Why 1/4 Division? part 1: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:01 Now today we’re going to look at chapters 1-4. 1/4th of this epistle is dealing with division. The cause of it and the cure of it. He’s dealing with splits. What causes a church to split? What causes a church to be divided? He’s going to give us the cause and he’s going to give us the cure. How many are interested? Yes. And I tell you, this guy is close to Jesus. He was with the apostles. This is the best speaker we can have for this seminar. First, he says in 1 Corinthians 1:10, as we said last week, we introduced this, that you all speak what? The same thing.

▶ 0:51 Boy, that’s a joke in America, isn’t it? Everybody has their own way of believing and talking and everybody wants to be accepted. Then he’s going to tell us why that we need to speak the same thing so that there is no what? Divisions among you. Be perfectly joined in the same mind and in the same judgment. See, be united in the way you understand things and the way you pass judgment on things. Why? Well, because Matthew 12:25, Jesus said, “Every kingdom, every city, every house, or Satan, if they’re divided against themselves, they cannot what? Stand.” You see these soldiers here?

▶ 1:46 You know, the Marine Corps doesn’t give everybody a different book when they come in according to how they feel the Marine Corps should be ran. They give them one book. They all got one rule. They all got to follow that rule. They all got to work together. See, the Marine Corps does it. Corporations do it. But not the American church. You see these guys carrying their buddy off in the field. Their motto is no brother is left behind. We step on one another. We got man they get wounded or they don’t they’re not in the same thought we are in. That’s their problem. So if it can be done in the world, if it can be done in the military, and the twel apostles did it folks, they all 12 spoke the same thing.

▶ 2:41 In fact, the added apostles, Barnabas, Paul, and some others, they all spoke the same thing. But in America, we got this mentality that we can all use our own opinions, our own belief system. Could that be true? So we see that it can be done in the secular world. It has been done in the spiritual world. And can we do it in America? Yes. Is God big enough to perform this? Yes. It’s just we got to respond. So the reason the American church isn’t standing, see the American church is declining. We’re not moving forward. We’re not gaining ground. We’re not getting souls saved. We’re not getting people mature. We’re not getting people to live committed Christian righteous lives. We’re declining.

▶ 3:32 While South America, Africa, Asia are all increasing. We are declining along with Europe. That’s the bottom line. You see, only 27% of Protestants go to church, for instance. And Jesus said, the Bible says what? Assemble yourself together even the more so as you see the day approaching. So we’re in the last days. We should be what? Coming together more so summoning Jesus, fellowshipping with him. Could that be true? Catholics, only 31% of Catholics go to a church, including Italy where their capital is. See, there’s a big decline. And not only that, we’re not just talking about going to church. We’re talking about their belief system. Uh Christians don’t believe in a virgin birth anymore.

▶ 4:23 They don’t believe there’s a hell or a lake of fire. Many of them don’t believe that Satan is a real being, a real spiritual being. Many of them do not believe that Christ was God. Everybody’s just sort of formulating their own mind. And as many of the modern churches say, whatever you believe is truth. If that’s what you believe, then that’s truth. See, that doesn’t work, does it? In the Bible. And so, we got a decline in America. And one of the reasons is the the American church can’t get united together. And so, we don’t fight the battle and win it. Because Jesus said, “When you’re divided, you can’t what? Stand.” These Marine Corps, if they didn’t get up there united, if one guy says, “Hey, it’s Sunday.

▶ 5:19 I’m not fighting today. Another guy said, “Man, I was up all night. I got to get my sleep.” Or another guy decides, “Hey, I don’t believe in killing.” Would they win a war? No. That’s what Jesus is emphasizing. Can we violate the words of Jesus Christ himself and then act like we’re some kind of successful church even though we are losing ground? See, that’s why I told you last week that song is not true to America. We’re not moving forward and we’re not gaining ground. We need to regroup, get united around the right things, and let Jesus move us forward. Could that be true? Now, this is a this is a teaching that very few people will even think about, let alone teach.

