Sunday Sermon: The Light of the Gospel (2 Corinthians 4:1-6)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabrielle Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is our Old Testament study, and then we answer questions from listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the letters to the

Corinthians. This is the sermon that was preached last week from our pulpit. Here's Pastor Gabe.

Second Corinthians chapter four, beginning in verse one. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways.

We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.

But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray. Lord, as we come to these scriptures this morning, I pray that the light of your truth shines in our hearts, that we see the glory of Christ by what we witness proclaimed in this testimony from the very word of God, from the pages of our

Bibles. I pray that if there is anything in us that would hinder us from seeing the truth of what we have just read, that you would remove that veil.

Who has any power to give sight to the blind? No one here can do that, to lay hands on a person and restore sight to their vision, nor can we give sight to our hearts if they are covered, if our hearts are covered with a veil.

Only you can remove that veil. You have given sight to the blind, physically, as we read about in the

Gospels, the miracles of Jesus Christ that were performed, authenticating who he was from, who sent him, and that was

God, his Father in heaven. And so as Christ had the power to remove blindness from a person who had been born physically blind, so he also has that power to restore sight to those who are spiritually blind as well.

Remove the veil of our blindness, the things that we cannot see because of the sinfulness of our flesh or any number of reasons.

May we see the truth of God's word shining forth in the glory of Jesus Christ.

Illuminate your word to us today. We pray this in the name of Christ and all

God's people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated. Verse, chapter four, verse one again, therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.

When we started on a study of 2 Corinthians, you know, a couple of months back, however long ago it was now that we started in our study of this book,

I said to you that this was difficult. This book was difficult to pick a theme out of.

For Paul is being largely autobiographical when he writes to the

Corinthians. In some ways, 2 Corinthians is a continuation of 1 Corinthians, that's obvious.

Paul makes some references back even to things that he said in that letter and the grief that was caused in the hearts of the

Corinthians because of the things that he had to say, confronting their sin and the problems that were going on within that church.

So yes, in that sense, 2 Corinthians is a continuation of 1 Corinthians. But in another sense, it's its own letter and there's a number of things that Paul brings up here he hasn't brought up before and he appeals to his authenticity as an apostle for there are many in the

Corinthians that still don't receive his authority in the apostleship that was appointed to him by Christ himself.

So he feels like he has to give an apologetic defense of his own apostleship and more of that comes up as we go on.

We get into chapters 10 and 11 and Paul makes his most impassioned appeals to the

Corinthians to authenticate himself there in that part of the letter. So for that reason, it was difficult to pull a theme out of 2

Corinthians since Paul was being largely autobiographical. Over the course of our vacation as we were away, even as I was enjoying the crystal blue waters of the

Florida coast and the wonderful sunshine and the sandy beaches, it wasn't that every day.

We had a couple of days where it rained all day. So just so you know, hey good, Gabe experienced at least a little bit of misery on his vacation.

It wasn't paradise every single day. But even as I was away on the east coast visiting friends and visiting family,

I was still in my Bible in 2 Corinthians and really laboring over this.

One of the things that I felt so burdened to try to find as I was reading 2 Corinthians was a theme.

I still was trying to find a theme in this letter, like a central verse that I could come back to again and again and say, this is

Paul's launching point. He's getting into the rest of the letter from this thesis statement that he is making.

And though we don't really have a clear thesis, and like I said when we started in 2 Corinthians, we see the thesis more in chapter 13 than we do in chapter 1, at the end of the letter rather than the beginning.

Nonetheless, there was a theme that seemed to echo to me over and over again.

I kept coming back to it over and over again. And it was something that we focused on even in the first few sermons that we got into in 2

Corinthians chapter 1, and it's right here in verses 3 and 4. 2 Corinthians 1 verses 3 and 4.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the

Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

So even when Paul has to appeal to his own authenticity as an apostle, he goes through a list of sufferings that he endured for the cause of Christ.

And he does that because of what he says here at the start of the letter. We are comforted by God in any affliction.

He comforts us in all our affliction so we may be able to comfort you in your affliction.

