We who preach to you, we've renounced
the hidden things of dishonesty. We don't walk in craftiness or
handle the word of God deceitfully. And of course he has to say that
because that's the norm. The word of God, generally speaking,
is handled deceitfully. Only in the cases where God sends
somebody in, in his ministry, by his revelation, by his grace,
is the word of God handled rightly. But by manifestation of the truth,
notice the difference between being deceptive and compromising
the gospel is to make it clear, manifesting, openly making the
truth clear. You know, religion loves to dish
out their truth to the people. They don't encourage you to read
it for yourself. Let us tell you. No, it's gotta be clear,
and it's gotta be clearly according to the word of God. That's what
God's preachers do. To every man's conscience, or
in this context, conscience doesn't always mean this in the scripture,
but in this context, it means we give it to you for your consideration. What think ye of Christ? in the sight of God. Remember
what we said about that. That's sobering. We're doing
this in God's sight. We're doing this. I preach to
you as accountable to the one who sent me. And you're accountable
to hear it. There are consequences for not
hearing it. Take heed how you hear. So all who preach the gospel
more than anything desire to set forth Christ with crystal
clarity It's the best thing you can, and I'm not coaching you
on what to say, but the best compliment a preacher can get
is that was clear. That was clear. That's why we came, so that the
Lord would make it clear by these means. That's what we're here
for. And notice that he's saying,
if our gospel is hidden, if you take verse two into account here,
When he says, if our gospel is hid, it's into them that are
lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded their minds.
In other words, if it's hidden, it wasn't hidden by us. We make
it just as clear as we possibly can. Seeing we have such hope, we
use great plainness of speech. It is hid to some, but not by
us. There's a reason why it's here. And I wanna emphasize something
to you before we move on from verses two and three. If our
gospel is hid, it's not hid by us. I wanna emphasize this again,
as we did last time. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
six. And this is what I'm gonna say. When Paul was so adamant about
asking for boldness in his preaching, You remember we talked about
that word last time. What was he asking for? That we, you know,
not be afraid of anybody? Let's look at that word and look
how he, look how earnestly he seeks prayer for that, to that
end, Ephesians 6, 19. And for me that utterance may
be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known,
there's that word manifest from our text, make known the mystery
of the gospel. that I may open my mouth boldly. Word doesn't mean what you might
think it does. For which I am an ambassador in bonds, verse
20, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. So twice in that one brief passage,
boldly. Here's the definition in Strong's
Concordance of the original Greek word translated boldly. Freedom
in speaking, unreservedness in speech, openly, frankly, without
concealment, The word hidden in our text, we don't do that. There's no hiding of it. If our gospel is hidden, it wasn't
us. Not hidden, without concealment,
without ambiguity or circumlocution. That's a word we don't use every
day. So what does that mean? Circumlocution, we don't use
that, we don't do that. We speak boldly means without
that, without reservedness, without compromise, without withholding
anything, without hiding anything. Have you ever been in religion
like I have? You talk about hide and seek with the word of God. But listen, circumlocution, the
use of many words when fewer would do. especially in an attempt
to be vague or invasive. That's what I heard until I was
probably 15, 16 years old. That's all I heard, invasive. A lot of word, a lot of rhetoric.
The gospel's not complicated. It's not complicated. A preacher
would talk for an hour, minimum, And then they'd have what they
call an invitation for another hour in which you stood up there
and begged people to come make a decision for the Lord. So you're
there for two hours and you boil it down and there's no gospel.
There's nothing, it's just a bunch of words. And it's invasive. They're invading. Evasive is
what I should be saying. I'm saying invasive, it's evasive.
Vague and evasive, they evade. The issue, who's God and who's
not, that's the issue. And nobody wants to deal with
that. Nobody wants to put man in their place at the feet and
at the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. They wanna have man in
control. Man, it's up to you, it's all
about you. No, it's not. You don't have to come crawling
on your face before the Lord Jesus Christ begging for mercy
or you're not gonna have any because that's where he brings
us, doesn't he? That's where he brings us, inside, not a physical
thing, not a religious show of some kind. I'm talking about
he's got to bring us down from the high horse of our pride and
self-righteousness and cause us to realize we're shut up to
him, whether we like it or not. Simon preached to him, didn't
he? The one that you spat on and beat and nailed to a cross,
God put him on the throne and you're gonna have to do business
with him. Wasn't that the message that Simon preached in the book
of Acts? Where is that being preached
now? Where is the real issue being dealt with nowadays? We
gotta be clear about that, just plain and open about it. So if
the gospel is hidden from you, two reasons are given in the
context. Just one in our text, but we
gotta look at the whole. Back in the last part of chapter
three, Paul gives a reason why it's hidden from them. He talks
about the veil that was on the hearts of those who could not
see past the old covenant of works and see the glory of Christ
in the new covenant of grace. They couldn't understand how
God could be just and justify a sinner, somebody that does
nothing but break the law. And that's the condition of our
hearts by nature. We're not gonna see past the
veil. It's over our hearts, it's a
problem in here. The second reason is given in
our text, Satan. I mean, that's what it says,
doesn't it? The God of this world hath blinded them. We need to
understand, though, that Paul's not blaming Satan for man's blindness.
