Well brethren, it's so good to be with you, so good to see you. I pray the Lord will be glorified tonight and I pray that He would be glorified in our heart. I'm not sufficient for that. No man is sufficient for that. It takes God Himself to do that. But I do pray tonight that the Lord would speak and glorify Himself in our heart. That He would make us truly bow and worship our Lord Jesus. I pray for that, don't you? I want to worship Him. I want this to be what the Lord does and bring us to His feet to truly see Him and worship Him. I'm going to speak on what Brother Rick just read because something just really, really jumped out at me. The Apostle Paul said, he said, I'm thankful I didn't baptize any of you. And the reason he said this is they were glorying in preachers. They were saying, you know, I'm of Paul, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Apollos. And he said, I'm thankful I didn't baptize any of you. He said, that's not what the Lord sent me to do. In the world, the world's religion thinks that they're sent to baptize. They're sent to make proselytes. That's what they are all about. Now, we want to see sinners brought to faith in Christ. We want to see sinners profess faith in Christ, but that's not what Christ sends His preacher to do. Christ sends His preacher to preach Christ. He sends His preacher to exalt Christ. Now whether Christ saves anybody through that message or He saves nobody through that message, if He gives His messenger the grace to exalt Christ and preach Christ, He's been a success whether God saved anybody or not. That's what Paul means when he said, He didn't send me to baptize. He sent me to preach Christ. He sent me to preach Christ. Now I want you to see what he said here in verse 18. The preaching, and he said, let's look at verse 17, and I'm to preach not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. The cross of Christ is, if a man preaches with wisdom of words, if he gets up and he tries to take the offense out of the cross, That gospel is not going to be effective. And here's why. Because the man preaching is not preaching by the power of the Lord Jesus. It takes the power of the Lord Jesus to make a man preach the gospel unapologetically according to the Word of God In spirit and in truth, Christ has to do that work himself. He said in Jeremiah 3.15, he said, I will give you pastors after mine own heart which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. The only way that is done is Christ himself Even the office of the preacher glorifies him. Christ is the prophet. He's the ambassador. I mean, he's the shepherd. That word shepherd means pastor. He's the bishop. He's the bishop of our soul. Even the office glorifies the Lord Jesus. And he's the king, so he has the sovereign ability to send his preacher. You know, I grew up, and I have some family that are primitive Baptists, and they would say, well, you know, if God's elected his people and Christ redeemed them, it doesn't matter if they ever hear the gospel or not. And they always talk about, what about if a man's on a deserted island? Well, God'll shipwreck a Paul there, like he did Paul. If he's got a man on the back side of the desert like the Ethiopian eunuch, he'll send Philip down there preaching the gospel to him and right to where he is and preach the gospel to him. The Lord's able, because He's sovereign, He's able to bring the gospel to His people and save His people through the preaching of the Word. And so if a man's preaching, and he's not preaching with wisdom of words, he's declaring salvation is by the sovereign electing grace of God who chooses his people freely. You know, if you're standing in front of people who's gonna get angry at that, and there's places you'll preach and people get angry at that. And if a man can stand and preach that message, despite what men are gonna say about it, It's only by the grace of God that he can do that and do it from a true motive and a true heart and preach the truth according to the word. If he stands up and he preaches that Christ didn't come into this world to save everybody. He came to save his sheep. He came to save those God chose. He said, I lay down my life for the sheep. And he turned to some people and he said, you're not my sheep. The reason you don't believe is you're not my sheep. I haven't made this word official in your heart. That's why you don't believe me. And I haven't done it because you're not my sheep. That clearly says he has a people who are his sheep and he has a people who are not his sheep. And he said I laid down my life for the sheep. And the reason that's so important is, is because of what Christ accomplished. He really and truly put away the sins of His people. He really and truly accomplished the redemption of His people. He purged the sin of His people. That's what He did. And we're preaching this not because we simply want to offend men. We're preaching it because we want Christ to be glorified. We want Him to have the honor for what