And this, I believe, is the theme of the letter. Paul is writing to the

Corinthians to comfort them. That they would know the

God of all comforts. And so as we progress in our study of this letter, as your teacher, as I present this to you to edify your spirits, this is what

I want to keep coming back to over and over as we go through 2 Corinthians, that we may know all the more the

God of all comforts, who comforts us in all our afflictions.

Even when we get to those autobiographical points, Paul says those things so that you would be comforted by the

God of all comforts, who comforts us in all our afflictions, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction.

I think one of the reasons that Paul starts the letter this way, the very beginning of the letter, he uses this word comfort over and over again.

It's because his first letter, or at least his previous letter, was so scathing, and the

Corinthians were so cut to the heart by what he wrote in that letter, that now having to write another one in which he's going to rebuke them for more discrepancies that are going on in the

Corinthian church. He comes at this all the more gently to say,

I'm saying these things that I have to say to you. Even the hard truths that you need to hear,

I'm doing this for your comfort. Yeah, it's going to hurt a little bit.

Always hurts when the surgeon's scalpel goes in. Thank God for anesthesia. Paul says it's going to hurt as we cut away some of these rotten areas that still exist within your lives.

But I do these things, I approach these things for your comfort, not to hurt you, not to harm you, but for your comfort.

I think even when we were talking about this in chapter one, I had related this to Hebrews 12, where we read about the discipline of God on those whom he loves.

God disciplines the ones he loves. You discipline your children because you hate them?

No, I hope it's because you love them. So likewise, God disciplines us as sons and daughters of God out of love for his children.

Not because he is trying to afflict us with any unnecessary burdens, but because he does these things that we may know all the more

God who raises the dead. Verses eight and nine, still here in chapter one, we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction that we experience in Asia.

Remember, he just previously said God comforts us in all our affliction. So as Paul refers to affliction that he suffered in the course of ministry, he says we were utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

So my friends, in all of the things that you experience in your life, whether that would be a torment in your soul or affliction in your body, may it be the very thing that makes you cry out to God and remember he who raises the dead, for he is all our hope and strength, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

So back again now to chapter four, as Paul says, therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, as we start on that, therefore, that's where I went first, all the way back to chapter one.

But more immediately, the therefore is in the context of what we had just studied in chapter three.

Now I say just studied, but that was four weeks ago when we went through 2

Corinthians chapter three, covered the whole chapter in one sermon. There was one section that I didn't get to even in that sermon, and that was verses 12 through 18.

I didn't quite digest that section as thoroughly as I did the previous 11 verses, but I will come back to that again here in this sermon.

So Paul says, therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God. Let me clarify again what that ministry is.

It's the ministry of grace that has been spoken to us through the gospel of Jesus Christ in contrast against the ministry of the law, which was the ministry of Moses.

Okay, do you remember that? Those of you who were here four weeks ago, is that kind of triggering something a little bit? So before the grace of God appeared in the face of Jesus Christ, we had the glory of God in the face of Moses when he came down off Mount Sinai, his face was glowing.

It was so bright, nobody could look at him. He had to put a veil over his face to cover his face. And Paul talked about that in chapter three and said, but even that glory was fading.

Eventually, the light that was in Moses' face faded, and it wasn't there anymore. But we have a ministry that's even better than the ministry that God gave to the people of Israel through the law.

We have the ministry of the gospel of Christ, the grace of God in Jesus Christ. That ministry is even better than Moses' ministry.

The law was a tutor. It was a guide. It was a teacher for us.

And the law is still good, as Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter one, if one uses it lawfully.

There's nothing wrong with the law. If you say there's something wrong with the law, you say

God is wrong, but the law is still good. It convicts the heart of sin.

When you read in the law, thou shalt not covet, you become suddenly aware.

I'm a covetor. I have been coveting. I've desired things more than God.

And so when you are presented with the law, you become aware of your sinfulness and your need for a

Savior to cleanse you from that unrighteousness that you have perpetrated against God, who is holy, righteous, just.

