Book of 2 Corinthians - Ch. 6, Vs. 1-15 (04/22/2001)

Corinthians the 6th chapter. Pam, we're glad to have you with us this morning. KK, you're going to have to keep quiet. Corinthians the 6th chapter. Well, 3rd or 4th or whatever. Last Corinthians 6. We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain.

Men do not only need the ministry of God before they receive salvation, but they also need it after they have received salvation. One to acquire it, another to continue in it. For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee.

Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Richard, do you see two instances of salvation in that verse? Alright. There is a two-fold day of salvation. The one was Christ's day for the purchase of salvation.

It was granted unto Christ to purchase salvation. By the Father, if it had not been, he could not have done it. The other is our duty for the application of salvation. Giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed.

The word signifies a stumbling block in general, or anything over which a man stumbles or falls. Here seems to mean any transgression or scandal that might take place among the ministers or the Christians themselves, whereby either Jew or Gentiles might take occasion of offense and vilify the gospel of Christ.

Living the Christian Life with Patience and Endurance

It behooves all of us to live the Christian life every day. Some Christians you will find are Christian on Sunday, and on Monday they are a different sort of breed. It makes you doubt their Christianity on Sunday.

But in all things, approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distress, in stripes, in imprisonment, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings.

How much patience is needed for a Christian? Deborah, how much does God give you, Joy? What is patience, Dennis? Endurance? Alright. Greg, what is patience? Say that again. Alright. Now, regardless of distractions.

David, what is patience?

Circumstances point of view. They're not going to change God's will at all. If you realize He's in control, then you can have patience no matter what's going on around you. Alright. Alright.

Would it also be enduring calmly?

Yes, enduring calmly. The goal that is set before you. Patience is not looking at adversity. It is not becoming discouraged. It is not a passive verb. It's active. Bill, what do we mean by patience is active?

Patience is active. Alright. Do you all understand patience? I didn't see anybody. Arthur does. Does anybody else? Do you or do you not? Yes. We do understand it. You do understand it. Because we like it.

Then I'd like to see you all practice it. That's why we knew it was coming. That's why you weren't answering. Now it says, in the ministries of God, in afflictions, in necessities, in distress, in stripes, in imprisonment, in tumults, in labors, in watching, in fastings, how many of these do you partake each day?

How many of them do you not partake each day? Is everybody awake? Do we know what, do we know firsthand the meaning of patience? What? Alright. Richard. His name is Richard. Yes. I mean, Debra and I, in my job, we're...

Alright. Is there patience exhibited in any other way?

For those, wouldn't it be patience with your fellow people,.

Or with more than one individual? Alright. It certainly would. What's the connection between patience and, as David brought up, the sovereignty of God? What? Love. What? Faith. Faith? How is faith? That you're trusting Him.

Alright. You're trusting Him. Is there any other connection between sovereignty and patience on our part? Well, you think about it. By pureness, by knowledge, by long sufferings, by kindness of the Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned.

What's unfeigned mean, Richard? Unfeigned holiness. Love of unfeigned. By pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by pureness. Burge, what's pureness mean?

Alright. David, by knowledge. Clarence, by long suffering.

Say it again. By long suffering, by patience. Alright. By kindness. Burge.

Alright. Jesse, by the Holy Ghost. Alright. By love unfeigned. Dennis. The apostle in the foregoing verses had declared how many difficulties, dangers must be encountered by him that will attain the ends of his ministry and approve himself unto God in integrity, uprightness.

Here he shows by how many ways and means the work of the ministry is promoted and how the ministers of the gospel must qualify for it. So by all of these means we promote the gospel. By pureness, knowledge, long suffering, kindness, Holy Spirit, by love unfeigned.

All of that promotes the gospel. By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left. By the power of God. Bill, what's that mean? Alright. Any decision we make, anything that someone else does, things that we do, things we do not do is by the power of God.

