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Welcome to studies with Stearman. Join us as we look deeper into the Bible. Strengthen your faith with us, even as we see the day approaching. And now here's gary. The first 11 chapters of First Corinthians are Paul's great discourse on unspiritual thought and unspiritual activity. And he begins by talking about those divisions. We've mentioned those now. For the last three weeks, there were factions in the church at Corinth. Paul's on his third missionary journey. As he writes this letter, A.D. 56, he hears about these divisions. Some people were followers of Paul, some of Apollo, some of Peter, and some were of the faction of Christ. And apparently they followed the doctrines of Christ's words only and nothing else. Ordinarily, if we saw this kind of factionalism, we would just say, well, that's natural human behavior. People are divided on the way they believe. And it's kind of normal for this group over here to focus on one thing and this group over here to focus on another thing. And so divisions developed in the church. Paul, on the other hand, took this very seriously and called it foolishness, as a matter of fact, 1st Corinthians 1:24. But unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than man, the weakness of God is stronger than man. He began this discourse, which we went into in some detail on foolishness versus wisdom. And as it turns out as we continue on with this study, foolishness by its very nature is not a good thing. Neither is wisdom, though you would think, well, wisdom is okay. No, foolishness in Paul's writing is moronic behavior. The Greek word moros is translated foolishness, mindless stupid behavior. On the other hand, for Paul, wisdom as practiced by the Corinthians was Greek philosophy. And he said, that's no good either. Well, as we have gone through this discourse, we come to the end of 1 Corinthians 2, and I'm going to reread, starting in about verse 12, 1 Corinthians 2 12. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him. But we have the mind of Christ. And in those words, we have two different classes of people here. We have the natural man and we have the spiritual man. The natural man, we talked about this last week, and I'm going to go a little bit deeper into it this week, is the man of the soul. He's the soulish man. The soul basically is what people see of us as we walk down the street and do our daily doings on planet Earth. People see your soul expressed through your body. The soul classically is expressed as the mind that is your thoughts, the will that is your drives and desires, which the Bible calls the heart and the emotions. The soul then, is mind, will and emotion. And you see mind, will and emotion expressed through the body. Now, do you see the spirit as my favorite illustration. When you're buying a head of cabbage there at the produce counter at Homeland, do people see your spirit? No, they don't. They see your body. They see your mind at work as you select various heads of cabbage. They see your will, your desire there to get a cheaper cabbage. And they see your emotions. Boy, this is a rotten cabbage. But they don't see your spirit. The soul then, expressed through the body is what everybody sees. And the soul in the Greek is translated out of that Greek word psychicos, from which we get our English word psychic or psychology or psychological. The Bible refers to that as natural. So the natural man is the psychic man, or the psychological man, or the man who does everything he can to get ahead by using his faculties of reasoning, his faculties of domination, his will, his faculties of emotion. And the application of emotion is very, very powerful. As you know, people use that as a way to drive other people. You can huff and puff and get yourself up into an emotional state and really affect other people. So the mind, the will and the emotions are what the Bible refers to as the natural man. And that natural man receives not the spirit of God. The things of the spirit of God are foolishness. They are stupidity. Again, the Greek word is moron or moro in the nominative, but it's often spelled M o R o N. And I really like to keep pushing on that because we all know what a moron is, right? Everybody knows a moron. He's just a stupid idiot. That's the Greek word translated foolishness. Here in verse 14, the natural man receiveth not things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. To say it another way, what do you discern of my spirit? What do I discern of your spirit? Or put another way, can you tell somebody saved by looking at them? No, you cannot. And in fact, many times you'll be around a person for a long, long time and they'll tell you they're saved. And you look and you look. And what person doesn't act like he's saved? Maybe he is. He keeps saying he is, and other people say he is. But, boy, to me, he doesn't seem like he's saved. You understand what I'm saying? The spirit. The things of the spirit are on an entirely different level than the things of the soul, which are very obvious. The mind, the will and the emotions are very, very obvious as they are expressed through the body. And in fact, they are so obvious that they are what everybody uses for guidelines and markers. Now, to go back to the beginning of the Bible, Adam and Eve lost it. What did they lose? They lost their spiritual connection with God, and they were left with the soul. And the soul is very powerful. God designed it that way. However, God never, ever worked with man in the redemptive process through man's soul, but rather through the spirit. If you look at all the great heroes of the Bible, these are