Transcript

First Corinthians chapter 11. As you know, we are going verse by verse, chapter by chapter, through this New Testament book. And what a study this has been. I, I know the contemporary church of our age is in a lot of trouble, a lot of sin, a lot of carnality, a lot of unbiblical things. But man, the church at Corinth was a mess, it was a mess. Page after page, verse at the verse, Paul is straightening out, correcting reproving, rebuking, exhorting, trying to get them in line and straightened out. We’ve come to the section of the book, in 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul is focusing primarily on the numerous problems they have in their public worship. They were just messed up about it.

In verses 1 through 16 of chapter 11, he dealt with the problem of the women showing up at church without their heads being covered. In this day, it was common and common among both Jewish and greek women to continually wear a covering in public places, which made a statement of their submission to their husbands are to male authority in general, and some of the ladies in the church at Corinth misunderstood the freedoms and the liberties of Christ, and took that to mean there’s been no statement of submission to male authority or to their husband’s authority. So they came to church and took the veil off. And Paul corrected that says, that’s wrong. You should wear the veil, because in your culture it makes a statement that you’re honoring the authority of your husband and the male authority of the church. So he said, put the veils back on. That’s the way your culture views it. And you do not want to send the wrong message as a Christian lady to your culture.

And then we came to the section we are still working on tonight, where he’s dealing with the selfish irreverence that they were displaying in partaking of the Lord’s Supper — or you can call it the Lord’s Table. And we’ve already seen the problems they were having at the Lord’s Supper. And then we saw the purpose of the Lord’s Supper. And in tonight’s message, we’re going to talk about preparation for the Lord’s Supper. He gives them some strong exhortations about how to get yourself prepared to partake of that wonderful ordinance that we call the Lord’s Supper. Now, as we continue, Lord willing, next Sunday night in chapter 12, he deals with spiritual gifts and the immaturity and disorder they exhibited concerning spiritual gifts in the church. And I’ll go ahead and say this be cautious using the book of Corinthians as your foundation for gifts, because Paul’s whole premise is to correct the problems and the abuses. He’s not, in essence, laying out much of a foundation of how the gifts are to work. He spends all of his time trying to straighten out the messes they’ve made of misusing and misunderstanding the spiritual gifts. We’ll look at that, Lord willing, next Sunday night.

But for tonight, we’re going to look at preparing for the supper. From 1 Corinthians 11:27-34. Let’s read the text together. Verse 27, “therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats, and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason, many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judge ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. And if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you may not come together for judgment. And the remaining matters I shall arrange when I come.”

Now, two main things I believe the Apostle Paul does here. Number one, he gives the exhortation for proper preparation, an exhortation for or concerning proper preparation, being properly prepared to take the supper. He begins his exhortation in verse 27, continues it in verse 28. And then the exhortation continues over in verses 33 and the first part of verse 34. Let’s look at the exhortation beginning with verse 27. It begins in verse 27 and exhorts them about being properly prepared to take the supper by saying this. “Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner,” let’s stop right there. The phrase “unworthy manner “can be boiled down to this simple statement not genuine or perhaps not sincere. If you go and you partake of the Lord’s Supper and there’s not a genuine, sincere heart attitude about it, you’re in trouble. That’s what he’s saying. Now, he’s not saying that you have to be worthy to take the supper, because if one had to be fully worthy to take the Lord’s Supper, then none of us could ever take it. That’s not his point.

He says in an unworthy matter. In other words, you should not come and take the supper with a careless and and an irreverent spirit. Now we know from the context of the verses that we’ve already looked at. The Corinthians had begun to view the supper as just another meal to satisfy physical hunger, so they were carelessly partaking of the supper. There’s a lot of irreverence. They were using it to fulfill the base appetite of their fleshly body. And that’s not what it’s for. And they’re wealthy people who could get off work early and bring the best food. They were abusing the poor. They would come and gorge themselves, even many of them getting drunk during the love feast and the following Lord’s Supper. And the poor would show up later, many of them slaves, and couldn’t get off early, and there’d be nothing left. So they were very careless and very irreverent when they took the supper, and that was the unworthy manner they were coming in. And notice what he says about that last phrase, verse 27, “you shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.”

