25 Reasons Peter is not the First Pope

1:20Well, we do a radio show every day. We do a T V show every day. We're from Atlanta. You probably picked up the accent. Nobody in Atlanta really has. Has an accent. When you meet somebody, you almost go, Are you really from here? Because it's such a transient town because of the Olympics, et cetera. And on occasion, I might slip, and you could kind of discover where I'm really from, because sometimes the Scandinavian thing will come out from Minnesota. We live there for 40 feet.

1:49It's a funny thing. When we moved here, we lived above the Mason-Dixon line. Ooh, I know. We used to make fun of your accent up there. And then I came down into your territory, and I discovered you make fun of ours. Isn't that funny? So we moved to Atlanta about a decade ago, and we actually like it quite a bit. It's just a little bit different than where we come from. It's very Scandinavian. If you've ever wondered why it's so liberal, it is extraordinarily Lutheran because of the Scandinavian heritage, or it's Roman Catholic on the liberal side. And so that is why you always see it kind of behaving a little bit different, because you don't expect that from the Midwest. It's farmers, you would think conservative folks, but I think it's the Scandinavian heritage really coming out of the Protestant Reformation was a more liberal form of Lutheranism than I think Martin Luther would appreciate. So we moved down about a decade ago. We do a daily TV show, a daily radio show, very happy. We used to have to pay to be a club member to be on the site. That's kind of how we paid the bills, but we've decided.

3:00Phil Johnson from Grace to You said a sentence a number of years ago that stuck in my head. It's odd when something really sticks and resonates for a long time. He said, God's people are very generous. Stop relying on sales and start relying on God's people. And so we took his advice, and that's what we're doing right now. So we're a nonprofit, and we do a daily TV show and a daily radio program. And T very graciously mentioned our rating. Numbers are a tricky, strange thing. You know, you don't want to look at numbers, but if you've ever seen the top podcast in the religious category, wow, it's not filled with good religion. There's a lot of very bad teachers there. So we just thought it was a joy because we think that the more solid biblical radio programs and TV programs we can create, which is our goal, the more these charlatans will kind of get shoved off of the airwaves. So that's kind of our goal: not just to do our TV show and radio show. We want to build and do more shows so that there's just better options on Christian TV because you've probably noticed it's a bit embarrassing to watch Christian TV. So that's what we do. And as long as I already brought up the subject of Martin Luther, let's talk about the Protestant Reformation just a bit. As you know, the big shebang, it happens now, what are we, two weeks away, I believe. And so this morning I'd like to take a look at a text that has caused a wee bit of controversy to remind us. There was a reason for the Protestant Reformation, and there is a reason that we are still Protestants today. And there is a movement today that is trying to bring evangelicals and Catholics together. And I think when we study the text that we're going to take a look at, what we conclude is we're not together. And this isn't something that causes us to rejoice. We'd like to see people saved, but they can't be saved in a work-based system. They can't be saved in a system that requires you to do certain things or to go through a certain individual, specifically the office of the papacy. So if you have your Bible, would you please open it to Matthew chapter 16? And we're really going to focus just on one portion of this text from Jesus, Matthew 16, 13 through 19.

5:21If you've ever visited the Vatican, have you been to the Vatican? It's a rather grievous sort of experience because not only is it lavish, but if you walk through the museum there, it's actually a museum at the Vatican on different levels. It is a grand hallway filled with magnificent art and tapestries and paintings and murals and sculptures. And you just, I can only, it's not just millions. It has to be hundreds of millions of dollars. And most of that money does not come from wealthy nations. It comes from poor folks. It is a grievous thing to see the amount of money tied up there. And when you go into the Sistine Chapel, Surrounding the chapel is the Bible verse that we're going to take a look at today. And the question is: who is the builder of the church? And this is the text that provides some sort of biblical support for Roman Catholics to say it's the office of the papacy on which the church will be built. In celebration of our 500th anniversary, I would like to present to you that Peter was not the first pope, nor is there a succession of popes, nor is the pope the one through whom we must go if we are going to get to heaven or purgatory, perhaps. This is the text in question. It's Matthew 16:13, is where we start. Jesus came to the district of Caesarea Philippi. He was asking his disciples, who do people biggest question on the planet. They said, some John the Baptist, others Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. He said to them, But who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter, he answered, You are the Messiah. You are the promised one. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, Here it is, Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. On this rock, what rock was he talking about? We Protestants believe that it was the confession of Peter, that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. The Roman Catholics say, no, this is talking about Peter here. And so, as I prepared for this, I thought, well, let's just see how many Bible verses that I might be able to find all by myself. I'm a theological knucklehead. I am not a concordance. I just started looking a little bit for verses to dismantle that Peter was not being instituted as the vicar of Christ, as the first pope of the Roman Catholic Church. And so I started to jot things down, and I had five, and quickly I had ten, then fifteen.

