Here in the book of 2nd Corinthians
chapter 4, I wish to read to you this morning the first seven
verses. The first seven verses. The Apostle
Paul is speaking and he says, therefore seeing we have received
this ministry, this ministry that he had received was the
ministry of the preaching of the gospel of God's free grace. And Paul had received this ministry
by the mercy of God. He had received it as God was
pleased to have mercy upon him and put him in to the gospel
ministry. And then he says, as we have
received mercy, we faint not. The apostle Paul had many, many
things in his life, in his experience, over which he could have fainted,
but he did not faint. Thank God he did not faint, believing
and trusting in the living God. He says, I've renounced the hidden
things of dishonesty. Paul believed in a sovereign
God. He believed in a God that would
fulfill and work his purpose in the lives of men. He believed
in a God that would have his own. He believed in a God that
was able to prosper the message that he gave him to preach. And
so he went forth, enduring all things for the elect's sake,
that they might obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with
eternal glory. So he renounced those hidden
things of dishonesty. He was not trying to be crafty,
nor did he handle the word of God deceitfully in any manner,
because he had no agenda of his own. He had no desires beyond
the will of God and the purpose of God. He had no desire to in
any way get a following for himself. He was interested in one thing,
that was the glory of God in Christ Jesus. He was interested
in men hearing from his mouth that gospel which had been committed
unto his trust. And he had no agenda, as we said,
of his own. He had no program that he was
attempting to accomplish in this world, but that upon which the
Lord had sent him, and he was faithful in the declaring of
God's message unto men. Now, he said he commended himself
to every man's conscience in the sight of God. He wasn't hiding
anything. He was being faithful to God,
he was telling what he knew, he was telling all he knew, and
he was being faithful to men's souls. He was not a butcher of
men's souls, but he was a man who told the truth. He told men
the truth about God. He told men truth about themselves.
He did not tell men what they wanted to hear about themselves,
but he told them what God thought about them. And he was faithful
unto God. And then he said, but if our
gospel be hid, and Paul knew that the gospel that he preached
was hid to many. He said it is hid to them that
are lost. We know that the God of the Bible
is a God who is absolutely and totally sovereign in creation,
in salvation, in providence, and we know that the God of the
Bible does hide. He does hide these things from
the wise and prudent, and He reveals them unto the babes. And so, Paul says, if the gospel
is hid, it's hid to them that are lost. What is a lost individual? A lost individual is one who
is without Christ. It's not one who's without religious
upbringing because there's many who have religious upbringing
that are lost because or for the want of the knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ. They have not the knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is knowing Christ. It's a union with Christ. It's
being joined to Christ. If you're lost, you're outside
of Christ. You do not have Christ. You do
not know Christ. Christ is not in your heart.
Christ dwells in the hearts of those who know him. And so Paul
said, if our gospel be hid, It is hid to the eyes of them that
are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded their
minds." The devil is at work. He is at work. He's very active. He's much more energetic than
you are. He's much more active than most
gospel preachers. And the God of this world is
out here blinding the minds of them which believe not. Now let
me tell you this morning that you have a nature that is far
quicker willing to believe a lie than it is the truth. And you
would far more believe if you were to be told this morning
Man has a perverseness to God, and he has a perverseness to
the ways of God and to the truth of God. And you're far more willing
this morning to believe that God would accept your work on
the behalf of the salvation of your soul than that he wouldn't. You would believe that quicker
than that you would believe that he wouldn't. You just gotta believe
that some way or another that God is going to show you preferential
treatment because of who you are or because of the things
that you've done or the things you have not done. And that's
a lie from hell. God Almighty will have consideration
to one thing in the salvation of souls and that is the doing
and dying of His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Your effort
will not make any contribution to God's ability to save. God
will save through his own sacrifice, and that sacrifice is the sacrifice
of his own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now Paul said, the God
of this world out blinding the minds of men. That's why there's
so much blindness in religion, is because the devil is there
blinding the minds of men. And this is less the light. of the glorious gospel of Christ,
and it is a glorious gospel. Everyone who knows the gospel
and everyone who's felt its power, everybody who's ever been shut
up to the gospel and to the reward of the gospel and to the great
blessings that will fall out to us even for all eternity through
the gospel. We'll agree it is a glorious
gospel, amen? It is a glorious gospel and we
believe in a glorious gospel and that is the gospel of Christ.
