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There wasn't.
A.
This is some of the laws. What's down here?
That's all made into. They're making it into.
My career and then I'll have you know, I'll tell you what I'm going to work on, working on it, you know, I'll be able to move on to the beach.
This is This is.
And these are some of the units.
This is this is where you go into the Convention Center like.
Brand new in your grocery here and the floor is always.
Toward the Hotel Saint George St.
We sing 172, him 172. Oh, teach us more of thy blessed weight in 172.
Oh, teachers.
And pray, let us believe.
On our violence.
Where the beginning of the land?
Why we hang again?
So so we can bring.
Really strength I love.
00:05:12
We pray, our blessed God and our loving Father, we give Thee thanks for the many happy hours we spent together in the reading of Thy Word and that which Thou has taught us already, and because we have sung them as Him, teach us more as we go into the next meeting, as we consider Thy word together, we pray that there would be that which would encourage the hearts of each one of us that are here. We would pray also for those that will be traveling now. Keep them safely. We pray that the.
Savor of the good things that we have been able to partake of might go with them and also they may be kept from the dangers of the of the road. And now we just look to Thee for Thy guidance. Give us a portion, we pray, that would be beneficial to each one here, young and old alike. Lord Jesus, we ask this and Thy blessed and precious name, Amen. Amen.
I suggest, brethren, that we take up Second Corinthians chapter 4 last.
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 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. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world has 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 the light to shine, our darkness hath 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 may 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 believed, 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 sake.
That the abundant grace might through the Thanksgiving of many redundant to the glory of God, For which 'cause we faint not, but though our outward men 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 seen.
00:10:02
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.
Chapters been commented on referred to several times.
Today and yesterday as well.
Speaks about ourselves as being.
People with an earthen vessel that is our bodies.
Into which God has placed a tremendous treasure.
And so each one of us who are going to go home shortly.
Are those who are going to carry in the vessel of our body?
An incredibly valuable treasure. A treasure that is to be.
Appreciated in our own souls, but also it speaks of the Gospel of the glory of Christ.
And that's to be shared. And so it's been brought before us as to going over the wall as well, and the brightness of the light we had in Psalm 19 and.
Also the creation yesterday and this incredible light that God is.
Has shined where? Right down into our hearts. God has taken the darkness of our own hearts and shined into them and placed in them an incredible treasure that is ours for our own.
Enjoyment, but for the glory of God. More than that. And so it seems a profitable thing, an encouraging thing, but a responsible thought too, that when we leave what we have to take with us from God to enjoy, as well as what we have to share.
I've enjoyed that thought with the.
The crews mentioned this last night in our meeting in First King 17.
There it says the cruise of oil never failed. The oil will speak of the Holy Spirit.
The moment we're saved.
We're the dwelling place this Holy Spirit comes in. Ephesians received but the Holy Spirit.
So everyone of us in this room is a believer as that Holy Spirit within. And in First Kings 17 it says the the oil never diminished, it was always oil in the vessel.
It may not have been filled. It was always there in the Spirit of God.
Would have us be filled with the Spirit.
And that's a good desire. It would be filled with the spirit. But he connected also with the wedding in Cana. We have there the earthen water pots.
Speaking of the word, and I think we need both.
I could be filled with the as a water with the word of the Lord and not have the Spirit.
I could have the spirit, which I do.
And not be filled with the water. You need both. So there it says, the Lord says fill the water pots to the brim. And that's what he's been doing and seeking to do with each one of us this week is fill those water pots to the brim and then it's instructed to take out now and bear to the governor of the feast.
And we had Jonah mentioned that the word of the Lord came unto Jonah. Well, if we're filled with the water pot or with the water, the Lord can use that with his spirit and and a timely way. What we need, as you say, we need both for the earthen cruise, the earthen vessels accrues and there's that storm water pot filled with that. The word of God obviously enjoyed that.
Connected thought we need votes because I met a balance with either one.
