I want to speak this morning
on that last phrase in verse 10, for when I am weak, then
am I strong. May the Lord be pleased to give
us the liberty of His Holy Spirit. This expression of the Apostle
Paul is paradoxical, I guess, and yet it was in reality the
experience of the Apostle Paul. Now we're not talking about some
ordinary believer like you and I possibly, but we're talking
about a man who had revelations given to him in the spirit. We're
talking about a writer of scripture. We're talking about a man who
preached the gospel across the Gentile world, a man whom God
mightily blessed and used in this world to establish and to
set up churches. We're talking about the Apostle
Paul. Now, Paul was a wise man in the
realm of the things of the spirit. In spiritual things, he was a
wise man. He had the mind of Jesus Christ. Paul had the ability to understand
the workings of Almighty God. It would be a wonderful thing
indeed if we had more of that ability ourselves, to understand
what God is doing, what God is doing in our lives, what God
is doing in the world around about us today. He was also a
man, I think, of a very calm spirit. I think he could get
riled up and he could get upset with people who were perverting
the gospel of God's free grace in Jesus Christ. But yet I believe
that he was a man of calm spirit. He was a man of deep faith. A
man who believed God, a man who had been called of God, a man
who knew that call of God and knew what it meant for God to
have laid hold upon him. And he knew that he had been
chosen by God to be an apostle. He knew he had been chosen of
God. He knew that he had been separated from his mother's womb
and had been called by the free grace of God. He knew this. He
understood this. And he had a calmness of spirit. And Paul was far removed, I believe,
from being a fanatic. I do not believe that the Apostle
Paul was a fanatic in the sense that people nowadays speak of
religious fanatics. I believe that this man had a
solid foundation under him. He was certainly upon the rock,
Christ Jesus. And he had been a man who had
been led in the way by the Spirit of God. And Paul said in the
book of Romans that they that are led by the Spirit of God,
he said, they're the sons of God. Paul believed that a man
must be directed and led by the Spirit of God in this world.
And he only spoke when God spoke to him. And he only preached
what God laid upon his heart, and he was no fanatic. Now the
truth is narrow. Wherever you find the truth,
it is narrow. And so you can expect a man that
is preaching the truth to be narrow-minded. Now I know that
everybody wants, you know, they want the doctor to be correct,
and they want him to be absolutely certain of what he says to them,
and if he diagnoses an illness, they want him to be correct,
and they want him to be right. But we know that, and also it's
true among lawyers, that if we have anything to do with a lawyer,
we want him to be affirmative and we want him to be positive.
But when it comes to religion, we want the preacher to be wishy-washy. Well, not you folks here, but
people in the world, they want the preacher not to take any
solid stand on anything. But beloved, a preacher, a man
like the Apostle Paul, was a man who had some convictions, and
he had some experience, and he knew the truth of God, and he
wasn't afraid as the Spirit of God moved him. He was not afraid
to speak those truths with words which the Spirit gave him to
utter those words. Now, beloved, he said, when I
am weak, then am I strong. This is the man that made that
statement. He said, when I am weak, then,
he says, I am strong. Now, if we're weak, and we are
indeed weak, We're weak in many ways, and we'll try to talk about
that a little bit. And so was Paul. And if like
him, we're strong in our weakness, and if we are weak in the ways
that the Word of God suggests, then if we be in Christ, then
we can be strong as Paul was strong, then we shall be in the
best of company, because we'll be in the company of the beloved
apostle, the apostle Paul. Now Paul had an infirmity. He had an infirmity. We read
of that over here in the scriptures in verse 7 of this chapter. He said, lest I should be exalted
above measure, I've been highly favored of God. God has blessed
me. God has done unusual things in
my life. God has led me in an unusual
way. God has opened my eyes to see.
I've had some wonderful visions and revelations and experiences.
