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We belong together.
Lord and light the light of it.
While you're telling me.
How God's hearing?
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather.
That the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, and reproaches, and necessities, and persecutions and distresses, for Christ sake or when I am weak, then am I strong I am become a fool in glory. Ye have compelled me, for I ought to have been commended of you for nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing.
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Truly, the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patients in signs and wonders.
And mighty deeds? Or what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong. Behold the third time, I am ready to come to you, and I will not be burdensome to you, for I seek not yours but you. For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you.
Though the more abundantly I love you, the less I beloved.
But be it so. I did not burden you. Never the lust being crafty, I caught you with guile. Did I make a gain of you by any of them whom I sent unto you? I desired Titus, and with him I sent a brother. Did Titus make a gain of you. Walk we not in the same spirit, walk we not in the same steps again. Thank you, that we excuse ourselves unto you. We speak before God in Christ.
But we do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying. For I fear lest when I come I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you, such as ye would not, Lest there be debates, envies, wrath, strife, backbiting, whisperings, swellings, tumults. And last, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already.
And have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.
We can glory in what we are in Christ. Of such an one will I glory a man in Christ.
We can glory in that, but He has made us to be by His grace. But when it comes to.
The flesh is so deceitful and treacherous that.
We can easily take credit to ourselves for things that we shouldn't. And so he says of myself, will I not glory, but in my infirmities, that which keeps me humble and brings me low, I can glory in that because he realizes how treacherous the human heart is.
And we can begin in the Spirit and end in the flesh.
I was just thinking how that the apostle has been speaking about being caught up to the 3rd heaven and what marvelous.
Revelation he had at that time, but.
That was preceded, wasn't it, in verse 33 of the last chapter by being left?
Now you know that.
Was that not a humiliating experience for the process? I don't know if you've ever sat in a basket, but you know, as you sit there, one is given to feel how helpless they are. They're really at the mercy, you know? It shows outside the badges and everything.
Sort of doing something with the best and but I think this is how God works, doesn't he?
The desire is that we might humble ourselves under this mighty stand in order that he might resolve it.
And so the way up is really the way down.
First of all.
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So that's that's what the spring operating important surface that.
Humility of my industry.
National service of the Lord.
And Peter was in prison. There was a Angel that came and opened the door and everything. So God was manifesting his power toward him. But here the great apostle, the one who was caught up to the 3rd heaven, God didn't deliver him by any miraculous way. He let him just.
Shall shall I say, be carried over the wall with human beings. They let him down by the wall. Sometimes we might think we're great and God should come in and do great things for us.
But the Lord lets us to feel that we're really nothing, and so I think it's in contrast with some of the miraculous deliverances that were on other occasions. When he's talking of all that he went through, he is showing that God didn't come in miraculously to deliver him, let him endure these things in order that he might learn to be nothing. And yet he was given these wondrous revelations, being caught up to the 3rd heaven.
What a beautiful contrast we are. Not a contrast but similarity. We see in the Blessed Lord Himself, who was who is God, and yet he would come down in human form, taking his place with with man. And so the Apostle in that basket would be just a little picture of the Blessed Lord in his deep humility of coming here.
To be a man.
He's referred to this chapter.
I didn't get what you said.
I believe that's our position, the body every believer is seen in Christ.
Says that in Ephesians one has raised us up and made us sit together in heavenly places in in Christ, in Christ Jesus. And so that's the position into which the believer is brought in contrast with a man in the flesh. Either in the flesh cannot please God.
But he is contrasting that, I would think, with a man in Christ, because he's bringing before us those marvelous revelations that were given to us.
Showing us our new position no longer in the flesh as we were before God.
But in Christ, in a possession of wondrous acceptance and favor. So we're holy and without blame before him and love.
In connection with what you are saying, Gordon before, I just want to read a verse. Acts 839. You don't have to turn to it and says when they were come up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip that the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing. Philip was found at his Otis. That was quite a trip he got by the Spirit of the Lord. There was an miraculous he could have done that to Paul, couldn't he? But he didn't. He allowed him to go through this humiliating experience.
For being let down by from the wall in the basket and that he can glory in. That's why he mentions it. It made nothing of him.
