Everyone here, if you'll take
your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 2. I've entitled this message, Our
One Determination. We as preachers of the gospel
follow here what the Apostle Paul says in this Determination
he says in verse 2 for I determined I Determined not to know anything
among you except this Jesus Christ and him crucified Now that's
my text, but we're going to we're going to read through this passage,
and we're going to study this In detail, especially, what he
means by that. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now, the apostle in the previous
chapter exposes the foolishness of exalting preachers. This was
happening. This happens now. This is still
happening. It's in our nature to exalt men.
We find a preacher we like, we like the way he speaks, the way
he talks, the way the Lord used him for us. The Lord used that
man specifically for us at a time of our need, and we like that
guy. And it's our nature then to exalt
man. The apostle spends this whole
first chapter saying, who is Paul? Who is Apollos? You know
what he says there? Nothing. What are preachers? Listen to this. We're nothing.
regardless of what skill or abilities we have or skills and abilities
we don't have. Listen, we ourselves are nothing
but vessels. That's it. We're vessels used
of God to do one thing, preach the gospel. That's what we do. In ourselves, we have no power
to make any of this come to fruition. We have no power in ourselves
to apply this to you. None. If I had all the abilities
outwardly that I desire, I desire these abilities. But if I had
them, none of those abilities would be able to affect your
heart. None of them. Therefore, preaching of the gospel,
it is the chosen means of God. And it's that way for one reason. One reason why we're nothing
and the gospel is everything. So that we should be abased and
God should be exalted. The whole purpose of this chapter
is telling you why preaching? Why preaching? Why not plays?
Why not musical events? Why not, you know, there's many
things that attract the world. Why not those things? Why? Because God says, I'm going to
make foolish the wisdom of the world. I'm going to use nothings
and nobodies to bring to pass what I determine, which is this,
the salvation of my people. Why? That no flesh should glory
in His presence. We preach the salvations of the
Lord. That's what He said in verse
30 of chapter 1, but of Him are you in Christ. You're in Christ?
Who did that? Of Him are you in Christ? By
the grace of God you are in Christ. who God, by grace, made him to
be what? Your wisdom, and what? And your righteousness, and what?
And your sanctification, and what? And your redemption. He's
all of it. God made him to be that. Why? According as it is written. Let
him glory in the Lord. we are saved, it must then be
by the sovereign will of the Father who put us in Christ.
It must be by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It must be
by the power of the Holy Spirit to give us life and faith. Why? It is written, he that glorieth
let him glory in who? In the Lord. Now, in the text, the apostle
calls the brethren to practical and personal remembrance. Look
at that in verse 1. He says, And I, brethren, when I came
to you. Listen, what is he doing? He's
calling them to remember when he came. He said, Remember when
I came to you. Do you remember that? He's calling
them to personal experience. This morning, I can call you
to the same. How did you hear the gospel? Some preacher came to you. Somebody
had to tell you. You didn't know. Somebody had
to preach to you. When I came to you, now how did
I come? Remember how I came. Paul said,
I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, but I came
doing this. declaring unto you the testimony
of God. That's what I came to do. The
testimony of God. Paul said, I didn't come to you
with great oratory skill. Now we all imagine Paul had skill.
We read his epistles and we, this guy had to be a great speaker. Paul said, no, my voice was contemptible.
Can you imagine that? His voice, I don't know, maybe
he was a screechy voice, maybe he was a, you know, maybe he
was just a bookworm kind of guy You know, he was very monotone.
Maybe he didn't have all those gifts. What he's telling us,
he said, I didn't come that way. I didn't come to you preaching
the wisdom of man. Now the church of Corinth was
surrounded by the philosophy of the day. It was the center
of academia. Everybody was wanting to hear
something new. Isn't that the same thing here? You can pack the stadiums. You
tell people, I got something new. And you pack it. Why? They want to hear something new.
