Good morning. Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with the hymn that's in the hardbacked hymnal,
number 73. And let's all stand together,
number 73. When morning gilds the skies,
my heart, awaking, cries, May Jesus Christ be praised. Alike at work and prayer, To
Jesus I'm repair, May Jesus Christ be praise. Does sadness fill my mind? A solace here I find. May Jesus Christ be praised. Or fades my earthly bliss, My
comfort still is this, May Jesus Christ be praised! In heaven's eternal bliss The
loveliest strain is this May Jesus Christ be praised The powers
of darkness fear when this sweet chant they hear. May Jesus Christ be praised. Be this while life is mild. My canticle divine. May Jesus Christ be praised. Be this the eternal song through
all the ages long. Please be seated. That's a good prayer. That's
our hope this morning. Spirit of God will enable us
to worship Christ. in spirit and in truth. So good
to see you all this morning. We're going to be looking at
2 Corinthians chapter 4, continuing our study in this epistle. I've titled this study, A Sure
Hope. A Sure Hope. That's what Paul's
talking about here. It's what the Lord is saying
to us. There's reason to have a sure
hope. Brian, it's so good to have you
with us this morning. Glad you're here and out of the
hospital, brother. Some of you remember Tom and
Benton. from Sarasota. They've been over
here a couple of three times. Tom is in the hospital and not
doing well. And I told Betton that we would
be praying for him. And then also the 11th through
the 13th, which is two weeks from now, we'll be having our
conference over in Sarasota. I'm hoping that some of you will
be able to come over and join us on Friday night, Saturday
morning, and Sunday morning. The schedule over there will
be, Sunday night, Sunday night over there. The schedule over
there will be very similar to what we have at our conference
except on Sunday morning we'll have the services on Sunday night
over there. And Cody Groover is coming up,
well he's coming from Texas actually because Andrea is about to have
her baby and he's going to go see his first grandchild and
then he'll be coming here uh... to preach for us and and he'll
be preaching here two weeks from now on sunday morning uh... lord
willing and uh... dennis fits and will be coming
down from uh... charlotte to uh... to preach
as well let's let's pray together our merciful heavenly father
where We're thankful that you put it into our hearts to ask
you to cause Jesus Christ to be praised. Lord, we do pray
that you would enable us to see him in your word and to understand
that the hope that we have is bound up completely in his glorious
person and in his accomplished work, we ask that your Holy Spirit
would enable us to speak and enable us to hear, and that you
would cause us to worship you, Lord, in the power of your spirit,
in our hearts, and according to the truth of your gospel. Lord, we pray for Tom. We ask,
Lord, that you would give the doctors that minister to him
the knowledge and skill that they need to help him. Lord, we understand that you
are the great physician, and we pray for his soul, and we
pray that you would be merciful toward he and Benton. We pray
for our meeting in two weeks, Father, and we ask that you would
put onto the hearts of Cody and Dennis and myself the messages
that you would have preached there, and Lord, that you would
call out your sheep and build your church, for we ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. You have your Bibles open to
2 Corinthians chapter 4. We'll begin reading in verse
1. therefore now anytime you see
therefore it's a connecting word that brings the current thought
into relationship to the previous one and so the previous thought
begins in verse 17 now the Lord is that spirit and where the
spirit of the Lord is there is liberty there's freedom the Lord
Jesus Christ is our liberty. He's the one that came to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord. The year of Jubilee, the year
when all slaves were set free and all debt was canceled and
all lost possessions were returned back to their original owners.
