This message is one of the Times Square
Church Pulpit Series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge,
PO Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771 or calling
903-963-8626.
You are welcome to make additional cassettes of
this message for free distribution to friends.
However, for all other forms of reproduction or
electronic transmission, existing copyright laws apply.
I'm going to speak a message that I've
given the title, Beware of the Wisdom of
Men.
First Corinthians Chapter 2.
I believe this is very timely.
I've been studying this most of the week,
this week, and I could really preach on
it for a very, very long time.
Not that I want you to worry about
that, but there's so much in the words
of Paul.
I'm trusting the Holy Spirit to allow me
to bring it through simply to you.
Now, Father, I stand before you as Paul
did.
God, I stand trembling.
I stand aware of my own weakness.
But God, it's not about me.
It's about you.
You are the quickening power of God.
Holy Spirit, you're the one who comes and
quickens those that are weak and gives us
strength.
I ask you to quicken my natural body
and my mind.
I ask you to quicken my heart and
my spirit.
And I ask, oh God, that I may
simply stand as a voice for you, an
oracle of God.
Father, I thank you, God, that today you
are going to see your kingdom advance.
Father, not by any demonstration of human ability,
but by an inward working of the Holy
Spirit.
God, thank you that your word has preeminence
in this house, and you will accomplish what
you have sent it to do.
I believe it, God.
We trust it.
You've never failed us in Times Square Church.
You've never failed any Christian anywhere who has
sought you with an honest heart.
Jesus, thank you for speaking to us today
in your mighty name.
First Corinthians chapter 2, beginning at verse 1.
Paul says, And I, brethren, when I came
to you, came not with the excellency of
speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the
testimony of God.
It's an incredible thing, because later on you
see in the words of Paul, he said
that people who heard him said his speech
was contemptible.
His bodily presence was really nondescript.
There was nothing about Paul that would cause
people to look and say, wow, this man
is a wonderful apostle of God.
There was nothing about him.
As a matter of fact, you can honestly
say he was a carbon copy of his
master, because if you go to Isaiah 53,
Isaiah said, There is nothing about you, Jesus,
that men should desire you.
You've revealed yourself as a root out of
dry ground, as it is.
There's no form.
There's no comeliness.
You took upon yourself a rather ordinary physical
body.
But the power of God obviously was resident
in the son of God.
Paul said, I didn't come to you with
excellency of speech.
I didn't come to you with excellency of
wisdom.
And I declared to you the testimony of
God, for I determined not to know or
be familiar, rather, with anything among you, say
Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Now, Paul was saying I didn't want to
know anything.
I didn't want any other knowledge coming through
me, but the knowledge of the cross and
what was accomplished on the cross, what was
bought through the cross, what is ours through
the cross.
Paul was, in essence, saying that this is
the this is the very essence of my
life.
It is all been freely obtained by that
which was purchased by Jesus Christ on the
cross on Calvary.
And Paul says, I don't want to know
anything but Christ and him crucified, because this
is the source of life.
He said, I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling.
And my speech and my preaching was not
with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in
demonstration of the spirit and the power that
your faith should not stand in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God.
Now, Paul warns in the book of First
Timothy, Chapter four, verse one, Paul says in
the latter times, some shall depart.
Actually, if you look through the scriptures, the
inference is probably more that many shall depart
from the faith.
Many will depart from a knowledge of or
confidence in certain divine truths.
There will be a vast moving away from
truth, even in the professing church of Jesus
Christ.
You can read it in any commentary.
You study it in the scriptures.
The last days.
Yes, there's going to be a victorious, sword
wielding remnant bride.
There always has been.
There always will be.
But I'm talking now the masses who call
themselves by the name of Christ, there will
be a mass moving away from from divine
truth.
And the scripture says that they will give
heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.
Almost tragic to think of the church or
the professing church moving in this direction.
The word spirit that Paul uses is a
Numa in the Greek, and it means breath,
wind, or in other words, it's something that
imitates the breath of God.
So Paul is saying there is going to
be a vast imitation of the breath of
God, that voice of God.
There's going to be imitations and many, many
people are going to depart from true faith
in Jesus Christ and are going to give
heed.
They're going to give an ear to these
these imitations of God's voice.
Genesis two, seven tells us that God created
Adam out of the dust of the earth
and God breathed into his nostrils and he
became a living soul.
The word that's used for breath in the
scriptures is often translated, at least twice translated
in the King James Version as a spirit.
It's often used in combination with the word
rock, which means which means air put in
motion by divine breath.
You could say it's the word of God.
Whether God spoke into Adam or whether God
breathed into Adam, it's virtually one and the
same.
Adam was just a lifeless form until God's
breath breathed into him.
And it's by God's breath that he became
a living soul.
Beloved, nothing has changed.
God has not changed his ways.
He is still speaking.
He speaks through his word to the church
today.
The Holy Spirit comes and quickens the word
of God and God.
Even today, if your heart is open to
truth, God breathes into your soul.
The word of God that is preached finds
a resting place.
It's like the dove that Noah let out
of the ark in the first instance, flew
to and fro and could find no resting
place and came back into the ark again.
And it's a type, in a sense, I
suppose, of quite often that we're in seasons
in our lives where God sends the word,
but there's no resting place in our heart
for it.
So the word has to come back as
it is.
It was sent for a purpose.
And the Bible says God's word does accomplish
its purpose.
It can either soften us or harden us.
There's a purpose that will be accomplished or
perhaps prepare us for another day.
But eventually that same bird was released and
found a lodging place.
And today I'm believing that God's word in
many of your hearts is finding that lodging
place because there is no other safety.
There is no other source of life or
strength.
It's the breath of God that makes us
alive in Christ.
It doesn't come any other way.
