I ask you to turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 7. Full second letter to the Corinthians chapter 12 verse 7. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh. the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure." After a consideration of the subject of chastening last week, I had a number of conversations with some of you And I've decided that we need to clarify the subject in a little more detail. And so this morning I want to continue to think about what do we mean by divine chastisement. In Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 5, we read that we are to despise not the chastening of the Lord. The word there literally means child training. It's sometimes translated in the New Testament as instruction. For example, we are told that the Apostle Paul was taught at the feet of Gamaliel. It's the same word. He was chastened at the feet of Gamaliel. It's the same word that was used to describe Moses as being learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. It means he was trained rigorously at school by Egyptian tutors and the manners and the knowledge and the science and the military disciplines which he excelled in were there because he had been chastened or instructed And that's the word that is used. And so we must understand that it means to be instructed. The problem is that in English the word chastening has become too narrow. And we think of chastisement as being to beat our children. But actually chastening biblically is much broader than that. It means to be rigorously instructed. Some of you will know that Daniela has a Chinese friend who is from Beijing and she stayed with us for a weekend some months ago, you probably remember, and she was telling me what it's like to be a university student in Shanghai. You're given something like a credit card which is what's used to open the door to the canteen and you get access to certain privileges. But in order to maintain that card you have to go through some of the rules and some of the disciplines of the university. One is that for something like 30 mornings every term, you have to get up at 6.30 or 7 o'clock, you have to go into the sort of gymnasium or the precinct, and you have to do so many minutes of running. If you don't do it, your card won't work. You cannot get in the canteen. And there are so many other aspects to university life in a Chinese university that probably we in this country would think were quite authoritarian and very arduous. Now that's chastening. They're not told to do those things because they've done something wrong, but it's part of the rigor of their training. It's part of the program that makes many Chinese students very disciplined. and very principled and very orderly in the way that they go about their business, because they have been chastened. They have been placed under that rigorous discipline as students. If you go into the army, then you have to go through certain military exercises. You're perhaps thrown out into some wild place where you have to fend for yourself. You have to go through perhaps two or three days where you don't get much sleep, where you have to rough it, and where you are under what we would call the discipline of a military regime. You're not there because you've done something wrong. It's because you are being trained for the tasks ahead. That's chastening in the biblical sense of the word. And that's the way it's used there in Hebrews chapter 12. He wasn't saying to them specifically, the Lord is dealing with you because you've done something specifically wrong. Now the Lord does chasten us in that English sense of the word as well, but the thrust is the Lord subjects us to the rigours of life. and sometimes for his people more rigorous than for an unbeliever, in order to train us, to prepare us for the battles ahead, in order to curb our lusts, in order to restrain our sinful passions, in order to teach us his way. I want to explore this in a little bit more detail this morning and I just want to comment on the difference between sanctification and chastisement because they are closely connected but they are not the same thing. If you think of the growing of a wheat crop then we would say that the whole process is called agriculture or crop husbandry. But within that overall umbrella there are specific things that have to be done. The land has to be ploughed in order to prepare for the crop. It has to be nurtured. It has to be fertilised. It has to be sprayed perhaps. And there are all those individual practices or tools which a farmer uses in order to complete the overall task. Now sanctification is the overall task. I'm going to quote to you from the Shorter Catechism. Sanctification is the work of God's grace whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God and are enabled more and more to die to sin and live unto righteousness. That's how our forebearers defined and distilled what is meant by sanctification. It is that overall work of God whereby we die more and more to sin and live more and more unto righteousness. But the Lord uses various tools in order to bring about that process of sanctification. For example, how does he sanctify us? Firstly, by impressing upon our hearts the words As it is read, he challenges us from it. As it is preached, he encourages us and stirs us. And we come to appreciate that there are certain incentives within the Word of God to turn our back on sin and to live in a way that is righteous. There are promises. There are divine rewards given to those who walk in a way of righteousness, who follow the procedures of God's Word, the warnings of God's Word. of the consequences of sin. These