We cannot reach or attain the holiness of God. The only way that we could stand before Him accepted was through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And that is the ministry that has been given to us, the ministry of the gospel.

And that's where Paul goes in the rest of chapter four, talking about this ministry of the gospel we've been given in Christ.

It's better than the ministry of Moses. The ministry of Christ brings grace.

The ministry of Moses was not so gracious. As a matter of fact, it was not forgiving at all.

I don't know if you've ever considered that. The law is not forgiving. The law doesn't forgive you.

The law tells you what you've done wrong. It is God who gives grace. In John Bunyan's book,

The Pilgrim's Progress, there was a time, it was a couple of years ago, somebody asked me to write a list of the 20

Christian books that I would recommend any Christian should read. I only remember two books from that list, and even then, that list is probably changing now for me.

Number one on that list, though, was this one, and that still hasn't changed. I believe every Christian should read the

Bible, but then after that, what's some other literature that I would give you?

You should read Pilgrim's Progress from John Bunyan. This is the next book that I say that you should be picking up to understand the truth of the scriptures even more.

Here's something that John Bunyan wrote about the law of Moses, and he wrote this through the characters of faithful and Christian.

For those of you who don't know the story, it begins with a man named Pilgrim who has a heavy load on his back, and when he goes to the cross of Calvary, that load is taken away and he is no longer called

Pilgrim, he is called Christian, and he's now on his way to the celestial city. And on the way, he encounters all kinds of enemies, but also some friends, and faithful is just one such a friend.

So here is faithful speaking about his experience with Christian.

He says, When I came to the foot of the hill called Difficulty, I met with a very aged man, who asked me what

I was and where I was going. I told him that I was a pilgrim going to the celestial city, and the old man said,

Thou looks like an honest fellow. Will you be content to dwell with me for the wages that I will give you?

Then I asked him his name and where he dwelt, and he said his name was Adam the first, and that he dwelt in the town of Deceit.

I asked him then what was his work and what the wages was that he would give, and he told me his work was many delights and his wages, that I should be his heir.

At last, I further asked him what house he kept and what other servants he had. So he told me that his house was maintained with all the dainties of the world, and that his servants were those of his own begetting.

Then I asked him how many children he had. He said that he had but three daughters, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

That's 1 John 2, 16, by the way. And that I should marry them if I would.

Then I asked how long he would have me live with him, and he told me as long as he lived himself.

Christian said, Well, and at what conclusion came the old man and you two at last?

And faithful said, Why, at first I found myself somewhat inclinable to go with the man, for I thought that he spoke very fair.

But looking in his forehead as I talked with him, I saw written, Put off the old man with his deeds.

Christian said, And how? How did you put off the old man with his deeds? Faithful said,

Then it came burning hot into my mind whatever he said and however he flattered.

When he got me home to his house, he would sell me for a slave. So I bid him forbear to talk, for I would not come near the door of his house.

Then he reviled me, and he told me that he would send such a one after me that should make my way bitter to the soul.

So I turned to go away from him, but just as I turned to go, I felt him take hold of my flesh and give me such a deadly twitch back that I thought he had pulled me apart after himself.

This made me cry, O wretched man! So I went on my way up the hill. Now when

I got about halfway up, I looked behind me and saw someone coming after me, swift as the wind, and he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands.

Christian said, Just there did I sit down to rest me, but being overcome with sleep,

I lost this roll out of my bosom. Faithful goes on to say,

But good brother, hear me out. So soon as this man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow, for down he knocked me and he laid me out for dead.

But when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him where he served me so.

He said, Because of my secret inclining to Adam the first. And with that he struck me another deadly blow on the breast, and he beat me down backward.

So I lay at his foot as dead before. And when I came to myself again,

I cried to him for mercy, but he said, I know not how to show you mercy. And with that he knocked me down again.

He had doubtless made an end of me, but that one came, that one, capital

O, O -N -E, that one came by and bid him forbear.

And Christian said, Who was it that bid him forbear? And faithful said, I know not him at first, but even as he went by,

I perceived the hole in his hands and the hole in his side.

And I concluded that it was our Lord. So I went up the hill after him.

