So we're in 2 Corinthians chapter
4 and verse 1. And here's what the apostle writes
to the Corinthians. Therefore seeing we have this
ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not. but have renounced the hidden
things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the
word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. But if our gospel be hid, it
is hid to them that are lost. in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine upon them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. I trust that we may never lose
a sense of awe and wonder at the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I trust we will always feel that
sense of majesty about the revelation that we have been given in the
gospel of Christ. There are many, many religions
and philosophies and the product of man's thinking and man's mind
in this world. There are many things that people
become infatuated with, that they become passionate about.
but the gospel of Jesus Christ excels and exceeds them all because
it is divine and because it is given at the hand of God himself. And I think that that is what
the Apostle Paul is referring to here in these few verses. There are some wonderful, some
pretty amazing phrases that he uses in this little passage.
And we're just going to Well, I was going to say touch upon
them, probably just bump into them as we go down through these
verses tonight. But I just wanted to draw to
your attention that in the very first instance, it's clear that
the apostle is thrilled by the gospel. the things that he endured,
the things that he faced, the things that he encountered in
his life, they always were put into a perspective which he gained
in the understanding of the wonder of the gospel. He marveled, for
example, at its simplicity, the simplicity that is in Christ
he wrote about. He rejoiced in its message of
free justification by grace. This was a man who had spent
his whole life as a youth and as a mature man, as a Pharisee,
pursuing the rigours of the law and justification by obedience
to the law of God, and now he rejoiced in the fact that he
had a message to carry to sinful men and women of justification
or righteousness by grace apart from the law. He delighted in
the person and in the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the gospel spoke, so
that when the Apostle Paul came with this message, he was declaring
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that gospel was everything
to the Apostle Paul. He expressed frequently his passion
in the epistles for the work of the ministry that had been
committed to him. He spoke of the privilege of
preaching and the honour that had been given to him and to
others to carry that gospel message of saving grace to needy sinners. and the high esteem in which
he held his calling as a minister of Jesus Christ, controlled and
ordered not just the things that he taught, the things that he
preached and testified about, but it also affected him as a
man. It affected the way that he lived. It affected how he
acted. It affected how he spoke and
how he dealt with and accepted the trials that he faced. Because of his knowledge of Christ,
because of his awareness of the wonder of the gospel, he was
able to deal with the problems of life. in a particular and
in a peculiar way. He was able to contextualize
them. He was able to put them in their
proper place because he understood the gospel of Christ and the
gospel of salvation. He realized that the scale of
the treasure that had been entrusted to him meant that it was the
most important thing in the world. He understood the power that
had been committed into his hands. He knew that it was bigger than
him. He knew that it was bigger than
his reputation. He knew that it was bigger than
his well-being, even his very life itself. And having received
that gospel, that message of grace and mercy and free salvation
in Jesus Christ, Paul and his associates could not, could not
deal falsely or deceitfully or craftily with the truth of God. That would have been anathema
to them. It would have been despicable. and it would have been dangerous.
I do sometimes wonder if men and nowadays increasingly women
who preach in the name of God and about the things of the Lord
Jesus Christ, but do so in ignorance, do so without any understanding
of the gospel, do so basically deceitfully, Whether it's for
personal gain or it's for personal prominence, I wonder if they
realise how perilous their situation is. The Lord Jesus Christ, when
he was ministering, he encountered many people who rejected his
doctrine, but he was always severe with the scribes and the Pharisees
because they took it upon themselves in their ignorance and in their
self-aggrandisement, their self-promotion, to speak to the souls of other
men and women about God. And God will hold them accountable
for that. Peter, in his second epistle,
says in chapter two, verse three, and through covetousness shall
they with feigned words, pretend words, make merchandise of you. They basically are buying and
selling men's souls. We sometimes think about that
in the context of the Roman Catholic Church, which is so often about
money and so often about giving and buying certain levels of
benefits within the church. But what the apostle is saying
here extends much further than the mere false religions of this
world. This is talking about Christianity
and people, we see it, don't we, in the sort of television
preachers that we encounter from time to time and how they rant
and they rave and they whip up their crowds in order to promote
themselves. They're making merchandise of
the people that they're attracting. And Peter says, whose judgment
now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth
not. God will hold these people accountable. And that means that preaching