I need that balance in my life, not only to have a word in due season, but to have the Spirit of God to know when to minister that word, and often I'm lacking with that.
00:15:14
Verse two says having renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God.
Deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth.
Commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
So not only was there the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, there was a life.
That manifested the truth that was enjoyed and it was walking and it was a recommendation to the conscience of every man in the sight of God.
They could say, oh, this, this, this person is real.
And that's really what is before us in this chapter, isn't it? It's a practical side of things that applies the wonderful treasure that we have in Christ in glory to the difficulties, the problems, the practical walk in our everyday lives. In the third chapter, perhaps the ministry is brought before us. And so the apostle says at the beginning of this chapter.
Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, then what? How do you and I act?
Well, sometimes, as we see in this chapter, God has to break the earthen vessel. God has to work on it in order that the light might shine out the brighter. We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Well, if that's what has to happen, then it's well worthwhile. And So what God has before him here is, as Dawn was mentioned in verse four, it should read the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.
That is the treasure that you and I have, not just the gospel as we think of saving lost souls, but the gospel as it starts with Christ, God's purposes in Him, and all His glory. We have that treasure, but where? Right down in our hearts, in earthen vessels. Now the Lord says, I want you to live so as to display that, and whatever is necessary, we can be thankful that He'll do it in order that it might be displayed more.
It's connected. This chapter really is introduced to us in the previous chapter.
In verse.
7.
Of chapter 3 it says, But if the administration of death, written and engraving in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?
With the administration of condemnation be glory, how much?
More doth administration of righteousness exceed in glory.
And then down in verse 14. But their minds were blinded.
Speaking of Israel, until this day remain at the same veil.
Untaketh and away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.
Verse 18 But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Glory. We use the word all the time, but seldom do we try to describe what it really means. But glory is the display of excellence.
And God's object for our hearts in us as creatures.
His purpose is to display Himself to us in all His own Excellency, and the Excellency of God in the manner in which He displays Himself to us is through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ as a man and a Son of God. Well, he's comparing that which we have to what Israel had, and he reminds them of the fact that when Moses went up on the mountain and he received a ministry from God, the law.
00:20:04
It was such, and even in itself, just in its righteousness was such a display of God in glory, that when Moses came down from the mountain, the people couldn't look on him.
His face was shining from that which had been given to him as being in the presence of God.
And so they asked, they said, Moses put something over your face because we can't look at you as you are, you're shining in some way. And so he says now, but compare what Moses had in the glory of God displayed through Moses to the glory of God that's displayed in the gospel of the glory of Christ.
And it's beyond really, brethren, the shining of the noonday sun.
It's something that is to the heart, to the physical eyes. We can't look at the noonday sun. You can. I remember being taught as a little child and I think most, even little children here have been taught, don't go out in the middle of the day and looks directly into the sun. It's you can't do it or you shouldn't do it. But God is using that as something to tell us. He has something so wonderful for us.
That it's brighter than that to the heart. The difficulty, however, is man, the creature into which God wants to shine. Because as you have in John's Gospel chapter one.
The word comes into the world.
It's the light.
But man is looked at not just as in the dark, but darkness itself. And so the dark, the light shined in the darkness, and it says the darkness comprehended it not. That was the response of the natural man to the light of God. He doesn't comprehend it. And so we have that in this chapter when the message of the gospel is presented to the natural heart, the natural mind, as he says.
Satan, the God of this world.
Blinds the minds of men, lest that glorious light should shine into their heart.
A ministry is an outgoing, isn't it? And as I said before, the Judaism really wasn't characterized by such. They were a very exclusive.
Enter to, you might say a group of people that have the oracles of God. But there was not a an outreach beyond the confines of Judaism. But in Christianity we have a ministry to reach out to the lost and also to edify the people of God.
And we need that dependence upon the Lord if that ministry is going to be effective because Satan is going to try to influence us and detract from the the purpose we have there in verse 10 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 and can remember in Ottawa that this Scripture when I was.
