Saturating Your Soul With The Spirit's Scripture (part 1) - [1 Corinthians 2:6-13]

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Saturating Your Soul With The Spirit's Scripture (part 2) - [1 Corinthians 2:6-13]

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I like to study people, I like to exegete people, study them, watch them, and one thing
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I've found, in my life, I'm only 50, but in my life, as I've been around the country and around the world,
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I've never met anyone who wishes they were more foolish. I haven't met anyone in my life, sinful or redeemed, who said,
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I wish I was a little more stupid than I am. I've never met anyone who said,
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I wish I didn't know as much, I wish I had a lower IQ. Everybody that I've ever met wishes they were wiser, smarter, more intellectual, had more understanding, and I think you as well, sitting here listening today, if you're really honest with yourself, and I ask you this question, what would you say?
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Do I have the desire to be more wise? I think the answer's going to be yes.
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I want to be more wise. My follow -up question is this.
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How do you become more wise? Biblically, theologically, not just wisdom of the world, some kind of a collection, a pooling of knowledge, and then you try to live it out, or you might have wisdom that your grandfather taught you, or your grandmother, or mother, or father, or other people at work, kind of applied knowledge.
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That's good too, but what about real wisdom? Wouldn't you like to be wise in God's eyes?
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Wouldn't you like to have an increased biblical reservoir from which you could analyze life and to say, this is right, this is wrong, this is why people do things.
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This is how I should see the world. I think the answer is, if you're here today, you probably want that.
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How do you get more wisdom? Where is it found? Wouldn't you travel the world to find more wisdom?
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If it was just as easy as going to the middle of the universe, to going to the Middle East, and if there were just some kind of fountain there and we could just guzzle some wisdom down,
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I think you'd save up to go get that wisdom. I would. I just want to be wiser, more spiritually clever.
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So if you today would like to be more wise, there's only one way that you can get wisdom.
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One primary source for wisdom. And what you do with this source will determine how much wisdom you have.
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If you've been around here for very long, you'll know there is one place to get wisdom.
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And that wisdom is not found in your own person, your own spiritual aptitude, gathering knowledge from Harvard and Yale and other universities.
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There's one place for real wisdom, and that is through the Scriptures, the
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Holy Bible, where God's wisdom is revealed. One of my favorite
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Proverbs in all of the Bible from Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, here's what he said,
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Proverbs 4, the beginning of wisdom is this. What's the beginning of wisdom? You'd like to have wisdom?
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Where do I start? Here it is. Ready? It's classic. Get wisdom.
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The beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom. And whatever you get, get insight.
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Proverbs 16. How much better to get wisdom than gold? What's gold at now? $1 ,263.
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I just was reading about it in the Middle East, I think Dubai, they have in the hotels now gold dispensing things.
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You can just put in your credit card, let's see, I think I'll get like five ounces or so, you put it in, and out comes gold.
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Put my luggage over the limit so I just only got a few ounces. Proverbs 3.
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Blessed is the one who finds wisdom. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who gets understanding.
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Show me many other teachers across the country and they'll say, you know what the real blessing is? It's riches.
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You know what the real blessing is? Some kind of success, fame, and fortune, and prosperity.
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Solomon says at the end of the day, you know what you need? You need wisdom. So let's turn our
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Bibles to 1 Corinthians 2 and see what Paul the Apostle says about gaining wisdom.
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I want everyone here to be wiser. Even if you're the most wise and you're a teacher, you can still increase in wisdom.
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If you're not a Christian and you're sitting here today, well the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And you ought to say, first of all, before I have a way to think about life, you ought to think about death.
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Because one day you'll die. Stand before God. And intellect, wisdom, IQ, and degrees will not solve your problem of sin.
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Christ Jesus alone, the sin bearer, is the only one you can look to for refuge, this risen Savior who's alive today.
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For Christians, Paul is talking to this church, a church in Corinth, which is close to Athens.
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The rebels still exist today. And he's going to talk to them about wisdom. Let me give you six reasons from 1
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Corinthians 2, 6 through 13. So we're in 1 Corinthians 2, 6 to 13. Six reasons you ought to completely saturate yourself with the
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Word of God. God's wisdom revealed in the Scripture from the Holy Spirit through the
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Apostles. I want you to just get the Word of God and supersaturate yourself with this book.
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Now most of you here like to read the Bible and are an encouragement to me. So I want to try to make sure I tell you as I would say to the church at Thessalonica through Paul's words, excel still what?
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More. I think I can be a better Bible student. I think I can study more. I think
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I can learn the Scriptures in a better fashion. And if I can, I know you can as well. So if you're a rabid
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Bible studier now, great. Here's some kerosene with the sermon today. And if you're kind of wandering around thinking, you know,
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I just can't dissect life. I don't know what way to go and yeah, yeah, the Bible and all that. I get around to that and I read my daily bread in the morning and I'm good to go.
