I'm just going to read the first
four verses. Paul writes, would to God ye
could bear with me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with
me. For I am jealous over you with
godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by
any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so
your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth
another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another
spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have
not accepted, ye might well bear with him. I believe without a doubt that salvation is in a person. It is in the Savior. And I confess the same thing
that is said of Simeon. It says in Luke 2, "...then took
he up him in his arms." When Mary and Joseph brought the child
to the temple, this old man Simeon took the child up in his arms
and blessed God and said, Now lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace according to thy word, for mine eyes have
seen thy salvation." But my title this morning, my
message is this. Which person? Which person? Most in modern-day Christianity
would be quick to respond by saying, Jesus. And to that, I would have another
question. Which Jesus? And I have a fear like the one
that the Apostle Paul speaks of here, a fear concerning the
deceptions of our day. And he, as well as myself, saw
a need to distinguish things. Which person? Well, it is obvious that this
name that is so often used in our day by so many is a different
person to different people. Isn't that right? This name spoken
to men and women is a different person to each and every one
that hears it. But we are not talking about
some mystical Jesus. And we cannot use the name and
then let each individual believe what they will about the one
that comes to their mind. Everybody has got a Jesus from
their traditions. They've got a Jesus from a few
pointed out places in the Bible. They've got a Jesus from their
family environment. They've got a Jesus from all
the various preachers that they've heard. And so we cannot simply
use that name and leave it to each one to believe what they
will about Christ. It is eternally dangerous to
do that. And it would be like you having
a deadly disease which only one doctor could cure, and me saying
to you, you need to go see Dr. Jones here in the U.S. How many Dr. Jones or Dr. Smiths do you think there are
in the United States of America. Where would you begin? What if
you got to every one of them and still missed the only one
that had the cure for your disease? Paul says here, and every true
gospel preacher knows this in their experience, feels this
in their heart. He says, I am jealous over you
with a godly jealousy. Look at verse 2. For I am jealous
over you with a godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one
husband. Do you see that? I have espoused you to one husband,
that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." Just to one husband, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And Paul's desire and goal was
to present Christ to them in truth. that he might present
them to Christ in truth. Wasn't a game? Wasn't a general
feeling about everything? Wasn't an out-and-out, one-size-fits-all? And if you notice here in verse
3, he says, but I fear, lest by any means as the serpent beguiled
Eve." He didn't come right up to Eve and say, I'm the devil. You believe me, you're going
to die. And you obey what I say. You're not going to obey what
God says. He beguiled her. He tricked her. He deceived her. And it says, through his subtlety, So your minds should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus. The serpent beguiled Eve by telling
her that God did not really mean what he said. And he casts doubt
on God's Word and truth. And when Paul says that he fears,
for these he writes to, these believers, professing believers
anyway, he said he feared lest they be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ. I've sometimes heard People use
that word simplicity there to almost express that it's not
needful to know or understand hardly anything about the Lord
Jesus Christ. But what that word simplicity
means is singleness. He says, I fear. lest the devil
deceive you by his subtlety, like he did Eve, and corrupt
you from the singleness, or the oneness, of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are not one Christ. Paul says, for there is one God,
and one mediator between God and
men, the man, Christ Jesus. Not a man. Not simply a man. He said, the
man. That's what I want us to be concerned
with. The singleness that is in Christ. the mediatorial work of that
one man, the man, Christ Jesus. Now, I want you to think about
this. When Simeon looked at that baby,
what did he see? What did he see? I mean, this
is not rocket scientist, when he looked at that baby that he
held in his arm, what did he see? What could be seen by the
natural eye except the baby? There wasn't any halo around
him. There wasn't any glow about him. And the only way that he could
ever know Who this baby was, was for the Spirit of God to
have borne witness to who this child was. But that would not
have meant anything to Simeon had he not known something of
the Scriptures. Suppose he didn't know anything
about the Scriptures. Somebody said, that's the Christ.
