I was reading there this morning.
You know, in chapter two, Paul brought up something right before
he goes into chapter three, of course, page and page breaks
and all this stuff, chapter breaks aren't there. But Paul here is
talking about that. Whenever we preach, right? We
preach the truth as it is in Christ. The Word of God is the only truth
that there is. I don't have truth. None of us
in here has truth. The only truth that there is
to know is in the Word of God. The only truth that we have about
God is found in God's Word. The only truth that we have about
Christ Jesus is in God's Word. The only truth that we have about
the Gospel about His people's salvation is in the Word of God. It doesn't come from a seminary.
It doesn't come from an intellectual. It doesn't come from our feelings
or traditions or thoughts. Now, there's a lot of that out
there. And there's a lot of churches that's out there that is preaching
seminary thoughts, preaching individual thoughts, traditions. But brethren, the only truth
that we have It's on the Word of God. So we have to rely on
God's Word and the Spirit of God to teach us that Word. And I know that's a subject that
we hit on almost every week whenever we meet together. And I probably
sound like a broken record on that. But I don't know how I
can emphasize that. And I don't see any reason why
we shouldn't emphasize that. You know, we need to be reminded
that this is where we get our beliefs. This is where we get
our faith and practice, right? And so anything that we know about
God and the gospel, we know by the truth. And we know that that
truth only comes, as Larry even mentioned earlier in our conversation
before we started, that only comes by revelation. Now that revelation we are full
agreement that we have, right? We don't believe in this weird
esoteric revelations that we see in the cult preachers on
TV like, you know, Benny Hinn and Ken Copeland, all these guys
here that just comes out with all these things that, you know,
God told me this, God told me that. If whatever your God told
me isn't found in here, then I pretty much don't want to listen
to it, okay? If I can't find it supported
here, keep it to yourself. But revelation in the biblical
sense is God taking what is true about himself, about his Christ,
about his gospel, and about his people. And he reveals that to
us. So that means that's something
that we don't know. We can't know. unless it is revealed
to us. And it's only revealed by the
Spirit of God. Therefore, I can't push you to
learn and to understand and to grasp as truth something that
has not been revealed to you yet. And there's a lot of preachers
out there that just want to punish people because they don't jump
on board with, okay, I'm reading it to you, there you are, you've
now been taught So there you go, how come you're not believing
it? We can even have opposite opinions, you know? And one guy
comes and he's got his handful of verses, and another guy comes
and he's got his handful of verses. But somehow they've come with
two different thoughts about how something is. And one guy's
saying, I'm teaching you and you're not being teachable. And
the other guy's saying, well, I'm teaching you and you're not being teachable.
Well, I'm teaching you with the scriptures. Well, I'm teaching
you with the scriptures. You see how we just go back and
forth? But if both of them would know that we just continually,
with meekness, pray that the Lord would, peradventure, give
them acknowledging of the truth, repentance to the acknowledging
of the truth, continue in long suffering with the brothers,
we would continue in sharing that truth. And if it is truth
that we're speaking, the Word of God is going to stand. It's
going to hold up. And at some point, the Holy Spirit
will reveal whenever He decides to reveal. Now, with that thought,
Paul in them says, leading into 3, 2 Corinthians 2, verse 17,
he says, For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God,
but as of sincerity But as of God, in the sight of
God, speak we in Christ." Now, Paul is saying here, listen,
there's a lot of voices out there that are preaching, quote, unquote,
the Word of God. They have Bibles open. They have
seminary degrees behind their names. They have Greek and Hebrew
known in their intellect. They have lexicons. They have
huge libraries. They've read every major theologian
that's out there and maybe have even put them to memory. But Paul has already told these
Corinthians back in the first letter that he wrote to them,
whenever we came to speak to you, we did not come in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. We came and we preached
and your hearing of that and your receiving of that, your
acknowledging that truth and receiving of that truth didn't
come because of the eloquency of our speaking. It didn't come
because of the intellectualness of our delivery or even of our
figuring things out and putting it in such a way. It didn't come
because we were able to share Greek and Hebrew with you. It
came in the power of God. When the truth comes to a child
of grace, It comes in the power of God. It doesn't come in the
work of man. Me sitting here today is not
advancing you in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
only whenever the Spirit confirms what I'm saying to be true. If
I be speaking the truth, I may be speaking something that my
mind just concocted as what I confess. I can figure this out. You know,
I'm not an educated person. I'm not a very smart person.
