I want you to open your Bible to 2 Corinthians
chapter 12, and I want to read a passage to you that is going to be the focus of our discussion
together...2 Corinthians chapter 12 and verses 7 through 10. We begin in verse 7, as the Apostle Paul writes,
"And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason to keep me
from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to
buffet me, to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this I entreated the Lord three
times that it might depart from me. And He has said to me on each of those three
occasions, by the way, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly therefore, I will rather boast
about my weaknesses that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses,
with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ's sake for when
I am weak, then I am strong." Now if ever there was a passage in direct
opposition to the prosperity message, that's it. There is nothing here about success and wealth
and comfort and ease and having it your way and seeing the fulfillment of all your dreams
and desires and longings. This is about suffering and suffering is the
path to spiritual victory. I want you to focus on the very familiar statement
in verse 9, and that's where we're going to begin. "My grace is sufficient for you." My grace is enough, My grace is all you need
no matter how difficult the issue you face. We're very familiar with the concept of grace,
very, very familiar. We talk about it, we sing about it, we use
it repeatedly in our prayers and in our Christian conversation and we even go to a church named
Grace Community Church. This is perhaps the most used theological
term in the New Testament. It is a magnificent word that appears 155
times, as a matter of fact, in the New Testament. This Greek term, grace, the word is charis,
it means basically a generous benefit given, a favor bestowed. And in the sense of the New Testament and
New Testament theology, it is a generous benefit given, a favor bestowed to someone who could
never earn it. This defines our relationship to God. We are awakened from our spiritual sleep and
our spiritual death by a work of God that could only be called a work of grace, undeserved
favor. We are redeemed, regenerated, adopted, justified,
converted, born again, pick whatever term you want in the panoply of terms related to
salvation and you will always be able to attach by grace because we have no merit by which
to earn any of God's favors given to us in our salvation. We are even sanctified by grace because we
are now no more able to earn our way to spiritual maturity than we were to earn our way to salvation,
that too is a work of grace. And our glorification in the future is a work
of grace so that throughout all eternity the great wonder of all wonders is that we will
be in heaven where God will pour out the fullness of His grace upon us forever and ever and
ever and ever and we will never get over the fact that all of this is by grace. It is favor, it is benefit, it is blessing
unearned and undeserved. Now the New Testament talks about this. As I said, you have the word 155 times and
it tells us so much about grace, we are familiar with it in the general sense. Let me help you get a little more specifically
familiar with it as we look at this passage. It needs to be said, as we contemplate the
big picture of God's grace, that God does not skimp on His grace. In fact, we are reminded in Ephesians chapter
2 that God blesses us according to the surpassing riches of His grace. God's grace, you might say, is superabundant. Every benefit that we experience spiritually
is by grace. One of the most wonderful statements made
about our Lord was that inspired word from John in John 1:14 who said of Jesus Christ,
"He was full of grace." The wondrous fact of His being full of grace
was followed in John's gospel by an even more thrilling reality, "For of His fullness have
all we received and grace upon grace." It is basic to say God is a God of grace,
that God is gracious, that Christ is gracious, being full of grace and bestowing that fullness
on us, grace upon grace, or grace after grace after grace after grace. As long as we live and it will be forever,
as long as we live in the realm of grace and salvation, we will accumulate grace upon grace
upon grace upon grace forever. Luke said about the early Christians that
they were experiencing abundant grace, Acts 4:33. Paul informs us in Romans 5:2 that we all
stand in grace. We live in the environment of grace. It's the atmosphere that we breathe spiritually. And in Romans 5:17 he adds that God bestows
upon us as we stand in the realm of grace an abundance of grace. No matter what you might think of that grace,
no matter how great you think it is, no matter how grand you think it is, no matter how lavish
you think it is, no matter how superabundant you think it is, James adds, "He gives a greater
