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2 Coríntios 4

Matthew Henry · Citado em PreceptAustin

2 Coríntios 4:1-2

Henry has a good reminder that "The best of men would faint, if they did not receive mercy from God. And that mercy which has helped us out, and helped us on, hitherto, we may rely upon to help us even to the end. (Amen!) (2 Corinthians 4) Paul understood God's great mercy (1Pe 1:3+) for he of all people had been in desperate need of mercy before salvation (Acts 8:1, 3, 9:3, 4, 5, 6, 22:4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 10 26:9 10 11 12 12 14 15 16 17 18 19) and thereafter Paul never forgot God's saving mercy, living in daily dependence on and thankfulness for this same divine mercy that saved him on the Damascus Road. THOUGHT - Do you live daily with a similar sense of great gratitude for having been shown such great mercy from so great a God? The longer Paul was a recipient of God's mercy, the greater was his sense of humility (and inadequacy) as he "progressed" from an apostle "not fit to be called an apostle" (1Co 15:9+ ~55AD), to "the very least of all saints" (Ep 3:8+ ~61AD) to the foremost of sinners (1Ti 1:15 - 63-66AD) R Kent

2 Coríntios 4:5-6

Henry comments that here Paul presents more proof of the integrity of his ministry (recall that in Corinth there Satan's emissaries ["secret agents"], false teachers, enemies of the Gospel of Christ [2Co11:12 13 14 15], who were attempting to disparage, denigrate and destroy Christ's Gospel messenger, the apostle Paul - perhaps you can identify with Paul dear pastor!) emphasizing that "We preach not ourselves. Self was not the matter nor the end of the apostles' preaching: they did not give their own notions and private opinions nor their passions and prejudices for the word and will of God; nor did they seek themselves, to advance their own secular interest or glory. (Ed: An excellent ministry motif - Ps 115:1-+)" (2 Corinthians 4) Preach - This verb kerusso (see more discussion below) is essentially a synonym for euaggelizo/euangelizo (What word do you see in this latter verb? "evangelize") which is used most often in the NT as a reference to preaching the gospel. The verb kerusso emphasizing to proclaim as a herald and euaggelizo placing emphasis on the announcement of message of good news or good tidings. Euaggelizo stresses the content while kerusso emphasizes the manner of the proclamation but both convey a sense of urgency calling on the hearers to obey the message of the Good News. For example, the writer of Hebrews repeatedly exhorts his wavering Jewish hearers to heed the Gospel call writing... Therefore, let us fear lest ("Us" = the writer includes himself as not above hearing what follows), while a promise remains of entering His rest (What a beautiful description of the Gospel! cp Ep 3:6-+), any one of you (the writer does not say "us" here, because he himself has entered God's Gospel rest, a rest from empty works of the flesh [Is 64:6] and rituals calculated to garner God's favor [Col 2:23-+]) should seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached (euaggelizo/euangelizo ~ "Gospelled") to us, just as they also (referring to Israel in the OT who had good news preached to them, cp the message their physical "father" Abraham heard [Gal 3:8], but who unlike Abraham [Ge 15:6] refused to believe [He 3:18, 19-+]); but the word (~the Gospel) they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith (pistis) in those who heard (Beloved, hearing the Gospel is not enough - in fact it can be self deluding that one is spiritually safe" [Jas 1:22-+]. One must respond to the Gospel in repentance and faith [Mk 1:14,15] in order to enter the spiritual rest in Christ [cp Mt 11:28, 29, 30]) (He 4:1, 2-+). (Are you spiritually exhausted? In need of rest? Perhaps you might want to take a moment and study the - wonderful concept of "Rest" in the Bible) Hunter commenting on preaching says that "In the New Testament the verb (Kerusso) does not mean ‘to give an informative or hortatory or edifying discourse expressed in beautifully arranged words with a melodious voice; it means to proclaim an event (Ed: Beloved, I would add that even more, in the NT context, kerusso most often means to proclaim the Person of Christ. Some of Paul's last words were "Preach the Word" {~"Preach Christ Jesus as Lord"!}. [2Ti 4:2-+] for Who is the "Word" we are to proclaim but the Incarnate Word, Christ Jesus our Lord!) Preach (proclaim) (2784) (kerusso or kerysso from kerux/keryx = a herald - one who acts as the medium of the authority of one who proclamation he makes; kerugma = the thing preached or the message) means to proclaim (publicly) or to herald or act as a public crier - the town official who would make a proclamation in a public gathering. Kerusso was used of the official whose duty it was to proclaim loudly and extensively the coming of an earthly king, even as our Gospel in a sense is a clear proclamation that the King of kings is returning (Re 19:16-+) and that every knee should bow to Him now in saving faith before He appears "a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him." (He 9:28-+). In other words when He appears a second time it will not be to bring salvation but "to judge the living and the dead" (2Ti 4:1-+ Jn 5:22, 27 - in light of this all do well to heed His words in Jn 5:24, 8:24) The Imperial Herald would enter a town in behalf of the Emperor, and make a public proclamation of the message which his Sovereign ordered him to give, doing so with such formality, gravity, and authority as to emphasize that the message must be heeded! (Think about this in regard to the Gospel of God instead of the decree of a man! cf 1Th 2:13-+). He gave the people exactly what the Emperor bade him give, nothing more, nothing less. He dare not add to the message or take away from it. Should this not be the example and pattern every preacher and teacher of the holy gospel of God seeks and strives to emulate, yea, even doing so with fear and trembling..."not as pleasing men but God, who examines our hearts"?! (1Th 2:4 -+) The original meaning of the root word kerux was a "herald at the royal court." Homer used kerusso and kerux in this connection. They not only announced the coming of the prince, but they also carried his commands to the uttermost corners of his realm. As the government of Greece became more republican, these heralds came to serve the state rather than the court. Certain qualities were required of heralds. They must have powerful voices, so voice auditions were often held. Also they had to be capable of calming down an unruly mob, in order to faithfully communicate the command. An honest disposition was also required, as a protection against the exaggeration of a royal decree. Furthermore, they could make no additions or subtractions from the received message. Later these heralds were also used to declare the message of a Greek deity or a religious oracle. Kerusso does not carry within it the content or nature of the message which is proclaimed. The context usually indicates what is being preached or qualifying phrase must be used for that purpose. In the New Testament, the word is used either with a qualifying phrase such as “the gospel” (Mark 16:15), or the contents of the proclamation are given as in Revelation 5:2, or it is used alone without the contents of the message being given as in Romans 10:15. R. C. H.

