Knock Off the Purloining! – Titus 2:10

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Did you hear about the man who got caught stealing a calendar from the office where he worked? He got 12 months!

All stealing is sinful, but stealing from your employer is a special kind of sin. That’s why the Apostle Paul told Titus to

“Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters…not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity” (Titus 2:9,10).

The word “purloining” means stealing, but it refers to a very specific kind of stealing. Webster’s Online Dictionary defines it as: “to appropriate wrongfully… often by a breach of trust.” When a man robs a bank with a gun, that’s stealing. But when a bank employee embezzles a bank’s money, that’s purloining, for banks trust their employees to handle their money honestly.

Masters in Bible days often trusted their servants with their money—often with all their money, as when Potiphar made Joseph his “overseer” (Gen. 39:1-6). A man in a trusted position like that could easily rob his master blind. Other Bible servants were trusted with just enough money to buy something at the market. If such a man told his master that an item cost 100 shekels and it only cost 90, he could easily pocket 10 shekels and his master would never be the wiser.

While the word “purloining” doesn’t always refer to stealing something by a breach of trust, we know that it does in our text, for Paul says that servants should be: “not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity.” That’s a word that means faithfulness. The Marine Corps motto is Semper Fi, which is an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase Semper Fidelis—“Always Faithful.”

When I was a boy, my mom had a “hi-fi” in our living room. The manufacturers called it that because they claimed the sound you heard from their record player had high fidelity, that it was highly faithful to the sound recorded in the studio. They claimed that their device made the record sound exactly like the original music. So in saying that servants shouldn’t be purloining, “but shewing all good fidelity,” Paul was saying if a master trusted a servant with 100 shekels that he should give his master his item and the exact change, with no purloining.

While we don’t have masters and servants today, plenty of purloining goes on in the workplace! Employees bring home all kinds of things from work. Years ago Johnny Cash sang a song called “One Piece At A Time,” a song about an employee at the Cadillac plant in Detroit who couldn’t afford a Caddy so he proceeded to steal one by taking it home one piece at a time. It’s funny to laugh about that, but one of the lines of the song says, “I’ve never considered myself a thief, but GM wouldn’t miss just one little piece, especially if I strung it out over several years.”

Well, you might not consider yourself a thief for purloining, but you are one, and it’s not funny. A recent study showed that purloiners steal 50 billion dollars’ worth of things annually. Compare that to the losses sustained by thieves who steal the old fashioned way, by breaking and entering, or by robbing people at gunpoint—a comparatively paltry 14 billion dollars’ worth!

Employees also steal time from their employers. A recent study says that the average employee steals 4.5 hours per week from his boss while ostensibly working a forty-hour week. That adds up to 6 weeks per year per employee, costing companies hundreds of billions of dollars.

Now I know that it’s easy to think, “My boss doesn’t pay me enough anyway, so I’m just evening the score.” But if that’s how you feel about this issue, consider that Paul was telling slaves not to be guilty of purloining. If anyone had a score to settle, it was men who weren’t getting paid anything for their labor! But Paul tells even them not to be guilty of purloining.

So if you’re stealing from your employer, knock it off, and show him all good fidelity instead. You’ll be Pauline in practice, not just in doctrine, and you’ll be eternally glad you did.

The Builder and His Building – 1 Corinthians 3:12-15

Posted on December 10, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

Paul wants us to build the “building” of the “house” of our own personal spiritual lives on the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ (v.11, 12) so that your house can withstand the storms of life (cf. Mt. 7:24-29). But it’s also important what you build your house with (v. 12).

You say, “Who builds a house with things like gold?” Solomon! He built the temple with it (I Ki. 6:17-21), and that house was a type of what God will someday make the house of Israel into (Rev. 3:12). That’s the living temple of God He had in mind when He said He’d live in the Jews (II Cor. 6:16).

But that wasn’t God’s only house of people. Paul told Timothy about a “house” that was “the church, which is His Body” (Eph. 1:22, 23). That’s God’s other house of people, and it’s also the other house He wants us to build on the foundation of Christ! It’s a house made up of all the individual spiritual houses of the members of Christ’s Body. God wants us to build up their houses as well as our own.

This “great house” of the Body contains vessels made of gold and silver (II Tim. 2:20). A vessel is a container used to carry things (Ge. 43:11). Ships are called vessels because they carry cargo. God put the cargo of the gospel in us (II Cor. 4:3-7) expecting us to carry it to others, as He did Paul (Acts 9:15).

And He doesn’t want the vessel carrying His salvation dishonored by sin (I Thes. 4:3, 4), like the vessels of dishonor in II Timothy 2:20. And when Paul talks about honorable vessels of gold and silver in the context of rewards in our text, that tells us the personal conduct of our testimony is the first thing God plans to reward. Not because our sin hurts Him—Christ paid for that hurt!—but because it hurts the gospel.

But the gospel isn’t the only thing God wants you carrying in your vessel to others. To build up the spiritual house of other believers, you have to carry Pauline truth to them. If you fail, you are a vessel of dishonor. We know this because the “these” Paul says you have to purge to be a vessel of honor (II Tim. 2:20-22) are dispensational errors (2:16-18).

God plans to test our works for wood, hay and stubble like that (I Cor. 3:13) at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Rom. 14:10) with the “fire” of God’s Word (Jer. 23:29) to see what “sort” it is. “Sort” means kind (cf. Deut. 22:11). God is going to judge the quality of your work when the fire of His word burns up your wood and hay, and leaves the gold and silver that can “abide” the fire still standing (I Cor. 3:14, 15).

He won’t put you in the fire. He did that when He identified you with Christ on the Cross and His fire fell on Him for your sins. So your sins will only be judged as they affect your work. The word “wrong” in Colossians 2:22-25 doesn’t mean servants will be punished for their sins at the Judgment Seat. It means they’ll suffer a loss of reward for being bad servants. The wages of sin is death, not a loss of reward!

