Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. If you get time today, sit down
and read chapter 3. It goes with this chapter. Chapter 3 talks about the ministration
of the law, graven on stones, and that it was glorious that
God gave it, but we have a much more glorious ministry. We have
the gospel of the grace of God in chapter 4. Therefore, seeing
we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint
not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking
in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but
by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be
hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this
world hath 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. 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, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. We'll end our reading there.
Our Father, once again, we bow before Your presence. We bow
before the throne of grace, asking for Thy help and Thy mercy here
this morning, asking for the spirit of worship. Teach us,
Lord. Teach us. Take us in hand and
teach us. Thank You for Your mercies. Thank
You for all Your temporal blessings. Most of all, thank You for the
Lord Jesus Christ and all that we have in Him. Everything we
need to stand in Your presence, You've given to us in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Thank You. In His name we pray,
and amen. Turn back to 2 Corinthians chapter
4. title of the message, we see
we have this ministry. God has given to us here at Bethel
a ministry, a ministry of grace. He's entrusted us with it. Paul
said God had entrusted him with the gospel. God has entrusted
me and you with the gospel of his glory. That's a weighty thought. That is a weighty thought. Now,
Paul had to deal with false accusations against his apostleship. There
were those who were always coming behind Paul, trying to discredit
his ministry. I was thinking when I was reading
this a few some years ago, that there had been a letter circulated
that Henry and Don had not been preaching the gospel. Paul dealt
with the same thing. They dealt with the same thing.
They said, he's not a gospel preacher. He's not an apostle.
He's a false prophet. That's what they were saying
against Paul. And our Lord always had the Pharisees and the scribes
trying to destroy his ministry. They were always coming, they're
like flies. They're just like flies. You
stand preaching and here they come. Every time our Lord was
to preach, here come the scribes and the Pharisees to try and
discredit what he had to say. Satan is never quiet long. Todd
called me the other day. He said, how's it going? I said,
it's going so good I'm afraid to breathe. He said, it won't
last long. I said, I know exactly what you're
talking about. And what he's talking about is Satan is not
quite long. Now he has to be quiet as long
as God tells him to be quiet. But God will let him try the
ministry here. He'll try this man here, and
he'll try you. And this ministry will be tried.
If the gospel is preached in power, I promise you, he'll show
up. Sooner or later, sooner or later. He's never quite long.
We will always have our enemies of the gospel seeking to discredit
our ministry. But you know, the Lord said this,
beware when all men speak well of you. That's more scary than
when they're fighting. At least, you know, I used to
work for a man one time, he owned a lot of businesses. And he said,
one thing about being surrounded by your enemies, you can shoot
in any direction and get one. It's the ones that are silent,
those that are sneaky and underhanded, those are the ones you've got
to watch. And he says here, therefore,
therefore, looking back, that's why I said go back and read chapter
3, and you can see what this is there for. See, we have this
ministry. As we have received mercy, we
faint not. God has given us a ministry, and this ministry concerns the
Lord Jesus Christ, and that's it. It concerns Him, and everything
that I have to deal with, every doctrine that I have to deal
with will come from the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the very
center of it. He will be the very hub of it.
Whatever we teach, Christ is the center of it. We have this
ministry, and it's a ministry of grace. Not of the letter. I'm glad I'm
not standing here this morning and saying, thou shalt not, thou
shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. I'm glad I don't have
that ministry. That's a ministry, Paul said
over in chapter three, it's a ministry of death. I don't have a ministry
or a ministration of death this morning. It's one of life. It's
one of forgiveness. It's one of mercy. I would love to preach to a bunch
of sinners, just like this morning. If you're a sinner, I have something
for you. I have grace for the guilty.
You guilty? You know, the gospel doesn't
mean anything to a person that's not guilty. You gotta be guilty
to understand and enjoy what pardon means. You have to be
guilty and know the guilt of sin to know what forgiveness
is. Until then, it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. Justified means nothing until
you know what guilty means. And we have a ministry of grace. It's a ministry of the redemptive
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it is. It's a ministry
of how God can be a just God and a Savior. How God can be
a just God and justify me. How God can be God, how God can
be holy and have anything to do with this wretch. That's it. We have this ministry. It's a
ministry of how sinners are made the righteousness of God in Jesus
Christ. And it's a glorious ministry.
