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Bruce Crabtree

God's comfort in tribulation

2 Corinthians 1:4-11
Bruce Crabtree November, 15 2015 Audio
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for just a few minutes. 2 Corinthians
chapter 1. Let's begin reading here again
in verse 4. Speaking of the God of all comfort,
He says in verse 3, and then verse 4, Who comforteth us. He's
the God of all comfort and He comforts us. In all our tribulation,
that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble.
By the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God, who comforted
us in all our tribulations. And we must, through much tribulation,
enter into the kingdom of heaven. Everybody suffers, don't they?
Everybody that's born into this world suffers. But the saints
especially suffer. The saint suffers tribulation.
They do it for different reasons. They do it because Christ is
in them. It's the sufferings of Christ
dwells in them because they believe in Christ. We may have peace
in the country. We may have peace in the community.
Everything may be at rest. But I'm telling you often within
the believer's heart there is tribulation. There is war. There is struggle. The Bible
tells us that we wrestle against principalities, against powers,
against spiritual wickedness, and in high places. You know
Christ suffered that Himself. He suffered the assaults of the
devil. He was tempted in the wilderness when He was fasting
for 40 days. Satan came and assaulted Him.
And these are part of the sufferings of Christ in us. We suffer being
tempted, just as our blessed Lord was tempted. Our Lord was
sometimes broken-hearted, wasn't He? He was crushed. He was grieved
in His Spirit. Don't you suffer that sometimes?
We suffer sometimes and we have ailments in our hearts. The doctors, they can tell us
what's wrong usually with our bodies, but they can't give us
medication for our spiritual ailments. When we're broken hearted,
when our spirits are crushed, there's only one that can comfort
us. God comforts us in our tribulations that we endear and we suffer
for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't suffer to atone
for sin. All our sufferings We can never
atone for one's sin. Our Savior's did that. He's accomplished
that already to the great relief of our conscience. But we do
suffer for Christ's sake because He's ours and we belong to Him.
And He says here with these sufferings comes comfort. You know there's
so much of the comfort of God that you and I will never experience
in this world because it comes out of sufferings. We think about
some of the old Puritans and how they suffered. We think about
some of our forefathers and how they put them in prison and how
they persecuted them to death. But out of that persecution,
we read of the great comforts that they experienced. But great
comfort usually comes out of great affliction. And that's
what he's saying here. He comforts us in all our affliction. And then he tells us here in
verse 4 that when we're afflicted and when God comforts us, what's
our solemn responsibility? To comfort others. To comfort
others. That's why you and I should never
be backward about telling other people what you've experienced. Because how God's dealt with
you And His comfort in your soul, He'll use that same experience
to comfort somebody else's soul. It happens so often that way,
doesn't it? I want you to look over here in Philippians. The
book where Brother Larry was just reading. Look in Philippians. And look in chapter 1. Philippians
chapter 1. And look in verse 12. The Apostle Paul had experiences
and he often told them. And the reason he told them was
that it would comfort them. It would help them. And what
he experienced in his lifetime really helped him. His imprisonment
helped so many people. When they saw what this Apostle
endured for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, how he suffered
and how faithful he was, boy, some of them got so bold And
they said, I'm not going to be so timid about this. Look how
he suffered. And look how the Lord has comforted
him and upholded him. So they began to preach and suffer
themselves. And this is the way Paul says
in Philippians chapter 1 in verse 12. But I would, you should understand,
brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen
out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel. Instead of hindering
the gospel, it's fathered the gospel. So that my bonds in Christ,
my imprisonment in Christ, my chains, they put me in chains
and in prison, are manifest in all the palace and in all other
places. Even the palace there at Rome
where Caesar's relatives lived and some of his family lived,
they heard Paul preach. And you know, the Lord converted
some of his household. He said it's manifested what
I'm doing and what I'm preaching. And many of the brethren in the
Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to
speak the Word of God without fear. So see how His experience
encouraged them? So don't be so backward about
telling people what you've suffered and how the Lord has comforted
you. The comfort we're with We are comforted. Other people are
comforted by that too, he says there. And in our chapter 1 in
verse 5, he said, For as the sufferings of Christ abound in
us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be
afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual
in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer, that whether
we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. In
other words, he's saying here in verse 6 and 7 that if we suffer
for Christ, if I suffer for Christ, then I'm going to experience
the comfort of Christ. If you suffer for Christ, you're
going to experience the comfort of Christ. He said, Our hope
of you is steadfast knowing. This is something He said that
I am certain of, that if you suffer with Christ, if the sufferings
of Christ are abounded in you, then there's one thing that you're
going to partake of, and that's the consolation of Christ. He's
not going to call you to suffer for His sake and then not comfort
you. He'll do that. Paul said if we
suffer with Him, we'll reign with Him. We'll reign with Him. First comes the cross, doesn't
it? First comes the suffering, and then comes the crown. But,
I tell you what, I wouldn't, and you probably feel the same
way, I wouldn't take anything for what I've suffered for Christ. Would you? I mean, some of the
greatest comfort has come out of what I've suffered for Him.
