I invite you to take God's Word
and turn with me to the book of 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. And I want to bring you a message
at this conference that I want to entitle, The Kind of Preaching
God Blesses. I want to begin by reading the
text, reading the passage that will be the focus of our exposition
in this hour. Paul told young Timothy, until
I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture,
to exhortation, and to the teaching. In other words, read the text,
explain the text, exhort with the text. That is the engine
that drives expository preaching. You read the text, you explain
the text, you exhort with the text. I want to begin by reading
this text of Scripture. I want to set it before your
heart and before your eyes one more time. And then I want us
to look, and I want to teach with the text, and then I want
to exhort with the text. God's Word reads. And when I
came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of
speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. In my message, in my preaching,
were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power. so that your faith would not
rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Yet we do speak wisdom among
those who are mature. A wisdom, however, not of this
age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. But we speak God's wisdom in
a mystery, the hidden mystery which God predestined before
the ages to our glory, the wisdom which none of the rulers of this
age has understood. For if they had understood it,
they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. but just as it is written, things
which eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and which has
not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for
those who love Him." There is a kind of preaching
that God blesses. And there is a kind of preaching
that God abandons. Years ago, the great Bible teacher
Donald Gray Barnhouse, pastor of 10th Presbyterian downtown
Philadelphia, a predecessor of the great expositor James Montgomery
Boyce, in a sermon that was aired on CBS radio across the nation, speculated the following strategy
of Satan to be the most diabolical. He said if Satan took over Philadelphia,
his most diabolical ploy would be this. All of the bars would
be closed. All prostitution would be off
the street. All pornography would be banished.
The streets would be clean. The neighborhoods would be filled
with law-abiding citizens. All swearing and cursing would
be gone. Children would say, yes sir,
and no ma'am. And then Barnhouse added dramatically,
And every church in Philadelphia would be packed to overflowing,
standing room only. There would not be one pew that
could contain one more citizen of Philadelphia. The entire town
would be packed into churches. And then Barnhouse imagined the
deadliest, most diabolical danger would be this. that in each of
these packed churches, Jesus Christ and Him crucified would
be never preached. There would be religion, but
no Christ. There would be morality, but
no Christ. There would be cultural concern,
but no Christ. There would be positive thinking,
but no Christ. There would be Christianity,
a form thereof, but no Christ. The most diabolical ploy would
be for the churches of America to be filled with preaching that
contained no Christ and Him crucified. What Barnhouse feared years ago,
I fear has come to pass in our own day. Michael Horton has written
a book entitled Christless Christianity that drives home this very point.
In his book, Horton comments that the church in America has
become more and more Christ-less. Horton writes, the church in
America today is so obsessed with being practical, relevant,
helpful, successful, and even well-liked that it mirrors the
world itself. Aside from the packaging, there
is nothing that cannot be found in most churches today that could
not be satisfied by any number of secular programs and self-help
groups. Horton calls such religion Christless
Christianity. And then he writes, the focus
seems to be on us and our activity. rather than on God and His work
in Jesus Christ. Jesus, Horton says, to these
is a coach with a good game plan for our victory, rather than
a Savior who has already achieved it for us. Salvation is more
a matter of having our best life now. than being saved from God's
judgment by God Himself." In short, it was a Christless
Christianity that both Barnhouse and Horton warn of. This is a
danger into which many ministries fall. It is a succumbing to the
trap where Christ is relegated to the periphery and to the parameters. Rather than standing in the middle
in the spotlight in the message, Jesus Christ is left standing
in the shadows. What must be recovered in our
day is the kind of preaching that God blesses and it is rooted
and grounded in preaching the person and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is rooted and grounded in
preaching Christ, not merely as infallible teacher and moral
example, and He is both, but preaching Christ as the suffering
Savior and the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. To be sure,
we preach the full counsel of God, but all of the lines of
our theology intersect at that highest pinnacle, which is Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. We preach all of the doctrines
of the Bible. We preach the full truth that
is disclosed unto us. But it is all foundational, and
upon this great foundation of revelation stands a towering
mountain. It is Calvary. It is Golgotha. And upon Calvary is the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are to be forever preaching
Christ and Him crucified. We preach Christ nailed to a
cross. We preach Him lifted up on that
judgment tree. We preach Him bearing our sins
in His body and carrying our iniquities far away and pouring
out His rich red blood on behalf of sinners. This is what must
be the very heartbeat of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we are known for anything, we must be known for preaching
Christ and Him crucified. This is why I'm drawn to this
text in 1 Corinthians 2 this day to share with you. which
says so much to us about the priority of straightforward,
red-hot, no-holes-barred gospel preaching of Jesus Christ. And this passage points back
to the time when the Apostle Paul first came to Corinth on
his second missionary journey. Corinth was a wealthy commercial
hub. It was a prosperous cosmopolitan
metropolis. The city boasted an outdoor theater
with the most renowned actors and dramatists and orators in
the known world. The Corinthians were accustomed
to the best communicators and the best orators and the best
rhetoricians of the ancient world. How would Paul ever make a dent
in the marketplace of ideas in Corinth? How would Paul reach
such a sophisticated city? Would Paul resort to a different
ministry strategy to reach the cultured elite of this town? Would Paul de-emphasize preaching? Would he tone it down for these
cultured ears? Would Paul try a sneak-up approach
on the Corinthians? Would Paul adopt an alternate
strategy other than preaching? Would he try to be suave and
highly philosophical in order to reach these Greek minds? We are not left to wonder, for
Paul tells us what his approach was. Paul came preaching, and
he came preaching Jesus Christ, and he came preaching Jesus Christ
crucified. And this is what you and I need
to be doing and must be doing as we serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
It matters not if you pastor or minister in a large city or
in a small city. It matters not if you are with
the cultural elite or those who are unlettered and unlearned.
