I sketched it out here on the whiteboard,
but it's just simply the way it's written.
I sketched it out to see perhaps clearly
what Paul is saying here.
From verse 18.
Well, we better go back.
Verse 17.
For Christ sent me not to baptize, not
that he didn't believe in baptism, but that
wasn't necessarily his ministry.
Not that it wasn't important, but more important
is the...
Could you give us the verse again?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I said 1 Corinthians 2, did I say?
1.
Chapter 1.
Not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.
Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross
of Christ should be made of none effect.
For the preaching of the cross, which I
believe says the word of the cross, is
to them that perish foolishness, but unto us
which are saved it is the power of
God.
For it is written, I will destroy the
wisdom of the wise, and will bring to
nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world?
Those who can argue it out, those who
can prove a point, those who have got
great reasoning powers.
Logically, you figure out things, which they try
to do in religion.
You do that in this world to bring
forth the wisdom of man, but it doesn't
apply to the gospel.
If not God made foolish the wisdom of
this world.
For after that in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom knew not God.
I think, is that clear enough?
After that, in God's wisdom, he let the
world bring forth their wisdom.
In God's wisdom, he let the world bring
forth their wisdom to show its total bankruptcy.
After that in the wisdom of God, the
world by wisdom knew not God.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the
Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ
crucified.
Unto the Jews, a stumbling block, and unto
the Greeks, foolishness.
Then which are called both Jews and Greeks,
Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom
of God.
We'll just stop there for now.
Paul is telling us that the preaching of
the cross is a message to all classes
of humanity.
To the wisdom seekers as well as to
the power seekers.
And basically that's what we have in the
world.
Those who want power, whether it's through riches
or athletic prowess or military prowess.
Those who want power, political power.
Oh, in the musical world, I mean, it's
power that people are after.
And then there's the wisdom seekers.
Those are the intellectuals who want to understand.
And he's referring to the Greeks, but they
were noted for their wisdom.
They had great philosophers whose names come down
to this day as men of great wisdom.
And so Paul says his message of the
cross was to both classes of humanity.
After that, God allowed the wisdom men to
run its course.
And in all the great writings of the
ancient wise men, they never found God.
Never found God.
Talked about Him.
They had many gods, some of them.
They never found the true God.
Paul confronted this class when he went to
Athens.
Everywhere he went, there were idols to the
gods.
Then he came across one whom they, I
guess they didn't want to leave out any.
And yet they knew that in all their
searching after wisdom, they realized there must have
been all these many gods to have created
the world as they saw it.
But they realized there was something lacking.
And so they erected a sign, an idol
to the unknown God.
And so that gave Paul his text.
And when they invited him, having disputed with
the men of wisdom in the marketplace, they
appointed him a day and he went up
to the mountain there at Athens and expounded
this great message to the unknown God.
He met them in their level.
He came to them in their level.
You're men of wisdom.
He came to them in their level.
And he could do it.
And he did it.
But there wasn't too much result from it
all.
I remember someone pointing that out.
He says a few claimed to him and
mentioned one or two.
And we don't despise that.
But the fact is, it seems that his
message where he met them in their level
didn't seem to be that fruitful.
But from there he came to Corinth.
And he says, I, brethren, when I came
to you, came not with excellency of speech
or wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of
God.
For I determined not to know anything among
you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.
He realized he knew it, but somehow it
seemed to have been emphasized to him again
that the message is to be Christ and
him crucified.
And so he goes on to declare to
the Corinthians that after that in God's wisdom
he let the wisdom of man come forth
from all these great philosophies of the ancients.
And God allowed it to go on and
on.
But after that was all over and they
didn't find God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching.
Not just the act of preaching, but the
preaching, it says.
The foolishness of the message of the cross.
It pleased God to save those that believed.
For the Jews require a sign and the
Greeks seek after wisdom.
The religious people require a sign.
They require that.
And the wise people, they require wisdom.
And Paul says the Jews require a sign
and the Greeks seek after wisdom.
But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews,
a stumbling block unto the Greeks, foolishness.
Those who were looking for a sign, the
preaching of the cross became a stumbling block.
They stumbled over it.
They tripped and fell.
Because the sign that God gave in the
ultimate, I know he did many miracles, but
the ultimate sign was his death.
And he said there shall no sign be
given unto you but the sign of the
prophet Jonas.
Jonas was three days, three nights in the
heart of the earth.
So shall the Son of Man be in
the belly of the whale.
So shall the Son of Man be three
days and nights in the heart of the
earth.
That was the ultimate sign that God gave.
And they stumbled on it.
The cross, a sign of power, a sign
of the power that this Messiah had.
If he was indeed the Messiah, they stumbled,
they tripped, they fell.
And the Greeks pursued wisdom.
And to them, foolishness.
A man crucified on the cross, great teacher,
had a lot of good things to say.
And they don't mind accepting the name Christian
perhaps because Christ was a good man, taught
good things.
But the cross, you mean to say that
when he died on the cross, he bore
the sins of mankind and foolishness.
But nevertheless, there's a meeting place for both.
Whether it's the power seekers, the sign seekers,
or those seeking after wisdom, there's a place
where they can meet, where they can find
God.
And that's at the cross.
Unto them which are called, Paul said, those
that are called.
