2 Corinthians 4:1-6 - Homilies By E. Hurndall

I. WITH FAITH . Many preach with despair and prepare the way for failure. We should reflect that the preaching of the gospel is the divinely appointed way for saving men. We are likely to have success if we lay hold of God when we seek to lay hold of men. Our own salvation furnishes abundant evidence of the Divine power to save. "God shined in our hearts" ( 2 Corinthians 4:6 ); "We obtained mercy" ( 2 Corinthians 4:1 ). What God has done for us he can do for others. And we have the Divine promise that the Word shall not return unto God void. "Light shall shine out of darkness" ( 2 Corinthians 4:6 ). We must seek a faith which will prevent us from fainting even when the outlook is darkest ( 2 Corinthians 4:1 ). If we have not faith, how can we expect our hearers to have it?

II. WITH COURAGE . We must not faint because of foes. Many an assault upon strongholds has failed because of half-heartedness and cowardice. Preachers should be very bold and very brave. We have nothing to be ashamed of in our message. Shall the devil's work be done more bravely than Christ's? Shall the highest service on earth be marked by vacillation and timidity? "But that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death" ( Philippians 1:20 ). The Church would be more aggressive if she were more courageous. Preachers should have stout hearts as well as tender ones.

III. WITH PERSEVERANCE . We must not faint because of difficulties. Discouragements are many, but persistency will bury them all. The preacher's motto must be, "On! on! on!" He must spend and be spent in the service. After the manner ascribed to British soldiers, Christ's soldiers must never know when they are worsted. "Line upon line, precept upon precept." Many things come to the preacher who can wait and work.

IV. WITH GREAT HONESTY AND SINCERITY , "Not walking in craftiness" ( 2 Corinthians 4:2 ). The preacher who wants his hearers to walk in holy ways must not walk in devious ways himself. He must not be a trickster. Some seem willing to do anything to please; but the object of the ministry is not to please. Meat cut with a dirty knife is likely to become unsavoury, and the gospel administered with knavish arts will lose its beauty and power.

V. WITH PURE DOCTRINE . "Not handling the Word of God deceitfully" ( 2 Corinthians 4:2 ). "Manifestation of the truth" ( 2 Corinthians 4:2 ). Christ gives us pure doctrine to preach, find woe unto us if we adulterate it! We must not season it to the tastes of the carnal, or keep back portions likely to offend influential sinners.

1 . We preach in the sight of God. How, then, dare we tamper with his troth!

2 . We are to commend ourselves to every man's conscience . Nothing but preaching the truth will do this. We may commend ourselves to men's fancies by preaching our own, and to their predilections by trimming doctrines according to their demands; but only by preaching pure doctrine shall we reach the consciences of men. Theological juggling may please men not a little; gospel doctrine will convict them. To our own Master we stand or fall. 'Tis a poor thing to please men if we displease him. Let Luther's caustic saying, "Counterfeits of money are burned, but falsifiers of God's Word are canonized," be never so true, the preacher must adhere to the doctrine delivered to him, though he lose all earthly things by doing so. In a heterodox world nothing is so likely to be so popular as heterodoxy.

VI. WITH PURITY OF LIFE . "We have renounced the hidden things of shame" ( 2 Corinthians 4:2 ). If we preach we should practise, Christianity is often weak because Christians are inconsistent. Men want to see the gospel as well as hear it. A preacher must live as well as talk. A man cannot preach without himself . There is always more in the pulpit than the sermon—there is the man . We inevitably wonder what the gospel has done for the gospel preacher when he so earnestly recommends it to us. And life has a strange power of revealing itself in preaching . It peeps out . If the preacher has a Judas-life it will betray him sooner or later. But when the man speaks as well as his sermon, a mighty influence is exerted. The light must shine in our own hearts and lives ( 2 Corinthians 4:6 ).

VII. WITH DISCERNMENT AS TO CAUSES OF NON - SUCCESS . The apostle teaches that those who reject the gospel when faithfully proclaimed are those whose minds are blinded by the god of this world ( 2 Corinthians 4:4 ). They have yielded themselves so utterly to evil influences that the gracious message of God through Christ fails to interest or arouse them. They are "perishing." Their rejection of the gospel says nought against the gospel or against the manner of its promulgation. The fault is not in it or in the preacher, but in themselves. It is well for a preacher to realize the possibility of such cases, so that undue discouragement may be avoided when they are met with.

