Major Hindrances to Confessing Christ

Introduction: Review of Romans 10:9-10 and the Shape of the Evening

0:03 In our study of the Word of God this morning, we examine together the very clear and vital teaching of Romans chapter 10, verses 9 and 10. That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

0:42 And in the opening up of these verses, I sought to underscore the fundamental teaching of verse 9, in which we see the inseparable relationship between verbal confession of Christ and heart belief in Christ. And as with so many things, what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Verse 9 is very clear, that confession with the mouth and belief with the heart are set forth as the conditions of being saved.

1:22 And then in verse 10, I sought to underscore what the Apostle gives us with regard to the precise relationship. The relationship between believing in Christ and confession of Christ. Faith, of course, being that by which we lay hold of the righteousness of Christ, and as surely as good works flow from faith, and are the inevitable and necessary attendant of faith, so verbal confession of Christ flows from faith and is the inevitable.

2:00 And then we concluded our study by noting that these two verses issue a strong call, first of all, to all who confess Christ, but have no heart religion. All who profess to believe on Christ, but have not made a verbal confession. And a call to all who have believed and have confessed. To continue on.

2:30 To continue on. To continue on. To continue on. To continue on believing and expressing that faith by the confession of the lips.

2:36 Well, to those three calls, I should have added a fourth. A call to all who have neither believed nor confessed. And that call is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and to confess that faith. And then, as we move on to our study tonight, I should also correct the terrible error I made.

2:58 My only consolation is I was still rather... I was a little bit drunk from the three-hour time change and the drain of the past days.

3:05 How in the world I could have an inauguration of a president in January of 1983, I'll never know.

3:13 An awful lot of crazy things are going on in politics, but none that crazy.

3:19 And I was so intent on letting you know that I knew the inauguration came on the odd years and the election on the even years that I skipped right over two years. And for that, I am sorry. Whatever my ignorance may be. It does not quite extend that far in that area.

3:38 Now then, seriously, what I wish to do this evening is to extend the emphasis of these two texts or two verses which form the text of the morning and consider with you tonight the very sobering and practical subject of some major hindrances to confessing Christ and their God-given antidotes. Now, if the message were to...

4:05 If the message were to follow the track laid by the text, I would also have to preach on some major hindrances to believing with the heart and their God-given antidotes. For the emphasis of the text is upon believing with the heart as well as confessing with the mouth. But in the pastoral dealings that I have had with you as a people, I believe there is a peculiar necessity to concentrate on the former aspect of...

4:36 But in the pastoral dealings that I have had with you as a people, I believe there is a peculiar necessity to concentrate on the former aspect of... But in the pastoral dealings that I have had with you as a people, I believe there is a peculiar necessity to concentrate on the former aspect of...

4:37 Some of the major hindrances to confessing Christ and their God-given antidotes. Now, when I use the term confessing Christ throughout the message tonight as I did this morning, what precisely do I mean? Well, I mean nothing less than the obvious significance of the use of that word as found in a key passage on public confession, namely Matthew chapter 10 and verse 32.

5:11 This is the same word used as is found in the Romans 10 passage. Jesus says, Everyone therefore who shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. Now, what will Jesus do when in the last day he...

5:36 He confesses people before his Father which is in heaven? Well, it's obvious what he will do. We have other passages that describe that very activity. He will verbally, publicly, unreservedly identify himself with his people in the last day.

5:58 He will say to them, Come, ye blessed of my Father, enter the kingdom prepared. For you from the foundation of the world. In another passage we read the beautiful imagery of Christ standing as the elder brother in the presence of his Father and saying, Here am I, Father, and the children whom thou hast given me. And so for Christ to confess us in the presence of his Father will be nothing less than a public, verbal declaration, of his unreserved identity with us as his people.

6:43 Well, for us to confess Christ means precisely the same thing in reverse. It means for us verbally, publicly, unreservedly to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ as he is revealed to us in the gospel. It is to declare...

7:07 It is to declare by word as well as by life our attachment to Jesus Christ. It is to avow that we are his and that he is ours. And the element of the verbal and the public cannot be bled away from the biblical word used in these passages. Now, since we saw this morning that confession with the mouth is an inseparable and necessary attendant of belief in the heart, it should not surprise us that the enemy of our souls

7:50 will not only seek to confuse the matters pertaining to believing with the heart, but will also seek to confuse and restrain men from making a public confession with... with the mouth.

8:07 If both are essential elements of coming to salvation, and Romans 10, 9 and 10 make that abundantly clear, the enemy who is set upon our damnation will put forth all of his hellish, fiendish power to keep men back from that confession with the mouth that is essential unto salvation. And so what I want to do tonight, is to trace out with you from the scriptures three major areas, three major categories of concern which keep men, which keep women, which keep boys and girls

8:51 from confessing Christ. And wherever possible in the context of these passages to notice the God-given antidote to that hindrance to confessing Christ. First of all, then consider with me hindrances rooted in the physical hazards of the gospel. Then we'll consider hindrances rooted in the social hazards of confessing Christ.

