just here a couple of weeks ago.
I still have a few thoughts on
some of the verses surrounding it. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. If you
remember, a couple of weeks ago, we were looking at verse 4. God of this world, who has blinded
the eyes. And thank you so much. I wanted to look at the verses
after this a little bit at this point. The Lord be with us. Help
me. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, I'll go
ahead and Let's start reading in verse 1 and read down. Therefore seeing we have this
ministry as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have
renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness
nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation
of the truth, by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves
to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Now, I want
to pause right there. I really wasn't planning on it,
but it just kind of jumps out at me as I'm reading it here,
because it goes a lot with what we're going to look at here in
just a minute. Paul here is saying that as the apostle of Jesus
Christ specifically, and I believe as every child of grace, every
man that the Lord calls, with the gift and calling of preaching,
especially to the churches, God has given a ministry to be
able to convey or to manifest the truth. I'll just be honest,
oftentimes I'll stand up here, and I've told you guys before,
I'll come into this stand and a lot of times not even know
kind of what to talk about, But the Lord just seems to be with
me and will give me that. I'm not talking about some ooey-gooey,
you know, junk that you see on TV that, oh, I've seen this vision
or all this kind of stuff. No, I'm just saying that the
Lord directs our speech. The Lord directs our thoughts
and our minds. And a lot of times the Lord does
it. There's some times the Lord doesn't do that. I come up here
and I speak a lot in my own wisdom and off the cuff and just trying
to get through it. A lot of times, and most times,
the Lord seems to be with us as he has promised. When two
or three are gathered in my name, there I will be with you always.
He also told the disciples, he said, don't worry about what
you're going to say. Just go out and I'll give you the things
to say. But we see here that we have
renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness. So see, we're not here to manipulate
people. We're not here to take and to
twist the Scriptures to fit our theological system, to fit what
people out there call orthodoxy. Our desire is to preach the truth
as it is in Christ Jesus, as it is delivered unto us and given
to us as understanding and knowledge of God and of salvation through
the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit being our teacher,
the Holy Spirit being the one who gives the revelation. See,
the revelation of spiritual matters is the work of the Spirit. It
isn't the work of the preacher. It isn't the work of the mother
or the father. It isn't the work of the grandpa or the grandma
or the scholar or the seminaries or anybody out there. That's
not their place to be the giver of revelation. Now, they can
give information, but brethren, they can't give knowledge and
understanding. That is a spiritual thing that the Spirit of God
gives to us or works in us to give us that understanding. And
we won't know, we cannot grasp, we cannot believe the things
of the Scripture until the Spirit opens them up to us. And so we
are at the feet of God at all times for everything that we
need in spiritual matters, well in physical matters as well,
but specifically speaking in spiritual matters. And so we
see here that Paul is saying that, listen, we have renounced
the hidden things of dishonesty. And I can't help but think that
Paul is speaking of all those religious leaders who were preaching
and twisting the things of God and the teachings that he had
handed down to Moses, the things that he had given him for the
priests and the prophets to preach, and how these pharisaical leaders
were twisting and turning these things to their own advantage.
not to mention mingling in a little of their Babylonian idolatry
into that as well. But Paul is saying, we have renounced
the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor
handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience, in the sight
of God. See, we're commending this thing.
You often hear me say this, hey, don't believe this because I
said it. Don't listen to these things because I said it, because
I'm a preacher, or I'm a pastor, a called minister, or an ordained
minister. Don't listen to that because
of that. Your conscience, if you're a
child of grace, the Holy Spirit is going to lead you in what
is true and what is not true. It's going to say, wait a minute,
I don't know if that's quite true or not. And it's going to
take you on a little journey into God's word to see whether
or not those things be true or not. Now, it may take you into
that little journey now. It may not take you into that
journey until later on. You may sit and listen and not
agree with what I'm saying. Maybe later on down the line,
the Lord may open up a little bit further where you understand,
oh, you know what? I remember him saying that at
one time and I didn't really get or understand or even agree
with what he was saying. But now all of a sudden, I understand
and I see what he sees. That's what's called revelation.
