Paul Answers His Critics - 31

You cannot read about the life and ministry of the apostle Paul without realizing that he faced an enormous number of obstacles in his gospel work. Everywhere he went, unbelieving Jews opposed him and tried to prohibit him from preaching the gospel. On more than one occasion, Gentile governments impeded him, threw him in jail, stopped his activities. Physical infirmities and sickness and weakness certainly took their toll upon him.

Defections by ministry colleagues discouraged him greatly from time to time. But one of his biggest impediments was false teachers who followed him wherever he went to weaken young Christians by their criticisms of the apostle Paul. And Paul clearly had a number of such critics in the city of Corinth who were snapping at the heels of the members of the church.

We really can't tell if any of them were in the church, if they were all outside or if some were outside and some were in. But it's very clear that they were certainly influencing members of the church in a very dangerous way. So they were sufficiently dangerous that Paul found it necessary to address these critics and he does so in a very extensive way in the last several chapters of the 2 Corinthians epistle. And so moving into this section as we did last Lord's Day and took up verses 1 through 8, we spoke concerning Paul confronting his critics. Today we continue this passage as we consider Paul answering his critics.

Not a great deal of difference there, but two things that are going on in the chapter. Number one, Paul is confronting critics and number two, he is answering their criticisms and that's what we shall see in verses 9 through 18 of 2 Corinthians 10 today. And there are two things primarily that the critics were saying about him. Number one, they were criticizing Paul's unimpressive personality, at least as they judged his personality. And number two, they criticized Paul's unimpressive performance, again as they judged ministry performance. And so first of all, they attacked his personality, which they considered to be weak and insufficient and inadequate in every way. And so we read in verse 9, lest I seem to terrify you by letters, for his letters, they say, are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and speech contemptible. Let such a person consider this, that what we are in word by letters, when we are absent, such we will also be indeed when we are present. His powerful letters, verses 9 and 10, which could not be denied, but his weak personal presence, as was stated in verse 10, and the reality of these two criticisms, stated clearly in verse 11. But it is also very obvious that Paul's letters were significant.

They were weighty. Now verse 9 is a little bit ambiguous because of the Greek construction. My translation says, lest I seem to terrify you by letters, and that's a continuation of verse 8.

We'll not back up into that right now. But there are different ways that these words could be translated. Paul could be saying, I will write less so that I do not terrify you by my letters. In other words, I'm going to cut short some of the things that I might otherwise say in this epistle because you're already on edge by the powerful weight of my letters. And so I'm going to back off a bit and not give you the full weight of my letters at this time. That may be what he's saying.

Some scholars think he is. Or he may be saying something like this. It was never my intention to terrify you by my letters. If I did, that wasn't my purpose.

That wasn't my intention. In all likelihood, that really wasn't the truth. In other words, they probably didn't terrify the Corinthians to the degree that the critics said they did.

This is being exaggerated by them in order to accomplish their purposes. But nevertheless, there's some measure of truth in it. Paul's letters are weighty.

What he said did have some sting to it at times. And those who were guilty of disobedience and unbelief felt the weight of the truth of God's word driving home to their soul and correcting their lives by Paul's weighty letters. And so Paul is acknowledging what his critics have already acknowledged, namely his letters are substantial.

They're weighty. Paul doesn't tell us why his letters were powerful, but clearly they were. Even the critics acknowledged they were. The critics who would have liked to have diminished his letters, demeaned his letters as they did his personal presence, but they really couldn't.

It was too obvious. The Corinthians all felt the weight of Paul's letters, so for the critics to say, ah, his letters don't amount to much would have turned the members of the church against the critics. They would have recognized that the critics were entirely wrong. And so the critics are forced to acknowledge what everybody saw was true, that Paul's letters were exceedingly powerful.

But the question is, why is that so? Paul doesn't tell us, so I'm going to have to venture my own observations and opinions at this point. But I think there are three reasons why Paul's letters were indeed weighty. Number one is because they were filled with theology, or some prefer the word doctrine. But Paul's letters are weighty and substantial in their dealing with Christian doctrine, Christian theology. They are some of the most substantial portions of all the Bible. And though to some people that seems to be a negative, well, we don't need all that theology, we don't need all that doctrine, people, Christians particularly, need to realize that's what makes God's word powerful, is the powerful truth that it deals with, the majestic God that it tells us about, the revelation of God that is brought to our souls. This is given to us in the word of God, and it was particularly conspicuous in the epistles of Paul. And that is a very major factor in why they were so weighty and powerful, because of the weighty, powerful subject matter that he was dealing with.

