Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we thank you once again
for bringing us to this place, for giving us a desire to worship
you in spirit and in truth. Lord, cause us to give you all
the praise and glory and honor today. Lord, cause us to bow
down to your sovereignty. Lord, we ask that you be in our
presence this morning. Without you, we have nothing.
We thank you for all your many blessings, for your grace and
mercy, but most of all, for your salvation and righteousness.
Lord, that we find all of that in you. Lord, we ask that you
be with us in our trials and afflictions. You know our heart
calls us to know that your grace is sufficient. And Lord, we ask
also that you forgive us of our sins, even though we know that
you convince us that you've placed them as far as the east is from
the west. Lord, we ask all these things that your will be done
in Christ's name. Amen. So if you would, we're going
to look today at 2 Corinthians chapter 4. And I know this is
a Scripture that we're all familiar with, but what you realize is
the Gospel is completely contained in this verse, in these verses.
And John often says, and I know you all hear him when he says,
let Scripture interpret Scripture. So what we're going to do today
is look at 2 Corinthians 4 in verse 5 and 6, but what I want
to look at will come out of Micah, Micah 7. So if you would, turn
to 2 Corinthians 4. 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 has
shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." So basically
that's the gospel. Sometimes, you know, what I want
to look at is what this light, what this light that we are given
through the gospel, what it reveals to us. that God commands to shine
in our hearts and reveals His glory in the face of Jesus Christ,
and this is the light of knowledge. And to see that, we're going
to look in Micah 7. So if you want to go ahead and turn to
Micah 7, in the Old Testament, it's close to the end. But you
think, why would you go there to look at a scripture such as
2 Corinthians? But as we know, it's the gospel
from start to finish. So Micah 7, starting in verse
7, to verse 9. And just hold both places so
we can flip back and forth. So Micah 7 verse 7, Therefore
I will look unto the Lord. I will wait for the God of my
salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice
not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When
I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. I will bear the indignation of
the Lord because I have sinned against Him. And these words
like this are why I'm so glad they're in here. Until He pled
my cause and execute judgment for me, He will bring me forth
to the light and I shall behold His righteousness. The truth
is, the truth is that we're in complete darkness, that's all
we are. We love the darkness, we flee to it, we're like roaches
if you think about it. We hate the light, but in Christ
there is absolutely no darkness whatsoever. We're completely
blind, in the flesh we can't see anything. We can't see Christ. We can't see our sin. We can't
see our need for a Savior whatsoever. We can't see... I mean, the first
time you were told you hate Christ, did you ever think you did? Until
He showed you, you did? We can't even see our enmity
against Him. Because I remember Rupert saying, if you're not
a believer, you hate Christ. I'm like, well, I don't feel
like I do. Well, He showed me I did. But we can't see that.
We're completely blind. And that's the thing. We don't
even know it. Our Lord says, He said, I am the light of the
world. And it is through Him that we see God. Y'all, we don't
have to guess who God is. We see Him in the light. And
you remember when Christ said, if you have seen me, you have
seen the Father. That's what He said. And we know this by
experience. We know this by experience. Light
is something you experience. I'm not going to cut a flashlight
on or light in here, and that's not what I'm talking about. This
is an experience, and you can't unsee it. If you were ever blind
and God made you to see, you cannot go back to blindness.
You cannot unsee it. No matter how hard you try. And
if we could, we would. But we can't. He causes it to
shine in us. It illuminates us. And Jesus
is Christ through the light that everything shines through. It's
how we see, what I heard John say, it's how we see the unseen
world. It's how we see the gospel. Because
we can't see it otherwise. In our flesh, we always see the
natural world. That's what we see. But the spiritual
world, we can't grasp a hold of it, we can't see it because
we're blind. And we can't see anything until Christ gives us
that light to do so. And it's through him alone that
we have these spiritual eyes. He said, I'm a purer eyes, that's
what God said. And look in 2 Corinthians verse
3 and he says, And whom the God of this world hath blinded the
minds of them which believe us not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. And how does he do this? A lot
of times you'll hear John, our pastor, say God is the God of
means. And it tells us exactly right
here how he does it. and the light of gospel commands
that shine in your heart through the preaching of the gospel.
