2 Corinthians 5

A little word on 2 Corinthians 5. It's been on my mind of late months, not only in our part of Iowa, but Minnesota, Wisconsin, and very recently those who departed to be with Christ. It's in that chapter that it's very far better to be absent from the body, present with the Lord. Paul has introduced the subject of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, beginning with the death, burial, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

He died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried and he rose again the third day. He's a living Christ coming forth from the grave in triumph, appearing to his own on different occasions and then ascending to the very throne of heaven.

Luke reminds us that as those were let out from Bethany, and the Lord blessed them, and then he disappeared as he went up through the clouds. Acts chapter 1 reminds us that the one came and said to those men, why seek ye gazing up into the heavens? This same Jesus whom you saw ascend up into the heavens is going to come again in like manner. Now we realize or I realize he's talking about Mount Olivet.

You and I have the rapture. What a promise and what a prospect. In 1 Corinthians 15, he speaks about the change of the body.

You go back to the book of Job. It's verse 14, I think of Job 14. All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change comes.

So in thinking of the physical body, how wonderful. First of all, you and I heard the gospel, some of us from as long as memory goes back. But for that moment in experience as a lost, guilty, hell-bound sinner, giving up the thought that I'm going to try to believe that I have been all these years a total unbeliever as to the death and the worth of that sacrifice at Calvary.

So I'm thankful when you think of the wonders. So in 1 Corinthians 5, we have seven little statements. We'll just pick up a few of them as time allows.

Verse one, for we know, we know that if this earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Interesting the emphasis we know. He's talking because of knowing what it is to be linked with the person of Christ.

If he be not risen from the dead, we're still in our sins. But we're thankful this afternoon as you think of the great truth of his death, burial, and resurrection. Now is the great high priest, and that statement is only once in the book of Hebrews.

There's one great high priest. There are many high priests in Israel, but the Lord Jesus is the only one that's a great high priest. He's the only true shepherd, the great shepherd of the sheep.

And so as we think of the fact that Paul is speaking very definite, we know that if this earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, and all the deathbeds that I've been near, I've only witnessed two people take their final breath. The spirit had departed. And so I'm thinking of what it is to be absent from the body present with the Lord.

What a blessing for those dear saints. Some unexpected, some lingered for days and weeks and months with physical health issues. Whatever this cause, it matters not to depart to be with Christ.

The earthly tabernacle is simply a temporal attempt, as they thought is in the margin. The body going back to corruption. But as we think of the change that is awaiting, he says, we know we have.

That's a possession. And that having is a promise. And so as you ponder and think of the fact that he's talking about the enjoyment of this assurance, we come to verse two.

For in this we groan earnestly to depend to be to enter earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven. I was thinking about this yesterday. The late Alex Staniska said to me a couple of times, I wish the Lord would have given me grease zerks in my knees.

I guess some of that was quite common in some of those Staniska brothers. I've never had any knee trouble, so I can't enter into anything like that. But you know, as you think of the earthly house, he's not speaking about grumbling.

He's looking about something of a change. This earthly house we groan earnestly desiring, and he's speaking about being clothed upon with that new house, that changed house from heaven, the body. So you move down the chapter and you come to verse six.

Therefore, we are always confident knowing that while we're at home in the body, we're absent from the Lord. For we walk. If we have the person, if we have the possession, if we have the prospect of a change, now he's referring to the pathway of life.

You can link Enoch with this as well as 1 Thessalonians 4. Enoch walked with God after Methuselah was born, and he spent 300 years of happy fellowship, and God took him. They apparently looked for him. He was taken, alleges another one.

And so as you think of what is anticipated as the rapture, the truth that Paul develops, especially in 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4, how wonderful that truth. Yet the world walks. Basic trading which takes you back to my experience in 1953 in the army.

The first sergeant was marching us out in the woods for a new march 10 days, 10 hours out, or 10 miles out and 10 miles back at the end of the day. He hollered out, you men are as slow as the second coming of Christ. I didn't want to challenge him.

I was just a draftee, so I didn't say nothing. But the mockery that people place, disrespect to the scriptures, and even in late days in our state, the terrible atrocities of what are happening and murders and all that's going on. Never in our lifetime has we thought of conditions what we have today in the world.