And when you've been persecuted, or somebody's mocked you, or
you suffer within yourself, you struggle with sin, and you struggle
by living by faith, but when you're persecuted, or when you're
suffering, then, finally, He comes in, and He says, Here's
the result of that. I'm going to conference you.
And Paul said, I'm sure of this. that if you are partakers of
Christ's suffering, then you will also be of His consolation. And then look in verse 8. For
we would not, brethren, have you to be ignorant of our trouble
which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure,
above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life. We would not have you ignorant
of our trouble. We don't want to complain about
our troubles, do we? But you know, we shouldn't be
so backward about telling people of our troubles. Paul said, I
wouldn't have you ignorant of my troubles. I don't want to
hide my troubles either. Sometimes it's good to tell people
of your troubles. It's good for others to know
what you've experienced. I would not have you to be ignorant
of my troubles. You know one of the reasons we
like the book of Psalms so well? Full of troubles, ain't it? It's
full of troubles. Full of consolation. Though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And we read
that and we say, David, I think I've walked at least in the edge
of that. And what comforted you? He was with me. His rod and His
staff, it comforted me. We was talking back there at
the table. Some of the comforting things. Though my father and
my mother forsake me. Would David's father or mother
ever forsake him? He said they might. And the Lord
Jesus said, Would a mother forsake her suckling child? He said she
might. But you know what He said? Then
I'll take you up. Then I'll take you up. I'll comfort
you. I'll support you. So we learn
that from the book of Psalms, don't we? We love the book of
Psalms because it tells us the experience of King David. Wouldn't it be a distressful
thing on you if when you read the Bible, everybody was walking
in golden slippers and having sunshiny days? Wouldn't that
be awful to read a Bible like that? Wouldn't you start saying,
what's wrong with me? I must be doing something wrong.
I must not even be converted. Nobody's having trouble. But
when you look at this great apostle, and he was in tribulation, he
was in trouble. And He said, God ordained us.
He has appointed us to affliction. Why? That He can comfort us. Comfort comes out of these afflictions. Look over here in the same book.
Hold your text and look in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 6. Look in chapter 4 and look in
verse 6. Look here what He says. He does not hide His sufferings.
from us, and I'm glad He does it. Verse 6, chapter 4, For God
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, He shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. We are troubled on every side. yet not distressed, we are perplexed,
we are confused, but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken,
cast down but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body. A man of sorrow, And Paul said,
that's what's manifested in us, especially this man. Listen to
this. When he was in Asia, there at
Lister, he was stoned. Remember that? He said, Alexander
the coppersmith did me much harm. Demetrius the silversmith stirred
up the whole city of Ephius against this man. It got so bad and unbelievers
got so hard in their hearts that Paul had to separate the believers
from the whole city. For two years he sought to teach
the church there. The last letter that he wrote
to Timothy, he said this, ìThis know that all they that be in
Asia are turned away from me.î Now, you see how that man suffered
and how that man was depressed. And over here in my text again
in verse 8 that I read to you, He says it went so far and it
got so bad that I was pressed, pressed out of measure. This word press in verse 8, it
means to weigh down. It means a burden or a load. All of us have had a burden on
our back that was heavy. Or we've seen a truck that was
carrying all this material. That's what this word means.
