Alright, brethren, let's turn
to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Let's read the first verse. Apostle Paul says, now, concerning
the spiritual. You notice gifts is in italics. He's talking about the spiritual. Concerning the spiritual. Brethren, I would not have you
ignorant. You know, true religion is not
a game of show. It's not a game of show. There's
so much that goes on in the name of Christ that's supposed to
be the worship of Christ and praise of Christ and glorying
in Christ, which is just a vain show. A vain show to soothe the guilty
conscience of men. A vain show to excite the passions
of a man in their heart. To play on religious emotions. A vain show to be seen of men. A vain show to draw attention
to the sinner, to the church, to the one that's professing
to believe. One day, you know, we're going to stand before God.
Do you ever think about that? We're going to stand before holy
God one day. He knows us. He knows our thoughts. He knows our heart. We're not
fooling Him. We're going to stand before Him
one day and give account for ourselves and our lives. Does that make you think to yourself,
Am I truly worshiping God and honoring Christ? Am I? I don't
want my deceitful heart to fool me. I want to know I'm worshiping
God, glorifying His Son, giving Him all the praise and all the
honor. I want to know that. Well, tonight in our text, we're
given two ways that we can know for certain that we're born of
the Spirit of God and that we worship only Christ. We can know
for certain by these two ways right here. And they're nothing
like all these different proofs that men point you to, that religious
folks point you to. Now he's going to show us this
in the context of another problem that was going on at Corinth.
God gave them extraordinary gifts in the early church. extraordinary
gifts. We're going to get to those gifts
later. But the problem was, is when he gave those gifts, some
of the people that had some of these gifts, that truly had some
of these gifts, I'm not so certain there was really a problem with
them. But some people there seemed
to have these gifts who were puffed up about these gifts.
and thought they were better than others because of these
gifts. And they looked down on others that didn't have the gifts
they had. Not everybody had the same gifts, but they would think
their gift was better than another and look down on somebody that
didn't have the gift they had. And then there were those, because
so much was being made over these gifts that God gave, some there
were faking the gifts. And they weren't born of God.
They weren't born of God. There was false teachers mixed
in there. And false converts mixed in there. And they weren't born of God.
They were just imitating what they saw being done. And so Paul does something here
that needs to be done. We have this problem in our day.
There's lots in our day that claim to have these extraordinary
gifts. These Pentecostal gifts, these charismatic gifts. There's
even some that profess they give lip service to sovereign grace.
They don't preach sovereign grace. They don't. I've listened to
them. They don't. They preach salvation
and holiness by the will of man and by the works of man. But
they give lip service to sovereign grace. And it's so subtle, if
you don't have discernment, you won't hear it. But they don't
preach sovereign grace. but they claim to have these
extraordinary gifts. Here's what Paul, how he deals
with this. I think this is just the most
excellent way to deal with this. And this is what I want us to
get tonight. You meet somebody that wants to talk about gifts
and challenge you as to whether or not men in our day have these
extraordinary gifts. Handle it like Paul handled it,
right here. Here's what I want you to get. Before even getting
to the issue, of extraordinary spiritual gifts. The first thing
to consider is, what does a man think of himself and what does
he think of Christ? That's the first thing to ask.
That's the first thing that needs to be considered. First of all,
before even considering what men call extraordinary gifts,
the first thing to consider is, what does a man believe about
himself and about his sin nature? He says in verse 2, you know
that you were Gentiles carried away unto these dumb idols even
as you were led. It means that both they and we
who have been called by God were spiritually dead and spiritually
ignorant and spiritually lost and couldn't do one thing about
it. That's what he's saying. You couldn't do it. You were
led, you were carried away. The word means like a man that's
locked away in a paddy wagon and carried off to prison. And led away means to be taken
by the hand and led off. Carried away to dumb idols. He
said there in Ephesians, Paul said the Gentiles were without
Christ, strangers from the covenants of promise, without God and without
hope in the world. That's what he's saying right
here. That was our state. He said in another place in Ephesians
4, 7, he said we walked in the vanity of our mind. You know
what that is? Thinking I know what God's like
and what honors Him and glorifies Him and what He's pleased with.
the vanity of our mind, having the understanding darkened, darkened
by sin, black with sin so that we can't worship God, alienated
from the life of God through the ignorance that's in them.
