A Paradox
A Sermon
(No. 2050)
Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, November 4th, 1888, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At [9]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"When I am weak, then am I strong."'2 Corinthians 12:10.
The expression is paradoxical, and seems somewhat singular; yet it was
the experience of the apostle Paul, a man of calm spirit, by no means
fanciful, a wise man, and far removed from a fanatic. It was the
experience of one who was led of the Spirit of God, and therefore it
was a gracious experience: the experience of one who was a father in
Israel, who could safely bid us to be imitators of him, even as he
imitated the Lord Jesus Christ; and therefore it was a safe experience.
If we are weak, so was Paul; and if, like him, we are strong in our
weakness, we shall be in the best of company. If the same things be
seen in us which were wrought in the apostle of the Gentiles, we may
join with him in glorying in infirmities, because the power of Christ
doth rest upon us, and we may count ourselves happy that with such a
saint we can cry, "When I am weak, then am I strong."
I. Perhaps I can expound the text best if I first TURN IT THE OTHER WAY
UP, and use it as a warning.
When I am strong, then am I weak. Perhaps, while thinking of the text
thus turned inside out, we shall be getting light upon it to be used
when we view it with the right side outwards, and see that when we are
weak, then we are strong.
I am quite sure that some people think themselves very strong, and are
not so. Their proud consciousness of fancied strength is the indication
of a terrible weakness. We have among us certain persons who think that
they can do all that is needful for their own salvation whenever they
please to do so. They can perform all sorts of good works, or at least
quite enough to carry them to heaven. Their first idea is that they are
to be saved by their own doings; and they really expect to be so saved.
They may admit that they have a few faults and flaws in their
character; but these are so trifling as to be hardly worth mentioning,
and God Almighty is too merciful to be very particular. Their lives
have been excellent, their tempers amiable, their manners courteous,
their spirit generous, and they quite believe that by keeping on at the
same pace they will win the prize: if they do not, who will? The ship
of their character is in fine condition; they have no leaks which the
pumps cannot keep down; their sails are not rent, and they hope to sail
into the haven of peace with a glorious cargo of merit, having an
abundant entrance, and hearing a loud, "Well done!" Ah, my friend! that
consciousness of legal strength is a mere delusion, and it will have to
be taken out of you. There is no going to heaven that way'by self and
the works of self. Your error is a common one, but it is fatal. I have
seen many epitaphs of persons, placed by the mistaken kindness of
friends upon their tombstones, which I felt sure would have been
sufficient to shut them out of heaven if they had been true. These
departed worthies do not appear to have been sinners at all: their
virtues were superlative, their faults non-existent. Such wonderful
people would appear from their epitaphs to have flown up to the gates
of heaven upon the wings of their own virtues, and to have entered
there without a passport of mercy, as burgesses by their own right of
the New Jerusalem. I wonder how they would behave themselves in heaven,
if they were really admitted there! All the rest are singing, "We have
washed our robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb"; but
these needed no washing, and so they would be likely to strike up a
little song by themselves, and sing, "Our robes never needed washing;
we kept them white as snow." What a discord that would create in the
music of the skies! What a division of character and feeling would be
found among celestials! I cannot see how there could be any harmony of
sentiment amongst sinners saved by grace and righteous ones who owed
nothing to mercy, nothing to the atoning sacrifice.
No, my strong and virtuous hearer, you are under a grave delusion.
There is a great similarity between your talk and the talk of that
religious individual who went up to the temple in our Saviour's days,
and, standing before the thrice-holy God, dared to say, "God, I thank
thee that I am not as other men are." He was not justified that day,
nor will you be. A poor tax-gatherer, despised by himself, and an
off-cast from his own people, stood in the temple at the same time, and
all that he dared to say was, "God be merciful to me a sinner." This
unworthy sinner when to his house justified, while the other worthy
person was not accepted. If you think yourselves strong enough to
procure heaven by your own efforts, you are ignorantly insulting the
cross of Christ, for you seem to insinuate that your virtues can avail
you without Jesus. If you really mean this, there is no more venom of
rebellion against God in your self-righteousness than in the outward
vice of those who make no pretence to godliness. For you to put your
works in the place of Jesus is a blasphemy against the Saviour's blood
and righteousness. Why needed Christ to die if men could save
themselves? Why need he bleed upon the cross if your merits will
suffice to gain you a place among the blessed? There is a fatal
weakness in the claim of that man who thinks himself strong enough to
force his own passage to the throne of God; that weakness lies in the
pride which insults the Crucified, the disloyalty which prefers itself
to the royal Saviour.
