(#027) - History Will Judge Us as the Biggest Suckers of All Time

Class Outline:

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The solution is easy and already provided within His believers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome To 

BARAH MINISTRIES

a Christian Church

 

Rory Clark

Pastor-Teacher

 

Good Morning!

 

Welcome to Barah Ministries…an intimate, local Christian Church with worldwide impact.  My name is Pastor Rory Clark.  At Barah Ministries we know this truth…that Jesus Christ is God.  As Lord He is 100% Deity…He is God the Son.  He is also 100% human just like you and me and His name is Jesus Christ.  The Lord…God the Son…became flesh…Jesus Christ...and lived among us.  He is the uniquely born One…the God-Man…He is the Sovereign God of the Universe…He is the Savior of the whole world…and He is the Jewish Messiah.  

 

Those who make Barah Ministries their spiritual home are Christians…we are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and we have a deep, intimate, and personal relationship with the Lord.  Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.  The Lord Jesus Christ is a Person…He’s not a thing and He’s not a concept.  Just as we do with anyone we love, we spend time getting to know the Lord through the study of His Word because you can’t get to know the Lord without knowing His mind.  The Bible is His exact thinking.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

History Will Judge Us as the Biggest Suckers of All Time

 

If we’re being honest with ourselves, which we seldom are, most of us are mad as hell.  The anger present within us seeks its expression through “social” media rants.  Facebook, Instagram, Twitter…and as I think of it, even the mainstream media…are the vehicles to vent this anger.  It brings to mind the character Howard Beale from a 1976 movie Network, which you probably haven’t seen.  Upon finding out that he was about to be fired from his long-standing job as a network anchor, Howard goes on a rant on network television.  His rant included the words, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”  He ends up inciting people all over the country to express their anger.  The movie was voted one of the ten best screenplays in the history of cinema.

 

We would do well to start a similar rant.  But unlike Beale, we’re mad as hell, yet we are content to keep on taking it.  We refuse to stand up against the things we’re mad about.  For our lethargy, for our refusal to change, we will be judged as the biggest sucker generation of all time.  The ways we have sold ourselves and given up on ourselves are too numerous to list in an hour or so.  In today’s lesson, as we turn our attention back to our study of First Corinthians, I’d like to share a few reflections on our plight.

 

SONG INTRODUCTION

 

Let’s get started with music!  Every parent knows that when their kids are scared, they grab the parent’s hand.  God expects the same thing from us.  Second Corinthians, Chapter 12, Verses 9 and 10…

 

SECOND CORINTHIANS 12:9

And the Lord has told me (Paul…a truth that is an absolute fact), “My grace is sufficient for you…for divine power is perfected in human weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

 

SECOND CORINTHIANS 12:10 

Therefore, I (Paul) am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake…for when I am weak, then I am strong.

 

Why does God allow tribulation in our lives?  Because when we are weak, He expects us to run to Him…and June Murphy has a suggestion in a song about what God expects when we run to Him…a song called TAKE MY HAND.

 

MUSIC AND REFLECTION

Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ

Enjoy the Singing of His Praises

 

TAKE MY HAND

June Murphy

 

OPENING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

We’re grateful, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…

 

Father, thank you for illuminating our challenges every time we come to hear your Word…thank you for giving us a simple single source, the Bible, from which we can learn Your truths about what it takes to have an amazing life…and even though it takes us years to believe what You're telling us as true, thanks for being an ever-present refuge for us…

 

Father, give us the desire to change…give us the courage to change…give us the urgency to change and to do the things You suggest…

 

…we ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit…in Christ’s

name...Amen.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

History Will Judge Us as the Biggest Suckers of All Time

 

According to the Declaration of Independence…

 

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

We hold these truths to be self-evident…that all of us are created equal…and that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights…and among these rights are Life…Liberty…and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

Are you happy?

 

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these

ends…it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish such

government…and to institute new Government…

 

Has our government become destructive?

 

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object…evinces a design to reduce us under absolute Despotism…it is our right…IT IS OUR DUTY…to throw off such Government…and to provide new Guards for our future security.

 

Are we ONCE AGAIN living in tyranny?

 

I’ll save you the suspense.  We are.  But I don’t blame the government.  I blame us.  They’re doing what we allow them to do.  This country was founded by a group of men who were mad as hell and decided not to take it anymore.  I wanted to begin this lesson reminding you of what the desire for freedom sounds like…because believe me…you have forgotten.  Galatians, Chapter 5, Verse 1 reminds us as well…

 

GALATIANS 5:1

It was for freedom that the Lord Jesus Christ set us believers in Christ free… therefore keep on standing fast in the freedom, and do not EVER entangle yourselves again to a yoke of slavery.

