The Theme
I'm going to have a number of scriptures tonight, but before we come to the first scripture — which will be in the fourth chapter of Second Corinthians — I want to express a theme I've been laboring a great deal about. It is tremendously challenging to my own heart. Here is the theme; write it down:
Almighty God always has been, and is today, pleased to confront eternity-bound men with his Son — in whom he has spoken his final word — through earthen vessels.
The only way you can hear from God is through a human vessel. Think about that. Someone that dares to claim to be a product of God's saving grace is thus a part of the body that God has given the task of speaking in his name — and he is damning men or saving them as they respond favorably or unfavorably to God's message through an earthen vessel.
This strikes at the very heart of our predicament today. Our churches are full of people who claim to be in subjection to Jesus Christ — they have a stack of Bibles — but they are not in subjection to his church. They are a law unto themselves. Every man does that which is right in his own sight. We say we just listen to the Lord — but I propose to show you tonight that there is no way on earth a man can escape hell and gain heaven if he will not listen to the voice of Christ through a human vessel in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. You will either hear from God through a poor weak vessel, or you will not hear from God at all.
The Only Remedy
Ladies and gentlemen, God is pleased to provide just one remedy for the condition of men, and that remedy is the preaching of the truth as it is in Christ. Men are not saved by memorizing scripture. Men are not saved by merely believing what the Bible teaches — the devil believes every word of it. Men are saved by hearing. The only way a person can come saving faith in Christ is to come by way of the truth proclaimed in the gospel. It still pleased God by the foolishness of preaching — and by no other way — to save them that believe.
When the Scriptures speak of not taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain, he is not merely talking about cursing — he is talking about lightly claiming to be a child of God. For if you are a child of God, you have been put by the Spirit into the body of Christ. And there is no way on earth a person can be a member of the body of Christ apart from being under the commission: “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”
The Text: 2 Corinthians 4
There is the terrible predicament of unsaved men and women. The god of this world has blinded their minds. They believe in the virgin birth, the vicarious atoning death of Christ, the resurrection, the second coming, the verbal inspiration of Scripture — but they do not see any beauty in Christ. They cannot worship him. The difference between the saved man and the unsaved man is not what they believe in their heads — it is that the child of God has seen something.
God commanded it — and what has he done? He has shined in our hearts to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. You can believe that Jesus is Lord and go to hell. You can surrender to Jesus as Lord and still go to hell. But if it ever comes to the place where you can worship him — if you have seen something, if darkness has given way to light, if God has made a deposit and given you the knowledge and experience of the glory of God in Christ — that is salvation. The devil believes in the lordship of Christ and fights it. A saved man has seen something, and he worships.
And how is that miracle brought about?
Just one way — we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. People confronted with Jesus Christ and the truth about him. And then the wonder of it:
We have this ministry in earthen vessels — but we have it. And God is pleased to do it that way. That the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. What a ministry the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ has received.
Three Illustrations
Moses. When God appointed Moses to lead the people out of Egypt, the only way to be under the authority of the Living God for those people at that time was to be in subjection to Moses. And one time, while Moses went up the mountain to receive the tablets of the law, the people missed this meeting — and in the second chapter of Exodus you find out what kind of revival they had: three thousand people were killed that very day.
The Day of Pentecost. Peter stood up with the eleven — the church, the body of Christ, God speaking through the channel of the hour — and three thousand people believed. They gladly received his word. They recognized the voice of authority. They heard from God through the lips of a man named Peter, and they cried out: what must we do? And they that received his word were baptized, and the Lord added to the church. In Moses' case they rejected the messenger — three thousand people killed. At Pentecost they received the message through the messenger — three thousand people saved.
John the Baptist. In the days of John the Baptist there was just one way anyone could hear from God — you had to listen to a man named John the Baptist.
They rejected the counsel of God — not just the counsel of John — by rejecting the ministry of John. Old Nicodemus came to Christ as one Bible teacher to another, and the Lord told him plainly: you cannot even see the kingdom of God unless you are born again. And he said further — except you be born of water and of the Spirit. The water there is John's baptism. There was no way on earth to gain God's kingdom in that day if you rejected God's ministry through a man named John the Baptist.
The Solemn Conclusion
The rejection of the message through the messenger is the rejection of God in Christ. In the day you and I live in, God speaks through just one voice — the church which is his body.
Paul says: you heard it from me — through human lips — but you said that is what God says about it. And that will get the job done. When the Bible ever gets to be a book that the Living God, through the Holy Ghost, uses to speak his message and make it alive and quicken it to you — now you are listening to God. That is what the scripture means: faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Not memorizing scripture. Not merely believing the Bible. Hearing God speak to you through the Bible.
Churches are full of folks who say they believe the Bible — but they have never heard God speak to them. The Spirit has never quickened the word to them. They were never made alive. That is the difference. The Spirit quickens the truth of God — makes it alive to you — and then you say: that is what God said about it. And you can face the devil and everything else on that ground.
I am so hungry for the sovereign God to do what we cannot do ourselves. I am so hungry to see congregations that represent Jesus Christ — that speak for him — that speak with the authority of Christ one more time. As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
God's people need to recover the thrill of being members of this precious body — commissioned with representing Christ as Christ represented the Father.