The Apostle Paul's life and writings serve as an example of selfless weeping for others, contrasting with self-pity. Paul, like Christ and other biblical figures, wept not for himself but for the lost souls and spiritual state of others. It highlights that true Christian sorrow is directed outward, reflecting Christ's own tears for humanity. Ultimately, believers are called to share in Christ's triumphant procession, becoming a sweet savor of His knowledge to the world, whether it leads to life or death for those who encounter it.
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I think we'll read tonight a little bit from the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter two. Reading from verse twelve. Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I took no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus, my brother. But taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia. Now thanks be unto God which always causes us to triumph in Christ, and make us manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place.
For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish. To the wonder the savor of death and to death, and to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? We are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God. In the sight of God speak we in Christ. I for myself have always been thankful that in the Bible we have the life of the Apostle Paul.
He sets himself before us in several places as an example to follow. He shall follow me, even as I also follow Christ. If we only had the example of the Lord himself, we would feel naturally we couldn't possibly live the way he did, because he was God. We could never measure up to perfection as is seen in his life. And so God has seen fit in the New Testament to give us the life of a human being, like ourselves, with all the same capabilities of failure, with all the possibility of human weakness. He set the example in the life of the Apostle Paul, I think, to encourage him.
Because if he was just ordinarily human like we are, then if he lived that amazing life, then we can too. We have more than the life of Christ alone as an example. We have the life of a mortal like ourselves. And Paul writes a good deal about his life's experience and his soul's exercises in his writings. Quite a bit, in fact. And he does hear this chapter. And when you read his life, you find, like with many of the great men of Scripture, he shed tears a good deal. He mentions it frequently in his writings. He says in one place at night and day, he stirred with tears.
In this same chapter we were reading from it, says in verse four, I wrote unto you with many tears, and you read of him time and again, shedding tears or weeping. That said of a great many of the men of Scripture. Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet. You read seven times over that Joseph, the Old Testament, way back, that Joseph wept. You read repeatedly that David wept, his weeping exceed the Jonathan's when they parted. You read about Blessed Lord himself that he wept repeatedly. And all those who have the interest of God at heart in Scripture are seen as getting fears a good deal.
And it's that way in the life of the Apostle Paul. Only one thing I'd like you to notice, and that's when all those men, you read of them, weeping, they never wept over themselves. They were never selfish tears in any one of them at all. They wept for others. The Apostle Paul wept to Gretel, but never for himself. You know, there are ever so many people who shed tears for themselves, even Christians. Oftentimes weep because of something that happens to them. But the Apostle weep because of something that happens to others. He was thinking about the world in its sin, going through eternal perdition. And as you read in the Old Testament, we go forth weeping, bearing precious seeds to come again with rejoicing, bringing our seeds with us.
That is, we Christians weep over souls that are lost. And then Paul weeps over Christians, oftentimes because they were so careless, because there was so little spiritual life there and it's concerned of a great deal. That's the way he wrote to the Corinthians. The Lord himself often wept. He wept for others, except on one occasion that I can remember Christ wept for himself. You read it in the fifth chapter of Hebrews. It says with strong crying and tears, he prayed unto God, and the reference is to the gods of Gethsemane. Now you don't read in the gospel that he said, tears, but you do read it in the Ephesians and the Hebrews.
It says that in that garden Christ wept as well as shed drops of blood. He wept because of what was going to happen to him. In that garden he was thinking of the cross on the morrow. And when he thought of the cross with all his fearful suffering and boundless woe, he wept, with strong crying and fear. That's the only time Christ ever wept for himself. Otherwise it was for others. And you see, since you and I never have to go to the cross, since Christ died for us to save us the horror of God's judgment, therefore the one reason for weeping of ourselves is God.
That's the only reason Christ said. For the rest be wept for others. And we are to do the same thing. Oftentimes Christians weep over themselves, as I said, more than over others. I was in the home years ago in Erie, Pennsylvania. There was a young fellow in the home, a young fellow about eighteen years old, I guess. Shortly after I was dead, this young fellow died, was suddenly taken ill and died. It was the only son in the family, a very bright young Christian. I came back to that same home four years later, and his mother had never moved anything that belonged to Du Bois, never let anybody sleep in his bedroom.
