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I wonder if I could take just a few minutes to.
Speak on behalf of the Local Assembly here.
In connection with these meetings.
We have a very definite exercise and desire that the result of our coming together for these few days would be that of edification and expectation and comfort for all who are here. And that the Lord would be honored not only in the meetings, but also in between the meetings and our conduct and conversational one with another, and then in the meetings, that the ministry would be such as.
We could all sense that it is the leading of the Spirit, and that we might receive the mind of God for this occasion.
And in that connection I'd like to read this a few verses.
First of all in Romans.
Chapter 14. Just one verse.
Verse 19.
Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and the things wherewith one may edify another.
And in first Peter.
Chapter 4.
And verse 11.
If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom he prays and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
And then finally, a passage in the First Thessalonians.
Bear with me please while I read a number of verses here that I.
If you want to characterize the Lord's people, especially at such a gathering as this, but certainly at all times, First Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 15 to the end of the chapter, see that none render evil for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good both among yourselves and to all men. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing in everything. Give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesying.
Prove all things, hold fast that which is good, abstain from all appearance of evil, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved, blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord that this this will be read unto all the holy brethren. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
May the Lord be glorified in our time together.
May we sing hymn #191?
191 Still in a land of drought and dirt, our longing spirits cry. To these, to the Lord of heaven and earth are thirst dissatisfied.
In the same connection, could I suggest the last four verses of 275?
275 Beginning at verse 3. Thou weariest not most gracious Lord, though we may weary grow in season, the sustaining word thou gifts our hearts to know. 275 beginning at verse 3.
Valeria.
Was that First Corinthians chapter 2 That was suggested?
Read the chapter.
First Corinthians chapter 2 beginning at verse one.
And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with Excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in the weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words, or human or man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
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That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the Princess of this world that come to nought. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world, until our glory, which none of the Princess of this world knew. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord our glory.
But as it is written, I have not seen, no ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yeah, the deep things of God. For what men knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man which is in him. Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.
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, which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth.
Pairing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
Perhaps our brother that suggested the chapter would like to tell us in a few words if he has any special exercise in suggesting it. It's a very, very good chapter, and a very necessary one, but was there any particular thought you had behind it, brother?
Well, as I was saying a moment ago, I feel it's a very.
Important chapter for us because in Corinth they had a society that I would suggest is very much like that in which you and I Live Today.
At least in North America was a fairly wealthy place. It was a trading center right across the isthmus there between the northern part of Greece and the Peloponnesus down below. And as such it was a center that was fairly well off. They were also a fairly educated people, and sad to say, we're quite impressed with themselves on that account. But on the other hand, we know that God.
Had much people in that city as he told Paul in the book of the Acts when he visited there and more than that the Lord told Paul that no one would set on him to hurt him there so that Paul stayed there for an extremely long time at least a year and a half and many people were brought to the Lord and we know too that concerning the assembly there there was a lot of gift so that it was a place that had many things to commend it. But on the other hand, as we say, and it's sad that their worldliness and their.
Shall I say, pride in themselves tended to spill over into their Christianity, with the result that there were many serious problems in that local assembly. And so Paul has to start off dealing with the situation, but he does so here at the beginning of the epistle by pointing out what was fundamental to his preaching and fundamental to Christianity. And that was that in no way was it based on man's wisdom, in no way was it helped or in any way pushed along if we could use that term.
By the wisdom of men, but rather was directly opposite to man's wisdom. And so Paul brings that out here at the beginning of the epistle as a basis for the exhortations that he was going to have to take up with them one by one later on.
I think it would be nice to read the last two verses of the first chapter to begin our meditation here.
Verse 29 of chapter one was already read to us. The verse 30 says, but of him that is Christ.
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Are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification and redemption, that according it is written, he that glorious, let him glory in the Lord?
Getting a glimpse of who the Lord Jesus is puts us in our proper place, doesn't it?
So what about those last two verses, Doug? What does it mean then that is made out to us? Wisdom and righteousness and sanctification as redemption.
That's a big subject. Wisdom is the first one, isn't it?
Paul they would seem like there was those in Corinth that were wise and human wisdom. Human wisdom is all right if it's kept in its place, isn't it? But there's something that human wisdom doesn't bring us to God, and also the Lord Jesus is made that unto us.
In those verses, because we were told at school not to start a sentence with the Word, and our chapter begins with the Word and it's really connecting it with those two verses that you read.
