Now, we've seen from this chapter
that when Christ Jesus ascended, He began to give His preachers.
Verse 11 says, He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists
and some pastors and teachers. And then we saw the general reason
for which Christ gave His pastors. It says in verse 12, for the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, For
the edifying of the body of Christ, perfecting here means the resetting
of dislocated bones. We saw where the dry bones fallen
in Adam. And Christ through the Gospel
resets the members of His body into His body. And then we saw
how long Christ will give His preachers. He said in verse 13,
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge
of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature
of the fullness of Christ. It means Christ will send his
preachers till every elect child of God is called to faith in
him through the knowledge of God, will be brought into his
body by faith, and when every last member is called to faith
in Christ, his body will be perfect, it will be complete, it will
be full. Now, here's our text today. It gives us one more reason
why Christ sends His preachers. Verse 14, that we henceforth
be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with
every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness
whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Christ gives His preachers to
save His people from false preachers. He gives His true preachers to
save His people from false preachers, from every false way, from false
doctrine. I've titled this, Kept from the
Evil. You remember when the Lord Jesus
prayed before He went to the cross and He said, Father, I
pray not that you take them out of the world, He said, I pray
that you keep them from the evil. He said, I've given them your
word and they're not of this world even as I'm not of this
world. And he said, but sanctify them through thy truth. Your
word is the truth. And that's what he does through
the gospel. He separates us and keeps us from the evil through
the gospel. Whenever a sinner is born again,
we must be born again. And when we're born again in
the Spirit of God, we're babies. We're children in strength, children
in knowledge, but Christ through the gospel grows us in understanding,
in knowledge, and He roots us and He grounds us. And that's
why He does it to save us, as this text says, that we henceforth
be no more children, tossed to and fro, carried about with every
wind of doctrine by the slight of men and the cunning craftiness
whereby they lie and wait to deceive. This metaphor here is
of a ship tossed at sea. You get the picture of the mighty
waves. The false doctrine is the waves.
It'll toss you, it'll turn you, it'll twist you this way and
that way. And the ones by whom it comes
are false teachers. But when Christ sends His gospel,
when He gives you grace in the heart, He gives you an understanding
heart and a willing heart, He makes it so that we lay hold
of the hope that's set before us. And the Hebrew writer says,
in such hope we have as an anchor of the soul. We're no more tossed
to and fro. We have this hope as an anchor
of the soul. And that hope enters into the
veil. It enters into the very presence
of God because that's where Christ, our forerunner, has gone. He's
gone into the presence of God and He's our hope. He's the one
who anchors us so that we're no more tossed to and fro. Now,
have you noticed in the Scripture when God describes false preachers,
He uses terms like this, using sleight of hand. That's what
He says, they use sleight of hand. That's like a magician.
He says they use cunning craftiness. He says they lie in wait to deceive. Why does the Lord use descriptions
like this? Well, partly because this describes
how false preachers commend themselves as true preachers, how they commend
themselves to others and try to make themselves appear as
being truly Christ-sent preachers. There are three things that the
Scripture says that false preachers do. Every false preacher does
this to commend themselves, to make you believe they are a true
Christ-sent preacher. The first thing is they commend
themselves by themselves. By that it means by their education. by their achievements, by their
letters of commendation from other men. If you find out, if
somebody finds out I'm a pastor, one of the first questions they
ask is, where did you go to seminary? What degree do you have? That
doesn't really matter. That doesn't matter. A man can
have all the degrees in the world, but if he doesn't know God, what
good is that going to do him? Secondly, they commend themselves
to the carnal, fleshly appetite of sinners. They give sinners
what sinners want to hear. They preach the will of man.
Sinners like that. We like that, but that's not
offensive. That won't offend you at all to preach the will
of man. They preach the law, the letter of the law. Do this,
don't do that. Do this, don't do that. They
preach morality. Those things appear good and
nothing's wrong with morality. That's a good thing. But that's
not salvation. And that won't bring a sinner
to Christ. That won't bring a sinner to deny himself whatsoever. They
use inventive means in all kinds of programs. This is appealing
to the flesh. That's how sinners commend themselves. And then the third thing is they
commend themselves in the sight of men. That is to be seen of
men to gain the favor of men. That's what False preachers are doing. They're
trying to gain men's favor. You know what I'm doing? I'm
not trying to gain your favor. I'm not. I'm not trying to gain
your favor at all. Now there is somebody's favor
I want. That's God's favor. That's God's favor. But I'm not
trying to gain your favor. and a false preacher, that he's
trying to gain men's favor. Let's don't waste our time looking
at the false preacher, though. Let's go to 2 Corinthians. I
want you to look at the true preacher. 2 Corinthians chapter
2. 2 Corinthians chapter 2. I'm just going to go through
these scriptures down through chapter 4, and I'm going to show
you what Paul said This is Paul speaking by the Spirit of God.
