Chapter 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Now, this
morning, I'd like to deal with this 6th chapter. I want to look
at verses 12 to 20. We're just going through the
book of 1 Corinthians. And we're just going to pick
up right where we left off. But what I'd like to do, instead
of starting with verse 12, I'm going to actually look at verse
20 in this first service, and then second service, Lord willing,
go back to verse 12 and come up. So that's a little different. The scripture in the latter part
of the 19th verse, 1 Corinthians 6, the last phrase in verse 19
and then into verse 20 says, you are not your own for or because you are bought
with a price. Now I'm going to deal in these
two services with this truth concerning our bodies. Our bodies. This. Our bodies. I want to take
what God has to say because His Word is all that matters. The
only thing that matters is what God has to say. So we're going
to take the God-inspired scriptures and find out what does the Lord
have to say about our bodies. Now listen, I'm talking this
morning, I'm talking to believers and unbelievers. I'm talking
to everybody in here. If you know the Lord, you don't
know the Lord. I'm going to tell you who I'm
talking to. I'm talking to all of us. What does God have to
say concerning these bodies? Now, when Adam was formed in
the garden, what did the Lord do? He took some dust. He took
some dirt. And He made a body. And He breathed
into it. and became a living soul. He
had a body like we've got. Now, man is born with this thought
that he owns himself. I mean, that's a big, big deal.
You know, you watch off, you know, this body belongs to me.
No, it doesn't. No, it does not. No. This body
does not belong to me and it doesn't belong to you. Man thinks
he has the right to do with himself as he will. No he doesn't. No,
no he doesn't. This selfish thought of ownership
is completely contrary to scripture. Now listen to Ezekiel 18.4. Behold,
all souls are mine. I remember reading something
concerning the sinking of the Titanic. And it was said there
were, you know, twelve hundred something souls lost. You know what that meant? Spirit
and body. Somebody died. Somebody drowned. Behold, all souls are mine. As the soul of the Father, so
also the soul of the Son is mine. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. Now, here the Lord lays claim. to His undoubtable right as sovereign
creator of all men. Now listen, the Lord owns everybody
by creation and therefore has the right and the power to do
whatever He will with His own. And He has the right within His
universe to place His entire possession where He's pleased
for the accomplishment of His purpose. Everybody is the Lord's. He owns us. He created us. We're His. Believers and unbelievers. Everybody is His. And He puts
everybody in this world where he's pleased to put them. Look at 2 Timothy 2.20, 2 Timothy. Now here we're meeting, we're
a body of believers. And we assemble here on Wednesday
nights and Sundays and we come together. And there's people
in this assembly. The regenerated people of God,
they're his elect, his church. But look what 2 Timothy 2.20
says, In a great house there are not only vessels of gold
and silver, but also of wood and earth, some to honor, some
to dishonor, within a body. A body that is made up of bodies. There's different kinds of vessels. Some to honor, some to dishonor.
Turn back to 1 Corinthians 11. Look at verse 19. For there must be also heresies
among you. Heresies, there must be some
that know not the Lord. There must be, there must be
tares within the wheat. There must be heresies among
you that they which are approved may be made manifest unto you. Now why does the Lord, He gave
a parable about tares and wheat. owner of the property had sent
his workers out, they sowed wheat. And wheat came up, but while
men slept, they said that someone came and sowed tares among the
wheat. And they came up and the servants,
when they saw the tares were there, the servants said, well,
what do you want us to do with them? Do you want us to go out
there and jerk them out? And the owner said, no, just
leave them alone. What do you do? Leave them alone.
