have your Bibles to 1 Corinthians
14. 1 Corinthians 14. And before I read the scriptures,
let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, in the precious,
blessed name of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, we come in
our heart of hearts before you, who has all strength and all
power and all glory and all might, who is our shield and our buckler
that hides us under the shadow of his wing, bears us up on even the wings
of an eagle. Lord, we need you to bear us
up. We need you to be our stay, to be our strength, to be our
all in all. And Lord Jesus, we pray for those
among us who are in a great fight of afflictions, whether it's
in their home, whether it's in their heart, whether it's with
a child, or whether it's with a husband or wife, oh Lord, as
your people have so much to go through in this life, and ask
that you'd be pleased to bless them, to encourage them, to strengthen
them, meet the need of their home, meet the need of their
heart, meet the need of those in need of salvation that they
pray for so much, like we pray for our children and grandchildren.
Lord, that you would have mercy on them and give them trouble,
cause them to have trouble, stir up their nest, break them down,
tear every prop out from under them to where they have absolutely
nowhere to go but to you. And Lord, we met here to worship,
met to preach, to pray, and to sing. Bring glory to yourself
in all these things that we do tonight for Christ's sake. Amen. Go read three verses of scripture
this evening. Here in 1 Corinthians 14, 6.
Now brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what
shall I profit you? Except I shall speak to you either
by revelation or by knowledge, or by prophesying or by doctrine,
and even things without life giving sound, even things without
life giving sound, whether pipe or heart, except they give a
distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped
or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain
sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? Back here in 1 Corinthians 14, All, and I'm going, my message
is proclaiming Christ. But now the apostle says here,
now brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, I
speak in a language that you don't understand. He said, why
shall it profit you? Unless I preach to you by a revelation,
that Christ gives me a revelation. Or I preach to you by knowledge,
by what I know. or by prophesying or preaching
or by doctrine. What will it profit you if I
don't speak by revelation or by the knowledge taught of God
or by the preaching or by doctrine? Because he says even things that
don't have life, things that don't even possess life, they
give sounds. Whether it's a flute or whether
it's a harp, they give a distinction in the sounds. They've got tunes
to them. They've got keys that they use.
And how shall it be known what is piped or harped if they don't
give the right sound? If they're not in tune, if they're
not used by somebody that knows what they're doing. And then
he says that's what he means if the trumpet give an uncertain
sound. Just blow the trumpet just for
the sake of sounding the trumpet because you can make a screeching
noise out of it. They said that ain't going to
do anybody any good. It's got to be in tune. It's got to have
the right keys. It's got to have the right tune.
And that's what he says, if the trumpet give an uncertain sound,
who shall prepare himself to the battle? And I want to use
these verses here, especially this part, if the trumpet give
an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
One of the words for preach, the word preach in the New Testament
is the word herald or proclaim. They went everywhere proclaiming
the Lord Jesus Christ. And whenever we're preaching
the Lord Jesus Christ proclaiming him, even those who weren't even
preachers. And a herald who comes and proclaims
something, he has different tasks. He has different things that
he does. A herald, one of the first things he's called to do
is to call together an assembly when announcements needs to be
made. You know, a herald calls together an assembly and some
great announcement is going to be made to get everybody's attention. And sometimes a herald, someone
who heralds something, acted as an intermediary between opposing
armies. And what they would do, go between
these opposing armies, this herald and go tell one army here what
the other army said and said the terms of surrender. This
is the terms of surrender. This is what this one said and
this is what you need to understand. So they would take back the reply
back and forth between the armies. And so to preach Christ, to proclaim
the Lord Jesus Christ, to herald Christ, That's what it is. It's to preach Christ, it's to
herald Him, it's to proclaim Him. Heralds nowadays are used
for a ceremonial occasion. You all see them yourself. You've
seen them on TV and seen them in these big ceremonies that
people put on. Heralds are used today on ceremonial
occasions to announce a dignitary. You know, so-and-so just walked
in. You know, this person, even in a court of law, the bailiff
stands up for the court, the judge comes in, hear ye, hear
ye, hear ye. All that's got a thing before
this court, you know, let him stand forth. So they have a herald. And they announce a dignitary.
