The Godly Balance of Heart and Mind

In his sermon "The Need to Understand," Jeffrey Johnson focuses on 1 Corinthians 14:1-25, addressing the tension between emotional experiences and doctrinal understanding in Christian worship, particularly regarding the use of tongues and prophecy. Johnson emphasizes that while spiritual experiences, including speaking in tongues, were present in the early church, they must be grounded in clear and understandable communication of God’s Word for the edification of the congregation.

He outlines two common types of Christians: those who prioritize academic and theological understanding and those who focus on emotional and devotional experiences. While both are important, Johnson cautions against extremes—pursuing theology without personal devotion or chasing emotionalism without grounding in Scripture.

Paul’s message in 1 Corinthians 14, according to Johnson, highlights the importance of prophecy over tongues in the church because prophecy can be understood by all and builds up the body. Tongues, on the other hand, without interpretation, fail to benefit the congregation and may lead to confusion rather than edification.

Johnson explains eight reasons why speaking in tongues, without interpretation, is ineffective in church: it doesn’t make sense to others, doesn’t build up the church, is not beneficial, remains personally unfruitful, disrupts corporate worship, wastes time, does not mature believers, and was not designed for corporate worship. He emphasizes that clear, articulate communication of the Word is what convicts, builds up, and leads to genuine spiritual growth.

The sermon concludes by stressing the power of God's Word to transform lives. Johnson encourages believers to pursue both emotional experiences of God's presence and deep understanding of Scripture, for true spiritual encounters come through the clear proclamation and understanding of God's Word.

Transcript

0:00

We're in first Corinthians 14. We're going to look at 25 verses and the only way I can do this if I speed read and I just run through these points because there's a lot of text here a lot to cover. We're going to look at the first 25 verses. I'm just going to read the first couple to get us going. But basically we're going to do half the chapter and there's just not a good place to split this up. So we're going to have to do 25 verses today. Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy for one who speaks in a tongue, speaks not to men but to God for no one understands Him. But he utters mysteries in the spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now I want you all to speak in tongues but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongue unless someone interprets so the church may be built up. Now skip to verse 12 because verse 12 is I think the thesis. So with yourself since you are eager for manifestations of the spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. There's two types of Christians essentially. There are Christians that are prone to enjoy academics and knowledge and the study of Scriptures and they want to advance in theology. They love doctoral studies. They are not content with just knowing the basics of Christianity, but they want to go deep into the Word of God. They want to learn the terms. They want to know the biblical theological words and they find much encouragement and strength through knowing the Word of God in such a way. They tend to be academics, those who are prone to education. Then there are other types of Christians that are more emotional and they're not as interested in academics and studying the Scriptures that indefinitely. They want to know the basics of the Bible. They need to know the gospel, but when it comes to parsing the difference between progressive and positional sanctification, it's like, man, those words are just too big. I'm not. I'm not. I'm a simple Christian. Don't go into those type of words. I just want to experience Christ and I'm afraid they will say I'm afraid that the Christian that's into doctrine and all about doctrine. They're missing the devotional life. They're missing the heart in all their academics, and it leads to pride, right? Academics leads to pride and it's more about experiencing Christ. It's more about devotional life. It's more about love having a felt experience. Now, no doubt there's two extremes in both extremes. We want to avoid. We want to avoid the dead academic theologians that don't live holy lives, that don't love the Lord in a personal, experiential way, but they love theology and they can debate with the best of them. We want to avoid that type of Christianity, but there's the other side of Christianity we also want to avoid, and it's just the emotionalism, the excitement of having a spiritual encounter. We're just kind of raw emotions is built up with the music is built up with excitement. You know the war, the goosebumps come over your skin and you feel like you're in the presence of Christ. You feel like you're in the presence of the Holy Spirit. No, you can't articulate why you don't have a reason for the excitement. It's just raw emotions. And we see here that the problem with the Corinthians, they were tilting towards emotionalism. They wanted to be spiritual and viewed themselves as spiritual Christians, but they love the more showy gifts. They love speaking in tongues. It seems like they elevated speaking in tongues, most likely because of the emotional encounter that it brought to their to their lives. They