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#166.
Saturday.
And never.
Time thy present.
Shall the heart of the be?
Thy whole our soul.
Desire.
Our.
Nor sing and come and fall.
Again.
Our presence.
In our wild horns.
Nor sin can come in.
Our trade, love, life when our strength from our one to two, our bread.
To the same.
Our strength, our should. Our strength of all our bowling for the world.
Unchangeable, thy gracious.
There you are being.
Art to love lie tender mercy still earns.
Philippians chapter 3 connection to him that we just signed.
Philippians chapter 3 and verse 13.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do for getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press for the mark, for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus landed. We just give thanks.
To continue where we left off yesterday, I would suggest we start with chapter 4, verse one.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 4.
2nd Corinthians chapter 4, beginning at verse one.
Therefore, seeing we have this ministry as we have received mercy, we feigned not, but have we renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commanding ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
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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 unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.
And ourselves, your servants for Jesus.
Sake for God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, have shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the Excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed.
We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that the life also of Jesus.
Might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you. We have the same spirit of faith according as it is written. I believe, and therefore have I spoken. We also believe and therefore speak.
Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus.
Shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.
For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might, through the Thanksgiving of many, redone to the glory of God, For which 'cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment worketh for us.
A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
When the apostle Paul accepted the Lord Jesus as Savior.
The very first words out of his mouth were Lord.
Pretty good first Lord Lord, He had immediately acknowledged the place that he now had in relationship to the Lord Jesus. And the next words were, What wilt thou have me to do?
And.
The Lord told him and gave him what is referred. He refers to here as a ministry, this ministry.
He was given a job to do, He was given instructions, He was had revealed to him things to share with us with all the House of God and so.
I'm going to.
Tread on Bernie's ground here when he first got up pretty early in his remarks, he said. I'm nervous.
The apostle Paul, like most servants of the Lord, experienced a sense of being inadequate in themselves to fulfill the responsibility of the message given to them. And yet, as he says in the first verse, I've received mercy, and because of it I haven't fainted. But he was able to go on and fulfill.
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The responsibility that was given to him. And then in the second verse he talks about the manner in which he did it.
He had words to say, to communicate a message to those that he spoke to directly and now by the word of God to us. But he recognized the incredible importance of if those words were going to have their intended use by God on the audience.
Paul's life had to be the living expression.
Of what he preached.
His life needed to express in practice what his words were communicating. And so when we speak to someone else, quite often we hear the expression, what you are speak so loudly I can't hear what you say. And that's sometimes the case. What we are hinders the communication of the message that has been given to us.
And but, he says, by manifestation of the truth, that is, by living out the truth.
We commend it to every man's intellect, no.
To every man's conscience, and the truth of God is that which needs to reach the conscience in order for the blessing to come to the one to whom it's communicated. And so it's whatever ark station and calling in life may be. Every one of us is to be a living testimony.
To the truth that has been given to us and that we have received.
And it's to be seen in our lives in a way that it commends itself to the conscience of each one that we are around as we live out our daily lives.
So they says in verse one having received mercy, we faint not. Later on in the chapter he says in verse 16, For which 'cause we faint not, that though our outward man perish, at the inward man is renewed day by day.
It almost appears that the Christian cause is a losing cause in this world.
And I've often thought about.
When the Lord Jesus died, he had in his ministry. He had ten. He had 12 disciples. One of the 12 turned out to be a traitor. The other 11 Completely forsook him and fled, and he died.
As a criminal on a cross in this life, he was never vindicated.
God's answer is in resurrection, and so often.
The way the gospel is presented, it almost looks like a losing cause, but it isn't, brethren. And that's why he says in verse 15 that the abundant grace might, through the Thanksgiving of many, read down to the glory of God. God is a God of abundant grace and we need to be encouraged not to faint. So often you meet with those that just feel like giving up.
Don't give up. God's answer is not in this life. God's answer is in resurrection and so he says we faint not. I think that's beautiful to get that picture before us. And then how important what Don was bringing out in verse two that there are things in our Christian testimony that are very negative as to the gospel.
I must say brother, and having lived in South America a number of years and traveling around in Latin America.
It is almost a negative.
