A college Sophomore was in need of a car and had a series of dreams one night and everything was in yellow, everything! Early the next morning he began to hit the used car lots, looking at one car after another. Finally he found God’s will for him: a yellow car, yellow inside and out. He didn’t even ask to drive it. He just bought it. Turned out to be a lemon. ¹ Yellow in your dreams is hardly the way to acquire God’s will. Jesus knew what the Father’s will was for His life. One day Jesus began to share with His disciples some of that plan. He met with some resistance. What lessons can we learn from Matthews account of this encounter?

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When Two Plans Meet

• God uses men to bring about His plan and His purpose.
• Satan does the same, he uses (and abuses) men trying to bring about his plan.
• What happens when the two plans meet head on?

The Problem with Opinions

Matthew 16:21 (NLT)
21 From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that he had to go to Jerusalem, and he told them what would happen to him there. He would suffer at the hands of the leaders and the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, and he would be raised on the third day.”

• What Jesus did is layout the entire plan of God He received from His Father in the plain hearing of His disciples.
• Peter had a strong overflowing opinion about what he heard Jesus say.
• He thought Jesus needed to hear his keen insight into God’s plan.

Opinions are the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability and no understanding. – Bill Bullard

• Opinions are readily available everywhere.
• If you don’t think so, just listen in to the average conversation which transpires in your workplace break-room.
• Why even the quite souls of planet earth have them.
• Peter was never of the silent corp.
• Instead of holding on to his thoughts, he blurted out his opinion.
• After all feeling is fact right?
• Creations from the cranial cavity must be correct?
• At least that’s what some opinionated people think.
• Did you ever look at some of the synonyms for the word opinionated?
• This is from the Chambers Thesaurus.
  • Dogmatic, dictatorial, arrogant, inflexible, obstinate, stubborn, pigheaded, uncompromising, with preconceived ideas, single-minded, adamant, prejudiced, biased, bigoted, self-important, pompous, and cocksure.
• That’s what opinionated people are like.
• Everything that comes down the nero-pathway is fair game to be hurled out of the mouth and into the public forum.
• Peter was of impetuously of this mindset.
• Is there any help for those ‘verbally devoted to their opinion?’
• Yes, thank God there is.
• Proverbs 10:19 is God’s word for the vocally impulsive.

[Tweet “Is there any help for those ‘verbally devoted to their opinion?’ Yes, there is. Proverbs 10:19”]

Proverbs 10:19 (NKJV)
19 In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, But he who restrains his lips is wise.

• The Hebrew word for ‘restrains’ means to hold back or to refuse to share.
• The scripture didn’t say you shouldn’t have an opinion. It’s just you should refuse to share it.
• People who talk a lot, sin a lot.
• Restraining your lips is wisdom.
• Allowing your thoughts to incubate is discernment.
• Operating on your thoughts with the scalpel of God’s Word is understanding.
• James 1:19 is the New Testament counterpart to Proverbs 10:19.

James 1:19 (KJV)
19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

• Why is ‘slow to speak’ the best course?
• Why can’t we just say what’s on our minds.
• You know just fling it out there?
• God designed the realm of words as creative tools to do kingdom business.
  • Words are creative.
  • Words release faith.
  • Words bring spiritual growth and understanding.
  • Words preach the gospel.
  • Words transform men.
• Since God designed words as tools for life and health, then know, at times, it’s better to think a thing than it is to say a thing.
• Restraining your lips is wise and would have kept Peter from becoming a mouth piece for Satan.
• How else can we be sure to be a tool of righteousness?

Quit Trying to Correct People

• Jesus spoke out the plan of God and Peter blurted out his opinion about it.

Matthew 16:22 (NLT)
22 But Peter took him aside and corrected him. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!”

• If you desire to be used of God to help hurting humanity, then quit trying to make it your mission in life to straighten out everybody else’s mission.
• Peter corrected Jesus.
• Believers correct other believers all the time.
• It’s not anything new under the sun.
• Some people try to mind their business, God’s business and everybody else’s business.
• And, all they do is get it all messed up just like Peter did.

1 Thessalonians 4:11 (KJV)
11 And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;

• Peter tried to correct Jesus.
• He tried to adjust the Son of God.
• He took issue with the Word of God coming from the lips of the Son of God who only spoke by the Spirit of God.

John 8:38 (KJV)
38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father…

John 5:19 (TNIV)
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

John 5:30 (TNIV)
30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

• Jesus spoke what He saw and heard from His Father.
• And Peter said, “Heaven forbid, Lord, this will never happen to you.”
• Is that marvelous ignorance or what?
• Jesus, spoke of His death.
• He uttered His conviction about God’s purpose for His life.
• Peter tried to straighten the whole thing out.
• Jesus having to die just didn’t sound right to him.
• What did Peter inadvertently do?
• Peter tried to take the place of the Word of God in Jesus life.
• Peter unknowingly said he was the authority on what Jesus mission should be and what that mission should look like.
• However good his intention was he allowed his personal feelings for Jesus to get in the way.
• He became a mouthpiece for Satan.
  • Peter liked Jesus.
  • He respected Him.
  • He even loved Jesus.
• But the will of God is the will of God and it is not subject to like, respect or love.
• In order for a person to speak as to the will of God for someone else, you have to assume omnipotence.
• You have to assume foreknowledge.
• You have to assume you are the know-er and the see-er of all things.
• You have examined all the evidence.
• You know the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10).
• You’re an authority.