things, as the Lord brings them to bear upon our minds, are one of the tools which God uses in the process of sanctification. Another tool is the Lord's suffering. It's called a means of grace. It's one of the tools, one of the means God uses to encourage us, to exhort us to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness. As we reflect upon the Lord Jesus Christ dying in agony upon that cross, suffering in our place, made to be sin for us, we are reminded of just how awful sin is, just how grievous it is to our God and we say, I can't sin anymore, how can I look at that cross, how can I reflect upon the Saviour and then continue to live in a disobedient manner. It's part of the tool which the Lord uses to provoke, to promote our sanctification. Another tool is the promptings of the Holy Spirit. He puts within every converted person His Holy Spirit to activate our conscience, to incline our affections, to suggest to us the way that is right and to restrain us from the way that is wrong. It's the Holy Spirit that within says you shouldn't be watching that program. It's the Holy Spirit within that says you shouldn't be in that company. It's the Holy Spirit within that says you ought to be in the Lord's house. It's his day. It's a day of worship. This is the prompting of the Holy Spirit. And it's one of the tools which the Lord uses to bring about sanctification. And another tool which the Lord uses are the rigours of life. What we've described this morning as his chastening. Just like that university student in China. She will go to the lectures and she will learn facts and figures about whatever it is she's studying. That's one of the tools that's used to train her, to qualify her for later life. But another tool the Chinese use, and perhaps it ought to be used here as well, is this rigorous exercise program that they are subjected to for 30 mornings in every term. And the Lord uses the rigours of life, just as he uses the word to sanctify us, so he also uses chastisement. The bringing into our life of things which hurt us, things which cause pain, things which subject us to heartache, they are all in the hand of the Lord as he harnesses them, as he blesses them to us. and uses them to make us more and more live unto righteousness and die unto sin. You see they are character building things. And the Lord uses this to shape us. He wants to shape us so that we become like himself. Think of the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in Hebrews that he learned obedience by the things that he suffered. He learned to leave all in the hand of his Heavenly Father. He learned to commit his soul to his Father in Heaven. And that's what the Lord will do with us. He will bring us into these rigours of life in order to make us more dependent upon Him. To be more tender in our conscience. To be more prayerful. Now I want to look at some examples of chastisement then from the word of God which are not a rebuke for some specific sin. We think of chastisement in our English culture as being what we do in order to rebuke or to punish a child for some specific misdemeanor. But the Word of God speaks of chastisement in a much more broad thing. The Lord may bring us into some painful illness or some specific circumstance. It may be because he wants us to reflect upon some sinful trait, because we've become too careless or too worldly. But it may not be that at all, it may just be that the Lord is going to teach us, he's going to instruct us, he's going to show us something of our weakness, something of our need to depend upon him. You see this word means to teach, it means to instruct as well as to correct. If you think of the way a shepherd uses his rod to deal with the flock, He doesn't use it very often from what I can understand at least, although I'm no expert. He wouldn't go to some far off crevice and see a sheep that's fallen down the crack and get his rod out and beat it black and blue. That's not what he uses the rod for. But when the sheep are being ushered through perhaps some narrow strait into a new pasture, then he might take that rod just to prompt and to poke and to guide the sheep so that it hedges up his way and causes them to go in that direction. And that is the way in which the New Testament speaks about chastisement. The Lord uses it like a rod, just to gently push us in the right direction, more than to beat us over the head because we've done something seriously wrong. Although it may be used in that way if the Lord sees fit. So, two passages that I want to look at this morning that speak of chastisement. Firstly is Deuteronomy chapter 8, a well-known passage. And here in this chapter, the children of Israel are told to remember, verse 2, to remember all the way the Lord thy God has led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart. They were to remember how they came into times where they were thirsty and they didn't know where the water was going to come from and they felt anxious and worried and they began to murmur. Then there was that occasion when there were the serpents that were sent to bite them because they had become murmurous. All these different things, things that happened to them in the wilderness. And the Lord says here in verse 6 Sorry, verse 5, Thou shalt also consider in thine heart that as a man chastens his son, and the word literally means to instruct by rigour, as a man chastens his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. So they were to understand that that period of 40 years in the wilderness, with all the difficulties that it brought, with all the blessings that they experienced alongside those difficulties and times of rigour. It