It's good to be with you all
again. If you will, turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Our text will be verses 1 through
5. And for our Bible study this
morning, I would like to consider this subject, true preaching. True preaching. If you listened
to the radio message this morning, you heard our brother say, this
is the only way God reveals Himself to His people, through the true
preaching of the Gospel. True preaching. I want us to
see a few things in these five verses that God has clearly taught
us about true preaching. And I pray that by His grace
that we might hear true preaching today. And we're going to need
God to do it. Preaching that is of God. Alright. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 1. Paul wrote, And I, brethren,
when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech. I can relate to that. First of
all, because I don't have the ability of excellency of speech,
unlike Paul. I believe Paul had that ability,
but God caused him not to use it, not to desire to use it.
You see, had Paul come with excellency of speech, that would have been
the focus. People would have focused on
him and how he spoke, how he delivered the message, rather
than the message. You see, Paul, he wasn't a gospel
preacher. He wasn't seeking his own glory
in preaching the gospel. He was seeking God's glory. And
that's the first thing I want us to see here is all true gospel
preaching gives God all the glory. You see, we're not to come deliver
the message with excellency of speech and make it just kind
of like wrapping a present, making it look as pretty as you can.
Preach it as it is. God will make it excellent to
his people. See, it's the message, not how
it's brought. Our job as preachers is to make it clear and plain,
make the message clear and plain, and get out of the way. It's
been a while, but I would go to Todd's preacher school a few
years ago, and that's one thing I remember him saying more than
anything is, Get out of the way. Don't do anything to get in the
way. It's so natural, and it's all
throughout false religion. False preaching is to be seen
of men. It's not about us. The psalmist
said, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give
glory. In 2 Corinthians 3.12, Paul said,
we use great plainness of speech. It's not about us. He said in
Galatians 6, God forbid that I, glory save in the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ see the message of salvation is a simple
message and I pray God would help me and help us always to
preach the simple message the simple message he went on to
say in verse 1 here he said when I came I didn't come with excellency
of speech or of wisdom now our brother Paul he learned that
the hard way see he had plenty of worldly and religious wisdom
he He learned religion, false religion. He learned to be well-versed
in the Scriptures at the feet of Gamaliel, a highly well-respected
Pharisee. That's who Paul learned the Scriptures
from. But we know where that led Paul,
don't we? It led him down the Damascus
Road where, by the grace of God, everything changed. He went persecuting
God's people. He thought he was doing God's
work, just like so many people today think. But the problem
is, he had a righteousness that was a self-righteousness, which
is no righteousness at all. He gloried not in the Lord, but
in himself. And God had to strip him of that
false righteousness. God had to strip him of that
glorying in himself. And here's how he did it. He
knocked him down, blinded him, He literally, I just picture
him just totally helpless. And that's where we gotta be.
That's where God must bring us in order to desire to give Him
the glory. Paul learned the hard way. But
when God saves us, we glory in Him. And Paul, laying there in
the dirt, when the Lord spoke to him, he said, Lord, what would
you have me to do? And he went on and he said, Paul, I'm going
to tell you what great things you must suffer for my namesake. You're a chosen vessel unto me.
You're going to be my preacher. He was a false preacher, a worldly
preacher, a preacher of religion. And God said, you belong to me.
You're going to go preach the gospel to my people. You're going
to go preach the faith you once destroyed. Can you imagine being
one of those brethren that was there when Paul first came and
preached the gospel? We read that they were terrified. You
imagine? All by the grace of God. Now,
the point here is Paul gloried in himself, but when God saved
him, he gloried in God. He gloried in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, as far as preaching is concerned, we don't put ourselves
into the ministry. I never asked to preach. It's
a whole lot easier to sit there, I promise. It's an honor and
it's a delight and it's a blessing. It's a blessing to preach and
to be preached to. But God must call a man to it. Otherwise,
we have no business in doing it. And see, if we put ourselves
in the ministry, that very fact would give us something to glory
in, wouldn't it? God must do the calling. Now,
I want to show you a dear brother in the Old Testament who God
clearly called to the ministry. And I try to read this right
before I get up here because, as we'll see in a moment, it's
a fearful thing to get up here. And this comforts me so much,
being reminded that I'm not here in my own strength. I didn't
sin myself. I'm not here with my own message
that I've conjured up. It's all according to God. All
right, look with me in Jeremiah chapter 1. Jeremiah chapter 1
and verse 4. I think any man who's ever been
asked to preach can relate exactly to what Jeremiah said right here.
