1 Corinthians 15. The Apostle Paul had taken so much
time in writing this letter. He dealt with the problems at
the church at Corinth. and the issues that were facing
them, he'd spent so much time, he wrote a long letter. Can you
imagine receiving a letter from someone of this length? And I
remind you, it was not written in chapter and verse form, but
a long manuscript-like letter. He'd spent so much time dealing
with the problems that that church had, for there were many, that they were faced with. But
now he seems to say here, beginning with chapter 15, verse 1, he
seems to say that I would greatly err and do you a great disservice
if I did not clearly expound the gospel to you in the course
of my letter Before I close my letter, he says, I must expound
the gospel to you. So he spends nearly the whole
chapter, the whole fifteenth chapter, in declaring the gospel
and exhorting the believers, the brethren, concerning this
thing of salvation. Now, along with preaching the
the gospel of God's sovereignty, justification by faith, and lordship
of Christ. What the Apostle emphasized in
his preaching, we'll see this next week, all through the book
of Acts, whenever he was brought before kings, priests, people,
churches, he dealt with this thing of the resurrection. That
was the issue. And we're going to touch on that
this morning, but we'll deal more fully with it next week.
Yet that was the theme of this chapter, the resurrection. And it's the hinge, it's the
pivotal point upon which the gospel hinges. Because if Christ
be not risen, then why are we here? If Jesus Christ did not
arise from the grave, If he is not who he said he was and did
what he came to do and arose from the grave, then why are
we here? What are we meeting here for? And as I said in an
article in this morning's bulletin, quite a few people meet together
on this very day and they are celebrating the resurrection
of Jesus Christ this one day of the year, but yet we celebrate
the resurrection of Jesus Christ every single time we meet together.
We worship a living Lord and we celebrate the fact and the
blessing that Jesus Christ actually came, lived, died, and rose again
every time we meet together. That's why we're here. We're
not here to remember a dead saint, but to worship a living Lord. And so every time we meet together,
we celebrate and worship the living Christ who arose from
the grave. But we'll deal with resurrection
more in these other verses. Couldn't get past the first four
verses in the study this morning. But Paul says, it's as if he
was saying, I would err if I went any further without clearly,
without declaring the gospel unto you. So he says, verse 1, or in addition to the things
I've been dealing with, and rather than spend all my time on these
issues." Now, you remember, if you've been here, all of the
issues and the problems that he dealt with at the Church of
Corinth here. Are you with me? This is what
Paul's saying. Moreover, now listen, he says,
in addition to or rather than spend all of my time on these
issues, which they were not unimportant issues. that he dealt with, not
unimportant at all, but he says, now we're going to get to the
heart and the soul of this matter. You all have had problems with
these things, but now this is what it's all about. He says,
I declare, I must declare unto you the gospel which I preached
unto you. Now, for 18 months, the Apostle
Paul was with the church at Corinth, and he preached the gospel. He preached the gospel for 18
months while in Corinth, and right now he is confirming the
saints, or confirming the message he preached, in this letter. And he's reminding them that
there's one thing needful. You've got all of these problems,
and we've dealt with these things now. But right now, there's one
thing needful, and one thing you should really be taken up
with, and that is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which
I preached to you for eighteen months, and wherein," he says,
verse one, "...which you also received." You did receive it. Many people in Chorace received
it. Do you remember when Paul When
the Lord appeared to Paul and said, don't be afraid, you stay
here, I have much people, I have many people in this city, so
many people, it was a large church. And the Lord added to the church
daily such as should be stayed. So many people received the gospel. a handful here, but a lot of
people there. So he says, "...the gospel which
you received, and wherein you stand." You stand in it. You remain this day. Now, Paul
is writing a letter. This is how I'm trying to convey
this. He said, and now you stand in
this gospel, you remain this day grounded, settled in the
truth, standing, where do you stand? And not on a doctrinal
position, you stand on a person, you stand on the rock, Christ
Jesus, unmoved away from your hope. And not like the disciples
who left him, many from that day forward walk no more with
him, when he turned to his real disciples. and said, Will you
go also? And what did they say? To whom
shall we go? Where are we going to go? No,
we're going to stand right here. We're going to stand on the rock. You
have the words of life. Where are we going to go? Are
we going to go back to the grave? No, we have been quickened. We
who were dead in trespasses and sin have been quickened. We were
in a pit We remember the pit from which we were dug, and now
we're planted on a rock. And we'd just like to stay right
here, thank you. No place else to go. And so the apostle commends
them, or the grace of God in them, and saying, now you stand
right here. The gospel I preached to you,
and you received it, you believed it by the grace of God, and now
you stand there. You stand there. How will anybody
stand fast in this gospel? How will anybody, in the modern
words, keep the faith? How will anybody keep worshiping
God? What is going to ensure? How
is it? If you stay here, if you're here,
Charles, if you're here ten years from now, twenty years from now, where will that be? How will
it be? by your own resolve, your own strength, your own determination? How is it? Why will anybody keep
worshiping God? How will anybody keep rejoicing
in Christ, believing the gospel? How? Well, Peter said, we're
kept by the power of God. We're kept by the power of God.