It means load. And Paul said, I was loaded down. But look what he says. He says,
out of measure. He couldn't measure the heaviness
of the weight that he felt upon his body and upon his mind. He
was so heavy that he could not measure the load. Out of measure. All trials have their limits,
don't they? You could measure it, but he
said, not mine. It was so great I couldn't measure
it. He felt like he was crushed under this weight that he was
bearing. And another word he adds, look
at this. He said, above strength. A man may be pressed with great
trials, but have strength enough to bear it. He said, the weight
that I was feeling was above my strength to bear it. There
have been men under a lot of weight. They carried heavy loads,
but they had strength to do it. Remember old Samson? He picked
up the cities. That would have crushed us, wouldn't
it? He picked up the gates of the city, bars and all, manned
them muscles, them leg muscles in the back, got underneath the
load. It was heavy, but he could carry
it. He had the strength. But Paul
said, I was beyond my strength. I had such a load on me that
it was pressing me so heavy I could not bear it. I sank, he said. And he adds this. This shows
how heavy his load was and how unbearable it was. He said, I
was so pressed in mind and body I despaired even of life. Boy, that's a load, isn't it?
That's where it brought him to. I despaired even of life. He
said, I gave myself up as a dead man. I saw no way to escape the
situation that I was in. All Asia had hounded him. They
were seeking his life. He had this thorn in the flesh
to buffet him. The cure of all the churches
came upon him. The Jews harassed him constantly. And he was as good as dead, he
said. I am as good as dead. I see no
way that I can live. I despair even of life. Now I have never been brought
to that place. Have you? And I hope I'm not.
But I think you and I can relate just a little bit to what he
said. And he adds this in verse 9 in
our text. Verse 9. We had to send her to
death in ourselves. We had the sentence of death
in ourselves. It's like somebody that's been
sentenced to death. That's what he's saying. I was
sentenced to death. I felt it in myself. I knew it
in myself. If you can imagine when they
used to hang people, We've seen pictures of that. They've got
the blindfolds over their head and the ropes about their neck. Can you imagine standing there
like that? That's where he was in his own mind and situation.
I was sentenced to death. I felt death in me. It's like being sitting in an
electric chair and then ready to flip the switch or being on
a gurney with an IV ready to put you to death. I had the sentence
of death, he says, in myself. And what he was saying was this,
I had reached the place in my life that my burden was so great
in my mind, it was so perplexing and distressing from what I was
going through without and within, I knew, I knew, I was convinced
in my mind that if I was left to myself and my own strength
and my own wisdom, I was a dead man. I had the sentence of death
in myself. And it was so bad he couldn't
deliver himself. He had no strength to do anything about it. Boy,
death's our last enemy, ain't it? And it's our greatest enemy. And there's no weapons against
death. We'll all lose that battle to that grim reaper. Death will
bring us to the end of ourselves. When He's finished with us, we'll
be nothing but a dead corpse that someone will have to take
us out and bury us. Death is stronger than you and
I are. And Paul said, that's where I
was. That's what I was facing, death. Why was he brought to this condition
and situation? Yeah, he tells us that in our
text, that I should not trust Isn't that amazing? God was weaning him from trusting
in himself. Oh, self-trust is a deadly thing. Is it not? There was a time when
Paul trusted in himself that he was righteous. And the Lord
had to beat him out of that. He had to afflict him from trusting
in himself that he was righteous. He brought him to the point where
he said, I count all loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of everything,
everything that I was trusting in in the past, all my wisdom,
all my abilities. All my duties to obtain a righteousness
before God. He brought me to the place where
He killed me to self-salvation. And I counted it done that I
may win Christ and be found in Him. Not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law. One of the first works of grace
upon a person's heart is to take away their false comfort and
their false hope, and kill them to themselves. We don't hear
anything about this in our day, do we? Because we're stuck up
in our day on just making a decision for Jesus, or something like
that. And we don't hear anything about
how a work of grace is begun in a person's heart. God has
to kill us. I kill before I make a life. And He brings us into discomfort,
brings us into conflict in our souls. And He kills us to self-salvation
because He knows that's a deadly thing. Self-trust is a deadly
thing. And if He don't beat it out of
us and leave us in it, we'll be cursed, won't we? Cursed is
the man who trusteth in man and maketh the arm of flesh his hope
and his help. Poor sinner has all of these
notions in his head of how the Lord saves sinners. Clarence
had some sisters who came here for quite some time, and they
sat under the gospel. And Clarence and I went and talked.
