rd John sort of ignored they must feel rather hurt at times many of us have had our Bibles for years and we've sort of let them lay there and never spend much time with them but this conference I was privileged to minister at in Quarryville a few weeks ago one of the men took 2nd and 3rd John for that very reason he said he felt he was so ignorant of them that for his own good and the good of others he wanted to teach them and this whole principle is brought out so clearly in this book 2nd John notice verse 9 whosoever transgresseth or the word there means whosoever goeth beyond
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ he hath both the Father and the Son now what verse could be clearer than that here's a man who professes faith in Christ but through whatever circumstances are Satan's instruments I don't know we find him going beyond the words of Christ now Christ was accommodating himself when he talked about a literal eternal place of conscious torment and they get too wise for the teaching of the Lord Jesus
on eternal retribution or when they come to our Lord's teaching on the absolute sinfulness of the human heart that it's a veritable cesspool of iniquity so vile and depraved that nothing short of a supernatural work of God can help us and they begin to get over wise too wise for that what does our Lord say about such men regardless of their profession to be lovers of Jesus Christ and lovers of his truth whosoever goes beyond and abides not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God but the person that abides in the doctrine of Christ he hath both the Father and the Son
I remember an experience I had back about five years ago I was at my sister's capping down at Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia and there was a young man there who was the chaplain at the hospital very personable nice looking I mean the kind if they're going to make a film in which there's a preacher this is the kind of guy they'd choose you know I mean he's nice looking young and all the rest educated and he stood up and he read a little prayer I watched him slip it up on the pulpit he kind of sneaked it up like this for the invocation and it was a prayer that wouldn't have offended a Mohammedan a Buddhist anybody it was one of those sort of United Nations prayers it just would have included anything and anybody and I asked the Lord to help me to get to talk to that felon
the Lord arranged things so I was able to talk to him and after some small talk I asked the man if he knew what it was to be born again he said oh yeah yes daily immediately some little bells began he says daily daily born again daily he said why do you ask I said well as I travel about I meet so many people who sometimes will come from miles around to come and hear the word of God preached because they're starved in the churches they go like Milton said hungry sheep look up and are not fed he said well I haven't found it that way he said I preach in a lot of the churches here in the Philadelphia area and most of the men are Christ loving men well what are you going to do call a guy a liar and I asked him this question I said sir what Christ what Christ
the Christ who right now sits at the right hand of God almighty with the marks the scars received when he died for men here on earth the Christ who came to a manger kicked up dirt and dust in the streets of Palestine died on the cross came out of a tomb and went back to heaven are you talking about that Christ you know what he did he patted me on the back he said been nice talking to you and he took off you see what his problem was and I want you as a boy as a body of God's professing people to have discernment don't be content that people use the name Christ Jesus ask them what do you mean by that and John says if they abide not in the doctrine of Christ and what is the doctrine of Christ well if you read
first, second, third John you realize what it is it's the truth that there was united in that person true deity and essential humanity in one glorious person forever this is the doctrine of Christ and that our salvation hangs and hangs and hinges upon the God man Christ Jesus who he is and what he did and does for sinners at the right hand of the Father and whoever does not abide in that teaching have not God so when people talk about knowing God and loving God and loving Christ I think it's only right that we ask what God are you talking about what Christ are you talking about and if it's not the Christ the biblical revelation they have not God
Individual Application: To the Unsaved
they have not Christ well there are many other passages I don't have time to go in because I want to have some time for application this morning but these suffice to show the principle that only those who continue in the words of Christ have the fruit of saving faith now as I apply this and I trust God will assist us that you'll hear his voice this morning first of all I want to apply it individually and then I want to apply it corporately first of all to those of you here this morning who are not savingly joined to Christ those of you who as you sit in your pew have never never been joined to Jesus Christ the Lord in the saving relationship what a privilege it is this morning as one of his servants
to say that almighty God has bidden me as his ambassador to set his son before you in all the glory of his person and in all the perfection of his work in his person he is God's anointed prophet priest and king and in his work he lives and reigns to take you to teach to save to keep to empower and to rule the fallen sons of men who are the recipients of his grace God offers his son to you as your only hope of mercy and God says this is my son not only embrace him but hear him would you be saved by Christ then you've got to be saved by a Christ who says some
terrible things about you you know what Christ says about you the only Christ who can save you now listen to what he says about you he says that which is born of the flesh is flesh God says that what you got from mom and papa when you were born is utterly insufficient to ever make you a child of God know what he says about you he says for from within out of the heart of men mark seven proceed adultery fornication pride Jesus Christ says you've got a heart that's a veritable cesspool of iniquity the only one who can save you says those terrible things about you he says that which is born of the flesh is flesh and utterly incapable