The Holy Spirit is growing you in the grace and the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're all on different levels
in different places. The Lord doesn't just come in
and as soon as you're born again, download all knowledge of everything
and all understanding of every point of what He's given to you.
We grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he doesn't put everybody at the same level. Some people have
a little greater knowledge than others. And it's not prideful
boasting to say that. And I'm not claiming that I have
more knowledge than Brother Larry or anybody else. And besides,
it's not a competition anyway. All of us would have zero truth
unless God give it to us. So we can't boast about anything
about what we know even. And that's why you hear a lot
of times the old school Baptist, they will say, you know, if it's,
if it's a truth, it's of God, or they'll say, you know, if
I be not deceived and the same thing, might as well just kind
of put that as a header. Every time I step up here, if
I be not deceived, this is what the Bible says. Okay. And so
that's basically all Paul is saying here. He's saying, listen,
we're commending ourselves to every man's conscience that what
we're doing is we're not trying to deceive anybody. We're not
trying to twist the scriptures. And I'm not trying to twist the
scriptures. I have no gain in that. Now, I guess you could
say that people were coming down and kissing my ring and kneeling
at my feet. You know, a lot of the preachers
that you see on TV, they have these men that walk in front
of them as armor bearers, and they're called armor bearers,
and they kind of keep people at bay from touching God's anointed,
you know? That's a different story. But,
you know, backward woods preachers, they were preaching to a handful
of people, and nothing, you know, there's nothing here that we're
gaining. That's what I'm trying to tell you. There's nothing
here to gain in trying to deceive. And our hearts doesn't long to
deceive. There's nothing to gain in deception,
spiritually speaking. So Paul says, But if our gospel
be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of
this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light, listen, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
who is the image of God should shine unto them. Okay, so we
talked a couple weeks ago about the God of this world and I put
forth to you that they're speaking of God himself. A lot of times
we talk about that's talking about Satan, but you know, I
believe that this is speaking of God himself because that's
the context of what we're talking about. God giving the light,
God not giving the light, Who's the one who blinds the eyes?
We looked at all the verses in the scripture that everywhere
that someone's eyes were blinded, it was blinded by God. And so
we take the context of scripture and not what theologians tell
us. It says, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the
minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the Lord's
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. Here we go, verse five. For we
preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves
your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. Now, brethren, I'm just going
to give you the summation at the beginning, and hopefully
we can maybe unpack that a little bit this morning. My summation
of what this is saying here is the knowledge of Jesus Christ,
or the gospel, the knowledge of Jesus Christ, who is the image
of God, who is God manifested in the flesh, who is God eternal,
who is God in His fullness bodily, that the knowledge of Jesus Christ
and what He has done in all of His mediatorial work as the Everlasting
Father, as the Eternal Word, as the Holy Spirit Comforter,
all the things that is the fullness of God dwelling bodily in Christ
Jesus, that the knowledge of the face of God be seen in Him,
that that very knowledge is something that is revealed and it is put
in these earthen vessels, that gospel is put within our hearts
that we might believe because we've been given the faith to
believe it as such, and that every child of grace at some
point will come to the knowledge that Jesus Christ and what He
has done is the Gospel, is the good news. It's not good news
about what you do. That's why Paul was saying here,
we don't talk about and commend ourselves. We're not trying to
be deceitful to bring any kind of attention to ourselves. He
said, even right here, that the excellency and power may be of
God and not of us. Why do we always preach the sovereignty
of God? Why do we always preach the depravity
of man? You guys hear it here every week.
Why sovereignty and depravity? Why is it always God, God, God,
God, God, God, man, man, man, man, man? Why is it always that
way? Right here. Because the excellency
of the power may be of God and not of men. We preach Christ
and Him crucified. Paul said it up here. That we
preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. And we preach
ourselves as your servants. Well, what was happening before
was the Pharisees was preaching a religion that they were able
to keep and everybody else was not keeping. And that everybody
else was to be subservient to the Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the scribes and all those religious leaders. That's who
was in charge. That's who should be given credence. I can't help but think about
the papal system. Look at that. Them kissing the
ring and bowing at the feet and all the stuff that they do and
all the glory that they give to a man, they even call him
the vicar of Christ. That means that he is Christ
on earth. I was mentioning the other day, we were driving by
and we seen an ad or something about the Pope dying or something.
