Open up your Bibles to the book of Mark chapter 8. Mark chapter 8 verse 34, which is where we began last week. We're gonna conclude last week's message this morning where we talked about the believers daily death. Mark chapter 8 verse 34 and we'll read through chapter 9 and verse 1. Now two weeks ago we saw where the Lord was teaching his disciples some hard truths concerning his suffering, his rejection, his death, his resurrection. Now this week, and as we began to see last week, he calls the people who were lagging behind. He had previously spoken to just the disciples. Now he calls everybody around, and he begins to tell them all some more hard truths about what it would mean to follow him. And just as Jesus had to carry a cross, so must we if we are to follow him. We too must suffer, and in some cases even die a physical death to follow Christ. But whether we die that physical death as a martyr or not, we are called to die every day to certain things. And it's those things that he begins to expound upon here in our text. So let's begin at verse 34 and read the text. It says, And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. But whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospels, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? And now the two verses we'll be looking at more closely this morning. Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that there be some of them that stand here which shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. Let's pray. Our kind and most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for these words that we have just read, and we thank you for your Holy Spirit, who is present amongst us, Lord, to teach us, to guide us, to convict us, Lord, to draw us closer to you. We just pray for all these things to happen here, O Lord, and that we might be made more aware of what it is we must die to every day as followers of Christ. Lord, I just pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen. And just a little recap, in verse 34, last week we talked about how believers must put self-centeredness to death. Every true follower of Christ must practice self-denial daily. Secondly, we saw that in verse 35 that believers must put the safe life to death. And again, every believer should put to death that easy way of this world that so many chase after and so many pursue. We've got to put that away. We've got to put away those thoughts and understand that we are going to be persecuted and understand that we are going to have to make sacrifices. And then in verses 36 and 37, we saw that believers must put self-service to death. In other words, we've got to learn how to put others, especially Christ, first, ahead of ourselves daily. And so now we pick up with verse 38. And in verse 38, we see that believers must put shame of Christ to death. Again in verse 38, we read, whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Now in the case of the disciples, in the context of what Jesus is telling them, they were very apt to be ashamed of him and of what he had just told them was going to happen. Remember that he had just told them that he would be suffering, that he would be rejected, that he would be killed. Now this is totally the opposite of what they expected of the Messiah. They've just come to understand that he is the Christ. Peter had confessed that when he asked them, who do you think I am? And Peter said back in verse 29, thou art the Christ. That confession, that admission there, that even proclamation there by Peter, I think on behalf of all the disciples, indicated that they believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And in their mind, that meant that he had come to rule over them on a physical throne. and that he would take David's throne in Jerusalem, and then in their day, in their time, that meant that he was gonna overthrow Roman rule and reestablish the rule of the Jews for themselves once again, and bring back the glory of the nation of Israel. That's not what Jesus came to do. He came to be king, all right. He certainly came to be the Messiah, the Christ. But it was a spiritual thing that he came to be, a spiritual king that he had come to be. And in order for him to be that, in order for him to be the Messiah, that, by the way, is prophesied in the Old Testament, if you look carefully. In order for him to be that Messiah, then that meant that he must suffer, that meant that he must be rejected, that meant that he must die. But this had to have been very appalling to these disciples and to those followers who are following after him to hear this. It's a shameful thing to experience what Jesus has told them that he's going to experience. So there was no room in their thinking for this. And yet that is exactly what he is telling them is going to happen. And before they would see glory in this, they would first see humiliation, and they would be ashamed for this to happen. Now, that may sound strong and it may sound harsh, but it is exactly what happens to them when Jesus is crucified. And there is a restoration that must occur after that, especially for people like Peter, who had to be restored in his relationship with the Lord. But that's exactly what's gonna happen, and they were going to experience that. And Jesus is cautioning them not to be ashamed of him, and of these things, and certainly of his doctrines. Now we all, at times, have expressed some shame, over Christ and over his doctrine. There have been times when we could have stood up and proclaimed ourselves to be a Christian and we shrunk back because we were afraid of what the other person's reaction might be. We were unsettled in the circumstances that that's in. And so he's not speaking necessarily of that happening in an individual kind of isolated incidence. He's talking about living that way, living with shame for Christ. And that's what we