grace." It is greater than you think, it is greater
than you can comprehend. Peter chimes in, not wanting to be left out,
and in 1 Peter 4:10 he says, "We have all received...what he calls...the manifold, or
multi-faceted, or multi-colored grace of God." It is lavish. It is rich. It is unending and God's supply is undiminished
and He gives it to us in such a way as to be defined by grace upon grace, upon grace,
upon grace, manifold and multi-faceted. God is not stingy when He gives out His grace,
He is lavish. He delights to give us abundant grace, it
brings Him joy, it brings Him satisfaction and it brings Him honor and worship and praise
from those who are the recipients of that grace. And when you think about the grace of God,
typically, you probably think about the grace of God related to salvation. But that's a very limited view. In 2 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 8, this
is what Paul writes: "And God is able to make all grace abound to you," all grace, meaning
stretching across all categories. It's not just saving grace. Of course it all fits into the realm of saving
grace, but it can be more narrowly defined. God is able to make all grace abound to you. Again, the language is always extravagant
when it comes to grace. "So that always you will have all sufficiency
in all things." In fact, you will have an abundance for every
good deed. This pulls all the superlatives together. God gives all grace, God makes all grace abound
so that you always have all sufficiency for all things and an abundance for all good deeds. This is lavish grace. This is profuse grace. We're given grace to repent, we're given grace
to believe, grace to be saved. We are given grace to understand the Word
of God. We're given grace to wisely apply the Word
of God. We're given grace to overcome sin. We're given grace to defeat temptation. We're given grace to endure suffering, disappointment,
pain. We're given grace to obey the Lord. We're given grace to serve Him. We're given grace to use our spiritual gifts
which are gifts of grace. This Paul calls in 2 Corinthians 9:14, the
surpassing grace of God that operates in you. What an amazing gift God has given us in this
grace. And it is always grace which means it is not
the result of our own efforts and earning. Job was correct when he said, "Man is born
unto trouble as the sparks fly upward." Life is trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble. You need grace. Even as a believer you need grace for every
issue in life. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:5, "Our sufficiency
is from God." That's true. God is the only sufficient source of power
that can come to our aid in every single situation we will ever face in life and He does that
by dispensing grace. We all know that life is filled with trouble,
life is filled with disaster. And if we're not in the disaster, we're on
the edge of it. Life is filled with strong temptation. Life is filled with attractions to sinful
things. Life is filled with struggles to cope with
the disappointments and the pain and the suffering that comes into all of our experience. Life is filled with all of these things, including
our efforts at evangelism, our efforts at Christian ministry that are often met with
resistance and lack of understanding, lack of interest. We live in a fallen, decadent, corrupt world
and we live in fallen, decadent, corrupt flesh. So we face incessant trouble, even in endeavoring
to serve the Lord. We need grace for everything. The question is, is such grace available? Is there a source of sufficient grace to help
us in every situation? You know, there are some benefits to being
old. There really are. One of the benefits to being old is you've
been around long enough to see the right things die. And one of the things that I've been so pleased
to see disappear is the encroachment on the church from the realm of human psychology. It wasn't too many years ago when the church
was being consistently being told and was buying into the lie that if you really wanted
to solve your problems, you needed the help of psychology and psychiatry. This was...this was a massive invasion into
the life of the church. I've lived long enough to see it fade away. It was a dry well. It was bankrupt. It was unnecessary. It is fast proving to be so not only inside
the church but even outside the church. It's not necessary to use human ingenuity,
human methodology, and human technique to change God's people. God does that by means of His Spirit and grace. And you can't change the people who aren't
God's people because psychology can't do a heart transplant in the spiritual realm. But for many years the church bought into
the lie that the problems of Christians are beyond the realm of the spiritual and call
for psychological techniques that have been developed for decades. Thankfully that all has gone away, tucked
its tail and stolen off into the night. And we come back to the great reality of 2
