Okay, go ahead and turn this
morning, if you would, to Ecclesiastes 3.14, where we began looking
last week. And while you're turning, once
you find that, go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Let's go back to Ecclesiastes
3 because I want to go ahead and read the verse that we began
looking at last week. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and I'm
going to be reading verse 14. Now last week we went ahead and
read from verse 1 down through down through verse 14, but today
we'll just, for the sake of time, we'll just read verse 14 to remind
us of what we were looking at. The Bible says, I know that whatsoever
God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men should
fear before him. Father, Lord, we come now and
we ask that you be with us today. that you might speak to our hearts
and to our minds, that you might send the Spirit of Christ to
teach us. Lord, we pray that you would
have already begun to prepare our heart to come and exalt you
in worship. Lord, we pray that you would
just guide us and direct us in this worship. We ask, Lord, that
Christ would be exalted and glorified in the things that are said.
Lord, we know that everything that is done here today without
your help would be in vain. And so, Lord, we come once again
exalting our Savior and the salvation that He has brought to us. And
it's in His name that we pray. Amen. Well, last week we began
to look at Ecclesiastes 3.14. Specifically, we were looking
at the works of God. As we read verses 1 down to 3.14,
We've seen that in the works of God, that God has put a time
and a season for everything, that God has declared all things,
has declared everything that would ever happen, that all things
have been predestinated by God, all things have been ordained
of Him and are being controlled by Him. So we see that God in
His works, not only did He decree it, foresee it, foreknow it. He foreknows it because he decreed
it, but God's foreknowledge, God's predestinating it, God's
before the foundation of the world, purposing everything that
would ever happen. But not only did he do that,
but then in time, as he created all things, he is now in the
lifespan of this creation, he is bringing all of that purpose
to its fulfillment. He's bringing everything that
He has decreed, that He has willed, that He has purposed, that He
intends to be done. Everything is happening exactly
the way that He is. And if you remember last week,
I mentioned that's really the difference between what we believe
and what others that falsely call us fatalists What
the difference between predestination and fatalism is, is fatalism
is as things just end up by fate, by chance, by random happenings,
by the chaotic workings of men with all their wills and choices
being made, this is the eventual end that happens. Where God has
predestinated everything in a specific way, in a specific order, and
everything is happening exactly, not one little deviation, from
everything that God has purposed so that the end result is exactly
as God had purposed it from the beginning. And as we know, the
scripture says that known unto God are all his works, the end
from the beginning. So God's purpose won't get to
its final end and everything end up exactly the way it ends
up by random chance. It doesn't happen by fate. It
doesn't happen even by God giving men free will and just as they
make their free wills whenever they choose something against
God's will, God turns that backwards and turns it into good. No, He
actually ordains the bad things that are against His will or
sin. He predestines sin in His purpose
and He uses that sin of man to accomplish His purpose. talked
about before, one of the biggest examples of that is the crucifixion
of Jesus Christ. The purpose of God is to display
the glory of God in the death of Christ in the redemption of
his people. Christ dying on that cross, his
life of obedience to the law, his death on that cross, his
resurrection, every bit of that was by the hands of wicked men,
an actual wicked evil sin accomplished that task that God had purposed
from the foundation of the world because Christ was slain before
the foundation of the world. And that was manifested in this
time through the hands of evil men and God had purposed every
action that took place in that. But the purpose of that evil
was for the glorification of God, was for the exaltation of
Christ and for the salvation of his people. So what men thought
for evil God meant for good. And so God means evil to take
place. God means sin to take place for
His good even though He hates sin, even though He hates evil,
even though He will judge all the wicked accordingly for that
evil. He still hates it. He still does
like that. But he does not become a sinner
or his holiness does not become compromised because he has predestinated
that in his purpose to accomplish all that he is doing. He has
created and made the wicked for the day of evil, for the day
of all their wrongdoings. He has created them for that
purpose. That's why he created them. And
so, So we see that everything, even the sin, even the evil,
the wickedness, all that we see today, this is all part of the
purpose of God. Nothing's going outside the purpose
of God. And so we see that the works
of God here, that we've seen in verses one down through verse
13, are all in the time and the season that God has planned.
We had a dear friend pass away this week, Doris passed away,
but she didn't pass away. At the wrong time, she didn't
pass away too soon or too late. She didn't pass away by some
freak chance or freak thing. Everything was purposed by God. There is a time to live, there
is a time to die. It is appointed of the man his
time to die. Every man has, and woman, child,
kid, baby, infant, everybody has their appointed time of death
and God has a purpose and all of that. And so we've seen that.
And so we talked last week about, especially verse 14, how nothing
can be taken from it and nothing can be put to it. That God's
purpose, nobody can change that. Nobody can put anything to it.
Nobody can take away from it. God's purpose is set. It will
not change. God cannot change. If God makes
out a purpose and he says, this is what I'm going to do. Nobody
can change his mind. Nobody can change that. Now,
a lot of people try to say, you know, well, yeah, God's mind
did change. Look about Nineveh, you know.
He said he's going to destroy Nineveh, but if Jonah will go
and preach to them, if they turn their hearts, then he won't do
that. Well, he changed his mind. He was going to destroy Nineveh,
but whenever they believed and changed, God didn't change his
mind. What did he say? Go and preach to the people of
Nineveh, and if they repent, I will not destroy them. Well,
where does repentance come from? God grants repentance. And so
God didn't do anything outside of his purpose. He said, I want
to destroy them if they don't repent. But they repented. So he didn't destroy them. He
did exactly what he said. I'm not going to destroy them
if they repent. And he didn't destroy them when they repented. So now he did destroy them later
on down the line, but he didn't destroy them at that point in
time. He told Jonah, go to Nineveh and preach. Jonah said, no. And
so he decided to go to Tarshish, And so he hopped a boat to go
to Tarsus instead of Nineveh. Did somebody change and take
away from God's plan? God planned for Noah to go to,
or not Noah, for Jonah to go to Nineveh. But he went, started,
headed on a ship. Nope. Where did Jonah end up?
