Ben Brinkerhoff - Who Do You Say That I Am? - Class 4

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   And good morning again, brothers and sisters. I was a little bit lackluster, brothers and sisters, instead of you. A bit tired. Do we not get enough caffeine? OK, I’m going to say it one more time. You’re going to give me some enthusiasm. You’re going to give me some energy. Ready. Good morning, brothers and sisters.

2. 0:19

   Thank you very much. I need it. I need a little. I’m feeling a little bit tired myself, So maybe this study will be a little bit more subdued than the last one. But. But if you knew me, then you probably think that’s not going to be the case. So see what’s conveyed in this chapter, This section that we just read is at this moment, this confession by Peter is very meaningful to the Lord, but the question is why? It’s one of the questions I want to consider in studying this chapter.

3. 0:55

   Why was this moment, why was this confession so important to Jesus? But beyond that, what inside does that give me concerning faith confession and what Jesus considers as his true ecclesia? But that’s only one of the questions I have by this chapter. I have quite a few. For example, we read about a rock on which Jesus is going to build as ecclesia.

4. 1:19

   What’s the rock? We talk about Peter being given the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. What are the keys? What does it mean to bind and loosen? And does that give Peter some sort of power over what God does in heaven? Because you bind on earth and then it’s bound in heaven. So is heaven sort of like just doing what Peter wants in response to what Peter’s deciding, or is this something different than that? And what is the gate of Hades and why in particular does that have no power over the equation?

5. 1:54

   These are just some of the you, you sort of see like this section of Scripture, it’s full of these little riddles. And you look at this, you’re like, what is that about? And actually, it’s profound. What it, what it, what it is. The implications of that are profound.

6. 2:11

   So what’s clear is that Christian expositors and Catholic expositors do not agree about what this chapter is all about. And then implications are large about what it means. So these are the kind of questions that we’re going to look at over this next two studies, God willing. So this class is going to be about what these verses do mean. And our first class Monday morning will be about what these verses do not mean.

7. 2:44

   OK. So we’re going to kind of split it up that way. And in this class, I’m going to make 15 points in total, 15 exactly 15. So, so that you don’t get lost. And so I get lost because this is going to be, there’s going to be a lot of I can’t answer all these questions without a lot of information.

8. 3:01

   We can maybe all appreciate that. So I decided to split it up into 15 different little bite sized chunks. And when we get to each of those 15, I’ll pause, I’ll put a slide up so you can understand what it what it is I’m trying, I’m trying to say in that section. Hopefully that helps us from getting lost in just the amount of things that we’re going to be talking about this morning.

9. 3:27

   OK, occasionally, brothers and sisters, let’s just dive into this first. Occasionally the Gospels give us some insight into how the Lord Jesus Christ is feeling. Not often, by the way, not as much as you’d think. We not as much as we certainly want to know. Often we go to the Psalms to understand how the Lord Jesus Christ is feeling in different moments.

10. 3:48

    His Psalms are very illustrative of that. But occasionally in the Gospels we get a sense of how the Lord Jesus Christ is feeling. And one of the occasions that we see that is in Mark chapter 8, verses 11 to 12 where we read the Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking a sign from heaven to test him, and he sighed deeply in his heart.

11. 4:10

    Now the Greek there for side deeply is it conveys like an intense inward groaning, like a visceral emotional response to the question. Now pause for a moment is considered. When’s the last time you side like that? Now maybe, maybe it’s when someone gave you some really, really difficult news on the phone, maybe about someone that you love being, being sick or being taken to hospital. Or maybe it’s, it’s about a huge disappointment that you dealt with.

12. 4:42

    But we all know what it’s like to sigh very deeply be to be frustrated, to be agitated, to be almost at the breaking point. And you can kind of get a sense of the Lord Jesus Christ, his, his emotions in this moment. So he’s so frustrated. I would suggest to you because he is so deeply misunderstood.

13. 5:10

    So then he boards a ship having sighed deeply in his spirit and giving them then answer about the weather and and saying you’re not going to see any sign of the sign of the prophet Jonah. He boards a ship and then when he’s on the ship, guess what, he’s misunderstood again, right, because we read having eyes see ye not having ears hear ye not.

14. 5:31

    And do you not remember that the text goes on to say in verse 21 of Mark chapter 8, how is it that you don’t understand? Jesus says in verse 21, do do you get a sense of what I’m trying to do is, is peel back a layer of text? I want you to see if you understand what the Lord Jesus Christ is feeling and thinking in this time.

15. 5:57

    I I want you to see, you need to see that he’s frustrated. You need to see that this is difficult for him. Can you see that? Can you, can you, can you picture the Lord Jesus Christ in this moment? Is are we getting the sense in his exasperation here where he’s at? And, and that leads us to our first point is that Jesus feels the disappointment and pressure of being misunderstood. It’s not until you realize that that what comes next is going to be meaningful to you until you bring yourself into his position of thought, until you can see where he’s at, until you can understand the tension of, of his moment, that you can’t appreciate what comes after.

16. 6:44

    So I just want you to start by by putting yourself in that, in that position of understand, because Jesus is a man, understand him as a man and the disappointment and pressure of being consistently misunderstood now, but but that being true, and I think it is true. Here’s where things get a little bit confusing. And the confusing bit it is that although he’s deeply misunderstood, he chooses not to reveal himself either publicly or privately.

17. 7:17

    In fact, he will go out of his way to stop people from identifying him for who he is. Let me give you an example. When Jesus gives miracles very often after the even though the miracle, remember he had he healed the man who’s who’s deaf, right? What do you mean? He pulls him out of the crowd and puts him aside and he’s going to heal the man’s blind with you.

18. 7:38

    He takes him out of Beth Maceda and takes him out and just deals with them privately. And oftentimes when Jesus heals someone, he’ll say things like this. He’ll say, see that thou say nothing to any man or he’ll say things like he charged them that they should tell no man what was done. Do you see that what we’re being told consistently in the Gospels is that Jesus does not want anyone to reveal who he is. And remember when there’s like a deranged and, and, and men that are sick in the head and they and they identify, they know who Jesus is.

19. 8:14

    He says, I know who you are. And Jesus commands the unclean spirit that he would not reveal who he is. Do I? I need you to see that all Joe, Jesus is deeply frustrated by by by the faithlessness of men. And he’s deeply frustrated by his disciples saying, how do you not understand that he has been concealing who he is?

