2 Corinthians 1:3-11
Affliction – Friend or Foe?
Pastor Albert N. Martin expounds 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, addressing the common experience of affliction among God's people. He argues that affliction, often perceived as an enemy, is in fact a friend, serving five divine purposes: to reveal God's character more fully, to equip believers for ministry to others, to drive them to greater dependence on God's power, to strengthen their faith in God's promises, and to provoke corporate praise and thanksgiving. Martin urges believers to embrace affliction biblically, while also calling unbelievers to repent and believe the gospel to access God's comfort.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 8 sections · 51 min
- Introduction: Affliction as a Universal Christian Experience 0:01
- The Worldly vs. Godly Perspective on Affliction 6:56
- Purpose 1: A Fuller Revelation of God's Character 9:50
- Purpose 2: Equipping for Ministry to Others 19:20
- Purpose 3: Shutting Up to God's Power 25:45
- Purpose 4: Increasing Faith in God's Promises 34:33
- Purpose 5: Provoking Corporate Praise and Thanksgiving 40:21
- Conclusion: Embrace Affliction as a Friend 46:11
Key Quotes
“You see, the Apostles were very, very concerned that believers understand early in their Christian lives that affliction and tribulation were part and parcel of normal Christian experience.”
“He can never hug affliction, he can never hug affliction to his breast and say welcome my God sent friend. He looks upon him and says who are you oh my enemy?”
“You see just as no one knows God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus apart from the experimental knowledge of sin and of grace so you cannot really know God as the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort unless you're in the experimental crucible of affliction.”
“Lord this is doing this and that and the other to me instead of saying oh God if this is the price that I must pay to be an instrument in your hands to be a blessing to others Lord I am willing to submit to anything that I might be an instrument of consolation to my fellow believers.”
“these things the Apostle says are the divine purpose in affliction sometimes the Lord has to do it with regard to monetary things”
“your faith is not strengthened by pulling your promises out of the promise box your faith is strengthened when that promise in the promise box goes with you into the fires of affliction that's when your faith is strengthened and you prove God in terms of his promise in the midst of affliction”
“can that which gives you a fuller revelation of the character of God be your enemy or is it your friend can that which equips you for a more useful ministry to God's people can that be your enemy or is that your friend”
Applications
All listeners
- Learn how to confront affliction biblically, rather than with worldly, carnal views.
- Understand the purpose of God in affliction so you can embrace your afflictions rather than run from them.
- Don't look upon affliction as your enemy, but as a means to further revelation of God's character.
- Do not be self-sparing and reject affliction, as this would mean rejecting a deeper experimental knowledge of God's infinite character.
- Submit to affliction willingly, seeing it as the price to pay to be an instrument of blessing and consolation to fellow believers.
- Embrace God's disciplines in affliction, recognizing they are not accidents but means to equip you for ministry to others.
- Don't look upon affliction as your enemy, but as God's means to shut you up more fully to His power.
- Recognize that affliction is the answer to prayers for increased faith, as it strengthens faith in God's promises.
- Be done with carnal views of affliction; look beyond the temporal and immediate to realize its divine purposes for knowing God, being a blessing, strengthening faith, and increasing corporate praise.
- If you are presently in affliction, view it scripturally. If not, be prepared, for affliction will come.
- Repent of your sin, believe the gospel, acknowledge your need for mercy, and embrace Christ's promise of rest to know God as the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.
- If you know God in Christ, prove Him to be the God of all mercies and comfort in your experience, allowing the theory to become real in the crucible of affliction.
- Encourage one another when in affliction, reminding each other of the divine purposes in affliction.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 53 paragraphs, roughly 51 minutes.
Introduction: Affliction as a Universal Christian Experience
One of the common experiences of all the people of God is this matter of affliction.
And I want to speak to you tonight from 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 3 through 11, under the general theme of affliction, friend or foe.
