Claude Ramsey- Spirit Empowered Preaching

I'm thankful for you sticking around. I'm glad nobody left after I preached that I know what. So thank you.

I get the privilege to introduce a guy that a lot of you will know and I've come to love this dear brother.

He's has an infectious, infectious, infectious smile and love and posture.

A man with a humble heart and his name is Claude Ramsey. And so when I first started with Truth and Love Network, he and Robert began to have conversations and different things about this and Big John went along right in that same time frame and Brother Claude just was somebody that just made you feel at home, you know.

And it wasn't long that it become very clear that he was a man of God that has a has a genuine shepherd's heart.

It's what I thought of and I thought about Claude. I thought about Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 15. It says, I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.

So there's a lot of stuff I could say, but I think that's one of the highest compliments that I could give this brother is that it is a man of God.

He loves the Lord. He loves his people. And I'm very thankful to call him a friend. Let's pray for Brother Claude as he comes.

Father, thank you so much for our brother. I pray as he stands behind this sacred desk today that afresh and new that you will empower him and anoint him with your

Holy Spirit that he will be clear and that the message will be clear and equip us your church today by the speaking of this pastor, a man of God that has a shepherd's heart.

Equip us through his words, through your words, the understanding. We thank you

Lord in Jesus name. Amen. As we rejoiced in Jonathan's message and, uh, particularly in that it was an answer to prayer.

I think about this morning, how that all that Jonathan touched on in that sermon reminded of what the

Psalmist wrote in Psalm 48. Actually verse nine. Yeah. Psalm 48, nine through 14.

The Psalmist said this, we have thought on your steadfast love. Oh God, in the midst of your temple is your name.

Oh God. So your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with righteousness and he makes this declaration.

Let Mount Zion be glad. Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments.

And then the Psalmist says this, this is a song of Korah. He said, walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels that you may tell the next generation that this is

God, not just God, but our God forever and ever.

He will guide us forever and ever. That's what we have thus far tasted this morning that we have just entered into the city of God.

So speak by the preaching and the proclamation of the word there. So thank God so much for that truth.

And before we go into the message, let's pray one more time. God, I just want to come and ask you this.

Please help me not to mess up simplicity, the purity, and the power of your word.

I pray God that you would give me freedom, liberty in my tongue, that I may speak forth the words of life, that you would give me clarity in my mind, that it might not be hazy or foggy or cloudy, but that we may preach exactly what you have set forth in your word and help us today,

Holy Spirit, because you are the one who will lead us. You are the one who will guide us into all truth and all righteousness, and it is that for which we beg you today.

Show us Christ. Help us today to worship you in spirit and in truth as we try to set forth the significance and the importance of the necessity of the

Holy Spirit in preaching of the word, for it's in Jesus' name

I pray. Amen. Again, I was sitting back there and about halfway through the message,

I thought maybe I'll just get up and say what Jonathan said. See the tape.

Rewind. Play. Turn it up. Crank it up. Nevertheless, our task this morning is to preach on the necessity of the

Holy Spirit in preaching. And as we focus on this topic today,

I'm going to follow much the same pattern that Jonathan laid for us in his sermon.

We're going to do a little bit of laying of groundwork, then we'll read the text. I'm not going to ask you even to stand for the reading of God's word today, because there's a whole lot of it.

But I do want to encourage you to follow along, to track along with us. So Sinclair Ferguson said this about preaching.

He said, All truly effective preaching shares one thing in common, and that is this, that it is attended by the power of the

Holy Spirit. Now we live in a day and in a time, of course, in the mainstream church world where entertainment has captured the mind and entertainment has captured the hearts of many in the mainstream church world.

And I don't want to use these terms as just random or general. We want to be specific this morning and we want to identify these terms because they are so very important.

So let's define entertainment. And we're going to define worship as we go along here at the beginning.

First of all, entertainment. Entertainment is defined as following.

It is simply the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment.

The action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment.

Now, certainly we should enjoy the preaching of the Word of God. But we were not here to be entertained by Jonathan, but Jonathan preached the

Word and the Word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit did works in our hearts already this morning.

But that was, let's make sure that we don't confuse these two, because a sermon can be as dull and seem as dry as a bag of dirt is.

But my friend, if it's the Word of God, the Word of God is going to do its work. So let's not confuse entertainment with enjoyment.

So if entertainment is providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment, we must look at the flip side and understand what worship is.