As opposed to we could go back a little further perhaps with the young people here, we can look at the thoughts of this book here. That's not really the whole book. We won't have time. But the beginning of this book, the 1St 4 chapters in the sands where the apostle is talking about how they're not maintaining in the sense the unity inside the assembly. So you'll find from verse 10 of chapter one on going to about verse 24 of chapter 4. So as we go through this, we can keep that in mind that is talking about how are they failing.
To maintain that unity. So he began the 1St chapter by talking about what caused problems in the assembly. I know it's not the thought of the chapter, but we should briefly mention that we find in verse 10 there, there were different opinions. Verse 11 in chapter one there there was strife. And then verse 12 and verse 13, we find there were schisms because of that. And then we find that in to what? The latter part of the first chapter. Then he talked about wisdom, man's wisdom coming into the assembly.
And then in chapter 2 That we have the apostle break it down into perhaps five different sections of how we can receive in connection with giving and receiving the truth. So we find in our chapter, chapter 2 here in verse seven, we find that it's two ordinations. It is ordained before the world unto its glory. Then we find the second thing is in verse.
In in verse 9 how God had prepared for them. So we have ordination then we have preparation by God.
Then in verse 10 we will find that we have revelation. Things are being revealed to us.
In verse 13, the 4th egg we find here is that we have inspiration from God and then he end the chapter with verse 14 and 16 with eliminations. That's how the truth is being given and being received through this. Not to finish the thought. If you go on in the third chapter, he gives the consequences when worldly wisdom come into the assembly. The said result of that in chapter 3, you'll find in the first couple verses there, it actually dwarfed all the people of God when we let worldly wisdom.
Is not a democratic system, we need to be independence to the word of God. We find that in verses 3 to 8 there in chapter 3, it divides the assembly when we bring worldly wisdom in and in verse nine to seven if go even further 85 he filed the House of God. So he teaches things like that and then in chapter four he told us to emulate the walk the way the apostle has sat before us.
Wisdom is the.
Proper use of knowledge. Nobody can be wise if they don't know, and there's only two ways of knowing either. By our personal experience, we learn things so we can say we know them. All of us in this room have learned certain things that we know by our own experience, and we have passed them on to others. And sometimes they listen to us and sometimes they don't, and they learn by their own experience. Probably everyone here that's a parent has told their children not to touch something that's hot.
And probably all the children have touched something that's hot anyways.
They didn't listen to the knowledge that we had and the wisdom as to the consequences of what we know.
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And so they learn by their own experience.
Or if it's not learning by our own experience, we learn by what someone else tells us.
Those are the only two ways to gain knowledge, by personal experience or by someone else.
Man cannot rise higher than himself. He can't go higher than his own capacity to learn, to gain knowledge. And so man spends a lot of his energy in the world, and he's done some because God has so made him some pretty wonderful things in what we call technology and what he's been able to do. But.
There are many and the most important things that man is not capable of knowing by his own experience. And the only one that he can learn from is from someone else. And the only one that can tell him is God. And So what we know that's really important to us, that's eternal, comes as a testimony from God. God tells us certain things that otherwise we would never know and could never discover. And the apostle Paul, as he says in the first verse of this chapter, he says, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
That is, He's going to tell us some things that come from God. They didn't come from himself. They didn't come from his own experience or his own knowledge that he could gain, but they came from God, and it was important to Him to make known to them the fact that it didn't come from man. It wasn't according to what man could know or according to what man could make use of the knowledge that he had. That is human wisdom. But even in that which God tells us, we're not wise in it unless God makes it good in US.
And so that we can understand it and so that we can make use of it.
And not to speak too long in one moment, but the Lord Jesus.
Is God's wisdom for us and without seeing what God tells us through the Lord Jesus will never will never be wise. We can't be wise in ourselves. But it's also important right in the beginning of this meditation is to recognize that Paul is not simply concerned with wisdom, but in this chapter and in the previous chapter, he's very concerned with power. He's very concerned with power because man knows things, but it doesn't govern his behavior by what he knows.
Man does foolish things even though he knows better.
He experiences the bitter results of some things that he does and he says to himself, I won't do that again, but he does it again. And so man is given under the human wisdom doesn't control his life really. And the Apostle Paul in the first chapter and in this chapter 2 but he wants to say to them, verse 17, Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel not with the wisdom of words, not even good words, not even a wisdom that is God-given, if you will.
As to how to say things right, he says, but lest the cross of Christ should be of none effect.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. You can tell them the truth, you can give them a testimony from God, and it's an accurate statement of knowledge and wisdom for man, but.
Why? Because the will is involved. Man says that's malicious. I'm not going to accept that. I don't want that. But unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. And so we need brethren.
The testimony of God. We need it given to us from God, communicated by the Spirit of God.