It's what God speaks, finding a lodging place
in our hearts and we live.
Think about the story of Lazarus, for example,
a man absolutely dead, a type of you
and I that when we were dead in
our trespasses and sins or dead or gripped
in the power of death or the power
of sin, there was no three steps to
getting out of the grave that was presented.
Jesus just said, roll away the stone, take
away the unbelief or the hardness of heart.
And he just simply called and his voice
raised a man out of the grave who
was four days dead.
It's an amazing thing.
Nothing has changed, beloved.
You have to understand that's not just a
specific miracle for a certain time in the
past.
That is a type of how God works.
You can be dead and captivated by some
besetting sin today, or perhaps you're just absolutely
dead in your sin in entirety today.
But if you'll open your heart, that's why
the writer of Hebrews cried out to the
Jewish church and said today, if you can
hear his voice, don't harden your hearts.
If you can hear his voice, he's always
calling you to himself, always calling you to
freedom, always calling you out of pain, always
calling you into a new life in Christ
Jesus.
That's the voice of God.
There's no other reason the word of God
is preached.
He calls you a people unto himself.
You and I.
He calls us in our weakness.
He calls us in our trembling.
He calls us in our lack that he
might be our absolute source of supply if
we will just trust him and believe in
what he says by faith.
I've often shared it that Lazarus had a
choice to make in his death.
He heard obviously the voice of Christ calling
him.
He had a choice to look around and
see the tomb and see this encasement of
death around him and look at the clothes
that had bound him and even think about
his own smell.
His own sister said he's got to stink
by now.
He's been four days in the grave and
there are so many circumstances to prevent him
from moving forward.
But he heard something much greater, giving much
more hope, much more alive than any of
his circumstances.
He heard a voice calling him.
Hallelujah.
Not an ambiguous voice, a very clear voice.
Lazarus come forth the same voice that called
to Peter in the storm when Peter looked
out and said, Lord, if it's you, bid
me come.
And Jesus said, come, gave Lazarus the power
over death and gave Peter the power of
the elements.
And that's exactly what God's voice does for
you and I.
When God calls us, he gives us power
to tread on serpents and scorpions and over
all the power of the enemy.
He gives us power over our old nature
that we can no longer be captivated by
any of the powers and principalities of evil
that once dominated our minds and dominated our
thinking.
He makes us new creations in Christ, raises
us up where we begin to understand that
we now sit with Christ at the right
hand of all power and all authority.
Hallelujah.
Paul said to the Athenian philosophers in the
book of Acts, chapter 17, verse 28, he
said, in Christ or in him, we live,
we move, we have our being.
It's all in Christ.
We're not bringing to you clever devices.
We're not telling you how to live a
more virtuous life.
Paul saying, no, it's not about that.
These are these are the philosophers standing around
their own altar praising the unknown God.
And Paul said, you're worshiping a God in
ignorance, but I come to declare him to
you.
And there's something about him that you don't
understand.
He comes and he gives us life and
we live and we move and we have
our being in him.
Amazing when you begin to consider everything that
God was speaking through Paul to those people.
Paul says to Timothy, preach the word, be
instant in season and out of season, probe,
rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine
for the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine, but after their own
lust, they shall heap to themselves teachers having
itching ears and they shall turn away their
ears from the truth and shall be turned
to fables.
Incredible when you think of it.
Paul is saying that there's a time coming
into the world when a people who are
led by their lust.
And if you look it up in the
original text, it means the under unsurrendered desires
of the corrupted soulless condition of man, people
who don't want to really be led by
God anymore.
Really, the inferences they want to fit God
into their everyday desires.
They want to take Jesus Christ and yes,
do gravitate to his salvation.
And they want him as savior, but they
really don't want him as Lord.
They say, well, Christ, I want you because
you're going to give me peace and you're
going to make me healthy and you're going
to keep me happy.
You're going to give me a sense of
being while I pursue my objectives in life.
And I'm going to ask you to bless
my objectives.
I'm going to ask you to let me,
in effect, lead you.
And you become my good luck charm, Jesus,
along the journey.
And you're going to fight against my enemies.
And you're going to bless me and keep
me and make me healthy and happy.
And you're going to give me a destiny
and a wonderful self-image and all of
these things.
So really, you'd have to be a fool,
in a sense, not to invite that kind
of a Christ along on the journey.
And folks, you'd have to be a fool
to invite that kind of a Christ along.
Because that is not the real Jesus.
That is another Christ.
Jesus comes not only to be Savior, but
he is Lord of our lives.
He has the right to our lives.
He has the right to take the reins
of our heart.
We say, Lord, come and sit on the
throne of my heart.
That means there are new desires planted.
There's a new direction.
There are new causes that the Lord begins
to reveal in through each one of our
hearts.
He says the people are led by their
lusts.
And many of them will turn away from
the truth and the truth means a clear
reality.
Which is unveiled as opposed to a mere
appearance that doesn't have any reality to it.
They'll be turned from the truth and turn
to fables.
Now, this is important to understand this, because
the word for fables in the Greek is
muthos.
And and here's what it means.
They're going to be turned to myths.
There is nothing necessarily false in a myth.
A myth can contain good logic and reasoning.
However, it is that which is fabricated by
the mind, which is set over against the
real and the actually true.
And so there's going to be a great
deal of human reasoning.
This is really what Paul is saying, that
is going to rise in the pulpit and
take the place of the word of God.
There will be people standing and preaching thoughts
about God, but not God's thoughts in a
sense about himself.
People saying, I think and I feel like
we went through a generation, really 10, 15
years ago.
I remember the charismatic Pentecostal churches went through
this great succession of conferences.
I call them the I think and I
feel prophets who read a half a line
of scripture and then spend the next hour
saying, well, I think and I feel about
God.