 

In God’s plan, after death comes life.  We saw this last week as we celebrated the Lord’s death on a Cross and then His resurrection from the dead three days later.  We are experiencing a form of death right now… we have reentered slavery…we are back on the plantation…we are being robbed of our rights and our freedoms.  This is not new.  It’s been happening for a really long time.  We’ve known it all along…we aren’t ignorant…but we have laughed at it…as if we think it is cute.  But it isn’t cute at all.  We’re taking it.

 

We have raised a generation of kids that we can’t stand.  They can’t read, they can’t think, they can’t finish a sentence without misusing the word “like” …the word “literally” … and the word “random.”  They don't have a work ethic…we know it…and we're mad as hell about it…but we don’t do a thing to change it.  If video games produced revenue, we’d all have billionaire children.

 

We have a government that is allegedly made up of some of the smartest people in the world, and yet they ignore (with our permission) a fundamental principle of budgeting:  it is FOOLISH to spend money you don’t have.  But because we follow their lead in our own personal finances, we don’t take them to task about bankrupting our country.

 

We marry for romantic love.  We know in our heart of hearts because we have seen it ad infinitum…endlessly…that romantic love does not sustain a relationship…yet we look forward to having our children spend ,000 on a destination wedding only to be divorced two years later from a person we knew they would never be able to make it with.  We’re mad as hell…but we keep thinking that somehow our fantasies will work out.

 

We want to be rich, so we play the lottery.  By playing the lottery we allow our government to rob us of wealth.  We go to Las Vegas and we willingly premeditate giving away multiple mortgage payments for a chance to “get rich quick” by playing games, when the odds are 250,000,000 to 1 against us.  

 

We believe political parties and politicians who tell us that they will forgive our debts and give us free healthcare because we “deserve it,” and their promises never really come true.  But we believe them anyway.  

 

We sin and think we can “get away with it.”  We expect to prosper without doing the work.  We work at jobs we hate.  And now we have been forced into our homes to witness the complete theft of our lifestyles, and we’re allowing it.

 

We’re mad because we know we are SUCKERS, and history will judge us as such.  

 

Well after death comes life in God’s plan, and there is no doubt in my mind that God will free us once again.  He will deliver us from this fascism being perpetrated by invisible spiritual forces…not visible human ones…beings who do not have our best interests in mind.  God will restore our light and our lives.  Because of our God, we have hope.  But if history has taught us anything, we know that as soon as He frees us, we will run right back to the slavery we crave.  We won’t listen to Him.  The Bible predicted our stupidity over two thousand years ago in Second Timothy, Chapter 4, Verses

3 and 4…

 

SECOND TIMOTHY 4:3 

For the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine…but wanting to have their ears tickled (being told what they want to hear instead of the truth they need to hear) … they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires…

 

SECOND TIMOTHY 4:4 

…and they will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn instead to myths.

 

In other words, we’ll be SUCKERS.

 

God doesn’t want us to be suckers.  He offers us a spiritual life so that we can have a life filled with real meaning and real love…unconditional love.  But we ignore Him.  When we study the Bible, we get to see in others what we are doing ourselves…yet we miss it that the lesson is for us.  

 

We are studying the first letter of Paul to the church he established at Corinth.  By way of reminder, Corinth was the Las Vegas of the first-century world.  What happens in Corinth stays in Corinth!  It’s the place where people went to sin.  It was a Roman colony, and a great place to “let your hair down” without having to be noticed by the people that know you.

 

The Corinthian culture was filled with people who engaged in orgies, and usury, and the worship of pseudo-gods, and other repugnant lifestyles.  God planted a church right in the middle of Corinth, sending the apostle Paul to start the church.  Paul spent eighteen months in Corinth, and then moved on to Ephesus…and then all hell broke loose in Corinth.

 

As we study the lives of the believers at Corinth, we may have occasion to be a bit appalled by what they are doing.  We ought to be appalled as we see ourselves in them.  All of us sin regularly, even though as believers in Christ we have had the righteousness of God, our ticket into heaven at physical death, imputed to us since the moment of our “so great” salvation.  We are no better than the believers at Corinth.  We are human.  In fact, we are much worse because we have so many more resources available to us than they did, yet we don’t take advantage of them.

