Thank you, Cheryl. Good morning,
everyone. Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 36 from the Hardback Tymnal. Number 36, a
mighty fortress is our God. And let's all stand together.
Number 36. A mighty fortress is our God,
Of old work never failing. Our Helper, He amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe Doth
seek to work us woe, His craft and power are great, And armed
with cruel hate, On earth is not His equal. Did we in our own strength confide
Our striving would be losing? Were not the right man on our
side? The man of God's own choosing. Just as true that may be, Christ
Jesus it is he. The Lord's Sabbath is His name,
for age to age the same, and He must win the battle. And though this world with devils
filled Should threaten to undo us We will not fear, for God
hath willed His truth to triumph through us The Prince of Darkness
grim, We tremble not for Him. His rage we can endure, For lo,
His doom is sure. One little word shall tell him,
That word above all earthly powers, No thanks to them abideth. The Spirit and the gifts are
ours, Through Him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, This
mortal life also, Please be seated. I'm thankful that we don't live
under the same circumstances that Martin Luther, who wrote
that hymn, had to live under. God has blessed us with such
freedom, and yet I fear that that freedom has made us soft. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we are very
thankful that you've afforded us, blessed us with the opportunity
to meet in peace. You've told us to pray for kings
and for those that are in authority that we may live peaceable lives
in this world, and you've provided us with that great blessing. And yet, Lord, we feel as if
we've We've taken it for granted. We've lost sight of the persecution
that so many of our brethren have had to suffer for the gospel. Lord, we pray that you would
forgive us. We pray that you would cause us to be thankful. for the blessing of peace that
we have and that you would enable us to be bold, to be courageous,
to speak the truth in love. Lord, that you would bless the
gospel to your glory and to the saving of your people. We thank you, Lord, that you
do inhabit the praise of your people and that you've promised
that where two or three are gathered together in thy name, that there
you are in the midst of them. Oh, how we pray that the wind
of thy spirit would blow upon our hearts, that you would bless
your word to our understanding and cause us to find our comfort,
our hope, and all our peace in thy dear son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Seems like in this age of prosperity,
we've come to define peace and in a worldly sense, don't we? We get so caught up in having
the comforts of this world, and so many generations of believers
knew nothing of that. They fought tooth and toenail,
as it was, for the preaching of the gospel. That certainly
was the Apostle Paul's experience in the first century, and I want
us to turn now to 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and continue looking
at the passage of Scripture that we were looking at last Sunday. Verse 5, for as the sufferings
of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by
Christ. As we experience whatever persecution
might come, and it will come if we stand for the People know
what we believe, and we stand for the truth. There's going
to be folks that are going to hate you for it. And the Lord
says that as you suffer for the gospel's sake, you have the consolation
of the comfort that comes not from man, but from God. The second
meaning of this passage of Scripture has to do with our union with
Christ. We suffered with him on Calvary's cross. That's the
only hope that we have. Paul said, I was crucified with
Christ. When Christ was hung on Calvary's
cross, the only hope that I have that my sins have been put away
is that I was in Christ and that he bore my sins in his body upon
that tree. And as we come to understand,
Paul said, oh, that I might know the fellowship of his sufferings,
that I might be more convinced, more believing that
when Christ suffered, I suffered, then the consolation comes, the
comfort, the hope of knowing that my sins truly have been
put away. And in verse six he says, and
whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation,
which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings, which
we also suffer, or whether we be comforted, it is for your
consolation and salvation. What he's saying here is that
painful or pleasurable, happy or sad, Whatever God ordains
for me is right. It's good. He's telling us the
same thing he told us in Romans when he said, truly, you know,
and if you're a believer, you do know this. All things work
together for good for them that love God and those that are the
called according to his purpose. Whether it's good in our experience
or whether it's hard, easy or hard, it's all good. Believers,
I laugh sometimes when I hear an unbeliever say, you know,
it's all good. It's all good. It's going to
be all right. And they, you know, whistling
through the graveyard is what they're doing. They're hoping
against hope that, you know, that somehow everything's going
to work out all right. Well, if they're not found in Christ,
it's not going to work out all right. It's not going to work
out all right. It's all going to be bad. But
for the child of God, that one who's found in Christ, we can
say with the apostle Paul, if I suffer, It's, it's for my comfort. If I, what did we say? If I'm
afflicted, it is for my consolation and salvation. Um, and it is
effectual to the enduring of the same suffering, which you
also suffer. So we're in this together and
what a great encouragement and comfort believers have in knowing
that all of God's people in this world are living as strangers
and pilgrims, contrary to everything in this world. We're just odd. Look what he says, verse 7, and
our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as you are partakers
of the suffering, so shall you also of the consolation, the
comfort. There's no comfort without suffering.
