Paul's testimony was not about
a decision he made or that he got saved. His simple testimony
was, look what God did. He turned a 100% rebel into a son. He turned an enemy into a servant. A sworn enemy of the Lord Jesus
made him a preacher of Christ crucified. Paul wasn't a volunteer. It's a good thing to remember
that the Lord doesn't take volunteers. You remember in Luke 9, 57 through
60, you won't remember the wording of it, and I don't exactly. We
can turn there, but you know what it is. When I began to talk
about it, the one man came to the Lord and said, I'm going
to follow you. wherever you go. And the Lord said, I don't even
have anywhere to lay my head. And I don't want to put the words
into the Lord's mouth, but people don't know what they're getting
into. I'm just going to follow the
Lord. What does that even mean to people? But the Lord said,
the foxes have holes and the birds have nests, but I don't
even have a place to lay my head down. We don't hear any more about
that fella. But then another one, the Lord went to him and
said, follow me. And he said, I've got a couple,
I got a thing or two to do, and then I'll follow you. And the
Lord said, let the dead bury their dead. You go and preach
the gospel. Of course, the Lord taught him
the gospel like he did Saul of Tarsus. And he By God's choice, by God's will. That's what Paul's saying. God's
the one that makes preachers. He's the one that makes saints.
He's the one that calls his people. He's the one that chooses. You
haven't chosen me, he said. And then as with all these epistles,
this is written to the church of God, verse one. The church
there in Corinth was also addressed in verse one as the saints. Saints
are those who are sanctified. That's where the word comes from,
the word sanctified, saints. And they're sanctified by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is all in sanctification,
just like he is in regeneration, salvation, faith, and he keeps us, he's all in all
of it, from beginning to end. The beginning was before there
was a beginning. He's been saving us since before the world began.
and he's not ever gonna leave it up to us. That's comforting
alone, isn't it? He didn't ever leave it. Sanctification,
religion has really done a number on that. We're sanctified by
the precious blood of God's lamb. And there are promises in the
scriptures that can only be claimed if you're in the kingdom of God.
He's writing this to the church of God. Look at verses 19 and
20 in our very text. in the context of our passage
this evening. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ,
was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus. It was not yea and nay, but in
him was yea. For all the promises of God in
him are yea. You know, the world posts scripture
and quotes scripture and says, you know, this is, you know,
everything's gonna be all right. Have you believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ? These promises are in Christ.
The promises of God are yes and amen in him. If you despise him,
if you won't bow to him, if you haven't believed on him, we got
nothing for you except the gospel that now condemns you, but may
very well one day, God may use it to But his promises are to his people,
in him, amen. Unto the glory of God by us. He uses his people to proclaim
those promises to sinners. But they're yea and amen in his
son. And that's what he's saying there, unto the church of God.
Verse two, Paul begins, his letter a little differently
than the way most people do. And you know how it goes. If
we write a letter to somebody, we probably would begin by saying,
I hope things are well with you and all the folks there, and
hope things are going good. And there's nothing wrong with
that at all. But let's take note that what
Paul writes is the definition of all things being well with
you All being well with you doesn't mean that you have plenty of
money and you're not sick and life's going smoothly and things
like that, though we do wish those things for those we love.
But more than that, better than that, even if none of that's
true, we want God's grace and peace for those we love. Paul is writing to people who
suffered afflictions as the context tells us. And so he knew that
the usual things that we wish for those we love, what may very
well not have been true for them. Things probably weren't going
smoothly for many of them. But what Paul knew and what we
know is that that's fine as long as God bestows his grace upon
me. If God's hand, if he's hedged me about, if he, holds me in
his hand, and I can't be plucked out. We have the peace of God
in our hearts by the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we really
want for those that we love. If we have health, and we have
resources, and we have no afflictions, and we don't have the grace of
God, we are wretched, miserable, poor, naked, and blind, even
though we don't know it, maybe. But with God's grace and peace,
we're gonna be all right. That's what things doing well
for you means. Verse three, blessed be God. Blessed be God. Bless God. Thank
God. His name be praised. Though the
next verse has the word tribulation in it. Bless God. That comes first, doesn't it?