8:19I've got 25 verses for you to suggest: don't panic. This isn't going to be like a Puritan thing where they all have 17 sub-points. Everybody went, 25 points? What have we gotten ourselves into? I have for your consideration 25 reasons that Peter isn't the first pope. And I'm going to go through these quite quickly because I really want to end up with one particular reason why Peter is not the first pope. So let's jump into trying to figure this out: if Peter was the first pope or not. So here's reason number 25. The text itself, it was simply a play on words. Jesus wasn't saying, Peter. On you. That would have been the natural reading of the text.

9:03Some of you are studying Greek, I believe, is that correct? A much more natural reading would have been, Peter, on you I'm going to build my church. That's not what he says here. Peter, little rock, Petrus, the masculine, your little stone, on this Petra, not the hairband from Christian music in the 80s. Petra, the feminine of the Greek word, different meaning, big boulder. You little guy, on this huge confession, I am going to build my church. He was not talking about Peter. It was a play on words. It was clearly what he said. And the natural reading, this would be another one of the reasons, the phrasing could have just been much more clear. But there are more reasons that Peter was not being assigned the office of the papacy. Stay in the text. Stay in Matthew 16. We just finished up at verse 18. Jump to verse 21. From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and raised up on the third day. The new pope took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, God forbid it, Lord, this shall never happen to you. And he turned to the vicar and said, Get behind me, Satan. That is a sign. That Peter was not installed as the first Pope.

10:34Jesus rebuked him, I think, in about the strongest terminology possible. And now we understand that the Pope is not supposed to be perfect, he only speaks from the chair perfectly. Nevertheless, to call Peter Satan would be an indicator that he was a scandal. By what you're saying, you are a scandal to me. Jesus, then, in Matthew 18, just a few verses later, Matthew 18, verse 1, actually identifies who the greatest in the kingdom is. If you've ever studied the Protestant Reformation, Jan Hus was a Bohemian. He was Jan of Hus, Jan of Goose was his actual name. And he was a Roman Catholic priest, and on the back of his church, he had two murals. He was a pre-reformer. And if you've ever wondered, was the gospel exist during those dark ages? And the answer is yes. It was shrouded for sure, but there were men like Jan Hus, who had a mural in the back of the Roman Catholic Pope in his finery on a white stallion with robes, with rings, with his fancy slippers, with people tending to him, kissing his rings. On the opposite side was Jesus on a donkey coming into Jerusalem. It got him killed. Great piece of art, but it did get him killed. He was actually summoned into Constance, where he was put into a dank. Prison where he languished. They had a mockery of a trial. They completely defrocked him, made a joke of him, and yet he spoke so eloquently to the very end that he would not renounce his faith in the grace of Jesus Christ alone. They brought him out to a stake and they set him on fire. I actually spoke to the president of the Huss Society at that stake in Constance. There's a little memorial there. By the way, he's not actually a Christian, but that's a different point. They've got the president of the Huss Society. He's not actually a believer.