Out from amongst the Jews, out from amongst
the sign seekers, out from amongst those who
are reputed to have wisdom and intellectuals, if
they come to the cross, they will find
Christ to be the power of God if
they're power seekers, the wisdom of God if
they're wisdom seekers.
They find it at the cross.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than
men.
And the weakness of God is stronger than
men.
And so Paul came to Corinth, determined that
this has to be the message.
Let's never lose sight of it.
The only message is Christ and him crucified.
That's the message of the gospel.
Didn't he rise from the dead?
Yes, because he had finished the work.
God raised him from the dead.
Paul says, we preach Christ crucified.
I determine not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Because it was there at the cross that
God unveiled the greatest display of wisdom that
this world has ever seen or will ever
see.
It was there at the cross that it
happened.
It caught everybody off guard.
It caught the Jews off guard.
It caught the wise men off guard.
It caught his own disciples off guard.
Because if he's the mighty king, the mighty
conqueror, the mighty prince that was to come
to establish the kingdom of God on the
earth, oh, it doesn't add up.
It doesn't add up.
He couldn't put it together.
So the cross has remained ever since an
instrument to confront mankind with God's foolishness and
God's weakness.
You say, I shouldn't say that.
I know, but Paul uses that expression.
He says, the foolishness of God is wiser
than men.
And the weakness of God is stronger than
men.
Paul says Christ was crucified in weakness.
So you see, that's what Jesus meant when
he said, If any man will be my
disciple, let him come after me.
Let him follow me and let him take
up his cross.
Let him deny himself and let him take
up his cross and follow me.
And so the message that goes forth today
is a watered-down version of the cross.
Jesus died for me so I have no
death to suffer.
He died to make me rich so I
can be rich.
Jesus became poor that we might be rich.
Jesus became weak, yes, but he did it
that I might be strong.
And it sounds logical.
And there is truth in it.
Because he did die that we might be
strong.
He did die that we might have life.
He did die that we might have riches.
If we understand what the true riches are.
But what we fail to recognize so often,
and especially those who embrace that teaching, is
that there can be no real presentation of
the truth of the cross of Christ except
we walk in it.
So Paul met them on the intellectual level
there at Athens, but not at Corinth.
When he came to Corinth, he said, I
determined not to know anything among you save
Jesus Christ and him crucified.
And with that pursuit, he came to Corinth
weak, fearful, and with much trembling.
It doesn't sound good to those who want
to keep that strong, positive outlook.
But Paul says, in weakness and in fear
and in much trembling, God had to weaken
him.
God had to make him weaker.
It was the fear of God that was
upon him that caused him to go this
way.
Because the wisdom of God will produce a
very godly fear.
And the wisdom of the cross will produce
a godly fear because in the wisdom of
the cross, it's required that those who preach
it walk in it or their message is
not too valid.
That's why it might well be that a
person can go forth preaching the letter of
the word concerning the cross and many hearts
will be touched.
But when this gospel of the kingdom goes
forth, as Jesus said, it will go forth
before the end.
And I emphasize, and I remember a certain
teacher 45 years ago emphasizing this gospel of
the kingdom, this gospel of the kingdom, this
gospel of the kingdom.
The gospel he preached and the gospel he
lived.
The gospel the apostles preached and the gospel
the apostles lived.
It's this gospel.
It's not just the word concerning the cross,
but the cross that has been embraced which
makes that word to be vital and meaningful
and powerful.
And Paul, having realized that, and the Lord
having dealt with him, was able to come
to Corinth in weakness and in fear and
in much trembling.
Fear.
A godly fear.
The fear of God.
Something that God must yet restore to the
church.
It's almost gone out the window.
Fear of God.
We're not supposed to have fear.
We're supposed to have love.
And so, I don't care what scripture of
truth one might bring forth.
If you want to, you can bring up
a scripture that seems to be contradictory to
it.
But if you understand the way of truth
and the pattern of truth, and you love
the truth, it won't be contradictory.
It will be something that speaks of another
aspect of it altogether.
It won't contradict what God says in one
place.
So, God wants to bring back his fear
to the church.
It's not there.
And God wants it back in the church.
And it will come back.
As God deals with his people, that fear
of God is going to come back.
When his presence comes back in reality, the
fear of God will be there.
I'm afraid there's not much of the fear
of God in the midst of God's people.
When they can bring in the most satanic
music and display it from the pulpit and
have people all thrilled and screaming about it,
thinking that they're preaching the gospel because they
sing about Jesus, bringing in the satanic music
to preach Jesus, there's no fear of God
there.
I read this article by a Russian minister.
He says, I spent I think it was
12 years in prison for the faith here
in Russia.
And he says they'd feed us with rock
music day and night.
He says it was the worst kind of
persecution they could endure by being subjected to
that kind of music.
And now he says you're bringing it over
from the States with a gospel troupe preaching
it to the Russians.
He says, stay home.
We don't want that kind of nonsense here.
He says, we who have been in prison
for the faith of the gospel, we sat
under that in the prison house and it
was torturous to us.
And now you're bringing it over in the
name of Christ.
It's just one little thing of what's going
on in the name of Christ trying to
preach the gospel to make it appealing to
men instead of coming with the fear of
God in weakness and in fear and in
much trembling.
God's perfecting a church in the earth and
He's started in some of these countries.
There's great things going on in China.
Some of them have very few Bibles.
Some congregations don't have a Bible.
But they know God and they walk in
the fear of God.
And God is meeting them and many wonderful
things are happening.