You know, there's a lot of things that I might have wrong. And
guess what? If I preach something that I
think is the truth, and God's Word says, sorry, that's not
right, it's me, not the Holy Spirit, right? That's me. And
that's possible. We're all fallible. Every preacher
is fallible, no matter how many degrees he has, How long he's
been in the ministry. He's fallible. We all have our
pet doctrine. We all have our pet presupposition. We have all these things that
affect us. Why? Because we are not God. There's only one who is God.
And the Bible says that he is the truth. Jesus said, I am the
way, the truth and the life. Again, we start about hope. The
Bible personifies hope as Christ Jesus. It personifies truth as
Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ is truth. If there is any truth to be known,
it's going to be known from the Word of God. And that's not just
talking about this book. It's talking about the Word of
God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Word. So if there's
a word to come from God, and we know that anything that God
speaks is truth, because God cannot lie. Not to mention God
is the creator of all things. So whatever God says, that's
truth because everything comes from Him. That wall is a wall
because God created the material that made that wall. Therefore,
that wall is a wall. God is a wall builder. That wall is personified as hell.
Now, I'm not getting into New Age stuff that God is in everything,
He's the tree, He's the this, He's the that. But what I'm saying
is, is whenever God speaks, it is because God says it's so. We only re-utter the things that
we have seen and heard. The Word of God has been given
to His people and the ministers of that Word are given to be
able to speak on those things as God gives them truth, as God
gives them utterance, and the receiving of that as God gives
them understanding. It all depends upon God. And
so Paul here says, for we are not as many which corrupt the
Word of God. So see, we get back to these
two groups of people. You've got some claiming this,
and they're open to the Word of God, and they're preaching,
but yet they're corrupting the Word of God with the Word of
God. They corrupt the Word of God
by the Word of God. Just look at all the different
articles of faith, statements of faith, you know, confessions
of faith. All of them have little rows
of scriptures all down from here. But you take this one, you take
this one, you compare them together, well, these are saying two different
things, but they all got scripture under them. What's happening? Men are interpreting Scripture
in light of their understanding, and they're using the Word of
God, and they're using the Word of God to support their theology. Okay? You say, well, preacher,
isn't that how everybody is? That's my point. My point is
we're all in that boat. We're all fallible. So to say
this one or this one has absolute truth This denomination has absolute
truth. That group of people's statement
of faith has absolute truth. That document over there has
absolute truth. That theologian, you can count
on him. That's what I'm trying to say
is we can't do that. The only truth that we have is
right here, and we are beholden to God to even within the truth
that is here in black and white, the only way that we can grasp
and understand its meaning, its intention, is if God reveals
it to us. Otherwise, we will corrupt the
Word of God, even with the Word of God. And Paul says, we are
not as many which corrupt the Word of God, but as of sincerity. But as of God, in the sight of
God, speak we in Christ. Listen, if anybody shares the
Word of God and is not doing it in Christ, then they're speaking
of their own accord. If they're not speaking in Christ,
they're speaking of their own accord. And whenever we speak,
we speak in the language of Christ. We speak His words. We use His
terminology. We use His doctrine. We don't use our own doctrine.
We use His doctrine. But He says that, and as He says
that, He goes into this next passage of verses, and read with
me if you would. Do we begin again to commend
ourselves? Or need we, as some others, epistles
of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? What's Paul meaning by this?
He's saying, when we came and spoke, we spoke the truth of
God. We spoke only about Christ. We didn't go into other stuff,
and we didn't come here building ourselves up. Well, I don't know
how many times I've been to Bible conferences or been to some place
with some, you know, some revival or something like that, and the
preacher up there building himself up. Man, I remember there was
a guy over in Oklahoma, and I won't say his name, but there was a
guy over in Oklahoma who was an evangelist. And they have
a state paper over there, the Baptist Faith and Message. And it comes out once a month,
I think it is, or once a week or something like that. Anyway,
they used to have on the back of this thing, they would have
announcements, different announcements and upcoming things. And this
is where all the churches that were having their revivals would
advertise, this is when our revival is going to be. And they would
advertise, this is who the evangelist is going to be. If they have
some singing group, this is who the singing group is going to
be. And all that kind of stuff. Well, this evangelist always
put ads in that paper as an evangelist. And his slogan was, if I haven't
preached in your churches because you haven't called. That was
his slogan. Okay. And this man, he pumped
himself up. He wore white pants. I'm serious, he looked like Captain
Kangaroo. He wore white slacks and a fire
engine red. I mean, not even fire engine,
it was a bright, bright red. About like that controller up
there. I mean, it was red. Suit coat. And he would, he did all kinds
of crazy things, but he would always pump himself up. One of
the things he would do is he carried a pocket full of gold
coins, fake gold coins, but gold coins. And he would, at the end
of the service, he would hold up a gold coin and tell any of
the kids, he said, would any of you kids like a gold coin?
