Well, as Brother Donnie Bell
would say, it's time to put up or shut up. If you will, turn
back with me now to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. In this chapter, the apostle
declares his sincerity, and not only himself, but others who
were recognized publicly as ministers of Christ, faithful ministers
of the gospel. And he tells these people, these
Corinthians, that as he received this ministry, this ministry
of God the Holy Ghost, this life-changing ministry, this heart-arresting
ministry, powerful, powerful in its coming, Irresistible in
its effects as he had received this ministry of God and received
it in mercy, God being merciful to him, that it caused him to
renounce the hidden things of dishonesty. So often we read
words like this and just go over them and they had no impact on
us because we don't think about them. We don't think about them. What in the world is a hidden
thing of dishonesty? We all know what dishonesty is,
don't we? Cheating, that's dishonest. Lying, that's dishonest. But
he says this dishonesty was hidden. You didn't recognize it. It was
there all along, but you didn't see it. Thousands were practicing
it who didn't know they were practicing it. These were hidden
things of dishonesty. He did these things in sincerity. The Apostle Paul, who one time
was Saul of Tarsus, was so zealous in the religion of the Jews that
he went down and sought papers to put people who preached something
contrary to the Jewish doctrine, contrary to that traditional
doctrine that they believed, to put them to death. And he
was granted papers, and he went out, and many were put to death.
And on one occasion, he and a group of his Pharisee buddies were
all out here, and they heard Stephen preach to them. And Stephen told them the truth.
Boy, I mean, pow, right between the eyes. He just let her fly.
He said, you uncircumcised in heart and mind, you do always
resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do you. You're out here to judge and
to put men to death for transgressing the law of God, and you yourself
are the prime example of the very thing that you say you hate.
And they couldn't stand to even look on him, And he prayed for
them. Can you imagine? And Paul held
the coats of them, and they took up these big rocks. You know,
when the Jews stoned somebody, they didn't throw pebbles at
them. They picked up rocks to bash their brains out. And these
men took up stones and stoned Stephen to death. Stoned Stephen to death, and
Paul held their coats. And he justified that in the
name of religion. Justified it. That's a hidden
thing of dishonesty. And that's what Paul's saying.
He's renounced those things. Well, what's it mean to renounce
something? It means to give it up. Give
it up. It means to reject it. To disown
it. to protest against it. I'm reading
to you right out of the dictionary. That's what it says. What did he renounce? The hidden
things of dishonesty. What's he talking about? He's
talking about the subtlety of Satan. The scripture is full
of language talking about the subtlety of Satan. the wisest
man who ever lived, Adam, and his wife. And here they are, made in the
image of God, intelligent, smart, walking with God, and one encounter,
one encounter, results in the fall of man. Do
you think Satan ain't subtle? He turned that conversation right
around. They said, God said, and that's
the right thing to come back at, isn't it, when you present
it? God said, and he said, hath he surely said? And then he begins
to twist and to turn. The Hidden Things of Dishonesty
is talking about religious subtlety. He's talking about all the doctrine
and practices and goals of false religion. People say, well Satan's out
here in the bars and the brothels and he's out here at the gambling
casinos. That's where Satan is. Satan
don't have to do anything about that. Your fallen nature is what
attracts you to those things, not Satan. Not Satan. When Satan uses a man, he twists
his subtlety around until he would kill one of God's disciples
and do it in the name of religion. Thinks he does God a service
is how the scripture puts it. That's what our Lord warned them
about. Coming a time when men will put you to death and think
they're doing God a service. That's the hidden things of dishonesty. Twist things, bend things, rest
the scriptures to their own destruction. He makes you to believe that
you're serving God when all along you're engaged as his enemies.
Our Lord spoke to the Pharisees who thought They were of God. They consecrated themselves.
They'd come out from the world. They were different. They didn't
even want to be identified with the world. They wore special
clothing, the way some religions do today. You immediately, when
you see them, you know by the hairdo, you know by the dress,
you know by whatever, exactly what they are. Exactly what they
are. Nazis, Pharisees, they wore these
big gowns and made broad deflectories and you could spot one a mile
off. Hidden things. Hidden things of dishonesty.