And you know that there were all kinds of false preachers
that had come into the Corinthian church. And so, Paul is here
speaking of true preachers. He's speaking some things about
true preachers. And this is how you're going
to discern the difference between the true and the false. Verse
14. 2 Corinthians 2 verse 14. Now thanks be unto God, which
always causeth us to triumph in Christ. and maketh manifest
the savour of His knowledge by us in every place." He says God
does this. God's to be thanked. God makes
us triumph in Christ. God makes His knowledge to be
known, using us to preach the gospel. But God's the one to
be thanked. And He says, for... Now here's
the thing. For we are unto God. We are unto
God, a sweet savour of Christ. In them that are saved, and in
them that perish. We're a sweet saver unto God. Unto God. Now this is not unto
men, this is unto God. In them that are saved and in
them that perish. How so? To the one we're the
saver of death unto death. To those that perish, they're
dead, they hear the gospel, And everything is judged by Christ.
Everything is determined by Christ. Christ is the pivotal point of
everything. Men hear the gospel of Christ
and reject it. It's death unto death for them.
But that's a sweet savor to God. Christ is glorified. Christ is
honored. Christ is set forth. And to the
other, a savor of life unto life. God gives them life and they
believe and they hear, they understand, they have life through the gospel.
And who's sufficient for this? Now, who, what preacher is capable
of putting himself into this ministry and going forth and
preaching a gospel such as this, whereby God is doing something
this amazing, this radical? Who's sufficient for that? Now
look at this. For, here's the reasons Christ
preachers a sweet savor unto God. For, we are not as many. As many. Paul's already speaking
this in his day. We're not as many. There's many,
he says, that go the other way. We're not as many which corrupt
the Word of God, but of sincerity. We don't corrupt the Word of
God, but as of sincerity. This is what you can tell about
God's preacher. I'm not going to read a passage
a verse and then speak for 45 minutes on whatever it is I'm
thinking and whatever is bothering me or whatever is the issue of
the day or just whatever. I'm going to take the scriptures
and we're going to go verse by verse through the scriptures
and we're going to look at what this word says and then we're
going to look at some other scriptures to see now, now what does that
mean? We're going to use scripture
to understand scripture. The best commentary on Scripture
is Scripture. And God's preacher doesn't preach
His own Word, He preaches God's Word. He doesn't preach God's
Word and try to make it say something it doesn't say. He preaches God's
Word as it is. He just declares what it says
in God's Word. as of sincerity. We preach it
clearly, preach it faithfully. I'm not trying to preach the
doctrine of God's sovereign electing grace in a way that you don't
understand what I'm saying. I'm preaching it to you in a
way so that you do understand that God does the choosing. You
don't do the choosing. God chooses whom He will and
passes by whom He will. That's Romans chapter 9. That's
just so clear. Why? Read your bulletin today. Why did God choose some and not
others? There's no reason given. Does He owe a reason to us? There's
a reprimand given. O man, who art thou to reply
against God? Shall the thing made send him
that made it? Why have you made me thus? If He makes one vessel
under honor and one under dishonor, that's God's business. That's
God's business. But we declare these things.
We don't try to hide them. We tell you the truth that God
is really God. And He's doing as He will. He's
saving His people in the manner that brings Him all the honor
and all the glory. We preach depravity. Total depravity
because the scripture says there are none righteous, no not one.
And this is why we do it in the light of Christ. We do it so
that you see Christ is the Holy One. He's the only Holy One. Out of all men, Adam included,
Christ is the only Holy One. He's the God-man. He's the only
righteous one. The only one that ever kept the
law, the only one that ever fulfilled the law, the only one that God
is pleased with, the only one who didn't need a mediator, is
Christ Himself. We preach, that's why we preach
total depravity, we preach unconditional election, because God chose Christ. He chose Him. Isaiah 42, verse
1 says, Behold my servant, mine elect, whom I have chosen. And
then He chose a people in Christ. Not based on any good or evil
in us. He chose a people in Christ. In Christ. Why do we preach it? Because it gives Christ the glory.
