to review the choruses that we've been learning.
Does it look familiar, everybody?
In the name of Jesus, in the name
of Jesus.
I'm going to let you have the crutch
once, and then I'm going to remove it
the second time, and see if you'll remember
the words.
Ready?
In the name of Jesus, in the name
of Jesus, we have the victory.
In the name of Jesus, in the name
of Jesus, demons will have to flee.
Who can tell what God can do?
Who can tell of His love for you?
Good.
In the name of Jesus, Jesus, we have
the victory.
In the name of Jesus, in the name
of Jesus, we have the victory.
In the name of Jesus, in the name
of Jesus, demons will have to flee.
Who can tell what God can do?
Who can tell of His love for you?
In the name of Jesus, Jesus, we have
the victory.
That's very good.
Do you remember this one?
I know who holds the future, and He'll
guide me with His hand.
I know who holds the future.
When God thinks, don't just happen everything.
When there's problems, I'll trust the God of
miracles.
Give to Him my all.
I know who holds the future, and He'll
guide me with His hand.
When God thinks, don't just happen everything.
My Him is planned, so as I say
tomorrow, with His help, I'll trust the God
of miracles.
Give to Him my all.
Okay, now we have another one today.
And I feel a certain sense of temerity
trying it without the instrument, but let's pretend
that we're living in the days before the
piano or the organ were invented and see
what we can do with this.
This one really has a martial tune to
it.
Christ triumphant, ever reigning, Savior, Master, King, Lord
of heaven, our life sustaining.
Hear us as we sing.
Yours, the glory and the crown, the bright
renown, the eternal name.
I don't suppose anybody here knows it, do
you?
How many here read music?
Dear friends, we're in deep trouble.
Let's see what we can do.
Christ triumphant, ever reigning, Savior, Master, King, Lord
of heaven, our life sustaining.
Hear us as we sing.
Yours, the glory and the crown, the bright
renown, the eternal name.
It's a little bit high for me.
Try it again.
Christ triumphant, ever reigning, Savior, Master, King, Lord
of heaven, our life sustaining.
Hear us as we sing.
Yours, the glory and the crown, the bright
renown, the eternal name.
Sisters, we really need your help on that,
the high renown.
It's hard for the men to reach that.
So, let's just boom it out when you
get to that, sisters.
Ready?
Once again.
Christ triumphant, ever reigning, Wait a second, we're
off a little bit there.
Try it again.
Christ triumphant, ever reigning, Savior, Master, King,
Lord of heaven, our life sustaining.
Hear us as we sing.
Yours, the glory and the crown, the high
renown, the eternal name.
Okay, we'll try that again next week.
We'll review it.
Hopefully with the instrument.
Today we're back in 1 Corinthians.
So, if you'd please turn to 1 Corinthians.
You can pass those papers to the nearest
aisle and our efficient ushers will collect them.
We will recycle the hymn sheets.
Very much.
1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 26.
For you see your calling, brethren, that not
many wise according to the flesh, not many
mighty, not many noble are called, but God
has chosen the foolish things of the world
to put to shame the wise, and God
has chosen the weak things of the world
to put to shame the things which are
mighty, and the base things of the world,
and the things which are despised has God
chosen, and the things which are not, to
bring to naught the things that are that
no flesh should glory in his presence.
But of him you are in Christ Jesus,
who became for us wisdom from God, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that as it
is written, he who glories, let him glory
in the Lord.
Thy brethren, when I came to you, did
not come with excellence of speech, or of
wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God,
for I determined not to know anything among
you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
I was with you in weakness, in fear,
and in much trembling, and my speech and
my preaching were not with persuasive words of
human wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit,
and of power, that your faith should not
be in the wisdom of men, but in
the power of God.
Now, we saw in the previous sessions that
Paul opens his epistle with customary greetings, and
then he breaks out in thanksgiving, as he
usually does in beginning a letter, and in
this case he's thanking the Lord for the
way the Corinthians had been enriched by the
grace of God, for the gifts that had
been bestowed upon the Corinthians.
Not so much for their own attainments in
the Christian life, but for what God had
done to them.
He had to be rather guarded in talking
about their attainments, because really they were a
troubled church.
It is true that they had an abundance
of the gifts of the Spirit, but they
had some serious spiritual problems in their midst.
