Chapter & Verse

The Heart of the Bible—The Book of Psalms · Pastor Adam Wood · Psalm 49 · November 12, 2025

Transcript:
Alright, Psalm 49 tonight, we are going to, let's just read the Psalm to begin. Interesting Psalm, different. It's so interesting when you read through the Psalms methodically like we've been doing, what you find is there's a lot of things that repeat. But then you also come across some Psalms like we see tonight that are nothing like the rest of the Psalms. They kind of stand alone. The Psalm tonight, Psalm 49, is more, if I were to just read it, you would think it's refer, you would think this Psalm would be found in the book of Ecclesiastes. Because it's nothing like the other Psalms in its content. And it is a Psalm, verse four mentions that the Psalm is a dark saying upon the harp. So this was written to music originally. But anyhow, it's more like the book of Ecclesiastes. So Psalm 49, verse number one, the subtitle says, To the chief musician, a Psalm for the sons of Korah. Hear this, all ye people, give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor, together. My mouth shall speak of wisdom and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding. I will incline mine ear to a parable. I will open my dark saying upon the harp. Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about? They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him. For the redemption of their soul is precious and it ceases forever. That he should still live forever and not see corruption. For he seeth that wise men die. Likewise, the fool and the brutish person perish and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue forever and their dwelling places to all generations. They call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless, man being in honor, abideth not. He is like the beasts that perish. This their way is their folly. Yet their posterity approve their sayings. Like sheep they are laid in the grave. Death shall feed on them. And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. And their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave. For he shall receive me. Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased. For when he dyeth, he shall carry nothing away. His glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lived, he blessed his soul and men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself. He shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see light. Man that is in honor and understandeth not, he is like the beasts that perish. Let's pray. Lord as we come to your word again, thank you first of all for your word and the truths that are herein that set us aright, that give us a right perspective, a right worldview, a right understanding of this life, this temporal life. Thank you for this song. Lord let us profit from it tonight by your help, by your spirit, by your instruction, because we look to you Lord in Jesus' name, amen. So as I said, this psalm is as I've read it, you probably noticed it sounds more like Ecclesiastes than it does the Psalms, right? And notice it is a psalm that unlike many of the psalms that have a very Jewish, very Hebrew flavor, you know, a lot of covenant language regarding the Jewish people, this is not that way. In fact, it is directly addressed to everyone. It says, hear this all ye people, give ear all ye inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together. Now that's gonna be important, especially the rich and poor, low and high, because of what's in the psalm. So this is a psalm that is universal. In other words, the truths in it are universal for every person. The struggle that you see in this psalm, the warning is true of us, is true of every person living. The cautions that the Lord gives us are universal. So we come down to verse number five, which is where the real meat of the psalm begins. Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about? Now one of the things that drives a lot of what you see in this psalm, one of the themes in the psalm is repeated over and over and over. I've been studying in preparation for the first Bible Institute class, which is going to be how to study the Bible. And as I've been studying, one of the things I've noticed is one of the principles of studying the Bible is to look for things that repeat. And one thing that repeats in this is the mention of wealth, the mention of money. And it's over and over, four or five times in the psalm. In fact, this is the theme of the psalm, really it's the primary theme of the psalm. And one of the reasons that people concentrate so much on wealth and on how much money they have and where it's going and how they spend it and what they're gonna do with it, one of the reasons they concentrate so much on it, especially as they get older, is the fear of evil. In other words, the unknown, what might happen, right? As you get older, that becomes more of a significant question, because you know that, especially when you go into the age of retirement, you know that that's a fixed amount, unless you're maybe really, really well invested, but even that's not really sure at all. But when you see that amount dwindling year by year, that can cause a little bit of anxiety, can it not, when you don't know what kind of evil might be around the corner. And people really are bothered by this. They really are, people are really bothered by this. Younger people don't think about that, because we have, those of us who still have the ability to work and things like that, we work and we think, well, we'll just get a job and we'll just work it off, but when you get to a certain stage, that's not as easy as it used to be. It's a real concern. What are we gonna do when fear strikes in the days of evil? Look at verse six. They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches. Now here's the problem with money. The problem with money and wealth, now let me say this to start with, and we'll see a scripture verse that'll prove my point. Having money and having wealth and having material possessions is not a sin. The Bible does not describe it as a sin. Now you can go to a few verses, which we've already covered in Matthew, and you can see verses where there's a lot of warnings attached to it and for good reason. There's warnings attached to it for good reason. And sometimes people have taken those warnings and have kind of taken them a bit further than the scripture allows and have pushed for, and I'm talking about over the years now, over the centuries, have pushed for a kind of Christian asceticism, a kind of Christian poverty that the Lord enjoins. He tells us to be that way. And a lot of times when we look at the Lord Jesus and we see, well Jesus did not, he didn't have a place to lay his head, right? The foxes have holes and that kind of thing. And we take that, but the Lord did not command that of us. He did that as an example to us, right? And really it was more of an example of his debasing of himself, leaving the glory that we talked about on Sunday and coming down to earth where he had all things in his possession to where he has nothing, right? That's indicative of his humility, right? But the Lord never says, he never tells us in proper context to live in poverty. He doesn't, now there are verses that say, sell all thou hast and give to the poor and take up your cross and follow me, but in the proper context he's speaking to a rich man. So, but those are the kinds of verses people take and they kind of extrapolate out as a general command when that's not what the Lord does at all. But there, that nevertheless, there is a real warnin...

The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 17:14–21 · November 9, 2025