the gospel is a big responsibility. And the Apostle Paul understood
that. He was dealing with something majestic, something holy and
he understood that that affected the way he lived and it affected
the kind of person that he was. A gospel minister acts and speaks
and serves as if he is constantly in the sight of God, and that
doesn't mean to say that he's in any way perfect or better
than anyone else, but he ought to have this awareness that he
is acting in the sight of God, and he must deal honestly before
God with all men's souls, bringing the message of the gospel faithfully
to bear on the consciences of all to whom he has the privilege
of speaking. Gospel ministers must manifest
the truth. They must make it clear. and
it is the truth that they have to preach. People can't run unsent. They can't just assume that this
is a profession. They can't assume that it's a
career path. They can't go into these sorts of things thinking
that it's just another optional way of spending their life because
they've got, I don't know, a passion for people or an interest in
speaking or in history or some other dimension of social activism. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. and they must make it understandable
and they must leave men and women without excuse. And it's possible
that the apostle in this third verse here is anticipating an
objection from the Corinthians as he speaks to them about this. As if somebody at Corinth, and
remember that these false teachers were at Corinth. That's partly
the reason for Paul's letter here because he is being maligned
and the Corinthians are having their ears distracted from the
true gospel by these false teachers. And maybe he was anticipating
this point, that someone would say, Paul, I listened to you
preach and it didn't do anything for me. I didn't understand what
you were saying. So Paul answers that, that objection,
if that indeed is what it is. And he says, if our gospel be
hid, it's hid to them that are lost. The point he's making is
this, I think, that the gospel isn't a hidden message. Christ is the fullness of the
revelation of God, and Christ reveals God. The things that
once were declared in types and in shadows are hidden no longer,
but made clear and open to all people in all nations. Now that's not to say that everybody
understands it, of course not, that's what Paul is saying, it's
head to those that are lost. It may well be rejected and refused,
but it is freely available in its preaching. It is to be declared
widely, the message, and once again in its simplicity, that
it is head to some, maybe to many, maybe to very many, is
not due to any limitation in the message itself, but to the
lost state and condition of men and women by nature. The blindness
of mind through unbelief and through sin, which the Apostle
Paul attributes to the work of the devil, the God of this world. And so it is that by that first
deception of Adam and Eve, he lied to our parents and the consequences
of that lie is maintained in the sinful nature that has passed
down through every generation. So that unless the illuminating
power of God does shine in to dispel the darkness, and bestow
seeing eyes, there will always be that limitation in understanding. And then Paul uses a really beautiful
phrase to describe the message that he preaches. He calls it
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. Isn't that just lovely? The light of the glorious gospel
of Christ. We could probably meditate on
a phrase like that all day long. But at the very least, it seems
to say that the gospel brings its own light to the darkened
minds of men and women when it comes with power. And this is
what so thrilled the apostle's heart, I think. The preaching
and the hearing of the gospel attended with power is what brings
change to the hearts of the elect as the power and the light and
the glory of that message is divinely applied by the Spirit
of God to those who are just like everyone else, blind and
lame and lost and dead in trespasses and in sin, but they're quickened
by the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. God forbid
that we should ever preach ourselves. God forbid that we should ever
promote ourselves in the preaching. Paul says, we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus, the Lord. So again, I say, as I said a
few weeks ago, be careful who you listen to and make sure that
they are preaching Christ Jesus, the Lord. I hope you know what that means
by now, that salvation is a sovereign gift of God, that it is decreed
by God in his covenant purpose, that it is freely granted by
the elective will of God, that it is freely received by faith
in the redemptive work of Christ, and that He who is the anointed
sinless substitute is the Lord our God. If a man preaches that,
he's worth listening to. That was Paul's message. It's
the gospel he preached and in which he delighted, in which
he rejoiced. God had shined the gospel light
into the heart of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. and
he shines it into the hearts of true preachers, by which they
are equally inspired and compelled to minister the same truths to
the hearts of others. It's that gospel in the fullness
of the revelation of Christ Jesus the Lord, not in the veiled face
of Moses, but in the open face of Christ. It's in that message
that the glory of God is seen. So may we never become weary
of hearing the gospel. May it always inspire us and
comfort us and encourage us as it inspired and thrilled Paul.
May the glorious gospel of Christ cause us to acknowledge the glory
of God and be our portion by grace. May its beauty the beauty
of the gospel, the beauty of Christ constantly be reinforced
to us by divine illumination and by repeated hearing of the
gospel. Amen.