There's not a name beneath the
skies, nor is there one in heaven above. But that of Jesus can the sinner's burden to remove. Sweet name when once its virtues
known, how weak all the The sinner trusts to it alone
and finds the grand specific there. was long before I knew
this truth and learned to trust the Savior's name. In vanity I spent my youth That
thought now fills my heart with shame. But since I've known the
life and power with which his name is richly stored, The world
can't keep my heart no more, nor can its joys content afford. The things I once esteemed the
most, I now account as worthless dross. Thy name, dear Savior,
is my most. for which the world appears but
lost. All right, turn now, if you would,
back to hymn number 1092. 1092. 1092. Sing this to Amazing Grace. To God the... I'm sorry. To God the sinner's
mind alone. ? Tis dark as night within ?
? Like Lazarus in the dreary tomb ? ? Bound hand and foot
by sin ? ? Yet though in masty feathers bound ? To God's free
grace afloat. The gospel has a joyful sound. Lose him and let him go. Sinners shall hear this joyful
sound. When God designs it so, grace
shall be on their sins abound. Just as beholding his attire,
no more appears His foe. He says, I've all that I require. Loose him and let him go. He stands accepted in his name. whose blood for him did flow. The holy law proclaims the same. Loose him and let him go. And that's a wonderful passage
there in Isaiah 45, where this comes from. Also, John 11, of
course, is talking about Lazarus. But in Isaiah 45, God was satisfied
with everything that Christ did on behalf of his people, and
there's nothing more that is required of him. And that is
the, that's the trumpet sound of the gospel, is that all is
finished. And that's what Christ proclaimed
as he gave up his spirit, is that it is finished. All has
been accomplished. There's nothing left to accomplish.
But man want to make it to where we still have to accomplish something
for our salvation. And that's not the gospel. All
right, turn with me now, if you would, to hymn number 1147. 1147
will sing us to the doxology And then after that, if there's
anybody that's got any hymns that you'd like to sing, then
we'll take those at that time. Hymn number 1147, the Book of
Natures and the Scriptures. It's taken out of Psalms 19.
? The heavens declare thy glory,
Lord ? ? In every star thy wisdom shines ? But when our eyes behold
Thy Word, we read Thy name in fairer lines. The rolling sun, the changing
light, and nights and days Thy power confess. and the blessed volume thou hast
writ reveals thy justice and thy grace sun moon and stars
convey thy praise round the whole So when thy truth began its race,
destined to spread to every land, nor shall thy living gospel rest
till through the world thy truth has run. ? Till Christ has all
the nations blessed ? ? That see the light or feel the sun
? Great Son of Righteousness, arise! Bless the dark world with heavenly
light. Thy gospel makes the simple wise. Thy laws are pure, thy judgments
right. ? Thy noblest wonders here we
view ? ? In souls renewed and sins forgiven ? ? Lord, cleanse
my sins, my soul renewed ? ? And make Thy Word my guide to heaven
? All right, does anybody have
a hint that you'd like to see? Have a hint of the books? Sorry, I'm having a little bit
of technical difficulty here. Alright, nobody has any other songs left for you? Alright, let's turn to 1
Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. I want to continue looking at
the subject we began last week, Destroying the Wisdom of the
Wise. That title comes from the passage here that
we'll get to in just a minute. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. It's about having a word of prayer.
Our gracious Heavenly Father, we come once again, Father, this
morning, and we're thanking you for all that you've done for
us. We thank you, Jesus, for the
word of God that you've given to us, for the time together,
together as your name. Father, we thank you for this
day that you've given to us. We thank you for the life that
you've given to us, the way you provide for us. each and every
day, take care of our needs, sustain us, uphold us. Father, Lord, we pray that you
might continue to do that, especially in the days to come. Father,
we see that these days are dark and these times are evil. Lord,
we know that the road that leads to the kingdom
of God, the road that leads to heaven, The road that leads to
you is narrow and few there be that be on it. And so what a
joy it is to be able to come to the presence of other brothers
and sisters in Christ and to be able to proclaim the name
of Christ to worship and to lift up these marvelous and wonderful
truths. And Heavenly Father, Lord, I
pray that you just might be with me today as I minister this word
to bring to recollection the things of scripture that you
have taught me, Lord, I pray that they be of truth and not
my own ramblings, that they might not be the wisdom of the wise,
but they might truly be the mysteries of God revealed and portrayed
and rightly exegeted from the word of God.
Father, Lord, I pray for all the churches around that you
might be with them today as they preach the word of God and as
they worship you, Lord, that it might be pleasing and honoring
to you. I pray for our church, Lord, here. I ask that you might
bring other brothers and sisters in Christ who love the truth
to come alongside and labor and to serve with us, Father. I pray that they might find refuge
in solace and edification here, Lord. We pray for our members,
wherever they are today, Lord, we know that Many things come
up in our life that hinder us from being able to come to worship. And we know many of those things
are unavoidable when we understand those things. But Father, we
pray for our members who have been gone for a while. Lord,
we pray that you might continue to minister to them. Lord, that
you'll give them repentance to turn and return. Lord, I pray
that you might be with those who are sick and injured among
us, Lord. For Sister Louetta, we ask, Lord,
that you be with her in her healing. We ask for Brother Ed, that you
might be with him wherever he's at today, not knowing what's
going on and why he might not be here. But Lord, we pray that
you'd be with them and that you might comfort them and keep them.
And if they're watching by Facebook or listening, Lord, I pray that
you might just minister to them there. Lord, I once again want
to thank you for Christ and the work that he has done. Thank
you for all that he is. Thank you, Jesus, for coming
to us when we were nothing and lifting us out of the miry clay.
