His life and ministry is the revealing of the glory of Christ...
2 Cor: 3:12-16 · Roger Henderson · Apr 2, 2017
2 Corinthians (2017), No. 13
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261727312489

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, well today we're going to start in chapter 3, verse 12, and actually what I've done is I've kind of moved verse 17 up into today's lesson. It's not a biggie, but it seemed to fit better. So we're going to cover 12 through 17 today, and we're going to cover just 3.18 next week. And hopefully you'll see today as we get into this lesson how 3.18 is Kind of a really striking verse and very important in the Christian life. Okay. Okay. Can I get someone to read 12 through 17?

You can read it from the overhead or you can read it from your Bible or whatever you like. Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech, and are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face, so that the sons of Israel would not look intensely at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were hardened, for unto this very day, at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart. Whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Great. Thanks, Tom.

So let's start out with the first, therefore, having such a hope. I'm sure you've often heard, I think J. Ron McGee says this, some of the others, what's the therefore, therefore? So I think if you look back, if you look back in chapter three, especially in verse four, if you have your Bibles with you in verse four, it talks about that the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can have confidence, can have, and is adequate because, because Christ is adequate.

So I think this therefore is kind of summing up, it's going to point out some more marvelous truths about this adequacy, this confidence that we have. And he's going to contrast that confidence and that boldness with Moses. And we're going to find out some interesting things about Moses and his encounter with the Lord, and the aurora, the brightness of his countenance, some interesting things. And that's going to be paralleled with the Christian life. And I think there'll be some neat things here.

Yeah, back in verse four, it talked about the fact that as such confidence we have through Christ toward God. So our confidence can only be based upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no confidence in ourselves. It's his confidence. And as we trust him and walk by faith, his confidence is what's in view here.

So this says, therefore, we have such a hope. And basically, the tense of this verb is having, and the present tense, or in the Greek, when it's ever present tense, that means that's something that's continually happening. So as a believer walks by faith, he's continually having a hope. And if you look in the New Testament, and you look at the helps that you have, typically you'll see that elpis, which is a Greek word, It's talked about as favorable, confident expectation. But what's marvelous is, when God is the source of hope, whenever you see that God is the source of hope, you can translate that much stronger. Hope is sort of like, I hope it doesn't rain. I hope I get a good grade in my tests. I hope the cake comes out good. I hope it doesn't burn. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

But with God, Hoping God is an absolute certainty and there are many verses that talk about that one of those verses is in Colossians 127 could someone read that for me So Christ in you the hope of glory so You didn't you didn't play out Unite yourself to Christ. God united you to Christ.

So the hope of glory is an absolute certainty of glory. And then there's the marvelous verses in Romans 5. I'll just read part of those, talking about the hope, the assurance of hope, and how it's steadfast, cannot fail. And Romans 5, starting in verse 3, it says, and not only this but we also exalt in our tribulations knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance proven character and proven character hope and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us so hope in the New Testament when God is the source is an absolute certainty so it says therefore having such a hope. So we have a hope that is sure and steadfast. So it says, based upon that, we use great boldness in our speech.

So Paul's going to say, he's going to make a contrast here. He's going to contrast the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ with how Moses acted. And we're going to find some interesting things about Moses. So I don't want to ask the question quite yet. I want to read the section, and I want to ask you a question about Moses' behavior.

Okay, so literally we act with much boldness. We act, again, as a present tense. So we continuously act with boldness. And boldness is kind of a cool word. It's this idea of all speech, pas and resis, all speech. It's a freedom of speech. It's unreservedness.

And this boldness of speech is not something that we we concoct, or we're a great orator, this is the Lord using us. And it's a boldness to present who Christ is and what he's done. And our lives present that, as we saw earlier in Corinthians, things written on our heart. But this is talking about that the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can be bold in what he does. It doesn't mean we try to be bold. We allow the Lord to be bold through us. And there's some verses here that I think will help.