elevated this emotionalism and speaking in tongues above sound doctrine. They love the experience. In fact, they wanted a encounter with the Lord. Now look at verse 12. So with yourself, since you are eager, Paul is telling them, you are eager. You desire this. This is what you want for the manifestation of the spirit. Do we not want that? I know I want that. I want when we come to church to know that we have been with God, that we've experienced the Lord Jesus, that we have encounter the power of the Holy Spirit. I don't want it just to be a dead Orthodox encounter where we all learn something, but our hearts are not been affected. We haven't been changed. We haven't been encouraged. We haven't been filled with joy and love. I want to encounter the Holy Spirit. So there are some that just want the encounter of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of the spirit. They want power, but they could care less about doctrine. Others that want doctrine that don't care about power. They don't care about the experience and what Paul is seeking to do because they were emphasizing tongues as the chief method in which to have a spiritual encounter and manifestation of the spirit. Paul in chapter 13 says love is greater than this. Love is something you should pursue more than you should pursue these revelatory gifts like speaking in tongues. Then he comes to this chapter, chapter 14, and he says prophecy is something that you should seek more than tongues. Prophecy is greater than speaking in tongues. And the reason why prophecy is greater than speaking in tongues is because you can understand prophecies because prophecy goes to the mind while tongues are understandable. You can't understand them. There's no if there's specially if there's no interpretation, there's no translation of what's being said. It's useless to your mind. There's no point theologically. There's no doctrine being advanced and without doctorate, without the word being comprehended and understood, there is no salvation and there's no sanctification and there's no growth. There's no spiritual encounter truly if there's no clarity of what's been said. And so what Paul is doing is says what's important and if we want a spiritual encounter with God and you want to have a felt experience of Christ, I'm not going to deny that. I want to experientially know Jesus. And by the way, think about all the things that comes with knowing the Lord Jesus Christ love. That's an emotion. Joy. That's an emotion. Peace. That's an emotion. Being guilt free. That's an emotion. I mean, we're not trying to take the emotions or the experiences out of Christianity far from it. We want the emotions. But you've got to understand the emotions properly come through knowledge. They come through the word through articulating the Scriptures clearly and understanding it as for what it says. In other words, what Paul is saying in this 25 verses is this emotionalism that is not rooted in doctrine is useless. In fact, that's the thesis of this text. Emotionalism that is not rooted in doctrine or understood truth is useless. So what Paul does, he gives us eight reasons why speaking in tongues is useless. If you heard me, eight reasons why speaking in tongues is useless in the church. Now, even I already heard my sermon that I already believe that the gift of tongues have ceased. But let's say you didn't you weren't convinced. Let's say you still believe that tongue speaking is a spiritual gift that God description gave out. Well, we know it during this time. We can all agree that the Corinthians were speaking in tongues by the Holy Spirit. And that was a good thing. Paul wasn't trying to tell him quit speaking in tongues. He says, it's just quit doing it in the church. And so we can all agree that that even if we the tongues still exist today, which I don't believe they do, but even if they did, we're not to use them in tongue and use them in the church unless we have an interpretation or translation of them. So my first point will be reasons why tongues are useless. My second point is why the word of God, the articulate, clear spoken word is powerful. First of all, let's look at how in distinct tongues or tongues without interpretation are useless. One, we see in verse two that they don't make sense. They don't bring understanding. Tongues are useless because they're not understandable. Look at verse two. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God, for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the spirit. You know, without a translator or interpretation, only God can know what you're saying. You know, if someone come in here, let's think about having Mr. Samuel Lee come and speak to us in Korean. His wife would understand. But the rest of us, the rest of us, we would we would be we would be marveling for the first five minutes. It a sermon in Korean, like that would be interesting for a little bit. But what if it went on for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes? Eventually, your mom would go wonder because you can't understand what's being said. There would be no comprehension and it would be useless to us. It would be making no sense to us. No one in the church understands what's being said. In fact, we'll see later on the passage, even those who had the gift of tongues, they're speaking in some foreign language that they did not study or understood themselves. They didn't even know what they were saying. No one in the whole church knew what was going on. Now he's speaking mysteries, but only God can interpret. It might be interesting, but of little to no value. The second reason they're useless is because they don't build up the church. We see in verse four, the only one who is encouraged by tongues is the one who may be speaking in them. Look at verse two. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself. Now I can imagine when your spiritual gifts is being exercised and have the Holy Spirit working in you, you may not know what you're saying, but just the fact that it's an emotional experience has to feel good. It no doubt is a wonderful experience for those who have the gift or who had the gift. So though this is encouraging to you and you're having a good time over there, the rest of us are getting nothing out of it. It's not helping anyone, but just giving yourself a perfect experience. This is why we see in verse four, prophesying is to be preferred. But the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now I want you all to speak in tongues. It's not that's the problem, but even more you should desire to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues. So if someone comes up here and speaks in Korean or Japanese or some other language that we can't comprehend, it's simply useless to us as a congregation. I would say Spanish, but half of you know that one. But the one who speaks in English, one who prophesies in a language that can be comprehended, now that's profitable for all. It builds up the church. You see, the goal of corporate worship coming together as assembly is not for individual private encounters with Jesus that benefits me, myself and I. It's to build up one another. And this is why verse five says the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues unless someone interprets so the church may be built up. Now we may have someone coming in that can't speak English and we'd have them preach, but only if we have an interpreter and only if you have someone who translates what's being said, would it make sense to the rest of us? But with a translator or with some interpretation of what's being said, then the whole church can benefit and be built up with what's being said. Thus, without translation, tongues are useless in the church. The third reason they're useless is because they're not beneficial. Look at verses six through eleven. Verse six says, "Now brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching?" That is, if I just speak in tongues and you can't comprehend what's being said, it absolutely benefits you not. It is unbeneficial. It's unhelpful. There's nothing gained by this. And then he gives three examples. First, he gives the example of lifeless instruments. Look at verse seven."Even lifeless instruments such as a flute or a harp do not give distinct notes. How will anyone know what is played?" I mean, someone would come up here and play "Amazing Grace" and it wouldn't take very long before we go, "Oh, that's Amazing Grace. We recognize the notes. We recognize the tune." And then the words would start coming to our mind just by hearing the tune. But if someone comes and just banged on the keyboard, I mean, I can do that. What profit is that? There would be no profit and someone would get on a flute and just blowing on it. It might be fun and entertaining, but it wouldn't be profitable. A second example is a bugle blast. Look at verse eight."If the bugle gives an indistinct sound, it will get ready for battle." You know, in the day of the war, they would have certain pitch sounds on a bugle long, hold the note for a long time, or a short blast. And these things would communicate what to do. But if someone, if some kid just got on the bugle and just started blowing, the army is just going to go, "What? I don't know what to do with that. I don't have any clear instructions. I don't understand what's being played." And so just blasting on a bugle doesn't do anyone any good. Then the last example is giving us foreign languages. Look at verse nine through eleven."So with yourselves, if your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible," or interpretable, "how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different languages in the world and none is without meaning. But if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. That is, if we're just going and listening to languages being said that we have no ability to know what's being said, it's simply profitless. There's no benefit." Fourth reason tongues are useless in the Church because they're personally unfruitful. You know, we already said that maybe there isn't a spiritual encounter for the one who's speaking in tongues. He builds himself up. So he said, "Well, there's a personal benefit in it." But even that personal benefit of speaking in tongues, where you don't even know what you're saying, may be exhilarating. It may give you a sense that the Spirit is working through me and I'm encouraged by that. It's only halfway profitable at best. It may benefit your emotions, but it's not benefiting your thinking. Look at verse 13, "Therefore, if one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. For I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful." So here I've got my own prayer language, if you would. I'm at my home in my closet, speaking in tongues, praying in tongues. I feel like, "Well, I'm really, really benefiting from this." But you realize you don't even know what you're saying. And Paul says, "If you're going to do that, you need to pray that you speak