was the Lord's chastening process. He was shaping the nation. He was instructing the individuals that made up that nation so that they should be humbled, verse 3, and so that they should learn to depend upon the Lord. and to depend upon his promises, every word that proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord. Now if you think of everything that happened to those Israelites, it wasn't that every time they did something wrong the Lord brought some new problem. Often the Lord brought that problem in order to teach them, to train them. When they first went into the wilderness, there was no water. We don't read there that the Lord didn't give them water because they'd done something wrong. No, they'd just come out of Egypt, they'd been through the Red Sea, they were doing everything that the Lord commanded, and yet there was no water. They were being chastened. Why? The Lord is going to train them to look up, to look to Him, to depend upon Him in that barren climate. and in that wilderness journey. Yes, there was a time when they were sinful and wrong and the Lord sent serpents to bite them. That also was chastening and they were to understand and confess, we have sinned. and the Lord must forgive us. So we see both types here of chastening, one for a specific sin and one which was just what we might call child training, being subjected to tests and to rigours in order to humble them and cause them to be dependent. One more thing before we leave this passage, verse 14, There was another purpose in their chastening. They were not to become forgetful and complacent. He said that thine heart be lifted up and thou forget the law of thy God which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. Prosperity lay ahead for this nation and in the midst of that prosperity there was a real danger that they would become complacent and forgetful of God. And so the Lord is saying to them here in verse 5, you need to consider that I am chastening you now. I'm making you to prove your weakness and your dependence. I want you to learn that you are utterly cast upon me, and every blessing that you reap And every difficulty that you face, you must acknowledge that I am your God. And that's how the Lord will deal with us. Sometimes he will hedge up our way, sometimes he will bring difficulty into our life, because as he blesses us later, as he brings us out into that wealthy place of which Psalm 66 speaks, we must still remember It's the Lord who's brought me into this wealthy place, it's the Lord who's prospered me and I cannot forget Him. Well let's look secondly at the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Now I'll grant you that in this passage Paul doesn't say here I'm being chastened and yet What he describes is clearly from what I've shown you the word chastening biblically means, it was part of that chastening process. So in Corinthians chapter 12 verse 7, lest I should be exalted above measure. I want you to notice that this was something that was brought into Paul's life not because he had done something wrong, but because he had been so favoured, so blessed. He's going to speak about how he was exalted, how he had this wonderful revelation, how he glimpsed things which were indescribable and which he had no mandate to share with any other person upon earth. In some way he doesn't know whether he was in his body or out of his body, somehow he was carried up into the third heaven. It's thought that the reason he uses this phrase, the third heaven, although it can mean just that he was lifted up to see the very innermost courts of God, Often in the ancient world, the Hebrews spoke of three heavens. The first heaven was the air, the atmosphere around the earth. The second heaven was the place where the sun and the moon and the stars are fixed. And the third heaven was what we would probably call heaven itself. But he had this exalted experience. God favoured him with this experience doubtless in order to uphold him and to strengthen him in those times of great challenge that he would face as an apostle. But I want you to notice that what the apostle is saying here is this, the Lord in one sense he lifted me up. He put his arms under me, he favoured me with this unique experience which was going to undergird me when I faced opposition and threat and stoning and shipwreck as an active apostle. and yet at the same time the Lord has put his hand on me to keep me down. He lifted me up with this wonderful revelation, yet he kept me down with what he says here was a thorn in the flesh. But he begins this verse by saying, lest I should be exalted above measure, and he ends this verse, lest I should be exalted above measure. God brought into my life This thing which caused me great grief and great agony and great pain, and the reason he did it was preventative. I'd done nothing wrong, but he was going to leave me with this awkward, this painful circumstance in order to keep me down, lest I should be exalted. Now I want to just spend a little bit of time explaining the background to this thorn and then I want to apply it. You see, the Corinthians were being targeted by flamboyant personalities who claimed to be apostles. And really much of the second letter surrounds this particular problem. There were people coming to them, teachers, false teachers, and they were powerful in their oratory, flamboyant in their style, and they had a presence about them. And the fact that they had a presence was causing many to think, well, we ought to follow this man. And these characters, these flamboyant characters, were saying something like, I don't know why you think Paul is particularly special. I