If you would turn in your Bibles
with me to the book of second Corinthians. Second Corinthians chapter two. What I'm going to preach this
morning is a continuation of what I preached last week. But
if you didn't hear last week's message, you won't be out in
left field somewhere. I'm going to, this is a message
that stands on its own. But what I want to talk about
is our triumph in Christ, our victory in Christ. And beginning
at verse 14 of 2 Corinthians 2, the Apostle Paul, writing
by inspiration of the Spirit, and he's talking about the ministry
of the gospel, his preaching, God using him as an instrument
to bring people to Christ. and also to pronounce judgment,
because the gospel is a judgment. He that believeth not shall be
damned. He that believeth shall be saved.
And we'll talk about that, but look at verse 14. He says, now
thanks be unto God, which always, now notice that term always,
causeth us to triumph in Christ. and maketh manifest the savor
of his knowledge by us in every place." Every place God sends
us, everywhere we go, whether it's physically or on the internet
or wherever, making the savor of his knowledge. And that's
talking about the gospel, the savor of his knowledge. And he
says in verse 15, for we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ,
a sweet savor of Christ to God. Now it's our prayer that the
preaching of the cross, the preaching of Christ would be a sweet savor
to us. In other words, that we would
love it, that it'd be a sweet aroma of salvation to us. But he's talking about how God
sees things, how God looks at and assesses matters. We are
unto God, a sweet saver of Christ. And notice what he says here,
in them that are saved and in them that perish. You see that? Whether they're saved or perish,
it's a sweet savor unto God. Now this doesn't portray God
as some kind of a sadist or masochist or something like that. But here's
the key. For we are unto God a sweet saver
of Christ. And so the issue to Paul here
is this. It's not how many people believe
it or don't believe it. I mean, that is something we
think about. You can't minister the gospel and not think about
that. I mean, I want everybody that hears the gospel to believe
it. But what Paul's thought is here is that if Christ is preached,
God is pleased, God is honored, God is satisfied, no matter what
the outcome. And you need to understand this,
the outcome is up to God. It's not up to the preacher.
But look at verse 16, he says, to the one, we are the saver
of death unto death. Now that's the unbelief, that's
those who hear the gospel and walk away unaffected. And he's
talking about here is the non-elect, those who continue in unbelief
and die in that state. Die without Christ. Death unto
death, that's what that means. And to the other, that is the
believer, a sinner saved by grace, who is the creation of God, not
the preacher now, not of himself or herself, but to the other,
the saver of life unto life, the sweet saver of life. And
you think about that. that we're preaching a message
of life and death. We're not just dealing in how
to improve our lives. We're not just trying to preach
some kind of a 12-step, 13, 15-step program to make you feel better. This is life and death right
here, the gospel. The power of God unto salvation
or a judgment of sin and death. And so realizing that, he asked
this question in verse 16, who is sufficient for these things? Who is sufficient? Who can handle
that kind of responsibility? Well, I can't accept God give
that grace that it takes to stand firm. And it takes that, we were
talking about that. It takes that kind of grace to
stand firm, or we'd compromise it in a second. And he says in verse 17, for
we are not as many which corrupt. You might have in your concordance,
deal deceitfully the word of God. In other words, we're not
gonna compromise it in order to win friends and influence
people. but as of sincerity, but as of
God in the sight of God speak we, I believe that should be
of Christ, but in Christ is fine. So Paul is saying this now, no
matter what happens when we preach Christ, if we preach the truth,
we're triumphant. Now let me give you some background
here as far as the truth and how we need to view this whole
thing. And I'm gonna turn to a lot of scripture. And I know
people sometimes I tell them, say, well, when I finally get
to that scripture, you're already on the next one. Well, write
these down if you wanna follow along. But I want you to first
go to Matthew chapter seven. This is the Sermon on the Mount.
And the point that I want to make is this in the background
of this. Christ said this. He said, you
must be born again or you cannot see or enter the kingdom of heaven,
kingdom of God. It takes a new birth. And the
reason is is because we're all spiritually dead by nature. And
I hear people sometimes arguing over, well, why preach to dead
people? Well, it's because of this. And
here's the point that you need to understand. The new birth.
Now, what is the new birth? New birth, we can parse it down
in a lot of different ways. But here's what it means. It's
regeneration and conversion. That's what the new birth is.
