1 Corinthians chapter 1. I want to take time, if I may,
to read the whole of this chapter and a few verses into chapter
2. So it's 1 Corinthians chapter
1, beginning at verse 1. Paul, called to be an apostle
of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother. unto the church of God which
is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called
to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name
of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. Grace be unto
you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God
which is given you by Jesus Christ, that in everything ye are enriched
by him, in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the
testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that ye come behind
in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall also confirm you unto the end that ye may be blameless
in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom
ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. 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. For it hath been declared unto
me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe,
that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every
one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas,
and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified
for you? Or were ye baptized in the name
of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none
of you, but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say that I had
baptized in mine 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. For the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But unto
us which are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? 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 belief. For the Jews
require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach
Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the
Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom
of God. Because the foolishness of God
is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, 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 which
are mighty. and base things of the world,
and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things
which are not, to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh
should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. And I, brethren, when I came
to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring
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, that your faith should not stand in
the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Amen. May God bless to us this reading
from his word. Let's just take a moment or two
to pray together. Almighty God, we come before
Thee in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is our privilege,
indeed it is our pleasure, to be in Thy presence. We believe that Thou art pleased
to honour this little gathering with Thy presence. And we come
with an expectancy, an anticipation that Thou would be pleased to
speak also and that we would have ears to hear. We pray that
in the preaching of the Gospel that has been so eloquently described
here by the Apostle Paul, that we might find that same power
manifested amongst us today as he looked for and saw demonstrated
in his own day, in his own ministry and in his own preaching amongst
the congregations of his time. And we ask that wherever the
Gospel of Jesus Christ is lifted up this morning, that thou wilt
be pleased to honour its proclamation and be present to bless those
who hear. We rejoice, our God, that our
focus this day is upon the person of thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask that whatever else
is said and done here this morning, whatever else may happen in the
next half hour or 45 minutes that we have to spend together,
whatever else might be of a distractive nature, that there will be a
focus upon the Lord Jesus, and that we will have that enabling
to see him with spiritual eyes, and that by the gift of faith
we may lay hold upon his great work of salvation and redemption. Speak to us Lord and let us hear
and may each of us go from this place this morning with this
truth echoing and re-echoing in our hearts and in our minds
that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the most important
message that we have ever heard. May it be so for thy name's sake.
Amen. The closing words of my prayer
are the opening words of my sermon this morning. The Gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ is the most important message that you will
ever hear. Just take a moment and think
about that. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the most
important message that you will ever hear. And we are privileged
this morning, not because I'm here preaching, not because of
the surroundings of this place. We are privileged this morning
because the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be spoken of. We
are privileged because we are here trusting that we will hear
the Gospel. There are many important messages
in life. There are many important things
that we will hear. And no doubt, some of those important
messages, some of us have already heard in life. They come, do
they not, at life's significant moments. Perhaps you heard a
message once which said, it's a boy. That was an important
message, wasn't it? Or, it's a girl. That was an
important message. How about, you've passed. That's an important message. How about I love you? It was good to hear that, wasn't
it? I now declare you, with the power invested in me, husband
and wife. That was an important message,
wasn't it? I'm sorry, but there's nothing
more that we can do. That's an important message. But the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ transcends them all. The gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ is the most important message you will ever hear. And okay if I can't bring it
down in summary form to some short, brief statement. It is
nevertheless something that is important for us to listen to,
important for us to give attention to. It is important for this
simple reason, because it is the message of and from God concerning
the Saviour of this world, concerning the Saviour who alone can do
good for sinners, the Saviour who alone has a word of life
and peace and liberty for a condemned world and has a message for fallen
sinners. And one thing I can say for sure
this morning that I know to be of absolute truth, that every
single person that I am addressing with these words is a fallen
sinner. You are by nature, you are by
practice, and you ever will be until and unless the Lord Jesus
Christ's forgiveness is discovered by you. The Apostle Paul tells
us in this little passage that we've read together that this
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is, hear what he says, the testimony
of God. The testimony. Now, a testimony
is an important thing. If someone is called to give
testimony, to bear witness, if you like. If someone is called
to give a witness statement, it is an important thing. It
has to be done with integrity. It has to be done with clarity.
