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Being so, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite remarkable to see so many of you still here for the second session. A helpful introduction to what we must now consider would be if, first of all, we've read from the prophet Jeremiah and chapter nine. The prophet Jeremiah and chapter nine, beginning at verse uh twenty three. Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might.
Let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me. And then from First Corinthians and chapter two— I'm sorry, the end of chapter one it is. Verse twenty six: For behold your calling, brethren, how that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame them that are wise.
And God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong. And the base things of the world and the things that are despised did God choose, yea, in the things that are not, that he might bring to naught the things that are, that no flesh should glory before God. But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who has made unto us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
The second theme in the Epistle to the Corinthians to which I would like to draw your attention is what I have entitled the Christian Philosophy of Man. Now that is a very grandiose title, suitable to be suitable for putting on an invitation card, but all it means is that in this epistle we shall find answer to that big and basic question that haunts many a mind. What? What is man? What are you, madam, when all is said and done?
And you, sir, what are you? Why, you say, my dear good man, I am a human being. What else could I be? I'm glad to hear it, but but then what is a human being? Are you an improved alligator? A bit of primeval slime that has gradually evolved with no apparent purpose to what you are now? What is man? This lovely epistle will give us many an answer to that question, as it reminds us what it means to be truly human, a true human being, as God designed human beings to be.
What it means, in fact, to be a truly redeemed hu- human being. Redeemed from the great disaster of sin that has overtaken our fallen world. Redeemed and in process of being restored to the very image of God as we were originally created. Now this theme, this philosophy of man, this answer to the question, what is man, is not a theme that I am about arbitrarily to impose on First Corinthians.
It is a theme that flows naturally out of the first theme that we thought about. For if everywhere in this epistle Paul is bringing back Christian people to the basic gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It follows from it. We shall, we are bound to hear much in this epistle about what God's redemption has done for us human beings. The restoration it is. And more than that, it will tell us of those coming glories, what we shall be when God has finished with us.
You see, it is the glory of the Christian gospel, and this epistle will bring it out very, very firmly and delightfully, that the gospel does two things for us. First of all, it restores a human being from the disastrous results of the fall, restores that human being to the image of God who created him and puts us right. But there is something even more wonderful about the gospel. What is man? It wouldn't be enough to say that redemption simply restores us and takes away the results of the fall, glorious though that would be.
God's redemption is going to do infinitely more for us than just restore us. And the second half of this epistle will remind us of God's breathtaking scheme for redeemed humanity. In this that God, when he came to redeem us through Jesus Christ, was not content just to set us back to what we were before, before Adam sinned. What God has done is to start a new human race. To start again. If Adam was the first man from whom we are all descended, God said to himself, it will not be enough to restore man to what he was before Adam sinned.
I'll start again, says God. And God has introduced a second man, the very Lord from heaven. It is too much for me to be able to explain to you or make you feel the sheer wonder of it. This is the true evolution that God has started again. In a savior who is truly man, son of Adam, but with a savior who is not merely man, but is the very son of God incarnate, a life-giving spirit.
He started again. And the wonder of this is not only the incarnation in human form of God, the very creator of the universe, not only the wonder of this, that God incarnate died for our wretched sins that we might be forgiven. The wonder is not only that he has forgiven us, but he has done a superb thing. He has joined every believer with the Son of God himself and created a new thing in the universe that wasn't there before. It is called the body of Christ, in which we are members, each retaining his own or her own personality, and yet no longer a completely independent entity, but a member of the body sharing the very life of God.
How shall I talk about it without slipping over into blasphemy and exaggeration? But you'll forgive me, won't you, for the wonder of it. Not only to be forgiven, but you who started in ocker and Clocker and Five Mile Town or some obscure place like that, and a sinner as well, should not only be forgiven, but taken up into the Holy Spirit of God himself. How will you sit there and take it calmly, I wonder? Joined with the Lord Jesus, put into the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit in you. Why, as I said earlier, Michael the Archangel hasn't got over the surprise yet.
