Treasure-2 Cor. 4:3-11; Blessed—Titus 2:11-13;
Marvelous-1 Pet. 2:1-9
Several scriptures that we wish to call attention to this afternoon have an especial word to each. The first one is the word "treasure," the next one is the word "blessed," and the last one is the word "marvelous."
The first one is found in 2 Corinthians 4:3-11. There are different ways of speaking of the lost. Some are lost eternally. They pass into the eternity of the lost. There is another sense in which all the unsaved ones, that is, all who have not received Christ as their Saviour, are lost, and God's grace seeks them—seeks and saves the lost. Here we have a special class of lost ones: "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." It is in this world they are lost and lost not because they were born sinners or anything of that kind. "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost": Now the 4th verse "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."
There is such a thing as trifling with God, with His truth, with His grace, but there is a word of His that stands fast whatever His patience, His grace, may be. There is another thing—we speak of it together sometimes—and that is the government of God. "God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" that is what we have here in these lost ones. They are not people who have never heard the gospel of the grace of God or of the glory of Christ; they are people who have heard it. Whenever God presents His truth, however feeble the instrument may be, He presents it to be believed and to be received. Where it is not believed and received, presently the government of God follows it, and what is that? He allows Satan to close the eyes and ears.
"The god of this world" is Satan in his religious character. "Prince of this world" is his political character.
Here it is the religious character, and wherever the Word of God is being preached or taught, Satan is always on hand. If you were to turn to the 8th of Luke and take that parable of the sower, you would find there, when the Word has been sown, the Lord says, "Then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved." He is a watchful enemy of man's soul, and he knows in a measure what is going on in the soul. Satan doesn't pay much attention to a careless, indifferent listener. He doesn't need to. But see that one that is attentive! The Word is finding some entrance. Satan says, "I must be after him; if he really receives the Word, he will be saved!" "Then cometh the devil, and taketh away the Word." It is well for us to remember these things.
"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."
The gospel is good news of the grace and glory of Christ. The gospel is simply the good news that Christ is in glory and wants that truth to find entrance into our souls, and He causes it to be preached.
The 5th verse states, "For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake." The purpose of the preacher of the gospel is to hide himself, and hide himself behind the One he is preaching. "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord."
Now, further, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." What is that treasure and why call it a treasure? What is a treasure? It is something we value, something the heart is set upon. The blessed Saviour said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also," and when we have a treasure, we have that which is valued. The heart is occupied with it.
What is this treasure it speaks of? It says we have it in earthen vessels. The vessels, we find further down in this chapter, are these poor bodies, of the earth, earthy, and should the Lord not come to redeem it in a little while, it will return to the earth from which it was taken, in which case God's power in resurrection will come in and bring it out of the dust again. In the natural course of things, it is just simply these poor bodies.
This treasure is just simply Christ as life and eternal life. Real Christians are those who know Christ as their Saviour; Christ as their life; Christ as their righteousness; Christ now and Christ forever. In God's sight, whatever you may be in the sight of this world, you are not a Christian if you do not know Christ as your Saviour. What is a Christian? He is one that knows and confesses and follows Christ. The disciples or believers were first called Christians at Antioch, not Jerusalem, and that is what a Christian is. He is a confessor of and a follower (in some feeble measure, more or less, but a follower) of Christ. He owns Him as his Lord, as his Saviour, as his Example.
How far, fellow-Christian, is the truth that Christ is our Saviour and the truth that we have eternal life and shall never perish—how far is that a treasure to your soul? It is not a mere doctrine, not merely resting in the satisfaction that you shall never perish. In the way of Scripture, it doesn't ask what is that truth to your conscience, but to your heart. Is it, a treasure? Dear fellow-Christians, that in a very special way, ministry of the truth of God among Christians, should be ministry for the heart. God wants your heart! But His way of getting at the heart is through the conscience. God never stops His work in the conscience. It is conscience that makes us know what we are in the sight of God, and that makes us know our need of His grace—our need of the Saviour He has found for us.
