Alright, turn in your Bibles
to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. Our text is going to be found
in verse 10, but I want to pick up in verse 3 for some context. And I'm going to read through
it and just make some comments as we go down to our verse. And
Paul opens this letter to the Corinthians giving thanks to
God for the comfort and the consolation that he's provided for his saints
in Christ his son. And we see as we go through that
if there's any comfort or consolation that God has, there's always
an element of tribulation and trouble and sorrow that we go
through and that we experience as we come to understand and
know what that comfort and consolation is that God has for us in His
Son, Jesus Christ. Alright, so let's pick up in
verse 3. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who
comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort
them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves
are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ
abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ." And
I just want to pause there for a moment. Do you see how the
comfort and the consolation that the believer has? It's always,
always by the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no comfort and no consolation
with God. except in the person of Jesus
Christ, His Son. That's the salvation that God
has provided. We don't have this comfort outside
of Christ. We don't have this comfort or
consolation by anything that we do. It comes all by the Lord
Jesus Christ. And now, the Spirit of God, he
moves on to the preacher, and I'll listen to this, the preacher,
the servant of Christ, and whether we be afflicted, it is for your
consolation and salvation which is effectual in the enduring
of the same sufferings which we also suffer or whether we
be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation." And
that makes sense, so that as God is teaching us by experience
from this Word, by His Spirit applying it to our hearts, so
that we come to know the true and living Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ. As He comforts us and He teaches
us these things, Out of these things we speak, right? We only
declare what we know, as the Holy Spirit has taught us in
the heart by experience according to this word. And now he moves
on to the believer, to the hearer of the gospel. And now, and our
hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the
sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation. And I love
that because you see here that union that the Lord creates First,
he's teaching it in the heart of his preachers. He's giving
them a heart for the gospel and the salvation that we have in
Christ. But he's teaching us these things through tribulations
and troubles and sorrows. And not only us, though, but
that he teaches His here is the same thing, so that there's a
union form that as you guys go through troubles and sorrows
and tribulations, so you can be sure the preacher is going
through trials and sufferings and tribulations. The Lord sanctifies
these things to the withering of our flesh, because our flesh
is an evil thing, and it prevents us from knowing the true and
the living God. So He's going to wear away that
flesh, and He does this through these various trials and tribulations
and sorrows that we go through in this life, so that by these
things He strips away our flesh. He strips away the pride, because
we're very proud in heart. He strips away our self-righteousness. He strips away our self-confidences,
so that all that is left is that which he creates of the new man,
looking to and seeking and desiring the Lord Jesus Christ. So that
by these things, as he's stripping away the works of our flesh,
He's showing us the preciousness of Jesus Christ, that He's our
righteousness, that He's our sanctification, and that He's
the one who we need, because He's the one who makes us right
and makes us righteous so that we can stand before holy God
in confidence, in boldness, not in our works, not in anything
that we've done. When we look to ourselves, there
is no confidence. But when we're looking to Christ,
that's where we see forgiveness and righteousness and peace with
God, our Savior. And Paul gives an example of
this in verse 8. For we would not, brethren, have
you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were
pressed out of measure above strength, insomuch that we despaired
even of life." And here's the fruit that God brings forth in
Paul. Verse 9, But we had the sentence
of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God which raiseth the dead. So Paul is greatly affected
by this, and he sees how the Lord uses these trials and tribulations
that we're going through. They're not just to shame us,
they're not just to make our lives hard and miserable, but
the Spirit of God sanctifies these things to us because they
show us the preciousness of Christ, and they show us our continual
need of the Lord Jesus Christ. this view, this extraordinary
panoramic view just rushes into Paul's mind and he declares this
in verse 10, who delivered us from so great a death. Because it's hitting him, he's
seeing, wow, as he's remembering that situation that they were
in there in Ephesus when like they were going to die and he
sees how They're preaching the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. They're declaring this to men,
and how men are just in so much darkness that they hate and reject
the message, so that they had the very sentence of death in
themselves. They knew they were as good as dead. And he saw that
not only did God bring them out of that, little temporary trial
that they were in, but he realizes, wow, the Lord has saved me from
that same eternal spiritual death that all the world is under right
now. The Lord has saved me from that
great death that I was so bound in and so much in darkness, cut
off from the fellowship of God, and yet he saved me from that
death, and doth deliver in whom we trust that he will yet deliver
us, so that, brethren, we come to see and learn that God is
the author of salvation from beginning to end. He does all
things according as it pleases him." And Paul even realizes
this in verse 1, if you look there, he says, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, the will of God. And so it is that every
one of us here who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ and calls
upon Him for our salvation, our righteousness, our hope with
God, it's all by the choosing according to the good pleasure
of God Almighty. It's whom He chose according
to His good pleasure. And so, it is with every child
that the Lord will use these trials that we go through to
sanctify the preciousness of Christ to us. If you think of
Jonah, right? When Jonah was sinking down in
the belly of the fish, he was going through a trial, a tribulation.