He really accomplished for His people. And so if a man's going to stand and preach that and not take the offense out of that cross and not try to use wisdom of words to craft it in such a way so that he doesn't offend anybody, that man's not preaching by the Spirit of God. The Lord said when the Spirit of God has come, He won't speak of Himself, He will glorify me and He's going to make His preacher glorify Christ. If you hear a man preaching and he's putting some of the glory in the hand of a sinner, that man's not preaching for Christ. because, or by Christ, because Christ is gonna get all the glory in this thing of salvation, A to Z, A to Z. And so Paul said, he didn't send me to preach the wisdom of words. And Paul stated clearly in chapter two, he said, when I was with you, verse three, he said, I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. He said there in chapter two, one, he said, I didn't come with excellency of speech, Why were you there in this weakness and this fear? And it wasn't a fear of men. It was a fear of the Lord. It was a weakness in himself knowing he wasn't sufficient for this and he was trembling before the Lord because he's speaking on God's behalf. And why did he speak not with the excellency of wisdom? Why did he not try to dazzle men with his ability to speak? And why did he not try to take the offense out of the cross? He said right there in verse 5 that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. That's a man who wants to see sinners really saved. So when Paul said I didn't come to baptize, it wasn't that he didn't want to see the Lord call out his sheep, but he wanted to see the Lord call out his sheep and not Paul call out his sheep. He didn't want to see men called out because they're guilted into making a profession and all that. He wanted to see the Lord do it through the gospel, in spirit, in truth, so that it was really worked by the Lord Himself. That's what we want. That's what we want. Now, look at verse 18. Who is the preaching of this cross foolishness to? Who finds the message of Christ and crucified foolishness and even this means of being saved through the preaching of the gospel? Who finds this foolishness? The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. That's who finds it foolishness. Them that perish. unto us which are saved, it is the power of God." Now this is so very wise of God to save this way because when He makes you experience the power of God through the preaching of the gospel, He makes you, number one, He makes you see how you need Christ to be all. That's the first thing. He makes you need Christ. Number two, He makes you need the preaching of the gospel of Christ. He makes you know this is how He called you through the preaching of the word. You need the preaching of the gospel. Why would He do that? He does that because sheep need sheep and we need a shepherd. He brings us together. Ephesians 4 said when Christ arose, he led captivity captive and he gave gifts unto men. He gave some pastors and teachers. And he did this for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. And he fitly frames his people together through this gospel. He puts us in the body where he'd have us to be. He puts one here and one here, and we're gifted according to the measure of the gift of Christ. He doesn't give any one believer everything. He gives a measure to this one, and a measure to that one, and a measure to that one, and a measure to that one, so that we make up, each of us fitly framed together, our one body. And so that, you know, he used that illustration of the physical body. Your ear can't say, I don't need my eye. And your eye can't say, I don't need the smelling. And every member of your body needs every other member of your body. That's how the Lord put us together. And that's on purpose. And it's so wise. Our physical body is amazing. When you look at how God put our body together, it's an amazing thing. But it really pales in comparison to how wise it is for the Lord to save through the foolishness of preaching and fitly framing His body together. I'm talking about His people, each member in particular, so that we need each other because we need this gospel. And through this means, what he's doing is, is the Lord's showing us, we hear the gospel preached. Anybody here, you know, if you went to school, there's some courses you take in school, if you're in certain majors, you have to, you know, you take the book learning, and then you have to do a clinical, where you go in and you practice what you're learning in book. Well, we come and hear the gospel and we hear how that Christ saves by His power, by His grace, by His blood, His righteousness, how He causes people, how He's able to teach His people and save His people and correct His people. We hear these things preached. He put us in the body together so that we get to experience it. We get to experience it. He puts you in the body and we're sinners. We're sinners saved by grace. And not everybody