And I said, oh, it looks like the Antichrist died. A lot of
people would be, you know, kind of shocked at that statement
or even be offended at that statement. But brethren, He's the Antichrist. Anybody who puts themselves in
the place of Christ is Antichrist. The Bible is very clear about
that. And the Pope says, I am the vicar of God. I am the God
on earth. I am the one who is the mediator
here on earth for God. And then every bishop under him
has to mediate between you and God that your sins might be forgiven. They're all Antichrists. And
so, Paul is looking at this system which began with these Pharisees.
It grew into the Catholic Church. Now, that's a study you can go
do on your own. You'll have to go down a few rabbit holes, I'm
sure, but the Catholic Church stemmed from the Babylonian idolatry
that the Pharisees picked up on, and that Catholic Church
and its whole system and how it operates If you'll look, it's
just like that priesthood system and that priestly, pharisaical
system that was set up. So they've taken something that
is God's and they've turned it and twisted and dealt with it
deceitfully. And I can't help but believe
this is what Paul had in mind. And so Paul is dealing with,
this is being done deceitfully, this is being done, and so we're
preaching Christ and we're not preaching ourselves. You see
us, we're not out here propping ourselves up, telling you to
follow us. Paul said that he was the chief
of sinners. So that's kind of the summation
I think that Paul is talking about the gospel or the knowledge
of Jesus Christ in his truth. And he says that this is found
in these earthen vessels and it's placed there by God. It isn't something that's obtained
by us through laborious study. by continual meetings, by prayer
and supplications. No, it's put there by the almighty
hand of God, by the sovereignty of God. He chooses to put this
in the people of His choosing. But look at verse 6. This is
what I really want to hone in on this morning. It says, for
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. Let's
look first here. Who is it talking about when
it says, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness.
Who is God here? Who is the God that is being
talked about here? Well, there's some that want
to split it all up into several components, but who is the one
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness? Look if you
would with me at John chapter 1. John chapter 1, starting in verse
1, the Bible says this, In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. Here it is. All things were made
by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. So who's the one who made all
things? God, but specifically Jesus Christ. He is the Word. He is the Everlasting
Father. He is the Comforter. All manifested
in the flesh. Therefore, God created all things
and He did that through Jesus Christ. As the man Jesus Christ
brought forth from before the foundation of the world, before
the mountains were brought forth, before anything was brought forth.
He manifested Himself. And through Christ Jesus made
all things. It says in Him was life. And life was the light of men. So Christ is the light. He is
the life. He has been given power over
all place to give life. He is life and that is found
in Christ. He is the light. He is the light
of men. Christ is the light. He doesn't
reflect the light. He doesn't, you know, amplify
the light. He is the light. The source in
itself of life and knowledge, life and illumination, life and
revelation is found in Jesus Christ Himself. Now look, if
you would, at John chapter 8. John chapter 8. Look with me at verse 12. Jesus said, this made Jesus again
of them saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth
me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Now that doesn't mean that if
you walk, you know, He that followeth me, if you follow after Jesus
Christ, then He's going to give you the light of life. And you'll
be the light of life. So you've got to do this before
I do that. That's not what He's saying.
He's talking about categories of people. Those who follow after
me will have the light of life. Meaning that the reason they're
following me is because they have the light of life. I am
the light of the world. He that followed me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. We're not
going to walk in darkness to the truth. we're going to be
given the light of life. He is going to be the one illuminating
the spiritual things about God and about salvation. And in those
things, God and salvation, you're going to find the centrality
will be in Christ Jesus. You can't preach God and you
can't preach salvation without preaching Jesus Christ. And that's why Paul said we preach
Christ. He's not out there saying we
preach sovereignty, although sovereignty is wrapped up all
in it. We're out here preaching predestination, although predestination
is wrapped all in it. We preach election, that's all
wrapped up in it as well, because you can't preach Christ without
preaching all those things. If you preach Christ, you're
going to preach those things. The predestination of God, why?