And that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us. And
where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. There's freedom from sin. There's
freedom from the law. There's liberty to love God and
to worship him. That can only happen through
the power of the Spirit of God. But we all, verse 18, with open
face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord. So we're
looking in this mirror. That's what the word glass here
is. It's a mirror. And we look in this mirror. We're
looking into the perfect law of liberty. That's what James
calls the scriptures. The perfect law of liberty. We're
not looking to a law of do's and don'ts. We're looking to
the law of grace, the law of love, the law of the spirit,
the law that declares to us the accomplished work and glorious
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We look into His face and what
do we see? We are changed into the same
image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. The first thing that we see when
we look into His face is as He is, so are we. in this world. And then as we look to Him, He
does a work of grace in our hearts. And we do grow in grace and in
the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. But as soon as you begin
to look at yourself, to try to see what changes are taking place,
then you've quit looking in the mirror. You've quit looking at
Christ. So look to Christ And, you know,
everything in this world is, the premise of it is how to be
a better person. And so the measurement for that
is to investigate your own life and look at yourself and compare
yourself to yourself or compare yourself to other men or monitor
yourself by some set of rules and regulations. And that's exactly
what he's not saying. here. Do we want to be better
people? Yes. Do I want to be obedient? Do I want to be able to resist
the devil? Do I want to be able to reflect
the image of Christ in my life? Yes. Yes. But as soon as I start
looking to myself to get assurance of that, I've lost sight of Christ. Look to Him. Look to Christ. Others will see those things
in your life. And here's the thing about it. The more you
look at Him... I used this illustration yesterday with the men. Most
of you have been to our home and I'm very thankful that I
have a wife that's a very good housekeeper. I mean she keeps
our place spotless. But you know the dining room
table that's in our dining room there. And she keeps it clean
and dusted and yet if she goes a few days, that window right
next to our dining room table faces the east and the morning
sun comes through that glass. And if she hadn't dusted that
table in a few days, Boy, I tell you, when that light comes through,
you can see the dust, can't you? You can see the dust on that
table. But you can't see it until that bright light comes through.
That's the way it is with us. When the light of the gospel
of Christ is shined in our hearts, in the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the more light you have, the more dust you're going to
see. And so you're not looking to yourself to try to figure
out, am I getting better? You just keep looking to Christ.
And as you look to Him, you're actually going to get worse.
You're going to see more and more of your sin. You're going
to understand more and more of your need for grace and your
need for Christ. Um, so that's what he, you're
changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
spirit of the Lord. Therefore, seeing we have this
ministry, we have received mercy as we have received mercy. We
faint not the only final evidence of salvation. The only final
evidence of salvation is perseverance. you want. That's it. When you take your last breath
and your heart beats its last beat, which will happen sooner
than we think. Believing God in that moment,
trusting Christ for all your righteousness and for all your
justification before God is the only final proof of salvation. Faith is the evidence of things
hoped for. And that's what Paul said. We've
received this ministry. We've received this gospel. And
therefore, we remain faithful. We remain faithful. We faint
not. Sprinting is a lot easier than
long-distance running. Most of us could sprint the length
of our parking lot without any too much trouble. But to run
long distance takes some training, takes some time, doesn't it? And this, you know, it's so easy
to sprint. And people can jump on the bandwagon
and get excited about things of God and make commitments that
don't last. Paul says, we've received this
ministry, and as we have received mercy, we faint not. In 2 Timothy chapter 4, Paul
said, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth,
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord
of righteous judgment shall give me in that day, and not me only,
but all those who love His appearing." There's our hope. There's our
hope that we just, we continue to believe God and we faint not. Look at verse two. But have renounced,
we've 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. We're not resting the
scriptures to our own destruction. We're not trying to use God's
Word to confirm our own error. We're not going to the Word of
God in order to justify our false premises. We're reading God's
Word and we're letting the Word of God speak for itself. And
here's the thing about it, we commend ourselves to your conscience.
What Paul's saying is that when you hear the truth, you know
it's the truth. You know it's the truth. The
truth recommends itself. Now Satan, he'll use the Word of God in
order to deceive men. That was his very first thing
that he ever did when he came on the scene in the garden. What
did he say to Eve? Did God say that thou shalt not
eat of any of the trees of the garden? No, that's not what God
said. It was part of what he said.