Transcript:
All right, we're gonna be back in Matthew chapter number 17. And this evening, we're gonna look at verse number 14. We're also gonna be looking at Mark. So if you wanna get Mark chapter nine, we'll go back and forth a little bit because of course this portion of scripture has parallel passages in Mark and Luke in particular. So let's read 14 through verse 21. Matthew 17, 14 through 21. The Bible says this, and when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man kneeling down to him and saying, Lord have mercy on my son, for he is lunatic and sore vexed. For oft times he falleth into the fire and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil and he departed out of him. And the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, because of your unbelief. For verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove. And nothing shall be impossible unto you. How be it, this kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting. Let's pray together. Lord, thank you again for the chance to meet together with your people at our church meeting. Thank you for those that have come out, those listening in as well who can't be among us today. We pray for your grace to be upon them who are suffering ailments and are just having affliction right now. Give them grace, give them patience. And Lord, give them healing, if that be your will to do. Lord, we look to you. Even as we study the word, we acknowledge that without you we can do nothing, not even understand and certainly not benefit from your word. Lord, we need your spirit to teach us individually, personally in our heart for our particular situation. It might be Lord that we need these words of scripture, not for right at this moment, but for later for something that might come up. Lord, but help us and grow our faith as we look at these things tonight. We just acknowledge our need of your help. Lord, I need your help. So please help me to say the right things that your people need to hear from your word. In Jesus' name we ask, amen. Now you'll notice in verse number 14, this man brings his son to Jesus. The Bible does not say anywhere, not in Matthew, not in Mark, not in Luke, that this son was a child. In fact, there's an indicator that this man's son was actually an adult because Jesus asked him, I think it's in Mark, Jesus asked him how long it had been that he was afflicted with this problem. And the man said of a child, which indicates to us that he's probably no longer a child. And so this is apparently a grown man and he's had this condition a long time. And verse 15 says this, the man says, Lord have mercy on my son for he is lunatic and sore vexed. Now notice that word lunatic. That's kind of a bad word these days. And it's one of these words, it's kind of politically incorrect and it is becoming more and more politically incorrect. Compared to what you used to be able to say, you can't say anymore. I know words, I've kind of had to curtail some of the words that I used growing up because they have gone out of favor. Not necessarily because they're evil in and of themselves, but because of the associations with them. And all of us, as we grow old, like I don't grow old, but like all of you do, those things change, vocabulary changes. So this word lunatic, but let's look at it from the scripture. We wanna look at it from the Bible. Remember our Bible was translated in 16, finished in 1611, so 400 years of history. Sometimes definitions change. And so that's not a surprise to us. We're not shocked by that. But the word lunatic, let me give you the definition of the word lunatic. It does not mean what, as it's commonly used today to just insult somebody where you're a lunatic, it's not that at all. It means this, a person showing signs or symptoms of serious mental illness. Well, that's helpful, as we'll see in a minute. In early use, which is where we're at here, 1600s, specifically of a type characterized by periods of remission and relapse, attributed to the phases of the moon. And so I don't know that that was very helpful, but what's, so basically what you see from this is it was thought, now this is not what the Bible is saying. The Bible's using the word, okay? But it was thought typically that these episodic issues of what would be called today mental illness, it was the fact that it was episodic like the phases of the moon, because it was thought that the moon affected people's mental health because of the way it pulls the ocean tides. That's how it was assumed. This is going back to like shortly before Christ, Aristotle and the Greeks and things like that. But anyway, that's where it comes from. In fact, the word that is translated lunatic is the word that means moon struck, moon struck. That's where the word comes from. That's the etymology of the word. Now what's interesting is that word is put directly into English, in the English equivalent. Luna is the word for moon, tic means moon struck. They actually took the word from the original language, Greek, and put it directly into English in the exact English equivalent. Now why does that matter? It matters because if you consider the other words, for instance, the ESV puts this word as seizures. The New King James version and the American Standard version put the word as epileptic. Okay? What's also interesting though is that the New American Standard version of 1977 and the New American Standard version of 1995 have lunatic, which is interesting. If it's such a bad, terrible, old, outdated, old, outmoded translation, why did they put it in there in 1995? It's a perfectly fine translation. It's a perfectly fine way to put it. In fact, the word seizure or epilepsy, or epileptic in this context is a problem. Here's why. Because if you look at verse number 18, look what it says, and Jesus rebuked the devil. So what was the true cause of this, I'll say young man, this young man's problem? It was an influence, it was a satanic influence, a satanic possession of some kind. And so by putting the word epilepsy or putting the word seizure, it doesn't state it, but it implies that somehow people that are afflicted with an actual physical neurological condition like epilepsy, that is being caused by the devil. But that's not the case. And I'll show you the distinction in just a minute. Now in the book of Mark, and we'll go there in just a minute, in fact, you might already be there. So if you can flip back to Mark, I wanna show you what Mark says about this young man's condition. Mark chapter nine, verse number 18, or verse 17 to start, Mark 9, 17 says this, and one of the multitude answered and said, "'Master, I have brought unto thee my son, "'which hath a dumb spirit.'" Dumb meaning can't speak. But notice he uses the word spirit. So from the beginning in Mark, he identifies the cause as this is a matter of demonic activity, verse number 18. "'And wheresoever he taketh him, he tarreth him, "'and he fometh, and gnasheth with his teeth, "'and pineeth away.'" So this is a description of these episodes with this young man. Now in Luke, in Luke chapter nine, verse 39 says this, "'And lo, a spirit taketh him, and suddenly cryeth out, "'and it tarreth him, that he fometh again, "'and bruising him, hardly departeth from him.'" All right, so this is a description of, this is a craze, this young man is thrown to the ground, is in a fit of some kind, foment at the mouth, crying out much like the demoniac of Gadara. No...

The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 17:1–9 · November 9, 2025

Transcript:
All right, let's get our Bible. We'll go to the book of Matthew chapter 17 this morning. Matthew 17 verse number one is where we will begin. We will also take a peek at Luke chapter nine. So if you'd like to get it a little bit ahead and you can turn to Luke chapter nine because we will flip there just a little bit. I'm going to read the account of the transfiguration. The transfiguration. Matthew 17 verse number one, the Bible says, and after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John, his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias, that's Elijah, talking with him. Then answered Peter and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him. And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them and said, Arise and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man save Jesus only. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man until the Son of Man be risen again from the dead. Would you pray with me this morning? Our fathers, we come again to look at your word and to open our hearts to what you have said. Lord, we want to see the Lord Jesus clearly. We want to see him in all of his glory, in his true identity. We want to see him, Lord, as he deserves and should be seen. And Lord, please guide us in our study of your word. Guide me as I try to speak the things that will help and encourage and strengthen your people. And I pray that your people's hearts and minds and ears would be attentive to your word. Lord, we need you. We need you to help us to get a clear and unobstructed view of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only then can we respond in the right way, as Brother and Sister Yarley sang, that we would see the need to bow the knee to you, Lord, to own you as our Lord. And so Lord, guide us in our study of Matthew 17 today in Jesus' name. Amen. So this is the account of the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse one says that the Lord took Peter, James, and John, his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart. And Peter, James, and John are a group of three that are distinct. So that's a quarter of the disciples being 12. That's three of them would be a quarter of the disciples. They were on a number of occasions separated off from the other nine disciples for special purposes. You see them, I won't read every one of these, but in Mark chapter five and verse 37, when Jesus went in to heal the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, he invited only Peter, James, and John into the room and the parents of the child. And that was it. So he wanted to reveal and show something special to these three men in particular. In Mark chapter 13, verse number three, it was Peter, James, and John that specifically asked the Lord Jesus about his second coming. That's the parallel with Matthew chapter 24, but in Mark chapter 13, it was actually Peter, James, and John who were asking the question about when the end of the world would come. In Mark chapter 14, verse 33, it was Peter, James, and John that the Lord took into the Garden of Gethsemane further out than he went with the disciples, the rest of the disciples, in order to pray. So they were nearer to him when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane right before his arrest. And of course you see them here, which is the fourth time. You see Peter, James, and John only are taken up into the mountain to see the Lord Jesus transfigured. So they had information about the Lord Jesus Christ that none of the other disciples had. Here's what's interesting. All of the disciples, maybe with the lone exception of Judas Iscariot, believed that Jesus was the Son of God, believed that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, and believed that Jesus did and would receive, had and would receive glory. All of them believed it, but only three of them saw it. Only three of them saw it. And so this is one thing you see with these three disciples that you don't see with the others. Now keep in mind that, and we'll see this later in just a little bit, but the book of John was written by one of these men. So John, that's kind of the context of the book of John is John having seen the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ with his eyeballs, wrote the book of John, and he actually mentions it in a few places. We'll see in a minute, but also Peter wrote first and second Peter, obviously, and a lot of people think that Peter was the source of the information for the book of Mark, which is where this is also covered, which I don't have any problem with that as well, because Mark covers most information about Peter than any of the other gospels. But so you have this eyewitness account of this miraculous event. And what's interesting is Luke though, if you'll look at Luke chapter nine, there's a few differences, I say differences. There's more full information given by Luke of the account of the transfiguration than Matthew and Mark give us. And in Luke chapter nine, we're given a little bit more in verse 28, the reason that they went up into the mountain aside from the Lord's transfiguration is given in verse 28 of Luke nine, it says this, and it came to pass that about eight days after these sayings, Jesus took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. Went up into a mountain to pray. So that's the occasion. You know, you see the Lord Jesus praying, spending major periods of prayer, or you see him praying in isolation, often in association with major events. Did you know that? This is one of them. This is during the transfiguration of Christ, he's praying. Of course, you have the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to his arrest, betrayal arrest and crucifixion. But right before the Lord chose his disciples, what is he doing? You find him praying. You also often find him before a major event or right at a major event, the Lord Jesus is goes away from everyone and prays to his father in secret. Mark, just listen to these verses. You can note the references and look at them later if you wish, Mark 1.35. And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed. Mark six, verse 46. And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray. Luke six, verse 12. And it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. Matthew 14, verse 23, which we've already covered says this. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray. And when the evening was come, he was there alone. You see it as a practice of our Lord. You know, it was the Lord Jesus himself. He says, but thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet. And when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy father, which is in secret, which is what he's doing. He's just not in a room. He's going out into the wilderness by himself. You see him doing this repeatedly. And that's only the times that the scriptures record him doing it. There were no doubt many other times because he was known for being one who spent time in prayer. The Lord Jesus was. And he says, pray to thy father, which is in secret. And thy father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. You see our Lord lived the example of prayer. He didn't just tell us to do it. He lived the example, which is why the disciples came to the Lord Jes...

