Trials and Suffering

Open your Bibles, please, to 2 Corinthians, Chapter 4. 2 Corinthians, Chapter 4. I'm going to try and cover It's interesting as you look at people's Bibles. What would happen if we didn't have these notes in our Bible? Would we know anything? Have you ever thought of starting from scratch clean? I've got one home, but I just haven't done it yet.

We're going to try and cover two verses today, 2 Corinthians 4, verses 8 and 9. This is a big task for me, to cover these two verses in the time that we have. Let me tell you what I'd like to do. What I'd like to do is get into context, read verses 6, 7, 8, and 9. We covered 6 and 7 last week, but let's review it, starting at verse 6.

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed. I want you to observe that in verses 6 and 7, as we discussed last week, talking about the glory of God, that we are vessels, that we are earthen vessels, and in these earthen vessels is contained something, the very glory of God.

And God's desire is to radiate that glory out from us into the hearts of men, to illuminate the hearts of men. And no sooner does he get through saying that, he goes on into verse 8 and says, we're troubled on every side, yet not distressed, we're perplexed, we're persecuted. And he goes on into a whole list of trials. Now isn't it interesting that he takes trials, he takes his glory, and he takes trials and he puts them together. How come? Why does he do that?

And I venture to say that as you look at all these passages of scripture, the one that Bob covered two weeks ago, in 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 12 and 13. They had a party here yesterday, and I thought, it's alright. But look at 1 Peter 4, verse 11, concerning the fiery trial, which is to try to do some strange thing that has happened to you, but rejoice in as much as your partakers of Christ's sufferings. Look what it says, that when His glory shall be revealed. And you notice how glory and trials go together.

I'm going to be gone next week. I'm going to my brother-in-law's funeral. I forgot to mention that. My brother-in-law, Irv, the psychiatrist I've talked to for about years, he passed away. So I'm going back to the funeral. But next week, Roger is going to be covering a passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, and it's going to link trials with God's glory. And oftentimes we think of, well let me ask it as a question, what do we think the purpose of trials is normally? When trials come to us, you know, what do we think the purpose is of trials? Why does God allow trials in our life?

He gave the right answer. But oftentimes, pardon me? To crush us. To crush us? To beat us down? I have a brother at work who says, trials are just so God can put his heavy hand on me and just to pound me into the sand to make me better, or something like that. I mean, some kind of off the wall... Is that his purpose? To pound us down into the ground?

Often times it says that the purpose of trials is to cause us to grow, to depend upon him and to cause us to grow. And that's the purpose of trials. Well, that may be a purpose. But I don't think that's the primary purpose. I think the primary purpose of trials is we have to look at it from God's side. Because we always look at it from our side. Well, the purpose of trials is to cause us to depend upon Him and to grow. And we look at it from our side. But let's look at it from God's side.

And from God's side, the purpose of trials is that He wants to radiate His glory through you and through me. And so he comes at us with trials. And there is no other way that his glory is going to be radiated from us. And he wants to beat that glory into the hearts of men. And trials is what will do it.

Because whether it's a believer or unbeliever that is under trial, And if it's a believer and the believer is not abiding in Christ, or if it's an unbeliever, they are burdened down with the trial. And are they rejoicing? Is there joy? No. But here comes a believer who's in the trial, who's resting and trusting in Christ in the trial, and the glory of the Lord is radiating through that believer to others.

As we go through all these passages and trials, I want you to see the link between trials and suffering and the communication or the radiation or the beaming of our God sharing and revealing His glory through us. I heard it said just a week or so ago about our trials were likened to a storm, a hurricane, or a severe storm.

The blizzard of a year ago broke down trees and all of that, but at the same time in the world, and I don't like the term in nature, But in the world about us, the more severe the storm, the stronger it makes the foliage in the trees, especially the trees that are buffeted with those severe storms. The more severe the storm, the more it strengthens those trees. Yeah, and that is a truth. The severer the storm, the stronger the trees.