He ended up on the shores of Nineveh, puked up by a big fish. Because God's purpose is gonna
stand. Nobody's gonna put to it. Nobody's
gonna take it away. Jonah thought, hey, I'm gonna
go this way. Man deviseth his ways, devises
his plan, but it's God who directs his steps. Jonah said, hey, I
want to go this way. God says, okay, you think you're
going to go that way, but I'm directing your steps. You're
going to end up right over there where I told you to go. And there
where he was. Jonah didn't want to preach to
him. He didn't think they deserved God's grace. But what he ended
up doing, he preached to him anyway. And he preached to him
not wanting to preach to him. And then he even got mad whenever
God did what he said he would do. I'm not going to destroy
them if they repent. And they repented and Jonah got
mad because God didn't kill them. So, God's purpose is always going
to take place no matter what men think they're going to do.
And so, nothing can be taken from it. So we've seen that God's
eternal purpose, nothing can be put to it, nothing can be
taken away. But we also, as we ended last week's message, we
began to look at specifically in the realm of salvation. That
what God has purposed in the salvation of His people which
He purposed before the foundation of the world. The Bible says
the works were done from the foundation of the world. But
in 2nd Timothy we read that not only were we saved and called
before the foundation of the world, those works were finished
before the foundation of the world and Christ being slain
from the foundation of the world. We learn that they were manifested.
by the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and by
that perfect obedience, by that perfect sacrifice, by His death,
His resurrection, that He saved, based on those words, that God
saved His people. It's an objective thing. I posted
on Facebook this morning, salvation is not subjective. We say that
salvation is subjective. That means that salvation is
possible, but these things have to take place for salvation to
happen. If this doesn't happen, then
salvation cannot happen. But we say, no, that's not what
the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that salvation
is objective, meaning that the actual work of salvation happens
completely outside of anything subjective. So no events, no
thoughts, no words, no wills, no choices, actions, no laws,
no nothing can stop the work of salvation because the work
of salvation was not only accomplished but was applied completely and
totally outside of any action of anybody except for the one
who actually did the work. And the one who did the work
was Christ. It wasn't us that did the work.
It wasn't the church that did the work. It wasn't some organization
that did the work. No missionary board did the work.
The work of salvation is not being carried out today. We keep
hearing this on TV and radio and from all the churches that
surround us and everything. We hear that we are in the saving
business. We are out there to save souls.
You know, I used to sing in the Southern Gospel Group and we
used to travel all over the place and we were out there to win
souls for Jesus. We looked at ourselves as missionaries
going out and we were going to save souls through the singing
of the gospel and everything. Salvation is not taking place
as far as the legal aspect of salvation, the justification,
the sanctification before God. That is a done deal. That is
already wrapped up from the foundation of the world, brethren. It is
not something that is ongoing. Christ has saved His people from
their sin and they are truly saved Whether it be from before
the cross or whether it be until he comes again, everybody in
between has already been the recipients of that grace that
was given apart from anything they ever knew, everything that
they ever did. Let me break that down and give us a little contradiction.
Sorry, I've got a whisker that keeps getting in my mouth and
driving me nuts. There are people that are yet
to be born. I don't know when Christ will return and the end
of everything will be, okay? But we know that if Christ does
tarry and not come, that there are gonna be people that are
gonna be born, right? There are gonna be people that
are gonna grow up and grow old. And during that time period,
At some point, they may come up here and understand and learn
and begin to believe the gospel. And whatever date that is, let's
just say 2025. Okay, that's only a couple years
away. So let's just say 2025. Somebody
who has never heard about Jesus, ever done anything, they at this
point is living, but they've never heard the gospel. But they
are one of Christ's chosen elect from the foundation of the world.