And most of this letter is directed to
correcting those problems which they had.
But that doesn't stop Paul from being thankful.
Somebody said, Blame comes, a rebuke comes best
on the back of praise.
And I think you see that exemplified here
in 1 Corinthians.
Rebuke comes best on the back of praise.
If you have to say something negative to
people, well try to find something positive to
say to them as well, to balance it
out.
And I think you see the Apostle Paul
doing that here.
The Corinthians' mistake was that they were, the
mistake he's dealing with here is that they
were dividing over human leaders, in this case,
preachers.
They had their own favorite preachers and they
were forming cliques around these men.
And it was causing disunity in the church.
Frankly, it was a rather foolish thing to
do, to become so enamored with human preachers
that they were actually having strife in the
church.
And so that's what he deals with in
verses 10 through 17.
And then he goes on to show the
folly of their doing that.
Namely, he gives three reasons why it was
foolish.
Christ is not divided.
They were dividing over leaders, but the Lord
Jesus himself wasn't divided and their leaders didn't
die for them.
It was the Lord Jesus that died for
them.
You'll notice all through this section that all
the searchlight is going to go on the
Lord Jesus.
It's going to go off men and on
to Christ.
And that's Paul's whole intent in this section
of the Word of God that Christ might
have the preeminence, not men.
And he shows it by the nature of
the gospel.
And he shows it by his own presentation
of the gospel.
We're going to see that today as we
move on.
Paul was a Christ-centered man whose ministry
was Christ-centered.
And then he says they weren't baptized in
their leaders' names.
They were baptized in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit.
And Paul goes on to talk from his
own experience the place that baptism had in
his ministry.
It was important in his ministry, but it
wasn't the central thing Christ was the central
person.
Then we saw he talked about the message.
The message of the gospel.
And it's really the message of the cross.
And we saw last week how this is
foolishness to men.
I mean, the Greeks want a sign.
They want some...
The Greeks seek wisdom.
They want some human philosophy to get attached
to.
And the Jews wanted a sign.
And that is some powerful supernatural demonstration from
God.
And here Paul comes along and he preaches
the cross.
The cross.
The cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That Christ hung there on a cross of
wood and died for the sins of the
world.
What an abject picture of weakness!
What is more weak than a body nailed
to a cross?
And then the folly of the message.
You mean to say that you can be
saved just by believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ?
Just by repenting of your sins?
No, no, no.
Human wisdom would never accept that.
Human wisdom insists that there's something you have
to do in order to earn heaven.
You have to earn it by your character.
Paul says, no, you just come in all
your sins and bow at the feet of
the Lord Jesus and acknowledge Him as Lord
and Savior and God saves your soul.
Well, it's folly to men.
The message of the gospel is folly to
the natural men.
Foolish to unbelievers.
But it is the power of God.
Why?
Because it works.
And there are some living demonstrations of it
in our meeting today.
Men and women who were lost and dead
in trespasses and in sins and they trusted
Christ the Savior and their lives have been
revolutionized and they're as sure of heaven as
if they were already there.
But not one bit of it depends on
them.
It depends completely on the Lord Jesus Christ.
We do all the sinning.
Christ does all the saving.
This is the only religion in the world
that's like this.
Every other religion says, do.
The Christian faith says, done.
Christ finished the work on the cross of
Calvary.
Don't try to add to a finished work.
You have that nice varnished table in your
living room that represents the finished work of
a table maker.
Supposing I come along with a hammer and
a chisel and try to add to it,
to add to its finished work.
I'll ruin it.
You can't add to a finished work.
The people are always trying to add to
the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
They're trying to add their own good works
to faith in him.
It won't work.
Grace is grace and it excludes human merit
of any kind.
Actually, the destruction of human wisdom was foretold
in the Old Testament.
We saw that last time.
The prophets looked forward to a day when
God would indeed destroy human wisdom and he
does it by the preaching of the gospel.
The failure of human wisdom versus the success
of the gospel.
Human wisdom unaided could never come to the
knowledge of God and would never have devised
a gospel of salvation by grace through faith.
But, the success of the gospel is that
down through the ages of time and even
at the present time, people are coming to
Christ, believing the simple message and finding that
it works marvelously in their lives.
We saw that the Jews want a sign
and the Greeks seek after human wisdom.
But, Paul says, we preach Christ crucified.