And we also need it made good in us by the power of God, for without that, it's not going to benefit our souls. And so we ask, we pray, as it were this afternoon, that God would not only teach us, but that by his power it might have its right place in our souls.
We have some verses in Proverbs 30 that kind of contrast with the ones we're reading here, and that seemed to be the condition in Corinth. I'd like to read them Proverbs 30.
There were words of Vager. We'll begin reading with verse two. Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the Holy who hath ascended up into heaven or descended.
Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in his garment? In a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name? And what is His Son's name, if thou canst tell?
Is this man teachable?
It would seem to me that he is. He doesn't start out with the supposition of knowing much.
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Is that not the case that we we have there in the third chapter?
Let no man verse 18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise. That is, let him take the place of knowing nothing. The truth of God is not an improvement upon man's wisdom and death.
Ability. It is completely contrary to man's.
Apprehension.
In everything, moral or spiritual, man isn't even logical if he's not to governed by the word of God. So there's an awful lot of worldly wisdom in these schools today, humanism and so on that leaves God out entirely and maintains that man has the ability to elevate himself into a higher sphere of knowledge and accomplishment and so on. But.
The wisdom of God is the opposite, as our brother mentioned of man's wisdom and the awful. Paul has had great advantage, naturally speaking. He was a well educated man, he knew the philosophies of the day and so on, and foreigns was the hotbed of philosophical teachings, or Greece was anyway. But if you go back to the history of Greece and look at their moral condition, they reached a a peak of the human knowledge perhaps.
Very seldom surpassed.
But the moral condition, as we were reminded often, is so terrible it's better not to read it. So a man's knowledge and their wisdom does not change his state of soul. He needs to be born again. He needs to have a new life. It's not the old life improved, but it's an entirely new life. The 1St man is set aside in the death of Christ. And I think that's what the apostle is bringing before us here.
Sometimes. Sometimes you see that phrase people use.
Knowledge is power and I'm sure you see that in magazine in a lot of places they use that phrase knowledge is power. We find the Corinthians in the first chapter saying that they that in verse 7 so that you come behind in no gift. So we know that the Corinthians were very gifted in many things. The other day I saw someone with a similar phrase. He said it didn't say knowledge is power, but he said that a little knowledge is dangerous and often man.
Or tree that we as men think we now have to acknowledge. But the knowledge, this man's knowledge does not necessary translate into God's wisdom. Our brother mentioned the verse in chapter 3 that prompted me to chapter 3, verse 18. I'd like to go back. I believe here it tells us three things about wisdom that we have to look at. Chapter 3, verse 18. Let no man deceive himself. Let any man among you seem seemeth to be wise in this world.
Let him become a fool, that he might be wise. Do I believe here in this verse is telling us that you want to learn more about wisdom? Then the first thing is that we have to look at ourselves. How do we look at ourselves? Do we seem to be wise with things of this world? What is the proper view we have of me? And then in verse 19 and verse 20, then he changed the subject a little bit, but it is still in regard to wisdom. But in this case it was the worldly wisdom.
Verse 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, for it is written, He ticketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the lies, that they are vain. You want the wisdom of this world. The Word of God tells you that it is nothing but vain. So what is your own wisdom? What is the world's wisdom? And then there is another danger still. Perhaps we look at the wisdom of others, perhaps those who minister to West without going back to the word of God, and we find that in verse 21, therefore.
Let no man glory in man for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Sivas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come. All are yours and ye are Christ and Christ is God. So do we trust and put our faith into the oath of or perhaps we say we can say we set up those who labor among us on the pedestal. So we need to turn back to the wisdom of God and that they also if we go back to our chapter, then he's able to say to the Corinthians. He said in verse one and I brethren, when I came to you.
So what did He come to them with? Did he come and say, how well learned he was, how He was a Pharisees of a Pharisees, how touching the law? He didn't say any of that, did He? Here He begins this chapter by saying, I came to you. I came not with Excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
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James chapter 3 we get some of the characteristics of the wisdom of God.
Chapter 3 at the end of verse 13 refers to the meekness of wisdom, and then in verse 17 it says that the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be treated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
Solomon was.
Given the wisdom above others.
For us, as an object lesson, God made Solomon a wiser man than the other men.
And he made Solomon such that he had every advantage, not only was wise, but he was rich, he was powerful, he was everything that a man, a natural man, could ever hope to have or be.
And he had the opportunity to fulfill every desire that came before his soul.
But he's also an object lesson to us, that while given even of God, his wisdom.
That didn't keep him wisdom and he turned to idolatry before the end of his life. That is, he turned away from God and was drawn away by his lusts.