I think God said this.
It may not be in the word of
God, but they dare to anybody to challenge
their authority to say God said this to
me, even if it's contrary to the word
of God.
So they they end up preaching thoughts about
God.
But in the end, it ends up being
completely different than what God says about himself
and they are turned to good principles.
And the end result is the church moving
into human effort to try to be godly.
Twelve steps to this and seven steps to
that and 14 steps to fulfilling your destiny.
And all these things that we have to
do.
And it's really not anything that God says
about himself.
God says, I just simply breathe into you
and you live.
I do the miraculous.
I take you in your weakness and you
just simply hear what I say.
You believe it in your heart.
And by the power of the Holy Ghost,
it begins to become a reality in you.
You are raised up to glorify me all
throughout the earth.
In the last days, people with unyielded hearts
to God will be turned from truth to
human wisdom and logic.
In 2nd Corinthians chapter 11.
Verses three and four.
Paul says it this way.
He said, I fear.
In verse three, he says, I fear less
by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve
through his subtlety.
So your mind should be corrupted from the
simplicity that is in Christ.
For if he that comes preaches another Jesus
whom we have not preached, or if you
receive another spirit which you have not received
or another gospel which you have not accepted,
you might well bear with him.
And Paul said, I fear that you should
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ.
All folks, the devil will always try to
bring him a multiplicity of words, especially into
the church of Jesus Christ to corrupt God's
people from the simplicity of faith.
The simplicity of just saying God said it
and I believe it.
And that settles it for me.
God's calling, I'm going.
He will give me the power that I
need to do what he's called me to
do.
So simple.
God says, I will breathe into you.
You receive it.
I'll make it a reality.
And we will walk together and you will
be my servant fulfilling my purposes on this
earth.
And Paul says, if you begin to bear
with these other messengers, you're going to end
up opening your heart to those who bring
another gospel to you.
Again, in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 13, he
talks about messengers that appear so sincere.
He says, for such are false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
And no marvel for Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light.
Therefore, it's no great thing if his ministers
also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness,
whose end shall be according to their works.
All folks, they can be sincere.
They can cry tears.
They can tell you how much they care
about you and how much they love you.
But nevertheless, they are animated by Satan because
they are ministering out of the deception of
their own unyielding hearts.
They themselves don't want to go in the
pathway that Christ has called them to go
in.
They are grasping and grappling for position and
prominence and money and reputation.
And the very grasping of their hearts takes
them out of the life of Christ.
They become opposite to what Christ is and
who he is.
And Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, 13,
they are ministers who are constantly being deceived
and deceiving others.
I saw one time a tape of a
very well-known supposed evangelist on television and
spouting all kinds of foolishness and then stopping
and saying, just a minute now, the Holy
Spirit, what is it you're saying to me?
And then and then comes back with more
being deceived and deceiving, being deceived and deceiving.
I have little doubt that this man is
probably hearing a voice, but it is not
the voice of God.
The words that come out of his mouth
do not lead you to Christ.
They do not lead you to the cross.
They do not lead you to a surrendered
life.
They do not lead you to repentance.
They do not lead you to yieldedness to
the will of God for your life.
So they're being deceived and they're deceiving it.
Oh, folks, it takes no discernment anymore to
see these things.
It's become so absolutely blatant that it's tragic
that even some of God's years ago, some
of his choices, servants are being led down
these pathways of deception because there's no longer
any discernment in their hearts.
Second Corinthians again, verse 11, chapter 11, rather,
verse 19.
Paul says he's impassioned when he says it.
He said, you suffer fools gladly seeing that
yourselves are wise.
Paul is speaking to the Corinthian church and
he said, you've allowed fools to come and
preach to you.
I'm speaking now to everyone who's refused to
turn off the televangelist, many of them and
all of these tapes and radio programs, and
most of them are idiocy in the name
of Christ.
He said, you suffer fools gladly because you're
so you've become so wise to the Corinthian
church.
So he said, for you suffer if a
man brings you into bondage, if a man
devours you, if a man takes of you,
if a man exalts himself, if a man
smites you on the face.
Paul is impassioned because the Corinthian church was
allowing false teachers that have opposed his apostleship
and the word of God to come in
and to begin, as Paul saw it, to
devour a portion, as it is of the
Corinthian church.
And Paul was impassioned.
He said, in your own wisdom, you are
giving place to fools who are preaching the
gospel as they see it to you.
He says, verse 20 says, you are opening
your heart and allowing them to take you
into their captivity.
Peter says in 2 Peter 2, 19, while
promising liberty, they themselves are the servants of
corruption.
Folks, it's not it's not happenstance that all
of these ministers and ministries in the last
10 years are just falling like dominoes.
Folks, that's what they have been doing.
It's been behind the scenes has been going
on for a long time.
They stand and they are in captivity.
They promise liberty, but they are not free
in Christ.
They're not yielded to the purposes of God.
They have an agenda to preach the gospel.
And you can be sure it always ends
in your wallet.
You can be sure.
Set your watch by it.
It will go to your wallet.
I don't care how sincere it is or
where it starts.
It will go to your wallet with a
lie, because that's what's in their heart.
It's all about money.
It's all about reputation.
It's all about being lifted up and being
exalted.
And Paul cries out to the church and
says, in your own wisdom, you've been warned,
Paul said, but you've made the choice not
to turn it off.
And you're allowing these fools to come into
your home and preach the gospel to you.
And they're taking you into their captivity.
You begin to believe their lies.
You begin to believe that if you give
them a thousand dollars, that God owes you
100,000 in return.
It's a lie.
And you begin to believe it.
They devour you, Paul said.