20. 8:38

    Do you appreciate that? Did ever notice that before? Now, does that feel like it’s a contradiction to you? On one side, I’m deeply frustrated people don’t know who I am. Other side, I am very interested in not revealing who I am. How could both those be true?

21. 8:57

    But they are true. In fact I can only find one example before this time where Jesus clearly identified who he was. One example and and he only does it in a one-on-one setting. No one else was there.

22. 9:26

    Does anyone know when that is that Jesus clearly reveals who he is in one occasion on A1, on one setting with no one else around. When is that right? It’s the woman. It’s the woman by the well in John Ford. That’s it. You find me another instance where he clearly Now sometimes people say I know who you are or they’ll call him the son of David, but Jesus never says and I am the son of David except with the woman by the well and only then it was one-on-one with a Gentile. That’s it.

23. 9:57

    That’s it. Now the the people come up to say I know you are but Andrew Grapp Peter says we found the Messiah, but Jesus will never confirm it. Do you see that? Do you ever notice that before he’ll do. He won’t confirm it except with this woman. Now that makes this woman in the well in John 4 an exceptional so we’re not going to study it, but I just want you when you go there in the reading to go.

24. 10:18

    That is an exceptional circumstance. Why is Jesus revealing to this woman who he is? Because he doesn’t do it anywhere else. OK, so this is our second point then Our second point is Jesus intentionally chooses to conceal his true identity and mission.

25. 10:37

    OK, so and he doesn’t, he doesn’t just do it with the public. He’s not telling his disciples who he is either because because the issue is in this chapter, he’ll, he’ll tell them, right? And that’s why it’s so shocking to them at the end of the chapter when he does tell them who he is and they’re going, no, they don’t want to hear it.

26. 10:57

    So Jesus has withheld it from the public. He’s also withheld it from his disciples. And I’m going to suggest to you that concealing who he was was actually a greater temptation than you think it was. He did conceal who he was. There’s the the scriptures, the Gospels, it’s unambiguous. He concealed who he was.

27. 11:17

    I’m just suggesting to you that that was a temptation. How do we know it’s a temptation? How we how do we know it’s difficult for Jesus to conceal who he was because of the second temptation of Matthew chapter 4 verse 6 where it says if you are the Son of God, right, which is the question, who is he? If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. Now, if I’ve interpreted Brother Wayne Rittmeyer correctly, he thinks that the pinnacle of the temple was on the southwestern corner of the temple where they would blow the shofar every day, which is why you can, this is Brother Rittmeyer’s drawing and that, and that’s the blowing of the of the shofar. And from there down to the street level is about 50 meters. So certainly if you threw yourself off this and there’s a 50m drop, it would, it would be pretty clear through the, through the spectacle of that kind of miracle, who you were. And, and we know that that Jesus was tempted to do it. If Jesus wasn’t tempted to do it, this, this temptation had no power with him.

28. 12:29

    But every one of the temptations in the wilderness had power with him. And we’re only told about 3 then this in particular, he wanted people to know who he was. So now it look, this is even getting more confusing. He’s frustrated that people don’t know who he is.

29. 12:52

    He he has intentionally concealed who he is and he’s tempted. He has a great desire for people to know who he is. And of course he responds in this instance by saying it is written. Do not put the Lord your God to the test. That’s how we resist the temptation. And the implication of this is what?

30. 13:21

    What’s the implication of? Do not put the Lord your God to the test? The implication is I’m going to put in God’s hands. Do you see that? His response to this temptation was I will put it in God’s hands. I will not put him to the test.

31. 13:40

    It will be God’s decision when He reveals who I am to who He wants to reveal it to. I will not do it. I will not put God to the test. I will not reveal myself with spiritual spectacle so that everyone knows who I am. Although I want people to know who I am, I’m desperate for people to know who I am. It’s a great temptation that people know who I am. I’m not going to put the Lord God to the test. OK, so, so point #3 then is Jesus wanted to be known and this was a real temptation for him. So I, I’m just kind of pointing out some things that are all the first three points should all stand in contradiction to one another.

32. 14:24

    I hope you see that. So I only point these three things out, these contradictions, because Jesus was living in this contradiction. So that you understand the significance of Matthew 16.

33. 14:40

    This is this is the tension that’s in the air as he walks the Caesarea Philippi, a place that is pretty significant in itself. And we’re going to touch on that a little bit in this class, but much more in the next class.

34. 14:55

    So Luke offers an important detail that shows the significance of this moment. Now, now what I’m going to show you a verses, one of the funniest verses in the Gospel, though it’s not meant to be funny.

35. 15:08

    Maybe if you just have American sense of humor, you find humor in things that are not humorous like Donald Trump, right? So you got to find humor in things that are not intended to be humorous, right? And this is a verse that is not intentionally humorous, but it’s a little bit funny. See, See, we’ve been focusing in Matthew and Mark because they have the fullest description of this little section of the Lord Jesus Christ of life. Now Luke mentions it very briefly, but Luke gives us a detail that neither Mark or Matthew give us about this time in Jesus life.

36. 15:41

    And it’s this before Jesus begins this discussion with Peter, what’s he doing? Well, Luke says now it happens as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him and he asked who do the crowd say that I am? So what happens is just before he asked this question to his disciples, he’s praying. Now, why is he praying?

37. 16:09

    Because this moment’s a big one. Now in Luke, you can go through all the examples of prayer in Luke. Every time Jesus is praying in Luke, something important is about to happen. OK, so it shows the the magnitude that Jesus was a man of prayer. And what does he use prayer do? He uses prayer to conform his will to his Father’s God. Not my will, but yours be done.

38. 16:32

    He prays so that that God would conform his will because he’s about to have a discussion which he knows is significant. And of course, this discussion over who he is is very, very tempting for the Lord. It was one of his temptations in the wilderness. He knows this is a significant moment. He does not want to put his own humanness into the moment and override God’s will.

39. 16:55

    So he’s praying for God to give him strength and, and, and what it says is he’s praying alone, but the disciples are with him. Now, no one’s laughing. That’s OK. Now you laugh, you ask. That was a bit of a courtesy laugh. That was so, so ever, ever been alone with people around you? Now, I don’t think that that is that’s he’s not saying that by mistake.

