Learning To Not Be Shaken By This World's Wisdom

And my speech and any preaching

were not with persuasive words

of human wisdom, but in

demonstration of the Spirit

and of power, that your faith

should not be in the wisdom of men

but in the power of God.

1 Corinthians 2: 4 -- 5

            Looking back into the history of Christianity in early America especially after the year 1776 A.D. we can find that there was not only a great movement of people from the East Coast moving towards the West Coast into new lands, we can also find they also became more liberal in their thinking about God and the Scriptures.  Men such as Charles G. Finney went about preaching a new form of Christianity that men themselves could come to Jesus Christ by their own power.  Other men such as the Wesley brothers, especially Charles, there was a movement towards a more socialistic form of Christianity.  Now I speak of these men, I speak of their actions and not of their salvation because salvation is solely between a man and God.  While we do find though that they were teaching that by our might we can come to God and this was limiting thinking about the power of God.  Many men who had eloquent speech and had words that were so enticing that many followed them only to follow a man's wisdom.  Paul was telling us that he did not come to the Corinthian church with man's wisdom but rather he demonstrated the power of God and of the Holy Spirit who operates in the lives of Christians.  It is not by some form of outward power that many go about preaching.  Such as things like praying for a healing and expect that God will do exactly what they prayed.  It is not that God will not answer prayer, it is whether or not we simply have faith in that God will display His power however He wills to display it and it is not by the will of man that God is forced to act.  We must understand that if in our preaching the gospel, we go about substituting the clear knowledge and clear interpretation of the Scriptures and we use our wisdom.  If we use man's wisdom for the knowledge of a way to salvation a way to get power from God, or a way to have confidence in the power of God, all that done is a hindrance of getting people to know and come to the reality.  Here seems to be a hindrance in the lives of people: WE DO NOT MAKE TIME TO STUDY GOD'S WORD!  We will make time for almost anything else: running kids to sports activities, to even events that are fun and enjoyable but so often take us away from sitting down with our children and teaching them about God and how to use the word of God in their life.  I'm not speaking against doing things with our children that are fun and enjoyable rather I am saying are we actually setting aside time, not moments of time as important as that may be, rather time to actually sit down and study God's Word with our spouse and with our children?  You see we must first ensure that we are rooted and grounded in our faith in God.  As I have said before, inspect what you expect, and never rely simply on the clearness of our exposition, or another's exposition, ensure that you are relying on the Holy Spirit.  We must rely with all conviction and commitment upon the certainty of God's redemptive power and allow Him to create His own life in our souls.  It is this; once you are rooted in the reality of God then nothing can shake you and cause you to waver and vacillate from your faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  If our faith is in experiences, our experiences, then those things that may happen to you are likely to upset your faith.  Remember this, God and the reality of God in redemption is never upset and nothing can change what he has willed for His children.  Our trust is not in the eloquent of speech by others, although it is nice to have those who can speak well speak to us, rather it is that we examine all things by the Word of God.  What is missing in today's lives so often is critical thinking.  We are so willing to accept things that make us feel good rather than doing those things and believing those things that are in opposition and contradiction to God.  Our faith is based upon the security of Reality when we get into a personal contact with Jesus Christ then there is nothing in this world that can move us away from our faith.  So often we think that sanctification is simply an outward work, those things that we exercise, and it is true that in our sanctification we should be moved to do good things according to God's Word.  But God does not put his approval upon human experience and believe that sanctification is merely an experience.  We cannot forget that sanctification itself has to be sanctified: "And for their sakes I sanctified Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth" (John 17: 19).  As did Paul and the principles that he has set forth for all Christians is that he, and we, deliberately set aside himself, ouself, and gave, give our life, his life to be a sanctified life to God and for God's service.  This is so that God can use us as His hands and feet.  Is your life demonstrating Jesus Christ, and not by some outward false demonstration of His power?  Is it by simply doing the everyday mundane things, things like simply mowing the lawn, fixing the fence or gate?  Is it by cleaning the house, doing our work at work as it should be done, in other words, are we actually living as what we are, ambassadors for Jesus Christ knowing that others whom we may never know or see are watching this in determining whether or not we are really Christians or just Christians in Word only.  So often, we work so hard at being a Christian when it is simpler.  As I have often said and learned, it is simply by putting our pants on every day and going about life and living according to his principles, precept come and his commands that when the Bible says do a thing to it, and what is says not to do a thing, don't do it.  It is that simple!

We grope for the wall like the blind,

            and that we grope as if we

 had no eyes; we stumble at noonday

            as at twilight; we are as dead men

in desolate places.  We all growl like bears,

            and moan sadly like doves;

we look for justice, but there is none;

            for salvation, but it is far from us....

The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to

            those who turn from transgression

in Jacob, says the LORD.

                                    Isaiah 59: 10 -- 11; 30

Our hope is in God

Richard L. Crumb

Courage, Conviction, And Committment

And I, brethren, when I came to you,

did not come with excellence of speech

 or of wisdom declaring to you

the testimony of God.