Adult Sunday School: Our Church · Pastor Adam Wood · November 9, 2025

Transcript:
Well, let me give you a, not a caveat, but just say this off the bat. I'm going to try my best not to bore you to death today, because today is the one day that we have the potential of, I say one day, I mean you might think I'm boring every week, but today is one day that is more, more likely to be boring. So we're going to, we're going to try to make this as interesting as possible. We've been talking about our church constitution, so I want to read a few parts of it that are relevant to our study today. Hopefully we can get through the entire thing, not the entire constitution, it's 54 pages I think, but the entire part of the constitution that I would like to get to and just make a few comments on it. And hopefully wrap up our study of, on our church altogether and then be praying. Please pray for me to know what the next study we need to go into for our Sunday school, our adult Sunday school. And there's a lot of different directions, different things. And I have received a few suggestions, a couple of suggestions, but if you have something that's on your mind and on your heart, we might could, if you let me know, we might could look into that and see if that's a study we could do. But I just want to be a help as we study the Bible together. And so let's pray and then we are going to again try to finish up about our church's constitution. All right, let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to meet together once again. Thank you for the good fellowship yesterday and the opportunity to spend time with one another and to enjoy one another's company, to share a meal together and all of those things. We thank you for the beautiful weather. Thank you for the beautiful colors that you put before our eyes here where we live and this time of year. Lord, thank you for the breeze. Thank you for the rain. Thank you for your goodness shown to us, especially though, Lord, we give you thanks for the Lord Jesus. None of those things would matter for they would be fleeting and brief and unenjoyable knowing Lord that we were under the wrath of God, but we had been freed from the wrath of God by the gospel, by the cross. Lord, we give you thanks for that. I pray that you would strengthen us and help us as we look at these things today. You would help us understand, help us to look at these things in a practical way and to just grow from it. As we look at our church, Lord, we want to be fully integrated, fully involved with both feet, with our arms, our legs, our head, our mind, our heart in our local church. So Lord, help us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so last week we talked about the church constitution and why we need a church constitution and the biblical basis for it. We looked at Matthew 18, Acts chapter 6, 1 Corinthians, various verses there, Titus, Revelation. We saw that the church is not only at the power of binding and loosing, we saw that as well both in Sunday school but also on last Sunday or the Sunday before last, and we saw how that was not only given that authority and power to make judgments, but also we saw that in practice in the book of Acts. So we're following the pattern. We're not making this up as we go. We do have to fill in some blanks about what we do, but we have power to do that as a church given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ to fill in those blanks, but we're still following that pattern as seen in Scripture. That's what it means to be a biblical church is we're following the pattern, the directions the Lord has given and the pattern we see that his church set for us in the book of Acts and in the epistles. So that's our guide. We looked at practical reasons. We have as far as church constitution, I gave you three things to three parts. The first one is the biblical basis. The second one is the practical reasons for having a church constitution, and we looked at that and what that was is primarily the necessity to articulate what we believe because remember everybody in Christianity, and I mean that in the broadest sense possible, everybody in Christianity uses the Bible to support what they believe. So you can't just say, well, you can, but you could just say, well, the Bible is our constitution and our doctrinal statement. Well that's all fine and good, but what do you do when somebody who claims to use the Bible comes in and starts saying things that do not agree with what we have come to understand the Bible to mean? And so that's why we articulate it. But the Bible is the basis, right? The Bible overrules everything, and that includes the doctrinal statement. So the doctrinal statement is supposed to rest upon the Bible. So that's why it's important that we make judgments about various doctrines, like we saw in the book of Acts, making a judgment about the purpose of the law and those kinds of things. And so with the doctrinal statement, just by way of review, our doctrinal statement or our articles of faith, which is what it's called in the constitution, essentially say this, having examined the relevant verses prayerfully, we believe the scripture teaches this doctrine. So it's not meant, the articles of faith are not meant to be the final authority on everything, and they're not meant to answer every question or every verse or every objection. That's not the purpose. The purpose is to state what our belief is. And then that's after careful consideration of the truths of scripture, because the scripture of course is the basis. So what I'm saying to you is, it is not incompatible to have a doctrinal statement while at the same time your final authority for your faith and the basis for your faith be the Bible. They're not incompatible. They're actually complementary. They go together. And one depends on the other. The third reason that our church constitution is important is our legal reasons. So we have the biblical basis, number one. Number two are practical reasons, and number three are legal reasons. Legal reasons. Now due to the fact that each local church, now I'm referring to right now where we live, so I'm not trying to extend this to other countries or other cultures. I'm not trying to do that. That all has to be applied, and that's a difficult thing to do in other cultures to apply these same things in every case. But that's why we have flexibility to make the judgments that we must make. But in our world where we live, each local church is a legally recognized entity. It is a legally recognized entity. It's part of statutes in our state. It's part of statutes in our federal government. Now that doesn't mean that we have to be recognized. That is, a local church has to be recognized by the government for it to be legitimate. That's not the case. There are many periods in history where churches existed underground, though not literally underground. I used to think that underground meant they met underground. But just by that meaning, they were not recognized or permitted to exist, but yet they existed. Because remember, we ought to obey God rather than men. And if that's what it comes to, that's what it comes to. We don't want that, but that has happened many, many times over the years, and still happens to this day in some places. Because our church is a legally recognized entity, we are required as a matter of practice and necessity to articulate who we are and what our practices will be from a legal perspective. Because we are legally recognized, there are certain legal obligations. And with that recognition comes privileges, and with privileges come some responsibilities. So, if you're going to be legally recognized by the authorities that be, that you are a church, there are probably going to be some responsibilities that go along with that recognition. Now there's benefits, too. It's a give and take. And I would say the benefits outweigh the downsides. But there are both be...