people who are spiritually developed, spiritually guided, spiritually led. And the spirit is always very elusive in that respect. Take Job, for example. With his three friends, Job was placed under terrific testing. You know the story of Job. He was afflicted with boils, lost all of his property, was in misery. His wife said, curse God and die. You know, you're through. And Job sat down with three of his good buddies and they tried to thrash out what was the problem with Job. They guessed this and they guessed that. And you've read all about what Job's friends said. Well, Job, you've got unconfessed sin. And Job, you're not doing God's will. And Job, you have broken God's law. And Job this and Job that and Job this. Finally, by the time you get to job 38, everybody's wrong, even Job. And God says, job, I want to tell you a couple things. But what they all missed was that this was a spiritual lesson. And spiritual things are not easily discerned. God designed us in such a way that we are creatures of the earth, we are creatures of soul. But God never uses man's soul power redemptively. That is, he doesn't use your own mind and your own will and your own emotions as a redemptive tool. He uses your spirit in conjunction with his spirit. And that's what salvation is all about. In fact, soul power is unusable to God. When Adam and Eve lost their connection with God, they were superior people. I'm convinced they were much superior to what we are today. Man has degenerated down through the propagation of the line over the last four or five thousand years to a decidedly inferior position as compared with Adam and Eve. They were superior. They were perfect in every way and powerful. Adam had the ability to discern, to discriminate, to set things into categories, to name things meaningfully, to use language and thought probably in a very superior way. It was a God given thing with him. He didn't have to learn it. And then he lost his spiritual connection with God. And he knew he had lost something. It's obvious. He quaked in the bushes and realized he was naked. And his first thought was, how can I get back to the position that I was in before? And in fact, all of his progeny. If you check out the canine civilization, if you look at the sons of Shem and go down through the generations, you'll find out that they busied themselves with one occupation and that is trying to restore the lost relationship with God. But instead of doing it spiritually, they tried to do it in the power of their own soul, such as building the tower. Genesis chapter 11. Building the tower to get back to God again because they had lost that connection. They really, really wanted to get back to God. And if you know that story, God says, you know, we've got to stop them. We have to disperse these people, otherwise they're going to realize their ambition and get back to us. But that would not be good because they'll be doing it in the power of their soul, not their spirit. This is the dilemma of the human being in sin. He deeply desires power and he goes about using the mechanism of the soul to obtain it. Now let's just throw in salvation. This man of the soul gets saved. What happens to him? What happens to the natural man when he receives the spirit of God and is baptized in the spirit? Romans, chapter six. What happens to that natural man? Instantly, instantaneously, he is placed in a situation of great personal conflict. And that conflict goes for a long, long time, depending on his struggle. Salvation is not a wondrous thing in which everything suddenly goes perfectly for you. As you well know, anybody who's been a Christian more than a day and a half, understands that Christianity is struggle. And Paul characterized this struggle between the soul and the newly emplaced spirit in Romans chapter seven. He says, I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law in my mind. He characterized Christianity as an internal battle and bringing me into captivity. The law of sin, which is in my members, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so that with my mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. And that's what's going on over here at the end of 1 Corinthians 2. For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. In other words, we have in the spirit of Christ. We have the mind of Christ, but at the very same time we have our natural mind, which has to be placed in submission to the spiritual mind. Hence the internal wrestling match. Now that's one half of the problem. God works by the Holy Spirit using our renewed spirit to bring us into submission. He has no desire to use the power of our soul, the mind, the will and the emotions as they're expressed through the body. He has no desire at all to use soul power. And yet we would rather use soul power because it's more comfortable, more accessible, more familiar. And it's a lot showier. It's a lot showier. It's easy to fire up the emotions, it's easy to come up with all kinds of high blown notions. It's easier to use the natural reasoning to impress people. It's easier to sway people. And in fact, at its worst, psychic power is dark demonic power that is linked to the dark side and the dark forces of the world. Last week I mentioned that in the soul, soul driven by emotions, you can actually think of your soul as being baptized by the emotions. Someone who is not saved, someone who has a very, let's put it this way, charismatic personality, but who's completely unsaved, will very often use the emotions to whip up the emotions of others and to start a movement of sorts. And that movement is driven by emotion. You've seen it, you've read about it, history is full