Turning Point

Voiceover (Male): Feeling discouraged because your weaknesses outnumber your strengths? Take heart. As a Christian, your greatest strength comes from your weakness. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah considers the words of the Apostle Paul: "When I am weak, then I am strong," and what this powerful truth means for us today. Listen as David introduces his message, "Finding Strength Through Weakness."

Dr. David Jeremiah: When I saw that this message was on the schedule for today, I couldn't help but think how timely it was for me, because I look back over my shoulder. These have been the most challenging days of my life as I've been recovering from a rather paralyzing disease. God has been good. I've made recovery. I'm strengthened, but boy, was I weak, and many days still find that weakness.

And yet I find this to be true: when I am weak, He is strong. Sometimes when I felt like I couldn't preach, I've preached, and it's almost like I've been standing alongside of me, and somebody else was preaching. This is what happens when you know the Lord and the dynamic of His presence in your life. So, from 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verses seven through 10, we're going to spend two days talking about finding strength through weakness. Stay with us for every moment.

Don't forget, we are excited about going to the Caribbean. We always are excited about going there, especially in the wintertime when everybody's cold and they want to get away from the wind and the snow and see some blue water and sunshine. That's what we'll do right after Christmas. We do this every year. It's our annual conference cruise to help us review the year and prepare for the new one.

It's a great way to do it, and it gives you the time that you can sit in a beautiful place with the beautiful scenery and ask God to speak to your heart, and He does. If you're not planning to go with us, why don't you make some plans to do so? You can find out all about it. The dates are December 26th through January the 2nd. We'll be aboard this beautiful cruise ship on New Year's Day, New Year's Eve. We'd like to have you with us. Find out about it as you go to our website and check it out. Here is part one of "Finding Strength Through Weakness."

Back in August of 1955, Canon H.K. Luce of Durham, England, wrote a letter to the London Times deploring the fact that Billy Graham had been given an invitation to come and speak at the University of Cambridge. Billy Graham's approach, argued the Canon, would be unthinkable before a university audience. In fact, he said, Billy Graham will be laughed out of the court.

This began a long and lively correspondence in England's great newspaper as Billy Graham prepared to come there and speak. He was at that time only 36 years of age, but even at 36, he had had great experience and would have been acceptable in any audience that you can imagine. But the thought of going to Cambridge University to speak to the aristocratic audience of that university began to weigh heavily on Billy Graham.

Writing in his own biography some 40 years later, Billy Graham quotes a personal letter that he wrote to John R.W. Stott in England about his coming to Cambridge. He said, "I have been deeply concerned and in much thought about our Cambridge mission this autumn. I do not know if I have ever felt more inadequate and totally unprepared for a mission. And as I think over the possibility for messages, I realize how shallow and weak my presentations are."

In fact, Billy Graham said, "I was so overwhelmed with my unpreparedness for this invitation that I almost decided to cancel my appearance. And were it not for the fact that plans have gone so far, I would have done it, but perhaps it's best to go through with it." And go through with it he did. I will tell you what happened at the end of this message.

Often the descriptions that are used to describe the Christian experience are apparent contradictions. We call them paradoxes. I never realized there were so many of them in the New Testament until I began to be sensitive to this truth. As I would read my Bible, I would say, "Oh, there's another one."

The Bible teaches us that the way up is the way down; that God resists the proud, but He lifts up the humble. We saw how that worked in the life of the Lord Jesus, who left heaven and humbled Himself, even to the death of the cross, and was highly exalted so that one day every knee will bow before Him.

Today we come to another paradox. We find ourselves face to face with a disconnect in the words of the Bible. What we are about to read makes no sense on paper. It made no sense in Paul's day. It makes even less sense in our day. It is a strange statement, a seemingly contradictory statement. It was made by Paul, who was one of the best-read men of his day, a graduate of the University of Tarsus, and a postgraduate student of Gamaliel.