The Heart of the Bible—The Book of Psalms · Pastor Adam Wood · Psalm 48 · November 5, 2025

Transcript:
Let's get our Bible, go to Psalm 48. Psalm number 48 tonight. Our next installment in our study of the Psalms, getting close to the third, the third of the way through point. How do you call that? 33.333 percent. Alright, Psalm 48. We will We will read Psalm 48 together. I would like to draw your attention to something as we read it, because we're not going to spend a lot of time in the Psalm, in this particular Psalm. I want to kind of use it as part of a study. And so we won't spend a lot of time here. But while we go through it, I'd like you to pay attention to and try to find out as you read what the theme of the Psalm is. So what is the main subject matter that the psalmist is speaking of? And he repeats it over and over and over in different ways, because that's really a key thing to what I'd like us to study tonight regarding this Psalm. So Psalm 48, a song and Psalm for the sons of Korah. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. Verse 3 goes on, God is known in her palaces for a refuge. For lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together. They saw it and so they marveled. They were troubled and hasted away. Fear took hold upon them there and pain as of a woman in travail. Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind. As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God. God will establish it forever. We have thought of thy loving kindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple. According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth. Thy right hand is full of righteousness. Let Mount Zion rejoice. Let the daughters of Judah be glad because of thy judgments. Walk about Zion and go round about her. Tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks. Consider her palaces that you may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even unto death. Amen. What's the theme? Did anybody notice a particular theme that's repeated over and over in the psalm? Zion. Zion. Zion. This psalm is mostly about Zion. So I want to look at that tonight and just look at it from, of course, the point of view of the psalmist, but also a point of view from our point of view as well. So let's pray together and then we'll get into our study. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity, Lord, for meeting together and studying your word. Thank you for the people of God. What a blessing it is to be with your people, to fellowship, to share good times together and to pray for one another and to see one another's face and study your word together. We know, Lord, that we will be with you in Zion for all of eternity, with one another, and be able to enjoy one another's fellowship forever without the burden and the hindrance of sin at all. We rejoice in that fact. Lord, we also rejoice that you protected Nathaniel and that you kept him, Lord, and you were watching over him. Thank you, Lord, that we have good news tonight. And Lord, we just pray that you bless our study now. We ask you to meet with us and teach us. In Jesus' name, amen. So this psalm is about Zion. And this is not the only one, but where the psalmist is really going on about, he talks about counting the towers and walking about, notice what he says in verse number 12, walk about Zion, go around it, walk around it, tell the towers thereof, and that's the count. And so the emphasis is on Zion. Now why is Zion so important that a psalmist would write a psalm about Israel? Now we know that, I'm sorry, write a psalm about Zion. Now we know there's an association with God because that's mentioned in verse number one, it's also mentioned in the last verse, and there's a connection between God and Zion. Now that's clear, we'll see that in a minute. But in the mind of the psalmist, Zion is an important place. It is an important place to the people of Israel. Now I want to look at a few verses and I want to kind of get a definition of what we're talking about when we're talking about Zion. Second Samuel, second Samuel chapter 5, second Samuel chapter 5, verse 7. This is of course when David will read verse 6, second Samuel chapter 5 verse 6. And the king and his men went to Jerusalem unto the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, which spake unto David, say, Except thou take away the blind and lame, thou shalt not come in hither, thinking David cannot come in hither. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion. This is the first mention of Zion as a place. And this is before Jerusalem was occupied by the Hebrews. And so this is the first mention of Zion. He took the stronghold of Zion the same as the city of David. Now before there was a temple, before there was a temple, the Solomon's temple, there was of course the city of Jerusalem already existed at the time of David. And David invaded the city of Jerusalem and took it. But the city of Jerusalem was not centered around the temple mount like it is today and like it was later. And so David took the stronghold of Zion, which actually if you look at a map, you have the city of Jerusalem is kind of like a square. And at the top right, mostly the top right, you have the temple mount, but that didn't exist. But you go south of that and there's a ridge that runs down. That ridge is where the city of David was. This was called the city of David to this day. It's called the city of David. And it's a particular section of Jerusalem because that was the original part that David conquered. There was a fortress there. But that was the original location of Zion. That the city of David, that place south of Jerusalem. Now look at look back in the psalm, psalm number nine, psalm number nine. Psalm nine verse 11 says this, Sing praises to the Lord, which dwelleth in Zion. Declare among the people his doings. So here God dwells in Zion. Look at Psalm 132, psalm 132. Psalm 132 verse 13. Psalm 132 verse 13. For the Lord hath chosen Zion. He hath desired it for his habitation. Now you remember in the history of Israel, there was a big thing. Remember even in the law, the Lord said to Moses, you remember in Deuteronomy and in Numbers, he said when you go into the land, paraphrasing, when you go into the land and I choose a place to set my name there. Do you remember that verse, those verses? There are several occurrences of it. The Lord said this is when they were outside of Canaan, before they had gone in with Joshua. The Lord says when you go into this land, I'm going to pick a place and I'm going to set my name there. That place that God picked was Jerusalem. That place that God picked was Zion. Because that's the place where God would dwell. That's the place where God would have his habitation with his people, which is a reference to the temple. Look at the next verse, verse 14. The Lord goes on, this is my rest forever. Will I dwell for I have desired it. So here's what, think about what God is saying here. God is choosing a physical and geographical location on the face of the planet that he will call his habitation. Everybody with me? This is, and of course we know that would later be the Tabernacle and then the temple once Solomon built it. And that would be the place where he would place his name there. And that is the place that God has chosen even to this day. Even to this day. The end of the history of Jerusalem has not happened yet. There is more to come about that city. That's why it's such a hot bed right now and has been for a long time. Look at Psalm 147. 147. You'll see a little bit of a nuance about Zion. We're looking at what is Zion. Psalm 147, look at verse 12. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise thy God, O Zion. This is what's called a...

