So that's 2 Corinthians chapter
12. And just from verse one for context. It is not expedient for me, doubtless,
to glory. I will come to visions and revelations
of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above
14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell or whether
out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth. Such an one caught
up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, whether
in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth, how
that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words,
which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one will
I glory, yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. For though I would desire to
glory, I shall not be a fool. For I will say the truth, but
now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which
he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me. And 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. For this thing I besought the
Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. So that's our thoughts for today. Verses seven and eight. The apostle has been talking
of visions and revelations of the Lord. And as I mentioned,
I think before, that's really a lovely little phrase there,
visions and revelations of the Lord. And these were visions,
personal experiences, revelations that were spiritual and came
to him from the Lord and about the Lord. He had received them. from the Lord and he didn't enjoy
speaking about these and he did so only for the sake of the Corinthians. and to repudiate the false narratives
that were being circulated by the troublemakers and the enemies
that were amongst the Corinthian believers in the church there
in that city. False teachers were intent on
deceiving the believers at Corinth and so As they were trying to turn the
people away from the apostle and the gospel, they were also
endeavouring to turn them towards themselves and towards their
works-based faith that would do them most good. Not the Corinthians,
but these false teachers. But of those visions and revelations
of the Lord, The Apostle says they were a great blessing to
him. However, he goes on to explain
that with the abundance of revelations, he had received also what he
calls a thorn in the flesh, a disturbing infirmity that humbled him and
troubled him. And this admission and the apostles'
reaction to it, and the Lord's answer to the apostles' request
for its removal, I think gives us a lot to consider in just
these two verses today. And I'm going to mention three
points as a practice of the way that I do it, I suppose. But
I'm going to mention three points that I'll put under some headings
in a moment. But before I do that, so this
is maybe the fourth point or the introduction come first.
Before I do that, I just want to say that we don't know what
this thorn in the flesh was and there's a lot of speculation
and people talk about various things, things to do with physical
ailments or psychological eyes or blindness in some way, perhaps
his voice, perhaps his ability to speak, a stroke, something
that has to do with physical or else there's others that would
talk about there being sin or something that attached to the
apostle in some way. But of course, we just don't
know. This is the extent of the information that we have upon
this really. And it might be any number of
things. It seems to me that we really
don't need to go any further than what Paul himself says.
He's not trying to hide anything from the Corinthians, and therefore
he's not hiding anything from us. He calls it the messenger
of Satan. And I think it's perhaps enough
for us to realize that that's what it was. It was the messenger
of Satan. and that could well be a suggestion
that satan himself accosted paul either openly i mean the apostle
here is talking about visions and revelations of Christ, well
perhaps it was also visions of Satan, it was Satan coming to
him, but there also seems to have been a physical aspect in
this too because it's talking about buffeting. So whatever
it was, this was a satanic influence that came upon the apostle Satan
accosted him, and we know that Satan has means at his disposal
when we think about Satan's assaults on Job in the Old Testament,
and how that with God's permission many different and varied kind
of attacks are possible. And Paul elsewhere calls these
attacks from Satan the fiery darts of the wicked. and he in
Ephesians talks about the shield of faith being used to suppress
them and to extinguish them. But we should also Note that
the permission of the Lord for this buffeting or painful assault
on Paul was given. Because it's in the Lord's hands
to deal with his servants as he will. And as we've often heard
it said, the devil is God's devil. He does God's will as all do
God's will in that sense. That's another question about
evil. This is the point the apostle
makes, lest from the abundance of revelations which Paul was
blessed, he would be elevated and become proud in his heart. That's why the permission was
given. These different temptations arose
because God, the Lord Jesus Christ, was intent in suppressing spiritual
pride. And I think there's something
interesting here. I think there's maybe even a
lesson here that God, the Holy Spirit, is telling us that the
triune God detests spiritual pride. more than any other sin,
more than any other temptation. And it's just something for us
to perhaps clock on our way through this verse, that temptations
were given to Paul to suppress the temptation of spiritual pride,
as if to say these other ones will be a purpose, they will
have an activity. of stopping this one which is
greater. And God hates spiritual pride,
I think, more than any other sin. And we could just very quickly
apply that because surely spiritual pride is the essence of free
will believism. Spiritual pride is the foundation
of legalism. and spiritual pride is the portion
of all those who believe in any form of works righteousness such
as our good works earning rewards for us in heaven and we will
have a greater place because of the things that we do here
in the body so it's just perhaps worth noting this fact that Paul
had these temptations, these messengers from Satan, this thorn
in the flesh, these taking him down in order to prevent that
spiritual pride. Okay, so that was the introduction. Here's the three points, or rather,
I hope, three lessons that will be of some comfort to us as we
encounter trouble ourselves in our own lives, because that's
what these passages ought to be leading us to, how we can
practically apply some of these lessons ourselves. All believers
face trials and temptations and sometimes those are very stressful.