Well, we talked to both of them. And one of them said, I've got
to get all this figured out. I'm figuring all this out. Ain't
that what she told us, Clarence? I've got to get all this figured
out. And she thinks the way the Lord is going to save her is
when she gets it all figured out. Then He says, now I can
save you. And if He's not pleased to kill
her to that, and give her eyes just to look to Him, she'll die
in that. She'll die in that. As far as
I know, she's still trusting that to this very day. Got to
get it all figured out. Charles Spurgeon was talking
about a man who wouldn't come out into the daylight. He stayed
in his house all the time and burned his little candles. That's
all he knew. All the light he had was his
little candles. He despised the sun. He despised the daylight.
And Spurgeon said the way they got him out of his house, somebody
went in there and blew his candles out. Now that's a good spiritual
lesson, ain't it? He staggered and stumbled around
in the dark until he came out in the light. And we've got all
these little candles, haven't we? We're grown up with them. We're taught about them. We keep
them lit. We live in the light of these
candles. And the Lord wants to bring us out into the light of
the sun, the S-O-N. And what does He do? He has to
blow those candles out. And what happens? We stumble
around. We stagger around. We stub our toes. We fall and
bust our heads and almost crack our skull. Then we say, I've
got to get out of this darkness. I've got to get out to Christ,
to the true light. Then out we come. But He has
to kill us, doesn't He? That's what Paul is talking about
here. Self-trust is a deadly thing. Cursed be the man that
trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm. He that trusteth in
his own heart is a fool. And if the only way of deliverance
from self-trust is for the Lord to bring us to the end of ourselves.
So we despair, despair of salvation from self. Then praise God for
it. I'm not for anybody getting all
depressed and heavy in our souls. But I tell you, I've never known
anybody to come to Christ without it. Because it's just a getting sick
of sin, ain't it? It's sick of self. It's wanting
freedom from it. But God has to kill us. But you
know, when He does kill us to self-salvation, we still got
this problem of self-trust, don't we? In our Christian life, we
have this problem of self-trust. This great Apostle Paul, why
did he say that he had despaired even of life? Why was he in this
situation to begin with? He said, it's the Lord doing
it. But Paul, why is He doing it to you? To keep me from self-trust. Lest I should trust in myself. And boy, if He could do it, then
you and I can do it, can't we? If He couldn't trust in His own
strength and wisdom, I sure can't either. This man labored as a
believer more abundantly than all the other apostles. He called
himself a wise master builder. He was even caught up to heaven.
And saw things he couldn't even speak when he got back down here.
Wrote more epistles than anybody else. Spake with tongues more
than anybody else. Had more gifts of the Spirit
than anybody else. And yet he said he was in danger
of self-trust. Oh, if a man thinks he stands,
let him take heed lest he fall. If a man thinks he's a match
for sin, if a man thinks he's a match with Satan and the lust
of the flesh and this world, then he's fallen into self-trust. And unless God brings him out
of it and brings him to the end of himself, he'll perish there. That will be his ruin. Self-trust. There's no wonder that the Lord
often afflicts us and brings us to the end of ourselves. It's
because He loves us. He loves us. So many bypass metas,
aren't there? I was just reading through Pilgrim's
Progress again this last week or so. We're Christian and hopeful,
went to sleep and got off on bypass metas. That's a good looking
way there, they said. Remember that? And this way here
is straight and rough. Well, this looks all right. Let's
just get off on this." But when they got off on that, they fell
asleep. The way got harder. And when
they woke up, you know who woke them up? Giant Despair. And he drug them off to Doubting
Castle and just beat the dickens out of them. Several days he
had them down in this dungeon. And he beat them and beat them
and tried to kill them. And he would have killed them
too. But Christian found a key, and he put it into the lock,
and he said it went, now watch this language, this is Bunyan,
he said it went damnable hard. Boy, sometimes when we get off
in bypass meadows and wind up in Doubting Castle, it's hard
to get out of there, isn't it? And self-trust, self-trust will
always lead to Doubting Castle. Thanks be unto God, brothers
and sisters, when He brings us to the end of ourselves and keeps
us where we won't trust ourselves. We're afraid of ourselves. I
was asking the young teenagers the other day. They were in a
situation with themselves where they should not have been. And
so I told them. I talked to them. I said, you
guys have no business being here like this. And I looked at the girl and
I said, Can you trust yourself to be here with this boy?" Oh,
I can trust myself. I said, that's your problem.