He said, this gold coin represents Jesus. If you would like to have
Jesus in your life, come and get this gold coin. And they
would come up and get that gold coin and he would announce that
they've been saved. I mean, he would, I mean, everything.
Now, at the end of the service, he would then go to the pastor,
and he would say, be sure to have them fill out all these
cards, and be sure to turn those cards into the association, because
they put those revival reports in the back of the deal, because
not only do they advertise the revivals, after the revivals,
they advertise how many people were saved, how many people rededicated
their lives, How many people surrendered to the ministry?
How many were added to the church? How many were baptized during
that revival? And so he would put down there,
be sure to turn that in, because that's my calling card. Now,
can you believe that? Now, we all talk about hirelings,
but this was a hireling of hirelings. This man was commending himself. He was coming and wanting others
to commend himself. Maybe not in a written letter,
although there were men who were writing letters of commendation
about these evangelists and sending them to other churches. But this
man was saying, hey, advertise your revival in this paper. Don't
forget to turn in those reports. Whenever they see how many people
that got saved whenever I came, that's my calling card. That
keeps me in business. He actually said those words. I couldn't believe it. I sat
there across the table listening to some of this stuff. And I
just, it was all that was in me to not just get up and walk
out. And the guy that was the pastor there, I knew. And it
broke my heart that this guy was even allowing this in his
church. Of course, I was still an Armenian
at that time. And even at that point, that was just flabbergasting
to me, to hear that. What was going on? He was commending
himself. He was saying, the proof is in
the pudding and I'm the pudding. The proof of God's work is in
the pudding, but I'm the pudding. I am the one who has created
this revival. And if you want to have a revival
like this, if you have a call, give me a call. And there you have 90% of Christendom
nowadays. It's all about the flashy buildings.
It's all about the flashy preacher. It's all about the name. It's
all about the promotions. It's all about the programs that
we run. It's all about everything, and
everything there is to commend ourselves, our program, our church,
and our star pastor. But here Paul says, we came in
sincerity, meaning that we didn't come with ulterior motives of
advancing ourselves. I've seen in the Southern Baptist
Church men who would start off in a little bitty tiny church
and if he had opportunity to move to a bigger church, well
why not? You know? That's more opportunity to speak
to more people. They need to hear the word and
God's given opportunity for me to go and to be able to share
what I know to other people. And it's just a stair step. And
these guys only hang around at a church sometimes the most five
years. At one time, at one time, the
statistics in the Southern Baptist was the most stayed at a church
two years. Why? Because either the church
didn't like what you're doing and put you away, or you moved
on to bigger and better things. Rarely did you see guys going
from a large church to say, you know, the Lord's called me to
pastor this little bit tiny five member church. Rarely ever seen
that. Why? is because we have a world
full of commendators. We're common, is that the word?
Commendating ourselves. And Paul says here, do we begin
again to commend ourselves? He said, we've already commended
ourselves to you. How did we do that? We commended ourselves
to you in the fact that we preached the Christ of this scripture,
and it was brought to you in power, not in eloquency. not
in doctrinal degrees, but it came in the power of the Holy
Spirit. And the thing that is the commendation
is the fact that here you are today believing it. The commendation of us is the
fact that we are the commendation to you because we are speaking
the truth. You're the commendation to us
because you're believing that truth. He says, ye are our epistle,
written in our hearts, known and read of all men. See, he
didn't have to have a letter of commendation to say, hey,
Brother Paul, you need to have this of angels come for your
church. Look at this, man, the results he got. Now, what was
the letter of commendation? The fact that those people were
believing the gospel. Those people believed on the
Lord Jesus Christ. And that showed that the truth
that was being preached by Paul and by any of the other apostles,
that that truth was truth because God's people are given to believe
truth only by revelation. Therefore, the work of God in
the minister to preach truth and the work of God in the listener
and the receiver of that is only by the Spirit of God. Therefore,
that was a work of the Spirit and not a work of man trying
to advance the kingdom of God. It was the work of the Spirit.