And that is already true. Oh, but there come wonders more. What is man that thou art mindful of him? How can I tell you what you're going to be one day? What does it mean to be a redeemed woman, a redeemed man, part of the body of Christ, and yet, and yet, and when we shall see him. Oh, when the Lord comes in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump, the trumpet shall just sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. Changed bodily, with a glorious body like the body of our risen Lord Jesus himself.
And not only changed externally as to our bodies, but what is vastly more important, the inhabitant of the body, the real you, the real me, conformed to Christ, heir of God, and joint heir with Jesus Christ, our Lord. And as the late C. S. Lewis used to say, that if you could see your next door neighbor, that woman that's sitting beside you, who is a believer, if you could see her, not as she is now, but as she shall be when the Lord comes, you would be sorely tempted to fall down at her feet and worship her.
John tells us that when he saw an angel in his vision, overcome by the glory of that celestial being, he fell at his feet to worship the angel, and the angel pulled him up by the roots of his head. You don't do that, my boy, said he. I'm a mere servant. You worship God. I have to tell you, on the authority of Christ's word, this is not meant to flatter you. You shall be above Of angels. They are but servants of the redeemed, sent forth to those that shall be to minister to those that are heirs of salvation. You shall be seated with Christ above principality, power, might, and dominion, and every name that is named.
Oh, what a wonderful topic this is. What is man? What does it mean to be human, to be a redeemed human personality? That's what the church is about. This is not some optional course added on to the gospel, you know. Some people talk like that, don't they? You can hear it said sometimes by way of advanced criticism of some believers. Ho, ho, says somebody, you know, they never get beyond the gospel. Well, we know what they mean.
The simplest statement of the gospel that a child could understand, that Jesus loves me, this I know, and he died for me at Calvary that I might be forgiven and go at last to heaven. Well, if that's the total gospel you know, God be praised you know it, you need to get beyond it. You'll never get beyond the gospel. Oh, there's not a comma in God's word that isn't gospel. The gospel will not be exhausted until you reign with Christ on high, conform to him in body, soul, and spirit, and enjoy the ever expanding and never exhausted grace and ingenuity of God in all the glories he shall prepare for you.
That's the gospel. You'll never get beyond it. What is man then? The Phil- Christian philosophy of man. Now you may care to look at that, uh, little sheaf of notes I've given you. It is a bare and somewhat arbitrary summary, summary of some of the leading ideas in the gospel. I shall not be commenting upon it in detail tonight.
I give it to you as a kind of a thing that you might be interested in looking at as you read your First Corinthians over and over again in preparation for our further studies. You might find it helpful occasionally to cast a glance in the direction of the sheaf of notes. You'll see how this epistle, eh, and its contents are bracketed, the first part, by the remembrance of God's faithfulness. God is faithful who has called you into the fellowship of his son, says part number one, and as it begins, so it ends. God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able.
There are three major parts. In that part one, chapters one to four, as we are about to find, man in relation to God. What is man? And here Paul points to the danger into which the Corinthians were falling, that their confidence should drift away from God, and instead of their basic confidence being in God, it would come to be in man.
And that, of course, is to pervert a human being, as presently we shall see. That perverts a human being from the bottom upwards and from the inside outwards, and altogether and entirely. If this element in a human personality be perverted, it will lead at last to the complete dissolution of that human personality. We are creatures of God, and unless our confidence is in God, our personalities in the end will disintegrate.
That flows from what a human being is. We are not self-made men and women. We did not make ourselves. Human confidence is important psychologically, isn't it? Let a person lose his psychological self-confidence, and a personality will begin to disintegrate. What is true psychologically is true spiritually. Because the reality is, I repeat, we did not make ourselves. We are creatures, and thus dependent upon God every minute of the day.
Just you imagine what God has had to do to keep you alive today, sir. Oh, he he he says that his wife has to help the Almighty. Well, I'm sure the Almighty did use her, you'll see. But you just imagine he had to keep the old planet going, didn't he? Because if that had gone from under your feet, you would have been I don't know where. And to keep the old planet going, it had got to have so much water in the oceans and so much dry land, and it had to have an atmosphere and goodness knows what else. And then it had to have a sun up in the sky there, and a moon, and all those galaxies. Now the scientists tell us are very necessary for the production of the carbon that is necessary and absolutely indispensable for life, and thus, and thus, and thus.