Paul, writing to the Corinthians in the 12th chapter and the 10th verse, and at the end of the verse, makes this statement. He says, "For when I am weak, then I am strong. For when I am weak, then I am strong." As you begin to explore the context of this statement, if you go back to the beginning of 2 Corinthians, you will discover that the entire book is filled with truths like this.

In the first chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul talks about finding comfort through suffering. In the fourth chapter, he talks about finding life through death. In the third chapter, he talks about finding glory through shame. And here in chapters 12 and 13, he talks about finding strength in weakness.

It is clear from understanding this book that at the core of Paul's concept of Christianity were these apparently contradictory statements that tug at your intellect to make you stop and ask, what could this possibly mean? This is the message that is wrapped up in the passage of scripture to which we have opened today.

2 Corinthians chapter 12 is a well-known passage of scripture. Here we are introduced to an experience that Paul the Apostle had. It was an amazing thing that Almighty God had done for him. By divine appointment, Paul had been lifted up to see the glories of heaven. It was so awesome to Paul that he didn't even know how to explain it.

In the first six verses of the 12th chapter, he tries to tell us about it, and he doesn't even want to take full credit for it. He says, "I knew a man once who was lifted up to heaven." He's talking about himself. He said, "Whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know." Paul wasn't willing to tell us all that happened. Maybe he was not capable of telling us all that happened. But what Paul does know is this: on a certain occasion, because of divine appointment, he had been lifted up to see the glories of heaven and no man had ever seen them before.

Something is about to happen as the result of that in Paul's life that he could not possibly have predicted. He is about to experience weakness in his life. The experience of weakness in the believer's life is the beginning of our understanding this passage. We ask first of all, why would weakness ever be experienced? Why is Paul going to have weakness in his life having had this glorious experience recorded for us in the first six verses?

Because God takes a different view of things than we do. God sees us and He sees all that is behind us and before us. God knew that this great exaltation and revelation, while it was a great experience for Paul, was potentially dangerous. It could have called Paul from his mission and caused his downfall. Two times Paul explains this to us in the text.

Two times he says this: "Lest I should be exalted above measure." Eugene Peterson's paraphrase puts it this way. He has Paul say, "Lest I should get the big head." Have you ever had the big head? Paul was saying, "I was given this weakness, this experience in my life, and God allowed it because He didn't want me to get overwhelmed with the importance of what had happened."

So that Paul would not be ruined by his heavenly vision, God allowed Satan to send a thorn into Paul's life. Paul tells us that the thorn given to him was for the purpose of humbling him and preventing him from boasting of his revelations. The humility of his life became a precondition of the indwelling power of Christ.

There's interesting logic behind all of this. Had Paul not been humbled by the thorn in his flesh, he would have been tempted to boast of the divine visions as though they were his own. He would have used them to exalt himself. But this would have amounted to denying God's power in his life. Instead of giving God the glory for what happened, he could have taken the glory to himself. Indeed, it would have been tantamount to usurping the role of God's glory in his own life, which is unthinkable.

In other words, where there is pride and arrogance, there cannot, by definition, be the divine power of God. And God knew that. Why is weakness experienced? Well, in Paul's case, God allowed weakness in his life to keep him from something far worse than the weakness he was experiencing.

Now how is this weakness expressed? Look down at your Bibles at verse seven. "A thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure." How many of you know Satan's on a leash? We learn that in the book of Job, don't we? Satan's on a leash. How many of you know that Satan can't do anything God doesn't give him permission to do? Right now he's being given a great deal of freedom, but one of the days in the future that's all going to end.

In this situation, God allowed Satan, according to the scripture, to drive a stake into Paul's life. Literally, the word "thorn" is the word for "stake." God allowed Satan to buffet Paul. Really, the word "buffet" means to beat up. What happened was, after he got back from his visitation in heaven and what he saw that was so awesome, one day he was blindsided by something. The Bible refers to it as a stake being driven into his life and being buffeted or beaten by Satan.

