Thankful for a Thorn [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. And God said, I need you to keep growing, because I'm using you to change the world.

And my power is limitless, and my grace is unfathomable, and I want you to drink it to its depths. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Victorious Living, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It's a book written by Pastor Alan called God Moments, and it can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

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That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. He was in the express, immediate, glorious presence of God. So palpably present was the Spirit to him in visions that he had, that Paul became unaware of himself. So he didn't even know whether he was in his body or whether God had just raised him into some kind of ecstatic vision. But he speaks of himself in the third person, and he just says, I know a man in Christ. Why does he say it that way? He's saying essentially that this experience that I've had of God is not because there's something special about me. It's just because I'm in Christ.

And honestly, the experience of God is available to anybody in Christ. Remember a big part of the issue we've been seeing in 2 Corinthians is that there were one or more people in Corinth who were lauding themselves as super apostles, and they were saying that Paul was not glorious enough, that he was too weak. He had too many weaknesses. He didn't seem impressive when they'd seen him in person. He didn't seem to be boisterously eloquent.

He seemed to be strong in his letters but not strong in his physical person. And they were trying to discount his apostolic status. And so Paul in chapter 11 has gone and said, I'll tell you what I've been through. And then he comes to this point. He said, now I've got to tell you about spiritual revelations. Probably there were some false leaders in Corinth that were saying, look at all these revelations and visions and trances and things that we've had and prophetic times that we've had with God.

They're trying to establish their leadership based on this. And Paul is utterly reluctant to share anything about this. And then he doesn't share hardly any specifics about it all.

He's saying, this is just stuff. I'm not even going to talk about this, but I'm going to just tell you, I have been in the presence of God so vividly. I can't even tell you if I was in my body or not, but I'm not going to talk about those things. Part of this is that there are just some things that are too holy and too intimate to talk about. You don't talk about the most intimate things that you share, even with another human being. Spouses don't come and share about all of their intimate interactions because that would just prove that it wasn't actual intimacy, right?

Because something that makes it intimate is something that you're not sharing with somebody else. And I've had times like this with God where it's very clear to me, this is between me and this is me and God and it's not to be shared. And Paul speaking of these visions this way. And then he says that this thorn in the flesh was given.

It is a subject of much, much commentary. And I don't like the ESV's translation of this word that is rendered here conceited in verse seven to keep me from becoming conceited. I just don't think that's the right word. The word literally in Greek is exalted. The reason I don't like this word for conceited is because conceited means stuck on yourself and really prideful and we just don't see any evidence that this was Paul's battle. Paul everywhere he goes and everywhere he writes, he is talking about the paradox of God's power in our weakness. And he knew all of his, he knew all of his earthly credentials. His resume was so strong, one of the most erudite men of his age and so many miracles that had taken place through him. I don't think that because he'd had these special revelations from God that he was going to become conceited like everybody look at me how great I am.

It's so far from Paul. And I'll get to why I think that in just a moment. But he says that I was given a thorn in the flesh. And the way it reads, it's unclear who the subject is. A thorn was given. It's in the passive. So it doesn't say God gave me a thorn. It doesn't specifically say Satan gave me the thorn. And I think the reason that the language is carefully passive here is because there are things in our life that come to us from the powers of hell as an attack against us and yet God is so sovereign and so wise that though the enemy has intended it for evil, God has meant it for good. That's what Joseph said, right? So you have to wrap your mind around this somehow that you don't have to ever attribute evil to God, but you just understand that in this world with all of its evil and all of its sin, God is committed to bringing out good from every circumstance for those who love him, recalled according to his purposes.

And that's a great solace to us. So a thorn was given. And commentators and scholars and preachers have contemplated what is this thorn?

And generally it falls into four different categories that people will say here's what the thorn is. The first one is that there was some sort of sinful temptation that was besetting to Paul. I think part of this began, without getting too technical about this, but in the Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, the word that was used in Latin referencing this in his passions was a word stimulus, and from that word some of the Roman Catholic interpreters began to suggest that perhaps Paul struggled with lust.

