Hi, this is Bob, and welcome again to God's Word. Father, in Jesus' name we ask that you bless what we are doing here, and that your Word penetrate some heart, including mine. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, we're representing Hackberry House. Hackberry House is simply a website, that's all it is. And it's a place where you can go and hear and read the Word of God in a lot of different ways. I'd like you to go there and go to the library page. We had some temporary difficulty with that. It's on its way to being fixed here in the end of May of 2002. If you're listening to this in 2007, we are sure that it's been fixed by now, or maybe we're with the Lord by now. I don't know. You go to Hackberry House and scroll down to the library page, and then when you get to the library page, find our lesson. The one that we're on today is Unit 10, Lesson 43, Acts Chapter 18, Verse 6 through 19, 41, and the Book of 1 Corinthians. That's Lesson 43. That's the written Lesson 43. This is Spoken Lesson number 109. It just keeps getting longer and longer. But you know, we've only got another nine lessons after this in the written form, so you can imagine how long that will be in the other form. Now before we take up any more time, let's get to the lesson. We're in Acts chapter 18, and covering the first few verses in the last lesson. So we're going to go starting about verse 5. Paul and Timothy and Silas, all these guys have gone to Corinth. And you know in verse 2 he finds Aquila and Priscilla and they become kind of a business together, helping each other, support one another in the work. And this is how Paul earned his money. He met up with folks that did the same thing that he did and worked with them. And it was believers, by the way, that he made these business deals with. He was of the same trade, stayed with them, reasoned them every Sabbath day together. And now Silas and Timothy join him from Macedonia. And it says Paul was constrained by the Spirit. Something inside of him just really got a hold of him and he began to preach to these Jews that Jesus is Christ, but they didn't want anything to do with this. They opposed him. And Paul said to them once again, your blood is on your own head." And they had already said that before they killed the Lord Jesus. His blood is on our head, and it has been. Verse 7, that is, he leaves there from that encounter and stays in the house of a man named Justice, J-U-S-T-U-S, a guy that worshipped God, it says. And this guy lived right next to the synagogue. That's not the very best place to start a Christian church, but that's where he lived. And justice is housing this troublemaker, Paul. The ruler of the synagogue, though, in verse 8, hears about Jesus Christ and believes. And so now you've got an inroad into that next-door neighbor of yours, the synagogue. Many of the Corinthians, I'm assuming here the Gentiles, also heard the Word, and it says they were baptized too. Verse 9, the Lord says to Paul, don't be afraid, I've got a lot of people in this city. In verse 11, he stays there a year and a half. Don't think you can't stay a long time in one place, even as an evangelist. two-week meetings may not do it. You stay, if you're really God's man, you stay as long as you need to stay while God is still moving and then you move when God moves on to something else. A year and a half, he didn't mind giving his life, a whole year and a half, to one town. Some people today would think that would be a horrible waste of time, but not God. God knew exactly what He was doing, kept Him there 18 months. Well, obviously He stirs up a lot of problems here as well as everywhere, and it says the Jews rose up against Him and brought Him to the desert. What's their problem now? Well, it's the same old tune, verse 13. This guy is coming against our religion, against the law. They thought Paul was against the law because of some of the things he has to say about the law. The law can't save you. The law is your teacher to bring you to Christ, but the law is still a good law. It can't save you. And Christ, when He comes inside of you, begins to live these things out. And nothing of the Ten Commandments has ever been changed. God still wants you to keep the law, but to walk in that newness of spirit. And so here we go with the courtroom routine again. Paul was about to open his mouth and say something when Galileo, who is like the Pontius Pilate of the day, he's the proconsul, the governor, so to speak, he says, look, and he says the same thing the Pilate said, only he's stronger about it. He says, look, if this was some wicked crime, some murder he's done, I'd be glad to deal with you. But look, this is just a matter of your religion. Would you take care of this? That's what Pilate started to say, but political pressure mounted on him and he caved in. But not Galileo. Galileo, verse 16, just drove them out. He pushed them, shoved them, get out of my face. Get out of my presence. I don't need you in here. Verse 17. So all the Greeks, now these could be Hellenist Jews, Hellenist Jews, remember the compromising Jews who were taking on a Greek face, the compromisers, maybe egged on by the true Jews, thinking that the Greeks would be heard more easily in Greece, that's where they're at, you know, Corinth is in Greece. So the Jews who are trying to cause trouble, stir up the Greek Jews, the Hellenists, to take Sosthenes, who was the ruler of the synagogue, but evidently a believer, evidently a convert, like, who was this other man, Crispus, who was also a ruler of the synagogue and got saved, and now they're going to take Sosthenes, who evidently is a convert, and they're beating him up. They're beating him up. And