Sometimes they even blow a trumpet. And what it does is silence everybody
and drives all eyes to that person that's coming in, that dignitary
that's coming in. And that's the way it is with
the Lord Jesus Christ. We herald his appearance. We
proclaim his appearance. We want every eye, we sound that
trumpet, sound that proclamation, herald out that the Lord Jesus
Christ has come. and his appearance at the end
of this world, and we want every eye to take off ourselves, take
away from everything else, and see him. And that's why we have
the trumpet and give this sound. And I tell you what, look over
in Isaiah 40. We want to draw all attention
to him. We want all attention to be drawn
to our Lord Jesus Christ. And I tell you something about
a herald, he doesn't invite people to a discussion. He doesn't invite
them to a forum or to debate. He proclaims something. He heralds
something. He stands up and speaks with
some authority. But in Isaiah 40, look with me
here in Isaiah 40 in verse 9. O Zion, that bringest good tidings,
get thee up into the high mountain, O Jerusalem, that bringest good
tidings. Lift up thy voice with strength,
lift it up, be not afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah,
what? Proclaim, herald, behold your
God. That's the thing, look, there's
your God. Well, listen, and then he says,
I'm gonna tell you what he's like. Behold the Lord God, he's
coming with a strong hand. His arm's gonna rule for him.
Behold, his reward is with him and his work goes before him.
And this is what he's going to do. That's what he's going to
do. He's going to feed his flock
like a shepherd. He'll gather the lambs with his
arms, carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those with
the young. Now, to tell you something about
him that does all these things, this is the God, he says, Behold
him who hath going to do all this for you, who hath measured
the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens
with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure.
and weighed the mountains and scales and the hills and the
mountains. That'll get your attention, somebody
talk like that, won't it? Get up into a high mountain and
tell it. Tell it. Tell the one that's going to
do this. And oh, the herald's function is to announce that
a great person of authority, of great rank, stands before
those that are gathered. And who among us, who is any
greater or more rank, more power, more authority, with greater
dignity than our Lord Jesus Christ? Who has more power? Who has more
might? Who has more glory? Who has more
authority? Who has a higher rank than his
blessed person? No, I had one purpose to herald
and proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ as make all to look upon Him
and all to look upon His work. Look upon His work. You see,
beloved, it's who did the work that makes the work worth anything.
It's the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all's may... John said it this way. John said
it this way, he said, when the Lord Jesus Christ, and they come
to him and tried to get him to say some things, he said, all
know this, this is what I know, that he must increase. He's got
to increase. He's going to increase before
man. He's going to increase before
our hearts. He's got to increase before our understanding. He's
got to increase before our faith. He must increase in everything. And He does. He keeps increasing
in our minds, in our hearts, in our emotions, in our affections,
in our understanding. He just, He said, John said,
He must increase. And you know what I got to do?
I got to just get less and less and less. And the more we see
Him, the less we see of ourselves. And the more we won't have anything
to do with ourselves. And that's why Paul said, we
preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. And oh God, keep
us preachers. Keep us preachers from promoting
ourselves in any way, shape, form or fashion. And that's what
he said here in verse 8 of 1 Corinthians 14. What if the trumpet makes
uncertain sound? Now what does that mean? What
does that mean? Well, I think I'll tell you what
it means. If it gives an uncertain sound, and it ain't in tune,
and it ain't got a tune to it, and it ain't, you know, there's
two things that they done in the Marine Corps when I was on
the base. Now, when I got in Vietnam, this didn't happen at
all. But every morning, you had reveille. I mean, they started
blowing that trumpet, and that means that you get up and get
at it. And every night, They would blow taps. Time to stop. And you know exactly what both
those things was. Get up, get down. Get busy, stop. Now, and what he's saying here
is if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, what does that mean? Are
we going to have yay and nay preaching? Yay and nay preaching? What is yay and nay preaching?
Yay and nay preaching is salvation is made possible, but it's not
made sure. That God opened the door for
you, but now it's up to you to walk through the door. That salvation's
made possible. And this is one of the things
that men compromise with. And I called a preacher on this
several years ago. He said this, and I said, this
is, this heresy, and it'll lead people astray. What they would
say, and they thank their honor and God by this, but listen to
me. They say his death is sufficient for all, but only efficient for
the elect. Now wait a minute. If his death
is sufficient for every man, why ain't it efficient for every
man? What they're doing is taking a little bite, a little thing
out of the gospel. And to say that the death of
Christ is sufficient for all, that's to make everybody feel
good and that makes them, that takes the sting out of the gospel,
takes the power out of the gospel. When the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
said, I lay down my life, not for everybody, but for the sheep. He said, I have other people,
sheep that are not of this fold, and I must bring them. So we're not going to preach
yay and nay, sufficient and efficient. I mean the same Christ who died
is going to save His people. That's why we preach the gospel.