40. 17:26

    I mean, Luke, Luke’s not Luke’s not identifying a it is a contradiction. I’m alone and people are with me. But you have to understand that that is exactly Jesus. In this moment. You see, Jesus feels very alone, although people are around him. Do you see that? I’m just, I’m bringing you into this moment that Jesus is in. How is he feeling?

41. 17:52

    He sighs deeply within himself. He has been tempted. People are. He’s misunderstood. Everywhere he go he’s misunderstood. He desires to be known, but he will not reveal himself. He feels alone although people are around him.

42. 18:11

    That’s Jesus in this exact moment. And that’s my 4th point. Jesus was surrounded yet alone. OK, this is his. This is Jesus in this moment. He’s surrounded, yet he’s alone. And he’s using prayer to align himself with God’s will, which is what he does. He uses prayer to take his own will and surrender it to God’s will that God would take this moment and God would make from this moment what God wants him to do in that in that moment because he felt the temptation and the struggle with with revealing his identity to his disciples.

43. 18:53

    This moment is huge for the Lord Jesus Christ. So now, after years of quiet ministry, miraculous acts, misunderstood teachings, and mounting opposition, Jesus initiates the moment of truth. And he says, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they respond, well, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Now, what does that response mean? That means to the common man.

44. 19:35

    To the common man, Jesus is a worker of miracles like Elijah. Or he’s one of the prophets deeply unpopular with the political religious leaders like Jeremiah was. Or he’s a preacher of the Kingdom of God, like John was to his hometown in Matthew 1355. He’s a carpenter’s son. But one thing that seems to be common about all these views about Jesus, whether Elias or Jeremiah’s or one of the prophets, etcetera, is that he’s not the Messiah.

45. 20:13

    Everyone seems to agree on that. What he is, they don’t know, but they seem to know what he’s not. See, it’s so often that faith is in contradiction to popular knowledge. Because if you even think about this question, even on the simplest level of brothers, sisters, you ask who do the people of our age to the Lord Jesus Christ?

46. 20:42

    If I ask these young people, if I ask you the question, who I know, you’re terrified I will and I won’t, right? Right. I’m getting near to you and you’re getting a little bit concerned about that. If I ask you the question, who do people of our age say the Lord Jesus Christ is? One, I’m going to give you 4 categories and there’s many nuances of those categories.

47. 21:02

    Well, a Jew might say he’s a confused reformer. I know this. I’ve spoken to a Jew choose about this. I’ve asked them who do you think the Lord Jesus Christ is not exactly in those words and they said he was, He was a reformer who is confused and misunderstood. A reformer. That’s their view of Jesus, at least the the the ones I spoke with because I lived in Israel when I was about your age for a year. OK, if I’m an atheist, I think he’s a religious nut case, right?

48. 21:33

    I know that that’s that’s obviously a harsh way to think about the Lord Jesus Christ, but I think that’s an accurate version of what many atheists think. Well, what about an agnostic? An agnostic is someone who doesn’t know what they think Jesus is. They agnostic means without gnosis, without knowledge, I do not have knowledge. I’m not sure.

49. 21:54

    Well, many of them think he’s a man who tried to teach a deeply flawed world to love. That’s what agnostic might think. They don’t look at Jesus and and have animosity towards him. Often they can. They can see that he tried to teach the world to be loving, but that the world didn’t want that.

50. 22:12

    And and of course we have beyond those views, we have the views of most Christians and most Christians think he’s God himself Co equal with his Father in heaven. And and what I want to suggest to you and observe this point is that in Jesus day, the common man did not know who he was.

51. 22:32

    They had an opinion. He was well known and they thought they knew him. They labeled him, but they were wrong. Each one of the solutions of who Jesus was in his own day were wrong, but Jesus did not correct their misunderstanding. We have no record that there’s no one that comes to Jesus and says, I think you’re this.

52. 22:55

    And Jesus says no, you’re wrong. Let me tell you exactly who I am. He doesn’t do that. And I would just say that in our age, Jesus is deeply misunderstood still. Do you see that? Do you see that, young people? He is still misunderstood. Do you see the irony of this? Who knows who this man is?

53. 23:30

    So few know who this man is. Everyone thinks they know him, but so few know him. So he pivots to his disciples, right? This deeply, deeply misunderstood man who is frustrated, who’s surrendered himself in prayer and asked God to guide this very difficult discussion for him. He pivots to his disciples and he says to them, but who do you say that I am?

54. 24:13

    And if I pause and I ask you the question, who do you say that Jesus is? Do you see that there’s a confronting power in that discussion? If I go to you and I say, who is Jesus Christ?

55. 24:35

    There’s power in that question. I dare say that at a baptismal interview, whatever technical questions we’re asking you, on some level we are going to be asking you, who do you think this man is? You know, everyone in the world has to answer that question. No one can seem to get away from it. No matter who you are in the world, you’ve heard of this man. And at some level you have to decide in your heart you can’t. It’s it’s like an unavoidable question. How do you avoid this question?

56. 25:12

    Who is this man? Who is the Lord Jesus Christ and what people in his own time wanted is some sort of halfway house. Here’s the halfway house Jesus clearly important. He’s a miracle worker. He’s a prophet like John or, or, or you know, maybe he’s even come back from the dead like the John the Baptist resurrected from the dead. Maybe he maybe that’s who he is.

57. 25:56

    But the thing about the Lord Jesus Christ is this. He is either either he’s everything or he’s nothing. The thing is, he is either a savior or he is a man that needs to be saved. Now, I’m not talking about complicated ideas of the atonement. I know the Lord Jesus Christ need to be saved.

58. 26:23

    But what I’m saying is this. He is either a savior or he needs to be saved. He’s one of the other. John need to be saved. Jeremiah need to be saved. Elijah needed to be saved. The thing is what people want in young people, I reckon, to say that when I was your age, what I wanted was this. What I wanted was a halfway house. Do you understand what I mean by halfway house? Jesus is really important, but he’s not everything. Why?

59. 27:04

    What’s the implication of he’s everything? Then I better do something about that. Don’t you see that that’s can you see that in your heart? Can you see that you want him to be something? You would definitely say he’s not nothing, He’s something, but is he everything? Do you see the power of this question? If I was to ask you, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, does your heart give you a halfway house answer? Don’t condemn yourself if it does. We all have to be.

60. 27:47

    We have to all growing up into this thing. I’m just identifying that when I was your age, I had a halfway house answer. He was important. He just wasn’t everything. And that’s what the people of his own day wanted him to be. He was important. He was a prophet. God’s with him, but he’s not everything. He’s not the Saviour.