That was our problem, brethren, because of the blindness of our
heart. Now this is what all men are
as they're born in Adam. Spiritually dead from Adam's
corrupt seed. This is what we are. Natural man's heart is corrupt
and it only produces corrupt things. I love our young people. I love
my son right here. The only thing that boy's heart
produces is corrupt things. Even that which me and his mother
call good is still corrupt. Because it's not born of God
and brought forth of God and of his spirit. It's corrupt.
They're carried away by the natural heart, led away by the natural
heart. Well, what are these dumb idols?
What's he talking about these dumb idols? Well, they're idols
which are unable to speak. Has anybody been watching the
Olympics in Rio? They got a great big dumb idol
on a mountain down there, holding his hands out like this. And
the folks think that's something. The Today Show this past week,
they all went over there to it, and they had a whole segment
on it. And people admired it, and people look at it like it's
a sacred thing. It's a dumb idol forbidden by
God. That's what it is. Look at Psalm
115.5. Psalm 115.5. Let's go in verse 4. He says,
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They
have mouths, but they speak not. They're dumb. That's what dumb
means. They have mouths, but they speak not. They have eyes,
but they see not. They have ears, but they hear
not. Noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but
they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk
not. Neither speak they through their throats. And they that
make them are just like them. Dead. Dead as that statue down
there in Rio on that mountain. Listen now. So is everyone that
trusts in them. Oh, we don't trust in it. This
just helps us worship. Then tear the thing down. Oh,
we couldn't do that because you trust in it. You put some significance
in it. It's an idol. That shows you
our depravity, brethren. Doesn't it show you the depravity
of the human heart? That not only are we making idols
of stone and considering them to be holy and sacred things,
stones that don't even speak, much less speak the truth, and
bow down and worship it. That's depravity. But I want
you to understand this. Somebody might say this, well,
I've never made an idol. Well, let me tell you where an
idol starts. That big, giant, dumb idol down there on that
mountain, it started in a man's imagination. It started in a
man's heart. He had already carved it for
him. He had already put a hammer and a chisel to a piece of stone.
He had it all laid out in his mind. And that's where idolatry
is, in the heart. In the heart. And you and I,
both, are nothing but idolaters in our flesh. just idolaters
in our flesh. An idol may be in the thoughts
of the heart and never be made into stone. An idol is anything
that a man considers necessary for salvation other than Christ. Anything a man considers necessary
for salvation other than Christ is an idol. An idol is the work
of men's hands. It could be in stone, like that
dumb idol down there. Or, it could be confidence in
the fact that you've never made a stone idol. That's worshipping an idol too.
Both of them are worshipping the idol of self. One saying,
look what I've made. The other saying, look what I've
never made. See what I'm saying? It could be the work of His hands,
such as baptism or church attendance. Or it could be a man saying,
I don't ever put confidence in baptism or church attendance.
That ought to gain me something with God. Either way, it's an
idol. An idol is anything in the world
that steals our time away from the worship and glory due unto
Christ. That's an idol. We got them in
our houses. We spend far too much time in
front of them. We got on every facet of our
lives we've got idols. Anything comes between us and
Christ. We got, some of us have got living
ones that we produced walking around in our houses. Our children. Anything we put, a career, a
church, a denomination, anything at all. And the problem is this,
those things are not idols in themselves. There's nothing wrong
with those things in themselves. It's when they come between us
and God, between us in worshiping Christ, and we make them an idol.
That's where the problem is. It's from us. It's in our heart. What we regard as important.
Now when he says here, even as you were led, this also includes
false fathers, false teachers, false traditions. It includes
that false profession of faith we made when we was under a false
gospel. Who do you think taught them
to worship idols? Oh, they're idol worshippers.
It's no different being in a church that doesn't preach Christ. It's
a false profession. And a man that puts confidence
in it, that's an idol to him. We've got to let go of those
as well. Leave it behind for Christ or
it remains an idol. But here's what he's dealing
with in our text. In the case of the Corinthians and in the
case of many people in our day, God-given spiritual gifts can
be an idol. God-given spiritual gifts. Isn't
that something? There's churches who have faith
in their name, and you go listen to them preach, and they go preach
faith. Faith is an idol to them. There's
people who have their whole premise of their
worship is something about their worship. the way they baptize,
or the way they wash feet, or the way they do this or that,
and it's what differentiates them from somebody else. Spiritual
gifts, true gifts though, good gifts that God gives, can be
abused. If we put the focus on gifts
rather than on Christ, it's an idol. If one makes gifts necessary
rather than Christ, it's an idol. If one fakes a gift or desires
gifts for personal glory and personal gain, to draw attention
to self and to have others glorying in himself, that's an idol. That gift's an idol. He wants
that gift for an idol, to exalt himself. Remember Simon Magus? Turn over to Acts 8. It's been
a long time since we went through Acts, but go back to Acts 8.