What does it mean when Paul says, if you come with that kind of careless, irreverent spirit, “you’re guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord”. Well, he does not mean guilty of the physical body and blood of the Lord. We know the text is not implying that that little piece of bread, or whatever piece of bread they use, literally became the body of Christ, and the juice of the cup that they drink did not literally become the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s called transubstantiation. It’s another extreme heretical view of the Roman Church, and many have adopted that view through the ages. I’m glad finally the Reformation Church is finally broke out of that tradition. It’s not a physical guilt, but it’s a spiritually speaking guilt.

You see, the supper symbolizes and represents Christ and His death. So they’re guilty in the same sense. When a one takes our American flag out here in the street and throws it down in the street and spits upon that flag, and stomps on it and then burns it. Why does that make our blood boil? It’s just a piece of cloth. It’s what the cloth represents. It’s what it stands for, what it means. And that’s what Paul is saying. It’s an affront to Christ. You’re guilty and owing to him because the bread represents him and the blood represents him and all that he did in his sacrificial, atoning death for you. That’s important for you to know that the warning here is not to that one who comes to partake the supper, and they have a timid spirit, or even a doubtful spirit. There may be one who comes, and they’re wondering, Lord, I hope I’m saved. I want to be saved. Don’t want to be right with you. But I’m having doubts Lord. That’s fine, they should take the supper. That’s not what he’s talking about. Some are just learning and growing and maturing, and they don’t understand what everything means yet. Paul understood that. I certainly understand that. That’s not what the text is saying.

He’s not talking about the timid are the doubtful, who are sincere and wanting to be pleasing to God and know the Lord. He’s talking about that one who is thoughtless and irreverent and careless, and just shows up with the flippant attitude and trying to gorge himself and get full. Of course, in this day they always had the Lord’s Supper at the end of a great feast, a great meal. And so he warns them, when you come with that kind of irreverent, careless spirit, then you are guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.

Now verse 28, he continues with his exhortation and says, “but let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup.” That word “examine means” to examine like they would a piece of metal. They would put the metal into the testing pot and put the fire to it, to prove they would examine, to see where their impurities that would rise to the surface under the heat as the metal melted. So Paul uses that analogy and says, on your way to church, when you’re going to take the Lord’s Supper, you do a thorough introspection of your heart, examine it well and see if there are things there that should not be there, and confess all worldly and all fleshly attitudes and motives of your heart.

Let me give you three practical suggestions concerning examining yourself before you partake of the Lord’s Supper. Number one, come with a genuine and sincere gratefulness for His death in your place. Come to the supper with a sincere and genuine gratefulness for His death for you in your place. I think there are two aspects that come into this one. When you take the supper, there should be a continuing attitude of repentance and thankfulness. You see, the Christian life is a lifetime of repentance. It’s a last time of us always saying, Lord, in my natural man, in my natural thoughts, my natural feelings, my natural emotions, naturally, what I am is wrong and evil and sinful and against you. So, God, I admit that and I repent of that. I claim that that is not the way to live. I should not follow what I think, feel, or desire. Those things are sinful and wrong. I should honor you.

And so we come to the supper with that attitude, saying, Lord, everything about me naturally is wrong and sinful and evil. And I have an attitude of repentance about that. And I want to honor you in my life. Lord, I’m not perfect and I blow a lot, but my heart attitude is I repent of that way. Jeff’s way, and I want to honor your way. An attitude of repentance, and then attitude of thanksgiving. Lord, I know I am unconditionally accepted. I am holy in your sight. I have a right standing before you, the holy and just God, because Jesus took my punishment on the cross, died there and took death for me, shed his precious blood to cleanse me from sin, and God I’m grateful I’m thankful. Make sure you have a genuine, sincere gratefulness concerning his death for you.