Because that's regardless of whether there's tribulation or
there's not tribulation. Blessed be his name. That comes
first. Has Job blessed the name of the
Lord while under heavy unthinkable tribulation? You know, that's
something that's evident in God's people throughout scripture and
throughout our lives. God's people seeing in prisons. They testify on their deathbeds
that God's everlasting covenant with them is all their salvation
and all their desire. They esteem the reproach of Christ
greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. And this is a testament
to the grace and peace mentioned in the previous verse of God
in Christ. Gives us grace in tribulation
to bless his holy name and peace with whatever he brings Whatever
he does we bless his name Because we know it's him As when the disciples were in
the little ship and the lord walked on the water and they
were afraid He said be of good cheer It's
me. That's all we need to know. That's
all we need to know, that whatever it is we're afraid of, it's Him.
It's Him. He said, be of good cheer. I've
overcome this world. This world can't hurt you. The limitations and sorrows of
this flesh, they're temporary, they're transient. This light affliction that we
suffer now is not worthy to be compared with the glory that
we have in Christ. So verse four, God gives tribulation, but also comfort, comfort in
that tribulation. If God's gonna give us comfort,
why did he ever give the tribulation? If his purpose in giving it,
we were comfortable before we had tribulation, so why would
he give it if his purpose is to comfort us in it? Well, if
you're a believer, you know the answer to that. You know the
answer to that. He gives problems, trouble, grief,
sorrow, the things that this cursed flesh
inevitably brings to draw us close to him. And then he gives us peace and
comfort to endear himself to us, to teach us what Paul's about
to say, not to trust in ourselves, not to look to ourselves, We
want to find comfort and peace in ourselves, in our circumstances,
or anything else but Him. And notice that Paul, in the
tribulation that he's talking about, he thinks of others. You
talk about the grace of God, that's not our nature, is it?
That's the grace of God, and even in great tribulation himself,
he doesn't complain, but he commiserates with others who need comfort.
He gives that as a reason why God gives us tribulation. That's
another reason. There's a lot of good reasons why the Lord
doesn't just let us sail through life without any pain or sorrow. And this is one of them too,
that we might comfort others because that glorifies Him. That
glorifies Him more than sailing on smooth seas. It causes us
to acknowledge that the storm comes from Him and His hand calms
it. that he's on the throne, that
he has us in that hand. What grace to think about others,
that we may be able to comfort others. And he counts it a blessing
that others will be comforted through his tribulation and comfort.
Through the consolation that God has given him in his comfort,
he'll be able to comfort others. And may God impress that upon
us. We're so taken up most of the
time with ourselves. Think not on your own things,
but also on the things of others. I guarantee you right now that
nobody in this room knows all of the sorrow and heartache of
everybody else in this room. You don't. You do not. I do not. I know about some of
it, but I know this about us. Sheep in a world of wolves. We always need comfort. And if
the Lord will use me to do that, what an unbelievable honor. He
doesn't need me to do that. And ultimately, it's between
you and him. He touches your heart. He gives
that peace which passeth all understanding. But Paul said
we can get in on that. That's why we get in on the suffering
so we can get in on the consolation. And what a blessing that is. What is the one desire that you
have when someone that you love is going through a trial? We think all the time about what
can I do? What can I do? What can I do? The Lord may just
give you something you can do. And that's wonderful, isn't it?
That's so wonderful. It's wonderful when you're the
one receiving that comfort from a friend, a brother or sister
in Christ. And it may even be more wonderful
to be blessed to give it. Notice the word same in verse
four. The same thing that comforted
Paul will be what comforts these believers. Same thing that comforts
you as a believer will be what comforts me. And what is that? Verse five. By Christ. For as the sufferings of Christ
abound in us, so our consolation also abounded by Christ. He's
the one behind it. We see his hand in the hand of
a friend, don't we? We see his heart in the heart
of someone that loves us enough to not just care, but to enter
into it with you. It was for Christ that Paul suffered.
