OUT OF WEAKNESS, STRENGTH

 

Dr. W. A. Criswell

 

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

 

06-24-56

 

You are listening to the services of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, TX, and this is the pastor bringing the morning message entitled OUT OF WEAKNESS, STRENGTH: "for when I am weak, then I am strong" [2 Corinthians 12:10].  In our preaching through the Bible we have come to the twelfth chapter of the Second Corinthian letter.  And the message this morning is an exegesis of the verses seven through ten.  Second Corinthians the twelfth chapter, the seventh through the tenth verses.  The reading of the passage is this:

And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me, a thorn in the flesh, the message [messenger] of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 

For this thing, I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.  Most gladly therefore, would I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

Therefore I 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 [2 Corinthians 12:7-10]. 

This is one of the great, tremendous passages in the Bible.  And I say, the message this morning is an exegesis of the passage.  We are going to take it and go through it, clause and phrase and where it is a time, where we have opportunity. 

The chapter begins with the revelations that were vouchsafed to Paul.  He, at one time, was taken up into paradise.  Whether he was in the body or out of the body, he does not know, “God knoweth” [2 Corinthians 12:3].  But he was taken up into heaven, even while he lived in the earth.  And there he saw and heard things that were not lawful for a man to describe.  A man could not utter them.  They belong to the secret counsels of the celestial.  Of such an one, Paul says, would he glory.  But lest he should be exalted above measure, lest he should become proud, lest he should become vain and conceited and self-reliant, there was given unto him “a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan” [2 Corinthians 12:7], lest he should be exalted above measure.  Now, your Greek word skolops, translated “thorn,” does not, in any wise, at least to me, carry the idea of what Paul wrote.  For to me, a thorn would be something by which you would prick your finger, or it would be a splinter in your side in your hand.  That is what the idea thorn appears to me, an irritation; something that was not violent and tormenting, but something that aggravated the daylights out of you, “a thorn in the flesh.”  There is no idea in that of this thing in the words that Paul used when he wrote it.  For the word skolops, translated “thorn,” is appalling.  The “impalement” of a traitor, of a felon, of a murderer, was the way of capital punishment in the days of the Babylonian, of the Assyrian, until and even some times including the Roman Empire.  The Romans invented crucifixion, that is, the nailing of a body to the cross.  That was an invention of the Roman people.  But up until that time when they lifted up a felon or a murderer or a traitor or when a king saw his enemies, they impaled him.  That is, they raised a great, sharp stick up that is one big enough to hold a body, and they jammed the body down upon that sharp paling through his abdomen or through some other part of his body, and he hung there impaled—jammed down on that terrible post.  That was the common way, and that was almost all the time the way of punishment.  Now, that was the word, “a stake, a sharppaling”; that is the word Paul uses here.  What I am trying to say here is the suffering was far more grievous than you get when you use the term a “thorn” in the flesh; the word that Paul uses to describe his affliction was a torment, it was a grievous thing.  It was an agony, a ”stake” in the flesh shoving into his body, nearly taking away his life, a great affliction, a grievous torment.  And he calls it "the messenger of Satan”—the angel of Satan—“to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure" [2 Corinthians 12:7]. 

And so grievous was the affliction and so terrible was the torment, and I think almost certainly it was a bodily affliction.  What, I do not know, like you will never know who the Unknown Soldier was.  It is better that we do not know.  So it is better with Paul's affliction in the mind, or in the heart, or in the body; it is good for us that we do not know, because his grievous affliction has come to stand for any grievous torment or affliction that overwhelms any of the children of God.  It was so grievous that for the thing that it might be removed: "I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me” [2 Corinthians 12:8].  That, I suppose, is pattern upon the example of our Savior, when thrice, in Gethsemane, He prayed the Lord that the cup of suffering might pass from Him.  Many times I hear people say, "I prayed for it a thousand times."  Oh no, what you do mean is you have just said words a thousand times, an endless number of times.  This is earnest agony before the Lord.  This is kneeled prayer: “for this I parakaleo,” that is where you get the word “paraclete,” the one who exhorts and intercedes and entreats; a word for the Holy Spirit.  "For this thing I have begged, I have besought, I have beseeched, I have poured out my soul before God; thrice did I do it”—prayer, real prayer, beseeching entreaty.  “For it I have besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me." 