This was the message that he brought to
them.
And so, he contrasts signs and human wisdom
with God's power and divine wisdom.
Signs really means a powerful...
People say, you just show me some powerful
miracle, I'll believe.
God says, you believe, then I'll show you
a miracle.
And the miracle is the miracle of the
new birth.
One of the greatest miracles happening today is
the miracle of the new birth.
People are regenerated through faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
It isn't putting a new suit on a
man, it's putting a new man in the
suit.
And God loves to do that.
And then, divine wisdom, divine foolishness and wisdom
versus man's wisdom and power.
Verse 25, the foolishness of God is wiser
than men and the weakness of God is
stronger than men.
Now, there's no foolishness with God.
It's a poetic, it's a figurative expression.
It's really rather humorous to me.
It means that God at his most foolish
is still wiser than man at his best.
The weakness of God is stronger than men.
Here's a message that proclaims the weakness of
God, the Savior, dying on the cross and
yet it will do what no other message
in the world will do.
And so, in verses 18 through 25, you
have the, quote, weakness and folly of the
gospel.
The weakness and folly of the gospel.
Now, he's going to go on to talk
about the weakness and folly of the converts.
Of those who respond to the converts, or
as we say here, God's method.
And God's method is to choose the most
unlikely people so as to give no place
for human pride.
Notice what it says in verse 26.
You see your calling, brethren.
He's speaking to believers here, to those who
have trusted the sinner's Savior.
They have responded to the call of God.
In one sense, everybody is called.
I mean, the invitation goes out to all
the world.
But in another sense, there's an effectual call.
The call of those who believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's what's referred to here.
The effectual call of God.
What kind of people does he call?
It's interesting the way churches, they love to
have prominent men from the community come in,
you know.
Wealthy people who can support the budget.
And they quickly elevate them to be elders
or deacons in the church.
Give them some responsible job in the church.
We cater.
We don't, but we see that happening.
Cater to the wealthy and the wise and
the noble and the mighty.
But Paul says, you see your calling that
not many wise according to the flesh.
You take men in this world that are
reputed to be wise.
The philosophers, the scientists and all the rest,
the intellectuals.
Not many of them are born-again Christians.
Every once in a while there's an exception.
But not many of them are born-again
Christians.
The Christians are in the minority in that
circle.
Not many wise according to the flesh.
That is wise according to the flesh.
We're contrasting human wisdom and divine wisdom in
this passage.
Actually people who have trusted the Savior are
the really wise people in the world.
Not many wise according, not many mighty.
This word mighty fits with what has gone
before where the Jews want a demonstration of
power.
And that really means not many powerful.
The heads of state.
How many of the heads of state in
the world today are believers in the Lord
Jesus?
A lot of them know his name.
They know how to take his name in
vain.
But they don't know him in a personal
way.
We believe that they are servants of God
officially.
But most of them don't know God personally.
That's all there is to it.
Not many mighty, not many noble.
Noble would here mean people who belong to
the aristocracy.
Back in Boston we would call them the
blue bloods.
Or in England, people, titled people.
You know, lady so-and-so or sir
so-and-so.
Not many from that class come to the
Savior.
There was one lady of nobility in England
years ago who did become a believer.
Somebody said to her, how will you say
it?
And she said by the letter M.
Boy, that's a new gospel.
What's that mean?
It doesn't say not any noble.
It says not many noble.
She was saved by the letter.
By the letter M she squeaked in.
Not many noble, not many of these are
called.
That doesn't mean that the invitation doesn't go
out to them.
Of course it does.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved.
God makes a bona fide offer of salvation
to all men and women in all ages
and all the world.
Nobody living today who if he repented of
his sins and trusted Christ wouldn't be saved.
Nobody.
But the thing is they don't.
Why don't they?
Well, I think pride has a lot to
do with it, don't you?
Pride.
Because you don't come to the cross with
your head high in the air.
You come on your knees to the cross.
Forsaking all, I take him.
It's a terrible blow to a person's pride
to have to go back to the wise
in the university and to the mighty in
the seats of government and to the noble
in the chambers of aristocracy and say I
have taken my stand with Jesus Christ and
then endure the twittering and the sarcasm and
the jibes that follow.
It's just too much for a lot of
people to take.
But see, this is the kind of people
God calls.
And you and I could be very thankful
for that today, can't we?
