reminds the Corinthians, especially
as it gets into the second chapter, that they owed their conversion,
they owed their salvation, not to his persuasive abilities. And he was quite the preacher.
He was quite the missionary. I mean, God used him to establish
many churches and many people were converted under his ministry,
but they were converted under his ministry as he preached the
message of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It wasn't
due to his ability as a so-called soul winner that they believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ. He just preached the good news
of the mercy and grace of God to undeserving sinners and left
it to the Holy Spirit to make application of the Word of God
as pleased Him. It is not for us to try to talk
somebody into the Kingdom of God. If I can talk you into some
kind of decision regarding Christianity, regarding the things of God,
well, somebody else can come along and talk you out of it,
talk you into believing their way. So we don't put pressure
on people. We don't give an altar call.
We don't take people into the back, into a room, and try to
press these things home to them. Everything that needs to be said
in a service is said from this pulpit. and we leave it to our
God, we leave it to the Holy Spirit to take the things of
our Lord Jesus Christ and drive them home to the heart. You see,
if God the Spirit does a work of grace in your heart, if you're
born again by the power of the Spirit, then that which the Spirit
of God teaches you and reveals to you is within you and revealed
to you forever. Nobody can take that away from
you. Nobody can talk you out of it.
Oh, during your pilgrimage as a believer, You'll have many
a fall, you'll have many a times no doubt you doubt, but you're
still the child of God because that which the Lord does, He
does forever. Forever is what Solomon says
in the book of Ecclesiastes. When He saves, He does a good
job of it. The best thing we can do if you're
a Sunday school teacher, if you speak from this pulpit, is go
ahead and declare the truth as it is in the Lord Jesus Christ
and then get out of the way. Leave it to God to do His work. He will, if He has started a
good work in somebody, He will finish it to the day of our Lord
Jesus Christ. recognized the need of just depending
upon the power of God, knowing that God uses the preaching of
the gospel. I just read in chapter 1, it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. Not foolish preaching. There's
way too much foolish preaching. But what men and women call foolishness,
that is the preaching of the gospel of Christ, the preaching
of God as He is, and man as He is, and the Lord Jesus as the
Son of God, the only Redeemer, who He is, men call that preaching
foolishness. That's what they call it. You
see, you mean you listen to that every time you come together?
Yes. You mean you set forth the preaching of Christ? You set
forth the gospel of the grace of God every time you step behind
the pulpit? If I don't, I'm a failure. If
I don't, I'm not declaring the message that God has sent me
to declare. I would have been an unfaithful
witness if I had any other message except the Lord Jesus Christ
and His work of redemption. I know the world calls this kind
of preaching and our kind of worship, our kind of service,
the world would call this foolishness. A few people gathering together
on a weeknight? You only got a handful. What's
the use? Well, I'll tell you what the
use is. We're here honoring God. That's what the use is. That's
the good that's being done. And I hope that good will be
done for you, that God will take the word of the gospel and apply
it to your heart. But if nobody believes the gospel,
and I'm sure some of you do, I hope that all of you do. The
main thing is the name of God, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
is being exalted, and that's always a good thing. Don't be
hesitant in your Sunday school class. You may not have very
many. You may have one. Still, you're speaking to an
eternity-bound soul. And you're telling them about
the only Savior of sinners. Be faithful in little things,
small things. Even though it is foolish to
the natural man, he will even say, at the end of the second
chapter that these things are foolish to the natural man. He
can't receive them. These things don't make sense
to him. They don't line up in his mind. Know this, that the
things of God have to be revealed. They have to be made known by
the Holy Spirit. They have to be taught to the
heart. I can teach your mind. I can teach words through your
ears. And I can even yell loud enough
maybe that you can't even sleep through it. I don't know about
that. But I can't get into your heart. But I know who can and
who does. And that's the Holy Spirit. You
see, here is Paul's only design. And we would do well to use him
as an example. The design of his ministry was
to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's the thrust
of his ministry. You'll not find him getting bogged
down with non-essentials. I was, as you might, Well, imagine,
I get a lot of religious emails and things from so-called Christian
magazines and so forth about this, that, and something else. And they're always into political
issues. Well, I'll tell you, this pulpit
is not to be used for setting forth political issues to the
left or to the right. This pulpit is to be used for
the sake of the glory of God in the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. I'm not here to persuade you
about anything else. I'm not here to educate you on
anything else. There's some things that are
definitely right and there's some things that are definitely
wrong. And I'll tell you what's definitely wrong. Salvation by
works. Salvation by baptism. And there
are multitudes of people within almost shouting distance of this
assembly. People who believe in trying
to be good, trying to honor the Lord, I heard somebody say today,
because there's one state, they're trying to get a law passed to
have the Ten Commandments in every class in school. I'll tell
you what, that's not the problem. That's not the problem. You see,
that law that they are endeavoring to put up on the wall in every
school, class, In this particular state, if they try to live by
that law, that law will kill them. That's what people don't
understand. So our nation needs to go by
that law. Our nation needs to hear of somebody
who fulfilled that law and the reason God gave that law to shut
our mouths and pronounce us guilty. That's why God gave the law.
