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Turn with me please to 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and we'll commence reading at verse 1. 2 Corinthians 3 and verse 1. Apostle Paul is speaking, he says,. Do we begin again to commend ourselves, or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men, forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
Verse 7 says,. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven 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?
And take your time, verse 10 says,. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For that which is done away was glorious, that's the law, how much more that which remaineth is glorious.
Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. And he speaks of the nation of Israel, and he speaks in verse 16 to it,. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.
Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 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.
Now I know that God will bless the reading of his word, with that which we have already heard in the conference. What I have is very simple, and of course you'll agree with me that this is a wonderful chapter.
It speaks about the glory Moses saw when he looked on the back parts of the Lord, and he compares that with the glory that we see in the face of Jesus Christ. Now Paul had a lot of opposition in his life, and they had great opposition here at Corinth.
There were men that claimed to be apostles, and these men, it would seem, had letters of commendation to prove that, and of course we have fellowship with men that have letters of commendation, but it's not, we don't have fellowship with the letter of commendation, but they have fellowship with the work.
And Paul is showing them what a great work that God accomplished through him there in the place of Corinth. So he starts off, and it tells us that ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, written by us, not with ink.
And he said God has done a work with you, and it's not anything to do with the law, but it's a work that's written in the heart. And I think that's where Christianity begins, doesn't it? When God saved us, of course there was a work written in the heart.
He's going to do a work like that with Israel in the future on the new covenant, but he's done a work with each of us, and it's a work in the heart. Why should it be a work in the heart? Because he wants to touch our hearts, and that's what we come to a conference for, that someone or something would touch our hearts.
And if the heart is right with God, I tell you everything else is going to be right with God. So I could say to you, how's your heart? Some of us have hearts and our bodies that aren't working too good, they're not up to 100 capacity, but we're not talking about that.
We're talking about the inner person. And God says, I work here in the individuals, written upon the heart. It's inward, and it's personal, and it was something that we're really satisfied with. And you know, the result was that we wanted to do what God wanted to do.
And what does God want anyone to do who's had their heart touched to be where he is? You know, in regular life, when you're a young man, that's a long time ago, but maybe you met a young lady and your heart was touched, and you didn't tell them to go away and never come back.
You wanted to be with them, and you wanted to know something about them. And there's something wrong with believers if we don't have that attitude and that desire to know more about this wonderful person that done a work on our heart.
Has he captivated your love? We've heard a bit of those in Ephesus and how they left their first love. They didn't lose it, but they left it. But here now, I would want you to really think about that.
And then to do what God wants you to do, then you're going to be baptized. That's not in the passage, but you're going to be in an assembly. And the Apostle Paul says, this assembly is my commendation.
I saw this assembly planted. Other foundation can no man lay in what is laid as Christ. He preached Christ, and souls were saved, and are part of an assembly. So not only are we individuals with a work written in our hearts, but we are an epistle.
That's a letter known and read of all men. Wonder what they see in me. Wonder what they would see in you. Would you see anything of Christ? Well, they should. And Paul says, this is our commendation. What God accomplished through us, known and read of all men.
And you know, people watch us. It's very important. And whatever you do, or whatever I do, if it's not right, people know that it's not right. And they criticize the assembly. It reflects on the assembly.
Whatever you or I do, it's not according to the word of God. Reflects on the assembly. When I went to high school, didn't go too long there, but a long time ago, we had uniforms. And I had a black blazer with a red monogram and white flannel trousers, we called them in those days.
And you had to wear that going to school. Even had a little cap thing on it. Wouldn't dare be seen in it today. But anyhow, we represented the school. And if you did something wrong while you had that uniform on, I'll tell you, they went to the school and they found out who it was pretty soon.
And in those days, well, high school, they made us write lines. You'd be surprised. That didn't get too long, too good in the French class. And I had to write 500 times in French. Can't remember, do you think I would know it now?
But it was, speech is silver, but silence is golden. So I guess I was a little bit too vocal in the class. But you know, anything we did then, it reflected on the school. And whatever we do today, reflects in the assembly.
And you know, it can be something good, not something bad. And that's what we need to be doing. Things that are good and reaching out to others. And that will reflect on the assembly. And people know when they come among us, they know if we're getting along well together.
