It's one of these... That won't be necessary. Well, this doesn't ever get old,
does it? That's an understatement. It gets more wonderful every
time we're able to gather together, and I'm just grateful to be a
part of it. I love this church, and I love
your pastor. And I'm thankful to be here.
First Corinthians chapter two. Let's look at together. Second Corinthians two one. 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. Now Paul having just explained
to this Corinthian church in the first chapter of this book
that their boasting in these various preachers, including
Paul, was vain and fleshly. Verses 10 through 13, look at
that with me. Now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the
same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but that
you 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 sayeth, 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 you baptized in the name
of Paul, and he impresses upon them that they
were all saved, not by the preacher, the various different preachers,
but by means of the same gospel preached by all of them. Verses
17 through 18. 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,
the cross is the power of God. The cross, Christ in him crucified,
not fleshly things. And that means that God has used
the gospel that all of his preachers preach is has the saving power
that it does and is the power of God unto salvation because
of the one who is the gospel. Look at verse 23. 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. When he says
the power of God, the preaching of the cross is the power of
God to us that are saved. It's because it's Christ that
we preach, and the wisdom of God. Furthermore, Paul explained
to them that by that gospel and the power of him whom we preach,
God chose and called them to Christ. Though they were the
base, the weak, the foolish, the things that are not in this
world, God picked them out and put them in Christ by means of
that gospel preaching, verse 27. 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, of God, are you in
Christ Jesus? This I'm of Paul and I'm of Apollos
and I'm of this and that and the other, none of that matters. That's not the point. God put
you in his son and he's made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption, everything we need. And you see
now why Paul quoted the Old Testament scripture that he did in verse
31. that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Let him glory in
the, was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in my name?
Is that who we're gonna glory in now, the flesh, man? So he quotes this, you're glory
in the preacher when God is the one that chose you. Christ is
the one who died for you. God revealed himself to you by
his spirit in the gospel that all of his preachers preach.
Don't glory in anything or anybody but the Lord Jesus Christ and
what he did for you. As Paul also said to the church
in Galatia, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. In that context there, he just
got through talking about men that glory in your flesh. They
count numbers, they put up statistics. God forbid that we glory in anything
except what he did, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now
beginning chapter two in the same line of thought. Now that's
why I wanted to say all that. And I brethren, when I came to
you, I gave you no excuse to glory in me. You see that? I
gave you no reason whatsoever to glory in me. I didn't come
with excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring unto you
the testimony of God. In other words, God chose who
he did and ordained the means that he did for the specific
reason that no flesh should glory in his presence. That's why he
did it that way. Are we in on that? I know that
y'all are. I pray that you are, we are.
I pray I am, that I'm in on that. Do we want any glory whatsoever?
How would we get any anyway, Brother Gabe? It's done. But
we're experts at it, aren't we? Boy, we're good at that. We're
gonna get some glory one way or the other if we can. If God
lets us do it. And that God forbid that I should
glory. Saving my precious Savior. No reason, no excuse. And there's
two reasons why we shouldn't glory in the flesh. One is that
we haven't, whose flesh are you gonna glory in? Who's worthy of it? Who would
give you any reason to glory in the flesh? And the other is
in verse two. Look at verse two of our text.
For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. We have every reason to glory
in Him. And those things go together.
And look what that looks like. What does it look like to not
glory in the flesh, but to glory in Christ alone? I came not with
excellency of speech. And that's not just Paul's method
now, that's God's method. And that means everybody comes
speaking for him, speaks that way. They speak that way. Now I've told this before, y'all
may have heard me say this, but this is the truth. Now I'm not
making it up. I've had a man say to me one
time. He said our preacher is so smart
that sometimes I don't even understand what he's saying That's the truth. I can tell you the man's name
if you're interested And he was bragging on that he
was proud of that that's a perfect example of why God doesn't do
things this way and That man was boasting of how smart his
preacher was, and secondly, he talked about his church for a
good while and never mentioned the name of Christ one time. Those two things go together.
If you're glorying in the flesh, you're not glorying in God's
son. And when a man sent by God is preaching the gospel, by God's
grace, his aim is not to be eloquent or impressive, His aim is not
to come up with something new or anything that excites the
flesh. His purpose is to be as plain and clear as he can be
like Brother Gabe just was. It dawned on me as the Lord was
blessing that message to my heart and just causing us to rejoice
in the Savior, it dawned on me that's what it means to rightly
divide the word. He took us from scripture to
scripture to scripture to scripture and every scripture he quoted
went right back to what his text was. Thank God for that. That doesn't happen by nature.
That just doesn't happen. That's the Lord. That's the Lord. But God doesn't do things that
way. Not with the excellency of words. I was determined that it wasn't
gonna be like that, Paul said. He said in 2 Corinthians 3, seeing
that we have such hope seeing that this gospel is so vital,
seeing that it's so glorious, seeing that it's so wonderful.
