Let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
11. Let's ask the Lord to bless the
word. Our great God and our Father,
we thank you for this day. Thank you, Lord, that you've
been so gracious to us. And we pray today you'd give
us ears to hear. Give us ears brand new, Lord. Make us hear the gospel like
it's the first day. Make your lost sheep hear today
and make those that you've called already to hear once again. Exalt
Christ in our heart, Lord. This is what we need. This is
what we pray for. Forgive us our sin. We thank
you in Christ's name. Amen. All right, 1 Corinthians
11, verse 18. Paul says to the Corinthian brethren,
he says, first of all, when you come together in the church,
I hear that there be divisions among you, schisms among you. And I partly believe it because
there must be also heresies among you that they which are approved
may be made manifest among you. Several times lately, within
I guess maybe the past month or so, I've quoted this verse
several times. And every time I've quoted it,
I think back to about 12 years ago, I preached a message out
of this. And I think of particularly an illustration that I used when
I preached it. And I want to preach that to
you. Every time I've thought of it, I've thought, I want to
tell the brethren that. And so I want to preach it today. This word heresies means parties.
sects, you see there in the margin, S-E-C-T-S. You had the Sadducees,
the Pharisees, the Nicolaitans, that's an example. Kind of like
what we would call denominations. And then in the church at Corinth,
there was dissensions arising from various opinions. But God
has a purpose even in these things. He has a purpose. We read it
there in verse 19, there must be also heresies. That word is divisions, choices,
sex. There must be heresies among
you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. There have to be all these different
parties and all these different heresies and sex in the world. that God might manifest those
he's approved. Those he's approved. You know,
when a person approves gold, they're called an assayer. And
God's the assayer. Christ is the assayer. And you
take gold, and if somebody claims it's 18 karat gold, the assayer
is gonna test that gold. He's gonna try that gold. and
determine what carat gold it is, if it's gold at all. And
once he's determined it, if it is true, a true carat that's
claimed to be, he approves it. He puts that stamp on it, 10
carat or 14 carat or 18 carat. Heresies is one of God's trials
of faith. Faith will be tried, it's going
to be tried. And heresies is one of the ways
God tries the faith of his people to manifest who he has approved. It's God assaying, it's Christ
assaying his people to manifest those he's approved, those he's
given true faith, those he's accepted and pleased with in
Christ. That's the point of it. Now,
here was the illustration that I found to be very helpful, and
it's brought out in the scripture. And these will be our divisions.
There's three methods of approving gold. The first is the touchstone
method, the touchstone method. The second is x-ray, the x-ray
method. And the third is the fire method. And this will be our division.
First of all is the touchstone method. Now gold, they take gold
and they'll rub it against the touchstone. And it leaves some
of the gold on that stone. And then they'll take different
strengths of acid and they'll drop it on that gold. That's
where we get the term the acid test. and they'll drop different
strengths of acid on that gold. And the purer the gold is, the
stronger the acid has to be to dissolve the gold. It has to
be really strong acid. The finer the gold is, the better
the gold is. The more pure the gold is, the
stronger the acid has to be. If it's a pure gold, weaker gold,
a less fine carat of gold, then it doesn't take nearly as strong
of an acid to dissolve it. If it's not gold at all, it won't
even stand the test. Christ Jesus is the touchstone.
He is the touchstone. The acid test is what? Thank
ye of Christ. That's the acid test. You remember
when the Lord came, the Pharisees came to Him and they had all
these questions. And the Lord just turned to him
and he asked him one question, what think ye of Christ? What
think ye of Christ? That's the question. What think
ye of Christ? He said, whose son is he? They
said, he's the son of David. He's just a man. And the Lord
said, well, if he's the son of David, why then does David call
him Lord? Why did David said, the Lord
said to my Lord, sit there on my right hand till I make thine
enemies thy footstool. and they couldn't answer him.
They couldn't understand how he could be David's Lord, his
God, and come through David. They didn't think he was the
God-man. They didn't believe that. And from that day forward, they
didn't ask him any more questions. They didn't ask him any more
questions. Christ is the stone against whom all who hear, everybody
who hears, Whether they have true God-given faith or not,
everybody that hears is rubbed on this stone and rubbed by this
stone, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you look over at 1 Peter 2.4,
we know he's the stone. He says in 1 Peter 2.4, to whom
coming, you've been drawn to Christ as unto a living stone. This is a living touchstone.
to a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of
God and precious, and you also are lively stone. He's the living
stone and he's made you to be a living stone. Just like the
touchstone is stone and the goldstone. And he's made you stone and he's
the living stone, you're the living stone. It's by Christ
Jesus, it's by him that God's gonna say, it's by him that he
tries all who hear the gospel. Just preach Christ. He's the
asceteist. Just preach the gospel of Christ.