I got something old. I'm going to preach to you something
very, very old. I don't want to hear that. I
want something new. He said, I came to you with none
of those things of the worldly wisdom. You know, I'm amazed at these
stadiums they pack with these answer-and-question seminar things
they have. You ever seen those? I mean,
some preachers stand up and he's answering questions. And you
realize they're all the same questions. They could be answered
if you just preached the gospel. They'd be answered. They don't
want those answered that way. Somebody had to stand up and
they've got to ask a great, deep, theological question. Why? They want preeminence. They want
everybody to look at them. Look at me. Look at my question. They don't really want to know.
They don't want to know. Paul said, I didn't come to an
answer and question seminar. I came to do one thing. Declare
to you the testimony of God. That's how I came. I came to
you with none of these things. I didn't come to debate or tickle
your ears with vain philosophy. I came declaring one thing of
utmost importance to the souls of men. Listen to this. The testimony
of God is all that matters. My opinion does not matter. You and I do not matter. What matters is the testimony
of God, the gospel. the testimony of God. There's
nothing more needed in our day than the testimony of God being
preached. We don't need man's wisdom, we don't need man's philosophy,
I don't need to hear what Aristotle said or Socrates said, and I
don't need to hear about how the Greek and Hebrew and all
of this work together and how this... I don't need to be educated
in language. What do I need? I need the testimony
of God. Nothing else matters. Nothing. We need men not with oratory
skill. I know of a church, and this
is a gospel preacher. He's a very wonderful gospel
preacher. I've heard messages. Messages are the same that I'm
preaching to you. They're glorious messages of
the testimony of God. And some people left because
he had a monotone voice. They didn't like his voice, so
they left. You left the testimony of God because the guy had a
monotone voice. Nothing's wrong with him, something's wrong with you. You set the skill of the
man above what the man was saying. Don't do that. The testimony
of God is all that matters. Paul could have surely come with
great arguments, couldn't he? This guy was skilled in academia of every type. And
as Paul said, remember believers, that's not how I came to you.
I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. Somebody reminded me of this,
what Donnie said to me a long time ago. He was getting ready
to preach and he said, I'm scared. And I'd been preaching for 40
years at that time. You don't ever stand up here
and not be afraid. I don't ever want to stand up
here without the fear of the Lord in my heart. You don't want
me to stand up here in pride. You want me to stand in the fear
and weakness of my flesh, speaking what? The testimony of God. I
don't preach enticing words. He came preaching and not trusting
or boasting in any ability to persuade men, but the testimony
of God. The flesh puts much emphasis
in preacher's ability. We suppose that if the man has
some forceful voice, that that has some power. My voice, whether
it influctuates or it don't, it's not the power. We cannot convert men. Listen, if we can convert you
to Calvinism, somebody with a better voice and a better wisdom can
come along and unconvert you. If you believe because of the
power of some man, if you're resting in the power of man and
not the power of God, I feel for you. But when God the Holy Spirit
persuades somebody, it sticks. Is that true? It sticks. You
that believe, can you do anything else? Do you want to do anything
else but believe? Now I know your faith is weak,
Don't you want more of it? I do. Why? You can't do anything else. It's
not the power of the preacher that keeps you. It's the power
of God. So Paul says, therefore I came
in this way and in this manner. And he said this in verse 2,
I determined to do something. He said, I determined. This is
a willful and purpose, a willful purpose. He said, I determined
not to know anything among you. In other words, he didn't stick
his finger in the air and figure out which way the wind was blowing.
He didn't care about the political events in the state of the nation
or the city of Corinth. He said, I determined. not to know anything among you
except one thing. One thing. What is that? The
testimony of God. And notice how he says, he's
saying the same thing. Look at that in verse 2. He says,
the testimony of God in verse 1, I determine not to know anything
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I want you to
know that's the same thing. The testimony of God is Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Matter of fact, this is the whole
counsel of God. In that brief statement is the
whole counsel of God. In chapter 1, he said the same
thing. We preach Christ crucified. In Galatians 6.14, He said, God
forbid that I should glory in anything save the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is the sum of our ministry. This is it. If you want something
else, you'll have to go someplace else. This is all Paul determined to
do, and this is all I determined to do. And by doing this, I preach to
you the whole counsel of God. The only message that we will
use is Jesus Christ crucified. What does that mean? First of
all, we preach His person. Who He is? Jesus Christ! And we preach his work, him crucified. Him crucified. It's a very short
description, but this phrase I want you to see is very large.
