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Could we sing together Him 288?
288.
O thou whose mercies far exceed all we can do or say does in thy people thou indeed does daily. More display 288.
I was thinking along that line as well, how these first four chapters are really tying closely together and as an outline was given before that these four chapters, the 1St 4 chapters really speaks of how the failure we have in maintaining the unity in the assembly. We spent the time on chapter 2 in regard to the various types of wisdom in our chapter 3 would give us more of the practical side of what how we ought to walk. So would it be OK if we continue brethren?
Yes, First Corinthians chapter 3, beginning of verse one. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as until bathed in Christ I have fed you with milk, and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither ye now or ye able. For ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying, and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and locked as man?
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Before Lyle, when saith I am appalled, and another I am of Apollos, Are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul? And who is Apollos but ministers by whom he believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, and neither he that watereth, but God that give us the increase. Now he that planteth, and he that watereth are one.
And every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are laborers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building according to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master Builder. I have laid the foundation, and in other builders there are. But let every man take heed how he build it there on. For other foundation can no man laid. Then that is laid which is Jesus Christ.
Now if any man built upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he had filled there upon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself.
Shall be saved yet so as by fire. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy. Which temple? Uh, 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. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, he take, he taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in man. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Paulus, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
Toward the end of the last meeting we had to comment about we have whether we have the mind of Christ and spoke to some that somewhat questioned and doubted. I just want to make a brief comment on that. The end of the chapter where he said but we have the mind of Christ. This is not a question. This is a statement. We have the mind of Christ whether we seek the mind of Christ, whether we look for it is another issue. I'd like to turn to another verse two that tells us even more so in first John in first John chapter.
First John. I think it's in chapter 4.
Where is if you know, I'm sorry, first John chapter 2. There's another verse that tells us more than we know the mind of Christ.
Verse 20 But you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things. Those are two statements. You know everything. You have the unction from the Holy Ghost. And we may look and say, I don't know everything what you do, just that you may not know it yet, but you do. You know how there are times to that You know what is right and what is wrong.
You have the unction as a believer that the Spirit will show you to all truth.
That statement is made through famous in Christ, not made to the Father's. It's made to the babes in Christ. Somebody who accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior yesterday would have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
And I think what is addressed here in our third chapter here babes and ancient, but it's a different word than babes in the first John.
And really what the apostle is talking to, there are those who ought to have thrown up because all the gifts that they had been given in that assembly there, there would have been because I say normally speaking, spiritual growth there. And the apostle has to say, well, it hasn't happened. You're carnal and what it's meant, but it's bathed in Christ. We have the inviting of the Holy Spirit as we had at the end of our last leadership. It was true. And everyone who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.
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Normal healthy adult can normally be expected to eat quite a variety of foods and enjoy it and benefit from it. But if they get sick, what they can take may be limited because of their condition so that they even know they're an adult and their normal diet is a variety of things. Because of a physical or condition in them, there may be a limitation and they can't take everything for a while until they're made well.
I think that's a little analogy to what's said. And it wasn't, it just was mentioned. It wasn't a matter of being babes and having not yet grown, but they were, if you will, adults and they should have been able to take the meat, but they were not able to because of their spiritual condition. They weren't healthy, if you will. And consequently the apostle was restricted in what he could communicate to them and he had to go back and Hebrews, perhaps chapter 6, I forget the exact after, but he said I don't want to have to go again and lay the foundation all over the beginning things, but I want to go on and.
Present to you additional things that belong to you as believers. But if we're not in a healthy spiritual condition, then you can't just keep feeding. If we aren't, we can't receive. We have to be established and and healthy, you might say. And when carnality is at work, that's a hindrance to the healthy reception of truth.
It's noticeable what the Apostle lays his finger on as being the real exhibition of their carnality.
As the epistle goes on, we find there were quite a number of things that were wrong in the Corinthian assembly. There was very serious immorality that had to be dealt with. They were going to court with one another. There was disorder and drunkenness even at the breaking of bread. They were getting involved in things offered to idols and other things that the apostle has to address. 1 by 1. But what he has already mentioned in the first chapter, and which he brings up again here, is the strife and envying and ultimately the systems that were among them.
It didn't mean that they'd separated 1 from another from another. There hadn't been an absolute division.
But there were difficulties among them that were causing a party spirit. Well, that is something that I believe the Spirit of God would focus on here to show us how serious that is. Yes, there were other things going on there, things that absolutely demanded that the assembly deal with them in a public way. And for example, the one that was guilty of immorality, he had to be put away, at least for a time. But here the Lord draws attention through the apostle to this envying and strife.
And ultimately the precursor of divisions, which has been a problem that has been with the Church of God all down through the ages. And so that was one of the main things that was part of their carnality. And it's something that we have to face today, don't we? It goes all the way back, of course, to the disciples who it's recorded were arguing among themselves as to who should be the greatest and when we know that James and John, their mother came to the Lord Jesus and requested that the two of them would sit on the right hand and on his left in the Kingdom and.
How upset the others were when they heard that. We won't turn to it, but we will remember what the Lord Jesus had to say to that and that in essence, he said he that will be the greatest among you, let him be the servant of all. And so I believe that was a voice to the Corinthians who, as we saw yesterday, were proud and well off and quite satisfied with themselves. And sad to say, that attitude that had existed in their city and in the world at large had crept into the Church of God and was causing real problems. And it's still a source of real problems, isn't it? So it speaks to each one of us, because it was really.
