For 30 years, Brother Henry Mahan
and the Church of the Apostate International of Kentucky hosted
Sovereign Grace Bible Conference. And the latter conferences, Brother
Mahan decided to start having three preachers every morning.
He mistakenly thought he could get them all to preach for 30
minutes. When my daughter was 9, maybe
10 years old, Twenty-five, twenty-six years ago, we were in conference
one week, Ashland, and it had been a long morning. A long morning. A good friend from Pine Bluff,
Arkansas, who didn't know what a clock was, preached for a long
time. And then we had another fellow
who actually stayed pretty close to thirty minutes, and A third
fellow was preaching, and it was way past lunchtime already.
And my daughter was taking notes. She tried to take notes and pay
attention to what was being said, and every now and then I'd glance
over and see what she was writing. And this fellow made a statement.
He said, I'm so tired of religion. And faith broke down, I am so
tired of religion, put an exclamation point beside it, and marked,
underscored it about three times. And I thought she started scribbling.
So I looked over at her, and she caught my eye. And I could
tell she was terrified. And I leaned over and said to
her, me too, honey. I was tired. I was just tired. And I know you're tired. You've
listened to good preaching. Brother Todd just so clearly
set forth the free proclamation of the gospel of our Savior. And I'm going to conclude. He invited you to the feast.
I'm going to spread the feast real quick. I promise you if
I don't see a closed eye 20 minutes after 4, you're out of here.
20 minutes after chapter 4. So if you get tired, stand up,
but don't close your eyes. Alright, 1 Corinthians chapter
1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Let's just start right with the
verse, with my text. Verse 30. But, but, the Apostle Paul has just told
us, you see your calling brethren, not many wise, not many noble,
but God's chosen the foolish things. Look around and see what's here. God's chosen the foolish things.
the nothings and the nobodies, to perform His work among men
in this world. And He did it that no flesh should
glory in His presence. If God Almighty takes a worthless,
empty, dirty, broken, rusty pipe like this one, and does anything
with it, everybody knows the pipe didn't have anything to
do with it. If God Almighty uses something like you, for the good of His people and
the glory of His name, you better know, and everybody else dead
sure knows, You didn't have anything to do with it. He does it that
no flesh should glory in his presence. He's not going to let
man glory. It's not going to happen. But,
that's a good word to begin with, but of him of Him. This is the source. This is the cause. This is the
means. This is the power of Him. Whatever has to do with grace,
salvation, and eternal life is of Him. It is God's work. Of Him are ye Who? You who are the called. You who have been graciously
forced, compelled by His Spirit to come to the marriage feast.
Of Him are you. You who believe on the Son of
God. You who trust Christ as your
only Savior. You who bow to Him, trusting
Him alone to bring you into Heaven's glory. You who come and feast
upon Him. Of Him are you in Christ Jesus. In Christ. What a word. in Christ. What does it mean
to be in Christ? Illustration after illustration
is given in the Scripture. All of them fall short like all
illustrations do. If illustrations were perfect,
they wouldn't be illustrations. As the branches are in the vine,
we are in Christ. A tree is cut and a graft is
brought into the tree so we are grafted into Christ. As the members
are in the body, we are in Christ. As the Son is in the Father,
and the Father is in the Son. Is that right? Read the 17th
chapter, John. As the Son is in the Father,
and the Father is in the Son, we are in Christ. Now how on earth did we get to
be in Him? We are in Him because God put
us in Him. In Him by God's eternal decree. Folks say, God sees us in Christ. Do you know why God sees us in
Christ? That's where we are. He put us in His Son. He blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ,
before the world was. He adopted us in Christ before
the world was. He accepted us in Christ before
the world was. He declared us holy and righteous
and just in Christ before the world began. So we are in Christ
by God's decree, in Christ meaning that God Himself from the beginning
put us in His Son, in union with His Son, one with His Son. In
Ephesians chapter 5, the Apostle Paul gives instructions about
marriage. And you know, folks love to preach
about marriage, teach about marriage, talk about marriage, have seminars
about marriage, and build multi-million dollar businesses called Focus
in the Family about marriage and all that nonsense. And if
I should announce to you next year when I come, And I'm going
to give you three or four messages on husbands and wives. I'll guarantee you, you'd get
excited. Guarantee it. You'd come and
you'd listen. And old brother Gene Harmon back
there, he'd hear the first sermon or two, he'd say, boy, I needed
that. And you'd start going home and
stop on the way home, buy Judy a milkshake or something, you
know, would be real nice and love her. And then third or fourth
sermon, he said, boy, I sure hope Bob Harmon heard that sermon. It always amounts to that. It
always amounts to that. It's nothing but breeding ground
for the promotion of self-righteousness. But did you happen to notice
what Paul said when he got through with all this? He said, for this
cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and they too
shall be one flesh. Oh, Don and Shelby. If you've seen Shelby and you're
looking at me, you know good and well we ain't one flesh.
