And Father, I just pray that you would bless this particular chapter and use it in all lives, and in Jesus' name I pray, amen.
All right, now we're in Matthew chapter 4. Of course, we went through the whole book of Hebrews, the whole book of Philippians, the whole book of Matthew.
And in Matthew chapter 1, we saw the genealogy, the birth of Christ. In Matthew chapter 2, we saw his early first couple of years.
And then in chapter 3, the story left Jesus and talked about John the Baptist preaching,
and Jesus comes to him being about 30 years old and gets baptized of John and Jordan.
And that's where chapter 3 leaves off.
And then in chapter number 4, you'll see the Bible says in verse number 1,
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
Now, the first thing I thought of when I read this was that oftentimes throughout the Bible,
you'll notice that a great victory, a great experience is often followed by a great defeat.
See, here's a great passage in John chapter 3 where John the Baptist is preaching a great sermon.
Many people are being saved, baptized. Jesus Christ himself comes, this great event,
where Jesus, the Son of God himself, is baptized.
There's a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased.
Now, wouldn't you like to have been there? It's a big event. It's exciting.
But then right after the excitement, right after the victory, it says,
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
And see, many times in our life, we'll have some kind of a great victory,
some kind of a great achievement, something great happens for us, and we're all excited,
and then God takes us into the wilderness, so to speak, and we don't like it there as much.
But the Bible says here he was led of the Spirit into the wilderness.
It was God's will for Jesus to go into the wilderness, a totally unpleasant place,
an undesirable place, and to meet none else but Satan when he got there.
Now, the Bible says here when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward and hungered,
and when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Now, look at Matthew chapter 3, verse number 17.
It says in the latter part of Matthew 3, 17, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
So God is saying, This is my beloved Son.
And then notice, what does the devil say just a few verses later?
He says, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
So what God said is a statement.
When God put a period, the devil puts a question mark and turns it into a question and says,
If thou be the Son of God, he said, I'm not necessarily saying that you're not the Son of God.
He's just saying, you know, if you are, and I'm not saying you're not,
but if you are, then command that these stones be made bread.
See, that's what the devil is. He always wants to just put doubt and questions in our mind
about the clear commands of what God has said.
Turn, if you would, back to Genesis chapter 3.
Turn to Genesis chapter 3.
Genesis chapter 3, and the Bible says, of course, a very familiar story,
but Genesis chapter 3, the Bible reads, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field,
which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said?
Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.
So the first thing he does, he questions.
Now, did God really say that? No, I'm not saying he didn't say that.
But did he really say that you're not supposed to eat of every tree?
And then go down a few verses. Look at verse number 4, where he says,
and the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.
So he's not really even telling her that she's not going to die.
He's just saying you should not surely die.
I'm not saying you're not going to die, but I don't think you're for sure going to die.
Maybe you won't really die. I don't know.
See how the devil is? He just wants to put a question.
He wants to kind of just question things a little bit.
You see, the devil is all about the gray area, and everything with God is black and white.
There's no gray area at all.
You see, I was reading in 1 John, chapter 1, and the Bible says,
God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Now, what is gray? If you think about the color gray, what is it?
It's you take white, and you take some dark, you know, black.
You take a light color, and you take a dark color, and you mix them together a little bit.
But see, God says, no, that's not me at all.
He says, I am light, and in me there's no darkness at all.
See, God is not gray at all.
You'll never find the word gray in the entire Bible.
Cover all kinds of colors I mentioned.
Never will you find the color gray, because God is a black and white kind of a God.
Light and darkness says, God is light, in him is no darkness at all.
But he says, but I dwell in the thick darkness.
He says, I am light, but I dwell in the thick darkness.
So you see the contrast there?
He says, why do you dwell in the thick darkness, God?
Because, he says, that's where my light shines the most.
I like that contrast of black on white.
That's why he wrote a book that's white pages and black ink with no pictures.
Because God is a black and white kind of a God, not this gray area stuff.
Now look what we're, let's go back to Matthew chapter 4,
and I'll show you some gray areas a little bit later here.
But look at Matthew chapter 4 again.
The first temptation that the devil throws at Jesus here,
he was led up of the Spirit and the wilderness.
The purpose was so that the devil could tempt him or test him out.
And it says in verse number 3, he says, if thou be the Son of God,
command that these stones be made bread.
But he answered and said, it is written, man should not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Now look, the first thing that he tries to allure to Jesus
is with some kind of a fleshly appetite.
Now, think with me for a second.
Is this some kind of a, is he going after him with some kind of a pornography magazine,
saying I'm going to go after Jesus' fleshly appetite?
No. Now look, Jesus was legitimately hungry.
If you think about it here, he's been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights.
Now I don't think that this was a supernatural event at all,
because if you notice it says, afterward he was hungry.
Now if he went without food and water, then he wouldn't have been hungry after,
he wouldn't have been thirsty. I mean, the first thing he'd be is thirsty.
You get thirsty a lot faster than you get hungry,
especially if you're in the wilderness, which is the Bible word for desert.
If you look up in Luke chapter 3, you'll see that the word desert means wilderness.
You know, wilderness means desert.