Impeding their spiritual growth as we get here.
It's beautiful how the apostle takes up this matter of the building. Their selfishness and and lack of consideration for one another was a denial of the truth of the Spirit of God collectively working in the assembly and to be the director of the building, the Assembly of God here and in verse 15.
16 know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? That is the collective dwelling of the Spirit of God in the assembly, directing the church, the assembly. These saying, one I'm appalled, another Apollos and et cetera is a denial of that. It's a very narrow minded, selfish view. And if we look at things in that way, we can get Arnold too. When the Spirit of God came down on Pentecost, there were two signs.
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Of his presence there, the cloven tongs and the.
The wind or the Spirit that filled the house, those were the two demonstrations of the two ways that the Spirit of God dwells in the church individually and collectively. And they're both, they've already been referred to here in Corinthians, these two ways that the Spirit of God dwells in the church collectively. He organizes and directs the whole. And so Paul brings this out, how that the building compares a church to a building that's that is built.
And how that the apostles were the ones who laid the foundation and others participated, each one according to as the Lord, the Spirit of God would direct. So when you have that kind of a view and look at the assembly in this way, it's the remedy for this problem that existed at Corinth. And this exists in our day very much too, doesn't it?
The individual side you get at the end of chapter 6, is that right? That's right. It dwells in the our body as a it's a our body, our physical body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
And so we need to respect the body for that reason.
Perhaps they help the younger one. Again, we can look at this chapter of dividing into two sections. You find from verse one to perhaps down to verse 17. It gives us about perhaps 3 results of what happened when we follow worldly wisdom. And then from verse 18 to the end, it's giving us a few solutions, perhaps four different ways to avoid causing a division. The first part where is set about the consequences of a worldly wisdom. We talk about that. Some of it already in verse one and two. It shows us that.
When we use worldly wisdom in the assembly, we won't grow. So we would be like being fed with meat to someone who's not ready. It doesn't grow. We see a lot of little ones here. We've got young ones, babies. We don't go up there and give them the cheesecake that you enjoy. Perhaps they would like to have it, but it's not going to help them with the growth. So verse one and two tells us how if you take that worldly wisdom, that's what would happen to the assembly. You go down to verse three to about verse 8, you'll find the next consequence. When worldly wisdom come into the assembly, it caused problems. The word he used in verse 3 is.
Would cause envy, strife and divisions.
And I think Brother Bill used to attraction, we see that in the margin for that word there. So it gave us that. And the third thing.
That is worldly wisdom would cause defilement in the House of God. So we find their invention about this builder, this building with certain things that are not good. You've got gold, silver and precious Dome. But then there's also the wood A and double. And then when you go down. This is the first half of this. So as we go through this chapter, we can keep that in mind and that might help us understand these verses. And then the second part is what would help us to cure the division. I believe it was commented yesterday that our commented again in verse 18 there it tells us that we are not to look at it from our standpoint. So we go on and let no man deceive himself.
Often ourselves is the biggest problem. And then verse 19, this is just doing it briefly to verse 20. Then it says it says to to to take a look at at the Lords view have a proper view of what it should be. And then we have in.
I said four, there should really be 3IN verse 21 to the end there. And don't set someone else up as a pedestal as here Paul used the example with a Paul or Paul. We had to look at Christ as an example. So I hope this this little breaking down of the division of this chapter would help us understand it as we go along.
We weren't really setting up all of the policy, but he says in the 4th chapter these things that I transferred myself to Paul and Apollos because the youth themselves as an example. In fact, we find out that Paul had to defend his own apostleship and so they were they were having others apostles that were not apostles but lie both were really the ones who were following. What our brother David so has brought out to us we see repeatedly is that if the Saints don't grow in the truth and they follow a man and when they follow a man, they fall into serious error in some area that is so serious it's defiling the House of God.
How is it that Christians fall into serious, serious error that attacks the person of Christ? It starts with a lack of personal growth and personal exercise. It proceeds to following a man, and then they start following a man's bad doctrine and sometimes reading the wicked doctrine as to the person of Christ. And it is astonishing among brethren how many people have fallen into very serious doctrine as to the person in the work of Christ. And this is the pathway to it.
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I think it's important to see in our passage that is the responsibility of man that is prominent in this chapter. The Church of God, the House of God is not looked at here.
As the work of God like first Peter chapter 2 verse five. He also has lively stones are built up the spiritual house and holding priesthood to offer a spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God like Jesus Christ. That is all genuine, that is all I.
Real and true believers in that chapter, in that verse, in that aspect that Peter brings before us, but that is not the aspect of the House of God that is before us in this chapter. Man is the builder here, not God reverently speaking. And man is the responsible one. And he when he builds, he brings in false material, wood, hay and stubble. He even goes as far as to defile the temple of God. That is, where have the terrible teachings denying the divinity of the Lord Jesus? Where have they come into heathen them? No, they've gone into Christendom.
And so these emissaries of the enemy have brought in these evil doctrines into the bosom of Christendom. But the point that I'm trying to make is that here man is the builder and he is responsible for what he does. The judgment seat of Christ is going to reveal the character of our ministry. The apostle here is Speaking of ministry in the assembly that was that's peculiar to Christianity. There wasn't a ministry in the Old Testament in the Jewish economy.