Number two, ask yourself if you have any unconfessed sin. God, is there any sin I’m holding on to? Is there any pet habit, any pet attitude? Our heart desire that I’m not willing to call sin and purpose to deal with and lay it before you? Not talking about sinless perfection, but the attitude of confession and yieldedness and openness before God about your sin. If you come with sin, you’re not willing to deal with sins. You’re not willing to be honest about sins. You’re not willing to say, God, it’s sin. And I declare it’s sin to you. Then you’re coming to the supper in an unworthy manner.

Number three, as you examine your heart, are you in good standing with the church family? Are you in good standing with the church family? You say the Lord’s Supper to be truly the supper it’s supposed to be. It’s to be a one spiritual communion where we are interconnected, one to the other, heart to heart, love to love, and nothing breaking or dividing the fellowship. If you’ve had a divisive spirit, if you’ve had a critical spirit, if you’ve had a gossiping spirit, if you’ve had a condemning spirit, if you’ve sinned against a brother or sister, never made it right, and they have something against you. If you come and take the supper and aren’t willing to deal with that, you’re coming to take the supper in an unworthy manner. And you’ve written you’re guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He exhorts them. Be prepared. Properly prepared when you come to take the supper. Like David’s attitude was in Psalm 139:23, when he said, “search me, O God, and know my heart.” You see, David was smart. He knew. He didn’t know his heart. Have you gained that level of wisdom to where you say, God, I don’t know my own stinking heart, but I know you do. Help me. Amen. I don’t trust my heart. When I feel, I think, or I conclude something, I’d say, God, — now I like what Vance Havner said, he said, “you think God’s telling you something. You better stay tuned for station identification”. You can’t completely trust what you feel or what you think, what sensations, what direction. You got to say, “Oh God, search me and check me out and make sure it’s right”. God, I don’t trust me, but I trust you. He said, “search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way.” Well, that’s a great prayer to have.

Now jump over to verse 33 as we continue the exhortation for proper preparation. Very practically he says in verse 33, “so then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.” That sounds just like a parent to a child, don’t they? wait for your sister? You know, wait for your brother, too. Y’all got to share this thing. That’s what Paul is saying. The rich folks were coming in first, eating up all the food, drinking up all the wine, gluttonous and half drunk. And the poor was showing up. It had nothing. He says, that is totally the antithesis of what the supper is. It’s to be a selfless, loving communion of the whole body together. Wait for one another. Don’t improperly run ahead and gorge yourself and leave those others without anything. How unchristian and and the real antithesis of what the supper is all about.

Then the first part of verse 34, he continues in the spirit of exhortation “if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home.” Paul is simply saying, if you are so hungry, you’ve got to dive in before the rest of the folks get there, get you a Big Mac on the way to church. For heaven’s sake, eat something out there on your own. But wait and let’s have the love feast on the Lord’s Supper together as one community, as one body, together. Individually, we’ve all been redeemed and we are all one body because we’re all saved by the same precious blood. So Paul gives a strong exhortation concerning proper preparation.

Now, shifting gears, I want to look at another thing that Paul points out here. Secondly, he gives the expectation for those who neglect proper preparation. He gives the expectation for those who neglect proper preparation. Paul says this is what you can expect to happen if you are careless and thoughtless, and you neglect getting yourself properly prepared to partake of the Lord’s table. Now he begins this in verse 29, “for he who eats and drinks”, that’s just taking the supper, “eats and drinks judgment to himself. If he does not judge the body rightly.” Now here, the first phrase there, he says, if you come in this unworthy manner and you just carelessly and thoughtlessly just going through the motions, take the Lord’s Supper, your heart’s not in it. You’re not being real, genuine. You’re just trying to fill your belly. You have a self-centered attitude about the whole thing. He said, then “you are eating and drinking judgment to yourself”. That’s very important that you understand the different Greek words that are used in this text.

