You'll turn now to 1 Corinthians
2. We'll look at the first five verses. In my Bible, there is, before each chapter, a little
synopsis. It kind of tells you what the
chapter is all about. And the synopsis above chapter
2 in my Bible says how Paul preached the gospel which is God's Wise
Counsel for Men's Salvation. This is about, and I've struggled
with the title for this, but it's a personal example. Paul's using himself now as an
example for what he's been teaching, and he's appealing to their own
experience under his preaching. He just starts this chapter off, with that statement. And having
told us these things, he now goes on. Having set before this
Corinthian church the way God saves sinners, the way he calls
out his elect, the means that he uses, he establishes that
beyond question in the first part of this chapter. And having
told him these things, he now moves on to show them by their
own experience and His example to them of how men are called
out of darkness. In 1 Corinthians 2, verse 1,
He 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. Now there's ways of speaking
that leave men in awe of the speaker. Some men, evidently
there were some in this church who were great orators in this
very church. And there were great orators
over there at Mars Hill when men stood up. And they left men
in awe of the speaker. And then there's ways of speaking
that convey to men one with a superior education. I read a lot of the
old writers and I get the idea sometimes when I think about
now in this day of education when there's just no reason not
to have an education unless you just don't want one. But I think
back in that day, when education was more of an option. And I
read these men and I struggle, with my understanding, I struggle
to understand what they're saying. What must the common person who
came into that church, how much of what they said could they
retain? And there's just ways of speaking
that convey to men one with a superior education. They use that. They use that. And then there's
ways of speaking that intimidate their hearers and show a false
sense of power and wisdom from the speaker. These huge churches
where they elect and hire pastors and preachers, they do everything
to make that man, when he stands up, before he ever says the first
word, his very presence of sight is intimidating to the people.
And they do that on purpose. And then there's ways of speaking
to men which shroud the speaker with some mystical supernatural
aura. The Catholics are king at this. They love to speak in Latin and
languages that men don't understand and they just love that whole
thing of candles and candle lit lights and stained glass windows
and the echo in the chamber and all that kind of nonsense. And if man were not fallen, if
man were not depraved, then any or all of these things might
be used to bring him to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You
might be able to use those things. And that's why men use them,
because they operate on the premise that man is not depraved, that
man can be reached, that man can understand. But the problem
is it's just simply not true. All religion operates on the
premise that man is not spiritually dead. They do believe that men
have sinned. I've never heard one who gave
the idea that man hasn't sinned. And they do believe he needs
help. But they don't believe that he is helpless. Religion
operates on the premise that man is not spiritually dead.
They don't believe in this spiritual death. Ephesians 2, verse 1 is
as clear a statement on this as there is anywhere that I can
find in the Word of God. And you hath he quickened who
were dead. Isn't that what they say? Dead in trespasses and sins. Dead how? How is man dead? First of all, he is dead by the
condemnation of God. That is, he has been judged unto
death. He is condemned of God. He has
been given the death penalty. In Romans 5, verse 12, it said,
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death
by sin. So death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned." Physical death didn't come to Adam for
930 years. But the condemnation of God was
immediate. And the effects of it were seen
in his own children. Romans 5, verse 18, Therefore,
as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men the condemnation,
So man is under the condemnation of God. And then secondly, he's
dead spiritually. His nature is a depraved nature. It's not that he doesn't have
a mind to think with. He has a mind. But his mind is
enmity against God. It's not that he doesn't have
a heart. It's that his heart is full of wickedness. Out of
the heart proceed evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, and so
on. It's not that he doesn't have
a will, it's that his will is biased by his nature. Our Lord
said, you will not. You've had every benefit that
God has given to a fallen world. You have the prophets. You have
the Scriptures. You have miracle upon miracle
demonstrated before your very eyes. You have every advantage
of men. And you search the Scriptures
that I gave you. But you will not. You see that? That's man's will. It's a will
not. You will not come to me that
you might have not. You will not receive the things
of the Spirit of God. And it's not that men have no
ability to understand. It's that their understandings
darken being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that's in them because of the blindness of their hearts. So
man's under the condemnation of God. And that judgment has
left him spiritually dead. And then thirdly, this death
has left him prey to all the rulers of the darkness. Because
of the spiritual death, because of his ignorance that's in him,
the blindness of his heart, he's easy prey for the rulers of darkness. It leaves him like a man in prison.
to be surrounded by men who are worse than him. Ephesians 2,
verse 2. He tells us something about this
death. He said, we walk according to
the course of this world, according to the prince, the power, the
air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
You can check this out, but I believe that in almost every place this
phrase is found, it's in reference to the Jew. You check me out
in the Scriptures and see if that's not true. So that what
he's talking about here is those who are made prey to the rulers
of the darkness of this world. When he talks about that spirit
who now worketh in the children of disobedience, That phrase,
children of disobedience, almost everywhere it is found, applies
to the Jews. They were religious, but lost. Our actions, verse 3, left us
by nature, the children of wrath, even as others. And there is
no better that I can find in the Scripture, no better picture
of preaching to sinners than the vision given to the prophet
Ezekiel. God said, Son of man, what do
you see out there? He said, all I see is bones.
