Let me just ask you to look once
again at Paul's remarks in Acts 17, because this is really the
foundation of what I want to present to you in this message. He stood in the midst of Mars
Hill, verse 22, and he said, ye men of Athens,
people of this great city, I understand and perceive that
in all things you're too superstitious, you're too religious. For he
said, as I walked through the streets of your cities, and I
looked over your altars and your shrines and your devotions and
your religious symbols, he said, I found one there in
your effort to satisfy and appease all the gods, I found one on
which you wrote this inscription, to the unknown god. We've got
this god and that god and the other god, and in the event we
miss the god, and in the event there's a god we don't know about,
we'll build him an altar too, in the event that there's a god
we don't know about. We know about this God of the weather and the God
of the political world, this God of this world, that world.
We know these different gods we've made. But in the event
there is a God somewhere that we don't know about and we've
missed, we don't want to neglect him, so we'll just put this altar
out here to this unknown God. And Paul said, That's the God
that I'm going to preach to you. All these gods of your imagination,
these gods that you've conceived and that you've built and these
gods that you really understand because they're of your own making,
he said, they're not gods. But this one whom you do not
know is the one that I declare unto you. Our Lord said something
similar to that to the woman at the well. She said, our fathers
worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say Jerusalem's the
place to worship. And he said, you worship, you
know not what. Ignorance. Ignorance. And you
know, I want to have the right attitude. Our Lord Jesus Christ
as he was hanging on the cross, he looked over the multitude
and he said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're
doing. And I know we must be firm and
we must be firm with false religious teachers and instruments of Satan,
but there are a lot of people in this world who are ignorant
Now they're just plain ignorant. And they're doing these things
ignorantly. Paul said, I did it ignorantly
in an unbelief. Ignorantly. And I know while
I ask God to give me a firmness and a boldness and an uncompromising
position on His character and His glory and greatness and man's
condition and the redemption of Christ, His person and work,
Yet I don't want to get mad at a fella because he can't hear.
Sometimes that upsets me when somebody says something I don't
hear until he can't hear you. Well, I'm sorry, you know. Or if someone who has bad eyesight,
well, pick up your feet, can't you see? No, they really can't. And there's a tempering there,
Ron, something that needs to be tempered in us. You see what
I'm saying? And that's before. and bold in
our contending for the gospel, but let's be gentle and kind
because they're people who don't know. They do not know. They're bound by tradition and
custom. Like a lady wrote me recently. I had the letter in my Bible,
Man is Wise, from South Charleston, and they said this. He said, we're Catholic, and
we'll probably remain Catholic for some time, because that's
what we've always been. But we're listening to you. We're
listening to you every Sunday morning, and you're helping us.
Send us some books and tape, because we've got an interest
in inquiring in his temple. Well, there's no use in me blasting
now. And here's another thing that
I'm aware of. We don't know nearly as much about God and his redemptive
glory in Christ Jesus as we think we do. That's so in a child. We're just not as smart as we
think we are in spiritual matters. Cecil, you've been teaching 30
years, but you feel like you know less now than you when you
started. Feel that way. I know you know more, but there's,
you know, the thing somebody said, the greater the circumference
of light, the more darkness it encounters. If you've got a little
pin light of knowledge, you don't encounter much darkness. You
think you know a whole lot. But if you've got a light that's
a little bigger, it encounters more darkness. And that's the
way as we grow in some understanding or knowledge of the things of
God, we encounter more areas where we don't know anything.
The more you learn, the more you run into that you don't know.
You open one truth and it exposes you to a thousand that you don't
know. Answer one question, I got ten more. Ten more. And so we don't know. You know
there's a scripture, turn to 1 Corinthians 8. 1 Corinthians
8. Listen to this. And Paul the
apostle writes this in 1 Corinthians chapter 8. He says this. He says
in 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 1 now. as touching things offered
to idols. We know that we all have knowledge.
He's talking to the church. Now, we've got some understanding
that there is no idol. There are all idols. There's
only one God. We know these things. But now knowledge puffeth up.