That's the kind he calls.
God has chosen the foolish things of the
world.
That is, people of no esteem in the
minds of the worldlings.
People of no status to put to shame
the wise.
That is, the wise of this world.
And God often does that, and this is
his method of doing, to take the most
unlikely material and fashion the temple for God's
praise.
Somebody was showing off a church building once
and he said, that was made of scrap
marble.
Imagine a church building made of scrap marble.
I know something more wonderful than that.
The temple of God, the spiritual temple of
God, made of scrap material as far as
the world is concerned.
Not the kind of people that the world
would want in their societies, in their fraternities,
or even in their churches, if you will
allow me to say it.
God has chosen the foolish things of the
world to shame the wise.
And it's so often that's true, you know,
down through the history of the years.
You've read about the atheist who wrote on
the blackboard, God is nowhere.
And a little believing girl came along and
she just put an extra space in there.
God is now here.
Foolishness putting to shame the wise.
I think of a man like Harry Ironside.
Probably never went beyond high school, I would
guess.
And yet when he was preaching in Chicago
in an auditorium with 4,040 seats, they
were always filled.
When I worked in a Christian bookstore, we
had a Jewish salesman, his name was Gordon.
And we used to say, look, when you
go to Chicago, why don't you go to
hear Dr. Ironside?
And he always had excuses why he didn't
go to hear Dr. Ironside.
But one night he was in Chicago alone
and he thought, well, I'll just go to
hear Dr. Ironside.
And so he did.
And when he walked out of the building,
he said, Nothing great about that.
He said, I understood every word.
That's what was great about it.
Tozer, A.W. Tozer.
Humanly speaking, an uneducated man.
But I'll tell you, the power of God
was there.
And his writings and tapes are still in
great demand.
You see, the idea is, the more unlikely
the materials you have, and the more wonderful
thing you can do with those materials, the
more glory it is to you, isn't it?
The more questionable the raw materials, and I
say that, raw materials that God has to
work with, and the more wonderful thing you
can do with, the more glory to him.
Think of what he did with a man
named Mel Trotter.
Mel Trotter was an alcoholic.
And a bad one, too.
I mean, he was really scraping the bottom.
He went so low that one time when
his baby died, he took the shoes off
the baby's body in the coffin and went
and pawned them to get a drink.
Now that's pretty low, don't you think?
And he really realized after what he did,
and he decided he would take his life.
He was going to go down to Lake
Michigan and drown himself.
But on the way down to Lake Michigan,
he passed the Pacific Garden Mission.
Somebody invited him to come in.
And he came in and he heard this
message that's foolish as far as the world
is concerned, but the wisdom of God.
And he trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as
his Savior, and he became a powerful God,
and he spent the rest of his life
reaching the down and outers with the gospel.
And that was very unlikely raw material, wasn't
it?
What could you ever do with a guy
that would take the shoes off a baby
in a coffin and pawn them?
God couldn't do it.
And you see, it's more glory to God
to do something like that.
When he'd take Mel Trotter and make a
saint out of him.
Go to Grand Rapids and you'll find a
mission there named the Mel Trotter Mission.
Because of the impact he had in that
ministry.
God has chosen the foolish things of the
world to put to shame the what?
God has chosen the weak things of the
world to put to shame the things which
are mighty.
Very humiliating, isn't it, to the world?
With all its false ways, all its pretense
to greatness, all its pretense to wisdom and
power, to see God choosing the weak, the
base, the poor, the despised, the things that
are not, to bring to not the things
that are that what?
That no flesh should glory in his presence.
Funny, when you're unsaved, you look at it
and you say, it doesn't make sense.
And when you're saved, you look at it
and say, man, the wisdom of God.
Makes all the difference which side of the
cross you're standing on.
And I hope you're standing on the right
side of the cross this morning.
God has chosen the weak things of the
world to put to shame the things that
are mighty.
And base things of the world.
And love.
Sometimes you might say the off-scouring of
humanity.
And it's true, too.
Off-scouring of humanity.
Things that are despised.
Things that the world despises.
God has chosen things that are not.
That means things that are nothing.
To bring to nothing the things that are.
I was at a conference once, and they
were having these tremendously flowery introductions.
I mean, the man would get up, and
man, they'd build him up as if he
were really something.