And he uses the word desert and wilderness in the Bible interchangeably.
So he's out in the desert.
Obviously he had water to drink or else he wouldn't have been hungry.
And so it is humanly possible for a man to go without food for 40 days and 40 nights.
I know people personally who have actually gone 40 days and 40 nights with nothing but water and survived.
And so Jesus here has fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, so he's hungry.
And so the devil comes to him and he wants to appeal to his fleshly appetite
to get him to obey the devil and just make these stones into bread so that he can eat food.
Now that's the main thing that the devil's going to tempt you with, is with your fleshly appetites.
Turn, if you would, to Galatians chapter 5.
Just flip forward in your Bible to Galatians, about five or six books forward.
Galatians chapter 5.
And it says in Galatians chapter 5, verse number 16, you're going to see what I'm talking about here.
It says, this I say then, walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Now you remember in Matthew 3.17, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove on Jesus.
So Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. He had the Holy Spirit upon him.
Then in verse number 1, the Holy Spirit was what led him into the wilderness.
And so that's why he didn't obey the lust of the flesh because it says here,
walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusted against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh,
and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not in the law.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, it goes on and on.
Okay, so here's the bottom line. The whole Christian life is boiled down into two things.
Are you going to walk in the Spirit, or are you going to be controlled by the flesh?
You say, what's the flesh? That's your body. Is your body in charge?
I mean, is your body what decides what you do and what you don't do,
or is it your spirit what decides what you do and don't do?
Well, let me give you an example. The obvious example here is food.
You know, some people have just a lust for food that's out of control.
You see people that are four or five hundred pounds,
because they just have this fleshly appetite that they're fulfilling.
They're not led by the Spirit. They're being just controlled by food.
But there are many other examples, like just think about laziness.
Think about people that are lazy.
I mean, I remember when I got my first alarm job at Liberty Bell Alarm.
I walk in there, and I have the interview, and we went through the whole interview,
and the boss asked me what I thought was kind of a silly question.
He said, do you know how to get up in the morning?
Do you know how to get out of bed to be here at 6.30?
Do you know how to get out of bed in the morning?
And I thought, come on, why are you talking to me like I'm a child?
I know how to get out of bed in the morning.
But since then, I've learned that a lot of people just don't know how to get out of bed in the morning,
and they cannot make it to work on time.
And these days, if you can just get out of bed in the morning, you're the best employee on the job.
You're number one.
And so it sounds silly, but that's the difference between being controlled by the flesh and the Spirit.
When you wake up in the morning, you don't feel like getting up.
You feel like just laying in bed.
So automatically, there's a choice right there.
Is the flesh going to be in charge, or is the Spirit going to be in charge?
You think about just everything in the Christian life that's wrong.
Fornication, obviously, you know, pornography, watching the bathtub on television.
It's just, it feels good, so I'm going to do it.
I'm going to sit on the couch and watch the television instead of doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
Think about soul in it.
I just didn't really feel like going soul in it.
It doesn't matter whether you feel like it, because the Holy Spirit is telling you through this book,
go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Then you say, well, I didn't feel like it.
It doesn't matter if you feel like it. That's the flesh talking.
You say, well, I'm shy, and that's the flesh talking.
But if the Holy Spirit is in charge, he's going to lead you out of the comfort zone into the wilderness of soul winning,
where you're going to be led by the Holy Ghost to open your mouth boldly and preach the gospel.
And that's what it comes down to.
Are you going to be led by the Spirit, or are you going to be living in the flesh?
Don't ever let the flesh control you.
I remember I heard Lester Roloff one time.
You know, I think this was kind of a joke.
But he said sometimes when he gets up in the morning, he just goes in the shower and just turns on the cold faucet,
just to let the flesh know that it's not in charge.
I thought that was kind of funny, but obviously that's ridiculous.
But the point is, don't be controlled by your flesh.
Don't let your appetites get out of control.
Don't let any appetite get out of control, because as soon as your appetites,
as soon as your physical body is telling you what to do, well, then the devil's in the driver's seat.
Look at what Jesus is doing here.
It's not like he was trying to do something wicked.
He's just going to eat some bread.
He wasn't even trying to, you know, have some kind of a buffet here.
He's just going to turn some stones into bread.
But as soon as you let the flesh determine your actions,
as opposed to the Holy Spirit or your own spirit in control,
well, that's when it goes the other way.
Same thing with church attendance.
Sometimes you always feel like going to church.
But who's going to decide? The flesh or the spirit is going to be in charge.
But anyway, I'll move on from that point.
But look, if you would, back at the Bible.
So the first temptation, the devil tries to appeal to Jesus' flesh
with his physical appetite for food there.
Then in verse number 5 it says,
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city,
and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God,
cast thyself down, for it is written,
He shall give his angels charge concerning thee,
and in their hands they shall bear thee up,
lest at any time thou dash thy foot against the stone.
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Now you'll see in verse number 4, when the devil tempted Jesus,
he shot the Bible right back at him.
He tempted him to do something that was wrong and he said,
It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by ever where the proceeded out of the mouth of God.
So then the devil tried to hit Jesus with the same thing.
And the devil will often use the Bible.
