Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, Jesus is accursed. And no one can say, Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons, but to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. Last week we took a few moments to consider the opening of this section in verses one and two particularly that there was this idolatrous background in the Corinthian church. These believers were coming out of that. It's not as though they were just clean slates, as Scott noted to you a little earlier. They were coming out of all types of sinfulness in their Gentile backgrounds, not just sinful lifestyles, but also in the context of their worship. They worshiped pagan idols, and so that was in the background of everything that they did, and coming to Christ was a big change in the whole of their lives. It changed everything from the way they looked at life in its present context to the way that they looked at all of the background of their lives. They had to realize that all of the things and the identities, the ideologies, the idols, everything they had worshipped before, all that was false. And yet, Paul is saying some of that background is still a struggle in your minds, and you need to see it for what it is. And so we had two main points last week. Paul addressed pertinent content with the Corinthians. Hey, spiritual gifts are important. I don't want you to be unaware, brethren. There's some really important content here. And then number two, Paul addressed past culture with Corinthians. Well, now we move to these next verses, and particularly verse three this morning, to consider present issues among the Corinthian church, especially recognizing the true work of the Holy Spirit. As one writer noted, Because it is true that you Corinthians were once misled and cheated by your old religion, for this very reason, I want you to know that in the Christian religion, everything is entirely different. In what way? In the church of Christ, the Holy Spirit is active. Now you say, well, of course the Holy Spirit's active. Why is he stating that about the Corinthians? Why is he summarizing this idea that way? Well, you'll see this morning, hopefully by the end of this message, that this is an important idea and context to what Paul is dealing with. They do not understand the Holy Spirit. and they do not understand properly these spiritual gifts in the context of the Holy Spirit. They are viewing spiritual gifts in the context of who they are as individuals, and in pagan worship, you can have all kind of spirits and ideas and ideologies, and it all needs to come together and everybody go, your thinking's right. See, we may not have the temple of Aphrodite today like they did in Corinth then, but we have our own ideas and temples of worship in the culture. And one of these ideas is that it's okay if we have differences of opinion about who we worship or how we worship or even truth. Everybody can have their own truth. Well, the scripture says no, that's a lie. You can't have your own truth, there's just the truth. And God is the one that gives us the truth through his word and the truth that he gives us, that truth permeates the rest of our lives. But the Corinthians have taken this identification of spiritual gifts and they've melded it together with their past pagan worship and basically these spiritual gifts have become an entity unto themselves. And Paul says, you know what, you've forgotten the first and the foremost important thing is that these spiritual gifts are given from the Holy Spirit. And if you don't understand the Holy Spirit properly, you will not see these gifts worked out in the body of Christ properly. And you're going to have all kinds of confusion and frustration and chaos, which you already have. So I'm going to tell you what you need to see and understand. Well that brings us to the third main point in this section and chapter. This third main point, we'll deal with one main heading under that third main point this morning and then there'll be two others that follow. But the third main point, Paul addressed present concerns with the Corinthians. Paul had addressed pertinent content with the Corinthians, Paul had addressed past culture with the Corinthians, and now Paul addressed present concerns with the Corinthians. And the first and foremost issue that he addresses His letter A here as I have it, the Holy Spirit will enable a person to call Jesus their Lord. The Holy Spirit will enable a person to call Jesus their Lord. What we're seeing here is the Corinthians needed a lesson between error and truth. The Corinthians needed a lesson between error and truth. Now if we read this verse three it says therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. The exact background of the comment Jesus is accursed is not really known. Paul, nowhere else in his letters does he give us an indication of the exact background of that phrase, Jesus is accursed. Where that was coming from, who it was coming from, how it got there. And yet, over the centuries, there have been many theories as to how that phrase came about and what Paul meant by it. One major theory is that Paul spoke of Jewish leaders in the synagogues. Paul was saying, well, it was Jewish leaders. Remember from Acts 18, he went to these Jewish synagogues to