But lest, he says, here in verse 7, I should be exalted above
measure through the abundance of these revelations, there was
given to me a thorn in the flesh. Paul says that God allowed the
messenger of Satan to come and buffer him, to come and torment
him, to come and aggravate him, to come and to so affect him
and afflict him that he was conscious of his weakness in the flesh
to the point where he could not boast or brag or be exalted above
measure, be exalted to the point in and of himself where that
he would be unworthy for the work which God called him to
do. You see, God is very able to do His work through men. God
is very able to do that. But before God works through
a man, He most generally will bring that man to see his nothingness,
And Paul admitted, he said, though I be nothing, that's the last
part of verse 11, the last phrase, though I be nothing, the Lord
had brought this man to see that he was nothing. Nothing apart
from Him, nothing apart from His power, nothing apart from
His grace, which was sufficient for Him. The Lord had brought
this man to see what he really was in a state of nature. And so the Apostle Paul, I believe
he had this thorn in the flesh. Many suggest that it was a physical
ailment which made him very weak, which tormented him and bothered
him as he lived his daily life. Now I believe that there was
something more to this than just simply a eye disease, a disease
of the eyes that caused him a great deal of embarrassment and pain
because I do know, according to what I read, that his eyes
were generally matted shut and he had a difficult time looking
what we might say as a man would like to appear in public. He
was a man of a weak stature, and he appeared to be an ill
man, an infected man around the eyes. But nevertheless, I think
there was more to this than that. I believe that Paul had gotten
a view of the majesty of God. I know that Paul understood that
God was holy and that he was a sinner. You know, Paul said
that he was the chief of sinners. He was the chief of sinners.
And he said, Christ, it's a faithful statement, worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom
I am chief. He believed himself to be the
chief of sinners. And I think he understood something
about the holiness of God, that God was holy, that God was in
the heavens, that God sat upon the circle of the universe, and
that God was far removed from man, and that God was exalted,
God was light, and we're darkness. And he understood something about
his nature, and he felt a lowliness. inside. I think that everybody
that is converted by the Spirit of God, everybody that has been
brought low, everybody in whom the withering work of the Spirit
of God has taken place, that every one of them, they have
a sense of awe. at the majesty of God and they
have somehow or other, they have a feeling that they're just low
themselves and that they're inferior to God Almighty and they're careful
about the things of God and they're very careful not to say something
that they ought not say in the presence of God. And so Paul
was this kind of an individual. However, the power of God, he
was a man who felt all of this. His weakness by nature and had
this thorn of the flesh and had this eye disease and this affliction
and he was bothered by all of it. However, however, the power
of God was so upon this man. The power of God from heaven
by the Spirit came upon this man to the point that the weakness
was not obvious. And that men and women that listen
to him preach. Men and women that sit under
the sound of his voice and his message and the gospel that he
preached. It was not obvious to them that
this man had all of this weakness, that this man had all of this
problem and all of this trouble. It was not obvious because the
power of God so blessed him and so was upon him that it was not
obvious. Now isn't that wonderful? Now,
he says in verse 9, the B part of the verse, he said, most gladly
therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power
of Christ may rest upon me. Now if I can have the power of
Christ upon me, then I will glory in my infirmities. I'll glory
in them because I'm in a position where God will have mercy upon
me. I'm in a position where I'm unable
in and of myself. There's no sufficiency in me.
I have been emptied out and there's no sufficiency in me. So the
power of God is going to be upon me so much more And therefore
I will glory in my infirmities. I'll glory in it. Now beloved
Paul understood that there was no power in human nature to convert
men's souls. He understood that there was
no power in a man. to encourage and to edify the
people of God. He understood that this was a
spiritual work, and that if it was going to be accomplished
by Him, that God must do it through Him, and it must be the power
of God that accomplishes that work. And so the power of God
was upon him, and so he said most gladly, therefore, I'll
take this infirmity, I'll bear this infirmity, I'll bear this
reproach, I'll take pleasure in necessities along with infirmities
and reproaches. He said, I'll take pleasure in
persecution and in distresses as long as it's for Christ's
sake. As long as it's for the gospel's sake, as long as it's
for the master's sake, who loved me out of my sin and loved me
into liberty and life, as long as it's for Jesus' sake, I'll
be glad to suffer whatever I must suffer. Now Paul was greatly
taken up with the Lord Jesus Christ, and Paul would do anything