It's when God the Holy Spirit enters into our lives, brings
us under the preaching of the truth and gives us life to believe,
to hear with spiritual ears and to see with spiritual eyes. He
gives us a new heart. The new birth always comes by
the Holy Spirit with the gospel. Not without the gospel now, with
the gospel. That's why Paul said in Romans
1.16, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. How is
it the power of God? When the Holy Spirit empowers
it. You see, I'm not the power of God unto salvation. I might
be able to persuade you to agree with me, but that's not the new
birth. I mean, if we're both born again,
we will agree on the gospel, don't get me wrong. But my point
is, it's not my powers of persuasion that brings about the new birth.
It's the Holy Spirit. And there is no conversion without
the true gospel. Now that's what this means here.
Look at verse 13 of Matthew 7. He's talking about the straight
gate. Enter ye in at the straight gate. Well, what is the straight
gate? Well, just read the whole verse.
For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction.
Now, in our text, that would be death unto death. Destruction
would be death unto death. There is a way, and it's a broad
way, wide, that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in
therein. There's a lot of people that
go that way. because that way is appealing to the natural man. And he says in verse 14, because
straight is the gate. Now that word straight means
a narrow passage. Straight is the gate and narrow
is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find
it. So there are many on the wide gate
that leads to death unto death. There are few that are on the
straight and narrow path that leads unto life and to life.
All right, now I made this statement in our Bible study earlier because
Elijah, one prophet standing against 450 false prophets. We don't take pride in the fact
that we are few. and false religion is many, I
don't, I hope you don't. I mean, I wanna see as many people
come to believe the gospel as, you know, that we can imagine. I want everybody that I preach
to to believe it. But I have no power to do that.
And I know it's not God's purpose to do that because of what he
says in the word. It's just the fact. You remember
old Jack Webb on Dragnet, just the facts, ma'am. I'm just giving
you the fact. I mean, you know, I've often
said, you know, when I preach or Jim or Randy or Robert or
Mark, when we preach, people may get mad at us, but we're
just preaching God's word. So that's the long and the short
of it. So he says there's two ways here.
The broad way, now that broad way, it has many, it's really
many different ways all put together, but it all leads to destruction
is what he's saying. Now the next thing he says here,
so the broad way is false religion, false gospels. The narrow way
is the truth, one way. Christ said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. The next thing he says, listen to it, beware of
false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but
inwardly they're ravening wolves. Now, what is a false prophet,
false preacher? It's anybody that points you
to the broad way that leads to destruction. Whatever way, I
mean, he may come under different names and different denominations,
whatever, but if it's not the way of God's free and sovereign
grace conditioned on Christ alone who fulfilled those conditions
and secured the salvation of every sinner for whom he died
on that cross, it's a broad way, it's a false way. The gospel
wherein the righteousness of God is revealed. That's what
preaching Christ is. It's preaching the glorious person
Who Christ is, he's God manifest in the flesh. Now any person
who claims to be a Christian who denies his deity or his perfect
sinless humanity, they're lying to you, they're false prophets. They may claim to be Christian
and they may outwardly appear moral and sincere and good as
we see it, but they're in sheep's clothing, but they're ravening
wolves inside. But they deny Christ. And then
it's the preaching of the power and the success of His finished
work on the cross to put away the sins of His people that were
charged, accounted, imputed to Him so that God cannot charge
His people with sin. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died, yea, rather
He's risen again. But we talk about the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ. That's the gospel, if you know
what they mean. And so, preaching the perfect
work of Christ to establish a righteousness, the righteousness of God, whereby
God can be just to save and bless and justify sinners like us,
from whom we have life from the dead. Now in verse 16 here, Matthew
says, he says, you shall know them by their fruits. Now this
is where people go all over the map about this. You'll know them by their fruits.