preach, and as he's preaching, some of these Jews got really, really mad and upset about what he was preaching, and they wanted to be done with him. And Paul then, he got frustrated with him, says, you know what, I'm done with you. And so some say, well, it was these Jewish leaders in the synagogues that were using such a phrase as Jesus is accursed. It could be, but probably not. And one writer concluded it this way. He says, but why would Paul indirectly allude to leaders in Jewish synagogues? And why would he suddenly address Christians of Jewish descent When in verse 2, it's plain he was instructing believers who at one time had been pagans. Verse 2 is about this pagan ideology. So going into verse 3 and the phrase Jesus accursed, he's probably not dealing with Jewish leaders here. He's probably still dealing with these pagan things that are going on in the background. Well, a second theory, another major theory is that Paul addressed some Gnostic teachings. If you've not read much about the Gnostics, this was something that really took place and took form later after Paul's day. I don't think here this is really what Paul is dealing with. As one writer says, Paul's epistles to the Corinthians hardly support the suggestion that Gnosticism was rampant in Corinth. This assumption would gain credibility if it applied to events near the end of that century. We're looking at a letter that's written 50-ish A.D. somewhere in there, but Gnosticism doesn't really start to come to the forefront until the later first century, 90 A.D. and later, into the second century. Well, I think there may have been some Gnosticism in its infant forms in Paul's day, maybe. But that's not really the issue here because Gnosticism is not really addressed until later, well after this letter was written. Well, a third theory is that Paul was setting up a hypothetical renouncement to the statement Jesus is Lord. In verse three he says, nobody by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And so this third idea is that he's putting forward a hypothetical. He wanted to be able to tell them that nobody could say Jesus is Lord apart from the Holy Spirit. So in essence, Paul kind of brought forward this hypothetical phrase, Jesus is accursed, to help him make the point. Well, I would say that this too is unlikely and it's unlikely due to the way that Paul introduces both phrases in the text. Notice the beginning of verse three. Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the spirit of God says. Paul here is using a declarative. He's wanting to make something known. I want to make it known to you. That no one by the Spirit of God says this phrase, Jesus is accursed. Why would he want to make something known which is a hypothetical? Furthermore, this is not a statement of hypotheticals. Paul stated this opening phrase in the indicative mood. Now, most of the time, we don't walk around saying indicative mood. You don't say that all the time, unless you're a grammar person. My wife has this cup. I'm sorry, I get tickled with this. She has this mug that she puts her tea in. Something to the effect of, pardon me, I'm silently judging your grammar. One of the kids gave it to her because she's their grammar teacher and she's quite a stickler for grammar. We don't walk around saying indicative mood, some people may, but we don't walk around doing that all the time. But that's an important idea here in the text. Therefore, I make known to you. I make known to you is in the indicative mood. The indicative mood is to state a fact. You don't state facts in the hypothetical. When he uses that mood, he's using it in a declarative statement. If the whole sentence is a declarative statement stated in the indicative mood, stated to say the facts. Well, generally speaking, declaratives are not used with statements of fact to introduce a hypothetical. If you want to state a fact to someone, I want to make it known to you, you don't use hypotheticals to do that. If you wanna state a fact to someone, you use factual information to state the fact and deal with the information. I don't think this is a hypothetical at all. Some of you may remember a long time ago, there was a old show called Dragnet and the guy would walk up and knock on the door, just the facts, ma'am, just the facts. Well, that's what Paul's stating here is just the facts. Somebody, somewhere is saying Jesus is accursed. It's happening. They are aware of it, and Paul is saying, I don't want you to be unaware, brethren, from verse one, that anyone who says that cannot say it according to the Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit. It's not possible. So if that's happening among you and you hear it, you need to deal with that properly. That person is out of order. And they better not be speaking that in the worship of God. So I don't think it's a hypothetical. I think what he's doing here is a fourth idea He considers an emphasis on a proper teaching of the Holy Spirit. He's using factual information. If he doesn't want them to be unaware of spiritual gifts, I don't want you to be unaware, brethren, of the spiritual gifts, but you better be aware of something else first and foremost, because this something else He sets up the spiritual gifts and whatever you're going to say and think and do