Jeremiah 1 verse 4, Then the word of the Lord came unto me,
saying, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. And
before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee,
and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. You see, He
said, before you were ever even born, I determined for you to
go preach My Word. And I love His response in verse
6, Then said I, Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I
am a child. I don't know how old Jeremiah
was, but I don't think it matters. No man is sufficient for this
colony. But I love the Lord's response.
This is what encourages me to get up here and do this. Verse
7, But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child, for thou
shalt go to all that I shall send thee. And whatsoever I command
thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces.
And just say, I'm not afraid of your faces. You all are so
kind and loving. You're the easiest people in
the world to preach to. But what he's saying is don't
be afraid. Don't be afraid. Verse 8, be
not afraid of their faces for I am with thee to deliver thee.
And you think of what Paul, think of some of the people Paul preached
to. I guarantee you there were times where he was afraid of
their faces. We have such a luxury here. We
get to preach to people who believe God. We get to preach to people
who actually love someone that declares God's word. But regardless,
he said, be not afraid of their faces. I am with thee to deliver
you, saith the Lord. Verse nine, then the Lord put
forth his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto
me, behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have set
this, see, I have this day set thee over the nations and over
the kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy and
to throw down, to build and to plant. Moreover, the word of
the Lord came unto me saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And
I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Now look at this verse
12. Then said the Lord unto me, thou hast well seen, for I will
hasten my word to perform it. See preaching, is not about us. It has really nothing to do with
us except we're just the instrument God has chosen to use for His
work. True preaching is God preaching. It's Him. So the Lord from start
to finish and He will and He must get all the glory. All right? We'll look back in our text,
1 Corinthians 2 verse 1. And I, brethren, when I came
to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring
unto you the testimony of God." True preaching is a declaration. A declaration. It's not what
this world thinks preaching is. It's not an invitation. Nowhere in God's Word are we
invited There's commands. Absolutely believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the command. Love God with all your heart,
all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. Love your
neighbor as yourself. There's certainly no invitations. No
invitations. We're not invited to come to
the front. Stay where you're at. We're commanded
to come to Christ. That's in the heart. That's a
spiritual coming. Not a physical one. We're not
invited to give Him our heart, to follow Him. Not an invitation. And you know this. You're not
interested in these things. I pray none of us are. True preaching
is not, I didn't have a better word for it, but I put it, it's
not a therapy session. People go to church because they
want to feel good. They want to feel good about
themselves and their situation and all these things. I want
you to feel good too. I want to feel good. But we come
here to worship. We come here to ascribe all glory,
honor and praise to God who made us. It's not about us. And if you hear the gospel preached,
you're not going to feel good about yourself. Not if you're
hearing the truth proclaimed. Not if you're hearing God's word
declared. But if God makes a good news
to you, you'll feel good. It's not about yourself. About what
God's done for you. And that's what we're interested
in. Preaching, it's not a man giving his interpretation of
this book. We read in, I believe it's 2 Peter. 1 Peter, 2 Peter,
but he said there's no private interpretation. There's one interpretation
in this book, and that's exactly as God wrote it. It means what
it says, it says what it means. Our job is to declare it as it
is. Pretty simple task. Declare God's Word, thus saith
the Lord. I'm not interested in thus saith
Paul. I'm interested in thus saith the Lord. Now what Paul
wrote is God inspired. It's God speaking. We must hear
God. I don't want to give you my thoughts.