Is that true? Any decision we make, any decision other people make, anything we do, anything they do is all by the power of God. Who said yes? That's right. Absolutely. God doesn't allow, but he does it all.

He does it. It's hard for us to understand. From our viewpoint it might look like it, but I want you to get to where it's not from your viewpoint. It's from His. He did it. Now, Richard, I can't understand everything He does.

In fact, very little that He does.

So, be careful because this is part of our assurance as Christians, that God's chosen people, that He is in charge of everything right and wrong. And that's part of our assurance that that's not something we go out and tell the world.

No. Because it would perhaps hinder what God might be doing there. So, it's part of the Christian, part of their assurance, and the understanding that we're watching what God is doing and how He does it.

All right, David.

But it also ties into patience. Because if you understand, like if you have a Pharaoh that is coming against you personally, in other words, personally attacking you for whatever reason, in Ephesians 6 it says, we battle not against flesh and blood.

So, it's not that person really that you need to focus on. Because it's all a part of the greater plan of God. And it's all for His glory. But it's also to create that characteristic in you that He will have in you when you meet Him face to face.

It will be what you will be when you meet Him face to face. And all the things that happen take you towards that point. So, I think what Diane said, there are so few Christians that I've ever met in nearly 25 years of ministry that know what she just said is true.

But if you do know that that's true, you can have patience. If you don't know that's true, I don't think you can do anything.

But face the patience. You can face it, but you don't really have it. A man can stand anything if he knows it has an end. Now, don't we know that all of this has an end? I'd like to digress just a moment now that you're all here and give you an assignment for next week.

Galatians 5, 19, 20, and 21. Let me read that for you. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murderers, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Do a study on these scriptures. Come back with an explanation of the word do, those that do such things. Any questions? All right, let's continue. By honor, by dishonor, by evil report, good report, as deceivers, and yet true, the apostle is still illustrating the proposition that he and his fellow laborers endeavored to give no offense and to commend themselves as the ministers of God.

We all are ministers, some with more responsibility than others. As unknown and yet well known, as dying and behold we live, as chastening and not killed, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

Now that seems to be a study in contradictions. Sorrowful and yet rejoicing. Greg, how is that possible? All right, as dying and behold we live. Dennis? All right. Jesse, as chastened and not killed. Chastened means corrected.

All right. As unknown and yet well known. Clarence? All right. We're known to other Christians. We're known to God. As poor, yet making many rich. Debra? As poor, yet making many rich. All right. Having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

Dennis? Having nothing, yet we possess all things. All right. Since Christ owns everything, we do too. That really necessity to the preservation of our life. For the wants under which we labor for a time are supplied again by a bountiful providence.

The man who possesses a contented spirit possesses all things. Now, a man who possesses a contented spirit, how do you attain a contented spirit? David? Bill, you want to elaborate on that? Jesse? I think that's the greatest thing in all of the world to know.

The assurance that God has everything worked out. That he's already done it. Our going through it is beside the point. Yet we cannot sit down and do nothing. We have to make decisions. You decide to buy a house.

What if you hadn't? What if you just, everybody just sits down and does nothing? Dennis, what happens then? You won't do that. There's no way that you can sit down and do nothing. If you could, it'd fall apart.

Diane, if you could do nothing, if you could do nothing, which you can't, it would fall apart, wouldn't it? This morning in my study, he showed me that he who is faithful keeps me faithful.

In doing what he would have me do. It's not me doing it. So the fact that I'm able to come every day to the children, he has helped me to do that, not me running up here. That's right. And how wonderful to know that he is the one that's kept me faithful, not Diane.

That's right. And I said, that means if I'm not here, then you are the one that is not going to be here. Isn't that exciting? That's just it.

So we are faithful because he is faithful, not because we are. That's right. And in knowing that, then we are much more thankful. I'm thankful that he's made me faithful. The man who possesses the contented spirit possesses all things.

For he is satisfied with every dispensation of the providence of God, and a contented mind is a continual feast. O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged, that there is no stranger stronger love, nor more enduring affection between any relation upon earth than between such ministers of Christ and their beloved people, whom they have been happily instrumental in converting to God.

