Sermon (9)

“WHEN GOD SAYS, NO”

The fourth credential … his experience of the supernatural … his experience of the supernatural. This is incredible.

Now he is going to go beyond his weakness, listen to what he says. And here’s another disclaimer, he just hates to do this, “Boasting is necessary,” he says again, “I have to do this though it’s not helpful … it’s not helpful, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.” Let me stop you right there.

Let me tell you something, Paul said, “I’ve had visions and I’ve had revelations and I know these false apostles haven’t. But you know something, folks? I’m only talking about these things because you’ve made it necessary for me to do this but it’s not helpful.”

Boy, I tell you, somebody ought to get a grip on that verse. Visions and revelations of the Lord which really happened to me are not helpful for me to talk about. That’s what that “not profitable”n that verse. Visions and revelations of the Lord which really happened to me are not helpful for me to talk about. That’s what that “not profitable” means. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” 2 Timothy 3:16, “and is profitable, but talking about visions and revelations is not profitable. It’s not profitable to me to talk about them, I have had them. It is not profitable for me to talk about them because they tend to build my pride. They become temptations to pride. It’s not profitable for me to talk about them to you because they can’t help you because they were personal visions and revelations given to me. They can’t help the church either.” That’s why when Paul left Ephesus in Acts 20, he commended them not to visions and revelations but to the Word of His grace which is able to build you up, right? This is what builds you up.

He says, “Look, you have forced me to talk about visions and revelations, it is not helpful. It is not helpful.” In fact, the word means useless. It is useless. It’s useless. Why? “It just messes with my pride, it was personal for me, it has no bearing on you. What has a bearing on you is the Word of God.” Such extra biblical experience is not helpful to him or anybody else at this point. At the time it happened, God meant it for him. It’s unnecessary to supplement the teaching of the Word. By the way, the only revelation we need in addition to Scripture is the revelation of Jesus Christ at His Second Coming. That’s the only revelation we need. And nonetheless for the sake of his argument here, this is what he says, “I … I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.” Now all visions that he actually had would include a revelation, but not all revelations would be in the form of a vision. So he had visions and revelations. And I don’t want to go through all of them, but you can read Acts 9, Acts 13, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 27 and he refers to visions and revelations and he had numerous ones, we don’t have the time. Maybe in the net message I’ll go into that. But he says, “Let me give you … let me give you the supreme of all the visions.” And he had seen the Lord on the Damascus road, and he had seen the Lord come to him when he was in jail and he … and some incredible things when he was in Jerusalem and some incredible things were going to happen to that man, visions and revelations. But here’s the one he chooses.

Verse 2, by the way, he received his gospel by revelation, too. Not in a vision form but by revelation. So God had directly spoken to him. God had given him visions and given him direct revelations. But he says in verse 2, “Let me pick the best one, I know a man,” and there again is his humility, he … he … most people would say, “I went to heaven, folks, I went to heaven.” He speaks in the third person, though, he says, “I know a man in Christ,” that’s a Christian who is in Christ, “I know a Christian who fourteen years ago …” What? You want to know something? He’s just breaking 14 years of silence. Since he went to heaven he had never mentioned it for 14 years. It’s not helpful. It’s useless. What good is it for me to say to you, “I went to heaven.” That doesn’t help me, that just feeds my pride. That doesn’t help you, it just makes you feel like you got left out. Well it doesn’t help anybody. The man was so controlled and so humble that only these false teachers in Corinth to force him into saying something about a trip to heaven 14 years before that he had never spoken of since. Fourteen years of silence. That would have … if he wrote 2 Corinthians and he did about the end of 55 A.D. or the beginning of 56, it would put it in A.D. 41, 42 which would put it toward the end of the silent years of his life spent in Tarsus, according to Acts 9, Acts 11. Seven years about after his conversion in Damascus, he’s gone for three, he comes back about four years later. It would have been right before he was commissioned in Acts 13 with Barnabas to go preach the gospel when he was a pastor at the church at Antioch, just before he was launched into his ministry. The Lord gave him this trip to heaven just before he was launched into his ministry in Acts 13.

You say, “Well why did the Lord do that?” Well because he was going to suffer so much. He was going to suffer more than any man had ever suffered in the redemptive preaching. He was going to suffer more pain than anyone ever had suffered. You know what I believe? I believe to galvanize him and to steel him and to strengthen him for all that suffering, the Lord literally gave him a glimpse of the glory that was to come, otherwise he couldn’t have endured it. When he said in Philippians 1:23, “Far better for me to depart and be with Christ,” he knew what he was talking about, he had been there. And when he said in Romans 8:18 that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall come, he knew exactly what he was talking about because he saw the glory that was to come when he went there. And I believe that when he said, “I’d like to stay with you, but far better to be with Christ,” boy, he knew exactly why it was far better. He’d been there. And I believe that God did that for him because of the immensity of the man’s suffering.

