Return with me to the passage that we have been considering in these evening times: the first letter of the Apostle Peter, Chapter 5, verses 10–11.
And the God of all grace, Who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while, shall Himself perfect, establish, strengthen you.
To Him be the dominion for ever and ever.
In the second letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians—2 Corinthians, Chapter 3, verses 17–18:
Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
And then Chapter 4, verse 7:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.
We are pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair;
pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed;
always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
And verse 16:
Wherefore we faint not; but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.
For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;
while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
So we have one further word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful that we are found here in Your Person. We are not asking You to join us; we are coming to join You. You are here as Lord. You are here as Head. And we come into Your presence with much thanksgiving and joy in our hearts.
And Lord, as we come to the ministry of Your Word, You have not left us to our own energies, through our own talents or gifts. But, Lord, You have provided us with an anointing, that this time may be sanctified to Yourself, set apart for Your use.
Therefore, Lord, since You have provided that anointing, we stand in it by faith for the speaking of Your Word and for the hearing of Your Word. Let the Holy Spirit write these words on our hearts. Let something happen within us, from the youngest to the eldest, that will somehow give us a new sense of direction, a new understanding of Your ways with us.
Hear us, O Lord. We commit ourselves to You with much thanksgiving, and we shall be careful to give You all the praise and all the glory for answering this our prayer. We ask it in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, it is a little too late to go over anything that we have said the first two evenings, but I have had on my heart the phrase you find in 1 Peter 5:10: “Called unto His eternal glory in Christ.” Called unto His eternal glory in Christ.
Glory is a word greatly misunderstood in Christian circles. They have tried, in some of the new versions, to give substitute words for it: splendour, magnificence, honour. A whole number of words have been suggested and used. But, in fact, there is no substitute word for the word glory. The Holy Spirit has to take this whole truth, this reality, and reveal it to us.
It is the same with the word grace. You cannot really give another word for grace. You have to understand what grace is, and only the Holy Spirit can do that.
Without grace, there is no glory. Glory is the goal; grace is the way. These two—I call them divine twins—grace and glory.
I have been talking about glory. The first evening I took up, “Called unto His eternal glory in Christ.” Yesterday evening we spoke about, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” This evening I want to talk about the path to glory.
There is a path to glory in Christ which must be travelled, and there is no alternative.
If you turn to the Colossian letter of the Apostle Paul, Chapter 3, verses 3–4, we read these words:
For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When Christ, Who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.
“You died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” This is not just theology. For those to whom the Lord has revealed this truth, it is absolute reality. You died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall you also be manifested with Him in glory.
You cannot go very far on this path to glory and not meet the cross. It is not beautiful. It is stark and bloody. And there is no escaping the cross.
When Jesus preached the gospel, as it is recorded, for instance, among many instances, in Mark 8:34–35, He called the multitudes together with His disciples, and He said:
If any man would follow Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it.
The word life there is the word psuchē, from which we get psychology, psychologists, and all the rest of it. It is our self-life—our whole life. He who lays down his self-life for My sake and the gospel finds his self-life in a new manner, under new management, in a new way, and with a new power.
He who preserves his self-life sees it corrupt, like cancer, before his eyes. It just spoils before his eyes. When you are young, you do not believe this kind of thing. It is only when you get old that you believe it. You have lived long enough to see the misery of people who preserve their self-life in all its forms, and try to satisfy themselves and fulfil themselves, and never trust in the Lord. What has happened is very simple: they have lost their self-life.
There is no other way to glory than by laying down your life. If you hold on to your rights, you will not come to glory.
I am not saying you will lose your salvation. I am saying you will be saved by the skin of your teeth. There will be very little glory.
This gospel we preach today is a pathetic gospel. It is not like the gospel that was preached in the early church, nor in every great movement of the Spirit of God in the history of the church.
For whenever the gospel was truly preached, there came a command to repent; a command to forsake sins; if necessary, to make restitution; and to turn to the Lord Jesus and commit your life to Him as Lord and Saviour. It was a command.
Today, our gospel preaching is basically like a presidential election. We appeal to people. We ask them to make the decision. We bring before them, as it were, all the wonderful things that will be theirs if they accept the Lord, if they decide for the Lord: heaven, not hell; life, not death; joy, not misery; peace, not unrest.