That's what he says here. It's the sufferings of Christ
abounding in us. If Paul had just become a full-time
tentmaker, he wouldn't have had any of the problems that he had.
He might have had other ones, but he wouldn't have had those
ones. Let's just stop preaching the
gospel. Just stop preaching the gospel. That would have solved
all of his problems. But he said, necessity is laid
upon me. For woe is unto me if I preach
not the gospel. And that's not a necessity of
law, that's a necessity of heart. How are you just gonna quit honoring
Christ? How are you gonna, what would you comfort anybody
with? if not the truth of Christ, the gospel of his love, his sovereignty,
his goodness. The purpose that he said, I know
my purpose that I have for you. I know the future of all of this
for you. It's peace, not evil. The one that keeps our tears
in his bottle. Where are our tears gonna go
without him? and those of them that we love. But Paul counted not his own
life dear unto himself that he might preach the gospel. You
think about that. That's the necessity he's talking
about. God wasn't whipping him to make him preach the gospel. John Bunyan, the man who wrote
Pilgrim's Progress and many other books, he had 20 or 30 books,
I think, or maybe, I think it was way more than that, actually.
But he was imprisoned for preaching the gospel in 1661, and after
years in prison, and visited by his wife, Elizabeth, at the
time, and four children, he had four children, ultimately he
had six children, With his first wife, he had four children, including
a blind daughter named Mary from a previous marriage. And
then he had two daughters with Elizabeth. But John was given
the option after years of being in prison and no doubt his heart
breaking because he couldn't be with his wife and sweet children. He was given the option of promising
not to preach the gospel again, and they let him free. Clean slate. And he told them, if you let
me out, I'll be preaching the gospel before the sun goes down. That's the necessity we're talking
about. That the Lord Jesus lays on those who know the Savior and can't shut up. The woman at the well. She ran into town immediately
and then began to tell everybody, come see a man, come see him. Don't take my word for it, come
see him. Isn't that what every preacher
of the gospel says? Come see him. Somebody that's sovereign. Somebody
that's tender and kind to sinners like us. He stayed in prison for 12 years,
and then got out for a while, preached, and then went back
into prison for another six months, several years later, and got
out and became pastor of the same church. They called him
to pastor their church while he was in prison. That's the grace of God. Those
who suffer for Christ's sake are comforted by him himself.
Sometimes he doesn't use any means other than just remembering
his promises, reminders of his love and grace. He gives the grace and the strength
to endure and to glorify him. in all things and we're comforted
by Christ in a lot of different ways and in a lot of aspects.
There's peace that he gives in the heart directly
that you can't explain it, it passes understanding. The knowledge, he gives the knowledge
that he loves us with an everlasting love and that he's on the throne
and that it's he which gives and takes. He reminded Job of
that. The Lord gave and the Lord took
it away. And that's a blessing too. How many believers have been
comforted throughout the ages knowing that the Savior has done
it? Be of good cheer, it's me. It's
me, it is I. Be not afraid. It's not stupid
cancer, it's God's cancer. It's not an automobile accident,
it's God's purpose. It wasn't my accident, it was
on purpose and God did it. It's not mother nature, it's
the hand of the one who made the world. It's not bad luck, it's God's
good providence. God brings us to himself by trouble
like little baby chicks will run to their mother. And he endears
us to himself by that gospel of peace, peace made by his precious
blood. He reassures us of his presence,
his power, his love and his grace. And we get to honor him. in it. Have you read the article back
there? Probably more than once by Scott
Richardson. You may just get one or two opportunities
in your life to really go through something horrible. And say,
blessed be the name of the Lord. What would be better than that
in this life? Verse six. Whether we be afflicted,
it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual
in the enduring of the same sufferings, which also we suffer. Think about
what he's saying there. It's effectual. You see the affliction of Paul
and others who preach the gospel and other believers, and the
way that the Lord consoles them, and it's for your consolation
and salvation. And that salvation is shown to
be effectual. It's not just you made a decision
or you call yourself a Christian. It's shown to be effectual in
the fact that you endure the same sufferings and bless the
same Savior. We don't just believe the gospel
in our heads, we live it. You see that? It's effectual
in the enduring of the same sufferings, which we also suffer. You endure
them. And you don't rage against God. Job's own wife said, curse God
and die. But the Lord said, not one time
did he open his mouth to curse the Lord, not one time. But whatever God does, it's for
his glory. We know that throughout all the
scriptures. And for the sake of his sheep, It's for their