All believers will suffer that loss for the “bad” work they’ve done as servants of the Lord (II Cor. 5:10). “Bad” doesn’t mean sinful (cf. Num. 13:20; Jer. 24:2; Mt.13:48), it means we did a bad job building up the church. A bad carpenter doesn’t follow the blueprints, and a bad believer doesn’t follow the blueprints for the church found in Paul’s epistles.

A believer who does a good job building according to Paul’s blueprints will be rewarded with a “crown” (I Cor. 9:25) so he can “reign” with Christ (II Tim. 2:12) over the angels (I Cor. 6:3). God wants us to run so we can reign at the highest possible level (I Cor. 9:25-27). Paul compares the Judgment Seat to Olympic games like that because it will be a joyous day, not a somber day, like when sinners are judged and sent to the lake of fire. The “terror” we’ll know in that day is the kind Israel had just standing in God’s presence, when He wasn’t even mad (Ex. 20:18-20). The “mercy” Onesiphorus will need is the kind Israel got when God didn’t leave the Jews in captivity (Ezr. 9:9), the loss-of-reward kind.

But our motivation to serve the Lord isn’t rewards, it’s the love Christ showed in dying for us, as Paul went on to say (II Cor. 5:14, 15). But the foundation of your spiritual house can’t burn, because it is the rock-solid foundation of Christ. So even if all your work burns at the Judgment Seat, you’ll still be saved in that day “yet so as by fire” (I Cor. 3:15).

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: The Builder and His Building – 1 Corinthians 3:12-15

Did Jesus Quote the Apocrypha?

Posted on December 10, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

“A friend of mine said that Jesus quoted from an apocryphal book (Sirach 37:2). How do I answer his insistence that this means the apocrypha belongs in the Bible?”

In your letter you don’t mention where the Lord is supposed to have quoted this verse, but it doesn’t matter. Even if He did, that wouldn’t prove that God wanted that book included in the canon of Scripture. The Bible mentions a lot of books that aren’t included in God’s Word.

For instance, in the Old Testament it mentions “the book of the wars of the Lord” (Num. 21:14). In the New Testament, Paul talked about an epistle that he wrote before the Book of 1 Corinthians (5:9). And there are many other examples of this (Josh. 10:13; 2 Chron. 9:29; 12:15; 13:22; 1 Kings 11:41; Col. 4:16; Jude 1:14; etc.).

The bottom line is, if God wanted those books included in His Book, they’d be in His Book. The fact that they are not indicates that they may have contained trustworthy and quotable information, but they were not “given by inspiration of God” as “all Scripture” is (2 Tim. 3:16).

A Closed Mouth Gathers No Feet! – Titus 2:8

Posted on November 26, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Did you hear about the man who said, “I put my foot in my mouth so often, I’ve learned to stomach defeat”? Then there was the man who remarked, “You know that little voice in your head that keeps you from saying things you shouldn’t? I don’t seem to have one of those!”

Speaking of men who say things they shouldn’t, you have to wonder if Titus might have been one of them. That might explain why the Apostle Paul had to write and talk to him about

“Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you” (Titus 2:8).

Titus had a bold, fear-inducing kind of personality (II Cor. 7:14,15), and Christians with that kind of personality need to keep it securely harnessed so opponents of the gospel have no evil thing to say of them. If you suffer from that kind of boldness, you can avoid that kind of condemnation by either closing your mouth, or by learning to adorn your words with “sound speech.”

The sound speech Paul had in mind here consists of the words of “sound doctrine” (Tit. 1:9), and the only way to determine if doctrine is sound is by “rightly dividing the word” (II Tim. 2:15). Before Paul, the law was sound doctrine. But “we are not under the law” (Rom. 6:15).

Of course, we know that doesn’t mean it’s okay to lie, steal, kill, covet, or do any of the other things prohibited in the ten commandments of the law, for Paul says otherwise (Rom. 13:9). It just means we are not under the curse of the law,

“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse…Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things…in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10).

The law cursed any “that continueth not in all things” in it. It demanded 100% obedience 100% of the time. If you think that it’s unreasonable for God to demand that kind of faithfulness to His law, may I ask if you’re satisfied if your spouse is 99% faithful to you 99% of the time?

We know that “sound doctrine” consists of exhorting men to observe the moral code of the law’s ten commandments, for after talking about unsaved people who break those laws (I Tim. 1:8-10) Paul added, “and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.”

But we know that “sound doctrine” consists of more than just following the law’s com-mandments, for Paul spoke of “sound doctrine; according to the…gospel…committed to my trust” (I Tim. 11). That means sound doctrine today is doctrine that is in accord with Paul’s gospel.

Paul told Titus that speech like that “cannot be condemned.” That means it cannot be beaten in an argument. That’s one of the definitions of “condemn,” to show or prove to be wrong (cf. Job 9:20). Sound Pauline doctrine cannot be condemned, for no one can prove the Bible wrong if it is rightly divided (II Tim. 2:15)!

This is what Paul had in mind when he spoke to Titus earlier about “vain talkers” (Tit. 1:10) who were teaching the “vain jangling” of “the law” (I Tim. 1:6,7), and added: “whose mouths must be stopped” (Tit. 1:11). The way to stop the mouth of false teachers is not with duct tape—as tempting as that is sometimes!—but rather by teaching sound doctrine so accurately that the mouth of “he that is of the contrary part” is silenced, “having no evil thing to say of you.”

The Lord had to deal with men of the contrary part, religious leaders who tried to “entangle Him in His talk” (Mt. 22:15). He always handled such men with sound doctrine, “and when He had said these things…His adversaries were ashamed” (Luke 13:17). Isn’t that what Paul told Titus would happen if he taught sound doctrine, that men of the contrary part would be “ashamed”?

The moral of the story is that while closing your mouth will ensure you don’t stick your foot in it and earn the condemnation of our opponents, speaking the sound speech of sound doctrine will ensure that too—and will shut the mouths of those who teach things contrary to Paul’s gospel!

The Clarity of Sincerity – Titus 2:7

Posted on November 19, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Apostle Paul gave a young minister named Titus some advice that is good for any Christians who long to minister sound Bible doctrine to others:

“In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing… sincerity” (Titus 2:7).