Neil, where you're thinking of verse 9, The Power of Christ.
Wasn't the second verse she referred to was it?
Whole chapter.
My thought my question was particularly this and in this chapter.
We particularly see in the name of Christ the life divine display below.
And as the anointed man and we see this both and being caught up into heaven and.
And the whole character.
Conducting this chapter.
The spirit in which he displayed.
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Isn't it to see one who?
As he says here in our fifth verse, of such an one will I glory, yet of myself I will not glory, but in my infirmities.
He went through and very many things for the name of Christ and as a man.
He was. He was a man like we are, but he was a man in Christ.
And as he looked, as he felt his need, as he felt his position in Christ he could go through that was just referring back to the 4th chapter.
Where it says.
Verse 7.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels.
And Paul had a treasure in that earthen vessel. And we do too, brethren. He says that the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
If I'm looking at self, if I'm feeling my needs there in myself, I cannot go through this. But if I see that I'm a man in Christ, or belong to Christ, or that Christ is working in me and with me and for me, then we can see, as he says here, we are troubled on every side in verse 8, yet not distressed.
The demand outside of Christ can be distressed and we too can be distressed. But he says we are perplexed.
But not in despair. How beautiful that is to see that if we know the Lord Jesus not only his Savior, but as the one who is.
The guide in our lives. And he's not only so, but we're going on, in some measure at least, enjoying the person of Christ in our hearts.
Not just knowing him as savior. You know some they trust the Lord as their savior and they look at him afar off.
But he wants us to come near, He wants us to know him in a personal way, and Paul didn't know him in that way. And then he says we're we're persecuted but not forsaken. That's in in 2nd Corinthians 4 and verse 9, always bearing about in the body the dying. I understand this to be of Jesus, that lowly one down here. And in Paul's body he felt this keenly, and so he says that.
The life also of Jesus.
Might be manifest in our body. It was manifested in the apostle, wasn't it, Because he was going through these difficulties and trials. And I I thought of it here in connection with verse 5, where he says, but in my infirmities he could rejoice a man in Christ. Anything that exalted Paul, he he avoided.
He tried to avoid and when he finally does tell of that which would exalt Paul.
Is being caught up to the 3rd heaven, he says in the 11Th verse. Having told it, he says I am become a fool in glory.
This is not what he wanted to do. It was painful to him to promote himself in any way. I'm reminded of the story. I think it's a true story. When David Livingstone, who had spent years in the service of the Lord in Africa, was in England, they said someone asked him and said, what was the greatest experience that you ever had.
In Africa. And they were waiting for him to declare some mighty deliverance, or whatever it was.
And his answer was my greatest experience was he restoreth my soul.
And that made nothing of David Livingstone and everything of the grace of God. And that's the mark.
Of a true servant. He doesn't promote himself, He doesn't exalt himself. He doesn't tell the great things that he has done and the many souls that have been saved under his ministry and all that. He leaves that with the Lord. And if he does talk about himself, he talks to the things that concern his infirmities.
Going to 7th verse.
We have to correct.
Our translation?
It should not read lest I should be exalted above measure twice. You have that it simply says and should read lest I should be exalted.
No, exaltation is the point. And for that reason an Angel of Satan buffeted him. You know that he would be kept humble. And this is a hard lesson to learn, you know, It is really a hard lesson to learn and how foolish.
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That we might even glory in debt, which the Lord has given us to serve Him and his people.
And you know, many times the Saints ruined the servants by making too much of the servant. And we better keep in mind all glory should go to the giver. You know, we should make everything of the giver and nothing of the gift. We're thankful for what the Lord has done in the life of any of his people.
But infirmities are necessary in order that the Lord Jesus gets all the glory. You know, Chuck was talking about the the apostle. Paul avoided anything that would draw attention to him. And when he came to the Corinthians, he did not come with persuade his powerful language. He could have done that. I remember brother Chuck said years ago. He said that he could have given them.
An address on the immortality of the soul that made the head swim. But he didn't do that, you know. He knew nothing among them save Jesus Christ. And him glorified Him. Crucified and crucified. I'm sorry. Crucified, yes. And he could have brought other things before them. But the Spirit of God guided him to bring just that message because of their state, you know, and.