There's no hope of having the comfort of knowing that I have
complete justification before God without looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross as my sacrifice. And if he's
my sacrifice, then I'm justified. Who is he that justified? It
is Christ that died, yea, that is even risen again. And if I'm
justified before God, I've never sinned. I've never sinned. Can you believe that? That's
what justified means. It doesn't mean that God just
overlooks your sin, or God just says, no. As He is, so are we
in this world. Our sin is so completely put
away, so completely covered by the blood of Christ, that God
Almighty says, I remember them no more. I've hid them as far
as the east is from the west. I've buried them in the depths
of the sea. I've cast them behind my back, sewed them into a bag.
Oh, that's what I need for God to not be able to see my sins.
And the only way that He cannot see my sins is if He's looking
to the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on that mercy seat. That's what He said, here I will
meet with you. The only hope that I have to
meet with God is to come before Him, before that ark, picture
of Christ, the shed blood of Christ on the mercy seat, a covering,
an atonement for my sins. That's the consolation. That's
the hope. Look at verse 8. For we would
not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to
us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure and above strength,
insomuch that we despaired even of life. Now he's talking about
that experience that he had in Ephesus. Acts chapter 19 gives a detailed
account of what the Apostle Paul went through in Ephesus. He was
there preaching the gospel, and a man by the name of Demetrius,
who was a silversmith, who made idols for Diana, said, Diana,
sorry Diana, Diana. And Demetrius came to the conclusion
that if more people believe what Paul was preaching, that he said,
here's what he said, by this craft we have our wealth. And that's what Demetrius said
about his false gospel. By this craft we have our wealth. If we continue to allow this
man to preach, We're going to lose our position and our money. And a riot broke out in Ephesus
and Paul was forced to leave town. And that's what he's talking
about here. He's talking about they were ready to kill me. They
were ready to put me to death. You know, that's very much the
same response that the religious world has to the gospel today. By this craft, we have our wealth. The craftiness of false religion,
deceiving men, merchandising men's souls, and lying to them
about who Christ is and about what it is he's accomplished
for the salvation of his people. And I'm just convinced that we
would have a very similar experience if God was pleased to call out
from among the religious a large number of people, you can be
sure that the establishment, the religious establishment,
would not settle for it. They would attack you, they would
attack this church, they would attack the gospel, because the
gospel is a threat to the craftiness of man's religion. Paul experienced that in Ephesus,
and that's what he's talking about. We despaired even of life. We thought we were going to die.
Look at verse 9. But we had the sentence of death
in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in
God, which raiseth the dead. We've already died with Christ. He said, we die daily. I'm already a dead man. I'm looking forward. He said,
for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. One thing I've
come to realize about men is that the natural man lives in
denial of the reality of death. He does. I've seen it so many
times over the years. I'm watching it right now with
people that they refuse to even admit that death is coming until
it's right in their face. And the child of God lives in
constant thoughts of it. And it's not a morbid thought
for us. It's not a negative thought.
It's a very positive thing. We look forward to the day. when
this body is put into the grave and when we are able to see him
as he is and be made like him. I can't live a day without rejoicing
over the reality that one day I'm going to leave this world. And I'm so looking forward to
it. That's what he's saying here.
