One of the common experiences
of all the people of God is this matter of affliction. And I want
to speak to you tonight from 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses
3 through 11, under the general theme of affliction, friend or
foe. Affliction, friend or foe. It is obvious that the theme
of this passage, which we read earlier in the service, is the
subject of affliction. The very thing which triggers
this eulogy, this blessing of God the Father, is that the Apostle
and his companion Timothy have experienced a peculiar measure
of the consolation and comfort of God in the midst of affliction. And so the Apostle begins with
those words, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforteth
us in all our affliction. And then it opens up the whole
subject of affliction, in which there are given to us some very
helpful perspectives concerning this that is the experience of
all the people of God. Now, in introducing our study
of the passage, it is necessary to understand several things
about affliction. First of all, the meaning of
the word as it is found here in the passage before us. The
word itself literally means that which is pressing or pressured. Hence, it has come to speak of
oppression, affliction, or Tribulation, it refers to distress brought
upon men and women particularly by outward circumstances which
in turn create this inward distress. It's translated numerous ways
in the New Testament. Some places it's translated tribulation,
other places as here affliction, sometimes persecution, other
times trouble. But it's that which God reveals
is the portion of all of his people. This pressure, this oppression,
this tribulation, this inward distress brought about by outward
circumstances, our Lord says, will be the portion of all of
his people. John 16.33 In the world ye shall
have, and this is the same word in the original, ye shall have
affliction, ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have
overcome the world. One of the very elementary messages
that the apostles used to give on their missionary follow-up
tours concerned the whole subject of affliction. In Acts 14.22
we read, Verse 21, And when they had preached the gospel to that
city, and it made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, and
to Iconium, and to Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples, exhorting
them to continue in the faith, and that through many afflictions,
same word in the original, many tribulations, we must enter into
the kingdom of God. You see, the apostles were very,
very concerned that believers understand early in their Christian
lives that affliction and tribulation were part and parcel of normal
Christian experience. It is for this reason that our
Lord, in his parting words, spoke the words previously quoted,
in the world ye shall have tribulation. He had given them some tremendously
encouraging promises about the coming of the Holy Spirit. Some
promises concerning His ministry of comfort and consolation and
illumination and impartation of gifts and grace is empowered. But lest they misunderstand this
to think that they would come to some level of experiencing
the Holy Spirit that would either immunize them from or totally
lift them out of the realm of tribulation and affliction, our
Lord says toward the conclusion of those wonderful words of John
14, 15, and 16, in the world ye shall have tribulation. And John was so confident that
tribulation was as much a part of the Christian life as faith
in Christ, that when he addresses the believers of Asia Minor in
Revelation chapter 1, this is how he addresses them. Verse
9, I, John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation
and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus. He looks upon all
believers as fellow partakers, not only of the kingdom and the
steadfastness that are in Christ, but also the tribulation, the
affliction, the persecution that are in Christ. And so it is not
surprising that our Lord tells us in the parable of the sower,
that some apparent converts are caused to wither in their profession
when they come into contact with their first real affliction. In Matthew 13, 21, Jesus said,
when tribulation and persecution, when affliction and persecution
arise because of the word, they stumble. It was affliction that
caused the consternation of the psalmist in Psalm 73. He was afflicted and he saw the
people of God afflicted and it didn't make sense to him because
the people who were not committed to the worship of Jehovah and
to the law of God seemed to be wonderfully insulated from affliction
and this he could not understand. And so in the light of the fact
that the scripture teaches that affliction is one of the common
denominators of the people of God, and that affliction can
be the occasion of stumbling and consternation, it is necessary
for every Christian to learn how to confront affliction. And one of the great problems
we face, as in many other areas, we carry over into the Christian
life worldly, carnal views of affliction. You see, the worldling
looks upon affliction as his greatest enemy. Every affliction
that comes into his life is a roadblock in the pursuit of his carnal
and temple goals. and therefore affliction is always
his enemy. He can never hug affliction to
his breast and say, Welcome, my God-sent friend. He looks
upon him and says, Who are you, O my enemy? And he does all within
his power to get him out of the way. But now, for the child of
God, there should be a totally different perspective concerning
the subject of affliction. The world then looks upon it
as enemy, all enemy, nothing but enemy. And yet sad to say,
many children of God, to some degree or another, have Absorb
that mentality and do not understand the purpose of God in affliction. Now what I want to do tonight
is turning to this passage in 2 Corinthians. Seek to lay out
before you in a very sketchy way the divine purpose of God
in affliction. which, when understood by the
child of God, will help him to embrace his afflictions rather
than to run from them as an unwanted enemy. Let me illustrate the
difference this perspective will make. Try to picture a little
child who's been involved in a very serious accident, and
he's been knocked unconscious. And he has a compound fracture.