of knowing and serving God he says that you've got a heart that is depraved deceitful a bottomless pit of iniquity know what else he says he says except you're born of the spirit you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven he says your need is so great that nothing short of a work of God's grace by the spirit so tremendous that it's called a new birth short of that will ever stand you in good stead in that day now you want to be saved by Christ that's the only Christ who'll save you so you can't come to Christ and say well I want to be saved by Christ but not the Christ who said those terrible things about me that's the only Christ who'll save you
the only Christ who saves men is the one who tells us how bad we are the only Christ who saves is the one who taught something not only about how bad we are but about how we can be saved he says that salvation is the sovereign operation of his father when the disciples watched him deal with the rich young ruler and after making a few post script comments in Matthew 19 it says they threw up their hands and said doesn't say they threw up their hands but you get that picture who then can be saved and Jesus said with men this is impossible he means strive as I may get the whole world around me to pray for me to plead with me
all of this is of no avail that's right Christ said with men it's impossible but with God all things are possible this Christ the only one who can save you says that salvation is a sovereign supernatural work of God you say well I want a salvation and let me think at least I wiggled my finger and had a part in it you'll have to get it from somebody other than Christ this is the Christ who said no man can come to me except the Father draw him this is the Christ who said in Matthew 11 27 no man knoweth the Father save the Son and no man knoweth the Son save the Father no one can know that Father
the Son except the Father reveal him you mean I've got to take the place of a poor blind helpless beggar before God and plead with him that he'll reveal his Son to me yes that's right that's right that's exactly what you've got to do just like those two men who when they heard that Jesus of Nazareth passed by they fell down and what was their cry Son of David have mercy have mercy have mercy have mercy have mercy have mercy have mercy have mercy have mercy have mercy have mercy have mercy that's all they pled and the disciples said she's got no time for you it says they cried the louder saying Son of David have mercy and three of the most beautiful words in the Bible are four and Jesus
stood still isn't that beautiful amidst all the crowd and press the Son of God stood still why there were some poor blind beggars pleading for nothing but mercy and all the people oh dear friend this morning who is not savingly joined to Christ that's the only kind of people Christ saves poor blind helpless beggars who plead for mercy you're going to be saved you're going to be saved by a Christ who says some terrible things about you as well as about me by a Christ who says that salvation is the sovereign operation of his Father that is his own soul work no man comes to the Father but by me
a salvation in which you embrace Christ by love and love by leaning upon his promise him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out and so I plead with you young person adult who are not savingly joined to Christ embrace the Lord Jesus as your prophet embrace what he says about you embrace what he says about salvation embrace him as your prophet to teach you your priest to forgive and intercede for you and as your king to rule you and this is true without reason and if you are not going to be saved and if God is writing the last words of your life by your name and you receive you will receive the full strength of your life
Individual Application: To Young People and Students
and you will be semicolon of the people who work for you and so we're going to look at the holy book we're going to study the holy book you're gonna read the holy book with me and we're going to see the holy book how to read it and then we're going to do you were ready to listen for us we're going to read the holy book to you Luke 9, 26. And you older folks, you just have to sit and wait your turn while I speak to the young people this morning.
Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his own glory and in his Father's and of the holy angels. You see what Jesus does here? He says, Whosoever is ashamed of me and of my words, confessing Christ means confessing your allegiance to his words. Denying allegiance to his words is the essence of denying him.
You can't confess him without confessing his words. You can't deny his words without denying him. Oh, listen to me, young people. This is the issue.
You say you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you willing to stand in your high school and in your junior high school on a saying, and say, I believe in the words of Jesus Christ, my prophet? I've submitted my mind to whatever he says.
What he says about creation?
He says that in the beginning, God made them male and female.
God created all things out of nothing. God creating man and his special creature in his own image, a highly intelligent, refined creature, not a grunting ape, a young person for you to stand in the midst of that biology class and science class and say, you may back me against the wall, teacher, and twist me up in knots, but I'm going to confess my Lord and his words. That's what it means, young people, to be willing to be the laughing stock in that science classroom. That's what it means.
He taught, our Lord did, that not only is all premarital sex fornication, and sin, but even lustful glances are sin.
When the guys are standing around in the locker room passing their dirty jokes and the comments about the girls for you to say, fellas, do you know that in the eyes of God that's adultery and you'll be judged unless you repent? Ha, ha, ha, old puritanic morality. That's what it means to confess Christ in our generation. Young person, are you willing to confess him?
