Seeking for the help of the Lord
I direct your prayerful attention to Paul's 2nd epistle to the
Corinthians chapter 4, the chapter that we read. And we'll read
for our text verses 10 and 11, but it is principally the last
part of each of those verses that I decided to bring before
you. 10. Always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body. 11. For we which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. 2 Corinthians chapter
4 verses 10 and 11 for reference but it is these last words on
both of these verses that the light also of Jesus might be
made manifest in our bodies. The word in verse 10. In verse
11 we have that the light also of Jesus might be made manifest
in our mortal flesh. So if there was any thought in
verse 10 that it might be our body when resurrected and beyond
the grave, The Apostle makes it very clear, no, this belongs
to this time stay in our mortal flesh. It is in that, that the
life of Jesus might be manifested. Now this time of year we think
of the life of our Lord. We spoke this afternoon, because
I live, ye shall live also. and the evidences of Christ rising
from the dead, his ascension into heaven. But here we have
another way that the life of Jesus is manifest. Now remember the word manifest
means to make clear or obvious to the eye and mind So he is
saying, here is a believer, here is the apostle, and those things
that he goes through in his life, the things that he goes through
are for the purpose of showing the life of the Lord in his body,
or in his mortal flesh. That men would look upon him
as a believer, as a preacher, and that they would see evidence
of a living Christ. And it's especially put forth
here in relation to the Corinthians. We might think, well, is he not
speaking just of himself as an apostle, a preacher? This doesn't
apply to an ordinary believer. Because he says later on, he
says in verse 12, So then death worketh in us, but life in you. You know years ago I read an
account of William Huntington, William Huntington a preacher
in London and he built a chapel down the road from ours at Cranbrook,
Providence over top of the warehouse of Isaac Beeman who was a member
at St David's Bridge and he left St David's Bridge to take that
course there. But William Huntington, fiery
preacher who was born near Cranbrook as well, and at one time he was
very, very low in his soul, very tried, very tempted and really
laboured with his preaching. He found it very difficult, very
hard and he couldn't work out why. He was feeling like that
but the people were being blessed. People were being favoured because
he was coming where they were. He was walking in paths of trial
and temptation and preaching out of that and setting forth
before them what they needed and what the Lord was pleased
to bless. So in that sense The Lord in
what he brings his servants to walk in and to experience causes
them to enter into the paths of his people and his people
live through that. The ministry is a living ministry
and it speaks to their souls. It speaks to that which a sinner
needs, a saviour, a help outside of themselves. Now the Apostle
is very clear here that he is, as an Apostle, as a believer,
but especially as an Apostle, a possessor of a treasure, a
possessor of the blessing of God. And he says it is in a vessel,
a treasure that's in an earthen vessel. Neither earth was but
a man. And in several places we were
told he himself, his bodily presence was contemptible. People looked
upon him and they despised him. They said to him his letters
are weighty and powerful but his bodily presence doesn't answer
up to what his letters are. But the apostle makes it very
clear that his power and the blessing and that which he brought
doesn't come from him, it comes from God. And that treasure is
put in an earthen vessel. And so in one sense we have the
apostle or the preacher set forth here, but then later on in the
chapter He brings them together. He clearly says that those things
that go through for all things are for your sakes. In verse
15, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many
we're down to the glory of God. But he's looking at those things
that bring them together, the same spirit of faith, the same
God that raised them up together and united them and joined them
together. God has not seen fit to send
angels to preach. He sent an angel to Cornelius
And the angel told him to go and get Peter, go to Joplin,
go to that place where Jonah went down to, to run away from
the Lord because he did not want to preach to the Gentiles. The
first time that the Holy Spirit is to be given to the Gentiles,
the same equivalent to Pentecost, ten years after Pentecost, The
Lord chose to bring the preacher from Joppa, but he prepared him
first with the vision from the sea let down from heaven with
all of the unclean beasts in it. Arise, Peter, kill and eat. He said, I have never eaten anything
common or unclean. The Lord said to him, That which
God hath cleansed call not thou common or unclean. That was done
three times. The Lord prepared him then to
willingly, freely go and preach to the Gentiles. The other apostles,
when they heard it, they held him to account. You went in to
those that were uncircumcised. You preached to them. But he
rehearsed the matter from the beginning. When they heard it
they said, Then hath God also to the Gentiles given repentance
unto life. I always love to see the ordering
of the Lord of this because the Apostle Paul was the Apostle
to the Gentiles. But God did not use him. to be
the one that preached at the time the Holy Spirit was given.
