CO 12:1-12{You see the saint in this Scripture in two positions very different to each other: the one a position of unbroken enjoyment; the other, one of conflict and power.
Enjoyment is for heaven; power is for earth. You have the enjoyment all inside with God; and this so great, that, as Paul says, he knew not whether he was in the body or out of the body. But now, having tasted enjoyment up there, he comes down to "take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." There you need power.
But I want to know, beloved friends, who is the man that can take this place? Who is the man of power on earth? The man who alone can take this place is the one who has learned what he can glory in-the one who knows that he has the brightest scene with God above.
This principle, which to any student of Scripture is quite evident, you get plainly enough all through the Old Testament. In Joshua, for instance, you see the children of Israel, after they enter the land, have first to do with the presence of the Lord; (ch. 5.) circumcision takes place-the inside thing; and then they go out in power against their enemies; they walk round Jericho, and the walls fall down flat. Power comes out-the outside thing-power comes out in opposition to everything that is against them. There could not be a greater contrast than there is between the fifth and the sixth chapters of Joshua.
Now, whilst we find standing clearly taught in the New Testament, it is in the Old Testament that we find the state of individuals plainly marked. The New Testament teaches me my standing; the Old Testament defines my state, and what my state is in keeping with my standing.
It is of the greatest importance to us practically, in such a day as this, to know what power is, and how it may be had. There has been a great deal of light given to us on the word of God in these times, but now, amid such breadth and clearness of statement of truth, the great want is power. Generally people do not fail in enjoyment of the truth, but they fail in power to carry it out.
In the Scripture we have read, the apostle had come from a scene of unbroken enjoyment, to find that there was given to him a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him. He was almost overcome by it. But the effect of it was to teach him, that what he was now to glory in was " infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, distresses for Christ's sake; for," he adds, " when I am weak, then am I strong:"-a sentence that is entirely inexplicable to the mind of man. Paul was to know the power of Christ in his weakness, and to find that that weakness was the very opportunity for the expression of power.
People are often sorely tried when they find that failure succeeds a time of spiritual enjoyment; the effort of Satan, at such a time, is to make the heart question whether there really was any enjoyment at all; and he often succeeds. This is where saints fail. Many a one is extremely happy in his private meditations; there is not a cloud when he leaves his room in the morning; but he comes out and he fails directly. Why? Because he trusts in his enjoyment instead of in Christ. His enjoyment is true, but he begins to question it, because he fails.
When Paul was in the third heaven, what a scene of inexpressible bliss it was It could not have been added to. And thus, let me say in passing, you never can improve your acceptance. The person who thinks of improving his acceptance is all wrong. You never can attain standing; no ability of yours acquires it; it is a gift; and your heart ought to be simple in the enjoyment of it. You are accepted as perfectly the first moment you believe, as you are when you have been fifty years a Christian; you may enjoy it more then, but you cannot either improve it or increase it.
I will use a word which I think will make it plain to you. People confound their acceptability with their acceptance. You should never have a question as to your acceptance, but you cannot be too anxious about your acceptability.
The great lack of the present day is that people are not anxious about their acceptability;' but no amount of anxiety would ever make you one bit more accepted than you are. A rose tree is a rose tree, though it may never bear a rose; a poor thing truly, but still a rose tree; but it is not an acceptable one. A goldfinch is a goldfinch, though it never sing a note; but it is not an acceptable one. You cannot seek too much to make yourself acceptable; break your heart over that, and you will not be wrong.
" Enoch walked with God, and he had this testimony that he pleased God; " there was an acceptable man. " By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous;" there was an accepted man. Therefore Scripture says: " We labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be acceptable to him "-not " accepted " as it is in our translation-" for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." This is acceptability. Faith, without a particle of works, gets me into the place God has given me; works determine my position, and it is important to keep this in mind.
I have not to do with enjoyment only. True, I am accepted, and I have the enjoyment of that acceptance in which God has placed me; but, as to my body, I am down here in a scene of frailty and infirmity, and the very weakness of my body becomes an opportunity for the grace of Christ to shine out, so that " when I am weak, then am I strong." The power is to be known in the weak point. This is a truth which comes home to every one of us.
