Second Corinthians 4:8-10 God ordained trials and suffering to reveal His Glory

Well, good morning. So as you see, we're in a very interesting part of scripture, to go where no man has gone before, as they say. Some of these verses are very interesting, very challenging, but actually very, very beneficial too. And it's a privilege to be able to do this, and both Mike and I feel it's a privilege. This wasn't our first occupation, but the Lord has seen fit to put us here, so we're gonna, you know, walk with Him.

Okay, so I entitled this section, I'm gonna primarily focus on verses eight and nine, even though we're gonna look around those verses, but eight and nine talks about God's ordained trials and sufferings to reveal His glory. So here's kind of the outline. We've covered the first two weeks.

We covered Christ's ministry, the glorious gospel, and how men are blinded. And that's just a really interesting thing. We went through that a couple times in the last couple weeks. that the God of this world, Satan, is blinding the minds of unbelievers. But God is in control and His Holy Spirit is putting forth His gospel, His good news, and men are being saved, even with that men being blinded by Satan. And then we talked last week about the glorious gospel and kind of comparing the gospel of the glory of God and we're going to review that a little bit today. And then we're going to look at verses 8 and 9 today talking about this trials and suffering.

And then next week we're going to look at the manifestation in our bodies of Christ's life and the fact that we have the dying of the Lord Jesus. the believer has a dying Lord Jesus in his body. Really, that's a toughie to do that accurately. So that'll be next week. Okay, so let's look at this week. So I used this comparison before.

If you look at verses 4 and 6, Verse 4 talks about the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. So first of all, what is the gospel? The gospel is the good news, it's called. It's the fact that if you look at 1 Corinthians 15, the first couple of verses, Christ died for our sins, He was buried, He was raised on the third day, and men saw Him. That's the message. That message, in a way, seems too simple. People have criticized Christianity. They say, well, that's too simple a message. Christ died, Christ was buried, and He was risen. But that's the message that the Holy Spirit's putting out to save men and women.

So that's part of God's glory. God's glory is expressed in the gospel. Then we see God's glory expressed in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. So there are two aspects here. The first aspect, unbelievers need to see the light of the gospel, which comes from the glory of Christ, or glory of God. And then, once you're a believer, you need to understand. The believer needs to see the light of the knowledge to grow in grace, which comes from the gospel of God. I'm sorry, which comes from the glory of God.

Okay, so that's kind of what we were reviewing last week a little bit. So let's look at, let's go on here. So we had this comparison between the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ and the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ. And you know, it took me a while to see that. I remember taking, I was, I had this exercise bicycle I ride on. So I'm riding on that and I had the verses there and I'm looking and I said, well look at this. the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, that's verse four, look at this, the light of the gospel of the knowledge of God, what's the difference? So, you know, it's neat, it's a person, unbelievers need to understand the glorious gospel, and then believers need to have the knowledge, and we're to grow in grace and the knowledge of the glory of God, so pretty cool stuff. Okay, so let's go on.

So now, from last week, For God, who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. So here we have God is the one. So this is speaking of man's salvation. How does man get saved? God's light, or the understanding of who he is, is shown in man's heart. So God is the one that's doing that.

And that's, even though Satan is blinding men, God's light can shine in their hearts. Lord Shine here has shown is the idea to shine, to give forth light, is to give understanding, if you will, and it's a fact. Aristotle's past point fact for every single believer. Every single believer has had God's light shine in his heart. He couldn't be saved otherwise. So God takes the action and man's part is to believe. Heart here, heart in scripture, that's the center of man's being, his entire mental and moral being.

Cardia, and that's where we get cardiac from. So there are many parallels, if you think about, this verse talks about light shines into darkness, and that's kind of a comparison like with Genesis, when God said, let there be light. So Paul's making a comparison here. So here's some comparisons.

The only true light I know is God's light when I'm saved. Physical light of Genesis was by His word. God spoke, He said, let there be light, and there was light. So now we are born again by His word, the written word, what we have in our Bibles. So a comparison between God's spoke and creation, and He speaks in men's hearts through His word, either His spoken word or His written word. His word, God's word, in my heart dispels spiritual darkness. The spiritual darkness is that he was blinded until that light shone in his heart. God's word at work in creation in contrast to God's work personally in my heart. So that's that wonderful phrase there. So now we go on with the rest of the verse here. So to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. So to understand that, I had to kind of go back and look at the original a little bit.

Interlinear is a word-for-word translation from the Greek text. So the only difference between the interlinear and what you have there in the New American Standard is the phrase, to give light versus an illumination. In reality, there's only two words there in the Greek. For. to give or resulting in, an illumination. Light or bring to light, an illumination.