Now the gospel is the good news. It's the gospel of good news.
It means that we're not coming to man and telling you to do
something you're not able to do. Somebody says, well, I'd
like just to be told sometime or other that I'm alright, and
that if I just keep doing what I think is best, and if I do
the best I can, that I'll finally get to heaven. Well, my friend,
you'll never hear that here. That's not the good news of the
gospel. The good news of the gospel is
that what you cannot do, what no man is able to do, in that
that he has a fallen nature that God in Christ has accomplished
and that all that he demands of any sinner, he's provided
for them in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you in Christ? Well, This is the glorious gospel
who is the image of Christ, who is the image of God, that this
gospel shine unto them. Well, the devil is at work. We've
established that. We know that. Religion reveals
that. But now Paul says, we've got
a ministry and we've received this ministry. And in verse five,
he says, what is our preaching? He says, it's not ourselves.
We're not preaching ourselves. There's nothing about us that
we need to in any way set forth or proclaim. We preach not ourselves. There's nothing in us. This is
a dry well. This is a dry well. I feel it
every time before I get up to preach. I feel it every time
I open this book. This is a dry well, and there's
no need for you to pump a dry well. Beloved, if by the Spirit
of God, the living Christ is not in us, and if the message
doesn't go out of Christ and his enthronement at the right
hand of God, giving repentance and faith unto sinners, if that
message does not go out, Then, beloved, all you'll have is ourselves,
and that's death, and that's a dry well. But there is water,
there's living water, and that is in the one we preach. Paul
says we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. And we're your servants, and
it's for Jesus' sake that we are. We would be your servants.
We'd preach to you. We'll do everything we can. to
find the Lord's message. We'll do everything we can to
find words whereby we can convey that message to you. We are your
servants for Jesus' sake. It's for Christ's sake, because
the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and He was absolutely,
totally committed to that mission that He came into this world
to accomplish, and that was the salvation, to seek and to save
all that's lost, all that truly get lost before God. He came
to seek and to save them and to bring them to Himself, totally
committed to it. And Paul says, we're your servants
for Jesus' sake. We'll do it for His sake. Wouldn't
go across the land exposing ourselves to all of the dangers in this
country preaching the gospel. Paul said, but just for one reason,
for Jesus' sake, for Jesus' sake. Wouldn't put up with all we have
to put up with and deal with all we have to deal with in this
life and deny ourselves. We wouldn't do it for any other
reason. except for Jesus' sake. And we do it for his sake. We
do it for his sake. We'd be willing to do anything
for his sake. We'd be willing to put ourself
out, to deny ourself, to go the way that God would have us to
go for his sake. We're your servants for his sake. Oh, how wonderful that is. For
God, in verse six, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
has shined in our hearts. There's been a change in us.
There's been a change. Something happened in us. There
was a time when there was total darkness. We were in an Egyptian
night, in total darkness and sin. And God, who had at the
beginning commanded that there be light, God came and flipped
a switch in our souls and that light shined in our hearts. The
light of God, the light of the glorious gospel, the truth of
God's grace shined in our hearts. It truly and really did. It shined
in our hearts. And I'm praying for you sinners
here this morning. I'm praying for you that are
lost. I've already prayed for you. that the light would shine
in your heart. Oh, that's the difference between
salvation and damnation. It's a difference between living
eternally and dying when you leave this world and then dying
a second time when you get into eternity and suffering the second
death for all eternity is that that light come on in your soul.
that that light shine in your heart, that God flip that switch,
and it comes on in your heart. Ain't no preacher can do that,
and your mom and daddy can't do that. Only God can do that.