Worship, by the way, before we get to that, let me tell you what Thomas Watson said about, particularly about how to hear sermon.

So we don't go at it like we're wanting to be entertained. Thomas Watson, one of the old

Puritans, said this in his work called Gleanings. He said, when you come to preaching, he said, lay aside the dispositions which may render the preached

Word ineffectual. He said, some go to hear the Word preached, not so much to get grace as to enrich themselves with notions because they have itching ears.

So when we come to the assembly, when we come to the gathering, when the

Word of God is preached and proclaimed, we need to come because we need grace.

Man, these men of God could stand and preach, like Jonathan said, for the next 12 hours.

And if they were in the Word, it would be okay. Now, most of us couldn't stand, our flesh couldn't stand that, but it would be okay.

Going on, Thomas Watson went on to say this, they like the melody of the voice and they like the novelty of the opinions, much like the folks at Mars Hill.

If you read in Acts chapter 17, you'll find there at Mars Hill, the people were gathered there every day for one reason, just to hear or to tell of some new thing.

Watson said, this is how many people come to preaching. Much like the folks at Mars Hill, he said, but this, this is to love the garnishing of the dish more than the food.

For example, who likes parsley if you've got a plate full of meatloaf and mashed potatoes?

The garnish means nothing. We want the meat. And that is the desire when we come to this table, if you would, of the sermon being given.

It's desire, their desire, Watson said, is to be pleased rather than to be edified.

So Watson said, lay aside prejudice. He said, the Sadducees were prejudice against the doctrines of the resurrection.

Sometimes prejudice is against the truth preached and sometimes prejudice is against the one preaching.

But if a patient has an ill opinion of his physician, he will not take any of his medicines, however good they may be.

So we do not come to the sermon looking to be entertained or looking to be amused. We come to be fed with the very bread of God.

We come to drink of the very water of life. This is why we proclaim this is the word of God when the scripture is read, because guess what?

This is the word of God. And Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of almighty

God. So entertainment being defined, let's define worship again.

Very simple, very plain, very straightforward. What is worship? Worship is praising and adoring

God for who he is and for what he has done.

That's a simple enough definition. Worship is praising and adoring God. My friends, when we come to preach, preachers, teachers, proclaimers of the gospel, when you're doing it in the church house or out on the streets, our aim and our goal is to proclaim what thus says the word of the living

God. It is to proclaim, to lift up high. So it's significant here.

It's significant that we understand that both believers and unbelievers are all worshipers.

The question is, who or what are they worshiping? And it's easy to ask that question and aim it outward and say, who or what are they worshiping?

But I would ask you today, who or what are you worshiping? Are you worshiping the true and the living

God? Because there is in an objective, truthful sense of the word, true worship and false worship.

True worship and false worship. What is the difference between these two? True worship can be defined as being, and this is my simple definition, true worship is aimed at God.

True worship is focused on God. Now, not just any God because we're not worshiping a false

God, but we worship the maker of the heavens and the earth. Not just any

God, but the self -existent God, Yahweh, the eternal self -existent one.

We do not worship just any God, but the God who made the heavens and the earth and who sent his only begotten son into this world to die for our sins.

That whosoever would believe in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.

Not just any God that it is that we worship, but we worship the God who was made flesh and who dwelt among us.

Not just any God that we worship, but we worship the God, as we heard

Jonathan say, and we read it in the text of scripture, the God who promised not to leave us comfortless, the

God who adopted us into his family and made us children of the living

God. It's not just any God that we worship, but we worship the one who sent the comforter, the

Holy Spirit to, as Jonathan so eloquently put it, to abide in us.

He's not just around us, as Jonathan stated. He is in us. So what is false worship?

False worship, on the other hand, is given when someone gives praise and adoration to the creature or to a created being.

That is false worship. How can you know if you are a true worshiper? Are you worshiping the living

God, the one who made the heavens and the earth, the one who sent his son to die, the one who gives the

Holy Spirit unto his people, that we can be sure and that we can be certain that we are the children of the living

God? Right now, you may be asking yourself, I thought your topic was the necessity of the

Holy Spirit in preaching. Hang with us. We're going to get there. What do these have to do with the topic of the necessity of the

Spirit's power in preaching? And my reply is this. This is what it has to do.

This is what this groundwork has to do with our text today, with our topic.

The work of the Holy Spirit in preaching is of paramount importance, and it bears great significance to understanding who, why, and what we worship.