They take away your strength like a roaring
lion coming into your house with smooth words,
but devouring that which is the true life
of Christ.
They take of you, Paul says again in
verse 20, if a man take of you,
Isaiah said it the best in Isaiah 56,
11.
Speaking of the shepherds that were bringing Israel
into captivity, he said they're all greedy dogs
which can never have enough.
They're shepherds that cannot understand.
They all look everyone to their own way,
everyone from for his gain and from his
own quarter.
In other words, everyone has an agenda.
His ministry is the only ministry that can
win the world.
His ministry is the one that God is
raising up.
He is God's man or woman of the
hour.
He looks only for his own gain.
He is following his own devices.
They cannot understand and they can never have
enough.
It's never enough.
Oh, folks, when are we going to turn
it off?
When is the church going to wake up
and turn it off and bankrupt these false
shepherds, bankrupt every last one of them?
And Paul says, and they smite you on
the face.
In other words, they just like when Christ
did before Pilate, they they they attempt to
take away your confidence.
Christ was standing there with confidence in his
father and the devil did everything in his
power to wipe that confidence off his face.
The refocusing, the turning to other philosophies is
to take away your confidence in God.
First Corinthians chapter four, if you go there
with me, please.
Now, if I raising my voice today, I'm
not upset with anybody.
I am in passion for the church of
Jesus Christ.
I think it's a tragedy what's happening today.
First Corinthians chapter four, verse eight.
Now, Paul exposes some of the theology that
is coming their way.
He says, now you are full.
Now you are rich and you have reigned
as kings without us.
Think about this for a moment.
Paul says, here's the theology.
You're full and rich.
Does it sound a little bit like glad
to see you have need of nothing and
you're now reigning as kings?
And Paul says, I wish you would have
waited for us because we don't seem to
be in the same place that you are.
And I went to God, Paul says, you
did reign that I might also reign with
you.
I wish to God you really were reigning,
that I might join you because he said,
I think that God has set forth us
the apostles last as it were appointed to
death.
We're made a spectacle to the world and
to angels and to men.
We are fools for Christ's sake, but you
are wise in Christ.
We are weak, but you are strong.
You are honorable, but we are despised.
Even to this present hour, we hunger and
thirst and are naked and buffeted and have
no certain dwelling place.
We labor working with our own hands, being
reviled.
We bless being persecuted.
We suffered being defamed.
We intrigued.
We are made as the filth of the
world and as are the offscouring of all
things under this day.
I write not these things to shame you,
but as my beloved sons, I warn you,
Paul said, I warn you, for though you
have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet have
you not many fathers.
For in Christ Jesus, I have begotten you
through the gospel.
Wherefore, I beseech you, be followers of me
for this cause.
I send it to you, Timothy, who is
my beloved son, faithful in the Lord, who
shall bring you into remembrance of my ways,
which be in Christ as I teach everywhere
in every church.
Now, some are puffed up as though I
would not come to you, Paul said, but
I will come to you shortly if the
Lord will.
And I will not know the speech of
them which are puffed up, but the power
for the kingdom of God is not in
word, but in power, not in word, not
an empty talk, not in talk about reigning,
not in talk about being full, not in
talk about destiny.
The kingdom of God is not in talk,
it's in power.
That's the inherent.
That's the word in the Greek is dunamis.
That means the inherent or enabling power of
God.
Paul says, here's the evidence I'm looking for.
It's not the talk of talkers.
It's the power of God in the true
church of Jesus Christ.
This is the evidence I'm looking for.
It's the man or woman who can stand
and say, this is what I used to
be.
But by the power of God and the
promises of God, this is what I am
today.
This is what God is speaking into my
heart, and I am trusting him for the
power to enable me to go and do
what he has called me to do.
Paul said this is the kingdom of God.
It's not just a bunch of empty talk.
It's the power.
It's the enabling power.
First Corinthians chapter two.
Again, Paul says verse one, I brethren, when
I came to you, I came not with
excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring to
you the testimony of God.
In other words, Paul saying I didn't come
to you with anything that drew to myself.
But yet I was openly showing you the
testimony of God.
Verse two, he says, I determined not to
know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and
him crucified.
Paul says, my theology was not of man,
but of Christ and what he accomplished for
us on the cross.
I warn you, not only Times Square Church,
but everyone who hears my voice on tape
and radio, wherever else this message is going
to go, if you are sitting under a
gospel that does not talk about the cross
of Jesus Christ, if you're sitting under a
gospel that does not call you to turn
away from sin and turn to righteousness, if
you're not sitting under a gospel that talks
about Christ's blood being all sufficient to pay
the price for your sin, his word being
your absolute guide, his spirit being the power
that makes his word a reality.
If you're not sitting in a place where
you're hearing about God's right through Christ to
have lordship of your life and to do
whatever he wants with you, you're not sitting
under the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Verse three says, I came to you, I
was with you in weakness and fear and
much trembling.
My speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the spirit and of power.
Paul said, there's nothing about my outward appearance
or presentation that was attractive to you, yet
you were deeply moved upon to believe and
embrace the testimony that flowed to you through
me.
Paul said it was a demonstration of the
spirit and a power.
I was so weak.
I was so frail.
I was trembling.
You knew it.
You saw it.
Yes, there was an inherent power flowing through
my life that convinced you of the reality
of Jesus Christ.
In my weakness, Paul said, you saw that
God's revelation of himself in Christ is sufficient,
as Paul says in first Corinthians 614, God
has both raised up the Lord and will
also raise us up by his own power.
Paul said, you saw something in me.
You saw something in me.
And it was not the preaching of man's
wisdom.
I didn't come to you exalting myself.
I didn't come to you with wonderful speech,
but there was something of life flowing through
me that you had to reckon with.
And you were brought to the understanding that
this is God.
