Well brethren, it's so good to
be with you, so good to see you. I pray the Lord will be glorified
tonight and I pray that He would be glorified in our heart. I'm
not sufficient for that. No man is sufficient for that.
It takes God Himself to do that. But I do pray tonight that the
Lord would speak and glorify Himself in our heart. That He
would make us truly bow and worship our Lord Jesus. I pray for that,
don't you? I want to worship Him. I want this to be what the Lord
does and bring us to His feet to truly see Him and worship
Him. I'm going to speak on what Brother
Rick just read because something just really, really jumped out
at me. The Apostle Paul said, he said,
I'm thankful I didn't baptize any of you. And the reason he
said this is they were glorying in preachers. They were saying,
you know, I'm of Paul, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Apollos. And he
said, I'm thankful I didn't baptize any of you. He said, that's not
what the Lord sent me to do. In the world, the world's religion
thinks that they're sent to baptize. They're sent to make proselytes.
That's what they are all about. Now, we want to see sinners brought
to faith in Christ. We want to see sinners profess
faith in Christ, but that's not what Christ sends His preacher
to do. Christ sends His preacher to
preach Christ. He sends His preacher to exalt
Christ. Now whether Christ saves anybody
through that message or He saves nobody through that message,
if He gives His messenger the grace to exalt Christ and preach
Christ, He's been a success whether God saved anybody or not. That's
what Paul means when he said, He didn't send me to baptize.
He sent me to preach Christ. He sent me to preach Christ.
Now I want you to see what he said here in verse 18. The preaching,
and he said, let's look at verse 17, and I'm to preach not with
wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none
effect. The cross of Christ is, if a
man preaches with wisdom of words, if he gets up and he tries to
take the offense out of the cross, That gospel is not going to be
effective. And here's why. Because the man
preaching is not preaching by the power of the Lord Jesus.
It takes the power of the Lord Jesus to make a man preach the
gospel unapologetically according to the Word of God In spirit
and in truth, Christ has to do that work himself. He said in
Jeremiah 3.15, he said, I will give you pastors after mine own
heart which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
The only way that is done is Christ himself Even the office
of the preacher glorifies him. Christ is the prophet. He's the
ambassador. I mean, he's the shepherd. That
word shepherd means pastor. He's the bishop. He's the bishop
of our soul. Even the office glorifies the
Lord Jesus. And he's the king, so he has
the sovereign ability to send his preacher. You know, I grew
up, and I have some family that are primitive Baptists, and they
would say, well, you know, if God's elected his people and
Christ redeemed them, it doesn't matter if they ever hear the
gospel or not. And they always talk about, what about if a man's
on a deserted island? Well, God'll shipwreck a Paul
there, like he did Paul. If he's got a man on the back
side of the desert like the Ethiopian eunuch, he'll send Philip down
there preaching the gospel to him and right to where he is
and preach the gospel to him. The Lord's able, because He's
sovereign, He's able to bring the gospel to His people and
save His people through the preaching of the Word. And so if a man's
preaching, and he's not preaching with wisdom of words, he's declaring
salvation is by the sovereign electing grace of God who chooses
his people freely. You know, if you're standing
in front of people who's gonna get angry at that, and there's
places you'll preach and people get angry at that. And if a man
can stand and preach that message, despite what men are gonna say
about it, It's only by the grace of God that he can do that and
do it from a true motive and a true heart and preach the truth
according to the word. If he stands up and he preaches
that Christ didn't come into this world to save everybody.
He came to save his sheep. He came to save those God chose.
