So, our evening services are going to be going through the book of 1st Corinthians.
So we're going to be going through chapter by chapter, and we're going to start obviously with 1st Corinthians chapter 1.
So just a little background, Corinth is a city in Greece, 50 miles west from Athens.
Paul was there particularly in Acts 18.
We see in the book of 1st Corinthians is a letter from Paul to the church he started at Corinth.
So church being a congregation that he started at Corinth.
Right, so chapter 1 verse 1.
Paul called to be an apostle with Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sostenes our brother.
So Paul's called to be an apostle, he's saying here.
Now, he says the same in Romans 1, and we don't have to turn it, but turn to Acts 1 21.
So Acts chapter 1, verse 21.
OK, and here we see, we'll read through it quickly.
Wherefore, of these men which have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
beginning from the baptism of John unto that same day that he was taken up from us,
one must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.
And they appointed two, Joseph called Baspas, who was so named Justus, and Matthias.
And they prayed and said, Thou Lord, which knoweth the hearts of all men, show whether of these two Thou hast chosen,
that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, for which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.
And they gave forth their lots, and a lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
Now, I believe that the apostles tried to do it their way here, and they tried to make this twelfth apostle.
Obviously, Judas had died at this point.
But we never see Matthias mentioned again.
And I think that, really, we see with time who God's choice was, and I think God's choice was Paul.
And Paul here is with Sostenes, and Paul is the choice. He's called to be an apostle.
And it's interesting that the only other place that Sostenes is mentioned is as a chief ruler of the synagogue,
getting beaten by the Greeks in Acts 18, 17. Again, you don't have to turn there.
But verse two, unto the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints, with all that in every place called upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.
OK, so here sanctified is made holy.
And straight away, we see that a saint is someone who calls upon the name of Jesus Christ.
So that's a good one to tell to these Roman Catholics and whatnot who will call people like Mother Teresa and many,
many others, and Saintness, Saint that, like these special, you know, people above the believers.
No, a believer is a saint. And we see that throughout Scripture.
In fact, Paul refers to them in Romans, the church at Rome, first and second credited,
the church at Ephesians, Philippi, Philippians and Colossae are all addressed as saints.
So calling upon the name of the Lord is what makes you a saint.
Calling upon the name of the Lord is part of belief. And it is the Gospel.
If you believe, you need to call upon the name of the Lord. That's how you're trusting Jesus Christ.
And some people try to call this works. I don't know if you've ever heard this before, where people try and say,
oh, yeah, you know, that's works. It's belief only.
Well, I don't know, because I mean, I've had people on the door where I've given them the Gospel.
They said, yeah, I get it all. Yeah, but I don't disagree with anyone.
OK, you ready to call upon the name of the Lord? Well, no, no, no.
I'll think about it. They are just not ready.
OK, so they understood it all, didn't they? They claim to believe,
but they're not willing to put their trust, to really believe, to put their faith in Christ.
It might be sin that's holding them back. We need to call on the name of the Lord.
If you believe in him and want salvation, then you would ask it, wouldn't you?
If you really want salvation, you want to trust Christ, you're going to ask him.
And of course, there's some great scriptures to just make that point.
If you just go back a few pages, Romans 10, 9, many of us use these in our soul,
we need presentations, Romans 10, 9,
that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thy heart that God is raising from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
That's believing the Gospel and confessing with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.
Romans 10, 13, if you jump forward a few more verses,
for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
And calling upon the name of the Lord has always been salvation throughout the Bible.
And we see it at the beginning in, I think, Genesis 4,
and then began, Genesis, I called upon the name of the Lord.
And it continues throughout the Bible.
Acts 2, 21, turn to Acts 2, 21.
I'll do a verse for this.
Acts 2, 21.
People are always trying to attack something, aren't they?
Acts 2, 21.
It shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Like I said, if you say you believe,
but you're not willing to call on the name of the Lord, I'm saved.
And I sometimes think of the Scripture in, I think it's John 3,
and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.
And a lot of the time they know, they understand,
they believe the Gospel to a point, but they love darkness.
They don't want that light shining on them.
They choose not to put their faith in Christ.
They don't trust him.
They won't call on his name.
Okay, so verse three, let's go forward to verse three.
Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father
and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Okay, just quickly there.
That and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ
doesn't seem to fit this oneness nonsense
that you're hearing a bit more and more of, are you?
And again, there's many, many verses.
And if you haven't heard this, this is a teaching,
and it kind of came, I think, from Pentecostalism,
that God the Holy, I think, what is it?
It's that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost
are basically one person in different forms.
So it ignores verses like this
in the many places where Jesus prays to the Father.
We believe in this Church in the Holy Trinity.
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
all separate distinct beings, but all make up one God.
Okay, that's the Trinity.
That's what we believe in this Church.
Okay, verse four, I thank my God always on your behalf
for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ.
So again, he doesn't mean here
that he's just in an endless prayer,
but is regularly thanking God on their behalf,
which is a nice example, isn't it?
That in everything ye are enriched by him,
in all utterance and in all knowledge.
Now, enriched here is supplied with that which is desirable.
So basically, supplied in all utterance,
so that's your manner of speaking, what you're uttering,
you've heard the word uttering,
what's coming out of your mouth.
So that we're supplied with that which is desirable
in all utterance, so everything we speak,
and in all knowledge.
Okay, and that's something we're aiming towards, isn't it?
Even as a testimony of Christ was confirmed in you,
and testimony is a witness, so basically the Gospel.
Verse seven, so that ye come behind in no gift,
waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And he doesn't want us to lack in any spiritual gifts
that they could receive.