It gives Christ the glory. We preach limited atonement.
Limited atonement. Limited in this regard only,
right here. That Christ said, I lay down
my life for the sheep. Not for everybody. He looked
at some men right in the eye and he said, you don't believe
because you are not my sheep. But he said, I lay down my life
for the sheep. and atonement, limited atonement. Atonement because Christ accomplished
the redemption of His people. He accomplished atonement for
His people. By one offering He hath perfected forever them that
are sanctified. That's why we preach it. It gives
Him the glory. It says He's a successful sovereign
Savior. We preach irresistible grace
because the scripture says of Christ, Thy people shall be willing
in the day of Thy power. It gives Christ the glory as
being the one that comes and gives you a new heart through
the Spirit of God and He gets the glory for that. That's why
we preach irresistible grace. We preach the preservation of
the saints, which results in their perseverance to the end.
Why do we preach that? Because Christ Jesus is our head. And as our text says today, from
whom the whole body has nourishment ministered through the gospel,
so that the bodies knit together and kept together and held together,
so that none is lost. kept by the power of God. That's why we preach this. You see, we're giving God the
glory. Giving God the glory. That's what he says next. Look
at verse 17. But as of God. You see, not corrupting
the Word, as of sincerity and as of God. We're giving God all
the glory and giving man no glory. That's the discerning. If you
want to know what's the test, what can I put to the test? When
you're listening to a preacher, I'm telling you this not because
I'm your enemy. I'm telling you this because
I want you to know the truth. Everybody said, I want you to
know the truth. Now, how can you tell a true man preaching
the truth from a man preaching a lie? Who is getting all the
glory? From the beginning to the end,
who's getting all the glory? Is God getting all the glory?
Or is He turning something over to the will of the people? You
say, well, He said a lot of good things. Pontius Pilate said a
lot of good things about Christ. But then you know what he did?
He turned him over to the will of the people. That's what he
did. And that's what false preachers
do. They say a lot of good things, then they turn him over to the
will of the people. Not God's preacher. Not God's
preacher. And we give God all the glory.
We preach as called of God, as taught of God, as sin of God,
preaching in God's power. He says, verse 17, in the sight
of God. in the sight of God. Not in the
sight of men, not to gain favor from men, but as one standing
in the very presence of God. How would you speak if Christ
was standing right there beside you? That's how Christ's preacher
preaches. Just like He's standing right
here with me. Right here with me. I'm going to say to you right
here what I'd say if He was standing right here with me. That's what
our Christ preachers are going to preach. Speak we in Christ,
he says there. We preach Christ crucified. We
give Christ all preeminence. We preach Christ as our prophet,
Christ as our priest, Christ as our king. We preach Christ
as our head. We preach Christ as our comfort.
We preach Christ as the balm of Gilead. We preach Christ as
the great physician. We preach Christ as all and in
all. We preach Christ. And then look
here, chapter 3, verse 1. Do we begin again to commend
ourselves? Are we commending ourselves or
need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters
of commendation from you? Do we need that? Does a God's
preacher need that? He doesn't need that. Why? Here's
why. Verse 2. You are our epistle written in
our hearts. It's written in my heart just
like it's written in your heart. Written in our hearts. known
and read of all men, forasmuch as you are manifestly declared
to be the epistle of Christ." We don't need a letter. Christ
has written this on your heart. The epistle of Christ, ministered
by us through the gospel we preach, 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. The commendation of Christ's
preacher to Christ's people is nothing else but the truth of
God written on their heart. I can't do that. I can't write
that on your heart. It's written by Christ. He writes
it. It's written by the Holy Spirit
of God. It's written not on tables of stone. Nothing we do is like
the old covenant. We're not teaching the letter
of the law. We're not teaching the ministration of death. We're
teaching something more glorious than that. We're teaching the
everlasting covenant of grace. And He has to write this on your
heart. And when He does, Christ said, My sheep hear My voice.
