Good morning. So good to be here. We're going
to sing the hymn number four. Let me look. 475, number 475,
Redeemed. If you could please stand. 475. Redeemed, now I love to proclaim
it. Redeemed by the blood of the
Lamb. Redeemed through His infinite
mercy. His child and forever I am. Redeemed, redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the
Lamb. Redeemed. Child and forever I am. Redeemed and so happy in Jesus,
No language my rapture can tell. I know that the light of His
presence With me doth continually dwell. Redeemed, redeemed, Redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb. Redeem, redeem His child and
forever I am I think of my blessed Redeemer I think of Him all the
day long I sing for I cannot be silent His love is the theme
of my song Redeem, redeem Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb Redeemed,
redeemed His child and forever I am I know I shall see in His
beauty The King in His law I delight Who lovingly guarded my footsteps
And giveth me song in the night Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed, redeemed, His child
and forever I am. You can be seated. Good morning. We're going to
continue our study in 2 Corinthians this morning. If you'd like to
turn with me there in your Bible, 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Let's
ask the Lord's blessings on His Word. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
how thankful we are to have a Redeemer One who succeeded in purchasing
unto Thee the souls of Your people. What a great hope and comfort
we have, Father, in knowing that He has put away our sins. And that You have declared His
blood to be sufficient for a price of redemption, a covering. Lord,
You said, when I see the blood, I'll pass by you. We asked father
that you would enable us now to find our hope in my dear son. We know that all of your word
is written in order to reveal him. We pray now for your Holy
Spirit to open the eyes of our understanding. We pray that you
would make Christ known to our hearts. What's in his name? We ask it. Amen. Paul begins in chapter 12 by speaking of an experience
that he had in being caught up into the third heaven. Now, when
the Bible speaks of heaven, it speaks of it in three places. The first heaven is the atmosphere
that surrounds the earth. The air that we breathe is referred
to in the Bible as a heaven. The second heaven is the heaven
that we observe out there in the universe, the stars and the
planets and everything that we're able to see with the eye and
with the telescope. The third heaven is that place
that will never be discerned by the natural mind. It'll never
be seen with the natural eye. It has to be revealed spiritually
through faith to the heart. It's the place that we have great
hope in for our eternal resting place. It's the place where the
Lord Jesus Christ is seated upon His throne. It's a place where
God's people gather together and rejoice in Him. And Paul speaks of being caught
up into that place. Look what he says. He says, Verse
1, it is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. Remember
in chapter 11 he's apologizing for the fact
that he's having to glory in the persecutions that he suffered
for the gospel's sake. But he's doing it not in order
to promote himself, but he's doing it in order to say to the
church, the words that I bring to you are faithful and true.
I am a called man of God that has been given the gospel and
these that are accusing me of being a charlatan are really
guilty of the very same thing that they're accusing me of.
And so he's defending himself for the sake of encouraging the
church to believe the words that he's written. I like what John
says, and I think it's in John chapter 20, where he says that many more
things the Lord did that are not written in this book, but
these things have been written in order that you might believe.
and believing on him you might have life. So that's Paul's concern. That's my concern. That's your
concern, isn't it? To know that these things have
been written in order that we might have life. And there's
a whole lot of folks that are claiming to have a word from
God that have never been spoken to by God. and the scripture
reveals them as false prophets. And Paul's just saying, I'm not
one of them. What I'm telling you is true.
This is a word that came directly to me from God. 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 a one caught
up to the third heaven." Now he's speaking of himself, but
he doesn't want to draw attention to himself and so he says, I
knew a man. And the experience was so real
that only God knows whether or not he caught me up into the
third heaven in this physical body or whether it was a vision
that I went spiritually into. But it was that real. And verse 3 says, I knew such
a man, whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell,
God knoweth. You know, he's going to talk about his weaknesses
here in a moment. But it begins by by talking about
the special revelation that God has given to him as a penman
of scripture and how he can't take pride in that. You know, sometimes when people
hear us speak of the gospel, particularly the exclusivity
of the gospel, they conclude that we're proud. that we've
come to learn something or we've discovered something or we've
figured something out that other people don't know. And just the
opposite is true. We know who made us to differ.
I was thinking this morning about, you know, oftentimes new believers
will find themselves getting in arguments with their unbelieving
family members and friends. And in time, that goes away,
doesn't it? You just don't, you don't contend
with people anymore. The Lord humbles you through
those experiences to realize that, you know, the revelation
that I've been given, like the Apostle Paul, came from God.