And so this became one of the prevailing ideas. The thorn was that Paul had this besetting sin. The problem with that is isn't it really hard to believe that if Paul came to the Lord and asked him diligently to give him help and being rid of a problem of lust or some sin like that that the Lord would say no?

That doesn't make any sense. The second type of category that's given to this is that perhaps Paul had an emotional impairment like depression or anxiety. The problem with seeing Paul in that light is that this is the Paul who never gives us any appearance of depression despite all of the circumstances that he faced. In fact, so much of what he taught us was that I've learned to be content in every circumstance and that you can rejoice in the Lord always. And so to imagine that Paul was beset with an emotional impairment doesn't seem consistent with everything else that we read, and certainly we don't see him being held back by fear.

This is one of the boldest men who ever lived. So I don't see it to be an emotional impairment. And so then the next category, the third, this is the most popular category to assign an interpretation of the thorn is it was something physical, a physical ailment that he had. And people have suggested everything from epilepsy to an eye disease. And perhaps some have suggested Paul was nearsighted. He writes in one place, see with what large letters I write.

We don't know that for sure. But beloved, if the thorn, if the big problem is he's nearsighted, if that qualifies you to be an apostle, count me in. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever been facing a problem when a well-meaning Christian friend said something like, you just need to have more faith? The problem with such an exhortation, of course, is that telling someone that they ought to have more faith doesn't actually help a person have more faith. We all want more faith, but what can we do to get more faith? In his highly acclaimed book, God Moments, Pastor Alan Wright describes one of the most important biblical pathways to building your faith, remembering God's presence in your life. When you see God's faithfulness yesterday, you'll find it easier to trust him tomorrow. Your life is full of God moments.

And through Alan Wright's teaching series and book, you'll have a treasure map to help you discover them all. When you make a gift, we'll send you a very special bundle. It's Alan Wright's faith building book, God Moments, and the CD album of the series that he has preached on the subject. We'll send you both when you make your gift today. It's time to discover your God moments from yesterday and be filled with fresh faith for today. Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. I don't think at all there's any reference in this text or elsewhere to suggest that this was a physical problem. It's a misunderstanding of just because Paul says thorn in the flesh, I don't think he's talking about a physical infirmity. Paul, when he speaks of the flesh, he speaks of that which is not spirit, that which is not controlled by the spirit, that which is sometimes still of the sinful nature, sometimes that which is of the earthly realm.

That's kind of what he talks about in the flesh. The reason I think this is important to belabor this for a moment is that, I just need to say that James 5 says to pray for the sick, and so that's what we do as a church. We pray for the sick.

Not everybody we pray for is instantly healed, but we do what God tells us to do. We believe for healing, and God is for our healing, and so it doesn't make any sense for him to give Paul an injection of some kind of sickness that is going to somehow lead him, although many people suggest that. The fourth, it gets closer to the truth, and that is that people suggest it was the opposition that he always faced. The thorn was the persecution or the opposition that he faced, like the Judaizers he faced in the Galatian church and all that heresy, or these ones that were challenging his apostolic authority in Corinth and always being persecuted and so forth. It gets a little closer to, I think, the truth, but even with this, scholars point out that the grammar for speaking of a thorn is singular, and it hardly makes sense to think of all these different oppositions in a singular, but more importantly, Paul is speaking about something that happened 14 years prior to his writing this, and if you just did the math on when he was writing this and when he had come to be called by Christ, there was a 10-year gap before he even is speaking about this, and he was persecuted right from the very beginning. So it's not like something happened and then he started getting persecuted.

So I don't think those categories really fit. What is the thorn in the flesh? I think it's just very simple. In fact, I've read so much about this, and I don't know why it seems to be complicated.

The grammar's clear enough. It says, verse 7, a thorn was given me in the flesh, and you'll see it in your English translation, and this is the way it should be rendered, comma, a messenger of Satan to harass me. That's what the thorn is. It's a messenger of Satan. The word in Greek is an angelos, an angel. Angel means messenger. It was an angel of Satan. So they're good angels, and they're angels of Satan. This was a demon.