But he says, Now some get hung up on this word minister. Do
you know that that word is being misapplied? Probably one of the I wouldn't say the greatest misapplied
words, but one of the greatest misapplied words, whenever someone
claims to be a minister, we take that to mean that we
are at administer. That the word minister is short
for administer. What am I here to do today? I'm
here to administer truth to you. I'm here to administer the church
so that you're kept in order. I'm here to administer the ordinances
so that you can commune with each other, so that you can keep
the commands of God. I'm here to administer. But that's not what that word
is. The word minister means an attendant. It means a servant. And look what we have done today.
I've already been talking about it a little bit. We've taken
preachers and put them on pedestals and the word minister automatically
evokes some sort of reverence and awe. They've been placed
there to administer the sacraments, to administer the word, to administer
the conduct of the church. But the word minister there is
a servant. The Bible says that a servant isn't someone who is
to take the high seat, but is to take the low seat. The purpose
of a servant is someone to come in and to serve others. So Paul is saying here, listen,
whenever we came and ministered to you, we didn't
come to lord it over you with our great commendations and all
the accolades that follow us. No, we came to minister, to serve
unto you. We came to serve you. That's
one of the things I really love about many of the old school
Baptists. Whenever they talk about preachers
and they say they serve this church, they don't say we pastor
that church or we pastor that church. They say we serve this
church. I served this church for this
many years. You know, they don't make it about we are lords over
God's heritage, which we see in most churches today. They
say, I've been called to serve this church. So sometimes we
gotta get that vernacular out of our mind because it's been
so ingrained in there. We serve this church. Well, that's
what a minister is there. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
called by Jesus Christ, was called to minister, to serve. Jesus even himself said, I did
not come to be ministered to, but to minister. He came to serve. How did he come to serve? Well,
he came to serve in his mediatorial office, for one. He served as
our substitute. He served as our proxy. But he also come to serve in
ministering truth to us. And a minister comes and ministers,
not as an overlord, not as someone who is a hierarchical person
over somebody, But he comes as a servant. And if somebody is
a servant, that servant should be humble in what they do, right? They ought to be humble. And
oh, if we would have ministers that would be like that. I pray
that the Lord makes me that way. It's easy to get haughty. It's
easy to get built up in your own pride. Brethren, if the Lord would so
be pleased to do it, give us ministers who truly serve the
people. And they do that by not preaching
themselves, by not preaching a system, by not preaching an
organization, by not preaching a denomination or whatever, but
they preach Christ. How can I serve you the best? I can serve you the best by giving
you the truth. As the Lord gives me to do that,
as the Lord enables me to do that. What's the best way that
you can serve your family? Give them the truth. What's the
best way that you can serve others? By giving them the truth. And
so much today that's frowned upon. Well, there is no truth
except the truth of your own truth. That might be true to
you, but it's not true to me. Well, that's your truth. Well,
brethren, here's the kicker. This is the only truth. And if
a preacher is only concerned with preaching this, he doesn't
have to worry about everything else. I don't have to worry about
being up on all the trends. I don't have to worry about all
the new aged religions and worship things that are out there. Just
preach the truth. Paul said we just came in sincerity
and preached Christ. We don't have to make sermons
that are all conformed out into all these outlines with all these
points and sub-points. I've heard of preachers that
they plan their sermons out for a whole year. I used to listen
to John Piper when I first came here to the Doctrines of Grace.
I thought the guy was the greatest thing on earth. I despise the
man now, but I thought he was the greatest guy on earth. And
he used to talk about how he had planned out, you know, these
sermons over the course of his whole entire year. And man, he
landed on these holidays and he would be right where in the
Scripture and they would have something to do with that holiday.
And he had planned that out. I mean, he planned everything.
I planned it all out. Planned everything out. Just preach Christ. Come and
preach Christ. We don't have to be up on everything.
We don't have to follow everything. Just come in and preach Christ.
And it doesn't have to be planned out. He says here, he says, For as
much as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered
by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living
God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the
heart. And such trust have we through
Christ to God were See, again, he's trusting Christ. Whenever
I preach and minister Christ in the Scriptures, I don't know
how that's going to fall. As a matter of fact, Paul said
up above where we started, he said in verse 14 of chapter 2,
Now thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in
Christ and make it manifest, the Savior of His knowledge by
us in every place. For we are unto God, a sweet
Savior of Christ, and them that are saved, And in them that perish,
to the one we are a saver of death unto death, and to the
other a saver of life unto the life. I don't know how it's going
to fall. It's not up to me. It's not my business how it falls.
