Let's all stand together. Number
485, revive us again. We praise thee, O God, for the
Son of thy love, for Jesus, who died and is now gone above. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. We praise thee, O God, for thy
Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our
night. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. All glory and praise to the Lamb
that was slain, who has borne all our sins and has cleansed
every stain. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. Revive us again. Fill each heart with thy love. May each soul be rekindled with
fire from above. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. Please be seated. Always our prayer, isn't it?
This morning's manna is not sufficient for tonight. We need for the
Lord to revive us again now. I want to read from Psalm 29,
if you'd like to turn with me there in your Bibles for our
scripture reading tonight. Psalm 29. And while you're turning there,
you'll be happy to know that Brian and Pam had an appointment
with a doctor that makes a decision as to whether or not to put an
individual on the transplant list. And he told them after
he interviewed Brian that normally he doesn't do this, that he always
has two or three interviews with an individual before he makes
a decision. But he made a decision today
to put Brian on the list. So I don't know what that means.
And Brian obviously is still very, very sick. But the Lord,
for whatever reason, moved on the doctor's heart to have Brian
put on the transplant list. So I hope that that will be led
to be in prayer for Him. Psalm 29, give unto the Lord,
O ye mighty. In the margin of my Bible it
says, ye the sons of the mighty, the sons of the mighty one. That's
us. Give unto the Lord praise and
glory. Give unto the Lord glory and
strength. Give unto the Lord the glory
due to His name. Worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. He is undefiled, sinless, separate
from sinners, always faithful to the Father. We worship Him
as the Holy One, and we worship Him in the power of the Holy
Spirit, which makes our worship holy. We're the true circumcision,
which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. The voice of the Lord is upon
the waters. The God of glory thundereth.
The Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful.
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the
Lord breaketh the cedars. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars
of Lebanon. He maketh them also to skip,
like a calf, Lebanon and Syrian. like a young unicorn, the voice
of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord
shaketh the wilderness and the Lord shaketh the wilderness of
Kadesh. Oh, they shall hear my voice
and they'll follow after me. They shall all be taught of God.
Our hope tonight is that we will hear the voice of the Lord. The
voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth
the forest. And in his temple doth every
one speak of his glory. The Lord sitteth upon the flood.
Yea, the Lord sitteth king forever. The Lord will give strength unto
his people. The Lord will bless his people
with peace. Let's pray together. Our gracious and merciful Heavenly
Father, what a glorious promise we've just read. We pray for
your sweet Holy Spirit to minister faith to our hearts and cause
us, Lord, to hope in faithful anticipation of hearing thy voice. We pray that you would speak,
Lord, and that your servants would hear Lord, we were exposed to so many voices,
so many noises, so many, so many opinions and so many sounds. We take comfort in knowing that
that you teach your Children and we pray, Lord, that you would
teach us tonight that you would speak to us by your word. that
you would cause us, Lord, to find our peace in Christ. For
you said, Lord, that perfect peace belongs to them whose mind
is stayed on thee. Lord, we pray that in this hour,
that now would be the accepted time, now would be the day of
salvation. Father, we thank you for Brian
and Pam and Charlie We thank you for the good report that
they received today. We asked Lord that it would be
that I will at your hand of healing would be upon Brian and that
you would that you would enable him Lord to receive this transplant
and remain here with us. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 327, let's stand together
again, number 327. O for a faith that will not shrink,
though pressed by many a foe, that will not tremble on the
brink of any earthly woe, that will not murmur nor complain
beneath a chastening rod, but in the hour of grief or pain
will lean upon its guard. A faith that shines more bright
and clear when tempests rage without, that when in danger
knows no fear, in darkness feels no doubt. Lord, give me such
a faith as this, and then what e'er may come, I'll taste even
now the hallowed bliss of an eternal home. Please be seated. Open your Bibles with me to 2
Corinthians chapter 6. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. I've titled this message, Separated. Separated. Paul said, when it
pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called