must put to death when it comes up. J.C. Riles shares three things where Christians sometimes are ashamed of Christ. One, he says, being ashamed of letting people see that we love the doctrines of Christ. You know, doctrine is something that a lot of churches won't speak much of anymore, because that means taking a stand. The doctrines of Christ and his word are very clear, and in some cases, very strong and very hard for people to grasp. And sometimes people have grown ashamed of that, and they don't want to express those doctrines or teach those doctrines openly, because they're afraid that someone's gonna hear it and they're gonna leave. They're not gonna like it. And a lot of churches are being built up in numbers today because they have quit sharing the doctrines, the words of Christ. If you go back to verse 38, it says, whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words. So the very words of Christ are things that sometimes people are ashamed of. And it should, it must not be. We must stand for Christ. We must stand upon his word. To not stand upon his word is to make compromise. And so many are doing that today. And so many are walking away from the doctrines of the Bible, whatever they may be, because they are afraid of what the world is going to think. I'm so tired of this society we live in today. So tired of these people who don't want to stand on something that is true because it's going to hurt somebody else's feelings. It's got so that you can't do anything anymore without somebody's feelings being hurt. While I don't think we should go about just purposely trying to hurt somebody's feelings, I will say this. If the proclamation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ hurts your feelings, then that's probably a good thing. And so it must be. And we must not stray away from the words of Christ. And we must not stray away from the lordship of Christ. And we must not stray away from the fact that what he says is it goes. It is what matters. It is what counts. And just because somebody disagrees with it, because oh, they will. just because somebody hates what we have to say. And though they declare it to be hate speech, which is being done, people, maybe not quite yet in this country, though there have been some cases of it. It is certainly happening in Europe and other places. where people are taking the word of God and proclaiming it to be hate speech. If that's the stand they want to take, we must not shrink away yet from speaking that truth and teaching the gospel. That's what we're called to do. If it offends someone, we must leave that to the Lord and that person. There's one thing I'm gonna assure you of. The Lord is more than capable of defending himself and dealing with those who are offended by who he is. So Rahl says being ashamed of letting people see that we love the doctrines of Christ. Some of these doctrines, what are they? Things that are coming into question today. Remission of sins by the blood of Christ. There are preachers who won't preach about the blood of Christ anymore, because that might be offensive. It might go against their precious little programs that have packed the pews. It might offend someone, and they might leave and not come back. Well, again, we must leave that in the hands of the Lord. Others, justification by his righteousness. Oh, in this day of a modern false gospel, where much is made of the righteousness of the person, a false righteousness, a self-righteousness that never does anybody any good. In this day and time, much is made of this. We should stand to the opposite. We should stand on the truth, and that is we are justified by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his righteousness that we are able to stand before God the Father. Not by anything we've done, not by anything that we've earned, but strictly by what Christ has done and what he has earned. That's how we stand before God the Father. And we need to preach that as part of our gospel. We need to preach that as one of the doctrines that we believe. Salvation alone by him. Every other truth that's related to these doctrines that we find in the word of God, we must believe and we must proclaim without shame. A second thing he says people are ashamed of is letting people see that we live according to the commandment of Christ. We try to obey Christ. We try to obey his commandments. This is where some will pipe up and say, but we live by grace, not by the law. And we do live under grace. And that does free us from the curse of the law, praise God. But it does not mean that we don't obey the laws of God and the commandments of God. Obedience is the way that we show that we do believe, and it's the way that we do, we show that we are born again. And it is necessary, and it is a must, and being ashamed of that is wrong. We must put to death that kind of shame. And so many today in this society, again, in which we live, where people are taking God's word and they are changing it, or they are saying that it has changed, or they are saying that we no longer live in such a time as that, and that certainly Christ loves this sin and that sin and permits it now, where he did not before. Those people need to understand that we must obey the word of God as it is written. And there's not one of us that can change that word of God. There is no court that can overrule the word of God. We are expected to obey it and to follow it. And we must practice that every day. I speak now in generalities, in terms of society in which we live. Let me get down a little bit more practically to us in our everyday lives. Your flesh is going to tell you every day that you need to do what the flesh wants to do. And what the flesh is going to want to do is going to be in violation of the Word of God somewhere, somehow. It's going to be contrary to the Word of God. And that's where we must put