9:20 And thirdly, hindrances rooted in the spiritual or ecclesiastical hazards of confessing Christ. Number one then, hindrances rooted in the physical hazards, hazards of confessing Christ. And here I ask you to turn to the Matthew 10 passage with me.

Hindrance 1: The Physical Hazards of Confessing Christ (Matthew 10:16-33)

9:47 In verses 16 through 23, we have our Lord's description of what his commissioned apostles can expect as they go out preaching the gospel. The opening verses of the chapter are the record of the special commission given to the twelve. And now he tells them, beginning with verse 16, what they can expect as they obey that commission. Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.

10:19 Therefore be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to their courts and scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall even be brought before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. And further on he tells them in verse 21 and following that they will have opposition even from their intimate family members.

10:48 They will be hated by all men for the sake of the Savior and his truth. Now it's against that backdrop of this prediction of the hostility and the opposition with which they will meet in the course of obedience to their preaching that our Lord begins in verse 24 to speak in a more general way principles that apply to all of his people. A disciple is not above his teacher nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple to become as his teacher and the slave as his master.

11:27 If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household. You see, what he is saying applies to the household of faith. Therefore do not, do not fear them for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness speak in the light.

11:48 What you hear whispered in your ear proclaim upon the housetops and do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. And here in verse 28 our Lord indicates that his disciples after the pattern of his own life must be prepared for possible physical hazards simply because they are disciples of Christ. And there will be those, he says, who will carry their physical destruction to the ultimate. They may even take away

12:32 the lives of the followers of Christ in their hatred to the gospel. And so he commands them not to be afraid of those who kill the body. The intimation being that there will be some whose physical abuse of the people of God will stop short of nothing but death. In the previous verses he spoke of scourging.

12:56 He spoke of other forms of physical abuse. And certainly in the history of the church it has been true that many times in the outworking of their allegiance to God, to Christ, the people of God have exposed themselves to great physical hazards simply because they avowed allegiance to Jesus Christ. At times, those physical hazards have not developed into open martyrdom, but there has been a form of physical opposition boycotting Christians and causing them starvation or a great limitation of the ability

13:39 to obtain basic foodstuffs and clothing. Well, anything that comes within the realm of a physical hazard comes within the purview of our Lord's directive in this passage. And it is a hazard which comes directly from commitment to Jesus Christ as a disciple in such a visible and obvious way as to mark a man as a disciple. As belonging to Christ.

14:11 This whole passage has no meaning if there is such a thing as a secret disciple. These are those who have confessed Him openly and are unashamed of their identification with Him. And our Lord recognizes that the possibility of physical hazards in conjunction with confessing Him could be a very real stumbling block on the one hand to those who are contemplating the life of discipleship. It can be used as a great barrier of fear to hold them back from a verbal confession of Christ and can also be a great stumbling block

14:55 to those who having initially confessed Christ would be tempted to turn away from that confession when once it began to cost them their skin. Well, what is the great ambition of the Lord to do? Well, the great ambition of the Lord is to give us an antidote to the hindrance rooted in physical hazards in conjunction with confessing Christ. Well, our Lord sets forth at least three antidotes.

15:22 And for you children an antidote is something that cancels the effect of something else. If you take a poison of a certain kind you may have a first aid kit that says antidotes to this, to that, or the other are these certain foods or drinks. The first one is the spiritual antidotes in order to neutralize these hindrances rooted in the physical hazards of confessing Christ. The first one is found in verse 28.

15:50 He says consider the relative insignificance of physical harm and danger. Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the souls of those who kill the souls of those who kill the soul but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Now do you see what our Lord is doing? He is setting in sharp contrast the relative worth of the soul in comparison to that of the body.

16:32 And he says there is a relative insignificance to physical harm. Now the Bible does not demean the body. We are not pagan in our understanding of the sanctity of the body. Our redemption will not be complete until we have glorified bodies.

16:52 So I am not speaking as a neo-Platonist or as a pagan philosopher but I hope I am speaking as a Christian. And as a Christian there is a relative importance between the body and the soul. And Jesus says the soul is of greater worth. Do not be afraid of those who can mutilate who can starve who can whip who can flagellate who can imprison the body but cannot imprison the soul but fear him that is the living God who has authority not only to cast

17:36 the body of any kind of torture or abuse that may come for being a confessing disciple of Christ fear the one who can take the body and put it in the place of endless eternal torment and more than that who can place the soul with all of its capacity in any horror felt by the nerve endings of the body fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell and so if there is any one

18:21 of you sitting here today who finds himself drawing back from an open identification with Christ because perhaps you have even been threatened at the possible very real possibility of physical abuse from their own parents and relatives and there may be such sitting here tonight who are wrestling with this very matter can I shall I become an open confessing disciple of Christ when in all possibility there may be physical abuse what does the