And here we are being told that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ is the testimony of God. God! God, the self-existent,
glorious, holy Creator of all things, He has spoken. He has spoken to fallen men and
women. He has spoken to a sinful world. He has declared Himself. And this is the testimony that
He bears. This is the words that He speaks.
This is God's testimony, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord God, Almighty Jehovah,
bears witness to the salvation of sinners by the Lord Jesus
Christ. We would do well to listen to
the testimony of God. He testifies of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He testifies of the Father's
good pleasure in the Lord Jesus Christ. He witnesses to the fact
that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished a great redemption
for his people. In John chapter 5, in verse 32,
the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking, and He says, There is another
that beareth witness of me, and I know that the witness which
he witnesseth of me is true. The Father himself which hath
sent me hath borne witness of me. You know what a witness is,
I'm sure. We don't use the word, as it
originally was used, the word to wit. To wit is to know. If you are a witness, then you
know what happened. And we have that word in a variety
of words that we use today, but we don't tend to use the original
verb any longer. To wit, or I want. And that was an old word in English. But here we see the significance
of it. The witness of God is what he
knows to be true. The testimony of God is what
he knows to be true. So the truth that we might devise,
the truth that we might postulate, the truth that we might construct
to answer the questions of the world around about us must be
and can only be subservient to the truth which is of God, the
absolute truth, the eternal truth, the knowledgeable truth that
God has testified of, and that is the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. God the Father testifies of His
Son and what His Son has accomplished. The testimony of God, as Paul
describes it here, declaring unto you the testimony of God,
is the sworn testimony to the love and to the grace and to
the mercy of God towards fallen sinners. It speaks of His kindness. It speaks of His goodness to
men and women in giving and in sending His only begotten Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour and to be our Redeemer. God bears testimony to His Son. He bears testimony to His role
as the Son, to His deity. He is the God-Man, this person,
Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ, the man, were
to walk into this building this morning, we would not see Him
to be any different than any other man. And yet in this man,
in the person of Jesus Christ, who lived and walked, who ate
and who drank, who spoke, who did amazing miracles, who did
wonderful things, who died upon the cross and rose again, is
God Himself. He is the God-Man. The Father
bears testimony to the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he attests the exclusive role of mediator which the Lord Jesus
Christ possesses. There's no other way to get to
God except through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we might like to
think that it would be good if there were other ways. We might
like to say every religion has a little part of the truth, every
religion is pressing towards that. Or maybe we can find God,
we can find meaning, we can find happiness, we can find satisfaction
and fulfillment in any number of ways. But this is the testimony
of God! This is the testimony of God.
This is the testimony that everything else is subservient to. And He has declared that in Jesus
Christ is the alone mediator between God and men. He speaks
of the incarnation of the God-Man, that He came as a little baby,
that He came into this world as a child, that He lived and
He grew, that He served His Father in complete obedience. that He suffered in His body,
that He died upon the cross, that He rose again from the dead
and ascended into the presence of His Father in heaven, that
He is even now seated at the right hand of His Father and
intercedes for His people here upon earth. that He will come
again, and that He will call all the nations of the world,
that He will call all men and women together, and He will sit
in judgment upon this world. And of the eternal life and salvation
that is to be found in Him, and of the separation that will be
imposed upon all those who are outside of the Lord Jesus Christ
and still in their sins. Listen, I'll tell you one of
the most important verses in the whole of Scripture. And the
reason why I know it's one of the most important verses in
the whole of Scripture is because it is one of the verses in Scripture
that has been most avidly attacked by the enemies of Scripture.