▶ 6:14 Division in the church world and this is exactly what we need to hear and one quarter of this epistle is given to division. So that means it’s what very important in judges or in John 7:24 judge not according to appearance but judge righteous judgment. He said this after he healed somebody on the Sabbath day and they said you can’t do that. You can’t heal people on the Sabbath day. Can’t do anything on the Sabbath day. He turned to them and he said this statement. And then he says, “You take your child to get circumcised on the Sabbath day. The priests minister every Sabbath day. You get your donkey out of the ditch on the Sabbath day.” All those are good things.

▶ 7:06 So see I can heal on the Sabbath day because evenness, fairness, equaleness spreads out. If you can do that, then I can heal. Do we understand? Okay. Now let me tell you this. Let’s come to America. All right. America says that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle and God created him that way. Now using this using this verse and Christ’s approach what that means is okay then adultery is okay. God created me you know to just run around having sex. See incest is okay. I can have sex with my children. I can have sex with my mother. And people go oh God.

▶ 7:57 Well, 50 years ago when we talked about homosexuals marrying and homosexual sex, we go, “Oh, goof.” But we don’t say that now. Are you with me? You see, sexual organs are okay. Sex with animals is okay. Why? Because you got to be even throughout the topic. See, this is why Paul is saying it’s important that we all speak the same thing, have the same knowledge, and unite in them so we can stand and we can have a voice in our nation. The church does not have a voice in this nation. We’re not having an effect on our nation. And it’s one of the main reasons is we’re not united. We can’t agree on basic stuff.

▶ 8:50 And this is what Paul’s telling us. How many agree with Paul? Yeah. Let Paul be the best speaker we got in this nation going on in this first chapter. Here’s a cause. The cause is selfish choices. There. Selfish means you’re only interested in your own interest, your own needs, your own beliefs. And they are more important than other people. And in this case, they’re more important than Jesus Christ and what he believes. Are you with me? See, that’s why it’s a selfish choice.

▶ 9:43 You see, you have no respect, no regard for Jesus Christ and the Bible for what it says. That makes it what? A very selfish choice. And this is the cause of division. It has been declared there are divisions, contentions, quarreling, strife among you. One says, I’m of Paul. I am of Paul. What’s one of the names of God by the way? I am. Why did they fall in the garden? Because the they had a Holy Ghost fit. Why did they fall backwards? Because Jesus said what? I am. He said his name. And his name was so powerful. Those secular people were knocked to the ground and they got right back up and arrested him.

▶ 10:39 You see, I shortened this so I could get it on one line. I’m means I am. And so, we make a God out of Paul. We make a God out of Apollos. We make a God out of Peter. There’s four divisions in this church. One is around Paul. He’s an intellectual that went to the third heaven. Oh man, that’s the spiritual. Third heaven. That’s my boy. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Saw things that couldn’t be uttered. He persecuted the the people of God before, you know. Oh, yeah. I was on drugs, man. I got to I got to get with people that are on drugs. Uh, you know, I was into gangs. I got to get with people that are in the gangs. Do we have that kind of churches today in America? Absolutely.

▶ 11:30 Apollos was a great speaker. Excellent speaker. Like Obama. Obama co makes us believe lies. He’s so good. Good speaker. And Peter, oh, Peter, he’s your boot collar every day, you know, come to church as you are person. You know, he’s a businessman. Oh, man. He denied Christ. He messed up in his life. I like people that messed up in their life. That’s my boy Peter. Yeah, these intellectuals and these educated people. Give me that uneducated. The Bible says that Peter was uneducated. So we we go to the uneducated church. Are you with me? You see now we got a lot more than four divisions in American church today.

▶ 12:27 And the last group is I am of Christ. One group has got it right. And Paul proves it. He says, “Is Christ divided into Paul and Peter and Apollos?” No. See, did did Paul was Paul crucified for you? No. You see, were you baptized in Paul’s name? No. So if that’s not true, why are you divided? You should be united around Jesus Christ, his death, his burial, his resurrection. Amen. And of course, his word. So cure number one, follow that means imitate, pattern yourself after Jesus.