in tongues and pray in tongues so that you might be able to interpret it so your mind will be engaged, so your mind is also fruitful. Your heart may be fruitful. Your heart may be benefited, but your mind is unbenefited. So you should seek to be benefited with your heart and your mind." So what do you do? I mean, especially if you live in the day where tongues are still a special gift that God gave to people. What should you do if you spoke in tongues but you didn't have the gift of interpretation? Verse 15 says, gives us the answer, "What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind. I will sing praises with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also." You know why humming "Amazing Grace" is so beneficial to you? Or singing it in your head? Because you actually can contemplate and remind yourself of grace. And it's the articulate understanding of divine grace that is free, that is amazing, is undeserved. As you meditate upon that, that's where the power of God is working in your life. That's where worship sinks into your heart, is by the conception that grace saved me. So it's not just this raw experience that you can articulate and explain. What was that all about? Well, I don't know. I just had this encounter with the Spirit. No, seek to pray in a way that you can comprehend what you're saying and sing. Will you understand what's you being song? This is why our lyrics matter in worship. It's not just about generating emotions. It's not just getting us riled up with excitement and the drums kicking in and the lights out. And we're all emotional and then we leave like, "What was that about? I don't know, but it was fun." But it's when your mind is engaged in the Word of God and understanding the gospel, understanding spiritual truths that changes your lives. So this is why we need to pray with our spirit but also pray with our minds. The fifth reason tongues are useless in the Church is because they don't aid in corporate worship. We see this in 16 and 17. I told you we're moving fast."Otherwise, if you give thanks," verse 16 says, "with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say, 'Amen!' to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you're saying? For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being billed up." You know, this is why when we have corporate prayer meetings, I encourage everybody to say "Amen!" in their hearts because someone's representing the whole congregation and they're praying on our behalf. And as they pray, we are praying. And when they say "Amen!" you're saying "Amen!" in your heart. That's why even when you hear sermons you go "Amen!" If you don't say it out loud, you say "Amen!" in your heart. And you're agreeing with what's being said. But if someone's just speaking in tongues, it's not building up the church and no one can say "Amen!" No one can affirm. No one can deny. No one can do anything because they don't understand what's being said. You see, the purpose of church coming together is not for individual emotional experiences. It's for corporate worship. We sing songs to one another. We're here to come together in worship and you can't do that if you're just turning the lights off and you're getting in the corner and you're just forgetting about the congregation. It's just between you and the Lord. No, this is between all of us in the Lord. We worship together. And tongues, without interpretation, violates the corporate nature of worship. Without a translator, God forbids individuals from speaking in tongues at the church. Now, verse 26, this is not in our text. This is next week. But I'll rush down there real quick. Basically, Paul says, unless you have an interpreter, don't do it. What then, brothers, when you come together, each one of you have a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there only be two or the most three in one meeting. And each in turn, don't speak over one another and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. Honestly, I want to be gentle here. I don't understand how our charismatic brothers and sisters can accomplish those friends. I don't see how they can preach through this text. And just say, what does this text mean? How can you read the Bible and say, I'm going to speak in tongues today and you don't have an interpreter? How can it be done orderly when they're speaking over one another? It's like they're violating the Word of God. Even if you hold to the tongues, it's still a spiritual gear. All that we do has to be geared towards building up the body and encouraging the saints. And if you're coming to church, I mean, I know we're not doing this, but if you happen to be visiting here and you're a penal callstone, you're going to church because you love speaking in tongues, consider this text. Consider this word. And Paul says, later on, he says, you think you have the spirit? Well, I have it more. I'm the one who's writing this by the inspiration of the spirit. So without interpretation, there's no building up and it's to be forbidden. Six, tongues are useless in the church because they're ineffective use of time. Look at verse 18 and 19. Now, Paul is not saying this because he didn't want people speaking in tongues. He's not saying this because he didn't speak, he spoke in tongues. He says, I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Nevertheless, in church, I'd rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue. So I may be able to do this, but when I come to church, I would rather speak