61. 28:13

    So our point #5 is this, people think they know who Jesus is, but do not really. Who Jesus is is the pivotal question even today. And at that moment in Jesus ministry, who knew who he was? Who will step forward?

62. 28:40

    Was he alone? And Peter does step forward. And Peter says you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And there it was faith.

63. 29:00

    Do you believe what Peter said there is true? Of course you do. I would just suggest that puts you, if you do, in pretty rare company because this statement brings together 3 ideas that are very rarely believed in combination. Those three ideas are this. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, anointed to save his people, because that’s what Christos means.

64. 29:30

    Secondly, there is a living God and Jesus is His Son and thus subordinate to Him. Tell me who believed that today out of the billions of people on this planet?

65. 29:51

    But you believe it. See what a statement that is? And that brings us to our sixth point. Even to this day, very few know and believe who Jesus really is.

66. 30:07

    And if you think you know who he is, it’s a privilege because there are very few, and it’s very easy to take that for granted. Here’s another question that seems obvious on the surface, but there might be more to it. Who is the living God? You know why they called Caesarea Popeye Caesarea? Because it was a city that had been dedicated to a Roman emperor.

67. 30:39

    You would have heard of them called Augustus. Now, this is a representation of Augustus’s temple that was built in Caesarea Philippi. It’s very difficult to know exactly how it looked, but they reckon that this is probably how the temple of Augustus and Caesarea Philippi looked. Right there it is. OK, that was a temple to Augustus erected in that city around the year 19 BCE by Herod the Great. So in fact, I’m going to give you a picture of Caesarea Philippi.

68. 31:14

    This is a great picture. You can find it on the Internet if you want to find it yourself, and it really gives you insight about this area of the world. This is Caesarea Philippi, during the time of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what you can see there is that’s the temple to Augustus,

69. 31:34

    that’s the temple of Zeus. That’s the grotto of Pan and the court of Pan. And before they called Caesarea Philippi, Caesarea Philippi, its name was Pannoneus. Now it was named after Pan because Pan was a God of sensuality. It was a God of human or animalistic instincts. For example, you might have heard the word panic, right? What’s panic?

70. 32:06

    It’s when your feelings inside are so overwhelming that they’re causing you to act in crazy ways. That’s named after the God Pan. Or how about pandemonium? That’s when whole crowds of people are feeling that way, right? And what’s what’s common in these words is that you are feeling your human instincts totally overwhelm you. So what is Pan, right?

71. 32:31

    Pan is a God of sensuality. Pan is a God of, of natural feelings, of, of raw senses. And there’s something common about Pan and Mount Augustus and about Zeus. And do you know what the common thing is with all of them?

72. 32:55

    They were dead. Augustus was dead. Pan never lived, neither did Zeus, neither would they have any life. And this is a, this is so, this is so worth unpacking. There’s so many, there’s so many insights here into Caesarea Philippi. I’m going to save that to the next study because I have a lot more to say about that. But for the moment, I just want to point out, Caesarea Philippi was a very significant place to acknowledge that Jesus was the son of the living God because there’s a lot of contrasting ideas about what that was in that place. But God lives, Jesus is his son, and his Son is the Messiah. Now, how did Peter know?

73. 33:47

    Maybe you think that’s a silly question. How did Peter know? Well, how did Peter know? How did Peter know that Jesus was the son of the living God?

74. 33:58

    Did Jesus tell him you think Jesus told him you’d find me the passage where did Jesus tell him that he was the son of the living God? Andrew thought it grabbed Peter, John one, but where did what did Jesus tell him?

75. 34:15

    And I think that’s the exact point because that’s the only way to understand this next verse, Matthew chapter 16, verse 17, which says blessed are you Simon Barjona for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. But my father, which is in heaven. What does he mean that flesh and blood has not revealed this to him. Simply this Peter did not reach the conclusion because Jesus talked him into it in any human way. That’s what Jesus saying, my flesh and blood, because I, Jesus, wanted to be known.

76. 34:53

    That was the second temptation in the wilderness. He wanted to be known. Jesus is saying I did not talk you into this. My flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but God did. God revealed it, flesh and blood, to simply represent the way that people come to conclusions through natural means, through logic, through cultural expectations, through personal experience.

77. 35:20

    None of those was enough. You could not understand who Jesus was simply by human logic. Jesus did not coerce belief. He did not manipulate belief. He did not need Peter to affirm his identity to validate his ego. If you read the Gospel of John, you know one thing for certain. Jesus knew who he was. Instead what Jesus does is he waits for his Father to reveal it.

78. 35:51

    And this is what gives Jesus so much joy that finally someone sees. Not because Jesus coerced it, not because Jesus manipulated it, not because Jesus flesh and blood demanded it, because God revealed it in his own time.

79. 36:09

    So our next point is simply this. Jesus waited on God to reveal who he was in God’s time and doing that he denied his own desires.

80. 36:21

    And I reflected on this a little bit because when I’m teaching first principles to young people in Christchurch and other places, and I, and I’m trying to teach you, Jesus is, I don’t do it this way. I do it with flesh and blood, right? I, I, I give them the answer, you know, and then I say, and you never give someone an answer, then ask the question and just want them to repeat back to you what you said, right?

81. 36:44

    And if they do, you give them a lolly. That’s a little bit how I try to teach people who Jesus is, right? I mean, what if I did something on the lines of here you read the Gospel of Matthew and then come back to me and tell me who you think Jesus is.

82. 37:05

    Because on some level, you don’t get to have a faith that you get to keep because someone else gave it to you. Maybe that’s going to work for a little bit of time, but that’s never going to survive trial. And people in this room know what trial is about. They’ve been through trials.

83. 37:27

    Some of you’ve been through horrific trials. Much more difficult than I’ve experienced myself, and I’ve had my fair share of trials. You do not get to keep your faith because someone else’s flesh and blood gave it to you.

84. 37:41

    You only get to keep your faith because it’s yours. And if it’s yours, it’s yours because it’s been revealed to you by God, not because someone coerced you, not because someone manipulated you, because it becomes your own.

85. 37:58

    And the word revealed itself is made-up of of 2 words. And I think you know these words Apocalypto, apocalypse. Jesus saying flesh and blood is not apocalypse. This to you has not revealed. You probably know the word apocalypse by it’s more common English translation of revelation, right? And what does revelation really mean? Well, oppo means away and calypto means to cover or to veil or to conceal, right?