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I want to try to influence you through the Spirit of God today that you get your Bibles open. This is the way to grow.
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This is God's ordained means of growth for wisdom, for godliness and sanctification is through the
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Word of God. By the way, that's why we put a premium on preaching. Of course, we love to sing about the
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Lord Jesus, don't we? We love to pray through the Lord Jesus' work to the God the
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Father, don't we? But we like to preach about Christ Jesus and His wisdom. Six reasons you ought to saturate yourself with God's Word.
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This is going to be helpful because the media wants to saturate your mind with its worldview.
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You've got pre -modernism, modernism, post -modernism. You can wrap them all up and they want to influence you.
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The system of the world will try to make you think its way. It will brainwash you. Matter of fact,
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I've been brainwashed by the world system and I think you have been too. So now I want to motivate you through the
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Spirit's power to re -brainwash yourself with the Bible. You've heard it here first. I'm going to try to brainwash you with the
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Bible today. How's that? People say, yeah, that's that cult down on Route 110.
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Well, not a very opulent looking cult, I might say, on the outside. Remember, I used to drive an old car when
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I first got here and in the morning it wouldn't really start well and I'd have to put the windshield scraper in the winter, push down against the seat onto the accelerator to just kind of keep it going when it was warming up.
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I thought I left corporate America for this. I called it secretly the pastor's humble mobile and I would drive around in my pinto -like car.
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You'd think I'd get a little more opulence if I was a cult leader brainwashing people. But I want your mind to be saturated with the
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Word of God that you would be literally enthralled with the Scripture, spellbound with the
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Scripture, to use an old term, mesmerized. Now, before we look at these reasons found in chapter 2, 6 through verse 13,
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I want to just think big picture and then we'll work our way back down to the text. Almost every problem theologically can be solved if you know the context and so I don't want to create more problems by just dropping into these verses.
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What's the big picture in the book of 1 Corinthians as I try to increase your desire to read your
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Bible so that you might get God's wisdom? Paul is saying there are some problems and I want to address those problems and the problem in chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4 is disunity.
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There's a church with lots of people, lots of personalities, some stronger, some weaker, and there's a fracture, there's a split, and Paul's going to try to correct that.
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And Paul says there's really two reasons in the first four chapters for this split. One is they don't have the right view of wisdom, the other is they don't have the right view of ministry.
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Well, chapter 1, 2, and 3, not the right view of wisdom. If you're off chasing the wisdom of Foucault, the wisdom of Plato, the wisdom of Socrates, well, there's three different groups in the church,
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Foucault followers, Plato followers, Socrates followers. They could even be men that seem to be good.
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It could be Paul followers, Apollos followers. And Paul is going to say this, why don't you get real wisdom from above, divine wisdom,
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God's wisdom, and all focus upon that, and it'll bring the church together. It is a true statement that if you show me a church that's splitting apart,
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I'll show you a church that, contrary to the external view, that it seems to be really a
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Bible -teaching church. There's a large component of people in that church who do not have biblical wisdom, because if they did, the church wouldn't be fracturing.
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The people who have biblical wisdom would say, this is how you deal with sin in the church. If it must be dealt with, let's do it according to Matthew 18.
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The wise would say, well, they're immature people in the church, so let's just treat them as immature.
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Come alongside and encourage, but show me people who have their minds set on three different things.
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You'll have a church going three different ways, and so Paul says, wisdom is the order of the day. Now, he's been blasting wisdom in chapter 1.
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He says, you know what real wisdom is? Jesus on a cross. Chapter 1, verse 18.
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That's kind of foolishness. That's moronic that a man who can't save himself can save other people.
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He can't physically save himself, but he's going to save us spiritually. That is kind of a foolish what? Then Paul says, well, you want foolishness?
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Let me give you a little more foolishness. The people that God saves, they're foolish. I mean, look to your neighbor and say you're foolish.
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No, just kidding. You ever go to churches like that? Look to the person to your left and say, you know, you're special in God's eyes, and God's lucky for you to worship.
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Now you look at your person, you go, you're really weak, and you're not really noble. You're not really wise.
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That's chapter 1, verses 26 through 31, that God, to show his glory, his greatness, he uses cracked, frail vessels.
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That doesn't seem like worldly wisdom. The world says numbers, strategy, some kind of marketing scheme.
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Paul says, by the way, in chapter 2, verses 1 to 5, when I was there at Corinth, when
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I came to preach to you, I practiced what I preached. I didn't come with all kinds of persuasive words and wrapping things up really wonderfully so people would go,
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I didn't even really believe the gospel, but he's sure convincing. And I think I'll go along with what he says because he's a good wordsmith.