What are you talking about? And more especially, how do you
know that? He looked down at this person,
a living person. And he saw in him, because the
Spirit of God revealed it to him, he saw in him that he is
God's salvation, that he is God's Christ. But he couldn't have,
had he not had some knowledge of the Scriptures, of the Old
Testament Scriptures that spoke of Christ. And the Spirit of
God revealed to him that this one is that one." You see what
I'm saying? The person that he saw and of
whom he said these words, the person that he saw, he saw by
faith. He saw by faith that Jesus of
Holy Scripture. And he quoted an Old Testament
passage, and he connected this Jesus to that prophecy. It was the site of faith. And in salvation, we do not simply
see a person as such. We see, by faith, this person
as he is set forth in the Word of God. Listen to what the Apostle says
in Hebrews 11. He says, Now faith, there is
no salvation apart from faith in Christ. But he says, now faith
is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. Is that right? Somebody says, you show me and
I'll believe. That's not faith. There was a
sense in which Simeon saw that person, saw that baby. There
was a sense in which he saw him, and it wasn't faith. But he saw him by faith. He had
an evidence of that which was not seen. He believed because
of God's Spirit. He believed that Word and testimony
of God concerning the Christ, that it was this person that
he spoke about. Faith, Paul says, cometh by hearing,
hearing by the Word of God. He could no more believe what
he had not seen any more than you and I could if we were holding
that Christ child apart from this work of God, revealing who
He is by the Word of God. I like what Peter says. Same
thing. I Peter 1 and verse 8, he speaks
of Him whom, having not seen, you love. You mean to tell me that Christ
can be loved by some who have not seen Him, that have not seen Him according
to the flesh? He says, whom having not seen,
you love, in whom though now you see Him not, yet believe
Him. You rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. You've not seen Him. You've not
touched Him. You don't know what He looks
like after the flesh, and neither does anybody else in our day. And though you've not seen Him,
you love Him. How do you love Him? Believing. Do you just believe that He is? The devils believe that. Do you
just believe a few generalized things about Him as far as a
historical record is concerned? He said, believing, and that
believing is a believing of the Word, of the truth, of the gospel,
because you cannot separate the living Word from the written
Word. Listen to Paul in chapter 4. He said, while we look not at
the things which are seen. If you can see it with your natural
eye, that's not what the kingdom of Christ is about. He says,
while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things
which are not seen, For the things which are seen are temporal,
but the things which are not seen are eternal." You can't see eternal things
with the natural eye. The things that are not seen,
the things that the Lord's people are unable to see by the eye
of God-given faith, those things are eternal and lasting. Christ himself, in John 20, says
this to Thomas. He said, Because you have seen
me, you have believed. Blessed are they that have not
seen They've not looked me in the
eye flesh to flesh like you have, Thomas. But you looked at me eyeball
to eyeball prior to this, and you didn't believe. But now you
believe, but it's not because you have seen me, and blessed
are they that have not seen and yet have believed. And then Paul shows the danger
in verse 4. He says, "...for if he that cometh
preacheth another Jesus." That's what he's getting at.
Another Jesus. Does that mean that there are
those who preach, who believe in, that there are religions
under the big banner of Christianity that actually preach, believe
another Jesus? Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the first things that
Peter After the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, one
of the first things that he stated was this. He said, neither is
there salvation in any other. He could have just blended in. He could have just preached this
generic God. But he said, everything that
has been done in this miraculous way, this one that we are preaching,
he is not just simply some kind of generic God, or he could have
said on this occasion, Jehovah, God's servant, or something like
that, and blended in with those religious Jews. But he said,
no, he's Jesus of Nazareth. And there is salvation in no
other. And there is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. No other. He got in trouble for
that. But that's the way it is. One
name. One salvation, one Christ who
says in John 14, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I hear people say, well, I've
got a little truth, or someone has got a little truth. If you
don't have Christ, you don't have any truth. You don't have
any life. You don't know the way. And yet
he himself sets forth as the way of distinguishing him some
things that are absolutely essential. Paul says this, for other foundation
can no man lay than that that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Just one Christ, one salvation,
one mediator, one priest, one righteousness, one King, one
Son of God, one Savior, one salvation, one righteousness? Turn back
over to Galatians and the first chapter. Listen to Paul here