86. 38:28

    So it’s taking away something that’s covered or veiled or concealed. OK. The verb for learning by instruction in Greek is manthano. So if I learn by instruction, which is kind of what we do mainly in classrooms, we learn by instruction. That’s not this word revealed. Or if I discover something by reason, that’s ganosco in Greek.

87. 38:59

    And if I’m taught something with facts, that’s didasco in Greek. Now there’s lots of room for manthano or ganosco or didasco. Those are the ways that we teach. We bring kids into Sunday school and we didasco them and we genosco them and we went thano them, right? And and that’s what we do. And all those things have value and they’re actually used in positive ways in scripture and in negative ways. But apocalypse does not mean those things. Apocalypse is something that cannot be perceived with human effort.

88. 39:33

    God has to act to reveal it. In other words, Peter didn’t reason his way into understanding who Jesus is. What this word implies is that God pushed back the veil.

89. 39:48

    OK, now if I look at this word veil, this version of it, I can find that another place in the New Testament. One of them is in First Corinthians chapter 2 verses 9 and 10 where it says interestingly I has not seen nor ear heard. You see, our eyes are going to let us down. We’ve been, that’s what we covered in our last subject, and our ears are going to let us down. The things which God has prepared for them that love him, but God has revealed it has revealed them unto us by spirit. So spiritual truth is not inaccessible, Brothers, sisters and young people.

90. 40:31

    It’s not inaccessible because it’s complicated. It’s just that there’s veils over your eyes. See, the Greeks wanted wisdom, and the wisdom veiled their eyes. The Jews wanted signs, and the signs veiled their ability to see the truth. In front of them. There’s a veil and when you talk to someone about the truth and, and I’m sure a lot of you had experiences of talking to people about the truth, people that when they have a different faith or a be of a different persuasion, are you talking to them about the truth?

91. 41:08

    What you can see is you can see the veils over their eyes, can’t you? You can see that they’re veiled. They can’t see. And what has to happen is God’s got to push that veil away. And you and what you realize when you start teaching people the truth is that you can’t push that veil away. You can’t, you can’t take that veil, the scales over their eyes.

92. 41:27

    You can’t take those things away. And you might give the same lesson to 1 and they get in, they grab hold of it and the same lesson to another and they don’t. And you’re like, well, I’m, I’m the same teacher teaching the same lesson. And why is it this person gets it and that person doesn’t.

93. 41:40

    And God’s revealed it to that one. He’s taking away the bail. And this one, the bail’s still there. They cannot see it. And you’re thinking, what, what do I have to do? And you can’t do anything about it. You can’t take away the veil. God has to take away the veil. And you ask yourself the question, well, how do you take away veils? Well, we’re told this in Second Corinthians chapter 3, verses 15 and 16.

94. 42:04

    But even to this day, when Moses is read, the bail is upon their heart. This is true of Jews. Try to teach them about Christ and the bail is over their heart. So what do you do? How do you take the bail away? Well, I have no idea, because nevertheless, when it the heart, when the heart shall turn to the Lord, the bail should be taken away.

95. 42:31

    And only you can decide when the heart is turned to the Lord. You can only answer for yourself when you care so deeply about this man that compels you to follow him where he goes. You want to go where he stops. You want to stop what he cares for. You want to know more about why?

96. 42:59

    Because your heart has turned to him. Because God has taken away a veil. And the truth is, we all have veils. Peter had several veils and this one was removed.

97. 43:17

    But in this chapter we’re going to see another veil still there and young people, you think to yourself, what veils do I still have over my heart? You know that word turned there. This word is often translated converted. In fact it’s translated converted here about Peter, Jesus says about Peter in Luke 22.

98. 43:48

    I prayed for you, Peter, that your faith failed not but when you are turned, when you are converted, strengthen your brethren, and that’s when. So clearly, whatever veils were pushed aside in Matthew 16, guess what? He still had more veils. Now the question is, what’s veiling your heart? What veils are over your heart?

99. 44:26

    What is stopping you from following this man for knowing who he is? For taking Jesus out of the halfway house and accepting who he truly is? What is in the way? And I don’t know how to take that thing away. But whatever it is, if you identify it, you can ask God to remove it.

100. 45:05

     And when it is, there’s going to be a blessing. So here’s our ninth point. God must reveal to us who Jesus is. We all have fails that obscure this truth. We must pray God to help convert us that our faith fail not and that we can be of service.

101. 45:29

     And what that leads us is to our next question. If that’s true, then what’s the rock on which we must build our ecclesia? We’re told in Matthew chapter 16, verse 18. And I say into thee that thou art Peter. Upon this rock I will build my ecclesia, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

102. 45:57

     So my questions, several questions arise here. A few. What’s the rock on which he’s going to build the ecclesia? Why will he build his ecclesia on this rock? What are the gates of Hades? Why won’t they prevail against the ecclesia? So let’s start by just looking at some of the words here, because they matter. OK, So this word for Peter, this is this word petros. And this word rock is the word Petra. Now these are different words, right? So a petros is a piece of rock or stone. It’s like a single stone.

103. 46:34

     It’s like a movable stone. I, I could have gone outside and grabbed 1. And I, I, if I put a stone here on the ground and I could sort of kick it and move it, right? And then that would be a petros. I could, I could pick it up and stack it on something. I could pick it up and throw it aside. It’s a movable stone.

104. 46:53

     It’s a, it’s a piece of stone that it can have two purposes of Petros. It can get in your way and therefore you Chuck it aside. Or you can, you can use it to build on something and make it useful. But either way, that’s what the petros is. Now that’s very different than a Petra.

105. 47:10

     A Petra has a rock or a Cliff or a projecting rock. It’s a mother rock. It’s a huge mass, a solid formation. It’s fixed. It’s enduring, it’s immovable. So let me take you to a picture of the, of this cave. This that, that, that they call the gates of hell, right? And this there it is.

106. 47:31

     And if you take a trip to Caesarea Philippi, you can climb on this area. And if you do, you can see all the ruins. And that’s The Cave there, right? And that is a Petros and that is a Petra. Do you see that they’re different? So what is the Petra on which Christ is going to build as Ecclesia?