Neve said, no, no, no, he didn't say that. He said we could eat
of any of the trees of the garden except for the tree that's in
the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. I shall not eat it nor touch it. And so now Satan's
got a foothold, doesn't he? He's got Neve to tweak the word
of God, to change the word of God. And the Lord said, don't
eat of that tree. He didn't say anything about
not touching it. But it just takes a little bit of leaven
to leaven the whole lump, doesn't it? And that's what Paul's saying. We don't handle the Word of God
deceitfully. We don't change the nature of
what God's saying. We preach it with simplicity
and with clarity, always pointing to Christ. And you know when
you hear the truth. You know when you hear it, God
confirms it to your own hearts. When Satan came into the wilderness
to tempt the Lord, You remember when he told the Lord, he said,
he was quoting from Psalm 91 when he said, when he took him
up on the pinnacle of the temple and he told the Lord, he said,
if thou be the son of man, cast thyself down and the angels of
God will catch you and you'll not dash your foot against a
stone. That was a passage of scripture from Psalm 91. And
what did the Lord say? Thou shalt not tempt the Lord
thy God. So Satan was taking God's word
and perverting it, changing it, making it say something that
it didn't say. Pharisees did the same thing. They said, you know, we've committed
our possessions to quorum. That was a biblical principle,
an Old Testament biblical principle. We've committed these things
to God. And so that even when their parents
came for help, they said, oh no, we can't help you. That doesn't
really belong to me. It belongs to God. I've already
committed to Him. You know, twisting the Word of God. That's what
Paul's saying. We preach the Word of God as it is written. We've 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. You know when you hear the gospel.
And you know when you don't hear the gospel. And that's what Paul's
saying. He's saying we don't have to
justify what we're saying. We don't have to try to prove
it. The Spirit of God will prove
it to the hearts of God's people. Look at verse 3. 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 that believe not. Now when the
Lord calls Satan the God of this world, he's using a figure of
speech. The Lord God has not relegated
control of this world over to Satan. God is still the God of
this world. But when we see the way in which
the Lord has allowed Satan to influence the things of this
world, then he's calling him the God of this world. And what
he's saying is the God of this world has blinded the eyes of
them which believe not. Lest, look what he says, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine onto them. Christ Jesus the Lord is the
fullness of God bodily. Phil, you read this in the study
this morning. And that next verse says, and you are complete in
him. Men don't want to find their
completeness in Christ. They want to manufacture something. The pride of man will not allow
him to believe the gospel. He's going to present some righteousness
of his own in hopes of saving himself. And that's what Paul's
saying here. Satan has blinded their eyes.
God sent them a strong delusion and they believed the lie. And they're trusting in themselves
rather than trusting in Christ. And Paul said, we don't preach
that way. We want men to have assurance
of their salvation. I want you to have assurance
of your salvation. And if that's going to happen,
the spirit of God is going to have to do it as you look to
Christ. Isaiah chapter 32 verse 17 says
the work of righteousness shall be peace and the elect of righteousness,
quietness and assurance forever. Perfect peace belongs to them
whose mind is stayed on thee." He goes on to say, and my people
shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and in pure dwellings and in
a quiet resting place. a quiet resting place, trusting
Christ, looking unto Jesus, who's the author and the finisher of
our faith. There's where hope comes. Paul
said we've not dealt with the Word of God deceitfully. We're
not giving men things to do in order to save themselves. We're
lifting up Christ in His glory and in His simplicity. And those
who are unable to look to Him will find hope and assurance
for their salvation. What do we believe about Christ?
Well, Daniel chapter 9 verse 24 says that he has finished
the transgression, he has made an end of sin, he's made reconciliation
for iniquity, and brought in all by himself eternal salvation,
eternal redemption. That's what we believe. And that's
what Paul's saying. We've received this gospel from
God. We're not perverting it. We're
not changing it. We're not adding anything to
it. We're telling you about the Lord Jesus Christ and if you
don't believe it, it's because the God of this world has blinded
the eyes of those who believe not. Lest the glorious gospel
in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ should shine in their
hearts. Look at verse 5. Here in verse 4 he's talking
about spiritual blindness. And the amazing thing is that
the natural man in the power of his own intellect and the
power of his own flesh can achieve much sight and much understanding. He can. And yet, he's blind to
the things of God. He's blind to the gospel. He
has no regard for the things of God, no interest in the things
of Christ, no concern for his own immortal soul. This is a
work of grace. He has no consciousness of his
sin, of righteousness, or of judgment. He is blind, spiritually
blind. God of this world hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not. I love what the Lord asked
that man that was born blind, what would you have me to do
for you? Oh, Lord, that I might see. Lord, I can't see Christ. I can't see the gospel. I can't
have any understanding of my need for grace unless you open
the eyes of my understanding. Unstop my ears. Lord, I'll be
blinded by the God of this world. I'm no different. If you don't
have mercy upon me, Lord, I won't be able to see. Verse 5. We preach not ourselves. We're not promoting ourselves.