Verse eight, who shall also confirm ye unto the end,
that ye may be blameless in the day
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Confirmest to strengthen us,
and again, like I said earlier this morning,
blameless isn't that you're completely sinless,
but that there's no major sins
that you're at least blameless in heart,
your heart is following God.
Verse nine, God is faithful by whom you were called
unto the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
And amen that God is faithful.
We're in fellowship, turn to John 15 quickly.
John, Gospel of John chapter 15.
And verse 14, Jesus says, ye are my friends
if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Henceforth I call ye not servants,
for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth,
but I have called you friends,
for all things that I have heard of my Father
I have made known unto you.
What an amazing thing that we're friends of Jesus Christ.
And that is amazing, that's a blessing.
Not only are we forgiven, we become friends of Christ.
But again, what does it say here?
It says, if we do whatsoever I command you.
And again, it's not saying that you never do a sin,
but we should be seeking, we should be trying our utmost
to follow the commandments of God.
We're in fellowship therefore with Jesus Christ.
But fellowship for a time can be distanced,
can be broken, can be worse, can't it?
If we're choosing to live in sin,
we're seeking after sin, we're willfully sinning,
then it can break that fellowship.
Okay, but what an amazing gift we're given there.
Verse 10, now I beseech you brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
that ye all speak the same thing
and that there be no divisions among you,
but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind
and in the same judgment.
Okay, so no divisions.
And again, he's talking to the church here at Corinth.
So this isn't saying that we just turn a blind eye
to everything, well, we better not say anything.
No, but it's that we're all in one,
we should all be in one mind.
That's especially in doctrine
and especially in things of the church,
things of the spirit.
Verse 11, for it has been declared unto me of you,
my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe,
that there are contentions among you.
So contentions are strife, angry disagreements.
What does he say?
He says, now this I say that every one of you saith,
I am of Paul and I have Apollos and I have Cephas
and I have Christ.
Okay, so Acts 18, 24, you don't have to turn it,
it describes Apollos as a certain Jew named Apollos,
born of Alexandria, an eloquent man
and mighty in the scriptures.
So he's a pretty special guy, Apollos.
He gets saved, he was already mighty in the scriptures,
he gets saved and he goes on to do great stuff.
Cephas is Peter, Simon Peter.
Cephas means a stone, see that in John one.
And here basically, they're following men, aren't they?
They're following men.
And you can go too far the other way here
where you basically say, I'm no follower of man.
And basically, I'm not gonna listen to the teachings
of any pastor or I'm not gonna take,
I'm not gonna listen and be led by anyone at all.
And the Bible doesn't say that, the Bible gives leadership.
It gives men the ordination of preaching.
But our ultimate, as we know, our final authority
should be the word of God, shouldn't it?
Now, you might think of that saying,
well, we're not like that, we know it's the word of God,
but how many people may be here and,
well, I'm of Pastor Thompson or I'm of Pastor Anderson,
well, I'm of Pastor Jimenez.
And maybe I'm of Ravi Zacharias or some other,
no, I'm only messing about Ravi Zacharias, obviously.
Yeah, but people will do that, won't they?
And they'll start to really hang on what those people say
and they'll stop testing it by scripture
and they'll, when something, there's a question
or there's a bit of a disagreement
or maybe you're unsure about something,
instead of going, right, I need to search the scriptures
like the Bereans, instead, they'll go to a sermon.
Oh, well, I found a sermon or I found a clip
or I found something, this person said this.
Now, don't get me wrong, if it's clear from scripture, great.
But really, we should be searching scripture, shouldn't we?
Nothing wrong with enjoying good preaching.
There's nothing wrong with that and praise God for it
because we've learned so much from good preaching.
But we should be searching the scriptures
and that's where we should first go
and that's how we're gonna grow as Christians ourselves
if we go to the scriptures instead of constantly trying
to go to our favourite preacher
and everyone can be guilty of that.
Okay, is Christ divided?
Verse 13, was Paul crucified for you
or were you baptised in the name of Paul?
So like I say, ultimately, we all follow Jesus Christ,
not men and Jesus, like I say, has ordained leadership though
and when we're talking about clear things in scripture,
obviously, what scripture says, that is our final authority.
But what about the little things?
What about how a church runs?
What about how we should live in this church,
how we should behave in a church?
What little things this church does?
Well, this is Pastor Thompson's church.
Yes, it's Jesus Christ's church but he is a pastor
so we do it his way.
Now, he's making it clear to me how he wants things done
and that's what we do now.
So regardless of what other churches do,
regardless of what other pastors do,
we do it the way he does it.
And that's what we do and we submit
and we've all gotta be able to do that,
to submit to what our pastor tells us he wants us to do.
And again, and he's not going to,
if anything he said contradicted scripture,
that would be a different thing
but he's not asking us to do that.
So like we say, we don't want to be going the other way
where it's literally just hang off every word they say
and anything they say, that's fine.
The authority don't even care what the Bible says.
What does my favorite pastor say?
But on the other hand, we don't want to be of that,
well, I don't obey man.
Like we're somehow so much better
and so much above that.
And people, I've heard people say that.
And we don't want to be like that.
Okay, verse 14.
I thank God that I baptize none of you
but Crispus and Gaius.
So Crispus was actually previously
the chief ruler of the synagogue at Corinth
and Gaius is Paul's companion.
He's mentioned quite a few times in the New Testament.
Verse 15, lest any should say
that I had baptized in mine own name.
Okay, baptism is about what you believe
and what it's a picture of
and it's not so much who does it.