2 Coríntios 4:5-6

Henry comments that Paul preached Christ Jesus as Lord and as Christ's bondservant..."His business was to make his Master known to the world as the Messiah, or the Christ of God, and as Jesus, the only Saviour of men, and as the rightful Lord, and to advance His honour and glory. (2 Corinthians 4) Bondservants (1401)(doulos from deo = to bind) describes one who is bound to another in servitude (a condition in which one lacks liberty especially to determine one’s course of action or way of life). Doulos also conveys the idea of the slave's close tie to his master, belonging to him, obligated to him and desiring to do his will. In sum, the will of the doulos was in a very real sense consumed or better subsumed (which means absorbed in something else, specifically...) in the will of his master. Doulos was the most abject, servile term of the 6 Gk words for a "slave" This abject, servile attitude on the part of a pagan slave finds its expression in true Christian humility on the part of the Christian who regards himself as a slave of Jesus Christ. Paul repeatedly referred to himself as the Lord's bondservant (cp Ro 1:1-+) having surrendered himself wholly to the Lord's will to Whom he was devoted even to the point of disregard for his own personal interest (He recognized he was not his own!). In one sense Paul had no will of his own and no time of his own but acted in obedience to and dependence upon Christ Jesus his Lord. While this definition is true, it is not the entire picture as they say, for included in this idea of being a slave of Christ, is the paradoxical truth of genuine liberty, a quality of freedom about which the world knows nothing. The unregenerate (lost, unsaved) person falsely thinks that Christianity is restrictive (a list of do's and don'ts - unfortunately some true believers have fallen back into the "trap" of living under the law) and constricts one's freedoms, but the truth is that freedom in its most glorious perspective is not the right to do as we please (World's way) but the power to do as we should (God's way)! That's the freedom that Paul experienced and which he proclaimed in the Gospel of His Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew Henry adds that "The highest honour of the greatest apostle, and most eminent ministers, is to be the servants of Jesus Christ; not the masters of the churches, but the servants of Christ. (2 Corinthians 4) Kenneth

2 Coríntios 4:5-6

Henry writes that "the light of this Sun of righteousness (Mal 4:2) is more glorious than that light which God commanded to shine out of darkness. It is a pleasant thing for the eye to behold the sun in the firmament; but it is more pleasant and profitable when the Gospel shines in the heart. Note, As light was the first-born of the first creation (Ge 1:3), so it is in the new creation: the illumination (giving light, enlightening the understanding) of the Spirit is His first work upon the soul. The grace of God created such a light in the soul that those who were sometimes darkness (+: Not "were formerly IN darkness" but "WERE formerly darkness"! What a description of the character of the unregenerate man - it is the very essence of darkness! Amazing grace indeed Who saved a dark wretch like me!) are made light in the Lord, Ep 5:8-+. (2 Corinthians 4) To give - This verb is not in the Greek text. The preposition "pros" conveys the idea of "with a view to" ("With a view to illumining men with the knowledge of the glory of God") The light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ - This phrase serves essentially as a beautiful description of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Mk 1:1+, cp Ro 15:19-+ 1Co 9:12 2Co 2:12 2Co 4:4-+ 2Co 9:13+ 2Co 10:14+ Gal 1:7+ Php 1:27-+ 1Th 3:2-+ 2Th 1:8+), the Good News of the glorious New Covenant in His blood. John

2 Coríntios 4:7-9

Henry - Why they should not preach themselves: because they were but earthen vessels, things of little or no worth or value. Here seems to be an allusion to the lamps which Gideon's soldiers carried in earthen pitchers, Jdg 7:16.The treasure of Gospel light and grace is put into earthen vessels. The ministers of the Gospel are weak and frail creatures, and subject to like passions and infirmities as other men; they are mortal, and soon broken in pieces. And God has so ordered it that the weaker the vessels are the stronger His power may appear to be, that the treasure itself should be valued the more. Note, There is an excellency of power in the Gospel of Christ, to enlighten the mind, to convince the conscience, to convert the soul, and to rejoice the heart; but all this power is from God the Author, and not from men, who are but instruments, so that God in all things must be glorified. (Amen) Human weakness (jars of clay) and God's power while paradoxical (and incomprehensible) to the natural man (1Co 2:14+), are the perfect match in God's design. Paul again paints the picture of this paradox between man's weakness and God's infinite power in 2Corinthians 12… And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power (dunamis) is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power (dunamis) of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. (2Co 12:9-+, 2Co 12:10-+) W. Griffith Thomas once said "In all Christian work, there are three elements absolutely indispensable: the Spirit of God as the power (cp Acts 1:8+), the Word of God as the message (cp 1Co 1:18+), and the man of God as the instrument (Acts 9:15, 16 ~ clay pots). The Spirit of God uses the message by means of the man." Comment: You have likely heard it said that God is not so much interested in our "ability" as in our availability. F.A.T. - Faithful. Available. Teachable. God desires humble, inconspicuous, weak, frail clay pots who are willing to continually be emptied of self so that they might continually be filled with His Spirit empowered to give out the treasure of "the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ Who is the image of God" (2Co 4:4+), "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." (2Co 4:6+)

2 Coríntios 4:13-15

Henry comments that "their sufferings (all things) were for the advantage of the church, and to God's glory. The sufferings of Christ's ministers, as well as their preaching and conversation (= their general course of manners or behavior especially their moral conduct), are for the good of the church and the glory of God. The prospect of eternal life and happiness (2Co 4:14) was their support and comfort. (2 Corinthians 4) Paul had faith that God would be glorified in all that was taking place. Our sufferings are never wasted in God's economy (see Ro 8:28).