It's important that we know this, who we worship, why we worship him, and what it is and how it is worship is accomplished.

A question here of importance might be this, and this is on the minds of many a young preacher coming up nowadays.

I'm getting older, so I can refer to the young preachers. But in the minds of many a young preacher in our day and in our time, the whole goal is to grow a big church, and they figure,

I'll just, I can do it this way, I can do it that way, I've seen this, I'll take a little bit of that, I'll take a little bit of that, and I'll throw it all together, and I'll have a purpose -driven church.

Did you know that a large church can be grown without the power of the Holy Spirit?

And the problem here is this, that that is not the church.

If it is not built and founded upon the word of the living God, it is not a church.

It is a gathering of people for whatever reason that they may think they are gathering.

If they are not gathered in the name of Christ, it is not the church. For the church's whole purpose in being here is to worship

God, to seek God above all things. So it is possible to build a big church without the power of the

Holy Spirit, but that will not be a gospel church. The gospel church is built by the power of the

Holy Spirit of God. And so the aim and the goal of the gospel church in this world, the aim and the goal of the gospel preacher and the gospel teacher is to proclaim

God's word in such a way that the hearts focus, that your hearts, that your minds focus on, that our spiritual gaze, as it were, were aimed toward Christ.

When you think about your church this week, you think about your, some of you are pastors, some of you are lay members.

When you, you lay members, when you think about your church this week and you think about your pastor, don't let the pastor do anything other than preach the word to you.

Preach, tell him. Preach, I'm praying for you. What are you praying for me for?

That the Lord will fill you with his spirit and with his word. That the

Lord will do such a work in your heart that you can't help but get up and proclaim what thus says the word of God.

So in a very real sense, preaching in the power of the Spirit.

And I, again, I love how the Lord works things according to the counsel of his own will and by providence allows us to identify these things.

Jonathan, you mentioned it, preaching is a miracle itself. Preaching is a miracle itself.

John Piper said this, so what makes preaching unique is that it's a miracle.

It's not just after miracles, it is a miracle in itself.

Piper said one of my books is called Expository Exaltation. He said that gives you my two -word definition of preaching.

One, expository. Two, exaltation. Expository means you better see what you say in the book.

And number two, concerning exaltation, you savor and you leap over what you've seen in the book.

Too many folks in our day and in our time have become so afraid of being called a charismatic or Pentecostal.

They'd rather be called one of the chosen frozen rather than find that middle line where you're in the

Spirit of God. And you're not ashamed to be called a child of God. And you're an idiot if you're ashamed of rejoicing in what

God has done. Piper went on to say that can't happen by human means, preaching.

But it has to happen. It has to happen in the preacher, this miracle.

It has to happen in the people or we are wasting our time. I want to bring about the seeing, the savoring, the showing of Christ for who he really is, as valuable as he really is, as beautiful, as glorious and as great as he really is.

I want that, Piper said, I want that to happen in me. I want it to happen in my hearers.

That's what preaching is. So no, it doesn't happen apart from the Holy Spirit.

It is the Holy Spirit that identifies us with God. And it is the

Holy Spirit that identifies us with the word of God. And it is the Holy Spirit that identifies us with other believers.

If I walked up to a total stranger at Walmart and tried to give them a hug, do you think that's going to be well -received?

No, it's not. But friend, for a brother and sister in Christ, I don't care if you're an introvert or not.

Guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to give you a hug. And I'm not going to be concerned about whether you like it or not or whether you want to do it.

You can go around the other side of the bench if you don't want a hug. But friends, it is the

Holy Spirit who does this work, this identification with the Father, this identification with the

Word, this identification with one another. So Holy Spirit -empowered preaching, unlike powerless preaching, produces good spiritual fruit.

Holy Spirit -empowered preaching produces good spiritual fruit. The Holy Ghost, He makes new creatures of men and women.

The Holy Ghost makes people who once hated God to be lovers of God.

The Holy Ghost makes folks who were hell -bound to have a whole new direction and to be like one of the old creatures said, to be now heaven -bound with a hammer down.

That's what the Holy Ghost does. That is the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. The Holy Spirit not only regenerates, but He sanctifies.

And one day, thanks be unto God, we will be glorified by the power of God.

Holy Spirit, amen, Shirley. Holy Spirit -empowered preaching is simple and it's plain.

Richard Baxter said this, preaching is a work which requires greater skill and especially greater life and zeal than any of us commonly bring to it.

