I was thinking this morning in
the consideration as we've been going through the book of 2 Corinthians
here, and we had looked at several things last week of which Paul
had spoken to these Corinthians about as far as their failing to recognize his reason for coming to him and
ministering to him and the care that he had for them. It was not based in anything
of the flesh, nor was his continuing concern for him in any wise based
in anything of the flesh, but it was in that which was given
to him as a necessity. And he says in verse 30, If I
must need glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine
infirmities. And then in verse 31 he says,
The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed
forevermore, knoweth that I lie not. Now, his purpose in writing
that was to essentially to tell them that, you know, I'm telling
you the truth. I'm before God. This is it. And
essentially, may the Lord strike me dead if this is not true.
He could have said that. That's what he said, the Lord.
Well, testify. He knows that I'm telling you
the truth because He's the one that sent me. But what I wanted
to consider today is what he says there in verse 31 about
the Lord Jesus Christ, which he said, "...which is blessed
forevermore." Now that is the key, I believe, to understanding
what it is that he meant over here in verse 4 when he spoke of those who would
corrupt the gospel of Christ, and he said, for he that cometh
preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached. He says in another place that
if a man comes preaching another gospel than I have preached,
let him be accursed. He said that is a terrible thing,
that if someone would do it. It is not a light thing. to misuse
and to set forth the Gospel and the Christ of the Gospel in a
manner which is not in keeping with what the Scripture and the
Spirit of God reveals through the Scripture about the Lord
Jesus Christ. So what I believe that he basically
sums it up when he says the Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed,
forevermore. Now, how do we know if a man
comes and preaching another Jesus than this one who is blessed
forevermore? This is the one we want to preach.
We don't want to preach one that is good for some things. We don't
want one that can help you out. if you get in a bind, but you
can just kind of more or less, you own your own until you know
you really need Him, and then you really call upon Him. But
He said, this is the One who is blessed forevermore. This
is the same One who was in the flames and the fire on Mount
Sinai. This is the same One that spoke
those words unto Moses. And yet He is the same One who
having spoke those words to Moses, took upon His own self the likeness
of sinful flesh and walked among men and bore the very curse that
He attached to that law which He spoke on Mount Sinai. Now
this is the One whom we are talking about here. This is the One who
is blessed forevermore because He is, as He said to Philip,
if I have been so long time with you and you have not known who
I am, he that has seen me hath seen the Father." There is no
difference between us. He was essentially saying to
Philip, I am that one who said, I am that I am. He is that one
who is blessed forevermore. Now, when we think of preaching
Christ, In order to preach that One who is blessed forevermore,
we must preach Him as that One who He is, who is the Eternal
God. And anybody who preaches a Christ
who is not the Eternal God is not preaching Christ. Now that's
all there is to it. You know, I know the Lord is
pleased to give men different levels of understanding and all
of that, and I'm not here to condemn anybody in what they
understand and know. But I'm just telling you what
Paul is talking about when he says, if a man come preaching
another Jesus than that one whom I have preached that ye have
received, this is that one. He is that one who is blessed
forever. He is that one who is eternal.
He is that one who inhabiteth eternity. He is not one who is
secondarily in eternity. He is that one. He is the same
one. He is. When he said he was to
Moses, he says, I am. When he said the same thing to
the Pharisees and those gathered that would have cast him off
the hill, they knew what he meant. They said, this man speaks blasphemy. What did he say? He says, I am. They said, but we'll kill him.
They couldn't kill him. Now they did kill him ultimately,
didn't they? But they killed him at the time
it was appointed. They couldn't kill him then.
Because he says, no man taketh my life from me. He says, I lay
it down. in order that I might take it
again. Why did he die? So that he might rise from the
dead. He died for that. He is blessed forever. He is
that one who cannot be contained. He is that one who cannot be
hindered. Now he is blessed forevermore.
He is that I am that I am. He is not one who came into the
world to try to accomplish something. When the Lord Jesus Christ came
into the world, He came into the world with a purpose. It wasn't to attempt the salvation
of the world at large in hopes that He could gather in all that
He could. Now to preach a Jesus that does
that, or supposedly is doing that, is not to preach the one
that Paul preached. Is it? Can it be said to be? Now, I know people can have misunderstandings,
but I'm talking about the Jesus that is preached has to be this
one. Because to have an understanding
of Christ in some other way is not to have an understanding
of who Christ is. Now, that's not to say that God
can't open a man's eyes and show him who Christ is. Because I
can tell you there was a time in my life when I didn't know
who Christ was. I thought I did. I read the Bible
and I talked about it, but I did not know the Christ that Paul
was speaking about here. But in a point in time, the Lord
in His mercy and kindness showed me who Christ is. Now I believe
every man on the face of the earth would have essentially
the same testimony. Very few people. come into the
world or come into the faith and have a complete and pure
understanding of who Christ is, do they? But the one whom Paul
preached is this one whom I'm telling to you now, because I
do see who He is. He's that one who's blessed forever,
the eternal God. He's that one that walked among
men as a man, true man, pure man. Absolutely man, but the
eternal God. not occupying some secondary
position as some of the great Trinitarian scholars will tell
us. You know how that the Lord, you've
got God the Father and He's in this higher position and then
you've got the Son who's in this next position and then the Spirit.