Affliction, friend or foe. It is obvious that the theme of this passage, which we read earlier in the service, is the subject of affliction. But the very thing which triggers this eulogy, this blessing of God the Father, is that the Apostle and his companion Timothy have experienced a peculiar measure of the consolation and comfort of God in the midst of affliction. And so the Apostle begins with those words, Blessings.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our affliction. And then it opens up the whole subject of affliction, in which there are given to us some very helpful perspectives concerning this that is the experience of all the people of God. Now, in introducing our study of the passage, it's necessary to understand, to understand several things about affliction. First of all, the meaning of the word as it is found here in the passage before us.
The word itself literally means that which is pressing or pressure. Hence it has come to speak of oppression, affliction or tribulation. It refers to distress brought upon men and women, particularly by outward circumstances which, in turn, create this inward distress. It's translated numerous ways in the New Testament.
Some places it's translated tribulation. Other places, as here, affliction. Sometimes persecution. Other times, trouble.
But it's that which God reveals is the portion of all of His people. This pressure, this oppression, this tribulation, this inward distress, brought about by outward circumstances, our Lord says, will be the portion of all of His people. John 16, 33, In the world ye shall have, and this is the same word in the original, ye shall have affliction, ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. One of the very elementary messages that the Apostles used to give on their missionary, follow-up tours, concerned the whole subject of affliction. In Acts 14, 22 we read, verse 21, And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and it made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, and to Iconium, and to Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that through many afflictions, same word in the original, many tribulations, we must enter into the kingdom of God. You see, the Apostles were very, very concerned that believers understand early in their Christian lives that affliction and tribulation were part and parcel
of normal Christian experience. It is for this reason that our Lord in His parting words spoke the words previously quoted, In the world ye shall have tribulation. He had given them some tremendously encouraging promises about the coming of the Holy Spirit, some promises concerning His ministry of comfort and consolation and illumination and impartation of gifts and graces and power. But lest they misunderstand this to think that they would come to some level of experience in the Holy Spirit that would either immunize them from or totally lift them out of the realm of tribulation and affliction, our Lord says toward the conclusion, of those wonderful words of John 14, 15 and 16, In the world ye shall have tribulation. And John was so confident that tribulation was as much a part of the Christian life as faith in Christ that when he addresses the believers of Asia Minor in Revelation chapter 1, this is how he addresses them. Verse 9, I, John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation, and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus. He looks upon all believers as fellow partakers not only of the kingdom and the steadfastness that are in Christ but also the tribulation,
the affliction, the persecution that are in Christ. And so it is not surprising that our Lord tells us in the parable of the sower that some apparent converts are caused to wither in their profession when they come into contact with their first real affliction. In Matthew 13, 21 Jesus said, When tribulation and persecution, when affliction and persecution arise because of the word, they stumble. It was affliction that caused the consternation of the Psalmist in Psalm 73.
He was afflicted and he saw the people of God afflicted and it didn't make sense to him because the people who were not committed to the worship of Jehovah and to the law of God seemed to be wonderfully insulated from affliction and this he could not understand. And so in the light of the fact that the scripture teaches that affliction is one of the common denominators of the people of God and that affliction can be the occasion of stumbling and consternation, it is necessary for every Christian to learn how to confront affliction. And one of the great problems we face as in many other areas, we carry over into the Christian life worldly carnal views of affliction. You see the worldling looks upon affliction as his greatest enemy. Every affliction that comes into his life is a roadblock in the pursuit of his carnal and temporal goals. And therefore affliction is always his enemy.
The Worldly vs. Godly Perspective on Affliction
He can never hug affliction, he can never hug affliction to his breast and say welcome my God sent friend. He looks upon him and says who are you oh my enemy? And he does all within his power to get him out of the way. But now for the child of God there should be a totally different perspective concerning the subject of affliction.