Look in verse 5 again in 2 Corinthians. He says, and this is how he commands
the light, for we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the
Lord, and ourselves your servants for Christ Jesus' sake. We preach
Christ crucified. That's the means he uses to bring
about this light. And he says, it pleased God by
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. That's
what he says. And Christ tells us this gospel
comes from Him. He says, I speak this. In Isaiah,
He said, Therefore my people shall know my name. They shall
know. You won't have to guess. You'll know. Therefore they shall
know in that day. that I am He that does speak.
There will be no question. You won't have to get a second
opinion of who's talking to you. Behold, it is I, that's what
He said. And in John 10, 16, He says, and other sheep I have
which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall
hear my voice. This is the words that He talks
in, shall. And there shall be one fold and
one shepherd. And He does this all alone by
Himself. He says, I must bring. And when
Christ says that, there's no doubt. There's no doubt. And
it's His responsibility. It's His responsibility to bring
you. And that's a comfort. That's
His promise. So He says you come from darkness into light because
it was God that commanded the light to come. Because what he
says, he said, the gospel proceeds from me. That's where it originates,
and that's where it comes from. He does all the preaching, the
teaching. You hear John pray. How many times have you heard
him pray, Lord, be our teacher and preacher today? That's what
he's talking about. He does the preaching. He does the calling.
And it comes from him alone. So the light of the gospel, and
this is what I want to look at. So when he sends the gospel to
you, When you hear the gospel effectually, what is this light
He shines in your heart? What does it reveal? What is
this light? What is the light of this knowledge
that He brings forth in the face of Jesus Christ? And here's what
it is. This is what I want to look at.
And it tells us exactly this in Micah 7 and 9. It says, I
will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned
against Him until He pled my cause and executed judgment for
me. He will bring me forth to the
light, and I shall behold His righteousness." So the light
is God's judgment towards His people. It's settled. It's completely
settled. And He causes His judgment to
rest. And when He brings forth this light, it's that all of
God's judgment, all that He demands of me is found in His Son. And
found in Him alone, and I'm righteous in Him, and that's our life.
That's what the light reveals. He pled my cause, executed all
my judgment in His Son, and He rests, and it's finished, and
that's it. And, you know, I was thinking about this when John
actually preached a message on justification, and it was downstairs
so it wasn't recorded, and I hate I couldn't go back and listen,
but I was thinking about some of his words that he talked about, and
one of his messages about Christ our light hanging on the cross.
The scripture in Isaiah that says when He was on the cross,
His face and His visage was marred more than any man. I thought
about what humanity did to Him during that time. how God turned
the light out for three hours and drew the sword of justice
from its sheath, and for three hours, justice had its complete
vengeance on Christ. For three hours, the unrestrained
indignation, which is the wrath and anger of God, was poured
out and executed on Christ, and He was made a curse for us. And
all of this, all this whole time, what did He do? He pled my cause. That's what he did. And God executed
all his judgment for me and him. And when Christ satisfied God's
justice, God put the sword back in the sheath, turned the lights
back on, the darkness lifted, and the sun shined again. And
there was Christ. He was still alive. He was hanging
there, like he said, mutilated beyond all recognition. All recognition. And he cried out, it's finished. That's what he cried out. The
work is done. And he said, you know what he
did after that? He commanded his life to leave his body. He
said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. He commands
his life. No man takes it from me. And
he bowed his head and our Lord and Savior in grace and infinite
mercy, perfect obedience and submission to the will of the
Father, he bowed his head and he gave up the ghost. This is
my salvation. my salvation hanging on the cross,
my salvation was laid in the tomb, my righteousness came out
of the tomb, and my salvation and my righteousness went back
to glory, and my salvation and my righteousness seated at the
right hand of God. His blood answered for every
sin I've ever committed, every thought I've ever had, every
action I've ever taken, covered them all. And He did it for every
single one that God had given Him. That's my salvation, that's
my righteousness. He said, for I will be merciful
unto their righteousness and their sins and their iniquities
I will remember no more. And he said, I will make my judgment
to rest for the light of the people. And when he cried out,
it's finished. He's satisfied and he rested. He saw the travail of his soul
and was satisfied of his substitute. He pled my cause and executed
all my judgment in him. Everything God demands of me
is found in Christ. That's the gospel we preach.
