Good morning. Thank you again
for inviting me back. I'm thankful to the Lord just
to have this opportunity to minister to His saints. And I am thankful
for your hospitality and just for all your kindness. I turn
in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 3. 2 Corinthians 3. In 2 Corinthians 3, we'll just
read verse 16. Nevertheless, when it shall turn
to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away." And Paul is here
declaring the work of the Spirit of God in turning the heart of
a man, turning the heart of a man to himself. When the Spirit of
God delivers that man out of darkness, out of the darkness
and death of nature. Only the Lord God, the Spirit
of God, can do this. Only the Spirit of God can turn
the heart of a man, so that when God turns us, He teaches us by
removing that veil of nature's death and deadness and darkness. And then once the veil is removed,
then the Lord begins to grow us in the grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. My title this morning
is The Veil Taken Away. And we're going to go through
2 Corinthians chapter 3, and largely basically verse by verse,
but they can be grouped or summed into three divisions, and they
are, our sufficiency is of God, And then Christ excels in glory,
and then great plainness of speech. So if we're going to rightly
understand verse 16, which I basically told you exactly what this message
is going to be, showing that the Spirit of God is the one
that turns the heart of a man to himself. And when he does
so, he removes the veil that's blinding us and keeping us just
blind to the things of God. The Lord does this. God must
do this. Man doesn't do this for himself. Only God can do
this. So, if we're going to rightly understand this verse, we're
going to do it by looking at the context in which Paul spoke
these words there in 2 Corinthians 3. So, going back to verse 1,
2 Corinthians 3, And we'll look at verse one. He begins by saying,
do we begin again to commend ourselves or need we as some
others epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation
from you? So that the first thing that
we notice here in verse one is the flesh warring against the
spirit. The flesh is always looking to
see what the flesh can see with the natural eye. So that Paul
had to say, do we begin again to commend ourselves to you?
Basically, what do we have to do to prove ourselves to you
that we are indeed the ministers sent by God to you? The flesh wants to know what
the flesh can naturally do in the flesh, and it wants to know
whether others agree with what you're hearing. The flesh is
always looking, wants to know, well, am I in good company? Who
are these other people that would recommend you? Do I know them?
Are they anything to me? So that he says, need we epistles
of commendation to you? Paul's asking, are you only going
to hear what we have to say if we are sent from the right people
that you think that we need to be sent from? And they're listening
to that voice, that spirit of the world that just wants to
know or say, well, if you have the right credentials, then we'll
hear you. If you went to the right seminary or you were sent
from the right churches, then we're going to hear what you
have to say. Otherwise, we don't want to hear it. We're sure that
you can't possibly have the spirit of God with you. always wants
to exercise power over another man's flesh. That's the spirit
of this world, wants to exercise power over another man's flesh.
So that Paul said, or letters of commendation from you. Paul saying, did you make me
what I am today? Am I only an apostle and a preacher
of the Lord Jesus Christ because of you? Because you gave me the
authority to say these things? So we see right off the bat that
Paul is having to deal with these brethren who are just warring
in the flesh, warring against the Spirit, having a fleshly,
carnal mind, if you will. And what that shows us, brethren,
is that the flesh is always deceitful. always looking to turn us away
from the Spirit, to turn us away from Christ, so that we know
and understand that by the flesh we cannot know the Lord God. We cannot please God by the works
of our flesh. Christ said that God is a spirit,
and He meant it. God is a spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth, so that
we cannot worship God in this flesh, that is, by this flesh,
by the works of this flesh. We need something more than this
flesh, something better than what this flesh can produce,
that we might know God and understand Him and come to God and worship
Him and please Him. Verse 2 now, Paul says, Ye are
our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men, forasmuch
as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ,
ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit
of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables
of the heart. So don't, brethren, don't look
to your works of your flesh. Don't look to the fruit that
this flesh produces to give you a comfort or to settle you or
to think that, okay, you know, if I just straighten up these
things, then I must be pleasing God and God must be happy with
me. That's probably what they're talking about here. Don't look
to your flesh. Your flesh is going to deceive
you. Your flesh is going to take you away from Christ. But the fruit of the ministry,
that Christ is working among you is that ye are manifestly
declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us. So in
other words, if you are His, all your hope, all your faith,
all your confidence is always and only found in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's your sanctification. He's
your holiness. He's your righteousness. That's
what you confess because that's what you believe in the heart.