me by His grace, and revealed Christ in me." There is a separation that takes
place when the Lord is pleased to call out one of His children. And in our text, it says, Be
ye separate, in verse 17. Be separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. God has written his word in such
a way as to give those who would make a work out of it reason
to believe that's what it says. We know better. It is the Lord that separates
his people. The word Pharisee and the word
holy actually mean the same thing. They mean separated ones. separated
ones. The sect of the Pharisees came
about during the intertestamental period between Malachi and Matthew
when the Jews were under great stress and a group of men separated
themselves out of Judaism and committed themselves to live
by the strictness of the law. And so the Pharisees separated
themselves. They separated themselves. When
the Lord separates us, He does the work. In another place the
scripture says, Who maketh thee to differ? What do you have that
you have not received? Now I'm making an effort to clarify
this difference because In the text that we're going to consider
tonight, if the Lord doesn't show us that this is His work
of grace, that as we saw last Wednesday night, all things are
of God, then we'll do the very thing that the Lord is warning
us not to do, to make a work out of separating ourselves. That word separate there in verse
17, now rarely do I do this, but I'm going to do it tonight
because you need to know that that verb is aorist passive. Aorist passive. Now the Aorist
tense in the original language means that all the emphasis of
the verb is on the action of the verb without any reference
whatsoever to time. It's the eternal tense. It's
a work that God did in the covenant of grace before time ever began. And so when the scripture says,
be ye separate, What he's really saying is, be aware of your separation. And it's passive as well, which
means that the person that is being separated is passive in
being separated. We're the object of the work
of separation. This is not a work that you do. This is not something that you
discipline yourself into or engage yourself. This is an acknowledgment
of the grace of God who has separated us unto Himself in Christ in
the covenant of grace passively. We have no more to do with living
a holy life than we have having life to begin with. It is a work
of grace. God has made Him to be for us
our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, that's separation,
that's holiness, and our redemption. It is the Lord who does all of
this. But the means by which He does
it is to admonish us with His Word. To show us what He's done. And to cause us to say, Oh Lord,
do more of that for me. Do more of that for me. It's
to cause us to bow in faith. Look at chapter 7, verse 1. Having therefore these precious
promises. These precious promises that
God has made to separate a people unto himself. Dearly beloved. Oh, what manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of
God. He's loved us with an everlasting love, with a perfect love, and
it can't ever change. You know, the one thing that
we saw Sunday that makes the Lord Jesus Christ absolutely
unique is that He loved the Lord God with all of His heart, all
of His mind, and all of His soul, all of the time. All of the time. Never was there a moment that
He wasn't faithful to the Father. And he loved his neighbor as
himself. He loved us the same way he loved
himself. Why? Because we're members of
his body. He's the head and we're members
of the body. So the summary of the law is to love the Lord your
God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul.
Love your neighbor as yourself and the Lord Jesus Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it.
He fulfilled the requirements of God's law. Loving his people
with all of his heart all of the time. All of the time. That's why he laid down his life. What a glorious savior and our
faith is grounded in his faithfulness. We're looking to the one who
has made these precious promises. The one who cannot lie. The one who has separated us
unto himself. Let us cleanse ourselves. How
are we going to cleanse ourselves? How are we going to do that?
Well, it's in this verse. From all filthiness of the flesh
and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. That's how. This is not a slavish
fear of God's wrath and judgment. This is a reverential faith,
looking to the Lord Jesus Christ for all our righteousness. And
that's how we perfect. That's how we're made perfect.
We're made perfect before God in faith, looking unto Jesus
and acknowledging the fact that it's His blood that cleanses
us of all sin. We can't cleanse ourselves. But
through faith, we have the hope of knowing that we are made perfect
and washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see how
someone who knows nothing of grace could very easily take
these verses and make a work out of them? And the Lord has. He's written his word in such
a way as to give the gainsayer enough rope to hang himself.