A teenager or a little beyond?
Now this was repeatedly brought before us this verse. What does it mean?
Always bearing about in the body. Well, we have that old nature which is ready to.
Act into manifest itself whenever it's given the opportunity, and we are called upon to keep that in the place of death.
That there might be fruit in our lives, that Christ may be manifest. The life of Jesus might be manifest in our body, but that's only in the measure in which that old nature which we all have in our conscious of every day is kept in the place of death. And that's the meaning, I believe, of that verse always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. That is the application of the death of Christ.
Practically day by day in our lives, to our walk, to our ways, to our thoughts and so on, then there's going to be a channel of blessing as our brother brought before us. Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And God would have us to have a fruitful life down here and.
00:25:06
And to reach out with the gospel to others, and to encourage the Saints of God.
But we need to remember that we must apply the, you might say, the knife to the flesh. Remember in the book of Joshua, often spoken of before, they use sharp swords on the children on the heathen nations in the land of Canaan. They were told to destroy them, you remember. But before they commenced that work, Joshua five, they used sharp swords on themselves.
Circumcision had to take place. It wasn't easy, it was painful, but before they could engage in their heavenly warfare, they had to use those sharp knives. And I believe it's a picture of keeping that old, ugly, hateful nature that we have in the place of death, that the life of Jesus might be manifest in our body sometimes.
We don't do that and so God brings circumstances into our lives where we are forced to do it. Verse 11 where we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake. Is that the thought to hear?
Have a kind of a question that has come in my.
Thoughts as I've read through these chapters, Would appreciate some help on it. We apply these things to ourselves and I think the Spirit of God would lead us in that way. And yet I can't help but notice the language as we go through the chapter with the apostle using the word we and ours and you and yours.
As he addresses the Corinthian Saints, and I'm just wondering how we would understand that and yet we do apply these things.
To ourselves. But he seems to speak very distinctly of himself and those that labor with him.
Differently than the Saints at Corinth whom he's addressing, I just point out a couple of.
Of instances verse five we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants, and then.
Coming down a little further, so then verse 12 death worketh in us, but life in you, and then a little further, verse 14 knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.
I go on to detract from the ministry and application to ourselves, but I'd be helpful to understand why it is that the apostle distinguishes.
The Corinthian Saints from he and those that labored with him.
Scripture is always given in the context of a need.
And the Apostle Paul was writing this letter to answer to a need.
That was in the state of the Corinthian assembly and the need there was involved in multiple things, but one of them was that they were questioning his apostleship.
And so the apostle Paul, for the sake of the truth of God, not to be lost to them, because he loved them.
He wasn't trying to defend himself.
But he felt it was necessary for the for the benefit of the Saints there, to show them that the ministry that was entrusted to him was of God.
And that's what he is in the context of this chapter, that's the we they in contrast to himself and those that were identified with him in that ministry were questioning it. And he said we aren't handling the word of God deceitfully.
And you can see in our lives the manifestation of the truth of that which is being presented to you. So that's, I believe the the context here of why he makes the distinction. But it's often the case that when there is a problem and it has an application in a very specific way, God is using it for the benefit of the whole. And so it has its equal, can I say application by the Spirit.
00:30:04
To us today, even though it has that very specific way it was written and and applied originally, I'd like to call attention to verse 18 of the previous chapter and how it connects to this chapter in a very significant way.
It says we all and here he is including everybody in that. That is, it wasn't a ministry issue here in this verse, but it's all we who are believers.
Paul and those with him and all in Corinth we all with opened face, and that's in contrast to Moses and the veil that was put on his face, Mr. Darby translates. An unveiled face. That is, all of us in this room have the privilege without putting a veil on our face.
Without having to say the light is too bright, I can't look at it, we can look at the glory.
Of the Lord.