"Perish the virtue, as it ought'abhorred,
And the fool with it who insults his Lord."
Listen to me a moment, and quit your fancied strength: you, my hearer,
cannot keep the law of God, for you have already broken it. How can you
preserve a crystal vase entire when you have already dashed it to
atoms? You must now be saved by the merits and the strength of another,
or not at all; for your own merit is out of the question, through past
failure. That strength of yours, upon which you dote so much, is
perfect weakness. May the Lord show you this, and make you faint at
heart on that account; for then you shall be strong, with real and
saving strength! Now your imaginary strength is making you really weak,
and that boasted merit of yours is shutting you out from true
righteousness. He that is strong in the notion of merit is weak even to
utter folly before the God of truth.
"Yes," we hear you reply, "there is a gospel way of salvation. We know
that there is, for you preach it continually. You tell us that men must
repent, and believe the gospel; that they must be renewed in the spirit
of their minds, and must both overcome sin, and follow after holiness."
Yes, I do say all that; but what do you say to it? Is it really so that
you find here a ground for your own strength? Do you say, "I feel that
I can repent whenever I please, and believe in Jesus when I choose?"
Ah! then I must assure you that when you are strong in that way, you
are weak. I never yet knew anybody repent who gloried in his power to
repent; I never yet knew a man heart-broken for sin who boasted that he
could break his own heart when and where he pleased. "What!" cries one,
"surely I can believe in Jesus Christ when I please!" I have not denied
that statement, have I? But I tell you that your notion of power to
believe is your weakness; and I would rather by half hear you cry, with
deep solemnity, "Oh, that God would give me faith! Lord, help my
unbelief!" Your sense of inability to believe in Christ would be a far
better token for good, in my judgment, than your present flippant talk
about believing when you like. Men who are in earnest talk not so:
whatever their strength may be, they find it little enough in the hour
of need. I beg to assure you that I have never known a man believe in
Jesus who trusted that he could so believe; for his trust in his own
believing kept him from trusting to Jesus; but I have known many a
poor, struggling soul lie at the cross-foot, and say, "Lord, help me to
look to Jesus, and live;" and God has helped him to give that look in
which there is eternal life. While he has been praying, his prayer,
yes, his weeping prayer, has had in it that very look to Jesus for
which he was pleading. His sense of inability to believe has made him
look to Jesus for believing, and he has found it in him.
You say that you can turn your heart towards God whenever you please. I
am not going into any dispute with you about your assertion, nor the
doctrine, which is supposed to support you in your profession of
strength; but I will say this, that your idea of having personal
strength, with which to purify and renew your own heart'your idea that
you can create in yourself a right spirit'your idea that you can raise
yourself from your death in sin' is to me a prophecy of much evil for
yourself. where self is conspicuous, I see an omen of mischief, I see
no good in this fine opinion of yourself; but if I heard you cry,
"Create in me a clean heart, O God"'if I heard you say, "Lord, quicken
me out of my death in sin"'if I saw you lying down before the Most
High, and praying, "Turn me, and I shall be turned"'I should have a far
brighter hope of you. In your weakness you would become strong; but in
your present strength, I am sure I see a great weakness, which is
likely to be your ruin. O dear hearts, your best friend does not lie
within your own doors. Your hope for better things shines yonder at the
right hand of God, where the living Saviour has all power given to him
in heaven and earth. Sinner, if you grow no sweeter flowers than the
dunghill of your own nature can nourish, you will die amid poisonous
weeds. If you never drink of better water than the filthy well of your
own heart will yield, you will perish of thirst, or of a deadly
draught. Another, and a better helper than one born in your house, must
come this way. Help must be laid upon one that is mighty, exalted of
the Lord out of the people, and endowed with divine power and Godhead,
for only such a Saviour, infinitely good and great, can save a soul so
lost as yours. When you get down, down, down, into utter weakness, then
you will be strong, because then you will rest upon the Lord's
salvation; but as you are strong in your thoughts of yourself, you are
kept from Jesus, and are weakness itself.