acts like they're even saved by grace all the time. Sometimes we act like we never even heard the Lord. Like we don't even know anything about this thing of grace. And why did He leave us in this body of death We got two natures. We got a new man that loves the Lord and in which Christ dwells and he gives you faith to trust him. We got an old man of sin in us. Why did he leave us in this body of death? Why did he choose this means of saving us and putting us together in a body like this? It's so that as somebody acts ugly, as somebody says something offensive, the Lord's going to teach you to submit to him and trust him to teach his child and correct his child and lead his child and save his child. And he'll use you to speak the same word of the gospel that he used to call you with. And that's how he'll do it. I'm telling you, brethren, it is vital when you're speaking to a brother or sister, you take a brother who's fallen or who's acted ugly. Where our faith is really tested is right there. That's where it's tested because It ought not to be because our Lord has forgiven us of all our sins for Christ's sake. And we ought to be ready to forgive for Christ's sake. But you let somebody offend and we'll put a limit on grace. Oh, they can't be a believer. Now, the Lord said don't try to separate the weak and the tares. You don't know who's the Lord's people and who's not. But what he has taught us to do is speak my word and love one another. Speak my word and love one another. And as you speak this word, The Lord will correct that brother and as he chastens him and corrects him and teaches him, I'm talking about speaking the gospel of Christ. Just reminding one another what Christ has done for us. And as you do that and the Lord corrects him and the Lord strengthens him in faith and the Lord brings him back into fellowship and he's in his right mind and acting like he knows something about grace again. The Lord's taught you in the process. The Lord's taught you that Christ is really saving through this gospel. He's really in our midst. Look over at Philippians chapter 2 with me just a minute. Philippians chapter 2. The Lord here is telling us through Paul, He's telling us how Christ made Himself no reputation, how He humbled Himself, and He's telling us this, He's saying, let this mind be in you too. Just humble yourself. He trusted the Father. That's how He saved us. He was perfectly faithful to the Father. He's teaching you and me. Now you trust Him. And you speak the Gospel to your brethren and trust Him to save. And look what He says right here. Look what he says right here, verse 12. Beloved, as you've always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That don't have a thing in the world to do with your eternal salvation. What that means is, is in your day-to-day affairs, in what you're doing, work everything out between yourself with fear and trembling. Why is that? Here's why. For it's God which worketh in you both to will and do of his good pleasure. You know where Paul got that from? Matthew 18. When the Lord said, if you have to go to a brother that's offended you and you tell him his fault between you and him alone, he said, remember, I'm right there with you. Christ said, I'm right there with you. If it's just you and him, he said, or three or get, I'm right there. I know we apply that to when there's a small assembly and we get together and the Lord's there. Well, he's there, but the Lord applied that when you're dealing with a brother who is offended. He began in Matthew 18, he said, don't you offend one of these little ones that believe in me. It'd be better for you that a millstone hung about your neck and you cast it into the sea. He said, you go to them one-on-one and you speak to them. We're witnesses. He said, or if they won't hear you, take two more witnesses with you, two or three. What are we witnesses of? We're witnesses of Christ. He's not saying go build a case against him and come with the witnesses and charge him and just, I'll tell you what you're gonna get if you do that. You're going to get what Paul says next here in verse 14, do all things without murmuring and disputing. You go to a brother with that spirit, you're going to get some murmuring and disputing. That's what you're going to get. He said, remember, I'm right there in your midst. I'm right there with you. He said, you go, you bear witness of Christ, you go remind that brother of the, look how Paul's doing this in Philippians 2. Look here, he said, if there's any consolation in Christ, you ever been consoled in Christ? He said, if there's any comfort of love, if there's any Fellowship of the Spirit, vows, and mercies. Fulfill ye my joy. Be like minded. Have the same love of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory. But in lowliness of mind, esteem the other better than yourself. Look not every man on his own things, but every man on the things of others. And here's what all that is. let this man be in you which was also in Christ." This