Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 22, 2023 | 2 Corinthians - Has Satan Blinded You?

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October 22, 2023 | 2 Corinthians - Has Satan Blinded You? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be with you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how many of you have ever been in that awkward situation where you're trying to show your friend your favorite movie and they just don't get it?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: They just don't, they just don't understand why it's the best of all time, and they just and you're like looking, you're trying to not let them know that you're looking at them more than you're watching your favorite movie to see their reaction, right?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, it's a it's a weird thing, and and uh some people just don't like watching Hobbit Swat to volcanoes for 10 hours, you know?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just not their thing.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um But you know, there are there are a lot of situations in life where we want people to be a part of or love the things that we love, and they just they just don't.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes there are fine reasons for it, but sometimes it's it's a lot harder, you know.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um things become more serious than just a favorite movie, and it's how they're living their life, how they are um, you know, their their marriage or their finances or these kinds of things that you want to give counsel to or you want to um help them to understand wisdom, or maybe you need to understand wisdom, but they just don't really seem to take heed to that advice.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what can be really hard about that is you can sometimes see your friends undergo unnecessary pain that they don't need to experience because they refuse to listen.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it goes even one step deeper than that, which is when we have people around us whom we dearly love who continually choose to reject Christ.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be so hard to see that because you know, hopefully you know, you know the beauty and the joy and the peace of knowing Jesus and having a relationship with him, and you want them to know and to be able to experience that that glory and that community and and all of those wonderful things that come with knowing Jesus as their Savior, but yet they choose not to do it.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it can sort of be a little weird because if we talk so much about how wonderful it is to trust in Jesus Christ.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, last week with Paul in 2 Corinthians, right, the whole message was about how the glory of the new covenant is shown through this relationship that God has with his people now through Jesus Christ on the cross, and it's accessible to everybody, and it's glorious, and it's wonderful, and it's way better than what came before, and all of those things.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if it is all of those things, why doesn't everybody believe in it?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the questions that the Corinthians have for Paul and his ministry, which is essentially, if Paul's message is so powerful, it is backed by the Holy Spirit, and it not only is it this divine revelation, but it brings joy and peace and all of these other things on top of forgiveness, why don't more people believe?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's our question this morning.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're looking at in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 1 through 6.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see that Paul begins when he says, Therefore, since we have this ministry, we'll talk about what this ministry is in a second, but since we have this ministry, because we were shown mercy, we do not give up.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the Word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone's conscience by an open display of the truth.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So let's take a step back, right?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't been with us, as we've been going through 2 Corinthians, a huge section of this letter is Paul effectively justifying his ministry over and against his 2 Corinthian critics that he had.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, his Corinthian critics.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and these Corinthian critics that he had, there were those who culturally didn't like what Paul was doing because he didn't represent what they thought a great teacher should look like.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Paul, how big is your following?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: How much are you being paid?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: What is your argument?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul said, Um, I am being paid nothing.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I work for myself, and it doesn't matter how big the audience is, and the message is Jesus Christ and him crucified, which is a foolishness to some and a stumbling block to others.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And for many in Corinth, they said, that's not what we were expecting you to say.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And beyond all that, then another group has come in, sort of in between, it seems, uh, the period of time between 1 Corinthians and now 2 Corinthians.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there are these, uh Paul later calls them false apostles, who are preaching the an incorrect gospel to the Corinthian church, and they have a lot of the things in their ministry uh that Paul would say is not a part of what God wants or what any Christian should be, which is they are deceptive and they are trying to kind of like snake oil salesmen, they're trying to sell the gospel for money, basically, to get a lot of power.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'll tackle that in a couple weeks.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, Paul is spending some time in this letter defending his ministry.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so when he says this ministry, he is not only referring to his ministry that he has and has been practicing, but it is the same thing, it is aligned with what we looked at last week.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: What is Paul's ministry?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: What is this ministry?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's the ministry of the new covenant, it's the ministry of this spirit-empowered, God-ordained, evangelistic ministry that is signified by having access to the glory of God that the old covenant did not have.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: More on that, right, we talked about last week.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is saying we have this ministry because we were given mercy.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if anybody knows what it is like to receive the mercy of God, it's Paul.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And as we read the letters from the guy who wrote most of the New Testament, we see this amazing evangelist traveling all over the Mediterranean and the Middle East, sharing the gospel, planting churches, ultimately being arrested for it and killed for his faith.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, twenty years earlier, Paul was the one who was killing Christians.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: You see, we find in the book of Acts that the very first martyr of the Christian faith, a man named Stephen, when he was being stoned by the Jewish leaders, uh, there was one that they laid all of those who were stoning Stephen, they were taking off their outer garments so that basically they could throw better, they wouldn't get dirty, and they were laying all of their clothing at the feet of Paul, who was there and encouraging them to kill Stephen.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, beyond that, we we know that Paul, as because he admits it and he talks about it, he was going out and he was arresting Christians, and he was breaking down into their homes, and he was pulling them out, families and fathers and children, and all these things who were who were following this new faith, and he was taking them off to prison so that ultimately they would most likely be killed as well.