There are two things I want to say. One is, what power effects in a person. Power is to be known at the weak point. Power is not so much what you do, as what you are. Every one is trying to do something, but you will never do anything except as you are it. The body is a poor weak vessel, but it is in that power is seen; therefore the apostle says that he takes pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in things that affect him as a man in weakness, for he has learned that, because there was a danger of his being puffed up, " the thorn in the flesh " has been sent to him.
But, as I said, there are two things here: one, the power that proves itself in my weakest point; the other, that I have patience; and patience is the greatest element of power.
The man of power is known in a double way: wherever there is a defect morally, there you will find its opposite will come out; there will be a virtue there. Suppose a man is a drunkard; he is converted; and now it is not that he abstains from drink merely, but that he has a taste for sobriety. You may suppress a vice in the power of nature, but that does not put a virtue in its place. You must not only pluck up the weed out of, your garden, but you must introduce a divine plant in its place. I state, that when a Christian is walking in grace, the defect in his nature is supplanted by a virtue.
The action of power, is different with respect to a defect and to mere weakness. In the former, as I have shown, there is a virtue introduced in its place. In the latter, though the weakness-such as timidity, natural nervousness-continue, yet " my grace is sufficient," and the power of Christ rests on you.
A person may say: I have great enjoyment in the Lord. I do not doubt it, but I might reply, you have not much power.-How do you know that?-Because you are very defective in your walk. I do not see you triumphing over this or that defect in your nature. If you had power, you would be triumphant in your defects and supported in your weaknesses. See Elisha, how he follows Elijah with the most devoted heart, but he has not power yet. Power is the carrying out in your body the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It comes out in the point where you are defective. You can see a person of power at once.
Take as an example that verse in the fourth of Corinthians: " We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." I speak now of what power is in itself. That is the wonderful place the Lord puts it in-poor earthen vessels -" that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."
I hear persons say continually: "Oh, you must make an excuse for me! that is my besetting sin, or my special weakness! "-I reply: I can make no excuse for you: that defect is the very opportunity for divine strength; that is just where you ought to be the strongest. What would you think of a medical man, whom you sent for on account of a head-ache, if he directed his attention to every part but your head, and did that no good at all? Why, you would say, you have failed in the very point for which I sent for you.
Is it not beautiful and fitting that it should be thus? You are upon earth still in the body; full of weakness and defects, but each counteracted by the power of Christ.
I will give you an illustration of what I mean from the way pearls are produced. A little bit of grit inside the shell of the oyster so annoys and disturbs it, that it covers it over with the lining of the shell, and thus a pearl is gained. That is how it should be with you. The bit of grit in you ought to become a pearl. We ought to be beautiful people! I admit the defect that is in my nature; but, where the grit or defect is in me, there the pearl should be-the beautiful perfect thing covering the defect, till only the beauty is seen. The Lord is keeping His eye upon it.
You get an illustration of this in the palsied man brought to Christ. Powerlessness brings me to Christ. If you are not powerless you will not come to Christ. If you had not an atom of your own power, you would be as happy as the day is long. If you had no power, you would go to Christ, and you would come away with the power of Christ, and carry your bed! The very thing that every one in this room thinks I' can never give up, that is the very thing Christ's power will lead you to give up. That is where His power will express itself.
Now you ask me for a passage to confirm this; but, in a certain sense, where truth is, you do not want a passage to confirm it, because all the tenor of Scripture is with you. However I will give you Eph. 4:2828Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. (Ephesians 4:28). " Let him that stole steal no more." There is legal righteousness. I speak now to people who hold to the law. If you stay there, I say, you are a very low Christian if you do not go beyond the law. The first line of this verse brings you up to the law. But let me follow it out; what do I find? " Rather let him labor working with his hands the thing that is good." Now mark what is there! Is it for his own need? Not at all! But "that he may have to give to him that needeth." Is not that a pearl? He is to toil with his own hands, that he may be a giver. The thief is to be a giver!. That is power.