19:06 harm consider the temporary nature of physical harm even if we should be called upon to be burned at a stake how long does it take for the fire to consume the flesh off the body and release the soul to go into the presence of Christ what is thirty minutes or a half hour or an hour of thought what is the time of God for eternity in order to experience the wrath

19:50 and anger of God in the conscious torments of the death and remember he's speaking to disciples and should the time come when some of us may be called upon Those who can cause pain to any part of the body in any way, shape or form, but who cannot destroy the soul, but fear him who can destroy soul and body in hell. And according to verse 32, that's exactly, I'm sorry, verse 33, what he will do to those who deny him.

20:31 Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father in heaven. And that's not speaking of the denial of a temporary lapse. Peter did that in a moment of weakness. He so feared for his own hide that when a little servant girl said, surely you are one of them, he cursed and swore and said, I know not the man.

20:55 And he did deny the Lord. But that was the denial of a temporary lapse. It was not the settled commitment of his heart to back off and apostatize and utterly to repudiate identification with Christ. And secular history tells us that ultimately Peter did, according to the prophecy of our Lord, die against his will.

21:22 When you were young, you went where you desired to go. When you were old, men shall bind you and take you where you don't desire to go. So this spake he, signifying by what death? He should glorify God, and secular history says, so that he would in no way approximate what his Lord did.

21:41 He requested that he be crucified upside down. And so he confessed his Lord, even in death. Then the Lord gives a second consideration as an antidote to these possible physical hazards of confessing Christ. Not only the relative insignificance of physical harm, but the relative worth that we have in relationship to God's other creatures.

22:09 Verses 29 to 31. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father? But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Therefore do not fear.

22:26 You are of much more value than many sparrows. Everyone. One therefore who shall confess me. You see the connection?

22:37 He is saying to people whom he knows would be timid about the implications of confessing him before men, especially in the light of the teaching that he had just given, that they would be hated, that they would be beaten, that they would be delivered up to courts, that some would be killed as to the body. But he says, fill your mind with this antidote that will preserve you against denying me. Remember, your relative worth in comparison with the rest of God's creatures. Two little sparrows sold for a pittance, and yet not a one of them falls to the ground without the knowledge and will.

23:16 And may we say without being irreverent, the present care of your father whose hand is beneath that bird, who brings it to its rest upon the ground. Not one sparrow falls to the ground without your father. Without his knowledge, without his will, without his care, without his present providential involvement in the slightest of his creatures. And then he goes on to say, the very insignificant protein on the top of your noggin, the very hairs of your head, are all numbered.

23:55 Numbered because God cares for his own. Therefore do not fear. You are of much more value. Than many sparrows.

24:05 God says, remember your worth. And remembering your worth, if the father's love and care and providence and supportive power surrounds a sparrow, and as it were, even brings it to the ground when it falls. So your father, who may allow in his providence great physical hazards to come for the sake of the gospel, he will not be a distant God. He will be, there, surrounding, supporting, consoling.

24:38 And even if he allows us to pay the ultimate price, as is so often the testimony of the saints in martyrdom, there was a peculiar presence of Christ in the midst of the flames that caused some of the martyrs burned at the stake, literally, where possible, to hug their bands. So filled were they with the sense of the presence of God, that God apparently even neutralized the physical pain upon their body. And they understood the meaning of these words. Consider your relative worth in comparison to other of God's creatures.

25:20 And then the third great antidote against that hindrance that comes from physical opposition and the physical hazards of confessing Christ is consider the realities of the last, verses 32 and 33. Everyone therefore who shall confess me before men, I will confess him before my Father who is in heaven. Whosoever shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. And obviously that takes us all the way through time.

25:59 And on to that awesome day when the Lord Jesus is the judge of the world, will be the arbiter of men's eternal destinies. Now notice the context. It's in the confessional context. And he's saying, when you're becoming convinced of the truth of the gospel, and there is that desire to lay hold of that truth with the heart, and to believe in your heart that God has indeed dealt with human sin in the person of his Son, and he has raised him from the dead, and from that risen Christ comes the free offer of mercy, and pardon, and the royal command to take up the cross and follow him.

26:40 When you're tempted to draw back because of some possible physical hazards involved in confessing him, bring near the last day. Bring near that day when if Christ does not confess you before the Father, no one else will come to plead your God. When Christ comes forth and denies you, who will there be? Who will there be to appeal his denial?

27:09 My friend, what a sobering thing to have Christ refuse to confess me in the presence of the Father. Is there another mediator whose confession of me can secure the approbation of the judge of the world? The answer is obvious. And so we need to arm our minds with these great antidotes and overcome the hindrances rooted in the physical hazards of confessing Christ.