for Christ's sake. He would bear anything for Christ's
sake. And oh my friend, if we have
come to know Him, if we've come to appreciate Him, if we have
ever spent any time with Him, if He is altogether lovely to
our souls, if He is precious to us, we would bear anything
for His sake. Oh, if we could have His power
upon us, if we could be liberated by the Spirit of God, if our
tongue could be loose, if we could speak for Christ, if we
could speak for His honor and His praise and His glory, we
would, we would, we would bear it. We would take pleasure in
it if it would enable us to speak more for the glory of His name. It was said of Augustine, that
he very seldom was ever heard to speak a word unless some way
or another he would speak the name of Jesus. Every time he
opened his mouth, he'd be speaking the name of Jesus. Now, beloved,
listen, that is admirable, very admirable, I think. But I understand
that some people would say, well, a guy surely wouldn't have much
to say if all he could say was something about the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's because we have no understanding
of who He is. It's because we're very limited
in our appreciation of Him. That One whom God sent into this
world that was the Son of God's love. That One who fills heaven
and earth. That One in whom all the fullness
of God dwelleth. We know very little about him
and therefore we think it's, we certainly have a very limited
vocabulary if Jesus is all we could say. But I'll tell you
what, if you could say that and really know who he is, Then,
my friend, you would be a wise man indeed. Now, he says here
then, in these verses, that he would glory and take pleasure
in these reproaches. Because when he was weak, he
said, then am I strong. When I'm weak. When I got all
these problems and all this trouble and all these necessities, then,
he said, I'm weak. And therefore, then I'm strong
in the Lord. Now, the servant is not greater
than his Lord. Look over in the 13th chapter
of 2 Corinthians, chapter 13, and look at verse 3 and 4, if
you will. Since, Paul says, you seek a
proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you, Lord, is not weak,
but is mighty in you. Now Paul had preached to this
church and the Spirit of God had done a great work among them. There had been many Corinthians
that had been converted. They became believers under the
ministry of the Apostle Paul. Paul was their father in the
faith and he had not been weak. Before them and his speech Was
one of the spirit, but he says it's mighty in you for though
He listened to this now for though he was crucified Through weakness
look at it now the Lord Jesus Christ was hung on a cross The
Lord Jesus Christ had nails driven through his hands and his feet.
The spear was thrust into his side. The Lord Jesus Christ gave
up the ghost on the cross. And the scripture says here that
he was crucified through weakness. Now what it means is that He
was crucified as a sinner on the cross because our sin had
been imputed unto Him. Our sin had been laid upon Him,
and when He was numbered with the transgressors, and when our
sin was laid upon Him, then God the Father in His divine purpose
caused Him to be laid out upon that tree and nailed to that
tree. This was the work of the Father.
Now we know that the hands of wicked men were involved in it.
But the Lord Jesus Christ, here is that one that there was not
anything made without Him and yet here He is humbling Himself
and becoming obedient even to the death of the cross. And Paul
said He was crucified through weakness, yet He lived. by the
power of God, meaning that when the Lord Jesus Christ expired,
gave up his life to finish the work of redemption and salvation
on the part of his elect, that God, as he was put into the grave,
into that buried tomb, that there was a day when the rock was rolled
away and the Lord Jesus Christ was raised up from the dead. He was raised out of the dead
by the power of God. And that's what Paul says. He's
living by the power of God. He was crucified through weakness,
but he lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in
him. Hear that? We are weak in him. If you are in union with the
Lord Jesus Christ, you appear to be very weak as far as this
world is concerned. because you turn the other cheek,
and because you're praying all the time, because you're asking
God's wisdom, and because you're begging God to show you His will,
and you don't exert yourself and set yourself out as somebody
who is proud, and somebody who's arrogant, and somebody who feels
like or acts like they have the world by the tail with a downhill
pull. You're not that kind of a person.
You're a meek soul if you're a believer. And so you're weak
in Him. You appear to be weak. But listen
to this. But we shall live with Him by
the power of God, Paul said, toward you. And so Christ living
in us now, the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ living in His people,
His people are strong in Him as He lives in them and His resurrection
power is in their souls. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
is living in His people and we are strong in Him. Well, let
us, for the sake of understanding this text just a little bit better,
at the outset this morning, let us turn this text inside out. Let's just turn it inside out. Now, men by nature And you just
listen to me carefully for a little while and you begin to get the
drift a little more about what this text is actually saying.