And so the devil says, If thou be the Son of God,
cast thyself down, for it is written.
But you'll notice when he quotes these verses here,
and I don't want to just for the sake of time,
I'm not going to go back and compare these,
but if you go back and find this exact reference in the book of Psalms,
I checked it out with the words,
and there are several words that he takes out when he quotes this,
there are several words that he adds in,
and then there are several words that he changes.
And what you end up with when you're done with this,
in Psalm 91, 11, you know, I'm just going to read it for you quickly.
You don't have to turn there.
I'm just going to show you this real quick.
But in Psalm 91, 11, it says,
For he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
And then here, you know, you see it in front of you that it's a little different than that.
And I figured out, and somebody told me this and I checked it out and it was true,
that the devil here is quoting the Bible exactly 70% accurate.
Now, it seems more similar to that.
Like, when you read it, if you just read this one and read this one,
you'd think, wow, that's pretty close. I mean, he's pretty much quoting it well.
But if you mathematically figure this out, it's 70% accurate.
Yet, you'll find in John chapter 9,
Jesus saying about the devil,
He's a liar and there is no truth in him.
You say, wait a second.
Okay, look, the devil's quoting the Bible 70% accurate.
Isn't that true?
I mean, don't you think that there's just enough truth here for this to be true?
I mean, come on, isn't there enough truth?
I mean, yeah, I know he changed a few words around,
but come on, part of that's true, right?
He says, no, there's no truth in him.
You say, well, I got the NIV.
You know, I mean, come on, there's got to be some truth in there.
It's pretty good, right?
It's probably about 70% accurate.
You say, yeah, I'll change a few things here and there.
Hey, there's no truth in it.
Because what happens is you take truth
and you take just a little bit of lie in there,
you change one word and it's not true.
If I say something, if I say an exact quote
and my wife goes to somebody and says, this is what he said,
and she said, I'll tell you exactly what he said,
and she just changes one word, I mean, is that what I said?
No.
And so it's no longer a true statement.
It becomes a lie.
You say, well, the concept is still true.
No, it's a lie because by putting it in a book
and putting Bible across the front,
you're saying that it's true.
You're saying this is exactly what God said,
but then you open it up and it's a loose rendering.
It's not what God said.
And that's what the devil will do.
The devil will take the Bible
and just change it around a little
and then use it against, in this case,
Jesus or against God's people.
And so he quotes this verse from the Bible,
and he's telling him, basically,
he takes him up to the very top of the temple.
He's telling him to throw himself off the temple
because somehow God's just going to protect him.
And that's what he's trying to tell people.
Well, look, I was trying to think about
how this would relate to us.
The first one is obvious.
He's trying to appeal to our flesh
and our physical appetites.
But maybe in this one, I don't know if he's trying to appeal
to maybe just the excitement, the living dangerously,
stepping out on a limb and jumping off this great temple,
and angels are going to come and swoop you up.
The devil tries to make sin look so exciting,
if you think about it.
He puts the billboards, make it look so cool,
the newest movie that came out,
and the beer ad just looks so fun,
it looks so exciting.
But it's not as exciting as it looks
because just like everything else, it gets boring.
Here's the way it works.
The things of God, they start out maybe a little boring,
and they're constantly getting more exciting.
Whereas the things of the world, they start out very exciting,
and then they just kind of get boring and more and more old.
It's the exact opposite.
Think about it.
People who read the Bible for the first time,
as long as they're just struggling to go through it.
But then they read it the second time and the third time,
and man, they start to really like it.
They start to really get into it.
Whereas a book of the world, it's like,
you read it the first time, it's just exciting.
The second time, it's starting to get a little boring.
Most people, unless they're some kind of a freak,
like a Star Trek fan or something,
you're not going to watch the movie ten times.
It's boring. It's stupid.
But you read the Bible a hundred times,
and it's going to get more and more exciting.
It's going to get better.
And so the things of God are constantly,
you start out, maybe it's a little bit of a chore.
You've got to force yourself to do it.
But it just gets better.
It gets more fun to go to church,
more exciting, soul winning.
It gets better and better and better.
And things of the world,
it's like it gives you all the excitement now,
but pretty soon it's old, it's boring.
And look, if that's not true,
then why is it that if alcohol's so exciting,
then why is it that most people don't stick with alcohol?
I mean, they've got to go from alcohol,
and pretty soon they're sniffing,
you know, they're snorting cocaine.
Because why?
Because the alcohol got boring after a while.
And then the cocaine gets boring after a while,
pretty soon they're just snorting cocaine
just to maintain normalcy.
Not to get high, not to have excitement.
And so they're constantly moving up
to worse and worse and worse sin,
because that's the way it is.
The excitement that the devil offers
is not all that it's cracked up to be.
But then look, the third temptation here
in verse number 8, it says,
Again the devil takes them up
into an exceeding high mountain,
and showeth them all the kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them,
and saith unto him,
All these things will I give thee,
if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him,
Get thee hence Satan,
for it is written,
I shall worship the Lord thy God,
and him only shalt thou serve.
Now here's where you see the very essence of Satan.
This is where you see exactly what Satan is all about.
He starts out with what we're about,
the lust of the flesh.