He's got a bone sticking right through the skin that's going
to demand not only the setting of the bone, but some suturing
and patching up. And the first time he awakes
out of his unconsciousness, he looks up, and there's a man with
a mask on his face, and a skullcap on his head, a big needle in
his hand, and a scalpel in his other hand. And the poor child
coming to consciousness thinks he's awakened in the midst of
a Frankenstein horror movie. I mean, he's scared to death
and he screams out and he begins to try to fight himself off that
table until he's quieted down long enough. And his mom or dad
or the nurse or the doctor explains to him that the person standing
there with the needle is going to put the needle in there so
that he won't feel any pain. when he takes his little knife
and begins to patch him up here and put the arm back in place,
and once the child understands that that which in his first
reflex response looks so foreboding, something to be resisted, when
he understands the purpose of all that, then if he's old enough
to be rational and to think through the issue, he will welcome that
which upon first sight he would utterly reject. And in the same
way, to the same degree, the child of God, many times when
he wakes up, as it were, and sees affliction standing before
him with his long needle and with his scalpel, his reaction
is one of wanting to run. And it's at that point that he
needs to be still and to hear the voice of God saying, this
is the purpose that I have in this affliction, and then the
heart of the child of God is still to submit to that affliction. What then, according to 1 Corinthians
1, verses 3 to 11, is the divine purpose in affliction? And I
would suggest that the apostle indicates that there are at least
five divine purposes in affliction. And I'm limiting our observations
just to this passage. We could range far and wide in
many other portions of Scripture, but I want to stick with this
portion and lay before you these aspects of the divine purpose
in affliction. Now, my purpose, I trust you
remember, is that you as a child of God may recognize this so
that when affliction comes, and it will come, you may be able
to confront it biblically and not look upon affliction as your
foe, but as your friend. What then is the first purpose
of God in affliction? Well, it's set before us in verse
3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. As the Apostle
Paul breaks out in praise to God, he praises God with specific
reference to the revelation of God's character that has come
to him in the context of affliction. Therefore, the first purpose
of God in affliction is to give us a fuller revelation of the
character of God. In this text, God is called three
things. He is called the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, the Father of mercies. And third, He is called the God
of all comfort. Now, when the Apostle addresses
Him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, He is
indicating that God has been revealed to him in the saving
revelation made in and through Jesus Christ the Lord. In other
words, when the apostle thinks of God, he thinks of him not
only as the God of creation, not only as the God of providence,
but he thinks of Him particularly as the God and Father of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He thinks of Him as the God who
has revealed Himself and His way of salvation in the person
and work of the Lord Jesus. Therefore, whatever follows in
this text, Whatever other revelation is made of God, it is made in
the context of that fundamental revelation of God as a saving
God in Jesus Christ the Lord. That's the starting point. If
you do not stand in a saving relationship to God through the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, this message is not for
you. This is children's bread, and
it is not to be given to the dogs. This is God's Word to believers
who know God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. As
the Apostle further says in verse 5, as the sufferings of Christ
abound unto us, even so our comfort abounded through Christ. All
of the consolation of God to His suffering saints is in terms
of their vital union with Jesus Christ. But now notice, the Apostle
not only knows Him as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus,
but he calls Him in this place, and it's the only place I know
of in the New Testament where God is addressed in these terms,
the Father of mercies, or literally, the Father of the mercies, or
the compassions, and the God of all comforting. Now let's
look at those two ascriptions of God for a moment. The Father
of all compassions or mercies. The word mercy means pity to
those who are in distress. Remember in the life of our Lord
and in His ministry, needy people would encounter our Lord and
would cry out, Son of David, have mercy upon me, look upon
me with pity. It's Psalm 103 and verse 13,
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth
those that fear Him. He addresses God in terms of
God's inward disposition in the face of the afflictions of His
people. When God beholds the afflictions
of His people, ordered by His own divine providence, how does
He behold them? He doesn't behold them with a
stoical indifference, saying, well, I've decreed it, and now
it's for their good. Let them work it out. No, no.