This is the light He gives. That's the light that He commands
to shine forth in your heart. If you believe Him, that's the
light that we see the gospel in. I mean, do you remember the first
time? If you are a believer, do you
remember the first time the light was shined in your heart and
you heard the words, It's all done. It's accomplished. Now
you rest completely justified. And I think about the song, Be
Thou My Vision. Y'all, that's my best thought.
That's my best thought. I mean, I truly think that. When that thought comes to me,
and it doesn't come a lot, often, by day or by night, waking or
sleeping, my presence, my light, that's my best thought. And by
this light, what we see, what we see is the chiefest of sinners
in our worst state. What we find too good to believe,
too good to be true, that God would justify me, you remember
asking yourself that? He would save me? Like the song,
and can it be that I should gain? There's no way. We find the one
thing that is too good to be true is the only thing that is
true. That's the light. If you look in Romans 8, he said,
There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free
from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in
the flesh. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
that God would send His Son in the flesh, the God-man who was
all God and all man, who was our high priest. He was tempted
in all things like us, but perfectly obeyed without sin. In all the
fullness of the Godhead, to condemn sin in the flesh, that we could
be made righteous in Him. That's the good news. That's
the good news. The light of the gospel that
God commands to shine out of the darkness in our hearts, that
he executed judgment in Christ. He said, I've made my judgment
to rest. And I'll bring them forth in the light, and they
shall see with clear eyes my righteousness. If you remember
the song we sing, the song Rock of Ages, when he
talks about the double cure, be of sin, the double cure, save
from wrath, deliver me, save me, but make me pure. That's
the light. I found a ransom. And at the same time, and at
the same time he does this, he causes us to realize, he gives
us a knowledge as well. And y'all, I'll tell you, knowing
Christ doesn't make you any smarter. I know before I thought I had
a grasp on some doctrine. I honestly think I know less
about doctrine now. The knowledge we have. I'm not
smarter. You're not going to start writing commentaries on
the gospel. You're not going to pick up this
word and understand it. Understand a lot of it. What
we find is our knowledge and wisdom is a person. And he says,
I give you the light of the knowledge of the glory in the face of Jesus
Christ. The light of our knowledge is
a person. Christ becomes our wisdom. Wisdom
isn't something we just work at. It's not any smaller. I mean, look at Solomon, one
of the wisest people ever. What did he say? Man, all is
vanity. That's what he said. That's what he talks about when
he said, God has made unto us all things wisdom. He is our
wisdom. And He also delivers us all the
time. We were striving against Him, working, trying to settle
the score or balance the scale. The first place we look every
time is within ourselves for deliverance. That's what we look
at. And when the light of this Gospel shines forth and makes
you to see, in Hebrews He said, who through the eternal Spirit
offered Himself without spot to God. He purges your conscience
from the dead works to serve the living God. He absolutely
cleans your conscience. This is the new man, the new
heart, the new mind. So everything you put your hope
in, all the dead works, He convinces you of this so you can worship
Him truly. And He convinces you. Have y'all ever tried to believe?
I mean, you hear it all the time, just believe Him. Have you ever
tried to do that? I mean, we're trying. I mean,
every vein in your head will pop out when you try to believe. And what it is, when we found,
what I found, this is what my experience is, I found that,
and I was talking with Billy about this the other day, it
was Y'all, believing is not a verb. It's not an action. It's a person.