And if you were the only man on Earth, sir, just keeping you alive today, oh, ponder it, what the Almighty has had to do to maintain you in life. And the corollary of that is that our confidence in hu- of hu- in hu- uh, as human beings must be in God. And here is where the devil early on played his master card and introduced sin into the world.
What kind of sin? Well, to be sure, he didn't provoke Adam into, uh, pulling his wife's hair or violence to his wife before breakfast every morning. Well, of course not. It was a very sophisticated and attractive sin. Look at that beautiful tree, said he. Good, isn't it? Lovely. Uh, the tree is good for food, Eve, my dear. And, uh, oh, the aesthetics of it. Beautiful to look at, yeah, Mark Magnus.
And you know, Eve, my dear, if you really want to grow up and be an adult human and not a baby all your life, you see, eat the fruit of this tree and, uh, you shall be as God. Oh? Yeah. It's rather cramping your style, isn't it? Always to be dependent on God to tell you what is right and wrong, he might dare it is. Grow up, woman. You should be as God and not have to depend every moment of your day on God, you see. The man fell for it. And in that moment became a fallen creature, taking the first step towards final dissolution of the human personality.
The confidence placed otherwheres than in God. Notice the skill of the old serpent. Confidence now placed in a tree that God himself had created. You say, what was wrong with the tree? Nothing. God doesn't make bad things. Ah, but to trust anything, however good, as an alternative to trusting God, as a means to independence of God, is absolutely ruinous. Jeremiah complained of it, or God did through Jeremiah.
Let not the rich man trust in his riches. Now, there's nothing wrong with riches. Uh, have as much as you can get hold of, sir, honestly. But there is everything wrong. If, as we accumulate riches, imperceptibly our trust begins to be in riches instead of God. Let not the wise man put his confidence, that is glory, not in the sense of foolish boasting, but his basic confidence, the Hebrew means.
Let not the wise man put his confidence in his wisdom. There's nothing wrong in wisdom. It is a gift of God. But if we then put our confidence in our own wisdom instead of God, we are on the way to ultimate and consummate folly and disintegration. And let not the the mighty man put his confidence in might. Nothing wrong in being powerful, is there? I wish I were.
Instead of being a little titular chap. But if we allow our confidence, our basic ultimate confidence to be in our might, instead of in God, we are perpetuating the fall of man. The end will be disaster. If that be so, you will see that the first step God had to take in restoring us human beings to be truly human must be to break and to smash that false con- confidence of trusting in man, in ourselves, in other men, as the ultimate ground of our salvation.
How would God smash it? He did it by the cross of Christ. Now, Paul is using his terms very carefully and exactly. He could have devoted his first four chapters to the death of Christ, because Christ died for our sins. Is that not the gospel? Of course it is. Well, why won't it do then? What does it matter whether you refer to the cross of Christ or you refer to the death of Christ? Or it matters everything. You'll see the death of the great Greek philosopher Socrates was a very noble death, wasn't it?
Who can read the story of the death of of Socrates, as in quiet confidence he took the poison cup from the jailer and drank it, and with all dignity lay himself down and died? That would not offend anybody's sense of nobility, but the cross would. The cross, as a means of death, was thought to be the most disgraceful, shameful death that anybody could die. And God chose the cross as the way Jesus should die, and did it on purpose.
What for? Deliberately to expose man's folly. Jesus was crucified by the so-called wisdom of this world, wasn't he? High political and religious wisdom. With Caiaphas the high priest negotiating with Pilate the Roman governor and consulting with Herod. You know nothing at all, said Caiaphas to his fellow members of the council, all say, when it comes to high-powered religion and politics, we can't afford to be innocent little children, gentlemen.
It's expedient for the cause of God and for the good health of the body politic that this Jesus must die, and the face that the common people have in him be smashed. And they devised a cross. Oh, what ignoramuses they were. For three days later, God raised him from the dead. Oh, what fools. Oh, what sheer ignoramuses were these men that crucified Christ.
For none of the rulers of this world knew it, this hidden wisdom of God, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. This is God. God making a fool of mere human wisdom. This is on purpose. The cross of Christ was God's means of exposing human sin.