The word for judgment here in verse 29 is the word (κρέμα) krima. The Greek word (κρέμα) krima has the idea of chastisement our discipline, but not judging our punishment in our usual sense of the words. It’s like when a parent would chastise or discipline the child. It’s for training. We know this word judgment doesn’t mean ultimate and final eternal condemnation. Because Paul says in Romans 8:1, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”. So he says, when you come with that careless attitude, that unworthy manner, and you just rashly go through the motions, take the supper, then you’re bringing God’s chastening discipline on your life. Just like a father would say to a child, if you do this, I’ll have to get the belt. That’s what Paul is saying. You’re a child. You belong to God. But he also disciplines his children. And this is a good way to get the discipline started to carelessly, thoughtlessly, the wrong motives partake of the Lord’s table.

Now continue in verse 29. Hang in here with me. Get the full essence of what Paul is saying. Last phrase, verse 29. “If he does not judge the body rightly,” now he’s saying here you’re going to reap judgment on yourself, discipline of the Lord on your life, if you do not judge the body rightly. The body here means Christ body, and the word for “judge” here is diakrinōn. And diakrinōn (διακρίνων) means to discern. So he said, if you don’t come and discern properly what this supper is all about, if you do not come to the supper properly discerning whose body this is and whose blood this is, and what this supper means and who it represents, then you’re going to reap discipline on your life. When you come properly have discerned in your heart who this supper is about and who it represents and you won’t be disciplined by the Lord for your wrong motives and wrong actions. So he simply says here, you come, and you’re not discerning. You just kind of careless and thoughtless that the supper is about Jesus — and ought to be approached with reverence, genuineness, and thoughtfulness — so you partake of the supper in an unworthy manner, then you are going to receive your father’s corrective discipline.

Well, Paul, can you give us some more specifics? How does our father correct and discipline his children in these cases? Well, verse 30 makes that crystal clear. He says in verse 30, — you always interpret a passage of Scripture in context with the verses around it. Verse 30 says, “for” that’s a conjunctive word, which means it connects to verse 29. “For this reason,” verse 30, “many among you are weak.” Not absolutely, but that word weak, most of the time being just slap worn out. Some of you are that way right now, you just about worn out. You know, most Baptists come to church tired. Did you know that? Just worn out. Folks, listen, you’re not worn out because you’re doing too much at church and doing too much for the Lord. You’re showing up worn out. You’re worn out when you got here. You need something else. That church isn’t wearing you out. You’re worn out from chasing the gods of this world. I will later.

For this reason, many among you are weak. And then he says, “and sick.” For what reason, Paul, are many sick, because they have approached the Lord’s table in an unworthy manner, and “a number sleep”. The word sleep is used often in the New Testament for death. A number of your God has killed. A number of your God has made you sick. A number of your God has had to remove you. And the reasons being in particular is your sin concerning how you take the Lord’s table. So the answer to the question — Does God make believers sick? Is emphatically, yes! Regardless of what you’ve heard from the guys on television, it’s yes. And I do not take this as a personal attack on other brothers or sisters who teach other things. I do not mean it as a personal attack, but I want to tell you, when these fellows tell you that all sickness is of Satan and all sickness is wrong, and all sickness cannot be of God, that is simply unbiblical. Paul says emphatically, God loves his children, and when his children rebel, he will bring some chastening discipline and correction. And often it takes the form of physical sickness.

Now let’s back this up a little bit. God does cause believers to be sick if he deems it needful for their progression in holiness. He does it so we will be more holy, more righteous, and more like him. For example, James chapter 5. We will not turn there for time, but that text has been used often, and time and time again to say, we have faith we’re all get healed every time. Faith all healed, faith all healed. Brother, I’m going to tell you something. You study that takes a little more closely, and you’ll find twice in that context, Paul talks about, or rather the writer there, James, talks about dealing with sin and repentance and confession of sin. So James point is, sin was the reason why this person had a sickness. And once they got right about their sin, then God saw fit in their circumstance to bring healing. But the sickness was in proportion to their sin.

Well, there’s a lot more we could talk about, James chapter 5, but I just want to point out that point, that sickness in the life of a child of God, according to James, and according to Paul in 1 Corinthians, is connected to the child of God living in sin.

