1 Corinthians 15. Let's read
our text here. Verse 33. Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good
manners. Awake to righteousness and sin
not. For some have not the knowledge
of God. I speak this to your shame. Now the Corinthians had begun
to receive false preachers and false brethren and had begun
to make them their companions in the church and in their everyday
lives. They were folks who did not preach the gospel. They
were folks who denied the resurrection. They were folks who called Paul
a false preacher. And so the apostle gave this
serious, serious warning, and he gave this stern rebuke to
them. Now, he tells us here, be not
deceived, evil communications, that means evil companions, evil
companions, evil associates, corrupt good manners, they lead
you away from the truth, they destroy good character and good
morals. So he says, Awake to righteousness.
That means awake to truth. To that which is right and just.
And sin not. The sin he's speaking here of
is being with these companions. He calls it sin. And he says,
Leave these companions. Sin not. For some have not the
knowledge of God. That's the definition of an evil
companion. Somebody that does not have a
knowledge of God. some of these preachers and these
false brethren did not have a knowledge of God. And he says, and I speak
this to your shame. It was to those true believers
there, it was to their shame that they actually received and
became companions with these associates. And so the point
he's making here is believers should make fellow believers
our constant companions rather than evil companions. Now this
was the message I was prepared to preach Thursday night, but
after I heard about Brother Cody, the Lord moved me to preach something
else. So I hope this morning the Lord
will be pleased to give me some liberty to preach this. I don't
like to preach a message when it's that old, but I still feel
I can preach it. So I pray the Lord to give me
some grace to do so. First, evil communications are
corrupting. Verse 33, be not deceived, evil
communications corrupt good manners. Now, when He says, be not deceived,
He is saying to us, be not deceived into thinking that this statement
is false. You remember those four kinds
of hearers the Lord spoke about. The first kind was the wayside
hearer. And when the Word was sown by
the wayside, he said immediately, Satan comes to take the Word
that was sown into the heart away. Sometimes he'll use a loved
one, somebody you love, who will speak contrary to this Gospel,
to what you've heard preached, take the Word away. Sometimes
we go out immediately, begin to Put the headphones in and
iTunes full of music and the words just taken right away.
Don't even think about it. Or he may puff you up so that
you feel like you know better and take the word away. Paul
said, I fear less by any means. Satan uses many means. I fear
less by any means as Satan beguiled, as he tricked with his subtlety.
You won't know. When you're tricked, you don't
know you're tricked. And I'm fearful lest by any means as
Satan beguiled Eve in the garden. So he would trick you and lead
you away from the truth. That's the fear. So before we
go any further, don't be deceived. This is true. This is truth what
he's speaking here. Evil companions are corrupting.
They will corrupt us. He doesn't mean here we're to
treat others with a holier-than-thou attitude. God hates that. You
hate that, and God hates that. We're not to treat others with
a holier-than-thou attitude at all. But there are two kinds
of hearers that will corrupt. The first are those who preach
a false gospel, those who believe a false gospel. God says here
they are evil. and they will corrupt you. Men
who stand in the pulpit and preach that the man's will is the final
say in faith, that God cast his vote, Satan cast his vote, now
it's up to you to cast the deciding vote. And men who preach things
like that, that it's your will who makes the final decision,
they're evil. That's not the truth. And that's
corrupting. We must constantly hear all the
time that God chose his people. We didn't choose God. That's
what the scriptures clearly declare. Christ told that to his apostles.
I chose you. You didn't choose me. We must
hear constantly the message that declares we have to be given
life by the Holy Spirit. We can't give ourselves life.
We have to be drawn by God because before God gives us a new heart
and a new spirit, our will is in bondage to our spirit. That's so before and after conversion. When you only have a natural
heart, a heart born in sin, your will is in bondage to that nature. That's why you see a cow eat
green grass. That's his nature. and you see
a buzzard eating roadkill. That's his nature. The buzzard
don't go over and eat the same food as the cow, because that's
not his nature. He's in bondage to do what his
nature makes him do. He's free to eat what he wants,
but his nature makes him eat that. And that's you and me by
nature in sin. When God gives a new nature,
we're made willing in a day of His power so that you can't do
anything but believe Christ and love your brethren. It's our
nature to do so when He gives you a new heart. But only then,
only then, we got to be made to hear that message constantly.
That other message of man's works and man's will will corrupt.