And then they expected him to preach in
the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
Ridiculous.
So I felt a little more mischievous than
ever that day.
And I said to the chairman, quietly, before
it was my turn to get up, I
said, I dare you do something.
He said, what?
I said, will you introduce me?
Say, ladies and gentlemen, the next speaker is
weak, poor, base, base, despised, a thing that
is nothing.
And he was a good sport.
And he got up, and without a smile
on his face, he said, ladies and gentlemen,
the next speaker is base, poor, weak, a
thing of nothing.
And I was like, what?
I don't think they had ever heard anybody
introduced like that before.
And I got up, and I said, now,
don't be angry with the chairman.
I put him up to it.
But I said, I want to tell you
something.
If I were more like what he said,
God could use me more.
He said, that's the people that God uses.
I thought afterwards, I wonder in the history
of the Christian church if anybody had been
introduced that way before.
But that's what the passage says, isn't it?
The problem is, we get these visions of
grandeur.
And we think, well, we're a pretty nice
partnership, God and us.
Nonsense.
Utter nonsense.
It's all God.
The land is all the glory in Emmanuel's
land.
Peter, James, and John learned that lesson on
the Mount of Transfiguration, didn't they?
Peter said, let's build three booths.
One for you, and one for Moses, and
one for Elijah.
And God just covered them over and said,
this is my beloved son.
Hear him.
God is not going to share his glory
with somebody else, and neither will the Lord
Jesus share his glory with someone else.
And you know, when I read these verses,
I just rejoice.
It's marvelous, isn't it?
God's ways are high above man's ways.
And God's thoughts are high above man's thoughts.
And God's methods, wow, they're high above man's.
Man would have never chosen these methods.
Why?
To bring to nothing the things that are.
That no flesh should glory in his presence.
Was thou, Savior, meek and lowly?
And will such a worm as I, weak
and sinful and unholy, dare to lift my
head on high?
Now, why is Paul saying all this?
Because they were making so much of men.
Because they were forming cults around men.
Because they were looking to human leaders as
if they were something.
As if they died on the cross.
As if they were the saviors.
That's why it's so important for a local
church to gather to the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ alone.
And not to a human preacher.
We stand for that.
We stand for it dogmatically.
It's wrong to gather to a man.
Because the best of men are men at
best.
And God knows how to stain the pride
of human glory.
He knows how to do that.
He knows how to prick man's balloon.
He's an expert at the use of the
pin.
The true ministry of the Holy Spirit of
God exalts the Lord Jesus Christ.
Illuminates the Lord Jesus Christ.
Makes him to be the central one.
And that's why Paul says in verse 29
that no flesh should glory in his presence.
And then he says in verse 30, but
of him you are in Christ Jesus.
Not of Paul.
Not of Apollos.
Not of Cephas.
Of him.
You are in Christ Jesus who came for
us wisdom.
You want wisdom?
Find Christ.
Christ is wisdom incarnate.
And when you have the Lord Jesus you
have divine wisdom.
I remember when I went through college.
It was a liberal college.
And they were filled with doubts and denials
and deviations and every other D under the
sun about the word of God.
But we were required to go.
It stopped there.
So I left them.
I used to go in and hear these
prominent liberals holding forth.
And I'd walk out of that chapel and
I'd say, huh.
My father who probably never went beyond sixth
grade to school can see more on his
knees than they can see on their tiptoes.
Because he knew the word of God.
And it was true.
It was absolutely true.
He came up from Scotland an unsaved man.
He was saved in this country.
He got into the word of God.
He studied the word of God.
He started serving the Lord.
And he could speak with authority.
And not a lot of these sweet nothings
that these men were talking about.
And I used to think that.
My father can see more on his knees
than they can see on their tiptoes.
Of him you are in Christ Jesus who
became for us wisdom from God.
Boy, that's a wonderful thing to realize that
a man walked the dusty lanes of this
earth who was wisdom incarnate.
Isn't that great?
There hasn't been another like him since.
There won't be until he comes back again.
Not only wisdom from God, but righteousness.
See, everything is comprehended in the Lord Jesus.
Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption.
What does righteousness mean?
Well, it has to do with justification.
It means that when a person truly trusts
the Lord Jesus as Savior, God puts righteousness
to his account.
It's a wonderful thing, isn't it?
That's what justification is.