Now we all do believe here that like in scripture,
it's done by ordained men of God, okay?
And in scripture, it's always people
that have some form of office of God,
some form of ordination there.
And that's why we need to be waiting here
for Pastor Tom to come here.
Some of you guys who aren't baptized yet,
it's something we need to wait for
but it's kind of put in its place here in a second.
Basically comparing baptism to salvation.
He says here, no in fact, just a couple of points there.
If you've been baptized by, for example,
what you think now is a false prophet,
it's obviously we should avoid that.
We shouldn't just be going out and letting anyone baptize.
Oh, well, that local church down the road,
that charismatic church, let's just go down there
and they just baptize people every week.
Sure, but I believe the baptism is what it signifies
of what you believe, what you believed
at the time that's important.
That's the main thing.
I don't think you need to be going back
and getting your re-baptism
because the baptism's a picture.
You're basically confessing Christ before men, aren't you?
You're showing what you believe
and giving that picture of his death,
burial and resurrection.
So I personally believe that if you've had a baptism
by someone, as long as you were baptizing,
you believed at that time.
Obviously, if you didn't believe,
if you were at some false church,
you got baptized, then you've got saved.
When you're saved, sure,
you need to be getting baptized for sure.
But if you've been baptized when you were saved by some,
you found out later it was maybe a dodgy pastor,
for me, I believe you still be baptized.
Okay, verse 16,
and I baptized also the household of Stephanus,
besides I know not whether I baptized any other.
So Paul is kind of confirming the point
that the baptism is not about the person baptizing.
He's basically saying,
I don't even know if I'd baptize anyone else.
And he puts it in place here as well,
because it's more about the salvation.
And we know that.
We've been, probably everyone here,
has all been at these sort of churches where they acted.
The person doesn't get baptized and join the church
and basically sign up to all their beliefs.
They're somehow not saved.
Or it's not, it doesn't really count.
Oh, well, what a shame if they didn't come along to church.
That's not what Paul's saying here, is he?
Paul's gone forth to preach the gospel to everyone.
He's baptized a few people.
And don't get me wrong, baptism is important.
It's an ordinance of God.
And yeah, we want to be getting new believers baptized,
but first we want to be getting people saved, don't we?
And that's the important thing.
We shouldn't be down on it.
Oh, they got saved, but they just didn't get baptized.
Yeah, okay, it's a shame they're not living for God.
It's a shame they're not going out
and doing things for God as well,
not doing what God told them.
But, but they're still saved.
Second Peter 3, 9 says,
The Lord is not slack concerning his promises,
as some men count slackness,
but is longsuffering to us who are not willing
that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
Repentance, as we talked about the other day,
is that change of mind there to faith.
Now, he's not willing that any should perish.
We know that baptism doesn't save.
Well, clearly Paul's saying that here anyway,
because he hardly baptized anyone.
But, and it's talking about that any should perish,
not that any should not be baptized.
So let's put it in its right place.
It's the salvation that's the most important thing
that baptism comes after.
Okay, verse 17,
For Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel,
not with wisdom of words,
lest the cross of Christ be made of none effect.
It's not with wisdom of words how we preach the gospel.
It's not about us persuading some people to believe.
And we can all get sucked into this a little bit.
And the flesh just starts to make you feel,
well, I'm a bit, you know, I've got some salvation.
I really said this the right way at the right time
and everything else.
And that's not what it's about.
Now, don't get me wrong.
We need to explain the scripture.
We're gonna talk about that in a second.
But I remember my first attempts at soul winning.
I didn't understand this point that it was about,
it's about the cross of Christ, about the word of God.
And I was out there just trying to persuade people,
trying to debate with them about evolution.
And I was not getting one person saved
and family and friends having these long debates
and trying to prove to them the intelligence
that I somehow had to be saved
or that the Bible showed and how much it made sense.
No, it's a fake.
It's fake.
It's all about faith.
Sure, once you're saved, you know.
You know, there's no, you know, you know 100%
and how ridiculous so much else is.
But the Bible says it's not about wisdom of words,
it's not about how we persuade people to get saved.
It's the power of the word.
It's the word of God that saves.
The power of the cross and the word of God.
Turn to Romans 10.
Some of this is, you know, is old doctrine for some of you
but it's important as well.
It's good to go over these basics.
Romans 10, 14 says,
How then shall they call on him
in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach except they be sent?
As it is written, how beautiful are the feet in them
that preach the gospel of peace
and bring glad tidings of good things.
Okay, so the Bible here is saying,
it's saying here that they have to be preached to.
How should they hear without a preacher?
We have to go out and preach the word of God.
And the Bible also says that when you're going out,
God's looking at us going,
what beautiful feet we have.
When we're out pounding those streets
and, you know, if you saw,
especially my foot that I used to kick with a lot,
sure ain't beautiful in my eyes,
but God's looking down going, you've got beautiful feet.
And I really like that.
And it is because he's looking down,
he's seeing us going out and doing something.
Yeah, he's told us to do it.
Yeah, you know, we shouldn't get puffed up about it
but it's something that God wants us to do.
God appreciates that that we're doing that.
How beautiful are the feet of them
that preach the gospel of peace
and bring glad tidings of good things.
Okay, churches, it requires a preacher, sure.
And that's not the person at this pulpit,
that's every person that goes out and preach the word of God.
And churches need to be sending out someone,
as they need to be sent out.
And now, again, praise God that we were getting sent out
by people thousands and thousands of miles away,
encouraging us to go out and preach the gospel.
And look, again, I'm not, this isn't on people again.