His sports gear, baseball bats, and tennis racket, and all the rest was still in the room. She was there anybody touched it. His clothes still hung in the closet. She had a little bench built at the grave site and painted its wife. And any fair day she went on a seven-month bench and looked at the grave and wept. Four years later, and I think I've talked a strong sense of evidence to anybody in my life. I've told you all to be ashamed of yourself. You'll weep them over a boy that's gone to heaven. What will the neighbors think? They think it would be a terrible thing to go to heaven. You'll weep them over it.
Said you'll weep them over a Christian that's gone to heaven and you're dry-eyed over sinners going to hell. That's the wrong way. That's not the way the Apostle Paul did it. That's not the way the Lord Jesus did it. They wept over souls that were in trouble and sin, not over Christians going to heaven. It's all right, of course, to weep, but you lose your love and but don't keep it up. Because you've given the world a conception to go to heaven, but be a fearful thing. I've often told my wife, when I die, don't shatter these tears over me, because I'm far happy than I am now. And that's no reflection on you. You'll make me as happy as you can. They're going to be still happy when they get there. So don't weep over me.
If you we weep over me, you weep for yourself, not for me. I don't need the tears. Not up there. Down here we shed tears. And the Apostle Paul did. And of course we do. We're living in a world of sorrow and care. And Christians are in this world to carry the burdens of things. The world doesn't carry the burdens. We do. We are the ones that carry the load. We are here to bear the fate of lost sinners and our souls. We should be concerned about people being lost and on the way to hell. We should be concerned about Christians maybe not walking with the Lord or wandering away from him or being pulled or careless.
We have to weep over ourselves sometimes because ourselves are told to the poor Christians. And the Apostle Paul tells in his very chapter, in the opening verse that we read, he says, in verse thirteen, I have no rest in my spirit because I found no sight with my brother. And earlier, he says, I wrote with many tears. He was burdened when he thought of the Corinthians, for they were a pretty poor lot. And then all of a sudden, he lifts his eyes away from all that, and he lies safe, he looks up. For in the fourteenth verse we were reading, he breaks up into a peon of praise, which is now thanks.
Which always causes us to triumph in Christ. He lifts his eyes away from the troubles around and lifts them up and he sees something that fills his soul with praise. You're the Apostle Paul does that constantly. If you've read his writings, you'll note that he talks about some theme that burdens him and then all of a sudden he bursts out in praise. In Timothy he says, he tells you some of the troubles and he says, Now, unto the king eternally, mortal, invisible, the only wise God, the glory and dominion forever and ever. He talks about Israel's departure from God in sin and all of a sudden he says, O the depths of the wisdom, both the riches, both the wisdom and knowledge of God, our unsearchable Irish judgment and his ways past finding us.
He does it again and again. He bursts out into praise for what he lifts his eyes higher, like you and I are supposed to, higher than what he can see with the eyes in your head. He lifts his eyes from the distressing circumstances around and says, thanks be unto God. What for? It says, because he causes us to triumph in Christ. Now, as you read the revised version, or as you can read the Greek language, It doesn't leave it like this. It doesn't say it causes us to triumph in Christ. In the Greek language, that word triumph is a noun, another verse that says, he leaves us in the triumph of Christ.
That's how it leaves. And when the Apostle Paul says that, he says what he says very often in his writings, the Apostle used to love to use military signals. No, he lived in a time when Rome was in power, and they tell us, today they tell us, that Rome was the mightiest military machine that ever lived on earth. They had military power down to an exact time. They were known for their tremendous ability to wage battle. And Paul, of course, living in it and being a sour Roman citizen knew a good deal about it. And so in his writings he illustrates Christian life repeatedly by using military terms.
He talks about being a good soldier of Jesus Christ. He talks about waging of warfare. He talks about putting on the whole armor of God and so on. All those are military figures. And he's using one here. All of a sudden, he lifts his eyes and he sees his gigantic procession, thanks be unto God, who leads us in the triumph of Christ. This triumph was a familiar figure in the day when Paul lived. These Roman conquerors, emperors, or mighty generals would gain some victory, some, and then they would come home and have a triumphant entry into the city of Rome called a triumph.
in order to mark it. They built a gigantic arc of triumph in Rome. You have another one. If you've been to Paris, I saw it the other day, a few years ago, you have the arc of triumph at the head of the White Avenue called the Charlie's Day. It was built in honor of Napoleon's victory, the triumph of art. You have them in other places. In other words, Paul says, all of a sudden I see a gigantic military procession. The Lord Jesus Christ is at the head of it, and I am in it. He's leading me in the triumph of Christ. Christ, like a mighty conquering general, is leading vast armies of believers through this world on the way to heaven, and he's doing a triumphal thing.
