I just heard my pastor preach this message. I was so blessed by it, so impressed
by it, and I thought this would be a good
education. I was wrestling with this thing
more than anything I've ever done. And when I heard this message,
I thought, that's it. That's where we're going to start. And so this is the very message
that has already been recorded. For some people it's the very
message. People talk to me as if it's Oliver, 15 minutes later. It's
not. But I wanted to begin, as the Apollo call began, when he
came in to And he says here, look at 1 Corinthians
chapter 2, verse 1, the apostle Paul says, My brethren, when
I came to you, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom. Not with excellence in speech,
but that is, not with high sounding words. Not with a great formation. That is, I'm not trying to impress
anybody. That's not what preaching is all about. I'm not trying
to impress anybody. And the Apostle Paul came to
this city of Corinth, which was a large metropolitan city, much
like one of these major world-class cities, Paris, France. They call
Paris the capital of the world. That's what Corinth was like
back then. It was full of doctors, lawyers, philosophers,
and so on, politicians, like New York City or someplace like
that. And the Apostle Paul came into this place, and he said,
and he got a hearing. A lot of people came to hear
what this, they said, famed battler. what this short, bald-headed
fellow Jew was going to say. And he said, I didn't come with
excellence of speech. I didn't come here to try to
impress you with my ability to speak. So I'm not going to use
a large vocabulary, high-sounding words. Read on. He said, not
with excellence of speech or of wisdom. He said, I'm not going to use
persuasible word. You remember back in chapter
1 where he said, not with wisdom of words, verse 17, not with
wisdom of words or persuasible words. I'm not going to use modern
philosophy, the wisdom of this world. There's no place for that
in preaching. None whatsoever. You remember, one time I was talking to a woman
and she was talking about her pastor. so-called. And this is her impression she
got of her pastor. She said, she's telling me about
it, she said, she is so, she is so intellectual. And I thought,
wait, That doesn't do anybody any good,
does it? People just go away impressed
at how much a person knows, and they didn't get anything. They
don't learn anything. Besides, the apostles said here
in chapter one, He said, not many wise men, verse 26, not
many wise men in the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are
called, but God has chosen the foolish none. You see, you're
caught. Our Lord didn't come to appeal to the high, the mighty,
the wise, the noble, and so forth. If He could have spoken, so could
you, I understand. No doctor, no lawyer could have
understood a word he said. But he didn't. As a matter of
fact, he spoke so simply that they still couldn't understand. You know, he spoke in one and
two syllable words. He showed, had not God made foolish
the wisdom of this world? Didn't He? He showed that. But
here's the beauty of it, the wonder of it. It says, common
people, heard in gladness, they understood what He was saying. Well, Paul said, I didn't come
with excellence in speech. I didn't come with persuasible
words of man's wisdom or means and methods, philosophical methods
and so forth. And like Paul said, the wisdom
of this world, or the Lord said, the wisdom of this world is foolish.
Now, it's totally contrary to God's Word. Why would we use
the wisdom of this world? They don't believe what God says. So he says, I came not to try
and impress anyone, argue, debate, philosophize, organize, socialize. This is one thing I came to do.
That's what I'm telling the people on the airwaves. Why do we need
another preacher? Well, because we need just that. We need a preacher. Look at verse
1. He says, I came Declaring unto
you the testimony of God. Declaring, that's what preaching
is. Declaring, preaching is not.
Begging preaching, preaching is not. Entertaining preaching
is not. If preaching is declaring, preaching
is standing up saying, Thus saith the Lord. Declare it unto you
dogmatically, boldly, unashamedly. Dogmatically. The testimony of
God, the Word of God. Testimony being what somebody
says. The Word of God. Now I know many
people say that. Many preachers say that. They'll
all claim to say that. No. Paul said, I'm going to declare
it. I'm going to declare the Word
of God. In another place, he said, Woe is unto me if I preach
not, what? The Gospel. The Gospel. Look at chapter 1 again here
in verse 21. You know whose verse is by heart.
