Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. I want to begin in verse 8. The Apostle
Paul says, We would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble,
which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure
above strength insomuch that we despaired even of life." Now
this was probably the trouble that came to Paul in Ephesus.
But whatever the occasion was, I want you to notice the effect
that it had on the Apostle Paul. He says, we were pressed. That
means to be weighed down Like a man who's got a heavy weight
on him and his knees are buckling because the weight is so heavy,
pressed down. He says out of measure. That
means it couldn't be calculated, the pressure they were under.
It says above strength. He's saying he had no natural
ability to bear up under this. It was above his strength. In
so much that we despaired even of life. He was despairing of
possibly just expiring, of dying, literally dying under this pressure.
Now why would God do that to His child? Why would God do that
to His child? God presses each of His elect
for a purpose. And that purpose is our eternal
well-being. God presses each of His children
for a purpose. And that purpose is for our eternal
well-being. I titled this, Pressed for a
Purpose. And here is the purpose, verse
9. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should
not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead. Now first of all, God presses
His child. He said we had the sentence of
death in ourselves. Every child of God enters eternal
life in His experience of it. We enter eternal life one way,
by God pressing us. Maybe it's to different degrees
with different ones. All your children don't have
to be pressed at the same degree to get the same result. But God
is going to press His child. He's going to press us first
with the law of God. He's going to make you hear the
law of God and what it says about you, what it said about me. When
He does that, that's going to be oppressing. You're going to
despair of life when it happens. That's what happened to Paul.
In Romans 7 he said, I was alive without the law once. Alive without
being able to hear the law. So he thought. He thought he
was alive. He thought he had eternal life
by the works of the law. But when the commandment came,
when God made him hear the law, sin revived. Sin became alive. And I died, Paul said. Everything
I thought was life died. But sin was alive and well. And
I saw it for the first time. The commandment which was ordained
to life. That commandment by which He
thought was ordained to life. That commandment by which He
thought if He kept it, He could live. He said, I found to be
unto death. And He said, sin by the commandment
became exceedingly sinful. That's what the law was given
for. The law was given so that when God speaks into your heart
and teaches you what the law says, sin will become exceedingly
sinful, and the life you thought you had by the law will cease. And you'll see you're a dead
man. Now Paul, speaking of his experience, what he experienced,
and I'll do the same. I'm going to tell you something.
When God made me hear the law for the first time, I know what
he meant here by the sentence of death being in him. Because
I experienced that. I realized the law said I'm nothing
but a sinner. Inside and out. In everything. And I despaired of life. I thought
I'll never be saved by God. I can't be saved. The law didn't
offer me any help. And I realized that when God
made me hear it. He used it for the purpose for
which it was given. And it made me despair of life.
But this pressing doesn't end there. That's not the end of
it. That's not what the world tells you. The world tells you
once you come to Christ, everything then is smooth sailing. That's
not according to the Scripture. God doesn't end this pressing
here. He keeps pressing His children through various trials of all
different types. And He does it for the same purpose,
to put the sentence of death in us. God graciously brings
us into circumstances that are entirely beyond our control,
entirely above any strength we have in us. And He does it for
this one reason, to make you despair of life. We don't like
that. We don't like that, but it must
happen. It must happen. It's painful,
but it's absolutely necessary for our spiritual well-being.
So first of all, now, if you're hearing the law of God speak
for the first time, if you hear the law say, you shall have no
other gods but God, and you hear God speak in your heart now saying,
that's all you've ever done is worship other gods. If you hear
the scripture say, you shall not covet, and God speak to your
heart saying, all you've ever done is covet, all you've ever
done is try to survive and save yourself apart from me. That's
what covetousness is. It's idolatry. It's self-worship.
If you're hearing that for the first time, take heed because
this is what God does in the beginning when He saves His people.
You won't need salvation until you know you can't save yourself.
And that's so. That's so of me. That's so of
you. And if you're a believer that's in a trial, suffering
a severe trial, pay attention because this is what God does
to His children. He presses us above measure. Now secondly, the purpose for
which God presses us, first of all, is to save us from a terrible
sickness that every child of God has. It's called self-trust. He said there in verse 9 that
God puts the sentence of death in His child that we should not
trust in ourselves. Sin makes every sinner think
that it's wise to trust ourselves. You notice there Paul said, sin
deceived me. And sin deceives us and makes
us think it's wise to trust ourselves. That was Paul's problem when
he thought he could obtain eternal life by the law. He said, sin
taking occasion by the commandment. Sin actually used the law of
God to deceive me. Get that now. That ought to tell
you that all religion is not true religion. He said sin took
religion. Sin took God's law. And by that
law deceived me. The law didn't deceive Him. Sin
deceived Him. But sin used God's Word to do
it. That's a deceitful thing, isn't
it? that will use God's own law to deceive me? Let me illustrate
this. You take those religious men
all over this world right now who actually imagine they can
keep the law of God. What makes them think that? Okay,
take men who are not religious. Don't even ever grace the church
doors. And yet they think they can be
saved on the very same principle as men whose butt don't ever
leave a church pew. Why? What makes them both think
they can be saved by their works? Sin has deceived them. And sin
deceived me and sin deceived you. That's right. And so we have to be taught of
God not to trust in ourselves. This world has different sayings
that people think are scriptural or religious or something. You
know, you hear folks say things like, well, everything happens
for a reason. That ain't in the Word of God. That is not the
scripture. The scripture doesn't say that.
