Biblestudy: Matthew (Part Twenty-One)

Matthew 16:1-19
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John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 10-Mar-82; 79 minutes

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Matthew 16:1-4 Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed.

There are not very many times in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that we find the Pharisees and Sadducees together—amalgamated, combined, joined together—against Christ. Generally, they were fighting one another as much as they were fighting Him. But the Sadducees and Pharisees—very diverse in their thinking—have by this time in the chronology of the events (by the time we get to Matthew 16), joined together against a common enemy.

Now, just repeating a few things just to help you to understand how different they were. They were about as far apart as the Republicans and Democrats. Maybe it would be better to say that one kind of represented the Republicans and the other ones were much further left in one sense of the word. In another sense of the word, they were very far to the right. I am thinking of the Pharisees here. But just for the sake of an analogy, I am going to compare them to the Republicans and Democrats. The analogy is not exact, but can you imagine both parties in the United States joining together against a common enemy within the United States? It is very difficult for me really to see them getting together unless there was something that they felt was so serious that they had to join together or both of them were going to lose their position. And that is exactly what they feared.

The Pharisees believed (I think I gave this the last time) in what is called today, the oral law. Now, the oral law is contrasted to the written law, that is, the written law as it appeared in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The oral law were regulations, decisions, judgments, that had been handed down by word of mouth and they were in many cases made because the people desired more specific legislation regarding God's law, and God's law, in most cases, is given in broad principles and we have to work within the spirit of it and so it does not take a great deal of legislation that way. And so people, always wanting more specific guidance, began to add little things here and there. And it did not rank with Scripture in anybody's mind at the beginning. But by the time we get to the Pharisees, the Pharisees were equating it with Scripture.

The Sadducees, on the other hand, said that they adhered to the written word only; that is, to what we would call the Old Testament. The Sadducees were primarily the aristocracy. They tended to be very wealthy, they controlled the business within the nation. They were the people who were in charge of selling at the Temple. You know, when Jesus overturned the tables at the Temple, it was the Sadducees who were involved in that. They were operating the money changing and selling animals for sacrifice. They did not believe in angels or the resurrection of the dead. They did not believe in spirits at all.

On the other hand, the Pharisees did believe in spirits. They believed in the resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees tended to align themselves with what we would call the middle class and the poorer class, although the Pharisees themselves did not tend to be poor themselves. That is, those who were part of, let us just say, the organization. They tended to be reasonably well off by the common man's standard, but they tended to align themselves politically or maybe, let us say, the poor and middle class tended to align themselves politically with the Pharisees rather than the Sadducees. It was probably really a money issue, prejudice in the minds of people that tended to cause them to align with the Pharisees rather than the Sadducees.

Now, here were these two diverse groups who did not have very much in common when it came to the rulership of the land and yet when they had a common enemy in Jesus, they decided that they would join together and try to get rid of Him.

Jesus said that they did not read properly the signs of the times. Here were these people who were the leaders in business, in education, and in religion. They should have been the ones who were passing on to the people the knowledge that this Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Messiah. There was plenty of proof available that He was, all they had to do was check into His background and check into the Scriptures. They would have found, as it says in the book of Micah, that the Savior was going to be born in Bethlehem. They would have found that He would be begin His preaching in Galilee, it says that, out of the land of Naphtali, which is where Galilee is. They would have known that He was to be of the tribe of David, of the family of David.

They would have known, if they would have just listened to His preaching with an open mind and if they would have just watched Him, carefully studying Him, but in a good attitude with an open mind, they would have recognized that what He was saying and what He was doing was in harmony with what the prophecy said about Him, with what Isaiah especially said that He would be like. That He would be a man who would be magnifying the law, expounding it, making more clear the understanding of the law; that He would be healing the people as it says in Isaiah 61, setting those who were in bondage free—just all kinds of signs all over the place that Jesus indeed was the Christ. But they refused to admit it. That is what He meant, that they would not understand the signs of the times.

Now, the lesson to you and me is, of course, are we aware of the signs of the times? Jesus said in Luke 21 to watch and pray always. He meant watch what is happening in the world. He said that in Luke 21:36 at the very end of one the longest prophecy that He gave, the one we call the Olivet prophecy. And it is the prophecy that is the framework for all end time events. Matthew 24; Mark 13; and Luke 21 have essentially the same things within them. And so we are to watch what He gave as evidence that we are approaching the end.

What was the sign that we are at the end? The gospel will be preached around the world (Matthew 24:14). In Mark 13, He said, "This gospel shall be published in all the world for a witness and then shall the end come."