And if God's going to reveal himself to you, you're going
to have to receive it the same way I received it. I'm not going
to be able to convince you. The Lord's going to have to give
it to you. And the more you grow in grace, the more humbled you
become over the fact that the Lord has revealed the gospel
to you. And you're amazed. Your response
is not like the response of the religious, the self-righteous,
the world that says, why would God reveal to you and not to
me? Why would he choose some and
not everybody? Our response is just the opposite.
Knowing who he is, our response is, why would God have mercy
upon anybody? And most particularly, why would
he have mercy upon me? Why would he be pleased to reveal
himself to me? It's according to the goodness
of his grace, to the praise of his glory. To the praise of his
glory. And that's what Paul's saying.
I have it. Now Paul's talking about an experience
that none of us have ever had. Somebody talks about going to
heaven and having a vision and coming back and writing a book
about it. I know one thing about them, they're liars. And yet, Paul had this experience. And he says, how that, verse 4, how that he
was caught up in the paradise and heard unspeakable words which
are not, you see that word lawful? It's the word possible. You might
have it in the margin of your Bible. He saw unspeakable things
that are not possible. There's no language anywhere
on earth that's sufficient to describe the things that I saw.
John had a similar experience when the Lord told him to put
down his pen and write not. He said, you're seeing things
now that can't be expressed. What glorious hope we have in
experiencing those things one day that no language here on
earth We're not going to be speaking English in heaven. We're not
going to be speaking Spanish. We're going to be speaking a
language that is going to be able to express the things that
we're experiencing. And there's no language on earth
that can do it. What a glorious hope, a glorious
expectation we have. Paul said, I saw things that
are unspeakable, things that are not possible to write about. I can't possibly express them.
Verse 5, of such a one will I glory, yet of myself I will not glory,
but in mine infirmities. I'm not going to glory in the
experience that God gave me. If I glory in anything, I'm going
to glory in my weaknesses. I'm going to glory in my infirmities.
He goes on to say the reason why I'm glorying in my infirmities
is because when I'm weak, then I'm strong because his strength
is made perfect in my weakness. Look what he says. For though
I would desire to glory, I should 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." Over again, you know, the previous chapter
and this chapter, Paul's making it clear, my objective is not
to promote myself. It's not to set my, I want you
to see Christ. I want you to believe what God
has revealed to me as a penman of scripture. You know, and I
was thinking about all the men that have claimed to have been
given a revelation from God. You know, we think about Joseph
Smith. One man wrote the Book of Mormons. Think about Mohammed. One man wrote the whole Koran. And you know, how many millions
of people are being deceived by the revelation that one man
claimed to have received from God? Paul's claiming to have
received a special revelation from God. But the thing about
it is the revelation that he's receiving has been already confirmed
in so many different ways by so many different individuals
and so many different ages. The Bible Bible doesn't change, does it? The Bible confirms itself, and
it's consistent. And so all these different individuals,
the prophecy of Scripture the Bible says came not by private
interpretation, but holy men of God wrote as they were moved
by the Holy Spirit. And so we have the We have the
confirmed revelation of God's Word and of the gospel of His
grace, which is what His Word is all about. It's all about
Christ. Verse 7, And lest I should be
exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations,
there was given to me a thorn in the flesh. Thorn in the flesh
is a metaphor. It's an experience that is painful
and uncomfortable. And yet the next phrase is the
literal translation of what the thorn in the flesh is, the messenger
of Satan. So we cannot conclude that his
thorn in the flesh was his physical, some sort of physical infirmity.
We cannot conclude that his thorn in the flesh was his persecutions. Many have speculated as to what
this thorn in the flesh was. Was it the persecutions that
came upon him? Was it some sort of physical
illness or infirmity that he experienced in his body? Was it the burden of the church? What was the thorn in the flesh?
Was it some sort of mental anguish? Or what was it? It was all those things. It was all those things. And
it is all those things for you and for me. Anytime whether it
be persecution, or infirmities, or doubts, or circumstances,
or fears, cause us to lose sight of Christ. That's a messenger
from Satan. I made this, I think Wednesday
night, I said, any experience that we have that causes us to
have less of a need for Christ is not a blessing. It's not a
blessing. And people say, well, so-and-so's
been blessed with so much, or they've been given this and get...