Then you got Hebrews chapter 12, a long text that deals with the fact. Listen now that God disciplines every son that he calls. All of us will experience God’s discipline. Did you hear what I said? The writer of Hebrews says, every child of God will experience some of God’s discipline. Now, if Paul is inspired and correct in 1 Corinthians 11, then all of us most probably will experience some discipline in the forms of sickness. I didn’t say all sickness is the discipline of God, but we can expect some discipline to take the form of sickness. And in Hebrews chapter 12 you study it very carefully. You’ll find that toward the end of that section, where Paul deals with the fact that God disciplines his children, chastens his children, spanks his children, if you will. He shows you that sin was the reason, and that repentance of sin is the cure to keep God from bringing that kind of discipline into your lives.

Exodus chapter 4. Let’s go to the Old Testament. Let’s see if this is a consistent principle throughout the Bible. In Exodus chapter 4, what happens? Moses sees a burning bush. God speaks out of the burning bush and said, Moses, it’s time for you to go deliver your people. You’re going to be my spokesmen. And Moses responded back, said, Lord, you don’t understand something. I have a speech impediment. I have a physical dysfunction of my speech. I’m not a good spokesman in any way, shape or fashion. So in Exodus 4:11, God says, Moses, “who makes them deaf, dumb, blind, are lame, is it not I the Lord”. Moses, our sovereignly cast or allowed you to have that physical deformity, our defective speech, because I have a divine sovereign purpose. Because when you go in there and you stumble, stammer, and you’re stumble around and you can’t speak well, and you, you trip over your own words, but then I have the power behind it. Then they won’t look at you. They’ll look at me. And God often weakens the physical vessel that people might see the true one behind the vessel.

Well, that’s Exodus. We also know that, in Luke chapter 13, in Job chapter 1, that Satan does cause sickness. I didn’t say all sickness, but we see in this context Satan does cause sickness. But listen. But only under the permissive authority of God. My friend, you get this shallow “God in the box” theology out of your thinking. It says Satan’s raging over here, and God’s working over here. And there’s sort of a dualism. There’s trying to figure out who can get the next best shot in. And God struggling to see if he can handle Satan and control Satan. And God’s up in heaven with his hands tied, hoping that somebody have enough faith so God can do something. That is not true! He is Almighty, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God, a very God. And Satan submits totally, absolutely, and completely to his authority. And Satan can do nothing without his royal permission. Job is a great example of that, in Job chapter 1. Satan caused the sickness, but under the permissive authority of God.

Deuteronomy 28:23-22. The principle remains consistent. God warned Israel that he would smite them with pestilence. That’s disease. If they sinned. 2 Kings chapter 5. A man named Ghazi, who was the servant of Elijah, was stricken with leprosy because of his greed. And David the psalmist, one of the greatest men of the history of Israel, said this “before I was afflicted, I went astray”. I had sin in my life. But now there’s this physical affliction, “I keep thy word”. Consistently the principles id taught. God does a work in and through our lives using sickness. And one of the major things God does according to Scripture is bring sickness when we need to be disciplined and chastised because of sin in our life.

Now listen, God is concerned about our physical bodies, but he is infinitely more concerned about our soul. 1 Timothy 4:8. The Apostle Paul is teaching his young understudy Timothy, and he gives Timothy a very important principle. He says, Timothy, “bodily discipline”, the health of this physical body “is of little profit”, not none, but just little. But he said, “godliness is profitable for all things, because it’s good for this present life, and also that’s good for the life to come”. So Paul says, Timothy, I want you to know physical health and stamina is of little importance to God, but your godliness, godliness is much more important to God.