We're not trying to draw attention to ourselves. But we preach Christ,
Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake. We're preaching Christ. Christ,
that's the Anointed One. He's the Messiah. He's the one
Son of God and the full power of the Spirit of God to accomplish
the salvation of His people, and that's exactly what He did.
He's Christ. His name is Jesus. What does
that mean? Jehovah saves. You shall call
His name Jesus. Why? For He shall save His people. So we uplift him in his office
as the Christ, and we declare his accomplished work as Jesus,
the one who actually accomplished the salvation of his people.
He didn't come to offer salvation. He didn't come to try to save
men. He came in order to save everyone that God had chosen
according to his own will and purpose in the covenant of grace,
and he accomplished that salvation. And he's the Lord. He's the Lord. Doesn't it offend you when you
hear men talk about making Jesus Lord of your life? That's so
offensive. How are you going to make Him
Lord of your life? He's already Lord of your life. The scripture
says that He reigns sovereign over the armies of heaven and
over all the inhabitants of the earth. No man can stay his hand. No man can say unto him, what
doest thou? He's Lord over the living and
over the dead. For man to think that he's going
to make Jesus Lord of his life? That's what Paul's saying. We didn't come deceiving you
with something, giving you something to do. We came to preach not
ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves, nothing more
than your servants for his sake, for his glory. Verse six, for God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness. Now, what's he referring to there?
He's referring to the first day of creation. Go back to Genesis
chapter 1. It's not hard to see that the
first day of creation was what? Let there be light and there
was. You know when the stars and the
sun and the moon were created? The fourth day. They weren't the source of this
light. This light is nothing more than the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the light of the world.
He's the light that shined out of darkness. God didn't have
to have the illuminaries in the heavens in order to be able to
bring forth light. He is light. He is light. And so he says, as the light
shined out of darkness, It wasn't caused by anything outside of
Christ. So the same truth is evident
when the light of the gospel shines in your heart. It didn't
come by means of anything that you did or anybody else did.
It shined out of darkness. And had he not taken away the
darkness, there would still be darkness there. Look, 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. I know you've heard me say this
many times. I'm going to say it again. You
listen to men preach. You listen to to the programs
and the plans that man has to offer for the salvation of your
soul and ask yourself one simple question. If what he's saying
is true, who gets all the glory? Who gets all the glory? And if
in the content of that message, he's giving you something to
do in order to make what God did in Christ work for you, then
that light's not shining out of darkness. That's a lie from
the pit of hell. That's what Paul's saying here.
There's no hope in that. There's no hope in it. If you've got
to do something in order to make what he did work for you, then
you are left with either being a hypocritical liar, convincing
yourself that you've done it right, or if you're an honest
person, you're left with the horrible burden of fear, wondering
if you'd done enough. Did I do it right? Was I sincere
enough? You see, that's what he's saying. This light shined out of darkness
in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. The light of the knowledge
of the glory of God. God gets all the glory. He's
the one, according to his own will and purpose, that chose
a particular people in the covenant of grace before time ever began. He's sovereign. He's right. He's free to do that. The natural
man says that's not fair. As if God's obligated to save
everybody. He's not obligated to anybody.
We're going to see that in the book of Job in a few minutes.