Because He predestined us into the image of Christ Jesus. He's
predestinated us in the election of God to be saved by the personal
work of Jesus Christ. You can't surely preach the glory
of God without preaching Jesus Christ because we'll find here
that the glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. We preach
Christ. We don't preach ourselves. And
I'm not talking about just preaching ourselves as in the preacher
getting all the glory or the smart theologian getting all
the glory. I'm talking about we don't preach ourselves. We
don't preach ourselves up. That's why we don't preach self-help
here. That's why we don't preach a lot of these sermons that you
hear in all these churches where they have series. You know, I
go by and I see these billboards and I'll see their little sermon
titles out there for, you know, we're in the study of how to
be a better man, you know, how to be a better woman, how to
be a better parent, or how to be a this or that. It's all self-help. Go down to the local quote-unquote
Christian bookstore and buy you a book and that will tell you
everything that you're going to hear because all these guys out here
are doing is parroting whatever the common sociological, psychological
fad that's going on or whatever their denominational heads are
telling them to preach about, and it's going to be something
about pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. But if you get
into the churches of Jesus Christ, the New Testament churches, where
men are called of God and given the Spirit of God to proclaim
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and you have the people that are
in there, the members of that church who have been born of
the Spirit and given knowledge and revelation of that, You're
going to find a people who will not hunger for those things,
but they will hunger to hear Christ and Him crucified. So
Paul gives us very clear understanding here that we preach Him, and
when preaching Him, we preach the knowledge of God. We preach
the very glory of God. He said, I am the light of the
world. He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall
have the light of life. Why? Because Christ is in us.
The Spirit of God is in us to illuminate and to give us the
knowledge of Jesus Christ. Look if you would with me at
Colossians chapter 1. Starting in verse 3. We give thanks to God and the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since
we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which He
hath to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you
in heaven, ye heard before in the word of the truth of the
gospel, which is come unto you, and it is in all the world, and
bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you since the day ye
heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth." The grace of God is found in
the gospel. of God is found in the Gospel. And all of that is found in Jesus
Christ because He said, since we heard of your faith in Christ. See, Christ is the center of
our faith. Grace, hope, love, all the spiritual
blessings are in Christ. So whenever that comes forth
to us, And it will come forth, and I believe this is speaking
of all the world will be represented in this, that all the elect of
God that have scattered throughout the world, this gospel has come
into all the world, and it bringeth forth fruit. This gospel being
placed within these treasures, vessels of clay, these treasures
in vessels of clay, This Gospel brings forth fruit. It brings
forth praise unto God. The Gospel causes us to praise
the Lord. I don't want to sing songs about
how good we are. I don't want to hear preaching
about how good we are or about what we can do or what we need
to do. I don't want to hear sermons
about denominations or church histories I remember we used
to go to a lot of conferences in the past, and a lot of times
the conferences was just full of, you know, this church begat
this church, and this church came from here, and this guy...
It's all about pumping up the history of people. I think that's
important to know. I'm not discarding learning those
things. It's very important to know those
things. However, that's not the gospel.
I want to hear, and I quit going to those meetings because I was
tired of hearing the same things over and over about Baptist histories. I want to hear preaching about
the gospel. I stand up week after week preaching. Whenever I go
to hear preaching, I want to hear preaching about Christ and
His salvation, how worthless I am, but what He has done to
supply all my need. That's what I want to hear. That's
what we feed off of. I think Paul is making that clear,
that the fruit that comes forth here, as we'll see, is that there
will be praise unto God. Now, brethren, I want to also
go back to, jump back real quick to 2 Corinthians chapter 4, because
I want you to look at a phrase here. I want to kind of point
something about this phrase that really, a few years ago, really
kind of shook me to my core. 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 and
verse 6 it said, For God who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness. Now we know here that he's making
reference back to creation where God created all things. Let there be light, right? Okay? And we're going to get
to that here in just a minute. But we think of, that's what
he's talking about, Tying this into spiritual things. The revelation
of Jesus Christ. The revelation of God in the
face of Jesus Christ. That's what he's talking about.