VIII. WITH HUMILITY AND SELF - SUBORDINATION .

1 . Preachers are not to preach themselves ( 2 Corinthians 4:5 ). A man may very easily preach himself even when he takes his text out of the Bible. There is not a little temptation sometimes to ministers to preach themselves. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."

2 . Preachers are to be servants for Jesus' sake ( 2 Corinthians 4:5 ); servants of those to whom they preach. Not only servants of Christ, but servants of men— " your servants"—for Christ's sake. The preacher who would win souls must sacrifice self. For acoustics it is well for the pulpit to be above the people, but not otherwise. He who would catch fish must not be seen.

IX. WITH LOYALTY TO CHRIST . ( 2 Corinthians 4:5 .) Preachers must be true in all things to him from whom they have received their commission. They must believe in him, love him, follow him, preach him, live him, obey him, and in all things seek to glorify him.—H.

2 Corinthians 4:7 - "Earthen vessels."

I. GOD HAS CHOSEN AS MINISTERS OF HIS GOSPEL " EARTHEN VESSELS ,"

1 . Not angels or other celestial beings . Not heavenly vessels, but earthly.

2 . Men .

II. THESE EARTHEN VESSELS ARE HELD IN THE DIVINE HAND .

1 . They are thus preserved . "He had in his right hand seven stars" ( Revelation 1:16 ). Often they seem in peril. "Pressed on every side… perplexed… pursued… smitten down" ( 2 Corinthians 4:8 , 2 Corinthians 4:9 ); but the vessel is not allowed to be broken until it has done its work.

2 . They are thus useful .

III. A GREAT TREASURE IS COMMITTED TO THE EARTHEN VESSELS . The treasure is the truth as it is in Jesus—the great gospel message. Christ's ministers are vessels to hold this treasure and to dispense it to those to whom they minister.

1 . Ministers have not to originate what they convey. It is given to them by their Master. The vessel is filled by a Divine hand from a Divine source.

2 . Ministers have not to convey themselves to their people. The people do not want the vessel, but its contents. "We preach not ourselves" ( 2 Corinthians 4:5 ). An earthen vessel is poor food for folks to live upon, and poor medicine for a sin-sick soul to be cured with. The "vessel" must be "the servant" ( 2 Corinthians 4:5 ). Even an alabaster box may well be broken that the precious ointment may be poured forth.

3 . The contents are apt to taste of the vessel. This must be avoided as much as possible. The less of ourselves and the more of Christ that we convey to men the better. The contents must change the vessel, not the vessel the contents. The preacher must be Christ's as well as his message. "We also believe, and therefore speak" ( 2 Corinthians 4:13 ).

IV. THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE EARTHEN VESSELS AND THEIR CONTENTS . A treasure; and what a treasure! For it how long the world has been waiting! What marvels it has to work! What wonders it has wrought! And committed to "earthen vessels"! No royal vessels for this royal gift. What honour to the vessels chosen! A minister of Jesus Christ!—how poor all other titles are compared with this!

V. THE OBJECT OF THE DIVINE CHOICE .

1 . The uninterrupted working of the Divine power . An "earthen vessel" can do nothing but receive and pour forth. What egregious folly for a minister of Christ to seek to enter into partnership with his Lord for the production of a theology! The earthen vessel cannot do anything, and should not attempt to.

2 . The glory of the Divine Being . No glory can attach to the mere earthen vessel. God is "all in all." This should be the desire of every servant of God. Many, it is to be feared, are robbers of God in this matter. They snatch at the glory to which they have not the smallest claim.

VI. THE FUTURE OF THE EARTHEN VESSELS . They will be raised up ( 2 Corinthians 4:14 ).

1 . Made glorious . "This mortal must put on immortality." "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" ( 1 Corinthians 15:49 ). The "vile body" will be exchanged for a "glorious body." We shall be made like Christ. The earthen vessels will be transformed into the likeness of him who filled them. The change is taking place whilst the earthen vessels are in the earthly service. "Though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day" ( 2 Corinthians 4:16 ). But when we see him as he is we shall be like him.