But I think there's a second reason, and that is because of Paul's pointed applications. He wasn't afraid to step on toes. He wasn't afraid to apply truth where it needed to be applied. He wasn't afraid to tell people what was true and to take the doctrine, the theology of God's word, and to bring it to bear upon people's lives where they were lacking, where they needed to repent, where they needed to change. And he did that without apology. And again, that gave his letters some bite. And that's not a bad thing.

That's a good thing. It's the unwillingness of many in our day to deal with substantial truth on the one hand, or to do, say anything that might possibly offend anybody on the other hand, that makes so much Christian ministry so weak, so powerless, so ineffective, so irrelevant. It's strange that the very things that modern Christians think are necessary to make the Christian message relevant in this modern world turn out to be the things that generally make it irrelevant, because you're taking out the weight, the power, the teeth, the substance, the truth that never changes. It hasn't changed from the beginning of time, and it certainly hasn't changed from the days of the Apostle Paul. The truth of God is unchanging and unchangeable. It does not change.

It cannot change. It is not up to us to edit it and rewrite it and make it more acceptable and palatable and relevant to our present world. It's our responsibility to proclaim it, and to the degree that we do, our message will be powerful, and to the degree that we fail to, our message is going to be weak. Paul's letters were powerful because of the theology that he dealt with and the pointed applications that he was willing to make, but number three and most important, Paul's letters were powerful because they are divinely inspired. They are powerful because they are not just the words of a man, Paul, but they are also the words of the Holy Spirit of God in this strange marriage of the human and the divine, how God brought together in the book we call the Bible the human element of divine authorship, words written by fallible men that nevertheless wrote the infallible word of God as they were guided and superintended and empowered by the Spirit of God. Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, and that makes Paul's letters powerful because they are not just the words of Paul.

They are the words of Almighty God. But after making reference to his powerful letters, which even his critics acknowledge, Paul moved on then to their charge about his weak personal presence when they said, his letters they say, verse 10, are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible. His bodily presence is weak. What exactly is meant there is also the subject of some debate, but it's probably not so much his physical appearance as his speaking style, which is clearly referred to here.

We know it's the lighter. We know they're talking about his speaking style. Are they also including with that his rather unimpressive physical presence?

Maybe so, maybe not. The impression we get about Paul is that he was rather small, that as a person, he was not imposing. He was not a big, strong, robust sort of man. Some men, by the way they are built, command attention just when they stand up behind the pulpit. John McKnight strikes me that way.

He stands up and says two words and immediately we're all riveted by the power of his personal presence. God has made him that way. God uses him that way. He possesses that characteristic to a very extraordinary degree. Not very many men do. So there are men like that, then there are men who have a more ordinary presence, and then there are those who have a rather diminutive presence, sometimes because of their short stature, though it doesn't have to be that way.

Sometimes dynamite comes in little packages, as you know. But nevertheless, Paul seems to come across as a rather small man and, as he told us earlier in this chapter, he doesn't intend to come along with a lot of bombast. He rather comes in the gentleness and meekness of Christ. And so they said his physical appearance, his bodily presence, is weak. And what they appear to be referring to more than anything else is the fact that Paul did not conform himself to the expected Greek cultural oratorical style. There was a certain style that Greek culture had spread throughout the Roman world, I started to say had created, but I suppose that's a little too strong a word, but a certain style that Greek culture had cultivated would be an appropriate word throughout the Roman world, that put a great deal of emphasis upon flourishing oratory, in other words, more on the manner of one speaking than upon the substance of the message, more than the substance of what one said.

To the Greek, it wasn't so important what one said. They were all interested in how he said it. Wow. Listen to that impressive construction of that sentence. Listen to that rhetorical flourish. Listen to the way that he does that.

See those impressive gestures. Watch his imposing manner, his flourishing oratorical style. And they judged that to be impressive speech, weighty speech. And Paul tells us that he didn't do that deliberately. By design, he did not employ those techniques, though he was well trained and could have, and probably in a previous day did before he was saved, but he came to understand something, and namely that that kind of rhetorical flourish actually, in most cases, turns out to be an impediment to the message rather than a help to it. It gets in the way of the message because too much attention is brought to the messenger and to his style of speech rather than to the content of what he is saying. And therefore the criticism that was leveled against him by these false teachers was actually a compliment, and what they didn't realize was they were actually pointing to what made Paul more effective, but they thought it was something that made him less effective because of their wrong way of evaluating things. As Paul said earlier in the chapter, your problem is that you are measuring things according to outward appearance rather than measuring them by the truth of God's word.

