Why Does God Wait Until the End to Judge? — 1 Corinthians 4 Explained

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. I know some here from Arkansas and some of you from down at McAllister and other areas, and we just appreciate so much that you come in to be a part of this. And again, for those of you watching us on television, we're just an informal Bible study. All this really began with just home Bible studies, and from that the Lord has just helped us to branch out where we can reach more and more folk with the Word. And I don't try to make arguments with people. I'm just going to teach it the way I feel the Lord has revealed it to me as just an uneducated layman. I do not attempt to talk in theological levels, but we're just trying to teach the Word in a way that the common people can comprehend it. And I think we're accomplishing something by it from all the response. And again, we like to remind our listeners that we love your letters, and don't ever apologize if you can't include money. That's not what we're looking for necessarily. We just love to hear from you, and to hear what the Lord is doing in your life. And don't refrain from writing if you're not in a position to contribute, because the Lord is taking care of our financial needs, and we never worry about that end of it. All right, now then for those of you that are here in the studio, you've already turned with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 4. And we're going to continue on where we left off in our last program, and continue our study throughout the Corinthians. And then of course as the Lord carries, we'll probably go next into Galatians and maybe Ephesians or whatever. But here in 1 Corinthians now, chapter 4, let's just go back for a quick review, where he starts out the chapter and verse 1, "...let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards, or keepers, or managers of the mysteries of God." And we went through all that in our last program, how all these appalling revelations that are never referred to anywhere else in Scripture—they're not in the Gospels, they're not in the Old Testament, they're not even in the book of Acts for the most part—but here it comes throughout Paul's epistles, or letters I prefer to use, and that is the revelation of all these things that Paul refers to in the mysteries. We looked at them all in our last program. Then he says in verse 2 that it is required of stewards, of whatever we are in charge of, whether it's a business or a church activity. If we're in charge, then we are responsible, and God expects us to be faithful. Then I'm going to come all the way down now for the sake of our next study, beginning at verse 4, for Paul says, "...for I know nothing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified, but I judge not my own self, and he that judgeth me is the Lord." All right, now as I've been stressing all the way through these early chapters of Corinthians—and we're also studying Corinthians in one of our Oklahoma classes—never lose sight of the fact that Corinth was a city just saturated in paganism, and with the paganism the gross immorality that went with it. They were so steeped in the things of the world that even as Paul has now garnered this little group of believers—and remember, don't think of a church back in those days like the huge megachurches of today. There were probably a few dozen at the most that Paul addresses here, and these fellows and these women have just recently come out of such a pagan background. Now it stands to reason that they couldn't all of a sudden, or they didn't all of a sudden, become spiritual giants. They have a lot of problems, and as I think I've pointed out in our earlier lessons, it is indicated in chapter 7, verse 1, that the Corinthian congregation actually sent Paul—who is over across the Aegean Sea at Ephesus when he writes to the Corinthians—they actually wrote a letter to the man with a whole series of questions, and so he's answering them one by one. And when you get that concept, then this little letter of Corinthians just sort of opens up again. And so you remember back there in chapter 1, he had the deal with so many of them lifting him up as the only man to listen to. Others had separated themselves, saying, No, we only listen to Peter. Others said, No, we listen to Apollos. Well those were all things that divided this little congregation, but that wasn't their only problem. My, they had a moral problem, and we're going to see that probably in about the last program today. They had problems of morality, they had problems of relationship within the church family. The whole letter of Corinthians is dealing with a series of problems, and they had come to the apostle in the form of a letter asking, Well, how do we do this? How do we handle that? All right, now then, he's bringing back and defending again his apostleship. Now you remember we stressed that back in that chapter 1 when some said, No, we listen to Peter. You're just a fake. You're an imposter. Peter is the one who has the authority. He walked with Jesus for three years. You didn't, and so Paul has to constantly defend his apostleship. And here's another little instance. He says, He is judged of no man except Jesus Christ, the one who sent him out as the apostle of the Gentiles in the first place. All right, now then, coming down to verse 5. Therefore, since no one can judge Paul except the Lord who sent him, therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord come. Now, have you ever stopped to wonder why believers will never receive their reward until at the end of time? The lost are not going to receive their just recompense until the end of their time. Ever stop to think why? Because you see, as you and I go through this life as a believer, we are making impacts on people all around us. And what the final impact will really be, we won't know until the Lord, the righteous judge, will reveal it at the last time. In other words, for you and I living today, if the Lord should tarry and we go on through the valley of death, every person that we have touched in this life is going to still carry on in some way or another, and we don't know what they're going to accomplish. In other words, I always have to think of my own experience. My, I'm sure the people that were instrumental in my early Christian experience are long gone, but see, as a result of what they did in my life, it's still carrying on and never lose sight of that. Now, it's the same way with the lost person. As he makes an impact on the world from his lostness, he too is going to be reaping rewards of people who are following in his or her footsteps. And so this is what the apostle is trying to show here, is that we are responsible only to the Lord, and until He comes, this is where our responsibility lies. So then when he says in verse 5, "...until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts, then shall every man have praise of God." Now just last night, again I'm always defining words, and it takes a long time before it really settles in on people. Now over and over I have defined this word manifest, and you see it so often in Scripture, things being manifested. Here it is again, that at the end of time when the Lord comes, then He will make manifest the counsels of the heart, which is an area that only God can see. Now again, that word manifest is putting on the spotlight, and I always like to use the microscope as the perfect example. I don't put that slide down underneath those mirrors and everything like that. It doesn't do a nickel's worth of good until you turn on that bright light beneath it. That manifests everything then that's on that slide, and all of a sudden things that were invisible are now visible. Now that's what the word manifest almost always depicts in Scripture, that there's coming a time when that sharp light of God's knowledge is going to penetrate even into the very hearts of our being, and then it says, "...every man," that is believers now, he's not talking about lost people here, he's talking to the believers, "...and then shall every man have praise of God." I say this is what we're to live for. You know we're living in a time of materialism, and I suppose 90% of motivation amongst all of us is material advancing. We want it better than the last generation. We want our kids to have it better than we had it. But listen, we've got our priorities wrong. We've all got our priorities wrong. The things that count the most, as the Lord Jesus Himself put it in His earthly ministry, "...seek ye first..." What? "...the kingdom of heaven, and then let these things be added." There's nothing wrong with things in themselves, but it's what people do with things in their schedule of priority. All right, so we are to live and breathe that one day we might have the praise of God. That's why He's left us here, to bring honor and glory to His name. See? All right, now verse 6, "...and these things, brethren, I have in a figure, in a picture, in a type, transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes, that you might learn in us not to think of men..." See? Now I know that's italicized, it was added by the translators, but nevertheless the thought is right, that these Corinthians were not to think of Paul or Apollos or Peter above that which is written, "...that no one of you be puffed up one against another." Now what's he dealing with? That very problem, that within the congregation of Corinth people were getting all puffed up and said, hey, I'm the one that's most important in this congregation because I go by what Peter taught. And over here was another person who says, oh no, oh no, I'm the one that's the leader of this congregation because I'm emanating the apostle Paul. And you see how infantile they really were? Oh, they were still so carnal. And so this is another problem he's dealing with, that you cannot get puffed up and give someone the impression that you're better than they are, that you are more spiritually blessed than all these things. It's just all so practical. And so he says, "...let no one of you be puffed up for one against another." And then verse 7, now here we come down to the whole practicality of our very existence. "...for whom maketh thee to differ?" And then of course the translators have added from another, hopefully to enhance it a little bit. But you don't even need those italicized words. "...for whom maketh you different?" That's what it amounts to. I'll never forget. Years and years ago, I was just probably a teenager, and in our church congregation up there in northern Iowa, we had an old German immigrant who had become quite wealthy. And I'll never take anything away from him. He was a tremendously hard worker, but he had accumulated land by the hundreds and hundreds of acres, and he was known as one of the more wealthy people in the community. And I'll never forget, he always sat in about the second