But in the ministry here now in Christianity, and we are able to be ministers by the gift that God has given to us, and we are to build in gold, silver, precious stones the ministry of Christ that will abide and receive a reward. Not that that is the motive, but God promises reward for faithfulness in the ministry in the House of God.
Days of Israel.
Lord took them out of Egypt as his people to take them to the land. He watched over them for the 40 years of the wilderness, and he brought them safely into the land and he established them there. And then they say, give us a king. We want to be like the people around us. We want to have a king to be over us. We want a leader.
That we can see and that we can follow. And it wasn't of God.
And in fact, in the beginning, they chose their leader, Saul, who became the first king. It was man's choice and it was a disaster. And here we have God's assembly, God's building, God at work for this temple. And he doesn't want, it's not his wisdom that there be, if you will, the leader, the king, to take a place in it. He says, I will direct, I will decide what?
Part of the building, each one is responsible. As John mentioned, it's a lot about responsibility here.
In the building of God, but he does make the comment in verse nine. He are laborers together with God. And it's in the sense that God is in charge and I'm just a laborer who takes instructions from the master. And so it should be for each one in the body of Christ. But here's the Assembly of God that's in view. Whatever the party is, it's God who decides what part each one of us should have.
And we labor is unto him, but we have a natural tendency in times of particularly when there are difficulties. If I can use the expression differences of judgment and understanding, the heart naturally says what does so and so say.
What the so and so say that often is the very evidence of what's in her heart.
We unconsciously perhaps have deceived ourselves and say, of course I follow the Lord and no one in between. But if we find ourselves in a difficulty immediately wanting to know what so and so view is, that's the spirit of it. And God says, I don't want anything between you and I.
No man has a place between you and I in that way. A man I may use to help you, but he's not the foundation of your understanding or your faith. And if we look at somebody else, it's easy to say about them, they followed a man I didn't in a matter of division or something like that. But God knows, and God knows if we truly are in relationship to himself or whether we followed Apollo or an Apollo's or somebody else by example.
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So it's an important thing to always bear in mind that we never want anything to come between our souls and God at any time. He is supreme in his relationship to us. Not setting aside other New Testament teaching either, which have to do with elders and so on.
While we don't want in any way to be critical, we're not here for that. But I would just say that ultimately what we have here, I believe was the roof and beginning of the clergy system as we see it today. It started off on the one hand with men wanting a place, but those who were looking to those men were equally responsible because instead of being willing to search things out for themselves, instead of being willing to pay the price.
For personal communion with the Lord, personal prayer, reading His Word and walking with Him, the attitude became, let someone else do it. And if you are gifted, if you are willing to minister to us, we'll pay you to do it. Sounded good on the surface, didn't it? But eventually it came about, just as Dawn has been saying, that it brought a man between me and God, it brought a man between US and Christ. And whenever that happens, man is exalted, even though he may, as far as it goes, be a faithful man, even though he may want to minister correctly. Yet it exalts man and takes away from the glory of Christ, doesn't it?
And when we get to that point, then we're on a downward slope and as Neil was bringing out, next thing you know, the man goes wrong and everybody that follows him goes wrong with him because he tends to be the final authority. But how wonderful to think that God has given every one of us, as we have had previously, the Spirit dwelling within us. Some of us were talking at lunch and we were using an old analogy that somebody remember from our written ministry, and that is that it takes a good engineer, for example, to build a road, but anybody here that can drive a car can tell you whether it's a good road or not. And if somebody were to say, well, what exactly went wrong with this road? Why is it that?
This and that has happened to it and all the rest of it. You might not be able to go into a scientific explanation of what was wrong, but you can say, I know it's a bad Rd. I. I don't need to know all the INS and outs of what it costs or what it means to build a road in order to tell that. So it is with the believer. God has given us gifts. He has given those who can teach, those who have the gift of an evangelist, those who have the gift of a pastor. And we do well to recognize and value them, but they themselves are only instruments.
And ultimately anyone of those instruments can go wrong. And what God looks for is a heart that puts himself between US and the individual rather than putting the individual between US and the Lord. Brother Dawn was referencing Hebrews. I think it's appropriate to look at some verses in chapter 5 because as well, going off of what Brother Bill Cross was saying, I would suggest that Hebrews in some ways deals with that. But there is only one mediator between body, man, and that's the man Christ Jesus. And in chapter 5 of Hebrews, so it suggests that.
The essence of there being babes here is also a lack of the knowledge of Christ. And he says, verse eight, though we were a Son, yet learned to obedience by the things which he suffered, and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all of them that obeyed him, called of God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. And this is the problem of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered. Seen your dull of hearing. For when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teacher again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk.
And not a strong meat, as we got in First Corinthians. For everyone that uses milk is unskillful, or in the margin it says half. No experience in the word of righteousness, for he is obeyed. But strong meat belongs to them that are full age or perfect, even those who by reason of use or habit or perfection have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
What you were saying, Bill?
Command may go wrong and take others with them because too much confidence was placed in the individual. And I think we've seen that and experienced it. But it may also be that when the Lord takes the man, not necessarily that the man goes wrong, but the one that we were looking to is removed and we may go wrong because we were looking at the wrong person.