That's your problem. You're trusting yourself. And
the reason you trust yourself is because you don't know yourself.
You don't know yourself. And when I left, I took him with
me. And I got him out in the yard and I talked to him. I said,
can you trust yourself? He said, no. No. He heard me
say that, didn't he? He said, I appreciate what you're
doing, what you're saying. He said, I appreciate you caring
for that girl. And I said, it's just not her,
it's you. It's you, young man. Because you can mess your life
up. You don't know yourself. And
we don't know ourselves. We come to the point where we're
trusting ourselves. And that's dangerous, brothers
and sisters. I've often said this, anytime
we leave this Bible, as our only rule of faith and practice and
start trusting to our hearts and our feelings about things,
we're already leaning to self-trust. Well, it's hard, Bruce. It's
hard. Well, if it's hard, then let's go to the Lord. Let's go
to the Lord and say, Lord, this is hard. Give me grace. But I
tell you, it's going to be harder if I lay this book aside and
start following my heart. Self-trust. And He said that we should not
trust ourselves, but look at this, in God. In God. Look what He says in verse 9. We have the sentence of death
in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God
who raises the dead. Put our trust in God. He brings
us to the end of self-trust even though He afflicts us sore. But
He does it for our good. that we may put our trust only
in the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all your
heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge
Him, and He shall direct your heart in your ways. It's God's
strength we need, isn't it? It's God's wisdom we want to
direct us. It's God's love. It's God's ability. It's God's faithfulness we must
trust in. And we must trust it right in
the face sometime of extreme persecutions and death. And death. Nothing else matters but my trust
in God for everything. What if I'm depressed? What if
I'm pressed out of measure? What if I have no strength to
face death? God raises the dead. If my God
has power over my last and greatest enemy, then I will put my trust
in Him to keep me, and when I die, to raise me from the dead. The Lord Jesus said, He that
believeth in me, though he were dead, Yet shall he live, and
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." Brothers
and sisters, that's where our trust should be. All our trust
should be in Him. And it's my hope this evening
that God in His mercy will bring all of us to the end of our self-trust
in every sense, though it seem to crush us and leave us with
nothing but Himself to trust in. Done with self-trust. Done with our own strength, and
our own wisdom, and our own abilities. Done with the world, and its
toys, and its temporal advantages, and sinful pleasures, and worldly
comforts. Done with it. But God is our trust. God is
our strength. God is our wisdom. and life and
living and joy and our all and all. Oh, that's my prayer this
evening. God bring every one of us here to the end of ourselves. That we have no one in or nothing
to trust in but You. But You. I see nothing but good
could come out of that. Nothing but good. And He says
here in verse 10 lastly, who delivered us from so great a
death. He delivered us from so great
a death. Death and sins is a great death. And He doth deliver us. He does not only deliver us from
death, but He continually delivers us from death. In whom we trust
that He will yet deliver us. Brothers and sisters, we are
not saved yet, are we? We have been saved, we are being
saved, but we are still to be saved. There's a death we've
been delivered from. He's delivering us from death
right now. And I tell you, if He left us,
we'd die, wouldn't we? But He's got another death to
deliver us from. That old second death is out
there somewhere. And boy, it's gobbling up a world
of dead humanity. And He's got to deliver us from
that. Oh, trust Him. Put all your trust in Him. For
where He's began to deliver, He'll continue to deliver, and
He shall deliver. Bless His name. Let's pray.
Bruce Crabtree
About Bruce Crabtree
Bruce Crabtree is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Church just outside Indianapolis in New Castle, Indiana.
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