Thank you for giving your life a ransom for the many. Thank
you for the mercy and grace that was bestowed upon those who didn't
deserve it. So Father, we give you all the
praise today, give you all the glory because of the work that
you've done in redemption, all the things that you've done on
our behalf. And it's only by sovereign grace that we can know
these things and have these things. So we're praising on you today.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Now last week we began to look
at the topic of destroying the wisdom of the wise. I shared
with you guys before that whenever I was a younger preacher, and
it may still be somewhat true today, I don't boast in being
a perfect person. I know that I'm not. Matter of
fact, my frailties and failures far outweigh anything that is
of value to me, in me as a person, as a preacher, as a pastor, as
a father, husband, as a worker. There are always areas of improvement
that definitely need to be there. And so in no way do I claim to
be perfect, to have perfect understanding of God's Word. I don't have perfect
understanding of my own self, much less perfect understanding
of the things of God, but only speak as I feel and understand
through God's Word what has been taught of the Spirit. In my younger days, though, I
was very, very boastful and prideful in what knowledge that I had. that I had accrued, knowledge
that I had gotten from reading books upon books by scholars
and theologians and professors and doctors of this and doctors
of that, and taking that and just parroting everything that
I heard. Oh, well, that scholar has all
these degrees. Well, he obviously must know
what he's talking about. So whatever he says must be true,
because his vast knowledge, just, I mean, there's no way to get
around it, that if he has that much knowledge, then he must
know way more than I do, so I ought to listen to what he says, okay? Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't
listen to those who the Lord has given wisdom, but just because
somebody has amassed a lot of knowledge, doesn't mean they
know how to rightfully execute that knowledge. They don't know
how to rightfully judge what that knowledge is saying, okay? And I've given the illustration
before, you know, there are people that have memorized a lot of
the Word of God. uh, chapters and whole books,
uh, memorize that. And just because they have all
that in their memory doesn't mean that God has given them
the understanding of what it means. The wisdom of God and
the wisdom of man are diametrically opposed. The wisdom of man, the
only thing that the wisdom of man can know is the things of
the flesh, the things of carnality, the things that is only understood
in a finite way, where the things of God, the wisdom of God is
things that are hidden, that are mysteries that can only be
learned by a revealing or a revelation of God to that child of grace. And it's always in accordance
to God's word. Okay, I'm not here talking about
these extra biblical revelations that these crazy men on TV and
the radios preach and talk about that, oh, I saw this vision from
God that God told me that Jesus was gonna be on the stage with
me whenever I'm preaching, or, you know, that I seen one just
this week, this, I mean, the most craziest stuff. And if anybody
out there is watching and listening to these, of idiots out in California. Right off the top of my head
I'm forgetting the name of the church out there, Bethel, this
Bethel church out there that everybody listens to the music
and everybody watches and everything. It's garbage. It's false teachers.
But this week there was a video that was going around on how
they were proclaiming some stuff. And this woman dressed up as
a wizard and came on stage with a giant staff. And this staff
was a replica of the staff in the Lord of the Rings. And she
even said that she has an affinity for the Lord of the Rings movies
and books. And that in that, you know, There
is this scene, if anybody's watched this, this scene where Gandalf
comes out and strikes down that staff and says, you know, you
shall not pass or whatever, however the phrase goes and everything.
Well, they were going to declare this in their church that sin
and evil and all these things were not going to pass. And they
went up and with wizard incantations, got up on stage and boom, took
this staff and they all put their hands on it, and you shall not
pass. This is stupidity. It's stupidity. And people are falling for this.
Why? Because they look at things in the wisdom of man. Now, we
look at those things and we say, you know, well, that's far off.
Yeah, that's wild. But listen, brother, even within
Orthodox Christianity, even within sovereign grace circles, there
are many who look towards smart people theologians, creeds, and
confessions and say, you know, because those smart guys, well,
man, who are you to talk against the Westminster Confession of
Faith? Or who are you to talk against the Baptist Confession
of the 1689? You know, you think you know
more than those divines? Well, number one, they're not
divine. The Westminster Confession of Faith men were not divines. As a matter of fact, I hate that
word being given to any kind of religious person as much as
I do reverend. They are not divine. These men
are fallible men, just like me, just like anybody else that's
out there preaching and ministering the Word of God. They are being
taught of God. They are being given the Word
of God, and from that the Holy Spirit is to teach. But just
because they are a group of men from old that have a confession
that people have held up for many years doesn't mean that
that is 100% true. Now there's a lot of truth in
some of the things that's written, that's held in those things.
And I'm not discounting all that, and I'm not throwing the baby
out with the bathwater. But here's the point. The point
is, if we, by looking at history, by looking at other men, say
that's got to be the truth because of that, then we are in error. We are in error. If we think
that something is the truth because some preacher theologian, scholar,
creed or confession has said it, and can't find that back
in the Word of God or portrayed in the Word of God, then we need
to lay down what these men are saying, investigate it, search
the Scriptures to see whether these be true. We need to discern
among the spirits whether or not those things that are being
said are of the Word of God. And then whenever we hear things
maybe that these guys don't say, we need to search the scriptures.
I posted this morning on Facebook a couple of passages of scripture
that I have been trying to pray the Lord give me on a, on a,
on an increasing level, and that is that not to judge a matter
so quickly, and that whenever I hear a matter, not to answer
it without listening to the whole entire thing, not to be so quick
to answer that. In Proverbs, and we see that
the word of God tells us that we need to be slow to speak,
quick to hear, but slow to speak. And that oftentimes God gives
men understanding of things a little bit different than we have come
to know. And there may be this superficial,
man, I understand some things in a superficial way and I may
be confident in those things. And then some men come along
and God has given him a little deeper understanding of that,
a little different angle of that, or a different way how that ties
into the word of God. Not saying that what I knew was
wrong, but it wasn't full. It wasn't in its fullness. And we're all striving to learn
these things in their fullness. And we keep searching these things
until the Lord comes. And at that point, then we will
no longer be seen as in a glass darkly. We will truly be seen
with clarity. But brethren, what we do is even
though we may know a surface level, we may know God always
is teaching his people And don't discount something until you've
poured over it in the Word of God. And so many men have knee-jerk
reactions whenever they hear something different than their
association has preached. Now I see online all the time,
men that keep going on and on about, well, this is what the
Primitive Baptist, you know, Primitive Baptist doctrine says
this. Primitive Baptist belief says this. Primitive Baptist
churches preach this. It's not about what Primitive
Baptist churches preach, okay? We don't preach anything here
because the primitive Baptist hold to it. We're not holding
to a tradition of a segment of churches. We're not holding something because
of that. We want to be biblical. Before
anything else, I want to be biblical. And if being biblical means not
being a part of any other group, then that means I'm not going
to be a part of any other group. You know, the Southern Baptists,
they have their creeds and their confessions, and they have their
lines of teaching, and they stick to those lines. And a lot of
times people say, well, we can't believe that because we have
this confession of faith that we have to stick by that somebody
wrote for us. And we're trying to stick to
that. Brethren, that's not where we are to be in the church. We're
to let God's word be true. Let God be true and let every
man be alive. And so what we began to see last
week, as we began to open up the book to the Corinthians,
the letter to the Corinthians, is we began to see that Paul
had come into this church that is full of error. Paul had established
this church, had went away, and now this church had been listening
to other detractors. And remember, the Greeks were
very, very high on wisdom. knowledge. Okay, that was their
passion. That's what they were known for,
is to have all this knowledge and all this wisdom. And so the
Greeks, these Corinthians, part of this Greek society, began
to listen to all these scholars, began to listen to all these
people. as they were proclaiming things
in man's wisdom and had gotten away from the things that was
taught by Paul to them originally. Paul starts out the letter, he
says, Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will
of God and Sosthenes, our brother, unto the church of God, which
is at Corinth. So yes, this letter is written
to Corinth, but Paul is about to tell us that this applies
to every church. He says, under the church of
God, which is according to them that are sanctified in Christ
Jesus called to be saints with all that in every place call
upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours. So this warning, these, these,
uh, These admonitions, these corrections, these rebukes, these
things, these teachings, these doctrines that Paul is about
to give to this church isn't just for contextual Corinth church. And I've heard people say that,
that, oh, well, this was written, you know, and all the things
that it contains in this, especially whenever you get back to some
of these other touchy situations in the, in the word of God back
here in this passage. They say, well, that's just for
them in that day. Well, that was their, you know,
that was how they were back then at that time. Paul here says
this is for every one of God's people. Them that are sanctified
in Christ Jesus, called to be saints with all that in every
place, not just in Corinth. OK, this instruction is not just
for them that are in Corinth. It's for every place where they
call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. If we are the New Testament
church, what are we doing today? We are calling upon the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ to be with us as we worship and receive
instruction and admonition and encouragement and knowledge from
him in the word of God. So this is for everyone. He goes
on and says, And again, nothing wrong with
knowledge, but it's correct knowledge. I thank my God always on your
behalf for the grace of God, which is given you by Jesus Christ,
that in everything you are enriched by him in all utterance and in
all knowledge. Okay, so he's praying that the
Lord would give them the right things to say, the right things
to know, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you,
so that you come behind in no gift waiting for the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul here is saying, hey,
listen, You're a church that the Lord has bestowed every gift
upon. You don't come behind anybody in any gift. Nobody's ahead of
you. Every church is the same. God
has given these things to every church. Now, we know, as we'll
find out later in Corinthians, we know that those gifts, those
signed gifts went away, but we'll get to that. That's for another
message. It says, even as the testimony of Christ was confirming
you, so that you come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the
end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ. God is faithful by whom you were called unto the fellowship
of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, now here it is, that
ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among
you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind
and in the same judgment. Now, that's true for every church,
brethren. That is our desire. That should be our longing. That
should be our goal. And one of our goals in coming
together as a church is that we speak the same thing. What
good is the witness of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Joplin
if we're all speaking something different? If I'm preaching and
teaching one thing, Brother Ed goes out and he ministers to
somebody and he's preaching something different. One of the other members
goes out and they're preaching and teaching something different.
