Now, Henry Mahan. Today we're
going to be looking at the book of 1 Corinthians, chapter 2,
verses 1 through 5. I suppose that I've brought more
messages from this one passage of Scripture than any other single
passage of Scripture throughout the Word of God. I just love
it. I believe this. I believe that it would do well,
it would do well for every preacher to imitate the Apostle Paul.
I really believe that. It would do well for every preacher
just to study Paul's message, to study his methods, to study
his ministry, to study those epistles which he wrote. I believe
he's God's pattern for preachers. I really do. God's pattern for
preachers. First, he was miraculously converted. We know that. Converted out of
false religion, and that's where most of us came from. We were
converted out of false religion, some kind of ism, and self-righteousness. Most everybody who really knows
God in our day has been converted out of some false religion because
just about everybody has some kind of religion. And then the
Apostle Paul was called by Christ, supernaturally called by Christ. He was taught the gospel by the
Lord himself. He said, I didn't seek out men.
See, that was one of the two marks of an apostle. An apostle
had to see the Lord. And Paul said he did as one born
out of due time. And he had to get his gospel,
his message, directly from Christ himself. And he said, when God
saved me, I didn't consult with flesh and blood. I didn't go
up to Peter, James, and John and those who were apostles before
me. But he said, the Lord taught
me the gospel. And God ordained him to be an
apostle of Christ. He's called to be an apostle
of Christ. And God sent him as a traveling
missionary and evangelist to the Gentiles in many countries. This man is God's pattern for
preachers. And then I find this. I find
that in 1 Corinthians 2, that Paul was sent to the people of
Corinth. to preach. He stayed there about
18 months. And Corinth is in many ways like
our generation. It's like our nation, really.
The city of Corinth is much like our country in that they were
a pagan people. That's right. They were people
given to the lust of the eye and the lust of the flesh and
the pride of life. They were prosperous and proud
people. Prosperous and proud and very
worldly, very sensual. These Corinthians were very sensual
people. They were pagan people, heathen
people. And then secondly, they were
religious people. That's right. They were very
religious with all sorts of ideas of God. Just like this country,
there's all different denominations and cults and groups and organizations
and shrines and altars and religions everywhere. And that's what they
had in Corinth. One time Paul said this. He said,
I perceive that you are a very religious people. He would use
the word superstitious, but that's religious. Most religion's superstition
anyway. And he said, I perceive you're
a very religious or superstitious people. And that's much like
our country. We just got all kinds of religion.
Everybody's got a different brand of religion, different idea about
God and about heaven, about hell, and about this, that, and the
other. And then another thing about this city of Corinth, it
was the seat of learning. science, philosophy, intellectualism,
a city of learning, a city of debating, a city of philosophy. Well, what does a servant of
Christ preach to a town like that? To people like that? To
a nation like that? Well, Paul acquaints us with
his message and his ministry. He has one message right here.
He was very clear when he came to Corinth, that great pagan
city, that great religious city, that city of, the seat of learning
and science, so-called, and intellect, he said in verse 1, I want you
to follow with me, 1 Corinthians 2, 1. He said, Brethren, when
I first came to you, when I first came to preach to you as God's
ambassador, I did not come to you with excellency of speech
or oratory. I didn't come to you showing
off my ability to speak or intellectualism. I didn't come debating with men
and matching wits with the educators and the politicians and the scientists.
I didn't come matching wits with men. I didn't come in oratory,
excellency of speech, or intellectualism. I didn't come trying to show
off my knowledge. And then in verse 3 he said,
and I was with you in weakness. Most leaders won't admit weakness. Paul did. Not only weakness,
but fear. I was with you in weakness and
fear and much trembling." Now he wasn't afraid of them. Paul
wasn't afraid for his life. He wasn't afraid of men or what
men could do to him. And what is this weakness and
this fear and trembling? I'll tell you what it is. It's
something that most preachers in our day know nothing about.