Could someone read acts for twenty nine to thirty one acts for twenty nine to thirty one. And now, Lord, we pray that your bondservants may speak to the Lord with all confidence, while you extend through your hands together, and signs and wonders take place through the name of your holy servant Jesus. Yeah, and notice how that boldness came about, right? Was it something they concocted?

No, it's the Holy Spirit working through them. And we don't need quite as flashy. I mean, you may be talking with your children, you may be talking with your spouse, you may be talking with a neighbor. God desires that we are, in a sense, bold. We're open. We don't hold back.

Sometimes, unfortunately, you find with unbelievers, sometimes you do hold back because you don't want to be, quote, preaching at them. You don't think it'll be worthwhile. And I always like the idea of waiting for them to ask me. And sometimes, amazingly, they do. And I'm just kind of floored that they notice something. Wow. I mean, that wasn't me. I didn't try to do that. But they notice something.

And they have a question, or they ask. And that's when this unreserved speech is to come out. That's when the Holy Spirit directs you. Paul's saying here, we have such a hope. We use great boldness in our speech. So now he's going to start the contrast here. But before we start the contrast, we're going to have a...

To understand the rest of the passage here, I think it would be good to read... Can I get someone to read this for me? Exodus 34, 29 through 35. You can read it in your own Bible or you can read it off the overhead. And we'll talk about it. There's really some interesting parts here. Remember, you get points, you know, when you read. I think about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the flesh were in Moses' hand as he was coming down from the mountain.

But Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of the skin of his hand. So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them. Afterward, all the sons of Israel came here, and he commanded them to do everything that the Lord had spoken to him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take up the veil until he came out. And whenever he came out and spoke to the sons of Israel what he had been commanded, the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone. So Moses would replace the veil over his face until he went in to speak with him.

Great. Okay. Well, I'm going to give you a summary and then I'm going to ask a question. Okay, what I see from this is that when, it's obvious in the first couple of verses, when Moses was with the Lord, the radiance of God's glory impacted his very aurora, his face shone.

And so he first comes down and they're frightened. They're frightened of this. They say, wow, I mean, if one of us was like that, we'd probably be frightened too. So they were frightened. But it's interesting is that, but then 31, Moses calls them back. He says, hey, you know, I don't even say hey probably. What are they doing? He convinced them to come back so I could talk to him.

So he told them all the things he learned from the Lord. But observe carefully. He had no veil over his face at that point. It was only after he finished discussing whatever the Lord told him that he put a veil on his face. Then there's like a summary in 34 where it said, kind of a summary statement. Whenever he goes before the Lord, he takes off the veil, he talks to the Lord, he comes back down, veil is still off, he talks to the people, teaches the people, then he puts the veil on.

Okay, so what's going on here? Why is he doing that? Is it a good thing he did that? Give me your ideas. I'm looking for a little interest. Some people have interpreted this different ways. You probably know where I'm going with this, but what do you think? First of all, was this a good thing?

Was Moses' actions, putting the veil, was that a good thing? Was he protecting them? Was he helping them? Is it a good or bad thing about the veil? It's more of a, no pun intended, a highlighting of what the Lord was saying with the authority of the Lord full tilt without making them fall down unconscious. Okay, so you're seeing it as the veil was maybe helpful at some point? It was helpful?

Right. set off what the Lord has to say, otherwise you'd just be talking through a veil. Get them to settle down and drink in what was said, not what's going to be said after. Okay, okay. Anybody else have a comment? I know Cheryl, Cheryl, we talked about this before. Do you have a comment about this? Well, in fact, he just said here, he took the veil over so they wouldn't see that the glory was fading. Right. Right, right. Very key here. Very key. You know, you might argue to protect their eyes. I don't know.

They didn't have OSHA then, or whatever. They didn't have the prescribed sunglasses or whatever. So, what I see here, and we're going to see it much in the Corinthians passage, is that the veil is going to represent something it's going to represent a hindrance and we're going to see this actually probably was not the best thing that Moses could have done because Moses in a way here's the deal he goes to be with the Lord he has maximum brightness with the Lord he leaves the Lord he talks to them for a while the brightness is diminishing he puts a veil on and diminishes even more so why was he putting the veil was the kind of hide that he didn't have as much glory as he had before.

