The Lord's suffering and glory

… We just refresh our memories with the one verse this afternoon, in Peter's epistle. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 11, just the end of the verse. The sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. To Matthew's Gospel, Matthew 16. Matthew 16 verse 21. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Far be it from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou art an offence unto me, for thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what shall it profit if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, then shall he reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man come in, in his kingdom. Just that verse in Luke 24, Luke 24 verse 26, Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? In beginning of Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. When we were gathered waiting this evening, these verses came very much before me. But being like we are as humans, we are scared always to get up and we sit and we wait and then Ernie gets up and he gave a little help. Because I just want to take what we read this afternoon, the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would follow and just reply to these verses here. Because in these verses that we've read, we have four things that are so important. We begin in verse 21 with the Lord Jesus saying he's going to be killed. And we have the first thing is his death. And then we find in that same verse references made to his resurrection. His death and his resurrection. And then when we come down to verse 27, we get there his glory or as we get here, the glory of his father. And finally in verse 28, his kingdom. And he mentioned the wonderful fact that there is a day coming when the Lord Jesus will be supreme and the universe will owe him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But the way as we read this afternoon to the glory is through suffering. And here in these words of the Lord Jesus that he spoke to his disciples from that time. This little expression is used at least four times in Matthew's Gospel. We read in chapter 4, from that time Jesus began to teach. In chapter 11 he says from that time he began to upbraid those cities. And here there came a time when he began to tell his disciples that he was going to go to Jerusalem and that there he was going to suffer. He's saying to his disciples, there is to be no kingdom unless there is suffering. The previous few verses the Lord Jesus has spoken to his disciples saying, who do men say that I the son of man am? We find there that Peter, the one who could write those epistles that we've been meditating upon could have this revelation from the father, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And the Lord Jesus said upon this rock I will build my church. You know we can only have a church if we have one who is prepared to go into death. And the Lord Jesus begins at that moment having mentioned the fact that he is going to build a church to which the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. He is going to build that church. He mentions in this next verse the very fact that he is going to suffer. You know beloved brethren, we cannot waste time if we spend a little bit of time thinking upon what the Lord Jesus suffered for you and for me. We often think and particularly on Lord's Day morning of what he suffered at the hands of God and we cannot understand, can we? We have to admit that we cannot understand one moment what the Lord Jesus endured when in those three hours of darkness upon the cross he suffered at the hands of God. When he could utter those words, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Something of the intensity of that suffering. The apostle Peter, he gives us a little hint as to what it was when he says in his own body he bore our sins on the tree. When we think of it, doesn't it pour out our hearts in worship to him who was prepared to suffer at the hands of God for our sins. But not only did the Lord Jesus suffer at the hands of his God, we also know that he said here, suffer many things of the elders and of the chief priests and the scribes. We often say that this is his martyr sufferings and to a measure we can understand something of what it meant. The sufferings that the Lord Jesus endured at the hands of men, when wicked man took him and spat upon him, when they smote him with a reed, when they did terrible things to the Lord Jesus and physically we know what it is. When they took those nails and they pierced his hands and his feet, we can understand something what he endured at the hands of men, the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. There's also the sufferings that we often think about as being despised and rejected of men. In the prophets and in the Psalms particularly we get glimpses of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. In Psalm 102 we often refer as the atoning sufferings, that which he endured at the hand of God. Psalm 69 we speak of his martyr sufferings, I believe it's Psalm 102 which would speak to us of him suffering as being despised and rejected as men. We often forget when the Lord Jesus came, he came unto his own and his own received him not. What it meant to the Lord Jesus to come to his own people and to them to receive him. What it meant to the Lord Jesus when he could say unto Philip, those words in John 14, Philip could say, show us the father and the Lord said, have I been with you so long? And yet you still say, show us the father. The sufferings the Lord Jesus endured as being the despised and rejected one. We think of another occasion when the Lord Jesus was in the boat going across the Sea of Galilee. We see him asleep and the disciples come to him and they utter words which when we think about them how cruel they were. They woke him and they say, do not care that we're perishing. There was never a person that cared more for his disciples than the Lord Jesus. There were sufferings that the Lord endured as being despised and rejected of men. And then there were sufferings that the Lord Jesus endured as being a righteous man in the midst of an evil world. We read of Lot, again it's in Peter tells us, he vexed his righteous soul as he was amongst those wicked people in Sodom. And the Lord Jesus when he was here as the root out of a dry ground. How it must have affected him to be in a world which had turned away from his God, turned away from his father. He could say, you've made my father's house a den of thieves. The Lord Jesus suffered in many ways and how it would not touch our hearts as we meditate upon his sufferings. But of course, primarily we think of his sufferings upon the cross when there he bore our sins. You know we read into this, into the next chapter we find there of the transfiguration scene. And in that scene there appears onto, on this mount there appeared these two Old Testament prophets. There appeared Moses and Elijah. You know if you were to, if we were to meet Moses and Elijah, I wonder what we would wish to speak to them about. What could Moses tell us about and what should Moses tell us about on that mount? Well it was as we would mention to him some of the marvellous things that happened in our lives. And we could imagine that Moses could say, when I was young I went into Pharaoh's court and I threw the rod down and it became a snake. I took it up again and it became a rod and with the rod I smote the waters and the sea went back. And on that same rod I struck the rock and there came out water. There was marvellous things that Moses did. And Elijah he could have said as well, in my life I've done some marvellous things for God. At one occasion I went in before Ahab and I said it's not going to rain. And it didn't rain. He could