"SOMETIME YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH HELL, TO GET A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN" (2)
Notes
Transcript
A LESSON IN HUMILITY
A LESSON IN HUMILITY
2 Corinthians 12:1 (KJV)
1 It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
The best version that help make the point that I like to get over to you this morning is “The Message Bible”
2 Corinthians 12:1 (MSG)
1 You've forced me to talk this way, and I do it against my better judgment. But now that we're at it, I may as well bring up the matter of visions and revelations that God gave me.
Paul did not just start this boasting here in the first verse of this 12th chapter, he started back in 2 Cor. 10:1-6:
1 I plead with you—yes, I, Paul—and I plead gently, as Christ himself would do. Yet some of you are saying, “Paul’s letters are bold enough when he is far away, but when he gets here he will be afraid to raise his voice!”
2 I hope I won’t need to show you when I come how harsh and rough I can be. I don’t want to carry out my present plans against some of you who seem to think my deeds and words are merely those of an ordinary man. 3 It is true that I am an ordinary, weak human being, but I don’t use human plans and methods to win my battles. 4 I use God’s mighty weapons, not those made by men, to knock down the devil’s strongholds. 5 These weapons can break down every proud argument against God and every wall that can be built to keep men from finding him. With these weapons I can capture rebels and bring them back to God and change them into men whose hearts’ desire is obedience to Christ. 6 I will use these weapons against every rebel who remains after I have first used them on you yourselves and you surrender to Christ.
Introduction: In this 10th chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul begins a sharp break from what he has been saying and teaching.
He disassociates himself from Timothy.
He no longer says "we," but "now I Paul myself beseech you."
The phrase is forceful.
Paul is now going to deal primarily with his critics,
both with the false teachers who had crept into the church
and with any of their followers who had not shared in the revival of repentance that had taken place
The revival that I am speaking about it the other that took place when Paul rebutted this church at Corinth when there was sexual immortality in it and the church leadership did not do anything about it, but just let it go on.
1 Cor. 5.1-7
1 Everyone is talking about the terrible thing that has happened there among you, something so evil that even the heathen don’t do it: you have a man in your church who is living in sin with his father’s wife.
2 And are you still so conceited, so “spiritual”? Why aren’t you mourning in sorrow and shame and seeing to it that this man is removed from your membership?
3 Although I am not there with you, I have been thinking a lot about this, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I have already decided what to do, just as though I were there. You are to call a meeting of the church—and the power of the Lord Jesus will be with you as you meet, and I will be there in spirit—
5 and cast out this man from the fellowship of the church and into Satan’s hands, to punish him, in the hope that his soul will be saved when our Lord Jesus Christ returns.
6 What a terrible thing it is that you are boasting about your purity and yet you let this sort of thing go on. Don’t you realize that if even one person is allowed to go on sinning, soon all will be affected?
7 Remove this evil cancer—this wicked person—from among you, so that you can stay pure. Christ, God’s Lamb, has been slain for us.
The next problem Paul was faced with,,,, in this same church, we can see it in:
1 I hope you will be patient with me as I keep on talking like a fool. Do bear with me and let me say what is on my heart.
2 I am anxious for you with the deep concern of God himself—anxious that your love should be for Christ alone, just as a pure maiden saves her love for one man only, for the one who will be her husband.
3 But I am frightened, fearing that in some way you will be led away from your pure and simple devotion to our Lord, just as Eve was deceived by Satan in the Garden of Eden.
4 You seem so gullible: you believe whatever anyone tells you even if he is preaching about another Jesus than the one we preach, or a different spirit than the Holy Spirit you received, or shows you a different way to be saved. You swallow it all.
(2 Cor. 7:2-6). The church handled the matter of the Son living in open sin with his father’s wife or step-mother to the young man.
(11:1-15) Introduction: some false teachers and critics in the church were attacking Paul and his ministry with every conceivable accusation .
They wanted to destroy Paul's influence and ministry at Corinth and to gain control of the church themselves.
The way they went about gaining control was to use the same methods that every power seeking person uses: seduction and deception and lies.
They seduced the people with false teaching
and at the same time lied about Paul in order to destroy his credibility.
Paul is before the Lord’s face continually and yet Paul is having to deal with “God Saying, “NO”.
And because Paul is not walking in the “FLESH”, Paul know that he had to do all that he can to help save the church, at least do all he could to save it.
In the present passage he warns the church against seduction and deception.
1. He has a godly jealousy for the church (v.1-2).
2. Fear seduction—corrupted minds (v.3).
3. Fear the preaching of another Jesus (v.4).
This was necessary,
The church needed to make sure that the false teachers did not regain a foothold in the church.