This is all, of course, in the Bible. I am not saying it is not in the Bible. But when the gospel was preached all through church history, under the anointing of the Spirit of God, the challenge was: lay down your lives. Let go of your self-life. Become a servant to God.
That is the meaning of being justified from sin—the meaning of being declared righteous before God. Yes, it is the meaning of becoming a child of God. You are to become good soldiers of the Lord Jesus by enduring hardship. You are to become warriors in the place of prayer. You are to become worshippers when everything is going wrong—worshippers in spirit and in truth.
When you have the gospel preached as it ought to be preached, men and women come under conviction of sin and go through anguish.
Any of you who read anything in church history—whether of the Wesleyans, the first great evangelical awakening, the second great evangelical awakening, the Reformation, the Puritans, the Covenanters, the Quakers, the Moravians, or the early Calvinists—you will find it all the same. People would fall down in the meeting place in anguish and agony of mind.
When Jonathan Edwards, who was so short-sighted that he had to hold his notes up to his nose with a candle over his head, preached the sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, thousands were saved. They thought they were slipping into hell. They hung on to the pews because they actually thought they were slipping into hell.
It is another gospel. It is the gospel that was being preached. Then you had some sense of anguish, conviction of sin, a terrible sense of being lost, a sense of being forsaken almost. People came into peace with God. They came into a real conversion. And when there are strong births, there is a strong Christian life.
Where we have weak births, somehow or other, we came to the Lord for what we could get. You understand what I mean. We have come to Him for what we get; we have not come to Him to follow Him, whatever the cost.
Jesus said so simply, “If any man follow Me, let him give up all right to himself.” Are you holding on to the right to yourself? Give up all right to yourself, take up your cross, and follow.
I do not know of any better illustration of this little word, “Ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God,” than the one that I heard years ago. Someone took a little sheet of paper, took their Bible, and said, “This Bible is Christ; this sheet of paper is us.”
God lives in the ever-present. There is no past with God, and there is no future with God. He is the great I AM. It is as if Jesus died at this moment. He took you and put you in Christ. When Christ died, you died. When Christ was buried, you were there. When Christ was raised from the dead, you were raised from the dead.
When I put this Bible here, what has happened to the note? It is in the Bible. You cannot see the note. The note is in the Bible. What happens to the Bible happens to the note. The history of the Bible is the history of the note because the note is in the Bible. Do you understand?
God took you and put you in Christ thousands of years before you were even born. The present One, the living One, the I AM, took you and put you in the Lord Jesus. When the Lord Jesus was crucified, you were crucified. When He died, you died. When He was buried, you were there. Thank God for that—out of sight!
Some of us are so much in sight. Out of sight! And then you have been raised with Him to walk in newness of life.
You cannot get to glory without the cross. The cross stands in the path to glory. If you try to avoid it, if you try to soften it, if you try somehow or other to devalue it, you find you are out of the way. You become religious. You are no longer walking in Him.
“You died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall you also be manifested.”
Some people get the idea that this is a kind of dark, heavy holiness. I mean, they are all serious, you know. We are going to have this holiness—it is so awful, really, we should all dress in black and look miserable. It is so silly.
Let me tell you, this is not aimed at anybody who is dressed in black. But you should wear holiness as if you are in mourning if you hold on to your self-life. And I say to you younger ones: you will live to remember my words.
That self-life of yours has the poison of the serpent in it. It will destroy you. It will destroy your marriage. It will destroy your family. It will destroy your business colleagues. It will, in the end, destroy you.
It is only when we let it go, when we lay down ourselves, that suddenly we see the poison of the serpent is there—the sting of the scorpion is there. But when we do not lay it down, we think it is beautiful. We think it is lovely. We think that if we only hold on to it, we are safer within our hands than in God’s hands.
Our idea is that God wants to mangle us. He wants to steamroller over us. He wants to give us a bad time. He wants to make us miserable. We have this idea that anything to do with the will of God, of necessity, has to be miserable.