Let them grow. In the end, I'll send the angels
and they'll gather up all the tares and bundle them and cast
them out into everlasting darkness. But why are they there? That
they might make manifest those that are approved. Now who allowed
them to be put there? The Lord. The Lord did. Why? Because He owns them. You
know, over at your house, do you do what you want to do over
at your house? Do you hang pictures and do you
place vases? Do you put a table, a bed? Where
do you put it? Wherever you want to. Why? Because it's yours. You do what
you want to do with it. So all souls are mine. Back in 1 Corinthians 6, 20,
in every place the Lord places all souls that He owns. Where
he wants to. If he's pleased to eternally
leave a man to himself, leave him to the rebelliousness of
his own nature and finally judge him justly, he can. If he's eternally
been pleased to show mercy and compassion to another, he does. But never at the expense of his
justice, you know. Because He's a just God and a
Savior, the Lord Jesus, according to God's everlasting covenant
of grace, was pleased to redeem. The Lord was pleased to redeem
in the person of His Son all that the Father gave Him from
before the foundation of the world. All souls are His. And
if he's pleased to take one vessel and choose that vessel and show
mercy and compassion to that vessel, he does. And how is he going to show mercy
and compassion? The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world, made sin for that vessel and all like him. bore
the guilt of that vessel, and all like Him, chosen in Christ,
and bore their guilt, and none other. Because I'm telling
you, if the Lord Jesus Christ puts away a man's guilt, pays
his sin, God Almighty is going to save him. He's already saved
him. He's going to reveal it to him.
But if he's pleased to leave one to himself, let him do just
exactly what he wants to do, that's what he's going to do.
So the Scripture declares, back in 1 Corinthians 6, 19, ye are
not your own. You don't own yourself. You are clay in the hands of
the sovereign God. if you've been made in regenerating
grace, to see yourself as a helpless, hell-deserving sinner. One who has no ability to reconcile
himself to God. One who believes that salvation
is all of grace. Now, I've said before, but it
always bears saying again. Man has no part in his salvation. Man has no part in his salvation. Salvation is a person. That's what Simeon said, Now
mine eyes have seen thy salvation. It was the Lord Jesus Christ,
this little infant. Salvation is not an event. Salvation
is a person. placed in Christ the salvation
of His people before the foundation of the world is how God has been
pleased to save His own. I know how people speak of I
got saved like it was an event. I understand basically what they're
saying. They've come to a realization
of something. But salvation is not an event
that you accomplish by an act of your so-called free will.
It's not this. Listen. If the Lord has been
pleased to allow you to see yourself for what we really are, Hell-deserving
sinners. If the Lord has been pleased
to show you that salvation is a person, and that the way that
you got into that person was that God Almighty put you there
according to His Scriptures from before the foundation of the
world, and kept you there, and that Christ lived for you, died
for you, satisfied God for you, And that God Almighty receives
you unto Himself totally because He put you in Christ. And that
you're accepted in the Beloved. Not because you did something,
but because God showed mercy to you. If Almighty God has shown
you, then I can tell you this, that God the Father, who owns
you, chose you in Christ that you should be holy. and without
blame before Him in love. I can tell you this, if God has
shown you that salvation is of the Lord and that you're not
your own, you don't call the shots. We don't call the shots.
We think we don't. If He's shown you who you are
and who He is, then He's predestinated you unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. And all the praise and the glory
and the honor is given unto Him who hath made us accepted into
the Beloved. If you believe that God the Son,
now listen to me, who owns you, God the Father, God the Son,
God the Spirit, God, who owns you. If you believe that God
the Son redeemed you in particular, it is absolutely, do you have
to believe that Almighty God has redeemed His own in particular. When God reveals that to you,
you will believe it. You will believe it. If God Almighty
has given you a heart to believe according to these scriptures,
that the Son redeemed you from the bondage and guilt of sin
by bearing your guilt in His own body, that He was made sin
for you. If you believe that, that He
has bound the strong man, Satan, and purchased you at the hand
of divine justice and rescued you from the jaws of death and
hell and snatched you as a brand out of the fire of God's judgment,
then you've got a good hope. I'm telling you, Almighty God
who owns all men, you're not your own. He made all men, all
women for His glory, for His honor, for His praise. And He
made them to either A. Exhibit the glorious display
of His grace and mercy, or He made you for the exhibition of
His justice. But I'm telling you, we're not
our own. We're not our own. If God Almighty
has done that, He saved you. If you believe that the Holy
Spirit, who owns you, came to you in power at the appointed