Listen to what the Apostle John says in 1 John chapter 5 verse
7. There are three that bear record in heaven. The Father,
the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one. This is the testimony of God. Salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, that little phrase
there at the end of the verse, and these three are one. That
tells us that there are three persons in the Godhead. God is one, but there are three
persons in the Godhead. But it also tells us something
else, that there is unity of purpose in the Godhead. These three are one. One in the
Godhead, but one in purpose, one in mind, one in all that
is designed for the salvation of sinners. Now that is very
important, because the modern religion which we have, the modern
Christianity which is so prevalent around about us, takes the Godhead,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and shatters it. breaks it up,
takes the Father and says that the Father has a will to save
everyone. It says that the Father has a
love for everyone that is being manifested in the desire of God
for the salvation of everyone. And it says that the Lord Jesus
Christ, on His death at the cross, made provision for everyone. And that the Holy Spirit is labouring
in order to bring people to that faith in Christ and the work
which the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished. But if we take Scripture at face
value and we read what it says in this verse, we are told that
these three are one. The extent of salvation is one
in the will of the Father. The extent of salvation is one
in the accomplishments of the Son. The extent of salvation
is One with the Father's will, with the Son's accomplishment
in the enlivening and regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. Together,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit wills the salvation of those for whom
Christ died and the Holy Spirit brings the gift of faith to those
whom the Father wills to save and those for whom the Lord Jesus
Christ actually secured salvation. When the Lord Jesus Christ died
on the cross, He confessed I come to do the will of my Father."
And he declared it is finished. He had done the will of his Father.
He had saved by his shed blood those for whom salvation was
designed. It is not a universal work. God
does not desire the salvation of all. The Lord Jesus Christ
did not pay the price for the sins of all. Elsewise, what are
people going to be in hell for, if all their sins have been forgiven,
if all their sins have been dealt with? Rather, the work of God
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit speaks of this unity of purpose
and will. These three are one. This is the testimony of God. Furthermore, it is the testimony
of this book in its entirety. From beginning to end, the message
of the Scriptures is the message of salvation by the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ. God has borne witness to that. It is the testimony of God, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. And it is the testimony of the
prophets. It is the testimony of the Lord's
people of every age and the apostles built upon that foundation. So the Apostle Peter declares
in Acts chapter 4 verse 12, Paul says in Romans 10, 13, Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Again, John the Apostle, writing
in Revelation 21 verse 24 says, them which are saved shall walk
in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the writer to the
Hebrews declares, how shall we escape if we neglect so great
salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord
and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him. That is
the testimony of the apostles. That is the reason why we are
here this morning, to hear, not this man, but the testimony of
God and the testimony of the apostles. We are here to hear
what they say of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here it is. Here
is the message. It is the most important message
that you will ever hear. It is the testimony of God, it
is the testimony of the Apostles, and it is the message which you
need to hear this morning for the good of your eternal soul. I am delighted, I am so pleased
that the Apostle Paul provides such a wonderful, simple, and
yet profound summary. A summary which not one of us
here this morning, with perhaps the exclusion of one or two,
can fail to understand. These words are as basic as they
come. He says, The message which you
need to hear is the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's it. Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. That is the message which legitimizes
the existence of this congregation here in Nauru. Okay, that's the
reason why we are here. It's the reason why I attend
the little congregation that I do in the north of England.