But when you lay down your self-life for His sake and the gospel, you discover it is given back to you under new management. There is laughter in your soul, and there is joy in your soul. There is life such as you never knew before. The poison has gone.
Well, dear friends, this is what I want to talk about: the path to glory. And I have to begin there. There is no other way. There is nowhere else we can begin.
You have to face this matter. If you all want to come to the glory of God, you have to let go of that self-life of yours.
Now, you may say to me, “But how do I crucify myself?” It is impossible. You can get one hand on the cross, but what about the other hand? I mean, you cannot do it.
People say, “I am going to try.” So you end up with this kind of Eastern idea: if you only do damage to your flesh; if you can somehow sit up on a pole for twenty hours; if you only starve yourself for months on end; if you only afflict yourself, wear horsehair shirts as they did in the Middle Ages, or things like that, then of course you can do it.
No, my dear friend, you cannot. Do not worry your head. If you will only give up all right to yourself and take up the cross—the crossbeam—on your shoulders and go to the place of crucifixion, having the sentence of death upon yourself, the Lord will take care of your crucifixion.
You young ones will find your parents crucify you within twenty-four hours. Some of you will find your wives have crucified you within hours. The husbands will have crucified you within hours. And certainly the church—oh, let the church get its hands on you! They will crucify you with joy while singing a hymn.
Everywhere I go, people say to me, “How can I live this Christian life?” I am asked, especially by young people all over the world, “How can I live the Christian life?” And I always say the same thing: do not bother your head about living the Christian life.
The secret of living the Christian life is the secret of how to die. Once you die, the life can take care of itself. Once you let go and lay down your self-life, God takes over. The Spirit of God takes over, and suddenly, spontaneously, resurrection life comes—but only when you walk by faith.
It is very hard for normal human beings to lay down their self-life, to let go of themselves, to lose their self-life, because they feel that once they have lost it, it will never come back. And then they finally make a terrible mistake: “The Lord will simply annihilate me.”
We have this odd feeling about God: “I shall be a monk, or maybe a nun. I will live a life of abstinence, a life of affliction.”
You will live a life of affliction. There is no doubt about it. But with it, there will be love, and there will be joy, and there will be fullness, and there will be fulfilment.
So we have to start here. It is not how to live the Christian life; it is how to die. And I guarantee that within a few hours of the end of this meeting, you will have your first opportunities to die.
Now, if I look to the Word, here is something. Listen to me:
The God of all grace, Who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while, shall Himself perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.
Did you hear that? The God of all grace, Who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while.
The path to glory is suffering a little while. Now, God’s little while is often a long time. I mean it. I always feel the Lord has enormous humour when He says, “After that ye have suffered a little while.”
We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. Last night, I said almost in passing, it does not seem like from glory to glory. It seems more like from tribulation to tribulation, from affliction to affliction, from problem to problem, from being at one’s wits’ end to another being at one’s wits’ end. That is what it seems like in life.
And actually, that is true. Because when the Word of God, when the Spirit of God, says so positively, “from glory to glory,” He is speaking positively of the way you go from glory to glory. A capacity is worked in you by problem, by difficulty, by impossible circumstances or situations. You think you have come out of one, only to go into yet another. But what the Lord is doing is enlarging your capacity for glory.
Every time you come through by faith, through the grace of the God of all grace, there is more of the Lord Jesus in your life.
When the Holy Spirit breathes some portion of the Word into your heart and you stand on it by faith, when everything seems impossible, you come out on the other side and that Word of the Lord has come to dwell in you. It is forever yours. It is no longer just objective Scripture; it has become yours. It is your experience. The Word of Christ is dwelling in you in all wisdom and knowledge.
What is the end of suffering for a little while? Listen: that you may be perfected—that is, full-grown, mature. It does not mean without sin, or weaknesses, or failings, but you have become mature. You have grown up.
Do you not grow up in suffering? Even in normal life, is it not so?
We are children, and then all of a sudden someone dies in the family—father, mother—and suddenly we grow up. We have been carried until that moment. Everything has been done for us. Now, suddenly, we have to grow up. We come through that experience with something we never had before.