Corinthians 3:5, "Our sufficiency for everything is from God." Everything comes to us from God. Everything comes to us by grace. That's why whenever you go to God to pray,
you're going to what the Bible calls, the book of Hebrews, the throne of grace. You can't ever go to God and say, "I'm going
through a problem, give me, God, give me deliverance because I've earned it. I'm ill, I'm struggling, I have a disease. God, take it away because I deserve to have
it taken away. Lord, look, bless my ministry, may it have
a great impact, may I be highly honored and revered by all who hear me because I deserve
it." That's just absolutely bizarre. When you come to ask the Lord for anything,
you come always to a throne of grace where God pours out benefits and blessings and people
who don't deserve them. But it is, nonetheless, the place of power. Now with that in mind, let's go back to the
text. And I want to help you to understand what's
in this text and there is a lot here...a lot. This is, I think, one of the most potent texts
in the whole New Testament. This entire section from chapter 10 to chapter
13 in this epistle may be the most emotionally charged section in all the writings of the
great Apostle Paul. It is powerful stuff. It is penetrating. It is personal. It is filled with passion. It is heart-wrenching because in 2 Corinthians
chapters 10 to 13, he lays his heart open, wide open. He is in the middle of being assaulted and
attacked in the very domain where he had sacrificially given his life and preached the gospel. His integrity has been called into question
by his enemies. His loyalty has been attacked. His ability to lead has been demeaned. His decisions have been questioned. He has been accused of having a secret life
of shame, of lying about his apostolic credentials, of lying and falsifying the record of his
ministry. His love is doubted and even denied. He is being reinvented in some kind of revisionist
history being conducted in Corinth by false teachers so that he is emerging as an anti-hero,
a bad guy, a hypocrite, a deceiver. This on top of all the other things he suffered. Go back to chapter 11 and let's get a running
start on this text. He says in verse 23, "Are they servants of
Christ?" Talking about his accusers who claim to be
the true prophets of God and are accusing him of being a false prophet, false apostle. "Are they servants of Christ? I speak as if insane," I'm making this concession
for the sake of argument. "Let's compare credentials. Are they apostles of Christ? Are they servants of Christ? Slaves of Christ? I more so. Here's my proof. In far more labors, in far more imprisonments,
beaten times without number, often in danger of death, five times I received from the Jews
39 lashes, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked,
a night and a day I spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys and dangers
from rivers, robbers, countrymen, Gentiles, in the city, in the wilderness, on the sea
and among false brethren. I have been in labor and hardship through
many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst often without food in cold and exposure. And apart or beyond and above, more painful
than all of that, that's external, is the internal pain, the daily pressure upon me
of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?" He knows the terrible, terrible heart-wrenching
experience of his people in whom he has made such a great investment, falling into weakness
and sin. So he has the external suffering all through
his life, he has the internal suffering of people that he's invested in defecting and
showing up sinful. He knew about suffering. He knew about shipwrecks, floggings, beatings
with rods, narrow escapes for his life, terrors of all kind, pain in stocks, in prison, filthy
stinking jails with foul food, torture, all of it. And he knew what agonies were basically part
of being connected to people. It was intrinsic in your life if you invested
in people that they would disappoint you, reject you, fail, wound you, betray you, misunderstand
you and even turn on you. All of which the Corinthians have done. Now I think this takes us to the deepest point
of pain in Paul's life. And it really comes out in this whole letter. He even says in chapter 7 that he was depressed. He had reached a point of personal depression,
so depressed was he, he says in chapter 2, that when a door was open to preach the gospel
in Troas, he had no heart for it and no interest in it even though the Lord had opened the
door because he was just too broken hearted. People had finally broken him, he was crushed...he
was crushed. You can take a lot of shipwrecks. You can take a lot of beatings. You can take a lot of scourging. You can take a lot of danger. The severest pain comes from what people do
to you and especially the people in whom you've made the greatest investment of your life. The deepest pain, the greatest trouble in