We want to be just as plain as we can be about it. We want to
deliver it just, we want to get completely out of the way of
you seeing Christ and what he did for you. If you're his, if
you believe on him, what he did for us, What will be impressive to anyone
who actually hears the gospel, what will be impressive to them is not the man that preached
it or the message, the manner in which it was preached, the
skill, per se, or whatever you want to call it. What's going
to be impressive to anybody that actually hears what we're saying
is the one we're talking about. the one we're talking about.
And we want to just be as plain as we possibly can. To teach
this, to illustrate this, Paul used the illustration of a treasure
in a plain box. In just a plain old box. In 2
Corinthians 4 saying we have this treasure in earthen vessels
that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Now a child might open up a box
and take the gift out of it and play with the box. But somebody old enough to know
the true value of the gift will never do that. He will never
do that. You don't need a college degree
to preach the gospel. In fact, I think it's probably
a hindrance in my experience. That's just me. You don't need
a chalkboard. to preach the gospel. Other than
being called of God to do it, you just need to be able to read.
You need to be able to speak. And then most important, you
have to know the one you're talking about. If you know, if you know by God's
grace, through faith in his son, if you know Jehovah Rea, you can preach the gospel. Everything that God requires
for a sinner to be saved, he's provided in Christ. If by God's grace you know the
difference between trying and doing, then you know the difference
between the gospel and the false gospel of man-centered religion.
Someone who denies Christ, the almighty savior of sinners, the
invincible captain of salvation. If you deny him, if you deny
the sovereign Christ who damns who he will and saves who he
will, he said, all power is given to me, therefore you go. And whoever believes you, I'll
save them. And whoever does it, I'll damn
him. I'll put him in hell. If you deny that Christ, it's
not that you need to learn the doctrine of election. That's
not your problem. It's not that they don't agree
with John Gill's body of divinity. That's not the problem. It's
that they don't agree with Jonah. When Jonah cried from the belly
of hell, and God delivered him, and Jonah said, salvations of
the Lord. That's your problem. That's who you have a problem
with. They preach that it's up to you. When Jonah said, salvations
of the Lord. It can't be both. And it's not
that they disagree with John Calvin. It's that they disagree
with Romans 9.15 and the whole Bible, of course. This is just
an example. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. and I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that, what's not of him? Mercy, salvation. You can't get it because you
exercise your will. It's not of him that runneth,
or that word means striveth. You can't work for it, you can't
accomplish it, but it's of God that showeth mercy. That's, it's
not as complicated as reading all the big books and everything
and saying, well, I don't know about this and that and the other.
Do you believe God is God? Do you believe God? Here's how God reveals that,
the gospel, which admittedly is deep and unfathomable. We're
never going to exhaust it. But it's, and it's unknowable
apart from a miracle of God's grace. We understand that we
cry out to God to reveal it to us by a miracle of his grace,
a raising from the dead. And yet here's the language of
the gospel. See if this, you know, goes over your head at
all. You believe not, he said to religious people that hated
him, because you're not my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice. And I know them. And they follow
me. I don't beg them to follow me.
I don't hope they'll follow me. I don't invite them to follow
me. I know them, they hear my voice
and they follow me. Any sheep here today? By the
grace of God, and I give unto them eternal life. And they shall never perish. I give it and they have it. That's
God, that's just God. That's not some deep dark doctrine,
that's just God. That's just who he is. He gives
it, you got it. He got something to say to you,
you're fixing to get it. Well how do I know Chris if I'm
one of his sheep? Are you following him? Have you heard his voice? And
not just the preacher? Do you believe on the son of
God? Gabe stole one part of my message tonight. The last words
he said to us is, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved. You know what the last words
of my message are? Not my message, that's the Lord,
isn't it? Believe on the Lord, Jesus, the Christ, and he'll
save you. He'll save you. Believe on the
one that finished the work. Believe on him who is God in
human flesh. Here's the language of the gospel.
Herein is love. Churches, so-called churches,
love to talk about love, don't they? We love you, we love everybody,
we love the world, God loves everybody. Come on in, get in
on the love. Here's love. Not that we love God. You ever
wonder why that's there? Because we don't love God by
nature. But it would be a complete sentence
without that, wouldn't it? Herein is love that God sent
his son, that God loved us and sent his son. Not that we loved
God. We need to understand that. We
need to understand that that's not how this whole thing happens,
is we fall in love with God. We love him because he first
loved us. And then we're gonna fall in
love with him then. Oh, that's his love, though.
That's his love. The more you love him, the more
you're gonna sing about his love, aren't you? Oh, by his grace. And sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. How about this? See if this is
hard to understand, if this is too deep. If we receive, this is 1 John
5, 9, if we receive the witness of men, and we do, we believe
people about things, you got to, some level of trust, the witness of God is greater.
