1 Corinthians, chapter 9, please.
The first book, first letter to the Corinthians,
chapter 9.
I'd like to begin reading in verse 24.
1 Corinthians, chapter 9, verse 24.
Know ye not that they which run in
a race run all, but one receiveth the
prize?
So run that ye may obtain.
And every man that striveth for the mastery
is temperate in all things.
Now they do it to obtain a corruptible
crown, but we an incorruptible.
I therefore so run not as uncertainly, so
fight I not as one that beateth the
air, but I keep under my body.
Some versions say I buffet my body, I
pummel my body, and bring it into subjection,
lest that by any means, when I have
preached to others, I myself should be a
castaway.
If I were to give a subject to
this message this afternoon, it would be that
last word, castaway.
You might put your finger on that, your
thumb on that, the last word.
In some of your Bibles it might not
be castaway.
It might be another word, but it means
the same thing.
Lest having preached to others, I myself should
be a castaway.
I'd like to think with you this afternoon
about the dreaded possibility that a Christian can
be a castaway.
When we come to a passage of scripture
like that, the first thing we have to
do is emphasize that this passage does not
contradict the wonderful truth of the eternal security
of the believer.
We steadfastly maintain that the person who has
been born again through faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ is eternally secure.
We can turn, for instance, to John 10,
verses 27-29, where the Lord Jesus says,
Let my sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me, and I
give unto them eternal life.
And they shall never perish, neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father which gave them me is greater
than all, and no man is able to
pluck them out of my Father's hand.
Dear friends, no sheep of Christ can ever
perish.
If one genuinely born-again person ever perished
at last, Christ would have to get off
his throne.
He would no longer be dependable.
He would no longer be God.
It's that important, isn't it?
We have the word of God the Son
in this passage of scripture.
They shall never perish.
It makes me think again of Dr. Ironside.
One time he was in a meeting, and
he was speaking along this subject.
And a woman came up to him after
the meeting.
She was furious.
She said, Well, I certainly didn't agree with
what you said tonight.
And he said, What didn't you agree with,
madam?
He was very gracious.
She said, This business of want saved always
saves.
He said, I don't believe that.
And he said, Well, let me quote you
a verse of scripture.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know
them, and they follow me.
And I give unto them eternal life, and
they shall never perish.
And she said, I don't believe it the
way you believe it.
Well, he said, Let me repeat it to
you again.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know
them, and they follow.
She said, Don't repeat that again.
I don't believe it the way you believe
it.
I don't believe it the way you believe
it.
He said, Well, let me just quote it
to you once more.
And so he started to quote it to
her the third time, and she was furious.
She said, Don't repeat that to me.
She said, I don't believe that the way
you believe it.
He said, Madam, I haven't told you yet
how I believe it.
See, she wasn't fighting against Dr. Ironside.
She was fighting against the word of God.
He hasn't told her yet how he believed
it.
John chapter 5, verse 24.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
heareth my word, and believeth on him that
sent me, hath everlasting life, shall not come
into condemnation, but is passed from death unto
life.
Hath everlasting life.
Dear friends, if you have it and you
lose it, it wasn't everlasting life.
It was a pretty short-lived life, wasn't
it?
Short term.
If you have it and then can lose
it again.
John 3, verse 36.
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting
life.
He that believeth not the Son shall not
see life, but the wrath of God abideth
on him.
And then I'm very fond of two passages
in Romans chapter 8.
The first is verse 30.
Romans chapter 8 and verse 30.
But I'll go back to verse 29.
It says, For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the
image of his Son, that he might be
the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also
called.
And whom he called, them he also justified.
And whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Now, I know that's involved and has a
lot of big words in it, but just
take those last words.
Whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Dear friends, if you're justified, it's just as
good as if you were already glorified in
the purposes of God.
It's so sure in the purposes of God
that he can speak of your glorification in
the past tense.
You're not glorified yet.
Pardon me for saying such a thing, but
you know, you aren't.
That's all there is to it.
I'm not either.
We're not in our glorified state, yet it's
glorified in the past tense, isn't it?
Whom he justified, them he also glorified.
If he justified 10,000, 10,000 will
be glorified.
I pray to God there will be more
than 10,000.
And then in that same passage, same chapter
of Scripture, it says in verse 37, We
are more than conquerors through him that loved
us.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be
able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Isn't that wonderful?