If you're newly saved, it could be a while,
but God is clear that people are saved
through hearing the gospel preached to them.
It's the only way they're getting saved.
And all of us have been saved
because we've had the gospel preached to us,
we had the word of God given to us and preached to us.
And without that, without those preachers,
no one here would be saved.
That's the way God does it.
And that means that we all have a massive responsibility here
and that's why this will always be a soul winning church.
And we will be adding more soul winning times as well now
as we start to grow and settle as a church.
We don't have to go to everyone
but we're gonna have options for people.
So it's not, you know, we can add soul winning,
because soul winning is so important.
Okay, so the faith comes by hearing the word of God.
So have a look at verse 16, 17.
That they have not all obeyed the gospel,
for as I have said, Lord, who hath believed our report?
So then faith cometh by hearing
and hearing by the word of God.
Okay, so the faith comes by hearing the word of God.
This isn't an isolated scripture.
Another one I like is if you turn to Ephesians 1, 13.
Ephesians chapter one, which is forward from Galatians,
sorry, from Romans, through 1st, 2nd Corinthians,
Galatians to Ephesians.
Ephesians 1, 13 says, talking about Jesus Christ,
in whom ye also trusted,
after that ye heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation,
in whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed
with that Holy Spirit of promise.
So it's the word of God that saves.
It's not the wisdom of words.
Yes, you need to explain the scripture.
We'll talk about that in a second.
But you have to be preaching the word of God.
And that's why for me,
people going around with false Bibles,
they ain't getting people saved.
And it might be, you might think this is old news
for some of you, but for maybe some others not.
You know, we've got a mixture of people at these churches,
mixture of ages, mixture of people who, you know,
at different stages of faith.
And let's just make it clear that I really,
I find it hard to find a verse.
People go, well, if it's a verse that hasn't been shown,
I find it hard to find a verse in a false Bible
that is clear on salvation.
And I haven't seen it.
Whenever you look at the clear salvation verses,
or at least the ones that we like to use,
they alter them, they change them, little changes.
You know, declaring that Jesus is the Lord
instead of, you know, confessing with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus.
Lots of little things, they just change it a little bit.
They're subtle little changes.
And that's why, again, here, you know,
and if you, when we start to build it,
we have people coming in, we want to be making it clear
that it's the King James Bible we're going out with,
and we're not going to start just, you know,
letting people come out and start preaching
a different word.
That's not how it's going to run here.
It has to be the word of God.
We have no doubt when Jesus,
I believed God when he said he preserved his word.
Clear as day, he preserved his word,
and this is what we've got here.
Okay, so no false Bibles, even experienced soul winners
can maybe not forget that about the Bible versions,
but can forget that little bit about,
or at least they start to run a little bit
with how great their particular way
of presenting the gospel is.
And don't get me wrong, we want to have a clear presentation.
You know, we want to explain it clearly.
We want to make it interactive as well.
But in the same way, when we're out preaching the gospel,
you've got to remember it's a word of God.
Get that word to them.
Get those verses out.
Now, they also need explaining.
Turn to Acts 8, where I read 1 Corinthians 2.14.
1 Corinthians 2.14 says,
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.
So, again, we believe in this church
that you can't just read the Bible and get saved.
You can't read a tract and get saved.
You have to have had that it preached to you
and explained to you.
It's not happening.
And people try and find ways around this.
They try and find ways around this
because they don't want to either preach against
or believe against certain churches
where they're just giving out tracts.
And some obviously want to believe this
because they want to just give out tracts.
And they don't want to be bold and go up
and have what isn't necessarily always that comfortable
going to people's doors, knocking on doors,
and trying to give them the gospel,
going out into the streets, giving the gospel.
It starts to creep in that, well, give them a tract.
I remember a pastor recently saying,
well, why would I go out and give out,
it was, I think, anti-lockdown stuff,
where I could be giving them the words of eternal life?
Well, that would be true had he actually been preaching
the gospel and not giving out tracts.
And I'd agree with that if you're actually giving out tracts
because what is our main thing?
What is our main goal is getting people saved?
And that's what Paul was doing.
He was out preaching the gospel.
But we're preaching the gospel.
That is important.
That is definitely important for us to be doing.
And like we said, you can't just read it.
Acts eight, if you look at verse 26,
26, and it's a story, it's not a particularly long story.
We're going to go through it just quickly.
And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip,
saying, Arise and go toward the south,
unto the way that goeth down
from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.
And he arose and went, and behold,
a man of Ethiopian eunuch of great authority
under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians,
who had the charge of all her treasure
and had come to Jerusalem for to worship,
was returning and sitting in his chariot,
read Isaiah the prophet.
Then the Spirit said unto Philip,
Go near and join thyself to this chariot.
And Philip ran thither to him
and heard him read the prophet Isaiah,
and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
And he said, How can I, except some man, should guide me?
And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
The place of scripture which he read was this.
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter
like a lamb done before his shearer.
So opened he not his mouth.
In his humiliation his judgment was taken away.
Who shall declare his generation?
For his life is taken from the earth.
And the eunuch answered Philip and said,
I pray thee of whom speakers the prophet this,
of himself or of some other man?
And Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture
and preached unto him Jesus.
And as they went on their way,
they came unto a certain water,
and a eunuch said, See here is water.
What doth hinder me to be baptised?
And Philip said, If thou believeest with all thine heart,
thou mayest.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God.
And he commanded the chariot to stand still,
and they went down both into the water,
both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptised him.
And when they were come up out of the water,
the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip,
that the eunuch saw him no more,
and he went on his way rejoicing.