they did it right in front of Galio's judgment hall as he's pushing them out. They're trying to find a way to get his attention. They beat up a convert. This Sosthenes is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1.1 as a saint, by the way. Galio, again, unlike Pilate, is unmoved by all of this stuff. He'd go ahead and kill him, I don't care. I have other things. I have a life to take care of myself. Just take your religion and go somewhere else." Well, it seems like everywhere Paul goes, stays, or whatever, there's going to be trouble. And he's staying here a long time, verse 18. Finally, he leaves and goes back to Syria and takes his new business partners Priscilla and Aquila with him. It says he stops by Sankriya, has his hair cut off, some kind of a vow, like the Nazarite vow. So you can see how very Jewish he is in heart. He does Jewish things, and yet he does them in the spirit of the Lord. He's not trying to be saved. He's not saying, if I just keep this vow, if I just keep this law, if I keep all these rituals, I'll finally make it to God's heaven." That's not it. But occasionally the Spirit of God will burn within him to do a particular thing that's very Jewish. And he's doing it here. He comes to Ephesus and leaves his partners there. But he goes to Ephesus and into the synagogue, starts dealing with the Jews again. The Jew first. Even though he turns away from the Jews in city after city. Gives them a chance first. It was his feeling that God wanted to minister to Jews first. There are people who take that to extremes even today and say that that's how we're supposed to go. Whenever we go into a community, we go to the Jews first. Well, I think that would be hard to prove in Scripture. But that is definitely what Paul did. And they asked him to stay a while longer, but he couldn't. He had to leave then. He said, I've got to go to Jerusalem. Again, the Jew in him, the Spirit of God in him that's Jewish, Jewish leading, Asked to send me to go to Jerusalem. He says, but you know, I want to come back I I like what I've seen here And I'm sure he promises to pray for them to be steadfast until he comes back You see we're not responsible for everything all the time We're only responsible for what God is leading us to in that moment And if God is saying to do this We don't have to worry that this other thing is not going to be taken care of God will take care of it God wanted him to go to Jerusalem. He just really believed that. So he left Ephesus and went to Jerusalem. Goes up to Caesarea on the way. Reaches the church there. Down into Antioch. You'd have to have a map to see how this is all working out. Spends some time there in Antioch. And we go to verse 24. We're going to leave Paul on his way to Jerusalem. Now remember that And he's just come through Ephesus in Greece, and he's all the way back now heading to Jerusalem. Just leave him there. Let the camera turn over here. We're going to turn it on to a man named Apollos. We haven't met him before. His name is Apollos. He's a Jew, born in Alexandria. That's in Egypt. Very Jewish city for quite some time. The whole southern kingdom that developed the King of the South that Daniel talked about. Right after Alexander conquered the world and his kingdoms divided four ways, one of the ways was the South, the King of the South, and that was Egypt in the environs. Now, many Jews came to Egypt because Egypt controlled Israel for quite some time, and there was an interchange there. There was a desire to be favorable to Egypt in some ways. They rebelled at first, but they were conquered. And the Egyptians promised the Jews good things in their country if they would come to them. And they did come. In the droves they came. It's kind of sad to see the reversal of what God was doing in the Bible, seeing them come back to Egypt. Nevertheless, God deals with the people as they are, where they are individually. And here they are in this city that was named after Alexander the Great. a huge Jewish community. And that lasted well into the time of Christ and well beyond it. So here's Apollos, an eloquent man, it says. He's mighty in the Scriptures. It says he's been instructed in the way of the Lord, but we don't know exactly what that means when it says it in verse 25. All we know, he's very strong in the way of God. He loves God. He preaches God. He preaches that people ought to repent. but he had only gotten to the baptism of John. That's all he knew. He had learned about a Messiah that was to come. He learned about water baptism, which was the baptism of John. Now, our baptism is water too to begin with, but we also believe that the Holy Spirit has baptized us. That is, that the Holy Spirit has come into the church and filled the church and will fill individual people and just cover them with Himself and bless them, and change them, and renew them, and give gifts to them. That's what we teach today. But Paulus didn't know all that yet. He only knew about water baptism. And he led people up to a point that there was a Jesus, that there was a Messiah coming at least, and that you should repent of your sin like John the Baptist preached, and that you should be baptized in water. But that's as far as he could take them. So he's preaching like Paul preached, you know, boldly. He was quite a man. He became a huge leader in the early church, so much so that the people in Corinth in particular had a party, had a denomination named after him. And Paul had one named after him, and Peter had one named after him. They even had a group that called themselves Christian. Well, we'll talk about that when we get to the 1 Corinthians. So, he's preaching boldly, but Aquila and Priscilla, who were very close