In fact, Paul said it's so glorious that it excels the ministry of
that Old Testament in such a way that it doesn't even have any
glory in comparison. It doesn't even have any. We have this ministry. God called
Paul to it, He equipped him for it, and He put him in it. And
if God's given us this ministry, and if He's given me this ministry,
God has called me to it, equipped me for it, and put me in it.
Someone called me the other day and asked me about a certain
person. He said, has he ever said anything
about pastoring? I said, he's never expressed
a thing to me about being a pastor. He said, he's the guy I want
to talk to. He's the guy I want to talk to. The guy that has
some understanding of the weight of this, and he's not trying
to put himself in it. He's not looking for it. He's
not trying to be a minister. God makes men preachers. God makes them that way. Not
a school, not a seminary. You know, it's good to have an
education, but that's not what makes a preacher. Taught of God
makes a preacher. Taught of God. Paul was responsible
to preach the gospel just as I am responsible to stand here
and preach the gospel to you every week. Paul said this, woe
is me if I preach not the gospel. Woe is me standing here if I
stand here and I do not preach the gospel to you, adding nothing
to it and taking nothing from it. In 1 Timothy 1.11, Paul says
this, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which
was committed to my trust. Titus 1.3, but hath in due times
manifested his word through preaching. That's how God reveals the gospel. It's through what I'm doing right
now. Preaching. Not singing, preaching. Preaching
the gospel. Which is committed unto me according
to the commandment of God our Savior. That's my whole calling
is to stand here and preach the gospel. to give to you the gospel of
God's glory every week. We have this same responsibility
today to be true to the ministry that God's given to us here at
Bethel. And as we have received mercy,
we faint not. We have received saving mercy. Paul never got over the mercy
of God. And if God has shown mercy to
me, if you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, you will never
get over it. Oh, you may grow. There are going
to be times you're going to have some spiritual slumber. I know
that. But you're never going to get
over it. And God's going to see to it. You're His child. He's
going to see to it. You never get over His mercy.
Paul was on his road to Damascus to kill and put in prison people
who believed the gospel. And God struck him down on that
road and revealed Christ. Christ revealed Himself to him.
Paul said, when He revealed Himself in me. And from that day forward,
Paul never got over it. And neither will you, and neither
will I. Not if we've tasted it. Not if we've tasted it. We have received mercy, saving
mercy. We have received sustaining mercy.
He's the one who keeps me. His mercy keeps us going, doesn't
it? His mercy keeps us from fainting in well-doing. Paul says in one
place, faint not of well-doing. People take advantage? Faint
not. He said don't faint well-doing. Paul attributes his perseverance
to the mercy of God, not his strength. I'm not standing here
in my own strength. If so, this is a useless service. It'd be useless. But as we have received mercy,
we faint not. We do not grow discouraged to
the point of quitting. There are times, and I've experienced
it in the past, and I know other pastors who've experienced it,
there are times when you really, there are times you feel like
it, there are times you feel like quitting, I can tell you,
there are times you feel like it. There are times you feel like you've
just hit the wall, you've absolutely hit the wall. But because of the mercy of God.
But because we have received mercy, we faint not, we don't
quit. Opposition is to be expected. Really, we need to have a mindset.
Opposition, I should be concerned when I don't have opposition.