But Philip was found a zotest and passed through,
and sorry, passing through,
he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
Okay, so it's a great story there,
and we see there that you say,
how can I accept some man should guide me?
And I don't think that story's in there for a mistake.
I don't think it's a mistake
every single person getting saved in the Bible
is getting preached the gospel.
I mean, we see it clearly in the New Testament as well,
where they're hearing scripture,
even Paul is sent to hear it,
to hear what he has to do from a man.
And we're seeing this time and time again in the gospel,
sorry, in the New Testament,
that they have to have it explained,
have it preached unto them.
No one, no one in the whole Bible
reads the word of God and gets saved.
It doesn't happen.
So why do these people do this?
Why are they constantly trying to change this doctrine,
trying to, again, I think it's just because
they don't really want to get out.
It's a fleshly thing to try and find another way.
And definitely not a lot of worldly wisdom
about God-shaped holes in your heart and stuff like this.
Have you ever heard this sort of nonsense?
So I was with a so-called pastor a while back out preaching
and it's like, where's the scripture?
You're just there trying to convince people
to believe in God.
In fact, I've heard this with a couple of different pastors
and I've heard people do it.
Where's the scripture?
Where are the verses?
It's the word of God that saves,
but it has to be explained as well, okay?
Verse 18, so back to 1 Corinthians 1.
Verse 18, for the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness,
but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God.
Okay, how many times do we hear the unsaved
act as if we're fools?
They call us brainwashed, don't they?
You heard that stuff before?
They called us brainwashed.
And the irony is ridiculous, isn't it?
It's so ironic that us with our book and the odd preacher,
we might maybe once a week at church,
maybe some people are listening to a bit more preaching,
are apparently brainwashed.
Yet these people who are getting the same junk
just thrown into their mind through TVs,
through obviously now phones and tablets
and the music industry and everything,
somehow they're free thinking.
Yet you and I are brainwashed.
2 Corinthians 4 says, in whom the God of this world
has blinded the minds of them which believe not less
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
for as the image of God should shine unto them.
And he has blinded their minds,
and it's not just that he's blinded through these forms,
these new technology forms of brainwashing,
it's been going on for the beginning of time.
And a big part of it is a work of salvation, isn't it?
Through one way or another.
And that's being hammered down people.
Obviously there's a lot of brainwashing right now
about God not even being real,
which is a convenient excuse for some,
I don't even believe in God.
Ridiculous, foolish, but that is only one of it
and although we see it a lot,
the majority of people do believe in some form of God,
they just believe in work salvation.
They've been conned through various false religions
and everything else.
And again, that's the brainwash.
That's the brainwash.
And that brainwash isn't just coming from their local
once a week, twice a week, whatever it is,
church, synagogue, what do they call it?
Mosque, mosques.
And the rest of it, kingdom halls, you name it.
It's coming from the media, isn't it?
Because it's all just pushing this work salvation,
work salvation.
The Bible says a fool has set in his heart
that there is no God,
yet they think we're foolish
for preaching the God of the Bible.
Verse 19, for it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
and will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent.
And there are some wise,
sounding people in this world, aren't there?
There are a lot of wise, sounding people.
And prudent in this context is intelligence.
And a lot of them, they really,
their intelligence is puffed up and built up.
They, who's the guy?
Stephen Hawking.
He was one that, ah, he's so intelligent.
So have you ever tried to read any of that junk?
Absolute drivel.
Like really, like so intelligent,
yet you can't read a book that you even want to
sit through a couple of pages of.
It's ridiculous.
But it's the wisdom of this world, isn't it?
Who's that wicked, wicked reprobate?
Richard Dawkins.
I think you mentioned him in your song recently.
Just these guys.
And they, yeah, they sound so clever,
their use of long words.
But it's foolishness.
It is all foolishness.
When you're starting off on the wrong foot,
there's no God.
It's foolishness, isn't it?
And they're, ultimately,
their wisdom is destroyed by the Bible.
Their intelligence is nothing, is it,
when it leads them to hell.
And it's not, sadly, it's not just them.
They're leading other people to hell.
Those guys are false prophets.
Those atheists, professors,
who are constantly preaching,
only against the God of the Bible.
You notice, it's always a preacher against the Bible.
They are wicked reprobates.
They're not just,
oh, if only we could reach it with the Gospel.
No, they are wicked people.
They are just the same as the false prophet
from, be it the witnesses.
We get, obviously,
I'll think about that
because we see them a lot out here.
The false prophets from the synagogues
or wherever else it is that the Catholic priests,
they're just as wicked, if not worse.
They have a big audience, these guys, as well.
And they're preaching a false gospel.
They're preaching, well,
some form, kind of, of works
in just denying the God of the Bible.
The Bible says in verse 20 here, 1 Corinthians,
where is the wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world?
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
Now, scribes were writers
and transcribers of the Scriptures.
And in general, they were educated, very literate men.
But they're all foolish.
All these guys,
and I had a kind of taste of this a while back in,
so we went through a few illnesses in the family and stuff
and going into hospitals.
And we used to make a joke and call them the doctor gods
because, and people have,
I mean, I know Max over there works in hospitals.
And when you're around these guys,
there's this real hierarchy
and they are treated as the doctor gods.
And people put them on this massive,
sort of, up on this platform.
And what happens, what I noticed with these guys is that
if you question them on pretty simple stuff
and they weren't convincing you,
because a lot of what they bring,
we haven't moved on a lot further
from when they were telling people to use leeches
to suck out their blood,
or from when they were giving people thalidomide and stuff.