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was in this rampage, and he's on his way to Damascus to find more Christians and eradicate this new faith when Jesus Christ appears to him and says, Paul, why are you persecuting my church?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And not only does Paul come to faith in Christ, the veil is lifted, but Jesus calls him into ministry.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he says, I will show you how much you will suffer from my name.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul then from that moment on spends the rest of his life dedicated to telling other people about the gospel of Jesus Christ and telling other people about how the veil can sometimes just be miraculously removed from over your heart, like it was for him, and this is only by the power of the Spirit that it happens.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul's ministry from the beginning to the very end was motivated in many ways by the mercy that he had been shown in Jesus Christ.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, Therefore, we have this ministry.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: We were shown because of God's mercy.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was given this ministry by God because he was merciful to me, and through that, and because of that, we don't give up.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, we do not give up as we share this new covenant ministry with the world.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that word give up in the Greek record means more than just quit.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: It means we're not slacking off.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're not, you know, pulling our punches, we're not taking our foot off the gas pedal, whatever.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: We are not becoming lazy in the way that we are sharing this gospel with others.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, he goes on in verse 2, beginning with instead, he is now that takes this very targeted attack at those who are back in Corinth and are his critics and have this false ministry that is marked by deceit and deception and manipulation.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, in fact, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, and by that he means for our own personal gain.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so you look at Paul's ministry and you say, okay, we've got an apostle called by God himself, who is uh spreading a message that is empowered by God through the Holy Spirit and relies upon the miraculous nature of Jesus Christ.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: You have his personal ministry just being filled with integrity.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's no claims that anybody can justifiably make against Paul's ministry as to being immoral or something like that.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: His ministry is spotless and clean.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's the very end of this passage here.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I we commend ourselves before God to everyone's conscience by an open display.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, My ministry is there for you to see.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I lived among you, the Corinthians, for a year and a half.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know who I am, you know what I do.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if all of these things are true, the Corinthians begin to ask, why is his ministry not more effective?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why have more people not believed in the gospel through Paul?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: If all of these things, if he has this great headwind, right, and and on top of obviously his personal character, he has the spirit, why are people still not believing?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you can probably imagine in your own mind, or I hope you do, somebody in your life, a friend, a coworker, a family member, whatever, who does not know Jesus Christ, even though they have been told about him over and over and over, and we ask the same question, how is that possible?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul continues in verses three through four and tells us.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: He says, But if our gospel is veiled, right, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: In their case, the God of this age 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.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, there's some really interesting things here, but I want you to pick up on what sort of the vocab from last week, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Veil, being blinded or seeing, having the light, having glory, the image of God.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Those were all things that Paul was mentioning in chapter three.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So these things are connected to each other.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, So there were those who have had the veil removed from their heart that the Spirit worked in their life and allowed them to see what they previously could not see.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the word he uses here for seeing the light, it's only used once in the New Testament, and it's different than just witnessing like the bright lights up above.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it is this act of understanding, sort of that eureka moment, the light bulb that we might talk about.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: He says, this has happened in people that the Spirit moved and they believed and they understood the revelation of God that they did not know previously.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: But there are still some whose hearts are veiled to the truth of the gospel.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, well, what is the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because we have to understand that there is a difference between hearing and even knowing the facts of the gospel and then trusting in Jesus as your Savior.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is what James brings up in his great section, chapter 2 and James, about works and faith.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as a part of that, he says, even the demons believe that God is real.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Of course they do.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: They know who God is, they're fighting against God.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: They are not delusional about the powerful enemy that they have.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: But that is different than Christians.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It is more than just understanding kind of the narrative, it's believing in Jesus as your Savior.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what is true across the world, over and over and over, is that people have heard the gospel.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: People understand the gospel technically.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I know if I believe in Jesus that he died for my sins.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: But they do not trust in him.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it is that movement that constitutes the veil over their hearts.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: That there are still people who, and this is especially true in America, where we are not really struggling as much as many other places around the world to share the gospel with people who don't know it, as to try and convince people who have already heard the gospel that it is true and something that they should take part in.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: That it is really the transforming power of God and not just, you know, some fancy organized religion that we have picked up on to soothe ourselves, that it actually is the revelation of God.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so we look out at the world who has heard, who does know, and chooses not to believe, and we often attribute these to this to various reasons.