And it always has two effects on people. Two effects. Right there in 1 Peter 2, 7.
For those that God's given faith, true faith, to you therefore
which believe he's precious. Christ is precious to you. He's
precious to God and he's precious to you. He said in Isaiah 13,
12, this goes right along with this illustration of gold. I'm
not just, I'm not just like, I'm not just reaching here. This
is what God said in his word. It's in Isaiah 13, 12. I will
make a man more precious than fine gold. Even a man than the
golden wedge of Ophir. You know who that man is that's
more precious than fine gold to his people? It's Christ Jesus,
the God man. More precious than fine gold.
Those that God gives true faith, he makes Christ precious to you,
like a rare jewel, like gold. God made Christ wisdom to us.
And Solomon, writing about Christ, Speaking of him as wisdom, he
said, more precious than rubies and all the things that thou
canst desire not to be compared to wisdom. That's Christ, more
precious than rubies. In Christ, we see God's wisdom. He's made wisdom to us and in
him we see God's wisdom. And he's been made wisdom in
our heart. That's how we have discernment to understand the
gospel and hear the gospel. That's why Christ is precious
to us. We see in Christ how God's a just God and a savior. We see
in Christ how he came and laid down his life for his people
and satisfied the law for us. And God's just now. Perfectly
just to be abundantly merciful to you. And Christ justified
you. So you're perfectly just to be
merciful to one another. Wow, justice has been handled.
Justice has been settled. You can be merciful. God's just
to be merciful. That's wisdom, and you see that
in Christ the Lord. When Abraham, he sent his servant
to find a bride for Isaac among his people. That's a picture
of God our Father sending forth the gospel of Christ the message
of his son to call out his bride, to call out each elect child
that he's chosen and Christ redeemed to bring them to his son. And
a servant went forth and he gets down there to where Rebecca lived
with her family. And he didn't know who the bride
was. God's preacher don't know who God's people are. He didn't
know who she was. And he prayed for the Lord to
reveal it. And that's what the Lord did. and he knew this is
one I'm sent to, this is the one that's going to be the bride
of Isaac. And it says, it says the servant
brought forth, all he did, he talked about, he talked about
Abraham and he talked about how that Abraham had given everything
to his only son Isaac. That's, you see the picture there?
God our Father is rich beyond measure, and he's given everything
to his only son, Christ Jesus. He's that son of a miraculous
birth, just like Isaac was. That's who Christ is. God the
Father's given everything to his son, and he sent forth his
servants. The Father sent forth his servants,
preaching the gospel in search for a bride for Christ. And he went there and all he
talked about was the riches of his master and he talked about
how wonderful Isaac was. And she fell in love with Isaac
sight unseen. That's what happens. And you
know what Isaac, what the servant did? Genesis 24, 53, the servant
brought forth jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment
and gave them to Rebekah. And he gave also to her brother
and to her mother, precious thing. When God sends his preacher with
the gospel and Christ is revealed to us, I'm trying to show you
he becomes precious. He, the unsearchable riches of
Christ, is Christ. The unsearchable riches of Christ
is the person, the Son of God, Christ Jesus the God-man, and
all the blessings that we have in him by his finished work. He's the riches. His raiment,
he gave her jewels and riches and he gave her raiment. Can
you just imagine what that raiment looked like? I bet it was beautiful.
Well, the raiment that that we're given through the gospel is Christ's
righteousness, given to us through faith. Christ becomes precious
to us. And you know what that results
in? Here's why Christ is the touchstone. That makes you want
to hear Christ preached. That makes you want to hear Him
exalted. You want to hear about Him. When
you love somebody and you just can't get enough of talking about
Him, you can't get enough of hearing about Him, They're on
your mind, they're on your heart, that's who you want to talk about.
That's soul of God's child when Christ is made precious to you.
You want to hear Him exalted, you want to hear His person honored,
you want to hear His works declared, because that's how He blesses
you in your heart. That's how He calls you out of
darkness, that's how He keeps strengthening you, that's how
He keeps teaching you the way to go in this world. But if a
man's faith's not the gift of God, if it's not the gift of
God, Christ makes his faith dissolve quickly. Usually it's right away. It's said in 1 Peter 2.8, to
the unbeliever, he's a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. He's the touchstone, but he's
a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. When men still have
choices, when sinners put confidence in themselves in some way, sooner
or later, Christ the touchstone is going to prove to be a stumbling
stone, sooner or later. Why? Romans 9.32 says, because
they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of
the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone. To you
who believe, he's precious. The preaching of Christ is precious.