He said, I lay down my life for the sheep. And he turned to some
people and he said, you're not my sheep. The reason you don't
believe is you're not my sheep. I haven't made this word official
in your heart. That's why you don't believe
me. And I haven't done it because you're not my sheep. That clearly
says he has a people who are his sheep and he has a people
who are not his sheep. And he said I laid down my life for
the sheep. And the reason that's so important is, is because of
what Christ accomplished. He really and truly put away
the sins of His people. He really and truly accomplished
the redemption of His people. He purged the sin of His people. That's what He did. And we're
preaching this not because we simply want to offend men. We're
preaching it because we want Christ to be glorified. We want
Him to have the honor for what He really accomplished for His
people. And so if a man's going to stand and preach that and
not take the offense out of that cross and not try to use wisdom
of words to craft it in such a way so that he doesn't offend
anybody, that man's not preaching by the Spirit of God. The Lord
said when the Spirit of God has come, He won't speak of Himself,
He will glorify me and He's going to make His preacher glorify
Christ. If you hear a man preaching and he's putting some of the
glory in the hand of a sinner, that man's not preaching for
Christ. because, or by Christ, because Christ is gonna get all
the glory in this thing of salvation, A to Z, A to Z. And so Paul said,
he didn't send me to preach the wisdom of words. And Paul stated
clearly in chapter two, he said, when I was with you, verse three,
he said, I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling.
He said there in chapter two, one, he said, I didn't come with
excellency of speech, Why were you there in this weakness and
this fear? And it wasn't a fear of men.
It was a fear of the Lord. It was a weakness in himself
knowing he wasn't sufficient for this and he was trembling
before the Lord because he's speaking on God's behalf. And
why did he speak not with the excellency of wisdom? Why did
he not try to dazzle men with his ability to speak? And why
did he not try to take the offense out of the cross? He said right
there in verse 5 that your faith should not stand in the wisdom
of men but in the power of God. That's a man who wants to see
sinners really saved. So when Paul said I didn't come
to baptize, it wasn't that he didn't want to see the Lord call
out his sheep, but he wanted to see the Lord call out his
sheep and not Paul call out his sheep. He didn't want to see
men called out because they're guilted into making a profession
and all that. He wanted to see the Lord do
it through the gospel, in spirit, in truth, so that it was really
worked by the Lord Himself. That's what we want. That's what
we want. Now, look at verse 18. Who is
the preaching of this cross foolishness to? Who finds the message of
Christ and crucified foolishness and even this means of being
saved through the preaching of the gospel? Who finds this foolishness?
The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. That's who finds it foolishness.
Them that perish. unto us which are saved, it is
the power of God." Now this is so very wise of God to save this
way because when He makes you experience the power of God through
the preaching of the gospel, He makes you, number one, He
makes you see how you need Christ to be all. That's the first thing. He makes you need Christ. Number
two, He makes you need the preaching of the gospel of Christ. He makes
you know this is how He called you through the preaching of
the word. You need the preaching of the gospel. Why would He do
that? He does that because sheep need
sheep and we need a shepherd. He brings us together. Ephesians
4 said when Christ arose, he led captivity captive and he
gave gifts unto men. He gave some pastors and teachers.
And he did this for the work of the ministry, for the edifying
of the body of Christ. And he fitly frames his people
together through this gospel. He puts us in the body where
he'd have us to be. He puts one here and one here,
and we're gifted according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
He doesn't give any one believer everything. He gives a measure
to this one, and a measure to that one, and a measure to that
one, and a measure to that one, so that we make up, each of us
fitly framed together, our one body. And so that, you know,
he used that illustration of the physical body. Your ear can't
say, I don't need my eye. And your eye can't say, I don't
need the smelling. And every member of your body
needs every other member of your body. That's how the Lord put
us together. And that's on purpose. And it's
so wise. Our physical body is amazing. When you look at how God put
our body together, it's an amazing thing. But it really pales in
comparison to how wise it is for the Lord to save through
the foolishness of preaching and fitly framing His body together. I'm talking about His people,
each member in particular, so that we need each other because
we need this gospel. And through this means, what
he's doing is, is the Lord's showing us, we hear the gospel
preached. Anybody here, you know, if you
went to school, there's some courses you take in school, if
you're in certain majors, you have to, you know, you take the
book learning, and then you have to do a clinical, where you go
in and you practice what you're learning in book. Well, we come
and hear the gospel and we hear how that Christ saves by His
power, by His grace, by His blood, His righteousness, how He causes
people, how He's able to teach His people and save His people
and correct His people. We hear these things preached.
He put us in the body together so that we get to experience
it. We get to experience it. He puts you in the body and we're
sinners. We're sinners saved by grace.
And not everybody acts like they're even saved by grace all the time.