When a person says I'm a preacher or I'm a missionary.
I prefer not to say that anymore.
I prefer to say that I export books from the United States.
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Because there is so much negativity as to preachers who are after money.
And what is mentioned here? Dishonesty, Craftiness. Handling the word of God deceitfully.
What it's known for, and I find that a person who lives.
A normal life. Many of the brethren in Bolivia are bricklayers, they're builders, and if they do a good job, I find that people will listen to a person that does a good job because they're honest and they will listen.
It's too bad, but that's the way it is. But it's important that there be complete integrity in our message because we appeal, like Don was mentioning, to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Remember what conscience is. Conscience is what Adam obtained when he ate of the forbidden fruit.
Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that's what conscience is. It is the knowledge of good and evil.
And every single human being has that knowledge, has conscience. A man sometimes.
In his mind he is atheist. He says no God, but his conscience never turns atheist.
In his conscience he knows.
That there is a God, and the conscience of man when you preach the gospel is.
On your side and gives testimony to the truth of what you are saying.
So just simply give the truth for as much as they don't believe it. Give the simple truth of God and you will find that the conscience of men will give testimony to the truth of what you're saying. To me it's been an encouragement to to realize that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth, and He also gives testimony to the truth of what's being said.
So make sure your messages the word of God as closely as possible, because it's God's word that God uses to quicken dead souls. And doesn't matter if they say I don't believe it, just go ahead and quote it anyhow because their conscience will tell you that it is the truth. It's been a help to me, a comment that appeared a long time ago and I forget what.
Whether it was the Christian truth or years ago.
One of the magazines that came out and it said.
The pathway to the heart is through the conscience. The truth enters through the ears and through the mind. But the proper home of the truth of God is the heart. But to get to the heart it has to go through the conscience, and that's an important thing to think. So sometimes persons are.
Enamored with the presentation in a mental way in their minds with what is the truth. But it's only when it gets to the conscience that it can get down into the heart. Where is the proper home of the truth of God? That is a really important thing, and that's why we need meditation. When we meditate the Word of God, it gives time for that to sink into the conscience to have its moral implications on our lives.
And through that means it gets down into the heart, where it is treasured and where it is kept. Let me say this that I don't believe we can say that we truly have the truth of God until it gets into the into the heart. Sometimes people have a knowledge of the truth in their minds, and they might be able to even explain it quite explicitly. But until it gets into the conscience.
And has its moral implication in their life. And then it will get into the soul or the heart. And that's where it is treasured. And then you do have it. It's been impressive to me that in Bolivia, where a lot of our dear brethren don't have a lot of.
Natural education, that sometimes I have seen them attacked by persons who do not hold the truth.
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And the dear brethren don't know how to explain or even how to defend themselves, but I notice it does not shake them, because the truth is in their heart. And to me it is a wonderful.
Truth that that's the proper home of the truth of God, the heart.
Why would Paul talk about preaching the gospel?
To the Corinthians if they were already saved.
I think it's because here it's talking about his ministry and when one thing that happens is that everything begins with Christ. When we listen the gospel of grace, of the grace of God, and we are saved. But the ministry of the minister, like Paul, is still Christ. That doesn't change the same Christ that comes as the first subject in the preaching.
Will be the same Christ that will go on in the preaching. Now he talks about the gospel of the glory.
The glorious gospel of Christ, verse four, whose image God should shine unto them, we we get when we are saved we get occupied with Christ, but mostly with ourselves because we will ponder how much we are getting from.
From trusting the Lord or sins that were forgiven and so on. But then we we learned and the minister of the the gospel here or the word of God that Paul is presenting himself as a minister. And then we go home, leaving behind all the experience of being saved.
And start contemplating Christ and the one who ministers takes the eyes of those who are believers and directors to Christ, like the one who preaches the gospel. What he does takes the eyes of the OR the heart or the conscience, as the brother said, and take to Christ. So Christ is always the subject of the evangelist, of the teacher, of the pastor, the shepherd.
Is Christ always Christ the subject? If you go to a deology ecology, you will learn archaeology, sociology, geography, history, lots of things, and you will learn how to minister those things to your audience in your church or somewhere. But that's not Christ. That's not Christ that will not feel the soul, perhaps feels the mind and the intelligence.