It matters not if you're involved in children's ministry or senior
adult ministry. It matters not if you lead a
college ministry or a singles ministry or a young marriage
ministry. There is the predominance of
one message for every man in this room, no matter where you
serve, no matter to whom you minister, no matter what city
you're in, or if you're out in the country, For each and every
one of us, it must be emblazoned on our soul, we preach Christ
and Him crucified. This is what Paul says to each
and every one of us. Now, as we look at this text,
my outline is a Trinitarian outline. I want you to note each member
of the Godhead in this passage. I want you to note first the
preeminence of Christ in verses 1 and 2. I want you to note the
power of the Spirit in verses 3 through 5. And then finally,
the predetermined plan of the Father in verses 6 through 9. This is the kind of preaching
that God blesses. And if our preaching departs
from this plumb line, we have departed from the blessing of
God being upon our ministries and being upon our endeavors
to serve the Lord. There are no exception clauses
to this kind of preaching. I want you to note first the
preeminence of Christ. All preaching that has the favor
of heaven upon it must have in the very center place the person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to know, beginning
in verse 1, and when I came to you, brethren. Notice past tense,
it looks back to the time of Paul's earlier visit to Corinth
on the second missionary journey. When I came to you. And he reminds
them of how it was he came to them and what was the message
with which he came to them. I want you to note first the
negative denial. This is how He did not come to
them. This is how none of us must ever
come to those to whom we minister. This is out of bounds. This is
off limits. The blessing of God will not
be upon our ministries if we do not emulate Paul's negative
denial here. Note, I did not come. I did not come with superiority
of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God."
He says, I did not come with superiority of speech, I did
not come with wisdom, and if there was ever a time to have
tried superiority of speech and wisdom, it was here in Corinth. They loved superiority of speech. They loved wisdom. If Paul had come with superiority
of speech and of wisdom, he could have gathered a crowd from the
very outset and could have been applauded for his message. If Paul had gone door to door
in Corinth, And if he had surveyed the Corinthians, and if he had
asked them, what would you like in a church, they would have
answered, give us superiority of speech and give us wisdom. They loved those things. Superiority
of speech speaks of a worldly delivery. Wisdom speaks of worldly
doctrine. In other words, not only what
you say, but how you say it. Superiority of speech speaks
of style of ministry. Wisdom speaks of substance of
ministry. Superiority of speech speaks
of the method. Wisdom speaks of the message. Superiority of speech is how
one speaks. Wisdom is what one says. Obviously, Paul did not buy into
the tired mantra that the message stays the same, but the method
is free to be whatever. Paul says, no, the message is
unchanging and the method is unchanging. Now when he says,
not with superiority of speech, we must be reminded that 45 miles
away up the road lay Athens. Athens was the crown jewel of
the Greek culture. That's where the philosophers
were born and lived. That's where the great orators
learned their skills. Corinth was only 45 miles away. And what was birthed in Athens
played on Broadway in Corinth. Paul says, not with superiority
of speech, by that he means, not as the Greek orators spoke,
in order to butter up their listeners. Not resting upon rhetorical techniques
to manipulate people. Not relying upon oratorical devices
to win over the listeners. and not looking to train vocal
inflections, not leaning on debate techniques, or commanding gestures,
or flowery eloquence, or play-acting skills learned from the Greek
schools of rhetoric, and not using the art of persuasive manipulation
through discourse. Paul says, you know, I did not
come to you and pander you and try to build bridges to you in
such a way that I would beguile you and try to manipulate you. Then Paul addresses the message
itself. I did not come to you with such
a worldly method, and neither have I come to you with a worldly
message." He says, not with wisdom. And when he says, not with wisdom,
he is referring to the wisdom of this world. The wisdom of
man, which refers to man's solutions to man's own problems. A philosophy in the ancient world. was a total world view, a philosophy
in the ancient world addressed such questions as, where did
I come from? Who am I? Where am I going? What is life all about? Why am
I here? What is meaning? What is truth? How can I find happiness? How
should I live? What is death? Where do I go
after death? What happens in dying? Who is God? All of these were
addressed by the Greek philosophers of the day. And they gave a man-centered
worldview with man's solutions to man's problems. And Paul says,
I did not come to you in such a way to give man-centered diagnosis
of man's problems and then to give man's prescription. Paul