And so, brethren, it's a, it's a lesson to us. We can talk about the wisdom of the world and we can read these verses and we can.
Recognize that we we don't get our wisdom from man, that our knowledge and the right use of it has to come from God. But even in that which God gives us, there's a natural tendency to go back to the human heart and say, look at me. I know a little more. I understand a little more than my next door neighbor or the Christian down the road and so on. And our hearts can be drawn away into pride by the very wisdom or understanding or knowledge that we have in spiritual things.
And so the Apostle Paul really makes an significant point that he, as he says in our chapter and this maybe to go back and point it out in chapter 2 and verse.
Two, I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.
That's the end of all man is, and all that man's wisdom is Jesus Christ crucified. That tells us where man is, and that tells us where the human heart goes. If it gets a part, if it gets separated from God, even as a Christian, it fails to recognize Jesus Christ crucified. That's what man did.
To God's Son, it crucified him. That's where man, if you will, in all his honor and wisdom and everything he thinks about himself, that's what it led him to crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. And even as a believer, if we don't stay right there in our souls in our daily life, Jesus Christ and him crucified, we will not lock in wisdom, but we will be drawn away by the sense of our own importance or knowledge or what we think we have and we do have.
It's a tremendous lesson to our souls to live our daily lives in the at the cross.
Recognizing always there is the end of men, and it's Christ crucified. And that's what the apostle Paul was bringing before these Corinthians who had a lot of wisdom and had a lot of knowledge, not of God, but of man. But even though he's going to teach them the testimony of God, it's always connected really with the cross of Christ. And that's where we have to live in our souls in a practical way in our daily lives, or we're no different than the man of the world.
That lives by his wisdom. We may live by our quote spiritual wisdom, but if it's disconnected from the Lord Jesus.
It's not the truth as it is in Jesus.
Just so there is no misunderstanding.
We need to be clear that Paul is not running down education, nor is he, when he speaks in this first verse about in our chapter, chapter 2, about the fact that he didn't come with Excellency of speech or wisdom. He's not running down the use of language in the proper way or any degree of having wisdom. As far as the things of this world are concerned, as we have already heard, we know that man has made tremendous advances in.
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Various areas of life and technology and so on, and God has given them that ability. We can be thankful for that. The danger is, and this is what the problem was in Corinth, it's been the danger all through man's history, is that man uses that thinking somehow that in the 1St place he can get along without God. That was where Cain started. And secondly, his brother Dawn has been bringing out. We can take a measure of comfort and pride even in knowledge and spiritual things.
And we need to realize first of all that in any moral and spiritual subject, we need a revelation from God. You and I are living, and you young people know it better than some of us that are a little older, that we are living not so much in an immoral society, although that is true, but what might be called an amoral society, that is man seeking to build up himself, but without any basis, any structure, any moral code that undergirds it at all. It doesn't work.
A man tried to arrive at a series of laws that could undergird society down somewhere in Texas. He was commissioned to do it, and he almost committed suicide over it because it couldn't be done. The fact is, we live, if we want to put it that way, in a moral universe, and there must be an absolute basis for it. Where is that found? In Christ through the word of God. And we can't get away from that. But man says I can do without that and the mass that we see the world in today.
Is largely the result of that. But what does God point us to? He points us to Christ as the wisdom of God.
And he's made us to unto us not only wisdom, but righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Everything is there in Christ. But then how do we live it out? How do we enjoy it? How do we walk in it with a sense of humility, a sense that all comes from God, a sense that everything we have is in Christ, and a sense that we can only live and walk in the good of it because of what Christ is and in walking with him. So again, I say, Paul isn't running down education in the natural sense.
But he's pointing out that when it comes to the moral and spiritual side of things, then we are completely dependent on divine revelation. The Corinthians had to realize that we have to realize it.
It's a good encouragement too in these two chapters before us. Sometimes when we are in front of someone and we have to have when we have the opportunity to speak for Christ, we sometimes say to ourselves, what do I tell them, How can I preach Well here we have before us that verse we have to preach. We preach Christ crucified and for young men here. Often we worry that don't wait. What stories do we tell? We don't need to worry about that. It is Christ crucified that we preached. Well, how do we encourage one another? How do we encourage the things.
Well, it's the same old story, isn't it? Here he tells us the same thing in verse two of our chapter, even though he said, for I determine not to know anything among you, but what is he to do? Say Jesus Christ and him crucified? I remember years ago we had young people meeting and a brother came. He was visiting in the last minute.
He came and he was asked to take the young people. And I remember we sat there for a few minutes and someone had a comment saying, I guess you don't have much to say because you weren't ready. And this remark he made says in my mind and my heart, all these years, he said when we have nothing else to talk about, we can still talk about Christ.