to Paul and knew Paul's teaching and knew about the Holy Spirit, took him aside and said, there's a few things you're missing here, my friend. Your preaching is wonderful as far as you go. Now, that takes boldness. It also takes humility, a kindness. Now, this was a mighty preacher. but he had a heart that was open to God, and he wanted to hear all the truth. So they taught him the way of God more accurately. The whole Gospel story, everything that Jesus did, everything that Jesus promised, and the resurrection. I don't know how much he had preached about all those kinds of things, but he's got it all now through Aquila and Priscilla. So, these brothers now that have heard him are going to send him on his way, preaching and preaching They liked Apollos so much because he could come against the Jews so strongly. He could prove to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. Well, Apollos is a Corinth. Paul comes to Ephesus. Wait a minute. I thought Paul had already left Ephesus. Well, evidently he's back. We've skipped some story here. We've skipped some time. He's on his way back and he's back there. Now look at this. Apollos is going on to Corinth. But Paul is now coming into Ephesus. And he finds some disciples there. Remember that he had already been there. We're getting a little mixed up here because we're not sure exactly which trip this was to Ephesus. But as you read on, it looks like this is the time when he came to stay. Remember, he said he would come back. And it looks like he's already been to Jerusalem, and he's coming back. So he's already been there. He's met some disciples. But this could have been that first time, too. But at this point, it doesn't matter. He's in Ephesus. He says, did you receive the Holy Spirit? To a bunch of disciples. And they said, we never taught anything about the Holy Spirit, and he didn't fall. You know, sometimes the Holy Spirit would just fall, like on Pentecost, and they had to have no teaching at all. And this happened a couple other places, especially with Cornelius and Peter there, you know. So the Jews and the Gentiles, the Holy Ghost just fell. There was no teaching about the Holy Ghost falling. But from that time on, it seems that God has had to instruct his people regarding the falling of the Holy Spirit. And Apollos, since he was not into that at all, he didn't know about that when he first came to Ephesus. He didn't know. And so he didn't teach about it. And the Holy Spirit chose not to just keep falling like that without people understanding what's going on. On the day of Pentecost, it could be explained by an apostle And with the Gentiles, it could be explained by an Apostle. But Apollos, if the Holy Spirit had fallen, he wouldn't have known what was happening. He didn't know the Word. He hadn't been instructed in it. So now, the Holy Spirit has to come in a special way. They said, we haven't even heard whether there's a Holy Spirit. He says, and to what were you baptized? Well, we heard about John the Baptist. And we heard about the coming of Christ. And we heard about repentance. And so we did everything the man told us to do. And Paul said, that's a good baptism indeed. It's a baptism of repentance. It's good. That's the same thing we teach in Christ today. But you have to believe on Jesus fully. And Christ has already come. And he preached Christ to them around verse 5 when they heard about Christ and the fullness of the message. They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And now he says, there's something more. I want to show more. I want to lay hands on you. You're going to receive the Holy Spirit. And he did. And the Holy Spirit came on them. And they knew they were being filled with something different, with the life of God. They believed in their heart. They confessed with their mouth. And now, the Holy Spirit's coming upon them. There were about 12 of these men there that had this happen to them. Paul goes into the synagogue, and this is the beginning of the Church of Ephesus. The Church of Ephesus has quite a wonderful history from this time on. You're going to see Timothy there as what we call pastor. He led the flock there until elders could be raised up to rule that church. And then you're going to see John's tradition saying that John was a leader, the leader, there at Ephesus while he still lived, even into his old age. You're also going to see Jesus telling this church, after they've had the finest of teachers, Paul and Timothy and John, that they lost their first love. Through the Holy Spirit, God tells them that in the book of Revelation. So there's a lot about Ephesus that's important in the Word. And this was the very beginning of it here, through the Holy Ghost. So he reasons with them three months, preaching about Jesus. But you know what's coming, verse 9, a lot of people didn't believe. And they just couldn't be neutral with this man. When he preached, they either believed him or didn't believe him. And if they didn't believe him, they felt they had to come against him because he was so strong. So there was much opposition there. And for a while he departs. And he departs from that particular part of town that he's in, he goes to the school of Tyrannus, wherever there was a space for teaching. He couldn't teach in the synagogue anymore, so now he withdraws from there and goes over to teach in the school of Tyrannus. He's going to teach because God has made him a teacher. Verse 10, this continued for two years. Two years, you see? A year and a half in Corinth, now two years in Ephesus. This is how you build a strong foundation. A week in and out, you're gone? You expect that? No. That's not how God wants it to be done. It takes some