Attitude, Manner, Goal

The Privilege of an Open Bible and Accountable Preaching

0:03 I would encourage you to turn in your own Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

0:09 May I say, you don't know how much that means to a preacher to hear the rustling of Bible pages. I preached in a place recently where no one, I don't think there was a soul, but my wife and children, who had a Bible open while I was preaching.

0:23 I could have told them the ganky doodle was the Messiah, and they never would have been able to check me out from the Scriptures.

0:29 And it really was a tragic experience. I said, now, as you will notice in the text, and I looked at the people, and they all looked at me, no heads dropped down. And I said, as you will see in the parallel passage in such and such a place. And I waited, and there was no turning.

0:44 My friends, it's a great privilege to have an open Bible and to have a ministry that encourages you to check out what the preacher is telling you from the passage. I can say this because he's not here tonight. Pastor Blaze mentioned to me how grateful he was last week in the light of certain principles that he enunciated from the Genesis 3 passage. Two, one or two?

1:04 Two of you came and said, Pastor Blaze, in the light of what you said, how do we square that with verse 6? And he said to me, oh, my brother, how grateful I am to have a people who check us as we preach. And I share that feeling with a hearty amen. So let me encourage you, if you don't have the habit of bringing your Bible to bring it, that you might see the Word of God visually as well as hear it as it is proclaimed.

Introduction to the Marks of a Faithful Ministry

1:30 1 Corinthians chapter 2, I shall read verses 1 to 5, and I will read it. 5 minutes reviewing what we covered this morning and then move to an exposition of the last three verses in the passage. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

1:59 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. We are considering the teaching of these verses under the general theme of the marks of a faithful minister and a faithful ministry. And I suggested to you this morning that it was essential for every one of us to have clearly defined views as to what constitutes a faithful ministry.

2:44 We are called upon to choose our pastors, to encourage young men to pursue the work of the Christian ministry. We are called upon to attend upon the preaching of the word. And for these and many other reasons, it is essential for all of us to have clear views as to what constitutes a faithful minister. And in the study this morning, I suggested that Paul's teaching in this passage relative to the work of the ministry directly parallels his previous statement concerning the whole design of God in the work of redemption.

3:22 The previous paragraph, chapter 1, verses 26 to the end, indicate that God has chosen a course in redemption in which He has calculated to humble, human pride and human wisdom, and exalt nothing but Himself and His own power and grace. The whole end of redemption is the exaltation of God and the abasement of the creature. Therefore, because the ministry is instituted as a means to the accomplishment of that goal, everything about the Christian ministry should be calculated to fit that overall perspective.

4:04 God does not institute a God-honoring, flesh-humbling salvation and then institute a man-honoring and a God-dishonoring ministry. It would be a contradiction of the very goal that He has in mind. And so, having stated that the great goal of God in redemption is that no flesh should glory before God, that him who glories must glory in the Lord, Paul then describes the kind of ministry which is owned of God to bring rebel sinners to the place where they do glory before God and before God alone

4:46 and where that glorying focuses upon the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. With that general word of introduction, we then considered the teaching of the first two verses, the first two elements of a God-honoring and a faithful ministry.

Mark 1: The Definitive Role of a Proclaimer

5:05 The first is what we called the definitive role of a faithful minister. Paul says, I did not come with excellency of speech, that is, in the role of an orator, nor did I come with wisdom, that is, in the role of a philosopher, but I came to you in the role of a proclaimer. I proclaimed unto you the testimony of God. Paul was conscious that he did not speak out of the stuff of his own wisdom, his own insights, nor did he speak in such a way as to veil the gospel with the arts of human rhetoric.

5:42 He dared to say, I am a herald. I come proclaiming a message deposited in my hands as a trust, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, as we were approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak. Now let me pause to say something I did not say this morning, that this element of proclamation is very, very offensive to men, particularly in our own day.

6:08 And I find increasingly when people get converted and then tell me what they really thought when they first heard true preaching, invariably there was a sense of being offended at it. Who in the world is that fellow mortal to stand up and proclaim with such authority things that are so humbling to my flesh? People don't like proclamation. The idea that you can stand up and say, well, this is my thing, and I humbly, throw it out into the hopper of many other things.

6:37 They don't mind that. I heard an interview program driving down to New Brunswick the other night for a wedding rehearsal in which this was the whole approach. This man said, now look, I've gotten some help through meditation, but the trouble with religion is somebody gets help this way and then they say everybody's got to get help this way. Let's all just do our own thing.

6:55 Well, you see, there's no proclamation in that business. And it's the proclamation element in the gospel that is peculiarly offensive in our day. Let's have dialogue, no proclamation. Let's have humble suggestions as to what the truth may be, but no proclamation.

7:10 Paul says, I'm sorry. God has constituted me a proclaimer. I came to you not as philosopher sharing his notions, not as orator displaying his abilities. I came as humble herald proclaiming a testimony of which I was not the author.

7:28 It is the testimony of God. And my friend, I care not where you go in this world, when you are seeking the kind of a ministry that is owned of God and is a faithful ministry, look for the element of proclamation. Proclamation, the herald who penetrates the mind of God in the scriptures comes forth from the presence of God to proclaim that mind to you. Secondly, the apostle tells us in this passage that his comprehensive theme was nothing more or less than Jesus Christ.

