The Great Falling
Away, Part 1 by Ed Pruitt
1 Corinthians 3:1-3
The Great Falling Away
Sunday August 11, 2002
Pastor Ed Pruitt
Amarillo Church of God
1 Corinthians 3:1-3
1 Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I
would to mature Christians. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world
or as though you were infants in the Christian life.
2 I had to feed you with milk and not with solid food, because you couldn’t
handle anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready,
3 for you are still controlled by your own sinful desires. You are jealous of
one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled
by your own desires? You are acting like people who don’t belong to the Lord.
And then let’s turn to,
Galatians 3:1-3
1 Oh, foolish Galatians! What magician has cast an evil spell on you? For you
used to see the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death as clearly as though I had shown
you a signboard with a picture of Christ dying on the cross.
2 Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by keeping
the law? Of course not, for the Holy Spirit came upon you only after you
believed the message you heard about Christ.
3 Have you lost your senses? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit,
why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?
I say this morning when I look at these texts and the look on conditions that
certainly our eyes behold much more than we really like to.
But our hearts are saddened and I know that the great heart of God is saddened,
when there is so many indications of feebleness, spiritual feebleness among that
which calls itself the Church of God.
Not only feebleness but failure, short comings, even sin in some cases among the
people.
And certainty it is a good question when we can say, why is it so?
I want to say this morning that we can ask a question why is it so and right
behind that ask another question, is it necessary for the church to live at such
a low standard of spiritually?
Aman, if we are not careful we are going to get to a place where the truth
standard that God has given to live by is just an ideal, that we shoot at and
never reach.
Aman, so many my friend, striving, working, stumbling falling giving out, too
feeble, my friend to stand in the temptation my friend when it asks the
question, has God ordained such a thing?
Did He intend His people to live in such a way?
When we study the bible we can note in more than one epistle Paul points to the
reason that the congregation were living will meet their privileges.
Aman, in both scriptures that we read and we could read others my friend, were
fashioned in the falling away of the morning time church, he had one reason for
it and we want to study it this morning.
They were not living as Christians ought to live and the reason that they were
not living as Christians ought to live they were trying to operate by the power
of the flesh instead of by the power of the spirit.
My friend, I am talking about something that has been a downfall to the church
of God every since there has been a church.
My friend, when you study the falling away that took place in the morning time
and all that grew out of it you come right back and pin point it to what we are
studying this morning people left off the spirit and tried to go on in the flesh
and because of that out of it came divisions.
I am going to stand and make a statement this morning, every church that you can
join there’s 28300 different beliefs and in the midst’s of it there is one way
that is right!
Come on, and all of those divisions are works of the flesh!
There spirit of God never led any men anywhere to start a church, give it a
name, set up there own creeds, those are all works of the flesh.
My friend, they came about if you please by men who had fallen from a place of
the leadership of the Spirit of God and fallen to the place of the flesh.
And I say this morning, it is a great danger right among us.
We can come out from Babylon and come in our congregations, Brother every time
there is a divisive spirit that begins to work the flesh is working there Spirit
of God will never lead true members of the church to divide and be at odds at
each other!
When Paul said in Ephesians Letter, Press and endeavor to keep the unity of the
Spirit, my friend too many don’t even know what it is.
And when you look at it in the Greek, it says endeavor to keep the unity that
the Spirit has brought about.
What unity has the Spirit brought about?
He baptized us all by one Spirit in the one body, that’s the unity that the
Spirit brought about!
And you and I must endeavor every day, no matter how good a Christian you are,
there is a flesh here that is ready to work!
There is a body that has got to be kept under and if we fail to keep it under it
is going to rise up with a better idea than God has.
Brother, congregations over the land are filled with people that will set and
listen to their Pastors, but they decide within themselves, they have got a
better way, they have got a better idea, they don’t believe that’s necessary.
And the reason that we are not reaching the world is because my friend we
haven’t got enough people that we can call Spiritual.
Brother, Spiritual people don’t cause no trouble!
Spiritual people don’t miss services!
Spiritual people don’t fail to testify!
Spiritual people are praying people!
Come on now, let’s get right down to where we are!
Now I say if this morning if Paul would come back and visit our places I wonder
if he wouldn’t say, well you are a good bunch people but I can’t speak unto you
as Spiritual!
Now I am here to tell you this morning that the church of God is Spiritual!
Aman, I don’t believe it!
1st Peter the 2nd chapter said that we are born again!
As new born babes we desire the sincere milk of the Word, that we might grow
thereby, we don’t want to stay babes!
You show me a Spiritual person and I will show somebody that wants to grow!
I’ll show you somebody that’s not satisfied to stop here, or to stop here, they
have got their eye’s on the goal!
Spiritual people have got a goal and they keep working towards it!