107. 48:10

     I put forward to you that Petra is Christ himself, and not only him, but the belief that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God. If we build and build on this and if we stumble, we stumble on this and there’s never been a question maybe as dichotomous in the in the history of humanity, this very question. Now that Jesus is himself the rock is suggested by many New Testament passages and I’ll just show you 3. For example, in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 20. And ye are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. You might want to write that as a cross reference here in Matthew chapter 16.

108. 48:59

     But that’s not the only verse you might want to write as a cross reference. In fact, he’s probably in your margin already. Acts chapter 4, verses 11 and 12. This is a stone which is set at not of you builders, which has become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other.

109. 49:14

     If you build on any other stone than this one, there’s no salvation. The only rock on which you can build and have salvation is this rock or first Peter chapter 2 verse 7 unto you, therefore, which believe he is precious, but under them which be disobedient. The stone which the builders disallowed the same as the maid, the head of the corner. See the the the New Testament is that is that pains to establish to us that Jesus is this rock.

110. 49:43

     And so our 10th point is simply this the rock is Christ. But we turn to first Peter chapter 2 verses 4 to 8 that we just quoted from in small part. I believe we see Peter commenting on Matthew 16. So let’s take a deeper dive on that first Peter chapter 2 verses 4 to 8.

111. 50:08

     We read there so long passage, so bear with me. To whom coming as into a living stone disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye are also lively stones. So what I want to see here is I want to see the there’s two different types of stones in this passage.

112. 50:29

     Everyone follow that there’s a living stone disallowed of men, and ye also are lively stones. Do we see that there’s two different stone, two different types of stones in this passage?

113. 50:46

     Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zine a chief cornerstone elect precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believeth, He is precious, but to him which is disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same as made the head of the cornerstone is stumbling a rock of a fence. Even of them which stumble at the word being disobedient, where unto they were appointed.

114. 51:15

     So what’s this first saying? Really? It’s saying that Jesus is a living stone. He’s chosen. He’s the precious cornerstone which men rejected. And along with Jesus we are stones. But we’re a different type of stone. He’s the foundation stone, He’s the Petra. He and and we are the living building stones. We’re built on the foundation to create a house for God, where God lives and where God receives acceptable sacrifices. And of course, this, this leads to the question, what is a cornerstone?

115. 51:45

     Now, if you knew anything about me, and I don’t know that you know much about me, you know that I know nothing at all whatsoever about building. I’m useless. I mean, if you want, if you have a question about financial advice, I might be your man, but not about building. I know nothing about building. So I have to look.

116. 52:01

     Well, what is a chief cornerstone? What is that all about? Right. So how do we understand what a cornerstone is? What it does? OK, so a cornerstone is the first stone laid in creating a foundation for a building. And being the first stone, it needs 2 essential qualities, right? And the first quality is that its sides must be perfectly angled.

117. 52:25

     Because if its sides are not perfectly angled, the whole building will take a shape which is structurally unsound. So if the if the edges must be straight up and down, the top of it must be totally flat, it must be a perfect stone in, in, in, in every regard, right? So if the cornerstone’s not perfect and level, the building won’t be square.

118. 52:51

     So in ancient times, they used instruments, right, in order to ensure that the stone was level. One of those instruments is something looks like this. This is a Plumb line and this is a perfect 90° angle. So by by putting that perfect 90° angle on a stone, you measure that the gravity pulls that Plumb line straight down. And what you’re looking for is, is there any angle such this, this, this cornerstone is going to lead the building to not being not being squared.

119. 53:23

     So a lot of care was taken in ancient times to ensure the foundation was a perfect shape. So what’s the next quality of a cornerstone that you need? Well, the next quality is it needs to bear exceptional weight.

120. 53:38

     The foundation stone must be strong and durable. So when the builders reject a stone, they’re essentially saying that isn’t straight enough or it’s not strong enough for the building in question. And of course, you would reject a stone because you don’t you don’t put a cornerstone in a building going. I hope this is good enough.

121. 53:56

     This one, right? Unless it’s perfect, you reject it. It has to be perfect. So you’d see a lot of stones out there that were they’re just not quite good enough for the building, we’re going to reject that stone. So it would be common for a builder to start to start making a building and go, that cornerstone’s not good enough. We cannot begin the building with that stone. We’re going to reject that stone. I need another one.

122. 54:21

     I need one whose lines are perfectly straight. I need one that can bear exceptional weight. There can’t even cracks or fissures in the in the stone because everything is going to be built on that stone.

123. 54:38

     So of course, the Jews in the midst of building the Second Temple did reject Christ. Christ wasn’t straight enough. How so? Well, he didn’t keep their traditions. He wasn’t strong enough. Why? He lacked physical beauty. He was a Nazarite, essentially. The Jesus wasn’t what they want him to be, so they rejected him. So he became a stone over which they stumbled time and time again.

124. 55:06

     So what does it mean if Jesus is a cornerstone for us? It means that his lines are straight, without question. What that means is that when Jesus says something is right,

125. 55:21

     it’s right. I, I, I just want to impress that upon you. When Jesus says something is right, it is right. It’s not for us to evaluate it and say, well, my interpretation or I’m going to change it to make it more acceptable to me. I’m going to change the cornerstone so that the Petros is more comfortable.

126. 55:53

     When Jesus says something is the way it is, it is that way because his lines are perfectly straight. It means that Jesus can bear exceptional weight.

127. 56:12

     It means that he’s the Son of God. We do not conform him to our shape. It’s not like we’re we’re, we’re a lumpy rock with lots of imperfections in it. And we think, Gee, how can I, how can I just chisel out the cornerstone so that the lumpy rock, it sits more comfortably? We had to be conformed to him.

128. 56:39

     If our angles don’t match his, ours need to change. We don’t change him if we build, we build on him. We conform ourselves to his shape. Romans chapter 8, verse 29 says for those he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. And what I want you to do is get this picture.

129. 57:07

     And the picture is that I see a Petros on the ground. It’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s a, it’s a rock. It’s, it’s an imperfect rock because it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s fallen from the mother rock and it’s just sitting on the ground. I think myself, I want to build with this rock. I want to make this rock useful.

130. 57:24

     So what am I going to do? Well, my cornerstone is sitting over there. My cornerstone’s perfect. So what do I got to do with this rock?

131. 57:33

     I’ve got to chisel it to make its lines match the cornerstone. I don’t take the rock and go. It’s not really perfect, but what I can do is I can change the cornerstone so this rock fits. You see, there’s two different kinds of stones. There’s a Petra and there’s a Petros. They’re not the same.