And we can be occupied with the glory of the Lord. That glory is so wonderful if we are occupied with it. That and the new translation is helpful. It says we're transformed. That is, you gaze upon the glory of the Lord Jesus as presented to you in the Word of God, if you have your gaze fixed upon that glory of the Lord Jesus, as it says in that verse.
By the Spirit of God.
You are changed.
You, the person, are changed, transformed by the object that is before your soul.
The glory of the Lord and when you are transformed in its, as Bill said earlier, it's a practical thing, It's another, brother said. We grow little in the Sunday school. We don't grow up all at once and in the things of God, that transformation in the practical sense presented here.
Is keep your eye on the object, on the glory of the Lord, and little by little the Spirit of God working in you. You don't do it yourself. The Spirit does it. It transforms us. How?
To be more like the object.
To be more like the object that's before our souls. Do you want to be more like Christ?
Gaze on the occupied with himself, just to look at him, just to marvel at him, just to be engaged with him. And the Spirit of God will take that and change you and make you more like him. And then he says in the next chapter.
To these can I say transformed people. Now I want you to go and display that transformation to your fellow man.
That transformation in you involves what's in the chapter. In your own heart, which was once dark, now resides the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's your treasure to carry, but it's also in your transformed state. That is what you have to present to your fellow man. And if my soul is not in the true enjoyment of it, I may go mechanically.
And say, here's how to get saved. Do this, do that, do the other and you'll be saved. Well, God can use a **** ***. He can use anything he wants to save somebody. And it's the work of God to do it. But from the responsibility side of ours is God expects us to be so occupied with his Son that when we go to our fellow man, it is that life, the very life of Christ that is now in us.
That is displayed to that person and draws them to Christ.
By what they see in US, and that which is presented to them of the message of the Gospel.
Just like John was speaking a few minutes ago in verse 11, always bearing about in the body.
The dying of the Lord Jesus, Why?
So that the life might be deceived. What is it? The life of I have the life of Christ. You have the life of Christ. But what obscures it? What makes it so it doesn't shine and live out in a living power to others?
00:35:10
It's when the flesh that is in me is not practically judged as it was at the cross of the Lord Jesus. And so every single moment of every single day, if you will, we have to live in the conscious sense that I died at Calvary with Christ. And so if that's not practically.
Working in me at any given moment, then the life of Christ isn't going to be shining out.
From me and the treasurer will be obscured in the hearts of my fellow man and.
You might say, well, I don't know, you seem to be interested in the same things I am. I don't see any difference in you, your interest, your objects, the things that bother you are the same things that I've taken up with. So what's the difference? Or when the soul is truly transformed by the Lord Jesus, the interests are different, the object is different, the conversation is different, the life is different, and the person says he has something, she has something.
What is it?
Interesting that it says there verse 10 always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord.
It's not the death of the Lord, it's the dying of the Lord. It's something that's constantly being applied practically in our life.
Not that the Lord is dying constant. The Lord died, but I died with him. But he need to apply his death in the dying of the Lord. That's where we are to have this power now and saying no to what we are in the flesh. That's actually where we saw the end of the flesh, Michelle, isn't it at the cross, that's where God.
Not only died for our sins those evil acts that we had done, but put away the old nature that had produced that test.
Ugly fruit put it away in his sight so.
Really we the the end of the first man is at the cross. God is not trying to improve the old nature and and nor should we try. We should keep it in the place where God has put it.
And it's not an easy thing, as we get in this chapter. It's often very difficult, and to have the earthen vessel broken is not a pleasant thing.
And humanly speaking.
Referring to what our brother Steve was mentioning.
It must have been doubly difficult for the apostle Paul to have those in Corinth to whom he had been used, first of all to preach the gospel, and then to bring the truth before them. To have them use the very things that the Lord had allowed in his life, such as his bodily presence being weak and his speech contemptible, and other things. I say again, it must have been difficult for him to have them use those things against him and say, well.