Look at that cross, that mangled, torn, bruised, thorn-crowned human body. And see what human sin does when it is finished. Also, ladies and gentlemen, it wasn't just the ugly metal teeth of the scourge that plowed his back. It wasn't just that, was it?
Bad as it was, it was the spite and the envy and political know-how that ordered the whip to be used. See in that mangled form what human sin results in. And when they blindfolded him and said, now prophesy who it is that smote thee, thinking themselves, how clever.
It wasn't Christ in the dark, was it? It did but expose the blindness of the best that human wisdom, apart from God, can see. Ah, but it supposed exposed our sin. But it was the way to the cure, wasn't it? For the gospel is that if it were necessary for Christ to be crucified so that I could be forgiven, then I was utterly helpless to save myself.
For if there had been a law given that could produce life, then surely salvation would have been by the law. But if God had to go to this extreme to save me, it shows that not all my wisdom, not all my might, not all my religiosity could save me. Thou must save, and thou alone. Hard on the cross of Christ. For the gospel is that if it were necessary for Christ to be crucified so that I could be forgiven, then I was utterly helpless to save myself.
For if there had been a law given that could produce life, then surely salvation would have been by the law. But if God had to go to this extreme to save me, it shows that not all my wisdom, not all my might, not all my religiosity could save me. Thou must save, and thou alone. Heart on the cross of Christ, see its wisdom and its power through its apparent folly and weakness.
If humans were to be saved, then not only must God smash that foolish spirit of independence, but he must entice that human spirit back to put its trust absolutely in God. How would you do it? There's nothing wrong with philosophy, do you know, as a method for logical thinking. Let us not be foolish and embrace obsca- obscurantism and suppose that ignorance rather than education is what is valuable.
God made us to think and to use our brains, and philosophy as the science of thinking is an exceedingly good thing. It can't save you. Not all the logic, be it never so impeccable, could change this sad, fallen human heart. Indeed, the danger of philosophy is, particularly if you're good at it, that it will perpetuate your trust in your own wisdom. That will perpetuate the trouble.
The need is to convert that human spirit back to trust in God. Oh, how will God Almighty get me to trust him? Against all the enticements that the very devil can put in my way. If God can't get me to trust him, then I'm lost indeed. And if God can't get me to trust him, God himself in some sense, has suffered defeat at Satan's hand. How would he get us to trust him? All see the divine wisdom of God.
When in the wisdom of God, the world, by its wisdom, didn't know God. They might have philosophized that possibly there existed an Almighty, but knowing him, heart to heart knowledge of God, philosophy never led to that. What could? He pleased God by the foolishness of preaching. He's not saying that preaching is a foolish method. Preaching is a very good method. It's the foolishness of the message preached. That is the message of the cross of Christ.
Please God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them who believe. How does he get us to believe? It is in the cross of Jesus Christ, God's son. And when you see it, madam, when you see it, sir, and looking at that cross, that mangled form who dies there, it dawns on you. This is God. And you come to believe the almost incredible, the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world.
Is that God? And he died like that for me, that I might be forgiven and and trust him and love him. This is what performs the miracle that no philosophy ever knew how to do. Isn't it true, sir? Isn't that the bedrock of your salvation? Isn't that ultimately the basis of your confidence? Not only as you began the Christian life, but as you proceed through all life's difficulties, through all life's trials and the doubts and the arguings of your inner heart, when, like Job, you cannot understand the ways of God.
And Satan raises the question, you can't go on believing in God after this now, can you? And you are brought back to the bedrock of your confidence. He that spared not his son, but gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? What does it mean to be human? If we start right at the core of human personality, it means to be someone whose confidence has been brought back to rest absolutely and undeviatingly in God.
But if that be what a true human being is, and if that be the tactics that God has used to save us, the cross of Christ. See now for a moment how the believers in Corinth had drifted. And how they were in danger of perpetuating in the life and activity of the church, the very wrong attitude from which the gospel was designed to deliver them.