Okay? What is that going to cause?
Well, number one, it's going to cause chaos. Okay? Nobody's going to know what we
believe. They're going to think that we don't know what we believe.
Well, obviously they don't have a clue what they believe because
nobody there knows what they're talking about and everybody's
saying something different. Paul is saying that you all speak
the same thing. So, now let's think about that
for just a minute, brethren. If we are to speak the same thing.
Now, this is where the downfall of this generation and this media
Facebook, YouTube, Sermon Audio, and all this is, and where people
are hiding in their homes and not pursuing going and finding
New Testament churches and giving themselves in the service of
the gospel where God has placed it, in the New Testament church,
in the local church. Okay? This is where the downfall
comes, is because we are scattered in electronic land We have no
direct accountability with nobody, no direct responsibility to anybody,
and if somebody disagrees with us, we just unlock them. We just
click the button and, well, we're just going to unlock you. You're
a heretic, boom, unlock. Oh, I don't agree with you, boom,
unlock. Or, well, don't listen to this
guy, so now I'm not gonna turn to his YouTube page, or whatever,
okay. That's the problem with this
society. Nobody is being held accountable. That's why God gave
us the church, the local church. We can't run from each other.
I have to deal with you, you have to deal with me. And Paul
here is saying, listen, when we come together in the church,
together, there's been a body of doctrine There has been a
practice that God has set down for us in Christ. Christ being
the head, the word of God being our rule of faith, and we are
to come around this thing and to learn of it. And we're not
all learning at the same levels. We're not all understanding at
the same levels. So what has to take place? Patience
and long-suffering with each other. But there's something
else that has to take place. And it's not directly screaming
in this verse, but it's there. Listen to what he says. I beseech
you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye
all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you,
but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and
in the same judgment. How does that happen? How can
we speak the same thing not have divisions, be perfectly joined
together in the same mind and in the same judgment. How is
that accomplished? How do we as a church accomplish
that? Do you just do what the preacher tells you to do? No. Why? Because we have preachers
that want to be dictators sometimes. We have preachers that are in
error sometimes. Listen, if you take and do everything
that I tell you to do, without this right here being your judge
guide, okay, without this being your point of reference and everything,
then you're going to fall for anything. And I'll just tell
you right now, I'm as susceptible to error as anybody else is,
just because I'm a pastor and called of God to preach and holding
that office within this church doesn't mean that I am without
error. And so there needs to be checks
and balances within the church. And you can't have checks and
balances. Listen, brethren, this is very
vitally important to the life of the church. You cannot have
checks and balances unless you have love for one another. And why do I say that? Well,
number one, love covers the multitudes of sin. We cannot come to disagreeing
points without love. If there is no love for the brethren,
a desire for edification of each other, not of a building up of
myself, but a building up of somebody else. Paul is going
to get into that later in this book. That knowledge puffs up,
but we need to be about edifying the other person, to think more
highly of other people than we do of ourselves. And if we do
that, then our concern, our desire, our service is going to be to
the other person with long-suffering impatience. But in this world
today, people that are calling themselves brothers and sisters
in Christ are knee-jerk reactioners who just quickly want to dismiss
anybody else. They don't want to take and invest
the time to minister to one another. They don't want to bring in conflict. They don't want to be part of
any kind of conflict. And listen, I'm telling you,
in the church there is going to be conflict. Anytime you come together and
there is a group of people all with their own understanding
and all their own thoughts and stuff, there's going to be conflict.
But here the Apostle Paul by the Holy Spirit is telling us
that we should speak the same thing and that there should be
no divisions among you. The only way that we can arrive
to that is that we have to talk to each other. We have to speak
with each other. A lot of times people would just
come to church, go home. We don't speak on these things.
Whether or not it is the preacher has said all he thinks he should
say in the pulpit, Or whether it's the person in the pew afraid
to say anything to the preacher because he's the preacher in
the pulpit. Or whether it's they don't want to say anything to
anybody else because they don't want to get into any kind of
conflict. Brethren, if there is dividing things within the
church, we have to talk about it. We have to discuss it. And in discussing these things,
if we love one another, we will discuss them in such a way that
it will be discussing to seek the good and the betterment of
our brother and sister in Christ. It will be to lay down our pride
and boasting and in humility, be open and willing to receive
correction. So if we do not jointly have
a place in our mind and in our heart to number one, come together
to discuss things. Second of all, to understand
that there will be divisions among us, and those will have
to be confronted, and in confronting those, if we don't love our brother,
then we're gonna come in carnal, fleshly ways. This is what happened
with Corinth. They began to do things in a
carnal way. Instead of out of brotherly love,
Instead of coming with the Spirit of God and looking to the Spirit
of God to bring unity, they were all about, well, this is what
I want. This is what I want. And listen, brethren, that's
the downfall of churches. I've seen it happen in many churches.
Pride builds up and churches split. Why? Because this brother
and this brother can't get along. They can't agree. This guy thinks
we ought to do it this way. This guy thinks we ought to do
it this way. This guy is too prideful to be and has no humility
to listen to what this guy says. This guy is the same way. He
has too much pride and no humility to listen to what this guy says.