And yeah, don't get me wrong,
for trauma, for emergency,
I don't have a clue about a lot of that stuff,
but for illness management,
it's pretty, pretty terrible, isn't it?
And these guys, when you question them,
what they do is they go on a doctor speak.
So if you question them and they think,
right, he's not believing me,
they just, instead of trying to explain to you
in layman's terms,
they go into terms that they hope you won't understand
because they think that then disqualifies you
to even dare to question them.
I don't know if you've noticed this.
You get this in other areas as well.
So when you question the so-called intelligent,
they want to prove their intelligence by long words
that the uneducated shouldn't understand.
Now, if you have a fair inkling
or you've done a bit of reading,
then they're really shocked.
Now they're in big trouble
because they haven't even managed
to rumble you with that one.
And then a lot of the time,
they'll just storm off for something else.
And you see this with all these so-called intelligent people
so often, they're trying to bamboozle you
with long words and clever sounding theories.
And yeah, some of these guys are quite bright,
but a lot of them aren't.
And I was thinking about it as well.
I was thinking when I went to school
and there were some bright kids at my school
and a lot of it,
the only difference was that everybody's studious.
So they were willing to just keep learning
and being told and they sat through everything
and they weren't tearaways like sadly I was and others.
But it wasn't that they were these bright people,
but they went on to what were considered these amazing jobs
that really they'd just been educated.
Educated, educated, educated,
sadly in a lot of places, not in every job.
Some jobs, of course, you need some good education.
But in many cases, they're just educated
by lies and nonsense,
especially when it comes to all this God-hating nonsense
and all this trying to disprove God stuff.
Okay, turn to Proverbs nine.
Proverbs nine.
So back near the beginning of your Bibles,
just after Psalms, you've got the book of Proverbs.
Proverbs nine and verse 10, it says,
the fear of the Lord is a beginning of wisdom
and a knowledge of the holy is understanding.
So the fear of the Lord is a beginning.
So without the fear of the Lord,
you don't even have the beginning of wisdom,
not even a beginning.
Let alone be described as why, it's not even a beginning.
So all these people, all these God-haters,
all these God-rejectors,
they don't even have the beginning of wisdom.
If you just go back a few to Proverbs two,
because once you have the fear of the Lord,
obviously you can then get saved
or you will get saved or you are saved.
And Proverbs two, six,
says for the Lord giveth wisdom
out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
That's the true wisdom, the true wisdoms in this.
And for those of you that have studied
and read your Bibles, and don't get me wrong,
none of us have by any means what God would consider wise,
but don't you half feel a lot wiser
since you've been reading the Bible
and when you're reading it regularly as well.
But it is a funny thing, isn't it?
It's like anything, like for example,
I've heard the analogy with weightlifting.
You either improve or it goes downhill.
There's no, it's not, well I've read the Bible five times,
10 times, whatever it is,
so now I'm just gonna kind of level out at that knowledge.
You're basically just gonna decrease
unless you keep going, keep going.
It's either up or down,
there's no just leveling out and staying steady.
But like it says here in Proverbs 2, six,
for the Lord giveth wisdom,
out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
So these people that they don't believe in the first place,
they don't even have the beginning,
let alone actually learn what this book says.
They are not wise, they're not wise in God's eyes.
Right, verse 21, back to Corinthians, 1 Corinthians here.
Verse 21, for after that in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom knew not God.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe.
So the world's so-called wisdom leads them to not know God
and the world's so-called foolishness of preaching,
he's not saying preaching's foolishness,
he's saying in their eyes,
ends up saving them through belief.
Well sadly it's only some of them though, isn't it?
And it's only some, in fact,
straight is a gate, narrow is a path
that leadeth them to life,
and few there be that find it.
And it is sad, isn't it, how many people,
and although, yeah, they've been brainwashed,
they have been brainwashed,
and I'm not just talking about
with brainwashing against God,
there's all sorts of brainwashing,
the junk people put their whole lives into
after the brainwashing,
the sort of so-called causes and things
that they put everything into.
And what's the most important cause?
Is it the cause of God, is it the cause of Christ?
That's what we should be putting our ultimate time into.
But even so, even so, with all of that,
the truth is that a lot of these people,
they still willfully reject,
and they still, if they really,
if they really wanted to seek Him with their whole heart,
they would find Him, if they really wanted the truth.
You get these people that claim that they like the truth,
how many times, how many times you've been at the door
and you've had someone say,
no, I believe this, you say,
would you like to know what the Bible says now?
Interesting.
I've had it quite a lot recently with Roman Catholics,
and they're like, well, I'm a Roman Catholic.
Oh, okay, well, would you like to know what the Bible says?
Like, what do you mean no?
Like, isn't it theoretically based on the Bible?
No, no, not interested at all.
No, not what the Bible says.
Well, I mean, I'd be interested, you know,
when Pope, whatever his name is, you know,
tells us this, and it's sad, isn't it?
It's sad, but that's the truth,
and really, these people are still rejecting.
Verse 22, for the Jews require a sight,
and the Greeks seek after wisdom.
So, it's sad that the Jews,
they rejected their sight, didn't they?
They did reject their sight.
Turn to Matthew 12, Matthew 12.
Okay, Matthew 12 and verse 38.
Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered,
saying, Master, we would see a sign of thee from thee.
And he answered and said unto them,
An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,
and there shall no sign be given it,
but the sign of the prophet Jonas.
For as Jonas was three days and three nights
in the well's belly, so shall the Son of Man
be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Okay, that was their sign, and the heart of the earth,
by the way, is clearly the middle, isn't it?
If you think about the heart of a fruit
or anything like that, it's the middle of it.