Well, that's very, very true, Dave. And the Lord often does that if we look to men, doesn't he? If I put a man between myself and the Lord, then if the Lord takes the man away, I may find that I can't find the Lord because I've been so used to looking to the man for everything that then suddenly he's gone and I have a difficulty finding the Lord. And that doesn't mean that we don't miss someone who has been a real help to us. And all of us here who are at least perhaps in my age bracket, can look back to those who are a tremendous help to them and who eventually were taken home to be with the Lord.
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And we felt their loss. We felt the hole that it made in our lives. But if we're really walking with the Lord, we'll find that it only draws us closer to Him. We appreciated the gift, but it only draws us closer to the One who never changes.
Lord Jesus is not mentioned here in this chapter just to bring the connection with the Lord into it. Here is God's house. It's not looked at as the body of Christ.
But it's man and responsibility and and God's assembly or God's house. And there is a connection found in Hebrews chapter 3.
To what we have here with which brings in the Lord.
In Hebrews chapter 3 and verse one. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who is was faithful to him that appointed him. As also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, in as much as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house where every house is builded by some man. But he that hath built all things is God. And Moses barely was faithful in all his house, that is, in God's house.
Of the House of Israel as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after, but Christ as a son over his. That is God's house. Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end? So it's God's house, and God has chosen to put the sun over it.
He was faithful, perfectly faithful, in all that was given to him to do and in his perfect faithfulness. God, whose house it is, says, My Son is over it.
On my behalf, Moses was faithful and not perfect, but he was faithful in.
God's House of Israel and he did, and he's likened to it here in that way. He was never placed over it as the sun is placed over the house. And it's so it's important to see in it. Go back to our chapter the fact that it's God who chooses what every builder does. We don't choose for ourselves. We don't say what will I do for the Lord. At least that's not really God's mind for us. We go to the Lord and say, what will thou have me to do? And it's his choice. It's God's choice by the Spirit.
To determine what our role, what our party is in the overall.
And so it's here in chapter 3, Paul Speaking of himself and his work, he says in verse 10, according to the grace of God which is given unto me. Isn't that why we, any of us have anything to do with the House of God? Because God says, well, in my grace I'm going to use you. And what was it that God chose Paul to do as a wise master builder? I have laid the foundation that is speaking about God's assembly here. And Paul is specifically the one to whom the revelation concerning the church.
Has been given. It's not Peter, it's not John. John brings us the family of God. Peter brings us the wilderness journey and they sustain the truth of the assembly and all that they say because it's all one perfect hole. But the actual explanation or teaching of the revelation from God as to what the assembly is and what its place is is specifically given to us in the teachings of the epistles of Paul. And he was in that way the body of God's grace. He was given that responsibility and he fulfilled it. And so he says, so we don't want to turn around and say, well, I think I'll add to the foundation.
That's wrong. Any man who adds to God's foundation, he said it's already done. And yet there are ways in which man by what he does is, is like he said, well, the church is not adequate for every need. And so I'll build a little addition on the side and I'll put some more out there. No, that's wrong. God wants us to say the foundation is laid. We are to build up in our generation. There's not new teaching that is it hasn't already been given the word is there?
It's to heat it, to live it, to go by it.
I believe Paul's ministry presents the church to last in three aspects. We now force the word itself really as a collective noun, meaning the called out ones. And so whenever I see that word in scripture, I have the whole family of guardian do except that reference in second John.
And so that word, the church would include everyone that knows the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.
Here we have it presented as the body of Christ, and particularly the 12Th and the 14th chapters of this epistle would tell us how it works then as the body of Christ, and then here, of course, it is the House of God. And what are we to learn about these three aspects when the respect of the church, I believe it's that which Christ loved. That's what we get in Ephesians 5. Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it, because the Washington was born by the word that he might present himself to himself a glorious church, that having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
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Perhaps we'll come back to that. Then of course, there's the body aspect. And what do we get there? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is the head of heaven and we're the members on the earth. But each one of us has a function in the body of Christ and we have the Holy Spirit, as we've been mentioning, because the nervous system till I say that connects us with the head in heaven and teaches us how to act in each particular situation for the benefit of the body as a whole. And then it's where we have in this chapter here, it's particularly the house aspect. And what's the house aspect? What house aspect is order?
If you're going to build a house, you don't start putting your windows in before you build the walls. Before you can build the walls, you've got to build a foundation.
And so there is an order in the Church of God, and there is our responsibility, as I believe we get it in this chapter.
Because it's in.
In the 10th verse is but let every man take heed how we deal with the one everyone in this room who knows that Lord Jesus Christ to save it as responsible and so we have in this chapter our responsibility as builders fought before us just the just a favoring Christ somebody who might have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior yesterday has this responsibility now. Now in connection with this I'd like to refer to a thought that my brother-in-law shared with me and it's Ezekiel 9.
And I don't want to read a lot of it because it's where it was, the end of God's epoch of dealing with the children of Israel as a nation.
The Spirit of God was about to leave the place between the above the mercy seat, between the cherubims of the threshold of the house, and then depart from that temple, and the times of the Gentiles were about to begin.
And Ezekiel is told, and I think it's the fourth person in the 9th chapter. And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that saw and cried for all the abominations that be done in the 5th day of.
He was told to go and sit a mock upon those at sighed. Why did they sigh? Because they knew what that temple was in God's purpose. They know how God should have been glorified in.
Him being able to be in the midst of his people and what blessing there would have been in Jerusalem.
Had those children of Israel fulfilled their responsibilities and just kept his work?
Now I just wonder whether we enter into.