And He's bringing forth a powerful church there.
Now the doors are almost closed to Western
evangelists and I think God's doing it.
He doesn't want a lot of that stuff
that's going over there.
God's closing the doors so that He can
speak to them Himself and purify the church
unto Himself.
I remember 50 years ago when they were
lamenting the closing of doors into China and
the church was, oh, dismayed.
The doors are closed.
What do we do now?
Let's multiply our efforts in India.
The doors are still open.
And God closed the doors that He might
have a glorious church there.
Doesn't Jesus have the keys of death and
of hell?
He can open and no man can close
and He can close and no man will
open.
Anticipate that in these days.
Don't worry about closed doors.
If you're in union with Him who has
the key of David, He can open any
door anywhere on the earth, anywhere in this
country.
He can open doors when He chooses to
open it.
And He'll close doors when He chooses to
close it.
There's a path for wisdom.
We'll only know the path of wisdom as
we learn to walk in obedience.
There's a way of wisdom.
Not something you can get from books even,
the best of books.
It's a way that you and I discover
as we understand that we're to take up
our cross and follow Him.
We'll discover the wisdom of God which in
its ultimate is going to destroy the wisdom
of this world.
There is a path which no fowl knoweth
and which the vulture's eye hath not seen.
The lion's whelps have not trodden it nor
the fierce lion pass by it.
He putteth forth His hand upon the rock.
He overturneth the mountains by the roots.
He cutteth out rivers among the rocks.
And His eye seeth every precious thing.
He's trying to discover the path of wisdom.
He bindeth the floods from overflowing and the
thing that is hid bringeth He forth to
light.
But where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
Think of the research that's going on.
I mean, I didn't realize when I came
here that this is the center, if not
the center, one of the great centers of
wisdom and research and understanding in this nation.
And so much has been discovered.
It's fabulous.
It's beyond our comprehension.
But where shall wisdom be found, the real
wisdom?
Man knoweth not the price thereof, neither is
it found in the land of the living.
The depths sayeth it is not in me.
But they've got instruments to go down to
the lowest depths in the ocean and come
up with fabulous discoveries.
But the depth replies, you haven't really found
wisdom yet.
You've got instruments that have gone to far
places in the universe and shot back photographs
and information.
One of your citizens here of America walked
on the moon.
I mean, it's fantastic when we think of
it.
But they'd have to say, this is not
wisdom.
If they come to know the Lord, they
say, no, that's far from being wisdom.
It's not here.
It's not there on the moon.
It's not in Saturn.
It's not in Jupiter.
It's not there.
And the further they reach out with their
instruments of exploration, no matter how far they
go, the answer comes back, wisdom, it's not
here.
It's not here.
The depths say that it is not in
me.
The seas say that it is not with
me.
It cannot be gotten for gold.
Neither shall silver be weighed for the price
thereof.
It cannot be valued with the gold of
Ophir with the precious phonics or the sapphire.
The gold and the crystal cannot equal it
and the exchange of it shall not be
for jewels of gold, fine gold.
And yet, with the gold and the silver,
they're doing their best.
They're putting lavish sums of money into the
exploration of space thinking that it will bring
us the wisdom we need to survive.
And they don't seemingly care if this planet
perishes.
And maybe they think it's going to perish
and maybe we'll find a good planet out
there where we can, you know, take up
our habitation in some other planet because this
one's wearing out.
Instead of using the money to somehow keep
this planet going, let's see if we can't
find a better one out there.
And to their dismay, they're not finding it.
Not finding it within reach.
Maybe if it was in our solar system
it would be of some value.
But if they get out in other galaxies,
take a lifetime to get there.
No good to us.
No mention shall be made of coral or
of pearls for the price of wisdom is
above rubies.
The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it.
Neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
I mean, it's valued now with currency that's
just paper money, but even if you had
pure gold to put into it, you're not
discovering it with gold.
Whence then comes wisdom?
Where does it come from?
Where is the place of understanding?
Seeing it is hid from the eyes of
all living and kept close from the fowls
of the air.
Destruction and death say we have heard the
fame thereof with our ears.
God understands the way thereof and He knows
the place thereof.
And He revealed it in the process of
time when His Son hung on a cross.
He revealed the totality of His wisdom unveiled
in the mystery of the cross.
For He looketh to the ends of the
earth and seeth unto the whole heaven to
make the weight for the wind and the
weight of the waters by measure when He
made a decree for the rain and a
way for the lightning of thunder.
Then did He see it and declare it.
He prepared it.
Yea, and He searched it out and unto
man He said, Behold, the fear of the
Lord, that is wisdom.
And to depart from evil is understanding.
The fear of the Lord, God says, is
wisdom.
And they missed it.
They missed it.
And in their wisdom, instead of like the
ancient Greeks trying to find God, our modern
men of wisdom are trying to do away
with God, trying to come to a place
where they are their own God, where they
don't need the other God.
That's what wisdom has come to.
Trying to do away with God.
One man I remember, he's a scientist, and
he says the ancients, they always had their
gods because they couldn't explain something.
So they had many gods.
But original man only had one god.
And he says when the time comes when
we can explain all these things, we won't
need to even mention God anymore.
We won't need Him.
But we need Him now because there are
still things that we can't figure out.
There was a time when mankind knew one
God.
He didn't start out with many gods.
He started with one.
And the reason he got into many gods
was reason number one.
