Alright, brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to 2 Corinthians 5. One of the very best words of
advice that I received when I first began preaching is, a dear brother
said to me, do not defend yourself, but let your brethren defend
you. Do not defend yourself, let your
brethren defend you. Our subject today is answer in
behalf of brethren. Answer in behalf of brethren.
Look at verse 12. The Apostle Paul says, we commend
not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion to glory
on our behalf. that ye may have somewhat to
answer them which glory in appearance and not in heart. Now from chapter
2 up to this 5th chapter, the Apostle Paul has been declaring
to believers, he's been preaching to believers why that he and
all Christ's true preachers and all Christ's true people, why
we believe and preach and serve Christ the way we do. He's been
declaring why we preach Christ, why we believe on Christ, and
why we serve Christ. That's been the subject all the
way up here to this fifth verse. And now He's giving believers
in all of this, He's giving believers an answer. To be able to answer
those who would accuse our brethren. in defense of our brethren. When
we hear an accusation about our brethren, this is what Paul is
doing. He is giving us something to
answer in defense of our brethren. To answer the accuser in defense
of our brethren. Don't be afraid to glory in your
brethren. Never glory in yourself. But
don't be afraid to glory in your brethren and answer in their
defense for why it is they preach and believe and serve as they
do. And we're going to see some things Paul says here, but ultimately
here's the reason. The answer to give those who
would lay charge to our brethren is that we preach and believe
and serve Christ as we do because we're constrained by the love
of Christ for us to live under Him. We're constrained by Christ's
love for us to believe Him, to preach Him, and to serve Him.
And that's why we do what we do. We're constrained by His
love for us. Now first of all, every true
believer desires to please Christ in all our labors in His cause. And everything we do in the cause
of Christ, our chief desire is to please the Lord Jesus Christ. He says back in verse 9, He begins
there with the word wherefore. That tells us that he's referring
back to what he just declared. And what he just declared is
that those that have been created anew by God, we know something. We know something that Christ
has done for us. Go look back at verse 1. He said
there in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 1, He says, We know that if our
earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building
of God, a building God has made, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens. Look down at verse 5. Now, He
that hath wrought us, that is, He worked everything to create
us and to prepare us, He that worked us for this selfsame thing,
for this eternal inheritance, is God, who also hath given unto
us the earnest of the Spirit. He's given us a guarantee that
we're going to have this eternal inheritance. Therefore, we're
always confident. knowing that whilst we're at
home in the body, we're absent from the Lord. For we walk by
faith, not by sight. We're confident, I say, and willing
rather. That is, by confidence, here's
what I mean. We're willing to be absent from
the body and to be present with the Lord. We're not presumptuous,
but by God's grace and what He's taught us, we're truly willing
to be absent from this body and be present with the Lord. We
know We know that when God separates us from this body, we're going
to be with the Lord. He's created for us a house. He's made a house
for us by what Christ has done in this earth. And he says, verse
9, Wherefore, we labor, that whether present or absent, we
may be accepted of Him. And the word there is, that we
may be well-pleasing unto our Lord in all things. Because we
know that our living Redeemer is seated at God's right hand,
and because we know that He's finished all the work in building
for us an eternal habitation, a house made of God, eternal
in the heavens, and because we know that Christ has secured
that for us, in all our labor in the cause of Christ, our number
one desire above everything is to please our Redeemer. That's
our number one motive, our number one desire, our number one constraint. We want to please our Redeemer. We don't alter the Word of God
simply to please, to compromise and please those who get offended
at what we preach. Now you hear what I'm saying?
Because we want to please Christ, we don't alter what we preach
and compromise with people who become offended at what we preach.
