So we're looking at 2 Corinthians
chapter 10 and verse 1. Now I, Paul, myself, beseech
you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am
base among you, but being absent, am bold toward you. But I beseech
you that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence
wherewith I think to be bold against some which think of us
as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk
in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling
down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high
thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this little reading from his word. The opening verses of this
10th chapter of 2nd Corinthians speak of the meekness and the
gentleness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We dwelt upon that on
a previous occasion. And it's always good for the
Lord's people to seek to model ourselves after the blessed characteristics
we discover in our Saviour, because He is our great example. And we refuse to be brought into
bondage to legal obligations to do this and do that under
fear of punishment or retribution or loss. but we delight to be
conformed to the image of God's Son and to have Him reflected
and revealed in our lives and in our dealings one with another. So let us then be gracious as
He is gracious. Let us be loving and tender and
gentle with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Treating
them as the Lord has treated us, and as the Lord has treated
them, and as we would like to have them treat us. That's one
of the elevated lessons in the Lord's Sermon on the Mount when
he teaches in verse 12 of chapter 7. Isn't that a lovely little
reminder of our mutual obligations one to another? All things whatsoever ye would
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. And then he finishes, the little
rider says, for this is the law and the prophets. Or we might
phrase that like this. This is the end of the purpose. This is the object of the witnesses
that point us to Christ in the gospel. It is all to lead us
into that new relationship, Christ with us and we with one another
by the grace of God. And so endeavouring or desiring,
yearning to produce these characteristics, the gentleness, meekness, the
Christ-likeness, we are then told by the apostle that we are
in a battle because our heart and mind and will and ambition
is not by nature in subjection to Christ or in any way Christ-like
and will not be unless and until he conforms us to himself and
brings our thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And as his people, we're not
opposed to that. Indeed, for that we are grateful
and willing that Christ should so regulate our lives and hedge
in our thoughts, our conduct, our attitudes, because we've
learned that if he doesn't do it, then our own will is like
an unbroken horse that's always veering away one side or another,
drawing us away from meditating upon the Lord. It's like an evil
spirit of pride that fills our thoughts with the foolishness
and selfish notions of our own will. And so what the apostle
goes on to teach us here in these few verses, and really it's verse
five that I'm going to be dwelling on, but what the apostle is teaching
us, teaching the Corinthians and us with them, that we are
dependent upon the Lord. It is true, he says, that this
is our warfare, but we are destined to be defeated except the captain
of our salvation go before us and lead us forth into the battle
and to victory. So verse four in this chapter,
we read it a moment ago, says, for the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal. but mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and
every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge
of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ. Now the apostle is, I think,
speaking here primarily of gospel ministers. He's speaking about
himself in the context of the labouring in the gospel ministry
and indeed he's defending himself against He's defending himself
and his brethren, his preaching brethren, against the insults
and the false allegations of the false teachers and Judaizers
that were sowing discord in the Corinthian church. And that's
been part of this whole letter. Gospel preachers like Paul, they
do indeed test and prove the weapons of the gospel and the
armour of the spirit. But I think we would be too narrow,
we would be too limiting if we did not see that in this there's
also a broader application for all believers. Because we all
must learn that our strength as believers is not in our own
will or in our own convictions or in our own ambitions, but
in the enabling of God's grace and the equipping of believers
with that spiritual weaponry for the service of his kingdom. our weapons are not physical.
Now, if they were physical, then it would be good if we had, oh,
I don't know, lots of degrees from the best universities, or
lots of money and resources from the coffers of business and commerce,
or lots of muscles and strong legs to be able to go out and
engage, or the best force of arms that would allow us to subjugate
those that we were endeavouring to corral and to convince. But our weaponry isn't physical. It's not of this world. It's
spiritual. not physical, not fleshy, not
worldly, spiritual gifts and graces. And these spiritual gifts
and graces, if we are to employ them in our lives for the good
of the Kingdom of Christ, for the good of the people around
about us, then we have to realise that they must come alone from
Christ. That Christ alone can supply
for the success of our testimony and for the gathering in of his
elect people. Because that's the reason why
we are here upon earth. It is to build that kingdom.