Look what he says. But we have the sentence of death in ourselves
that we should not trust in ourselves but in God which raiseth the
dead. You know, my hope is not to have
a legacy in this world. My hope is not to achieve some
level of material success or wealth. My hope is in the next
life. My hope is in the resurrection. And everything else is pointing
us to that. That's what Paul's saying. It doesn't matter. Whatever God
ordains in this life, we have the hope of the resurrection. Verse 10. who delivered us from
so great a death, and doth deliver, in whom we trust that he will
yet deliver us. Yes, the Lord delivered us from
that sure death that would have happened in Ephesus when the
riot broke out and everybody in the city came to the theater
and they, and if it wasn't for the governor of Ephesus who calmed
the crowd down, that would have killed us. And the Lord, the
Lord delivered us and he will continue to deliver us in his
plan, in his purpose until that day when he delivers us once
and for all from this life. That's my hope. Verse 11, you also helping together
by prayer for us that for the gift bestowed upon us by the
means of many persons, thanks may be given by many on your
behalf. And we're going to see in this
epistle that the Apostle Paul deals, well, two whole chapters
are given to his thanking them for the support that they have
given materially to the ministry of the gospel. And much to be
said about that. Here he begins by saying, I'm
thankful for your prayers and I'm thankful for the financial
support that you sent to enable me to preach the gospel. And that you've participated
in this with us together. Everything the body of Christ
does, every member of the body of Christ participates in. That's a glorious thought. When the gospel is preached in
Mexico and God's pleased to give someone ears to hear and bring
them to faith in Christ, you and I participate in that. Not
just because we financially support the work down there, but because
they're part of the body of Christ. That's why when the Lord said
to the sheep that were on his right hand at the time of the
Day of Judgment, when he separated the sheep from the goats, remember
he said to the sheep, he said, I was hungry and you fed me.
I was naked and you clothed me. I was in prison and you visited
me. I was a stranger and you took
me in. Those are all, you think about the spiritual application
of that. And the believer says, Lord, when did we do those things?
And the Lord says, in that you did it to the least of these,
my brethren, you did it unto me. In other words, every time
you participated in the body of Christ as well, your membership
in the body of Christ extended out to the preaching of the gospel
so that the spiritually naked were clothed, the spiritually
hungry were fed. Those who were in prison were
set free. Those who were strangers were
taken in and you participated in that. as a part of the body
of Christ. That's what Paul's saying to
them. He's saying, this work that God has given me to do,
you're part of it. Your prayers, your financial
gifts, we're in this together. And we suffer persecution together,
but we also rejoice together in knowing that the work that
the Lord is doing, he's allowing us to participate in it. Verse 12, for our rejoicing is
this, the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly
sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we had
our conversation in the world and more abundantly to you word. We weren't playing games. We
weren't trying to entertain folks. We weren't doing what man-made
religion does, building big edifices and having big programs. In simplicity
and in sincerity, we just preached Christ. And God was honored through
it, and the church was built up as a result of it. Verse 13,
for we write no other things unto you than what we read or
acknowledge, what you read or acknowledged, and we trust that
you also acknowledge even to the end. We're not going to put
you under the law. We're not going to put any more
obligations on you than what we've already written to you.