row in church on our Sunday morning service, and the pastor was evidently preaching a sermon on this same order, that we are nothing except what God lets us be. And I'll never forget he asked the old gentleman, who at that time was probably already up in his 70s, and he called him by name, and he said, "...listen, who gave you the ability to make all your money?" He said, "...nobody. I did it myself." And I'll never forget it. But you know, he was all wrong. He couldn't have made a nickel. He could have never bought a quarter section without God ordaining it. And see, this is where we all are. We are what we are by the sovereign grace of God. And this is what Paul is emphasizing to these Christians. Don't you get puffed up that you're somebody better than somebody else, because you're nothing except what God made you. See? All right, reading on. "...for who maketh thee different from another? For what hast thou that you did not..." What? "...receive?" Well, from whom? From God. See? Every one of us as believers now. Now, I'm not talking about the unsaved world. I'm talking about you and I as believers. We are what we are. We have what we have only by the grace of God. And we can never puff up our chest and say, hey, look what I've accomplished. We can't do that, because we have accomplished nothing of ourselves. So he says, you didn't have anything except what you received. And if you did receive it, why do you glory as though you hadn't received it? In other words, in plainer English, I'd say, why are you glorying over something that you didn't even have anything to do with? You see that? And every time we get an inkling that, hey, maybe I'm somebody special, boy, knock that thought right down, because we are nothing except what God has let us become. And that, again, is all based on His what? His grace. See? His grace. I don't deserve three meals a day. I don't deserve any of the good things of life, but I have them. Why? Because God's grace has seen fit to permit it. Oh, this is so practical. Verse 8. Now you are full. Now you are rich. Oh, wait a minute. I thought these people were carnal. Hey, they are. They are not yet spiritually rich like the Ephesians. They still have a long ways to go. But again, this brings right back home this whole concept of salvation. That the moment we're saved, we have all of God as He can put Himself into us. We have everything so far as the fullness of the Holy Spirit from the very moment we believe. You don't have to work for it. You don't have to look for it. That was all part of salvation. Now granted, God does leave within our realm of control how much of the fullness we're going to maintain, or are we going to let it kind of empty out? You know, I haven't got a cup with me here, but I do it so often in my class here in Oklahoma. I'll take a coffee cup or something like that, and I'll say, okay, you all know enough about physics that if I've got this cup in my hand, and it's full of a liquid, water or coffee or whatever, if I want to fill that cup with air, what do I have to do with my water? Well, I have to pour it out. All right, now if I pour out half a cup of water, how much of the cup is full of air? Half. If I pour out three-fourths of the cup, then three-fourths is air, one-fourth is water. All right, now I always bring this together in an analogy. This is a good way to explain the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The moment we're saved, we're filled to the brim with the Holy Spirit. You just talked to someone that's just recently saved, and I mean they are bubbling over, they are excited, they know what a tremendous thing has happened in their life. But all right, we're still in this old world with all of its allurement, with all of its temptations, and all the desires of the flesh, and so what happens? Pretty soon we start filling that cup that's with air, or the pneuma, the Holy Spirit, and that's the analogy of the Holy Spirit, just like air. All right, we start filling it with material things, coffee, water, whatever you want to use. All right, first thing we know our cup is full of the material, isn't it? And what have we done with the Holy Spirit? We've almost cancelled Him out. Now He'll never leave, don't get that wrong idea, but we lose His fullness. Now we come to a point then in our Christian experience, and here's of course where you have to get into the Word, and you have to be in fellowship with other believers. So then we finally come to the conclusion the Holy Spirit is not having the control in my life that I want Him to have. I've got to do something about it, and remember all these things that we saw in Romans do become a personal decision. You're free. All right, now I want more of that fullness of the Holy Spirit back in our life. What are we going to have to do with this material that's in the cup? Pour it out, get rid of it, pour it out, and if you want to be completely filled again, get right down to the basics, and priority wise, and get down to where the spiritual things mean more than the material. All right, so now even as these carnal Christians, Paul says, you're rich, you're full, see, because of what God had done in their lives. You reigned as kings without us, and I would to God you did reign, that we also might reign with you. Now you see the apostle I think is bringing them to the place where they could experience a greater joy of their salvation, and the apostle wants to be part of that, because after all