Now notice the way He did it. He began by showing that there would be false Christs. Then He said wars and rumors of wars. Then He talked about famine and pestilence and earthquakes in different places. Then He talked about martyrdom. Now, all of those things have always occurred in any time in history. There have been people dying as a result of wars. There have been people being deceived by false Christs. There have always been earthquakes occurring, there have always been martyrdom, but never until this generation was the gospel preached all around the world. That is the sign that we are at the end. If there is nothing else that you watch, you better keep your eyes on Herbert W. Armstrong.

There have been gospels, if I can put it that way, that had been preached. In Galatians 1 Paul used that word. He says, I am surprised that you have been so soon turned aside by another gospel, if indeed there be any such thing. Now men have gone around the world preaching about Christ, but they are not preaching the message that Christ preached, they are preaching about the Messenger, but not the message. This is the distinction between Mr. Armstrong and the others. He is preaching the message the Messenger brought. And of course, it includes information about the Messenger, but primarily it is the good news of the Kingdom of God and it opens up for man what his purpose is. That his purpose is to be born into the Family of God, to be in the Kingdom of God, executing the laws of God, the government of God on this earth. That this earth is going to be ruled by Jesus Christ and those who are born into the Family of God by means of a resurrection.

That is the good news—that all of man's troubles and trials and difficulties are going to come to an end because there is a superior Being coming to this earth to rule over it. God is coming to rule and man's problems with warfare and nature, with one another in families are going to come to an end. That is the good news and it has not been preached until Mr. Armstrong picked up the baton, if I can put it that way, and began to do it in 1934.

We are coming on the 49th year and it just makes you wonder about these things. You know, God gives us little indications here and there, little signs to look for: seven times seven and then the next year is a year of release, the 50th year of the preaching of the gospel. Will something significant happen in 1984? I do not know, but it is certainly good to think about those things.

In verse 4 He says, "a wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign." Now, the only sign that He gave them was the sign of the prophet Jonah, which was the length of time that He would be spending in the tomb, three days and three nights, even as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly.

Notice, a wicked and adulterous generation. The term adulterous is used consistently for the sinning nation of Israel. Adultery is used when there is an illicit relationship between unmarried or married people. God and Israel were married when they made the Old Covenant. I think you understand that several different times in the Old Testament, God equates the Old Covenant with a marriage agreement, that Israel became His wife. But when Israel turned aside and went to the ways of the world, He even calls it whoring after the world, whoring after the gods of other countries. It eventually got so bad, that is, her adultery got so bad that He had to divorce her. And so He says in Jeremiah 3 that He gave her a bill of divorcement.

Now, just as consistent as the Old Testament is with Israel's adultery, the New Testament is consistent in warning the church, not about adultery, but about fornication. Now why? Because we are not married yet, we are the bride of Christ. We are being prepared for marriage, but we have not yet married Christ. We have entered into the espousal stage, I think is what they called it, of a Hebrew marriage where we have been promised to the groom, but we have not yet been joined together in marriage. In Romans 8:3 it says that the flaw or the fault with the Old Covenant was with the people. Now under the New Covenant, the flaw or the fault is being removed before the covenant is entered into.

God knew that Israel could not keep the covenant because they did not have the spiritual power to enable them to do it. They did not have His Holy Spirit; they were physical and carnal in their thinking and so He made a physical agreement with them. But with the New Testament church, He has made a spiritual agreement and the agreement is that we are to give ourselves over to Him in order that the flaws may be taken away from us before we enter into marriage.

Turn with me back to II Corinthians the sixth chapter, verse 14.

II Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?

There are comparisons being made here. On the one side, we have good symbols and on the other side we have bad symbols.

II Corinthians 6:15-17 And what accord has Christ with Belial [Satan]? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God [that is, the church]. As God has said, "I will dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people." Therefore "Come out from among them and be separate."

There is our responsibility. We are not to have illicit relations with the world. Now, Israel had illicit relations with the world. They entered into agreements with the world that they never should have. They followed the world's gods, the world's business practices, the world's educational systems. You name it, Israel wanted to do it, to do everything like the Satan-devised world did it.

Now, the lesson for us ought to be fairly obvious. That in order to avoid the illicit relations that Israel had, we have to do things not as the world does them, but as God does them. We have to think the way He does, we have to have the same attitude that He does, we have to have the same Spirit that He does. We have to have the same love, the same joy, the same peace, the same business practices, the same religious system, the same educational system—we have to get in harmony and practice everything from God's point of view.

That is what conversion is about. And when He says, come out from the world, He means to drop the ways of thinking and doing things that you have been doing or taught to do by the world.