And neither one of them has any humility to get on their knees
before God and ask God, bring us together into unity. Where
is it? And if I'm wrong, let me be the
one to be corrected. If he's wrong, may God give him
grace to repent. and acknowledge the truth. See,
that's the problem today in the church. So many are selfish in
the church. And I point the finger at myself
just as much as anybody else. And so the only way that we can
speak the same thing, have no division among ourselves, be
perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment is for us to, in love, seek the better for the other,
for us to be patient and long suffering for one another. Now that doesn't mean we're all
going to be robots and have the exact same, but that means that
as we understand things, it may not be right on the same thing,
but we're able to come together and say, Hey, I trust that brother
that the Lord is teaching him. And you know, let's continue
to move on. Verse 11, For it hath been declared
unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house
of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that
every one of you say, if I am of Paul, and I of Paul's, and
I of Cephas, and I of Christ, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified
for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank
God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius, lest any
should say that I had baptized in my own name. And I baptized
also the household of Stephanas, besides I know not whether I
baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words." Not with wisdom of words. Now, are we called to be wise?
Yes. How can we preach the gospel
if we don't use words, right? What is this talking about? But
to not preach. Lost my place here. For Christ
sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom
of words, lest a cross of Christ should be made none effect. What does he mean there? not with wisdom of speech. He
says, I'm not to come here to preach in a way that is oratory. I think that's probably not a
word, but I just made it up, and now it is one. So write that
down. You'll find it in the Urban Dictionary
tomorrow. For anybody who comes and speaks, and they put in great
words, they outline it. I mentioned this last week, outlining
the thing just right. It isn't about how well you speak. It isn't about how wise you sound. I've heard preachers that get
up there and all they do is they talk Greek or they talk Hebrew. Nothing wrong with that. We need
to understand that. There has to be some understanding
of those things because of the way translations take place and
have an understanding of what God wrote in the languages that
God wrote it. meaning to that. But when guys
get up just to impress you with their knowledge of Greek and
Hebrew or Latin, you know, you see these guys that get up and
they speak and half the things that they say, you can't speak,
you actually need a true interpreter to know what they say because
they don't ever tell you what they actually said. They're just speaking
some other language to impress you that they've learned another
language. Paul said, hey, I didn't come
here and speak in the wisdom of words, of speech. He said, if all we do is come
to preach oratory speeches to show how much we know, how much
we've learned, and we don't rightly divide God's word, then we're
not doing the church any good. If I'm getting up here to preach
to show you how much I studied and learned this week, then I'm
not doing you any good. What's going to do you good is
to correctly interpret and exegete the Word of God. My place and
my role in the church is to study and to show you the things that
this book says and to tell you, declare unto you what this word
says, not what Westminster Confession says, not what that says, not
that we don't deal with that when we talk about historical
things and get context for why certain things happen when they
happen and to know different things throughout history, but
we never appeal to those things as our basis of truth, for our
wisdom, for our understanding. We do those things and look at
that. And I'm not against reading things
from other men, but brethren, it always is in light of God's
word. And we never say, oh, okay, well,
that's what I want to believe about that because John Gill
said it, or because John Calvin said it, or because anybody else
has said it. And even if they did say it,
and others say that, oh yeah, I agree with they, they said
that, and now we have this lineage of belief throughout some denomination,
that still doesn't make it the truth. For the preaching of the cross
is foolishness to them that perish, excuse me, for the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness, but unto us which
are saved, it is the power of God. We went over this last week.
I won't reiterate this, but just reading down our passages here.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. That's
what our sermon is entitled. Destroying the wisdom of the
wise. God's Word is always going to
destroy the wisdom of the wise. It's always going to seem like
foolishness to people whenever we hold to the simplicity that
is in Christ, whenever we hold to the simplicity that is in
the revealed Word of God. You mean it's just that? It's
got to be more than that. It's got to be more than that.
He says, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made
foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. So you can't know God
by gaining wisdom, worldly wisdom. That's why I said last week,
just because you're some scholar in religious studies, just because
you went to some seminary, just because you're a teacher and
maybe have 15 or 20 doctorate degrees in whatever, doesn't
make you any more qualified to understand the things of Scripture. Because they're not taught that
way. They're not taught by the wisdom of man. The things of
Scripture is taught by the revelation of God, by the Holy Spirit, through
the Word of God. And listen, it's taught to every
man. Not just the learned. It's not
just the preacher. Okay? Matter of fact, let me turn back. to uh write this down hopefully i can find
it real quickly Turn with me if you would to
1 John. Maybe I can't remember chapter and verse. 1 John chapter
2. Verse 27. It says, But the anointing
which ye have received of him abideth in you. Now, what's he
talking about? What anointing is he talking
about? He's talking about the Holy Spirit of God. If you've
been born from above, you have the anointing. OK, the anointing
isn't some special something that you pray hard enough and
you get a special blessing of it. OK, all this stuff these
guys on TV are preaching and teaching You can just chalk it
up to 90% of all that stuff they say is wrong, if not more. The
anointing. Every child of grace has the
anointing. They have the Holy Spirit. But the anointing which
ye have received of Him abideth in you. And ye need not that
any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you all
things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught
you, ye shall abide in Him." So we have the anointing of God,
the Holy Spirit. It isn't just the preacher. We're
not dependent upon the preacher. Now, the preacher is given. He's
a gift from God. The preacher, pastor, teacher,
that is a gift. That office is a gift of God
to the church. A man that the Lord has specially
given a gift to understand God's Word and to convey those things
to the congregation. But listen, brethren, Even that,
even with the Holy Spirit of God gifting that man and enabling
that man to preach the truths of God until the Spirit of God
teaches that to you inwardly by the Word of God revealing
that as truth to you. It doesn't matter how well that
man speaks or how much he does or how often he says it until
the Holy Spirit reveals to you that that is the truth, it still
will be foolishness to you. For it pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe." Now, we went over that
last week. That's not talking about eternal salvation. That
is talking about salvation from wrong thinking. For the Jews
require a sign, the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ
crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness.
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness
of God is wiser than man, and the weakness of God is stronger
than man. Now, we talked about that stuff
last week. If you didn't tune in last week, go back and listen
to the message from last week. For ye see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise. And God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things that are
mighty. I've seen that in so, so many
conversations across the internet and in personal experience. Who are you? Matter of fact,
I had one guy one time, we were talking in a discussion group
one time, and I was laying out some things on why I believe
what I believe, and was quoting through the scripture and everything.
And after quoting through this, the guy that I was talking to,
he just kept going back to these creeds and confessions of the
Protestants. And finally he asked me, he said,
well, where did you go to school? I said, well, what does that
have to do with anything? He said, well, where did you go
to seminary? Did you even go to seminary? I said, well, what
difference does that make? I mean, the word of God is the
word of God. What difference does it make
if it's coming from somebody from a seminary, from someone
who's never been to seminary? He said, well, that lets me know
whether or not you've been trained or taught in things of God. I
said, what difference does that make? If I've been in a school
that teaches those things, that's not how things are taught. And
he said, oh, so I take it then that you've not been to seminary.