A fellow gets to where he thinks he knows something, he gets pretty
proud. But now love edifieth all. Love will edify. Love will
teach. Love will be gentle and kind
and instruct and point the way. Knowledge puffeth up. And if
any man thinks he knows anything, he knows really nothing yet that
he ought to know, does he? He's really not near as smart
as he is. And that goes for me. You and all the rest of us. And
we're not, when we're dealing with this subject this morning,
I'm not posing as an authority. Because believe me, brethren,
the more we find out about the greatness and glory of God, the
more we're brought down to realize we know nothing. And then here's
another thing. None of us know as much as we
ought to know. None of us know as much as we think we know,
and none of us know really as much as we ought to know. We're
pretty lazy. We ought to know a great deal
about our Lord and His redemptive work that we don't know. We've
been lazy. But study is a weariness to our
flesh. It really is. Peter tells us
to desire the sincere milk of the word. Now Roger said while
ago, I get so hungry to hear the word. So hungry. I receive letters from people
who live in Colorado, Oregon, Wyoming, Minnesota, Wisconsin,
other places. And they don't have what you
have here. Bible conferences and Wednesday night prayer week,
Sunday morning, Sunday night Bible classes back there, teaching,
instruction, the bulletins, the books in there we've written,
the lesson studies. And they'll drive a thousand
miles to hear men preach the gospel. Some of us let some little insignificant
thing come up and we don't go to the table. I'll tell you the
reason we're taking it for granted. Brother Mahan will always be
here. Or somebody else. We'll get us
another preacher just like him. Better than him. Don't bet on
it. Don't bet on it. People neglect
God's gifts. God removes them sometimes. Don't
bet on it. I'm not scolding you. I'm just
telling you. I'm just telling you. Don't take for granted these
blessings. God might remove them. might
remove you from them. He might leave them there and
take you off somewhere else. But that's so tough. And we don't
know near as much as we ought to. We haven't availed ourselves
of it. I think sometimes I sat down,
really as your pastor, over a period of seven years, I sat down and
went through the New Testament verse by verse with all the commentaries
and I wrote these things to help you understand these scriptures.
How many of you have read them? Don't raise That's what I'm talking
about. They're there. We buy them and
put them on the shelf. But as far as really reading
them, sitting down and reading them, let him write them, but
we're not going to read them. That's all right. We take for
granted these things. Take them for granted. Well,
we don't know as much as we ought to, but let's get more pleasant. We cannot know here what we're
going to someday. Turn to 1 Corinthians 13. And
I know, and I'm saying, much study is a weariness to the flesh,
I know that, I'm not scolding you, I'm scolding myself too.
But a preacher said the other day, he said, Roger, you heard
him say it, he said, I hate studying. You remember that? He said, that's
his heart. But he's just speaking for all
of us, I guess. But in 1 Corinthians 13, verse
9, listen, we know in part, we prophesy in part, But when that
which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done
away." How foolish we are, any religionist or preacher who supposes
that he's arrived. Paul said, I count not myself
to have arrived, to have apprehended. I don't know it all by any means. Turn to Romans 11. Listen to
him here. I tell you this, the mysteries
of God, the mysteries of God. are past finding out. In Romans
11, listen to Paul, he says, oh, verse 33, oh, the depths
of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable
are his judgments in his ways past finding out. Who hath known
the mind of the Lord? Who hath been his counselor?
Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto
him again? For of him, and through him,
and to him are all things to whom be glory forever and ever."
So, if we know something, we really
don't know nearly as much as we think we do. And then we don't know nearly
as much as we ought to, being given what we've been given. And then we don't know as much
as we're going to. But there's some things that
we do know, and I want to point out something. The Apostle Paul,
about six or seven times, I worked with a concordance a little bit
on this, and six or seven times he says this, I wouldn't have
you be ignorant. I wouldn't have you be ignorant,
brethren. Brethren, I wouldn't have you be ignorant. I don't
want you to be ignorant. There's no excuse for being ignorant.
No excuse. I know there's many mysteries.