And men will take the very Word of God, and they'll twist it,
and they'll make a work out of it, and they'll pride themselves
in believing that they've succeeded in following after the commands
of God, and therefore have earned some right to heaven by their
obedience. This is all of grace. It's all
of grace. Now does that exclude the fact
that God has put into our hearts a desire to obey Him? He's put
into our hearts a desire to abstain from those things that are so
passionate in our flesh. We don't want to offer the members
of our body to unrighteousness. We don't want to do that. But
who is it that's caused us not to want to do that? Who is it
that leads us not into temptation? Who is it that directs us? It's Him. It's the One who has
separated us unto Himself. Otherwise, we'll be just like
the Pharisees, and the world is full of them. The religious
world is full of Pharisees, and you see enough of it in yourself
to know that you need to be warned, don't you? Don't you? I do. All right, let's begin
where we left off on Sunday in verse 6 of chapter 6. Now, Paul is commending himself
to the church at Corinth. He's not commending himself to
God. He knows who it is that must commend him to God. For him to have acceptance before
God, he's got to have an advocate. He's got to have a sin-bearer.
He's got to have a substitute. He's got to have the Lord Jesus
Christ, his surety to stand in his stead before God and represent
him before God. And that's the only hope. He's
not commending himself to God. Neither is he commending himself
to the world. Have you ever heard someone say,
well, I want people out in the world to see Jesus in me. And
I'm very concerned what they think about me. They didn't see
Jesus in Jesus. And there's some degree in which
we don't need to worry about what the men in this world think. We're not to live our lives in
slavish fear of the opinions of men, because the bottom line
is that if we're following after Christ, they're going to hate
us anyway. They're going to hate us anyway, so let them say what
they're going to say. They make accusations against
us for righteousness' sake, then rejoice. Rejoice. That's your
badge of honor, and that's something that you could expect from the
world. But what Paul's doing here is
he's commending himself to the church because he wants the church
to know that he is faithful to the gospel. Now all throughout
1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, as was true everywhere the apostle
Paul went, they came behind him. Judaizers. There came behind
him false prophets who would say, yes, Jesus of Nazareth that
the Apostle Paul preached to you is the Messiah. He is the
Christ. And to that extent, Paul was
right. But where Paul was wrong is that
once you acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the Messiah,
then you have to go back to the Mosaic Law. And you have to live
by the law. It's the same thing that's going
on today. The law leads you to Christ, Christ leads you back
to the law, and now the law becomes your rule of life. And you have
to measure and monitor and motivate yourself by the law. That's what's
happening in religion today. It hasn't changed. Christ is
necessary for your salvation, but He's not sufficient. You've
got to do your part. You've got to take up where He
left off and carry it the rest of the way. If it is of grace,
it can no longer be of works, otherwise grace is not grace.
Either Christ is all or He's not at all. And that's why Paul
is so passionate over and over and over to defend himself to
the church, saying to the church, don't listen to those men. They've
infiltrated the church, they've come into the church, and they're
singling out the weaker sheep, and they're subtle in bringing
a little leaven into the lump, and it's going to leaven the
whole lump, and the gospel's going to be lost. Once the gospel's
lost, the church is gone. The church is dead. Ichabod,
the glory of the Lord has departed. And that was his concern. His
concern was for the truthfulness, the simplicity of the gospel
of God's grace in Christ. And so he's commending himself
as one who has received inspiration from God. Now here's the difference
between revelation and inspiration. God reveals to us what he has
inspired the penman of scripture to write. And so Paul is commending
himself to us as one who was called out of God and inspired
by God to write the gospel of God's grace and he's saying don't
add anything to it, don't take anything away from it. Believe
it. I didn't receive this from men.
I got it directly from God. You know, we can't prove that
to anybody. But Paul is saying to us, he's
saying to the church, listen, this gospel that God gave me,
don't pervert it. Don't change it. Don't add to
it. Don't take away from it. Don't
rob Christ of His glory. We just read in Psalm 29 that
the Lord gets all the glory. All things are of God. all things
are of God. He says in verse 4, but in all
things approving ourselves as the ministers of God in much
patience and affliction and necessities, in distresses and strifes and
imprisonments and tumults and labors, in watchings and fastings. These are the things that the
Lord is doing for us and through us as ministers of the gospel
to bring you the truth about how it is God saves sinners.