I said, no. He said, and you're a pastor
of a church. I said, yes, I am. And he said, well, that's unfortunate. And he said, so why should we
listen to you if you've not been to seminary? And see, that's
the mentality that men have in the carnal nature. is they think
that because somebody has been puffed up in carnal knowledge
or puffed up even in religious knowledge, that they are the
ones to be listened to, but the guy that just sits over there
in the corner that studies the Word of God and is listening
to the Spirit and following after the things that the Spirit teaches
them, they don't want to have anything to do with that guy
because they don't think he's nothing. Well, you're just some quack
over there to yourself, and you're going against all the orthodox
Christianity that has been passed down through all the synods and,
you know, councils and all this kind of stuff. It's crazy. It says here, it says, For you
see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise after the
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has
chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise,
and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the
things that are mighty. and base things of the world, and things
which are despised, God hath chosen, yea, and things which
are not, to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should
glory in his presence." Now that right there is a principle of
scripture. God is always going to do what he does in such a
way that no flesh is ever going to be able to glory in his presence.
If this church grows from this little small handful of people
right now and to two, three hundred, four hundred, you know what?
It's not going to be because of Mike Smith. It's not going
to be because of you individually. It's not going to be because
of us even collectively. It's going to be because of God
who does the work, who builds his church. If God does anything,
it's God that receives the glory. If anything is done, to honor
and to glorify Him, He's gonna get the glory. And so He has
devised this whole system of everything to be to abase man
and to magnify Christ. To abase man and to magnify Christ
so that God will get the glory. It says, but of Him are ye in
Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us, wisdom, righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption, that according as it is written,
he that gloria, let him glory in the Lord. So often we want
a glory in our upbringing. We want a glory in our knowledge.
We want a glory in our education. We want a glory in our denomination
or our association. We want a glory in the accolades
that we've done. We want a glory in our works. I remember as a Southern Baptist,
we used to have those little cards that we filled out whenever
we came into Sunday school. And on that card, it said, you
know, how many people did you tell the gospel to this week?
And you'd write it in. And how much money did you bring? You'd write it in. And then how
many times did you read your Bible this week? And you'd write
it in and everything. What we were doing, we were glorying
in our works, weren't we? What were we doing? And then
we had those little tote boards outside in the foyer or inside
the auditorium that showed how many people we had, how much
money we gave, how many brought their Bibles that day, how many
outreached that week, all this stuff. What are we doing? We're
glorying in ourselves and not glorying in the Lord. Patting
ourselves on the back. Matter of fact, we went so far
as to give away pins and ribbons. 365 days that we went without
missing church. You know? 365 days that we brought
our Bible to church. Well, whoopee! Ain't that where
you're supposed to bring your church and Bible? You know, knocked on 25 doors.
Knocked on 50 doors this month. Knocked on 80 doors. Listen. So let's look into chapter 2.
Because remember, this is a letter. This isn't a chopped up book,
it's a letter. Paul says, according as it's
written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Don't
glory in your knowledge of something. Don't glory in your understanding
of something. Glory in the Lord. He says, and
I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech
or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. What's
Paul saying there? He's saying, I didn't come here
to impress you with how educated I was. I didn't come here to impress
you on the depth of my knowledge. I came unto you to give you the
testimony of God, the testimony, the witness, the record of Christ
Jesus. For I determined not to know
anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." That's
the center of all that we talk about. If we talk about the church,
guess what's at the center? Christ and Him crucified. If
we talk about the home, what's at the center? Christ and Him
crucified. If we talk about your finances,
Christ, Him crucified. That's the center of everything.
That's on every page of every book, of every letter, of every
chapter, verse, everything is about Jesus Christ. And Paul said, I come to give
the testimony of God about him. Not about your creeds, not about
your confessions, not about your histories, not about your educations. I come to give the testimony
of God about what God has said about Jesus Christ. Verse three, and as I was with
you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech
and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom."
My, how that's the case today. You see these preachers on TV
with their wisdom of men preaching, with their intellect and with
their enticing words. They're enticing men to make
decisions for Christ. to choose Christ, enticing men
with men's wisdom. But what did Paul say? He said,
whenever I was with you, I came in weakness. I thought he was
weak. Paul was definitely not weak,
but what did he do? He came in humility. He came in fear, reverence
to God in his preaching. He said, my speech was not with
enticing words of man's wisdoms, but in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power. He was in demonstrating the Spirit's
given him knowledge of the Word of God and power. Now, some of
this could even be the very fact that whenever Paul came among
the Corinthians, he still was demonstrating those sign gifts
that he had able to confirm the doctrine and the practice that
Christ had taught him, that had given him to give to the churches.
If you remember Jesus, give a commission, give a set of doctrine, give
a set of practice to the New Testament church. And it began
to happen there in the first church, which was a Jewish church
in Jerusalem. But then as he called Paul the
apostle to the Gentiles, and then churches began to be established
among the Gentiles, Paul too received the same instruction
that all those apostles, the first 12 apostles received. He
received the exact same instruction book. He received the exact same
amount of time of instruction. He received three and a half
years of instruction, just like those men did. And so he came
out of that time period of instruction and he began to establish the
churches just as Christ had established that very first church. And so
he's holding them to account on these things. And he said,
listen, whenever I came to you, I came in the demonstration of
spirit and empowering Christ even give me gifts to show and
to validate my message. He was healing the sick. He was
speaking in tongues. He was interpreting in tongues.
All these gifts that God had given him to validate the message
and the mode that God had given for the church to operate under.
And Paul had said, listen, whenever I came, what I laid down for
you was laid down not only in the Spirit by preaching the Word
of God and the Spirit of God revealing that truth to you,
you receiving that Word unto yourself and following and obeying
that Word in being baptized and brought into the church for instruction,
but also in power where the Holy Spirit gave power for me to validate
that by signs and wonders. Verse five, why? That your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. And brethren, that is just the
opposite today. So many men are standing in the
wisdom of men and not in the power of God. It is amazing,
amazing, amazing to me that men can stand and show forth God's
word chapter after chapter, verse after verse, and the Bible be
completely cohesive That thread runs through all of Scripture,
nothing contradicting itself. And yet someone look at that
and say, well, that's not what I was taught in the past, and
I just can't understand that to believe. And you show them,
well, there's a contradiction here in what you're saying. There's
a contradiction here in what you're saying. There's a contradiction
here in what you're saying. Yeah, but that's a mystery. That's
just a mystery. Yeah, there's a mystery, all
right. And it's a mystery to those who have not been made
perfect. It's a mystery to those who have
not been born again. It's not a mystery to those who
have been given understanding by the Holy Spirit. You say,
well, I don't think that's true. Well, look at verse 6. How be
it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect. The wisdom
of God is spoken to them that are made perfect. Who are the
ones made perfect, brethren? Does anybody here claim to be
perfect? Well, definitely none of us are
here perfect in experience. Who are the perfect ones? Well,
some might say, well, those are the ones who are mature, are
in age, you know, they've grown up, they're adults. Is that what
it's meaning? I don't know. It might have that
connotation. I don't know. But to me, the only ones that
are perfect are the ones who are in Christ Jesus. They're
the ones that are perfect. The ones that are given the righteousness
of Christ. God's people, God's elect. God's
elect are the ones that we speak this wisdom to. And they're the
ones that can hear it. Read along with me. It says,
Yet not the wisdom of this world or the princes of this world
that come to naught, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world
unto our glory. See, this wisdom, it was a mystery
for ages, kept hidden with God, and was revealed in these last
days. Verse 8, Which none of the princes of this world knew,
for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory. But as it is written, I have not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. So no eye, no ear,
no heart is going to receive the wisdom of God unless they
be one that God has shed His love abroad in their heart. That
God has sent His Spirit, the anointing that abides within
them, so that they abide in Him. But God hath revealed them unto
us. How did He reveal them unto us?
