Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and
verse 16. For which cause we faint not,
but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed
day by day. The reason we faint not in tribulation. 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 16. The Apostle Paul had been setting
before the Corinthians the path that they, that is the Apostles,
had been walking. And verse 8, troubled on every
side, yet not distressed, we are perplexed, but not in despair. And no doubt the Corinthians,
they were well aware, as the other churches were, of those
things that the apostles, that the believers, were going through. In one sense, there's no encouragement
to those to also believe and to follow them when they saw
what accompanied them, what trials and what tribulations. You think
of the time of the persecutions in this land, and those that
were being put to death, those that were being tortured, and
yet the Lord strangely used those things to not hinder the Gospel,
but encourage others to be amazed at how was it that they were
able to stand these tortures and to go through these things. What was it that kept them from
despair? What was it that strengthened
them? What was the secret? Surely there
must be something beyond this world and not in this world,
because looking upon what they are going through here, they
saw nothing to recommend the gospel or recommend the path
of a Christian. And of course there are those
The most solemn thing, as the Apostle Paul says, if in this
life only we have hope in Christ, with all men most miserable,
the blessings of the Gospel, they are not promising wealth
and health and strength and perpetuity of life here below. He's looking
for that which is eternal and it goes beyond that which is
from the body, and looks at that which is of the soul. And so the apostle seeks to tell
the churches this, what was the secret, the path that they walked
in, the trials and tribulations that they walked through. He
says in our text, for which cause we faint not, he says, In verse
15, all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might,
through the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God. They were given grace, they were
given help, they were given strength, and those tribulations, they
worked for good. They were used by the Lord. These are they that came out.
of great tribulation that washed their robes, made them white
in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the
throne of God." Well, I wanted this afternoon to look at this
reason that we faint not in tribulation. At tribulation, our Lord said
we must pass through to enter the kingdom. I want to look firstly at the
uniqueness of man, that is body and soul, worth of a soul, because
a lot of what we must say hangs upon that. And then secondly,
what would be the cause of fainting, of discouragement, And then lastly,
why we faint not. And our text tells us that the
inward man is renewed day by day. But firstly, the uniqueness of
man. That man stands apart from the
beasts of the earth. He is unique in the creation
as he is made in the image of God. In many ways he is in the
image of God. One way is that if God is eternal,
then man has been given a soul that never ceases to exist. Indeed it had a start as it were,
not like God who is from eternity to eternity, but man being given
a soul that soul never ceases to exist. So in that he is like
unto God. Our God also is a triune God,
and so we have many types of that three-one union, that union
of a body and a soul and of the spirit, God's spirit with a man,
threefold cord, it's not quickly broken. And then we have, of
course, the types of marriage where there is the man, the woman,
and the offspring, and we have that reflecting the Godhead as
well. Then we have the image of God
in that man has been placed over the creation, and to be in dominion
over him. Also in that he is being given
a reasonable soul, so that he may be given information and
he can process that information, he can deduce new things from
old things, he has reasoning powers, which though we might
find very clever animals and birds to be able to find out
how to open jars or how to get things out of difficult places,
nothing comes anywhere close to the ability that God has given
man to design, to reason, to plan. He stands alone in that
respect. Then there is an aspect that
has been lost in the Fall, and that is the ability to have communion
and fellowship with God and to know spiritual things. That has
been lost at the Fall. Adam and Eve, they had it, to
be able to speak with the Lord. The Lord met with them in the
cool of the day and they were able to have that communion with
Him. That is broken. They are banished
out of the garden when sin entered into the world and death by sin. And now we are told the natural
man receiveth not the things of God, neither can he know them,
they are spiritually discerned. And we are spiritually dead by
nature. We must be born again, that soul
must be quickened into divine life as a very first in, that
if there to be any hope at all there must be life given again. That man has those two parts,
he has a body and he has a soul and at death there is a separation
between the two. and that soul returns to God
that gave it. We read in Ecclesiastes of how
that shall be, when the dust shall return to the earth as
it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. And we read as well in Ecclesiastes