Hindrance 2: The Social Hazards of Confessing Christ (Matthew 10:34-39)

27:41 But then there is a second category of hindrance. It is the hindrances rooted in the social hazards of confessing Christ. And they're also found here in Matthew chapter 10.

27:57 Hindrances rooted in the social hazards of confessing Christ. Verse 34. Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

28:16 Now he's going to explain what he meant by that imagery. A sword is that which cleaves, it divides, it separates. Now where will that sword of separation come from Christ? For I came to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a man's foes will be the members of his household.

28:51 He had previously spoken along these lines in verse 21. And the brother will deliver up brother to death and a father his child and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And it's very interesting. That prediction was made in the context of a commission to go only to the house of Israel, to the covenant community.

29:19 Notice it very, very clearly in the earlier part of chapter 10, verse 6. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to the covenant community.

29:35 Jesus said, my gospel is going to do a radically new thing. Instead of binding house, households together in covenantal oneness,

29:48 sure them by the demands of the new covenant, which say that a man must have more than the right blood in his veins. He must have grace in his heart.

30:04 Now, my friend, that's not just a Baptist interpolation of the text. It's there on the face of the text. Go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you do, you're going to find that my demands cut right across the deepest social ties.

30:26 Now, follow. If they touch the deepest social ties, father, mother, son, daughter, in-laws,

30:37 they will certainly touch all lesser ties. Classmates, neighbors, work associates, companions in business. If they include the greater, they certainly will take within their orbit the lesser. Now, this can be a real hindrance to confessing Christ.

31:01 The hindrance rooted in the social hazards of that confession for this simple reason. God made us social creatures. It was God who came to Adam with the conclusion it is not good for the man to be alone. Adam wasn't sitting around somewhere, feeling blue, scratching his head, saying, what in the world is wrong with me?

31:24 Got this beautiful garden, got all these animals, got the blue sky, got the green grass, everything's lovely. I don't feel complete. No, no. It was God who made the conclusion it's not good for the man to be alone.

31:37 I will make him help answering to his needs. It was God who said, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. And it is God who made us social beings so that a normal human being, does not feel comfortable insulated and isolated from his fellow creatures. Now sin has brought many abnormalities.

32:00 And one of the abnormalities is you actually have people that delight being hermits, living only unto and with and in interaction with themselves. But that's a gross abnormality. And it's because God has made us social creatures that very early in life we feel uncomfortable if we say, oh, God, I love you. But in a sense, we are being pressured out of the social circle in which we naturally find ourselves.

32:29 So when you've got the four little kids in the neighborhood about the same age who meet in the same backyard to play, if one of them becomes a little overweight and all the other kids begin to call him fatty and cubby, he comes weeping into his mother because he feels that social pressure. Or maybe a kid has to start wearing glasses, very young, and they start calling him four-eyes. And he'll come in weeping. Hurts him.

32:56 Why? Because God has made us social creatures. And when we sense something less than full acceptance in the social circle in which we most natively would be at home, there is great pain. The Lord knows that.

33:03 He made us that way. But now, because society in every level has given itself over to the service of sin, we are being pushed into a state of self-pity, of self-pity, of self-pity, of self-pity, of self-pity, of self-pity, of self-pity, of self-pity, of self-pity, of self-pity, of self-pity, of self-pity. There is no society in every level has given itself over to the service of sin. There is no social circle, whether it's the kids in the backyard, whether it's our peers at school, whether it's the guys at the office, whether it's the gals at the secretary pool, whether it's the students at the university or the college, it doesn't matter where it is, the Scripture says the whole world lieth in the wicked one.

33:48 And that society and circle in which we would naturally find ourselves is a society and a circle that is under the control of the power of darkness. And men's minds and motives and value judgments are all geared to those things dictated by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And when we contemplate confessing Christ, we know what's going to happen. To confess Christ verbally, openly, openly, to acknowledge our identity with Christ means we're identified with His words, with His standards of righteousness, with His standards of morality,

34:32 in speech, in thought, in talk, in clothing, in business ethics. And we know at every turn we'll have to be...

34:41 We know that when we're different, there will be verbal abuse, there will be social ostracization, there will be social withdrawal, and the contemplation of that can make us very, very apprehensive about confessing Christ. Oh, there's no reproach to confessing Christ when you gather in a place like this on Sunday. Why? Because at least in principle this is a community of people committed to the norms of Scripture, to the authority of Christ, to the supremacy of Christ, to the glory of Christ, to the words and ways of Christ.

35:20 But that office, into which you go Monday morning, that schoolroom into which you go Monday morning, that place where you would go for diversion Monday night, oh, it's not the ways and the word of Christ that is central there. And to confess Christ is to feel the pressure of that social sword of which Christ speaks in this very text. And some of you perhaps are being hindered from a verbal confession of Christ because you're afraid of the social results. Some of you may fear that you'll lose a wife or lose a husband.

36:05 And that happens.