Not just talking about Jesus Christ, but conveying the knowledge
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Meaning all that God is in all
of His fullness. and how he operates and his nature
and his character and his personage is in Jesus Christ. That's what
he's getting to here. And so, he's talking about spiritual
things. He's not just talking about creating
light, okay? He's talking about spiritual
things. And he says, for God who commanded the light to shine
out of the darkness, and he's making a comparison here, has
shined into our hearts. So if God has shined into our
hearts, that precludes that within our hearts, before that light
shined, there was darkness. And I would put forth to you
You can check me out here, we're going to read a scripture or
verse that I'll have to send you home with. That we were not
just in darkness. We were darkness itself. Look
with me if you would at Ephesians chapter 5. This is the verse
that kind of shook me several years ago whenever I read this. Ephesians chapter five, look
with me at verse eight. It says, for ye were sometimes
darkness. It didn't say for ye at one time
was in darkness or walking in darkness. Okay? Whenever I turn out the lights
in this house and I walk through here, I'm walking in darkness.
But that doesn't mean I'm Darkness? I'm just walking in darkness.
Darkness has surrounded me and kept me from seeing everything
that's out there. Darkness keeps me from seeing
because there's no light to illuminate what's actually there. But me
myself walking through this house, I'm not that darkness, I'm just
in the darkness and the darkness has enveloped me and I can't
see what's in front of me and a lot of times I'll go lock that
door, turn out that last light and start to walk back to my
bedroom and I can't see and I'll stub my toe on something in here
because the darkness has kept me from seeing what was already
there. But here the scripture says we weren't just in darkness,
we were darkness. We were darkness itself. Now brethren, that tells me that
not only am I in darkness, not being able to see, I am actually
darkness and I can't have any kind of light unless something
outside of me shines forth light into me because all I am is darkness
and all I can do is produce darkness. All I can know is darkness. All
I can see is darkness. Some people say, well, how can
you see darkness? Well, when you turn out the light, what
do you see? You see darkness. Well, you say, well, no, I don't
see anything. That's right. You don't see anything. You see
darkness. Remember, we're talking about our spiritual states here.
Ye who were sometimes darkness, we had no spiritual state. We
had no spiritual ability. We had no spiritual sight, no
spiritual knowledge, no spiritual desire, no spiritual anything. We were darkness. We weren't
just kept from seeing it and was bumping into it. We were
it. But it says here, ye were sometimes
darkness, but now are ye light, and the Lord walketh children
of light. Now are ye light. Why are ye light? Is it because
I've illuminated myself? Was it because, as the old Methodist
used to say, we got that little flicker down here in our heart? It just needs to be fanned into... Yesterday, we were out doing
some yard work. We were in the backyard burning
some leaves and brush in the back. And we'd been burning for
a little bit, and I had this one big pile of leaves, and we
have to kind of burn it in smaller sections, according to the city.
Well, that pile began to dwindle down. Well, it started to sprinkle,
and it looked like it was going to start coming down a heavy
rain. So my burn permit only lasts three
days. What's supposed to possibly rain
today? So I thought, well, I'm just gonna light this last bit
on fire and hopefully it'll burn up real quick and then I'll be
done with the dog. And so, put some embers down in there to
try to get this thing going and everything. And me and Hadley
was over there and she had a shovel and she was fanning that shovel
trying to get that little spark to ignite and to catch the whole
thing on fire. And I kept throwing a little
bit Stuff in there, and we was trying to get this thing to build.
And as you, the more hairs you blew on it, the bigger and brighter
it got. And finally I told her, I said, go get that leaf blower
of ours. And I put that leaf blower, and
as soon as it did, it started billowing up. Well, the Methodists
think that's what we need. We have that little spark already
there. We just need somebody to come along to fan it into
a bigger flame. But no, God says, here, you were
darkness. You were without light, no light. But now ye are light,
because the light of life has now come into you. Brethren,
we are light, but know that we were darkness. And everyone else,
unless God reveals himself in them, in light, will remain in
darkness. That goes along with the context
of what we saw A couple of weeks ago, they're in verse 4 of 2
Corinthians 4. The God of this world have blinded
their eyes. How has He blinded their eyes?