And I remind you that Paul said in Romans 1.16, the gospel is
the power. of God. So that makes the preaching
of the gospel mighty important, doesn't it? The gospel is the
power of God which keeps his people, which keeps him, the
gospel of Christ, the message of Christ. So he says, and you
stand, and you stand here in this gospel, and you'll keep
standing by God's grace if this gospel remains here. So that
makes it mighty important that we keep preaching the gospel,
and only the gospel. Verse 2, and it's by this gospel,
here's how important the preaching of the gospel is, it is by this
gospel that you are saved. Joe, there's a lot of people
out there that say you don't need to hear the gospel to be
saved. There's a little white chapel on top of the hill right
around the corner from me. That's what that denomination
believe. You don't have to hear the gospel. If you're elect,
you're elect. If you're going to be saved, you're going to
be saved. It doesn't matter if you ever hear the gospel or not.
That's a lie, isn't it? 1 Corinthians 15 verse 2 says
it's by this gospel you are saved, isn't it? And I remind you what
he said over in chapter 1, verse 20, I believe it is. He said,
God is chosen by the foolishness of preaching. To what? To save
them which believe. Yeah, verse 21 of 1 Corinthians
1. Somehow, and this is unexplainable,
but somehow, some mysterious way, God Almighty transplates
a soul from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his dear
son merely by the preaching of this gospel, by the reading and
the speaking of this book right here. Somehow, it's a mystery,
it's a mystery. Somehow or another God Almighty
raises a dead sinner from the dark, corrupt grave of sin to
give him glorious light in the gospel of his son. Somehow, through
the preaching of the gospel, God does this. It's a great mystery,
and that's what Paul said to young Timothy in chapter 3, verse
16. This is a great mystery, this
mystery of godliness, how to take a worldly and make him mindful
of and think about and live in God. He does this by preaching
the gospel in the world. He said, Great is the mystery
of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified of the
spirit, seen of angels, preached on in the world. preached under
the Gentiles, that is, and believed God, and they were preached.
You see, the Greeks say, it's foolishness, it's ridiculous,
let's read a paper, let's do a study. And the Jews say, well,
that's stumbling block, we don't need that, we'll go through our
religious motions and so forth like people are doing today with
the holy water and this and that and the other. But under you
which believe, You which are saved, the gospel is the power
of God. The power. But it's a great mystery
how God does this. It's like turning on a light
switch isn't a joke. You didn't pull the switch, did
you? God did it. How is that? How does God do
this? How does he do this? I don't
have anything to do. All I want to do, all any preacher
should want to do real, any real preacher, all he's doing is standing
up and trying to just declare what this book says. He's not
trying to make, trying to be clever, trying to come up with
cute little sermonettes and trying to persuade people and move the
masses and play soft music and drag people up the aisle and
do... Right here. This is the power of God. How? You know that if I read John,
just a mere reading of these passages of Scripture would be
enough to save a soul from hell? It's not my exposition of it.
Now, God has told them about a foolishness of preaching. Yes,
preaching what? The gospel, the word of truth. It's not just preaching. A lot
of fellows getting up today just preaching, you know, preaching
about this, preaching about that. It's preaching of God's Word,
of God's Son, line upon line, precept upon precept. Well, how
does God do this, though? It's such a mystery. Well, there's
power. Where the Word of the King is,
there's power, Scripture says. There's power in the Word, God's
Word, that is, not my Word. And I think that Brother Todd
and I talked about this for hours on end, how that we should never
get mad at people, we should never get upset, we should never
get discouraged. God said, My word will not return
void. We're going to look this morning
how that Christ said, I told you. Christ went through and
he said some mighty plain things. to the religious people and the
common people. He said over and over again things
to them, but he didn't get upset, Henry. He got angry at these hypocritical
Pharisees and so forth, but he didn't get upset because they
didn't believe him, did he? I said, you believe not. What? You're not my sheep. He said, my sheep will hear my
voice. And you remember Brother Todd bringing that out? He said
he rejoiced in spirit one time. And he said, I thank you, God.