In all their afflictions, the Scripture says, He was afflicted. He is not only the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who has revealed a way of forgiveness and acceptance
through the Lord Jesus, but He is the God who, having brought
us into His family and given us the spirit of adoption, is
to us the Father of mercies and, He says, the God of all comforting. where the reference to mercy
focuses upon the disposition of God's heart. This reference
to comforting points out the activity of God. He not only
has an attitude of pity and compassion, but he puts forth that attitude
in positive comfort of his people. In the midst of the pressure
of their distress, he is the God who comforts them. Now, let me ask you a question.
How did the Apostle Paul come to know God as the God and Father
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, you see, that revelation
was made to him in the way that it's made to all sinful men.
He must, first of all, be brought to a site of his sin. He must
be brought to a site of the mercy that God extends in the Lord
Jesus. You read the first part of that
in Romans 7, I had not known sin except the law said thou
shalt not covet. And he details how God dealt
with him to show him that in spite of all his external morality
and religiosity, he was lost and undone. Then he came to know
God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see,
just as no one knows God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus,
apart from the experimental knowledge of sin and of grace, so you cannot
really know God as the Father of mercies and the God of all
comfort unless you're in the experimental crucible of affliction. You see, you don't have pity
upon those who are well off. You don't need to extend comfort
to those who are completely at ease. Pity is for the afflicted. Comfort is for the distressed. And the apostle tells us then
in this passage that the first purpose of God in affliction
with reference to his children is to give them this further
unfolding of his own character, to bring them into an experimental
awareness of the God that he is. So if you pray as a Christian,
and I trust you do, pray, O God, help me to know you better. Perhaps
you find yourselves praying in the words of Philippians 3, that
I may know him. Would you have further revelation
of the character of God? Not in the abstract, but in the
real stuff of human experience? Then, dear child of God, don't
look upon affliction as your enemy. It's in the context of
affliction that you will come to know Him as the God of all
mercies and the God of all comfort. And if you're going to be so
self-sparing that you say, oh God, don't touch me with affliction,
what you're saying is, I want no further revelation, experimentally,
of the depth and the breadth, the height and the length of
your infinite character. And so the first purpose of God
then in affliction is to give us a fuller revelation of his
character. Now the second purpose is laid
out in verses four to seven. What is it? Who comforteth us
in all our affliction that, here's the purpose, that we may be able
to comfort them that are in any affliction through the comfort
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings
of Christ abound unto us, even so our comfort also aboundeth
through Christ. But whether we are afflicted,
it is for your comfort and salvation. Whether we are comforted, it
is for your comfort, which worketh in the patient enduring of the
same sufferings which we also suffer. And our hope for you
is steadfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings,
so also are ye of the comfort." Do you see what the Apostle is
saying? He's saying the second divine purpose in affliction
for the child of God is to equip us for a more useful ministry
to the people of God. Notice that thread of thought.
God comforts us. that we may be able to comfort
others. Sufferings abound in us. Comfort
abounds through us. If we are afflicted, for your
sake. If we are comforted, for your
sake. And you can reduce the basic
thought of verses 4 to 7 in this simple little equation. All that
happens to us happens for your sake. All that comes to us issues
in blessing to you. Now, in the context, the primary
reference to this, of course, is to the Apostle and his companion,
Timothy. Whatever particular trials they
were passing through, by virtue of the problems of the Church
at Corinth, and in the light of their overall ministry, the
Apostle wants the Corinthians to know that what is happening
to them is for their sake. But in the light of passages
like Romans 15, 14, in which the Apostle speaks in such broad
terms of the ministry that believers have one to another, we cannot
give this an exclusive reference to the Apostle. He said, I am
persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye yourselves are full of
goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. He says of the Romans, he said,
I'm confident that as brethren you have come to sufficient experimental
knowledge that you're able to admonish one another. And so
I would lay before you as the people of God this second aspect
of the divine purpose in affliction. How is God going to equip you
for a more useful ministry to others? Well, I'll tell you what
he's going to do. He's going to put you in the
fires of affliction. that in those fires of affliction,
as you experimentally become acquainted with the comfort of
God, you in turn may be an instrument of consolation and comfort to
others. You see, you do not exist in
the body of Christ for your own sake. God has placed you in the
body of Christ that you might be an instrument of maturity
and development in the lives of the other members of that
body. 1 Corinthians 12 deals with this so clearly. When one
member suffers, all the members suffer with it. When one member
is comforted, all are comforted with it. Ephesians chapter 4,
the body is built up by that which every joint supplieth. It makes increase of itself in
love. Now, how are you going to be
made more useful in your ministry to others? Well, it's going to
be in the midst of affliction. If affliction is the common experience
of all the people of God in all ages, then one of the great needs
that they have is for people to be able to console them and
comfort them in their affliction. Well, who's going to be able
to do it? Those who themselves have proven the consolation of
God in the midst of affliction. Those who have experimentally
learned how to face the needle in the scalpel, and instead of
screaming and ranting and raving to get off the operating table,
have said, Lord, put in the needle. Do your work with the scalpel.