So I like how Weiss translated this, resulting in an illumination being given of the knowledge of the glory of God. So we get illumination, the desire of God is to give us illumination and knowledge of God's glory. So the illumination tells us why God's word has shown in our hearts. And what follows is the content, it's the knowledge. And knowledge is this word gnosis. Seeking to know, an inquiry, an investigation with respect to the glory of God. If you remember last week, if you were here, I had this chart, I'm not going to repeat it again, but it kind of shows, so what is, the question is, what is the glory of God? And don't think bright lights. That's true. Remember the Mount of Transfiguration? You know, Christ was revealed in all his glory, and people, you can't look upon him. You can't see him.

But the glory of God speaks of his essence. That's God's character. That's his essence. And in scripture, that's delineated in many, many verses. And we know that God's essence, or his attributes, if you will, we know that he's holy, righteous, and just. He's immutable. He's omnipresent. He's omniscient. He's also love. He's grace and mercy, all these attributes, and you can find verses for each of those. That's the essence of God, and that's called His glory in scripture. So don't think of light so much, think of essence. That's who God is. So we have the privilege as believers to have this knowledge of God's eternal essence, which is just amazing.

Okay, so now today's verses. So with that in mind, We're going to move on today. Okay, so if you notice here, this actually is from verse 7 through verse 10 is only one sentence. There's only one period in there. If you look carefully, some semicolons, some commas or whatever, but only one period. So the main verb here in this long sentence is, we have.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of His power will be of God and not from ourselves. And now in 8 and 9, he's gonna talk about we are afflicted in every way, or maybe better, from every side, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not despairing. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always caring about in the body, our bodies, the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifest in our body.

Okay, so now I have a, I have a picture of that. I sound like Hal. I listen to Hal. He loves pictures. So I'm not as fancy as Hal, but this is my take on these verses. So how can I illustrate these verses in a picture? Picture in words. Okay, here we go. And our brother Hal, he was pastor here and elder here for many, many years. And just an incredible believer.

But anyway, he labeled this section, our glorious possessions. And if you look at what I read in verses 8 and 9, they don't sound too glorious to me, right? Trials and tribulations and suffering, all this stuff, that sounds like a pretty hard road to go.

But actually, in reality, they're to give God glory. bullet 1, or section 1, verse 7 says, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, or clay pots, that's one translation. So we have this marvelous treasure. And if you have a verb in a sentence, it has modifiers. And one of the modifiers in verse 8 and 9 modify that verb. So we have from every side trials and sufferings. And I listed half the list of afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. So we have this treasure. At the same time, we have these trials and sufferings.

And then lastly, another thing we have, which modifies the main verb, we have in the body the dying of Jesus. Well, I'm going to postpone the discussion of that to next week. So pray for me. Study it a little bit. See what you think. I mean, it's interesting. On that verse, you'll find interesting, a lot of people have a lot of interesting ideas about that.

Some people think They gotta go out and beat themselves up. I gotta suffer like Jesus. They beat themselves in the back and they do all kinds of harmful things to their bodies. Is that what he means, the dying of the Lord Jesus? I don't think so, but that's next week. Okay, so let's look at, we're gonna look at mainly the center part here today. Okay, so first I wanna review the treasure and earthen vessels part. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.

So that's our number one, that's our first possession, using Hal's terminology, these glorious possessions. Our first possession is, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, it's present tense, continuous action, we don't see, we always have, a believer in the Lord Jesus always has this treasure. Whether that treasure is seen is another story, but he always has that treasure. You could translate with that present tense, we are having, And it's the main verb in verses 7 through 10. The treasure is in earthen vessels, the believers. From six, we see this treasure. So what is the treasure? From the context, the treasure is the glory of God, the essence of God, who God is.

So we have the glory of God in us. And you say, wow, how come Christians aren't better? I ask myself that. How come we aren't better? Wow, look what we got here. Amazing. We also have something else that causes a problem. Okay, this glory is to radiate in our hearts. It's to illuminate the hearts of men. And this actually is from, I think, Macaulay, or maybe it's from Hal. Anyway, and that's other men, not ourselves.

We have the most prized and valuable content And this first comes to mind in Colossians 1.27, this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. So we have, as a believer in the Lord Jesus, we have the very life of our Savior. Okay, but we have that, that's our first possession. Possession number two is we have this whole list of things.