Mark 2: The Comprehensive Theme of Christ Crucified

8:04 Jesus Christ and him as crucified. This was not a stripped down theme because of peculiar circumstances at current. He is declaring that Christ Jesus and him crucified was his comprehensive theme. Whatever doctrine he had to dilate upon, whatever truth he had to proclaim, he proclaimed it in its essential relationship to Jesus Christ as the savior of sinners who has wrought salvation, salvation by his death upon the cross.

8:38 And so the mark of a faithful minister is that his comprehensive theme is Jesus Christ and him as crucified. If he's preaching duty, he preaches it against the backdrop of the gracious enablement purchased by Jesus Christ. As he seeks to stir up the consciences of God's people to pursue a life of holiness, it is always against the backdrop of the motivations, rooted in Jesus Christ and him crucified. When he's preaching privilege, he preaches it as privilege purchased by the Son of God.

9:14 When he's preaching the law, he preaches the law against the backdrop of Christ as the law keeper and as the one who bore the punishment of a broken law in his own body when he died upon the cross. This was his comprehensive theme and he refused to range outside of that theme. Now again, let me say something I did not say this morning but needs saying. And that is, there is an itch for novelty in our day.

9:43 And the idea is, well, if you're going to catch the ears of the modern man where there is such a cacophony of sound calling for his attention, you've got to have something a little more novel than the next fellow. You've got to have something a little more scintillating, a little more attractive to the flesh. We simply can't stick to proclamation, the role of the Lord. The role of a witness and this one comprehensive theme, Jesus Christ and him is crucified.

10:10 Why, that's so limiting. That's so narrow. Listen, my friend. If a man is so determined to be clever and broad that he'll not study seriously all the truth that is bound up in Jesus Christ and him crucified, it's only right that he should go to hell for his ignorance.

10:28 For the sum and substance of all saving truth, whether to Jew or to Gentile, is Jesus Christ. And him as crucified. And in the words of Flavel that I quoted this morning, you judge the merit of a sermon by how much there was of the setting forth of Jesus Christ and the application of Christ to the heart and to the conscience. Well, so much for our review.

Mark 3: The Inward Disposition of Weakness, Fear, and Trembling

10:54 We come now to verse three, the third indispensable mark of a faithful minister and a faithful ministry. What is it? Well, Paul describes it. In these words, and I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

11:13 You see what Paul is done. He's moved from the position in which he stands that of a Herald to the substance of the message. He preaches Christ and him crucified. And now as it were, he unzips his heart and says, I'll let you see the inward disposition that characterizes me as a Herald preaching.

11:36 This great comprehensive theme. In other words, a faithful minister and a faithful ministry is not only revealed in terms of the position of the man standing consciously as a Herald, the proclamation of this comprehensive theme, Jesus Christ and in crucified. But what is the inward disposition from which he proclaims the Lord Jesus as a Herald and Paul describes the inward, the position of a faithful minister in these words, weakness, fear, and in much trembling. Now, what precisely do these words mean?

12:19 Oh, the word weakness could refer to actual physical weakness. There is some indication that the Apostle Paul was something less than a robust man physically. There is a clear indication in second Corinthians chapter 12, that God allowed, some kind of physical affliction, a messenger of Satan that made him consciously and physically weak. However, this word itself could refer to what we would call spiritual, emotional weakness as well.

12:52 But whether it was physical weakness or whether it was spiritual or emotional weakness, either or or both. And one thing is sure in contrast to these false apostles who swaggered in their cocky, self-confidence. Paul says, when I came to Corinth, I didn't feel adequate for the task. I was with you in weakness.

13:15 Now, what about the two words fear and trembling? Well, it's a bit easier to expound their meaning because they are found joined in this same structure, three other times in the writing of the Apostle Paul. Let's look at the three other usages of the little phrase in fear and in trembling. First of all, in second Corinthians, chapter seven, and all we're trying to do is to discover what is Paul saying about his inward attitude as he preached Christ and him crucified.

13:48 Second Corinthians, chapter seven and verse 14, or we could back up to verse 13. Therefore, we have been comforted in our comfort. We joined the more exceedingly for the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you. All Titus has gone to Corinth and receives.

14:07 Great encouragement as he sees what has transpired for enough. If in anything, I have glory to him on your behalf. I was not put to shame, but as we spake all things to you in truth, so our glorying also, which I made before Titus was found to be true. You see what Paul is saying is saying, even though I had to write a pretty stiff letter to you when Titus and I were alone, I was bragging on you all the time.

14:32 I was boasting about you people and I was confident that you'd receive my letter. And you would show yourself to be true Christians. And all how happy I am that my boasting has not been disappointed. Titus has found you to be everything.

14:44 I said, you'd be and I take great comfort from that because I love to boast about you people. When I'm not around you, you see, and I thank God that you've not given me occasion to be regretful of my boasting. But now this little phrase verse 15 and his affection is more abundantly towards you. While he remembereth the obedience of you.

15:06 All how with fear and trembling. He received him. I rejoice that in everything. I'm of good courage concerning you.

15:16 They see what he says when I sent Titus as my representative to settle the affairs there at Corinth, to see how you responded to my first letter and my rebukes and exhortations. You receive this man with trembling and with fear. Now, in what sense would they receive? Titus with trembling and fear?

15:38 Would they be afraid that he would come with a big long ten-foot club six inches in diameter inscribed on it? This is Paul's club to be laid on the head of every disobedient Corinthian. Was it a kind of fear that a slave will have of a cruel taskmaster who may crack the whip over the back? Why, of course not.

15:57 What kind of fear and trembling was it? Was it that Paul might come and send Titus to excommunicate them? No, no, I think you can read into. The whole mood of it.