is how Christ deals with us still to this day, right now. This is how He deals with us. He thought it not robbery to be equal with God. This is God and yet He humbled Himself and took upon Him the form of a servant and took flesh like us and He just kept humbling Himself down, down, down. to the death of the cross. And you know what he did by that? Paul said there, wherefore God also hath highly exalted him. You know what that word also means? That means in everything Christ did for us, He highly exalted God by that humility. He was trusting the Father. Wherefore in due time, Rather, he didn't exalt himself in due time because he was so highly exalted in the Father by trusting the Father and speaking the gospel and laying down his life for his people in due time, God also highly exalted him. Peter learned that. Peter learned that. I'm trying to show you why it's so wise for God to save through the foolishness of preaching. He's put us together so that as we offend each other and as you have a brother that needs to be forgiven, You learn that Christ is really in your midst and He's really working in His people and He's really doing it through the gospel because this gospel is the power of God. This is how it pleased God to save. That doesn't just mean it pleased God to get you to make a profession. No. It pleased God to call you through this gospel. The first hour he brought you to humility and brought you to your faith to call on the Lord for salvation and mercy. And it pleased him to save you every day the rest of your life to the last breath you take through the preaching of this word right here. And so he's teaching you, he's really in your midst. And as Peter learned it, Peter, the Lord told Peter, he said, Peter, now I'm going to the cross. and I'm going to lay down my life, and they're going to take me, and they're going to treat me in all this wicked way, and they're going to nail me to a cross. And Peter said, that's not going to happen, Lord. I know. Uh-uh. He said, Peter, you're going to deny me. You're not going to stand with me. You're going to deny me. And Peter said, no. He said, these others here, they might deny you, but I'm not going to deny you. You know what that was? That was not humility. That was not trusting the Lord. That was pride. That was saying, I love you more than they love you. And the Lord said, Peter, Satan has desire to sift you as wheat. He was sifting Peter right then. And he said, there's one reason your faith's not going to fail, Peter. I've prayed for you that your faith fail not. That's the only reason Peter's faith. Peter didn't have faith when he denied the Lord. The only reason Peter was saved through that was the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ came to him and he took him off to the side. After Peter denied him, went back fishing, was leaving, just done with the ministry, and the Lord came to Peter. And the Lord took Peter off to the side, and he said, Peter, you love me more than these? That's what he boasted of before. Before he boasted, I love you more than these other apostles. And the Lord came to him and said, now, Peter, do you? Have you learned that that's not so? You don't love me more than them. You do not love me more than they do, Peter. He humbled Peter. Peter left it with the Lord. Lord, you know, you know. And he asked him three times, he said, Lord, you know, you know all things. You knew I was going to deny you. You knew that rooster was going to crow the third time. You knew everything about me, Lord. You know I love you. I'm not going to brag about it, boast about it anymore. You know it. And the Lord, remember he had told him, he said, Peter, when you're converted, go teach your brethren this, what I've taught you. And Peter, in his epistle, he said, now, brethren, all of you submit to one another. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Peter, speaking by experience. How did he learn that? He learned it because God saved through the foolishness of preaching by bringing his body together and making us experience these things as we're going through this wilderness together. And Peter said, so you all submit yourselves to one another, casting all your care on Christ, for he careth for you. Peter learned that by experience, didn't he? He learned the only reason my faith did fail was Christ cared for me. And He said this, He said, and trust Him to exalt you in due time. That's what Christ did. Christ humbled Himself down and was obedient to the death of the cross and by that, by Him laying down His life in place of His people, bearing our sin, bearing our curse, He completely, thoroughly exalted God to the highest. He was made the very least and exalted God to the heights by what He did. Nobody ever did what our Lord Jesus did. There is the perfect righteous love of the law. There's the perfect fulfillment of the law in what Christ did. Loving God and his neighbor as himself while he is bearing the curse and condemnation to declare God just and