I really don't. It's that's one of the struggles
in preparing a message is because we have to add our thoughts to
try to give the sense of what God's word says. But we pray
all the while preparing these outlines, we pray, Lord, may
it be your word and your word alone. Don't let me corrupt it. We've been called to declare
God, not man. God's glory, not man's. God's
grace, not man's works. Done. Not do. Is that the kind
of message you want to hear? Done. This flesh is so prone
to butter things up. You know, you have something
you need to say to somebody, Personally, I try to think, well,
how can I say this in a nice way? What we're doing is we're
buttering. We're not just coming out there and saying it as it
is. We're commanded to say it as it is, declare it. Don't butter
it up. Don't try to make it appealing
to the flesh. Paul said, do I seek to please men or God? We're not
men-pleasers. Not men-pleasers. That's not
what we've been called to do. There's no compromise. You think
of politics, we need compromise. Or else, this is just going to
be endless wars, because we can't agree. But when it comes to the
things of God, there's no compromise. The truth, nothing but the truth. One way, one truth, one life,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, there's just one. One. One salvation. One God. At the very end of the Bible,
we're warned against adding to the words of this book. or taking
from the words of this book. God said, you do that, I'm going
to cast you out into the lake of fire. True preaching gives
God all the glory, and true preaching is a declaration of God's Word,
who God is, and what He's done. Third, look here in our text,
verse 2. The apostle wrote, For I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. That's the message, isn't it?
True gospel preaching has one message. You say, well, there's
a lot of verses, there's a lot of scripture here. How can it
just have one message? It all speaks of Christ. Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Who He is, God, manifest in the
flesh. We'll see who He is in the next
message, Lord willing. God Almighty. And what He's done,
crucified. He was crucified. What does that
mean? Why did He come? Why did He die? Where is He now?
That's the message. What did He accomplish? He accomplished
our salvation. He shed His blood. Why? Not to
make it possible to finish the work His Father gave Him to do.
He's the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And
it came to pass at God's appointed time. He said, My hour has come. No other message. That makes
it somewhat easy in preparing a message. We know what our message
is. We just gotta go find a text.
Not gonna preach the same text every week. Just find another
text that clearly declares Jesus Christ crucified. And sometimes
God might be pleased to show us Christ crucified in a text
we never thought we'd see. One message. We heard that this
morning too, didn't we? In all the scriptures, he expounded
on them the things concerning himself to me. Moses, the prophets,
the Psalms, they all were concerning me. You think of that which we
need as sinners in the hands of an angry God. What do we need?
Righteousness. Except your righteousness shall
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall
in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Righteousness, without
which no man shall see the Lord. We need righteousness. Where
are we going to find it? In the God, man, Christ, Jesus. We need
peace, don't we? Every single day, even now, we
sin against our God. And there's no excuse for it.
And we deserve to go to hell for it. We need peace with God. Christ said, He said He is our
peace. He said, My peace I give to you. Forgiveness. We need forgiveness in our homes.
We need forgiveness with everyone we deal with. You just deal with
someone long enough. We need forgiveness because we're
going to show ourselves. We're shameful things. We're
Mephibosheths. We need to be covered, don't
we? We need the blood of Christ to cover our sin, our corruption. I love that song that says, mercy
there was great and grace was free. Oh, mercy. Not getting what we deserve because
Christ bore our sins for us. He died our death for us and
He's given us these things. He's given us righteousness.
He's given us peace. He's given us forgiveness. He's
given us mercy and grace and all of these things. They're
not going to be found in religion. They're not going to be found
in ourselves. We can never earn them. We can never find them.
They're only in Christ. Only in Christ. Eternal life
is in Christ. Knowing and being found in Him.
Paul said, I count everything lost. It's all done that I may
win Christ and be found in Him. And he said, not having my own
righteousness. He said, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, must have
Him. And any preaching that fails to declare this message, any
preaching that fails to declare the exalted, risen, glorified
Christ, He's not still in the grave. The grave couldn't hold
Him. He made satisfaction by the sacrifice of Himself. Any
preaching that fails to declare that is not true preaching. It's rubbish, garbage. No need
for it. And I pray God would cause more
of this preaching to take place. And I love how Paul said here,
he said, I determined. I determined. I couldn't help
but think of my determination. It's a sorry determination. I
can't tell you how many times I think to myself, alright, well
I'm determined to fix this. I'm determined, no more, not
going to happen again. Can you relate to what I'm saying?