Let us go back to I Corinthians the sixth chapter. Here we have what amounts to a play on words. Let us begin in verse 9 and you will see that Paul is obviously talking about something that is, let us say, in the general sense, physical.

I Corinthians 6:9-11 Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites [you know, sexual perversions], nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

Think about the Corinthians and what you know about the background of the people. Corinth was the center of idol worship. It was filled with idols, filled with temples, probably had about as many temples as Columbia does, one for every corner.

Part of the worship that they practiced though involved the use of temple prostitutes and fornication was a common, accepted practice of the people. In fact, that is how the temples raised their money. They were actually operating brothels in the name of religion. And so there was no public scandal at all for any young man to go to a temple in order to get sexual release.

Something like this is of course very foreign to you and me having been reared in this society. So the subject involves whether or not young people should continue to commit fornication. Well, of course, we know that that ought not to be done.

Now, I want you to think of this though in terms of spiritual fornication, because in the spirit of God's law, which is what we have to learn to obey and grow to obey, fornication, of course, could be entered into by a person's mind, his intent. Notice in verse 12, "All things are lawful for me." Now, it does not mean that fornication is lawful or adultery is lawful or that thievery is lawful. He just said in verses 9 and 10, that those things, if they are committed, are not going to get those people into the Kingdom of God. And so what he means is all lawful things are lawful. Things contained within the law of God are lawful for him to do. But all things are not expedient or helpful. Sometimes it is not good to even do things that God permits.

"All things are lawful for me," but he says, "I will not be brought under the power of any." A very powerful important statement. He is saying that even of the good things that God permits, he will not allow himself to be enslaved by them. You will see here that he means even things like eating good food. Paul is saying, I am not going to allow myself to be enslaved by food. I am not going to become a glutton. God permits us to drink alcohol, but Paul says, I am not going to allow myself to be enslaved by it. I am sure that he would still drink some wine, but he would never allow himself to get out of control.

So he is talking here about control of oneself. "Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them." All physical things are eventually going to disappear.

"Now, the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." He is talking about your body and my body. He is talking physically, and yet in the background is a spiritual intent. Now, do you look upon things this way? That your body is to be used for the glorification of God? That conversion is not just a matter of the mind. It is a matter of using physical things in the right way, the end being always to glorify God.

I Corinthians 6:14-15 And God has both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ? [He is talking about the individuals being a part of the church.] Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not!

Think of this spiritually. Shall we take the members of the church and they be permitted to be worldly, committing spiritual fornication? Well, God forbid! He says we are to come out of the world and for us to do what Israel did would be breaking the seventh commandment spiritually, to allow ourselves to continue to have attitudes like, to think like, to act and react like the world would be spiritual fornication. We would actually be joined to the world spiritually. That is what we have to come out of. Remember, Mr. Armstrong in his sermon said, "I don't think you people get it about what it means to come out of the world. It means to quit thinking like the world, it means to quit having attitudes like the world, it means to quit acting like the world."

So what is involved is a complete reeducation of our thinking and attitudes. He says,

I Corinthians 6:16-20 Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For "the two," He says, "shall become one flesh." But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have of God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

I tell you, there is really some meaty stuff there in regard to common, ordinary, everyday life, even to the point of how we take care of our own bodies, what we eat, what we drink, things of that nature.

Turn to Deuteronomy 22, verse 10. Now when Paul wrote that scripture back in II Corinthians 6:14 about being not being unequally yoked together, he was very likely thinking of this scripture.

Deuteronomy 22:10 "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together."

Now, why? Because they are unequally yoked. Now, I am not a farmer and I do not know what the problems are if one would yoke an ox and a donkey together. But the inference is obvious, that there are some animals, some things that just cannot be put together because there absolutely cannot be any agreement between them. It is impossible. They are so different in their mentalities, in their attitudes, thinking, or ways of doing things that there cannot possibly be unity and harmony.

Two such things are you and the world, God's way and the world's way. They cannot be blended together. It is a total impossibility and any time that we get yoked with the world, we are going to be on the short end of the stick. You are going to be at a disadvantage. Even where there is a 50/50 agreement, supposedly legally on paper, I guarantee you you are unequally yoked. The world has the upper hand. God just tells you, in wisdom, do not do it. You single people. You think maybe that you can get along with a very nice young, beautiful, unconverted man or woman in marriage. Impossible. You are going to be on the short end of the stick, you are going to be on the losing side. Just do not try it.

That is God's wisdom because the world's way and God's way are totally incompatible. One is from the mind of Satan who is hatred personified. The other is from the mind of God, who is love personified.