What was this thorn? I have absolutely no idea. Nor does anybody else, even though many claim to have figured it out. Some people think that it was the loss of Paul's eyesight. I can't think of anything that would have been more of a broadside to the great intellectual apostle than to be put in such a situation where he could no longer read his manuscripts or his scrolls.

I am a student, and once in a while I've thought about what it would be like not to be able to take my books down off the shelves and open them up and be able to read them clearly or use my computer as I write and as I study. Some people think that's what happened to Paul. One of the reasons they say that is because in the book of Galatians and in the sixth chapter and the 11th verse, Paul, writing to the Galatian believers, makes this statement.

He says, "See with what large letters I have written to you in my own hand." And so some of the scholars have said, "See, there it is. Paul was losing his eyesight and he had to write in big letters." Well, what if Paul wrote in big letters because he wanted them to think it was really important? Do you ever do that? When I'm writing and I want to make sure that I really don't forget this, I write in big letters. That doesn't mean I'm blind.

No, we don't know what really happened. I mean, I could give you a list of all the things that have been suggested. It would be absolutely worthless information. What we do know is this: that something happened so dramatic in Paul's life that it changed everything. Let us suppose for a moment that Paul had supplied us details about his thorn in the flesh, and that just for the sake of argument, his thorn in the flesh was some particular kind of epilepsy.

If he had done that, every generation of Christians—the great majority of whom will never come close to epilepsy—would be inclined to dismiss this whole passage, saying, "Well, that just has to do with the Apostle and his epilepsy, and it has nothing to do with me." No, by his silence as to the nature of Paul's problem, our Lord has made this wonderful passage meaningful to anyone who is going through any kind of trouble anytime.

I don't know how many of you here might think you have a thorn in the flesh. All of us have problems, don't we? Some of you are going through physical problems right now as you get older. It is an amazing thing that you go through. I'm not there yet, but I've heard about this. You fix one malady and in the process of fixing that, you create another one.

You take medicine for your arthritis and it makes you sick to your stomach. So then you have to take medicine for your sick stomach and it creates other kinds of problems. You might have a physical problem. You may have a relational problem. Whatever it is, you could qualify as somebody who's had a thorn in the flesh. You're kind of getting beat up right now by life.

God allowed this to happen on purpose for Paul's good. I need to tell you that when this happened, God didn't abandon Paul. In fact, in verses eight and nine of the 12th chapter, look down at your Bibles, notice what happened. And this is so normal, so everyday kind of thing. "Concerning this thing," Paul wrote, "I pleaded with the Lord three times that this thing might depart from me." And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you."

Now, let's don't be too hard on Paul, because that is exactly what we do, isn't it? As soon as we get a major issue, we say, "Lord, get this thing out of my life! Lord, I don't want this. I don't need it. I don't need it now. I don't need it in the midst of everything else. Lord Jesus, please take this away!" Paul came to the Lord three times with this request. "Lord God, I can't go on like this. Take this out of my life! Oh, Lord Jesus, I don't need this anymore. Please remove it!"

The Lord said, "Paul, I'm not going to do that. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to help you get through it." No! No, I don't want to get through it. I want it to go away! You guys know what I'm talking about? Sure you do. Did you ever stop and think about the fact that the three prayers that Paul prayed here in 2nd Corinthians are very similar to the three prayers that our Lord prayed in Gethsemane?

In Gethsemane three times Jesus prayed, when the disciples were sleeping on him. And what was his prayer? He was praying that the cup might be removed, that he might not have to drink this cup. Nobody knows all that's involved in that. We certainly know that Jesus wasn't asking not to go to the cross. That's the reason for which he came.

Here's what I think. I think that in the Garden of Gethsemane in his humanity, the full weight of the sin of the world descended upon the Lord, and for maybe that moment of time, he realized what was going to happen when he hung on the cross bearing all the sin of all the world. And he said, "Oh God, let this cup pass from me." Three times.