referred to wisdom earlier in chapter 1 and verse 19. I would
refer you back across the page. And here we think not just what
does Paul think of wisdom, but Paul actually quotes the Old
Testament here, and he quotes what God thinks of, human wisdom. In 1 Corinthians 1 and verse
19, Paul writes, for it is written. And as he does, he quotes from
Isaiah 29 verse 14, God is the speaker, God is speaking first
person, and God says, I will destroy. the wisdom of the wise. That is to say, God is death
on human wisdom. I will destroy the wisdom of
the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.
And then Paul begins to taunt and mock the wise men of this
world for the bankruptcy of their ideas to be put up against the
gospel of Christ and Him crucified. And in verse 20, Paul says, where
is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is
the debater of this age? And the answer to those rhetorical
questions is, there is not a man who can match wits with the genius
of Almighty God and God's solutions to man's problems. All of man's
solutions are bankrupt and it is God and God alone who has
true wisdom. In verse 21, for since in the
wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know
God. Man's wisdom never leads to God. Man's wisdom leads away from
God. Man's wisdom is an affront and
an offense to Almighty God. Man's wisdom will never lead
to the knowledge of God. And then in verse 22, for indeed
Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom. Paul also
warned against this wisdom in Colossians 2 and in verse 8 when
he says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy. The word philosophy meaning the
love of wisdom, the love of man's wisdom. See to it that no one
takes you captive through philosophy. An empty deception, that's what
philosophy is, that's what man's wisdom is. It is nothing but
empty deception. According to the tradition of
men, it is just air that has grown old, and it is passed down
from one generation to the next. It is the same poison with a
different label in each generation. According to the elementary principles
of the world, rather than according to Christ. Paul says, this is
how I did not come to you Corinthians. I did not come to you with superiority
of speech, and I did not come to you with man's wisdom. as, notice now positively, proclaiming
to you the testimony of God. This will not mix. You cannot
take superiority of speech and mix it with preaching. You cannot
take man's wisdom and mix it with the testimony of God. It
is like gas and oil. It will not mix. It is repelled. It will always separate. Proclaiming
speaks of God's method. And the testimony of God speaks
of God's message. I did not come to you with worldly
delivery and worldly doctrine. Instead, I came to you with God's
doctrine and with God's delivery. That is what he is saying here.
The testimony of God refers to the substance of the message. It is from God and it is about
God. God is both the source and the
subject of what Paul preached in Corinth. And proclamation
refers to the way that Paul delivered the testimony of God. This is the kind of preaching
God blesses. when there is the proclamation
and the declaration of the testimony of God. Now, Paul becomes more
specific in verse 2. Notice how he tightens the focus
and draws our attention now to the very heart of the matter. This is at the very heart of
the testimony of God. This is where all of the lines
of theology intersect. This is the connecting point
for the truths of Scripture. For I determine," notice that
word, determined. It means to be intentionally
and firmly resolved. I cannot be turned away from
this. I cannot be turned to the left nor to the right. I care
not what my critics say. I care not what others have to
say. I am determined to know nothing among you. And when he
says to know nothing among you, absolutely, unequivocably, Nothing,
nothing of human wisdom, nothing of worldly mantra, nothing of
humanistic philosophy, nothing of secular humanism, nothing
of human psychology, nothing of human sociology, nothing of
comparative religion, nothing of positive thinking, nothing
of motivational pep talks. I determined to know nothing among you when I was with you
for those 18 months in Corinth. Except, please note the exclusivity
of this, there is nothing outside of what follows. Everything that
I had to say fit within the sphere of what now follows. Except Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. This is to
say, the core essence of what Paul preached in Corinth is very
simply the person and work of Christ. I want to say again,
Paul preached the full counsel of God. We know that from Acts
chapter 20, when he met with the elders at Ephesus. He said
that there was a full disclosure of all of the doctrines that
God had revealed to him, and yet he says, I know nothing among
you except Christ and Him crucified. That is to say that all of the
areas of truth and doctrine all come together and set forth in
the primacy and in the centrality of this message, Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Paul was one-track minded in
his preaching. The apex and pinnacle of His
preaching was rooted and grounded in Christ and in Christ alone.