2 Coríntios 4:16

Henry - The best of men would faint, if they did not receive mercy from God. And that mercy which has helped us out, and helped us on, hitherto, we may rely upon to help us even to the end. (2 Corinthians 4) We do not lose heart - become discouraged, exhausted and worn out through fear, utterly spiritless. Paul was human and earlier had written "we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired (extreme despair, implying both anxiety and fear) even of life." (2Co 1:8). Every believer is prone to lose heart from time to time -- it therefore behooves all of us to ingest and mediate on Paul's words in this great section. Geoff Thomas sees three main reasons Paul did not lose heart… 1. We Do Not Lose Heart because We are Being Daily Inwardly Renewed. 2. We do not Lose Heart because Our Troubles Achieve an Eternal Weight of Glory. 3. We Do Not Lose Heart Because Our Eyes are Fixed on What is Unseen and Eternal. (The Foundations for Christian Encouragement) Recall the last words of the great preacher of the Great Awakening, George Whitefield, the night before he died in 1770 - Lord Jesus, I am weary in Thy work, but not of Thy work. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the fields, seal Thy truth, and come home and die. Lose heart (1573)(ekkakeo [egkakeo, enkakeo] from ek = out of or intensifies meaning + kakós = bad) literally means to give in to evil. It can convey the idea of to become weary in or tired of doing something, and can convey the idea of losing one’s motivation in continuing a desirable pattern of conduct. Instead the person becomes fainthearted or despondent in view of the trial or difficulty. Such persons are at risk of losing their motivation to accomplish their intended goal. Ekkakeo conveys the idea of becoming exhausted, giving up, turning coward. Ekkakeo is a strong Greek term which refers to abandoning oneself to cowardly surrender. Our redemption is drawing nigh - take heart! Don't quit running the race, fighting the good fight of faith. Rienecker writes that ekkakeo "is also used in the papyri in the sense of treating someone badly. It became a Christian technical term expressing the unflagging pursuit of the goal of service to neighbor, or of apostolic ministry, as well as the tautness of the determined heart that does not let up or lose courage. (Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament) In the other 5 uses of ekkakeo (no uses in the Septuagint), the Spirit instructs us not to lose heart about several things… Prayer (Of prayer to which the answer seems deferred) Luke 18:1 Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart Tribulations on behalf of the saints… Eph 3:13-+ Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory Doing good (In view of the danger of failure in perseverance or temptation to laxity) Gal 6:9-+ And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary. A T