Let me say that men by nature do not want to own their weakness. All men are weak by nature. Men are weak by nature. We know
the flesh is weak. The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak. Now, all think that they're strong,
all men. They have a native strength. They are born into this world,
they're educated and tutored, and they have a certain degree
of pride, and they think that they are strong, and even though
this is a supposed strength, They feel they are strong. Men
are strong. Men and women don't want to think
about being weak by nature. Now men are proud, they fancy
that they have strength, and this is an indication of a terrible,
terrible weakness. A man who thinks that he is strong
and he just feels that he is capable, that he has ability,
and that he is able to do whatever that he's called upon to do,
this is a terrible weakness indeed. Now we've met certain persons
who think that they can do all that is needful for their own
salvation whenever they please to do so. I've met a few people
in this world, oh, they are strong people, and whatever God demands
of any man, they're certainly capable of producing it. They can do it. They can do it. Now their idea is that they're
to be saved by their own doings, and they feel that they're very
much up to it. They feel that they can do whatever
is required, that they have the strength of character, and that
there's no leak in their ship, but what their pumps can well
keep the water out, and that they're well able to do whatever
is demanded of them. Now the idea is that they are
to be saved by their doings, And they certainly feel that
they're up to it, sure. They have a few flaws, and they
have a few faults in their character, but these faults are hardly worth
mentioning. And after all, the God that they
worship is too merciful to be particular, and therefore sure. what few faults they have, the
Lord will overlook. And the Lord will certainly consider
their merits to be worthy of being rewarded with eternal life. Well, my friend, they feel that
they'll win the prize, and if they don't, nobody will. Have you ever met anybody who
was this strong? This strength of yours is a mere
delusion. It's built on ignorance. Both
of yourself and the Word of God. Anybody who feels that they can
satisfy God is, boy, let me tell you something right now, they're
ignorant of themselves, aren't they? Anybody that thinks they
can do good, such good as God Almighty will accept, A God who
will not look upon sin. A God who is such a holy God
that even when sin was laid on His own well-beloved Son, hung
Him on a tree, nailed Him to the tree, and He was crucified
because He was my substitute and my sin had been imputed to
Him. And I tell you, God is too holy
to look upon sin. And nobody is going to beat the
demands of God's holy law in and of themselves. Nobody can
do that. And they're ignorant of the word
of God. Scripture says, Cursed is everybody that continueth
not in all, A-double-L, all the things that are written in the
book of the law to do them. Cursed is that man. And so, beloved,
unless we're perfect, and unless we have never committed a sin,
then we do not understand how weak we are unless we've considered
the Word of God, then we're in ignorance. And this ignorance
I'm going to expose today. I'm attempting to do that. There
is no going to heaven, beloved, this way. There's no going to
heaven by a man lifting himself up by his own works and by his
own righteousness. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but it's according to His mercy He saved
us. It is not of Him that willeth,
nor of Him that runneth. The man that runs. You know what
that suggests? It suggests the fella that he's
doing it on his own. He's running, and he's running
to obtain the prize, and he feels that he will get it. But God,
it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
God that showeth mercy. Mercy is of the Lord. Mercy must come from the hand
of God. Mercy must come down upon your
soul. A man can receive nothing except
to be given to him from heaven and mercy has got to come from
God. Now I've seen and heard of epitaphs
of persons that were placed by the mistaken kindness of relatives
and friends upon their tombstones, which I'm sure, if it could be
substantiated, if it could be proven, would be sufficient to
shut them out of heaven. Now, for an example, here lies,
here lies our dearly beloved mother. She kept all of the commandments. Now what kind of an epitaph is
that? Now if she kept all of the commandments,
she is the only person that ever kept all of the commandments
besides Jesus Christ. If she kept them all, is that
right? She's the only person that ever did. My, what a strong
lady she must have been. She kept all of the commandments. And here lies our dear Father,
who was perfect in all of His ways. Well, if that be the case,
I would have sure liked to have lived when He lived. I would
have liked to have lived around Him. Because, oh my, to live
around somebody that was perfect, wouldn't that be, well, that
would make me uncomfortable, of course, and probably would
make you uncomfortable. But I'm here to tell you that
these epitaphs, And I've heard of people, you know, that had,
I've read about this, about how the people felt, you know, that
they never sinned, they never sinned in so many years. Never
sinned in 30 years. Been 30 years. Well, my friend,
they didn't live around me. If they lived around me, they
would have sinned. Because I have a way of bringing
it out of people somewhere or another, aggravating, irritating
people until they show their depravity. But I'm here to tell
you this morning that this would keep a man out of heaven, such
an epitaph as that, if it would be true. These departed were,
these do not appear to have been sinners at all, their virtues
were superlative, their faults nonexistent, it seems. Let men
think what they want to. These people are not in heaven. Let people say, well, that fellow's
in heaven. He most surely is. My mother's in heaven because
of this, because of that, because of something else. Your mother,
my friend, if your mother's in heaven, she's going to be in
heaven just like the harlots get to heaven. Just like the
thief on the cross gets to heaven. She's going to be in heaven just
exactly like Paul the apostle got to heaven. And that is by
the grace of God. Got to heaven by the grace of
God. The whole, the scripture says, listen to me, he said,
I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He
said the whole doesn't need a physician but the sick. And the scripture
says there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repents, than
the ninety and nine which needs no repentance. Sounds to me like,
listen, listen to me now, the folks These folks that supposedly,
you know, are strong and that they can walk their way to heaven.