And he said, They renounce those things and he adds to that not
walking in craftiness. The word of my dictionary is
defined as one skilled in underhandedness. That's what it says. That's what
that means. Skilled in deception and every
false preacher, every false prophet to one degree or another is skilled
in deception. He knows how to deceive, whether
he knows it or not. Those same Pharisees that I began
to tell you about a few minutes ago, they looked at the Lord,
and the Lord, they said, now wait a minute. We'd be not born
of fornication. We have one God. We have one
Father, even God. And Christ said, if God was your
Father, you'd love me. for I proceeded forth and came
from God. Neither came I of my own, but
he sent me. You're of your father, the devil,
and the lust of your father you will do." What did they do? They read the scriptures. They
met so many times a week in the synagogue. They sang hymns just
like we sang hymns this morning. They read the scriptures, they
preached. They kept all of the ceremonies
and things that was given to them under the law of Moses.
They kept those feast days and they honored those things. Deceived, they didn't know they
were doing it. They thought they were serving
God. And then they walk in craftiness. I tell you, you can go down here
to a, I'm just gonna use Baptist because that's what I came out
of, but you can go down here to any Baptist seminary, and
when you come out of that seminary, they will have taught you how
to deceive men and women. You'll be a master at it. You
can get them down the aisle, you can get their name on the
pledge card, you can sign them up, Their whole ministry is geared
to that. That's walking in craftiness,
skilled in underhandedness. Whether you know it or not, I'm
not saying they're all a bunch of thieves and robbers, I'm saying
that they're deceived. And their ministry is a ministry
of deception. And to this he adds, 2 Corinthians
4 verse 2, not handling the word of God deceitfully. How do you
handle the word of God deceitfully? You don't read it all. You just
read what you like. We can preach out of Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, but don't read Ephesians. Don't go there. That's gonna cause problems. Don't read 2 Thessalonians. Don't
read First Thessalonians. Skip First Corinthians chapter
one, just don't even read it at all. Don't read the Book of
Romans. What we'll do, we'll preach from
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We'll take the stories from the
Old Testament, and we'll preach on the Book of James. And that's
what we'll do. You think I'm telling you a story?
I went to church every time the door was open. My dad carried
me to mission churches and sat on a feed sack and listened to
the guy preach to winos. I've been to church thousands
upon thousands of times and I know exactly what I'm talking about.
They handle the word of God deceitfully. Not one time in all my young
life did I ever even hear the word election. Yet Paul starts
his Gospels out with it. Why so? What's the problem? I mentioned
the first time I was a young married man, about 29 years of
age, or 28, somewhere along in there, and going to this little
Baptist church, little community chapel, And I was confused because
I'd read some things, and I went up and asked him about predestination,
and he turned white as a sheet of paper. He said, oh, he said,
don't go there. He said, the hidden things belong
to God. I said, yeah, but that's not
hidden. When John saw way more than what he wrote in the book
of Revelation, but the Lord told him to put his pen up, then anything
penned in this book is for you. It's for you. It's the children's
bread. We don't throw it away, but that's
how religion deals with these things. They're superstitious
about them. And they just sweep them under the rug. We're not
going to talk about election. We're not going to talk about
man's universal fall. We're not going to talk about
God's predestination. We're not going to talk about
100% grace, because them men, we can't get men to work if we
do that. Not handling the word of God
deceitfully, quoting half verses. Not God's will for anybody to
perish. Better go back and read that scripture again. That scripture
said, God is long-suffering to usward, talking about his elect,
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
You handle the word of God deceitfully when you grab little pieces of
it here and there. To illustrate that, my pastor
told me one time, he said, you can make the word of God say
anything if you want to get bits and pieces. Judas went out and
hanged himself. Go ye and do likewise. That's what you get when you
take bits and pieces. And I'll tell you something else,
they never did, never did. I'm talking about years, 16,
17 years of religion. They never taught verse by verse,
never. Because then they'd be forced
to deal with these things. That's handling the Word of God
deceitfully. Quoting half verses and misapplying
truths and turning the Word of God into fables. That's what
Paul told Timothy. Those men turned the Word of
God into fables, moral stories. But now, he said, we minister
by manifestation of the truth. commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God. I don't need to put a
diploma up on the wall to verify that I'm sin of God. I take my message and I preach
it to you and I leave it on your conscience for God to do His
work. And His work He will do. Paul
told the Corinthians, he said, I don't need a letter from you,
I don't need a letter to you. You are my letter of recommendation,
written not on tables of stone, but written on the fleshly tables
of your heart. The Spirit of God worked in your
heart and verified who I am. That's what he told them. We minister by manifestation
of the truth, and we commend ourselves to every man's conscience
in the sight of God. Think of me what you will. Well,
that guy's nuts. You won't be the first one that
walked out that door saying that, and you probably won't be the
last. Paul preached to those philosophers
on Mars Hill and Athens, Greece. And he got down to the end and
he brought out the resurrection. And I said, oh, that's enough.