He was going through much suffering and sorrow there, and he's in
the belly of the fish. But what was it that the Spirit taught
him to say right then and there when he was down there in the
belly of the fish? Salvation is of the Lord. He confessed
salvation is of the Lord. And so when Paul says, but we
had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not
trust in ourselves but in God which raiseth the dead, even
so he says in our text, verse 7, our hope is steadfast, knowing
that as we are partakers of the sufferings, so shall we be also
of the consolation. What is that consolation? But
salvation is of the Lord. He sanctifies that and blesses
it to our hearts so that we really do know it and we really do trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not just something on our
lips, but it's something that He forms and creates in us in
that new man forming Christ in us by which we praise and glorify
God. And we stop glorifying ourselves
and our own works, but we glorify God for His salvation. And so, I want to speak to you
this morning about this very comfort that it's the comfort
that springs forth from the revelation that salvation is of the Lord,
and that He's provided salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ, and
that He leads us to Christ, that we see Him, and behold Him, and
rejoice in Him, and are settled in Him, and rest right there.
That's where we camp out, is in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
declare as Paul said, that the life which I now live in the
flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and
gave Himself for me, because we're convinced, brethren, and
being made witnesses that it's only by Him, by the grace and
mercy that God has provided in His Son, Jesus Christ, and we
see that it's by Him that we too have been delivered from
so great a death. And that's my title this morning,
Delivered from So Great a Death, and we'll have three rough divisions,
the great death, deliverance from the great death, and the
comfort that this gives to the believer. Now, the Gospel declares
to us that in Adam we're all dead sinners. We're dead. We
cannot know the true and living God. Because when Adam sinned,
we were in Adam's loins. and being sons and daughters
of Adam, we fell. When Adam disobeyed God, we being
in Adam, disobeyed God. And at that time, that's when
God severed the communion and the fellowship that he had with
man. Right then and there, just as
God said, in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die,
Adam died. He died spiritually, cut off
from God in fellowship with him, and all we were cut off from
fellowship with God right then and there. So that we, by the
works of our hands, we think that we can make ourselves righteous
with Holy God now? That's all a lie. We cannot justify
ourselves. We cannot please God. The works
that we do in the flesh do not and cannot please the Living
God. Turn to Romans 5. Romans 5. And
as you're turning there, I'm going to read to you this way
back in the beginning, because that's where we have to go to
see that the root of the problem, the root of our death, begins
there in Adam. While you're going there to Romans
5, in Genesis 2, verse 16 and 17, I'll read it. And the Lord
God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat, But of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." And we know what Adam did,
right? He ate of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, and he did that very thing. He did exactly
what God commanded him not to do. He died. Now look in Romans
5, verse 12 here. This is what the Scriptures declare
happened to all of us in Adam, verse 12. Wherefore, as by one
man, Adam, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Look
at verse 18. Therefore, as by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. So that
the scriptures are teaching us there that we all died in Adam. We were severed from the fellowship
with God. We no longer have life with God.
We no longer have peace with God. He's our enemy and we're
the enemy of God. We come forth speaking lies.