And this is one of those things that fell into that category. They heard Paul speak and they said, well, that's pretty humdrum. He doesn't captivate us by his oratory. Yes, but he captivates the minds and hearts of all people who are interested in eternal truth. He holds the attention of Christ's sheep because they hear the voice of their shepherd and what he says in the content of his message. My sheep, said Jesus, hear my voice. I know them.

They follow me. And so the very fact that these critics did not find his speech to be particularly interesting or arresting actually said more about their heart's condition than it did about the apostle Paul. It actually revealed the defectiveness of their spiritual condition, their weak spiritual life or absence of spiritual life. But by making this criticism about Paul not being an effective speaker, they sought to weaken Paul's influence and apparently that criticism was having some impact upon the Corinthian members. They hadn't noticed that when Paul was there. When Paul was there preaching to them because they had hearts changed by the Spirit of God, they found what he had to say very interesting. But now the critics are saying, he's a pretty mediocre speaker.

There's nothing very powerful and compelling about his presence. And they said, well, you know, I guess you're right. And so Paul needs to correct this criticism and he does so in verse 11 very clearly. Let such a person, the person who makes this kind of criticism, let such a person consider this that what we are in word by letters or by letters when we are absent, such we will also be indeed when we are present. Let any critic of my bodily presence consider this. That word consider this could be translated calculate this.

You need to weigh this according to all of the evidence, not just the outward appearance. Let such a critic calculate this that I am the same person in presence that I am in my letters. I'm not two different people with two different personalities and I don't write powerful letters and then come as an entirely different person. I am who I am. I am Paul the apostle.

I am who I am by the grace of God. I am the same person when I write my letters as when I come and preach to you in person. And in both cases, I am emphasizing the word of God. I do that in my epistles and that's what makes them weighty and powerful. And I do that in my preaching, which also makes it weighty and powerful for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. Isn't that what we sang?

If I can pick it up. Cause our faith to rise, cause our eyes to see your majestic love and authority. For those who have eyes to see it, given to them by the Spirit of God, it's obvious that Paul is speaking powerful truth to the same person whether present or absent. But Paul says, you need to realize I'm the same person and you need to realize that I am willing and able to bite in person when it's necessary.

I don't want to, I don't like to, I prefer not to. In fact, in the earlier verses, he begged them, don't make me do it, don't make me come with boldness to deal with disobedient people. I would much prefer to come in meekness and gentleness and deal with submissive believing people, but if there are some holdouts in your membership in the church that will not submit to the authority of God's word, I come, you'll find out that I am just as weighty and powerful when I'm present as I am when I'm writing my epistles. I am fully capable of and willing to and determined to exercise appropriate church discipline upon those who will not submit to divine authority.

Mark it down and don't forget it. The critics wrongfully judged by outward appearance using worldly standards. They thought that ministerial success required a forceful and impressive personality. They failed to understand the divine element which is largely unseen, is completely unseen to those who don't have eyes to see it, who haven't been given eyes by the Spirit of God. But the truth of the matter is God honors his word and the truth of the matter is that God uses weak human vessels to accomplish his divine work.

And in the case of the Apostle Paul, he had chosen to use someone whose bodily presence was not normally impressive by worldly standards and yet God chose to speak through him powerfully to accomplish eternal work, eternal advancement of Christ's kingdom. So number one, the critics camped on Paul's unimpressive personality which actually wasn't true except only in a very superficial and worldly sense. And number two, they zeroed in on what they considered to be Paul's unimpressive performance, verses 12 through 18.

And they were using three false standards of judgment to arrive at this conclusion that Paul's performance as a minister of the gospel was rather unimpressive. Number one, they used faulty comparisons, verse 12. Number two, they used empty boasting, verses 13 through 16.

And number three, they used meaningless commendations, verses 17 and 18. First of all, this was all based upon faulty comparisons, verse 12. Paul says, For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves, but they, measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. Paul says, I refuse to judge myself by human comparisons. That's not the standard by which to judge my performance, whether it is impressive or not. I do not compare myself with others. And that's what most people do.