But not if the soul.
And this is, this is and always will be the, the 1St and the last subject for for anybody. Christ begins with Christ. I could not say that it ends with Christ because you never end after we got in touch with his person. It will never end or occupation with Christ.
In verse three it says if our gospel be hid.
But it's better to understand that word is is the same word in the previous chapter Vail.
And then the the thought that's given here is easier to understand. So if our gospel be veiled, it is veiled to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world have blinded the minds of them which believe lot, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. That is, he had as we had yesterday when Moses went into the glory on the mount to see something of the glory of God.
When the Lord spoke to him.
It was, it affected him, it affected the way he looked. And so when he came down and his face was shining as the effect of being in the presence of that glory, he had to put a veil between him. The people asked him to Moses put a veil on. We don't want to look, we're afraid to, to look at you. And so he put the veil on.
Then we had that.
We in Christianity through the preaching of the Gospel.
Are able to see the glory of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the man Christ Jesus. We can behold the glory of God in him without a veil. Nothing to keep us from looking directly upon the object.
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Of our hearts, the Lord Jesus Christ.
But here we see something else is presented to us, and that is.
Does Satan want us? Does Satan want a man to see him? Does he want that message of the glory of Christ presented to men? He hates it.
And So what he does, what he attempts and somewhat successfully to, is to put a veil on the face of the person that to whom the message has been given.
So that they don't see the glory, they don't see the light, they don't enjoy it. And so it says the God of this world has veiled the minds of whom, well, it tells us.
The minds of them which believe not. And so if there's unbelief in a person, Satan has what they need to work with, to put a veil on their face so that they will not see the wonderful glory of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he recognized Paul quite clearly in his.
Ministry recognized what John also brings out very forcefully.
There's 2 powers in this world.
God and Satan and the conflict between God and Satan is concerning Jesus Christ because Satan wants that place.
The whole object of Satan is to have the place that God has given to his Son.
And there's a constant conflict going on in this world between God and Satan and Satan's effort to take man's heart and thoughts and will and way from coming to have what we enjoy, what has been given to us, what we had in the last meeting.
Of having Christ our all and all that He is to us. And Satan's total effort is to rob mankind of that. And so his mechanism, one of the ways he's doing it, is described to us here in this fourth verse, very serious.
Conflict. I want to make an added comment in connection with what Bob said earlier in his remarks.
About there may be an apparent lack of success.
What's happening?
In the world today is that some time ago God began to work.
When the Lord Jesus Christ had finished His work on the cross, it opened to God the fullness of His heart to act in grace. It had been restrained for him until the work necessary to loosen for God the fullness of His capacities to work in grace with mankind had been established by the work of Christ and since that time.
Since the Lord Jesus Christ returned to heaven, we call it the day of grace because God is working in grace in this world to produce a result for Himself in man.
No matter what you see going on in the world today, no matter how dark things may be, trust Him. God is successfully working in His grace to produce the result that He wants in this period of time. And when He has finished that work, this day will end. It's not going to end when things get too bad. It's not going to end when man decides what's tomorrow going to hold.
In fact, the truth of the matter is, when the day ends, it's only going to get worse. In this world, what's coming after this day ends and we think it's bad. Scripture makes it very clear that what comes after is far worse than what we see. Anything we'll see now. But God, I just want to say this, God is very successfully producing an eternal result for himself.
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To the honor of His Son in taking out of this world a heavenly people to be with Christ in glory, and they will shine in his presence forever, and that will be a very successful work.
The wonder of it all is that God wants to use man.
And to to accomplish his plans. And he didn't need to. He could do everything like the Lord when he when he multiplied bread and fish.
He could do that without bread and fish, but he wanted to use those that someone had had bought there.
And then he could just make the bread and fish appear to each person.
Where they were, they were sitting around, but no, again, he did that in the basket. So, so the disciples he gave to the disciples and the disciples gave to the people. He could have done that, but he did. He enjoyed using people and in this chapter we see the way he uses someone like earthly vessels. This reminds me that that.
Chapter in the Old Testament when they have to break the vessels. I don't remember where it is. Perhaps somebody can help me. Judge, Judges.