But God's been pleased through his word to reveal by his divine
spirit and power those things that are essential to life and
faith. And I want to give you some of
them just briefly this morning. First of all, turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter 10. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Now when Peter spoke at Pentecost,
he said, save yourselves from this untoward or perverse generation. Because ignorance abounds in
religion, it doesn't mean we have to be. It doesn't mean we
have to be. And this is what he's saying
in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Now, more of a brethren, I would
not that you should be ignorant. I don't want you to be ignorant.
And this is so much ignorance that prevails concerning the
Old Testament. The Old Testament law, the Old
Testament types and pictures and patterns. There's so much
ignorance that prevails. And this is what falls down.
I don't want you to be ignorant. Listen. How that all of our fathers
were under the cloud. The nation Israel was led by
the cloud. The cloud was God's presence
with them. They were led by the cloud by
day and by the pillar of fire at night. But they were all under
the cloud. They were led by the presence
of God. And all of them passed through
the sea. And they were all baptized under Moses in the cloud and
in the sea. In other words, they allowed
themselves to be baptized under Moses in that they were following
him. All right, you go on Moses, we're
right behind you. We're following you. We're committed to you.
Moses stood there on that, wherever he stood, he said, stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord, smote his rod, and the
sea parted. Now you think about walls of
water on each side, and there was a path between those walls
of water on dry land. And Moses says, here we go. And every one of them allowed
themselves, willingly, following him, to be baptized unto Moses
in the sea. That's exactly what he's talking
about there. They went down between the walls of water with their
eyes on one person, Moses, committed to him, following Submissive
to Him. Winning. They allowed themselves
to be immersed, or submerged, or baptized under Moses between
those walls of water, following Him. Two million people, think
about it. All the way through. And, look at the next line, and
they did all eat the same spiritual meat. They'd go out in the morning,
and Scott talked about it, and gather the manna. Every morning. Everybody went out and gathered
the manna. That's what they ate. And they ate. Every one of them
ate of that manna. He calls it spiritual meat. I'll
tell you in a moment why. And verse 4, And they did all
drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them. There's a rock that followed
them. There's a rock. Moses smoked the rock. The people
were thirsty. You can't do it without water.
You've got to have water to live. And the people were thirsty.
Moses cried to God, and he said, to smite the rock, and out of
it would come water. And he smote the rock, and they
all drank. All the people drank of that rock. They drank sufficiently. They drank, quenching their thirst
satisfyingly, they drank of that rock. They didn't eat any other
source. They didn't go anywhere else. They ate that matter and
drank that water, and they were sustained for forty years. But
here's the key, Paul said, it wouldn't have you ignorant. That
ignorant, that rock was Christ. You see, that's the key to the
Old Testament. And I wouldn't have you be ignorant,
Paul said, of these things, that they're fulfilled. They are not
an end in themselves. They're not an end in themselves.
When we talk about Abel and Abel's sacrifice, it's not an end. Abel's sacrifice is a picture.
And it points to Christ. The same thing is true of the
Passover. The same thing is true of the blazing serpent lifted
up. The same thing is true of the
ark. The same thing is true of that rock. Another incident,
when the people were thirsty again, and God said, now Moses,
speak to the rock. And Moses went over, and in his
anger he smoked the rock. God said, you didn't sanctify
me, Moses, and for this reason you won't enter the promised
land. There are a lot of reasons why he couldn't enter the promised
land or couldn't lead the people. Moses is the law. Joshua led
him in. That's Christ, Jesus. The law
can't take you into glory. Christ does. But the main reason
was, is that rock is Christ, and Moses violated that type. He smoked the rock again. Christ
is not to be smitten twice. Christ is not to be smitten twice. And you know, here's the thing,
we think, we may think lightly of some of these religious doings.