That's what the critics did. That's what they, no doubt how they judged themselves by comparing themselves with others like them. And that's the way of the world, and that's the way of many carnal Christians, I'm afraid, comparing ourselves with other people. It's part of the Adamic fallenness. We do this naturally. We have to unlearn it. We have to learn not to do it.

We have to push it back. Or we'll be doing this without even realizing it. And this can be either by comparing ourselves with other people, or the wording of verse 12 can also include the idea of selecting favorable standards that reflect one's strength and then measuring oneself by that. So if I'm strong in this particular area, that becomes a very important standard for success. And if I'm weak in this particular area, I just leave that off the list of what's important. So I make my list of what makes a person an effective Christian, effective preacher, effective minister of the Gospel. I make my list according to what puts me in the most favorable light, and I hold that up for myself to see.

Ah, I'm doing really good. I meet all the standards of my own criterion. And I hold this up for other people to see and say, can you see how impressive I am?

I meet all these standards. Paul said, stop it. But that is the way that many in our day evaluate themselves. Many preachers do. I don't attend those kinds of conferences anymore, but years ago, in my earlier years, I used to go to conferences, and preachers were present, and you're meeting one for the first time. And almost the first question out of his mouth after introductions, name, and where you're from is, how many are you running?

You know what that means. How big is your church? Or how small is your church? How many are you running, brother? And that becomes the standard by which everyone's evaluated. If you're running a lot, you're a big poobah. If you're running just a handful, you're inconsequential.

Shut up, sit down, and learn from us big guys who know how it's done. Yeah, but hey, don't be too critical of preachers because Christians are doing the same thing all the time, comparing themselves with others and pronouncing themselves good in the basis of these human standards, comparing themselves by themselves. And many Christian institutions do the same thing. Schools do that. They compare themselves with other schools. They line up the strengths of their school, and they say, look how strong we are, how much better we are than this school over here that doesn't have these strengths.

Ignoring, of course, their weaknesses and the fact that that other school may be strong in the areas where they're weak. So it happens in institutions just like it happens in individuals and it happens with churches. Our church is the best church because of blah, blah, blah, neglecting blah, blah, blah, blah. And on it goes, on it goes, comparisons, comparisons, comparisons, comparisons, ratings. Paul says that's not wise.

That's a bunch of foolishness. Why don't you instead just commit yourself to comparing yourself with Christ? How do you measure up to Him? Restrict yourself to evaluations that come only from the Bible itself. How do you measure up according to that?

Beyond that, it really doesn't matter. It's a faulty comparison to judge things by comparing them with other people. But by that standard, then Paul's performance didn't seem to be that impressive to them. But number two, not only faulty comparisons but empty boastings, visions of what one is going to do.

The person who has the biggest vision, the person who has the grandest scheme, the person who can convince others of the greatness of what he's going to do, that's the greatest one. Empty boastings, verses 13 through 16. Paul says we will not boast beyond measure.

But within the limits of the sphere which God has appointed us, a sphere which especially includes you, we are not overextending ourselves as though our authority did not extend to you. For it was to you that we came with the gospel of Christ, not boasting of things beyond measure, that is, in another man's labors, but having hope that as your faith is increased, we shall be greatly enlarged by you in your sphere to preach the gospel in the regions beyond you and not to boast in another man's sphere of accomplishment. What is this all about, empty boasting? First of all, boasting beyond what is appropriate. I will not boast beyond measure. You'd expect Paul to say, I won't boast at all.

And normally he doesn't because he recognizes that's a rather carnal way of dealing with things. On the one hand, Christians shouldn't boast in anything but Christ and the gospel as he closes his chapter with. But he doesn't say that it's always inappropriate to boast, that is, it's always inappropriate to list your accomplishments, particularly in a situation like this when that's the only thing that some people understand, that's the only thing that the critics can understand because they don't have a spiritual yardstick. But Paul says, I refuse to boast beyond measure. I refuse to boast beyond, and he uses some language here, I refuse to boast beyond God's appointed sphere of ministry. I'm not going to boast beyond the area of ministry that God has assigned to me, which, he goes on to say, includes you, it includes Corinth. I came to Corinth because it was part of my assigned sphere. God sent me to you, and I preached the gospel to you, and God used it in your hearts. You were changed, you were saved by my preaching and coming to you.

That was all part of God's assignment. That's the sphere of my ministry. But I'm not going to boast beyond that sphere. I'm not going to talk about all the great things I'm going to do beyond what I've already done. You know what I'm talking about?