with these spiritual gifts, you better know this person or you're going to be in a lot of difficulty and trouble. I think here Paul is giving an emphasis on the proper teaching of the Holy Spirit. One theologian expressed it this way, Paul wishes to make known the meaning of the concept by the Holy Spirit, which occurs twice, once in relation with cursing Jesus and the other with respect to confessing him as Lord. In verse three here he says, therefore I make known to you, I want to make known to you this fact that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is their Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Paul is saying that these statements have occurred and here is the only reason for their occurrence. These people speaking this way are not indwelled by the Holy Spirit if they say Jesus is accursed. In essence, Paul in verse three is setting up the issue of the spiritual gifts in this way. Whatever thoughts they have on spiritual gifts and whatever Paul needs to address concerning the matter of spiritual gifts, one issue is for certain. The Holy Spirit is central to appropriately addressing these matters. This is why getting the doctrine of the Holy Spirit correct is so important, because if you don't get the doctrine of the Holy Spirit correct, you won't get spiritual gifts correct. Your identification of spiritual gifts will just go all over the place, and your use of the gifts will go all over the place, and how you view the gifts will go all over the place. And Paul says, you know what, Corinth, that's what's happening. And it's all because first and foremost, you haven't understood the Holy Spirit correctly. Well, this leads us to letter B. The context of the letter indicates pagan ideology influenced some sayings among the church. Pagan ideology influenced some sayings among the church. The problem here is that pagan deities could have many spirits according to their adherents. If you go and you read much on these pagan gods and you look at the Roman and the Greek gods, it's difficult to get an identification of what it meant to actually worship and be an adherent of one of these Greek gods or goddesses or Roman gods or goddesses. You're basically left up. In a sense, you were left up to the mindset of the individual adherent. Whatever they felt in the moment, they could say, this came from the gods. This is why we have to be so careful, and we know this in Bible study, about the identification of personal experience setting up our Christianity. No, our Christianity is set on the foundation of God's word. If my personal experience is leading and guiding all of my Christianity first and foremost, then I'm missing the context and the foundation of God's word as being the one true focus of my understanding of Christianity and how I live unto Christ. In pagan Worship and ideology the adherents basically could come up with anything they wanted to in the moment Something could happen to them Let's say it's the goddess Aphrodite is was very present in the day of Corinth something could happen to them in a relationship with someone and They could say well Aphrodite sent this my way Aphrodite was a statue of a woman What could Aphrodite actually do? She's made out of stone. She has eyes, but cannot see and ears, but cannot hear and a mouth, but cannot speak. She has hands and she cannot touch. And because she's made out of a stone, she has no soul. She's not a real being. She has no spirit. And so therefore, the adherence to these ideologies and these pagan identifications, you're left up to the spirit of the individual adherent and whatever they feel in the moment. Paul is saying to the church at Corinth, this is in your background, this is what you're doing with these spiritual gifts and none of this and how you're handling this is based on the Holy Spirit who provides these spiritual gifts. You're all working this out of your own spiritual background and personal experience and you're doing whatever you want, whenever you want. And Paul says, no, no, no. There was one writer on Greek goddesses and gods and worship who says the Greeks left behind no instruction manuals detailing the workings of their temples. Well, if there's no instruction manuals detailing the workings and worships of these temples, how in the world are you supposed to know what to do, when to do it, what to think, where to go? It's just left up to this personal experience of the adherence. And thankfully God hasn't done that to his people, has he? He's left us his word. Which quite frankly, God's word for the most part is very clear and understandable. Certainly there are places that are more difficult than others. Certainly there are some books that are more difficult than others. But the holistic view of God's word is very plain and very simple. The problem is we don't like what it says. It plainly says men and women are sinners before God and they have sinned against God and they are sinners by nature. And there's only one way that that can be remedied and rectified and reconciled and it's through repentance of your sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. That's the plainness of the word and people don't like that. Because what do we as humans and our sinful natures want to do? We want to figure out our own way to God. And we