So, beloved brethren, let's keep that in mind. Not just for those whom the Lord raises up to minister to his own, for all of us to remember, Don't ruin the Saints of God, the brethren that the Lord raises up if all glory to the Lord Jesus. Well, the point, the point you just made, is very important. To stress it, he says, lest I should be exalted, not above measure, but in any measure at all.
A thorn was given me, he wouldn't tolerate or even consider any measure of exultation for the flesh.
That no flesh should be exalted before him. In other words, the affliction that the Apostle Paul had.
Was not given as a rod.
Nor even for the betterment of the land. But it was in Mercy Job 37 and verse 13. And that's an aspect of God's dealings with us. That's important to see that it isn't always because he we're lifted up.
But this was preventative, wasn't it? I think it was Gordon's father that used to use the three words punitive, purgative and preventative. Was it in connection with those 3 aspects? And this in this case it's an aspect of God's dealings that are prevented and that is God does some things not because we did something, but so that it might not happen. What a mercy that is. And it's nice to look at things in our lives sometimes in that way.
Not to grumble about them, but to see that God did it with a purpose. To prevent that which would dishonor him, to prevent that which would take away glory from the Lord Jesus Christ in this case. And so Paul could look at whatever that sword in the flesh was, and I do pretty much feel, as our brother Heinz does, about what it is.
But it's particularly, I think clouded and left for us to think about a little bit because.
Your thorn may not be my thorn, and God sends it. And if we look at everything that comes into our lives, that he has one of three purposes in it.
Either punitive, perspective or preventative, which we have been Job 37 and verse 13. Whether he caused it to come as a rot or for his land or for mercy, and that's those 3 aspects involved. I believe here takes it directly from the Lord in the sense of being something that God had sent.
Just to avoid in him what could have happened to the dishonor of the Lord.
And I'm sure to impose this honor. I think it's partly the answer to what our brother was asking about a man in Christ. There was a partial revelation of God in the Old Testament. He wasn't fully made known and revealed, and so there were great prophets whom God used. But when God is fully revealed, as he is in the person of his beloved Son, and as he's revealed in Christianity, which puts the believer in the very highest possible place.
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Far better than anything that was known, the Old Testament you had said to Abraham about being seated in the heavenlies in Christ.
He wouldn't have known anything of that. But the higher the truth that God has given to us, which brings us into this wonderful place of favor and blessing in Christ, the more it puts us down, the more it makes us realize that we are nothing, Man. If there's something great, why they make a great thing out of the person who brings the message and who discovers it. But Paul, to whom those things were revealed, God as it were, puts him down because he's not exalting Paul. Paul's ministry is exalting Christ.
And showing the wonderful exaltation of Christ, and that we are brought into association with him. And so the more truth we know. If I could mention again that passage in First Corinthians Chapter 7, I believe it is He says, if a man thinketh that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know it in divine things. If learning the truth exalts us, we haven't learned the truth as we should. The Christendom makes a great deal out of men in high positions in the Christian world.
I think our brother Brown used to say prison to me has become a vast arena where men strive for honors for themselves.
But we see in this chapter that the one who was given the very highest truth is brought down. And you think of him coming to Corinth, and he says that my affliction which was in my flesh, he despised not, and I guess that's in Galatians, but receive me as an Angel of God and family. He's writing to the Corinthians, He said how that they had commented that his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible. Who is this person?
The person who is in the 3rd heaven, the person who received the most marvelous revelations of the whole period of time, those blessed things. And God makes nothing of the instrument fly, because the truth of God exalts the Lord Jesus Christ and not the first man at all. And so perhaps that's why it says in Christ, because it's in contrast with anything that was known and enjoyed until all this blessed truth is brought out.
In the truth of Christianity and of the church, it's very lovely to notice that the glory just filled the heart of the apostle. I was just noticing here five times. It's used in our chapter. It's in the first verse.
Have doubtless to glory, and then in the fifth verse of such an one will I glory, yet for myself I will not glory, And in the ninth verse.
I well, I rather glory, and in the 11Th verse I am become a fool in glorying. But it just seems that no matter what Satan would do to humiliate this man, no matter what the Corinthian brethren would do to him, the more he loved, the less he be loved. He never lost sight of the glory.