Someone might say, what is that goal?
To be like Jesus, to be more like Jesus!
My friend, and they are pressing on, Spiritual people are not ready to stop here
and to stop here, they are not satisfied to go this far!
Brother they have life, Peter said, you are a new born babes and you have laid
aside all malice, envy, hypocrisy, evil speaking, Spiritual people don’t engage
in that!
Then he come right on and said we come to Christ and we build up a Spiritual
House!
What was he talking about?
The Church of God, it’s a Spiritual House!
Every stone in it!
It’s a lively stone!
There isn’t no dead stones in the church, Brother we build up a Spiritual House
for the habitation of God!
God is just not moving in everywhere!
We can talk about Him!
We can sing about Him!
We can preach about Him!
But it is another thing to have Him here, in our hearts if you please!
And He dwells in a Spiritual House that’s made up of Spiritual members!
Somebody said, Brother Pruitt, you’ll make me feel bad!
Well I don’t want to, but if the truth makes you feel bad, I can’t help it!
Aman, I say this morning that we need to under the light of God’s Word, my
friend, I say we, there isn’t a preacher living that gets to the place that he
don’t need to examine himself!
I need to examine myself in the light of God’s Word!
Why?
It is very easy for the flesh to start making room for things that God don’t
make room for!
It is very easy for the flesh to start making me feel like I can leave this off,
and I can leave that off and make it!
We need to examine ourselves in the light of God’s Word and see whether were
true in the faith or not, or whether we have become reprobates!
I am speaking this morning against one of the worst foes that the church has!
I know that unbelief is probably the greatest.
But brother, here is a deception and you can study the life of the church of
God, the pathway that she followed and you see that the devil used this thing
over and over and over.
And he is using it yet today in an effective way!
Now let’s look here.
According to the Apostle Paul these people at Corinth, were looking here first,
were not living as Christians ought to live.
In the First chapter you will find that they weren’t behind in any gift.
Every gift that the Spirit could give was working, but they were behind on the
Grace of the Spirit!
You can read it in the first chapter, they didn’t come behind in any gift.
Every gift that the Spirit could give had been given to this congregation at
Corinth, but with all of that Paul said, you are not Spiritual!
So right away we see it takes more than gifts, this let’s Pentecostalizism out
the side window!
It takes more than gifts to make you Spiritual!
I repeat again, they had all of the gifts but they were short on the graces of
the Spirit!
Aman, that left them in a pitiful condition so were not living as Christians
ought to live and the reason they were under the power of the flesh yet.
You notice in 1st Corinthians the 3rd chapter, Paul said, I want to repeat, I
couldn’t speak to you as Spiritual people, but as carnal or fleshly!
They had received Spirit, now come right on 3rd verse, they had received the
Spirit but they were yet walking as men.
How can that happen?
Friend, we can receive the Holy Spirit, and still just walk like men that don’t
have Him!
What makes the difference between walking as men and walking after the Holy
Spirit?
Obeying His leadership when He speaks!
These men at Corinth had received the Spirit but Paul branded them as yet
fleshly.
They were walking just like men that didn’t have the Spirit.
Why?
Men that don’t have the Spirit choose between Ministers.
They let leaders divide!
Come on, Hardly six months go by till people will rise up in a congregation,
Aman, and I am not talking now about people that God defiantly has to call you
out of someplace.
That’s too bad and yet it is too good if God really calls you.
But I am talking about what’s going on out in the religious world, there is a
rising up, another leader is formed and he draws away disciples after himself,
even drawing them away from the Lord.
Now Paul said, you still walk just as men.
Now I want you to get the picture, the 1st chapter said that they were
sanctified,. Had received the Holy Spirit.
But my friends, the catch was they weren’t letting the Holy Spirit lead them.
Now I want to just make it plain, the Holy Spirit cannot lead us and cause us to
divide, the church of God in any way!
He don’t lead to division!
The thing that was leading to division here was flesh!
Come on, they were walking as men walk.
They were using human judgment, human feelings, human ideas, human aspirations!
One said because he loved to here Paul preach he was going to follow him.
And another liked Cephas and another liked Apollos and Paul raised up and said.
Who died for you?
Paul didn’t die for you, no preacher died for you, Christ died for you!
Aman, my friend, I repeat that they had received the Spirit and here is the
danger.
And the danger becomes greater the longer that we live for God!
The more that we know our way around.
See, when you are first saved you don’t know too much about it so you put a lot
of emphasis on praying, seeking the Holy Spirit to lead you.
But after a while, you learn the doctrines, you pretty well know the path that
the church of God follows.
And the more that you become acquainted with them, my friend, the greater the
temptation will be for you to quit putting forth the effort that you need to put
forth to be Spiritual!
