DELIVERED UNTO DEATH

We have spoken about the importance of "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," but the verse immediately following it takes us one step further. 2 Corinthians 4:11 states, "For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." We may have felt the need to bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, and even have carried it out to some extent, really wanting to deal with what is not pleasing to the Lord. If we always did it perfectly, verse 11 would not need to be there. But the Lord sees things in our lives that we do not see – perhaps things we do not think are too bad, perhaps an attitude to which we have long become accustomed, or some hidden motive that we do not realize is having such an effect on our lives. Then we are "delivered unto death" – a strong statement. What does it mean? It means that the Lord allows circumstances in our lives to bring before us that hidden motive, that sin that we do not see, or at least do not think is too serious. It is the mercy of God that He does this, for then we are able to see more clearly what is hindering our full enjoyment of Christ, and get rid of it. But how often we rebel against the Lord's dealings with us, and do not learn the lesson! We look at the circumstances themselves, or perhaps at the individuals involved in them, and refuse to let the Lord show us that He has allowed the difficulty.

We must remember that there are never any second causes with God. When we have accepted the trial from the Lord, and Him alone, then we can go to Him in the spirit of Hebrews 12:11, exercised by the chastisement and finding that it yields "the peaceable fruit of righteousness." If others are involved and have acted wrongly toward us, we can leave that with the Lord; He will deal with them. May God give us the grace to accept all our circumstances from Him, and then to go to Him, asking Him why He has allowed them. If we do this, then He can show us things in our hearts that need to be dealt with. Then the life of Jesus will be more and more exhibited in us, instead of the old, sinful nature. If this is God's purpose in the trial, does it not make it all worthwhile?

We should never allow ourselves the luxury of feeling sorry for ourselves. We all like to do that sometimes. We have heard of people who have what is called a "pity party." A number of people (sometimes only two!) get together and take turns going over the wrongs they have suffered from others, the way they have been misused, the way people have taken advantage of them, and so on. There is a subtle satisfaction in recounting all those wrongs, and then having someone else say, "Oh, how awful – you poor thing!" I have been guilty of doing it myself, and had to realize before the Lord that it was nothing but sin. It was allowing my sinful nature to act. God has given us the example of One who always felt for others in every situation, even when He was experiencing the greatest suffering. When we are occupied with Christ, God will give us the grace to feel sympathy even for those who are doing us the greatest harm.

To illustrate how the Lord Jesus wants us to live, I would like to refer to an incident in His life.

Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:20-28)

Here the Lord showed His disciples that Christianity is not characterized by what it finds, but by what it brings. Our blessed Saviour came not to be served, but to serve, and He has left an example for us. Are you in a difficult situation at home or at work? God will give you the grace to meet that situation, first of all to give you peace about it in your own soul, and then to help you show some of the love and grace of Christ to others. Are you in a difficult situation in your local assembly? The Lord can use you to be a help. A consistent godly walk will never go unnoticed.

When the Lord was in the garden of Gethsemane (I speak reverently) He might have thought only about Himself. Rather than this, His thoughts were for His disciples, and He said to them, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation" (Matthew 26:41). When the soldiers came to take Him, He said, "If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way" (John 18:8). When Peter subsequently denied Him, the Lord turned and looked on him, no doubt with love and compassion. When men were nailing Him to the cross, He said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). When the thief beside Him, who shortly before had been railing on Him, said, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom," He said, "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise" (Luke 23:42,43). When He saw His mother standing by the cross, as the eldest son in the family He took the responsibility of arranging for her care, and committed her to John. In everything His thoughts were for others, and not for Himself. Surely you and I bow in humble adoration at such grace, realizing that we will never attain to it while we are down here. As we have remarked earlier, God is beginning that work in us down here, and if Christ is filling our hearts, then we can trust God to give us the grace to react to situations as He did. If I focus on the wrong others are doing, I will go wrong myself. If my eye is on the Lord, while others may be guilty of wrong actions, I can have right reactions.

If someone else is doing something right, I can feel with them and be a help and an encouragement to them. But if they are going wrong, I can feel for them. I can go to the Lord for the grace to be a help to them, even if I am suffering from the wrong they are doing. This is always difficult to do, and some- times there are situations where, humanly speaking, it would seem downright impossible. There are situations where the wrong is so great and the emotional damage so severe that it seems impossible to have the grace to feel for the wrongdoer. I would in no way minimize the seriousness of some of these wrongs. But then we are brought back to the cross, and are reminded of Hebrews 12:3: "Consider HIM that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." None have ever gone through such sorrows as our blessed Saviour, and He went alone. What kept Him (and again I speak reverently) was the joy that was set before Him, and in this He has left us an example. I trust I say it with feeling, that while the difference between one situation and another may be one of degree, the principle remains the same. One situation may require more grace than another, but "He giveth more grace" (James 4:6). To say that there is a situation that may arise in our lives where He could not give the grace to act according to His Word is to deny His all-sufficiency.

