I'm so thankful that we have
this time to be together. I look forward, as I was telling
you the other day, to my two sisters and my brother coming
this weekend. But this is my family right here,
and I'm glad to be here with you. Okay, Gary, you can go ahead.
I want you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the book
of 2 Corinthians chapter 1. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. I'd like to look at the last
two verses of 2 Corinthians chapter 1. The Apostle Paul declares, moreover,
I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I
came not as yet unto Corinth. Not for that we have dominion
over your faith, but are helpers of your joy, for by faith ye
stand. Let's pray together. Our father,
we are so thankful that you allow us the privilege to be able to
be here tonight. Lord, that you've allowed the
gospel to remain these many years is a miracle of your grace. And
Lord, I ask you this evening at As we've assembled ourselves
together, Lord, to hear the word of the Lord, to pray together,
to observe the Lord's Supper. Lord, would you bless our time
together. Forgive us where we failed you.
Keep us for Christ's sake. Amen. In verses 23 and 24 that we just
read, the Apostle Paul is now coming back and is going to give
an answer to a charge that had been laid upon him by those who
were found within the assembly of the saints there in Corinth. It was some that not only accused
him of being inconsistent, in his promises to the church. But
also they were accusing him of being inconsistent in his doctrine. Just look back in this same chapter,
chapter 1, 2 Corinthians. Look at verses 17 to 19. He said,
when I therefore was thus minded, did I use likeness? He's talking
about when I originally told you that I was going to be able
to come to Corinth first. That was my plans. Then I would
go to Macedonia and then I was going to come back to visit with
you again after Macedonia. He said, that's what I originally
planned to do. But he said, the Lord providentially
hindered me from doing it. I wasn't able to do it. And so
what happened was there were some within the congregation
and they started accusing Paul, you know, you're just inconsistent
and your doctrine's wrong. And here's what he's saying.
Verse 17, when I therefore was thus minded, because I couldn't
come when I thought I would, did I use likeness or the things
that I purpose? Do I purpose according to the
flesh? that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay, but
as God is true, our word, and this is His answer to those that
were accusing Him of being inconsistent. I just preached on this Sunday,
so you know what I'm talking about. But as God is true, our
word toward you was not yea and nay. He said when the gospel
is preached, it's yea, yea, and nay, nay. There's no yes and
no about it. There's no inconsistency about
it. So we know that the Apostle Paul's
steps were absolutely ordered by the Lord when he could not
come to Corinth first. We know that the steps the scripture
declares of a good man, they're ordered by the Lord. So we know
that Paul's steps were ordered by God, but now he's going to
reveal the will of the Lord as to the reason why the Lord did
not permit him to come. Now the Lord ordered those changes. You know, the lot's laid into
the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. So when
he didn't come, it was obvious. He had to go here. It was commissioned
to go here. And he said, I could not do what
I originally thought. But now he's going to say, I'm
going to tell you why I didn't come. Verse 23, moreover, I call
God for a record upon my soul. Now he said this in order to
establish this truth. Anybody's going to be able to
say, well, you're just making this up. You're going to give some
reason why you didn't come. Paul said, I call upon the Lord
God of heaven for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I
came not, as yet unto Corinth." Now Paul had been charged with
treating the serious matter of preaching the gospel disrespectfully. He'd been charged with being
thoughtless and inconsistent And now here he tells the church
there in Corinth with an oath. He said, now I call upon the
Lord himself to be a witness to what I'm saying, that it's
true. I was, he said, hindered. And I was redirected by the Holy
Spirit to go to Macedonia before I came to Corinth. I was. I was directed by the Lord. But
the ultimate and the first reason he did not come was because God's
will and God's purpose to show mercy and compassion to the church
there at Corinth. The Lord directed Paul to go
elsewhere because God was going to show pity and compassion to
that church, and I'll show you what he's talking about. He said
he wasn't purposefully being fickle or inconsistent, but he
knew that if he did come when he purposed to come, When He
would have come in the midst of such an irregular and disorderly
state, He would have. He's saying right now, and I'm
going to show you this by what He said back in 1 Corinthians
in just a second. But He said, if I would have
come, He said, I would have with apostolic authority. I would
have dealt with that church, with you, that church there in
Corinth. I would have dealt with you in
a very severe manner. I would have dealt with you very,
very harshly. He said with the things that
were going on in Corinth. When he first purposed to come,
he said, I would have come with a rod. And he knew that such
discipline would have been painful. not only to them, but also to
himself. So knowing the inconsistencies
that were found in Corinth, the Apostle wrote to them in his
first epistle concerning the envy and strife and division. That was in 1 Corinthians chapter
3. And he told them, he said, you're carnal. You're walking
as unregenerates. is the matter. They were bickering
over which preachers they liked best. I'll just hit these high
points, and you'll remember, we went over all this. They were
bickering over their favorite preachers. Some of them hailed
to Paul. Well, we're of Paul. We're of
Apollos. We're of Cephas. And the apostle
told them, he said, who is Paul? Who's Apollos? Who's Cephas?