strength. It takes some time to build people and to get the Word out. So the Word is going out there to all the people living in Asia. They heard the Word of the Lord Jesus. Jews, Greeks, Wonderful things begin to happen. It just sounds out like a lighthouse throughout all of the province called Asia. They're in Asia Minor, or Turkey. Even unusual miracles. This is a part of it. When the apostles are working, when God's men are working, when they're believing God, when they're fasting, when they're praying, when they're preaching the truth, God confirms His Word through wonderful things. who answered prayer and threw miracles here in verse 11. Look at the things that they did. Now, it says, even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick and the diseases left them. Jesus said, according to your faith, so be it unto you. It's amazing what could happen then because they believed. And I realize that people have abused some of these things today because they've introduced the idea of money. And when you're on television, they're asking you to send an offering and your handkerchief. And you know, with some of those men, you need to save your handkerchief and just cry into it. Use it to wipe the tears that will come if you pray for those misguided men who think that godliness is for their personal gain. And that's the abuse. The fact is that they have given a bad name to the whole idea of the power of God. But let us not think that there is no power left in the world today. God has not just withdrawn all of His power. I know He saves people, but He heals people, too. He does wonderful things. If we let Him, if we ask Him, ask and you shall receive, Jesus said, that your joy may be full. Well, when people who didn't know the Lord got a hold of what these believers were doing, some itinerant Jewish exorcists, how's that for a title? They could cast out demons, at least they thought so. They traveled around just laying hands on people to cast out devils. These were Jews who had gotten a hold of this idea. They thought, we'll just use that name of Jesus over people who have evil spirits, but they didn't know Jesus. They were just using his name, like in sorcery. Seven sons of a Jewish chief priest using the name of Jesus to cast out demons. So they go to this one person, try to cast out a demon, and the demon talks back to them. The demon talks back and says, you trying to cast me out of here? I don't know you. I know this Jesus that you mentioned. I also know the Paul who preaches Jesus, but I don't know you. You have no authority. You have no power. Friends, you know what? We need to be known in hell as well as we're known in heaven. We need to be known in the kingdom of darkness as well as we're known in the kingdom of light. There needs to be an authority and a power in our ministry and our life that will cause demons to flee, cause demons to just not want to mess with us at all. Well, in this case, there was no power there. They knew it. They jumped all over these seven sons of Sceva and ripped the clothes off of them, beat them up, and that kind of thing spread. It was a reverse kind of effect, but it spread, and fear fell upon people as they realized, we're dealing with realities here. This isn't just phony stuff. The Word of the Lord just continues to grow. They even brought their magic books out and burned them. There's a lot of burned books that we need for today. We need all the Harry Potter books to go. I keep hearing even Christians praising this when it's all about demonology and witchcraft and how to do it, and people are trying to follow him. You know, this is an evil world in which we're living. There's many enticements, and we need to burn all those things that don't have anything to do with the Lord. Stop promoting the kingdom of evil. Stop it. And promote the kingdom of God. When these things were accomplished, Paul decided that he would go back to Macedonia and Achaia, then to go to Jerusalem, saying, after I've been there, I must also see Rome. Was this that other time before he went to Jerusalem or what? I'm sorry I'm confusing you with that. But now he's going on to Jerusalem. And he says, I've got to see Rome. Indeed he does. And God gives him the desire of his heart. He's got this thing in himself that says, I've got to go there someday. Well, he will see Rome, but he'll see Rome as a prisoner one day. He goes to Macedonia. He sends him to Macedonia. Timothy and Erastus, but he stays in Asia for a while. While he's there in Asia, a huge problem arises. Promotion. There's a certain man there named Demetrius. This man makes his living by making little silver idols. He's a silversmith. Makes little shrines to Diana, called Artemis in some translation. Diana, the goddess of the Ephesians. She was like Our Lady, Queen of... It wasn't that Ephesus had a corner on this market. Diana was worshipped throughout the Roman world. But Ephesus seemed to really like her a lot more for some reason. These people were making a lot of money on that. They've got a problem when they see that Paul is preaching about another god and really coming against their money, their trade. Verse 26, you see, and hear, he says to his fellow workers, that not only at Ephesus, but all Asia, as Paul has been telling everybody to turn away from our gods. So our danger is not only in trouble, but our religion is. And of course, we know what they're doing. They're justifying their coming against Paul. Diana is a significant person here. She's to be worshipped, and we don't want her to be hurt in any way. Right. Verse 28. When they heard this, they were full of wrath, these fellow tradesmen. And they started shouting, yelling in the town, Great is