The worldling looks upon it as enemy, all enemy, nothing but enemy. And yet sad to say many children of God to some degree or another have absorbed that mentality and do not understand the purpose of God in affliction. Now what I want to do tonight is turning to this passage in 2 Corinthians seek to lay out before you in a very sketchy way the divine purpose of God in affliction which when understood by the child of God will help him to embrace his afflictions rather than to run from them as an unwanted enemy. Let me illustrate the difference this perspective will make. Try to picture a little child who's been involved in a very serious accident. He's been knocked unconscious and he has a compound fracture. He's got a bone sticking right through the skin that's going to demand not only the setting of the bone but some suturing and patching up.
And the first time he awakes out of his unconsciousness he looks up and there's a man with a mask on his face and a skull cap on his head a big needle in his hand and a scalpel in his other hand. And the poor child coming to consciousness thinks he's awakened in the midst of a Frankenstein horror movie. I mean he's scared to death and he screams out and he begins to try to fight himself off that table until he's quieted down long enough and his mom or dad or the nurse or the doctor explains to him that the person standing there with the needle is going to put the needle in there so that he won't feel any pain when he takes his little knife and begins to patch him up here and put the arm back in place and once the child understands that that which in his first reflex response looks so foreboding something to be resisted when he understands the purpose of all that then if he's old enough to be rational and to think through the issue he will welcome that which upon first sight he would utterly reject. And in the same way to the same degree the child of God many times when he wakes up as it were and sees affliction standing before him with his long needle and with his scalpel his reaction is one of wanting to run
Purpose 1: A Fuller Revelation of God's Character
and it's at that point that he needs to be still and to hear the voice of God saying this is the purpose that I have in this affliction and then the heart of the child of God is stilled to submit to that affliction. What then according to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 3 to 11 is the divine purpose in affliction? And I would suggest that the apostle indicates that there are at least five divine purposes in affliction and I'm limiting our observations just to this passage we could range far and wide in many other portions of scripture but I want to stick with this portion and lay before you these aspects of the divine purpose in affliction. Now my purpose I trust you remember is that you as a child of God may recognize this so that when affliction comes and it will come you may be able to confront it biblically and not look upon affliction as your foe but as your friend. What then is the first purpose of God in affliction? Well it's set before us in verse 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
As the apostle Paul breaks out in praise to God he praises God with specific reference to the revelation of God's character that has come to him in the context of affliction. Therefore the first purpose of God in affliction is to give us a fuller revelation of the character of God. In this text God is called three things he is called the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ secondly the Father of mercies and third he is called the God of all comfort. Now when the apostle addresses him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ he is indicating that God has been revealed to him in the saving revelation made in and through Jesus Christ the Lord. In other words when the apostle thinks of God he thinks of him not only as the God of creation not only as the God of providence but he thinks of him particularly as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He thinks of him as the God who has revealed himself and his way of salvation in the person and work of the Lord Jesus. Therefore whatever follows in this text whatever other revelation is made of God it is made in the context of that fundamental revelation of God as a saving God in Jesus Christ the Lord. That's the starting point. If you do not stand in a saving relationship to God through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ this message is not for you.
This is children's bread and it is not to be given to the dogs. This is God's word to believers who know God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ as the apostle further says in verse 5 as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us even so our comfort aboundeth through Christ. All of the consolation of God to his suffering saints is in terms of their vital union with Jesus Christ. But now notice the apostle not only knows him as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus but he calls him in this place and it's the only place I know of in the New Testament where God is addressed in these terms the Father of mercies or literally the Father of the mercies or the compassions and the God of all things. All comforting. Now let's look at those two descriptions of God for a moment. The Father of all compassions or mercies.
The word mercy means pity to those who are in distress. Remember in the life of our Lord and in his ministry needy people would encounter our Lord and would cry out Son of David have mercy upon me look upon me with pity. It's Psalm 103 in verse 13 like as a father pitieth his children so the Lord pitieth those that fear him. He addresses God in terms of God's inward disposition in the face of the afflictions of his people.
When God beholds the afflictions of his people ordered by his own divine providence how does he behold them? He doesn't behold them with a stoical indifference saying well I've decreed it and now it's for their good. Let them work it out. No, no.
