Thursday, January 24, 2008
2 Corinthians 12 The Plan Of God In Your Sufferings
6 For if I want to boast, I will not be a fool, because I will be telling the truth. But I will spare you, so that no one can credit me with something beyond what he sees in me or hears from me, 7 especially because of the extraordinary revelations. Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so I would not exalt myself. 8 Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away from me. 9 But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. 10 So because of Christ, I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in catastrophes, in persecutions, and in pressures. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Today I am handling this in a very personal way. My daughter Bethany has been struggling in hospital with the effects of a very bad appendicitis situation. One of the young men at my church is today struggling with the violent death of his uncle and another relative in an explosion in the vineyards region of Newcastle yesterday.
Sickness happens. We’re sure of that. Suffering happens. Its obvious. Sometimes its good and godly people that suffer. Sometimes its us that suffers. Why? How? What are we to do?
Is sickness merely part of the human condition in which all of us are potential victims? Is my sickness from sin, present or past, and a consequence for what I’ve done or failed to do? Is it Satan whose diabolic cursing brings us into physical ruin and weakness, or is sickness from God, in whose sovereign purpose and plan it is brought for my good and His glory? What do we make of Sickness and sufferings?
Former Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, is thoroughly convinced that it is God who brings about healing in the human body. Surgeons are able to do many things. Koop comments on his own skill and describes how he, over a period of time, perfected a procedure resulting in 'invisible' scars [Horton, Michael, ed., The Agony of Deceit; C. Everett Koop, M.D., "Faith-Healing and the Sovereignty of God", Chicago: Moody Press, 1990, p. 169-170].
I was the one who put the edges together, but it was God who coagulated the serum. It was God who sent the fiberblasts out across the skin edges. It was God who had the fiberblasts make collagen, and there were probably about fifty other complicated processes involved about which you and I will never know. But did God come down and instruct the fiberblasts to behave that way? [Ibid]. In a sense, He did. But He did it through His natural laws, just the way He makes grass grow, the rain fall, the earth quake. The question, then, is not, Does God heal? Of course He heals! ...[But] is it normally according to natural laws or [is it due to] an interruption of those laws (i.e., a miracle)?. It is God who does the healing, but he does not regularly do so in a miraculous way. He heals according to His own natural laws" [Ibid. p. 175].
"...God is always operating on a supernatural level. He intervenes supernaturally in nature and in human affairs even today. I believe God can heal people apart from natural or medical remedies. I believe all things are possible with God (Matt. 19:26). His power has not diminished in the least since the days of the early church. Certainly salvation is always a supernatural act of God!" [Ibid. p.109]
Can God heal? Yes! Can he do so in extraordinary ways? Yes! Is the extraordinary normative today? No! So how do we understanding the sufferings that God allows in our lives?
We understand that God is good. But sometimes we wonder where He is when we are struggling with sickness. A young man struggles with cancer. Where is God in all this?
"The Lord does not afflict willingly" (Lam. 3:33)
The Lord is not at all like the mythical heathen gods of Mount Olympus who decide to throw a few hand-grenades of suffering into a family. "The Lord does not afflict willingly" (Lam. 3:33). He is not like a suicide bomber who capriciously chooses a bus, or a pizza shop, and knowing no-one there pulls a string and kills and maims many people out of sheer hatred for their race. Our human fathers were not perfect. Sometimes their discipline was over the top. They corrected us "as they thought best" (Hebs. 12:10). But in God there is comprehensive knowledge and measureless love. Nothing slips through without the Lord knowing. Peter writes to people going through the mill and he says to them, "now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials" (I Pet. 1:6). The suffering has had to take place. It was absolutely necessary.
1. Your Suffering Demonstrates The Providence of God
7 Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so I would not exalt myself.
The term "thorn" is variously translated as "stake" that might be used for impaling or torturing someone, or as a wooden staff or as a splinter. Why did Paul even bring up the uncomfortable subject of this own thorn in the flesh? Philip Hughes explains, "And it is most remarkable how, by a kind of condign paradox, the explaining of his deepest humiliation requires the revealing of his highest exaltation, so that the very point where his adversaries hold him to be most contemptible is linked with an ineffable experience far outshining the tawdry tinsel of their vaunting" [441].