to death daily in our own flesh any desire that pops up that would move us to disobedience rather than obedience. Oh, let us obey. We must obey. And then thirdly, Riles says, being ashamed of letting people see that we wish to be counted among the people of Christ. Some are afraid to be known as Christians. They're afraid to be known as being weird or radical. Now, I want to insert here for a moment, there are some people in some parts of the world, not ours, not in our nation, at present anyway, who must go about with some protection of themselves. because to say they follow Christ openly and publicly might lead to their immediate death. And I believe those people must follow the Spirit of God in that. If God leads them to proclaim it, then they should proclaim it even if it means death. But sometimes I think they should be careful And they meet in secret, for instance, in some places in the world, and so forth. And I think they need to use some wisdom and follow the spirit in those things. But we're not there here in the United States, yet anyway. Yet there are people among us who would be afraid to be called Christians anymore. Now, it used to be, if you asked someone if they were a Christian, they'd say, oh, sure. Even if they didn't darken the doors of the church, or of a church, they still say they were Christian. But now more and more people will openly and proclaim, oh, no, I'm not a Christian. I wouldn't want to be one of those self-righteous people, and whatever else they think of us. And so for some, that means they're afraid in mixed company. And by mixed company, I mean people who are Christians and those who are not. They're very wary of proclaiming that they're a Christian. And I say we need to be very careful of that. And we need to not be ashamed to be counted among the people of Christ. And to let others know that we are Christian. We should seek opportunities to tell people that we are believers in Christ. no matter what they may think of us. With the garbage I see going on around anymore, it used to kind of bother me a little bit. I didn't want to provoke anyone by saying that I was a Christian, but I think I've gotten to the point now where I kind of want to provoke some people because of their open display of hatred towards God. They need to know that there are believers, and we need to speak up, and we need to let it be known and not be quiet. I think we've been quiet too long. You see, the doctrines, the commandments, and the people of Christ have never been popular among the sons of men, and they never will be. People are gonna hate these things, if they're not born again. We need to understand that. We need to be prepared for that. But those who are made free by the gospel sometimes put themselves in bondage to the opinions of men. In fact, the extremes that some people are willing to go to to avoid ridicule over Christ is rather astounding. and they are ashamed of Christ. And we've got to put that to death. What should we be ashamed of? We should be ashamed of sin. We should be ashamed of worldliness. We should be ashamed of unbelief. That's what we ought to be ashamed about. But never, oh never let us be ashamed of our Lord who died on the cross for our sins. Rather, let us boldly proclaim that we serve Christ. Going back to verse 38. He says, whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation. Now, certainly he speaks here directly of the people amongst whom he was walking. The people, the Israelites, if you will, the Jews of that day, especially the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who not only committed adultery and sin, physically, but they were spiritual adulterers in the sense that they had left God for their own religious trappings. They had replaced worship of God essentially with worship of self through their man-made requirements of religion. That is spiritual adultery. And so he says that in this adulterous and sinful generation. But I say to you, those words apply today, do they not? Do people not do the same thing today as they were doing then in that they have formed for themselves their own religion that makes them look better, that lifts themselves up instead of God? And that is adultery as well. In James chapter four, verse four, James says, ye adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. There are a lot of professing Christians running around today who would rather be friends with the world them friends with God, and their own actions are going to bring judgment upon them. To be a friend of the world is to be an enemy with God. Oh, let us leave the world. Let us walk away with friendship with the world and walk hand in hand with our Savior and be close to God. no matter what that might mean, and no matter what that might cost us. You see, he goes on to say there, those who are ashamed of him and of his words, of him also shall the son of man be ashamed. I can't think of a worse place to be standing in than to be standing before the Lord Jesus Christ him be ashamed of you. Is that even possible? Jesus is love, right? Well I think it says pretty clearly that he's gonna be ashamed of some. You don't want to stand there. You don't want to be in that place. I promise you. Now Christ is merciful and forgiving and loving. And when we put this to death and we repent of these sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us. And praise be to Jesus, to God for that. But don't make this your lifestyle. Don't make this the way you're living day in and day out, else you will find yourself ashamed of Christ and him ashamed of you. He goes on and finishes, when he cometh in the glory of his father with the holy angels. Now, there are some who say that this concerns his transfiguration, which is what's going to happen next in Mark 9. That's the next thing we're going to be going into next week, if the Lord is willing. Some say