Through seminary? Southwestern Baptist Seminary? Is that how he... For God hath
revealed them unto us by his scholars. Is that where he revealed
it to us? For God hath revealed them unto
us by his confession of faith. 1689, 1644, 1647, 1863, Philadelphia.
Goat Yard, Black Rock Address, you name it. by heaven's faith and message. Anybody? Is that where you...
But God hath revealed them unto us by His learned men. That's not what he says. God hath revealed the mysteries,
the hidden wisdom of God, unto us by His Spirit. See, unless you have the Spirit
of God, you're not going to be revealed the mysteries of God. God hath revealed them unto us
by His Spirit. That's why, again, we believe
that the new birth has to precede faith and repentance. The new
birth has to come first. The Spirit of God must be given
to a person because only the Spirit of God reveals these things. but God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit. Who is us? Who is He talking
about? Well, go back to the beginning
of the letter. To the church that is in Corinth. Those that
are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints with all
that in every place called upon the name of Jesus. The elect
of God, the people of God. Or if you want to go up to the
immediate context, who's He talking about? those who have been made
perfect. Howbeit, we speak wisdom among
them that are perfect, but God has revealed them unto us by
His Spirit, and saying the same thing. For the Spirit searches
all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth
the things of man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even
so, the things of God knoweth no man. No man knoweth the things
of God. You cannot find God by searching
Him out. God is revealed, and the only
way we can know who God is, what God does, how God does it, anything
about God, it has to be revealed by the Spirit of God. That's
the only way you can know it. Why? Because God has laid down
this principle for us to understand. Know, man, knoweth. And if you want to stand and
say, well, all you got to do is read your Bible enough and
you can learn it. No, may this it say, God hath revealed them
to us by his word. Now, granted, that's where the
information comes. But the Word is just going to
be dead letters until the Spirit of God takes that and makes it
understandable to the mind. Understandable and receivable
in the heart. If the Spirit of Christ doesn't
come and reveal these things to us, brethren, they're just
words, dead words, cold words on paper. We must first be born
again and receive the anointing, the Spirit of God abiding in
us to teach us. And you say, well, I don't believe
that. Then you don't believe God's
Word. Then you are denying God's Word. That's what he says. Even
so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. So the only person, that wants
to know God's Word. If you're wanting to know God's
Word, the only way you're going to do it is if the Spirit of
God reveals it to you. No person is going to be able
to do it for you. All your efforts of studying unless the Spirit
do that. So the only source of revelation
that we have Is the Spirit of God taking the words of God and
revealing what they mean to us? Look at verse 12. There's going to be some detractors
that say, well, I don't believe that. I still think that you
have to believe to receive because the Bible says that you have
to believe. Look at verse 12. Now, we have received not the
Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God. Okay. Okay. So who's the, again, he's
talking about we, right? We, those who have been sanctified
in Christ Jesus, those who have been called those who are the
brethren, the us word, all these words throughout scripture, the
elect of God, the people of God, those who have been made perfect.
We have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit,
which is of God. Why? that we might know the things
that are freely given to us of God. You cannot know the things
freely given to you. These preachers that are out
there saying that, you know, you've been saved, that Christ
has died for you and loves you and has died for you, and you
just need to reach out and receive Him, believe on Him, come to
Him, and then if you do, then He has promised that He will
put His Spirit in you and you'll be born again. Listen, that's
backwards. The only way you can know the
things that was freely given to you of God is if you've been
born from above and have the Spirit of God. Look at verse 13. Which things
also we speak. What things? The things freely
given us of God. Everything that we know. The
revelation of who God is. And specifically at the center
of the revelation of God, the main Jesus Christ and all of
what He has done. Which things also we speak not
in the words which man's wisdom teacheth." How many times does
Paul have to keep going back and saying, not in the wisdom
of man. Not in the wisdom of man. Not in the wisdom of man. Not in the wisdom of man. Only
by revelation of God. Now brethren, let me just pause
here and remind you where we started here. I beseech you,
brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all
speak the same thing and that there be no divisions, but that
ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment. The Spirit is working to bring
us into the unity of the faith. But until then, we're going to
keep the unity of the Spirit. until He brings us to the unity
of the faith. That means there's going to be
divisions. There's going to be things that we're not going to
agree with, but we are to keep the unity of the Spirit. That means I love you, brother,
even though I disagree with you. And I'm going to look into what
you have to say, and I'm going to search God's Word. Let's get
together and go through God's Word and see. If I'm wrong, then
by God's will and by God's work, I'll be corrected. Vice versa,
if you're wrong, may God give you grace and mercy to repent.
But I'm not going to just drop you. I'm not going to just forget
about you. I'm not going to just deem you a heretic out of nowhere. I'm going to do what the Bible
says. I'm going to admonish you by the word of God, though, right?
Too many people want to admonish each other by John Calvin, or
by the Council of Nicaea, or by John Gill, or by Gilbert Beebe,
or whoever else. They want to admonish you by
that, but not the Word of God. The Bible says that you who are
spiritual, go to them that are not spiritual. The Bible says
that if there is a man that's in the wrong, go to that man
and you are to pray with that man. You take the Word of God
and instruct with the Word of God. And if they continue in
that way, yes, there is a point in which we have to discipline. But brethren, we don't just knee-jerkly
just call everybody heretics. The only way that we can do what
it tells us to do, have the same mind, speak the same things,
not have the division, is whenever we understand that it's the Spirit
of God that teaches us. not debate rooms, not chat rooms. We can surely be edified by those
things, but brother, only whenever the Spirit gives us understanding.