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He's a craftsman when it comes to verbs and nouns and persuasion.
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Paul says, no, I came, and I came, and I wanted to demonstrate to you that my ministry was a ministry that showed the
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Spirit's power. It was a court demonstration, first bit of evidence.
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I demonstrate to you that all the people that follow Christ Jesus were not because I tricked them into it.
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I cunningly talked them into it. No, they were sinners saved by the grace of God, regenerated by the
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Spirit of God, and they're a trophy of the Spirit of God's grace. And now Paul in chapter 2, verses 6 and following says, speaking of the
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Holy Spirit, let's talk more about the Holy Spirit. Sometime look through chapter 2, verses 6 through 13 and ask yourself the question, how many times is the
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Holy Spirit referred to? This is a chapter all about the Holy Spirit. We believe that God the
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Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Three persons, one God. We are monotheists, but we believe in the triune
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God, and here we see the flood of the Spirit's ministry as proper wisdom is discussed.
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You might, if you're not thinking properly, might say, Paul, you've bashed wisdom in chapter 1, verse 18 all the way through chapter 2, verse 5, and you don't care about wisdom.
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I guess we're supposed to be just kind of spiritually stupid, Paul. I remember when I first started preaching, I would say the word stupid, and little kids would look shocked when
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I would say the word stupid from the pulpit. Stupid, as long as it's not a noun,
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I think we're probably okay, theologically. Paul says,
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I'm talking about wisdom that's of the world, therefore I reject it. But there's a good wisdom, and now in chapter 2, verses 6 and following, he says, let me tell you about the great wisdom, divine wisdom, revealed wisdom, wisdom that is incredible.
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Churches that are committed to do what the Bible says, how the Bible says it, are churches that you're going to see unity.
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Churches that begin to explode from the inside out, I'll show you a church that is not wise. Oh, there may be some wise people there who are desiring to do the right thing, but those that rise up and do the unbiblical thing and leave and other things not according to Scripture, they reveal their inner lack of biblical wisdom.
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Wisdom's good. Worldly wisdom's bad, but divine wisdom is good, and that's what we're after today.
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So let's look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 6 through 13, the first reason you ought to completely saturate yourself with God's word, divine wisdom, is because God's wisdom is always relevant, verse 6, because God's wisdom is always relevant, therefore you ought to saturate yourself with this book.
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Fads come and go, but when you think of the Scriptures, they are trans -chronological.
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When I prepare a sermon and I go to South Africa or to Pune, India, I preach the same sermon.
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Oh, I might say cricket instead of baseball, but when it comes to the text, these are relevant in every society, all societies, a thousand years ago, three thousand years in the future if the
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Lord tarries. This is a relevant book, and so when it comes to the Scriptures, maybe I could say it this way, they are not like spiritual flares.
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You know jeans, flares, flare jeans, maybe flares now are marking pens, I don't know. Does anybody know where the flare pants are?
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Okay, I guess you know. Look at what the text says in verse 6, fads may come and go, but the
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Bible, God's wisdom is always relevant. After all, God is relevant, so therefore what
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He says and thinks has to be relevant, verse 6, yet among the mature we do impart wisdom.
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See, we're not against all wisdom, we're just against this kind of wisdom.
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He says, although it is not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away.
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The gospel that saves sinners through a risen Savior is a good wisdom, it's eternal, it's relevant.
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Other wisdoms come and go. You see, every generation has its own philosophers and people who spout wisdom, and where are they now?
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Well, people come along after those philosophers have died, and maybe they improve, cut pace, prove false.
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Paul says, but I've got a wisdom. Literally in the Greek, it's wisdom we speak. If you're writing in the
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Greek back 2 ,000 years ago, you put whatever word at the beginning of the sentence to make it emphatic. Wisdom we speak.
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Now, how many people know Where's Waldo? Those little books, lots. Here's a St. Clair Ferguson, Where's Waldo?
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minute. When you read this text, yet among the mature we, who do you think of as the we?
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Do you know who I think of the we as? Us. Christians who have, you know, come along through the ages.
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Oh, this is Corinth, and therefore me. We have to not look at the
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Bible and say, where can I find myself in there? We have to say, what was Paul meaning when he wrote we?
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Paul says, we have a wisdom. Who is the we? Who are the we?
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Cheryl Hill. Who are these people? Church of Corinth.
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Paul, along with the Church of Corinth, is really giving the right kind of wisdom. No, he's chasing in them for their wrong kind of wisdom.
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Paul is going to say, we, mark this, apostles.
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If you don't get this down, you're not going to get any of this. You're going to be kind of reading the Bible with Where's Waldo and think, there we are.
