So it's 2 Corinthians chapter
12, and I'm just going to read the first few verses. 2 Corinthians chapter 12 and
verse 1. It is not expedient for me, doubtless,
to glory. I will come to visions and revelations
of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above
14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether
out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth. Such an one caught
up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, whether
in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth. how
that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words,
which is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one will
I glory, yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. For though I would desire to
glory, I shall not be a fool, for I will say the truth, But
now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which
he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me. Amen. May the
Lord bless that reading to us. It wasn't Paul's desire or intention,
as we have seen over the course of the past few studies in this
little passage, in any way to promote himself or revel in his
personal experiences. And he did so only in these chapters
and on this occasion because of the honour of the Lord and
the Gospel that was being attacked by false prophets and enemies
of the Apostle in Corinth. And as we saw previously, the
Holy Spirit, having inspired these passages and included them
in this letter that the Apostle sent to Corinth and preserved
them for us in the Scriptures, has provided us with insights
into episodes and experiences in the Apostle's life that we
would never otherwise have known about. because of that very reluctance
on the part of the apostle to speak about them. They were personal
to him. They, in his mind, in many ways,
disrupted his gospel preaching and his ministry and his desire
to promote Christ. And he would not have been talking
about these things had he not been so provoked and prodded
by these enemies who were troubling the believers at Corinth. But
here it shows us that the Holy Spirit has designed that we should
know about these things and that there is a benefit to us, there
is a good that flows to us, to the Corinthians undoubtedly.
when they received this letter and received Paul's words. But
the whole of the church through the whole of the church age has
benefited from knowing these things about the apostle. The Holy Spirit has given us
this information. And it shows us, I think, if
nothing else, how the opposition from our enemies and the enemies
of the gospel and those who would reduce the Lord and his people
is turned to good. Little did the troublemakers
at Corinth imagine that by doing the things that they did and
saying the things that they did, that the Holy Spirit would twist
their evil motives around to use them for the good of the
church through all ages. And the Lord is able to do that.
He uses the things that are intended for our harm to redound to our
good. And that's something that's worth
remembering. Even those challenges that evil
workers and opponents would try to bring against us, the Lord
will use for the good of his people. Not only us personally,
but the extended good of all his church. And rather than speaking
any more about his own sufferings, remember how last week the apostle
had spoken about the shipwrecks and the beatings and the stoning
that he'd had. He's stopping that and he now
turns to speak about what he calls visions and revelations. And expressly he says, visions
and revelations of the Lord. visions and revelations which
the Lord had favoured him with. And I don't think we should miss
that emphasis that the Apostle places on these visions and revelations. They were visions and revelations
of the Lord. Now, we can think about that
as that they came from the Lord, that that's what he means by
that. They were visions and revelations that came from the Lord. Or else
we might equally see them, and perhaps more beneficially so,
they were visions and revelations of the Lord. visions and revelations
in which Paul saw and heard and communed with the Lord himself
in an unusual and in a supernatural way. And I take that to be peculiar
to the apostle's own apostolic calling and the particular needs
and circumstances that he had as an apostle to the Gentiles. The Apostle Paul learned much
from the Lord directly. In fact, he says that he received
these things from the Lord. He didn't receive them from the
other apostles. And in fact, when he went to
Jerusalem, we discover that his gospel and the apostolic gospel,
which he discovered there amongst Peter and James and John and
the others, did not differ in any way. from that gospel that he had
been taught. And it's something that we ought
always to remember, that everything in scripture, and indeed, I believe
that we will discover in time, everything in creation, everything
in providence, the circumstances of life, and ultimately everything
in the history and future of this world, is designed for the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man. And when that whole
world time, that whole universe time is wrapped up and brought
to its end, as it will be by Almighty God, It is the Lord
Jesus Christ who will stand forth, step forth as the honoured one,
the one to whom all things point. The whole of this creation, everything
that ever was and everything that ever shall be, will be to
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And understanding that ought