That's enough. Well, you're out of time, Paul. You're out of time. We'll hear
you again on a convenient occasion. We'll hear you again. Howbeit,
he said, some believed. Some believed. Not all, but some. Now he said we minister by manifestation
of the truth, that is by the word of God. I want you to know
when I preach something that this is actually taught in this
book. Now if you don't get it at the
end of the message and you're wondering, you missed, somehow
you missed where that was in the word of God, you come and
ask me and I'll show it to you. I'll show it to you. We minister by the word of God
and the plainest of language. We preach Christ as God has set
him forth. And these men pressed these claims
upon the consciences of men and they left it there to the will
and work of God. Now that's what the ministry
is. That's what it is. I don't know what people really
think it is. I was taught my whole life it's
an invitation. Not an invitation. Gospel's not
an invitation, it's a declaration. It's a declaration. And it's
a declaration of the sovereign grace of God and his will to
save a people for the glory of his name through the person and
work of his son, Jesus Christ. It's a declaration. He's not saying if you believe
on him, somebody's gonna be saved. He's saying somebody is saved,
and now I'm gonna bring them to believe on me. That's what
he's saying. We say scripture doesn't say
that. You read 2 Timothy 1.9 and see what it says. He said,
Timothy, God hath saved us. When did he do that? Why, He saved us when He chose
us in His Son before the foundation of the world. He saved us when
He appointed for us a surety, a representative, a substitute,
a king, a high priest. He saved us when He put us into
an eternal union with His Son. And He saved us in the fullness
of times when Christ came and took upon Himself a holy union
of our flesh, God and man in one glorious person. He saved
us when His Son, being born under the law, obeyed that law in every
jot and tittle. He saved us when His Son went
to the cross in our stead and died under the holy justice of
God and suffered our hell. He saved us when He raised Him
from the dead. He was delivered for our offenses,
raised again for our justification. He's saving us right now. Right now. Seated at the right
hand of God. Oh, my soul. God has saved us,
Timothy. And then he called us for the
holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his
own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. Now let me give you three or
four things in the balance of our text, kind of help us to
understand how this ministry of Christ works in this world. The first thing Paul tells us
about the ministry is that it's hid to the lost. It's hid to the lost. If you're
here this morning and you don't understand what I'm saying, you
ought to be terrified. You ought to be terrified. For
God, for whatever reason, has hidden this gospel from you. I tell you, I've been there.
I've been there. And I was terrified. I've been taught all my life,
just believe. I said, well, believe what? Just
believe. You can't just believe. You have
to know what you believe. I'm terrified. I didn't understand
this thing of election and predestination and sovereign grace and all these
things that were being thrown at me. This man was preaching
these things and I didn't understand them. If our gospel be hid, it's hid
to the lost. I discovered for the first time
in my life I was lost. Been lost my whole life but didn't
know it. I didn't know it. I thought I
was in a vacuum. I thought as long as you lived
on this earth, you was in a vacuum. I didn't realize that you could
live in this world and be dead at the same time. You, Hathor Quicken, who were
dead in trespasses. You walked according to the course
of this world, according to the Prince of the Pioneer. The gospel's not concealed in
its presentation, not like it is in false religion. Its doctrines
clearly stated, plainly declared, presented in the simplest of
terms. They told our Lord over in John
chapter 10, they told him those Pharisees, they were just, oh, they're getting angrier,
angrier, and angrier, and angrier. Everything that they thought
they knew, he just turned it into a joke. Just junk. And finally, I could
just picture him just stomping her feet like a little kid and
looking at him and said, how long do you make us to doubt?
