I remember one time as a young preacher, not a very good preacher, Brother Mahan told me, encouraged me, and said, always preach with urgency and always preach for a verdict. Well, I'm going to endeavor to do that this morning. And the title of my message is the question that demands an answer. Our Lord asked many questions in his years of ministry. And every single question that our Lord asked exposed the hearts of those that he asked. And he never asked the question to seek information. He knows everything. The Lord Jesus asked questions to give revelation. Our Lord never conducted a poll or survey. He never asked people what they thought because he was curious or in doubt. He asked questions demanding a verdict. Questions often force people to confront things that they normally wouldn't deal with, questions often leave no room for vague answers. People very often hide behind generalities. Our Lord went straight to the heart every time. His asking caused His listeners to think deeply about what they asked Him. He asked questions to expose sin and error. And he asked questions that demanded accountability. There's an old saying, let me answer your question with a question. Meaning instead of giving a direct answer, the speaker shifts the focus back on the one who asked the question. And it's done so to provoke thought. to make the listener think deeper about their own question. That's what our Lord often did. He'd answer someone's question with a question that would cut to the heart of their unbelief. And that's what the Lord very frequently did when He communicated with the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the religious people of His day. And there are some questions that our Lord asked in two passages of Scripture that we'll look at this morning found in Matthew chapter 16 and Matthew 22 that were the same question asked in slightly different ways. So turn with me first to Matthew 16, and then we'll go to Matthew 22. These two questions, three questions, are basically, as I said, the same question And they most certainly had the same consequence. These are questions that determine everything. These were questions that determined eternity. This is serious, urgent matters. It was a question that divided. It divided heaven from hell. It divided truth from deception. It divided eternal life from eternal death. And, Fridge, you can be wrong about politics, and you can be wrong about science, and you can be wrong about philosophy. But if you get these questions wrong, this question wrong, you lose your soul. Lord, don't let us be wrong. on these questions. You can be right about a thousand things and still be lost, but if you get this question wrong, you lose everything. So, with that said, look here in Matthew chapter 16, verse 13. When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples saying, whom do men say that I, the Son of Man am? Now I'd have you to notice the setting here of our Lord's question when Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi. This was a place of idolatry and worldliness. There were shrines to Baal here. There were temples to Caesar. They even had a cave dedicated to a mythological god by the name of Pan. Might as well have been Peter Pan. He wasn't no god at all. And this was a pagan environment that the Lord asked, who do men say that I the Son of Man am? In other words, What is the word on the streets of this religious town about me? What are people saying about me? And verse 14, and they said, his disciples, some say that they are John the Baptist. John had been murdered, beheaded. Some thought he was John the Baptist reincarnated, I suppose. Some, Elias or Elijah, and others, Jeremias or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. They believe you're a prophet. John the Baptist, he was fiery and moral. That's not bad to be compared with him. Elijah was a powerful and a miraculous man. Jeremiah was tender and weeping. One of the prophets referred to a spokesman of God. These are not bad things to be compared to, bad men to be compared to, but they're wrong. They were wrong. Friends, this world has many opinions of the Lord Jesus Christ. They may seem respectful, but they're wrong. And these men recognized His greatness, but they missed His glory. They admired Him, but they didn't adore Him. There's a difference. They were respectful toward Christ, but they carried no affection, reverence, or personal devotion toward Him. And that's still true today. Many call Christ a great teacher. Oh, He was a great teacher. They call him a moral example. He was most definitely that. They declare him to have been a revolutionary. Well, I suppose you could say that. Some declared he was a great prop, and no doubt he was. But he was God, manifest in the flesh. And none of them said that. None of them said that. This religious world I have come to see will tolerate Christ the man, but they'll reject him, most will anyway, as a just God and Savior. Then in verse 15, the disciples of the Lord were given a personal challenge. Christ saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? The