That's why we proclaim Christ. That's why we herald Christ.
Because that's who He uses to save His people. We can't give
an uncertain sound about it. And I tell you that people have
a fear of man. Look over here in Galatians over
to your right. And I tell you this business
of being afraid of a man. I tell you what, I fear God more
than I fear man. You know, and I understand there's
a time to say something, there's a time not to say something.
There's a time you don't feed that which is whole to the dogs,
and you don't cast your pearls and hogs trample
them under your feet. But look what he said here in
Galatians 1.10. Do I now persuade men or God? Now what he said is, am I persuading
men or am I persuading God? What are we going to persuade
God to do? Does God need persuading to do anything? We going to change His mind?
We going to change His will? We going to change His purpose?
We going to change His gospel? Or do we persuade men? Of course
we persuade men. And yet if I seek to please men,
Because I'm persuading men, if I seek to please men, for if
I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. If
I sought my message and changed it and toned it down and preached
the gospel in such a way and preached Christ in such a way,
that I was afraid of man and I was trying to please man and
trying to make people happy and I had a group in the church that
had all the money and had all the power and could change you
and move you in and out. Then men get afraid. I was talking
to my son-in-law's mother and father-in-law the other night.
We had dinner with them. And we was talking about how
long I'd been here and they says, man, we can't get a preacher
to stay over a year. 18 months at the most. And they pay them
fellas big money, you know, but they just hit the high spots
to get to the higher money. But I'm telling you something,
beloved. The fear of man brings a snare. And you fear man, you're
going to get in a snare. And I'm telling you, that's what
he says here. If we give an uncertain sound,
if we're afraid of man, if we're afraid to speak clearly and plainly,
So we don't offend people by truths that abase man and turn
his pride and put it in the ground and say that God uses the gospel
to stain the pride of man. If we refuse to do that and fail
to exalt the sovereignty of God, then we just ought to get in
some other business. Ought to do something else. Edgar
Andrews. I don't know how many of y'all
know him. I've got two or three books in there by him. He's a
professor of some big famous professor in England and pastor
of the church, wrote several books, very brilliant man. But
anyway, he read a manuscript. And this author said, if a pastor
goes to a new church not to teach the doctrine of grace for about
two years, if you did, people will reject him and leave. That's foreign to our way of
thinking. We can't get our mind around
that. Huh? Oh my! People get upset and leave,
reject the truth and leave? Reject the only message that
God will use to save them and leave? To reject the Christ of
the Bible and leave? To reject God's sovereignty and
leave? To reject their sinful nature
and say, I'm not as sinful as they say I am and leave? Oh,
listen, if a man leaves over the gospel of the grace of God
and the gospel of Christ and the proclamation of Christ, don't
let the door hit him on the way out. That's the way I feel about
it. There's no, if you would tone down the gospel for anybody
under any circumstances on the top side of God's earth, you
ought to quit preaching right immediately. I believe that. I've seen too many men, I've
seen too many men pay the price. Scott Richardson for one. Man
up there, they wouldn't even mow his grave at the graveyard. His family's grave because they
hated his gospel. Didn't like the gospel he was
preaching. Do you think he was scared about it? Our task as heralds, we've got
to give a certain sound. Not to please men, but to preach
Christ, to make Christ known. That's why Paul said, told Timothy,
do it with all patience and doctrine. Patience and doctrine. Oh my. And proclaiming Christ, listen
to me a minute here. Proclaiming Christ, we must relate
everything to Him. Everything to Him. Everything
must be related to Christ. And we must, even in our thinking,
in that we must relate all to Him. Every message, if it don't
contain Christ our Lord, every lesson that we learn out in the
world, ask ourselves, what does it teach me about the Lord Jesus
Christ? What will this teach the hearers
that we're preaching? What will it teach the hearers
about the Lord Jesus Christ? And here's the first question.