of the spirit of the beast that goeth downward into the earth,
and the Spirit of man that ascendeth, and that goeth to God. It is,
of course, for these reasons that man made in the image of
God. It's so wrong that man should take his own life or assist another
in taking their life. The life of man is not like the
life of the beast. And our Creator has said, that
he who sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed,
and that thou shalt not kill. We know that David, when he spoke
of Joab, who shed the blood of war in a time of peace. There is three types of killing,
or four, you might say, in the Word of God. There is that which
is a judicial killing, which only is in the case of premeditated
murder that judicially capital punishment should be administered. Then there is the killing in
war. Then there is the killing of
manslaughter, which is an inadvertently killing another And then there's
premeditated murder. Thou shalt not kill. And it's
good for us to be able to differentiate between those. The Israelites
had the cities of refuge specifically to decide between murder and
manslaughter. The murderer was to be put to
death. He could not continue sheltering in the cities of refuge,
but the one that was had killed one unawares that one was to
stay, as it were, in prison in that city of refuge until the
death of the high priest. So the presence of a soul with
us is a most solemn truth and the reason why we should be so
concerned as to how it is with our soul, because when our body
dies or returns to the dust, our soul does not. And after
death there is the judgment, and unless we have the Lord Jesus
Christ to be our advocate, to die in our place, to redeem us,
we will perish at the judgment. We shall be sentence to eternal
death in hell, the second death. And so when we come to the words
of our text and we are thinking of a reason why man in the face
of tribulation and troubles here does not faint, the whole key
to it is to knowing of body and soul, and to have with that soul
a good hope, have a living soul, be mindful of the life that we
have within. The Apostle Paul said that the
life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me. And so he was able to say,
absent from the body and present with the Lord. Very clear assurance,
no purgatory, no time in between. The same as our Lord said to
the dying thief, don't get the comma in the right place. This
day shalt thou be with me in paradise. The Roman Catholics
would say, Verily, verily, I say unto thee today, thou shalt be
with me in paradise. And just the moving of that comma
allows for a time difference between when it was said and
when entering paradise. The scriptures are very clear
that it is an instant from the body and entering and in the
presence of the Lord. So I want to look then secondly
at what would be the cause of fainting. Sometimes we might hear of tidings
that really cause us to really faint, really shake us and feel
very down, very low. and it's a blessed thing then
to have something come in, a remembrance come in, that does really lift
up and strengthen and encourage. The Apostle Paul here was speaking
of the tribulations that he was going through, and that certainly
is one cause of the fainting. God himself has chosen out for
us and for the people of God what shall be their great troubles
in their lives, their tribulations. And whether it comes through
men, they are the sword, the hand is thine, or whether it
comes through afflictions, a sickness, an illness, to view that as the
Lord's appointment for us, a pointed path that we must walk. I often think if the Lord was
to say to me, you choose your own tribulation, what would I
say? You know, my mind would go around
many of my friends, acquaintance, many of the brethren, and see
some of the trials that they have in their families, their
circumstances, in their bodies, their afflictions, I am very thankful the Lord hasn't
left me to make choice of it. But it's a good thing when we
realize the must and then be able to look beyond what the
Lord has appointed for us and to see the Appointer. The tribulations are very real
and the Apostle is very real at those things that he's bringing
here. And sometimes it's very, very
hard to look above the pain and the trial, and the enemies, the
adversaries. Dear David, he said, one day
I shall perish at the hand of Saul, constantly pursued by the
adversary. And one reason we can faint is
when the devil comes in and says, you know why these things are
happening? It is because the Lord is not your God. or because
you have sinned, and because of these things the Lord is marking
you. This was an added trial with
dear Job after all that came upon him, and his friends first
came to comfort him, but then they turned of saying, when it
continued on, there must be something wrong with you, Job, there must
be some reason why this has come. And so Job, he said, miserable
comforters are ye all, And we think of the same mentality with
those that saw the man that was born blind, and they said to
our Lord, who has sinned, this man or his parents, that he was
born blind? This tribulation that he is in
of blindness, there must be some great thing in his life or his
parents' life, why is this happening? And that adds that the Lord said,
neither him nor his parents, but that the glory of God might
be made manifest in him, reserved right until he was of age, until
the Lord should come and then should heal him miraculously.