He said, we are ministers by whom you believed. And Paul plants
in Apollos waters, but God gives the increase. So there was division
over there. There was stuff that did not
matter. There was one among them who
was living, and committing incest with his mother-in-law. And the
church permitted it. Paul told him, he said, don't
have any fellowship with him. Get him out. Don't. Put him out. Put him out. They were talking
about each other and to each other. They were taking each
other to court. going before unjust judges, and
there were problems in their marriages that weren't being
dealt with in a right way. They were arguing whether or
not one should be circumcised or not circumcised, whether it
was right to eat meat offered to idols. It was nothing but
one big argument. They had misconceptions concerning
the right of God's ministers to have adequate compensation. They were arguing about and fussing
about how much the preacher made. They were being abusive and disrespectful
concerning the Lord's Supper and their desire for the spiritual
gifts. was above the love of the brethren. That's what he dealt with in
1 Corinthians 13. He said, if I don't have love,
I can have all knowledge and understanding. If I don't have
love, I'm just a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. He dealt
with them concerning their lack of love for each other. And all
they were doing was just magnifying their ignorance of God's authority
to place His people within the body as the Lord sees fit. They were bickering about positions
and concerning all of these inconsistencies. This is where Paul, you turn,
hold your place right there, just turn back to 1 Corinthians
4.21. 1 Corinthians 4.21. He wrote this letter under the
inspiration of God's Spirit by the good pleasure of the Lord.
He said in 1 Corinthians 4, 21, he said, what will you, what
do you want me to do? Shall I come unto you with a
rod or in love and in the spirit of meekness? The apostle Paul
He loved these people at Corinth. He loved them. But there was
so much inconsistency. Paul, he was an apostle, and
he was sent, he was authorized of the Lord to raise up and to
discipline and to teach these churches. And Paul said with
the inconsistencies that were going on, he said, I'm telling
you what I would have done He said, I would have come back
in 2 Corinthians 1.23. He said, I call God for a record
upon my soul that to spare you, I came not as yet to Corinth. The Lord directed Paul's path
another way because of God's pleasure to not have Paul deal
with them that way. but rather write him a letter. That's what the Lord did. That's
why 1 Corinthians is written. Paul addressed the problems that
were going on and told him, this is what you need to do, rather
than go. Now, that just amazed me, that
the Lord would not allow this apostle to go. You know, you
say, well, why would the Lord not allow him to go? Why did
the Lord not allow him to go to Asia? because God wasn't pleased. That's the only answer you can
get. He said, so I'm telling you, he said, I was redirected,
providentially I was redirected, because had I come, I would have
come with a rod. And we're going to see that it
I won't go into it tonight, but I'm gonna just read this to you.
Chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians, just the first few verses. He said,
I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to
you in heaviness. For if I make you sorry, who
is he that maketh me glad? But the same which is made sorry
by me, he said, if I go and I came with a rod, he said, you, I truly
love. Who would make me happy? You're
the ones that I wanted to be with. But I could not let this
go on. I just couldn't let it go on.
It had to be dealt with. And he said, I'm thankful that
the Lord directed me another way, and I didn't have to come
and deal with you, you know. And he said, I wrote this same
unto you, lest when I came I should have sorrow from them of whom
I ought to rejoice, having confidence in you all that my joy is the
joy of you all. He's saying, I want you to know
something. He said, the Lord kept me from
coming there. And I'm thankful. I'm thankful that he did. He
said, I'm thankful that in the wisdom of Almighty God, God was
pleased. Paul, you write him a letter.
You write him a letter. I told you about what Brother
Henry said to me one time. He said, if you ever want to
say something to somebody, he said, write him a letter. He
said, it'll give you some time to think it through. It'll give
you some time to lay down your words carefully. And he said,
it'll give them some time to go back and read it again. And
he said, that's the best way, best way to communicate. He said,
if you really have something heavy on your heart and you want
to tell somebody, write him a letter. That's what the Lord did. I don't
doubt for one second that's probably where Brother Henry got that.