Will we preach the Lord Jesus in such a way and teach a lesson
in such a way that the first thing they'll do is see their
need of Him? Will they see their need of the
Lord Jesus Christ when we preach Him in such a way and man in
such a way before Him that they need the Lord Jesus Christ? That
they need Him? I heard a preacher say today,
one of the things that encouraged him was that he was a sinner. And he says, now I don't mean
to tell you that I'm proud of being a sinner. I hate it that I am a sinner,
but I am encouraged that God made me a sinner. That I know
what I am. that I know that in me there
dwells no good thing, in my flesh dwells no good thing, that I
have no strength, I have no ability, I can do nothing to save myself,
I can do nothing to keep myself safe, I know from the top of
my head to the sole of my feet, if God don't save me, there's
no saving. So that encourages me that God taught me that I'm
a sinner, and when he does that, you know what you do? You need
Christ. You got to have Christ. Give
me Christ or else I die. And that's what happens. And
oh beloved, we relate His blessed person. We sung it tonight, Son
of God and Son of Man. His person was God. He walked
among people. It was God walking among people.
It was God who raised the dead. It was God who walked on the
water. It was God who gave the lepers, cleansed the lepers.
And God was in the man and person of a man in Jesus Christ who
lived on this earth. And God spoke through him and
worked through him and glorified himself through him. And oh,
and talk about his redemption. Oh, that he He paid the price
and the price was not, it was not anything that we could pay,
but He paid the redemption price with His own blood. Justified freely by His blood. Oh my! Talk about His grace,
grace poured forth from His lips, full of grace and full of truth.
Talk about His love, Oh my, can you imagine the love of our Lord
Jesus Christ? I ain't got over it yet. I don't
even love myself most of the time, can't hardly stand myself
most of the time, and yet Christ loves me. Do you all ever feel
that experience, that you can't hardly bear yourself? And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
loves you when you can't even love yourself. And all the compassion He shows,
The example our Lord gave us? Oh, listen. Oh, relate all to
Him. When you see the sun come up,
the Son of Righteousness arrives with healing in His wings. See the evening star? He's the
bright morning star. See a lily come up? You say,
that's the lily of the valley. You see these rosy shards blooming
in our yards in the summertime? We say, he's the rosy shard. Oh, how soon in our message are
we to mention him? How soon? Well, as quick as we can get
there. Just as quick as we can get there. How do we relate him
in our everyday living? Well, I'll tell you how we do
it. He is our life. He is our life. People say, boy, I tell you,
you need to make Christ the most important. You need to make worship
with Christ. You need to relate to Christ
this and you need to be dedicated here and there. I tell you what,
beloved, if Christ is your life, then you live by Him, you move
by Him, you have being by Him, and you're very... He's never... I'm going to tell you this, and
I know this is so, and you'll agree with me. Our Lord God and
our Lord Jesus Christ is never out of our thoughts very, very
long at a time, throughout a day. He's not far out of our mind,
just not very long during the day. I don't care what situation
we're in, who we're with, and what's going on. Our mind keeps
running back to Christ. Our mind keeps calling on Christ.
Our mind keeps looking to Him. Our mind and heart and soul keeps
looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. Because He's our life. And oh, how do we relate Him
to our worship? He's the one we gather to worship and to praise. We sang praises to Him. Every
song tonight talked about Him. He's the one we gather deep.
Oh, how the deep, deep love of Jesus. Fairest, oh Lord Jesus,
fairest of... Oh, listen, He's the one we gather
to worship and praise. How do we relate him to history?
I'll tell you how we relate him to history. Everything that happened
up to this point in time is his story. That's everything that's
happened to this point in time. History is what he's already
accomplished up to this point in time. You go back in history,
and it's just Christ and God carrying out his will in this
world. He uses men, he uses kingdom, he uses people, he uses weather,
he uses a thousand things in this world. But it's his story. Huh? Why'd that happen? The Lord
did it. The Lord did it. And oh, beloved,
I tell you, how do I relate him to his church, his body? The
church is the fullness of him who fills all in all. And when
it comes to proclaiming Christ, that's why Paul said in verse
six here, now brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues,
it ain't gonna profit nobody nothing. If I'm going to preach to you,
I'm going to speak to you by revelation. I'm going to speak
to you by knowledge. I'm going to speak to you by
preaching. I'm going to speak to you by doctrine. Who gives us
this authority to herald Christ, to proclaim Christ? Now, pagans
believed, and I guess they still do, believed heralds were messengers
to the gods, given power and protected by these gods. We who know Christ, we who proclaim
Christ, do so with the full authority of God Himself. Peter says we
preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven. What? The Gospel
that's revealed unto us. And we preach with that Holy
Ghost sent down from Heaven and what we're preaching, the angels
stoop down and try to see what it's about. And I tell you, I know this,
I know this, and I've tried my best not to do this. We aren't
to give our beliefs or our opinions. So if you're going to give an
opinion or something, just say, I'll stop preaching and tell
you what I think about it. And then go back to preaching. But
what we mean, beloved, we want the scriptures to speak. I was
listening to Bob Coffey's, one of his messages from here today.