If it causes you to have less of a need for Christ, it's not
a blessing. And any trial that causes you to doubt the power
of God, and to lose sight of Christ, is something that's being
used by Satan. He's the...turn with me to Ephesians
chapter 6. Verse 10, Finally, my brethren,
be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood. You see, your problem is not
with a person who may be persecuting you or you may have a conflict
with. Your problem is not with a physical malady, however serious
and painful it might be. The problem is when those things
cause us to lose sight of Christ. and now the messenger of Satan
and what Paul saying is I I'm he's not asking the Lord to take
away his persecutions he's not asking the Lord to take away
any sort of physical problem he's having he's asking the Lord
to take away that that experience that he has when he goes through
those things of doubting God and fearing God, because he knows
that that's when the wiles of the devil are using those experiences. Look what he says, look what
he says in, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places. There's the problem. It's a messenger of Satan that
would cause our hearts to lose faith, to lose the hope of rejoicing
in knowing that all things work together for good for those that
love God and those that are the called according to His purpose,
to believe that He's on His throne and that these things are all
for our good and for His glory. And so it's the doubts and the
fears that come as a result of the wiles of the devil. The messenger
of Satan is the thorn in the flesh. God, in order to humble me, has
given me a thorn in the flesh. The messenger of Satan. And that's what I wish I didn't
have to deal with. And so, Lord, take this away. And the Lord said, no, not going
to do it. Let's go back to our text. It's unbelief. That's the thorn
in the flesh. It's the old man. It's the old
man. Now can you imagine? Paul's been
caught up into heaven. Whether in the flesh or out of
the flesh, he could tell not. It was so real to him. If he
was caught up in the flesh, then that flesh was transformed. Because
this flesh can't enter into heaven. So his experience is that he's
in glory. He's in the third heaven, in
his body, experiencing this. And now he comes back to earth
and he says, and now he's got his old body again. He said,
you know, this body of death that he bears around with him,
and that's what he, so he wants to go back to that experience
that he had. And he realizes, you know, and the Lord said,
no, I'm going to leave you in the body that you're in, in this
world, and you're going to be buffeted by the wiles of the
devil, and you're going to be tempted and tried, in order to
cause you to see your need for me. In order to expose your inability
and your weakness and to cause you to become dependent upon
Christ. Look what he says. Verse seven, we'll read it again.
And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance
of revelations that was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the
messenger of Satan debuffet me, lest I should be exalted above
measure. For this thing I besought the
Lord thrice. Now that doesn't mean that he just prayed three
times. This word three is a number of perfection. I've just been
pleading with the Lord time and time again to take this away. that he might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee." Do you
believe that? Whatever God has ordained for
your life, whatever trial, whatever persecution, whatever sickness,
whatever troubles, whatever conflicts you have, And Satan would use those things
to cause you to be afraid. To cause you to doubt God. To
cause you to try to figure out a way to solve the problems in
the power of your flesh. And you go to war against those
things as if you were warring against the flesh. And the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal. They're mighty through God to
the pulling down of strongholds. Bringing into captivity every
thought. to the obedience of Jesus Christ. For we wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and
powers and wickedness in high places. That's the problem. It's a spiritual warfare. The
physical is not the problem. Your financial problems, your
health problems, your relationship problems, whatever they are,
that's not the problem. It's the spiritual attacks that
come through those things. And James puts it like this,
he says, count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into
divers temptations, knowing that the trying of your faith worketh
patience. And when patience is complete,
it'll make you perfect and entire, lacking nothing. You'll see that
your total sufficiency is in Christ. He's put away all your sin. And He has good thoughts for
you. His ways are not our ways. I
made this statement on several occasions. I'll make it again
this morning. If you and I had the power of God, we would change
pretty much everything in our lives. Everything. We'd tweak everything. And with
some things we change completely. If we had the wisdom of God,
we'd change nothing. Nothing. And that's why am I so afraid? Why can't I trust God? Because
the messenger of Satan is my thorn in the flesh. And the Lord
says, I'm not gonna take it away. You remember the Amalekites in
the Old Testament when the children of Israel were going through
the wilderness? The Amalekites were the ones that came up behind
and picked off the weaklings at the back of the tribe and
they were constantly battling against the Amalekites. They
never quit battling with them. The Amalekites are the ones that
Joshua went to fight down in the valley. And Moses was up
on the mountain with Aaron and Ur. And when his hands were up,
Joshua got the victory. And when his hands got tired
and he dropped, the Amalekites got the victory. What a picture
of our experience. Christ is fighting our battle.