The dictionary says the word sincere means pure and unmixed. That’s why Paul wrote,

“Let us keep the feast, not with… the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity…” (I Cor. 5:8).

God told the Jews under the law to keep the “feast” of unleavened bread right after they kept the passover by not mixing leaven in their bread (Lev. 23:4-8), and Paul says that the way to keep that feast today under grace is to keep the leaven of sin out of our lives to show God how thankful we are that “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (I Cor. 5:7).

Now you would think that every believer would know that our lives should be pure and unmixed with sins like “malice” and “wickedness” as we teach the doctrine of grace. But the carnal Corinthians were teaching grace but living in malice (I Cor. 14:20) and wickedness (I Cor. 5:13), wrongly believing that grace is a license to sin those particular sins and many others. If that describes your Christian life and ministry of the doctrine of God’s grace, I’d invite you to consider showing sincerity in doctrine instead. Ours is a high and holy calling!

And there are other things with which doctrine shouldn’t be mixed. Paul described his ministry to the Corinthians as one that was conducted “in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom” (II Cor. 1:12). Corinth was a city in Greece, and the Greeks were known for the “wisdom” of their philosophers. So in writing to the Corinthians, Paul decried “the wisdom of men” over and over (I Cor. 1:17—3:19), insisting that he had not mixed doctrine with worldly wisdom (I Cor. 2:4) as evidently Corinth’s “ten thousand” false teachers had done among them (I Cor. 4:15). Perhaps the reason they seem to have bought into this was that they thought such a mixture was the only way to make the doctrine of grace more palatable and popular. That prompted Paul to tell them what he told Titus, that doctrine should be preached in sincerity instead.

Now you’d think that nearly 2,000 years later preachers would know better than to mix Bible doctrine with the wisdom of men. But when the theory of evolution arose, many pastors were intimidated by science—science that was actually nothing more than “science falsely so called” (I Tim. 6:20). So some of them mixed that example of unbiblical worldly wisdom with the doctrine of creation and came up with something called “theistic evolution.” That’s the theory that claims that evolution is real, but that it was set in motion and superintended by God! And there are many other examples that could be cited of mixing doctrine with the wisdom of men.

But instead of taking your valuable time to cite more examples of the folly of worldly wisdom, I’d rather point out one more thing with which sound Bible doctrine should not be mixed, something Paul pointed out when he told the Philippians about some who “preach Christ even of envy and strife; and…contention, not sincerely” (Phil. 1:15, 16). There are believers who mix sound doctrine with things like envy and strife and contention. In other words, they preach doctrine just to pick a fight with others! I hear from men like this all the time, and I believe it is just as dishonoring to the Lord as mixing doctrine with carnal wickedness or fleshly wisdom.

Before you click out of this devotional to begin your busy day, why not pray and ask God to help you show sincerity in your Christian life and doctrine? Doctrine that is unmixed with carnality, human wisdom, or contentious envy and strife is sure to give your words the clarity you long for as you share grace truth with others.

Too Stressed to Be Blessed?

Posted on November 12, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

It stopped me dead in my tracks.

At the height of the pandemic my wife was watching the news, and as I passed through the room, I heard some expert being interviewed about the coronavirus. She said, “If you’re not stressed by all of this, there’s something wrong with you!” Her words stopped me cold, for I remember thinking, “No, if you’re not stressed by all this, there’s something right with you!”

You see, the apostle Paul says we should “rejoice in the Lord alway” and “be careful” (or full of care) “for nothing,” but rather pray about “every thing” (Phil. 4:4-6). If you can do that, he promises that “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (v. 7).

The reason we can always rejoice in Christ is that “God… hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places—in Christ” (Eph. 1:3), and those immutable blessings cannot be altered by circumstances. They stand impervious in the face of any and all of the unsettling things that can happen in our lives. That’s what enabled Paul to offer us “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.”

The trick to experiencing that peace, however, is found in remembering how blessed we are. That’s why Paul reminds us of our blessings by opening all his letters with the words “grace” and “peace.” If you can keep all that God has done for you by His grace in mind, you can have the peace that He designed His grace to give you. And that’s why Paul’s words to the Philippians always make me think of the interdispensational principle set forth in Isaiah 26:3, where the prophet prayed,

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.”

If you’d like to enjoy the “perfect” peace that the prophet mentions here, you have to learn to keep your mind “stayed” on the God of whom Isaiah went on to say,

“Lord, Thou wilt ordain peace for us: for Thou also hast wrought all our works in us” (v. 12).

God has ordained “all our works” in us too. But the only way we can experience the perfect peace that God’s Word can empower us to have is to be “stayed” on Him—as stayed as the mighty oceans are “stayed” from overwhelming our shores by the power of God’s Word (Job 38:8-11). If your mind is as stayed on the Word of God as the seven seas are, God can keep turmoil and unrest from encroaching on your peace as effectively as He keeps the oceans from encroaching on the continents.

You see, His grace has given us “peace with God” (Rom. 5:1), so that’s our standing with Him. And “when He giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?” (Job 34:29). If you can learn to “stand” in the unassailable tranquility that “grace” like that gives us (Rom. 5:2), you can experience “the peace of God” that Paul says is available to us all in Philippians 4:5-7.

Of course, only believers can enjoy peace like this. The peace of unbelievers is always dependent on their circumstances. If their circumstances are calm, they have peace. If their circumstances are in turmoil, either personally or in the world about them, they know nothing but unrest. No wonder the Lord told His disciples,

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, and neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

That’s why Paul told the Colossians to “let the peace of God rule in your hearts” (Col. 3:15). God’s peace is never daunted by His circumstances, even though the current circumstances of the world He created are sure to vex His holiness in ways that we can’t even begin to fathom. If you let that kind of peace rule your heart as it does His, then pandemics will roll off of you like water off a duck’s back, along with any other challenge to faith that the world, the flesh, or the devil can conjure up.