He's given that to his children to believe in the heart. And
it's proven over and over again as we go through every trial
and every affliction. All through these things, through
these trials and tribulations and afflictions that we go through
in this life, we are always looking to what? The things that give
us comfort in this world? No, but they drive us back to
the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are His, these trials
and afflictions will move you and drive you and force you,
sweetly force you to the Lord Jesus Christ because you see
and know, I must have Christ. This is Christ evidently giving
you evidence that you are His because you keep coming back
to the Lord over and over again for all your comfort and all
your hope. And not just through the afflictions
and the trials and tribulations, but even when you fall in sin
and the chastening that follows, it all sweetly brings you back
to the Lord Jesus Christ. So that in all of this we are
manifestly declared that Christ is our hope, our righteousness,
and our all. You see how the Lord works all
these things to show us that, yes, we are the epistle of the
Lord. He's working this out. He's writing
His word in our heart and working this out in us. So that's not
by our power, but rather as He manifestly declares to us that
we are indeed the epistle of Christ. And Paul says, that ye
are ministered by us, or served by us, that we are ministering
the gospel to you. And he makes a reference here
in verse 3, where he says there at the latter half, written not
with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not in tables
of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. So that you who
know the scriptures, you think, well that sounds a bit like Moses.
He's comparing us to what Moses did when Moses delivered the
law to the children of Israel. When Moses delivered that law
to the children of Israel, they received it in the flesh. They
received that law only by their flesh. They hadn't been given
the Spirit of God. They were as dead and hard and
cold as the rock that that law was graven on. That's their heart. Cold, dead, and hard. They received
it only in the flesh. not by the Spirit, because the
Spirit hadn't given them life yet. He hadn't given them an
ear to hear or the understanding to understand or see the end
of what that law was pointing to, what that law was going to.
They didn't understand it. Now if you turn to Ezekiel 36,
Ezekiel 36, and we're going to pick up in verse 25, And we're going to see a word
in there that says fleshy. And don't be confused by that
word. That word fleshy there means soft or teachable, moldable
by the hand of God. Ezekiel 36 verse 25. And what the Lord does here in
this passage is he shows us the heart of man. It says the heart
of man is a stone. It's a rock. It's dead. It's
hard. It's cold. But the Lord must
give us a new heart. All right? So he says there in
verse 25, I will sprinkle clean water upon you. This is the Lord
doing it. I will sprinkle clean water upon
you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from
all your idols will I cleanse you. Verse 26, a new heart also
will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I
will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will
give you a heart of flesh. That is a soft heart, a teachable
living heart. Verse 27, and I will put my spirit
within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall
keep my judgments and do them. So we see that this is God who
must do the work, right? It's very clear. God's the one
saying that I will and you shall, or I shall do this for you. I'm going to cause you to walk
in these ways so that We see over and over again in the scriptures
always declaring that it's God who does the work. God does the
work. We're just the happy recipients
of His grace and mercy doing for us what we cannot do for
ourselves. Now, I don't mean to knock Moses. I'm not saying
that we today or Paul preached better, did it better than what
Moses did so that Moses failed. It's not a matter of our flesh
either. We're just men. I don't have
any scripture like Moses has that says of him that the man
Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face
of the earth. I don't have any scripture like that written about
me. So it's not what we do, but even Paul gave all the glory
to God. This is the work that God must
do. He also said there in 2 Corinthians
3 verses 4 and 5, 2 Corinthians 3, 4, and 5, and
such trust have we through Christ to Godward, not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God. So brethren, this first point
here is that you and me, if we are anything to God, it's because
of Christ. Our sufficiency is of God. There's nothing special about
me, just as there was nothing special about Moses, nothing
special about Paul. Our sufficiency is from God and
from God alone. We have no spiritual strength.