Listen, if they were to get to heaven, they would not feel at
home there. Now, I think I'm right about
this. What would they do with themselves
when the rest of us are singing there in eternal glory we have
washed our robes in the music of heaven. These people, they
had no use for the atonement, they had no use for the mercy
of God. I cannot see how there could be any harmony of sentiment
among sinners saved by the grace of God and those who owe nothing
to the mercy of God and nothing to the atoning sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ. How are you going to be able
to fellowship with them? I couldn't. I can't fellowship with them.
I'm going to be there by pure grace. That's how I'm going to
get there. And I couldn't fellowship with them people. They're a bunch
of Pharisees. And they got there some other
way than I did. Well, they're not going to be
there. Why did Christ die if men could save themselves? Why
should He bleed upon the gory tree outside the city of Jerusalem
if men and women could gain a place among the blessed some other
way? If righteousness come by the law, Christ is dead in vain,
the Bible says. And so listen to me, why should,
listen, this is a very fatal weakness. You say, well preacher,
you mean tell me you wouldn't encourage somebody who felt they
were strong and able to do good and able to do right? You mean
you wouldn't encourage, I tell you this is a fatal weakness.
This claim that men, of men who think themselves strong enough
to provide what God demands. If you think you're strong enough
to provide what God demands, that's a fatal weakness and honey,
you're going to hell. You cannot possibly provide what
God demands. And one of the glories of the
God of the Bible is that everything He demands of a sinner, He provides
for that sinner in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
that weakness lies in pride which insults, insults the crucified
Lord Jesus Christ. The disloyalty, there's disloyalty
in it which prefers itself to the Son of God. Oh listen to
this, the poet said, perish the virtue as it ought. an abhorred and the fool with
it who insults his Lord. The fellow says, I got the merit,
preacher. I got the merit. I got the virtue,
preacher. I got it. Well, if you have,
my friend, you insult the Lord Jesus Christ, and you're disloyal
to Him. He's the Savior, and don't you
infringe upon His work, and don't you offer anything to Him in
your hands. You better bring nothing when
you come to His throne. Bring nothing. Come as you are. Come in your true character unto
the Lord Jesus Christ. You must be saved by the merits
and the strength of another or not at all. That's it. You're
a drowning soul and you've got to give up the fight before you'll
ever be saved. Give it up. Give it up. Nothing
good, neither great nor small. Nothing sinner. Jesus did it,
did it all long, long ago. Give it up. Give it up. Quit your struggling. Quit your
working your way up. Leave it to the Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. The strength you think you have
is perfect weakness. That's what it is. It's perfect
weakness before God. You say, maybe it's so, preacher,
but I still feel You ever hear people say, and you talk with
them, and you show them, and you persuade them? You think
you have. You persuade a man against his
will, he's of the same opinion still. But you think you got
the word across to him, and he says, but preacher, he says,
I still think that I can repent whenever I please, and I can
believe whenever I want to. I think I can. Well, listen to
me. You're still strong, aren't you?