Notice what it said. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts. The light's
been turned on. Praise be unto God, and we are
alive in the Lord. He said to give the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God. All God's glory is in His
Son, and whenever He turns that light on, a man or woman, a boy
or girl is able to see the glory of God, able to see how that
God can be just and yet the justifier of all who believe in the Lord
Jesus, how that God has made Him to be the satisfaction for
our sin, how that God has reckoned His righteousness to be mine,
on the basis of faith and how that God has given me and pledged
to me everything and said, you're a joint heir with my son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. We sing the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ. Now we've not seen that in some
creed or some system of theology or in some denomination, but
we've seen it in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Glory
to God, praise his name. Now then, he says in verse seven,
but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency
of the power may be of God and not of us. Paul speaks here of
this treasure, this treasure, and he said we have it. We have
it. We have it. Glory to God, we
have it. And he said, we've got it in
earthen vessels, meaning that Paul was carrying about a treasure
in his heart, in this old clay pot, in this old earthen vessel
made out of the dust of the earth. Paul had this treasure and he
went about over the earth and revealing this treasure unto
the souls of men. God using the revelation of this
treasure in the hearts of men and women to call out his elect
unto himself and bring them home to the Lord. Now I want to speak
a little bit this morning on this treasure, the treasure.
that Paul the Apostle had, and we'll have a little bit to say
about this earthen vessel. This earthen vessel, which Paul
said here, he said, God fixed it that way that the excellency
of the power may, he said, be of God and not of us. In other
words, the Lord put the message of the gospel in a man's heart. and enabled him to go out and
give him talent and ability to speak the word of God so that
the evident, there's no power in him, but the powers of God
to save, powers of God to move upon the hearts of men. And we're
weakness, we're full of weakness, but God is powerful, all powerful,
and he can save. Now let's talk a little bit then
about the treasure. Now, the American Puritan Cotton
Mather instructed those that he taught, those ministerial
students that he worked with. He gave them these wise and needful
words of counsel. Among all the subjects with which
you feed the people of God, he said, I beseech you, let not
the true bread of life be forgotten. but exhibit as much as you can
of the glorious Christ. unto them. Yea, he said, let
the motto, even your whole ministry, be Christ is all. Christ is all. Well, what a blessing,
beloved, it would be if every man who claims to speak for God,
every man who claims to be a gospel preacher, would just heed the
words of Cotton Mather and become a preacher of God's grace in
Jesus Christ. How blessed the Church of God
would be in our day if those who fill her pulpits were determined
to preach and teach nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This was the Apostle Paul's determination. In verse five, we talked about
it a little bit. He said, for we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus, the Lord. And it ought to be every preacher's
determination that when he comes before men and women, that he
would preach only Christ and him crucified. First Corinthians
two and two, Paul said, I've determined not to know anything
among you Corinthians, except Christ and him crucified. Now
Christ crucified is all the counsel of God. Christ crucified should
be preached always in all places by God sent preachers in all
of his fullness. Paul said, Christ sent me not
to baptize, but Christ sent me to preach the gospel. And Paul
went out preaching the gospel. And we know that it was a stumbling
stone to many. But those to whom he preached
that were the elect of God, it was salvation. It was the power
of God. It was the wisdom of God. This
treasure that Paul preached. Now then, Christ crucified, I
believe, as Paul talked in Acts chapter 20 and verse 27. He said,
I preach the whole counsel of God. And I do believe that when
a man knows Christ and preaches Christ with the enablement of
the Spirit of God, that that man is preaching the whole counsel
of God. He, the Lord Jesus, is the singular
or the one subject of the Scriptures. He is the one subject of the
Word of God. He is the sum and essence of
all true doctrine. I'm talking about the treasure,
Christ. I'm talking about Christ who
is the gospel. He is the life of all gospel
ordinances. He is the secret ingredient of
all true worship. He is the mercy seat that our
brother, sister was singing about a few minutes ago. God meets
with men in Jesus Christ and God will not speak to, neither
will He be spoken to apart from a mediator. apart from the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is the sinner's mercy seat. He is the motive
of all gospel or godly obedience, the motive of all service. He's
the motive of all true devotion. I'm talking about Christ. You
say, well, preacher, is there anybody else you could talk about
a little bit? We won't talk about anybody else.