How the Lord Jesus Christ has been dishonored in that which has come in to His Church and the divided state of it. We read in John 17 that they all may be one as thou, a Father, asking me and I and me, and that they also be the one in us, that the world may believe that they are simply there to be a test, a united Christian testimony.
Was to be a testimony to the vote that the Lord that God descend the first with the Lord Jesus Christ into this phone and how we perhaps at the end of an epoch 2 is we wait for the Lord to come. We have to recognize that we as individuals who can't point around to say well it was that brother that did that we use individuals have to recognize our failure and I hope we.
How the Lord has been dishonored in the divisions that have come in, even amongst those who have the privilege of being gathered to His name.
Would you think, brother Dave, that that those side and grown there would be correspond a little bit with what you have in second Timothy with him that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart. There you have the house in disorder, the great house. That's what we see around us today.
And there's so much confusion. It's there's a lot to mourn over. There's a lot to sigh over as we look at how the church is developed and put in the hands of men to to in responsibility and so much failure. And I'm not talking about out there elsewhere. I'm talking about among us, those candidates of the Lords name. There is so much failure. Our testimony is so poor so often. Yet the Lord has been faithful to preserve us to see the premium that he puts upon those who all on the Lord out of a fewer heart. That is what the ones with whom we can seek to meet together.
In contrast to that, I would just like to go back to our chapter here and they notice the how God in his faithfulness preserve that that disorder would not come in through the apostles. Paul speaks of himself as the wise master builder. We ought to be very thankful, brethren, that God saw fit to preserve the apostles and give us the foundation correct and we have that in the writings of the apostle. If we have the right order, we have the the order.
That God intended the Church to be built on. He did not allow the failure to come in through those first apostles.
00:40:04
We know it came in very soon afterwards, and even here at Corinth there was failure coming in, but Paul laid a good foundation. God saw it to that, and I think that is the faithfulness of God to to preserve that to us in the writings of the apostles.
In Ephesians we get the temple is fitly framed.
And growing a holy temple and there's nothing that defiles in it. Inerts the house and its purposes and Christ and the thoughts of God. There's nothing that defiles here. As it's been already mentioned, it's man's responsibility. I'd like to mention one other thing. We get good works in Ephesians that God has ordained that we should walk in them. In Matthew, the Lord exhorts us to let your light so shine that man might see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. But here in this chapter, it's not works. It's singular, it's work.
And it's the whole lifes labor in this sphere of responsibility of man in the House of God. And it's really ministerial efforts or labor. It's not all the works that we might walk in. There's those things that we walk in as individuals seeking to be like Christ here, displaying the life of Christ in our mortal bodies, works that our fruit for God, that this is very specifically work, labor in the House of God. And it's the whole life's efforts in a certain sense that are in view here.
How has that worked? How is the whole breadth of it, not just the individual 2 by 4I nail in place, but what's the whole structure? What's your Ben York way? You have approached and taken up buildings. Has it been right? Has it been according to God's word? And they value the things of men. They value those things which men thought much of, and they were bringing that into the House of God and their responsibility in that place and it had no place there.
They said that there are three workmen that are properly for us in this passage. We've often heard this, but maybe it would be good to repeat it. There's the the Workman who builds according to the plans according to God's mind.
According to the word of God and his work remains. That's very.
12 If any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest.
For the day shall declare it. That means the judgment seat of Christ is going to manifest the character of my work in the House of God. Then we have in verse 13, every man's work shall be made manifest.
14 Of any man's work abide which he has built there upon he shall receive a reward.
Has the Lord's approval there and there will be a reward for faithfulness in ministering the truth according to the rules, so to speak, at the judgment seat of Christ, we should labor. In view of that time, how can God reward what is not according to his word, though there might be earnestness and.
A motive that is right, but you take a sister that preaches the gospel on the street corner. I have witnessed that and perhaps others have. She is not building according to the Scriptures.
Not being LED of the Spirit of God in the work that she is doing. Then we have in verse 15, if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet soiled by fire. Here we have a Workman who is a true believer. There's no doubt about it because he's saved, He has soared by fire. He has a saved soul, but his work is burned up at the judgment seat of Christ. There's no reward. He has lived for the world a lot is a good example of this.
Perhaps he has not built or worked according to scripture, he has not shared the rejection of Christ in the place. The outside place gathered to the Lords name like Jonathan and there is loss here in his life. A true believer save soul but a lost life. Then we have in the third instance the 17th verse. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy the temple of God. There is the House of God in his collective aspect.
Which we are in now composed of true believers and unbelievers, because the house has been enlarged to this. This character of a great house doesn't mean that the Spirit of God has forsaken it. He is still in the House of God in the confessing Christendom. But here this person is an unbeliever. He brings in evil doctrine into the very bosom of God's assembly.
Into the House of God, He defiles it. Cults do this we are aware of. He defiles the temple of God. He is just His doctrine is destroyed and he is destroyed himself.
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God will bring judgment upon any individual who does that. Again, I say he brings it into prison, death. So I think that it might be helpful to see those three types of workers that we have brought before us here.
It is important what you said, that a Pentecost, the Spirit of God came down and filled the whole house. And so the Spirit of God indwells the house, not just the assembly. And I've heard people say, well, I know the Lord is there because I felt the Spirit moving, but the Spirit will move wherever He's given liberty to. It is true in men's systems that they have to limit the Spirit of God or else He would bust their system up.
