Behind the Veil: the Beauty of the Unseen

***
Good morning,

Are you burdened for someone today who does not know Jesus?   Perhaps, like me, there are those acquaintances, co-workers, friends, loved ones whom you pray for every day.  How should we pray for them, though?  I was thinking about that this morning in reading over yesterday's passage.  Let's look more carefully at 2 Cor. 4:3-5 again.

3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing, 4 among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe so they would not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not proclaim ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.

One way that the gospel is veiled by the evil one (Satan) is that people are deceived into believing that they can live "good enough" lives to be reconciled with God.  This prideful deception is at the root of legalistic religions.  Although there are legalists who claim the name of Christ, the root of Christianity is the concept of "grace" - - - that is, man is utterly sinful and completely incapable of by his own actions or will reconciling himself to God.  There was a powerful, little book written a few years ago entitled, How Good is Good Enough?  Answer: there is no one good enough (Rom. 3:23).
We need to pray that our loved ones see themselves as God sees them: lost sinners, in need of the Savior.

Another way that the gospel is hidden is Satan's deception that either
a) God does not exist.
or
b) There is no Heaven or Hell.
or
c) The Bible is just an ancient book.
This is what I call the "fairytale deception", and it is promulgated by academics in America today. The line goes like this:  "Only stupid people believe in Christianity.  You can't be intelligent and believe that." This is an extension of the philosophy of "rationalism".
I heard on the radio yesterday that Hillsdale College is offering to the public a free course on the life of C.S. Lewis, an English professor from Oxford University, England, who was moved to belief in Christ after doing an honest investigation.  No sane person would argue that this man was unintelligent.  99.9% of people who proclaim this lie from the devil have not done an honest investigation of the claims of Jesus Christ, as did Lewis, McDowell, Yuan, Butterfield, Strobel, and many, many others.  It is much more easy and convenient to flow along with certain segments of popular society, even the world of academia, and just .... flow along with the other lemmings.
Paul, himself, was extremely well-educated.
We need to pray that our prayer targets' eyes will be opened to this deception of false intellectualism.

A third way the gospel is hidden is that other people prevent sinners from coming to salvation in Jesus Christ.  Because those who claim the name of Christ (whether that is genuine or not) they are viewed as representatives of Christ.  Therefore, when one of them offends an unbeliever, those actions often "turn unbelievers off" to the message of the gospel.  Whether the offender is truly saved, a true, sincere follower of Jesus Christ, or not, is not the point.  Even true believers struggle with sin, although they don't practice it.  The point is that unbelievers let their impressions of and experiences with other people define (distort) their view of Jesus Christ.
We need to pray that God will open their eyes to the truth of Who Jesus is, and that past experiences don't hinder them to the fact that Jesus is all-sufficient.

These veils can be removed, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Paul never says that those whose understandings are veiled can never come to a saving knowledge of the truth.  On the contrary, he states the opposite, later on in this chapter: (2 Cor. 3:16-17)

6 but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom. 

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

John 8:32

Here is another beautiful truth.  Let's apply this to believers for a moment, because it is not just for the lost.  There are few passages that exemplify the Christian walk more than 2 Cor. 4:7-18.  But, let's hone in on the last two verses before we move on into our day.

17 For our momentary, light suffering is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison 18 because we are not looking at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

Christ followers, Believers, see things differently.  The reason we do is because we are possessed by Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit.  Accordingly, the Holy Spirit continues to "unveil" to us the beauty and majesty of God.  More and more, we focus on the spiritual, the "unseen".  The reason we do this is because the things easiest to see are only temporary, while spiritual victories (and losses) are forever.  We define "success" in a radically different way from how unbelievers define it.  We collect different "trophies", for different reasons.  The world focuses on how much a person can accumulate, for his or her own glory.  These include: wealth, fame, prestige, pleasure.  The Christian focuses on how much more he or she can know and become like Jesus Christ.  Accordingly, any "trophies" accumulated are for His glory and His alone.  It's a radically different outlook, producing a radically different life.  While the world chases sand, we share the liberating message that frees and feeds the soul.  The late English evangelist, Charles H. Spurgeon, understood this.