36:08 I sat and wept just a few weeks ago when I heard the testimony of a young preacher down in Florida who simply because God was pleased to save him after being an unsafe preacher for twenty years has lost his wife and his two children. They've left him declaring him mad and possessed of a devil.

36:37 That's the price he paid for confessing Christ.

36:44 Some of you may be called upon to pay a similar price. But whatever the price may be, though it may not be as extreme and it seldom is, at least in our society at the present moment, that there will be social pressure, yes, for Jesus said, all of the sons and daughters of his kingdom who are the blessed ones are such as are reviled and persecuted for his namesake. And Paul could say to Timothy 2 Timothy 3, 12, all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Now has the Lord given us

37:28 any antidote to help us, as it were, to neutralize the fear of confessing him because of the social, yes, he has. And again, I suggest there are three here in the passage. The first one is recognize the normalcy of this hazard. Verse 34.

37:49 Do not think that I came to send peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. He says the very purpose of my coming is to call men away from mere external relationships to covenant community and covenant law and covenant standards to call men into such an internal abandonment to myself that wherever that happens, those who refuse to give me that kind of allegiance, the sword will come. Even in the covenant community.

38:31 Even in the covenant community. The sword will come and the Lord will come. The Lord gives this first antidote of saying it's normal. It's part and parcel of the whole genius of what I've come to do as the mediator of the new covenant who by my covenantal administration will write my law upon men's hearts and put my spirit within them.

39:03 And there will be that internalization and vital power of religion as the provisional and prevailing reality of the covenant people. It was there in the old covenant community but only in what the Bible calls a remnant. A comparative few. But now the predominance in the new covenant community is they shall all know the Lord from the least to the greatest.

39:33 But in so doing, they will feel the sword with father, mother, brother, sister, and every social relationship. Antidote number one, recognize the normalcy of this condition. Antidote number two, recognize the totality of the claims of Christ. Verses 37 and 38.

39:58 He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy worthy of me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Am I speaking to someone who says yes?

40:25 I believe that God has raised his son from the dead. I do see myself in need of the righteousness of faith. And I do believe at times that that faith is present in me. And I know that I ought and I really desire to confess it with my mouth, but I'm not sure where my husband stands on these things.

40:48 I'm waiting for him to catch up with me. Or I'm not sure where my wife stands. I'm waiting for her to catch up with me. My friend, when Christ calls you, there's a sense in which your wife and your husband must become a faceless man and a faceless woman.

41:10 If you love wife or husband more than him, you are not worthy of him. Love son or daughter, brother, sister, he will tolerate no rival to unqualified allegiance to himself. That's the second great antidote to this social hazard. Recognize not only the normalcy of the hazard, but the totality of the claims of Christ.

41:39 And then thirdly, recognize the folly of refusal to confess him because of social hazard. Verse 39, he who has found his life shall lose it. He who has lost his life for my sake shall find it. Some of you will remember the well-known words of Jim Elliot, the young missionary who was killed by the Alka Indians down on those shores of that jungle area.

42:11 He said, he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep. In order to gain what he cannot lose.

42:22 He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose. That's just a paraphrase and turned expression of this text. Our Lord concludes this statement on the social hazards of the gospel by saying, if you're so determined to spare your life, that life with undisturbed social relationships in which you're still fully accepted by wife and husband, father, mother, brother, sister, classmates, friends, sports associates, school associates, neighborhood friends, if you're so determined to save that life which is comfortable

43:06 in those relationships, you'll lose the life that is eternal.

43:12 But if you're prepared to lose your life, that is life even with its normal social relationships, and prepared for the sword of division to come in losing your life, you will find it.

Hindrance 3: The Religious Hazards of Confessing Christ (John 9)

43:28 Now there is a third category of hindrances to confessing Christ, and they are what I'm going to call hindrances rooted in the religious hazards of confessing Him. There are hindrances not only rooted in physical and social hazards, but the Bible gives us especially two classic examples in the New Testament of hindrances rooted in the religious hazards of confessing Christ. The first one is found in John's Gospel, chapter 9. And I invite you to turn there with me if you will, please.

44:04 John's Gospel, chapter 9.

44:12 Most of you will be familiar with the incident of the healing of the man born blind who was no child. He is wonderfully healed, but the Lord had the temerity to heal him on the Sabbath day. And this irked the Jews, and their irked state surfaced very soon. And they come and talk to him and ask him what happened to him, and he tells them.

44:41 And they say, where is he? And he said, I don't know. Now that picks up the narrative at verse 13. And they brought to the Pharisees him that was formerly blind.

44:50 Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Again, therefore, the Pharisees also were asking him, how he received his sight. And he said to them, he applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see. Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, this man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath.

45:11 Others were saying, how can a man who is a sinner perform such signs? And there was a division among them. They said therefore to the blind man again, what do you say about him since he opened your eyes? And he said, he is a prophet.