And usually they can see there's a harmony in the assembly. It's wonderful to be part of a local assembly. But we need to realize we're not just in the assembly when we're gathered together, but what about work?
What about school? What about when we're out in the world, rubbing shoulders with others? Are we an epistle? The assembly is an epistle known and read of all men. And then, how do we produce this to be read by all men, Christ-likeness?
Well, that's what we have at the end of the chapter, because it says it's produced in the presence of the Lord. So you have something that's personally, it's inward. You have something that's outward, the local assembly.
You have something that's upward, the sanctuary. Do you ever spend time in the sanctuary? Do people know we've been in the sanctuary? We've been in the presence of God. Mr. Daugherty, that I preached with years ago, was, like some others, he was a converted Roman Catholic.
He was a bishop's altar boy. And he said after he had been in the church, in the Catholic church, he'd go out to play soccer with the boys, and he said they could all tell I'd been in the sanctuary. It was the smell of the incense, and he used that as an illustration.
And I've thought of it often. Do we have some of the smell of the sanctuary about us? Well, we're an epistle in lone and red of all men. Surely there should be something about it. How do we become like Christ?
By spending time with him. You know, they tell us even when you get married, you know, you begin to be more like your wife, and she begins to be more like you. And I don't know if that was good for my wife or not, but anyhow, we get to know someone.
We get to love them all the more with a deeper love. Salvation just isn't the beginning of a love story. Well, maybe it's the beginning, but it's not the end. Do we really love the Lord? Is that seen in my life?
Are there other things that come into my life that I love more than the Lord? Well, you know, I just want to speak for a little while. I can't really stand so long. But anyhow, I thought when I read this chapter, you know, there's always opposition.
And who's the opposer? Well, we know that Satan is the opposer. And not just himself, but there's those that work for him. Many of them are in pulpits today. They're not all out in the world, and they're working against him.
And so I went through the book, and I found out quite a few references to Satan. I'm not going to read them, but I'm going to quote them. It says in chapter 2 in verse 11, let Satan take advantage of you.
We've already heard a little bit about discipline in God's assembly. And this was written regarding the restoration of the person that had been disciplined. It's a very serious thing, and we want to go according to the pattern.
I was never a young man in an assembly. I was saved when I was 33 years. But when I was in those 30s, just a few years after, there was one of the sisters, an older sister, and she invited the younger Christians to a barbecue.
I like barbecues. I have nothing against them. But I found out that a brother that had been disciplined, and was under discipline, was going to be at the barbecue. And what would you do then? Well, I phoned the woman, and I said, is this brother going to be there?
And she said, yes. Well, I said, my wife and I won't be there. It's such a wonder not to eat. What does that mean? Don't be fraternizing with him. And I'll tell you what happened. She told the brother not to come.
And then we went, and I'll tell you, I went over like a lead balloon. And we were there among all these people that wanted this man to be there. And you know, the man, his father was an elder in the assembly.
He was a good man in many ways. But he said, he phoned me and said, you go. I'll talk. I'll talk for you if the elders, other elders say anything. I said, well, you talk for me at the judgment seat of Christ.
That was another matter. So, so, you know, we need to go according to the word of God. But then, you know, what happened after that? Well, the next Lord's Day, we went to a meeting, and that brother was sitting back.
And I went right to him. I think I did what was right. I wasn't fraternizing with him. But I said, I called him by name. And I said, I just want you to know that I was the one that blocked you from going to the barbecue.
But I said, I pray for you every day, and I love you. And I'd love to see you back in the local assembly again. God is a God of restoration. And while some of us may not have done some of these awful things, still we need to be restored.
And something wrong with us if we think we have reached a higher plane. And spirituality isn't a higher plane. It's something we're working at all the time. So he says, Satan can take advantage of you.
And then in four and four, he said, he's the God of this world. And he blinds the minds of them that believe not. And I thought, you know, we're part of an assembly, and we're trying to reach out to others that they might be saved.
Assemblies need to be built up. And I think we're failing. And I'm saying we, we're failing today. And we're neglecting to speak to others about their soul. And it's all in view. It's not just to say, we want to see some of these, we had meetings and four souls were saved.