Paul said this, for do I now persuade men or God? Which one am I sent to persuade? Men or God? Or do I seek to please
men? He said, if I yet pleased men,
I should not be the servant of Christ. We labor to please Christ,
so we preach His Word. We preach the Word that gives
Him all the glory and gives the sinner no glory. We tell the
truth about the sinner being depraved in sin. We tell the
truth that salvation is entirely in our Lord. God the Father who
did the choosing, God the Son who did the redeeming, God the
Holy Spirit who does the regenerating, salvation is of the Lord. And
we don't back up from that. We don't change it nor any doctrine
that goes with that message because it all is one doctrine and we
don't change it. We're not pleasing men. We're
trying in everything we do, we want to please the Lord. We labor
passively by submitting to His providence. Because we know Christ
is working everything that's taking place in our lives, Christ
is working it. And we labor passively by submitting
to His providence and what He's doing. That means even if we're
persecuted for the message we preach, are standing with Christ
and His people, or whatever it is, been associated with them,
whatever it is, we know that wouldn't be happening if it wasn't
for the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. And so
we passively labor in this cause, submitting to His divine providence. Friday. Some of you know this. I locked myself out of the building.
Locked my keys in, locked my phone in, There was no way I could go.
I went across and used the phone and I got voicemails, everybody
I called. There was nothing I could do.
I ended up walking home from here with shoes that aren't meant
to be walked in and I got blisters all over my feet. But I was going
to leave a note out here before I went so I found a bulletin
in the back of my car and I wrote a little note that if anybody
stopped by here, I'm walking up Highway 31, please come pick
me up. And there I am, frustrated, you
know, and that's a kind word for just flat-out mad. And I'm
so dumb to lock myself out. And as I opened that bulletin
to write this note, the article that I had written in that bulletin
from back at the first of the year was, Be thankful in all
things for this is the will of God concerning you. And I was
like, that's right, thank you, Lord. Maybe He's sparing me from
something that I don't know. Maybe He's giving me a map, maybe
He's just giving me this illustration for you now. So we bow to the
will of God. Whatever's coming our way, know
it. He's working it. And then we labor actively in
our lives, and all the labor we do it in the cause of Christ,
not to be accepted of Christ. We labor it in the cause where
the home and the body are present with the Lord, that we may be
accepted in the Beloved, that we might be well-pleasing in
the Lord's sight. That's the concern. That's the
desire of the renewed heart. Paul said, "...Yea, doubtless
I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of
all things. And to count them but done, that I may win Christ
and be found in Him." Not having my own righteousness which is
of the law, but that righteousness which is through the faith of
Christ by His doing, by His dying. The righteousness which God has
provided and gives freely through faith in His Son. And he said
this, remember these four things we saw? He said, I will know
Him. This is what He's teaching us
through His sufferings. I want to know Him. He's going
to teach us to know Him better through these sufferings. I want
to know the power of His resurrection. What's going to keep me alive
and not falling away and trusting Him in all persecution? What's
going to keep me seeking only to please Him? The power of His
resurrection. I want to know the fellowship
of his sufferings. He suffered, why shouldn't I
suffer? He was rejected and despised of men, why shouldn't I be? I
should rejoice that that's the case. He tells me, rejoice that
you're rejected. So was all God's people before
you. And I want to be made conformable unto His death. That is, whatever
God's willing for me to suffer, I want to bow to it and suffer
just like Christ did when He was so submissive to God's will,
so obedient that He went to the cross and suffered the cross
so that I might attain the resurrection of the dead. So the first answer
you give to our accusers, anybody that wants to accuse your brethren,
your preacher, your brethren or any of God's faithful people,
anything that they accuse us of, you just say this, We're living the way we're living.
And that brother's living the way they're living because they
know Christ has created for them an eternal abode in heaven. It's
theirs. They have the earnestness of
the Spirit guaranteeing them it's theirs. And so now they're
living in this life simply because they want to honor and glorify
and please their living Redeemer. That's the first answer. Alright,
here's the second thing. The reason that we believe and
preach as we do is we know something of the urgency of preaching to
perishing sinners. Why don't you alter the Word
of God? Why do you preach on that? Because I know something
about the urgency of perishing sinners. Look in verse 10. For
we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that
everyone may receive the things done in his body according to
that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore
the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Believers know, every one
of us here that have been called by God and taught by God, we
know that all of Adam's race shall one day stand before the
judgment seat of Christ. Brother Art just read a very
appropriate scripture. You can kick up your heels all
your life and you can live all your days in rebellion against
God, but know this, one day you're coming into judgment before God.