Let us go back to the New Testament again in II Corinthians 7, verse 1. Now think of what God's message from the very beginning to His people has been. The first one that He called of His people was Abraham. What is the first thing you read that He said to Abraham? He said, "Get out from among your people." What did He tell Moses to do with Israel? He said, "Go get them out." What did He tell Lot about Sodom and Gomorrah? He said, "Get out!"

Now, what did we just read in II Corinthians 6? "Therefore [to the church] come out from among them and be separate." Because any time that you are allowing yourself to be influenced by the ways of the world, you are committing spiritual fornication and Jesus called that wicked.

II Corinthians 7:1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

It is a beautiful verse, so filled with instruction. What he is saying there is, "Look, let's learn the way God does it and let's do it that way," whether it has to do with the way we think, our attitudes in marriage, child rearing, what we say with our mouth. You name it. Every aspect of life is covered, to come out from among them and be separate.

Back to Matthew the 16th chapter. Now, while you are turning there, let me ask you a question. We are coming out of the world. How is change affected? How is it brought about? Well, I will tell you simply how it is done. The only way that we can be changed is to change our beliefs. We make our decisions according to what we believe. If we believe that something is right or good, if mom and dad taught us, if we learned it at school, if we have learned it in the business world, if we have learned it by experience—if we believe a thing to be right, then we make decisions based upon what we believe. Now, the only way that there can be change is to change the beliefs and if the beliefs change, then our decisions will change.

This is why God, at the very beginning of the process, demands repentance because unless we repent, we will not change our beliefs. And if we do not change our beliefs, our decisions will not change. You see, we have to come to the place where we know that we are wrong, that we have been wrong, that we have made many mistakes and that we are wrong in what we have believed. And unless we are willing to admit that very little change will take place.

Notice the next section of verses here because they are very instructive along these lines. Now remember in chapter 15, they were in the area of the Decapolis, which was the 10 cities that were on the eastern side, the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee. Now they have come to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and incidentally on the other side, when they were in the Decapolis side, that is where the feeding of the 4,000 took place. You remember they had 12 baskets of bread leftover and seven baskets of fish. Now, here they are on the other side, it is just a few days later, and guess what? All that food they had on the other side, they forgot to bring some with them. And so it says that they had forgotten to take bread.

Matthew 16:6-12 Then Jesus said to them, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. [Now they were puzzled. And so it says] They reasoned among themselves, saying, "It is because we have taken no bread." But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, "O you of little faith [This leaven has something to do with faith. Remember that whatever He is teaching here has something to do with faith, something to do with belief.], why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand, nor remember the five loaves and the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up? How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?—but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.' Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Let us first address why they did not get it at the very beginning, why they reasoned among themselves. Well, the reason they did so is because they were not yet converted. And so they immediately, being carnal-minded, thought of a physical thing. It is the first thing that came to their attention.

Again, let us go back to I Corinthians 2, beginning in verse 12.

I Corinthians 2:12-14 Now we [converted Christians] have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. [See, that we might know the things of God.] These things we also speak [like Jesus was speaking to the apostles], not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

That is why the apostles did not get much of what Jesus said because they simply did not have the mind to be able to understand it.

Let us go back to that other scripture that Mr. Armstrong used in John the eighth chapter, beginning this time in verse 42. Now, to me, the intriguing thing here is that if you go back to verse 30 it says, "And as He spoke these words, many believed in Him." He is speaking here to people who believed on Him. The apostles believed on Him and yet the apostles did not understand what He was talking about half the time. And the reason, we see, is because they did not yet have the Spirit of God and they did not get it until Pentecost after Christ died.

John 8:42-46 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desire of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there was no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe Me."

I am going to give you a paraphrase of verse 43. It says here (I wrote it out from another Bible): "Why do you not acknowledge this truth? Because you cannot bear it. It comes too close." You see, the carnal mind will always defend its beliefs. That is carnality. It immediately justifies what it has done or what it believes, or its attitude immediately leaps to the defense and begins to put up a resistance against what is being said and it always does it in the defense of the self.

Now it says in Romans 8:7 that "the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be." In other words, these people were prevented by their very minds from believing the truth that Jesus was giving them, they were prevented by their own own mind. Now, there is a peculiar twist to this. Something that Mr. Armstrong kind of glossed over in the sermon, I do not know whether you caught it, but he mentioned that it is entirely possible for a person to understand academically doctrine, to get doctrine straight. I will quote him directly.

It is entirely possible for a carnal mind to get doctrine straight and yet still not understand its application.

