Returning to 2 Corinthians chapter
3, I want to read a little of this
passage for some context for the message tonight. It was taken by verse 6, but
I want to begin in verse 3 with you. forasmuch as ye are manifestly
declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us." The
Lord manifests his grace in his people. He testifies that this
child is mine. he manifests that grace of his,
written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God,
not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through
Christ to Godward, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to
think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. So on these words here, let me
just say that salvation is the spiritual work of God. This is a spiritual work. This
is not a fleshly work, which the Lord performs in you. It's not by your flesh. When we were first awakened to
the Lord Jesus Christ, we can recall that there's much flesh
about us still. There's a lot of flesh, there's
a lot of baggage, there's a lot of misgivings and misunderstandings,
there's still darkness, there's a lot of things we don't understand
about the word, and a lot of what we bring is very fleshly. we come forth as Lazarus came
forth from the grave, much like Lazarus came forth. That's a
type in a picture of you and I when we first come to the Lord,
when the Lord commands us to come forth as he commanded Lazarus
to come forth from the grave so that by his word and power
we live, we rise up, we hear the Lord, and we follow him. And it says in John 11 44, and
he that was dead came forth, speaking of Lazarus, bound hand
and foot with grave clothes He lived, yet he still had a lot
of grave clothes wrapped about him, and his face was bound about
with a napkin. There's a picture there of the
veil of flesh which yet is upon the heart. We live, but the Lord
has to remove that flesh. He has to take away that blindness. He blows away that mist of darkness
that's about us. There's a lot of grave clothes
yet on us. Jesus saith unto them, Loose
him, and let him go. And that he says to his ministers
of the gospel, who loose our brethren, and set them free by
the word of his grace. by giving you your portion of
meat in due season, by declaring Christ to you, and feeding you
with this gospel. That's how you are loosed from
those grave clothes. That's how they're unwrapped,
and they fall off. Little by little, they come off
of his people. And so through the preaching
of the gospel, our flesh is weakened, it's withered, And it becomes
less and less important to us and has less and less of anything
to do with our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's how
we see more and more. It's not by my works, but his. It's not me fixing myself by
the strength of my hand using the letter of the law. It's the
Spirit being ministered to you by the grace of God, and he does
that through the preaching of the gospel, through the preaching
of his grace, through what he calls the hearing of faith. Hearing the faithfulness of Christ
and God manifesting faith in you, his people. Now, listen
to this next part in 2 Corinthians 3.6. who also hath made us able
ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the
Spirit. For the letter killeth, but the
Spirit giveth life." So today, when we read the words, the New
Testament, what do we think of? We often think of these books
from Matthew to Revelation. And that's what we call the New
Testament. But the apostles and our Lord
were ministering the spirit from what we call the Old Testament.
They were quoting from Genesis to Malachi. And that's what they
were quoting and teaching the brethren, showing them Christ. so that they were ministering
the New Testament from reading the Old Testament scriptures. They preached Christ and his
grace. They were ministering the hearing
of faith from what Moses wrote, and the judges, from the books
of the prophets, and the accounts of the kings, and from the Psalms. They were preaching Christ from
these books that we call the Old Testament. But they were
ministering the spirit from those books. They weren't teaching
the people the letter of those words, but the spirit and what
they reveal to us of Christ and what he accomplishes and works
in his people. And so with that understanding,
let's read that verse again, verse six, who also hath made
us able ministers of the New Testament, right? Reading from
the old, not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life. And so we're searching
for and drawing out the riches of Christ in order to feed you
that portion of meat, your meat in due season, to give you what
you need to teach you, instruct you, correct you, comfort you,
feed you. It's what the Lord gives to you
as your portion to help you, to profit you, to build you up,
and to give you an inheritance among the saints in life. Dead letter religion, however,
focuses on the flesh. They're looking at the exterior
of the word, which, by the way, is anyone off the street can
pick up the Bible and see the commandments, see what they would
call rules and regulations for life, and they can fix themselves
by what they read. They can do these things and
they can have some profit. They can read the commands and
have some profit for this life and this life only. How to be
wise in how you go about things so that you don't come to a quick
and early death because you've aggravated or upset somebody.