May I prove you to be the God of all comfort, the Father of
all mercies, to the end that I may have a more useful ministry
unto others. See, perhaps there are few things
which reveal the depth of our selfhood more clearly than the
quickness with which we reject affliction. Lord, this is doing
this and that and the other to me! Instead of saying, Oh God,
if this is the price that I must pay to be an instrument in your
hands, to be a blessing to others, Lord, I'm willing to submit to
anything that I might be an instrument of consolation to my fellow believers. And isn't that the true mark
of divine love? Love seeketh not her own. Isn't that our big problem? The
moment affliction comes all we think about, this is doing this
to me! This is doing this to me, to my name, my comforts,
my plans, my, my, my. But the Apostle Paul didn't look
upon it this way. When afflictions came tumbling
in upon him, he said, well, hallelujah, there's a lot more people out
there that are going to be helped. Isn't that what he said? As the afflictions abound, he
says, so the consolations abound. And he welcomed the affliction.
knowing that it was going to equip him for a more useful ministry
to the people of God. And so let me encourage you,
dear child of God, some who may this very night be in the midst
of an unusual discipline of affliction and tribulation, and you've found
it perhaps so difficult, you've cried out, Lord, is there something
in me? Is this some chastisement? Is
there some sin? And you've been open and honest
before God, and you've drawn a blank. Perhaps this is the
perspective that you need to bring into the total picture.
Lord, there are no accidents with you. You know every single
person to whom I must be an instrument and means of grace all along
the way from here to glory. Lord, I embrace all of your disciplines
to me that I might be a source of blessing to others. Well,
then the Apostle goes on to give us a third purpose in affliction. that helped him to look upon
affliction not as a foe, but as a friend. It is found in verses
8 and 9. For we would not have you ignorant,
brethren, concerning our affliction which befell us in Asia, and
we were weighed down exceedingly beyond our power, insomuch that
we despaired even of life. Yea, we ourselves have had the
sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves
but in God who raiseth the dead. What was the third divine purpose
in affliction according to the Apostle? Well, it was simply
this, to shuck him up more fully to the power of God. Notice his
words. I don't want you to be ignorant,
you Corinthians. Concerning this tremendous affliction
which came to us in Asia, what he's referring to nobody knows
for certain. The commentators all make their
guesses and most of them disagree, so I'd be foolish to try to arbitrate
that problem. But whatever it was, and here's
the important thing, not what the trial was, but what the purpose
of God was. And notice, he says, here was
God's purpose. We had this affliction come upon
us that brought us to the place where we despaired even of life. He said, yes, we had the very
sentence of death within ourselves. We were as good as dead. To what
purpose? that we should not trust in ourselves
but in God who raiseth the dead. In other words, the Apostle Paul
says we were brought to a place where the only way out of that
circumstance of affliction was a manifestation, an operation
of divine power equal to the power that raises dead men to
life. Now you see, in any other kind
of exercise of divine power, there may be great divine assistance,
but there may be already something there to work with. If a lame
man came to the Lord Jesus, the Lord straightened out a leg that
was already there. If a blind man came, the Lord
gave sight to eyes that were already there. But when the Lord
Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, there was nothing there.
There was a direct intrusion of life from without. And Paul
said, we were brought to the place where our confidence was
in such an exertion of divine power that was equal to the power
that raises men from the dead. And therefore, he says, this
affliction was not our foe, but our friend, because it shut us
up more fully than ever to confidence in the mighty power of the living
God. Now you see, we can have a very
romantic view of the Apostle Paul, as though he didn't have
to wrestle with indwelling sin and corruption. Yet Romans 7
is an eloquent testimony to the fact that this was not true.
You look at 2 Corinthians 12, Paul had a tendency to be proud.