Lord here shifts this from men in general to ye, to you. He moves from public opinion to personal conviction. He's not interested in what others say. He asked, what do you say? What do you say? Well, that's the eternal question. Who do you say that Jesus Christ is? This is the question that only your heart can answer. No one can answer it for you. Your family can't answer it for you. Your religion can't answer it for you. Listen, your preacher or pastor can't answer it for you. You've got to answer it for yourself. This is the question for every soul The question still echoes today. What do you say? Who do you say that Christ is? It's not enough to admire him. You've got to bow to him. It's not enough to believe he's Lord. The question of all questions is Jesus Christ, your Lord. Peter in verse 16 gives the correct answer. You know, I was thinking as I read this, this is an open book test. I always liked those when I was in school. The Lord Jesus, by divine revelation, gives us the answer. No guessing, we're not left to guess here. Verse 16, and Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ. Anointed One of God, the Son of the Living God. And listen, whenever we read that description of the Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God, always remember that He's God the Son. He's not just the Son of God. He's God the Son. God is in three persons. None less God than the other. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all are God. He's the Son of God, and He's God the Son. He's the Christ, there's only one. He's the anointed one of God, only one. He's the promised redeemer, only one. He's the Son of the living God, He's God the Son, there's only one. not a prophet who speaks for God, but God himself in the flesh. And if you take away the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, friends, the gospel just collapses. There is no gospel apart from that. Call him a man only and his cross means nothing. Now, if only a man died on the cross. You and I have no hope. But Jesus Christ was the God man. And as God, a perfect man, he fulfilled the law, he kept the law perfectly, he satisfied God's holy justice. And that's why you and I, who have had his righteousness imputed to us, are saved. No other reason, no other way. The justice of God is so unbending and it's so inflexible that it took Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and God the Son to put away your sin, my sin, and satisfy God's holy justice. And one day very soon, every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Some in joy, others in judgment. Some unto eternal life, some unto eternal damnation. And those who go into eternal damnation, they'll have that truth ringing in their minds for eternity. Jesus Christ is Lord. He's God. And you turned your back and you have wanted no part of Him. You would not have this man who is God to rule over you. So we've got to answer that question in our hearts before we leave this world. And here's the issue, this is what makes it so urgent, is that we're not promised another day. I got two calls in the last three weeks about men that I went to school with my age that they die. One found out not long ago that he had cancer and he just lived a few weeks. The other, as far as I know, just woke up one day like every other day and just passed on, died, left this world. We're not promised tomorrow. And I know we always think that happens to everybody but us. But one day it's going to happen to us. A man can be wrong about many, many things and still be saved, but this is not one of them. And we may disagree in doctrine. We both may be wrong. We both in some way may be right. And it's not an issue. We can agree to disagree on some things, but this is not one of them. And that is who Jesus Christ is. Now, some of you've walked with the Lord for a long time now. But the Lord's question to Philip always comes to my mind when I think about my own walk with the Lord. In John 14, verse 9, you don't have to turn there, the Lord asked this question to challenge Philip's desire for the Lord Jesus to show him God. He said, show us the Father. And the Lord asked him this question. Have I been with you so long? Have I been with you so long, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And now you're going to say to me, show us the Father? Do you not know who I am, Philip? And here we see the Lord's identity. That's so important. He's not just a messenger. He's not just a prophet. He's not just a priest. He's not just a king. He's God. Philip wanted to see God when God was standing right in front of him. To see Christ is to see God. To see Christ is to see God in action. To see Christ is to see God in His full character. Christ embodied God's nature perfectly. And this is just not a rebuke to Philip. This is a revelation to Philip and to us. Jesus Christ is God. The Lord asked this question in Luke chapter six. Verse 46, he said, and why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say? True discipleship is seen by obedience, not empty promises and professions. And