2 Coríntios 4:17

Henry - The best of men would faint, if they did not receive mercy from God. And that mercy which has helped us out, and helped us on, hitherto, we may rely upon to help us even to the end. Octavius Winslow - SEPTEMBER 24. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 2 Corinthians 4:17 IN what respects will it be a glory revealed in us? It will be the glory of perfect knowledge. "Now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." Oh, what an orb of intellectual light will be each glorified mind! What capacity of understanding will it develop—what range of thought will it compass—what perfection of knowledge will it attain! How will all mysteries then be unraveled, and all problems then be solved, and all discrepancies then be reconciled; and every truth of God's revelation, every event of God's providence, every decision of God's government, stand out more transparent and resplendent than ten thousand suns. Do you, in your present search for spiritual knowledge, deplore the darkness of your mind, the feebleness of your memory—the energy of your mental faculties impaired, dimmed, and exhausted? Oh, rejoice in hope of the glory that is to be revealed in you, when all your intellectual powers will be renewed as the eagle's strength; developed, sanctified, and perfected, to a degree outvying the mightiest angel in heaven. Then shall we know God and Christ, and truth, and providence, and ourselves, even as now we are known. It will also be a glory in us of perfect holiness. The kingdom within us will then be complete; the good work of grace will then be perfected. It will be the consummation of holiness, the perfection of purity. No more sin! The conscience no more sullied—the thoughts no more defiled—the affections no more ensnared—but a glory of holiness, dazzling and resplendent, beyond an angel's, revealed in us. "It does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." The glory of perfect happiness will be the certain effect of perfect sanctity. The completeness of Christ is the completeness of moral purity. With reverence be it spoken, God Himself could not be a perfectly happy, were He not a perfectly holy Being. The radiance of the glorified countenance of the saints will be the reflection of holy thoughts and holy feelings glowing within. Joy and peace and full satisfaction will beam in every feature, because every faculty and feeling and emotion of the soul will be in perfect unison with the will, and in perfect assimilation to the image, of God. Who can paint the happiness of that world from where everything is banished that could sully its purity, disturb its harmony, and ruffle its repose?—where everything is included that comports with its sanctity, harmonizes with its grandeur, and heightens its bliss. Oh, yes! it will be a glory revealed in us. The glory of the Father's adoption—the glory of Christ's atonement—the glory of the Spirit's regeneration, radiating from a poor fallen son of Adam—a sinner redeemed, renewed, and saved. And what is each present ray of heavenly light, each thrill of divine love, each victory of indwelling grace, and each glimpse of the upper world, but the foreshadowings of the glory yet to be revealed in us? Suffering and glory thus placed side by side, thus contrasted and weighed, to what conclusion does our apostle arrive? "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." No, not worthy of a comparison. Do we measure their relative duration? "Then, our light affliction is but for a moment," while our glory is a "far more exceeding and eternal weight." Before long all suffering and sorrow will forever have passed away—a thing of history and of memory only—while glory will deepen and expand as eternity rolls on its endless ages. Do we weight them? What comparison has the weight of the cross with the weight of the crown? Place in the scales the present "light affliction" and the future "exceeding and eternal weight of glory," which is the lightest? Are they worthy to be compared? Oh, no! One second of glory will extinguish a life-time of suffering. What were long years of toil, of sickness, of battle with poverty, persecution, and sorrow in every form, and closing even with a martyr's death, weighted with one draught of the river of pleasure at Christ's right hand—with one breath of Paradise—with one wave of heaven's glory—with one embrace of Jesus—with one sight of God? Oh, what are the pangs of present separation, in comparison with the joy of future reunion? What the pinchings of poverty now, with the untold riches then? What the suffering, and gloom, and contempt of the present time, with the glory that is to be revealed in us? We can go no further. Tell us, you spirits of just men made perfect, if it be lawful, if it be possible, what the glory that awaits us is! Tell us what it is to be an unclothed spirit—to dwell in the bosom of Jesus—to see God—to be perfectly holy—to be supremely happy! Wait, my soul! before long it will be all revealed! R A Torrey - TIME AND ETERNITY CONTRASTED “For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal (for a season); but the things which are not seen are eternal” (for eternity).—2 CORINTHIANS 4:17–18. THE Apostle Paul had to endure some things that to most men would seem very hard to bear, and some of these afflictions continued through many years. Indeed the thirty years of his Christian experience seem, at first sight, like thirty years of self-denial and suffering for Christ. But in speaking of these afflictions in our text, Paul speaks of them as “our light afflictions” and also as “our affliction which is for a moment.” Is thirty years “but a moment”? Yes, when compared with eternity. Your life of eighty or ninety years or one hundred years, is but the twinkling of an eye when compared with eternity. And is the loss of friends, the loss of ease, the loss of the admiration and applause of men, the loss of home and native land, the loss of all that men ordinarily hold dear; and imprisonment, and shipwreck and scourging and wandering and hunger and stoning, is all this “light afflictions”? Yes, when compared with the joy and honour and glory which are to be revealed in us in a glad day that is soon coming. When the sufferings of this present time are put in comparison with the eternal glories that are thus secured, they are nothing at all. And when all the wealth and pleasure and honours that one can possibly get in this world are put in comparison with the eternal agony and ruin and despair and shame that it costs to live for this world, they, too, are nothing. Suppose one gets a million dollars or two million dollars or one hundred million dollars at the cost of being lost forever? Does it pay? Suppose one’s whole life from boyhood or girlhood to old age is one constant round of parties, and feasts, and frolics, and merriments, at the cost of spending an eternity in hell. Does it pay? The truly wise man does not look at the things which are seen, which are “for a time,” but at the things which are unseen, which are for eternity. This, then, is really our subject to-night, ETERNITY. I. THERE IS AN ETERNITY AND WE MUST GO THERE The first thing our text teaches us, and which we know to be true even though it were not in our text, is, There is an Eternity, and we must go there. It is the height of folly to refuse to think of eternity. A lady said to me one day, speaking of a certain shiftless young man who has had great opportunities in life but thrown them all away, “He just lives for today; he never thinks of the future either in the life that now is or the life that is to come.” Everybody sees that that young man is an ass. I do not think there is any difference of opinion on that point among any of those who know him. But is he really much more of a blockhead than the man or the woman who lives only for the brief days that we spend on this earth, and never thinks of that vast eternity which stretches beyond, and to which we are all hurrying on at express speed? THERE IS AN ETERNITY. I may live ninety or a hundred years of the life that now is, but I shall certainly live millions and billions and trillions of years in the endless æons of years in the life that is to come. I shall live forever and forever. Eternity is the important thing. The life that now is is