And may it be true of us, in spite of all the difficulties and the failures, let's never lose sight of the glory and the glories of Christ.
This thorn that Paul had really it correctly rendered, it's a thorn for the flesh. Not in the flesh. It was for the flesh. It's the flesh in us that gets puffed up and proud and needs to be kept down.
So the thorn was to keep the flesh down. He no doubt when he prayed three times. Lord, this affliction I have is hindering my effectiveness in thy service. Take it away. No. And then he pleaded again take it away. I can deem so much more effective without this. Give me relief. No, you need it. And the third time No. I I heard a brother say once he should have prayed the 4th time.
And I said no. When the Lord says no three times you don't pray, a fourth time you accept it in the mouth of two or three witnesses. And he said three times no. And then Paul says most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities. He had learned to accept it and to go on with his affliction.
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And in the presence of God, it wasn't needed, was it?
It was when he came back down. When he came back into this world is when he needed the thorn in the flesh.
We get into the if we get into the truly into the presence of God, there's no room for pride there, no need. But there there is as we go on in the in the course of through this world, and we are children of God or those who belong to Christ. There's a need of being humble, being brought down, and to realize that we could be puffed up as a dear brother Gordon's father used to say or no brother Gill was used to say. There's pride of race.
And there's pride of place, but there's also pride of grace.
So we need to be careful. And so the Apostle here it wasn't while he was up in heaven, up in glory, but it was when he came back down that he needed that thorn to in the flesh. Moses didn't need the veil on his face up in the mountain, did he was after he came down.
And I was just noticing that in the Darby translation for the Bury that word glory is always boast.
In case anybody wonders what glory means there, because sometimes we refer to being in heaven as glory, don't we? That's the glory. But this, in this case, is boasting. You wouldn't boast. And we all know what boasting is. We've done plenty of it in our lives. But boasting is what the apostle was had the thorn for, to keep from bragging about what he had done where he had been. The world thinks of glory as going up, but for the Christian the glory is to go down.
Think that.
Experience of being awkward and in 14 years before he.
Would we would we be like that if we had such a reason?
It's a nonstop push. And 50 He didn't do that. He gave him that sword in the flesh, and it keeps him humble. It's the natural reaction of Jesus.
Everybody right away in 1914 years was by you never worked up in his mouth and said anything about it.
May I repeat that for the benefit of those in the back that might not have heard it, our brother was saying it took 14 years before the Apostle Paul made known that experience. It's a remarkable thing in itself.
I believe there's a real lesson in that.
You know, as Brother Herb has been saying that if it were, if it if it were some of us, we would just be exalting in this, we'd be telling why just last night or yesterday I was up in glory and look at now, but the apostle didn't do that was 14 years. I have marveled at that truth, that we see a marvelous lesson there. There's a time to speak and a time to be quiet and a time to be silent, isn't there? And when the time came.
For the Apostle to speak, he spoke because it was necessary to bring this out, as our brother Chuck has already said earlier, in connection with these false apostles and deceitful workers that were turning the apostles ministry aside and denying it. And here they were not. They were not going on in any persecution at all. They were just exalting in themselves and seeking to turn aside the apostles ministry. And so the time came.
When it was necessary for him to make this declaration.
Is there any indication?
That the apostle received the revelation from Christ, as we see in Ephesians 3 and three at this time.
I believe he did. That was what I was thinking, that the truth that he gave out, he could say I have received of the Lord. That which I also declared unto you saw there were the revelations that he spoke of. But how he received them he didn't tell, because that might exalt him telling of what he had received of the Lord, shall I say, reveal the heart of God is revealed in Christ. So I believe that you're right. I believe it was when he was caught up, but he didn't tell the occasion that might have exalted him.
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But he was very definite on where on whom he had received it from, It was from the Lord. And there are those things that he speaks of as my gospel, those things that were specially given to Him.
Just remark 2IN connection with the thorn for the flesh, that there are those who teach, and strongly teach, that healing is in the atonement, and that we have a right to it, and we ought to demand it, and we ought to.
Just not accept poor health or problems in our.