Wouldn't you say? When God says something, you
gotta believe it, you better believe it. It's not just that
you might or you'll think about it. Don't think about it, believe
him. You're commanded to believe. because of who he is, not because
you understand it, not because you have a grasp of it, not because
you agree with it, but because he said it. If we receive the witness of
men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness of God,
which he hath testified of his son. Everything God said concerns
his son. Prove me wrong, you find one
thing in this book that doesn't concern the Son
of God. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath that witness in himself. Lord, I believe, help. We can't
ever say, Lord, I believe, without saying help, can we? But he that believeth not God
hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that
God gave of his son. And this is the record that God
hath given unto us eternal life. And this life is in his son. He that hath the Son hath life. Is this hard? Is that deep? And he that hath not the Son
of God hath not life. Here's what's deep about that.
You'll spend the rest of your life learning that and never
know it all the way. Oh, he that hath the Son hath
life. You see why we don't need to
use excellency of speech? The excellency is of the one
we're talking about. Or the wisdom of man, he said,
I didn't come with the wisdom of man. Now Paul says right after
this that we speak wisdom. We speak the wisdom of God in
the mystery, but not the wisdom of man. Paul had just written
there in chapter one that God hath made foolish the wisdom
of this world. Would you debate? Somebody think
about this. God hath made foolish the wisdom
of this world. Who wants to sit down and have
a debate with somebody on whether the earth is flat or round? I don't have that kind of time,
do you? I don't have time for that. Would I run out of more
important things than that to do? Then I'll have that debate
with you. When God's word is plain and
clear, when the gospel of Christ is revealed to you, when someone
by the grace of God has used great plainness of speech and
preached Christ and what he did for sinners, You're not gonna
bother debating with someone who thinks Christ didn't redeem
everybody he died for. Why would you wanna talk about
that? We didn't learn Christ that way. He didn't die to give sinners
an opportunity to do the right thing. He died to save somebody,
to redeem. He obtained eternal redemption
for somebody. The wisdom of this world is foolishness. There's no place for philosophy
or intellectualism or debate or even opinion at all in the
preaching of the cross. But look what it is, though.
Look what it is. He just said what it's not. Look
what it is. Not enticing words, not excellent
oratory ability, nor the deductions or interpretations of men, but
what is it then? Just telling what God said. The
testimony of God. A declaration of the testimony
or the word of God. We don't interpret, we declare.
We don't equivocate, we declare. We don't debate, we declare.
It means to announce, to make known, to proclaim publicly.
Proclaim what? What God said, only that. And
everything he said concerns his son. These are written, why? Remember
why John said this book is written? That you might believe that Jesus
Christ is the son of God and that believing you might have
life through his name. That's what we announce, who
he is and what he did. Just this word, what he said. He said, go and preach. Everything
I've told you, you tell them. That's what he said. And lo,
I'm with you. That's my favorite part. Lo,
I'm with you. Like those verses and passages
we read a moment ago. And when you read from John 10
there, In 1 John 4 and 5, you might say, well, that's just
a part of the testimony of God. It's a small portion of scripture,
but it's the whole testimony of God. The Bible doesn't say a lot of
things. It says the same thing a lot of times. What John wrote in 1 John 4 is
what happened on Calvary. It's what's pictured by Abel's
lamb in Genesis 4. It's the whole testimony of God.
Wherever you look, wherever you speak from, Philip just started
right where that eunuch was reading, didn't he? Just right where he
was reading and preached unto him Jesus. What would you preach
if you started somewhere else in the Bible? We don't have to read and expound
the whole Bible tonight for me to be able to declare unto you
the whole testimony of God, because look at verse two in our text
again. For I determine not to know anything among you save
Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Declaring the testimony of God
is not accomplished by expounding every verse in the whole Bible.
Now, we might do that over a lifetime. I'd love to if I have time to
do that. We certainly could never do that in one message, but declaring
the testimony of God is to be careful to declare nothing else but Jesus Christ, what God said
concerning his son, and his work, the person and the work of the
son of God. Christ's work being crucified is what it is because of who
he is. If I die for you, that says I
love you greatly, but it's not gonna help you, it's not gonna
save you, it's not gonna help you at all. Christ was named Jesus, for he
shall save his people from their sins. And he did that by suffering
the wrath of God for the sins of his elect, his sheep on the
cross, him crucified. Who he is is God in human flesh. That's why we say the only thing
you need to know really to understand the truth of effectual redemption
is who he is. He's God. Of course what he does
gets the job done. That's my southern definition
of effectual. It gets the job done. His precious
blood got the job done. He accomplished salvation for
us. Being crucified, it's Christ
and Him crucified. You ever wonder why it says it
that way? Why not just Christ crucified? I believe it does
say it that way in another place, but not here. Christ and Him
crucified. Who it was. People say the gospel
is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Wait a minute,
who are you talking about? There are all kinds of false
Christs. You have to tell me who he is and what he accomplished
because of who he is to tell me the gospel. Without controversy, great is
the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Justified in the spirit seen
of angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world and
Received up in the glory God in the beginning was the word
and the word was with God in the word was God And later down
further in the chapter. It says that word was made flesh
and lived where we live Here's King David's description
of God you You'll remember this in Psalm 115, too. Wherefore
should the heathen say, where now is their God? David said,
well, I'll tell you this, our God is in the heavens, and he
hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. That's who he is, and that's where he is. He's
on the throne of glory, and he does as he pleases from there.