Tremendous effort today to try to reach people for God, for the Lord Jesus Christ.
By man's wisdom.
There's a whole movement and what's called the emerging church.
Movement in the United States and Canada today that seeks to reach souls by man's wisdom.
The thought is that man has needs, he has wishes, he has desires, he has problems, and so the way to reach man is to.
Need him where he is, which is true. The gospel has to meet a person. You go to a person and reach them where they are.
But it's not to the satisfaction or the satisfying of those immediate and perhaps personal problems and needs which that person has. But the gospel always goes back to the issue of the cross, and a man has to be brought to repentance, to the judging of himself, and then to the answer of God, which is trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not the meeting of some satisfying, of some immediate and personal need in his or her life. And so it's important for us when we seek the blessing of a fellow human being.
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That we not try to apply man's wisdom, but the recognize that the only answer to that person, yes, it has to start where they are, but it has to lead them to the cross.
The Lord Jesus took the man that said, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And he didn't give them four spiritual laws or some other answer that said we can't do anything for yourself. You've got to trust in the Lord Jesus. No, he took the man up where he was. He said this, You're going to get saved.
By what you do, this is what you have to do. And so the man was presented with what he had to do, and he was brought to the conclusion that he couldn't do it. And sometimes you have to start with a person that thinks they can merit God's approval to bring them to the point where they realize they can't. But ultimately they have to be brought to the point where they judge themselves as lost.
And would turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. The wisdom of the world put Christ to death.
The wisdom of the world put Christ to death. That's where man's wisdom leads.
To crucify the Lord of glory. And so it's there that God takes up the issue in the first chapter. He says it please God by the foolishness of preaching. That isn't the foolishness of actually the fact of preaching. What it means is the foolishness of the message.
Jesus Christ and him crucified, that's the message that man has presented, and it's that message that man must accept.
To the salvation of His soul. If you go to the Acts and you look at every single preaching in the Acts where the actual message is given in the beginning, every single time He took them back to Jesus Christ of Nazareth. A man of that despised place that was of no importance in the wisdom of man. It was a place where man had was. If you were from Nazareth, you were nobody and unimportant among men. And yet the gospel preaching always took men back to Jesus Christ.
Of Nazareth, that is, they had to recognize that that man who came from that place was actually God's salvation. And if man is not taken there, then he will always have something of himself to glory in, and God will be robbed, and God will not be robbed of his glory. And so it's essential that we take a person to the cross and say this is our judgment. And the Lord Jesus, the man that we crucified, is the man that God presents to us to save our souls.
That's why we spoke earlier of revelation, but that's why Paul, when he went to Mars Hill, which was kind of the pinnacle of men's wisdom, he tells him two things that they could only know by revelation, judgment and resurrection. And he was thinking of Cornelius too. There was a lot that Cornelius knew about the Lord Jesus. He said that you knew that he went about doing good and teaching, preaching, peace. He said these things, you know. But then he went on to speak of the cross and the exaltation of Christ, and that was immediately met with faith and Cornelius's heart and.
He was saved.
So that's why Brother said that the preaching of the gospel is, he said preach facts. And especially in the day in which we're living, men are ignorant of the facts of the gospel.
Who Jesus is and what he has done.
Reach facts.
To the the Greek, the cross was.
A place of shame and reproach.
It was foolishness to him that a person could be saved by such a humiliating death. They couldn't understand that.
And the two was it was a stumbling block to him because he was looking for the.
Establishment of the Kingdom and the Messiah coming in power and glory. And so the cross was the center of two eternities. It's God's wisdom displayed the end of the first man.
And the introduction of new creation.
And the putting away of sin according to God's holy standard and requirement God didn't compromise his righteousness at all in the the death of Christ because.
The Lord Jesus bore the full judgment of sin there. I didn't pass over sin. It received its full and complete judgment at the cross. But you will learn to Greek this was foolishness. He he couldn't see. He was so occupied with his own importance and his own.
Human wisdom that the cross was nothing to him. He couldn't see any salvation for for his soul in the cross.
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Connection with this second verse. I had an experience several years ago when this verse was kind of brought to the kind of forcibly and it's a little embarrassing to tell him I'm going to tell it anyway. And that is, we had a labouring brother who was visiting in the area where I live, lived at that time. And he was staying a few days and there was some extra time in his hand and I, I met him for lunch. The Swiss chalet, Woodbridge.
And then there was some time available in the afternoon and I said to him, I wonder if they'd like to go over to my work and where I work and see what goes on there and, and.