And God, seeing that tendency, said, lest you be puffed up beyond
measure because of the revelations given to you, I'm going to allow
this messenger of Satan to buffet you. And Paul said, Lord, I can't
complete my ministry with this thing. It hinders me, it cripples
me, it weakens me. The Lord said, no. If I took
it away, your pride would weaken you and cripple you. Therefore,
I'm going to allow this affliction so that in the midst of your
physical weakness, you'll be conscious of where your dependence
is, and in the midst of your weakness, the power of Christ
will be manifested. And so the apostle needed, as
we do, to be constantly pushed away from the subtle temptation
to self-confidence, to creature confidence, to looking more upon
God's work as the work of Him assisting us in the exercise
of our own cleverness and our own abilities. And so when this
affliction came, he says, this was the divine purpose, that
we should not trust in ourselves but in God. And oh dear child
of God, if the Apostle Paul needed affliction to shut him up more
fully to confidence in the power of God, who are you and who am
I to think that we'll be shut up by any lesser means? And affliction,
that which God brings upon us that makes us consciously embrace
our weakness and comes like scissors to cut the cords and the nerves
of creature confidence and carnal confidence. These things, the
Apostle says, are the divine purpose in affliction. Sometimes
the Lord has to do it with regard to monetary things. Pretty hard
for some of us to pray, Lord, give us this day our daily bread
and really mean it. We've collected our check week
in, week out, month in, month out, until suddenly we're laid
off. Affliction comes. You begin to know what it is
as you never knew before. To look to God to supply your
daily bread. And suddenly those words are
no longer pretty words in a prayer that you memorized as a child.
They become the experimental petition of your own heart. Loving
Father, look down upon us in our family and our need. Give
us this day our daily bread. And what happens with that affliction?
It shuts you up to the power of God and to the intervention
of God. Sometimes it comes with help. Some of us know weeks and
months and years. of getting out of bed with two
sound feet and a sound mind and a body that can carry us to our
work. And though we do sort of half-heartedly
say, now Lord give me strength for this day and at the end of
the day thank the Lord, it really doesn't come from the heart.
We pretty well think we can get on our own steam until God just
allows that strength to be shriveled. And we know what it is to lay
there on a bed of weakness or sickness and say, oh God, If
I'm to even get through half this day, you must sustain me,
you must strengthen me, and we're shut up to the exercise of divine
power for our daily strength in a way that we never were before.
How did this come about? Affliction was God's means to
shut us up more fully to His power. So it is with the matter
of wisdom. So with a matter of patience,
God puts us in situations where all of our natural resources
are utterly depleted, and we say, as far as that duty is concerned,
and what I must have to perform it, I'm as good as a dead man,
the sentence of death is upon me. God says, well, hallelujah.
It's about time. It's about time. I told you right
along, without me you can do nothing, but you didn't believe
me. I told you right along, cursed be he that trusted in man, and
naked flesh his arm, but you didn't believe me. And now affliction
has come, and what has been its effect? To shut us up to the
exercise of divine power. O child of God, don't look upon
affliction as your enemy. That which shuts you up more
fully to the exercise of divine power is your friend. Well, we
move on to see the fourth divine purpose in affliction. And we
find it in verse 10. Having spoken of this trust in
God who raised up the dead, he goes on to say, who delivered
us out of so great a death. And, now he makes a prophecy,
will deliver on whom we've set our hope that he will also still
deliver us. You see what he's doing? He's
left the realm of testimony, and now he's making an affirmation
of faith. Looking back upon this circumstance,
whatever it was, that shut him up to the exercise of divine
power, he says the fourth function of this affliction was to increase
his faith in the promises of God. Way back when God called
the apostle Paul, he made a promise to him. We read that promise
in the 26th chapter of the book of Acts. Acts 26. Verse 16, Arise and stand upon
thy feet, for to this end have I appeared unto thee to appoint
thee a minister and a witness, both of the things wherein thou
hast seen me, and of the things wherein I will appear unto thee,
delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom
I send thee, to open their eyes, etc. Here was the promise of
God. I'm commissioning you with this
gospel commission, and in the accomplishment of it, I will
deliver you from every opposition until my purpose for you is accomplished."
And again and again the Apostle Paul was brought into circumstances
where it seemed His life was going to be snuffed out. One
time, stones heaped upon him. Other times, plots were laid
to take his life. But again and again, when these
afflictions came and God fulfilled His promise, what did it do?