to give the lie to so much religion in our day that emphasises that
what we do is the important thing and places man at the centre
of attention. All spiritual revelation is the
revelation of Christ and leads to the glory of Christ. And that
was true in the Old Testament, and it's true in the New Testament,
and it's true today and always will be. So when we speak about
a Christ-centered ministry, we're not meaning anything more than
that when we preach, when we share together, We purposefully
and intentionally and constantly should be found lifting up the
Lord Jesus Christ and the work of Christ in salvation in its
widest sense. Because so much religion is about
gaining converts, or recruiting new members, or preserving and
perpetuating some religious structure and organisation, or gathering
in funds for new projects, when the gospel is simply about declaring
and honouring and thanking the Lord for all that he's done. That's all it is. declaring and
honouring and thanking the Lord for what he has done. And if
we lift up the Lord in our preaching, in our witness, and in our lives,
and in our testimony, he will add to the church such as should
be saved. The gospel of God and the Lord
Jesus Christ is the fullest revelation. It is the fullest vision and
revelation of the Lord. that we can possess this side
of eternity. So when Paul's speaking about
the vision and revelation of the Lord, we have that. in the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle tells us that he
knew a man in Christ. And I'm quite sure that the man
of whom the apostle is speaking here is the apostle himself. This is Paul himself that he
is speaking about. He's speaking autobiographically
here. And he uses this device of speaking
in the third person in order, once again, to allow him to speak
extensively about his experiences without appearing to be personally
boastful. In fact, when we go down, we
didn't read beyond verse six, but when we go down to verse
seven, and we'll pick up on this again, Paul reverts to the first
person, and he says in verse seven, and lest I should be exalted
above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was
given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet
me. And so we'll come to that later,
but I just use that verse seven in order to reinforce the point
that I'm quite sure that this is the apostle speaking of himself
here. He is the one who was given these
visions and revelations of the Lord. I do want to mention this,
however, with respect to Paul's comment, I knew a man in Christ. The man Paul knew himself was
in Christ. And that little phrase is such
a simple phrase in Christ and yet it is so profound because
it is the essence of everything that we have. of a spiritual
nature, everything that we have under the gospel dispensation,
everything that we have now or ever will have in eternity to
come is founded upon and rests within that little phrase in
Christ. And being in Christ, as the Apostle
here describes himself, is to be a member of Christ's mystical
body, where Christ is the head and his people are joined to
him as his body. And to be in Christ is to be
chosen in Christ, to be elected in Christ, predestinated in Him
before the foundation of the world, under the terms of the
everlasting covenant of grace and peace, to have been built
into that relationship with Him that was founded in God's everlasting
purpose. to set forth Christ as our Redeemer
and Lord, and to give him a people who would be his body and his
bride. And to be in Christ is to be
brought into Christ in time, in this time period. age in which
we now live, so that if we think that there is an eternity, so
there is also a time. And to be in Christ is to be
brought into him experientially and knowledgeably in time, and
proven to belong to Christ by sovereign grace, by the new birth,
by saving faith, by the experience of justification in our heart,
through our understanding of what the Lord Jesus Christ has
done, through our conversion, and through the Christian liberty
into which we enter. And to be in Christ is also to
be hid with Christ in God as that new creation, united to
Christ and with Christ, viewed in Christ, accepted in Christ,
justified in Christ, sanctified in Christ, and ultimately to
be glorified in Christ. That's what the Apostle Paul
says in Romans chapter eight, verse one. He writes there, there
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit. And he goes on to say, for whom
he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn amongst
many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified,
and whom he justified, them he also glorified. So that being
in Christ, as the Apostle here describes himself, is the greatest
blessing in the world. To be a man in Christ, or to
be a woman in Christ, is the greatest blessing in the world. And Paul was such a man. So may
each of us be able to testify to such a calling and such a
hope as the apostle here had. He makes reference to 14 years. He said 14 years ago, or about
14 years ago, And I really don't know that
it's too important that we try to connect this occasion, this
time, with some particular incident in Paul's life. He doesn't give
us that information. He doesn't put it in a context
beyond the fact that it happened some 14 years previously. But I want to say this one thing
about that. It was a long time ago in a sense. 14 years is a reasonably long
time in a particular individual's life. Although as we get a bit
older, it doesn't seem to be so long ago, but so be it. Here's the point I want to make.