The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 16:24–28 · November 2, 2025

Transcript:
All right, thank you for being here. We will go right to Matthew 20, chapter 16 rather, Matthew 16 and verse number 24 tonight. Matthew 16 and verse 24. Matthew 16 and verse 24. All right, let's read verses 24 to 28. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man 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, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Let's pray together. Our Lord, once again we come to your Word, Lord, with of course needy. We need you to teach us. We desire you to teach us. And Lord, we ask you to teach us. Lord, teach us these truths. And Lord, not only teach us the intellectual part and knowing the facts of Scripture, but also how we might apply them to our lives and see your presentation, to see your demands, and to see what it means to follow you and to be unashamed. Lord, help us to do that as we look at this chapter 16 and finish it up tonight. You'll help us and we just look to you. Lord, help us to learn more about you in Jesus' name. Amen. Now remember the context. Before we get to verse 24. Verse 24 is the tail end of a series or a conversation, a series of verses that really began in verse 13 in Caesarea Philippi when Jesus says, Who do men say, the I, the Son of Man, am? And in that context, the Lord, of course Peter answers, thou art the Christ, Son of the living God. And of course the Lord blesses him for that, blessed art thou. And then he says that he gives them authority over the keys of the kingdom of heaven. We saw that as well. And then he turns straight to that. And of course you had the issue with what we saw this morning with Peter, as the Lord begins to explain that he's going to go to the cross, Peter begins to rebuke him. And that's where the Lord says, Get thee behind me, Satan. And obviously the idea is Peter was not, Peter was, as I said this morning, Peter was interested in the glory, but definitely was not interested in the suffering of Christ. And you can't blame him from a human perspective, but that was the whole problem, is that it was a human perspective. It was a carnal perspective that was not most concerned with the things of God, but the things of men. All right, that's what we've seen already. But the Lord brings up suffering in verse 21, specifically not the suffering of the disciples, but the suffering of himself. When he says he would suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. So the Lord, as always, anytime the Lord brings up suffering, well, most of the time anyway, when you see that, he brings up himself to begin because our Lord is our example. There's nothing that our Lord Jesus calls us to do or endure that he has not first done and endured before us to set an example for us. And so we can always, that's why the Bible says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, our eyes should not be set upon our brothers and sisters to our right and to our left, but they should be set to our Lord. That is one of the keystones of the Christian life, is you have to keep your focus on the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Whether it be things that happen to you or suffering or persecution or interpersonal issues or whatever the case might be, we keep our eyes upon Christ and that's like the North Star and it keeps us going in the right direction because our eyes are upon him. Okay, so the Lord is the one that brings up suffering in verse 21, his own suffering. And then on the heels of that, not separate from that, but in the same context. And he begins in verse number 24 and he applies these same truths to the disciples. Notice what he says in verse 24. He says, then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Now we're okay with the idea of coming after Christ, we're okay with the idea of denying ourselves to some degree anyway, but when we get to the word cross, that's like a bad word, especially when you know what that means. The word cross is a very dreadful word in scripture. To be honest with you, for me personally, I don't like the cross as far as the symbolism of the cross. I don't like that. I've told you a few of that in our kind of passing conversations. A part of that is having been a missionary and seeing people that venerate images and that kind of thing. And I've seen and heard of people doing that. They think there's power in the symbolism of the cross, like that down there. There's just none. It's just a piece of wood that's cut in a certain pattern. But the cross of Christ, of course, it reminds us of what our savior has done, but it's a dreadful symbol. It's a dreadful symbol of death. And the reason it's so dreadful is because it is what our sin required. So we understand what it means and that kind of thing, but the cross is a very dark period in history. And so when the Lord says the word cross in verse 24, especially to those who live under Roman rule, that's like a shutter. He's only ever said it one other time. Matthew 10, we saw it this morning. He says it here, right on the heels of what he said. Now, he doesn't say that he's gonna be killed by the cross in verse 21. Notice that? He just says he's gonna be killed. But verse 24, he hints that it's gonna be on a cross, because he says to follow him, take up his cross and follow Jesus. So again, in the context of suffering, Peter wants to, he's looking for the glory. He wants to avoid the pain and suffering, and he has a desire for glory. But just as with our Lord Jesus, just as it is with our Lord Jesus, suffering must come before glory. And that's a biblical principle that you see throughout the New Testament. Suffering must come before glory. It was true of the Lord Jesus, and it's true of us. Suffering is first. Romans 8, 18 says this, "'For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time "'are not worthy to be compared with the glory "'which shall be revealed.'" 1 Peter 4, 13, "'But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers "'of Christ's sufferings, "'that when his glory shall be revealed, "'ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.'" And 2 Timothy 2, 12 says this, "'If we suffer, we shall also reign with him. "'If we deny him, he also will deny us.'" Now, if you keep that verse in your mind, we're gonna kind of circle around that verse a little bit, though not directly. And then also verse number 27 in our text here says this, "'For the Son of Man shall come in the glory "'of his Father with his angels, "'and then he shall reward every man according to his works. "'But there is no Son of Man coming in glory "'until the Son of Man first suffers and dies, "'and then rises, ascends back to his Father, "'and then he returns.'" So it's embedded through, the Lord Jesus is consistent throughout his ministry that it is necessary that he suffer first. We all know that. That's a New Testament truth. That's an Old Testament truth. And so that's the order. And this is why the Lord brings it up because he is shaking the disciples out of this idea that they're gonna somehow get glory without suffering because it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. Now notice what he says in verse 24. Now verse 24, we're gonna have a little hermeneutical lesson tonight. So if you follow me, maybe we can learn a little principle of hermeneutics. But this context, 24 thro...

The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 16:21–23 · November 2, 2025