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We, Paul and I, Paul and the Church of Corinth, Paul and the Church of Corinth and BBC, we.
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No, this is Paul the apostle. Yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom, emphatically.
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Now, I can't go any further yet, so let me just give you briefly a pastoral reminder about apostles.
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Apostles do not exist today. I probably should have backed up.
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Do apostles exist today? Have you ever met a. Now, easy for you to say.
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If you drive a church and it says, apostolic church, I've met people that have called themselves apostles.
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We need to know who apostles are because if apostles give divine wisdom, then
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I want to make sure I've got an apostle to teach me divine wisdom. If there are apostles today, you need to go meet them.
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You need to leave BBC and go to a church where an apostle could speak. You get me. This is a little sidebar but a valuable one.
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Let me give you five requirements of an apostle,
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New Testament apostle. You can just put this on a little sidebar. It helps. We're trying to figure out who the we is. It's important for 1
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Corinthians chapter 2. If you think we can get through all 13 verses, all 6 to 13, we're not going to do it, but we're going to go faster than we normally do.
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How's that? Actually, I met a guy the other day and he said he likes to take
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No Compromise radio and speed up the tape a little bit so he can listen to the shows faster because they're 24 minutes and 30 seconds.
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If you do like 1 .2 times as fast, it doesn't really sound like my voice changes and he can listen to them more.
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Five requirements of an apostle. Number one, they were eyewitnesses to the resurrection.
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That gets rid of all the apostles today. Eyewitnesses to the resurrected Christ. Either to the resurrection itself or to the resurrected
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Christ. Acts 1 is therefore necessary that the men who have accompanied us all the time that the
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Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with the baptism of John until the day that he was taken up from us, one of these should become a witness with us of his resurrection.
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Judas is dead. We've got to pick a new guy. How do we pick the new guy? He has to see the resurrected
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Christ. There are no apostles today because none of them have seen some Jesus.
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Secondly, apostles were able to perform undeniable miracles. I don't mean leg lengthenings and bad backs.
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I mean organic miracles. I mean if you go to UMass Hospital and you go to the pediatric
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ICU, you could walk through and heal every one of those kids instantly, organically, permanently.
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2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 12, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles.
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Paul says if you want to see an apostle, they've seen the resurrected Jesus like I did on the road to Damascus and they can perform miracles.
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If the sign of a real apostle that Paul tells the church of Corinth in 2 Corinthians is somebody that does miracles, supernatural miracles, if supernatural miracles were done by everybody all the time, then how would that prove that they were an apostle?
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Paul says no, they were unique to the apostles and those in that circle. They authenticated the apostle.
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They authenticated what the apostle said. Three, eyewitnesses, undeniable miracles.
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Number three, they were around at the foundation of the church. They were around at the foundation of the church.
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Ephesians 2 .20, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself, the cornerstone.
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I'm not a good builder, but I do understand this. Once you lay the foundation down, you don't return.
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Up and building and building and building, the apostles laid the foundation, Christ Jesus' apostles at 30
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AD, 50 AD. Here are the apostles as the New Testament was being written and the church has been growing and growing and growing and growing.
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We no longer need to go back to the foundation. Number four, they were personally chosen by Jesus Christ.
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Personally chosen by Jesus Christ. You can look at Matthew chapter 10, 12, like I said,
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Paul on Damascus Road. And then lastly, this is a big one, apostles received divine wisdom from God, special revelation.
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They saw Jesus, they could perform miracles, picked by Jesus at the foundation of the church when the church was first starting.
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That's where they were. We're up now at least to the roof, not the chimney. And they received special revelation.
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Flip with me if you would over to John chapter 14. This is another one of those verses that help us when we try to think of authorial intent instead of where am
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I in this verse. I have to tell you when you're flipping over there to John chapter 14, you're not anywhere in this chapter.
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I'm not anywhere in this chapter. Sometimes we read just about God and we're not to be found in the chapter.
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This is different than an epistle. John chapter 14 verse 26.
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This is huge and it ties into what we're doing in 1 Corinthians. Ron Farrar was reading from John 14 earlier.
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And now we go down to John chapter 14 verse 26. He's promising the spirit of God to these apostles.
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And he says in verse 26, you might want to underline this verse, but the helper, the
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Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
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The Holy Spirit will help these apostles put together the
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New Testament. This is not, well, I don't know how to evangelize and I've been door to door evangelizing and I've knocked on people's door and I've thought to myself, what am
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I going to say? I have no idea what to say. This is not a promise for me.
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Oh, I'm so thankful because he's going to teach me all things and he'll bring to remembrance what he said. There might be a good application of this verse and the spirit of God can bring up into my heart verses that I've studied.