consolation and their salvation. Whether he sends a storm or withholds
it, whether he afflicts or he don't, it's for his sheep. Whether you're the one going
through it or you just witness it and have gone through it and
are able to enter into it, it's all for God's glory and for the
consolation and salvation of God's sheep. What a beautiful
thing that is. We just so easily forget that. Life's not complicated when you
see what God's doing. It's not complicated. All that
he does is for that. Correction, affliction, reproof,
rebuke, tribulation. Is God dealing with us as with
children? Proverbs 3 look at Proverbs 3
with me We know which passage we return
We're referring to there when we say it's God dealing with
us as with children where Paul wrote that What son is he whom
the Lord chastened whom the father chastened? It's not but look
at Proverbs 3 11. I believe that's where Paul got
this from I Believe he was referring to this a couple of verses when
he said that. Chapter three, verse 11 of Proverbs,
my son despised not the chastening of the Lord. That's real time. That's when you're going through
it. Don't be mad at it. Don't be
mad at him about it. Submit to him, seek his face. Find in him all of your comfort
and peace. The Lord is there with you. He's
in the fire with you. And you're not even gonna smell
like smoke when you come out of it, because he's in there
with you. My son, despise not the chastening
of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction. It may be chastening, it may
be correction, or it may not. It may just be because you need
to be closer to him. For whom the Lord loveth, he
correcteth. Even as a father, the son, in
whom he delighteth. Oh, whatever it is you're going
through, You just need one thing. You
just need one thing. One thing is needful. Sit at
his feet and let him teach you by that affliction, whatever
it is, but also through his word, understanding who he is, who
did this and why, why he does it. This is such a, an easily forgotten thing. When
you're going through something terrible and it's confusing and you don't
know which end is up sometimes. You don't see any way out of
it. There's no light at the end of the tunnel that you can see. The point of that affliction,
the point of that trial is not for you to get out of it. The point of it is for you to
honor the Lord in it. If you get out of it and the
affliction is gone and you say, well, boy, I'm glad that's over
and you haven't honored the Lord Jesus Christ in it, what was
the point of it? God does this, he corrects us
and deals with us. It's the children that he loves
that he deals with that way. It's the ones that he delights
in that he corrects and tries. And he does that by these trials
and what it is he does results in those two things, saving and
comforting. What has the Lord, he gives direction
to his pastors. And what is he said is the result
of all of the preaching of the gospel. He says to every one
of them, comfort ye my people. And what else is it for? It pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save. Paul touched on both of them
right there. That's it. That's what it's for. That's
why God did it. Comfort you, my people. He didn't
stop there. He said, sayeth your God. That's
sobering. This is your God telling you,
feed my sheep. Now, the comfort itself is in
the midst of trials. And there's comfort without that
comes, but there's comfort within. And there's trials that are trials
from without. And there's trials that are within.
Like I said, we don't even know what we're going through. It's
a trial of the heart. The very soul has unrest and
turmoil that we can't see. But we don't need to do it. Sometimes
we do, and that's good too. It's not necessary for us to
know about it. One thing is needful. But the comfort either way, whether
it's within or without, fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, here I come. That's our hope. Of course, we're not gonna resolve
to come to him unless he comes to us first, are we? Oh, he never
left us, he never left us. Verse seven of our text, and
our hope of you is steadfast, knowing, we know this about God, he don't
give trouble without the comfort part. Have you learned that about
him yet? He doesn't do that, he doesn't
give one without the other. He'll never do that. 1 Corinthians
10, 13. He'll never do that. You remember
that verse? We studied that just about a
year ago. You should remember that. There hath no trial taken hold
of you, but such as is common to man. But the Lord will with
that trial make a way to escape that you might be able to bear
it. There's only one escape. There's only one regress when
your soul is dark, when the night is dark and you can't find the
light. We can't even know all the good
results that come of the trials that we suffer. We can't even
know them. The trials that God brings us
Of course, we can think about some that's revealed that he
drives us to pray to him. He drives us to talk to him,
to speak with him, to commune with him. I don't typically do a whole
lot of that when I'm worried about this or that, and I've
got to do this and that, and all this is happening, and things
look bad, and I don't know what to do, and problems, troubles,
fires. How do I put out all these fires? I tell you what, Naaman
had a lot of that until he was struck with leprosy, didn't he?