We have nothing. We are nobodies. I passed a church
sadly, a building anyway, and it had a sign out there and it
said that come here where everybody is somebody. We are nobody's
and Christ is everything and we are happy to be nothing but
to be everything in Him. We want Him to receive all the
glory, all the praise and we are happy with that, with Him
receiving all the glory and the praise. We have no strength but
what the Spirit gives to us. We have no righteousness but
that which is found in Him. No holiness, no goodness, no
way to please Him. Only in Christ alone. Except
we be in Christ. Alright, just as God said, I
will cause you to walk in my statutes. Our second point now,
Christ excels in glory. Now back in our passage there,
picking up in verse 6, I'm going to read 6 verses to you. And
these verses, I had to read them over and over and over again
myself, so I'm going to read them and then I'm going to just
give you a summary of what they're saying. 2 Corinthians 3 verse
6. who also hath 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. But if the
ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious,
so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold
the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory
was to be done away, How shall not the ministration of the Spirit
be rather glorious, or be more glorious? For if the ministration
of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of
righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made
glorious had no glory in this respect. by reason of the glory
that exceleth. For if that which is done away
with is glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious." The Old is based upon the work
of man, the work of man's flesh. That's the Old. The New is based
upon Christ's work, what Christ did, the work that He did. The
Old is of the letter, and it's written on stone. The New is
of the Spirit, and it's written by the Spirit of God in the heart
of His people. The letter, we are told, killeth. If you try to come to God by
the works of the law, either the law written here or the imagination
of what you think God is pleased with, if you try to come to God
with those things, it will kill you. You shall die in your sins. If you come to God, or rather
the Spirit gives life so that when we come to Him, we come
to Him not in our own righteousness, not in any confidence in the
works that we do in the flesh, but we come to Him in the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the one that commends us
to God. He's the one who makes us fit and holy and righteous
to stand before God in Him and in Him alone. It's the Spirit
that gives life to whom He will. He does this work for them. The
old is called the ministration of death, the new the ministration
of the Spirit. The old is called the ministration
of condemnation, whereas the new is called the ministration
of righteousness, so that under it we have the righteousness
of God given to us, formed in us by the Lord Jesus Christ.
He makes us righteous, and He makes peace between us and God,
and He gives us life where there was death. So the old brings
death, the new brings life, but in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
The old was glorious. That's what he said there. The
old had a form of glory, it was glorious, but it was a glory
that was passing away. It was going away because As
we know, it was insufficient to save anybody. The old didn't
save anybody. But the new, it exceeds in glory,
and we know this because God has established it, and it continues
and will continue on and on and on into eternity because it's
of Christ. God, through Christ, has made
this more glorious. It exceeds in glory, for it excels. For that which is to be done
away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious,
and that is because God leaves it standing, as a testament to
the glory and praise of his grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now let's just consider for a moment Israel. Let's consider Israel
here, and the opportunities that were given to Israel in their
flesh. Israel was under this covenant
of works. When God brought them out of Egypt, they were under
a covenant of works which they could not keep. God, on the other
hand, kept his part of the covenant. He gave them everything that
he promised. He gave them the land that he said he would give
them. He established them there in a land. He did it all despite
the fact that they didn't do anything. They didn't do anything
to keep their part of the covenant of the law. Nothing in their
flesh. Now, again, we're speaking of
that generation which came out of Egypt. So, just think back
what you read in the scriptures concerning that generation. They
saw amazing things that God had done. God had performed among
them many, many miracles. They heard with their own ear
the voice of Moses speaking to them. They heard Moses himself
speaking to them the law of God. And they saw the works of God
over and over again from when they were still in Egypt to when
he brought them to the Red Sea, parting the Red Sea, then going
over dry land, then looking back and seeing the Egyptians come
in and that water closing in upon them and crushing them and
drowning them in that water. And when, let's see, when they
were Hungry, they fed upon the manna which God himself sent,
the manna to them to feed them in the wilderness. And when they
cried out saying, we're not satisfied with this light bread, we're
tired of it, give us something more, something meaty, God sent
them quail to eat. And when they were thirsty and
they cried out against God and against Moses, the Lord gave
them that water which came from the rock, which rock, we are
told, is the Lord Jesus Christ. So all things, all kindnesses
were poured out to them through the Lord, and yet they did not
believe God. And so the scriptures tell us
God swore in his wrath. He said, I swore my wrath. They
shall never enter into my rest. And we saw that in picture when
they died in the wilderness, not having entered the rest,
which is a picture of them not entering into that spiritual
rest with the Lord in heaven. And what that tells us is that
we who would boast in our flesh, We who would think that, well,
you know, I hear what you're saying, but I don't hear what
you're saying. I don't like what you're saying. I think that I can come to the
Lord by the works of my flesh. If you think you're somebody
and that you can come to him right there, just look at Israel.