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But this is particularly, specifically Jesus saying to the apostles, I'm going to go, but don't worry.
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One just like me, my essence, my nature, Holy Spirit, the third person of the
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Trinity, he's going to be with you and he's going to recall, he's going to bring to your mind all the things you need to know.
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By the way, I could prove it this way or I could add to it this way. When Jesus was praying in John 17, what were the other men doing who were there?
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Peter, James, and John are allowed to come close and what were they doing? They were sleeping.
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How do we know what Jesus prayed if the men are sleeping? John was sleeping. He just had
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Passover and instituted the Lord's Supper with real wine. I'm sure it had been a hard, stressful day.
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He has a little bit of wine. They fall asleep, chided by Jesus, yes, but they fall asleep. And now how do we know what
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Jesus prayed? Answer, the Holy Spirit, John 14, verse 26, told
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John the apostle everything that Jesus prayed. I go backwards a little bit.
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How did Moses know what happened in Genesis 1 -1? Well, the
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Spirit of God did that. And here's the connection between chapter 2 of 1
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Corinthians and John, this apostle excursus. With revelation from God comes great authority.
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If you have a message from God, you have great authority. If Paul says, I've received wisdom from God, then you church,
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Corinth, you ought to do it. The apostles had jurisdiction, not just at Corinth, but anywhere
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Paul went, he had divine jurisdiction because he received the message from God. Jude 17, but you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. The reason why I know there are no apostles today, besides they haven't seen
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Jesus, besides they haven't been picked by Jesus, besides the miracles that they do aren't the miracles of the
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New Testament, is that we have received all the revelation we need and with no new revelation needed, there are no new apostles needed to give something we don't need.
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That make sense? If we needed new revelation, God would use apostles. But since we have a canon that's complete, close, sufficient, adequate, authoritative, we don't need anybody else telling us this is what
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God says. In other words, we now have divine wisdom. By the way, if I could be an apostle,
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I would love it. I'd love everything except the martyrdom part, but I would love to be an apostle. You know how much authority they could have?
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You know how easy it would be to understand? Well, that's kind of a tough verse. Is that a genitive? Is that a, what kind of objective genitive?
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Subjective genitive? What kind of verse is that? I just go, I'm an apostle. I know. This is not a joke.
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The sick people that are this church, that I could heal if I was an apostle.
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And how I would never have to say again, listen, if I tell you something from the Bible, you must do it.
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But if it's just my own wisdom, take it or leave it. I could say with the authority of Christ, you must obey.
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We don't need apostles today because we have wisdom found in the 66 books of the
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English canon. Apostles do not exist today. Now let's go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Paul calls these
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Christians mature. You might think these are immature Christians. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 6, yet among the mature, we apostles do impart wisdom.
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What do you mean mature? These people are acting immature. Well, mature can mean lots of different things, including people that are fully initiated into a special group.
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He's not saying you've arrived theologically, you've arrived with sanctification, you're perfect, you're really just the mature ones.
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He's saying you're acting immaturely. But here he says something could be with sarcasm. He says, you're part of this fully initiated group.
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You're on the inside. You have the Spirit of God. And he says, we speak wisdom to you. You're part of this group of real
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Christians. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 9, he explains a little bit more who these people are, who are the mature.
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End of verse 9, chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians. What God has prepared for those who love Him. Corinth, if you love
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Him, you're a saint and He actually calls you mature because you're part of this group. And then he says, with clarification, verse 6, although it is not a wisdom of this age.
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The kind of thing that comes and goes according to history. Who are doomed to pass away?
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Who are those rulers? Do you know what Origen thought? Origen thought those rulers were demons. You Christians have wisdom from God, but it's not a demonic kind of wisdom.
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Is that what he's saying? Well, look down at verse 8. I think we can determine who the people are there.
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And it's not demons, they're people. None of the rulers of this age understood this, verse 8, for if they had, they would not have crucified the
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Lord of glory. Who crucified Jesus? People or spirits? Did the spirits drive the nails in?
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Now, maybe you say there are some rulers like Herod and Caiaphas and Pilate.
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People like Judas. Some of the Sadducees and the Pharisees and hypocritical people and the lawyers, they were the rulers and behind them there was this demonic horde.
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Well, that would be true. But he's saying, Paul is saying this, you Christians have a divine wisdom that's not of this world.
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It's out of this world and it doesn't pass away. It's always relevant. How relevant are these folks who are doomed to pass away?
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Not very. I ask you, where are the great minds of the last generation?
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Where are the great minds of the last 100 years? Where are the great minds of the last 1 ,000 years? I'll tell you where they are.
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They're dead and much of their wisdom has passed away. We impart, the apostle
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Paul says, with other apostles. You're going to blast me that I'm an apostle? We apostles collectively say, this is the mind of God.