Now Christ Jesus being God in human flesh and God being him
who does as he pleases, remember it says in Daniel 4.35, all the
inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing and he doeth
according to his will in the army of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or
say unto him, what doest thou? You can't stop him, you can't
even question him because he's God. So Jesus Christ, the son
of God who created the heavens and the earth, came to this world,
what for? To save his people from their
sins. And he said in Luke 19.10, the
son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. He who does as he pleases in
the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of this earth
came to save his lost sheep. What did he do to save them?
Christ and him crucified, nailed to a cross. But what he suffered
there was not just the physical pain of being nailed to a cross,
which I understand would be excruciating. But listen, to 1 Peter 2.24,
who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree. We have no idea what that means. In a lot of different senses,
we have no idea what that would be for the son of God to bear
sin in his body somehow. I don't understand that, but
I'm pretty sure it's not just a legal matter. You reckon? He bore our sins in his body
on the tree. The more men try to explain that,
the more you realize they don't know what they're talking about. But we believe that, don't we?
He bore my, that we, being dead to sins, dead to God, should
live unto righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. Isaiah preached this same gospel,
didn't he? That when Christ did what he
did, it had an absolute, determined, and complete effect on his people. We're made whole. We're made
whole because he bore our sins in his own body. He did that
that we should live, not that we should have a shot. Not that
we should choose or decide or have a chance. He did that that
we might live unto righteousness. First Peter 3.18, for Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that
he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but
quickened by the Spirit. Not to see if we would come to
God, but to bring us to God. The simple question is, can God
accomplish what he sets out to accomplish? The message of Christ
crucified. That truth is inherent in that
message. Because of who died on Calvary. Salvations of the Lord. Salvation's
finished. It's complete, it's accomplished.
Is redemption completed by man's will? Or was it fully obtained
by Christ on Calvary? Gabe stole that part too. It's just when the Lord
reveals it, he makes it plain. I pray that we'll understand
that the doctrine that we believe, the things which are most assuredly
believed among us, is not some deep, complicated bodies of divinity that men have
written. Not only can you teach your children
about the electing love of God, the predestination of his people
to the image of his son. But you must teach them that.
That's the simple gospel. The only way that gets complicated
is if somebody who hates that God tries to reconcile that with
what they believe. Then it gets real tricky. Is redemption completed by man's
will or was it fully obtained by Christ on Calvary? That's
what we preach, that Christ obtained eternal redemption. That's what
he came to do. And he did. And he said it's done. To preach Christ crucified is
to preach that what he came to do is done because of who did
it. And what he did was save those that he came to save. The
Lord Jesus in his high priestly prayer in John 17 9 declared
that he was not there to represent the world. But those whom the father had
given unto him in the eternal covenant of grace. Am I one of
those Chris? Am I one of those? Do you believe on the son of
God? Has he revealed to you in his
word that he's mighty to save and not the poor Jesus of free
will, man-centered religion that wants good things to happen but
can't get them done? Have you submitted to Christ
the righteousness of God or are you going about to establish
your own righteousness? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Let me add one thought because,
and it's not in my message, but Brother Angus and I were talking
about how coming to these conferences and preaching, I guess as much
or more than anything, the Lord causes us to see our inability,
our inadequacy. So look at the next verse just
very briefly. And I was with you in weakness.
Weakness. I was with you in weakness. That
doesn't mean that Paul was sick when he came. He's not talking
about how he couldn't see good. Some people say he was about
half blind. You're not talking about the infirmity of the flesh
there. This is for the preachers and everybody, but mainly you
preachers. I came to you, that word is impotence. It means lacking the requisite
ability. That's how we come. We come not
being able to do anything, but we know who can. Who is sufficient
for these things? Nobody. With men, it's impossible. But
with God, all things are possible. So we commend the word and pray that God we'll
do something for sinners and not try to get sinners to do
something for God. What are you gonna do for God?
But we come in weakness, don't we? We come impotent and unworthy,
lacking the requisite ability. But with God, all things are
possible. He might just save everybody in this room. He might
just do that. If he will, he can. I pray that
he would. May he bless this word to our
hearts.