And you will be following right along with the sheep!
But you are doing it under the work of the flesh!
No real Spiritual Power in your life!
So this was the condition that Paul was writing to these people and telling
them.
You will note right away and we want to point out how we can know that this
happens.
My friend, here was a people if you please and I hate to say it but they never
had been Spiritual.
Come on, you are yet carnal!
The word Yet means, you have been led by the flesh every since you got into the
church.
Come on, they had the Spirit of God they were babes in Christ!
They were in Christ!
Anyone who is in Christ is a new creature!
But after he had preached to them a year or so they were still babes in Christ.
What is the sign that we are not Spiritual?
Why it sticks out so plain that anybody can get it!
You don’t make Spiritual progress!
Everyone that is Spiritual, makes Spiritual progress!
You may have been a babe one time but you aren’t a babe anymore!
And just like Paul said when he was a babe he played with baby things!
But when he became a man, he put away childish things!
We have got too many that still want to play with childish things!
No growing up!
No maturity!
In your mind, just look back for a year, am I way up the ladder four or five
rungs farther than I was a year ago?
Or am I still on the same level, having trouble with the same old problems,
going to the altar every revival, same deal!
Come on!
They were in of the body, I don’t want to hurt you!
No, no, no, friend, I am here to tell you there is deceptive powers working!
We can get into what we call the walls of the church and say thank God, I am not
in Babylon!
Thank God I don’t dress like the world does!
I don’t go where the world does!
I don’t do what the world does!
And yet my friend, not be Spiritual right inside the walls!
This is the worst falling away, this is the most deceptive apostasy that the
devil can work when he let’s us take the name church of God which is right!
Take the bible for our creed, which is the only creed!
Separate ourselves from Babylon!
And yet my friend, hold us on a fleshly level where we can’t mature, grow up,
and go forward for God as we ought as we to go!
Well I don’t know about you, but I believe if you are Spiritual, I believe that
if you are Spiritual you have got a lot more faith this morning, than you had
six months ago!
Now come on, I deal with a lot of people everyday and I find that whenever you
talk to people about Spiritual things, people are battling.
And the big end of their testimony is, well when I first started living for God,
well God healed, God done wonderful things but I have such a struggle having
faith now.
Now faith is a fruit of the Spirit and if you are a Spiritual tree rooted and
grounded, every Fruit of the Spirit will be more productive in your life than it
was.
Aman, I am not trying to hurt you, these are just bible facts!
You and I can very easily, my friend, go along in the flesh.
You here people say, I am not going to stay with this church very long, they
never have been Spiritual!
They were yet carnal!
All the work that he could do and yet they had made no forward progress.
Aman, now we go to the other one real quick.
Galatians was a church, see the devil never quits.
Galatians was a church where they had begun in the Spirit.
They were Spiritual!
In there beginning, they were very Spiritual, but the devil bewitched them.
Paul used the word bewitched to try to bring us some understanding of how the
devil works so deceptively.
Here they were, they had begun in the Spirit, doing good.
And now my friend, the devil had deceived them and they were trying to finish in
the flesh, what had been started in the Spirit!
And this is the burden of my heart yet this morning for the church of God as a
whole, somebody says, oh the church will be all right.
Listen the church will only be all right as you and I are all right!
Because you and I are the Church!
The church is people!
The church is not some idea!
Come on, the church is in no better shape than the people are!
See this is another deception of the devil, we look away from our failures, our
sins, and say the church is beautiful!
She is not a bit more beautiful than the people are.
Because it is the people, come on now!
As new born babes we come to Christ to build up this Spiritual House!
Aman!
Now this kind of message this morning, there isn’t no need of looking across,
Aman, look this way and look inside of yourself this morning!
Because I am not preaching to the one setting beside you I am preaching to you!
Aman!
The devil has so many deceptive ways, I have heard people cry, oh the church of
God the gates of hell can’t prevail against her.
That’s very true when she’s the church!
And the devils move is to keep us sub, Aman, somewhere sub- below that standard
that we ought to be at!
And all the time we can cry, the church of God won’t fail!
No Sir, the real church of God won’t fail!
But the real question is this morning, is whether you and I will be a part of
Her!
But the point that I want you to get this morning, is that you and I are the
Church!
The church is more than one member, you can’t have a church Paul taught with one
member!
Were many members, many members, bought together in one body!
How do we get there?
We were baptized by one Spirit into one body!
The Church of the Living God!
Aman!
And that’s the thing that we have to endeavor for!
Come on, there isn’t a scripture in the bible and this may be upsetting where it
says to endeavor for the unity of the faith!
That is where the devil got us off again.
Aman!
A lot of people will want to get together to try to work out problems but that
is not the way unity of the faith gained!