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my argument wasn't good enough, or they didn't, you know, understand this part of it, or well, if they had just read this book or they have heard this pastor, whatever it is.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what Paul lays across all of that is he says, no, the reason, the primary reason at least, that they are still struggling to understand the truth of the gospel and the veil is still over their heart, is because Satan is at work.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it is our particular brand of American Christianity, right?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: The baggage that we have that comes with understanding Christ in a culture.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's true across the world, but it's also true here in America that we have certain things we need to work through.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them is that as a culture, we are very secular.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: We do not often talk about the spiritual world, right?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because most of the time, if we ever do, it's ghosts.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, which that's a whole nother thing.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what we have, like you look at Halloween, you're gonna see kids, you know, dressed in sheets and they're gonna have the little eye holes cut out.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, we need to bring back, as somebody who loves Halloween, we need to bring back some of the old classic costumes.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: But you're gonna see people draped in sheets and things like that, and that's as close as we get to what it means to understand the spiritual world.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what we often neglect is that those things, ghouls and goblins and such nonsense, are not true.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: They are not real.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: What is absolutely true is that Satan exists, that demons exist, and that there's a cosmic supernatural battle that is being waged every single day across the world for the hearts and minds of people and whether or not they're going to believe the gospel.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so Satan, though he is not ever present like God is, he cannot be everywhere at once.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's unique to our Lord.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Satan is somewhere on the earth right now who is trying to disrupt as much of the gospel ministry and the work of God's kingdom as he can.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is his business, that is what he does.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is nothing good, certainly.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing admirable.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing even to respect about Satan's work.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: But what we do recognize is that he is powerful.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps even for those of us who think about spiritual warfare, more powerful than we often give him credit.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: See, God and his main enemy, Satan, his adversary.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, if you didn't know, that's what his name, Satan, that's what his name means, his adversary.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so God and his adversary, they are not like two old West sort of duelers that come out at high noon and we're waiting to see who wins.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: God has already defeated Satan.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Your Bible tells you that, especially the very end of the Bible.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Satan has already been defeated, the mortal wound has already been delivered.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: What we are in right now in this period of history is waiting for his final judgment.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what God has said in the infinite wisdom of our Lord is that there is a period of time that we are currently in where he is allowed to have some measure of freedom to influence things, and that he is actively influencing these things.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: We have to understand it.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you see somebody who does not believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is much deeper than sort of whatever surface you're seeing.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is that they are blinded and being prevented from seeing the truth because of the devil.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, I've never heard that before, or that sounds weird to me.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus said it.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: You go to the parable of the sower, we often overlook this too.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the first way that Jesus says the seed of the gospel is stolen.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus told them many things in parables, saying, Consider the farmer who went out to plant.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: As he planted, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Later on, uh, describing, sort of explaining to those who were listening what that meant, he said, So listen to the parable of the farmer.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and doesn't understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is the one sown along the path.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so far more than we often think of, Satan is at work in preventing people from understanding the glory of God's gospel.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are listening and you do not believe in Jesus Christ, Satan has blinded you.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it is only through actually the power of his deception that you think that your unbelief has anything to do with an argument or a personal experience or a lack of evidence.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all things that you think if you get the answers to, you will finally believe.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you won't.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: There will always be another reason that you will not believe.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you will continue to think in your in this deception that if you just had one more piece of information, if you just had one more inner positive interaction, if you just had somebody answer this one question to you, that you would trust in Jesus Christ.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not true, sadly.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because people give that information all over the world.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not what leads people to the truth of the gospel.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: What it is, is a battle between God and Satan, and one that God overwhelmingly wins.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, we have to recognize the power of Satan.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: So how should we take this, right?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh that sounds pretty bleak.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Satan has blinded the minds of people, right?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is veiled.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, two ways, two things that we do with this.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that in a very odd way, it actually should be encouraging to you.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: It should be encouraging to you because if you are somebody who loves Jesus, knows Jesus, and has told people about Jesus, and they have rejected that gospel, it's not on you.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not your fault.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because you didn't have the best arguments or because you didn't, you know, you wore your blue shirt instead of your red shirt or, you know, whatever it is that we bring up.