What he said about creation, about morality, what he says about hell what he says about human government what he says about parental authority are you willing to embrace and confess the words of Christ which though heaven and earth pass away shall never pass away that's what it means to demonstrate that you truly believe to the saving of your soul that you have an attachment to Jesus Christ that is genuine may I speak to you students a special word you who under God's direction and in his providence are going to be his ministering servants in one form or another are you willing to walk down any path
which the words of Christ lead you doctrinally or practically if you are you better pray that God will give you the grace of holy courage to stand in a man-centered age and preach a God-centered message is to bring not only the unbelieving world upon you but the scorn of the professing church to dare to stand in a man-centered age and say from the depths of your heart as Paul did in Romans 11.36
of all things to whom be glory forever and ever. That's no popular thing.
But the only way I can prove that Jesus Christ is my prophet and that I am committed to Him in the glory of His person and the perfection of His work is to walk down any path which His word marks out for me to stand in a man-centered age and declare that salvation is of the Lord, period. No commas, no dashes.
To declare that salvation is not some kind of a wishy-washy mamby-pamby blotting out of a few check marks in the record book of heaven but a mighty work of God whereby the rebel sinner is subdued and made the love slave of Christ that will cost you something. Be prepared to have the truth you preach spattered with a little of your own blood.
Are you willing to confess it? Not only walk down any path of doctrine that the word leads but to walk down any path of practice to take not only your message from the Bible but your methods.
I haven't been down the road that much long that I can talk with the scars of an apostle Paul but I got a few nicks anyway.
And you know what people can't stand? They can't stand the application of Bible verses to Bible method to Bible methods. You see? Are we going to adopt the methods of the Bible?
One of the biggest rages in the church right now is talking with a pastor who came to see me the other day. This thing has gone like wildfire through his own denomination. Many fellows using it. His little books on soul winning made easy.
It gives you ten steps how to get a man to bow his head and pray a little ditty prayer. Young people, students, listen.
That's an utter denial of everything. Everything the Bible teaches on the nature of salvation.
And my heart bleeds for you. I wish somehow I could take the scars for you but you're going to have them. And you look back to this morning and remember when the pinch is on. Shall I conform to the methods?
Everyone tells me they work. People will show me that they build churches and that they fill auditoriums but they cannot show me chapter and verse or principle or precept to justify them. And the pressure's on. What shall I do?
At that point, oh, turn and say, Lord Jesus, thou art my prophet.
I must obey your words. It's just that simple.
May God give you grace.
Confessing Christ on the Burning Issues of the Day
Martin Luther said something that I want to quote this morning. I don't have the exact wording of it. This is the gist of it. He said, what it means to confess Christ in any generation is simply this.
Whatever the burning issues are in that particular generation, at that point, we must boldly confess what Jesus Christ and his inspired apostles said. And if we fail to speak on the burning issues of our day, we are denying Christ. Let me illustrate. The burning issue in our evangelical churches in our day is not whether Jesus Christ is God.
Every evangelical believes in the deity of Christ. Right? The burning issue is not whether or not salvation's to be found in good works or solely in the atoning work of Christ. We're all agreed on that.
But you know what the burning issues of our day are? I'll tell you what they are. Can a man be saved who does not turn from his sins and bow to Jesus Christ as his sovereign and Lord? That's one of the burning issues of our day.
Can you have the benefits of the cross of Christ without bowing to the implications of the crown of Christ? That's one of the burning issues in our day. And to confess Christ, young men and women, means that on that issue, you'll take a biblical stand that's as clear and straight as a bell. And men will know that you offer the Son of God on no other terms but that men bow to Him, turn from sin, and embrace Him as Lord and King to serve Him for His glory and for His praise.
Another one of the burning issues, and it will be more so in the next ten years, is the infallibility and the inerrancy of the Word of God.
And in the upper echelon of modern evangelical scholarship, it's become popular to sort of snicker at the word inerrancy and inerrancy and infallibility. And you're not considered in unless you've put that fuzzy gray question mark over the historic Christian doctrine of the infallibility of the Word of God. To confess Christ means you'll take your stand there and say, every word breathed of God is my Bible. This is what it means.
Individual Application: To Adults and Parents
And I say to you, dear adults, and may God say it with the inner voice that only He can say, what's it mean to confess Christ as your prophet? It means you're going to take what He said by His own words and the words of His apostles concerning how you're going to order and direct your home. The whole fabric of society, the whole key unit is the home and in that area there's been an utter disintegration and you and I are not immune to this. We're affected by it and God have mercy on parents who will not take dictates from the Lord Jesus Christ as their prophet as to how the home is to be ordered and run.
With the husband ruling in love and the wife submissive as unto the Lord and the home being that center of that unit, not just a place where you come and gobble down your meals together and go your several ways, but a place of warmth and love and security and openness and communication that in the midst of a crazy mixed up world, the kids have got a place where there's something of love and cohesion and harmony and openness and communication. This is God's incubator to hatch out well-adjusted men and women and if you don't provide that incubator, they're going to turn out like the rest of the poor crazy mixed up kids all around us.