I remember speaking to a girl who came from a very difficult home, where her father had not treated her very well. After listening to her for some time, I could surely sympathize in the hurt she was feeling. She had every reason to be bitter and resentful about what she had experienced. When I had gotten to know her a little better, and we had talked about the remedy for those feelings, I said to her, "Can you get above your own hurt and feel sympathy for your father, who is probably hurting too, and needs help?" She had never thought of that before. Worldly wisdom would say that we have to express that anger, that we have to confront the wrongdoer, that we have to make them feel how much we have been hurt. But the wisdom of God shows us that we can take our hurt to the Lord and have it all out with Him alone. (And it is important to deal with that hurt – blanking it out and pretending that nothing happened is not the answer.) Sometimes a trusted friend and confidant can be a great help in sorting out for us the many conflicting emotions at such a time. But if such an individual is not available, let us remember that the Lord Jesus went through the agony of the cross in the garden of Gethsemane alone with His Father. That is where the sweat fell from His brow, and where He asked His Father if the cup might pass from Him. Then, before the world, His thoughts could be for others.

It is not wrong to express the hurt, and perhaps to give vent to the feelings that well up in our hearts – no, it is a most necessary thing in dealing with some of these awful experiences. Nor is it wrong to confront the wrongdoer, to make him aware of how much we have been hurt. If done in the right way and under the right circumstances, it may be most helpful in resolving the matter. But let us remember that the Lord understands better than any other. Then He will give us the grace, first to be at peace in ourselves, and then to have right feelings towards the wrongdoer.

JOY AND PEACE

If we are walking with the Lord, we will find that we can have love and care for others, and forget about ourselves. We do not need to be concerned about ourselves, and what will make us happy. We should put the Lord Jesus first in our lives, and make it our object to please Him. Then we should look around at others and ask the Lord how we can be a help to them. If we do these things in that order, we will find that the Lord will look after our happiness without our thinking about it. But if we follow the Lord in order to be happy, we will probably not be, because that is another wrong

motive – it is another broken cistern. Sometimes we have times of special joy, as, for example, time spent with other Christians away from the world. As I mentioned earlier, we may enjoy the Lord so much under those circumstances that we feel that we could never be unhappy again. Perhaps we say, "I want to hold on to this. I want to be this happy all the time!" What we should be saying is, "I want to follow Christ. I want to live for Him, and to be more like Him. I want to please Him more, for His sake." Then our motive is right, for we are occupied with Him, and not with ourselves. To please the Lord Jesus is the highest motive the Word of God sets before us.

Times of special joy are like the thrill we get when we put the gas pedal to the floor and jump into passing gear. We enjoy the thrill of power that comes with that, but we should never think of driving fifty miles in passing gear. The car is not built to operate like that, and the transmission will revert back to a higher gear after we have reached a certain speed. In the same way, rapids or falls in a river may make pretty scenery and be necessary to restore oxygen to the water, but they do not constitute the most productive part of the river. Fish do not generally live in rapids, and rivers full of rapids are not good for navigation. It is the quiet peaceful part of the river that is the most useful, and it is the steady running of the car in a normal gear that is the most helpful in getting us from one point to another.

While the Lord may give us times of special joy, I would attach more significance to peace than to joy. Peace for the believer has a twofold meaning. In John 14:27, the Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." I believe that the first peace is that which we get in Romans 5:1, the peace that comes from knowing all our sins forgiven, and that we have nothing to fear from the judgment of God. But the second mention of peace is what the Lord called "My peace," and this was the peace that He had in doing the Father's will, and in knowing that His Father was ordering every circumstance for Him as the perfect, dependent Man. We have had that peace given to us, and we can enjoy it too, to the extent that there is nothing between our souls and the Lord, that He is our object, and that we are seeking to please Him.

We should always walk in peace, although we may not always walk in joy. The Lord was the Man of sorrows, yet He was always walking in that peace which He called "My peace." Sorrow is a necessary part of the Christian life, and we should not expect it to be otherwise. We are following a rejected Christ in a world that is still against Him. But He has passed through it too, and has left us His peace as a legacy.

The happiest Christians are those who are not even thinking about themselves, but whose hearts are filled with Christ, seeking to please Him, and then occupied with the good and blessing of others. But again, do not do it to be happy. Do it to please the Lord! Think of His happiness, not your own. You will find that it will put a glow on your face, a spring in your step, and you will have that confidence with which we should walk as Christians. Moses was not aware that his face shone, but others saw it. In walking with the Lord there will be a moral dignity about us that others will see, and they will take knowledge of us, that we have been with Jesus.

When we survey the wondrous cross

On which the Lord of glory died,

Our richest gain we count but loss,

And pour contempt on all our pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that we should boast,

Save in the death of Christ, our God;

All the vain things that charm us most,

We'd sacrifice them to His blood.

There from His head, His hands, His feet,

Sorrow and love flowed mingled down;

Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature ours,

That were an offering far too small;

Love that transcends our highest powers,

Demands our soul, our life, our all.

Isaac Watts

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