that it has to do with his death and resurrection, others the day of Pentecost. Still others say it has to do with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Others say it will be, it has to do with his second coming. I personally lean towards this being a reference to his crucifixion and resurrection and the confirmation of the Day of Pentecost all kind of together. Because that to me is when the Lord indeed comes in glory as King. He will ascend up to the right hand of the Father, we know, after he's crucified, resurrected, spends 40 days here. He then ascends into the end of heaven and he is he sits down at the right hand of the father Meaning that he reigns as king at that point. And so I believe me personally that that's what this is talking about Because also something that we're gonna read in the next verse in chapter 9 verse 1 Whatever it means know this Christ reigns Know this He is in all of his glory And no one can take away from that. Know this. He is strong. He is holy. He is just. He is righteous. And again, nobody, no thing will ever take away from that. Oh, let us worship him. And let us Every day, put to death any shame we might feel toward Christ and his words. Every day, let's put that to death. Now let's look at verse one. Believers, my final point in these two messages, believers, must put fear of the world to death. Now, we've already been talking about this to some degree, but I want to carry that on out here as we look at chapter nine, verse one. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that there be some of them that stand here which shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. This world will not prevail and we should have no fear that it will prevail whatsoever in us. You see, the kingdom of God has come, and it will prevail for all eternity, while this world as we know it shall fail and come to an end. We must not have any fear of this world whatsoever. Now that is really easy to say, for me to stand here and say, and for you to sit there and amen, in our nice comfortable building where we're isolated from the world. It is much harder when we go out into that world. Because there is power in this world. Ordained of God, permitted by God, but it opposes God. And that power can bring great harm to God's people. It cannot touch God. It cannot harm God in any way. But it is possible to harm and even put to death his people. And that's the reality we need to understand. But we must not have fear of that. to boldly proclaim that we love Christ, his doctrines, his law, his people, is sure to bring ridicule and persecution upon us. And if you feel like you haven't experienced much ridicule and much persecution, then you might want to examine your life and the message that you're giving to those around you. Because I'm gonna tell you something, somewhere, somehow, if you're faithful to proclaim Christ and to show love for Christ, for his word and for his people, then there are gonna be some who are gonna try to embarrass you and ridicule you and harm you even because of that. More and more so as the days go by. And some will shrink away from this because they fear others. Proverbs chapter 29 verse 25 says, the fear of man bringeth a snare. In other words, if you fear man, you're ultimately gonna fall into some sort of a snare. But whoso, it continues, whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. There are those who because of fear begin to think, what I need to do is be quiet, what I need to do is hold back, what I need to do is not be so open with my beliefs in Christ and so forth. All that's gonna do is lead you into a trap of some kind. And God can deliver you from that trap, but it's gonna be painful for you. But if you trust the Lord, Scriptures tell us that perfect love casts out fear. If you trust the Lord, and you bask in the love of the Lord, and you strive to love the Lord in return, then you're gonna be kept safe from these traps that might befall you. Now, does that mean that Nobody's ever gonna harm you because of the fact that you're a Christian and you follow Christ. Now, that's not what it says. But it will spare you from some of the traps that can come your way otherwise. We in America, and I've said this many times, we in America have become way too spoiled. And we have had things way too easy for too long. We are blessed materially, and we somehow have come to accept that and treasure that above even the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ, which I think are of far greater value. But what will happen when you treasure material things is they will become your idols, unless you're very, very careful. And that's where fear of what man can do to you will kick in. We will become afraid of what they might take away from us. Might lose a job. We might lose position in the community. we might lose things that we're holding on to that we don't need to hold on to. Yes, there are those in this world who may harm our bodies and even kill us, make us martyrs for the cause of Christ. We should not fear them. Instead, we should fear God. In Matthew chapter 10, Verse 28, it says, and fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Do not fear man. Do fear God. Do respect and revere God. Because your very soul is in his hands. Again, people in this world may do bring harm and even death to this physical body. They can do nothing to my eternal life. Because that's in the hands of God. And nobody can touch that. What is ultimately most important experiencing the pleasures and treasures of this earth, are spending eternity with God in heaven. Well, there's no comparison. If to you, you have to make a calculation to figure out which one is most important to you, that says a lot about your spiritual condition, and it's not good. Therefore, don't fear the people of this world. Instead, fear God. In Matthew's account of the