12:33He knows the gospel now, by the way, but nevertheless, really? Do you know why he died? It's not an academic thing. And he said, based on the words that were recorded, that he was probably at the stake burning for about 18 minutes, preaching, and people were getting saved, which is why the Roman Catholic Church then stopped doing that. William Tyndale, if you recall, he was in a prison in Velvoorde. He was then taken out to be burned, but they didn't want him preaching because people, they would come to see him burn, and they would hear a sermon, and people were getting saved. So they would then strangle them to death. William Tyndale, you can thank William Tyndale for the standardization of the English Bible and the Word of God in English. They actually strangled him with a chain. They also hung a bag of gunpowder around his neck so that when the flames finally reached him, he would just explode. There was no burial. They would just blow them to smithereens. And so there were men at that time who recognized the office of the papacy is not at all what Jesus was intending. Who is the greatest in the kingdom? You see the Pope in all of his lavishness, and then you see meek and mild Jesus. Matthew 18:1, at that time, the disciples came to Jesus and said, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Why would they ask that question if they understood that Peter was clearly the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? If he is supposed to be the head of the church, the supreme pontiff, they clearly didn't get it. And Jesus didn't scold them. Who's the greatest? I just told you, Peter. Honor him. But then Jesus goes to describe who is the greatest in the kingdom. And it's not a man in his finery. Verse 2 of chapter 18. He called a child to himself and sat before them and said, Truly, I say to you, unless you're converted and become like children, you'll not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Who is the greatest? It is not the most pompous, it is the most humble, like Jesus, even though he could have demanded his rights, his equality with God, set them aside, humbled himself to the point of death on a cross. That's what our God delights in, the humble and the meek, and not. The extravagant lifestyle of the papacy. Matthew 26, you don't have to turn there. You all remember this. In verse 69, there was the whole denying the Lord three times business, you may recall. Not a very good reflection of the papacy. In Galatians chapter 2, you'll see a public rebuking by Paul of the new Pope. Well, that would be unheard of. Nobody rebukes the Pope. Although some Roman Catholics have just sent, did you read about this, Tom? Some Roman Catholics have sent a letter to the new Pope. They're a little concerned about his Catholicism, and I think even more about his socialism. Rebuking the Pope. Very, very rare, if ever, thing that that happens. And yet, Paul did that very thing because Peter was being duplicitous about his actual testimony that Gentiles could be a part of the kingdom. And Paul gave him a public scolding. Furthermore, Peter himself never identified himself as the supreme pontiff. Consider his greeting, 2 Peter 1, 1, 1 Peter 5, 1. What does he call himself? A bondservant. He didn't, not the bishop of Rome, not the supreme pastor, not his holiness, not the father of kings, not the chief apostle. And he said that we're called as saints. Peter says that to the church called as saints. Do you know who's a saint? If you're in Christ, you're a saint. You don't have to go through a system. You don't have to go through. To have a council vote on it. You are called. You are brought into the kingdom of God's beloved Son. You're a saint, with all due respect to the Pope. You don't get made a saint through councils. God makes you a saint. In Acts 3, Peter shunned the idea of receiving attention and praise. This is verse 12. When Peter saw this, you remember they were doing miracles. He said, Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this? Why do you gaze at us as if by your own power or piety, we made him walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. Peter made it clear to those who were looking at the miracles to say, don't look at me, don't worship me. It's Jesus who did this. I am merely the bond servant. Furthermore, 1 Peter 2, verse 6 through 7, Peter understood who the rock was. I mean, I just don't know how this could be any more clear. That the Roman Catholic Church clings to this verse to make a man the supreme pontiff through whom you must go. You must believe in the office of the papacy. You must be a member of the Roman Catholic Church. Not to mention all the other musts that you must do, which is why we're still not together. But in 1 Peter 2, for this is contained in Scripture, he's now quoting the Old Testament: Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone. And he who believes in me will not be disappointed. No, who believes in me? Believes in him will not be disappointed. And so this stone, which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. Who is that stone? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Furthermore, if you look in the Old Testament and do a survey of rocks, when a character was referred to as a stone, as a rock, as a pillar, it was always referring to God. And so to take that Old Testament concept, import it into the New Testament, and say, no, it's actually about a man, is really to twist the references that we have in the Old Testament about a rock. Ephesians 2, Paul thought Jesus is the cornerstone, not Peter, verse 20, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. He did it again in 1 Corinthians 3, verses 10 through 11. No man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. This was a cursory skim of the New Testament that I did. It's such a clear refutation of this office, which raises a question: why the persistence in this office? Why does this need to be sustained? And I think the answer is that's the only way that the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church can be upheld, because they're clearly not found in the Bible, and so they operate with a three-legged stool. It's not Scripture alone, one of the solas, but instead it's traditional. The magisterium, the office of the papacy, they speak it, and therefore it actually sits on top of Scripture. They must defend this office. Paul scolded the Corinthians for giving devotion to a man, including himself and Peter, in 1 Corinthians 1:12. Some of you are saying, I'm a follower of Paul. Others are saying, I follow Apollos or I follow Peter. Has Christ been divided into factions? The Old Testament, multiple verses, the rock is divine, not human. Just one example. This is Psalm 18. I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress. Repeatedly, who is our rock? It is God Himself. It would be very bizarre for Jesus to say, that man is now the rock. The early church honored the teachings of the apostles, but not the apostles themselves. And I'm talking about New Testament church, Acts chapter 2. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching. And so even if you want to say that the apostles are somehow a part of the foundation, okay, that's fine. But was it the apostles' teaching? What did they teach? They taught about Christ. So, regardless, even if you would like to say that they're involved in the foundation of the church, their teaching is the foundation of it, not men, not a system. Silence. Testifies that Peter wasn't a pope. It's interesting we don't have any other verses that talk about this hierarchy or define the office of papacy. In fact, Paul defines two offices in the church: elders and deacon. Never references who the pope should be. Pretty big deal. You would think that would be included someplace. Number seven, by the way, we're making, this is 25, so we've gone through 18 already.