For example, like the Mass. And I'm not picking on Catholics
today, but we've had to discuss them, and Methodists and all
the rest of religion today have got a whole lot of wrong paraphernalia,
but when you set up the Mass, And you go through this blessing
and call it sacrament. Sacrament means saving power. Sacrament, right? And you go
through all that and you say that this wafer becomes the body
of Christ and this blood becomes the body of Christ. You see what
I'm saying? And if you're ever visiting a
Catholic church or you're visiting a Catholic funeral or this sort
of thing, you better not participate. I'd salute the hammer and sickle
before I'd eat that wafer. I pledge allegiance to a Soviet
flag before I drink that one. That's exactly what I mean there.
And Moses smoked that rock. You see, the Lord God is gracious
and forgiving. But when it comes to Christ and
his redemptive person, his work, redemptive working person, don't
fool around. We're not playing games. It's
the heart of God. It's the character of God. It's
the glory of God that's at stake. That's the reason that he was
so firm as far as that fellow Uzzah touching the ark. God killed
him. God killed him. When King Uzzah came into the
holy place to offer a sacrifice, God smote him with leprosy and
killed him in spite of all of his good points. He's cutting at the heart of
God. And old Joab went into the horns
of the altar and held on. They came in and killed him right
there. You see, and the guys that offered strange fire, God
killed them. And yet he let many, he let David
get away with murder. He let some other fellows get
away with some pretty bad things. But it comes down to this point
right here, and I wouldn't have you be ignorant, brethren, that
that rock was Christ. And all the redemptive work of
God and the redemptive purpose of God and the redemptive glory
of God is in Christ Jesus. God put it in his hands, upon
his shoulders, and he has fulfilled it. And when you're reading the
Old Testament, when you're studying the Old Testament, when you look
in the Old Testament, study, read, and look to find Christ.
Christ Jesus the Lord. Wouldn't have you be ignorant
about it. That rock is Christ. That manna, you see, he called
it spiritual meat, the manna? Christ is that bread. I was telling
my son this morning, Josh and I were having coffee at the breakfast
table, and we were talking about That Sunday school lesson, the
boy Christ said, I am the bread, I am the water. Well, he was
going back to Moses and the bread and the rock and his Christ.
And I said, how are you going to handle that with those second
graders and third graders? And they understand. And we talked
a while, and we kind of summed it up this way. You see, I have
physical life here, physical life, but this physical life
is not from within. This physical life is maintained
and sustained by food from without. Isn't that right? In other words,
if I don't get bread, I'm going to die. If I don't get water,
I'm going to die. That's all there is to it. I
may survive for a few days, but after that, I'm gone. You're
going to have to feed me. I'm going to have to have water.
Take it in to sustain life. Well, that's what Christ our
Lord is saying. He said when they went out, Moses took the
people out and ate that bread which God gave them from heaven,
and they drank that water. That's physical life. But that
bread and water couldn't sustain life. Those people all died.
But Christ said, I'm the bread from heaven, and I'm the water
of life. And if you eat my flesh and drink
my blood, you live forever. But we continually feed on Christ.
So you see, I have spiritual life. I'm living spiritually.
But I don't produce spiritual life in here. It's not something
that's maintained or sustained by anything within me. It's from
without. Christ is my life. He gave me
that life and He sustains it. He maintains it by what? Feeding
on Him. feeding on Him, not feeding on
laws, not feeding on doctrines, not feeding on ceremonies, not
feeding on rituals, not feeding on rules and regulations, feeding
on Christ who is the bread, drinking of Christ who is the water. He
that cometh to me, cometh to me. You see, this physical life
is maintained by continual coming to the table. I go to the table
three times a day, sometimes more than that. At night, you
know, I keep coming back to the text. Keep eating. Keep eating.
But I've got to sustain strength in here. I keep coming to Christ.
I keep coming to Christ. And I feed on Him. You understand
what I'm saying? He's the spiritual bread. That's what he's saying
here, that spiritual meat and spiritual drink, they fed, is
a type and a picture. And the whole Old Testament is
a picture and a type and a pattern of Christ. And he's fulfilled
all that, and therefore don't go back there and go through
the motions of all that sort of thing that cannot give life,
feed on him. I'll tell you something else
I've tried to show them is, when those people gathered that bread,
he said, gather enough for what? One day. Now when the Sabbath
day came, he said, gather enough for two. But every day, one.