It is no trifling matter to stand up in the face of a congregation and deliver a message of salvation or damnation as from the living

God in the name of the Redeemer. It is no easy thing to speak so plainly that the most ignorant may understand us and so seriously that the deadest heart may feel and so feel convincingly that contradicting cavaliers, that's an old term, may be silenced.

But certainly, Baxter said, certainly if our hearts were set upon the work of the

Lord as they ought to be, it would be done more vigorously than by most of us it is.

Alas, how few ministers preach with all their might or speak about everlasting joys and torments in such a manner as may make men believe that they are in earnest.

Plain language, preach like you mean it. Preach like you know it.

I'm not talking about preach like you've got the knowledge in your head, but preach like you've got your heart and your mind connected up and that the power of the

Lord so thrills and fills your heart and your mind that you cannot help but proclaim this.

In his work, and we're going to get to the text of scripture shortly, if you want to be turning there, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 is where we're going to begin, or 1

Corinthians chapter 1 is where we're going to begin. But in the work of his, in his work,

William Perkins' work, the art of prophesying, in the calling of the ministry, William Perkins states this, that there is a twofold value to preaching.

A twofold value to preaching. With the unction of the

Holy Spirit particularly. Preaching, number one, is instrumental in gathering together all of God's elect.

Preaching is instrumental in gathering together all of God's elect. Preaching is like that trumpet blast that calls the gospel troops to formation.

And number two, Perkins said, preaching drives away the wolves from the fold of the

Lord. We should not be concerned, men, as you stand in your pulpits from week to week and you teach from week to week, if you offend men and you upset the women, you make the babies cry simply because you are standing on the word of God, it's going to be okay.

Keep preaching the word. Right? We're not called to cater to the masses.

We're not called to weaken and to water down the gospel message that's set forth in the word of God.

We are to proclaim the word of God as it is to men as they are.

And the gospel, my brothers and sisters, does two things. The gospel either softens the heart or it hardens the heart.

And ain't it good to know that you can say, my heart has been softened by the gospel.

Matter of fact, not only has my heart been softened by the gospel, but I had a stony heart and God took that heart of stone out of me and He put a heart of flesh in me where I can feel

Him and know He's real. Are reformed folks supposed to say something like that?

That we can feel Him? Amen. We should say that. Another one of the old songs,

I'm glad when he saved me, he gave me something I could feel. Preaching is not an act of the individual whereby he hopes that the listeners will be entertained or amused.

All that to get to here. Preaching is not an act of the individual whereby he hopes that the listeners will be entertained or amused.

But rather preaching is a heralding of the greatest message that this world has ever heard.

Preaching is that announcement of all announcements that declares great is the mystery of godliness.

Why? Because He, Jesus, was manifested in the flesh.

He, Jesus, was vindicated by the Spirit. He, Jesus, was seen by angels.

He, Jesus, was proclaimed among men, among the nations. He, Jesus, was believed on in the world.

He, Jesus, was taken up into glory. This is that message.

Perkins went on to say this, that the preaching of the Word, the Holy Spirit empowered preaching, is the weapon which has shaken the foundation of ancient heresies.

Now, what are heresies but false doctrines that are brought into God's church most times by the usual suspects and sadly at times by unsuspecting victims of these damnable heresies.

These heresies that deny the authority and the veracity of Scripture.

These are key. These heresies that deny the truth and the veracity of the

Scripture. These heresies, my friend, that will call into question what has

God said. How do we know what God has said? The good news is He's given us the book.

And it doesn't change. You can carry a bag full of sharpies and mark out everything that you don't like.

But Jonathan is sitting beside you. Look at his. His isn't marked out. It's underlined just to accentuate the fact that this is there.

It doesn't change. So concerning these heresies, we are called.

This is why the necessity of the Holy Spirit in preaching is so very important because these heresies are still around.

We are called to earnestly, by Jude, to earnestly contend for the faith.

Now, this is very plain language and I know this is rudimentary, but I'm not that fancy.

We are called to contend for the faith. That means to stand up for the truth of God's Word.

That means to defend it. That means to take a lick for it. And if you've got to, raise the sword up and give them a lick back.

But it is the power of God. So this mission, this task of contending for the faith is a task, again, that can only be accomplished by the power of the

Holy Spirit. So we speak today on the necessity of the Holy Spirit in preaching because, again, it is a message that the church itself needs to hear.