How many are in the assembly? That's what gospel meetings are about, to bring people, to build assemblies up. And we're living in days when personal witness, I think, accomplishes more, usually, than just having gospel meetings and trying to get people in.
It's so difficult. So we need to be trying to build the assembly up. Satan's against that. And then in chapter six and 15, he's called Belial. And what concord hath Christ with Belial? And there it's speaking about separation from the idol's temple.
I know people talk about an equal yoke there, and there is an unequal yoke, but it's not marriage. If it was marriage, it says come out from among them and be separate. So you wouldn't want to leave your wife if she's not saved, or your husband if he's not saved.
But it's speaking about the idol's temple. We have the same truth in Hebrews chapter 13, outside the camp. That's where God wants us to be, separate. Christendom today is a mixture of idolatry and ritualism, but you want to be in something like that.
That's where you go if you leave God's assembly. And while it may not be idolatry where you would leave, you find Judaism everywhere. You find a separate priesthood and so on, and one person doing everything.
That's not according to the word of God. And some of these men are very good preachers. But I often wonder, how come they didn't find the local assembly? God showed it to us. It seemed to be very humble.
After I was saved, where was I going to fellowship? Well, of course, I knew from what I learned as a child. I didn't have to know very much. I knew there was no one-man ministry in God's assembly, and that cut out just about everything.
And there were other things I knew that shouldn't be in God's assembly. So it shouldn't be very difficult for us, should it, if God has really touched our heart and we want to be where the Lord is in the midst of his gathered people.
That's a wonderful place to be. There may not be very many in the assembly. I often say, you know, at the inauguration of the priesthood, there were five. There was Aaron and his four sons, and then two of them were taken for offering strange fire unto the Lord, and there was only three left.
But they still functioned as priests. And I tell them, if there were two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them. So if you come from a little assembly, don't despair.
Try your best to build it up to be a good testimony to others. And then it says in chapter 11, is it, in verse 3, about Satan as a serpent, and it talks about the simplicity of Christ and so on. And you know, maybe I'm not applying this right, correctly, but at least I know this, that all the doctrine in the Bible is all based on what took place at our conversion, when Christ was everything and we were nothing.
Why should it change, even if you read a few books? Why should it change? There's no cause of change if we have that love for the Lord. It's a simple thing. The gospel is a very simple thing, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.
And we are very privileged today, and I've been privileged, and I know a lot of preachers that some of the younger ones here would have no idea who they were. But you know, it was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.
The gospel's been passed down through the ages and through times of the scriptures, where there were men that were very simple gospel preachers. They weren't orators by any means. I'm sure most of them are dead, so I don't know if they'd agree with me or not.
But I won't name names, but you know, in this area, well, I should say the man like Sam Hamilton, what a man he was for the gospel, going into hospitals and singing with people and singing as loud as he could so the whole hospital could hear him and preaching the same thing.
I should, maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but I will anyhow. Brother Dick Veruli and I, I love very much. We had a funeral of an older sister, and Dick had gone to visit her in the hospital. And she said to him, where's Sam Hamilton these days?
And Dick said, oh, he's all right, he's gone home to heaven. And she said, boy, he sure gets around. Talk about the preachers getting around. Well, he got around to heaven. And men like Paul Elliott, my, and some here know far more about him than I did, and Henry Walls and Mr. Brandt, and what a work they did.
I tell you, we should be ashamed, some of us, who have gone to different lands and done different things. And what have we really accomplished? Sometimes you really wonder. Well, hopefully something was accomplished.
But anyhow, the serpent would beguile us of that simplicity. And there's lots of things, and I wonder, you hear these men, have you ever hear them preaching on the radio? I don't have a TV, so I don't hear them preaching on the television.
But on the radio, even when they're closing their message, the music is playing, and everything's so wonderful. Trying to work on the emotions. That's not the simplicity in the gospel. And then, we read in 11 and 14, he's an angel of light, and his ministers are, these men that claim to be apostles, are ministers of light.
What does that mean? Well, I think it means they're bringing new light. They're bringing new teaching, and they're going away from the old teaching, from the simple truths of the gospel and of the local assembly.
