Why God's Strength Is Made Perfect in Weakness — 2 Corinthians 12:9

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. Okay, we're going to pick right up where we left off in our last program. We're going to hopefully finish II Corinthians in this half hour, and maybe even have time to get some introduction to the next letter we're going to look at, which is Galatians. But you can be turning back again to II Corinthians chapter 12, and we'll finish that chapter first. Again for all of those of you joining us on television, how we thank you for your letters, your prayers, your financial support. Lord knows we couldn't do it without you, and we just trust that everything will be for His honor and for His glory. And for these folks in the studio audience, we always have to thank them for braving not such nice weather as today, and for putting forth the effort, because I've always said I couldn't teach just a camera. I have to have a group of people in front of me that are responding, and so we just have to give our thanks to everybody. We can't do it alone. And of course in that light, I always have to remember my precious wife, my helpmate I could never do it without her, and she has just jumped into all this with both feet, and sometimes she amazes even me, all that she gets done that needs to be done. I think that's all we need to make reference to just now, we're going to go right back into II Corinthians, and remember we were talking in our last program about Paul's thorn in the flesh, which we do not claim to have the only answer. But the logical one for me is that it was a common eye disease of that period of time, and it was repulsive in his appearance. It was painful, and it limited his eyesight and its facilities, and consequently I think is the reason he dictated all of his letters, seemingly except Galatians, and that's what I closed with in the last program, how he had to write the whole letter evidently in huge block letters for his own sake, not for the ones to whom he was writing, but for his own sake in order to be able to read. So now as we come on down in chapter 12 again for verse 8, now God gives him the reason for keeping the man humbled, and evidently putting him through all the trials and sufferings. Verse 8. For this thing I besought the LORD thrice, or three times, that it, that is this thorn in the flesh, this constant buffeting by an angel of Satan, that it might depart from me. 9. And he, the Lord Jesus himself, said, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." So again I have to take us back to I Corinthians, because this is the whole concept of Christian service, and I don't mind a bit when once in a while someone will say to me, or someone will write, unless the Lord is blessed in your ministry, don't get the big head. Because that's always a danger, and don't think we don't know that. So like I say, I don't mind one bit if people remind me, because the minute we think we can do it ourselves, we're all done. It has to be done as a weak vessel that God has seen fit to use. You have I Corinthians, and come down to verse 26 of chapter 1, where He writes, "...for you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." Now that says it all doesn't it? In other words, God doesn't go into the kings and queens of the world, God doesn't usually go into the ivy covered halls of universities for His servants, He never has. All you have to do is go back into the Old Testament economy. My I don't think for a minute that there weren't more highly polished men to be used than Amos, and Gideon, and Ezekiel, and some of these people. They were just common ordinary members of the Jewish nation, but that's what God saw fit to use. So Paul is really an exception, because Paul of course was highly educated, and no doubt had a lot of polish, because he certainly moved in the upper echelons of Judaism. But this is why he constantly puts himself down as nothing, because he realizes that God cannot use somebody unless they're nothing. You know the prime example in Scripture is Moses. Remember when we were back there in Exodus, and Moses at the end of his first 40 years having lived in Pharaoh's palace, and was the second top man in Egypt, what did Moses think he could do? Well he thought he could take the children of Israel out of slavery, because of his own power, and pomp, and circumstance, and wisdom, and leadership. And so he went out to the children of Israel, and asked them for the Book of Acts, for he supposed that they would have understood that he was going to deliver them. But you see, he was leaving God out of the picture, and he was using his own position. And what did God have to do with Moses? He took him out on the back side of the desert, and above all the things that the man could have done to make a living, what has God put him in? A sheep herd, which in the eyes of an Egyptian, a sheep herder was an abomination. That's what Moses had to become for 40 years, living with those smelly sheep, with almost no contact with any number of humans, and he had become a nothing. And when God finally approached him there at the burning bush, what was Moses' first excuse? Hey, I can't talk. Well why not? For 40 years of practically being silent, he had almost forgotten how. But see that's where God had to take even Moses before He could use him. Now the same way the Apostle Paul, like I said, highly educated, was under the feet of Gamaliel, the chief rabbi of that day, and of a wealthy Jewish family. But what did he have to do? He had to take him down to a nobody. Now look as he reads on in I Corinthians chapter 1 verse 27. "...instead of choosing noblemen, instead of choosing the highly educated, God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise. And God hath chosen the weak things of the world, the things that we would normally say don't count, He hath taken the weak things of the world, to confound things which are mighty, the base things of the world, and things which are despised. That's what God hath chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are." Now I'm the first to admit that I'm a nothing. I remember a long time ago a lady called, and she had just heard our program the first time. And this humbles you, don't think for a minute it doesn't. She said, Who in the world are you anyway? Well I'm a nobody, and I still claim that. But that's why I feel God has seen fit to use us, because He does not use that which the world thinks is proper, and has been rightly fitted for service. Now in verse 29 we come back to the same concept of why He was