It's the reason why we believe the things that we do, that we
preach the message that we do. It is the way that we follow. But most important, it is the
person that we love. And the Lord Jesus Christ and
Him crucified is one that we have a personal relationship
with. He is dead. but He is risen from
the dead. And we love the Lord Jesus Christ
if we have been brought into a knowledge of all that He has
done and all that He has accomplished for us. We love His appearing. We love it when He comes in our
gatherings and we hear Him speak to our souls. We love it when
we hear the message of the gospel and it nourishes us. I don't
imagine that there is one person here today who didn't take time
to have their breakfast. But we're talking about a spiritual
food, a nourishment for our souls that builds us up, that enables
and quickens us, that gives us a peace in the depths of our
being, that teaches us profound, magnificent, wonderful things
about the way of salvation and the redemption of our sinful
souls. We speak of Jesus Christ crucified. There are three things that the
Apostle Paul tells us in this passage which is before us. Three
things which are very simple and I'm just going to touch upon
them. One, two, three, and then we'll bring this to a conclusion. He speaks about the Gospel as
a sacrifice and an atonement and a propitiation. Secondly,
he speaks about the fact that the gospel comes by the power
of the Holy Spirit. And thirdly, he speaks about
the gospel bringing divinely bestowed faith. These three aspects
of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ, are what? Are essential and integral to
this message which you must hear today. Let me touch upon the
first one first then. The gospel is a gospel of sacrifice,
atonement and propitiation. In the first couple of chapters
of Corinthians, here's a little exercise for you. It'll be good
if you go home and try and just read through these chapters again
and see the number of times that the Apostle Paul mentions the
name, the phrase, the words, the Lord Jesus Christ. It almost
seems that in every other verse he's returning to this central
theme of the person of Christ. And as a second strand to that,
count the number of times in which the reference to the Lord
Jesus Christ has to do with his death and his crucifixion. Paul repeatedly makes reference
to the cross of the Lord Jesus and to his crucifixion. He's
not going to let us get away with a bloodless religion. He's not going to let us get
away with a faith that is not founded upon the sacrifice which
Jesus Christ made. It is the significance of the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ's death which is the essence the core,
the heart of the work of atonement. It is because Jesus Christ died
that those for whom he died are made at one with God. They are atoned, made one with
God. It is because of Christ's labours,
Christ's death, Christ's sacrifice. The Apostle Paul would emphasize
the centrality of the death of Christ in the way of salvation.
Salvation is a way of life to sinners because it was first
a way of death to Jesus Christ. It is a way of peace to those
who are troubled because it was first a way of suffering It's
a way of freedom because it was first the binding of the Lord
Jesus Christ upon the cross and His execution and His death. And it's the way of blessing
because it was first the way of sacrifice. And I want to emphasize
that this morning too. It is because the price of redemption
was so great the blood of the God-man. The price was so great
that if we have the audacity to bring anything else to this
matter, We are undermining the value of the atoning payment,
the redemptive price. If we say that we can bring anything
with us, whether that be our goodness, whether that be our
morality, whether that be our wisdom, whether that be our good
works, If we think that we can blend together anything with
that work which Jesus Christ has done, then we have failed
to understand it. And we're not only guilty of
a failure of understanding, but we're guilty of actually detracting
from the work of grace. We tread the blood of Christ
under our feet because we demean it. And we say that it is of
no value if it is to be compromised in any way. The atonement, the reconciliation
that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished is because of the
blood that He shed. Sin, the sin that we have in
our nature, the sin that we have in our experience, the sin which
is part and parcel of our thought life, of our speech, of our handiwork,
that sin will condemn us, there is no question about it. We sang
this morning, holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. And there
is a breach, there is a division between the holiness of God and
the sinfulness of your soul and mine. And unless that gap, unless
that breach, unless that distance is to be recovered, then we will
continue eternally to be separated from God and the only recovery
is to be found in the mediation of Jesus Christ and the atoning
blood of the cross. Christ became the substitute
for his people and God placed his wrath against our sin upon
the shoulders and into the very soul itself of Jesus Christ. He bore our sins in his body. on the tree. We're told in Corinthians
he became sin for us and was judged by the holiness of God
in his own soul for the sin that he bore, our sin. He became the divine ransom for
the eternal offence of our sin and he paid it to the last degree. Today, if you see you're a sinner,
if you understand your culpability before God, If you have been
brought to that place of confession of your sin, then I point you
to the cross of Jesus Christ. It's all you need. I point you
to the one who is hanging upon the cross. He is the only saviour
of your soul and he has done everything that is necessary
for your deliverance. So we repeat ourselves. Peter
said in Acts 4, neither is there salvation in any other, for there
is none other name given under heaven amongst men whereby we
must be saved. And Paul says to the Galatians
in chapter 6 verse 14, God forbid that I should glory save in the
cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you who have known something
of the blessedness of the atonement of Jesus Christ, Is it not your
testimony that you have received everything that you need from
Him? Is it not your testimony that
there is nothing that you can add to it? That the gift of eternal
life is predicated upon His death? The gift of glory is because
He was abased and humbled for us? Upon what ground can we have
any reason to boast? There's nothing that we have,
spiritually speaking, that we have not been given. The second
point is that the Gospel comes with the power of the Spirit.