Transcript:
Let's get our Bible, if you would, and go to the book of Matthew, chapter 16. The Lord helps us today. I'd love to finish Matthew 16. Seems like we've been in the book for a month or two, but we're going to try to get through 21 to 28 today, part of it this morning, part of it tonight. This morning we're going to look at verses 21 through 23, but the good part about going through it slowly like this is that, and this is a perfect example of that, is that when we get to a passage of Scripture, the context of the passage at hand is fresh in our mind because we've spent time in what's above it already, and that is especially important this morning. So verse 21, the Bible says this, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto me, for thou savrest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Would you pray with me this morning? Our Lord, thank you first of all for your Word and the truths of Scripture. Lord, we're thankful for, especially for the real life of Peter. Lord, how often we see ourselves in his place. Just a regular man who had faith in Christ, who had little faith in a very powerful Christ. Help us, Lord, in our study of Scripture. Help me, Lord, to help your people and to say the things that they need to hear and guide my every word and thought and motivation, Lord, that your people might be strengthened. But Lord, we know that even outside of the things that I say, there might be other portions There might be other things going on in the hearts of each person here that you might use to speak to them and guide their steps and help them to draw close to you. There might be someone among us who has not yet put their faith in Christ and his gospel. Lord, if that's the case, prick the heart of that person. Do not let them leave in peace and comfort. I pray that you would just strengthen us, guide us, help us. Lord, we look to you. Lord, we look to the subject of this passage and we want to see the things that you'd have us to see from it. Be our teacher. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen. You'll notice in verse number 21, from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. We might assume that, especially knowing the whole story, the beginning from the end, as we do from Scripture, that the subject of Christ's suffering on the cross is a subject that would have been topics of his conversation from the very beginning, but it wasn't. But it was not. And the Lord waited until this point, Matthew chapter 16, until this point to begin, notice what it says, he began Jesus to show unto his disciples. He waited until this moment to begin to teach them something that they were not at all expecting. In fact, in the Jewish psyche, and we've seen it over and over in Matthew, in the Jewish mind the Messiah, the Christ, was someone who was primarily a political leader. In the salvation, when Jesus spoke of salvation, what they heard was not salvation of the soul, but deliverance from earthly powers that were oppressing them and those kinds of things. And we've seen that over and over and over. And that philosophy is also part of the disciples' thinking as well. But it is at this point that the Lord begins to rain on their parade and let them know that his end is not what they expect. It's interesting to me that he waits until this point because we've spent, again, in Matthew so much time building upon the foundation of, like we saw last Sunday, the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That has been something that's been driven home over and over and over, from the miracles to the healings to all the different teachings of Christ. Everything he did, it seems there's somebody that's saying, who is this guy? Who is this guy? And that's what we looked at last Sunday. But that's an important foundation to be laid because the truths of the cross mean nothing unless we first understand who it is that's on the cross. If Jesus is just a guy that's on the cross, even if he's a really good guy, like again last Sunday, that's not enough. He must be the very unique Son of God or else the cross means nothing. His identity is the foundation of that. And that's actually what, again, the context above this passage is what we saw, this establishing once and for all, this historical confession of Peter, of who Jesus Christ is. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. But you know, many people ended up rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember the cross? And again, I know I'm repeating myself a little bit, but bear with me. You remember at the cross, there were people who walked by and wagged their heads and sneered at the Lord Jesus Christ and said specifically, If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross and we'll believe you. Remember that? So the question of his identity was already there in their mind and to them, the Son of God, to them, let me say it like this, Jesus of Nazareth hanging on the cross was proof positive that he was not who he said he was, right? Which is ironic because it's actually the reverse. In Matthew chapter 12, Jesus said the sign of the proof of his identity would be the fact that he died on the cross and was buried and rose again. That is the one great proof that Jesus would give of his identity. But as it is, the people walked by and mocked him because he was on the cross, and that very idea is a part of the disciples' thinking as well. But by this point, in contrast to the multitude who would walk by the cross and sneer at the Lord Jesus, at this point, as we saw in verse 17, or verse 16 rather, in the same chapter, the question of who Jesus is has been settled. Among the disciples at least. It's a settled question. And so he waits until that is a settled point. They get it. I know who this is. Now they don't know what's going to happen with Jesus in the future, but they are convinced of who he is. They are absolutely convinced of who he is. So whatever he does from this point on, they might not like it, they might not understand it, but they know it's right because of who he is, and that's something that has been settled among them. You see the work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, his rejection by the elders of Israel and his being nailed to the tree was the cause for many to turn from him because he would not rule as they expected. And so right on the heels of this great confession is the Lord Jesus goes into the next kind of phase. Phase one, who am I? Settled. Phase two, here's what I'm about to do. Man, you look at verse number 21, Jesus began to show what he was going to do, how he was going to suffer and die on the cross, be killed, raised again the third day. And what's funny is when you look at the previous chapters to this point, you look at early part of Matthew, I do want to look at several of those, but when you look at it, it's not there. There are no clear passages of scripture where the Lord tells anything about what's going to happen to him prior to this. Let's look at a few. There are a couple of hints. I want to show you those. Matthew chapter two is where we'll begin and then we'll be at Luke for one passage and then back in Matthew. Matthew two, verse number 11. Now Matthew two is probably familiar to you because that's of course talking about Jesus' nativity, but in Matthew two it says this, verse 11, talking about the wise men. And when they were coming to the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Now we know from other passages of scripture that myrrh was a spice that was specifical...