21:28Math, not a strong suit. Jesus considered himself the rock and his teachings the foundation of the church. Matthew 7, 24, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on Peter, the rock, Jesus Christ, his work. Number six, do you recall the skirmishes that Jesus had with the Pharisees? Constant. In essence, what were they about? I mean, there were a lot of different things, Sabbath debates, ceremonial cleansing, but ultimately, it was about works versus Jesus, grace versus works. That's what it came down to. Why would Jesus war so hard against the Pharisees to replace that system of work righteousness with another system of work righteousness? It doesn't seem very logical. All the reformers, they labeled the office of the papacy. Wow, they were strong about this. But we have to remember, in a bit of fairness, we never have to try to rewrite history. We should be good historians. The office of the papacy at the time was a far more debaucherous affair than it is today. I'm not saying it's without scandal today, but back in the 16th century, it was quite a party that was happening at the Vatican. And so they referred to the papacy as the office of Antichrist. Not an individual per se, but the entire office who is Antichrist, they said it's the office of the papacy because it's inside of the church and it's undermining grace alone and it's putting a yoke, it's putting a burden on people. And that's the most grievous thing there is. And I think that's a lesson for us evangelicals today. I was talking with Phil Johnson, was with us in studio, and he said something that was just shocking. He said, the evangelical church today is in more need of reformation than the Roman Catholic Church of the 16th century. Yikes, why? Why?

23:35These days, it's a fascinating thing to watch. In evangelical Christianity, and it's a broad term, but you see very nice people, very winsome people, and they're sharing with people very little from the word, but more life systems, how to be a better. Think about what they're doing. If you walk into a church and the pastor is not using the word of God and he's not preaching what God has to say, What is he teaching them? What I have to say. And inevitably, they're how-to sermons. Do you need more this? Do you want more that? Do you want more better-behaved children? Would you like to have a better job? Would you like to have more peace in your home? Would you like to have more money? Then what do they say? Then you need to do this. What have they done? Because they shy away from the use of the law, holding up God as the high, lofty, holy standard that He is, because we don't want to make people feel bad. They've set aside God's laws and they've simply replaced them with their own. And Christianity, as nice as it appears, and I'm not even thinking about anybody from Houston right now, as nice as it appears, he's heaping a yoke on people. He's not being nice at all. He's do what, and if you do listen to Joel, not only does he tell you what to do, then he tells you who the example is. It's inevitable. You know, and Victoria and I, and then he becomes the model, he becomes the standard, and he's replaced one work-righteous system with another. Now, it looks nice, and it appears to have some benefits. It's a yoke because you'll never hear grace alone, faith alone through Jesus Christ alone preached in those pulpits. And so it's a heavy yoke that these modern-day preachers are heaping on people. The Puritans, they believe Peter was not the first pope. If you read your Baptist Confession, Of Faith, 1689, Charles Spurgeon, he said, popery is contrary to Christ's gospel and is the Antichrist. And we don't even talk like that today. These men were closer to the office than we are today. Number three, we need to consider the theology that the papal system has concocted. Indulgences, Mariology, praying to dead people who would be grieved if they thought prayers were coming there. They would be simply grieved by this. So would Mary, I'm certain of it. Transubstantiation, that a man can summon down Jesus from heaven to an altar to be re-sacrificed, and it's for a mere covering of sins at the time. And the gospel, a system of works, you must be baptized, you must be catechized, you must be married in the church, you must go to confession, you must do acts of charity or love. That's a law, by the way, and then you must have last rites, and then perhaps you'll make it through purgatory quickly, or you might bypass it somehow. But if you pay extra money, you can tap into the treasury of merit of dead people, have that applied to your account, and you could go straight to heaven. Now, that's not grace alone. And so, when people talk about evangelicals and Catholics being together, and it's typically liberal Lutherans that are trying to lead this movement, they're simply dead. Denying what the Roman Catholic Church currently teaches. Nothing has changed. If you recall, in response to the Protestant Reformation in 15, I think the Council of Trent from 1542 to 1546, if you're sitting here today and you believe that Jesus Christ alone is the true way of salvation, no works, faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, they say you are damned. That's the position of the Roman Catholic Church. Vatican II never changed that. They believe that about us. Now, I know that sounds like harsh talk today, but if the Word of God means anything, somebody is right and somebody is wrong, because we certainly can't be together on this issue.