Those that preach, and you hear them preach, and the message
always focuses on you and what you must do. They may use Moses'
law to add to Christ's work, or they may use New Testament
commandments and turn them into law. What makes it a law is telling
you you have to do it or you can't be saved. What makes it
a law is inspecting people and exposing their sin and disciplining
them and putting them on church watch and all these things to
make people fearful of how they walk and talk and what they do.
God doesn't bring his people into bondage. He frees us from
bondage. He brings you into the liberty
of the sons of God. He brings you to delight to honor
God and delight to walk after God because you see what Christ
has done for you and you're constrained by Him. The message is preached
and we preach Christ's works. And through that message, Christ
brings up and He brings down. He edifies. He strengthens. He does what needs to be done
in the hearts of His people to cause you to go after Him, be
led of the Spirit, and walk after Him. Law doesn't do that. Law
doesn't do that. I was talking to Adam the other
day, and we were talking about politics, and we were talking
about how we need to cut out lobbying in politics. And I told
Adam, I said, we could cut out lobbying in politics, but you
know what's going to happen? When you have a corrupt nature,
men are going to find other ways. Law has never made men obey. And it won't. It curbs them a
little bit, but men find a way around it. But you have Christ
give a new heart. Now, a man will follow after
the Lord by his power and his spirit. That's a totally different
message. We got to hear that message.
And another thing that you don't want to hear is, there are some
who preach and teach that the believers saved from sin, sin
abounded, but grace did much more abound. So the more you
sin, the more grace abounds. So we ought to sin that grace
might abound. After Paul preached in Romans
5 and he said, we're made obedient by one man's obedience, by Christ
alone. And he said, the law entered
that sin might abound. The law entered to show us our
sins, that the abounding corruption of our sin. But where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. that as sin has reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness by our
Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. In the very next verse
he says, what shall we say then? Since sin abounded but grace
did much more abound over sin, shall we sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? When God gives a new heart, He
doesn't make that child want to sin. That's not of God. That's the old nature. It's not
of God. Any man that preaches that is preaching a lie. We don't
want to hear that message. That's corrupting. Peter said,
many shall follow their pernicious ways. Talking about false preachers.
Many shall follow their pernicious ways. And you know what the effect
is going to be? by reason of whom the way of
truth shall be evil spoken of." Why do so many men reject the
gospel when they hear it? I'll tell you one reason. They've
been taught lies all their life, and they think those lies are
true. So when they hear the truth, they speak evil of the truth.
That's the result of false preachers. They corrupt. And the other kind
of evil companions are those who are just base, ungodly, immoral
companions. They'll corrupt your good character
and your good morals. Scripture says, he that walketh
with wise men shall be wise. That's who Christ's people are.
They're wise men. Because Christ is our wisdom.
Christ has been made wisdom unto us by God. Those that walk with
wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. That's God's Word. He said, Enter
not into the path of the wicked. Go not in the way of evil men.
Avoid it. Pass not by it. Turn from it.
Pass away. For they sleep not, except they
have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away, unless they
cause some to fall. Paul said, concerning two men
that were preaching false doctrine, he said, shun profane and vain
babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness. These men that are preaching
morality, preaching works, telling sinners how to live and whipping
the fire out of them when they don't, they're not increasing
men unto more godliness, they're increasing men unto more ungodliness. You know the worst kind of ungodliness
is to sit in a church pretending you want to be there and want
to worship God and are actually obeying God when in fact in the
heart you detest everything about it. You're doing it because you're
being made to do it. You're doing it because you're
fearful of getting caught. That's the worst ungodliness
there is. And their word will eat as does
a canker like a cancer. of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus,
these two men." He said, concerning the truth, they've erred, saying
the resurrection is past already and they overthrow the faith
of some. I want to read you an article Pastor Henry Mahan wrote
back in 1980 to his congregation. Let me read this to you. It's
titled, Fellowship of Believers. He wrote, I know most of you
are faithful to the Sunday worship services, and I know you tarry
after service to visit and talk with one another. But what about
the other six days of the week? Do you have much fellowship with
those whose conversation is seasoned with grace and who are a good
influence on you and your children? The people of the world, religious
world, and social world are not an influence for good or spiritual
growth. Evil companions and associations
corrupt good character. But our brethren comfort us,
they encourage us, they instruct us, and regular fellowship with
them and with their families will be a great blessing to you
and your children. Do not spend your social and
family time with those who do not know God 86% of the week
and expect to correct the effect with a couple of hours on Sunday. As much time as you can, devote
it to good fellowship in Christ with other believers. It will
reap great blessings to you and your family. That's so, brethren. That's written by a man who,
at that time, had been pastoring for 40-something years. And he
knew what he was talking about. That's so. Now, secondly, if
we have evil companions, he tells us, wake up and turn from them. Look at verse 34. Awake to righteousness
and sin not. That word awake means return
from being sober-minded. return from being sober-minded.