It's because Christ knows us. Christ writes His Word in our
heart. And when He does, you hear His voice. That's the only
thing. That's the only thing. We don't
look to God or look to any other means to persuade you to believe
God or to continue believing God. We preach Christ and Him
crucified and we trust that God will write this word on your
heart and keep you by His grace and keep you at the feet of Christ
because only He can. I can't do that. That's why I
don't waste my time. I don't waste my time. God's
preacher is not going to waste his time out here knocking on
everybody's door and going house to house and being in every hospital
room and doing all these different things. We will visit. We always
visit one another. But the most important thing
is I got to seek a word from God to bring to you to preach
to you because this is the message by which God's going to settle
your heart save you by His grace, keep you by His grace, strengthen
you by His grace, comfort you by His grace. He's going to do
it all by the Word. That's why Peter said when they
were fussing and carrying on about the widows and about who's
going to give the food out to them and do things for them,
he said, God's provided us with seven faithful men here. Pick
out which one of these men you want. These seven faithful men.
Pick these seven faithful men and send them to that work. We're
going to give ourselves to the Word of God into prayer. Praying
that God will bless the Word and bringing the Word and preaching
the Word. That's what He told the Son of Man to do. He said,
preach the Word to these dry bones and prophesy to the wind.
Pray to the Holy God that He will give it unction and bless
them. Now look at verse 5. Not that
we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves,
but our sufficiency is of God. We don't ascribe any results
to ourselves. I've never planted a church.
Not one. I've never converted one sinner.
Not one. I've never done anything at all. Our sufficiencies of God Everything
that takes place in the church of God is of God. The Lord adds
to the church daily such as should be saved. Not men. Not men. The Lord establishes the church
which He's bought with His own blood. Not men. He does that. We're not sufficient of ourselves
for any aspect of this work. We're not sufficient to change
the means that God has ordained. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. You want me to prove
to you that the world considers preaching foolishness? Look at
how much other junk there are in churches today, and how little
preaching of the gospel there is in churches today. That's
because men consider that's a foolish means. We're catching a whole
lot more flies with honey than we are with vinegar. You need
to go back further than flies. We're maggots. Maggots. But God has to do the work. We
don't have sufficiency to change the means. We don't have sufficiency
to even obtain the Word to preach. He has to give it. We don't have
sufficiency to deliver the Word. We have to preach in the power
of God. We don't have the sufficiency
to make it effectual in your heart. Only He can come and write
it on your heart. There's no sufficiency in God's
preaching whatsoever. When's the last time you heard
a false preacher stand up and say, I can't do a thing? It's all of God, or it's not
at all. Verse 6, "...who also have made us able ministers of
the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For
the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." Christ sends preachers
who Christ has first called by His great power through the preaching
of the Gospel so that we know the power of God, we know the
means He uses is the Gospel, so that when we go forth preaching,
we're going to preach the Gospel and wait on Christ to come and
work in power. You see, there's no possible
way that a man can depend upon a power that he has not been
overcome by. A man can't preach something
he don't know by experience. A man can't wait on God if he
hasn't experienced God doing all the work. He just can't do
it. Just can't do it. We don't preach the letter. Why? We don't preach the law.
We don't preach, do this, don't do that. Do this, don't do that.
That's what's meant by the letter. The law, legal preaching. Why? Because it kills. It doesn't
give life. It does not give life. It kills. Paul said in Colossians 2, at
the end of Colossians 2, he said, it has a show of wisdom in the
flesh, will worship does, but it doesn't satisfy the flesh.
It does not mortify the deeds of the flesh. It's actually pouring
fuel on the fire. Because when you tell a man to
do something and he's done it, and now you make him think he's
righteous because he's done it, you've puffed him up ten times
the sinner he was before. Now he hates God even more and
he's proud of what he's done. He's done it all on his own.
That's like pouring fuel on a fire. That's like putting more wind
to one of those fires out in the west. Christ has to make a man see
that he's done everything. A to Z. The everlasting covenant,
the New Testament is the gospel of His grace. This is what we
preach, the gospel of His grace, because it declares everything
is ordered and sure in Christ, because He is the one God gave
the work to. He is the one that came forth
and accomplished the work. He's the one that's ascended
to the glory, right hand of the Father, and is now making the
work effectual in the heart of His people. And He's the one,
when He's brought everyone in, that's going to present the whole
work to the Father, and the house is going to be complete. It's
going to be finished. It's going to be perfect. There's
not going to be one living stone left out. He's done it all. This is what we preach, because
this is the message through which God gives life. Life. That other message is a ministration
of death. Look here, I don't have much time to go through
all this, but look, verse 7. He says, the ministration of
death. That's what the law was. It wasn't
given to give life, brethren. I showed you this the other day.