27:46Jesus is not building his church on an institution that has a bloody and tawdry past. This just simply cannot be overlooked. I'm going to do this quickly because it's rather unpleasant. I can make my way through war after war after war, but I'll just give you a few. The bloody history of the office of the papacy. Talk about church and state being mingled. It was profoundly mingled. 1096, Roman Catholic Crusaders slaughtered half the Jews in Vorms, Germany. 1098, Crusaders slaughter almost half of the inhabitants of the city of Antioch. 1099, 70,000 Muslims and Jews when they captured Jerusalem. I know that's a long history, and there's a lot to that, and I understand that. But we're talking about the church. Going to war and killing a lot of people. 1236, Crusaders slaughter Jews in the Anjou region of western France, trample to death with their horses 3,000 Jews who refused baptism. 1243, Catholic mobs burn the Jews in Berlitz, Germany, it's near Berlin. 1298, Jews burned, and all of them burned in Rödingen, Germany. 1349, they burned to death all Jews. Now, it was also those who were Protestants, the Huguenots, if you recall, driven out or killed because they insisted that you must go through the Roman Catholic Church. And I can go on and on and on, but I think we get the point. The history of this office, founded supposedly on this man, is not one that is stellar. And yet we've got the tawdry history of the papacy. And again, I know that we've been hearing about some scandals coming out of the Vatican. It's nothing today compared to what it used to be. And so, as sanitized as I can, going back the office of the papacy, Sixtus III in 432, accused of deflowering a virgin. But he was found innocent because he judged his own case.

29:55It's convenient, isn't it? There was There was a great deal of bad activity with children recorded throughout the papal history. There's murder. In 1003, Pope Sylvester was murdered by his successor. Seven months later, he was poisoned. We had multiple popes vying for the office of papacy at the same time. Pope Benedict VIII, from 1012 to 1024, kept a private force of popes' men who were known for torturing, maiming, and murdering. He ordered the assassinations of people that opposed him. He enjoyed cutting the tongues out of living men. He had a reputation for bloodlust. You have the issue of popes having children with relatives. This is an office, and I think that's enough. This is an office that certainly I do not think Jesus intended to establish for this type of activity. We can certainly understand, we know there can be sin in the church. This is a history. And that is why the reformers railed against the office of the papacy. Let me share with you: this is a part of our Protestant history. Martin Luther, who was always zesty when it came to the office of the papacy, said to the Pope, You are desperate, thorough, arch rascals, murderers, traitors, liars, the very scum of, I wonder what he thought. The very scum of all the most evil people on earth. You are full of all the worst devils and Hell, full, full, and so full that you can do nothing but vomit, throw, and blow out devils.

31:38Some of these I can't actually read to you because they are so, that was that was a nicer one. But there's one last reason that I'd like to suggest to you that Peter is not the first pope, and this is where I'd like us to spend the remainder of our time. Let me make sure. What did you say? Like 10:59, otherwise, torches? 9:59. Oh, sorry. Well, that got everybody awake. Hey, hey, hey, hey. I'd like to take a look at Peter's confession itself. Was Peter the first pope? What was the context? What was the question? Who do you say that I am? And his answer, by the way, inspired by God, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, God had to teach Peter the truth about the character of Jesus Christ, who he is. He said, You're the Messiah. You're the Christ.

32:38You're the one we've been looking for. You're the one that the Old Testament has been pointing to. We think you're that one. Why did he have that sense? Well, obviously, the Old Testament from the beginning in the garden promised that there would be a rescuer, that there would be a Savior. You know the story, Genesis 3. They take the fruit. They eat of it and fall into sin. They recognize their nakedness. They try to cover up their own shame by doing what? Using leaves. God killing the first animal ever in the history of the planet. Don't know what type of animal? I'm going to guess a lamb, but that's just a guess. Why? Because God had to cover up their shame. Man's efforts to cover up their shame can't get the job done. God shedding a blood for the covering of sin. And he immediately makes a promise. There's going to be a seed who is going to come who's going to crush the head of the serpent. And the serpent's going to bruise his heel. And the immediate question, of course, was, who is it? And undoubtedly, Adam and Eve had to be thinking, our children, maybe our first child. But we don't see the seed come. Instead, what do we see? We see a covenant cut with Abraham. Now, it's sprinkled really throughout Genesis 17 through 22-ish, where we see God cutting a covenant, making a promise with Abraham for a land, a nation, the land is Israel, the nation of the Jewish people, and a singular seed.