You can be more careful. Anyone off the street can do
that. I remember When I was a young man myself and just beginning
to seek the Lord on my own, still having no understanding and in
much darkness, but this fella, I met him. He was hired by my
boss to paint houses with me and we worked together for a
while. And every day in the dead of summer, he would show up in
a long sleeve shirt and long pants and a hat. because he had
read something in the Law of Moses. He had started reading
the Bible and was taken by it, gripped by it, and tried to now
do everything in the law. And so he read something about
not exposing yourself or, I guess, doing harm to your body in the
Law of Moses in some manner, interpreted that that should
mean he shouldn't risk getting sun damage. And then if a bug
flew in his mouth or a piece of dirt, he was afraid to spit
it out because he read something in the Law of Moses about not
just being careless with your fluids. These are things that
he got from the Law of Moses. This is what he saw and interpreted
for life. And that was his hope, that he
was now keeping the Law of Moses and he would call himself a Christian
based on what he was doing. Anyone can see things and hear
and step into a world of religion by the letter of the law, by
what they read, the letter of this book. But no man can hear
the voice of Christ and follow him except he be called by the
spirit of God. and the Spirit opened his ear,
and he hears the voice of Christ, the Good Shepherd, and he follows
Him. We can't do that by the flesh. We can't give ourselves life
and salvation by the works of this flesh. Whether you claim
to be following the law, or you claim to be following Jesus,
If the spirit of God is not in it, if you are not called by
the grace of God, it's just going to be dead works according to
the letter that you read. You're going to go to the Sermon
on the Mount, and you're going to study that and do your best
to live by that, thinking this is my life and salvation. And
you can still miss Christ in all of that just by living according
to the letter. And when the Spirit of God, if
he's called you, you will come forth to the light, to the grace
of God in Christ, yet bound hand and foot with grave clothes and
your face bound about with a napkin, but the Lord continues to lead
you and bring you under the sound of the gospel and he'll give
you a pastor that will preach the word of his grace to loose
you and set you free in Christ by what he does. All right, we
do it by the word of his grace, which is able to build you up
and to give you an inheritance among the saints in light. He's
able, brethren. Now, continuing in 2 Corinthians
3, verse 7 and 8, but if the ministration of death, written
and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel
could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory
of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall
not the ministration of the Spirit be rather or more glorious? So there's some profit of the
letter in this life, but no more than this life. But if you would
have life eternal, then it will only be by the faith of Christ. It'll only be by the faith given
to you, manifest in you by the Spirit. Okay now, you can let
2 Corinthians go and go to Colossians. Let's go over to Colossians now,
chapter 2. I want you to see, Paul writes
of these very truths, And he's commending the brethren there
for their steadfastness of their faith in Christ. They're continuing
in that walk of faith, not the letter. Now hear these words
in light of the ministration of the Spirit, that understanding
that we must be taught by the Spirit. All right, so verse six,
Colossians 2.6, as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord,
which was by faith, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in
him, established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding
therein with thanksgiving. Beware, lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men. after
the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. Who did our
Lord charge with being taken up with the customs and the traditions
of men? The scribes and the Pharisees,
legalists, lawmongers, people who believed that their righteousness
was created by the works of their hands, by the deeds of the law. And that's what Paul's saying,
don't be spoiled with their philosophy and their vain deceit and what
he calls in another place, wicked works. You mean my works by the
law are wicked? Yes, wicked works is what they
are. Now, those words, the rudiments
of the world, these are the same words as what Paul called the
elements of the world over in Galatians 4.3. So hold your place
in Colossians, because we're gonna come back. Let's just dig
down in this, let's just go down this path here to Galatians 4,
and let's begin in verse one, Galatians 4.1. Now I say that
the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant,
though he be lord of all, but is under tutors and governors
until the time appointed of the father." So here's Paul. He's
using an earthly example. according to the letter of the
thing, to teach a spiritual truth to us." And that spiritual truth,
the equivalent here is that the chosen elect child of God, which
you that believe are. you were yet in darkness. There
was a time when you were yet in darkness, in dead religion
or just doing whatever you wanted to do, in the flesh, laying in
prison as it were, dead in trespasses and sins under the bondage of
the law. That yoke which you could not
free yourselves from and you were laboring in the flesh, just
going the course of the world under the prince of the power
of the air, along with the children of disobedience and the children
of wrath. That is, until the day of grace,
when God appointed you to be delivered from that bondage,
to the time when you would be brought out of that death into
life. Now look at verse three, Galatians 4.3, even so we, when
we were children, were in bondage under the elements or rudiments
of the world. Those things that cannot save,
those shadows and types and pictures that were just letter to us.