16:07 It was the fear and trembling that was present because the Corinthians, as Paul describes earlier in the second letter, had received his rebukes as the word of God, and they had brought themselves to that place. Paul describes what clearing of yourselves, what vehemence, what concern to prove yourself cleared in these matters. So it was the fear and trembling rooted in the awesome sense of their responsibility, to obey the word that had come from Paul, the apostle. It was a fear and trembling, lest they should fall short of their Christian duty.

16:44 It was a fear and trembling rooted in a deep solicitude that they might be well-pleasing unto God and his ordained messengers, the apostles. Now look over in Philippians chapter two for a second usage of the same phrase. Verse 12. So then, my beloved, as you have always, obeyed not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation, and here's the phrase, with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

17:27 Now how is Paul exhorting them to work out their salvation? How are they to progress in the Christian life? How are they to adorn the doctrine of God, in the immediate context? How are they to make full Paul's joy as they maintain a spirit of Christian unity?

17:45 He says they are to do it with fear and with trembling. Now what kind of fear? Well, it can't be the fear of a man who stands as Bunyan's pilgrim stood beneath the brow of Mount Sinai and sees the lightnings and the flashings and the ominous clouds of divine judgment. It can't be that servile fear of a man, who's not sure of his justification.

18:08 Paul never exhorts that as a duty. No, no. It cannot be that fear. It cannot be the trembling of the man who like again Bunyan's Christian, has left the city of destruction and the pack is upon his back, and he's filled with dread and fear and evangelist says, where are you going?

18:26 He said, I've left the city of destruction, and I've set my face in this direction. Why? He says, because I understand from the book in my hand that I must die and come to judgment. And I do not want the former and I'm not prepared for the latter and he trembles.

18:41 Is that what he's calling them to do? No, because the whole context is that they have come to appreciate that Jesus Christ in his self emptying has become their substitute. He is born their sins. They are now sanctified in Christ Jesus.

18:58 What then is the fear and trembling? Well, I think it becomes clear. Does it not? And when we look at the words for it is God, who work within you Christian Almighty God has laid hold of you.

19:10 Almighty God has taken you in hand graciously lovingly powerfully old Christian. Be careful that you do not grieve this God Christian. Be anxious to please this God. You reflect his salvation as he goes on to say in the subsequent verses, shining his lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

19:31 And the thought that I might misrepresent my God, the thought that I might by my conduct say in essence to my God, it makes no difference to me that you've extended so much in your grace for the likes of me. This fills me with fear and with trembling not the legal fears of the unjustified, not the servile fear of a man who's not sure of his acceptance, but it is that tender godly fear lest I should dishonor the God who has so graciously, laid hold of me and then you have essentially the same thought in Ephesians chapter 6. I shall only read the verse and you'll see how that concept fits the context again.

20:16 Ephesians chapter 6 Paul having given directives to husbands and wives then to children now speaks to another structure where there is constituted Authority the servant master relationship. And he says in Ephesians 6 5 servants be obedient unto them that according to the flesh. Flesh are your masters with fear and trembling in singleness of your heart as unto Christ. In other words, he says you servants.

20:49 You must be concerned about an eye that is mightier in authority than the eye of your master. You must serve your masters with fear and trembling again, not the kind of fear of the servant who's afraid of the master's rod, but the kind. The fear of the servant who is filled with a sense of all that he is accountable to his God for his conduct as a servant. I'll bring that back to first Corinthians 3 as Paul describes his inward disposition as a minister of the gospel.

21:23 What is he saying to us? He's saying when I came to Corinth as a Herald fully prepared and previously determined that I would not budge from my comprehensive theme. I should preach Christ and him crucified nothing more nothing less. I was with you in weakness physical or emotional and with fear and with trembling.

21:49 Let me suggest that in this context that fear and trembling involved at least three things. First of all, it involved a crushing sense of the magnitude of the task. It was a crushing sense of the magnitude of the task. That filled Paul with this godly fear and much trembling.

22:17 What an awesome thing it is for a mortals to stand before his fellow mortals and realize that all eternity pivots on his influence. And if there are a few things that make me want to run from the ministry on occasions, it's this to think that eternity eternal destinies pivot on the influence. It comes over this pulpit. That's enough to take the swagger out of anybody.

22:53 I was with you with fear and trembling. Why? Because I realized eternity pivoted on my ministry. I'm called upon to represent the living God.

23:05 Then we read in Hebrews 12 28 and 29. Let us have Grace whereby. We may serve this God with reverence and godly fear for our God is the consuming fire. We do not represent.

23:20 Some little saccharine deity to who men can snuggle up and feel comfortable in their carnal security. We represent the living in the true God who is a consuming fire. This fills the true servant of Christ with fear and with trembling. I suggest in the second place this fear and trembling of which the Apostle speaks was rooted.

23:46 Not only in his crushing sense of the magnitude of his task, but his painful awareness. Of his personal inadequacy, a painful awareness of his personal inadequacy. He had already told us has already told us in chapter one that he knows that if he sticks to this message, his whole auditory, his whole congregation, wherever he goes in current will be absolutely turned off. That's exactly what he said.

24:15 Look at verse 18 of chapter one. The word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. Verse 23. We preach Christ crucified unto the Jews, a stumbling block and onto the Greeks or Gentiles foolishness coming with this theme of Christ in him crucified.