Otherwise the Gentiles would have said, well the Spirit was
given by the Apostle Paul for us and the Jews would say no,
no, we have Peter for us. But the whole church is one and
in the giving of the Holy Spirit in that special way, Peter was
used in both occasions. So Peter when the Spirit was
given to the Gentiles could clearly say, he fell on them as at us
at the beginning. Not because he'd heard of it
by report, but he'd actually seen it and been a witness of
it and he'd been the preacher on both those occasions. And
so we have the Apostle, preaching the Word and preaching to the
people of God, not an angel. And Peter when he went to Cornelius
the Word was so blessed with power. And it is here that the
excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. What is upon my spirit this evening
is specifically what is shown us in the last part of these
two verses. The life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body or manifest in our mortal flesh. We have a picture of this and
really it is a searching word for every believer. Is the life of Jesus manifest
in our flesh? Is it clear and obvious in our mortal bodies? Now some
of us we may really struggle. I know years ago I felt almost
as if it were an argument with the Lord. I said, Lord if I was
not, if I didn't have so many corruptions, so many temptations,
so many best heading sins, I could serve Thee so much better. And you know, the Lord has taught
me this. It is through sin, temptation,
through those sins that we are brought to know the Saviour of
sinners and the One that delivers from that. And if you and I had
no sense of sinnership, we'd have no need of He whose name
is Jesus. for he shall save his people
from their sins. So if you and I are to show the
life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's in our mortal flesh,
we're showing it as sinners. Those encompassed with infirmity,
those troubled by sins, besetting sins, those tempted by the devil,
those pulled by the world and attacked by the world. All that
belongs to being in the world but not of it. And there is shown
forth the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has so ordered this
in Gospel days, in this time of the preaching of the Gospel,
that his dear people are his witnesses and each one are a
trophy of grace and that what he works in them is not hid. It cannot be hid. It is shown. It is observed. Men took knowledge
of the apostles. Why? Because they had been with
Jesus. Because they had learned of Him,
been taught of Him, and it had been seen, and it had been noticed. Sometimes we don't even know
that we show forth that difference ourselves at all. We would not
be able to explain it to others at all. And yet others do notice
it. and sometimes it can be quite
a shock when it is actually put before us what they've actually
seen or noticed. I remember once when I was given
the employment just across the road from where I had been working
and it was the employment I had for some 12 years before coming
over here and then continued to work for them for another
3 years over here. I'd been seeking a new position
of employment. I was unhappy where I was and
the draftsman that I was working with, he knew that. And he was
friends with the managing director of the firm across the road.
And he had said to me, he said, I'll make some inquiries this
year and see if I can get you a position there. Well, I came
in one day and he suddenly said to me, he said, I've arranged
an interview, he said, for you. It's a quarter of an hour's time,
he says, in your lunch hour, you'd better get over that. He
says, I've told them all about you. He says, I've told them
you're a Christian and you don't swear and you read the Bible
and you go to church and you haven't got a television and
you read off all of these things. And I just stood there and thought,
you noticed all about that? And you told this prospective
employer all of these things before I've even seen him. It was a shock to me that they'd
noticed those things. And it can't be hid where they
were. I think I was 24 years of age
at that time. And these things are noticed. But
here in the context here, the Apostle is speaking of very specific
things. that manifest the life of God,
that show the life of God. And it's not the things that
we normally think, not the things that even we say or we do, but
it's the things that are given by God. And if we would take
verse 11 for we which live are always delivered unto death for
Jesus' sake. In verse 10 it is always bearing
about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. And with our
Lord, before he rose from the dead, he must die first. In the ordinances of the Lord's
house, Those that are baptised, they are buried with Him by baptism
into death, then risen in newness of life. And that is the order
of it. In the experience of the Apostle
Paul, if we were to read in Romans 7, he says, I was alive without
the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And that which was ordained unto
life I found to be unto death, because the Lord came and it
slew him. It took away his self-righteousness,
it took away his hope of heaven in himself as a Pharisee of the
Pharisees, and it brought him in as a guilty, hell-deserving
sinner. It brought him to be the position
of the publican in the temple, not the Pharisee. How was the
life of Jesus manifested in those two in the temple? Certainly
not, but the Pharisee could stand and he could rehearse all what
he'd done for the Lord and all how good he was. But the publican,
he couldn't lift up his face to The Lord, he beat upon his
breast, he cried, God be merciful to me a sinner. Him later takes
it up, mercy through blood I make my plea, God be merciful to me. And the way that the Lord Jesus
Christ, his light, becomes obvious, becomes clear, in the life of
a believer is through death. It is through those things that
are worked in that slays the self-righteousness, that humbles
that sinner, that takes away his pride, that brings him to
the foot of the cross, that brings him to be nothing in self and
everything in the Lord. that seems so opposite to how
natural flesh would work. It doesn't stand up to reason.