And where is that middle?
The middle is hell, that's where Jesus was.
Three days, three nights in hell.
Jesus spent three days and three nights in hell
suffering for theirs and the whole world's sins,
and then they reject him.
And when you put it in context there,
what that sign was, what he did, what he did for us,
for them, and it says the Jew first,
they were first to receive it, weren't they?
And they still reject it.
And this hell doctrine that, again,
people just seem really upset about, don't they,
and try and fight against it.
I think the Bible's clear on it.
If you have a look at, go to Acts 2.
Acts chapter 2, verse 24.
So, talking about Jesus here, Acts 2, 24.
Whom God hath raised up, having looser pains of death,
because it was not possible that he should be holding of it.
He's talking about the pains of death,
and that's that spiritual death.
The pains of death.
Goodness, what he went through for us.
Jump forward to verse 27 there.
And Paul's quoting here, Psalm 16, 10.
Okay, then he explains what that's about,
because it's David here, and he says in verse 29,
Verse 30.
So, how clear is it, how clear is it
that he's talking of Christ here,
he's talking about Christ spending that time in hell,
but he was not left in hell.
His flesh should not see corruption,
because his flesh rose with him three days after.
It was a bodily resurrection.
Yet, so many try and deny this.
So many people get all worked up about this.
I was at a church a long ago, they call you a healsick.
Anyone that believes he went to hell,
they say, what are you talking about?
It's clearly in the Bible.
It's clearly there, and there's other verses
that we could go through as well if we had the time,
but I don't think it's a difficult doctrine to grasp.
And Jesus clearly spent three days in hell.
And why would you try and take that away?
Like, what an amazing thing he did for us,
what an amazing thing he did.
Let's have some appreciation for it,
not be a bit nervous to talk about it, don't know,
and make sure you can go to the verses and show us.
You don't have to be embarrassed about that doctrine,
about the fact that we preach that to people,
because it's an important thing to know
how far Jesus Christ went for us.
And many Greeks still rejected true wisdom, didn't they?
The fear of the Lord and the word of God,
like we talked about, and that still is rejected.
And when we say Greeks here,
we're just talking about the non-Jews at this point.
And many of them, many still do, they reject true wisdom.
Okay, verse 23, back to 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 1, verse 23.
But we preach Christ crucified
unto the Jews a stumbling block
and unto the Greeks foolish, foolishness.
Okay, stumbling block for the Jews.
How much of a stumbling block of Jesus Christ?
Some of you here might have tried
to give the gospel to Jews.
I actually had a, I was just shocked today
that I managed to give a card to a clear Jew
and managed, well, when I say Jew again,
you know, I'm using their terminology here,
the world's terminology,
because according to the Bible, they're not Jews.
Okay, they're those that say they're Jews and are not,
but at the synagogue of Satan.
But I've given this guy, and he's even said that,
even let me give him a verse, I gave him John 3.16,
and I was saying, I was laughing, I was saying,
it was like one of my worst kind of bits
of trying to give the gospel.
I was just so expecting this just debate or rudeness,
I was like, do you want a verse then?
I didn't know, well, okay.
But it took my shame.
I should have just, you know, pressed ahead.
But you know, you get used to what happens,
what the response you get.
So I gave this guy a verse,
but these guys and the vast majority
have a hatred for Jesus Christ.
It is a hatred.
And they make it clear how much they hate him.
And wow, and the sad thing is,
the sad thing is that the vast, vast majority of these guys
are reprobates all day long,
because in their mind, in their teachings,
they're learning and believing the Babylonian Talmud,
it's claiming that Jesus Christ is boiling
and in excrement, basically, in hell.
And they call him a devil, a magician.
It's wicked, it's absolutely wicked.
And these people, if they believe that,
again, let them be accursed,
because the Bible says that they have no forgiveness.
They're blaspheming the Holy Ghost.
But the Greeks, the unbelievers,
for them, it's foolishness, says verse 23.
Christ crucified to them is foolishness.
But like I said, ultimately,
it's not that it's foolishness,
really, it's rejection from them.
They say that, they try and call it foolishness,
and yeah, they've convinced themselves to believe that,
but really, they're rejecting Christ.
They're rejecting the Gospel,
and their reason is they're gonna call it foolishness.
Verse 24, but unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God,
and the wisdom of God.
So the Gospel of Jesus Christ is both power and wisdom,
the power to save, and the wisdom to make a way
for us to be forgiven by a just and holy God.
And we don't always understand the exact nature of God.
We should be studying our Bible to understand it,
and getting to know it better.
But it's the just and holy God.
It's, oh, well, I'll just let them all into heaven.
No, he made a way through his wisdom.
He made a way, and that way was through Jesus Christ.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men,
and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
So obviously here, he's not saying that God is foolish.
He's just saying, he's giving an analogy here,
because God is perfect,
and Paul isn't calling him foolish or weak,
but he's illustrating how far above men he is,
how far, far above men he is.
For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men, this is verse 26,
how not many wise men, half the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
So this is where he crushes our images of ourselves.
So those of you that are sitting there thinking,
are you pretty wise, pretty mighty, pretty noble?
Apparently not.
Not many.
You might be one of the few.
I like to think I'm one of those few, you know,
mighty, noble men that are called.
But sadly, the truth is I'm not.
Verse 27, but God hath chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise.
God hath chosen the weak things of the world
to confound the things which are mighty.
And this is in their eyes, obviously, isn't it?
We're the foolish and the weak in the world's eyes.
And we do confound them, don't we?
And we confound them, we confound the wise,
we confound the things which are mighty.