Some people are full of boasting, and there are people who go gaga over that. Wow. Look what he's going to do. Wow.

Wait a minute. Remember which Old Testament king was it? One of the kings, I think, of Judah, challenged the king of Israel to come out to battle, and the king of Israel said, don't boast when you're putting your sword on like somebody who's taking it off. In other words, wait until you win before you boast about what you're going to do. That's what Paul is saying here. Just restrict your rehearsal of accomplishments to what you have actually accomplished in the sphere that God has assigned to you.

Keep it there. So empty boasting is boasting beyond what is appropriate, and empty boasting is beyond actual accomplishments. Paul touches once again on the issue of authority, which was part of the whole thing here, that the critics were trying to undermine Paul's authority. He doesn't have any authority here.

He can't tell you what to do. And Paul says, yes, I do have authority because you are part of the assignment that God gave to me. You exist as a church, which also includes, of course, the individual members of the church that have been saved. You exist because God chose to use me to come to you and preach the gospel, and God chose to make what I preached effective in your heart. And that gives me spiritual authority over you.

It's as simple as that. Paul says, I'm not going to horn in on somebody else's accomplishments. I'm not going to boast about what somebody else does.

I'm not interested in ministering where other people have ministered. There's a whole wide world out here where nobody has gone to preach the gospel, and God has made me the apostle to the Gentiles, and he sent me out across the Roman world, and I'm operating within the sphere that God has assigned to me. And he says, I do plan to go beyond, but I can't do that until you get things straightened out in Corinth.

When you get things established so that I don't have to stay here and make sure that you're on the right track, then I can go on beyond. Your obedience, your faith is actually a door that will indicate whether God wants me to go beyond Corinth to new regions. Up until this time, Corinth was the farthest point west where Paul had gone.

You can check it out on a map. And you can learn by reading, say, the book of Romans that Paul's ambition was to go on as far as Spain. He had wide ambitions of what he intended to accomplish, God allowing, but he said, I'm not going to set one foot beyond Corinth until I know that you are established in the truth here and are obedient to Christ. Until we get this thing sorted out, we just stop right here.

We hunker down and get this right. I'm not boasting about what I haven't done. I'm just simply rehearsing what I have done. And then finally, meaningless commendations, verses 17 and 18. But he who glories, let him glory in the Lord, for not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends. Self-commendation is worthless. The commendation of others is mixed. There may be some value in that, someone saying, well, I know this man and he has a solid ministry.

There's some value in that at times, but it can also become very misleading. Ultimately, it's only God's commendation that matters. If God commends you, then you are commended. If God doesn't, then you're not. That's all that really matters. And of course, that commendation is ultimately realized only in heaven.

You'll never get that fully here upon the earth. But Paul does deal with some preliminary divine commendation here upon the earth. God's commendation is what matters.

Well, how do you know that? By the evidence of what God has done in your life to bring about visible fruit for the kingdom of Christ. Paul dealt with that earlier in this epistle. Remember in chapter 3, verse 1, he said, Do we begin again to commend ourselves?

There's that same idea, human commendation. Do we begin to commend ourselves or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? Do we need other people to write a letter of recommendation so that you'll know that we are a true minister of Christ? Then he goes on to say this in verse 2. You are our epistle. You are our epistle of commendation written in our hearts, known and read by all men. Clearly, you are an epistle of Christ ministered by us.

In one sense, God gets all the glory. You are an epistle of Christ. But if we're going to get down in the dirt like the critics are and fight like a bunch of kindergartners, then I point out that you are Christ's epistle ministered by us.

God chose to send me to establish the church in Corinth. That's why you exist, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tables of stone but on tables of flesh that is of the heart. There he talked about the commendation that is Christ and is seen before we get to heaven. For those who have eyes to see it, you can see Christ's commendation in the life and ministry of a man by what Christ chooses to accomplish through his life.

God's commendation is all that ultimately matters, but there is this preliminary commendation that is the evidence of God's hand at work upon a life. In other words, Paul has, by the grace of God, planted multiple churches. Paul is saying in effect to the critics, where are the churches you have planted? Now, Paul clearly doesn't enjoy doing this sort of thing, but he's not unwilling to do it when it's needed. You're criticizing me and the work I've done, but what are you doing? You're following me around and trying to horn in on what I have done in planting churches.