human experience, apart from your own personal sin and personal guilt is the pain that is
inflicted on you by other people. Read the biography of Jonathan Edwards, maybe
the greatest mind in the history of America. Pastoring twenty years in North Hampton, and
for 20 years of the most erudite, profound, God-honoring preaching, his congregation voted
him out as pastor. They voted him out, they turned on him. Why? Because he insisted that before you take the
Lord's table, you should have made a public confession of faith in Christ. Not exactly a fringe doctrine. After 20 years of the Great Awakening, the
greatest revival in American history, twenty years of profound preaching, they turned on
him. They not only threw him out of the church,
they did everything they could to destroy his reputation so that no other church would
take him. And he wound up for a brief time ministering
with fifteen Indians way beneath his capability, but he ministered to them faithfully and humbly. Finally the College of New Jersey called,
tried to pull him out of the pit that he was in and invited him to come and be the president,
the College of New Jersey eventually became Princeton University. He denied them his presence at first, saying
that it was too great a task for one such as him. Eventually he agreed to go, went, was there
a brief time and died. And you ask, how could people do that to Jonathan
Edwards? Hey, I remember many years ago and I'm nobody,
walking into my office up there one day and I had a staff of five men that I had invested
my life in and I walked in and said, "I want to tell you how much I love you and how grateful
I am that you minister alongside of me." To which one of them said, "If you think we're
your friends, you've got another think coming." And the mutiny was on. They had a plan to remove me from this church. By the grace of God that never came to fruition. It shocked me. It jolted me. I couldn't comprehend how it could happen. I went one time to preach at the Moody Bible
Institute, founders week, seats four thousand and it's always full and it's a great opportunity
to preach there. And as I was coming up to the Moody Church
and it was dark at night, it's always in the winter and it's cold and dark. I was brought in from a car...by a car down
at the Holiday Inn where I was staying and came up to the front, got out with a borrowed
overcoat and made my way toward the great Moody church for this great event. And a man handed me a piece of paper and he
was handing paper...there were people all around passing out these sheets of paper to
everyone who came in, about four thousand-plus people. When I got into the light, I looked at it
and it basically...the title of it was, "The Heresies of John MacArthur," and it was single
spaced because I have a lot of heresies, single-spaced on both sides. And, of course, by the time I got in there,
everyone was reading all my heresies. It made for a very volatile and interesting
evening. I went on to preach the Word of God without
commenting on it, only later to find out that this was all printed up and distributed by
a man, a father, of a young man to whom I had given a scholarship to the Master's College. You scratch your head and you say, "So that's
the gratitude you get?" Look, you learn not to expect too much and
then you're not really too disappointed in life. It's not easy. Look at the Apostle Paul who stands head and
shoulders far above us and ask how a congregation of people could be brought to faith in Jesus
Christ, taught, instructed, nurtured by this man, and then turn on him? They did. There's no external punishment. There's no persecution. That is as painful as rejection, false accusation,
misrepresentation, betrayal by the people who are the ones in whom you've invested the
most. It's a Judas kind of thing, isn't it? Betrayed by your own friends. The wounding of our souls by other people
exceeds the wounding of our bodies. And so, we come to Paul in chapter 12 at the
deepest point, I think, of his trouble. This is the worst time for him. He is feeling the greatest attack, the most
violent assault, the deepest pain of his ministry. He's suffering through rejection by the Corinthian
church. He is unloved by many in that church. He is unappreciated. He is not trusted. His ministry is maligned. His affection is unrequited. His integrity is questioned. His fruitfulness denied. His honesty is regaled. His sacrificial service rejected. His credentials scoffed at. And his authority disregarded. And all of this was being led by some false
teachers who had come in to the Corinthian church and done everything they could to destroy
people's confidence in him. They said things about him, he's unimpressive,
his speech is contemptible. They said he is below the acceptable level
of those who speak publicly. They mocked him, this dear, sacrificial, humble,
