Glorious things of thee are spoken. If you could please stand number
183. Glorious things of Thee are spoken,
Scion, city of our God, Thee whose Word cannot be broken,
Formed thee for his own abode On the rock of ages found. ? What can shake thy sure repose
? ? With salvation's walk surrounded ? ? Thou mayest smile at all
thy foes ? ? See the streams of living water ? ? Springing
from eternal rest ? God supply thy sons and daughters,
and all fear of want remove, who can fade by such a river? Ever flows their thirst to sway,
Grace which, like the Lord, the Giver, Never fails from age to
age. Round each habitation covering,
See the clouded choir appear, a glory and a covering, showing
that the Lord is near. Glorious saints of Thee are spoken,
Zion's city of our God. He whose word cannot be broken, Good morning. His word cannot be broken. He has formed thee for his own
abode. Oh, I'm so hopeful the Lord will
comfort our hearts this morning with his grace, with his presence
through his word, by his precious spirit. What a blessed opportunity
we have to be here. It's good to have Daryl and Joyce,
Brad and Pam with us. proud grandparents and great-grandparents. And you all remember I've been out
to Great Falls, Montana to preach a couple of times over the last
few years. John Mitchell was the pastor
there and he suffered with Parkinson's disease before the Lord took
him home. His daughter Susie and her husband
Larry are here with us this morning from Montana. And their 24-year-old
son lived in Melbourne and died of a heart attack just about
12 days ago. And they're here visiting their
granddaughter. Our heart goes out to you all.
Pray the Lord will give you grace. deal with your grief. Let's pray together. Our merciful
Heavenly Father, we come into Thy presence in the name of Thy
dear Son, thanking You that we have not only access, but we
have the hope of Your love and Your mercy for Christ's sake. We're so thankful that we have
an advocate. We have a sin bearer. We have
one who stands in our stead before thee and makes for us a place
of grace and mercy. Lord, we pray for Larry and Susie and
for their granddaughter. And we ask, Lord, that you would
do for them what no one else can do. Give them comfort and
hope. Peace in Christ. Thank you for your gospel. We
pray now, Lord, that you would bless your word to our hearts
and enable us to find our hope in Christ. For it's in his name
we pray. Amen. You'd like to turn me and your
Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Some of you may be wondering
what am I doing down here with this podium. Normally I'm here. I'm trying something new. I mentioned some time ago that
I wanted this first hour to be more of a Bible study format. And yet it's difficult for me
when I get in the pulpit to not preach. And preaching here twice
and then preaching in Sarasota twice on Sunday night is a little
much for me. So this is an attempt on my part
to sort of slow things down the first hour and do more of a just
a verse-by-verse exposition Bible study. So we'll see how that
works. Okay? We've been studying 2 Corinthians
chapter 11 and we must go back to the statement
that the Apostle Paul makes in verse 3 when he says, I fear,
lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,
so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ Jesus. The gospel of God's free grace
is found and understood in the simplicity, the singularity,
that's what that word means, the singularity of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who himself is the gospel. He is the good news. He is the
alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. And so, there were
those, as is the case today, Solomon said, nothing's new under
the sun, and things today are the same as they've always been. There are those who would corrupt
the gospel, pervert the gospel, by adding something to the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You've got to make your contribution.
You've got to do your work in order to make what he did work
for you. And now Paul is vehemently, under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, defending the simplicity of Christ
against those who would pervert the gospel. And against what he would rather do, he's
having to use his experience in preaching the gospel as a
defense. And so he says, In verse 17, that which I speak,
I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, as
this confidence of boasting. So Paul's now going to compare
himself to those other teachers. And he's regretting the fact
that he's having to do this. Nevertheless, we know that this
is the inspired word of God, and so what he's giving to us
is of the Lord. It's not just his own opinion.
But he's going to talk about the persecution now that he has
suffered for the gospel's sake. And as I said, he's reluctant
to do it because he doesn't want to in any way promote himself. He's just saying that the evidence
that I'm preaching the gospel is the persecution that's coming
against me. And I don't want you to glory
in my persecution, but I do want you to glory in the one for whom
I'm being persecuted. And so that's why he brings up
his persecution. He says in verse 18, seeing that
many glory after the flesh, I will glory also. For you suffer fools
gladly, seeing yourselves also are wise. For you suffer if a
man bring you into bondage, and if a man devour you, and if a
man take of you, and if a man exalt himself, and if a man smite
you on the face. Isn't it amazing how the natural
man will take the abuse of a lawmonger rather than believe the gospel
of God's free grace? He will. He'll be put under the
bondage of the law. If you could just give me something
to do, then I'll be happy." And Paul's saying, you'll follow
after a man who's abusing you, you'll follow after a man who's
putting you under the law, but you won't follow after me, who's
telling you the truth. I speak as concerning reproach,
as though we had been weak. Howbeit, where in so ever any
is bold, I speak foolishly, I am bold also. Are they Hebrews? Now you remember we've called
these false teachers Judaizers, that's what they've been known
for. They are, in short, coming in behind the Apostle Paul and
saying, yes, Jesus of Nazareth that Paul preached to you is
the long-awaited Messiah. But Paul left something out.
What they're saying is Jesus is necessary for your salvation,
but he's not sufficient. Paul forgot to tell you that
after you come to Christ, Christ takes you back to the law and
the law now becomes