If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. You know what he told
them? I told you. Plainly. I told you. but you believe not
because you're not of my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice. And I know them and they follow
me. And I give unto them eternal
life and they'll never perish. And no man can pluck them out
of my hand. Gospel's not concealed in its
presentation. Doctrines clearly stated, plainly
declared, presented in the simplest of terms. But there's a people out there
who shall never hear the glorious gospel of Christ. That's what
Paul's saying here. If our gospel be hid, it's hid
to the lost. Hid to the lost. And I don't
know if you've ever thought about it, but the hearing of the gospel
is a great privilege. It's a great privilege. In Ephesians
2.7, he describes it as the consequence of our eternal union with Christ
and being quickened by him and raised up together with him and
seated with him in the heavenlies. As a result of that, he said,
he makes known to us the riches of his glory, the riches of his
grace and his mercy. For by faith are you saved, by
grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God, the gift of God. The lost cannot hear, they
will not hear, they never will hear, but by the intervention
of the Holy Spirit of God. It's hid to the lost, he said,
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. And to accomplish
this feat, this blinding feat, Satan uses anti-Christ religion. In Revelation 13, he calls it
the religion of the beast. created by Satan, the old dragon. And he tells us in verse eight
that all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose
names are not written in the Lamb's book of life. How many of them gonna worship
him? All of them. Paul, he just talking about the
Gentiles and not what he said. He said all that dwell upon the
earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the
book of life of the Lamb, the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. The religion of the beast is
established in the earth, it's accepted in the earth, and it's
held as truth. It's practiced by all the lost. All the lost. It is the doctrine
of the beast that blinds men's minds to the truth. You know,
I come in and I tell you from the scriptures, and I'd be glad
to read them too. And I preach to you the total
depravity of man, that man fell in the garden, none good, none
righteous, all gone out of the way. I preach that to you. but you don't receive it, why? Why does it not make sense to
you? I'm talking about somebody off
the street, comes in here, hears me for the first time or maybe
the second time, and they hear me talk about the total depravity
of man, what blinds men's minds to the truth? It's that preconceived concept
of religion that man's not altogether cursed of God. And so you hear what I'm saying,
and you know what you've already been taught, and so you start
trying to put them pieces together, and they won't go together. They
won't go together. One of them's so, and one of
them's a liar. And so Paul told the Jews, he said, let God be
true, and every man a liar. I'm telling you, this thing's
not complex in the word of God. Listen, by one man, sin entered
into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned. Is that hard to understand? That's
not hard to understand. In Adam, all die. In Christ,
shall all be made alive. That's not hard to understand,
is it? Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. That's not hard
to understand, is it? But try to take free will doctrine. Everybody believes in free will.
Try to take that and mesh that with election. It don't fit. It won't work. It's the religion of the beast
that blinds men's minds to the gospel. In 2 Thessalonians 2,
he calls it the mystery of iniquity. He tells us it's after the working
of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. My soul, are
you trying to tell me, look out here at these cathedrals, look
out here at religion, look at the masses all over the world,
it's everywhere. And you guys are meeting over
here in these little groups and you're trying to tell me that
you're preaching the truth and they're preaching a lie? No,
I'm trying to tell you that's what God said. Not trying to
tell you, I'm telling you. Let God be true and every man
a liar. These are lying wonders. Signs. All power and signs and lying
wonders. My soul, religion is the most
powerful. You think government's powerful?