They were just letter at the time. But when the fullness of
the time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made
under the law. And what he's saying there is
first came redemption, glorious redemption by the Lord Jesus
Christ. He must come, and he accomplished
our redemption. He obtained the forgiveness of
our sins. He obtained life to give to his
brethren. to reveal to us, to give us life,
to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive
the adoption of sons. Sons who are not under the elements
and the rudiments of the world anymore. And so in the day when
it pleases God, we were born. Some 2,000 years after these
words were written, we came to life in that appointed hour.
And then in the appointed day, our Lord delivered us from the
rudiments and elements of this world. by revealing Christ to
you through the preaching of the gospel and the giving of
his spirit so that you heard and followed him. And from that
day forth, those grave clothes are being unwrapped off your
bodies. You're being loosed and set free
in Christ, more and more by the hearing of faith, by the hearing
of faith, and not by the rudiments and the whippings and the beatings
and the yoking of the law. by his blessed grace. And because ye are sons, God
hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. A child is born, and lives, they
breathe the Spirit, and have life and liberty and understanding
is given to them. And just as a child grows, they're
a man, but they're still a little baby and they grow. And it's
a patient growth. It's a patient walk. It's a patient
miracle that the Lord works in his people. And he's very patient
for the fruit which he brings forth from his children. Trust
him, believe him, brethren. Wherefore thou art no more a
servant. You're not under the bondage
of the law. You're not walking by the letter of the law, but
a son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ. Your meat is the portion of his
grace given unto you, fed to you with understanding and knowledge,
which those under the bondage of the law and by the letter
don't understand and don't know and don't have. They're yet in
bondage. How be it then when ye knew not
God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods,
but now. After that ye have known God,
or rather are known God, because that's the difference, not our
knowing of Him, but His knowing of us, loving us, choosing us
from before the foundation of the world. How turn ye again
to the weak and beggarly elements or rudiments, whereunto ye desire
again to be in bondage. In other words, don't draw back,
brethren, to perdition. Don't go back to the law, judging
by the law, judging by flesh, examining your brethren, examining
everything by the law, whipping and beating your brethren with
the law. Don't do that, brethren. Continue
in Christ by faith, just as you received him at the first when
he forgave you your sins. So walk ye in him and continue
walking in that faith. Trust him. Believe him. He's
able. All right, now, let's go back
to Colossians 2 and finish that. Colossians 2, 9. For in him,
why stay in Christ? Because in him, in Christ Jesus,
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are
complete in him. You don't need to go to the weak
and beggarly elements to fix and improve and sanctify yourselves. He is your sanctification. Don't
turn to the rudiments of the world for your righteousness.
He is your righteousness. You are justified by Christ.
He has redeemed you. He is your life and your wisdom
and your salvation and light. He's everything, brethren. He's
all in all. and ye are complete in him, which
is the head of all principality and power, in whom also ye are
circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, and putting
off the body of the sins, right, that veil of flesh over the heart,
those grave clothes and napkin over the face, and putting off
the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ,
so that we wait in hope for righteousness, looking to Christ. not turning
when we see sin in ourselves, when we see sin in our brethren,
not turning to the law to fix that, keep turning to Christ,
looking to Christ, praying to Christ, trusting that the Lord
is able to teach you, keep you, turn your heart, correct you,
to do all that we need, to provide everything that we need. He is
able. He'll chastise us if necessary,
but trust Him. Believe Him to do it. He's able.