We've told you about Christ. Come to Him. Rest in Him. Rely upon Him. Believe on Him. Look to Him for all your righteousness
before God. That's the simplicity and the
sincerity of the Gospel. In another place, the Apostle
Paul says, I fear I think this was in Galatians, it says, I
fear lest you be drawn away from the simplicity that is in Christ. Christ is, that's the Colossians,
Christ is all and he is in all. And that's what he's emphasizing
here. He's just saying, we didn't come to you trying to deceive
you with the wisdom of the words. We didn't try to pull the wool
over your eyes. We weren't engaged in some smoke
and mirror kind of ceremony of religion. That's what religion
in the world is. It's just an attempt to merchandise
men's souls and deceive them away from Christ. And he said
I didn't do that. Verse 14, as also you have acknowledged
us in part that we are your rejoicing even as you also are ours in
the day of Jesus Christ. You rejoice that the Lord has
given us the grace to preach the gospel and we rejoice that
God has given you the grace to hear the gospel and whether you
be speaking or whether you be hearing, we are together in Christ
and we are our rejoicing. I can say this with complete
joy and sincerity, you are my family. You are. And you are my rejoicing. I have very, very few members
of my natural family that believe the gospel. And as a result of
that, I have very, very little in common with them. And you are my rejoicing. I trust that we are each other's
rejoicing. Verse 15, and in this confidence,
I was mindful to come unto you before that you might have a
second benefit. Paul's talking about, he had
visited them once and he said, I was mindful, I was hopeful
that the Lord would afford me another opportunity to come and
to visit the church in Corinth. to pass by you into Macedonia
and to come again out of Macedonia unto you and Of you to be brought
on my way toward Judea now. He's telling them ahead of time
He's like I said, he's gonna deal with this later on in this
epistle, but he's telling them I'm coming to visit you and and
one of the reasons I'm coming is so that I can receive from
you a financial gift necessary for me to continue to travel
and to bring the gospel to Judea. He's telling them that ahead
of time so that they can prepare for that offering. When I therefore
was thus minded, did I use lightness or the things that I purpose?
Do I purpose according to the flesh that with me there should
be yea, yea, and nay, nay? No. No, I didn't. I didn't talk out
of both sides of my mouth. I didn't say one thing and then
turn around and say something else. That's what religion does. Religion is a, is a yay, nay
gospel. They'll say, well, yes, you are
Dead in your trespasses and sins, you're born with original sin,
you're born spiritually separated from God, and you need to be
born again, but you have the ability to make a decision. You
have within you the faith necessary to believe. And if you will exercise
that faith, God will reward you with salvation. That is yea,
nay preaching. Look what else he says in this
next verse. But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea
and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ,
who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and
Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea for all the
promises of God, in him are yea, and in him, amen, unto the glory
of God. I didn't come speaking to you
out of both sides of my mouth. I didn't say, yes, you're a sinner
and you're dead, but you can at least wiggle your little finger.
You can do something. You can make the first step.
That's yay-nay preaching. No, what I'm saying to you is
that you are spiritually dead, left to yourself. And the only
hope that you can be made alive is if God does a work of sovereign
grace, intervening coming down from heaven, doing for you what
he said to Nicodemus, you must be born again. You must be born
from above. You must be born by the spirit
of God. You cannot wiggle your little finger. You can't do it. Religion, he says, he says, I
didn't come to you with Yene preaching. Yene preaching is, well, yeah,
the Bible speaks of election and it speaks of predestination.
But, you know, what it really means is that God was looking
down through the quarters of time, and he saw, because he's
omniscient, he saw who would choose him, and therefore he
chose them. That doesn't even make sense. But that's yeah-nay
preaching. No, God did not look down to
the quarters of time and see who would choose Him. God sovereignly
chose, according to His own will and purpose, the people that
He purposed to save. And He wrote their names in the Lamb's
Book of Life. He shed the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ before time ever began and redeemed them. Redeemed them by the blood of
that lamb that was shed before the foundation of the world We
didn't come to you with the ANA preaching We didn't say to you. Well, you know There's a sense
in which Christ died for everybody And you hear people say well,
you know the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross
was was sufficient for all men and efficient only for the elect
and That's yene preaching. That's confusing the gospel.
That's taking the offense out of the gospel and putting the
decision for salvation back into the hands of man. We didn't come
to you with yene preaching. We came to you saying that the
Lord Jesus Christ went to Calvary's cross to lay down his life for
the sheep. For the sheep. He didn't waste
a drop of his blood. He's not trying to redeem anybody. He actually accomplished the
redemption of God's chosen people in his work of atoning sacrifice
on Calvary's cross. He did it. All the promises of
God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. Yeneh preaching. Irresistible grace? Irresistible
grace? Well, you know, yes, you are
dependent upon the Holy Spirit in order to be born again. You've
got to be born by the Spirit of God. The natural man cannot
receive the things of the Spirit, for they are spiritually discerned.