It's a beautiful.
Picture.
Judges 7 starting at verse 16 maybe?
Judges 7 verse.
16 Yeah. And he divided the 300 men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man's hand, with empty pictures and lamps within the pictures. And he said unto them, Look, look on me, and do likewise. And behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that as I do, so shall you do. When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow you.
The trumpets also on every side of all the camp and say the sword of the Lord.
And of Gibeon Gideon. And so Gideon and the 100 man that were with him came unto the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch, and they had put, they had but newly sat the watch, and they blew the trumpets and break the pictures.
That were in their hands. And the three companies blew the trumpets and break the pictures, and held the lamps in their left hands and trumpets in their right hands to blow with hull. And they cried the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And they stood every man in his place around about the camp. And all the hosts ran and cried and fled and.
So this that light was inside and there was no way to.
To show it without breaking those phases, those they call here, what's yours vessels, vessels, those vessels, they had to be broken. And here when you go back to our chapter in in Second Corinthians.
We see that.
In verse.
Verse 5. 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 shining in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen, earthen vessels, that the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. So this is the way God uses people, but broken people.
I think here.
Men have been broken, I believe I think many of us have been broken once and by being broken we we understood how was powerful this love of God, the the light of Christ, the way he took care of us. And Paul is going to say I think later in this chapter or some other that with the the consolation they were.
Treated or.
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They could help brothers or something like that. I don't remember their verse now. But anyway, God uses people and God uses broken people because God used his broken sin to save us. Was not his whole son his perfect shape and and health? And no he was the one who went to the cross to be.
Broken there for for us and that that was the the way Satan lost the battle.
Not through a mighty warrior, but through a man nailed it to a cross.
And this will all be the way God will deal in this world with us and in this battle we are constantly in.
That is a very good point. I agree 100% but I think there's another truth being taught that doesn't doesn't discount what you're saying about Gideons vessels. Looking at the Old Testament, just like in the previous chapter, there was a a contrast between God's dealing with them under law are dealing now. One thing is that in the old economy in that most holy place, there was that veil that only the high priest could go into once a year and there was no natural light inside it. There was a lamp in the holy place.
But there's no natural light in that most holy place where no one could enter. And now we see the wonderful contrast that that veil is rent, not from bottom to top, but from top to bottom. And God brings us in, we come in that veil. As the writer of of Hebrews says, that was just shocking and incredible for believers under the law to say that you could go into the most holy place. But but the writer of Hebrews even says with boldness in Hebrews 10/19, we go into that rent veil and they're instead of darkness.
We have the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ and here is a wonderful contrast. Moses wanted to see the face of God and God said, no, you can't, but only see his back. And later on in Isaiah, Isaiah it was he was just overwhelmed by seeing just God's train, the train following him. He could barely bear that glory. But now here saved by grace were brought in this relationship where he actually had this wonderful light there in the most holy place were brought into it and there we actually see the glory of God.
Not in the back of God, but the very face of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I think this wonderful thought has brought out also that we have this relationship now and, and, and this ability to enjoy the presence of God beyond what the greatest Saints of the Old Testament did. We have a blessing here through the Holy Spirit and through the finished work of Christ that that all the great Saints of the Old Testament, we think of Daniel and Moses and and Isaiah and all of them, and yet the weakest believer filled with the Holy Spirit and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Has a place beyond them to enjoy the face of God and the presence of God.
It's good to see that in verse four that.
The God, the small G.
OD of this world that Satan has blinded the minds. It's not the heart, it's nor the conscience, it's the minds. It is significant that I still remember a number of years ago it did come out in in scientific circles that the theory of evolution was not a viable theory at all, but some.
Made the comment but there is no other explanation.
To the origin of the species. So that's what we'll have to continue to teach.
And they can, they just willfully. And that's what it is. It's the will that's involved in turning its back on the light of the truth of God. And it's because of that men are blinded in their minds. It's a question of the will they will not believe. Notice in Second Peter chapter 3 and verse.
Five, it says for this they willingly are ignorant of. It's the well involved. It's not that they cannot see, it's that they will not see and that that is an important point to keep in mind. And then just to notice in verse four as well, the way it puts it in the new translation. It's so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ who is the image of God should not shine forth to them.