This is the kingdom of God.
This is the power of God.
Paul says, you saw Christ in me.
This is really the issue.
You saw Christ and you were convinced of
the reality of God.
But Paul goes on in verse six.
He says, but yet we do speak wisdom.
It's not that we are unwise.
You know, some people glory in the statement
that we are fools for Christ's sake and
they stay fools the rest of their life.
No, we do speak wisdom.
There is an incredible wisdom given to the
true Christian, the true preacher, teacher of the
gospel of Jesus Christ, the true follower of
Christ.
There's an incredible wisdom.
Paul says, we speak wisdom among those that
are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this
world or of the princes of this world
that comes to nothing.
In other words, the wisdom of the world
is going to end at Armageddon.
It's going to bring the world to the
brink of destruction.
We don't speak this wisdom that is bringing
the world to nothing.
But we speak the wisdom of God.
Verse seven, chapter two, first Corinthians, in a
mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained
before the world unto our glory.
Paul said there was something that came from
the heart and mouth of God even before
the creation of the world.
This is that there's a mystery and God
gave it to us for our benefit, that
he might be glorified in us for for
our edification, as it is, which none of
the princes of this world knew.
In other words, nobody.
Pilate didn't know it.
Caiaphas didn't know it.
The religious leaders didn't know it.
Nobody knew it.
Walking in their own wisdom, everybody trying to
figure out how to get through.
Pilate trying to figure out how to govern
an ungovernable people.
Caiaphas trying to figure out how to preserve
his place and the religious system.
Everyone else trying to figure out how to
throw off the bondage of the Romans.
And he said there was no wisdom in
it, because if they had known it, they
would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.
There is no wisdom in man.
There's no wisdom in the natural man's thinking
or trying to, in a sense, procure his
own spiritual end.
But as it is written, verse nine, I
has not seen nor heard.
Neither have entered into the heart of man
the things that God has prepared for them
that love him.
But verse 10, God has revealed them to
us by his spirit for the spirit searches
all things.
Yea, the deep things of God.
For what man knows the things of a
man save the spirit of man which is
in him?
Even so, the things of God knows no
man but the spirit of God.
And Paul says, Now we have received not
the spirit of the world, but the spirit
which is of God, that we might know
the things that are freely given to us
of God.
There is the end of it all.
Paul says, We speak wisdom, but this wisdom
comes from the Holy Ghost.
As the Holy Ghost illuminates the scriptures to
us and makes it known within our inward
man, we become aware.
Here's wisdom.
We become aware by the spirit of the
things that have been freely given to us
by God.
Hallelujah.
The Christian life is an exciting life.
It should be the most exciting life in
the universe.
Who would want to trade it off for
the foolishness of man's thinking?
I wouldn't want to trade it for four
steps to anything.
Folks, it's the Holy Ghost who comes and
says to your heart, Here's what God is
speaking to you.
Here's what God is going to do.
This is the kingdom of God.
God is going to raise you up.
God is going to give you love.
God is going to send you to the
mission field.
God is going to do something in your
life.
The Lord says, I know my thoughts through
Jeremiah, that I think towards you thoughts of
good and not of evil to bring you
to an expected end.
God said, I have a purpose for your
life.
And it was it was designed before you're
even conceived in your mother's womb.
I have thoughts that I'm thinking about you.
But nobody but the Holy Spirit knows that.
Nobody's aware of it but the spirit of
God.
And he begins to make your heart aware
of what he is thinking and you begin
to flow in the supernatural.
The devil will do everything to take the
word of God out of your heart.
He will do everything to supplement it with
other principles and good wisdom, even truth.
But it's not the word of God and
it will bring no life into your soul.
Peter said in Second Peter, chapter one, verse
three and four, he said, according as his
divine power has given to us all things
that pertain to life and godliness through the
knowledge of him that has called us to
glory and virtue, his divine power, Peter says,
has given us all things that we need
for life and godliness through the knowledge of
him.
This is Christ that has called us to
glory and virtue.
Now, the word glory means having God's character
or God's image.
He's called us to have the character and
the image of God in our weakness, not
in our strength.
We are all to follow.
Paul said you've had many instructors, but few
fathers.
He said it's not building up your self
-image that would promote the kingdom of God.
It's you standing in your weakness, but you're
obeying God and something is flowing through your
life that the world can understand the wisdom
of the world.
Their only response is what course have you
taken?
Where did you get this ability to do
this?
They would come to Jesus, see the kingdom
flowing and the question constantly, the Pharisees, how
can we work these miracles?
Where do you get this power?
And Peter said, we've been called by God
to bear his image and character and virtue
means the excellence of God revealed in us
through the work of our salvation.
We're called to represent Christ on this earth
by allowing the power of God to touch
us in the areas of our deepest need
and our deepest weakness, by allowing God to
lift us out of our obvious insufficiency and
to bring us into the glorious freedom of
knowing what it's like to walk with the
power of God flowing through us and resident
in us.
Have you ever been in a place, even
in your office or apartment building where all
of a sudden it's just a supernatural love
begins to flow for a person and you
go home and you say, God, I don't
know.
How did that happen?
I don't have that kind of love or
somebody asks for counsel.
And all of a sudden there's words coming
out of your mouth and you're wondering, where
is this?
And it's the word of God.
It's just starting to come back and starting
to flow through you.
You seem to be able to see right
into that person's situation.
When you go home, say, God, this is
amazing.
I don't have that kind of knowledge.
I don't have that kind of ability.
And yet all of a sudden it's beginning
to manifest in my life through my obvious
weakness.
God, you are being glorified and people have
to stop and deal with it.
Amazing.
In the book of Acts, it says, perceiving
that they were in Peter and John, ignorant
and unlearned men, they were astounded by the
wisdom with which they spoke.