Christ is our belief. He is my belief. And John, if
you ever listen to John preach, he said, and he has the best
answer, the best answer for this. How do you believe? Why do you
believe? You know what he says? I can't
help it. That's what John says. I can't help it. When God commands
the light to shine, that light goes forth. My salvation is done. It's finished. Now believe on
me." And from then on, he says, my salvation has gone forth.
This is his effectual work. My salvation has gone forth,
and on my arm will they trust. That's what he said. It's on
my arm. It's not your parents'. It's not a gospel preacher's
arm you're going to trust. It's going to be on Christ. He'll
protect you. He'll defend you, preserve you.
He'll comfort you. He'll do all these things. He's
both your sword and your shield. He's our offense and our defense.
The same judgment that God executed in Christ for our benefit, He
also executes against all those that despise Him. Look in Micah
8. Look in Micah 8. He says, Rejoice
not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall rise. When
I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. And he convinces, what he's saying
here is, my grace is sufficient. My grace is sufficient for thee,
for my strength is made perfect in your weakness, in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my firmities
that the power of Christ may rest on me. We rest on his arm
alone. And the truth is, I don't glory
in my affirmities in the fact that I'm going to sit here and
pray that God calls me to go out and get T-boned in my car
and break every bone in my body. That's not what he's talking
about. And if you look at Paul, what he did, he prayed three
times for God to take it away from him. That's Paul. I glory
in my affirmities because where it delivers me, where it brings
me, and that's the light of Christ. He says that the power of Christ
may rest on me. If we glory in infirmities, that's
why we do that. And though I sit in darkness,
and this is in 1 Corinthians, the Lord shall be a light unto
me. He says for now, we see through a dark glass, we see through
a glass darkly. But then, this is for now, on
this earth we see through a glass darkly. But then face to face,
now I know in part, just now, a little part, But then shall
I know even as I am known." He comforts us in our darkness.
We're like a sundial. This is an example. We're like
a sundial. We need constant light to be
of any benefit, to give any direction or know any direction we're going.
But as soon as the clouds come and there's no direction, we
don't have a clue what we're doing. We just wilt like the
grass. We don't know if we're coming or going, but the truth
is the light's always shining. Though I sit in darkness, the
Lord is my light. And because of that light, like
Paul said, I take pleasures in my infirmities. This is how we
do this in the light of Christ, the fact that we're justified.
It's finished. There's no work to do. In reproaches,
in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake,
for when I'm weak, then I'm strong. He said in Psalm, though I walk
in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me. Thou shalt stretch
forth thine hand against the wrath of my enemies, and thy
right hand shall save me. And it is by His arm, His strong
arm alone, that this light shines forth in our hearts. He said,
I pledged your cause. I did that. While all of God's
wrath and judgment were on me, I pledged your cause and made
you see the works finished, and I've delivered you. So what does
this make us do? What is this light that's revealed
in our heart and our soul that says justified, completely blameless? What does it make us do? So look
at verse 7, it tells us. Micah 7, verse 7. This is what
it makes us do. Therefore, I will look unto the
Lord. I will wait for the God of my
salvation. My God will hear me. You wait
on the Lord and you'll believe Him. That's what it makes us
to do. And you'll cast every one of your cares on Him because
He pled your cause and settled judgment in Himself and saved
your soul and He rest. And that's why you'll believe
Him. And see, our entire life is about that one thing. It's
about waiting on Christ. That's what our whole life is
about. looking to Christ and waiting on Him. And He makes
us to do this. We can't even look to Him. We
can't even wait on Him. We can't even do that. He's got
to do that for us. That's what He causes us to do
when He shines His light in our soul, when He commands it to
come forth and we see the face of Christ. So what are we waiting
for? What we're waiting for is exactly what 2 Corinthians says.
We're waiting for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
to shine that light in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what
we're waiting on. That's what we're waiting on. Every single
day, that's what we're waiting on. And that's looking and believing
in Him. We're waiting for Him to work
our salvation for us, deliver us from our afflictions, Reveal
His righteousness, show us His grace and mercy, waiting for
His comfort. We're waiting for Him on all
things because we're dependent on all things in Christ. He said,
On mine arms shall they trust. And the good news is, as it says
in Micah 7, when I wait on the God of my salvation, it says
it. What does it say? It says, My God will hear me.
