From the Pulpit...

We last were reading in Matthew 16 where Matthew tells us the Lord changed His focus to preparing the disciples for his impending suffering, death, and resurrection. Peter did not like that whole idea, so he rebuked Jesus for talking about it. The Lord in turn rebuked Peter because Peter was doing the Devil’s work by trying to dissuade Jesus from doing God’s will. Notice that Jesus is not saying Peter is the Devil, nor is Jesus “talking to the Devil” through Peter, or the Devil is indwelling Peter, or some other mystical kind of thing. It is simply that Peter is talking like the Devil in his flesh. Heaven informed Peter about the identity of Jesus, but here Peter was failing Heaven and instead Hell was informing him to embrace the man-pleasing idea that Jesus should not die. Even though there could have been some more direct devilish influence here, do not excuse Peter! We should not think that Peter’s mind and desires are out of the picture, as if Satan were controlling him. That is not the case—it was Peter’s distaste at the idea of Jesus dying, Peter’s desire for Jesus to live, Peter’s rebuke of Jesus that is at issue here. Peter really felt and thought those things because he cared more about the things of men than those of God. This makes the text all the more applicable to us, because our affections for the things of the world are indeed ours. We need to repent of them, and not simply blame them on the Devil! Full disclosure is given: the Christian life is not easy because of the obstacles of the flesh, the Devil, and the world. You also know the relative costs of choosing to follow the Lord or not. You know all that ahead of time so that you can make a wise decision about what you want to do. You too can use your brain to consider the counterfactual scenarios: if I follow Christ, things will turn out generally in this-and-such way. But if I do not follow Christ, things will turn out in this other way. I exhort you: use this knowledge of the choice you have to let your conjecture about living for self to die in your stead. Let the thought of living for self perish—but don’t you perish!