Well, it increased his faith in the promises of God. For faith
is strengthened in two ways. It's strengthened by looking
to the greatness of the God who made the promise. And secondly,
by experiencing the reality of the fulfillment of that promise.
And faith is strengthened in those two ways. Beholding the
God who makes the promise. That's the emphasis of Paul in
Romans chapter 4. Abraham waxed strong in faith. How? Being fully persuaded that
what God had promised He was able to perform as he conceived
in his mind of the character and the might and power of God.
He could look at his own body as good as a dead body and say,
this body will yet father a child because the God who made the
promise in Isaac shall I see be called. He's able to father
a child through the dead body of Abraham. He's able to do something
to this body to make it able to father a child. But the Apostle
in this passage is focusing upon the second way in which faith
is strengthened. It's strengthened by the experiencing
of the reality and the fulfillment of those promises. And so the
Apostle says, when we had the sentence of death in ourselves,
we despaired of even living unless God put forth the mighty arm
of resurrection power. Once he did, he said, why we
have confidence that the God who has delivered will still
deliver and continue to deliver until his purposes for us are
accomplished. Notice how that faith became
even stronger when, as he's about to lay down his life, 2 Timothy
chapter 4, he makes a similar reference to the delivering power
of God. 2 Timothy chapter 4, Verse 16,
At my first defense no one took my part, but all forsook me,
may it not be laid to their account. But the Lord stood by me and
strengthened me, that through me the message might be fully
proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was
delivered out of the mouth of the lion. The Lord will deliver
me from every evil work. You see what he is saying? This
past deliverance strengthens my faith to believe the Lord,
you will yet deliver me from every evil work, and will save
me unto his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and
forever." You see, dear child of God, your faith is not strengthened
by pulling your promises out of the promise box. Your faith
is strengthened when that promise in the promise box goes with
you into the fires of affliction. That's when your faith is strengthened.
And you prove God in terms of His promise in the midst of affliction,
and then you're able to come forth with that ringing affirmation,
the Lord has delivered, He will deliver, He shall deliver from
every evil work. Again, you see, it's quite easy
to pray, Lord, increase my faith. And then when God begins to put
you in the context of affliction, you say, Lord, this doesn't have
anything to do with my prayer. Well, that's the very answer
to your prayer. It's by affliction that our faith
in the promises of God and the God of the promises is strengthened. And then the fifth function The
fifth divine purpose in affliction is found in verse 11. Verse 11,
the Apostle says, Ye also helping together on our behalf, by your
supplication that for the gift bestowed upon us by means of
many, thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf. Now whether the apostle is referring
to the past prayers of the people of God, there's a problem in
the grammar in the original, it's uncertain, or whether he's
saying, in the light of what I've told you, you will now have
a renewed prayer involvement with Timothy and myself in our
ministries, whether then he's looking to a past deliverance
or thinking of future deliverances in which their prayers will have
a part, this thing is clear. that the end result will be this,
thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf. In other words,
as Paul is delivered from affliction, preserved in the midst of affliction,
the divine purpose at this point will be to provoke corporate
praise and thanksgiving to God for the deliverance wrought for
his service. One of the great delights of
being a child of God and scripturally identifying oneself with a visible
community of God's people, the visible church, is that when
we enter that affliction, we do not enter it alone. We have
not only the presence of our Lord Jesus by the Spirit, but
we have the presence of the Lord Jesus in the members of His body. And Christ and His union with
His body is not a mere theological concept. So vital is that union
that Paul says, if you sin against the weak, brother, you sin against
Christ. He's a member of His body. If
you touch my finger, you touch me. That's a part of me. You
don't just say, I hammered your finger. You hammered me when
you hammered that finger. And the Lord Jesus said to Saul,
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And this concept of this
organic life union between Christ and His people was so real in
the mind of the Apostle Paul that he says, when we are afflicted
and in answer to your prayers deliverance is wrought and we
are preserved, then the end result will be corporate praise to God
for the comfort and consolation ministered unto us. And I know
that one of the great delights that I have as a pastor is to
hear the testimony of the people of God who have entered into
unusual periods of affliction, and to have them share that,
among other things, and this is almost always at the top of
the list, they've said this, the concept The biblical principle
of the unity of the body of Christ has become precious to me in
my affliction in a way I never experienced it before that affliction
came. One of these days I hope to read,
if not all, great segments of a precious letter which we received
