All right, brethren, let's go
back here now to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. 2 Corinthians 12. Paul had been called up to the
third heaven. He didn't know if it was in body
or out of body. But he was caught up in the paradise,
he says there in verse 4. He's speaking of himself. caught
up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, which is not lawful for
a man to utter." And he said in verse 6, I would desire
the glory. There was a part of Paul that
would want the glory. But he said, I won't be a fool.
Something taught him, I'm not going to be a fool. He said,
I'll say the truth, but now I forbear, lest any man should think of
me above that which he sees me to be or hears of me. He didn't
want them looking at him. He didn't want them following
him because he had this grand experience and had this abundant
revelation. Now look what he says here in
verse 7. And lest I should be exalted above measure through
the abundance of the revelations, the abundance of the revelations.
There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of
Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. Says
it again, lest I should be exalted above measure. Brethren, what would you do if
you had the abundance of revelations that Paul had? What would that
do to you? You know, You think about it,
you think holding an abundance of revelations like this, surely
that would humble me. But if left to myself, if left
to ourselves, it will lift us up. It will exalt us. We'll be puffed up in pride. You think about that was Job's
problem. That's why the Lord sent a messenger,
he permitted the devil to sift him, was pride. Anytime you see the word abundance
connected with us, there's going to be a danger of pride. If you
take Job and you see a man who was so wealthy in temporal things
and family and servants and possessions. And not only that, God spoke
of them and said, here's a man that believes God and he hates
evil. This man was making sacrifices
for his children just in the event they had sinned. You take
an abundance of all of that blessing that he had, you know what that
will do to you. God doesn't keep our flesh subdued.
That'll make you be exalted in yourself. And we see that in
Job. That was what Paul says his danger
was here, from the abundance of being with God. But still
in the flesh, there was a danger of him being exalted above measure.
Apostle Peter, what was his problem? And he said, Lord, these all
might forsake you. These disciples, they might forsake
you. I will not forsake you. And to keep him from going on
in that exultation, the Lord permitted the devil to sift him
so that when the Lord came back to him and said, now Peter, now
do you really love me more than these other disciples? Peter
said, Lord, you know. Aren't you glad that the Lord
knows Judge nothing before the time till the Lord shall come.
He'll bring the light to hidden things of darkness, and he will
make it known that his children, he knew the hearts of his children,
that he put in his children, and he'll make it known before
all that he was your righteousness. He will. Wait on him. You think about Paul, you know,
this was his problem. And you can see this, when you
read in the scripture, you can see the personality of those
men God used. You can see Peter, impetuous,
he, you know, John comes to the tabernacle, I mean, to the tomb
and just, he stops and doesn't go in, Peter just right on inside. You know, and you see, you see,
You see their personality. You read Paul's writing and you
see Paul, I mean, Paul, he was a little more inclined
to talk about the things he had done. Now the Lord would check
him and he'd say, yet not I, but the Lord. But he did talk
about some things. If Lord left him there, higher
and higher and higher, exalted. So for that reason, to keep his
child from being exalted, have you ever considered trouble and
a trial to be a gift. It is, it's a gift. It's a gift. He says there in verse seven,
there was given to me. Who gave it? The Lord did. There's
given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet
me. There were buffet means to strike
with the fist. You know, that wouldn't make
you, consider something a gift that caused you that much kind
of pain. But it was a gift. It was a gift. It was. It was on purpose. It
was according to God's purpose. God had taken him up to there
and God just was not going to let his child be exalted. He's
not going to let us. He's not going to let us trust
us. That's just not going to happen.
He's not. And when we get exalted and you
know, In any way it is, it doesn't matter. We're trying to run over
and self-promote or whatever it is. He's just not going to
let it happen. Now, it may go on for a while.
Think about David. His problem was pride, too. Here
he was walking. The Lord gave him all these blessings. And the Lord, he finally had
built the things he set out to build. by the Lord's grace. And then he's walking on a rooftop
thinking, now, finally accomplished something. And looked across
and the Lord sent him a thorn. Why? Bring him down. It was on
purpose. It was on purpose, lest I should
be exalted above measure. Now that thorn Paul was given,
it could have been something physical. It was something physical. I don't have a doubt it was something
physical. But I don't think it was one thing. I think Paul's
telling us what it was. He says, he says in verse 20,
look back at chapter 11, verse 24. You know, when the Lord He's
the first cause of everything. If you suffer something like
this, it's because it's the Lord's will. You know, when He gives
you the thorn, He says, in all things give thanks. Why? This
is the will of the Lord concerning you. It's the will of the Lord
for you to thank Him, and it's the will of the Lord whatever He sent you. Thank Him. Thank Him for the
thorn. But when He lets something like
this, when the Lord ordains something like this to happen to His child,
The Lord's not gonna inflict this personally upon his child.