The effect these evil companions had was they made the Corinthians
to be like they were drunk in their minds. He says, Awake to
righteousness. Awake to Christ who is the truth.
Awake to Christ who is righteousness. Awake to Christ who suffered
and died for his people. You know, when you think about
what Christ did for us, how He came down from glory. And this
Holy One that came forth walked amongst sinners. But He never... He was a friend of sinners in
that He never turned sinners away. He came to save sinners. He didn't come to call the righteous
to repentance. He came to call sinners. But
He didn't make sinners His companions. When you make somebody your companion
who's evil, who preaches a false gospel or doesn't believe the
gospel, you're condoning that. You're condoning that. You're
saying that's alright. And Christ never did that. He
never did that. He couldn't do that. You know,
it's one thing if I'm invited to go preach somewhere where
I know they preach a false gospel, But they haven't outwardly denied
what I preach. So I can go there and I can preach
the gospel to them, hoping God would save them. But now if they
have outwardly denied what some of my brethren preach, and outwardly
denied and spoke evil of my brethren who preach the gospel, and they
call me then and ask me to go preach there, I can't go preach
there. Because now, they've said they don't like my gospel, and
if I go there, I'm giving credit to them. I'm condoning what they
preach. I can't do that. I just can't
do that. And that's what he's talking
about here. After he suffered in shame and humiliation, after
he suffered being forsaken of God for us to put away our sins,
after he suffered death for his people, How in the world could
we not make any sacrifice necessary to be with our brethren? How
could we not make any sacrifice necessary to be constantly in
fellowship with our brethren and avoid evil companions? Knowing the time, now it's high
time to awake out of sleep, Paul said. For now is our salvation
nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day
is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the
works of darkness. Let us put on the works of, or
the armor of light. Let us walk it honestly as in
the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness,
not in strife and envying, but put you on the Lord Jesus Christ
and make not provision to the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.
I want to die like Brother Cody died. He used to say always,
I've heard him say this and I heard Wynna say it the other day. She
said he always said he would like to die in the pulpit. And
he almost did. He preached Wednesday night and
he stayed late teaching the brethren some new songs. And he got up
early the next morning and drank coffee with Wynna, was preparing,
planning the day. He was headed down to Cancun.
They were both going. He was going to Cancun to preach
the gospel that night. His life was one of being with
brethren. His life was being constantly
in the companionship of brethren and declaring Christ and setting
forth Christ. And God took him in the middle
of that. That's how I want to be taken. I don't want to be
taken off trying to provide and heap up abundance of treasure
for myself and my house and set my nest on high and being separated
from brethren. I want to be amongst his people
serving him. Awake and sin not, he said. So
he says here, receiving these evil companions was sinful. He
said, Awake and sin not. Awake and turn from this sin. And don't continue in this sin.
Don't have fellowship with these folks. Ephesians 5.11 says, Have
no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather
reprove them. For it's a shame even to speak
of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things
that are reproved are made manifest by light. for whatsoever doth
make manifest his light." You know, we have a tendency to think,
well, I can make this person my companion and be close companions
with them and be associates with them and I can teach them the
truth. But you see, by doing that, we
lose our witness. We lose our witness. It's just
like somebody who says, well, I know this church doesn't preach
the gospel all the time. Well, if they don't preach it
all the time, they don't preach it any of the time. One-tenth of a percent of rat
poison makes it all rat poison. And it's like a person saying,
but if I just stay in this congregation, I believe I could talk to them
and bear witness of Christ and maybe I could help them. No,
they're going to corrupt you. They're going to corrupt you.
Because the way to bear witness is by the light. And by separating
from them and saying, I'm going where this gospel is preached.
And by making that stand, Moses made that stand to come out of
Egypt. And by making that stand, that's shining forth light. And
whatever is reproved, that, you know, remember Noah? Noah built
that ark and preached righteousness. And he condemned the world, the
scripture said. He reproved the world by simply
trusting Christ and following Christ and preaching Christ.