We're getting off on a tangent here for just a minute. But do you know the biosphere in Arizona somewhere, right? And they've got this perfect environment, right, where people are living. Perfect plants and perfect trees and perfect people. No, the people aren't perfect. But they have this perfect environment. Do you know what happened? All the trees fell down. Do you know why the trees fell down? There was no wind. There was no wind so that the trees could start resisting the wind and growing out their roots to resist the wind. And so, illustration of what art is saying. Here's what we're going to do this morning. We've got these glorious possessions that are listed here in verses 6 through 9.

What I want to go through, because when it talks about the fact that we're troubled on every side and cast down and all of those terms, I want us to understand what those terms are, what they mean, and then I'm going to ask a question, and I want you to think about this as we go through these terms. What's your experience? Is your experience that you're going through all of the things that are listed in verses 8 and 9, and then to ask or to answer the question, or what's the reason? What's the reason why we go through the experience? And then to look at the purpose of our glorious possession. what we've looked at last week. Look at verse 7. It says, but we have this treasure. Right? And it's in the present tense. We are having, right now, this treasure. And it's a continuous present. We're always having this treasure.

So it says we're having two things. in the hope and in the passage, both through verses 6 through 9. We're having in us, it says, this treasure. And the treasure, as we looked at last week, is the very glory of God in the, or by the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the Lord Jesus Christ indwelling us. His Spirit indwelling us. So in us, we're having this treasure.

And then to us, in verses 8 and 9, we've got trials and sufferings. But we're having them continuous. It's a continuous present. And it's a fact. It's a fact in life. We're going to have trials and sufferings. We're going to be troubled. We're going to be persecuted. that we're going to be perplexed, that we're going to be cast out. And we'll look at the meaning of these terms in just a moment.

Now, the thing is this. Each one of these is for a purpose. OK? The question is, what's the purpose? What's the purpose? All right. As we look at the terms now, we're trying to understand the terms. And I'm going to go through these kind of briefly. It says that we're troubled. And actually, all of these terms are in the passive voice. It says, this is happening to us. Most all of these terms. But we're being troubled. And it's in the present tense. And all of these terms that we're looking at, in verses 8 and 9 are contrasting participles. It's this, but not this. This, but this, not this. This, but not this. And they're all contrasting participles, all in the present tense.

Most of them are in passive voice, that it's happening to us. We're the recipients of this. We're not the ones that are causing the action. So it says we're being troubled. Thielbo is the word in Greek, and its usage means, is to suffer affliction, to be troubled. And there's another word, a noun, Philipsis in the Greek, which means pressure. And so this word means that we're being pressed, pressed by the, if you will, by the circumstances in life.

And it looks something like this. Do you ever feel this way? I have one. He showed me how to get on the Internet to get these things. So anyhow, that's kind of what what that means. No, but that's but that's interesting. You can put. You can go into Google and say, pressure. And up comes all of these things. That's amazing. Now I know how he does it.

It says that we're being troubled, but not what? Distressed. And the word distressed And what I've done here is put the King James and then put the New American Standard, so depending upon which version you're using. So we're distressed but not crushed.

And distressed or crushed, this particular word means to be, that you feel like you're in a narrow space, a very narrow space. Metaphorically, it's to be restrained or to be to be boxed in. And so Google says being boxed in looks something like this. So, you have that feeling that you're boxed in. Your feet already have been in their bodies. That's true.

Perplexed. In this case, this is used in the middle voice, where this is not coming at you, but this is your response. that you are perplexed. You don't know which way to turn. Here comes the trials, and here comes the sufferings, and sometimes you are perplexed. You just don't know. You have a doubt.

It's interesting, but if you go through, and I've put all these references here, if you go through these references in terms of how they're used, for example, Paul used this word perplexed in Galatians 4.20, is that what it says?

Galatians 4.20, where he's talking to the Galatian believers who went back to legalism, right? They knew what grace was, and they went back to legalism.

And here's what he says. He says, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you." And this is this word that he uses for doubt. He has doubt. And in fact, in chapter 1 of Galatians, he says, I'm totally surprised in terms of what's happened to you guys in turning back to a legal system. So, standing and having doubt or perplexity looks something like that. You know, I don't mean to make fun of all of these, because these are serious. Because a believer gets into these things, including, by the way, yours truly. You name every one of these, been there, done that. So I'm familiar with what this is.

