Brethren, let's go back now to
2 Corinthians 4. I was so moved by this after
I finished working on the other message. I kind of came upon
this as I was working on the other message. And so I knew
I really wanted to preach this in conjunction with that message.
And what it is, I want to deal a little bit more with the context
of why Paul has been writing the things he's been writing
in 2 Corinthians. He began several chapters back
and he began declaring why we preach and why we preach only
Christ. Why we preach and why we preach
only Christ. The first thing he said is thanks
be unto God who always causes us to triumph. He makes manifest
the savor of His knowledge by us in every place we preach,
whether people believe it or not. He said that's why we preach
Christ, because God makes us triumph in Christ through this
gospel. And he said that's because we don't corrupt the Word of
God as many do, but we preach Christ only. And then he said,
the reason that we preach Christ is because we've been made by
God able ministers of the New Covenant and the New Covenant
is so much more glorious than the Old Covenant. That's why
we preach Christ because all the covenants in Him and this
New Covenant is so much more glorious than that Old Covenant.
And he said, And the reason we preach, and the reason we preach
Christ crucified is because the Spirit uses the Word to show
us Christ and to change His people into His image. And He said,
that's how, we're not commending ourselves, He said. He said,
this is how we're commended to you as a true preacher of the
Gospel. God writes His Word on your heart. So that's why we
preach. God made us ministers for that
purpose, and He sent us forth to preach only Christ the Lord.
And then He says this in 2 Corinthians 4, 5, He said, So our one means
and our one message is the preaching of Christ to Him crucified. He
said, We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and
ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. Then in verse 6 he declared
the reason we preach and why we only preach Christ. This is
how we came to know Christ and why we only preach Christ. For
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Christ Jesus. And now in verse 7 he
declares why God is pleased to reveal Christ through the preaching
of the gospel, using earthen vessels to preach it. You see,
everything he is declaring is why we preach and why we preach
Christ. And I will show you towards the
end of the message why he is declaring this. It was very needful. But he says here now, this is
why God is pleased to use the means of preaching and the message
of Christ crucified to reveal Christ in the hearts of His people
and to use earthen vessels, just sinners, saved by grace, to do
the preaching. This is why He is pleased to
do it. Verse 7, But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. There is the reason. I've titled
this, that the power be of God. That's the reason. That's the
reason God chose to have us preach the gospel of Christ and use
the means of preaching. That's the reason that He chose
to use earthen vessels to preach Christ. That the power might
be of God and not of us. This is what I want you to see.
We preach Christ crucified because those who have experienced the
power of God that we just looked at in verse 6. Those that have
experienced this power of God know that only God can work this
power in others. And we know that it pleased God
to do so through the preaching of Christ. We know it because that's the
means He used to do it to us. If He's done this, this is the
means He did it by. To deny that is to have a form
of godliness and deny the power thereof. Because the purpose
is that the power be of God and not of us. First of all, we have
this treasure. We have this treasure. Now, when
God shines in our hearts, He gives the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the treasure
we have. Within us we have this treasure.
We have the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of the
Lord Jesus Christ. God's given that to us. That's
the treasure within us. Go over to 2 Peter 1. Hold your
place here. And I want you to listen to Peter
talk about these things. He said there in 2 Peter 1 verse
1, He said, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ,
to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through
the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Now
through the gospel, by making us behold the glory of God in
Christ, God makes us servants. He makes us His servants. He
gives you the heart of a servant. Isn't that a great treasure that
God gives? We have this treasure. We have been given the heart
of a servant. And He says, and God has given
us like precious faith in Christ Jesus our Lord with a multitude
of brethren. What a precious treasure faith
in Christ is. This is the faith He gives to
all His saints. And He's made us His new creation
through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. He's done this through Christ,
through the righteousness of God our Savior. And He's made
us the righteousness of God our Savior. We know that now through
this gospel. Verse 2, Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you. How? Through the knowledge of
God and of Jesus our Lord. Now how do we get that knowledge? Paul said through the preaching
of the gospel, we preach Christ and Him crucified. We don't preach
ourselves, we preach Christ and are crucified because God shined
the light in our hearts to reveal this knowledge and He's done
it. He's put this in earthen vessels that the excellency and
the power be of God and not of us. He said this is why we preach.