34:10Who's this seed? Who is the seed? That's the question that the Old Testament is asking. Who is this promised one? And we wait, and that's why when we sing it at Christmastime, come the long-expected prophet. Come, oh come, Emmanuel. We're waiting for. You because the Old Testament was constantly pointing forward to Jesus. Can I substantiate that? Absolutely. First of all, the promises of this Messiah are manifold, but I want to take another angle and take a different look at this. Jesus, after he rose from the dead, you recall, he's walking on the road to Emmaus, and he's with two disciples, and he said to the disciples, he pointed out, talk to them from the scriptures, what?

34:59About himself. Specifically, that the Messiah had to be crucified. This had to happen. So, where does the Old Testament talk about this? Well, I think we have a fuzzy picture of it when God killed the animal for the covering of sins. What about Abraham and Isaac? What do we see with Abraham and Isaac? One of the most bizarre stories, if you don't understand typology, remember, Jesus said, you can find me in every book in the Old Testament. And if the New Testament affirms it, then you know that you've got a picture of Jesus in the Old Testament. Just as, well, you can't really see it. My shadow is kind of on the ground, but if you could see it, well, there's my, here, there it is. All right. There's my hand. Which one is more detailed? My hand. That's the fuzzy picture. You kind of get the drift, but this is the clarity. Look, you can't see nails, cuticles, whatever, you know, bends, folds, joints. You can't see any of that. You've got to look at the real thing. In the Old Testament, God painted fuzzy pictures. The reality Jesus Christ. It's what Colossians 2:16 and 17 also says. Abraham and Isaac are marching up a mountain called Moriah. Why? Because God said you need to sacrifice your only beloved son. That is just bizarre. I don't know how a rabbi preaches and teaches on this subject. What mountain was he walking up? Most scholars, most, believe that it was the very mountain on which Jesus Christ was crucified. We have a father who loves his only beloved son, the son carrying the wood for the sacrifice up the mountain. The father prepared to kill his only beloved son until God says, stop. The next time we visit this mountain, we see a beloved son carrying wood up a hill, but the father does not stop. And then we see in this picture also, God is so detailed. Off in the distance, it wasn't a lamb that God provided, because if you recall, Isaac said, Father, where's the lamb for the sacrifice? And Abraham said, God will provide. It was a ram, not a lamb, as if to suspend the tension. The lamb hasn't been provided yet. The lamb is yet to come. What do we see then when God cut another covenant with the children of Israel? It's called the Mosaic Covenant. These are the Ten Commandments, all the sacrificial laws. Animal sacrifices, animal sacrifices, animals. Why? Because there's no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood. What were those sacrifices pointing toward? They merely covered sins. They were pointing toward the seed, the one who was going to put an end to all of this. And if you recall, when they were delivered out of Egypt, Passover, what happened? You had. To have an unblemished lamb, come and live with your family for a short amount of time, and then what would happen? The blood would be shed, put on the door, so that death would pass over.

37:42What was this all about? It was pointing, pointing, pointing toward our need for the one that Isaiah 53 described: this man who was so beaten to a pulp, he was like a lamb led to the slaughter. We thought it was for his sins, but it was for our sins. Read that to your Jewish friends and ask them who it's talking about. John the Baptist understood it completely when he pointed to Jesus and said, Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. All of those lamb sacrifices in the Old Testament were pointing to Jesus. Every single time blood was shed, and the estimate at Passover time when Jesus walked the planet, they believed that on the day of Passover, 250,000 lambs were killed that day. It was a blood bath.

38:30It had to smell. It was stained. It was the bleeding, the fear, the terror. Why? Because blood needs to be shed for the forgiveness of sins. And yet the lamb sacrifices could not forgive sins. We needed an unblemished lamb. You see, a lamb can't represent human beings. You're a human, you're a Magode. That's a lamb. All it can do is point toward your. Need for one who can represent you. So, what do you and I need? We need a man to represent us. And yet, because our offenses have been against a holy God, we need God, and that's what Jesus Christ is. The God meant you're the Christ, the Son of the living God. That is why Peter is not the first pope. That testimony that Peter gave was the exclamation point on everything that the Old Testament was pointing toward. This is the one we've been waiting for. It is preposterous to think that Peter was being installed now to rob God of his glory and fulfillment of the promise. He had orchestrated everything to point toward his son. Everything. And we see this, by the way, this is a wonderful study of typology. If you haven't done it, be careful because you don't want to get wonky with it and ascribe all kinds of pictures that aren't really there. But if the New Testament says, you know, that thing back in the Old Testament, that was Jesus, then you've got something there. For instance, do you remember the battle that Jesus had with the Pharisees over Sabbath laws?