want it to feel good to us. And being told that I am a rebel who has rebelled against the one God who created all things and that in my very nature I hate him, And he has said, this is the only way, and I give it to you in my one word, that doesn't go along with a rebel. What does a rebel do? Rebel. If you don't think we're by nature's rebels against God, then just look at humanity and all of the different ways they try to say and try to find to come to God or spiritualism. Some people go as far as to just do away with it altogether and that they still find something to worship and it's usually themselves. Paul says this is all in the background. Well, number two under this letter A, the Corinthians needed a reminder of who enables belief in the truth. The Corinthians needed a reminder of who enables belief in the truth. As we noted earlier, Paul uses two phrases about the Spirit here. One phrase is the Spirit of God and one phrase is by the Holy Spirit. We have to note that what Paul is identifying here is that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. This is an identification of the Holy Spirit being one with the Son and the Father. This is an identification that the Holy Spirit is not some separate spiritual entity that floats around like a wraith or something. No, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one in essence. They may be distinct in subsistences or persons, but they are one and co-equal in essence. Paul is making it clear here. Whatever you blame on this Holy Spirit, you are actually blaming God himself for it. Whatever you put on to the Holy Spirit is what you are putting on to God. So you better be careful. Not only is he stating that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, he's also stating that spiritual gifts must be from the right spirit. Spiritual gifts must be from the right spirit. If you think about that for a moment, sometimes you know, I can be prone to do this just like anyone can. You can read an opening to a section and get on down here and you want to get on down to verse 10 or verse 9, and to another faith by the same Spirit. Verse 8, the knowledge according to the same Spirit. You want to talk about wisdom through the Spirit, the miracles in verse 10, the prophecies, the various kinds of tongues. Everybody wants to get down to that. Let's have all this discussion about the tongues and the healing. Who's going to be able to heal somebody? Is it going to be me? God, give me that one. I want that one. Give me that one. I want to do the tongues, God. Give me that one. From the very beginning, Paul is saying you need to be very careful what you want and what you think. Because if you do not have your thinking right, you will not want right. Spiritual gifts are from the right spirit. The right spirit is the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is of God himself. So whatever you want to give credence to and say, well, this was the Holy Spirit working in me. You better be able to check that up with scripture. I don't know how many of you have ever had this situation or not, but I've had it a few times and I know there's some others. But I've had people come up to me, especially in the early years of ministry, come up to me and say, I have a word from God for you. He gave it to me last night. In my prayer language, he gave it to me and now I'm coming to you to tell you the word of God for you from him. I'd rather the person just look at me and say, you know what, I was reading the scripture and I came across the scripture and it reminded me of this situation that you're in and I thought this scripture would be helpful because I think God speaks to your situation from his word. See, that's a person wanting to sensationalize what's going on in their life and as though they are the arbiter of truth. And I can identify with that. As a young Christian and a young minister, you want to know everything. You want to be able to answer everybody's questions. You want to be able to help everybody's problems. You want to save everybody you can. Oh gosh, the number of times I spoke to people that I just wanted to save them. Right then and there, I wanted to save them. And then sometimes we just start to say things in a way that's all from our personal experience and it has nothing really to do with the Word of God. And ultimately that means that we're not helping the other person at all. We're actually adding confusion to their life because now they have to decide, do I now start going to this individual who hears from God regularly so that I know what God has for my life? and go to the Word of God? Both? Even as elders and pastors, we have to be very careful that we're trying to speak to people about the truth of God's Word, that we're saying to them, thus says the Lord, and not thus says the elder in the moment at the time and how I feel. Even if I really, really, really want to help somebody as an elder, I need to be very careful because I might say something that's not really that helpful because it might be based more on my personal experience than it is the actual truth of God's word. Had to learn that over the years because sometimes I've made mistakes. I've opened my mouth at times when I shouldn't have. I should have looked at somebody and said, you know what, I