We don't know anybody else to talk about. This is the glorious
one. This is the high one. This is
the one who's been given a name which is above every name. This
is the one, my friend, whom God said is my beloved son. This
is Hear ye him, hear ye him. We preach too much Jesus for
most of these religionists, but beloved, that's our message and
that's our theme. Paul said we have this treasure
in earthen vessels. Now he's the reward of heavenly
glory. Jesus Christ is our God. Jesus
Christ is our Savior. He is salvation. He is the way
to heaven. He said I'm the way, the truth,
and the life. No man can come unto God except
by me. Jesus is the way. He's the revealer
of truth. He is truth. The Lord Jesus Christ
is truth. He's the giver of life. And He
is life. Christ who is our life. shall
appear, then shall we appear with Him in glory." Christ is
our life. He's our life. He's our hope.
When we talk about sovereignty, I want to show you how this fits
in to all that we talk about. One time, there was an old preacher
by the name of Barnard, Roth Barnard, and he was a man mightily
used of God. and was an old prophet of God,
and the Southern Baptists wanted him to be their evangelist. And
so they talked to Brother Barnard. Most of them had heard him, and
they wanted him to go among their churches because their churches
needed to be revived. They needed to be stirred up.
They needed to hear from God. They were waning, dying on the
vine, and they needed somebody who could preach to them and
stir them up and get them back on the track. So they said, Brother
Barnard, you're our man, but we do not want you to preach
election. We don't want you to preach the
sovereignty of God. And old brother Barnard said,
I just don't get up and select for a message the subject of
the sovereignty of God or election or the limited atonement. I don't
do that. But he said, you can tell every
time I preach that I believe them all. I believe every one
of them. And beloved, somebody wonders,
and I know there are many in the religious world, many in
the fundamentalist circles, who cannot understand how that a
man can possibly preach Christ and preach these doctrines. Now
let me show you, I'm talking about the treasure. And if you
listen to what I say, you'll surely make some progress in
the faith of the gospel this morning. And you'll make some
advance in the way of the Lord. I just wish that I could have
heard somebody when I was 17 or 18 years old, 19, that would
get up and talk about these things. Beloved, doctrine apart from
Christ is worthless. It's worthless. We're talking
about we have a living union with a living person and the
Christ of the Bible. We must be in union with him
and all of his doctrine. We will understand it as it relates
to him and then we'll be able to appreciate it, be able to
appreciate it and preach it and be profited by it. When we talk
about the sovereignty of God, what are we declaring? We're
declaring that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's what we're declaring.