Power comes in in the most ordinary details of life; it affects a person in every relationship of life, if he is walking in power. The first part of power is, that it comes in to check every defect and weakness of the flesh. The Lord says: " My grace is sufficient for thee;" I am not going to take away the thorn, because you will find, that when you are weak then you are strong.-I want to show you that you will be humble who were proud; and, as to an ambitious man, when that man is in the power of Christ I find he is not i ambitious. It is said: My greatest aim is to rise to eminence in the church. say to such: My dear friend, you know nothing of what you are; if you did, instead of wanting to rise to eminence, you would be down on your face before God. I hear others talk of ".mastering" a truth! and to such I say: My friend, you have made the greatest mistake, and have lost the idea altogether; you will certainly be confounded by it. Instead of your " mastering" truth, truth is to " master" you. The more the heart knows of Christ, and the more it knows of any truth, the more it learns its inability to master it, and its incompetency to give it out.
You will find in every servant of God, while he is acting in power, that he is true to the grace of God, and afraid of his own natural powers. Moses was naturally a man of great muscular strength: he could kill a man. But he must not trust to this at all; he just waves the rod, and everything is done without an effort; but the moment he falls back to using his own power -the moment he smites the rock twice-he is not to go into the land. Power does not use the natural thing; it comes in and says: You must be entirely for me.
Power is the most quiet thing that is. Divine power is a noiseless, majestic, resistless thing; everything about it is fitting and beautiful. I often think what a little sense I have of the magnitude of this divine power. As it says in the forty-sixth Psalm: " The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted." There I have the majesty of divine power; it makes no noise, no parade, no ostentation, but it acts. I have always felt that the great potato blight was brought about by divine power, because it was so universal and so noiseless. But there is another point of this power I must allude to, which is perhaps more interesting. What proves power? I have given you the evidence of power; but the proof of power is patience. There is nothing so proves power as patience. I know we do not understand the meaning of patience. It means endurance. The man who holds out is the man of patience. The moment of the greatest power in a saint of God, has been that in which he has held out most. The proof of power then in a person, is that he holds out, and this power comes out where he is most defective; it is this grace of Christ, so that he can hold out.
In the tenth of Hebrews it says: " Ye have need of patience." We have not all got patience. It is the same word as that used for endurance when speaking of Moses in the following chapter. First it says, he " refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." Now that is one part of power, but it is not patience. What I want to call your attention to is, that it is not the part of patience-either the " refusing," or the " choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God." I see those who can refuse things, and those who can choose the best things; but there is a greater thing to come. I say you have to endure. " He endured as seeing him who is invisible. '.' That is what I come to. There are the two parts of power. There is the refusing of the things that gratify me, and there is the enduring the pressure that comes upon me. I say: Why do you hold out?—Because "I know whom I have believed." The thing that marks patience is that I hold out; I do not give in. Paul. says to Timothy: "Thou therefore endure hardness." And in the tenth verse of the same chapter he says: "I endure all things for the elect's sake;" just what he says of Moses in the eleventh of Hebrews. Nothing can give you a more wonderful idea of what patience is, than to see a person under all the pressure possible, yet saying: I will not give in an inch.
You see how James presses it upon the saints in his epistle. "Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." Now it was not that Job was a very quiet-spirited man, but that he would not give in an inch. People begin by giving in a little; and when you give in a little, you are done-your power is gone. You may be sure that, when you do give in, and think it does not much matter about something which seems insignificant in itself, that you are giving up the best bit of truth you have. It is the best thing you give up first. It is the top shoot that goes first when the frost comes; it always takes the bud of the tree; and then you have lost an immense thing, though you may say, I have only gone back a little bit; you have not held out.
Let me turn to the fifth of Romans. Here we read: " Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience." And in another place we get: " In your patience possess ye your souls." It is an immense thing practically for the heart to come to the point: Well now I can bear it all, no matter what happens.