So an added cause of fainting is when those things that we
have are used by the adversary. Dear friend, over in Australia,
now with the Lord, I said to him once that I thought perhaps
Paul's thorn in the flesh was not affliction, was not illness,
because it was a messenger of Satan. Well that dear man, he
had chronic arthritis, he had gold injections every three months,
and he turned, he looked at me, he said, it's not the affliction.
is what the devil does with it, how he stirs up the rebellion
and replying against God, the hatred against God, and the fretfulness,
and that's what is the message of Satan, not the actual thing. I've never forgotten it, and
it's spoken from one who knew it, who walked through the path,
and very often I've thought of that, things that we go through,
they're as it were the catalyst and it's how the devil uses them
and twists them round and insinuates things and all to discourage,
all to cast us down, all to send us to despair if he could. So it is a tribulation itself,
it's how the devil uses it. And then there is that which
is of the flesh itself. In verse 7 he says we have this
treasure in earthen vessels. What a picture of our bodies. An earthen vessel, easy to be
broken. Is not that what we have in the
portion that we read in Ecclesiastes 12? You think of an earthen vessel,
wherever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken,
or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken
at the cistern. Easy, isn't it, with the vessel
to be broken. Well, in that chapter is exhortation
to remember our Creator in the days of our youth, while the
evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, but thou shalt say,
I have no pleasure in them." And then there is a picture of
the body as it's slowly brought down, as its ability to enjoy
this life is slowly taken away. And I've often thought, you know,
I was, I suppose, 30, 31, 32, when I first started to have
glasses and here we read the eyes and not being able to see
clearly and then I had to have hearing aids and the sound of
music is low and then I'm starting to have false teeth and the sound
of grinding is low And this chapter has really helped me. I remember
driving back from the dentist, and the dentist had told me,
no, the tooth couldn't be saved, but they could give me an implant
for 3,000 pounds. And I said to him, there's no
way I'm going to spend 3,000 pounds on one tooth. I couldn't
afford that. And as I was driving away, this
passage really came really sweetly. The sound of grinding is low,
And why is it the grinders cease because they are few? The Lord's
always decreed it, He's told it, He's foretold it. We're not
going to stay eternal youth. And really it is when we get
the first evidences of these coming on, it's like the Lord
gives us a little gentle knock. you know, this body's going to
be taken down. And then the next thing goes
wrong and that knock gets a bit louder, and the next thing goes
wrong and it gets louder and louder. And when I viewed it
like that, I viewed what a kind God to give reminders. Some we
know, and recently there's been several, They've been in their
teens, they've been in their prime of life and they've suddenly
been taken, road accident or something like that. No warning,
just taken. But for those, for many of us,
the Lord gives warnings that get louder and louder and louder
the nearer we get to that dissolution between the soul and the body. And when we start to view then,
because that is a cause of fainting, and many get distressed at this
when they find their bodies failing, they find they can't do what
they once were able to do. And while we're focusing on time
and we're focusing on this body and focusing on what we can do
in this life, then we will get discouraged and we will get faint. And we will wonder where the
sea will end. And sometimes we might see, of
course, the elderly and all the infirmities and all the things
that they endure, and we think, well, that path is before us
as well. And so we have this text, a reason
for fainting not, for which cause we faint not, but though our
outward man perish. Yet the inward man is renewed
day by day. I maybe view it as a realization,
a fact, our outward man is perishing. It is coming down to the grave.
But there's this, though our outward man, it doesn't deny
it. It acknowledges it. It faces unto it. It looks at
it as God's appointment and God's way. and as a friendly, kindly
hand and reminder from the Lord to give us something better and
eternal, and to look for that which is within. Yet the inward man is renewed
day by day, and so on to look then lastly at why we faint not. One of dear Reformed brethren
once said to me, the previous pastor that he'd had, and he
had a pastorate for some 30 years, but he had trials in that pastorate. And he said, you know, it made
me look more to my own soul and to the communion and fellowship
with the Lord. And there's something in that.