Whether it's life unto life or death unto death, whether it's
received or whether it's rejected. As Paul told Timothy, preach
the word. Just preach the Word. God's the
one responsible of teaching. God's the one responsible of
giving faith. God's the one that's responsible
for them receiving it. God's responsible for them to
love it and to hold it and to cherish it and to hide it in
their heart and to go out and to live upon it. That's God's
job. Not me. Not you. It's not your
job to tell me how I ought to go out and live. I'm thankful
if you correct me with God's Word, but you cannot make anybody
live in any way that they're supposed to live. We trust God. Paul here is saying, listen,
we believe that God is working this truth in the people, not
by outward works written in stone, but in the fleshly tables of
the heart. God is doing this in the heart.
The truth is being Believed in the heart. It's being received
in the heart. It is being lived upon in the
heart. How are they doing that? By the
Spirit of God. And that's why it says so we
have to trust God. I have to trust God that God
is going to work in Larry to will him to do his good pleasure.
I have to trust in God that the Holy Spirit is leading Larry
as God would have him to go. It's not Mark's responsibility.
It's not anybody else's responsibility to make sure that Larry's getting
along on his way. Do we encourage one another?
Absolutely. Brother Larry and all of you
guys, in some way or another, you encourage each other. We
encourage each other. We exhort one another. But ultimately,
what do we do? We trust in Christ. And such trust have
we through Christ to God. Not that we are sufficient of
ourselves to think anything as of ourselves. There again, why
do we do it that way? Because we are not sufficient. I'm not sufficient enough. Listen,
listen. Revelation, brother, just came,
but I think you can find an inscription. If the very law of God was not
sufficient to make you perfect into the keeping of the things
of God, do you think a minister of God or a church of God is
sufficient to make you the spiritual person that you're supposed to
be? The very holy law of God was
insufficient to make us right before God, perfect before God,
kept by God, accepted by God, however you want to put that.
It was not sufficient. Why? Because of the flesh. Well
brethren, if one flesh ministers to another flesh, I'm not sufficient
in these things either. Even more so than the law. The
law is more holy than me. The law is more ungiving than
me. And yet it cannot change you. But the Holy Spirit of God can. The Holy Spirit of God can put
those desires in your heart, that love in your heart. He can
put those precepts in your heart that you love and want to keep
them, although we can't. We desire them, but we can't
keep them. But he puts it there in the heart.
We want to serve God with our mind, but our flesh is weak and
it cannot do those things. So whenever we preach, we preach
knowing that anything of spiritual nature is not sufficient of the
preacher, not sufficient of the listener. But the sufficiency
is in the Holy Spirit of God. who applies these things, who
teaches these things, who encourages in these things, who prompts,
who enables, or he restricts. He says, not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of, God, I've heard preachers say, if I could just get over
there and preach to them, I'd know. You know what? What do you know? You don't know nothing. You don't
even know if you're going to be able to get over to that place
that you said you may die in the street tomorrow. You don't
know nothing. I don't know nothing. The only
thing I know is that if any of God's people have any kind of
hope, any kind of consolation, and any kind of spiritual activity,
the sufficiency has to come from God and not from me or anybody
else. It's all of God. Our sufficiency is of God. Verse
6, look at what he says. Who also have made us able ministers. There's that word again. Able
servants of the New Testament. Uh-oh. Does that mean we only preach
from the New Testament? I shouldn't be preaching out of the Old Testament.
I've actually heard people say that. You know that? I've actually
heard people say, well, we're a New Testament church. We don't
have to preach from the Old Testament. We only preach from the New Testament.
They go to this verse and say, we're ministers of the New Testament.
That's not what this is meaning, brethren. It's not meaning that
we can't go back into, you know, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, all that. That's not what that's
saying. He said, we are, we used this
word last week. I think it was last week. We
are able ministers, he says, that who have made us able ministers
of the new covenant. The New Testament The New Covenant,
the New Testament of the Lord. The New Covenant. We are able
ministers of the New Covenant. The New Covenant is found in
the Old Testament. Right? Do we not believe that? The New Covenant was intact in
the Old Testament. If it wasn't, none of those brethren
in the Old Testament was ever saved. Right? Matter of fact,
the New Covenant was intact before anything was created. He says, we are able servants
of the new covenant, not of the letter. Now he makes that pretty
specific, don't he? Not of the letter, but of the spirit. How am I to
preach to you? Do I preach to you the letter?