Worship. Worship, remember the definition. Worship is praising and adoring

God for who He is and for what He has done. Preaching is worship.

Please, please don't get so confused. We should sing.

It's an act of worship, but my friend, preaching is worship. Preaching is worship.

Matter of fact, it's the very heart and the very soul of the worship service, as we use that term.

It is preaching. What is preaching? It is magnifying and lifting up the

Word of God. Preaching is lifting up the God of the

Word. Preaching is exalting and magnifying the characteristics and the nature and the attributes of Almighty God.

Preaching, according to the Word, is the ordained means of communicating both to the lost world and to God's church what the

Lord has said. And so certainly, except the Holy Ghost does

His work of opening blind eyes and deaf ears, unless the Spirit of God so changes the disposition of the man's hearts and of our minds, then all we do would be pointless.

But there's a point, and that point is the Word of God. Because the Word of God is quick and it's powerful and it's sharper than any two -edged sword.

It cuts to the division of the soul and the spirit and of the joints and of the marrow, and it is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of your heart.

And the Bible says this, No creature, no creature is hidden, the

Scripture says. No creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and open and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom, and here's one of the keys of that verse, to whom we give an account.

You do not listen to the preaching of the Word in a neutral position.

You receive it or you reject it. There is no in -between. And guess what?

You can't unring a bell. If you hear it, now you're accountable.

Well, that's one of the most frightening things for a preacher. He stands before a congregation and we understand and we know the weight and the burden of what it is to present these truths to a congregation and to know, oh, how awful it is to know that they are going to go away, those folks who reject

God's Word. But in the preaching of God's Word, what

God does is that God the Holy Spirit calls men. He calls women,

He calls boys, and He calls girls to give an account of their standing before a holy

God. And this accounting is not based on subjective truth, but it's based on objective truth.

And that's the objective truth of God's Word. So preaching is prophetic in nature.

Preaching is prophetic in nature. The prophet's role is to speak to man on behalf of God.

So when I use the word prophet, I'm synonymously using this term preacher. So the preacher's task is to present both the good, the bad, and the ugly to the lost and to God's people.

This is why the necessity of the Holy Spirit in preaching. Because again, we can't do it ourselves.

A man will be a fool to stand in his own power. There are plenty of fools who stand in their own power. But my friend, we must recognize that we are weak, and that we are small, and that we are little.

But God is great, God is good, and that God is holy. And God is able to take, as we're going to read in the text here in a minute, the weakness and the foolishness of men, and turn them for His glory and for His honor.

So the preacher's task is to present the good, the bad, and the ugly to the people, lost and saved people.

The preacher doesn't get to pick and choose who he preaches to. Think about Ezekiel.

Think about the task God gave Ezekiel in Ezekiel 37. Go preach to these dead bones.

They're not fresh dead. They're so dead that all that's left is bones. Yeah, very dry.

Matthew Henry said, To prophesy upon dry bones seems as great a penance as to water a dry stick.

And yet, Henry said, Whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, we must discharge our trust.

We must prophesy as we are commanded in the name of Him who raises the dead, and in the name of Him who is the fountain of life.

And so the Holy Spirit, this is His work. He empowers the man of God to stand and proclaim what thus says the

Lord to those who will receive it, or to those who will throw dead cats at Him. The work of the

Holy Spirit is connected. Important point. The work of the Holy Spirit is connected to the preaching of the

Word. If we as preachers and teachers and proclaimers of the gospel are not preaching and not teaching the

Bible, then we should not expect the Holy Ghost to accompany the preaching.

1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. This is our text.

1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. This is the Word of God. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, the Lord said, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning

I will thwart. And then Paul begins to bring in these questions.

Where is the one who is wise? They were in the midst of a society. And here's the thing, folks.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. There are a lot of people who think they are so wise in the church world.

And by the way, again, this is an old person speaking to young people. If you're watching this on the internet, understand that just because you know a whole lot about a little bit of what the

Scriptures teach, don't assume that you're the expert on things. The important thing for the young men of God to do is to get underneath sound elders, go to Eden Chapel, sit under Johnny and Gary and Aaron, they're fantastic men of God.

But you are to receive instruction in that way, to be learned and grow in the faith and then share that accordingly.

But here going on in the text, notice he says, where's the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?

This age. This age is the same age that this age was that he was talking to them in.

People are the same. They want to argue and they want to fuss and they want to pick and they want to dissect every little piece of Scripture and have their own ideas and thoughts.