And if somebody gathered too much, put it in the closet, it
rotted. It stunk. And that same thing, too, the
fellow said, well, I eat of Christ, the bread of life, and I'm saved,
and I'm all stored up. You'll open the closet, you'll
find that it's corrupted and stinks. You've got to come to
him every day. Continue coming to Christ. An old experience stays old.
It gets old quickly, too. But it's that new coming to Christ. Let's turn to another one, Romans
10. I wouldn't have you be ignorant,
Brethren, concerning The Old Testament, with its pictures
and types, is Christ. That rock was Christ, that bread
is Christ, that Passover is Christ, our Passover. We could stay there
all day, but let's look at Romans 10. Now brethren, Paul said,
chapter 10. Brethren, verse 1. My heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. I bear them record. They have a zeal of God, but
not according to knowledge. For they're ignorant, they're
ignorant. They're ignorant. It's not complimentary
to call somebody ignorant, but my friends, our generation is
ignorant. Paul said they have a zeal for
God, they have an enthusiasm for God, they have some interest
in God. And they're even going through
the motions of worshiping God, or calling on God, or talking
about God, or serving God. But underneath all of it, they're
ignorant. And the thing they're ignorant
of is the thing that's God's chief characteristic, or chief
attribute. Did you hear Brother Ward say
that last night? He said, God is love. I know he is. But his
chief attribute is holiness. You understand? Holiness. I hear
the whole world's gone love crazy. How God loves you. God loves
you and I love you. Jesus loves you, I love you.
God is love. God is holy. He doesn't call
his angels his loving angels. He calls them the holy angels.
That's right. When the devil saw Christ, they
said, we know who you are. You're the loving son of God.
They did not. They said, you're the holy one
of God. He called his tabernacle the
holy of holies. He called his word his holy word. He calls his throne his holy
throne. And my friends, you're not hearing
that today. And Paul is saying the same thing
here. The Jews, we've got our buildings, they had theirs. We've
got our farm, they had theirs. We've got our order of worship,
they had theirs. We've got our day of worship,
they had theirs. We've got our doctrines, they
had theirs, they had the Sadducees, who didn't believe in resurrection,
had the Pharisees, who believed this, that, and the other. They
had the Sanhedrin, they had all, they had our, we got our bishops,
they had theirs. We got our religious, they got
everything that we got today. And they had the same ignorance
we got today. They were ignorant of the holiness
of God, the righteousness of God. Look at verse 3, they're
being ignorant of God's holiness, God's righteousness, so consequently
what did this lead to? They're going about to establish
their own righteousness. And that's what we're, we're
ignorant of God's holiness, ignorant of God's righteousness, ignorant
of God's just and holy demands and requirements. And so therefore
we're going around down here establishing ways that men can
get in God's favor. and ways that men can get in
God's good graces, and ways that men and women can earn heaven.
That's what we're doing. We're showing them what they
can do. You can come forward and confess Jesus, and you can
be baptized, and then you can tithe, plant seeds, and then
you can serve the Lord, and you can go out and win souls. And
then you can come Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night
to a special meeting. And then you can support our
ministry and support missionaries. And you can do all these things.
And God will bless you. You know what we're saying? We're
going about to establish our own. That's exactly what they
did. And where the next line says, to establish their own
righteousness, and have not, and will not, and don't intend
to submit unto the righteousness of God, the holiness of God. And what's that? Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness, everyone, but Christ is our righteousness. Now we can stay on this all day
long. But what the Bible is teaching
in Romans 3, if you'll take the time to read it, Romans 5 also,
that God is unchangeably, immutably, immaculately, infinitely holy
and will not lessen his character or demands or requirements one
atom. That men are sinful and unholy
and have no way to approach unto God or even will to approach
And they will not change, any more than the Ethiopian can turn
into a white man or the leper can turn into a lion. And it's not going to be compromised.