He was the alpha and the omega of what Paul had to say, and
everything in between. For Paul, preaching Christ and
Him crucified, speaks to the primacy of the cross. It speaks
to the centrality of the cross. It speaks of the supremacy of
the cross. The sovereignty of the cross.
The exclusivity of the cross. The finality of the cross. The
glory of the cross. The efficacy of the cross. The
purity of the cross. Paul preached the fullness of
the power of the cross. He preached that by the cross,
the wrath of God toward sinners was alone appeased and satisfied,
that holy God is reconciled to sinful man, and that sinners
in bondage to sin have been redeemed. We sing a hymn, What Can Wash
Away My Sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount
I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. And it is by the cross we are
saved. It is by the cross we are sanctified,
Paul tells us. There is power to change and
transform our lives from the inside out with the power of
the cross. And there is the eternal security
of the believer in the finality of Christ's death upon Calvary's
cross to guarantee the eternal salvation of everyone for whom
Christ has died. Paul has already said this. In
chapter 1 in verse 18, we read, for the word of the cross is foolishness. It is moronic
to the unconverted mind. It is stupid. It is of no sense. It is irrational. It is illogical. It is foolishness to those who
are perishing. And my fear is that our preaching
is no longer foolishness to unconverted ears. My fear is that too many
preachers want to be so accepted by the world that they have pandered
to superiority of speech and they have adopted the wisdom
of this world in order to gain a hearing from those who are
in the world when the fact of the matter is when we bring the
pure message of the cross to those who hear it and who are
lost, it must be foolishness to them. He says, but to us who
are being saved, it is the power of God. In verse 23, Paul says,
but we preach Christ crucified. There is no preaching of Christ
apart from preaching Christ crucified. To Jews, a stumbling block, and
to Gentiles, foolishness. Men, in our preaching there must
always be the primacy and the preeminence of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the preaching of the cross of Christ, not only to
unbelievers unto salvation, but unto the saints of God for their
sanctification and for their glorification. Charles Haddon
Spurgeon once said, the best sermons are the sermons which
are fullest of Christ. A sermon without Christ is an
awful thing. It is a horrible thing. It is
an empty well. It is a cloud without rain. It
is a tree twice dead, plucked up by the roots. A sermon without
Christ, Spurgeon said, is an abominable thing. It is giving
men stones for bread and scorpions for eggs, yet they do so who
fail to preach Jesus. A sermon without Christ, you
might as well speak of a loaf of bread without any flour. Spurgeon
went on to say, if you leave out Christ, you have left the
sun out of the day, the moon out of the night. You have left
the waters out of the sea and the floods out of the river.
You have left the harvest out of the year, the soul out of
the body. You have left joy out of heaven.
You have robbed all of its all. There is no gospel worth thinking
of, much less preaching, if Jesus is forgotten. He must be the
Alpha and the Omega of our ministries. Spurgeon said, I take my text
and make a beeline to the cross. Spurgeon said, let this be to
you the mark of true gospel preaching where Christ is everything and
man is nothing. where salvation is all of grace,
through the work of the Holy Spirit, applying to the soul
the precious blood of Christ. Men, is your preaching rooted
and grounded in the centrality of Christ and Him crucified? Do people think of you predominantly
as a preacher of Christ, one who is always magnifying and
lifting up the glories of the person and the work of Christ? I want you to note second, not
only the preeminence of Christ, but the power of the Spirit. Paul goes on to say, I was with
you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. That is not
how the Greek actors came. That is not how the Greek orators
stood before their audiences. That is not how the great rhetoricians
of the day cast a spell over their mesmerized listeners. To the contrary, Paul said, I
came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. Paul came to Corinth after being
beaten and imprisoned in Philippi, after being run out of town from
Thessalonica and Berea, after being scoffed at and ridiculed
in Athens. He was physically weak. He was
emotionally drained. He had been rejected. He had
been mocked. He had been taunted. When he
arrived in Corinth, he was in human weakness, physically. Emotionally, he is a man who
has been pulled at in every direction and challenged at every point.