one sentence that you understand than a whole sermon that you have no clue of what's being said. It's a waste of time just to speak in tongues. No prophet. Seven, it's useless because they don't mature us in holiness. Verse 20 says, brothers do not be children in your thinking, but infants in evil, but in your thinking, be mature. He's telling us, one, he's telling them they're immature in their thinking because they're over exaltation of tongues. But he's also saying that you can't be mature without your thinking engaged, without being thoughtful of what's being said. Spiritual maturity comes by maturity in our doctrine and thinking. The Corinthians, however, were immature. He says in 1 Corinthians 3, 1, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes. Hebrews 5, 11 says, we have much to say about this, but it's hard to explain because you are dull of hearing. For by this time you ought to be teachers. You need someone else to teach you again the basic presables of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. And then verse 1 of chapter 6, therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith in God. You know, I know there may be like, hey, we just need to hear the basic truths of the gospel every Sunday. But here we say we need to go beyond that. We need to understand justification, sanctification, glorification, and all the nuances that deal with the whole counsel of God. If we're going to go into maturity, the Bibles don't neglect teaching all that I've commanded. You see, we have to grow and develop. And here Paul's, the author of Hebrews is saying, I would love to teach you more. I'd love to say more, but you can't handle it because you're still stuck on the elementary, the beginnings, the basics of the Christian faith. But you need to grow into maturity. And so we all need to seek to become scholars through the Word of God. We all need to be theologians. We don't necessarily have to be as good as R.C. Sproul, but we need to be better than just babes in Christ. We all can grow. And by growing in knowledge, you're sanctified. The Bible says sanctify them. Jesus says sanctify them by your truth, by your Word is true. God has chosen from the beginning to sanctify you through the Word, through the truth. You see, the eighth reason is tongues were not designed for corporate worship. It was not designed to be exercised in the church. Look at verse 21 through 23. In the law is written by people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners while I speak to this people, even then they will not listen to base as the Lord. Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers. If therefore the whole church comes together in all speaking tongues, an outsider's or unbeliever's inner will they not say that you're out of your minds? You see, the purpose of tongues were to be exercised in the church meetings. That's why not. That's not the reason God gave tongues. Unless there's an interpretation or translation. But otherwise it's not to be utilized in the church because that wasn't the intended purpose for tongues. Well, why did God give tongues? Well, we see in verse 21 that it's because God promised the Israelites in the law that He would speak to them in one day. He wouldn't speak to them in the Hebrew tongue. He would speak to them in foreign tongues. After the giving of the law and they rebelled and refused to listen to the Lord, the Lord judged them. He says, "You did not listen to me when I came and spoke to you in a language you understand. I didn't come to you in a foreign language. I came and condescended myself and spoke baby talk to you, if you would. I used Hebrew to speak to you, but you refused to listen. You hardened your hearts. Therefore I will come again and I'll speak to you in a language that you don't understand. I will use a foreign nation to come and bring judgment upon you." That could be speaking about them going into Babylon and then they're hearing the Babylonian, Chaldean language spoken to them as a judgment upon them. But yet we see here that it's speaking about the day of Pentecost where the Hebrews who had the Word of God always in their language for the first time, and they hear the Word of God in foreign languages for the first time. And that was a sign of judgment that the gospel has gone from the Jews to the Gentiles. See, this was the purpose of tongues. It was a sign for unbelieving, not just all unbelievers, but it was a sign for unbelieving Israel. And that's why verse 26 makes sense. Look, it says, "Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but unbelievers." Then verse 23 says, "Therefore the whole church comes together in all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers in her, they will not say that you are out of your minds." And this is like saying if Gentiles come into your church and they hear you speaking in tongues, you're speaking in all these languages they can't comprehend and it seems like it's babbled to them, they're going to think you're crazy. Well, the difference is these are unbelieving Gentiles. They're going to think you're crazy. Unbelieving Jews is a sign of judgment upon them, but it's not even helpful for evangelism. It's not going to bring lost souls to the Lord to hearing someone speak in tongues. So it doesn't bring about evangelistic witness. It doesn't do anything in the church. And we can apply this, not that we're struggling with this as a church, we can apply with this as like role emotionalism is a little to no value, especially