And if you remember, I told you there are a lot of people that
ask me the question, well, why would God blind eyes that were
already dead and trespassing sin? You're saying they can't
see spiritual things. Well, why would He have to blind them again?
Why would He go ahead and do that? That's because you've got
a misunderstanding of how God blinded their eyes. God blinded
their eyes whenever He created man of the dust. Without life,
spiritually dead in trespasses and sin, they are born blind. That's why the Scripture whenever
it talks about that man who was blind from birth, the Bible says
that this man was blind from birth. From the time he came
out of the womb, he had never seen anything. He was blind.
And Jesus, whenever He came along to heal him, one of the things
that was said and asked of Him, He said, what has this man done
or what has his parents done that has made him blind? And
Jesus said, hey, this man hasn't done or his parents haven't done
anything to be made blind, that God made him blind so that the
glory of God might be seen in this man. The reason this man
from his birth until the time that Jesus healed him, which
was a lot of years, he was a grown man. God brought him forth blind. And some will say, well, that's
horrible. That's a horrible thing for you
to do. You mean God brought somebody in blind just so that he could
glorify himself? Absolutely. That's what he did.
He's the sovereign of the universe. He's the almighty God. He does
what he wants among the inhabitants of the earth. and among the armies
of heaven, and none can stay his hand." But, brother, he showed
himself in the face of Jesus Christ by healing this blind
man. And that was a picture of us.
We are brought into this world blind and unable to see, unable
to know spiritual things. We are brought into this world,
darkness, until he shines the light of the glory of God from
the face of Jesus into our hearts. Now, look with me and go way
back to the Old Testament in Isaiah. Fairly familiar passage to most
of us here, I'm sure. In Isaiah chapter 45, I just want to reiterate what
I just said. God creates the darkness, Right? But I want you to pay close attention
to the wording of how the Lord uses here. Isaiah 45 and verse
7. I'll be honest, this just kind
of hit me this morning when I was reading over this verse. The
Lord says, I form the light and create darkness. I make peace
and create evil. I the Lord do all these things. Now, just a side note, there's
a lot of limited predestinarians that are out there that they
say that the Lord doesn't create darkness. I had a discussion
with a guy, and we kind of went round and round, you know, several
times one time, where he says, God doesn't create darkness.
Darkness is just there. It's just the absence of light.
It's always dark until God brings in the light. Well, right here
it says God creates darkness. So darkness was something that
had to be created. And I think I'll give you the
answer here in just a minute on why I think that, which came
to me this morning as I was reading this. But it also says that He
creates evil. So we can't deny that as well. That's just a biblical fact.
But look if you would. He says He creates darkness.
But what about the light? Did He say He created light? No, it doesn't say that. It says, I form the light. He says, I form the light. Now
think about that for just a minute. He forms the light, but creates
darkness. That means that the light already
existed, but he forms it how he wills. If you actually look
at this word form here in the Hebrew, it has a connotation
of a potter. Now a potter forms whatever he
wants to form. But he forms the light. He directs
the light as he wills. He points the light as he wills.
He gives the light its meaning and purpose, and he gives the
light to whomever he wills. I form the light. whether it's
within somebody, or physically, whether it's within everything
else, and create darkness. See, the light was already there. If you think about back in Genesis,
the Bible says that darkness was on the face of the earth,
and it was without form, and was void. And God said, let there
be light. And a lot of people think at
that moment God created light. If so, how did God create light?