I like that passage because Paul ransacks the
universe in these verses of Scripture to see
if he can find anything that could ever
separate us from the love of God in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
And he can't find a single thing.
No wonder the martyrs, some of the martyrs
of the Christian church have gone down to
the grave with these words on their lips.
Saying in effect to their guilty murderers, you
can murder me, but nothing can separate me
from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
I think of that young Scottish girl who
lived at the time of the Scottish Covenanters.
These Covenanters were being put to death for
their loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And they took this Margaret McLaughlin, and they
said, well, you recant.
You recant your faith in Christ, or we'll
drown you at the stake.
She said, I can't recant my loyalty to
Christ.
They took her out to a beach where
the tide was out, and they drove a
post into the sand, and they tied her
to the post so that when the water
came in, when the tide came in, it
would come up over her and finally engulf
her.
And they thought, well, we know how to
break her will.
Incidentally, her own parents went out on unbended
knee, asked her to do what her persecutors
were telling her to do, and she said
she wouldn't do it.
So they said, we know how to get
her to break.
So further out on the sand, they put
another stake, and they tied an old Christian
woman to the stake.
They said when she sees that woman drown,
she'll change her mind.
So the tide came in, and pretty soon
it engulfed that dear old Christian woman, and
she drowned, and Margaret said if God can
give grace to an old woman to die
for him, he can give grace to me.
And the tide came in and went up
over her body and up over her mouth
and up over her nose, and as she
was dying, she was heard to say, I
am persuaded that neither life nor death nor
angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present
nor things to come, height nor depth nor
any other creature shall be able to separate
me from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The believer in the Lord Jesus is eternally
secure.
When we come to a passage of Scripture
like this, we must distinguish between salvation and
service, and 1 Corinthians 9 has to do
with service, not with salvation.
That's what Paul is talking about.
He's not talking about being cast away as
far as our salvation is concerned, but he
is talking about being cast away as far
as service is concerned.
When we come to a passage of Scripture
like that, we have to distinguish between gift
and reward.
Salvation is a gift, isn't it, received by
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but service
is linked with reward at the judgment seat
of Christ.
So, I repeat, this passage of Scripture does
not deny the eternal security of the believer,
but sometimes I think we spend so much
time emphasizing that that we fail to emphasize
what the passage is really saying.
You know, we're creatures of extremes, aren't we?
And we spend all the time saying, look,
this does not deny eternal security, but we
forget to tell people that it does have
a serious side to it, just the same.
And so we don't want to rob the
passage of its deep, deep meaning for our
hearts today.
And the deep, deep meaning is it is
possible to be a castaway in Christian life
and service.
It's possible to be disqualified.
It's possible to be disapproved of service.
It's possible to be put on the shelf
as far as service for the Lord is
concerned.
It's possible to be rejected from present testimony
and future reward.
I don't like to think about that, but
we have to think about it, and we
have to face the fact bravely.
This passage of Scripture points up the need
for self-discipline in the Christian life.
I like the way that Phillips, in his
paraphrase, says it.
Let me read it to you.
He says, I run the race then with
determination.
I am no shadow boxer.
I really fight.
I am my body's sternest master.
Isn't that good?
I am my body's sternest master, for fear
that when I have preached to others, I
myself be disqualified.
You know, that's the worth of price of
the whole book, just that simple paraphrase.
And then the Today's English Version says, that
is why I run straight for the finish
line.
That is why I am like a boxer
who does not waste his punches.
I harden my body with blows and bring
it under complete control to keep from being
rejected myself after having called others to the
contest.
Paul pictures himself as having called others to
the Christian race, and here they all get
there, and they're clustered around the starting line,
and Paul himself is nowhere to be seen.
What a tragedy.
Let me read that to you again.
That is why I run straight for the
finish line.
That's why I am like a boxer who
does not waste his punches.
I harden my body with blows and bring
it under complete control to keep from being
rejected myself after having called others to the
contest.
In that expression, in the King James Version,
it says, everyone that striveth, the word in
the original language of the New Testament is
everyone that agonizes, agonizes.
And that word agonizes tells us something of
the strict self-control that a Christian must
exercise if he's going to win in the
race.
There's an awful lot of teaching today about
Christian holiness, but I want to tell you
something.
God wants you and me to be holy,
but he won't do it without our cooperation.
There's a divine side to holiness, but there's
a human side to it as well.
And I know there is a teaching abroad,
I think it's called the faith rest light.