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's true there are things that we need to do to be as approachable and winsome as possible when we share the gospel with others.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to learn arguments, it's good to learn apologetics, it's good to learn to be able to answer questions because as Peter tells us in his letter, we should be able to have answers to questions that people ask us when they ask us about why we have hope in Jesus Christ.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: All those things are good.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you are not responsible, and I am not responsible, for the response of somebody who has heard the gospel and rejected it.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: That is between them and the Lord.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you have that person, and I hope that you have that person, that you have been working on, you want them to know and to hear it, and you've been trying to tell them, and they have just been so stubborn and don't want to believe.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Take heart because you are doing what you have been called to do by God.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, there is nothing that you can do that is more powerful than the Holy Spirit to overcome this veiling that Satan has presented.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing that is we have to recognize is that this is emotionally really difficult for us, right?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you really think about what it means that billions of people in the world currently have a veil over their hearts, and that Satan and all of his forces are actively working to undermine what's going on in the kingdom, there's a chance that you could despair, that you could become overwhelmed, that you could, as Paul was a Alluding to at the beginning of this passage, you could want to give up.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: The great 19th century pastor, Charles, Charles Spurgeon, had this to say about what it meant to have a ministry where so many people, which is funny because Spurgeon had, he was basically the first, his church, the tabernacle in in London, was basically the first, if you will, like gigantic church.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: It had 10,000 people going to it at a time when there were no microphones.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how he did it with his voice.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: But Charles Spurgeon had a ministry that, by any measure, was prolific and fruitful that God gave to him.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And yet listen to what he says about those who don't believe.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Passionate longings after men's conversion, if not fully satisfied, and when are they?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Consume the soul with anxiety and disappointment, to see the hopeful turn aside, waxing more bold in sin.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Are not these sights enough to crush us to the earth?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: The kingdom comes not as we would, the reverend name not hallowed as we desire, and for this we must weep.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: How can we be otherwise than sorrowful when men believe not our report and the divine arm is not revealed?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's very easy to become discouraged.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, there are a lot of things in our culture today that seem to be pressing on us.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you read the news, if you watch the news, it's only negative.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's only telling us about how the world is falling apart.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And for that matter, there are a lot of things that are going on in our world that are unbelievably hard to bear.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: You have what's going on with Israel, but you also have what's going on across the world to Christians of every nation, and then you have what's going on in our own backyard.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have difficulties with our culture, with what's happening in schools, what's going on in terms of media, and what our kids and we're able to see, the access, the proliferation of sexuality in our, there are so many different things that are going on that you know and I know, and those things probably weigh differently on your scales and my scales as we all have these different desires.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: But what is absolutely true is that if you just listen to the message of the mainstream, what it's going to say is that this world is burning up.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as Christians, especially when we encounter immorality and sort of, as the Bible describes, like that fleshly sort of world, there's a great tendency, and I do it all the time, to sort of be like, you know, the best turtle in the world and just kind of begin to retract into ourselves.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because what we can control is oftentimes, or at least hopefully, to the best of our ability, what goes inside our home.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so you say, well, I'm going to retract, I'm going to bring my circle of friends, I'm going to bring my influences, I'm going to bring everything that I am as close and tight as possible, because at least I can make sure that that, that that represents and is sort of reflective of Christ.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: But in so doing, as we kind of build sort of these castle walls around us, even in the best attempts at living a good life that God would call us to, what is also happening is we are exchanging our ability that God also calls us to, to be present in the world around us and to be lights into the darkness.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as we retract and pull back into these communities of faith and let go of sort of those abilities that we had to have relationships with non-Christians or to engage with people in ways that we might not agree with, what is also happening is we are losing the opportunity to be able to share the gospel with those who don't know.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because as that occurs, we begin to know fewer and fewer people who don't know the gospel.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, for many of us, this is a natural reaction because the world can seem so dark.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: But take heart.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to how Paul finishes his passage.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to what God would have us.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Learn about his ministry, which has never ever been threatened by Satan.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: For we are not proclaiming ourselves, Paul says, but Jesus Christ is Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what he's saying here is he just said, Satan is blinding the minds of unbelievers, but yet we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, great news, I have the thing, and I am proclaiming the ministry of the one thing that defeats Satan, which is God Himself.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And over and over and over again, God has defeated Satan.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: He is a loser.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout all of history, he is a loser.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what God has done is though, even Paul calls him, in God's words, the God of this age, though he has influence right now, he will not ultimately prevail.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to take a little bit more encouragement out of the fact that as ministers of this new covenant and this gospel, we are not going to be defeated.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what you might think should happen in your culture or your schools or your neighborhood or whatever might not go the way that you would love it to.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: But if you take a step back from the battle and look at the war, we are victors.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: God has won already.