Here, therefore, you will perceive at once the danger of leaving the gospel behind. And then making, seeming to make advance, which all the while is not advance, but a going backwards. I hear, my brothers, says Paul, that there are divisions among you. And one says, I am of Paul, and another says, I am of Peter, and another, I am of Apollos. You say, what's wrong with that? We have to go very gently here. Hope they're not listening just for the moment while I, uh, criticize the Corinthians.
Oh, goodness me, my dear brothers and sisters, how should we talk about them without in get- without getting very red faces ourselves? If a man came down from Mars and walked through Belfast, not knowing anything about Christianity, and looked at the notice boards of our churches, he'd have a job to find out what they were, wouldn't he? For the one name that often isn't there is Christ. There are a thousand and one other names and descriptions, aren't there? Funny that is. Oh, you say, yes, but you know the name we have in my church is very important, you see, because we have got hold of a very important doctrine of the Christian faith, and some of our other Christian folks, well, they're Christians, of course, ooh, but as you'll see, they've got a wrong idea on this particular doctrine, and we want to stand for this doctrine, you see.
That's why we call our church after this particular doctrine. Oh. Can your doctrine save you? Was your doctrine crucified for you? You call yourself I am of Paul, and with stinging rebuke, Paul says, was Paul crucified for you? What a misconception that is, isn't it? To call yourself after a Christian leader, however good a Christian leader he is.
Yes, Paul came and taught them about the cross of Christ. Paul came and preached the gospel. But Paul couldn't save them. When it came to that, Paul had to group himself with the believers, the very worst of sinners. And like them, he was absolutely bankrupt, and Christ, Christ alone, Christ crucified, could save. Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
He could be a trifle sarcastic on times when sarcasm was good, couldn't he, Watto? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? Well, mercifully not. That's one thing I like about Christendom. It has never descended to that folly, has it? He's done some remarkable things, eh, but never to that folly. We multiplied names by the thousand, guaranteed to confuse any man from Mars as to what we stand for, but um, when it comes to baptism, mercifully, you're baptized in the name of Christ. What a insult to the unique glory and dignity of Christ.
What an insult it would be. I baptize you in the name of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. I baptize you in the name of Luther. Hope there aren't any Lutherans here. I baptize you in the name of L- of Luther and of Christ. Well, heaven itself would shudder. Oh no, my dear brothers. When it comes to salvation, he stands unique. Does Jesus Christ, our Lord. We are rightly baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and none other.
And if for our salvation then it must be Christ and only Christ, the name to which we are baptized, and to have any other name would dishonor and be derogatory to the unique, unique glory of our Savior. How do we let ourselves call our churches by other names? I pass over without saying what I'm going to say, that the names very rarely represent what the dear believers stand for.
Now I'm greatly daring, am I not? You see, even gospel halls stand for more than the gospel, you know. Uh, my dear Baptist friends, God bless them, what lovely souls they are and loyal to the Lord Jesus. But Baptist is a very poor description of them because they don't believe just in baptism, they believe in the cross, and they believe in redemption, and they believe in sanctification, and they believe in the deity of Christ, and they believe in the coming of Christ. Marvelous folks they are. Yes. Why can't we be content with the name of Christ?
The Corinthians were not only adding labels, they were then beginning to fall out among themselves and boast in their leader. He was the bee's knees, and the other chap was an also ram. And presently they were dividing the people of God, and then at strife with one another as to which was the better leader. Oh look, says Paul, you're not only detracting from the glory of Christ, you are defeating the deliberate strategy of God.
The man may be very gifted, spiritually wise, spiritually powerful, but if we so put our faith in that man, be he a glorious servant of God, and in doing so we let slip that our basic confidence is solely and utterly in God and his son Jesus Christ. Then are we going counter to the strategy of God that God employed in the cross of Christ? You see, the Jew seeks after signs. Ah. They like a lot of signs, you see.
Well, now it's God in his mercy does use signs. The Gospel of John is is in record when signs will be profitable to lead a person to faith. But that isn't quite what the Jews, uh, came to think, is it? They sought after signs. Christ did one sign. Oh, that wasn't enough. What sign doest thou, said they. Christ had already done several. What sign doest thou? Do another one, and another one, and another one. And what was happening? Well, the Jews were looking for marvelous signs, do you see, to excite them.