We get in 1st John a kind of climax: "He that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him." He says something that is profoundly true, not something mysterious or that cannot be understood. No, it is this, that this heart of mine has found a home in God and that the blessed God has found a dwelling place in my heart. That is what it is to dwell "in Him and He in him." It is brought before us in another way in the 5th of Romans. The first part of that says, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" ... "and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Isn't that very wonderful? God doesn't stop there. That wouldn't satisfy God. Where does He stop? Further down in the chapter, "Not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ." That is very different from peace with Him. Peace with God must precede, of course, and peace with God comes from the knowledge of being cleared from guilt, but the climax is "Joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement [reconciliation]."
It is a wonderful thing that the blessed God, the God of heaven above and of earth beneath, is after our hearts, but He reaches that heart through these consciences of ours and makes us know our need. That is why the Apostle Paul says, "We have this treasure," that is, it is the knowledge of God which is eternal life, knowledge of God in Christ, as we have in the 17th of John. "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." Is the truth that God has brought us into the knowledge of Himself and all His glory as revealed in Christ a treasure to our souls? That is the point. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."
There is another thing: Into dark benighted souls— hearts so dark through sin (it says in the 4th of Ephesians "alienated from the life of God through the ignorance ... because of the blindness [or hardness] of their heart")—God has shined, and the Christian can say, and ought to say with joy, I know not only something about God, but I know Himself. To know God in Christ, to know God as the One that sent His Son is eternal life.
If God has shone into our hearts in this way, it is for a purpose. That purpose is for the shining forth. What was the standard of the Israelites' conduct before God? What had God to measure the conduct of His earthly people by? What did He look for from them? He looked that they should keep His law, be obedient to His law. What does God look for in the Christian? What does God look for in us as Christians, as those whose hearts are lit up with the knowledge of the glory of Himself in Christ? What does He look for? To keep the commandments? Oh no. God is looking for something else in the Christian. What is He looking for? We get it in verses 10 and 11, "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 alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." What does God look for in the Christian? Likeness to Christ. Or to put it in other words, He looks to see Christ in the Christian, and the Christian is to be to God a sweet savor of Christ.
When the blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus, was here on earth, there was a sweet savor going up to God continually. Christ, whether in life or death, was an offering of a sweet smelling savor to God that went up night and day. He was a sweet savor to God of what He was in Himself. The Christian is to be a sweet savor of Christ unto God. So it is here, "that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." We find dear Christians mixed up with law and grace, Judaism and Christianity and so on. What God looks for, and what His blessed Spirit produces when allowed to operate, is reproduction of Christ. The Apostle Paul, that one through whom the Holy Spirit worked so mightily said, "That...Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death."
Dear young Christians, (some of us are pretty well up in years—getting old) what do you think God is going to expect from you as long as you are in the world? More and more of Christ. That is what God is looking for. As in the previous chapter in this very Epistle, "from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Now what is that? What is that "from glory to glory?" It is just this moral glory until what is called physical glory is reached. And what is moral glory? More like Christ. More like Him in meekness, in lowliness, in dependence, in obedience, in every way. That is what "from glory to glory" is, and it is what occupation with Christ as the object of the affections produces. We are affected by the company we keep. If we are in company with Christ, the character of Christ will be seen. Now we have seen that Christ was a sweet savor of what He was in Himself, and we are to be a sweet savor of Christ to God. God hath shined in our hearts to give the light. The light has to be there or it can't be manifested, and that is the treasure in earthen vessels—Christ as our life.
We get a remarkable thing in that connection. See what follows the 7th verse. We don't have to wait until we get glorified bodies to have the treasure; we have it in earthen vessels, and God tells us that the excellency of that power may be of God, and not of us. God has to do something for us after this work of His precious grace has been wrought in our souls, after He has given us what is called the light of life, and what has He to do? God never had to take Christ in hand. Christ was never under the discipline of God or the Father's discipline. We know, no doubt, how fully the Epistle of Hebrews brings Christ and His glories before us. There is a certain path in which He drops right out, and that path is where God is brought before us as the Father and the only place where He is brought before us in that Epistle in that relationship, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." Christ drops right out for a blessed reason: because He was never under discipline. There was no will in Christ to be broken. The life of that blessed One as to will was just simply and solely the will of another. "I came down from heaven" (think of the glory of that—He could say that) "not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me." Was that will a burden? Oh no, it was a delight, but because of what He was in His own nature.
In the same gospel we read, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me" and another scripture, "I delight to do Thy will."