It's His battle. The battle's not yours, it's
the Lord's. And when we're looking to Christ
and trusting Him, then we experience that victory. We experience that
conquering of sin and Satan in our lives. And when we get tired
and we lose sight of Christ, who gets the victory? The Amalekites. They never, the Israelites fought
the Amalekites the whole time. And you and I are gonna have
the Amalekites the whole time. The Lord said, I've sent you,
so I've given you, you see, much like the apostle Paul, I've given
you a revelation that I'm not giving to other people. In a
spiritual sense, I have caught you up into the third heaven.
And I've caused you to see that there is a Lamb who was slain
before the foundation of the world, and He is now seated at
the right hand of God. And He's put away your sins.
The world doesn't see that. They think that Jesus is in heaven
wringing His hands, begging men to let Him have His way in their
lives. You know the truth. And yet, and you've tasted of
that heavenly gift, and you know what it's like to have fellowship
with the Holy Spirit, and to have the joy of the Lord, and
yet you can't maintain that experience all the time, can you? You can't. Why? Because you're carrying
around this body of death. And the messenger of Satan would
use that thorn in the flesh in order to cause you to doubt God.
And the Lord is saying to you, my grace is sufficient for you. I'm not going to take it away.
I'm going to make you depend upon me. Look at verse 9, And
he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength
is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will
I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. Thank you. Thank you for the
persecution. Blessed are you when men shall
revile you and say all sorts of evil against you for my sake,
for so they persecuted the prophets before you. Rejoice and be glad. Thank you, Lord. I'm so encouraged
when a child of God is able to rejoice in a real serious trial and be
able to say, I'm thankful for this. I'm thankful for this loss. I'm thankful for this illness. I'm thankful for whatever it
is because I know that it came from the hands of a loving Heavenly
Father who has nothing but good for me. And through this, I have
seen my need for him. My grace is sufficient for you,
for my strength is made perfect in your weakness. I will therefore
glory in my infirmities I'm gonna glory, I'll glory in my weaknesses.
Look, therefore, I take pleasure in my infirmities, in reproaches,
in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake.
For when I'm weak, then I'm strong. I want you to notice one of the
words that he uses to describe these infirmities, these trials,
these troubles. He calls them necessities. necessities. God knows. We discipline our children best
we can and we make lots of mistakes in doing it. He disciplines his
children perfectly. He knows exactly what each one
of them need. What each one of them need. He
tailors his care for each one of them perfectly. Not too much,
Not too little, exactly what they need. And the Lord calls
them necessities. These things are necessary. For
what? To get you to that place that
no language can describe. No words can express it. It's so glorious. And what did
Paul say in Romans chapter 8? I reckon that the sufferings
of this world cannot be compared to the glory that shall be revealed
in us. There's no comparison. Lord,
whatever you need to do in order to get me to glory, Let me say this, you can trust
God to say that. You can trust Him. You're not opening the door to
Him putting more on you than you can bear. Lord, whatever you do is right. Be thankful in all things for
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. What's
the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you to be thankful?
No. All things that were designed specifically for you by your
Heavenly Father. I am become a fool in glorying.
You have compelled me. Verse 11. For I ought to have
been commended of you. For in nothing am I behind the
very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. In me that is in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing." Who said that? Paul said that. But he's, again, he's wanting
them to believe that the message that he's preaching about Christ
is a faithful and true message for the salvation of their souls.