The scripture says all things work together for good to them
that love God, to them who are called according to God's purpose. That's a lot different from,
well, everything just happens for a purpose. And people say things like this.
The world says, believe in yourself. And people latch on to that and
try to live their life believing in themselves. God says, he that
trusteth in his own heart is a fool. That's a little bit different
than what the world teaches you, isn't it? God says, whoso walketh
wisely, he shall be delivered. Well, then how do I walk wisely?
Not trusting myself. I told Brother Eric the other
day, he's asked me about some things, how you do this and what
about this and the other. And I said, when it comes to
God's people and trying to lead in the church, whatever your
first thought to do is, don't do that. That's a good rule of
thumb. Wait on God to teach you what
to do. To walk wisely is not to trust
yourself. not to trust yourself to get
through one day, much less to be saved eternally. Thus saith
the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh
his arm, makes the flesh to be his power and his strength and
his wisdom, and whose heart departs from the Lord, because he shall
be like the heath in the desert. Listen to this. He shall not
see when good comes. but shall inhabit the parched
places in the wilderness in a salt land not inhabited." You've seen
that. You see a man that trusts in
himself. God crosses his path with the gospel. But left trusting
himself, he hates that gospel and he rejects that gospel so
he can go on living in a dry, parched land where there is no
life in his dead religion. He doesn't see when good comes.
God crossed His path with the Gospel. He didn't see it. Why? He trusted Himself. Believers are not exempt from
self-trust either. That's why God continues to press
us with trials. It's so that we won't trust ourselves.
Somebody might say, well, I've been in the faith a long time.
Let me end that. Paul is writing this. The Apostle
Paul is saying, God did this for me so I wouldn't trust myself.
Paul who wrote over half the New Testament and who spoke more
clearly than anybody has ever spoken by the Spirit of God declaring
that we are saved by grace, not by works. And yet Paul said,
I had to be pressed to keep from trusting myself. He said, lest
I should be exalted above measure through 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. If Paul had to have that, if
it was a must for Paul to be pressed to keep him from trusting
himself, I guarantee you it's a must that I have to be pressed
to keep me from trusting myself. Our fleshly nature causes us
to forget that we're helpless sinners. Is that not true? Our flesh makes us forget we
are helpless sinners. You and I will sit here today
and hear the gospel preach. Tomorrow we will come across
something that one of this world's most famous writers wrote. And
we will post it like it is the truth, the wisest thing we have
ever heard in our lives. When it is totally contrary to
the gospel that we have heard since God saved us. Why? Because sin makes us check our
brain at the door and just forget everything we have ever heard.
It does that constantly. Spurgeon said this, he said,
when we say, I'm surprised that I should have acted so unwisely.
You ever done that, you know? You fall on your face and you
think, I can't believe I did that. And Spurgeon said, when
we say that, we betray our secret pride and confess that we thought
ourselves wonderfully wise. Too wise to have ever done that.
Is that not us? That's us. That's us. So God
sends the sentence of death into our hearts. He makes us hear
the law all over again when we need to hear it be brought down
to the dust. You see, the difference between a self-made man and a
man that's been made new by God is this. God don't ever let His
child cease hearing that law, declare us guilty. Now He purges
the conscience so that you know that in Christ you have no more
sin. He put it away and you are not
guilty before God in the Lord. But if our flesh deceives us
into thinking that we can keep that law or that we can be saved
by that law or anything like that, we get puffed up and God
is going to make you hear it again to see that you can't come
to God in the law. He never let His child cease
hearing that. And the other thing is He is going to keep you pressed
in trials so that you don't get puffed up in that awful dreaded
thing called self-trust and self-righteousness thinking that you're better than
somebody else. I hate that, but it's with me all the time. It
is with me all the time. God presses us so we don't trust
ourselves. And then lastly, the purpose
for which God presses His child is to turn us to Him who is our
only salvation. He said, He pressed us that we
should not trust ourselves but in God which raiseth the dead. You know, all our assurance is
in the fact that God raiseth the dead. You realize that when
God chose His people in Christ in eternity, God raised all His
people from the dead. Even before we had fallen and
died, God had raised us from the dead in that He put us in
Christ where we could never fall, where we would be saved eternally
in His Son. He raised us before as yet we
fell. And then when He came forth, Christ came forth and totally
fulfilled God's law, perfected His people forever, Declared
God just and justifier, God raised us from the dead when He raised
Christ. Scripture says, even when we were dead in sins, He
quickened us together with Christ. By grace are you saved. And here
is what He meant by that. He raised us up together. and
He made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that
in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of
His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. When
He raised Christ, He raised all His people in Christ. He raised
us from the dead. And those exceeding riches that
He declares to us is the reason He raised us is because Christ
justified us. He was raised again for our justification. He justified His people. And
He was raised and we were raised in Him, justified in Him, when
as yet we didn't even know it. We were just dead in sins. But
He had raised us from the dead. See, our being raised from the
dead is not dependent upon us. God did that when we were still
dead. It's not for us to raise ourselves from the dead. God
raised us in Christ while we were dead. And that's great grace to know
He did that all, great assurance to know He did it all by His
grace. And then He raised His people from the dead when He
gave us spiritual life and faith in Christ. We were just dead
sinners. And He raised us from the dead
when He created an entirely new man within His child and gave
us spiritual life by Christ taking up abode in us. and given us
faith and repentance and all things necessary for godliness
in that new man. He did that. He raised us from
the dead. Thus said the Lord God unto these
bones, that's what we were, dry dead bones. And the Lord said,
Behold, I'll cause breath to enter into you and you shall
live. And by that He said, You'll know
I am the Lord. Why don't people preach the Lord?