He looks away from these weariness and discouragement of what he sees around him and he sees that the Lord Jesus fight of all the devil can do is triumphant and victorious. He's marching a vast army of believers on the way to heaven. It said in another way in Hebrews chapter two verse that he's the captain of our salvation leading many sons to glory. It says in another verse that we always have the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the victorious general and conqueror. He is the one that leads His Savior on to glory.
He's never seen in any other way in the Bible except victorious. It's illustrated in the Old Testament. In the first chapter, look of Joshua, Joshua was chosen to lead the people into the Promised Land. And the word Joshua is exactly the same word as the word Jesus. It's the Hebrew for the word Jesus. It takes us to the Lord Jesus, leading us into our possession. And God said to Joshua, There shall no man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. You'll always be victorious. And so he was. Joshua, when you read the Book of Joshua, was never defeated.
The people were defeated at two times when they went without him. But when Joshua led, they were victorious every time. It's the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is a victorious conqueror. Even in his death on the cross, he conquered. You know, in human warfare the soldiers who are fighting nearly and the generals stay behind the lines. But in this war where the general goes ahead, the Lord Jesus met the enemy all alone by himself on Calvary's cross. In that death of the cross, like we sometimes think, in weakness and defeat, he won the maiden crown, sent all his souls beneath his feet.
By being shot in the eye, he became the victim. I remember after the First World War, General Pershing was the commander-in-chief in Europe, which you'll probably remember. When he came back to his country, he was given a royal reception everywhere, a banquet everywhere. And at one banquet, the chairman in order voluminously praised him or the mighty general he was. And when Furching got up to speak, he said, well, everybody doesn't believe that way. Some of the soldiers didn't think very much of our leadership. And he says, I want to tell you one incident, one night very late, about eleven o'clock or so, I was way behind the lines.
I was tired of all day's work, and I thought I'd take a little walk to left my nerves before I tried to sleep. And I was walking way back to the lines in the dark, all of a sudden I heard the footsteps of a man running. He came pretty close by me, so I moved over, and when he went down there, I grabbed him by the arm and said, where are you going? He happened to be a colored soldier from the southern states. And this colored man said to me, I was running away from the front. Too dangerous out there. He said, those bullets are flying thick and fast. I have to get hurt. And the general says, yes, but you can't do that. You know that's a crime for runaway time of war. It's punishable by death. He said, I don't care. He said, I might well die back here, there in the front.
I ain't going back. And so the general frankly impressed him, said to him, said, Do you know who this is speaking to? This is General Pershing, the commander and chief of all the American forces. And the college man looked at him with his eyes wide open. He said, Landshake, you all don't mean to tell me I'm that far back already. He didn't know I'd run that far. He backed the line. That's what they thought of the general. But the Lord Jesus Christ didn't stay back in line. He went ahead. He fought the battle all alone. and all he asks you and me is to share in the sport. He won the victory. That was illustrated when the people entered the Promised Land.
It says the ark was to go ahead. Two thousand pupils just went into the river all alone. And the people followed. And the ark is a picture of Christ in the Bible. He went alone. On the cross, he conquered Satan and all his forces. And he's leading Christians. in a triumphant procession on the way to heaven. That's what Paul is saying in verse fourteen. Thanks be to God, who always leads us in the triumph of Christ. You know, sometimes we get a little discouraged, don't we? When you see so few Christians compared with the vast marble world being around us, So don't get discouraged.
Lift your eyes like Paul lit in. If you lift your eyes, you'll see not a few, but you'll see right now millions of people in this world who trusted Christ the Savior. They're found all over, not in vast numbers. They're found all over. You'll find them all together. You'll find there are millions in this world that are saved. And millions have gone through this world through the centuries. all led by a triumphant Christ, and not one of them is lost. You'll have them all up there in the glory by and by. And it's a great word of comfort to me to think that Christianity is not a defeat of faith. It's triumphant, and someday it shall be seen. Now Paul says he leads us in the triumph of Christ and makes manifest the savor of his knowledge that's in every place, who we are unto God, a sweet savor of Christ.