But it would be in this weakness that the power of the Holy Spirit
of God would come upon him. No preacher is any stronger than
when he, in his weakness, is holding forth Christ and Him
crucified. When he says weakness and fear
and trembling, he does not mean that he was fearful of his audience.
He does not mean that he was fearful of man. And he does not
mean that he was fearful of being intellectually weak on his part. For Paul said, I am not ashamed
of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation,
he was eager to go to Rome, the chief city in the world, and
to put the gospel up in the marketplace of ideologies and to challenge
every ism and every philosophy and the power of God alone would
be able to change and transform from the inside out. No, Paul's
weakness and fear and trembling was of a different kind. It was
because he understood the seriousness of his mission. He understood
that in preaching, heaven and hell were hanging in the balances.
He understood that he was preaching with souls in need of salvation
who were perishing. He was preaching, as Richard
Baxter once said, as a dying man to dying men, as never to
preach again, such weakness and fear and trembling It's one of
the marks of every great preacher. It was in Martin Luther, the
mighty Reformer, when he stood up to preach, Spurgeon said of
him, Luther said he could face his enemies, but could not go
up his pulpit stairs without his knees knocking together. Preaching is not child's play,
Spurgeon said. It is not a thing to be done
without labor and anxiety. It is a solemn thing. It is an
awful work to undertake. And by awful, he speaks of the
awe that should grip the heart and the soul of every preacher.
When John Knox was first called into the ministry, and he was
called by his congregation in the castle at St. Andrews to
preach the Word of God to them, he was in such despair of his
own inadequacy that Knox burst into tears and withdrew for several
days because of the enormity of the task that was laid upon
him. Spurgeon said of himself that
his own church officers could not leave him alone for even
ten minutes before the start of one of those grand services,
as people gathered by the thousands to hear him preach for fear that
he might faint before being brought to preach before them. He understood
that the weight of the message and the mission was upon him
and it called for sobriety in his soul. Paul understood that
he must answer to God on the last day for his preaching, for
his doctrine. He must faithfully discharge
the full counsel of God, that one day he would stand at the
judgment seat of Christ, that he would be tested as by fire
on the last day, that he would be, as James 3 verse 1 says,
let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing as such
we shall incur a stricter judgment. Someone was telling me this week
of being at a pastor's conference in another part of this country,
and one of the pastors coming up to the man who relayed this
to me for the success of spiritual leadership in his church, he
says, it really comes down to swagger. You have to have a swagger
about you. Well, by that standard, the Apostle
Paul was an abysmal failure because when he came to Corinth, he came
in much fear and weakness and trembling. Notice what he says
in verse 4, and my message, that's his doctrine, and my preaching,
that's his delivery. And my message and my preaching. both substance and style, both
message and ministry, both doctrine and delivery. And my message
and preaching were not." Here's another negative denial. He's
telling them and reminding them how He did not come. Were not
in persuasive words, that's His delivery, of wisdom, that is
His doctrine. Paul was not buttering up his
listeners. He was not tickling their ears.
He was not pandering to their fancies. He was not appealing
to human words of wisdom. There were no calculated theatrics. There was no manipulating techniques. There was no hyper-emotionalism
and no improper humor. Paul says, you know that I did
not come in this manner. Paul, how did you come? And he
tells us in this verse, but in demonstration of the Spirit and
of power. In Paul's weakness, The power
of God by the Holy Spirit was operative and active in his life,
and he was enabled and supernaturally energized by God to carry out
the preaching of Jesus Christ and the cross. And this word
demonstration refers to evidence presented in a court of law.
And Paul reminds them that it was clearly evident to their
very eyes and before their senses. They could clearly see the power
of the Spirit in his ministry as he spoke. His ministry was
supernaturally upheld and empowered by God. This is what Jesus promised
in Luke 24, verse 49, I am sending forth the promise of my Father
upon you, and you will be clothed with power from on high. Paul was clothed with power from
on high. In Acts 1 and verse 8, Jesus
said, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come
upon you, and you shall be my witnesses. Paul would write to
the Thessalonians in chapter 1 in verse 5, in his first letter
to them, and say, for our gospel did not come to you in word only,
but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. Now, here is why, verse 5. So
that your faith Here's another negative denial. If I had come
to you with superiority of speech, and if I had come to you with
a worldly message, with worldly wisdom, so that your faith would
not rest on the wisdom of men. You would be a false convert.
You would be a spurious disciple and a counterfeit believer in
Jesus Christ. You would be religious but lost.