So it is the glory of Christ that is manifested in the gospel. Isn't that wonderful, brother, in the tremendous glory that Bernie was talking about in the last meeting? And how can we ever exhaust the themes of all his glory? And that's what's going to attract people, and that's what Satan does not want people to see. And so through their wills.
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They are blinded how important it is that when we present the gospel, just to present it simply.
And let the light shine penetrate the darkness, because it's.
The verses that are used here are very interesting, he says. Verse five of Mario's commenting on it. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus sake. It's not a matter of who we are.
It's a matter of who he is. We preach Christ Jesus the Lord and then he says for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. And it's a reference to Genesis chapter one, when darkness enveloped the whole world, the whole creation, and God said let there be light in the light penetrated the darkness. So it seems when you preach the gospel sometimes to people that are lost that it seems a hopeless cause.
Preach simply the truth of God, and God can give that command to make the light penetrate the darkness.
And to me it is amazingly wonderful thing to see how often God gives that command and the light penetrates the darkness.
And people say, I see it now I understand what you're talking about. It makes so much difference when the light penetrates the darkness. What a wonderful thing it is, brethren, that we have this wonderful message of the gospel.
Like to comment because I think it's the essence of these two chapters and the central point of the two chapters, the expression in verse four, the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ. The glad tidings of the glory of the Christ.
In Psalm 8 we have the question raised, What is man that thou art mindful of him?
We look at the record of mankind.
And we see one who was created in the image and likeness of God in Adam.
Be a terrible dishonor to God, his Creator.
And so man in his sinful condition is looked at. What's man? God could righteously, justly have destroyed the human race without any work of redemption. He couldn't fulfill the demands of his own love and do that. But as far as righteousness is concerned, man.
Had dishonored God in what He was. He was placed over this creation to be God's overseer. He had been made in the very image and likeness of God as a triune person.
In three parts of his being and so on. As God is triune, he God is over all things. And so he had placed, created a world, and he says and created things on that world, and then he places man over it all.
For himself.
And man.
This man.
He ruins it.
He rises up in the disobedience of unbelief.
God chose.
To display what man?
Should be.
To His honor and to His glory.
By having his own son.
Become a man.
And.
He comes down into the condition for Him, the lowly condition of the very creatures that He created.
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An incredible.
Uncomprehensible really act that God would choose choose to take his own son, and the Son would say, here am I send me.
To come into the place of manhood.
And brethren, it's maybe we'll speak a little of it a little later, but.
When he did it, when he became a man.
He took man's place as a servant forever.
He's the Hebrew servant.
Who doesn't go out free? And He will serve you and I as a man for eternity. He comes down among mankind in that lowly place that He had taken.
Becoming obedient as man should be, even unto death.
And in that he glorifies God.
On the Earth.
And the majesty, the glory of God demands of God that he do absolutely everything to give that man the supreme place over all creation and beyond this world, over the angels, over all the spheres that God has ever created, that man is elevated to a place of honor and glory and majesty and power.
A man. It's the gospel, the glorious gospel, not of the Son, but of Christ.
Christ the Man, He is the Son, of course, but it's his place as man that's in view in these two chapters, and he's placed there in that supreme place.
And.
To the renewed heart of the believer without a veil on his face, when he sees the and he set free from himself, Why did the Pharisees and the Sadducees say crucify him?
Did they not know he was good and perfect man? Yes, they did. They couldn't find fault in him. They recognized. They envied him because of his perfection and the display of the perfection of the man. But sinful heart says me first. But the gospel of the glory and that which has been before us is to enter into it is to be completely set free from what we are.
As men.
To see truly what a man is in the person of the Son, and to be so filled with the pleasure of the greatness of that man that everything else has no place, is set aside, and the true liberty of the children of God is to be totally set free of themselves, to become so enraptured with the man in His glory.
And so God has.
As it says in Philippians 2 highly exalted him and given him a name which is about every name.
That everyone's going to bow to it, but here is for our hearts to see Him in that glory.
But before I stop, rather than I, I want to give a contrast.
It's very, very touching in my own heart this morning in the breaking of the bread.