selfless Apostle who had already been battered and beaten physically and emotionally as well. Given almost two years of his life to this
church and this is the gratitude that he gets? And when you pour your life into people and
when you make this level of investment in people's lives and they turn on you, when
you've been unselfish, when you've been sacrificial and you get hatred in return and betrayal
in return, it is a kind of pain for which there is little balm in this life. The wounds are too deep. No stocks that he was ever in were this painful. That's how we find him when we come to this
text. And he's dealing with this issue. As we approach this text, here's what I want
you to see. How Paul dealt with the deepest pain of his
own ministry...the deepest trouble of his life because how he did it is how we can do
it as well. I don't know where your pain is coming from,
but we all have those physical things that come upon us, but I am sure the deepest most
wrenching pain in your life comes in relationships, it comes because people disappoint you, people
turn on you, people reject you, people don't return your life, people misrepresent you,
lie about you, gossip about you, give false reports about you, turn on you, try to undermine
you. That's where Paul was. How are we to approach the deepest pain of
life, the pain inflicted on us by people, especially those we care about? I'm going to give you some lessons you can
learn from Paul. Lesson number one, God uses suffering at its
deepest level to humble His children. He uses suffering at its deepest level to
humble His children. Verse 7, "And because of the surpassing greatness
of the revelations, for this reason to keep me from exalting myself there was given me
a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, to keep me from exalting myself." Twice he says it. God's purpose in this is to humble me. He had surpassing revelations. What does this mean? Is he talking about the revelation of the
gospel that was given to him after his conversion of which he speaks in Galatians chapter 1? Is that what he's talking about? No. Certainly he did receive the revelation of
the gospel given to him by God directly, not through any other teacher after his conversion. He spent fourteen years in Nabatea and Arabia,
having that revelation refined and confirmed to him. Then he came forth, exposed himself to the
Apostles and went on to preach to the Gentiles. We remember reading that. He also had thirteen revelations that make
up the thirteen epistles of the New Testament that he wrote. But it is not those of which he speaks. These are surpassingly great revelations. These are revelations that are unique and
uncommon and absolutely extraordinary. And, in fact, the Apostle Paul had personal
appearances of Jesus Christ in his life on four occasions. Wow! Plus, one trip to heaven. Go back to verse 1 of chapter 12. "Boasting is necessary although it's not profitable." He says I hate being put in this position. You are forcing me to defend myself by your
attacks. You are forcing me to defend my credentials
by your assaults. The false teachers were forcing Paul to defend
himself. He had to defend himself not for his own sake
but he had to defend himself as the true Apostle of Christ, the true representative of the
Word of God because if the people turned from him to the false prophets, they would be turning
from the truth to lies. And so for their sake he defends himself though
he hates to do it. He says, "But let me go on to visions and
revelations of the Lord. I know a man...he's referring to himself...in
Christ who fourteen years ago," and we don't have any indication in the book of Acts as
to what this occasion was, all we know is what he says here. We don't know when he happened, but it was
fourteen years before this. "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years
ago whether in the body, I don't know, or out of the body, I do not know, God knows,
such a man was caught up to the third heaven." Wow! There were four personal appearances to him
in his life by Jesus Christ. The first one on the road to Damascus. There were three after that. One of them in particular happened in Corinth
when he went there originally to preach the gospel. It's recorded in the eighteenth chapter of
Acts verses 9 and 10. Another one of them happened when he was in
prison. He says, "I actually was caught up to the
third heaven," that's the heaven where God lives. The first heaven is the heaven of the air
we breathe. The second is the stellar heaven in a simple
sense. And the third heaven is the domain of God
where God lives. I was caught up to the third heaven and I
know how such a man whether in the body or apart from the body," for the second time
he says it, "I don't know, I can't define it, don't ask me the details, I don't know
whether it was physical or spiritual, I don't know that. I know I was caught up into paradise and I
heard inexpressible words which a man is not permitted to speak." Don't ask me what I heard because I couldn't