In all their afflictions the scripture says he was afflicted. He is not only the God of our Lord Jesus Christ who's revealed a way of forgiveness and acceptance through the Lord Jesus but he's the God who having brought us into his family and given us the spirit of adoption is to us the Father of mercies and he says the God of all comforting. Where the reference to mercy focuses upon the disposition of God's heart this reference to comforting points out the activity of God. He not only has an attitude of pity and compassion but he puts forth that attitude in positive comfort of his people. In the midst of the pressure of their distress he is the God who comforts them. Now let me ask a question. How did the Apostle Paul come to know God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Well you see that revelation was made to him in the way that it's made to all sinful men. He must first of all be brought to a sight of his sin. He must be brought to a sight of the mercy that God extends in the Lord Jesus. You read the first part of that in Romans 7 I had not known sin except the law said thou shalt not covet and he details how God dealt with him to show him that in spite of all his external morality and religiosity he was lost and undone.
Then he came to know God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see just as no one knows God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus apart from the experimental knowledge of sin and of grace so you cannot really know God as the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort unless you're in the experimental crucible of affliction. You see you don't have pity upon those who are well off. You don't need to extend comfort to those who are completely at ease.
Pity upon those who are well off. Pity is for the afflicted. Comfort is for the distressed. And the apostle tells us then in this passage that the first purpose of God in affliction with reference to his children is to give them this further unfolding of his own character.
To bring them into an experimental awareness of the God that he is. So if you pray as a Christian and I trust you do pray Oh God help me to know you better. Perhaps you find yourselves praying in the words of Philippians 3 that I may know him. Would you have further revelation of the character of God?
Not in the abstract but in the real stuff of human experience. Then dear child of God don't look upon affliction as your enemy. It's in the context of affliction that you will come to know him as the God of all mercy. The God of all mercies and the God of all comfort.
And if you are going to be so self-sparing that you say Oh God don't touch me with affliction. What you are saying is I want no further revelation experimentally of the depth and the breadth the height and the length of your infinite character. And so the first purpose of God then in affliction is to give us a fuller revelation of his character. Now the second purpose is laid out in verses 4 to 7.
Purpose 2: Equipping for Ministry to Others
What is it? Who comforteth us in all our affliction that, here's the purpose, that we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us even so our comfort also aboundeth through Christ. But whether we are afflicted it is for your comfort and salvation.
Whether we are comforted it is for your comfort which worketh in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. And our hope for you is steadfast knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings so also are ye of the comfort. Do you see what the apostle is saying? He's saying the second divine purpose in affliction for the child of God is to equip us for a more useful ministry to the people of God.
Notice that thread of thought God comforts us that we may be able to comfort others. Sufferings abound in us comfort abounds through us. If we are afflicted for your sake if we are comforted for your sake and you can reduce the basic thought of verses 4 to 7 in this simple little equation all that happens to us happens for your sake. All that comes to us issues in blessing to you.
Now in the context the primary reference to this of course is to the apostle and his companion Timothy. Whatever particular trials they were passing through by virtue of the problems that the church at Corinth and in the light of their overall ministry the apostle wants the Corinthians to know that what is happening to them is for their sake. But in the light of passages like Romans 15, 14 in which the apostle speaks in such broad terms of the ministry that believers have one to another we cannot give this an exclusive reference to the apostle. He said I am persuaded of you my brethren that ye yourselves are full of goodness filled with all knowledge able also to admonish one another. He says of the Romans he said I am confident that as brethren you have come to sufficient experimental knowledge that you are able to admonish one another. And so I would lay before you as the people of God this second aspect of the divine purpose in affliction. How is God going to equip you for a more useful ministry to others?
Well I will tell you what he is going to do. He is going to put you in the fires of affliction. That in those fires of affliction as you experimentally become acquainted with the comfort of God you in turn may be an instrument of consolation and comfort to others. You see you do not exist in the body of Christ for your own sake.
