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
fourteen years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell or whether
out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth, such a 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
is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such a 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. And
he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength
is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will
I rather glory in my infirmities 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 am weak, then am I
strong. I am become a fool in glory,
ye have compelled me, for I ought to have been commended of you.
For in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though
I be nothing." I'd like to speak to you this
morning on the subject of reckoning with our thorns. Now, you're sensitive, I'm sure,
this morning to the fact that life in general, and the Christian
life in particular, is filled with circumstances which are at best unpleasant. This seems to be the experience
of the Apostle Paul. As you listen to Brother Randy
read the 11th chapter of 2 Corinthians, certainly from verse 23 down
through verse 33, you're reminded of much of the unpleasantness
that was in the life of the Apostle Paul. And might I say that my
own experience, and certainly I'm no novice, I'm nearly 70
years old and have lived 53 years in the faith of the gospel. been
in the way for 53 years, and next month I will have been in
the ministry for 50 years. And so I'm no novice about what
I speak to you about this morning. Now, I think that most of you
would agree with me and with Paul, if you've been here very
long, that there are many, many things in this life which are
very mysterious, many circumstances that are very unpleasant. And
I'm sure that we could spend our entire time together in this
hour this morning discussing our various problems and our
various troubles and distresses. Those which come to us because,
number one, we're born of a woman. We've been born into this world.
And as the scripture says, and as the sparks fly upward, we're
born into trouble. And those which come because
we belong to the Lord are also many, because in Psalm 34, 19,
David reminded us, and many are the afflictions of the righteous.
In the world, Jesus said, ye shall have trouble. In the world,
you'll have tribulation. So I want to speak to you about
this matter of our troubles and our weaknesses, our distresses
and persecutions, and I want to speak of these things this
morning because there is a proneness in us to self-pity. There's a
proneness in all of us to pity ourselves. We tend to feel sorry,
very sorry, for ourselves. And as Sovereign Grace Baptists,
we tend to feel sorry for one another. You know, there's not
too many of us. And so when one is afflicted,
we're afflicted. When one is troubled, we're troubled. When one weeps, we weep. And
so we have a tendency to feel sorry for one another. And don't
misunderstand me, I think there is a place for empathy and sympathy,
but beloved, it is so easy for both empathy and sympathy to
degenerate into something that is very noble and is sub-Christian. Very easy for that to happen.
So I want to direct you to Paul's trouble And what a catalog, as
we mentioned, that we have of both. I remind you again that
you can find these, I don't have time to read this this morning,
in chapter 11, in verses 23 through 33, and also in the 12th chapter
here in verse 7, where he spoke of the thorn in his flesh. Now
God has not left us without instruction in the face of our troubles,
in the face of our difficulties and struggles in this life, and
it always does my soul much good to look at whatever instruction
from the scriptures that I can find in order to understand this
subject as to why God would allow things unpleasant and things
trying into the lives of his people. Now I understand that
thorns sometimes have, and I have a mental image of thorns, sometimes
they have faces, on them, and maybe it is some very grievous
sin that is a thorn to you, or some trouble at home, or some
trouble in your family, or some trouble or some thorn in your
body or mind. And the question is, how are
we to deal with these things? How can we handle these various
thorns? What Paul is telling us here,
we must begin where he begins, and that is with his visions
and his revelations. He says, I will come to visions
and revelations of the Lord. So Paul would speak of his revelations
and his visions before he speaks of his thorn in the flesh. Now that we find verses 1 through
6. And I might say at this point
in the message this morning, we ought to make it a rule of
our life that we don't dwell on our troubles until after we
think on our blessings. We think on our blessings and
we enumerate them and we pray God to give us a clear view of
his blessing to such souls as we are, such unworthy people
as we are, before we begin to murmur and complain and talk
about our forms. He is boasting. He is not comfortable
in his boasting. That is, Paul is not. He is self-conscious
about this boasting. He would not do it at all if
he did not feel the cause of the gospel was connected with
this. So he reveals here God's dealings
with him. He was not a whip behind those
who are called super-apostles in verse 5 of chapter 11. He was beyond them in revelation.