O ye Corinthians, our heart is enlarged toward you. Ye are not straightened in us, but we are straightened in your own bowels, not now for a recompense in the name I speak as unto my children, but ye are also enlarged.

Unequally Yoked Together with Unbelievers

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness? I want to talk about this a little bit. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.

What does that include, Greg? Jesse?

Yes. When he said, I am the way and the truth and the light and the truth, no man comes to bother my people. So my thinking of that after hearing it was that what probably happened to Billy Graham was that he spent so much time hobnobbing with people in high levels of government, people in high levels of religious organizations all across the world, Buddhists, Mahavidins, every kind of bird that there is, and he liked those people because they're attractive people and they're likable people.

And he spent so much time with them that it influenced him. And I think what Brother Jesse said is so true. If he had taken a stance that, well, you know, they don't believe in the fundamentals of the faith, I'm not going to be their friend in the sense of their faith, then it might have kept him from turning that direction from a viewpoint of course.

But I think what Jesse said is real important because we don't realize how influential people can be on us. We think we can handle anybody. And that's not true sometimes. If Billy Graham couldn't handle it, we might all be careful too.

Does Billy Graham know that he thinks this? No, I think it happens in such gradual little bitty steps that he doesn't realize it.

Then are we not also subject to the same thing? We have to continually.

Go back to the well. Every day. All of the time. Forever. What if we break this one rule of 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14? What if we just decide to look the other way on that one command from the Lord? Would that open us up to the possibility...

You might as well look the other way on all of them. Yeah. Clarence?

Wait, let this one go first. Brother Elvis, my idea about nobody else is important because of the fact that he had six daughters and he explained this Scripture to each of us. If you are in love with a man and he's not a Christian, either you bring him to the Lord and he wants to marry you, either you bring him to the Lord or you don't marry him.

I knew my husband two weeks when I led him to the Lord. He was raised Church of Christ and there he got his heart and shell from his Catholics. But, I guess, suppose it was love at first sight. Anyway, he asked me to marry him.

Who exactly are they? And I talked to him about becoming a Christian, and two weeks later they had a Fresh Harbor meeting down at Blinkford and he surrendered his life to the Lord. He told me that I had to tell him that I could live with the Lord.

He was baptized, a week after the revival, in an old muddy tank, an earthen tank, with 17 more young people. At that time, our Sunday school down there was about 135, in a church that was almost 100 years old at that time.

That stuck with me what he taught me. Well, I have a sister that lived in Kenya and she never, she has had, she's lived in hell, let's put it that way, all her married life. Still living in hell. So it's, that is one of the most positive things that I think this church right here can do.

And my dad taught young people and he was a light preacher, I guess you'd say, he helped people when they were coming back to Alamos, Texas, which is when the population was scarce, when we were growing up out there.

When I read, when I said something, like I heard this lesson, all those things come back to me. And another illustration, I think, those of us that was living in 1929 when the stock market crashed, I wonder how many of you remember that?

Yeah. How many of you? How many people attend the year of Judgment Day? The 24th or 5th, well, Stoner, Linda, to their dad, we had an uncle, I had an uncle, my marriage, and I had a brother who was in a thriving sawmill business in Mississippi.

When it happened, and it goes to land, he tried to jump in one of those big saws, the workers caught him and just cut his arm off. But how many of you have heard of the tragedies that took place there?

Well, a lot of them were Catholic Christians. So I think this scripture that we're studying right now should open our eyes to know. That's true. I remember when the stock market.

Crashed, the workers told me to jump. Oh, I forgot that you were here. Yes, Clarence? Well, I think.

This is part of the statement. I think we also don't need to review not only do we want to marry Christians, but also Christians of a black faith, because Christians are very broadly and some of them might be Christians or non-Christians.