don't know why you're following him. What makes you think he's an apostle? His presence is base among you, if you look at chapter 10, verse 10. And his speech is ordinary and plain. There's nothing unique about Paul's personality. He hasn't got a charisma like the rest of us. Why do you follow Paul? Paul is saying here, what Paul is going to do here in chapter 11 and then in chapter 12, he is going to be drawn into bragging. But he's very careful how he does it. You see in verse 11 he says, I've become a fool in glory or boasting. You've compelled me to. I ought to have been commended of you, for I am not behind the very cheapest apostles, though I be nothing. And he explains that the signs, the miraculous sign gifts, what we would call the charismatic gifts, that were present in the early church, they were performed by Paul. It was clear he was an apostle. And what he's going to do in this chapter is demonstrate to them that he was, he had all the qualifications, all the credentials of an apostle. But he doesn't want to exalt himself. He's not commending them, himself to them as a person, but he says you do need to understand that I am an apostle and the message that I brought is an apostolic message from God. He's not concerned to defend himself, but he is compelled to defend his apostleship, otherwise the truth that he brought and the doctrine of the justification by faith salvation by Christ would be discredited. And so he's defending his God and he's defending the apostleship that God gave to him and the office that it brought. And part of that defence is to break the silence of 14 years and refer to this unique revelation that he had. And I want to show you how humble he is in doing so. In verse 1, he says, it's not expedient for me, doubtless to glory. It's a very difficult phrase in the original, but it means something like, I'm really reluctant to do this. I don't want to glorify myself. And he says, I'm going to come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I'm going to share something with you about what I was privileged as an apostle to experience. But so reluctant is he to speak about this, that he does so in the third person. In verse 2, somebody has said that what you actually see here are two Pauls. You see Paul the ordinary minister, and you see Paul the apostle. And Paul the ordinary minister here is going to speak in the third person about Paul the Apostle. So he says I knew a man in Christ. That man in Christ was himself. But he's saying as an Apostle, because of the call that God had given to me, He gave me this revelation. He says, I don't want to talk about this. As if it was me, and me as a unique person, but as an apostle, the Lord gave me this unique insight. And so he says, I knew a man in Christ. That man in Christ was Paul, saved by grace. One who was in Christ in that sense. He said in verse 3, I knew such a man. Yes, I was privileged. using this unique way of describing it because he doesn't want them to glorify him. And in verse 4, how he was caught up into paradise, heard unspeakable, that means indescribable things. He was privileged to glimpse something of the inner courts of God's glory of paradise. But he could not describe them if he wanted to. And then he goes on to say, and I have been given no license by God to speak of them, even if I would. I will stop here, he says. In verse 5, of such a one will I glory. I'll glory in the fact that God gave to me as an apostle such a glimpse. But in myself I will not glory. I'm not going to speak any more about it. verse 6, though I would desire to glory, what he means here is this, I could go on, I've got every right to glorify the fact that as an apostle I received this vision and if I carried on I wouldn't be a fool. because I'd be telling the truth. I wouldn't be exaggerating, that's what he means here. I wouldn't be laying it on thick, but now I'll forbear. I don't really want to go into any more detail, he says, lest anybody should think of me above what they see. I'm just an ordinary man as a person. Yes, as an apostle, the Lord equipped me and called me and blessed me and supported me with this revelation But I want people to see me as an ordinary minister, as an individual man whose speech is plain, whose body is physically weakened by disadvantages. That's how I want people to know me. And lest I should be exalted above measure, he says, through the abundance of these revelations, God gave me a thorn in the flesh. How could Paul have been exalted? Well firstly he could have been exalted in his own thoughts. God who knows human nature knew that whilst he was being exalted at the same time he needed to be kept down. God knows your nature and mine too. If he exalts us and blesses us perhaps in some way Perhaps He gives us gifts, perhaps He gives us wealth, perhaps He gives us many saved children in our families, perhaps He gives us instrumentality so that within His Church we are the instruments through whom others come to Christ. We could so easily be exalted, be puffed up by these things, and the Lord knows that. And so with the example of Paul he says here, the Lord knows that I'm still a sinful man, he put his hand upon me and he pushed me down, he gave me this thorn in the flesh. Now it's almost certain, I'm not going to go into great detail, but this thorn in the flesh here of course is a figure of speech. and it accurately describes something that Paul experienced. But he's not saying I was literally given a long thorn that someone pushed into my skin. What he's referring to here is something that caused him the pain of a thorn. And it's almost certainly a physical affliction, an illness, a weakness. Some