45:28 The Jews therefore did not believe it of him that he had been blind and had received sight until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight and questioned them saying, is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered them and said, we know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees, we do not know.

45:55 Or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him. He is of age. He shall speak for himself.

46:01 Now verse 22. His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess him to be the Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. For this reason his parents said, he is of age.

46:28 Ask him. You see John's perceptive comment. The parents knew who it was who had opened his eyes. And so John tells us they refused to say who it was because this would be tantamount to a confession of Christ.

46:48 And they feared the religious hazard of confessing Christ. To be put out of the synagogue meant to be treated as an outcast. In many situations, though we cannot clearly establish this from scripture, there are several inferences, but from secular Jewish history, it meant economic as well as social along with religious banishment. To be cast out of the synagogue meant that at the central area of a Jew's life, the hearing and the reading of the word of God, the corporate confession of the great confession that Israel's God was one.

47:31 The very center of religious life in a nation where religion was basic to everything else meant that there would also be ripples extending into the realm of physical and social well-being as well. They were fearful of this. They were fearful of the religious hazard and so they would not confess Christ. But by contrast, you have the blind man.

48:00 And he is put out of the synagogue, but oh, how his confession of Christ. I smile. I want to weep and shout every time I read the record. When they first come to him, we've already read what he said.

48:12 He said, here's what happened. He put clay on my eyes and now these eyeballs that could see nothing, they can see. And so they go fussing and fuming about this, that and the other and then come to the parents. So later on they come back to him.

48:25 Verse 24, the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, give glory to God. Whatever you tell us, don't tell us what may be true. Tell us what we want to hear. Give glory to God.

48:38 We know that this man is a sinner. He therefore answered, whether he's a sinner, I don't know. But one thing I know, whereas these eyeballs couldn't see anything, they sure working fine now. When my mama puts the grits and gravy on the table, I can see it now.

48:56 When there's a beef roast on the table, I can see it now. Whether he's a sinner, I don't know. I told you earlier, I was convinced he was a prophet. You tell me he must be a sinner.

49:06 My theology is very weak, but my eyeballs ain't weak no more. They can see. Once blind, now I see. They said therefore to him, what did he do to you?

49:17 How did he open your eyes? He as much as says, you guys got a bad memory, you're stupid, I already told you. He answered them, I told you already. He put clay on my eyes, I washed them and I see.

49:31 You want to ask me? I'm not going to tell you a different story. I'm an honest man. I told you already.

49:36 Why do you want to hear again? You do not want to become his disciples, do you? He says, you want to hear some more because you're really interested and you're desirous of confessing him? Well, this really got to them.

49:52 They reviled him and said, you're his disciple, but we're disciples of Moses. We know God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he is from. The man answered and said to them, well, here's an amazing thing. You don't know where he's from, and yet he opened my eyes?

50:13 Now he begins to teach them some good theology. We know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does his will, he hears him. Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.

50:33 They answered and said to him, you were born entirely in sin, and are you teaching us? And they put him out, cast him out of the synagogue. But then the Lord Jesus came and found him, and this is beautiful, verse 35. Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, he said, do you believe in the Son of Man?

50:56 He answered and said, and who is he, Lord, that I know him? I may believe in him. Jesus said to him, you have both seen him, and he is the one, excuse me, who is talking with you. And he said, Lord, I believe.

51:12 And he worshipped him. Oh, do you see the contrast? Here were the parents with their fear of the religious hazards of confessing Christ, drawing back, double-talking with the Pharisees. Why?

51:32 They couldn't conceive of life being cut off from the synagogue. Synagogues were hard-hearted, calloused, insensitive Pharisees carried on a round of empty religious ritual. But here was a man who was willing to confess Christ in terms of two things, and I want you to notice it. This was the antidote to him.

51:58 Number one, he refused to deny his own conscious experience of the power of Christ, and he refused to hold back confessing any light he had as to the person of Christ. You got it? In the beginning, they said, what happened? He said, I was blind, I see.

52:16 They come back and say, what happened? He said, I've got no new tail. I was blind, I see. He stuck to his guns.

52:22 They were not going to get him by any kind of specious argumentation or prejudicial philosophical or theological statements. They were not going to budge him. This man put clay on my eyes and I see. That doesn't go down well with you fellows.

52:42 Sorry, that's the truth. Then in the beginning, verse 17, he said, well, he's a prophet. Later on, he said, I don't know whether he's a sinner or not, because prophets were sinners. So he was saying, I don't know if he's any more than a redeemed sinner, but a sinner nonetheless and a prophet.

53:00 Then later on, as his faith is enlarged, he begins to come back into a deeper, richer understanding. He must be from God and of God in a peculiar way, for something has happened that has never happened since the beginning of the world. And then when Jesus comes and says, do you believe in the Son of Man? He says, I don't know who he is.