He's righteous, he's not gonna, he's inflicted all the judgment
upon his son on the cross, and he's not gonna personally harm
his child, but he'll use his instrument to do it, and that
instrument is the devil. That's what he was doing with
Joe. That's what he was doing with Peter. That's what he was
doing here. He couldn't do anything but by
permission. The devil can't do anything but what the Lord lets
him. But here's some things that the devil was permitted to do
to Paul using men. He said in verse 24, of the Jews,
five times received I 40 stripes, save one. That was being beaten
with a whip, with bone and everything in it. If you saw the Apostle
Paul's back, we're going to see in Galatians, he says, now don't
let anybody trouble me anymore. I bear the marks of the Lord
in my body. If you saw his back, He had them
wilt marks all over his back where he had healed up and left
those tremendous deep scars. Look at this. Three times I was
beaten with rods. Once was I stoned. Three times
I suffered shipwreck. Well, I thought the devil controls
the hurricane. He does, but you remember when
he let Joe be sifted by the devil? What did the devil do? He sent
a storm and blew the house down and killed his children and his
servants. The devil can do that only by God's permission. But
here he was shipwrecked. A night and a day I've been in
the deep, in journeys often, in perils of waters, perils of
robbers, perils by my own countrymen, perils by the heathen, perils
in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among
false brethren, Everywhere he went, everything he did, he said,
something was there to buffet me. In weariness and in painfulness, in watchings often, the Lord
said, watch and pray that you enter not temptation. What do you get weary with? I
get weary with this body of sin I'm carrying around. I have much
pain because of that, don't you? He said, oh, wretched man that
I am. Who's going to deliver me from
that? Why did he leave us? Why did he leave you with that?
It keeps you humble, don't it? Look at this. In hunger and in
thirst, in fastings often, in cold and in nakedness, and besides
those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily,
the care of all the churches." Now, that was an authority to
care for the churches. He rejoiced to be able to be
used of the Lord to care for the churches. What caused him
to suffer in his care for the churches? All these other things
he suffered made many in the churches say, Paul's not a true
apostle. The Lord wouldn't do that to
his true servant. Let me tell you what the Lord would do to
his true servant. He'll nail him to a cross. That's what he'll do. And are
we above our Lord? He'll nail us to it too. But
it's just our flesh he's nailing to it. So that we don't get exalted. But that caused Paul much pain,
much suffering. But rather than blame the second
causes, rather than to blame the Jews and the Romans and the
heathens and all the different things. Oh, if it had just took
a different voyage that day in the ship, we wouldn't have come
into that hurricane. He didn't blame the second causes. He said,
God gave it to me. God gave it to me. He didn't
justify himself for anything. God gave it to me. And he gave
it to me as a gift. Now trials truly are a gift from
God and here's why they're a gift right here. They bring you to
his throne of grace. He said in verse 8, for this
thing I will assault the Lord three times that it might depart
from me. That's one reason right there
for suffering. Brethren are suffering. You know,
anything we suffer in this life, you think about this, it's all
either directly because of our sinful flesh or somebody else's
sinful flesh. In some regard, it's related
to our sinful flesh. Think about that. I thought about
that a lot. In some regard, our suffering
is in regard to our sinful flesh. In our heart, in our new man,
we rejoice in the Lord. It's our flesh that causes the
suffering. You hurt your body some way.
Somebody else hurts your body some way. Somebody disappoints
you. You disappoint yourself. Something
you had your heart set on gets taken from you. It has to do
with these things, all carnal things. But it's a gift to keep us coming
to Him in spirit. true worship, come to him and
thank him and ask him for help. This this is what it's for. He
himself has suffered. He suffered. He did that for
a reason. He was tempted in all points
like as we are. And he suffered. Our Lord Jesus
suffered for a reason. This was part of why he was a
high priest so that he is able to succor them that are tempted.
So He can comfort you when you're in your trial. He sends it and Satan uses this
messenger to just beat you down so that you're not exalted anymore. And you come low on your face
to His throne of grace and you ask Him for help. What would have happened if he
hadn't given that gift to us and brought us down to that place?