Diana! Great is Diana of the Ephesians! The whole city now gets caught up in this and confused. What's going on? Oh, they're coming against Diana. Oh no, great is Diana! It's just everywhere, all over the city. Well, they arrest Paul's tribal companions. Paul wants to go into them, too, and get arrested himself, but the disciples that are with him won't allow him to do it. And some of the officials of Asia, who are his friends, come to him. Please, please, don't go in there. Don't go into this theater where everybody's gathered together. And it says in verse 32 that this was such a chaotic thing that most people didn't even know why they were gathered together. isn't that true of the mob spirit? We have it in the world still today. You get a few angry people and they say a few inflammatory words and then it just gathers a crowd and most of the people there don't even know what it's all about. They definitely don't know the depth of the issue that's being talked about. So they get Alexander out of the multitude, put him forward. The Jews, are hoping Alexander is going to help them. And Alexander, motioned with his hand, wants to make his defense from a Jewish viewpoint. When they found out he was a Jew, he said, no, no, no, we don't want to hear from the Jews. Great is Diana of the Ephesians. This is a Greek city. This is a Greek god. This is a Roman god. Forget the Jews. We don't want to hear from the Jews. They go on, and they go on, and go on. Finally, the man that's responsible for keeping order in the town, he's called the city clerk, says, you've got to calm down. Everybody knows that Diana's a great goddess, that her image fell down from the Zeus. We all believe that. You don't have to worry about that. That's established. Just don't be so rash. We've got facts that we can depend on. This is how solid they were in their, quote, faith. And you brought these men in here, these disciples. They didn't rob your temple. They didn't even blaspheme your goddess. They're preaching their own religion, but they're not trying to come against you personally. If Demetrius and the other silversmiths, they have a problem, they should just take this whole thing to court and let the courts deal with it. We're going to get in trouble. And he dismisses the assembly. He just lets them go. When we get into chapter 20, we go into further travels into Greece. But while he's here in Ephesus, as far as we know, he wrote to another city. Now let me tell you about that city in just a minute, but let's answer the questions that are in your question sheet first. Number one, just after Paul declares he'll go to the Gentiles of Corinth, Who comes to Christ? That's Crispus. Number two, how are Galileo and Pilate alike? They didn't want to get involved in a Jewish matter, but I already showed you also how they're different. Number three, who replaced Crispus and why was he beaten? That was Sosthenes. Believed that he got saved too. We know he did later on. But even if he stayed a Jew, The persecution of a Jew, hopefully, would get Gallio's attention. That didn't work. Number four. How was the Lord leading in Paul's decision to leave Aquila and Priscilla at Ephesus? Well, they were there when Apollos came through town, and they were needed to teach Apollos more of the way of the Lord. Number five. What's the difference between John's baptism, the water baptism, and Jesus' water baptism? Well, baptism shows your belief. Water baptism does. One of them looked ahead to Christ, but our baptism looks back to what Christ did for us. It's important that we be baptized in the name of Jesus. Number six, how is it demonstrated that not only the name, but the power of Jesus is needed to cast out demons? Well, the sons of Sceva used the name, but they didn't know the Lord. The Lord Himself did not live inside of them. 7. What travel plans now come through the Spirit? He's going to see Rome. First, he's got to go to Jerusalem, but someday he's going to see Rome. Yes, he will. 8. What was the concern of Demetrius of Ephesus? His silver shrines were going to be out of business before long. Paul said that hands cannot make gods. That was a clear statement he made that gods cannot be made with human hands. And here they were making these gods. Number nine, what was the common belief about Diana? That she was great? That she was worthy of worship? That her image had actually fallen down from Zeus, the great god of all. Number 10, what's the city clerk's advice? Well, you can't deny Diana. Calm down. Go to court. We could be charged with rebellion. Cool it. And they did. It's Greek advice in a Roman world, but it worked. Now, Corinth is the letter now. You know, Paul has already been in Corinth. We saw the things that happened there. But now we're in Ephesus. We move on to Ephesus, and we're going to write back to Corinth. Corinth is the most important city of Greece in Paul's day. It was the capital of Achaia, a province on the Peloponnesus. which is the section that's separated from the main part of Greece. You can look on a map and see that down in the south. There's one part of the country that's separated from the rest. It's called the Peloponnesus. It's a population then of maybe 700,000 in Corinth, a pagan city full of the philosophy of the time. It was given especially to the worship of Aphrodite. Not so much Diana there. Aphrodite was the goddess of love. Gross immorality characterized this worship and the city to the point where a new word was coined. It was called Corinthiasomai. It meant to act like a Corinthian in a very derogatory sense. Well, in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 and Acts Chapter 18 that we read not too long ago, it all tells about Paul's