Dead, dry bones. He said, can they live? Oh Lord, God thou knowest. Preach
to them. To the bones, to the bones. Is
there any sign of life in them? Is there any hope of life in
them? Is there any evidence that they may again serve God in any
way? No. Is there anything in these
bones that make you believe that they can live? No. They just
won't. Preach to them. What shall I
preach? Tell them to live. Now wait a
minute. That's just a man talking, Winston. And God said, tell them to live.
Just a man. But if God tells you to, then
God is going to give you the ability to do what He tells you
to do. Just like Moses. Moses stretched
forth that staff. Moses didn't have any power to
split that sea. And there was no kind of power
in that staff to make that sea split. But God told him to do
it. And when he did it, the sea split.
And he told Ezekiel to preach to those bones and tell them
to live. And when he preached to them in obedience to God,
those bones lived. Look here, 1 Corinthians 2, verse
2. And this is what I'm saying.
The man who knows the condition of fallen man will not appeal
to man. He will not come to him with
excellency of speech or wisdom. He will simply declare unto him
the way of life. He will preach in obedience to
his Lord, and he will preach what his Lord told him to preach.
And then here in verse 2, For I determined not to know anything
among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. This is where
God reveals life everlasting. This is where God has purposed
to show His glory. And this is where the Holy Spirit
is sent to enlighten and reveal and regenerate and preserve the
preaching of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. When we say we preach Christ,
we preach Jesus Christ, the Son of God. All through the book
of John, that's all you're going to find, is over and over and
over how John preached Christ as the Son of God. And then Jesus
Christ is also the Son of Man. He's the Son of Man. And Jesus
Christ is God come into the flesh. Paul said, verily, he took not
on him the nature of angels. He didn't come in here and appear
as an angel, and appear for a moment and gone, and appear somewhere
else and gone. That's not how he came. He didn't come with
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. The promised seed, the covenant
seed. To Abraham and his seed were
the promises made. He saith not unto seeds as of
many, but as of thy seed, of one. and thy seed which is Christ."
This is God manifesting our eternal union with Him in the person
of His Son. And Paul said, I determine not
to know anything among you save Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son
of Mary. Let's just look at that name
for a minute, Jesus Christ. We see that over and over and
over in the Scriptures, Jesus Christ. That name Jesus is the
son of Mary. That's the son given by God,
formed in the womb of a virgin. He's that baby that was born
in Bethlehem, Judah, who grew up in the care of earthly parents,
who worked in his daddy's carpenter shop. He was the man who came
from Nazareth. No good thing can come out of
Nazareth, but it did. And he went on to preach and
teach and show himself as the Redeemer. And Jesus Christ simply
states that this man, Jesus, is the promised Messiah. That's
what they're saying. The Christ. Christ is His prophetic
name. Christ is the term used to describe
the promised seed. And Paul said, I determine not
to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and now listen
to this second part, and Him crucified. His crucifixion speaks
of the redemption He came to accomplish. It speaks of the
Father's will in the salvation of His elect. His crucifixion
speaks of His office as our substitute. And crucifixion speaks of God's
propitiation for sin. Crucifixion speaks of His righteous
obedience. He become obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. wherefore God hath highly exalted
him and given him a name above every name." It's not the clever
ways of religion to set up family worship centers and cater to
the families and minister to the needs of children in a corrupt
world or try to take care of orphans and trying to teach them
how to behave and how to exist in a sinful world. It's not according
to the philosophies of worldly religion that appeal to the appetites
of men's flesh. which appealed to the carnal
needs and wants of men. It's the preaching of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Who is this man? Why did he come? What did he do? And where is
he now? That's the gospel. And that's what God the Holy
Spirit uses to convert poor sinners. Now look here in 1 Corinthians
2 verse 3. Now Paul said, when I come, he
said, I determined to know nothing else. I'm not going to argue
with you over the philosophies of men. We're not going to go
back to Chun and study what he had to say or go to somebody
else and study what... This is all I determined to know
among you. Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Now verse 3, and I was with you in weakness. Now we're talking
about Paul's personal example. appealing to their own experience.