And then the last one is that we may be perplexed, but not despairing. And despairing Despairing means you think that you feel that there's no way out. That you're in total despair and there's just no way out. And this is kind of how you feel. And this is the way you feel. You feel like you're in this credit space And there's just no way out. And we'll see in a minute that when you get to this point, you feel that there's only one way out.

And we'll look at that in a moment. continue on with getting a feeling of what these terms mean. It says, being persecuted. And we all understand persecution. Persecution can come at us several different ways. It can be physical persecution. It could be mental persecution. Paul was very familiar with both. He was physically persecuted. He was beaten. He was left for dead. In fact, he probably was dead. And the Lord brought him back to life. And that's a whole other story. But not only was he physically persecuted, but he was mentally persecuted. And the same thing is true with us.

As a believer, and in fact, if you're a believer and you have unbelieving friends or whatever, the moment you say, the moment you share with them that you have put your trust and faith in Christ, guess what? You're going to be persecuted. You're going to be ridiculed. You believe that? I have a friend who says, he's been a friend for many years, and he says, I can't believe that you, Hal Malloy, believe that all of this was created in six days. That is dumb. You are no longer a scientist.

So, anyhow, whatever it is, there's going to be attack. There's going to be persecution. But it goes on to say, but not forsaken. And I love the way Paul puts these contrasting These are, by the way, strong buts, the Allah buts. It's a strong contrast between these buts, but not forsaken. You're not going to be abandoned. You're not going to feel that you live in straits or that you're helpless. But what happens?

There are often times that we feel exactly this way. And so Christ used this word when he says, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And God did forsake him. And he felt that he was forsaken. for the very first time, ever, from all eternity, was he ever separated from the Father. I mean, that had to be something else. For us to identify how Christ felt about that separation, we can't identify with it.

Feel free to ask questions as we go through this. Because he knew what was going to be happening. Right. He came down and willingly gave his life for our sins. Right. Because his father asked him to. Right. And so at that moment he also knew that his father could not look upon sin. And he was taking every sin of every man past, present and future upon him at that moment. He knew at that moment that God was going to have to turn his back on him.

Was he saying that really to the audience? As much as saying it maybe out of desperation? I don't think he was saying it to the audience. He said it because that's what was happening to him. But he knew it was going to happen. He prepared for it. He knew it was going to happen. He'd gone through the scourging and he'd gone through all the other things that had brought him to the point of his death. Very true. knew that the Lord or the Heavenly Father was going to have to turn his back on him. The reality of what he already knew occurred and he was literally separated from the God throughout all eternity.

And that's the key. He was responding to the reality of it. Now he knew it. Humanity was coming out of it at that point. Absolutely. Holds in the statement whether the cup could not be passed by him. And so, yeah, and that's another good point. Just and just think in the garden and the fact that he sweated blood knowing that this was going to happen. He suffered. He really suffered.

I can give you one illustration, personal illustration. In terms of being separated from the father and the son, father and son being separated, I had this crazy dream one night. And you know my son's in the Air Force. And I was in the Army and we were fighting the enemy and there was a hill and it was at night. And my commanding officer said, the leader of that army is sleeping up in that tent.

Your job is to infiltrate through their lines and kill them. I said, yes, sir. Took the net, put it in my boot, crawled through the lines, got up to the tent, and there was guards at the front of the tent, the rear of the tent. I went under the middle of the tent, went into the tent, took out my bayonet.

I was just ready to push that right through his heart. And I looked up. It was my son. I couldn't do it. I dropped that knife. I woke up crying, just bawling. And the thing is this, I loved him so much that I couldn't kill him. Now, could you imagine the love of the Father that He allowed His Son to go to the cross? I mean, try to comprehend His love. And try to comprehend that separation that God felt.

Incredible. Okay. But we feel forsaken. The other words is that we are being cast down. And the word there really means to be thrown down. Balo means, we get our word ball from it, it means to throw. Rocky's open tomorrow. And it means to throw down. And it's used in a metaphoric sense that we're cast down. But the but not is the word destroyed. But we're not destroyed.