They needed to know that Paul intended to personally confront any who had not repented.
He was going to deal with those who were attacking him and teaching false doctrine.
In our verse #1, Paul is concluding why he is sharing with this church, the problems he has faced with this church. And the reward that he is about to receive, has strings attached to it.
Those strings that I am talking about, is the strings I have been sharing with us for four weeks and that is our subject.
“YOU GOT TO GO THROUGH HELL,
TO GET A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN.
2 Corinthians 12:2 (KJV)
2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
The thing I want us to remember right now is this, Paul had this vision 14 years ago.
For 14 years, Paul in his private time could recall that experience he had about going to heaven.
For 14 years, Paul could use that experience to help sooth his spirit when the devil was on his back.
For 14 years, Paul had lived after this experience.
(Paul is getting ready to “Sow OFF a little bit.)
We find that here in chapter 12:1, Paul begins by describing that he had among all the men, whoever lived, an opportunity to boast. He had a basis for bragging from a human standpoint. He talks about himself, beginning in verse 2:
2 Corinthians 12:2“I know a man in Christ, who fourteen years ago—whether in the body, I do not know, or out of the body, I do not know, God knows,—such a man was caught up to the third heaven.
Whenever you read a double compound sentence, the author is really trying to capture the attention of the reader or hearer.
So here in 2 Corinthians 12:3
3 And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;)
Paul seems to have become self couscous of his getting beside himself and talk about himself in the third person pronoun, which carries over into the 4 verse:
2 Corinthians 12:4
4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Church,,,, you don’t see what I see in this matter. If you remember, this scene that Paul is now sharing with the church, had such an impact on him that he/Paul make the next statement in verse 5
2 Corinthians 12:5
5 Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.
Please bare with me as I read this 5th verse from the Living Bible:
5 That experience is something worth bragging about, but I am not going to do it. I am going to boast only about how weak I am and how great God is to use such weakness for his glory.
Paul here is sharing with us his thinking,,, by talking about a trip he was allowed to go on, the only man who has ever gone on such a journey and had the privilege of returning to talk about it, and his trip was all the way too the third heaven . If you notice, Paul don’t just call it the third heaven and leave it along, he goes on to call this place that he was allowed to visit,,,, “PARADISE”.
CHURCH,,, the Bible describes three heavens:
The Bible describes the atmospheric heaven. That is the heaven that you see with your naked eye. That is where the clouds are, and where you live, the atmospheric heaven from which you get your air and all of the things that are part of walking in the open space.
Then, there is the second heaven which is the stellar heaven. That is the heaven of the stars and the galaxies and the planets. The heavens that you do not get to see with the naked eye, very much of, other than on a starry night, and yes, you do see the moon but it is a heaven that we don’t know a lot about. And scientists are finding more and more out about that second heaven all the time.And then there is the third heaven, the heaven that he refers to here as Paradise.
The third heaven is the throne room of God. It is where God welcomes in saints who depart. It is where you immediately go, for example, when you die. Any Christian who dies is immediately ushered into the presence of God. The Scripture says, “Absence from the body is to be present with the Lord.” That is Paradise, that is the third heaven. When He went to the third heaven, he saw some things that were “Inexpressible. “
They were not lawful for a man to utter.
That is, they were beyond the ability for Webster’s dictionary to accurately articulate.
It was stupefying what he saw there.
We are not given a lot in the Bible about heaven. We are told in general picture language what heaven is like.
We know there is no war.
We know there is no sickness.
We know that there is all joy.
We know that it is a time of the uninterrupted knowledge of God.
We know that it is an awesome place to be.
Watch this,,, God has not given us a very detailed pictures of heaven in any in-depth way.
Someone might be wonder,,, WHY???
I believe the reason for that is quite simple. If he really described heaven in detail, then you and I would become so heavenly minded that we would be no earthly good.
Which then would translate to us not being any good for Him down here.
Why is that Pastor Leslie??
Because our desire to go to heaven would be simply overwhelming.
Think about this with me,,,, Paul experienced this.
Paul experienced what “No other man” has ever experienced and came back to talk about it.
Well, to have been selected for this great honor of all the human race, placed Paul in a very privileged position. It placed him above the common man in a way because he was selected. The tendency would have been to brag or to boast or to talk about the great opportunities that he had been given. And that leads him into a scenario that is food for thought for us today. Well, what we have in 2 Cor. 12 is God telling Paul, “No.” Paul is going to call on God because he needs Him and is going to hear the answer that he desires not to hear. He is going to hear “no.” And yet, as we go on approaching this passage, I have good news for you. It is that even when God says, “no,” you can also hear, “yes,” because even when God says “no” to your request, He says yes to your need.
Fourteen years later, Paul is complaining about