And I hope she'll never start to look like me or act like me. Oh, but we get to be one. We
are sort of one. We're sort of one. And I hope
until we die we get to be more and more sort of one. But we're
not one, except as we are one in Christ. And Paul said, now
just in case you missed the whole point, I'm not talking about
men and women. I'm talking about Christ and
his church. We are one flesh. How far can
you take that? I get so sick of folks warning
you about taking scripture too far. Do yourself a favor. Anytime you read some sweet declaration
in God's Word, you run just as far as you can run with it than
to knock the wall down and keep running. You can't run far enough. We are bone of His bone and flesh
of His flesh. As He is, so are we. As He lives, so do we. As He exists as our mediator,
so do we. When did we get to be in Christ? From the beginning, or wherever
the world was. Of Him are you in Christ. We are in Him by faith. We have
been baptized into Him, being baptized symbolically into Him,
into His death and raised with Him. We were raised with Him,
crucified, risen with Him, seated with Him in the heavens. When
He was quickened from the dead, we were quickened together with
Him, of Him. Are you in Christ? In Christ? What's in Christ? in Him forever,
who from Him my soul can see, in Christ, in Christ. Now watch
this, who of God is made unto us, we are in Christ, we who
have been called who have graciously been compelled to come to the
banqueting room and the banqueting house of the gospel feast. He
is made of God, and to us, wisdom. Hold your hands here. Look back at verse 24. To them which are the called, both
Jews and Greeks, Christ, The power of God and the wisdom of
God. Come back to Proverbs chapter
8. Hold your hands right here. We're
coming right back to 1 Corinthians. Proverbs chapter 8. I promise
you we won't look but just a couple of scriptures. We're taught by Moses in the
90th Psalm when he tells us the brevity
of man's life, he prayed and teaches us to pray, so teach
us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. If you imagine that he is saying,
Lord teach us To be wise in the pursuit of our careers, to be
wise in the way we save our money, to be wise in planning for our
retirement, to be wise in... You've missed the whole boat.
To apply your heart to wisdom is to apply your heart to Christ.
Who of God has made unto us wisdom. Now, the scriptures clearly tell
us that Christ is our wisdom before God. The Scriptures clearly
teach us that Christ directs our paths in wisdom. He gives
us the tongue of the learned. He gives us such grace that He
makes us wise unto salvation. But this passage all says, by
divine inspiration, He is made of God unto us. Wisdom. Look at Proverbs 8, verse
12. I-wisdom. Now, the kind of wisdom
that folks generally think of cannot possibly speak and say
I. This is a person speaking. I-wisdom. Let's get down to verse
30. Then was I by him, as one brought
up with him, and I was daily his delight. Rejoicing always
before Him, rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth. And my delights were with the
sons of men. I, wisdom, set up with Him, he
tells us in verse 23, from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the
earth was. Well, what does this mean now?
When it says that Christ is made of God, unto us wisdom. Brother Todd and I spent a good
bit of time last night talking about this very text. And he
helped me a great deal. He's talking here about that
with which God Almighty can hold communion. People these days talk about
their animals like they were people. How many times have you
heard some fool say, I love that dog like it's my own child? Obviously,
he never had a child. I love that cat like it's my
daughter. Obviously, he never had a daughter, or else I didn't
want to be your daughter. One of the two. You can't commune
with. You can't be one with. You can't really communicate
and fellowship with anyone or anything that is not your equal? Can't be done. How can God communicate
himself to a man? Make himself known to a man?