You see power? And the more signs, the better. And a whole diet of signs. Till our Lord had to turn away from them and said, there shall no signs be given to this adulterous generation. If signs lead us to put our faith in God, glorious. But when we take ourselves as though independent, and God has got to come and do his signs, we put ourselves in the judge's seat, don't we? And we decide about the signs, whether they're good enough, do you see? When my car breaks down, I take it to the garage man, and he performs near miracles.
Mm-hmm. But if he doesn't do the miracle quite right, you see, I dismiss him, go to another ca- garage man that can do bigger miracles. That's how the Jews were. Do you see the wickedness of it? It puts me in the driving seat. And God who has to come and satisfy me by doing sufficient miracles and enough of them and big enough miracles, and I keep wanting miracles, and if he doesn't do them, I don't believe. That's putting a pistol to God's head, isn't it? And the Greeks seek after wisdom. Well, there's abundant wisdom in God's salvation.
Ah, but that isn't quite the point. You see, the Greeks put themselves in the judge's seed. If God could convince them, they might believe that they were the final arbiters. Their wisdom would be the final arbiter over God himself. Poor little men, with a brain given them by God and a brain now, to some extent, defective. And instead of putting their faith in the God who gave them the brain, their brain becomes independent and the final arbiter, and God must submit to their adjudication. All that is an utter perversion of the relation between man and God.
That's why God has used the cross deliberately, as we have said. For this is the way that will rightly show man the bankruptcy of his own wisdom and strength, and simultaneously elicit man's faith in God. See your calling and election, says Paul. Not many mighty, not many wise are called, are they? That is deliberate, for if God had simply called the w- the wise, the great intelligences of the world, or the nobility of the world, we should have fallen to the conclusion that you have to be exceedingly wise to get converted and to be saved.
And sometimes some, uh, theologians almost give that impression, don't they? You've got to be marvelously intellectual to be saved. And the opposite is true, of course. Intellect is good. You don't have to be intellectualist to be saved. And that's why God has not chosen many wise or many noble, but the weak things of the world has he chosen, that he might confound and put to shame the mighty. Why? That no flesh should glory before God. For flesh to just stand and boast in its own wisdom, its own strength, its own intellect before God Almighty is not only an absurdity, of course, but such an affront to Almighty God as ruins that man's relationship with God.
As ruins that man's relationship with God. For of him, and through him, and to him are all things. And God did it deliberately to teach us this, that of him, of God are you in Christ Jesus, who by God is made to us wisdom, that is justification and sanctification and redemption. That is a very practical question. Who put you in Christ? Madam, who who who put you into the Savior?
Was it your own capability? You were so highly logical. I don't doubt that. You were very highly logical, and it was your ability at logic that eventually put you into Christ. If that were so, I should be very jittery. What happens when a little older in life, your logical powers begin to diminish like mine are? Your logic might take you out of Christ one day, mightn't it? Who put you in Christ? Oh, you say there came a preacher. Oh, oh, he was so charming. He was not like some of these lecturers. He just preached a short time, and he was oozing charm and user-friendly.
He had such a beautiful way of putting it, you see, and such a lovely way. He said Mesopotamia was delightful. And he put me in Christ. He was such a powerful preacher. Well, if that's what put you in Christ, you better start trembling now, for one of these days there'll come a better preacher, and he'll take you out of Christ. Oh, of God are you in Christ Jesus, and not by your own ingenuity. And God did it deliberately. You see, that is very important to learn.
And at this stage, I quote you just one example from the Old Testament, the very famous and well-known story of David and Goliath, you know. You've known it since your Sunday school days, have you not? To understand it, it is good to read it in its context. And the context, put as briefly as I can, is this, that in the days of the judges, you'll see, Israel didn't always behave themselves and went wrong and got into the power of the enemy, and God had to deliver them, you see. And when they went wrong and and got into misery, they called to God, and he raised them up deliverers. Gideon and Jephthah and people like that, you see. After a while, Israel got a little bit tired of that.