24:37 He said, I know instinctively what's going to happen when I gather the Jews together in the synagogue, and I seek to show them from the scriptures that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God, the fulfillment of all type and shadow from the Old Testament and that their Messiah, comes to his glory by a bloody cross. He said, I know that they'll either turn away in disgust. They'll rise up in anger and you read first Corinthians, Acts 18 and see what happened at Corinth. And that's exactly what happened.

25:08 Exactly what happened until Paul had to shake the dust off his feet and say, I'll turn now to the Gentiles. He knew what would happen. The message, the only message he could preach would turn the Jews off. What about the Greeks?

25:21 He said, he'll turn them off to hear their brilliant philosophers. They've been sitting around in their higher, in their places of higher thought, and they've come out with their insights and their ideas and their opinions, and none of them can agree and none of them feels he's really attained the truth. And I dare to come along and proclaim in Jesus. Christ is all the wisdom of God.

25:44 Verse 24, Christ is the wisdom of God. A carpenter from Nazareth, attended no formal schools, had no recognition, even by his own generation of the leaders, that he is the sum and substance of the wisdom of all the ages. Now, Paul, how simplistic can you be? Now, we're philosophers.

26:09 Don't treat us like gullible little children. Foolishness. Now, Paul knew this, and he knew there were only two avenues open to ever have these people turned on to his message. One was to alter the message and make it to be a message, pandering to their carnal prejudices, or utterly to be shut up to the power of God, to change in men's minds what made it a stumbling block and what made it foolishness.

26:43 Those are the only alternatives open to him. I'll alter the message. Maybe I should bring the gospel in the framework of an orator. Maybe I should adopt some of the patterns of, of Grecian rhetoric that will turn them on.

27:01 Maybe I should, should begin to take the place of a philosopher. And instead of coming out as a herald with all this dogmatism, maybe I ought to come very humbly and say, well, I don't know much, but back a few years ago, I got a little insight I'd like to share with you. Paul said, no, no, it had to be a contradiction of what my role is. Maybe I ought to, as it were, come at this thing a little bit obliquely.

27:27 Maybe I ought not to plant the cross at the center and say all the lines of truth lead to it, and everything else, and everything flows out of it. I won't throw the cross out, but I'll just put it behind a drape a little bit. Diplomatically, once a while, just pull back a little corner. Now, you see why he said fear and trembling?

27:48 Because he's knew his message was calculated utterly to turn off Jew and Greek, unless Almighty God was pleased to send his spirit in the work of effectual calling and draw them. You want to have a peek into this very thought of Paul, just look at 2nd Corinthians, chapter 2, verses 15 and 16. This is the best commentary I know on the words. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.

28:20 2nd Corinthians, chapter 2, 15 and 16. For we are a sweet, sweet saver of Christ unto God, in them that are saved, and in them that perish, to the one saver from death unto death, and the other a saver from life, until life, and who is sufficient for these things. For we are not as the many, in his day, the many who corrupt the world. They didn't want to feel inadequate.

28:53 They didn't want to feel this painful awareness that brought fear and trembling. We want to be confident ministers. And so they took the other alternative. They manipulated, they corrupted, made merchandise of the word of God.

29:06 But Paul says, we do nothing of the kind, but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ. Who is sufficient for these things? Paul, what was your attitude when you came to Corinth? Fear and trembling.

29:23 Why fear and trembling? Because I had a crushing sense of the magnitude of the task. Secondly, because I had a powerful awareness of my personal inadequacy. And thirdly, I had a burning desire to do the work as it ought to be done.

29:37 And was always apprehensive lest I should fall short. And all you need to do is bring together all of the vivid imageries that Paul uses about a runner who is pressing towards the mark. So run I, so fight I. 1 Corinthians chapter 9, 2 Timothy chapter 4.

29:58 There was that constant thriving concern in the apostle lest he should fall short of the task that God had laid upon him. And he feared and he trembled. Lest he should be found an unprofitable servant. I suggest to you it's not enough that a man be a herald.

Application of the Inward Disposition to Ministry

30:16 It's not enough that a ministry be marked by the centrality of Christ and Him crucified. The attitude within which the man, the servant of God, the people of God carry out the task, must be marked by this inward disposition, weakness, fear, and in much trembling. Perhaps the most accurate criteria for telling whether or not a minister, a ministry, a plan of evangelism, a program of witnessing is of God or not of God is to ask this question.

30:57 What does this approach to preaching or witnessing do to create conscious weakness? To bring its purveyors to weakness, fear and trembling. I see a lot of books written on how to witness with confidence. Paul would have written one, How to Witness with Fear and Trembling.

31:28 Oh, you say you're picking at words. No, I'm not, dear ones. Don't you accuse me. You can't wiggle out that easily.

31:33 That's not picking at words. We're dealing with substantial differences. If the mere knowledge of human nature and the mere knowledge of principles of how to open a conversation, how to engage a man to think and talk about the gospel, if knowing these things creates confidence, Paul would have been the most confident preacher in the world or he's the most prolific and experienced. But the more he engaged in it, the more he was brought to a place of conscious weakness because he recognized something of the magnitude of the task.

32:08 I stand in a place where eternity pivots on my influence. I represent the God who is a consuming fire. There was that painful awareness of personal inadequacy, I do not have at my disposal the influences that will break down the prejudice of men's minds. He said, I do everything I can externally.

32:30 When I'm around the Jews, I become like a Jew. When I'm around the Gentiles, like a Gentile. When I'm around the weak, I become weak. But that merely is touching the external, the avenue of approach.