We come forth as dead as Adam was when he died, when he ate
that fruit. Now someone would certainly ask,
well then what purpose was the law given for? Wasn't the law
given then to help us be restored back to that fellowship with
God? Isn't that why we have the law now, so that we could make
ourselves and keep ourselves holy and restore that broken
fellowship with God by the works of our own hands? But no, that's
not what the scriptures are teaching concerning the law. The scriptures
are teaching that the law was given for a purpose. It was given
for a purpose, but to show us how exceedingly sinful our sinful
nature really is. Because as you Begin to seek
God by the works of the law. As you begin to study the law
and take to yourself certain aspects to the law, if the Spirit
helps you to hear what the law is saying, if the Spirit enables
you to see and to understand what the law is teaching you,
you'll see that you're not keeping the law, that you don't please
God by the law, that you fall short by trying and attempting
to come to God by the law. You fall short of it every day.
because it's exceedingly sinful. It's a matter of the heart. So
that the more you try to keep the law, I mean, there's people
that think that they're coming to God by their keeping of the
law, that they're making God pleased with them or accept them
or that they're making themselves sanctified and righteous with
God. Not at all. Not when you hear the law. Look
in Romans 5 verse 13. For until the law, sin was in
the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression. And what that's
saying to us is that You know, someone might say,
well, the law was given so that we could know and please God,
but what the law is saying is that no, you can't please God,
and that men were dying between Adam and Moses, so that there's
something much deeper than just that law and our personal sin
that has to be taken care of, that there is something much
greater in our nature that must be dealt with, that must be taken
care of, and that's why Paul is bringing this out here with
what he's saying in Romans 5, that it's not just the law that
makes us sinners, but we died in Adam, and therefore it has
to be dealt with, something that we can't take care of ourselves
by our own keeping of the law. So that's what we learned from
this passage, is that when Adam died, when Adam sinned, rather,
and died, we all died in him. As David says in Psalm 58, verses
one through three, do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation?
Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men? Yea, in heart ye work
wickedness, ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth. The
wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon
as they be born, speaking lies. So that rather than desire the
enjoyment of fellowship with God when we come forth, we pursue
rather the enjoyment of our own wicked lusts and the pleasures
of this world. That's what we are by nature.
We come forth speaking lies, we come forth going astray from
God immediately. So when the law was given, the
law was given for this purpose, that the offense might abound. So those who think that they're
pleasing God by their keeping of the law and by their doing
the best that they can, because some will grant, yeah, we're
not perfect, but we're supposed to do the best that we can. No,
the law doesn't say do the best that you can. The law says you
must be perfect in your keeping of the law, so that we would
understand when the Spirit sanctifies it to our heart that we are an
offense to Holy God and that we need His salvation, that we're
cut off. It should drive us to cry out
for mercy, and yet men today constantly are looking at it
and saying, I think I've done a pretty good job and I think
God is pleased with me and what I've done, but that's not why
the law was given. It was given that the offense
might abound. All right. Our second point there,
deliverance from the great death. So that seeing man is now spiritually
and eternally dead through Adam, right? There's nothing he can
do. There's nothing that he can do to save himself. The scriptures
declare to us plainly the salvation that God has provided in His
Son from all eternity, God knowing that man would sin and corrupt
his whole line and plunge himself into spiritual darkness and cut
himself off, God provided the salvation for sinners. Revelation
17.8 declares that our names were written in the Lamb's book
of life and the foundation of the world, and declares that
Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, saying, in Revelation 13, 8,
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And the scriptures
declare what our brother read this morning from Ephesians 1,
verses 4 and 5, He hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. So that, if any man have an ear
to hear, let him hear, that when God saves a sinner, it's by His
pure, free, unmerited, sovereign grace. He does it all freely
according to His will and according to His good pleasure. So brethren,
you who hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and trust that His blood
has cleansed you from all sin, you have only one to thank for
that. God Almighty for sending His Son and providing that salvation
and choosing you to give you a heart to hear it, and to believe
it, and to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and to trust in Him,
and to stay upon Him, and upon Him alone. Back in Romans 5 verse
8, But God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us. So while we were dead in
Adam, cut off from the fellowship of God, hating God, and it's
true, we hate the Lord God. Many people think, well, no,
I love Jesus. I love God. It's the God and
Jesus of their own imagination. They don't love the God of these
scriptures. But it's God alone who who calls his enemies and
makes them his friends, unites them in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He laid down his life for sinners so that by his blood we are justified
and by his death now we are reconciled to God. We now have fellowship
with God Almighty. Listen to Romans 5 verse 9 and
10. Much more then, being now justified
by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if
when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by His life."