In David's comment, I guess, in Jude, Michael wasn't even child-safe over the body of Moses. I think the reason that was in Hebrews, we let our pride stand in our way, that we think we can do it, and I think that's what happened probably to Bill and Greg and others, is we rely on ourselves rather than call on our Lord.

And be on that evening of yoke, we take it upon ourselves to be able to solve the situation and rely on our Lord and Savior. And to do that is exactly what the Savior wants us to do. That's right. That's right.

Whatever your name is.

And you commune with them every day and you talk over Scripture, well You're and you to yourself.

I want to add something to what I'm saying. Very briefly. I began this as Jesse Boehner, two months and ten days after I met him. Okay. They never once said, oh it won't last until you're back home while the West Texas Tribune.

Arthur? I've been back home once or twice in 60 years.

I remember Billy Graham wrote 50 years ago and he preached to make a decision. Instead of preaching, receiving the Spirit, he left it up to you to make the decision. Yes, yes. He'd leave it up to the Lord to make the decision.

That's right. I know close to 50 years ago that I heard him preach that and I didn't believe it then and I don't care now. That's right. Dennis? Didn't you have your hand up? Bert? I think so many times when we're back on stage though, brother, we cannot change somebody else.

If we are uneven when we go, we get this idea we can go in. I think we discussed today with the Bible student that the good Christian person can go in and change the people of Florida and places like that.

It don't happen. No. And we've heard people say that, you know, blackboard and change them. And usually what happens, it goes right to the person what happens there. We cannot change somebody without the power of God.

And God doesn't change, He's not us. That's right.

Yes, Diane? My dad said, people you know also took you into the business realm. Yes. That if you have a business that you're going to expand or do anything, the very first thing as a Christian you should do is see that he honors and believes the word like you do.

If he says, well, I'm not sure, then you know right there that you're not to be in business. That's right. So my dad kind of took it into the world business.

It belongs in the world of business. It belongs in our life. Period. Someone else had their hand up.

David? I was just going to add. You know, you can't go into a bar and change somebody. That is true. And when I first got saved, I thought I could because it all made such sense to me. I couldn't figure out how anyone would present it with the truth.

It would not exist. But I didn't understand like Brother Arthur did back then. I would have probably thought Billy Graham was right, you know, because I thought it was all about people making decisions.

But God taught me the hard way that that's not how it works. I'm just going to add this to what Brother Burns said. He said I made a mistake not that many years ago, fairly recently, in hiring a certain staff that were thinking that because they were young, I could change them.

Yes. That I could take them and teach them how to minister, what the Bible teaches about how a church is supposed to be. It didn't happen. It didn't happen at all. In fact, it got worse. It went part of the other direction.

So I should have known that by the time that happened. I already knew it. I just, I don't know what happened in my thinking. But it just reaffirmed in my mind that you cannot change a person. Only God can.

I've been married, what, 55 years? 56 years? 60 years? And I haven't changed her one bit.

He said, you know, you'd be an old guy. That's what he wanted to say. I'd like to be as old as he is for a while.

I'll have to go some to be as old as you are.

I want to connect to one more thing. Yes. My dad said in New Brunswick Confirmative is he said when you're going to them, unless you're absolutely sure that's the problem, but if the situation presents itself and they're in front of you,.

Yes. Yes. That's right. Absolutely. That's right. After you're burdened and you're waiting and waiting and want to go, want to go, and all of a sudden you get the call, then he said, for goodness sakes, don't forget it.

Yes. That's right.

Christ and Belial, and the Call to Separation from Idolatry

Fifteen. And what accord has Christ with Belial? Meaning the devil. Or what part has he that believeth with an infidel? What agreement has the temple of God with idols and God's temple with nothing in common with the idol temple?

So the saints are to be separate from idolaters. We need to stop here. But it says, and what concord or what concord have Christ with the devil? What connection do they have? What do they have in common?

They're both in the spiritual world, but that's all. All right, this has been a good discussion. I begin to think when we first started, you were all asleep, but you're not. So, Dennis, would you stand and dismiss us, please?