You would be a professor of Christ who does not possess the Lord
Jesus Christ. Your faith would be built upon
the quicksand of this world. For your faith would not rest
on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God." Paul was so weak that God could
use him. There is no one too weak for
God to use, only men who are too strong for God to use. Men who are too strong in and
of themselves. God says, not by might and not
by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord. Martin Lloyd-Jones
has written to me the classic on preaching. It is a book entitled
Preachers and Preaching, a series of messages he gave at Westminster
Seminary several years ago. And in this series of lectures,
Lloyd-Jones comments on the ministry of the Holy Spirit of God in
the life of the preacher. Listen to what Lloyd-Jones says.
If there is no power, it is not preaching. True preaching, after
all, is God acting. It is not just a man uttering
words. It is God using him. He is being used of God. He is
under the influence of the Holy Spirit. It is God giving power
and enabling through the Spirit to the preacher in order that
he may do this work in a manner that lifts him up beyond the
efforts and endeavors, to a position in which the preacher is being
used by the Spirit and becomes the channel through whom the
Spirit works. It is the Holy Spirit who gives
to the preacher clarity of thought, clarity of speech, ease of utterance,
a great sense of authority and confidence as you are preaching,
an awareness of a power not your own, thrilling through the whole
of your being, and an indescribable sense of joy. You are a man possessed. You are taken hold of. You have
a feeling that you are not actually doing the preaching. You are
looking on. You are looking on at yourself
in amazement. It is not your effort. You are
just the instrument. You are the channel. You are
the vehicle. The Spirit is using you, and
you are looking on in great astonishment. What about the people, Lloyd-Jones
says? They sense it at once. They can tell the difference
immediately. They are gripped. They become serious. They are
convicted. They are moved. They are humbled. Some are convicted of sin. Others
are lifted up to the heavens. They know at once that something
unusual is happening. As a result, they begin to delight
in the things of God, and they want more and more teaching. how we need the Spirit of God
to embolden our preaching and to give us passion and zeal and
fire as we proclaim the testimonies of God. John Murray, who was
the great systematic theologian professor at Westminster Seminary,
he came from a high church Scottish Presbyterian background. would
never be mistaken for someone who would be caught up in any
kind of emotionalism. Dr. John Murray said this, preaching without passion is
not preaching at all. Close quote. What he is saying,
where the Holy Spirit of God is filling the preacher and empowering
the preacher, there is the energy of God being released and flowing
through that man as he preaches the Word of God. J.W. Alexander,
one of the Princetonian professors in his great book, Thoughts on
Preaching, says, the whole mass of truth. by the sudden passion
of the preacher is made red hot and burns its way into the listener. R.C. Sproul states, dispassionate
preaching is a lie. It is where the Spirit of God
is ministering with power in the life of the preacher He is
trembling, He is in weakness, but there is a demonstration
of power and of the Holy Spirit upon Him. A young man once came to Martin
Lloyd-Jones and said, Dr. Jones, what is… Lloyd-Jones,
what is the difference between teaching and preaching? Lloyd-Jones
said, young man, if you have to ask me… the difference between
teaching and preaching, it is obvious that you have never heard
preaching. Because if you have heard preaching,
you would not ask me that question. There is the demonstration of
power and the Holy Spirit upon the preacher of God as he is
magnifying the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
noted Puritan Richard Baxter wrote a very famous book entitled
Reformed Pastor. It spoke not of his theology.
It was assumed he would be reformed in his theology. It spoke of
his ministry. Baxter writes, what? Speak cold for God and for men's
salvation? Can we believe that our people
must be converted or condemned and yet speak in a drowsy tone? Can we believe that in the name
of God that we must labor to awaken our own hearts before
we can go to the pulpit that we may be fit to awaken the hearts
of sinners? Remember, they must be awakened
or be damned. and that a sleepy preacher will
hardly awaken drowsy sinners. Though you give the holy things
of God the highest praises in words, yet if you do it coldly,
you will seem by your manner to unsay what you said in the
matter. You will unsay what you say if
you say it without demonstration of the power and of the Spirit. And then, Baxter said, it is
a kind of contempt of great things, especially of so great things,
to speak of them without affection and fervency. Jonathan Edwards
said that one of the goals of great preaching is to raise the
affections of the listener, and the preacher's own affections
by the power of the Spirit must be raised. Do you know what it is to preach
in demonstration of the power in the Spirit? Do you know what
it is to be in trembling and in weakness and in fear? Do you
know what it is to call out to God and to plead with God, to
accompany you into the pulpit and to manifest the fullness
of His power in your mind and in your heart and in your disposition
as you administer the Word of God? Every one of us, as we preach
the Word of God, we must be men who are marked by the filling
of the Spirit of God. Our lives must be dominated by
a power from on high. We must be men who know what
it is to preach in the energy of the Spirit of God. Third and
finally, I want you to note the predetermining plan of the Father.