He promises. He says, I'll give you everything,
everything that you need. And so God saves us and conforms
us to Christ apart from the weak and beggarly elements of the
law. They have no more part in our
walk. Instead, it's by His Spirit and
grace that we are led and built up. It's by his spirit that we
cry, Abba Father. It's by his grace that we are
taught and kept and led. And it's only those who do not
have that spirit, that are living by the letter of the law, that
cannot see that. They cannot accept that. They
do not believe Christ. They've drawn back from what
they heard to perdition. and that's where they're under
the letter. But you brethren, verse 12, are buried with him
in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith
of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead. And
you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, hath he quickened, hath made alive together with him,
having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting
of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us,
and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. And so, brethren,
you're dead to the law, that you might be married to another,
even the Lord Jesus Christ, who brings forth in you fruit, the
fruit of the Spirit, such as faith and hope and love. Love to God and love for your
brethren. He grows us. He keeps us. And
having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of
them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man, therefore,
judge you." And then he goes on to describe the deadness of
the letter. Judge you in that letter, and
that letter, and that letter, and that letter. Don't do it.
All men are under that by nature until God commands life and leads
you out from those beggarly elements. And he's delivered us. Now, I
want to look at one example where our Lord himself, therefore,
ministers the Spirit, takes the letter, as it's written, as an
example, and ministers the Spirit to you. I want to show you that
so you can see an example where Christ himself uses the letter
to teach and minister the Spirit. to his hearer, all right? Because
that's what we're doing. That's what we need, is our Lord
to minister the spirit, all right? And then we should follow his
example. Why should we not? Why should
we think that we do it any differently than how he does it? Because
we have a spirit, and so we do what he does. So turn to John
3, John chapter 3. And I'll just start from the
beginning, but we're going to come to that, because I just
want you to see, this is about a new birth. This is about a
new creature, which the Lord makes us. Dead creatures are under the
letter. New creatures are in liberty by the Spirit, the lead
of the Spirit. So chapter 3, verse 1, there
was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night. And that's how we come to the
Lord, by the darkness of night. We don't first come to the Lord.
We don't bring ourselves into the light and first come to him. The scripture says, there's none
that understandeth, there's none that seeketh after God. This
is the sovereign, omnipotent power and hand of God that brought
Nicodemus to Christ. Now he's still in nature's darkness,
right? He's still in the night. That's
how he came. But the Lord's power said, come
forth, Nicodemus, come forth. Come out of that grave, Nicodemus.
And so this coming of Nicodemus by night is ordained by the Lord,
who is able to do exceedingly above all that we ask or think
according to the power that worketh in us by his grace. So he comes
and said unto him, Rabbi, We know that thou art a teacher
come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest,
except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now Christ tells us in verse
10 that Nicodemus was a master or a teacher of Israel. But Christ is revealing, what
he's revealing here is that it's one thing to be a teacher of
the letter, but it's altogether a different thing to be taught
by the Spirit. of spiritual things, to be born again and to see the
kingdom of God revealed in this letter as not a thing of flesh
and the letter, but of his spirit. So Nicodemus is so concerned
with fleshly things that his ear can't even, he's not even
tuned to spiritual things. He's so taken with the flesh,
he can't understand the spirit. Verse four, Nicodemus saith unto
him, So how can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a
second time into his mother's womb and be born? As ridiculous
as that question sounds, that is the confusion in dead-letter
religion. That's how ignorant they are
of the Spirit of God. That's how ignorant they are
of Christ. That's how blind they are that
they cannot see Christ in the scriptures unless he reveals
it. And so you think about dead letter
religion. It's all about us today. And
what do they think? They think they make themselves
born again by their decision to let Jesus save them. That's
how ignorant man is. They think it's their decision,
that it's their will. They claim their will is free.