They're so proud and self-confident and self-righteous and cocky
and know-it-all. But the Apostle Paul realized
what an Awful, awesome, heavy responsibility was upon him to
speak for God. Now, you think about that. A
man speaking for God. A man delivering God's message
to individuals. Now, that's a responsibility.
And it led Paul to say, who is sufficient for these things?
Paul stood before God with an awareness of that grave and great
responsibility that was upon his shoulders to be true to the
glory of God and true to the souls of his heroes. And he said,
I'm scared. I'm in fear and weakness and
trembling. And my fear and trembling is
not before men. It's before God. It's not a lack
of confidence in His message. It's not a lack of confidence
in His power. It's not a lack of confidence
in the sufficiency of His Redeemer. It's total lack of confidence
in ourselves. We have no confidence in the
flesh. The beginning of wisdom is the
fear of the Lord. Something our generation needs to learn. Something
about the fear of God. And then in verse 4, he said,
My speech and my preaching was not geared to persuade you to
follow me. I see these fellows using psychology
and all types of methods and bow your head and close your
eyes and raise your hand and do this, that and the other,
let the choir sing, soften the organ, play, form a religious
atmosphere in the background to get somebody to make some
kind of decision to follow them or join their bunch or join their
crowd or receive their religion or join their denomination. Paul
said, I didn't do that. My speech and my preaching was
not with persuasible words of man's wisdom. I wasn't trying
to persuade you to do anything. I came to you preaching the gospel
depending on the Holy Spirit of God to reveal sin, to convince
men of sin, to reveal Christ as the only Redeemer, and to
bring men to faith in Christ. Why do we use these psychological
methods, this atmosphere thing, with tears and stories and tales
and poems, to get people under some kind of spell, and then
strike while the iron's hot? Why don't we just preach the
gospel to them, and let them go home, and sit down and count
the cost, and let them read the Word, and let them cry to God
for mercy? and let them consider what kind
of decision they're making, what kind of responsibility they're
entering in upon, what kind of life they're stepping into. Let
them think about it and consider it. That's the reason you've
got a thousand church members and only about 150 that ever
come. That's the reason you always
have to run around and hunt your church members, is all of them were
persuaded under some kind of mass psychology and spell, religious
spell, to make a decision that they never ever made. You made
it for them. Repeat these words after me, Lord be merciful to
me a sinner. If you can't call on God from
your own heart, that's like telling a man that's drowning, why don't
you repeat after me, somebody throw me a life preserver. Fella,
if he's drowning, he knows what to say. He's the one who knows
better than you do. He's the one that's drowning.
You're not the one that's drowning. He's the one who called for help,
not you. Mechanical words won't save sinners. It takes the work of God. And
Paul said, I didn't come to you that way, trying to persuade
you, because I want, listen to verse 5, I want your faith and
your confidence to stand in God, in the power of God, in the wisdom
of God, and in God through Christ, not in the wisdom of men. You
must not be a preacher follower. Oh, I like Brother so-and-so,
I like Brother so-and-so, I believe Brother so-and-so. Well, don't
follow a man, don't follow a denomination, don't become denominational slaves,
nor religionists. Paul said, I want you to know
God. If you know God down in the holler,
fine, up on the mountain, fine. If I never see you or hear from
you again, if you know God, that's my desire, that you might know
God, that you might win Christ and be found in Him. That's the
reason. I don't come to the end of the program and say, now if
you've made your decision right to me, I won't do you any good
to write to me. I can't be of any help to you. I tell you, you call on Christ. I commend you to the Word of
God and to the Spirit of God who's able to redeem your soul.