He did not like to talk about himself, and we could learn a
great deal from him, I think, even here. We are too prone to
talk about our revelations and our thorns, if you please. But
he must speak of these visions and revelations and thorns for
the edification of God's people. God has a purpose in his dealing
with Paul, and that purpose reaches clear down to where you sit,
brother. And where you sit on this side, sister, it reaches
clear down to us this day. And so Paul must deal with that
which God has put into his life. He must speak of these visions
and revelations and forms for the edification of God's people. Well, Paul knew that the things
that happened to him was from God. Now, that's one thing that
we ought to understand in our life, and we'll never get to
first base in our walk with the Lord, in our effort to please
God, and to have a right mind spiritually in this world unless
we understand how it is that we've got where we are. God sent
the revelations and the visions into Paul's life, and he also
sent the thorns into his life. This is to be understood. These
things happened to him and they was from God. They were from
the Lord. God sent these revelations and
the thorn. He was in control and you cannot
help to see this if you read carefully verses 1 through 10.
Now yesterday in the religious page in the Great Falls Tribune,
there was the issue raised about how much does God know and when
did he know it? Well, my friend, I'm here to
tell you this morning that God knows everything. He's omniscient. Known unto Him are all of His
works from the beginning of the world. I'm here to tell you that
God knows everything about everything, and I'm here to tell you that
He hadn't learned anything in thousands of years. He knows
it all. He knew it from the beginning.
God is everlasting from everlasting, and he knows all things, and
so God knew what he was doing when he sent the revelations
and the visions, and he knew what he was doing when he sent
the thorn into the life of the Apostle Paul. Now these things
were very mysterious, but we must never lose sight of the
fact that they're mystery-connected to our faith. And to the faith
of the gospel there is a sense of mystery that must always abide. Now I'm not a charismatic, but
now friend we do not shut the door on the fact that there can
be some mysteries attached to our faith in our life. I'm not
here to tell you that God has not given visions and revelations
anymore. I'm not here to tell you that.
I believe that God can do anything he wants to do when he wants
to do it and do it according to his word. And I believe that
old men can dream dreams and young men can have visions. And
I believe that God can bless his people and that he can raise
up his people. I believe God can give us song
in the night. I believe that God can deliver his people out
of all things. I believe that God is able, and
he's a miracle-working God, and he can manifest himself in various
and sundry ways according to his own mind and will. He can
do that. And so we must believe that.
Never shut out the fact that God does things many times that
are mysterious in this world. Now, Paul as an apostle was very
intimate with these matters of mystery, and of course we are
not, nor can we be, but he nevertheless was truly, truly intimate with
these things. Now, if we gave such a testimony
as Paul did, When he said, I knew a man in Christ, he was talking
about himself. About 14 years ago, whether in
the body, cannot tell whether out of the body, cannot tell
whether the body was separated from the soul, the soul from
the body, I don't know, Paul said. But he says, I know one
thing, God knows. God knows because he's the author
of all of this. I don't understand it all, but
God knows. He knows. And many, many times
we can't explain anything, all we can say is God knows. God
knows why. God knows the reason behind all
the circumstances that he's allowed to come into my life. Now, if
we gave such a testimony as Paul did here about being caught up
into the paradise or the garden of God, into the park of God,
and having this tremendous time where he heard words which was
not lawful for him to utter, then eyebrows, of course, would
be raised about two inches on everybody's head. But the Apostle
Paul had this experience. Paul says there's a lot of things
I don't know about these things. He says, I cannot tell you all
about, but God knows because they came from God and he only
knows the ins and outs of them all. He was raptured, you know,
Paul was, into the manifest presence of God Almighty. Now he received
revelation which was not for the edification comfort and the
upbuilding of the Church. This time of revelation, this
time of blessing, this was for Paul. It was only for Paul. A blessing for him of God's own
choosing, not for anybody else. It was an unutterable utterance
that he heard that's like bittersweet or like Roman Catholic, two things
just cancel out one another. Unutterable speech that he heard. He was not able to tell anybody
what he heard there in that place. But I'm saying that this experience
was for Paul. It was a blessing for him. And
you know, we sometimes have experiences that are just for us. God means
them to be for us. We couldn't prove they happened.