And yet it's in bondage. It's in bondage to sin and death.
And they're ignorant. They cannot see. They do not
believe. They believe that they are the
deciding factor in their life. And so they cannot see the kingdom
of God. And they get blinded by another spirit. And they don't
see Christ in the scriptures. If they did, they wouldn't talk
the way they speak. They wouldn't talk that way.
But if they are Christ, by sovereign electing grace, they will hear
the gospel. And their grave clothes will
be loosened. And Christ will set them free from that bondage
and death. 5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily,
I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And so that water is
the word of God. We speak these things according
to the word of God. We're not making this stuff up.
We're speaking according to the word which reveals Christ to
us. In this word now, having Christ
risen in our hearts, we see our Lord in these scriptures. We
see they're speaking of Him, His coming, who He is, what He
would do to redeem His people, how that He would redeem His
people, how that He would satisfy the Father, how that He would
give us life, and how He delivers us from bondage and death and
darkness, all by His grace and power, not according to the law,
but according to His grace, wherewith He loved us and called us and
blesses us in His grace. It speaks to him if you listen,
let me just read 1st Corinthians 15 verse 3 and 4 Paul said I
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received how
that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures right
That means these scriptures, this Old Testament here, reveals
how Christ died, why Christ died, who he is, what he came to do,
why he came to do it, and that he was buried, and that he rose
again the third day according to the scriptures. Just as we've
been seeing over and over again, the third day, the third day,
the third day, and we know It's all testifying and speaking of
the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died, was buried,
and raised the third day. And it's always on that third
day that there's power, there's liberty, there's salvation. It's
just testified to throughout the scriptures here over and
over again. So it's the spirit that makes
us to behold our Lord in these scriptures, which reveal his
grace and power, brethren. Not of the letter, but of the
spirit, for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
All right? So John 3, verse 6 and 7. That which is born of the
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
ye must be born again. All right? And so, again, anyone
can pick up this Bible and become a religious zealot, yet dead
in trespasses and sins. But they can be very religious.
and they can change their lives and do things very differently.
And now, you know, leave this path for that path, and it's
all darkness. It's all death. Anyone, any zealot
can do it. We need the spirit of God to
make his word and salvation effectual in our hearts. All right, now
listen to how Paul described Israel who persecuted him because
he saw Christ. He saw the kingdom of God. He preached Christ Jesus, the
stumbling stone, rather than the works of the law. And he
said, brethren, in Romans 10, one through four, brethren, my
heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might
be saved, for I bear them record. that they have a zeal of God,
but not according to knowledge. I'm not saying these things to
be obnoxious, to get under your skin. I'm saying these things
that the grave clothes would come off. It would be loosened
and you'd be set free from the flesh and the things of this
world, that you would see Christ and be comforted and encouraged
in him. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. And that sounds easy. But the
Lord gives us various trials and temptations and afflictions
and hardships and difficulties that prove that word. To put
you in a place where only God can minister that word to your
heart, to see that he is the God who hears prayer, that he
is the God who keeps his word of promise unto you. And he's
gonna make you depend upon it. He's able. Because usually when
there's a way out, we take that easy way out, don't we? Like,
we'll get out of it as fast as possible. There's times where
he just shuts it up so that only he can deliver you. And it's
for your good. It's not because he hates you.
It's because he loves you and will have you see Christ and
be content with Christ. Father, not my will be done,
but thy will be done. And he ministers that spirit
of grace in your hearts because he loves you. And he means to
bless you. and gives you that thorn in the
flesh for your good. Because when we're weak, that's
when we're strong. He does all these things. And so let me now jump down to John
3, verse 14 through 16 here. We're coming close here. These
are the last verses I really want to look at in this thing,
because this here is where our Lord takes the letter of the
word And he's going to show you Christ. He's going to minister
the spirit of that word to our hearts. So verses 14 through
16 in John 3. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal
life. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life." Now there's many blessed
truths that we can draw from this and speak to while we're
together. We can see these things more
and more. They all concern Christ and his
glorious redemption. But our Lord here, I want you
to see that our Lord took this emblem of the serpent, spoken
of in the letter, in the letter of the law here, given under
the law of commandments when the people were complaining,
and complaining about Moses, and complaining about the Lord,
and accusing him of just trying to kill them in the wilderness,
just being miserable, rotten people. like we are, just being
miserable people there. And they're complaining, and
now they're suffering in their disobedience, because God gave
them this serpent, because he sent the serpents, right? And
they bit them, and they were dying. And they saw their sin
in it. They saw that they were complaining.