You know, it would be like us. It would be like if we came to church, and I hate to say this, but if we didn't want to show that we weren't as quite as good a Christian as people thought we were. I mean, I'm trying to be, you know. We want to hide that. We don't want some people to see that.

It was like Moses, well, he didn't want the people to see that his glory was fading. And maybe they thought, well, he didn't have as much authority. you know, thinking more glory, more authority, whatever. Some of this is just kind of for talking purposes. But I think the key part here is that it seems like the veil was there to prevent them from seeing that the glory was fading away.

And we're going to see that amplified in our verses. Okay. So with that in mind, go ahead, Jack. Well, I think that the glory on his face was there, utter astounding. Right well, I mean obviously was it says they were they were they were frightened they're afraid to come near him in verse 30 there and then he had to he had to talk them in the coming he says Okay, don't you know don't we've come over here?

I want to teach you but every time he taught them he didn't have the veil on it seems like it doesn't talk about the times of when he had the veil on. Did he do any teaching when he had the veil on? I don't know. It just doesn't address that. It says he taught them with no veil on his face. That's why I underlined the and there in this verse. It says, but whenever Moses went before the Lord to speak with him, he would take off the veil until he came out. And when he came out, he spoke, so no veil on, he spoke to them the commandments and so on.

So the veil was only on to prevent them from seeing that the glory was fading, it seems like. And it seems like that probably wasn't the best. It would have been better. Think about this. If glory is equivalent to understanding about the majesty of God, wouldn't you want to see that even though it's fading every little bit? They didn't have the word. They had just Moses telling them. Wouldn't you want to soak it all in? No matter what, just a little bit less than it was before. But he veiled it over to say, well, it's just as good as it used to be. So let's go here. All right, so now verse 13. So remember he said, we have great boldness.

And now he says, and are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face, so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. So with this verse, verse 13, 3.13 and the account in Exodus there, it's pretty clear that he didn't want them to see what was fading away. So let's just kind of go through each part of this verse. And we're not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face. And basically, we don't want to act like Moses.

The Amplified Bible renders it. I think it's pretty good. And one meaning of boldness from the previous verses bare-facedness, boldness, and we're going to see that's really going to be kind of cool when we get down to 318. We with unveiled face, there's going to be this comparison with the Christian life. We never have a veil between ourselves and the Lord, unless we walk away from the Lord and do our own thing and do something else. As long as we're in fellowship with Him, walking with Him, we have unveiled face. We have a full radiance of His glory.

So that with the purpose that the sons of Israel would not look intently This intently is the idea that In fact, let's look a couple of these verses here just quickly here. These verses kind of reminds you of because someone read Luke 22 56 And this is not this is not just a casual gaze this is this is a I An intense kind of idea. So Luke 22, 56.

Right, so this is when they identified Peter, I believe. You were with him, Peter. Of course, Peter denies that. And then the other one, the one in Acts 1, 10 is where they looked intently. The Lord's going up into the clouds. And they weren't just casually saying, oh, yeah, that's kind of interesting. They were going, wow, he's lifting off the ground, going up into the clouds. I mean, that's just not, oh, that's kind of nice. They were really staring.

So the point is here, and this is what makes me think that Moses, I hate to say this, blew it. Not that we don't do it too, but he, by putting on the veil, he should have been open about it and said, hey, you know, We don't need a veil. We want to interact with the Lord, His glory. And so the veil actually was a negative thing, really, at the end of what was fading away.

And this word, fading away, actually is katergeo. And if you remember, that word is kind of a neat word. It's a word that we've kind of come across before, especially here at Holly Hills. It's a word we find in Romans 6.6. It's translated, they're done away with, or rendered inoperative. So it's the idea that it's fading away, and eventually it's going to be gone. It's to reduce the inactivity. And it shows up back in verse 11, and we'll see it again in verse 14. But it's the idea that it's fading away, it's going to eventually be extinguished at some point. Okay, questions at this point? You kind of see where we're going?

