Yeah, it's easier for you and I to
sing with eyes of quartz.
We're the whole realm of nature, mate.
I'm afraid we don't do it.
Love's so amazing, so divine.
This man had a revelation of God that
I don't think anybody's had before or since.
I'm quite sure he quoted with fervency, God
so loved the world that he gave his
only begotten Son.
He sees the great expanse of the world.
Why, look at this man's staggering life.
He began his life in the historic capital
of the world, Tarsus.
He ended his life in the military capital
of the world, Rome.
He went to the intellectual capital of the
world in the 17th of Acts there and
they discovered this little undersized man.
When they saw him, they said his bodily
presence is weak and discovered he had a
staggering scintillating intellect.
They quoted poetry answered with poetry.
They quoted philosophy answered with philosophy.
They quoted their history, he answered with their
history.
This man is all round, he's a fully
developed man.
And they're staggered by this amazing man.
And then he came to a situation that
the great Scottish preacher called some years ago.
I'm trying to think of his name, it
was James something.
But anyhow, two years ago he said, they
listened intently to Paul.
They were staggered that this little Jew should
know so much about Greek history, Greek philosophy.
I'm sure he'd read Plato, all the other
stuff.
But then, as the great preacher says, he
took the trumpet of the resurrection.
He went down the street and when he
saw the street, it was lined with churches
as we would say.
It was lined with places of worship.
Oh, this doesn't stagger too many of us,
does it?
We just go down the street and say
there's a Roman Catholic church, that's Jehovah's Witnesses,
that's the Mormons, where the Hare Krishna meet
there, and the Moonites meet there, and so
on.
Does it stir you that those people have
been teaching false gods, and they rape people's
minds just as a man might rape a
girl's body?
It says in the Sleepy Elizabethan English that
when he saw all these people, colossal intellects
many of them, and yet they were tricked
and duped by false religion.
And it says in the Sleepy Elizabethan English
that his spirit was stirred within him.
I'm not very fond of the Amplified, except
where it agrees with me that the Amplified
doesn't say his spirit was stirred within him.
He says that when he saw all these
people tricked, seduced by deceiving spirits, he was
angry about it.
Do you ever feel a holy anger?
Okay, can you push over, there's quite a
lot of people wanting to come in.
Would you move that way and let them
sit at the end here, on the end
seats if you can.
Move to the center, and then they won't
have to move everybody else.
We're going to have to put a gallery
up.
Lewis, there's some seats here.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Now we'll have to take another offering, they
came in late.
We're dealing with 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and
talking about, at the moment, we're talking about
the 14th verse of the epistle to the
Galatians, where Paul says, God forbid that I
should glory.
No man ever had a pedigree greater than
the apostle Paul.
Of the tribe of Benjamin, of the seed
of Abraham, he has everything going for him.
Again, I say, I believe he had a
colossal intellect, I think he had a very
brilliant mind.
He met the philosophers, I said he began
his life in the ancient capital of the
world, Tarsus.
He went to the intellectual capital of the
world, which was Athens, and he reasoned with
them there.
And yet, there is no epistle of Paul
to the Athenians.
Why?
Well, I'm not going to criticize Paul.
I'm just going to say this, he didn't
talk about redemption, but he did say, and
they couldn't believe it, he took the gospel
trumpet to his lips.
And he sounded the resurrection.
You see, they did have an altar to
an unknown God, and he said, that's the
unknown God I declare to you.
He made the heavens and the earth, his
son died and rose again, and he was
resurrected.
And they showed him the gate.
No, we can't listen to that kind of
stuff.
From there, he went from the intellectual capital
of the world, and he'd been also later
to go to the religious capital of the
world, Jerusalem.
But he steps down from the place where
they worship the brain, to the place where
they worship the body, Corinth.
In the days of the apostle, you didn't
have to string a hundred adjectives together about
a man's corruption, and his licentiousness, and everything
else.
You just tagged him with one word, he's
a Corinthian.
And immediately, you knew he was the vilest
of the vile.
And the old German commentator, Meyer, not F
.B. Meyer, he was English, but F., the
other Meyer, a German commentator says this, blessed
and sublime miracle of God, that a church
of Jesus Christ could be established in Corinth.
Shakespeare said you can't make a silk purse
out of a sow's ear.
God can do better than that.
He can take the most depraved, despised, and
rejected men, and make them saints to God.
It says in the first of Samuel that
he lifts the beggar from the dunghill, and
makes them princes unto God.
I remember about 15 or 16 years ago,
when we were working with Dave Wilkerson in
those days, when David was hardly known, and
yet we had a full house.
This side of the prayer chapel was filled
with girls, this with men, and a little
fellow stood up and he said, Brother Raven,
let's come to preach for us.
Little Puerto Rican fellow, his face was radiant,
and he said before he sang, we stand
up and sing.
Sing the national anthem.
Oh, I thought, but Lord, they sing the
national anthem right before I preach.
I didn't get what he said.
He didn't say sing the national anthem.
He sang our national anthem.
He said, we sing our national anthem.
So I thought the Puerto Ricans must have
one.
And he stood up there, and did you
know he started to sing?
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved
a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I'm found.
It was grace that taught mine.
It was grace.
And you know, before we got to the
end, when we'd be...