understand it and it's not for human proclamation, I went to heaven, that's all I know. This is not repeatable. This is not verifiable. This is not defensible. So it's really not helpful for me to talk
about it, I'll just leave it at that. Suffice it to say, if you're wondering whether
I have a special relationship to God or not, I'm just going to tell you, I've been to the
third heaven. Wow! That could give you some leverage, couldn't
it? Whew...you're in a committee meeting with
Timothy and Titus and Timothy says, "I've got a great idea for an evangelistic strategy." Titus says, "Hey, I've got a great idea for
an evangelistic strategy too." And Paul says, "I don't think either of those
will work, here is what I feel we need to do." And Timothy and Titus say, "Hey, we think
you're wrong," to which Paul replies, "Really. Either of you been to heaven?" It's a lot of leverage...a lot of leverage. You could even become so proud that that would
become your trademark. You would bill yourself as the man whose been
to heaven and back. Oh how many false testimonies to that effect
have paraded themselves through the Charismatic Movement. People have been to heaven and back, been
to hell and back, none of which, of course, is true. This is. And when you have had the revelation that
he had, the revelation of the gospel after his conversion, the revelation of the epistles
that the Lord was in the process of giving him in the New Testament, more importantly
the four personal appearances of Jesus who came to you individually, not that you were
in a room when He showed up but it was only you and Him. And then you had your own private trip to
heaven. That could make you proud, could it not? "For this reason...he says...to keep me from
exalting myself." God wants His servants humble...humble. Humility is the number one Christian virtue. It's so hard to achieve. I remember a young seminary student said to
me, one time, "Dr. MacArthur, how did you finally overcome pride?" "Oh," I said, "it happened years ago. I haven't worried about that for a long, long
time." That's a naive question, isn't it? How do I...I have to deal with pride just
like you every day. Paul can't even imagine what a temptation
to his flesh all these revelations, personal appearances of Jesus, trip to heaven, humility
is what God seeks. So, let's go back to the text. "Because of the surpassing greatness of the
revelations, for this reason to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me." Now stop right there for a moment. The object here is the thorn in the flesh. The verb is "there was given." The subject is implied and the subject is
God. "There was given me by God because only God
is concerned about my humility. Satan would like me to be...what?...proud
and the prouder the better." What defines Satan himself is pride, is that
not true? Was not he lifted up as the anointed cherub? And did not he say, "I will, I will, I will,
I will, I will," five times as the Old Testament prophets said? And it was his self-will and pride that got
him thrown out of heaven. "There was given me by God a gift...if you
will...to humble me." By the way, it was a gift unsolicited. Paul didn't ask for it and when it came he
didn't want it. In fact, he wanted to get rid of it. It is a gift that Satan wouldn't want him
to have since it produced humility, not pride. What was this that God gave him? Look at it. "It was given me a thorn in the flesh." And when you read the word "thorn" I know
exactly what you think of, a rose bush...right? Exactly what you think of, this little tiny
needle that sticks you in the finger when you're trying to cut the roses for the dining
room table. That's not the idea. The Greek word here for thorn is stake...stake,
a shaft of wood sharpened at one end to be used in battle to impale someone...a sharpened
wooden shaft to impale someone. This is not a minor little oops, look what
happened to me. This is a stake to be driven through someone. There was given a stake
for the flesh...for the flesh, to control the fleshly tendency to be proud, to control
the fleshly tendency to boast. The Lord is going to humble him by driving
a stake right through his otherwise proud flesh. What is the stake? What is this thorn? He tells you what it is...a messenger of Satan. That's not a further adjectival description,
that's the substantive statement. What is the thorn in the flesh? That's the metaphor, that's the symbol, the
reality is a messenger of Satan. It's simple to understand this. What is a messenger of Satan? The word messenger is angelos, angel...angel,
always means a person...always means a person...either a human or an angel. It can be a human messenger, can be an angel
if it's intended in the context. So, the Lord gave Paul to drive a stake through
his otherwise proud flesh, a satanic angel. What's another name for a satanic angel? Demon. You say, "Wait a minute, you telling me Paul