It was given to declare us guilty, to shut up our mouth and to show
us our sin. It was given... We were all already
dead in Adam when God gave the law at Mount Sinai. Wherefore
then did the law enter? The law entered because of transgressions. The law entered that every mouth
may be stopped and all the world become guilty before God. That's
why the law entered. But it was glorious. It was glorious
when God gave it. It's His law. It's holy. It's
just. It's good. It shows the very character of
God. But brethren, this new covenant.
Look, He says here, He says, Verse 8, How shall not the ministration
of the Spirit be rather glorious? It's more glorious because, yes,
the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. When He came, He showed, I've
taken this law that you can't fulfill, and fulfilled it. and
fulfilled it, and put away your sin for not fulfilling it, so
that all His people now, every single one for whom He died is
justified before God. This is so much more glorious
than giving you a table of stone and saying, now go try to do
this. They broke that law before Moses even got down out of the
mountain with it. You think we can keep it? No, sir. No, sir. Christ's preacher declares every
man a sinner with no ability to discern things of God because
we've been taught it about ourselves. We preach the necessity of God
giving you life and faith and repentance because we've experienced
it ourselves. Ourselves. Verse 12, so seeing
we've been saved by this everlasting gospel, by this everlasting covenant,
by this New Testament, and seeing we know that God is the only
one that can work this, verse 12 says, seeing then that we
have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. If you've got the words that's
going to do what needs to be done, what would you do? You'd
just speak those words, wouldn't you? When you go up to the bank
and you go to your ATM machine and you've got the code that
you can click in there and open it up, you don't click in somebody
else's code. You click that code in, don't
you? Because you know that's going to open it up. Well, having
this hope that God's going to save through the message that
declares God's the one that does the choosing, Christ does the
redeeming, the Spirit does the regenerated, He does the work,
salvations of the Lord, and knowing this by experience in our own
heart, we go forth and we preach with plainness of speech. Is
it going to offend me? Yeah, I know that by experience.
It offended me. Made me mad as a hornet. But
then it made me glad. Made me mad, then it made me
sad, then it made me glad. That's what happens when God
gives His gospel. Look at verse 15. This is what
we know. Even unto this day when Moses
is read, the veil is upon their heart. When the letter of the
law is preached, you can preach do and do and don't, don't, all
you want to. The veil is on the heart. A man
can't see God, a man can't see His glory, a man can't understand
His Word. You can preach the first five
books of the Bible that Moses wrote and preach them and give
the Spirit of God and teach everything about what Christ has done and
a man can't see it. He can't understand it. He can't
rejoice in it. The veil is on his heart. But
we don't turn men to the law. We don't turn men to themselves
because that veil is going to stay on the heart. It's not going
to be moved from the heart. Why do you preach Christ? Look
at verse 16. When it should be turned to the
Lord, the veil should be taken away. That's why we preach Christ. We preach Christ because He's
the light. He's the one who gives the light
in the heart so that you can discern the things of God. So we've got to be turned to
the Lord. And He's the one that does the turning. Look here,
verse 17. Now the Lord is that spirit,
and where the spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. The Lord
alone is that Spirit who takes away the veil off the heart.
The Spirit of the Lord is the only one who can give you liberty
from the bondage of sin and death, from the bondage of blindness,
from the bondage of being in darkness and ignorance and unable
to discern the truth of God. The Lord makes us see Him openly
through faith. Openly. Like you're looking in
a mirror. Verse 18. But we all... Now this
is true of the preacher as well as those to whom he preaches.
We all. With open face, beholding as in a glass, as in a mirror,
the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory
to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. You see that? This
is why we preach Christ. Christ comes in the Spirit and
He makes you to see. We see through a glass darkly.
We see through a mirror now. We don't see Him face to face.
But we're not like Moses. Moses came down with that veil
on his face off the mountain. Christ takes the veil off the
heart so that we can see Him through faith. And He changes
us into His image from the glory of that ministration of death
whereby we died in Adam to this new everlasting covenant of grace
whereby we're alive in Christ and under this new covenant of
grace. He does this. The Spirit of the Lord does this.