You know, the common man,
90% of the people out there,
you know, myself, just everybody,
that's the thing where the devil tries to get us off.
Physical, fleshly appetites.
But then he gets to what he's about in the end there.
Because in another passage he says,
All these things, he says,
they've been given to me,
and to whomsoever I will I give them.
He says, I'll give you all this world,
because he is called in the Bible
the God of this world.
Satan is.
He has a lot of power in this world.
And he says,
All these things will I give thee,
if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Now what's the big deal about that?
Why is Satan so interested
in having Jesus Christ worship him?
Big deal, right?
Well, I'll tell you why it's a big deal.
Because Satan's number one attribute is pride.
Satan started out,
if you've read this, in Isaiah 14.
He said,
I will ascend my throne above the stars of God.
I will ascend above the clouds.
I will be like the Most High.
He said, I want to be God.
He wanted to exalt his throne above the stars of God.
He said, I will be like the Most High.
And so Satan's attribute is pride.
He wants to be God.
He wants people to worship him.
He wants to be exalted and lifted up above God.
And so his attribute is coming out here
where he's saying,
Jesus, I want you, God in the flesh.
I want God to bow down and worship me.
Well, you're never more like the devil
than when this creeps into you,
this aspect of pride.
What's the most glaring example of this?
Salvation.
Salvation is by grace through faith, the Bible says.
For by grace are you saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Not of works, why?
Lest any man should boast, Ephesians 2, 9.
He says, if it was by works,
then you could boast about it, and that's pride.
And that's what you see.
You know, you go out soul-winding,
you knock on the door,
and you say,
if you were to die today,
you know for sure you'd go to heaven.
Usually they say, well, I hope so, I'm trying,
or I don't know.
But let's say they say, yes, I do know for sure,
but they're not really saved, for example.
And you say, well, how do you know?
And they say, well, I go to church,
I live a good life, I follow the commandments,
I try to help people.
What are they doing?
I mean, they're boasting.
They're telling you that they're going to heaven
because of good things that they have done.
Or you'll run into the other crowd that says,
you know what, I used to live this sinful life,
I used to do this sin, and I used to do that sin,
and stuff, but I gave all that up.
I repented of my alcohol and my cigarettes
and my partying and my fornication,
and I turned away from all that.
And so now I'm following Jesus, so I'm going to heaven.
Look, mankind always says back to Cain,
when Cain said, I'm not going to offer to God the lamb
on the altar, I'm going to offer him what I've done,
these fruits and vegetables that I've grown in my garden,
and he said, God is going to accept this as my payment
to get me to heaven.
Mankind has always been trying to take credit
for salvation one way or the other.
No, to God be the glory, great things he hath done.
The Bible says that God has translated us
into the kingdom of his dear son.
It says, not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to his mercy, he saved us.
Not I gave up this, and I did that, and I live a good life.
No, it's by grace through faith,
belief on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
See, it's all on Jesus, that's why it says on.
It's on Jesus to get me to heaven, it's not on me.
It says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved.
He that believeth is not condemned.
That's me, he that believeth.
He that believeth not is condemned already
because he didn't live a good life.
No, that's not what it says.
He that believeth not is condemned already
because he wasn't willing to give up his sin.
Is that what it says? No.
He that believeth not is condemned already
because he didn't get baptized.
Is that what it said? No.
He that believeth not is condemned already
because he has not believed on the name
of the only begotten Son of God.
And that's the only reason why anybody's gonna be condemned
because they don't believe on Jesus Christ
because it's not us that gets us to heaven,
it's the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the death, burial, and resurrection on the cross
that gets them.
You know what I'll say right now?
I have won somebody the Lord
while they had a beer in their hand,
and it didn't bother me one bit.
Now you point the finger at me,
you call me whatever you want,
but I've won somebody the Lord,
and they pray and accept to Christ their Savior
with a beer in their hand
because they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if they're not going to heaven,
then I'm not going to heaven
because if they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ
and God sends them to hell,
then he's probably gonna send me to hell too
if he's a liar, but God's not a liar.
And God says he that believeth is not condemned, period.
You say, well, what about these people?
And maybe they pray the prayer,
and then they go out and live like the devil.
Well, you know, maybe they didn't believe on Jesus Christ.
That's possible. Maybe they didn't believe.
Nobody knows who has believed on Jesus Christ and who has not.
But I'll tell you something.
Anybody who believes on Jesus Christ shall be saved, period.
And by the way, the guy that I won the Lord the beer in his hand,
as soon as I prayed with him and won him to the Lord,
the next thing I did was I said, you know what?
Let me tell you what's wrong with drinking alcohol.
And I proceeded to explain to him, and I said,
look, this is what's wrong with drinking alcohol.
I said alcohol is basically the devil's version of the Holy Spirit.
See, the Holy Spirit, that's why it's called spirits, by the way,
there's a restaurant, I think it's called,
is that a restaurant with the unlimited French fries?
Red Robin.
There's a restaurant. Who's ever heard of Red Robin Burger Place?
And it's called Red Robin Burgers and Spirits.
And you'll see all kinds, but you know, wine and spirits.
Because alcohol is basically very similar to the Holy Spirit in a lot of ways.