We have spoken of the Son and we have spoken of the Spirit.
But I want you to note, third and finally, the role of the
Father. The preaching of Christ and Him
crucified in the power of the Spirit is the eternal purpose
of God. Note verse 6, yet we do speak
wisdom. Paul says it's not that we don't
speak wisdom, we simply speak wisdom of a different kind. We
speak not the wisdom of this world, we speak the wisdom that
has come down from above, that has been given to us by God.
And when he speaks of wisdom here in verse 6, he is saying
that this wisdom is found in the gospel of Christ in Him crucified. He says, we speak wisdom among
those who are mature. The mature here refers not to
only mature believers. He is referring to all believers,
for this word can be used, of one who has full membership in
a group. It's referring to all believers
who have a full inheritance of salvation. And this is important
to note because Paul speaks the gospel not only to those who
are without Christ, but he speaks the gospel to those who are mature,
and this speaks of the power of sanctification in the preaching
of the cross and the guarantee of glorification in the preaching
of the cross. Now note, he again uses negative
denial before he uses positive assertion. He says, a wisdom,
however, not of this age or of the rulers of this age. What
Paul has to say, it has not come from the culture. It has not
come from society. It has not come from the intelligentsia
of this world. It has not come from men. Solomon
said, there is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof
is the end of He says that those who are of the wisdom of this
world are passing away. Why would we draw wisdom from
men who are passing away? This is to say they are unraveling,
they are perishing, they are imploding. But, now here is positive
assertion, but we speak God's wisdom. God's wisdom is so antithetical
to man's wisdom. Our message could not be any
more juxtapositioned and antithetical to the wisdom of this world.
They do not even overlap. They are polar opposites. God's
wisdom is eternal, man's wisdom is temporal. God's wisdom is
divine, man's wisdom is demonic. God's wisdom is pure, man's is
impure. God's wisdom is cross-centered,
man's wisdom is man-centered and culture-centered. God's wisdom
saves, man's wisdom damns. God's wisdom is perceived to
be foolish, but actually is brilliant. Man's wisdom is perceived to
be brilliant, but is entirely foolish. God's wisdom is heavenly,
man's wisdom is earthly. God's wisdom provides an alien
righteousness, man's wisdom, self-righteousness. But we speak
God's wisdom. And now here is the sphere, here
is the location of the divine genius of God. It is in a mystery,
meaning it is unintelligible to the unconverted mind until
God, by the preaching of the cross and by the work of the
Holy Spirit, reveals it to the unsaved mind. The hidden wisdom. In other words, man could never
find it out on his own. Were we to divide up into little
small groups and spend the next 10,000 years designing a plan
of salvation, none of us could have ever come up with the genius
of God and the plan of salvation that God would send His only
Son into this world, born of a virgin, under the law to keep
the law on our behalf and give to us an active righteousness,
go to the cross, be lifted up to die, all the sins of all those
who would believe would be transferred to the God-man Christ who would
die in our place, shed His blood, and make the only propitiation
of the righteous anger of God that there could be. Be taken
down from that cross, be put in a borrowed tomb, and be raised
on the third day, and come walking out a living, risen, victorious
Savior, ascend to the right hand of God the Father, and there
be the Savior of all who will call upon His name. Only God
could have designed the plan of salvation. It was the hidden
wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory. Paul is saying, my message is
not a trendy contemporary message. It has not just recently appeared
on the scene. It is not a new discovery of
this generation. This message is ancient. It is
old. It is transgenerational. It is
older than mankind. It is older than man's sin. It
is older than this world. Paul says, we've gone back to
old paths and we are preaching the old, old story. The heart
of this hidden mystery is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Verse 8, the wisdom which none
of the rulers of this age has understood, for if they had understood
it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. It was God's
wisdom that their lack of wisdom would fulfill His wisdom. And we conclude, verse 9, which
has nothing to do with heaven, it has everything to do with
the gospel. But just as it is written, things
which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have
not entered into the heart of man." It is referring to the
glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, which could never be self-discovered. It would have to be divinely
revealed to man. in His Word, and then through
the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Christ in Him crucified. Because for the natural man,
eye would never see it, heart would never discern it, ear would
never hear it, except it be God who would make it known to a
lost and dying world. Because the foolishness of God
is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."