Religion dwarfs government. Dwarfs it. There were two beasts
in the book of Revelation. One was government. The other
was religion. Religion had more power than
government. It still does. Or you go sideways
against religion and you took on an enemy way bigger than yourself. And then he tells us this, that
this anti-Christ religion They preach with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness. What's he talking about? He's
talking about men and women who believe they can be made
righteous by their own obedience to the law. What could possibly
make more sense to a man than that? Huh? Do good, God will
reward you. Huh? Well, sure. If I reform myself and I'm a
moral person in this world, God's going to bless me. What could
make more sense than that? The problem is there's none moral
and there's none good. You can't do good because you're
not good. You read it for yourself over
in Romans chapter 3. It said there's no difference
between these these idolatrous Gentiles and you religious Jews. There's not a bit of difference.
He said, I've already before proved you're all under sin.
As it is written, there is none righteous. Whoa. Boy, that throws a cog in there,
don't it? There's none righteous. There's
none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. There's none good, no, not one. Free will works religion, self-righteous
religion, is anti-Christ religion, and it blinds men's minds to
the gospel. Blinds men's minds to the grace
of God. God saves men by his grace, not
by works. not of works, lest any man should
boast. And it's not the presentation
of the gospel that causes men to reject it. It's the simple
fact that it doesn't fit their image of God and their ideas
of salvation. Satan and his ministers do not
appeal to the scriptures. They appeal to the natural ways
of fallen man. They appeal to you. Somebody told Brother Barnard
one time, he said, you can catch more flies with honey than you
can with vinegar. Brother Barnard told her, he
said, lady, he said, I'm not trying to catch flies, I'm trying
to kill sinners. That's the difference. They don't
appeal to the scriptures, they appeal to the natural ways of
fallen sinners. What are these ways? Of all those
under sin, Paul said in Romans 3.12, they're all gone out of
the way. They got lots of ways, but not
the way of God. In verse 16, he said, destruction
and misery are in their ways. They'll self-destruct. God doesn't
have to do anything to you to send you to hell. Just leave
you alone. Just leave you to yourself. You'll
self-destruct. Because destruction and misery
are in your ways. You're born with them. In Proverbs
16 it says, there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but
the end thereof is the ways of death. Satan's way is the way of death. He leaves you religious and lost. Satan comforts lost sinners by
giving to them a refuge of lies. I don't know, I doubt that anybody
in here knows who Nick Clooney is. Everybody knows who George
Clooney is. Well, Nick was his daddy. George become a famous actor.
Nick was a newsman up in Cincinnati, Ohio. Well-known newsman. And the more well-known his son
was, the more well-known he got to be. But they invited him down
to the University of Kentucky to speak at their commencement
one year. And as he was speaking, he made
this statement urging the students there at UK to keep an open mind
as they went through life. And here's what he said. He said,
it's not what you don't know that hurts you, but what you
know that just ain't so. That's what hurts you. What do you know that just ain't
so? Boy, you could write a book on
that, couldn't you? But lest we despair, he quickly
gives us a remedy, 2 Corinthians 4.4, the last statement. lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. The gospel here is described
as light. Peter tells us in his second
epistle that we have a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto we
do well that we take heed as unto a light that shineth in
a dark place. When the gospel comes to an unbeliever,
it shines into a dark place. And Peter said, you do well to
take heed to that light that shines in that dark place until
the day dawn and the day star arise. That light is Christ.
And the light of that glorious gospel of Christ begins to shine
into a man's heart. You do well to take heed to it
and keep on taking heed to it. Until God be pleased to reveal
to you the day star. It gets daylight a long time
before you see the sun. But there's light. And that light
comes from the sun. And it's the same when the gospel
comes. It brings light into the heart. It shines in a dark place. It's the light that shines in
dark places. Natural man walks in the vanity
of his mind. Now listen, having the understanding
darkened. This is Ephesians chapter 4.