So through the gospel, God gave us the treasure of God's grace
and God's peace. That's how we have peace. We
behold Christ the Lord. As Brother Scott just said, He
made us behold Him. When we're too busy and we're
looking at other things and we're not attending the preaching of
His Word and going home and studying the Word and hearing the Gospel
declared, brethren, we lose that peace. And we're not very gracious,
are we? This grace and this peace is
multiplied. We're growing it. through the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The way He gave
it to us the first time is how He grows us in it, through the
knowledge of Christ. And then verse 3, According as
His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto
life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that hath called
us to glory and virtue. You see, through this same preaching
by God's divine power, now get that, He's given us all things
that pertain to life and godliness. He made us, making us to behold
Christ and to see the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Christ through the gospel. He's given us all things that
pertain to life and godliness. How is He going to continue to
do that? How is He going to continue to grow is to make us see that
it's by looking to Christ and hearing Him declare in His Gospel
that we have all things that pertain to life and godliness.
It's going to be through hearing this Word preached over and over.
Same way He began it. Same way He did it. Look here
now, verse 4, "...whereby are given to us exceeding great and
precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust." through the preaching of the gospel,
making us behold His covenant glory in Christ. God's given
us all those exceeding great and precious promises. Christ
is that covenant. We behold the Lord God, the covenant
Lord God in all these great and precious promises because He's
made us behold Christ. And by Christ the light shining
in our hearts, He's created a new heart within us so that we've
been made a partaker of the divine nature now. And by doing so we've
escaped the corruption that's in the world through lust. He
subdued your old man and increased that new man in the knowledge
and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that you've escaped the corruptions
of this world through lust. Now look at this, verse 5 says,
and besides this, What does that mean? Well, God's given us an
earnest desire. If He's preached this gospel
to us in our hearts and made us to behold the glory of God
in the face of Christ, He's given us an earnest desire to grow
in the grace and knowledge of Christ. And so, He's taught us
by using this means of His gospel to give all diligence, and to
add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge
temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness,
and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness. For
if these things be in you and abound, here's what He's saying,
they prove that you're not unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ. You've been grown in this grace
through the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So all this
treasure we have, brethren, is by Christ's light shining into
our hearts and God making us to behold the light of Christ,
I mean the glory of God in the face of Christ. Now does anybody
wonder then why God's preacher only preaches Christ and Him
crucified? If this treasure is what we've
received through the preaching of Christ and Him crucified.
You know what we're going to want to preach? Christ and Him
crucified. Because we know this is how God's
going to continue to grow us in that grace and knowledge of
Christ, is through the preaching of Christ and Him crucified.
And everybody that's ever seen Christ through this gospel feels
the same exact way. I came here to hear Christ. Everything
I need that pertains to life and godliness, I'm going to get
through the knowledge of Christ. Preach Christ to me. Preach Christ
to me. This is how He's given us all
things. Brother Kevin, can you turn that air, make it hotter,
just a little hotter. Secondly, now because He's done
that work in us, go back to 2 Corinthians 4.7. Now we know something about
ourselves. Because we have this treasure
now, we know something about ourselves that we didn't know
before. Verse 7, we have this treasure in earthen vessels. In earthen vessels. You know,
the Apostle Paul thought he had knowledge of God once. Go look
at Philippians 3. Paul thought he had knowledge
of God once. He was sincere in everything
he did. He thought he had knowledge of
God. But his so-called knowledge was doing one thing, giving him
confidence in his flesh. That's what his so-called knowledge
was, confidence in his flesh. He said in verse 4, Though I
might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other thinketh
that he hath whereof the glory, Whereof he might trust in the
flesh, I more, he said, circumcised the eighth day of the stock of
Israel. He said, I was circumcised, my
mother and father circumcised me the eighth day. He said, I
was of the stock of Israel. I was an Israelite of the flesh.