So “acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace” and “thereby good shall come unto thee” (Job 22:21). In times like we just endured with the Covid-19 virus, even many believers felt too stressed to be blessed. But in reality, we are “too blessed to be stressed,” as a popular Christian saying has expressed so well. “The Lord of Peace Himself” is willing to “give you peace always by all means” (2 Thes. 3:16), but you have to be willing to always “rejoice” in your blessings to maintain that peace.

So in times of turmoil, remember to keep God’s reassuring words in mind: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psa. 46:10). That’s the very definition of being “careful” or full of care “for nothing.” It is the exact nature of being spiritually minded, and “to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6).

In short: if you’re not stressed in times of turmoil, there’s something right with you, not wrong!

Part 2: You’ve Got to Stand for Something! – Part 2

Posted on November 5, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Back in 1990, country singer Aaron Tippin sang his hit song “You’ve Got To Stand For Something” to the troops at Bob Hope’s USO show in the Persian Gulf. The song really resonated with those brave men who took a stand in the desert to defend the line our president had drawn in the sand during Operation Desert Shield.

That song reminds me of the stand that Berean Bible Society founder Pastor C. R. Stam took for Paul’s gospel when he began publishing the Searchlight back in 1940. It also reminds me of the stand that a group of grace pastors took against the doctrinal declension that had infected the grace movement back in 1968, prompting them to form the Berean Bible Fellowship. We are honoring all of these men in this, the Searchlight’s 80th year, with a study of the men in Scripture who took a stand for God and His truth, hoping to inspire you to take a stand of your own.

The prophet Job took a stand for God by choosing to fear Him and eschew evil (Job 1:8). What a reminder that any stand that you hope to take for God and the truth of the grace message must begin with a decision to live a godly life.

But as you know, Job paid a steep price for his stand when God let Satan afflict him with the loss of his wealth, his health, and his family. Those were losses God could have prevented—losses that He did prevent for many years because Job was godly. But then God decided to change the program and stop rewarding Job for obeying Him.

A Dispensational Change

If all that sounds familiar, it’s because those were the kind of losses that God used to prevent when the Jews were His people if they lived godly lives. But then He changed the program from law to grace, and He’s not preventing losses like that any more. That means if you’ve taken the same stand for godliness that Job took, you’ll just have to learn to suffer losses like he incurred with “the patience of Job” (James 5:11). That’s the price that you have to pay to stand for God today in the dispensation of grace.

But those losses weren’t the only things Job had to suffer. He also had to suffer the “comfort” of his friends, each of whom accused him of being a great sinner whom God was punishing for his sins. Of course, they didn’t come out and say that at first! The first friend pondered it aloud (Job 4:7,8) and the second one suggested it (Job 8:20). But eventually Job’s third friend came right out and told him that God was punishing him less than he deserved (11:6)!

If you think about it, they were making a dispensational error. They were judging Job on the basis of what God used to do because they were unaware that He had changed the program and was no longer rewarding godliness with prosperity. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s what is going on today! When you suffer the loss of your health or your wealth or your loved ones, prosperity preachers make the same dispensational error when they conclude that it is because you sinned.

Of course, they seldom come right out and say that. But they imply it when they give the illusion that they are prosperous because they are godly. But do you know what God calls that kind of thinking today?

“Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness” (1 Tim. 6:5).

God says that in the age of grace it is corrupt and perverse for men to say they’ve gained wealth and prosperity due to their godliness. Yet that’s what prosperity preachers believe and teach. And I don’t have to tell you how that makes poor and unhealthy believers reproach themselves when they are not prosperous. My fellow grace believer, we have the truth that sets men free from all the guilt that religion puts on them, and it’s worth standing for at any price!

Isaiah’s Stand

The prophet Isaiah took a stand when God asked who He could send to His people with His truth, and he declared, “Here am I; send me” (Isa. 6:8). But he learned of the price he would have to pay for taking that stand when God told him,

“Go, and tell this people, Hear ye… but understand not; and… perceive not” (v. 9).

God said, as it were, “Go tell Israel what I want you to say, but you should know they’re not going to understand it” (v. 9).

How would you like to get a commission like that? How enthusiastic would you be if you knew in advance that people weren’t going to understand the message God gave you to convey to them? If I were Isaiah, I’d want to know how long I’d have to serve a sentence like that—and he did too! When he asked, “Lord, how long?” (v. 11), God replied,

“Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant…and the land be utterly desolate.”

Oh that’s nice! It would be one thing if God said that they’d eventually get it. That might make your stand a little easier to take. But to hear God say that they’d never perceive it had to be pretty discouraging.

Do you ever feel that way? Like the grace message you’ve been sent to preach is a message that no one will understand? That you just have to serve out a life sentence of telling people a message they’ll never perceive? If so, listen to what God told His prophet about His land:

“Yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return” (v. 13).

God was telling him that while the majority of people wouldn’t receive his message, there was a remnant that would. And while the majority of people won’t believe you, there will always be some who will. You just have to find them. But isn’t it worth any price you have to pay to find them?

The Price Goes Up

Isaiah was probably a little discouraged to hear that most of his countrymen wouldn’t listen to him, but discouragement wasn’t the only price he had to pay to stand for the truth. He lived in a day when God asked prophets to act out His prophecies. So when the Assyrians threatened to conquer Israel and the Jews looked to Egypt for help instead of God, God told him to go around “walking naked and barefoot” (Isa. 20:2-4) to illustrate how Assyria would conquer Egypt too, and lead the Egyptians away naked and barefoot as well as the Jews.

How would you like to be the man who had to act out that message, and walk around naked for three years just to prompt people to ask you why, just so you could explain that that’s what would happen to them if they kept looking to Egypt for help?

You say, “Big deal, the only price he had to pay for taking a stand was a little embarrassment!” Well, you know, that’s the only price you’re likely to have to pay as well! A little embarrassment when people laugh at your godliness, when unbelievers scoff at the gospel, and when believers ridicule the grace message you proclaim. But isn’t embarrassment also a small price to pay for standing for God?

Toward the end of his life, Isaiah also had to pay the price of despair. Look what he said 46 years after he cried, “Send me!”

“Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain…” (Isa. 49:4).

After 46 years of proclaiming a message that most of his people didn’t perceive, Isaiah was depressed. He felt like he’d spent his life for nothing.

Buck Up!

Do you ever feel like that’s how you’re spending your life? If you do, you might want to consider encouraging yourself the same way Isaiah did, saying,

“…yet surely my judgment is with the Lord… and now, saith the Lord that formed me… to bring Jacob again to Him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord…” (Isa. 49:4,5).

If you’re beating yourself up, thinking you’re a failure because people haven’t gathered around you to hear more of the truth that you’ve given your life to share with them, just do what Isaiah did and remember to leave your judgment with the Lord. Let Him decide if you’re a failure, and take Him at His word when He says that you may be a failure in the eyes of the world but you are glorious in the eyes of God.

Do you think the Lord Jesus ever felt like a failure? We know that He did, for Isaiah 49 is about Him. When God went on to tell His prophet,

“I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth” (49:6),

we know He wasn’t talking about Isaiah! He was speaking prophetically of how the Lord would ultimately gather Israel, and be God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. But when He didn’t gather Israel at His first coming, do you think maybe He felt like He had labored in vain, and spent His strength for nothing? If you think He didn’t, I’d argue that Isaiah 49 suggests otherwise, for this chapter is about Him as much as it is about Isaiah.

The Lord had feelings just like you and I, but when He was unable to gather Israel, wasn’t He still glorious in His Father’s eyes? If so, then so was Isaiah — and so are you, when people don’t gather to hear your message!

Be Pauline

You may be thinking that all of that was true for Jews like the Lord and Isaiah but not for us, for didn’t our apostle Paul imply that his labor would be in vain if the Galatians kept flirting with the law (Gal. 4:11), and if the Philippians kept murmuring and disputing (Phil. 2:14-16), and if the Thessalonians maintained their rejection of the pre-trib Rapture (1 Thes. 3:5)?

But why would Paul tell the carnal Corinthians that their labor wasn’t in vain (1 Cor. 15:58). The answer is that their labor wasn’t in vain “in the Lord”—and Paul’s wasn’t either, despite how people responded to his message. And your labor isn’t either—in the Lord! It may be in vain by worldly standards but,

“…thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life…” (2 Cor. 2:14-16).

Do you know what that means? It means when you decide to take a stand for God and His truth you can’t lose. You come up smelling like a rose no matter how people respond! You are glorious in the eyes of God! Isn’t that worth taking a stand for Him no matter what the price?

The last man that we’ll consider who took a stand for God was Jeremiah, whom God told,

“I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jer. 1:5).

Right off the bat you have something in common with this man of God, for you preach Paul’s gospel, and the Lord sent him “to all nations” (Rom. 16:26). But Jeremiah was God’s first ambassador to the nations.

And I don’t know about you, but whenever I think about men in the Bible getting a commission from God, I always picture them as eager to carry it out as Isaiah was when he cried, “Send me!” Then I think back to how shy I was when I was first saved, and how shy you may be as well.

Send Someone Else!

But within a year after I got saved in a grace church, I knew that we had the answer to all the religious confusion I was hearing on Christian radio, and I knew somebody had to get the truth out to others. And I knew for certain that I didn’t want it to be me. I didn’t think I’d ever know the grace message well enough to proclaim it.

If that describes you too, it might encourage you to know that Jeremiah felt the same way! Rather than echo Isaiah’s eager cry of “Send me!” he protested,

“Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child” (Jer. 1:6).

Jeremiah said, in effect: “Who me? How would I know what to say to the nations? I’m a child in my understanding of Your truth.”

If his reluctance sounds familiar, it’s because when God called Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt, he objected that they wouldn’t follow him (Ex. 4:1). God replied, “They will after I turn your rod into a serpent” (vv. 2,3). Now you’d think Moses would be satisfied with that, but he came up with another lame excuse, citing his “slow tongue” and how he hadn’t been born with the gift of gab (4:10). God countered by making his brother Aaron his spokesman.

Do you know what that means? It means no matter what your objection is to taking a stand for the Lord, He has an answer for it. You’re not going to get the drop on God!

Well, let’s see how He answered Jeremiah’s objection that he couldn’t stand for God and His truth:

“Say not, I am a child… whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak” (Jer. 1:7).

Wait! How come God didn’t answer Jeremiah in the same way He answered Moses, by assuring him that He would confirm his words with miraculous signs? Well, don’t forget that God sent Moses to the Jews, and what do we know about the Jews? They “require a sign” (1 Cor. 1:22). But God sent Jeremiah to the nations of the Gentiles—just like He sent Paul and us!

And what do Gentiles seek after? “Wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:22)! That’s why when Jeremiah said he couldn’t speak for God, He didn’t give him the power to work miracles. Instead He told him,

“I have put My words in thy mouth” (Jer. 1:9).

Instead of giving Jeremiah miracles to perform, He gave him words of wisdom to proclaim!

The Weapons of Our Warfare

Is there anything you can learn from that as you carry out your commission to all nations? Don’t be looking to God for backup to confirm your words with signs following as He did for Moses, and as He later did for the twelve apostles (Mark 16:20). He’s given you His Word because the Gentiles to whom you are sent still seek after wisdom. And He has given us a very special wisdom, one that Paul described in 1 Corinthians 2:7 when he said,

“We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom….”

So don’t be trying to conduct spiritual warfare with Israel’s weapons now that God has recalled those weapons. Instead we need to do what God told Jeremiah to do:

“…gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces…” (Jer. 1:17).

In modern terms this would equate to, “Suck it up and be a man and speak My Word, and don’t worry about the frowns you might see!”

But God also gave Jeremiah a promise:

“I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar… and they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee…” (Jer. 1:18,19).

Now here you probably want to know how God did that, so He can make you a defensed city and an iron pillar too. Well, notice that God says He did what He did that very day—and all God did that day was commission Jeremiah and give him His Word.