And he's talking about the people here,
because they're just, they're confused by us.
They're confused by how we live.
They're confused when you see a righteous Christian
who's just rejecting all the junk,
all the so-called enjoyment that the world has to offer,
and gets his pleasure and enjoyment
from the things of the Spirit,
the things of the Word of God.
That is confusing for them, it is, it confounds them.
And base things of the world, verse 28,
and things which are despised hath God chosen,
yea, and things which are not,
to bring to nought things that are.
So base is of low station.
We are despised, and you can't hear,
you need to just get used to that.
And the more we grow here as well,
we're just gonna be despised.
And in a way, it's why it's so important
for us to all love one another,
because it can be a bit annoying at times.
You go through life and you just start
to get more and more despised by the unsaved.
And I think it is, obviously it's important.
And whether or not we have stuff,
you know, we're not all gonna have stuff
in common with everything.
And we're gonna have different ways of doing things,
and different ways of behaving, and everything else.
But it doesn't matter,
we have the most important thing in common.
Everyone in this room is that we're all saved
by the blood of Christ.
And not only are we saved,
but we all love God enough that we're here,
listening to his word.
I think pretty much everyone here
has spent a long time here,
faring for travel reasons.
And some of them have come from four hours away
to come here and listen to the word of God preached,
to be around other believers.
And that is a, what a thing,
that is beyond anything else anyone else has in common.
And I've talked about this before a little bit,
about, you know, guys in the army,
and they call each other brothers,
and they have this real camaraderie, don't they?
And you see it in other professions and stuff as well.
They have a real love for each other, and a real bond.
And ours should be beyond that, that's worldly.
And ours should be beyond that.
And yeah, we're not all gonna agree on stuff.
And of course, it's important
when it comes to doctrine and scripture.
But if we all behave ourselves as we should in church,
yeah, we're gonna have differences,
we're gonna have different ways of doing things.
But we should all be loving each other, shouldn't we?
We should all be wanting to pray for each other,
wanting the best for each other,
get away the squabblings, and the annoyances,
and, no offense, but with ladies, maybe the bitchiness,
with men, the kind of rivalry stuff, the egos,
and it all crosses over as well.
We wanna get that stuff out.
Because it is, it's tiring being despised
by everyone else, isn't it?
John 13, 35, you don't have to turn it,
Jesus says, by this shall all men know
that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
So that's how we should be recognized
by the love we have for each other.
So if we're going away to our unsaved family,
friends, relatives, whatever,
and then talking about our saved brothers and sisters
and moaning and whinging about them,
that's not what Jesus expects, is it?
And that's not what we should be doing.
Come away from here, go, oh, I went for this church.
I don't know.
Well, no, we're brothers and sisters in Christ,
we should be talking lovingly of each other.
Okay, things which are not, he said here in verse 28.
And basically, you know, you're saying here
that we're nothing, maybe it's in their eyes,
in their eyes we're nobodies.
But in God's eyes, we are precious.
And remember that, we're precious in God's eyes.
Verse 29 says that no flesh should glory in his presence.
So if you've taken all of that in,
how do we then get puffed up and proud of ourselves?
Because it's not coming from God, isn't it?
It's all coming from salvation,
and it's all coming from the word of God.
It's all coming from the word of God.
Trying to impress people with our intelligence.
And again, we can all do this.
I'm sure everyone here at least can have that temptation
to try and show their intelligence.
And maybe it's about worldly things,
maybe it's about things of scripture.
You're trying to come across a bit cleverer than you are.
And we can all do that,
but really it's all coming from the word of God.
It's all come from God.
Formed us, didn't he?
Formed us in our mother's womb.
And what about our education?
And that's really what it is.
When it's trying to impress people by your intelligence,
it's really by your worldly education.
Because that's really what you're generally doing.
You're not really showing them your speed at doing a sum
or whatever else is maybe a little bit more innate.
And again, it still comes from God.
A lot of time you're trying to impress people
about what worldly education you had.
What's impressive about that,
there's nothing according to God
because it's foolishness with God.
True wisdom, true wisdom is of God.
It all comes from him.
Verse 30, but of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption.
It's all through Jesus Christ.
That's why we even have the ability to have some wisdom
and the righteousness and the sanctification.
Because we're not our righteousness to those filthy rags.
Without Christ, what do we have?
Sanctification, been cleaned by him at redemption.
We're bought by him.
You're owned, you're bought by him.
And when we're trying to big ourselves up,
we're trying to impress people.
And like I said, we can all do this
and we shouldn't be doing it
because it's all foolishness.
Verse 31, that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
And this made me think of Jeremiah nine.
So if you turn to Jeremiah nine,
Jeremiah nine, verse 23.
Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory
in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might
let not the rich man glory in his riches.
But let him that glorieth glory in this,
that he understandeth and knoweth me,
that I am the Lord of all things.
That I am the Lord, which exercise,
loving kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth.
For in these things I delight, saith the Lord.
And for me guys, we should only,
only be glorying in the Lord.
Yeah, what a great, great chapter.
So much in there.
And with that, let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for a great book
and thank you for that first chapter Corinthians.
It just teaches us so much doctrine in one chapter.
So much stuff that we can take away from.
Help us not to puff ourselves up as wise
and in the world's eyes.
It's of no importance.
Help us to just glory in you,
glory in the wisdom that you have,
that all comes from you.
And Lord, we pray that you'll help us now
with our week ahead, help us to resist sin
and help us to get home safely,
help us to live righteously this week.
And help us to have a great week
and the chance to give your gospel to people.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.