And it sounds to me as if all
you have to do is get in your
lazy boy and bring up the footstool part
of it and lean back in the rest
of it and expect it to happen automatically.
And I tell you, it won't happen automatically.
It won't happen automatically.
And I want to tell you that if
somebody's going to live a holy life, he's
got to learn to say no 10,000
times a week, if not more.
He's got to learn to discipline himself and
bring his body into subjection, lest having preached
to others, he himself should be a castaway.
In this passage of Scripture, Paul sees three
different athletes in action.
He likens the Christian life to three different
forms of athletics.
One is the runner.
All that run in a race, know ye
not that they which run in a race
run all, but one receiveth the prize.
That doesn't mean that only one person can
receive the prize in the Christian life, does
it?
But it means run to win the prize.
That's what it means.
And then he uses the illustration of a
wrestler, every man that strideth, that agonizes in
the games is temperate in all things.
Runner, wrestler.
And then he uses the illustration of a
boxer who don't waste his punches, makes every
punch count for God.
I'm sure that when the Olympics were going
on in Los Angeles, this passage of Scripture
had to come before many of our minds.
So think of those young people competing, and
you think of the agony, and I mean
agony, that they went through qualifying themselves, huh?
I want to tell you something.
They didn't get it sitting around sipping Cokes
all day.
They really exercised self-control.
They disciplined themselves.
They trained according to the rules.
A young man said to his coach, can't
I smoke and still play in the game?
He said, of course you can, but you
can't win.
That's it.
Sure you can do it, but you can't
win.
Paul says, I pummel my body and bring
it into subjection, lest having preached to others,
I myself should be a castaway.
Sam Shoemaker some years ago wrote this.
He said, most of us fight a dreary
battle for character, or else give it up
entirely and just give in to the desires
that assail us.
Desires to coddle and indulge the body, to
please and amuse the mind, to fritter away
the life with trivial pursuits.
He wrote that in 1965 before the game
ever came out.
Wasn't that interesting?
Maybe they got the title from Sam Shoemaker.
To fritter away the life with trivial pursuits,
to win out over somebody else to get
ours.
The way to deal with sin is not
to hate sin more, but to love Christ
more.
He makes the battle seem worthwhile.
He gives us help directly and through the
church in winning it.
Stuttgart Kennedy used to say, and I like
this, Stuttgart Kennedy used to say, it takes
a passion to conquer a passion.
Think of that.
It takes a passion to conquer a passion.
What does that mean?
It means I have some besetting sin in
my life, and I want victory over that
sin.
I have a Goliath in my life that
needs to be conquered.
It'll take a passion to do it.
It takes a passion to conquer a passion.
Now, Christ is the only passion great enough
to make me want to overcome my sin.
How true.
There's not a sin in the catalog which
he has not helped somebody to overcome.
Somebody may be here today, and you're thinking,
it's okay for him up on the platform.
He doesn't face the problems I face.
Oh, no?
Every one of us has besetting sins.
Every David has a Bathsheba.
Don't tell me anything differently.
There's not a sin in the catalog which
he has not enabled somebody to overcome.
There hath no temptation taken you, but such
as is common to men.
But God is faithful, who will not suffer
you to be tempted above that you're able,
but with the temptation also provide a way
to escape that you may be able to
bear it.
This involves many different areas of the Christian
life.
It involves the hands.
It involves the feet.
It involves the eyes.
Turn to Mark chapter 9, please.
Mark chapter 9, verses 43 through 48.
Mark chapter 9, verse 43.
Jesus says in verse 43 of Mark chapter
9, And if thy hand offend thee, cut
it off.
It is better for thee to enter into
life named than having two hands to go
into hell to the fire that never shall
be quenched.
Where there worm dieth not, the fire is
not quenched.
If thy foot offend thee, cut it off.
It is better for thee to enter, halt
into life than having two feet to be
cast into hell into the fire that never
shall be quenched.
Where there worm dieth not, the fire is
not quenched.
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it
out.
It is better for thee to enter into
the kingdom of God with one eye than
having two eyes to be cast into hell
fire where there worm dieth not and the
fire is not quenched.
There he speaks about the hand, the foot,
and the eye.
The hand, what we do.
The foot, where we go.
The eye, the things we crave after.
And what the Lord is saying there is
that in the development of Christian character and
in the Christian life we have to exercise
discipline.
Now, praise God, we don't have to maim
ourselves, do we?
We don't have to.