Or I determined not to know anything among you

except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

1 Corinthians 2: 1 -- 2

            As a Christian we are confronted by the culture of this world and its pressures to conform to the ideologies talked and practiced by those who will not believe upon our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To practice our Christian faith takes courage and conviction, more than that, we are to be committed to God and His Son Jesus Christ and this we can do by the power of the Holy Spirit that dwells in all Christians.  One of the most harm done to Christians is to make them lose faith in their ability to remain committed.  We see this lack of commitment by the not honoring of vows and oaths in such things as in marriage with easy divorces in great number that are occurring in the Christian church.  Divorces done by such things, as irreconcilable differences, and those irreconcilable differences not based upon God's Word.  It takes courage to holdfast against wrongs to our convictions and to our commitments and yet this is what God has called us to be as his ambassador and witness to His gospel.  We see the world as one that is so troubled and filled with terror from almost every angle that we become timid and allow those things quiet as from speaking the gospel.  Paul wrote to the Corinthians approximately 55 A.D., and this is only some 20 -- 22 years from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ: not a long time.  Paul called by Jesus Christ on his way to cause more persecution and terror to the Christians in recognizing that the one with whom he was persecuting wives gone, Jesus Christ, the one who came, died upon a cross and was the promised Messiah, in a short time began to preach the gospel.  Imagine this, a person who is well-known for his opposition to the Christianity that was now being formed in many churches and cities that many people would be afraid and would have a hard time putting their faith into what he was now preaching.  When Paul entered into the city of Corinth there he would meet a bustling city full of commerce, many people going to and fro and many people who were involved in the worship of Apollos and Aphrodite, a licentious people who were enjoying their wealth and their world standing as an important city within the Roman Empire.  This was a port city and as we can testify to by many testimonies given over the years port cities are not known for being as a church rather more of a place where anything goes, a place where there would be much debauchery, drunkenness, and prostitution.  This is what Paul met when he came there in 51A.D and could cause great fear to speak out against such things that were being practiced in this city.  This can also be our objection in this day when we are faced with most things that are in our present-day culture that are in opposition to the gospel.  People are not willing to listen to what you may have to say in regards to Jesus Christ and salvation.  But as Paul said he did not come to them with a great excellency of speech even though he was a scholar and an orator.  Paul was not saying these things out as some abject humility, what he was saying is this; if he came with great excellency of speech to impress people he would rather veil the power of God for he did not come to impress people with his excellency of speech.  Many people even today are enthralled that are involved in some forms of group euphoria because they have become so impressed by a person's excellency of speech.  To believe in Jesus Christ is a miracle that only produced by the efficacy of redemption and not by some impressive speech, or by some wooing, and winning, rather only by the sheer unaided power of God.  God redeems and sanctifies, calls, and enables, and this by His creative power giving faith for a person to respond to the preaching of the Gospel.  It is never because of some personality of a preacher.  When a person is wooed to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ to be impressiveness and exquisite diction with impressive an excellent words all that is being done is a hindrance of the gospel of God.  It must be remembered, a preacher is a representative of God.  The preacher is there to present the gospel of God.  If we are being flattered by what we do or why what we hear and if I think by preaching the gospel and I should be flattered, then all I am a coming is a trader to Jesus Christ because I would be preventing the creative power of redemption from doing its work.  Paul did not come to the Corinthians and he has written those things which we now have in our hands for us to read and as he did to the Corinthians he does for us, he comes without the excellence of speech or the wisdom of this world.  Paul comes to us with one thing and one thing only, and that is the testimony of God in the fact that Jesus Christ crucified and is the Savior, the promised one when God gave the promised to Adam.  Our faith should not be in anything other than the wisdom of God and the power of God.  Anything else in this may be and is often misused to mislead people to do things that are not of God and often are nothing more than ways to fatten the wallets of those who are preaching such things that are in opposition to what Paul is telling us to do and not to do.  Who are you following?  Is it some preacher?  Is that a man from the past like John Wesley, or John Calvin, or Martin Luther, or Augustine, or in any other person?  Are you willing to test them with the Scriptures rightly interpreted by allowing scripture to interpret scripture and not man to interpret scripture?  How important is this: the most important as the culture of this world had invaded the Corinthian church it can also see that there has been an invasion into the modern-day church as well.  Purity, purity, purity, this is what we must ensure so that we, and our children and others are not being led off into some form of false teaching.  This is our responsibility; this should be our curry to and conviction to holdfast to our commitment.

            With all of this in mind we will not enter into an in-depth study of this book and allow scripture to interpret scripture so that we can change anything that needs to be changed from our inside that is making us to practice things outside that are not of God.  Paul is going to tell us that we need to purge out the old leaven, and I hope this is what you're willing to do so that you are the witness, and massacre, of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Do not say, "A conspiracy,"

            concerning all that this

people call a conspiracy, nor be

            afraid of their threats,

nor be troubled.  The LORD of hosts,

            Him you shall hallow;

let Him be your fear, and let Him

            be your dread.