Christian said, The man that overtook you and beat you down was

Moses. He spares none, and he does not know how to show mercy to those who transgress his law.

The law showed us no mercy. There was no mercy in trying to keep the law, because you can't do it.

And the more you try to do this and do this and do this and check this box and check this box and check this box, and you come before God and say,

Now I'm worthy, you find you're not, and there is no mercy for you, for you cannot be good enough to stand before the holy righteous

God of the universe. Mercy comes not by the law.

The mercy of God comes through Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the law.

Did it perfectly as your substitute when you couldn't keep it, Jesus did it all perfectly and became the perfect righteous substitute representative of us in our place when he died on the cross for our sins.

And taking the wrath of God upon himself, we receive not God's wrath, we get his mercy.

And this is the stark contrast between the message of the law and the message of the gospel.

No mercy in the law, the mercy of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, Paul says, and I hope now this adds all the more weight to this verse when we read it at the start of chapter four.

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart for we know that it is not by our own ability to keep the law that we have the mercy of God.

It's by his grace and goodness and the gift of his son. And it's because of this mercy.

Paul goes on to say in verse two that we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways.

We do not try to pervert the word of God to make it more accessible to people.

It's already the greatest access you could ever get. Mercy and grace through Jesus Christ.

No one can offer you anything better. So we don't tamper with God's word thinking that it has to be changed or tweaked in order to make that message more palatable to people, more attractive to people.

Hey, I know that stuff like sin and grace and righteousness and mercy, these are tough concepts to understand.

So we're going to change the message a little bit so it sounds a little bit better to you. By the way, this is the entire approach of what's called the seeker sensitive movement in the church today.

To change the message of God into something that we think would be more attractive to people.

Now sometimes that changing doesn't happen by a tweaking of the words. Sometimes it happens by like throwing in some

Easter eggs, some doodads and some bonuses that you can get if you would just come to church to hear our message today.

We'll give you a free iPad. You know, something like that. I mean, this happens all the time.

Every once in a while I'll see a postcard. Sometimes people will send them to me. They'll take a picture of it and they'll email it to me.

Look what a local church in my area was doing this week. If you come in, you will be entered in for a drawing for a free 50 inch flat screen

TV. How is that better?

Now I don't want to beat up on a person that comes up with that idea in the sense that,

Oh, you're stupid. What's wrong with you? It's not my approach. It's not to denigrate or tear that person down. I know their intentions are good.

They just want somebody to hear the gospel. And they want to use any means necessary to try to get that person to come to church so they will hear the gospel.

Here's the problem though. And this is something that Paul Washer has said. What you win them with is what you win them to.

If you win them with the promises of this world, what you win them to is the stuff of this world.

Even if it looks like that they are listening to the gospel that you give them, and it looks like they're starting to turn from sin and follow

Jesus Christ, you would still never actually be sure if they found Christ attractive or the stuff that Christ promised attractive.

This is tampering with God's word when we do this. There is nothing better than this.

And when we promise somebody a new technological doodad, if you will just come and hear the gospel, what we present is that there's something more attractive than the gospel.

And if you'll be attracted by this, maybe you'll also like this. Paul says that's not our approach.

It's not the way we do this. We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.

As wonderful as their intentions may be when they do that approach to church, it's stated for us plainly in the

Scriptures that the reality of it is it's actually disgraceful. There's not grace in it.

And it's actually underhanded. It's manipulative. I remember Matt Chandler doing a sermon one time in which he was talking to a church that was not his church.

So he was a guest speaker at this particular church, and he said, how did you get in here tonight? Maybe a friend said, hey, there's this brand new great restaurant that we're going to go to.

Let's hop in the car and go. And then you got here, and you stood in line, and he handed you a candy bar and said, here, here's the great restaurant.

Now let's go inside, and we hear the gospel. He said, that wasn't honest. That wasn't nice of that guy to do that. But here you are.

And so now I'm going to lay the gospel on you. So it was as if, hey, you're here.

I'm going to share with you the gospel. But Chandler did make a point to say it wasn't right for that person to practice such cunning in order to get you in here.