32:40 But he said, as far as paving a way for my message, I have no power to do this. Foolishness to the Jews, foolishness to the Greek, stumbling block to the Jew. Only God has the power to open the mind and dispose it to embrace my message. And I don't know when and where he's going to do that.

33:04 That's the true romance of preaching, of witnessing, of bearing testimony to loved ones. In a biblical setting, there is that sense of weanedness from creature confidence, weakness, fear, trembling. Jeremiah states it this way, chapter 17 and verse 5, Cursed be he that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from Jehovah. And would to God that text were etched in the mind of every man who assumes the preaching ministry, everyone who would bear witness to his work associates, his friends, his neighbors.

Mark 4: The Manner of Preaching – Demonstration of the Spirit and Power

33:43 This is the inward disposition which alone is consistent with the truth of the gospel. Well, in the fourth place the apostle gives us, and may I say this is one of those delightful passages, the divisions are marked out by the verses themselves. There aren't many like that, but this is one of them. The fourth mark of a faithful ministry and minister is this, And my speech and preaching, or the thing preached, were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power.

34:26 We may call this the mode or the manner of a faithful minister's preaching. His inward disposition is weakness, fear, and trembling. His comprehensive theme is Christ, which he preaches from the position of a herald, of a witness to the testimony of God. Now what's the actual mode, the manner, in which that message is proclaimed?

34:50 From this heart of self-distrust, from this posture of the centrality of Christ, Paul tells us first of all negatively and then positively what that manner of preaching is that marks a faithful minister. my speech and my preaching, or the thing preached, were not in persuasive words of wisdom. That is, I did not use, did not use persuasive words dictated by human wisdom. He's going back to the analogy of philosopher and orator again, you see.

35:30 The philosopher will catch you with his human wisdom, and the orator will snare you with his persuasive speech. And Paul here says, I in my mode of ministry reject you both, for if my role is not that of orator nor philosopher, then I will not give the impression in the actual manner of my preaching that I am philosopher, or that I am, on the other hand, philosopher and orator, is the word that I want. So this concept carries right through the passage and he brings it up again. May I suggest again that this says much about any kind of ministry.

36:14 If a man is more concerned with elegance of style, than he is with praying down the unction and the endowment of the Holy Ghost, he's a hireling. Run from him. Run from him! I say to you young men preparing for the ministry, the matters of the details of diction and all the rest are relatively easy to rectify.

36:39 Let not those things be the focus of your concern. Let the focus of your concern be something other than that which will give the impression that you're seeking to be a poet, a pulpit orator, a pulpit philosopher. Negatively, he says, my mode and manner of preaching were not marked by these two things, but positively, he uses some strange words, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. Now what do these words mean?

37:12 And here one has difficulty using the grammar that is there as Paul has given it to us. Hence the commentators have difficulty in arriving at a generally accepted consensus of Paul's precise meaning. The most satisfactory explanation I've come across is this. What Paul is probably saying is this.

37:33 My speech and preaching, when I actually stood to proclaim Christ, the manner of my preaching was not characterized by persuasive words reflecting the art of an orator, nor words of wisdom reflecting the skills of the philosopher, but my speech and preaching was a demonstration of which the spirit was the author and was characterized by power. That to me is the most satisfactory explanation of the meaning of his words. It was a preaching in demonstration, in display of the spirit. He was the author of it, and because he was the author,

38:15 the characteristic of it was power. Now what is power? Power in the biblical sense. We hear people praying that God will fill them with power.

38:31 What is power? We say, Lord, give us power in our witness. What is power in any realm? Is it not ability to do, to perform?

38:39 The house is nice and cool, all the air conditions are going, then a fuse blows, and you say there's no power. There's no more electrical energy running through the wires, giving ability to those compressors to function. The power is gone. So Paul says, the characteristic of my preaching was this.

39:01 There was the element of power. It became an effective instrument in God's hands to perform something. And what did it perform? Well, he tells us down in chapter 24, verse of chapter 1.

39:15 We preach Christ crucified unto Jews a stumbling block, Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. What was the power exercised? It was the power to break down the prejudice in the mind of a Jew until the very Christ crucified, whom he despised as a stumbling block, becomes all of his wisdom and all of his joy and all of his power. It takes the prejudice mind of the Greek who cannot stomach the idea that in the carpenter of Nazareth, is the embodiment of all the wisdom of the ages

39:58 and it tears all those walls of pride and prejudice away and brings that Greek to embrace Christ as his wisdom. That's power. Now they may not have jumped even two-thirds of an inch. They may not have shouted.

40:14 They may not have wept a tear. But when a man sees in Christ his only hope of mercy, when he sees in Christ all the wisdom of God, all he needs to answer the most profound questions of life, who am I? What can I do with my sins? How can I be prepared to live, to die?

40:36 When a man sees in Christ the power of God, power to forgive him, to liberate him, to cleanse him, to make him fit to live and fit to die, fit to stand before God, what an exertion of power! You talk about power! He doesn't need to jump. He doesn't need to shout.

40:53 He doesn't need to holler. He doesn't need to speak in tongues. This is the evidence of the power of God. And sometimes it's exercised in the most unlikely circumstances, in the most unusual way, in the most unlikely situations when God puts forth the arm of His strength through the proclamation of that central theme from a man, a woman, filled with fear and trembling who simply acts as a witness to the testimony of God.

41:23 Hallelujah! For God's work of effect is the most special calling. One never knows when he's going to do it, how he's going to do it, by what means he's going to do it. And there's the glory and the joy in the midst of the fear and of the trembling.