Not only that, I was of the tribe of Benjamin, the special tribe. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
as touching the law, a Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting
the church, touching the righteousness that was in the law, blameless.
Paul said, hold your place there, he said, I had confidence in
my flesh, in all my power, and that's what we had, brethren.
So this light was made to shine in our heart, that's all we had.
We looked to this vain world's religion, we looked to our own
learning, and thought that we had great knowledge thereby.
And do you think when Paul was deceived, the heart's deceitful
above all things, do you think Paul thought he was lost? No,
Paul didn't think he was lost. He thought he knew God. We try
to make ourselves judges of doctrine by learning and studying doctrine. That's not how you come to discern
doctrine. That's not how we come to know
No true doctrine. Read that article I put in the
bulletin. I'll say it again. The Pharisees thought that. And
the Lord Jesus said, if you do the will of God, what's the will
of God? You believe on Him whom He sent.
Believe on Christ. He said, you do the will of God
and then you'll know the doctrine. See, first what has to happen
is this light has got to be shined in our heart by God giving us
an understanding of His glory in the face of Christ. And He
does that through the preaching of Christ and Him crucified.
And then we'll discover, I'm just an earthen vessel. Everything
I had confidence in is wrong. We thought we made ourselves
righteous and holy by our obedience and we tried to browbeat it into
others. We tried to force our doctrine
on people and force them to understand what we know and force them to
do like we do and walk like we walk. That was so whether we
knew whether the doctrine we were forcing was true doctrine
or false doctrine. We were trying to force it on
folks. And when Christ made His light to shine, we realized all
our confidence was in our flesh. Every bit of it. And because
we had all this confidence in our flesh and we try to make
converts ourselves, if somebody rejected us, If we heard the
truth preached or they rejected us because of our way, you know
what we did? We persecuted them just like
Paul did the church. But what did Paul find out? And
how did he find it out? Here's what he learned. Here's
what we learned and here's how we learned it. Philippians 3.7.
What things were gained of me? Those things I counted lost for
Christ. He's made to see Christ. He's
made to see the glory of God in the face of Christ. He ain't
doubtless. And I count all things but loss for what? The excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. What did God do when
He shined in our hearts? Paul said we preach Christ's
name crucified for one reason. For God has shined in our hearts. And He's given us the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus.
And when He did this, we realized we have this treasure in earth
and vessels, the powers of God, not of us. So what do we want
now? What do we desire and seek after
now? The excellency of the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. We want to know more of Him.
Why? It's for him that I've suffered the loss of all these things
and do count them but none that I might win Christ and be found
in him, not having mine own righteousness which is the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ. What does that mean? That which
is through Christ the light coming to me through the gospel and
shining this light in my heart and giving me this knowledge.
The faithful Christ, by him faithfully doing that for me. So that then
I might have the righteousness which is of God by faith, by
believing on Christ. It's by the faithful Christ,
the faith of Christ that I was given faith in Christ. I want
that knowledge of Christ that I might know Him. That's what
I want. I want to know Him. But I thought
you knew Him. I do. I want to know Him more. And
I want to know the power. I want to know the power of His
resurrection. I want to know the power of God. I want to know
Him and know His power so that I know the fellowship of His
sufferings and I may conformable unto His death. You see, when
God in all His great power gives a true knowledge by revealing
Christ in us, that's when we find out that we're just helpless
earthen vessels and we have no power and nothing we've ever
done. Nothing we've ever done. We might
have even said, vainly saying in false humility, oh, I'm just
an earthen vessel. We might have even said that.
I'm telling you, when God shines His light in your heart, It's
not just something you say. It's not just something you've
learned. It's not just a doctrine anymore. Everything is real. Christ is real. God's glory is
real. My redemption is real. And my
depravity is real. I see what I am now. And I know
it. And now everything that I once
thought was knowledge, everything I thought the world was so wise,
boy, they must really have some knowledge to build a big old
building like that and have all that many people in cars in the
parking lot. I will find out what tactics they're using. All
the things I thought was knowledge is just ignorance to me now.