if it's personalized. You're just having your personal encounter with the Lord that you can't articulate, explain. Why are you happy? Why are you excited? And I know peace surpasses knowledge and love surpasses knowledge and joy surpasses knowledge. I understand that, but at least you can go, I'm joyful because of Christ. I'm joyful because my sins are forgiven. I can put some words to behind my feelings. In fact, it's the truth of these things that have given me joy and peace and filled my heart with love. Role emotionalism is a little to no value, especially in the church. Now, let's close looking at the power of the articulated word. Why we need to understand the Word of God, why it needs to go through our minds, why we need to have cognitive understanding. You see, first of all, the word has power to build us up. Look at verse three. We're going back. Verse three says, on the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding. The word here means it builds people up. The word edification, we get the word edifying. That was edifying. That built literally means to be edified means to be built up. It's the act of building metaphorically. The word means to assist someone spiritually, to help them grow, to mature. You're building them up. They're maturing. They're developing. They're growing. Hopefully you come to church because something that was said because of the word of God being preached clearly and understandably. And going, you're leaving something that builds your faith, builds your understanding of the word of God. And it's because the word of God is not it's not emotionalism that sanctifies us. It's the word of God that saves us and sanctifies us. Faith comes not through emotional experiences. Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the word of God. Without the word, there's no salvation. It's the power of God into salvation. There are articulate, understood gospel. A clear gospel message is what we need to hear. A clear understanding of the word of God is what we need to hear. I mean, I struggle with this text. This is a very difficult text to explain. And I struggled. I struggled. The point is, Texas make things clear. And this is very hard. So I worked and worked and worked to try to make it clear to us that it's the word of God that sanctifies us. And does that make sense? I hope so. Maybe we need an interpreter. We did it. See, the word of God doesn't just build up. It encourages. It says, verse three, on the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for the upbuilding and encouragement. The word encouragement literally is the same word for the Holy Spirit, paraclete, to come alongside, to assist, to bring encouragement, even comfort. The Bible tells us, Ephesians four twenty nine, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is up. What is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it might benefit those who listen. I mean, it's amazing how a word can give you the exact thing you need to hear at the moment you need to hear it. It can rebuke you, correct you. It can assist you, comfort you. And it can comfort us. In fact, it says encouragement and consolation. That's the third reason. Those word consolation in the Greek literally means to speak near someone. It means to come next to someone and speak close to them. It means to come by and speak a word of encouragement, a word of consolation, a word that is needed for them. And if they came and just spoke in a language you didn't understand, you could say, well, that they meant well, but I don't know what to take of that. But as we understand what they're saying, that's going to change your life or help you encourage you, comfort you. And now skip down to verse 24. The Word of God has the power to convict. I mean, if you're speaking in tongues and an unbeliever comes in and they go, oh, that guy's crazy, he's mad. I'm not getting anything out of this. And you're going to leave the congregation thinking nothing of it or just a bunch of crazy people there. But if you prophesy, verse 24, or you speak something that clearly could be comprehended, an outsider enters in. He can be convicted. You see, the Spirit convicts us through His word by shining a light upon God's truth. Not only does it bring conviction, it brings conviction because the Word of God clearly understood, brings about judgment. Look, it says 24, but if all prophesy and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all. He is called to account by all. This is the nature of the Word of God. You come to church, the Word of God does something. It convicts you of your sins because it brings judgment upon you. Remember, Paul said in Romans 7, he says, I was alive without the law. I thought I was a good man. I thought all is well. And a lot of you, let me tell you, a lot of you who don't know the Lord and you're happy and you can sleep well and you don't have any guilt that's weighing down on you. Or if you've got guilt, you suppress it. And you're just worried about living your life and sports and entertainment and making money. And that's all you're worried about. You're not worried about your soul. You're not worried about your sins. You don't have any guilt. It's because you're suppressed it. But when you hear the Word of God come and you hear the law, you hear the Word, you hear the truth, it has a way of exposing you, has a way of condemning you, and it brings judgment upon your soul. Because this is what it goes on to do. It searches your heart. Look, it goes on to