Bodies but.
What a loss that Paul had never learned and never heard from the Lord. My grace is sufficient for thee. And how many Christians over the past centuries have enjoyed that thought when their body is perhaps wracked with pain or whatever they're asked to pass through and?
Sometimes they're well meaning. People say, well, you ought to have more faith and you want to get rid of this.
You ought to count on God for it. First of all, it takes away the whole thought of Philippians 3 that we look for the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, who shall change our bodies of humiliation, give them a fashion like his own body of glory. But in the meanwhile we lose the benefit of that wonderful statement by grace is sufficient for thee. And that's one of the most comforting scriptures and most.
Encouraging scriptures.
So we need to understand that when God sends something, we can there's nothing wrong with beseeching the Lord that it might be part. But when the Lord says no, and clearly indicates that that is what He has said, then that wonderful word comes in by grace is sufficient for thee, and it enables us to go through the circumstance or accept whatever it is that the Lord sends.
Understanding that the full value of the.
Work that the Lord did at the cross of Calvary with respect to my body will not be realized until He comes as Savior. Not to save me from my sins now, but to save my body and bring it into conformity with His own body of glory. So I just believe that so much of that has has infected the Church that it's caused a lot of discouragement. I read an accounting.
Johnny Erickson tells about how people well meaning people, came to her. In case some don't know about her, she's a young lady who dived into the water in Baltimore, MD, and became a quadriplegic as a result of a broken neck in the water. And some came to her and told her that she should claim healing and it was quite a struggle for discouraged her. But there came a time when thy grace is My grace is sufficient for thee.
Became a moment of triumph in her life and changed your whole, the whole course of her thoughts.
With regard to God in his ways, well, I'm sure that one experience has been replicated in many, many lives around and through the ages. But I just mentioned that because this idea of redemption, including.
The the present correction of bodily problems and that all we have to do is have faith, for it is a denial of the whole purpose of God in allowing these things to come into our lives.
Has a blessed purpose and once we understand that, he may be pleased to change that circumstance.
But how much Paul would have lost if the Lord had done it Paul's way instead of his own way? Could we look at a verse in Psalm 41 or just two verses there That have been a great comfort to me and perhaps may tell us a little bit about this. You say Paul's God allowed this trial and just notice those verses?
Verse Psalm 41 verse 2 The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive.
And he shall be blessed upon the earth. Of course we know this in the Psalms, the blessing, the the godly people, the remnant. We are looking for blessing on the earth. And thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies. But notice verse 3. The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing.
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Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.
That's a beautiful verse. Who does it? God does it. He allowed this trial with Paul that he might be seek to have Paul turn to the Lord. And I I think it's so beautiful to think that he he he makes our bed no matter what our difficulties are. He makes our bed and it says that will make all his bed in his sickness. Interesting verse. First Corinthians 10/13.
Has a couple of words in it that indicate that we.
May have to put up with some stuff, some suffering or trial, it says in First Corinthians 10/13.
There hath no temptation taken you, but such is common to man.
But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able.
But will with the temptation.
With the temptation, make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it with the temptation and bear it indicates that he doesn't take it away, but He gives us the grace to endure it and for His glory. And how many times someone going through trial has been a testimony to those around them as to how they bear that trial.
It's it's a testimony because.
Unbelievers often become very bitter. They're cursing God and blaming something or someone.
And but to bear it, to have the grace of God with it, and to be able to bear it, and to bear it to God's glory, is the wonderful testimony.
The end of that ninth verse speaks of that the power of Christ.
May rest upon me.
I don't recall any other part of scripture where that expression is used.
The power of Christ. It's so beautiful in my own.
Hard to enjoy this thought that all these verses are showing us.
The deep humility and humiliation that the apostle was growing through. And he wasn't experiencing the power of Christ. It was it was in weakness that he was going on in this way of being humiliated. But what a beautiful contrast by the fact that he does publicly say that the power, the power of Christ may rest upon me. He was conscious.
Of not the weakness of Christ, but the power of Christ.
Felt nice to look on to the time when it says in Romans chapter 8 that we shall be glorified together and in Second Corinthians he shall come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe. Now the danger is, since we have the old nature within, that is the flesh that will be exalted. But God has a purpose that he is going to have a people that he is going to bring into blessing It isn't that a marvelous expression?