And as Brother Angus said, you're either going to bow to Him now
or you're going to bow to Him then. But every knee is going
to bow to Christ. Every knee is going to bow. All
judgment has been committed to the Son of God. He will be the
judge. The very one that we've been
using His name in vain and cussing Him and rebelling against Him,
that one that we rejected all our days, if we pass through
this life rejecting Christ, He's going to be the judge. He will
be the judge. And not only that, He will be
the measure of righteousness that all men outside of Christ
will be measured by, so that none will come up to that measure.
It's not going to be you measured against, you know, this guy that
you know you're better than, so you pick him out and say,
well, I'm better than him. It won't be that guy. It's going
to be the man Christ Jesus. that perfect servant of God,
righteous and holy and perfect, that we're going to be judged
against. And that's why every single person will come up not
having the righteousness, the only righteousness God will receive,
because the only righteousness God will receive is His Son,
the only one. And so brethren, now those without
Christ, we know that those without Christ who refuse to bow to Christ,
who forsake His gospel, who forsake His people, who forsake Him,
who will not bow to Christ? They are not going to be covered
in the righteousness of Christ when they stand before Him in
that day, so they will be guilty before God. Christ will find
each one guilty who is not robed in His own righteousness through
faith in Him. And not only that, it will be
proven that every motive of the heart, everything that appeared
like it was a good work, will be proven it was a wicked work
because the motive of the heart was selfish and from a wicked
heart. Because Christ is not the holiness of the new heart.
You see, there's no getting around this. You see, the Scripture
says this, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men
by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. All secrets are going
to be known in that day by Christ being the judge and by Christ
being the one we are judged against. But now those who believe on
Christ by the grace of God, you and I who trust Christ by His
grace, we don't have any sin because Christ bore the sin away
at Calvary. We don't have any sin. Listen,
there is therefore right now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh, but
after the Spirit of God. There is no condemnation, past,
present or future. Christ has put our sins away
and the Father says, I remember your sins no more. Now, when we come into God's
presence in that day, we're not going to be saying we did something
to gradually perfect ourselves by our works and by our labors. That's not what we're going to
be boasting in. Our boasting that day is going to be what
it is right now. By one offering, Christ has perfected
us forever. Christ did the perfecting. He
did it at Calvary by His one offering. We didn't do it. And what about our works? What
about the believer's works when we come into God's presence?
All the labor of the believer in the cause of Christ will be
found to be good works at the last judgment. Every labor in
the cause of Christ by the believer will be found to be a good work
in that day of judgment. How so? Not as a cause to give
us eternal life and to give us that heavenly inheritance. Not
as a cause. But as fruit, as fruit, because
we were filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by
Jesus Christ. They are produced in His people
by Jesus Christ and they are produced unto the glory and praise
of God. He gets the glory and He gets
the praise for producing any fruit in His people that results
in a good work. He gets all the glory for it.
Christ is going to manifest before everybody in the Day of Judgment
that every true believer, He is going to show our works in
that day. And in that day He is going to
say, He is going to manifest to all that we were indeed justified
in that we profess we believe Christ and we're justified that
our profession was true. And he's going to bring forth
all the works and say, see, they did this. Remember in the Gospel
where he says, I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and
you gave me drink. Now we're going to stand there
and say, Lord, when did we ever do any of that? But he's going
to bring it all forth and justify The fact, using those works to
justify that our faith was a genuine thing. It was His gift. And not
only that, those same works are going to justify Him for declaring
us to be true children of God. And here's the beauty of it,
we didn't produce any of it. He produced it all. He did everything
to make us righteous and holy before the holy bar of God's
judgment. And He also produced the fruits
in us. So that when we come forward,
everything that he's going to show, all the perfect obedience
to the law that he did, all the perfect holiness of heart that
was in his heart, all the good works that he produced that was
the fruit that he produced in his people in this life, all
of that, he's going to say, we did it. And he's going to say, they're
my people. I'm well pleased with them. So
we're not talking about here that the believers are terrified
of standing before God because we're afraid one day we're going
to be judged for our works and we're hoping that our good works
outweigh our bad works even as believers. No, that's not it
at all. We're afraid for you who don't
know Christ. That's where our fear is. Look
at verse 11. Knowing therefore the terror
of the Lord, we persuade men. We know we're going to all stand
before the judgment seat of Christ. We're not afraid that we're going
to stand before the judgment seat of Christ because we trust
Christ. We believe Christ and we're counting
on Him being all in the day of judgment. What we're afraid of
is you that don't know the Lord. That's what motivates us to preach
only Christ not get caught up in secondary things that don't
matter. Since the day I started preaching,
there's been various things that have come up from different ones
that are sort of outside and never really been fellowshippers
with the people that I am fellowshippers with. And they've always come
up with these little controversies, you know, and they've attacked
me on these things. I've been attacked on these things.