This is the kind of preaching that God blesses. There is the
preeminence of Christ and Him crucified. There is the power
of the Holy Spirit in the life of the preacher. And there is
the predetermined plan of God from before time began being
made known through the proclamation of the Word. As I look over this
audience, I see young men. I see old and seasoned men. The message of the Apostle Paul
to each and every one of us is that whether you are a young
man or a father in the faith, whether you are new to the ministry
or you have been in the ministry for many decades, There is but
the primacy of one message for each and every one of us, whether
we stand in a pulpit or stand in a prison and have ministry
there. Whether we go to the hospital
or whether we go into children's ministry, no matter to whom we
minister, as long as we are on this earth, the heart of our
message is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. A preacher who will
not preach the centrality of Christ is like a barber who will
not cut hair. It doesn't matter what else you
do, you are not a barber if you do not cut hair. And you are
not a God-called preacher fulfilling the call of God upon your life,
except at the center of your preaching, there is Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. One man who stands out as a glowing
testimony of this in church history is the noted Scottish preacher,
Andrew Bonner. Bonner was the younger brother
of the famous older brother, Horatius Bonner. And he was the closest friend
of that Scottish worthy, Robert Murray McShane. You're familiar
with Robert Murray McShane. He was converted at age 18 and
who died at age 29. And he was the instrument in
the hand of God for bringing about great revival in the land
of Scotland. Andrew Bonner and McShane were
closest of friends. And they were both of the same
age. And they decided to reach the world for Christ together.
And they left Scotland. And they went to the mission
field together. First they went to Europe. And
then they went to Palestine to preach the gospel to Jews and
to Muslims. They did frontline preaching
of the gospel in some of the hardest places in the world to
preach the gospel. When they came back to Scotland,
Robert Murray McShane, one of the greatest preachers the world
has ever known, died at a young age, age 29. And Bonner gathered up his diary
and journal and published them for the world to know of the
devotion of his best friend in the ministry. But Bonner would live until the
age of 82. He pastored for 54 years. He died at age 82 while still
in the ministry and still pastoring in Glasgow, Scotland. And Bonner
reflected in his latter years, why would his best friend, Robert
Murray McShane, die at age 29 and why would I be allowed to
live until the ripe age of 82? Why God? Bonar said, "'Why am I spared
so long?' is a question I often ask." He then reasoned to this
end, "'One thing I know. It must be that I may preach
Christ and Him crucified. whenever and wherever it is in
my power. Men, do you know why you're on
this earth? Do you know why you are still alive? Do you know
why there is still breath in your lungs? Why there is still
blood in your veins? Why there is still strength in
your bodies? It is that we may proclaim and
spread the glorious news of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is why we are here. And
as long as we are here upon planet earth, this is at the very highest
pinnacle of our purpose as men of God. I will give Spurgeon
the last word. I received some years ago orders
from my Master to stand at the foot of the cross until He come. He has not come yet, but I mean
to stand here till He does. If I should disobey His orders
and leave those simple truths, I know not how I would expect
His blessing. Here then, I stand at the foot
of the cross and tell the old, old story, stale though it may
sound to itching ears, and worn threadbare as critics may deem
it. It is of Jesus Christ and Him
crucified I love to speak. Of Christ who loved, of Christ
who lived, of Christ who died. The substitute for sinners, the
just for the unjust. that He might bring us to God.
I remain anchored to the cross of Christ. Men, we have received
the same marching orders. We must stand at the foot of
the cross and preach the power of the cross until the one who
was crucified upon that cross returns from glory for us. May
we be found faithful to proclaim the message of the cross of Jesus
Christ. And when He returns, may He find
us standing at the foot of the cross. Let us pray. Father in heaven, how we bless
Your name, that You have entrusted to us the riches of glory. that
You have made us stewards of the mysteries of Your kingdom,
that You have appointed to us to preach the glorious message
of salvation that is found in Jesus Christ and in Him alone. May you raise up from this conference
men full of the Holy Spirit, men convinced of the power of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, men who will preach that which was
the hidden mystery that you have made revealed, which was designed
before the foundation of the world. And Lord, I pray even
thirty years from now, may young men here in attendance at this
conference, may they be found faithful to their marching orders.
And may they be strapped to the cross of Jesus Christ, and may
they be anchored there, and may they stand and lift up their
voice and declare the unsearchable riches of the crucified Savior
and the salvation that he has come to purchase through his
sin-bearing, wrath-absorbing death. And for men such as myself,
as we approach the end of our lives, not knowing how long any
of us really have to live here upon this earth. May we be found
faithful to the end. May we be pressing on to the
finish. May you lift up our arms that
we may proclaim Christ to the end of our life. Father, we pray
this in Jesus' name. Amen. You've reached the end
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