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the end of the Bible talks about.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, too many of us have this defeated view.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: I uh yesterday I went to um Boo at the zoo, uh, the Halloween thing at Topeka Zoo.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I um, first of all, I didn't know it was happening.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just went to the zoo and recognized that everybody was in costumes except me.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was that guy.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: But and so is Dan.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Dan was that guy too.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Dan wasn't dressed up either.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: But as we were going around, there was a guy who was dressed up like Moses and had a really good costume.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Mose, I told Moses, I said, I really like your costume.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he came over to me and he started telling me about the apocalypse.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he started telling me about how um the bond market was going to crash and how I needed to load up on guns and ammo so that I could prepare for what was coming.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, right on, Moses, thank you.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what was, I mean, by the way, if any of you know Moses, that's not meant to be a critical, you know, statement about him.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: He had a fantastic costume.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: But what is also true, though, is as Christians, we, for many of us, we are known more about our doom and gloom and our sort of criticism of the world and the future around us, when by our nature, we should be people who are hopeful.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: We should be people who know what's coming and allow that to reflect on our lives more often.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we should be people who, if you're sharing the gospel, I'd probably leave guns out of it, at least for the very first time, because that doesn't exactly send the right message about what hope in Jesus Christ represents.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that, Paul is talking about here, he says, we have the gospel, and the gospel is not overcome.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: The message of Jesus Christ has not been defeated.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: The truth of God is spreading faster and to more people in today's world than it ever has before.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what we also know, because we draw a line from where we are to whenever it is in the book of Revelation that Jesus Christ returns.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we look at that trend line and we say, well, at some point things are going to get bad, that's true.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: But we also know is that the end of all things is marked by the triumph of Jesus Christ.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we rejoice in the fact that he is coming to make all things new, and we are less worried about our water collection systems for our bunker, okay?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is what we focus on.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't mean to be so critical about that, but what I'm trying to say is that we are all called, though, to be ministers of this new covenant.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there is absolute, especially if you are deeply engaged in the ministry of the new covenant, if you are telling people about God, there is certainly an opportunity for you to become overwhelmed and overrun in your emotions and in your personal experiences by what you perceive as the tide kind of going out.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: You don't see the growth or the movement that you would like to see.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what you need to know is that God is winning.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is what how Paul finishes his letter to the Romans.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: The God of peace is crushing his enemy beneath your feet.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: He is defeating him and he is destroying him, and it is only because we are being lied to, we are lying to ourselves, or Satan is convincing us that he is having any sort of victory.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: He is fighting hard, but he is not going to win the war.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: So what do we do?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do with this?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll be honest with you, it's pretty simple, pretty, pretty simple stuff, which is that all of us, every single one of us who knows Jesus has been called to take part in this war.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've been drafted, if you didn't know it.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: God has your card.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've been drafted, and you are a part of his army.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: You are somebody who has been called into this kingdom battle, this spiritual battle, this eternal war.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Except eventually we're going to realize, if we haven't already, that it's not actually an eternal war.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is something that God has already won.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have just been invited, brothers and sisters in Christ, into being a part of the winning side of a war.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so what you do is you tell people about Jesus because you don't have the power by yourself.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, right, we are weak, we're broken vessels.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: We love to learn about that in the Bible, right?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: We are people who are not strong.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: But God, in his mercy, has given us a ministry.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul says, and this ministry has the power to overcome Satan.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the power to overcome Satan does not rest in your skills of speech.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Corinth was criticizing Paul for.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: He says, that's not how I base my ministry.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not in my eloquence or my rhetoric, it's in the fact that I preach Jesus Christ and him crucified.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you share that message with the world, hey, let me tell you something.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: You might be called a fool.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: You might lose a little bit of clout, or you might drop a rung on the social ladder.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: You might have people who don't want to talk to you as much as they did before.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: But what you're encountering is being on the front lines of a war with Satan.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you should expect pushback.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's only when we don't think about these things and we don't give Satan, I say this very cautiously, the credit that he deserves for being powerful, is when we become overly discouraged by these things.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: So do not be ashamed of Jesus.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Tell people about him.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit has given you everything you need to take on this task.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing left is doing it.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of being people who shrink back like a turtle, instead of being those who give up, right?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: We lay off the gas pedal.