We're declaring that he's Lord, that he's Lord, and that he was
that one, there was nothing created without him. When everything
was created, he created it. He was with the Father before
the world began. Jesus is Lord, and he created
all things, and life is in his hands. in the nail-scarred hands
of the man in glory. Life is in His hands. He's Lord. He's Lord. And that's what we're
talking about. We're talking about the Godhood of God, the
Lordship of Jesus Christ. Sovereignty. He'll save whom
He will. All judgment's been turned over
to Him. The Father loved the Son and
put all things into His hands. He has all authority in heaven
and earth, and there's nobody that's got any authority that
he hadn't given. It's all in his hands. Everything's
been turned over to him. He's prime minister of the universe,
the Lord Jesus. When we're talking about sovereignty,
we're talking about the lordship of Christ. When we preach God's
word of predestination, we're showing how that sinners have
been predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ who is
the image of God. We're talking about God taking
sinners and beginning a work of grace in their hearts. God
purposing that they're going to be just like his son. And
somebody said long ago, and I latched on to it because it sounded good
and because it's a blessing to me. But he said, God got up one
morning, looked at his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and said,
I'm gonna have a family, and every member of my family is
gonna be just like him. I love him, and I'm gonna make
every member of my family just like he is. And that's what predestination
is all about. That's what it's about. In Christ,
we're predestinated to the image of God's Son. God's election,
let's talk about that in just a moment, is His choice of some
to everlasting salvation in Christ. We were chosen in Him without
any reference to ourselves, without any reference to whether we'd
ever done any good or evil, without any reference as to what we would
or would not be. We were chosen in reference to
Christ, who He is and what He is. We were chosen in reference
to the Son of God. How glorious, how glorious and
wonderful that is. that God said, I'm going to dress
these people up in the holiness and righteousness and merit of
my Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And they're lost and they're
undone without me. They're wiggling back, and there
isn't anything good about them. Nothing in them to merit esteem
or to give me delight, but My Son is absolutely and totally,
completely righteous. He's without sin. He's without
spot or blemish or any such thing. And as they stand in Him, I'll
choose them in Him, and then they'll all be just like He is,
as righteous as He is, as holy as He is, as accepted by Me as
He is. because I chose them in Him. Now you see how the doctrine
of election let the religionists let them scoff all they want
to? I'm telling you, the doctrine
of election is glorious. Wouldn't be anybody saved without
it. And thanks be unto God, everybody that's saved with it is truly,
altogether saved, absolutely, perfectly, completely saved in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is all for Christ's
sake. Now the doctrine of total depravity. Let me show you something
here. Somebody said, well, you know
the doctrine of total depravity. These preachers are always preaching
that we're bad people, that we're bad people. Well, the doctrine
of total depravity is a doctrine that's clearly spelled out in
the Bible. And it's God's revelation. Get me now. When you hear somebody
talk about depravity, total depravity, the depravity of the sinner,
that we all fell in Adam, that we didn't get sick in Adam, but
that we died in Adam, and we were totally lost in the fall,
totally ruined, utterly ruined at the fall. And the doctrine
of total depravity just spells out God's revelation of our need
of Christ. It tells us that we need Christ.
Every sinner here this morning needs Christ. Nobody, nobody
can go to heaven without Christ. And you cannot be saved apart
from Christ. And you need Him. And the reason
is because of who God is, and the next reason is because of
who you are. You cannot save yourself. You
are lost. You're ruined. And you're ruined
in Adam, your daddy Adam. And you're ruined in him, and
the only way you can be reconciled to God is in the second Adam,
the Lord from heaven. And to be chosen in him, and
to have all his merit given to you. That's the only way that
you can ever... You're ruined. You're ruined.
Ain't no way. Say, I'll work my way in. You'll
never do it. God will not accept it. God will not accept it. His
standards are too high for you, my friend. You know how high
his standards are? His standards are as high as
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nobody will get
into heaven that's not as righteous as he is. Give it up! Give it
up! And trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, then limited atonement.
Somebody said, I'm afraid of that limited aspect of the atonement. Well, it's just a biblical assurance
of an effectual redemption and the grace by Christ. It's the
declaration that all for whom Christ died shall be saved. That's what it is. That if Jesus
Christ died for me, that his death was a death that killed
sin. He died that sin might die. And Jesus killed sin as far as
his people is concerned. There's no sin in him. God's
people, those who stand in Christ, sin is not imputed to them because
they're in Christ. All sin has been imputed to the
Lord Jesus. He trudged up to Calvary's Mount,
was hung between heaven and earth on that gory tree, and there
he suffered death. And that death was our death
to sin. And when we died in Christ, and
because we died in Christ, we shall live. we shall live and
everybody for whom Christ died will be in heaven everybody not
a soul will be in hell for whom Christ died on that tree because
when he died we were in him and he died in our room instead in
place he suffered our hell on our behalf he died for us and
then the doctrine of irresistible grace you see how all of this
fits into Christ That's the point I'm trying to make. I'm talking
about the treasure. People don't understand when
we preach these doctrines what we're really saying. Irresistible
grace or effectual calling is that almighty, irresistible revelation
of Christ in the soul by the Holy Spirit which causes those
chosen of God to come to Him. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and they that come to me I will in no wise
cast out. Those that the Father has given
shall come. So irresistible grace means that
God will work in the hearts of those that he's chosen and they
will be drawn. Jesus in his day in John chapter
6, he said that no man can come to me except the Father which
sent me draw him. He must be drawn to the Father. There were some that just, oh,
they just showed themselves. They cut a shine over the fact
that Jesus said he was the bread of life. And they just could
not accept what he had to say about him being the light of
the world, the bread of life. They just couldn't accept it.