say, and they speculate, that he had weak eyes. Others say that he suffered with migraines. I don't know where they get that from. Others say that there was some other debilitating weakness, illness in his body, so that when people saw Paul, not only did he appear as a man, but a weak man at last. A man perhaps who sometimes couldn't turn up for a service or a preaching engagement because he was so afflicted. This is what it may be. Paul doesn't tell us exactly what it is and the reason is that he wants us to focus not upon what the affliction was, but upon God's intention in giving him this affliction. We may have some other thorn in the flesh, it may not be an illness or some bodily weakness, it might be a mental frailty, It may be some unsafe person in our family that is a real burden, a real heartache to us. It may be somebody in our workplace who really gets on to us and provokes us, like Potiphar's wife was a constant thorn in the side of Joseph. It might be a Shimei who runs us down, who criticizes us, like Shimei cursed David. These are all thorns in the flesh, things that the Lord brings into our life in order to keep us humble, in order to shape our characters. Now the Apostle Paul here speaks of it as a thorn. I just want to explore this. Why does he call this a thorn? Well of course a thorn is very little and yet it can be very influential. Imagine you've got a thorn in your foot. You can't run properly, you couldn't play football properly, It's a thorn in the flesh. Little, yet it has a big influence. And yet, as it's also been pointed out by some of the older preachers, the years ago they said, but it's only a thorn. It's not going to kill you, it's not going to completely crush you, but it's going to keep you down. It's going to humble you. And that's what the Lord gave to Paul. He said, it was to me a thorn in the flesh, a very personal thing. And the more the Lord blesses us, the greater or the sharper often the Lord will have to give us that thorn, lest we should be exalted above measure. Paul may have been exalted not in his own eyes, but in the eyes of others. People could have looked at Paul and said, isn't he such a wonderful preacher? Isn't he such a powerful, able man? And they could have begun to worship him and idolise him and make him even higher than an apostle that he was. They could have depended on him in every circumstance. And so perhaps he was given this apparent weakness, this outward disability, so that people would know he's only Paul. We cannot leave him to do everything. We've got to help him. We've got to labour alongside him. We've got to pray for him. Let's not think that Paul is our God. He's a gift to the church, but he's also got this thorn. Cary was being equipped by the Lord for a great missionary venture but he had a wife who was subject to depression and a wife who sometimes he had to nurture and some of us today know brothers in Christ in the ministry and they have a wife who needs great help and great care because of physical disability or mental weakness And sometimes we look at those people and we say, isn't it amazing how they conduct themselves, how they manage to maintain all their responsibilities and yet they've got that secret thorn in the flesh, that secret burden that they have to carry. And of course the apostle here explains how the Lord uses these things to bring glory to his own name. We'll have to look at that in a moment. I just want to mention two other things here from verse 7. Paul says, there was given to me the thorn in the flesh. It was God's gift. Can you see those difficulties that the Lord has laid in your path as being his gift? Can you see sickness as being a gift of God? Can you see that heartache that is caused by some problem in your family as being a gift of God? Can you see that person at work who is always making your life a misery a gift of God? That's what Paul says here, there was given to me, the Lord gave me this thorn in the flesh. It was his gift and it was going to be a means of blessing. It was going to shape my character and it was going to make me more useful in his service. He was going to get honour to his name through my ministry as a result of this thorn in the flesh. Let me explain that. Here were these flamboyant teachers who were claiming to be apostles. And they mocked Paul because Paul appeared in bodily presence to be so weak and so insubstantial. And it was Paul's plain preaching and ordinary explanations of the Word of God that he says was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. and God got all the glory, you see. Here was a man who in one sense was very exalted. He had that unique office of an apostle. He could perform sign gifts and miracles that demonstrated that he was an apostle and yet in his person, in his physical presence, he seemed so ordinary. Why? It was because the Lord was going to use the base things and the lowly things and the despised things of the world in order to confound the wise and the mighty. The Lord was going to use this man who in presence was based, as he describes, to turn the world upside down. And Paul says here, therefore in verse 9, I will glory in my infirmities. Why? Because the power of Christ may rest upon me. What he means is this. People will look at me and see that I'm such a weak, despised, perhaps even disfigured individual, and yet the Lord has crowned my work with success. And it's clear that it's not because I have a charisma or a physical strength or stature that others have been converted to Christ. It is through His power and His power alone. And the Lord may bring some thorn into our life that humbles us, that weakens us, and yet