And here again, I understand, Paul uses that same military figure. He speaks several times in these verses about savers. We were called perfume or ointment. He says we are a sweet perfume of Christ. We are unto God a sweet perfume of Christ. He's using a familiar figure. I understand when they had those triumphant processions that all along the line of march there would be soldiers carrying torches, and on those torches they would sprinkle incense, so that there would be a sweet smell all over that vast procession, that parade as they marched into the city. Some in that parade would be, of course, the armies.
Others would be captured, that they'd captured. Some captives destined to be ransomed, maybe the wealthy ones, others to be put to death, others to be sold in slavery. But along that gigantic parade, there would be that sweet incense that you could smell all over. And the Apostle Paul all of a sudden sees himself as one man in that gigantic procession. And he says, I, like C.O. am unto God, a sweet perfume of Christ. I'm in that parade. Whether he thinks of himself as a soldier, I don't know. He may think of himself as a captive. For the Christian who has been captured by the Lord Jesus, it might be a love that's captured us.
Like the Apostle Paul loves to describe as our slave of Jesus Christ. When he says servant, the Greek word is the word slave. He calls us our slave of Christ. But a slave, like in this verse, that shouts the praises of his captives. Captives. Thanks be unto God. Why? Because he's the only slave that Christian who has ever been bought into slavery by love divine. Not by money, but by infinite love. You know, Napoleon said that one time, when Napoleon was banished for the last time to the island of St. Paulina in the Pacific Ocean where he died, he said that said one time to some of the men that were with him, he says, I conquered vast territories, almost the whole of Europe.
and some of Africa and some of Asia. But it's all gone and I'm dying in captivity. He says, my kingdom is gone to preachers. Then he said, but there is Jesus Christ. He says, and today thousands and billions are ready to die for him. You see, I won my territory by power. But he says, he wins his devotees by a love divine. Yes, so it is. You and I have become slaves bought by love. And like we sometimes say in our little days, I would not work my soul to save for that my Lord has done. But I would work like any slave from love to God's dear Son.
And I think Paul sees yourself a slave won by divine love in this parade. And then he says this amazing thing. We are unto God a sweet perfume of Christ. He says in the Bible, and God smells me. He smells Christ. I smell just as sweet the Lord as Christ himself does. And if you know anything about the Bible, you know that the Bible loves to use that figure of perfume to describe the wonderfulness of Christ. This little book in the Old Testament called Sores of Solomon. I counted it the other day, and I found fifty-eight words. in that song that speak of perfume or smell or ointment, something that has a flavor.
And it's used to describe in a very lovely way, that intricate way to describe what Christ really is to the soul. Let's think of that word perfume for a moment. Paul says, unto God, a sweet perfume of Christ, unto God. And my friends, that's what counts first. What you are to God, that's what counts. That's what he says. We are unto God a sweet person. Most people are concerned what they are to other people. For it's of no consequence. It's what you are to God that counts. The world, it is very much clear what other people think of him. But what other people think of him is this precious little importance.
It's what God thinks of you that counts. People may praise you to the sky. But if God doesn't know you, do not hear you, All that praise has worked less than the breath that utterance. It's nothing. It's unto God. You may have a beautiful picture of it in the Bible. Mary, in John chapter south, poured the ointment on Jesus' feet, sweet-smelling ointment, then she wiped it off with her hair. And everywhere Jesus went, and everywhere Mary went, the tooth smelt exactly alike. The very perfume that was on him was on her.
And when you pour your love at the feet of Christ, the very freshness and sweetness that belongs to Christ belongs to you. God thinks as much of the Christian as he does of Christ. The Bible tells you in the variety of ways. The Lord Jesus himself says to him in John chapter seventeen. He says, The love, thou hast loved them with the love of thou hast loved me. The Lord says the people are just as dear to thee, God the Father, than I am dear to thee. And that's what this text says. We are unto God a sweet perfume of Christ. We are just as sweet to God as Christ is. Not because we are so good, but because the infinite worth of Christ and his precious death on the cross is imparted to us by God's matchless race.