That is just on the natural scale, for the unsaved as well as the saved. But in the spiritual, you are perfected. You are established—that is, you have got a foundation. Your feet have touched bedrock. You are on the foundation, which is Jesus the Messiah. You are strengthened. Your confidence in the Lord has been strengthened.
You have suffered a little while. In the old King James, what we used to call the Authorised Version on the other side of the Atlantic, it has an added word: settled.
Perfect, establish, strengthen, settle.
After that you have suffered a little while.
Consider Romans, Chapter 8. The Roman letter of the Apostle Paul, beginning in verse 15:
For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God:
and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;
if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him.
So there is an if. “If so be.” It is not automatic that we shall come into our inheritance. If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him.
Here is the God of all grace. Joint-heirs with the Lord Jesus—if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him. There is an “if” in this.
Did you notice how amazing that is in the passage we read in 2 Corinthians, Chapter 4? I have already quoted the Scripture: “With unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.”
How can we possibly go from tribulation to tribulation, from problem to problem, from one set of circumstances that seems impossible to another set of circumstances that seems even more impossible? How in the world can we do it? What value is there in this?
Well, the apostle says:
Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.
I love this: “But for a moment.” I think, for a lifetime sometimes—but he says, “But for a moment.” Why? Because he is weighing it against eternity.
If we weigh our affliction by our little three-score years and ten, it is a lifetime. If we measure it by eternity, it is a pinprick. It is light affliction, but for a moment—transient, temporal, so fast.
Listen:
Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
Can you believe that? Light affliction; weight of glory. But for a moment; eternal. Working for us.
Do you realise the word here is to employ? God employs the light affliction to work for us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
If we look at things which are seen, it is stupid to be a Christian. If we look at the things which are seen, why not go out and enjoy ourselves? For tomorrow we die.
But if we look at the things which are not seen, then to go out and enjoy ourselves because we think life is so transient—that is stupid.
An exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Light affliction, but for a moment; eternal glory. Exceeding grace and eternal glory.
Look in the same chapter again, will you? Here is the process—this is the power unto glory:
We have this treasure in earthen vessels.
Only God could put eternal treasure in a clay pot. Some of us are a little more pot-like than others, but I mean, we are just clay pots. Some of us are a little cracked.
Normally, when people have treasure, when they have diamonds, they put them in a safe. I remember going to the diamond centre in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv. One of the really big diamond dealers of the world was a survivor of Auschwitz.
He knew that fifty-eight members of my family—my father, my grandmother, and fifty-six other members—died under the Nazis. He said, “Would you like to see the diamond exchange?” I had always been interested in diamonds, so I said, “Yes, I would love to go and see the diamond exchange.”
He took out of a safe—I have never forgotten it; it still looks like a vision to me—a pouch. He turned it upside down on a kind of tray, and he said, “There is about four hundred and sixty thousand dollars.”
Treasure. He put that treasure in an enormous safe, and I fully understand. They called the mafia of Israel fifty percent Arab and fifty percent Jew, and they worked very well together.
I always remember that, at one time, they had a huge case against tax fraud. A whole number of big business people were up for trial. Suddenly, in the night, the records office—with all the tax records—burnt down.
I should not laugh, of course, but one knew very well that the Arab gentlemen and the Jewish gentlemen who were up for trial were all acquitted because all the evidence had gone.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with our path to glory. What I am trying to say is this: if you had jewels, diamonds, sapphires, rubies—unbelievable wealth in treasure—you would not put it in a clay pot, would you?
Only God could contain eternal treasure, which is Christ Himself, and put it in us. “Christ in you, the hope of glory”—the certain hope of glory. That is treasure. That is real treasure. That is eternal treasure.
He takes the Lord Jesus and causes Him to indwell us by the Holy Spirit in little old clay pots like us. Only God could do it.
And it explains why the exceeding greatness may be from God and not from ourselves. It is not because we are anything, because we are clever, because we are zealous, because we are devoted, because we are knowledgeable, because we are good and decent. We are saved by the grace of God.
And God, if I may speak of Him reverently, has taken the risk of putting the treasure in such as you and me. Have you ever realised what a price God puts upon you? Do you realise how much the Lord really loves you, that He could have placed in you eternal treasure?