when others see how we've been upheld and sustained in those difficulties, people will say, the Lord must be with you. I remember, as some of you know, Lady Ruth Lockheed, she died probably 20 years ago now, suffered in her 50s with cancer. And yet, as she was lying in weakness towards the end of her life, such was the presence of the Lord with her, upholding her, giving her peace and joy and hope, that it was clear that the Lord was with her. She had that thought in the flesh, have something even more. And yet, in the midst of that illness, the Lord upheld her. She brought glory to his name. Pastor Sergei has recently written to me about a lady, I have spoken to you about her, Lena, who is a translator for us. She is dying of cancer and it would seem that there is nothing that can be done for her. And several of the pastors have gathered together and they are going to pray for her. Firstly, that the Lord should remarkably heal her, but if that is not his will, then Pastor Sergei says, pray that she will, as she dies, glorify God. The Lord should so strengthen her that she would bring glory to his name. Now look here at verse 8. I want us to just look at this before we close. Paul says, for this thing, this irritating, painful thorn, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, It's not here, is it?" But he said, no. I'm not going to remove it, but I'm going to give you my grace. It means my love, the presence of my spirit, my enabling, my upholding strength, my comfort. I'm going to give you all the support you need, Paul. so that you will have strength to continue in that weakness. I'm not going to take it away, but I'm going to uphold you in it. It's as if the Lord firstly upholds him through revelation, this wonderful glimpse of heaven, then the Lord presses him down through the thorn, And then the Lord says, but now I'm going to put my hand underneath you again, so that you will not be carried to that. You've got to learn, Paul, to depend upon my grace. You've got to learn, Paul, that in all your labours and in all your tasks as an apostle, you're a weak man. You're an insignificant soul saved by grace, but you must learn that my strength is going to be made perfect in your weakness. I will uphold you in your suffering, in your illness. I'm going to give you grace and strength to cope with that burden in your life, that person who is a constant nagging thorn to you. I'm going to give you the grace that you need. And Paul says here then gladly, therefore I would rather. If I'm going to glory, he says, I'm not going to be like these flamboyant personalities who glory in their style and their oratory and their charisma and their strength. I'm going to glory in the fact that God, even though I'm weak, is going to use me. God, even though I'm weak, is going to get glory to His name through the success of the Gospel that I preach. God, even though I'm weak, is going to give me such strength, such resources, that I may be able to be a continued witness even under the oppression of that thought. I didn't mention, I must just mention it. Paul says here, the messenger of Satan is above me. What he means here is that Satan was permitted to afflict Paul's mind. It wasn't so much that Satan pressed the thorn in, but as he was perhaps feeling his weakness, Satan would come alongside, and he does this, doesn't he? He comes alongside and said, it's not fair. Why should you be in this situation? Why should you have to suffer this heartache? Why should you be afflicted with this weakness of mind or of body when others don't have it? Satan will come along and say, you're not one of God's children. He will sow the seeds of doubt. He will oppress our minds. He knows how to aggravate and twist the knife when we are down and when we are hurting. And Paul said, the Lord allowed that for me. I didn't like it. But the Lord has not taken it away. And now I've learned to not only resign to him and yield to him and say, Lord, if that's your will, then I'm content. But Paul said, I can go further than that, I can glory, I can take pleasure in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, in these things, because when I am weak, then I am strong. That's when I prove God's upholding power. That's when others will see that it's not me, but it's God who is behind this gospel that I preach and I believe. At the end of verse 9 he says that the power of Christ may rest upon me. It's a wonderful picture. It literally means that the power of Christ shall spread like a tent over me." So here is Paul, he's wonderfully favoured and yet the Lord keeps him down. And yet at the same time, with all that weakness, he proves the care and the strength of God. Perhaps the Lord then has given us a thorn in the flesh, a sinful trait that he wants to prevent emerging in our life, perhaps some spiritual danger that he is going to preserve us from, perhaps pride, perhaps complacency. Perhaps we can so easily say, well I'm never going to fall as a Christian. I will always be a rigorous, zealous, committed member of the army of Christ. And the Lord gives us a thorn in the flesh, something to remind us of our weakness, something to keep us humble, something to keep us close to Him. Something that makes us remember that we are dependent upon him for every step of our spiritual pilgrimage. That's what Israel had to learn, and that's what Paul was reminded of. And the Lord will deal with us in the same way. May God bless his word to us and be with us in all our distresses. Well, let's conclude with singing 498. 498 Heavenly Father, by whose eye future things unfolded lie, through the desert where I stray, let thy counsels guide my way. 498