Or may lead men out of it. But the Spirit of God filled the whole house. I think it's important to what you pointed out in connection with this man to following the House of God.
Is it's not Speaking of the man in first Corinthians 5, though he was a wicked person, but it is those that have brought in bambiable heresies as to the person of Christ. And so somebody looks and they see all kinds of things, some horrible Hopkins just a person of Christ distilling me envelope. You're driving by somebody's house and you say, well, that's that's Neil's house. If I have a drug dealer living in my house, he's associated with my house. And but somebody holds wicked doctrine, a broad wicked doctrine into the person into the House of God and he has to file the House of God and the reputation of the House of God.
Very serious thing.
Yeah, I mentioned the work and there's a character of of that work that's basically a lifetime thing.
And yet I, and I suppose all of us, are very influenced by the environments in which we live. I would suspect that my views of Scripture might be different if I lived 600 years ago.
I would suspect that my views of Scripture might be different if I were born into a different family or if I lived in a different country.
And these kinds of situations that might influence.
Shall we say a life work or give character to it? That troubles me considerably.
And I would ask if it's feasible or possible we have the meat that's mentioned in verse 2.
In contrast with, I take it that that's really solid, solid foods versus liquids.
And then we have a foundation which has a particular shape and form to it.
Would be possible to to have some sort of laundry list?
And I, I see it that way because I'm inclined to say, well, you know, we just, we just get it from Scripture. Well, this world is full of a lot of Christians and it seems like either there's different scriptures or there's, you get this race that.
That we have different points of view and all these kinds of things. Would there be a particular laundry list of important points in connection with meat? Things that we should seek to understand from scripture and joy, and a certain laundry list of the shape of the foundation? What what, what is to be built on this foundation that would be in an alignment with the foundation and something that we would.
Be able to have as a level of benchmark for our work.
For the Lord and something and I would suggest something that would have the character which would make bodily sense in this room, but sense to any believer meeting this chapter.
I was thinking in connection with the building.
How we build it comes out as to what material we use in building. Some will resist the fire and some won't. In the 12Th verse we have gold and silver and precious stones.
When the building in the ministry of the Spirit of God.
What material is he going to use to edify the Saints? He's going to speak of Christ. He is the foundation. Everything is based on Him. If we think of talking about the body of Christ, he is the head. Everything depends on him. So I would think as people say, well, we are a lot of professing Christians. They know about Jesus Christ.
They know he's God.
That's the gold. I enjoy it this way.
What about his work on the cross today? No eternal redemption. Many believers, many Christians don't know. Eternal redemption. That's a silver.
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But if you know of Jesus, God, and what if you know that you're safe forever because of the work on the cross? Well, all these precious stones, all the glories of his person we can enjoy together and as the Spirit of God is free to speak to us and.
The fact that He's God, to speak to us of the wonderful redemption he operated for us on the cross, He sets before us the glories of his person. What's the result? We're going to be transformed into the same image from glory to glory. We're going to grow together. We're going to be bound up together. He says in the first chapter, I beseech you, brethren, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same things, that you all have the same language. What's going to bring us to this desire of unity, of peace with one another? I beseech you, by the name of that very one that's been set before you as God who redeemed you by the work of the cross that you've been enjoying in all these aspects.
Well, don't you want to say the same thing as your brethren? As long as we're going on in this group, don't you want to go along with them for my joy and my desire? So I just enjoy this in connection with as we build up together in our most holy faith, the central object of that being built up together is the same person that the foundation on which the house is built, the same one that's the head of the body, the glorious Lord Jesus who filleth all things. Let me show you travel quite a bit and you meet a Christian on a trainer, on the bus or in a coffee shop and you know they're a believer and you share as much of Christ with them as you can.
And if you might, somebody who doesn't bring the doctrine of Christ is not abiding in the doctrine of Christ. He says, well, Jesus could have sinned. He may even be a real believer. You sinned, but has picked up a bad doctrine. And he may seek to help. But if he insists on it and you say this man doesn't bring the doctrine of Christ. And many believers unique, you bring as much of Christ to them and they bring us and let them bring as much of Christ to you as they want to. And it's you find it's a very happy thing and it's a very happy thing to our souls as we think down through the ages. We're talking a little bit about this between the meetings about Christian 600 years ago. I don't know what they knew or didn't know, but it's a wonderful thing to think when you pick up a Sunday school paper or a book, Mary Jones and her Bible. I'm looking forward to seeing her in heaven. And so we meet believers.
And we should really enjoy as much of Christ with them as we can.
I think the end of the last verse of the chapter perhaps gives us what our object should be in building in this house. You are Christ and Christ is God. Now is our objective when we're building the house. The glory of the person of the Lord Jesus is that arrogative. Our brothers talked about putting a stud up to the thought you know, and maybe I just get older too before it's a rock and then it's not it badly not eat, but I haven't written place anyway and well.
That's good enough. We find that perhaps in.
In the last, last in Malachi, in Malachi, you know, anything was good enough for the Lord. They didn't give him the 1St place. Anything was good enough for the Lord. And the Malachi says will the name of God, that shortchange in the Lord to do something that's a shoddy job for him because he's not the objective. The objective is just to get done and it needs to do it. I also could take a square and a nice piece of timber and then we can put in a star that's perfectly square and beautiful job.
And there's a danger in that. And the danger of that is pride, because I might think I've done a good job. We're still I might take that square and take it to the stud that my brother put in and find that's not quite as good as mine.