Sometimes we act like we never even heard the Lord. Like we
don't even know anything about this thing of grace. And why
did He leave us in this body of death We got two natures. We got a new man that loves the
Lord and in which Christ dwells and he gives you faith to trust
him. We got an old man of sin in us. Why did he leave us in
this body of death? Why did he choose this means
of saving us and putting us together in a body like this? It's so
that as somebody acts ugly, as somebody says something offensive, the Lord's going to teach you
to submit to him and trust him to teach his child and correct
his child and lead his child and save his child. And he'll
use you to speak the same word of the gospel that he used to
call you with. And that's how he'll do it. I'm
telling you, brethren, it is vital when you're speaking to
a brother or sister, you take a brother who's fallen or who's
acted ugly. Where our faith is really tested
is right there. That's where it's tested because It ought not to be because our
Lord has forgiven us of all our sins for Christ's sake. And we
ought to be ready to forgive for Christ's sake. But you let
somebody offend and we'll put a limit on grace. Oh, they can't
be a believer. Now, the Lord said don't try
to separate the weak and the tares. You don't know who's the
Lord's people and who's not. But what he has taught us to
do is speak my word and love one another. Speak my word and
love one another. And as you speak this word, The
Lord will correct that brother and as he chastens him and corrects
him and teaches him, I'm talking about speaking the gospel of
Christ. Just reminding one another what
Christ has done for us. And as you do that and the Lord
corrects him and the Lord strengthens him in faith and the Lord brings
him back into fellowship and he's in his right mind and acting
like he knows something about grace again. The Lord's taught
you in the process. The Lord's taught you that Christ
is really saving through this gospel. He's really in our midst. Look over at Philippians chapter
2 with me just a minute. Philippians chapter 2. The Lord here is telling us through
Paul, He's telling us how Christ made Himself no reputation, how
He humbled Himself, and He's telling us this, He's saying,
let this mind be in you too. Just humble yourself. He trusted
the Father. That's how He saved us. He was
perfectly faithful to the Father. He's teaching you and me. Now
you trust Him. And you speak the Gospel to your brethren and
trust Him to save. And look what He says right here.
Look what he says right here, verse 12. Beloved, as you've
always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my
absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That
don't have a thing in the world to do with your eternal salvation.
What that means is, is in your day-to-day affairs, in what you're
doing, work everything out between yourself with fear and trembling.
Why is that? Here's why. For it's God which
worketh in you both to will and do of his good pleasure. You
know where Paul got that from? Matthew 18. When the Lord said,
if you have to go to a brother that's offended you and you tell
him his fault between you and him alone, he said, remember,
I'm right there with you. Christ said, I'm right there
with you. If it's just you and him, he said, or three or get,
I'm right there. I know we apply that to when
there's a small assembly and we get together and the Lord's
there. Well, he's there, but the Lord applied that when you're
dealing with a brother who is offended. He began in Matthew
18, he said, don't you offend one of these little ones that
believe in me. It'd be better for you that a millstone hung
about your neck and you cast it into the sea. He said, you
go to them one-on-one and you speak to them. We're witnesses.
He said, or if they won't hear you, take two more witnesses
with you, two or three. What are we witnesses of? We're
witnesses of Christ. He's not saying go build a case
against him and come with the witnesses and charge him and
just, I'll tell you what you're gonna get if you do that. You're
going to get what Paul says next here in verse 14, do all things
without murmuring and disputing. You go to a brother with that
spirit, you're going to get some murmuring and disputing. That's
what you're going to get. He said, remember, I'm right
there in your midst. I'm right there with you. He
said, you go, you bear witness of Christ, you go remind that
brother of the, look how Paul's doing this in Philippians 2.
Look here, he said, if there's any consolation in Christ, you
ever been consoled in Christ? He said, if there's any comfort
of love, if there's any Fellowship of the Spirit, vows, and mercies.
Fulfill ye my joy. Be like minded. Have the same
love of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife
or vainglory. But in lowliness of mind, esteem
the other better than yourself. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man on the things of others. And here's
what all that is. let this man be in you which
was also in Christ." This is how Christ deals with us still
to this day, right now. This is how He deals with us.
