Book of 1 Corinthians - Ch. 7, Vs. 15-40 (12/31/2000)

1 Corinthians 7, 15. How did you do on not saying

I this week? Failed the course. I learned something very important.

You can't do without I. I pushes what's going to be done.

You don't have a long life. No, you don't. Well, I didn't have the time to write it down.

I wish we could say we.

Alright, 1 Corinthians 7, 15. But it is the unbelieving, but if the unbelieving depart, let him depart.

A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God hath called us to peace.

Now, Burge, what's he mean? He's talking about divorce there in front of us, where the believer marries the non -believer.

The only time that you can leave in marriage is just in adultery. And death would be the only way to depart from that.

Alright. Alright. If the unbelieving husband or wife insists on making the

Christian profession a grounds of divorce, then let him go.

Examples of this. In every age, God hath called us to peace, hence to strife must prevail to prevent separation.

If strife must prevail to prevent separation, let the other go. For what knowest thou,

O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou,

O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife? Now, by one saving the other doesn't mean that joy can save Fred to salvation.

But her walk, her Christian love, might influence.

But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk, and so ordain

I in all churches. This I would add, says

Paul in effect. Whatever may be the lot and special circumstances of each man, single, married, or deserted on account of Christianity, let him walk in it without seeking a change.

Now, do you understand that? But as God hath distributed to every man, as the

Lord hath called every one, so let him walk, and so ordain

I in all churches. If any man called being circumcised, let him not become uncircumcised.

It is called in uncircumcision, let him not be uncircumcised.

Let him be circumcised. Let him not be circumcised.

Now, whatever state you're in, when you're called, God called you in that state.

And whatever state it is, be content. He'll do the changing.

We had one member, at one time when they were saved, worked in a liquor store.

And they asked me if they should change. I said, let the

Lord change you. And he did. Now, they actively sought it, but he changed them.

Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the commandments of God. Here the apostle proceeds to exhort the

Corinthians to be content with the lot and condition which

God has called them. And to frame themselves to walk

Christ -like in it. So many times, when one is saved, they immediately look for another occupation.

Don't do that. If he wants you to have another occupation, he'll do the moving.

Now, we're to look for it, as we said, but don't just quit.

Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he is called. There it is. Let every man.

Let every person. Yes. May I make a statement about that? Yes. It says that God has distributed to every man so that he walks.

But in Francis here, it says the Lord has called everyone. So all of us are called.

Not only ministers. Any ministers? No, we're all ministers.

Oh, we've all been called. And we've all been called. And that's the first thing that's brought out of that.

Well, there was this also to me. God's going to accept us just the way we are because we're not going to change ourselves.

God doesn't change. Like you talk about changing occupations.

No matter how bad you want to change what you're saying, you're there because God wants you in that situation at that time.

That's basically what you're saying. That's right. He, as strange as it may seem, he saved you where you are.

And he'll do the changing. I don't know how else to put it. But we're not to be content where we are if we're in something less than right.

Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant?

Care not for it. And if thou mayest, he may free, use it rather.

You're to use your situation. The person that is called being a servant immediately thinks they need to be something else.

They may be missing a golden opportunity. Because as they are a servant or a hired man or whatever, they may reach people that they would never have reached otherwise.

For he that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lord's free man. He's free in the

Lord, yet he is servant of somebody. Likewise also, he that is called being free is

Christ's servant. Are you not a servant of someone? Everybody?

Everybody is a servant of someone. Being free is

Christ's servant. Know, says the apostle, that every one in his calling wherein he is called, therein abide with God, that is, look to what, look in what is honest, civil calling.

They may find when they become Christians, let them keep to that good calling.

For God doth call us from our worldly employments and business, but calls us to be holy in them.

Nor doth he serve God any whit, acquit, or discharge us from serving one another.

We are a priesthood of servants. We serve each other, in so doing we serve the

Lord. Since we cannot serve the Lord directly, we have to do it toward each other.

You are bought with a price, you are not servants of men.

Christ has bought you, each alike, ransomed them from the bondage of sin, with his blood, and bound them in the service of his own.