That leads to it's because the Lord is not the objective. The objective of our work should be to glorify the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now our brother here, and I know where he's coming from, said, well, are there things that are there, shall we say, guidelines?
Well, we have, shall I say, some guidelines in the work we hold in our hands. But remember, we have an unction from the Holy One and all of these things. And as we get in the 12Th chapter of this Gospel.
You know, sorry, that's right. Therefore I'll give you to understand that my man speaking by the Spirit of God call if Jesus the curse and no man can say that Jesus is Lord by the Holy Ghost. And so we've been equipped, we've been equipped to do a good job if our objective is the person of the Lord Jesus.
For us to glorify him, not ourselves in the work, but to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's is there something that I can do? And we've mentioned ministry as a word. And you know, that's we associate that with the brother and the brother exhorting us. Well, that that's that's a former ministry too. It's a form of ministry that provide a work of encouragement to the Christians sitting next to you.
To be a practical help, maybe for someone who needs practical health, it's a poorly and it should be done with prices, the objective, and the Holy Spirit directing us as to where and how and where you do it.
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I'd like to address a little bit of what was raised by Bruce a few minutes ago by going back to the first chapter of the epistle and.
Verse 9.
After one verse nine, God is faithful, by whom you were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. And verse just quoted a few moments ago. Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, but you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that should be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. Verse nine is perhaps the very key to the whole Epistle.
The very expression God's assembly has the thought that we once all existed in a world that is opposed to God, and God has chosen to gather out of the world a people for himself. Assembly means a gathering, a collection of people together in some way. And so God's assembly is God's pulling out of this world a people for himself that are his own. Consequently, in the epistles you have the expression within.
And without, they're very important to see in the different places in the epistles. And the without is the world and the within not speaking about after confusion comes in, but the within in the mind of God is, and His purpose is those he has gathered out of the world to what purpose?
To the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
And so the gathering out is not only the separation from something, but it is bringing together for a common thing, which is that those so gathered out might have fellowship with his son. And the assembly is particularly that sphere where there is fellowship enjoyed with the son. Tremendous thing and the point, though, with the passage of time and confusion and everything else not to.
Speak too long, but it says the fellowship of his Son Christ for Jesus Christ our Lord. Very important the way it speaks. Press our Lord, Jesus Christ our Lord. And when you find confusion coming in, there is particular emphasis in the word given to the lordship aspect, the Lordship of Christ. And so he is the one in the fellowship that God has formed who is supreme.
In Authority, we talked before about not having anything between our souls and God, or anything between our souls and the Lordship of Christ. It's important to recognize in it that Lordship is primarily individual. Each one of us individually has to respond to it. Lordship isn't really the collective aspect of the assembly, but if each one of us individually submitted fully ourselves to His authority and his Lordship, all would be well.
All the BS it should be and so we're in difficulty comes in, for example, Second Timothy chapter 2 where you have God doesn't even call it the house anymore. The Spirit of God isn't even pleased to identify in Second Timothy in the first epistle, when all is in order, the Spirit of God looks at it and says this is the description of the House of God.
But when the disorder and the confusion comes into it, the Spirit of God looks at it and says, this is a great house. In other words, it no longer has the character of that which God has established. But we're in it. We're in the great house. The only way you can get out of it if you're a Christian is to give up your profession of Christianity. But in the great house, what are we to do? Let everyone that nameth what the name of the Lord?
It's his individual authority that's brought in question. Let everyone that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity, and then walk with others of the same heart that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. If you think about it too, you'll see why it's such an emphasis is made in First Corinthians later chapters 10 and 11. It's the Lord's table.
It's the Lord's Supper. It's the Lord's Day. Because even in a day of confusion, the claim of the Lord upon us individually never changes, and consequently he calls us. The fellowship to which we're all called is all name, the name of Christ. But the actual enjoyment of it in a day of confusion is often limited to the enjoyment of the fellowship of Jesus Christ. When I can do so.
Where he has his right place as Lord.
01:00:04
I suppose, too, that we need to remember, Bruce commented that if he had been born 600 years ago, that he might take a different view of things. And I can understand that. And if we were born in different circumstances, perhaps under different circumstances in North America or even in another country, we might look at things in a different way. And those of us that have traveled a little can attest to that. But what we do find is I believe that, and it bears out what Dawn was saying, that.
When there is an honest heart before the Lord and a spirit that says Lord, I want to know more, the Lord meets that individual where he is. I know it touched my heart greatly, and some of you may have heard me mention this incident before, but it touched my heart greatly in reading the story of a marker for the faith in Scotland back in 1546. He was burned at the stake in Saint Andrews in Scotland for his faith in Christ man by the name of George Wishart. And the day that he was to be taken out and burned at the stake, the captain of the army who happened to be a Christian, but who had to do his duty as under orders.
Said, Have you got any last request? And if it's possible I'll do it for you. And George Wishart thought for a minute or two and then he said, I'll tell you what I'd really like. He said, If you can get a few believers together and you know who they are and I know who they are, I'd like to break bread with them one last time. I don't suppose there were quibblings and questions about whether they were gathered on the ground of the one body and all those things that probably, at least for the moment, even though they may have had some understanding of the truth, but it didn't enter into it. God met them where they were.