say, verse 25, the Word has the power to reveal secrets of our heart. It says in verse 25, the secrets of his heart are disclosed. It's amazing. You read the Bible. It's like, I don't know if I believe this thing. You start judging the Bible. And you think you're the judge. You think you're the ones that are going to determine if the Bible is right or wrong. And so you're going to accept the verses you like and reject the verses you don't like, because you're the judge, right? But if you start reading the Bible, it's not long before the Bible starts judging you. And you realize, wait a minute, I'm not the judge here. I realize she's telling me. And the reason I know it's judging me is because it's telling me things about myself that I didn't even know. It's revealing the secrets of my heart. And how does the Bible know that? I mean, how did the preacher know that I'm struggling with that? How did they know? This is the thing I get accused with. I get this accusation probably five times a year, six times a year. No joke. You've done this. Were you preaching that at me? I saw you look at me when you made that point. And I'm almost afraid to look at people, you know, you know, talking about my I'm I'm I'm I'm gaze around. And sometimes I'll make eye contact and I'll make a point. And I want you to know something with these glasses. I can't see up front and with them. Well, if I can't see you when I'm looking around, I don't know who I'm looking at. I'm not making a point with my eye contact with you. But this is what happens. You reveal something to someone and you think they told me. Or maybe you did tell me something six months ago and you think I'm remembering that and I'm bringing it up in my sermon. And you come to me. It's like, was that aimed at me? And I say, no, it was not aimed at you. But maybe it was aimed at you. But it's not me that's doing the aiming. I'm not trying to pick on people. It's the word of God that knows how to to pull back your lights and reveal the secrets of your heart. And it's like when you under the word of God, not gibberish or speaking in tongues, but when you're under the clear word of God and you start thinking about it, it has the ability to give you an x-ray of your heart. And this is why people don't like the word. This is the reason they don't like doctrine. Just give me a little bit. Give me some love. Give me some entertainment. But they don't really want to set under the word of God clearly preach because it reveals too much. It's like you've got HIV and you don't want to know about it. You don't want to hear that you have. I would rather I've been happier not knowing. I don't want to know the truth that I might have a cancer is going to kill me. I just rather be happy and be ignorant. But here I'm forced to come to church and you're giving me an x-ray of my conscience. You're giving me an x-ray of my heart. And I don't like what I see is exposing my sins. And this is the power of the word of God. It reveals what's inside of you. No other word does this. No other word can read you like this. This is why the word of God is authoritative. It's powerful. Hebrews 4 tells us the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It peers as even to dividing of soul and spirit, joint and moral. It judges the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. I mean this is how precise the word of God is. It's like well I thought I was doing something good. But then the word of God comes in and it tells you maybe what you did was right but you had the wrong motives. It's able to expose your pride. It's able to expose things that you didn't even know about yourself. So you need to be worst in the word by coming to the word. It may hurt. It may bring conviction. It may judge you. But there's no sanctification without coming to the word and being cleansed by the word. It's kind of like God. The reason people don't come to God is because he's a blinding light. And when that light comes in it's like an x-ray. It's like a light that blinds and it looks into your conscious, looks into your brain and the light is searching around. He's like I don't want you to look into my heart. You can look at my life. I can deceive my wife. I can deceive my kids. I can deceive my friends, my coworkers. I can pretend to be a good person. But the Word of God doesn't see your outward actions. It looks into your soul. It looks into the crevices of your brain. And it says look, look, you're evil. Look at that motive. That was prideful. Look at that. That's sinful. And it reveals that. And you're like no, quit looking at me that way. So unbelievers leave church. They run from God. They don't want that guilt. And they go into the darkness where they can be comfortable. And all the more sin they can dold you. But those who come to the Word and sit under the Word and study the Word and understand the Word. Yes, that Word brings the light, the secrets of the heart, the motives, the susceptions, the sins, the remaining corruptions. But the very light that exposes it is the very light that burns it up. And by coming closer to the light of the Word of God, you become more like God. And this is why all Christians love the light. They love it because they want to be more like Christ. They want the secrets of the heart exposed. They want to be like David. It says search for the Old Lords. See if there's any evil way in me. Purify me. Take what's remaining in my mind and show it to me so I can repent of it and I can get rid of it. This is the power