Now he says it's unto God that this is so. It's what you are to God but not. What people think of you is of no importance. Of course we shouldn't have lives that people think something of you, but it has nothing to do with God. It has nothing to do with our salvation. I'm afraid many people are white, highly regarded by human beings, but they have never trusted Christ the Savior. And they have no standing with God whatsoever. We're unto God, a sweet savor of Christ, a sweet perfume of Christ. Now what's perfume? Well, first of all, perfume is a luxury.
You don't need it. You can live without it. You know, God is a very magnificent God. He not only gives us unto eat, but He gives us hundreds of varieties of things to eat. There are hundreds of different types of vegetables and fruits. In Florida alone, they tell me there are five hundred different kinds of fish in the ocean that are edible. You'll need five hundred different kinds. Two kinds to keep your life. But God is so magnificent that he gives you five hundred. He gives all kinds of things to please. Magnificent scenery. Beautiful flowers. You don't need flowers to live by. They're just there to delight your eyes.
God loves them to show how beneficent he is. And then many of those flowers have a sweet flavor like a rose or other flowers. You don't need the perfume. It's not necessary to live by. It's a simple luxury. And when he says we are a perfume, it means that we are a luxury. It means that Christ is a luxury. Now, everybody knows that Christ is more than a luxury, or less, I should say less than a luxury, but he's something else besides a luxury. He's a necessity. Now, food is a necessity. Perfume isn't a necessity, but food is. And so Christ is spoken of as the bread of life, because he is a necessity. You can't get along with outside.
You'll perish in your sins and go to hell forever with outside. He's an absolute necessity. You want to remember that. You cannot live eternally, you'll perish eternally without Christ. He's a necessity. There's no salvation apart from you. But once you've accepted Christ and your Savior is more than a necessity. He's a love for you. That is the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only meets the need of the soul, but he satisfies every craving of man's renewed nature. He not only saved, but he satisfies. He not only gives you what you did, but he frills you with this beauty. Just like perfume, frills the senses.
So Christ frills the soul that thrusts in him. He not only is there so you'll be sure you don't go to hell, he's there so you can enjoy heaven already now as you walk with him and enjoy it forever as you learn to know him better, learn to know the wonders of his love. Something that is suggested in the idea of perfume. We learn to guard a sweet perfume of Christ. Christ is spoken of as a perfume in the strongest element, and so he is here. So perfume, first of all, is now the necessity only. It's a luxury. Secondly, it's something that you can't describe. You can't describe perfume. You could not possibly explain to anybody what a loan smells like.
First, it has to smell it themselves. You can't put it into words. Second, you can't put the taste of food into words either. If I go somewhere in a piece of paper, certainly a piece of pie, I've never tasted before. I could explain to you what it tastes like. And I wrote a million words, if you didn't explain it. One taste of it will tell you more than a million words. And that's the peculiarity of the gospel. You can't explain to me what a wonderful thing is to be a Christian. You have to taste it. Therefore, perfume suggests you have to smell it for yourself. There is no way of explaining it. I read one time about a little boy who was sent to the store. to get a quarter molasses. And he dipped his dirty finger in his jar and licks it off, and his eyes winked with pleasure, and he passed the man on the road, and the man said, what do you got this, son?
He said, why, he says, I got molasses. He said, it's sweet, isn't it? He says, yes, sir, it's sure as sweet. And the man said, how sweet is it? Why, he said, it's just sweet, sweet. He said, that doesn't tell me anything. Can you tell me how sweet? And the boy stuck his finger in heaven and said, lick it off, Mr. Venio now. That's the only way to know. I couldn't explain to you under this super-Christian about forty years. You have to know it for yourself. You have to taste it for yourself. All you have to do is the poor guilty sinner to open your heart to Christ, and he will reveal it to you. It is something that has to be known personally. Sometimes people actually have the brass to tell me, you say, there's nothing in Christianity. Are you saved?