Obviously, the "thorn in the flesh" is a metaphor of some point of great anguish, shame, or humiliation that corralled the apostle's tendency to vaunt himself or to be swelled with pride. The fact is, we do not know what Paul had precisely in mind by this thorn; lots of speculations have been made but no one can assert without doubt what constituted the thorn. Many ideas have been posed:
a. Physical-poor eyesight caused by some type of ophthalmia, such as, glaucoma; epilepsy, recurring malaria, earache, migraine headache, Malta fever which had severe pain, delirium, hair loss, and physical unsightliness; additionally, "hysteria, hypochondria, gallstones, gout, rheumatism, sciatica, gastritis, leprosy, lice in the head, deafness, dental infection, neurasthenia, an impediment of the speech" [Hughes 446].
b. Spiritual-unusually strong temptations to sins of the flesh, lusts, impurities of various sorts.
c. Emotional-"remorse for the tortures he had himself inflicted on Christians prior to his conversion" [Hughes 446].
d. Adversarial-Paul's opponents, such as Alexander the coppersmith, Hymeneus and Philetas, and others that fought against him, imprisoned him, and opposed him in the preaching of the gospel. This probably is the meaning, as the thorn in the flesh is called a “messenger of Satan”. Paul’s thorn in the flesh was a pain in the neck.
Maybe the reason that we don't know precisely what constituted Paul's thorn is to keep anyone with a similar thorn from boasting of apostolic likeness, and thus falling prey to pride in experience of weakness. Or it may be to keep open the reality that "a thorn in the flesh" can come in any number of types, styles, and sizes for Christians in every age.
10 So because of Christ, I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in catastrophes, in persecutions, and in pressures.
For this reason, it is better for us to talk today, not just about sickness, but about sufferings.
2. Your Sufferings Can Demonstrate God’s Purpose
Whatever the thorn, it was enough to bring Paul low, to humble him, to remind him of his own inherent weaknesses in the flesh, and to keep his look toward the Lord of glory and grace.
God's purpose over and through Satan's harassment is our humility," writes John Piper. "Paul was in danger of pride and self-exaltation and God took steps to keep him humble. This is an utterly strange thing in our self-saturated age. God thinks humility is more important than comfort. Humility is more important than freedom from pain." That is staggering in an age when everything focuses on comfort, security, and ease. Yet God's purposes extend beyond this age to the age to come. "He will give us a mountain top experience in Paradise, and then bring us through anguish of soul lest we think that we have risen above the need for total reliance on his grace. So his purpose is our humility and lowliness and reliance on him"
Yes sometimes sin is the cause of our sufferings.
Obvious sins: Sin maybe the cause of our sufferings when we stupidly do things that will hurt ourselves.
Such as drink driving. Such as drunkenness. Such as anger and its repercussions. Such as pride and its problem of making us blind to ourselves. Such as arrogance, and the way it alienates people.
Unobserved sins.
Don’t forget, you are not the only one involved in your sanctification programme. The Lord knows best how to knock off some of the rough spots in our lives.
I was amazed to see how one of the most imminent theologians in Australia, a truly brilliant man, an academic of the highest order, and yet, unaware of how estranged to normal people he had become by his own brilliance was made humble and down to earth by the constant care that he had to give to his severely retarded daughter.
Unobserved Sin maybe the cause of some of our problems. The Lord is the one who is refining us. He has His eye on the thermometer as the pressure and heat get higher, He knows what we are going through. And He has his hand on the thermostat regulating the pressure and the heat. He knows how much we need, and of what sort.
Suffering sometimes draws our attention to a particular sin. There may be a particular phase you are going through, with more temptation to self-sufficiency, to become less dependent on the fellowship of the church, and on the ministry of the word. Then the Lord allows a demonic messenger armed with a thorn into your life, and immediately your attention is drawn to this growing sinful attitude. It deters you from letting that sin go any further, and it succeeds in bringing you back. So when we suffer we ask ourselves whether God is saying anything in particular to us. Are there any warnings here against any sins?
Does that mean that the man who suffers most must be the man who sins most? Of course not. Jesus of Nazareth suffered most and he sinned least! While it is the ungodly who enjoy great health - who sin the most! "This is what the wicked are like - always carefree, they increase in wealth" (Ps. 73:12). But the godly sigh, "All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning" (Ps. 73:14). So how can we work out what is God's purpose for us in our pain? I think the answer lies in the fact that we all have to grow in the same grace, but that we all possess different gifts.