Paul said, but the preaching of the cross is to them that
perish foolishness. Foolishness. But unto us which
are saved is the power of God. Christ, the power of God. All
right, so that's the touchstone method. What think ye of Christ? That's the stone that's going
to prove the acid test. Secondly is the x-ray method.
By this method, x-ray light is used to determine the inner purity
of the gold, what's within the gold. If it's gold through and
through, if it's just something gold plated and they shine the
x-ray in it, it's gonna be proven that this is just got a plate
of gold on it, but it's not really gold through and through. Well,
Christ Jesus is the light. He said, all things are made
manifest by the light. He's that light. Christ is that
light that makes known the thoughts and intents of the heart. He's
the word, and the word, as Hebrews said, is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. Like x-ray shines in and you
can see the bones within. Well, Christ the light reveals
what's the true thought and intent of the heart in a man. the discerner
of the thoughts and intents of the heart. You take the Pharisees,
they were whited sepulchers on the outside. You wouldn't have
looked at them and, you know, Paul said that the devil's messengers
are turned into an angel of light. I'm obviously not one of those
because I've been accused much of not being an angel of light.
And I'll say amen to that. But the Pharisees looked like
they were. They were whitered sepulchers
through and through. I mean, on the outside. But when Christ
declared that they had not kept the law, when he declared in
that Sermon on the Mount and he said, except a man righteousness
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, When
he declared that he is that righteousness and the light revealed that the
only way any man can come to God is by trusting him to fulfill
the whole law for him, it revealed what their true heart was. It
revealed they weren't whiter sepulchers on the inside. It's
the gospel that strips man of all his goodness and his glory
that is the light that reveals the heart. You preach the message
that takes away all man's glory, all man's dignity. God said,
I'm gonna stain the pride of man. And he takes, he gonna strip
us first. He gonna kill every, when the
commandment came, sin revived and I died, Paul said. He's gonna
have to kill any thought of goodness in us, any ability to keep the
law in us, to make us know Christ is the life. He is the righteousness
we have to have. And it's that gospel, brethren,
that light that reveals what a man's true heart is. You'll
hear men talk about grace. You'll hear religious folks,
you know, having a, you know, won't you have a blessed day
and every word out of their mouth is grace and mercy and, you know,
same words we use. But then you declare that God
the Father chose his people not based on anything in us. and
pass by whom he will. You'll find out what the heart
is. You declare that Christ Jesus laid down his life and accomplished
atoning for the sins of his particular people alone, you'll find out
right quick, well no, Christ loves everybody, he wants everybody
to have a chance. That's exalting man and putting
Christ down. and it reveals what's in the
heart. You talk about how the man must be born from above.
Nicodemus came and he looked like he was pure gold. He was
a master in Israel. He comes to the Lord and starts
saying, Lord, good master, we know you're a man come from God
because no man could do the things you've done. The light shined. Christ said, except you're born
from above, you can't even see me and you can't enter my kingdom. And Nicodemus right quick revealed
the thoughts of his heart. He had no idea what the Lord
was talking about. He didn't understand. He had
to be born of the water of the gospel and he had to be born
of the Holy Spirit. And he didn't have a clue what that meant.
The light of this world, the gospel of Christ, he reveals
the heart of every man who puts confidence in his will or puts
confidence in his works in some way. He's the discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart. But by that same gospel, God
assays the heart of His people. He assays the heart in that one
where He's given faith. Faith speaks to faith. From faith
to faith. And Christ Jesus speaks into
the heart that He's made new. And the believer, when you hear
the gospel and you hear these things declared that sinners
are, we were dead in trespasses and sins, we're ungodly God-haters
when He first came to us, He makes you say amen. He makes
you say that's exactly true, that's exactly so. And when he
declares to you, when you hear Christ say, without me you can
do nothing, as a saint that I've sanctified, without me you can
do nothing, abide in me. You can't bring forth any fruit
unless I sanctify you and keep you separated and I'm with you
and abiding in you and you abiding in me. What does that make a
child of God do? What does that light reveal?
In that new heart, because you know this old nature now, that
makes you hit your face before the Lord and say, Lord, I need
you to sanctify me. I need you to keep me separated.
What did Moses do? Let me read this to you from
Exodus 33. You remember when he was praying
to see Christ's glory and it said this, this was his prayer. He said, the Lord said, my presence
shall go with thee and I will give thee rest. You know what
Christ told his disciples? He said, I'll abide with you
and you'll abide with me. and my peace I give to you."