You know, you write him a letter. And you know how in the heat
of the moment, you come over there and there's all kinds of
inconsistencies. And Paul said, the reason I didn't
come, it was to spare you. And then he says in verse 24,
he says, not for that we have dominion over your faith, but
are helpers of your joy, for by faith you stand. He said, I would have come because
he did have the authority from God. He had
the authority to correct, you know, by these churches and these
inconsistencies. He did have that authority, but
he said, I'm writing you something to let you know this. Though
I'm telling you had I come and I would have not spared you,
I wouldn't have. He said, I don't want you to
think that we feel that we rule over or lord over your faith. But he said that we might be
helpers to you to promote your joy for in your belief that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the Messiah, that's where you stand. By faith,
Paul, like every God called preacher, he knows, I know, Every preacher
called of God knows that he doesn't have the right or the power or
the authority to lord over God's heritage. But Paul was now assuring
his hearers. He says, though I had to tell
you that had I come because of the inconsistencies, because
of those gross insensitive errors that were being committed and
allowed to be going on. He said, I couldn't do that without
saying something, and the Lord was the one that caused me to
write to you, but I'm assuring you now that the Holy Spirit
has taught me, and I'm telling you that your joy in the Lord
is my desire and hope. And that's what I pray that you
might experience. He said, we're helpers of your
joy. Now let me tell you very quickly
what he was saying. Joy, first of all, is the fruit. You know that. Love, joy, long-suffering,
gentleness, meekness, love, Joy, that's the fruit of God's spirit. And joy is that which is wrought
in the soul only by the Lord. It's that calm delight, that
peaceful rest that by faith has been produced by the Lord Jesus
Christ, a calm that has only the Lord as its object. Joy. He said, I'm a helper. We're helpers of your joy. That
joy is a grace that is experienced. It's joy. It's experienced within
a new heart that has been settled when the Spirit of God blesses
the truth of the gospel to the believer. They're resting. They're taught. They're settled. That precious gospel, which is
the declarations of God's eternal purpose and love for his people,
hearing that message over and over and over, it never gets
monotonous. Notice what an unbeliever will
always say about hearing the gospel. We've experienced that
here. Don't y'all ever talk about anything
else? Clay Curtis told me, somebody
told me, he said, don't you have any other material besides that?
I'm like, no, no we don't. Here's the message that we preach,
the gospel, the message that we, last Sunday, you know, Jesus
Christ and Him crucified, that entails all of it, that's the
extent of it. Paul says, I wanted to let you
know that I must have corrected you had I come." But he said,
I wasn't coming, we weren't coming that we would have dominion,
that we would lord over you, that we were going to be dictating
to you concerning your faith. But the reason that I would have
had to have dealt with it was that I might be a helper in your
joy. He said, we don't dominate you. And though he knew that he was
going to have to do it, he wanted to ensure them that this is the
reason that he would have had to have not spared the rod. He said that I might help you
concerning your joy. He said, we've been called of
God. to preach God's word and commission to feed and comfort
the flocks and be co-laborers and companions of your joy that
you might be established in the faith. And so Paul's purpose
of correction was nothing less than the Lord's correction through
his preacher and that their joy might be established. He was
the only way it was going to happen, Paul said. Those problems
would have had to be addressed. Paul said, if I didn't address
them, if they just kept going on, he said, it's just going
to get worse. That's what's going to happen.
It's just the hindrances and the envy and strife and division,
he said, it would get worse and worse. So to be a helper in your
joy, He said, I was going to have to deal with it. But I was
going to deal with it with you knowing that it was totally out
of my love for you. As long as that division remained,
there was not going to be any joyful communion in the assembly. This is how the Lord deals with
us, his people. He sends pastors after his own
heart to feed the flock with knowledge and understanding.
And whenever there's problems, whenever there's anything, what
happens is they're addressed. And when they're addressed, it's
for this reason, Paul says, that we might be a helper to you. I've told you before, and you
all, like your kids, whenever our children were growing up
and they were disobedient, Man, I can remember thinking, why? Why do you not listen? Why didn't you hear me tell you? And I hated to have to spank
them. I hated to do that. But why did
I have to deal with my children with discipline? Why? Because
I loved them. If I didn't deal with it, then
they would just, they'd think it's okay. That's just the way
it's done. And you know, you don't have
to address it. And it gets worse and worse and
worse. But when I told them, go over there in that bedroom.
I'll be there in a minute. They knew. They knew what was
going on. It wasn't that I hated them.
I loved them. Paul said, I want you to know,
had I come, I would have come with a rod. But he said, I'm
not coming to lord over your faith. I'm not coming. He said,
I'm coming to be a co-helper, co-worker. for your joy. I wanted to come for that reason. And the Lord chastens us for
the error of our ways that the error might be exposed and corrected
for his glory and for our good. So Paul comforted the assembly. Though he told them, he said,
this is the problem. This is the problem. And he said,
I will have to address it. But I'm dressing it for this
reason. For your good. For God's glory.