We all have to grow in such graces as humility and patience and forgiveness, but we may be neglecting those virtues, and so God sends some teachers into our lives - one may be a very sensitive and hypercritical boss (your thorn in the flesh) - and we have to learn patience from this divinely sent teacher. God's teacher may be a difficult teenage daughter and we have to learn forgiveness and self-control in dealing with her. We may have some other form of physical pain such as migraine headaches and through these we learn long-suffering. We have been neglecting such graces and the Lord teaches them to us through pain. So all his children are given thorns in the flesh to help their growth in Christlikeness.
Listen to godly Samuel Rutherford: "O what I owe to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus."
3. Your Suffering Demonstrates The Provision of God
8 Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away from me. 9 But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ! The Lord Jesus himself said these words to Paul and to each one of us. He is talking about grace.
THERE IS A TENDERNESS IN JESUS
When the Lord Jesus walked the earth, many clustered to Him to perform miracles of healing for them. People had heard of Him, what He taught, what He had already done for others...but probably as much as anything else, people had heard what He was like...LOVE INCARNATE! THE LORD JESUS WAS APPROACHABLE
Famous people can be intimidating and quite unapproachable...often by their own design so that they will not be bothered by people. Jesus was different, a distinctive Person who loved people and did not distance Himself from them, hide from them or push them away.
Instead, He loved them and offered them all that He could give them as freely and fully as possible. To illustrate the contrast between Jesus and the religious leaders of His day, we have only to look at the way they treated lepers. In a series of cold-hearted reactions to the repulsive nature of the disease, the rabbinic traditions demanded that lepers cry out “Unclean” when they came near others (ostensibly to plead for prayer, but more to the point to warn others so that they might avoid them). No one was to come within six feet of a leper, never touch them, and if the wind were coming from their direction a hundred feet was scarcely considered enough. Some leading rabbis prided themselves on their purity from the defilement of the leper and would throw stones at them to keep them away, while others would not purchase or eat food if it had been sold on a street where lepers had recently passed by. In short, they were never to approach anyone but other lepers lest they suffer the humiliation and further harm that others might do to them.
Yet this leper saw in Jesus the kind of person who was at last approachable, someone who was real, genuinely loving and likely to welcome him and his cry for help.
Do people find you approachable? Do you send signals out that you are not to be bothered and that you prefer to remain anonymous rather than allow anyone to come to find Jesus in you? The centurion sensed that Jesus would receive him as well, even though he represented an oppressive Gentile occupying army.
Jesus was approachable and communicated to others that they would be welcome if they came to Him. Do you know Jesus in that way? Have you come to understand how much He loves you and invites you to come and be with Him?
In times of great pain and difficulty, it good for us to draw near to God.
Psa 22:11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.
Psa 34:18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
Psa 65:4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!
Psalm 73:22I was a fool and didn’t understand; I was an unthinking animal toward You.
23 Yet I am always with You; You hold my right hand. 24 You guide me with Your counsel, and afterwards You will take me up in glory.25 Whom do I have in heaven but You? And I desire nothing on earth but You. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever. 27 Those far from You will certainly perish; You destroy all who are unfaithful to You. 28 But as for me, God’s presence is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge, so I can tell about all You do.
Psa 73:28 But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.
Psa 119:151 But you are near, O LORD, and all your commandments are true.
Psa 145:18 The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him; He hears their cry for help and saves them. 20 The Lord guards all those who love Him, but He destroys all the wicked.
For it is as we draw near to Him that we discover His graciousness, His kindness, His compassion and His love.
There was something about the way He received people that led them to believe that He really cared about them. What a wonderful thing to understand that Jesus loves you!
If someone has ability and authority, but has no affection for you, why would you ever get your hopes up and think that their ability and authority would ever benefit you?
In the way He dealt with people, Jesus was able to communicate the depth of His affection for them, His genuine care for them as people, those for whom He came into the world.
Who do you turn to when you need what your resources cannot provide? Government, family, church...or can you trust Jesus Christ to provide for you, to bring healing to your body, your home, your relationships, your broken heart?
Do you find Him approachable, capable, agreeable? Do you believe that He loves you and will meet your needs in a way no one else can? Then let us rise and go to Jesus and say, “Lord, if you are willing, you alone can save me, heal me, provide for my deepest needs. Jesus, if you will, just say the word and it will be done. Until then, I will keep believing, waiting and watching because I know that you alone are worthy of my trust.”