Yet we're thankful for any honest true believer, for all that are in fellowship in the assembly. What a wonderful blessing. I was saved at the month of August 1950, received into the fellowship in November there in Western Avenue Gospel Hall in Waterloo.

What I observed as far as my memory goes back are the Christians remembering the Lord. When I was troubled about my soul, that was one thing that I had desired. And yet when I was asked about, interviewed by the brethren about baptism and reception, I said I wanted to be saved.

And someone asked me about baptism. I says, I suppose. I remember that brother putting his hand in my shoulder.

No supposing about this, Robert. It's the command of the Lord. And that first Lord's Day that I sat in remembrance of the Savior in fellowship, the hours seemed to go so quickly.

I had an experience I had witnessed, but now it was real. You're saved today and not in the fellowship. God exercise your heart.

If there's no scriptural objection, you should be there. What a privilege to be identified first of all after you're saved with Believer's Baptism. There were five of us saved in 10 nights of meetings.

A little series in 1950. I'm the only one living of the five on earth. The rest of all departed.

A brother was speaking about two children saved in one night. It was two boys in the Orr family. We were saved 15 minutes apart, and we never spoke to each other about our trouble, soul trouble.

My mother, there was a crowd of people waiting outside the Waterloo Hall that night. And I come out and told her I'd gotten saved. And as soon as my brother came, he told me he'd gotten saved.

My mother walked back and forth two in one night, two in one night. My dad stood there and just smiled. Funny things you remember.

But be that may, what a privilege to be saved, gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus. Companies are getting smaller in many places, but yet we're thankful for every lampstand coming together the first day of the week on the Lord's Day. And for every effort in the gospel and for the ministry.

God preserve us in these days in which our lot is cast. And for the assembly work here over the years. Stayed often with Otto Stanitsky.

He used to talk about 1932, that's the year I was born. Lampstand planted in Blue River. Here you are in various assemblies, some from this state, some from others.

But our little time of testimony, the Lord said, occupy till I come. When's he coming? I've said this, and you've probably heard me say it. I said back in the 1980s, we'll never see the year 2000.

The Lord will surely have come. Well, you know what that meant. Here we are 2021.

The long suffering of God, but the walk the path of faith. Verse eight, we are confident and say and willing rather to be absent with the from the body and presence of the Lord. Notice the expression in verse nine, wherefore we labor.

In other words, he's thinking about that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. Now that's not the acceptance of salvation. That's our life, our Christian testimony.

In other words, to be well pleasing because the judgment seat of Christ is before us. That's verse 10, the day of manifestation, the day of reward. And we're comfortable in thinking that we'll never be at the great white throne judgment.

So you come to verse 11, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Now that's a little difficult word, the terror of the Lord, but I think it's the thought of having godly reference or respect to the Godhead, knowing that not only he's a God of love, but a God of righteousness. And the Lord Jesus is manifesting the Father for he that has seen me have seen the Father.

So we seek to persuade men to turn your thoughts to spiritual need. And if you're unsaved in this gathering, I hope that God will speak to you today and is. The Lord is coming.

You come down the chapter. We love verse 14, for the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all, then all were dead. Looking therefore now, verse 17.

Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. All things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

This book, that my father read a chapter every morning after we'd had breakfast. We were farmers, so breakfast was probably about eight o'clock. And I think of how as I grew a little bit older, I was enduring it.

But nevertheless, didn't change dad's mind. So we look back with memories, but I come to the end of the chapter. Notice verse 15, 19 rather.

To wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. He goes on to explain every Christian here. Brethren and sisters, ambassadors for Christ, verse 20.

As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you to, in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God. Reconciliation. And this wonderful chapter ends with verse 21, which is really the basis of the whole work accomplished at Calvary.

He's speaking of what God has done with Christ because he hath made him to be sin for us. The sinless one became the sin bearer. I know all the five offerings of the old economy are pictured there, given in Leviticus.

But the sin offering, our account that needed to be answered for, the trespass offering. But he's showing us that he who knew no sin, it's very important, that little statement. He knew no sin, he did not sin, and he could not sin.

And thus we've been made ambassadors, and we've been brought to know our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. So I close with these words. How wonderful these few little statements.

And we pray today that the gospel will be preached tonight with power, and the testimonies that will be announced will be profitable. How, when, and where, God saves us. And brothers and ladies, the Lord bless his word for his name's sake.