So to understand this I went back to the inner linear again and I tried to use the same words. The problem is the inner linear, the King James, the numeric standard, they all have slightly different words for these trials and sufferings while your head starts going off the trails or tracks or whatever. So I use the American Standard and I use those names to make it easier. But the key part here is from every side, just to connect it in to the main verb. We have the main verb from every side. It's coming from every way. It's like being shot with arrows. They come in all different directions. We have trials and sufferings, and that's a word that I think Hal's used a lot. It describes all those things, the rest of verse 8 and 9.

An important thing to kind of come in, when you come into studying about trials and sufferings from Scripture, you have to realize that for a believer, for an unbeliever it's a different situation. Unbeliever, the only thing an unbeliever needs to understand is the gospel, the good news. Once he's understood and trusted in the gospel and becomes saved, then he moves from that state to a different state, and this is the state we're talking about here as a believer. So you have, as God's child, you'll have God-appointed trials and sufferings. So you say, well, Roger, where in the world do you see that? I don't see that in my Bible. Well, it's actually there.

Maybe a little bit hard to understand. So here's a verse that is quoted many times, and I think it's accurate. First Thessalonians 3 verses 2 and 4. So this is Paul writing, he's talking about, he says, we sent Timothy to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith so that, another little Whenever we see a so that, there ought to be like a little light flashing.

Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Purpose, purpose, purpose, purpose, purpose. So that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we have been destined, or maybe better, appointed for this. So Paul is saying, amazing as you might think, You think, why in the world would the Lord appoint me? You look at your life now as a believer, and you look at your trials, your difficulties in your life. Why in the world would the Lord appoint me to that? I wouldn't appoint myself to that. I don't want those things. I don't want those difficulties in life, but God in his wisdom does.

He allows this list that we're gonna see to happen in believers' lives. So, as I was talking with Vani, so if you're looking for the health and wealth gospel, Don't really read the Bible. If you read the Bible, you're going to come to a different conclusion. It's not the health and wealth gospel. It's a life that is blessed. It is blessed with this wonderful treasure. It's also blessed, in a sense, with these trials.

And they're there for a purpose. So just looking at the Greek words have tense mood and voice. So listen, Hal kind of delineated that. It's in the passive voice, so God is acting upon the believer. We are being acted upon by God. Secondly, it's indicative mood. That's the mood of reality. It's the reality in a believer's life. And here's the part that's the toughie. Present tense. It's continuous in your life. Don't expect it to end. So I can't promise you that after this message all your trials will be solved. No, you may actually get more trials. That's supposed to be a joke.

Okay. Okay, alright. Okay, so here we go. Trials and Sufferings in verses 8 and 9. So I'm just going to put them all up here. So basically we have pairs. And this is the challenging part of this verse. Verses. It says, So we have from every side, that's the first part, we have the following.

We're being afflicted, but not crushed. We're being perplexed, but not despairing. We're being persecuted, but not forsaken. We're being struck down, but not destroyed. So basically it says, the first one Paul says, this is true, he says you're gonna be afflicted, perplexed, go in the left hand side of this, before the butt, you're gonna be afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and struck down. But he says you're not being crushed, despairing, forsaken and being destroyed.

So, and this is from a quote here, God is purposefully, is purposeful in every one of your appointments to a trial to measure fulfilling God's eternal purpose. So let's just go on and we'll try to explain. So it does seem confusing. So why does God start with a list on the left and then He says you can't be this?

Because what you find, you can find cases in scripture where believers are despairing and forsaken. I can find two examples. One will amaze you. I can find an example in scripture. So why in the world would God say that we're not to be despairing, we're not to be forsaken. Why would he do that? Okay, so the four trials, so here are the four trials that God says we're going to have. That's true of all believers. The first one is being afflicted. It's the idea that you feel pressed by circumstances of life, by family, spouses, children, your job, whatever it might be.

As someone has said, your children never stop being your children, right? They never will. As old as they get, until the Lord takes you home, they're always gonna be your children. You're always gonna be concerned about them. And in retrospect, you could say, they're always concerned about you.

So it works both ways. So those pressures and those difficulties will always be in our life. He says you're being afflicted. That's going to happen. A natural part of life. So here's the verse that, actually I quoted this earlier, but there's a little additional part.

So he uses this word afflictions twice, in three and four. so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions, for you yourself know that we have been destined or appointed for this. And Paul keeps saying in verse four, we kept telling you in advance that you were going to suffer afflictions, and so it came to pass, as you know.

So Paul, by Paul's testimony, you're gonna suffer afflictions. It's not gonna be a health and wealth gospel. You're gonna suffer afflictions. Next word, perplexed. This is about being uncertain of how to proceed. You're at a loss, you don't know which way to turn, without a way out.