You've hid these things from these wise and prudent religions
and revealed them unto these babes, my sheep, my children,
that you've given me before the foundation of the world. They'll
hear me. And that's what gives me encouragement to go on. And
you, talking to people out in the community or whatever, And that ought to keep us from
getting so, you know, upset and all torn up about this and that
and the other. God's Word won't return no more.
And that ought to make us use it more, not try to explain in
our own word, but just use the Word of God. Sometimes I think we explain
it away, and we ought to just Just leave the naked word to
somebody. Read them a verse of Scripture, say, read a verse
of Scripture, and leave it with them. For there's what God says,
now God's people will hear it. See you later. And we ought to
make more use of it, depend on it more, believe it more. And
the gospel is the central theme of the Word of God. It's the
scope of it all. And this is the reason Paul said,
I'm determined not to know anything among you. I'm determined not
to be sidetracked or taken up with anything else, because the
gospel is the power of God and salvation. And if I want to see
people saved, it's the glory of God. God's honored, God's
glorified. If I want to see God honored
and glorified, I've got to preach the gospel. If I want to see
people saved, I've got to preach the gospel. If I want to see
the saints edified and comforted and exhorted and admonished and
approved and corrected, I've got to preach the gospel. nothing
else. So I'm determined not to know
anything else among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.
And somehow God Almighty takes the written word and the spoken
words and saves an eternal soul through it. It happened to me.
It happened to many of you. Somehow it comes from God God
Almighty breathed. Oh, holy men of old, Scripture
says, 1 Peter, spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit
of God. God Almighty spoke. Somehow God spoke into the hearts
of men, and it went to page, to pen. And then it went from
page to mouth, and they spoke it. So from this page to my mouth,
and then from my mouth to your mouth, or whoever's mouth, whoever's
just reading it. From my mouth to your mind, to
the mind, to the heart, whatever that is, and then from the heart
into the soul, and then right back to God again. It's a mystery. It's a mystery. So he says, This
gospel which you have received, and wherein you stand, and by
which you are saved, preaching the gospel, is there any doubt
Can there be any doubt? It'd be hard for somebody to
refute this, wouldn't it, in light of this verse, that it's
the gospel that a person hears to the salvation of their souls,
right? It'd be hard to refute it, wouldn't it, to this verse.
But those that are unlearned and unstable may rest this and say, well, it doesn't mean
that. And I remind you that on the back of this bulletin it
says, read the word of God fairly and honestly. You know, an honest
person reads the Word of God and God save him. The whole book
is about him. Now, as a general rule, any passage
of Scripture means what it appears to mean. That's what it says. Jacob hath I loved, Esau hath
I hated. That's what it says, doesn't it? That's what it means.
God chose the people before the foundation of the world. Well,
that's what it says. Is that what it means? Well,
sure it does. Sure it does. Interpret every
passage in this simple manner, in its context. So an honest
person facing the Word of God and reading it, and it says that
right there. That's what it says. Not by works of righteousness
which you have done, but according to his mercy he has saved us.
God has chosen us before the foundation of the world, and
so forth. That's what it says. Well, that's what it means. And
bow to it. Bow to it. be hard to refute
unless you just twist it and turn it to your own destruction.
All right, now he says, it's by this gospel that you're saved,
verse 2, if you keep in memory, or the word is hold fast, what
I preached unto you, this gospel I preached unto you. If you keep
in memory, if you hold fast, now like I said, keep reminding
us why we're held, why we hold anything fast, because we're
held fast. We know that we are kept, we
are held fast by God himself. But a believer, once God saves
somebody, they're no longer a dead person. They're no longer dead
in sins. They're no longer, we're now living children, responsible
people, responsible to God. Peter said, I will not be negligent
to put you always in remembrance, to always remind you of these
things. And I say this, this is why it's so important, this
is why we must be under the gospel as often as possible, because
the Spirit is willing, this new creature in us is willing, but
the flesh, you see, there's a law in my memory warring against
the law of my mind, against the Spirit. The flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, all right? And we must be under the gospel,
which is the power of God. unto salvation to every one which
believeth." It's still the power of God to a believer. And we
forget so soon. I'm not going to ask anybody
what I preached on last Sunday or Wednesday. We forget so soon.