Sort of fill up the afternoon and a little bit and he said, no, I don't think so. I think I'll just go and do whatever it was he was going to do. I don't remember, but I was, I was a little surprised. I thought it'd be interested or whatever. And I believe after that, that the Lord brought this verse to my attention.
I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And you know 1 field at times like we go to meeting and you see a brother drive in in a new car.
Or some of my family gets new clothes or something like this and we get too occupied with what our brethren lives are outside of the assembly. I don't know if that thought is embraced here in in this verse or not, but that's what I took for myself. And has it already been mentioned? The Corinthian assembly was a rich assembly and the Apostle Paul, he visited there and he was.
Where does it say? Right here, Further on in the book, I know.
That he didn't want yours, but you. He wanted them. He was. It was their souls, and he didn't come for their money.
He he desired that they go on for the Lord and I, I just like to think of this person that connection I determined on nothing among you say Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I would suggest rather than that sometimes after meeting, you know the Lord gives us a precious time, whether it is in the remembrance of the Lord or a reading meeting or a gospel meeting.
Now after meeting what we talk about.
I think it's it's nice to encourage one another. I don't mean never to talk about the welfare of other people, but the key. Christ is a preeminent theme in our life. That's what I like in connection with this person.
Well, we see Paul here in verse three telling the Corinthians that he was with them in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And I suppose we might wonder why that was so, because when we see him before he was saved, assault of Tarsus, he certainly was anything but a weak man. If you had seen Saul of Tarsus at the stoning of Stephen, if you had seen him at the head of those soldiers going on the road to Damascus to arrest believers.
I'm sure you would not have seen.
Someone that you looked at as a weak man.
Paul is a strong character by nature, well educated, forward. In fact he describes himself later on, and this is the Darby translation, as an insolent, overbearing man. Why did he say he was here then among the Corinthians in weakness and fear and much trembling. Was he afraid of the gospel? Not at all. He says in Romans chapter one, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. You had no question as to the message.
He had no question as to its power. What was he afraid of? Ohio. He was afraid. I believe if we could put it this way, that man's wisdom might mix with what God was doing and hinder the power of the Spirit of God.
He was afraid. And the more of man's wisdom that you and I may have naturally, the more even that we might have a measure of gift from God, shall we say, the more need there is of weakness and fear and trembling. Paul was not afraid of the message, I say again, Nor did he have any question that the Spirit of God had plenty of power to apply that message to the heart and conscience of those to whom he was speaking. But he was afraid lest anything of man should mix with it and water it down.
And he knew that if that were the case, that would never bring any of those Corinthians to Christ. He knew very well that unless we get back to what Don was saying to Christ and him crucified, there would never be any blessing. And again, I say to reemphasize it, it doesn't mean that we don't seek to meet souls where they are. The Lord Jesus did that himself. He spoke to Nicodemus in a totally different way than he did to the woman at the well. The apostle Paul spoke in a totally different way to those on Mars Hill.
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Then he spoke to the Philippine jailer. The situations were quite different, but in both cases we say again.
They were brought back to the cross. They were brought back to that which they could not know other than by divine revelation. And so I say that because it wasn't that Paul naturally was weak, nor was he afraid of the message, but he wanted it to be in God's power. He wanted it not to be in man's wisdom, but rather in the power of the Word of God by the Spirit of God, because that's what God could use to bring men to salvation.
You could present to somebody a perfectly presented message as to their need as a center and God's salvation for them. You could present it in the most persuasive manner, with the greatest ability and talent that any man has ever had. And it will do absolutely nothing for that soul unless God works in power.
The work of salvation depends upon the working of the power of God for the blessing of the soul and it's never in us. My wifes grandfather used to say if you if you traveled by train a lot and get on the train and if you presented a message to a person and they argued with you and you showed from the word of God.
That what they had to say was wrong. And you presented it such that they had no argument against it. And they raised another argument with you, and you answer that argument according to the word of God. And when they run out of arguments, he said, they'll get up and go to the dining car.
The point is, man in his will is a man does not want to retain God in his knowledge. And so it's necessary to be dependent in the presentation of the testimony of God that its effect upon souls be according to the working of the power of God by the Spirit and the living Word of God itself, to work in a soul to bring about a positive blessed result in that soul.
The apostle goes on in verse five to say something else. In what follows, he says that you're.
Verse six. I mean, howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect. It's also important in the latter part of this chapter to recognize that the wisest man in the world is incapable. Say that again, the wisest man in the world is incapable of understanding the things of God unless he's born again.