in Galatians 1. In verse 6, he writes to these
Galatians and he says, I marvel that you are so soon removed
from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another
gospel." Another gospel is another Jesus. He says, which is not
another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert
the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from
heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have
preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before,
so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto
you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." For do I now persuade men, or
God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I should
not be the servant of Christ, but I certify you, brethren,
that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I
neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation
of Jesus Christ, the one I am preaching." He said, if I or
anybody else comes along and preaches any other Christ, any
other gospel, let them be a curse. He said, I include myself in
that. If I go off the deep end somewhere
and stray out into something wild, or it proves out that I'm
a false apostle, Nevertheless, what I have said, what I have
preached concerning this Jesus of Nazareth, that's the gospel. Let every person who departs from Him be accursed. You see, it actually comes down
to this. And I thought about this a lot
this week. Salvation is not really in a
person, salvation is in the person. That's the difference. It's in the person. It's in the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's in that one whose name is
so often counterfeited and spoken and used irreverently, the subject
of bumper stickers and all kinds of stupid stuff. But it is not
in the one they speak of, it's in Him. And yet, unlike Simeon, in this
world, most likely we will not see Jesus in the flesh face to
face. Now, that being the case, You show me how to know this
person without a description of this
person." Well, I say, I'd like for you
to get to know my friend Joe. Joe could help you. It would
do you good if you knew Joe. You really ought to believe on
Joe. Joe is a real person. then I turn and walk away. You've
never seen Him. You don't know Him. How in the
world could you ever love Him, depend on Him, be a friend to
Him, be rescued by Him or anything else? There's no way. So how are we to distinguish
the person from the impersonators. Three things. I'm going to give
them to you pretty fast. Number one, it has to be by a clear declaration
of who He is. Who are we talking about? First
of all, I want you to look back in Romans 10. Let's turn back
to Romans chapter 10. And look down in Romans 10 at
verse 13. Paul says, "...for whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Did you know that that has been
reduced in our day to nothing more than uttering the Word,
the name of Jesus? I called on Jesus and the preacher
said, I'm saved now. Well, to start with, to call
upon the name of the Lord means, according to all that I find
in the Old Testament, It means to approach Him and worship Him
in that one way that He has appointed through that one sacrifice of
blood that He ordained before the world began as the one way
of righteousness, the one way of our being accepted by Him. You go back in the Old Testament. And it says that Abraham built
an altar. What did he do? And he called
upon the name of the Lord there. You see another one. He came
to this place, he built an altar, and it says he called upon the
name of the Lord. He didn't just utter a name,
the name Jesus, he didn't even know about. But he sought to stand before
God. He sought to be accepted by God. He sought to be righteous in
the sight of God, in that One that God had told him he would
send, the One who would be that One that brings in everlasting
righteousness. He looked on Christ. That's what
he's talking about here. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved." But now listen to what he says
next. You never hear this part. "'How then shall they call on
him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard?' And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. I remember hearing Brother Mahan
say one time, you can't believe on one of whom you've never heard
any more than you can come back from where you've never been.
And that's the truth. You've never seen Jesus. I've
never seen Jesus. How do we know which one is the
real Jesus? How do we know which person? First of all, by this clear declaration
of who He is. I like what an old preacher,
probably more than one I'm sure, but an old preacher referred
to Him as that unique person. He's not just a person. He's
that unique person. What does that mean? One of a
kind. Never been another like Him.
Never will be another like Him. And when He is preached as this
unique person, distinguished in who He is as this person,
He is found to be completely different from just a person. He is the Son of God. He is really man, and He is really
God. I read recently, where someone
was charging another or a group of individuals as being Gnostics. When I read it, I thought, I
don't know much about Gnosticism, but this guy knows less than
I do, evidently. But I know this, the chief thing
about Gnosticism is this, a denial of the deity of Christ. No. He's Emmanuel. And He didn't leave us to try
to figure out what that meant. He said, which being interpreted
is God with us. The Word that John says in John