2 . Fitted for higher service . Heavenly activities. We know not how closely associated the earthly service is with the heavenly, how much the one may depend upon the other, how much the one will influence and shape the other. Let us make the earthly service as true and perfect as we may.—H.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 - Heavy affliction made light.

Paul's troubles were exceedingly heavy. So the troubles of many believers have been and are. The sufferings of saints often seem severer than those of sinners. For them the furnace is made seven times hotter. But Paul with his heavy sorrows speaks of them as light, and speaks of them as they really seemed to him to be under the conditions to which he refers. No affliction could well be heavier than his, and yet it was light. So is the believer's—

I. WHEN HE CONSIDERS DURING HOW SMALL A PORTION OF HIS LIFE IT HAS TO BE BORNE . It is but "for a moment." Not so long as a second contrasted with a thousand years. Eternity makes time short. Our troubles are like Pharaoh's horsemen—they cannot pass the Red Sea of death. In this flash of our existence we may weep, but in the ever-continuing life of heaven we shall rejoice.

"There shall I bathe my weary soul

In seas of heavenly rest,

And not a wave of trouble roll

Across my peaceful breast."

Our cross is borne but for a moment, our crown forever.

II. WHEN HE CONTRASTS THE PRESENT BRIEF TROUBLE WITH THE ETERNAL WEIGHT OF GLORY . True thoughts of heaven prevent exaggerated views of earthly, sorrows. When the future is shut out we can easily sit down and lament, but when faith sees the "inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away" ( 1 Peter 1:4 ), our present griefs dwindle into insignificance. "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed" ( Romans 8:18 ). Why should we be disquieted so much by these things when those are so near? Shadows hang heavily over us until the sunshine of the coming glory breaks through the clouds, and then the shadows flee away. Why should we concentrate thought upon the short present when the long future is so fair? If we think much of the home, the journey homewards will seem short, and the troubles of the way of little account. Every hour of sorrow brings us an hour nearer the land that is sorrowless. And what shall we possess there? The apostle strives in vain to find language sufficiently strong to describe even what he on earth could perceive of heaven—"more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" ( 2 Corinthians 4:17 ).

III. WHEN THE MEANING OF PRESENT TROUBLE IS REALIZED . To the true child of God:

1 . It may mean the destruction of the outward man, but it assuredly means the renewal and development of the inward. It is not even present injury—it is present good. It is medicine, not poison.

2 . It prepares us for the coming glory. The fire consumes the dross, the knife cuts away the diseased part, the chisel strikes off that which would impair the beauty of the statue. The apprenticeship of sorrow fits us for the long service of glory. Through much tribulation we enter the kingdom and are prepared top its duties. The joys of heaven are dependent on the sorrows of earth; without the latter we should not be ready for the former. "Tribulation worketh patience , " etc. ( Romans 5:3 ).

3 . Whilst suffering cannot in any way merit salvation, affliction rightly endured shall not be without reward. If we fight the fight of faith, and endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, we shall receive a crown of righteousness which fadeth not away. "If we suffer we shall also reign with him" ( 2 Timothy 2:12 ).

PRACTICAL .

1 . Faint not . Many faint because they see no reason why they should not faint. Yet all reasons point the Christian to patient endurance. If we lose heart we lose strength. To despair is to charge our Master with unfaithfulness. Seek to be a good swimmer in the sea of trouble, and if the waves go over you, still faint not, for soon you will rise to the surface again, and see that the shore is nearer.

2 . Be not much concerned about the things of this life . ( 2 Corinthians 4:18 .) These are perishing. The imperishable are our better portion. Look not at the things which are seen; they are not worth looking at. "Set your affection on things above" ( Colossians 3:2 .)

3 . Look at things unseen by the carnal sense, but clear to faith ' s vision . ( 2 Corinthians 4:18 .) God, Christ, holiness, usefulness, spiritual joys, the new Paradise,—these are "eternal."—H.