It is impossible for man, natural man, to properly understand and enjoy the truth of God unless he's born again. He has to receive a new life that he might know, and without that new life, he cannot know. And the apostle was talking to his brother and he says you're, you're among the perfect.
That is, you are among those who have the capacity to know and understand and enjoy the things that are to be presented to you as a testimony from God. He then goes on to point out to them that the method of communication is not human wisdom, but the Spirit of God is the communicator so that they might understand them. And the receiver, the person who's going to receive them cannot receive them disconnected from their state of soul.
The truth of God may be presented here this afternoon, but if you're not in communion at the moment.
You're not going to get it. You're not going to get it. It's not going to be a benefit to you except to speak to your conscience in some way, to make you judge yourself so that you can be in a state in which the word will have its proper effect as far as the building up side of it. And so it's here he's speaking to some people who are depending on their own human wisdom, He said. You have the capacity, but brethren, you're carnal.
And as long as you're carnal, you're not going to, you're not going to listen, you're not going to receive. And so we're here and it's important to us. It's just not because we have minds that are capable of listening to words that we can get the truth of God in our souls. But God is pleased to communicate to us this afternoon if we are dependent, submissive to him. If any man will to do his will, not know, if any man will to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.
Finally, the following chapter if you go on to explain that to obtain who godly wisdom is the work of the Trinity.
And find thy God, the Father, the Spirit, and the Son is all involved together. Let's take a look at it in verse seven. There we speak about those we spoke about the five things earlier on. But verse seven speaks of the ordination here in verse 7. But we speak the wisdom of God in the mystery, even the hidden wisdom. And notice here is that which which God ordained before the world unto our glory. So we see this ordination wisdom came from God ordaining it before the world.
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And then in verse nine we see further work of God there says, but as it is written, I have not seen no ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which the things which bod hath prepared for them that love him. So we see the preparation of art was from God. And then we see in verse 10 Now it says here that God hath revealed. There's the revelation. That's how we learn wisdom too, isn't it? God hath revealed them unto us how?
God hath revealed unto us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things. Yeah, the deep things of God. How do we understand all these things of God? Through the Spirit, isn't it? Then we'll go further down in verse 13, Which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth. So we'll remind it again, not the worldly wisdom, but which the Holy Ghost teaches.
Comparing spiritual things with spiritual so we see how God prepare how God we how how God ordained it God prepared it, the Holy Spirit revealed it the Holy Spirit in the sense inspire and teach us things and then in verse was such a read verse 1415 and 16 together. Now we see Christ involved here, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God our brother God has mentioned that in the but for they are foolishness unto him, but neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.
But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet He himself is judge of no man, for he hath known the mind of the Lord, that we may instruct him. But we have the mind of Christ. How are we to have the mind of Christ? Or we're to be His first, aren't we? And to be His we have to be believed to finish work the the the preaching that to the world that was foolishness. For the cross is the Finnish work of our Lord Jesus Christ that I brought us on. Now we eliminated by His word through the work of the Father, the Spirit and the Son.
Man's wisdom strives for things bigger and faster and wiser and greater. And all of those superlatives? God, who is all of that in himself. His wisdom led him to give the Lord Jesus at the cross just the complete opposite. All of who God is in himself, without compromise, became a man and went to the cross. That wasn't a low point in God's purposes, That was the highest point.
In which all of God's plans and purposes would be accomplished and satisfied at the cross. That is God's wisdom.
Just the opposite to our own naturally speaking. And so we can't understand it except by the Spirit. How could we expect to understand that the eternal God would not only become a man, but go to the cross, and that would be to God's eternal satisfaction and glory. It's only by the Spirit of God that our hearts can be opened to receive it. And so as we speak of these things, it's not just.
A fact it's that something that should absolutely overwhelm us that this was the epitome. This was the climax of the wisdom of God when the Lord Jesus went to the cross and satisfied his Father had satisfied God about our sins, not only to bring us into blessing, but to bring the full glory that God had purchased, which is referred to even before the foundation of the world, all of the eternal Gods purposes.
Were satisfied at that point in this tiny.
Pixel in God's creation, it took place at the cross and all of his purposes from before, before the world began, all of the eternal purposes were satisfied and accomplished there. So when we speak of the gospel, we're not Speaking of of facts and events. We're talking about a moment in not only time, but in eternity when God accomplished his purposes.
Who dawned in connection with the comment about the will the cross at the cross of Christ we see thee ultimate will a man and exercise pilot deliver Christ to the will of the people. So we see for my will as a national man leads us. It's to the crucifixion of Christ and we see where the will of God play of Christ is to give himself for Sinner such as myself in connection with the truth that you talk to an ungodly man and he says well how do you meet and you explain to him and he said well that's the way it should be. Why is it because his will is not at work.