And yet that is how the Lord will be glorified in a sinner
and in the life of his people. It is through his death and through
that which he works in them This is why our Lord said, and he
emphasised this, you must through much tribulation enter the kingdom. Our Lord said that in me you
shall have peace in the world, you shall have tribulation, but
be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. And the people of
God who shall overcome the world, they overcame Him, overcame them
by the blood of the Lamb, overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb.
And in John in his epistles he says this is the victory that
we have over the world, even your faith. And that faith is
the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's the faith that comes
by the word of God. Now the Lord says in John 17,
I have given them thy word and the world has hated them. So this is one of the things
that are prior to the Lord Jesus, the life of Jesus manifest in
the mortal flesh. We are delivered unto death,
which Jesus used to say, or bearing about in the body the dying of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord gives his dear people
his word and the effect of that, the world notices that And they
hate that word, they rise up against the word of God. But the life of God, remember
the Lord Jesus Christ is the incarnate word. And the Word
of God is that which liveth and abideth for ever. And the world
hates the Word of God. And Satan he will manipulate
it and use it to his own ends. Remember the temptations in the
wilderness that Satan came with the temptation first, command
these stones that they may be made bread for. And then the
Lord answered through the Word of God. It is written, Thou shalt
not live by man, shalt not live by bread only, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. So then Satan starts
to use the word of God, twisting it and taking him up to the temple,
cast thyself down from hither for it is written he shall give
his angels charge over thee and they shall bear thee up in their
arms lest thou dash thy foot upon a stone. The Lord said it
is written again and he compares scripture with scripture thou
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. that Satan would try and
use the Word of God and the Lord answered Satan. The Lord didn't
say, well because Satan is now using the Word of God I'm going
to forsake it. No. He compares scripture with
scripture and brings the true sense of the Word of God. And it is through the Word that
many of the persecutions, you think of the persecutions over
the years, over the centuries of the Church, very often it
has been through the Word of God. Certainly with the Roman
Catholic Church, the institution of the Lord's Supper, what it
meant of the blessing of the elements, And those that held
fast to the Word of God and to what it set forth, they were
persecuted because of that. And so when the Lord puts his,
or would have his image upon his dear people, this is one
of the evidences of the life of God. is that they have a people
that have the Word of God. They hold to it, they cleave
to it, and they preach it, they walk it, they live it out, they
won't let it go. The Word has been used to bless
them, to quicken them, they receive it as the Word of God, They eat
that word, it is their meat, it is their drink. Man shall
not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeded out
of the mouth of God. We may ask ourselves in this
way, is the life of Jesus manifest in our mortal bodies? What do those round about us
view, how we view the word of God? doesn't have any influence
on our lives at all. Often thought of this, especially
in business, with our special services or whatever we have,
we always put God willing, if the Lord will. And I think people
would rightly condemn us if we left that out and we said this
is going to happen on such a time. But how many of you perhaps in
business would then make an arrangement for a meeting or something that
was going to happen equivalent to like our assemblies? How many of you put God willing
on that? When you're writing an email
to your colleagues, you're communicating to them, Are you saying, well,
if it's anything concerning the Church of God and the Brethren,
then it's subject to the will of God. But if we're making arrangements
for a delivery on such a time or a meeting that's going to
take place, that we don't mention that. It's something to think about,
isn't it? Do we have just a compartment
religion just for those who speak the same language as ourselves?