It's reckoning a man who isn't righteous to
be righteous on the basis of the work
of Christ that tells him.
Therefore, being justified by Christ, that is, having
righteousness put to your account.
That's exactly what happens when the sinner trusts
the Savior.
God in heaven puts righteousness to the account.
That's what makes you fit for heaven.
Not anything you've ever done or undone.
Not your tears of repentance, but the fact
that God has put righteousness to your account.
I was telling some of the friends the
other night, quoting C.I. Schofield.
He said, and this was helpful to me
when I first became a Christian.
He said, justification takes place in the mind
of God and not in the nervous system
of the believer.
This is true.
Justification takes place in the mind of God
and not in the nervous system of the
believer.
The minute you trust Christ, God justifies you
just like that.
And that is your ticket to heaven.
You are made complete in Christ.
You have all the merit that you need
in Christ, not in yourself.
God could never turn you away.
So, he's been made righteousness.
This isn't our righteousness.
It's his righteousness put to our account.
And sanctification, God doesn't leave us just in
a state of positional righteousness.
He goes on to do a work in
our lives of sanctification.
Making us more and more like the Lord
Jesus.
The moment we are saved, we are sanctified
positionally.
But then there's a practical sanctification that flows
on from that.
And then Christ is made redemption to us.
And that refers to the future state here.
It refers to the redemption of our bodies.
You see, when we're saved, we're saved for
time and eternity, but we're still living in
a frail body.
A body that's been marked by the effects
of sin.
And Christ's work included the redemption of the
body as well as the spirit and the
soul.
It was all included in the work of
the Lord Jesus at the cross of Calvary.
And when he comes again and takes his
people home to be with himself, redemption of
the body.
We'll have a body like his glorified body
for all eternity.
So, Paul is emphasizing in verse 30, Look,
if you want these things, if you want
wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, don't
look to man for it.
No man can do that for you.
Only the Lord Jesus can do it for
you.
I said last week that just as a
magnet always points to the north, Paul's always
pointed to Christ.
Says that, as it is written, he who
glories, let him glory in the Lord.
That's an interesting thing.
That verse is quoted from Jeremiah 9.24.
And if you go back there, you'll find
that the Lord, when it's capitalized like that
in the Old Testament, always refers to Jehovah.
Jehovah.
Here, Paul applies it to Jesus.
What does that mean?
It means that the Jesus of the New
Testament is the Jehovah of the Old Testament.
That's exactly what it means.
It means that the Jesus of the New
Testament is the Jehovah of the Old Testament.
It's tremendous, really.
And Paul's argument is devastating here.
To think that people would ever make so
much of men and leave Christ out of
the picture or only a part of the
picture.
Well, now in chapter 2, verses 1 through
5, first of all, he's talking about the
human folly and weakness of the message of
the gospel.
And then he goes on to talk about,
in the passage that we've just read, the
converts, what a five-ranked army of fools
they are.
That's what the world thinks.
The world thinks that Christians are just a
five-ranked army of fools.
Now he's going to describe the method that
he used in preaching.
And once again, no glory to Paul.
Boy, if a man ever scrapes himself in
the dust, it's Paul doing it in this
passage of Scripture.
The weakness and folly of the preacher.
That is as far as the world is
concerned.
The weakness and folly of the preacher.
The manner in which Paul delivered the message.
That's what we're reading about.
First of all, the method he spurned.
He says, when I came to you, he
said, I didn't come with excellence of speech
or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony
of God.
Well, that's good.
He had his priorities straight.
He knew what he wanted to accomplish.
And what he did not want to accomplish
was to direct attention to himself.
To have people go away and say, My,
that Paul is a real spellbinder.
Talkable to do that, you know.
In the preaching ministry, there's an awful temptation
for an ego trip.
True.
Paul said, I don't think.
I didn't come to you with excellence of
speech.
As the world famous orator.
The man who can hold the audience in
the palm of his hand.
Not a very big audience.
You can hold it in the palm of
your hand.
With excellence of speech or wisdom.
Not wisdom, but speaking here of human wisdom.
Declaring to you the testimony of God.
What did you do, Paul?
He says, I determined not to know anything
among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Now, don't misunderstand that.
That doesn't mean that when Paul came preaching,
he always talked about Calvary.
Doesn't mean that.