Basically, Paul's saying, we're not like Moses. We don't want to act like Moses. We don't want to put something between us and God's glory. We don't want to put, you know, be out of fellowship. We want to be walking with the Lord, looking and benefiting by the glory that we have as we interface with the Lord. And we're not like Moses, who put a veil over his face. And that actually hindered the children of Israel from seeing that glory.

Tom? Just a side note, I know that people here have been pretty well educated about nuclear, and of course radioactivity. Well, it's amazing that this was 40 more years were to follow, and it was his life, counting the extra time they had to wander through the desert. and yet the Lord sustained him. So this had nothing to do with some kind of nuclear physics going on and God was nuking no human being. It's a fact. It's a fact. Well, I agree, yeah. And it's really to indicate, this is kind of a physical, like I said before, glory. Glory is more than just the radiance. It's actually the intrinsic person of who God is. His glory is who God is. OK, so let's go on here. Verse 14.

So now it's going to talk about some negative things. But their minds, speaking of the Israelites, and by application could be us too, were hardened for until this day. So I'm just going to take that little phrase, a little bit awkward maybe. But their minds were hardened. Hardened is this idea to make callous, petrify. And it basically kind of speaks to what we're talking about. It would seem like what's going to be shown here is that the law, as wonderful as it was, prevented the Israelites, and conceivably us, from knowing the gospel, from understanding who Christ is. So we see some things about the hardening of heart, which is mentioned in several places. So maybe I'll just kind of summarize.

Let's look at 2 Corinthians 4.4. 2 Corinthians, actually it's just over if you're in 2 Corinthians there, you can just turn over a couple of pages. 2 Corinthians 4. And that verse says, In whose case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

So this hardening of heart, and it's also important to see that this, the tense, that's actually, I didn't do a good job here, the verb actually here is were hardened, so I should have, and it's that Greek word, I should have put were in front of that. I apologize for that, but actually the verb is were hardened, which is that Greek word to make hard and so on. And his tense is basically in the passive voice. So they are hardened by the fact that either their minds are blinded by the world, the flesh and the devil, so to speak.

In the case of the Israelites, it was by the law. It could be us too, by the law. So that's kind of what's going on here. And then up to this very day, or until the present day, So now it's going to go and tell us more about that. At the reading of the Old Covenant, the same veil remains unlifted or not being unveiled. So that same veil remains.

So this is why I say it's important to see that the veil is a negative thing. You know, you don't quite get that reading the account in Exodus. You don't quite see it's a negative thing. It seems like, well now I'm protecting the You know, the veil, as talked about here, is going to be related to the law and it's going to be a negative thing.

So it's a note here, basically, the old covenant with Israel was under the law of Moses. Therefore, the law is like a veil over Israel's eyes. And we see that in a lot of verses. A lot of verses talk about the effect of the law or the negative effects of the law, even though it's God's very righteousness.

But if you try to live by the law, which you cannot do, that's going to prevent you from knowing Christ. Then Galatians says, you have been severed from Christ. You who are seeking to be justified by the law, you've fallen from grace. But if the veil is removed in Christ.

So the wonderful news is that when we become a believer, this veil is removed. And then it has this word and removed here is this word that we just saw earlier. It's it's rendered and operative or or it's not, you know, taken offline. So a couple of verses here I want to look at, too, because someone read Galatians 518. But if you are led by the spirit, you're not under. OK, thank you.

How about Romans 7.4? Great. Thank you. That's great.

So we see here that it talks about the fact that the hearts were hardened. at the reading of the old covenant, basically the law, the same veil remains because it's removed in Christ. So we're going to see this same idea of being removed here again in just a second. It's going to show up in the next couple verses here. Alright, so let's go on here. But to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart. So it's kind of taking that physical veil, remember, and it's kind of Kind of using that as a picture of what can happen with the children of Israel with the law and by application with us. But to this day, whenever Moses is read or is being read until today.

Okay, so actually I may have gave it away already. So what does it mean when Moses is read? It seems like you can't exactly find that per se. I couldn't find a verse per se that says that. But by application, the fact that we have these verses that talk about the law and how it is a hindrance to knowing Christ. So it says whenever Moses is read, it's referring to the law there.