The world doesn't. They sure don't believe. But
here in chapter 1, verse 21, he says, After that, in the wisdom
of God, God by His wisdom, through His wisdom, the world by wisdom,
knew not God. Couldn't figure God out. Can
a man by studying, by searching, find out God? No. So why does
this man on earth can't sit down and study and read this Bible
and find out who God is and let God reveal it? And how does he
do it? Preaching. Look at it. Verse
21. Oh, God has made foolish the wisdom of this world and
has pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. Now, true gospel preaching is
not foolish. It's not the preaching of foolishness,
which God blesses. It's not, and you hear it, entirely
too much foolishness going on today. What men are saying about
God, about Christ, about salvation, about man, is absolute foolishness.
It's not what God says. And it's not the foolishness
of preachers. And 99 out of 100 of them are.
Not the foolishness of preachers. All the nonsense going on in
what they call preaching. But he said, look at verse 18
there, chapter 1. He says, the preaching of the
cross is to them that perish, to a
perishing world, the preaching of the cross is foolish. That's what the world calls foolishness.
And here in our text, chapter 2, verse 1, he says, if I'm determined,
I'm determined not to do anything but just that. I'm determined, he said, not
to know anything. Now, you went in this city where,
you know, everybody prided themselves in the television and the hearing
and some of those things. And he said, I don't want to hear
it. I'm not interested. Did you hear what they said on
the 8 o'clock tonight? I'm not interested. Did you read
the paper? I don't care. It's foolish. Probably make it up. He said,
I'm determined not to know anybody, not to be sidetracked by, not
to use or do anything, but preach Christ and be crucified. That's
what the cross means. When Paul said preaching of the
cross, that means a crucified Christ. Christ crucified. He said, I'm determined. And
when somebody's determined to do something, when you're determined
to do something, that means that when you have to make a determination
to do something, that means there are other things, there are other
things that you choose between, right? You choose to do this
as opposed to other things. You understand what I'm saying?
In other words, if you have no options, if there's just one
thing, you don't have to determine to do it. But so Paul says that
there's other things that people get all taken up
with, and there may be some good things, some good causes. He said, I've determined to do
this one thing. I'm determined. And when you're
determined to do something, usually when you're determined to do
something, there's some opposition to it. In other words, if you
have to be determined to do it, you do that in the face or in
spite of opposition. You understand what I'm saying?
I'm going to do this. I don't care what anybody says.
That's what Paul would say. I don't care what anybody's saying.
I don't care what anybody else is doing. I don't care about
anybody. doing something else. I don't want to do this, he said.
There's one thing. Preach Christ's perspective. That's it. Is that all you know,
Paul? That's all I need. That's all
this Bible knows. Like I told the folks on the
radio, I want this first message to set the tone for every message
that comes. That people can tune in and expect
to hear one thing. Christ. And you've heard it in another station.
Do you want to hear something else? If you want to hear this. And what else is there? This
is the message of life in the United States. Truth as opposed
to error. Salvation or damnation. This is it. This is the message
God demands we preach, and the message men must hear. And Paul
said, in the sense that it is laid upon me, woe if I do not
preach Christ crucified. All right, so what is it to preach
Jesus Christ and Him crucified? What is it to preach Christ crucified? Well, about the extent of what
fellas today call preaching the cross, crucified, will be this.
And you've heard it so many times, it's nauseating. Somewhere in
the course of their message, or probably at the end of it,
they'll say, Now, God loves you. And Jesus died for you. Oh, Jesus
loves you. And He died for you, so we can
sin. And he's knocking at your heart. And he wants to come to
you. Won't you please accept him?
Won't you accept him? Jesus is calling you. Won't you
let him into your heart? Won't you? Let him into your
heart and accept him. You'll see. That's not the extent
of it. Isn't that what men called preaching
Christ was that thing? Jesus died for your sins. Now
accept him as your personal Savior. Now send him down. That's about
it. That's not it at all. That doesn't
even... That's totally false. There's
no gospel at all in that. But to preach Christ crucified,
to preach Christ crucified, is to preach Christ. Who He is. You must declare who
He is. Right? Christ. Who He is. His person. His character. His power. His glory. Christ. Christ. What is in Him? What is in Him? Why was Christ
crucified? Who is He? What did he do? And you've got to include the
dead. Where is he now? And what's all this mean to me?