important only because it determines our eternity. Many a man who is wise enough to look somewhat into the future, asks himself the question, “Where and how shall I spend my middle life, and where and how shall I spend my old age?” A man who is still wiser will ask himself the question, “Where and how shall I spend my eternity?” Have you settled that question? Let me put it to every one of my readers: “Have you settled where and how you will spend eternity?” If you have not, there is really but one sane thing for you to do, and that is to settle the question to-night as to where and how you will spend eternity. II. WHERE AND HOW WE SHALL SPEND ETERNITY IS SETTLED IN THE LIFE THAT NOW IS The second thing that I wish to say to-night is, Where and how we shall spend eternity is settled in the life that now is. The life that now is, is the preparation time, and the only preparation time for the life that is to come. Time is the preparation time and the only preparation time for eternity. The boy who has wasted his school days, and failed to make preparation for business life, when he gets into the weary grind of a life that is the inevitable outcome of a wasted boyhood and young manhood, would gladly go back and live his wasted boyhood over again; but he cannot. Much less can any man or woman who wastes this present life on earth come back from a ruined eternity and live this present life over. It cannot be done. You are making your eternity to-day. Men have tried to fancy that there is some other time of preparation in the future for those who waste this present opportunity for preparation in the life that now is. Such a hope is the “baseless fabric of a dream” which has not one atom of foundation either in common sense or the more sure Word of God. “If,” says Jesus, “ye die in your sins, whither I go ye cannot come.” This word of our Lord Himself makes it as clear as day that where and how we shall spend eternity is settled in the life that now is, settled this side the grave. You are making your eternity NOW. Some young man or woman may be saying in their heart, “I will go out and have one more fling at sin.” Do it, and it may land you in hell for all eternity. In the lost world of endless midnight and despair you will look up and say, “Dr. Torrey told me that if I went out to spend one more night in sin I would spend eternity in hell, and here I am.” And you will wring your hands, and you will shriek, and you will agonize, and you will despair, but it will be too late, too late forever. I was dealing one night with a man in Minneapolis who was under deep conviction of sin. I urged upon him immediate acceptance of Jesus Christ, but he hesitated, and he went out without deciding. He thought he would go into a saloon and have one more drink and he did, and that led to another, and so on. Two years later I received a letter from him from the State Prison at Stillwater, telling me how near he had come to accepting Christ that night, but how he had gone to have another drink and then another, and how he had become intoxicated, and while intoxicated he had stolen an overcoat, was arrested, tried and found guilty. He had no recollection of stealing the coat, but said he had no doubt that he did. He was sentenced to two years in Stillwater State Prison. He added, “I have accepted Christ here, but these two years have been wasted, because I did not do as you urged me to that night.” But ah, that was not so bad as to wake up in hell and know that you are to spend all eternity there, because you did not take the step that you know you ought to take to-night. III. HOW TO SECURE A BLESSED AND GLORIOUS ETERNITY We have seen that there is an eternity, we have seen that where and how we shall spend eternity is settled in the life that now is; so we come face to face with the question, What must I do in the life that now is that I may have a satisfactory and glorious eternity? First of all, if you are to have a satisfactory and glorious eternity, you must believe on Jesus Christ in the life that now is. This God tells us in His Word over and over again. For example, He says in John 3:36, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” And He says in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The first thing to do, then, if we are to have a satisfactory and glorious eternity, indeed the first thing we must do if we are to spend eternity outside of hell, is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Just what does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? God Himself answers that question in John 1:12: “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” Here we are told that to believe on Jesus Christ, to “believe on his name,” is to “receive him,” that is to simply accept Him to be to us what God offers Him to be to every one, to receive Him as the Saviour who has borne our sins for us, borne them in His own body on the cross, and who is therefore ready and able to forgive all our sins as soon as we confess them, and forsake them and put our trust in Him, to receive Him also as our Lord and Master to whom we surrender the entire control of our lives, to receive Him as our divine teacher to whom we surrender our thoughts. Whatever else we may do or not do, it is absolutely sure we shall not have a blessed eternity if we do not thus receive Jesus Christ. In the second place, if we are to have a satisfactory and glorious eternity, we must serve Jesus Christ. We are saved by grace; but we are rewarded according to our works. Eternity begins with the coming of Christ, and at His coming, Jesus Christ “shall reward every man according to his works” (Matt. 16:27). Our eternity will be rich and full just in proportion to the faithfulness of our service here on earth. There are many who fancy that all professed Christians will have an equally glorious eternity, but this is pure fancy. It contradicts the plain teachings of the Word of God, and the teachings of sanctified common sense as well. The Word of God tells us that some will be saved, “so as by fire” (1 Cor. 3:15); but that others will have an “abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:11). The one who barely accepts Christ, and who holds on to the world in a measure, and does scarcely anything for his Master, will have no such entrance into “the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” he will have no such glorious eternity as the one who turns away from the world with his whole heart, and gives up all its follies and self-indulgences and “comes out” and “is separate” and lives wholly for Christ, a life of constant self-denial and constant service. Do you realize, you professed Christians, that you are preparing your eternity by the way you serve Christ in the life that now is? Do you realize that your eternity will be richer or poorer by the way in which you serve Jesus Christ on earth? Do you realize that every day spent in hard service will make Heaven that much richer and every day and hour frittered away will make Heaven that much poorer? Ah, ponder again those familiar words that God spake to Daniel, “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.” How important then is every day of our Christian life. Let me put to you the question, Has to-day counted as much as it might have counted for eternity? Again let me say, that the sufferings we endure, and the sacrifices we make for Christ will make eternity richer. The words of our Lord Jesus are very plain on this point; He says, “Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matt. 5:11, 12). There are some who bitterly regret it when they are called upon to be reproached or slandered or in any way to suffer persecution for Jesus Christ’s sake. So far from regretting it, we should rather rejoice in it instead, we should be “exceeding glad,” these things bring great reward in Heaven. Every sneer that one endures, every reproach that is heaped upon us, every loss that we sustain for the sake of the truth and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, brings glorious reward in eternity. Never forget what Paul said, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to usward” (Rom. 8:18), and how he says again, “If I suffer, I shall also reign with him.” The seemingly awful tortures endured by the Armenian Christians rather than give up their faith in Christ, and which to some people seem so inexplicable are no longer a mystery if we only bear in mind how they will bring reward a thousand-fold throughout all eternity. Do not whine, but thank God every time it is your privilege to suffer for Christ, and the more you suffer the more rejoice. The opportunity to suffer for Christ or for the truth is an opportunity for an investment that pays an eternal dividend. Again, if we would have a thoroughly satisfactory and glorious eternity, we must use our money for Jesus Christ. The use we make of our money in the life that now is, enriches or impoverishes our eternity. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:17–19, “Charge them that are rich in this present world, that they be not high-minded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed.” And the Lord Jesus says in Matthew 6:19, 20, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.” How few people seem to realize that they are making their eternity by their use of their money here on earth, but it is so. I think some of us will look back with regret from the other world and say, “What a fool I was to invest my money in houses and lands and jewels and luxuries, in gewgaws and trinkets, when I might have invested it so it would be paying me interest to-day.” Men and women, the greatest practical question that confronts you and me is where shall we spend eternity and how shall we spend eternity? Will you spend eternity in heaven or will you spend eternity in hell? Will you spend it in joy and glory unutterable, or will you spend it in misery and shame unutterable? Time is nothing comparable with eternity. Ten, twenty, eighty years is nothing compared with eternity—eternity—eternity! That is the all-important matter. Where you will spend eternity and how you will spend eternity will be determined by your action in this life; it may be determined, it will be in a measure determined by your action to-day. What you do to-day is of tremendous importance. If you have not already accepted Christ, accept Him now. And even if you have accepted Christ, but have been serving Him in a half-hearted way, give yourself up wholly to Him from this time henceforward. If you have been holding back from sacrificing for Christ, make the sacrifice at once. I desire with all my heart that my eternity be just as rich, just as full, just as glorious as possible, and by God’s grace I am going to make it so, whatever it costs. Great Texts of the Bible - AN ETERNAL WEIGHT OF GLORY For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.—2 Cor. 4:17. GEORGE HERBERT, in his Country Parson, describes this Epistle as “full of affections.” Beyond any other of the Apostle’s letters it lays bare the deepest feelings of that great heart, which has been keenly wounded by sufferings more acute than the trouble that came upon him in Asia and pressed him out of measure, beyond his strength, so that he had despaired even of life. Life is still his: but he has been made to feel, as he had not felt before, the pain which can be inflicted by coldness, suspiciousness, and something like hostility on the part of those towards whom, as he says, with touching emphasis, his heart has been habitually “enlarged.” They have listened to malignant misconstructions, set afloat by those Judaizing teachers who made it their business to stamp out his work wherever Jewish Christians were to be found. It was bitter indeed for him who during a year and a half had been the guest of Justus, who had baptized Crispus and Gaius, and the household of Stephanas, to have to defend himself against the imputation of double-mindedness, of shifty diplomacy, and of what in modern phrase might be called priestcraft. It might well make him write warmly, and also mournfully. Much, he felt, was against him; he was hard put to it, “perplexed, cast down”; it was as if a “process of dying” had begun in him; his bodily health, continually impaired by the “thorn in the flesh,” had been yet further affected by the mental distress of an intensely sensitive nature. But faith comes to his aid; “though the outward man be decaying, the inward man is daily renewing its strength”; the “momentary affliction seems light” after all, when he considers that it is producing, in a manner and to an extent surpassing all thought, “an eternal weight of glory”; and this comes home to him when he seriously contrasts “the things seen,” as “temporal,” with “the things not seen” as “eternal,” and, at that high standpoint of illuminated reason, looks resolutely away from the former to the latter. ¶ It is no mere poetical hyperbole which finds expression in such words as these: We live in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. Or again, Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence. Who is there, indeed, whose familiar experience has not taught him, in some ways at least, the power of thought to master time, of feeling to lend wings to the leaden hours, or, what is relatively to us the same, to render us unconscious of their flight? Absorbing employment, intense excitements, critical emergencies, things and events that deeply affect or move us, often, as we all know, make hours to vanish unnoted and unmeasured, whole days to contract almost into the brevity of hours. When the flow of composition urges the writer’s rapid pen, when the inspiration of a congenial subject kindles the artist’s mind and lends deftness to his touch, when the orator is borne onwards on the swift tide of successful speech, when the trial is proceeding on whose issue life or death is suspended, when the decisive engagement, big with the fate of nations, is being lost or won—these, and such as these, are occasions on which time is not reckoned by physical measures, on which intensity of thought and feeling quickens the rate at which life moves. I THE WEIGHT OF AFFLICTION 1. Afflictions never seem light to those who are called upon to bear them. By some remarkable condition of things, heavy afflictions may seem light and be accounted as nothing at all, but, naturally and by themselves, we always regard our own afflictions as heavy. It is very easy for spectators to say, when they hear another complaining of sufferings, “Oh! they are nothing at all, not worth a moment’s attention”; and to be astonished that so much should be made of a little. But spectators of suffering may not be the best judges of its weight. In the first place it may be that they are not suffering themselves, and so look at things very comfortably. Then again, men differ as to their sensibility to pain. Circumstances which may be nearly unheeded by one who has but dull sensations may be agony to another more finely constituted. Or again, if both are sensitive, yet one may have a special wound or sore which the other is happily without, and then even the touch of a fly drives to madness. Therefore, when we see another in pain, it is not for us straightway to declare that there is nothing to be pained about. We are all better aware of the stress of our own sorrows than we are of those of other people, and the heart knoweth its own bitterness. Naturally we all feel our afflictions to be heavy. St. Paul had his afflictions. He did not find the Christian life easy. He was speaking for himself and his companions when he said “We are troubled on every side,” “perplexed,” “persecuted,” “cast down,” “always delivered unto death.” These are not rhetorical phrases which spring to the pen of an eloquent and ready writer. They are words which tell us of hard experiences, harsh treatment, real pain and suffering. In another part of this letter he tells us something more of what he had endured as a Christian. Five times he was beaten by the Jews, thrice by the Romans. (The strokes of the whip and the rods were not make-believe.) Once he was stoned, thrice he suffered shipwreck. Everywhere perils awaited him—perils of waters, perils of robbers, perils of the Jews, perils of the heathen, perils in the wilderness, perils in the city. He had endured weariness and painfulness, hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness. 2. How can afflictions, naturally heavy, come to be regarded as light? We know quite well that it is possible for the attention to be so occupied with one thing that it does not notice