You still feel, as a fellow says, you still feel in your oats.
My friend, you're weak. I never met in the 40 some odd
years that I've been a Christian, I have never met, I've never
been around any professing Christian, anybody who gloried in their
power to repent when they wanted to. I never met anybody that
did. I'll tell you something about
repentance. Repentance is more than an act. Now you get this,
if you never, if you, listen, if you never understand anything
else about repentance, you understand what I'm telling you right now.
Repentance is more than an act. Repentance is a disposition of
the soul, and that disposition can only be brought about by
the inward workings of the God of the Bible. As God works in
your soul, He will create in you a loathing for your sin and
bring conviction and guilt upon your heart and enable you to
change your mind. And that's what repentance is.
It's a radical change of mind. And it's not a once for all act
either. We're constantly, from the time
we do repent, we are repenting. turning always from the mind
of the flesh to the mind of God all our life long. Now we need
to understand that. Now I never met a man with a
broken heart over sin who boasted that he could break his own heart. Did you ever try to break your
own heart? My friend, listen, you can't
do it. You cannot break your own heart, not really, before
God. If God has ever broke your heart,
you know that you can't break your heart like God breaks a
heart. You know that. And if God ever
breaks your heart, then your heart is broke. heart is broke. A man cannot, he does not have
the power to repent when he wants to and he don't have the power
to break his own heart and give himself a contrite spirit which
is in the sight of God of great price. I never met a person who
I felt had saving faith, who had not received this faith as
a gift of God. who had not received it from
the Lord. They didn't work it up. But I
tell you that your notion that you can believe when you want
to believe, I tell you, that's your weakness. That's your weakness. You can't believe just when you
want to. Listen, you've got to have faith.
Faith is a gift of God. And the Bible says, faith cometh. It comes. It's got to come down
from God out of heaven to your soul. And I hope the day will
come, and I pray the day will come, when you'll be heard saying,
Oh, that God would give me faith. Oh, that God would give me, that
the Lord would help my unbelief. That the Lord would enable me
to look to Jesus. and live, that He would give
me eyes to see Him and faith to believe upon Him, faith to
embrace Him to my soul and to trust in Him and to close with
Him. Your idea of having personal
strength with which to purify and to renew your own heart,
your idea that you can create in yourself a right spirit, your
idea that you can raise yourself from the death of sin, is a prophecy
of your sure and certain doom. You'll go to hell believing that.
That's exactly where you'll go. And I tell you, there's many
a soul today that's right there. That's where they're at. They
think they can do whatever must be done. And I'll tell you, this
is a turning of this text inside out, but it'll help you to understand
the meaning of this text. And so far, this has been a warning.
This message has been a warning to the unconverted. Now let me
give a word here to God's people. Now take note of this. He said,
when I am weak, then am I strong. When and then are the two pivot
points of this text. When and then. Now, when I am
weak. Well, what does it mean? It means
when the believer is number one, when he is consciously weak. Now, this being consciously weak. Now, let me tell you something
about this. This is painful. And it is distinctly
recognizable Consciously weak now what this means is that you
can't be weak and Not you can't be weak in the sense Paul's talking
about it and not know it and not feel it You're conscious
of it You know it it's there and you can't get away from it.
It's it's real it presses on you all the time you're weak
You're weak He said, when I am consciously
weak. When the necessity is right there
and I can't meet it. When the persecution is there
and I'm trembling. And when I'm in real deep trouble
and I know I don't know a way out. And I'm hard pressed. I'm between a rock and a hard
place. And I feel this weakness. Well, we are strong when we feel
painfully weak. And I'll try to explain how that
comes about in just a moment. A painful weakness is strength. It may seem a paradox, but it
is true. Then I'm strong. When is that? Why is that? Well, because, first
of all, a man, he knows the truth about himself. He knows the truth. We really are weak. We are consciously
weak, and we are growingly weak. Now what I mean by that is, that
a few years back, 40 some years ago when the Lord saved me, I
was weak. And I knew I was weak. Wasn't
any question of that, I knew I was weak. But I'll tell you
what, I stand here before you today and I'll tell you I know
a whole lot more about being weak today than I knew about
it then. I have just growingly through the years become weaker
and weaker and weaker. You say, well Preacher, it looks
to me like a fellow gets stronger and stronger and stronger. Not
in the flesh you are. You may get stronger in the spirit,
but in your flesh, in your old flesh nature, and in the things
of time, you're gonna become weaker and weaker as time goes
on. Now the truth thing, because
he knows the truth. Why is he strong? Because he's
come to the truth. He's weak. Now listen, truth,
there is strength in truth. And there's weakness in a lie.