You know, you could have everything nice around town, you could have
a good pastorate, a good congregation, a good church, and no conflict
at all, and rest quiet in that, be happy with that. And it would
be a blessing. But the soul, your own soul,
could actually be neglected while you're just looking at these
outward things. It's always a challenge with
those in the ministry that we be like Martha, very cumbered
about doing very actively for the Lord, the Lord was there,
but not sitting at His feet and hearing His words. And it's always
a thing, a minister must be very careful to maintain his own soul
on a close walk with the Lord and fellowship with the Lord,
not just a life of preparing the next sermon, having that
time with the Lord. And so this dear brother, he
said what it made him do was to look more to his own soul
and his walk with the Lord and communion and fellowship with
the Lord. And it was a good thought, it
was encouragement to many of us brethren that heard him say
that. But the whole secret of why we
faint not is because of the renewal of the inward man. How vital the first step with
the inward man is that it be quickened into life, that it
be renewed and that it be made alive and quickened in the new
birth, in being regenerated and being converted, being brought
to full assurance of faith, to be a living soul. I pass by thee
when thou wast in thy blood, and when thou wast in thy blood
I bid thee live. And the Lord said, Without me
ye can do nothing. I give unto them eternal life,
they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out
of mine hand. It's a blessed thing to realize
the difference between outward and inward, the body and the
soul. The Lord says, in me you shall
have peace, in the world you shall have tribulation. I have
given them thy word and the world hath hated them. All the time
there is this this conflict, this difference. The Lord said,
fear not them which kill the body and after that there is
nothing more they can do, but fear him who after he hath killed
hath power to cast both body and soul into hell, yea, fear
thou him. And of course we would remember
with the inward man, Paul says that we groan If we go to the
next chapter, he says, we know that if our earthly house of
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God and
a house not made with hand eternal in the heavens. For in this we
groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which
is from heaven. If so be that being clothed,
we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle
do groan, being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed,
that is, not that we should have the soul taken from the body
and just left like that, but clothed upon, that mortality
might be swallowed up of life. Of course, in the previous epistle
to them, he's spoken about the resurrection. There is a mortal
body, there is a celestial body, a terrestrial body, As we are
born the image of the earthly, so we shall bear the image of
the heavenly, and the reality of that life beyond the grave. Oh, that it might be more and
more real to us. We are told in the Scripture
that we shall know even as we are known. God knows us now,
clearly, all our thoughts and everything. but then we shall
know Him in the same way that He knows us. Here below is the
shadows. If you and I can hear each other,
see each other, we can touch, we can have a sense of reality
here, how much more in heaven? Some feel it's just spiritual,
it's just thoughts, as if it is not real. It is real, it is
more real than here. And often we don't think of that,
but it is. It is the substance, it is not
the shadows. It's the substance. It hath not
entered into the heart of man what God hath prepared for them
that love him. But we know that those things
that are prepared, they are of more substance, not less, than
what we have here. And so the reason why we fade
not is this reality, the more it is real to us, the more we
know that it shall be well with us, and absent from the body
and present with the Lord, the more happy we'll be. Remember,
Ron Bishop at the Pilgrim Home, he was only there for few months. But when he first came in I didn't
know him. I took a service there and he
was just in front of the lectern, paid very attention to the service. And afterwards I asked him who
he was and was he in for permanent or just respite? He said, no
permanent. And then his face changed and
his face lit up. And he said, but this is not
my home. My home is above. And it was
just as if this swept over him, this realization. This wasn't his last hope. Many
will think that. You're going into Bethesda, you're
going to the pilgrim home to die, that's your last home. Might
be your last place of residence here below, but not your last
home. God's people have an eternal
home, eternally in heaven, inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled. that
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last day." And so the apostle says here, the inward
man is renewed day by day. And again, this speaks something
to us. Why does it need to be renewed? You know, if we renew something,
something is either it's corroded, it's got something wrong with
it, I'm doing a treadle organ at the moment, renewing it, it's
got boring, all of the bellows have all got to be replaced,
and everything like that. It's been renewed, it's been
made right again, but it's because it is deteriorating. And God has said this with the
soul, It needs renewing. That's why we meet week by week. That's why we regularly hear