They had every opportunity to see things that you've never
seen before. So if you think, well, if I just
saw some miracle, then I'd believe. No, you wouldn't, because they
didn't. You can see that's the best that the flesh could possibly
have to believe on the Lord, and the flesh failed. The flesh
did not believe on the Lord. So that we know, only God can
turn the heart of a sinner. It's God alone. If God doesn't
attend it with grace, you're going to die in your sins. Just like they did, they all
fell and died in the wilderness. That's not the covenant that
we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, thankfully. It's not dependent
on our flesh. It's not dependent on us doing
something. It's all dependent on the Lord
Jesus Christ. God said to Israel, this is back
in Deuteronomy, He said, they are a very forward generation. Children in whom is no faith. And that's all of us by nature.
Children in whom is no faith. He says, they have moved me to
jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to
anger with their vanities, and I will move them to jealousy
with those which are not a people. I will provoke them to anger
with a foolish nation. Brethren, we have much to be
thankful for today because we are that foolish nation. We are
those Gentiles that he was speaking of there, promising that he would
make them jealous by pouring out his spirit of grace and mercy
upon them. We had No part in this salvation
according to the flesh. We had no part in it, but thanks
be to God who before the foundation of the world elected a people
and put us in Christ. Purpose to save us from before
the foundation of the world. Turn to Isaiah 49. Isaiah 49
and we'll see this again. Isaiah 49 and pick up in verse
6. And he said, Isaiah 49. All right, verse six. He says,
it is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise
up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel.
I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles. That's that
foolish nation he spoke of way back there in Deuteronomy. Now
he's speaking through Isaiah. I will also give thee for a light
to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end
of the earth. All right, drop down to verse
eight. He's speaking to the Lord Jesus Christ still. He says,
thus saith the Lord, in an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in
a day of salvation have I helped thee, and I will preserve thee
and give thee for a covenant of the people, that New Testament,
that new covenant, to establish the earth, to cause, to inherit
the desolate heritages, that thou mayest say to the prisoners,
go forth, to them that are in darkness, show yourselves. Brethren, we all came into this
world bound in nature's darkness and deadness, having a veil over
our hearts that we could not and would not and did not and
had no desire to know or understand the true and living God. It was
not in us. We had no righteousness. But
here's Christ, who was appointed of God, elected of God, the firstborn,
the one whom God first trusted to save his people, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is our righteousness, whose blood cleanses us from
all our sins, that now we're washed and clean and righteous
to stand before holy God. And he says to us, show yourselves. Show yourselves. We would never
have come before a holy, righteous God. When God first showed you
what you are in your heart, could you imagine standing before a
holy, righteous God? No. Not if God showed you what
you are in your heart. You would never have imagined
that you could stand before a holy, righteous God. But here's Jesus
who says, show yourselves. Show yourselves. Come into the
light. Let us see what God hath wrought. We rejoice in what Christ
has done. He's proud of what he has done
because it's all his work. It's his spirit of grace doing
all the work for us that we could not do so that now we who were
dead, dull, vile, wretched sinners who still know that, because
we still have this flesh, we know what we are. But Christ
has made us righteous and shown us and given us light in our
hearts that we now see, wow, look at what Christ has done
for me. Look at what He has done. Turn
to John 3. John 3. This is what our Lord
told Nicodemus. In John 3, verse 19, We see here again just what we
in our nature, what we in our hearts would do or wouldn't do.