establishment of a church in that city. in A.D. 51 and 52, Paul actually taught the Word there for 18 months. Then while in Ephesus, he hears a troubling report from Corinth, and he sends this letter back to Corinth as a response. The Corinthian letters deal with the issues of a church that's called out of a pagan society, normal issues you're going to have, just like in the present day. Churches that are called out need to be called out all the way. It's not just a matter of God loves you, repent of your present sins, and then you can go back to it tomorrow. No, no. He had to establish them through this letter. And He establishes us, too, that God is a holy God. He expects holiness all the time. The issues that they had were factions and lawsuits and immorality. gifts of the Spirit, the resurrection, love. Oh, there's a lot of stuff that he corrects this church with. And in correcting this church, he speaks to us. Let's go right there. Over to the book of Corinthians, 1 Corinthians. One of the longest letters that he writes. And when we get done with that, we'll go back to the book of Acts and pick up where he's at. And then there's going to be a second letter to the Corinthians, too. So he really gives a lot of attention to these issues that are at this church. But the Holy Spirit's leading him to do that so that we will have the knowledge that we need today for the church. So he starts out with his regular greeting. Notice that in 1.1 he mentions Sosthenes, our brother, tells him that they're sanctified, that they're called to be saints, and gives them his normal verse 3 greeting, grace to you and peace. Well, this is a church that's got a lot of gifts. They're called out of horrible, horrible, sinful lives in this horrible town. It's just an evil city. Something like, maybe like Chicago or New York or Los Angeles. One of the evil cities of the world. Just imagine people who get saved out of one of those evil cities. And I live in one of them, so I understand a little bit. They've got a lot of stuff to overcome. But he says, I'm so glad that God made you the gifted class. He's just given you so much. He's enriched you in everything. You come short of no gift, verse 7. You've got it all. And you're waiting on the Lord to reveal Jesus from heaven. And they were waiting on the second coming in those days. Let's be honest, they didn't really believe Jesus was coming at any time. So he taught them to wait. He's still, the Holy Spirit's still teaching us to wait. But he says, we've got some problems here in your church. I want to deal with them. And I'm pleading with you, verse 10. First of all, remember all that stuff I taught you. It's all for real. And I want you all to get a hold of it and start speaking it together in unity. You've got divisions starting to form. You've got people who are following this teacher, that teacher, that teacher, and thinking that all these teachers are against each other and that you've got to just follow one over the other. Whereas, and we need to hear this too, the various teachers in the body of Christ teach different groups at different times for different reasons. And you might hear what they're saying and think that it contradicts something that you heard some other time, not realizing that it's just a further development of what you already believe. Or it might be a lesser development. But they're not necessarily in contradiction. I know there are false teachers too. We have various, you know, we've got nursery workers, in the spirit I'm talking. Nursery workers, we've got adult teachers. If you try to put those two together, and try to make harmony out of it, it's difficult. But Paul said, do that. And when he talks about harmony in the body, he's talking about harmony of the truth. Not trying to take in all the false teachings too. He says, I want you to be joined together in the same mind. The Spirit of God is speaking to different people in different ways. But you've got to see that it's all one. There's contentions, there's quarrels, you're fighting. You've got people saying, I am of Paul. No, we're of Paul. He's more mature. Or, I am of Apollos. He's more energetic. I am of Peter. He was the number one disciple of Jesus when he was here. I'm with him. I'm for the authority. No, no, we're of Christ, others were saying, verse 12. It was a little exclusive group. It said, we are of Christ and you are not. That's what was wrong with saying we are of Christ. Hey, it's okay to claim that you belong to Jesus Christ. But not exclusively. There are other people who don't see things that you see or as you see them. And they're of Christ too if they've been born again. Christ, verse 13, is not divided. Let's just remember that. He's not divided. Well, let's go on down to verse 18. The message or the word of the cross is foolishness. I have to go back to 17 where he's talking about not baptizing. God didn't send him personally to be a baptizer. John was a Baptist. Some of the other disciples did baptizing. And he's not putting down baptism. He's just saying that's not my ministry. I travel from group to group to group. And I don't have some time to stay and find out who needs to be baptized and who doesn't. And we need people who are the elders of the church who are going to stay behind and get to know these people to be sure that their conversion was real and get them baptized. But I don't baptize. I don't want anybody thinking the one that you're being baptized to. God's working so many wonderful miracles through me. People would think that I am some kind of a god. No, I am not to be lifted up. I'm not to be lifted up. Only Christ. So, I don't baptize people. And when I preach the Gospel, I don't preach