Just go right on. A little higher and a little
higher and a little higher and a little higher. And all our
grand accomplishments. So it's a gift, isn't it? Brings
you to Him. Brings you to Him. We don't have
a high priest that can't be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
He was in all points tempted like we are yet without sin.
So let us come boldly. Welcome. Privileged under the
throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help
in time of need. But we usually do what Paul did,
and here's the lesson. Paul admits here, I came to the
throne of grace, but I wasn't asking for grace. I came there
saying, Lord, if you'll just take this thing away from me,
I'll be alright. That's the pride that's got to
be abased, isn't it? If you just took this from me,
I could handle it. So he said, for this thing, I
besought the Lord three times that it might depart from me.
That's logical. That's reasonable. Lord, if you
just take this from me, everything will be fine. The Lord did something
better. He didn't take it from him. He
didn't take it from me. I didn't get this when I was,
I just didn't get this when I was young in the faith. I'm just
starting to barely get a glimpse of why this is such a good thing
now. He said to me, my grace is sufficient
for thee. My grace is sufficient for thee. For my strength's made perfect
in weakness. We can't know the sufficiency
of God's grace as long as we have strength to help ourselves. We just can't. We can't serve God in our flesh.
We just can't. Christ said my strength is made
perfect in weakness. If we're going to know Christ's
strength, It's going to be by Him making us know our weakness. If we're going to know that He
is our strength, it's going to be by Him making us know we're
weakness. They go together, don't they?
They go together. Now, men don't like to be called
weak. No man likes to be called weak. Oh, you're such a weakling. We don't like that. We don't
like that. Why don't we like it? Lest I be exalted. We don't like to be abased. We
like to be exalted. We don't like to say I'm weak,
I don't have any power. Christ said, My grace is sufficient
for thee. The only way I'm going to know
His strength is to know I don't have any. I don't have any. My strength is made perfect in
weakness. I don't have any strength. I
was talking to a woman recently and I talked to her one day and
she was telling me some of the most beautiful, sweet testimony
of the Lord Jesus Christ and just how He is complete salvation. And the next day I talked to
her, lying in the same bed, and she was talking about how, I'm
getting your mother to go out this door to the freezer and
get some food out because my mom and dad are coming over,
83-year-old woman. My mother and daddy are coming
over and I'm cooking supper for the whole family tonight. The
day before, she was talking about God and all the rich blessings
of Him. The next day, she was laying
in the same bed talking about cooking supper for her mom, and
her daddy's been dead for 30 years. Are we strong? Are we? When He takes away His
Spirit from you, you're going to be like a puppet without a
hand. And if he takes away his saving
spirit from us, we will just become so exalted in our self-promotion
that we won't listen to anybody. We won't listen to the gospel.
We won't. We're right, and everybody else is wrong. And we're going
to do what we're going to do. I will. And that's where you'll
go if he does not break that heart and bring us to him. That's where we'll go. That's
where we'll go. So, you know, people, I've heard
people say, well, you act like men are computers, like they
just program. Well, men by programming computers
are trying to act like they're God. Because yeah, we are like
a computer. Totally everything ordained.
Difference is nowadays computers can get a little smarter. Without
Him, we can't do anything. We can't do anything. In that
Garden of Gethsemane, I want you to see this now. He said,
My strength is made perfect in weakness. You want to know where
we are going to see the truth of that? Go to 2 Corinthians
13 right there and look at this, verse 4. It says there, He was
crucified through weakness. Now just think about that for
a minute. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he came to his disciples and
he said, they were asleep. All they had to do was watch
and pray with him. That's all they had to do. You
know, we get all excited about praying when somebody, when there's
a group and whatever. Here they were in the, in the
crucible. This was the time. This was the
necessary time. Just pray. That's all you, watch
and pray. And this is us, brethren. fell
asleep. And the Lord came and said, the
flesh is weak. He's experiencing that. He's
in the flesh and he's experiencing firsthand as a man for his people
so that he can be our high priest how weak our flesh is. Did he
tell the truth when he said the flesh is weak? He did, didn't
he? It's weak. And But He took this
flesh to be made like us in every way. He took this flesh so that
He could suffer. That's why He took it. So He
could suffer every infirmity we suffer in our flesh that sin
causes. Sin is the cause of infirmities. But He had no sin. But He suffered
those infirmities. All the infirmities of the flesh,
the weakness of the flesh. He suffered that. He took that flesh so He could
go to the cross and the whole life from beginning to end, weak,
totally dependent upon the Father, totally trusting His power. And He goes to that cross and
through weakness, through weakness, He permits sin to have the dominion
over Him. He permits death to have the
dominion over Him. He did all that so He could bear
the sin of His people, so that He could, in all of it, experience
as a man what we suffer. Look here at Hebrews 5 and look
at verse 7. Verse 7 says, Who in the days
of His flesh, the days of His weakness, When he had offered
up prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears unto
him that was able to save him from death." Look at that. Here
he is, totally dependent upon the power of the Father, praying
and supplicating him. There's no doubt that in the
garden, I don't think our Lord was praying not to go to the
cross. That's why he came. He just said,
shall I not drink this cup? What was he asking? Let this
cup pass from me. The devil was throwing everything
at him he could throw at him right there. The Lord was wanting
to get to the cross. He was wanting to go to the cross. And he needed strength to get
through where he was right there right then. Weakness. And here he is strong
crying in tears. Weakness crying out to him. But he was crying to power unto
him that was able to save him from death. And he was heard
in that he feared. You don't know a man's heart.