It says John 3.19, and this is the condemnation that light,
this is the Lord Jesus Christ, that light is coming to the world
and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds
were evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hated the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God. And it's just like what we read
in Isaiah, that thou, Lord Jesus Christ, mayest say to the prisoners,
go forth to them that are in darkness. Show yourselves. We may now boldly come into the
light of the glory of our God, standing alone in Christ. We would never dare stand outside
of Christ. We don't stand alongside with
Christ. No, we only come in the Lord
Jesus Christ. We're nothing. All we are is
swallowed up in Christ, and we stand happily before our God
in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The children of Israel,
they died under a covenant of works. They did not enter into
His rest. But we are under the covenant
of Christ's blood, so that now we have all things needful to
stand before Holy God. The Spirit sanctifies us, He
leads us to Christ, and in Christ we have His righteousness and
are happy forevermore because of what He's done. We're not
under that covenant of works. We're under the covenant of Christ's
blood, the new covenant. All right, third point, great
plainness of speech. So, since this is God's work,
and since Christ has accomplished all things for his people, leaving
nothing for us to do, Christ has done all the work, now we
can serve one another and serve our God in newness of life. That's what he calls us to do.
Alright, so we don't need to alter our message anymore, we
don't need to connive the flesh and try to convince you, oh,
pretty please, won't you believe in Jesus? We know that the power
of God is this, that as we just preach and declare what God has
done, He will speak light and life into the hearts of His people
and they shall hear and know, Lord, you did it. You did all
the work. You've done this for me. The
Lord will show you and teach you by the gospel. Stay upon
the gospel and the Lord will show you. Paul says this there
in 2 Corinthians 3. 2 Corinthians 3.12, he says, And why I encourage you, you
want to just have a pastor here that just preaches Christ faithfully
over and over again every time you meet, is because we don't
preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves,
your servants for Jesus' sake. If we're sent of God, then we're
not going to be preaching works of the flesh, we're not going
to be preaching things about ourselves, we're not going to
be preaching and boasting of our works or your works or any
other works, but Christ's work alone. That's what you want to
hear. If you're His, that's what you
need to hear. That's how He's going to sustain your life. And
so, the reason we preach this is because Christ is so much
better. He's so much better. I'm sure
some of you have probably heard the works of the flesh being
preached, where pastors are just whipping you and beating you
with the, you know, telling you what you need to be doing and
trying to get you to do this and just how dead it is. Christ has delivered us from
that. Christ is so much better. He
is food to the soul. He nourishes us, and He encourages
us, and He keeps us stayed upon Him through the preaching of
the Gospel. And He turns our hearts through
the preaching of the Gospel. Paul said of Adam, the first
man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening
spirit. We preach Christ because Christ
quickens us, gives us life through this gospel. He gives us life
through his life, through the spirit which he gives us. Adam
sinned, And through his sin, death entered the world. Because
we're all born of Adam, we all sin just like Adam did. But Christ
was not born of the seed of Adam. Christ was born of the Spirit
of God. And he has fulfilled all righteousness,
not for himself, but he's fulfilled all righteousness for all those
who hope and believe and look to him for life. He did this
all for God's glory, and it's all for our benefit, so that
he's cleansed us from our sin and made us righteous and holy
before God. And that's why having this life,
he is called a quickening spirit, because he imparts that life
by his spirit. Now, this great plainness of
speech that we use today, Paul compares it to Moses in verse
13 now. Pick up in verse 13. He says,
not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children
of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which
is abolished. This is 2 Corinthians 3, verse 13. Now verse 14. But their minds were blinded,
for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in
the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ.
