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Bro. Otis Fisher
We have worked our way to 2 Corinthians, the 3rd chapter.
Do we begin again to commend ourselves, or need we?
As some others, epistles of commendation to you are letters of commendation from
you.
Ye are our epistles, written in our hearts, known and read of
all men.
I do bear the most ardent love for you.
I have no need to be put in remembrance of you by any epistles or any other means.
Paul is telling them that they are indelibly written on his heart.
And we are the epistles to the world.
We have been broadcast.
We have been known abroad.
And I'm speaking of us right here.
You are known by your actions, by your
spirit.
For wherever I go, I mention you, speaking of your various gifts
and graces, and praise your knowledge in the gospel.
For as much as you are manifested, declared to be the epistle of Christ,
ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the
living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.
We need to remember this each and every day.
It's not just as you come to Sunday school or church.
You are an epistle to everyone.
We have a visitor with us,
Joe Lang.
It's very obvious that this man is a Christian.
He not only sought us out, but you can tell by his demeanor that he is born
again.
So that's the way it is with us.
Wherever we go, whatever we do, wherever we are, we are the epistle
written to the world.
For and such trust have we through Christ to Godward, not
that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our
sufficiency is of God.
We must always remember that we answer to God.
No matter where we are, what we act like, anything, we answer to God.
Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not
of the letters, but of the spirit.
For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life, both spiritual and eternal.
If we adhere to the literal sense, even of the moral law, we
regard only the precept of sanctification, sanction as they stand in
themselves, not as they lead us to Christ.
The moral law cannot lead you to Christ.
Nothing can lead you to Christ but Christ himself.
In John 6, verse 44, he says, No one comes to God except my Father draw him,
and he drew you before the world was created.
But in the ministration of death, written and
engraved in stones, was glorious.
But if the administration of death, written and engraved 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, that glory
diminished.
It began to diminish the moment he stepped out of his presence.
Imprinted and engraved so that by this place we may plainly
perceive that the apostle speaks.
Not of the ceremonial laws, but of the Ten Commandments,
this word glorious indicates a brightness and majesty which was in Moses physically,
but it was in Christ spiritually.
I'm getting
a lot of baby crying.
Now, I ask you to look up glory to glory.
Greg, did you look it up?
What conclusion did you come to?
It's what?
All right.
That's a good explanation.
Did anyone else get one?
From glory to glory.
Is Greg the only one that looked it up?
Clarence, did you spend any time at it?
Jesse, did you look it?
You weren't here, were you?
It struck me as very powerful when I saw the word change.
You know, we are to grow from glory to glory, but we
can't when we are under condemnation of the last thing we did.
Think about it.
It's not something abstract.
It's real.
It's right now.
Are you under condemnation, meaning that you have not confessed?
You can't grow from glory to glory.
It's a good subject to talk about, but when you get to applying it to your own life,
is it real?
Verse 8.
How shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?
If the Old Testament was glorious, how much more the New Testament?
For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of
righteousness exceed to glory.
For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect,
by reason of the glory that excelleth.
For if that which is done away
was glorious, how much more which remaineth is glorious.
Now, the law was fulfilled, right?
It was done away with.
It was fulfilled in Christ.
If that led to glory, the old law,
then how much more the new law, which is in Christ?
He brought it to be a personal thing.
Done away is the law.
Notice it is done away.
Then how much more glorious is that which remains, the new covenant?
He is making a contrast between the giving of the Mosaic law and the day of grace in which we
live.
We're so far removed from the law that we read about it and we don't think much
about it.
But we need to.
He has written it in our hearts.
They had to go and read it.
They didn't have the privilege of it being written in their heart.
We have.
Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness
of speech and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face,
that the children of Israel could steadfastly look to the end of that which is
abolished.
When Moses came down from the mountain, the second time, there was a
joy in his heart and his face shone.
Now there was a way for the children of Israel to come into the presence of God through a
sacrificial system.
They had to go to the temple, first the tabernacle, then the temple,
and they had to take an offering, a beast by
which their sins would be symbolically taken away.
But that just covered the sin.
It covered it from year to year, day to day.
The high atonement, which was once a year, they just simply rolled it forward.
They could not eliminate it.
But they rolled it forward until finally it rolled upon Jesus Christ
and he took it away.