That is exactly what has happened to many in the church. They get the doctrine straight. They know that we ought to be keeping the Sabbath, that we ought to be tithing, that we ought to be keeping the holy days. They know or can get straight the ideas regarding the gospel of the Kingdom of God and yet not understand its application to them personally. And so as Mr. Armstrong mentioned that we have even had men who have become evangelists and then he finds out that they are not even converted. They have the doctrine straight but what always happens? You see, eventually that carnal mind begins to rebel against what it is hearing, what it is beginning to understand, and it fights back and they always leave. It never fails.

There is nothing more miserable than an unconverted mind trying to keep the laws of God. It just does not have the power to do it and it ends up totally frustrated. That is why every once in a while you will see people that have been sitting in the congregation disappear. You know, they will just stop coming. Because they will be able to go along for a while but eventually that unconverted mind just cannot stand it any longer and it will rebel against it.

Now, notice Jesus said in Matthew 16, "O you of little faith." You see, here is the problem. The carnal mind just does not have faith in God. That is the crux of the problem. It does not believe God. It would rather leave. The world, it does not believe.

Now, look in II Corinthians chapter 5

II Corinthians 5:7 For we [he is talking about converted church members] walk by faith [we live by faith], not by sight.

The carnal mind cannot live by faith for very long. By very long I mean, it can go by for several years to some extent because it gets the doctrine straight. But when the crunch begins to come on in some area, it is always going to crack under the strain of trying to live up to the demands of God's Word because the love of God's Spirit is not there. The faith of God's Spirit is not there. The peace of God's Spirit is just not there. The self-control of God's Spirit just is not there. The vision of God's spirit is just not there. And it will begin to turn aside.

Hebrews 10:38-39 [Paul repeats himself, he says] "Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him." [Well, why? Because the person does not believe, that is why.] But we are not of those who draw back under perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

Or as the Revised Standard Version has it: Of them that believe to the obtaining of life of eternal life."

Now, the carnal mind will ultimately take events, things, attitudes, everything will be bent to a physical end. The spiritual mind will use and bend things, if I can use that word, to a spiritual end because it believes, the spiritual mind will always try to look at things through the eyes of God. What is God's intent? What is His purpose? How does He want to use me? And the physical will slide into the background until it becomes nothing more than a means to an end.

Take healing, for example. To the carnal-minded person there is probably nothing more important in life than the healing of his body, than to have good health. To the spiritual mind, good health is secondary to glorifying God. The important thing to the spiritual mind is, what does God desire out of this? If I can glorify God by being weak and sickly, then that is the way I am going to do it. If God decides He is not going to heal me, He has made the promise that He will do it. I know that He will come through; He will do it because it is impossible for Him to lie, then the spiritual mind recognizes that the sickness that he has is a means to God's end. And God's end is always going to be spiritual. It is always going to be pointed, it is going to have its end, it is going to have its purpose in the Kingdom of God.

And so if God decides not to heal a person at this time, it is because God has decided that He is going to be glorified through this person's weakness, not his good health. God is going to be glorified through this person's faith. God is going to be glorified through this person's patience. God is going to be glorified through this person's attitude, his pity, his compassion, his mercy upon others, I mean, the sick person's, even though he himself is undergoing a great and rigorous trial.

The carnal mind just cannot do that. It wants to be healed with a passion that far exceeds what God would have. You see, the healing is the end for the carnal mind, not the glorification of God, not to be used by God. The carnal mind just cannot take that.

Now we get back to baptism and repentance. The first condition is to repent in order that you and I can be used of God the way He desires. And unless we repent, we are going to be fighting God tooth and toenail with a carnal mind, always resisting Him, just trying in every way to take things into our own hands and do it our way rather than His way. That is why the carnal mind always cracks under the strain. It can only stand it for so long.

Go with me back to II Corinthians again, this time in chapter 12, verse 9. You can understand why Paul wrote this. Because he had to come to this understanding because Paul was afflicted with something and what it was God decided, "I'm not going to heal you at this time." Paul thought surely I would be better able to glorify God with a healthy body. I could do the work if I just had the health. If I just had the strength to be able to do it. If I just had my eyesight, I could surely glorify God much better than I am doing. I could accomplish so much more if I was healthy.

But you see, Paul's faith was in God. He was converted. And so after apparently being anointed three times, and God had not healed him, he understood that God was not going to heal it and that God had decided that Paul was going to glorify God in his weak state.

II Corinthians 12:9-10 And so He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength [that is, God's strength] is made perfect in weakness." [Paul says] Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. [Now, that is a converted attitude. That is a spiritual mind speaking.] Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong [strong with God's Spirit].