And Bob says, I don't want to worry you out turning to Scriptures,
but I want you to see. And they went to Scripture, to
Scripture, to Scripture. Well, you know why we do that
and why they do that? Let the Scriptures say what?
Let the Scriptures speak. Let the Scriptures speak. And
men can see then that our message clearly comes from the Scriptures.
From the Scriptures. So their faith will stand in
the wisdom of God. Our faith, you know, that's why
when we look at the scriptures, I can say, I... Jehovah's Witnesses
come out the house the other day. Two, two men. Knock on the door. I seen them
with their little watchtowers, you know, and told them who I was and how long
I'd been... Oh my, yeah, yeah. Well, can we say, he said, Whitley,
can I ask you this? Do you believe God caused all
suffering in this world? I said, there ain't nothing happens
in this world without God. He said, would you let us show
you that Satan's the cause of everything bad that happens in
this world? I said, no, no you can't. I said, I don't want to
hear anything said about it. I just shut the door. I didn't
even let, they stayed outside. They didn't even get in the garage. Didn't even get in the garage. If God's not ruling this world,
who is? If Satan is out from under the
control of God, well, then I tell you the first thing he'd do is
he'd kill every believer on the face of the earth. He'd wipe
out the church if he could. That'd be the first thing he'd
want to do is wipe out the church. But, oh, listen, we want people
to see clearly from the Scriptures what our message is. And our
faith will stand in the wisdom of God. What thus saith the Lord?
And oh, let me tell you this, and I'll wind her down. A herald,
I told you, a proclaimer, a proclamation, he'd go between a war and armies
and factions. And he'd take the terms of this
general here over to this general. This general here would send
his reply back. And they'd go back and forth
like that. take the terms of surrender to a defeated foe.
And that's what we do. We proclaim our Lord Jesus Christ
as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He's defeated every
foe. He's defeated every enemy. There's
nothing can stand up to Him. Nothing can defeat Him. He's
done everything that's against us. Everything that was contrary
to us, He took it out of the way and held it to His cross.
And so now we proclaim repent and believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and you'll be saved. Repent and believe. And what
is repentance? It's a change of mind. And oh
what a change of mind it is. When a man starts repenting,
a repentance that don't need to be repented of is, his mind
starts changing dramatically. In fact, the first thing it does,
it turns on itself. It starts turning on itself.
His mind turns on itself and says, oh, boy, you're a mess. And then it turns to the Lord
Jesus Christ, the only one that can clean up the mess. Repent
and believe. And I tell you what, the gospel
calls for total, absolute surrender. Surrender. It gives you no options. There ain't no getting... It's either bow or perish. That's just the way it is. Gospel
calls for absolute total surrender. And it tells us to submit to
the righteousness of God in Christ. To submit to the righteousness
of Christ who is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone.
We have no righteousness so we have to submit to the righteousness
of Christ. Now I tell you, I personally,
I'd gladly answer any questions any sinners has, but I'll never
ever debate over the terms of the truth of the gospel. We're
not negotiators. We're not trying to talk anybody
into anything. We're not trying to, we're proclaiming things,
telling things. We're not negotiators. We're
not negotiating between sinners and Christ. No, we tell men bow,
submit, surrender. And man must come to Christ,
and I'll tell you this, and I, oh, we all do it, we all gotta
do it. We got to come to Christ on His
terms, on His terms, and in coming, they'll see that He's infinitely,
infinitely more gracious than they ever dreamed. Oh, our Lord Jesus. You go through
the Gospels. And you know, He... Every time
somebody said they was going to follow Him, He'd put an obstacle
in their way. And if anybody left, He'd turn
around and say, I guess you're going to go with them. And I tell you what, it's absolute surrender. Our Father, in the blessed name
of Christ our Lord, we thank you for the gospel. Lord, never
let us give an uncertain sound. And Lord, oh God, help us please
to always honor and magnify our Lord Jesus and decrease, decrease,
decrease, decrease, decrease to we're absolutely nothing and
Christ is all. Lord bless this message. God
only you can. We leave it with you. You'll
do with it what you will. You'll do with it as seemeth
good in your sight. In our Lord Jesus name we bless
you. Amen. Amen.