1 that was with God and was God, He said that Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us. It is not enough to say that
he was a good man or a great man. He is the God-man, and nothing
less. Great, Paul says, is that mystery
of godliness, that God was manifest in the flesh. That's something that has to
be maintained, has to be declared, he has to be distinguished as
this eternal Son of God, because the deity of Christ infinitely
exalted and secured and made sure the success of the work
of Christ. He could do what he did because
of who he is. Because only God can satisfy
God. That's just the way it is. God
will never accept anything that he doesn't give. Nothing can
ever go to God but what comes from God, and every attribute of God. If
you read the New Testament, if you read the Gospels, if you
read the Epistles, you will find the attributes that belong to
God, a very God, as being attributed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Omniscient. He didn't have to hear what a
man said. He knew what was in the heart of man. He had the
power not simply to heal, but to raise back from the dead. It's attributed to Him that He
is the Creator of all things. All things were made by Him and
for Him. Not only that, it has to be said
again and again that He is absolutely sinless, perfect. He, that One who was made sin
for us, is the one who was made sin, but who knew no sin. He knew no sin. When He's hanging there on that
cross, if we could have been standing there looking at Him,
I mean watching Him, listening to every word Will he somehow,
at some time, some way, actually become a sinner? No. Because right until he draws
his last breath, he is speaking words that show his blessed sinlessness. He is not railing on God. He is not casting against his
enemies at the foot of that cross. He is saying, Father, forgive
them. He knew no sin. And He's the one who's described
as holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. He was never polluted in any
way because the Lamb of God had to be the one typified by all
those Passover lambs. He had to be the Lamb without
blemish and without spot. He's the one who is tempted as
we are in all points, yet without sin. He has to be distinguished by
a clear declaration of who He is. And whatever it is, now listen,
whatever it is in our day, that men seize upon and set up in
opposition to the true Christ. Whatever about Him is set up
in opposition to the truth about Him, that's what we have to distinguish. And then the second thing is
this. There has to be a clear declaration of what He's done. You see, that's really how men
find out who the real Jesus is, which person it is, by that which
He has done. Now, you look back here in this
chapter, we're looking at Romans 10. Look back in Romans 10 and
look back at the 5th verse. Romans 10. For Moses describes
the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth
those things shall live by them, but the righteousness which is
of faith." This is totally different from
that which is called the righteousness of the law. The righteousness which is of
faith speaketh on this wise. Say not in thine heart who shall
ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down from above,
or who shall ascend into the deep, that is, to bring up Christ
again from the dead? But what saith it? The word is
nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that is, the
word of faith which we preach." That if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, thou shalt be saved. Is that all that's there? No. But said in our day, it's been
almost reduced to that. No, it says that if thou shalt
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the dead." That's not just a person. That's something about a person.
That God hath raised him from the dead, which literally means
something like this, that God accepted on the behalf of those
who believe all of Christ's work, His sacrifice, and showed His
pleasure in receiving it by raising Him from the dead. Somebody said, just believe on
Jesus. You just do and you'll perish. because you'll never
know the right one except there be a clear distinction and declaration
of what he has done. He says, for with the heart man
believeth under righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made under salvation. We don't just believe in Jesus. We just don't even believe that
He is man and God at the same time, that He's God manifested
in the flesh, that He lived a sinner's life. If that's all He did, we'd
still be lost. No, we believe something about
Him. We believe something about Him. If I said to some of you fellas
this morning, I won't say who. But if I said concerning you,
I could say, well, his name is so-and-so, and he's the skinniest
little rail and knot of a fella you've ever seen. I wouldn't be telling the truth
about you or me, either one. You see, we can only distinguish
this person not only by who he is, but by what he did. Jesus said to some men, I said
therefore unto you that you shall die in your sins, for if you
believe not that I am he, You'll die in your sins. He didn't
say, if you just don't believe on me. He said, if you don't
believe that I'm He. What's he talking about? The
Christ? The Messiah? The salvation of
God? The Son of God? If you don't
believe that I'm He. Actually, it said, if you don't
believe that I am. If you don't believe that I'm
God. You don't believe I'm Jehovah come in the flesh. You'll die in your sins. And I know you know this verse.