▶ 13:28 People say, “Well, I’m following this group.” You better not be following any group. I don’t care if you’re a Baptist, a Catholic, a Presbyterian, an independent, a Jew, or whatever. The Bible tells us to what? Follow Christ. He was the one that died for us. He’s the one that we get baptized in. He’s the one that saved us. He’s the one that that’s God, not ministers or a church group. Some people I talk to people that defend their group even I had one person say when I told them you know their prophet prophesied it was a spiritfilled church and the prophet prophesied that this woman could leave her husband and I told that woman the Bible says not to.

▶ 14:22 And she told me I don’t care what the Bible says that’s a man of God. Are you there? See, I deal with this all the time. Baptists will defend their Baptist doctrine. Presbyterian, their Presbyterian doctrine. Independence, their independence. That folks, we need to get Jesus Christ and his doctrines. Jesus is in unity with God. He said, “I only do the will of my father.” Can we say that? Is our church group only doing the will of the father? Is my preacher hero only doing the will of the father? See, Jesus only did the will of the father. He’s in unity with with God.

▶ 15:14 He’s sinless. Is your preacher sinless? Your pastor, your TV evangelist, are they sinless? Boy, what I read, they’re far from it. Sexual immorality, taking the church’s money, living rich while the people live poor, died for us, and cleansed us through water baptism. Preachers today won’t even speak the truth because they don’t want to lose the the offering so that they can live good. If they have a threat of going to jail for preaching truth, forget it. But not Jesus. See, he spoke the truth and that’s why he died. And if we spoke the truth more, more people would be mad at us. More people would be persecuting us.

▶ 16:06 But when we just start agreeing with everything and compromising what? There’s no threat. If a lot of these big churches actually spoke like Jesus spoke, most of the congregation would leave. Isn’t that true? It It’s true. They come to be entertained. They’ve come to be flattered. They come to be inspired with motivational speaking and so forth. So that is cure number one. How many raise your hand and say, “I agree with that cure. I agree with Paul.” Yeah. See, we got to make good choices here. Now, here’s another cause. Who baptized me? Who baptized me? You know, if you go to the Catholics, they sprinkle.

▶ 16:58 If you go to the Protestants, they submerge. Most of them. In fact, the Baptists are so divisional, there’s 120 different denominations of them, the last time I counted. And one of them, I’ll never forget, was the 500gallon Baptist. You had to have 500 gallons in the baptismal tank before you could baptize because someone got baptized and a girl with long hair and her hair floated on top of the water and they couldn’t get her all the way in. So, we got to have 500 gallons of water in that tank from now on. That’s the truth. Oh, do I baptize them in the name of Jesus or in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Ghost? Or I folks, it’s not the method. It’s the truth behind the the baptism. And Paul would not baptize but just of three people because he didn’t want people saying what he’s baptizing in his name.

▶ 18:00 And I guarantee you when you go to another church and you want to join them, a lot of them are going to rebaptize you. There’s something wrong here. Cure number two, it’s not the person, it’s not the method or the church group that baptized you. It’s Jesus who the Bible says puts to death the old man of sin in water baptism and you come up a new creature. Old things passed away, all things made new. Now, how many would rather have that kind of baptism? Baptism. Yes. See, it’s not the method. We start worshiping methods. It is the truth of what God asked us to do, our response. Now, that’s good.

▶ 18:51 Paul’s good so far. Don’t you agree with him? Yes. Okay. Another cause, selfishness limits God’s power. Okay. When we make selfish choices, we limit or we neutralize God’s power. Third cure verses 17- 18. Preaching Christ, Paul says, preaching his gospel and preaching the cross is the what? Power uh and the wisdom of God. You see, in us Pentecostal circles or charismatic circles or our tongue-talking circles, you know, we we think the power is because the preacher shaken or under the anointing or whatever.

▶ 19:55 And Paul said, “What? Where the where’s the power?” In the preaching of Christ, his gospel, and the cross. Amen. And it has nothing to do with the messenger. It has to do with the message. Paul’s hitting some things that the American church needs to get. And you young believers and you young people, you need to get this in your understanding. You will save yourself and a lot of other people a lot of headaches tomorrow. If you can understand what Paul’s talking about, there’s not a Catholic baptism or wisdom. There’s not a Protestant baptism or wisdom. There’s not a Jew or a Muslim. There is one Christ, one gospel, and one cross.

