Go with me, if you would, back
to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. This has always been a favorite
portion of Scripture for me. It is deep insight. It is a first-hand account. direct insight to our eternal
home, the place that we're all desiring to march to, the place
where our Lord dwells. And this is just glorious to
think about. If you just enter in to what
he's saying right here, it is so glorious to think about. Let's read the first four verses
here in 2 Corinthians 12. It is not expedient for me doubtless
to glory. I will come to visions and revelations
of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above
14 years ago. Whether in the body I cannot
tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth. Such in one caught up to the
third heaven. And I knew such a man, whether
in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth, how
that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words,
which it is not lawful for a man to utter." Isn't that wonderful? He's speaking of himself. The
Apostle Paul was brought by God to heaven. Could you imagine?
Could you imagine? Brought by God to the third heaven,
he said. Paradise. He saw it. He heard it. He said in 1 Corinthians 13,
the apostle Paul said, though I could speak with the tongues
of angels, he actually heard the tongues
of angels. Gabriel might've said to him,
come hither, I will show thee the lamb and his wife. Could
you imagine? Michael might have said to him,
behold the armies of God. We love that account in Kings,
second Kings, whenever Elisha's servant was so scared that they
were being attacked. This army was coming to attack
them. And Elisha's servant was scared to death. And Elisha prayed,
Lord, would you open his eyes? And the Lord did. He opened his
eyes and that man looked around. All the mountains were full of
horses and chariots of fire. That was just a little band. That was just a little company
on a mission. out of God's brigade or corps
or whatever you call the whole army. He might have seen Stephen alive
and well. The man that he gave the commandment
to kill, sat there and held the coats and watched his people
stone him to death for preaching this gospel. this gospel that
he's now preaching there is literally no telling literally actually
no telling what he saw he couldn't even tell what he saw except for this the only thing
that mattered The only thing that he had to say and could
say about this whole experience was this. This was the only thing
worthy. The only thing lawful. He said,
I heard and I saw the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all he could say
about it. I heard him. I heard what his
voice sounds like. I heard the sweetness of the
gospel from the sweetness of His lips directly. I heard Him. I saw Him. I saw the glory of
God. I saw the hope of earth and joy
of heaven right there in His face. And then after that, Paul had
to come back to this earth to be whipped and beaten, stoned,
shipwrecked, imprisoned, stripped, mocked, and hated for preaching
the message that God gave him there, for preaching the gospel
that was delivered to him. It is not hard at all to see
why he said, I'm in such a straight between the two. For me to depart
and just go be with Him, it's far better. It's far better. But thankfully, Paul thought,
I love you. I love you. And if you have any
hope of being there with Him, this place that I've heard and
seen, You need to hear this message that he gave to me and he gave
to his other apostles. That is why Paul wrote and said
what he did right here. It was for no other reason than
declaring Christ, the glory of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Verse one here in 2 Corinthians
12, he said, it is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. Expedient means profitable. He
said, it's not profitable for me to glory in myself over this. There's no doubt in my mind of
that. That's doubtless to me. I'm not going to tell you this
for my own glory. He said, I'm going to tell you
this to declare Christ to you. I'm going to tell you this to
declare his gospel to you, to declare his substitution to you. It is not expedient for me, doubtless
to glory, I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. Key word in that three words
is of the Lord. I'll come to visions and revelations
of the Lord. These visions and revelations
come from and they are about the Lord. They're all about the
Lord. Every vision and every revelation
in this book was given and recorded for only one reason. All of them. It was to reveal the glory of
the gospel of Christ crucified. That's the only reason. They
were all given to declare how God saves sinners. Every one
of them. God revealed himself to Abraham. He said, Abraham saw my day and
he rejoiced. The reason is because God said,
I'm going to give you the token of a covenant. That's why he
came. God revealed himself to Jacob. Jacob dreamed dreams, Jacob's
ladder. Why did he dream that? Christ
crucified, the only mediator between God and man. God enabled Jacob's son, Joseph,
to interpret other people's dreams. They could have a dream and he
could tell them what it meant. What was that all about? What did
Joseph's entire life picture for us? Christ crucified. The Lord will provide. God appeared
to Moses in a burning bush. God appeared to Joshua as captain
of the host. God appeared to Samuel in the
temple of the Lord. What was all that speaking of?