When they knew God, they glorified Him not
as God.
Neither were thankful.
That started man's downward apostasy from knowing the
one and only true God.
Knowing the one and only true God as
Adam did in his posterity for how many
generations?
I don't know.
They knew God in that sense that they
were aware of Him.
And even Cain could talk to God and
God would answer him back.
He had that kind of communication with the
Almighty.
But when they knew God, they glorified Him
not as God.
But neither were thankful but became vain in
their imaginations and their senseless heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools
and changed the glory of the incorruptible God
into an image made like an incorruptible man,
into birds and four-footed beasts and creeping
things.
They didn't start worshiping those things.
They started knowing the one true and living
God and they weren't thankful for what God
had done and they didn't give Him His
place as their Creator.
And from that day on, humanity has been
on the downward trend, not evoluting, evolving, perhaps
is a better word.
Not evolving, but becoming more and more degraded.
So we won't go into that, but Romans
1.
Therefore God gave them up to uncleanness.
Therefore He gave them up to vile affections.
Therefore He gave them up to a reprobate
mind because they didn't want God in their
thoughts.
Paul says, first they didn't glorify Him as
God, and then he goes down at the
end and he says, because they did not
want God in their thoughts, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind.
That's where we are.
They don't want God in their thinking because
if God's in their thinking, it might trouble
them.
They might begin considering, I've got to deal
with God.
But if somehow we can eradicate the thought
of God's existence, we don't want God in
our thoughts, then we can do the basest
things without troubling our conscience.
And that's what it's coming to.
Almost has come there because we don't want
God in our thinking.
God has given man over to a reprobate
mind, which means a mind, as one notation
said, one Bible I had, a mind that
doesn't have moral discernment.
He doesn't know the difference between good and
evil.
He can't discern because God has given them
over.
They don't know the difference between right and
wrong, between darkness and light, between good and
evil.
You know that's where we are.
Evil is good and good is evil.
That's where we are, not only here but
in our country.
And it's fast going down to a place
of such total depravity that there's only one
solution and that's God coming on the scene
and purging this earth with His mighty fire.
So He's preparing a people to be instruments
in His hands for the great work that
He will do by way of purging this
planet.
A people who are going to know the
wisdom of God, which is the wisdom of
the cross.
Wisdom of the cross.
And when the fear of God comes back
to man and they recognize that God is
a holy, fearful God, then they're able to
reach God once again as they simply bow
there at the cross.
It's that instrument of sacrifice where Christ died
for the sins of the world.
And so that is the Gospel.
But there's more to it than that.
Nevertheless, I think we can confine the Gospel
in just a few simple words.
As long as they're preaching Christ, you know,
and preaching the cross, it's all right.
Well, God will be glorified if there's a
preaching of the cross regardless of the instruments
or the methods they use.
God may be glorified.
But it's not pulling down the strongholds of
the enemy which are keeping people in bondage
unless there is an identification with that cross.
So there's a lot going on in the
name of the Lord.
And a lot of it is sidestepping the
cross or embellishing it to make it look
to be beautiful in the eyes of people.
And the Gospel doesn't do that.
It reveals a man hanging on a cross
for you and me, but it reveals something
deeper than that.
It reveals mankind hanging on that cross, crucified
by God Almighty.
It reveals God's estimation of the human mind
and heart and actions.
The cross reveals that.
So when Jesus went to the cross, we
see the wisdom of God revealed in all
the incidents concerning the crucifixion of Christ.
Here is God Almighty clothed in human flesh.
And I like to say that.
I know it is God's Son.
But I like to point out that the
Son of the Father was the Word of
the Father made flesh.
The Word of the Father made flesh.
And so in that sense, it wasn't like
a friend of mine said, I love Jesus,
but I couldn't love the Father because he
saw two distinct beings.
But it was the Father's Word that became
flesh.
God's very heart was made flesh in Jesus.
And so God the Father felt every nail
in His hand.
He felt the crown of thorns in His
head.
To me, that's the most marvelous thing that
the God of the universe who created man
in His image condescended to take sinful man's
image and suffer the agonies of Calvary.
What a revelation of the cross of Christ!
Not just that He stayed here secluded in
the heavens and let the second person go
down and do it.
God Almighty clothed Himself in flesh and that
flesh was called the Son of God.
That holy thing which shall be born of
You, the angel said to Mary, shall be
called holy, the Son of God, conceived by
the Holy Spirit.
Well, then isn't the Holy Spirit the Father
of Jesus?
He came to die.
I know I'm repeating things that I mentioned
before.
He came to die, but how would He
die?
Would He just come and stir up some
kind of a mob so He'd be crucified?
He came to express the heart of God.
He came to reveal the Father.
He came to reveal God's wisdom, God's understanding,
God's knowledge, God's love, God's truth.
Everything that was in the Father, He came
to reveal the Father.
And because He came to reveal the Father,
He came up against the antagonism of a
world that hated God.
Light was confronting darkness.
Good was confronting evil.
Truth was confronting the heresies of the people
about Him.
He who was the very Son of God,
who was the very life and righteousness and
wholeness of God was confronting an evil religious
system that had become apostate.
Light was confronting darkness.
There was confrontation.
There was a clash.
The cross was inevitable.
And so when Jesus hung on the cross,
it was man's estimation.
It was man dealing with God's wisdom, God's
truth, God's knowledge, God's love.
