Caught Up to the Third Heaven — 2 Corinthians 12 Explained

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, an Oklahoma rancher and farmer. Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for over 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say, time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. It's good to see everybody in again this afternoon, and even though the Oklahoma weather isn't too cooperative today, we appreciate the fact that you've all been able to make it. For those of you joining us in television, again how we enjoy the letters, and especially when they tell us we feel like we're sitting right there in the back row in the studio. That's exactly what we hoped to put across when we first started this several years ago, and we appreciate the response from all of you out there in television for your letters, your financial help, and most of all how we cherish your prayers. There's nothing that thrills us more than when you write, or when you call, or when our class people tell us that you're constantly remembering us in prayer, because we know we cannot do this in the energy of the flesh. Now again we'd like to remind our audience for sake of new listeners that all the past programs are available on videotape, and those same tapes have now been transcribed into corresponding little booklets as you see them on the screen. If you're interested in any of that for your own study, or if you'd like to start a home Bible study, or use it in your church Sunday schools, you give us a call and we'll help you get started. Now we're going to pick right up again as we usually do where we left off in our last program, and that was in II Corinthians chapter 11, and we stopped at verse 22. So that's where we'll pick up again, and again for a little backdrop remember that Paul has to constantly remind not only the Corinthians, but you and I as well, that he was the God ordained apostle of the Gentiles. He has to constantly defend that, because even the Corinthians which was probably a mixture of some Jews, but still mostly Gentiles, were evidently bombarding him with the accusations that after all he didn't have the authority that Peter, James, and John had, because they had been with Christ for three years. But you see what he has to show us, and he will now in these coming verses, is that he also had direct contact with Christ. Not in the way that the twelve had, walking up and down the dusty roads of Palestine, but nevertheless the Lord has appeared to this apostle over and over, and especially as we're going to see today, to give him encouragement in spite of all of the sufferings and disappointments that he had to go through. Now of course as we come into this verse 22 of chapter 11, he is again coming back to this same point. Those twelve back there in Israel didn't have anything over me, because look what he says. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. So with regard to genealogy, they didn't have anything over the apostle Paul, and he too was all of these. Now moving on, are they the ministers of Christ? Now of course here's where his humility shows through, and the only reason he says this is because he's always saying, but I'm nothing. Now he says, Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool, but I am nothing. Now what's the next word? More. Now if you don't mind marking your Bible, underline that. How could the man say that? Well because of the revelations that he has received, not from the pre-crucified Christ, but the Christ after the death, burial and resurrection and ascension. That makes all the difference in the world. Now some of our cults, this is what they like to use. Well our leader came on the scene long after Christ, so he has more authority. Well it's valid up to a point that yes, in fact I've always used the example way, way back. If you were to make a will back in 1980, and you covered everything. You dotted every I and you crossed every T. But then along about 1990 you had some changes come up, maybe in heirs and so forth, and so you write a new will in 1990. Come along about 1988-99 you pass away, and they go into your personal items, and there are two wills. One dated in 1980, everything is in order, signed and dated. But then there's another one dated 1990, and just as signed and dated, which one do the courts look at? The last one. So that is much the same way with Paul's apostleship. He had not walked with Christ as they did, but he had further revelations, and at a later time he over and over now becomes the primary apostle. Now we're going to see it again even in chapter 12, but let's just jump ahead for example in verse 11 of chapter 12, and again he uses that word fool merely to show the fact that he has no pride in himself. He's not an egotist. I am become a fool in glorying, you have compelled me, because of their constant resistance to his authority, he has to come back and prove it. So he says, you're the ones that are causing me to say all this, because you won't believe me. You have compelled me, for I ought to have been commended of you, for am I behind the very chiefest apostles, Peter, James and John. They were the chief ones, they were the three of what I call the inner sanctum of the twelve, but he's even ahead of them. Now go all the way back to chapter 11, and it's in verse 5. Now here we have three times in the space of a chapter where the Holy Spirit led to say the same thing. What have I told you ever since we started in Genesis? When the Scripture repeats something several times in a rather short span, it's there for emphasis, and we better take note of it. Now look what it says back in chapter 11, and he says, For I suppose I was not a wit behind the very chiefest apostles. So three times now he is making the point that Peter, James and John were not above him. It's just the other way around now. Now they have slipped off the scene, they have lost all their authority, and now this man is God's chosen vessel to take the Gospel of Grace, not just to the nation of Israel, but to the whole world. So now if you'll come back up to where we left off in chapter 11. Now let's stop for a moment. How much physical suffering did the twelve disciples go through until they were finally martyred? As far as we know, none, certainly not during his earthly ministry. Now we all know they were all martyred, and I take nothing away from that. But this man throughout the whole 20 years of his ministry, it was nothing but one beating after another, one imprisonment after another, and it was a constant opposition from the was his own countryman from the Jew. So for a whole period of 