Don't ask me, I'll just stop and think about it. We forget
so soon. Past exhortations, admissions,
instructions, and so forth, admonitions and instructions. And the world
grabs us by the throat, it chokes out the Word, we forget it. And we become so weak and sickly
and hurting, and we crawl back in here again. Come Sunday or
Wednesday, crawl back in. And Paul reminds us, like Peter,
he says, if you keep in memory, son, remember, son, remember,
Abraham said to the rich man, now, now is the day, not before
it's too late. Some people will remember perfectly
in the end, but it would be too late. Now, if we keep in memory,
he says, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless
you believed in vain. Now look at this, this is so
important. It's the gospel by which you're
saved if you keep in memory, if you hold fast, by the grace
of God, what I preached unto you, or rather who I preached
unto you, unless you believed in vain. Unless, of course, you believed
in vain. Unless, he said in one place,
you're just a reprobate. What does it mean to believe
in vain? Now, oh, my soul, everybody in
here, give me your undivided attention. And turn with me to
John chapter 8. What does it mean to believe
in vain? Do you believe in one God? Everybody
in here, do you believe there's one God? Do you believe in God?
The devil's doing the trembling. Does the devil say, Do you believe in Jesus, Jesus
Christ? Do you believe it was somebody
born and lived on this earth named Jesus Christ, and legend
has it that he went to a cross and died? Do you believe that?
A lot of people believe that. A lot of people saw him. They
didn't have to save him or take him. Well, look here at John chapter
8. Look at verse 30. And as he spake these words,
many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews
which believed on him." Now, who's the Jews? They're the ones
that killed him. They believed on him, Terry,
but they killed him. This is what Paul's talking about,
believing in vain. "...The Jews which believed on
him said, If you continue in my word, if you continue in my
word, then are you my disciples indeed." And you shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free." Well, then they hem-hauled
around and said, We're not bondage to anybody. We're Abraham's sick.
Well, look down at verse 36. If the Son, therefore, shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed." Now, I know you're Abraham
C. I know you're a good religious
person. Your mama and daddy were Christians and so forth, and
you were raised in a Baptist home, and you went to church
at an early age and so forth. But you seek to kill me. Why?
Because my word has no place in you. Look over at chapter 12, John
chapter 12. verse 42. They believed on him,
but his word didn't have any place in it. Explain that. John chapter 12, verse 42, says,
Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also, or that is, the
religious rulers, many believed on him, but, but, what a word, Because of the Pharisees, they
did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue.
For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God."
But they believed him anyway. They believed in vain. And this is what Paul is talking
about. What is it to believe in vain? Well, there is a faith
that is not saving faith. You must have saving faith. You must have saving faith, true
faith. One Lord, Paul said in Ephesians
4, one what? Faith. Not many kinds of faith. Well, the Islamic, the Muslim,
he believes this, and the Hindu believes that, and the Catholic
believes this, and the Presbyterian believes that. Not many kinds
of faith. One faith. One Lord. John 6.45 says that
they shall all be taught of who? God. One Lord. Every man that
hath heard and learned of the Father comes where? One faith. Comes to one Messiah. one faith,
one hope of your calling, one baptism. There is a faith, though,
that is not saving faith. There is a believing in Jesus
Christ which is not unto eternal life. I could not approach a
more important subject here right now. Eternity hangs right here. Whether or not you have this
saving, true saving faith or not, there is a believing in
Jesus Christ, which is not unto eternal life. Number one, intellectual
assent or agreement to facts is not saving faith. Now, many
people take the very chapter we're looking at in 1 Corinthians
15 to say, this is, this is it, this is man believed that, that
Christ lived, died, buried and rose again, that's it. No, it's not. No, it's not. Like I said, the devil believes
that and trembles. He does more than most people.