So that we're giving glory and praise and honor to God and God
alone for doing this work. He's the one who did the work
all by Himself. He's the one who thought it up
and the one who implemented it and did all things necessary
for our salvation. And so it says in verse 11 there,
Romans 5 11, but we also join God through our Lord Jesus Christ
by whom we have now received the atonement. So brethren, when
Christ was crucified, we see there that beautiful substitution
work that Christ died on behalf of his people. He laid down his
life that his sheep, his little ones might go free. that we might
now be restored unto fellowship with God, and have peace with
Him, all because of what Jesus Christ did, and Him alone. For
this purpose, that no flesh should glory in His presence, but of
God, is Jesus Christ made unto us wisdom, And He's made unto
us righteousness, and He's made unto us sanctification, and He's
made unto us redemption. He's made unto us all things,
that according as it's written, he that glories, let him glory
in the Lord. So that there's nothing that
the believer is boasting anymore. We know, wow, I was cut off. I was a dead, vile, wretched
sinner, hating God, thinking I was pleasing God or thinking
I was pleasing somebody, but I was not pleasing God. And yet
God had mercy upon me, a vile sinner who hated Him and spoke
evil things against Him. And so, it's a wonderful sound,
right? The people of God, they're rejoicing and they think, wow,
that's wonderful news. I can't believe that God would
do this for me and have mercy upon me, knowing what I am and
my heart by nature. And even so, Paul himself was
very much affected by this salvation of God because he was a very,
very, very religious man. And he went about thinking that
he was doing things for God in the name of God and putting to
death people and putting them in jail and hated the name of
Jesus Christ. And so he rejoiced that God would
be so merciful to him who was an active hater and persecutor
of the church. And so he rejoiced in that, and
he said in Galatians 2.20, I'll read the whole verse, Paul said,
I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me, and the life which I now live, I live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." So
he goes out and he begins to preach this message, right? He's
declaring the glories of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
And to some, he's a saver of life unto life, and to others,
he's a saver of death unto death. And so, we actually have, if
you turn over to Acts 19, we have someone who records what
the unbelievers were hearing when Paul was speaking. Acts 19 and turn to verse 24. This is the time frame that Paul
is speaking of when he's writing to the Corinthians there. And
he says, if we have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we
might not trust in ourselves, but in God which raised up the
dead, this is what was going on. And it says in Acts 19.24,
a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver
shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen,
whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation,
and said, Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth.
Moreover ye see and hear that not alone at Ephesus, but almost
throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away
much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with
hands. So they were hearing Paul correctly. They were hearing exactly what
he was saying, but the Spirit of God wasn't sanctifying it
to his heart, so that he didn't hear it in saving power, but
he heard it as a threat against his own occupation, and his own
life, and his own religion, and his own faith, and everything
that he believed was being torn down by what Paul was saying. And it's the same today, brethren,
but we need to be reminded that God isn't who we think God is. God is who He is. God isn't who
we say He is. God is who He is. And God's not
the God of our imagination. God is who He is. And we so easily forget that,
brethren. God isn't the God of our traditions. He's not the God of our mommy
and daddy. He's not the God of our religious ceremonies and
our traditions and things like that. That's not who God is.