Christ died for them when he died on the cross. But they've
never heard the gospel being preached. They've never heard
the gospel come to their mind, come to their heart by the Holy
Ghost teaching and teach them that their salvation was by what
Christ did on that cross. They've never heard that. They've
never experienced it. Are they still saved? Or are
they yet to be saved? Well, in the legal aspect of
things, they are saved already. I was saved before I was ever
born. All the people of God are saved
before they were ever born, before they ever heard the gospel, before
they ever, ever received the gospel to themselves, believed
the gospel, before they ever was baptized, before they was
ever brought into the church, they were already saved. Nothing
changed that. The preaching of the gospel to
them didn't make them saved. They didn't get born again because
they heard the gospel. They were already saved because
of the work of Jesus Christ. Way back. Before it ever happened
here. Before you ever heard it. Before
you ever knew it. You were already saved. So that
person that is out there, that is the elect sheep of God, wherever
that sheep may be, lost and wandering unknowing of their salvation
is already a sheep, is already a child of God, is already the
elect of God, saved from the foundation of the world. But
yet they get to hear it, to experience it, to feel the knowledge and
the comfort that comes from that. That hasn't happened yet. But
they truly are saved. And the preaching of the gospel
isn't what saves them before God. It doesn't cause them to
be justified. And their believing that doesn't justify them before
God. God isn't waiting and saying,
okay, there's one of my sheep over there and they've not believed
or heard the gospel. I sure hope a missionary can
get over there to them before they die because I really would
like them to come to me. No, that ain't happening. And they're not waiting, God's
not waiting, saying, Christ has already died for them, and if
they believe, then I'm going to declare that they're just,
but right now they're under condemnation, and right now they're under my
wrath, but as soon as they believe, then I'm going to love them,
and then I'm going to take away that wrath, and I'm going to
remove that condemnation. No, the Bible says there is therefore
now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you're
a child of God, you are in Christ Jesus from the foundation of
the world. The now there is not at this exact minute it's going
to take place. There is therefore now in our
understanding. When Paul was preaching that
verse, whenever Paul was teaching that verse to those Corinthians,
he said, there is therefore now, I'm sorry, Romans, the Romans,
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
He wasn't saying now that I believe there is now no condemnation,
although whenever we begin to believe the gospel, whenever
Christ gives us faith and repentance and we begin to see Christ and
Christ alone is our salvation, then yes, we are saved from the
wrong knowledge of salvation. But as far as our legal aspect
of it, that doesn't That didn't change anything. It didn't cause
us to be born again when we began to believe that or whenever we
heard that. Whenever God brought that message,
that right there was given to us and faith had been given to
us so that we could enjoy and be comforted by that. Not so
that we could be changed or so that we could become born again
by that. So nothing can be put to it and
nothing can be taken away. If somebody is preaching that
salvation comes from the preaching of the gospel, then something
is being put to it. Christ's salvation in what He
accomplished on the cross isn't enough. It requires a preacher
to go preach a gospel message with the right information, by
the way. If you don't preach it with the
right information, then they can't be saved because everybody
knows that someone cannot be saved by the wrong gospel. Right? You see, the work of God now
is being diminished because the preacher either is not going,
has not reached Him yet, the preaching or the salvation of
that elect is in the balance because the preachers are yet
to get to them, or if the preacher gets to them, is he preaching
the right message? Is he preaching the right gospel?
Is he going to preach them something and they're going to believe
something that is wrong? And someone said, well they can't
believe something that's wrong, God's given them faith and the
faith of Christ only believes the truth that Christ gives them.
Okay, so then it doesn't matter what gospel message is being
preached because they've already been taught to only believe what
truth is. So then So then the teaching
of the Holy Spirit is apart from the preaching of the gospel.
It is something that is done inwardly and immediately, that
the works upon the heart and the mind are the works of the
Holy Spirit by itself, not by the preacher. But the preacher,
whenever he comes, the Holy Spirit confirms, that's true. And we
say, that's true. I believe that. That's a blessing
to my heart. That brings me comfort. If anybody
listening and watching here, if I say something or preach
something and it comes from the truth of God's word and it's
the truth of God, the Holy Spirit brings comfort to that. I didn't
teach you that. I didn't convey that. I didn't confer any grace
to you. The Holy Spirit is the one who
said that is the truth. But what did He do first? He
had to already make the heart and the mind open and willing
and receptive to the truth. before the truth could ever do
anything. That's why in the Bible whenever it talks about the sower
going out and sowing good seed, who is the sower? It's not the
preacher. It's not the pastor. It's not the evangelist. It's
not the missionary. The scripture says the one who
sows the seed is God. God sows the seed. And some seed fell on thorny
ground. Some seed fell on hard ground. Some seed the birds came and
ate. But then there was some seed that fell on good ground
and it brought forth fruit unto God. Some 30-fold, some 50-fold,
some 70-fold. I can't remember the numbers,
but the Bible teaches that it grew and brought forth fruit.
Some more than others. Well, the one who sowed them
is Christ. Who's the one who made the ground
good? The ground didn't do that. The plant didn't do that. The
seed didn't do that. How many times have we gone out
here in this yard and we've thrown grass seed out in this yard,
hoping to make our grass look better, and to grow in the patches
and all that kind of stuff, and we've thrown seed and nothing's
happened? Especially right out there, that one patch right there
behind Caitlin's car. That patch right there, it doesn't
seem to always want to grow grass. Why? If I throw the seed on there,
why did the seed, when I threw it over there, make nice plush
looking grass, but when I threw it right there, Nothing happened.
Well, the ground's better over there. Well, it's the same seed. I threw the same seed over there
that I threw over here, but why didn't that seed grow? Because
the ground wasn't good. It wasn't made receptive for
the seed. There's nothing wrong with the seed. It's the same
seed. There's nothing wrong with the sower. The guy that sowed
it is the same guy. I threw that out there. Was it
in the way that I cast it that made it rot? No. The only difference
is that seed was made receptive of the word. That seed wasn't. That ground over there was made
receptive before the seed was even cast so that when the seed
would be cast, it would be receptive of that seed. This over here,
not so much. Did the seed wiggle its way down
and make the ground good? No. Who made the ground good? Well, in this instance here,
it would be, I got out there and we aerated the ground, we
dug up the rocks, we made the soil good. The one who is the
gardener, the one who is the sower, the one who is the vine
dresser, these are all biblical terms as Speaking of God, the
one who is tending over the cultivation of these plants, He's the one
who makes it good. Who's the one that made the ground
good? It's God. It's not the preacher preaching the message,
scattering seed. Who's the one who did it? It's
God. So whenever we look at these passages of scripture and we
look at the objections that might come as we're fixing to get into,
whenever men say, well, it's the preaching of the gospel,
That is what causes one to be born again or that saves. You
have to have a preacher preaching the gospel. It has to be the
right gospel because the hearer that's been given faith can't
hear or believe a false gospel or you can't ever be saved by
a false gospel. That's the problem. These arguments
are ridiculous because salvation doesn't come by the preaching
of the gospel anyway. The salvation of the elect of
God before God in its legal aspects comes by the work of Jesus Christ
objectively, not subjectively. If salvation is subjected to
a preacher preaching the right message and the person hearing
the right message and then believing that right message, then that
is not grace alone. That is a conveying of grace
that is a sacrament The reformers call these things sacraments.