Well, no. You say, well, then you know absolutely nothing about it. You talk about something you know nothing about. You cannot know the taste of food by any description. You have to taste it. You can't know what Christ accepted taste. Perfume cannot be explained. None of the things I like about pleasure cannot be contained either. You'll let a jar of perfume loose in this room, but you can't put it back in the jar again. You can't even tell where it is. It's intangible, but everybody knows where it is. You can smell it. I don't like onions. And I come into them and say, oh, boy, they've got onions for this. I can tell them right away those rest of the things. They fill the whole house. You can't see them, but you can smell them.
You know they're there. And so you know perfume is there, but you can't put it back in the jar again. You cannot contain it. It's stressed. The Bible says it's like ointment poured forth and goes. And the wonderful thing about the truth of the world, the world of God, you cannot be contained. You can't contain it. If you'll live a billion or a million years, and we will live that longer, it would be longer than that, you'll never contain. You'll never be able to say we know it all. Because perfume is unlimited. It is intangible, but nevertheless very, very real. will unto God a sweet perfume of Christ. In them that are saved, he said, and in them that perish.
That he tells you that this perfume has certain effect, at least to the salvation of people, or at least to the damnation of people. It's the perfume to them that are saved, and in them that perish. You're the one who are the savor of death unto death, And to the other, the savor of life unto life. And that fact has been proven through the centuries. It's proven today. To some people, the perfume of Christ leads to damnation and to others leads to salvation. And often, it doesn't have much to do with the person himself. Because we know that Christ led a perfect life.
And yet his life led to the damnation of a good many people. The Lord Jesus said, if I hadn't come, they had not had sinned, but now they have no cloak for their sin. His very perfection made them hate him and turned away from God. His perfect life led them to perdition. And it is still so. Many people see the life of Christian living if they resent it, because it condemns them. Their Pharisees resent it. The Lord Jesus said they wouldn't have had sin if I hadn't been there. But my presence convicted them of their sins. You read it in John chapter eight, when that woman committed adultery stood there.
And the Lord Jesus said, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone at us. And it says they went out one by one, condemned by their own conscience. Instead of turning to Christ, they turned from Christ. Because his perfect life and his words condemned them. And there are millions of people that go to hell, because Christian testimony condemns them. It's the savor of death unto death. And without it, it's the savor of life unto life. Others see that life and hear your message and are convicted of their need and turn to God and your life and your testimony is to them a perfume of life unto life.
It's one or the other. The same gospel that saves souls, dams souls, when they are rejected. You know, in the islands that I've lived for many years, you have these reefs all along the land, many places, some more prominent than others. Those reefs are there and they serve a double surface, one a good one, another a bad one. Those reefs break the force of the ocean wave so that the land is protected behind them. And yet at the same time, those reefs have become the cause of many a ship getting shipwrecked. I was on it twice myself in the storm in our yacht. Those leaves have left the good many vessels. They are the salvation of the people on the land and the destruction of the people on the sea.
And the very gospel of the grace of God, that salvation of the soul that turns to God will be the means of damnation in the soul that rejects us. I wonder if tonight you are accepting or rejecting the gospel of the grace of God. Christ coming into the world has made many people turn away from God, and that's not his fault. It's theirs. Now he says in the close of verse fourteen, we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, and he makes manifest the perfume of his knowledge by us in every place. You know that's peculiar language, isn't it?
He makes manifest the savor of the perfume of his knowledge. Now perfume is something invisible, and manifest means something that's visible. Now how do you make invisible perfume visible? That's what it says. He makes manifest or visible the perfume of his knowledge by us in every way. First of all, he calls this knowledge of God perfume, the perfume of his knowledge, because the knowledge of God has something intensely sweet about it. Much other knowledge leads to corruption and destruction. He takes, for instance, the inventorate of science. He discovered the atom. Men use that very thing instead of using it for a sweet thing.
They use it for destruction. Much human knowledge is used for destruction. But the knowledge of Christ is imparted that man might be saved and blessed. There's a sweetness around it. It's the perfume of his knowledge. And he says, he makes it manifest by us. The perfume is all in every place. How do you do this? I think it means by the life you live. By the life you live, people get some conception of what a wonderful thing it is to be a Christian. You make that intangible, precious of Christ in some way real to people. They see it in your life. It should, anyway, it should be something of the sweetness and gentleness and grace and the love of Christ visible in your life and man.