Glorified together. And it says there in Thessalonians he shall come to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe. Isn't it lovely, brethren, to look forward to the time when the old nature will be gone, these bodies of humiliation will be gone, and we'll be glorified together? And that we're going to be like Christ and he's going to come and present us to this world. I believe that's the thought. You just turned to it in Second Thessalonians chapter One.
At verse 10, when he shall come to be glorified in His Saints and admired in all them that believe because our testimony among you was believed in that day, Just think of when the Lord comes out of heaven with all his Saints. For He's going to come with all His Saints. There won't be one in that vast company that will be anything. But what is for His glory. He'll present us to the world a little Him puts it.
To wandering worlds display that we with thee are one, and so it's going to present us to this world and say these are the people you despised and laughed at. I want you to see my purpose accomplished in them, every believer fully, like Christ, the old man forever gone, and everyone in such a way that looking upon his own will be glorified together. It's a tremendous thought. But here every one of us have to acknowledge that we have the old man within us.
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And that we can't stand that exaltation that we might get today because of the flesh in us that would be lifted up and proud. So he allows those things in order that we would be occupied with Christ and seek to glorify him in our bodies and in our spirit, which are gods.
There's AI want to ask a question on verse 7 before we leave it.
He says there was given to me a thorn in or for the flesh, lest I should be exalted above measure.
But there's a phrase in there that says the messenger of Satan to buffet me. What are we to learn from that?
He's using Satan's messenger to Buffett, Paul. God is to keep him low. I would understand from that that.
Satan is instrumental here to to afflict Paul, but it's it's it's overruled and ordered of God himself, using even the enemy of our souls to to keep us lowly. Is that the right thought?
Well, it's very easy to get discouraged. If there's something that made a person, as with Paul, despicable, perhaps in the eyes of people or in the ears of people who listen to him and the enemy would take advantage of that, I think, and say, well, Paul, it's no use. People are just despising you and for him to go on and to go on and just.
Well, it's pretty easy to get discouraged if there's something that made a person, as with Paul, despicable, perhaps in the eyes of people or in the ears of people who listen to him. And the enemy would take advantage of that, I think, and say, well, Paul, it's no use. People are just despising you. And for him to go on and to go on and just counting upon God in loneliness, recognizing that we're nothing, we certainly need that special supply of the spirit of Christ.
And I think that Paul utterly presence was weak and his speech contemptible. It would have been very easy for Paul to say, well, I give up there, no, he's trying to help those Corinthians. They're just laughing at me. And the enemy would have got an advantage and then he kept on. And I think it's beautiful what he says in the end of the epistle. I am willing to love you, though The more abundantly I love you, the less I. Beloved, he says what you can say, what you like about me, but if Christ is made more precious to you by my ministry.
Then that doesn't matter about me. I think that was Satan might, and I think all of us might have experienced how.
Something happens and we're very likely to get discouraged and then say we give up. That's what the enemy wants. That's what the enemy would like, is for us to give up because of the difficulties of the way. Isn't Job an example? Isn't joke in his experience, an example he was thinking was given permission to deal with Job, and there are some wonderful statements made by that man while he is.
Afflicted, the Lord has given the Lord, has taken the name of the Lord, be blessed, and so on. And in the long run that was all for Job, blessing and benefit. So we do see in Job's life that Satan at times is permitted to be used by God, but God allows it in order that spiritual blessings will resolve. It was so also in Peter's case, wasn't it? Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you as weak.
And also David, when he numbered the people, you compare Chronicles and Samuel, you find a one place at Satan that that tempted him, another place that God caused him to do it.
And wouldn't it appear to that the word Buffett?
Didn't say to destroy, but Buffett.
As the wind buffets, it's not it doesn't sink a ship, but it makes it.
It's a gentle to me. It's. It's not gentle. Pardon. It's not gentle. It means to strike with the fist. They buffet. You look it up in the Darby. He's got references. They buffeted the Lord. They mowed him with their fists. That's what the word means, is not gentle. I'm off on that. Doesn't LA? You call attention to that in the case of Job and.