The Catholics call this sacraments. And then, of course, all the
Protestants that came out of the Catholic Church, they call
it a sacrament. That preaching the gospel is
a sacrament. Meaning that, now, I guarantee you there's a lot
of sovereign grace guys who believe that the preaching of the gospel
is what saves. They wouldn't say that their preaching is a
sacrament. But that's what they, in a sense, are saying whenever
they say that nobody can be saved without the preaching of the
gospel. and no one can be saved without the preaching of the
correct gospel, then nobody is going to be saved because the
Holy Spirit is not going to use a false gospel to save anybody.
Well, the Holy Spirit doesn't use the gospel to save anybody. Jesus saved by His work on the
cross. The Holy Spirit gives life apart
from the preaching of the gospel so that when the preaching of
the gospel comes, the seed will bring forth fruit. See, they're getting the cart
before the horse. The sovereign grace men of today, whether they
be Reformed or those who don't claim to be Reformed but believe
that justification is in time at belief, and I don't care what
they say in all their academic works, they're not saying anything
different than the Arminian who says that we can't be saved until
we believe. They're saying we cannot be justified
before God until we believe. God doesn't justify anybody until
we believe. God withholds that justification
declaration until one believes. Well, that's no different than
what I believed as an Armenian. I just call it getting saved.
You don't get saved until you believe. You don't get born again
until you believe. Well, they believe that you don't
get born again until you hear the gospel. There's gospel regeneration,
gospel salvation. You're regenerated by the gospel
and then you're converted by the gospel. But brethren, I would say that
the preaching of the gospel is for those who have already been
saved. The preaching of the gospel is good news to those who have
already been born again. The preaching of the gospel is
to them who have already been given faith. And so that is why
we're looking today, what we're looking at. Now, I mentioned
last week whenever we ended that today we're going to look at
some objections because I talked about this verse a few
years back and there was a couple of comments that was made in
regards to what was said about this verse whenever I talked
about it. And a friend of mine, And I do consider him a friend,
although we definitely believe different in doctrine. But I
do consider him a friend, still do, I don't know if he still
does me, but I still consider him a friend. He came up with
some questions in response to this verse, whenever I pointed
out this verse in Ecclesiastes, is a reference to the fact that
it doesn't matter what we do, God's purpose is always going
to be done. It's going to be done. And so
the first question that he came up with, and it seems to be the
question that comes up by a lot of people whenever you preach
these things, is then, so why preach the gospel? If God's going
to save only who he wants to save, and that salvation doesn't
come by anything that anybody does, and it's going to happen
whether you want it to or not, everything's going to happen
predestined, it's set in stone, then why preach the gospel? So
we're not to preach the gospel. And the verse that he gave, and
I want you to turn to it, is 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse
21. The verse he gave to prove what
I was saying was wrong, or at least my interpretation of it
was wrong, because the verse ain't wrong. Ecclesiastes, he
says what it says. That's the truth of God, right?
Now our interpretations of these things can be wrong, but God's
word is never wrong. But he pointed to 1 Corinthians
chapter 1 and verse 21 in proof that there is the need to preach
the gospel for people to be saved. Now let's read what the Bible
says at verse 21, but then I want to break back and I want to hopefully
answer that objection. He says, for after that in the
wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. And so he said, so see there,
you need to preach the gospel because that's where people are
saved. By the foolishness of preaching,
men are saved. A couple of things that I would
like us to look at here. Number one, let's look at the
most obvious though, okay? Let's look at the most obvious,
and it's right there in the verse, it's right there at the end of
the verse. Look at who are the ones that are saved, right? What does it say there? The ones
who are saved by the foolishness of preaching. Let's just say
that right now. Who are the ones who were saved
by the foolishness of preaching, if that's what that means? But
let's just say that. It's the ones that believe, right? So again, we have a specific
group of people that is intended, only the ones that believe. So
the ones who are saved by preaching are not everybody. Now they say
that it's the preaching of the gospel that saves people. And
it only saves the elect. And God uses the preaching of
that gospel And that preaching of the gospel is what converts
the heart, is what changes the person to cause them to be born
again, to go from the natural to the spiritual. So the act
of actually being born from above comes from a preacher preaching
the right gospel message. That's what's being said by those
who are disagreeing with us. That's what's being said by those
who believe in sovereign grace but hold to gospel regeneration
or gospel conversion. They're saying that the preaching
of that gospel by that preacher with that right gospel message
is what causes the heart to be born again by the power of the
spirit. The spirit is waiting for that
gospel message and he takes that gospel message and he plunges
that into the heart creating a new heart. The Bible says that
God said, I will take out of them a heart of stone and put
into them a heart of flesh that they might know. That they might
know. See, putting in the heart and
the mind that is different than what we have in the natural man,
that which is created from above, that new, the Bible says it's
a new creation. It's not taking and changing
what's already there. It's a new creation. That new creation that
is receptive to spiritual things is a spiritual thing, not a fleshly
thing. Preaching to the fleshly hearts
and minds and emotions and ears of the people is never going
to change anything. It's a spiritual work done by
the Spirit alone. We cannot do that. We don't operate
on that. The Spirit isn't using us as
the tool to operate His job. His job is His job. He does it. The Spirit is the one who gives
life. And he does that so that we might
understand, that we might know. Matter of fact, in 1 Corinthians,
we see in the second chapter, which is just a continuation
of what Paul is talking about in chapter one, by the way. But
in chapter 2 verse 12 he says, Now we have received not the
spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given to us. That's
the gospel. The things freely given to us is the gospel. So
the preaching of the gospel isn't what causes us to be born again
or be alive or to be saved. The preaching of the gospel is
for those who have already been saved, who have already been
given life and spiritual understanding, so that they might know. That
has to be done first so that this person who, apart from spiritual
life, only has the natural mind, can think with the natural reasoning,
with natural wisdom, and we learn here that the, verse 21, that
in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. We cannot
know in our natural minds the wisdom of God in saving people
by Jesus on the cross. We think it has to be Jesus on
the cross makes open the gateway, but we have to do something in
response so that Jesus will give us that. That's the foolishness
of the world. That's the wisdom of the world.