Something wrong. Something wrong. Now, I'm not
talking about opposition, of course, I got a bad attitude
or something, but I'm talking about opposition over the truth,
over the gospel. If we are called to be soldiers,
now listen, if we are called to be soldiers, and that's exactly
what every believer is, if we are called to be soldiers, then
we ought to expect hardship. Whoever went to war, thinking
it was going to be a piece of cake. War is hard. And Scripture tells
us we are in a warfare. Paul says over in 2 Corinthians
10, 4, the weapons of our warfare are not karma. the spiritual. In 2 Timothy 2, 3, listen to
this, Paul writing to Timothy, Thou therefore endure hardness
as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. You know, this is the only time,
and I've thought of this time and time again, this is the only
time where I will actually be on the battlefield and be able
to glorify my Lord on the battlefield. Because when this is over, the
battle's over. I'll never do it again. I'll
never deal with sin, Satan. This is the only time you and
I have a real opportunity to glorify our Master on the battlefield. 2 Timothy 2.4, no man that woreth
entangles himself with the affairs of this life. And that has a
real lot to do with me standing here. I don't have any business trying
to get in business if I'm preaching the gospel, if God's called me
to the ministry. I don't have business trying
to do anything else. That's what he's saying. No man that goes
to war entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that
he may please Him who has chosen him to be a soldier. A soldier. and our Lord's grace is sufficient
to keep us while on the battlefield. I was telling Don and Rebecca
a while ago, there was a man that went to 13th Street. He
fought in World War II. Him and Henry fought in World
War II. He flew the first bombing mission over Germany, Cecil Roach. He's got a thing he wrote called
Roach's Roads. I've got a copy of it. He was
his experience in World War II. Anyway, he flew the first bombing
mission over Germany, and he said, when we came back, that
plane was riddled full of bullets, and no one was killed. The only
person hurt, one of the guys dropped some ammunition on his
foot. And he said, that was it. And he said, that plane was riddled
full of bullet holes. Our God's grace, His power to
keep us is sufficient. no matter if we're sitting here
or if we are in the hottest battle. It doesn't matter. We are safe
either way. Now, Paul gives us the preacher's
conduct, the minister's conduct that God sends and God uses.
But he says in verse 2, but we have renounced the hidden things
of dishonesty. We have disowned, we have renounced,
we have forsaken. We are honest with you. If God
gives you a gospel preacher, if He gives His church a gospel
minister, that minister is going to be honest with the people.
He's going to be honest. What we are in private, we are
in public. You know, there are some, there
are some who will talk of the doctrines of grace in private,
they would not stand in this pulpit and preach them. They
wouldn't do it. They said it cost me my ministry.
I'd rather it cost me my ministry than it cost me my life. He that
loves his life shall lose it. He that loses his life for my
sake in the gospel shall find it. You'll find it. In the hidden things, we have
renounced the hidden things. What are the hidden things? The
hidden things are the things of the heart. It's the motive
for why I stand here. Why am I standing here? Am I
standing here for gain? Is it what I can get out of you?
Is it the fleece of the sheep? God knows our hearts.
That's what Paul's saying. God knows our hearts. We have
renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, that attitude and
that purpose for preaching the gospel. Why do you want to preach?
Young man come and say, I want to preach the gospel. Why? Why
do you want to preach the gospel? Why do you want to go out there?
Why? You better examine that first.
Because God looks at what I do more than the reason for what
I do than what I do. He said, for a man to hate his
brother without a cause, he said, that's murder. He said, I've
never shot anybody. Well, wait till you stand before
God and find out. What do you stand before God? I've never
committed adultery. Well, what do you stand before
God? To look on a woman to lust after, God says you're guilty.
You see, God looks on the heart. You and I can only see what's
going on on the outside, but God sees what's going on in here. That's what he sees. The hidden
things is what God sees. And he said, we're not walking
in craftiness. Here's the marks of a true minister of God. He
renounces the hidden things of dishonesty. He's not walking
in craftiness. A man's walk is his life. That's
who you are. What you do is who you are. It's who you are. It's a manifestation of my character. And where does craftiness come
from? Comes from Satan. Crafty. Crafty. Nor handling
the word of God deceitfully, using trickery. Using trickery. Being deceitful with the word
of God to get gain. In other words, taking the word
of God and working on your conscience to get something out of you.
That's trickery. That's using the Word of God
to see... To use the Word of God properly is just to tell
it like it is and leave it alone. And the motive is to be for the
glory of God and your good. Paul said, but by manifestation
of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in
the sight of God. Paul preached the word of God
with great plainness of speech. This is the most educated man
in his day. He sat at the feet of Gamaliel. There's only two teachers. There
were two high-ranking teachers in that day, and Gamaliel was
the one. He's the one, and Paul sat at
his feet. Paul sat at his feet probably for about 20 years. Paul had the credentials. Paul
could have spoken language that you'd have to be real learned
to understand. You'd have to have a dictionary
to sit there and listen to it. But Paul said he used one place,
he said, I use great plainness. I want you to understand. I want
these children to understand what I'm saying when it's over.
If they can understand what I'm saying, you can understand it.