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33 Job 33 in verse 30.
29 called. The mine have just been typing a paper that someone wrote on that subject of Eliquis and putting it into the computer, and it's fresh in my mind. But over and over again in the author of that paper calls attention to the fact that God worketh all things according to the council of his own Will. And so Eliquis says that in verse 29 of Job 23, he says.
Blow all these things.
God, God worketh to bring back his soul from the pit, so that.
While Satan was very active as a player in all of that.
He had no idea, I believe, that he was accomplishing a grand purpose of God in dealing with the soul of of.
Of job until.
It became very evident through the ministry of Elihu and I believe he's a beautiful type of the Lord Jesus in that.
There's the one who stands in the midst and speaks there. And I just point that out that he says, lo, all these things work as God. It's God that was working, All those things that he had spoken about about his his his soul drawing near to the pit and his life of pouring bread. He had just been through a litany of that. And then he says.
Blow all these things work at God.
With what purpose he had a purpose.
And so if we see that in the hand of God dealing with us what a blessing it is to our soul, he never causes anything. And even the attack of Satan, and I might point out that it says it was sent, the Messenger was sent, it was given to me, it was given to him with what purpose the purpose was in order for the glory of God. And so if we see everything in that light, what a blessing it is to our souls.
So what if we say that God gave us a view behind the scenes and let us see Satan speaking to the Lord and the Lord allowing so much to come upon Job? But it's nice to see that Job never said the Lord gave and Satan took away, he said the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. And I think that's very beautiful to see that even though God lets us see behind the scenes that God was allowing Satan to.
That were above at the beloved job.
He was using it for his blessing, but Job saw beyond Satan, didn't he?
And he saw that it was the hand of God, and in spite of many things that he said and did.
He at least could say that the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.
But in the end he was able to see it in a much fuller way when the Lord had brought him down.
And he said, I repent and abhor myself in dust and ashes.
Then there's no more mention about Satan. He had learned what God was seeking to teach him, and the end was doubly blessed, wasn't it?
Like to ask a question in connection with the end of this chapter in that last verse, the Apostle Paul says. Unless when I come again.
My God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already and have not repented. I just mentioned that our time is swiftly passing. But in the 11Th chapter you referred to the Revelation, brother of Hayhoe, that the Lord gave to him, and in that revelation he brings out in the 25th verse, let a man examine himself. But then we get down to verse 30.
For this cause, many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
Or if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. Is that the point of what the apostle is summing up here from the first epistle in connection with what he's bringing up in verse 21?
It would seem that he says less when I come, and I like to think of when the when the Lord comes. That would finish the ministry of the Apostle Paul to the assembly, would it not? And aren't we in that place right now? And how important is it that we would consider these, these closing remarks for this cause, for this cause? Is there a cause?
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Where the Apostle, when he comes, when the Lord comes, that there would be regret, and if he considering that in this this expression and that I should be, well, many a brother who let these souls to cry, was poor.
Have we not sometimes felt humbled by the way those have gone that we have been a help to spiritually our own children that have not gone on? You see, Paul looks at that when he comes there and has to deal with these things, that it is a cause for humiliation and humbling for himself, but rather that these matters be taken care of, that he wouldn't have to deal with them and.
And humbling experience, those whom he has led to the Lord. And they're going on in a way that they require discipline, you know, do we often see the need of discipline in the assembly in that way? Especially when we think of souls that we have led on in a measure the Lord used us and then they're going off. Is that a humbling thing?
Some have perhaps read the little track epic stub. They often wish it were still in print. I don't think it is. But he picked up tells of a man who labored in India very much used of God, and believe he was a German brother. But he was used among the English officers in India for the Lord's glory. And many were saved there. And he went back there and found that many things had come in among the believers. And it was a great grief to him and I just.
Remember our beloved brother Bag, often referring to that little tract and and.
Telling us what a pain and grief it was, the Hebich could go back and find the very ones among whom he had labored with all of these things. And I noticed at the end of verse 20 it says, lest there be things that he would not wish to find there. Now what is it that the apostle did not wish to find among them?
And this sort of search our hearts, Beloved brethren, What is the list?
Stripes. Jealousy. Anger.