There's no way in the world that we could prove beyond a shadow
of a doubt that they occurred, but they did, and we know they
did, and it was for us. God knows what they mean, what
they meant to us, and God knows they were such a blessing that
we cannot and have not to this hour gotten over them. because
of what the Lord has said to us in secret, behind closed doors,
and what the Lord has done in manifesting himself in sweet
blessing to our souls. But I want you to look here at
verse 5. Now we're living in the day of what is commonly referred
to as the super-Christian. And we hear sometimes people
bragging, talking about what they've got. Paul says, of such
a one will I glory, yet of myself I will not glory, I will not
glory, but in mine infirmities. Now Paul early on had told these
Corinthians that he determined not to know anything among them
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now let me tell you, beloved,
that we're living still in the days of his humiliation. We're living still in the days
of the humiliation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is Jesus Christ
honored today in this world like he ought to be? Absolutely not. Do you have one minute's doubt
in your mind that if the Son of God was to come back and walk
our streets today, that he would not end up on a gory tree, that
he would not end up in an insane asylum? My friend, he absolutely
would. I'm telling you we're still living
in the day of His humiliation, and we're not to forget that.
Now, you're not going to know pure freedom from the curse in
your lifetime unless the Lord Jesus Christ comes back. You
will not. Pure experience of glory now? Absolutely not. We're living
in the day of His humiliation. We're continuing now in this
day. We're in it today, in this hour. We are suffering with him now. So we're not going to know complete
freedom from the curse, from sin, freedom from all the effects
of the curse. It's upon us, and we cannot expect
that we would have freedom from it all, because we continue now
as He continued in the days of His flesh. And if you look at
2 Corinthians chapter 13, just turn over one chapter and look
at verse 4, you can read it. For though He was crucified through
weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. The Lord Jesus
Christ, it is said here, was crucified through weakness. He
was crucified because he was in a body of flesh and because
God's purpose demanded that he, being our surrogate, that he
suffer death on the behalf of our sin, and he did so, for we
also are what? in Him. There we are. That's
where we are. We're weak in Him as He was weak
in this world, and as He went to the cross, He being the sovereign
God of the universe, dying on a cross, submitting Himself to
the nails of that cross. Listen, we are weak in Him, but
we shall live. We shall live with Him by the
power of God, Paul says, towards you. Now we'll get to this business
of the power of God being upon us in a little bit. But I want
to say that this is the place, now hear me out, of our felt
weakness. This is the place of our known
weakness. That's right, you're going to
feel your weakness if you're a child of God, if you're in
the way. You're going to discover that you're weak in the way of
God and the things of God. And that is why Paul did not
put the premium on these revelations. Yet of myself he said, I will
not glory but in mine infirmities, I will glory in mine infirmities."
Now, if God is pleased to draw near to us and speak to us and
reveal himself and bless us thereby, Listen, these things are not
to be viewed as the ends in themselves. You say, I had a mountaintop
experience. I was lifted up. I was greatly
blessed. I walked in the strength and
power of the Lord for several days. Praise be unto God. But my friend, That's not the
end. That's not the end. That's not
what all this is about. They are not the mainest thing
now, as a man would say. That's not the mainest thing.
Philip Henry said, we're to remember that we're not in heaven yet.
And we're not there yet. The charismatics forget that.