Don't try to determine whether another man has fear in his heart.
You don't know that. You will throw away the chaff
and you'll throw away the wheat and hold on to the chaff. God knows. He knows your heart.
He knows my heart. That's good enough for me. But
he heard because he had perfect fear in his heart, perfect reverence
in his heart, a perfectly submissive heart. We don't always have that,
that's why we're having to be smitten. But look at this, he
was heard, now though he were a son, he is God, he is God,
he's the son of God. Yet learned he experienced he
obedience, what it's like by the things which he suffered.
He experienced it as our head. He was a man like his brethren
in the weakness of our flesh to know what it is. He learned
by experience what it is to depend entirely upon the Father as a
man. And he did it in the weakness
of our flesh through weakness by the things which he suffered.
And His strength, He said, My strength is made perfect in weakness.
You're going to manifest, He said, you're going to see and
know and it's going to be manifest that I am your strength through
your weakness. Isn't that what happened on the
cross? Look here, verse 9, Hebrews 5, 9, and being made perfect
being made perfect, having perfected obedience for his people, manifesting
it perfectly, making it abundantly clear, and accomplishing it for
his people. He became the author of eternal
salvation unto who? Unto them who are so weak that
he's their only strength. That's who. So this strength of his obedience
was made perfect through weakness. He accomplished our salvation. The strength of his justifying
blood is seen, how? By him in the weakness of our
flesh pouring out his blood unto death. That don't look like strength
to most people. But when the Spirit of God comes
in, you see in that weakness perfect strength. strength to
justify, strength to make you righteous before God, strength
to make you accepted of God. We see a man in weakness whose
breath goes out of him and they lay him in a tomb and a natural
man just says that's just another man who died and was buried. But in that weakness, he makes
you see. He makes it manifest. It's made
perfect in your heart. It's made clear in your heart.
That was the accomplishment of your victory over death. Because
he died the death you deserve. And when he came out, you came
out with him. That's what his people are made
to see. It's through weakness. Our God doesn't do anything.
He said it's not by might or by power. It's by my spirit. He's showing us that these things
are all of God. He did that through weakness.
The gospel people think the gospel is foolish. They think that what
we're doing is foolish. They think all this is just weakness.
Those people are just weak. He manifests. He's our strength
through weakness. And look back now at 2 Corinthians
13, 4. Look back there again. He was
crucified through weakness. but he lives by the power of
God. See that? This is what he's telling Paul.
He's telling Paul, my strength, my power is made perfect in your
weakness. And we see in our Lord one made
perfectly weak, who his whole life lived by the power of God
his Father, and after he went to the grave, he was raised by
the glory of the power of his Father. You see that manifest? And we also are weak in him.
We don't have any strength. But we shall live with Him by
the same power of God exercised towards you. Through this gospel,
through these trials, through God speaking to our heart. So
we keep us from being exalted and trusting in our strength.
He gives us the messenger of Satan to buffet us. He gives
us trials and infirmities and afflictions and distresses for
Christ's sake. And things impossible to remove.
And then He graciously says, I'm not removing them. The loved one that has drawn
their last breath and departed, he's not bringing them back to
you. Not in this life. Not like he was. It's something
we're just going to have to suffer. And that's how it is with most
everything he gives you to suffer. You're not going to be delivered
out of this body. You're going to have to suffer
it. You're not going to be delivered from these tribulations we're
going to have to face every day. We're going to have to suffer
them. But there's a purpose in it. It's a gift. It's a gift. This is how we're learning. He's
our strength. And we're not. We're not. So listen to Paul, verse 9. He
says, Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities,
in my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore
I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities,
in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I'm weak, then I'm strong. We don't enter into this. We
can't enter into this. how Paul could say he gloried
in painful things. We can't get that. We can't get
it. Paul couldn't either at first.