It's just ignorance to me now. I want one thing. I want the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ. That's what I want. And
I'll tell you what, when He does this work through the means that
pleases Him, this preaching of the Word, you know what He's
going to do? He's going to break our heart. He's going to break our
heart. Christ said, believe on Me and
take My yoke upon you. What does that mean? He said,
take My yoke upon you and learn of Me. What does that mean? It
means we are going to quit bucking against how God says we are going
to be saved. And we are going to believe on
Christ and we are going to slip His yoke on us. And we are going
to start submitting to how God says He saves sinners. And now
we are going to be happy to be taught of Christ, about Christ,
through the means God has been pleased to reveal Christ. And
I tell you what, that's the only kind of people God uses. Turn
over to Isaiah 66, verse 1. He uses these broken vessels.
These vessels He's broken and given a broken heart, He uses
them to build His house. That's right, he uses them to
preach his gospel and through that gospel, God does this work
in the hearts of others and he builds his house. This is the
only kind of man he looks to, to do this work through. Isaiah
66, verse 1, Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, the
earth is my footstool, where is the house that you are going
to build to me? Where is the place of my rest? For all those
things hath my hand made. You see, isn't this just like
us, you know? What if you built me? Where's
the house you've built me? And if lost in our sin, we'll
go, well, look, look, look at this house we built for you.
And look at that parking lot we built for you. And look at
the pews we've got set up here. And look at all the people that
are here. And look at all these things
that we've done for you. We've built this for you. He
said, I made all that. You haven't created anything.
I made all that. You see, this new creation is
a total new creation God makes out of nothing. So how is He
going to do it? Who is He going to use to do
that? My folks are bragging about how they built Him a house. Look
here. But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and
of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. See, that's the Spirit
of Christ that He puts in us. That's the kind of person he
uses to build his house. And that's when we'll submit
to God using His ordained means which pleases God. Go back there
to Colossians 1. Do you see this? Colossians 1.
That's when we'll submit to God using and submit and use the
ordained means that pleases God. God said it pleased Him by the
foolishness of preaching to save them in that belief. When we
go submit to that, when we experience God's power through the Gospel,
then verse 9, this is what happens to us. This is what happens,
this is what continues to happen to us through the Gospel. Look
there. He says, this cause we bow since the day we heard of
your faith. We don't cease to pray for you
and desire right here. This is what God begins to do
with us in the first hour and this is what He continues to
do. He fills us with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and
spiritual understanding. He makes us knowledgeable of
His will. in all spiritual knowledge. That's
what he does in spiritual understanding. Why does he do it? That you might
walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. And I know it doesn't
just mean this, but part of what it means is you're going to bow
to whatever is pleasing to God, such as the foolishness of preaching. Look, being fruitful in every
good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. This is how
He is going to increase you in the knowledge of God through
what we are doing right here today. God is going to speak
into the heart and keep increasing you in the knowledge of Him.
And He makes you fruitful. in this knowledge by submitting
to what's pleasing to Him. Look, strengthened with all His
might by His power, according to His glorious power, unto all
patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. Now, because you've
beheld God's longsuffering, the glory of His longsuffering, how
He was longsuffering with you while you were in all your rebellion,
thinking we were some hottie-tottie walking around trying to force
our religion on other people. And all the while God was being
long-suffering with us and patient with us until He revealed Christ
in us. Now He says, you are going to
be long-suffering and patient with others. Doing what? Waiting
on God's power to reveal this in them through His Gospel. Look, Scott read this, so I won't read
it, but we do this giving thanks to the Father. Because He made
us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
light by shining the light in our heart. And we rejoice in
Christ because He delivered us from the power of darkness. He
is the light that delivers us from the power of darkness and
translated us into the kingdom of His Son, the kingdom of light.
And we have redemption in Him and forgiveness of sins. Look
at who He is, down at verse 15. He's the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature. He's that One in whom we behold
the visible image of the invisible God. And He's the firstborn who
makes us His new creation. That's what we saw in last hour
in verse 6. Let me illustrate why God uses
earthen vessels, or how He uses earthen vessels. Do you remember
Gideon and that little army of Gideon's? God kept whittling
that army down and whittling that army down and whittling
that army down until there was just hardly anybody left. And
He said, now then, now you go forth and fight this big host
of all these enemies. Well, if He's whittled us down
to that small of a group, you've got to be thinking, surely He's
going to give us some mighty weapon. He did. He's given us a mighty
weapon. He said, you take in one hand
a pitcher, an earthen vessel. And in that vessel is a lamp.
