Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1084
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, December 8, 1872
“And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He said unto me, My Grace is sufficient for you: for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:7,8,9.
MANY persons have a morbid desire to roll up the curtain and gaze upon the secret lives of eminent personages. Paragraphs detailing the private habits of public men are delicacies for such minds. Books stuffed with idle gossip and mere trash are sure of a wide circulation if they tell how princes ate, how warriors drank, how philosophers slept, or how senators arranged their hair. And now we are able to gratify curiosity and yet minister to edification—for we have unveiled before us a portion of the secret life of Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles.
We may not only see his bed-chamber, but learn the Apostle’s visions! We may not only see his private infirmities, but learn the cause of them. Let us not, however, be actuated by so low a motive as mere curiosity while we gaze upon the open secret. Let us remember that the Apostle never intended to amuse the curious when he penned these words, but he wrote them for a practical purpose. Let us read them with a desire to be instructed by them and may the Holy Spirit teach us to profit.
This record was not sent to us merely that we should know that this eminent servant of Christ had abundant revelations or that he suffered a thorn in the flesh—it was written for our profit. One excellent end that may be answered by this narrative lies upon the very surface. We are plainly taught how mistaken we are when we set the eminent saints of the olden times upon a platform by themselves, as though they were a class of super-human beings. Because we fall so far short of them we excuse our indolence by conceiving them to be of a superior nature to ourselves so that we cannot be expected to attain to their degree of Divine Grace. We elevate them upon a niche out of the way so that they may not rebuke us, thus rendering them a homage which they never sought and denying them a usefulness which they always coveted.
As we never try to fly because we have no angelic wings, so we do not aspire to supreme holiness because we imagine that we have not Apostolic advantages. Indeed, this is a very injurious idea and must not be tolerated. What the ancient saints were, we may be! They were men of like passions with ourselves and therefore are most fit and practical examples for us. The Spirit of God which was in them is in all Believers and He is by no means straitened! Their Savior is our Savior—His fullness is the fullness out of which all of us have received. Let us put far away from us every notion of separating the holy men of former days from ourselves, as if they were a saintly caste to be admired at a distance but not associated with as comrades.
They fought the common fight and won by the strength available to all Believers—let us esteem them as our Brethren—and with them pursue the sacred conflict in the name of the common Leader. Let us fix our eyes upon these companions of our warfare and, regarding them as a sympathetic cloud of witnesses, let us run as they ran that we may win as they won and may glorify God in our day and generation as they did in theirs!
Paul, my Brothers and Sisters, doubtless enjoyed more revelations than we have done but then he had a corresponding thorn in the flesh. He rises above us, but he sinks with us, also, and so encourages us to emulate his rising. He was a good man but he was only a man! He was a saint, but he had the infirmities of sinners! He is our Brother Paul,
though he is “not a whit behind the very chief of the Apostles.” And as we read his experience this morning, I hope we shall be made to feel a fellowship with him and so be spurred on to imitate him.
I. Our text suggests to us, first of all, A DANGER to which the Apostle was exposed—“Lest I should be exalted above measure.” Upon that let us speak first. Here is a peril to which we are all exposed, more or less, but the Apostle Paul was especially liable to it because of his peculiar circumstances. He had been caught up into the third Heaven— secret things which had not been seen before were laid bare before his gaze. Nor were his eyes, alone, filled—his ears, also, were satisfied for he heard words which it was not possible for him to repeat and which, could he have repeated, it would not have been expedient for him even to whisper in the unpurified ears of mankind.