It's not small. He's not saying we preach that
one moment in time concerning the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, I want you to understand this. How important is that moment? How important was that moment
when our Lord Jesus Christ for those three hours hung on that
tree? How important was it? Everything
before it led to it. Everything. You understand that?
Everything that has happened from eternity past up until the
time He was crucified moved toward it. and everything that's happened
after it looks back to it. It's the hinge on which all time
and eternity are made. We even divide our
years by it, don't we? Wicked men have no choice in
this. We divide our years by it. A.D.,
after death, B.C., before Christ. Why? Because everything hinges
on that moment. It's an astounding thing. But there's so much more to this
message than just the one event. Now we know that all Scripture
is God-breathed. And we have in our hands the
whole word of God, the whole counsel of God. You have it right
here. You have the whole counsel of
God. But you realize that I can go anywhere in this book and
preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Isn't that astounding? Because
this whole book is concerning Him and His work. Everything
in it. Everything in it. All scriptural truth. Someone
wrote this. I don't know. I kind of wish
that I wrote it, you know, but I didn't. But it's true. He said
this, whoever it was, all scriptural truth and all scriptural teaching
is understood in and into and experienced in light
of the cross of Jesus Christ. All scriptural knowledge. Do
you have any scriptural knowledge? It's in this one thing, Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. If any man is to set up his tent
at the cross of Christ, he's going to be able to understand
two things. He's going to understand the person that was crucified,
and he's going to understand the work of that crucifixion. That's what I want us to do.
I want us to pitch our tent there every time we come together.
We pitch our tent there at the cross and we see the majesty,
the glory of God. We see all of the attributes
of God there. We can see it. Why? Because all the scripture
speaks of it. Do you realize we just sang that hymn, holy,
holy, holy. How can these two things be?
Holy, holy, holy, merciful. How can those two things be?
How can God be holy and merciful? You can't understand that except
you go to the cross. Only there did mercy, the psalmist
said, mercy and truth have met together. Where? Truth is you
deserve hell. Mercy says let him go. Where
do you find those two? You find those at the cross of
Jesus Christ. Why are the whole scriptures
about him? Remember when on the road to Emmaus, those disciples
were so distraught, they thought Christ was going to set up his
kingdom and he died. I mean, that's just, they spent
all those years, three years of his ministry with him, and
they were just sad. They were, man, their whole religion
just collapsed. And Jesus comes alongside and
says, what are you all so sad about? He said, you fools and slow of
heart to believe all that the scriptures have said, and beginning
at Moses and all the prophets, He expanded unto them and all
the scriptures, what? Things concerning Himself, Jesus
Christ, and Him crucified. That's what He did. So this morning,
that's what I want to do. I want to expound to you some
things concerning Jesus Christ and Him crucified. First of all,
when we preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified, we are preaching
the eternal counsel of God. The eternal counsel of God. When
we preach Christ crucified, we must preach the eternal counsel
of God. Why? Because all that God purposed
in eternity has taken place, is taking place, and will take
place. God told us that. Declaring the
end. The end, when? From the beginning. From ancient
times saying, my counsel shall stand. Now what's going to stand?
My counsel. What's that? I will do all my
pleasure. I will do all my pleasure." This was the eternal declaration
of the sovereign counsel of God that must stand even the election
of Jesus Christ. In the eternal counsel of God,
what do you find? The election of Jesus Christ. Now what do I mean by that? I
mean this, that God chose Christ. Isaiah 42 and verse 1, Behold
my servant. Mine elect. Who was the first elect? If there
was such a thing, I have to think things in order of time because
I'm just foolish. My mind can't wrap around eternity. But think
about it. Who was the first chosen? Christ was the first chosen.