He says, which things also we speak, not
in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost
teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But look
at verse 14. But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. So before a person is born from
above and receives the Spirit of God in them as the comforter
and as the teacher, they cannot know. They will not know. They'll
never know. They cannot find out anything
about God. Verse 15, but he that is spiritual, he that is spiritual judges all
things. That word judges there means
discerns. He that is spiritual discerns
all things. What is discernment? Well, that's
taking a look at something and discerning or contemplating upon
that and deciding whether or not that is true or false, again,
with reference to God's Word. Discernment is something that
somebody is rightly understanding the Word of God. If you're rightly
understanding the Word of God, you are discerning what the Word
of God says. See, that's why I make an effort
to try to preach expositionally and give the meaning of the text,
give the meaning of the context, bring out what the Scripture
is saying, and not necessarily try to tell you what to think.
I'm trying to explain this is what God's Word says, and then
you're to discern whether or not that is true or not by the
Holy Spirit that is in you by going and referencing everything.
You remember the Bereans whenever they had heard Paul preach. Paul
the Apostle, taught directly from Jesus Christ, and yet the
Bereans, the Bible says, were more noble than the Thessalonians. Why? Because they took what Paul
said, they went back together, and they poured over God's Word,
and they looked at it to discern whether or not, is this man telling
me the truth or is this man telling me a lie? But today, nobody wants
to go back and discern by searching the Word of God and looking into
the matter before making a rational judgment What men want to do
is look to this man's writing that he posted on Facebook. Look
at this man's writing on his website. Go back and read some
confession of faith and say, oh, there it is. It's already
been decided. That's true. That's not true. Settle. You're out of order. What is this saying to do? It's
saying that we are to discern. They're spiritually discerned.
But he that is spiritual discerneth all things, yet he himself is
judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of
the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of
Christ. He goes on and says, and I, brethren,
could not speak unto you as spiritually, but as unto carnally, even as
unto babes in Christ. He said, I couldn't even speak
to you on a spiritual level. I had to go back to ABCs and
123s because you were thinking carnally and not spiritually.
I have fed you with milk and not with meat. For hitherto you
were not able to bear it, neither yet now are you able." And I
find that a problem in a lot of men today, including myself.
I'm not denying that I have this issue as well. Like I said at
the very beginning, you know, I know some things and they're
surface-level things. And some guy comes with some
deeper thing of understanding, give it to me, and my first knee-jerk
reaction sometimes is, well, I don't know about that. And I'm wrong when I do that.
So is everybody else that does that. He says, you're not able to bear
it. See, there are some men that
just are not able to bear meat. They're still on milk. And what
are we talking about here? Well, Paul was given an illusion,
an illustration, a simile here of of like a child. Whenever
a child is first born, what do you feed it? You feed it milk,
right? It drinks milk, and it gets and
grows by drinking the milk. But at some point, that child
begins to start eating solid food. Okay, you kids, you drank
milk for a long time, and then as soon as you were able, we
started giving you some soft food. Then as time went on, we
started giving you a little bit harder food. And then we began
to give you stuff that you could chew on. The Lord gave you teeth
to be able to bite down on stuff. He was able to start eating meat.
You couldn't just jump from milk to meat. And if we tried to feed
you meat, what was going to happen? You're going to choke on them.
There are some in the Word of God who are still on milk in
certain areas and not ready for meat. For hitherto ye were not able
to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal,
for whereas there is among you envy and strife and divisions,
are ye not carnal and walk as men? Because if you remember at the
very beginning, he says, y'all should be of one mind, walking
together. For while one saith, I am of
Apollos, another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal Well, I'm of
the primitive Baptists. Well, I'm of the reformed Baptists.
Well, I'm of the Presbyterians. Well, I'm of the 1644 Confession. Well, I'm of the 1689. Hi, I'm
of the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, tri-millennial, post-millennial,
all-millennial, don't speak in tongues. Oh yeah, we're a six-day creationist. Put all the names down there.
King James only. Put all the names down there.
Because we all want to be into it. We all want to fit into these
groups. Now, he said, are you not walking
as men? For while one says I am of Paul, another I am of Apollos.
Don't you understand that Paul and Apollos are saying the same
thing? Or they should be. And to take sides and say, well,
I'm of Paul. Well, no, I'm of Apollos. What
did they say about Apollos? What was one of the characteristics
of Apollos that we learned from Scripture? Well, Apollos was a man who was
a great orator, right? He spoke with great oratory ability. And a lot of people like to listen
to him preach. And so someone can say, well,
I like him because he is more educated in his preaching. Where
Paul, he may not have been so, and I don't think that that might
be true. Or say Peter, or say John, the
fishermen, they may talk like Mike Smith does, bad grammar
and making up words. Can't hardly keep a clear thought,
okay? Well, I like this guy because
he preaches with studiousness, proper grammar, Greek and Hebrew. I like this guy because he lays
it all down in life lessons. He's just a regular old Joe telling
it like it is. He says, who then is Paul and
who is a Paulist but ministers by whom he believed? All we are
is conveyors of the message. All we are is ministers. Don't
be following me. Don't be following him. Don't
be following this person. Don't be following this group
of people or that group of people. All we are are ministers by whom
you believe, even as the Lord gave to every man. I've planted
a polished water, but in the end, if anything is to take place,
God gave the increase. God gave the increase. If a farmer
goes out, and plants a field, goes out and waters a field, and nothing grows. Not one blade
of anything comes up out of that ground. Was the planting and water profitable
and worthy? Should we pat the farmer on the
back for planting and watering? No, why? Because all he did was
plant water. Nothing came up. Why? Because He can't produce anything.
All He can do is plant and water. The only one that can give increase
is the Lord. Now we think, well, it's by nature,
you know, everything's by nature. We just put a seed in the ground
and dirt and water, sunshine, bloop, there comes a plant. Did
you know that every plant, every seed, my wife plants stuff at
our house, and she puts it into these pots and she puts fertilizer
on there and she gets out there every day and waters it, sunshine
shines on it, she gets up the next day and does all that. She
planted, she watered, guess what? She didn't make one of those
plants grow. Even with weed be gone and fertilizer and all this
stuff, she didn't make that grow. Every plant that's ever been
planted only germinates and actually bursts forth and live if God
gives it life. Same thing in the spiritual.
Nothing bursts forth in life unless God first does that, no
matter how much it's planted, no matter how much it's watered.
Remember the parable that Jesus talked about of the four soils?
The seed was scattered and it fell upon four soils, and out
of the four, three of them didn't do anything. Now there was a
little bit of activity, but none of them produced fruit. Only
one of them did. And it was the one that the ground
was made good. The ground has to be made good
or the seed ain't gonna work. Here, he's saying the same thing.