132. 57:59

     You don’t treat them the same. And So what do I mean by that? I mean. I mean that for us to be God’s children, we got to confess that this man is God’s child. And in doing that we change to be like him.

133. 58:26

     And it’s hard. Actually, I think that’s hard. I think getting chiseled is hard. Ever felt a bit chiseled? And I don’t, I don’t know how to take a heart that’s full of imperfections and make it more like the Lord. But I know a prayer you can say

134. 58:51

     and and maybe you’re at bed at night and you know, your mind’s going all sorts of funny places. Does anyone’s head go funny places at night on bed? Right. Just me and Caleb. All right, cool.

135. 59:05

     And because my mom, I have a busy mind that probably doesn’t surprise you very much. I have a busy mind, so. So maybe you want to meditate on something while you’re in bed. Here’s 1:00. What if you said on your bed as your mind is busy going also to different directions. I believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. What if you said that and then you say it again? I believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

136. 59:39

     I believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. I believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. What if you meditated on that? What if you got that message so deep down in your heart? What would that change?

137. 1:00:00

     So our next point is simply this. As living stones, we’re conformed to and then built on the foundation stone. So let’s talk about what is built on the rock. What’s built on the rock, we’re told, is the ecclesia. On this Petra, I’ll build my ecclesia, and the gates of Haiti shall not prevail against it.

138. 1:00:25

     Now you might want to write, and I know it says in the King James Version it says church. You might want to cross out Church and write Ecclesia because this is the first use of the word ecclesia in the entire New Testament.

139. 1:00:43

     And the word ecclesia is made-up. What happened there? Let’s put you back. All right? I was told this might happen. All right, well, I’m going to let Dan you deal with that and I’m going to move on because my slides aren’t very good anyways. You guys know that the word ecclesia is made-up of 2 words, right?

140. 1:01:24

     The word EC means out of and the word Cresia means a call. So we think of a church as a building. Now calling ourselves a church would be like the 1st century believers calling themselves a synagogue, right? Jesus is not creating. Now this is the important thing. Jesus is not creating a man made building.

141. 1:01:54

     The whole point is he’s not building something man made. This is exactly Peter’s point in first period chapter 2. You are being built up as a living stones. We’re not building a building. We are living stones. You know what is it that the world, let’s say the world, destroyed every Christadelphian hall in the world.

142. 1:02:17

     They wouldn’t destroy us, would they? We are not a building. It does not matter that we do not have property. We will meet in alleys, we will meet in homes, we will meet in hired halls. It does not matter. We are not tied to property. The ecclesia is not property. The ecclesia is not something man made. We are a spiritual house made from living stones. If you build a stone onto a cornerstone, it’s useful. Now.

143. 1:02:58

     It’s not that a petros is intrinsically useful, it’s useful because it’s part of something larger than itself. If you take a Petro, if you take, if you take a brick or a stone built on a house and you throw it to the ground, it’s, it’s now useless. The stone is not useful because it’s useful in and of itself. It’s useful because you put it on a foundation and it becomes a building.

144. 1:03:24

     It’s not intrinsically useful. All right, so there and then. OK, sorry for the interruption. We’re not in ecclesia because we because we have buildings. We’re ecclesia because we’re built on Christ. It’s because brothers, sisters, it’s because we know a unique truth about the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re in an ecclesia because we know and believe that this man is the son of the living God.

145. 1:04:39

     And because of that, we are built into a building that has not, that’s not made of material things. It’s a spiritual building, you see. You know Augustus Caesar, he built a vast empire and it’s destroyed. Our Ecclesia rejects man made monuments. We reject temples. We have no temples. The Ecclesia rejects man made religion. It rejects Pagan understandings of things like God and pain that have been rejected long ago.

146. 1:05:21

     It rejects man made ideas about God. Those things are dead, those things can be burned, those things can be consumed and those things can be destroyed. The true ecclesia is called out to believe the truth about Jesus and His Kingdom and reject man made objects that will be destroyed and burned. So in our last few moments, I want to consider the much debated words of Matthew 16, verse 18 and what they actually mean.

147. 1:05:57

     So Matthew chapter 16, verse 19 says this. And I will give unto thee, to thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now it’s tempting to comment on what these words don’t mean, but we’ll save that for our next class. I want to stop and ask the question, what would the disciples who have heard, who heard this, what would they have understood Jesus to mean here?

148. 1:06:25

     So we got to take it piece by piece. First, the keys. What are keys used for? Well, keys unlock things. They grant access. So when Jesus giving Peter the keys to the Kingdom, he’s saying that Peter is being given the responsibility to open the door of the Kingdom based on the faithful statement that he just uttered. Now, how do we know that this is what Jesus understands when he uses the word key?

149. 1:06:49

     How do we know that Jesus is using the word key about understanding things, about understanding the kind of things that Peter had just said about who Jesus really was? Because Jesus is going to use the word key himself in Luke Chapter 11 verse 52, which is a good cross reference to have in your margin if you haven’t already, next to this verse where he says, why won’t you lawyers for you’ve taken away the key of knowledge. So the key is knowledge.

150. 1:07:14

     What is knowledge do it unlocks things and and the problem with the lawyers is that you entered not in yourselves and you’re keeping keeping them that were entering hindered. So so having knowledge and refusing to pass it on or passing on the wrong knowledge is refusing to open a door so that people can come through. It’s hindering them.

151. 1:07:37

     So this is how Jesus understood and understands what a key is. And in Acts chapter 2, what happens is that Peter stands up the day of Pentecost and he preaches the gospel for the first time and he gives them knowledge about Jesus, about his death and resurrection, and about the hope of the Kingdom of God. It says there in in Acts chapter 2 verse 36. Therefore, let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God have made that same Jesus whom you crucified, both the Lord and Christ.

152. 1:08:07

     And thousands of people respond and repent and are baptized. And Jesus, excuse me, Peter has just unlocked the Kingdom for them. And then in Acts 10, Peter uses the keys again, this time for the Gentiles. He goes to Cornelius and he preaches the gospel and suddenly the doors open for people that aren’t Jews to come into the Kingdom. So when Jesus says Peter will have the keys, disciples would understand that if Peter has been given the responsibility to open the way for others to have access to the Kingdom through the gospel message, through the knowledge of the gospel message based on that same faithful confession. This is how John Thomas puts it in Elpis Israel. He says if a reader peruse the second chapter of Acts, he learned there how Peter used one of the keys of the Kingdom given to him by its king.