the preached Word. That's why we regularly read
the Word of God. We need that renewed. I was really
strengthened and encouraged once. Years ago, I'd been preaching
up at Nottingham. I preached there morning and
afternoon. I was driving home. Heavy traffic. I got down to Luton. at 6.30
and I was so tired and I thought, I can't go another 100 miles,
I need to go and rest. I thought, I know what I'll do,
I will go into Bethaluton and hear the service. And I thought
in my mind, they started at 6.30, they didn't, they started at
6. So I parked up and I walked into that chapel just as Mr.
Ansbotten gave out his text. They shall go from strength to
strength, everyone of them appearing in Zion. Now he said, some might
say that this is getting stronger and stronger and stronger, but
really what it means is, he says, you've used up all your strength
and you need it renewed again. That was the very reason why
I'd come into that chapel, because I'd used up all my strength and
wanted to be strengthened to get home. And I've never forgotten
that, and it was such a strength, and afterwards I went back to
them with the refreshments, and still had strength to get home
again afterwards, even later. And it is true, we use strength,
and then we need it renewed. In Psalm 107, you find that they
went down, fell down, none to help, and then they cried unto
the Lord, and the Lord delivered them, and up they went again,
and then down again. In Psalm 139 they are not as
my down-sitting, mine up-rising, they understand that my thought
are far off. They that have no changes fear
not God. God's people do have changes. They do need reviving. If you
come into the Lord's house this afternoon, you might come disheartened,
discouraged and low, tempted and tried in your soul, but if
the Lord is pleased to use the ministry to renew it again. You know with the manna, it was
given day by day, they must not hoard it up, they needed it day
by day. With our food, we don't say something's
wrong with us, we needed three meals today. And we need a meal
tomorrow, you say, you foolish thing. Of course you need a regular
supply of meals. But when it comes to spiritual
food, we suddenly think, oh no, we're forgetful hearers, we should
just hear the word once and we should gain the strength of that
meat 40 days. We sometimes have blessings and
helps like that, and the help does last a long while, but for
the most part, And the devil will say, ah, there you are.
You're not really one of the Lord's children at all. You've
got to have your religion popped up all the time. Your soul's
got to be popped up with the Word. You take away the Word
and you're nothing. Yeah, that's true. We do depend
upon the Word of the Lord. We need that, for our soul is
a living soul. And it needs to live on that
fresh food, that fresh manna. And in doing so, It gives a day-by-day
witness we have a living soul and we have a living God, a living
Saviour that feeds that soul with food convenient for them.
Despise not the Day of Sorrow. The children of Israel, you know,
they did despise the manna. And yet that manna was given
so constant, they lived on that. And the other thing, there's
always encouragement with the manna. He withheld not the manna
from their mouth. Yes, in all their rebellions,
their sins, He dealt with them, He chastened them, but He never
took away their food. And may we always notice this,
the Lord giving us, give us this day our daily bread. Don't just supply to our natural
bodies, this is for our soul. And this is to renew our soul
day by day. And this then is the reason why
we do not faint. To discern this, yes, my mortal
body is failing, but my soul is not. You know, when John writes
in his epistles, he writes to one and he wishes that he might
be in health even as his soul prospers. For some people it
has been said that that would wish them dead. But if our soul
was really prosperous, then that wouldn't be so. If John was to
say, I want you to be in health as your soul prospers, and if
their soul was very lively and very prosperous, then they'd
be very, very healthy outwardly. And that's how he wishes it.
But John is distinguishing between the health of the body and the
health of the soul. The reason why we do not faint
is because we realise this. The Lord has quickened our soul
into life and He is keeping it in life. He is maintaining it
in life. Because I live, ye shall live
also. And there's a great link between
us and our God. The Lord hasn't said, no, here's
a stock of grace, a stock of provision, You go away from me,
you'll be alright, you'll get through life's journey. No, it's
like a parent that says to the children, you don't have to worry
about your daily meals. You don't have to worry about
getting supplies in, or cooking it, or presenting it. We'll do
that for you, one meal at a time. And what a difference for the
children. And that's for the people of God. They look unto
the Lord for their provision daily. What encouragement to
pray as we come into the house of God. What encouragement to
go day by day looking for the Lord's provision. The Lord says,
I see the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea. He opens His
hand, He satisfies the desire of every living thing. Shall
not He clothe you, shall not He feed you, O ye of little faith? The soul that is quickened and
made alive, that soul will be fed, that soul will be renewed,
and that will be the secret of when going through all tribulation
and trials and afflictions, and when we come at last down to
the valley of the shadow of death, while we do not faint, because
we know we have in heaven a far more eternal wake of glory waiting
for us. May we know this secret. May
we not just get through life's stomach and just with our own
resolutions and own hell, but may we be of those that as we
see this outward vessel, earthen vessel, slowly perishing, be
strengthened because the new man is renewed, and be encouraged
in the Lord our God. Those intervening days and years,
one day less on earth, one day less that we have to wait before
we are in glory. A blessed thing to have a good
hope beyond the grave. May we each have it here. May
it be something that we really plead with the Lord for and covet
earnestly this best gift and desire that we might see something
of that renewal and help day by day. The Lord at His blessing. Amen.