Now that does not mean that Paul did not do everything that he could within the framework of God's law to take care of his health. But he had committed his healing to God, not to men. And since God decided not to heal him, God would then have to supply Paul with the strength to carry out his work as an apostle. And Paul did it in that state. Now, that is a converted mind. It is always seeking to glorify God.

Back to Matthew 16. What does the leaven of the Sadducees and Pharisees have to do with this? Now, remember leaven is used in the Bible as a symbol of sin or a better term would be putrification. Because it is the process of breaking down, that is, the leaven that is within a lump of dough as it breaks down the elements of the dough, it creates a gas and that gas is what causes the bread to rise and to be light and fluffy. But the leaven works from within, its effects are seen without. Now, that is very important here to understanding what Jesus is getting at here.

Now, in the analogy that He is using, leaven corresponds to doctrine, or belief if you prefer. Remember, the subject is "O you of little faith, beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees." The doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees were their teachings or their beliefs. Or, let us put it this way, an evil influence that is working from within the human being and it will affect what he does on the outside. And so what He is saying in effect is that the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, their teaching is very similar to what a cancer would be. A cancer that is working silently within the person to destroy him.

A doctrine comes from within the mind and affects what a person does on the outside. It is what causes his decision-making process to reach a certain decision. He believes in a certain thing, therefore, he makes a certain decision. So what he is concerned about here is the teaching that would come from these people.

Recall back in Matthew 15, He says in verse 18, "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile a man." It is what comes from the inside out that defiles the person. Like leaven, a belief is on the inside of the person.

Now, what did the Pharisees think? Or how did they see religion? Remember, religion is a way of life. Religion to the Pharisee consisted of a legal system of ritual cleanliness on the outside, a ritual that could be seen by others. But all the while it permitted the person to be inwardly greedy, spiteful, full of hate, deceit, you name it. But as long as they went through the ritual, they were okay. You see, their religion had nothing at all to do to empower a person to change in love toward another human being. And so as long as the person was never changed on the inside, nothing would ever change on the outside. There would always be acts of deceit, of greed, of prejudice, of hatred, of animosity. You name it.

The Sadducee, on the other hand, was aristocratic, he was wealthy, deeply involved in politics. We find from reading about them that they sought change through materialism, through social and political reforms. That sound familiar? It certainly does.

But you see, those things do not change people either. You can change a person's environment and it is not going to change that person's thinking very much, it might change it a little bit, but it is not going to change it very much for very long. The Sadducees did not change the heart either. That was the problem with their doctrine. It did not change the carnality. And so the carnal mind with the beliefs being unchanged was going to continue to produce the animosity, the greed, the envy, the hatred, the prejudice, warfare, family problems, child rearing problems, and on and on.

That is why Jesus was concerned about the doctrine because it did not change the man on the inside.

Matthew 16:13-16 When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

It seems as though Jesus deliberately must have gone to Caesarea Philippi. And almost, it seems, as though to ask this question, to be in a certain environment whenever He asked it. Caesarea Philippi is about 25 or 30 miles northwest of the Sea of Galilee. It was in a Gentile area. They were out of the land of Israel and Caesarea Philippi was well known in that part of the world as being a place of gods. The city contained 14 extraordinarily beautiful temples. There was one that was exceedingly beautiful and was renowned all over the world at that time as a temple that Herod the Great built in honor of the Caesars of Rome. At that time, I believe it was Augustus Caesar. And then whenever Herod the Great died, and of course, Augustus died, Herod's son Agrippa came along and he embellished it even more. And then Philip came along, who was another one of the Herods, and he changed the name of the city in order to distinguish it from other Caesarea that existed, because I think there were at least 9 or 10 of them at one time. But this was Caesarea Philippi. But it was a place that was renowned as a temple for gods.

In fact, the ancients ascribed Caesarea Philippi as the birthplace of Pan. Have you ever heard of Pan? Pan was the god of nature. Very important god in the pantheon, one of the major gods, one of the most important one of them all. And according to their mythology, he was born or created or whatever you want to call it, in a cavern that existed in the side of a mountain that was just real hard by the city of Caesarea Philippi.

This cavern contained within it a prodigiously deep pit. You walked into it and then suddenly the floor just fell away and that pit was filled almost to the top with water. And apparently they tried to find the bottom of it. It was one of those places that they could not find the bottom, just tremendously deep. They did not have a rope long enough that they could get to the bottom. I am sure there is a bottom, but they could never find it. And so the place had an aura of mystery about it because of that. Even the Jews ascribed it as being one of the major sources of the River Jordan, that big pit of water that went underground somewhere and eventually erupted out of the ground in springs.