When he says Jesus Christ and him crucified,
he's talking about the person, Jesus Christ, and
his work, him crucified.
And that expression, him crucified, comprehends all the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Not just Christ on the cross.
It's Christ buried, risen, ascended, at the right
hand of God, giving salvation to all who
come to him in simple, trusting faith.
What he's really saying is that he wasn't
a sign-loving Jew, although he was a
Jew, a wisdom-loving Greek, but he was
a Christ-loving believer, is what he was
saying.
And he was taken up with the person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's all he cared for.
And before he got up to preach, that
was his great concern.
Now the people would say, oh, that was
a nice sermon, Paul.
But they would say, what a Savior.
What a wonderful Savior Paul preached.
And I'm sure that was exactly it.
He came to them in physical weakness.
He said, man, everything's against the gospel.
Everything but the power of God is against
it.
Everything but the Spirit of God working through
the message is against it.
From the human standpoint, look, forget it.
It's a failure.
You know, from the human standpoint.
It worked.
It really worked.
And I'm telling you, heaven's going to be
populated with people from every kindred, tribe, tongue,
and nation who've heard the message and received
it and have been saved for time and
for eternity.
I was with you in weakness, in fear,
and in much trembling.
This was the manner of his delivering.
Hard to believe that Paul was up there
with his knees knocking.
But that's what it was.
That's what it was.
His knees were knocking.
I think one of the greatest preachers that
has come upon the scene down through the
history of the church was Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
I think he was preaching when he was
19 years of age.
He was really a trophy of the grace
of God.
If you read his books today, I mean,
it's really marvelous.
The flow of vocabulary.
But I want to tell you something.
Before he got up to speak sometimes, Charles
Haddon Spurgeon vomited blood.
That's what it cost him.
I think of that when I read these
verses of the apostle Paul.
I was with you in weakness, in fear,
and in much trembling.
When you're in that situation, you say, Lord,
if I could just be strong and well
and in good health, I could be so
much more effective for you.
God says, no, my strength is made perfect
in weakness.
My grace is sufficient for you.
My strength is made perfect in weakness.
I tell you, God chooses the most unlikely
people to perform his purposes.
And this should be an encouragement to some
of you here.
Nah, just a nothing, you know.
God couldn't use me.
That's the kind of people he can use.
Nothing.
Zero.
Ciphers.
But the question is, are we available to
him?
Or do we just sit in the back
and sulk and watch others moving ahead for
God?
I was with you in weakness, in fear,
and much trembling.
And my speech and my preaching were not
what persuasive words of human wisdom.
He wasn't always preaching apologetics, although I'm sure
he did preach that.
Evidences of the Christian faith in demonstration of
the spirit and of power.
Marvelous, isn't it?
A message that seems foolish, going out to
people who are the lowliest people in the
world, preached by a man who's weak and
base and despised and accomplishing wonderful, wonderful results.
This is the way God works.
The way he works in demonstration of the
spirit and of power.
Why?
So that your faith should not be in
the wisdom of men, but in the power
of God.
You see, that's just exactly what they were
doing in Corinth.
They were concentrating on their human leaders.
And they were following certain men.
Paul says, don't be ridiculous.
Don't have your faith in the wisdom of
men, but in the power of God.
You know, that's still the same message.
The message hasn't changed a bit.
And it's still going out to the same
people.
You know, if you want to have an
effective ministry for God, go to the poor
people of the world, not the wealthy.
Don't go to the neighborhoods where the people
are posh and living in luxury and in
ease.
They're not interested.
Go to the poor people.
It says that in Scripture.
The common people heard him gladly.
The poor have the gospel preached unto him.
God has chosen the poor of this world,
rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom,
these promise to them that love him.
And what about the rich?
Don't they deserve to hear the gospel?
Everyone says, you won't get the same response
from them.
Here and there, not many, doesn't say not
any, not many, will respond to the gospel
message.
So the message goes out today.
Maybe there's somebody here and you've never really
repented of your sins.
You've never wept before God because of those
sins that nailed the Son of God to
the cross of Calvary.
And you've never by a simple act of
faith said, Lord Jesus, I believe you died
for sinners.
I believe you died for me.
The best way I know how, I take
you as my Lord and Savior.
If you've never done it before, why don't
you do it today?
That's what Paul's talking about here.
You say, will that work?
Never failed yet.
You won't be the first.