To preach Christ crucified, you must tell all these things. Who
Christ is, what he did, where he is now, and what that means
to me. So who is Jesus Christ? Everybody's
talking about Jesus, Jesus. Most people. Back when Christ
walked this planet, Most people back then thought he was just
a man, didn't they? And they called him Jesus, didn't
they? I read an article by Arthur Penk
on that word of his name. And he pointed out something
I'd never really considered before. I knew it. I knew it in my head. I knew it in my heart. I knew
it, but he pointed out in several passages of Scripture how that
only the enemies of Christ called him Jesus. You look at that. I'll show you
the article. It didn't allow for me to write
in the first instance. On the enemies, the devil said,
we know who you are, who you are, Jesus. You're Jesus. And on and on. Most people thought he was just
Jesus back then. We know who you are. He's a carpenter's
son. Call him a carpenter. Call him Jesus. And they wanted
to stone him. Remember, they wanted to stone
him because They said, you make yourself God. You're not. You're
just a man. You're just a man. And I don't
care what men say today or what they say today. Men still think
of Him as just a mere man. No. It's evident by what they
come to know. It's a joke. That's why they refer to Him
as they do. Scripture says that. Scripture says He's God manifesting
in the flesh. You've got to start thinking,
if you're going to preach Christ, the first thing you want to say
about Him is who He is. You've got to tell, you've got
to declare He's God. He's not just, you don't start
with His man for the day. He's God manifesting in the flesh.
None other than John 1 says it, Genesis 1 says it, John 1 says
it, Colossians 1 says it. First John says it, that He's
the Creator. He created all things by Him
and for Him, all things. He's God manifested in the flesh. God who came to this earth. Peter,
when Peter stood up at Pentecost, when Peter stood up at Pentecost, The only time he mentioned the
name Jesus was when he said, Jesus of Nazareth, you men of
Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, the other man whom
you crucified, you thought he was just a man. God has made
him a Lord. He didn't ask him if I'd do anything.
He didn't say, Jesus is in your hand. He didn't ask anybody to
let Jesus in or out. He wasn't begging people, won't
you accept him. He never used the word, accept
it. He just declared, he was sitting on a throne, and how
that all men are in his hands. This sovereign reigning, ruling,
Lord Jesus Christ. And it struck fear in their hearts.
That's who he is. He's God. Sovereign God. Lord, Sovereign, Jesus, Savior,
Christ. One man. One intercessor between
God and man. And so to preach Christ, he does
preach who he is, and that doesn't even touch the hymn of his glorious
song, does it? He's God. And to preach his character,
his glory, his honor, his holy character, his power, Everything
about him. If this takes him in power, why
ain't Cain? Preach Christ crucified, you gotta preach Christ crucified.
Why ain't Cain? Who he is, and why ain't Cain? Why ain't Cain? Most people fail. Most people think that Christ,
Jesus, came to live a good life to show us how to live a good
life. Don't they? Huh? To show us how
to be a God. Don't they? He's a kind of an
example. You know, if you live like Jesus,
God will love you. God will accept you. Don't they
just? That's about it. That's why they thought, think
he came. Well, he came to live alright.
But not as an example, but as a representative, a substitute. He came to live a good life,
alright, but not to show us how, but to impute or charge that
holy life to our family. Okay, I'm being very simple. He came to live a perfect life,
but not just to show us how. We can't, but to do it for us,
for God's people. Why did he come? He said, Lo,
I come to do thy will, O God. I come to do thy will, O God.
And John 6, he said, This is the Father's will, that of all
which he hath given me, I will do it. The Father gave him a
people to save, and Christ came down here to save them. And how
he has to do that, had to do that, the way that he did that
was to live the holy life for the people. And churches then,
no amount of so-called holy living that we can come up with can
marry anything for God. Only Christ's holy life will
God accept. All right? If he can't die, Christ
crucified. Christ crucified. He said, what
shall I pray? Father, deliver me from this.