Remember Simon Magus? He was a man, he was a sorcerer
at first. He used to go around deceiving
people with these magic tricks. They thought he could do miracles.
And he told everybody he was some great one. And Philip came
along preaching the gospel. And he saw what was going on
and he started, he made a profession of faith. But he was more carried
away with the gifts than he was with Christ. He was more focused
on the gifts than he was with Christ. And so Philip, he couldn't
pray and he didn't have the gift to give the Holy Spirit like
Paul and Peter did. I mean John and Peter did. So
they called John and Peter and they came down there to Samaria
where Philip, he just preached the gospel. And God saved a bunch
of folks. And there's this Simon Magus
down there. And Peter and John come down
there and they lay their hands on these folks and they prayed
and God poured out the Holy Spirit on them. Gave them some extraordinary
gifts. And watch what happened. Verse
18, And when Simon saw that through
laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he
offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever
I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost. See what? He wanted
the focus to be on what he could do. He wanted to go on with his
magic. He wanted folks to follow him like he was some great one.
He was more concerned with the gifts than he was with Christ.
Watch this. But Peter said unto him, Thy
money perish with thee, because thou'st thought that the gift
of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part
nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in the sight
of God. Hear where Peter blamed it? The
heart. Repent therefore of this, thy
wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may
be forgiven thee, for I perceive that thou art in the gall of
bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." So the first question
that needs to be asked before you even start speaking about
spiritual gifts is this, how depraved were you by nature?
Was there anything you could do about it? That's the question
that needs to be answered first. And that's how Paul starts with
this. You remember now, you were just heathens, idolaters, carried
away, led away, and you couldn't do a thing about it. That's the
question that needs to be answered first. I just guarantee you,
they won't be quite that dead. Won't be quite that dead. Well,
if they pass that test, The second thing before speaking of guilt
is this. Ask them, what did the Spirit
of God have to do for you? What did the Spirit of God have
to do for you? Look at verse 2 again. You know
you were Gentiles, carried away under these dumb idols even as
you were led. Wherefore I give unto you to
understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God He's telling you basically no
man can speak the truth but by the Spirit of God. Now, He reminds
us of the dead state we were in so that when He speaks here
about the Spirit of God, we'll be reminded that it's only by
the Spirit of God that we have life, are able to do a thing. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 2.
1 Corinthians 2. Remember when He told us this? Look at 1 Corinthians 2.12. Now
we have received not the spirit of the world, not the spirit
of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might
know the things that are freely given to us of God, freely given
to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth. No, that's not how we preach.
But, which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with
spiritual. It's what we're doing right now. We're speaking the
scriptures which the Holy Ghost has given. Through those prophets,
through those gifts, He gave us these scriptures. And so we're
speaking these things, comparing scripture with scripture. But
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned. Now every sinner that
God saves, he's going to readily admit this. He's going to confess
this. He was nothing but a natural
sinner. Dead. Totally dead. Totally dead. And in that state, he did not
receive the things of the Spirit of God. He couldn't hear the
Gospel. Couldn't hear the Gospel. And the Gospel that he did hear
was foolishness to him. And he could not know the Gospel.
Not only did he not hear it, not only was it foolishness to
him, he couldn't make himself hear it. He had to be born of
the Spirit. He had to be given spiritual
discernment. And that man would give all the glory to God because
the gift of spiritual life was given to him. It was given to
him. Faith, repentance, a true understanding
of the gospel of grace was all given to him. He don't have one
thing that wasn't given to him. He'll confess that. He'll say
these things were freely given to me of God. What does that
mean? It means God didn't foresee anything in you to make Him give
you anything. It means it was not of you. It
was not of your will. It was not of your works. It
was not of you turning over a new leaf. It means it was all by
God's free grace. He chose whom He would give it
to and whom He would not give it to. be freely given of God. It's
by the free grace of God in Christ, by the Spirit of God, that I
know anything about Christ, or believe on Him. And what did
the Spirit teach us? What does the Spirit teach you? Once you've talked to a man,
you said, now, what did the Spirit do for you? Well then, what did
the Spirit teach you? When He made you to be born again,
and He made you to have faith, and He gave you repentance, what
did He teach you? What did the Spirit teach you?