▶ 20:53 Amen. And we cannot promote our group. Our group has to line up with Jesus. And when a Muslim says that Jesus didn’t die on the cross, they’re saying Jesus is a liar. There’s something wrong. Because Jesus himself said, “I’m going to die.” Ain’t that right? And the Muslims will say, “Well, God can’t die.” That is true. That’s why Jesus said, “I lay down my life. No man has power to take my life. I lay it down.” Hallelujah. Another cause of division is selfish signs and intellect. Some people want to see signs.

▶ 21:45 I’ll believe if I can see a sign. Show me a miracle. Others, you know, they want you to appeal to their intellect, their human intellect. Verse 22 of chapter 1, Paul says, “The Jews require a sign. The Gentiles seek human wisdom. Thus they see Jesus as a stumbling block and foolishness. Stumbling block means you are strayed from the truth. You see they can’t handle the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. He came. He was the prophet. He was the king and he was the Messiah to come. And the Bible says if you don’t believe on Jesus, you are what? Condemned already because you haven’t believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, the prophet to come.

▶ 22:44 You haven’t put your trust. You’re putting your trust in the Jewish religion. You’re not putting your trust in Jesus Christ. How many Protestant churches and Catholics today have their trust in their religion and not in Jesus Christ? But the Greeks, they seek after intelligence. But the Greeks agreed with slavery. The Greeks did a lot of things that shouldn’t have been through intelligence. And yet they wanted the intelligent the human mind approach. Okay? So it the preaching of the cross was foolishness. How can somebody be born of a virgin and lay down their life and claim to be God and pick it up again?

▶ 23:36 That’s just crazy. Yes, in the human mind it is. You see, the evolutionist cannot believe in the human mind that God made something out of nothing. See, they can’t conceive that. So, they’ve been working for over a hundred years trying to figure out how the earth came into being without a God. Fourth cure, Jesus is our wisdom and our sign. Verses 24-31. He’s our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption, our God and our glory, our bragging. You see, I can’t brag about my denomination. I can’t brag about my preacher. I can’t brag about myself.

▶ 24:29 My bragging should be what? Jesus who did this for me. And if I have anything, it came from him. Now, isn’t that good logical teaching? Absolutely. And you know when we start bragging on people, their head gets lifted up and they get prideful. Remember Jesus said there’s no sign given except my death, my burial, and my resurrection. Do you remember that? See, God gave us a sign. All right. Paul’s doing great. America needs to hear Paul. The next cause is natural speaking skills, which I don’t have.

▶ 25:22 Thank God that you can preach the gospel without being a great speaker. My wife’s always on my case because I say words wrong. And you know, down south, we don’t say restaurant. We say restaurant. We don’t say shower. I’m going to take a shower. We say, I’m going to take a shower. Hallelujah. And you can take the boy out of the hills, but you can’t take the hills out of the boy. Oh, you guys should have heard me 30 years ago when I first went to the vine. Boy, I really had an accent, huh? They’re ruined. They’ve ruined me. They’ve made me a California uh speaker. I spoke not God’s mystery, which is what Christ crucified, Jesus’s God, the gospel.

▶ 26:19 I spoke not the mystery, the thing that would hidden since the beginning of time. See, but now revealed in excellent speech of what? The natural man. He said, I didn’t do that. I didn’t get up with my little you know homalytical thing and and you know the introduction the the in between and the conclusion he said I came the fifth cure see is to speak by the spirit and God’s power my speech was in weakness see he wasn’t dependent on himself himself and his abilities. My speak was in fear. Is God going to back this up and trembling? Yeah.

▶ 27:11 Am I going to look like an idiot or is God going to come through in demonstration of spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God and in what the Holy Spirit teaches? You see now how can I teach beyond a shadow of a doubt by the spirit. Jesus said my word is spirit. So when I speak or I sing scriptures I am in the spirit. You can’t get higher. That feeling I get and that I I like the feeling when God comes. But it’s not any higher than the word. Because the word is what? Spirit. Are you there? Yes. The word is also what?