He fears God. Intellectual accepting of facts,
being convinced of a person, a work, even the doctrines of Coming to a knowledge of the
doctrines of grace does not save anybody." I get so tired of hearing
that. When I came to the knowledge
of the doctrines of grace, where does it say that in Scripture? Coming to the knowledge of the
doctrines of grace does not save. Trusting a living person does. So intellectual believing facts
does not save anybody. Everybody that saw Christ live
believed that. Everybody that saw him die believed
that. Everybody that saw him after he rose from the grave
believed that, right? Number two, faith in miracles. Oh, my. Faith in miracles is
not saving faith. How many today? That was what
Christ said. That was the indictment against
the people of his generation, wasn't it? He said, You follow
me because you got your belly full. Because the preacher told
you that, you know, if you send him $1,000 and believe on Jesus,
you'd get all your bills paid. Only a fool wouldn't try that,
wouldn't try anything once. Believe on Jesus and send me
$1,000 and you'll have no more trouble. All your bills will
be paid, you'll get a job, a new car, and a Mercedes Benz at that. Why, that's not saving faith. And that's the whole thrust of
televangelism today. Believe and receive your miracle. Isn't that exactly what the people
of Christ's day were doing? Christ turned on them and said,
you follow me because you've got your belly full. Because you've got your belly
full, and that's all. Because you want your body healed. He said, My sheep will hear my
voice. Believe in God for your miracle. Number three, this faith, believing
in vain, faith in a fire escape from hell, is not saving faith. Only a fool doesn't want to not
go to heaven. Do you want to go to heaven?
You want to go to hell? Well, that's ridiculous. That's
ridiculous. Nobody wants to go to hell. Nobody
wants to suffer eternally. That goes without saying, doesn't
it? You know, you want to go to heaven, have fun all your,
the rest of your days, you know, walk on streets of gold and have
a nice house to live in and play? Well, sure I do. I want to believe
Jesus. All right. That's not saving
faith. That's a fire escape, named Jesus. Get on the fire escape, escape
hell and go to heaven. Ladder to heaven. as a man the only hope of heaven,
so why not believe? All right, I will. And I remind
you this, fourthly, this believing in vain, it says faith without
what is dead? Faith without works. A faith in some doctrines and
so forth without an actual change? An unregenerate person, a faith
without a change? An unchanged worldling is not
a child of God, not a disciple of Christ. My soul, it convicts
me, but I'm not what I want to be. I'm not what I'm going to
be. Not what I ought to be, but thank
God I'm not what I used to be. I've not come very far. But,
you know, God has brought me out of a pit. I acknowledge that.
I acknowledge that. Know you're not your own self.
All right, here is saving faith. Now, that is not saving faith.
That's believing in vain, believing facts, believing miracles, believing
for a fire escape, faith without works, just, you know, believing
doctrine and carrying on like you always did. That's believing
in vain. Here is saving faith. Saving faith, first of all, sees
God in his glory and fears him. Sees God in his glory and fears
him. I was talking on the phone this
morning to Mindy, and she was talking to me about a young man
that is now attending the church there in Ashland, a young man
who My father-in-law I've been talking
to. He's our, well, he's my father-in-law's
son-in-law. But he'd been talking to him
for years. I've talked to him. We've brought
him to church at times. He was real religious. He was
Christian. He was a good man, you know. Oh, just such a fine
father and an outstanding worker on the job and a good citizen
of the community and real religious. young man, thirty-four or five
years old. And Mindy said, do you know what?
He said, he's in the services every Sunday morning, evening,
Wednesday night. And she said, you wouldn't believe
hearing him talk. She said, all he wants to talk
about is the holiness of God. He says, you know, I've been
a Christian. I've been real religious all my life. But he said, you
know, he said, now I've been hearing this gospel preached
and reading. I said, I never used to read
the Word. I had a few pet verses, you know, John 3, 16, Romans
8, 28, and so forth. He said, now I've been reading
the Scripture, reading through Romans. He said, you know something?
I found out God's holy. And we're all just laughing,
you know. That's right. That's what we've been trying
to tell you for five years. He said, God's holy. And you
know what? You've got to be righteous before this holy God. That's
right. He says, you know what? We can't
be. Jesus Christ had to come be righteous for us. That's right. That's right. Sees God in his
glory. And everybody believes on a God.
Everybody believes on a sugar daddy. Everybody believes he
ought to do something for serve God, you know. God, you know,
it's good to be a Christian, isn't it good to believe God
and be moral and a good citizen? You feel so good about yourself,
don't you? Oh, no, when you speak God, you
feel bad about yourself. That brings me to my second point.