Only He does it. Alright, now. Seeing as how Christ's
preacher received mercy ourselves this way. Seeing as how we've
been made ministers of the Gospel this one way. Seeing as how we
receive mercy from God ourselves through this one gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace in Christ. Look at chapter 4 verse 1. Therefore,
seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, the
same way we receive this mercy, through this gospel, through
His power, through Him turning us to Christ and taking the veil
off our heart, through the gospel of His free and sovereign grace.
As we've received mercy, that's how we faint not. We keep on
preaching the same gospel, the same God, the same Christ, the
same Savior, the same work of God, and wait on God to do the
work. Verse 2, But we've renounced
the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, not
handling the Word of God deceitfully. All that hidden, dishonest, crafty,
deceitful way that men commend themselves as preachers with,
we've renounced that. I'm done with that mess. That's
garbage. It's garbage. But, alright, I pay very close
attention here. This is the difference between
the false preacher and Christ's true preacher, right here. But,
number one, verse two says, by manifestation of the truth, commending
ourselves. By manifestation of the truth.
Not by commending ourselves, but by manifestation of the truth.
We preach the truth and trust God to write it on your heart.
That's how you're going to know. God sent us. That's it. And then,
you know, He said the false preacher commends himself by himself,
by his credentials and by his accomplishments. Not the true
preacher, by the truth. By the truth. Preaching the truth.
Here's the next thing. God's true preacher proves He's
true by preaching the truth. Verse 2 says, to every man's
conscience. To every man's conscience. We
trust God to make the truth manifest in that conscience that He's
purged by His own blood. That's who I'm preaching to. I'm not preaching to these fleshly
bodies sitting here. I'm preaching to the inner man
sitting here that God's made new in the hearts of His people.
That's who I'm preaching to. The false preacher is appealing
to the carnal fleshly appetite. He's appealing to the flesh.
I'm preaching to the inward man. Here's the next thing. The God's
preacher commends himself as true. I'm preaching the gospel
in truth, verse 2 says, as in the sight of God. As in the sight
of God. The false preacher is seeking
to be seen of men to gain men's favor, to please men. I'm preaching
as in the sight of God, trying to stay in His favor. Because I don't want to disappoint
Him. I don't want to dishonor Him at all. Paul said this, Do
I now persuade men? Do I seek the favor of men or
God? But if He said, or do I seek
to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should
not be the servant of Christ. So read verse 2 again. This is
every Christ-sent preacher. 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
to every man's conscience, in the sight of God. You found the
true preacher. Now he finishes this thought
in verses 5 and 7. This is how you know this is
what he is saying. Look at verse 5. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, back in that first creation of the
world. He created this new creation in His people the same way. He
shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's how we
know this by experience. But, verse 7, we have this treasure
in earthen vessels and as to an old broken shattered piece
of clay pot. Why? That the excellency of the
power may be of God and not of us. that God do all the work,
that we don't do anything. We don't do anything. When's
the last time you went out and took an old clay pot and watered
your flowers, and when everything started to bloom and everything
started to look so pretty in the garden, you went to that
clay pot and said, look, that clay pot grew these flowers. That clay pot planted these and
nourished these and grew these flowers. People would say, you
ignoramus. That clay pot didn't do nothing.
God did it. God did it. The clay pot was
just used to deliver God's water to the flower. That's all. That's
the same with the preacher. But those that reject this message,
reject this gospel, why do they do it? Verse 3. If our gospel
be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. In whom the God of
this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine unto them. Now that's why Christ gives His
true preachers. This is how you can tell a true
preacher. And He gives His true preachers, verse, our text, go
back there, Ephesians 4, 14. He says that we henceforth be
no more children, tossed to and fro, carried about with every
wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness
whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Christ is not going to fail.
He is going to set judgment in the heart of His people. So,
as Paul said in the context, endeavor to keep the unity of
the Spirit. Why? You know why He went from
that to showing us why Christ gave preachers? He showed us
endeavor to get along with one another, endeavor to keep this
unity together, because you need the Gospel, you need the Gospel,
you need the Gospel, I need the Gospel, we all need the Gospel.
Worse than anything else we need in this world, we need to hear
Christ speak through His Word, because these are all the things
He is doing by that Gospel. It is going to keep us from the
evil by it. So endeavor to keep this gospel fresh and going here
together. Amen.