We're finding here that even apostles have to deal with these
trials and temptations. And knowing this and hearing
Paul's words may help us to consider our own trials differently. And we might consider them more
positively than we might otherwise do. Trials and temptations seem
like a very negative thing in our life. But what happens if
they're given to us for positive reasons? And indeed, I think
what we learn from the sovereignty of God and Christ dealing with
us in love and kindness and gentleness is that even our trials are designed
for good ends and positive purposes. So what's going on when believers
are so tried in the way in which Paul explains here? Well, I think
we can helpfully speak of these things in the context of the
new birth being to us a new nature and the creation of a new man
and a new Holy Spirit created within us. And if we think about
it from this point of view, and remember that we are still in
this new creation not free from the old nature and the old man
of the flesh then we understand that these two natures coexist
in each believer and they war against each other like two implacable
foes The conflict that exists is between the spirit and the
flesh, or between grace and nature. And that's spoken of in scripture
as two armies that are locked in battle, a battle that doesn't
end until our death. And even although we're older,
all that happens is that we become, I think, more and more sensitive
to sins that perhaps in days gone by we didn't even think
about. We are holy in our spirits. and we are corrupt in our bodies
and we shall not know complete rest from our struggles with
sin until we lay down this flesh, this body of death, as Paul elsewhere
calls it, in the grave. Now one result of the new birth
is that we feel sin more acutely than ever we did before. And
conviction of sin is a spiritual experience. And prayer for help
with our battle with the sin and flesh that contends against
our spirit. is made because we long to honour
the Lord. Believers with a holy spirit
long to honour the Lord in what we do and what we say. We don't
want to be disobedient. We don't want to be acting sinfully. The old writers used to talk
about this as our life, our walk, and our conversation. And we
have a desire to honor the Lord in our life, our walk, and our
conversation. But we find to our frustration
that we cannot honor the Lord as we would. And Paul talks about
this in Romans. He says, to will is present with
me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not. And as a
result, the law returns to convict us, and Satan's accusations rise
against us, and our faith diminishes and seems to sometimes even disappear. We lose sight of Christ, we lose
sight of his blood, and we're in danger of being overwhelmed.
So that we constantly need new glimpses of Christ given to us,
What's Paul been talking about? Visions and revelations from
the Lord. We need new visions and revelations
from the Lord. Reinforcements from the gospel
for our battle. to remind us that we have a substitute,
to remind us that we have a deliverer and a saviour in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I'm very sure that's the
reason why you're here today. I'm very sure that's why we gather
together on the Lord's Day for our worship. It's because we
have an appetite for the gospel. It's not that we hear it once
and that does us for the rest of the year or the rest of our
lives, that we've learned that we need to be returning almost
like a daily meal to receive these visions and revelations
of the Lord, these blessings, these helps, because this battle
is real in our own souls. Now, the greater our sense of
corruption, the greater our need of God's grace. But here we learn
that it's the Lord, as he sends more grace, who permits these
thorns in the flesh, these messengers of Satan, because he knows that
we need them. to stop us from being exalted. Sometimes we think that the Lord
gives us gifts in order to contend with our enemies, but sometimes
it seems that the Lord has to send us enemies in order to suppress
the glory of our gifts. Think about that one sometime
when you're under trial. Here is something to stop us
getting too highly elated in our spiritual understanding,
to keep us humble and remind us where our weakness is and
where our strength is, to keep us looking to the Lord. There is always that risk The
Lord blesses, but he permits us to feel new evidences in the
corruption that remains so that we do not become complacent,
self-satisfied, or self-reliant in any way. It's thus the Lord's
mercy when, like Paul, lest there should be an exalting above measure,
a thorn in the flesh breaks out afresh. And it's an example of
Satan being used to our good. It is Satan's evil desire to
attack the Lord's people. And he finds a vulnerability
in our flesh. But the very thorns that he inflicts
are used to suppress the greater evil of spiritual pride. So the
thorns or the trials and temptations, they help us. This is my second
point, and I'm going to have to move quickly here. The trials
and temptations, they help us to more greatly value Christ
and his grace. Our troubles help us more greatly
value Christ and his grace. That's their design. Our infirmities
bring us to our knees. The weakness that we feel causes
us to be more dependent upon the Lord. They show us the end
of our own strength and ability. They expose our dependence upon
the Lord. And if we were spared these thorns,
we would not think very highly of the goodness and the mercy
of the Lord that follows us all the days of our lives. We would
just take it for granted. If we've no problems, we would
think that what we're doing in our life, if we had no problems,
was a pretty good job of getting to heaven under our own steam.
