Matthew 16:21-23
New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
Just imagine this for a minute! One moment, the Lord Jesus Christ was saying to Peter, "the words you confessed through your mouth about Me is what I am going to use to built my church upon" and at another moment, just few minutes away, He said to Peter, "Get behind me, you Satan". What does it tell you here. You can use the things of ordinary men to oppose the things of God. Peter was just being human here.
Peter just felt that The Lord Jesus Christ shouldn't do the will of God because if He did, He will be ill-treated by wicked men and women. The Lord Jesus Christ counter rebuked Peter with, "don't be a stumbling block for God's will to happen in the lives of many who are in bondage to sin and the sinful nature of the Devil". "Let me free them at all costs of my life," He said more to Peter.Don't stand in my way. Think what God has in mind not what sinful men and women think about this whole thing. Like Peter, anyone can be deceived easily, right? No matter how spiritual you potray yourself in the eyes of others, you can still be deceived in your thoughts because you haven't put to death the sinful nature of the Devil in you completely yet. So, be careful of what you say now, it will be held against you one day before God. Fear God and not man!