That's just what he told Moses. I will go with you, my presence
will be with you, and I'll give you rest. And what was Moses'
answer to that? Oh, well, good, I'm holy then,
I'm good now, I'll be all right. No. He said, if thy presence
go not with me, carry us not up thence. For wherein shall
it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy
sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be
separated. Sanctified, so shall we be sanctified,
I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face
of the earth. And the Lord said to Moses, I'll do this thing
you've spoken, because you found grace in my sight, and I know
thee by name. You see, the heart in God's child
is truly sanctified. That light shines and says, you
can't do a thing without me. Even now that you're a saint,
you're still a sinner in your flesh. and you can't do anything
without me, you have to abide in me. And knowing what we are,
we know we can't even abide in him without him abiding in us.
And we cry what Moses cried, Lord, how's it gonna be known,
manifest, that we're approved, that we're separated, I and thy
people, except your presence be with us. Lord, don't leave
us to our sin. That's a different spirit. And
by Christ, through faith, through this gospel, He strengthens us
with might. He strengthens us with might
by His Spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love,
in His love for you. Yes, you have love for Him, but
He roots you and grounds you by making you know His love for
you, unchangeable. that you may be able to comprehend
with all the saints what's the breadth and length and depth
and height and to know the love of Christ. We're talking about
the breadth and length and depth and height of his love for us.
That love that passes knowledge that you might be filled with
all the fullness of God. I don't know how to describe
being filled with the fullness of God other than this. One,
it's this light of the gospel shining within your heart, filling
you full. But you know when you When you
have the light of His countenance shining on you and you know you're
approved in Christ and you're received of God in Christ and
He receives you and keeps you. That fills you with fullness,
that strength, that strengthening in the inner man, being filled
with the fullness of God, knowing something of the love of Christ
for us that'll never change. That's the X-ray method. There
must be needs heresies. God said it's not even a, there's
no possibility there won't be. There must needs be heresies
that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
And lastly, there's the fire method. Go over with me to Malachi
3. There's the fire method. This
is the most destructive method that's used to prove true gold,
the fire method. By this method, you know what
this is. They just take gold and put it
in a furnace, a refining furnace, and it consumes the dross and
all that's left is gold. Well, Christ is a refiner. He's
the one doing this saying, and He's the refiner's fire. Malachi
3.1. You see, I'm just telling you
the same message in three different ways, three different illustrations
of what Christ did. He's the touchstone, He's the
light, and He's the fire, He's the refiner. Malachi 3.1. Behold, I will send my messenger,
and sent John the Baptist first. He always gonna send his preacher
first. He shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom
you seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger
of the covenant whom you delight in. Lo and behold, he shall come
saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of
his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth?
Everybody in Israel claimed they was looking for the Christ. Everybody
claimed they were looking for the messenger of the covenant.
We couldn't wait till he came. And then he came, but some couldn't
abide. Some was proven by the fire to
be nothing but dross. Look here. For he's like a refiner's
fire, he's like fuller soap. He shall sit as a refiner and
purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi. That's
his elect who he makes priests unto God. The sons of Levi were
priests. He said he'll purify the sons
of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer
unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Back over to 1
Peter 1. Let's look there again. 1 Peter
1. Christ is the refiner and he's
the fire. It's not the trial itself. He sends a trial. He sends a
trial. But it's not the trial itself.
that consumes the draws. It's not the fire itself that
manifests them that are his, them that are not. It's Christ. It's Christ that does it. Look
here, 1 Peter 1.5, is that not what it says? Verse 5 says, we're
kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to
be revealed in the last time. The trial doesn't do that. Whether
he gives it or takes away the trouble, that's not what's gonna
keep you. It's Christ, the power of God. Wherein you greatly rejoice,
though now for a season, if need be, you're in heaviness through
manifold temptation, that the trial of your faith, that faith
being much more precious than gold that perishes. Precious
faith because it's relying on a precious redeemer, on precious
blood. He said, it's more precious than
gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, that it might
be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of
Jesus Christ. You know, gold is a solid, it's
a solid jewel. But you know, the Lord said one
day, when he returned, he said, this whole world, when he's called
out the last of his leg, everything's going to melt with a fervent
heat. And all the elements are going to melt with a fervent
heat, even gold. But you know what's never going
to be dissolved? We don't need it anymore? Faith. that face more precious than
gold. It's more fine, more costly than gold. It costs Christ his
blood. Our great refiner sends the gospel and he sends a trial
and he keeps us in that furnace of affliction. He keeps us in
the fire, in the furnace of affliction. Why? For his child, he is going
to keep us in the fire till he consumes the dross. You take
an individual trial, for example, it's a fire. Long as we're looking
to ourselves and trying to save ourselves out of the trouble,
he gonna keep you in that fire till you cease looking to yourself.