41:38 He says it was characterized by power. And there was no one there at Corinth who would have argued with him. Think of those sitting there who heard this letter for the first time. And when Paul is writing and says, The preaching of this Christ crucified is to Jews stumbling block, there were some Jews sat there and said, oh, boy, Paul, you're just not kidding.

41:58 You're not whistling Dixie when you tell me that. I remember my reaction. Oh, I remember my reaction. When you stood in that synagogue and you started proving from the Scriptures that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ of God, the promised Messiah, and everything but in me rose up and I could have stoned you had I had the opportunity.

42:18 Oh, Paul, I can remember sitting there, and something began to happen against my will and against my personal inclination. Some of that hardness began to soften, and I began to give you a fair hearing. And it wasn't long before I knew that it was not you, Paul, with whom I was having dealings. But I felt and knew in my heart of hearts that by the word that you preached, I was coming into direct contact with the living God whose witness you were and His dear Son whom you proclaimed.

42:50 And I... I found His power to be operative in changing this heart of stone into a heart of flesh.

42:58 That's what power is. That was the characteristic of Paul's preaching. Let me say with emphasis, this has no relationship to the volume with which a man preaches. It has no relationship necessarily to the animation with which he preaches.

43:15 I have been privileged to sit in meetings where men have stood almost as though they had been frozen. As far as...

43:21 As far as... As far as their physical motions were concerned.

43:24 They spoke as though they had a range only from soft to softer in their voices. And yet I was conscious that I was not dealing with those men. I was having direct dealings with their God in whose name they spoke. There was power!

43:39 Divine energy! The word was coming, and I was having dealings with my God. My friend, that's the mark of a faithful minister. That you sense under His ministry you have dealings with God.

43:53 Let me ask you, how long has it been since sitting in what you call church, that you've had dealings with God? Dealings with God! Dealings with God. This is the manner of the faithful minister's preaching.

Mark 5: The Conscious Goal – Faith in God's Power, Not Man's Wisdom

44:16 And then we have in the last place, the conscious goal of a faithful minister's ministry. What is it? Verse 5.

44:26 That your faith, all of these things, particularly what he says in verse 4, but the whole section could be connected with it. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. In other words, Paul says, the role that I assumed, not a philosopher, not an orator, but a witness. The theme that was central, Christ and Him crucified.

44:55 The attitude with which I preach, fear and trembling. The manner of my preaching, not the embellishments of orator or philosopher, but the demonstration of the spirit and of power. Here was my goal in all of this. That your faith should not rest or stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

45:18 He says, my conscious design was that men would not trust in what I could produce,

45:27 but in that which God could produce.

45:32 That's the mark of a faithful minister. One of his greatest dreads is that men will be attached to him, and never get to his Savior.

45:44 That men will respond to his cleverness, instead of God's power.

45:50 He said, I fear, lest if I spoke as philosopher, you'd be responding to my philosophy as a fellow mortal, in which case you'd be damned. Speak as orator with cunning words, lest your response should be to my cunningness, and you'd miss the heart of the message of Christ.

46:16 And I think I know a little of what this is.

46:19 A few things I fear more, particularly as God continues to give us blessed years of ministry together. I fear lest some of you be more attached to your minister than to his Savior.

46:37 That your response be more to your minister's presentation of truth than to the God whose truth it is. This is one of the great reasons why I rejoice in God bringing our brother Blaze amongst us. I know some of you are having some birth pains about getting demartinized, but I'm not ignorant of that. I wasn't born yesterday.

47:04 I was born 39365 yesterdays ago.

47:11 One of the reasons I've longed that God would bring another teaching elder is this very reason, my dear people. For I fear that some may be responding not to my God and to my Savior and to his truth, but to the manner in which that God is preached and his truth is preached through this unworthy servant.

47:34 And everything in me resists that. Because I know that this is not for your good. It can only be for your damnation. Paul's conscious goal was, your response must not be to me, but it must be to the God whose power is effectual through me in your hearts and in your lives.

47:57 You see, it is possible to bend the gospel to an intellectual, an intellectually convincing argument, to display even miracles, and then get a kind of faith which rests upon no operation of divine power, but upon human cleverness and human sensationalism.

48:21 It's possible to reduce the gospel to a clever sales pitch and to get a response. Paul says, everything in my ministry was calculated to the attainment of this conscious goal. If I have anything to say about it, Paul says, when men respond, I want to know. It's not a response to my wisdom, my cleverness, but to the power of my God.

48:46 And again, I'm not so naive as to be ignorant of the fact that in spite of what some people say, there is still something aesthetically pleasant in a well-structured sermon, in a sermon filled with blunt, vivid Anglo-Saxon, with analogy and simile and metaphor that turns your ears into eyes. I'm fully aware of that, but I'm also aware of how I tremble in the presence of God at the awful stewardship of having, any kinds of gifts along these lines, lest they should prostitute the genius of the ministry and damn the souls of my hearers.

49:27 And I'm not saying these things to appear spiritual, I'm saying because they're true.

49:33 Because they're true.

49:38 Paul's goal, at least in some measure, is my goal. I don't want your faith to stand in my wisdom. My ability to teach the word of God in some measure with clarity and with helpfulness? No, no!

49:53 If you're not conscious of having dealings with God, then the whole end of the ministry has been missed. And frankly, some of you who rave about this preacher, your lives don't show much evidence that you're affected by the power of God.

50:10 You can rave about this minister and his preaching, but your lives have not appreciably changed and you've sat under this ministry, some of you, for one, two, three, five, ten years.