And he said, I was with you in weakness. Paul was just a man
like other men. He had no power of himself to
convert or convince. He had no power in himself to
convey his message to dead sinners, and he knew it. Preachers are
as helpless to preach as sinners are to hear. I'm just as helpless
to preach to you as you are to hear what I have to say. If God
does the work, you'll have to do it in me and in you. They must be empowered by God,
sent by God, and blessed by God. He said, I was with you in weakness. I'm not up here on some plane
somewhere preaching down to you. I'm on the same level. I was with you in weakness. Weakness
of faith. Weakness of will and weakness
of body. And I was with you in weakness
and in fear. Knowing the terror of the Lord,
Paul said, I persuade me. What was he afraid of? Well,
fear for what is now in and around me. Fear for what's in me. Fear for
what's out here in the world. Fear for what they've heard and
what they continue to hear when they're not here. Fear for what's
swiftly coming upon this world. This world, I tell you, every
year goes by, goes by a little faster. You find that true? Every year goes by, goes by faster. What happened to this year? I
was in the store the other day. They got Christmas stuff in the
store. It was just January yesterday. Where did the year go? And it goes faster and faster
and faster. And this world is running headlong
into hell. It's fear for what's swiftly
coming upon this world. Fear about what to say and who
to say it to. There's a time to say and there's
a time to say nothing. Our Lord said nothing a lot of
times. to a lot of men who approached him for the wrong reasons and
with the wrong motives, and he simply ignored them. There's
a time to say something, and there's a time to shut up. Fear. Paul said, I was with you
in weakness and in fear. I was with you in weakness and
fear, and listen to this, in much trembling. Paul feared no
man. No man. He preached to a king
and left the king trembling. He preached to jailers and governors
and kings and he preached to educated and uneducated. He preached
to all kinds of men in all kinds of situations. Paul feared no
man. So why does he speak here of
trembling? Well, I'm going to tell you what
I believe. First, because he feared having preached to others
that he himself might be found to cast away. He said that. He said, I fear that. That will
make you tremble. That will make you tremble. Our Lord, when He picked out
examples of men in hell, who would question God's judgment
about them being sent to hell. Do you know one of the kinds
of people that he picked out were those who preached? We preached
in thy name. We did many wonderful works in
thy name. And they were found castaways.
And Paul looked, and even in the apostles, John Mark, And
some of the other apostles, he looked at them. Peter, different
ones by example. He knew how easy it was to be
drawn astray. And he trembled. He trembled. Paul trembled knowing whose ambassador
he was. I think the term God in our day
means nothing. It means nothing. It carries
no awe with it. People use that word God as common
as they do food or drink or anything else. The name God is not sanctified
in the hearts of people, and they don't understand who God
is. But we, of all people, ought to know something about who God
is. And the more I know about who
God is, the more I tremble thinking that I'm His ambassador. I'm
held accountable by Him, not way off in the future judgment
somewhere, but right now. I'm responsible for the things
that I say. And then Paul trembled because
he knew the fates of those who would not receive his testimony.
You can't preach in the power of God's Spirit and not feel
your own inadequacy. And you can't preach in the power
of God's Spirit and not feel compassion for those who are
rejecting what you're telling them. This is life. If you reject this, You reject
this, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. That's not
saying you'll never have another chance to believe. But believing
is not by chance anyway. But that's not what that verse
is saying. What that verse is saying, if
you reject the only way of salvation, the only sacrifice for sin, what
other sacrifice is there? There remaineth no more sacrifice
for sin. Just a certain fearful looking
for of judgment and fiery indignation. That's all that's left for you.
if you reject this message. All right, 1 Corinthians 2, verse
4. 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, I want you to listen to
me. The word demonstrate means the act of exhibiting proof. That's what Paul's talking about.
He's talking about an exhibition of truth. I'm taking this straight
out of the dictionary. It is the highest degree of evidence. It is the establishing of a proposition
beyond the possibility of doubt. Now, when the Holy Spirit of
God takes the gospel into a man's heart and convinces him of these
great truths, he convinces him beyond a shadow of a doubt. And
that's what Paul's talking about. He said, I didn't come to you
having studied and having memorized a lot of fancy terms and words
and illustrations. But he said, I came to you and
in simplicity declared unto you Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And the Holy Spirit demonstrated
in your own heart exactly what I preach. It's that which satisfies the
mind and reason and convinces us of the truth. And the Holy
Spirit of God working in conjunction with the gospel preach demonstrates
to the mind and reason of chosen sinners how God can justify them
and still be God. How he can save fallen sinners
without compromising his name. How he can reconcile dead sinners
to himself. That which we as men can only
say in words, the Holy Spirit can demonstrate through the working
of God in Him. We tell about the sacrificial
blood of Christ, but the Holy Ghost alone can sprinkle that
blood on your conscience. I can tell men about His priestly
office and work, but the Holy Ghost can purge their conscience
from dead works to serve the living God. My preaching, Paul
said, was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, life-changing
power, life-altering power, effectual power, sanctifying power, life-giving
power. And when my gospel came to you,
it came not in word only, but it came in power and in the Holy
Ghost. So why is all this so important? Why is all this so important?
Look here at verse 5. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 5. Paul
said, here's why I did this. That your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. That's why
I did it that way. I hear this comment more than
any other. Your preaching is so easy to
understand. So easy to understand. I labor
to preach as plain and as simple as I can possibly make it. I
preach and teach and reason with you as though you had no infirmity
whatsoever. Because I know that if God does
the work, He'll enlighten your soul to see the glory of God
in Christ, and He'll demonstrate in you that power and grace. And your faith then will not
stand in my wisdom or somebody else's wisdom, but it will stand
in the power of God. Now that's faith. That's how
men receive faith. That's how they receive the Gospel.
And when you receive the Gospel that way, you don't glory in
men. And that's what Paul is telling this church. This was
their problem. They were glorying in men. Because
men were preaching in such a way that left them to be glorified. And he said, when I preach to
you, I didn't preach that way. I preach to you as a dying man
preaching to dying men. He said, that's how I preach.
Oh, God enables me to preach that way and for you to hear
that way.