God chose Christ to be our surety. Now we know this, that God has
an elect people that he chose in Christ. There's no doubt about
this. There's no debating this. God chose an elect people for
himself. He purposed to save them. Whose
purpose? He said, I will do all my pleasure. He purposed that they should
be holy and without blame before him. In love predestinated them
under the adoption of children. By who? By Jesus Christ. See how that, in the eternal
counsel of God, who's the center of that? Who's the sum of God's
eternal counsel? It's Jesus Christ! It's not you,
it's Him! You were chosen in Him! And I like this in Ephesians
1 and verse 12, it says, We have obtained an inheritance. I like that. You've already got
it. Before you even knew anything about it. You got it. He obtained
it for you. Being predestinated. That's how
you got it. You were predestinated to it.
According to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after
the counsel of His own will, that we should be to the praise
of His glory who first trusted in Christ. Who first trusted
in Christ? God did. The Father was the one
who trusted Christ with what? The salvation of the elect. When he said this, all things
are delivered unto me of my Father. What does he mean? All of the
salvation of my people is delivered into my hands. He alone had determined,
was determined of God to be the Savior. Behold, the glory of God was
to put His trust in Christ. The full weight of our salvation
then was on Him. See how Jesus Christ is the eternal
counsel of God? That in Him God purposed to save
His people. He also decreed the means. I
like that. He not only decreed Him to be
the Savior, He decreed the means by which He would save them.
Jesus Christ, and what? Him crucified. You see, this
was the eternal counsel of God. This was no happenstance. Matter of fact, in Revelation
13, John describes Him as the Lamb slain. When? Before the
foundation of the world. You see how Jesus Christ, Him
crucified, is the eternal counsel of God? I want you to see this, that
Jesus Christ and Him crucified declares to us the depravity
of man. Now how can we see the depravity
of man in Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Well, preaching Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, we see this then as a necessity because of
the utter, complete, absolute fall of man. The Word of God
tells us that Adam was the father of us all, and the scripture
in Romans 5 and verse 12 is very clear. Wherefore, as by one man,
sin entered into the world. That's how it got here. Satan
didn't bring it in, he's the father of it, but he didn't put
it in the world. It came by one man, Adam. Then what? Death by sin. Then what? Death passed upon
all men. Why? For all have sinned. didn't become sinners. We were
born sinners. We were born sinners. But the scriptures also tell
us that Adam, being a representative man, was also a type of what
Christ would be. What Christ had been determined
before in the eternal counsel of God was to be what? A representative
man. Adam represented everybody and
what happened? We all died. Listen to this. I like this in Romans chapter
5. He tells us the same thing in verse 14. He tells us that
Adam was a figure. He said, Wherefore as by one
man sin entered the world, even so by one man righteousness comes. The same way. I don't know about
you, but I love that. How were you made a sinner? Adam. A lot of people don't like that.
They don't. They say, well, that's not right. I like it because this is how
God made me righteous. By the work of another man. that
I didn't have any hand in. I didn't have any hand in Adam's
sin, but he made me a sinner. Guess what? I didn't have any
hand in the work of Christ, and he made me what? Made me righteous. Made me righteous. And so, it
is necessary for us to understand Adam's fall was perfect. Adam's
fall was complete. It was perfect. It was the utter
ruin of man. In Adam all died. This is why there's none righteous.
There's none that understand it. There's none that seek it
after God. We are all together become unprofitable. Therefore,
by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified because
we are all sinners. In other words, there's no way
for us to save ourselves. You get this? There's no way. There's no means. Remember Uzzah. David had devised a way to carry
that ark. Now God said carry the ark on
the staves and only certain men were allowed to carry that ark
and David said, well I got a better way. Let's put it on a cart.