have no idea what to do in your situation. But let's study the scripture and see. Maybe the Lord will give some indication from his word as to how to handle this better. Well under this second heading we note the importance that the Holy Spirit is of God and what we need is the Holy Spirit. First and foremost, well, letter B, the Holy Spirit is the gift to all believers. The Holy Spirit is of God, letter A. Letter B, the Holy Spirit is the gift to all believers. One writer says, whoever confesses Jesus as Lord has the Holy Spirit in his heart. This is true of all Christians, irrespective of any other gifts which they may have received from the Spirit. He goes on to say, Paul wants the Corinthians to understand this thoroughly when they consider the subject of spiritual gifts in detail. The fundamental gift is the Holy Spirit himself, he says, through whom we confess Jesus as Lord. And then later, he goes on and says this, in truth, if we had no other gifts, The supreme gift would be the blessedness and riches of the Holy Spirit that are enough. In essence, this writer is saying a person may discuss all the spiritual gifts they want to, but apart from the regenerate, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in the soul of a person, nothing else matters. I could say I was speaking in tongues. But what would it matter if I was not regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit and able to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit indwell me that I would be being sanctified? That was bad grammar, but we got it in there. If I don't have that, what's it matter? If I walked into a hospital and healed 40 people, but the Holy Spirit of God had not changed my soul, what's it matter? Even these last few weeks, sometimes sitting in my own study, I've been, I've been preaching God's word literally since I was 17 years old. Not saying I've done it well. I'm just saying I've been doing it that long, but it just reminded me of the gospels. What would it mean to show up before Christ and say, Christ, I preached your gospel since I was 17. And say, depart from me, I never knew you. So many times I see so many things in my own life that aren't in congruency with the truth of God's word. Sin that I still deal with. weakness and faithlessness that I still deal with. Just because I may preach better than I did when I was 17, some of you may actually think I'm a decent preacher of some sort. All that really would mean nothing if the Holy Spirit had not changed me and made me new in Christ. I pray that that be true. I pray that I'm a sinner saved by grace and that I'm not just a man speaking stuff out of my mouth to one day find out I was never his to begin with. I'm thankful for the assurance I have, but that assurance is nothing in me. The assurance I have is all in Christ. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit continues to remind me of the necessity of his word and the necessity of the word continues to remind me that I have nothing in and of myself to offer God and that all my righteousness is filthy rags and I am reminded that what Christ has done is all I need. The foremost gift of the Holy Spirit is not new revelations, healings, or speaking in tongues. The foremost gift is himself indwelling the believer. The gift of the Holy Spirit in regeneration is the first and only blessing necessary to be declared right before God. One may speak in all the tongues they want to but that may mean nothing of one being declared right before a holy God that they would enter safely before him. They may heal or supposedly heal all that they want to but it will mean nothing if they have not been enabled to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ alone to save them from the debt and the guilt of their sin. They may go and preach God's word or think they preach it to the four corners of this world, although it's round and doesn't have corners. They may take it there, but if they have not been redeemed through the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ alone, it will mean nothing for their salvation. God will use it. but it will be nothing for their salvation. So the Holy Spirit is the gift to all believers. If you try to explain to a child that Jesus lives in their heart, they don't understand it because literalism sets in. And they're like, how can this man Jesus actually be in my body? Jesus's promise was that he would send the comforter, and how the Lord Jesus indwells his people is that he indwells them through the Holy Spirit of God. That the Holy Spirit indwells the soul of a man, and through indwelling their soul, changing them, he enables them to repent, believe, and to seek to know God more through his word. And they want to do it, they want to do it. Letter C, the Holy Spirit is the gift to all believers. Letter B, the Holy Spirit is of God. Letter A, letter B, the Holy Spirit is the gift to all believers. And letter C, the Holy Spirit enables believers to submit and call Jesus their Lord. The Holy Spirit enables believers to submit and call Jesus their Lord. One writer says, in view of Paul's emphasis on the Spirit, he is stressing the absence or the presence of the Holy Spirit by which people speak about Jesus. He's saying it is so important to get the Holy Spirit right because if