And it's like the devil's just dangling a little bait in front
of you. And it's tempting, because you want to defend yourself and
you want to defend your doctrine and you want to show what the
Scriptures say, but if you get caught up in that, you end up trying to defend just
some doctrine. I've got something that's much
more urgent than that. I'm ministering to sinners who
are perishing and who will soon stand before God in judgment. And I don't have time to be getting
carried away into debating with men over superlapsarianism or
whatever other doctrine of the day they won't argue about. I
just don't have time for that. Sinners are perishing. And I've
given a command to priests to perishing sinners. And knowing
the terror of the Lord. Have you ever considered the
terror of the Lord? Listen to this. Who can stand
before His indignation? Who can abide in the fierceness
of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire
and the rocks are thrown down by Him. You ever, just to give
us a little idea, just a little hint, just a little glimpse of
the fury. Not a total looking at the fierceness
of Israel, but you look at earthquakes, and you look at volcanoes, and
you look at tsunamis, and you look at hurricanes, and tornadoes,
and you'll see something. Just a little glimpse of the
fierceness of God's wrath. Do I think I can stand before
His indignation without a covering and be accepted of Him and withstand
that? You want to see where you see
it most clearly? Look to Calvary's cross. When
our Lord made His Son to bear the sin of His people, our Lord
spared not His own Son because He will not clear the guilty.
And He poured out the fierceness of His wrath on Him. And we can't
even comprehend fully what was taking place there. His visage
marred more than any man. It has more to do with just sinners
inflicting wounds upon Him by sinful man's hands. It has to
do with Him... If you go through and you read,
He bore our griefs and our sorrows. He bore every effect of sin that
sin causes. He bore that. He bore the wounds
and the bruising due to our sin, that our sin causes in addition
to the payment of justice for it. He bore the chastisement of our
peace, the stripes that it took, the wounds of His soul that it
took to guarantee peace for His people. He bore that. I guarantee you, if we really
saw Christ, we wouldn't go and sit down at a movie theater and
eat popcorn and look at it. And look at something Hollywood
made. You probably wouldn't be able to stand it. Most everybody
left. That centurion, it made him look
up and say, man didn't do this. This was indeed the Son of God.
And we think we won't be able to stand before that? See, He
bore that. You know who He bore it for?
Needy, guilty, helpless sinners. Not righteous folks. Needy, guilty,
helpless sinners. That's who He bore that for.
Now why won't you come to Christ and cast your care on Christ
and trust Him and bow to Him now in grace and mercy rather
than at the Day of Judgment? See, the problem is, don't think
it's your sin keeping you from Christ. It's righteousness keeping
you from Christ. Men don't come to Christ because
they think they're good enough, they don't need Him. And men
that do see their sin start thinking, well, I need to get a little
better before I come to it. Listen to me. There's an article
I put in the bulletin this week about this orphan. I read this.
This orphan was walking down the street during the depression
and he came to this window and he's looking in this window and
there's this long line of hot food and he's so hungry. He's
just starving. His stomach's just in knots looking
at all that good hot food. And a man comes up to him and
he says, son, why don't you go in and eat? And he said, I can't
go in. He said, I'm dirty. My hands
are dirty, my feet are dirty, my face is dirty. I can't go
in. My clothes are dirty." And the man said, are you an orphan,
son? He said, yes, sir. He said, this feast is just for
orphans. Go in there and eat. This feast
is just for sinners. Sin does not disqualify us from
coming to Christ. Sin is the qualification to come
to Christ. You can't come to Christ unless
you are a dirty, filthy sinner that can do nothing. Christ said,
I didn't come to call the righteous to repentance. I came to call
sinners. You won't be qualified to come
to Christ. You've got to be a nothing, low-down, hell-deserving rebel
against God. It's nothing but sin and can
produce nothing but sin. And come to God, bow down. Lord,
if you will, you can make me clean. He'll receive you. He'll
receive you. Oh, there's so much. He'll receive
you if you come to Him now like this. But in that day, if you
try to stand before the fierceness of His indignation, there's no
way. You'll bow the knee and be cast
out forever. So you tell folks, if they want
to know, why won't your preacher get involved with these controversies?