If you think that, how do you think God created light? Whenever
he said, let there be light, what happened? Was there? What happened? And where did
the light come from? Anybody got a thought on that? Where did the light come from
whenever God said on day one, let there be light? He said,
let there be light. There was already light, but
it had not been manifested yet into darkness. But we know that darkness is
on the face of the deep. Now, Genesis doesn't tell us
how that all came to be. And I know there's a lot of opinions
about this and a lot of scholarly thoughts on it. But the Bible
doesn't tell us how God created the earth that was without form
and void. That it was the waters that was
there. But we know that all things were
made by Him. He created all things. But let's
go back to the light. He said, let there be light and
there was light. That was day one. But God didn't
create the sun and the moon fourth day. On the fourth day God created
the sun and the moon to give light upon what He created out
of the darkness. So the light that came forth
before was light that already was there that He brought into
the darkness at the appointed time that He desired. And He
brought that light in and that light from day one until day
four was the light. The light of everything. Whenever
Christ is brought into the heart that is dark, He is the light. He lights up everything. He is
the illumination of everything. So Christ is the one who is the
light. He forms the light as He wills
And He is the One who has created darkness. If there is darkness,
He's the One who created it. If it remains in darkness, it's
His will that it stays in darkness because He's the One who forms
the light. So if He forms the light, light
cannot come into any heart unless God forms it. A missionary going
over into the heart of Africa to all those darkened souls that's
over there, and I don't mean that in a racist way. I meant
those who never have heard of Jesus Christ. Going into some
tribe out in the middle of nowhere that nobody knows about in South
America. That missionary ain't going to
bring light into their heart. He might bring light from His
voice and proclaim the light, but that light is not going to
penetrate and pierce the darkness of the heart unless the God who
is the light of this world forms it in the heart. He will form
it. Now brethren, let's look now,
go back to our passage. What is this light telling us?
Or what is this light causing us to see? 2 Corinthians again, chapter 4,
verse 6. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts. For what
purpose has God shown the Gospel and the light of Jesus Christ
into our hearts? To give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God, but in the personage or in the face of Jesus
Christ. And that's why we're to view
everything through the lens of Jesus Christ. Why don't you harp
on the Father enough? Why don't you harp on the Holy
Spirit enough? There's a lot of churches out
here, they worship the Holy Spirit. They've got a picture of a dove
out on their sign. They've got a picture of a dove
back behind their pulpit. All their printing paper has
A little dove on there. And they're all the time talking
about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Last
I heard, the Bible said that whenever the Spirit of Truth
comes, He's not going to talk about Himself, but He's going
to talk about Christ. Why? Because the Holy Spirit
of God is Christ. He is the Comforter sent back
who said, I will go away, but I will come again unto you. I
will not leave you comfortless. I will come again to you. And
whenever He comes again, He comes again to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God. But He does it in the face of
Jesus Christ. Why? Because Jesus is the invisible
God and the image of that invisible God. He is the manifestation
of the glory of God. Look with me, if you would, while
you're there in 2 Corinthians. Look back up at verse 4. We've
just seen that. And whom the God of this world hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. What happens when God keeps us
in darkness and keeps those blinded that He has not elected unto
salvation and given the light of the glory of God in yet? What
are they walking in? They don't know the glorious
Gospel of Christ who is the image of God. They don't see Christ
as God manifested in the flesh and the fullness of God dwelling
in Him bodily and how all the unity of that Godhead dwells
in Christ and Christ is carrying out all the work of salvation. The work of salvation is upon
His shoulders. Look, if you would, at John chapter
14. A couple more verses, brethren, and we'll be done. John 14 again. Remember, Jesus, whenever He
was talking to Philip, Philip says, Lord, show us the Father. If you show us the Father, we'll
be satisfied. It sufficeth us. If you haven't listened to Brother
Dan O'Dell's messages that he did at Welch Track on the saints'
desire, listen to those. Those are good, brethren. I'm
telling you, they're really good. The Lord was with him in those
messages. What is a saint's desire? It's to know our God. To know
about Him. We study the Scripture that we
might know Him. But brethren, we can't get to
know God if we don't know Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is
God manifested in the flesh and is the image of the invisible
God. And Jesus here tells Philip, Philip, have I been so long time
with you and yet hast thou not known me? Wait a minute. Philip
said, I want to know the Father. Show me the Father. And Jesus
said, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And how saith
thou then, show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am
in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak
unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth
in me." Brethren, where is the Father at? He is in Christ Jesus. So whenever we say that Jesus
is the fullness of the Father, the everlasting Father, We have
scriptural backing to say that. We're just not going beyond scripture. We don't want to go beyond what
the scripture says. And a lot of times theologians
go beyond what scripture says and by implication make all these
other things out there and then they tell you if you don't believe
these things, you're not orthodox. I was deemed a heretic, by the
way, last week after my sermon. that we had last week because
of these things by one brother out there. I'll continue to call
him brother because he believes the gospel, but he believes that
we're lost and not saved because of believing these things. He
says here, believe me that I am in the Father and the Father
in me or else believe me for the very word's sakes. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that
I do, shall he do also. And the greater works than these
shall he do, because they go unto the Father. And whatsoever
ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may
be glorified in the Son. How is the Father glorified?