Or is the life of God? We're very mindful of this, that
in Him we live and move and have our being. If anything, through
what we've been this last year, surely it has taught us this.
if the Lord willed we would do this or that. How many things have been turned
upside down and changed and arrangements had to be different. But has
the world noticed any difference with us or not? Is the life of
our Lord manifest, obvious? in our mortal flesh, in our bodies
in this way. Many of the Lord's dear people
have had to suffer in the same ways that those that are not. Has there been a difference?
in how we are born under afflictions and trials and things that have
come upon us. You know the Lord Jesus Christ
came upon this earth as it were in a time that I've often thought
if I was planning things I wouldn't have brought him upon this earth
when A horrible ruler like Herod was on the throne and was prepared
to kill all those children in an attempt to destroy the Lord. If I could organise providence
I would have organised a much more conducive time for him to
come. But that was not in the purpose
of God. But did it mean then that Joseph
and Mary said well there's been a ruling of a census and we've
got to go to Bethlehem but it's only this ungodly ruler, it's
only worldly law anyway, I'm not going. They didn't. And the scriptures were fulfilled
in the birth theme at Bethlehem. But in going And then while transpiring
we see the wonderful preservation of God in mourning them, their
fleeing to Egypt, the fulfilling of the scriptures even in the
slaying of those young children. Rachel weeping for her children
would not be comforted because they are not. But the prophecy
was to cease from weeping that there is hope in thy hand. those things even that our Lord
went through. The tribulations, the trials,
in the holy scriptures of truth they reinforce and strengthen
this is He. And in those things that He went
through, the help of God, the providence of God, the reaction
even of His parents, to the laws of the land. How is it with us? Missing in
our hands providence unfolds the book and makes its counsel
shine. In the context of our text here,
it's not just spoken of as chance, but it's delivered unto death.
Those providences that are walked in that are so contrary and yet they work together for
good. We have that in Romans 8 don't we? We know that all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them
that are the called according to his purpose. And the Apostle
is saying here, we are troubled on every side yet not distressed. There is the light of the Lord.
We are perplexed But not in despair, there is the life of the Lord.
Persecuted, but not forsaken, and there is the life of the
Lord. Cast down, but not destroyed, there is the life of the Lord.
Don't ever let Satan say, well if you were the Lord's people
you wouldn't be troubled on every side, you wouldn't be perplexed,
you wouldn't be persecuted, you wouldn't be cast down. Maybe
those of you this evening. You say, I am cast down, I am
troubled on every side, I am perplexed. But there's a balance to it on
each of these things. We're not exempt from the troubles
and the trials, but the grace, the help, the strength that is
given in them. And these things are noticed.
They're noticed by the church, they're noticed by the world
as well. How that one keeps going, or
one has a secret strength, a secret help. Now many might have looked
on the Apostle Paul and said, Paul, this thorn in the flesh
that you have, this messenger of Satan, how do you bear it? How do you cope with that day
by day? And you know what his answer
would be? By the grace of God. My grace is sufficient for me. My strength is made perfect in
weakness. We're not to hide either where
that strength is. No, it's one thing to point to
the redeeming blood of God and say behold the way to God. But
it's another thing when we're in trials that may be the same
as what those round about us again and to point where your
strength and where your help is. It's a great blessing to
be able to point to the Lord in that way and to glorify the
Lord in that way. God is our refuge. and strength,
a very present help in trouble. Our house lies right next to
an alleyway that people walk up and down from Cranbrook and
up to the local secondary school. All the students are all past
it. We've got two windows, one facing
one way, one the other. We can have the big TVS posters
on those and that is one of the texts we have on there. God is
there for you. And it's a privilege to testify
of that but it's also when people may be asking where our hope,
where our strength is. When we have afflictions, when
we have trials, recurring ones, and to be able to point where
the source of help is. Not denying the trial, not denying
our weakness, our mistakes, our poverty, but giving thee credit
and glory to the Lord. Having received help of God,
says the Apostle, we continue unto this present day. And he
testifies of that help that he has received. We shouldn't be
backward in making known where we have received that help. And quite often we have a neighbour
that, while he himself is a counsellor, many people used to come and
see him, but he's in his 80s now. And he'd quite often come
to unburden himself and to speak to us. Of course we can't have
him in our home now in lockdown, but he used to come in the home
and whenever he'd come in, I said, I said, you know where we get
our help and our strength from? I take out the Bible, I said,
before you go, we're going to read the Word of God, we're going
to pray. And once I was bringing him back
from the hospital, he came to the hospital appointment, he
said, you know, he said, when you have the reading and prayer
with him, he said, can you explain the reading, explain that? So
that's what we did. It's been more difficult now.