It was man coming against all that was
in the heart of God revealed in Jesus.
But by the same token, it was God
coming against everything that was in the hearts
of men.
Their evil, their hatred, their enmity, their foolishness,
their wickedness, their depravity.
It was God coming against that.
So Paul was able to say, having had
that revelation, God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom the world was crucified to
me and I to the world.
That's the implications of the cross.
That the world was crucified as far as
I'm concerned.
It was crucified at Calvary.
That I am crucified as far as the
world is concerned because I identify with Him
who is love and truth and wisdom and
knowledge and purity and holiness.
If I identify with that, I'll be crucified
by the world.
So I don't have to die because Jesus
died.
It means you might just as well say
I don't have to live righteously.
I don't have to love God.
I don't have to live in purity.
I don't have to live righteously because Jesus
did it for me.
Anyone who will live righteously in Christ Jesus
will suffer persecution.
It's inevitable.
We're living in a world of darkness and
sin and hatred.
You start letting the love of God flow
through you, the life of Christ flow through
you, the wisdom of God flow through you,
the purity of Christ be revealed in your
walk, you're going to be hated by the
world.
You say we don't get too much hatred
and enmity from the world.
I can tell you why.
There is not that testimony of Jesus in
the church.
We can take in just about anything the
world has, give it a Christian name, polish
up the music a little, put a few
words in it about heaven and Jesus, use
the same principles that they use in the
world to run a business, all in the
name of prospering for the sake of God.
You can go on and on.
Bring in their books of philosophy.
The church is getting filled with hurting people.
God intended the church to be the balm
of Gilead for hurting people.
But the masses come into the church devastated,
lives devastated, homes devastated.
And in many, many, many cases, they're teaching
them the wisdom of the philosophers who with
all their wisdom didn't find God.
When I was young, they never thought of
having counselors, hired counselors, who had studied philosophy
to come in and help God's people.
Go to the church.
Go to the pastor.
Go to some godly woman.
Go to some godly man and use the
Lord and pour out their heart.
And that's all they need.
And that's all they need today.
Now they're bringing in the psychologies of the
ancients.
You say, no, this book was written by
a Christian philosopher.
And that's the one we're using.
And you trace it on back.
And those Christian philosophies, many of them are
in embracing the philosophies of the ancients who
didn't know God.
But they embellish it up with some Christian
philosophies.
And people are exhorted to go to these
counselors for help.
I'm not saying if he's a godly man
and sincere that God won't use him.
I'm saying by and large it's not solving
the problem.
But the church is filling up more and
more and more with devastated people.
And to solve the problem, they're hiring more
and more counselors.
It's become another ministry in the church.
It's not mentioned in the Scriptures except that
the Spirit of the Lord would rest upon
the Lord Jesus.
The seventh old Spirit of God, the Spirit
of the Lord shall rest upon him.
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit
of counsel and of might, the Spirit of
knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
And as the Spirit of God causes these
qualities to come into his people, you'll have
the only word of counsel that any man
in need requires.
It's doing so much harm.
Friends of ours, go to a Christian counselor.
And so he digs up.
He tries to dig up what about your
father?
What about your mother?
What about your grandparents?
He'll dig up something.
And oh yes, maybe my father did do
something wrong.
Yeah, maybe my mother didn't really treat me
right.
And this happens.
It happens.
I'm talking about a case I know about.
And so the counselor, the Christian counselor, says
you better cut yourself off from your parents.
That's your trouble.
Devastating them.
We all make mistakes.
We're all in Adam.
Instead of telling them you've got to learn
forgiveness.
You've got to know how to forgive.
Yeah, but I was hurt so much.
I know, but I can't forgive.
If you knew what a terrible thing my
father did, you'd know I couldn't forgive.
I know.
And there's been some horrible things that have
happened in families because of the wrongdoing of
parents.
I'm not denying that.
But the healing that you need is the
healing that comes from the cross, which enables
you and I to forgive.
Because there at the cross, you see one
totally rejected, crucified with sinners, rejected by the
religious mob, rejected by the Roman Empire, rejected
by the soldiers, rejected by the religious crowd,
crucified between two thieves.
But because he was going there in the
will of God and because of the love
that he had, because of this righteous and
wonderful good work that he was performing on
the cross, because he walked in total obedience
to the Heavenly Father, when he hung there
on the cross, he was destroying the evil
that put him there.
He was destroying it.
As he hung on the cross, he was
destroying it and making it possible for the
essential ministration of the cross to accomplish in
us those virtues which were in him which
caused him to go there.
Love, mercy, truth, forgiveness, patience, long-suffering, kindness.
It was that which drove him to the
cross because the world hated all those things
and crucified him.
And in being crucified, he was able to
manifest those virtues in the people who bow
at the cross.
Hurting people?
Come to the cross.
Don't stoop down there at the waters of
Marah and drink and drink and drink until
you're sick.
God leads you to your Marah.
God led the children of Israel.
One of the first places they came to
when they came out of Egypt was to
Marah, the pool of bitter waters.
And they sought it at a distance.
They'd gone, I think, three days without water.
And they ran to it hoping to refresh
themselves and to reveal what's in our hearts
and lives by birth, by nature, and by
practice as we proceed and continue on in
it.
Blaming God for it.
Moses cried unto the Lord and the Lord
showed him a tree and He threw it
into the waters and the waters were healed.