And you and I, in our utopium, tend to forget it too. We want
our utopian views. We kind of feel like, you know,
the world's going to get so good. It's going to get, oh, it's going
to get better. And it's going to be so good that we're just
going to be able to see the righteousness of God everywhere, and everybody's
going to be saved, and everybody's going to be blessing the Lord.
Everybody's going to be singing hallelujah. All of this and that's
not so. We want to get to the place where
we do not have any more trouble. That's what we're about. We don't
want experience, weakness. We don't want heartache. We don't
want difficulty. So we can jump out of bed and
say, bless God, what a day, what a week, what a year. No more
infirmities. Ah, that's what we want. Utopia.
We want that. But my friend, it's not here.
This is not your rest. This is not the time for that.
You say, if I could only get there. Well, some imagine that
they are there. Well, what would a Christian
be if he were to mentally think that he was there? Well, Paul
said, let me tell you about my thorn. Let me tell you, a Christian
wouldn't be worthwhile, he certainly wouldn't be any good in this
world if he ever got to that place where he felt like that
he was in heaven on earth. No, Paul said, you better come
down down, way down, you better come down. He said I'll tell
you about my thorn. I'll tell you about what happened
to me after I was caught up into the manifest presence of God.
I'll tell you what happened to me when I heard things I could
not speak anymore. I'll tell you what happened to
me when I was blessed of God, when God Almighty chose one blessing
and He said it's for Paul and He gave it to Paul. He said He'd
tell you what happened right after that. Let me tell you.
He said there was something that happened right after that. And
let me share it with you. Now the tendency, if we think of visions and revelations,
is for our hat size to grow up, because we get the big head.
Boy, look what happened. And I'm telling you what, I told
you I wouldn't know no of us in this situation. I've been
on the mountaintop, and I've come home, and I found out I
found out that there are still thorns. There's still trouble
in this world. But Paul said we must have a
thorn meeting. Somebody said, I don't want a
thorn meeting. Well, no, you couldn't get a corporal's guard
to come together for a thorn meeting. But I want to tell you
what. God's people need to have a thorn meeting. God brought
something into Paul's life so he would know where The excellency
of the power resides as long as we're in this world. It is
not in visions and revelations. It is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is in the broken and contrite spirit of God's people. That's where it's at. That's
where the power is. It is not in visions and revelations.
Paul looked on his thorn as a gift from God. Now I want you to see
this in verse 7, and am I wrong here? And lest I should be exalted
above measure through the abundance of the revelation, there was
given to me a thorn. There was given to me. Paul said
it was a gift from God, that's what he said. Do you think of
your thorns as a gift? Nah, you don't, and I don't either.
But if we think rightly, they are a gift from God. They come
from God. In our day and time, the clergy
of our day and time says, blessings come from God and thorns come
from the devil. That's what they say, isn't it?
Why, if you're not driving a new car in year 2002, you're not
walking with God, they say. Why, you're not walking with
the Lord. If you're unhealthy, then you're not a Christian.
If you're unhealthy, that's the clergy of our day. But God sends
thorns. Do not, never come to the place
where you think that gain is godliness, because it's not. It's not. These are sent from
God in order that he would keep impressed upon his people a sense
of felt need and weakness. That's exactly why they come
from him. And anything that detracts from this is not according to
the testimony of the New Testament. It is thoroughly established
in the teaching of the New Testament that the seal of the New Covenant
is trouble, trial, test, difficulty, adversity, affliction. That's
the seal of the New Covenant. It was like a thorn in the flesh
to Paul, like a splinter. Now, the word implies that the
pain of this thorn was excruciating but not debilitating. In other
words, it didn't keep him from his work. He could go on and
preach, but it was painful. And that is how the Lord deals
with these people, with these thorns. He won't put you maybe
down flat on your back, but he will put this thing on you, and
you know you've got it, and you can't get away from it. There
ain't anything in the world that you can do, and that ought to
encourage everyone this morning. to recognize the mercy of God
toward us, that God means this for our good. Now, he doesn't
tell us what it is. Paul doesn't tell us what his
thorn is. And I don't know what his thorn was. Some say he had
a demon. And some say that he had bad eyes. And there's some
of these Roman Catholic monks that was running around back
centuries ago that said he had a sexual weakness. Because, I
guess, it's because so many of them have had. Maybe that's the
reason they said that. Well, we're not told what it
was, but we're told what it did. It buffeted him. In verse 7,
it didn't just slap him around. No, but it pounded him as with
a fist. It pounded him. I mean, it's
something that he felt he couldn't get away from. It was also an
angel of the devil. Because the devil never touches
the child of God unless the sovereignty of God allows it, permits it.