justifier and to justify his people from our sin. That is what the law requires. And when he had finished the work, God also highly exalted him. And Peter said, let me tell you something. You just submit to him, trust him, and in due time, he'll exalt you. Don't try to exalt yourself. And this is where, this is why he saves through the foolishness of preaching. You notice back there in 1 Corinthians 1. He said, I will, verse 19, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise lesson people out there think they're so wise. No, no, that's me and you who He saves. That's me and you who He saves. There should be one, one who's wisdom in His church. You find it down there in 1 Corinthians 1.30. Of God is He made unto us wisdom. But He's going to destroy our wisdom. There are not going to be any wise men, any prudent men, any scribes, any disputers in Christ's church. That's what he said there. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe, where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? I know people They'll come in, they'll sit down. They may stay a long time. They may stay for years. And they just want to debate and argue and fuss and fight and tell you how wise they are and how knowledgeable they are. I said there won't be any wise people in Christ's church. I didn't say there wouldn't be some come in. But in Christ's church, he's going to take that spirit out of his people. He's going to make us see what he made Peter see. Peter, you don't know what you think you know. and he's going to bring you to the place where you're going to say, Lord, you know. You know. People all the time ask me, what do you think Lord's doing right there? I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know what he's doing with me. I don't know. But he knows. And I can trust him. You can trust him. See, God saves this way because this is the people that's going to be in His church. Look down the page there. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 27. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. You know what those foolish things are? Me and you. Me and you who He saved. He chose the foolish things. He had to make us the foolish things though because we thought we were the wise, scribe, prudent, you know, we all have been in the faith a long time. You'd be astounded how much I know. And he brings us to see, no, foolish, don't know a thing. Makes us to be the foolish things that he might use us to confound the wise. God's chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. Weak things. That's me and you. Weak things. We get in our little place, you know, where we're like Peter. You know, Lord, I'm strong. And I don't have a doubt. I don't have a doubt that when the Lord told him, Peter, you're going to deny me. I just guarantee you, when Peter got to the Garden of Gethsemane and they came to arrest our Lord, He thought, this is it. This is when the Lord's testimony right here. And I'm going to show him. And he pulled out that fisherman's knife and he cut that soldier's ear off. Peter said, Lord said, Peter, put your little knife up. I don't need you to help me. The cup my father gave me, shall I not drink it? And he's going to humble you down to see. You're the weak thing. And that's where He brought Peter to see He's the weak thing. Because He chose weak things. Why? Because there's only going to be one wisdom in His church. There's going to be one power in His church. It's not going to be me and you. It's going to be Him. He's the power of God. And He's the wisdom of God. Look here. He chose base things of the world. That's us, brethren. He has to make us see that. He chose things which are despised. If you're going to be a witness for the man of sorrows acquainted with grief who was despised and rejected of men, He is going to make you to be despised and rejected of men. You can bank on that. If He uses us, That's how he's going to make us to be rejected of this world, despised of this world in some capacity or another. And the more he uses, the more he's going to do that. Look at the men he used. Moses. Moses. Used more than anybody in the world. Moses. Moses had to flee from Egypt because he murdered a man. and the Lord just kept bringing Moses down, down, down, down, despised and rejected all as he tried to lead the children of Israel through the wilderness. Look at David, wrote the Psalms, wrote most of the Old Testament Scriptures. Where did he spend most of his time? In the wilderness. His house was a mess. His sons wanted to kill him. Everything, I mean, just why did the Lord do that? Because he had to be shown he was a weak, nothing, base thing who had to trust the Lord to save him. And the Lord used him to write all those psalms. We wouldn't even have those psalms if it wasn't for the Lord putting him through all that. The Apostle Paul, you realize where he wrote three-fourths of the New Testament? You realize where he was when he wrote three-fourths of the New Testament? He was in prison. Oh, Brother