God is much more concerned about your holiness than he is your healthiness. Next time you turn on your faith healer on TV, see if he says anything like that. God is more concerned about your holiness than he is your healthiness. I can prove that the scriptures teach that God and His sovereign wisdom from the foundation of the world selected a bride for his son. I don’t understand all that. I just know the scriptures teach that. But the son couldn’t take the bride, and the bride couldn’t go home to be in the presence of the Holy Father, because the bride was impure and unholy. But in order to bring about the holiness of the bride — that you and I, the church, the bride — in order to bring about the holiness of the bride, the father said, I’m going to have my son nailed to a tree. I’m going to ravish my son’s physical health. I’m going to actually destroy my son’s physical body because I desire to bring holiness to his bride. God was making a statement. Physical health important, but holiness infinitely more important. I’ll sacrifice my own son’s bodily health in order to bring about the holiness of his bride and when Christ took our sin and his body was ravished on the cross, we came forth in his righteousness, pure and holy and blameless for all eternity. God is more concerned about your holiness than he is your healthiness.

I did a little study on my computer, and this is not an absolute study, but I think it does give us another support to the principle that I’m laying out. I looked up on my computer the word “heal”, the word “healing”, and the word “healings” plural. And I found that those three words occur 71 times in the New American Standard Translation of the Bible. So I wrote down the number 71. Then I just picked two words “righteousness” or “righteous” and “holy” or “holiness”. And I found out that the words “righteous” or “righteousness” or “holy” or “holiness” appear 1,179 times in the Bible. Now here’s the other question I told you we’d answer tonight. How do you know if a faith healing ministry is biblical and of God?  Here’s how you know. They will spend 94% of their preaching, teaching, and emphasis on repentance and holiness and 6% of the time on healing. Are you listening? If it’s biblically balanced, 94% of the time they’ll spend their emphasis talking about holiness and righteousness and repentance from sin. And only 6% of the time on healing, because if you removed all the other verses in the Bible, except the verses that had righteousness and holiness are the verses that had healing, you would come across the verse, righteous are holiness 17 times for every one time you come across a verse that speaks of healing.

But my experience watching the people who emphasize healing so much today is that it’s right the opposite. It seems like they’re spending 90 to 95% of the time talking about healing, and maybe 6% of the time talking about righteousness and holiness and repentance from sin. I mean, it’s just the opposite. Let me say something to you. I can speak well for the Baptists. I want to tell you, Baptist churches are full of sin. We got adulterers in the pulpit. We got cocktail sippers in the deacon body. We got cocktail sippers among all the Sunday school teachers. We’ve got fornicators in the youth singles and college department. We’ve got adulterers among the married folks. And I submit to you, brethren, it’s no different in the Assembly of God. It’s no different in the Church of God. It’s no different in the Pentecostal church. It’s no different in the Presbyterian Church or the Methodist Church. You name it — the churches are full of sin. You tell me how God’s going to bring a great divine healing movement in that pit of sin when his word teaches that I’m more interested in your holiness than in healing you. And when the Word of God teaches about your sickness to get you to repentance.

You see, my friend, if God brought in a divine healing movement in some of our churches, what he’d be doing would be putting his stamp of approval on our unholiness, you follow me. And that would be the direct antithesis of his character, which is holy. My friend, if you want a true movement of divine healing, you need to move out of this so-called faith movement. Well, the fellas are selling 80 tapes of an hour apiece, telling you how to figure out how to have some kind of faith, to make God heal you and do whatever you ask. You need to move out of the faith movement, and you need to get into the repentance movement. You want to see healing? Get folks out of their sins and God will bring more healing. That’s what God said he’ll do. We need, less teaching on how faith works and more teaching on how repentance works. My friend, the Christian Church today is seeing so little true divine healing not because we do not know how faith works, but because we don’t know how repentance works. We need to repent and return to holiness and righteousness, and see God do a work in our midst.