And Jesus said, well, fellas, there's no need to get all stirred
up about it. No man's going to come to me
anyway except the Father join. All them that are my children
shall be taught of God, every one of them, and they'll be taught
to me, and they'll come to me, because the Father's going to
do something in them. And what he does in them is he
works effectually by his grace and reveals Christ in their souls
and they must come to him and keep coming to him, coming to
him like we have already this morning. We've come to Christ.
I've come to Christ, I don't know how many times in this service,
but I've come to him more times than I can mention to you. We
come all the time to Christ, to Christ, to Christ. Now then,
regeneration. What are we talking about when
we talk about regeneration in connection with Christ? Well,
regeneration is the implanting of Christ in the heart. That's what it is. Somebody says,
oh, I think that's a big theological term and you'd almost have to
have a degree to understand. It's nothing more than this.
Christ coming to live in your heart. Christ dwelling in you. Christ taking up residence right
here in your heart. You know what Paul said? He said,
Christ in you, the hope of glory. He's got to be in you. He's got
to be in you. You see, there's a whole lot
more than you just being joined to some religious group. That'll
never do, friend. Listen, you go to your grave,
this sounding in your ear. A Christ that's not in you is
a Christ not yours. And until he dwells in you, you're
not a believer, you're not a Christian. Until he dwells in you. I don't
care what denomination you're associated with. Until he dwells
in you. Until he lives in you. And Christ
in you. That's the meaning of the word
regeneration. Christ being implanted in the heart of a sinner. Justification. Somebody said that's a big word,
Preacher. Well, it is a big word, but what
it means is, it's talking about the imputation or the accrediting
of Christ's righteousness to all of his redeemed. It means
that when I trust Christ and believe on him, it means that
God reckons me. to be as righteous as his son
through faith and that from that time on God looks upon me as
one who stands before him dressed in garments not my own but dressed
in that glorious righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ justified
as one appears as I appear before God you could not tell that I
ever committed a sin ever committed a sin, just as if I had never
sinned is what the word means. And that's all the word, that's
what the term means. That God gives us a standing,
that when he looks upon us, he cannot see that we've ever sinned. Because we have that righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ on before God. Now then, faith. Somebody said faith. How can
you preach faith, preacher? Well, faith is just simply trusting
Christ. That's all it is. Trusting Christ. Now, I know that you cannot trust
somebody that hasn't been revealed to you. If you don't know somebody,
you can't trust them. If you don't know them, you can't
trust them. I'm not talking about blind faith. I'm talking about
faith in one who reveals himself on the pages of Holy Scripture
as one who has laid down his life for your soul's salvation
one who laid down his life the scripture says that greater love
hath no man than this they laid down his life and the Lord Jesus
laid down his life we trust him we trust him because he died
in our room instead in place and the word sanctification What
in the world does that mean in connection with the treasure,
in connection with Christ? Well, it's Christ being formed
in us, begun in regeneration, and consummated in glorification. Christ, us, day by day. being as it were turned from
the mind of the flesh to the mind of God as we live out our
days in this world more and more conformed to Christ and his word
and his truth and his image and then the term perseverance well
it's Christ holding our hearts by grace and keeping us in life
and faith Christ holding on to us And then baptism. It's the believer's public confession
of faith in Christ, being symbolically buried in the watery grave and
raised with Christ. And we confess our faith in His
finished work of redemption as our substitute. All of these
things in connection with the treasure, the Lord Jesus. The
Lord's Supper is our blessed remembrance of Christ. Eternal
life, as we said earlier, is knowing Christ. That's what these
terms mean. Heaven is being with Christ,
like Christ, perfectly and forever. So preaching is telling people
about Christ. Preaching is proclaiming Christ. Anything else is not preaching.