another. A man engaged in deep thought does not see the friend who recognizes him in the street. A philosopher like Newton may be so deeply involved in his problems as to forget the body and its want of food. In the excitement of battle men have not noticed the wound they have received, and not until they have begun to faint from loss of blood have they perceived what has happened to them. A mind intensely occupied with one thing has little to bestow upon others. We cannot be alive with the same intensity all over. Great concentration of vitality at one point lessens it at others. So that the constitution of our nature points out the direction in which the answer to our question is to be sought. If there be something else of more importance than the pain upon which the attention can be fixed, then, for every degree of such attention there is a degree less of pain; with almost complete attention upon something else, the pain will very nearly disappear; until, by absorbing devotion to some great thing, it is possible for afflictions which naturally are heavy to become graciously light. The vision of the unseen has this power. It interprets and transforms life. In this way “our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.” We are to get the clue to the mystery of life, we are to cease to be puzzled by the pain and suffering. The meaning and end of the seen are hidden in the unseen. To see with any clearness the end will help to interpret the ways by which it is reached. Light from the unseen will give an interpretative value to life and its trials, and with the vision will come the transformation. That which was a tangled puzzle will solve itself when viewed from a right standpoint. Now St. Paul was always a traveller through the seen to the unseen, where he found the Aladdin’s lamp which revealed the meaning of his present affliction, which, though often sore, became “light,” working not sores in him, but rather great glory. And so it is that here the mind of the Apostle is overwhelmed by the contrast between the seen and the unseen, and, as he rises in his flight of contemplation, the calamities of earth dwindle into insignificant smallness till there is nothing visible but glory. Yet, strange to say, he describes the glory by an old earthly metaphor, by the very metaphor, indeed, which he used to apply to his afflictions; he calls it a weight. We speak of a weight of care, a weight of sorrow, a weight of anxiety; but a weight of glory!—surely that is a startling symbol. We do not think of a man as being crushed, overwhelmed, weighed down by glory. We should have thought that the old metaphor of care would be repulsive, that it would be cast off like a worn-out garment and remembered no more for ever. But the old garment is not worn out when the glory comes, it is only transfigured; that which made our weight of care is that which makes our weight of glory. We need not a new object but a new light—to see by day what we have seen only in darkness. ¶ What is the use of all our reading and writing and speaking and thinking about God, and His love, and His care over us, if we are to see in an affliction nothing more than the distress which it brings? There is something else in the affliction besides this distress, and that something is God’s love and eternal life. And the only use of all our reading, etc., is to fix our attention on this which is enclosed within the affliction, instead of having it engrossed by the envelope—the outward form in which God sends it. ¶ If from the shores of eternity we cast back our gaze over the path we have travelled in this world, which regions will shine most brightly and beautifully in the view? Not, I think, those that have seemed to be joyous in the passing—not the years of youth and health and strength and earthly happiness—but much rather the spaces that here have seemed perhaps the darkest and dreariest; for these have drawn us nearer to God, these have been fullest of prayer, on these have fallen the purest, brightest rays from the Father of lights and from Him who is the brightness of that Father’s glory and the Light of the World. II THE DURATION OF AFFLICTION 1. Affliction is often life-long, as the Apostle well knew. Why then does he call it momentary? He compares it with what is unseen and eternal. He looks away from seen vicissitudes to unseen possessions. These vicissitudes may be manifold. They may be constant. There is the change from health to sickness. There is the change from wealth to poverty. There is the change from companionship to solitude. But let a man look away from them all, from the seen mutations to the unseen certitudes, and what then? Why, then he thinks of a place prepared where the inhabitant says no more, “I am sick”; of a treasure laid up “where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal”; of a friendship that neither fails nor falters, but is always faithful, always sure, and always near. Who shall separate us from the love of God? Who shall exclude us from the grace of Christ? Who shall deprive us of the communion of the Holy Ghost? These form abiding realities, which the shocks of circumstance are as powerless to change as the rocking earthquake is to ruffle the pure blue sky, or disturb the solemn marching of its silent stars. So may we all, receiving a kingdom that cannot be moved, serve God acceptably and with godly fear. 2. Although St. Paul places the emphasis on the eternal, he does not despise the present. He was far too healthy-minded a man to rail at a summer day because it does not last, or to depreciate the beautiful home in which the great God has placed us here because this, some day, has to make way for another; he was far too human to depreciate friendship or love because there are partings and families are broken up. He was not so much absorbed in the thought of death as to forget the warmth, the majesty, and the mystery of being alive at all; and therefore those completely travesty St. Paul’s philosophy of life who fix their eyes so exclusively on another world that they take no interest in this, or who are so absorbed in thinking of the God whom they have not seen that they have no eyes to see and care for the brother whom they have seen. No, he calls these things, not unimportant, but temporal. And what he means evidently is this: that underneath the seen and passing things, here and now and in our midst, is a world of unseen reality; that “heaven lies about us,” not only, as the poet says, “in our infancy,” but all our days; that these unseen realities make use of the seen, but exist independently of them; that it is possible as we walk the earth day by day to have our head above the mists in heaven; that our calling is to be eternal beings in a world of time, and that the real test of the use of life is what life leaves us when it has passed away. ¶ This valley [the Yosemite] is flanked by towering mountains, cleft for the most part right up in every variety of extraordinary summit. The rock is granite of flashing whiteness, rising into triangles, squares and domes. The feature of the valley is two gigantic domes, the one split like the half of a helmet, the other running up in a mass of rock till an entire helmet crowns its mass. Yesterday I walked to the Mirror Lake on the one fork of the valley. The pines at first by their reflection almost absorbed the view; but when you look far enough down, in quite distinct perspective you see to almost infinite depths the outline of the rocks and of the sky. Thus the transient in the glass of time captivates many; we need to look deep enough to catch the eternal. III THE END OF AFFLICTION 1. Affliction is the precursor of glory. It cannot be said that trial and suffering in themselves have power to make men holier or more heavenly. Upon many they have the very opposite effect, making them gloomy, selfish, and envious. They harden the heart instead of making it tender and sympathetic. They may come and overwhelm a man in their dark waves, and yet when their tide recedes it may leave him impure and worldly as before. Let no one think, then, that he is necessarily the better for having been tried. It is not so; and yet it is true that trial is most generally the instrument which God employs for softening the hard-hearted, for subduing the proud, for