But God's not obligated. And we're not going to obligate
God. When the Lord Jesus Christ came
into this world, He got all the glory for our righteousness. We have no righteousness outside
of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is our righteousness before God. And the only hope that we have
to stand in the presence of a holy God is to be found in Him, trusting
Christ, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's a work
of grace. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, lest any
man should boast. Yes, God commands all men everywhere
to believe, but unless the Spirit of God comes and gives us understanding,
that's what he's saying here. This light has to shine out of
darkness. It has to shine in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. How many times you and I have
cried out to God for Him to stick His hand into the affairs of
our lives and fix something? Everybody does that. How much do you want to see His
face? Oh, He's got a powerful hand. But if all you're interested
in is the hand of God, there's no hope of salvation there. Everybody
does that. Everybody rings the bell when
they get in trouble. For God to come down and deliver
them out of trouble, that's looking for the hand of God. Oh, ask
the Lord, I want to see your face. I want to know you. This is life eternal that they
might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou
hast sent. You can't discern him from his
hand. The light of the glorious gospel in the face of the Lord
Jesus Christ has to shine out of darkness into our hearts. Lord, that's what I would need
for you to do. That's the only place hope comes. That's where
assurance of salvation comes. That's where comfort and peace,
those things that Isaiah was talking about, perfect peace
belongs to them whose mind is stayed on thee. Finally, my brethren,
Paul wrote, whatsoever things are good and lovely and holy
and of good report and of any virtue in them, he's talking
about Christ. Think on these things. And the
peace of God, which passes understanding, will keep your heart and your
mind in Christ Jesus. Always looking unto Him. Never
looking to yourself. And I'm so thankful for verse
7, aren't you? What a glorious gospel this is.
What a glorious Christ. What hope, what comfort. And
yet God was pleased to put this precious treasure in a clay pot. A clay pot. That's what you are. That's what these bodies are.
They're clay pots. Some clay pots may be younger
and shinier than others, and some may be really chipped up
and ready for the trash heap. But it doesn't matter. We're
just clay pots. This tabernacle of this flesh
is going back to the grave. And that's what... that the glory, that the praise,
that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
You see, it just keeps coming back to pointing to His glory.
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name, Psalm
115, verse 1, be praise and glory and honor forever and ever. Lord,
I'm a clay pot. The only glory that there is
is the precious ointment of the gospel that God has put into
this clay pot. An earthen vessel. We are troubled. We are troubled. And we do have
troubles. This word, this word trouble
here is a word that describes what grapes go through in a wine
press. And he says, we're pressed out
like grapes. But what comes as a result of
that? Sweet wine, precious wine. He says, we're troubled on every
side, yet not distressed. This word distressed means to
be put in a place where there's nowhere to turn, nowhere to turn. I mean, I'm talking about nowhere.
And when God puts you in the winepress of His grace, He gives
you one place to turn to. And what Paul's saying is, God's
put us in a winepress and we're troubled on every side, but we're
not distressed. It's not that we've got no place
to turn. We do have a place to turn. We can look unto Jesus,
the author and the finisher of our faith. We are perplexed. That means
there's a lot of things that happen in our lives that we don't
understand. We're often confused. We're often
fearful. We're often wondering, what's
this really all about? And, you know, that's our experience. But though we are perplexed,
we are not in despair. That word means to be utterly
lost and destitute of any hope. We're not there. We're not lost. We're not destitute of hope.
These fears and these troubles are the very things that drive
us to know Christ more surely and to have that hope more impressed
upon our hearts. Persecuted? Yes, those things
come from the world. But not forsaken? I'll never
leave you nor forsake you. God Almighty, God the Father,
forsook the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? So that you and I would never
ever have to worry about being forsaken of God. We're persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, oh, we stumble a lot,
don't we? Righteous man falls seven times
in a day. Fall a lot more than that, don't
we? But that just means we keep falling. We're just perpetual
backsliders, aren't we? We can just... And yet, we're not destroyed. We're not
put out of the presence of God. always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our bodies. What is it to reckon yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin? It's to look at this earthen
vessel and say, Lord, there's no hope of life there. No hope
of life in this earthen vessel. No hope of life in me apart from
Christ. Without Him, I can do nothing. Nothing. And so the Lord brings
us constantly this matter of mortifying the flesh. What is
it to mortify the flesh? It's to acknowledge that the
flesh is dead and it can't do anything. It can't do anything. It can't save you. It can't improve
you. It can't make you better. That the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our flesh. And it will. I want my body and
my life to reflect the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want
you to see that. But as soon as I start looking
at it, that's when I've taken my eyes off of Christ. For we which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then, death
worketh in us, but life in you. Let's take a break.