There's a light in that vessel that's shining. And in the other
hand, you take a trumpet and they surrounded that big host,
that big army. You know what they did with that
earthen vessel that had the light in it? It was a lamp. It had
a light in it and it was an earthen vessel. You know what they did
with that earthen vessel? They smashed it in pieces. They broke
it. Why? so that the light would
shine forth. And as they did that, they blew
the trumpet, loud as they could blow the trumpet. You see, God's
put light in us. He's put the light of Christ
in His people. But He's made us a broken earthen
clay pot, just a broken vessel. So that it's not our light shining,
it's Christ's light shining. And the way it's shining is by
us blowing the trumpet, proclaiming Christ the Lord. That's what
it is to be an earthen vessel. This whole thing has to do with
the preaching of the cross. Why do we do it that way? For
the preaching of the cross, the preaching of the cross is to
them that perish foolishness. But unto us, which are saved
and being saved, it is the power of God. That's why. The man that this is foolishness
to thinks he's the power. Something he did is the power.
But the man unto whom the preaching of the gospel is precious, it's
precious to us because we know this is the power of God unto
salvation. This is how He reveals Christ
the power of God, through the preaching of the power of God.
Now lastly, that's the reason that God uses the means of preaching
through broken clay pots, is that the power might be of God.
He says there that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. That's why. See, so we're broken. And broken by this means, we
won't delight in this means and we won't rejoice that it's the
power of God and that all the power is of God. We just won't. We just will not. He said up
in 1 Corinthians 2.1, Paul said, Our brethren, when I came to
you, I came not with excellency of speech or wisdom, declaring
unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know
anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Now
later he's going to say, now, I'm telling you, that is wisdom.
What I preach to you is wisdom. It's the wisdom of God. He said,
but when I came before you, what you heard naturally with your
ear, you didn't hear excellency of speech. You didn't hear wisdom. And I didn't use any kind of
fleshly excellency of speech or any fleshly wisdom. All I
did was preach Christ and Him crucified. Why? He said this,
I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
My speech, my preaching was not with enticing words of man's
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. I'll illustrate the demonstration
of Spirit and power to you. You want me to illustrate it
for you? The demonstration of the spirit and power is this.
When God told Gideon and his army to go forth with nothing
but the weapon being an earthen vessel with a lamp in it and
a trumpet, and they actually went forth and broke that vessel
and just blew that trumpet, that was a demonstration of the spirit
and power. They did what God told them to do. And when you
hear a man stand up and preach Christ and Him crucified, I'm
not talking about on Easter and Christmas. I'm talking about
every time he stands in the pulpit. That's the demonstration of God's
Spirit and power. God's making him do that. And
when people come week in and week out, week in and week out
to hear that message preached and delight in nothing but that
message preached, that's the demonstration of God's Spirit
and power. Because we're just a bunch of earthen vessels. And
this is why we preach this message and why we delight to support
this message. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 5, that
your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God. You know, when you're younger in the faith,
When you have no faith, when you don't know God at all. About
the only thing you'll get out of a message is the illustrations.
If they're just worldly illustrations. You know, you'll get something
out of that. And that'll be what you remember, that'll be what
you take away from it. Some earthly illustration that was used to
support a spiritual truth. But as you grow in grace, you
like those spiritual illustrations, those earthly illustrations to
illustrate spiritual things, but you just don't have to have
them. I'd just much rather you just turn to the Scriptures and
show me what the Word says. That would delight my heart more
than anything. You see what I'm saying? This is because the power
of God has done that. It's not a man that's going to
be able to make you hear, it's the power of God that makes you
hear. Go to Ephesians 1 verse 17. What are we wanting folks
to hear? Why do we not want them to stand
in the wisdom of men? I could give you so many earthly
illustrations and make you think you believe God and it just be
standing in my power, in my wisdom rather than the power of God.