40:11It's almost, seriously, it's almost as if Jesus were going, bink, healing on the Sabbath. He really caused a stir. Why? Well, let's go back to the garden. What do we see? God creates the world in six 24-hour days. He rests on the seven. Day. Why? What we see in the creation week is the culmination, it's building, it's building, it's getting better, it's getting more sophisticated. And on the sixth day, we like to think, well, that's the highlight, because that's when he made us. The highlight is the seventh day. Why? Because God stopped, rested, he wasn't tired to enjoy himself. It was a day where he looked and went, I do good things.

40:57This is an amazing creation. And it was a reflection of how amazing he is. God stopped and enjoyed himself, but we don't hear anything about the Sabbath until we get to that Mosaic covenant. And in Middle Eastern culture, this was very unusual. You work seven days a week. You didn't get a weekend. You didn't get any time off. But God said, you're going to take off one day. Why? Because it was a fuzzy picture. You worked physically hard for six days. You got one day's rest. So it was like, oh, back to work you go on Sunday morning, Saturday, Sabbath. Work, little bit of rest. Work, little bit of rest. Now, the Jewish people, they're brilliant. They took the time to try to figure out what does it mean to rest on the Sabbath? And so they had created 39 columns of laws, hundreds of laws that were just staggering in their complexity. For instance, you could not sit in a chair like this because if you backed it up and the chair leg kind of dug, you know, moved the sand or moved the dirt, you'd be creating a furrow. Which means you're farming, and that's work. You can't take a bath because if you spill water and you need to wipe it up, that's work. If a beggar comes to your house, I'm telling you, they had everything covered. If a beggar came to this window and wanted something and you were going to provide for his needs, you couldn't pass it out the window. But you could let the mendicant put his hand inside the window, and then you could put it on top. Otherwise, you're working, and a good Jew doesn't work. You can't ride a mule on Saturday, not because the riding of the mule itself is work, because you just sit there and bump along, but you might be tempted to grab a switch and hit the mule, and that's work. Hundreds and hundreds of rules about keeping the Sabbath, so that by the time Jesus arrived on the scene, the centerpiece of the Jewish religion was the Sabbath. How do I know you're a good Jew? You keep the Sabbath. And that is why, when he healed on the Sabbath, they would say they were not happy. They should have been rejoicing. This man who was paralyzed his whole life, he's walking now. He can see. The man who was blind can now see, hey, hey, hey, Jesus, what are you doing working on the Sabbath? Why? Because the Sabbath had become a work-righteous celebration that, if kept rightly, made you a good Jew and right standing with God's eyes. And Jesus crashed those rules. Why?

43:22Because he said, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. I am the Lord of the Sabbath. And then the author of Hebrews tells us. That the Sabbath was actually what? A picture of Jesus. You work physically for six days longing for rest, and you get a short physical rest. That was a picture of the better rest that we have in Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath. If you stop working, stop striving, stop being self-righteous, rest in his work. Every single second of every single day is a Sabbath rest. That was a picture, physical rest, pointing toward our spiritual rest in Jesus Christ. That means in the Old Testament, every single time they had the Sabbath, God was preaching the gospel. There's a rest coming. And the Old Testament is dotted with stories pointing to Jesus. And that is why, when Peter said, you're the one, there is no way that he could possibly be inferring, that Peter could possibly understand that he now is the one on whom the church is going to be built. There's one more, and we'll conclude with that. Do you remember when the Jews were in Exodus? They had left Egypt. And in Exodus 15, they complained that there was no water. And there was no food. They were complaining. And God provided water in Exodus chapter 15. Two chapters later, we see the Jews complaining again. There's no water. And this time, Moses is onto them. They were complaining to Moses. They were, hey, did you bring us out here to die? We have no water. What's the deal? And he realized, you're complaining. Complaint is not with me, it's with God. And so God instructs Moses to set something up. And the judicial language of the Hebrew, according to Edmund Clowney, is that it was a courtroom setting. So for the sake of this courtroom, God said, assemble the Jews. So you're going to be the Jewish people. And you're the ones who are accusing not Moses, but God of doing them wrong. The actual sinners are standing in the accuser's position. And then Moses is instructed to stand up front with the other elders with his staff of authority to judge this case. And between the guilty accusers and the judges is a rock. And God, his presence, appears on the rock, and he tells Moses to do what? Strike the rock. And what happened? The rock cracked open, and water gushed out like a river. And who was the rock?