And it's the very opposite of what we've just said.
It was an incredibly humbling thing for Jesus to.
To become a man.
And take a body.
When he took a body.
That is, He took humanity and all that humanity is as deity, as part of the Godhead He. He went down into something so lowly compared to the truth of His eternal person.
Here's the creator of all the universe, and then it's he says of it. I created myself a body, no.
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He says in the Psalm which was read and repeated in Romans, I mean Hebrews chapter 10, A body hast thou prepared me?
And so he comes down here, and he takes the servant's place in a body.
A body which he will carry for eternity now, which means he's going to stay in that lowly place.
This, these two chapters and Ephesians chapter one and chapter 2, when He's highly exalted and brought into His place of glory, what does he do? He takes you and I up with Him to share in it because of His love for us. And so we are brought out of our condition to be participators and identification with Him in this glory.
But to me it is very touching this morning to look at the emblems of which he says of himself. About these emblems he says this is my body which is given for you.
It wasn't even his choice, having taken the place as a man to do the will of his father, to do the will of God and perfection. He doesn't even say it as if I did it. He says this is my body, this is the place I have taken to be obedient even to death. And the one that to whom I do and live, He's chosen this. And this is my body which has been given for you.
This is my blood, my life, which has been shed for you.
Brethren, you and I had an immense privilege this morning.
As the days coming when we will be associated with Him in His glory.
This morning we had the privilege given of himself to be associated with him in his humility.
It's one of the greatest privileges you'll ever have in this world is the privilege of being associated as you were this morning and participating of those emblems.
That He desired that you take, and when you did, when you receive them in your heart from His hand, He was giving you the privilege of being associated with Him in in his humility, in His humbleness, and I would say as well as the glory, that humbleness will be His forever.
Tremendous thing.
That it's going into that death that makes the message such a glorious message.
We heard in Colossians that in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead.
And in chapter 2 it says in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
It's just something that we accept scripture for what it says, but to comprehend that in a human body dwelled all the fullness of the Godhead.
And he stood before those chief priests, and they spit in his face.
The Roman soldiers took their fists and slammed them into his face.
As you said, Don, God would have been righteous and completely annihilating the human race. But that man was the image of the invisible God, and God is love. And if he would have annihilated the human race, it would not have been known that God is loved. It would have been known that God is righteous, yes, but now we know in a way that is unmistakable.
That God.
Is love. He stood there. He took it all. He took the most awful injustice of the condemnation of the death of the cross so that there could be salvation and blessing for us forever.
So much is said today to Christians, even stand up for your rights. You have rights as a Christian. Oh, brethren, here was the only one who truly had rights, and he did not insist on them. He took the injustice. And it's because of that that he is, that there is such a glory that has been manifested in the gospel and the preaching of the gospel.
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Displayed his glory in the Old Testament.
In creation.
Psalms tell us God has spoken to all mankind everywhere in creation, and he's displayed himself in a in glory, in majesty, in the immensity of the creation.
When I not when I before my day, but my grandparents day, the world, the whole universe was thought to be the Milky Way.
And it had its billions of stars. Now today they know there are billions of Milky Way sized parts of the universe. And who knows? Man will never reach the finite end of it. It'll keep expanding as his knowledge of it grows. So God has created it, presented himself to mankind with tremendous glory.
But it's an inadequate display. If I could say this about God, it's perfect in its character, but it sure doesn't.
Display the glory of His love. You can look at all the creation you want. You know, I can look at this microphone and say it's quite an invention of man, but it tells me absolutely nothing about the moral character, the people that designed it. For all I know, they're bad. For all I know they're good. I can't discern that from what I see. So it is with the creation.
God displayed further Himself in His relationship with Israel, in His Holiness, in His Majesty and His moral character.
But that's not a complete display of anything.
God has done something to fully display Himself.
In a way that's incomprehensible really, he's saying I have displayed the full character of what I am in a person, a man.
And my son.
All my majesty, all my glory.
As love and light is now to be seen in a person, a man.
It's an incredible thing that God has chosen to do, and he says I've done it.
Then he takes.
Dark hearts this room. Everyone in this room once had a dark heart.