The cross that heals the bitter waters.
You cut it down and throw it in
and the bitterness will go.
Oh, how many Christians are nursing bitterness.
I think we all go through it in
one way or another as you know what's
going on.
I'm bitter and I know I shouldn't be.
Ask the Lord to show you that tree.
It's there.
Forgive.
Pray for them.
If you can't forgive, ask God to help
you how to forgive.
Whatever.
I don't know, God, how He might lead
you.
But as you find the tree and throw
it into the waters, it will be the
tree of the cross applied in your life.
God wants to apply the cross in our
lives.
That's the only way we're going to come
into the likeness of Jesus.
To know the rejection He went through.
To know the hatred of others.
To know the loneliness.
Showing mercy and being rejected for it.
Doing deeds of kindness and not being appreciated.
Doing your best to follow God and rejected
by the religious crowd.
Brings about your cross.
So you don't go around looking for your
cross.
You just do the will of God.
And make that to be a passion.
Lord, I want to know Your will.
I want to do Your will.
And you'll find yourself following the Lamb whether
it's wherever He goes.
And that's what's said also in the book
of Revelation.
We follow the Lamb.
Why not following the Shepherd?
He is the Shepherd.
The Lamb is the Shepherd.
But you follow the Lamb because in following
Him, you go in His footsteps.
And the Lamb went to a cross, so
we follow the Lamb whether it's wherever He
goes.
And then we too shall overcome as He
overcame.
And the Lamb, when John saw one sitting
on the throne with a book in his
hand, a book that contained the unfolding of
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven and
God's mighty works in the earth.
To bring that about.
Written there in a book.
And the cry went forth, Who is worthy
to take the book and to open the
seals thereof?
For they all must have known what was
in the book.
And everyone realized, I'm not worthy.
I'm not worthy.
Moses said, I can't go and take the
book.
I'm not worthy.
Joseph, the beloved of the Lord, said I'm
not worthy to go take the book.
Solomon wasn't worthy.
David wasn't worthy.
And John wept because no one could say
they were worthy.
And the angel said, Weep not.
Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah
hath prevailed.
He's overcome and he'll come and take the
book.
Because he's the one that conquered.
And he looked to see the Lion and
he saw a lamb as it had been
slain.
A bleeding lamb.
Like it was freshly slain.
The thought is, like it was newly slain.
And that was perhaps 60 years after he
died on the cross.
Not that he's still suffering.
But the efficacy of his sacrifice is just
as fresh today as it was then.
The efficacy of it is still fresh.
He's still a newly slain lamb.
As far as our appropriation of him is
concerned, it's still a bleeding lamb that we
appropriate.
Because our contact with the Lamb of God
is through the blood of Christ.
You say that was 2,000 years ago.
I know.
But do you know what happened when Jesus
died on the cross?
It was the Spirit of God preparing that
sacrifice.
He wasn't alone.
The Spirit of God was there surrounding that
sacrifice.
In the darkness of that day, the Spirit
of God was there.
Because as the time came for him to
suffer and he got on the cross, somewhere
in there, darkness began to enshroud the cross.
Darkness was covering the cross.
And you know what?
Whenever there's thick darkness, God is there doing
something.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and
the earth, and the earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face
of the deep, and the Spirit of God
was moving on the midst of the waters.
God was working in the darkness.
God always works in the darkness to shine
forth the light.
But at His appointed time, He's working in
the darkness.
Paul says, God commanded light to shine out
of the darkness.
The God who commanded light to shine out
of darkness was shone on your heart.
Why?
Because you were in total darkness.
And God wanted to bring light.
Somehow you don't understand it.
You know you came to the cross.
That's all you know.
But when you came to that place of
great, dense darkness and bowed at the foot
of the cross, light sprang out of the
darkness into your heart.
Calvary was a dark place, but in the
midst of that darkness, the Spirit of God
was offering up the supreme sacrifice.
Why can I say that?
Because the Apostle Paul said, it's the blood
of bulls and goats and the ashes of
a heifer that sanctify unto the cleanest of
the flesh.
How much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without
blemish unto God, purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God.
Who through the eternal Spirit was offering Himself
without blemish unto God was a sacrifice.
Through the eternal Spirit, He was offering a
sacrifice without blemish unto God.
And if the blood of bulls and goats
would sanctify in the Old Testament, how much
more that the blood of Christ, who through
the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish unto
God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God.
There's a purging for God's church that we
haven't known because we haven't walked in the
way of wisdom, the pathway which no vulture
has seen, that pathway which only God knows
but which He revealed in Christ.
God turned to mankind after all His searching
and wisdom and says, Here is wisdom.
The fear of the Lord is wisdom.
And to depart from evil is understanding.
Further revealed by the Apostle Paul when he
tells us that it is there in the
cross that God defeated evil and sin and
death and everything that pertains to the realms
of Satan while He hung on the cross.
We've got to see that.
We've got to realize that Calvary, that God
was destroying sin in the flesh.
And when God quickens that truth, I've prayed
He's even doing it, but we know there
must become a greater impact of the truth
of the cross in our lives.
We're going to walk totally free from sin.
If not, we might just as well have
the blood of bulls and goats.
If it would give that sinning Israelite a
certain sense of relief and comfort and they
could go home with a clear conscience because
they'd offered a bullock or a sin offering,
how much more shall the blood of Christ
who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without
blemish unto God purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God?