I want you to stand in the power of God. This is what all His
true preachers want. Look at this. This is what Paul
prayed for the Ephesians and this is what we want for everybody.
And when I say us, I am talking about me preaching and you supporting
this Gospel and I am going down to Crossville next week to preach
at Crossville that morning and then Lord willing go preach that
evening at Kingsport. That's us going there. I couldn't
go there without you. That's us going there. And the
reason you want the message preached that I'm preaching right here
is because this is what we want our hearers to hear right here.
Look here, Ephesians 1.17. We're wanting this to be done.
We're wanting the God, Ephesians 1.17, we're wanting the God of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, to give unto you the
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Who's
going to give it? God our Lord Jesus, God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory. That's what we saw
in verse 6. God who commanded the light.
shine in our heart. We want Him to do it. To do what?
Verse 18, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you might
have the knowledge. That you might know what? Number
one, what is the hope of His calling? That you might wait
for the hope of righteousness through faith in Christ. That's
the hope of His calling, to wait on the hope of righteousness,
not through our works, through faith in Christ. That's what
I want for my ears. Number two, I want you to know
what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.
This is the riches of His glory that's in the saints, that assures
us of the inheritance. What is that? What's the rich
treasure we have in us? He said, Christ in you. is the
hope of glory. That's the treasure. All these
things I've been talking about that is the treasure is Christ
in you, the hope of glory. I want you to know the riches
of Christ by Christ being in you so that you have this hope
of glory. And thirdly, here's how I want you to experience
all this. I want you to know what is the exceeding greatness
of His power to us who believe. I want you to know that the same
power that made you and me believe is the power is the working of
His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly
places. That's the power it takes. See, I can't raise a dead sinner.
I can't create... He's not even raising a dead
sinner in the new birth. He's creating a new man in the
new birth out of nothing. You know why men don't think
The account in the Bible of creation is true. You know why men don't
think in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth? Because
me and you have never created anything. That's why. And by
nature, if we can't do it, we don't think it can be done. Isn't
that so? But you know why believers rejoice
in it? Because we see what God has done to us and made something
out of nothing. Created something out of nothing.
I guarantee you this, creating the heavens and the earth and
all things therein wasn't near as hard. And it cost near as
much as it did to create me, a new person in Christ. It cost
His precious blood to do that. And I want you to know that power.
It's the power of the righteousness of Christ. It's the power of
justice satisfied. It's the power of His precious
blood. It's the power of God's holiness that declares everybody
He justified must be raised from the dead. That's the power. Not
to mention the sheer power itself that it takes to do it. I want
you to know that power. So through the means of gospel
preaching, brethren, God in power reveals His glory in Christ and
He makes His generated child know this. We have a great rich
treasure. Christ our Lord and all blessings
in Him. He makes us to know this. He
makes us to know that we are only earthen vessels No powers
in us. So that all we're supposed to
do is preach Christ and Him crucified. That's all. That's all. Whether I'm a preacher or whether
I'm in the pulpit of the pew, my job is to hold forth Christ
the Lord. That's it. That's it. And He makes us to know that
the excellency of the power is of God and it's not of us. Now, go back with me to 2 Corinthians
4 and look at verse 2. When He's done all this to you,
what are you going to do? Let's review just a minute. Here's
what it will make you do. Verse 2, we've renounced the
hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, not
handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to ever man's conscience in the sight
of God. How do you do that? Verse 5, For we preach not ourselves,
but Jesus Christ the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. How come you do that? For God
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Christ Jesus. You see, Paul experienced
that power through Christ Himself coming to him and preaching Christ
Himself. Christ came in person and preached Christ to Paul.
Paul knew about this power of the Gospel being preached to
him. And behold, in Christ he was changed into that image and
he was taught to follow Christ and to follow this way that appealed
to God and pleases God. And he was made fruitful to do
it. And so you know what Paul knew? This means and this message
works. Isn't that right? When do you know something works?