have spoke of the day when he was on Mount Carmel. He could have spoke of the day when he called down fire from heaven. When you get Moses and Elijah together, what are they talking about? Luke's Gospel tells us they spoke about his decease that he would accomplish at Jerusalem. Him writer puts it, no subject so glorious as he. You know beloved this week we've got a great opportunity to spend time talking about Jesus. May this be true of us because it was true here that they spoke about him. They spoke about his decease because everything that we have and everything that we will have and everything that will be for the glory of God throughout the eternal day will be based upon the fact that the Lord Jesus suffered at Calvary. Not only did he suffer, it says here, be killed and raised again the third day. Again we mentioned this afternoon about the wonderful fact and the importance of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus who went into death is alive forevermore. These are king pings that we cannot do without. We cannot do without his death and we cannot do without his resurrection. Romans tells us he was raised again for our justification and what a grand thing it is that we follow a risen saviour. The Lord Jesus went into death but he is risen from among the dead. Let us in our lives, let us cling very closely to these two grand themes, his death and his resurrection. Peter we read in this next verse, the one who previously had had a revelation from the father. He says to the Lord Jesus, you are not going to go to Jerusalem. In other words, he says to the Lord, you are not going to have sufferings and then the kingdom. Peter's idea would have been that the Lord would have taken the kingdom without the sufferings. The Lord Jesus said here, I think it's the only time that we read of the Lord speaking to a man and calling him Satan. He said, get thee behind me Satan. Because what Peter was saying was exactly what Satan was saying and it was exactly what Satan had already said. If we turn back to the temptations, we find there on one occasion he takes him to a high mountain. He shows him all the kingdoms of the world and he says, all these kingdoms will I give unto you. If you fall down and worship me. In other words, Satan is saying, you can have the kingdom without the sufferings. But the scripture says, the sufferings then the kingdom. And the Lord Jesus has nothing to do with it. And then we mentioned a few practical points. But we just come to this verse 27, when the son of man shall come in the glory of his father. Again, I think this is the only reference that we find of the glory of the father. Apart from Stephen when he was stoned he says, I see Jesus and the glory of God. But here it's the glory of his father. And when the Lord Jesus returns to this scene, he will come in all the glory. In Luke's gospel he adds his glory, the glory of his father and his angels. And isn't it a wonderful thing that when the Lord Jesus came the first time, he came as a despised and rejected man. He came as the one that was born in Bethlehem's manger. He came as that one that was cast out. When he comes the second time, he's going to come in all the glory of his father. Whatever glory there is, he's going to come in it. And there's that verse in Zechariah which says, he shall bear the glory. What a wonderful thing it is that we here tonight are followers of a man that is going to return to this earth in all the glory of his father. There's not going to be any doubt about it. The universe will acknowledge, the universe will know that this is the one that is absolutely supreme. And not only is he going to come in the glory, he is going to set up his kingdom. We mentioned, just mentioned previously by Ernie about the fact that he is going to be king, he is going to be supreme. And there is a day coming when the Lord Jesus will be supreme in this world. 1 Corinthians tells us, chapter 15, he must reign. It is absolutely necessity in a world in which he was cast out and crucified that the Lord Jesus is going to reign and he is going to be supreme. And we here tonight, we can say amen to what God has ordained. God has stated the fact that the one that went into death is going to be supreme. But if we know these things, if we know the fact and we sit here and we can acknowledge what the scripture says, we can appreciate something of his death. We can appreciate the fact that he is risen from among the dead, seated at God's right hand, waiting until he comes to call us out of this scene, later to appear in all the glory of his father, setting up his kingdom. What is the practical effect upon our lives? Surely it will be seen in these intervening verses which the Lord Jesus said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. I wonder brethren, as we look at these verses and they are verses that will affect our hearts, do they not? They affect our consciences. We ask ourselves, how much do I deny myself? How much do I say no to me in order that I may take up this cross? In order that I might live a life down here, just as the Lord Jesus. The one occasion he is vague and he says, they hated me, they will also hate you. Why do we expect to have a comfy life in this world which is cast out and crucified, the Lord Jesus? They cast out him, they won't want us. Are we prepared to take up our cross and follow him? This is the challenge that I give to myself. Am I prepared in my Christian life to daily take up that cross? To realize that this world cast him out by way of the cross. Am I prepared to do the same? He goes on to say, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it. Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what do a man's profited if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? How often we use this verse in our gospel meetings. How often we plead with people, and if there are any here that are not yet the Lord's, here is a verse which says you can gain the whole world. You can gain everything down here and lose your soul. What a terrible thing it would be. For someone to be at a conference such as this, and yet die without Christ. Die without knowing him as their own savior. Because the day is coming when the Lord Jesus will be supreme. And you know the Lord, it adds on this last verse. Verse 27, then shall he reward every man according to his works. There is a day coming when each one of us will have to give an account. There is a day coming when we will have rewards. And that day will be when the Lord Jesus comes in his kingdom. So I trust that these little thoughts, first of all, his death. What the Lord Jesus suffered should be before us much this week. Much not to particularly find doctrine in relation to it, but to meditate upon it that there may be an outflow from our hearts to him in worship. As we realize what he suffered on that cross. Yes, he suffered there in order that he might bring glory to God. And that would be for all eternity. But he also suffered there in order that he might save you and me. The Apostle Paul could say, Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. But he also said, the Son of God loved me. He loved us enough to go into death to suffer there. But he's arisen and he's exalted now at God's right hand. And because he's there, can we not say it's our guarantee that we too, who have put our faith and trust in him, will be there with him. And he will come in all his glory. He will set up his kingdom. These things are absolutely vital. It's absolutely, as we could say, set in stone. Just as his death and resurrection are proven facts, it is also something that he is going to come and set up his kingdom. And in the meantime, while we're here, let our hearts be more attracted to him as the one that went into death for us. …