For one thing, do you notice that he prays to the Lord Jesus?  I had good, earnest man come up to me after I had prayed one time.  And he said, "We know you are our pastor and you teach us, but there is one thing you do that is not correct."  And he told me, "the one thing that you do that is not correct is, I heard you just now, address your prayer to the Lord Jesus.  What you ought to do is to address your prayer to the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus."  Well, now that is all right.  Most of the times when you pray formally that is okay.  You pray, "Our Father that art in heaven, in the name of Jesus, grant us these requests."  But that is not the only way to pray; nor is that the only address to make.  When Stephen died, he said, "Lord Jesus receive my spirit” [Acts 7:59].  He prayed to our Savior.  When Paul was afflicted and tormented by this terrible impalement, he prayed to the Lord Jesus.  I think there was a reason for it; for the Lord knew what it was to suffer.  In all points He was tried as we are; the agonies of our lives and the sorrows and the griefs of our spirits, He knew and He understands.  And I think, as I read the passage, it is altogether appropriate for Paul to address his prayer to the Lord Jesus; and I say the same thing for me and for you.  There are times—and there are times when you are less formal.  When I stand up here and pray, most of the times it will be, "Our Father."  And most of the times it will be “in the name of Christ.”  But I say, there are times when the intercessions and the appeals and the beseeching of life are so deep and so personal that come upon you in such floods that you will just say, "Lord Jesus."  He, somehow, is our mediator.  He is our close brother and friend.  God, our Father, is the great God Who made us and loves us, but somehow, in His Son, God is near us.  We feel a closeness and a kinship and a sympathy and an understanding in Christ that otherwise religion and formal prayer never brings to our hearts.  "He was tempted in all points like as we are. . . . Therefore let us come boldly to the throne of grace” [Hebrews 4:15, 16].  For He sympathizes, He is not ashamed to call us his brethren [Hebrews 2:11].  So I say, so Paul I say, addresses his prayer to Jesus.  And I am saying that when we pray to the Lord Jesus, we are correct in our address and we are right in our spirit and our attitude.  So he prayed to the Lord that impalement, that terrible affliction, might depart from him.  And the Lord answered. 

Now, look how this thing is stated.  There are two verbs here, side by side.  "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee" [2 Corinthians 12:9].  Now, there are two different tenses.  The first one—eireken, “he hath”—it is a perfect tense.  "He said, finally—back there He concluded; God, Christ—finally said."  And when Paul wrote this, that impalement, that affliction was still with him.  He was suffering at the time he wrote the letter.  God "said unto me—the Lord Jesus said unto me."  It is perfect tense.  "Finally, He said."  And then you have the present tense, which in the Greek language is far more meaningful than i—arkei—"My grace is sufficient for thee."  He has it now.  You have it now.  Whatever the flood that overwhelms, whatever the trial or the fire, you have it now.  We are not seeking some strange, esoteric, monstrous experience, nor are we to throw into magic—into hypnotism and into all of those sorceries and witchcrafts—for the great strength and might and comfort and succor of God.  We have it now.  It is ours.  It is in our hands.  It is in our hearts.  It is in the words that we know.  It is in the Book that we have.  It is in the Spirit of Jesus, in our souls, "My grace is sufficient for thee."  It was yesterday ours, it shall be tomorrow ours, but it is also today ours, now.  "My grace is." 