teaching endurance and patience, for expanding the sympathies, for exercising the religious affections, for refining, strengthening, and elevating the entire disposition and character. You cast the ore into the furnace in order to obtain the pure gold unalloyed with any dross; so men must pass through those fires of affliction which try every man’s work of what sort it is. “And no one,” it has been observed, “who has borne suffering aright has ever complained that he had been called on to endure too much of it. On the contrary, all the noblest of our race have learned from experience to count suffering not an evil but a privilege, and to rejoice in it as working out in them, through its purifying and perfecting power, an eternal weight of glory.” St. Paul had learned to “glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience”; in other words, that the result of trial is, or ought to be, the discipline and enlargement of the spirit. ¶ A friend of mine, Mr. Houston of Johnstone Castle, died last week at the age of eighty-two, who had for fifty years suffered uninterruptedly from neuralgia. Many years ago he told me that for twenty years he had never been so sound asleep as to lose the consciousness of suffering. He died praising God for His tender mercies, which had led him all his journey through. 2. Affliction “worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.” More is said here than at first appears; more than the hasty reader would observe. It is not merely asserted that we shall be relieved of pain by-and-by; it is not merely stated that they who suffer here on earth shall cease to suffer in heaven; this were no new thing to tell. But what is said is this: that pain is the forerunner of joy, as its efficient cause. “Affliction” is not merely followed by “glory”; it “worketh” that glory, it maketh that glory to be. “Our light affliction worketh for us a weight of glory.” This is a specific truth of Catholic Christianity, and one unknown to the wise and sagacious of this world. There is nothing more characteristic of the scientific thought of to-day than the law of progress through struggle. Scientists show us that its working is found in every kingdom of the animate universe; that there is no progress apart from struggle and labour and suffering; and that in this conflict only the fittest survive, and by their survival raise their species to a higher plane. And this which philosophers of the nineteenth century claimed as the great discovery of their age is anticipated in these words of St. Paul. Our sufferings and struggles, if rightly used, lead to the development of our powers, and work for us a splendid result—the life of glory. He shows us that in this struggle alone is spiritual progress possible, and that the result of it is the survival of the fittest, of the saints, in the kingdom of glory. ¶ A bar of iron worth £1, when wrought into horse-shoes is worth £2. If made into needles it is worth £70. If into pen-knife blades it is worth £650. If into springs for watches it is worth £50,000. Thus the more it is hammered and pounded and polished, and brought through the fire, the more valuable it becomes. Does not this throw light upon many a perplexing providence and many a crushing sorrow? The afflictions of this present time are preparing us for service here and for glory hereafter. Without, as I heard the wild winds roar, And saw the black clouds their floods outpour, As the lightnings flashed, And the thunders crashed, And the hurricane’s force waxed more and more, I said, as I looked from my window warm, “Heav’n never on me send such a storm!” Then came a dark day, when fierce and fast, Down fell on my head the blinding blast! Yet tho’ sore assailed, I nor shrank nor quailed, For tho’ loud the gale raged, as ’twould rage its last, The struggle I waged, as I journeyed on, Awoke in me powers before unknown! I felt my hot blood a-tingling flow; With thrill of the fight my soul did glow; And when, braced and pure, I emerged secure From the strife that had tried my courage so, I said, “Let Heav’n send me or sun or rain, I’ll never know flinching fear again!” 3. It is Christ who makes affliction work out such glorious results. He has transformed pain and sorrow into beneficent angels. We cannot tell how it happened, but grief, through her acquaintanceship and familiarity with the Son of Man, became like a new creature; in her were seen a certain softness and pensiveness which she never had before; her form became altered and her footsteps light, until she seemed to take the air of a Sister of Mercy, and to breathe forth a wondrous benediction while she walked with Him. Doubtless it was His influence that worked the change; it was He who turned into a cross that scourge of small cords which she had carried from time immemorial, and gave to her eyes that tender look which seems to say, “I do not willingly afflict nor grieve you, O children of men.” Thus they went through the world hand in hand, until He went out of it by the gate of the grave, tasting death for every man. And grief has been acting ever since as one of His ministers, and representing Him, and doing the works of mercy in His Kingdom. She has given to men in these latter days more than she ever took away; she is a dispenser and not a spoiler; her hands are full of goodly gifts, and though her discipline be painful, yet it is ever merciful, and as a gentle almoner she offers and bestows, wherever faith and love dispose the heart to receive them, sure and perfect pledges of eternal blessing and glory. ¶ I stand in one of our harbours, and see beyond its shelter the waves lift themselves mountains high; my ears are filled with the roar of the angry wind. Ignorant of vessels and of navigation, I observe a goodly ship putting forth to sea, and the conviction steals over me that she will be engulfed in the waters or cast by the wind upon the shore; but I do not know the power of the engines that propel the vessel or the skill of the captain who is in command of her. Did I realize these I should be assured that she would force her way through the waves, and in due time reach the desired port in safety. It is thus with the world. We see, we realize, the misery, the strife, the confusion that prevail; but we do not see, we cannot realize, the wisdom, the love, the power in the nature of Him who, in spite of all these, reigneth King for ever, or we should be assured that, though “the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed,” yet “there is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that right early.” ¶ “Open the door and let in more of that music,” the dying man said to his weeping son. Behmen was already hearing the harpers harping with their harps, he was already taking his part in the song they sing in Heaven “to him who loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood.” Some one will enter the pearly gate By-and-by, by-and-by; Taste of the glories that there await, Shall you? Shall I? If we are to be there, we must, like the saintly Behmen, “wash our robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Everlasting life begins on this side the grave, and our Heaven, like his, must begin on earth. The Life Eternal, the life in which time is as eternity and eternity as time, is the life hid with Christ in God. In the measure in which we experience it, we shall rise above earth’s changing scenes. Our sorrows will not crush us; our successes will not elate us; our difficulties will not daunt us; death itself will not appal us, because, taught by the great Apostle, we are beginning to appraise the events of life at their true value, we are learning, through many a painful experience, slowly but surely to look “not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen,” and we find that the things which are unseen are eternal, for “Eternity is the Diamond in the Ring.” Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, Complain no more; for these, O heart, Direct the random of the will As rhymes direct the rage of art. The lute’s fixt fret, that runs athwart The strain and purpose of the string, For governance and nice consort Doth bar his wilful wavering. The dark hath many dear avails; The dark distils divinest dews; The dark is rich with nightingales, With dreams, and with the heavenly Muse.