Oh no, he said, from this hour I came to pray. I came to die. Unlike
most messiahs like Buddha and Confucius and all those, Muhammad,
who came to live and to teach, Christ came to die. He came to
die. And that's what this whole book
speaks about. The whole book. Blood. From start
to finish. Blood. Blood. Blood. Because God said without the
shade of blood there's no remission of sin. What's he talking about? Everybody says blood. Every preacher
says blood. Some folks say without the shade
of blood there's no remission of sin. What's he talking about? Well, this scripture says that
all, and they both did, all of sin had come short of the glory
of God. How short? Always short. Completely short. Matter of fact, they're dead.
That's how short they come. They're dead. Can't do anything. But God said the soul that's
in it must surely die. A man is a rotten, stinking,
filthy, sinful, dead creature. That's what he is. No goodness
in him, no righteousness in him, and he deserves to go to hell.
Every last human being deserves to go to hell. Well, what Jesus
Christ did was He came down here and the scripture says He was
made a sinner. God laid on Him the iniquity
of all His people. I hear Christ, and I've actually
given this illustration so many times. You've heard of Jesus?
Here's Christ, okay? Holy, God-fearing, without sin. In Him is no sin. Perfectly spotless,
without blemish. Here's me, and here's my sin. Black in it. between me and God, separating
me and God. I can't get to God with this
heavy burden of sin on me that's going to weigh me down into hell
itself. Oh, God hath made in Him to be sin for me. Who does not see that I might
be made a righteous man? You see, that's Christ came to
pay that penalty. Now he, did he pay it or did
he not? Did his blood put away the sins
of his people or did he not? People say, saying to themselves,
Jesus paid it all, did he or didn't he? People quote the scripture,
the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son cleanses us from all sin,
what does he or does he not? Every preacher I know says that
Jesus died for your sins. He put them away. Well, did he?
Are you saying yea or nay? Would you tell me? Did he or
didn't he? Well, he did. He put them away.
Then they're gone. Then I had no sin. Right? This
is the reason everyone whom Jesus Christ died for is a saint. They have no shame. All whom
Christ died for is to follow Him. Hallelujah. I give them eternal life and
they never perish. Christ crucified. Crucified. That's why he came.
That's why he came. And where he is now? Where he
is now? He's seated on the throne. He's seated on the throne. He's
called the head of the covenant. He's called the head of the covenant.
Covenant mean a will, a testament. Hebrews talks about him living,
living. He lives to make sure covenant
is fulfilled, right? He lives to make sure that all
the heirs are saved for the promise, that all the heirs receive exactly
what He made. He's the head of the club. And
he's seated on a throne, reigning and ruling and controlling and
directing everything for good. Those are all according to his
plan. God's purpose. That's why he came. That's where
he is now. And this was the message of the
Apostle Paul. He said, I'm determined not to
know anything among you. save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And this is the message of every
true preacher. Without exception, Christ crucified. Paul was determined
to do this, and so will every other true preacher of the gospel
be. Determined. Determined. Now,
if you would like this message on cassette tape, Right to us and we'll send it
to you. Free of charge. No money. Send no money. Just like all those guys in Christ's name. Christ's name. We determine to preach from this
pulpit and every other pulpit. means or method that he allows
us to use this one message. This one message. Every time. Christ is... Alright. Thank you. Our Heavenly Father, we again
ask you to Bless your word every time it
is preached, both in this place and in other places. Take this simple message, this
same old message that we are familiar with and know and understand
well. Yet we know, part we preach it,
part we don't know anything that yet we ought to know. And we
rejoice in the same thing. To write, to preach, to breathe,
to hear, to sing, the same thing is not grieving. But it is salvation. He, Christ, is salvation. Take this simple gospel message
of Christ and Him crucified. Bless the hearts of your people
here tonight. And use it, this message of Him
who is power for Son of God. Use it powerfully to call out
your people, your sheep from everywhere. Go with us and bring us back
once again to hear this, of this same one. In worship and in prayer
and in honor. In Christ's name we are met again.
Amen.