It is to serve our King. It is to honour his cause. and
then our task will be completed. Remember what the Lord Jesus
said, we touched upon it in our studies in Mark recently. He
says in Mark chapter 13, verse 27, then shall he send his angels,
or his messengers, and shall gather together his elect from
the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost
part of heaven. Now I think I said at the time
that that little verse there, it's not a maybe, or a possibly,
or a if it all works out right. It's a definite purpose of our
omnipotent God. He shall send his messengers,
his preachers, his testifiers, his people, and they shall witness
to the four winds, to the uttermost part of the earth, to the uttermost
part of heaven, for the gathering in of his elect, which is the
great accomplishment of his work on the cross. And the apostle
goes on and he says that this work is mighty through God to
the pulling down of strongholds. These strongholds that the gospel
pulls down are the fortresses of human wisdom and reason and
imagination. These are strong in the lives
of individual men and women, and they appear by all natural
means to be utterly impregnable, even to the best arguments of
the gospel. We speak about Christ, and men
and women speak about science. We speak about spiritual matters,
And men and women speak about sense and flesh and bodily passions
and the pursuit of self-satisfaction. We speak about eternity. And
men and women tell us that they would rather live for the moment
and stick to what they know and not trouble themselves with what's
hidden and frankly, in their opinion, unknowable and therefore
unreasonable. And those are the strongholds
in which men and women find themselves trapped. These are the strongholds
by which Satan holds men and women in his grip. And yet what
Paul discovered and what the apostles and his fellow preachers
and gospel ministers of that age and all those gospel ministers
in all ages who have been faithful to the gospel is that despite
the vain imaginations of the human heart and every high thing
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, the gospel
as it is preached from the scripture of truth The Gospel as it is
wielded as the sword of the Spirit and declared with all the authority
as the everlasting, life-changing, soul-converting Word of God,
is that Gospel that does indeed cast down the wisdom of men. and elevates the wisdom of God,
and brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. We should never be ashamed of
the gospel, nor afraid that the gospel is not up to its task. We should never be intimidated
or bullied into thinking that this message is in any way inferior
or inadequate or insufficient for its purpose. Every true believer, every true
believer here this evening, now look around, we get the benefit
of Zoom meetings, we can look at one another, look around.
Every single one of us here who trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ
is a testimony to the power of the gospel, a trophy of God's
grace. Christ's success in bringing
many sons to glory is evidenced in the fellowship of the Lord's
people every week. And each one of us was a hell-bound,
hell-deserving sinner, except the gospel and except the grace
of God had arrested us and turned us around. There's a reason why
we call that conversion. And these high things that the
apostle talks about in verse 5 here, these high things that
exalt themselves against the glory of God, they are the vain
philosophies of men. the skills and the oratory and
the arguments of the debaters, the alternative facts and interpretations
of the people who are contrary and dispute the truth of the
Word of God. But the atheists and the agnostics
and the idolaters and the hedonists of this world are no match for
the converting power of the gospel when it is sent forth in the
power of the Spirit through the faithful preaching of Jesus Christ. And this final clause that we
have in verse five is a most emphatic and comprehensive statement. It says, bringing into captivity
every thought. You know, we just read these
phrases sometimes in scripture and shame on us, we don't give
them the attention that they deserve and that's good that
we get occasions like these when we can come together and just
pause for a moment and think about what these phrases actually
say. Bringing into captivity every
thought. That means, carrying captive
the whole understanding. Such is the illumination that
comes in the gospel, such is the light of the gospel, such
is the infusion and the spread and the reach of the gospel in
the hearts and minds and souls of the Lord's elect, that every
thought Every thought, the whole man, the whole understanding
is captured, captivated and enthralled by the glory and the wonder of
the way of salvation and the person of Jesus Christ. We sometimes
talk about once saved, always saved, or the perseverance of
the saints, or the preservation of the saints, whatever it is
that you want to be emphasising. And the point is that once that
little phrase there, that little clause, bringing into captivity every
thought, once every single thought has been captivated by Christ,
there's nothing can ever draw us away. And that's not to say
that there won't be trouble and there won't be doubt, there may
even be backsliding. But the elect will be preserved
and they shall never perish because they are Christ's captives now
and he will never let us go. When the Saviour died on the
cross, he spoiled the house of the strong man and no one will
ever prove stronger than our Lord Jesus for the defence and
security of his prized possession, his redeemed people, his peculiar
people, the treasure of his heart. And just one final thought and
then we're done this evening. I think this is delightful. I
think this is really a lovely little couple of words at the
end of this verse. The elect of God are not merely
freed. from the high things that exalteth
themselves against the knowledge of God. We're liberated from
that. These things that once trapped
us, these things that once entranced us and enthralled us, no longer
do they do that. The high things that exalted
themselves against the knowledge of God, they have been taken
captive now in every thought. But not only have these things
been removed, but we are supplied with a new knowledge of God and
a true estimation of the nature of our salvation. We discover
what the obedience of Christ really means. The obedience of
Christ. Paul says that bringing into
captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. It does
not mean that we are obedient to Christ, though we should be
and we desire to be and someday we ever shall be. But what it
means is that we see and understand the reason for our salvation. We see the means of our deliverance. We see the certainty of our standing
and the absolute justice of our righteous standing before God
in Christ. We see the obedience of Christ. we see a Redeemer who for us
was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and in
whose righteousness and perfect obedience we, his people, now
stand. This is actually the only time
in our Bibles that that phrase, the obedience of Christ, is used,
but it is a very precious truth and a very powerful doctrine.
We are saved, reconciled, redeemed, made righteous, sanctified, glorified
and everlastingly united to our beloved Saviour because of the
obedience of Christ. If you make a habit of marking
your Bibles, put a little star against that phrase there or
underline it. It's a glorious little truth
and it's well worth remembering. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today.