Christ saving his people from their sins every time. In his
holiness, he told Moses, take your shoes off. You're standing
on holy ground. In His holiness, Christ won the
victory over sin. And He made intercession to God
on behalf of every soul His Father gave to Him. Isaiah said, In
the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. He said, I saw the seraphims
continually flying over that throne. And one cried to another,
holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is
full of his glory. What is his glory? I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy and I'll have compassion on whom I'll have compassion.
I love, we're not there, but the margin right there in that
portion in Isaiah, it reads, His glory is the fullness of
the whole earth. His mercy and compassion, that's
the fullness of the whole earth. Joseph marries fiance. He had a vision through a dream. What was that all about? Call
his name Jesus. He shall save his people from
their sins. Mary had one too. She had a revelation. An angel appeared to her. What
did he say? He said, you have found favor
with God, Mary. Grace has come to you. The Holy
Ghost shall overshadow you. You're going to bring forth a
son. He shall be great. He shall be called the son of
the highest. He is going to sit on the throne. He's going to reign over the
house of Jacob and of his kingdom. There shall be no end. Peter had a vision. A sheet came
down. It had all manner of four footed
beast in it. God said, rise, Peter, kill and
eat. What was that all about? God
said, don't you call unclean what I have made clean. Salvation has come to the Gentiles
every time, every single time. All of those revelations that
John saw on the Isle of Patmos, all the visions Everything he
recorded in the book of the Revelation. Angels, vials, books, seals,
numbers. Not one of them was about Armageddon. Not one of them. Not one of them
was about any apocalypse. Not one of them was about the
end of time. What does Revelation 1 verse
1 say? This is the Revelation. of Jesus
Christ. Jesus Christ. That's why they
were given. That's why, the only reason why
they were written. To reveal who Christ is and what
he has done for sinners. That's what it's always about.
The Apostle Paul had quite a few visions and revelations. After they were all done, God
revealed His message to him. This is what He said. He said,
I have now determined, after all this is finished and God
has revealed the truth to me, revealed the message to me, I
have now determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ crucified. That's what it's all about. That's
what it's all about. Every time. Every word from God
to man is about Jesus Christ crucified. Every time. This vision
and revelation is no different. No different from any other in
God's Word. Every word in this is going to declare how God has
saved his people from their sins. Now let's look at verse 2. Paul
said, I knew a man. That's what I titled this message.
I knew a man. He's about to declare, this is
what happened to me. This is how God saved me. And Paul said, I'm a pattern
for them that should be saved after me. Every saved sinner, every child
of God can say with the Apostle Paul, this is how God saved me. This is how God saves sinners. He said in verse two, I knew
a man. What kind of man did you know,
Paul? I knew a despicable man. I knew a man who loved himself
and hated the true and living God. A man who worshipped his own
flesh and worshipped his own self-righteous works and denied
and hated and lashed out against the God who made him, the God
who held his breath. I knew a man who tortured and
beat and killed those who worshipped the God he hated. If he found
out that you worshipped the God he hated, he said he was a man who deserved
God's wrath and God's judgment. But he was a man who found grace. I knew a man who found grace. He was a man who God came to
and broke Him. I knew a man that God broke.
I knew a man who was riding high on his horse in his religion
and God knocked him down. Put him in the dirt. Oh, made
him start crying. He was a man who had the fear
of the Lord struck into him. He was a man who expected God
to slay him right then and there as he was sitting there crying,
who art thou Lord? He was a man who thought God
is gonna slay me right now. But he was a man who heard God
say, you are a chosen vessel of mercy. And now Paul said in verse two,
I knew a man In Christ. I knew a man in Christ. He said,
thank God. I'm so glad to say. So glad to
say I was notified of the fact God notified me. He sent a messenger
to me and notified me of the fact that I was in Christ. Notified by his Holy Spirit that
God the Father put me in Christ. So far, does our story line up
with Paul's? Oh, an unworthy, despicable man
who deserved wrath and judgment, but a man who found grace and
mercy from being notified of the fact that he was in Christ.