Adult Sunday School: Our Church · Pastor Adam Wood · November 2, 2025

Transcript:
Alright, we are going, we're going to be in actually several passages of scripture today starting in Matthew chapter 18, so you can go ahead and turn there. I'll say a few things to introduce our subject here. We have, when we've gone through this Sunday School series about our church, we've looked at various angles, various issues, various matters. Most recently we've considered our church's music and why it is the way it is. Most recently we looked at our church's music and we examined that subject from a number of different directions. We've also considered, at the beginning we looked at corporate decision making and so we've looked at that. Some of what we'll say today and over the next couple of weeks we'll overlap that a little bit. We also looked at various aspects of our church regarding, you know, just sundry doctrines that are important to our church and there are still a few that are left that we want to cover. Maybe they're not a whole lesson but just part of a lesson. We've looked at church membership. We've looked at, let's try to think off the top of my head because I don't have my notes in front of me, but anyway, we've looked at a number of things and the majors, at least the majors, that are important questions as it regards our church, our particular local church. Now we understand that not all local churches have the same position and viewpoint on everything and this is exactly why what we're looking at today is so important. I know there's a tendency to look at other churches, you know, we might look at other churches or hear of other churches and think, why do they do that? And the liberating thing is we don't have to answer that question. We don't have to care, right? Now we all should care what's going on in our church but what's going on in other people's churches is their business and they will give an account to that for good or for bad, hopefully for good and that's their business. But as far as our church, this is where our focus is on. So we're not trying to be in the business of trying to be busybodies and criticize everything that's going on. I mean we might have a position and an opinion on it but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to try to put our oar in for that church when we have enough things to consider in our own church. So when I say these things, it is not to make it sound like that our way is the only way and there's no other way or anything like that. We want to hold scriptural positions but there are times when churches do things differently than us and it's still scriptural. That is a possible thing. Don't stare at me blankly. It is possible to hold a different position in some ways. I mean of course when you start getting into some things we'll talk about today then there might be issues but again this is honestly the paradigm and the way the Lord has described it in scripture that churches, individual local churches are answerable directly to God. This is the independence principle behind our church. We don't have a denomination that is dictating anything to us whatsoever either directly or indirectly and so with that comes liberty of course. We can do as the Lord directs us but with that also comes responsibility like everything And so what we're going to look at today is we're going to start to look at, don't worry, we're not going to go line upon line in the church constitution but we do want to look at the church constitution. Now the Bible says we should go line upon line in the scripture but we don't want to bore everybody with line upon line in the church constitution because it's not the same as the Bible. We do want to look at it and cover a couple of points, a couple of salient and important points regarding our church constitution because it is a significant doctrine regarding our church and why some things are there and some things aren't and why we even have it. That's what we're going to look at this morning. So let's pray and ask the Lord to guide us and help us in our study. Our Father we thank you for the chance to study your word once again. I thank you for those that have come out and thank you for the weather Lord. What a beautiful day. The leaves are changing and Lord we're just reminded of the beauty that you put in nature for our benefit, for our joy and Lord we do thank you for that. We thank you for the crisp weather but the warm weather later in the afternoon and we thank you for the opportunity to fellowship together with your people and to love one another and to encourage one another. Help us to do that this morning. I pray that as we meet together not only in Sunday school but also in the services that you would meet with us and you would help us to grow, you would help our hearts to be inclined to your word and to your will. Lord bless the kids' class as well as they learn the Scripture. Help them to learn it well and I pray that it will profit those kids also in their life as they grow. We ask these things all in Jesus' name. Amen. So the question I want to pose to everyone is this. Why if we have a Bible, one of the things we covered in our church is what is independent Baptist? What does that mean? And part of that is part of the Baptist part of that means that we have and accept only one rule for faith and practice. Where do we get what we believe and do? We get it from Scripture, the Bible and nothing else. So the question, the follow-up question to that and the logical question to that is if that's the case then why do we have a constitution at all? If we have a Bible, what's the need for a constitution? Is a church constitution necessary? Why don't we just use the Bible? And why do we have a church constitution if we do not see church constitutions in the New Testament? Right? That's a, that's a, I think a valid question. If the Bible is our basis for what we do in our church, why then do we have something and use something in our church that is not in the Bible? There are many things in our church that we use that are not in the Bible. The easiest and most handy of which is this. And these and those and these and these, a multitude of other things we use and we don't say boo about that but all of a sudden with some particulars we get a little bit ornery about it, do we not? And so, but these are, I think these are valid questions especially about our church constitution. Why is it necessary? So basically I have for this, I have three things. I have a, I want to show you a biblical basis, I want to show you practical reasons and then I want to look at just very briefly legal reasons. We won't get to the third one today. So I want to look at the biblical basis for a church constitution. Now you might, I just said I might have contradicted myself or you might think I contradicted myself which is this. If church constitutions are not in the Bible then how are we going to study the Bible to find out about church constitutions? And I admit there are no church constitutions in the Bible but there are principles of scripture that definitely allow and I would even say to some degree call for something similar to a church constitution. So let's just go through the New Testament starting in Matthew 18 verse 15 and just look at a few examples of how, what the Lord says and then how the New Testament churches operated to help us to get a better view of what is, I believe, a biblical basis for something like a church constitution, okay? Matthew 18 verse number 15. This might be a little bit familiar to you from last Sunday. It says this, moreover, if thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. So a witness is someone who knows the ...

The Heart of the Bible—The Book of Psalms · Pastor Adam Wood · Psalm 47 · October 29, 2025

Transcript:
Alright, let's go to Psalm 47. Psalm 47. I just want to look, basically, take a kind of a devotional view of Psalm 47 tonight. I'll kind of give you some background of the Psalm. It's a very brief Psalm, only nine verses, but we'll just look at basically one thing that's kind of a running theme throughout the Psalm and use it kind of as a devotion this evening. Psalm 47, the subtitle begins, The chief musician, a Psalm for the sons of Korah. O clap your hands, O all ye people, and shout unto God with the voice of triumph. For the Lord most high is terrible. He is a great king over all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us and the nations under our feet. He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved, say la. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises, sing praises unto our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth. Sing ye praises with understanding. God reigneth over the heathen. God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness. The princes of the people are gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham, for the shields of the earth belong unto God. He is greatly exalted. Would you pray with me tonight? Our Father, we thank you for your word and the truths that your word constantly reminds us of. Lord, indeed we grow by the sustenance that your word gives us. Lord, I pray that you would bless our time in your word and you would help our hearts to be receptive and willing to hear and to see what your word says. Lord, help me to say what your people need tonight. Lord, we trust you. We look to you. Our eyes are upon thee. In Jesus' name, amen. So you have this you have this song, just so you know, verse number two, for the Lord most high is terrible. That sounds sounds terrible, doesn't it? The idea being the Lord strikes terror. He produces, incites terror in us. That's what the word terrible means. The thing I want to point out to you is I want you to see this this frequent mention. There's three times, maybe four, depending on how you count, of the mention of God as a king. Did you notice that? In verse number two, for the Lord most high is terrible, he is a great king over all the earth. In verse number six, sing praises unto sing praises to God, sing praises, sing praises unto our king, sing praises. For God is the king of all the earth. Sing he praises with understanding. And then the fourth partial mention is God reigneth over the heathen, implying a kingdom, implying that God is a king. Now when you read this, you know, there's actually at least two different ways that you can view this psalm, that you can read it. Okay? The first way is just to look at the psalm in its context, written, you know, about a thousand years before Christ. So right around maybe the time of David, David's name is not on the psalm, but if we assume that it's written around the time of David, you're talking about a thousand years before Christ about. Now at that, let me ask you a question, I want you just to think think this through with me. At that time, there was basically one nation that recognized and acknowledged God as their king. Right? There was just one nation, and that was the nation of Israel. Now, obviously Israel was not the only nation on earth, so on earth there were many, probably thousands of nations at that time in various parts of the world then that that had their own gods and their own religion and their own faith and their own all of that that did not, some of them probably didn't even know about God, at least as he's revealed in scripture, but they definitely did not recognize or acknowledge God as king. Everybody understand what I'm saying? So the question I have for you is how then can the psalmist say in verse number three, or verse number two, he is a great king over all the earth? Or in verse number seven, for God is the king of all the earth. Because in the time in which this was written, there were many many places in the earth that did not acknowledge God as the king. So here's what I want you to, this is the first way to look at it. This psalm has a prophetic element to it. Right? It has a prophetic element to it. Like many of the psalms, like Psalm 22, Psalm 23, Psalm 24, definitely all have a prophetic element. In other words, there's a way that you can look at it in its time, thousand years BC, right? And then there's also, it speaks to that time, but it also has a broader meaning that speaks to a time in the future. Because when you take this psalm not devotionally like we're gonna do tonight, but when you take it literally, and I think there's grounds to do that, when you take it literally, there will actually be a time in which the Lord rules and reigns over the heathen. Not only that he rules and reigns over them, but they acknowledge and submit themselves to his rule. The scriptures are replete with different verses and passages that deal with that. That God is not just going to be the God of a small group of people like he is now, where we acknowledge him and worship him. Or in the Old Testament, like Israel acknowledged him and worshiped him, but no, he will rule over everyone. He will rule over everyone. Now that's one way to look at it, right? That's one way to look at it. So there's a prophetic view. In other words, it's pointing to something future, a greater, broader fulfillment. But there's another way to look at it, and this is where the theology kind of, your theology really matters. Because of course we hold a pre-millennial position. That means we take the scriptures literally in almost every case. And that means, and I say that not to say, well we hold the pre-millennial position and so because we hold the position it's right. No, no. The pre-millennial position is the position that seeks to, where possible, interpret scriptures literally in their grammatical and historical understanding. In their basic understanding. So that's the reason why we read this psalm in other places like it. We take it at face value. We don't spiritualize it automatically. But you can do that. You can read this in a way and draw from it principles, which we're going to do tonight. But these principles, the fact of this psalm tells us that even though this was not literally fulfilled at this time, yet there will be a time when it will be fulfilled. Where Christ will literally reign over this world. And I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to that day. I'm looking forward to that day. But sometimes people that that tend not to take the scriptures literally come to a psalm like this and find trouble. Because it says, God reigneth over the heathen, and there's a seeming contradiction. Because when you read it you know he doesn't. So what kind of the default reaction to that is to spiritualize it. And to say, well this is God's spiritual reign over the world. This is God's spiritual reign over the world. Now the truth is there are verses in scripture where you can see that. Where the Bible does say that indeed. That God rules and God reigns. I mean just because people do not acknowledge God, that doesn't mean he doesn't reign. It doesn't mean somehow that because I thumb my nose at God and ignore him that somehow he doesn't rule. No, he rules. But when we talk about God is king, the fullest expression of that is not only that he holds the position but that we acknowledge that. Right? That's where they go together. And one day again that will be fulfilled. That will come to fruition. But without a question, God is king now. God is king. There's never been a time that he's not been that. He's king by virtue of his reign, by virtue of his creation. And he does rule. He does rule from heaven over the sons of men. Whether people acknowledge it or don't acknowledge it. He does his will whether people...