Do men gather grapes of thorns? You're not going to get grapes
out of a thorn bush is what he's saying there. Figs out of thistles,
you're not going to get figs out of thistles. You'll know
them by their fruits. And you know what people do with
that. Well, that means their lives or the fruit of the spirit. You know, if you see a preacher
and they're not doing what we think they should do, or they're
not measuring up to our standard, then we know he's a false preacher
because we know him by their fruits. Is that what he's talking
about here? The context wouldn't help you on that. What's he talking
about? The narrow way and the broad
way. Preaching the narrow way or preaching the broad way? And
here comes these preachers who are, they are false preachers
in sheep's clothing, claiming to be Christian, and yet, they're
pointing sinners to the broad road. He said, inwardly, their
ravening, you'll know them by their fruits. Is that their morality,
their sincerity? Well, the context wouldn't bear
that out. Look at verse 17. Now listen
to this. He said, even so every good tree
bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth
evil fruit. If he's talking about morality
and sincerity, what most people go to here, or even the fruit
of the spirit in Galatians 5, think about this. Every good
tree bringeth forth good fruit. A corrupt tree bringeth forth
evil fruit. Look at verse 18. A good tree
cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring
forth good fruit. Now my point is this, and I hope
I can explain this well. If he's talking about human morality
and sincerity, whoever this good tree is, they cannot do any acts
of immorality at all. So we'd have to say old David,
King David, back in the Old Testament, that he was a wolf in sheep's
clothing. Now you know that's not true. He was a true preacher
of the gospel. He was the sweet psalmist of
Israel. Did he ever act in an un-Christian way? Do you ever act in an un-Christian
way? Do I ever do that? We sure do. You know, when people start talking
about, say, well, Christians can't do this, Christians can't
do that, I just about every time I can show you somebody in the
scripture who was a Christian who did just that. Where are we? We're sinners saved
by grace. I don't have any righteousness
except that which is in Christ. He's not talking about that.
There's two things about the broad road that lead to destruction
that you can bank on. Number one, they will always
make salvation at some stage to some degree in some way conditioned
on sinners rather than on Christ alone. And secondly, they will
always judge eternal life and salvation and
righteousness on a sliding scale. There is no sliding scale in
God's court of justice. The measure is Christ. And you
know what? In my best day, I fall short
of Christ. on my best day. If you'd look
at me doing something that the world calls good, and you'd say,
well, I know he's a good preacher. I'm still falling short. Because
God's gonna judge the world in righteousness by that man whom
he hath ordained, and that he hath given assurance unto all
men, and that he hath raised him from the dead. My only hope
is the righteousness of Christ imputed to me. That's not what he's talking
about here. He's talking about the preaching of the gospel as
opposed to the preaching of a lie. That's what he's saying. And
God's true preachers preach Christ, verse 17. Christ is the good
tree, folks. Every good tree bringeth forth
good fruit. You say, well, that's the preacher.
Well, he's preaching Christ. And Christ only produces good
fruit. Christ does not produce any evil
fruit, he can't. And what is that good fruit that
Christ produces? Huh? For by grace are you saved. Through faith, that not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast,
for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto, not because
of, but unto good works, which God hath before ordained that
we should walk in them. You know what the good fruit
there? It's a sinner saved by grace. That's what it is. And that kind
of sinner saved by grace is only produced by the power of God
unto salvation under the preaching of the narrow way, the gospel. Now, under the preaching of a
false gospel, a corrupt tree, the only thing that's gonna produce
is evil fruit. Verse 18, a good tree cannot
produce, bring forth evil fruit. Christ and the gospel will not
bring forth evil fruit. Now, does that mean that everybody
that hears the gospel is gonna believe it? No. There'll be some
evil fruit even under the preaching of the gospel, but the good tree,
the gospel, Christ didn't produce them. That's just what we are
by nature. In verse 19, he says, every tree
that bringeth forth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast
into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruit shall
you know, you shall know them. That's the converts, the people
that believe the gospel. And if they don't under the preaching
of the gospel, it's not because of the gospel. It's because God
has left them in their natural state. The new birth always comes
by the Holy Spirit with the gospel. Christ said it this way in John
8, 32, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
Over in Romans, look at Romans chapter six. And I hope I made that clear. No one is going to be converted
under the preaching of a lie, that's what I'm telling you.
