Open—Enos McCavour
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Without grace, shall I say it? And if we don't, we'll try to come through that. That's where I'm at my home.
With anything about our provisioning, but thou know how many father has a great name. Oh God I love my daddy.
Right.
Right.
Now what I want to do is transcend them a lot while I'm.
And close plain gather the thighs eye.
Level underneath all of everything.
There are so many people who are hard to get in ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
And and uh.
Is there anything there or something?
Long to remember to speak in English.
Long return to work as well as they they are blah blah blah blah.
Dial David Hilfenhaus.
To turn to 1St Corinthians chapter one, chapter one, verse 10. Now we see you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, they all speak the same thing. They'll be the old divisions among you about that. You'd be perfectly joined together. Same line, the same judgment.
There is been a declared unto me of my brethren, and which are of the House of Cleo, that there are contentions among you, as I say, that every one of you said, I am a Paul, I am a Paulus, Cephas, and eye of Christ.
Some time ago I was reading a little booklet, I think it was Brother Bruce Asti.
And, uh, since the time of reformation, I think you mentioned that.
Every 17 years or so there's been a division among the Lord's people of some sort. Scattering or something has come in.
We haven't had any, and I don't wanna suggest that the Lord may be printing something in. Uh, I would like to think that we're just a remnant and the Lord's coming is very imminent and, uh, we're gonna be kept all together until that shout's given. We'll be all raptured home together.
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But there's always a possibility that there could be another testing that comes along and, uh, to mention those standing in the evil day, that's the day of testing.
I know myself there's been problems in the Assembly since I've been gathered different places. We don't do very well in discerning the Lord's mind in these things.
Applying Scripture and and to discover from scripture what the Lord would have us to do, we don't do very well. My concern is there's younger ones that are coming along. If if we're left here much longer, testimony is going to lie with you.
And.
How are you gonna handle it?
A problem comes along.
Well, I didn't wanna suggest any particular type of problem today, but more or less.
To look at perhaps three things that are the cause, the result of the problems since reformation 3 things I think that is brought out here in this first book of First Corinthians. The apostle Paul noticed these things. Among them there was a.
Attention here because they had their eye off of Christ and onto one another and we know that's what that leads to. And in the book of Proverbs, I think it's chapter 13, uh, verse 10, it says only by pride come with contention. But the last part of that verse, sometimes we don't quote it says, but with the well advised, there is wisdom.
I think the apostle Paul was applying that verse here in First Corinthians. He saw that.
Well, there wasn't much spiritual wisdom. Perhaps they had all sorts of gifts. They, they came behind a no gift. There was lots of knowledge among them and everything. But, uh.
There's lots of things they didn't know and, uh, I think it's eight times repeated in the next few chapters over, uh, it says, uh.
No, you're not.
No, you're not. It goes on to mention different things to them about.
Certain things they were, seemed to be vague and knowledge about Was marriage going to court with one another? Umm, there was a moral, uh, wickedness in the assembly that they didn't judge.
There were a number of things that, uh, they weren't, uh, paying any attention to. And the Apostle Paul would seek to, uh, bring, uh, those things before them that they might correct them and go on. And we're no different.
We're no different. We, uh, we're subject to those same things because we have the flesh in US.
And, uh, very, very things that happened to the Corinthian states can easily, easily happen to us. We're not above anything that they, they fell victim to.
Those three things that I mentioned that that I noticed.
Leading up to chapter 1011, three things that the apostle Paul would would have wanted to correct them about because.
We're called into a fellowship. Let's look at First Corinthians chapter 10.
Verse 16 There it says, the cup of blessing which we bless is not the communion of the blood of Christ, the bread which we break, Is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
It's not the What I'm Speaking of here isn't the table that we have on Lord's Day morning where we we set the elements on.
Because we're called into a fellowship with the Lord, we're in fellowship with the Son and the Father and the Holy Spirit, all three.
And we're called into this place of fellowship and it's it's called the Lord's Table.
It's, uh, where he is, where he's promised to be among his people.
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And, uh, the ground of that fellowship, of course.
It's the blood of Christ that's put first we know in verse 16 and then it's a loaf.
Because of the fellowship that we have together, the ground that we meet on is the blood of Christ. Without that shedding of blood, we still be in our sins or wouldn't be a ground of fellowship. And then of course the body is is put last, but it's not a physical table as we have the emblems on in Lord's Day morning. It's a symbolic table because.
Every believer God sees is part of that one body.