I've read it to you, quoted it to you, preached to you so many
times concerning what was said of Mary by the angel, what was
concerning her son. And she shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus. How many Jesus's do you expect? I'm talking about just the name
naturally itself. How many children do you expect
in Mexico and various places in the world where there has
been somebody named Jesus? Jesus. How would we know that this is
the Christ? For he shall save his people
from their sins." Now, my friends, what I'm saying
to you this morning is, any Jesus, I don't care who calls them this,
that does not, that has not saved all his people from their sins,
he's the wrong person. He's just the wrong person. Paul said this, he said, we preach
Christ crucified. He said, for I determined not
to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You see, the Scriptures identify
the true Christ by a specific, particular work of obedience. They identify Him by the work
that the Father gave Him to do. They identify Him by a work of
righteousness, the work He finished, and the work by which all His
people are saved. They distinguish Him by an obedience
which is an obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. I'll say this, his work is distinguished by
what he came to do, by what he actually did, and
by the results of what he did. And you want to find out the
one, you look at this book and you find out what work that He
came to do. I came to do the will of Him
that sent me. Find out what He actually did. And find out the results of what
He did. Do you realize that most people
in what is called Christianity in our day that supposedly believe
on Jesus, most of them believe that what Jesus did, the results
of what Jesus did, is left in the hands of fallen sinners. Whether to make it effectual,
whether to make it successful, what they're actually believing
is that the results of Christ's work didn't really do anything. How foolish. He came to do the
Father's will, which was to die that death as the substitute
of God's elect and display the righteousness of a God as a just
God and Savior in saving every one of them. He came to save them, and He
did. He came to redeem them. And He did. Just as was said
of Him in the Old Testament, when He comes, He shall not fail. He came to be the one sacrifice
for their sins forever. He came to purchase, to redeem
the church with His own blood. He came to lay down His life
for the sheep. And a Savior whose work makes
things possible or available is no Savior. And a Savior whose
work is successful or effectual only to those who make it so
by their decision or faith is no Savior. And a Savior whose
work does not save every sinner that God desires to save is no
Savior. And then, quickly, here's the
third thing. Has to be this clear declaration
of who He is, and a clear declaration of what it is He's done. And
there has to be a clear revelation by the Spirit of God. Essential for anybody to know who He really
is. For anybody to believe on Him,
or to trust and to love this Person, there must be an almighty
work of grace and power in their hearts. Why? Let me just read you a few
words out of Isaiah 53 concerning Him. for he shall grow up before him
as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath
no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him there is no
beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we
hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not." That's the reception of Christ
by every son of Adam naturally, even God's elect. Because to our natural eyes,
to our flesh, to our natural understanding, there's nothing
about Him that would appeal to us, no beauty, no glory, that
we should desire Him, because we don't even see ourselves. The Holy Spirit. must come to us, must come in us and dwell us,
give us spiritual life, give us faith to see Him and to believe Him. That's what our Lord said He
would do. He said, I'll send the Comforter. I'll send the
Spirit of Truth, and He will take the things of mine and show
them to you. I was thinking recently about
a statement that I sometimes hear about powerful preaching. What powerful preaching? Is it loud preaching? Is it great
oratory? Is it great illustrations? Is
it dogmatic preaching? I think those things are what
most people call powerful preaching. But let me tell you what powerful
preaching is. is the preaching of the gospel
of Jesus Christ when it is taken by the Holy Spirit and powerfully
used by Him to reveal Christ in us. A man can stand, and he may be
a monotone. He may never raise or lower his
voice. If he's speaking the truth in
Christ, if he's declaring clearly who he is and what it is that
he's done, if he's a man of ignorant background, no lettered education,
whatever it is, the Spirit uses it to reveal
Christ to one of his sheep. Buddy, that's powerful preaching.
And a guy can blow and rare and be dogmatic and forceful and
everything like that, but if God doesn't use it, it's like
a bullet falling out the end of a gun barrel, dropping to
the ground. Not by our might, not by our
power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. He's the great revealer. And we may preach the gospel
clearly, but if he doesn't reveal it to
a sinner, you'll never see it. If Simeon had not had the Spirit
of God revealed, how many children do you suppose were brought?
That was the Jewish custom. How many children do you suppose
were brought into that temple in a year's time that he held? How did he know this was the
one? The Spirit of God revealed to
him. This is Him. This is Him. He has to take the things of
Christ and reveal them to us, and as Paul said, reveal Him
in us. He has to come to our blindness
and our deadness and our ignorance and our rebellion and reveal
the Lord Jesus Christ. Like Christ said in Nicodemus,
we have to be born again. That simply means we have to
be birthed from above. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. In this gospel is the righteousness
of God revealed, that every sinner he saves, that
every one of His elect that He chose and blessed with all spiritual
blessings in Christ before the world began. Every sinner that
Christ died for, every sinner that the Spirit of God calls,
it reveals that God is right to do this because He's dealt
with them in His Son. This is the righteousness of
God. Turn over to 1 Corinthians, Chapter
2. 1 Corinthians, Chapter 2. I've
shown you this, but I hope you know this. I hope you understand
this, but let me do it one more time. Paul said, And I, brethren, when
I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom,