How beautifully Amy Carmichael, a nineteenth-century Christian missionary to India, puts it in her small but penetrating book IF.

 

AMY CARMICHAEL - IF

IF I belittle those whom I am called to serve…IF I talk of their weak points in contrast with what I think of as my strong points…IF I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting “Who made you to differ? And what have you that you did not receive from God?” …  

 

AMY CARMICHAEL - IF

…then I know nothing of the UNconditional love the Lord displayed at Calvary.

 

AMY CARMICHAEL - IF

IF I take offense easily…IF I am content to continue in a cool unfriendliness…though friendship be possible…then I know nothing of the UNconditional love the Lord displayed at Calvary.

 

AMY CARMICHAEL - IF

IF I feel bitter towards those who condemn me…as it seems to me… unjustly forgetting that IF they knew me as I know myself, they would condemn me much more…

 

AMY CARMICHAEL - IF

…then I know nothing of the UNconditional love the Lord displayed at Calvary.

 

Well, I raise my hand…guilty as charged.  God puts the slowest learners upfront.  I am quite mad at myself for my own lethargy.  Isn't it time for us to be through with this malaise?  Isn't it time for us to stop blaming our favorite whipping boys for our problems?  Isn't it time for us to claim our birthright as Christians outlined in Philippians, Chapter 4, Verse 13?

 

PHILIPPIANS 4:13

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

 

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?  Because if you believe what God is saying, you can’t fail!  When are you going to be mad as hell but stop taking it?

When we return from our five-minute break, we’ll take your offering, and then we’ll continue looking in the mirror the believers in the Corinthian church provide for a lifestyle that just doesn’t work.

 

FIVE MINUTE BREAK

NOBODY

Casting Crowns

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

History Will Judge Us as the Biggest Suckers of All Time

 

When God blesses us financially, He wants us to raise our standard of GIVING, not our standard of living.  Be generous so that Barah Ministries can pass along the gift of the gospel message to the people who are flocking our site.  Let’s welcome up Deacon Denny Goodall with the offering message.

 

THE OFFERING

Deacon Denny Goodall

 

OFFERING VERSE

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 6:19-20

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God the Father, and that you are not your own?  For you have been bought with a price…therefore, glorify God in your body.

 

OFFERING SONG

THERE IS NONE LIKE YOU

David Bauer, Instrumental

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

History Will Judge Us as the Biggest Suckers of All Time

 

Where we left off when the global pandemic hit is in the middle of First Corinthians, Chapter 6.  By way of reminder…in the first six chapters of First Corinthians, Paul discusses the problems brought to him by Chloe’s people and others.  In First Corinthians, Chapters 7 to 16, Paul will be addressing the concerns and offering spiritual solutions to the problems.  Every human problem has a spiritual solution.  This week, I urge you to go back…to take a look at the first five chapters of First Corinthians that we studied, and to catch yourselves up so that we can proceed.  I sent the first five chapters to you through Deacon Larry Collins last night.  If you didn’t get it, please let him know.

 

What were some of the problems outlined in the first five chapters of First Corinthians?  Elitism.  Divisions.  Rivalries.  Incest.  Where do these issues show up in your life?  What are you doing about it?  First Corinthians, Chapter 6 picks up with the next set of issues…lawsuits and consorting with prostitutes.

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 6:1

Does any one of you, when he has a legal case against his neighbor (a fellow believer), DARE to go to law before the unrighteous (unbelievers-outsiders) and not go to law before the saints (the righteous ones-insiders)?

 

Paul is mortified that believers in Christ would go to unbelievers to settle a legal case…a dispute…rather than settling it among themselves.  In Paul's mind, this breaks the fellowship and the unity of believers, prompting more divisions and rivalries.  This promotes competition in the congregation rather than cooperation.  Where is the unconditional love, man?!  Paul is saying that it is better to settle a dispute in a moral church than in a corrupt court in front of judges who are not walking in the light…Christianity.  Paul is disgusted by this decision by the believers in the church at Corinth.

 

The state of California comes to mind.  I would never want to own a business in California.  The entire court system is antagonistic toward businesses, and business owners and leaders are completely unable to function because of the laws stacked against them.  Business owners are mad as hell, yet they continue to take it.

 

The court justice Paul experienced in his day was unjust imprisonment on multiple occasions.  He had every right to have a jaundiced in his accurate view of the court system of the day.  He wrote many of his letters from prison.  Acts, Chapter 16 in Verses 22 to 24…

 

ACTS 16:22

The crowd rose up together against Paul and Silas, and the chief magistrates tore the robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods.