In Galatians here, it uses this word. So Paul talks about the Galatian church. He says, So Paul was perplexed about what to do with those believers in Galatia there. So that's the first two words. You have two more. Persecuted. This is mental and physical criticism by others. And a couple here, Romans chapter, here's a challenging one. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse.

And then in First Corinthians 15.9, for I'm the least of all the apostles, I'm not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. So that's the third of those promised trials in a believer's life. And the fourth one is being struck down You're powerless in the circumstances or trial. So this actually is the case where we have the Greek word that shows up in the translation of the Old Testament. It says in Psalm 37, Though he fail, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him in his hand.

Okay, so we got those first four. So here's kind of a summary chart. This is from our brother Hal back in 2004, so it's been a few years. So on the left again, we have the ones. We have this. We have, if you notice his top title, this but not this. So the believer is to have afflictions, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down, but not to have crushed, despairing, forsaken, and being destroyed. So now we're going to look at the right-hand side in more detail.

And here's where we're going to see it. We're going to see a couple cases where he says it's not to be true of the believer, but we're going to find it is true. And we're going to ask the question, well, how does that happen? How does it happen that God says it's not to be true and it is true?

So this word, being crushed, is the idea to, I was gonna stop for a second, it's feel boxed in, anguished because of circumstances, crowded into a narrow space, and the illustration that's used on this, are you guys familiar with Star Wars, the first movie, right? What was the first movie, The Trash Compactor, right? That's used many times. This is this word, I mean, it's the idea that things are closing in.

And the Lord says, I don't want you to go there. I don't want you to be in a situation where those problems of life have so crowded you in that you just, you can't move. You're squashed. You're into a narrow space. That's that word, kind of a pictorial. So it was tough to find a good translation of this word that was accurate, and here's a verse that used it, but it's hard to understand. It says, you Corinthians are not compressed nor narrowed down in us, but you are compressed and narrowed down in your affections. I'm not sure I can totally explain that, but they use the word that I'm talking about, so.

Okay, so now, despairing. Okay? You don't see a way. So this is a case where you've gone from, you know, list A to list B in the sense you were doing this but now you're despairing. You don't see a way through. You're without any resources. Utterly without a way out.

And here's a case where we have the Apostle Paul, amazingly enough, was in this situation. And this actually has been a very comforting verse to me, because I realize that the Apostle Paul could be in this state. He shouldn't have been there, but he was. So let me read the verse.

In 2 Corinthians 1.8, for we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our afflictions which came to us in Asia. that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength so that we despaired even of our life. And you know, the next step after despair is not a person, they take their life. That's usually the next step after the despair. So that's a pretty incredible statement for the Apostle Paul. Things were so bad and the Lord doesn't want us to be there. He doesn't want us despairing. But Christians do.

And the next one is being forsaken. you feel abandoned and helpless, to be forsaken, abandoned, leaving straits or helpless. I want to present this example. You can meet me after in the parking lot if you want. Okay, here's the example of our Savior going to the cross. How difficult was the cross? looks pretty difficult to me. So here's what he said. You guys can know this by heart already. In Matthew 27, about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabbathani? That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You know, it's the God-man, fully God and fully man, he felt forsaken.

But also, to be fair to the context, just in the previous chapter, he said, when talking about taking the cup, he said, not your will, I mean, not my will, Lord, but your will be done. He submitted to the Father's will. But there was a point in time when he felt forsaken.

Okay. Then lastly, being destroyed, Actually, don't think of destroyed as annihilation. It's not extinction. It's ruin. It's a loss of well-being, and the Lord doesn't want us to be there either. In John 10, 28, I give them eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. So we've had both lists. We've had the four pairs, four and four. So now, here's some things to think about. Okay. Can a believer be crushed, despairing, forsaken, or destroyed? So what do you think? I presented two cases. I found the Apostle Paul was despairing. I found our Savior felt forsaken. I would say yes.

Will God ever be the source of the above sufferings? Will He ever, does He desire that we go there? He doesn't, He just said we're not. He just told us not to go there, okay? So Paul tells us that believers will be afflicted, that's the left-hand side, will be afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down, and we've been destined for these. Paul tells us not to, not being crushed, despairing, forsaken, or destroyed. And so, okay, and then I came back, I put this in twice, I apologize, but it's the same one where Paul is despairing of his life. Okay, so now a couple more observations.