And we can go about and activity and do all these things and try
to clean up and dress up and straighten up and all these things,
and God still remains aloof, unapproachably unapproachable. His holiness and his holy requirements,
his perfections must be honored in men. And we're ignoring what
God has done in his love and grace to honor his righteousness
and holiness. He sent Christ down here to us,
made in our likeness, made of our bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh. made of a woman, made under that
holy, perfect, righteous law as a man, as the infinite God-man
to represent a chosen people out of that dunghill. And he
walked on this earth in the flesh and did what God required perfectly,
absolutely, with no segregation. And then God laid on him our
iniquity and permitted men to nail him to a cross. And God
proved all this, and proved that he sent him, and proved that
he was with him and in him, and proved that he satisfied him
by, when we put him in a grave, by raising him, giving him life
from the dead, and took him to glory, and further proved it
by seating him on his right hand. Now he says to us, here is my
righteousness embodied in Christ, here is my holiness for you,
to enable me to be just and justify you, to enable me to have anything
to do with you, to enable you to have anything to do with me.
Look to him, believe on him. No, we're ignorant of that. Our
generation, like them, is ignorant of that. We thought Jesus Christ
was some prophet like Buddha or Mohammed or Confucius. We
thought Jesus Christ was some reformer like Gandhi. We thought Jesus Christ was some
martyr like Huss or one or the other. We thought Jesus Christ
was some religious leader. Jesus Christ was some author
on the part of God. Oh no. No, no. Jesus Christ is
our righteous. He is our righteous. He is God's
righteous. He is all of us. And we are made
righteous by believing in Him. I wouldn't have you to be ignorant
about that, he said. And then 1 Corinthians 12, turn
over there just a minute, and I'll try to be brief. 1 Corinthians
12. There's no use being ignorant about that. I know there's a
lot of mysteries. But about these revealed things, there's no need
to be ignorant now. No need for preachers to be angry.
But I'm afraid, I'm afraid, like the false prophets of old, that
there are a lot of preachers who are motivated by something
other than the glory of God and the good of their heroes. See,
if a preacher gets to thinking about a crowd or getting a following,
impressing people, he has a tendency to cut his message. take the
edge off. If he gets his mind on his possession, on food and drink and these things,
and houses and cars and money, he has a tendency to take the
edge off. Or if he gets his mind on holding
a job, he has a tendency to take the edge off. But there's no excuse for that.
That's evil, isn't it? And Paul says, I don't want you
to be ignorant, I'm going to tell you the truth. Whatever
it costs and whatever the results are, that rock is Christ. And I'm going to tell you the
truth, that righteousness that God demands and requires and
the only one he'll accept is Christ. That's it. You're not in Christ, you're
unholy, and you're under God's right. And then he said in 1 Corinthians
12, now concerning spiritual guilt, I'm not going to have
you be ignorant. Now brethren, I talked about that mass, that
crucifixion of Christ anew, the abomination And I know some folks say, well,
let's be permissive, let's don't raise our voices against this
sort of thing. Yes, we must. We must, especially
at our congregation. I'm a pastor and I've got to
teach our folks and our young people. But now there's a plague
in religion today, and last Sunday night, Mr. Swigert, his whole message was
on speaking in tone. Baptism of the Holy Ghost and
speaking in tone. And it's sweeping this country,
what's called the charismatic movement. And the gifts. You say, what do you know about
it? I know a whole lot about it. Thirty some odd years ago,
I was exposed to it. You remember, Ronnie, when that
thing started down yonder? And I looked into it. had hands
laid on me, trying to get what's called baptism with the Holy
Ghost, speak in tongue, tried to speak in tongue. I'm not going
to have you ignorant about these things, Brethren. I'm going to
warn you, and just as I wouldn't go and take that wafer or that
wine, I'm not going to participate in or permit this jabbering and
gibberish and outlandish blabblings and call it speaking in tongues.
Now there's other stuff like looking for gifts of healing
and midnight meetings when people discern spirits and other prophecies
and get words from God. We're not going to have that.