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So why focus on human wisdom? And so now
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I say to you as an application, would you study the scriptures because they're always relevant?
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Don't get caught up in this, well, it's a different time, it's a different language, it was 2 ,000 to 3 ,000 years ago, it was a different culture, different historical thinking, they were
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Eastern, we're Western. No, this is a relevant thing. I ask you, is the holiness of God still relevant?
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Is dying and paying for your own sins still relevant? This is not some kind of Amish old -fashioned book.
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This is not what Robert Green Ingersoll said. If a man would follow today the teachings of the
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Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow the teachings of the new, he would be insane.
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No, we need the words, they're relevant. Thy word is a lamp unto thy feet and a light unto my path.
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The Bible says the fear of the Lord, the word of God is enduring forever. It endures forever because it's clean, it's not corrupt, it's not spotted, it's not tainted with sin, it endures forever, it is eternally relevant.
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I could say it this way if I was with the younger people. I think this is a generation ago though. The Bible is always in.
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We never say bye -bye to the Bible when it comes to its relevance. If you have divine wisdom, how many
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Bibles do you have at your house? I mean, I'm almost ashamed by how many Bibles we have at our house.
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How many Bibles, the resources that we have. I want to encourage you, you are a
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Bible -reading church, so keep reading. Here's my plan for the summer. This is what I suggest. We're going to take on the book of Mark this summer for divine wisdom.
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How many chapters in Mark? Sixteen, but barely sixteen, not many verses in chapter sixteen. So, for the book of June, for the month of June, I want you to read
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Mark chapter one through five every day. If you hit about twenty days out of thirty, let your conscience be assuaged.
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July, Mark six to ten. August, Mark eleven to sixteen.
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Like MacArthur says, read it from the same Bible. So you go, oh yeah, Mark eleven verse fifteen, it's right here in my
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Bible, left -hand column half the way down. Keep reading, every day.
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Read your proverb, read your psalm, read your other things. Mark one to five, Mark one to five, Mark one to five, Mark one to five, and you're going to start seeing the big picture.
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What do we do when I preach? Sometimes I just come down at such a detailed level, these kind of atomistically,
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I want you to get the big picture, to see divine wisdom incarnate. Mark chapter one to five, beginning in June.
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So I'm giving you a little head start, so you can kind of pick up on it. And you read it in the same Bible, over and over and over, and I guarantee you, at the end of these three months,
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I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but here's my guarantee. You will be more wise.
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You say, I'm studying Romans or something else, that's fine. But as a congregation, let's look at the book of Mark. It's fast, it's all about the greatness of Christ, and when you look at this book, you're going to go,
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I am more and more impressed with Jesus every single time I read it. I can't believe how he talks to people.
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It's not in Mark, but I love it when Jesus is talking to the scribes and Pharisees, and the lawyers say, you're pretty hard on them.
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What about us? Woe to the scribes, woe to the Pharisees. What about us? And Jesus says, and woe to you lawyers as well.
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And I just go, that's my Savior. That's my Lord. If people know they have no righteousness,
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He's kind, compassionate, generous. And if people think they have righteousness,
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He delivers the death blow verbally. So if the
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Bible is always relevant, if the Bible gives divine wisdom, then we ought to study it.
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And so, the Gospel of Mark this summer, chapters 1 -5, 6 -10 for July, and then 11 -16 in August.
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Any takers? Okay, nobody wants to commit. I see that hand. Ferdie, are you in?
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All right. You say, well, I'm a dad, and I don't know, you're doing the parenting class. How do I lead my kids?
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What do I teach them? I don't know about you, but I kind of like to double things up. If I have to teach something, if I have to do something myself, then we might as well make it a family affair.
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How about the Book of Mark that shows Christ Jesus and all
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His humanity and all His deity? The second reason you ought to completely saturate your mind with the
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Bible, that is God's divine wisdom that's always relevant, is number two, second reason, because it reveals the eternal mind of God.
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It reveals the eternal mind of God. We all have subjects that we like and don't like.
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I used to like math until I've had to relearn 5th grade, 6th grade, 8th grade, 11th grade math at home, helping the kids.
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I didn't really like Diffie Cues. I didn't really like geometry. I didn't really like algebra. You all have classes that you used to take and you didn't like, but you were forced to take them.
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If I could live my life over again, I'd take a bunch of English literature classes and I'd take a bunch of history classes, but there's one class that's the best class in the world, because the subject is the best.
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How about in the scriptures you can study the eternal mind of God.
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I like to just peer into Martin Lloyd -Jones thoughts. I like to peer into John Calvin's thoughts.
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I like to peer into, pick your favorite people, Mary Schleser. I like to peer into people's minds.