And an eyewitness said it was one of the most moving experiences to be there and break bread with a man who was going to be with Christ in a matter of hours. And he knew it, too. And yet they said he was the calmest of them all. What does that say?
I hope I understand you, Bruce. When you say a laundry list, do you mean a number of things that we need to carry this out? Is that what you meant?
Where is Bruce?
What what might be some of the things that and perhaps it goes back to Pete, that's why I mentioned meat. What might be some of the things that are meat and what are some of the things that.
Our work should be in alignment.
I think it's already been mentioned our work would not necessarily be aligned with the scriptures if it's a clergyl system.
I think on the negative side, what would our work in line with?
I think some good answers have been given Connection Price himself.
Though that often is not.
Where we seem to have our drugs and differences.
So which things really really stand out that that my thoughts should run along the lines of?
Certain things, certain the word objectives was mentioned. I like that word.
They even keep scriptures.
No, we gather. We're going to gather tomorrow morning. And why?
And how?
My dad did it this way, but that's not quite good enough authority for me, so I respect my dad.
I All of these things are part of building, I take it, in a certain sense.
After four I'd like to read the 1St 2 verses. Bruce, I don't know if this answers your question at all, but I feel like it like to say something here on the two hour chapter 4 verses one and two. Let them in. So account of us as of the mysteries of Christ.
Ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. God hasn't called us all to the same thing, He's given a different work to each one.
Paul spoke here of him being the wise master builder, and he did not exhort the Corinthians about master builders. No, but there was something given them to carry out. And this is all of the part of the plan. To me, it's a wonderful thing to have been born with the Christian Father and been entrusted a lot of Christian heritage, and I don't question God's wisdom about that. God didn't call everybody to that, but the general principle that applies to all this faithfulness in stewardship.
Whatever he's called us to, we need to be faithful in that. And I find this very no luck to use this word, but I'm going to use it challenging because brethren, we have been given much here. Most of us in this room of Christian heritage, stewards of the mysteries of God. We are ministers of something that most Christians don't know very much about.
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Our stewardship is more.
Critical It's more We have more to lose. We have more endangerment. And so let us be faithful.
When we think about being second and third generation or 4th or 5th generations.
People among the gathered Saints.
And think about what my children and my grandchildren are going to get through me.
That is very challenging. Am I going to pass on to my children what my dad passed on to me?
Stewards were stewards of these things. God didn't intend that every generation should get a new revelation and start all over again. We started from where our forefathers.
Ministered to us things that were put into our hands to keep. Faithfulness is required. And this is the way I look at measuring the what has been given to us. If it's much, then we have much to keep. If it's little, if we were born 500 years ago and didn't have much truth, still the same standard faithfulness, whatever we have and to carry it on. And God sometimes gives more.
I don't I'm thankful for a father that gave me a lot of truth, but I certainly don't limit myself in my understanding to what my Father taught me. I respect him, yes, but I think the Lord has taught me a few things by myself. I've gotten it from the word of God and I'm thankful for it. I hope I can pass it on to my children too, and they pass it on. Faithfulness is this is what I see that we need to emphasize better. And it's not a question God chooses whether we get much or little, but whatever we got.
It's required faithfulness.
Something that's been helpful to me, first of all, the foundation has been laid. So as far as the form worker, where we don't or what we do, that's already been established. But Mr. Darby wrote a track because somebody asked him to.
Set down a.
The principle that the truths that were essential to his religious system that he was associated. So he thought about that we all and sure many of us have read the track. What I learned from scripture and the comments that he made that was helpful to me was.
As soon as he starts to divide it up, the truth up as a unit, to divide it up, it's like taking a tree and cutting it up. You have pieces of wood. He says that the only way that we can understand the truth and carry it out is to look at it and behold it as a whole. And so.
If you want to, if fruit is important, the only way that you can really understand it and maintain it and nourish it and produce it is when the tree is a living.
System and so the roots have something to do with it. The trunk has something to do with it. The branches, the leaves, everything has a part in them. And so for myself, the hindrance with me and I'm sure everyone of us is that certain things become more important than others. And there are certain parts that we exclude because they're contrary to what I want. And so if the truth as a whole, it's it's been entrusted to us is one thing and we can be thankfulness gathered to the Lord's name is that we can open up the book of Corinthians.
In any chapter and we can open it up and we may have difficulties we may have we struggle with it and carrying it out practically, but it's given to us in relation to the whole truth and by grace we can understand if we submit.
You in the back of the book. 22 in the back of the book.
Holy.
My voice of God and Father, we thank you for our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and how it touches our hearts to think of ourselves here in a tiny speck of that universe. Minds can't even conceive the size of it, but to think of those words uttered by the Lord Jesus thy Son. And this is like eternal that they may know thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ who now is sent. And we thank you, our blessed God and Father, that we've been brought to know thee as we've had these words of comfort and exhortation.
Brought before us and to stir us up and to exercise us about those things that are a hindrance to knowing Thee more and knowing Thee together we do prayer. Blessed Godfather, Thou bless the word that we've had before us so far. We do thank Thee for Thy kindness and thy goodness. Our blessed God, to think that Thou should think on us before we took our ever breath, our first breath, before the first stars ever shone. That Thou art. Love was set upon us and purposed us for blessing. And so we do pray that in our lives and in our conduct. 1 to another.
That they may reflect that love and give thee pleasure. We give thee thanks, our blessed God and Father, and our Savior's precious and worthy name.
Amen.