Or do I preach to the spirit? Well, if I'm going to be an able
minister, and if I'm finding sufficiency in God alone, I preach
to you the Spirit. But those who want to have the
sufficiency in themselves, those who want to make commendation
of themselves will preach to you the letter. That's what Paul
told to the Galatians. These men want to preach to you
the law so that they might glory in your flesh. They want to glory
in the fact that they got you to act right. They want to commend themselves. They want you to be their epistle. No, they want them to be your
epistle. They want them to say, oh, what
great leaders we had. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't
be on the straight and narrow. But Paul here says we're not
ministers of the letter, but of the spirit. For why? The letter
killeth. We were talking about the absolutes
last week on the channel. Was it last week or maybe was
it the week before last when I talked about a new priesthood
and a new law? That old law has to go away because
it's insufficient. The new law is here. Why? Because
it is sufficient. The Spirit is sufficient. Why? Because the letter killeth. The
letter condemns. Paul says here, we are able ministers,
not of the letter, but of the Spirit, for the letter killeth,
but the Spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death,
written and engraved 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 glorious? See, if there is some glory in
the law itself, which was to fade away and to be done away
with, how much more should we be glorying in the preaching
and the recommending of trusting in the sufficiency of God and
the Spirit of God in us? These men who are out there preaching
a conditional salvation by your keeping commands are preaching
sufficiency in the letter, and the letter only kills. They're
preaching sufficiency in your flesh to do something that will
please God, and it kills. But the able ministers of the
new covenant doesn't preach the letter because there's no sufficiency
of God in that. They preach the Spirit. The Spirit
is It is the Spirit that gives life. Jesus said, these words
that I speak are life. Not the words that I speak, Mike. The words that Christ speaks
are life. And some think, well, if Christ
said it and put it down in these books, then if we speak these
words, then that's going to create life. No, no, no, no, no. It's
not talking about this. It's talking about Christ himself.
the fiat of God, the command of God in the heart to do this. Whenever Jesus was walking along
the shores of Galilee and all of his apostles were there, wherever
they were, fishing or tax collecting or whatever they were doing,
he was walking around gathering his apostles. What did he do? Did he say, come, follow me? He just went down and said, follow
me. And what does the Bible say? They left their nets and they
followed after him. There's some neighbors seven
houses down that we've never met before. If that guy come
over there and he just walked up to my house and said, hey,
come to my house and walked off, you think I'm going to follow
that guy? Heck no. I don't even know him. He may
be He may eat people's heads in his basement over there. I
don't know what he does. I'm not gonna follow that guy.
Don't have a clue. Here, Jesus walks along. Someone
just said, follow me. Boom, and they came. Came to
a tomb where a man was dead for four days in steam. He says,
come forth. The guy stood up, came forth,
alive as can be. Did he have to go say, I am the
Messiah and I say, get up. No. Why did anybody follow Jesus,
do what Jesus said, come alive whenever he said come alive,
be healed whenever he said be healed? That's because the Word
of God has power. The Word of God coming from my
mouth does not have power. It's only whenever God speaks
into your heart that command to do this. If God says, reject
that temptation in my heart, guess what? My heart rejects
that temptation. If God doesn't say that, guess
what? My flesh is probably going to dabble in that temptation.
Paul said we know that we are insufficient to do any of these
things, to teach these people to get these people to believe,
to get these people to receive, to get any of this stuff into
these people and for them to respond. We are insufficient,
but we trust in God. And so he says there, if the
ministration of the law was glorious, How shall not the ministration
of the Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation
be glory..." People like to hear their law preaching, but all
it's preaching to you is condemnation. And if you think that's glorious,
wait until the Lord really, in your heart, brings you to hear
and understand and believe the ministration of righteousness. If the ministration of condemnation
be glorious, much more wilt the ministration of righteousness
exceed in glory. For even that which was made
glorious hath no glory in this respect by reason of the glory
that exceleth. For if that which is done away
was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious."