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Maybe your favorite is Elizabeth Elliot, and you just think, the way they thought, the way they talked, the way the old generation just did things.
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I just wish I could just peer in a little bit. I'm reading Paul Johnson's biography of Churchill. I thought
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I wish I could have hung out with Churchill and just sit there and listen to Churchill when he would say, you know, everybody's a worm, worm theology, but I'm a glow worm.
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I just find that fascinating. Don't you want to meet that guy and study? In one sense, don't get me wrong, but I'm going to try to be as careful as I can.
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I'm glad the Boston Bruins tanked miserably.
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It was embarrassing. By the way, since I was nine years old, my favorite team was always the Boston Bruins, because I pick teams the right way.
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I pick by color, so I pick yellow. You want to know why I'm a Lakers fan? Because they were yellow.
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Pittsburgh Pirates, yellow. So I'm a Boston Bruins fan.
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But if you're going to study that, I knew when I was a kid, I could tell you the statistics of the only non -yellow team
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I ever wanted to study, the Nebraska Cornhuskers. I knew yards per carry, and if you're into football, what we call soccer, you know all this, and you study, and you give all the adoration, and studying in the late at night.
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There's nothing wrong with refreshment for the Christian. There's nothing wrong with rest for the Christian. There's nothing wrong with recreation for the
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Christian, is there? We're not legalists. I'm not saying you need to go home and smash your Wii and your
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TV and everything else. It probably would, though, help a lot of you. But how about the object for your studies?
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Somebody says, well, you know, what are you doing these days? I'm taking some classes. Oh, really? Taking some classes? Where? You know, at the
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Kennebunkport community thing up there in that strip mall? No, I'm studying the eternal mind of God.
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That's what I'm going to start saying to the few friends that I have left. The scriptures reveal the mind of eternal
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God, and Paul's going to say to the church of Corinth, and I'm going to say to you, isn't that a good subject to know this
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God? And by the way, it's not in the text here, but it's a biblical principle. You will become like the one you study, even in simple things.
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You know, they have people, and they show them with their dogs, and you go, after the dog's 15 years old, you see the people walking with their dogs, and you go, they look like their dogs.
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Do you know, they have a study, I heard S. Lewis Johnson talking about it, that if you show a brother and a sister at age 50, and then show a husband and a wife at age 50, who've been married 30 years, the husband and wife look more alike than the brother and sister.
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The one that you think about and spend time with, you just change, and if you study something, you will become like that something, and if you study the eternal mind of God, guess what?
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You will increase, if you're a Christian, in your godliness, and you will be more like God. I don't mean in some kind of pagan, little
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God things, but like God, more holy, more righteous, the eternal mind of God.
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Look what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 7. I, as your pastor, want to encourage you to keep saturating your mind with the
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Bible, because it's relevant, one, and number two, it reveals the eternal mind of God. But we, no word
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Waldo people here, we, apostles, impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which
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God decreed before the ages for our glory. We impart wisdom from God.
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And now he's going to say something positively. If verse 7 was more negatively couched, now this is more positively couched.
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There is a real wisdom that leads to light and salvation and eternal heaven, and it's not fresh, it's not newly originated, it's not the latest to surely find itself in the dumpster of the outdated.
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This is the eternal mind of God. Look what the text says, decreed before the ages for our glory.
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Now that is enough to blow your proverbial mind. Did you know the cross was not plan B? Did you know
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Jesus was to come and die for those people that the Father had given him, and it was determined in eternity past?
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Do you know in eternity past, the Father, Son, and the Spirit had a triune pact and promise where they said, let us pick a group of people, everyone deserves hell, but let's rescue some, we'll have the
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Father choose those some, Jesus the Son will die for those some, and the
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Spirit of God will redeem those some before Genesis 1 and 1, it was all determined. And Paul says,
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I preach to you a wisdom where you can have the veil of eternal decrees pulled back and you get to peek in there and say, this is how
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God works. Paul says, we impart a secret.
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Do you see it in verse 7? The word is mysterion. It doesn't mean mysterious, it means something that nobody knew until God revealed it.
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So God knew about this, but we didn't know about it until apostles came down and told us the mind of God.
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There's something in this word mysterion that conveys the idea of tight -lippedness, shutting your mouth, sealed lips.
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God didn't have to tell us all this stuff about predestination, decree, the eternal Christ Jesus coming to die, the
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Trinity, but He wasn't tight -lipped, He had a secret and then He used the apostles to tell us the secret.
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This is not some kind of mysterious thing, it needs to be solved. This is something that God only knew and He now told us.
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One of my favorite stories when I think of mysterious is
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William Phelps who taught English literature at Yale for 41 years, retired in 1933.