That’s how God steeled His prophet to speak His Word, by giving him His truth. And that’s how He can steel you to do it as well. With the wisdom of God’s rightly divided Word you can be as invincible as Jeremiah was, because now you have God’s message for the nations! I discuss Pauline truth for a living, and I can tell you that after 41 years in the ministry and 19 years of defending the grace message here at BBS that nobody can stand against what we believe!

The Price Is Right

If you’re thinking that Jeremiah might be the one man in this lesson who didn’t have to pay a price for the stand he took, think again! God told him,

“Buy thee My field that is in Anathoth…” (Jer. 32:7).

Of course, to understand how this constituted paying a price for standing for God, you have to remember that God had been telling Jeremiah to warn the people of Israel that the king of Babylon was about to conquer them and carry them away from their homeland. If you’re still not sure how buying a field would be paying a price for standing for God, let me ask you a question. Would you have bought land in Poland in 1938 if you knew the Nazis were about to take over the city in 1939, and the land you bought would then belong to the Fuhrer? Well, Jeremiah knew the land that God was asking him to buy would soon belong to Nebuchadnezzar.

But bless his heart, he bought the land! Although he did point out to God,

“…the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans… and Thou hast said unto me… Buy thee the field…” (Jer. 32:24,25).

That was his way of saying, “Okay, I did what You asked me to do. Would you mind telling me why You asked me to do it?” And, speaking of the people of Israel, God answered:

“…I will bring them again unto this place… for I will cause their captivity to return…” (Jer. 32:37-44).

God said, in effect, “Yeah, I know that telling you to buy land in Israel sounds like telling you to buy a ticket on the Titanic. But someday I’ll bring My people back home, so buying land might seem like a high price to pay to stand for Me, but it’s actually an investment, an investment that you and your children can enjoy for countless years to come.”

A Buyer’s Market

And you know what? So is the stand that you take for God and the truth of His grace. The money you give toward the Lord’s work isn’t wasted, it’s invested. The time you give to the Lord’s work isn’t wasted, it’s invested. The life you give to the Lord isn’t wasted, it’s an investment! Everything you give the Lord is an investment in eternity.

And every financial adviser will tell you that when it comes to investments, you have to be in it for the long haul. You can’t get discouraged and sell when the market crashes, for it always bounces back, and if you sell low, you’ll take an unbelievable financial hit.

My father did that in 2008 when the market crashed and he sold all his investments. A few years later all the investments he sold had regained their value and more. But he lost out, and the inheritance that he left his children when he died in 2011 was consequently a fraction of what it could have been.

Now I’m not bitter about that. I share it only in case you’re getting bitter. If you’re getting discouraged about your life, and how you’ve invested it in serving the Lord, you have to remember that you’re not just in it for the long haul, you’re in it for the eternal haul! Investing your life in taking a stand for Paul’s gospel has its ups and downs just like the stock market, but the dividends it will pay in eternity are out of this world. Literally!

Everyone has to stand for something in life. Why not stand for something that will keep you from falling for the errors of religion, and keep others from falling for them as well. It’s a stand that God is counting on you to take, and it’s a stand you’ll be eternally glad you took.

Yakety Yak—Don’t Talk Back! – Titus 2:9

Posted on October 29, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

A wealthy man had a servant who just wasn’t working out. The man was slower than a dusty turtle. So one day the man told him, “Unless your work picks up, I’m going to have to get another servant.” The servant replied, “That’d be awesome! I could use a little help around here.”

In Bible days the Roman Empire was filled with servants and masters, many of whom were saved and attended the churches the apostle Paul had established. This led him to write to Titus:

“Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again” (Titus 2:9).

This advice was probably much needed in Pauline churches like the ones in Crete where Titus was stationed, for servants who knew Pauline doctrine were sure to know that “in Christ… there is neither bond nor free” (Gal. 3:26-28). If you were a servant who got saved in those days, wouldn’t you think that this meant you didn’t have to obey your master?

The problem with that kind of thinking is that Paul went on to say that in Christ “there is neither male nor female” (v. 28). Well, if the fact that there is neither bond nor free in Christ means servants don’t have to obey their masters, then the fact that there is also neither male nor female in Christ would mean wives don’t have to obey their husbands. And if wives stop obeying their husbands, the very fabric of society begins to unravel—as we are seeing in our own day!

And God is not in the business of overturning society. God is in the business of making society better by reinforcing respect for authority in all areas of life. That’s why Paul exhorts wives to be subject to their husbands (Eph. 5:24), and tells all of us to obey the law (Rom. 13:1-7).

Now in saying these things Paul was not implying that servants and wives were somehow inferior to masters and husbands. When the Lord Jesus was twelve years old (Luke 2:42) He was “subject” unto His parents (v. 51), but He was not inferior to Joseph and Mary. If anything, He was superior to them. He was God in the flesh! So obeying them didn’t make Him inferior. It just showed He knew that God told children: “Honour thy father and thy mother” (Ex. 20:12). And it didn’t make servants inferior to their masters to obey Paul’s command to “be obedient to them that are your masters” (Eph. 6:5), and “please them well in all things” (Tit. 2:9).

Now to please someone well means to just delight them. God predicted the Lord would be a man “in whom My soul delighteth” (Isa. 42:1). But in quoting that verse, Matthew translated the word “delighteth” as “well pleased” (Mt. 12:18). So in saying servants should please their masters well, Paul was saying they should go above and beyond the call of duty by just obeying them. He was saying a servant should make himself someone who is an absolute delight to his master.

And don’t forget, this is not all dry, dusty advice for people of a bygone era. What Paul says to servants is advice that we can apply to employees in our own day. If you are gainfully employed, you should be obedient to your boss, of course. But if you want to be Pauline and go above and beyond the call of duty, you will want to make yourself a sheer delight to your employer. Christians who serve their boss like that bring joy to the drudgery of everyday life at work. Just think of what would happen if all of God’s people were to adopt this godly attitude. Imagine the testimony that this would be to how Christianity can brighten the world in every area of life.