he was the one responsible for bringing them out of their paganistic lifestyle. All right, now then verse 9, For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles, now he's including I think the 12 back there in Jerusalem and himself from probably Barnabas, for I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last as it were appointed to what? Death. Now I'm sure every one of us have considered it at some time in our Christian experience, why? And I know it's not for us to question God's sovereignty, but we're human, and so we do. We ask why. Do you realize that all 12 of the apostles, except maybe John, who may have died a natural death as he was in exile on the Isle of Patmos, but all the others died a martyr's death? Every one of them. Horrible death. And the apostle Paul the same way, beheaded at the behest of Nero. Go back to II Corinthians. Have I got enough time? I hope so. II Corinthians I think it is, chapter 11? Yeah, II Corinthians chapter 11. We got time enough. And as you read these things, inspired by the Holy Spirit. So this isn't Paul just simply expressing his own feelings of his own volition. This is Holy Spirit inspired. It's here for a purpose. II Corinthians chapter 11. And look what the man went through for the sole purpose of getting the gospel out to the Gentile world. He was getting no compensation. He wasn't gaining any material wealth whatsoever. If he had wealth as a Jew and as a Pharisee, he evidently just left it all behind. That's what I think happened. I think at one time Saul of Tarsus was a wealthy religious Jew. But he chucked it all for the sake of being the apostle of the Gentile. Now look what the man went through. Verse 22. He said, Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? Now he says, I speak as a fool. You remember what he said about the gospel back there in chapter 1? To the world it's foolishness, but to us who are saved it's the power of God. All right, now he's saying that from the world's perspective he was a fool to have chucked all the power, and the prestige, and the wealth that he had as a Jewish religious leader. So he says, I speak as a fool. I am more. He's more Jew. He's more Pharisee than any of them. Now reading on. In labors more abundant, in stripes, that is from the whips, in stripes above measure, in prison more often or more frequent, and in deaths, that is near death, oftentimes. And now here it comes. Verse 24. Of the Jews five times I received the forty stripes, say one. In other words they'd whip them 39 times and not 40 in case they might have missed counting. Verse 25. Three times I was beaten with rods, and none of us know what that was like. It was inhuman. Once I was stoned, you know all that account when they dragged him out of the city of Lystra I think it was, and he was supposedly dead. Three times I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day I've been in the deep. See? All for the sake of the gospel. Verse 26. In journeyings often, well we know that. In his three missionary journeys that are listed in the book of Acts, the man must have been on foot day after day after day. See? In perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen. You know the Jews were out to kill him constantly. In perils by the heathen. The Romans are going to finally end up putting him to death. So it wasn't just the Jew, it was the Jew and the Gentile that were after him. In perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in the sea, and among false brethren. In weariness. He was human. He wasn't a superstar. He was human. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst. He couldn't stop and get a Big Mac along the way, you know. And it was hard finding something to eat. And so often he was in hunger and thirst, fasting often, in cold and nakedness. In other words, not sufficient clothing to keep him warm. And then on top of all the physical suffering, besides those things that were without, that which cometh upon me daily, even when he's in a warm room, or maybe a host and hostess, or maybe he was in a rather comfortable area for a change, but then what comes upon him? Oh, the mental and the spiritual pressures, the care of all the what? The churches, the believers. The man was constantly under pressure, because then here would come this letter from the Corinthians. So what are we going to do about all these problems? And then the Galatians, he finds out they're going back into legalism. And he has to hurriedly sit down and write the six chapters of the little letter to the Galatians. And over and over the man is just constantly besieged with the care of Christianity, which is now just beginning to make itself known throughout the Roman Empire. And I have to look at a situation like that. Would I keep going? Would you keep going? If you were just constantly suffering every day of your life for the simple reason of getting the gospel out to these pagan heathens, who were so content to worship their gods of wood and stone, I mean, I just can't help but wonder. I have to ask, Lord, why did a man like Paul have to suffer to such an extreme that we might get the gospel? What kept him from giving up and going back home to Tarsus and say, what's the use? But he didn't. He kept on and he kept on until finally Rome itself put him to death. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick's program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. 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.