No matter what experiences the Lord gives us in our lifetime,
Let us try to understand them in their proper role and purpose. It may well be that we will be
granted stark, powerful, clear evidences of Christ's hand at
work in our lives. Or perhaps the experience of
God's grace and mercy will be hardly perceptible and we might
think that we have a very ordinary experience of the Lord. Be that as it may, we will not
all have the experiences that Paul had. Gratefully so when
we reflect on some of the ones that he spoke about in chapter
11. But whether our experiences are
extreme, in one direction or the other, as far as how gentle
they are, or whether they are somewhere in between, we must
not become preoccupied with the experience, not the experience. I've met people who tell me about
feelings they have had and impressions that they've had 10 years ago,
20 years ago, 40 years ago, sensations that they
claim have reassured them of an interest in Christ. And I've
also met people who have no assurance of faith because they've been
taught by their churches that they needed to have a special
vision or revelation and they've never had it. And both of those
extremes are wrong. Paul spoke of this experience
reluctantly. He didn't use it as the basis
for his confidence that he was a believer or that he was in
Christ. He was reluctant to speak about this. He didn't base his
hope or confidence upon this experience. And our hope of eternal
life is not in our sorrow for sin or our conversion experience
or some after incident or experience that took place in our life once
upon a time. Our hope of salvation is the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our hope is not the work that
has been done in us, but the work, or let me say the work that's
been done in us or upon us, it is the person who does that work
that we look to, however and whenever that might be. We don't
look to ourselves, we look away from ourselves and we look to
the Lord. Our confidence is in the cause
of our salvation and not in the effect of our salvation. And
I think that's a good thing for us to remember amid the vagaries
and the trials and the ups and downs of life. Our experiences
will change the Lord never changes. He's the same yesterday, today
and forever and therefore he is the constant ground for our
hope and assurance, our confidence. Paul says in verse four that
he was caught up into paradise, he was caught up into the third
heaven. I think that just means heaven. I don't think we need
to think any more about that. He simply was in the presence
of the Lord. And he heard, he tells us, unspeakable
words, words that are not lawful for a man to utter. And here
we ought to be careful not to try and explain what Paul says
can't lawfully be uttered or spoken about. There is a genuine
peace and contentment of faith that comes from simply trusting
the Lord and the Word of the Lord, even when we can't explain
or describe or understand everything to do with God. This is always
a great conundrum and let me just be a little bit personal
for a moment and say it's a conundrum for a preacher because a preacher
or a pastor kind of always wants to feel that he has the answer
pastorally or whatever for people who come and say to him about
this experience that they've had, or this trial that they're
going through, or this problem, or this passage, or this verse,
or this opposition that they're facing, this challenge that they've
been set. And sometimes we don't know the
answer. And yet we just have to trust
the Lord and His wisdom in all of these things. And I don't
imagine that Paul ever told another soul about this vision and revelation. So that any speculations that
we might have as to what he saw and what he heard are really
mere assumptions. Paul didn't know if he was in
or out of the body and that suggests that his soul may have left his
body at this time or that his body was transported like Elijah's
body was in the fiery chariot into heaven and then returned
again. So all I can say about this experience
is that I suggest to you that on the basis of our first principle
in today's verses, that the Lord is preeminent in everything,
that all we can say is that whatever Paul saw and heard, it would
have been to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there
we must leave it. Paul wouldn't glory in this experience. Choosing, he tells us, rather
to glory in his infirmities. And that's a very encouraging
place for us to leave off today, I think. It's as if to confirm
that past experiences of the Lord's peculiar mercies to us,
while blessed, and future experiences of the same, while desirable,
are no substitute for the present provision of the Lord's presence
in our daily living relationship with him. Paul speaks about what
is the common lot, the common experience of every believer,
namely the infirmities of our flesh, the trials that we face,
our weaknesses, even our sin. Now as we've said before, we're
not glorying in our sin. Our sin's a shame and embarrassment
to us and yet all of these things constantly remind us of our daily
need of Christ and our constant dependence on them. Our faults
and our failures are used to point us away from ourselves
and back to the provisions of grace and mercy that come daily
anew from the Lord's faithfulness to his people. We live by faith,
not by sight, not by visions and revelations. We live by faith
And while these visions and revelations serve their purpose, or served
their purpose in times past, they're no substitute for daily
trusting in the blood and righteousness of our Saviour. Daily trusting
in His free justification of our souls in love and mercy. So that whatever this day holds
for us, For some of us it's just beginning, for others it's coming
to an end and there will be another day tomorrow. But whatever this
day holds for us, the Lord's words to Paul are relevant to
us all. He's going to say in the next
few verses, my grace, says Christ, is sufficient for thee, for my
strength is made perfect in your weakness. and we'll see a little
bit more about that next week, God willing. Amen.