God has placed you in the body of Christ that you might be an instrument of maturity and development in the lives of the other members of that body. First Corinthians 12 deals with this so clearly. When one member suffers all the members suffer with it. When one member is comforted all are comforted with it.
Ephesians chapter 4 the body is built up by that which every child which every joint supplieth it makes increase of itself in love. Now how are you going to be made more useful in your ministry to others? Well it is going to be in the midst of affliction. If affliction is the common experience of all the people of God in all ages then one of the great needs that they have is for people to be able to console them and comfort them in their affliction.
Well who is going to be able to do it? Those who themselves have proven the consolation of God in the midst of affliction. Those who have experimentally learned how to face the needle in the scalpel and instead of screaming and ranting and raving to get off the operating table and said Lord put in the needle do your work with the scalpel. May I prove you to be the God of all comfort the Father of all mercies to the end that I may have a more useful ministry unto others.
You see perhaps there are a few things which reveal the depth of our selfhood more clearly than the quickness with which we reject affliction. Lord this is doing this and that and the other to me instead of saying oh God if this is the price that I must pay to be an instrument in your hands to be a blessing to others Lord I am willing to submit to anything that I might be an instrument of consolation to my fellow believers. And isn't that the true mark of divine love love seeketh not her own. Isn't that our big problem the moment affliction comes all we think about this is doing this to me this is doing this to me to my name my comforts my plans my my my but the apostle Paul didn't look upon it this way when afflictions came down he tumbling in upon him he said well hallelujah there's a lot more people out there that are going to be helped. Isn't that what he said? As the comfort as the afflictions abound he says so the consolations abound and he welcomed the affliction knowing that it was going to equip him for a more useful ministry to the people of God. And so let me encourage you dear child of God some who may this very night
Purpose 3: Shutting Up to God's Power
be in the midst of an unusual discipline of affliction and tribulation and you found it perhaps so difficult you've cried out Lord is there something in me is this some chastisement is there some sin and you've been open and honest before God and you've drawn a blank perhaps this is the perspective that you need to bring into the total picture Lord there are no accidents with you you know every single person to whom I must be an instrument and means of grace all along the way from here to glory Lord I embrace all of your disciplines to me that I might be a source of blessing to others. Well then the apostle goes on to give us a third purpose in affliction that helped him to look upon affliction not as a foe but as a friend and it's found in verses 8 and 9 For we would not have you ignorant brethren concerning our affliction which befell us in Asia and we were weighed down exceedingly beyond our power insomuch that we despaired even of life yea we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raiseth the dead what was the third divine purpose in affliction according to the apostle well it was simply this
to shut him up more fully to the power of God notice his words I don't want you to be ignorant you Corinthians concerning this tremendous affliction which came to us in Asia what he's referring to nobody knows for certain the commentators all make their guesses and most of them disagree so I'd be foolish to try to arbitrate that problem but whatever it was and here's the important thing not what the trial was but what the purpose of God was and notice he says here was God's purpose we had this affliction come upon us that brought us to the place where we despaired even of life he said yes we had the very sentence of death within ourselves we were as good as dead to what purpose that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raiseth the dead in other words the apostle Paul says we were brought to a place where the only thing where the only way out of that circumstance of affliction was a manifestation an operation of divine power equal to the power that raises dead men to life now you see in any other kind of exercise of divine power there may be great divine assistance but there may be already something there to work with if a lame man came to the Lord Jesus
the Lord straightened out a leg that was already there if a blind man came the Lord gave sight to eyes that were already there but when the Lord Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb there was nothing there there was a direct intrusion of life from without and Paul said we were brought to the place where our confidence was in such an exertion of divine power that was equal to the power that raises men from the dead and therefore he says this affliction was not our fault but our friend because it shut us up more fully than ever to confidence in the mighty power of the living God now you see we can have a very romantic view of the Apostle Paul as though he didn't have to wrestle with indwelling sin and corruption yet Romans 7 is an eloquent testimony to the fact that this was not true you look at 2 Corinthians 12 Paul had a tendency to be proud and God seeing that tendency said lest you be puffed up beyond measure because of the revelations given to you I'm going to allow this messenger of Satan to buffet you and Paul says Lord I can't complete my ministry with this thing it hinders me it cripples me it weakens me the Lord said no if I took it away your pride would weaken you and cripple you