Now, it was in this area that it appears as though Jesus deliberately went. And when He got there in this area that was renowned for the gods, that He asked this question, "Who do men say that I am?" He of course wanted to hear from their own mouths. I am sure that He had heard it from others, but He wanted to hear their report. And of course, Peter, I am sure speaking for the other 11, said that "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Notice the first part of their reply though. Because what they were doing there was giving the opinion of the world and the world's opinion was to equate Jesus with a prophet. That was as high as they could go. That He was Jeremiah or Isaiah. Coincidentally, it was probably Pharisaic doctrine that came up with this idea about Him being John the Baptist, Isaiah, Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of them, because they believed in the transmigration of souls. That was their beliefs. In other words, that a person who had died could be reborn in another and that they would literally be, in this case, the prophet reborn. And when they said that He was Jeremiah, they meant Jeremiah. They really meant Jeremiah. They really meant Elijah having been reborn in this form.

But in the reply that the apostles gave, they gave Jesus a distinctiveness that applied to no other human being—that He was the Anointed, the Son of the living God. That title applies to no other human being. It is distinctive; nobody else can even come close, and that puts Him in a different category than even the very greatest of the prophets who lived before. Because Jesus was the Anointed, the Son of the living God, the Source of all life, the Creator, the Ruler, the Sustainer, the Beginner and the Author of eternal life.

Now, what is important to you and me about this is that this is a personal discovery. It is something that must be revealed because Jesus said in verse 17, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood [that is, other human beings] has not revealed this to you."

It is an impossibility, because why? Because men with their carnal minds, with their prejudices, with their opinions are always going to come up with the wrong Christ. And as Mr. Armstrong has been telling us frequently, lately, that the world does not know God, they do not know the true God. And that is a shocking statement, I am sure, to anybody on the outside who does not understand that that is exactly what the scripture says in Romans 3, verse 10. Let us turn there. And so, if the world does not know God, how can the world introduce you to God? You see, flesh and blood cannot do it. It is an impossibility.

Romans 3:10-11 As it is written, "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God."

Boy, that is a slap in the face to a lot of people who think that they have been trying to find God. Well, they have been trying to find God. There is no doubt about it. But they will never find Him because their minds are too prejudiced. It says in John 6:44 that,

John 6:44 "No one can come to the Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day."

The real Jesus must be revealed. I hope we appreciate that, what we have been given. That God in His mercy—and I do not know why He has it—for some reason or another He opened up our minds to let us see the real Jesus. A tremendous gift! Certainly one of the most valuable pieces of information that a human being can be given, that we know the Christ of the Bible. It is not that we know about Him. We know Him. There is a difference between knowing about Him. It is possible for any unconverted person to know about Him. They know when He was born, roughly, they know where He lived, they know where He died. They know why He died. They know some of His teachings. They know about Him, but they do not know Him. That is something that can only be given by the Spirit of God, to really know Christ.

Notice again back here in the book of Ephesians, the fourth chapter, where it is talking about the purpose of the ministry.

Ephesians 4:12-13 for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ [we are to teach you], till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.

Notice it does not say the knowledge about the Son of God. That is the kind of knowledge the world has. What God is giving to us is Christ's knowledge and it is only those who have Christ's knowledge who know Christ.

Ephesians 4:13 the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

You know, people go around saying, do you know the Lord? They do not know the Lord! They know about Him and I hope that we are progressing beyond that.

Now, how does one come to know Christ? Well, by prayer, by study, by obeying Him and you cannot obey Him until you believe it. See, we get right back to that again. You cannot obey Him until you believe Him. Only those who believe Christ know Christ, because if you believe Christ, then you are going to think like Christ, you are going to act like Christ, you are going to talk to Christ. You are going to be instructed by Christ, you are going to be taking on His mind. You are going to become like He is, you are going to fight sin like He did. You are going to have attitudes like He did because He is living in you. He gives His Spirit to those who obey Him.

You have to study to know what He did. You have to study to know what His attitudes were. You have to pray to get His Spirit. You have to ask God for His love, for His joy, for His peace, for His faith. You have to ask God to clean you up. You have to ask God to participate in your marriage, in your child rearing. You have to ask for His help in every part of life, for His instruction from out of His words so you can use it. And as you use it, you become like Christ and then you know what a battle He had on His hands to live in this flesh and to overcome the flesh and overcome the world and overcome Satan.

Not only that, you will experience His joys, you will experience His peace. That is how you know Christ, and flesh and blood cannot reveal that to you. You have to experience it and it is something that only the Spirit of God can empower one to do.