And like it's a three-tiered thing and they tell us they're
all equal but they're kind of in a hierarchy. Well, there is
no hierarchy in the Godhead. There is the God. whom we serve. And He's pleased to reveal Himself
to men in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came and walked
among men. And He does minister to us through
His Spirit as He gave. He breathed His Spirit to His
disciples, did He not? He breathed upon them, the Scripture
says. He said, Receive ye My Spirit. Well, what was His figure?
He said, It's My Spirit. It came out from me. The Spirit
of God is the essence of God. He is God. The Father is God. The Scripture says that when
He was born, He would be called what? The Everlasting Father. Now how on earth can you read
the Scripture and deny that that would be true? That's who He
is. He is the Father. He is the Son. He is the Holy Ghost. and how
he's pleased to manifest himself in the Word of God and teach
us these varying things. I'm not really concerned with
all the theories that people have, but when we talk about
the Jesus that Paul said he preached and if anybody received another
one it wasn't the right one, that's who he's talking about,
this God. This One who is blessed forever. You know, you can't read what
Paul said without him talking about the Crucified One. Because that's what he said He
came to preach. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now this One who came, His work
is either Completely and absolutely sufficient and efficient for
the salvation of the people that he came to die for. Or it is
not the Jesus that Paul preached. Can't be. Because he said that
he satisfied the law. He paid the price. He is our
intercessor. He is our mediator. He is that
one who has gone into the presence of the Father in our behalf. And He has got exactly what He
went there to do. Now, there are probably a few
things that I get upset about when I hear men preach. more
than I do about this aspect of when they get to talking about
how the Lord did all He could do on Calvary, and the rest is
up to you. Now I'm telling you that's not
the Jesus that Paul preached. You'll never find anything in
the preaching of Paul about the Lord Jesus Christ that would
ever lead you to believe that such a thing was true. Where
do such things arise? They arise in the minds of men
because they hate the notion that He is that God which is
blessed forever, who said, I will have mercy on whom I'll have
mercy, and whom I will, I'll harden. They don't want to receive
that. They want to paint a picture
of this one who, oh, it's just all up to you now. He's just
out here doing the best He can. He came and He made salvation
possible. Well, I'm telling you, Christ
didn't make salvation just possible. He made it an absolute certainty
for those whom He came to redeem. Now that's a glorious thing. He's blessed forever. Because
you see, the saints of God in all ages shall praise Him because
He is the Savior. He is that One who came to redeem,
and He came to claim that which was His. And that's exactly what
we're here today to do. I mean, we remember His death
until He comes again. So when we remember His death,
and we remember His death as something that was a hope-so
thing, Or when we remember death, do we remember that it is His
death that paid the price for our sin, that satisfied the claims
of justice? You know, when you think about
the accusers of the Lord's people, I believe there are three accusers
of God's people. One is the law of God. It's an
accuser of God's people. But guess what? The Lord Jesus
Christ, He has satisfied those claims. The law does not have
one leg to stand on. The law cannot bring one charge
against the sons of God. Why? Because Jesus Christ satisfied
the law in its jot and its tittle. Not one aspect of the law was
not fulfilled by Christ who was tempted in all points like as
we are yet without sin. He perfectly obeyed the law as
a perfect man. He perfectly satisfied the law
as a perfect man. And so, dear brethren, in His
death He paid for our sin and in His life He satisfied the
law in all things. And so the Lord can't bring any
accusation against the people of God. Now, the next accuser
would be Satan. He's the accuser of the brethren,
is he not? But you see, the Lord pays no mind whatsoever to Satan. Why? Because in the first place
he created Satan for his own purpose. He created Satan so
that Satan might go about doing the things that he does according
to the good pleasure of God's will. If you don't believe that,
read the book of Job. If you think Satan can do whatever
he wants to when he wants to, you'll find out that he can't.