And that's what you need to know. And he goes on in verse six to
say, by pureness. Now he may be commending himself
to the church by saying, listen, the outward life, the pattern
of my outward life was not inconsistent with with the gospel that I was
preaching. But I think more than that, he's
talking about the pureness of the gospel. By pureness. A little leaven leavens the whole
lump. A drop of poison in a glass of
water ruins the whole glass. He said, by pureness. We haven't
perverted the gospel. We haven't changed it. We brought
it to you exactly how we got it from God. Don't let anybody
else talk you out of it. Remember he said in chapter 1,
if an angel from heaven was to come and preach any other gospel
to you than the gospel that we preached unto you, let him be
accursed. Let him be accursed. That's how
passionate he was in believing that the gospel that he had been
taught directly from God was true. By knowledge, God's given me
an understanding, and I'm not giving you my opinion. I'm not
saying, well, you know, it could be this way, or it could be that
way, or it seems to me, or won't you consider. No, I'm coming
to you with the knowledge of the gospel that I have received
directly from God. This is truth. This is knowledge. This is not man's opinion. By long-suffering, by perseverance,
by steadfastness, by consistency, whether you be in season or out
of season, preach the Word. Preach the Word. Don't change
it. We don't preach one gospel to
one group of people and another to another. We don't adjust ourselves
to the audience. We preach the same message and
we just keep preaching it over and over and over again. And
the Lord says, they'll have ears but they will not hear, eyes
they will have but they will not see. Oh Lord, how long How
long do I preach this message until the cities be wasted without
inhabitants and the land be utterly desolate? But I have a tenth.
I have a tenth. And they'll hear. So you just
keep preaching. Just keep declaring the same
message. And God's people will hear it.
And that's what he's saying. By pureness, by knowledge, by
long-suffering, by kindness. You know, there's been a time
in the history of the church where it seems like, you know, to be
acknowledged as a preacher, you had to have a mean spirit. You
know, you had to intimidate people with your authority. And that's
Paul's, he's not saying, you know, I didn't come to you that
way. I didn't come to you to beat you up. I was kind towards
you. I wasn't mean-spirited. I was respectful. I wasn't condescending. I was considerate. If a man is to be a bishop, he
must not be a brawler. Some people just like to fight.
They just like being engaged in fights and they like being
on top all the time. And Paul is saying, I didn't
come to you that way. I came to you with respect for
you, with kindness for you, with love for you, and that's the
way the gospel ought to be preached. And that's the way we ought to
share it with one another. And as the Lord gives us opportunity
to share it outside of the church, we ought to be kind to people.
Be ready always to give an answer to everyone that asks us for
the hope that's within us. And do it with meekness and with
fear. We don't argue with people. We
don't get angry with people. We don't beat people up. If peradventure,
if peradventure God would lead them to repentance. by kindness, by the Holy Ghost. We're completely dependent upon
the Holy Spirit. We're not walking by flesh. We're not walking by sight. We're
walking by faith. As I quoted a moment ago, we're
the true circumcision. Worship God in the Spirit. In
the Spirit. We've got to have the Spirit
of God. We've got to have the Spirit of God to open our own
eyes. We've got to have the Holy Spirit to teach us what to say
and how to live. We're dependent upon the Spirit of
God. By love unfeigned. Love unfeigned. We don't have
to fake our love for one another. Here's the thing about believers.
Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are bound together by the love
of Christ for the rest of their life and eternity. And the reason
why is because what the one person that you value the most in your
life is the same person I value the most in my life. We may have a whole lot of other
differences, but the one thing that we value the most is the
same for both of us, and always will be. And unless I leave Christ,
or you leave Christ, We are bound together in unthemed love. We don't have to pretend this
love. We don't have to fake it. We don't have to put on some
sort of syrupy religiosity and try to convince other people,
you know, aren't we a loving people? We love Christ. If you love Christ, I love Christ,
we can't help but to love one another. John makes that clear,
doesn't he? He said, if a man says that he
loves God and hates his brother, he's a liar. He's a liar. How can you hate the one that
you can see and love the one you can't see? It's
just not true. Isn't it glorious to have an
unfeigned love? And you know, when whatever,
you love your spouse, you love your children, it doesn't mean
that there's a total absence of conflict in that relationship,
does it? Things come up, you irritate
one another, things are said, things are done, and people get
angry at one another, but because of your love, you forgive, and
you move on, and you continue to love. By the word of truth of his own
will begat he us with the word of truth. Because they had no
love for the truth, no love for the truth, God turned them over
to a reprobate mind. He sent them a strong delusion
that they would believe the lie because they did not believe
the truth. Believing the truth is believing
on Christ. It's just resting all your hopes
on Him. It's believing that He's all
your justice before God. The only hope of being made clean
in the presence of God is through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The only hope of having any righteousness
before God is by His perfect obedience. And all of your faith
and all your hope is in Him, by the Word of Truth, by the
power of God. By the power of God. Our gospel came not to you in
word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in
much assurance, as you know what manner of men we were among you
for your sakes." For your sakes. Now again, Paul's concerned for
the church. He said, we didn't come to you with the wisdom of
man. We didn't come to you saying, well, you know, the gospel's
true, but, you know, you need to get this therapy and this
wisdom and this help. No. We've been faithful to the scriptures.
We've not tickled men's ears with worldly wisdom. We've told
you the gospel. How did we do that? By the power
of God. by the Word of Truth, by the
power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand
and on the left. The armor of righteousness. Now
Paul talks about that in Ephesians chapter 5, doesn't he? He talks
about the helmet of salvation. That's what protects our head,
protects our knowledge, protects our understanding, that we've
got this helmet of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, a breastplate
of righteousness, a belt of truth, and a feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word
of God, and the shield of faith to quench the fiery darts of
the devil. These are the armors that God
has given us in the gospel. All these things are found in
Christ. So he says the only way I'm gonna have righteousness
before God, on my right hand and on my left, is through the
armor of faith that God has given me in Christ. By honor and dishonor. God's people honor God's preachers
and the unbeliever dishonors them. And so Paul says by honor
of God's people or by the dishonor of the world. By evil report,
let them tell lies about us. Let them call us what they want.
Let them, you know, let them call us cult leaders and liars
and deceivers and false prophets. And by good report, those who've
heard the gospel, those who know that what we're saying is true,
as deceivers, that's what the world calls us, deceivers. You're
just a deceiver. And yet true. What he's saying
is we don't flinch from the gospel because the world calls us a
deceiver or because they dishonor us or because they give us an
evil report. It doesn't cause us to shrink
at all from the gospel. It doesn't cause us to slow down
or to question. To the contrary, it emboldens
us, doesn't it? It emboldens us. When we hear
what the world has to say, it just makes us more fervent. It makes us more faithful and
more sure. If they were saying good things
about us, then we would have reason to worry. Separated. Separated. God does the separating. That's what this whole thing's
about. Separated unto the gospel. As unknown? The world doesn't
know us. They don't care. We're of no
consequence to this world. They've got their bigger fish
to fry and bigger things going on. And yet well known. We know each
other, don't we? We know each other very well.