Every time of sickness or affliction should for the Christian be a special occasion for prayer. James 5:13 says, "Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray." Sickness should be an occasion for prayer. Just as when we are happy we are to sing, so, if we are sick, we should pray. This does not mean that in every time of sickness we are to ask for healing; it means that we should relate our sickness to the Lord and by faith place ourselves in the center of His will. The greatest blessing that can come to us in sickness is not physical relief but spiritual blessing; therefore, when sickness comes our first reaction should be to turn to the Lord. Matthew Henry rightly says, "One of the designs of affliction is to lead us to the throne of grace", and sometimes "He makes me lie down . . .", Psa. 23:2, so that in a lying position we can the more easily look up into His face.
14 Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray over him after anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord.
15 The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
After private and individual prayer the prayer fellowship of others may he sought.
James 5:14 says, "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him." Notice the word "let". This method is commended, but not commanded. It is a great thing to be able to send for Christian brethren in order that prayer may be offered for us! Indeed, we may be too ill to pray for ourselves; and there is a very great strength in united prayer, look up Matt. 18:19, and compare Acts 12:5. But notice, so far there is no instruction to pray for healing. Look at verse 14 again. We are invited to send for the elders of the church that they may pray over us, anointing us with oil in the name of the Lord, not necessarily praying that He will heal! What, then, should be the attitude of the elders and of the sick person?
The eye of faith must look to the Lord alone for the revelation of Himself and of His will.
Verse 14 concludes, "anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." Oil is a type of the Holy Spirit, and every spiritual blessing we receive, for the enlightenment of our minds, the strengthening of our bodies or the comforting of our hearts, is conveyed to us by the Holy Spirit. Then why use oil? Anointing with oil is not necessary for healing, but it is an act by which the prayers express their faith in God visibly and show they are trusting Him to perfect His will in the life of the sick person.
If it is God's will to heal in answer to prayer, a definite and specific gift of faith for the healing of the body will be given to the prayers.
Verse 15 says, "the prayer of faith shall save the sick", and when "the prayer of faith" is offered the Lord always raises up the sick person. But, "the prayer of faith" cannot be offered at will, because it is not always God's will to heal. If it is His will, those who are praying will be enabled by the Holy Spirit to pray "the prayer of faith"; but if it is not His will it will not be possible to pray this prayer. Job prayed for deliverance, but see James 5:11; Paul prayed for the removal of his physical infirmity, but see 2 Cor. 12:7-10; and read Phil. 2:25-30, and compare 1 Tim. 5:23; 2 Tim. 4:20. Sometimes it is not God's will to heal in answer to prayer. By faith some are killed, Acts 12:2; some are delivered, Acts 12:8-11; some "escaped the edge of the sword", Heb. 11:34; and others "were sawn asunder", Heb. 11:37. It is often God's will to heal, but it is not always so. When it is His will to grant healing the gift of faith will be imparted to those who pray. "The prayer of faith" is a certain kind of prayer, and to claim healing does not necessarily bring healing.
The use of natural and remedial means should not be ruled out when healing is being sought.
Healing can come:
(1) Supernaturally, by a direct touch from the Lord;
(2) By natural means, through rest, sleep, food, change of air;
(3) God may use remedial means, either medical or surgical.
It is not wrong to call in a doctor; on the contrary it is wise to do so. It is not for the patient to decide whether he is to be healed in this way or that, but the choice lies with the Great Physician who never makes a mistake and is perfecting His will in the lives of His children. But your first recourse must be to the Lord in prayer.
4. Your Suffering Demonstrates The Power of God
9 But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. 10 So because of Christ, I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in catastrophes, in persecutions, and in pressures. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Here is power to live for Christ, power to serve, power to worship, power to witness, power to resist temptation, power to remain faithful, power to exercise contentment.
The power of God is evident in Sickness Sustaining us.
It is only as we are crushed that we experience the power of God sustaining us.
"The thorn was a humiliating disability acting as a counterpoise to enforce the great truth that a Christian can only survive and achieve anything for God by a sense of his natural helplessness... God subjects us to a regimen of suffering because our usefulness is to be much greater"
It is only as we are crushed in Sickness that the power of God is evident in strengthening our witness.
Whom God uses He crushes. Think of the beautiful flowers that are crushed to make perfume. Its only when the lavender is crushed that its fragrant perfume becomes useful.