You won't find that anywhere in the scripture, but it does
say this, just as Satan was instrumental in the Garden of Eden by way
of temptation, and what did he do? He perverted the truth of
God, the word of God, the clear, simple command of God. He disputed
it and perverted it. He's operating exactly the same
way now. And people love it just as much
as it sounded so good to Adam and Eve that they plunged an
entire race into sin and darkness because of their lust to be God themselves. But he was instrumental in that,
and he's operating the same way now. And in the garden, Adam
and Eve were not excused by Satan's instrumentality. They tried to
blame him, didn't they? They tried to blame, you know,
Adam tried to blame Eve, and Eve tried to blame Satan. They
weren't excused for their sin because of that, and neither
will you be now. Satan didn't make you do it. Your evil, wicked, hardened,
depraved will made you do it. Satan was just there for the
taking. We're not unwitting victims of
the Prince of Darkness. We are willing participants in the anti-Christ
evil that Satan propagates. And he does it in churches now.
He does it in churches. He came into a place where God
was glorified and honored perfectly and defiled that place. The sin that was in us Defiled it. Think of it this
way now. When he says Satan has half-blinded
the minds of them, my first thought was, and maybe yours, that like
when the, and this is true, I'm not saying this ain't true, because
it clearly is taught in the scripture that when the word of God is
preached, Satan, like a bird stealing a seed, he'll come,
he'll swoop down and take that word. He doesn't care if you
drink or smoke. Do we get that? It's the word. He's not gonna let the gospel
take root in your heart if he can help it. He can't do anything
about it except as God allows him to. We understand that, but
what business is he in? The seed is the word of God. That's all he cares about. That
was in the garden and that's today. That's why my advice again
to everybody about everything all the time is you need to hear
from God, and you need to hear from Him all the time. It's not a one-time thing, it's
called our food. How many times have you eaten
lately in the last two weeks, do you think? You need to hear
the gospel, it's our daily food, it's the bread from heaven, it's
Christ. We've got to feed upon Him all
the time, or we're not gonna live. But also, this is a permanent
thing that happened in the Garden of Eden. He blinded our minds
in the Garden of Eden, too, by nature. We can't see. Remember what the Lord said to
Nicodemus, you got to be born from above, or you can't even
see the kingdom of God. Blinded, he blinded our minds
in the garden, didn't he? Not his fault, but he was there,
wasn't he? He was in on it. And so there's
two reasons, it's our heart, and the devil. He hates the word
and he'll keep it from you if he possibly can." Her minds were blinded permanently
in the garden. And we're all in on that by nature.
And when I say permanently, that is except for God's sheep. With
men it's impossible, but God commands light out of darkness.
That's the context of our scripture. He does a miracle of grace in
the heart. Remember in Mark chapter three,
how our Lord describes salvation as a strong man being bound and
cast out by one stronger. The strong man is the devil.
And the Lord Jesus Christ comes and ties him up and throws him
out. And only he can. You know, religion
is like, almost like they're doing little rituals like you'd
see on some horror movie. We got to drive out Satan, you
know. They do it by saying, you know, how I love Jesus and coming
down high. It's the same thing. It's just
a ritual. Try to, you know, only the son of God is going to free
you from the bondage of sin and Satan. without your help. Only the Lord Jesus Christ can
cast out devils now, and if we're ever able to sit clothed and
in our right minds, It will be by the sovereign choice and power
of the Son of God. He crossed a sea to find that
man and cast the devils out of him and saved him. The false notion of free will
blinds us from even asking for that. We're not gonna seek it
until he finds us. The last part of verse four,
still makes reference to that illustration in chapter three.
Look at the last part. Bless the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. Remember, he talked about Moses'
face shown, but it was covered up, they couldn't see it. And
now that veil that hid the glory of God in the new covenant from
them, the actual face-to-face communion with Christ himself,
the giver of the law, That was hidden from them, but now the
veil is on their hearts. And he talks about that glory
shining though, and them being unable to see it. That's what
the last part here, bless the light of the glorious gospel
of Christ, who is the image of God should shine. unto them,
they can't see that glory shining in the face of God's mediator
because of the veil on their hearts, because of the original
sin in the Garden of Eden, where Satan was instrumental in plunging
us into spiritual death and blindness and darkness. When the gospels preached though,
that glory shines forth, you see that, that's the positive
side of this. They can't see that glory shining forth, but
boy, when the gospel's preached, it shines, doesn't it? It does
shine forth. They can't see it. Only the eye
of God-given faith can see the glory of God in Christ. And you look at that in the text,
and that's not me whistling Dixie. You look at it in verse four,
in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them
which, what? This is a question of faith.