I can't do it. And there's no need for me to
write down a number in a book and say I had 10,000 do this
and 1,000 do that and 100 do this. That's nothing in the world
of making merchandise of the souls of men. And it's time somebody
said something about it. It's time the whole world rose
up in arms against this false religious con game of covetousness. But watch verse 6. Paul said,
I determine, or verse 2, for I determine, I determine this
in my soul, in my heart, not to know anything among you save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is my message. This is my
message. This is my one message. This
is my only message. Christ and Him crucified. Now,
I ask you, an average person would say, well, what do you
mean? Paul didn't preach anything but
the cross? Well, in a sense, yes. And here's what I'm going
to ask. What is it to preach Christ and
Him crucified? Paul said, I determine not to
know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Now, if I preach Christ and Him crucified, is that just to preach
the fact that He was crucified? And then go on to another matter?
Well, that's what some people seem to think. Or is it to start
in Gethsemane's garden and talk about how He bled, and how He
suffered, and how He died, and how He was mistreated in the
soldier's hole, and pilot's hole, and on Golgotha's hill? Is that
what it is to preach Christ crucified? Well, I'm telling you this, whatever
Paul meant here, whatever he meant by preaching Christ and
Him crucified, he indicated that in that message, Christ and Him
crucified, was everything a man needed to know in that one message. And everything a man needed to
have in that one message. And everything that God Almighty
required was in that message, Christ and Him crucified. Now,
I'm going to try to give you briefly six tremendous themes
that are included in Christ and Him crucified. Now, I want you
to listen to me, and I'm going to make good on this from the
Scripture. Paul said, I'm not here to organize a following.
I'm not here to amaze you with my intellectualism and rhetorical
ability. I'm not here to take you deep
into some high doctrine. I'm not here to get you to be
a follower of me. I'm not here to get some numbers
so I can report that I had great success with my meeting. Our
success is in the hands of God. Thanks be unto God who always
causes us to triumph in Christ. But he says, I'm determined to
know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now,
first of all, if you preach Christ and Him crucified, it is to preach
Christ our eternal surety and covenant head. That's right.
Preaching Christ and Him crucified. When you preach the cross of
Calvary, you have to reach all the way back into eternity past
and pick up God's covenant of redemption. That's right. God's
covenant of mercy. God's testament made in Christ
Jesus. Let me ask you something. Do
you think the cross and the sacrifice of Christ was an afterthought
of God? In other words, He made man,
put him in the garden, and man sinned and fell, and then God
He came up with a Savior. He came up with an idea, you
know, of saving men this way. The cross was not a solution
to a bad situation which arose after man fell. I beg your pardon.
Christ, listen to me. Your Bible says this, Revelation
13, 8. Christ was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the
world. That's what I'm saying. If you
preach Christ crucified, You preach the Christ who was ordained
to die in God's covenant of grace from all eternity. That's right. You see, the relationship between
Jesus Christ and his people goes back to eternity past. Listen,
Paul said, I thank God for you, brethren, writing to the Thessalonians.
I thank God for you, brethren, because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation. From the beginning. In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth. Paul wrote in Ephesians
chapter 1, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the
heavenlies in Christ Jesus according as he chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. Read it, Ephesians chapter 1
verse 3, 4 and 5. And he's called, listen, in Hebrews,
he's called the surety of an everlasting covenant. And in
that passage it talks about the great shepherd of the sheep.
It talks about the blood of the everlasting covenant. So when
you study and when you preach the eternal purposes of God to
redeem sinners from eternity past, then you must preach it
in the light of Christ crucified. You see what I'm saying? His
blood is the blood of the everlasting covenant. So when I preached,
when Paul said, I'm determined to know nothing among you save
Christ and Him crucified, Paul went back and picked up the eternal
wisdom and sovereignty and covenant of God in redeeming mercies established
before man ever fell. But he preached it in the light
of Calvary, because that's what the covenant's all about. It's
to redeem, and you only redeem through a sacrifice. You follow
me? All right, the second point.
So I'm saying to preach Christ and Him crucified is to preach
more than just a man hanging on a cross. To preach Christ
and Him crucified is to open the Old Testament Scriptures.
Christ died for our sins, Paul said, according to the Scriptures.
