Praying Our Lost Friends & Family To Christ Series
Looking For Love In All The Right Places (2 of 5) 2 Cor 4.3-4 NASB
October 17, 2004 Chester, Illinois Chester FBC Mike Fogerson, Speaker
(The "HEART" acronym that is being used for this series is taken from
Chris Schofield, Praying Your Friends to Christ (Alpharetta, Ga.: North American Mission Board, 1997)
Introduction:
1 Roland Allen tells about a veteran missionary who came up to him one day after he had delivered his sermon. The missionary introduced himself and said, "I was a medical missionary for many years in India. And I served in a region where there was progressive blindness.
A People were born with healthy vision, but there was something in that area that caused people to lose their sight as they matured."
a But this missionary had developed a process which would arrest progressive blindness. So people came to him, and he performed his operation. They would leave realizing that they had been spared a life of blindness because of this missionary.
b He said that they never said, "Thank you," because that phrase was not in their dialect. Instead, they spoke a word that meant, "I will tell your name." Wherever they went, they would tell the name of the missionary who had cured their blindness. They had received something so wonderful that they eagerly proclaimed it.
B We’re continuing our study on how our blind, lost friends & family can know the one who has given us sight.
a Last week we learned how we should pray that God give our lost friends/family receptive hearts.
b Receptive by hearing the gospel (intellectually & spiritually), and holding the gospel (making the old Gospel story their own story.)
2 Today we will continue our series, Praying our Lost Friends & Family to Christ Series with Looking For Love In All The Right Places.
A 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Cor 4:3-4 (NASB)
a The devil blinded many people’s heart in the first century to the gospel. (ETS)
b Believers can pray that their lost friends/family spiritual eyes would be opened to the gospel. (ESS)
B I hope you will begin praying for God to remove Satan’s veil from the spiritual eyes of your lost friends & family. (Objective)
a How are you praying from God to heal your lost loved ones spiritual blindness? (Probing Question)
b Let’s look at two specifics we can be praying for concerning the veil over the hearts of our unbelieving friends/family. (Transitional Sentence)PRAY
I The first specific we can pray for the veil over the hearts of our lost family/friends is that THE VEIL WOULD BE LIFTED FROM THEIR HEARTS.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving . . . II Cor. 4. 3-4a NASB
1 Paul was being criticized because his preaching was not being responded to by his listeners.
A Paul’s audience were not embracing the Gospel of Christ.
a People weren’t getting saved/leaving their sinful ways of life/experiencing a life change.
b His critics were saying that the gospel was only for a select few, not for everybody.
*Paul was probably being racked over the coals by the first century converted Jew because he was preaching the Gentiles who embraced the gospel did not need to comply with Mosaic law. Under grace, not under the law.
B Paul, in verse 3, concedes that if there is a problem with the gospel, it is only showing up in the heart of the unbeliever.
a Paul said that it wasn’t the gospel’s fault that people were perishing. . . unbelieving.
b The devil was blinding (veiling) the heart of the unbeliever.
2 Since the devil can not shut the gospel out of the world, he makes it his great business to keep it out of the hearts of people.
A The devil is actively pooling the wool over the eyes of our unbelieving family/friends.
a Jesus knew it (Jn 12.31; 14.30), Paul knew it (Eph 2.2; 6.12), John knew it (1 Jn 5.19) . . . WE BETTER KNOW IT!!!
b This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels. Eph 6:12 (MSG)*No red suit and plastic pitchfork here!
B He doesn’t fight fair.
a He’ll use . . .
*physical pain (2 Cor 12.7) there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me
*temptation (1 Cor 7.5) " . . .so that Satan will not tempt you. . ."
*traps (2 Tim 2.26) ". . .the snare of the devil . . ."
*destroy te flesh (1 Cor 5.5) " . . .to Satan for the destruction of his flesh . . ."
*stop the gospel from being shared (1 Thess 2.18)
For we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, more than once—and yet Satan hindered us.
b The light of the gospel is shining, but the devil has blinded our lost friends/family so they can’t see.
(Il.) A group of miners who were trapped in a mine in West Virginia after an explosion. Finally rescuers got food over to them, and then they got an electric light over to the place where they were trapped. A young miner there was looking right into the light and said, "Why don’t they turn on the lights?" All of the men looked at him, startled. He had been blinded by the explosion. Satan blinds many folk. They say, "Why don’t you turn on the light? I don’t see the gospel at all." That is the blindness that comes from Satan. —J. Vernon McGee’s Thru The Bible
TS: The devil wants to keep our lost friends/family in the dark, Jesus wants to bring them in the light.