Let me give you a parable. In the days of Nero there was great shortness of food in the city of Rome, although there was abundance of corn to be purchased at Alexandria. A certain man who owned a vessel went down to the sea coast, and there he noticed many hungry people straining their eyes toward the sea, watching for the vessels that were to come from Egypt with corn. When these vessels came to the shore, one by one, the poor people wrung their hands in bitter disappointment, for on board the galleys there was nothing but sand which the tyrant emperor had compelled them to bring for use in the arena. It was infamous cruelty, when men were dying of hunger to command trading vessels to go to and fro, and bring nothing else but sand for gladiatorial shows, when wheat was so greatly needed. Then the merchant whose vessel was moored by the quay said to his shipmaster, "Take thou good heed that thou bring nothing back with thee from Alexandria but corn; and whereas, aforetime thou hast brought in the vessel a measure or two of sand, bring thou not so much as would lie upon a penny this time. Bring thou nothing else, I say, but wheat: for these people are dying, and now we must keep our vessels for this one business of bringing food for them." Alas! I have seen certain mighty galleys of late loaded with nothing but mere sand of philosophy and speculation, and I have said within myself, "Nay, but I will bear nothing in my ship but the revealed truth of God, the bread of life so greatly needed by the people." God grant us this day that our ship may have nothing on board it that may merely gratify the curiosity, or please the taste; but that there may be necessary truths for the salvation of souls. I would have each one of you say: "Well, it was just the old, old story of Jesus and his love, and nothing else." I have no desire to be famous for anything but preaching of the gospel. There are plenty who can fiddle to you the new music; it is for me to have no music at any time but that which is heard in heaven, -- "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, to him be glory for ever and ever!"
from A Sermon, (No.1910), Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, July 18th, 1886, by

C. H. SPURGEON, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, England

Father, to You, the Godhead Three-in-One, be glory, forever and ever!  Open our eyes, whether we are Yours or yet-to-be Yours, so that we can know the Truth, and so that the Truth may set us free!  In Jesus' name, amen.

Sources:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_23?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=how+good+is+good+enough+by+andy+stanley&sprefix=How+good+is+good+enough%2Caps%2C319

http://redeeminggod.com/gospel-is-veiled-2-corinthians_4_3-4/

http://biblehub.com/library/spurgeon/spurgeons_sermons_volume_32_1886/the_heart_of_the_gospel.htm

A Striving of the Bowels

Good morning,

An exemplary life is a compassionate life, a life marked by compassion for those who do not know the Savior.  

We read over and over in the New Testament that Jesus was "moved with compassion" (Matthew 9:36). Watch what the early 20th century evangelist Charles Spurgeon had to say about that phrase:

The original word is a very remarkable one. It is not found in classic Greek. It is not found in the Septuagint. The fact is, it was a word coined by the evangelists themselves. They did not find one in the whole Greek language that suited their purpose, and therefore they had to make one. It is expressive of the deepest emotion; a striving of the bowels—a yearning of the innermost nature with pity. As the dictionaries tell us— Ex intimis visceribus misericordia commoveor. I suppose that when our Saviour looked upon certain sights, those who watched him closely perceived that his internal agitation was very great, his emotions were very deep, and then his face betrayed it, his eyes gushed like founts with tears, and you saw that his big heart was ready to burst with pity for the sorrow upon which his eyes were gazing. He was moved with compassion. His whole nature was agitated with commiseration for the sufferers before him.

His compassion was so deep there was not a Greek word for it, and Greek is a marvelously expressive language.  They had 3 different words for "love", for goodness sake!  Jesus - - - the Indescribable One.  He was heartbreakingly compassionate for the needs of others.  Remember how He cried as He was on the hilltop overlooking Jerusalem, just before the "triumphant entry" into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday?

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would have none of it!

Luke 13:34

I am so convicted by this because often my heart is unmoved by the needs of those who are suffering, who are needy, or lonely, or sick or shunned...or lost without Christ. 
I shut my eyes to the sight of their suffering and close my ears to their pleas.  I throw some money at them from time to time and think I've done my part, but God forbid that I should get my pretty clothes dirty.

What about that last group, the lost?  In the college Bible study group Hubster and I co-lead with another couple, we are studying a book called Erasing Hell, by Francis Chan. The author wrote the book because in modern-day American churches we have largely erased Hell from our vocabularies.  We don't preach about it, but more importantly, we don't live in the reality of it.  That is, if we really believed in an actual Hell, would we not be living differently?  Would we not have a severe "striving of the bowels" for those God has placed in our paths?  Would we still be afraid to share the gospel, for fear of being misunderstood or rejected?

Let's be honest.  What we need as Jesus Christ's Church is a heaping helping of compassion, not the phony compassion that gives lip-service to Him, not the kind where we go to church on Sunday to wave our hands around exclaiming how we "love the Lord!" and then live the rest of the week loving on ourselves. 

Lord Jesus, over and over we stand in church and sing about how we want to be like You, but I confess that I've not been a big fan of Your compassion.  I've been largely unmoved by the example you set...how Your poured Yourself out for "the unlovely".  I've been deceived into thinking that I've been living an exemplary life, but when I face this ugly truth about my hard-heartedness, I realize that I've got a ways to go.  Show me and lead me, Lord, to open my heart to the lost, the  "poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven."  (Matthew 5:3).

Source:

http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/3438.htm