John, did you go hear about Brother John? He's over here in the Yuba County Jail, Sutter County Jail. He's over here in jail. Now how would we react to that? Just like Brethren reacted to Paul. There was some men who led Brethren away from trusting Paul because they wanted to have the preeminence and they wanted people to be against Paul. But there was some real genuine true Brethren too who heard all those rumors and said, is Paul, he's in prison. I don't know what he's in prison for. I don't even have nothing to do with Paul. Why did the Lord put Paul through that? The Lord said, you're gonna all forsake me. But I'm not alone, because my father is with me. And our Lord Jesus went to Calvary's cross and he hung on that cross. And in three hours of darkness, God forsook God. And he had one thing, the promise of God his father. That's what he had. The word of God his father. And he believed him. He said, he opened my ear and I wasn't rebellious. I didn't turn away back. I gave my back to the spiners. I gave my beard to them that plucked out the hair. Why? Because my father is near that justified me. Who would contend with me? He knew when this work's accomplished and when His justice is satisfied, He will raise me just like He promised He'll raise me. And I tell you, these sufferings and these things the Lord's putting us through, that's what He's teaching us. To trust Him. To trust Him. He's already justified His people. He's already made His people righteous. He's already made you holy in Him. He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified by His one offering. But He's teaching us through all these sufferings and these little light afflictions that seem so heavy to us. He's teaching us. He's teaching us. He's our wisdom. He's our righteousness. He's our sanctification. And He's our redemption. Because here's what's going to be so in His church. Look down here at verse Verse 29, no flesh shall glory in His presence. Why does He save this way? When you're talking to somebody one-on-one, they're not listening to what you're saying. They're thinking about what they're going to say. But when you're sitting here preaching, nobody gets the glory in His presence. We all have to sit down and listen and I hope, pray, hear Christ speak. Because He said in Isaiah 50, He said, My people are going to know it's I that speak. Behold, it's I. And when they hear me speak, they're going to say how beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him that publishes peace. See, he's making you know, of God are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it's written, he that glories, let him glory in the Lord. In every one of these light afflictions, Paul said, Our outward man is perishing. That's on purpose. The Lord, it's called the dying of the Lord Jesus. The Lord's making your, he's making your old man die, little by little, and he's renewing the inward man day by day. That's called the life of the Lord Jesus. He's the life of the new man. And he said, and as he does this, he's turning us from these things we can see with these eyes, and he's turning us to things that can't be seen, because they're the real things. And at the end of every one of these little trials you go through, he brings you to do one thing. You say, to God be the glory. I'm so thankful for what he did, because he made me see his glory, he made me glory in him, and he made me to know all the glories he is. He's saving me. He's saving me. So the next time your brother says something ugly or does something ugly, I know what our knee-jerk reaction is. Me and Brother Rick were talking about this this afternoon. Your knee-jerk reaction is to do it right back. You go off, cool off, settle down, ask the Lord to give you the word to speak, and go back and just remind them, Brother, isn't it good what Christ has done for us? We don't deserve the least of His mercies. And He has totally, thoroughly made us the righteousness of God. Aren't we thankful for what He's done for us? Just remind them of what Christ has done for us. And then you know what you do? Then you pray to Him and say, Lord, would you bless my brother? Would you help him? And would you help me? And then you know what you do? You wait on the Lord. Because He don't always do it right away to make you wait on Him. and you wait on him. That's what he told Ezekiel in the Valley of the Drowned Bone. He said, you're going to preach my word. He said, you're going to pray for me to bless it by my spirit, and you're going to wait on me to bless it. And he said, and when I get done, here's what you're going to do. Everybody's going to give me the glory. That's what he said. I said, go read it. He said, that's what you're going to do. You're going to give me the glory. That's why he's saving through the foolishness of preaching. So we don't get the glory in his presence. We just glory in him and we see how wise he is for saving this way. I'm so thankful he saves this way. I'm so thankful. I pray the Lord bless it. Amen.