He thought it not robbery to be equal with God. This is God
and yet He humbled Himself and took upon Him the form of a servant
and took flesh like us and He just kept humbling Himself down,
down, down. to the death of the cross. And
you know what he did by that? Paul said there, wherefore God
also hath highly exalted him. You know what that word also
means? That means in everything Christ did for us, He highly
exalted God by that humility. He was trusting the Father. Wherefore
in due time, Rather, he didn't exalt himself in due time because
he was so highly exalted in the Father by trusting the Father
and speaking the gospel and laying down his life for his people
in due time, God also highly exalted him. Peter learned that.
Peter learned that. I'm trying to show you why it's
so wise for God to save through the foolishness of preaching.
He's put us together so that as we offend each other and as
you have a brother that needs to be forgiven, You learn that
Christ is really in your midst and He's really working in His
people and He's really doing it through the gospel because
this gospel is the power of God. This is how it pleased God to
save. That doesn't just mean it pleased God to get you to
make a profession. No. It pleased God to call you
through this gospel. The first hour he brought you
to humility and brought you to your faith to call on the Lord
for salvation and mercy. And it pleased him to save you
every day the rest of your life to the last breath you take through
the preaching of this word right here. And so he's teaching you,
he's really in your midst. And as Peter learned it, Peter,
the Lord told Peter, he said, Peter, now I'm going to the cross.
and I'm going to lay down my life, and they're going to take
me, and they're going to treat me in all this wicked way, and
they're going to nail me to a cross. And Peter said, that's not going
to happen, Lord. I know. Uh-uh. He said, Peter,
you're going to deny me. You're not going to stand with
me. You're going to deny me. And Peter said, no. He said,
these others here, they might deny you, but I'm not going to
deny you. You know what that was? That was not humility. That was not trusting the Lord.
That was pride. That was saying, I love you more
than they love you. And the Lord said, Peter, Satan
has desire to sift you as wheat. He was sifting Peter right then.
And he said, there's one reason your faith's not going to fail,
Peter. I've prayed for you that your faith fail not. That's the
only reason Peter's faith. Peter didn't have faith when
he denied the Lord. The only reason Peter was saved
through that was the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
Christ came to him and he took him off to the side. After Peter
denied him, went back fishing, was leaving, just done with the
ministry, and the Lord came to Peter. And the Lord took Peter
off to the side, and he said, Peter, you love me more than
these? That's what he boasted of before.
Before he boasted, I love you more than these other apostles.
And the Lord came to him and said, now, Peter, do you? Have
you learned that that's not so? You don't love me more than them.
You do not love me more than they do, Peter. He humbled Peter. Peter left it with the Lord.
Lord, you know, you know. And he asked him three times,
he said, Lord, you know, you know all things. You knew I was
going to deny you. You knew that rooster was going
to crow the third time. You knew everything about me,
Lord. You know I love you. I'm not going to brag about it,
boast about it anymore. You know it. And the Lord, remember
he had told him, he said, Peter, when you're converted, go teach
your brethren this, what I've taught you. And Peter, in his
epistle, he said, now, brethren, all of you submit to one another.
God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Peter, speaking
by experience. How did he learn that? He learned
it because God saved through the foolishness of preaching
by bringing his body together and making us experience these
things as we're going through this wilderness together. And
Peter said, so you all submit yourselves to one another, casting
all your care on Christ, for he careth for you. Peter learned
that by experience, didn't he? He learned the only reason my
faith did fail was Christ cared for me. And He said this, He
said, and trust Him to exalt you in due time. That's what
Christ did. Christ humbled Himself down and
was obedient to the death of the cross and by that, by Him
laying down His life in place of His people, bearing our sin,
bearing our curse, He completely, thoroughly exalted God to the
highest. He was made the very least and
exalted God to the heights by what He did. Nobody ever did
what our Lord Jesus did. There is the perfect righteous
love of the law. There's the perfect fulfillment
of the law in what Christ did. Loving God and his neighbor as
himself while he is bearing the curse and condemnation to declare
God just and justifier and to justify his people from our sin.