We've all we've got in this world. And we're thankful for what we've
got. And so as unknown and yet well-known. As dying, and we
are, we're dying men. And the accusations of the world,
the tongues of men would seek to kill us, that's fine. Yet
we live. We're the only ones that have
life. We're living in a world of zombies, and we're the only
ones that are alive. And the problem with the zombies
is they don't know they're dead. They're just walking around,
living dead. As chastened, the Lord uses these
things to chasten us, to correct us. We're chastened by God. If you're not chastened by the
Lord, Hebrews chapter 12, you're not His. You're not His if you're
not chastened by the Lord. That's chastened and yet not
killed. The Lord's never killed one of
His children. This word chastened, by the way,
it comes from the word pedo, which means child. It's a picture
of what a parent does with a small child in disciplining that child. You show me a parent that won't
discipline their children, I'll show you a parent that hates
that child. You spare the rod, you hate the child. You show
me a parent who doesn't correct their children, and it's a parent
that doesn't care about that child. Well, the Lord loves His
children, and He corrects them. And He knows exactly how to correct
them. Sometimes we don't know what
to do to correct our children. We do the best we can. That's
all spelled out in Hebrews chapter 12 too, isn't it? You know, fathers,
sometimes we're too harsh with our children. Sometimes we're
too lenient. You know, we do what we think's right at the
time. The Lord's not that way. He knows exactly how much to
give each one of His children under each circumstances to chasten
them, but He never kills them. As sorrowful And we do know something
about sorrow. We know the sorrow of our own
sin. We know we grieve over our sin. We're poor in spirit and we grieve
because of that. and we sorrow over the death
of people who don't know Christ in a way that the world doesn't
know anything about sorrowing for them. We sorrow that men
don't have an interest in the gospel. I met somebody the other day,
I don't know if I told you about this, I mean this guy's a multi-millionaire
and well he's a He's the founder of Credence Clearwater Revival.
And we went to his concert, we had backstage passes, and we
went to the back and met with this guy, I forgot his name,
Stu Cooks is his name. And you know, he's got the world
by the tail. And I told him, he lives in Sarasota. And I told him, I said, I said,
you know, we have a church here in Sarasota. I pastor a church
in Sarasota. And he didn't have the least
bit of interest. And I walked away from him and
I felt so sorry for him. And nobody in the world would
feel sorry for a man like that. I mean, he's, you know, he's
building this mansion on, you know, St. Armand's Circle and,
you know, it's just, And I just felt so sorry for him. There
he is, living within a few miles of a gospel church and has no
interest whatsoever in the gospel. As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, Rejoicing. Rejoicing in the Lord
always. And again I say rejoice. Let
your gentleness be known unto all men. Why? Because the Lord
is at hand. Be anxious for nothing but in
all things by prayer and supplication. Let your requests be known unto
God. And the peace of God that passes human understanding will
keep your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. What rejoicing
we have. Rejoicing in knowing that our
sin's been put away. Rejoicing in knowing that one
day soon we're going to see Him as He is and be made like Him.
Rejoicing in that now is the accepted time and now is the
day of salvation. We have access to the throne
of grace. We can approach God of glory
with confidence, knowing that we have acceptance before Him. As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. as poor, yet making many rich. We may not have a whole lot of
possessions in this world, but that's okay. We've got the one
pearl of great price that men know nothing about. And by telling
them about Christ, we're able to make men rich. Rich in faith. Rich in salvation. And having nothing? According
to the world's standards, we don't have much. But we possess
everything. Why? Because we're children of
God and He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and He owns
the hills too. He owns everything. So we can
drive down the road and say, yeah, that's my house right there.
Isn't that a great looking car? Yeah, that belongs to my father. It belongs to my Father. We don't
have to envy what people have. What they have doesn't belong
to them. It belongs to our Father. And He's going to give us what
we need. Solomon in all of his glory was
not arrayed like the lilies of the field. Oh, ye Corinthians. Now see,
he's bringing this to a point here. He's speaking to the church
at Corinth. He's saying, Oh, ye Corinthians,
our mouth is open unto you and our heart is full. Our heart
is enlarged. We love you. We want you to know
Christ and believe what we're preaching. And all of these things
are evidence that God has inspired us with the truth of the gospel.
Believe what we're saying to you. Look at the next verse.