of it, both in the church and outside of the church. People being driven by self will and by emotional frenzy. But God doesn't want us to use that power. He wants us to use the power of the Spirit. He does not want our soul baptized by emotion. He wants our creature baptized by the spirit. When Adam fell, his power was immobilized. Generation after generation of humanity has developed, if you will, this habitual pattern of enhancing the power of the human soul. The ancient abilities of Adam are kind of a latent force. That thing that was in Adam when he said, I've got to get back to God somehow, the thing that was in Shem, the thing that was in the Sons of Noah got to get back to God somehow. And how can I do this? Well, I can do it by building an idol, and I can maybe even build a fire inside the idol so that will send smoke up to heaven. Oh, there are dozens of ways to try to get back to God, but there's only one legitimate way, and that's through the spirit. Satan attempts to break open man's shell, if you will, his fleshly shell, and to release that dormant psychic power in order to gain control over man. And he does it very successfully, by the way. Releasing that dormant power, some have called it psychic power, is nothing but a satanic strategy to control man. That's why this is so important. When Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians, he was writing to people who were very accustomed to dark occultic forces being used to manipulate society. These latent forces, or this latent power of the soul, can be awakened by Satan and used in very dark ways. It can also be used by people who don't appear to be satanic to persuade men to do all kinds of strange things, engage in strange, weird group activities that sometimes get on tv. Satan is behind a lot of parapsychological stuff. You heard the term parapsychology? That's where you turn over those little cards. You know, one has a circle and one has a star and one has wavy lines and one has a square. And you see, if you can put your hand up to your forehead and say, I see wavy lines, I see a star, and I see a. So you check your score and you find out, wow, I'm pretty psychic. I'm just pretty psychic. That'll really please God, won't it? No, it will not please God. There are people who learn to control and to use that latent psychic power, Right? You know about that. You've read all the articles, the stories. It's called parapsychology. God never works with that. He works through the Holy Spirit and our renewed spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit does not in any way resemble psychic power. Not at all. Somebody tells you, oh, the spirit's given me the ability to, for example, know what's going on or to know this or that or the other thing. Be suspicious. Since the fall, and the whole Bible is about, this man has been forbidden to use that psychic power, the original power of the soul. Why? Because in its current state, it's unlinked with the spirit of God. It's kind of a wild, uncontrollable free agent, if you will, that can be used to produce wonders and strange faculties and odd behaviors. And sometimes a lot of people gather together. And that psychic power, guess what? It just pops up and becomes very visible. I don't want to get into psychic power too much. I could say a lot about it. I could spend the next hour talking about psychic power and we'd all have our ears tickled. But I'd rather talk about the Holy Spirit to tell you the truth. Verse 14, 15, 16. First Corinthians 2. The natural man, Psuchikos is what he's called. The psychic man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Spiritual discernment is what it's all about. You want to cultivate the things of the Holy Spirit of God. You do not want to cultivate the things of the psyche. And as we get into the rest of this letter from Paul, you're going to see how important this is. This is the subject of this letter. The first 11 chapters of First Corinthians deal with this phenomenon. Verse 15. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. So this is where we end. We have the mind of Christ. What would you rather have? Psychic power or the mind of Christ? No brainer. Right. Well, if you have the mind of Christ, how does that display itself? How does that manifest itself? How do you know you have the mind of Christ? Good question. We're not through with that question. Let's read on. And this week we're going to go into chapter three, First Corinthians, chapter three. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual. Right after Paul has said, look, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit, they are spiritually discerned. He spiritual judgeth all things, he now says. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as of spiritual. These Corinthian Christians, mind you, these are Christians to whom he's writing this letter, are not spiritual. That tells us one thing, right? Up front. It's possible for a Christian to be unspiritual. I mean, you can be as saved as anybody ever was saved and not be spiritual. And Paul says, I couldn't speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it. Neither yet now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envy, strife, divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men. For while one saith, and he repeats it here, I am of Paul and another, I am of Apollos, are you not carnal? So Paul is linking this factionalism in the Corinthian Church to carnality. Carnality. What is carnality? In the Greek Sarkicos, it means fleshly. The Latin is carna, which means fleshly. We have a word in English actually. Everybody's heard of chili con carne, right? But we have a word in