You see, the light, darkness is revealed by light. Not by
trying to blend light and darkness. That's just all darkness. And
so he says, Awake thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ
will give you more light. Arise and shine, thy light is
come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Our light's
come. You that believe the gospel,
Christ has given you light, the glory of the Lord is upon you.
And so he says, Now awake and turn from this, and I'll give
you more light. Now, I know when we have to do
things like this, it requires sacrifice. And because it grates
against our flesh, that's the only thing that hears this and
pushes against it is our flesh. That's what it is that makes
excuses. One of the excuses that we always make is, well, I just
don't feel led of the Lord. Brother Todd Nyberg gave a very
good illustration. He said, when I was growing up
under my father's roof and my father gave me an express command,
if I would have said, well, I just don't feel the need to obey you,
what would have happened? Well, this is God saying, evil
companions are going to corrupt you. Awake to righteousness and
depart from them. I'll give you light. I'll provide
for you. I'll make the way. I'll make
the way for you. I'll protect you. I'll provide
everything you need. I'll provide better for you than
you ever could have thought you could have had with evil companions.
And that's true. I'll tell you that's true. There's
many ways this applies, but I'll tell you a way that I thought
of that applies to me. One time in 1999, We were living
in Nashville, Tennessee, Melinda and I. We both worked there.
And the church was 30 to 40 minutes out in Franklin, Tennessee. And
our thought was, we work here five days a week, six days a
week. We go there once or twice a week. Why not live here and
make that drive out there? But by doing so, we would go
to dinner at night with co-workers and friends from Nashville. But we wasn't doing anything
like that with brethren. And I got so down, I got so spiritually
down and convicted. And I told Melinda, it was right
after New Year's 1999. It was 2000, I think. And I said, we're going to move
to Franklin. We're going to move there. And
we're going to live there in the midst of the brethren. They
were 15 minutes from one another right there where they all lived.
And I said, we're going to live there and we're going to start
going to dinner with brethren and associating with brethren.
They would go bowling together, things like that. I said, we're
going to do things with brethren. And so we moved there and we
started doing that. God provided everything we needed. And God
edified us. I can't describe to you how much
He edified us by that companionship. It made all the difference. I
even say it made so much difference. I wouldn't be standing here as
your pastor if God had moved us to do that. Was there something
in you saying don't do it? There was plenty. There was a
lot saying don't do it. There was a lot saying, you know,
you're going to be driving that long distance every day now when
you could have been right there at work. There was a lot of times
you wake up in the morning and feel that way. But God made it. He made the way. He said, Awake,
turn, and I'll give you light. Now I'm not saying that's the
only way this applies. God can apply it to you however
He knows it needs to be applied. But that's one way that I know
it does apply. Now lastly, let me say this.
These things are important so that we discern those who are
ignorant of God. He says here, for some have not
the knowledge of God, I speak this to your shame. Some that
were preaching there and claimed to believe the gospel were ignorant
of God. It was obvious because they denied
the resurrection of the dead. They were totally ignorant of
the gospel. Some of those that were there.
But the shame was that these true Corinthian believers made
them their companions and received them. And by that made these
unbelievers feel like they were really believers. That's a terrible
thing to do to somebody who is not a believer. To make them
feel like they have light and are believers. That's not being friendly to
them. That's a sinful thing. And they were corrupting, these
folks were corrupting the minds of the Corinthians. Maybe some
of them were such good friends, you know, that they thought,
well, they're such good friends, I hate to offend them. Or maybe they were relatives
of them, you know. Or maybe these believers were
dull of hearing. I know that through this corrupt
companionship they became dull of hearing. This is why it became
easier and easier to receive these companions. After you are
made to start receiving such companions, then the evil gets
a little more, a little more strong, and a little more strong,
and it's easier to be led into that. You see, it's corrupting. It's corrupting. You put a little
drop of a color in some white paint, and you stir it. Make one little stir, and it's
just a little bit of color goes through that paint. You stir
it some more, a lot more color goes to that paint. You keep
going and it's not white anymore. It's the color of that, whatever
color you put in it. And that's the effect of this
corrupting, these corrupting companions. He said it's sin. Turn from it. You know, I think
this is interesting that many who claim to preach sovereign
grace receive folks who preach will works religion And they
will receive them as brethren. And they call that love. They
won't receive us, but they'll receive wheel workers. And call
them brethren. And they call that love. Right
here, God's saying it's sin. He's saying it's sin. It's corrupting.