You speak God in all His glory, holy, and you fear Him. The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And Paul said it in
Romans. He said, There is no fear of
God before men's faces. Else they wouldn't be talking
about Jesus this, Jesus that, have God's name on their bumper
sticker, and this and that and the other. That's not the fear
of God. God's in the heavens. We're on
the earth. Let your words be few. Don't use his name in vain. God will not hold a man guiltless
who uses his name in vain. The fear of God, this is where
it all starts. When you see who God really is,
you get in the dust, and you bow, but, oh God, so, wasn't
he with me? I can't do anything. I can't
be anything. I can't, I can't even believe
unless this God does something to me. It's just a, oh, it's
a transformation of your mind. God says to the natural man,
your thoughts are just not my thoughts. Thou protest thou was
altogether one such as yourself, a man like you. I'm not! And
you know what salvation is, John? God's setting things in order
before your eyes. He turned you around from thinking
God was just like you, you know, and God required this and that,
and turned you completely around, didn't He? To see God's not a
man. And I'm not God, farthest thing
from it. And unless this God reaches down
and does something for me, I'm a goner. So saving faith sees
God and all his dream as such, and it sees itself in its own
spin, in its own terrible condition before this holy God, then what
would that naturally bring a man to do? Huh? Got to see God. And he under the wrath and the
condemnation of God, he's a spinner. What would that bring him to
do? That's what Christ came preaching, first thing. Repent! I know that's old-fashioned.
Heaven, Barnstorming preaching. But that's where you start, then.
God's on the throne. We're in the dust. Now what? Repent! Lord, have mercy on me,
the sinner. You see anybody in these crusades
running down the aisle, hollering, screaming for mercy? Huh? All
these people being saved today in religion, you hear anybody
talking about mercy? You ever hear the preacher talking about
the holiness of God or the sinfulness of man? Huh? You don't hear these
things, do you? Not everybody's walking down
the aisle smiling, you know, popping their bubble gum. At
Pentecost, where people were really saved, 3,000 people, as
a matter of fact, they were crying out, what must we do? And the saving face sees Christ. I mean Christ and Christ alone.
Tunnel vision, right? If the eye be what? The scripture
says. You understand what this verse
says when Christ said, If thine eye be still, the whole body
is full of life. That means you're looking at
Christ and Christ alone for salvation. Well, I know, and then people
say, well, I'm looking at Christ, but we've got... No, that's not
looking there, is it? Salvation is looking to Christ.
God is holy. I'm a goner. Look unto me and
be you saved. Well, you start out looking,
then you're saved, then you go on to other things. No, no, no,
no. You keep looking. You keep looking. And you turn from your idols,
idols of works, this and that and the other, idols of religion,
you renounce all that. I don't know about yesterday.
Like Todd said, I don't know about yesterday, but I'm looking
to Christ now. It follows Christ, it emulates
Christ, and this is important. Like I said, faith that believes
in vain is faith without change. True faith emulates Christ. I
mean wants to, lives to win Christ and be found in him. Commitment,
commitment. Wants to be found in him, know
him, see him, studies him. A disciple, that's what the word
disciple means. Anybody that's a student in school
is a disciple of their professor. You're going to fail if you don't.
If you're not a disciple of your professor, if you do not follow
closely his teachings, you're going to fail. You're going to
fail. If any man does not deny himself, take up his cross and
follow me, be my disciple. He cannot be my disciple, Christ
said. Studying Christ, living for Christ,
following Christ, commitment. Let me go do this first," they
said. No, let the dead bury the dead. Let the worldlings go look
after their field. Let this and that and the other.
You follow me. And if you follow me, seek ye
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. All these
things will be added to you anyway. That's Southern. All right, I've
got to quit. My, my, my. I wanted to take this up next
week. Didn't get to verse 3 and 4, my, my. Unless you believed
in vain. But that was so necessary. Believing
in vain. I don't want to believe in vain.
Do you? Do you? There is a believing in God,
in Jesus Christ, that's in vain. It will not save you. And didn't
Christ say to a lot of people at the Judgment Day, when they
said to Him, Lord, they believed Jesus was Lord even. We preached in your name, prophesied,
cast out devils, did many wonderful works in your name. We went to
church, and we believed. We believed God, we believed
on Jesus. I was Calvinist, Lord. I believed man was to pray, and
God had to elect, and predict the redeemed. I never knew you,
never had an intimate relationship with you. You never changed.
You were never changed. You believed facts. You believed
in vain. I don't want that to happen to
you. I want this true saving faith, this true saving faith. All right, we'll pick up there
and talk about that gospel, this gospel, next week.