When Paul adds that servants should serve their masters by “not answering again,” that’s a Bible phrase that only appears here. But as the Coasters sang many years ago, when parents tell children what to do and hear any “yakety yak” in response, they usually say: “Don’t talk back!” That’s what Paul was telling servants to do, to obey their masters with no backtalk. Nothing is less delightful than a servant who gives his master lip! So why not determine here and now that you will please your boss well in all things instead. You’ll be eternally glad you did.

The Gravity of the Situation – Titus 2:7

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Nearly two millennia ago, the Apostle Paul advised young Pastor Titus,

“In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing…gravity” (Titus 2:7).

That word “gravity” means seriousness. It refers to something that is gravely serious. That’s why Paul’s words here have led some pastors to believe that humor has no place in the pulpit. But it is my personal conviction that humor is an effective teaching tool that can be used to illustrate a point of doctrine and make it more memorable. While preaching I’ll sometimes even say, “Now you’ll remember the joke—don’t forget the point!”

It’s also my conviction that God Himself has a sense of humor, and uses it frequently in His Word. I laugh every time I read what Moses said when he gave the law to the people of Israel:

“When ye heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, (for the mountain did burn with fire,)…ye said…why should we die? for this great fire will consume us: if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any more, then we shall die…Go thou near, and hear all that the LORD our God shall say…” (Deuteronomy 5:23-27).

God’s people told Moses, as it were, “We find God too scary, so you go hear Him and come back and tell us what He said!” For some reason that always reminds me of when Indiana Jones was looking down into a pit of snakes, and his guide said, “Asps. Very deadly. You go first!”

Then there’s the time Samuel told Saul to destroy the Amalekites and all their livestock (I Sam. 15:1-3). Later when the prophet asked the king if he had done so, he claimed he had (v.13). To which Samuel replied, “What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” (v.14). In other words, “If you killed all the livestock, how come I still hear them?”

But my favorite funny lines are found in the book of Job. After Job finished speaking, Bildad the Shuhite—the shortest man in the Bible (You know. Shoe-height!)—said, “how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?” (Job 8:2).

But Job could give as good as he got! After his friends pontificated awhile, he razzed them by saying, “No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you” (12:1,2). Later he told them, “O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom” (13:5). In other words, “the smartest thing for you to do would be to sit down and shut up!” When they didn’t, he told them, “Suffer me that I may speak; and after that I have spoken, mock on” (Job 21:3).

I share these smiles with you for a couple of reasons. First, because when I started out in the ministry, I was told that the Word of God is far too serious a book to use humor when teaching it. And to this day I’m asked why I like to begin my messages with a little bit of wit. Well, beside the fact that all who teach public speaking agree that that’s the best way to get an audience’s attention and get them settled down and listening, it’s because I believe God has a sense of humor. We have one, and we are made in His likeness, aren’t we?

But I also share those smiles with you to encourage you to read your Bible through from cover to cover every year using one of those “Read Your Bible Through In A year” plans. You never know what will tickle your funny bone, and you and the Lord can have a good laugh over it, as I do every year when I come upon those verses and others in my daily Bible reading.

All of this means that when Paul told Titus to show gravity in doctrine, he was reminding him that the edification of the saints is serious stuff, and that a pastor should use every tool in his tool belt to get sound doctrine across to God’s people in a memorable way—including humor. Remember, “the joy of the LORD is your strength,” not your weakness (Neh. 8:10).

Laboring Together on Paul’s Foundation – 1 Corinthians 3:9-11

Posted on October 15, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

Paul begins by comparing himself and Apollos (3:1-8) to “laborers” like farmers and builders (v. 9). “Husbandry” is the Bible word for farming (cf. James 5:7), and Paul has already compared the ministry farming earlier in this chapter. He told the Corinthians that he planted the seed of the gospel in them and Apollos watered it (3:6).

He had to assure them he and Apollos were “labourers together” because some of them liked one over the other, so they thought Paul and Apollos were working against one another, vying for their love and money. He gave them more assurance they were working together when he explained how he invited Apollos to go to Corinth (I Cor. 16:12), and he showed he wasn’t competing with Paul when he refused!

After identifying who the farmers were, Paul identified the farm when he told them, “ye are God’s husbandry” (3:9). But the ministry is more than seeing people get saved and become babes in Christ. God wants them to grow up in Christ, and to expand on that thought Paul switches from the metaphor of farmers and farming to builders and building, telling them that they are God’s building.

God uses both analogies for “the church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38). He called Israel a farm (Ps. 80:8,9) and a building (Amos 9:11). They were the temple God lived in (II Cor. 6:1). Of course, they sometimes got so sinful God had to relocate to heaven! But in the New Testament, the Lord said He planned to build a church that would never get so sinful God would be force to leave it (Mt. 16:16-18). We call it the kingdom church (v. 19). But once Israel rejected her kingdom, God stopped building that church and began building the church which is the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22,23).

The first thing you need to build a building is an architect, and the Greek word for “masterbuilder” (v. 10) is archi-tekton. “Arch” means chief, as in archangel (Jude 1:9). “Tekton” is translated carpenter (Mt. 13:55). So put them together and you get chief carpenter, or masterbuilder. Paul is the architect of the church, the Body (Eph. 3:2-6). But he didn’t just draw up the plans in his epistles and hand Apollos the blueprint. He was a “hands-on” architect, helping in the ministry, and so “masterbuilder” describes him perfectly!

We know Moses was the architect of the kingdom church because the Lord kept quoting him (Mt. 8:4; Mark 10:3; 12:26). The Pharisees were supposed to be the masterbuilders (Mt. 23:1-3), but the Lord knew they’d kill Him instead of building the church on Him as the church’s foundation like they should have. So He told a parable in which he combined farming and building to say He’d take the church from them (Mt. 21:33-43) and give it to His “little flock” of followers (Luke 12:32), making them the new builders.

Of course, the Lord knew the 12 would have to be wise masterbuilders, so He gave them a supernatural gift of wisdom (Acts 2:4; 6:3). We see that pictured when God gave Solomon a supernatural gift of wisdom to build the temple and the kingdom (II Chro. 2:12). That’s why the 12 asked the Lord to “restore” the kingdom like they had under Solomon (Acts 1:6). When Israel rejected the kingdom, God began to build the Body of Christ, making Paul the wise masterbuilder of it by giving him a supernatural gift of wisdom as an apostle (cf. Rom.12:6; 15:15,16; Eph. 3:7,8).