Obviously, they were speaking maybe with not the
most refined language of their day, but there
was such a God given direction, a God
given power in their speech that people had
to stand and take notice.
There's something so different about these men.
And then Peter goes on to say, whereby
are given to us exceeding great and precious
promises that by these you might be partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption
that is in the world through lust.
And we talked about that lust, which means
unsurrendered human desire.
We are given exceeding great and precious promises
by these, we become partakers of the divine
nature of God and we escape the corruption
that is in the world.
We escape the corruption of human reasoning and
wisdom.
We opt into the life of God.
We become everything that God called us to
be.
Go to 2 Corinthians 13, 4.
We'll close with this scripture.
I want to show you why in one
verse of scripture, much of modern Christianity is
going off track.
I want to show you why people are
heaping together teachers, they're heaping them together.
Through the loss of their own heart, they're
allowing themselves to hear another gospel.
Then I'm going to show you why in
one verse of scripture.
2 Corinthians 13, 4, Paul says, For though
he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives
by the power of God.
For we also are weak in him, but
we shall live with him by the power
of God toward you.
Now, I want to read it from two
different translations to you to understand more what
Paul is saying in that verse.
Now, listen to me very carefully.
Paul says, For to be sure, he was
crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's
power.
Likewise, we are weak in him as he
was humanly weak.
In other words, we are we do identify
with his weakness and his humanity.
Yet by God's power, Paul says, we will
live with him to serve you.
And here's the issue.
People don't want to serve.
They want to be rich.
They want to reign.
They want a wonderful destiny.
But they don't want to serve.
But Jesus said the Son of Man didn't
come to be served, but to serve and
to give his life a ransom for many.
We will rule and reign one day.
But today we are called to walk in
his footsteps through a darkened world the very
same way that he did.
But they don't want to serve.
They don't want to go to the poor.
They don't want to be the extended hand
of God.
They don't want to give of their resources
to a man or woman who can give
nothing back in return.
They don't want to come to church and
ever even think of picking up a broom
or sweeping a floor.
And because they're led by that lower desire,
which is always the lower desire of the
human heart is always a desire for man
to elevate himself, because the fallen nature of
man always wants to be God.
His own God and ultimately everybody else's God.
But Paul says it was by God's power
that we will live with Christ to serve
you.
And that's the key.
That is the only key.
If I am not a servant, if if
everything I learn and everything I preach and
teach does not bring me to the place
of serving God's people and fallen humanity, I
have missed the whole thing.
I've missed it.
He said the two greatest commandments are that
we love God with all our heart, soul,
mind and strength and our neighbor as we
love ourselves.
On these two, you find all the commandments.
You find all the prophets.
The heart of a servant.
We find multitudes of people now gathering around
theologies of destiny.
But you see, the destiny is never jail
like Paul or hardship.
It's always greatness, money, health, power, the slice
of the pie.
It's a lie.
It's another gospel.
It's another Jesus.
Paul said, I live to serve you.
I see that.
I see it so clearly.
And my prayer is God, help me, help
me to never move or preach or embrace
another gospel.
We don't go to Trenchtown, Jamaica to lord
it over the people or the church.
We go to serve.
We go to wash feet.
We go not to lift up anyone's name
but Jesus.
And hopefully to encourage the church and to
see people come to the saving knowledge of
Jesus Christ.
When we were in Nigeria last year, I
didn't know this, but many of the people
and many of this choir after the crusade
was over, it was a phenomenal crusade.
Thousands and thousands had come to Christ.
And after the crusade was over, the people
went back and started cleaning up papers and
cleaned up the hole.
It was a huge, huge field and cleaned
up all the paper.
There had been over half a million people
there every night.
Now, obviously, there's a lot of litter.
And they started cleaning the field.
And I'm told the cars stopped on the
highway.
And people got out and said, who are
these people?
Why are they doing this?
Pastors had a meeting just before we left.
And it has continued to today.
The leaders had a meeting and said, why
are these people visiting our prisons?
And we are not.
Why are they helping our orphans?
And we don't.
Why are they reaching out to the Islamic
community with love?
And we're not doing it.
We're taking up arms and fighting.
It's the power to serve that makes the
church truly great.
The power to serve and beloved, I got
to tell you, it does begin in your
home.
It does begin in your marriage.
It does begin with your children.
It does begin in your workplace.
It does begin in the apartment building.
The power to serve.
Is evidence that you really are embracing the
word of God.
You're not a lord over anything.
You're a servant to everything.
And that I believe is the truth.
Then he goes on in verse 5, chapter
13, verse 5.
And he says, examine yourselves, whether you be
in the faith.
Paul says, prove your own selves.
Know you're not your own selves that how
that Jesus Christ is in you, except you
be reprobates.
And Paul said, take a good look now.
Then he's speaking to the Corinthian church.
Is this the Christ in you?
Is this where God's word is leading you?
He said, if it isn't and if it
isn't Christ, he said, then you are still.
Now, the word reprobate is not frothing at
the mouth of a virtual idiot out on
the street.
It really means I'm discerning.
It means void of judgment and having a
mind that is abhorred by God.
Very fearful condition to be in a reprobate
means you cannot discern what is God and
what is not.
You're absolutely void of the ability to discern
yourself and you possess a mind that God
abhors.
And that's a very fearful condition to be
in, even in the house of God and
professing to know God.
We need to ask ourselves, honestly, am I
in the faith?
Have I trusted Christ?
Obviously, first and foremost, for my salvation.
Have I come to church?
Why am I here?
Am I here to better myself or am
I really coming to give my life to
Christ?
What am I trusting in for my salvation?