50:20 That's humbling to me, and that's what makes me fear. I wonder, Lord, are they attached to me? No! Be under the power of God and be the same.

50:34 Deacons are going to have to embarrass some of us by bringing some matters before us tonight of just practical, ordinary, everyday Christian humility and graciousness that evidence that the word that we preach on these matters has obviously not come with power to many of you, at least to some of you. I'm not scolding you. I'm just telling you facts. My friend, you do me no service to rave about me as a preacher and go on living the same way.

51:03 You've lived. You'll just increase my accountability to God.

51:10 You have no business criticizing other preachers. Putting yourself up in authority is what preaching is. If your life is not a monument to the power of God transforming you through the preached word, you just better put your hand upon your mouth and walk humbly with God and start being a doer of the word, not a hearer only.

Concluding Applications from Hodge's Commentary

51:33 Calls great concern and goal consciously before him that their faith should not rest in what I can produce, but in the power of God. Now in conclusion, what I want to do is to bring the applications to all that we've studied this morning and tonight that Hodge so ably brings in his commentary on 1 Corinthians. I've actually copied out the paragraph. I'm going to read it and spend just a minute or two on each of the headings and then we're done.

52:07 In these verses, Hodge says we are taught one, that we are taught one, that we are taught one, that we are taught one, that we are taught one, that we are taught one, that we are taught one, that we are taught one, that we are taught one, that the proper method to convert men in any community, Christian or pagan, is to preach or set forth the truth concerning the person and work of Christ. Whatever other means are used must be subordinate and auxiliary, designed to remove obstacles, to gain access for the truth to the mind, just as the ground is cleared of weeds and brambles in order to prepare it for the precious seed. Two, the proper state of mind, the mind in which to preach the gospel is the opposite of self-confidence or carelessness. Three, the success of the gospel does not depend on the skill of the preacher,

52:52 but on the demonstration of the spirit. And four, the foundation of saving faith is not reason, that is, not argument addressed to the understanding, but the power of God exerted with and by the truth upon the heart. I want to close with those four lines of exhortation and application. What do we learn from Paul's statements about his own ministry?

53:18 The model of a faithful ministry. We learn, first of all, that the proper method to convert men in any community, Christian or pagan, is to preach or set forth the truth concerning the person and work of Christ. Paul came to Corinth, center of pagan life and worship and learning, and he did not, all to his message. He had one message, to change the paganism, to overturn the immorality, to establish true religion, Christ and inclusive.

53:52 If there's ever a day when we need that perspective, it's our day. Voices on every hand. Preach this, preach that. You'd be surprised in the course of six months how many people from this very congregation come up and make suggestions that maybe I ought to preach on this thing.

54:08 Someone wants me to preach on the communist menace, and someone else wants me to preach on the menace of the TV, and someone else preach on the menace of this, the menace of that, the menace of the other.

54:19 My friend, we don't need to be preached about menaces. We need to get so filled with the vision of the glory and power of Christ that our own lives reflect His transforming power, and then so plead with Him that He'll come with might and power by the Spirit. And in a visitation of grace and revival, these menaces will be as chaff before the wind of His Spirit, His Spirit's might and power. The proper method to convert men in any community is the preaching of Christ crucified.

54:53 If God won't bless that, I'll go to my grave of failure, but I won't change that.

54:59 Now, that doesn't mean we don't deal with sin. If we're preaching the Bible, we'll have to deal with sin. But we'll deal with sin in the light of Christ as the only answer. We'll deal with sin in the light of Christ as the sin-bearer.

55:11 Two, Hod says, we learn from these verses that the proper state of mind in which to preach the gospel is the opposite of self-confidence or carelessness. The gospel should be preached with a sense of weakness and with great anxiety and solicitude.

55:29 If you wonder sometimes why some of us who've preached for years seem to be a little tongue-tied and stammer, and sometimes don't seem to have our wits about us, and you may see expressions upon our faces as we sit here preparing to come to this awesome place. Dear ones, it's because, at least in some little measure, God's taught us this. And you better learn that. All of us together must learn it.

55:54 As we think of witnessing to neighbors, to friends, to loved ones, as you pray for the ministries here, pray that your teaching elders will grow in the awareness of their own tone adequacy for the task. Don't pray, Lord, help them to gain confidence. Say, Lord, cut them down to size and increase their fear and trembling.

56:17 For in direct proportion to the fear and trembling will be the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

56:24 Third lesson that he tells us is the success of the gospel does not depend on the skill of the preacher, but on the demonstration of the Spirit. And oh, how we need to learn that. It doesn't depend on the skill of the preacher. Now, should the preacher be a careless workman?

56:37 No, because God says he's to be a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing, or handling aright the word of truth. Every one of us who labors in the word ought to do just that. Labor in the word. Labor at clarity.

56:49 Labor at succinctness. Labor at clarity. Labor at clarity. Labor at clarity.

56:51 And order and all these other things that, by the way, men, we'll start the class again the end of September, and that's what we're going to get into this fall, God willing, in our Sunday afternoon class on the fourth Sunday of each month. But we must understand that the success of the gospel does not depend on the skill of the preacher, but on the demonstration of the Spirit. And God loves to, in that sense, surprise us. Did you hear the testimony this morning?

57:20 What did God use? Not the first, fervent, as the final catalytic action to touch the heart of the one who gave testimony this morning. Wasn't the fervent preaching of her pastor. It wasn't the constant faithful instruction of mother and father.