Let me just read a couple of verses to you once again. Here
he says at the beginning of chapter 2, and I brethren, when I came
to you, this is the Apostle Paul speaking about him coming to
preach to the Corinthians, coming into that city of Corinth in
order to minister to the people that were there. Brethren, when
I came to you, I came not with excellency of speech, You see, the big thing at the
moment is that we hone the oratorial skills of our young men and women
at Bible colleges and in front of podiums in order that they
might come with an excellency of speech. If only we could have
an excellency of speech, then the whole world would hear the
message with power. That's exactly the opposite of
what the Apostle Paul said. He said, when I came, I didn't
come with the excellency of speech. Did he stutter? Was that what
it was? Was it the way that he spoke? Was there an awkwardness about
his person? Did he look odd? What was it
about the Apostle that was so unattractive? I didn't come with
wisdom. He was perhaps the most accomplished
in the wisdom of his age, this man. He had learned everything
that was to be learned at the feet of the finest philosophers
and wise men of his age. I didn't come with wisdom. When
I came declaring to you the testimony of God, 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. I think that that's lovely. For
all that the Apostle Paul had as far as his natural abilities. He was a man who felt the weight
of his obligations to testify the words of God. Who wants that
job? Who wants the job of speaking
God's words to hell-bound sinners? rightly he was afraid, rightly
he trembled. Because of nervousness to those
he spoke to, perhaps, perhaps there was an element of going
into a strange place, speaking to people for the first time,
bringing them a message which he knew, A little later in the
passage we didn't read it, that the natural man can't receive,
that the natural man will find offensive. He certainly suffered
in his own body repeatedly the aggressiveness of those to whom
he did speak and who found his message abominable. But I think rather that he was
aware of the obligation that he had before God. He came in
much weakness and in fear and in much trembling. We're dealing
with a mighty message here. We're dealing with the most important
message that you will ever hear. We're dealing with the most important
message that I will ever speak, and I better get it right, because
if I speak, to you erroneously. If I run unsent, if I stand up
here before Almighty God and claim to be His mouthpiece, who
asked about what woe betide means? Woe betide me! If I speak unsent, this is the
most important message ever and it has to be heard and it has
to be declared as God would have it done. When we come, he says,
my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's
wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. I want us to see the implication
here, the emphasis, the glory of the way of salvation is that
God has purposefully employed weak things. Who would think that the most
valuable thing that you would ever be able to possess could
be found in this little building here on a Sunday morning in February? Who would think that, that the
most valuable possession, the most precious possession that
you could ever have would be found in the company of this
lot? He chooses the weak things, he
chooses the inconsequential things, the diamonds in the dust. This
is where the Lord's glory is manifested in the simplicity
and in the weakness and in the inconsequentialness of such gatherings
as these. Because why? Because Christ himself
is pleased to honor such gatherings with his presence. Where two
or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst. The Lord himself is pleased to
come. And I say to you, The more eloquent the man, the
less effective the message. Excellent speech, enticing words,
attractive presentations. They're useless. That's not what
God uses. It's not the slick presentation. It's not the overhead projector. It's not the large congregations
and the manifestation of power and wealth and might and influence. He turns that all in its head,
and he turns it in his head for exactly this reason, that if
it was in those things, then we would glory in them. When
the design of salvation is that we glory in the Lord and what
He has done. It's His death, it's His blood,
it's His sacrifice that is the essence of our attention. It might impress the natural
man if we could do our gospel with the razzmatazz of the slick
presenter, but it would be no good for those who hunger and
thirsted after spiritual righteousness. The simple country preacher is
the one we want to hear, not the fast-moving slick city, men
with all of their money and their might and their movements. Sometimes when we hear a preacher,
we go and we think to ourselves, he struggled this morning, didn't
he? He didn't come over very well and the things that he had
to say, I didn't get very much from that this morning. It's
in just those times, in just those situations, that the Lord
Jesus Christ is pleased to take a word and to lay it onto the
heart of His people. You know why? Because the last
thing He wants you to see is the man that's standing up here.