We don't practice cunning or tamper with God's Word. But look at this. By the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

Paul is saying we're not being secretive about anything. We're not being underhanded. We're not trying to sneak you one message, and then, boom, we're going to hit you with something totally different that you didn't even know was coming.

Paul says the purpose of our ministry is laid out in front for everybody. There have been some times, even in my own ministry, when

I've wondered, you know, there might be certain doctrines that I know offend people. So it's like maybe

I shouldn't bring that out right now because it would cause somebody to look at me funny or not hear anything else that I would have to say.

But then passages like this convict me and say that there should not be anything hidden.

If it comes from the Word of God, great is all of it. And so there's nothing that we withhold or we keep veiled or secret away from people.

But Paul says that we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God by the open statement of the truth.

We don't practice cunning. We don't tamper with God's Word. And both things, my brothers and sisters in Christ, are very active in the church in America today.

That there is all kinds of cunning that's being done, manipulation that's being done, and tampering with the

Word of God that's being done. And you must be wise to those things. Costey Hinn is the nephew of Benny Hinn, who has one of the most devilish ministries on planet

Earth. The manipulation that he tries to grab people with, or to put it more specifically, tries to manipulate them out of their money with.

The healing that he promises that he doesn't actually give and has never once given in his entire life.

Yet with the theatrics that he does and the grandiose nature by which he presents these things, people are totally conned into it.

And they go to Benny Hinn events, and they see him waving his jacket around, and people falling on the ground, and they believe that Benny Hinn is actually healing these people.

And they put money in the coffers. Money, money, money, money. And Benny Hinn will walk away from some of those events with millions of dollars in one event.

And Costey, I've had the chance to meet with him. What a wonderful man he is. I have seen video interviews with him.

I got the chance to meet him in person this past February when I went to California. I didn't realize how big he was.

He could actually break me if he wanted to. But Costey's a wonderful, gentle man, even all the more gentle when

I saw how athletic he was in his build. And Costey loves his family, but he knows that they are deceiving people.

God graciously brought him out of that. He said, I was in all of that. I had the Hummers.

I lived in the lavish hotels that cost like $10 ,000 a night.

I've been in those hotels. I've flown on the private jets. I've rubbed shoulders with some of the most powerful people in the world.

And yet I knew that it was all a deception. None of it was true. God, through the truth of his word, revealed to Costey the errors of what his family was doing.

It was the grace of God that Costey saw what was going on and used his then fiancee at the time, who was now his wife, to convict his heart of some of those things that his family was doing.

And they got out. It was kind of like a rescue mission in the middle of the night. That really was the way it was. He left his family up in Canada in the middle of the night, flew to California to the church that rescued him out of that, where he serves now as an associate pastor.

And I know one day, by the grace of God, he'll have a church of his own to pastor. Costey wrote a book entitled

Defining Deception. It came out just a couple of months ago, and I had the privilege of reading an early manuscript of that book and then writing a little blurb for the inside of the book, which every time

I write those things, I feel like I wrote the smartest thing in the world, and then I open the book and I look at all the other mentions and I feel like a complete dunce.

But anyway, because I'm like right next to John MacArthur and Owen Strahan and, you know, all this, and I'm like, oh, boy, these guys are intelligent.

They have doctor in front of their name, and there's Gabriel Hughes. So I feel dumb. But anyway, the book itself,

Defining Deception, is actually not about the things that are going on in the

Benny Hinn family. There may come a day in which Costey thinks the Lord will show him in some way that the timing is right to write about some of the things that were going on in the

Hinn family. But for his first book, that wasn't what he wrote about. And I even talked with Costey about that, and he said my pastor,

Anthony Wood, was very gracious to me in the instruction that he gave me. He said, Costey, if you want to go out and you want to make

Costey Hinn ministries, you can do that if you want, or you can be a humble man. You can hunker down.

You can get in the Scriptures. You can read the Word of God. You can be convicted. You can be patient. You can be silent when you think it's time to talk.