If a man is truly strong, then if that's the truth, then blessed
be God. If he's strong in the spirit,
strong through the Lord, strong through the things of God and
the grace of God, hallelujah. But if a man is weak, he better
know it. He better know it. So he's come
to the truth if he says I'm weak. Because, listen to me now, number
two, number two thing as to why it is that we are strong when
we're weak. Because a man will not run without
being sent. If he really knows his weakness,
he'll not run without being sent. He will wait for a call from
God. If God called me to preach, I
will preach and nobody will stop me from doing the best I can
with the help of God. But if God called me not, I will
not venture to open my mouth in the name of the Lord. I will
not venture to go out here and stand up somewhere and preach.
Listen to me, I'm not going up there and saying, well, I've
been called to preach. You people want me to preach?
No way, shape, or form. Somebody's gonna have to say,
come up here. You come up here. We want you
to preach. I'll never volunteer. The Lord
calls me, I will do it. And I believe he has. And so
that's why I'm doing it. I wouldn't do it for any other
reason. But I'll tell you what, when a man knows his weakness,
he will not run before he's sent. He will wait on the Lord. He'll
not be sticking himself out somewhere, sticking himself up as somebody. No, no, no. He will wait. Listen. The next is, he is strong because
he is sure to pray. Because prayer is power. Now listen, if a man is weak,
He's gonna pray, isn't he? We'll cry to the strong for strength. If we can do without God, we
will. The utterly weak, they cry out
to God as nobody else will because they feel this great weakness. And they've got to cry to God.
They've got to pray. They've got to call upon Him.
They must come into His presence. Now, The believer, the true believer,
as he undergoes the various and strange experiences of time,
and in his travels in this world and through this world, he finds
himself too weak to play at praying. Too weak. He's just simply too
weak to play at this thing. He don't have time to play around
about prayer. He's got to get a hold of God.
He groans, he sighs, he weeps before God. He cries out, he
mourns over what he is and who he is and what his circumstances
is. And he groans and mourns over
the mistakes he's made and over all the problems he's got himself
into and the way he's been a plague and a curse in many ways to people
around him. And he prevails with God on the
basis of the fact that he's weak. The weaker a man is in himself,
the stronger that man is in prayer. It don't mean he spends more
time than other people does. But it does mean that when he
comes to God in prayer, he's fervent about it. He's desperate. And he knows his weakness. And
that man is strong in the Lord. He has no strength in himself.
But he's strong in the Lord because he's praying unto God. He says,
Lord, if I was strong, you might leave me. But do not leave me,
for I am the feeblest child in all your family. Leave me not,
neither forsake me. That's the cry of a weak person,
of a weak believer. Now when we're weak, then we're
strong again because then we're driven away from self. We're driven away from self.
To God. All strength is found in the
Lord. The Bible says, be strong in the Lord and the power of
His might. That's where there's strength.
Now, don't look to the creature, but look to God. Look to God. You know, when you're done with
self, then you've got one place to look. That's to God. You know
that other people are just like you. They're weak. They are creatures
of time and the arm of flesh will fail you. Your arm and everybody
else's arm. You can't lean on flesh. You got to lean on God. And so
you see, we're strong when we're weak because it drives us away
from self and drives us unto the living God. Now a word of
caution to this church about this subject. A word of caution.
I want you to follow with me very, very carefully at this
time. There is a sense in which this
text does not apply, which is not applicable to some of our
situations. Let me explain. For instance,
weakness in the doctrine of Christ cannot make me strong. Did you
get what I said? Weakness in the doctrine of Jesus
Christ cannot make me strong. It is by the study of the Word
of God that I will grow in faith. and assurance. I will grow in
the things of God as I study the Word of God. And so don't
let any man say, well, I'm an ignorant preacher. I'm just ignorant.