hour of God's love and in regenerating grace, gave you life. You have to understand now, remember,
man is born dead in trespasses and sins. What can a dead man
do? Nothing. Nothing. Men falsely
tell people, they tell them, say, if you want to get saved,
all you've got to do, how are you going to do something when
you're spiritually dead? You can't do that. No man can
come to me. But if you believe that the Spirit
of God who owns you came to you in power and gave you spiritual
life, I'm going to give you a new heart. I'll give you life. I'll give you a new spirit. I'm
going to remove a heart of stone and I'm going to give you a heart
of flesh and I will teach The God's people are going to be
taught that Almighty God saved them by power and purpose and
wisdom and seals them till the day of redemption. And He's done
something for you that you couldn't do for yourself. But you listen. If the Lord leaves one to his
own, And all that I can do is proclaim
what God has to say. If he leaves one to his own,
and a man believes not, he will not bow to him as sovereign. He who owns all men. He who is God. He who is sovereign. He is going
to justly deal with his property in judgment. The soul that sins
is going to die. Believer, you listen to me. You are not your own. The scripture
says in verse 20, you are bought with a price. He owns us by creation. But I
tell you this, to all that he's everlastingly loved. He has redeemed
his people. He has bought us his property
that fell in sin in the garden. And he paid the debt to himself. What he owed He paid what he
owed to himself, he paid. Now do you see why the divine
creator, the divine owner, won by creation and redemption, will
never leave his property to the fickle and impotent will of fallen
man? He's not going to leave us to
ourselves. We can't do anything. He's not
going to leave his possession to the wiles of the devil. You've
been purchased this Acts 20, 28. It's one of the most amazing
passages of Scripture. I hear it and I know it. I know I know it in my head.
But it's one of the most blessed passages of Scripture that I
can consider. Acts, I'm not, I've got, I'm
going to read, turn with me to Acts 20-28. Acts 20-28. I don't
even want to quote it, I want you to look at it. Acts 20-28. Take heed therefore unto yourselves
and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made
you overseers to feed The Church of God. Now this is talking to
preachers. But listen to the flock. And
we're all the flock. Which He has purchased with His
own blood. Feed the Church of God, which
God purchased with His own blood. The blood of God. When the Lord Jesus Christ died,
He paid the debt that you and I could never pay. He purchased
His people with His own blood. He who sovereignly made and claims
is elect for His own. Back in 1 Corinthians, I'll close
with this. 1 Corinthians 6.20. What then is our duty? We're
not our own. We're not ours. We're bought
with a price. What's the price? It's the precious
blood of God. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What then is our duty? as servants of the Most High
God. Therefore, glorify God in your
body and in your spirit, which are God's. Yield our bodies as well as our
spirits, our members, in all of their faculties, as instruments
of righteousness to God. Devote and employ all that you
are to His glory. Here we are vessels that know
something of ourselves. I know something of what I am.
The Lord has been pleased to not reveal everything to us concerning
our depravity. It'd kill us. We're wicked in
ourselves. But here we are, new creatures
that Almighty God has imparted life. A new heart, a new spirit,
a new mind. What are we to do? Walk as children
of light. Adorn the gospel that we believe. Hear the Word of God preached. Listen, listen. Lord, help Marvin
to hear this right now. Hear the word of the Lord. Hear the word of the Lord. One
of these days, that statement is going to be the most important
statement we ever heard. What does God have to say? One
of these days, it's going to matter. Assemble yourselves together
with God's people. Assemble yourselves together
with God's people. Search the scriptures. I've said
before, if I say something or another man says something, go to the scriptures and find
out if that's what he's saying. Find out what does God... Try the spirits to see if they're
of God. Asking, knocking, seeking for
light that the Spirit of God might teach us. Seek the Lord in prayer. Enter
into your closet, meeting daily, hourly, moment by moment, asking
right now, while you're sitting here, while we're listening,
ask Him, Lord, speak to me. Remember, He spared not His own
Son for His people. Glorify Him, give all glory unto
Him in your body and in your spirit because of the love of
Christ for us. That love that constrains us
to follow Him. May He grant us the grace to
forsake all that would steal our affection and loyalty to
Him. May we cleave to the Lord, the
One who's everlastingly loved His people, given Himself for
us. Our willing bondage to Him. What freedom? That's freedom. To be in bondage to the Lord,
the bond-servant to the Lord. The One that we've given ourselves
to do. He's due all obedience that we might not live to ourselves.
You're not your own. You're not your own. Believer,
you've been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your
body and in your spirit for Christ's sake. Amen.