Confessing Christ

This message is one of the Times Square Church pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, PO Box 260, Lindell, Texas 75771 or calling 903-963-8626.

You are welcome to make additional cassettes of this message for free distribution to friends. However, for all other forms of reproduction or electronic transmission, existing copyright laws apply. I want to talk to you about confessing Christ.

Confessing Christ. If you have your Bibles, and I trust you do, if you're from Times Square Church, you do have your Bible. Matthew 10, please.

Matthew 10, two verses, 32 and 33. Matthew 10, verses 32 and 33. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. If you have a King James, I'm going to read it again, verse 32 and 33, and I want you to read aloud with me, in the annex and all overflow rooms. Let's read these verses aloud if you have the King James.

Read verse 32 with me. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

All right, look this way if you will, please. I'm going to attempt to answer two questions this morning. First of all, what does it mean to confess Christ before men? The second question, what does it mean to deny Christ before men? Let's start right off with question number one.

What does it mean to confess Christ before men? Whosoever there shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven. Now, the word confess there is more than just human assent. I assent to that, I believe that.

It's a covenant, it's an agreement that you make with Christ. If you really confess Him, you are coming into covenant, you are agreeing that you would represent Him before men. You would confess Him before men for who He really is.

All of His might, His power, His personal care for you, you're confessing that before men. You make an agreement. Now, it's not just a prayer.

Lord Jesus, I believe You're the Christ. The Bible said even the devils believe and tremble. It's not just saying, well, I believe in Jesus.

I don't care, you may not even go to church and you hear, I don't care if you're Catholic, Protestant, even Islam, some can say, well, I believe that there was a Jesus. It's not just saying, I believe Jesus was born into this world to a virgin. I believe that Jesus lived and did good and that He died and went to heaven.

He went to His Father. That's not enough. Even if you say He was resurrected and He was God in flesh.

Have you confessed Him before man for who He really says He is? Now, if you look closely to what Jesus really said, He said, whosoever therefore, and that word therefore means in light of what I've already said, in light of what I've just told you, in light of what I've said, therefore you shall confess Me before men. What did Jesus just say to them? If you look at the two verses prior to that, verses 29 and 30, Jesus said, are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? One of them shall not fall on the ground without your father, but the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Through you not therefore you are of more value than many sparrows.

And now we say, therefore, in other words, in light of what I've just now told you, I want you to confess Me before men. Now, folks, in Eastern times, in Christ's time, the birds were sold at the shambles and sold at the marketplaces on long strings. There'd be long strings of sparrows and other species of little birds.

Some were on skewers. And they were sold for just a pittance, very little money. They were snared by those who snared birds and sold very cheaply.

And yet, God is saying here, there's not one of these birds... Now, can you think, because this still is true today. Even this very day, in marketplaces through Turkey and all through the Arab world and all through Palestine, all through many, many nations, these birds are still, strings of birds hanging in marketplaces in Haiti. Everywhere I've been, I've seen it.

And the Lord says, not one of them to this very day falls to the ground without the knowledge of the Father. Now, you think of the millions and millions and millions of birds on the face of the earth. And my God said, I'm making a point.

I want you to know that not one of them has ever, from the beginning of time, ever since I created mankind, not a single bird has fallen to the ground without my knowledge. Not one has been killed, snared, cooked, fried. I'm not trying to be facetious.

I'm telling you, not one bird without the knowledge of my Father. And He said, by the way, not only have I numbered the birds, not only am I aware of every one that has fallen, I've numbered every hair on every head on the face of the planet. Think of the millions in China.

Think of the millions on the face of the earth, and even billions. And He said, and from the beginning of time till the time Jesus comes, to the end of time, every hair is being numbered. What He's saying, do you understand how detailed my care is? Can I convey to you that I care about the birds, I care about every hair that falls from your head? And He said, in light of that, I want to tell you that you have nothing to fear.

Why would you fear when I know that you're worth more than all the birds of the earth? If I have taken the time to number every hair on your head, you think I'm going to ignore what's happening to you? You think I'm just going to be passive when you hurt? I'm going to turn my back on you when I don't turn my back on the birds? He said, how can you conceive of that? And what Christ is telling us right here now, in light of what I have revealed to you of my heavenly Father's care, His all-seeing, all-knowing eye, this is what I want you to confess, that He cares for me. There's a psalm saying His eye is on the sparrow. I know His eye is on me.

You can say that you believe Christ, you can even preach Christ, you can worship Christ, but you have not confessed Him as Christ before men. If you're living in fear, if you go about down in the dumps, helter-skelter, running around trying to find somebody to help you, and totally neglecting what Jesus said about His care for you, you are not confessing Christ. You have not confessed Christ before men.

You can throw Scriptures at people, you can stand on the street corner and preach Christ, believe all the Lord Jesus Christ, but in your crisis time, in your times of being overwhelmed, you do not acknowledge that He cares for you, that He has a purpose in what happens, whatever He allows. He has all the mercy and the grace, and He cares and He sees and He feels, and He's touched with the feelings of your infirmities. And if you turn around as if God has turned His back on you, and you say, He doesn't see me, He doesn't care about me, and you go about with a long face, and you go about complaining and murmuring, you have not confessed Christ before the world, because confessing Christ is in light of what I've told you, in light of my care.

You confess me, but I am faithful and caring to you as an individual. 1 Peter 5.7 says, Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. And in the original Greek, it means casting all your care upon Him, because it matters to Him about you.