it with wisdom of words. I want the cross of Christ to be lifted up. I preach Christ. And that message that I preach is a foolish thing to most people, but to us, It's the power of God. It's the very thing that just unlocks everything that the Holy Spirit wants to do in our life, the cross. It doesn't seem like it would, but it does. When we get on that cross with Christ, we believe that Christ has been crucified for us and raised from the dead and we are raised also to walk in newness of life. The world through wisdom didn't know God. Philosophy, science, literature, math, all the stuff your kids are learning in school, they'll never learn Christ through that. They can learn Christ during that time because of your testimony in their life, but they're not going to learn Christ at school, even in the Christian school. They'll learn Christ when Christ is taught, but the education itself does not need to be worship. You're doing that so they learn a trade, so they'll be able to work with their hands and earn a living. And that's a good thing. But let's not worship education as the end of all things. It's educated people that tore down everything and that crucified our Lord. The Jews want proof. The Greeks want wisdom. But we just preach a crucified Christ. And the Jews look at that and say, no thanks. Proof? That doesn't prove anything. A dead Messiah? No thanks. The Greeks say, no, we want wisdom. This is foolishness. We don't want that. But to us who are called, oh, it's Christ, the power of God. Look at your calling, bro. There's not a whole lot of smart people among you. The smart people don't go for Jesus. Look at your calling, bro. There's not a lot of strong people. They're powerful people, politically powerful people. They don't want Christ. They don't go that way. There's a few that will. God's chosen poor people who have nothing else except a look to Christ. Watch out. When Christ starts to bless you, if you're a poor person, and He starts to give you more and more, don't turn your eyes toward that, or you'll be no different than the rich people who are lost. Now, being poor does not save you, and being rich does not damn you. But the truth is still here. Jesus said it and Paul said it. Not too many. people can see beyond their comfort zone into Christ. And many, many poor people can see, well, I guess I don't have anything in the earth. I wonder what else there is. And they look to heaven and they are fully happy and they don't care about their poverty anymore. So no flesh glories in His presence. Go on to chapter 2. He's saying the same thing. When I came to you, I didn't use wise words. When I came to you, I just preached this simple message, and I was with you in weakness, so that the power of God would be demonstrated. When he talks about the human weakness that he had, he goes right on to say that there was a demonstration of the Spirit and power in him. He wasn't in total weakness. He wasn't in total weakness. His human weakness was very obvious, perhaps physically, not doing too well either. And wisdom he didn't use, even though he had it. But the demonstration of the Spirit was there, and the power of God was there. The Word of God was there, the message was there. And that saved people, and that brought miracles to bear on the situation, so that they would trust in the power of God and not in men. not in man's wisdom. And we do speak wisdom, he says, among mature people. Those deep things of God, we do share with them. Not the wisdom of this age, not like they have out in the world today, but we speak God's wisdom. A man who came from heaven, who died and rose again. There's no human wisdom to that. All the wisdom of God to save us from our sins, God's revealed all these wonderful things to us in verse 10 through His Spirit. That's how you know about it. The Spirit of God spoke to apostles to write. The Spirit of God speaks to your heart to receive it. And great things are done because of that. How do you know? How do you know what God has given to us? What man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? You know through your spirit. And the things of God must be known by God's spirit. And when God's spirit and your spirit are united, then you know. You know God's things. That's why you are a Christian. Many people read the same book you do, but don't understand it at all and cast it aside. But you read it and you believed it. That's because the Spirit of God was in you and leading you and changing you. The natural man, verse 14, doesn't receive the things of the Spirit of God. Not the natural man. Ah, but the spiritual man does receive these things. The man of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, has to reveal. You have to be quickened by the Holy Ghost to be saved. You thought you chose Jesus. You didn't choose Jesus. Jesus chose you. That's chapter 2. Would you go to chapter 3? However, even though I'd like to tell you guys some more spiritual things, I'd like to go on to some more maturity. Some of you, even though you've had this now for some time, you're not growing up at all. You're still little babies in Christ. I've been feeding you with milk. Of course, you have to at the start. but I haven't been able to give you any solid food. And even until now, I can't give you solid food." And you'll see how he does that in some of the other epistles, really heavy stuff. But he says, I can't give you heavy stuff. You're not able, because you've still got too much flesh in you. He's not saying they're not saved. He's saying you've got flesh working in you. The Spirit of God's in you, but he's being drowned out. His voice is being drowned out. by your flesh that just keeps demanding and demanding