verses that we've been reading here in Mark, not just our text for this Sunday and last, but the Sundays before that, he says in chapter 16, Matthew does, 16 verse 18, and I say also unto thee, this is what he adds into what we've already seen, and I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, And upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now he's making a play on words there with Peter and Petros, which that's the Greek for Peter, Petros. Petros, not as a name, means rock, okay? So he's referring to Peter, he's referring to this rock. I'll tell you the rock that he's talking about here, though, Some say it's the faith of Peter in what he has just expressed in his belief in the Lord, that the Lord is the Christ. I don't think it's the faith of Peter that he refers to when he says rock. I think he's referring to himself. The object, if you will, of the faith of Peter kind of tied in a little bit to something we had in Sunday school this morning. But it's upon, I believe, upon himself that he will build his church. And then he says something very interesting. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Against what? Against his church. Now, there have been many through the centuries who have assaulted Christ and his congregations. They may have inflicted harm. They may have even caused death of some believers. But they haven't prevailed. Christ still reigns. His churches still minister in this world. And they will continue to do so until he returns. I think, though, that there is even more to this verse. Notice it says, the gates of hell shall not prevail. Gates are a defensive measure, not an offensive one. You don't put gates on a fortress to assault the enemy. You do so to defend from the enemy. And so if you look at this, the gates of hell are meant to withstand the assault of Christ and his people. We kind of look at it the other way. We often feel like You know, we're the ones under attack and then we are and it can happen And certainly that's the purpose of ephesians chapter 6 and I want you to go ahead and turn there because that's where we're gonna We will finish this morning Ephesians chapter 6. We'll start reading at verse 10 But here's what I believe should be happening I believe christ through his churches has been assaulting the program and affairs of Satan in this world and Satan's realm in this world throughout time. Again, there are times when we must defend ourselves against the attacks of Satan, hence the need for the spiritual armor that we're about to read about. But our mentality, I think, should be one of assault. as directed by the Lord according to his purposes. Just how do we go on the offensive? It's through the proclamation of the gospel. Let's read now Ephesians chapter six. And as we read through this, understand he's giving us defensive measures, but I want you to see the purpose of why we defend ourselves. It's so that we can withstand the assaults of the enemy. but then so that we can do something. Let's see what that something is. Ephesians 6, verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his mind. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. wherefore taken to you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand." Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. By the way, all of these things are defensive, until you get to the sword. The sword is an offensive weapon. And what is our offensive weapon? The word of God. Verse 18, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching there into with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. and for me that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. So what is Paul saying there? He's telling them, put on this armor. And we focus on that, and well, we should. Those individual components of armor are very important to us. By the way, those are things we need to put on daily. We're talking about putting things to death daily. Well, at the same time, we need to put on this armor daily so we can withstand the assaults of the enemy, be it Satan, be it this world, be it our own flesh. He specifically mentions Satan, though, in this passage. We need to defend ourselves. For what purpose? So we can just stand there and take it? I don't think so. I think it's so we can then go on the offensive. And the offensive is the preaching and the teaching and the living of the word of God. That's how we push back. That's how we put this world in its place. That's how we put Satan in his place. That's how we go to war against the very gates of hell to push hell back. We proclaim the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you fear the world, and if you fear man, and if you fear Satan, you're not gonna be a very good proclaimer. therefore put those things to death and become a warrior for the Lord with the sharing of his gospel. How often have we said what this world needs is to hear the word of God? Oh, that's so very true. So why aren't we sharing it like we ought to be, like we should be? Let's share the gospel, not our man-made version of it, but as it's given to us in the scriptures, as we are led by the Spirit of God for the sake of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Share the gospel. Let's pray. Our kind and most gracious heavenly Father, again, Lord, we are so thankful to be in this place. Oh, Lord, I pray that you would take your word and that you would write it upon our hearts, Lord, that we might learn and put into practice the things that we should put to death. But also, Lord, help us to know that we should take up the sword of your truth, of the gospel, of the word of God, and that we should go on the offensive as well. Oh Lord, direct us in this, forgive us of our sins, cleanse us. Pick us up, oh Lord, so that we might serve you faithfully. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So I'll stand, what number?