It is not so with you and me. Our wills are in opposition to the will of God, and we, in our unconverted state, are naturally children of disobedience; it is our nature to disobey. What is the first thing a mother has to do with her newborn child? She must teach it to do what is contrary to its nature: to obey, and a little one is not very old before it shows it has a will. The great object of the parent, a wise and faithful parent, is to bring into subjection that will of the child, but into subjection to the parent. If there were no contrary will, there would not be that difficulty. We don't give up our wills willingly.
As children of God we have a will that has to be broken, and we have a nature that loves to obey as in 1st Peter, "obedient children," as being children of God. We have a nature that loves the will of God, God's own nature as born of Him. But we have the old nature too, both natures. God graciously undertakes, like the parent, to subdue that will of mine, so that will of the new nature may have its way. How He does it you get in the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th verses. Our gracious God has caused the light to shine in and has given us the light of life and, thank God, has taught us in some measure to enjoy it as a treasure. See what it says: "We are troubled on every side" (that is God's Word). He is breaking the vessel so the light may shine out. We often say when this scripture is before us, suppose God had saved us and let us have our own way, how much meekness and devotedness would be seen in us? We would just go on pursuing that which gratifies the old nature and the will of that nature.
God brings us into this government: "Troubled on every side." Take the beloved Apostle; what a life of trouble that life was and at the same time what a happy life. These things go hand in hand. Trouble in this world, and happiness and joy in God go together because these things break our wills and humble us and bring us into God's presence. The natural effect of ease, comfort, and prosperity is not to take us into the presence of God but the very opposite. We like ease and prosperity. We don't like to be troubled on every side. God has His own glory and the blessing of His people in hand. That storm of trouble does just what we read of in the Psalms. "Before I was afflicted I went astray," and these things simply make us have to do with and say to God and find our resource in Him.
There is another thing: God delights in the company of His people. That may seem strange, but it is blessedly true. We are called into the fellowship of His Son, and He takes us in hand, graciously takes us in hand, that we may know what communion is.
We have noticed so particularly the difference in the openings of the 18th and 19th chapters of Genesis. How blessed is the 1st verse of the 18th chapter. How solemn the 1st verse of the 19th! In each it is a saint of God. There is no difficulty in seeing we have in the 18th a saint, but in the 19th we never would have known it if the Spirit of God hadn't told us. He is speaking in the one of Abraham and in the other of Lot. We get in the opening verses the key to the state of soul found in the chapter. Abraham sat in the door of his tent in the heat of the day. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, sunk down to the level of the world. The Spirit of God tells us what went on in that man's soul: "vexed his righteous soul from day to day."
It is well for us to ask in the presence of those two chapters, where am I? Is it in the place that answers to the door of the tent, or is it in the gate of Sodom? That is what tells.
What was it made poor Lot go to Sodom? It was prosperity, and he hadn't the grace to use it as Abraham had. They went down into Egypt comparatively poor, but came back with much cattle and servants, and the land wasn't large enough for all the flocks and herds. The herdsmen of Abraham and the herdsmen of Lot quarreled about their pastures, and poor Lot's heart was on his possessions. Abraham said, Let there be no quarreling between us; we are brethren in the presence of these strangers. You go to the right and I will go to the left, or if you go to the left, I will go to the right. Lot chose the inviting pastures of Sodom and Gomorrah. That, in general, is the effect with the Christian when there is prosperity and not grace to know how to use it. "If riches increase, set not thine heart upon them."
"Troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair." The blessed God allows us to be troubled on every side, but He sets a limit. He says as it were to Satan not to distress; don't go that far. If a soul got into distress, it would show he had not been with God about it; not distressed, perplexed, but not in despair. That is so blessed and especially in connection with chapter 10 of the 1st Epistle: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation [that is, the trial] also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." That is what we have here. God watches over and will not allow us to be tested above that we are able—shut up where there is no escape. So again, "persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." These trials, as it were, bring us nearer to God and He nearer to us as to the state of our soul. It is very blessed to know that God never takes His eye off us and will never allow us to be swamped. Satan cannot go one inch beyond what God allows, and he knows it. It is just the same now. The purposes of God in government are the same, whatever the change in dispensation. May God make what His grace has done for us more of a treasure.