When you've experienced it. And when you've experienced it,
you know this is the means and the message that works. It works. And so he knew that. Let me give
you one more illustration. I know you're weary. I'm going
to let you go. Psalm 136 verse 8 says this, God gave the sun
to rule by day, for His mercy endureth forever.
And it says, and the moon and the stars to rule by night, for
His mercy endureth forever. Remember, Christ said, I'm the
light of the world. While I'm here, it's the day.
When I'm gone, it's going to be night, Christ said. Well,
the sun in the sky is the light that God put in the sky to rule
the day. Christ is the son of righteousness. When He ruled,
when He walked this earth, He was the light of this world.
He's the one personally giving light to men in this world. Not
that he's not still the light and glory, but like he said,
when he left now, we're in the night season now. Where do you see the light at
night? From the moon and the stars. And they're not the light. They
just reflect the light of the sun. That's all they do. Well,
you know what he calls his people and his preachers in Revelation?
The stars in his hand. That's where we are, the stars
in His head. We don't have the light. Christ is the light. We
simply reflect the light that Christ shines into this dark
night right now. And that's what He's put us here
for. And we do it by preaching His Word. And so that's why Paul
is declaring throughout this that the necessary, the importance
of preaching the Gospel. Here's why. We're going to see
this as we go. He doesn't stop declaring this
all the way through 2 Corinthians. And we'll find out later why
he's doing it. False preachers. Satan was using false preachers,
making them look like ministers of righteousness, to deceive
and beguile the brethren at Corinth and he was leading some of them
away from hearing the gospel preached. That's why. And Paul
starts where he had one weapon and he knew where he needed to
start. He started declaring Christ by declaring why we preach Christ
through this gospel. You see what he's doing? He's
accomplishing two things. He's preaching Christ and at the same
time declaring it's this means of preaching Christ that God's
going to reveal Christ. So he's showing them the importance
of staying under the preaching of the gospel that they might
grow in the knowledge of Christ. That's why he's doing this all
the way through. You wonder why he spends so much
time dealing with this? I mean, he's been dealing with
this since chapter 2. It's because of that reason. He wanted to
see them grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. And he knew how they did. Now it's going to happen.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the excellency
of the power... We have this treasure in earthen
vessels. If he wasn't talking about preaching the gospel, why
did he mention that? Because it's through the earthen vessels
that the gospel is preached. And we have it this way, by God's
ordained means, The power, the excellency of the power that
gives the excellency of the knowledge of Christ might be of God and
not of us. You see what I am saying? This
is as much delighting in the power of God as delighting in
what He accomplished by His power at the cross. I am talking about
Him saving through the preaching of the Word. Because this is
how He makes the power known. You see that? We do it that the
power may be of God. God now shine and God use this
power and make us to believe Him and submit to His yoke and
learn of Him. I pray that. Amen. We'll rise in prayer and then
Brother Art and the ladies will play us a closing hymn and lead
us in a song. Father, thank You for this Word.
Thank You for choosing a means to reveal Christ the Light in
Your people that will give us no glory, that gives You all
the glory for Your power. Lord, thank You that You chose
no bodies to bring to nothing things that are, that no flesh
shall glory in Your presence, but that He that glories shall
glory only in the Lord. Thank you for being the one who
of God puts us in Christ and reveals Christ unto us. And Lord,
we are thankful that you chose a means that requires us to keep
constantly united together, assembled together under the preaching
of your Word so that we constantly are encouraged to provoke one
another to this good work of not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together but to do it even more as we see the
day of Christ approaching. Lord, you've promised it's going
to get darker and darker and darker before Christ comes. That
means we're going to need to assemble and hear this power
preached more and more and more as the day approaches. Give us
hearts now, Lord, never to forsake you, never to forsake your people,
never to forsake your gospel. We thank you, Lord. For Christ
our light, Christ your glory, and this means you've given to
declare Him. Forgive us, Lord, for doubting you. Forgive us
for the times when, Lord, we just don't attend to your message
and your preaching. Make us know Christ is preaching.
And make us truly delight to be with your people. We ask this,
Lord, in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.