People don't know why He gave the Ten Commandments. If we had
any inkling of the reason that He gave the law of God, we'd
see that that law condemns us. It's meant to shut our mouths,
stop our boasting about how good we are. how we're living good
lives and trying to do what's right. You can't do what's right.
There's none that doeth good, no, not ones, what the Bible
says. It's you and me and everybody
else. The only one who's good is God.
God is good. Christ is God, so he's good.
The Holy Spirit is God, so he's good. But all of the human race,
we're bad. And we need somebody who's good. We need the goodness of the Lord.
We need him to teach us the way of life, the way of salvation. You know, many in Paul's day
considered the preaching of the gospel to be unworthy of their
consideration because it was a simplistic message. And there is a blessed simplicity
to the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Now remember, he is writing to
the people at Corinth, to the church at Corinth. And I'm sure
all of you know a little something about having read some things
about the city of Corinth. It was a city of philosophers,
academia, deep thinkers, a city of so-called wise men, a city
of education, a city of orators, intellectuals. And I ask you,
and I'm sure you did, you paid attention every time we came
to the word wisdom, especially the wisdom of the world. And
the wisdom of the world is contrary to the wisdom of God. And Paul
draws a contrast between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom
that is of God. And then he gets to the end of
chapter 1 and he says, of God, Christ has made unto us our wisdom. We're not talking about your
wisdom. You're all smart. I haven't any doubt about that. I'm sure you're entering into
some deep thinking. And in some ways, you're intellectual. But by your own intelligence,
you can't know anything about the gospel. I don't care how
smart you are. I don't care how high your IQ
is. You will not know the truth of
God unless the Holy Spirit invades your mind and your heart and
teaches you as only he can teach. And if he teaches, he's good
teacher. You won't forget it. Paul begins the second chapter
by saying, when I came to you, brethren, look at chapter two,
verse one. He said, I came not with excellency of speech or
of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. I didn't
come flaunting my knowledge. Sometimes I hear preachers preach
and it's like they want us to know how smart they are. I've been in services where somebody
leads in prayer, and they just give a doctrinal dissertation
in their prayer. And I wonder if it isn't a lot
of flesh in that. And I'm sure with all of it,
anybody who gets up here, there's flesh. There's a lot of flesh
in what I say. I don't want it to be. But you've
listened to me too many times. I can't impress you with my intellectual
prowessness. I just can't. But I can tell
you the truth of how the God of the Bible saved sinners. I
can tell you that. But people primarily don't want
to hear that. They don't want to hear that.
Paul tells these people, he said, when I was with you, I determined
not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, Him crucified. He says, I was with you in weakness. I was with you in fear. I was with you in much trembling. Before I get up here to talk
to you, I assure you of this, I sure talk to the Lord. Help
me. Lead me. Put a filter over my mouth that
I dare not say anything that might come out wrong. You know,
sometimes you can say something and it sounds good in your own
mind, but it doesn't come across right to people. Anybody who's
talked very much in public, you know how that can be. I don't want to say anything
wrong. I don't want to say anything
that would mislead people when it comes to the things of our
God. I want to be simple. Somebody
said, you're a simple preacher. I said, thank you. Thank you. A person one time told me, he
said, you're the only preacher that my grandson said he can
halfway understand. Thank you. What's the use in preaching if
you can't be understood even by the children? We're not here
to impress. We're not using enticing words
of man's wisdom. And that's what Paul says here
in the second chapter. He said, I don't want your faith
to stand based upon the things that I said. I want it to stand
in the power of God, in the wisdom of God. And I'll tell you this,
I truly believe the greatest need of our day, the greatest
need for preachers and for churches is a a return to the clarity
of the message of the scriptures, which is the gospel of the grace
of God to sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't want
somebody to get up and preach way over our heads. I told you
the story one time about a preacher who preached before I did, and
he said, I'm going to put the cookies up on the top shelf.