Why do you preach grace all the time? You don't preach law very
much. Well, because I want to preach
what's more glorious. This is more glorious. I don't
have sufficiency to do the other. I don't have sufficiency to even
preach grace unless the Lord gives that to me also. But I'll
tell you one thing, and I was telling this to Larry, if I err,
I would rather err in giving more glory to God. More glory to Christ. More glory
into what God does in me, through me. No, not even so, through
me. What God does in me. Because what you see on the outside,
I can say, was God working through me? I don't know that. That could
have been my flesh. Paul said that he was doing God's
work when he was persecuting the church. He was doing it through
me. No, he wasn't, Paul. You thought he was. You're just
being religious. See, it's what God is doing in us. It's a spiritual
law. It's a spiritual work. It's a
spiritual kingdom. We are a spiritual people. We
are spiritual servants, and the Spirit of God is the one who
has been given to us so that we might do the works of God. It says, For even that which
was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of
the glory of themselves. For if that which is done away was
glorious, much more that which remains is glorious. Seeing then
that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech And
not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children
of Israel could steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded,
for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in
the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when
Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when
it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now
the Lord is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord
is, there's liberty. Brethren, there's not liberty
in that law keeping. There's not liberty in that law
preaching. The liberty comes whenever we
are ministers, able ministers of the New Testament. So we never commend ourselves We commend to you Christ Jesus.
I commend to you the Holy Spirit of God to work in you to will
and to do His good pleasure. I commend unto you the Holy Spirit
of God to cause you to work out your salvation with fear and
trembling. I commend unto you the Word of God to love your
brother as yourself. I commend unto you the Word of
God, the Spirit of God to work in you. to love God. I command
it to you, Christ. He is all and all. Churches,
ministers, brethren. These all are fallible and insufficient,
but Christ is sufficient in all things. All right, that's all
the thoughts that I have on any of that. Does anybody have any
things you'd like to add to it or say. Or corrections, reviews, always
open for that as well. And I really do mean that, brethren,
for those watching and everything. It may just seem like a, you
know, superficial thing. I truly mean that. Many brethren
have come and corrected me and they contact me and I look into
things and sometimes I I'm led to be in agreement I was wrong.
Sometimes I still think all I know is what I know and what the Lord's
given me to know. Until he changes that, I'm still
where I am. So, but I am always open for
that discussion and correction and everything. And I would hope
everybody else would be the same way. Really that shows love for
a man to correct and to rebuke and to receive that is a reciprocation
of love actually, but that's for another, Another sermon maybe. All right, anybody? All right,
great. Lord, we do thank you again for
your son, Jesus Christ, and we thank you for the word of God
that we have and the truth that's before us. We ask, Lord, today
that the things that's been said has been said in truth, Lord,
and I've spoken of my own self and my own wisdom After my flesh,
Lord, I pray that you would forgive me of that, and I pray that you
would guard your people from those errors, and I trust in
you to do that. But Lord, I just ask today that
you would glorify your Son in the hearts and minds of all these
brethren. Lord, we just thank you for every opportunity that
we had together, and as Brother Larry brought it up earlier,
what a blessing it is to have a fellowship to be able to come
to, and to rejoice in the things of Christ with others, to be
encouraged one another and to be able to speak on the Word
of God and the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. Lord, even
just to be able to meet and to convey the things of our life
that we're going through and the struggles that we might be
facing and even the joys that we might have, Lord, that we
might experience them with each other, that we might weep with
those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. What a truly
great privilege that is. We surely don't take that lightly.
We know that we don't deserve it. We know that there are other
brothers and sisters in Christ. That by your providence, which
we do not question, have been placed in areas, Lord, where
there is no gospel witness. Lord, we pray for them and we
pray, Lord, if you would so will to lead them and gather them
together into a fellowship with other believers in Christ Jesus. Lord, that would be something, Lord, that truly would
be something that they would be grateful for, I'm sure. But
Lord, we know that you control all things and that you are working
out all your purpose according to your divine providence. Father, we trust that. We know
that you say that all things work together for good to them
who are to call. And even though they're called,
they have no place to fellowship. They're still your people, called
out by election to you, separated from the goats, separated from
the reprobate. And Lord, you are sufficient
to supply all their needs. So Lord, we just pray for them
today. But Lord, yes, we are grateful
to have this meeting today and any time together. We pray for
each brother and sister that is here. We pray that you would
be with them this week and that you would strengthen them, Lord,
not only physically, but spiritually. And Lord, that you might get
us together again next week. That be your will as well. And
again, we thank you for all things through Christ Jesus who has
saved us, made all things of the new covenant possible for
us, not just possible but sure.