And that's the Bible view, my friend. He cannot touch Job,
his person, his family, his goods. He can't sip Peter's wheat unless
God gives him permission to do it. God must give him permission. This was a messenger of Satan
sent to pound old Paul and make him feel his weakness, make him
feel his need, is what it was. It was a messenger of Satan under
the gracious provision of God Almighty. Can you take that?
Can you handle that? Can you say, yes, well, I think
that's right. Now this encourages me. You see,
Because I have thorns. I have thorns. I've had to deal
with a lot of thorns. And this encourages me. The devil
may roar at me, he may rage at me, but he is never in a position
to destroy me as long as God is on the throne. As long as
God is my God, he's on the throne. He's got to come through him,
you see. And God can allow him to send a messenger of Satan
to buffet us, but it's in mercy, and it's in love, and it's to
teach us our dependence upon the Lord, our need, our deep
need of him. And all the thorns and all the
difficulties, all the distresses, all the persecutions, all the
wants and all the likes and all the weakness that come are part
and partial of our experience today as a believer, as a believer. You say, well, I don't know,
I've got trouble figuring this all out. As a believer, that's
your experience. That's your experience. And if
you stop long enough to think about it, even if you're living
under the blessing of God, I hate to say this, even if you're
living under the blessing of God right now, and I hope you
are, there's a running sore in your life someplace. somewhere
in your life. It may be over some moral conflict
that you have. Don't you ever think that because
we're committed to what we're committed to that we will never
be confronted with any moral conflict? Indeed, there are very
few of us who are not confronted with one. It is not a matter
of someone giving himself over to something, don't you see?
It's a matter of fighting and fighting and fighting to stay
right and to stay on top. Do you not have to deal with
things every day? Is there not this temptation just to take
everything in your own hands and do just what you would like
to do? Do you want to do what's right? Do you want to do what
the Lord Jesus Christ would have you to do? Do you want to be
right in your heart? Do that which is glorifying to
God, honoring to Him, you have a moral conflict. You would like
to say, throw it off. I just want to do what I want
to do. I want to escape this form. You cannot escape the form. It is a matter of staying where
the Lord wants you to be. To others, it may be labor and
life has not paid off. man would like to have, you know,
and his children would like to have. And he weeps when he's
alone because he's not doing well. He begs God and he weeps. I'm talking about sores that
run in the night. There are also conflicts with
people. They're hurt. There's hearts that are broken.
There's treacheries. There's vows that are broken.
sung about that while ago in the song Beulah Land. There are then our poor ministry,
how poor, how feeble, how weak we are. But it is given lest
I should be exalted above measure, Paul said. I got this thorn because
God knows what I would have done if I hadn't got it. I had visions
and revelations. I was caught up into the manifest
presence of God. It would have an effect upon
me and my feet would barely touch the ground. Again, as long as
I lived in this world, God sent this in order for my good that
lest I be exalted above measure. We're made of such volatile material,
you know, and such flammable material that God cannot trust
much to us without dealing with us and buffeting us. God ever
bless you, my brother, fill you with the Holy Ghost, you say,
I'd never be proud. You ever get filled with the
Holy Spirit, if God don't send some terrible affliction right
away, I mean right away, to you, you'd be as proud as a peacock.