That is what the law requires. And when he had finished the
work, God also highly exalted him. And Peter said, let me tell
you something. You just submit to him, trust
him, and in due time, he'll exalt you. Don't try to exalt yourself. And this is where, this is why
he saves through the foolishness of preaching. You notice back
there in 1 Corinthians 1. He said, I will, verse 19, I
will destroy the wisdom of the wise lesson people out there think
they're so wise. No, no, that's me and you who
He saves. That's me and you who He saves.
There should be one, one who's wisdom in His church. You find
it down there in 1 Corinthians 1.30. Of God is He made unto
us wisdom. But He's going to destroy our
wisdom. There are not going to be any wise men, any prudent
men, any scribes, any disputers in Christ's church. That's what
he said there. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe, where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made
foolish the wisdom of this world? I know people They'll come in,
they'll sit down. They may stay a long time. They
may stay for years. And they just want to debate
and argue and fuss and fight and tell you how wise they are
and how knowledgeable they are. I said there won't be any wise
people in Christ's church. I didn't say there wouldn't be
some come in. But in Christ's church, he's going to take that
spirit out of his people. He's going to make us see what
he made Peter see. Peter, you don't know what you
think you know. and he's going to bring you to the place where
you're going to say, Lord, you know. You know. People all the time ask me, what
do you think Lord's doing right there? I don't know. I have no
idea. I don't know what he's doing
with me. I don't know. But he knows. And I can trust
him. You can trust him. See, God saves
this way because this is the people that's going to be in
His church. Look down the page there. 1 Corinthians 1 verse
27. God has chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise. You know what those foolish
things are? Me and you. Me and you who He
saved. He chose the foolish things.
He had to make us the foolish things though because we thought
we were the wise, scribe, prudent, you know, we all have been in
the faith a long time. You'd be astounded how much I
know. And he brings us to see, no, foolish, don't know a thing. Makes us to be the foolish things
that he might use us to confound the wise. God's chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.
Weak things. That's me and you. Weak things. We get in our little place, you
know, where we're like Peter. You know, Lord, I'm strong. And I don't have a doubt. I don't
have a doubt that when the Lord told him, Peter, you're going
to deny me. I just guarantee you, when Peter got to the Garden
of Gethsemane and they came to arrest our Lord, He thought,
this is it. This is when the Lord's testimony
right here. And I'm going to show him. And
he pulled out that fisherman's knife and he cut that soldier's
ear off. Peter said, Lord said, Peter,
put your little knife up. I don't need you to help me.
The cup my father gave me, shall I not drink it? And he's going
to humble you down to see. You're the weak thing. And that's
where He brought Peter to see He's the weak thing. Because
He chose weak things. Why? Because there's only going
to be one wisdom in His church. There's going to be one power
in His church. It's not going to be me and you. It's going
to be Him. He's the power of God. And He's
the wisdom of God. Look here. He chose base things
of the world. That's us, brethren. He has to
make us see that. He chose things which are despised. If you're going to be a witness
for the man of sorrows acquainted with grief who was despised and
rejected of men, He is going to make you to be despised and
rejected of men. You can bank on that. If He uses
us, That's how he's going to make us to be rejected of this
world, despised of this world in some capacity or another.
And the more he uses, the more he's going to do that. Look at
the men he used. Moses. Moses. Used more than anybody in the
world. Moses. Moses had to flee from Egypt
because he murdered a man. and the Lord just kept bringing
Moses down, down, down, down, despised and rejected all as
he tried to lead the children of Israel through the wilderness.