But you get these openings where those would seek help and you
tell them where you get your help. Can't point you in any
other direction, any other way but this way. If we truly value
the help of the Lord, if we've been helped with some medicine
or something like that, If we'd had some illness and we'd tried
to find a remedy and we'd found something, some vitamin or something
like that, and done a school, we helped it, and then someone
else had got the same problem, wouldn't we naturally say, you
take this, you try this, this was a help to us? How much more
so when we know the blessing of the Lord, the life of God,
When we know the Lord Jesus Christ and the help that he has given
us, as we've cried to him, groaned to him, opened our hearts to
him, poured out our heart before him. Pour out your heart before
him, ye people. God is a refuge for us. Another aspect that comes before
and to have the life of God manifest in the mortal bodies is how we
actually appear in this world. In Hebrews 11 we have a list
of those that walked and lived by faith. And in many ways their
faith was evident in different ways, in different
paths. Looking at the words of the text,
the life of Jesus manifests in their mortal flesh. How was it
so? And we see the things that they
did. With Enoch he walked with God,
with Noah, he built an ark, with Abel he offered a more excellent
sacrifice. But then when we come to verse
13 there is a description of the faith that is common as it
were to them all. They saw the promises afar off
and they embraced them. And this was their confession.
It wasn't just a confession we might say to those that believed
the same thing, but a confession to the world. Confessed that
they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. It says were they
that say such things declare plainly that they see a country. One of the hymns says let not
this world our wrath appear. How does the world, how does
the church view our lives? The Lord said if they have persecuted
me they will persecute you, if they have received my word they
will receive your word. If they have done these things
in the green tree what shall be done in the dry? He says they
are not of the world even as I am not of the world. And all
the time there is an identifying between him and his people. But how is it that we would be
read in that way? Do all of our language and all
of our life give the impression we live for this time or do we
live for that which is to come? Are we taken up with the things
of this world or do we hold it with a loose hand? If we'd have
been at Jerusalem when the Word was first preached and those
that were pricked in their hearts that fell under conviction of
the crucifixion of the Lord. And we wanted to see some evidence
of the reality of the life of our Lord in their lives. And
you see how those that had lands, they went, they sold them. Those
that had much, they gave to those that had poor. No, not much. The whole idea was a loosening
of the things of time, the value of things of time. And the Apostle
Paul, he speaks of what he had and he had in a spiritual sense
as a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He said, those things I count
but loss and dumb, that I might win Christ and be found of him. Our Lord in his parables, he
spoke of those that found the pearl of great price. When they
valued that, they sold everything that they might buy that pearl.
They found the treasure in the field. So they sold everything
that they could buy that field and have that treasure. And all
the time there's this idea if we have this treasure, as the
apostle says here, in earthen vessels, It will make other things
to be what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes. Vanity, oh vanity saith the preacher,
all is vanity. The earth and the things of it
dim, its glories passed away, because we live for that which
is beyond the grave. In 1 Corinthians 15 We read the
Apostle saying, if in this life only we have hope in Christ,
we're all men most miserable. And that's a solemn thing. If
we can say, well we're a Christian, we're a believer in Christ, but
all we want to do, and I've heard it in so many so-called churches,
life has never been better since we've been a believer. We can
now live Christ to the full. And what is happening? Their
life is just going on in all of the world, in all its amusements
with Christ's name cast in. And that's the only difference
that has happened. It hasn't made any difference
to the love of the world. The Lord has said, Whosoever
will be a friend of the world is in enmity with God. Know ye
not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, whose
charms enchant All of these things of this world, they would take
us away from the Saviour. All the time draws a sign. But
when we see that this is under the curse, and that there's tribulation
and trouble and sorrow, and the Lord is not here, not in person. He says, I go to prepare a place
for you. And it is in that that will be
very evident to those that look on to that person. that all their
language, all their life, all what they say and all that they
do, while the Spirit is with them, we have at the end of Revelation
22, the Spirit and the Bride say come. All the letters to
the churches, the churches appointed, the same as the Old Testament,
look for Christ's first coming, they look for Christ's second
coming. And they long, they look for that wherein dwells righteousness
because they know and they feel that here there is the unrighteous,
here is the sin, here is the sorrow, this is the curse, this
is not your rest, it is polluted. And when this is known and this
is felt, It manifests the life of God within. If the Lord Jesus
Christ has given his people eternal life, they are his inheritance,