1 Corinthians 8:2 (TNIV)
2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know.

• If we persist in doling out rehabilitative advice,
• If we insist on ‘fixing’ everybody,
• When we don’t have all knowledge,
• When we don’t know the nooks and crannies and the in’s and out’s what all that boils down to is nothing but stinking pride.
• Leave people alone.
• You’re not the Holy Spirit to the church.
• It’s pride to assume you know more than God.
• It’s arrogance to infer you know more than the Word of God.
• It’s egotism to dictate to a person when the Spirit of God has already witnessed something else in that person’s heart.
• Quit trying to correct people.
• But you may say, “Doesn’t the Bible speak of correction?”
• Yes, it does.

Proverbs 10:17 (TNIV)
17 Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.

• Correction, in and of itself, is good.
• It’s the source of correction that’s the issue.
• You’re not it.
• Your standards are not it.
• Your view of the world is not it.
• Your opinions and theories about life are definitely not it.
• This is a God and son operation.
• It’s a family business.
• And in a family, it’s the Father who does the correcting not the children (Hebrews 12:9).
• Siblings who try to correct one another normally end up fighting.
• They just get it all in a mess.

Judging the Spiritual by the Human

Matthew 16:22 (NLT)
23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, and not from God’s.

• One of the first rules of ancient discipleship (with noticeably rare exceptions) was: Never criticize the teacher, especially publicly.
• Peter was the disciple. Jesus was the Master, the Rabbi, the teacher.
• Here Peter breaks that rule, even on standard cultural grounds.²
• He disagreed with his Rabbi whose Father happens to be the God of the universe.
• Obviously, Peter did not fully comprehend before he spoke.
• He operated from the natural, from a human point of view.
• The human point view is the playground of Satan.
• Satan is the little ‘g’ god of this world.
• The realm of the ‘human point of view’ is colored and influenced by demons.

Ephesians 2:1–2 (NKJV)
1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,

• Peter gave out the human point of view concerning Jesus death and Jesus called that the voice of Satan.
• It’s not the human view, it’ the Spirit’s view.

1 Corinthians 2:14 (TNIV)
14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

• The plan of God is spiritual.
• It is discerned spiritually.
• It is walked out and carried out spiritually.
• You have to put your Holy Spirit glasses on to see the plan of God clearly.
• You can’t judge it by the natural.
• God’s plan won’t always fit in your human day-timer.
• Nor, will it always make human sense to you.
• Moses made that mistake.
• When God told him the plan, Moses informed God that he had the plan all wrong.
• After all, he was slow of speech so there’s no way God could be sending him to go speak to Pharaoh about letting God’s people go.

Exodus 4:10 (GNB)
10 But Moses said, “No, Lord, don’t send me. I have never been a good speaker, and I haven’t become one since you began to speak to me. I am a poor speaker, slow and hesitant.”

• Slow of speech means he wasn’t fluent in conversation.
• He wasn’t quick on his feet.
• I can relate.
• I’m that way to.
• I always have to study what to say, think about what to say and how to say it before I say it.
• Moses was slow and hesitant in his speaking ability yet history records he did pretty well.
• What’s the point?
• If the Lord put a plan in your heart, you can do it with His power and ability.
• You can’t judge your abilities in God by your SAT scores.
• You certainly can’t listen to what other people say about your faults, your frailties or your failings.
• You cannot access or gauge your potential impact by looking at the human element.
• Many dear people are stuck right here.
• When you were at your very worst, dead, disobedient and doomed, God was the difference maker (Ephesians 2:1-5).
• And now that you are walking with Christ, He still is.
• So, stop trying to measure yourself by yourself.

Don’t Become a Mouthpiece for Satan

Matthew 16:23 (KJV)
23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

• The words ‘Get thee behind me’ in the Greek are all one word.
• The word means to back off, to withdraw or to move away from the presence of someone.
• Our modern day version of this Greek word is ‘get out of my face.’
• It is the exact same word Jesus used when Satan came to him in the wilderness.

[Tweet “The words ‘Get thee behind me’ in the Greek are all one word. It means ‘get out of my face.’”]

Matthew 4:10 (ESV)
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”

• So, Jesus addressed Satan directly even though the words came out of Peter’s mouth.
• You understand, Peter’s words, Peter’s vocal chords, Peter’s body language, Peter’s everything.
• It was all Peter, yet it was all Satan.
• Jesus rebuked Peter.
• He wasn’t shy about it.
• He wasn’t concerned about being politically or socially correct.
• He wasn’t concerned about hurting Peter’s feelings.
• Peter might have wished he kept his big mouth shut.
• Why was Jesus so strong in his rebuke?
• Jesus told Satan, you are an offence unto me.
• The Greek word ‘offence’ means any cause which results in a person sinning whether by preventing righteous action or by promoting sinful behavior.
• In other words, what Jesus is saying is “Get out of my face Satan because you are trying to cause me to sin by not following God’s plan laid out for my life.”

Call to Action:

It’s a sin to not do the plan of God for your life. And if you cause someone else to not do it, if you sow words to that end, if you try and talk someone out of it, you become an instrument of Satan, a mouthpiece for iniquity. That’s not what you want for your life. If you really love people, you should help people to do the will of God and don’t get in the way.

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Question: What did you learn from Peter’s encounter with Jesus? Please leave your comment in the comments section below.

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