He's glorified in the Son. Why? Because the Son is the one
who is manifesting the Father. Lastly, let's look at Hebrews
1. Look at verse 3. Hebrews 1 and verse 3. I'll go ahead and start in verse
1 so we can kind of get the context of where verse 3 is coming from. It says, God, who at sundry times,
sundry, that's a word we don't hardly use very often. who in
sundry times and in divers manners, meaning in different times and
in different ways, spake at times past unto the fathers by the
prophets, have in these last days spoken unto us by His Son,
whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made
up the world. So here again, there's another
reiteration that Jesus Christ is the God who made the world that we talked
about at the very beginning. Who's the God that commanded
the light to shine? Who made the world, made everything
that's in it? It's Jesus Christ. But look at verse 3. Who, speaking
of Christ, being the brightness of His glory. Whose glory? God's
glory. Christ is the brightness of God's
glory and the express image of His person. So if you want to
speak about a person when you speak of God, the only place
I see where the term person or the word person or the thought
of personage is applied to the Godhead is in the image of God
in Christ Jesus. He is the person of God. Now, am I overrunning that verse? Am I drawing that out to a conclusion
that's not there? Jesus is the brightness of whose
glory? God's glory. He's the express
image of His person. If God has a personage, it's
Jesus Christ. and upholding all things by the
Word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat
down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." Now this was the verse that the
gentleman that called me a heretic this week was trying to give
me the answer. He said, where is Christ now? And I kind of
seen through his question, He was trying to get me to say,
at the right hand of God, to prove that, aha, there is two
separate distinct individuals. But instead of answering him
the way that he would want me to answer, I cut to the chase
and I asked him, I said, does the invisible God have a hand? The God that's a spirit, does
he have a hand? Who is sitting on the throne?
Christ. We know that by our view of Christ
sitting on the throne in Isaiah 6. Who is the one who has the majesty
on high? Well, I believe the Bible gives
credence to Christ having all majesty. So we see here, brethren, as
we Let's look back at our verse in context. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Brethren, while this knowledge
encapsulates a lot of different things, the doctrines of grace,
the nature of God, It encapsulates a lot of things, but specifically
it comes down to a point of Christ being the very God manifested
in us and His work of salvation on our behalf and securing that
salvation, purchasing that salvation with His blood. He has done all
that God has required for righteousness. And He is now governing all things
by His mighty hand to the very end of all things. And brethren,
we preach Christ. We don't commend ourselves to
every man's conscience. We commend Christ, not ourselves. We commend the wisdom of God,
not ourselves. Not the wisdom and the knowledge
of theologians and commentaries and preachers. We commend Christ
and His Spirit will give us the knowledge of God in His face. Anybody got anything that you'd
like to add to that or any questions, comments, corrections or reviews? Anybody got anything that you'd
like to add or say? and we thank You so much for
Your mercy and Your grace. We thank You for the Word of
God that's been given to us to see these things in Scripture. But Father, we're even more thankful
that You have given us within ourselves the very God of gods
in the person of Jesus Christ. Thank You, Father, for the spiritual
work that You have done in darkness. Lord, we know that without Your
work, Your sovereign grace, what we would call irresistible grace,
that every man would remain in darkness, would remain as darkness,
and could never see the glorious wonder of our God. So thank you,
Father, that you have shown grace to your people. And Lord, we
just thank you for all that you do and all that you are, and
we pray, Lord, that you would help keep us here faithful to
preach these things, and that we might not commend ourselves
or the wisdom of man, as many do, but that we might By your
power, by your constraint, by your enabling, preach the truth
that is in Christ Jesus.