given the thorn in the flesh. Ephesians 2.29a "...that no flesh should glory, or boast, or brag, or get puffed up in his presence." God won't have it, and so He says, Ephesians 2.30a "...but of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. These are all things that God accomplished, and no man can take credit for it." Now if you'll come back to II Corinthians chapter 12. So rather in His weaknesses, under the effect of this thorn in the flesh, whatever it was, under the effect of this constant being misused, beatings, shipwrecked, imprisoned, cold, miserable, hot, thirsty, you name it. The man went through it all, only for the sake of taking the Gospel to a lost world. That's all he could think about. Coming back to II Corinthians chapter 12, and so verse 9 reading on. II Corinthians 12.9a "...most gladly therefore, I would rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Do you see what he's saying? He wasn't wishing for power, and circumstance, and political clout. He cared for none of that. But as long as he could be a nobody, who could use him? God could. The more I've been studying with regard to these two letters to the Corinthians the last few months, and I hope I'm bringing it home to all of you here in the studio, as well as to our television audience. The insurmountable odds that this man was facing when he went into absolute strange territory of pagan Gentiles who knew nothing of the God of this Bible, or the little Jewish communities in these cities. But see the Jews never evangelized, and the Jews never took their knowledge out to the pagan Gentiles. And so when Paul comes into these various cities, like we talked about up here in Galatia of Antioch, and Derbe, and Lystra, and then later on into Ephesus, and Philippi, and Thessalonica, and Berea, and Athens, and Corinth. Every one of those places were abject pagan idolaters who knew nothing of the God of creation. And they weren't even very good people. They were rotten morally. I was reading again last night, and I just shared one little thought with Iris, and I won't even put it on the air. have no idea how morally corrupt most of the cities in the Roman Empire were. It's unbelievable. And yet into that kind of an environment, this man walked with no pleasant appearance, with nothing physically going for him, and all he did was preach Christ crucified, and those people turned from their idols and became believers, so staunch in their faith that they were willing to be martyred by the hundreds. And they never wavered, as Paul has shown over and over in his writings, that in spite of everything that those early believers went through, they didn't give up. They didn't panic, they didn't run. How in the world did it happen? Well it was the power of God when the Gospel was preached. And I think it's the same way today. Oh I know we're living in times when it seems our moral fabric is rotting away, but when I read how things were in the Roman Empire, hey we're not that bad yet. There's still hope, and at least most of our American people have a concept of God. In fact I read in one of the polls the other day, that 2 thirds of the American people are sure that one day they're going to stand before God. Hard to believe isn't it? I don't know where he polled them, but evidently it's got some validity to it. But Paul didn't have that kind of an advantage. He didn't approach people who knew there was a God. He didn't approach people who had any concept of biblical morality. They were abject, blatantly immoral pagans, and all he did was preach the Gospel, and they came out of it. You know I was just sharing with somebody on the phone, I think this morning before we came up here to Tulsa, that in all my years of teaching, and I didn't realize it until a gentleman in one of my other classes here in Oklahoma, who has been in my class now for I guess about 15 years, and I'm sure he came out of a pretty fast lane lifestyle. One time he said, Do you realize you never say a word against drinking, smoking, cursing, gambling, and illicit sex? He said, You have never said a word against any of that. And I said, Well I didn't realize it. And he said, No you don't, but you know what, you brought me out of all of that. How? By teaching the Word. That's all it takes. You get people into the Word, and you don't have to get on them because of their drinking. You get them into the Word, and you don't have to get on their case about their immorality. The Word takes care of it. I think this is where so many people have gone astray. We're trying to somehow legislate all this, and we're trying to bring people in on a guilt trip, and yeah, they've got to be found guilty, but by realizing what the Word says. This is exactly what Paul is after, and so continuing on. So he says, "...all glory in my informed is that the power of Christ may rest upon me." He wasn't looking for some gimmick to get people's attention. He wasn't looking for some Madison Avenue approach to get the masses to come and hear him. But whatever he preached, in all of its simplicity, people were convicted, and as he said when he wrote to the Thessalonians, I like to have you see these with your own eyes. I think I've used it before in the program, but I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't remember that. But in I Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 9, and this is what he experienced everywhere he went, simply because he preached Christ crucified, buried, and risen from the dead. That's the power of the Gospel, and even though we can't understand it, God in His own inimitable way will bring people to a knowledge of the truth. Look at what he says in I Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 9, and remember these Thessalonians were just as pagan as any of the rest of them. Let's go up to verse 8, and then verse 9 where it says what I want you to especially see. but also in every place your faith to God is spread abroad, so that we need not to speak anything. Do you know what was happening? As soon as Paul saw these people converted out of paganism, what did they do? They shared it wherever they went. They couldn't shut those people's mouths. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve the true and living God." Isn't that amazing? And here he could come into a pagan city, with all of its pagan statues, and their gods, and their goddesses, and all of their attendant immorality, and he would preach how that God came in the flesh, and went to that cross, and was raised from the dead, and they believed it. It was a wonder of wonders, but they believed it. So consequently he had so many converts that they accused him of doing what to the Roman world? Turning it upside down. Like one pastor I had years ago said, it�s just the other way around, they turned it right side up. But whatever, there was such an impact from this one man�s preaching the Gospel, that the world in general said, that man is turning the empire upside down. And we know he did. Now let�s come back again to II Corinthians chapter 12, and we looked at it in our program a couple of times ago. II Corinthians 12. I Corinthians 12. burdensome to you. Now this has to go back a few programs. You remember when he was asking for offerings? This was the one church that he really did not come out and put any pressure to give, but he tried to kind of intimidate them by showing them that all those poor people up in the mountains had already made collections for the poor saints in Jerusalem. And these Corinthians, many of whom were probably quite wealthy, he hadn�t even asked for a dime. And this is what he�s coming back to. And so he said, I haven�t even laid the burden on you like I did all the other assemblies. And he says, forgive me this wrong. That�s kind of a different way of approaching it isn�t it? He said, it was really my fault, I should have made you aware that you should give of your material wealth. Now verse 14. II Corinthians 12. Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be burdensome to you, for I seek not yours. He�s still coming back. He�s saying, I�m not asking for your money, I don�t want your wealth, but you. In other words what did he want? He wanted believers sold out to Christ. Now I dare say that every one of us, myself included, could put ourselves, if I�m not mistaken it was Dwight L. Moody, who had such a tremendous ministry as you all know. And if I�m not mistaken early in his ministry he had heard of another great man of God who at the beginning of his ministry had said that he wished he could be a man totally sold out to God. But on his deathbed he had to admit, he said, I didn�t attain. Moody had heard that, and he was rehearsing with someone as he began in his ministry, and he said, I want to be that man that can be sold out to God. But at the end of his ministry and upon his demise, what did Dwight L. Moody have to admit? Neither have I. You see it is almost impossible for a man to be totally, completely sold out to God. But you see this is what God is looking for. Now He won�t demand it, He won�t force it, but oh how God is looking for men and women and boys and girls who can literally be sold out to God. I think Paul probably did. You want to remember that he left all of his material wealth behind him, and counted it but dumb in order to take the Gospel. As I�ve been reading another biography of the man, I like it because he agreed with me. I�ve said all the while I�ve been teaching that I was sure that Paul had a wife and family because he was a member of the Sanhedrin, and in order to be a member of the Sanhedrin you had to have family. You had to know how to deal with family problems. And so as a result of this tremendous being sold out to Christ, he probably lost his wife, she probably turned against him, because he�d been a high man in the Judaistic religion remember, and probably even a son, there�s a slight hint that there might have been such a thing. But whatever, he turned his back on everything in order to take the Gospel to these pagan, ungodly, immoral Gentiles. Coming on down again to verse 15. I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I�m loved. Sound familiar? Oh doesn�t it ever. The more he loved those Corinthians, the more they turned against him and said, �Well we�re not going to listen to that man, we�re going to listen to Peter.� After all Peter was with Christ, but Paul never was. I showed this verse several months ago, and I had a couple of calls on it from people who said they never knew this verse was in their Bible, and it might be appropriate to look at it again. Let�s come back to II Timothy chapter 1. You know this must have been a heartache for the man, after all the sufferings, all the beatings and all the imprisonments, the shipwrecks, to simply take the Gospel to people who had never heard, saw them established in it, saw churches established, not large ones. You know too often today we think of churches of several hundred or several thousand people with great big beautiful buildings, but that was not the church of the Scriptural days. They were just small assemblies meeting in homes, but look what he says in II Timothy chapter 1, dropping down to verse 15. II Timothy chapter 1, verses 15-16 That all they who are in Asia, now remember Asia I�ve put a caricature of a map up here, and the Asia of course is primarily what today is Turkey, and the Galatians is that area in between the two broader marks. But Asia was basically what today we call Turkey, and he says this thou knowest, that all they who are in Asia be turned away from me. Isn�t that something? What happened? Well I think it wasn�t that they pitched Christianity overboard, but I think they turned their back on the apostles teachings of pure grace, and went back under so much of the legalistic teachings and influence of Peter, James, and John, and the Jewish community, as we�re going to see when we get into the book of Galatians. And so what a heartache that all these little churches that he had suffered for, and had spent so much time with, and had been encouraged that they were growing in grace and knowledge, and yet as he now writes from prison in Rome just before he�s martyred, he has to make a statement like this, that all those in Asia are turned away from him. They had rejected him, and to what extent I don�t know, but the Scripture is true. They had not remained true to the apostle who had brought them out of their paganism. Now let�s go on, back to II Corinthians chapter 12, and verse 16, and Paul says, I desired Titus, and with him my sinner brother. Did Titus make a gain of you? Walked we not in the same spirit? In other words, Titus didn�t beg for money any more than Paul did. Now verse 19, and we�ll probably wind up at least chapter 12, where he says, I desired Titus, and with him my sinner brother. Lest when I come again my God will humble me o� young you, then I shall bewail many who have sinned already, and they have not repented of their uncleanness. 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 or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, 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.