What 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Really Says About Who Goes to Heaven

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. It's good to have everybody back with us, and we are going to be looking right where we left off in our last program, 1 Corinthians chapter 6. We're going to jump in at verse 9, although we did get to verse 11. For those of you joining us on television, how we appreciate a letter like we got yesterday. She said, I even feel like I love all the people in your studio audience. She said, I just feel like I'm a part of them. Well, evidently we're coming across the way we intend. Those of you watching on television can actually feel like you're right here in the class with us, and so we like to extend a special welcome to those of you from wherever you are. Now again, we always like to remind our audience that we do have all the past programs, and believe it or not, this is the 80th time that we've been in the Tulsa now to tape four programs. All these programs are available on video as well as in the printed page, and so if you're interested in that, you give us a call on the 800 number, or write us a note, and we'll get them back to you. I don't know how many thousands of books I figured up the other day have already gone out, but it's a bunch of them. Jerry, our transcriber, is here again today. Jerry's the one who transcribes all the tapes into the printed page and gets it ready for the folk up here. Now then, let's get into what this program is all about. It's pretty much a verse by verse study of the Word, and as we've already indicated, we've come all the way up from Genesis, and now we're in I Corinthians chapter 6. We'll start again at verse 9, and then down to where we left off in verse 11. Remember the background for the letter to Corinthians. I can't emphasize it too much or too often. This was a unique situation. This was a unique congregation of believers, unlike I think anything else that Paul experienced. Corinth was such a bustling commercial city located between two seaports, and so you had people coming in from all over the then known world. There was a tremendous exchange of money and wealth and culture and all the rest of it. But the main thing you have to understand as you read Corinthians is that the city of Corinth was steeped in paganism, in pagan idolatrous and the worship of the Greek gods and goddesses and what have you. So with that kind of a background and such gross immorality, now of course we think it's getting bad in America, but listen. We haven't quite reached yet the level of Corinth. We'll probably get there before long at the rate we're sliding. But as yet we are not as far down the tube as Corinth was, and so here is where Paul now as he writes to these Corinthian believers, just recently converted out of that kind of a lifestyle. Now look what he says in verse 9. "...know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived." In other words, don't you think for a minute that just because God is a God of love, and God is gracious and God is merciful, that He is going to let these kind of people into His heaven short of their salvation. And so look what he says. "...neither fornicators," in other words the grossly immoral people, "...nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, or the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, none of those will inherit the kingdom of God." They are in the hands of Satan, and they're going to be where Satan will be for all eternity. But they don't have to be. Now look at the next verse. "...and such were some of you, and now you are washed." In other words, they've been cleansed of all their wickedness. "...but you are sanctified." They were now set apart for God's purposes. You are justified, and now if you remember how we studied in Romans that justification is that judicial act of God whereby He declares the sinner just as if they had never sinned. In other words, God cleanses the idolater as though he had never fallen down before an idol. He justifies the drunkard as though he had never taken a drink. He justifies the adulterer as though he had never committed adultery. This is the beauty of salvation by grace. Now this is not a Pauline concept. You know I'm always emphasizing so much of what Paul writes, but turn back with me to John's Gospel where the Lord Jesus Himself uses the term, with regard of course to the twelve or the eleven. And here we have Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. You all know the account, probably better than I do. John 13, verse 5, "...and after that he poureth water into a basin," that is the Lord Jesus now, and this is again just shortly before His crucifixion, the end of His three years, "...and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. And he cometh to Simon Peter, and Peter said unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? And Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now." You know I'm always emphasizing how that Scripture and God dealing with men is a progressive thing, and in the same way this is so true. Peter didn't understand what Jesus was doing right now, but he would somewheres down the road. And then Simon Peter said, verse 9, "...Lord, then not my feet only, but also my hands and my feet." In other words what is Peter saying? Well if washing my feet will do this much, then give me a bath. What greater experience than to have the Lord of Glory give you a total bath. And Peter wasn't the least bit shy about the matter, and so he said, if that's the case then give me a bath, and wash me all over. Verse 10, "...And Jesus said unto him, He that is washed needeth not another washing, except to wash his feet. But he is clean every whit, and you are clean, he saith to Peter, but not all." Now he's not talking about part of Peter's body, he's talking about the 12th man who was Judas, which you pick up in verse 11. Verse 11, "...For he, the Lord Jesus, knew who should betray him, therefore said he, You are not all clean." So it wasn't that he was indicating that Peter's salvation wasn't complete, that it was. But why then need the foot washing? Well you see as I've explained before, I think even on the program, the main place of bathing were the public baths. And after they had left the public bath with nothing but their sandals, and not nice paved or asphaltic streets and sidewalks, they had to go down those old filthy, dusty streets. By the time they got back home, what condition were their feet in? They were again filthy. So did he have to go back and get another bath? No. He had his bodily bath, but he had to wash the feet. The indication then is that it's the same thing in our Christian experience. Once we've been saved, we're washed. And now come back to I Corinthians, and this is what he's