And then a time will come in which the Lord will use you, but for now you need to fill yourself up with the

Word of God. And Costey took that advice. Instead of chasing after the fame that was before him to use his name to make something of himself.

So he and Anthony Wood together wrote this book entitled Defining Deception, and instead of it being a book blowing open the doors on the

Benny Hinn ministry, it's actually a book about the deceptions that are coming out of the New Apostolic Reformation movement in America today, which is a very heavily charismatic movement, specifically focusing on Bethel Church in Redding, California, and the ministry of Bill Johnson.

And some of you, if you've watched When We Understand the Text videos, you have seen some of the deceptions that go on in that church.

They will create these clouds of glory in the middle of a service. That's what they call them, glory clouds.

And they say that it's the manifestation of the Holy Spirit right there in the middle of church.

It's not, folks. It's a fog machine. But they say the Holy Spirit is with us right now, and here he is, this cloud that has appeared.

And sometimes there will be glitter in that cloud, and this gold glitter will fall down from the ceiling on people.

And you can look up videos on YouTube. You've got people there in the service with their camera phones, and they're looking at this glitter in their hands.

Oh, look, the Holy Spirit is raining down on us. There are undercover reporters that have gone into such services and retrieved such glitter and has tested it and has found it is no different than craft glitter you can buy at Walmart.

It's not gold dust. It's just glitter in the vent. But yet this is the kind of manipulation that they use in these kinds of heavily charismatic services.

And I've made comments about it online before, and sometimes somebody will contact me and say, Can you prove that that's not actually the

Holy Spirit that is manifesting himself and appearing there in those worship services? How do you know that it's just a fog machine and gold dust?

And there's the bad Gabe side of me that wants to write back and go, Common sense! Duh! But I don't do that.

That's not what I say. Instead, I approach them with, I can show you from the

Scriptures that that's not what's happening. And I take them to 2 Chronicles 6, where the glory of God was manifested in the temple in a cloud, and the priests could not stand to minister when the glory of God filled the temple.

But what do you see happening at Bethel Church? They're pulling their phones out and taking pictures of it. They're not filled with fear and falling on their faces and begging for the mercy of God, because they know what they've just seen could kill them.

Rather, it's a parlor trick. It's fancy -schmancy, schmaltzy stuff. It's cunning.

Right? It's manipulative tactics. Paul says we don't do that, because that is not a display of the mercy of God.

That is saying there's something better than the mercy of God. There's something better than the gospel.

Our manipulative tricks to get you to feel something in your spirit that you didn't feel before this cloud appeared.

Paul says that's not what we do with the open statement of the truth, because that's what everyone needs.

They need the truth. They don't need tricks. They need the truth, the reality of their sin and the promise of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

By the truth, we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. There's no man behind the curtain.

The Wizard of Oz, right? There was a play just here in Junction City recently. Anybody go see? My family did not participate this time, because we went to Florida.

Recent community play was The Wizard of Oz. You know that scene in The Wizard of Oz, where they've done everything that the wizard asks.

Toto goes over to the curtain there, over to the side. He's got this big, glowing dome of a head that's telling them what to do.

Toto goes over to the curtain and starts pulling the curtain aside. And there's the wizard right there, doing his little machine, his mechanics, controlling all the fire and all the smoke.

And the big head that's talking is even speaking into this microphone, Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

You know, that's the scene there in The Wizard of Oz. But Paul's saying, there is no man behind the curtain.

There is not some incredible thing that you can't see, that's the magician's trick, the mirrors, the smoke.

None of that. We're not practicing any of that. It's the open statement of the truth.

And as you go on to read in verse 6, we read that it is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

You get to see the glory of God when you see the truth of the gospel of Christ.

But Paul goes on to say, some can't see it because that gospel is veiled. It is veiled to those who are perishing.

In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

And this goes back to that section I said I didn't exegete as well four weeks ago in chapter 3, verses 12 through 18, where Paul talks about the veil that is over the hearts of the

Jews so that they cannot hear the gospel. Their minds are hardened,

Paul said, in chapter 3, verse 14, for to this day when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted because only through Christ is it taken away.

Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the

Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the

Lord who is the Spirit. And so we come to understand that there's a veil that exists even among unbelievers today.

Not just the Jews, but anyone who does not believe the gospel, there's a veil.

There's a veil over their eyes, over their heart, to see and hear the truth. They can't hear it, they can't see it.

They read the Bible, they see nonsense. They don't see the majesty of God. We read in chapter 2 that the message of the gospel is the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

To one a fragrance from death to death, the other a fragrance from life to life.

That's chapter 2, verses 15 and 16. What Paul is saying here is that some hear the gospel and they're delivered by it.

They believe it and they are rescued into God's eternal kingdom. There are others who hear the gospel and they don't believe it and they will be judged by it.

In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

How obvious is the truth and yet they don't see it?

Let me give you an example of this. This is the

Book of Mormon. It is a different gospel. I don't even have to open it to know that.

It's on the cover. Another testament of Jesus Christ.

That wasn't printed on the Book of Mormon until 1981. For whatever reason, the

Latter -day Saints decided that they needed to start putting on the cover of the Book of Mormon another testament of Jesus Christ.

They outright admit on the cover of this book that it's another gospel.

It's that obvious and yet they still think this is the

Word of God. What did Paul say in Galatians 1 .6? I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, because Joseph Smith claimed an angel from heaven gave him the

Book of Mormon, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one that you received, let him be accursed.

It's right there on the cover. It's a different gospel. And yet they don't see the obviousness of the truth because there's a veil over their hearts.

Pray for your Mormon neighbors that God would lift that veil from their eyes, and they would see the truth of this deception, which is not of God.

Even when the evidence is that obvious, they don't see the truth.

Galatians 1 .20 tells us, I'm sorry, not Galatians 1 .20, Romans 1 .20. I'm in the Book of Romans now.

Romans 1 .20 says that God's magnificent qualities,

His eternal power and His divine nature are clearly perceived in all that has been made ever since the creation of the world.

So they are without excuse. And yet how many people are there in the world today who claim that there is no

God? A growing number in the United States and in Europe. How many people are there in the world today who believe that this

God I made with my hands and fashioned into this idol is the true God rather than the

God who created all things as is obvious in all that has been made? They don't see the obvious truth because they are blinded to it by the

God of this world. In verse 4, in their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, he says to him there that God may perhaps grant them repentance.

You need to present the truth with gentleness, correcting opponents with gentleness, for God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

And they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

And here is what Paul is saying to the Corinthians as well. They have been ensnared by Satan to not see

God. And this is a veil that lies over their hearts that is removed only by Jesus Christ.

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, verse 5, but Jesus Christ who is

Lord. With ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

In other words, it's not about us. It's about Christ. We're simply his servants and we do this for your sake.

Our God is the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may comfort you in all your afflictions.

And this is for your sake. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Let me qualify this verse in one statement and here is how we will close. In Genesis chapter 1, beginning in verse 1, we read,

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and void, and the

Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And then in verse 3,

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

By the command of God, light existed.

How powerful is that word? God said it and it came to be. Can you do that?

You can't even make your debts disappear by willing them to disappear. Or that scratch that was put in your car when you left it in the parking lot.

Oh, I got a scratch. Let it be gone. No, you can't make anything happen by the power of your word.

Except to tear somebody down and make them feel bad. As James says, the tongue is a fire.

It doesn't create, it destroys. But God's word is so great and so powerful that he says something should come to be.

And it does. So what Paul is pointing out here in this verse, in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 5, or sorry, verse 6, is that your faith came about the exact same way.

The word of God was spoken and you believed. You obeyed.

You repented and you followed Jesus Christ. Where previously there was no faith in your heart, when you heard the message of the gospel, there was faith.

There was light in your heart. Just as there was light in the universe.

Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. You came to saving faith in Christ because you heard the word of Christ.

The same power that brought all things into existence is the same power that is at work in the world even now.

That is at work in your heart right now. So my brother and sister in the

Lord, be comforted by the God of all comforts. He has not forgotten you.

He has not forsaken you. He is working in your heart now as he worked in the universe at the very beginning.

Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas. For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.