I'm not here to impress you. God is not in the business of
impressing a bunch of rebels. He's not gonna impress a bunch
of rebels. God's in the business of truth
and mercy and grace and honoring his son and saving his people.
A multitude of sinners, no man can number. Paul says, you know our honesty,
and God knows our honesty. You know we're honest among you. You know that. Paul was not ashamed
to be examined by God and men. And anybody who stands in the
pulpit to preach should not be ashamed, should not be afraid
to be examined by God or men. My motive should be, and ought
to be, and I pray to God it is, pure. for God's glory and your good,
the edification, your instruction, your growth in grace and in knowledge
of Christ. But now here's the problem. Here's
the problem. If our gospel behead, veiled,
you know, over in chapter three, he talks about Moses put a veil
over his face and the children of Israel could not see his face.
They couldn't look to the end, it says, of that which was to
be abolished. And when he says here, if our
gospel be veiled, it's veiled to them that are
lost. Now Paul called it our gospel
because it's the gospel God used to save us. It's the gospel God
gave to us. There's only one gospel, and
it's the gospel concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. There's only
one that's of God. And if it's hid, if it's veiled,
like the veil spoken of in chapter three, it's veiled to them that
are lost. They can't see. You say, I can't
see it. I know you've done this. You've talked to someone about
the gospel. You've discussed the gospel. And they're like
a deer caught in headlights. Like, I don't understand. And
then you get this, it starts into an argument, you might as
well forget it. Just don't argue the gospel. If God doesn't open
the door, move on. You can't argue. You never argue
a person. You lose every argument, even if you win it, you lose
it. You can't win an argument. Because whoever you just won
it against, he's even more mad at you. But win an argument. It's not that the gospel is so
complicated. The Scripture speaks of, Paul
speaks of the simplicity that's in Christ. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved. Can that get any more simple?
Can't get any more simple. It's not complicated. That's
not the reason men and women can't see it. The problem is
not with the gospel, it's the condition of the hearer. Lost. Lost. What does lost mean? Well, it means that that person
is spiritually dead. No life. No life of God. It's spiritually blind. It doesn't
matter if the sun is shining beautifully bright on a noon
day. If a person is blind, he can't
see it. I don't care if you think he's
facing directly toward the sun, he can't see the light. If you have no spiritual sight,
you can't see what I'm talking about. It means to be spiritually
deaf. You know, when the Lord in the
gospel, when He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf,
lameness, or walk, He healed the lame, these were all, these
all showed that His ability to do these things spiritually.
This is what He does for us spiritually when He saves us. He gives us
sight to see, ears to hear, The ability to walk, the ability
to call upon Him, that's spiritual life. That's what that is, it's
spiritual life. But to be lost is to have none
of those things. You just sit there and it's like, whatever. It just goes right
over your head. It doesn't matter to you. It
doesn't matter. You don't really see it, it doesn't
affect you. That's because you're lost. Lost. To be lost is to be without the
light and life of God in the soul. That's what it is. And Paul's telling us that the
problem with those who oppose the gospel, with those who despise
the gospel of God's grace, the gospel of God's glory, is this,
they're lost. They're lost. Just because a
man picks up a Bible, And usually Bible language does not mean
that he knows God. It doesn't mean that. They said,
Lord, we preached in your name. We cast out devils in your name.
We have done many mighty works in your name. We have given to
charities. We have done so much in your
name. And he says, depart from me. I never knew you. And you didn't know me. And here's Satan's work. In verse
four, in whom the God of this world have blinded the minds
of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel
of Christ, who is the image of God, very representation of God,
who is God himself, should shine unto them. You know the parable here. the parable of those four hearers,
how some fell among the wayside, the birds came and God picked
it up. The God of this world or the
God of this age he's talking here about is Satan. And that's
a little G. That's a little G. He actively
goes about seeking whom he may devour. There's no end to his
evil. His sole purpose, I mean the
sole purpose as far as Satan is concerned, his sole purpose
is to destroy the name of Jesus Christ. It is to discredit the
person of Jesus Christ. That's his sole purpose. That's
his reason, for him now, as far as he's concerned, that's his
reason for existing, is to discredit and destroy the
name of God. in Christ. And He does His greatest
work on men and women. And you know where He does it?