We make it manifest. There are people around us, fathers in every place, making manifest the savors of his knowledge. God has left us here, in other words. We who ourselves are precious to him, he has left us here to make Christ precious and real to others. Think a little bit about that idea of perfume. The more you think about it, the more intriguing, the more interesting it becomes. It's used as a song to Solomon a number of times. Now, Paul says God has left us here to be a witness, a saver of life unto life or death unto death. Then the close of verse sixteen, he says, And who is sufficient for each thing?
When he thinks of this, of living a life that some are makes Christ real to people, that takes tremendous power and ability. Who is sufficient for these things? These fields is insufficiently. And so does every Christian. All of us feel how short he comes of really making Christ real to others. Every preacher knows how short he comes of making this clear. I never get through preachy without feeling it. that the word should have been presented so much more effectively. You feel how weak and failing you are. Anything that's committed to man is only weak and very poor. Paul says, who is sufficient for these things?
He feels his own inability. And then he says this, in the last verse, we are not as many of which corrupt the word of God, but us of sincerity, but us of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ. Now, this verse really doesn't mean anything to me. I don't understand that. We are not as many of its corrupt the Word of God. But I have a set of books at home written by Dr. Asia Robertson of the Louisville Baptist University. He's not living anymore, but every Bible student, every fundamental Bible student knows that his Greek books are considered the very best ever produced in the U.S.
He was a real godly believer. He lived about a hundred years ago or so. I have his books, six books on New Testament Greek. And he says that this verse, the last verse here, when it says here, not many of us corrupt the Word of God, and it is a common Greek phrase used in everyday life, in connection with people that sell fruits or vegetables, peddlers, from door to door. And what it really says is that we are not like many who put the best fruit on the top. That is exactly the meaning of this phrase. Corruptly through the seed. There are not many who are deceived. That is, Paul says we do not do like many hocks to do. They put the best fruit on the top.
You know, we don't have hocks to do, but it should be more. Well, when I was a younger father, he came to the door with fruits and berries. You know, they tell you a quarter of strawberries, and you don't. On the top, there were five big strawberries this way and this way, twenty-five nice big ones on the top. And if you thought they were all nice and big ones that underneath you had to live very long. When you take the top row of you have the small ones and the russian ones and the ones with long stems on it, they're all underneath. We put the best fruit on the top. Forces, we don't do that. Who has to figure, I said, well, don't put the best truth on the side. We don't preach people something nowadays, find to, by experience they find that it isn't as good as we told them. It's always better underneath.
The Queen of Sheba said so. When she came back to Solomon, when she came to Solomon, she said, I've heard about all this in my country, but it wasn't exaggerated. The half was not told. And we preach the word of God that isn't exaggerated. Paul says it's impossible to exaggerate. We're not like those who put the best truth on top. Why not? Because it is impossible. That's why not. If you had the tongue of angels, you couldn't present the truth of God and make it more than it is. It's always more than we know anything about. This same apostle Paul writes in the second chapter of Ephesians that in the ages to come, God will show us the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
In the ages to come, that means eternally, an endless age of rule, God will unfold to us the wonders of His grace. Now how on earth could I tell more than that now? I know very little of it. And Paul says, we are not the ones that put the best for the devil and still part of us. You can do that by telling Scripture of any word, but not when you preach the word of God. It's always done. It will be more wonderful if you and I know anything about it. We only stretch, stretch the service. We only know so little. Like Paul says, now we only know in part, so feebly. Someday we'll know more words. Right now, God has seen Scripture.
Let us Christians preach the gospel. He's led us deeply, but in some ways to experience the love of Christ, to know the sweetness of God's truth, to give people some conceptions, but only a concept. We only are on the surface. We know so well. All throughout the endless ages, God will unfold to us the riches of His grace. We're not going to put the back foot on the top. It's better, far better, but we get the glory. Here we only get a little bit of it. May you and I thrill to that little bit. The truth of God's precious word is so vast a mine of wealth and we know so little about it.
The Apostle Paul says, Thanks be unto God who always leads us in the triumph of Christ. He's leading me in this gigantic procession, a slave of Christ, to wax the blood, the sweet flavor of his name. From everybody knows it. Christ is the victorious savior of sinners and the satisfier of Christians. May you and I know more about this and let our witness be so that we will thrill people so that they want to know Christ and experience his love and spread out abroad for themselves.