Nice new cart. Cadillac. Let's put it on a Cadillac
cart. Carry it with some ox and praise
God as we go along the way and make some sacrifices. And that ox stumbled. The man Uzzah,
a priest, with all sincerity. Now listen, I'm going to give
Uzzah every benefit of the doubt. I think he was sincere. He did
not want that ark. He honored that ark. And he did not want it to fall
into the mud. And he, in sincerity and all
love, he put his hand on it. You know what God did? God killed
him. You know why? That ark's crushed.
If you put your hand to the work of Christ, God will kill you.
That's serious business. And so we preach Jesus Christ,
Him crucified, and we must preach the depravity of man because
in Christ, Him crucified, we see man's need. You see the greatness of your
need. He was Adam by sin and death
came by Adam upon all. Therefore, seeing the elect were
born dead in sins, unable today to save themselves, what did
God do? God sent Jesus Christ into the world to save His elect. How? By His death. By His life and by His death. So we preach Jesus Christ, Him
crucified, and as we see this, we see our need. Don't you see
your need? When you look at the cross, don't you see your need?
I see my need, but I also see something else. I see my need
fulfilled. I see all my salvation fulfilled. In what? Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Thirdly, what you see at the
cross, again, pitching our tent here, we see the eternal counsel
of God. This is how God determined to save His people. What do we
see? We see in the cross our need,
our depravity that would cause God to send
His Son into this world to die for us. You think if there was
another way, God would have done it? No other way. And when we see the cross, we
see something about God's holiness. We sing that just saying, holy,
holy, holy. You know what that means? Can you really understand what
it is to be holy? I mean, I got a sense, I got an idea. How holy is God? What does that mean? Holy, holy,
holy. If you want to see something
about the holiness of God, you need to look at the cross. When Adam fell in the garden,
he lost all righteousness and ability, but God never lost his
right to demand it. Isn't that right? When Adam lost
his ability to be righteous, didn't God still demand him to
be righteous? Just because you can't be righteous,
doesn't diminish God's right to demand it. And he does. Why? He's holy. He's holy. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. It says that twice in Ezekiel. Just in case you missed it the
first time, he'll say it again. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. Why? God is holy. Curses everyone
that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law
to do them. The word of God is plain that every sin of every
sinner must give a perfect payment. Gorsia. Well, that begs the question
then, if God is so holy and we are so perfectly depraved, how
may we be accepted? Question religion can't answer.
Religion tells you to eat a cracker and drink some wine. Religion
tells you to bow down and make the sign of the cross. Religion
tells you to make a decision. Religion tells you to start doing
this, stop doing this. Does that make you holy? Are you made holy by those things?
Listen to what the psalmist said, Psalm 24, Who shall ascend to
the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in His holy place?
Listen, He that hath clean hands. How about you? How are your hands?
Are they clean? Are they innocent? They're not,
are they? They're contemptible, they're
full of vile sins from the sole of the foot to the crown of the
head. There is no soundness. Well, who's going to sin before
God? Only he that hath clean hands and a pure heart. Man, that's not talking about
me. Well, who's that talking about?
Jesus Christ. He's the only one that ever had
clean hands and a pure heart. He was the one born of the virgin's
womb by the Holy Spirit who came into this world as a man, bone
of my bone, flesh of my flesh, missing one thing, sin. No sin! I like how he said it. He said, which of you convinces
me of sin? Could you do that? Could you
dare people to find something wrong with you? The man appears
and says, I dare you to find something wrong with me. It would
take you a second to figure that out. Just ask my kids. They'll
tell you. Our Lord said, I dare you to
try to find something wrong in me. How holy was our Savior. I can't imagine that kind of
righteousness. Every thought was in perfect
love to God and man. Why in the world would the Son
of God come do that? Jesus Christ came in the flesh
to make my righteousness for me. Him being righteous, did that
add anything to Him? He was just being who He was. He could not be more righteous. There's no way. What was He doing? The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world to make My righteousness. Now listen, how much of my righteousness
did He make? Religion says He made part of
it. You've got to fill in the rest.