And every, every believer has a responsibility to practically, uh, follow the instructions of the word of God as to that one body. That is where we should meet together. And all those things are practical.
But we know that that testimony, that fellowship has been broken up into many different factions over over the years. So we have a lot of denominations. We have a lot of.
The Lord's people that that just has split off and they go anywhere they like. This is not scriptural. The Lord has a place for for every one of his own and that that's in the body. He has placed us there.
And, uh, because he has placed us there, no, no believer can ever be really taken out of it. But, uh.
We only only way that we can be taken out of it as we do it ourselves practically and unfortunately many have done this by not following the instructions of the word of God well.
There are three, uh, different things that I'd like to look at. One is, uh, ecclesiastical evil. It's, uh.
Somebody's gonna be at the lawyers table. Shouldn't be going on with something that would be dishonouring and displeasing to the Lord if, uh, ecclesiastical evil I believe is mentioned that uh, in this 10th chapter.
In verse 18 mentions Israel after the flesh. Are they not? Which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
And So what that brings before us is.
That whatever is sacrificed in the place where we come together to the Lord, our prayers, our thanksgivings, whatever it is that's going up to Him.
We're partakers of it.
And so if I go to a place where I know that the doctrine that's spoken there isn't according to Scripture, and I'm a partaker of that.
And I'm a partaker of everything that goes on in that system or that place. And if it's wrong doctrine or if there's moral evil there that's not judged, if they accept people that's been married three or four times, all that kind of thing, those kind of things are.
What we would refer to as there's moral evil, there's doctrinal evil and ecclesiastical evil, but if we're mixed up in a system that's going on with any of those things, it's ecclesiastical evil where we're departing away from where the Lord would have us to be at the time. This was written here for the Corinthians Saints.
There wasn't any divisions among the Lord's people like we know today.
The one body was still intact. There wasn't any outward divisions, but the seeds were there, as we see in the first chapter. And so the Apostle Paul was seeking to nip these things in the body, you might say, before they developed into.
The visions and heresies and so on.
But today we know that the Church has been divided up practically.
Into many different umm.
Denominations and so on. And so if you're going to one of those places, it's important that you look in the Word of God and find out what they're doing there is that according to Scripture, this is according to what the Word of God tells us in Scripture. And if it isn't, then you know, you should go look elsewhere. But what I would mention to you today is.
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All the guidance that we have in Scripture, we have good guidance to where the Lord would have us to meet in Scripture. I just mentioned those three things.
Ecclesiastical evil.
Uh, the other two evils, I just look at this briefly. I don't have time to go into anything in detail, but uh, First Corinthians 5.
Which are familiar with with the one that was put away there for moral evil.
It says there.
In verse six, that your glorying is not good, know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
So the principle there is that if there's evil in the assembly, if it's not judged, it's going to affect, it does affect the whole assembly. And it's not just your local assembly. When you're when we're Speaking of the body of Christ is every believer that's in that body that has an effect on the whole church. And and so that is.
The effect that that moral evil has in the Church of God.
It's like, uh, putting a a.
One bad apple in a a barrel of good ones, That one bad one will spoil a whole barrel if it's let go. And then the other one that we have doctrinal evil. We have that in Galatians.
Galatians 5 it is.
In verse nine it says there again is repeated a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Here it was false teachers come in that were seeking to put the Corinthian Saints back under the law.
So this evil was a doctrinal evil.
It was just as bad as the moral evil and would have the same effect of dividing up the Lord's people and, uh, it was to be judged just like the moral evil would need to be judged. And so the apostle Paul says.
I would that they were even cut off which trouble you verse 12. This is not something that's that's taken lightly and God doesn't take it lightly and if we provoke provoke God, he God will act and so there's three kinds of evil that.
For those that are gathered to the Lord's name, we should be careful about ecclesiastical evil, doctrinal evil, and moral evil. Those three things, well, we see that the Corinthians, Saints they were.
Uh, going on in a bad way. They were, they were looked at as being carnal or fleshly. They were walking after the flesh and it was all sorts of problems that they were having. And the, the apostle Paul knew that if they weren't corrected, they would come in, they come into the assembly and would have that same effect of destroying the testimony. And so he's very careful to seek to bring.
Bring that to them to put those things away.
And so he uses it. Go back to First Corinthians 10 again.
I'll mention the three things now that I, uh.
That I feel that it's the same today for us as it was for them. The three things that I believe that has caused every division.
Every scattering, every sort of, uh, problem in our Christian lives and our pathway. Three things, and that is.