he is their inheritance, he's gone to prepare a place for them,
they have mansions above, but they live here below as if none
of that existed, as if he was nothing to them. That doesn't
bear the witness of the life of Christ within. But where the
life of Christ is made manifest, the Lord has so ordered it with
his people that it is through tribulations, through deaths,
through sorrows, through griefs, through those things in which
the Apostle says, I must increase, that he might increase It is to be brought low and then
be lifted up by the Lord. Always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body for we which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. It points to the death
of the cross, crucifixion, which was a slow death. The apostle
says the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. The world does not want the Lord's
people, the Lord's people do not want the world. And it is
through the Lord Jesus Christ that that is so, the giver of
life and the one that they desire, as the apostle did, to depart
and be with Christ, which is far better. He says, for me to
live is Christ, to die is gain. And this was evidenced in his
life. In all the things that he went
through, those troubles and those trials, it didn't extinguish
the life of God within. Remember when the Lord told the
parable of the sower, there was only one that bore fruit. the
others, the thief was either taken straight away, or it was
that it was in stony ground, there was no root to it, when
there came persecution then they were offended, or if it was where
there was the thorns, the cares of this world they choked the
word that it become unprofitable. Those things that, those cares
of the world Those things that come against the Word, they come
against the Word in God's people as well. Those trials, those
tribulations, the fires that will try every man's work of
what sort it is. But where the light of God is
within, is like Bunyan's pilgrim was shown. Water was put on the
flame one side, but oil the other. A secret supply, a secret hell. Dear friends, the trials and
troubles that God brings and appoints in your life, may we
look upon them as a friend. May we look upon them as some
things appointed to bring us to the Lord for His grace, for
His help, that we might be a testimony and a help to others. Years ago
I was speaking to a lady often past, walking in our town, and
I tried and tried to point her to the things of God. Her God
was her garden. And one day, and she said of
all the trials that she's had in her life and her particular
bereavement, and so I heard her out and I said, well, I said,
when I was 25 my mother died of cancer. And she stopped and
she said, and you still believe? You're still a believer? And
that happened. And it was through tribulations,
through things that happen like that, that people stop and ask,
are you still a believer? Many think if God allows that,
if he brings that into your life, isn't that what Satan said about
Job? Job only served God because it
hedged him about. You bring a tribe, you touch
all his things, he will curse thee to thy face. Naturally speaking,
yes. But with the life of Jesus, with
God's grace, no. So our desire should be in our
trials, our troubles, that we seek that grace and help from
the Lord and strength from the Lord, not denying the trial,
the severity of it, the hardness of it, the weakness of our flesh,
but seeking that this might be that opportunity as it were,
a gift from the Lord, that we may glorify the Lord, that His
light might be manifest in our mortal flesh. The world cannot
see the Lord. He has ascended up into heaven.
He is in heaven. But he strengthens his people,
though I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
The Apostle Paul, when the Lord met with him on that Damascus
road, he said, Why persecutest thou me? Paul wasn't persecuting
the Lord directly. He was persecuting his people.
And Paul would have known of those people. He would have thought
of those people. How they bore what I have done
to them. How they put up with all our
holy men and women to prison. There is no wonder and the Apostle
refers to this. He could bear these troubles
because he said, I have seen others that have walked in this
way and the grace that they have had. And this is the grace that
he had, and maybe that which we realise as well, the help
of the Lord. I know I've imperfectly said
this before you, but if we meditate upon these two verses, the contrast
here about the death bearing about in the body, the dying
of the Lord, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest
in our body. Manifest, clear, obvious to the
eye and mind, to show forth the praises of him who has called
us out of nature's darkness and into his marvellous light. Some
might think, well if we're going to do that, It's only a matter
of speaking and praising the Lord and worshipping the Lord
and going to the Lord's house. But the Lord has said no. You
must through much tribulation. And it's in that tribulation,
in that triumphs, Where did Joseph glorify the Lord? Where did Daniel
glorify the Lord? Where did the three Hebrew children
glorify the Lord? Where did Naomi glorify the Lord
in her bereavement and Ruth's bereavement? And why did Ruth
plead to Naomi? Because she saw how she dealt
under those same trials that she was under as well. Our Lord
was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, more afflicted than
any man, and may we count it a privilege if we are called
to walk in his steps and manifest his life in our trials and those
things we pass through to his honour and to his glory. that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our mortal flesh. May the Lord at His blessing. Amen.