 

ACTS 16:23 

When they had been struck with many blows, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them securely…

 

ACTS 16:24 

…and the jailer, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

 

It was unlawful to treat Roman citizens this way...to flog them publicly without a trial.  But the magistrates thought that because Paul and Silas were Jews, that they couldn’t be Roman citizens.  They were wrong.

 

First Corinthians, Chapter 6, Verse 2…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 6:2 

Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you as saints …are you not competent to judge the most trivial legal cases among yourselves? 

 

Whenever Paul asks, “Do you not know,” he’s referring to something the Corinthians have been taught.  Because we are in union with Christ as Church Age believers, we will sit as judges of the world.  Paul is really asking them why they are being so ignorant in a matter in which they should know better.

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 6:3 

Do you not know that as saints we will judge angels?  How much more, then, will we (be competent enough to) judge the ordinary matters of this life? 

 

Once again Paul asks, “Are you ignorant?”  As members of the Creator-creature conflict, we are serving as judges of the angels that refused God’s reconciliation offer after their fall…the fallen angels.  Paul is simply doing for these believers in the Corinthian church what I do for you every week… he is reminding them who they are in union with Christ.  First Corinthians, Chapter 4, Verse 9…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 4:9 

For, I (Paul) think, God has displayed us apostles (your teachers) as last out

of all…as men condemned to death…so that we might be a spectacle (a theatron) to the world…both to angels and to men.

 

First Corinthians, Chapter 6, Verse 4…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 6:4 

So, if you set up law courts dealing with the trivial matters of this life, why don’t you appoint as judges those who are held in contempt (men of little account…persona non grata) within your own church? 

 

Paul is suggesting that the ones the elitist believers in the Corinthians church perceive as the weakest believers…the ones God would use to shame the wise believers…should be used because they would be perfect judges in trivial matters.  To the angels, humans are so much lesser than them. Angels are elitist when it comes to humans, much like humans are with animals.  We don’t see animals as equals.  Yet humans (the weak) will judge the angels.  God has set a precedent in the matter of whom is qualified to judge…the weak are qualified to judge, but NOT unbelievers judging believers.

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 6:5 

I (Paul) say all of this to shame you (elitist believers in the Corinthians church)!  Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 6:6 

…instead brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? 

 

Like the Corinthians, we have been taught.  We know better than to be mad and to just take it.  Undoubtedly our current pandemic is the creation of the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.  If you’re wondering why God allows it, you might look at the lifestyles you have created.  Maybe it’s time to be mad at yourselves for believing deceptions rather than blaming everyone else for what is happening to you.  

Maybe it’s time to stop being suckers.  Maybe it’s time to believe our God.  Galatians, Chapter 6, Verse 7…

 

GALATIANS 6:7

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked…for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

 

Hosea, Chapter 8, Verse 7…

 

HOSEA 8:7

For they sow the wind and they reap the tornado.

 

Even Israel of the Old Testament taught us the lessons we have failed to learn.  I’m mad as hell.  Join me…in not taking it anymore.  Let’s listen to our God and let’s actually HEAR what the Holy Spirit is saying to the churches.

 

GOD WANTS YOU!

Make the Most Important Decision of Your Life

 

The closing moments of our study are for the benefit of anyone who does not have a personal relationship with the Sovereign God of the Universe, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We want you to know that GOD WANTS YOU. 

 

Are you a sinner or a saint?

 

According to the Bible, all of us come to earth as sinners.  Romans, Chapter 3, Verse 23 says…

 

ROMANS 3:23

…all creatures have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…

 

Romans, Chapter 3, Verse 10…

 

ROMANS 3:10

…it is written, "There is no creature who is righteous, not even one…”

 

Unfortunately, being a sinner has a penalty.  Romans, Chapter 6, Verse 23…

 

ROMANS 6:23

For the payment earned for being a sinner is both spiritual death and physical death…

 

Being a sinner is bad news, especially if you die as a sinner.  Revelation, Chapter 20, Verse 15…

 

REVELATION 20:15

And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life (at the Great White Throne Judgment of unbelievers) … and that will be true for many…he was thrown into the Lake of Fire.

 

The Bible has good news for you if you’re a sinner!  You can choose to become a saint!  The Sovereign God of the Universe, the Lord Jesus Christ and His God and Father have special plans for sinners…Romans, Chapter 5, Verse 8…

 

ROMANS 5:8

But God the Father demonstrates His own unconditional love toward all mankind…in that while we were yet sinners (while we were unrighteous, ungodly, unbelievers) … Christ died (a sacrificial death) for us.