And they confessed it to Moses and asked him for the Lord to
take them away. And so the Lord gives them this
serpent in the wilderness, this serpent on a pole to be lifted
up and held up continually for their deliverance so that when
they're bitten, when they feel that sting and that bite of the
serpent, when they look, They're healed. That poison has no more
power over them. They're delivered from the poison
of the serpent. And they overcome it when they
look. They overcome the world. They
overcome death. They overcome that bite of the
serpent when they look. to Christ. Now we've all been
bitten by the serpent in Adam. Every one of us. We come forth
corrupt. We come forth dead in trespasses
and sins. We come forth with that poison
just all up in us. We're dead. We're already dead. There's no way that we can deliver
ourselves. They couldn't deliver themselves
and yet God sent his beloved and only begotten Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ who came into this world to destroy the works of
the devil, to render that bite of the serpent without power. That's what John said in 1 John
3, 8, he that committeth sin is of the devil. He's got that
poison in him. For the devil sinneth from the
beginning. All the way back there in the garden, we see it. For
this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that he might
destroy the works of the devil. And He did this at the cross
when He was lifted up for His people as an offering unto the
Father. to propitiate God's wrath, which
was justly against us for our sin, and to obtain the forgiveness
of our sins, and to give you life by the giving of His Spirit,
who makes His word effectual in your heart, and you're born
of that seed of Christ, so that you are delivered from the flesh
in this bondage and this death. He accomplishes this. And so
this picture was given to us in the letter. It's just a few
verses. It's kind of like six verses
in Numbers 21. It's just a few verses that it's
mentioned there. And if it weren't for Christ
telling you that it's speaking of him. All of dead letter religion
would just go right on by that and probably say, see, you better
listen to God. If you complain, he's going to
get you. And that would be their whole lesson to you. Don't complain,
or else God will get you. That's the lesson of religion. But because Christ said it, they
have to see it. But there's tons and tons, every
passage here, I shouldn't even say tons, the whole book is revealing
Christ. And it's all speaking of him.
And so we see the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, they just
run to taste not, touch not, handle not, which are all things
that perish with use after the commandments and doctrines of
men. They have a show of wisdom and will worship and humility
and neglecting of the body, but not an honor to the satisfying
of the flesh. It doesn't do any good. That's
all that dead letter religion focuses on. The Lord Jesus Christ, when we
complain, when we're going through trials, when we're going through
difficulties and things that afflict and really show our weakness
in the flesh, how are you gonna be helped? By telling you, don't
do that now, don't you complain. You just button it up and you
just be happy. No, we preach Christ, we lift
up Christ. We declare Christ and who he
is and what he's done, that he was given a body to suffer for
you. And in seeing Christ, that bitterness
in our heart by flesh and the hardships is removed and put
in its place as a song of joy and redemption, declaring the
Redeemer. rejoicing in the Redeemer, forgetting
those things, those sad, miserable things in the flesh, and rather
than being buried and destroyed by those things, were lifted
up to behold the Lord Jesus Christ in joy and glory. And so We have a pattern here,
by the Lord, taking the letter and ministering the spirit to
you, showing you Christ. And that's how we read the letter,
is we look for Christ, the spirit, in what we call the Old Testament,
and minister the New Testament to your hearts, the spirit, brethren. And so, these things are so,
and I pray you receive our witness of these things concerning Jesus
Christ, which we in the kingdom of God see, and testify to you
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and of his grace and
power, to save to the uttermost brethren. Amen.