Call it whatever you may. It's not true gospel preaching. Now, beloved, this is the treasure
that God's servants carry in earthen vessels. And I want you
to notice something, that the preacher who carries this treasure,
Christ, are only earthen vessels. they're clay pots they're worthless
and meaningless in themselves now i want you to get this get
it carefully there are four things that i want to just call your
attention i won't preach on them i'll just give them to you and
then we're done the first thing is the preacher is in himself
nothing he is in himself nothing paul says uh... apollos I planted,
Paulus watered, how is it? And God give the increase. He
said we're nothing but God that gives the increase. He's the
one that's important in this business. It's God that gives
the increase. Now the sinner, the preacher
is a sinner. That's what he is. The preacher
is a sinner and if saved, he's saved by the grace of God. And
you know I'd hate for a man to have to stand before God trying
to preach. Having tried to preach for years
not knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, not knowing this treasure. Well,
he's a vessel in which the treasure is carried. The preacher is. You know, let me illustrate this.
Our daughter, Grace, back five or six weeks ago, received an
engagement ring, a diamond engagement ring. And when she received this
diamond engagement ring, she did not make any fuss whatever
over the box it came in. No fuss whatever. All of the
fuss was about that diamond ring. And so it is with the preacher,
beloved. The preacher, and I never heard of anyone making a fuss
over the box. in which they received a diamond
ring, admiring and idolizing the box in which it's carried?
Well, beloved, like the box that carries the diamond, God's servants
are earthen vessels, just clay pots, unadorned, ugly, and far
too earthen to be of any value. And it does not matter whether
the preacher has a string of degrees, or whether or not he
has no degrees, And whether he's energetic, whether he has an
oratorical style or no style at all, he is just an earthen
vessel. That's all he is. An earthen
vessel. The only thing of significance,
the only thing of significance is the treasure Now I want you
to get that if you don't get anything else. The preacher is
not significant. The only thing that's significant
is the treasure. Is that right? Am I right? Amen? I'm right. I know I am. And that's
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, now there's
a couple other things. The time has really got away.
Maybe I should just wait and finish this message some other
time. But let me just give you the heads of these other things
so that you can at least have them. if I never get back to
it. The treasure we carry by which God is pleased to save
his elect is indeed the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's
nothing else, just the plain gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And God does not use the religious lies that are brought to men. He does not use lies to bring
men to the truth. He uses his gospel truth to bring
and make sinners free. And that which is primary and
essential in the gospel, and that which must be primary in
our preaching, is the sin-atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll talk about that more
as God enables us to, but it's almost 12 o'clock and I've said
enough. I've surely give you enough in
your minds that if you remember half of it, you're going to be
doing quite well, I think. But hopefully we made some progress
today in our understanding of the gospel and in our understanding
of the treasure and what it is and knowing something now about
that box, about that vessel that it's in. May God be glorified. We want that Christ would be
exalted. God would be glorified. And may
we always remember this treasure. And when we have opportunity
to hear it, don't pay no attention to the box that it comes in. Pay no attention. just say, I
just want to hear about that treasure again. Maybe that preacher
could open that alabaster box of ointment and we'll not pay
no attention to the box, but we'll smell the fragrance. We'll
smell that fragrance and rejoice in the Lord Jesus. Mike, would
you lead us