You are not straightened in us, but you are straightened in your
own bowels. Now here's what that means. That
word straightened means restricted or limited. And what he's saying
is there is no limit to our affection for you, but you are limited
in your affection for us. He's trying to convince them.
to love Him the same way He loves them. Now for a recompense in the same,
I speak unto you as my children, be ye also enlarged. Now in the
same way, as a fair exchange for our love toward you, I am
speaking unto you as if you were my children, open wide your heart
to us. That's what He's saying. Open
your heart to us. We're coming to you as the ministers
of the gospel, bringing to you the only hope that you have. And there's no limit to our love
for you. Don't limit your love for us. Why were they beginning
to limit their love for Paul? Because they were giving ear
to those false prophets that were coming in behind Paul and
making accusations against Paul that he really wasn't a faithful
gospel preacher. And the fact that they were listening
to those men and giving some credence to what they were saying
was pushing Paul who they needed. because he was the gospel preacher.
So that's why he's commending himself to the church for their
salvation. Not because he's promoting himself
or having to have some sort of control over men, but for the
salvation of the church. He's saying to them, I was faithful
to the gospel, don't listen to them. Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers,
for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what
communion hath light with darkness? Yes, young people, that scripture
is telling you, if you're a child of God, don't marry an unbeliever. You'll have a life of misery.
You'll have no fellowship with him. Don't go into business with
an unbeliever. If you're a believer, it's not
going to work. Yeah, all those things are true as far as being
unequally. But he's talking about giving
those unbelievers who were bringing the law in and having communion
with them And he's saying to them, don't be unequally yoked
with them. You were yoked with me and we
were yoked together with Christ who said, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden come unto me and take my yoke upon you and
learn of me, learn of me. And what concord hath Christ
with Baal? Or what part hath he that believeth
with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple
with God with idols? You are the temple of the living
God. As God hath said, I will dwell
in them, and walk in them, and be their God, and they shall
be my people. If the Spirit of God lives in
you, then you're a temple of the Spirit. He's talking about
the church. This church is a temple of God. And each individual believer
is a temple of God. We can't take this temple and
defile it. The context of everything he's
talking about here is compromising the gospel. But does that limit it to that?
No. If God lives in you, If you have
not the Spirit of God, you're not of His. If He lives in you,
you see, there's imputed righteousness. That's the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ charged to our account, enabling us to stand
in the presence of a holy God and have acceptance before God,
knowing that He pleased the Father in everything He did, and His
righteousness is the only thing that God made Him sin, who knew
no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
That's imputed righteousness. We need that imputed righteousness.
But if you have imputed righteousness, you have imparted righteousness
also. You have God living in you, causing
you to will and to do of His good pleasure. Why do you think
you hate your sin so much? Why do you think you cry out
to God every day? Lord, lead me not into temptation. If you allow me to be tempted,
I know I'll fail. Why do you despise the things
that are in your flesh and say, O wretched man that I am? Why? Because you have imparted
righteousness. That's what he said here. I will
dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they
shall be my people. I will and they shall. I will
and they shall. Wherefore, come out from among
them. And be ye separate. Aorist passive. Eternal tense. Passive tense.
Be ye separate. Understand that this is a work
of grace that God has done in your heart because he chose you
in Christ before time ever began. Touch not the unclean thing. I'll receive you and will be
a father unto you. And you shall be my sons and
daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore, in verse, the
reason I wanted to deal with verse 1 in chapter 7 is because
verse 2 in chapter 7, the thought changes, the translators, I don't
know why they did this on several occasions, but verse 1 of chapter
7 belongs with chapter 6. It's the conclusion of chapter
6. Having, therefore, these promises,
dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Brother Tom. 268. Let's stand together. How firm a foundation, ye saints
of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent Word. What more can he say than to
you he hath said, To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled. Fear not, I am with thee, O be
not dismayed, For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee,
and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my gracious, omnipotent hand. When through the deep waters
I call thee to go, The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow,
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless, And sanctify to thee
thy deepest distress. When through fiery trials thy
pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee,
I only The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will
not, I will not desert to his foes. All hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake. Yeah. Yeah.