therefore I'm going to allow this affliction so that in the midst of your physical weakness you'll be conscious of where your dependence is and in the midst of your weakness the power of Christ will be manifested and so the Apostle needed as we do to be constantly pushed away from the subtle temptation to self-confidence to creature confidence to looking more upon God's work as the work of him assisting us in the exercise of our own cleverness and our own abilities and so when this affliction came he says this was the divine purpose that we should not trust in ourselves but in God and oh dear child of God if the Apostle Paul needed affliction to shut him up more fully to confidence in the power of God who are you and who am I to think that we'll be shut up by any lesser means and affliction that which God brings upon us that makes us consciously embrace our weakness and comes like scissors to cut the cords and the nerves of creature confidence and carnal confidence these things the Apostle says are the divine purpose in affliction sometimes the Lord has to do it with regard to monetary things
pretty hard for some of us to pray Lord give us this day our daily bread and really mean it we've collected our check week in week out month in month out until suddenly we're laid off affliction comes and then you begin to know what it is as you never knew before to look to God to supply your daily bread and suddenly those words are no longer pretty words in a prayer that you memorized as a child they become the experimental petition of your own heart loving Father look down upon us in our family and our need give us this day our daily bread and what happens with that affliction? it shuts you up to the power of God and the intervention of God sometimes it comes with help some of us know weeks and months and years of getting out of bed with two sound feet and a sound mind and a body that can carry us to our work and though we do sort of half-heartedly say now Lord give me strength for this day and at the end of the day thank the Lord it really doesn't come from the heart we pretty well think we can get on our own steam until God just allows us that strength to be shriveled and we know what it is to lay there on a bed of weakness or sickness and say oh God if I'm to even get through half this day you must sustain me you must strengthen me and we're shut up
to the exercise of divine power for our daily strength in a way that we never were before how did this come about? affliction was God's means to shut us up more fully to his power so it is with the matter of wisdom so with the matter of patience God puts us in situations where all of our natural resources are utterly depleted and we say as far as that duty is concerned and what I must have to perform it I'm as good as a dead man the sentence of death is upon me and God says well hallelujah it's about time it's about time I told you right along without me you can do nothing but you didn't believe me I've told you right along cursed be he that trusted in man and make it flesh his arm but you didn't believe me and now affliction has come and what has been its effect to shut us up to the exercise of divine power oh child of God don't look upon affliction as your enemy that which shuts you up more fully to the exercise of divine power is your friend well we move on to see the fourth divine purpose in affliction and we find it in verse 10 having spoken of this trust in God who raiseth the dead he goes on to say who delivered us out of so great a death and now he makes a prophecy
Purpose 4: Increasing Faith in God's Promises
will deliver on whom we've set our hope that he will also still deliver us you see what he's doing he's left the realm of testimony and now he's making an affirmation of faith looking back upon this circumstance whatever it was that shut him up to the exercise of divine power he says the fourth function of this affliction was to increase his faith in the promises of God way back when God called the Apostle Paul he made a promise to him we read that promise in the 26th chapter of the book of Acts Acts 26 verse 16 arise and stand upon thy feet for to this end have I appeared unto thee to appoint thee a minister and a witness both of the things wherein thou hast seen me and of the things wherein I will appear unto thee delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom I send thee to open their eyes etc here was the promise of God Paul I'm commissioning you with this gospel commission and in the accomplishment of it I will deliver you from every opposition until my purpose for you is accomplished
and again and again the Apostle Paul was brought into circumstances where it seemed his life was going to be snuffed out one time stones heaped upon him other times plots were laid to take his life but again and again when these afflictions came and God fulfilled his promise what did it do well it increased his faith in the promises of God for faith is strengthened in two ways it's strengthened by looking to the greatness of the God who made the promise and secondly by experiencing the reality of the fulfillment of that promise and faith is strengthened in those two ways beholding the God who makes the promise that's the emphasis of Paul in Romans chapter 4 Abraham waxed strong in faith how? being fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able to perform as he conceived in his mind of the character and the might and power of God he could look at his own body as good as a dead body and say this body will yet father a child because the God who made the promise in Isaac shall I seed be called he's able to father a child through the dead body of Abraham he's able to do something to this body to make it able to father a child