You know what Christ said of the Holy Spirit? He said the
Holy Spirit is going to do one thing when He comes. Turn to
John 16. Here is what Christ said the
Holy Spirit is going to do. John 16. Look at verse 13. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of
truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth. He won't guide you into a lie.
And He won't just guide you into some truth. He'll guide His people
into all truth. Now read on. For He shall not
speak of Himself. He's not speaking about Himself
and He's not speaking of His own accord. But whatsoever He
shall hear, that shall He speak. And He'll show you things to
come. Oh, He's going to show me great things to come. Here's
what He's talking about. He shall glorify me, Christ said. He shall glorify me for He shall
receive of mine and shall show it unto you. Now that's what
Christ said the Holy Spirit would do. And those that are born of
His Spirit, here's what they are going to confess. I heard
the gospel preached because Christ sent it to me. crossed my path
with Him, made me to where I could not ignore the truth of the Gospel
as it was declared. And He sent the Holy Spirit to
me. And the Holy Spirit did one thing. He glorified Christ. He
heard what Christ would have Him speak and spoke it into my
heart and made me hear what Christ had to say. And He didn't speak
about Himself. He didn't glorify Himself. He
didn't make me to glory in the Spirit. He made me to glory in
Christ. He brought me to glory in Christ.
So the first thing is, what do you think of your sin nature?
That's the first thing to ask a man. You want to talk about
gifts? Well, first off, let's see. What do you think of your
sin nature? And then secondly, what is the necessity? Was it a necessity that you be
born of the Spirit? And what did He teach you? What
did He give you? What did He teach you? Christ
said when He's come, the first thing He'll do is convince you
of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Because He's
not going to speak anything but of Christ. That's how He's going
to do it. What did He teach you? Now here's
the last thing. Before speaking about gifts,
here's where we've got to get settled. What did He give Christ? See, I'm going to determine where
your gifts come from by these things right here. I don't know
whether the gifts are of the devil or of your own flesh. You know the devil can imitate
everything God does, by permission. Scripture says that he transforms
into an angel of light, convinces men that there's some great gifts
going on. Or is it just faked of the flesh?
All I got to hear is, let me hear what you preach about Christ.
Let me hear what you preach about the Spirit's work. Let me hear
what the Spirit taught you. Let me hear what the necessity
of the Spirit is. Let me hear about how dead you are. How you can
do nothing. Look here at verse 3. Wherefore,
I give you to understand. Here is what he is talking about.
He showed them you were dead, you carried away to idols. And
he says this. Wherefore, I give you to understand,
no man speaking by the Spirit of God can call Jesus accursed. He can't call Him anathema. He
can't call Him a failure. He can't ignore Him. He can't
put Him back on the back burner. He can't make something else
more important than Christ. He can't do it if He's speaking
by the Spirit of God. That parcels a lot of preachers
out, don't it? That just counsels a lot of preachers
out and a lot of what's going on in religion just right out
the door. And that no man can say that
Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. Now here's how our
text says we know if we're born of God and truly worship God. Right here. Here's two things
that we can know right here. Two things. No man speaking by
the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed. Now the natural Christ-rejecting
Jews They called Christ accursed because it was written in their
law, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. And so they
saw Christ hung on the cross and they said, He's a curse.
God's accursed Him. They said He's a failure. They
said He's just a man and He just hung on a cross and He failed
at what He did. They said He was a curse. And many see Him the same way
in our day. Many see Him as a failure because
of that cross. And then you have others who
speak of Christ's blood being common. They say His blood was
shed for all mankind and yet He didn't really redeem anybody.
They say Christ bore the judgment of a sinner, of all sinners. And then they say God pours out
judgment on that same sinner a second time because he believed
not on Christ. You know what that's doing? That's
putting the ultimate preeminence and the ultimate glory in the
sinner's hand. That's exactly what that's doing.