Am I trusting in my church attendance and
my Bible reading and doing good deeds?
Or am I trusting in Christ?
Am I really in the faith?
You don't even get in the faith until
you get through the door.
It's like, folks, physically speaking, it's like standing
on Broadway and 50th all morning and then
going to work tomorrow and telling people you
were at Times Square Church.
Well, you sort of were.
You didn't come through the door, though.
You were outside.
You looked at the banner and you walked
around the building and you saw how nice
it was.
You may have even heard reports of people
coming out of what God is doing.
But you yourself never went through the door.
You have to go through the door to
get into Christ.
And Christ himself said, I am the door.
You can't.
There is no other way in.
You have to trust me for your salvation.
Once you come in through the door, the
Holy Spirit now begins to take this word
and make it alive and begins to manifest
God's power through your weakness, begins to change
your life.
You have a testimony, not just of something
10 years ago, but it's an ongoing testimony.
This is what I was yesterday.
This is where I'm going.
This is what God is doing.
The exciting thing about the Christian testimony is,
is you're not relegated to telling some old
story about how you used to do such
and such 15 years ago.
And Jesus came into your life and now
and you were set free.
Well, I'm very happy for 15 years ago.
But folks, if that's all it was about,
it'd be a pretty miserable walk from here
on in.
No, there's a hymn that says morning by
morning, new mercies.
I see morning by morning.
I wake up.
And as I'm turning to the word of
God and the Holy Spirit is breathing it
into me and making it real.
He's changing me daily from image to image
and glory to glory by the power of
God.
This is the Christian testimony.
He's manifesting his power through my weakness.
He didn't call me because I was strong
in any area.
As a matter of fact, if you really
want to take it deeper, he's got to
get our strengths out of the way before
his glory can be revealed.
Amazing.
Can we say that what people see in
us is Christ living it in through me?
Is my boast in the cross as Paul
says, I don't want to know anything but
Christ.
Christ is my life.
Christ bought my salvation.
Christ rose from the dead.
Christ sits at the right hand of all
authority and power.
Christ is my sufficiency.
I don't want to know anything, Paul says,
but Christ.
Don't bring me any wisdom.
It's Christ.
Christ.
It's the things, the true wisdom are the
things that God speaks into my heart.
That's wisdom.
And no one in the world knows this
kind of wisdom.
It's so much higher.
It's so much greater.
The wisdom of man will cause me to
have fits and starts of effort to try
to better myself and change.
But it always ends in failure.
The wisdom that comes from above.
The Bible says is peaceable, easy to be
entreated.
It comes into my heart and God by
supernatural power begins to change me.
I may still look weak on the outside,
but I'm no longer weak on the inside.
Something comes into my life and people around
have to reckon with it because it's God.
It's the life of God pouring through me.
It's the spirit of God speaking through me.
It's the hands of God touching through me.
It's the feet of God walking through me.
There's a confidence in God that even when
I have to go through fire and flood
and water and sickness and trial, and I
am always triumphing, I am more than a
conqueror in Christ.
I have a confidence that has no plan.
Christ is the plan.
I don't need any other plan.
I put myself into his hand and Jesus
says, nobody can take you out of my
father's hand.
Nobody.
I've had people say, are you not afraid
to go into these areas of difficulty and
violence and crime and shooting and all these
other things?
I'm not in the least afraid.
I understand something.
I am until God says I'm not.
It's as simple as that.
My days are not in the hand of
a mugger with a gun.
My days are in the hands of God.
God, I
praise you.
I thank you, Lord.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Lord.
I believe like Paul who said, as long
as I live, I live for Christ.
And if I die, it's gain to me.
I'm going home, Paul says, to be with
God for all of eternity.
But till that day, I will preach Christ.
I will teach Christ.
I will live Christ.
I will exalt Christ.
I will talk of Christ.
I will boast of Christ.
I will talk of the cross.
Where all my redemption was bought for me.
And beyond everything, I believe God for a
servant's heart.
We don't have that.
We have nothing.
A servant's heart.
Thank you, Jesus.
I'd like us to sing a song, a
choir.
You know that song, you don't have to
worry.
You don't.
With Jesus, I can make it.
I want to give an altar call today.
Obviously, if you're unsaved, Jesus will receive you
to himself.
The Holy Spirit put on my heart while
I was speaking to give an altar call
for everyone who's afraid.
Just afraid to take that step of faith.
And whatever it is that God's already speaking
to you, just so afraid to get up
and say, I'm going to trust God and
I'm going to go with God wherever it
is that he sends me, whatever it is
that he asks me to do.
I understand now that I'm called to be
a servant.
I'm not called to be this great person.
I'm called to be a servant.
And Jesus said, the greatest among you will
be a servant.
I'm called to servanthood and I'm willing to
let God lead me.
I'm willing to say, Lord, you are now
the governor of my life by faith.
I don't have to figure it out.
And I'm not going to figure it out.
You just lead me.
Lead me.
And where you lead me, I will follow
you.
I'll go with you, Lord.
And I will trust you for the power
to serve people in your name.
I will trust you for the ability that
I need to be everything you've called me
to be.
God, I will trust you and you will
not fail me.
If you are captivated by a besetting sin,
you come to and the Holy Spirit is
going to set you free today.
I'm going to take authority over that captivation
and you're going to agree with me.
And we're going to see the prison doors
open, the wounded hearts healed.
You'll begin to understand the kingdom of God
is in power.
It's in God doing the miraculous in a
people.
That's the kingdom of God and through a
people.
I don't want to ask if there's somebody
in the education annex, the balcony, the altar,
the main sanctuary could say, Pastor, I'm not
saved.
I lived outside the kingdom of God.
I'm a sinner.
But today I've been here and I'm moved
upon by God.