 

John, Chapter 3, Verse 16…

 

JOHN 3:16

“For God the Father loved the world unconditionally…and He loved the world so much…that He gave His uniquely born Son (the God-man…the Lord Jesus Christ…to be crucified on a Cross) … so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
 

The Lord Jesus Christ has His arms open wide waiting to welcome sinners into His kingdom.  John, Chapter 6, Verse 37…

 

JOHN 6:37b

…and the ones who come to (believe in) Me…I (the Lord Jesus Christ) will certainly not cast out (into the outer darkness…the Lake of Fire).

 

There are a few things you need to know if you want to be transformed from sinner to saint.  First, you can’t work to be saved.  Titus, Chapter 3, Verse 5…

 

TITUS 3:5

The Lord Jesus Christ saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in self-righteousness, but according to His mercy…by the washing of regeneration and through renewing by God the Holy Spirit…

 

Second, to be a saint instead of a sinner, you need to have a change of mind…the Bible calls this repentance…and it has nothing to do with your sins as many legalists claim.  Repent means to change your mind about your desire to have a relationship with Jesus Christ…moving from having no desire to having an immediate desire to have a relationship a with Him…Acts, Chapter 17, Verses 30 and 31…

 

ACTS 17:30

“Therefore, having overlooked the times of your ignorance, God the Father is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent…”

 

ACTS 17:31 

“…because God the Father has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man (the God-Man Jesus Christ) whom the Father has appointed, having furnished proof (that He is God) to all men by raising Jesus from the dead.”

Finally, you need to acknowledge the truths in First Corinthians, Chapter 15, Verses 3 and 4… 

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:3

For I (Paul) delivered to you as of first importance what I also received (the gospel message) … that it was Jesus Christ who died for our sins according to the Scriptures…

 

FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:4 

…and that He was buried…and that He was raised from the dead on the third day…according to the Scriptures…

 

So how can you move from sinner to saint?  John, Chapter 1, Verse 12…

 

JOHN 1:12 

But whosoever received Him, to them the Lord Jesus Christ gave the right to become children of God the Father, even to those who believe in Jesus Christ’s name…

 

Acts, Chapter 16, Verse 31…

 

ACTS 16:31

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and everyone in your household who also believes.” 

 

John, Chapter 3, Verse 36…

 

JOHN 3:36

“He who believes in the Son has eternal life (right at that moment) … but he who does not obey the command to believe in the Son will not see the resurrection life…instead the wrath of God (the Lake of Fire) abides on him.”

 

Romans, Chapter 10, Verse 13…

 

ROMANS 10:13

…for “whosoever will call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved.”

 

Take a moment out of your busy life and heed the suggestion in Romans, Chapter 10, Verses 9 and 10…

 

ROMANS 10:9

…if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord (that He is God) … and if you believe in your heart that God the Father raised Him from the dead… you will be saved…

 

ROMANS 10:10 

…for with the heart a person believes…resulting in the imputation of absolute righteousness by God (your admission ticket to heaven) … and with the mouth a person confesses (admitting faith in Christ alone) resulting in salvation.

 

Once you have salvation, you CANNOT lose it…Hebrews, Chapter 7, Verse 25…

 

HEBREWS 7:25

Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ is able also to save forever (through His divine power…omnipotence) those who draw near to God the Father through believing in the Christ, since the Lord Jesus Christ always lives to make intercession for those who draw near.

 

Believe now!

 

SONG INTRODUCTION

 

Let’s close with music!  When you make a decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation, He purifies you from your sins with His blood…and God the Father cleanses you from all unrighteousness…and both of them impute their righteousness to you as your admission ticket to heaven…First Peter, Chapter 1, Verses 22 and 23…

 

FIRST PETER 1:22

Since you believers in Christ have, in obedience to the truth (of the gospel message), purified your souls for a sincere and unconditional love of the brethren…fervently…deeply…love one another unconditionally…from the heart…

 

FIRST PETER 1:23 

…for you believers in Christ have been BORN AGAIN (the spiritual birth… a supernatural event) … not of seed which is perishable but of a seed that is imperishable…that is, through the living and enduring Word of God.

 

Here’s June Murphy to sing about it in her song…BORN AGAIN.

 

CLOSING SONG

BORN AGAIN

June Murphy                                

 

CLOSING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

Thanks for coming!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for listening!

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