Now look at verse 31. Paul says, “if we judged ourselves rightly,” and that word judge has the idea of examining, discerning — am I sinful? Am I coming to the Lord’s table proper and proper? He says, “if we judge ourselves rightly, we should not be judged.” Then God wouldn’t have to bring discipline, is what he is saying. What is he said about the way God disciplines? Well, in this case, Paul emphatically says, God bring sickness. Now here’s the simple point Paul is making: you sin less, you stay healthier, you sin less, you’ll be healthier. Now, we cannot conclude, scripture does not allow us to say all sickness is because we have sinned. There’s some sicknesses unto death. It’s time to go home. And I would say, I will say this to you. There’s not been a time in my life when I became sick that I didn’t find something to repent of. Don’t look at me spiritual. Don’t look at me like, well, I never had that happen. That’s why you didn’t get well, I guess. I don’t know, not. Every time that God’s knocked me down physically, there are things I had to say, “Oh, Lord, fix that” or “Oh, God, I admit that was not right”. “Oh, God”. You know, I’m just telling you, you get sick try repentance. Try repentance. Not to the end of getting healed because you’re not interested in being healed as much as you’re interested in being holy.

And even though I don’t I want this to be a personal attack on anyone, my friend, there is a lot of fraudulent, manipulating, emotionally based twisting and deceiving going on under the name of divine Faith movement, and the divine healing today in the world. A lot of it. And if they have the same gift Jesus and the Apostles had, where they can go and “at will” heal people. Folks, that’s the biblical divine healing, if they can “at will” walk down the street and heal the multitudes the way Jesus and the Apostles healed. I want them to come to Muscle Shoals, and we’re going to shut Medical Center Shoals down in one afternoon. We’re going to the nursing homes the next afternoon, amen! Folks, I have no problem with divine healing. God can supernaturally heal, but he does it when he wants to, the way he wants to, where he wants to, and for whatever purpose he wants to. You simply do not have the gift of healing on men in the same way the New Testament had it. It’s just not there. And what these fellas do is they proclaim that doctrine, and then they back themselves in a corner. Then they have to some way produce something that looks like that, or by their own teaching, they’re frauds. You follow me? So that’s where all the stretching, all the kinds of things happening where they roll all the wheelchairs in and they line them up on the stage. If you stick around with the cameras are gone, you’ll find the people rolling back out in the wheelchairs. It’s just not happening.

Look at verse 32. He says, “but when we are judged,” in other words, when God checked us out and finds out we need discipline, “then we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world.” Here’s what he’s saying. You belong to God. You’re a God’s child. You’re not of the world. Now that word condemned there last phrase, verse 32, “so that you may not be condemned along with the world.” That’s krinomenoi (κρινόμενοι), krinomenoi (κρινόμενοι) is the word which means that ultimate and final condemnation. He said, that’s not yours. You may have discipline, chastisement, correction and training as God’s child, but you’ll not have ultimate, final, eternal judgment. God corrects his own children, and I love to use the illustration of Peter and Judas Iscariot. All through the Gospels, you have Peter and Judas and the other ten Apostles there with the Lord Jesus Christ. And it seems like on every other page Jesus is correcting Peter, rebuking him, reproving him. “Get behind me, Satan!” Just letting Peter have it on every page. But Judas, the man who was indwelt by Satan himself at the end, the man that was stealing money out of the treasury. Judas was never corrected as far as the text records. Why? Because God only corrects his own children. He only corrects those who are His. I correct mine, you correct yours. But we don’t necessarily correct each others. If a football coach is training his team, he doesn’t train the other opposing teams. He trains his team. That’s what God’s saying. You’re mine. The others are the world.

God severely disciplines us now, even removing our lives sometimes so that we do not face the eternal condemnation that is to come. Now those of the world are already under condemnation. John 3:18 says, those of the world who are not saved are “judged already.” They’re “condemned already”. My friend, a man on death row is already condemned. You don’t go to a man on death row and bring discipline and correction. It’s too late. He’s under condemnation. He’s just waiting for his execution. But a child in the family still gets correction and training. That’s what Paul is saying. You still get God’s discipline and correction in training when you get in sin, which includes God using sickness. But it’s because you’re not of the world and already under condemnation, you’re of the Lord and of his household.