English, carnival. Right. What's a carnival? Well, it's a festival of the flesh. But you know what a carnival really is. It's two Latin words, carne, flesh and vale, which means to say farewell to something. So Carnevale is saying farewell to the flesh. And it comes from the practice of gorging yourself before 40 days of Lent. You eat, you drink, you be merry the day before the 40 days of Lent, and it's called Carnevale saying farewell to the flesh. In other words, I'm going to have one last high old time and then I'm going to do 40 days of fasting for Lent. It's called Fat Tuesday, right? It's called Mardi Gras, it's called carnival, it's called the flesh. Everybody's heard of Mardi Gras and seen what Mardi Gras is. But religiously, Mardi Gras or carnival is saying farewell to the flesh. I'm just going to do everything I can possibly do because the day after I'm going to go on a 40 day fast or whatever. That's carnality. Carnality is many things, including duplicity, hypocrisy. Paul refers to it as factionalism, which we take for granted by the way every one of us has grown up. We walk in a world of factionalism. Even in our own families. You have families split apart. This part of the family believes one thing, this part of the family over here believes another thing. And Lord, to help us at Thanksgiving, when all these people get together, you Cannot seat Aunt Martha next to Uncle Fred because they're going to get into fight as sure as anything. Factionalism is a way of life. And in the church, factionalism has another name. It's called denominationalism really. There's one church, you know, it's the church of the living God through Christ. And don't go driving around looking for that church, because I don't think you're going to find it. There's only one church and there's only one word. And yet there are many factions. There were four of them here in Corinth. There was the faction of Paul and of Apollos and of Peter and of Christ. There are many, many more than that. There are as many factions as there are little towns probably. And what does Paul call them? He calls them carnal. Fleshly. The flesh thrives on arrogancy and superiority. It is driven to say, I'm better than you. I'm cool and you're not. My car is better than your car. We eat better than you do. My wife cooks better than your wife. We just know more than you do. One of these days you'll find out how dumb you really are. That's kind of the way we live our lives, right as factions. Well, that's carnal. And Paul says in the church that ought to be absolutely swept away. There's no place for is the struggle of the soul that produces carnality. It is the soul seeking through the mind the will and the emotions to exert its own force, its own power and its own pride. Whereas when a spirit comes in and begins to change your behavior bit by bit by bit, those carnal factors will begin to drop away and you'll learn how to love other people. As I've said many times, the one capability, the one faculty that men lack is the ability to love each other. I'm telling the truth. If you had to pick out one thing about yourself that you're really bad at, it's probably loving one another. I speak for myself because I'm a human being. Paul asks a question at this point. Who then is Paul and who is Apollos but ministers by whom you believed Even as the Lord gave to every man. I have planted Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. There are roles for people within the church. Carnality more or less denies those roles. Carnality sets up methods of behavior by which to judge other people. That's what carnality does. It ranks people. It says somebody's better than somebody else. And most of all, it Says I'm better than all of you put together. That's the flesh. You can think that you're spiritual and be very, very carnal indeed. I think Solomon is a really, really good example. Turn back with me to 1 Kings chapter 3. First Kings 3. Right after Solomon comes to power as a young king, the first thing he does here in first Kings chapter three it says. And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of David until he had made an end of building his own house, the house of the Lord. So his first marriage is the daughter of Pharaoh. Okay, good choice. Solomon. Not a good Jewish girl. Oh no, Couldn't marry a good Jewish girl, could you? No way. You gotta marry this girl from Egypt. But look, verse three. And Solomon loved the Lord walking in the statutes of David, his father. Only he sacrificed and burned incense in high places. And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was a great high place. A thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar. Now the Lord honored those burnt offerings. At this stage in Solomon's life, Solomon was visited by the Lord. And the Lord said, what do you want from me? And Solomon said in verse 9, Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this thy so great people? The Lord gives him a wise and understanding heart. And from that point on to this day, Solomon is known as the wisest man who ever lived. And those of you who have studied the life of Solomon then are smitten with this incredible conundrum because Solomon went from that point straight downhill, married a thousand women, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, Hittites. And he followed after them in love, says the Bible. Solomon clave to these in love. The Hebrew is Achala. The idea of the love of the soul and the heart. Heart and soul. I believe there's a song like that. 700 wives, 300 concubines. But not only that, his wives turned away his heart after other gods. That's 1 Kings 11, 4. And his heart was not perfect for the Lord his God, as was the heart of David, his father. The heart, by the way, in the Bible is the motivator. It's the great director of the soul. It makes you move in a particular direction. If your heart is moving in a certain direction, your soul is sure to follow. That is to say, Solomon's heart was directed by all of these strange women. That's what they're called in Proverbs, by the way, and they're called that here in First Kings 11. 