was demon-possessed?" Not hardly. No. Well what in the world is he saying here? The explanation of this, the one that makes
sense in the context is pretty simple. False teachers had invaded the Corinthian
church. They were a huge part of his life. Only in Ephesus had he spent more time than
he spent in Corinth. That it is to the Corinthians that he writes
these two long letters because they occupy so much of his mind and heart. And there are two other letters, one before
1 Corinthians and one between 1 and 2 Corinthians that he also wrote and refers to that are
not in the Scripture, four letters nearly two years massive occupation of his mind and
his heart. It is into that church that he loved and which
he invested so much of his soul that false teachers have come and false teachers are
always led by demons because they always advocate, 1 Timothy 4, doctrines of demons. They are the hypocritical liars who spout
demon doctrine. I think what Paul is talking about here is
the demonic leadership of the Corinthian false preachers. Go back to chapter 11 for a moment. In verse 13 he identifies them. He says they are false apostles, they are
deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ and no wonder, for even
Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, therefore it's not surprising if his servants
also disguise themselves as serpents of righteousness whose end shall be according to their deeds. False teachers always represent Satan. They are disguised as angels of light. They are, however, motivated by, driven by
Satan and demons. The ringleaders of the Corinthian conspiracy
against the Apostle Paul, the attempt to undermine the church and undermine the gospel in that
needy city was being led by a demon. But the work of the demon in the Corinthian
church was killing Paul's pride. Now if you're a minister of a church and a
pastor of a church and you've made this great investment, you want to be able to say, "Look,
I gave my life, I gave almost two years there, all the thought since then, all the prayer,
all of the anxiety, the letters, the correspondence, the agony in waiting when I send Titus with
a letter waiting for him to come back and give me a report, all of the experiences that
were tied up with that Corinthian group from the time first ever he went there and preached
the gospel, all of that was important to Paul because he didn't want to labor in vain. In fact, he expresses this fear in this very
letter. At the end of chapter 12, verse 20 he says,
"I'm afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish." How sad. "And you'll find me not to be what you wish
either. I'm afraid I'm going to come and find strife
and jealousy and angry tempers and disputes and slanders and gossip and arrogance and
disturbances." That's heart-breaking to one whose invested
so much. Verse 21, "I'm afraid that when I come, again
my God may humiliate me before you and that I may mourn over many of those who have sinned
in the past and not repented of the impurity and immorality and sensuality which they've
practiced." Wow, you're really cutting in to his heart. He's afraid that he's going to come back and
find sins of disunity and find sins of impurity. In fact, it was such a deep-seeded fear that
he didn't even want to go there. He says in chapter 2, "I'm afraid to come,
I don't know if I can take the sorrow." If you've poured your whole life into people,
you don't want to look back and say, "It was all for naught, it was all for nothing, it
was all in vain." And to have these demonized false teachers
come in and wreak havoc in your church, drives a stake through your otherwise proud flesh. It's a humbling thing. It's a humbling thing. But do you know what? Think of it. The Lord is so concerned that His servants
be humble that if need be He will turn a demon loose in their church. Wow. That's what makes chasing demons so foolish. People do that today. They tell Satan to leave their church. Really, how do you know God didn't send them? Furthermore, what makes you think you can
tell him what to do and he'll do it? You mean to tell me that the humbling of a
servant of God like Paul is so important to God that He would allow demonized false teachers
to disrupt for a period of time the ministry of that church for no other reason than to
humble that man? The answer to that question is, Paul was not
finished serving the Lord, there was much work that needed to be done and it needed
to be done by a man who was humble...who was humble. And God always gives grace to the humble. "So, there was given me by God a thorn in
the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me." That's a strange English word, isn't it? Same as buffet...big difference. How did they ever put those together? Unless you overdo the buffet and become buffeted
by it, I suppose. But buffet is an interesting word. I don't know what that word conjures to you,