Now verse 34, the last or the middle phrase. Let me just read all of it. “If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home so that you may not come together for judgment.” In other words, you may if you’re hungry and you get there early and you carelessly and rashly, you partake of all the love feast and claim you’re taking the Lord’s Supper and it hadn’t meant anything to you, hadn’t any reverence in your heart about it, then you’re going to get God’s woodshed again. He said, you better get something at home, and you come with the reverent, sincere, genuine spirit when you come to take the Lord’s Supper, or you’re going to get God’s judgment on your life again. That which is, in this context, God’s discipline and correction as his child, which includes God bringing sickness into and on your life.

My friend, if God is bringing sickness in your life to correct you for sin, then you can rub all the oil on you you want to. You look like a French fry at McDonald’s and you ain’t going to get healed, until you get right about your sin. You can quote all you want to quote. You name it, claim it, stop it and kick it. Slam dunk it. It doesn’t matter what you want to do if you don’t get right about sin. God’s not going to heal you and he might not do it miraculously even then. He might just let the natural process, as he said, I might even use a doctor.

In summary, there are two great evils connected with the Lord’s table that the church at Corinth was participating in. Number one: when they took the Lord’s Supper, it was not a loving communion of the brethren. It was it was who can get there first and gobbled it all down and get half drunk. He said, man, y’all to wait and all get together because that’s what it’s for. One family, one body together, communing as one before your precious Lord. And number two: they use the supper as an ordinary meal just to satisfy their fleshly are physical appetite, not as a sacred, reverential memorial unto the Lord.

And the next phrase, the last phrase of verse 34 as a pastor makes me very tired. I mean, we’ve had 11 chapters of Paul just boring in and correcting and teaching and correcting and reprove and rebuking and straightening out and fixing stuff. And he’s done all these corrections, all these reprove things, all this training, all this fixin stuff. And then he ends this chapter by saying, “and the remaining matters I shall arrange when I come.” There’s a whole bunch more. I just I’m worn out, my hands going to sleep on me. Well, I’m glad I didn’t pastor that church.

Well, one thing that last phrase does show us as Paul’s Apostolic authority. There are no longer any folks in the office of Apostle. I don’t care how much apostle Johnny Washington comes on the radio. There aren’t any more. The Apostles had divine authority that could walk in any church at any time and say, pastor, sit down, I’m in charge. And when God’s Holy Spirit inspired them, then the Apostles could write Sacred Scripture, and that’s Koined and canonized forever. And we have it as inerrant, infallible, authoritative New Testament. God used those Apostles, and Paul said, I’ve got authority. I fix some things in this letter. When I get there, I’m going to straighten the rest, everything else out. I can imagine those folks in church in Corinth said, Lord, help my time, all he does is stay on our case. But you see there’s a divine standard. Until you get there, the pastor’s job is to keep trying to get you there. And Paul is being a loving pastor.

Well, how is your relationship with the Lord today? We’ve talked about the Lord’s table, but the principles go far beyond the Lord’s table. Are you in a situation in your life where you’re a prime candidate for the Lord to strike you with sickness, to get your attention? Now, there’s some of you men sitting here, some of you ladies, you’re coasting on God. You’re very casual about your commitment to Jesus Christ. You’re very lax and uncommitted in your financial stewardship. You’re very wavering and indifferent about your faithfulness to church and the work of the church. Some of you young people, some of you are sexually active, some of you doing your own thing, drinking alcohol, messing with drugs, whatever you want to do. And you’re sitting there thinking, hey, I’m getting by with this. I’m coasting on by. Young person, you listen to what I’m going to tell you. You’re not getting by if God’s not dealing with you. That’s because you’re not saved and you’re under condemnation in judgment already. You’re of the world. Because if you’re a young person or a mom and dad sipping your cocktail, strolling along, living your own way, and God’s not dealing with you, my friend, you don’t belong to him. You can’t go on like that and be a child of God. And when you’re living in that sin and you feel bad and church makes you uncomfortable and you feel convicted and it makes you sick, you ought to reel back and shout, Hallelujah, praise God, I must be his, because I can’t live in sin and be happy.