but the apostle in this passage is focusing upon the second way in which faith is strengthened it's strengthened by the experiencing of the reality and the fulfillment of those promises and so the apostle says when we had the sentence of death in ourselves we despaired of even living unless God put forth the mighty arm of resurrection power once he did he said why we have confidence that the God who has delivered will still deliver and continue to deliver until his purposes for us are accomplished notice how that faith became even stronger when as he's about to lay down his life second Timothy chapter 4 he makes a similar reference to the delivering power of God second Timothy chapter 4 verse 16 at my first defense no one took my part but all forsook me may it not be laid to their account but the Lord stood by me and strengthened me that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and that all the Gentiles might hear and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion the Lord will deliver me from every evil work you see what he's saying this past deliverance strengthens my faith to believe the Lord
he will yet deliver me from every evil work and will save me unto his heavenly kingdom to whom be glory forever and forever you see dear child of God your faith is not strengthened by pulling your promises out of the promise box your faith is strengthened when that promise in the promise box goes with you into the fires of affliction that's when your faith is strengthened and you prove God in terms of his promise in the midst of affliction and then you're able to come forth with that ringing affirmation the Lord has delivered he will deliver he shall deliver from every evil work again you see it's quite easy to pray Lord increase my faith and then when God begins to put you in the context of affliction you say Lord this doesn't have anything to do with my prayer well that's the very answer to your prayer it's by affliction that our faith in the promises of God in the God of the promises is strengthened and then the fifth function the fifth divine purpose in affliction is found in verse 11 verse 11 the apostle says
Purpose 5: Provoking Corporate Praise and Thanksgiving
ye also know helping together on our behalf by your supplication that for the gift bestowed upon us by means of many thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf now whether the apostle is referring to the past prayers of the people of God there's a problem in the grammar in the original it's uncertain or whether he's saying in the light of what I've told you you will now have a renewed prayer involvement with Timothy and myself in our ministries whether then he's looking to a past deliverance or thinking of future deliverances in which their prayers will have a part this thing is clear that the end result will be this thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf in other words as Paul is delivered from affliction preserved in the midst of affliction the divine purpose at this point will be to provoke corporate praise and thanksgiving to God for the deliverance wrought for his servant one of the great delights of being a child of God and scripturally identifying oneself with a visible community of God's people the visible church
is that when we enter that affliction we do not enter it alone we have not only the presence of our Lord Jesus by the spirit but we have the presence of the Lord Jesus in the members of his body and Christ and his union with his body is not a mere theological concept so vital is that union that Paul says if you sin against the weak brother you sin against Christ he's a member of his body and if you touch my finger you touch me that's a part of me you don't just say I hammered your finger you hammered me when you hammer that finger the Lord Jesus said to Saul Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? and this concept of this organic life union between Christ and his people was so real in the mind of the apostle Paul that he says when we're afflicted and in answer to your prayers deliverance is wrought and we are preserved then the end result will be corporate praise to God for the comfort and consolation ministered unto us and I know that one of the great delights that I have as a pastor is to hear the testimony of the people of God who've entered into unusual periods of affliction and to have them share
that among other things and this is almost always at the top of the list they've said this the concept the biblical principle of the unity of the body of Christ has become precious to me in my affliction in a way I never experienced it before that affliction came one of these days I hope to read if not all great segments of a precious letter which we received from Roz and Irv Millett when we were over in Wales shortly after the death of little Laurie and again this concept came through so clearly the sense that when they pass through this trial of their faith this affliction they did not pass through alone there was not only the Lord Jesus ministering His own grace directly by the Spirit to their hearts but there was the Lord Jesus ministering through His body that supportive role of love and intercession and sympathy and understanding I know this has been Mr. Clark's testimony concerning the physical affliction through which he's passed in recent weeks and months the realization that the body of Christ is not just a theological term it's not just that we meet under the same roof to hear the same sermons sing the same hymns there is a bond of identification of love and compassion
