WWUTT 1663 We Do Not Preach Ourselves (2 Corinthians 4:4-6)

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Did you know that the word that God spoke into nothingness and brought all things into existence, let there be light and there was light, that's the same way that you have been brought from death to life when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 2 Corinthians 4 and picking up where we left off yesterday, but I'm going to start reading in verse 1 and we'll go through verse 12.

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This is out of the Legacy Standard Bible, the word of the Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth.

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Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

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And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the

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God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Jesus.

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For God who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

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But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves, in every way afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

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For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

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So death works in us, but life in you. Now yesterday we ended at verse three, which actually there's a comma at the conclusion of that sentence.

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It's not even a complete sentence. So verse three says, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

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Even if there is somebody who does not see the truth of the gospel, they do not see who

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Jesus is and what he has accomplished by his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.

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They don't even believe in the crucifixion. Some people out there don't even believe Jesus was even a real person, or they don't believe that the bodily resurrection was even necessary.

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It's good enough to believe that Jesus rose spiritually from the dead, or it's good enough to believe that faith in Jesus makes him rise in our hearts.

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So that's what we mean by risen from the dead. We believe in Jesus and he just rises in our hearts.

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Who cares what happened to his body or whether he really rose from the dead or whatever else. That's heresy to deny what the

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Bible factually claims that Jesus was crucified. He was buried and he rose on the third day, according to the scriptures.

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We talked about that, you know, weeks ago, a couple of months ago, when we were in first Corinthians chapter 15, all of these proofs laid out for us here concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ to deny it is to call

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God a liar. For it's to say that his word is not true about something. There are people who deny these clear things about Jesus, who he was, that he is

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God in human flesh, that he lived a perfect life, sinless, that he died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

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Not just that he was crucified because he upset the state. No, he laid his own life down, fulfilling the sacrificial law that that a sacrifice had to be made for the forgiveness of sins.

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There has to be the shedding of blood, as it says in the book of Hebrews. And so Christ died for us and his blood, an atonement for us, a propitiation for us, satisfying the wrath of God.

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This is what the scripture says. They'll deny that Jesus actually rose from the dead and they deny these things because the gospel is veiled.

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If our gospel is veiled, Paul says it's veiled to those who are perishing. They are not elect.

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They are not the ones whom God has called to repentance, like effectually called is what

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I mean. The heart has not been transformed to believe what it is that has been proclaimed. They continue in their blindness as we all have, we who are born in Adam, but there are only those whom

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God has appointed to receive sight by the giving of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

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When the gospel was proclaimed, the Holy Spirit opened our hearts to hear it, opened our ears to hear it, our eyes to see and know that Jesus is the

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Christ, the son of the living God. If anybody doesn't see that, it's because they're perishing.

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They have not been called. They are not elect. They have not been regenerated to believe the gospel that was proclaimed to see that Jesus is the son of God.

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The gospel is veiled to those who are perishing and consider verse four. Verse four now is the continuation of that sentence.

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So once again, three is not a complete sentence. Four is the rest of the sentence.

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So let me start again reading at the beginning of verse three. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the

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God of this age, little g, the God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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How is it that a person doesn't believe in God? They've been blinded. How have they been blinded?

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They've been deceived by the enemy who is Satan. Now this is the work of the devil.

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This is the work of Satan that began in the garden of Eden. In first John, it says the reason Christ appeared was to undo the works of Satan.

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And this is that work. We have been separated from God. We love our sin.

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We go after the passions and the desires of our wicked flesh, all because of this work that Satan did, deceiving

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Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, deceiving the woman who gave the fruit to her husband and he ate, and then they both fell from the fellowship with God.

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That relationship with God was broken because mankind was now sinful.

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We could not be in the presence of God. And so we're separated from God. Adam and Eve were put out of paradise.

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They were cast out of the garden. All of creation was cursed. And part of the curse is that it is that much harder for us to see

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God. All of this being the work of Satan that was started there in the garden of Eden. We have been separated from God.

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We do not see God and all of this part of the curse. God is the one who cursed. It's the work of Satan that has blinded our understanding that we may know who

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God is. But God is the one who cursed. And the cursed cannot see.

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They cannot understand. The God of this age has blinded the minds of the cursed, of the unbelieving, so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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In 2 Thessalonians 2, it says that God gives them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false and have pleasure in unrighteousness, rather than loving the truth and worshiping the

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Lord Jesus Christ. It was Martin Luther that said that the devil is God's devil. So Satan cannot do anything that God has not given him to do or allowed him to do.