So when soldiers put a crown of thorns
in His head, He was being crowned king.
God was saying, you're conquering in this.
You're overcoming the vain imaginations of mankind.
You're defeating it.
They thought they were defeating Him, making fun
of Him, ridiculing Him, and they were.
But all the while they were doing it,
God was bearing the penalty of the fall
of man's carnal mind.
They put nails in His hands.
They thought they had Him secure in the
cross, and they did for a moment.
But God was crucifying the works of My
hands.
He's saying, you can't serve Me with your
hands.
You can't serve Me.
I crucify your hands.
I nail them to the cross.
When they drove a spike through His heel,
He was bruising the serpent's head as His
heel was bruised.
God was dealing a death blow to the
serpent of sin and death and crucifying our
feet so that we might know we can't
walk in paths of righteousness until we walk
in the wisdom of the cross.
And the soldier took a spear, thrust it
into His side, and out flowed blood and
water.
I used to wonder and wonder why John
took such special note of that and said
this one bore witness.
I bore witness and I saw it.
I saw the blood and water.
And then I realized that the Spirit of
God who inspired John to write that was
emphasizing something else.
That the Spirit of God was saying through
John, it was the Spirit of God saying,
I bear witness to the blood and the
water.
I saw the blood and the water flow
from Jesus' side.
I saw the blood and the water flow
from Jesus' side.
The Spirit bore witness to it.
And that's why John was able to say
there are three that bear witness.
The water and the blood and the Spirit.
The Spirit beareth witness because the Spirit is
truth.
So we must have the witness of the
Spirit in our midst.
The testimony of Jesus must be here in
the midst of His people.
And in the proclamation of truth there must
be the testimony of Jesus, which is the
testimony of the Spirit of God.
And the Spirit of God says, I saw
the blood.
I saw the water.
I saw the blood.
I saw the water.
I saw the cleansing that's in the blood
and it's for you.
I saw the cleansing that's in the water
of the Word and that's in Jesus.
And then I saw why there's so much
bondage in God's people, in our own individual
lives.
Such a conflict to overcome the carnal nature
and sin.
It's because the Spirit of God, we're not
hearing Him because He's not being given His
Lordship in the midst of His people.
We come together with our program all laid
out to have a good service, a little
entertainment, a few prayers, a good sermon, where
the Spirit of God wants to be hovering
over that congregation in total Lordship over the
meeting.
And when He's in Lordship over our gatherings
together in His name, He's going to bear
witness to the truth because the Spirit is
truth.
And He's going to bear witness to the
water and the blood.
And He'll speak to God's people.
You're free from an evil conscience.
You're free from that old life.
You're free from those things of the past.
And there's a cleansing and the ministration of
truth because the Spirit is truth.
But if the Spirit isn't given His Lordship
and it's all under the control of man,
there isn't that cleansing going forth because the
cleansing is in the blood and the Spirit
was there offering that sacrifice so that the
efficacy of the blood of Christ is now
in the realms of the Spirit of God
Just as truly as for the cleansing of
the leper, they took these two birds alive
and clean.
Took some fresh water.
The Bible says living water.
And they took a basin of it and
they slew the one bird over that vessel
of living water and the blood dripped into
the water until it was water and blood.
And that became the water of cleansing.
So that for the cleansing of the leper,
he was purged with this holy water and
blood.
Just a faint picture of what happens.
What happened when Jesus died.
All that blood, though He shed it I
know, but it was absorbed in the Spirit
of God.
And the Spirit whom we receive is the
Spirit of cleansing who bears witness to the
blood because He was there when Jesus died
on the cross and retained in His own
person the efficacy of the blood of Christ
so that that blood is just as fresh
and real today as it was 2,000
years ago.
But only the Spirit of God can make
it to be effectual in our hearts and
lives.
Only He can apply it.
Only He can cause us to bathe in
it, to be washed in it, to walk
in it as we give Him His Lordship.
And I know when the Spirit of God
comes back to the place where He is
recognized as the Lord in our midst, there
will be liberty.
For where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty.
Not liberty to do anything you want.
Liberty to do what the Spirit wants you
to do.
Freedom to walk in ways of righteousness and
truth, bringing to our hearts the awesomeness of
God's presence so that the fear of God
overshadows everyone in the congregation.
Paul says, I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling because
He knew these things.
He knew what took place at the cross.
And he knew that as he embraced that
cross and walked in it, the fear of
God came upon him.
A trembling came upon him.
I stand before your people, God.
I can't just entertain them and give them
some nice clangy music to entertain their carnal
flesh.
I stand here before God to minister the
truth of the blood and of the water
to God's people.
The truth of the cross, which was responsible
in bringing it forth.
See, what's the difference between the cross and
the blood?
The cross was that place where God dealt
with sin, where God condemned sin in the
flesh.
And the blood is the life that flowed
that might impart that life to you and
I.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus for the law
of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
that made me free from the law of
sin and death.
For what the law could not do in
that it was weak through the flesh, God
sending His own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in
the flesh.
He was condemning sin.
He was condemning Satan.
He was condemning death.
He was condemning all the evil of the
Adamic nature there in the flesh of Jesus
who was made sin for us and you
know sin that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him.
The righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit.
The victory of the cross remains to be
manifest in the earth in fullness.