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Marking an examination paper shortly before Christmas one year, he came across this note, God only knows the answer to this question,
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Merry Christmas. Dr. Phelps returned the paper with this note,
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God gets an A, you get an F, Happy New Year.
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God only knows the eternal decrees and He didn't have to tell anyone, but through the apostles that He selected,
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He has revealed this and it's no longer a mystery. This is not some kind of mystery religion, this is a religion that God had to Himself and then
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He revealed it, apocalyptically revealing it. God only knows and He revealed it to us and now we know and we have this wisdom in scripture and so if you want to know the eternal mind of God, it's going to take you to open your
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Bibles to look. Flip back a book to the very end, you only have to flip over a couple of pages, maybe even one page at the end of Romans 16, we have the same kind of language.
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Romans 16, talking about something that was not known, but true and then
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God discloses it. Romans chapter 16, verse 25 to 27, when you hear the word mystery in the
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Bible, don't think mysterious, think about something that only God knew, but He used apostles to disclose to us.
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Romans 16, 25, now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal
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God to bring about the obedience of faith, dash, to the only wise
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God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen. That's the idea, we didn't know it,
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God did, He disclosed it. If the God of the universe discloses things, it's good for us to try to study those things.
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You see back in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 7, we've got to wrap up, this is the creed before the ages, for your or our glory.
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It could have been for His glory, but here it's for our glory, the goodness.
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One man called the tenderness of God for our supernatural destiny. Why did he do it?
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Just because he knew more, he was wiser. Well, it's true, he was wiser, he did know these things, but he did it for his people's glory, his bride's glory.
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We should study it. One of my favorite things to do of all time is to,
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I have a little file in my filing cabinet, and I call it love letters, and I've saved,
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I think almost every one of them, I think I have, the letters that Kim would write me, and I would save those, and I thought, you know,
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I'll just kind of pick a rainy day to read some of those. I keep them down in my garage, in my little kind of hut down there, my little enclave.
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I just sit there, and I read those things. I think I am the object of her affection.
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She wrote that about me. She didn't write that about anybody else, not you.
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I was going to say not Mr. Magoo, but that wouldn't work. She wrote them to me. Those letters are going to burn one day.
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Those letters are important, but they're not eternal, and they reveal her mind and her emotions, and I'm glad for that, but if I get so amped up on those things, sometimes by the way,
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I'll find one that's so good, I'll just set it up on the counter up by where Kim makes her tea so she has to read it in the morning.
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I'm thinking, okay, now don't forget now. I know I've been a pretty big bumbling bum the last few days, but remember what you thought of me, and let your yes be yes and your no be no.
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Sometimes I like to take ones that I wrote to her and set those out. God says,
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I've got my mind. I've got my plan. I've got my will.
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I've got the decree of the universe, and if He didn't tell anyone, it would be perfectly right and just of God not to tell anyone, but He says,
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I've told you, and I've told you for your own good, and for your glory, and for your amazement, and for your worship, and your awe, and your honor, so that you could sit there,
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I mean for my honor, that you would look at these things and honor me. Can you contemplate anything greater than the subject of God?
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His plan, what happens when we die? How the worst thing in the world, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, could be planned by God.
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So sometimes we become so familiar with something, we just assume it to be true. We're a Bible teaching church,
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Bible teaching Awana, Bible teaching Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, but I want to encourage you to read the
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Bible because it is relevant, because it's divine wisdom, and it reveals to you the mind of God, and we'll learn next week the other four.
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Jonathan Goforth, 1830. My deepest regret on reaching three score years and ten is that I have not devoted more time to the study of the
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Bible. Still in less than 19 years, I have gone through the New Testament in Chinese 55 times, and if he was a weak saint, and we are weak saints, let's now ask
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God to give us that kind of desire. Pray with me. Our Heavenly Father, we would ask now as children, needy children, disobedient children, children that need your help, what good father wouldn't help a child in need?
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And so Father, we're asking you, the Great Father, the Eternal Father, the Great I Am, that you would help us to become more and more like your
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Son, Christ Jesus, as we look to the Holy Spirit -inspired divine wisdom in the
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New Testament through the Apostles. Father, I pray that you'd work in the hearts of people here to increase their trust in the
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Scripture, its validity, and Father, that you would let no one here hide behind their sin, our immorality, our unrighteousness, to somehow defame the
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Bible. Father, protect us from that. Help us to live holy lives so when we look at the mirror, the
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Scriptures, we see ourselves, but then we look past ourselves to see Christ Jesus, our
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Captain, our Savior, our Friend, our Redeemer. Help Bethlehem Bible Church today and the dear visitors that are here to open their
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Bibles up with joy, longing to see your mind, your eternal mind, that's given to us for our glory.