It's to say that it's up to the sinner to believe rather than
it's up to the Holy Spirit who shall, according to the Scriptures,
call everybody Christ's redeemed and work this necessary work
irresistibly and give them a heart to believe. It's saying you have
to believe without the Spirit's work because it's saying that
Christ's blood is only made effectual by the sinner believing on Christ. That's putting it all... Let's
make it Christ to accomplish nothing. That's calling Him a
curse. That's putting it all in a sinner's hand. God says
through Paul over in Galatians, He said they're speaking of another
Jesus which is not another. They're not speaking by the Spirit
of God no matter how they pretend to possess spiritual gifts. Now
hear that. That's what he said there. They're
not speaking by the Spirit of God no matter how they pretend
to possess spiritual gifts. And then another of those who
put the focus on gifts and exalt and glorify the Spirit of God.
Now if he said, if Christ said plainly, when the Spirit comes,
He's going to glorify me. And He's going to put the emphasis
on me. And He's going to make my people glory in me. then no
man speaking by the Spirit of God can glorify the Holy Spirit. He's God and He's going to receive
the glory, but His glory is in Christ. His glory is in that
He brings us to the feet of Christ and makes us see Christ exalted. And that's how we glory in the
Spirit, glory in Christ. glorying in Christ. No man, speaking
by the Spirit of God, is going to exalt the Holy Spirit. No
man, speaking by the Spirit of God, is going to make the focus
to be gifts, and the sinner, and the church, and relegate
Christ to the dung heap. No sinner is going to do that.
Oh, they'll say, oh, this is of Christ, and what have you.
But they're glorying in those gifts, and they're glorying in
the Spirit. The Spirit of God is not in that. That's not the
Spirit of God. That's not what Christ said He'd
come and do. So I don't need to see your guilt.
Just let me hear what you're preaching concerning Christ.
That's all I need to know. And in here, this is the truth
now. The believer by the Spirit of God, by the Spirit of God
teaching us Christ, what we know is Christ wasn't a curse. He
was made a curse. He was made a curse for us. for His people. He was made sin
by God for His people though He knew no sin. He was made a
curse for us though He remained holy in His heart and He was
obeying God in what He was doing when He gave Himself to be made
a curse for us. Now He experienced everything
it is to be made a curse. He knows the feeling of being
made a curse. He was touched with it. He knows
what it is more than you and I could even imagine. But He
was not accursed in Himself, in His nature. He was holy before
God, serving God. And yet, God made Him a resurrected
head over us because Christ didn't fail. He was raised again for
our justification. God's declaring by that that
everything Christ declared is so, and everything Christ went
to the cross to accomplish, He accomplished. And He made Him
our head over us. over us and now we're made, all
of you born of God are made the righteousness of God in Him.
So we give all the glory to God for teaching us that no man can
speak by the Spirit of God and call Jesus a curse and no man
can worship God in Christ and put all the emphasis on Christ
and not on us unless it be by the Spirit of God. Why do we
do that? Because it pleases the Father
that in Him all fullness dwell, that He have all preeminence.
All preeminence. Now, the second way we know,
the first way we know we're born of God is if we don't call Him
a curse. We don't call Him a failure. At all. To receive men who preach
a lie and lead men into a lie and stand for a lie and won't
stand with you and to call them a brother is to say Christ failed
to send the Spirit and teach them the truth. Why else are
they holding to a lie? He failed in some regard. You
see what I'm saying? We stand for the truth. We don't go around trying to
judge folks being lost or saved. But we know this, what Christ
said is so. He sends the Spirit and He teaches
men in the truth. And they can't call Christ a
failure when He's done that. Now here's the second thing.
They can't call Him Lord but by the Holy Spirit either. I
get so tired of hearing religion It's Jesus this, Jesus that,
Jesus this, Jesus that, or the man upstairs, or my friend, or
my buddy, or whatever. Any man can say that he's Lord. I understand that. He's not just
you. He's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I realize any man can say
that he's Lord. The devils believe and tremble.
But here's the truth of the matter. It's impossible for a man to
call Him Lord from a new heart in faith except the Spirit of
God has given him that heart. The only way. When one's born
of the Spirit and he calls Him Lord, this is what he's saying.
Now, what does he mean by this? You know, you've got to understand
what does he mean by this. John said, No man that's speaking
by the Spirit of God is going to say that Christ has not come
in the flesh. Well, it basically means the
same thing as it means right here. We say He's come. We say He's Lord. We say He's
a success in everything Scripture said He'd accomplish. That's
what it's talking about. We're saying He's the visible
God. We're saying He's Jehovah. We're
saying He's the fullness of the Godhead bodily and we're complete
in Him. He's the God-man is what we're
saying. And we're saying that He's all our salvation and He
works all salvation. That's what we're saying. He's
Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide. That's who He is. He's
Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee. That's what we're
saying when we call Him Lord. He's Jehovah Nissi, the Lord
your banner. He's Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord
our righteousness. He's Jehovah Shalom, the Lord
our peace. He's Jehovah Shema, the Lord
is there, like a guarded city His church is by Him. He's there.