We had nothing to do with that. Be not the servants of men, as Christ's servants do not become the followers of any other religions.

You are servants first to Christ, then to your employer.

Brethren, let every man wherein he is called, therein abide with God. He goes over and over this.

Greg, what is the importance of it? Abide with God, in civil calling.

Alright. How do you do that? Do it every day. Time is forever moving.

It is movement without rest. Every moment we have, we are to do it unto

Christ. It is impossible to think of Christ all of the time.

Is that right or wrong? I am not perfect, so I can't do that.

Christianity does not free men from any civil obligation, which before they lay under.

Christianity does not make you free from being a servant. You were a servant, you are still a servant.

If you had a toothache when you saved, you still have the toothache. Our advantage by Christ are spiritual.

The more I study, the more I understand, everything is spiritual.

Everything first is spiritual. He does not give us what we need as first.

He gives us our spiritual life. Everything is spiritual. Our advantages by Christ are spiritual.

They seclude no man's outward condition to change by his becoming a

Christian. Now you may clean up, you may dress different, you may look different, but you are still under the obligation of the one to whom you are employed.

But under him you are a Christian. You are Christ. Yet he is a servant still if he was so before.

Their Christianity did not exempt them from their secular relation to the heathen and infidel masters.

What if every born -again Christian, when they were saved, quit all of the work that they were doing if they considered it to be wrong?

What if? Now concerning virgins,

I have no commandment of the Lord. Yet I give my judgment as one that hath obtained mercy of the

Lord to be faithful. I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress.

I say that it is good for a man to be soul. Art thou bound unto the wife?

Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from the wife?

Seek not for a wife. Stay right where you are. Be what you is, not what you ain't.

Because if you is what you ain't, you ain't what you is. Art thou bound unto a wife?

But, and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned. And if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned.

Nevertheless, such shall have trouble in the flesh, but I spare you.

This is a subject of which we are inclined to not speak.

If a person has played the whore before marriage, they're still married.

It has nothing to do with the spirituality. There was one in the scripture, or may have been more than one in the scripture, that was called into marriage, that had played that part, and God made no difference in their life.

But your sin will find you out. For the whole scheme and fashion of this world, this marrying, weeping, rejoicing, and all the rest, not only will pass, but now passeth away.

Is this movement flying off like a shadow? But this

I say, brethren, the time is short. If it's short for Paul, it's short for us.

The only thing we know is that we're closer to the rapture than he was. That's all

I know. Now, I can remember my father, born in 1885, thought that the world couldn't get any worse, that it had gone as far as it could.

But we think the same thing, do we not? The only thing, we're more sure of it than he.

And I'm sure my great -great -great -grandfather thought the same thing. My great -grandfather was a

Baptist preacher. I'm sure he thought the same thing. But I say the time is short.

It remaineth that both they that have wise be as though they had none.

And now, what's that mean? Let me hear from the right -hand section.

It means that they haven't run around a lot like they don't have a lot. All right.

What else? What else does it mean? Lord, the time is short.

So, we need to dig out the vertices, and be prepared for a time that will not be that rich.

All right. Too serious, too serious. All kinds of pressure, stress.

They're not to be overly connected. The marriage is more than the

Christ. It remaineth that both they that have wise as though they had none.

What's that mean, David? Besides what Trudy said. I think maybe

Rocky Freeman's wife is a good example of that. Because he did the

Lord's work so energetically that out of all the years they were married, they were really only together maybe a fourth of that time.

He was off preaching and serving the Lord. Maybe it means that the time is short.

We don't have a lot of time left to serve Him. So, even if you're married, if God has called you, or whatever

God has called you to do, be about that and let that be primary in your life.

All right. Being I've been married for some 50, 55 years, what is that compared to a lifetime?

Or to eternity? Nothing. It just doesn't weigh anything.

Yet it is that invisible moment that we have that is all important.

And they that weep as though they wept not, and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not, and they that buy as though they possessed not, and they that use this world as not abusing it, for the fashion of the world passeth away.

What's it mean, it passes away, Greg? I think that's what he has reference to.

That everything is going to stop. Everything will be changed.