you don't get the Holy Spirit right, you'll be with this group over here who says Jesus is accursed. Because even the person who doesn't have the Holy Spirit that doesn't physically say Jesus is accursed is the person that in their own spirit, they are living as though Jesus is accursed and he doesn't matter. But the one with the Holy Spirit, Only the Holy Spirit born-again person can call Jesus their Lord. Whatever we want to say about spiritual gifts, whatever discussions we want to have about services and effects of gifts and varieties of gifts and try to work through all of that and all those kinds of things, all that can be worked through. But before you work through any of that, you know what, what's most important? Have you been sealed by the Holy Spirit? Has the Holy Spirit worked in you that you would be regenerate, that you would be one who is being sanctified, and that you've been sealed by the Holy Spirit? Because only the Holy Spirit born again person can submit and call Jesus their Lord. Because you realize when you say Jesus is Lord, you are submitting to him as the one true Lord and King of all creation, of the whole of the cosmos. You are saying, I submit to him. He alone is who I follow. He alone is who I love. He alone is who I worship and adore. He alone is worthy of my praise and my honor. He alone is worthy of the glory that I can give to anything and all things. He alone, the Lord Jesus, I submit to Him. I may be thankful that some individual has become the President of the United States versus another individual. Fine and fair enough. But I do not submit to that man as though he is the creator of all time, space, and history. I only submit to the Lord Jesus through His Word and say, He is my King and there is no other. Well, lastly, this morning, only the Holy Spirit born again person can properly identify Jesus as Lord. Not only will they submit and call him their Lord, but only the Holy Spirit born again person can properly identify Jesus as Lord. In this text, notice Paul used Jesus's earthly name to coincide with the title Lord. When he speaks this here, he is using that earthly name to say, I want you to understand, Corinthians, what you're doing when you call Jesus Lord. You are identifying yourself not only with his deity, but with his humanity. Aphrodite is a statue and has walked nowhere. Aphrodite is a statue and she has spoken to no one. Aphrodite is a statue and she has looked into the eyes of no person, nor has she heard them speak. But the Lord Jesus came and he walked among us and we saw him and we touched him and we heard him. He says, when you call him Lord, he is Jesus your Lord. The one living God who created all things according to the purpose and power of the Father. He and the Father are one and yet he came and dwelt among us. And we saw him, we heard him, and we touched him. Paul is giving both the identification of Christ's humanity and deity in this passage, but he opens the very letter to the Corinthians with that identification. He calls Jesus Lord. He calls him the Son of God the Father. And he says, I am writing as one who is his apostle, his ambassador, one sent out from him. And Paul is saying you can only call him Lord according to the work of the Holy Spirit of God. So all these other spirits that might be in your mind or your background and all the identifications of what these spirits are, they mean nothing. They mean nothing. They are but garbage. They are dung unless you have been identified by the Holy Spirit. Well, this echoes the idea of the Apostle John. In closing, I remind you of his words, beloved, Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God. Ah, John and Paul think alike for some reason. I think there's no coincidence there. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. and every spirit that does not confess, Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist of which you have heard that is coming and now it is already in the world. Paul didn't say it directly to the Corinthians, but he implicitly gives an indication that the spirit of Antichrist is working among them because the spirit of Antichrist says Jesus is accursed. And he says don't listen to that. You need to listen to the truth of God in his word and his word tells us his son is Lord and he came and he walked among us. So before we talk about spiritual gifts, let's get the Holy Spirit right. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly father, you've been merciful to us to give us time in your word. By the power of your Holy spirit, will you continue to nurture and grow our understanding of your word and your truth that our hearts and minds would be conformed to the truth of your word that we would seek to live Christ-like lives before men. And even now as we come to a time of celebration and worship at the Lord's supper table, direct our minds in true confession of our sin that we would know our sins are forgiven in and through the shed blood and the broken body of your son. May we come to this table not in speculation but may we come in confession understanding that forgiveness has been accomplished and that those who come in genuine heart in confession of their sin will find forgiveness. through the shed blood of your son. It's in the name of the Lord Jesus we pray, amen.