The Word of God says He's all my righteousness. He's all my
righteousness. The Son of the Living God. That's who came. The eternal
Son of God came in human flesh and obtained for me my righteousness. None of Adam's seed could have
ever honored the law of God, yet we necessarily needed to
have righteousness. How did that happen? Romans 3 tells us, look at Romans
3. I'll tell you how this righteousness
that we have You believe, listen, this righteousness was made by
Him. Look at this in verse 21. He said, but now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifest. Isn't that good news? Righteousness
without the law. I failed already. It's manifest. Being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. Even the righteousness of God
which is by what? By what? How did it come? How
was it made? By the faith of Jesus Christ. That's how it was made. Not by
faith in Jesus Christ. That's not how my righteousness
was made. Otherwise, that means I had some contributing to do,
right? If it's by faith in Jesus Christ, then you can say, well,
my faith had something to do with that righteousness. That's
not what it says. It's the faith of Jesus Christ.
That's how the righteousness was made. Then what? How is righteousness
received? Well, then he says this. Unto all and upon all them that
what? Belief. There's no difference. You see, our faith, the faith
that we have, we know it's a gift of God, and I'm going to get
to that in just a minute, because that's also a product of Jesus
Christ, Him crucified, faith. Faith is how it's received, but
it's not how it's made. My righteousness was made by
Jesus Christ. I like that picture in the very
beginning, when Adam sinned, and God clothed them. How did He do that? How did He
clothe their nakedness? Scripture says He took skins. He killed an innocent animal
to cover their nakedness. You see what He was doing? Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. It's a picture of Christ. He
is all our righteousness. Yet this was not only sufficient,
His obedience was not only sufficient. When we say Jesus Christ, Son
of God, came in the flesh to obtain our righteousness, but
not only this, Him crucified. That was not all that was needed.
Righteousness alone was not sufficient. We needed also a satisfaction
for justice. Religion loves a bloodless sacrifice. bloodless sacrifice is you not
eating fish on a certain day I'm sacrificing look at me sacrifice look at me I got baptized look
what I sacrifice bloodless useless sacrifice But the justice of
God did not demand a useless sacrifice, it demanded a perfect
one. Without the shedding of blood is no remission of sin. So when we preach the eternal
counsel of God's grace and God's purpose in Jesus Christ to save
His people who were born dead in their sins, He came and accomplished
our righteousness and determined to satisfy justice by His perfect
death. And that's exactly what he did.
When were your sins paid for? You that believe, your sins are
paid for. By who? By Jesus Christ. How? By Him crucified. And listen,
they were not partially paid. This is the glorious message.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. Speak comfortably
to Jerusalem. Her warfare is what? Finished. She hath received of the Lord's
hand double for all her sins." The Lord Jesus Christ, when He
died, His death was perfect. Hebrews 10, He says those priests
stand there daily, killing those animals day after day after day
after day, sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice, standing, always
standing, never finished, never done. But this man, this priest,
scripture says after he offered one sacrifice for sins forever,
what did he do? When he sat down, what do we
know? It's done. It's finished. I like that little
pamphlet we passed out a long time ago, do or done. Two religions
in the world, do or done. False religion is do. The true gospel is done. How do I know it's done? Well, first of all, Jesus Christ,
when He was crucified, said this, it is finished. Now, was it finished
or not? Was it done or was it not done?
He says done. What did He mean by that? He
means this, that He completely satisfied God's justice for our
sins. Completely. Done. I like to think of the
people in Israel as they walk through that Red Sea. that not a drop of water splashed
on them. You know why? It's a picture
of God's justice and judgment, the seed. And when Christ died,
that thing is parted and they'll never suffer the wrath of God,
ever. Ever. God cannot demand twice
payment. So when we preach Christ crucified,
what are we preaching? We are preaching a successful
Savior. A successful Savior. Lastly, to preach Christ crucified,
we preach the effectual call of grace and the keeping power
of the Spirit. Our God having purposed salvation
of the elect, Christ having accomplished that salvation, God has decreed
that by His Spirit, everyone that Christ died for, everyone
that Christ died for, will believe without exception. I like what he said to Nicodemus.