But some are gonna be converted under the preaching of the truth. And those who aren't converted
under the preaching of the truth, it's not the truth that created
that, that's just what we naturally are. Over here in Romans chapter six,
look at verse 17. He says, but God be thanked.
that you were the servants of sin, slaves to sin. Now he's
talking about unbelievers there, unregenerate people. We're all
sinners, folks. There's only two types of people
in this world. Sinners lost in their sins and
sinners saved by grace. That's it. But those servants
of sin that he's speaking of there are those who are enslaved
by the darkness of unbelief. Then he says, but you have obeyed
from the heart, that form of doctrine, which was delivered
to you or you were delivered to. Now the heart, here's the
new heart given by the Spirit in the new birth, regeneration. The natural heart is deceitful
above all things, desperately wicked, who can know? The natural
man will not receive the things of the Spirit of God, neither
can he know them. But you believe from the heart.
Who? Those whom God gave life, a new heart, a new spirit. You
were delivered to the gospel, verse 18, being then made free,
liberated from sin, liberated from the darkness of ignorance
and unbelief. You became the servants of righteousness.
And what is it to be a servant of righteousness? Is that talking
about outward reformation? No, you're a servant of Christ. You live your life now looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. It's the gospel. But now here's another point
that you need to understand. You know, we're commanded to
preach the gospel to anyone and everyone who'll listen. Now all of us by nature are spiritually
dead in trespasses and sins. When I first heard the true gospel
preached or was able to look back on it and notice it and
identify it, I was a spiritually dead sinner. I didn't have ears
to hear and eyes to see. I didn't have a heart and a mind
given by God. You know how I knew that? Because
the preaching of the truth was foolishness to me when I first
heard it. I hated it. Oh, I remember it. I remember it just like it was
yesterday. I heard my former pastor preach the truth of how
God can be just and justify the ungodly, and I thought he was
crazy. And I told the folks in the 10
o'clock hour, I said, I can remember driving my mother home from service
and telling her, I said, Mom, I said, what he said this morning
is true, then I'm lost. Because I don't believe that.
And she said, well, you are lost then. That's the gospel. And I don't know, at some point
in time, the Lord gave me eyes to see and ears to hear, and
I don't know the exact time, and it's not important that I
do. I can tell you when God got my attention. It's what I call
my to-before moment. You know how the old farmer used
to say he had to hit the mule in the head with a two-by-four
to get his attention? Well, that's when the Lord got
my attention. It was a message that Brother Mayhem preached
called A Just God and a Savior from Isaiah 45. And I told my
mother, I said, I need to know more about that. And at some
point in time, he gave me eyes to see and ears to hear. But
not everyone will hear the gospel in faith. Bible tells us this
is the light that comes into the world and men love darkness
and hate the light. It talks about those who he came
into his own and his own received him not, but to as many as received
him, to them gave he the right to become the sons of God who
were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor the will
of man, but of God. Some believe it, some will not.
The Bible teaches us that there are two types of calling. There's
the general calling, the call of the gospel preached indiscriminately
to anyone and everyone who's found under the sound of it,
listening to the words. But if all that you receive is
that general calling, you'll walk away unaffected in unbelief.
And then there's that particular invincible, irresistible call
of the spirit, that calling. That convincing, that's what
it is, it's a convincing. The spirit, he may use a weak
old pitiful guy like me to communicate it to you, but it's the spirit
who convinces. It's the spirit who gives life. It's the spirit who gives us
a new heart, who gives us the gifts of faith. You know, faith
is a gift. It doesn't come out of your goodness
or your free will or the preacher's, it's a gift from God wherein
he makes us know him, draws us to him, irresistibly. If the spirit gives you life
and teaches you, you can't resist it. God draws his people with love
as he reveals Christ to their hearts, their mind, their affection,
their will. That's what he does. How do we
know the difference if we receive the powerful calling, this irresistible
calling, rather than the general calling? Faith in Christ, repentance
of dead works, perseverance in the faith. That's what it is. And so what Paul is saying here,
look back at our text, 2 Corinthians 2. Now, when you read this, think
about how false religion measures success. Basically, it's two
things, how many and how much. That's how false religion measures
success. That's why they have those plaques
up on the wall and they have attendance last Sunday and then
the offering. How many and how much? How does
God measure success? And that's what Paul's saying
here. Now thank, verse 14, now thanks be unto God, which always
causeth us to triumph in Christ and maketh manifest the savor
of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a
sweet saver of Christ in them that are saved and in them that
perish. To the one, we're the saver of
death unto death. To the other, the saver of life
unto life. Who's sufficient for these things?