Paul found weaknesses to open the door, as he submitted to Christ, for Christ's power to tabernacle in him. "God's design is to make you a showcase for Jesus' power," comments John Piper [ibid]. In the midst of our weaknesses, when we have nothing to personally boast of, that's when Christ's power invigorates us and enables us. "He must increase, but I must decrease," declared John the Baptist (John 3:30). That is Paul's same message. The thorn brings us low so that we no longer look to our abilities and strength but look to Christ. We have to go in our weakness to God and cry, "Make me strong." We have to go in our emptiness to God and ask, "Fill me Lord."
5. Your Suffering Demonstrates The Person of God
9 But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
In Suffering God removes our distractions
Matt 5: 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, because they will see God.
It causes us to focus on what is important.
Henry Lyte wrote:
Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee.
Destitute, despised, forsaken, Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition, All I’ve sought or hoped or known.
Yet how rich is my condition! God and heaven are still my own.
2. Let the world despise and leave me, They have left my Savior, too.
Human hearts and looks deceive me; Thou art not, like them, untrue.
O while Thou dost smile upon me, God of wisdom, love, and might,
Foes may hate and friends disown me, Show Thy face and all is bright.
1 Peter 4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same resolve—because the One who suffered in the flesh has finished with sin — 2 in order to live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer for human desires, but for God’s will.
In Suffering God reinforces our distinctive.
Psalm 23:4 Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Matthew Henry the great commentator once wrote:
The God of Israel, the Saviour is sometimes a God that hides Himself but never a God that is absent; sometimes in the dark but never at a distance.
3. Man may trouble and distress me, ’Twill but drive me to Thy breast.
Life with trials hard may press me; Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
Oh, ’tis not in grief to harm me While Thy love is left to me;
Oh, ’twere not in joy to charm me, Were that joy unmixed with Thee.
4. Go, then, earthly fame and treasure, Come disaster, scorn and pain
In Thy service, pain is pleasure, With Thy favor, loss is gain
I have called Thee Abba Father, I have stayed my heart on Thee
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather; All must work for good to me.
5. Soul, then know thy full salvation Rise o’er sin and fear and care
Joy to find in every station, Something still to do or bear.
Think what Spirit dwells within thee, Think what Father’s smiles are thine,
Think that Jesus died to win thee, Child of heaven, canst thou repine.
"a thorn in the flesh" is something that we will instinctively ask the Lord to remove. There is a sense in which our struggle with sickness forces us to draw near to the Lord. If we are going to have to pray about this, we cannot avoid intimate fellowship with God in prayer.
In Suffering God reviews our destination.
6. Haste thee on from grace to glory, Armed by faith, and winged by prayer.
Heaven’s eternal days before thee, God’s own hand shall guide us there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission, Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days,
Hope shall change to glad fruition, Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.
President of Southern Baptist Seminary and a very brilliant young theologian Albert Mohler after a near death medical crisis of a clot going to his lung said: “I’m very, very thankful that I’m here with you today. It’s all of the Lord’s mercy, and I am very knowledgeable of that. I also know there will come a medical crisis I will not survive, and it will come for you as well. So we better decide what we’re going to do in the meantime. And in weakness and in fear and with much trembling, we had better preach the cross.”
An unknown soldier was killed during the Civil War. This prayer was found in his pocket:
I asked God for strength that I might achieve;
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy;
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of me;
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I got nothing that I asked for - but everything I had hoped for.
2 Corinthians 12 The Plan Of God In Your Sufferings OUTLINE
6 For if I want to boast, I will not be a fool, because I will be telling the truth. But I will spare you, so that no one can credit me with something beyond what he sees in me or hears from me, 7 especially because of the extraordinary revelations. Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so I would not exalt myself. 8 Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away from me. 9 But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. 10 So because of Christ, I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in catastrophes, in persecutions, and in pressures. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
1. Your Suffering Demonstrates The Providence of God
“a thorn ..was given to me”
2. Your Sufferings Can Demonstrate God’s Purpose
“so that I would not exalt myself”
3. Your Suffering Demonstrates The Provision of God
“grace”
4. Your Suffering Demonstrates The Power of God
“Christ’s power ..in me.”
5. Your Suffering Demonstrates The Person of God
“But He said to me”
James 5:13 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises. 14 Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray over him after anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord. 15 The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The intense prayer of the righteous is very powerful. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours; yet he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit. 19 My brothers, if any among you strays from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20 he should know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his life from death and cover a multitude of sins.