And so he says, “Fourteen years ago whether in the body, I don’t know, or out of the body, I don’t know.” I was reading one commentator who said, “Now let’s look a little more deeply into what he said there.” How could you look more deeply into it, he didn’t even know what he said? Well how can … how can you … what is the depth of that? I have no idea, he didn’t know either. This is one passage where I’m comfortable with my own ignorance cause if Paul doesn’t understand, I don’t understand either. What he is saying is, “I don’t know if it was a rapture in which my body and soul both went, or whether my body stayed here and my soul went there, I don’t know … I don’t know. God knows, I don’t know.” So even he couldn’t explain the nature of a vision. He just says, “I was just … I was just caught up, harpazan[?] in the Greek. It’s the same word for rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. It’s a sudden snatching up. Fourteen years ago, he knew the time and he knew the reality of the event but he didn’t know the nature of it. “All of a sudden I was in heaven and I don’t know whether it was in my body and my soul together or whether it was just my soul and my body was down here. God knows, I don’t know, but such a man was caught up to the third heaven.” Third heaven is simply a Jewish way of expressing the abode of God. The first heaven is the atmospheric heaven, the air we breathe. The second heaven is the interplanetary or stellar heaven of celestial bodies, and that fills, as you well know, space. Beyond that is the third heaven where God lives. He says, “I went to where God was.”

Wow! Then he repeats it in verse 3, “And I know how such a man whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know,” just so we don’t sit around and fuss and speculate, he repeats it. “God knows.” Are you content to leave it there? Just leave it there. I don’t want to say anymore than he said. “I was caught up into paradise.” Paradise equals heaven.

But let me tell you about paradise, just briefly. Paradise is a Sanscrit in Persian. You know what it means? A walled garden. Have you ever heard of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Gardens were big in the ancient world, still in some places of that middle eastern world are very important. But a garden was a very, very important part of that society and the king’s garden was the greatest garden of all. In fact, the Persian word for paradise from which the Greek word comes is “walled garden.” When a Persian king wanted to confer the greatest honor on an individual, he would make him officially a companion of his garden, which meant that that individual was honored to the degree that he had the right to walk in the royal garden with the king in intimate companionship. And that’s the word Paul uses for heaven, to walk in God’s garden with Him. I was caught up to God’s garden which further defines the third heaven. The third heaven they would know to be the abode of God and paradise would indicate that he was able to walk in companionship with God while he was there. Wow, that’s the nature of life in heaven. Remember what Jesus said to the thief on the cross, Luke 23:43? He said, “Remember me when You enter into Your Kingdom,” the thief did, you know. And Jesus said, “Today you’ll be with Me in … you’ll walk with Me in the garden.” Paradise is the same as heaven. In Revelation 2:7 it says the Tree of Life is in paradise. In Revelation 22:14 it says the Tree of Life is in heaven. So paradise and heaven are the same.

And then he says this, “And I heard inexpressible words.” And people say, “What did he hear?” I don’t know what he heard, nobody knows what he heard. That’s why it’s not helpful to talk about this. I heard inexpressible words. Literally, unspeakable words. What are unspeakable words? The only words I know are words that are spoken. Do you know unspeakable words? You know what he meant? It was a language that not anything like … not like anything on earth. In other words, he heard things that couldn’t be communicated on earth. He understood it in the heavenly realm, but no earthly words existed to convey it. And even if he could, he says, I wouldn’t be permitted to speak because the veil between earth and heaven hasn’t been removed.

And so, he’s so reluctant. In fact, this is … he didn’t like to talk about this because it made him proud and that’s why … go over to verse 7 for a minute … because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, because of his trip to heaven, the Lord had to give me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to buffet me to keep me from exalting myself.

You know, it’s almost like, “You know, Lord, if I have to … I don’t really need another trip to heaven if in order to equalize the deal You’ve got to send Satan after me. I just as soon not have the trip and then not have Satan.” You know what I’m saying? I mean, all it did was elevate him to the point where the Lord had to drive a stake through his flesh to keep him humble. He hadn’t even referred to it for 14 years cause it didn’t help him and it couldn’t help anybody else because it was … it was heavenly language that doesn’t have earthly words. And the veil is not removed. This is a … this is the true apostle, you see it in this incredible, humble boasting.

Well next time we’re going to have to talk about that thorn in the flesh, aren’t we? Let’s bow in prayer.

Father, this has been such a rich and wonderful glimpse of this man. We thank You so much for the model that he is of humility, weakness made perfect in Your strength. We know later on in chapter 12 he says, “When I am weak then I am strong.” We know that in his weakness Your strength was perfected. We know for us that when we come to the end of our resources and have no confidence in ourselves, we become useful to you. We thank You for the testimony of Paul. We thank You for the testimony to the fact that we don’t need visions and we don’t need revelations, they’re not useful. They tend to puff up the people who imagine that they’ve had them and they have no real value for the church which is built up and helped only through the Word. Thank You again for Your word to us, Lord. Thank You for saving us in Christ. Thank You for giving us the truth to guide us as we walk in Him. We pray in His name. Amen.