Matthew 16:18 "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

Now, I think that we know these verses reasonably well, that Peter is in the Greek, the diminutive form of the word petra. That petros means a small rock, a stone, a chip off a much larger rock, a fragment. Whereas rock in that verse comes from petra, where it means a huge crag, a cliff, a massive granite slab. And so what He said there is you are a little stone to Peter and upon this rock, pointing to Himself, I will build My church. The church of God is built on Jesus Christ. He is the foundation of it and the apostles are part of that foundation. But Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone.

He says that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, that is, against the church. By this, we can prove that the church is not built on Peter. Why? Peter is dead. Our Foundation is alive. The church is built on the living Jesus Christ and that is why the gates of the grave will not prevail against the church—because Christ is alive. You know, we are justified by His blood. But how are we saved? By His life. We are saved by the fact that our Foundation is alive and that He is at God's right hand interceding for us. The church is not built on Peter at all. He is just a chip. He is a little block in the foundation. But Christ is the massive crag that the whole church is built upon.

Peter had a very important job. There is no doubt that he was the chief apostle after Christ died. No doubt about that at all. But the church is not built upon him.

Matthew 16:19 "And I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven [a key is something that unlocks, gives one entrance into], and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Now, this has to do, of course, with binding and loosing. The Catholic Church uses this verse as its authority for making and changing laws. For example, they openly admit that they were the ones that changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. They make no bones about it. They do not try to hide it. And in fact, they even snicker and point the finger at the Protestants and tell them openly that you are not obeying the Bible in worshipping on Saturday. You are obeying the Catholic Church. You know, the Protestants have no comeback to that and so they try to wiggle around it by saying that Christ was resurrected on Sunday and that changed the day of worship. Well, I think the Catholic Church hierarchy knows better than that. They were the ones that changed the day. And so they use this verse as authority.

I was going to spend a bit of time, but I will at least show you the principle. Go back to Leviticus the 13th chapter. This verse does give authority to the apostle to enact certain things. But notice, this is just an example of the principle that we are involved with here.

Leviticus 13:2-3 "When a man shall have in the skin of his body a swelling, a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes on the skin of his flesh like a leprous sore, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or onto one of his sons the priests. Then the priest shall examine the sore on the skin of the body; and if the hair in the sore has turned white, and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a leprous sore. Then the priest shall examine him, and pronounce him unclean."

Remember that word unclean. It has to do with binding and loosing, it has to do with the making of judgments arriving at a decision.

Leviticus 13:4-5 But if the bright spot is white on the skin of his body, and does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and its hair has not turned white, then the priest shall isolate the one who has the sore seven days. [isolate him has to do with quarantining, has to do with being put out of the camp, put out of the community] And the priest shall examine him the seventh day; and indeed if the sore appears to be as it was, and the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall isolate him another seven days.

Then he gives in the next verse. If there is a change that appears, then the priest is permitted to make another decision regarding.

What we are talking about here in terms of binding and loosing does not give the church the right to change laws or to enact new laws. It only gives the authority to the apostle to make judgments within the already existing law. Mr. Armstrong does not have the authority to change the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday or any other day, but he does have the authority to make binding decisions on the church in regard to practices that we do on the Sabbath day. How long services will be. How many songs we sing. How many churches a minister might pastor. Where churches will be located, things of that nature. He is binding and loosing within the principles of the spirit of the law of God as it is already revealed.

Some of that authority passes down even to the local minister. And so the local minister has the right to make decisions, let us just say a binding decision, regarding whether a person should be disfellowshipped, you see, shut out of the community, the church, or whether he should be reinstated, that is, brought back in. The minister has the right to make decisions regarding whether or not he will baptize a person, whether or not a marriage is binding or loosed.

Now, Mr. Armstrong has the authority to make decisions regarding things in which there is no "thus sayeth the Lord" in the Word of God, but it has to be made within the principles of that which is already revealed. This would involve such things as makeup, it is covered in principle in the spirit of the law, but there is nothing that says you shall not wear makeup. And so Mr. Armstrong has the right within the framework of the law to say this is vanity, it is sin based upon the spirit of the law.

Let us see if I can think of another. Birthdays. You see that is another one in which there is no "thus sayeth the Lord" but within what is revealed, Mr. Armstrong makes a judgment. It is then binding on the church. Voting is another one. It is covered in principle but is there is no "thus sayeth the Lord" but, you see, there is a principle, "Come out of her, My people." So you had be not a partaker. Smoking. There is no "thus sayeth the Lord," but there is the principle of lust involved there. And so then he makes a decision that is binding on the church.

You see, that is what is involved here. We cannot change God's law. We can only bind and loose within the framework of what is already revealed.

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