Now, I just want you to know that every time you see this word destroyed or perish in scripture, like this word is used in John 3.16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And so this word does not mean extinction. It just means a loss of being, a loss of well-being. That's all that means. It's never extinction. Okay? So wherever you see this, wherever you see perish or destroyed, It never means a loss of being, but just a loss of well-being. Okay.

If we do the comparison now, if we take verses 8 and 9, it goes like this. We're troubled. And here's my question to the class. Here's my question to me. What is your experience? What is my experience? This, trouble, afflicted, you feel pressed by the circumstances in life? And is your experience also this, and this, where you're distressed, crushed, you feel boxed in, anguished, because of the circumstances in your life? Today is Master's Day, you know. I've got to take off my Master's jacket here. Do you feel boxed in and anguished because of the circumstances?

And don't we feel this way sometimes? Don't we get into this position sometimes? Perplexed. You're not sure. You're uncertain how to proceed. You're just at a loss. But you also feel this way, despairing, that you don't see a way through. You don't see any way out. And you don't understand why this is happening to you. Why would God allow this to happen to me? Why? And you're in despair. persecuted.

I'm sure each and every one of you have gone through some kind of persecution. In this country, we're not going through physical persecution because of what we believe. But certainly, we're going through mental persecution. And in years to come, we're going to be going through a lot more persecution. A lot more. Because I can just tell you this, that our freedoms in terms of doing what we're doing are being narrowed just ever so slightly. When it becomes a problem in terms of having a Bible study, an Air Force base, or similar things, and I have to go before the Colonel and justify that, those kinds of things, because people there object to it, and our freedoms are being limited ever so slightly. But we're going to feel that persecution. But you also feel forsaken.

That certainly God has abandoned me. He's out to lunch. One lady who I counsel with says, he's certainly not with me. He must be taking a vacation in Hawaii, but he's not with me. But that's exactly how we can feel. All right, cast down, struck down. You have a feeling of powerlessness in a situation that you're in or the trial that you're in. But you also feel this way, that you're destroyed, that your sense of well-being is, you've lost your sense of well-being as to who you are. And you're not sure if you're really in Christ anymore. Because why is this happening to me? So, question. Is this your experience? Or, is this your experience?

That you're troubled and afflicted, and you feel the pressure of the circumstances in your life, but you're not distressed, and you don't feel crushed. And there isn't that anguish because of the circumstances. And you are perplexed and you're not sure which way to turn, which way to go, but you're not in despair. You know that you have the resources. that Christ is your resource, that He has the sufficiency, and you realize that you don't have the sufficiency, but Christ has the sufficiency, God has the sufficiency, and you rest in His grace, and He provides all sufficiency in how many things? All things. Not just some of the things in life, but all things. all the trials, and all the suffering, and all the circumstances that you're going through.

You're persecuted. But you never feel abandoned. And in fact, you're resting, and as Bob would say, in your citizenship. You're resting there. And you're resting in the fact that he says, I will never Never. Never. It's a triple negative in the Greek and Hebrews. Forsake you. He'll never do that.

And you're resting in that. And you may be going through a lot of persecution, and you're cast down. You do feel powerless. You know that in yourself that you ain't got the power. And that's good. But you're resting in the one that does. And you're not losing that sense of well-being. You know who you are. You know where your citizenship is. And you know it's not here, but it's there. And you're resting there and not here. Sure.

Request to read Colossians chapter 3, 1 through 3. And I'm sure that this is a favorite verse on that menu. Many of you have this as your favorite verse. Starting at verse 1, if you then be risen with Christ, and by the way, the word there is co-risen, so you can say, if you then be co-risen with Christ. Question, this is a conditional sentence, if. Are you? Okay, in a conditional sentence, here's the way you interpret the conditional sentence. If the condition is true, then the then part of the sentence is true.

So, if you then be co-risen with Christ, then, I'm putting in then, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections where? Set your affection on things above and not on things of the earth, for you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." And isn't that true in terms of if we're resting in that citizenship above? then isn't that true, that this is not true about us?