53:20 And when he said, I am he, the Spirit of God opened his spiritual eyes and he fell at his feet in worship. Now notice, wasn't that a fair exchange? Cast out of the synagogue, out from the church, out from under the leadership of blind leaders of the blind, into the presence and intimate fellowship of the Son of God. It says, Jesus found him.

53:48 And my friend, Jesus finds every disciple who's willing to pay the price of confessing him at the expense of any religious hazard. That's the great stumbling block for some of you. You've been brought up in a church situation with associations for life, and you know if you were openly to confess Christ in his appointed ways, beginning with his own ordinance of baptism, identification with his people in a church that is a gathered church, that is a church comprised of confessed disciples

54:32 and confessed disciples alone, you know what would happen. There would be religious persecution with overtones of social and perhaps even economic implications that would be very, very extensive. But the great antidote to that fear is to ask yourself, what has Christ done for me by his word? Have those associations with decadent religious synagogues brought me light and life and spiritual sight and a knowledge of who Christ is?

55:16 Or has it been the ministry of his word in the association with people that truly know him and love him? My friend, no matter who may cast you out, if you're cast out for the sake of confessing what Christ has done and confessing who he is, Jesus will find you. And finding you, you will enter into the fellowship of the Son of God, which will more than compensate for all the pain of being cast out of the synagogue. Now as I draw the message to a close, I want to underscore something that perhaps some of you have already noticed.

The Common Denominator: Fear of Man and the Example of Christ

55:59 There is a common denominator to these three areas, these hindrances. Hindrances rooted in physical hazards, social hazards, religious hazards. Do you see what the common denominator is? It's what the writer of the Proverbs calls the fear of man.

56:21 And the writer of the Proverbs says, The fear of man bringeth a snare. And we have seen how snared men can be by the fear of men. Fear of what men can do in the way of physical abuse. And men are snared and bound so that they cannot and will not openly confess Christ for fear of the physical abuse that may come, for fear of man and the social pressure, the sneers, the cutting off of phone calls, the avoidance in public places.

57:02 And for some of us, that's not just theory. I can remember well walking down that long hill, it was called Strawberry Hill in Stanford, Connecticut, weeks after I was converted, and where once I was at the center of a group of guys walking down. I walked either alone or with one or two of my Christian friends. And many of the cars coming down that hill full of high school students would have the windows rolled down and they'd toot their horns when they saw me and they'd yell out the window, Hey, Holy Roller!

57:33 Walk on your heels and save your souls! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! It hurt that I tell you there was a compensation that more, that more than made up for the hurt, it was to know that the Savior walked with me and to be able to hold communion with Him in some little measure of the fellowship of His sufferings and to be able to go home and pillow my head at night and know that my sins were forgiven. All the social support of the back-slapping and the kind words of social peers

58:15 could never send me to bed at night with a good conscience! The fear that I might wake up in hell was ever with me! To have the presence of Christ by the Spirit bearing witness to the precious blood purging away my sins and to pillow my head with peace was more than compensation for the Holy Roller jokes, for the walk on your heels and save your soul jibes. My friend, I speak to you young people, some of you wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, and you say, If I confess Christ, I know what it will mean

58:59 at the social level. The fear of man bringeth a snare. Others of you, it's the fear of man at the religious level, but that's the common denominator of all of these. Now how is the power of these to be broken?

59:14 May I urge you to look to Christ tonight and see in Christ one who has gone down this path calling you to confess Him in the face of all physical, social, and religious hazards as one who has borne the greatest degree of all three of those for the salvation of men. What physical hazards did He bear for our salvation? Read Isaiah 53. Read the latter chapters of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John.

59:54 Read of the crown of thorns pressed upon Him. Read of the scourging which is laid upon His back. Read of His bloody sweat in Gethsemane. Read of the impalement of that holy body upon the cross.

60:14 You realize there is no physical agony you and I will ever be called upon to bear that He has not borne a greater in pursuit of our salvation. We are told by those who have analyzed various forms of torturous, lingering death that just from the physical standpoint there is perhaps no form of death more excruciating than that of crucifixion. And I will not go into the details of why it is so lest you be moved with a carnal sympathy for Christ. But suffice it to say that there is no physical pain that any of the saints will ever bear

60:59 for confessing Christ. But what Christ has borne a greater. He bore the social pain. John 7 says, His own brothers did not believe on Him.

61:12 Think of it. The sword cut into the very home in Nazareth. They taunted Him. They said, Yeah, we've heard about the big shot things you are doing in other places.

61:22 Why don't you go ahead and do them here too and prove your stuff. For it says, Even His own brethren did not believe on Him. He felt the pain of the taunts born of unbelief from His own brothers. In His own home.

61:38 He felt the pain of His own intimate disciples fleeing in the hour of His suffering. Letting Him down in the hour of His agony. What? Could you not watch with me one hour?