When you're reading the New Testament and you come across the word
Scriptures, He died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
He was buried and rose again according to the Scriptures.
As it says in the Scriptures, what's that talking about? It's
talking about the Old Testament. It's talking about the Old Testament
Scriptures. Almost every time that the word Scriptures is used
in the New Testament, it's talking about the Old Testament Scriptures.
Christ said to the Pharisees, you search the Scriptures. What
Scriptures were they searching? Well, not Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John. They weren't written. Not Corinthians, Romans, and
Hebrews. They weren't written. He said, you search the Scriptures.
For in them you think you have life. They are they which testify
of me. Moses wrote of me. So the Scriptures
is the Old Testament Scriptures. And he died for our sins according
to the Scriptures. So if you want to understand
and preach the Scriptures, you've got to preach the cross of Christ.
The sufferings of Christ. How do you explain? How do you
explain the slaying of the animal in the Garden of Eden to cover
the nakedness of Adam and Eve without the cross? Of what use
is it that first victim died to cover man's nakedness? How
do you explain Abel's sacrifice without the cross? It's meaningless.
There's no blood of an animal can put away the sin of a man.
There's no way that an animal can substitute on a on an altar
for man's sin and satisfy a holy God? That blood of that animal
was pointing to somebody else's blood, Calvary. How do you explain
Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah when the ram took the place of
Isaac and Abraham slew the ram and put his blood on the altar
before God? Why blood on the altar anyway? The Old Testament
has a trail of blood from the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3, all
the way to Calvary. There's a trail of blood. How
do you explain the Passover? The people coming out of Egypt,
and God said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. And
the keeping of that Passover every year. How do you preach
the exodus from Egypt without the cross? How do you preach
the tabernacle? The tabernacle takes up most
of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And then the services of the
tabernacle all the way through the Old Testament prophets. How
do you preach it? What does that table of showbread
mean? What is the ark of the covenant? What does the mercy
seat? What is the atonement? What does
that mean? It is useless, meaningless without
Calvary's cross. And then to say nothing of the
smitten rock, the brazen serpent, Jonah, three days and three nights
in the belly of the fish. You see, my friends, to preach
Christ and Him crucified is to preach the Old Testament, all
39 books, anywhere you turn. Everything in the Old Testament
points to Calvary. And everything in the Old Testament
is understood in the light of Calvary. That's exactly right.
So when Paul said to that Corinthian gang, I determine and know nothing
among you, say, Jesus Christ, him crucified. He said, if you
know Christ, him crucified, you know all a man needs to know.
And it's spaceless learning. It's unlimited learning. You
never reach the end of studying and preaching Christ and Him
crucified. And then thirdly, to preach Christ and Him crucified
is to preach His incarnation. Do you think Jesus Christ was
the only man ever to die on a cross? Well, no. Two men died with Him
at the same time. Lots of people died on Roman
crosses. Then what's so special about
His crucifixion? What's so special about his death
on a cross? A lot of folks died on a cross.
I'll tell you who he was. Now when you're preaching the
cross, Christ and him crucified, you identify who Christ is. You
see, his death is worthless except for who he is. Lots of people
died on crosses. They never became saviors. They
never became redeemers. But you see, who is Jesus Christ?
In the person of Christ, God came to this earth, that's what
scripture says, the seed of woman. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bring forth a son. Thou shalt call his name Emmanuel,
God with us. Thou shalt call his name Jesus.
He shall save his people from their sins. The cross, his purpose
was to save. His name shall be called Wonderful
Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace. Where was peace made? Calvary
you see this was the whole purpose of God coming to earth in human
flesh the incarnation and that is to set us free from our sins
that was his whole purpose Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners of whom I am the chief and when you preach Christ
in him crucified you go back to the incarnation and you preach
the incarnation of God in human flesh, the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father. So when we look at Calvary and
see Jesus Christ on that cross, His death is sufficient and effectual
because of who He is, because of who He is. God died on that
cross. That's the reason Paul said in
Romans 8, 34, who can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Oh, it's
Christ that died. Who is this babe in the manger?