Why won't he get wrapped up in this? I'm going to preach on
the things and I'm going to preach what Scripture says about it
when I come to it in the Scriptures. But I'm not going to make a point
of just answering debaters for the sake of that. I'm not doing
that. I've been here ten years and I've not done it yet. When
I've dealt with it, I've dealt with it. And I'm going to deal
with it according to the Scripture. I'm going to show you what the
Scripture says. but I'm not interested in that. Centers are perishing
and we know something about the urgency of that, don't we? So
we're not interested in that. Thirdly, Paul says this, in all
of this We're giving you something to answer those that glory in
appearance, to defend us rather than joining with accusers. Now
this is important to understand. Verse 12, We're made manifest
unto God, and I trust also are made manifest in your conscience.
For we commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you
occasion to glory on our behalf, that you may have somewhat to
answer them which glory in appearance and not in heart. Now Christ's
preachers are openly manifest before God. This is something
Paul dealt with earlier. One reason we don't corrupt the
Word of God is we have to give account to God. We're openly
manifest before God in everything that we're doing and saying.
And a faithful preacher of God, that weighs on you. That's heavy. You make sure when you preach
something that you know what you're preaching is according
to this Word or you don't say it. You just skip it and go on.
Better to skip it and go on than to say something that's not so,
and you can't back up with the Word. So we're open and manifest
before God, but also here's what else happens. As God speaks through
His preacher, He commends the gospel that we preach and thus
the preacher that He's using into the hearts of His people
by writing the gospel on the hearts of His people. So that
I don't have to ask you to defend me. You're going to defend me.
And you don't have to worry about if I'm going to defend you. I'm
going to defend you because He's made us one in Christ. And that's
so with all His people everywhere. I don't even live near Brother
Angus. And I can tell you this, if he finds out somebody is accusing
me, he'll defend me. And I'll do the same for him
because God's made us one in Spirit and in truth. Now listen
to this. Look back at chapter 3 and look
at verse 1. I'll show you this. We preached
on this but I want you to just read it for now. Do we begin
again to commend ourselves or do we need as some others epistles
of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? Ye
are our epistle. written in our hearts and written
in your heart. He's saying, known and read of
all men for as much as you are manifestly declared. You are
manifestly declared, openly shown to be the epistle of Christ ministered
by us through the preaching of the gospel. Written not with
ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. Not in tables of
stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. And such trust
have we through Christ to God. That's what he said now in our
text. He said, we're openly manifest to God and we trust we are to
you in your conscience. And this trust we have because
of Christ and our God writing the Word on your heart. So what
I'm saying is, He makes us one. So the brethren are going to
defend brethren. Now let me ask you something. Fathers and mothers,
do you have to be coerced into defending your children? No,
it just comes natural, don't it? Because they're yours. Well,
believers have a stronger union than that. And we don't have
to be coerced into defending one another. You want to get
on the wrong side of me? Run down one of my brethren.
You'll get there fast. So, that's because God's made
us one. And so, he's saying here, his
purpose here in declaring all these reasons is to show how
Christ makes us one through the gospel. And so as Christ's witnesses
are faithful to Christ, brethren are given something to answer
our accusers. Now listen to that, as Christ's
witnesses are faithful to Christ, as you hear the gospel being
preached to you right now in truth, you're being given something
to answer the accusers of why we believe and preach and serve
as we do. See, you've been given this.
Because we're not commending ourselves to you by doing it,
but the Spirit of God is bearing witness in your heart that what
you're hearing is true. That's what He does. Paul and
all God's true people, glory in heart. We worship God in spirit,
rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
See, this is a oneness of spirit. It's a oneness of heart. Because
Brother Angus and I were talking about just a while ago. I told
him, I said, I like that you come all the way from the other
side of the world and preach the same message I'm preaching.
And he said, that's what our brethren were so rejoiced in
when you came all the way from here down there and preached.