That's the best that I can understand. A veil lies over their hearts. Okay, so there's two things I noticed here. We had back earlier, first we had the veil remains unlifted, and now we have a veil lies over their hearts. two-pronged thing with this veil. It's there, it's in place, and it specifically lies over their heart.

And then the word heart in the New Testament, which is actually kind of a, you know, it's used in quite a few contexts. We're going to read a couple here. But it's cardia, from cardiac. So we use that Greek word to describe the heart. The word came to stand for man's entire mental and moral activity, both rational and emotional.

So the two verses I have here kind of talk about kind of two aspects of the heart, heart issues just, you know, and so many different situations. So let's read, let's look, turn to Matthew, Matthew 15, 19. And the reason I'm doing that is I just want to make sure that we're talking about this veil and the veil was not being lifted and then it's placed over the heart. And I just want to kind of show you that other scriptures will talk about the heart and how things come out of the heart, how we believe with the heart. So I'm just kind of trying to tie that all together.

Matthew 15, 19. Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, fornication, So that's a pretty uncomfortable list. But that's the person, you know, from our sin nature, all those things can come out of our heart. And they do. But the wonderful news is that the heart also is talked about in the sense of believing on the Lord Jesus.

And that's in Romans 10.9. And I'll go ahead and read that, Romans 10 9. That if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. So it's pretty amazing. Man is capable of the things that were talked about in Matthew 15 there. He's also capable of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. And that's all talked about in the context of the heart. So the heart is our central being. So the fact that a veil lies over their heart is pretty significant.

That's going to impede them from hearing the glorious news about the gospel. So that's why Paul's dealing with this. It's such an important thing. But to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart. But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. So this is really cool. This is one of the few places that talks about some of the aspects of the salvation process. So we're going to see what happens here. But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

But whenever is this particular Greek word, which I'm not sure I can pronounce exactly, but it's the idea it's used to indicate time, or literally at which time. I like what Macaulay said about this. He says, but at the very instant, let's talk about time, the very instant a man turns to the Lord, this veil is removed. You know, that's just such an encouraging, you know, here's a man who's maybe having all these bad things come out of his heart, But when he turns to the Lord, the veil over his heart is removed, and he can understand the things of God. So this is talking about the details, if you will, of the salvation, what happens when a man comes to know the Lord.

It's taken away. It's from the idea to lift up or take away. And it's in the passive voice. And so actually you could render it, the veil is being continually taken away in Christ. So, and that's wonderful. This is not just a one-time thing. Well, you know, this is something that as we walk by faith, as we walk in the Lord and trust the Lord, we are continually able to access who Christ is through the Word and what He's done. So the veil is continuously taken away in Christ.

And then we're going to see here, coming up here next week, we're going to see the wonderful aspect that we have these unveiled face. So this veil has become very important in this last part of chapter 3 here in Corinthians. That veil is used as a picture of what can impede you from knowing Christ. And it's going to talk about, next in 318, how that we as believers have this wonderful access to God, this wonderful unveiled face.

Thoughts or questions? Okay, we'll just keep going then. Okay, actually, it's the last verse. Alright. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. So, you know, I kind of pondered this, you know, and I said, I wonder how many times, you know, if I were to ask you, when Scripture talks about the Lord, who is it referring to, who would you say it is? Who would you say, in most verses, would you kind of think, it's referring to. Which person? Yes, I would think so too.

So this is one of the verses that it says the Lord is the Spirit. So you know, the problem is it's trying to explain the Trinity, right? You get in that thing, well, let's see, if Jesus is this and this is that, you're trying to compartmentalize. Well, no. It seems like this is just talking about The fact that, you know, this is an aspect, the Spirit can be called the Lord too. And that's not, you know, because they're one. We have one God. And the Father is called the Lord too. So Father, Son, Holy, can all be called the Lord. Tom?