I mean something that really bothers you. Something that's
a serious issue. I'm determined. It's not going
to happen again. Just like that. It happens again. Paul said, who's sufficient for
these things? I'm talking about gospel preaching.
Who's sufficient for these things? Paul said, I'm not. If Paul wasn't,
I'm certainly not. Your Paul's not. Gabe's not. None of us are. No man is sufficient
for these things. And I love how Paul went on to
say, our sufficiency is of God. It's of God. His grace is sufficient in everything. In all things, His grace is enough. I pray that like Paul, we might
be determined to know nothing, preach nothing. Save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Fourth, back in our text, verse
3, it said, I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling. True preaching is a fearful responsibility. It's a glorious calling that
no man is sufficient for. No matter how much learning,
no matter how much experience, you know, churches want to call
someone who has a degree. Not God's churches. I have an
accounting degree. I don't think that's what they're
looking for. We must be called of God. We must know God. We
must believe on Christ. That's the requirement. And yet
still, we're not qualified. Still, we're not sufficient.
That's why Paul said, I was with you in weakness. We read in 2
Corinthians 12 when God gave him the thorn in the flesh, the
messenger of Satan, to buffet him, to try him, to lay him low,
to remind him, Paul, glory in the Lord. He said, I'm going
to glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest
upon me. He prayed three times, Lord,
take it away. Please take it away. And he said, no, you need
it. Why do these things happen? Because
we need them to happen. But I just don't understand.
I don't think I need it. Of course we don't. We're not
God. He knows what we need. Ron was
telling me about our brother laid up in the hospital. Why?
I don't understand. It's heartbreaking. You pray
for him. You love him. According to God's
word, it's needful. Let's trust him. Weakness. The life of a believer is weak
in flesh. But Paul said, when I'm weak,
then I'm strong. How could he say that? It sounds
like a contradiction, doesn't it? Some people say they don't
believe the Bible. They say, well, it's full of contradictions.
No, it's not. You obviously don't have a new man because you don't
understand the struggle between the old and the new. How can
I be weak and strong at the same time? In Christ. In Christ. And see, false preachers, they
don't know anything about weakness because they don't know anything
about their sin. In Psalm 14, we read they're
corrupt. All of us. They're corrupt. They're
abominable. They're filthy. There's none
good. Not one. Starting with me. None good. God ever saves a man. find himself to be weak, weaker
than he ever could have imagined. That's why we need thorns in
the flesh to be reminded how weak we are and how strong our
God is, how good He is. You see, this is why preaching
is so humbling, because we feel our weakness. It means feebleness,
feebleness of mind, feebleness of body, feebleness through and
through. Who's sufficient? See, there's
nothing a man, a sinful man like you or I, is unworthy to do is
open this book and declare God's glorious gospel. And yet God's
been pleased to use such a means. Amazing. I found this verse that
people love to quote. I've heard this quoted so many
times from my youth. I can do all things through Christ
which strengthened me. But the problem when people quote...
It's a great verse. Absolutely. But the problem is
how people use it. I know most people when they
quote that, they put the emphasis on, I can do. I. Think of the Pharisees' prayer,
I, I, I. I can do. Are you discouraged? Well, just,
you know, throw around the name God and Jesus and, oh, I can
do it, I can do it. There's no weakness. It's Christ
which strengtheneth me. That's the focus of the verse.
Christ. Without me you can do nothing.
But in Him, through Him, oh, nothing's impossible with Him.