II The second specific we can pray for the veil over the hearts of our lost friends/family is THEIR HEARTS WOULD SEE THE LIGHT OF THE GOSPEL.
that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
1 Paul said that the devil was keeping the light of the gospel from penetrating the mind of unbelievers.
A The LIGHT of the gospel is Christ. (Superstar)
a The gospel is the Kingdom of God, Salvation of Christ, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
b The devil was stopping unbelievers from see the light of who Jesus is.
B Paul said Christ IS the image of God. (2,000 years ago, Jesus was and IS)
a To see Christ was to see God and not to see Christ was not to see God.
b Jesus was exactly like the Father because they were one.
*He brought a visible expression of the invisible nature of God.
6 Jesus answered, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father, too. But now you do know him, and you have seen him." 8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father. That is all we need." 9 Jesus answered, "I have been with you a long time now. Do you still not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. So why do you say, ’Show us the Father’? John 14:6-9 (NCV)
27 All things have been entrusted to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal Him. Matt 11:27 (HCSB)
30 The Father and I are one." John 10:30 (HCSB)
2 Satan wants to keep our lost friends and family blind to Christ’s Gospel while Christ wants to make them blind to Satan’s lie.
A Paul wrote 2,000 years ago that Jesus IS the image of God.
a 2,000 years ago, Jesus was an "is" and in 2004 He still IS!
b He IS the way, truth, & life (Jn 14.6)
He IS the only name by which people are saved (Acts 4.12)
He was, and IS, and is to come (Rev 1.8 KJV)
B The devil has lied, to this point, by telling our lost friends/family that Jesus IS not the way to salvation.
a You (believers) get it! Understand it! Makes sense! Rejoice in it!
b Lost Friends/Family, due to their blindness Don’t . . . get it! Understand it! Makes sense! Rejoice in it!
(They make think your nuts, fanatical, naive for believing in Jesus.)
8 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Cor 1:18 (NASB) PRAY FOR THEM TO SEE THE LIGHT!!
3 On October 12, 1998, six men were killed in the predawn hours while sleeping inside the rails of a train track. The incident took place around 3:15 A.M. when a southbound Union Pacific train with 105 cars was about fifty miles north of Harlingen, Texas. The crew was unable to stop the forty-five-mile-per-hour train in time and none of the six men were adequately awakened by the horn. Tragically, this is not an uncommon occurrence among undocumented immigrants and other transients. There is a mistaken belief that snakes will not cross railroad tracks, therefore, it is believed one can sleep between the rails and be protected from snakes. This tragedy is only accentuated by the reality that this is erroneous information. Officials from Union Pacific Railroad have noted their tracks are littered with snakes that have been cut in half while crossing the rails. The warm rocks under an elevated rail bed actually attract snakes at night. These six men became victims of a lie, and countless others fall prey to a similar myth about a far more deadly snake.
a The devil wants our lost friends/family not to see the light of the gospel, live in the lie.
b Jesus said, " . . . I came so that the blind would see . . ." Jn. 9.39 NCV
Conclusion:
1 The devil blinded many people’s heart in the first century to the gospel. (ETS)
Believers can pray that their lost friends/family spiritual eyes would be opened to the gospel. (ESS)
A We’ve looked at two specifics we can be praying for concerning the veil over the hearts of our unbelieving friends/family.
a Pray that the devil’s veil would be lifted from their heart.
b Pray that they would see the light of the gospel.
B I hope you will begin praying for God to remove Satan’s veil from the spiritual eyes of your lost friends & family. (Objective)
a Pray for Satan’s deception to continue or God exposes the devil for who he really is . . . LIAR.
b Pray that Jesus would become real to them the way He is real to you.
2 How are you praying from God to heal your lost loved ones spiritual blindness? (Probing Question)
A D.L. Moody, the famed evangelist, told this story at one of his meetings: One evening just before Christmas, a man was walking through the streets of an Eastern city. The store windows were all beautifully decorated, and he observed three little girls intensely interested in one of them. He discovered that the girl in the center was blind, and the others were trying to describe the beautiful things in the window. "Why," they said, "can’t you see that Teddy bear and that doll? Just look at that pretty pink bow!"
a But the poor little girl stood with a blank expression on her face and could not appreciate the beautiful things before her.
b "Now," said Moody, "this is an illustration of the effort we Christians are making to arouse the unconverted to an interest and delight in spiritual things. The reason we can’t do so is because the sinner is spiritually blind."
B Moody had scarcely concluded when a reporter was on the platform asking him where he had heard that story. "Oh," said Moody, "I read it in one of those daily papers. I have forgotten which one."
a Then the reporter said, "I’m the one who wrote the story because I was there and saw the whole thing. I see now that I’m just like that little girl, spiritually blind." That man was converted then and there.
b How are you praying for God to heal your lost loved ones spiritual blindness? (Veil lifted, Light Seen)