My high priest who was tempted in all things, in all things
but without sin, will hear me. He says he hides not his ear
at our breathing. He hears every breath. And so
this is the last thing. This is the last thing that we'll
look at. Is that the light of Christ,
our salvation and our righteousness is forever. It's settled. He said it's finished. There's
nothing else to it. It's done. I accomplished it.
It was executed in our Lord Jesus Christ. And it's eternal. How many times do y'all remember
reading, especially in Psalms, that it says, My mercy endureth
forever? I mean, there's some Psalms that
it's in every verse. There's a reason why, because
this endureth forever. John 28 says, And I give unto
them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand." He says, it's what God said.
He said, my salvation shall be forever and my righteousness
shall not be abolished. He never stops, though we see
through a glass darkly in our sundial mindset, He never stops
commanding that light to shine out of darkness. He never stops.
He never stops commanding it to shine out a light in the darkness
into our hearts, and He never stops revealing the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And because of this, and this is why we can say this, for which
cause we faint not. This is why we faint not. But though all our outward man,
all the old man that we are, perishes, yet the inward man
is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment, just but for a moment, worketh for us
a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. It is forever.
While we look not at the things that are seen, but we look at
things that are not seen, and that's what we do in the light
of God. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the
things which are not seen, revealed by His light, are eternal. So
don't put your trust in this world. We do that. It's all gonna
die and perish in the end. This whole world is gonna go.
Everything. Don't put your trust in your
own works or look to yourself for deliverance. Like I said,
the wisest man Solomon, when he did this, he looked at everything.
And this man God gave wisdom to. He said it's all vanity.
And you know what Paul said about that, putting trust in this world. Paul said, yeah, doubtless, I
count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, whom I have suffered the loss of all
things, and do count them but done that I may win Christ. He is the Eternal Son whose glory
is from everlasting to everlasting. His salvation is to the uttermost.
That's what it is. And all the promises in God in
Him are yea, and in Him are amen unto the glory of God by us.
And this is the light He shines in our heart. This is His promise.
This is His promise. So John recently said that our
justification in Christ, and this was the message he preached
a couple weeks ago, he said, I don't know if you remember,
he said, the justification in Christ is the greatest doctrine. You know, I'm not going to debate
doctrine because I found there's no salvation in it. There's absolutely
none. One thing I know, is the light
of the gospel, the light that we discern everything of the
gospel in, is that all that God demands of me is found in Christ
and I'm justified in Him. That is my rest. That's my best
thought. And the best part is there's
not one thing we can do about it. Not one thing. He said, my
people have been bought and paid for. Bought with a price, redeemed
by his blood, the debt is paid. Remember last time it was, I
found a ransom. Deliver them, I found a ransom,
the debt's paid. They're mine and I can't mess
that up. If I could, I would, y'all. We
all would. God has made salvation so sure,
so complete, to the uttermost, that neither you and I can do
anything about it. And when you see this light,
when you see Christ in His glory, it'll bring every sinner, everyone
that sees this light will proclaim when our souls see this light.
And if you look, He even tells us what we're going to say. Even
look further down in Micah 7. Look at Micah 7 in verse 18. This is what we'll say when Christ
reveals the light to you and reveals the fact that you're
justified in Him. You'll say, oh my soul, who is
a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of His heritage? He walks by. That's what He does. He pled our cause and executed
judgment. He walks by. He retaineth not
His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He will turn
again, and He will have compassion upon us. He will subdue our iniquities,
and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."
It's finished. Justified. He's my righteousness,
my salvation. And this is the message of these
verses. This is the gospel. He's my light. He's my Savior.
He's my justification. It's done. It's finished. And
what he says, 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 Jesus Christ. And He pled
my cause, and He executed judgment for me and Him. And He will bring
me forth to the light, and I shall behold His righteousness. And
He is our light." Alright.