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But you say that to a believer and immediately there are a bunch of arguments. And so why is that? Because the conscience tells them that the truth what the truth of God is and the way he ought to what act. And so Paul was with them with fear and trembling because he did not want it to descend into an argument, because arguments are when two wills are at work and in confrontation with each other. And so he was with them in weakness and trembling. I'd just like to read 2 verses in connection with Timothy in this third verse in First Corinthians chapter 4.
Verse 17 For this 'cause that I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways, which be in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church. And then in the last chapter in connection with Timothy.
Verse 10 And if Timotheus comes, see that he may be with you without fear, for he worketh the Lord, as I also do. The Corinthians are an intimidating bunch of people. And where the wisdom of man comes in and finds itself in conflict with the wisdom of God.
In that same connection, if I could ask Don to go back to his remark, who talked about the natural man you talked about the one that is spiritual.
And you also made reference to a believer that is carnal. And we do get all three of them mentioned, two of them in this chapter and the carnal man in the first verse of the next chapter. What's the difference between those three? And particularly, what's the difference between one who is carnal and one who is natural?
Natural man.
Is man as God created him as Adam was created?
And as a created human being, you had certain capacities that were given of God. One of the wonderful ones he had is referred to in this chapter as natural. Man has a spirit. If you put an Ant on this floor here, that Ant, having a body and a soul, has no consciousness of God's existence. It doesn't know there is a God because it has no spirit. But man as a creature has been given of God to know him, his existence and his power and his authority, because he has a spirit, and he is also a moral creature.
An Ant is not a mortal creature. It has no reference to God and has no morality as a consequence. But we are responsible to our Creator. We're morally bound to Him because of what we are, and that's a natural man. But when man sinned, then his will rises up in rebellion against God, and he wants to have nothing to do with God.
But he's limited compared to a believer because when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, God gives us a new life with a new capacity that we didn't have before. If if you had an Ant here and it looked at me, it knows I am where you are. It can look at us, it can react to us. It recognizes our existence and probably something of the power that we have in comparison to itself. It knows about me, but that aunt doesn't know my heart. It is no knowledge of my heart. Truly, it can't. It's not capable of it.
But if you could impart to that end my life, then that aunt could know me in a totally different and wonderful way. And when God brings us into his family, it is a superior creation. Really, it's a new creation that is superior to the Adamic creation because having given to us the life of Christ, I can know as I couldn't know before the heart of God.
God is now able to communicate to me things that before I could not know because I didn't have naturally the capacity to know them. I know God, I know responsibility and so on as a natural man. But now as a child of God, I know God's thoughts, I know God's heart because they're communicated to me by the Spirit of God. But if I as a believer, and this is where carnality comes into it. If I as a believer revert to the thinking processes of the natural man.
I hinder the communications of the thoughts of God to my soul, and so I walk as if I wasn't a believer. I walk in a carnal way, and a carnal Christian is one who has capacity, but he doesn't have communion and enjoyment of God, and so the Spirit of God has to occupy him with himself.
That he might judge himself, so that God is free to communicate that which he wants to his soul, which is his heart.
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As well.
Is joy so that there might be shared.
In the in the second chapter, as we mentioned it in verse 30, it says above of him that's a God of course.
Back to verse 27 of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who and I read from Mr. Darby's version, is made unto us wisdom of God. So the apostle is describing there a state of being in Christ. Now it appears from what we've been discussing that I can be saved but be a carnal man. In other words, I'm not really living in Christ and as such I don't have that wisdom that comes from God.
If, on the other hand, if I am in the state of being in Christ, living in Christ, having the cross very much brought before me every day as we mentioned, then I have I can have that wisdom of God.
Seeing Him done before him #4 I was thinking particularly the latter part of verse one. Indeed, from everlasting the wonderful I am our pleasures never wasting. And wisdom is thy name, hymn #4.
There God.
Hello, hello, hello, hello.
Before my Christmas Day.
And the world will live in.
I'm so cold water and the night goes out to him.
Defend ourselves.
God our Father.
Exactly that we've been brought to know Thee, whom to know is life eternal. So we thank Thee for Thy precious word that we've had open to see this afternoon. Pray that we might truly meditate on what we've heard. We might speak of Thee too, as we converse one with another. And so we just look to Thee now, Lord, as we begin this weekend and these meetings together. Pray Thy blessing hast thy help and thank Thee once more for thank goodness my love to us and just commend us. Do Thee now and and all to the Akim bags, bless and Savior, and Thy alone worthy and most precious name. Amen.
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Amen.