Walk with a man? Talk with a man? embrace a man,
receive a man, only if that man is one who is his equal. Behold, I, wisdom, was set up
from everlasting. That's Christ, our wisdom, the
Word who in time was made flesh, and now He is made of God unto
us. Wisdom. So that by Him, we draw
near to God, commune with God, communicate with God, find delight
in God, and God, O wonder of grace, finds delight in us. This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased. Our Savior said, I was daily
His delight. Will you hear me? You who have
been called of God to the marriage feast, you who have come to feast
upon the Savior, you are daily His delight. His delight. He delights in His own. He has
from everlasting and He never ceases. Well, what about, you
missed what I said. You missed it. Not delighting
in your individual person and what you've done. No, that will
never happen. Delighting in Him, in whom we
are, with whom we are one. Jesus Christ the Lord. Well,
what does that mean? Who of God has made unto us wisdom.
Well, brother Don, what does that mean? And righteousness. And righteousness. What delights
God? Read the book. He delights in
righteousness. He delights in righteousness.
Nothing else. Righteousness. Well, what is
righteousness? Righteousness is the perfect,
perfect, absolute exactness of God's own character. It is the exactness of God's
own character. You see, your bulletin there
revolved. Some of you ladies have done
typing on old manual typewriters before the days of computers,
and you had to typeset things, and they called it justifying
the right-hand margin. That means this margin here is
just like this one. We used to do bulletins in the
old days, and we used an old hand-cranked mimeograph machine
and those horrible stencils that were a pain to work with. And
my wife would type out the articles that I would write, And I insisted
on things looking good, so she had to type them two and three
times. She'd type them out, and then she'd take a ruler and put
it down the side here, measure it out, count spaces, and put
spaces between the words until the words came out matching on
the other side. Now you just hit justify and
it's done. What do you mean justify the
right-hand margin? Listen now, listen. is God's holy character. All that God is in all His righteous
being. That's me. The exact likeness
of God Himself in His Son, righteous, who of God is made unto us righteousness. He hath made Him sin for us,
whom you know sin, that we might be made in exactly the same way,
to exactly the same degree, The righteousness of God is him. What does this mean? I was here for you in Christ
Jesus so God made it for us. Wisdom. So that we can commune
with God and God with us. Righteousness. Gene Harmon, I
can walk with God because I'm right with God. I'm right with
God. I have a right to walk with Him
and I'm right with Him. and sanctification. Now let me
just say one thing about that. Turn to Hebrews chapter 12. Turn to Hebrews chapter 12. Follow peace with all men and
holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. I saw you
look at your computer, you got your Greek text on back there
Mark? It's the same word, the exact same word, sanctification,
holiness, purity. Oh, brother God, we know salvation
by grace, but we've got to strive and strive to be holy and follow,
follow peace with all men and holiness. And if we don't, we
can't see the Lord. You ain't going to see him, I
promise you. I promise you it ain't going to happen. Your holiness
ain't nothing but filth and sin. Your purity is nothing but pollution
and corruption. Well, what's this holiness? of
Him, are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us holiness,
holy. We hear folks talk, you know,
we put on such religious tones, God's so holy, holy, holy, holy,
holy. He is that. That word whole,
W-H-O-L-E, and this word holy, H-O-L-Y, has something to do
with one another. God's holiness is the whole of
his being. That's what sets him apart from
you and me, is the whole of his being. What is it that separates
us from God by nature? It is our unwholeness, our lameness,
our corruption, our defilement, our death. And Christ comes and
takes the lame, and the haught, and the blind, and by His grace
makes us whole again. before God, holy, as he himself
is holy. With his spotless garments on,
I am as holy as God's own son. Here's somebody else. What does
this mean? How can I walk with God, commune
with God, fellowship with God, be one with God? How can we spend
eternity in sweet bliss together? Of Him are you in Christ who
is made of God and to us wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and
retention. Total deliverance. Total deliverance. Now let your servant depart in
peace. Mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Mine eyes have seen thy Redeemer. Redeemed, how I love to proclaim
it. Redeemed. Oh, redeemed, redeemed,
redeemed. In Him, who of God It's made
into us. Waste.