Next, let us consider a passage in which we find the word "Blessed," a well-known passage in Titus 2. "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Are you a stranger to the grace of God? The grace of God is bringing salvation to all men. It hath appeared unto all. First it saves, then teaches that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world. First grace saves, brings salvation, and when grace has saved us, it teaches us how to live, the precious grace of God— wonderful Saviour!—wonderful Teacher! It teaches us what to look for. "Looking for that blessed hope."
Why call it a "blessed hope"? It is because of what it was to the Apostle's heart. "Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." How far is the truth of the coming of the Lord a blessed hope to you and to me? Here again the affections are involved—blessed hope.
What a common doctrine now is the doctrine of the second coming of Christ. Fifty years ago it was comparatively an unknown doctrine. Within the last century a voice has been heard the whole length and breadth of Christendom. What did that voice say? Behold the Bridegroom! Go ye out to meet Him. What was the condition of those to whom the voice appealed? Where were they? Asleep. All those virgins arose. That awakening shout woke the mass. The doctrine of the Lord's coming in some shape and form within the last century has gone from end to end of Christendom.
In this city 55 years ago we saw a religious notice: a certain Episcopal clergyman was going to speak on the second coming of the Lord, and it was so new we said we would go and hear it. We went and found the poor dear man was in such a muddle as to it. He said he saw from Scripture that the Lord may come at any time and he saw too that He couldn't come until certain things had taken place. This brother and I felt we would like to tell him about the two parts of the coming, but he had it in some shape or form and he preached it. Then it was comparatively new, but now it is a well-known doctrine.
Now "that blessed hope" has a special application. You and I may have the doctrine of the Lord's second coming as clear as possible but it may be anything but a blessed hope; that is, the heart not involved. In the 4th of 2nd Timothy what a moment in the history of the beloved Apostle. "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that" believe in His coming. Is that what it says? No, what does it say then? "All them that L-O-V-E His appearing." What the truth of the second coming of Christ is to your soul is indicative of the state of your soul; that is, is it a blessed hope? What about the treasure, and what about the blessed hope? In each case the affection of the heart is involved! Some fifty years ago in this city there was seldom a meeting and seldom a week passed that we didn't sing #173, "A Little While the Lord Shall Come." Now it is comparatively seldom sung. It tells a tale. That hope in some measure has ceased to be a blessed hope and we need God's gracious work to revive our soul's affection. We sing sometimes in connection with the gospel, "Revive Thy work 0 Lord." That is what is needed among the saints, a revival of the work of God.
Now turn to 1 Peter 2:1-10. This passage teaches the same truth as the other two passages we have already considered. In the 4th verse God and man are in contrast, disallowed of man, chosen of God. Verse 7 should read "is the preciousness," that is preciousness of Christ made known to the believer. In verse 8 what made Him a stone of stumbling? Disobedience. We were noticing how the god of this world is blinding the minds of them that believe not. Don't oppose the Word of God, or He will let you stumble over it and that will be your everlasting ruin. In verse 9 we have a word which brings out what the truth was to the heart. The first was "treasure," the next "that blessed hope" and then the Apostle as it were, contemplating, dwelling on the light he has been brought into, called out of darkness, oh, he says—"marvelous light."
Peter wasn't writing to those in Gentile darkness; he had never been in Gentile darkness himself. He had been in the light as far as God had been pleased to give the light. He was one of God's earthly people. He calls it darkness. Called out of darkness "into His marvelous light." What is that marvelous light that he calls marvelous? It is just simply the light of the knowledge of God in Christ. The Christian has no partial light. God who commanded that out of darkness light should shine, takes us back to the 3rd verse of the first book in God's Word. God said, "Let there be light." All was wrapped in darkness. God said, "Let there be light and there was light." That is what that scripture takes us back to. Has God said to you and me, Let there be light? No, no. What has He done then? He has Himself shined into our hearts. There is a contrast there. God said, "Let there be light," but that God Himself has shined into our hearts for the shining out, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is something to meditate on.
We get not only the darkness out of which we have been called, but the light into which we have been called—marvelous light. "No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." God has manifested Himself here in this world. How little our affections dwell on these things! It was that which made the apostles speak as they do of the treasure, the blessed hope and marvelous light. May our gracious God work the same in our souls. The ministry in season to the saints of God is not the unfolding of the truth of God so much as the application of what is already unfolded; rather the work of exhortation than the word of explanation. May God graciously grant it.