Unity and Freedom in Christ: A Call to Faith

verses therefore let no men glory in men for all things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or sephus or the world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours and ye are Christ's and Christ is God's now the word therefore at the beginning of that 21st verse tells us at once that the Apostle in these three verses is suing up or drawing a conclusion from what he has just been saying and I suggest to you that the conclusion which we have in these three verses is not only the conclusion of what he has been saying immediately before in this context but is indeed uh a summary and a summing up of the argument that he has been conducting from the early part of the first chapter [00:21:43]

now the Apostle as I've explained wrote this letter to the Corinthians because of certain conditions that had Arisen in the Christian church the church had come into being as the result of his preaching and naturally therefore he was interested in her condition and the condition of the members but unfortunately there had been troubles certain divisions had appeared in the church some say that they were followers of Paul others were followers of Apollos a fellow laborer with Paul then others said they were followers of sephus the Apostle Peter and others disdaining any following of men said they were the followers of Christ now here was a very Grievous problem the church dividing itself up into factions and following men and dividing from one another [00:91:32]

and in doing this he has shown that this carnal thinking this worldly thinking shows itself in three main respects the first is the failure to realize the magnitude of the problem that is why he had to tell them that there was only one Foundation they were inadequate as I tried to show the first evening in their idea of sin and the condition of men and men especially standing before God in the Judgment they were totally inadequate in their understanding of that and then secondly as we saw last night they were tending to bring in this element of human reason human understanding in there was a certain amount of pride of intellect and a pride in the matter of reason and we have dealt with that and now I come to deal with the third element in this unhappy condition that had Arisen in the church at Corinth and that was this false confidence in men [00:286:76]

now here is a very important proposition the Bible has got many things to say about a man who doesn't believe in God about a man who isn't a Christian it says that he is Lawless that he is disobedient that he's a man who's missed the mark it has got many things to say about him but I think you'll agree with me those of you who know your Bibles that what the Bible seems to say most frequently about the man who lives his life without God and without this gospel is that he is a Fool by which it means that he doesn't think he doesn't think straightly there There Is Something warped about his whole process of reasoning and this is the charge of course which the Apostle is elaborating at this particular point and he says to these Corinthians who are tending to go back to that old style of thinking you're deceiving yourselves you're going back to the position in which you once were [00:476:40]

men and women in rejecting this gospel far from achieving Freedom are But continuing in a state of bondage to reject this gospel is not to be free it is to become a slave it is to become a bond servant and so this is the fundamental proposition of the Gospel this is what it says to the whole world tonight here is a world claiming that it's shaken off religion and has achieved this kind of emancipation unfortunately it requires no special ability to show and to demonstrate that what the world is really doing to itself is to perpetuate its own slavery and to refuse the only one who can ever set a man or a nation or a world free Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God [00:681:72]

now that is what these people were doing yeah they were you see one was always talking about Paul another was always talking about Apollos another always praising Peter now this word glorying is a very important one it doesn't mean that you're just interested it doesn't mean that you tend to agree with a men to glory in a men is to mean that you make your boast in him that's the correct translation of the word in the Greek that was used by the Apostle you make your burst in him you you give him an allegiance you fall at his feet as it were you become bound to him he is your master he is your teacher now this is the great characteristic of the life of the world in which we are living at this present time the world has turned its back upon religion and it is putting its faith in Men in human human leaders and in human teaching [00:750:84]

why is it unutterable Folly to glory in men well the Apostle gives us an abundant answer here the first thing is this that man after all is only a creature he's a created being he's like all other men and he has nothing whereof to boast the Apostle says this about himself he says why why you boasting in us he says who then is Paul and who is apollis but ministers by whom ye believed even as the lord gave to every man I have planted aoll watered but God gave the increase my preaching says Paul would have achieved nothing if it were left to itself the preaching of Apollos would have done nothing it is God that giveth the increase so then neither is he that planteth anything neither he that WTH but God that giveth the increase [00:1003:19]

and in The Second Epistle to these Corinthians he puts it still more plainly he says we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves you are servants for Jesus sake he says you mustn't glory in me I'm only a serpent and I've got nothing except that which I have received now here is surely a great principle that we should put before the modern world the world that glories in and boasts of men and attributes so much to men they deride and dismiss the gospel Jesus Christ is nobody but great men now the question we need to put to them is this are they not guilty of unutterable folly in doing this take the great men that the world revers have they created their powers take a men like Shakespeare did he generate his own gifts did he produce these astounding abilities no no he was born with he's got nothing to boast of and we shouldn't boast of him he's received or any great genius a military genius a genius in science whatever you like these men have not produced their gifts they are born with them they've received them [00:1087:12]

and so the apostles question is the most urgent question surely for the Modern Men Who maketh the to differ from another and what hast thou that th did not re receive now if thou did receive it why Dost thou Glory as if thou H not received it so then it is very foolish to be glorying in a man he doesn't deserve the glory he is what he is in spite as it were of himself but then there's a second reason why it is so foolish to glory in men and that is as I've shown on a previous evening that the powers of men at their very best and highest are very seriously limited I'm not here to say anything against Great Men but I am here to say that it's Madness to worship them or to pin your faith in them however great they are they haven't solved the problem of Life they haven't solved the problem of death they haven't solved what are your most pressing problems and mine even at their very best and highest and not only that all the powers that any man has are by to weigh and they do weigh as he gets older his powers begin to fail and this has always been the case and always will be [00:1161:64]

and in any case anything that a great man has ever discovered is at its best and its highest only partial now this is something that needs no demonstration haven't you noticed how textbooks so soon get out of date I think of textbooks and medson which students had to read 40 years ago probably some of them are not even known at the present time they're out of date knowledge advances and grows and what the Great Men of the past appear to have discovered is ridiculed at the present time Newton and his discoveries were regarded as absolutes until comparatively recently the last word the Newtonian physics is already seriously hopelessly out ofd I remember being taught that the atom was the small smallest and indivisible portion of matter the atom could not be divided there was nothing smaller than the atom by today we know again that this is utterly ridiculous and hopelessly out of De [00:1246:20]

and the Modern Man pretends that he's not afraid of death he whistles to keep up his courage in the dark but never has an age or a generation been more subject to the fear of death slavery to the fear of death than this present generation the author of The epistle to the Hebrews in his second chapter and in verse 14 says that one of the most glorious things that the Lord Jesus Christ has done has been to deliver them who through all their lifetime were subject abond bondage the fear of death and the Modern Man does everything he can to dismiss the notion of death we try to keep young to look young to dress young we are horrified of this this awful Spectre that is ever approaching towards the fear of death this bomb that's hanging over us isn't this true we think we've made ourselves free by turning our backs upon God and upon his son but we are slaves to the fear of death [00:2130:44]