But just wait. This treasure has to be worked out.
Here it is. Listen. This is a testimony:
Pressed on every side.
Perplexed.
Pursued.
Smitten down.
I have never heard any believer get up and give his testimony and say, “I am pressed from every side. I am perplexed. I am pursued. I am smitten down.”
We would say, “Send him to a deliverance ministry. He needs deliverance. Something is wrong with him.” We send people to Bible college, theological seminary, so that they will not be perplexed. Who wants leaders that are perplexed? We do not want someone perplexed. We want them to know what to do, how to do it, and tell us.
But here is the great apostle, and he says, “I am perplexed, but not unto despair. I am pressed on every side—hard pressed, in some of the modern versions—but not straitened,” in other words, not in a straitjacket.
“I am persecuted, but I am not forsaken.” You say, “Where is the joy then? I thought the Christian life was being carried by the power of God into glory.” Who said that?
There is nothing like the joy of knowing God when you have laid down your life. You see, God never causes you to suffer for a little while unless you are prepared to suffer.
If you want to be one of these Christians who hangs on to your own self-life, mollycoddles it, gives it toys to play with, things to satisfy it, everything to advance its self-fulfilment, hardly will He lead you into it. You will be in the kingdom, but your tears will come later.
But for those who shed tears now in impossible situations, they will have no tears when the glory of God is manifested. You got it?
Pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down.
Phillips put it this way: “Knocked down, but not knocked out.”
Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal body.
Now think: always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus. So what does this mean—all this experience? It has something to do with bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, being delivered up to death.
“Oh,” you say, “how does that happen?” Your boss will deliver you up to death. Your employees will deliver you up to death. Your husband will deliver you up to death. Your wife will deliver you up to death. Your children will deliver you up to death. Your parents will deliver you up to death. And the church will certainly deliver you up to death. Always do.
It is in the present tense: always being delivered up unto death, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies. So on one side, you have the negative—bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus. But on the other side, you have the positive—the life also of Jesus manifested in our mortal body.
This paradox—it is the path to glory. I hope what I am saying is right. I know it is right, but I mean, I just hope that you understand that it is right.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
Only those of us who minister the Word of God under the anointing of God know at times how it is death in us, death in us. But then we hear of blessing.
People always ask me, “Wasn’t that wonderful?” I do not know whether it was wonderful or not. All I know is that I had to give a word, but I find that I have to stand by faith.
I always remember the story that either Whitefield or Wesley, one of those two extraordinary servants of God, wrote in his journal. He stood before thousands and thousands of miners, and in the journal, whoever it was, said, “I felt so dead. I felt like dry wood. And I was tempted, after preaching for a few minutes, to close the meeting. But I went on in faith.”
Then suddenly, he said, “I saw an extraordinary sight. I saw all the faces of these people streaked like zebras—black, white, black, white.” Suddenly he understood: they were weeping under conviction of sin.
Those miners were considered by society in general to be subhuman—animals. Nobody had any time for them. When they came up in their thousands to listen to Whitefield and Wesley, the employers became very angry. They asked members of Parliament to raise the question in the British Parliament because, they said, the miners should not be standing listening to someone preaching when they were paid to work. What they were paid was a pittance.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you. That is the path to glory.
I do not know if I can take you further in this matter, but I take you to Philippians, Chapter 3, verse 10, where the apostle says:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.
“That I may know”—and in the Greek there is a little prefix: that I may fully know Him—and the power of His resurrection. Does not every child of God want to know the power of His resurrection? And the fellowship of His sufferings.
There is no way to come to the eternal glory in Christ apart from the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings.
There is a quite mysterious word, I think, in Colossians, Chapter 1, verse 24. Let me read it to you:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the church; whereof I was made a minister.
Oh, for more ministers like that. For more servants of God like this. “I rejoice in the afflictions,” he says, “that I am suffering, because it is for the body’s sake, which is the church.”
It is not just a matter of preaching, not just the fashion of a platform ministry. It is much more than that. What does it mean, “that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ”?
I can only understand it this way. You and I cannot in any way enter the sufferings of Christ which were for our salvation. That is unique to Him. But the Lord has left a portion of His suffering to be filled up by the members of His body.