which when God is pleased to undertake results not just in the person who was afflicted and has received comfort rendering praise to God but as the whole body of God's people entered into that affliction by their supplications so now they enter in to praise and to rejoicing and God is magnified not by the one but by the many and notice how that's the clear emphasis of the text ye helping together on our behalf by your supplications to this end that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf the scripture says whoso offereth praise glorifieth me and if God is glorified by the praise of one of his saints he's glorified more intensely by the whole body of his saints rendering praise unto him and so I would suggest from this passage not suggest I would assert that there are at least five distinct divine purposes in your afflictions and in mine and let me ask a question in the light of these can that which gives you a fuller revelation of the character of God be your enemy or is it your friend can that which equips you for a more useful ministry
Conclusion: Embrace Affliction as a Friend
to God's people can that be your enemy or is that your friend can that which shuts you up more fully to the power of God be your enemy or your friend can that which increases your faith in the promises of God ever be conceived of as your enemy or your friend can that which provokes corporate praise and thanksgiving to God be your enemy or is it your friend O child of God be done with carnal views of affliction looking upon affliction as a dreaded enemy look beyond the temporal beyond the immediate and oft times flesh withering disciplines of affliction and realize that through affliction you will come to know God experimentally in a way that you could not otherwise know Him that through affliction you will be made a more fit instrument of blessing to God's people that through affliction your faith will be strengthened your sense of the certainty of the promises of God and then your involvement with His people in praise will be increased
this is the divine purpose in affliction and so if you are presently in the midst of affliction may God help you to view that affliction scripturally and if you aren't presently in the midst of it don't breathe too easily for in the world ye shall have affliction that through many afflictions we must enter the kingdom of God and if you are a child of God as sure as you sit on that bench tonight you are going to pass through affliction may God help you and may God help me thus to view our afflictions in the light of divine revelation but then there are some of you here who do not know God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ if not you cannot know Him as the God of comfort you cannot know Him as the Father of mercies and it will not do in the next affliction to go whimpering to God and saying oh God whoever you are wherever you are comfort me no, no if you are indifferent to God's demands with reference to your sin that you repent and believe the gospel that you acknowledge yourself to be undone and standing in need of His mercy if you live in impenitence and in unbelief and despise the gospel and trample underfoot the blood of the covenant do not think
that you can come whimpering to God and somehow snatch to yourself the comfort that He has pledged to His children no, no if you would know Him as the Father of mercies the God of all comfort I entreat you first of all to know Him as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ repent of your sin believe the gospel embrace His gracious promise come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest but thank God if in grace He has brought us to know Him as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ He is the God of all mercies and the Father of all comfort to us may we prove Him to be that in our experience and all of the theory that perhaps we have of these things God will make real to us in the crucible of affliction frankly I have great fears humanly speaking in the flesh whenever I preach along these lines because I know I know that the only way I can have an increased ministry of comfort to the saints is to be dipped more deeply into that crucible of affliction maybe some of you will need to remind me
of some of the things I've preached to you may God help you to do so that we may encourage one another when we begin to scream and holler and try to jump off the table because we see the syringe and the knife may God help us to quiet one another down and remind one another of the principles of this passage the divine purposes in affliction that we might know that affliction is not our foe but our friend in the purpose of Almighty God let us pray
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
This passage is the textual foundation for the entire sermon, from which Martin systematically extracts five divine purposes of affliction.
Texts Expounded
Also Referenced
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Comforts of God Experienced in Affliction
2 Cor. 1:3-11
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