And you might say, I wouldn't think that. But you would. And that's the point we do, because
the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked. And the
truth is that except for the grace of the Lord, we don't even
know the depths of denial to which our own hearts might take
us. In the coming weeks on the Lord's Day, it's not this Sunday
particularly, but in the coming weeks we're going to be thinking
about the Apostle Peter's denial of the Lord. as we run up to
the Lord's death and crucifixion. Who would imagine that any child
of God, as Peter was, could blatantly deny with oaths and cursings
all interest in Christ? And yet Peter did. Peter did. And it's Peter we're talking
about here. And it's Paul we're talking about here. So these
are the truths that the word of God is revealing to us. The
Lord graciously keeps us humbled by the troubles that we endure.
It's in this sense that we learn to say with Paul, I glory in
my infirmities. It would be a blessed thing if
we could treat all our trials and temptations as causes for
glory. Think about that. The things
that we complain about, the things that cause us the deepest anxiety
and concern to be able to say of them, as Paul did here, I
glory in them. See them not simply as weapons
in the enemy's armory, but as tools in the Lord's hand, means
by which we are drawn closer to the Lord and consequently
sent from him for that very purpose. Our lives as believers are not
about maximising our ease in this world, but about honouring
and praising the Lord for ever increasing knowledge of our dependence
on him and his provision for us. That's our aim. That's the
essence of our lives. And just lastly, quickly, Paul
shows us where to go for help when we feel these trials and
temptations of life. And I'm not suggesting that we
don't have any need, for example, of medicine or science or human
advice or the God-given skills and abilities that are given
to men and women in this world that make some of the challenges
of our lives easier to bear. Paul is speaking here as a spiritual
man, and he is discerning his thorn in the flesh to be a spiritual
hindrance. He sees it as a messenger of
Satan. And he says in verse 8, for this
thing, for this thorn, for this messenger of Satan, I besought
the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. Paul took his
request to the Lord because he had come to trust in the sovereignty
and dominion of the Lord. This was a trial too hard for
him to bear, a trouble that prevented him from being the man that he
wanted to be. It was a temptation that beset
him constantly and showed him a frailness and a weakness in
himself. And his thinking is how much
better life would be if the Lord would take this away. And three
times Paul asked. He was persistent about it. Three
times the Lord replied. And each time the answer was
not what Paul requested or desired. However, it was the Lord's answer.
And Paul had the grace to accept the wisdom and the goodness of
the Lord in it. The messenger of Satan would
continue to buffet the apostle. That word buffet in there means
punch. We're going to encounter it again in the Lord's sufferings. Prior to the cross, the soldiers
buffeted him. They punched him. And that's
what the devil is doing to the apostle here. He's punching him
by some means. The thorn in Paul's flesh would
not be removed, but he would be given grace. he would be given
sufficient grace. And that's the point. Delivering
grace to sustain and to enable and deliver him in such a way
as to accomplish more with the thorn than Paul could have accomplished
without it. While keeping the apostle humble
in his own soul and sin subdued in his flesh. And I think that
these are lessons all of the Lord's people must learn. And
the example of those in the church who have gone before us points
the way to a proper understanding of the Lord's goodness to his
church and to his people in these testimonies that we have. So
we look to the Lord and we bring our needs to him but we are also
content to receive the Lord's will in the promise that that
which was said to Paul is said also to us, that the Lord will
be sufficient for our needs. Amen. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us.