And in the other part of the verse, "is sufficient," there is an adequacy in God—in all-sufficiency in God.  It is not barely enough, without any margin whatsoever; but it is over and above, exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we ask or think.  There is no limit to the sufficiency and the adequacy of God for any trial or for any trouble or for any sorrow or for any overwhelming flood that shall overwhelm us or overtake us in our lives.  There is an all-sufficiency in God.  Phillip said to Jesus, Why, “two hundred pennyworth of bread" [John 6:7].  “Pennyworth” there translated, it is not a penny in their language, it is a day's labor.  "Two hundred of [day] wages would not suffice to buy the bread that each one might take a little" [John 6:37].  So Phillip, when he looked over the five thousand, "How shall they eat?"  The Omnipotent said, "Bring to me the few loaves and the few fishes," and faith dispensed it and experience gathered up the baskets; more than enough.  A little fish in the Amazon River might think, "Oh, how wearied I am.  There may not be enough water in the river for me, and I shall perish."  But the great Amazon River said, "Why poor little fish, my stream, the great flood of my river is sufficient for thee."  A man, breathing so many cubic feet of oxygen a day might worry, "I am afraid that the oxygen might give out and I shall surely perish."  But the whole atmosphere, "Why, poor, little worrier, do not you fret, my vast atmosphere is sufficient for thee."  That is the same thing here, God said to him, "My grace is all-sufficient,” more and beside.  There is a margin on it as big as the thing itself and over, superabundance. 

"Most gladly therefore," he says, "most gladly, therefore will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  [Therefore] I take pleasure [in infirmities], in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake” [2 Corinthians 12:9, 10]; hedista, "most gladly"—mallon, "more."  That is a funny way that he says it, but he sure gets across the idea that—that thing, instead of being a cause of despair and absolute frustration and defeat.  Why, to him it is an instrument of glory and of gladness; hedista mallon, most gladly more.  "Therefore would I rather glory in infirmity and the necessity and the persecution and distress for Christ's sake" [2 Corinthians 12:10].  The saints are not gloomy folks; that is, if they are true saints.  If I could ever grow in grace, and if we could ever grow in grace, we could be like that.  The saints are not low, heavy fish, gloomy people.  There is a dear, blessed woman.  She is sick and suffered the years of this life, and look at her—when you go see her affliction and limbs and arms, or body, or hurt—invalidism.  She smiles at you and says sweet things.  A great, big, strong man stands up here and he says fine things, well that is just fine, yes.  But is blesses my soul when you go see some body like that.  And you want to cry just to look at them; you just want to cry.  But they never shed tears in your presence.  Maybe only when the pastor prays will they find themselves unable to control themselves, and wipe the tear out of their eyes while the pastor prays.  Ah, there is something about the strength that God gives that no man can describe.  Or a sorrowing heart, a broken spirit, nice to comfort other people when they themselves need all the comfort a kind word or ministering hand could afford.  And yet, I see them comforting some body else. 

"My grace," that is a beautiful word in the Greek, charis.  We name our children sometimes “Caris.”   There is a Sunday school class called “Caris,“ my grace.  “My grace, . . . Most gladly therefore.”  Love, favor, the benedictions and abundance and presence and mercy of the goodness of God, charis.  To have God's love and favor, if it please the Lord that I be poor, let me be poor that I might have God's favor.  If it please the Lord that I be sick, let me be sick that I might have Thy favor.  If it be best Lord, that I be forsaken or forlorn or persecuted or cast down, Lord, that I might have Thy favor and Thy strength. Oh, when I read these things, Lord, who among us is a Christian?  Who among us is a Christian?  Certainly not I.  "Most gladly therefore will I glory in mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest [upon me]" [2 Corinthians 12:9].  There is a magnificent word: “may rest.” [Paul] goes 'way out of his way—episkenose—goes 'way out of his way to use that different word.  In John 1:14, "The Word was made flesh”—in the tabernacle, there is your word—“among us."  Back there in the Old Testament the Shekinahglory of God came over His people, there is your strange word again.  "The power of Christ may tabernacle over me," the actual meaning of the word is “to put a tent over me”—cover me with a tent, cover me with a tabernacle, cover me with the Shekinah glory of the presence of God—“that the presence of the Lord might cover me.” 