Self denial.
Self denial, denying oneself for the benefit of others.
If there was that denial of self put into practice, we wouldn't have these problems.
And then there's another self.
Self-control.
Self-control, keeping the body, the mind, the spirit under control of the Word of God.
Self-control.
Then of course we have self judgment. We're to judge ourselves. We would not be judged. Three things that are prominent all the way through this book of Corinthians. There was a lack of that and the apostle Paul to teach them he he showed them by a sample.
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Let's turn to.
1St Corinthians 9.
The Apostle Paul wasn't very well accepted by the Corinthian Saints. He, he didn't look at him as a real apostle. Umm, he wasn't, He didn't come from Jerusalem. He didn't come the way of the other apostles. He got his apostleship from the Lord himself, but he was an apostle. He was appointed as an apostle.
He says, Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Am I not seen?
Jesus Christ our Lord, are you not my work in the Lord, the work, the their salvation itself was proof enough that he was an apostle son of the Lord, but they didn't treat him as such. See, they didn't support him in his work and.
The Apostle Paul sought to correct them. In this, I'm not going to go into too much detail.
About that, I'll just mention a few things that he brought before them, not for his own benefit.
But for the benefit, I believe of others that would come after him to correct that with the Corinthian Saints, so that they would see.
That's important to support those that are out into the Lord's work and, uh, he brings before them.
There first of all, he had rights, uh and verse three, my answer to them to them that do examine me is this that we not power to eat and drink. We not power to eat about a sister, a wife as well as other apostles as brethren of the Lord and Cephas.
We're all or I only and Barnabas have we not powered for bear working or hold back working. They worked. They provided not only for themselves but for the others that were with them. He was a tent maker and he he worked hard, the apostle Paul to provide.
For what what he was lacking from Corinthians Saints, he worked to provide it himself.
He breathed before them that umm.
He brings the foil on the soldier. He brings before them a farmer and he brings it brings before them a shepherd. All these three partake of the occupation that they're in. They they're rewarded for it in some way that who, who, who go with the warfare anytime those own charges.
Who planted the vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof? Or who feedeth the flock and eateth not of the milk of the flock?
And, uh, he brings out about, uh, old temp, old, uh, testament scripture about oxen, uh, doth God take care for oxen? It says you not the muzzle, the mouth of the ox that credits out the corn and so on. And so he brings these pretzels, principles before them and also that, uh.
The 13th verse Verse. Do you not know that they which minister vote holy things live on the things of the temple? May which wait at the altar, are partakers with the altar.
And so a priest had offered up the sacrifice of the Lord. Part of that, uh, sacrifice belonged to the priest.
Fed them and so on. So he raised these principles before them that they had a responsibility to to support him and those who were with him in the work, but they refused to do it and so he says.
In verse 15.
I have used none of these things or none of these rights, neither have I written these things that that it should be done unto me. He wasn't looking to write these things to them, to chastise them, to chastise them for his own self or his own benefit, but for others. And he's a very unselfish person and it shows us he gave up these rights that he had.
And that was self denial he denied himself.
So that the testimony that he had before them and before the Lord would not be damaged and, uh.
It was a lovely example of, of, uh, self denial by the Apostle Paul so that the Christians could see, uh, hopefully they would see it.
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I'd just like to look in on that particular, uh, subject. Self denial.
The perfect example that we have is found in Romans.
Romans 15.
We then utter strong, ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and ought to please ourselves. Now this is self denial.
To bear somebody else's problems and help them along. And, uh, not to please ourselves.
Well, we know that that's hard to do, isn't it? Sometimes we we like to put ourselves first. I have an old nature and that old nature would always want to put myself 1St and then it's usually other second. And a lot of times it's it's the Lord in the last place. But it says let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification.
And then it says, For even Christ, please, not himself, but as is written.
The reproaches of them, that reproach thee fell on me. All the reproaches that man had against God the Father and against God the Creator, they fell on the head of the Lord Jesus Christ. When He was here, He took those reproaches. And we know that the Lord Jesus denied himself. He, He laid aside His glory to come down from that home above.
He went right down to.
Uh, to be made a man, He took on manhood, uh, made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. He can break down three steps, and then the last step he went down even further and going to the cross to bear the judgment for our sins. So the Lord Jesus is a perfect example for us.
In self denial deny himself or us and we know it's hard but.
It's, uh, I remember talking to a brother some time ago and often call once in a while and, uh, ask him about his family and everything. And I know he had a dog and I asked him, you know, with the dog and don't have that anymore recently.