57:36 All those things were in the hopper. But what did God use as the final stroke? A testimony of God's grace in a life for 50 years. Why'd God do that?

57:46 Well, I don't know all His reasons. Maybe the Lord knows that the dear brother who was used needed that encouragement along the way. That may be one reason. But one reason, I'm confident of, just to remind us that the success of the gospel does not depend on anything other but the demonstration of the Spirit.

58:04 That's what God wants to teach us. How vividly God underscored this for us a week ago Saturday. When I preached in a situation that was the most difficult since I preached on the street corner. Hollering kids running up and down the aisles and everything in me boiling, wanting to stop and preach a message to the fathers on getting their kids in line and hot, and people, people dripping and I'm dripping.

58:27 And I just didn't have faith to believe God would bless anything that day. I just had to run on like a horse with a hornet in his ear at top speed and top voice. The minute I'd pause, I'd lose the congregation and with all the fans roaring and the kids hollering, I had to shout like I was preaching on the street corner. And my wife will bear witness that I came home and said, Honey, I just feel what in the world has been accomplished.

58:53 Lo and behold, God apparently was pleased to pierce a heart. We've had feedback that gives us some encouragement that perhaps the Lord made His gospel the power of God into salvation. Oh, how wonderful of God just to undercut all of our structures of what we think is necessary for the gospel to be successful. May God help us to remember it.

Final Exhortation and Prayer

59:18 May we not forget it. May we grow in that confidence that the success of the gospel does not depend on the skill of the preacher, the atmosphere, of the preaching place, but upon the demonstration of the Spirit. And last of all, Hodge says, we learn from these verses that the foundation of saving faith is not reason, not argument addressed to the understanding. The power of God is exerted with and by the truth upon the heart.

59:46 And I say to you young men preparing for the ministry, don't you forget that. With all of your learning, you cultivate the knowledge of God, the knowledge of your own heart, sensitivity to the Holy Ghost, and to the Savior. Whatever tools of understanding you have, if you are not a vessel upon which the Spirit falls, you've had it. There'll be no success to your ministry in the biblical terminology, for the foundation of faith is not your skill in argumentation, but God's good pleasure to attend the word of truth with power to the human heart.

60:24 Do you know a little bit more of what a true and faithful ministry is today? If so, will you make it your earnest prayer that God will make His ministers here in every sense of 1 Corinthians 2, 1 to 5, make us faithful ministers? Will you not pray that God will help us who have an influence in the training of our own young men, that under God we shall be used to see faithful ministers formed by God? Luther said only God can make a minister, and that's true.

60:59 But He uses means. And if He has deposited these young men in our midst, pray that God will make them into this kind of a minister. And I say to you, young men, out of the depths of my heart, go back to 1 Corinthians 2 again and again and again and again and again and again and say, Lord, make me that kind of a man. Fill me with the vision of Christ and inclusive I.

61:27 Prepare me to stand in a cynical age and dance in the light of the Lord. Dare to, not dialogue, not whimpering and shriveling up, hoping for a hearing, but Lord, make me a proclaimer. Make me a declarer. Make me one who dares to say this is the testimony of God.

61:48 You who are outside of Christ, I have no message for you tonight but this simple message that Paul preached. If you are to be prepared to live or to die, you must flee to Christ. You must engage. The Lord is with you.

62:01 The Lord Jesus, as He is offered in the Gospel, you must turn from your sin and trust Him. And dear child of God, whatever area of discouragement, lack, failure there is, the answer is found in the Son of God, who in the plentitude of His mercy and grace is yours. Christ is yours, Paul says, in all the fullness of His grace. Look to Him.

62:28 Trust Him. Draw from Him. Feed upon Him. That you may be rooted and grounded in Him.

62:36 Let us pray.

62:45 O God, we thank You for Your servant Paul.

62:49 And we do long for the day when we shall be able to see Him and meet Him and talk with Him. But, O, we look beyond Him to the One whom He exemplified, the One that He faintly reflected, even the Lord Jesus. And we thank You for Him tonight. Thank You for Him.

63:10 Thank You that He has become to many of us the wisdom of God and the power of God. We pray that He shall become that even to more tonight. Lord, would it please You. Would it please You to seal the very truths we preach tonight by making that preaching effectual to the conversion of some sinner.

63:31 Lord, call someone tonight. Break down the barriers of pride and stubbornness and self-righteousness and ignorance. And reveal to that needy heart Your very glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

63:49 And we pray, God, together that You will give to this assembly an increasingly faithful ministry. O Lord, those of us charged to feed the flock of God, grant us grace to be this kind of minister. And we pray for those who attend here tonight, members even of the church, and of other churches, because there is no longer a faithful ministry. We pray for those churches tonight.

64:20 God, have mercy to men who do not feed the flock. O Lord, deal with them even tonight. If they are standing in pulpits trafficking in their own notions, standing apologetically and whimperingly to just throw out a few morsels of oratory or of human wisdom, O God, humble them in their very tracks, we pray. Bring them low.

64:48 Deal with them, and may they have dealings with You until they begin to be true heralds of the Word of God. Lord, we ask that ere long this greater New York, New Jersey metropolitan area may be dotted with powerful preaching stations where there is a faithful ministry. O God, we cry to You. O, we plead.

65:13 Grant that our generation shall yet be humbled, not by the rod of judgment, but by the sweet overtures of the gospel. Give to Your Son, we pray, a conquering arm, even in this our day. Hear us, O God, in our cry, and give to Your Son the glory that is due His name from us as a people. We ask in His worthy name.

65:43 Amen.