Now, in this last part I want to speak on what he said: "for my strength is made perfect in weakness" [2 Corinthians 12:9]; in what Paul said, "for when I am weak, then I am strong" [2 Corinthians 12:10].  Now, the first one: and the Lord said unto me, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.'"  Isn't that something to say?  "For My strength is made perfect"—teleo; teleo means “the end,” “the thing accomplished, it has achieved the goal for which it was intended.”  You have that same thing said about the Lord Jesus—“My strength is made perfect in weakness"—In the passage that we read together: "For it became him for tomorrow [whom are all things, to] bring his sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings" [Hebrews 2:10].  Isn't that an unusual thing to say about Jesus? that God made Him perfect through sufferings; that the captain of our salvation was made perfect through sufferings.  Well, there again, the word “perfect” does not refer to “without blemish”or “without stain” or “without sin.”  For Jesus was already without spot or stain or sin.  The word there, “made perfect,” teleo, means he “achieved his purpose,” the purpose that brought him into this world.  He achieved that great end through suffering.  Had he saved himself, we could not have been saved.  It was through his poverty that we are made rich, and so for our salvation, the great God, Jesus, the second [person] of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus, he descended.  He descended and he came down and he descended and he humiliated himself and he emptied himself and he humbled himself and he descended and he came down until, finally, God was wrapped in swaddling clothes.  But more than that, he descended; he descended and he humbled himself until finally, God was nailed to a tree; and he descended and he humbled himself and finally, God is the ghastly corpse hanging on a cross; and he descended and He descended and finally, God is dead among the dead; He is in a tomb.  It behooved him who saved us to make the captain of our salvation perfect through his sufferings.  Through the sufferings of Christ we are saved.  he humbled himself. 

That passage is that thing here also where "My strength," says God, "is made perfect in weakness" [2 Corinthians 12:9].  That is, the strength and the might and the power of God is displayed in our weakness, where we are strong and self-sufficient, there is no opportunity for the power of God.  But where we are weak, that is the opportunity for God to display His strength.  For example, I could easily have imagined that twelve great emperors and kings with a sword, like Mohammad the prophet, could have won the civilized world to Christ.  Those kings would have sent out an edict and could have said, "You be a Christian or we will cut your head off or crucify you or destroy your families."  I could easily see that.  But the glory of God is this, that the civilized world was won to Christ by eleven, humble, unnamed, unknown, uneducated men without prestige or patronage, without science or sophistry, without armies or armor, just by the power of God.  And when you look upon it, and when you read it, that is what you see and that is what you think.  That was done by the tenure of God.   Their weakness displays the strength of the Almighty.  It is in our weakness that God has opportunity to display His strength. 

On a cold, bitter morning, before the sun had melted the frost, one of the pastors in London, several hundred years ago.

One of our pastors in London was taken to Smithfield and tied to the stake.  Early that morning there was gathered around him a group of young people who were wont and accustomed to listen to the pastor and what he said.  Why were they there?  Why were they there?  It is written that they were there to learn the way, In that instance, how to die triumphantly and victoriously; and when they set fire to all of debris, brush and wood around the stake, to consume the life of the pastor of the church.  They found there, in the martyrdom of the pastor, they found the strength of God.  His strength made perfect in our weakness.  What is the power of Alexander the Great?  It is the power of conquest, armies and might.  What is the power of a Demosthenes?  It is the power of an oratory.  What is the power of a Croesus?  It is the power of money and wealth.  What is the power of Christ?  Is it not this?  The power of Christ is to be nothing, to be no body, to humble yourself, to descend, to be in the dust.  The power of the five wounds of the pouring out of blood of the sacrifice of the cross, of the crown of thorns of death, of hanging, of being buried.  Isn't that the power of Jesus Christ?  "Where My strength is made perfect in weakness."  The power of God is what God can do with nothings and nobodies.  That is the all-sufficiency of God.  "My strength is made perfect in weakness." 

I hasten to that last: "for when I am weak, then am I strong."  I tell you, these dialectical characterizations of life in the Bible.  By the word dialectical I mean by “saying oppositely the apparent contradictions.”  A fellow would pick up the Bible and say, "Look at the contradictions, [it is] full of contradictions, just full of contradictions."  What he does not realize is when you say the story and tell the message and say it exactly as it is, what you say will be filled with contradictions and dialections.  Life is that way.  It is not always, draw a straight line.  It is much complex, much ramified.  It is the silly, even though he may be greatly educated.  And it is the foolish, even though he may be highly degreed.  And it is those people who read the Bible that cannot see the great profound wisdom of Almighty God.  So they go away and say, "Why, it is full of contradictions, full of contradictions."  What the Bible is is a true picture of life and these things cannot be said except sometimes in dialectical sentences that say the opposite, contradictory phrases.  All right, here is one: "for when I am weak, then I am strong."  Now, I will apply that, and then I will have to quit because our time is done.  I will apply that.  But to do that let us turn it around.  Let us turn it around like the men of the world.  Let us turn it around, for Paul says here, "for when I am weak, then am I strong."  Now, let us turn it around; "for I am strong, for I am strong, I am not weak, I am strong."  That is what the man of the world says.  He does not know he is weak.  He does not realize he is weak.  He says, "I am strong, I am strong"; though he isn't.  He is weak, but he says:

I am strong, I am strong.  There is adequacy in me, there is sufficiency in me.  I am strong.  Why, I am a veritable Sampson I am.  Why I am a veritable Solomon, I am.  I am strong.  I am a veritable Goliath, I am.  I am strong.  But as for getting to heaven, why certainly, why certainly, my good works will take me to heaven, why certainly.  Oh, I admit there may be a few flaws, and there may be a few falls, but they are such of a trifling nature and God, in His great mercy, will pay no attention to those trifles about me.  For I am strong and my good works, they are going to be sufficient to take me to heaven.  Why this ship of my character is sailing in fine shape.  There may be a few leaks but the pumps can easily keep the water down.  And the sails are not ripped and the hull is intact and I am going to sail into that haven of peace with an abundant entrance.  That--why, I am strong and adequate."  Way up there in glory and the life that is to come.  They are singing a song and they are singing, "Worthy is the Lamb, for we have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." 

That is what they sing.  If you sing this, you strong man, you are going to say, "My robes never needed to be washed, I kept them white as snow.  Oh, glory and honor to me, I made my own way to heaven.  I did.  I am strong."

There is a poor publican who beats on his breast and says, "O God, be merciful to me, the sinner," but you strong, you say, "O Lord, I thank you that I am not a wretch like other men” [Luke 18:13, 14].  Why I am better.  That is the way you are going to heaven, just you being you.  Strong you, good you, do not need the church, do not need Christ, do not need the sacrifice.  You just are going to make it yourself and stand up there on your own.  That is your strength.  But God says that is weakness.  God says the strong man is the humble man.  God says the saved man is the man that walks beneath the shadow of the cross.  God says the saved man is the confessed sinner-man.  He bows, he humbles himself, he kneels, he humbles himself in—to—the face of Jesus.  He acts, he beseeches, he importunes, he begs.  "O God, have mercy upon me.  Remember me, remember me."  When you are strong, you are way down, down, down, down.  Only when you are weak is when you are up and up and up.  I say, the Bible is full of those things, those contradictions.  It is the truth of God.  It is the revelation of Jesus.  His people are a humble people.  They are a beseeching people.  They are a praying people.  They are an interceding people.  They are a people of confession.  They will be saved for, "My strength is made perfect in weakness."  Lord, there is no sufficiency, no adequacy in me.  I am not equal.  O God any equalness, any sufficiency must lie in thy grace and thy favor. 

Just this moment before we go off, while we are still on the air, in this moment, if you have been listening to this sermon, down there, right where you are sitting, would you kneel and would you give your heart to God?  I do not know any other way to find God, but in humility and in confession and looking up into His face, would you trust Jesus as your Savior?  "Lord, I care, I am not able.  There is an adequacy in Thee.  You are God, and I trust You for it."  And in the great throng of people in this house today, if you have never given your heart in confession and Christ today, would you go out this door a confessed believer in the Son of God Who died, Who descended, Who humbled Himself?  Would you today?   Would you?  Lord, Lord, I am not righteous, not that way; I am not clean and washed, not that way;  Lord, the righteousness I plead would be the righteousness that comes by faith in Jesus, a forgiven sinner.  Would you today?  Or, into the fellowship of this church—I have been saved, Preacher, by trusting Jesus, and I have been baptized and belong to His church—would you so?  Would you?  I do not make this call.  If it is just what I say, it is nothing.  If the Spirit calls, would you come, would you?  The Lord bid you and here I am; by confession of faith, or by baptism, or by letter; however God shall say the word.  Maybe some body like you would give your life to Christ.  Would you come—as God shall make the appeal, while we come, as we stand and as we sing.? 

 

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