God did for His own Son Jesus what Jesus did for Paul. He said no. And by the way, aren't you glad that the Father God did not lift the burden of sin off of His Son in response to his request? Because had he done that, we would be lost and we would be without any hope at all. Almighty God said to Paul, "No, I'm not going to take this away. But in the place of the thorn in the flesh, I am going to do something for you very important."

When God told Paul that His grace was sufficient for him, which is at the end of this passage, He was simply assuring the Apostle that while his thorn would not be removed, everything that he needed to deal with that thorn would be provided and available to him at all times and in sufficient supply. Just as he writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 about the grace of God, Paul would understand that his God was able to make all grace abound so that always having all sufficiency in all things, he would have an abundance.

First of all, He didn't take away his weakness. He gave him sufficient provision. And then along with that, He gave him supernatural power. Notice at the end of verse nine: "For My strength is made perfect in weakness." The Lord told Paul that the only way he would ever experience the fullness of the power of God was to be made aware of his own weakness without it.

A.B. Simpson commented on this verse on an occasion and he said, "Here is the secret of divine all-sufficiency: to come to the end of everything in ourselves and in our circumstances. When we reach this place, we will stop asking for sympathy because of our hard situation or bad treatment. For we will recognize these things as the very conditions of our blessing, and we will turn from them to God and find in them a claim upon God's power."

The experience of weakness in the believer's life, illustrated by Paul, the exchange for weakness: God's provision of supernatural grace and supernatural power. Now notice what happened at the end of this exchange is that there is an end of weakness—not Paul's weakness, but weakness in Paul. He says in verses nine and 10 that when this happened to him, when through his weakness God's power descended upon him, two things happened.

First of all, he discovered a new ability. He says in verse nine, "Therefore, most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Paul came to understand, men and women, that his thorn in the flesh was God working in his life. And what God told Paul was this. He said, "Son, you're not going to be without the grace you need to do your job and get through this. You will not be without strength to be My ambassador.

The creative difference from now on is going to be like this: your weakness is going to serve to magnify My greatness and My glory in such a way that no one will ever again be able to explain you in human terms." That's what happened. That's what happened to Paul. In that moment as he describes this experience, it became no longer about Paul and all about Christ.

It came to the place where Paul, as gifted as he was, as intellectual as he was, as learned and disciplined as he was—all of that was put aside in his weakness and the power of Almighty God filled the vacuum. He discovered a new ability, and then he discovered a new attitude. Oh, how many of you know we could use some new attitudes these days? Have you heard all the complaining and griping about all the stuff that's going on?

It's a sorry thing. We just live in such terrible times. Paul said that what happened when God allowed this experience in his life is he developed a new attitude. Notice what he says in verse 10: "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, and in reproaches, and in needs, and in persecutions, and in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Now, please hear me. Paul's not a masochist. He's not saying, "Oh, I just love it when I'm hurting so badly." He's not saying, "Lord God, pour out Your wrath on me. The harder the better." Paul is saying, "I now understand that even when I'm going through difficult times, it is because I am still in God's purview. I am still in God's plan. He's up to something in my life, and I take pleasure in it because I can't wait to see what God's going to do." Amen.

We'll have more of this tomorrow. This is an exciting concept. It certainly does put things in perspective, which is what this series is all about: making sense of it all, seeing the world with a biblical perspective.

The Bible has played an essential role in American history. As we celebrate 250 years of history in our nation, we need to remember that from the Mayflower to modern times, America's been moved and intellectually built from the Bible. It's been a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. That's why, during this month when we major on this celebration, we're making available a very special book called "100 Bible Verses That Made America" from Rob Morgan. 360-page hardback book that you will really be blessed by. It's yours for the asking when you send your gift today to Turning Point. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

Voiceover (Male): For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series "Making Sense of It All," please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine Turning Point and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio. Or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of Robert J. Morgan's inspiring book, 100 Bible Verses That Made America. It's yours for a gift of any amount.

You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, available in your choice of handsome and durable cover options. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series "Making Sense of It All" on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.