The unity of the faith cannot be gained without the unity of the Spirit first!
And if we have the unity of the Spirit and endeavor to keep that!
If we will keep one Spirit, we can all get along!
We can worship together, even though we may see some scriptures different, thank
God, we can make one body come together and manifest the true Spirit of Christ!
Yes Sir, Yes Sir, so these people, those poor Corinthians they never did get off
the ground.
They never began in the Spirit.
Paul said, you were fleshly, carnal when I started with you, I have preached,
preached, preached and you are still fleshly and carnal!
You are Yet carnal yet being led by the flesh!
Oh may God help us to look at it!
So here we go to Galatians, my friend, they began in the Spirit and I just want
to say this kindly.
Some of the teaching in the past, through misunderstanding, we used to talk
about being born again and then sometime later get the Holy Spirit.
But if we will go back and get what the Apostles taught they began in the
Spirit!
There is no beginning without the Holy Spirit!
No beginning!
I am just exactly like the Apostle Paul, and I say that if we will stand there
we will have less trouble.
Paul in 1st Corinthians the 2nd chapter maybe the 2nd verse he said, I am
determined, did you ever know why he said this?
I am determined not to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ and Him
Crucified!
Paul would not back up and teach anything about Jesus, back of the Crucifixion!
Aman, come on now,
Well if you would follow his trail, you study the history of Paul, he came to
Corinth from Athens.
And you study what happened at Athens there on Mars Hill was the only place
where Paul had a failure.
Not one person got saved.
They said, we will hear you later in this matter.
And Paul learned something there, he was a wise man, he had more education to
throw away than I will ever gain.
And so when he met those men on Mars Hill, he spoke in terms of Greek
Philosophy, he tried to talk in their own language, and Brother when he had done
that he got whipped, he never gained a thing.
So the next pulpit that he preached in, he said I am determined not to know
anything among you but Jesus Christ and Him Crucified!
Friend, Jesus Christ Crucified is Christianity!
Aman, it don’t make any difference what’s added to or taken away Jesus Christ
Crucified is Christianity!
He went on to say, I just took a beating up here, I tried to use my education to
win these fellows.
And nobody got convinced.
Why?
It’s only in demonstration of the Spirit that men get convinced!
So he said that I am determined not to know anything among you but Jesus Christ
and Him Crucified!
The Crucified Christ is a Spiritual Christ!
There wouldn’t be any confusion about the doctrine of cleansings and all of
these things if you didn’t go back and pick up a Christ in a corporal body!
Come on, we need to be determined not to know anything but a Spiritual Christ!
Jesus on this side of the Cross!
He is a Spiritual Christ, a resurrected Christ, He don’t any longer dwells with
people He dwells in them!
Everyone, and when moves in thank God they become Spiritual beings, there
animated by the Spirit of Christ through the Holy Spirit!
So the Galatians begun in the Spirit!
That is where every true church of God begins!
That is where every true child of God begins!
In the Spirit!
Oh some one might say, oh I don’t believe it!
Go to Romans the 8th chapter Romans 8:8-9
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of
God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
his.
He went on to say that there are only two groups of people in the world!
We are either in the flesh, or in the Spirit!
As long as you are in the flesh, you cannot please God
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you or the Spirit of Christ.
So I am just like Paul this morning, if you want to take me back to a corporal
Christ that walked on the earth and I’ll say.
I am determined not to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ and Him
Crucified!
Aman, oh Brother Pruitt you can’t say that.
It’s right there!
Paul went on to say, I speak in demonstration of the Spirit and the Power!
The proof my friend, is not in words, but changed lives!
This is our greatest need this morning.
Real changed lives!
Men and women who have been miraculously lifted from that level of living to a
place of living in the Spirit!
And I mean really living in it!
Somebody said, I possess the Holy Ghost!
Well, Paul said if you live by the Spirit, then walk in it!
Let it get into your everyday walk!
Aman!
Let your life be lived in demonstration of the Power and Spirit of God!
Friend, you start living that way and you are going to catch somebody’s eye!
You won’t have to put a sign on your back!
I told a man that not long ago, he had stuff all over his shirt.
And I said man if you just live it, you don’t need to put signs on you!
No, no, no, there will be something stick out all over you when you start living
in the demonstration of the Power and Spirit of God!
Not doing what you can do but doing what God can do!
What you and I can do is not good enough!
That is why Jesus came, to lift us from the level of what we can do and put it
up to the level of what God can do with a man and women that yields their life
to them!
I am here to tell you that God stands ready to work miracles as never before!
God can do for you and I this morning more than we ever thought possible!
I know that it is getting late and I am going to have to make this a two part
sermon and finish up next Sunday.
In closing this morning I would like us to stand and sing Victory in Jesus.
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