All things are possible with Him because He's our mighty God. He's our strength. He said, I
was with you in weakness and in fear. It mentions Psalm 14,
I believe it said, or Psalm 53, they fear the fear. They fear
fear. They fear men. Considering true
preaching, okay? In false preaching, The fear
is truly just a sinful fear. It's a fear of man. It's a fear
of, well, we've got to keep the numbers coming in. We've got
to draw more people in. We're going to have to increase
this thing. We need more money. We need more trips. We need more
this and that. I'm afraid we're not meeting
the expectation. We've got to buckle down. That's not the fear. That's not
the fear. They fear losing the praise and
popularity of men. Read about the Pharisees in Matthew
23. God's preachers fear God. People
who don't fear God, there's no fear of God before their eyes.
Fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. I said it didn't come with excellency's speech or wisdom.
We need Christ, our wisdom. We need to fear God, not man. The Lord said, don't fear what
a man can do to you. Fear God. Your soul and your
body is in His hands. He can put an end to it just
like that. Man can't do that. Man's not on the throne. God's
on the throne. We must fear Him. I've not heard a whole lot of
false preaching, for which I'm thankful. I couldn't help but
think, I hear it said that in most churches, if there's a message
preached at all, if this book is used at all, first of all,
it's probably a different, I don't want to say translation. Translation,
it's not a translation. I'm not sure what it is. Corruption
is what it is, really. But it might last probably 10,
15 minutes, maybe 20 if the preacher is really feeling it. There's no fear of God. They're
not interested in preaching God's glory. They're not interested
in preaching what God has declared. And what they're doing is, they're
handling God's Word deceitfully, as Paul warns us of. God's preachers fear handling
His Word deceitfully. We fear corrupting the Word of
God, trying to make it say something it doesn't say. Why? This is a serious thing. This
is life and death. It's a serious matter. We must take it seriously. It's a fearful thing to stand
here and preach. Look over a few pages of 2 Corinthians 2 with
me. 2 Corinthians 2 verse 17. Paul said, For we are not as
many which corrupt or deal deceitfully with the Word of God, but as
of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, Speak we
in Christ, or of Christ. He said, this isn't just in the
sight of man. Preaching is in the sight of
God. When we open His Word, it's in
the sight of God. I told you, I'm not here to please
you. I'm here to please God. I want
to worship God. I want Him to be exalted. Not
me. Not us. It's all about Him. Back in our
text, 1 Corinthians 2 verse 3, He said, I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much See, the reason people of the world,
people in false religion, false preachers, the reason they don't
know anything about trembling and fear and weakness is ultimately
because of this reason. They don't know God. They don't know God. For had
they known God, they wouldn't approach this pulpit arrogantly.
They wouldn't. Lord, help us. Don't let us stand
here in our own ability. The reason people preach another
Jesus, as we're told, because they don't know the true and
living God. They don't know Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh. People who corrupt God's Word.
It breaks my heart to think about people making a false profession.
I hear family members sometimes, I hear they're just little kids
and they're making their decisions and following the Lord. So sad. Oh, it's so sad. You think about someone lying
on God and knowing that's where I'd be had God not spoken to
me. Oh, what a sad, sad thing. I
don't want to deceive anyone. I don't want to be deceived.
And I don't want to deceive you. We need to know God. We need
to know the truth. We must believe on Christ. That's why Paul said,
I tremble. You stand to preach, it's in
much trembling. He said in another place, woe
is unto me if I preach not the gospel. There's only one. Must
preach the gospel. And lastly, look back in our
text, verse 4. He said in my speech, And my
preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in
demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith should
not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God." I was
going to have us turn, but I know I'm going long. The last thing
about true preaching is it relies completely on the spirit and
power of God. The only way we're going to worship
God is in spirit and in truth. The truth must be preached and
God's spirit must be in our midst. It must be making the things
of Christ known to us. Now, as the last part of verse
5 here says, our faith must be by the power of God, not in the
wisdom of men. Now, what we need to understand
is that true preaching The reason it's so important, the reason
it's so vital, the reason I'm bringing this message is because
true preaching is the means of true faith. You know it well,
Romans 10. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. How shall we call on him in whom
we have not believed? How shall we believe in him of
whom we have not heard? How shall we hear without a preacher? But
it doesn't stop there. How shall a man preach except
he be sent? I am so thankful for those words.