But we're smarter than the Lord, see? We've got to figure out how we can do things better. Oh, beloved, I know there are circumstances that mean some of you cannot provide that, but you ask God to help you to know how best you may in your circumstance. And then the last word I want to make and give is for us corporately as a body of God's people.
Corporate Application: To the Church
Not only does Christ's prophetic office speak a word to us personally, unsaved, professing Christians, young people, students, adults, but God says something to us as a church personally, corporately. In Ephesians 5, 24, we read as the church is subject unto Christ. Now, how does Christ rule his church? Have you ever asked yourself that question?
How does Christ rule his church?
Well, let me follow it with another question. How did Jehovah God rule the Old Testament church? How did God rule his people in the Old Testament? How did he rule them?
Oh, you say by Moses?
No, he ruled them by his what? By his word. By his word. He ruled them by his word.
Now, how does God rule the New Testament manifestation of his called out words? Excuse me. How does he rule them? He rules them by his word.
Christ rules the church by the rich. Word of God. Now, if that's true, we as a professing church of Christ are indeed a church of Christ only to the extent that we are willing to submit every practice, every doctrine, every teaching, every tradition to the light, to the sacred light of the book of God.
This does not mean that we do not gain insights from what God has revealed in the past. I'm not repudiating our book table downstairs. I'd like to see the sales of books triple and quadruple. But what I'm saying is that the final and only infallible rule of faith and practice is this book.
Now, this means we've got to do something together. It's not enough for you to sit there and just take what comes over this pulpit. God have mercy on you if you do.
Just swallow everything. No. We need to bring everything to the touchstone of divine revelation and as a people of God, corporately, be with us. Be willing to walk down any path doctrinally and any path experimentally and practically which the book of God leads us.
In other words, we've got to become not just one or two of us, but as an assembly, we've got to become like those Bereans who were of more noble mind than those at Thessalonica as we read in Acts 17 in that they searched the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. And we've got to do so with the realization spoken of in Luke 24. That then opened he their mind that they might understand the scriptures. I'm not calling just for feverish Bible study.
I'm calling for that kind of study with a dependent heart upon the illumination of the Holy Spirit that will make us a spirit-taught body of professing Christians who will walk in the light of the mandates of King Jesus.
The Blessings of Corporate Submission to Christ's Word
Now, I don't know what that'll mean for us as an assembly of God's people.
But being perfectly honest, I have to say that's one of the main reasons why I'm just not interested when letters come asking if I'd look into this work or some other work and consider being pastor because I do believe that there are a nucleus of you here whose profession to be subject to Christ is proven by your willingness to examine every principle of doctrine and practice in the light of this book. And if we're willing to continue in that path and by the grace of God if the number walking in that path is increased I don't know what God will do but I know it'll be something wonderful to confront this community
and send ever-widening circles of influence to the ends of the earth with men and women whose allegiance to Christ is not a verbal shibboleth but whose allegiance to Christ is a practical submission to His revealed Word walking down any path that that revealed Word leads us to. May God grant that we shall walk it together. It'll be wonderful experience. I'm not going to say it's going to be the most peaceful thing in the world.
It's not going to be the easiest thing in the world.
But you have the wonderful promise of our Lord and this is my closing verse this morning. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them. John 14, 20 He it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will manifest myself to him. What more could we want than that the Lord Jesus would manifest Himself to us individually and corporately.
What more could we want than that? You see people could stand on the outside and hiss and spit and throw stones but if we come together and the glory of Christ is among us their stones are a blessing. I'm not saying they will but suppose they did. But oh beloved we could have everybody lined up outside lauding us and praising us but when we come within these walls and meet in His name if He's not here applause can never meet the need of your thirsty heart.
True?
And so by the grace of God confessing to be believers let us be believers. Let us prove that we are believers by not only initially bowing to Christ as our prophet but as true faith is not the fit of a moment but the disposition of a lifetime. Let us go on believing in Him as our prophet committing ourselves to His revealed word and walking down whatever pathway that word shall lead us and walking it by the power of His Spirit and in that pathway we'll know the glory of His presence. Let us pray.
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
This passage is expounded to show that initial 'belief' is insufficient; true discipleship is proven by continuing in Christ's word, distinguishing genuine faith from superficial profession.
Martin uses this passage to illustrate that many who initially followed Christ turned away when confronted with 'hard sayings,' while true disciples, like Peter, submitted to his words despite not fully understanding them.
This text is central to the argument that remaining in Christ's words is inseparable from remaining in Christ himself, and is the condition for receiving the promise of eternal life.
Texts Expounded
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