from you. There's envy there. There's arguments all the time there. There's separation, divisions, little groups forming, and personalities being lifted up. People saying, I'm of Paul. I'm of Apollos. No, you've got to stop doing that, church. Paul is nobody. Apollos is nobody. I planted a seed. So what? He watered the seeds. So what? God's doing the work. We're just God's fellow workers. Don't build your church on us. I laid the good foundation, but others are building on it. The foundation I laid when I was there is Jesus Christ. That's the foundation that has to be laid when you go to any group, any organization, any town, wherever you start the work, you preach Christ. Lay that foundation. then little by little you add on. And anybody that adds on, here's a manual, here's some wisdom about adding on. Be very careful how you add on. Be very careful, because the day will declare your work. When the day of judgment comes, or a person's individual time of judgment comes, we're going to be able to see what your work did in their life. If you gave them the truth, the solid, holy, every word of God truth, your work will stand. If they received your word and you gave them the absolute perfect truth, it will be like pure gold that you built into the temple of God. Because this whole church thing is like the temple of God. Every place there is true church, it's the temple, it's where God lives. And he says, you're building into that temple individual stones of gold. And those people that you put in there must be pure gold. If they fall away, then it's going to expose you as a very bad teacher. Oh, you'll be saved, verse 15. But you're going to have to go through some fire yourself. We're not talking purgatory here. But you're going to have to experience the judgment of God personally on your life in some way if you gave anything false. You gave them most of the truth, but planted a seed that was bad, and they got a hold of that seed, and they turned out not to be so good. In other words, if you were putting wood or hay or straw into the body, into the temple, and trying to build with that, why, the whole thing is going to fall down. That person's life will expose you, not just themselves. And you're going to be judged for that. You'll be saved, but there's a judgment associated. with bad teaching and bad ministry, so be sure you've got it all. Be sure you're teaching everything. Be sure that God has given you everything that you're supposed to have to minister to other people before you dare defile the temple of God. Don't deceive yourself, verse 18. You think you're so smart in this world, You better become a fool and just read the book. Get out of those philosophy books. Get out of those psychology books. My goodness. Who told you to put that stuff in the body of Christ? Leave that alone. Get out of that ecumenical movement and teaching about unity falsely. Teach what God said. Shame, shame on those. who plant seeds of evil and the doctrines and wisdom of men. It's the wisdom of men that is our problem. Get away from it. That's what Paul would say. Let no one glory in men. Look, verse 21, everything's already yours. It's already yours. Whether Paul, he's yours. Apollos is yours too. Peter is yours. Everybody's yours. Don't think that just part of it's yours. All things are yours. present, past, world, everything. It's all yours. So don't just take little parts of the truth and little parts of the church and say, that's mine. No, it's all yours. And you are Christ's. Christ is God's. Let's go to some questions on the sheet. Who should read this letter? Well, the sanctified according to 1, 1-3. The saints, all who are called into Jesus. How gifted were these Corinthians? They came short in no gift. They were enriched in everything. What common problem was the Corinthian church experiencing? They were experiencing division. Number four, why shouldn't we preach deep intellectual messages to unbelievers? Let the cross of Christ be of no effect. The foolishness of God puts the shame We're wise. What is our message? Jesus crucified. Where do we get our worldview? Through God's Spirit. Why can't even the wisest of unbelievers understand our message? You must have the Spirit of God speak to you about it. Number eight, what is proof of carnality and baby status? Envy, strife, division? 9. In the agriculture model, who are the field workers? We didn't talk about that. Who is the life force? Well, Paul and Apollos were the field workers. The field was the church. God was the life force. Something like a parable. Jesus taught. 10. In the architecture picture, who is the master builder? Who is the building? Who is the foundation? Well, Paul was the master builder. The church is the building. Jesus is the foundation. Number 11, then what are the gold and the silver and the precious stones and the wood and the hay and the stubble? The things that we build, even in our day, our work, our life, our teaching, don't settle for cheaper materials because others maybe seem to be unavailable. It's not true. Number 12, what is the fire? I believe that's the day of judgment or the personal testing or both. That moves us on into Chapter 4. We're having a couple of technical difficulties on this end today, and I'm going to stop right there and continue the next time. We've at least finished the front page of Lesson 43. We'll do the back page, or at least a good portion of it, Lord willing, next time around. It's been so good again to share the Word of God with you. Let's pray for one another. I do pray for those who hear this Word. I pray that you'll pray for Brother Bob, that he will always be full of the Holy Ghost. and do and say what God wants him to say. Amen? Amen.