from Ros and Irv Millett when we were over in Wales shortly
after the death of little Lori. And again, this concept came
through so clearly. The sense that when they passed
through this trial of their faith, this affliction, they did not
pass through alone. There was not only the Lord Jesus
ministering His own grace directly by the Spirit to their hearts,
but there was the Lord Jesus ministering through His body
that supportive role of love and intercession and sympathy
and understanding. I know this has been Mr. Clark's
testimony concerning the physical affliction for which he's passed
in recent weeks and months, the realization that the body of
Christ is not just a theological term. It's not just that we meet
under the same roof to hear the same sermons, sing the same hymns. There is a bond of identification,
of love and compassion, which, when God is pleased to undertake,
results not just in the person who was afflicted and has received
comfort rendering praise to God, But as the whole body of God's
people entered into that affliction by their supplications, so now
they enter in to praise and to rejoicing. And God is magnified
not by the one, but by the many. And notice how that's the clear
emphasis of the text. Ye helping together on our behalf
by your supplications to this end, that thanks may be given
by many persons on our behalf. The scripture says, Whoso offereth
praise glorifyeth me. And if God is glorified by the
praise of one of his saints, he is glorified more intensely
by the whole body of his saints rendering praise unto him. And so I would suggest from this
passage, not suggest, I would assert that there are at least
five distinct divine purposes in your afflictions and in mine? And let me ask a question in
the light of these. Can that which gives you a fuller
revelation of the character of God be your enemy, or is it your
friend? Can that which equips you for
a more useful ministry to God's people, can that be your enemy,
or is that your friend? Can that which shuts you up more
fully to the power of God be your enemy or your friend? Can
that which increases your faith in the promises of God ever be
conceived of as your enemy or your friend? Can that which provokes
corporate praise and thanksgiving to God be your enemy or is it
your friend? O child of God, be done with
carnal views of affliction. Looking upon affliction as a
dreaded enemy, look beyond the temple, beyond the immediate
and oft-times flesh-withering disciplines of affliction, and
realize that through affliction you will come to know God experimentally
in a way that you could not otherwise know Him. that through affliction
you will be made a more fit instrument of blessing to God's people,
that through affliction your faith will be strengthened, your
sense of the certainty of the promises of God, and then your
involvement with His people in praise will be increased. This is the divine purpose in
affliction. And so if you are presently in
the midst of affliction, may God help you to view that affliction
scripturally. And if you aren't presently in
the midst of it, don't breathe too easy, for in the world ye
shall have affliction. That through many afflictions
we must enter the kingdom of God. And if you're a child of
God, as sure as you sit on that bench tonight, you're going to
pass through affliction. May God help you. And may God
help me thus to view our afflictions in the light of divine revelation. But then there are some of you
here who do not know God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus
Christ. If not, you cannot know Him as
the God of comfort. You cannot know Him as the Father
of mercy. And it will not do in the next
affliction to go whimpering to God and saying, Oh God, whoever
you are, wherever you are, comfort me. No, no. If you are indifferent
to God's demands with reference to your sin, that you repent
and believe the gospel, that you acknowledge yourself to be
undone and standing in need of His mercy, If you live in impenitence
and in unbelief and despise the gospel and trample underfoot
the blood of the covenant, do not think that you can come whimpering
to God and somehow snatch to yourself the comfort that He
has pledged to His children. No, no, if you would know Him
as the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, I entreat
you first of all to know Him as the God and Father of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Repent of your sin. Believe the gospel. Embrace His
gracious promise. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. But thank God,
if in grace He has brought us to know Him as the God and Father
of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the God of all mercies and
the Father of all comfort to us. May we prove Him to be that
in our experience and all of the theory that perhaps we have
of these things. God will make real to us in the
crucible of affliction. Frankly, I have great fears,
humanly speaking in the flesh, whenever I preach along these
lines, because I know I know that the only way I can have
an increased ministry of comfort to the saints is to be dipped
more deeply into that crucible of affliction. Maybe some of
you will need to remind me of some of the things I've preached
to you. May God help you to do so. that we may encourage one
another when we begin to scream and holler and try to jump off
the table because we see the syringe and the knife. May God
help us to quiet one another down and remind one another of
the principles of this passage, the divine purposes in affliction,
that we might know that affliction is not our foe but our friend
in the purpose of Almighty God. Let us pray.