Just like he spoke when this darkness was upon the face of the deep in Genesis One, He says let there be light and there was light. And in a way in the power of God to speak and make things be and happen.
God has so spoken concerning his Son that if I could put it this way, he said.
Let there be light in Bob's heart.
And so he shined the light into Bob's heart.
And then he placed into that heart the light of the knowledge of the glory of this person.
In that human vessel.
That's the treasure in this chapter.
Everyone of us, this is a room full of.
Treasure.
This is a room full of treasure, from God's perspective anyways. The richest people on the face of the earth are sitting in this room.
I've said it, probably people are tired of it, but it it stuck with me and I think God allowed it to me. I have spoken more than once to the richest man in the United States, Bill Gates.
And yet I would not trade one moment of what I have with what I can discern he has or doesn't have. And I don't know his heart. I know something, but that's neither here nor there. I'm not going to risk it. I wouldn't trade a moment of time for the treasure that I have, for the treasure that that man is perceived to have by his fellow man.
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In US is the treasure of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in a man, Jesus Christ, and that treasure residing in the heart, fills that heart to worship forever and perfect satisfaction.
Let's live it.
Makes me think of one brother in Pakistan.
If he's still with us.
Called himself a suicide evangelist.
Because he goes in the mosque.
He tells them about Jesus.
There are many that are valuing the treasure.
Way above the vessel.
Thank God the vessels are earthen weak vessels.
You don't realize you're weak. May God help you to see it.
Because when you the vessel is seen and is weak, then the proper glory is given to God and not the vessel.
And that's what we want.
If our lives have the character that we want them to have, we want the glory to be the glory of God, not the glory of self. And when the treasure is in a weak earthen vessel that has to be sustained by the power of God, then God is given the glory, and that's what our hearts truly want.
The Apostle Paul was given an affliction. His vessel was weakened, and three times he said, Lord, please take it away.
And then the Lord answered him, My strength is made perfect in weakness. And then he was satisfied.
He recognized in the acceptance of it that the honor and the strength and the glory belong to the one that sustained him and used him in spite of his what he looked like or act whatever his affliction fully was but the consequence was glory to God and in that every one of us if we recognize were weak say thank you Lord.
So the vessel is expendable, but the treasure inside is the important thing. And so sometimes God breaks vessels so that the light can shine out. Just like to mention and what Don was mentioned in verse four of the light of the Gospel of the glory of the Christ.
And it's shining.
I think brethren never did the truth.
That God is light and God is love shine out so vividly.
As in the darkness of those three hours of darkness, when the Lord Jesus.
Cried my God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? And we need to stand there?
And to meditate on the implication of the.
Awfulness of that awful moment that was necessary for eternal redemption to be accomplished. But it was from that darkness that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ shines out.
Comment our times really, I guess about it up, but it says verse 10 always a bearing about in the body, the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
We've talked about the treasure in us, but there's something else in his brethren that's brought out in this chapter, and that is Christ is our life.
And that life is himself. Our life is in US.
And because that life is in US, and because redemption has redeemed the body as well as the soul.
That we have a life in us that can never be lost. The outward vessel is expendable, but in God's sight we're not. He has placed his Son in us as our life. And that's important to him to the point where he says, and I'm going to have the spirit and the soul and the body change to be a perfect, eternal vessel of that life. And so you might have seen somebody in a casket. We saw some of us here, Brother Fred Gandras.
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Few weeks ago, lying his body in his casket. But when we see him again, because he has this life that's in this chapter, the life of Christ, when we see him again, we're going to see him in a state of a perfect spirit and soul and body and life. And the vessel will be that changed vessel of glory suited.
To the treasure that's in it.
To bear it forever, that's your destiny and that's mine.
36 In the back of the book hymn #36 in the appendix, we go to meet the Savior.
His glorious face to see hymn #36 in the appendix.
We go to meet the Savior.
Is for me as face to see.
What?
I'm done with this whole life.
They are.
Day today.
Of the Lord.
We pray.
Happy song.
And may I love bright soul.
Not say oh man, send them.
Gloria.
People are so scared.
Good joy.
And favor.
To the sinners and his time.
I fall.
Now Kings went blindness us from the ball to race and change our grief and sadness.
To song of joy and grace.