Listen to this. Listen to what Christ said to
Nicodemus. You must be born again. Now He's not telling him what
to do. He's not telling him how. He's telling him this. You're
mine and you must be born again. Why were you born again? You
must be born again. He wasn't telling him what to
do. He was telling him what must take place. This is going to
take place. Why? The Spirit's like the wind.
He blows where he wills. You can hear the sound, but you
can't tell where he's coming. So is everyone that is born of
the Spirit. Your new birth had to come to
you. Paul said, when I came to preach
to you, remember how I came? I didn't come in wisdom. I came
preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now how in the world
did you believe and others didn't? How is it? Look back in your
text. Look at this. He'll tell you a little bit later. He says in verse 9, As it is
written, I hath not seen, nor heard, neither entered into the
heart of man the things which God prepared for them that love
Him. But God hath revealed them to
us. How? by His Spirit. Necessary. Necessary. Therefore, knowing that preaching
is the means. Now, I know this. I don't know
who the elect are. Don't have a clue. I know God
has them, and I know Christ will call them. Without doubt. I don't believe in a failure
Savior. If Christ died for them, the
Spirit's going to call them. And they will come, every one
of them. Now, how are they going to do
it? What's the means He chose? Preaching. What? Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. This is the means. This is the
means. And I know this, at the appointed
time, every one of them will come. It seems as though the church is a failure. Seems like the false religion
of bounds is just so successful. And it appears the church is
so small. No one wants to hear about Jesus
Christ being crucified. You know what they want to hear
about? My feelings. How can I feel closer to God? How can I get closer to God? Me! Me! I don't want to hear
about Him. I want to hear about them. But I know this, that the church
is always full. I like what the apostles said
in Acts. As many as were ordained to eternal life, relieved. How
many is going to believe? As many as are ordained to eternal
life. That's how many. None more and none less. Why? Look at verse 5 in your text.
Why do we do it this way? Why did God do it this way? That
your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men. But what? In the power of God. How in the world are you going
to continue? Man, I'm telling you, everything's
against you. I don't know if you've noticed that or not. I don't know if you've noticed,
not many people like to hear this. And you try to tell them,
and you have an enemy. My own heart is my enemy. My
own flesh is my enemy. How in the world do I have any
hope of continuing? Because it's not my power. It
wasn't my power to save me, and it's not my power to keep me.
My faith stands in the power of God. We sing that hymn, What
though I cannot break my chain, or e'er throw off my load, the
things impossible to men are possible to God. Who, who shall
in thy presence stand and match omnipotence? Unfold the grasp
of thy right hand and pluck the sinner's ends. When I preach
Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, I'm preaching a victorious salvation. Not in the power of men, not
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. The power of
God. So it is always going to be my
determination to preach what? Jesus Christ and Him Crucified.
It's the whole counsel of God. It's the whole counsel of God.
He was God's elect. God made Him responsible for
the salvation of His people. Christ came into the world and
He actually accomplished the salvation of His people. The
Spirit is sent by Him into the world and to do what? To save
His people. Through what? The foolishness
of preaching. Using nothings and nobodies to
preach His word. Why? Let Him glory in the Lord. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I determined not to know anything
among you except that. That's it. If you want something
else, you have to go somewhere else. That's our message. I tell you this, that's my joy.
It's my hope. Is that your confidence? Jesus Christ and Him crucified? You got a good hope. Let's stand
and be dismissed in prayer. Gracious Father, we thank you
for your gospel, the gospel of your Son, the gospel of our Savior
Jesus Christ and His perfect work. I beg you to apply this
to the hearts of men in need. If there's any who has need of
a perfect savior, that they should turn to Christ and believe on
him. That all the glory might redound
to your power and your grace. Forgive us our sins, and we plead
that you'd bring us again to hear this message again. I do
pray in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you. How are you? That's what we just heard. Yeah. Other than that, there's a lot
not to say.