Neither can he know them. Yes, the Scripture does teach
that. But, you know, you can either reject or receive Christ. It's your choice. It's your decision. You can forbid the Spirit of
God from doing His work, or you can receive the work of the Spirit
of God. It's up to you. Which is it? Which is it? We don't come to
you with a yea-nay gospel. We say to you that the grace
of God is absolutely, completely irresistible. When God the Holy
Spirit is ready to make you willing in the day of His power, you
will be shut up to Christ and you'll have no place else to
go but to Him. All the promises of God are yea
and amen in Christ. What are the promises of God? Well, the seed of the woman will
crush the head of the serpent. And what the Lord Jesus Christ
accomplished on Calvary's cross was that he destroyed the works
of the devil and he led captivity captive. He led those who were,
well, he told Peter, he said, when he asked Peter, he said,
whom do men say that I am? Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah. Flesh and blood's not revealed
the Son to you, but my Father, which is in heaven. upon this
rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not be
able to prevail against it just like when Samson went down into
the Philistine city and he took those gates of the city and put
them on his back and carried them away so that the army of
Israel could go in and attack the city so the Lord Jesus Christ
takes down the gates of hell in order to deliver those who
are held captive by Satan and bring them out. That's what the
Lord's done. That's His promise. All the promises of God. You
see that in verse 20? All the promises of God in Him. In Him are yes and amen to the
glory of God. Salvations of the Lord. Noah's
ark was pitched within and without. It was covered completely. So
when the flood of God's wrath fell from heaven, Noah and his
family were safe in the ark. That's the promise of God. Those
who are in the ark, and who gave Noah instructions on how to build
the ark? God did. Who shut the door of
the ark? God did, didn't he? Who sent the floodwaters? God
did. All the promises of God are yea
and amen in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
cleft in the rock, which Moses found a safe place to hide in. The Lord told Moses on Mount
Sinai, he said, there's a place near me where you can stand.
And he put Moses in the cleft of the rock. And that's the only
place that you and I are going to find any safety before God. Otherwise the law of God's wrath,
the law, the law of God. will consume us if he doesn't
hide us in Christ so many the Passover lamb When
I see the blood, I will pass by you. All the promises of God,
when Isaac asked his father Abraham, father, here's the fire and here's
the wood, where's the sacrifice? What did Abraham say? God will
provide himself a sacrifice. All the promises of God are yes
and complete. That's what it means, yay and
amen. Yes, and complete in Christ. You don't add anything to it,
and there's no possibility that the promise of God is going to
fail. All of his promises are sure
in Christ. When God told Aaron to take his
hands and place them on the head of that scapegoat and send him
out in the wilderness to be forever separated from the camp of Israel. So the Lord Jesus Christ had
the hands of God placed on him when our sin was placed in his
body on that tree to be ever separated from us once and for
all. All the promises of God are yes and complete in him to
the glory of God. We don't add anything to it.
We don't take anything away from it. The Lord told the children
of Israel in the wilderness, When they were being bitten by
those fiery serpents, he said to Moses, he said, take a serpent
and fashion it and put it upon a pole and lift it up. And whoever
looks to that serpent will live. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so must the
son of man be lifted up. And whoever looks to him, whoever
looks to him, bearing our sins on a tree in his body will live. That's the promise of God. All
the promises of God are yes and complete in him to the glory
of God the Father. Paul said we didn't come preaching
a yea-nay gospel. We didn't contradict ourselves.
In simplicity and in sincerity, we told you about the accomplished
work and glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We didn't
call attention to ourselves. We called you to look to Him.
And all the promises of God, all the promises of God for you
and for me, can only be known in their fulfillment in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And what's the end result? The glory of God. The glory of
God. This gospel is the only message
of salvation that gives to God all the glory and strips man
of all his pride. All right, let's take a break. Thank you. All right.