God reveals Himself in His Word, and by His Spirit, and by His
Spirit alone teaching us in the heart, that's how we're going
to know who the true and living God is. And His Word declares
to us that they be no gods which are made with hands. They had many gods, like Jupiter
and Diana, and over in Italy I guess they had the same gods,
calling them Zeus and whoever the equivalent was there. And
today we have many false religions as well, like in Islam or even
the Catholics, where they take Mary's name and just rag it right
through the mud too. you know, looking to a priest
and other men for their salvation and their hope. But even closer
to home, right, there's others that claim to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and they say that He's begging you, won't
you please, pretty please, just believe on Jesus and let Him
be the Savior of your life, right? As if God needs your help, that
you must let God save you or else you won't be saved. And
what they're doing is just putting salvation in the hands of man,
and that Jesus is just a small little piece of that, but it's
up to you to make it effectual for you. But then even closer
to home, there's those that preach or claim to believe many of the
things that we believe about God's electing love, the total
depravity of man, and that Christ only shed his blood for his people
and that the spirit is irresistible and that will be eternally preserved
by Christ and his power and yet somehow they take that and set
it aside and direct men right on over to the law to look to
the works of their own hands that they might be sanctified
and made a little more holy by the works that they do because
they don't want to let the works that they can do and their contributions,
they don't want to let them go aside because they're offended
by that. They're offended that the work
is all of God, all of grace, and not anything that I do. But
the truth is that they be no gods which are made with men's
hands." Right? And we need to hear that and
be reminded of that. Galatians 2.21 said, with my own hands, because that's
what men are saying as they're going through their religious
things, and Christ is dead in vain. And who of us should be
saying such a thing? That's a terrible thing to say,
that Christ has died in vain. It says in Acts 19.29, the whole
city was filled with confusion. And that's an accurate description
of the entire world that we live in. The whole world is filled
with confusion. So that the whole world hates
God and hating one another and they have no fellowship with
the true and the living God whom they need. And yet they're hugging
right up, they're hugging up to the gods that they have made
with their own hands. And they be no gods which are
made with hands. In Luke 4, verse 34, we read,
And in the synagogue, in the church of that day, there was
a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out
with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone. What have we to do
with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us?
I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And today, men
still filled with devils cry out the same thing. Why are you
coming in here preaching that? Why are you teaching us these
things? Don't you see that we're playing
religion here? We've got a God that we've made with our own
hands and we're trying to worship Him. You're not allowing us.
You're talking about Jesus and His sovereign power and His will.
What do you think we're going to do? If we don't have the works
of our own hands, then there's no religion. Get away with you. Don't come in here and speak
like that and declare those things. We're playing church. We're playing
church. What have we to do with thee,
Jesus of Nazareth? So, we see it, how Adam's fall
ruined us. Men are under a blanket of darkness
and death. sin and corruption and they think
that they're doing God's service when they're doing the things
that they're doing and all the while they're just blaspheming
God and hating God and they want nothing to do with the true and
living God. So that if you preach Christ,
they don't want to hear that. What do we have to do with thee,
thou Jesus of Nazareth? Listen again, Romans 5, verse
12. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and
death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned. Therefore, as by the offense
of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so
by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto
justification. Verse 19, for as by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one, not
one plus you, not Jesus plus you, but by the obedience of
one shall many be made righteous. Verse 21, that as sin hath reigned
unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." And brethren, on to
our next point. Paul lived this. He lived and
breathed this persecution every day. He saw it and witnessed
it. He saw the response of wicked
men when he preached the truth, how they hated it, how they despised
him for it. If you turn back there to 2 Corinthians
1 now. He saw this great death that
he was delivered from. Because he saw, I was one of
them. I was exactly like them. I was
there when Stephen was stoned. I was there when all those brethren
were persecuted. I was the one driving it and leading it and
wanting to see it happen. And yet God delivered me out
of so great a death being under that darkness and that blackness
and that pit that I could not save myself from. 2 Corinthians
1.9, but we had, this is him describing, again, that response
of wicked men against the truth, but we had the sentence of death
in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God
which raiseth the dead. And so that sentence was coming
from religious men time and time again. And so, you know, they
were so sure that they had the truth of God, and that's what's
amazing, and why we shouldn't think more highly of ourselves
than we ought to. Either your hope and your confidence
rest in Christ, or your hope and your confidence rest in your
own works and the things that you yourself do. He said in 2
Corinthians 11, 24, Of the Jews five times I received forty stripes,
save one. Verse 25, Three times was I beaten
with rods, and once was I stoned. And you think, how is this possible?
Isn't this good news? Isn't this wonderful news? We
who hear it and know the salvation that we have in Christ, we rejoice
in it. So how is it that people don't hear the same news and
hear it the way we've been made to hear it? Romans 10, 3 and
4 says, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness. And going
about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe." And
so, not only is Christ the end of the law for righteousness,
but he's the end of all those gods that be made with hands. Christ puts an end to all that
dead, false religion. And Paul saw all men 2nd Corinthians
4.4, "...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."