61:49 There they are snoring while He groans and agonizes in bloody sweat in Gethsemane. In the wider social circle they taunt Him and mock Him in the hours of His abandonment. He saved others. I didn't prove His stuff.

62:08 Come down from the cross. Show your stuff. Prove it to the King of Israel. My friend, there is no social taunting you will ever bear that Christ is not already born in pursuit of the salvation of sinners.

62:17 What about the religious? Well, it says, For envy the Jews delivered Him up. The religious system of His day could not stand Him. Why?

62:23 Because He was the King of Israel. Why? Because He was the King of Israel. Why?

62:28 Because He was the King of Israel. Why? Because He was the King of Israel. Why?

62:33 Because He was the King of Israel. Why? Because He was the King of Israel. Why?

62:37 Why? Because He did not parrot the party line. He did not toe the denominational standards. They had their own tradition of what God's Word meant, and He cut through it saying, You have heard that it was said, but I say unto you.

62:57 And He faced the Pharisees and says, Full well does God speak about you. You hypocrites, you draw near to Me with your lips, but your hearts are far from Me. In vain do you worship Me, teaching for precepts, teaching for precepts, the doctrines of men, and make void the Word of God by your traditions, blind leaders of the blind, whitewashed sepulchers full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Oh, what strong language!

63:26 And he felt the rejection of a decadent religious system. And it was that system in cahoots with the Roman government that put him on a cross. My friend, the Christ who calls you open verbal identification with himself in the face of any physical, social, or religious hazard is the one who has gone before us in each of those areas. He died to have the hearts of his people. He died to have the unreserved allegiance of our hearts. And he calls us

64:11 not only to believe that he died for sinners, but he calls us in the faith of himself to confess him with the mouth at any cost. Is there anything appealing in such a Christ who calls you from his own agony, from his own rejection, from his own ostracization, from his own fear?

64:47 Or physical pangs and agony? Or can you look at all of that and say, preachers talk. Is there anyone so hardened in his sins tonight, so blinded by the God of this world, that he can just sweep all of that aside? If so, I can only pray that God will have mercy upon your hardened, blinded spirit and open your eyes by a miracle of grace as great as the physical.

65:22 Miracle that opened the eyes of that blind man before you wake up in hell. But I speak to some of you who say, oh, but Pastor Barton, I do believe I'm a sinner and I do believe Christ is my only hope and I believe everything you've said about him from his word. And I do believe that he bore the pains of the cross and the agony of the crucifixion to take away sin. And he calls me to bear nothing but what he has borne. And I do believe that he has

65:53 borne. Well, if that's true, man, woman, boy, girl, what hinders you from confessing him? Why tarryest thou? Arise and be back. Why tarryest thou? Arise and go forth to name his

66:13 name in that place of business tomorrow. And when they come to tell you that filthy joke, you don't need to be boorish and unsociable, but gently but firmly say, I'm sorry. My ears are the property of Christ and he doesn't approve of my letting garbage go in them. Tell your joke to someone else. Confess him in that office. Confess him in

66:42 that classroom. Confess him in that place of business. Thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession

67:07 is made unto salvation. For some of you, the first step will be seeking out one of the elders this very week, this very night, and saying, I'm done with this dilly-dallying, this straddling of the fence. I want to declare myself to be the Lord's. When can I be interviewed for baptism?

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68:03 upon Him be saved, and having been saved, confess Him as the evidence of the reality of that faith. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You again this night that we have the Scriptures. Oh, we marvel at their perennial freshness. We thank You that they speak to us in every circumstance

68:40 of life. And we pray this night for those who are holding back from confessing Your Son with the mouth. Because of these fears, growing out of physical, social, or religious hazards, may Your Holy Spirit so prevail upon them, and give them such a sight of Your dear Son, and it will be their joy to confess. And to be found identified with Him. Oh, Lord, those of us who have made that initial

69:20 confession and have been called upon many times to confess Your Son, forgive us for the all too many times when we have been sinfully silent in our shame. Oh, that we may be given new measures of boldness, new measures of sanctification. Oh, Lord, that we may have the divine impudence to stand against the flood of ungodliness all around us. And even as Your Word commands us that we may have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather to reprove them, seal this Word to our hearts.

70:02 And oh, Lord, effectually work in those for whom this day these words were Your own words. There are some who are for whom we make worship. Oh, Lord, it is your own word pointed and tailor-made in their need. Oh, God, You know who they are and we commend them to You. Hear our

70:22 prayer, receive our thanks, and be with us as we go off to our various homes and to our various spheres of responsibility. May we be a people who delight to confess You, not only here in the place of Your appointment, but there in the presence of Your faithful people. Oh, Lord, I cry for Your presence. I call upon You. Oh, Lord, I pray for Your presence. Lord, I praise You. Oh, Lord, how I am

70:42 in the place of your commandment as well. Hear our cry, receive our thanks, through Christ our Lord. Amen.