Cost Of Discipleship - Part 2

Yeah, it's easier for you and I to sing with eyes of quartz. We're the whole realm of nature, mate. I'm afraid we don't do it. Love's so amazing, so divine. This man had a revelation of God that I don't think anybody's had before or since. I'm quite sure he quoted with fervency, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. He sees the great expanse of the world. Why, look at this man's staggering life. He began his life in the historic capital of the world, Tarsus. He ended his life in the military capital of the world, Rome. He went to the intellectual capital of the world in the 17th of Acts there and they discovered this little undersized man. When they saw him, they said his bodily presence is weak and discovered he had a staggering scintillating intellect. They quoted poetry answered with poetry. They quoted philosophy answered with philosophy. They quoted their history, he answered with their history. This man is all round, he's a fully developed man. And they're staggered by this amazing man. And then he came to a situation that the great Scottish preacher called some years ago. I'm trying to think of his name, it was James something. But anyhow, two years ago he said, they listened intently to Paul. They were staggered that this little Jew should know so much about Greek history, Greek philosophy. I'm sure he'd read Plato, all the other stuff. But then, as the great preacher says, he took the trumpet of the resurrection. He went down the street and when he saw the street, it was lined with churches as we would say. It was lined with places of worship. Oh, this doesn't stagger too many of us, does it? We just go down the street and say there's a Roman Catholic church, that's Jehovah's Witnesses, that's the Mormons, where the Hare Krishna meet there, and the Moonites meet there, and so on. Does it stir you that those people have been teaching false gods, and they rape people's minds just as a man might rape a girl's body? It says in the Sleepy Elizabethan English that when he saw all these people, colossal intellects many of them, and yet they were tricked and duped by false religion. And it says in the Sleepy Elizabethan English that his spirit was stirred within him. I'm not very fond of the Amplified, except where it agrees with me that the Amplified doesn't say his spirit was stirred within him. He says that when he saw all these people tricked, seduced by deceiving spirits, he was angry about it. Do you ever feel a holy anger? Okay, can you push over, there's quite a lot of people wanting to come in. Would you move that way and let them sit at the end here, on the end seats if you can. Move to the center, and then they won't have to move everybody else. We're going to have to put a gallery up. Lewis, there's some seats here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Now we'll have to take another offering, they came in late. We're dealing with 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and talking about, at the moment, we're talking about the 14th verse of the epistle to the Galatians, where Paul says, God forbid that I should glory. No man ever had a pedigree greater than the apostle Paul. Of the tribe of Benjamin, of the seed of Abraham, he has everything going for him. Again, I say, I believe he had a colossal intellect, I think he had a very brilliant mind. He met the philosophers, I said he began his life in the ancient capital of the world, Tarsus. He went to the intellectual capital of the world, which was Athens, and he reasoned with them there. And yet, there is no epistle of Paul to the Athenians. Why? Well, I'm not going to criticize Paul. I'm just going to say this, he didn't talk about redemption, but he did say, and they couldn't believe it, he took the gospel trumpet to his lips. And he sounded the resurrection. You see, they did have an altar to an unknown God, and he said, that's the unknown God I declare to you. He made the heavens and the earth, his son died and rose again, and he was resurrected. And they showed him the gate. No, we can't listen to that kind of stuff. From there, he went from the intellectual capital of the world, and he'd been also later to go to the religious capital of the world, Jerusalem. But he steps down from the place where they worship the brain, to the place where they worship the body, Corinth. In the days of the apostle, you didn't have to string a hundred adjectives together about a man's corruption, and his licentiousness, and everything else. You just tagged him with one word, he's a Corinthian. And immediately, you knew he was the vilest of the vile. And the old German commentator, Meyer, not F.B. Meyer, he was English, but F., the other Meyer, a German commentator says this, blessed and sublime miracle of God, that a church of Jesus Christ could be established in Corinth. Shakespeare said you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. God can do better than that. He can take the most depraved, despised, and rejected men, and make them saints to God. It says in the first of Samuel that he lifts the beggar from the dunghill, and makes them princes unto God. I remember about 15 or 16 years ago, when we were working with Dave Wilkerson in those days, when David was hardly known, and yet we had a full house. This side of the prayer chapel was filled with girls, this with men, and a little fellow stood up and he said, Brother Raven, let's come to preach for us. Little Puerto Rican fellow, his face was radiant, and he said before he sang, we stand up and sing. Sing the national anthem. Oh, I thought, but Lord, they sing the national anthem right before I preach. I didn't get what he said. He didn't say sing the national anthem. He sang our national anthem. He said, we sing our national anthem. So I thought the Puerto Ricans must have one. And he stood up there, and did you know he started to sing? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. It was grace that taught mine. It was grace. And you know, before we got to the end, when we'd be...