And the last thing that the man that stands up here wants you
to see is Him. He wants to show you Jesus, and
if we see Jesus, then that has been a successful service. That's the kernel of the nut. Salvation doesn't come in the
power of man, it comes by the power of the Holy Spirit. So
we need to rejoice in the weak and in the fearful and in the
trembling. We need to see that it is there
that spiritual good is to be discovered. That's the best sermon. That's the sermon that feeds
our soul. That's the sermon that nourishes
our spirit. What we desire is not to be in
a place where the ears of those who gather will be tickled, but
to hear the Lord Jesus Christ declared. In Isaiah 55 we read
these words, My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down and
the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the
earth and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed
to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that
goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it." The gospel is a message
of sacrifice and atonement. The gospel comes in the power
of the Holy Spirit, and the gospel brings divinely bestowed faith. Paul's determination. He said,
I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. He was resolved. He was determined. He would be drawn into many other
arguments. There would be many debates put
to him. There would be lots of things
that he would be invited to comment upon. But you know what? He determined
to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He would not preach himself.
He would not preach human nature. He would not preach free will.
He would not preach the works of the creature. He would not
preach morality. He preached Jesus Christ crucified. And that's what we should do.
That's what we should endeavour to follow. To exclude all, everything. from being partners with the
Lord Jesus Christ in the business of salvation and coming to faith. Faith is God's work. I can't
give you faith. You can't get faith. You can't
get faith. You can't get it by making a
decision. You can't get it by putting up
your hand or coming forward. It's God's gift to give and He
gives it to whomsoever He will. All you can do is exercise it
once it's been given. And that the Lord calls upon
His people to do in trusting Him and the completeness of His
work upon the cross. In John 6, 29, Jesus answered
and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe
on him whom he has sent. And Paul says in Romans 10, So
then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It is God's chosen means of bringing
sinners to himself that they hear the gospel. of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. It is divinely given, it is divinely
worked, it is divinely brought, and it is divinely received. And it is lasting and enduring
and eternal. God prepares the heart for whom
faith is designed. And he gives that faith after
he has prepared the heart accordingly. We are prepared by being brought
to feel our need of a saviour. We are prepared by being brought
to know something of our own sinfulness. We are prepared by
having a hunger and a thirst after righteousness. We are prepared
by being burdened with our own sin and by seeking to flee the
wrath which is to come. Then, in the preaching of the
Gospel, we see Jesus Christ crucified for us. Then, as Paul says to
the Galatians, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently
set forth, crucified among you, being born again not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. Faith in Christ, in the doctrines,
the teaching of his gospel comes by hearing this message. It's
the most important message you will ever hear. And I encourage
you to seek out every opportunity to hear that message. Don't let
this be a one-off opportunity. Hear it repeatedly. Hear it regularly. Hear it like you have your breakfast
in the morning, because it will do your soul good every day of
your life. Hear the true message of Jesus
Christ. There will be opposition to that
message. There will be a warring. The
natural man will rise up against it. Satan will seek to rob you
of the blessings that come by it. The affairs of this world
will crowd in upon you. But be a people who are resolute
to hear the gospel preached and insist upon it. It will stand. It will stand in your heart and
in your life. For God does not give His gifts
and then take them away again. They are without repentance.
He gives His gifts to His people. He gives the gift of faith and
He holds it there. It will endure to the last. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
author and the finisher of our faith. People of lively faith,
spiritual faith, know the truth. And the truth sets them free. Sets them free from the fear
of falling away. Sets them free from the fear
of being eternally lost. And we stand in that faith of
the Lord Jesus Christ crucified, which God is pleased to bestow. You see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise. God hath chosen the
weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty. the
base things of the world, things which are despised hath God chosen
ye, and things which are not, to bring to naught the things
that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. but of
him that is of God are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made
unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. That according as it is written,
he that gloryeth, let him glory in the Lord. Amen.