Salvation is in Christ. Salvation is in Christ. If we
do not understand what that means, let's start asking, Lord, teach
us what that means. Reveal that to me. Salvation
is a man or a woman being in Christ. All of God's mercy is
in Christ. All of God's grace is in Christ. All of the blessing, all of the
inheritance is in Christ. All of it. If a soul is going
to enter heaven, it is only going to be in Christ. It's either
in Christ or not at all. He said, I am the way. I'm the way. Verse two, Paul
said, I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago. Why is that
significant? Turn one page over to Galatians
chapter 1. Galatians 1 verse 11. The Apostle Paul said, But I
certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of
me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was
I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have
heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews religion, how
that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted
it. and profited in the jews religion above my equals many
my equals in my own nation being more exceedingly zealous of the
traditions of my fathers but when it pleased god who separated
me from my mother's womb he called me by his grace to reveal His
Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen." When
it pleased God. When it pleased God. That's the
moment every chosen sinner is saved, quickened to life. When it pleases God. Salvation
is on His terms and it's at His time. It's completely in His
hands. In His own time, He calls His
people by His grace, and He reveals His Son in them, and He reveals
to them that they are in His Son. Men and women know that Christ
has something to do with salvation. But men and women believe Christ
is the example to follow to earn salvation. And the message of
the gospel comes to a person when they realize that Christ
is salvation. Christ is the one who earned
salvation. I did nothing. God just put me
in him. That's the moment life comes. Quickening comes. And we realize,
all of God's people will realize, it's on His terms, at His time. All of His people. Go back to
2 Corinthians 12, verse 2 says, I knew a man in Christ above
14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether
out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth. God knoweth. He
said, my body, my flesh was so irrelevant in this. It was so absolutely irrelevant
in this, I don't even know if I was in it. I don't have any idea. In God
calling me to Himself and bringing me to Himself, this flesh was
not a factor at all. Not at all. Had nothing to do
with it. My salvation was not by works
of righteousness which I had done. This was all God laying
hold of my soul. This was his work. This was his
doing. Verse two, he said, I knew a
man in Christ above 14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot
tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth. Such
and one caught up. I was not asked. I was not begged. I was not given
an option. I did not decide. I was taken. I was taken. That's how it is in
God's salvation. He takes his own. He takes them. Paul said, I was
arrested, caught up, completely caught up. Verse two goes on
to say, to the third heaven. I was caught up to the throne
of God. We have the heaven where the
birds fly. We have the heaven where the
planets and the stars are. Paul said, I was taken far above
that. I was taken to the God who rules
the sky. The God who everything that is,
is under Him. The God who rules it all. Far
above anything we can see or imagine. Verse 3, He said, And
I knew such a man, whether in the body or out of the body,
I cannot tell. God knoweth, because God's the
one who did it. He did it. He did every bit of
it. And Paul said, I knew such a man, verse 4, how that he was
caught up into paradise. Caught up into paradise. You
know, the Lord told that thief on the cross, today you are going
to be with me in paradise. Revelation 2, verse 7 says, to
him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which
is in the midst of the paradise of God. First Corinthians 2 9
says, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man the things which God had prepared for them that
love him. It's paradise. It's paradise. But do you know what makes it
paradise? You know what makes it paradise?
Christ is there. Wherever He is, that's paradise. Let's not get caught up with
a place. Wherever He goes, that's paradise at that moment in time.
That is paradise. He is the glory. He is the beauty. He is the peace. He is the rest. To be caught up into paradise
is to be caught up into Christ. That is something we can experience
right now. You know that? We can all get
caught up into paradise right now. When God's spirit catches
us up into Christ, if God, if the father chose to save us and
gave us to his son, and if he died for us and the spirit has
called us, we're in Christ. But at those moments in time
when the Spirit comes and moves on our heart and catches us up
into Christ for just a moment, verse 4 says we hear unspeakable
words. The Lord does something on the
heart of His people that you just can't even put into words.