The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 16:18–20 · October 26, 2025

Transcript:
Let's go back to Matthew chapter number 18. Matthew 18. Matthew 18, we are going to look, we're gonna continue in, Matthew 18, Matthew 16, I apologize, I was looking at the wrong number. Matthew 16, and we'll just begin, we'll just read back over our text here, we're gonna pick up in verse number 18, and kind of finish this out, and go into what I think are just really interesting, interesting truths that we don't often cover just because they're not super frequently mentioned in scripture, but we wanna look at them tonight. Verse number 13, the Bible says, when Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? And they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias and some others Jeremiah's, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto them, blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. It's interesting to note here that he uses all of the, basically all of the names of Peter in this passage. The only exception is the name Cephas, which is a different language, it's Aramaic, which actually he probably said Cephas when he actually spoke it, and then Matthew recorded it when he recorded it in Greek, which is the language of the New Testament. Then he put Peter because that's the Greek equivalent of the word Cephas, the name Cephas. But anyway, he uses all of the names in verse 17, and then he says, Simon, which is his Hebrew name, now this is his given name, Bar-Jona, which means Son of Jonah. And then he says in verse number 18, 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. And I will give unto 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. I will give unto thee the keys of my kingdom, the keys of God's kingdom, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be loosen and I will give unto thee the keys of my kingdom, The ourselves who renew theうん by God, and the things that we have made amint us. So we think let us pray in the Bible, let us ask there now, where they should put down the sand, Oh, how we need you, Lord. Every day, every moment, Lord, we need your help. As we meet together, as we study your word, Lord, we're ignorant. We really do need you to teach us. Lord, we need you to give us grace, not only to learn and to get knowledge, but also to act and live according to the knowledge you give us. So Lord, we just entrust this time to you. We ask you to work in our hearts in Jesus' name, amen. All right. What we want to do is look at verse number 18. And as I said, it says here, 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 we saw this morning how the Lord uses a play on words. I don't think it, and you'll see in a minute, but I don't think this, I don't think at all that, and I'm going to mention Catholicism here several times because this is the primary go-to passage for basically, this is the foot in the door passage that swings the door open for every doctrine that has come to pass since the three or four hundreds until our day in Catholicism. So I'm going to mention it several times, but this passage is sometimes, basically, sometimes interpreted to say this. Jesus says to Peter, Peter, your name means rock, and you're the rock upon which I'm going to build my church. And then he goes on from there. But that's not what he says. The Lord says, thou art Peter, and we saw this morning, scripturally speaking, that the name means stone. We saw that in John chapter 1, verse 42. And then playing off of that name, which remember, that name was given to Simon by the Lord. In other words, the Lord surname him Peter. Peter was not a name given to him by his friends or family. It was given to him by Jesus, probably, my guess, for this purpose right here. Because he's going to bring it up and use the name to tell a truth. And that truth is this rock, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now notice, we saw some things about the church this morning, but there's a couple more things I want to point out to you about the church. The first thing I want you to see, and these are just good practical reminders to remember about the Church of Christ. And I don't mean the denomination. I mean the Church of Jesus Christ. Number one, the church belongs to Christ. He calls it my church. My church. The Church of Christ is his possession alone. It's not my church. It's not your church. I know we call it that colloquially. We say my church. At my church we sing this. My church we do that. But in all truth, in the absolute sense, the church belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, and anyone who touches it will give an account to him. It is his special possession. And there is no pastor. There's no spiritual leader that owns the Church of Christ. Right? The spiritual leaders are only overseers, are only guides, and serve only as examples. But the church itself belongs to Jesus Christ. 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 1, listen to this verse. And you're very familiar with this, I know. Peter is speaking to the elders, to the spiritual leaders of the church. Here's what he says. The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. To the elders now he says, feed the flock of God, which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. Here's the key. Neither, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being in samples to the flock. Neither as being lords over God's heritage. A lord is an owner. That's the one who holds the deed. And it says, neither being lords over God's heritage, but in samples to the flock. A heritage is your property. Right? That's what your heritage is, scripturally. I know that's not how we necessarily use it. But that's what the word means. It's a heritage. It's the same word as lot, referring to a parcel of the land. So this is God's heritage. The Church of God is God's heritage. Now I just say that just to reiterate. Listen. Spiritual leaders in churches, and this includes myself, have limits on what they're allowed to do. Right? We do not have a blank check. No spiritual leader, not a deacon, not a pastor, or any member for that matter. I mean, no person in a church has a blank check to do with the church whatever that person wishes. There are limits to it. And those limits are imposed by the Lord Jesus himself. So we all must keep that in mind. In everything we do, it's about we must ask the question, Lord, this is your church. What do you want? Right? This is your church. We are mere stewards of what the Lord has given us. The second thing I want you to see is this. The building of the church, he said, I will build my church. The building of the church, and by this, I don't mean this building made of brick and two by fours. I'm not talking about that. And I'm not even really talking about this particular local church, which again, we saw this morning, is a local, visible manifestation of the body of Christ. But the building of this church, which is the body of Christ, is the responsibility not of us, but is the responsibility of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. I will build my church. So it is not our responsibility to build the church. Let me say that...