He's Jehovah Rea, the Lord your shepherd. That's what we're saying. He's salvation and He worked
all salvation. That's what we mean when we call
Him Lord. He is the source of all blessings to His people and
He is the blessing to His people. We declare that He gives the
Holy Spirit and when He gives the Holy Spirit and you are born
of the Holy Spirit, Christ is formed in you. He forgives sin. You know why?
Because He put away our sin and in Him is no sin. He did this
for a chosen elect people and only for a chosen elect people
because He did it. He accomplished it for them.
They can't perish because He redeemed them. They're here.
And He gives peace and He is that peace. He gives light and
He is that light. He puts us in the way and He
is that way. He teaches us the truth and He
is that truth. He gives faith and the faith
of our faith is Christ. Paul said, the life I now live,
I live by the faith of the Son of God. He's the one by whom
I live. He gives eternal life and He
is the life. He is the life. We call Him Lord
because He sent us the Gospel and He sent us the Holy Spirit.
And by Him dwelling in us now, this is the truth of the matter.
We have put on the new man. which after God is created in
righteousness and true holiness, which after God is recreated
in the image of Him that created Him, renewed in the image of
Him that created Him, where nothing else matters but Christ. Christ is all and in all. Now, what does that mean, brethren?
What does that mean? It means this. When a man will
start talking about gifts, Extraordinary gifts. I want you to draw attention
to His gifts. Listen to this now. Here's the
question. Here's what we're going to consider
first. What do you think about your sin nature? Tell me about
your sin nature. Tell me about what you were. Second thing is, tell me what
the Holy Spirit had to do, and what He did, and what He taught
you, and what He gave you. Tell me what He did. And then
lastly, tell me what you think about Christ. Because if a man
is speaking by the Spirit of God, he is going to speak the
truth about Him. That is what he is saying. He
is going to speak the truth about Him if he is speaking by the
Spirit of God. Now here is the point of this.
It is total depravity of the heart that will make a man put
all his focus and his emphasis on gifts. But it is the Spirit of God who
makes His child put all the emphasis on the gift. who is Christ Jesus. That's the difference. Turn over
to 1 John. Let me end with this text. 1
John chapter 4. Verse 1. Beloved, believe not
every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because
many false preachers have gone out to the world. Hereby I know
you the Spirit of God, This is how you know the Spirit of God
is teaching somebody and speaking through somebody. Every spirit
that confesses that Jesus Christ is coming to flesh is of God.
Everybody that confesses what we just talked about, Christ
being a success and redeeming His particular people, He's of
God. And every spirit that confesses
not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And
this is that spirit of antichrist where if you've heard it, it
should come, and even now already is it in the world. Now watch
this. You're of God, little children, and you've overcome them. How
so? Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Now listen to this. They are
of the world, therefore what do they speak? What do they preach?
They speak they of the world. They talk about man, they talk
about His glory, His will, His works, His gifts. Everything
is about the sinner. And the world hears them. We are of God. He that knows
God hears us. Because why? Because all we talk
about is God. All we talk about is His works,
Christ's works. And he that is of God loves to
hear that message. And he says, he that is not of
God, heareth not us. Because he don't like that message.
Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Amen. Our Lord, we thank You for this
Word. Make every ear that's heard this
tonight really hear it in the heart. Make us to know that you don't
speak lies. You don't teach lies. If we're
just a dead bunch of nothing, and you create us anew, you teach
us. You create us anew. You create
us in your image. You renew us in the image of
Christ. You lead us into all truth. And
we cannot, if we're being taught by You and guided by You and
led by You and speak by You, we cannot call Jesus Christ a
failure. God teaching sinners to call
God a failure? That can't be. Lord, You teach
us the truth and You teach us to glory in You and You teach
us to worship You only. Make us to hear this, make us
to know this. We're just dead by nature. We
glory in Christ alone. He is the gift of God. Make us to know that's the issue,
the gift of God who is Christ Jesus. And turn us, Lord, from
glory in anything that you give us that's not Christ only. We ask it in His name. Amen.