So what's the difference between the two charts? What's the difference in the two experiences? In this case, it's this, this, but not this. In the other case, it was this and this. So what's the difference between the two? What's the difference between the two experiences that we have in life?

In our walk? Recognizing who we are. OK. Recognizing who we are. We're either in Adam or Brianna and Laura. I'm sorry? We're either in Adam when we're troubled and afflicted and distressed and crushed. OK. Or if we're troubled and afflicted but not distressed and crushed, then we're walking into the water at that time. We're resting in him and not in Adam. OK. Depends upon where we're resting. whether we're resting in Adam and the self-life, or we're resting in Christ.

Bob? Well, how you could get down the series of adjectives there and just expand them. Is there any feeling of being boxed in at the right hand of God? Yeah. The whole universe is His. It was conditioned in Him. There's no sense of being boxed in, is there? There's not a way through our circumstances, we have no resources. Are you kidding? We've been buried with him and co-risen, right?

The victory is already there, is it not? And we go back to Philippians chapter 4 verse 13, it says what? I can do all things through Christ who or empowers me. And His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Weakness not being any strength, correct? It's a little bit of our strength and then His, right? Right. No strength. Totality is His. The third point, abandoned and helpless?

Who are we kidding ourselves? I mean, the full expression of the cross and our being co-risen is that we're never abandoned or helpless. I mean, co-risen, right? So, and then you feel a loss of well-being. Well, whose well-being? Ourselves? Paul said, for me to live is Christ and die is gain, right? In fact, for me to live is Christ, it's not his well-being that's being tarnished here, is it?

These things play out beautifully in terms of how citizenship relates to it. Okay, exactly. But nevertheless, the reality in our life is this at times, right? The reality is this. But that isn't God's desire, obviously, because this is not who we are. So what happens?

And as was just said, if we take a look at it in a picture form in terms of what Karen was just saying. Let's take a look. Yes, Helmut. I just wanted to interject. This is why it's so amazing to me that even Christ was formed in such a humanly manner, so that we can see where we failed, that he didn't fail in the long run, but he was at least tempted in a way. He didn't go for the bait, because he said, I will be done. Sure, absolutely.

But at least his body reacted in a similar manner. Isn't this tremendous, that Christ kind of sympathized with our suffering? And that he did. And as the book of Hebrews says, that he can empathize, sympathize with every one of our sufferings because he, in all points, was what?

Tempted as we are. OK, so let's take a look at the reason why. It's why this and this. Why we're troubled and afflicted, but also distressed and crushed. So here comes the trials that God allows at us. They're coming at us, and He allows it. And he has a wonderful, wonderful purpose for it. And you have to realize this, that he has a wonderful purpose for these trials. So here they come. I need one of these cameras overhead so I can show pieces at a time here. So here we are, and here comes the trials.

The sin nature is going to respond to these trials. The sin nature is going to respond the same way every time. It's predictable. How is the sin nature going to respond? Well, various different ways. The sin nature is going to be irritable. discouraged. Can you see that back there? Is that better? There's going to be discouragement, maybe even anger. All of these are going to be responses of the sin nature. Let me ask the question, why? Why is the sin nature going to respond this way? What does the Sin Nature want to do? Doesn't the Sin Nature want to be in control? And the Sin Nature doesn't want you beaming out.

The radiance of the glory of God? No way. So there's going to be irritability. And the sin nature wants to make you feel good in abiding there, as opposed to abiding in Christ. If you feel good and you feel okay abiding in the sin nature, then the enemy is won. War is winning. So there's going to be all of these things, irritability, discouragement, anger, casting blame, bitterness.

But it goes down the line and it becomes a spiral, if you will. And if we hang out here, if we hang out here, then that spiral is going to get narrower and narrower and narrower. And when I talked about the fact that when one is in despair and doesn't see a way out, There is a way out that a person sees in abiding in self. What is it? Suicide. That is often just a tremendous relief to somebody who is abiding in self. Just end it all.