you can say Lord, Lord, all day, every day. I know a lot of people that Lord this and Lord that and praise the Lord and thank you, Jesus, and on and on and on. And it's obvious and listening to them talk about their Lord and about their Jesus, that they have no clue who it is. They have no clue of the Lord and the Jesus that this book declares. You know it so, and so do I. The Christ that I believe in is the hope of glory. He's the only hope that any true sinner has. Faith without works of obedience is dead. That word dead means incomplete. Oh, what danger there is in self deception, calling Jesus Lord. Well, that's not just a title. It's submitting to Christ's rule and everything. It's saying, you're my Lord. Turn over now to a few pages to Matthew chapter 22. Now the Lord had just finished silencing the Sadducees. The Sadducees had questioned the Lord about the resurrection. You can read it here. They said if a man has a wife and he dies, and then she becomes his brother's wife and he dies, and on down the line, and the last one dies, which one will be her husband in the resurrection? Who cares? We're not going to be looking for old boyfriends and girlfriends and ex-husbands in heaven. We're going to be face-to-face with Christ. That's all we're going to care about. We're going to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. The Pharisees had sought to disprove Him. They sent one of their most educated lawyers to try to catch Him in some error. Listen, you can't catch God in any error. He wrote this book. He wrote this law. He's the author of it. And on the greatest commandment. And he shut them up. He just said the greatest commandment is love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. And the second one is like unto it, to love your neighbor as yourself. And upon these two commandments hang the whole law. And they shut up. You know why? Because they couldn't do either one of them. That's right. Now the Lord turns the question on them. Verse 41 we read, While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, verse 42, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? Now, these are the Pharisees. They knew the Scripture. They knew it forwards and backwards, but they didn't know the Savior. You know the Scriptures and not know the Savior. I told you about a friend of my dad's who had the whole Testament memorized. I mean, he could quote it. You could tell him anywhere to start anywhere. Start at Matthew 21, verse seven, and he'd start right there. But he didn't know God. Wound up committing suicide. You can know Scripture and not know the Savior. And again, we see here that this question that the Lord asks strips away religion and it lays open the heart. You can know theology, you can serve in the ministry. I know men that have gone to seminary and all they know how to do is to build a physical church, how to get people to come. People don't get saved. The Lord saves people through the preaching of the gospel. If you don't teach them the gospel, nobody's gonna be saved by their preaching. You can know theology, you can serve in the ministry and still miss Christ. These men were law keepers. They were experts in Jewish traditions. But here the Lord is questioning them about his identity. He challenges their understanding of the scripture and who he truly is. Look at the second part of verse 42. They said unto him, they answered the question of who Christ was. And they said, he's the son of David. Now this is so, so important. If you never see Christ more than the Son of David, then you've never seen the difference between religion and redemption. This is the question that divides the world. The Pharisees, they've got the answer half right, but half-truths condemn the same as error does. Christ was the son of David, but he was also the son of God. That was the second question. Whose son is he? Oh, he's David's son. Well, Jesus Christ was the son of David, but he was also David's Lord. Every cult, every false religion, every worldly philosophy stumbles on this point. And that is on the point of who Christ truly is. Look at verse 43. He, Christ, saith unto them, well, how then that David in spirit call him Lord? How then is he David's son if David calls him Lord? That's a good question. That's a thought-provoking question. That's what the Lord always did. David here is speaking prophetically in spirit. He calls the Messiah, my Lord. The Lord said unto my Lord, he said. Even though the Messiah is his descendant. Now this is what's blowing their mind. That's what blew Nicodemus' mind. When the Lord said, you must be born again, what did Nicodemus say? You know, I don't doubt that Nicodemus was a bright man. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, just like Paul was. And he said, born again. How can a man enter into his mother's womb a second time? This is blowing their mind. He's David's son, but he's David's Lord. How can he be David's Lord if he's a descendant of David? He's God. He's God manifest in the flesh. He's God who came down to be a man. That's how. They don't understand who he is. Christ came in the human line of David, yet by the Spirit, David knows that the Messiah is one who is greater than himself. David calls Christ Lord, indicating his authority above David. And here the Lord is driving home the point, driving home the point that the Messiah himself isn't just a human descendant to inherit a throne. He is a divine, exalted, sovereign, eternal, who left his throne on high to come into the world to save sinners. He's the savior of sinners who must be both human and, human, the son of David, and divine, David's Lord. The Holy Spirit gave David the revelation and ability to see Christ, not just as a descendant, but as the one who reigns with divine authority. And only God can give that. What thank you of Christ, yeah. That's the question that determines whether you'll meet Him as Savior, if it's given you to believe, or as judge, if you remain dead in trespasses and sin. And we know that only God can make the difference. You can't make the difference. I can't make the difference. It's God who maketh the difference. Who maketh you to differ from another? Only God. What do you have that you didn't receive? Not a thing. If you received it, why did you glory in it? Lord, help me not to glory in anything I've done, because it's all dung. John wrote, He said, he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life. Nothing about that we can understand. Our Lord said, if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sins. So again, see the urgency of this. It's a matter of life and death. You can't get this question wrong and live. Again, verse 43, how then did David in spirit call him Lord, saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. And here the Lord Jesus is quoting Psalm 110 verse one. And again, this is a pointed question to the Pharisees. Sit at my right hand. What does that signify? That signifies Christ's place of ultimate honor and authority. Sit at my right hand in the position of power on the throne and rule over everything. God committed all things into the Lord Jesus's hand and rule over everything and everyone, especially those that are opposed to God. And the Lord Jesus, by asking this most important question, is letting the Pharisees know some things. And he's letting us know some things. He's letting them know that they failed to recognize who He really is. Now, if you know who He is, thank God, because only God revealed it to you. Salvations of the Lord. They failed to recognize He's the Lord of David. He's not just David's son, He's David's Lord. Submitting to Christ as Lord is to recognize and confess the salvations of Him. Salvations of the Lord. Nobody else can save you. That's what that means. No one else can put your sin away. That's what that means. No one else can bring you to God. Only Christ can. No man comes to the Father, but by Him. You see, dear friends, the identity of Christ is the urgent issue of the gospel. Everything hinges on that, on who he is. If he's only David's son, he cannot say it. But if he's David's Lord, then he's God, and he's the only one who can say it. Because he's both fully human and fully divine. None like him. because He's the eternal Son of God, and because He took on flesh to redeem His own. Christ's question is a direct challenge to all who would reduce Christ to be anything less. And religion today exposes itself by the things that they say. Make Jesus the Lord of your life. How many times you heard that? If you were in my church, you heard it a bunch. You can't, you can't make him Lord. You don't have the ability and God has already made him Lord. Let Jesus have his way in your life. How can you let one who is the sovereign God, the very one who does whatsoever he wills in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth do anything? How can you? He's a sovereign God with whom none can stay His hand or question Him about anything. How you gonna let Him have His way in your life? He already has His way in your life. How about this one? Give Jesus your heart. That one always gets me because our heart's deceitful above all things. It's desperately wicked. Your heart is not acceptable. Give Jesus your heart. No, He won't accept it. It's unacceptable. Christ must give you a new heart. He's the one who creates in us a new heart. And we live in a world where everybody gets saved. I got saved. My brother got saved. My mother got saved. My son got saved. Everybody gets saved by a decision they make, a choice that they made, a work that they did. And that only proves that they're not saved. Because they do not yet know who Jesus Christ is. They don't know whose son he is. Whose son is it? The Pharisees say the son of David, but they missed the son of God. And that's the question that demands a personal answer. Look at verse 46. And no man was able to answer him a word. And look at this. Neither durst or neither does any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. Christ's divine Wisdom silences all human argument. And here we see the conclusion of this long confrontation between the Lord and the religious