It's like an opposite of the Holy Spirit. Why?
Because alcohol will give you boldness.
The Holy Spirit will give you boldness.
The Bible says they were all filled with the Holy Ghost
and they spake the Word of God with boldness.
But then it also says that, well, I mean, it doesn't say this,
but you can look around and you'll see people when they drink and they get boldness.
People who are usually kind of quiet, maybe a little bit inhibited,
and they start drinking, what happens?
Hey, man, you know, they want to start getting into fights with people,
they start getting bold, like, hey, come on, you know,
and they basically will choose people off and start to fight with people,
and they'll start blowing out their mouth, they'll be loud and obnoxious,
normally people that are more inhibited.
And that's kind of why people like to drink alcohol sometimes,
because it brings them out of themselves
and it makes them do things that they normally wouldn't do, makes them bold.
Well, that's what the Holy Spirit does.
The Holy Spirit, when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, God gives you boldness.
You know, you might give the Gospel to somebody in the door,
something that you normally would never do,
but because you're filled with the Holy Spirit,
you're doing something that you would not normally do.
You have a boldness that's not something that's in you.
And that's one of the things that is so spooky about alcohol,
I mean, think about it, it's called under the influence.
Under the influence of what?
Under the influence of the devil.
Under the influence of spirits.
Not singular, the Holy Spirit, but spirits.
And that's why God draws the parallel.
He says, be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess,
but be ye filled with the Spirit.
Why does he make that parallel? Because the two are so similar.
The devil has a counterfeit for everything that God has,
and alcohol is the devil's counterfeit for the Holy Spirit.
And I explained that to this guy,
and he looked at the bottle of beer that was in his hand,
and this was in South Chicago, you know,
and he threw it across the street
and let it shatter on the ground across the street.
Now, did he drink again the next day?
I don't know. Was he really saved?
I don't know if he was really saved or not,
but I'll tell you one thing.
If he wasn't saved, it wasn't because of the beer that was in his hand.
It was because he'd not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
That's what the Bible says.
The Bible says,
ye that believeth is not condemned,
it says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and believe in thy heart,
that God will raise him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved,
for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Pretty simple, isn't it?
And here's where we get into the gray area of the devil.
All the way over here, on one side,
we've got the independent Baptist,
we've got Pastor Steve Anderson
winning somebody the Lord with a beer in their hand,
and he doesn't even care,
because he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved.
And then all the way over here on the other side,
we've got a guy wearing a dress
who calls himself Father and dresses like a woman
and acts like a sissy, and he's a Catholic priest.
Now the Catholic priest is saying,
oh, you've got to be baptized and catechized,
and you've got to be confirmed,
and you've got to take the Holy Eucharist,
and you've got to confess your sins to the priest,
and if you're good enough, you might make it in.
You might spend a little bit of time in purgatory,
but if you're lucky, you might get in.
Now, aren't those the two extremes, right?
I mean, the extreme over here saying,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
that thou shalt be saved.
And then you've got the extreme over here saying,
nobody can know they're going to heaven.
You've got to give up these sins.
These are the seven deadly sins.
If you do these sins, you'll go to hell,
and you've got to do these seven sacraments,
on the other hand.
So there's seven things that you can't do,
and there's seven things that you must do
in order to go to heaven.
Well, look, where is God?
Is God here on the extreme saying,
by grace alone, through faith alone,
to God alone be the glory?
Amen.
Or is God all the way over here saying,
you've got to do this, you've got to do this,
you've got to do this.
Where is he?
Hey, don't tell me that he's somewhere in between,
because I know better than that, okay?
Don't tell me it's somewhere in between where,
well, you know, you've got to give a few things up here,
you've got to be willing to give up some things,
or, well, you know, there's got to be some works.
There's got to be some works.
No, to him that worketh not, but believeth,
and in the justified, the ungodly, his faith.
His faith is counted for righteousness.
That's all the way over here, right here, my friend.
And so don't get into this gray area.
In him is no darkness at all.
He says, I'm a heaven and hell kind of a God,
on, off, cold, hot.
He says, I'm just one way or the other,
yea or nay.
And so get nailed down on what you believe about salvation.
Is salvation something that's because of what you did,
or what you don't do, or what you've given up,
or is it because you placed your faith in Jesus Christ
who'd paid it all?
Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow.
No, it's all what God has done,
nothing that I've done, praise God.
Well, anyway, let's get back to the chapter here,
Matthew chapter 4.
It says right here,
Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written,
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and him only shalt thou serve.
Then the devil leaveth him,
and behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
It says, Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison.
Now this is the first point that we hear about,
John being cast into prison.
At the end of chapter 3, he was preaching,
he had the crowds, everything was going great,
he'd just finished baptizing Jesus,
and then we go to this other story.
So now all of a sudden God's telling us,
OK, John's thrown into prison.
So Jesus at this point in verse 13,
it says he left Nazareth,
that's the place where he grew up,
in Nazareth and Galilee,
and we're talking a little bit about the geography.
That's one of these provinces that the Romans had divided up,
Decapolis, Galilee, Samaria, Judea,
and these different ones.