The wisdom of the world tax things on to what Christ has done alone
and says it has to be Jesus plus this. So whether you're the Arminian
that says Jesus has done all he can do, now you have to make
a choice, you have to do this, you have to do that, whatever
it might be, or whether it's the sovereign grace guy that
says, yes, Jesus died for his elect only, but you have to preach
the gospel, they have to believe the gospel, and then they'll
be saved or justified. Either way, whether it's the
Arminian or the sovereign grace, semi-quasi-sovereign grace person
that is preaching this message of gospel regeneration, gospel
conversion, both those people are adding to or taking away
from what Christ has done. They're adding to, saying this
has to be added to Christ, and in doing that, they are taking
away from the work of what Christ has done. Christ didn't do enough.
You have to complete the process. You have to complete the transaction.
So, those things are given so that we might know. So the preaching
of the gospel isn't what saves. The preaching of the gospel is
not what justifies. The preaching of the gospel is
not what makes one alive. It's the preaching of the gospel
that gives us the knowledge of the salvation that we've already
been given. So that's the first obvious thing
we see here. That verse in 1 Corinthians 121
is not saying by the foolishness of preaching, men are justified,
men are quickened, men are saved in that sense. Now what do we
say from the foolishness of preaching? Well from the foolishness of
preaching, by the preaching of the gospel, the one who has been
given faith, the one who has already been quickened, has been
given repentance and faith, that preaching of the gospel saves
them from the wrong knowledge of salvation, the wrong knowledge
of quickening, the wrong knowledge of justification, It saves them
from the religious works that men try to push on everybody,
that you have to maintain this level of works for God to be
satisfied or pleased with you. It saves them from all of that.
It saves them the discomfort that they hear when they hear
religious preachers preaching all these rules and regulations
and all these commitments that you've got to make to God in
order for Him to be pleased with you. That discomfort, that overwhelming
pressure that comes from the law, the preaching of the Gospel
saves us from its condemning sound. It saves us from that. It saves us in our experience
and knowledge. It doesn't save us in the legal
sense at all, whatsoever. But let's look a little bit further.
It says, to them that believe. So first off, we see that it's
restricted only to those who believe. And now, without having
to go into a whole lot of being said, we know that the only ones
who believe are the ones who are Christ's sheep. Remember,
we talked about that a few weeks ago. Jesus said, you believe
not because you are not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me. The only ones who believe the
gospel are the ones who are Christ's sheep. Those who are the elect
from the foundation of the world. All those that the Father gave
me shall come believe on me. Who are the ones who believe?
Only the ones and only the ones who were given to Christ by the
Father. That's the election. The Bible teaches it from cover
to cover. So who are the ones here in view?
Who are the ones saved by the foolishness of preaching? The
elect of God. But not only the elect, the elect who believe.
The gospel is the power of God. That's another one that they
come up with. The gospel is, I'm not ashamed of the gospel,
for it is the power of God. But remember, even in that verse
it says, to those who believe. See, the preaching of the gospel,
the preaching of the cross, it is the power of God, the power
of God, to them that believe. But here's the thing I want us
to look at. Let's look at the context of this verse that is in this
objection. The person puts forth that the
preaching or the foolishness of preaching is what is saving
men. But what is Paul actually talking
about here? Is he talking actually about the declaration of the
gospel is what is saving them? Let's back up just a little bit. And let's get into the context
of this. Look at verse 10. It says, Now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the
same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that
ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment. He's saying you guys need to
be gathered around the same message. Some of you guys are saying I'm
of Apollos, I'm of Paul. Okay. You're saying that there's
these divisions among you, saying, I'm of this group, I'm of the
sovereign grace group, who believes in gospel regeneration. I'm of
the justification by, or eternal justification group. I'm the
justification at the cross group. I'm the justification in time
group. There's all these groups of people. And Paul is saying,
listen, we need to all be saying the same thing. We all need to
be talking about the same thing. We're not of Paul, we're not
of Apollos. If we talk about that any day, I'm not of this
preacher or that preacher. God forbid anybody be saying
I'm of Michael Smith. Michael Smith is nothing. Michael
Smith is insignificant. I'm probably the least of any
preacher. I'm a horrible preacher. I only
can preach what God has given me to preach, and I pray that
what I preach is what God has given me. But listen, brother. It isn't following after anybody. When you hear people putting
all these preachers on pedestals and everything, that's a bunch
of hogwash. But Paul goes on, he says, For
it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them
which are of the household of Chloe, that there are contentions
among you. Now this I say, that every one
of you say it, I am of Paul, and I am of Paul's, and I am
of Cephas, and I am of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified
for you? Or were you baptized in the name
of Paul? He says, I thank God that I baptized
none of you but Crispus and Gaius. Now that doesn't mean that there
isn't importance in baptism. Paul, and I've heard this being
preached in this portion of scripture, that Paul is downplaying water
baptism by immersion, that he's downplaying that. Some of them
go so far as to say that there is no longer any need for water
baptism and everything, but that's not what Paul is talking about.