Contention, Evil speaking, whisperings, puffings, up, disturbances, All those things he would did not want to find among them.
Is there that among us?
Is that what we've come to? May we be exercised? I'm not saying it is just saying it ought to search our heart, and we ought not to. These are things we ought to guard against. And it starts out with strike. Strike is the destruction.
Of the people of God. We're not made for strife. That isn't what God saved us for. Was for strike. He hasn't called us for that. Do you looking at the new translation? Yes, because it's different here. What does it say? Well, it says debates first and yeah, strikes comes later. Yeah, this debate strikes. Let me open it up. I'll get the authorized here and we'll get going.
Sorry.
A little hard to keep two open sometimes.
Verse 27 debates envyings, wrath, strikes, backbiting, whispering, swelling, and tumult.
You know, as I read that list, beloved brethren, I don't care whether you read it out of what translation you read it out of it.
They says about the same thing to us, doesn't it? And it bowels our hearts to think that such things could come in among those who love the Lord, those who have a heavenly calling, those who have enjoyed the revelations that the apostle Paul brought out.
And was used of God to give us those things that he received in the very presence of the Lord. And we profess that we enjoy that truth. We many of us, are able to minister it and to talk about it.
Considered a meeting like this and yet when it comes down to it.
Isn't it true that sometimes there are debates?
01:00:03
Or Stripes envying their jealousy.
Somebody has something?
They don't want anybody else to have it. That's what jealousy is Envying is the other side of it. My father used to say that we confused those two words more than any two that he knew of in the English language because one of them, which God is said to be, is jealous. That is, he does not share that which is his with anyone.
I'm jealous, God, he says. He never said he was an envious God bidding. He had everything.
And yet we find both things in the same and backbiting, strike wrath, whispering, whispering.
Does that search your heart? Does mine?
You ever get up on the side and say, do you know what I heard about South and so whisper about it, I I believe that's a very, very dangerous thing that we engage in, swelling, being lifted up.
Two months.
Raucous situation.
One of the things that I've meant that I ran across in the 5th of Galatians emulations, that relates to what you just told us. And I was considering it because it was a situation that I I tried to figure it out and I couldn't figure it out. And I I ran across that it's to incite rivalry, to incite rivalry, to promote rivalry among the people of God. And what a solemn thing it is because the world wants to go along with the game.
Whether it's football, baseball or basketball, it's always the inciting of rivalry and it's all around us and we're lively. Get caught up with the spirit of it, but that's the works of the flesh, isn't it, to incite rivalry. And I think you'll make the point well in bringing these things in.
Recently a brother called me because he had hurt. He had an exercise to visit there and he made some comments and I told him that.
If that's the kind of a thing that he wanted to bring up when I visited in his house, I had no interest to come to his house.
Then another comment. He said, well, we have a difference on this that gives us a reason to discuss it. Well, he knew before I would ever make any comment what I thought about it. So what's the use of going with this kind of a purpose to visit amongst the things of God? That's not what the servant of the Lord should do. He should not strive, and there's no blessing in this.
And we ought to be careful about that kind of a spirit.
The first and second Timothy 1-2 and verse 24 that it's been a help to me, it says in The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all.
Apartment to teach patients and meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves. If God's peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. Well, it's we got instructions that are so gracious from the heart of our God.
That we don't need to get into the contest for these things that men.
Bring up, may the Lord help us to be in that spirit of a channel. And where? Where am I going to get the example, brother? There's only one example. I think of the 37th Psalm. The psalmist could say, Mark the privilege, man. Behold the upright. Consider his hand the end of that man of peace. And where did he go to bring in a body once a bit fraud? And that's where he made our peace for us, didn't he?
As Paul gave the perfect sighted the perfect example in the Second Corinthians, the 2nd Corinthians chapter 10, the very first verse of that chapter, he says. Now I, Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence and based among you, but being absent and built toward you, then drop down in the In the fifth verse he speaks about casting down reasonings. I think we've all referred to that and.
Every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought.
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To the obedience of Christ, The meekness of Christ, the gentleness of Christ, the obedience. What an example Is there? Anything? There's no example higher than that.
331.
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Oh my God.