That is the only way I can understand this. This is the fellowship of His sufferings. Wonderful to know the power of His resurrection, but the fellowship of His sufferings. These two things go hand in hand.
Again, look at what Peter says. Am I boring? Look what Peter says in 1 Peter 4:12–13:
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you:
but insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice;
that at the revelation of His glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy.
Partakers of His sufferings. And then in Chapter 5, verse 1, he says:
I exhort you, who am a fellow-elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed.
You cannot be a partaker of the glory of the Lord Jesus that will be revealed unless you are prepared to be a partaker of His sufferings.
Is this morbid? People think, “Oh, could we not hear about the power of the Holy Spirit? Could we not hear about the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Could we not hear about the exceeding greatness of His power?” Yes, you can, and I would be only too glad to speak about it.
But tonight I am speaking about the path to glory. There is no way to come to the eternal glory in Christ apart from being a partaker of His sufferings. You have got to settle it. There is no alternative in this.
Paul speaks about the thorn in his flesh. You will find it in 2 Corinthians, Chapter 12. You could read from verse 7, but I am only going to read verse 9:
And He hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My power is made perfect in weakness.
I thought, we do not know what the thorn was. Some people get very upset if you say it was something physical, a physical illness, although they say, “Of course not.” I suppose no one likes having any physical illness.
So what was it? Who was it? Oh, well, we are nearer to it. Maybe it was a person. Maybe it was John Mark. I can well understand that.
No, it was something. He calls this thorn in the flesh, in Darby’s translation—which is so to the point—“the agony of impalement.” Agony of impalement.
So colossal was this. It was not some little thorn. We know that when you get a thorn, your whole foot can swell up, or your hand. It can be a really unpleasant experience. But the Apostle Paul is not talking about that kind of thing.
The Apostle Paul is talking about something so colossal that he felt it was the end of his ministry. Three times he besought the Lord, “Remove this thing. It is from Satan.”
And the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient.” Now, of course, when we are terribly spiritual, we would feel that if the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient,” that is it.
But a bit later, the apostle went back to the Lord. “You have got to remove this thing. You have got to remove this thing. I know You said Your grace is sufficient, but You have got to remove it. I cannot fulfil this ministry if this remains.”
And the Lord said, “No, Paul. My grace is sufficient. For the weaker you are, the more powerful I am in you.”
Treasure in an earthen vessel. Treasure in a clay pot. That the exceeding greatness may be from God and not from Paul. That is the path to glory.
But again, let me take you another step, if you are ready for it.
In 1 Peter, Chapter 1, the apostle says that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perishes, may be found unto praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
I do not like the old version’s word here: trial. “The trial of your faith.” Because, in my estimation, this word trial has a negative feeling. Do you understand? When someone is on trial, you feel that everything is in question.
That is not what the Spirit of God is saying. He is saying, “I am testing you because there is something in you that can be tested.” Do you understand? “I am not trying you to see if there is something in you.”
The Lord never brings a trial on some Christians because it would kill them. It would finish them off. The Lord never does it. But where there is real God-given faith, then the Lord proves it.
I do not know if you really understand what I am saying. I will give you an example. Do you remember how Peter said, “Ah, Lord, do not You worry. You are not going to the cross—not while I am around.”
And the Lord said to him, “Peter, before the cock crows, you will have denied Me three times.” Then He said this: “Simon”—using his Hebrew name—“Simon, I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not. When you are turned again, strengthen thy brethren.”
Listen again:
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat:
but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not.
Peter had a whole self-manufactured Christianity. He walked with the Lord for three years. He had heard the Lord. He had said marvellous things by revelation: “Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” The Lord Jesus said, “My Father in heaven revealed that.”
Peter was always putting his foot in it. Of course, most preachers say, “Well, of course, he was one of these people,” but actually all the rest put their foot in it. It was Peter who always spoke.
Is it not true of all of us? We all say so and so in the natural part. Peter said it, and so said all the others. But it is Peter who gets the blame. He was a natural leader.
But all that quality of personality in him, his Christianity as such, was self-made, self-manufactured. In one single moment, it was blown to pieces by a spiritual nuclear explosion when a little serving girl said to him, “You are one of His disciples.” And he said, “Me? Never. I do not know the man.”