▶ 28:04 The power of God. The word of God is powerful than any two-edged sword. And so, we have the power when we have his word. But when we get over to men’s understanding and our church doctrines that aren’t lining up with Christ, we lose what? The power and we’re not in the spirit. I don’t care if you shakamula or not. If you’re not speaking the word, it’s not in the spirit. Wow, that was good. And I told my daughter, I I had to wade through this stuff when a young Christian. I had to get before God on my knees with that Bible open and and and and learn this stuff because they’re pushing you one way and Jesus is drawing you toward him and you know you either have to start pleasing them and displease Christ or you got to just you know back off and the certain areas and pursue Christ and how you know the tendency is to want the approval of men.

▶ 29:22 Ain’t that right,. Man? I want my buddy to pat me on the back and say, “I’m doing good. Forget Jesus.” Hallelujah. Now, isn’t that a good cure for division in America today? Yes. Okay. Here’s another one. Oh, Paul is Paul, you know, he he he doesn’t use a lot of empathy when he speaks. Sometimes here he’s talking to these people and he says, “Hey, the reason you got division, you people are divided, is because you’re carnal.” Carnal means not spirit, not spiritual, fleshly. You’re making decisions by the human intellect, by your emotions.

▶ 30:14 And no spirit is involved. That’s what carnality is. All right? He says you’re carnal. You’re baby Christians. Oh my gosh. These guys, some of them have been saved for three years. Babies can’t feed themselves. Babies can’t go anywhere. They got to be carried. Babies can’t clean the dirt off of themsel, the dung. You’re babies, can’t talk. I have fed you with milk. Babies can’t handle meat or vegetables or anything. They can’t digest it. I hope you can digest this message today because this isn’t milk.

▶ 31:14 Paul Paul is not talking about milk in this subject, is he? He says you can’t handle meat. The meat of the word, by the way, is righteousness. Okay? It’s found in uh end of the chapter of Hebrews 5. All right? It’s righteousness. It’s moral living. It’s truth. See, the meat is the truth. Unbendable, unswwaying truth. For thus far, nor now were you able to bear it, you are yet carnal and walk as what? Men, just everyday secular people. Why? Why does Paul know this? Because you are jealous of other people.

▶ 32:05 You envy them and you quarrel and divide and separate from them. That’s why I know you’re carnal and you’re a baby and walk as men and you can’t handle the meat of the word. Man, he’s blunt, isn’t he? Can you imagine be sitting in that conference back there in Corinthians and he’s looking at you and you’re one under Apollos. You’ve been you’ve been promoting Apollo and and and or maybe you’re one under Peter. You’ve been promoting Peter and he’s talking like this and he’s letting everybody know that this guy that’s telling you that Peter’s better than others is a baby. Woo! You want to scoot down in your chair and kind of hide. Hallelujah. What’s the cure?

▶ 33:01 Hebrews 6:1, leave the baby doctrines of Christ and go on to what? Perfection, completeness, the meat of the word. Go on to maturity, grow up. Second Peter 1:4-9, unto us is given exceedingly great and precious promises that you might be partakers of the divine nature. Not Paul, not Apollos, not Peter, but Jesus Christ’s nature, his character. Isn’t that good, folks? I can be a partaker. That’s where the power is. The power here is, remember we showed you there was no recorded miracle here. There was no recorded tongues of fire place shaken or any miraculous manifestation of God.

▶ 33:59 It was just Peter reasoning and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ with power that changed people’s lives. Remember 1/4 of this group is in unity with Christ. Hallelujah. Remember that they’re not divided. Now, you need to know what baby doctrine is. Repentance is a what? Baby doctrine. So, you repent. Okay. Goody goody for you. Let’s grow up and take on morals that we have to repent a lot less because we’re doing right. Faith. Oh man, I got faith. I can move mountains. I got faith. Hallelujah. I got faith to heal the sick and all that. That’s a baby doctrine.