Yet it didn't stop them from preaching the truth. And so we
ought to be encouraged and emboldened, knowing that it's only in preaching
the truth, not corrupting it, not looking at people's faces
and then changing our message to suit what the crowd wants
to hear. but continuing to preach the truth as it is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because just as God saved us
by the truth and not by a lie, so it is that he's going to continue
to save his people by the truth and not by a lie. So be encouraged,
brethren, to continue to send the gospel forth from this pulpit.
from this place, because that's how God is going to save his
people. That's how he saves his people. He calls them out, out
of darkness, and feeds them the Lord Jesus Christ, his blood
and his righteousness, and they stay upon him. So be encouraged,
brethren. It's God who delivers us from
so great a death, and that's exactly what he's going to do
for all his people. It says how the Lord did this
for Paul, 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 Paul knew
that if God delivered us from so great a death, then surely
he doth deliver and he shall deliver. We trust and know that
he shall deliver and save his people. If you turn over to 2
Corinthians chapter 4, Paul is so moved by this, I mean,
you could see the theme of this throughout the entire epistle
of how Paul is moved and so impressed by how God saves His people through
a mighty salvation by delivering them out of this darkness. He
says in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 8, We are troubled on every side,
yet not distressed. We are perplexed but not in despair,
persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed,
always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus'
sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our
mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us,
but life in you. So that we trust and understand
that as God is withering this flesh and bringing us low in
ourselves, and yet enabling us and giving us the ability to
declare Christ and to see the preciousness of Him, we trust
that even though this flesh withers and dies, is perishing and wasting
away. We rejoice because we know that
in this weakness, through the foolishness of preaching, that
God is saving His people and calling out His sheep to hear
the Lord Jesus Christ and what He's done, that they would fall
down and worship Him and rejoice and praise him." Verse 13, We
having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I
believed, and therefore have I spoken. We also believe, and
therefore speak, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus
shall raise up us also by Jesus. and shall present us with you,
for all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might,
through the thanksgiving of many, redound, or rebound, or contribute
to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not,
but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed
day by day, for our light affliction. And brethren, when your eyes
are set on this life, when you're set on the things of this world,
the afflictions we go through, they're not light, right? We
have goals. We have financial goals and we have vacation goals
and we have bucket list goals and all these things that we
think that we have to do. And so when something comes that
trips us up or sets us back a bit, we get offended and we get annoyed
and we get frustrated and angry about those things because our
eyes are set on the world. But when they're set on Christ,
the afflictions that we go through, they're light, because we know
all these things are for my good. And the Lord is sanctifying these
things that I might know Him and rejoice in Him and be pleased
and satisfied with Him, even as God my Savior is satisfied
with Him. That's when it's a light affliction.
When you're just looking at the world, it's not a light affliction,
but it really is when your eyes are set on Christ. "...which
is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are
seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."
So brethren, and you who hear me, what are you going to do?
Like what? What are you going to do? Look to the Lord Jesus
Christ. This world is passing away. We
don't know God by the things of this world. And understand
that We've offended God more deeply than we realize. We offended
God back in Adam so that we're all under, by nature, we're all
under that death, that blanketing death that just keeps us bound
in our sin, bound in that deadness of nature. So men have been trying
to please God and trying to reconcile themselves to God the way Cain
did and trying to make up things according to their own imagination.
and their own pleasure and their own ideas and things that they
think of. But remember, they be no gods
which are made with hands. If you're trying to make a god
or trying to please God by the works of your hands, they are
no gods. There's no salvation in them.
The salvation that we have is provided in the Lord Jesus Christ
and in Him alone. So let us give up that occupation
of trying to please God by the works of our hands, by which
we receive the wealth that we have in this world. Give it up.
Give it up for the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to Him, trust in
Him, and beg God for mercy, which is freely given in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Flee to Christ, in whom God freely
forgives his people and has mercy upon him. In Christ we are justified
by his blood and whereby we are saved from the wrath of God.
Flee to Christ, he is the one who saves his people. I pray
the Lord will sanctify that word to your hearts and cause you
to see the preciousness of Christ. Let's pray.