Paul, you don't amount to much. And if you're an apostle, then those things that ought to characterize you and a bodily presence and a good delivery and all those things, they're just not there. But what were they an example of to the Corinthians of one whom the Lord was using by breaking down the vessel to such an extent that Christ shone out brighter and brighter. And what's so beautiful in Second Corinthians is to see that when all of these objections come.
As brother Dawn was mentioning, Paul doesn't defend himself.
He defends the Lorde glory, He defends in that sense his apostleship, because as the apostle he was responsible to carry out those functions. You might say, if I could use that word before the Lord. But when it comes to finding fault with him, he answers everything with Christ. And if, as it were, they say, well, Paul, you don't amount to much in your bodily presence is weak and your speech contemptible.
Paul says, well, brethren, I didn't want you to look at me anyway, and I wasn't trying to make something of myself anyway. So if that's what God has to do in order that the glory of Christ might shine out brighter, that's fine with me.
Well, what a humbling thing that should have been to the Corinthians. Whether it was, we don't know. We trust so. But what a humbling thing it should have been to find a man who was accused like that, using the occasion simply to minister Christ to them. And that's what God looks for in you and me, doesn't he? If he breaks the vessel down, he says, it's not that I want to see you belittled necessarily, but I want to see the glory of Christ shine out brighter and brighter.
00:40:21
The great secret is to see Christ in glory, and that's our that's what gives us our character, our position and everything. Just like in the Old Testament, there was the was that God came down and dwelt in the Tabernacle, but because of the condition of the people of Israel, a veil had to be there. That's the same word that was used concerning Moses when he came down from the mount. He had to put a veil over.
Because God was holy.
God was bright and his face shone and they couldn't stand it and there wasn't the means to change their condition to accommodate to God's glory. And so a veil was used to separate the two. Now when the Lord Jesus came.
He was to, he removed that veil. He made a way where men and God could come together. But you have to do it through the Lord Jesus. And if you reject him, then there's still a veil, there's still a hindrance, there's still something that blocks that view of that God wants to reveal to his people.
It's interesting how the the chapter progresses here. It would seem like the children of Israel under the old economy of the law continued on with all the traditions and the the book, the 10 commandments and all. But in order to do that, they had to.
Make accommodations and changes because they couldn't reconcile still a holy God with their present condition.
For example, when the man came to the Lord and said what good thing will I do to inherit eternal life, the Lord directed him to the law, and on one occasion I forgot whether it was that.
He in order to accommodate it the law to him's own needs, he says, who is my neighbor?
Now that's craftiness, that's bending the rules. That's what developed under the old economy, and so they were used to that.
Sad to say, the same thing happens in Christianity. We verse two we don't renounce dishonesty. We're not honest with God and ourselves. We're crafty. Sometimes we think that we'll we can be that way.
What happens when we are that way? It becomes a tool that the God of this world uses so the light doesn't shine out from us.
We're not properly representing the Lord. We haven't seen him in glory like he really is, and we're not showing that out to the world around us. And so the world doesn't get a good representation of the gospel through us. That's a that's a work of the enemy, the God of the world.
Of this world, who in that way hides the gospel?
From those who could see it if we are practical condition.
Was in conformity.
To our real position.
Been read already Psalm 19.
The heavens declare the glory of God.
And so when we look into the heavens, we see a display of God's power, God's majesty, God's excellence, and what he's created.
And you might say it shines on us.
But what we have in this chapter goes farther than that. God has something more wonderful, a greater display of himself and his light. And he's not content that it simply shine on us. But his choice is that it shown in us to get into our very being, into our hearts and into our souls. And so he shines that light right into us, that glory of the person of his Son. And.
00:45:14
In his exaltation now and all his glories that he has, and it shines into us but.
You know, if you if you take a vessel like a fine piece of China.
It not only.
Holds something, but it becomes if it's. If it's of a certain character, it becomes transparent so that what's in it can be seen from without.
And so while God has put this treasure in an earthen vessel, his work in the vessel is also it's such a wonderful thing that the power of God has to sustain it. The vessel can't sustain it.