Being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that's in him because of the blindness of his heart. He walks
in the vanity of his mind. He walks according to principles
and things that he believes are so, that aren't so. Our Lord said one time to his
to these unbelievers, he said, if the light that be in you be
darkness, what's he talking about? He's talking about light. They thought they knew God. They
thought they was of God. They thought they were worshiping
God. They thought they were walking with God. That was all light
to them. He said, if the light that be in you be darkness, how
great is that darkness? If everything you think you know
is wrong, How great is that darkness? If what we recognize as truth
is a lie, if what we believe about God is not so, if the gospel
we rejoice in is not God's gospel, if our hope is nothing more than
a refuge of lies, how great is that darkness? But oh, he said,
here's light. Glorious light, he calls this
light in our text the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ. The very first work of God in
creation was to make light, wasn't it? Let there be light, he said.
What would creation be without light? Think about it. It'd just be a puzzle lying in
pieces on the floor. Without light, what would creation
be? It would be circumstance, opportunity,
evolution, chance. No God, no goal, no reason, no
end. Just a few short years and back
to the dust. No, sir. God shines light on
everything he does. Everything he does. John said,
we saw him, we handled him, and he said, I'm telling you, God
is light, and in him is no darkness at all. None whatsoever. He'll make known the hidden things
of darkness. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
2. Let me show you something there. I'm hurrying. The light of the gospel consists
of three things. It consists, first of all, of
the gospel of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2, 2, Paul said,
when he was among them, he determined to know nothing among them save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's the gospel. The gospel is the gospel of light.
And then secondly, the gospel is attended by the Holy Spirit
of God. Look down here at verse 9, 1
Corinthians 2. But as it is written, now he's
already talked about the gospel being a mystery, a great mystery.
And he says down here in verse nine, but as it is written, I
hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man, that is mankind, the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto
us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. And then he goes on in
1 Corinthians 2 to tell you that he preaches by that spirit. And he makes known these things
of God to you by that spirit. Our preaching would be a waste
of time except for the presence of the Holy Ghost who makes our
gospel preaching to become the revelation of God. Listen to how Paul defines it
back over here in our text in 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 6. 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. Who commanded that light to shine?
God did. God did. It comes by the Gospel of Christ. It comes by the mysterious working
of the Spirit of God. And thirdly, it radiates from
Christ Himself. Jesus Christ, by His own confession,
is the light of this world. John said, In Him was life, and
the life was the light of men. And John witnessed this. He said,
John the Baptist came to bear witness of the light, the true
light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Christ
is light. There is no light concerning
God except through Christ. No gospel apart from Christ,
no working of the Holy Spirit. When he's come, he's not gonna
say anything about himself. He's gonna take of the things
of mine and show them unto you. So there's no work of the Holy
Spirit apart from Christ either. No light apart from Christ. And nothing's gonna take place
in the way of salvation by faith until God commands his light
to shine into your hearts. And then thirdly, the gospel
is the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God. What's he talking about, the
image of God? Or the word image, as it's defined
in the English dictionary, is the concept of something or someone. It is the character projected
by something or someone. And it is the very personification
of something or someone. Christ is the express image of
God. That's what it says in scripture.
He's the brightness of the Father's glory, the express image of his
character, of his glory. He is the personification of
God. His name shall be called Emmanuel,
God with us. He is the God-man. Without controversy, Paul said,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Philip got all confused over
in the book of John. And he said, Lord, show us the
Father, and we'd be satisfied. He was talking about himself
leaving and going unto the Father. And he said, you know where I'm
going. And they said, we don't know
where you're going. And we don't know how you're going to get
there. And so he told them, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the
life. And finally they said, old Phillip said, Lord, show
us the Father, we'll be satisfied. And the Lord said, have I been
so long time with you, Phillip? And have you not known the Father? He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father. Jesus Christ is all you're ever
gonna know about God. You wanna know what God'll do,
what God is doing, what God has done? Study the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the brightness of his Father's
glory, the express image of his person. And this, knowing this
is the very heart of the gospel. Eternal life is to know God.
That's what it says. To pray, who we pray to. to worship, to believe in, and
walk with the living God. You do that by way of Christ.
By way of Christ. Peter said he was foreordained
before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these
last times for you. Now listen to this. Who by him
do believe in God that raised him from the dead and gave him
glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. That's 1 Peter
1, verses 20 and 21. May the Lord be pleased to make
known to us, every one of us here today, what I've been talking
about. I know I went past my time and
a little