That's of the devil, Charlie. You know it. You've been there
too. But I'm going to tell you the truth, and I won't have you
ignorant, I'm going to tell you the truth. Our Lord Jesus Christ did these mighty
things. Our Lord healed the sick. Our
Lord gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, even raised
the dead. And He said these works bear witness of me. My Father
bore witness of me. John the Baptist bore witness
of me. The world bears witness of me, and the works that I do.
And John the Baptist said to him one day, and said, now, are
you the one that should come, or do we look for another? He
said to those two men whom John sent, he said, you go back and
tell him, the dead are raised, the blind see, and the lame walk,
and be not faithless. Believe me. And they were credentials. They
weren't eons, they were means. They were illustrating how our
Lord saved sinners. When he healed blind men, he
was saying, I give the spiritually blind sight. When he touched
the deaf in the herd, he was saying, I touched the... He touched
you in the herd, you were deaf. You were dead when he raised
you. You were lame when he made you
walk. You were naked when he clothed you. You were hungry
when he fed you. And that's what he saved. No man could do these
miracles except God. And when he sent his disciples
out, These men were Jewish men, fishermen, uneducated, uninfluential,
unknown. And they were going out here
to a world, a world that hated them. And they were going to
preach a new message. And God gave them credentials.
See, Paul and them didn't care of the New Testament when they
went to preach. They had an emphasis, no, they didn't have a New Testament.
They wrote it. They couldn't say that it was
Ephesians. And I turned to the book of Galatians this morning.
And we're going to study Galatians 5.14. No. He walked in there
and said, Who are you? I come representing God Almighty.
Who told you? Let's see your card. Let's see
some proof. God gave him the power. I'm telling
you, Turn to Hebrews, if you will. God gave. He bore witness. They needed it. They had to have
it. You know when Paul was bit right
on the head by that snake and he shook it off in the fire?
Those fellas hadn't paid any attention to him up until then.
And they said, hey, there's a God among us. There's somebody among
us to listen to. That's right. And here in Hebrews
chapter 2 it says, huh, verse 3. Hebrews 2, 3, 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? Who were they? The apostles,
Paul, Peter, James, John, the early church, God also bearing
them witness, both with signs and wonders and different miracles
and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his. John the Baptist did
no miracle. Not one. But God equipped men
according to his own will. And he gave them these marvelous
miracles, and the ability to raise the dead, heal the sick,
and to speak, listen to me, believe me, if you just believe me, the
Apostle Paul would not insult your intelligence by standing
up and rattling off a bunch of gibberish unknown by anybody. Now believe me, Paul wouldn't
succumb to such foolishness. These, every man heard the gospel
in his own tongue. When we say unknown tongue, and
unknown used in italics, but when we say unknown tongue, we
mean this, that German is an unknown tongue to me. Italian
is an unknown tongue to me. Some of you think English is
an unknown tongue to me, but it's not. I speak English. But
if you speak in language, you do speak, that's the reason we
have interpreters. And so forth, you know, that
men speak in a language that I'm going over to Africa and
speak to French people. But Bill Clark's going to interpret.
And they're going to say, hey, he's speaking in tongues. Yeah,
I will be. I'll be speaking English. They
won't hear a word I say. So Bill says, this is what he
says. Now believe me, that's so. And
there's nobody today giving sight to the blind. There's some trickery
going on on the stages and trickery going on on the television and
trickery going on. And it may be that Satan will
allow some miraculous thing to take place. He did when Moses
and the, you remember the Egyptian, the Egyptian wise men threw down
their rods, they became snakes too. Satan's not powerless. He's not all powerful, but he's
not powerless. And there may be some wonders and signs shown,
but let me tell you something. Almighty God speaks through the
Word and the preaching of the Word. And I don't need miracles
and wonders and signs. I just need to preach the Word.