But also in the breaking down of the vessel, it makes it more transparent so that what is there will shine out to the benefit of others and.
It is to the glory of God, because what God can do with the vessel is beyond the power of the vessel itself.
And so God says, well, I'll take the vessel and I'll shine into it.
That which is the light of the glory of my son. And then I'll make the vessel transparent.
And I'll sustain it, and I'll make it.
Such that the light which is within will shine out for the blessing and benefit of others. And often God takes a person in affliction or a trial and uses it to show his own glory, to be able to sustain that vessel in its weakness, and also so that we can see Christ in the vessel.
And it's a blessed thing.
Painful for the vessel, but it's a blessed thing when God chooses to take a vessel and if you will break it down so that there's a transparency to it and that the result is that he is glorified in what He does.
Is there a reward connected with that too? We get in the 17th verse.
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment work it for us.
More exceeding and eternal weight of glory. So not only is their present glory manifested, but there is an answering glory to glorifying the Lord. If I could use that word down here.
So it says in verse 15, connected with what's just been said for all things are for your sakes.
Everything that God brings into our lives is for our sakes. It has a purpose of God behind it, which when we get to glory, we will be able to look at and say that's sorrow, that trouble, that agony of heart and so on that I went through hopefully with the Lord is that which was for my sake.
So that the end result is.
In perfection, a vessel which displays the glory of God for eternity.
It's not an allusion to Gideon. I think that it's a tacit allusion to the life of Gideon. We know the story about the.
The soldiers of Gideon's army having.
A trumpet in one hand and a picture in the other, within which was the the torch.
The trumpet was blowing. That's the clear testimony.
But the light did not shine unless the picture was broken. So the picture was broken and the light was displayed.
The vessel was broken before the light was shown forth. I think we have the breaking of the vessel here in verses 8:00 and 9:00.
There was discipline in the apostles life.
Needs to be disciplined in our lives too. Justice meant and.
00:50:05
It was that was not necessary in the life of the Lord Jesus because he did not have an old nature which would act with us. There's always that danger. And so God does bring discipline in our lives and the circumstances that we pass through, persecuted, not forsaken and so on. The breaking of the vessel that Christ might be seen in our in our walking ways.
I remember Brother London.
He spoke about a country where they used to take an earthen vessel and they used sandpaper on it and they sand it down till it was very thin and then they would make certain features stand out by putting a light inside the vessel and then you could see the transparency.
When it was very thin, you could see the light shining through and you can make beautiful designs and so on this way. And so the, the purpose here, I believe, is in this illustration that God uses or the apostle uses, it isn't necessarily the breaking of the vessel that's the purpose. Sometimes that is, we look at it that way, but it's really sending it down so that Christ shines through us or in US.
And and that of Christ is seen in US, and so that is beautiful.
To the the wonder is not the vessel. The wonder is the light in the vessel, the treasure in the vessel. That's what needs to be seen. And that's why Paul could be rejoicing these persecutions as and even how the Corinthians treated him. He could he could accept that that was a sending down of the vessel.
Of breaking it down, if you will, and so that the light could shine out. And he was willing for that to happen. And may the Lord then give us that willingness to, you know, our own self-interest, our own dignity. Sometimes we, we refuse to want to refuse certain things because we may look bad and so on. Well, that's getting occupied with the vessel.
Let's there's something more valuable in US than the vessel itself.
And that's what needs to shine out.
The other translation.
Where Excellency is translated the surpassingness of the power. So it's not a question of an excellent power being contained, but it's a surpassing power that shines out. And there's another helpful phrase in here in the verses that we're considering.
In the.
9th 1St the 8th and 9th 1St seeing no apparent issue but our way not entirely shut up.
And related to that, Dave, I'd like to call attention to what we get both at the beginning, at the end of the end, at the end of the chapter.
And that is, we're told, in both cases not to faint.