I'm just thinking of the potential that, this may sound a little silly, but in a lot of ways it's kind of true. The Trinity is a tag team. And they're going to go after you and convince you moment by moment that this is really true, that this is the will of God, etc. And at some point you're just going to say, I give. So if Christ doesn't get you, the Holy Spirit will. It's not like that. Anyway, you're right. I mean, I think it speaks to the fact that we have one God and three persons. And to say that the Lord is the Spirit is perfectly fine. That's certainly appropriate with the fact that we have one God.

And then Constable kind of had a He was kind of pointing out the fact that we saw the Spirit working in verses 3, 6, and 8 previously in chapter 3. And the fact that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to show us the things of Christ, to illuminate us, to understand the things of Christ. So now the last part of the verse, and this part, I wish Randy was here. He was just so excited about this part of the verse. Roger, you're going to have 318 and then you have the last part of 17. That's going to be great. And it is great.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Seems kind of not too exciting at first, but let's see if there's one more here. So this word liberty is literally freedom. So let's just kind of go on here. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. Just a powerful verse there. We have this wonderful freedom in Christ. We have freedom to listen to Him, to understand Him. I have a couple of verses I wanted to share. Can I get somebody to read at least one or two of those?

Can someone read Galatians 5.1? Right.

So we'll see that actually, depending upon the translation, the word liberty is pretty much synonymous with this word freedom. And it's the same word. So in her translation, she had liberty there. So in my translation, in the American Standard it has, it was for freedom that Christ set you free. And actually it's interesting that both noun and the verb form are used there. Then down in 13, could you read 13 too? For brethren, you have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

Yes, now once again my translation was that freedom. And that's the thing about In a way, I really like the fact that we have multiple translations, because it shows you that we're looking at these words, and it's a decision of the translator, which do I put in this page? And the idea is, what does that word mean? What's the core meaning? And liberty and freedom is what's being talked about here.

And then the last one is in Acts 13.39. And through him everyone who believes is freed from all things from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses.

Right. So, pretty amazing statement. That last verse is pretty, you know, the law can only, the law shows us what is God's character, but it doesn't give us the ability to obey it. We're impossible, we have no empowerment to live it. What's wonderful is when we come to know the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of the Lord, there's liberty. He gives us the power to walk with the Lord, to obey the Lord, to listen to the Lord. That wasn't possible with the law. There was no empowerment with the law. as weak as it was through the flesh. So that's why this is such a marvelous statement.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And that's where the believer stands. So we're going to go the next week. I'll give you a little preview of where we're going to go here. We're going to go to verse 18. Which is going to make this contrast. We were talking about the veil being veiled. Now it's going to talk about being unveiled.

Verse 18, 2 Corinthians 3.18. But we, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord. Just as from the Lord, the Spirit. Once again, I actually didn't realize it. There's my Lord the Spirit again. It shows up in verse 18. This is going to talk about the Christian life as God wants us to live it. It's going to show us about how we behold Him. And what's the mirror? You guys know what the mirror is, don't you? It's this, right? Isn't this the mirror? It's not shiny, but it reflects glory of God, His very character, His holiness, His righteousness. So we're going to see next week kind of the mechanics of that, and we're going to be with unveiled face. We're not going to be like Moses.

And that veil was more than just that physical thing that prevented the Israelites from seeing it fading away. That actually prevented them from, in a way, knowing God. So that's what Paul tries to point out. It had a more severe effect. It didn't seem like it was severe when he did it. Maybe he was doing them a favor, so to speak, and maybe he wasn't as embarrassed, in quotes, because he didn't have as much shining aurora, but it actually hindered them.

And now, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can interface with God with unveiled faith. So there's just some marvelous things coming up here next week. So, any thoughts or questions or whatever? We're actually quite a bit early here today. Okay Okay, we'll just go ahead and close and then so so next week we're gonna go through each part of them of 318 all right dear father.

We thank you Lord for this day. We thank you for the blessings. We have father Thank you that that we don't are not like Moses Lord that we don't have this veil over our face that we can we can see you and that we can see you through your word and understand what you've done and who you are and and and the great love you have for us. And you're so careful and loving and desiring that we know you and walk with you. We pray that we understand more as we look into your word. In Christ's name, amen.