And I'm going to be strong because I'm ignorant. No, you're not.
No, you're not. Ignorance, listen, weakness in
the doctrine of Christ, ignorance in the doctrines of the Word
of God is never going to make you strong. If you live to be
a hundred years old, it'll never make you strong. The only way
you're ever going to be strong in Jesus Christ is to study the
Word of God and to give yourself over to coming and to being acquainted
with divine revelation. That's the way you become strong
in the Lord. Now another thing that I want
to give you is this. Weakness in prayer and devotion. I said that a true believer under
trial, living in this world, tested as we are, we oftentimes
cannot play at prayer. We are moved to pray. But there
are some people in this world that have a great weakness in
prayer and devotion. And weakness in prayer and devotion
cannot make you strong. It cannot. A fellow says, well,
you know, I don't spend no time meditating on the things of God.
I don't have any time for that. And I don't have any time to
pray with my family, to pray with my children. I don't have
any time to do that. Listen to me, my friend. Weakness
in prayer and devotion cannot and will not make you strong. God forbid that I should sin
against God in failing to pray for you and pray for this church
and pray for the revelation of the will of God in my life and
your life. We must do this and we cannot
be strong if we are weak in the area of prayer and devotion.
Weakness number three, in faithfulness to worship and fellowship cannot
make me strong. The fellow said, you know it
don't make any difference whether I come to church whether I don't. Don't
make any difference. My friend, it does make a whole
lot of difference. The Bible says, forsake not the
assembling of yourselves together. It says, exhort one another and
encourage one another as you see the day approaching. And
so weakness in our faithfulness to worship and fellowship with
other believers can never make us strong. We cannot be strong
and continue to ignore the public worship of God Almighty. And then another thing is this
weakness in character, conduct, and attitude can never
make me strong. It cannot. It only weakens my
witness. It only weakens my testimony. It only destroys my influence
toward others. It cannot make me strong. And
so there isn't any need of a fellow saying, well, you know Paul said
that when we're weak, we're strong. And I am weak. I am weak. I just got out of the tavern
last night and this and that and something else. And I've
been here and I've been there. And I've got this problem and
that problem and some other problem. My friend, let me tell you something.
That weakness in character, conduct, and attitude will never make
you strong. You will never be strong until
you get yourself where you belong Submit yourself to the lordship
of Jesus Christ. Bow your knee to the authority
of his word. Submit yourself under the hand
of God that he might exalt you in due time. Give up yourself
into the hands of the Lord and follow in his way. These are things that I wanted
to caution this church about. I know that we are strong when
we're weak. But this weakness is not the
weaknesses that I just described to you. It's a weakness that
we feel in our own souls. It's this weakness that Paul
had. You know, some of us have unusual afflictions. And the
Lord sent those afflictions. And I will tell you this, that
I personally have felt myself to be so weak that I have despaired
at times of going on in the faith if it required of me that I stand
up before men and women and try to represent the God of the Bible. I have literally despaired. And
I would run from being called upon or pushed out in
front to preach. because of the feeling that there
was such an inadequacy in me for the work. This is the very
last thing that I would ever attempt to do on my own, believe
me. I would never, never have done
it on my own. Only the call of God, only when
God said, come up hither, only when God said, you must, then
and then only would I Get up and do it. And I will tell you
that I feel a great weakness, but Paul said, our sufficiency
is of God. Our sufficiency is of God who
hath made us able ministers of the new covenant. My time is
gone. There's a poem that I came across this week that I want
to share with you before I close. Listen, if you will, to these
words, and I think they'll be your sentiments as well. Lord,
through the desert, drear, and wide, Our erring footsteps need
a guide. Keep us, O keep us near thy side,
Let us not fall, let us not fall. We have no fear that thou shouldst
lose One whom eternal love could choose, But we would ne'er this
grace abuse Let us not fall, let us not fall. Lord, we are
blind and halt and lame. We have no stronghold but thy
name. Great is our fear to bring it
shame. Let us not fall, let us not fall. All thy good work in us complete,
and seat us daily at thy feet. Thy love, thy words, thy name,
How sweet, let us not fall, let us not fall. May I but safely
reach my home, my God, my heaven, my all. May the Lord add his
blessing to the preaching this morning.