And we ended by saying this, it's coming from the same throne
of glory by the same Spirit, so it's the same message. It's
not divided by hills and valleys and oceans. Christ is speaking
in the hearts of His people and He makes us one. And so, He tells
us here now that we glory in spirit, but there are some who
will... Everybody who separates from
God's people, this is fact. This is fact. Everybody who does not bow to
Christ and separates from God's people are glorying in appearance.
They're glorying in appearance. That's just fact. Far more subtle. Now, you and
I can recognize people who are glorying in the flesh when they
go back to the law, you know, and want to go back to the law.
We can recognize that. But I'll tell you something,
it's far more subtle there and far more dangerous than that.
And that's people who glory in knowledge. Far more dangerous. It's called Gnosticism. It's
been something that's been around forever, since the early church.
Here's what Gnosticism does. It defines faith as giving mental
assent to doctrinal facts. That's not faith. We don't come
to faith in Christ by learning doctrinal facts and giving mental
assent to them. Christ said, if any man shall
do his will, what's the will of God? Believe on Christ. Have
faith in Christ. Any man that would do his will,
he shall know the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak
of myself. Let me see if I can put this plainly for you. Faith
is a gift of God given to us in the new birth. Faith's a gift
of God given to us in the new birth. It's what makes a sinner
go from sitting in here in the gospel priest and having no interest
or no care whatsoever to one day hanging on every word. He
don't know what's happened yet. He don't even know if he believes
God yet. But now all of a sudden all he knows is he's wanting
to hear now whereas before he didn't want to hear. God's given
him life and given him faith and He's drawing him and he don't
know what's happening. And then as he hears that gospel through
faith, the Spirit of God teaches him and he begins to see himself
a sinner and believes what God says about him. And he begins
to see Christ as his only Savior and believes what God's Word
says about him. And he finds himself believing God and casting
all his care on Christ. What's happened? God has given
him faith in Christ and through pointing him to Christ and making
him learn of Christ, now he sees everything in its proper light.
You are not going to see doctrine in its proper light until you
see Christ and know Christ. Then you start learning the doctrine.
Before then, you can learn a system of doctrine and argue it and
be as cold hearted and mean as a snake. What's the difference
in this way He does this? When He does this, He gives you
a soft, tender heart of conviction, and of faith, and of hope, and
of love. Let me tell you what this heart
of love is. God is love. And when a person is born of
God, forgotten of God, he loves his brethren. Because this is
God dwelling in him, right here. This is the love that's in him
by God dwelling in him. Charity suffereth long. and is kind. Charity envieth
not, charity vaunteth not itself, and is not puffed up. It doesn't
behave itself unseemly, it seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked. Listen to this, thinketh no evil. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, doesn't
rejoice to hear any kind of controversy or give ear to it or eye to it. Doesn't rejoice in that, but
rejoices in the truth. Bears all things. I'm talking
about toward brethren. Bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love that
God gives makes you put the very best construction on anything
you see in your brethren. It makes you long suffering with
their downfall. It makes you know this, God's
sovereign. If I have the love of God in
my heart, that's not just a doctrine. I know God's able to make my
brother stand. If he's in error, I can just
sit and wait on God. God's going to teach him. But
if I don't have the love of God in my heart, it won't be that
way. Let me ask you, could you forsake
your wife? Could you forsake your mother?
Could you forsake your daughter if they were off in doctrine? Could you? Could we forsake our
brethren? No. You can't do it. I'm telling you what God's Word
says. That's it. His heart is new. His heart's soft. His heart's
tender. He's longsuffering, waiting on God. He hopes the best. He endures. He waits on God. How can you think a bunch of Folks like us could stand to
be around each other. You know? It's love of God that
makes you overlook one another's downfall and continue together. Because He's made you one. But
the naturally taught heart. Now I'm saying the naturally
taught heart. He doesn't know anything of heart, faith, and
hope, and love that God gives. And those who glory in appearance,
Scripture says, knowledge puffs up. It puffs up. and they're cold-hearted toward
God's saints instead of having the love of God which can't forsake
brethren. You can't forsake brethren you
love. One time we were in a fuss at a place, and we get sideways
sometimes, and it takes somebody just bluntly saying something
to us to wake us up. But we were all divided one time
at a place I was at, and one of the preachers came and he
said, this doctrine means a lot to you, don't it? Yes, it does. We want to stand for the glory
of God. Would you divorce your wife over it? Would you leave your child over
it? Would you separate from your child over it? Will you sell
your house and pack up and move where the gospel is preached
so you can be sitting under the gospel? If you are going to leave
it here, are you going to do that? Well, you know, it might not
be the end-all be-all that I thought it was. I believe I can wait
on God to teach my brother. I believe I can wait on Him.