20 years the man suffered only for the sake of the Gospel, and the twelve didn't have to do that. So he comes back in, and he says in prison more frequent, and in deaths more frequent. Now we're going to see when we get to chapter 12 that he was dragged out of Lystra for dead, but evidently there were other times when, so far as the apostle was concerned, he was next to death, whether it was through sickness, or through the beatings, or the imprisonments, or whatever. Now let's look at verse 24. Ephesians 1. Ephesians 3. Ephesians 6. Ephesians 7. Ephesians 9. Ephesians 12. Ephesians 14. Ephesians 15. Ephesians 16. Ephesians 17. Ephesians 18. Now you know what? Very few victims could take that many. And usually the highest authority, the chief priest or somebody would have to stop the whipper before they would get up to that point, because most men couldn't take it. They would die as they were being whipped. And so a lot of times they would have to stop at maybe 25 or 30 or so forth. Again, you and I in our modern age can have no concept of what a human being looked like after they had been beaten these 39 times. Now stoning, that was even worse. I was reading again the other night in a biography on the Apostle Paul, how when the Jews stoned someone to death, the corpse was obscene is what the guy used. Now he stands to reason, when they would use rocks so big that it would take two hands to smash it down on them, and by the time they were through with them they were literally pummeled to where they were obscene. The Apostle went through that, and so we have to constantly remember that as we sit now in our western culture, and most of us for sure have never had to suffer for our faith. Yet in order for us to have our New Testament as we know it, this is what the man had to go through. Now of course there was some reasoning for it, and it goes back to the old saying, what goes around comes around. You see for several years this man did the same thing to his victims. He was unmerciful to his fellow Jews because they had believed in Jesus of Nazareth. That�s why God told Ananias there in Damascus, I will show this man how he must suffer for My name�s sake, because he had precipitated so much suffering himself. But whatever, I�m bringing all this out to get you ready for chapter 12, because we�re going to have a tremendous experience in chapter 12. So here he has been suffering at the hands of the Jews, at the hands of the Romans, and shipwreck umpteen times. What does he say? A night and a day he�s been in a deep, and three times he suffered shipwreck. Well now the Book of Acts only records one, so there must have been two other times that he got dumped in the water, and the same way with these beatings. There�s only once that I can find in the Book of Acts where it�s recorded where the Jews gave him the so called 39 stripes. But he says here that he had five times, and then three times he was beaten with rods, which was almost as bad, and then once he was stoned, and that�s the one we�re going to look at in chapter 12. Then in verse 26, we�ll come on down hurriedly now. Ephesians 2. Verse 26 Ephesians 2. Now you want to remember the man covered the whole part of what is now Turkey and Greece on foot, walking from city to city most of the time. Maybe he had the luxury of a donkey now and then, but usually it was on foot. So in journeyings often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers as he would be walking through the back country, in perils of the heathen that is the non-Jewish world, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils amongst false brethren, weariness and painfulness in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness, etc. We�ve had it pretty good haven�t we? I don�t think there�s one sitting here or anywhere out in television that�s gone through any of this for the sake of the Gospel. Now the day may come, we never know what the future holds if the Lord doesn�t come. We know that right now today thousands upon thousands of Christians are constantly being tortured and put to death, sold into slavery in other parts of the world. In fact I was reading again the other night where a survey was taken, and maybe I�ve put this on the program before, but there have been more Christians, and we�re going to use the word in its loosest terms, anybody that ascribes to Christianity according to the New Testament, but according to this survey, since 1900 more Christians have been martyred than all the rest of the time back to the time of Christ. Now we don�t realize that, but you want to remember communism held forth in Russia for 70 years, and it was ruthless. The Nazis in Germany were ruthless, and the Chinese have been ruthless and still are. And in Africa we have no idea of the amount of Christian people that have suffered for their faith, and so I think it bears repeating that in the last 100 years more Christians have been martyred than in all the other period of time back to the time of Christ. And so here we sit in America, and we�re so blessed with all of our liberties, and freedoms, and our guarantees of freedom, and too often we do not stop to think that this is a rare commodity that we hold in our hand. This is something that too many areas of the world would just love to be able to do. To be able to sit down without fear, and study the Word of God. And so let�s never fail to thank God that we are in such a place of liberty, and such opportunity. Now let�s look at verse 28. And then beside all the physical suffering, all the things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care, or the concern for all the assemblies, and that meant wherever he went he would establish a small assembly of believers, usually in the home, and it may be some false teaching coming into that congregation, and may be some vile sin into that congregation as we know the Corinthians did. How it tore at the man, and he had the care of all these assemblies. Then verse 29, and I want to move on down to chapter 12. Who is weak? And I am not weak. Who is offended? And I burn not. In other words he identified with all these converts that he had brought out of paganism, or out of Judaism. Now let�s look at verse 30. 30. 30. 30. 30. 30. 30. 30. 