The great thing that qualifies a man for service is, not how he can do a great thing, but how he can bear tremendous pressure. When he is prepared for preferment, the question is: How much pressure can you bear? A man that can stand any amount of pressure is qualified for the highest place. Take Joseph in prison, forgotten by the man he had befriended; but he held out, and was thus qualified for the highest place in the kingdom. Take David: he was never in more trying circumstances than at Ziklag; he was deprived of everything. What does he do? He is patient. He says: The Lord is God; I will still hold on. He " encouraged himself in the Lord his God." And he was actually qualified at that moment for the throne of Israel; Saul was just then falling on Mount Gilboa.
It is a great principle. I see persons with Scripture at their fingers' ends, but look at them in their families! And I say to any such: You cannot bear that; you are not able to stand there; you are not fit for your duties; you have not patience. In the sixth chapter of this epistle Paul says: " In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience."
When a person talks to me of power, I say to him In what way are you taking everything? Can you bear up against anything?
Just turn to the first of Colossians; there we read, " strengthened with all power "-it should be—unto what? "unto all patience." All patience! This is the point that I want practically to get my soul to.
I look back at all the saints of God, and, from among them, I take Abraham as an example of what I am speaking of. When he goes into the land the second time, he says to Lot: You take your choice; I can surrender. And that is, I believe, the first characteristic of power. A person who does not begin by refusing, will never end by enduring. If the children of the captivity had not refused the king's wine, they would never have endured the king's furnace. They were separate in their position, but that is not enough. It was not only that Moses " refused " all that was in Egypt, but he " endured."
One constantly sees this. Persons refuse a good deal, but they have not this patience-they cannot hold on. I say: I must hold on; am not going to give up at all.-But, you say, things are all going to pieces!-I cannot help that. I am not going to give up; I must hold on with tenacity; like the old Athenian general who would not let the ship get away: he held on first with one hand; they chopped that off; then he held on with the other; and they chopped that off; and then he held on with his teeth; and they chopped his head off. There was a specimen of what mere nature will do in the way of holding on. Have you got the grace in you for that? Of Abraham we read: " After he had patiently endured he obtained the promise." If a person yields, he has lost the practical, power to maintain his ground.
Well, beloved friends, I hope our eyes are awaking to the state of things we are set in. If you look upwards it is all a scene of brightness -one clear, unclouded sky. But alas! I know the story for myself, and so I know it for others, how many a one leaves his room in the most unclouded enjoyment who is in a few hours, or even in a few minutes, cast down and depressed, because of the way in which he has failed. And why is it? It is because he is not dependent. Are you then to think that the enjoyment was a delusion? No! all remains true as ever; but you must learn to bear opposition; that is patience; and you must depend on Christ; that is power. It is not only that you must refuse; the question is: Can you bear? Have you patience? Can you say you will not yield, no matter what the pressure s? whether it be the saints that are against you, or anything else.
If you look at any of God's servants, what was the moment of greatest power in that man's life? I say, not the moment when he did most, but the moment when he endured most. Let any one put me a parallel to that scene when Abraham went up with his son to Mount Moriah. He says: Let the whole weight of things come down upon me; I have God with me; I am not going to give in an inch. "After he endured he obtained the promise."
And this comes down to the little details of every day life. You are not to give up-not an inch in anything. Give way before the king's fire? Not a bit of it! It is not that when the moment of pressure comes, you are to be like Esau, and say I cannot endure it, and give way in a moment for a mess of pottage. Scripture says: " Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." Consider Him, the Lord Himself, "who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."
I say this: If your heart be affected by the things around you-if you allow them to have an influence on you-you do not come from the presence of the Lord with a sense of His having given you a place above it all. I come from the inside-from the scene of my enjoyment—to stand in the outside-the scene where everything is against me; but I come with the power of Christ, so that I am able to walk outside, and to bear up against all that is against me, whilst I know the enjoyment of His unclouded presence.
(J. B. S.)
He was the loneliest Man, but the most accessible Man, because He was love itself. He does not set Himself apart in the wilderness, but in heaven, and we are with Him there; every affection and moral feeling of my heart is linked up with Him who is on the throne of God.
(J. N. D.)