even telling these horrible Corinthians who had been in the most gross of sins. I was thinking on the way up again, we're living in a society where a good percentage of our people have had at least some exposure to the Scriptures. They've probably been to Sunday school when they were kids. A lot of denominations put their children through catechism and so forth, and it at least exposes them to some of the things of the Bible, but these people had none. They knew absolutely nothing of the things of God. They knew nothing of Adam. They knew nothing of Abraham. They knew nothing of Moses and the Law. They were pagan. They were idol worshippers. I mentioned to one of the classes the other night when we were in Corinth, through the ruins of Corinth, way up on an outcropping, and it must have been a couple hundred feet at least, almost a sheer cliff. Clear at the top of course is this temple to the goddesses. And I have to stop and ask the guide, how in the world did they get the building material from down here to up there? It was slave labor. It was umpteen hours of hard work, not to build some beautiful library, not to build some beautiful campus or place of education, but a temple to a female goddess. Imagine! But see that's all they lived for. Whatever they could work and sweat and do to somehow appease their gods and goddesses. This wasn't just Corinth, it was the whole ancient world. Now then, along with the worship of these goddesses, which was even worse than the worship of the male gods, was gross immorality. I've pointed this out in almost every program since we've been in Corinthians, that this gross immorality was just a part and parcel of their everyday experience. They didn't know any different. And it wasn't just the common people, it was all the way to the top. Now then coming back to I Corinthians chapter 3, and so he says, "...such were some of you, but now you're washed." Now just like Peter and the other ten men, they had their salvation, they were washed of their sins and of their iniquity, and so were these Corinthians. So what does it always boil down to? Just like Paul said in Romans chapter 3, that we're sin abounded. What always is greater? God's grace. See? God's grace is always greater if the individual wants to partake of it. Now then he says in the very next verse, "...you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Now here again is the working of the whole three persons of the Godhead. God the Father in heaven looks down on sinful men, and the Holy Spirit in turn convicts sinful men of the finished work of God the Son. And so the whole triune God comes in and washes these kind of people of which you and I were no different. Oh, we may not have been steeped in idolatry, we may not have been practicing gross immorality, but the potential was there. My heart was born just as wicked as these Corinthians, and so was yours. But as a result of the grace of God, and the finished work of the cross, and our faith in it, we too have been washed, sanctified, and justified. Now verse 12. This may throw a curve at people, and a lot of times we think, well I'm going to skip some of these verses as I get ready for this, but no I can't skip a verse like 12 where Paul now writes, "...all things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought unto the power of any." Now what is Paul saying? Is Paul saying, I can go ahead and steal? Is Paul saying, I can go ahead and commit adultery? I can go ahead and covet? No. What he's really saying is that he is no longer under that demanding burden of the law, and he's now under grace. Now let's go back and compare some Scriptures that maybe we've looked at previously. Let's go back for just a second to Romans chapter 6, and verse 14. Here's where we get it the clearest, and this is where we spent a lot of time when we were back in Romans. Romans 6. Romans 6. for sin, or your old Adamic nature, shall not have dominion over you. For you are not under the law, you're under grace. Now then if you're not under the law, then what? It doesn't have any effect on you. That's what he means back here in Corinthians, all things are lawful because I'm not under the law. Now while you're still in Romans, turn a minute, I think it's chapter 13, Romans chapter 7. Just across the page in fact. Romans 7, verse 5 and 6. Romans 7. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law, all the things that the law was revealing, that being dead wherein we were held, that is by the law. Now of course Paul can write that way, being a Jew himself. That we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. What's he saying? That we're no longer under those demands of the Ten Commandments of Moses, we are now under the control of the Holy Spirit. Now be logical, will the Holy Spirit ever lead a believer to do something contrary to the law? No. Of course not. The Holy Spirit will never lead someone into adultery, and the Holy Spirit will never lead someone into idolatry. Logical isn't it? But without that burden of the law, and the fear that what if I break it, we now have grace, and the Holy Spirit is the one who leads us, and guides us, and directs us, so that we keep the law. But it's under a whole different set of circumstances, and that's exactly what Paul is talking about here when he says that all things are lawful. He is not under that burden of the law per se, he is free from that, but he's not going to take advantage of it, and make license of it, because the Holy Spirit now is controlling every facet of his life, and so it should be with us. All things are lawful for me, because I'm not under the law, but I will not be brought under the power of any of those things that the law forbids. Now verse 13 on is going to come into something that we're going to cover a little more in detail when we get over to chapter 8, but in verse 13 he brings out one of the physical aspects of everyday life, and that is in 1 Corinthians 6, and that is meat for the belly, or food for the stomach, and the stomach for food, but God shall destroy both it and them. In other words those are part of our temporal existence. We can't go a day hardly without food. The stomach begins to rumble, and roll, and roar, and we get hungry, and that's the way God intended it. But the day is coming that won't be true. When we get our new resurrected body, we're not going to have to eat 3 meals a day. I think for those of us who love to eat, the Lord is going to have the pleasure of eating, I really think that, otherwise He wouldn't have done it there at the Sea of Galilee. And you know He ate fish that morning, and I imagine like me He had some bread, nothing I like better for breakfast than just plain fish and bread. But anyway, it's not going to need it. It's not going to be something that the body is going