Well, he was over here on the east side at the Sea of Galilee,
it says now he came and dwelled in Capernaum.
So he headed straight west to the sea coast area,
Zebulon and Issachar were the two tribes
where this was in the Old Testament,
Zebulon, Issachar, and Naphtali,
over on the sea coast near Tyre,
just south of Tyre and Sidon there.
And so he heads over there,
and it says in verse 14 that it might be fulfilled,
which was spoken by his eyes to the prophet saying,
the land of Zebulon, the land of Naphtali.
Now remember, all throughout the book of Matthew,
you're going to see some of these key words
that we talk about fulfilled,
because constantly prophecies are being fulfilled.
This book of Matthew quotes the Old Testament
more than the other three gospels and so forth,
it talks a lot about that.
But anyway, it says in verse number 16,
the people which sat in darkness saw a great light,
and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death,
light is sprung up.
Then verse 17, from that time Jesus began to preach
and to say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
He's saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
This is the same thing that John the Baptist said
in Matthew chapter 3.
What does the word repent mean?
Well, we had a whole lesson on this
when we were going through the book of Hebrews,
but I always like to look at the first time
a word is mentioned in the Bible to see what it means.
Now, this word repent is a dangerous word, and here's why.
Because the word repent is not used in common language.
You know, when I go to work out in the world,
and I am doing something with my screwdriver,
turning my screwdriver, putting in a fire alarm system,
and I put a wire in the wrong place,
they don't say, hey, listen, you need to repent.
You're wiring this thing up wrong.
People don't talk like that because nobody
uses the word repent.
Unfortunately, it's a word that's
fallen out of our language.
So preachers can get up and make this word
mean whatever they want because nobody really
knows what it means because they don't use it in common language.
Well, you go to the dictionary, and is the dictionary
authoritative?
I mean, is the dictionary God's word?
No.
So I like to define words like this
just by going through the Bible and seeing how God uses them.
Now, the Bible uses this word hundreds of times,
so it's very easy to see what it means.
Now, the first several times it's used,
guess who's doing the repenting?
God.
Most of the time this word is used, God is repenting.
And what he's doing is he's changing his mind about something
he said he was going to do.
Like, for example, he was going to destroy
the children of Israel in Exodus chapter 32.
And it says, God repented of the evil
that he had thought to do unto the children of Israel.
And he did it not.
So look, you look this word up in Noah Webster dictionary,
1828 version, the original Noah Webster dictionary.
You know what it says?
To be sorry for your sins.
Well, look, is God sorry for his sins?
No, because God's never sinned.
God doesn't have any sins.
And so that's not what it means.
It doesn't mean to be sorry for your sins.
It means, here's what it means just in one word.
I'll give it to you in one word.
It means change.
Change.
Change is what it means.
So sometimes, and you go by the context reading this,
sometimes it's like by changing your mind,
like when God repents.
Sometimes in, like, for example, in Revelation 2 and 3
where God, or Jesus Christ, I'm sorry,
is preaching to these seven different churches.
He's preaching to people that are already saved.
He's preaching to Christians.
And he's saying, repent, therefore,
and do the first works.
He says, repent of the fornication.
Repent of this.
And what he's saying is, stop doing it.
Quit doing it.
So there, he's telling people to change the way they're living.
He's saying, change what you live.
Now, other times, like in Mark chapter 1,
he says, repent and believe the gospel.
So here's people that did not believe the gospel.
He says, you need to change what you believe.
So we have God changing his mind.
We have Jesus telling people, change what you believe.
Repent of your false religion and believe the gospel.
Just like in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 where he says,
how you turned from God, or you turned to God from idols
to serve the living and true God.
Just like in Hebrews chapter 6 where it says,
they repented from dead works, and then they had faith toward God.
So we have three different ways that I see.
There are other ways, but the main ways that God uses is,
number one, he's telling people, change your lifestyle.
Like, quit all your sinning.
Quit what you're doing that's wrong and live right.
Usually he's talking to Christians when he says that
because he's preaching to his people more than anything.
Like when he says in 2 Chronicles 7, 14,
if my people, which are called by my name,
shall humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways,
similar word, turn from something, repent of something.
And so he's telling his people to repent of various sins throughout the Bible.
Then he's telling himself, he says, I'm going to repent.
I'm going to change my mind.
And then he's telling people who are unsaved,
he's saying, repent and believe the gospel.
You need to believe.
Now, preachers will twist this around and say,
you have to repent of your sins in order to be saved.
And this is what they say that is.
You have to be willing to give up your sins in order to be saved.
Now, wait a second.
What sins do you have to be willing to give up?
Am I willing to give up every sin in my life?
Are you willing to give up every sin in your life?
Because, man, we could preach some sin out of this book.
We could preach a pretty hard sermon right now and list all kinds of sins,
and not everybody in here is perfect
or not everybody in here is even willing to give up certain sins.
That's the problem.
Now, look.
Let's see, Bobby got saved, what, about four years ago?
Were you willing to give up all your sins when you got saved?
I mean, if I would have said to you, okay, Bobby,
let me give you a list of all things you need to give up.
You would have said, no.
I can't do all that.
Even if you wanted to.
But you didn't want to.