Look at David, wrote the Psalms, wrote most of the Old Testament
Scriptures. Where did he spend most of his
time? In the wilderness. His house was a mess. His sons
wanted to kill him. Everything, I mean, just why
did the Lord do that? Because he had to be shown he
was a weak, nothing, base thing who had to trust the Lord to
save him. And the Lord used him to write all those psalms. We
wouldn't even have those psalms if it wasn't for the Lord putting
him through all that. The Apostle Paul, you realize
where he wrote three-fourths of the New Testament? You realize
where he was when he wrote three-fourths of the New Testament? He was
in prison. Oh, Brother John, did you go hear about Brother
John? He's over here in the Yuba County Jail, Sutter County Jail. He's over here in jail. Now how
would we react to that? Just like Brethren reacted to
Paul. There was some men who led Brethren away from trusting
Paul because they wanted to have the preeminence and they wanted
people to be against Paul. But there was some real genuine
true Brethren too who heard all those rumors and said, is Paul,
he's in prison. I don't know what he's in prison
for. I don't even have nothing to do with Paul. Why did the
Lord put Paul through that? The Lord said, you're gonna all
forsake me. But I'm not alone, because my
father is with me. And our Lord Jesus went to Calvary's
cross and he hung on that cross. And in three hours of darkness,
God forsook God. And he had one thing, the promise
of God his father. That's what he had. The word
of God his father. And he believed him. He said,
he opened my ear and I wasn't rebellious. I didn't turn away
back. I gave my back to the spiners. I gave my beard to them that
plucked out the hair. Why? Because my father is near
that justified me. Who would contend with me? He
knew when this work's accomplished and when His justice is satisfied,
He will raise me just like He promised He'll raise me. And
I tell you, these sufferings and these things the Lord's putting
us through, that's what He's teaching us. To trust Him. To trust Him. He's already justified
His people. He's already made His people
righteous. He's already made you holy in Him. He hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified by His one offering. But He's
teaching us through all these sufferings and these little light
afflictions that seem so heavy to us. He's teaching us. He's teaching us. He's our wisdom.
He's our righteousness. He's our sanctification. And
He's our redemption. Because here's what's going to
be so in His church. Look down here at verse Verse
29, no flesh shall glory in His presence. Why does He save this
way? When you're talking to somebody
one-on-one, they're not listening to what you're saying. They're
thinking about what they're going to say. But when you're sitting here
preaching, nobody gets the glory in His presence. We all have
to sit down and listen and I hope, pray, hear Christ speak. Because He said in Isaiah 50,
He said, My people are going to know it's I that speak. Behold,
it's I. And when they hear me speak,
they're going to say how beautiful on the mountains are the feet
of him that publishes peace. See, he's making you know, of
God are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according
as it's written, he that glories, let him glory in the Lord. In
every one of these light afflictions, Paul said, Our outward man is
perishing. That's on purpose. The Lord,
it's called the dying of the Lord Jesus. The Lord's making
your, he's making your old man die, little by little, and he's
renewing the inward man day by day. That's called the life of
the Lord Jesus. He's the life of the new man.
And he said, and as he does this, he's turning us from these things
we can see with these eyes, and he's turning us to things that
can't be seen, because they're the real things. And at the end
of every one of these little trials you go through, he brings
you to do one thing. You say, to God be the glory. I'm so thankful for what he did,
because he made me see his glory, he made me glory in him, and
he made me to know all the glories he is. He's saving me. He's saving
me. So the next time your brother
says something ugly or does something ugly, I know what our knee-jerk
reaction is. Me and Brother Rick were talking
about this this afternoon. Your knee-jerk reaction is to
do it right back. You go off, cool off, settle
down, ask the Lord to give you the word to speak, and go back and just remind them,
Brother, isn't it good what Christ has done for us? We don't deserve
the least of His mercies. And He has totally, thoroughly
made us the righteousness of God. Aren't we thankful for what
He's done for us? Just remind them of what Christ
has done for us. And then you know what you do?
Then you pray to Him and say, Lord, would you bless my brother?
Would you help him? And would you help me? And then
you know what you do? You wait on the Lord. Because
He don't always do it right away to make you wait on Him. and
you wait on him. That's what he told Ezekiel in
the Valley of the Drowned Bone. He said, you're going to preach
my word. He said, you're going to pray for me to bless it by
my spirit, and you're going to wait on me to bless it. And he
said, and when I get done, here's what you're going to do. Everybody's
going to give me the glory. That's what he said. I said,
go read it. He said, that's what you're going to do. You're going
to give me the glory. That's why he's saving through the foolishness
of preaching. So we don't get the glory in
his presence. We just glory in him and we see
how wise he is for saving this way. I'm so thankful he saves
this way. I'm so thankful. I pray the Lord bless it. Amen.