That's for another day. He says, lest any should say
that I had baptized in my own name, and I baptized also the
household of Stephanas besides, I know not whether I baptized
any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the
cross of Christ should be made of none effect. See, the preaching
of the gospel is not to titillate the knowledge The intellect. The preaching of the gospel is
not there to motivate the intellect with wisdom. He said, I came
not to preach the wisdom of words. Now did he not come and preach
with words? He sure did. Did he not come
and preach with wisdom? He sure did. But what is he saying
here? I've not come to preach with
the wisdom of the world. Now that's what's in contrast
with the foolishness of preaching. The foolishness of preaching
what? Paul came preaching a message that was contrary to the wisdom
of the world's message. The wisdom of the world had a
message on how one could be saved. Paul came and preached another
message of how men were saved. And that's the contrast. Paul
is not discussing here the actual declaration of the gospel being
what saves, but he's talking about what the content of that
gospel, what actually saves somebody. In the wisdom of the world, what
saves people were the works that they did before God. The religious
activities, the law keeping. To the Jew, it was the keeping
of the law. To the Greeks, it was their intellectual
mind. You put the two together, you
have the sovereign grace person who believes in gospel regeneration. You have the one who believes
that we ought to keep the law, we ought to listen to the things
of the Spirit, and we are saved by what we know. That true gospel,
the gospel of sovereign grace, that's the only thing that can
save us. They have a little bit of Judaism.
They have a little bit of Greekism. They put it all together and
they have this mangled up thing. It's neither one. You're not
saved by law and you're not saved by the gospel. You are saved
by the objective work of Jesus Christ. That's what saves you.
The gospel is bringing the message of that salvation to you. And
Paul is making that distinction here, brother. It is not of Paul,
it is not of Apollos. Paul is preaching gospel of grace
alone. It's not Paul that saves you.
My preaching of that gospel of perfect, sovereign grace is not
what saves you, and it's not of Apollos, who's over here maybe
telling you something differently. And it's not of Peter, who mistakenly
is over here telling you that you gotta keep some of the law
of Moses, as he did, and Paul had to confront him about that. It's of grace alone. It's of
Christ alone. See, that's what Paul is getting
at here. Paul is, it's not about the activity of preaching. It's
about what is in the content of what you've preached that
has saved you. The work of Christ alone has
saved you, not the preaching of it. Let's go a little farther
and see if that's what plays out in this. If this is true,
if this is true, the truth will stand on its own, right? He says,
for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not
with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be
made of none effect. Now here again, he's saying that
if that's the case, if I come and I preach with wisdom of words
and it's by the wisdom of words that men are saved, then the
cross of Christ, the activity of Christ is of no effect. Then Christ didn't save anybody.
Christ made it. good story for us to tell you
so that you would believe and that believing is what saves
you. See that's what Paul's meaning here. He's saying if by the wisdom
of my words you're being saved then what Christ did on the cross
which we preach is of no effect. Jesus really didn't save anybody
from their sins by that death. Jesus didn't justify anybody
by his obedience and His blood and that resurrection. All of
that was just a formality so that we could come and preach
to you the gospel and in your believing, now you're saved. Paul said, no, what Jesus did
was of effect. What Jesus did is the thing that
God is satisfied with. It doesn't matter, and I say
that, it doesn't matter as if there isn't going to be belief
Every child of grace is going to come to belief. But, it doesn't
matter in the scheme of legality. You are saved by what Christ
did, and that's what Paul is conveying here to the Corinthians.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. The preaching of Christ on the
cross alone is my salvation. You mean I don't have to do anything?
Is that what I'm trying to convey? You can put nothing to it, you
can take nothing away from it? Isn't that what the gospel that
I've been preaching the last few weeks here is saying? That
salvation is by Christ alone, apart from any works of man,
apart from any merits of man, apart from any activity of man,
whether it be the preacher or whether it be the recipient.
It is completely outside. It's objective. It's not subjective. It isn't waiting on somebody
to do something with their will. It isn't waiting on somebody
to do something with their actions. It is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but it is God that showeth mercy.
Is that not what I've been preaching? That's not what a lot of our
brethren that we fellowship with, is that not what they preach?
They preach the gospel of a finished work of Jesus Christ alone at
the salvation of his people. It isn't about gospel preaching. It isn't about gospel believing.
It isn't about water baptism. It isn't about church membership.
It isn't about you keeping the law of Moses. It's about what
Jesus has done. That alone. That's what Paul
says. but to them that are perishing.
Who are the ones who are perishing? Anybody? Who are the ones who
are perishing? Unbelievers. But we, at some point, were unbelievers. So it's not just unbelievers,
there's more specificness, but that is true. Ultimately, the
unbelievers will perish. Thank God, God causes us to believe,
grants us faith, The ones who are the ones perishing
are the reprobate. The ones who are perishing are
the wicked, the evil, the non-elect, whatever term you want to put
to it. The ones who are not the sheep, goats, the ones who are
goats, those are the ones who are perishing. So to the ones
who are perishing, this gospel, the one of grace alone, Christ
alone, the work of the Holy Spirit alone, God alone, the salvation
is of the Lord. That gospel is foolishness to
them. You mean we don't have to do
anything? You mean there's no need for
preaching? You mean there's no need for
a preacher to have the right gospel? You mean that somebody
can be saved in an Armenian church? I was. I was a saved Arminian. Everybody
in this world are saved Arminians that are the elect. Because every
one of them was saved before they ever was brought to believe
the truth and became believers. They were saved as unbelievers.
Because salvation doesn't happen in time, it happened before the
foundation of the world based upon the work of Christ that
was manifested in time. See, God has removed salvation
completely and totally out of the hands of man because it was
finished from the works, or the works were finished from the
foundation of the world. Nobody can put to it, nobody can take
away from it because it was done before there was anything. And
whenever Jesus came and did what he did on this earth, which is
the basis for all of it, which is the grounds for all of it,
is the works that all of it is hinged upon, it was all hinged
upon his works. and faithful as he that did it.