Look what he says. Truly the signs of the apostles
were brought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders
and mighty deeds. Now, there's a group of people who
call themselves Christians who believe that the gifts and miracles
that we read about in the Bible are still relevant and necessary
today. They're not. Paul's talking about
healing people. He's talking about giving sight
to the blind. He's talking about raising the dead. When he says
the signs of an apostle, he's talking about speaking in languages
that he had not previously learned for the sake of making a revelation
of the gospel. He's talking about extraordinary
miracles that were given to the apostles to authenticate the
message that they were preaching as the message from God. Just
like the Old Testament prophets were able to perform miracles
in order to show that what they were doing, what they were saying,
was from God. That's what Nicodemus said, Rabbi,
we know that thou art son of God, for no man can perform the
things that you do unless God be with him. Now he didn't know
who Christ was, He thought he was just a tee, but he knew God
was with him. Why? Because of the miracles that
he was performing. That's what Paul's talking about. He said,
I came to you performing miracles. Why don't we need those things
today? People say, well, you just had enough faith. You could
do those things too. We have the Word of God to confirm
the Word of God. And so if they speak not according
to the law and the testimony, it's because there's no light
in them. And we confirm the spiritual with the
spiritual, and scripture with scripture. And it all confirms
itself, and we don't need those miracles to prove. But these
are the penmen of scripture. The scriptures have not been
written yet. And so God gave them those miracles for that
purpose. Verse 13, for what is it wherein
you were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was
not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong. He said, I didn't treat you any
different than I treated the other churches, except that I
didn't take any financial support from you. And then he says, forgive
me of this wrong. He's being a little sarcastic,
I think, here, just saying, you know, if that's, you know, because
he goes on to say, I'm still not going to take anything from
you. So if he really meant forgive me of this wrong, he wouldn't,
you know, he wouldn't have said what he's about to say. Behold,
the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be
burdensome to you. I'm not going to take anything
from you. For I seek not yours, but you. For the children ought not to
lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. He's
referring to this church as his spiritual children, and he's
the parent. And he's saying, I didn't come to take from you,
I came to provide for you. And I will very gladly spend
and be spent for you. Though the more abundantly I
love you, the less I be loved. The more sacrifices I make and
the more I love you, the less I'll be loved. You ever had that
experience with somebody? You feel like you're the giver
and they're the taker? And you just... By the way, if I have any discernment
about people, I've come to conclude that there are two kinds of people
in this world, givers and takers. And I say that in order to say
Paul is saying, I just keep giving to you. And you keep taking.
And the more I love you, the less you love me back. But you
know what? I'm just going to keep doing it. I'm just going to keep
doing it. Sometimes a giver says, well,
I'm just tired of giving. Just keep doing it. Verse 16. But be it so, I did
not burden you. Nevertheless, being crafty, I
caught you with guile." Again, he's being sarcastic. He's making
the accusation about himself that the others are making about
him. He said, I didn't take anything from you. I came for your soul's
benefit. I came preaching the gospel and
you didn't love me back in return, but I kept giving. And now he's
saying, I caught you by deceit. That's what they're accusing
me of. Did I make gain of you by any
of them whom I sent unto you? I desired Titus. And with him
I sent a brother, did Titus make a gain of you? Walk we not in
the same spirit? Walk we not in the same steps?
Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto you? We speak
before God in Christ, but we do all things dearly, beloved,
for your edifying. Lord, give us the grace to esteem
one another more highly than ourselves. Give us the grace
to be givers and just to keep doing it for the souls of your
people. For I fear, lest when I come,
I should not find you such as I would, and that I shall be
found unto you such as you would not. Lest there be debates, envies,
wrath, strifes, backbiting, whispering, swellings, and tumults." Now,
why would there... Paul said, when I come, I don't
want to find there to be contention among you. Why would there be
contention among the people of God? Why would there be? What were the Judaizers preaching? that Paul is defending himself
against. Those that are accusing him of
being the false prophets, who in fact are false prophets themselves,
what were they preaching? They're preaching the law. You
want to have peace in your home? Be gracious to one another. You
want a piece in church? Be gracious to one another. You
want a piece at work? Be gracious and considerate towards
one another. Because as soon as you begin
to exercise the law, what's it going to do? As soon as you start putting people
under the law. The strength of sin is the law. All you're going to do is stir
up contention. It's true, isn't it? It's true. Resentment, contention, competition,
anger, wrath, strifes, it all comes because of the law. So Paul said, I fear that when
I come, you're still going to be listening to these people.
And this is going to be the result of it. And I'm going to find
you in a way that I don't want to find you. And you're going
to find me to be in a way that you don't want to find me. That's
what he's saying. In other words, I'm going to
have to come and deal with this and expose those people publicly. Unless when I come again, my
God will humble me among you, verse 21, and that I shall bewail
many which have sinned already and have not repented of the
uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have
committed. Those things all come as a result
of being under the law. Alright, let's take a break. I don't know where it goes. I
think this has to be it.