When you got saved, you weren't willing to give up.
If somebody would have came to you and said,
these are the 150 things that you're willing to give up.
And by the way, that's not the Gospel anyway,
because God didn't say you have to give up any sins to be saved.
Now you're walking from this side over here,
you're starting to get over here now a little bit.
You've got to be willing to give up the alcohol.
You've got to be willing to give up the cigarettes.
You've got to be willing to give up the fornication.
No, that's not what he said.
He said you've got to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's nothing to do with the law.
See, he says if righteousness come by the law,
then Christ is dead in vain.
It says that we have the righteousness of God without the law.
The law represents things that you're not supposed to do.
Let's face it.
90% of God's commands are negative commands.
He has a few thou shalt thrown in there,
but most of it's thou shalt not, thou shalt not,
don't do this, don't do this, don't do this.
Keeping the law or being willing to keep the law
is not going to get you to heaven.
And so people take this word repent and twist this around,
and what they're doing is they're almost teaching work salvation
instead of saying, well, believing on Jesus Christ
is what takes you to heaven.
Now they're putting the emphasis off of God,
back on me saying I'm going to give up this
and I'm going to turn from my old sinful paths.
Look, you don't even have the ability
to turn from your sinful paths until you get saved.
You don't even have the ability to desire
to turn from all your sinful paths until you get saved
because the key factor that causes you to obey God is love.
That's why he says if you love me, keep my commandments.
He says this is the love of God that we keep his commandments.
So what is the motivating factor that makes you
able to keep God's commandments,
that makes you want to keep God's commandments,
that causes you to keep God's commandments?
That's the evidence that you love God.
Your love for God causes you to keep his commandments.
Now look, the Bible says,
whosoever loveth is born of God and knoweth God.
So in order to even love,
in order to even have the ability to love God,
you must be born of God and know God in order to love.
And in order to obey God,
you must have a love for God to even want to obey God.
Why would you want to obey God? You don't even love God.
Unsaved people don't love God. They don't want to obey God.
Unsaved people get saved because they don't want to go to hell.
That's why I got saved, because I didn't want to go to hell.
Who got saved because they didn't want to go to hell?
That was probably the biggest reason why you got saved.
Hey, that was the reason.
I was six years old, and I said,
I know that if I don't trust Jesus Christ,
I will go to hell because I'm a sinner.
And I prayed and said, God, I don't want to go to hell,
and I believe that you love me and want to save me,
and I'm putting all my faith in you, Jesus,
and that's salvation, isn't it?
And it's motivated by fear.
See, the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
It's not the end. It's the beginning. That's where it all starts.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding.
It starts with fear. It starts with the fear of God.
By the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil.
On and on, God talks about fear, fear, fear is the beginning,
but then the Bible says there is no fear in love.
Perfect love casteth out fear.
He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
So you start out with fear, and then you begin moving
and once you get saved, you started with fear, then you got saved.
Now that you got saved, now you have the love of Christ dwelling in you.
Then as that love is perfected, according to the Bible,
that love is perfected and perfected and perfected,
pretty soon fear is not motivation at all.
Now you're just being motivated by love so that you're moving from fear to love.
But see, it starts with fear. That's why you get saved, because of fear.
And Jesus Christ came on the scene so easy to understand.
He came on a nation that is worshipping the ordinances
and these other books that were being taught by these rabbis
who had all these extra rules and all these extra teachings.
He came on people that were living in ungodly society.
They didn't believe the Gospel at all. They weren't looking for the Messiah.
They were doing everything wrong, and he comes on the scene and he says,
Repent! He says, change what you believe and believe the Gospel.
He's saying change your wicked lifestyle. Give right with God.
See, look, if you'll notice down in verse number 23, let me skip ahead here,
it says right here,
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, number one,
and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom.
See, Jesus didn't just come and preach the Gospel.
That's why I don't preach the Gospel Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
Because Jesus didn't just come and preach the Gospel, preach the Gospel.
Look, read through the four Gospels and you'll find, especially Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
you'll find just a lot of preaching against sin, huge amount of preaching against sin.
Look at the Sermon on the Mount.
I don't even see the Gospel hardly mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount,
but I see him saying, you heard that it was said by them of old time,
you know, thou shall not commit adultery,
but I say unto you that if a man look upon a woman the last time
that he committed adultery with her already in his heart,
ye have heard that it was said in old time,
thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy,
but I said, you love your enemies, do good.
And he's just preaching against sin.
He says, think not that I'm come to destroy the law.
I'm not come to destroy but to fulfill.
And he goes on and he starts preaching and preaching and preaching.
He's telling you how to give your alms.
He's telling you about fasting.
He's telling you about prayer.
He's telling you about what's a sin and don't do this and this is evil and this is wrong.
Look, he's preaching a lot of just teaching.
Like he says here, he's teaching in those synagogues and preaching the gospel.
So yeah, he has a message of repentance.
Number one, he's saying repent and believe the gospel, get saved.
And number two, hey, repent of all your wicked lifestyle
because I want you to live right after you're saved.
I want you to live for God.
And so I need to repent of sins in my life constantly.
And so Christians are constantly going to be repenting of their sins.