You don't have a single one to show for your work. Paul knew that in one sense he had accomplished nothing, it was all of God, but he also knew that God chose to use him to accomplish some very substantial work in the kingdom of Christ in a way that the critics had not been used, so they really had no ground to stand on. Where do they get the standing to evaluate Paul's ministry when you can see by the visible fruit of churches planted all across the Roman Empire that he was an effective minister of Christ that God had greatly used, and you don't have anything like that to show for your labors, so why do you think you've got the right to judge him, to criticize him, to evaluate him? He's got Christ's commendation on his life. You don't have Christ's commendation on your ministry, and Christ's commendation is the only thing that really matters. It's not only in Paul's day that those with no visible accomplishments think that they ought to tell others how they should do their work, or even worse, those with no visible accomplishments who take credit for and expect to benefit from the accomplishments of others.

I'm going to get personal at this point. I can tell you that when the Lord directed Marty and I to come here to begin a new church, that was not on my mind, that was not what I wanted to do, really my first response was no, but the Lord made it so crystal clear that that's what he wanted us to do, that we couldn't refuse, and here we came. And now 47, almost 48 years later, there is a church to show for it. I'm well aware that I deserve no credit for any of that. It's all what God has done. It's all by His grace. I'm responsible for a lot of weaknesses and mistakes. I'm not responsible for any success, but in this realm, in this realm, from time to time, somebody will come along and say, well, if I were pastor of that church, I wouldn't do it the way you're doing it.

I would do it this way. Well, go do it at your church, the one you planted. You know what you sound like? Remember Absalom trying to take the throne from King David?

Remember that? Sitting at the gate of the city and flattering the men of the city and telling them what they wanted to hear and saying, now, if I were king, I would do it this way. But Absalom, God didn't make you king. David's not a perfect king, but Absalom, you are no king. God made David king, so recognize that and stop this foolishness of telling people what you would do if you were king. If and when you become king, which of course he didn't and wouldn't, but if God makes you king, then there's time enough to employ your ideas, see how sound they are. But until God makes you king, then seal your lips and recognize that flawed as the instrument may be that God is using, that's the one that God chose to use. God used him to plant the church, not you.

So recognize that. It's God's doing. I have a dear friend in ministry in a faraway place, labored long and hard to start a church and accomplish that in a country where that is very rare.

It's becoming more rare in America. I know a lot of men, good men, good preachers, good solid men who've tried to plant churches and after a certain period of time, sometimes several years, they couldn't get it off the ground. They finally gave up. It didn't work.

It didn't go. They went on to other ministries where they weren't planting churches and they did fine. But they were not evidently, according to God's design, successful church planters. And yet there are others who don't seem to have as many gifts that God has used to establish churches. How do you explain that? It's God's doing.

But when God does it and there's the evidence of it, then recognize that that's what God has chosen to do and submit yourself accordingly. But I know this friend who labored long and hard for years, meeting in a rented school for years, established a good church and finally, miraculously really, was able to acquire a building in a place where churches rarely got to that stage of development just because of the conditions in the country. Beautiful building that God provided. And then someone came along and undermined and stole the hearts of the people and stole the ministry. It crushed my friend.

He went on in ministry but he never had the same enthusiasm again. It crushed my friend because what he had labored for for years was stolen away from him by somebody who didn't labor for it. They coveted the success that God had given him. They wanted that building. They wanted that ministry when someone else had put all the work and labor in it and made something happen that almost was very difficult to accomplish.

And they stole it. Don't worry. God will judge. God's not blind to what took place.

Just wait until the judgment day. God will take care of that. Well, in closing, three things that we should learn. Number one, God uses human vessels to accomplish his work.

That's God's plan. Number two, we are prone to be influenced by human comparisons and we need to get over that. Number three, we must learn these lessons and I will give you these four in closing. Number one, to submit to God's revealed methods, not add our own. Number two, to fulfill our God-appointed task, not add to that or subtract from it. Number three, to refuse to intrude into God's unique work. There are certain things that God has reserved unto himself and we can't do. And we make a mess of things when we don't recognize that and we try. We can't save people.

We can't regenerate hearts. We can't bring people to salvation. So quit trying all these manipulative psychological tactics to make happen what God has reserved for himself.

All you're doing is making a mess of it. Number four, to trust God for results, not to evaluate by human standards. And when we learn that, we will be doing things God's way and we'll be honored and blessed by him. Shall we pray? Father, help us to understand these truths that you have given us in your word and to be faithful servants in your vineyard according to your truth. Amen.