For by faith we stand. Faith that comes from hearing
the truth. That blessed grace gift of faith. That gift whereby the Lord maintains
His people. They're His people who are kept
by the power of God through faith. Where does that faith come from?
It's from hearing the truth. The only thing that's going to
set a man or woman free is the truth. We're kept, we're guarded
over by God's power through the means of hearing the gospel unto
salvation ready to be revealed to us in the last time. We see right now through a glass
darkly, we really do. But I tell you what, there's
a time coming when faith is going to give way. to sight. So right
now, Paul says, by faith you stand. Every time the church
meets together to hear the Lord's word, every time. Now, I was made to think amuse
on this today very, very carefully. And I'm going to weigh my words
only according as the Lord speaks. So I'm going to tell you, this
is a very, very sobering thought. to me when I stand here because,
see, I'm just like you are. There's no difference between
me and you. I mean, we're all cut out of
the same lump. We've been chosen by the same
grace, redeemed by the same blood if we're the Lord's. But now
every time that the church meets together to hear the Lord's Word,
Every time I stand up or any gospel preacher stands up and
speaks out of this book, let me tell you who's speaking. The
Lord. It's the Lord. If I'm speaking
according to these scriptures, the Lord is speaking. He's speaking
to the flock. He said, my sheep hear my voice. Someone says, well, I've never
heard. Well, I'm telling you that this is how, and I'm going
to show you scripture, this is how the Lord speaks. God is speaking, and He's been
pleased to communicate through the means of pastors, preachers. But it's His voice that we hear. Why? That we might be joyful. in him be established in the
faith. Now listen to what the Lord said
in Luke 10, 16. He that heareth you. He was talking to his disciples
concerning the preaching of the gospel. He that heareth you,
heareth me. And he that despiseth you, he
that disesteems or rejects you. He that doesn't give you respect
for what you're preaching that I said, he despises me. And he that despiseth me despiseth
him that sent me. So by faith we walk in this world
living upon him who has promised to never leave us, never forsake
us, And we're constantly receiving from the Spirit of God faith. Faith cometh. It cometh right
now, ever needing to hear again the Gospel. Ever needing to hear
again what the Lord has preached. This is what the Lord... I took
these two verses right here. You know what Paul the Apostle
told Timothy? Timothy, preach the Word. Preach
the Word. I got to looking, I'm going to
be honest with you. I've not spoken out of 2 Corinthians
now for about four weeks. And I'll tell you why. These
last two verses right here, I did not feel as though that I had
the Lord's mind on what it was saying, what it meant. And so
I didn't say anything. I just waited. And then I felt
that the Lord opened my understanding concerning this These two verses
right here was all completely concerning God's mercy, grace,
tenderness, pity, long-suffering to His people. He called Paul to preach, and
Paul was going to do it. But Paul, like all of us, needed
to be tempered. And the Lord redirected him and
said, Paul, no, you're writing a letter. And then Paul wrote
him a letter, and he's telling him right here, he said, if I'd
have come, this is what I'd have done. But the Lord told me, write
this letter. But he said, I want you to know
this. He said, I wrote it, I wanted to come because of my love for
you. Faith, he said, by faith ye stand. Faith, faith in Christ. Faith
is the substance of things hoped for. It's the evidence of things
that's not seen. Faith, that's that new eye that
sees him who is invisible, that new ear that hears him who speaks
to his people. By faith we taste that the Lord
is good and faith is that evidence that the Lord has been gracious
to us. By grace are you saved through
faith that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. Mr. Spurgeon
in closing said this, is not one single act done and
ended on a certain day. But faith is an act that continues
and perseveres by the grace and power of God throughout the entire
life of a believer. And I thought to myself, Lord,
increase our faith. Lord, thank you. Thank you that
you would not allow us to continue to go on in just a silly, disrespectful
way toward the Lord and toward His people. Lord, that you would
kindly and gently, aren't you glad He doesn't deal with us
after our sins? Aren't you glad He doesn't? And
I tell you this, I'll end this using again my kids for an example.
After I would have to deal with them, of course they didn't want
a whipping, I didn't want a whipping, they didn't want a whipping,
but they were going to get it. But after I would spank them,
they would just hug me and hug me and I'd tell them I love you
and that was the most tender time. of, you know what I mean? I mean, you just hold them, you
kiss them, you tell them, say, listen, I don't enjoy doing that,
but it's because I love you. It's because I don't want you
to keep doing that. And we just, you just knit together. Children love to know where the
lines are, and so does God's people. I wanna know, I wanna
know. I pray God bless this word to
our heart for Christ's sake and for our good this evening. All
right.