This is a demonic assignment against the apostle Paul. Now, listen, beloved, we are all in a spiritual battle. It offends modern sensibilities to talk about angels and demons. It offends our modern sensibilities to think that there's an invisible spiritual battle.

We would rather explain everything by some natural means or some physical means, but we're in a spiritual battle. And so what is Paul saying here? He is saying something that I absolutely understand, and I think anybody that's walked very long with Christ could understand this. He is saying that the times the spiritual battle that he faced, this invisible battle, that sense that you come up against something that is heavy and dark and discouraging and weighty, he said it buffets me was the old language.

Harass is the word used here, but buffet, like a ship that's buffeted by waves or a boxer that's buffeted up against the ropes. He says, I feel like everywhere I go, I preach the gospel and there's a weight of spiritual opposition and it's heavy. And there are times at night where I have to wake up in the middle of the night and I feel the presence of evil and I got to get up and get on my knees and I got to call on the authority of the word and seek out your name. I sometimes can't even go into a community without realizing that I am up a massive spiritual battle up against me and oh God, he said, I pleaded with him three times, could you just grant me the special privilege of getting a free ticket out of the spiritual battle? And God said, no, not in this world. Have you ever felt that way? I just sometimes look at God, could you just give me a little vacation from the battle? Sometimes I'll try that on vacation, you know, like I'm on vacation. Okay, I've got a free ticket out of the spiritual battle. This is a good time. I don't even need to read the Bible, don't need to pray, don't need to worship.

And then about the third day of vacation is like you got the worst fight you ever had with your spouse and you're in a grumpy mood the rest of the time. You know what I'm talking about? It's like you don't get a free ticket out of the spiritual battle. Every day you put on the armor of God. Every day you dress yourself in the supremacy of Christ's grace and love.

Every day you put on the full armor. Every day you pray. Every day you cling to the word.

Every day you call upon the power of the Holy Spirit. And I think Paul was just saying this is heavy, heavy, heavy. Hell has limited resources.

The assignment against Paul must have been weighty. And he wanted to get out of it and God said no. He said I'm not going to do for you what He didn't even do for Jesus. You're going to be in this world and until there's a new heaven and a new earth you're going to be in this spiritual battle and it might feel like a thorn.

Some say that it should be translated a stake. And it is painful but that spiritual battle, knowing that you're up against a spiritual enemy, that very thing Paul, is what makes you want to come and draw upon my grace. And my grace is sufficient for you. I don't think Paul was saying God let me have a thorn so I wouldn't become conceited. I think what he meant is that I was given a thorn so I wouldn't be satisfied. Because once you've experienced what God had, what Paul had experienced of the Lord, you could come to a place of complacency in which you say, well what better experience could there be of this? I'd just like to stay at this. And God said no, I need you to keep growing because I'm using you to change the world.

And my power is limitless and my grace is unfathomable and I want you to drink it to its depths. I did something really foolish the other day. I have no idea why. I've been needing to clean the gutters out for a long time and putting it off and putting it off and for some reason I had the willpower to do it. It just happened to be in the afternoon and it happened to be 93 degrees. I got up on the roof and spent about two hours because they'd gotten very clogged. I couldn't just blow them out.

I had to get little tools and gouge out pine needles. And I was up there going, what am I doing up here? This is a mistake. I'm too old for this. I was feeling so hot and so sweaty I said, this is what it feels like to get heat exhaustion, isn't it? Get down from here.

What am I doing? I had to finish the job. When I came down, I was so thirsty. You know the kind of thirst I'm talking about? Where when I got the water, I couldn't get enough. And I don't know if I'm the only one that feels this, but it's like that water, I could feel it not just coming down my esophagus and into my belly. I like could feel it going into every cell in my body. My whole body was like a sponge going, give us water. Now there are a lot of things that I like better than water. Kilwin's cappuccino chocolate chip is one of them. Mixed in with half s'mores. But do you know what's strange? On that hot July afternoon, you could have lined up the entire assortment of Kilwin's ice cream in 10 gallon jugs in front of me and say, have all you want.