Paul couldn't get this at first. He asked for the Lord to remove
that which made him suffer. It wasn't until Christ made it
manifest to him by the suffering that Paul had no strength in
himself. And you just think of this, brethren.
Now, Paul had to stand up and preach. And the people to whom
he preached, they were 100% convinced this man don't know God. This
man ain't God's prophet. What did we say of Christ? He's
smitten of God and afflicted. He's getting what he deserves.
You and I, whenever he chastens us and he strikes us, We're getting
less than we deserve. Job, as you look at Job's affliction,
that was nothing compared to what Christ suffered for us.
And whatever we suffered, nothing compared to what Christ suffered
for us. But it doesn't take near as much to teach us, you don't
have strength in yourself. And he's gonna do that to keep
us looking to him. And Paul, as much as he was troubled
by the things that was going on, he couldn't do anything.
He couldn't make that word speak to the hearts of those people. And that was a good place to
be because you know what he did? He cried out to God for him like
he never had before. He prayed for him. He begged
God to bless him. He begged God to give him what
to speak and he begged God to forgive. How's we going to be
made an intercessor? We're being brought to the feet
of our intercessor because we need intercession. How are we
going to be made to preach his word and preach it in truth and
stop trying to impress people and trying to promote ourselves?
We've got to be brought to nothing. to nothing, to see that He's
the Prophet. Everything's got to bring us
to see Him as everything. You know when we're going to
finally get it, when we're going to finally, this is going to
show us that it's so in all these trials, we're going to finally
get it, in that last thorn He gives us, and He's not taking
it away. And then we're going to realize,
I don't have any strength. When you're arising to Him and
you look down at that corpse laying there, you're going to
finally get it. I never did have any strength. Not in me, but I had all strength
in Him. And as you enter into Him, you're
going to realize He really is all my strength. He always has
been. I wouldn't be here with him.
That's what Paul's talking about. This is the rejoicing. This is
the rejoicing. Nobody wants to suffer. The suffering's
not, you know, that's not something that you take pleasure in. But
you take pleasure in this, that even while you're in it and while
you're going through whatever it is, learning your flesh is
grass. That's what it means. You learn
that in your flesh dwells no good thing. No good thing. You're going to
make bad decisions. You're going to do something
that's totally dishonoring to God. And think that you're going
to create unity by it and it's going to create total division.
And you know what God's going to do through that? He's going
to show us that we don't have no power. and he'll create unity
and make you say, I'm your strength. I'm your strength. And when he does that, brethren, this is Paul's rejoicing. This
is what it means right here. Paul wrote to the Philippians.
He said, I don't speak in respect of want. He said, I don't want anything. I don't need anything right now. And he said, because I've learned
in whatsoever state I'm in therewith to be content. Well,
where was he? He said he didn't want anything.
He said he didn't need anything. Where was he? He was in prison
waiting execution. And he was content. And the majority
of the people he preached to went on to bigger and better
things. He didn't have but a handful of brethren come to him and minister
to him. Is that not a beautiful picture of our Redeemer? We're
going to suffer to some degree like our Redeemer suffered. And
that's how we're going to learn to appreciate and be content
with our Redeemer rather than the things that he takes from
us. Was Paul a sinner? Yeah. Yeah. He wasn't saying I'm content
with my sin. He wasn't saying I'm justified myself. That wasn't
what he was saying. We don't say that, do we? Problem
is, usually we don't say we have sin. So he brings us there. We are exalted thinking what
I'm doing is for the better. This is what's right. Let's be made to see he's right. He's right. I'm wrong. I'm wrong. He's right. Whatever state I'm
in, I have everything I need. I'm not lacking anything. Why? I have him. And you know what
eventually happened to Paul? He was executed. He had what he needed. He had
what he needed. God's going to teach us that.
I was about to say, Lord, I hope he'll teach us that. He's going
to teach us that. He's going to teach us that. That's rejoicing,
brethren. You don't think that if you see
somebody suffering and they seem to be, they just start, you know,
weeping and mourning and they seem like they're, he's just
too happy about this. Maybe the rejoicing is knowing
I see the Lord. He's on His throne. He's made
me see the purpose. And that's where He's going to
bring you, all the time. I hope, pray He'll bless it. Thank you.