1. But Solomon loved many strange women. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, after Milcom, that's the God of child sacrifice, Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and went not fully after the Lord, as did David, his father. What did Solomon do? What did Solomon do? He followed his heart. Let's put it another way. He went in the direction of his soul. Solomon lived a soulish life rather than a spiritual life. And this is the whole thrust of Corinthians. You can follow your soul and you think, for all that's holy, that you're doing the work of God, and what you're following is the leading of the wrong part of yourself. And the whole idea of Christian maturity is to learn to follow the things of the spirit, not things of your own soul. And if you think that's easy, think again. That's the occupation that will involve the rest of your life. So Solomon, he wrote proverbs and 12 different times in the Book of Proverbs, he mentions the strange woman. And he says, my son, listen to me. Don't follow that strange woman. Well, if anybody was ever quite qualified to write about that strange woman, wow. And he says, listen to my words. Say unto Wisdom, thou art my sister, and call understanding thy kinswoman, that they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words. For at the window of my house I looked through the lattices, and I beheld among the simple ones and discerned among the youths a young man, void of understanding, passing through the street near her corner. And he went the way to her house in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night. And behold, he met there a woman. Well, I could read on, but this is Sunday morning. I don't want to get too racy. You can read it yourself later on. Who is the strange woman? Well, she's a real woman. Solomon knew a thousand of them. But spiritually, she is the picture of the soul. That's what she is. The soul of man lusts after the strange woman, ultimately drawn by her into absolute idolatry. The most vivid picture of the strange woman is found in Revelation, where the woman rides the beast and has a cup full of the abominations of this world, and she holds them up and she becomes the very symbol of everything that's wrong about False religion, which is driven by the soul. She is this strange woman. That's the world we live in, has a lot of allure. It tries to draw you away. False religion, after all, is a whole lot more fun than true religion. Really? Really. It is. It is. What can I say? Have you ever noticed how many people are in fun religions today? Well, I don't want to go there, but let's get back to First Corinthians. He says, aye, brethren, I couldn't speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. Now, in Corinth there were all kinds of ways you could follow your soul. There were the oracles, the Pythiannesses, the little women who could tell your fortune. These were the dedicated temple virgins, so called. There were all kinds of methods whereby one could discern the future, go to fortune tellers. And there were all kinds of methods of learning Greek philosophy and the like. All kinds of appeals to the soul. In Corinth, just as in Los Angeles, those same appeals to the soul. Paul is trying very hard, if you will, to wean these Corinthians off of milk and get them onto some real food. I fed you with milk, he says. Verse 3. For ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying strife and divisions. Are ye not carnal and walk as men, envying strife and divisions. Have you ever seen those operate in a group, ever been in a group where there was envying strife and division? And you said, what in the world is going on here? Why is this happening? Why does so and so hate so and so so much? Or why can't we just do this and solve all that? And on and on it goes. It's carnality, it is the flesh. More than that, it is the lust of the soul. It's people following their soul, mistakenly thinking they're following the spirit of God. That's what it is. So let's go back to verse five. Who then is Paul? Who is Apollos but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man. Ministers, ministers, hard working people. Deacons is the Greek word. Diakonoi. Paul regarded himself as a deacon. Just a hard worker. I have planted, he says Apollo's watered. Paul planted for first century believers and for us today. He planted the fundamental ideas of Christianity to Paul. And Paul alone was given the vision of the church, the body of Christ. Justification by faith, salvation by grace. That's what he planted. Apollos watered. Apollos being a fantastically gifted preacher, an Alexandrian who spoke fluent koine And Attic. And no doubt spoke fluent Latin. And he could speak to any group anytime. Drop a hat and sound wonderful. Apollos went out, spread the gospel. He had another gift. Some people were saying, hey, this Apollo's a great preacher. I'm going to follow him. Paul doesn't speak very well, and he's hard to understand. And he's a little guy, kind of a scruffy little guy. Apollos is a handsome guy. And, boy, he'll just sweep you off your feet when you hear his words. That's the soul, by the way. It's not the spirit. But so then neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God giveth the increase. Now, he that planteth and he that watereth are one. Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are laborers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry. That is, you are his garden is the Greek word. You are this garden here that's been planted and cultivated and watered. And there are people circulating among you right now that are doing the watering and the cultivating. These are the ministers. That's the image that's being given here. Ye are God's building. So Paul uses two similes. You're like a garden, and you're like a building. According to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid. But which is Jesus Christ the foundation? We have spoken so many times about Christ as a foundation that goes all the way back to Deuteronomy 32. The fivefold stone goes back to Isaiah 28:16. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God. Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not be made to flee away. And Isaiah refers to him as a tried stone. In the Hebrew, that is even bohan, even bochan means a stone that has been selected, cut, polished, prepared in every way to perfection and then tested. And each and every one of us are to follow that model. You know, he said, yeah, I'm the rock. You're little rocks, Peter. You're a little rock. And I'm going to make you a usable rock. You're kind of a little chunk of rock right now. And I'm going to polish you up, and you're going to become a tridestone. That's the model of Christianity. Jesus is also called by Daniel the Son, a stone cut out without hands, and it dashes to pieces all of the false religions of this earth. Ephesians 2:20 says, you're built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. This chief cornerstone, if you will, is one of the mysteries of God. How can you be a foundation and a chief cornerstone at the same time? Well, you can be the author and the finisher of the faith. You can be the beginning and the end, the alpha and the Omega. You can be the foundation and the pinnacle if you're Christ. We are called by Peter living stones. All of us are living stones who are supposed to be used in the building of God's temple. We are like Christ because he's the stone that the builders refused. And remember what Jesus said. If they hated me, they're going to hate you. You're going to go through some of the same things I went through. Whereas with our soul, we want to be accepted, we want to be pumped up, we want to be cool, we want to be proud, we want to be all of the wonderful things this world spiritually, we want to be baptized into the sufferings of Jesus. There are two different experiences. Do you know what I'm saying? The soul desires something different than the Spirit. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble. Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire. And the fire shall try every man's work of what, what sort it is, the day shall declare it. What is this day? Well, it's the day that we read about all through Scripture. It's the great and terrible day of the Lord, sometimes called Judgment Day. Judgment Day is coming. And if there's one thing that is not widely believed in this world right now, it is that Judgment Day is coming. Most people don't believe Judgment Day is coming. In fact, they don't even believe in Judgment Day. But Judgment Day is when the Lord's wrath is turned against men. And they find out, not only theoretically, but in hard experience, they discover that, yes, indeed, we are guilty and we are subject to judgment. Time of Jacob's Trouble, the 70th week of Daniel. Isaiah refers to the day of the Lord as Jehovah's strange work. It's strange because it's alien to him, the Lord. His basic personality is not to be vindictive. Basically, he's Love. God is love, said John. But there will come a day when God's love is expressed through judgment. And that's why Isaiah refers to it as Jehovah's strange work, or Jehovah's strange act. Isaiah 28 it's called the day of Israel's calamity. It's called the tribulation, the indignation, the overflowing scourge. It's called the year of recompense, the time of trouble. It's called the day of wrath, the day of wasteness, the day of desolation, darkness, the day of gloominess, the day of clouds and thick darkness, the day of the trumpet. Zechariah calls it the day of alarm, the day of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians 5:2. The wrath of God. But we of course, as members of the body of Christ, are not appointed to wrath. The wrath of the Lamb of God, Revelation 6, 16, 17 when his wrath is finally unveiled against the people. Matthew 24:21 Jesus called it the tribulation, the great one, the hour of judgment. And remember John 5:22 it says very clearly and Jesus proclaimed this before the Pharisees. He said, the Father hath appointed all judgment unto the Son. The Son, though he is the most loving creature in the universe, is also the judge. Judgment day is coming. It's coming for us. But thank God it is not judgment unto death, but rather judgment of works. And you all know that the day of the Lord we're going to be in my belief system is firmly that of the pre tribulation rapture. That is before that tribulation we're going to be caught out of the world and taken to heaven, where we shall appear before the judgment seat of Christ to review, as it says in 2nd Corinthians 5:10, that everyone may receive the things done in his body according that he hath done according, whether it be good or bad. Now there's a judgment I like, because the judgment to which the world will be subjected is a judgment of absolute condemnation. The world has no excuse before the