The promises of God are yea and amen in him. God promised salvation
to his elect, and Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise.
There is no way that Christ was not going to happen that way.
We spoke of his impeccability a few weeks ago. There is no
way that Christ was not going to be that perfect sacrifice.
Why? Because the promises of God are yea, yes, and amen, so
be it in Christ Jesus. There's no way that anybody in
this world is going to die and go to hell that Christ died for. Because he said, all that the
Father giveth me shall come to me. Not going to escape and get
off into hell because God's dangling them over hell with a little
thread, and unless they make a choice for Him, that thread's
going to break and they're going to plunge into hell, or because
the preacher didn't get to them, or the missionary didn't get
to them, or the church wasn't responsive enough in the community
to have enough programs to keep them entertained, or because
some person out here didn't have enough knowledge of it, or because
we're not intellectual enough to be able to convey the gospel
to them, or because we don't have our ABCs and 123s that makes
it It's so simple that anybody can understand. It has nothing
to do with that at all. Nothing can be taken from. Nothing
can be put to. If nothing can be taken from
it, then no man can keep it from happening. If nothing can be
put to it, nobody can add anything to make it happen even more. The foolishness of man trying
to dabble in the work of God and to take credit for the work
of God. That's what many of these sovereign
grace preachers that we see out there today are doing, and it's
no different than the Arminian that is out there. Paul goes on to say, look at
verse 20. Well, let me back up, verse 9.
For it is written, I will destroy, where did I leave off? Verse 18, I'm sorry. For the
preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness."
Now here's the distinction that I was making a minute ago. But
unto us which are saved, already, those of us who are saved, it's
the power of God. It's not the power of God to
the unbeliever. It's not the power of God to
the perishing. It's not the power of God to
the reprobate, to the goat. to the seed of Satan. It's the
power of God unto them who are saved, who are the saved ones. The elect of God are the saved
ones. That's the power of God. The
preaching of Christ, the preaching of the cross, the salvation by
grace alone is the power of God to those who already are saved. It's the power of God to give
them the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His
work on their behalf. As Paul will mention again in
the verse that I already read, that they might know the things. It's the power of God to give
them the understanding of the things that they might know what
has been freely given to them. Not exercised by their will,
by their choice, upon their merits, is freely. It says, which things
also we speak not in the words of man's wisdom teach, but which
the Holy Ghost teacheth. The Holy Ghost teaches these
things, not men. It's not the preacher teaching
these things to you so that you can receive salvation by it.
That's a conveying of grace. That's a sacrament. We don't
convey grace to anybody. God is the only one that can
convey grace. Now, so the context that Paul
was preaching verse 21 in is not the declaration of the gospel
is what saves people, but the content of that gospel is what
saved them, the work of Christ alone. And he's contrasting that
with the themes of the religious world, the wisdom of the world,
who says that it's by preaching, by Law keeping, by intellect,
whatever. He says, for after that and the
wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. You can't know
God by learning. No man can know God by learning.
The Bible says who can find out God by searching? The answer
is no one. It's revealed. It's all revealed. Everything is revealed. In this
gospel, everything is a revealed thing. The truth is revealed. We have the truth found in this
book right here. And anybody in the world can
read this book. But only those who God reveals
the truth will understand it to be truth. Everybody else will
look at it as foolishness. If you understand the truth,
and know the truth is because it was revealed by the Spirit,
not because I preached it and broke it down in such a way that
you began to understand it. People talk about preachers being
so good because, you know, Adrian Rogers was such great because
he could outline those verses and he had all the words started
with the same letters, you know, alliteration, everything started
with a P. Today, all the messages start
with a P. We preach, we proclaim, we perform. You know, whatever the case might
be. You know? We make little tracts. Here are
the ABCs of the gospel. Accept that you're a sinner.
Believe that Jesus died for you. Confess your sins. It doesn't
matter what you do to break it down. The wisdom of this world
will never see the true gospel of what Christ did alone is sufficient. His obedience is sufficient for
my obedience. It's not my obedience. God is
not requiring my obedience for acceptance. Christ's obedience
was for me. God is not condemning me. Christ
condemned my sin in the flesh. There's no condemnation to me.
So any sin that I commit in the past or whatever I want to commit
in the future, there's no condemnation to that. God has not said, okay,
now that you're a Christian, any sins you commit from here
on out, You're gonna have to make amends for that, otherwise
what Christ did on the cross don't count. No, Christ's blood
counted for that too. So Christ's death and obedience
were all given to me. And that's foolishness to the
world. He goes on to say, for the Jews
require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach
Christ crucified. See there again, Paul is not
saying it's not the declaration of Christ. It's just not we preach
Christ crucified. So therefore, that's the message
every time we come out. The message is Christ crucified.
Christ died on the cross, buried in a grave, raised the third
day. Believe that. Believe that Jesus died on the
cross and was buried, was resurrected on the third day. If you believe
that now, you're saved. God will save you. That's not
what Paul preaches. Paul is saying the way that we
were saved was by Christ and Him crucified, not by law keeping,
not by signs, believing signs. That's what the Jews look for.
Not by gaining wisdom and intellect. That's what the Greeks look for.
The way that we're saved is not by works, not by knowledge. It's
by the objective work of Jesus Christ crucified. But we preach
Christ crucified unto the Jews, it's a stumbling block. Unto
the Greeks, it's foolishness. To the Jews who seek after a
sign, it's a stumbling block. Well, wait a minute. That guy
is our Messiah and what he did is not what we thought he was
going to do. He died. That's a stumbling block to us.