Okay, so here comes the sin nature. Now comes your response. What are you going to do? Here's the sin nature coming at you with the desire. Here comes the Lord at the same time with his desires and the Spirit of God within you coming at you and me with his desires. And so you're going to abide one place or the other and you're going to make You're going to abide by faith. You're going to say that, you know, self-pity. I have a right. I have a right to feel pity on myself. And I have that right to do that. And boy, the sin nature has got you.

And so you make this choice, if you will, by faith. So you're going to abide in self. And then the result? is you are distressed, crushed, despairing, forsaken, destroyed. You don't have that sense of well-being. All of the things that are part of your citizenship, you're not experiencing that which is part of your citizenship. And guess what? The bottom line is this. And here's the bottom line. And here's what God's concerned is that His glory is not being revealed. And His eternal purpose is to reveal that glory, to share that glory. He wants others to see that glory. It's not happening.

So, if we look at the other side, in terms of abiding in Christ, here come the troubles, the afflictions, not knowing which way to turn. Here comes the persecution. Here comes this feeling of being cast down. Here comes the response of the sin nature. Sin nature has the same response. But now the thing is, what's your response? And what's my response?

And where are we going to abide? Are we going to abide above, or are we going to abide here, in self? And so, if we're abiding in Christ, and flee, for abiding in Him And for Bob's sake, I have in your citizenship. We're not distressed, not disparaged, not forsaken, not destroyed. Now here come all the nots. And as we just read through Colossians 3, 1 through 3, and guess what? God's glory is being revealed. It's being radiated, beamed into the hearts of men.

Now a mistake, or at least a common experience of mine here is this. You mentioned before that we have a choice. I hate to use the word choice. I take that back. We respond. And we respond by faith. And that's the way we respond, it's by faith. And it's either faith in self, or faith in Christ. Because we're very good at having Adam express himself just freely, are we not? I mean, we're born with that nature, that's where our experience is, and that comes very naturally. Yes. Right?

Then the issue comes up about the other choice or response by faith, right? The trap I often get in is these trials and tribulations come frequently, daily. Not all of them fiery, but nevertheless. But the intellectualization of the choice for my citizenship is no victory connected to it, right? Exactly.

I mean, I think as we grow in grace, His glory is manifested in us, not by choice. but by life, right? And so that's a time-honored process, is it not? It seems like it comes so slowly at times, right? It's slow. But it's not a matter of plugging in to the Lord Jesus Christ, it's a matter of already being there.

And here, I think, is the important point, is that in terms of whether we abide here in self or we abide in Christ, you know the reason why I think we abide over here in self? We know self. We are very comfortable with self. We are very comfortable with these things.

And do you know why? Because we don't know Him well enough. That's the reason. The more we come to know Him and His life, the less attractive this is going to be. The more attractive that we find the Lord Jesus Christ, the less attractive we're going to find any of this out from self.

Okay, we've got to close, and I said I'm going to try and get through. Now, just to continue the chart that we started at the beginning of the class, and we said that we are having presently, continuously, two things, the treasure, the glory of God in the presence of Christ within us, and we're having trials and sufferings, and they were for a purpose, right? And the purpose is always for God's eternal purpose. Everyone of the passages, almost every passage you can look at, you're going to find the tie-in between God's eternal purpose and trials.

Trials are for Him. They're not for us, in a way. They're for Him in terms of He manifesting His glory through us. That's the importance of trials. And so, as we abide in Him in the trials, God beams the glory that's in our hearts, the very glory of the Lord Jesus Christ from us, out from our hearts, illuminates the hearts of men, and His purpose is accomplished. He's glorified. God is glorified.

And so when you think of trials, always think about God's glory. Don't think about self. Don't think about your growth and your dependence. Think about Him. That's the key. All right. Let's close. Father, we are, again, just so thankful. Father, we would never have planned it this way. This is not the way that we would have engineered our life. But Father, this is the way you have, and this is your wisdom. And from our wisdom, we would never have done it this way.

But Lord, we just thank you and rest in your wisdom that you see fit to provide on a daily, weekly, monthly basis trials in our life, and the dear Father for purpose. The purpose is for the glory that's within us, the very person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he be manifested through us to others, whether they be believers or unbelievers, that you might be glorified. And we give you thanks in Christ's name. Amen.