And they're trying to bring in something new. Not often you bring in something new that would be right. Some of us, maybe you think I'm an old fogey, and I don't care who you think I am, but I'm going by the old paths as far as I can carry them out in the word of God.
So, here we have the angel of light, and Satan has him in the pulpit. Mr. J .N. Darby said, Satan is never more dangerous than when he has a Bible under his arm. And that's what kind of a place we're living in today.
And then, just to go on, we have, as has already been mentioned, the next mention is a thorn in the flesh. The sufficiency that's in Christ. And I'm not going to say anything different from what our brother Frank has said.
I agree with what he said. But I just want to apply it, you know, there has to be exalted above due measure. Here's a man that was caught up into the third heaven. You ever, you know, the Bible's written in chapters, but it's good to know that it wasn't, it's in chapters for us.
It wasn't written in chapters. And, you know, you read about him being caught up, but if you read the end of the chapter before, he was let down in a basket through the window in the wall. And we were always taught the way up is down.
You take a lowly place. God can exalt you. And here's Paul, and he's given a thorn in the flesh. We have, many of us have difficulties. If you don't have them medically, you will. The older you get. And I often say, blessed be the pacemakers.
So the pacemakers, they keep you going for a while. But, you know, here we have the power of Christ, a thorn in the flesh. Sometimes we can be exalted as good, and God can keep us low. And Satan was against the apostle Paul.
I tell you, he was such a tremendous man, and a fearless man. You read all the, all the sufferings that he came through. And then, and then here he is, a thorn in the flesh. Our brother said it might be his eyesight.
I thought that it might be, would be, because he didn't know the high priest in the book of Acts. I wish not that he was a high priest. Could have been his eyesight. We're not told. It doesn't really matter.
But we can have our own little thorn in the flesh to keep us down. And we're not sure what yours would be, our mind would be, but there's difficulties come into life. It's not all plain sailing. If it is, there's something wrong.
We're not really living for God, if it's all plain sailing. We heard about the storms there at the beginning of the day. Sometimes God takes a storm away, brings peace. Other times he brings a person through the storm, as if it's all in his hand.
And they didn't come through the storm, and we know because of something they did wrong, but it was because of their obedience. Because they did what the Lord told them to get under the ship and go to the other side.
So it's not, doesn't mean if you have a problem that God's against you for something. But anyhow, we're not going to end there with Satan. Just a few references to Christ. 5 and 14, the love of Christ constraineth me, Paul says.
That's why we preach the gospel. That's why we want to reach out to others. That's why we want to see other people saved. It's the love. He was suffering, but he knew Christ suffered for him. And I tell you, he was a, who else could be a messenger like he was, a man that persecuted the saints.
And here he is. And he's talking about the love of Christ. This is what motivates me. What motivates you? I helped to fix a little book together, Brother Sidney Maxwell wrote. And part of it was about the judgment seat of Christ.
And he said, somebody asked him, how long is it going to take? Oh, he said, I don't think it's going to take very long. How long do you think it's going to take? Why would he say that? They said, how many things have we really done with the right motivation, completely with the right motivation?
Was it to bring a little glory to ourselves, a little bit of self in it, or maybe a lot of self in it? And that's what he thought. Now I'm not sure about that, but the love of Christ constrains. What constrains us?
Why am I here trying to minister the word? Because I love this. I love each one of you. I love the saints. Why have I spent time preaching the gospel, which I can't really do much anymore. Why would I do that?
Because I love souls. You love souls. You're really interested in souls. We have a love for them. That's what constrains us, not to get our name in the truth and tidings or something like that. I preached in a place where quite a few souls professed to be saved.
And one of the brethren said, we want to take your picture with all the ones that professed. There were 16. I said, okay, I'll come back in five years. How do we know somebody is saved? It's because they go on for God.
So continuation is the thing that proves it. Now we heard about the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, so I won't go into that. That was handled well. But are we helping one another? It doesn't have to be with money, but just to have a love for one another.
When we meet together to remember the Lord and we see the brethren, especially in our own assembly where we know everybody, do we say, man, it's wonderful to see them here. It's real love to see them here.
One man that was in an assembly that I was in, and he was a real, real, real different, odd I suppose you'd call him. And some would say, man, look at this guy. And one old brother said, well, you should be glad God saved him.