He had a lot going on. Until, the Lord has a way of simplifying
things, doesn't he? He has a way of bringing it all
into focus. What matters and what don't. but we don't even know. We're
driven to pray. We're driven to seek His face to worship. May this always be our testimony
here. If somebody has a baby, we worship the Lord. Somebody
gets married, we worship. Somebody dies, we worship. When our heart's breaking, we
come here And we worship. What a blessing it is that God
uses these trials to cause us to worship him. You don't worship God just by
going to church. You worship him when you see
that he's everything that you need. everything that you need. Psalm
51, let's turn over there for a minute. Psalm 51. Psalm 51.5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth
in the inward parts and in the hidden part. Thou shalt make
me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop. And you'll
remember that the hyssop is what was, it was a plant that had
fronds that were absorbed, and they dipped that in the blood,
and that's what they struck the doorposts with, with the blood
of the lamb. Purge me with the precious blood
of the Savior, and I shall be clean. You wash me, Lord, and
I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness. Make me to hear it. You know
what that is? The gospel. Gladness and joy. Unto you is
born this day a Savior. Peace on earth and goodwill toward
men. Make me to hear that, hear about
that. which is my joy and my gladness, that the bones which
thou hast broken may rejoice. That even that which you've done
that's painful to me might praise you in the middle of it. Hide thy face from my sins and
blot out All my iniquities. Now verses eight and nine in
our text. Let me just make a brief comment
on these and we'll look at them. There's a lot to say about this.
Second Corinthians 1.8. For we would not, brethren, have
you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were
pressed out of measure. Notice these descriptions of
his trial. of what he went through. We were pressed out of measure.
We were pressed above strength, beyond. We were helpless in the
middle of it. There was nothing we could do.
In so much that we despaired even of life. Paul was troubled beyond measure,
above strength, beyond his own capacity to bear or do anything
to relieve it. But when God does something about
it, then you're able to bear it. That's what we read there
in 1 Corinthians 10 a while ago. God will make, he'll show you
the way of relief and comfort and peace, and then you can bear
it. And he said, it was beyond my
capacity to do anything about it or even understand it. He
caused Paul to despair of self for a specific reason, so that
he would not, could not trust in himself. We had the sentence of death
in ourselves, verse nine, that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God, which raiseth the dead. You remember when the Lord saved
you? We don't know when, we don't know the day, we don't know the
time, maybe you do. There's nothing wrong with knowing that. That's
fine, maybe you don't. But I know this about it. You're
not gonna look to Christ until you See nothing in yourself but
sin. No help beyond strength, beyond
ability, beyond my capacity to do anything about it or even
understand it. But the Lord does that, why? So you'll trust Him. That's what happened when He
saved you. So you'll look away from self, away from your will,
your way, your works, and look to the Son of God. who even if you do die, even
if this trial ends in the worst possible way, he's able to wipe
that away with a word. Even when death compassed me
about, my trust was in the one that raises sinners from the
dead. Nothing that we fear Nothing
that we fear can make us despair if we know who he is and what
he's done for us, his power, his sovereignty, his purpose. He's the one that brought it.
If he kills you, he's doing you a favor. He raises sinners, his people
from the dead. To die is gain, Paul said. So
what are you afraid of? I know what you're afraid of,
because I'm afraid too. But David said, what time I am
afraid, I'll trust in you. May he give
us the grace to do that. and not just agree with it, but
with all of our heart to look to Him, trust Him. Let's pray.