46:041 Corinthians. Jesus Christ is the rock. Furthermore, who is the water in that picture? Jesus Christ Himself said, I am the living water. Who was the manna in the wilderness? Jesus said, I'm the bread of life. What was the ark pointing to? The ark of our salvation, Jesus Christ. Who is the door of the ark? One door, big boat. If you want to escape the Wrath that is to come. You had to go through that door. And who is that door? It is Jesus Christ. And how exactly was his heel bruised when a nail was smashed through his Achilles to nail him to a tree? His heel was bruised so that our sins could not merely be covered, but fully forgiven. And Peter proclaimed that. And Peter himself today would be grieved that any attention is going to any man, that God has gone to those lengths to bring about salvation for his people. And if you read Ephesians 2, 1 through 10, that's exactly what the universe is about. God created man, knowing that we would sin, so that he could send the seed whose heel would be bruised, so that we could be forgiven, so his attributes of mercy and grace and loving kindness could be put on display forever, so that Jesus Christ could be glorified, so that, 1 Corinthians 15, on the last day, God is going to gather together his elect, the church, to present this gift, the bride to the bridegroom, Jesus Christ, who is then going to take that gift, you and me, and return it to the Father and present it to the Father and say, No, Father, this is for you, that you might be all in all.

47:52That's history. That's what all of this is about. And it's a tragedy that a man rises. God of his glory, and his glory he will not give to another. And so the Protestant Reformation marches on. We're not together. We'd love to see our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters saved. This isn't about theological one-upsmanship. This is about who is going to get the glory. Is it going to be a building? Is it going to be a man? Or is it going to be the Lord Jesus Christ? And so, 500 years into this skirmish, evangelicals and Catholics are not together. We are still the grace alone, faith alone, through Jesus Christ alone, revealed in Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone.

48:44Any questions? Yes, question. Why is it called wretched radio? That's a great question. That's a funny question. I saw a t-shirt once that said, I am the wretch the song refers to. And so I called up Ray Comfort. Do you all know Ray Comfort? Okay, so I called up Ray Comfort, and he's, I'm sorry, I can't help it. Ray Comfort is one of the most godly men you'll ever meet. He witnesses, he'd be in here passing out tracts to you. He witnesses to every, would you consider yourself to be a good faith? He'd witness to the pastor. So I called up Ray, he's totally distracted, and I said, Ray, I saw this shirt, and I just really like it. And so it's this word wretch that I kind of, you know, there's something about it. Well, okay, I'll get back to you. Click, which means I just don't even want to be involved in this. Several minutes later, he called up. We were in the Kroger grocery store, and he goes, I'm so sorry, Todd. I thought you were talking about what a cat does.

49:40You need to call it wretched. And that's why we call it wretched, because Romans chapter 7: wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death. And amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And so we like it because, not the edginess so much, but because if you ever talk about the show, you'll almost always be asked that question, which means you have to answer it, which means you might get into a witness encounter. So that was another reason that we did it, too.

50:05Okay, we got a couple. Okay, we got a question. Others? Well, I started doing radio about 20 years ago, I think. Yeah, I got fired. I did. If I recall, Jabez was involved in my termination. I didn't, in fact, he was a sweet man. He really was. And I do love the fellows. But I was talking about the prayer of Jabez, and I was just, I was totally unbridled then and just mocking it. And bibbity-bobbity-boo, and rub your book, and rub your nose, and you'll get stuff from Jabez. And, you know, it's just being ridiculous. So I get called into the president of the radio station, wanted to talk to me. And as I looked at him, I looked up behind him was a macromade that his kids had made of the prayer of Jabez.

50:53This is not going to go well. And so I got fired, moved over to another station, worked there. Almost got fired from there. I almost got fired because we started streaming the show. The show was doing great. It was a radio station that wanted to make money. The program was making money. But then they started to hear it out at the headquarters in California. They flew in the vice president, who reached across the table. I can remember seeing his hands. This has to stop. And I left the office. And what did I do? I called up Ray Comfort. Ray, they want me to be seeker-sensitive. Okay, then let's do our own show. And so we did. We started doing Way of the Master Radio, and then we were asked to do a TV show, and that's how we got here.