Three times he said it. And the cock crowed.
And all it took was one look from Jesus, on His way to execution. One look. And Peter wept—not like Judas, unto suicide. He wept his way back to the Lord.
That meant his God-given faith, deeper than all his self-manufactured Christianity, stood the test. You understand? It was the proof of his faith, more precious than gold that perishes. It was to be found in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
I hope this helps you. All this suffering a little while—the Lord will never put you through anything unless there is something that He knows is of Himself.
And listen: Satan desired you, that he might sift you as wheat. Is it not amazing? Satan gets the chaff, and God gets the wheat.
You may lose all your self-manufactured Christianity. Every servant of God has to come to it sooner or later. Satan gets the chaff; God gets the wheat.
C. G. Stott once said—and no wonder he got into so much trouble with Christians—“Satan is God’s most used servant.”
So true. God uses Satan. Did He not use him with Job? Satan got the chaff; God got the wheat. So it is for you.
The treasure of Christ is material for glory.
Do you not think it is the most remarkable thing that the city of God at the end of the Bible, which sums up everything—the bride, the city, a most extraordinary bringing together of two very different ideas—is made out of only three materials? Gold, precious stones, and pearl.
All three of these materials speak of the Lord Jesus. The gold is His nature and life. The precious stones speak of the excellences of His character. The pearl speaks of His suffering.
When the Lord Jesus spoke to the Laodicean church, He said, “I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich.”
In another place in the Corinthian letter, the apostle speaks about wood, hay, stubble. It does not sound very pleasant, does it? Wood, hay, stubble.
I remember, years ago, on a number of occasions in Manila, going to the Coconut Palace—Imelda Marcos’s Coconut Palace. It was the VIP guest house for the government.
Everything in that amazing place was made from coconut. I could not believe it. From the things you walked on to the lampshades, to the walls, to the lamps. I had no idea that you could use coconut so much. I had always thought only of eating what is inside a coconut. I never thought of the wood, hay, and stubble.
So beautiful. So beautiful. There are many, many Christians who have coconut palaces. They have built out of wood, hay, and stubble. It looks marvellous. The façade is tremendous. Absolutely Christian, nice, knowledgeable in the Bible—but it is wood, hay, stubble.
When you come to the city, to the bride, it is only gold, precious stone, and pearl.
Gold, in its natural state, has to be sought, mined, and refined. Precious stone is found in the dark places of the earth. It is produced by pressure and heat. You cannot just see it.
And a pearl—the heart of every real pearl is a bit of worthless grit, a little bit of debris that fell into the softest part of the clam.
When you take your Bible—and I have to watch myself now, or I will be longer than twenty minutes—when you take your Bible, you take Genesis, Chapter 2. You find a river, and you find the tree of life in the midst of the garden. Somewhere where the tree of life is, there is a river of life.
This river goes out and becomes four great rivers. Then we are told, if you follow the river, you will find gold. “And the gold of that land is good,” it says. You will discover bdellium—in Hebrew, bedolach—and you will find onyx stone.
It may not mean much to you, but first of all, let me say that all these things are basic. You could easily overlook them. You could ignore them. You could sail down the river and not even know there is gold there on the riverbank. You could traverse over the ground and not even know that under it is onyx stone.
You remember the high priest had the twelve precious stones on his breastplate. But when he put those precious stones, representing the whole people of Israel, on his shoulders, they were onyx stones—one on each shoulder. All twelve names: six names here, six names there, as if onyx stone symbolised all the precious stones.
But the most remarkable of all is just the bdellium. Bdellium is a little aromatic plant that, when you break it, a white substance comes out that hardens and looks like a pearl.
We believe, the rabbis believe, and I believe also, that there was one little mystery here. Bedolach means this plant, but berodach means pearl. It is almost deliberate—the Spirit of God showing you what is said.
Do you understand? Are you getting what I am trying to say? At the end of the Bible, you have gold, precious stone, and pearl. In the beginning of the Bible, you have gold, precious stone, and pearl. It is hidden. You could easily walk past it. You could easily say, “There is nothing here. Nothing here.”