But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon
their hearts. and avails upon every one of
our hearts by nature." Don't miss that. We all have that veil,
that deadness that we cannot see. We are blind to the things
of God by nature. We don't know God or Christ by
nature. Then he says in verse 16, nevertheless,
when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away."
Now that, it is speaking of the heart, all right? Nevertheless,
when the heart shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken
away. But you might be wondering, well,
under whose power? Under what power does the heart turn to
the Lord? Is this talking about the man?
The man now has to turn his heart to the Lord, and then the Lord's
gonna take away the veil? No, we just saw who I spent all that
time to show you over and over again how it's the Lord who must
do the work. It's the Lord who turns the heart
to himself and then the Lord takes away the veil that we would
grow up into the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. And if you look there in verse 17, you'll see this.
You want to know what came over this man that this man's heart
would be turned to the Lord. Verse 17 says, Now the Lord is
that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. So the Lord is turning the heart
of man to himself, and the Lord's taken away the veil, so that
he now grows up and sees, having light now, Ah, it's the Lord
Jesus Christ who has saved me. He now grows and continues in
that light. He now grows up and continues
in the knowledge, growing in the grace and the knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all the work of God. You
can see this again if you go back to verse 3. That's exactly
what Paul said in verse 3, he said, as I just want to show
you, this is the Lord doing the turning. For as much, verse 3,
as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered
by us, right? It's Christ's epistle, it's Christ's
work, it's His power doing everything that we couldn't do for ourselves,
written not with ink, But with the Spirit of the Living God. That's how he's doing it. That's
how he's writing his epistle. That's how he's not writing it
with ink or on tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
It's with the Spirit of God there, right there in the context. So
unlike the children of Moses' day, who didn't have the Spirit,
who were dead, Christ now today, through His Gospel, turns our
hearts to Him. That we will believe in Him and
hope in Him continually. That's a living work of the soul.
We only turn to God if we're alive. That's a living work of
the soul. So you must be made alive, which means it must be
the Spirit of God doing the turning. Alright, one more verse. Verse
6. So just to read it again, 2 Corinthians 3.6, who also hath
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. So you can't say that the flesh
has some living work to do or has some ability to turn itself
to God because the flesh is dead. It's a living work of the Spirit
of God that does that turning. If you try to turn your heart
and you say, well, I kind of hear what you're saying and I
think I have a better idea now and I'll just go and try to make
myself a little better and to please God, that's just a recipe
for disaster. That's just a recipe that will
kill you. It will lead to death because
that's a ministration of condemnation, a ministry of death. Only the
spirit giveth life. All right, now verse 18. I'll
bring this to a close. We find it once more repeated
in verse 18 at the end of the chapter. But we all with open
face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit
of the Lord." So, brethren, it's all the work of God. In closing,
it's all the work of God. Nevertheless, when the heart
shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Know this,
the Spirit turns the heart, the Spirit removes the veil, and
the Spirit transforms us into Christ's image. It says, from
glory to glory. And what that means is The Spirit
turns us from that glory that works in the flesh, those works
that we once depended on and trusted in, in the works of our
flesh, from that glory which is passing away to glory, that
which excels, that glory which exceeds all other glories, the
Lord Jesus Christ. There's a Spirit turning you
from that glory which is passing away to the glory of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. Only the Spirit can do that work,
even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Amen. Let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, Father, we know that it's Your work, it's Your Spirit that
must turn our hearts, and it's Your Spirit which must keep us.
Lord, we pray that You would keep our hearts stayed upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, that we would not trust
in or have confidence in the works of our flesh nor turn back
to the works of our flesh, but keep us stayed upon Jesus Christ. Turn us, Lord, from that former
glory which is just works of the flesh and death, and turn
us to the glory of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, who is life
forevermore. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.