You know, when we get to glory, we're going to find out there's
a lot of doctrine that we're wrong on. A lot of doctrine we
didn't even get the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg
on it. But we're going to find out it wasn't our knowledge that
saved us, it was Christ that saved us. And if we have that love in our
heart, you know what we'll do? We'll wait on the Lord. We'll
wait on the Lord. But that natural heart is going
to argue and debate and accuse and receive only those that strictly
agree in their understanding of doctrine. And let me tell
you something, the natural heart's understanding of doctrine is
only in what the natural heart can conceive and logically comprehend
God doing. I can tell you that. Anything
that's beyond the logical explanation, no, we won't receive that. Great is the mystery of godliness,
brethren. God was manifesting the faith. I can't explain that.
See, let me get to this last thing. I'm on a hurry. So if
somebody says something about, you know, why are you defending
your brother? You can just tell them because
we've been made one by the Gospel. God's given us love in our hearts
for one another and we can't divide over anything. We're going
to be with them for eternity. We're going to defend them. I trust God has made you know
in your heart these three things about me and about all these
our brethren. And if we know these three things,
this is the answer Paul gives to defend our brethren against
those whose glory and appearance are not in heart. Here are three
more things he gives right here. Number one, if we are accused
of being fanatical or being mystics for preaching the mysteries of
God which are beyond human conception, Paul says whether we be beside
ourselves is to God. He said, if men want to say I'm
crazy for preaching what I'm preaching, and I can't explain
some of the things I have to declare, and they want to call
me a mystic or whatever they want to call me for doing that,
say I'm beside myself. Much learning has made you mad.
Paul said, if that's the case, I'm a fool for Christ. I'm just
a fool for Christ. Do you believe God? I believe
God. I can't explain everything He
teaches us, but I believe Him. I believe Him. Great is the mystery
of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.
Think about that. God was manifest in human flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, priests unto the Gentiles,
believed all in the world, received up into glory. Great is the mystery
of godliness. The lawgiver was made under the
law. Great is the mystery of godliness. The Lamb of God was
made sin for us. The spotless Lamb of God was
made sin for us. Great is the mystery of Godliness.
Christ, who was the one who pronounced the curse, was made a curse for
us. Great is the mystery of Godliness. God purchased the church with
His own blood. God purchased the church with
His blood? Great is the mystery of Godliness.
Christ the life died and was buried in a tomb. Can you believe
that? Christ the life. died. I don't know why men don't call
me a mystic for saying that God in human flesh died and we buried
His body in a tomb. Because I sure can't explain
that. But all His people died in Him
and were buried in Him. Can you explain that? God is
the mystery, great is the mystery of God and it's Christ who died,
arose from the dead and all those for whom He died arose and sat
down in glory in Him. I can't explain that. Grace is
the mystery of godliness. A glorified man who is God is
seated at God's right hand, right now, ruling and reigning everything
in this earth, calling His people to Himself, filling all in all
His people. I can't explain that. Great is
the mystery of godliness. He gives sinners eternal life
and makes us to know Him and makes us to know we're one with
Him, so one as He is one with the Father and the Father with
Him. Do you want me to explain that to you? There is no way
I can do it. Great is the mystery of God,
and as Christ sends forth His Gospel and sends forth the Holy
Spirit and gives us life and faith and calls us to Himself,
and He will lose not one of His redeemed. Can I explain to you
how He is able to do that? Great is the mystery of God,
and as Christ is coming again, we are going to see Him coming
in the clouds as they saw Him go. Explain that to me. Explain to me the logistics of
that and the ins and outs of that, how that's going to happen.