And the Lord is the one that directs everything that Satan
would undertake to do for his own purpose. But Satan can't
accuse the people of God. Why? Because the Lord has trampled
upon him. He's a defeated foe. There's
only one enemy that's left, and that's the enemy of death. And
we see that in reality it is a defeated foe as well. But yet
the Scripture speaks of it as that because yet we must face
it in this world. So the accuser of the law can't
do it. The accuser of Satan, he's not
even considered. I mean, when Satan would bring
his accuser, his accuser, they'd say, well, Lord, he's a sinner. No, they'd say, what are you
talking about, Satan? That man is in Christ Jesus from
before the foundation of the world. He said, you had your
shot at my son when he when you tempted him three times. And
he said, you couldn't even scratch the surface with him. And he
said, every one of my children is hid in Christ. So what are
you talking about? How can there be any accusation
brought against these people when they've been sinless? They've
never sinned. They're in Christ. So Satan has
no power to condemn the sons of God. He has no power to bring
any accusation against God. He is not an officer of the court. You see, a lot of people think
Satan is going to stand there on the judgment day and he is
going to point out all these things. No, brethren. He is going
to be judged the most harshly of all. He has no standing in
the court of God. He is not an active player. He
is a defeated one. And then there is the accusation
which is the strongest. This accuser does not sleep night
or day, but it brings out its accusations from the morning
to the night, sometimes even in the slumbers and dreams. And that is this old simple pledge. For this old sinful flesh would
accuse the sons of God before the throne of God. This old sinful
flesh would say, if you were really a child of God, you'd
never do that. If you were really a child of
God, you'd do more. If you were really a child of
God, you can't be. You couldn't be a child of God.
Surely you're not. Just look at yourself. Oh, dear brethren. You see, the
Lord sent the Lord Jesus Christ into the world to accomplish
the salvation of His people, and then He did something that
is one of the grandest things, and it's beyond the capability
of men to even design such a remedy for this strong accuser. And
it's called the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he sent
the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ into the
world. Many tell us that the reason
that he sent the gospel into the world, again with this notion
that he is out here trying to gather in all of these people,
however many he can, that he sent it out here just to try
to do whatever good he could with it. But I am telling you,
the reason the Lord sent the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the good news of what Christ did, as this One whom we are
talking about, the God who is blessed forever, The Savior who
satisfied the claims of the law. The reason that God sent the
Gospel into the world was to denounce the strongest accuser
of the brethren. And that is this old simple flesh. And the manner in which He does
it is by causing the people of God to be born again. so that
they have ears to hear. Now, they're living in a fleshly
body, but all men who live in fleshly bodies don't have this
privilege. They don't have this glorious
gift given to them to be able to hear that sweet sound that
says, oh no, you are not a sinner before Almighty God. Your sins
have been taken away. All of your crimes or erased. You are justified in Christ. Now dear brethren, there are
many that come along and they try to tell us that that's not
true. And they say, oh, well, if you
go telling people that there's no condemnation to them in Christ
and their sins are all forgiven and that they've been in Christ
from before the foundation of the world, why, they'll just
go out and do all kinds of stuff and they'll just disregard the
Word of God and they'll have no thought towards the things
of God ever. But the truth of the gospel is
that the Lord does work in His people, does He not? And He works in us, you know,
because sometimes the old flesh works in mysterious ways. If
He can't accuse us before God, then He will try to get us into
the mind of thinking, Well, we'll just do whatever we want to do. And He'll lead us astray in that
way. But you see, even that's designed
by the hand of Almighty God. And this accuser might think
that he's going to accuse us and snatch us in a snare, but
God, who's rich in mercy, uses the gospel to rescue us. to remind us and to break our
hearts, even as we come and we remember the Lord's death until
He comes again. And then our sin does not appear
so enticing to us when we look at Christ, when we see this Christ
that Paul speaks of, who takes away sin. Because you see, as
the Spirit of God works in the sons of God, He breaks their
hearts. And they cannot entertain the
notion that sin is fine. And this is an evidence of the
work of the Spirit of God in them. It's the work of the Gospel
to bring us to that place of seeing Christ and knowing what
we are by nature. But knowing that it is not what
we are by nature that causes us to be accepted in the presence
of God, but it's what we are in Christ. And so the flesh,
though it remains with us till the day we draw our last breath,
and I suspect that up until the last moment, when death is knocking
at the door, that the flesh even then will be saying, yep, you're
going to miss it. You're not one of God's children.
You'll never enter in there. Though in His own time, in His
own way, the Spirit of God will wrap His people in His arms and
He'll gather them to His bosom because the accuser of the brethren
is cast down. And He is no more. He is that
last enemy that shall be destroyed. And he may whisper out his lies
to the very end. But all of those who are hidden
in Christ shall triumph. Not because of what they were
in the flesh. No, sir, buddy. I mean, if you've got any hopes
or expectations that you're going to have one thing to recommend
yourself before God in the flesh, it's going to be taken away from
you somehow or other. And you're going to be stripped
naked and bare. And if you belong to Him, you're going to have
one hope, one expectation, and it is that Christ died and there
is redemption. And even the accuser of the brethren,
whether it be the law or whether it be Satan or whether it be
the flesh, has no ground. upon which to stand." Now this
is that God. This is that Jesus Christ who
is blessed forever. You see, this is the message
about that one whom Paul preached, who takes away the sin of his
people.