Do you remember I gave you that illustration of preaching? Actually,
I was preaching in Charleston, West Virginia. at Randolph Street,
that's the name of the church, Randolph Street Baptist Church.
And the guy before me, he said, and I knew him quite well, and
I didn't consider him to be an intellectual, but anyway, he
said, I'm gonna put the cookies up on the top shelf, and you're
gonna have to, oh, you gotta restrain your spiritual neck
to get the cookies, but if you do, you'll be rewarded, it'll
help you. I thought, my soul. And I got
up and I said, well, Brother So-and-so said he put the cookies
up on the top shelf. I said, I'll tell you what I'm
going to do. I'm going to put them on the bottom shelf. The only thing
you're going to have to do is get down low. Get low. Humble yourself before
the mighty hand of God. That's what scripture says. The
greatest need of preachers and the people of our day is to return
to plain, clear, simple Bible preaching. Preaching that's true to the
scriptures. Preaching that's true to the
souls of men and women. You know, there's a verse, hold
your place here, there's a verse over in 2 Corinthians 11, You remember this? I'm sure you
do. 2 Corinthians 11. Here's what Paul said. It's the second letter to the
church at Corinth. It says in verse 3, 2 Corinthians
11, 3, But I fear, lest by any mean as the serpent beguiled
or deceived Eve through his subtlety, your minds should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. There's a oneness about
this message. And there better be a oneness,
a singularity about the message that goes forth from these four
walls. Just being honest with people.
Telling the truth. Telling the truth. The gospel of Christ is not a
message for the intellectuals. It isn't one that entices the
mind and the understanding of the brilliant. It's not a message
for the educated and for the learned. It's a message for sinners. That's what it is. This is a
hospital for sinners. It's about the grace of God to
the undeserving. Clearly and plainly, it's the
message of Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners, who came the
incarnate God and lived a life of perfection in our stead, that's
credited to us, and then died in the stead of the guilty sinners
for whom he came, those God gave him in covenant grace, he came
to die for guilty sinners and bear their death, bear the wrath
of God appointed for them or due to them to die in their stead. It's a message of his identity.
Who is he? Who is Jesus of Nazareth? They
ask that question of one another when he was here. Say, who is
this? Who is it? Well, I'll be glad to tell you
who he is. He's God in the flesh. That's
who he is. He's the son of the eternal God.
Well, what did he come to do? He came to honor God's law. He
came to prove himself qualified to be the savior by the life
that he lived. Nobody else lived the life that
he lived. Leviticus 22, 21 says it shall
be perfect to be accepted. He had to be perfect or his work
on the cross wouldn't have been accepted. Don't tell me he became
a sinner. He didn't become a sinner, he
was perfect. If he became a sinner, I was talking to somebody about
this yesterday, if he became a sinner, his work wouldn't have
been accepted, he wouldn't have been accepted. He came to show he was absolutely
qualified, he was the Lamb of God without spot and without
blemish. And therefore he died God's Lamb
for sinners. This is the message of substitution,
the message of sacrifice, the message of His resurrection,
His victory over our sins, victory over the devil, victory over
death, victory over the grave. That message was, however, too
simplistic for some people. I've had people who listened
to me preach and then left. And they said, you know, you're
a pretty good preacher, but you're just too simple. Well, I'll take that charge. If you don't speak simply, people
don't understand what you're saying. But here's what Paul, he comes
down to this. He comes down, go back to to
1 Corinthians 2. He says here in verse 7, But
we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom
which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Ordained
before. Ordained before. What does before
mean? Pre. What does ordained mean? Destined. He's preaching predestination. He said, which God predestinated
before the world unto our glory for our eternal good. See, the greatest wisdom there
is, is the wisdom of God, who in His infinite knowledge, knew
how to satisfy His justice and His law, and yet show mercy and
grace to poor hell-deserving sinners like us. That's the wisdom
of God right there. Because no angel could have figured
out how that could be done. No, even the wisest person who
ever lived was watching some program the other night. This
guy's supposed to have an IQ of 197. I can't even think that
high. But the wisest man who's ever
lived. And by the way, that's a whole