of the Word of God. It brings conviction. It's like a mirror. John Calvin says you cannot know God without knowing yourself. You cannot know the Word of God without knowing yourself. It reveals yourself. But it also leads to repentance. Look at verse 25."The secrets of his hearts are disclosed and soul falling on his face." That is, if an unbeliever comes in here, here's the gospel proclaimed. Here's the Word of God proclaimed. He understands what's being said. The secrets of his heart are exposed. He feels judged. He feels condemned. It brings forth the guilt. Then he says, "O me. O my, what have I done?" And he falls on his face. A sign of repentance. The best thing you can do right now if you're under any conviction is just fall down now. Fall on your face. Don't worry about who's going to be, how it's going to be embarrassing. Bow your hearts, O me. Then it says it should lead to worship. And falling on his face, he will worship God. You see, revelation, understanding the Word of God, comes before worship. You know, worship is a response to God's revelation of himself. We don't worship until the Word of God is illuminated into our minds, into our conscience. We're not worshiping the unknown God. We're worshiping the God that has been articulated and revealed and spoken to us in his Word. But as that Word is illuminated and quickened by the Holy Spirit, it brings transformation. And it goes from woe to me to glory be God in the highest. For he has saved me from all my sins. You see, remember verse 12, so with yourself, since you're eager for the manifestation of the Spirit, you want a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. You want to know the Spirit is present in the church. You want to have an emotional encounter, a spiritual Christianity, not just dry, intellectual, dead orthodoxy, but you want a living, emotional encounter with the Holy Spirit. Then this is what you do. Understand the prophecies of the Scriptures. Understand the Word. For then you'll have conviction. Then you will have people falling on their face. Then you'll have people worshiping the living God. And this, my friends, is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It's not just raw emotionalism. It's the Word of God changing lives. That's what we want to do at G.B.C. If you have the Lord's cup with you, the elements of the Lord's table with you, we invite you to partake with us if you are right with God. That is, you have to be a Christian who already sought to follow the Lord in baptism and be united to a local church and good standings with God and with man. But you know why the Lord's table is powerful, is a means of grace, is because we understand what it means. Jesus took the elements. He says, "This bread," He didn't just say,"Take this bread, eat it. Take this cup, drink it." Well, what for? I don't know, just do it. The reason that the Lord's table is powerful and is a means of grace is because we know that the bread represents the body of Jesus. He says, "This is my body." And He picked up the cup and He says,"This cup, this represents my blood. Do this in remembrance of me." The reason we do this is because we can take inventory of the gospel and we can approach Christ. We can approach God through Jesus Christ and the way to approach God through Christ is intellectually. Use your mind, engage your mind in this Lord's table this morning. So I want you to do two things. First, I want us all to take, we'll have two moments of contemplation, but I don't want it to be empty contemplation. I want your mind to be engaged. The first moment of contemplation, I want you to reflect upon yourself. I want the Word of God to go through the crevices of your thinking and your conscience and I want you to deal with the Lord in your conscience. Let's do that now.[Silence] Now, as you contemplate yourself, know that there's no great man in this kingdom besides Jesus. We watched a good man fall when we heard about the falling of a hero this week, but there's none good. There's no good Christian that's outside of Christ. So know that you're not special because of your righteousness. If the Word of God has had an effect on your conscience, you know that you're guilty. There's no one that can say I'm without sin. Now, let's take a few moments to contemplate the Gospel, how you can come to Jesus. You can come boldly to the table. You can come and you can partake of Christ, not because you're worthy, not because you're good, not because you deserve it, not because of anything in yourself, but you can come to Christ. We can come to Christ each week because Jesus died for your sins. He laid down the ultimate price himself. He didn't redeem you with silver and gold, but by his precious blood. So now, I want you to run to Jesus. I want you to run to the Father through Jesus Christ in your mind by contemplating the Gospel. Now, caroling. Can you give me the blessing? If you would, take the bread and open up the cup. Let's pray. The Lord, we're thankful for the body and the cup, the bread and the cup, your body and your blood that died for us. Lord, we worship you this morning through taking the elements and we recognize you're the only way that we can come and have peace with the Father and with boldness and with joy. We remember your son to him alone. We say be the honor and the glory and the majesty of the power and the praise. We hide behind the elements. We hide behind Christ. We worship him and we partake of him. In Jesus' name, Amen. You may eat and drink. Amen.