declaring unto you the testimony of God. It wasn't that he couldn't
do that, I don't think. It wasn't that he didn't have
this ability. But those things are nothing
when it comes to a man or a woman or a young person knowing Christ. He said, I declared unto you
the testimony of God. For I determined not to know
anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness,
and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power. Now, let me say this, and I believe
this is the truth. I believe that some people in our day who
claim to love the gospel, if they'd heard Paul preach,
they'd be kind of disappointed. You see, if what you're looking
for how something is preached instead of what is preached,
you'll always be disappointed. The gospel will never come to
your ears, never come to your mind, never come to you as that
which is good news. He said, I was in weakness, fear. He didn't exude confidence. I'll have to say, when I stand
up and preach, I've been scared a lot in my life, but I've never
been any more scared than I am then. I fear not to tell you
just exactly what God says. He said that your faith should
not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Say, what do you believe? Well, I believe what preacher
so-and-so preaches. Well, what does preacher so-and-so
preach? Well, he preaches what I believe. Don't believe what I say because
I said it. If what I say is what God says,
believe it. If it's not, don't believe. He said, how be it we speak wisdom
among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world,
nor of the princes of this world that come to gnaw, but we speak
the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which
God ordained before the world under our glory. This isn't something
new, Paul says. It is that wisdom, that mystery,
which simply means heretofore not clearly revealed, which none of the princes of
this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory." He said, "'But as it is written,
I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that
love him.'" He didn't prepare it for them because they loved
him. They now love him. And they found out that he prepared
it for them. But just like it was said in
Simeon's day, Isaiah's day, and every age, I hadn't seen this. Ear hadn't heard this. It's not
even entered into the heart of man. This glorious good news. But Paul says to these Corinthians,
who I'm sure were a ragtag lot, coming from where they came from
and out of the backgrounds they came from. He said, but God hath revealed
them unto us by his Spirit, by his Spirit, even so No, he says, for the Spirit searcheth
all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth
the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him?
I don't really know what's in you. I don't know really what you
think. Probably if I knew exactly what
you really thought about me, I'd run out that door. I don't
know it. He said, neither can you know
the things of God. save the Spirit of God revealing."
Now, we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the
Spirit which is of God, that we might know. I love this verse. We receive the Spirit of God
that we might know. That has a twofold meaning. that
we might know in the sense of having the knowledge of this,
and that we might know in the sense of loving what He's made
known to us. That we may know the things that
are freely given to us of God. Now, I hear preachers sometimes
make fun of knowledge. Buddy, I want that knowledge.
That's the knowledge of the truth. That's the knowledge of Christ. That's God-given knowledge. That's
the knowledge that He gives through this Word, and by which He reveals Christ.
And in Christ shows us the things that are freely given to us. If you're a bankrupt sinner,
you need that. That'll be good news to you if
you find out something's freely given to you of God in Christ,
a free salvation. Our Lord said, to the fact that all these natural
men receive not the things of God in their foolishness because
they're spiritually discerned. He said on one occasion, when
they did just exactly that they showed and demonstrated, they
had no interest in it. It says, And at that time Jesus
answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and
prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight, all things are delivered unto me of my Father,
and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father, neither knoweth any
man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son
will reveal him." It must be this work of God's Spirit.
It must be this revelation. On one occasion, he looked at his disciples. He'd
been speaking to these people in parables. They said, why do you speak in
parables? He answered and said unto them,
Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven. It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven. But to them it is not given. They're left to think what they
want to think, do what they want to do, believe what they want
to believe, seek to stand before God in their own righteousness.
It's not given unto them. It's given
to you. When Peter confessed, when the
Lord Jesus said, who do men say that I am? They said, well, they say that
some say you're Elijah, some say that you're one of the other
prophets and such. He said, but who do you say that
I am? They say you're a person. Who
do you say that I am? In so many words, he said, we
say you're the person. You are the Christ, the Son of
the living God. And our Lord said, Blessed are
you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it
unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. That's what the new birth is
about. It's a revelation from God, revelation from heaven by
the Spirit of God through the gospel as to who Jesus Christ
is and what he's done for us. You see in Luke 2 where we read
about Simeon, it says, And it was revealed
unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before
he had seen the Lord's Christ, until he had found out which person the Savior is. That's what I want us to know
is which person. And to look only to Him. To plead
His shed blood alone. To see in His person and work. the righteousness of God. May God help us to believe. Father, this day we give You
praise and thanksgiving and glory, and pray that You would take
Your Word and go forth in power, taking Your message to wherever
and to whomever You would. blessing it to be used of your
spirit that men and women and young people might be brought
to see thy salvation, to know which person and to believe on
him. We thank you for your mercy to
us, and we pray and give to you all glory. In Christ Jesus our
Lord. Amen.