You're not gonna see him without faith. God-given, saving faith
in the Son of God. That's how you see him, by faith.
Blessed are your eyes for they see. That's not talking about
these ones. That's talking about these ones. Listen to Hebrew 4.2. Listen
carefully to this. For unto us was the gospel preached
as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit
them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. The sound
of the gospel fell upon their ears, but the gift of God, the
gift of faith in Christ didn't fall upon their hearts. That's
God's choice. He's the owner and the disposer
of sinners. Remember those words in our text,
which believe not. There's that veil over the heart. That's why we can't see God's
glory in Christ. That's why we're so idiotic that
we would think that we could do something to make us acceptable
with God, a decision or anything, live in the Christian life, whatever
they want to call it. That's why no faith. Faith is
the gift of God that gives us eyes to see his son and what
he accomplished for us on Calvary. And that's the glory of God.
That's what he said about it. That's his glory, his redemptive
glory. Let's look at first, I wanna
expound our text with another text. I could have just taken
the day off and read this chapter we're about to read, and it would
have expounded our text perfectly, and it probably would be better
than me messing it up. Look at 1 Corinthians 2 with
me, and you think about what we're talking about. Sinners
being able to see. Not the old covenant of works,
but the new covenant of grace. God's glory shining in the face
of his son. That's where God's grace is in
his son. I was gonna read a portion of
chapter two here, 1 Corinthians chapter two, and then I realized
this whole chapter is our text. And I, brethren, when I came
to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring
unto you the testimony of God. Remember, our text is, I didn't
come to deceive you. I didn't come with fine words
trying to obfuscate, trying to circumlocute the gospel. That's a new word we learned.
That's the word for the day. For I determined not to know anything
among you. How many times do we see that
in Scripture? It's just Christ. Everything else is wrong. Everything
else is false, no matter how true it might be. It's not the
truth if it's not the Son of God and what He did. I determined not to know anything
among you, save a person and Him crucified, what He'd accomplished
for me. on the cross, and I was with
you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech
and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." It takes the power
of God to take the gospel and make something happen. We can't
make something happen. We're going to get people saved.
No, we're not. We're going to have a revival. No, you're not.
you're gonna wait on God to do something. And He just might
do that if we ask Him to, if we beg Him to, if we wait on
Him and give Him the glory for it. that your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. How be it?
We speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom
of this world nor of the princes of this world that come to naught,
but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. Remember the word
hidden in our text? It's hid. It's a mystery. You're not gonna figure it out.
God's gonna have to show it to you. Look what he says he did
for us. even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the
world unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world
knew. For had they known it, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I have
not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
But God revealed them to us. It's hidden from this world. It's a mystery to those who have
not Christ. If God hasn't shined in your
heart, it's gonna be hidden from you. It's not mixed with faith. God hath revealed him unto us
by his Spirit, not by a preacher, through the means of a preacher,
but we don't get nobody saved. That's not good grammar, but
you had understood what I said, though, didn't you? That's because
y'all are hillbillies too. But you see what I'm saying? We're waiting on God to do something
for sinners. Can we just be plain about that
instead of glorifying man? Now we have received, let's see,
verse 11, verse 10. But God hath revealed him unto
us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things
of a man even, save the Spirit of man which is in him? Even
so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.
You're not gonna know it either until he comes. Now we have received
not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God,
that we might know. the things that are freely given
to us of God. Why are they not hidden from
us? Because God gave them to us. He gave us eyes to see, he
gave us faith in his Son. Freely given, which things also
we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which
the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know
them, because they're spiritually deserved. They're hidden. But he that is spiritual judgeth
all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath
known the mind of the Lord that we may instruct him? But we have
the mind of Christ. Hidden and revealed. A veil,
a veil taken away. Darkness, let there be light. That's our text. Just as clear
as a bell. What happens then when God does
give faith to believe on Christ? According to our text, the light
of the glorious gospel shines onto us. Isn't that beautiful?
That's what happened in the beginning, when this world was without form
and void. I'm getting into the next verse,
which I deliberately save for next time, because we're gonna
spend the whole time in that one verse next time. Verse six,
what a glorious. How can we see that in the scriptures
and by God's grace, get a glimpse of it? That which is the very
glory of God, the reason God has a universe, how can we get
a glimpse of that and not rejoice and not worship? God give us
grace not to let that fall on lackadaisical hearts. the light
of the glorious gospel will shine on us if the veil is taken away. And how is it taken away? 314, their mind was blinded,
for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in
the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away, how? How many times do I say it's
not complicated? That's why Paul said, I determined.