Yes, you would. Say, I preach good. Somebody
come up to old John Bunyan and said, John Bunyan, said, boy,
you preach good, John. John said, well, the devil told
me that before I ever come down the stairs. And you get proud
if you think you can do it. You get mighty proud. Well, when
the blessing comes, we're in a more dangerous position than
when those blessings are withheld. It is still desperately true
that he that is down need fear no fall. And if you're down,
and if the hand of God is on you to keep you down, then, my
friend, you're in a better position. than you would be if you were
blessed and not have no hand, no trouble upon you. It is when
the blessing comes and flows that we tend to get rowdy and
we get out of hand, and God then must take a hand. I remember
reading what Charles had in Spurgeon when he said that God took him
behind the door over and over again, whipped him behind the
door. Man was greatly used of God, but he couldn't He said,
I come to the place where I couldn't even enjoy the letters that I
got. People telling me they got saved. I got them every day.
People got saved under my ministry. But God so dealt with me behind
the door that I couldn't even take pleasure. Now I'm telling
you there's truth to what I'm telling you here this morning.
I've been through the mill myself. Now note his prayer. Paul prayed
about this thorn, and he prayed three times that it might depart. He said, I asked the Lord Christ
that it might depart, that the Lord would take it away, take
it away, take it away! And Paul says that God did not
listen to him. He did not listen to him. He
did not deliver him. He did not. And here comes some
little pipsqueak along saying, Paul, why don't you just command
it to leave? We've got these people, you know,
that they say, we've just got to claim the victory. Well, if
you want to claim the victory of faith, saying whatever it
is that God wants, that's all right with me, hallelujah, then
you've got the victory already. That's the only one there is.
I've told you people through the years that there isn't but
one victory in the Christian life, and that's the victory
of faith. The victory that believes God, whatever is happening, that
God's on the throne and His purpose is being done, and that everything's
okay with us, even though our lives may be in a state of turmoil. And then here comes another little
pipsqueak along saying, Paul, I always get my prayers answered. What is this, Paul? You prayed
three times. Why don't you get right with
God, Paul? You prayed three times and your prayer hasn't been answered?
Listen, my friend, you're dealing with Paul the Apostle here. And he said he prayed three times
and the Lord did not deliver him. And it was because God had
something to teach him in this situation. But just a minute,
just a minute. He prayed, he prayed, and he
prayed. But he did get an answer. He
got an answer. God said, I'm not going to take
it away, but Paul, I've got something I'm going to give you. I'm going
to give you something, Paul. I'm going to give you something.
And what is it that the Lord is going to give me? He's going
to give me sufficient grace. Sufficient grace. Well, He's
not going to give me too much. He's not going to give me enough
to put in my pocket. And He won't give me any to put
in my backpack that I might need down the hill or up the hill.
No, no. No, God wants us to look every
day into the pocket and there find nothing. And then we look
to Him, and then we get sufficient grace. But don't expect to carry
around a supply of riches because you're not going to have it.
You've got to look to Him in your need. God not only gave
Him grace, but He taught Him this lesson that His power is
perfected in human weakness. My grace is sufficient for thee,
for my strength is made perfect in weakness. This is the key
to spiritual victory in this life. Learn this truth, God's
power is made perfect in your weakness. So Paul says in verse
9b, Most likely, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, a
glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest
upon me." Well, how can he do that, you say? How can he ever
glory in his thorn? How can he glory in his infirmity,
in his weakness, in his troubles, in his afflictions, in his lack,
in his unanswered prayer, his defeats? Well, we glory because
it is in the arena, this arena, this arena of our infirmities
and weakness that God acts, that the power of Christ comes down
to rest upon us. This is where, when we're here,
that's when there's some hope. You say, I'm at the end of my
rope. There's a lot of hope now. You say, I tried and I struck
out. Well, there's hope now. Next time you get a hit. You
say, I can't see the ball. You'll get a hit. Because it
is in this arena that God's strength is made perfect. Paul came to
see that this is more blessed than divisions and revelations.