to demand day after day. And so this is part of our temporal existence. Food for the stomach, stomach for the food. Now He goes on into another area of everyday life, and that's the sexuality. And so He says the body is not for fornication. The body was not created for man to live immorally, but it was created to bring honor and glory to whom? To God Himself, that's why He created us. So the body is not for fornication, but it's for the Lord, and the Lord in turn is for the body. It's a two way street. Now verse 14, And God hath both raised up the Lord, and he will also raise us up by his own power. Now here's just one little introduction to resurrection which is going to come full blast when we get to chapter 15. When we get to chapter 15 of I Corinthians, we're going to see more on resurrection in that one chapter I think, than in all the rest of Scripture put together. But see Paul is just sort of wetting our appetite here, just giving us a little inkling of that which is yet to come. And so as Christ was raised up, so also we will be raised up by His own power, and I'll make more comment on that concerning the Greek philosophy when we get to chapter 15. Now verse 15, And know ye not that he was with them long enough to lay out all of these biblical principles of morality and spirituality? Now he wasn't with them long, but when you start to think about it, if it hadn't been for the miraculous working power of God, Christianity would have never gotten off the ground. It was just an impossible set of odds, because all these people were so steeped in idolatry except the Jewish element, and they were just as steeped in their Judaism, that had it not been for the miraculous working of God, it would have never survived, because Paul wasn't in any one place that long. Now I can see the Church of Jerusalem prospering to a certain degree, because the 11, later on the 12 again, came back and continued the ministry that Christ began, and they stayed there year in and year out, working amongst those Jews in Israel. But every place that Paul established a church, it was only for a week or two, and Antioch of course a year and a half, but for the most part Thessalonica I think only a couple of weeks, and he moved on. How in the world did those new believers, fresh out of paganism, how did they make it? Well I can't understand it, except that it was the miraculous power of God that Christianity was now to take off and start permeating the whole Roman Empire. But he says, don't you know that your bodies are the members of Christ? Now remember he's talking to believers, even these carnal people at the Church of Corinth, but they were believers. And he says, don't you know that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a prostitute? God forbid! Now you see we think this is horrible language. What's the Bible got this in here for? This was their whole lifestyle. I've pointed out in the last series of programs, my from that temple of the goddess Aphrodite up there on that bluff above the city, 1,000 female priestesses serving in the temple. But at night where did they go? Down into the city of Corinth, 1,000 of them, and the men were confronted with that every night of the week. And so this is why the Bible is so explicit. It was so rampant, and it didn't stop there. Their immorality went to the very depth, and we're seeing it happening in our own country today. I guess maybe that's why this letter is now becoming more appropriate, because even our society is getting closer and closer to that of Corinth. Now verse 16. What? verse 16. "...and do you know that he that is joined," that is sexually, "...to a harlot is one body? For two, he saith, shall be one flesh." Where does Paul get this? Well go back to Genesis. Let's go back a moment, it's been a long time since we've taught Genesis. Chapter 2, and let's just jump in at verse 21. The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof, and the rib which God had taken from man he made a woman, and brought her unto the man. Now verse 23. The man, Adam, said, This is now bone of my bones, this is flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. In other words the Hebrew word for man is ish, and the word for woman is with an A added on the last, it's ishah. So ish and ishah are man and woman, because she was taken out of man. Now verse 24. Here it is, and this is what Paul is still resting on. Verse 24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave, and hang on to his wife, and they shall be one flesh. Now in our present day weddings, the kids like to have two candles burning, and at the end of the ceremony they snuff the two and light one. Well that's the whole concept, but you see they take it so lightly. I read again the other day one of our polls, and I don't know who took it, but a recent poll was taken, and over 50% of young married couples who have just been married within a month, over 50% expected their marriage to end up in divorce within the first year or two. I mean that's their attitude. Now this is shocking, I know it is, but no wonder they don't laugh. They go in with no commitment, and you know why they do it? Because the Church has failed to teach our young people. Our young people no longer understand these Biblical promises of marriage and sex and kids and all the rest. It's completely unknown to them, and so consequently they can enter into this marriage relationship with no commitment, with no moral foundation, no anchor, and no wonder we're in trouble. But you see the Biblical concept has never changed from the Garden of Eden to this day tonight. And that is God intended one man married for life to one woman. And if death interrupted it as we'll be seeing over in chapter 7, then they were free to remarry. But other than that, God's original plan was one man for one woman. Now you remember even the taunters of Jesus, what did they throw up to Jesus? Well Moses granted a writing of divorcement. How about that? Well what was Jesus' answer? Granted? He said because of your sin, Moses granted writings of divorcement. But Jesus said in the beginning it was not so. In the beginning when God laid out the format for marriage and family, it was one man for one woman until death do them part. Now then if you'll come back to I Corinthians chapter 6 for a few seconds that we have left. He said don't you know that if you're joined to a harlot or a prostitute, you become one with that prostitute? That's some sobering thinking, isn't it? And so consequently then he says, flee immorality. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74-552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74 -552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported and your gift is appreciated. Thank you and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.