And I'd say, I don't want any of it. I just want water because my thirst put me in touch with the deepest need that I have. This is what Paul experienced at a very high level. The intensity of the battle made him like the deer that pants at the water brook.

The deer that had been chased by a predator. The one that the psalmist saw and said, as the deer pants at the water brook, so my soul pants for you the living God. Paul, I want you to go even deeper in my grace.

Drink deeper of my power and Paul got the message and he said, so here's what happened. A surprising grace. Just when you think you've experienced the fullness of the grace of God, you go into an intense battle and you have to go even closer to God and you realize His grace is even deeper than I thought. His power perfected in my weakness and so Paul said, I've learned this if I'm going to boast. I'm not going to boast to you about all the wonderful experiences I've had in God. I'm going to boast about my weakness and how I would most certainly fail in the spiritual battle.

If I try to fight the powers of hell by my own fleshly abilities I'll get nowhere, but what I have found is that this enemy that's always chasing me about has caused me to run to God day in and day out and that's my life with God and I have found out it's beautiful, it's powerful, it's wonderful. When I'm weak I am powerful. It's like the seagull that's sitting there waiting on a cheese doodle and something's got to happen to make it use those wings.

So I'm watching the little boy and sure enough some of them started getting some cheese doodles and things, but all of a sudden three or four year old boy, oh it's a great delight for a little boy to be able to do this, all of a sudden he realized there's about 50 seagulls and he looked up with a big grin and he took off running at the seagull. That's a feeling of power to chase a bunch of seagulls up into the air and all of them have been sitting there for a half hour hoping for a cheese doodle and all of a sudden you realize, wait a minute, they can fly, but they didn't fly until they were chased. You have, Christians, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead at work in your mortal body in and through you. Sometimes the spiritual battle is heavier than others. Every single one of us knows what it feels like to just say I wish I didn't have to face a spiritual battle and I wish I could tell you, oh, you don't have to, but even Paul had to, and it's not a bad thing because that thorn will make you love God and taste of his goodness in deeper and deeper ways. And that's the gospel.

Alan Wright. In today's teaching, how to be thankful for a thorn in our series on second Corinthians. Please stay with us. Alan is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and today's final word. God's always been there. In every moment you narrowly escaped from danger. In every moment you were surprised by a blessing.

In every moment you just knew the direction to take. God was there. Your life is defined by countless moments of God's grace.

Perhaps they've been covered by the sands of time or have just gone unnoticed in the rush of life, but your life is full of God moments. When you make a gift, we'll send you a special bundle, both Pastor Alan's heart stirring book, God moments and a CD album containing all his audio messages on the subject. Make your gift today and start your spiritual treasure hunt to uncover your God moments.

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That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Alan, I've heard it said, and it sounds really tricky when you first hear it, but someone said, you know, there is a sense in which I am thankful for my sin, for if I didn't have it, I wouldn't understand the grace of God. And to be thankful for a thorn, sometimes you go back and look at those hard places of life and you think, well, I wouldn't want to redo that necessarily, but I am so grateful for the experience of knowing God was near me. When I first preached this message, it was coming after a very hot week. And as I shared in the message, I spent probably foolishly a couple hours on the roof and 90 degrees.

I was working on gutters. I was so thirsty when I came down. It's a deeper, I mean, there's one thing to say, yeah, I'm a little bit thirsty, but then there's that I am so thirsty and we've had some more hot weather this summer. And I think anybody that has experienced it, that deep thirst, you know, yeah, there's something, there is a way in which there is a part of you that can not fully appreciate water unless you have the deepest thirst. And there's a part of us spiritually that without some of the thorns we've experienced in our life, we would not know the depth of thirst and the savor of the refreshing, replenishing grace of God in our lives. And so I'm never thankful for a thorn in the sense of, oh, I'm glad to be suffering. No, but I am thankful for how it has drawn me to God. And that means everything. His good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.