And the unsaved man needs to repent of his unbelief.
He needs to repent of his Catholicism that's keeping him from believing on Jesus Christ
which is the one prerequisite to him being saved.
But anyway, just repent and believe the gospel.
Back to chapter number four here.
And then it says,
And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee saw two brethren.
Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers.
And he saith unto them, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
Now this is my last point.
But he's saying here, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.
Now it's so easy to read over that.
You know, a lot of times you've probably heard it your whole life.
It's kind of a common statement from the Bible.
You'll see there's a little song, I will make you fishers of men.
And these different, you know, it's just something that sometimes when you hear something so much,
it kind of loses its meaning and you don't think about what he's saying.
But here's what he's saying.
There's a cause and effect relationship here.
He's saying, if you follow me, I will make you fishers of men.
Now did he say, follow me?
Hey, you might end up a fisher of men.
Is that what he said?
No.
He says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
Now here's what I deduce from this.
I have kind of a mathematical type of mind.
I love math.
And so when I read this, I see just a very clear math equation here.
Is if you follow Jesus, you will be a soul winner.
Period.
Because he says, that's what I do.
He says, people that follow me, people that are my disciples, they end up being a soul winner.
That's just the way it is.
He says, follow me and I will make you a fisher of men.
So I'm seeing the negative is also true.
If you're not a soul winner, then you're not following Jesus.
You say, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Hey, I follow Jesus.
I've been saved for 30 years and I've been going to church.
I read the Bible.
I give tithes and offerings.
I give demissions.
I follow Jesus.
Okay, are you a soul winner?
You're a fisher of men.
Then you're not following Jesus.
Otherwise this verse isn't true.
Now who am I supposed to believe?
Am I supposed to believe you or am I supposed to believe what the Bible says?
When Jesus said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
I was thinking about the song that we were singing before the service.
Have thine own way, Lord.
Have thine own way.
Thou art the pauver and I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after thy will while I am waiting, yielded and stuff.
Now what is he going to make you?
You say, I'm the clay and you sing that song and, oh, isn't that a great song?
But what's he going to make you?
He's the potter.
You're the clay.
He says, okay, let me step up to the potter's wheel and I know exactly what I want to make out of you.
I'm going to make you a soul winning Christian.
On Sunday night I preached a sermon on hell.
And I preached about how hell is one of the great motivating factors why we need to be a soul winner.
Why do we need to be a soul winner?
Because our love for other people compels us to win people to Christ because there's a hell.
You say, I want to be a soul winner.
How do I become a soul?
Well, follow Jesus and he'll make you a soul winner.
You've got to read the Bible and come to church and pray.
And you say, why do all those things when I'm not a soul winner?
Look, follow Jesus and he'll make you a soul winner.
Show up at the soul winning time and we'll make you a soul winner.
You see, Paul said follow me as I follow Christ.
So I say to you, follow me and I'll make you a fisher of men.
And that's what any good preacher should be able to say.
Go to some church and, hey pastor, why should I follow you?
Why should I go to fake forward Baptist church? Why?
Because if you follow me, if you follow this church, we'll make you fishers of men. That's why.
And that's what everything is racked up in.
You say, why do you put so much emphasis on soul winning?
Why is it soul winning, soul winning? I'll tell you why.
Because that's what the Bible emphasizes.
That's what the whole purpose is.
God says, I'm working on you and I'm trying to make something out of you.
That's why I want you to get the sin out of your life.
That's why I want you to come to church.
That's why I want you to read the Bible.
That's why I want you to pray. Why?
Because I'm working on a finished product.
I'm trying to make something out of you and the thing that I'm trying to make is a soul winner.
He said, oh, is he trying to make me dress nice so that I can look good and soak the church,
hold my Bible and get out of my nice car and I'm dressed right?
He says, no, that's not what I want at all.
He says, I want to make somebody that wins people to Christ.
That's what I'm trying to make.
Then he says, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.
And Simon and Andrew, you know, they say, well, hey, if you put it like that, I'll throw down my net right now.
I'll leave the boat right here.
I'll leave the ship with James and John next.
We'll leave the ship with Zebedee our father. Why?
Because we want to be soul winners. We want to be fishers of men.
We want to go out and catch men.
He said in another place from henceforth, thou shall catch men.
I want to go out and catch men.
I want to go out and get men saved.
I want to get women saved. I want to get children saved.
And so I'm willing to drop the net.
I'm willing to drop other ambitions in life and say, I will follow Jesus. Why?
So I can get a warm fuzzy feeling. No. Why?
So that I can impress people with my religiosity. Why?
So that I can come to church and put on a show.
No, I'm going to follow Jesus because I want to be a soul winner.
That's the legitimate reason for following Jesus.
Otherwise, man, if I'm not going to be a soul winner,
what am I doing starting this church?
What am I doing even being a Christian?
I might as well go live it up, man. I'm going to go to heaven anyway, right?
I believe in eternal security.
I believe I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
I believe God giveth of them eternal life and no man shall put them out of my hand.
I believe that. Why do I live for God tonight?
I live for God because I want to be a fisher of men.
That's the reason why. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Well God, I thank you so much for this chapter.