But their minds were blinded.
For until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old
Testament, which veil is done away in Christ.
The veil that Moses wore on his face is now a veil in the minds of God's
ancient people.
The Jew, for the most part, unless they've been converted,
the Jew still is blinded.
They cannot see.
They'll argue with you about it.
It would be much like Greg knowing that,
let's see, what would be a good example, knowing that
he has an automobile that he can drive down here.
You commute how far?
Fifty miles.
Now, there's no mistaking that.
That's complete.
That's real.
It would be like comparing that to going to church at home.
There's no way that you could go to church at home.
You come here and you meet with the people.
That's just as foreign to your mind as it could be.
Same way with the law.
The law was real.
The blinded Jew, it's still real.
Not through their own efforts, but through God.
He blinded their heart.
But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.
Even today, it's like that.
When they read the law, they actually think they're able to keep it.
Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall
be taken away.
It refers to the heart.
When it shall turn to the Lord.
Now, what is it that turns a person to the Lord?
David
can accept it or not accept it.
They think that I make up my mind for this or I don't.
What is it that makes up your mind, Greg?
Sure.
He does it in such a way that it seems like you did.
But you didn't.
Because you remember a time when you were different.
Then you remember a time when you were saved.
Something had to change.
Now, the Lord is that spirit.
And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is what?
Liberty.
Liberty from what, Bill?
What else, Fred?
Power of sin.
That's what he's talking about.
The liberty from the law.
They had to keep the law.
You don't anymore.
We have a far better.
The veil shall be taken away.
Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Only the spirit of God can lift that veil.
It seems so strange that I didn't believe,
then I did believe that the spirit of God, the word,
lifts that veil.
It's almost unbelievable.
He alone can do that.
He is the one and the only one that can lift the veil.
He doesn't put you under the law.
He delivers you from the law and brings you to Christ, his chosen.
What's the Ephesians 1 and 4 say?
All right, you better turn over to it.
You can.
Yes, you can.
Just
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, we should only accompany him.
Bill, when did he choose you?
Before the foundation of the world.
It's a choice that was never made.
He didn't choose up sides like we choose up sides.
He chose you from man's viewpoint before the world began.
But you've always been with him.
God does not make decisions or choices.
He wills, and everything's already been done, so how could he change anything?
But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass of
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image
from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of God.
But we all, you're speaking to Christians, with open face,
what's that mean?
Open face.
What?
Not hiding anything.
It would be impossible to hide anything.
With open face, as looking in a glass, the glory of the Lord,
are changed into the same image from glory to glory.
We're changed.
Now, is that something all of a sudden?
We're changed, but we become more like him.
We understand more and more.
But you're changed all of a sudden.
Yes.
Decided that now that I'm saved, I don't have to keep the law.
Build
the
Christ
-like
life in this world.
That's an unnatural thing.
We've made it natural and the weeds to be unnatural, but that
didn't stamp out the weeds.
They still grow.
If you don't believe it, come look at my wife's flower bed.
They're in there.
Every spring they come up and she fights them all summer long.
I'll be so glad.
Come into the new world and there won't be any weeds
and you won't have to work at it.
We make the
flesh all open
-faced, not reflection as some translations have it.
We are open -faced.
As a mirror of the glory of the Lord, the idea is not reflecting in order to be
transformed.
Do you reflect God's glory in order to be transformed?
Well, as soon as I make this point,
you do not reflect in order to be transformed, but
rather that of beholding until transformed.
Our transforming is going on.
We have been made like Christ, but we're not what we're going to be.
The word transfigured is then amplified and this is wrong.
Now what were you going to say?
We see more of Christ in us.
You...
That's right.
You get faith as much as you'll ever have at the moment of salvation,
but it seems like faith grows.
What is it that's happening?
You realize you have more.
You realize more of the faith.
You don't grow your faith.
You grow the accessibility to it.
Anything else?
Jan, we're proud to have you with us.
Not Jan, Joe.
He's a young man from Florida just passing through.
This church was recommended, and I understand that.
By who?
Well, do you have anything you'd like to say to us?
You see how this illustrates our lesson?
We are an epistle written in our hearts.
Well, we're early, but let's stand and we'll be dismissed.
I urge dismissal, please.
Father, I thank you for this day and this morning.
I thank you for...