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Satan doesn't just go around blinding the eyes of people and then God's up there going, oh man, so sad, all of these people who are blinded.

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Well, I'm going to do my best to try to unblind them by sending Jesus and we'll see if he can unblind some of these people.

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We know from the scriptures that the vast majority of people are going to hell.

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Like most people are going to end up in hell. It is the few who will put faith in Jesus Christ and believe.

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Jesus said himself in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 7, enter through the narrow gate. Broad is the way that leads to destruction and many find that because that's the easy way.

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But narrow is the way that leads to eternal life and few will find that path.

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So the majority of people are going to hell. Therefore, would you have to say that Satan is more powerful than God?

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He has done far more successfully to blind people than God has successfully saved them.

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Of course, we wouldn't say that. That would be terrible to say that Satan has more power over people than God himself does.

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Satan can only do what God has allowed him to do, what God has given him to do.

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And so the God of this age, little G, Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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This is not by the power of Satan. God has given agency to Satan to deceive those who love their unrighteousness, that they may continue in their unrighteousness and so perish because they did wickedness rather than turning from sin to Jesus Christ and living.

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So this delusion that people have, it has been appointed by God. It's not

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Satan acting in some way that God can't control or people's wills are stronger than God's will.

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It's nothing like that. But God has used Satan to blind the minds of the unbelieving.

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And it's only in this age that they're blinded to Christ, right? Because in the age previous, prior to Christ, it wasn't that they were blinded to Christ.

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They did not believe God's word. They did not listen to what it was that he said. There was a veil over their hearts, as Paul had talked about earlier in 2

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Corinthians chapter three. Now the veil, now the blindness is knowing who

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Jesus is. That's only in this age. So the enemy has blinded them so that they cannot see the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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And verse five, we do not preach ourselves, Paul says, but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Christ.

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Now keep in mind here that Paul is confronting false teachers. He's confronting a false teaching that has come into Corinth and is trying to win some of these

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Corinthians away from Christ to the ministry, the false ministry of these false teachers.

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Hence why Paul opened the chapter by saying, we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

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Paul is, is presenting himself as a, as a worker approved, essentially the, the thing that he says to Timothy in second

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Timothy two 15, do your best to show yourself as a workman approved who rightly handles the word of truth and has no need to be ashamed.

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Paul doesn't have any reason to be ashamed. He has presented the truth of the gospel, but these false teachers are only preaching themselves.

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They're not actually preaching Christ. They glorify in themselves. So then in verse five, we do not preach ourselves,

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Paul says, putting a contrast between him and these false teachers. We don't preach ourselves.

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We preach Christ as Lord. It's almost like he's saying to the Corinthians, listen to the message. What is it that you hear?

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If you hear Christ and him crucified, well, then that's the message that comes from us.

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That's not the message that comes from these false teachers. If you're hearing from these false teachers, them just proclaiming themselves, well, you know, they're not of Christ and they're not for you as a result of that as well.

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Because notice he says, we preach Christ and ourselves are slaves for the sake of Christ.

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So we are serving you. They're not serving you. They're trying to take advantage of you. There are many, many preachers that are doing this today.

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They preach themselves. They do not preach Christ. They take advantage of you.

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You like what it is that they hear because that's what your flesh wants. And so there's these super teachers out there that are very charismatic.

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But if you listen to what it is that they say, they're not actually preaching Christ. Joel Osteen, Stephen Furtick, Furtick is one of the biggest offenders of this.

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That man is through and through a narcissist. He is full of himself. Some of you probably saw the what videos that I put out last year with Furtick beating his chest and saying,

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I am God almighty. Justin Peters also did a response to that and warning about the false teaching of Stephen Furtick.

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I've been listening to Furtick for years because he's about my age. And so he's rising up in the Southern Baptist Convention about the same time that I became a pastor.

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So it was interesting to me to just kind of listen to another guy who's the same age as me and, and just listening to just how terrible his teaching is.

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And and asking the Lord that I may not go that way, that I would not go in the direction of of puffing myself up, but instead would preach

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Christ and him crucified. Furtick has preached himself over and over and over again. He will even preach a passage that has the gospel in it, and he'll make some statement about it being in regards to the gospel.

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But then he'll just start talking about himself. He'll say something like, but I'm not going to talk about that today. I'd rather share with you this and then puff himself up on how great a tither he is, on how faithful he's been to everything

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God has told him to do. And now look what kinds of cars I drive. Look at how big my house is. Look at how successful this church is and that I'm one of the, uh, the, the most watched pastors on YouTube, just preaching himself.

