Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1287
“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 12:9.
PAUL, when buffeted by the messenger of Satan, addressed his prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ and not, as he usually did, to the heavenly Father. This is a somewhat remarkable fact, but it is clear from the passage before us. He says, “For this thing I besought the Lord thrice,” and that the Lord, here, is the Lord Jesus is pretty clear from the fact that he says in the next verse, “that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” His prayer was not directed to God, absolutely considered, nor does he speak of the power of God, but his prayer was directed to the Lord Jesus Christ and it was the power of the Lord Jesus Christ which he desired to rest upon him. It is an Infallible proof of our Lord’s divinity, that He may be addressed in prayer! And this is one instance, with several others, which show us that we may legitimately present our petitions, not only to the ever-blessed Father, but also to His Son Jesus Christ.
There seems to me to be a peculiar fitness in a prayer to Jesus when the temptation came from a messenger of Satan, because the Lord Jesus has endured the same temptation, Himself, and knows how to succor them that are tempted. Moreover, He has come to earth to destroy the works of the devil. In His lifetime He manifested peculiar power over unclean spirits and was constantly casting them out from those whom they tormented. It was one of His few rejoicing notes, “I saw Satan, like lightning, fall from Heaven.” It was by the name of Jesus that devils were expelled after Christ had risen into Glory. “Jesus I know,” said the spirits whom the sons of Sceva endeavored in vain to exorcise.
Devils felt the power of Jesus and, therefore, it was wise and natural that the Apostle Paul should, when buffeted of Satan, turn to Jesus and ask Him to bid the evil spirit depart from him. Is it not a little remarkable, also, that this prayer was not only addressed to Jesus, but was offered in much the same manner as the prayer of our Lord in the Garden? The Apostle prayed three times, even as our Lord did when He, too, was sorely buffeted by the powers of darkness. Paul’s thrice-repeated cry was intensely earnest, for he, “besought” the Lord thrice.
And Paul, singularly enough, met with very much the same answer as his Master, for our Lord was not permitted to put aside the cup, (it could not pass away from Him unless He drank it), but an angel appeared unto Him strengthening Him. And so, in Paul’s case, the trial was not taken away from him, but he was strengthened by kind, assuring words and by being led to see that God would be glorified by his enduring the trial. I see, then, the Lord Jesus reflected in His servant Paul as in a mirror! I hear the three-times repeated prayer, I mark the cup standing unremoved and I see the strength imparted in the midst of weakness!
Our text fell from the lips of Jesus Christ, Himself, and if anything could make its language more sweet than it is in itself, it would be this fact, that He, Himself, delivered the words to His chosen Apostle. It is Jesus who says, in the words of the text, “My Grace is sufficient for you, My strength is made perfect in weakness.” This Truth of God casts a soft, mellow light upon the words, helps us to interpret them and enables us to derive all the greater comfort from them. When Jesus speaks, a special charm surrounds each syllable.
The exact tense of the Greek words are not easy to translate into English. The Apostle does not merely tell us that his Lord said these words to him 14 years ago, but the tense connects the past with the present, as if he felt that the answer was not simply something past, but something which continued with him in its consoling power. The echoes of what his Lord had said were still sounding through his soul! I should not miss the Apostle’s meaning if I read it, “He has been saying to me, ‘My strength is sufficient for you.’” The words had an abiding effect upon the Apostle’s mind, not merely for
the time reconciling him to the particular trouble which had afflicted him, but cheering him for all the rest of his life— strengthening him in all future trials to glory in his infirmities and render praise to God.
It is a sweet thing to have a text of Scripture laid home to the heart for present uses, but when God the Holy Spirit so applies a promise that it abides in the heart for the term of one’s natural life, then are we favored, indeed! Elijah’s meat gave him strength for 40 days, but what is that meat which endures unto life eternal? What bread must that be which feeds me through the whole period of my pilgrimage? Here, then, we have before us food which Jesus Himself provides, so nutritive that His Spirit can cause us to remember the feast to our dying day! O Lord, feed us, now, and give us Grace to inwardly digest your gracious Word.