What would it have been like if God hadn't saved him? So it's wonderful to see one another. We have a love for one another. That's what characterized the Christians. And you know, if we were being persecuted, I think we would have more of that love for one another.
We'll have it easy. So it's easy to forget these things. So we have the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then we have his meekness, chapter 10 and 1, his meekness and his gentleness. Ah, what a wonderful person the Lord was.
Are you reading the gospels? Don't forget to read the gospels. That's especially younger Christians. You want to know more about the Lord Jesus. That's where you begin. He's a kinsman. You read the epistles, he's the redeemer.
You read the book of Revelation, he's the avenger in the family. But we want to learn more about him and his meekness. When I think of meekness, I always think of I am meek and lowly in heart. He had been rejected.
What did he do? What would I do if God sent me into a place and I was rejected? Well, I could sit down and start moping. Mr. Herb Harris used to talk about the Christians that all went up the myth tree when some things didn't go wrong.
Pretty soon they were all up the myth tree. There was nobody on the ground. What do I do? What did the Lord do? He prayed. What did he pray? I thank thee, oh Father, Lord of heaven and earth. He thanked him.
He had been rejected. But he said, you know, he said, these things have been revealed on the babes. Thank God we were babes when God saved us. And then he says, I am meek and lowly in heart. That's the grace of acceptance.
Accepting things when they don't go right, accepting them from God. They're all for a purpose. So we should accept these things and be meek and lowly in heart. Gentle, the face of opposition. Are you gentle?
All you young fellows, are you gentlemen? Wonderful to meet a gentleman, isn't it? And we need to be gentle with God's people. And we can apply this to the sisters as well. They used to be gentle, especially with newborn babes, no matter whether they're really young or older, just to be gentle with them.
You can correct them, but there's ways to correct them. I always tell folks, my dad used to ask me questions and I didn't have any answers. I was afraid to answer because I usually was wrong. But what did he say?
He didn't say you're stupid. He said, I used to believe that too, but I've changed my mind and I'll tell you why. And he said, you're going to be preaching to people that were saved probably before you were born.
That's years ago now, of course. And he said, give them credit for knowing something. He said, they probably know more than you think they know. So it's good to say, I'd like to remind you of this. Are you likely to know this?
Maybe you don't, but it's good. There's a gentle way to do it. But just to be gentle with newborn babes, be a help to them, even though there's something that we see that we think isn't right, be very careful that we don't stumble.
Young believers, there's a way to do it. I'm not saying you don't have to do it, but there's a way to do it. And then there's the obedience of Christ in chapter 10 and five. That's linked with our thoughts.
And I tell you, think of the obedience of Christ, just to take it in face value. He was obedient unto the Father to the extent of death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also hath highly exalted him.
He took the lowly place. It shouldn't be too difficult for any of us to take the lowly place, because we have nothing to be proud about. Just sinners are saved by grace. God had to deal with us, and then it's our responsibility for the Lord himself to preach to people to repent.
But anyhow, the obedience of Christ, and then the power of Christ, we've already thought of that in Paul having a thorn for the flesh, lest they be exalted above due measure. My grace is sufficient for thee.
Sufficient for Paul? Is it sufficient for me? Is it sufficient for you? No one knows what we're going to face in the future, but no matter what it is, we say with Paul, my grace is sufficient for thee.
What a wonderful person he was. But you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that's what's all taken up with, and these things are all taken up with Christ himself. That's how we're going to be like him, to be with him, and to enjoy his presence.
I remember a brother in the assembly used to say to me when I was first saved, if the Lord came into the room and you could see him visually, it's not going to happen, but if it did, would you feel okay in his presence?
Or would you feel kind of out of it a bit? Wonder how you would feel? Well, hopefully we would feel at home in his presence. That's where he wants us to be, to enjoy his presence. So remember, individually God has touched our hearts, and he's put us in an assembly.
If you're not there, you should be. And then we have in the assembly, an epistle known and read of all men. God wrote in our hearts, now, now there's another writing. Here are epistles, letter known and read of all men.
How can we put this into practice? By spending our time with him in the sanctuary. So I hope God will bless his word to you, and what we have heard at the conference so far, and it will continue to bless us.