We don't believe that God can die. We don't believe that Messiah
can die. Messiah came to set up his kingdom
and we're here to rule him. It's a stumbling block to the
Jews. You mean we're not to keep, we're not, because we're Jews,
we're not saved? Because we're not keeping the
law, but we have the law of Moses. It's a stumbling block to them.
To the Greeks, wait a minute, you mean that guy over there
that doesn't believe the true gospel? Was it saved? He's not even believing the true
gospel right now. Will he? I believe he will. He
may not be right now, but I believe he will if he is a child of grace.
The Lord will teach him. The Lord will teach him. But it's a stumbling block. It's
a foolishness. But it says, but unto them which
are called. To them which are called. That's the elect of God, whether
it be Jew or Greek. Christ, the power of God, and
the wisdom of God. See, Christ is the power of God
unto salvation. Christ is the wisdom of God.
See, God in His wisdom said Christ is going to be the salvation
of His people. Not the works along with the preacher or the
recipient who is the believer. No, Christ alone. Why? Because this is going to be foolishness
to everybody. Because everybody by default
thinks there's something we have to do. That's the religious nature
that's put in the heart of every man, that there is something
that we must do to serve this God. And by the way, everybody
has put in their heart that there is a God, even the one who claims
to be atheist. The Bible says that God has put
it in their heart. The light of the nature even
tells them that somebody out there has done something. Okay? God is there. And God is on the
heart of every person. Not the gospel. That's not the
gospel. It's not salvation. But the fact
that God exists, God has made it clear that He exists. And
the people that say He don't exist are liars. At the end of
the day, they knew that He exists, that something exists. Whether
they put it, that's why the Bible says in Romans, that they suppress
the truth. And then they built for themselves
that it's not, no, there ain't a higher power, but we're going
to worship the earth. We're going to worship the climate.
We're going to worship this philosophy of there not being a God. New
ageism, whatever it is. Sorcery, witchcraft, Satanism,
whatever. Put your tag on it, whether it's
good in people's eyes or bad in people's eyes. Somebody is
worshiping something other than themselves. They say that, hey, I am the
higher being. They believe that something is
a higher being that deserves to be worshipped, but they suppress
the truth of God and they make God to be something of their
imagination, of whatever it might be. So it's not, it's foolish. Because the foolishness of God
is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
That doesn't mean that God is foolish and that God is weak.
It's just saying that compared to God, the strongest man can't
compare to the weakestness of God. If there was any weakness
in God. For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, and
not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things that are
mighty. and base things of the world, and things which are despised
hath God chosen ye, and things which are not, to bring to nought
things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence."
See, no flesh is going to glory in God's presence. The preacher's
not going to be able... We used to sing a song that whenever
we get to heaven, there's going to be all these people that's
going to be gathered around that's going to come and going to thank
us. because they were so grateful because we preach the gospel.
We didn't even know. Our lives made such a difference
to them that they're there because of something that we did in this
life. And I think, what was the name of that song, Lori, you
remember, that Ray Bolt sang? You know, when I get to heaven,
you were there with me. All this, I can't remember the
name of it. Anyway, popular song back in the 90s or so, 80s, whatever
year it was. But we get up there, we've talked
about songs. We used to sing songs about,
you know, whenever we get to heaven, all the crowns will be
laid down at Jesus' feet because of the things that we've done,
all this kind of stuff. Listen, whenever we get in the
presence of God, the only one that's gonna be receiving glory
is Christ. We're not gonna be saying, I'm
here because of that pastor right there. I'm here because that
mother prayed for me. I'm here because that, that missionary
came to my country. No, the only thing that people
are going to be saying is we are here because of the blood
of the Lamb. We are here because Christ saved
me. We are here because His Spirit gave me life, brought me the knowledge. I am
aware of this salvation because of Him, not because of anybody
else. There isn't going to be one person. He said, I'm not
going to share my glory with anybody. There's not going to
be anybody up there that Jesus said, look at this evangelist.
He brought 10,476 souls to the Lord. There ain't going to be
none of that. Because salvation is of the Lord,
not man. Now, I'm way over. I didn't even get to the second
objection. We'll stop right there. I think I'll just stop right
there, and we'll look at the next objection, Lord willing,
next week. Anybody got any questions, any
comments? All right. Lord, we come to you once again,
and we thank you for the message of the cross. Not the declaration
that saves, but the one who the message is about. He is our Savior. and His salvation was effectual. It was for His people and it
is applied to His people and His people alone. And it will
be effectively applied. The hands of man will not keep
that from being enacted before God, received by God. God has been satisfied by the
blood of Jesus Christ. Therefore, everyone for whom
that blood was shed is no longer in condemnation. Matter of fact,
we are told by the scriptures that blessed is the man unto
whom the Lord imputeth not sin. We are told in the scriptures
that blessed is the man in whose spirit there is no guile, that
spirit that came from above, the life that was hid with Christ
in God, the one that comes from above that is a new creation
that is placed in this vessel of flesh, we are thankful for that life,
that life that is created in pure holiness and righteousness
that cannot sin, that keeps the law of God. Although this flesh
cannot keep the things of the Spirit of God, or the law of God, this flesh
that cannot inherit the kingdom of God, this flesh that all it
can do is sin, it can never get any better, we have the promise
of that which has been given to us, the Spirit of God. And Lord, we are thankful that
it has not been put in the hands of any man to accomplish or even
to distribute. That you, by your own purpose,
by your own hand, make things all according to your will as
they happen. Nothing can be put to it, nothing
can be taken away, for it is God that doeth it. So Lord, we
thank you for your sovereignty. We thank you for your salvation. We thank you for your righteousness.
It's in Christ's name that we pray these things. Amen.