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, we hammer it to the ground.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: We move forward and we pick up speed.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: We are a stone rolling down a mountain because we are a part of the winning side.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if we were able to tap into that attitude more often, you would be and I would be more bold in our proclamation of the gospel because we have nothing to fear.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: When it doesn't work, it's not on us.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when it does work, it's not on us.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: But what God will call every single one of you to account for is whether or not you shared the gospel with people.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Your win-loss record is not what it's about.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: But whether or not you were active in the kingdom and telling people about the light.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because what you have is a light.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have a light in the darkness.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: You have the answer to the solution.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know the truth that will fix the world's pains.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: But some of us just keep it here and treasure those things up as beautiful as they are and never share them with the world around us.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what do you do?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: You say, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you what you need to do.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing you do is you think of somebody who does not know the gospel.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the question is, does that person know that you know Jesus?
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, do they do you know that they know that you know Jesus because you think they do?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or do they know that you know Jesus because you've told them that you know Jesus, that you have hope in Jesus, that you love Jesus.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do they know that you know Jesus and that you love Jesus because you've told them?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have, well, we act in love towards these people.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: We show them the love of Christ.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're a good neighbor.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: You bake them cookies, you take them out to lunch, you watch their kids for a date night, you pray for them, you learn about their hobbies, ask them questions about their job that are genuine and not just trying to get to the end of a conversation.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: You develop a relationship with people.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: You ask them what they're struggling with, you tell them where they can find hope.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, you tell them about Jesus at some point in the conversation.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: There are some of those relationships that you have, especially if you've got that person, that are longer, that take place over the course of days, weeks, months, sometimes even years.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are some conversations we have where you see somebody once.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: God gives us both in different measures.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And occasionally it has to do with where you're gifted, where has God planted you, where, what opportunities has He given to you uniquely to be able to talk with somebody about the gospel, pray about these things, and then share the truth with that person.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then, as you do, once you have sort of sent that package off, once you've said, This is the light of Christ, this is where I have hope.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I'm confident about the future.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I'm not scared, why I can have joy during times of trials.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why oftentimes I'm able to overcome my anxiety.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: As you do those things, what happens next is up to him.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not up to you.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: You've done your part.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty and the problem is that too many of us, myself included, are not doing our part as often as we should.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: So here I'm going to pray for us.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, my prayer is that God would bring opportunities your way and my way, where we can have these conversations with people, where we can be courageous enough to tell them what needs to be said, and that we would not be discouraged by what we see.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because you are, if I can just summarize, you are on the winning side of the battle.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Satan is a powerful adversary, but God trumps him ten times out of ten.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because the gospel is the message.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Get this, the message you are sharing is the message of Jesus Christ dying on the cross for the sins of mankind and rising again, showing that death was defeated.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Satan is already he's already done for.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel message is that Satan has been defeated.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so therefore we should have no problem proclaiming that to the world around us, even if, even if it might seem dark at times, because God will ultimately prevail.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you for today.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you for the ministry of your word.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you, God, that you have given us something, a light within us, that does is not based upon our skill or our ability.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, it is based on you, our rock, our cornerstone, Jesus Christ.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: And God, I pray that as you have lifted the veil from our hearts and have opened us up to this truth of your glory, God, that your spirit would stir within us even now to reveal people to us, to bring us opportunities, to give us courage to be able to share your gospel with other people.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, this is what you have called us to do as your people.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: You say, Lord, in Ephesians, that you have set aside good works for us to do.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Father, help us to take on these good works and to do it with glad hearts, not feeling as if we are being pushed into something that we don't want to do, but overflowing with the joy of your word, God, that we might share it with other people.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, bring us to this place because we are so often far away, discouraged by what's going on in the world.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, what is going on with your people?
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: And God, we desire that you would draw us deeper into your truth so that we might want to share it with others.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: And God, lastly, I pray for those who are currently blinded by Satan.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: I pray for those who are blinded by Satan that we're going to speak to.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: That your Lord, your spirit would remove that blindness from them, that you would call them up to you, and that they would respond with glad hearts, seeing the glory of Jesus Christ's face.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's in his name we pray.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.