This helps us understand how Paul could say he laid the foundation of Christ (3:11) even though he wasn’t saved when the Lord came to be the foundation of Israel’s church. He meant He laid Christ as the foundation of a new church!

When building on this foundation, Paul has the “house” of your own personal spiritual life in mind (cf. Luke 6:46-48), and the house of the local church as well, as we’ll see next week!

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Laboring Together on Paul’s Foundation – 1 Corinthians 3:9-11

Spiritual Babies – 1 Corinthians 3:1-8

Posted on October 8, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

The Corinthians were still “babes in Christ” (3:1) five years after Paul started the church. So why had they failed to grow? Well, a baby won’t grow if you don’t feed it nourishing food, and spiritual babies won’t grow if they’re not fed the spiritual nourishment of God’s Word. But Paul fed them the “milk” of the Word (3:2) for a year and a half (Acts 18:1,11), because that’s what babes in Christ need to grow (I Pet. 2:2), then followed up with them by writing them epistles (I Cor. 5:9; II Cor. 1:1).

So their problem wasn’t a lack of nourishment. Their problem was similar to the one in Hebrews 5:11-14. They hadn’t used what they learned from the Bible to help them discern good and evil, so the writer calls them babes too. And we know the Corinthians had the same problem because Paul says they were “carnal” (3:1). We know that word means sinful for Paul says they were carnal because there was “envying” and “stife” among them (3:3), and those are sins.

And they are very babyish sins. Did you ever watch babies play? When one picks up a toy, suddenly that’s the one the other one wants! We call that envy. And what does he do about it? He strives with the other about it. The Corinthians were showing their spiritual immaturity when they were envying—and so do we when we envy!

What were they envying? Words (cf. I Tim. 6:4), the words of Paul and Apollos (3:4). Christians are always striving about the words of preachers! If you’re wondering where the “envying” comes in, compare what happened when some men began prophesying in Israel and Joshua objected. Moses asked why he envied for his sake (Num. 11:27).

Now Moses didn’t envy those other prophets, and Paul didn’t envy Apollos. He called him a fellow minister (3:5). But when Moses said he didn’t envy those other men, that didn’t mean he felt they had the same authority he had. He knew he was God’s man of the hour (Deut. 4:1,2), the one God chose to write the first 5 books of the Bible and give Israel the rules for the dispensation of the law.

And Paul knew he was God’s man of the hour for the dispensation of grace. God gave him what to give us (I Cor. 11:23; 15:3), just as He gave Moses what to give Israel (Deut. 4:5). That means if you wanted to follow God in time past you had to follow Moses as he followed Him, and if you want to follow God today you have to follow Him as Paul followed Him (I Cor. 11:1).

So in calling himself and Apollos both ministers, he didn’t mean they were equal ministers. Paul was “the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles” (Rom. 15:16).

Here I need to point out that God didn’t give those other prophets anything He didn’t give Moses. The difference was that God spoke to them in visions, but He spoke to Moses “face to face” (Num. 12:6-8). And the Lord spoke to Paul face to face, by revelation, by revealing Himself to Paul directly (Gal. 1:11,12), but He spoke to the New Testament prophets in the Body of Christ “by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:2-5).

Paul “planted” the seeds of the gospel in Corinth (3:6) and Apollos watered those seeds by reinforcing what Paul taught. But God has to give “the increase” because only God can give life, just as the only thing you bury in the ground that can give life are seeds.

But only the seeds of God’s Word rightly divided can give life. God told Abraham if he got circumcised he could have eternal life. Moses told the Jews if they obeyed the law they could have life (Lev. 18:5). The Lord told the Jews if they got baptized they could have life (Mark 16:16). Only Paul says you can have life by faith alone without works. If you sow any of those other Bible seeds in the hearts of men today in the dispensation of grace, they won’t yield eternal life!

Finally, don’t forget that the Corinthians spoke in tongues (I Cor. 12-14), and yet Paul called them “carnal” and not “spiritual.” Don’t ever let anyone who thinks he can speak in tongues tell you that it is a sign of spirituality, for God says otherwise! And don’t feel unspiritual just because you can’t imitate the gift of tongues as some do. The gift of tongues is a gift God is no longer giving to His people!

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Spiritual Babies – 1 Corinthians 3:1-8

Did Paul See the Lord?

Posted on October 8, 2020 by Pastor Ricky Kurth

“When Jesus was teaching Paul, was he seeing Him, or how did he learn exactly?”

Paul answers this question when he wrote, “I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord” (2 Cor. 12:1). We know that “revelations” are the revealing of things that were kept secret, for Paul says he received “the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret” (Rom. 16:25). Similarly, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:1) is a book that reveals “the wrath of the Lamb” (6:16) that was kept secret in the “meek” way the Lord lived on earth (Matt. 11:29; 21:5).

The writer of Revelation wrote, “I John…am your…companion in tribulation…and in the kingdom” (1:9). Neither the tribulation nor the kingdom that John went on to describe had yet begun, but he was the “companion” of his readers in both those things, for he was with them “in the Spirit” (v. 10) in a virtual reality sort of way. That is, the Lord gave him a realistic vision of the future and told him to write down what he saw (1:11,19).

In the same way, Paul says the Lord revealed the mystery to him by revelation (Gal. 1:12) and said that He would continue to reveal it in more “visions” (2 Cor. 12:1). He then went on to describe one of those visions (vv. 2-4), one that seemed so real he couldn’t tell if he was “in the body, or out of the body” when it happened (v. 3).

But we know that this is how the Lord revealed the mystery to Paul, for he says that in that vision he “heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (v. 4). Those were words that had to do with the mystery, words of grace that weren’t lawful to speak under the law, such as the reversal of the diet laws of Leviticus 11 in 1 Timothy 4:4,5.