leaders of his day. The scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees had all tried to trap the Lord with their clever questions. But when the Lord Jesus asked his question, if David calls him Lord, how is he David's son? They didn't have any answer. You see, when faced with the truth of Christ's identity, it'll silence those who refuse to believe. Every time it will. I know some pretty religious folks, and when they start that nonsense, they used to tolerate it anymore. I just ask them a question. Well, if you're always taking authority over Satan, Why is it that, I said, when Satan went before God in the book of Job, God's the one that brought up Job and said, what about my servant Job? And I said, then it was God who said, you can take all he's got, but you can't touch him. And then it was God when he came back after Satan came back to him and had him taken everything of Job. He said, what about Job? He said, well, you got a hedge around him. You've got your hand over him, you're protecting him. He was right about that. He said, well, you can touch him, but you can't take his life. Who was in control there? Why are we taking authority over Satan, who's no more than a dog on a chain, doing God's bidding? They didn't have an answer. And when you say something like that to these religious folks, they won't have one either. Our Lord stands as the final authority. The one that they sought to test was the very judge of all men. He doesn't answer to anyone, but everyone must answer to Him. And here's the sad thing. It really is sad. They didn't repent or believe. They simply stopped questioning. When truth is rejected, the heart just goes silent. Not in submission, but in spiritual deadness. All the Lord has to do to harden someone's heart is just leave them alone. Just leave them alone. They didn't ask him any more questions. So let me say this in closing. The question, what think ye of Christ, demands an answer. Is He merely a man, the Son of God, or Son of David? Or is He the Son of God, the God of David? Refusing to answer is itself a verdict of unbelief. Christ's wisdom exposes man's ignorance. Well, that preacher called me ignorant. I'm ignorant. I'm ignorant of a lot of things. I don't know how airplanes fly, but they do. I'm ignorant of how airplanes fly. But I don't take offense to that. Our Lord exposes man's ignorance. His authority always silenced opposition. and his identity demands a personal response. The Pharisee's silence stands as a warning to us. Those who will not answer him now will one day have no defense before him. This is the question that reveals the heart. This is the question that divides the world. This is the question that determines eternity. This is the question that demands your and my response. What think ye of Christ, whose Son is He? The Pharisees went silent. The Sadducees shut their mouths. But the true confession of who Christ is is what saves a sinner. That's right. It's not what you think of the church. It's not what you think of the preacher. I've asked a lot of folks in times past, why do you go to that church? I like the preacher. Oh, I like the choir. I like the praise band. But they don't know Christ. They don't love Christ. That's not where they're going. It's not what you think of yourself, it's what you think of Christ. Who is Christ to me and you? That's the issue. What place does He hold in my heart? What place does He hold in your heart? Do I trust Him as my Lord and Savior? Do you? The Pharisees walked away that day speechless, not because they couldn't answer, but because they wouldn't. Let's not make the same mistake. Christ still asks that question, what thank you of me? The silence of unbelief is still a deadly outcome. Sure is. No answer is your answer. What thank you of Christ? No answer is your answer. May God enable us to bow before the Lord Jesus and confess with Thomas, my Lord and my God. That's a great answer. Who's Jesus Christ? He's my Lord and my God. That's not just theological recognition. It's personal faith and a personal Savior. Salvation is personal because sin is personal. Each of us stand guilty before God individually. He's a personal Savior because it's my sin that separates me from God. Therefore, salvation has to be personal. Now, we don't make Him our personal Savior like He's our little pet Jesus. That's not what I'm saying. But our sin is personal. It's what separates us from God. And to be reconciled to God, we've got to have someone to pay our debt. And that's the Lord Jesus. So in that sense, He is my Savior, personally. Paul said, the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. He loved me and gave Himself for me. That's personal. He calleth His own sheep by name. David. That's personal. He leadeth them out. He leads me. That's personal. He leadeth me beside the still waters. Personal. Is He your shepherd, as John told you last week? He's not just the Savior. He must be my Savior. He's not just a Lord. He must be my Lord. It's not enough to say He is Lord or He is God. The question is, is Christ your Lord and your God?