wonderful! If He removes your thorn, glorious! But whether He does or doesn’t, you have found something better. Instead of being exalted above measure, bragging about a vision, you boast of a victory. It usually takes some kind of thorn to bring us through to this supreme experience. Notice that Paul says, “THERE WAS GIVEN TO ME a thorn in the flesh.” Although it was a messenger of Satan, it was, nevertheless, definitely a part of the process. It took trouble to bring triumph. Do not think of Paul’s thorn as something extraneous. It was the means God allowed to bring Paul to a greater blessing. It was part of his supreme expe rience for without it he would have been exalted above measure and he would never have reached the point of utter dependence on Christ. Better be buffeted by Satan than exalted above measure! You will observe that Paul did not merely re sign himself to his affliction. Resignation is better than rebellion or a stiff-upper-lip Stoicism but it is not the highest attitude. We may acquiesce and resign to the inevitable because we have to ! After all, there isn’t much we can do about it. Resignation may bring a martyr complex and a selfish pride in putting up with whatever comes. Better than all this is acceptance—accept the will of God when adversity comes, learn whatever les sons are in it and believe that it works for our good. That is a wholesome and healthy spirit. Re bellion or mere endurance of affliction may wreck us. Resignation may make us “proud that we are humble.” Acceptance falls in step with God’s plan and purpose and enables us to safely trust though we may not fully understand. Some things of course are never to be accepted. They are the will of the devil and must be resisted and defeated. But that which cannot be removed may be turned to God’s glory and transmuted from a burden into a blessing. Paul accepted his thorn and turned what might have been his stum- blingblock into a steppingstone. He did not grum ble about his infirmity; he gloried in it. This, then, is the conclusion of the whole mat ter. The Christian’s supreme experience does not lie in raptures and revelations, trips to third heav en. It does not lie in mighty deliverances or re markable answers to prayer. These are indeed pre cious when God pleases to grant them and they make exciting stories but left to themselves they may exalt us above measure. The Christian’s supreme experience is to get past all incidental and secondary things to Christ Himself and His sufficient grace. Then, no matter what God grants or what He refuses, He Himself is our portion and our reward and we can sing with Paul, “ I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessi ties, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” HI]
what we ask and sometimes in astonishing ways. I am not minimizing that. Books have been com piled, recounting marvelous cases where God said, “ Yes.” Some of them are spectacular, sensational, and we play them up. But they are not the Chris tian’s supreme experience. Yet I would have you observe that although Paul was not granted deliverance from his thorn and although his prayer was not answered in the way he desired, he was granted an experience greater than all this. In the strength of it, he out- traveled, out-preached, out-wrote and in general out-performed any preacher of his time. Certainly that is spectacular and sensational after all! What was Paul’s—and what is the Christian’s — supreme experience? It was the discovery of what in a sense he already knew, that God’s grace is sufficient and that as he lived day by day in simple dependence upon that grace, God’s strength was made perfect in his weakness. Actually we are not to read the Lord’s answer to Paul in this ac count as something He said on that particular occa sion. Rather it was something He had been saying through the years, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” It was something Paul already had in Christ and already knew but now it became actual in expe rience. Like the poor dirt farmer who discovered oil on his few acres, it was a coming into posses sion of what was already there. Indeed it simply means coming past third heav ens and everything else to Christ Himself. It is Christ that Paul has in mind when he talks here about the Lord. He says he will glory in his infirmi ties “ that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” The Christian’s supreme experience is to get through to Christ Himself and to where he can say, “ Now Thee alone I seek, Give what is best.” It is getting past revelations and exaltations and deliverances and prayers and great days and spots on a map or dates in a book to the all-sufficiency of our Lord. We make much of seven heavens but when we glory in Christ we have an experience greater than all other experiences because it in cludes them all. It may not sound as exciting in a testimony meeting to say simply, “ I have found Christ sufficient day by day” as to relate a hair- raising story of some personal rapture. But it is better to have heaven come down daily in the pres ence o f Christ with us than to be caught up to a third heaven now and then. I’d rather have some thing I could tell any day and all the days than to have heard words I could not utter! After all, the Lord Jesus promised to be with us literally “ all the days, even unto the end of the age.” It is better to boast of the Christ of Every Day than to tell strange stories of One Red-letter Day. Then, if God grants you a trip to third heav en, good! If He grants you mighty deliverance,
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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