And you need to hear the Word. And don't be hoodwinked by these
fellows. And, you know, turn, if you will,
quickly to 2 Corinthians 2. He's talking about Satan here
in 2 Corinthians 2. I don't want you to be ignorant,
Paul said, about something else. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 10 and
11. To whom you forgive anything,
I forgive also. For if I forgave anything, to
whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of
Christ. Lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are
not ignorant of his devices. Paul said, I'm going to forgive
people. I'm going to walk in Christ and love them. I don't
want Satan to get an advantage over me because he works in the
strangest, most subtle, crafty ways. Watch out. You'll creep
in. He'll use some divisive effect.
He'll use some tongues or something like that. He's a sharp one.
And Paul said, I'm not ignorant of their devices. And he said
something else about that in 2 Corinthians 11. If you'll turn
over quickly. in verse 3, he said, I fear,
lest by any means, as the Satan beguile thee through his subtlety,
the serpent beguile thee through his subtlety, your mind should
be corrupted from the simplicity of Christ. Brethren, I don't
want you to be ignorant of the craftiness and subtlety and deceitfulness
of Satan. But verse 4 he said, he'll come
preaching another Jesus, whom we have not preached, another
spirit whom you've not received, and another gospel which you've
not accepted. That's exactly it. Where are
you going to look for Satan? Well, I always thought Satan
hung around down in the honky-tonks and the dives and the lounges
and the other places like, oh, he's a preacher. He's a preacher. He's in the church. He's preaching. He's preaching Jesus. He's talking
about the Holy Ghost. And he's talking about the gospel.
not THE gospel, not THE Lord Jesus or THE hope, but ANOTHER
Jesus. That's way upwards. I'm telling
you, I wouldn't have you, also I wouldn't have you ignorant,
I'm not ignorant of his devices. Why, he said, would you believe
this? What I can find, yeah, right across the page, 2 Corinthians
11, watch this, verse 13. For such are false apostles,
deceitful workers, they transform themselves into the apostles
of Christ. And that's no marvel, Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light, therefore it's no great thing if his ministers
also be transformed as ministers of what? Holiness, righteousness. Oh brother of mine, I watched
a fellow the other night, he didn't preach the things that
we believe in. But brother man, he's so kind
and gracious and getting money for starving children and orphans
and he just praised the Lord. What did you expect Satan to
do? If he can hoodwink you that way, he's a subtle bird. He's
not like those western cowboys we watched, the white guys in
the white hat, let the other fellow draw first. He didn't
let you draw first. He's going to draw. And he'll
use any, any subtle, crafty, lying, deceitful way. He'll use
the name of God, of Christ, of Jesus, of the Holy Ghost. He'll
have you seeking the tongues, but not Christ. He'll have you
seeking the gifts, but not Christ. He'll have you seeking holiness,
but not Christ. He'll have you seeking the right
doctrine, but not Christ. Oh, he's a rascal. And I don't
want you to be ignorant, Paul said. And the last one, I'll
give you this and close. The last one. 1 Thessalonians
4, verse 13, I wouldn't have you to be ignorant, brethren,
concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not as those
who have no hope. I don't want you to be ignorant
about the resurrection. Our Lord is going to raise his
people. I'm going to let you read that for yourself. I've
preached too long. 1 Corinthians 4, the rest of that chapter talks
about the return of our Lord. Our Lord redeemed our souls and
he redeemed our bodies. He's going to raise them. Our father, our father. We're so ignorant, dumb. We don't know anything like we
ought to know it. We impress it upon our minds,
just children, children. But we know in part, we prophesy
in part, we understand like a child, someday we'll know. But Lord, teach us, be our teacher. Let
us not be prey for the every wind that blows. And every preacher
that comes along, and every area to which we expose, they are
a teacher. Let us feed on Christ, look to
Christ, and rest in Christ, and love Christ, and walk with Christ.
Teach us Christ. Give this preacher some wisdom,
leadership ability, the power of your spirit and gift our people
wisdom and understanding and ability to raise their children
and teach their children, converse with their friends and witness
for the glory of Christ and enlighten us, protect us, shield us and
hedge us about our Father. Hedge us about and protect us
and feed us the bread of life. Send people to hear the word. We pray for Christ's sake and
in his name, amen.