I said, oh, I said, what happened? The diary hit by a car? No, he said.
He said. I just, uh.
You know, there's some, uh, Saints that we'd like to have in our home have visit and he says they're allergic. He says I had a cat too and I, I let the cat go.
Well, you know, I'm not suggesting anybody here today that has a dog or a cat to get rid of their dog or cat. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that this brother had an exercise. He wanted to have fellowship with some of the Saints that he knew that they wouldn't come to his house if he because they were allergic to the dog or the cat. And so he was willing to.
Give them away or to somebody else who could look after them.
And to enjoy the fellowship of the Saints, Well, that's a good example of what, uh, self denial is. And then self, uh, control. We haven't 1St Corinthians 9 as well.
The Apostle Paul said in verse 27, But I keep under my body, read it into subjection, lest by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. Oh, you know that Paul was in the castaway and he couldn't be a castaway. He was the Lord, but he didn't want to give the appearance if he if he wasn't keeping his body under himself or keeping it in control.
It certainly would give the appearance that maybe he wasn't real. How many?
Televangelists or people today that we know over time have gotten themselves into moral problems, uh, with the misuse of the body. And we don't know it brings into question where they, were they really the Lords or not? You really question that because of their actions. And so the apostle Paul is very careful to keep his body under self-control.
So he would not bring reproach upon upon the Lord's name when he when he preached the gospel.
It should be a lesson to us as well that I think it says those that preach the gospel should live with the gospel. I think it's verse 14.
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Is Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live with the gospel? And so the Apostle Paul, he, he sought to do that and, uh, he knew that if he didn't, uh, keep things under control, that, uh, his ministry, his preaching would be brought into question. And so it's a very important thing, self-control.
The other one we read about is in Chapter 11.
About judgment.
Judging themselves.
Verse 31 This is a.
For if we would judge yourselves, we should not be judged, but when we are judged, we are chasten of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
This is in connection with the Lord's Table. There were some that perhaps were there at the Lord's Table and there was going on with things that were sinful, not right, and they were failing to judge it. And of course, if the assembly doesn't judge it, the Lord will. He'll command and he'll, he'll correct it and so.
This was the other important thing. So there was self denial, self-control.
And self judgment, when you think about it, all the problems that we have personally and throughout the church history, if we want to be honest, fall under one of the three most times all three. And the Lord brings out before them in, in, uh, the the first part of 1St Corinthians 10 just before.
He takes up the Lord's table. He brings before them about the children of Israel when they were in the wilderness.
I'm not gonna go into it because time is pretty well gone, but had mentioned there are different things that, uh, show that those that were causing these things had no sense of any self denial. They, they were, they weren't thinking of others. They were just thinking of themselves when they were doing these things and there wasn't any self-control involved in it. They were out of control and the Lord had to come in and judge.
So much so that.
The Tabernacle had to be taken out of the camp, far off from the camp, and when they went to worship, they had to go out of the camp, beyond the camp, the worship, The camp was so defiled by what they did that the God couldn't stay there.
And, uh, and so he brings these things in, he screws in just before he mentions about our fellowship with the, with the Lord at the Lord's table is a table is symbolic in nature because it's, we can't really see everyone that's at the Lord's table. We just don't, can't see that. But if we could look at it in a physical way.
If you could put every believer on the face of the earth at A at a physical table.
I don't know where, where it would end if it started here in Toronto, may go all the way to New York City or even further, I don't know. But it just, uh, if you try to get a picture of every believer the way God sees him at his table, it was a physical table. We don't know how far that would stretch, but we're not given to, He doesn't give it to us in that way. He presents it as a table, but it's a symbolic table.
But every believer is is in the body of Christ.
And are expected to be at that table. And there's instructions of Luke 24 and so on how we should, uh, uh, follow the man with a pitcher of water. There's enough instructions in the word of God to show us where he would have us to be.
As believers, there's enough instruction that He has given to us to point the way and to show us where we should be remembering the Lord in his death and we're.
Who we should be having fellowship with, but uh, it's to be searched out. I'm not going to go into those truths. Most of them mostly just probably know them anyway. But uh, it's important to bear in mind that we're at the Lord's table. There's three evils that the Lord is going to protect the Lord Jesus from ecclesiastical evil.
Moral evil and doctrinal evil. And if we don't judge those things, the Lord will.
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And uh.
I'd just like to leave you with those, umm, thoughts.