Why don't people preach the works of the Lord? Why don't they preach
that the only way a man can be raised from the dead in regeneration,
in redemption, in regeneration, in every way, in resurrection?
Why do they not teach that the only way we can be raised is
by God? God said, you're not going to know Me until I've raised
you. That's why. God said, you are
not going to know Me until I raised you. Go read Ezekiel 37. When I breathed into these bones
life and made them raised from the dead, then they will know
I am the Lord. Then they will preach My words.
Then they will declare Me because they will know I am the life.
We only know Him as our Lord when He has caused breath to
enter us and made us to live. And that is so all our days.
That is not just so in regeneration. Every trial you've ever faced,
every time God's pressed you to the point that you felt like
you're despairing of life, every single time, you know what God's
done all over again? Raised you from the dead. That's
right. Because you, in thinking I'm
something, in thinking I've got something to be proud of about
myself, in thinking that I'm wiser than this fellow, or whatever
it is I've done to get so haughty and arrogant that God had to
send a trial to put me back in the dust, whatever it was, in
all of that, I was just dead. Because I was living according
to that dead man still in me. And so I had to be raised again.
and God sent a trial and pressed me so I wouldn't trust myself
and He made me trust Him. You know when you're going to
trust God? When He makes you do it. That's so. We don't trust God until... Let
me ask you something. When things are really good and
everything is... Man, you got the world by the
tail on a downhill drag and you just got it made. You don't pick
this book up and read it. When do you pick this book up
and read it? When God's pressed you so much you can't find any
comfort anywhere. And you finally turn to God and
say, what does God say? We don't trust Him unless He
makes us trust Him. Aren't you thankful He makes
us? Oh, blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord whose hope the Lord is. He'll be as a tree planted
by the waters. that spreads out her roots by
the river and shall not see when heat comes, but her leaf shall
be green and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither
shall cease from yielding fruit. Why? Because God waters His trees
and keeps us green. If He left us to ourselves, we
are sublime in sin. We think we are evergreen when
we are just like that dead tree standing right there. And God
has to come and water you and make you green. and keep you. That's why He presses us for
a purpose. We had the sentence of death
in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God. So let me say it again. Whatever
it is you're suffering, if God made you hear the law for the
first time, or He made you hear it all over again, or if He's
pressing you in a trial and you're sorely pressed down in despair
of life, listen to the Scripture. Listen to this. humble yourself,
therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you
in due time, casting all your care on Him, for He careth for
you. That's the cure. Trust God only. Alright brethren, let's stand
together. Father, we thank You for this
Word. We don't like trials and we don't
like to be pressed down, but how needful it is, how necessary
it is, and Lord, we do thank You for doing it. Thank You that
You discipline Your children by Your Spirit, by Your Word,
by trials, by the law, You are the Lord of hosts. Everything
is in your power to use to bring us down to your feet. And we're
thankful, Father, that you do it. And we pray that you're doing
it now in the hearts of some lost sinners that you're bringing
to yourself. We pray that, Lord, that you
draw them and make them believe you. If you're doing it in a
believer now, again, we pray Ask You, Lord, to accomplish
that work in whomever. And Lord, whatever trial You
sent, we pray You work Your will in it. And we know You shall. We trust, Lord, that You'll make
us partake of Christ's holiness and not any pretended holiness
of our own. And You'll do it by this chastening
rod. Lord, don't leave us to ourselves. We just can't be left
alone. Don't let us forget that that's
true. Do it for Your honor, for Your
glory. Do it to make us praise Christ alone for all our salvation. And Father, we ask all this in
His precious, high, holy name. And we thank You. Amen.