Do you know that in the tragedy in your life, there is a pearl—a pearl in the making? Or are you overlooking it?
Do you know that the ground you are walking on, the situations you are in, the problems you are in, the obstacles you are facing—do you know that there are precious stones hidden, unmined, undiscovered?
Do you know that relationship you find impossible, whether it is with children, whether it is with parents, whether it is with husband, whether it is with wife, whether it is some great-aunt, whether it is with grandparents—I do not know. Let me tell you: in that relationship which you think is destroying you is treasure.
You see, you and I can just go through life like a river cruise and never know that there is gold in the land, never know that there are precious stones, never know that there is pearl.
We, by the Spirit of God through faith, have to mine the gold. We have to find the stone.
When you come to the end of the Bible, the pearls have become the gates. The gold has become the streets and everything in the city. The precious stone is the foundation. The gold is so refined that it is transparent as crystal. The precious stone has been cut, polished, faceted, and set. The pearl—huge, such as you and I have never seen—has become the gate.
Amy Carmichael, when she was a young missionary, used to be known for the way she was always running backwards and forwards between the different houses of the children, her hair streaming behind her, her sari streaming behind her. I knew people who worked with her for years.
Then came the opportunity to open a new work in a city nearby, a town nearby. They went, but when they got there, the coolie—the man who should have come with the key—was late, two hours late. This is India.
When he came, tropical dusk had fallen. He unlocked the gate, swung it open, and they waited for Amy Carmichael to go first. She fell into a huge ditch that had been dug by coolies in the wrong place.
She broke her wrists, her hip, and her ankle. In great pain, in a jeep, she was carried over rough roads for an hour or two until they got her into hospital.
Amy Carmichael had no idea that one whole phase of her life had finished and her real ministry had begun. She wrote a little book that may be known to some of you, Rose from Brier. In it she apologised. She said, “You know, I think I have been six months with this problem—only six months—and I feel guilty trying to help others who are suffering.”
She had no idea that there would be thirty-something years more on her back. Yet out of that came something incredible. She wrote a poem:
And there shall blow a rose from your brier,
And from your brier shall blow a rose for others.
If it were not so, I would have told you.
Come then, say to Me, “My Lord, my Love, Thou art enough for me.”
I always commend Amy Carmichael’s books to those who are suffering inexplicable suffering. There are few books that can touch the heart. It is deep calling to deep.
I think of Fanny Crosby. When she was young, she had some infection in the eye. They called the doctor. When he came, he came with the wrong liquid. He put acid into her eyes, and it burnt her corneas. She never saw again.
And out of Fanny Crosby came the hymns that a whole number of generations sang.
Or I think of Horatio Spafford, called by God to Jerusalem, a successful lawyer who found the Lord Jesus through D. L. Moody.
When they got to New York, the whole family—his four girls and the governess—got on the ship. He went back because there was something that needed to be settled in Chicago.
On a perfectly calm night, in a full moon, the boat with his children, his wife, and the governess had a head-on collision with another boat. His four daughters were drowned. The governess was drowned. His wife, who was eight months pregnant, was washed up, having gone down three times, by the mast of the ship that came up between her legs and carried her to the surface.
She managed to get to England, where he was going to rejoin her. A few months after the birth of the boy, he died.
When Horatio Spafford was on the ship going to England, the captain came to him and said, “I think we are about as near as we can be to where you lost your daughters.” He sat down and wrote the hymn:
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll.
We could go on and on. I think of George Whitefield, who was born with a cast in his eyes. One eye looked that way and one eye looked that way. They called him Captain Two Eyes.
Every time he preached on sin, at least two people in the congregation got convicted.
Oh, beloved friend, there is gold in the earth, and you do not know it—the gold of Christ’s life, His nature. He is advising you to discover it by experience. That is the only way. Experience.
This precious stone is material for glory. I must finish.
But you know, my great-uncle was one of the great jade experts and lived his whole life in Beijing. He was a lover of antiques, which unfortunately I have inherited. I think it is in the bloodstream.
And I was saying, an old missionary came to us, and she stayed with Auntie Dagner.