It's evil. In our day, there's a lot of
people that are so subtle So subtle in what they preach, what
they teach. If it was possible, they would
deceive the very elect. You hear some of those messages
from Brother Henry back in the 70s and 80s. He was dealing with
just out-and-out Arminianism. It was obvious that it was just
cut-and-dry Arminianism. That's not what we're dealing
with in our day. We're dealing with folks now who, if it was
possible, you would think they were preaching sovereign God,
election and predestination and irresistible grace. You would
think that. But they come to sanctification and they almost
always turn people back to the law and back to themselves and
back to works. You've got to have a discerning
ear. Thank God it's not possible to
deceive the elect. God chose us and Christ redeemed
us and whoever the Spirit's given life to, He's going to keep His
people. But now, hearing this Word, brethren, knowing that,
knowing He will keep His people, knowing He will work His good
pleasure in His people, knowing that, I say to you, hear this
Word right here as Christ's Word. That's whose Word it is. It's
not my Word, it's Christ's Word. Here was a church corrupted and
into questioning the resurrection of the dead. This was going to
affect everything they believed. They were saying Christ would
not be risen. They were saying their faith
was vain. They were saying everything about
their worship was vain by this. And it came about by corrupt,
evil companions. So hear this is the Word of Christ
and know this. He says don't be deceived now.
Don't leave from here saying, You know, I'm not sure. I think
that's too narrow. That's too dogmatic. It's God's
Word. He wouldn't have put it in here
if it wasn't His Word. Some say He's quoting from a
heathen poet. But I read you a bunch of Scripture
that says the exact same thing. He's paraphrasing from Scripture. Scripture here tells us that
if you walk with wise men, you'll be wise. If you walk with fools,
you'll be a fool. You'll be destroyed. But hearing
Him say, now awake, let us awake. Hearing Him say, turn, sin not,
let us turn. And hearing Him say, He'll provide
light, He'll give you light, let us do it. I know this, I
know that anytime the Lord has moved me, anytime the Lord has
made me come out from evil companions, anything of that nature, anything
the Lord's ever done, He made it to where I couldn't do otherwise. And while folks around me were
asking me questions, how are you going to provide this? How
are you going to provide that? What are you going to do about
this or that? The Lord said He'd provide it. While men looked
at it and thought that's crazy, that's unreasonable, it was just as plain as day,
this is it. The Lord said He'd provide it. And I'm telling you,
the Lord will provide. The Lord will provide. So trust
Him. He said this, God's able to make
all grace abound towards you that you always, having all sufficiency
in all things, may abound to ever good work. I'm telling you,
brethren, if we trust God, if we trust God, God says there,
He said, prove me. That means test me. If you believe
God, He says, test me. Try to serve God. Try to serve God as a believer
to the point that you in-debt God to you. I guarantee you,
you can't do it. He'll provide for you so much
that you'll say, I'm still a debtor to God. Try to out-give. Try to give till you just leave
this world poor without a thing. You can't do it. If you're doing
it for Christ, from the motive of being constrained by Him,
you won't be able to do it. He'll provide for you, I guarantee
it. I'm saying test Him and see. But if you don't ever believe
Him and test Him, you won't ever find that out. I pray He'd make
us find that out. Everything He says here is true
and faithful and He makes good on every promise. But He's going
to make you believe Him to find out. You know, He doesn't give
you... If He gave it to you first, and
then said, do it, that wouldn't be faith. But by saying, now
obey me. Faith obeys Him, and then He
shows you. Now, I told you I'm going to provide all this. I
pray you do that. Let's stand together. Father, we thank You for Your
Word. Nothing that you've spoken to
us that is unreasonable. Nothing you spoke to us that's
not true. Everything you speak, Lord, is
what's best to glorify you and for our own good. Lord, make us cease being children
who try to turn from what's best for us. grow and be mature and
trust that You will provide and believe You and follow You and
everything that You teach us. We can't do nothing without Your
power and Your grace moving us and constraining us. Lord, just
like You provided righteousness for us and holiness and made
us complete with God, we trust, Lord, You will make us complete
in any work You've called us to. We pray now that you do that
for us and give us that confidence, Lord, in Christ, for his sake,
by him. Forgive us our sins. We ask it
in Christ's name. Amen.