The first time I was ever asked to speak, oh that, surely, surely I can't be sent. That's what Jeremiah thought.
He said, me? Moses, he felt the same way,
didn't he? He said, I can't do this. I can't do this. By God's grace, we can do this.
Because it's God's work, not ours. In 1 Corinthians 1.21 he
said, after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew
not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe. It's the means God has chosen.
God's been pleased to use this foolish means to save His people. And you know why it's a foolish
means? I'm sure you hear this said, the foolishness of preaching,
not foolish preaching, because there's a whole lot of that.
When I'm saying false preaching, foolish preaching. But gospel preaching,
it's a foolish means to us, because it involves us. That's the only
thing that could be foolish about it, is because it involves a
sinful man, a sinful man who's been taught the gospel. Otherwise,
it'd be foolish preaching. But praise God for this blessed
means. Now quickly, in verse 4, Paul
reiterates what he said in In verse 1 about excellency of speech,
he said, My speech and my preaching was not with enticing or persuasible
words of man's wisdom. We can leave the enticing words
and the clever explanations and all these things, we can leave
that to the false preachers, leave that to the world to tickle
those engineers. That's not the means God would
have. God would have simplicity. Paul said, I fear, lest by any
means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so
your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity, simplicity
in Christ. It's a simple message. There's
nothing tricky about it. I love that. I can stand here
and you know there's nothing excellent about me. I know I've
already gone long. If I'd have it my way, it'd be
30 minutes every time. But I'm a foolish man in myself.
But I pray God would send His Spirit and let us worship Him
in His power." Nothing tricky about the Gospel message. We
simply declare God's testimony of Jesus Christ. He's well pleased
in Him. The Lord Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. In the end of verse 4, He said, "...but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power." You know, it takes the Spirit
and power of God for us to believe. You know that? The same power
that raised Christ from the dead, it takes the same power, the
power of God, His quickening power to quicken us from our
spiritual death to spiritual life. It takes the power of God
and the Spirit of God. I can't save you. Preachers think
they can win souls by getting people to come up here and do
that and recite this and don't do that and be resolved. I mentioned
determination. Ours is bound to fail. Especially
if you're trying to save yourself. No, sir. God must call us. He must give us ears to hear
and eyes to see Christ. Nothing but Christ. I do want
to show you this. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians
1. 1 Thessalonians 1. Verse 4, he said, Knowing, brethren
beloved, your election of God. I want to know, don't you? Oh,
I want to know my election of God. Verse 5, For our gospel
came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the
Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as you know what manner of men
we were among you for your sake. See, false preaching brings no
assurance whatsoever, because false preaching doesn't preach
Christ, it preaches man. causes us to look within. There's
no hope in here. No hope in ourselves. But I'm
here to declare we can hang our soul on the faith that comes
from God. On God-given faith that looks
to Christ, resting Him, trusting Him alone. That gospel comes
in power because it comes from God. And it comes in much assurance. He said you can know. You can
know. Now, if you're anything like
me, you struggle with assurance daily. Daily. Oh, what a struggle. But you know, that's one of the
reasons we keep coming back, isn't it? That's why we're still
encouraged to preach. We're still encouraged to come
and listen. Assure me again. Tell me again of the sinner I
am and the Savior He is. Tell me again. Tell me again. Back in our text, verse 5. He
said that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but
in the power of God. I ask you this question. Is your
faith in the wisdom of men? Is it something a man said that
caused you to believe what you believe? Or has God spoken to
you? Or is your hope in the power
of God and what He's done, not what we've done? We must be taught
of God. I pray He would teach us. I pray
He would speak to us. I pray He's revealed Himself
to us. Paul said this gospel, I didn't receive it in a man
neither was I taught it in a man, but by revelation of Jesus Christ. I'll close with this, 2 Thessalonians
2.13. You don't have to turn, I'm sure
many of you know it. Paul said this to the church
at Thessalonica, I say it to you, my dear brethren. But we
are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved
of the Lord. Why? Because God hath from the
beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our
gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord. Forgive me for
going long. Praise the Lord. Amen.