God desires that we respond in faith to these temptations. So scripture looks at, James is particularly good about this, talks about temptations, how we're tempted, we're tempted to sin. So these are temptations, I think, of being crushed, despairing, forsaken, destroyed. So what's our response to temptation?

Basically, in the Gospel of John, it talks about abiding in me. It says, Abide in me, and I in you, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in me. It abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. You know, we often take this in terms of growth. You think, well, this is talking about growth here. was also talking about fellowship with our Savior, walking with Him rather than taking in the temptation to go down that path of despair or feeling forsaken or whatever.

But there's kind of two additional parallels I see here. Two familiar terms we see in scripture, walking in the light, we see that in 1 John a lot, and walking by the Spirit, we see that in Galatians and other places, in Corinthians, we covered earlier. So here are a couple of verses in 1 John 1-7.

But if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with him, fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. So God's desire is that believers are to walk in the light, abide in Him, walk in the light, and then walk by the Spirit. But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. So that's what God desires that we are in fellowship with Him, we're walking with Him, we're abiding with Him, or the vernacular says we're hanging out with Him. We're walking with Him rather than walking in this difficult situation.

And we do that by faith. So, one key aspect of this, how do we, what understanding we need to have about every believer, if you read your Bibles carefully, you'll see every believer has two natures. He has a sin nature from Adam, and he has a new nature from God, from Christ. the very life of Christ.

So, verse Romans 6.11 tells us, even so, consider or reckon yourselves to be dead to these sin or these sin nature, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Since we've been separated from our sin nature, we no longer need to follow the temptations, feeling boxed in, despairing, forsaken, or loss of well-being. God's desire is that we count upon that we are now alive in God, alive in God in Christ Jesus.

And I love one of my favorite passages that many times I quote to people that talk about God's concern for them in Hebrews 13, 5. It's just so wonderful to remember this. He said, 13.5b says, for he himself has said, I'm reading from the Weiss translation, for he himself has said, and the statement is on record, I will not, I will not cease to sustain you and uphold you. I will not, I will not, I will not let you down. So that being of good courage, we are saying, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what shall man do to me. So God's desire is that we are in fellowship with him, walking with him, abiding with him. As these trials and difficulties come into our lives, we're to count upon that we're separated from.

We don't need to go down that path. Okay, then. Actually, I don't have two. People were asking me, how many final thoughts do you have today? Well, this story could count as a final thought. And the reason this comes up is because one day I got carried away. I had a bunch of charts from previous presentations, so I put in like three or four final thoughts. So people said, Roger, I thought a final thought was only going to be one chart. How come you've got four charts? So now each week they ask me, how many final thoughts? So this is sort of a final thought. This is from 2004.

So Hal was an engineer. He loved block diagrams. If you know what that means to a person, an engineer, fine. If you don't know what it means, I'm sorry. OK. So this first block, we have that main verb, right? We're having. This is something a believer is having. We're having this wonderful treasure, the glory of God by the presence of Christ. We're having that. Then we're also having coming at us, impacting us, to us, trials and sufferings, afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. So what's the purpose in this? So that's for a purpose. God is a purposeful God. He doesn't do things without a reason for doing it.

His purpose is that you abide in Him in our trials. God beams the glory of Christ from our hearts. The glory of Christ illumines the hearts of men as seen through us. And this reveals God's eternal purpose. He reveals the glory of Christ through us and the excellency of the power through us. And the result of that is that God is glorified. So the treasure you're having, this wonderful possession, and the trials you're having, all are for a purpose, to glorify God. He doesn't do things just as, I'm gonna give you a hard time, I'm gonna have you. He does it for a purpose. He's a purposeful God. He never does anything without a purpose.

And now, final thought. Okay, I chose a verse for the final thought today, one you know already. This is Paul when he had a trial. Remember he had the thorn in the flesh? This was Paul's, the Lord talked to Paul, and he convinced Paul to change his mind about his trial. Hopefully that will change our minds about our trials.

And he, the Lord, said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. For power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I would rather boast about my weakness so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ's sake.

For when I am weak, then I am strong. And we'll get to this verse down the road here a bit. It's chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians. Marvelous verse. Just, I'm well content with weaknesses. That's just not, that's not the American way, right? American way is I can do it. And I'm not putting down the American way. I'm just saying we need to think the way God thinks.

And our weakness only can glorify Him. Only can glorify Him when we give Him credit and give Him the honor for taking us through every aspect of our lives. All right, let's close in prayer. We thank you, Father. We thank you for this day, for the marvelous blessings that we have, Lord. Your wonderful word, we pray for your wisdom as we teach it each week. In Christ's name, amen.