                                    Isaiah 8:12 -- 13

Gird yourselves, speak the gospel

Richard L. Crumb

Called To Live And Preach The Gospel

For Christ did not send me to baptize,

but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom

of words, lest the cross of Christ should be

made of no effect.  For the message of the cross

is foolishness to those who are perishing,

but to us who are being saved it is

the power of God.

1 Corinthians 1: 17 -- 18

            Before I move on in our discussion of Paul's writing to the Corinthian church it is good to step back from the moment and remember that we are called to preach the gospel.  Paul is stating to us at the very beginning of his letters that his call was to preach the gospel and what Paul means by the gospel is the reality of retention in our Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul did not muddy up the waters of the gospel for he kept it to the thing that the gospel is all about, and that is the cross upon which Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior died to redeem the children of God.  How often we are so ready to make sanctification as the end of all for preaching.  Many Christians go about doing things that seem to be so pious as that this is what Jesus commissioned us to do.  It is not!  Nowhere are we commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification; what we are commissioned to do is to lift a Jesus Christ and how do we do this by preaching Jesus Christ: "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12: 32).  Jesus Christ did not suffer on the cross, a difficult and exhausting act nor did he just exert his mental or physical powers under this difficulty a difficulty that led to the very point of exhaustion that ended in the redemption just to make us a saint.  What Jesus Christ did in his travail in redemption is to redeem the whole world and that redemption paid the price of justice God demanded for the whole world and applies to His children and then to place it unimpaired and rehabilitated before the throne of God.  How do we know that we have been redeemed by the travail of Jesus Christ upon the cross and this can be known by experience that the power of the reality of Reagan can while being an illustration of this power this experience is not the end of redemption.  How we must query God towards our constant requests we make for ourselves we, and for our sanctification.  We must tax him in some way due to the things that we wish and want for ourselves most things that for us are to be delivered from.  It is at this point we must reach to the very bedrock of the reality of the gospel of God and if we do so we shall never bother God any further with little personal plaints.  Paul was telling us this that it was his passion in life to proclaim the gospel of God, and it should be our passion also for the reason is only one, it was our, as it was with Paul, passion towards our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ that will keep us in a unmoved devotion to the gospel of God.

            The first chapter of the first book of Corinthians ends this way: "But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God -- and righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1: 30).  There is a mystery of sanctification for it is in the perfection of Jesus Christ that it is imparted to us, not gradually, but instantly when by faith we enter into the realization that Jesus Christ is made unto us sanctification.  What is the meaning of sanctification?  It means nothing less than that the holiness of Jesus is being made ours manifestly.  Now don't conclude that this manifestation is simply and worked as, or things that we do, no, it is this: the marvelous secret of a holy life not in imitating Jesus, rather than letting the perfection of Jesus become manifested in our carnal and mortal flesh.  How many are running to and fro, gathering names, or carrying pieces of paper with boxes to be checked off as they go about trying to impress people with their Christianity.  Some go about praying for people who are not even close to being ready to be prayed for in this sense they do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ so what they need is not some prayer or some special healing, rather what they need is the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  It is not that we don't pray that our ambassadorship of the Lord Jesus Christ would have an effect upon people but it is not an experience that the people need for it is the Lord Jesus Christ and He is redemption and sanctification that they need.  You see sanctification means the importation of the holy qualities of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  What is needed is His patience, His love, His Holiness, His faith, His purity, His godliness, and this is what is to be manifested in and through every sanctified soul.  Sanctification is not drawing some power from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the power to be wholly; no, we draw from Jesus is the holiness that was manifested in Him and that is to be manifested in and through us as Christians.  It must be remembered, sanctification is imparted to us and it is not some imitation of our Savior Jesus Christ, it is through Jesus Christ where we find the perfection of everything and the mystery of sanctification and it must be remembered as well that all the perfection of Jesus are at my disposal.  This is to say that we can raise the dead, or heal people, some charismatic and other Pentecostal type people who believe in such power, no, it means that we begin to live a life that is ordered by the will of God to live with sanity and holiness.

            Paul is pointing out to us from the very beginning of his letters that when we overreach what it means to be a Christian and add to our Christianity things that are in many ways blasphemous to God, then we are not being By the power of God.  We are keeping ourselves with our power, with our wisdom, and this wisdom is so often infected by the culture and wisdom of this world that we are not in line with the will of God.  We are to be changing ourselves from the inside out and then life is change from the inside out and living according to the precept, principles, and commands of God we are manifesting our Savior Jesus Christ to the world.  This is our work that has been assigned to us.  The question is will we join this work or will we simply sit aside waiting for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ as though that is all there is: I pray and hope not that we will tacitly and apathetically set aside the life that Jesus died and redeemed and sanctified.

As for me, I will call upon God,

            and the LORD shall save me.

Evening and morning and at noon

            I will pray, and cried aloud,

and He shall hear my voice.  He has

            redeemed my soul in peace

from the battle that was against me,

            for there were many against me.

                                    Psalm 55: 16 -- 18

Put your trust in God

Richard L. Crumb