What happens to you, it matters. Will you stop and think right now about what you're going through, and remember what God said? Whatever you're going through, it matters to me. It concerns me.

That's the Scripture. That's the Word of God. Him will I confess before my Father.

You know what that means? That on the judgment day, when we stand before Him, those who have confessed Him, those who have made true to His testimony, saying, I know He cares for me, He will not fail me, whenever I'm going through, He'll give me the grace and the strength. God's going to see me through, in speaking faith, in telling the whole world that my God is faithful, not only to the birds and the hares of my head, but to me as an individual. He's been faithful.

He's not failed me. He will not fail me. The Lord says, I'll take you before the Father by the hand, is what He's saying.

On that day, I'll take you by the hand and stand you before my Father's throne, and I'll confess to my Father. Father, here is one who confessed me before men in their hardest trial, in their most difficult time. They pronounced to the world that I cared for them, that I had not abandoned them.

Father, this is one who in their trial turned to me and confessed me before all men that I was faithful. He said, I'll confess you before my Father in heaven. Hallelujah.

Question number two. What does it mean to deny Christ before men? Whosoever shall deny me therefore before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Now when we think of someone denying Christ, we think of Peter.

Here's the man who said to Jesus, though all men should offend because of Thee, yet I will never offend you. Though I should die with You, Jesus, yet will I not deny Thee? Likewise said all the disciples. But this same man denied Him three times before the rooster crowed the next morning.

And then he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And the Gnostics can say to that, what an awful thing that one so close to this man called the Messiah should deny Him and turn upon Him. But folks, we deny Him even in more tragic ways than Peter.

Peter was thinking of his flesh. He was thinking of survival, that's all. He quickly repented.

But folks, there's something about this that I've got to bring to your attention this morning. The Holy Ghost has really been speaking to my heart about how we believers deny our Christ. Let me tell you how that happens.

First of all, we deny Christ when we do not trust Him in our overwhelming times. Now let me speak plainly to you. I don't know if you have said what I've said at times when I've been overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed, especially after so many cancers. There's Gwen, then Debbie, then Bonnie, and then granddaughter Tiffany. There came a time when Tiffany and I was outside the hospital.

Yes, such an overwhelming... You don't accuse God of anything, but there's that question, Lord, this is too much. Have you ever been to that place where you say, I can't go anymore? I've had it. I'm at my wits' end.

I can't carry anymore. And God, why would you expect me to carry anymore? You know, that was the week when I was feeling so bad, and we had requested prayer on our mailing list, all of the United States, for Tiffany. And one letter that came from a woman and her husband, and they were so encouraging.

And I told them, listen to this letter, how encouraging. But I hadn't got to the bottom of the letter. They were just encouraging us.

Because, you know, I was overwhelmed. We were overwhelmed. And Gwen was overwhelmed.

She said, I gave cancer to my... Because the doctor said it was a cluster, a family cluster, genetic. She said, I gave it to Debbie, I gave it to Bonnie, and now I've given cancer to my granddaughter. It was overwhelming.

And so, this letter from this couple from the Midwest, this encouraged us. And then it said, we know how you feel. And I thought, yeah.

I said, our daughter, teenage daughter, and her friend were kidnapped. And taken out into some forest. And my daughter's girlfriend, our daughter's girlfriend escaped.

But our daughter didn't. And they found her weeks later, mutilated. Her head cut off.

And here I am, feeling so overwhelmed. And these people are encouraging me. And I didn't even have an idea how they were suffering.

And they told how God had met them in that hour of need. And how the Holy Spirit had brought such peace and calm. And these people are just witnessing to people.

And there are people around that can't understand. They said, well, you should be so down for so long. They said, well, we do grieve, but the joy of the Lord has been in our hearts because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

But I'm talking to people here that came to this service saying, I can't go on. Have just had too much. Let me tell you what David said.

Could you just turn to Psalm 55? When David got overwhelmed. Because this may be what some of you have been saying. Psalm 55.

Now folks, if you're not going through an overwhelming time, God bless you. But get in line because it comes to all of us. Psalm 55, verses 4-8.

My heart is sore pained within me. The terrors of death have fallen upon me. Cheerfulness and trembling are calm upon me.

Horror has overwhelmed me. And I said, oh, that I had wings like a dove. Then would I fly away and be at rest.

Then would I wander far off and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from this windy storm and tempest. Look at me please.

That's exactly what some of you said this very week. Maybe this very day. That's maybe how you feel right now.

I can't handle anymore. I've taken as much as I can take. This is just absolutely overwhelming me.

I don't know how I can go on. And you feel just like David did. I really would like to escape.

Just some quiet. Get away from all of this and just be quiet. I want to get personal on this.

You see, I have no way of knowing who attends this service this morning. I don't know who you may be, but I'm thinking of a pastor's wife. I don't know who you are.

I'm thinking of other women. Lord put women in my heart that would be here this morning in the annex and all over this building going through the great struggle and trial of your lifetime. You're really going through it.

And God spoke to my heart that I had to bring this Word to you. You see, you sit here in the service stifling a cry. Now, anybody looking at you wouldn't know.

They wouldn't begin to know. David said, I looked on my right hand and behold, there was no one there that knew me or understood me. And refuge failed me.

And what David is saying, I'm in a crisis. I'm in a situation where things look like there's no hope and there's no escape.