Till we're turned to him and made to trust him to save us,
even in the little individual trial. Until we're made to turn
to him and trust him, he gonna keep you in the fire. We're gonna
be brought to wait on him alone to save. And that's when He'll
bring you out of the fire. That's His refining purpose.
That's the purpose of the fire. And He's doing the same thing
for us over the whole life of faith and all these little light
afflictions. He's teaching us more and more
to just look to Christ alone. And there's going to come a day
when the last trial is going to be when you're facing the
grave. And who's going to bring you
through that? You're going to be brought to the point of that
day where you can't do one thing but look to Him. Here's how faithful
He is. If we lose our mind between now
and then, by His grace, and we don't know our name, much less
who He is, He's faithful. He knows them that are His, and
He's going to bring you through that fire. He says, this is the reason,
I'll just give you this from Isaiah 48, 10. He said, behold,
I have refined thee, but not with silver, not as fiercely
as silvers refines, what he's saying. I've chosen thee in the
furnace of affliction. All these people are gonna be
trying, I chose you in the furnace of affliction. For mine own sake,
even for mine own sake will I do it, for how should my name be
polluted? and I will not give my glory
to another. Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called,
I'm he, I'm the first, I'm also the last. That's why he's doing
it, to make us know him, to hear him, to come to him. He said
there in Malachi 3.3, He shall purify the sons of Levi, purge
them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord
an offering in righteousness. That offering is the only offering
God will receive. It's Christ our righteousness.
He's the only offering. From the first trial of your
faith to the last trial of your faith. He's making us put it
all in Christ's hand and trust Him to save us. Because He's
the only righteousness God will receive. He's not going to receive
one for me and you. It's only Him. He's the holiness
without which no man will see the Lord. We have to have Christ.
That's what He's teaching us. But wherever faith's not the
gift of God, where it's of man, and man's mustered up some faith.
This is what our Lord said, the sinner can't bear the fire. He
said in Matthew 13, 21, he hath not rooted himself, so he endureth for a while, for
when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, by
and by, he's offended. There must be also heresies among
you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
That's the Lord's doing. So, here's what we saw. Christ is the touchstone. The
acid test is the gospel. What think ye of Christ? You
know what the Lord's people say? Lord, to whom shall we go? You
have the words of eternal life, and we believe and are assured
thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. That's the
test. Since he called us into his marvelous
light, he's the light and his light penetrates into our heart
and reveals what we're really thinking in our true heart. And what we really think by his
grace is, Lord, don't take your presence from me. I can't even
bat my eye or take my next breath or do one thing without you. Christ is our refining fire,
consuming our troughs till we're left with nothing but faith,
trust in Christ. That's what He's doing. Giving
Him all the glory in every aspect of our salvation. That's the
mark of one approved of God is faith in Christ. Faith in Christ. I need no other plea. I need
no other argument. It is enough. Christ died and
He died for me. I trust in Him. Walking by faith
which works by love, that's the mark. Only in the cross of Christ,
Paul said, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ
by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. And those who believe on His
Son, those who are given real faith, Christ approves. He approves. Listen, 2 Corinthians 10.18 says,
Not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord
commendeth. You see, this whole process of
the Lord through Christ and what Christ has done, He's making
a show of those that He approves. He only approves of those that
rest only in His Son. Here's where you want to be found.
Paul said in Romans 16.10, Salute Apelles, A-P-E-L-L-E-S, one of
the brethren. Salute Apelles. Approved in Christ. Approved in Christ. That's it,
brethren. Approved in Christ. Father, we
thank you for this word. We pray, Lord, that you would
receive us in Christ, approve of us in Christ by His righteousness
alone, by His holiness alone. Keep us separated by your presence. Lord, every time you bring us
into trouble, make us remember it's for our good is to bring
us to just rest in you and trust you. To know we have no other
salvation. Help us to remember that, Lord.
And pray for your saints everywhere. Those here, those not here, pray
for those that are going through trouble and trials and sickness. Lord, pray that you would work
this work in their heart and make them look away from themselves
to Christ alone. That they might be approved in
your dear Son. Forgive us our sin, Lord. We
ask it in Christ's name. Amen.