lot higher than Einstein is. But Einstein said that the gospel
was a bunch of foolishness. It's not the human intellect. That doesn't convince you of
anything. In fact, if God leaves you to your so-called wisdom
and knowledge, you'll never believe the things of God. And you'll
say like so many others do. That's just too simple. Well,
the gospel is simple in this respect. It's about a person,
that person's identity, that person's work, the success of
his work, and where he is now. But oh, the wisdom that led to
this gospel of the grace of God. We're talking about wisdom that
has no depth. Wisdom that is plum out of sight. How could God save a rebel like
me? How could he show mercy to a
worm like me and yet not sully or cause his own honor to be
marred. How could he do that? How could
he pick up a filthy sinner like me and embrace me to his own
bosom and yet not get my uncleanliness upon him? How can he show me
mercy and not be defiled by my sin? That's the question of all
questions. And that required the wisdom
of God. That's way yonder above the wisdom of man. Nobody else
could ever think of this. And God sent someone equal to
himself who satisfied every demand of the law of God and then went
to the cross of Calvary and endured the wrath of God in the stead
of. all those that God gave Him in
covenant love. And you see, this gospel, it
was ordained before. It was predestinated before the
world. Actually, before Adam ever sinned,
there was already an eternal Savior. It says in Revelation
13.8 that Christ was the Lamb slain from before the foundation
of the world. This is already formulated. Everything
was ironed out. Everything was written in the
book of God's eternal purpose. How He would save sinners, which
sinners He would save, and the person who would be the Savior
of the sinners that He would save. The gospel wasn't formulated
as a response to Adam's sin. Salvation was not a reaction
of God to man's sinfulness. Everything was ordained before
man was ever created. Christ is the lamb slain from
before the foundation of the world. And I'll give you another
passage real quick. Look at 1 Peter 1. Look at 1 Peter 1. Know this
while you're turning. All of God's decrees, all of
God's appointments relating to everything, all of them are old, really old, ancient. I've had people say to me, oh,
you believe that primitive doctrine, don't you? I say, yeah, it's
real primitive. It's as old as God. That's how
old it is. God has no new thoughts. He has
no new councils. He has no new decrees. He has
no new appointments. Everything that ever would ever
be. God took care of it before he
ever created the world. This affair of redemption by
Christ, it's not a new thing. The purpose of God was drawn
up in eternity. Predestinated by God. It would be unthinkable to imagine that the God who purposed
salvation, the God who sent His Son to live and die in the stead
of sinners, it would be unthinkable that such a great purpose would
be begun by God without Him determining everything that was necessary
to achieve His goal. I have found the bigger my goal
is, the more attention I pay to it. And I suspect that's the
way you are. The bigger the goal, what you
want to achieve, the more time and the more effort you go into
determining as best you can how you can be successful in the
pursuit of that goal. Right? You know that's right.
How important do you think it was for God to glorify his son? How important do you think it
was for God to save and elect people? These were things, if
I could put it this way, that were forever upon his mind and
heart. God's goal has always been to
have a whole family conformed to the image of His Son. That's
what it says in Romans chapter 8, predestinated to be conformed
in the image of His Son. God purposed to glorify all of
His attributes, to magnify His Son and save His people. But those were the three great
goals or ends of the Lord pertaining to salvation. Now, you think
that God would leave such a magnificent purpose up to chance or up to
the will of men who sometimes don't know their right hand from
their left hand? Do you think he would embark
upon such a glorious end without determining all things concerning
that goal? The greater the work, the more
vital the project, the greater is your determination
to arrive successfully at the end that you want. God chose a people, he predestinated
them to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. I promise you,
the word of God promises us he will cross every T and dot every
I when it comes to the glory of his son and the salvation
of his people. He predestinated everything,
everything. I can rejoice in Him, the God
who rules over all things. Well, what about we sing a closing
song here? Number 56. By the way, next Wednesday night,
I'm going to answer the question, how is the predestinated purpose
of God fulfilled? And the answer is divine