Jesus wasn't saying literally that you have to
pluck out your eye or cut off your
hand or cut off your foot.
He says it would be better to do
it.
It would be better to do it.
But praise God, by the power of the
Holy Spirit who's given us it's not necessary
to do it.
We can conquer these things.
We can control what we do, where we
go, the things we crave after.
It means that we have to exercise discipline
over our sleep.
So many can cater to the body in
this way, forgetting that the times of greatest
temptation are the times when we're most slept
and most fed.
Times of greatest temptation.
We have to exercise discipline over the sex
life.
Probably when the history of the Christian church
is told, this is the area in which
the devil has been most successful.
David, at a time when kings went to
war, David stayed at home.
Up on the roof of the palace, he
sees this attractive woman.
Fantasies in David's mind.
Pretty soon he converted fantasies into action.
And he fell.
And he caused the enemies of the Lord
to blaspheme.
And they've been blaspheming ever since.
David should have disciplined himself to keep busy.
Idle hands are the devil's workshop.
If he had kept busy, it never would
have happened.
He stayed at home at the time when
kings go to war.
We have to exercise discipline in food, don't
we?
I think of poor Esau.
Poor Esau comes home and he's hungry, and
he thinks he's going to die.
He sees this bowl of red soup or
red mush.
Maybe it was refried beans.
I'm not sure what it was.
It was red pottage anyway.
And he says, you know, I'd like some
of that.
Okay, give me your birthright.
You can have some birthright.
What good's a birthright?
He said, I'm about to die.
He wasn't about to die.
He would have lived.
He would have been healthier.
But that's what he said.
He said, I'm going to die.
What good is a birthright?
Do you know what it was?
He despised something with a spiritual value.
He was more concerned with catering to a
momentary lust of the flesh.
That's what he was.
You see, the birthright gave him the first
place in the family.
He would become the spiritual head of the
family.
He didn't care about that.
Spiritual values had no meaning to him at
all.
Actually, it would have put him in the
line of the Messiah in a way, you
know?
He didn't care anything about that.
And isn't it sad to think that to
satisfy a momentary appetite, a man is willing
to sell his birthright.
And you know what's still happening in 1985?
It really is.
To satisfy a momentary passion, men and women,
young men and young women, are willing to
sell their birthright.
It's happening all the time.
Some are doing it for pleasure.
Some are doing it for money.
For passing whims of life.
We have to exercise discipline in the area
of money, in the area of time, in
the mind.
Exercise discipline over what we think.
So many today live in a dream world.
Somebody said this, there are only two ways
to defeat forbidden thoughts.
The first is by Christian action.
The best way to defeat such thoughts is
to do something.
To fill life so full with Christian labor
and with Christian service that there's no time
for these thoughts to enter in.
To think so much of others that in
the end we entirely forget ourselves.
Oh, that's good.
To rid ourselves of a diseased and morbid
introspection by concentrating not on ourselves but on
other people, the real cure for evil thoughts
is good action.
The second way is to fill the mind
with good thoughts.
We have to exercise discipline in the whole
matter of our lifestyle.
I was reading a book and the man
said something about the soft and effeminate luxuries
that destroy the soul.
That's quite a statement, isn't it?
The soft and effeminate luxuries that kill the
soul.
In every man there's a weak spot which
if he's not on the watch can ruin
him.
Somewhere in every man there is the flaw,
some fault of temperament, which can ruin life.
Some instinct or passion so strong that it
may at any time snap the leash.
Some quirk in our makeup that makes what
is a pleasure to someone else a menace
to us.
We should realize it and be on the
watch.
I think it's a very healthy thing for
us all to realize that we have that
old nature.
Funny, we've been hearing a lot lately about
the Holocaust in Germany when six million Jews
were destroyed.
And I was thinking the other day, I
wonder if my old nature is any better
than Hitler's.
Well, that wasn't a very comforting thought, was
it?
But, you know, I decided my old nature
is no better than his.
Now, don't misunderstand me.
I've never done the things that Hitler did.
But, you know, the capacity is there.
And I think the world is missing the
boat by sitting back in selfish pride and
pointing the finger at Hitler as if he
was the only one that could do it.
Listen, the seeds of that are in every
human heart.
That's why we need to be saved, isn't
it?
I believe in the total depravity of man.
That doesn't mean that I've committed all the
sins in the book, but it means I'm
capable of them.
And you know very well a person like
that can't go to heaven unless he...
I'm sorry to say that that is all
there is.