But my friends, we must go to the word. Where is the debater of this age?

And then Paul begins laying this out. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom.

God gave the world wisdom. And by that same wisdom, they're denying

God. Does that sound wise? The answer is no. That sounds foolish.

But he said it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

For the Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom. But we preach

Christ crucified, which to the Jews is a stumbling block.

And to the Gentiles, it is folly or foolishness. But to those who are called.

To those that have been born again by the Spirit of God, whether they're

Jews or whether they're Greeks, it is Christ, the power of God.

And it is Christ, the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

And then the apostle Paul makes a very strong statement here. And it would do us all good to pause here to say la and consider this.

For consider your calling. Now, there are three callings, basically.

There's a calling to salvation. There's your calling to sanctification. And a calling to service for the

Christian. Consider your calling. Paul is speaking to them here primarily about salvation.

He said, consider your calling, brethren, that not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.

Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. Boy, I wonder if that would have been popular.

I wonder if that would have been on the New York Times bestseller list. You are not as smart as you think you are.

You are not as strong as you think you are. Your family ain't as great as you think they are.

But God did not choose the mighty. God did not choose the wise. God did not choose the noble, the scripture says, according to worldly standards.

But God chose what is foolish. And the most foolish idea to a lost person is this, that God could save the world by sending

His Son to die on the cross for your sins. It's foolishness to the world to think that this

Christ who died on the cross, who gave up the ghost, who was laid in the grave, to say to them that on the third day

He arose from the grave. That's foolishness. But you know what that is to the saved person?

That is the power of God. That is the power of God. God chose what is low.

God chose what is despised in this world. Even things that are not to bring to nothing the things that are,

He said. And for this reason, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Think about that proud Pharisee in the Gospels. Lord, I thank you that I am not like this publican over in the corner.

I can see him holding his jacket. I thank you, God, that you should be proud,

God, because I tithe to you of my possessions. I do this for you and I do that for you.

Lord, you sure are lucky to have me. It comes down to that when you really boil it down.

It's pride and it's arrogance and it's foolishness. When we stand before the

Lord, we're not going to say, I deserve to be here in your presence,

Lord. Third day put it best I know how to say it. When we stand before Christ, all we can say is,

I trust in Jesus. That's right. I trust in Jesus.

So no human beings might boast in the presence of God. And because of him, because of God, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God.

He makes the foolish wise. That wisdom is in Christ. He becomes to us righteousness.

Our righteousness is not our own. It is an alien righteousness given to us, accounted to us on behalf of Christ.

He is to us sanctification. Again, the work of the Holy Spirit. He is sanctification and he is redemption.

There's glorification. There's going to be a day, thank

God, when God cashes in, so to speak, or cashes out, however you say the term, where we will be redeemed as Jonathan read in Romans 8.

Again, see how the Spirit works all things together for his good. Chapter 2, verse 1 there.

When I came to you, brothers, the apostle Paul said this. When I came to you, brothers, I came to you not with excellency of speech or wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.

For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom.

There we have that. But was a demonstration of the Spirit and of the power of God.

Why? So that your faith, so that you will not bank your trust, that you will not put your hope in the ability and the oratory skills of a man, but that you will put your faith and your trust and your confidence in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Yet from among the mature, among the mature.

So we see there is a time to impart wisdom. He said, among the mature, we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age.

By the way, Paul says, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God.

We're not talking about Gnosticism, but we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which

God decreed before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew it.

For had they known it, he said, you never would have crucified the Lord of glory.

People were not in their right minds, but thank the Lord, the

Holy Spirit. He takes the confused and he brings peace.

He takes turmoil and he brings calm. When the storms are raging, he calls to the waves and says, peace, be still.

This is the work of God in preaching. So it is in this section of Scripture that we have seen that the preaching of the cross is inextricably tied to the work of the

Holy Spirit. And again, I've got just a few minutes. Again, the Scriptures teach us that no one can call

Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit. So the necessity, the need for the power of the

Spirit in preaching is absolutely and unequivocally the highest and the greatest treasure to be sought after by the preacher.

This means sometimes waiting just a little bit longer before you jump into the message.

This means sometimes praying just a little bit longer before you get up to preach.

This means sometimes making one of those awkward silences like Paul Washer gives every time he gets up to preach.

But guess what? He's waiting on the Lord and we should rightly wait on the

Lord. So pastors, preachers, teachers, the question to you is this.