30. When he went into Damascus, and he had met the Lord out there on the road, and he was stricken blind, and then after he got food and sustenance, and he got his sight back. You remember he went into the synagogue and proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ. Remember how I put it back there in Acts? Well you see that was no longer sufficient. It was not enough to just simply believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. God had further revelations to give the man, so He couldn�t just leave him with that kind of a message. And so what happened? Oh the word came out that there were people ready to put him to death, Jews of course, who understood that He had turn coated on them, and so he had to flee for his life being let down over the wall in a basket. And so that�s what he�s making reference to. And right from the very beginning this whole life of suffering and fear began, and he says in Damascus. "...the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison desirous to apprehend me, and through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall, and escaped his hands." Well what a way to start a career! What a way to start! Right off the bat he has to start running for his life. Well it was all part and parcel of getting the man ready to take the Gospel of Grace as we know it. That Christ died for us, and that He was not left in the grave, He�s alive evermore, He arose from the dead, and that�s our Gospel. And He�s going to take it to the ends of the then known world. And today even with all of this in our New Testament, that Gospel is so shunned. Myles had a letter again from someplace on the east coast, and he was commenting on our teaching and he said, �We just don�t hear it. We just do not hear the uniqueness of Paul�s apostleship.� Well what a sad commentary, because this is where it�s at. The very heart of our New Testament from Romans through Hebrews. This is why I�m always stressing it, that this man was brought into all of this suffering and turmoil, so that you and I as Gentiles can have this tremendous Gospel of the Grace of God. Now let�s move into chapter 12, and keeping in mind two basic points that I�ve been trying to make throughout the 2nd letter of the Corinthians. How he has to defend his apostleship, that he does have the authority, even though he did not walk with Christ up and down the roads of Palestine. He had that apostolic authority, and the number one was that he was going to defend his apostleship, and the second thing that�s on his mind constantly is that we�re not under Law, we�re under Grace. And so these things are going to be preeminent in his writings, not only to the Corinthians, but as we go on through the other letters as they�ll be coming. Now in chapter 12 it is expedient for me doubtless to glory, and I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. Now he says something that I suppose a lot of people just gloss over, and they really don�t know what he�s talking about. I know a man in Christ, above or about fourteen years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth, such a one caught up to the third heaven. Now there�s so much in this verse again that I hardly know where to go back in our references first, but I think we�ll go back and see first at the time that he was probably referring to, and that would be back in Acts chapter 14. This is on his first missionary journey, and I won�t take time to draw the map now, I�ll do it during break time, but we�ll put a makeshift map on the board again to get our folks an idea of where geographically this is. He�s gone up into central Turkey on that first missionary journey, and he�s gone through Lystra and Derbe, and now at the little city of Lystra he had performed a miracle, and you would think that that would�ve settled everything. Well it got everybody in an uproar of course, because they thought that he was a God, that he could perform this miracle, but it turned. And when they suddenly realized that he wasn�t a God, my goodness then they went on him, and of course the Jews. Now in Acts chapter 14 verse 19, and there came thither, that is to Lystra, Jews from Antioch and Iconium, and there came certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and having stoned Paul. In other words, according to the Jewish system of execution, they literally felt that they had put the man to death. And so having stoned Paul, they drew him out of the city of Lystra, supposing that he had been dead. Now the ancients weren�t that stupid, they had a pretty good idea if there was life left in a body or not. So I have to feel that for all practical purposes, Saul was put to death as a result of this stoning. Now verse 20. Acts 14. 20. 20. 20. 20. 20. 20. 20. 20. 20. Now this is miraculous, yet we don�t know how many hours he may have laid there with his disciples probably in a dither of what to do. When I say disciples I�m talking about fellow believers. But whatever, all of a sudden he stands up on his feet without any help from any outside source. He rose up and came back into the city, and then the next day he left Derbe with Barnabas and they go on to the next place. Now if you'll come back to II Corinthians once more, the reason I tie this with the stoning in Derbe is because chronologically it fits. Because Paul was probably in about 41 or 42 AD when he was on that first missionary journey, and we know that he wrote II Corinthians in about 60. So chronologically it fits that when he was stoned at Derbe and dragged out for dead, that he experienced this tremendous opportunity then to see the glories of Heaven. Let's read on, we're not going to have time to go very far into it, but we can get So he says, "...whether in the body, or out of the body." Well I think it's pretty obvious, he was out of the body. I think the body was that one which was laying outside of Derbe having been stoned. And so the soul and spirit took flight, and he says, "...but such a one was caught up to the third heaven." Now we're going to look at it in Scripture a minute, so that you'll see where we're coming from. Come back with me if you will to Genesis chapter 7. We have three heavens listed in Scripture, the first heaven, the second heaven, and the third heaven. Now the first heaven is what we would call the air or the atmosphere, it's the area where the birds fly. So we know what the Scripture is talking about. The second area is what we now call space, or the area of the stars, and so forth. And then the third one is heaven as we know it, and that's the third heaven. Back to Genesis chapter 7, so we can show all this from Scripture. Come down to verse 23, I'm not going to have time to finish, I can see it now. Genesis 7 verse 23, "...and every living substance that was destroyed was upon the face of the ground." This is the Flood. Genesis 7 verse 23, "...and creeping things, the fowl of the heaven." So it was already referred to that the atmosphere is part of what the Bible calls the first heaven. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.