Listen, I can go plant the seed, or Apollos can come behind and
water the seed, but unless God does the work in the heart, Unless
God gives revelation, unless God draws, unless God causes
you to be born again and to give you spiritual life, to understand
spiritual things, to discern spiritual words, he said, then
there won't be any increase. There'll be no increase. So then
neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but
God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that
watereth are one. That's weird. I thought that
was two people. No, two people. It's one work,
two jobs. One planted, one watered. They're
doing the same thing though. What are they doing? They're
bearing testimony of Christ. One bore testimony of Christ
by planting the seed. There wasn't nothing there to
begin with. It was empty. No knowledge of it. The second
one came and watered it. What did he do? Give it nourishment. Working upon what was already
planted there. But unless God gives the increase,
unless God germinates that life, it won't sprout. It won't come
to fruition. Now he that planteth, he that
watereth are one, and every man shall receive his own reward
according to his own labor. For we are laborers together
with God. Ye are God's husbandry. Ye are God's building." What
is he saying? Quit being divided in everything that you're trying
to say and always trying to take sides and always being so quick
to divide up into corners. You're all one working together.
If you're a church, you should be saying this going back again.
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the
same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but you
be perfectly joined together in the same mind, in the same
discernment or judgment. Our message should be the same.
And if we're so quick to just draw up into corners and say,
well, he doesn't believe like I do, well, I don't believe like
he does, well, I'm of that guy, I'm of that guy, well, I'm of
this group, well, I'm an absolute, or I'm a conditionalist, oh,
I'm an in-betweener, I'm an absoluter, but I'm a limited
absoluter. I'm an absolute absoluter. He's saying, listen, the one,
the planet, the one, the water, the one, and every man shall
receive of his own reward for we are laborers together with
God. You're God's husbandry. You're
God's building. According to the grace of God
which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the
foundation, and another buildeth thereupon. But let every man
take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For another foundation can no
man lay than that that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if
any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones,
wood, ace, double, every man's work shall be made manifest,
for the day shall declare it. because it shall be revealed
by fire, and the fire shall try every man's word of what sort
it is." What is that talking about? It's talking about the
church. The foundation was laid by Jesus Christ and the apostles. This is the body of doctrine
and this is the practice. That's been laid. Now others
can come and lay foundation upon that, but that foundation is
laid. And if you try to lay anything
else upon there, that isn't already laid. If you don't work with
the foundation that's given you, it's not going to abide. And
he's saying, listen, it's going to be shown. The truth is going
to be the truth. Eventually, it will all be revealed.
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he
himself shall be saved. It so is by fire. A lot of people
think this is talking about the end times, the last judgment.
I think this is talking about what's going on in daily life.
I think this is what's going on now. We are seeing these things
now. Know ye not that ye are the temple
of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? Talking
about the church. If any man defile the temple
of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy,
which temple ye are. And that's not talking about
a building. It's talking about the congregation. Let no man
deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth
to be wise in this world, Let him become a fool that he may
be wise. Listen, you don't have to be
the know-it-all. You don't have to be the one.
Again, I'm preaching to myself. For the wisdom of this world
is foolishness with God, for it is written, He taketh the
wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the
thoughts of the wise that they are vain. Listen, you're not
fooling anybody with your sophistry. You're not fooling... Listen,
if I could get up here And with a suit and tie, which there's
nothing wrong with, I don't have any problem with that. I wear
a suit and tie whenever I go to other places, whenever that
seems to be the custom among those men. Or if people have
an offense about something like that, so that not to be an offense
to them, I don't have a problem with that at all. Most men do
it because they want to dress their best for the Lord. Not
to make righteousness, not to prove that they're a pope and
hierarchy over somebody else. but because they feel that they
ought to look right before God. You know, if we're going to look
right going to meet the president, we ought to look right going
looking, representing Christ Jesus. You know, I don't have
a problem with that. I think you carry too far in both directions. But I lost my train of thought. It
just went away. Well, it went away, and it's
not coming back, it don't seem. Verse 19, for the wisdom of this
world is foolish, God, for it is written, he taketh the wise
in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the
thought, there we go, that's where I was. I can sit up here in a
suit and tie, and I can stand up here and speak in tinkling
words and glorious oratory skill, and God knows my heart. He knows
whether or not My aim is to edify the brethren, to stand for the
truth, to see and humble myself and be taught and learn, or whether
or not I'm trying to boast in myself, pump myself up. He says,
again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.
Therefore, let no man glory in men, for all things are yours. Let no man glory in men. Man,
that's... We glory in men too often. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas
or the world or life or death or things present or things to
come, all are yours and you're Christ and Christ is God's. I think we'll probably stop there
for today, brethren. I still have more to say on this
regard, especially as it goes in to chapter four. So Lord willing,
next week we'll look at chapter four. and continue on in this
discourse. Does anybody have anything that
you'd like to add or any questions or any corrections, rebukes? I always want to leave it open
for if any of the men here have any correction or rebuke or anything
that you want to add to the discussion. Anybody have a hymn that you
want to sing before we leave out here? How about for he's a jolly good
fellow? Just kidding. In light of what
we just read, we won't do that. Those were jokes, by the way,
if anybody's watching. All right, let's bow. Jesus, we come again, we're thanking
you for This day we thank you for your word. Father, how? Truly much we need to be humbled.
Preachers and pure life. Many of us walking around in
our own vain conceits. Follow Lord, I I pray that you
would help all of us here. Not to think more highly of ourselves
than we are. We might think of the other brother
more highly than of ourselves. Father, I pray that we might
not ever come to the place where we are unable to receive correction
by another brother or sister in Christ. I pray, Father, that
you might help us to learn. Give us discernment. Give us wisdom. You know that
comes from above. Father, help us to rightly understand
the Word of God so that we might be able to think the same things,
to walk in the same direction, to not have any divisions among
ourselves. Father, we know that that work
comes from Christ alone. May you be pleased to help your
church walk that way. Bring us into unity, Father.
Help us through times of conflict that love might abound, that it might cover a multitude
of sins, that we might realize that this brother is coming to
us and love, not in pride and boastfulness, but so often we
have those feelings because that's often how we see other men react. They correct in pride. They correct
in haughtiness. God, forgive me for the times
that I have done that. Keep me from times future. that I might want to do that.
So, Father Lord, we just ask again that You might be with
us. Thank You. Thank You for Your salvation. Thank You for
Your death on the cross. Thank You for giving us life,
life abundant. Thank You, Father, for looking upon the work of
Jesus Christ and being satisfied and not holding us, Your people, for the sins that we've committed
and will commit, but that You've imputed the righteousness of
Jesus to us so that every sin, past, present, and future, have
been removed. Father, I pray for those here,
Lord, that may be Your sheep that have yet to be converted,
yet to have professed faith in You been baptized, Lord, I pray
for them, and I ask, Lord, that you would just be with them,
minister to them, call them to yourself, Father, I pray that
you would save them. Lord, I pray that you would just
be with our church as we leave today, Lord, that you might direct
us this week, be with us now in this time of fellowship around
the table, that you might bless the food that we're about to
eat. Thank you, Father, for the hands that prepared it. Thank
you, Father, for the opportunity that we get to sit and discuss
with one another the things that have been going on and things
in our life and to fellowship truly with one another. Father,
it's been great to be in your house today, and we ask that
you might bless this time that has been honoring to you in all
that we do and say. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.