Is your aim and is your goal to have Christ so magnified by your preaching and by your teaching that you would be and dare

I say even be happy to be not remembered at all? That no one remembers your name when it's all said and done but the people would certainly know when they left the church house that the

Word of God had been preached to them. Spurgeon said this, the Holy Ghost rides in the chariot of the

Scripture. I love that. We can be assured that the power of the gospel is in the faithful working of the

Holy Ghost. And we must be honest enough with ourselves to admit that in history,

God has equipped men and women alike to be faithful witnesses of His Word.

And according to the Scriptures, we can be confident based on God and God's faithfulness and the truthfulness of His Word that if we simply proclaim

His Word as it is, that He will bring forth fruit that will bring

Him glory and that will bring Him honor. Again, as we saw there in that 1

Corinthians text, the fruit that is born of the Spirit is regeneration.

Regeneration. Number two, sanctification. Number three, glorification.

Concerning regeneration, you must be born again. You must be born again.

Concerning sanctification, we are taught in the text of Scripture, be holy for I am holy.

And concerning glorification, it would do us all well to rejoice in this fact that God will glorify those that He has sanctified.

And those He has sanctified, you can mark it down, take it to the bank, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Those that He sanctified, He has most certainly regenerated. And it is all the work of the

Holy Ghost of God. So we could sing with the old saints that one of those old songs, some of you may know it.

Oh, what a shout will rise across the vaulted skies when

Jesus comes in the clouds. We'll leave all pain and care and endless glory share when

Jesus comes in the clouds. When Jesus comes in glory bright, we'll leave these lonely shades of night.

All sorrow will be past, eternal joy at last when

Jesus comes in the clouds. But until then, we need the

Holy Ghost in our preaching. 1 Thessalonians 3, 11 through 13, the

Apostle Paul writes and says to the Thessalonians, now may our God and Father Himself and our

Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all as we do for you so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our

God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with His saints.

So in closing here, without the power of the Holy Spirit in preaching, without the power of God in living, without the power of God in preaching, it would be ineffectual and life itself would be an exercise in futility.

See, this message isn't just for the preachers and teachers, it's for the believer. You need God. I need

God. We need... Oh, I need Thee. Oh, I need Thee. Every hour,

I need Thee. So what do we do now? What is our application? What is our application?

The first thing to do is to recognize you're standing before a holy

God. Where do you stand before God? Are you lost or are you saved?

Next, once you determine, am I lost or am I saved?

Your next action should be this. Hang on, this is difficult.

Run to Christ. Run to Christ.

Don't wait, don't dilly -dally, but flee from your sin and go to Jesus.

But preacher, what do I say to my Lord? Thanks be unto

God. The Scripture gives us an answer. Try this. Be merciful to me,

O God, a sinner. For I have sinned against heaven and before you alone.

And brothers and sisters, boys and girls, know this. If you've done this now, now that you've laid down your burden, take hold, take hold now of the exceeding great and the precious promises of God.

Well, preacher, what has God promised? He's promised this, that all who come to Him, He will in no way cast you out.

He will not turn you away is what the Scripture states. What other promise is there?

He has promised this, that if we confess our sins, that He is faithful and He is just and He will forgive us of our sins and He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

They were making fun of it last night, but down here in Tennessee in the country, there's power in the blood.

And one last promise among others for you to take hold of, and that is from the Word of God as well.

This last promise I encourage you to lay hold of today. Psalm chapter 40.

The psalmist said this, I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined unto me and He heard my cry.

And listen to what He did, He does. Listen to what He did. He drew me up from the pit of destruction.

He drew me up out of the miry bog and He set my feet upon a rock and He made my steps secure.

And on top of all that, He done went and gave me a new song to sing. He put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our

God. And because of this, many will see it and many will fear and many will put their trust in the

Lord. For blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn aside to the proud or to go to those who go astray after a lie.

And then the psalmist said, You have multiplied, O Lord my God, Your wondrous deeds and Your thoughts toward us.

None can compare with You. And because of this, the psalmist,

I can see Him. And I will declare, I will tell of them even though there's more than I can tell.

But may all who seek You, Lord, rejoice and be glad in You.

May those who love Your salvation say continually,

Great is the Lord. And as for me, I am poor and I am needy, but the

Lord, He takes thought for me. Cast your care on the

Lord, because He does care for you. And cry to the

Lord, You are my help and You are my deliverer. Do not delay,