Because we're gonna talk about all kinds of nonsense, unless
God puts it in our hearts to make a determination. And look,
Christ is all right here. He's all at your school. He's
all at your job. He's all in the grocery store.
He's all everywhere you are. Christ is all. He's the answer to every problem
you have. He's the solution to every grief
and every fear and the soothing of every pain. To have the light shine into
us is to see Christ as He is. Unveiled, revealed in His gospel,
in His glory, in His redeeming power and love and grace. in his successful mediation of
the new covenant. The new covenant revealed and
fulfilled in his precious blood. This is the new covenant in my
blood that was shed for you, he said, you, his elect, his
sheep. When it says Christ who is the
image of God, there in our text, Christ who is the image of God,
you know what that's saying? We could define the word image,
we know what that means. Here's what that is, it's God
you can see. The scripture said no man has
seen God at any time, but it also says the sun hath revealed
him. You're gonna see God's glory
in his face. Christ, who is the image of God,
God that you're able to see. by faith now, and then face to
face. Listen to 1 John 1.1, that which
was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have
seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands
have handled of the word of life. You say, well, Chris, I didn't
get to see him that way. It doesn't matter. You watched it. For the
life was manifested and we've seen it. and bear witness and
show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and
was manifested unto us." We saw Him. The fact that they saw Him
is significant to me because I know from their testimony,
written by the inspiration of God, that He came where I was. He came down here where I was
and lived for me and died for me. But there's more to it than
that. Verse three, that which we have
seen and heard declare we unto you that you also may have fellowship
with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his
Son, Jesus Christ. Now think about this, to see
Christ by faith, that's what he's talking about in this last
part and I can prove it to you. We saw, we looked upon, our hands
handled him, but also that which we've seen and heard, we declare
that to you. The gospel is not me saying,
you know, what he looks like physically, or painting a picture,
here's what he looked like, I saw it. No, it's preaching the gospel
of who he is and what he did, and you have to see him with
spiritual eyes. And I know that's how they had
to see him too. Them seeing him physically didn't
save him, Did it? How many people saw Him and even
touched Him, spit on Him and whipped Him and beat Him and
spoke with Him? That didn't save them. I'm glad that they saw Him physically
because that means God was made flesh and dwelt among us. But
they had to see Him like we see Him, too. or they wouldn't have
fellowship with the Father. And if we're gonna have fellowship
with the Father, we've got to see Him that way too, by faith,
by faith. That's all through our text,
isn't it? To see Christ by faith is beyond seeing with the eyes
of the flesh. Those that saw Him physically,
they had to see Him by faith also, or they would not have
fellowship with the Father. 1 John 1-2, there where we read
for the life was manifested and we've seen it and bear witness
and show unto you that eternal life. What does eternal life
look like? They could have taken a video of him and you wouldn't
have seen what eternal life looks like. That comes by the gospel. That's how they saw him and heard
him. Fellowship with God and his son
is not had by the earthly sense of sight. It's given unto you
to know, our Lord said, to his disciples, but to them it's not
given, even though they saw him just as clearly as everybody
else did. Verse five, and we're done. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake. We preach Christ Jesus the Lord. Not ourselves is mentioned because
false religion preaches man. They promote man, they promote
the flesh, they praise the flesh, they appeal to the flesh. And
these are the two, only two, it's us or him. That's it. You're gonna preach man or you're
gonna preach him. It's us or him, it's one or the
other. Simon said, I will. And the Lord said, you're gonna
betray me, but I will. So it's okay. What was Simon
saying? I'll be with you unto death,
with you, with you. I'll stand with you. I said,
no, you're gonna betray me. But I go to prepare a place for
you so that you'll be with me. You decide or God decides. You
do something for God or he does something for you. It's not gonna
be both. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. The
mark of the beast is what? Man, man, man. I'll never forget Brother Stoniker
preaching that. Never heard that and I never
saw it before that. It's the number of man. 666. The Antichrist's false gospel
of free will religion is man, man, man. But we baptize in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. That's
the difference. We preach not ourselves. We preach
Christ Jesus, the Lord, the Lord. You remember, we've seen several
times here lately the definition of Lord. This world doesn't know
that definition. They don't even know it. As far as just just English,
but they sure enough don't know the truth of it We preach him And we do so for his sake listen
to this the for his sake that word sake there is We're servants for his sake,
the ground or reason by which something is done or not done.
And this is added in the definition, because of. We preach Christ and the reason
we do it is because of him. We sure wouldn't be otherwise. We love him because, and we preach him because. We're not the cause of anything.
He is. Glory to his name. May God give
us a glimpse. Shine that light that only he
can command in our dark hearts. Let's pray.