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And if a person will just for two minutes, just kind of step back and ponder what it is that they're actually listening to.

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They will recognize that Furtick is not preaching Christ. He's preaching himself. And he's also trying to tell you, you can have the same things that he gets.

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If you'll just do the things that he did and all the stuff that Jesus gave me, he'll give you to, you know, it's, it's just prosperity preaching, receive and, or believe and receive.

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If you just believe this, you'll receive it. Rick Warren has taught the same thing. He writes a book called, it's not about you.

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Well, it's a, it, the book is called the purpose driven life, but the very first words in the book are, it's not about you, but you take that sentence out and the whole book really actually is about you.

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So these are men out there, many men and even women who preach themselves. They don't preach

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Christ. Listen to the message. Who were they pointing you to? Are they pointing you to Christ or are they pointing to themselves?

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Paul says, we do not preach ourselves. We preach Jesus Christ is Lord and ourselves.

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We're your slaves for the sake of Jesus. For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, light shall shine out of darkness is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

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So we talked earlier about if our gospel is veiled, it's veiled to those who are perishing. The God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they may not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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We do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord. See if Paul was preaching himself, then a person would not be healed of their blindness.

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They would continue in blindness because the only one who can lift the veil is

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Christ. Going back to chapter three, verse 14, their minds were hardened for until this day at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted because it is brought to an end in Christ, the veil of your blindness.

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How is it lifted? Because you hear Christ proclaimed and God lifts the veil that you may see

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Jesus Christ, the son of God who put on flesh and dwelt among us and whoever did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to be called children of God who are born not of blood nor of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

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The only way we come to faith in Jesus Christ is by hearing the gospel of Christ.

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Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. So Paul says, we preach

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Christ as Lord for God who said, let light shine out of darkness is the one who is shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

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How did we come to this knowledge? Because God shined the light of the knowledge in our hearts that we may believe it and know that he is the

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Christ. All of this by the work of God. It is of God and not of man and God who spoke those words in the very beginning.

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Let there be light. It is by his word that all things came into existence. It's by his word that we are brought from death to life, from darkness into light.

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That same word that brought all things into existence brings life into our dead hearts by the speaking of his word, by the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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That word had authority to bring things into existence. It has authority to bring us from death to life.

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And that word has authority over every single person, whether they choose to believe it or not.

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The word of God is authoritative over everyone. The Bible, it is the teaching of God's word that brings a person to faith.

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So again, as we've talked earlier this week, it's not by gimmicks. It's not by the best oral delivery.

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It's not by creating an atmosphere. It's not by having the best music. It is not by bargaining with people or bribing them to believe.

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It is by the proclamation of the truth of Christ. And then God does the work in a person's heart to lift that veil and shine the light into their heart of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

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All of that is the work of God. What we need to be faithful to do is preach Christ and him crucified for our sins.

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We don't preach ourselves. We don't use our gimmicks or proven formulas or follow the demographics or anything like that in order to win converts.

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Just preach Christ and do it without prejudice. It's not just for this people.

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It's for everybody. And then those who come to faith in Christ, they come to faith because God does in the work.

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God does the work in their hearts to lift that veil, to cure their blindness, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

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And as Paul goes on in verse seven, he says, we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.

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He talks about that. Look at how meek we are. I mean, just consider how puny and insignificant we are in the scheme of things so that the glory comes not to man.

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It goes to God. Paul will say later on in second Corinthians 10 10. He's not even that great a speaker.

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He speaks with such meek words, weighty things in his letters, but his his stature is nothing to write home about.

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But that's so the glory would go to God and not to man. There's more

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I want to say about this, and I don't just want to hit it quickly or hit it too quickly here since we're coming to the end of the devotional today.

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So that's where we'll pick up next week. And our study of second Corinthians four will pick up in verse seven and finish the chapter next week as well.

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God willing, Heavenly Father, we thank you for what you have revealed to us. According to your word, we understand this word because the

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Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts because you have shined the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.

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When we heard about Christ crucified for our sins, it is nobody can boast for the knowledge that they have because this knowledge has come not from man, but from God.

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And I pray that we would continue to grow in that knowledge that you would bless us to know deep and hidden things that are revealed in your word so that our minds, our hearts may be conformed to the image of Christ and we may worship him all the more gloriously.

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Thank you so much for this blessing of grace you give us every day and help us be gracious to one another.

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It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an

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Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an