And the word here, anyone can look this up, but there are different words that are used in the New Testament in Greek that are translated faint, but this one. And then again, anyone can verify this. I don't know Greek, but it has the sense of not losing heart, not getting discouraged, not giving up. And it's a day when Satan is using discouragement as a tremendous tool against the Lord's people. There are all kinds of things happening.
And it's not always, although frequently it is opposition from the world.
In one sense, as we were saying the other night at the Hemsing, that's easier to take than the difficulties that happen among believers themselves. We expect the opposition of the world, but when it's opposition from within the framework of Christian profession and even from other believers, it becomes doubly difficult. Paul was facing that here. Paul was facing, you might say, rejection from the very ones that ought to have looked to him for guidance and teaching and health.
But what does he say? Don't faint. And he gives 2 reasons for it. On the one hand, at the beginning of the chapter he says seeing. Therefore, therefore seeing, we have this ministry as we have received mercy, we faint not. That is you and I, and it's already been brought out. Have the privilege of looking up and seeing by faith all the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
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No one can take that away from us. We can allow something to come in the way ourselves.
But no one can take that away from us. And then where does the pathway end? It ends in certain glory. And so it says at the end of the chapter in verse 16, for which 'cause we faint, not for what? Cause for the fact that all things are for your sakes. Are the things which are seen difficult? Are they hard to put up with? God says they're temporal.
Temporal. What about the things I can't see? Oh, the Lord says by faith you can lay hold of them, because those things are eternal.
There's a qualification for each one of these things here. Like persecuted but but not forsaken and cast down but not destroyed. God is in control and he only lets things go so far and till he gets what he wants out of us, and then he stops it.
I like it this way in my own enjoyment of that point. If you go into a China shop somewhere.
My wife would smile and my interest in China shops, but if you go into a China shop somewhere you might see this little label handle with care.
And brethren.
God has put a treasure in US.
He's going to handle it with care.
That's why the Excellency of the power of it is of God, and that's why those things that are mentioned, it can only go so far but no farther is because it's not a child that's taking care of the vessel, but it's God himself who has put the treasure there. He values that treasure and he wants it maintained, and as a consequence, he exhorts us not to faint. And there's our own side of it that's brought out too, because Scripture gives both balance perfectly.
But it's nice to, as it were, to be recognized. I am a vessel.
That has the label handle with care, and I'm in the whose care, God's care, and it's a the the power to maintain it is the power of God, and that's a surpassing power to sustain that vessel.
To Adam, God formed a vessel in the garden out of the dust of the earth, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Sin came in, and he was broken, and he couldn't contain.
That for which he was formed any longer. But we're kept by the power of God, Peter says.
But he had something through faith, and that comes back to the end of Chapter 3. Having the proper objects for faith before us, He keeps us, and we're changed into that same image.
In the application in in John 2, the servants were instructed to draw out and bear.
When they did so, something happened to that water. It was turned to wine.
The disturbance do that.
No, they had nothing to do with the Lord. Turned the water into wine.
And then that wine was used for refreshment of all who gather that that wedding feast.
And so we didn't concern ourselves with making wine, as it were, the Jewish piece of joy. That's the Lord's portion. You'll do that. We simply have the drought and bear it carefully.
Back.
You can look at the the song there while you look and you look it up. I'm just going to read a well known verses in Psalm 23.
Psalm 23 verse one. The Lord is my shepherd.
And it's verse five, the end of the verse, my cuff, run it over #72 in the back.
Can we ride?
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Our God and our Father, we are past two days.
Are sold in this meeting, our God, and we thank thee. We want to collectively thank thee, our God, for giving us rich ministry from heaven.
And we ask thee that we may put it into practice in our lives. And we pray for everyone who has the privilege of being here.
So, Father, we commend ourselves to thee, many leaving now the gospel to go out yet, and we commend our God, that message to thee. Prepare the vessel who gives it out, Father, make him a channel to pass on.
Message from Thee. So we look to thee and give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.