In the mind. In the mind. That's why Paul
says, set your mind on things above. Because Satan does his
greatest work in our minds. Get our attention. Get the cares of this life settled
in on us. Get our minds off of him. He's the master of confusion. Where there's real confusion,
you can be sure it's not of God. All men and women are born in
darkness, and Satan does all that he's allowed to do, allowed
to do, to keep them away. He knows human weakness better
than anybody. other than God. He knows human
weakness. I tell you what, He knows where
the chink in my armor is. He knows where the chink in my
armor, He knows where my weakness is, more than I know where it
is. More than I know. But we've been given a ministry.
We've been given a ministry that's super, that just overpowers,
overpowers whatever He tries to do. Our Lord said this, He said,
the gates of hell, He told Peter, the gates of hell shall not prevail
against thee. And what He's saying is this,
the gates of hell will not keep out the gospel. When God has
purposed to send the gospel to a place, to a people, I don't
care where it's at in this world. I don't care if it go to China.
If God's purpose to send it there, it's gonna go. And the gates
of hell, communism, whatever it is, cannot stop it. If God sends it, if God sends
it, it can't stop it. Satan does not have that kind
of power. He does not have the power to
stop the gospel when God sends it. If God sends it to your heart,
He does not have the power to stop it. If God commands light,
which I'm gonna see here in a second, if God commands light, He does
not have the power to stop that light. Isn't that good news? That's good news. That's good
news. You think of your children, think
of your loved ones, They have no interest in the gospel, not
at all. They don't care about that more than they care about
a broken leg. But here's my hope, is that God will command light.
And there's nothing that can stop that when He does. Nothing. Nothing. For God, he says, 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. Paul's saying that, and what
he's doing here, he's referring back to creation, when God commanded
the light. Remember when there was darkness
over the face of the deep? And God said, let there be light.
And he wasn't talking about the sun and the moon and that light. He was talking about light, the
light that he commands. He said, let there be light,
and it says there was light. And when light happens, darkness,
the only way to dispel darkness, only one way to dispel darkness,
turn the light on. You know, I can come in here
and it can be dark. But there's only one way that
dark is going to be removed, is that I go over and flip a
switch and light comes on. And there's only one way for
ignorance, spiritual ignorance of God, Christ and ourself to
be removed. And that's for God to command,
for God to illuminate us with spiritual light. And Christ is
that light. It's that light. He's that light. Christ said, I am the light. Paul's saying that's what happens
to us when God saves us. The gospel that we preach is
of God and he commands it to shine in our hearts. And then
the blind man says, I was once blind, but now I see. For years I sat and listened.
I just, you know, I look at the lie, I look around, I wonder
when you're gonna get done. When we're gonna go eat for lunch? And then one day, I have an interest. One day, I fall in love with
Christ. One day, I begin to have a real
fear of God. What happened? God commanded
light, that's what happened. God illuminated us. That's why you're called the
children of light. You are the light of the world. God doesn't
save sinners and put them in a monastery, or by themselves
and separate from the world. No, he puts them out there in
the workplace. You're the only light they can see. You're the
only light they're gonna see. You're the light of the world.
A city that's set on a hill can't be hid. God does not light a
candle, he said, and put it under a bushel. No, He's gonna send you out to
all these different places, and you're gonna be the light.
Because there's something different about you. I don't know what
it is. And then, from time to time,
God opens the door, and you're able to tell the gospel. You're
able to tell the gospel. And when God commanded the gospel
light to shine into our hearts, that's when we see something
of the glory of God in the face of the person of Jesus Christ. That's when Jesus Christ really
becomes something to us. That's when He becomes very,
very real to us. Not just someone who lived 2,000
years ago, not just someone who died on a cross, but someone
who lives now. Now. And you have a real relationship
with him now. This is what happens in regeneration.
We see the redemptive glory of God. We see how that God can
be God, how that God could put away our sins and take us to
glory. He can take us into the Holy
of Holies, his presence. No man, he told Moses, no man
can look up on my face and live. You can now. You can look up
on the face of Jesus Christ, who is God, and live. You can do it now. In Christ,
you can. Apart from Christ, you can. God has given us a glorious
ministry Let's be faithful to it. Let's be true to it. Be honest
to it. Devoted and dedicated to it.
Committed to it. Whoo, what God's given us. What
God's given us, all right. Okay, Craig.