I know there have been many, many times
in the history of the church where the
victory of the cross has been manifest in
measure, but it must be manifest in full
measure that Christ the Lamb might receive the
full reward of His sufferings.
Understand that was sort of a slogan of
the early Moravians.
May the Lamb receive the reward of His
sufferings.
That was what they were concerned about, just
that the Lamb receive the reward of His
sufferings.
The story is told of these two young
men whom the Lord put in their hearts
to go and lay down their lives upon
a little island out somewhere there, I think
in the Atlantic, that belonged to a rich
slave owner.
He owned it.
It was his.
Nobody, no government had any authority over him.
It belonged to him.
He did what he wanted.
Missionaries weren't allowed.
And God put it into the hearts of
these two young men to go to that
place.
The only way they could go would be
to sell themselves to the slave owner.
And they did it.
No glamorous thing for those young men to
go on a missionary tour.
They made contact somehow and agreed that they
would become the slaves of this plantation owner
out on this little island.
And they came to the boat that was
to take them there.
We would take them to the island, drop
them off, never to be seen again back
home.
The relatives were there, father, mother, brothers, sisters,
the saints of God, crying and weeping as
the boat pulled out.
And they heard one of them shout on
its way as it left its moorings the
slogan of the Moravians, May the Lamb receive
the reward of His sufferings.
The Lamb is going to receive the reward
of His sufferings.
Because these overcoming people, God so joins them
together that they become one body, one church,
to be joined unto Him as the Bride
of Christ.
And God is preparing that Bride.
And He will be very diligent that the
Bride is compatible with His Son.
Because the Father is giving the Bride to
His Son who conquered.
The conquering Lamb, the Lamb that laid down
His life in obedience to the Father.
The Father is preparing a Bride for His
beloved Son.
And you know how diligent Abraham was that
the Bride he got for Isaac would be
compatible, a virgin, with the character of humility
and love and devotion.
He didn't know how to find that Bride,
the servant.
But Abraham says, You just go there to
the land of my fathers and God will
be faithful.
And He'll bring her.
And you know the story.
He said at the well, He said, Father,
the one whom You've prepared for my master's
son, let her come here and draw water
and give me a drink and water my
camels.
And so she came.
And sure enough, it was the one.
He knew it and looked on in wonder
as she gave him a drink and drew
water for his camels.
He took out gifts, put a ring in
her finger and adorned her with all manner
of gifts.
The thing I want to point out is
this.
Her one vision, her one anticipation and hope
was to see Isaac.
God has been so graciously pouring out His
gifts upon His church.
Gifts of words of wisdom and knowledge.
Gifts of healing and miracles and discernment and
tongues and interpretation of tongues and prophecy.
What's the attitude of God's people?
God's doing that because He's preparing me to
be the bride of Jesus.
Or is it, Oh, I've got this great
gift.
That man's got a greater gift.
I wish I had more of the gifts.
Comparing gifts with each other and forgetting the
purpose for which God is giving these gifts
is to prepare a people for His glory.
To prepare the bride of Christ.
What are the gifts for?
It didn't belong to Eliezer.
He just had something to distribute to the
bride.
Paul said that what God had given him
was a stewardship.
He just had to reveal the secrets of
God to God's people.
His purpose was to give these graces and
blessings and truths to God's people because God
was exceedingly jealous over His people.
And Paul, having touched the heart of God
and having walked in the ways of God
and having known the identification with the cross,
came to that place as a true priest
where his only desire was for God's people.
His only reason for living was for God's
people, not for himself.
Saying something like Moses said, I could wish
that I were accursed from Christ for my
brethren's sake.
If somehow I could bring about their salvation,
God, let me be accursed.
He said to the Corinthian church, I am
jealous over you with God's own jealousy, with
a godly jealousy.
For I have espoused you to one husband
that I might present you as a chaste
virgin to Christ.
But a fear lest by any means as
the serpent beguiled Eve in his guile, so
your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity
and the purity that is in Christ Jesus.
Paul had that godly fear.
And with that godly fear, he was determined
he would present the cross, as God enabled
him to do it, as our way of
life and to seek to get God's people
to walk in the way of the cross.
That in walking in the way of the
cross, the virtues of the cross might be
imparted to them.
That in spite of their background, thieves, murderers,
adulterers, sinners of all kinds, by the cleansing
of the blood, when they stand before the
throne of God by the cleansing of the
blood, they are just as pure as Jesus
is pure, just as holy as God is
holy, not by any virtue in them, but
by the cleansing of the blood, by the
virtues that flow from Calvary.
That the law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus might perform in us the
very antithesis of what the law of sin
and death did.
Is it not more powerful than the law
of sin and death?
Under the law of sin and death, you
sin, you do all sorts of bad things,
you're corrupt.
You know in your own heart what you've
done.
That's beside the point.
You did all these things because of a
law of sin and death.
Is not the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus more powerful than that
old law?
Yeah, I know.
It sounds right, but why isn't it happening?
Because we haven't given room to the Spirit
of God to make real in the midst
of His people the virtue and the wealth
and the value and the power of the
blood and of the water.
God's doing it.
He's going to do it.
And He'll continue doing it until this bride
is holy and without blemish.
God said so.
That when the Lord Jesus received this holy
bride, He'd say, Father, there's nothing in heaven
and earth I desire more than this.
It's worth all the sufferings of the cross.
May the Lamb receive the reward of His
sacrifice.