I have no idea. But it's so. Every eye is going
to see Him. Brother Scott had a good point last night. With
all the cameras we got now, you can't do nothing without every
eye seeing Him. Maybe God did that so that when He comes back,
every eye can see Christ coming. I can't explain the mystery of
godliness, but I tell you what I can do. I can believe God by
His grace. And that's what I do. So if I'm
crazy for preaching these things, you just tell people, I'm crazy
for God. I'm crazy, I'm a fool for Christ's
sake. You tell them that. And number two, if I'm too serious
and dogmatic because I refuse to preach in glory in any but
Christ and Him crucified, then know this, verse 13, whether
we be sober is for your cause. God is love, and God abides in
us, and God's saints love and desire to see other sinners saved
through the preaching of Christ. We want to see Christ have all
the glory. We want to see sinners saved. So we preach the truth,
and we refuse to compromise because of it. So if you want to... This
is so of me, you, any of us. If they accuse you of, why does
he just want to hear Christ preached all the time? I'll say because. Because he wants to hear sinners.
He wants to see sinners saved. He's got a love for sinners.
He wants to see them saved. He supports that gospel because
he knows this is how God's going to save sinners. He knows this
is how God saved him. That's why he does it. Same reason
I preach it. And here's the last thing. These
things are true of all God's preachers and all God's people.
The love of Christ, that love of Christ for us constrains us
because we thus judge. We have this discernment that
if one died for all, then we're all dead. What does that mean?
It means that when Christ died, all for whom He died, our old
man of sin, our body of sin died right then. Scripture says, knowing
this, our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin
might be destroyed. Our old man is crucified with
Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth
we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed
from sin. It means justified. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin. All for whom Christ died are
dead to sin. Our old man is dead. He's answered
to justice. He's suffered hell eternally
already. Number two, all for whom Christ died, died to the
law when Christ died. My brethren, you become dead
to the law by the body of Christ. That means the law has nothing
to say to a dead man. Whenever Lee Harvey Oswald was
coming out and everybody wanted to see him arrested and wanted
to see him taken to justice for allegedly shooting President
Kennedy and Jack Ruby stepped out and shot him, guess what?
The law had nothing else to say to him. He's a dead man. He said,
you're a dead man. The law's got nothing else to
say to you. For those that died in Christ, trust Him. And number
three, it means this, all for whom Christ died, the law died
to us when Christ died. He says, now we're delivered
from the law, that being dead where we were held. What does
that mean that the law is dead? It means this. Christ gave the
law all it demanded for His people so that His people owe the law
nothing. Just like the law is not looking to us, wanting anything
from us because we're dead to the law, the law is dead to us
so that we owe the law nothing. That's what it means. When Christ
died, all died. That's what we have discernment
to know that. And now, we that live, live unto Him. Verse 15,
And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth
live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose
again. He says, in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Christ does.
Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be alive unto God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Yield yourselves unto God as
those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments
of righteousness unto God. How do you reckon you'll live
to God when He raises us from the dead in the last resurrection? Well, He says, right now you're
raised, so live to Him that way. Live to Him that way. Nothing
between you and God. Just live to Him that way. Listen, he says,
now being made free from sin, you become servants to God. You
are able to serve Him now. You become dead to the law by
the body of Christ, that you should be married to Christ who
was raised from the dead, that you bring forth fruit unto God.
We serve it in newness of spirit now. The letter of the law has
nothing to do with it. Newness of spirit is about principle. A principle can apply to so many
different situations. The law just applies to certain
situations. A principle, newness of spirit,
applies to everywhere, everything that happens to you in life.
You ever notice that? The Scripture don't deal with
specifics, it deals with principles. That's newness of spirit, walking
in the principles of God that He's taught us. So brethren,
this is it now. Defend one another to our accusers,
telling them that we have an eternal house waiting for us
and so we want to please God in everything we do. Number two,
we know the urgency of preaching to perishing sinners. That's
why we preach and serve as we do. Number three, the heart of
our brethren is one with us. Christ has made us living epistles
and therefore we defend one another. And number four, we are constrained
by the love of Christ to no longer live unto ourselves but to live
unto Him. That's why, let people get offended all they want to.
That's why we have to keep preaching God's Word and not backing up.
So you defend one another with that. Sorry I kept you so long. Alright brethren. Brother Eric,
if you will lead us in a closing hymn.