He's Christ, the Son of God. Who is this man, the carpenter
in the carpenter's shop? It's Christ, the Son of God.
Who is this man on a tree? It's Christ, the Son of God. Fourthly, now to preach Christ
and Him crucified is to preach His sinless life. His sinless
life. Now listen to me. Pilate said,
I find no fault in him. God the Father said, this is
my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. Everybody came to this
conclusion, he's without sin. He said, which of you convinces
me of sin? And I'm telling you this, it's
his sinlessness that makes his death effectual. He is without
sin, therefore he is able to bear my sin. If he had any sin,
he couldn't bear my sin. You see, Christ didn't die as
a martyr. Christ didn't die as a reformer. Christ didn't die
as an example. Christ died as a substitute.
I've tried to preach that on this program. I've tried to emphasize
that because people have to know what they believe. How can a
person call on Christ if he hasn't heard of Christ? If he hadn't
believed on Christ, how can he believe in Christ if he hadn't
heard of Christ? How shall he hear without a preacher? And
this preacher is trying to identify who Christ is. He's a representative
person. The Lord Jesus Christ came down
here to do something for us toward God. He didn't come down here
to do something for God toward us, to make us feel sorry for
him, to gain the pity of the creature. He came down here because
God loved, for God so loved that He sent His Son into the world.
He gave His only begotten Son. And Christ came down here to
represent us toward God. And His obedience to the law
was toward God. And His obedience in death and
His satisfaction of sin and His sin offering was toward God on
behalf of us who believe. And that's what we preach when
we preach Christ crucified. His sinless life, His perfect
life, His holy life. because he's God, he's the God-man.
Alright, fourthly, or fifthly, to preach Christ crucified is
to preach Christ risen and exalted and returning again. Now listen,
he can't rise from the grave and be the first fruits of them
that slip unless he dies. A man can't rise from the tomb
who's never been in the tomb, he must die. So to preach the
resurrection, you've got to preach the death. And he cannot perform,
listen to me, the work of the high priest and offer the blood
sacrifice unless he dies and has blood sacrifice to offer. This has got to be an atonement.
By Christ we have received the atonement. Without the shedding
of blood there is no remission. So the Bible says, seeing that
we have a great high priest who has passed into the heavens,
Jesus Christ the righteous, let us come boldly before the throne
of grace. Well, without his death, he's
no high priest. He has no atonement. He has no
sin offering. He has no sacrifice. He has no
blood to present on the mercy seat. So you must preach his
death if you preach his priestly work. And then, watch this, he
cannot be a mediator. The Scripture says one God and
one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Well,
a mediator must have a righteousness to please. What good, now listen
to me, God in his holiness, us in our sinfulness, what good
would it do us to have a mediator if he had nothing to plead on
our behalf? But Christ has a perfect righteousness
which was fulfilled in his life and death in order to plead for
us. Now, fourthly, listen, he cannot
return with his reward for his people unless by his death He
has a reward to bring. He has no kingdom to bring. You
see, He died that He might be Lord of the living and the dead. The way to the throne was by
way of the cross. He purchased that right to reign.
So when you preach Christ crucified, you preach Christ risen, you
preach Christ ascended, you preach Christ exalted, and you preach
Christ coming again. Now let me tell you one more
thing. To preach Christ and Him crucified is to preach holiness
of life and obedience. What is the believer's motive
for holiness, obedience, and righteousness? Is it not the
love of Christ? We love Him because He first
loved us. Fear produces an obedience of
resentment. Promise of reward produces a
hypocritical obedience. True love for Christ because
of His love for us. produces a true and genuine obedience
of life. Now I have two messages on this
tape. This one entitled, The One Message, and the other I
preached last week on age-old questions. If you want this tape,
send $2 donation. We'll mail it to you. The address
will be given to you right now. Join us next week. Until then,
God bless you.