It was a sort of a little nerve-wracking, nail-biting business, wasn't it? If you had an Ammonite and all his hordes breathing down your neck one Monday morning, you'll say, to have to wait on God to raise you up a deliverer. You'll say, what happened if God didn't move quickly enough and all that, you'll say. Uh, it was a nail-biting uncertainty to have to wait on God. So the Israelites came to Samuel and they said, Samuel, we've had enough of this kind of uncertainty, Samuel. Make us a king, you'll see, monarch, so that when the enemy comes, we shall have a king installed, you'll see, ready to defend us. Samuel didn't like that. God didn't either, actually.
There's nothing wrong in having a king. God was one day to raise up the great King David and Jesus Christ is the supreme king. But if you have an organized institution, the aim of which is to save you from having to wait on God, then you are in a bad way indeed, aren't you? Hope God, in his mercy, faithful to his people, has always decided to, uh, teach them a little lesson, truly. Oh, so you can't wait on me, gentlemen, that's too hair-raising. Ah, you want a king to be instituted so when the enemy comes, the man is already and he's installed and he can save you.
Yes, says God, right. Oh, well now, what kind of a king would you like, my dear folks? What about this one? And God presented them with the chap with the name of Saul, and he was some man, was Saul, you see, head and shoulders above all the others. And when they saw him, they said, oh God, you are wonderful. Yes, that's exactly the kind of king we would like, a big man, you see, and he will save us. Oh, marvelous, you've come up Trump's God. Now we've got a man to save us, you see, big man. And all went well. He put the fear of I don't know what up the Israelites. Talk about a spiritual dictator, but that's beside the point.
When Paul said come out, they came out, they'll say. And all went well, until one day, out of the ranks of the Philistines, there came a Goliath. Oh, if Saul was a big man, this chap was an absolute Mount Everest of a man. Got a head the size of a dustbin, a a a a and a spear like a telegraph pole. Oh, the brawn and the experience, he was the leading single hero combat fighter in the Philistine army.
And now what's happened to big man Saw? He's skulking in his tent. You see, that's the trouble with big men. They're all right until a bigger man comes on the other side. Oh, my friend, if some big preacher put you in Christ, you better start fearing. There'll come a bigger one one day, and he'll take you out of Christ. Faced with the Goliath, the giant, Saul says to David, now, now, so, well, if you must go fight this giant, he says, you take my armor. Stupid man. Take his sword.
You can imagine David going to fight the Goliath with Saul's sword, can't you? Here comes David with the Saul about, a sword about, uh, two foot long. Excuse me. Oh, half a minute. Saul's armor bearer's got a spear about a half a mile long. Excuse me, let me get nearer to you, says David. I not... They would have skewered him before he got anywhere near using his sword. But the battle was won, wasn't it? How? Well, under God's good directions, David took the most simple weapons you could ever think of, a mere rod and a sling and stones.
And when old Goliath saw the stick, his Philistine mustache went up and down. He was furious at this insult. He the leading expert in single hero combat, and they sent against him a little boy with a stick like you'd use to chase a dog out of your backyard with. Insult to him. And David preached him the lesson. I'm going to kill you today, David, at Goliath. And the reason I brought these contemptibly weak instruments is to show Israel this. There's not the battle between who is the, a question of who is the bigger man between you and me, Goliath, or who has the biggest weapons.
I use these weak weapons that all Israel may see that the victory is given by God. And we're back, aren't we, to the principle of the cross, the weakness and apparent foolishness of God, but to those who believe, it has been proved, the wisdom and the power of God. Oh, it is vital, my dear brothers and sisters, that as you begin, so we proceed, that all the way along we thank God for every gift he gives us, every Christian leader he gives us, but ultimately our faith must be in God.
Let us see to it that all the way we organize our churches and all the methods we use shall display the truth of the gospel and show that we stand firm by the principle of the cross as the wisdom and the power of God to bring men and women back to God and to the beginnings of salvation. What is man?
Redeemed man, redeemed woman is someone who, through the cross of Christ, has been brought to abandon ultimate faith in all else, themselves included, and put their faith and confidence solely in God. Oh, my friend, if you've done that, what a future you have. This is the bedrock of what will eventually be your glorified personality. Shall we pray?