153. 1:08:55

     On that occasion, I say he used one of the keys. He revealed the mystery of the gospel of God’s Kingdom to the Jews. So what’s the point there? The point there is that the keys represent knowledge of the gospel and the authority to proclaim it. And that’s what Jesus was granting. But what about binding and lucing?

154. 1:09:21

     Well, binding and lucing was actually a common phrase in Jewish culture and had to do with making decisions about what was allowed or not allowed. So things that are bound are forbidden and things that are loose are permitted. So what happened is the Jewish rabbis would go look at the scriptures and they’d they’d look at the law of Moses.

155. 1:09:44

     And if I’m a rabbi and, and I have disciples around me and maybe they’re even sitting at my feet and I’m discussing with them a passage from the from the law. And I would look at that passage and I would either bind them to obey certain interpretations of that. So let me take an example. Let’s say that that I look at the at the passage that says you shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk. Now I might then interpret that and say, not only are you not to show cruelty to animals, but I bind you to never eat milk and meat together because you can never tell when what’s the milk from the mother or from the kid.

156. 1:10:26

     Now what I’ve done is that’s very that’s my own interpretation, of course, but I’m binding my disciples that they have to follow that. And another rabbi might come and say, well, that’s not necessary at all. It means this. And so I’m loosening my disciples from following the interpretations of that one. So this is now you will know this because in Matthew chapter 23, and I think verse 4, Jesus says to about to the Pharisees, you bind burdens grievous to be born.

157. 1:10:58

     Remember that passage, You bind burdens grievous to be born. And that’s the idea you look at the law of Moses, you interpret it more stringently than God even intended. And on that basis, you, you take your interpretations and you bind them on your disciples. So they have to follow your interpretation and of course that makes you very important.

158. 1:11:21

     And so you bind these burdens grievous to be born. So what? What exactly does that mean in terms of Jesus saying what you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, What you loosen earth shall be loosed in heaven. Well, first of all, Ettersheim in his Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, book 2 chapter 5 says the same.

159. 1:11:40

     To bind and loose was simply to forbid or to permit, and in the rabbinic age usage of the words, the binding or the loosening all had had always ultimate reference to the observance or non observance of certain laws, traditions or customs as interpreted by the authority of the rabbi’s.

160. 1:12:01

     So what’s Jesus saying? He’s giving to Peter, and by extension in Matthew 18, all the apostles. He’s giving them the authority to make decisions, to forbid and permit in how they interpret Scripture, but he’s not giving it to them this power in a vacuum. He’s not saying they can just make things up as they go.

161. 1:12:21

     He’s saying that authority derives and accords with heaven. It’s about applying the principles of the gospel in real life situations. Well, let me give you an example. Let’s look at the example of Acts 15. What happened in Acts 15? We have the the issue of circumcision and does every believer in Christ have to be circumcised?

162. 1:12:39

     And what the, what the, what they, the apostles figured out in Acts chapter 15 was that, that they loosed the requirement of circumcision for the Gentiles, but they bound the, the Gentiles to not commit fornication or, or eat things strangled or things with blood, right? So, or eat meat offered to idols. So they bound them with certain things and they loosed other things. Now they didn’t do that in contradiction to heaven. They did that in accord with heaven. That was already heaven’s decision and the disciples were applying it now on earth.

163. 1:13:16

     So .14 is simply this binding and loosening refers the apostles authority to make binding decisions about the application of the gospel guided by the Holy Spirit and aligned with God’s will. I have a lot more to say about that, but we’ll leave that to the next class. So if you’re a disciple listening to Jesus say this, what you’re hearing is that Peter’s being given authority to preach the gospel and make decisions about how to interpret Scripture that accords with heaven.

164. 1:13:49

     And that’s a big responsibility. It’s not about personal power or control. It’s about being a faithful steward to the message that Jesus has entrusted to them. And it’s not just Peter. The authority in Matthew 18, verse 18 is given to all the apostles.

165. 1:14:07

     Well, how does that help us today? Well, firstly, the keys to the Kingdom are still here because the keys to the Kingdom are the gospel message. And every time we open our Bibles and every time we share the truth about God’s Kingdom and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we’re using the keys because we’re showing someone who’s outside of salvation the way to salvation.

166. 1:14:29

     So the keys are still here. And secondly, the idea of binding and loosening reminds us that the apostles did have the authority to interpret Scripture. So if we look in the New Testament young people and we see the apostles interpret Scripture, somehow they’re doing that with heaven’s authority. And so their interpretations are still binding on us today. We are still bound by how the apostles interpreted the Scriptures.

167. 1:14:59

     So we want to understand, how do I understand the Scriptures? Look at the New Testament well, how do they understand them? And if they bind us to certain responsibilities, whether they be moral laws or they be cultural laws, we are still bound by those things today. So .15 is this. This is our last point. We have the key to unlock the truth of Jesus identity and the responsibility to live by what the apostles have taught, helping others to do the same.

168. 1:15:34

     But once the keys were used to open the doors, the doors remained open. See, it wasn’t for Peter to open the door and then shut the door or open the door. Then that’s what the Catholics think. He can open or shut it, Open or shut it, open or shut it. See what Peter does. He opened and they stayed open.

169. 1:15:55

     This is what John Thomas says in Elpis Israel, Part 1, chapter 3. When he had accomplished this work with the Gentiles through Cornelius, Peter no longer retained the power of the keys. They were transferred to the multitude of believing Jews and Gentiles. The keys became the common property of all believers. So Jesus was giving the apostles the authority to lay the foundation of the ecclesia, but the work they started now continues.

170. 1:16:27

     What I’m saying to you is this, brothers and sisters, we have the keys. We’ve been entrusted with the message, the message that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. It’s only on that basis that God builds his ecclesia. And it’s our job, with heaven’s help, to continue building that ecclesia where God can dwell, using the keys to unlock the way of salvation to others.

171. 1:16:59

     And it’s a reminder to stay faithful to what the apostles have done in interpreting the law and to share that with others around us. And that’s the accretation. Take the keys, open the door and help others to find the way to the Kingdom. And I’m a little bit over, so I’ll stop there. Thank you.