just the idea of buff sounds kind of soft, doesn't it? Like puff. It would be better, instead of using buffet,
buffet me, it might be lash me, or shattered me, or devastated me. But the word actually in the Greek means torment...torment
in a very physical way. The word is used in Matthew 26:67, it's used
in Mark 14:65 of the soldiers beating Christ in the face with their fists. This thing that's going on in my beloved church
in Corinth is crushing me, it's driving a stake through my otherwise proud flesh, it's
like taking blows in my face. Paul uses the same word, 1 Corinthians 4:11,
to speak of being physically abused. There's a stake being driven through his otherwise
proud flesh. It's as if God has allowed the enemy to smash
him in the face. And by the way, the word in its root is derived
from a Greek term meaning knuckles, the hardest part of the hand that can deliver the most
devastating blow. Why? Why does God allow this? "To keep me from exalting myself." It has a humbling purpose. And, beloved, I need to tell you this because
this is what Paul is saying. That's the first place you always go when
you come into the midst of a trial. Trials have many, many purposes....many. Before you think about running to fix it,
before you blame God for letting things deteriorate to this level, understand this that if you
want to share His holiness, you must share His suffering. That the path of spiritual maturity is the
path to humility and the way to humility is paved by suffering. Sure trials have all kinds of purposes. They test our strength, they wean us from
worldly things, they enliven our eternal hope of heaven. They reveal what we really love. They teach us to value the good times. They enable us to help others who suffer. They produce endurance. But mainly, trials humble us...they humble
us. And God wants His people humble to the degree
that God would even allow Satan to torment His children if it assisted in their humiliation. It's Peter...we're going to get to that in
Luke 22...Jesus says to Peter, "Satan desires to have you that he might sift you like wheat." If I was Peter, "Well You told him no, right?" The Lord says, "No, I told him yes because
when you're converted you're going to be a different man." The Lord let Satan go after Job. The Lord let Satan go after Peter. And the Lord let a messenger of Satan go after
Paul, in the end, to humble that man to make him even more useful. You know, when we get into trouble, the first
thing we want to do is get out as fast as possible. You want to run to somebody to fix it. Run to the pastor, get some quick counsel. You know, run to the bookstore, get a book
on how do I get out of this, right? How to solve all my problems, how to eliminate
trouble from my life. Turn on one of those TV prosperity preachers
and start thinking good thoughts and maybe you could create a good world in your imagination. Instead of doing that, bless God for what
humbles you. Bless God for what humbles you. And know that He gives grace to the humble. Well, that's one point. There are many more for next time. Lord, what a wonderful evening we have shared
tonight, singing simple songs of praise and thanks and hearing again testimonies of Your
power, fellowshiping, giving. And again the Word being open to us produces
such blessing. Whatever it takes, Lord, to humble us, do
it. Whatever it takes to humble me, do it. Whatever suffering is necessary, bring it
on. Whatever disappointment is necessary, let
it happen in order that sufficient grace may be displayed and power perfected in weakness. We embrace the suffering, we embrace the humbling,
just as Paul did. We know that our good is Your goal and part
of getting us to that place where we honor You, living righteously is pouring us through
the crucible of suffering that we not be crushed and broken and disappointed at the most intimate
level. We've all been wounded by the ones we love
the most. We've all been hurt deeply by the ones in
whom we have invested the most defection and the most concern and the most effort. And we would see it as a bad thing and yet
we now have a different view. Even the worst imaginable thing, demons as
it were, running loose trying to undo our efforts could be from You as You humble us
for greater usefulness. Satan is Your devil, he's Your Satan, he only
does what You let him do. No demon can step one step out of the realm
of sovereign will, they can only do what You let them do. And even the demons serve Your purposes, sometimes
for the humbling of Your people. We have been singularly blessed here in this
church. We have had, as it were, in some sense, many
revelations, exposed to so much truth, so much blessing. We could easily be proud, we need to be humbled. Humblest us all, whatever it takes, that we
might be more useful to You, that we might be delivered from the disabling power of pride. And we'll thank You in the Savior's name,
who humbled Himself and we want to follow His example. Amen.