I believe that Christ Jesus is the son
of God.
I believe that he died on a cross
and paid the price for my sins.
And I believe that if I will open
my heart to him and confess my need
of him, that he will receive me to
himself.
Forgive me.
He will cleanse me.
The Holy Spirit will come to me and
give me the power to be a new
person, a new creation.
I believe that this day will be the
pivotal turning point for the rest of my
life and eternity.
Eternity will mark this day.
I'm going to give my life to Jesus
today.
And it's not going to be a religious
thing.
It's going to be a relationship with the
son of God.
And I'm going to trust him to change
me, trust him for the miraculous.
Nicky Cruz was told by psychologists that he
was unredeemable.
That's how they analyzed him and said, you
are unredeemable.
Well, I wanted you to know this unredeemable
man came to Christ.
He's a marvelous preacher of the gospel, a
wonderful man of God.
He has raised a lovely family, a lovely,
godly family.
This unredeemable man under the wisdom of man
came to God.
And God's by his power did a miracle
in his life.
An absolute miracle.
This is the God we serve.
This is the Christ.
This is the church of Jesus Christ.
We are to be miracles of his power.
Every one of us.
Nobody's to be left out of what God
will do.
And today, if you'd like to open your
heart and receive Christ as your savior, he
died on a hill for you, public and
naked in his generation.
That's what they considered nakedness.
I'm going to ask you to raise your
hand high right now, wherever you are.
If you want to receive Christ as your
savior, just unashamedly raise it up.
Balcony.
Go ahead.
Annex main sanctuary.
Unashamedly.
I'm coming to Jesus Christ today to give
him my their hands all over the place.
Now, just anyone else.
Just right.
Yes.
God bless you.
Way up there in the back, all the
way through the back of the balcony.
Thank you.
God bless you in the annex.
I know the Lord.
I can't see your hands, but the Lord
can see them right now.
Now, those that raise their hands, let's pray
a prayer together.
Let's believe God.
Look at we have a little girl here,
a little boy.
I'm sorry.
You've got to be no more than what?
Six, six years old.
I guessed it right.
And your mom with you.
And so mom and her son coming to
the Lord.
Six years old.
Thank God.
Hallelujah.
This is a marvelous moment for those that
are coming to Christ.
Pray with me now, Lord Jesus.
I believe that you are the son of
God.
I believe that you died to pay the
price for all the wrong things that I
have done.
Dear God, I have violated your word and
your law.
I deserve to be punished.
But in your kindness, you took my punishment
upon yourself.
And all you ask of me is to
give my heart to you.
Jesus, at this very moment, I open my
heart to you.
I invite you to come in to my
life.
Thank you for receiving me.
Thank you for cleansing me.
Thank you for giving me the Holy Spirit
and helping me to understand your promises in
my life.
Oh, Jesus, I confess you as my Lord
and my Savior.
And I believe on the authority of what
you said to me in your word that
at this very moment, I'm saved.
I'm saved.
I am saved.
Hallelujah.
Save.
New Believers class every Friday night.
If you really are saved, you should make
an effort to get in and be part
of that.
There's 73 people, the last count I heard
there now.
You'll not be left alone.
A lot of new believers in Christ here
at Times Square Church.
Now for the rest.
You're stepping out and believing that God's going
to do something with you.
The only thing I can tell you is
don't take it in your own hands again.
Because then you're going to fail.
But if you believe him, if you just
believe him, get in this book, start to
read it.
Start in the New Testament.
Start to read it.
This is God's love letter to you.
Everything in this book is for you.
Everything.
Every promise is for you.
And you begin to read it.
And as you read it, the Holy Ghost
is going to cause things to jump off
the page.
Your heart's going to burn inside.
It's going to burn inside.
I remember when I read the scripture, you
know my story.
I came out of horrible panic attacks for
nine years.
It hospitalized me at one point.
And when I read in this Bible, I
can do all things to Christ who strengthens
me.
And my heart began to burn.
Now I knew there was no hope for
me to ever be a public speaker.
If it was ever going to happen, it
had to be God.
My heart began to burn and God's Holy
Spirit comes and makes his promises a reality.
He'll give you everything that you need, that
you can glorify him.
Because he loves you.
Now, Father, I stand as one pastor of
this church and take authority over every bondage
of the devil, every lie of the evil
one that has tried to rob these precious
saints of God, of their inheritance in Jesus
Christ.
I command in Christ's name, every prison door
to open.
I command every heart to open to the
healing word of God that will wipe away
every tear and give peace where there's sorrow.
Father, I thank you that the enemy has
nothing in the people of God.
I thank you, Lord, that you're going to
make this a discerning people, a discerning bride
that know the difference between the voice of
God and the voice of the devil.
God, I thank you, Lord, that you're going
to open their eyes and ears, that they
can see all the deceiving smooth talkers for
what they are and turn away from them
and turn to you.
Oh, God, you will never deceive your people.
Lord, you will show your people in your
word the strength and truth and a pathway
for life.
And Father, I thank you.
Now pray with me.
Lord Jesus, I'm not afraid to step out
and trust you.
You have never failed any person ever throughout
history who has trusted you.
And I will not be the first.
You will not fail me.
This will be my testimony.
I'm opening my heart and I am believing
that you're going to give me life and
strength and the power of God to be
everything that you have called me to be.
I believe this and I move towards it.
Oh, Jesus, help me now to hear your
voice.
And when I hear it, to move to
the sound of it.
Because when you speak, I live.
God, thank you.
This is going to be a wonderful walk,
an incredible journey.
I look forward to it.
Oh, Jesus, be glorified in me, be glorified
in my life and use me for your
glory.
I believe it.
I receive it.
Hallelujah.
This is the conclusion of the message.