You can't describe it. Unspeakable. words we hear words
that no man is sufficient to hear are any of us sufficient
to hear the gospel and believe the gospel and love the gospel
and rejoice in the gospel verse 4 says which it is not lawful
it's not the margin if you have a margin it says possible it
is not possible for a man to utter. We preach words. A man gets up in a pulpit, if God has laid hold of him and
given his spirit, given a message. We preach words that no man is
sufficient to preach. No man. Wonderful words of life. All so freely given wooing us
to heaven. Beautiful words, wonderful words,
wonderful words of life. But without God's Spirit, without
God doing it, the gospel, the good news for sinners in the
blood of our Lord, it's unspeakable, it's unhearable, it's unbelievable. If God's Spirit does not descend
It's unspeakable, it's unhearable, it's unbelievable. So Paul said
in verse five, of such and one will I glory. I will rejoice
and I'll give glory to God for what he's done for me. To God
be the glory, great things he hath done. But he said in verse
five, yet of myself I will not glory, but in my infirmities. I will not glory in this sinful
flesh at all. Not at all. Except for the fact
that I'm a sinner saved by grace. That's the only thing I can glory
in. Is that I'm a sinner that God chose to save by grace. Now
I'm going to leave us with this. I'm going to leave us on this
thought. This reality. This is a reality. the glory of God, and the wonder
of the Gospel, and the beauty of Christ. Alright? The glory of God, the wonder
of the Gospel, and the beauty of Christ is truly not possible
for a man's mouth to utter. It's not possible. It's not possible. The glory
of God. How can a man speak the glory
of God? The glory of God. The wonder
of what the gospel is. That God would come down. And
what He did. And the beauty of Christ. It's
not possible for a man's mouth to utter. In the same way, and
I pray this will give us something to look forward to. I cannot
describe, I can't describe this, but I hope in me not describing
it, it gives you something to look forward to. In the same way that any animal,
like a dog, cannot move his jawbone, jawbones,
and cannot move the muscles in his face, and cannot move his
skin, and cannot do something with his voice box to say the
words and communicate the words that we do. In that same way, in the fact
that it is not possible, It is physically not possible. In that same way, we cannot right
now say words and communicate in the way that we are going
to. It's not possible. If you could imagine, if you
could envision a dog trying to preach the gospel, in the only
way that his physical body will allow him to. The only thing
that he has is a bark. That's all he has. If you could imagine a dog, faithfully,
Bible study, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night,
every way possible, standing up and barking. And he sits down,
stands up again and he starts barking. He sits down, stands
up again and he starts barking. If you could imagine a dog preaching
the gospel in the only way that God has enabled him to currently,
through barking, compared to what humans are able to do, that
will give us some idea of the difference in what we preach and hear and
know and understand and love now to what we are going to hear
preached and know and understand and love then. It cannot physically
be put into words. It's not possible at the moment
to describe what we're going to hear. It is not possible. Unlike the Queen of Sheba, this
is what she said, She said, the half wasn't told me. Not like
that. She said, the half wasn't told
me. Once we finally see what our
Lord gave a parable of, describing the kingdom of heaven is like
a mustard tree, great mustard tree. Once we finally see the
mustard tree, We're gonna realize that all of our time on this
earth was spent scratching the surface of the mustard seed. That's all we did. We just barely
scratched the surface. His glory, once we get there
and see His glory, the moment we see Him, it's so powerful. John said, when we see Him, we'll
be like Him. in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, as soon as we see him, we'll be changed. Mortality
will put on incorruption. And as soon as we see him, we're
going to realize his glory is so much greater. His gospel is so much sweeter. Oh, I appreciate that man trying
so hard all those years, but His gospel is so much sweeter. Wait till you hear the preacher
tell it. Just wait. Wait till the preacher stands
up. Oh, His beauty is so much lovelier
than I ever imagined. We are going to spend eternity
looking at Him, crying. Thank God I knew a man. Thank God I knew a man. Thank
God I knew the man. Thank God the man knew me. The
God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God.