Lord. You and I, however safe in the Spirit of God, are not condemned, but rather we are simply to be judged on the basis of our conformity with the works of the Lord. And we all have a choice to live in the Spirit. Again, it's a choice of you want to live in the soul, the region of the soul, or the region of the Spirit. You haven't heard the last of this because we're going to really get deeply into this idea as we go Through First Corinthians, if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay or stubble, you've got a digression there, a devolution, going from gold down to stubble. And I think it's pretty clear what's going on there. It's likening the things done in the flesh to various substances we're familiar with. Gold, silver, and precious stones are permanent. Wood, hay, and stubble are not. I think we're going to be rewarded for those things that are pleasing to God. Maybe we'll get gold, silver and precious stones. The way I read about heaven, I'm not sure that'd be such a hot reward, because the whole place is gold, silver and precious stones. It's like paving material. So I'm not going for the gold, silver and precious stones. But what I want is proximity to the Lord. And the way I read scripture, the more you please him, the closer you're going to be to him throughout eternity. And I want to be as close as I can possibly be. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereon, he shall receive a reward. And I believe the reward is, as I've said many times, responsibility. That is to say, as Jesus continually said in his parables, you've done much work. That's good. I'll give you even more work if you've done one good work for the Lord. He says, that's great. I'm pleased with it. I'll give you more to do. And I want more to do. That is, I want more responsibility. Because as anyone knows, responsibility brings you closer and closer to, if you will, the owner of the company. The more responsibility you have, the closer your office will be to the boss's office. Right. Now, that's reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved. Yet so is by fire. We've all talked about that a thousand times. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God? The spirit of God dwelleth in you. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy. Which temple? Ye are holy. The word hagias in the New Testament, kensh in the Old Testament means dedicated. Are you dedicated to the cause of the Lord? Are you really dedicated? Have you dedicated your life? And I don't mean walk the aisle either. I mean, are you simply dedicated? It's not easy. And be careful if you say I am dedicated, because you may have to prove it. You got to be dedicated. The temple of God. Remember the prophecy in Revelation to the overcomer, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. To be a pillar in the temple of God is simply to be a part of the superstructure of heaven. Inseparable forever has nothing whatsoever to do with your imagination, your thoughts, your emotions, the longings of your soul, but has everything to do with the relationship of your spirit to his spirit through Christ. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy. Which temple ye are. At this point, Paul turns back to take a poke at the really wise people of his days, the Greek philosophers. Because in Corinth and throughout the Greek empire, the people who were really held in high respect were the Greek philosophers. And he says in verse 18, let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise. The mind. Let's cultivate the mind. Let's get a PhD. Let's really get smart. Well, the mind, of course, is part of the soul. If anybody thinks himself to be wise, let him become a fool. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it's written he taketh the wise in their own craftiness. That goes back to Job and his friends. And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, Cephas. The world, life or death, things present, things to come are all yours. And ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's. You know, it's fascinating in that 19th verse. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. Let that sink in. And then look at the 20th verse. And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise. Do you know what the Greek word there is for thoughts? It's a wonderful word, which actually we have in English. It's dialogismos, which in English is dialogue. The Lord knoweth the dialogues of the wise. That they are empty is what it says. You know what these are, don't you? These are philosophical excursions. Ever read the dialogues of Plato? You know, like the Timaeus or the Crito or the Meno dialogues of Socrates, thought to be the highest thoughts that man can have. And it says right here, they're empty. Well, if you read the dialogues of Plato, you discover indeed these are empty. Because I've read the Bible. There's no comparison between the dialogues of Plato and the Bible. No comparison whatsoever. In fact, the dialogues of Plato are kind of childish when you get right down to it. And you can't do anything else but feel sorry for Socrates. Drank a cup of poison, sentenced to death by the state, and as he was dying, his last words were, crito, I owe a cock to Aesculapius. See that thou pay the debt. And he died. Last words of Socrates, Crito, make sure you take a chicken to the temple of Aesculapius and sacrifice it on the altar for me, will you? A chicken? We have the Lord Jesus Christ, who laid down himself for us and shed his own blood. I feel sorry for Socrates. Well, just praise the Lord that we are born again and that we have the spirit of the living God and not our souls to guide us.