And they that use this world as not abusing it, but I would have you without carefulness, that he that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the

Lord, how he may please the Lord. But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.

Can a man be married and not, well, in this age?

Can a man be married and not take into consideration the feelings of his wife?

No. Whereas if you had no wife, you would not have that responsibility.

And you can be totally dedicated to the Lord. He is not against marriage, for he himself was married.

But he is, he is against marriage taking part of the time that belongs to the

Lord. There is a difference also between a wife and a virgin.

The unmarried woman careth not for the things of the world, that she may be holy both in body and spirit.

But she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

Same on both sides. And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon it, but for that which is comely and that which is attended upon the

Lord without distraction. Can we that are married serve the

Lord 100 % of the time, David?

The best we can do, there will be distractions. But if any man think that he behave himself uncommonly toward his virgin, he that if she pass the flower of her age and need so require, let him do that he will, he sinneth not, let them marry.

Nevertheless, he that standeth steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well.

So then, he that giveth her in marriage, doeth well, but he that giveth her not in marriage, doeth better.

The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth.

But if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to marry, to be married to whom she will only in the

Lord. What's he mean only in the Lord, Joy? Only to a believer.

Now, the wife is bound by the law as long as she is married to her husband, or as long as her husband liveth.

What is meant by that, Virge? When she's married, she's married, when she's married first, she's bound by the law, they marry, and then once he dies, he's allowed to marry a believer she considers him.

I mean, that's what I think. All right. David? All right.

All right. What about so many marriages and people living together not married today?

But that's not our choice. Well, I see lots of things that are going contrary to my thinking.

What about, well, what about the unsaved in this world today?

That's right. That's right.

They were after the first husband was dead. Now, the widow might marry again provided she is married in the

Lord, that is, with a believer, not an infidel, with one of the same faith with herself.

That's right. So don't get your hopes up. It is very dangerous and sinful for persons professing the truth of faith of Christ to match with idolaters.

Very, very dangerous. There is far greater ground of fear that that they will pervert you than there is ground of hope that you shall convert them.

What about a man that a woman marries and thinks she'll change him?

Nobody. She can't change him at all.

That's right. That's right. Same on the other side.

But she is happier if she so abide after my judgment, and I think also

I have the Spirit of God. So abide. Continue unmarried during those troubles.

If she can so remain consistently, consistently I have the Spirit of God to guide me in the views expressed in this subject.

If she has the Spirit of God. Yes. There is a lot that can never be changed.

And I think God is going to do the change. And I'm not saying that in all circumstances that's right.

But there is something that I believe you can't believe her that never does change people. Sometimes there is really change needed.

But she made that choice before she was married. All right, is there anything this is all

I have this morning. Is there anything that on chapter 7 7 that you care to ask about?

Give the Christian young person a hold on himself as a teacher.

This is a disastrous life. It's a possibility. Because the world doesn't know these things.

That's right. So the average young lady in high school today or in college thinks that if she sees that she has plans that she desires that she thinks would be the right person later that's just universal.

They all think that way. And yet the Lord has given us a lot of examples where that didn't work.

People we know where it just didn't work. And turn the other way around the young men are not guaranteed that they can change anymore.

So there are young people who know the word of God and realize that if they're born again they're going to have to watch this for a period of time to see if when they fall they're going to say they're

Christians. So you have to walk with them long enough that your spirit is dense so that they are sure to say that when they stop, it's good to fall.

It's easy to fool the human ear. It is not wise to marry an unsaved person.

Anything else? Yes. Yes, that's true.

What you see is what you get. Anything else?

Well, it's the same today.

Now we may believe it in this church and we may teach it in this church but outside of this church you won't hear it.

No. No. Anything the other is taught.

No. Yeah. And It's very difficult to find.

Yeah. I'm thinking of Rocky's wife.

She'd be perfectly legal to marry if it was Christian but she may choose to be single.

That's just between you and me, you don't. But it just goes the other way.

The world is teaching the other side of this in rampant portions.

It's hard to be a Christian yet it's easy. It's better for us than no one.

Well, let's stand and we'll be dismissed. Jesse dismisses, please.