What he's saying is this, folks. Our triumph is not in how many
and how much. Our triumph is as Christ preached,
is God glorified. That's the victory. If everybody
walks away, let me show you two examples of that and I'll quit. Acts chapter two. I wanna show
you something here. Here, two examples. Now, you
know the Corinthians were dividing over preachers, and that was
wrong. And the preachers they were dividing
over were all true preachers. They weren't dividing over false
preachers. Listen, if you divide, you should divide over false
preachers, you should. Listen, there is a division between
the true people of God and those who follow false gospels. That's a division that's already
there. But they were dividing over true
preachers and that was wrong. Well, here's two true preachers
of the gospel. One is named Peter and he preached
the gospel at Pentecost. And when he finished his message,
look at Acts chapter two and verse 37. He preached Christ. He preached
the gospel of salvation conditioned on Christ. And it says in verse
37, now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart. Now that word pricked means they
were pierced through. Huh? They were pierced through. And they said unto Peter to the
rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? What we're seeing here is the
work of the Holy Spirit in that specific invincible calling. Verse 38, Peter said unto them,
repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost. He says, repent, turn away from
your idols and turn to the living God and confess him in believers
baptism and that baptism there is not the remission of sins.
It's not water baptism. Water baptism does not bring
about forgiveness of sins. Read it, be baptized every one
of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. It's
Christ who brings remission of sins, not baptism. Baptism is
just a confession of Christ. And he says in verse 39, for
the promise is unto you and your children and to all that are
far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. There's that specific, powerful,
invincible calling. And with many other words did
he testify and exhort saying, save yourselves or separate yourselves
from this untoward generation. And look at verse 41. Then they
that gladly received his word. Who gladly receives his word?
Those who are born again by the Spirit. They were baptized, they
confessed Christ in believer's baptism, and the same day, there
were added unto them about 3,000 souls. Wouldn't you like to be in a
meeting where the gospel's preached and 3,000 people believed it?
Boy, that Peter, he was a success. No, God was. That's something
to see. And you know, later on, he preached
and 5,000 were, Think about it. Now, turn to
Acts chapter seven. Here's another true preacher
of the gospel. His name is Stephen, the evangelist. He preached in the same place
that Peter preached, in Jerusalem. And basically, he preached the
same basic gospel message that Peter preached. He did it in
a different way, but it was the same gospel. And look at verse 51 of Acts
chapter seven. He said, you stiff-necked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears. That's unregenerate. Circumcision
of the heart is the new birth, regeneration and conversion.
uncircumcised in heart and ears. You do always resist the Holy
Ghost. You reject the preaching of the
gospel. That's the natural man, the unregenerate
man. As your fathers did, so do you.
Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? They
have slain them which showed before the coming of the just
one, that's the Messiah, of whom you have been now the betrayers
and murderers, Christ. who have received the law by
the dispensation of angels and have not kept it. You got the
law through Moses by the dispensation of angels and you broke it. Now
look at verse 54. Now remember what, when they
heard Peter preach, they were pricked, pierced through in their
hearts. Now look here, verse 54. When they heard these things,
they were cut to the heart. And that word cut means exasperated. It means infuriated. It means
enraged and angry. You see it? And they gnashed
on him with their teeth. Different reaction than what
Peter got. And you know what happened. You
can read the rest of it. They stoned Stephen to death.
They killed him. Now here's my point. Who was
successful? Who triumphed there? Well, the
world would say Peter triumphed and Stephen failed. Stephen,
you needed to change your message and you don't need to be so blunt
with these people. Well, let me tell you what God's
Word says. Both Stephen and Peter triumphed. Both of them. Both of them. And you know why? because they both preached Christ,
crucified, risen from the dead. They both preached the gospel.
To one, it was the savor of life unto life. To the other, it was
the savor of death unto death. But thanks be to God, who always
causes us to triumph in Christ. Now, our goal in preaching the
gospel is that men and women believe what we preach. Not because
we preach it, but because it's God's word. It's the truth, my
friend. And the truth will set you free.
The gospel is the power of God and the salvation to everyone
that believeth. The Jew first, the Greek also,
doesn't matter. Therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. That's Christ. That's the merits
of his obedience unto death, and that's the only hope that
you and I have. to be right with God and to enter heaven's glory. All right, let's get our hymnals
and turn to hymn number 359.