That's right. This is the realism, brethren
and sisters, of the Word of God. This is real. This is real. This is the only thing that makes
any sense to me. I don't think I missed this. I don't think I missed this nail
at all. I think I'm right on. I hear these preachers talking
about victory, victory, staying out and above and over these
things and these thorns. Paul came to see that it was
in this arena of Felton Eve that God came to spread the tenth
of power over him. It was in this arena. Let me
apply this. What do you and I want? What
would we really like to have? What is it that we want? What
are some of us guilty of trying to get by carnal means and methods? Do we want to be in control?
Do we want to be in control? Do we want to dominate, be strong,
be somebody? Well, you know, I thought about
this being somebody, but all I am is a proclaimer of the Word
of God. All I am is a clay pot, that's all I am. And I've never
been anything for 15 minutes. Never really been anything. Well, we're never going to come
to the place, and this may sound like a trite statement to you,
but we are never. And I don't care how you go about
it if you're a God-fearing believer in the Lord Jesus Christ You
are never, ever going to get to the place where you are in
control. You're just not going to get
there. It will never be. It's not your
prerogative to be in control, my friend. It is not. We are
never going to come to the place where we're going to be able
to say, I really do amount to something. Never going to be
able to come to that place. You will never come to the place
where you're perfectly content with yourself. Anybody here,
if you're perfectly content with yourself, you don't even know
what the issues are. You don't know what's involved.
You will never come to the place where you're perfectly content
with yourself. You're never going to come to the place where you
have got it all together. You just won't. We will never
come to the... Not going to be in this world.
And if you do, you'll come to the place of worthlessness. Worthlessness. Because you're
not seeing things right. As long as you feel the need,
listen, that God would come to me in my weakness is my prayer. Overcome, dear Lord, and make
your power manifest in my flesh, in my life. A felt need. A felt need. I am nothing, as
Paul said in verse 11, but in union with Him, I can do all
things. Be all things that He would have
me to be. Things that I cannot do in myself, He is able to enable
me to do. And there is nothing that God
has bid us to do in the Word of God as spiritual people that
we're able to do in and of ourselves. We've got to have His strength.
We've got to have His power. And if you think you're doing
it, Without it, you're fooling yourself. Only as you get His
strength and power upon your life can you do things like God
wants you to do. We must come to this. Well, preacher,
what about self-image? What about self-image? The churches
of our day, you know, are going to cede on this self-image business.
God is more interested in the image of His Son being stamped
in your life and revealed by His power in you than He is in
your self-image. You're not interested in your
self-image. You see, when you get into the
Lord Jesus Christ and you become a man in Christ, you turn away from the mind of
the flesh and to the ideas of the flesh and to doing things
in this world after the flesh and the strength of the flesh.
You're not walking in the flesh any longer. You're in the spirit
and not in the flesh. We must come to this. Lord, give
me and let it abide in me a sense of felt need so that I really
feel the need of you. And to him be the glory in that
weakness. To him be the glory in that weakness. Well, I felt
this message was greatly needed by me, myself, and I. And I don't
know how you feel about it, but I needed it. I needed to rehearse
this in my own ears. I needed to go to this passage,
and I needed to look, look, and look again, so that I might rightly
view, and rightly understand, and rightly appreciate what God
has done in my life over the years, and what He's doing in
some of your lives right now. And I realize that God will have
to give you the mind and the heart and the soul, the strength
and the spirit's ability to receive what you've heard. But I'm telling
you the truth. I have delivered my soul. I've
told you what the Word of God teaches. And this is exactly
where we are right now. We are weak. We need God's help. We need His power. We need for
Him to overcome. We need for Him to give us some
grace. to be able to deal with what
we have to deal with from day to day, from hour to hour. All
things are in God's hands and we trust Him to work His will
and to work His way.