So far I have spoken by way of warning to unconverted people.
I desire now to say a word to those who profess to be Christians, and,
let us hope, are so; but they are, in a measure, erring in the same way
as those to whom I have spoken. They are remarkably strong: at least in
their own esteem they are very Samsons, although others fear that the
Philistines will capture them. By this token may they know their own
weakness'even by this, that they think themselves strong.
First, many are wonderfully strong as to knowledge. They know almost
everything. If in any department they are a little short, they make up
for it by knowing so much more in the other direction. If they are too
narrow here, they overlap there. They are knowing men, and need no man
to tell them so. They are instructed in the faith from pole to pole:
they know both that which is afar off, and that which is nigh. An
argument is a pleasure to them. They go into company where the eternal
verities are denied, and feel a delight in taking sides. They will sit
where the vital simplicities of God's word are set up like marks for
boys to throw at; and they like the amusement, for it exercises their
knowing faculty, and gives them a chance of showing their mental power.
They are not children, but quite able to think for themselves. They are
not credulous, but amazingly clear-headed and cultured. I have noticed
these fine gentlemen have been the first to deny the faith, and to fall
into all manner of heresies. Do you wonder? Those who are so very sure
are always the most uncertain. I could instance some that had such
confidence in themselves that they would have argued with the very
fiend of hell on any question, for they felt that not even Satanic
craft could conquer them; but at this present moment the prince of
darkness holds them in his power. They hold no controversy with the
devil now, for they are very largely agreed with him in assailing the
gospel of God's grace. They have gone entirely over to the denial of
everything that is gracious and holy and scriptural, and the main cause
of their apostasy is their own invincible self-confidence. They were so
strong that they became weaker than others. O brethren, when we are
very wise in our own esteem, we are bordering upon fools, even if we
have not already entered into that company. When we tremblingly sit at
Jesus' feet, to learn everything afresh, and fresh from him; when we
shudder at anything that questions his Deity, or lowers his sacrifice;
when we shut up a book and cast it from us, because we feel that it
pollutes us with unbelief'then are we wise and strong. When the Word of
the Lord is enough, then are we in the way of wisdom and strength. The
man of one book is proverbially a terrible mon; but the man of ten
thousand books, who can baffle all adversaries and foil all foes, shall
soon lie wounded on the plain, if he be not slain outright. Let us take
heed unto ourselves, that we fall not through being headstrong, or
strong in the head, which is much the same thing.
Again, I have noticed some professedly Christian people wonderfully
strong through experience. Their experience has been very extensive,
and the knowledge it has brought them they consider to be specially
profound, and, consequently, they are not afraid of temptation, for
they feel that they are too wise to be entrapped. They are so
experienced now, that things which young people ought not to think of,
they can do with impunity'so they foolishly dream. They can go just so
far, and then stop, for they are fitted with the patent brakes of
prudence. They are such good mountain climbers that they can stand on
the edge of a precipice, and look over, and even hang over, without
fear of their ever being giddy and falling over. Of course they would
not advise other people to go quite so far as they may safely go; but
then, what is temptation to other men is no temptation to them. Their
vessel is so tight and trim, and they understand navigation so
perfectly, that they rather like a tempest than not, just to show how
well their vessel can behave in a storm. Ah me! When you next read the
list of wrecks, you may expect to see the name of their ship among the
castaways. Old birds may not be caught with chaff, but they can be shot
with a gun. No one is out of danger, and no one is more in danger than
the man who is carnally secure. Those who feel that their experience,
be it what it may, only teaches them that the farther they can keep
from temptation the better, these are in a better state. When
experience drives us to pray with emphasis the prayer "Lead us not into
temptation," then it is working aright. In the idea of strength and
wisdom lurks an awfully perilous weakness; but in a sense of personal
weakness dwells a real strength. If you are extremely jealous,
conscientious, and watchful, many will tell you how weak you are; but
you are, in reality, a strong man, because of your fear to encounter
evil influences: in that fear lies one essential element of holy
strength. While he that rather braves temptation, because he feels so
strong, shall find, it may be to his everlasting sorrow, how great his
weakness is; he that shuns the appearance of evil, because of conscious
weakness, shall find therein his security and strength. Oh, let none of
us, because we are getting gray, suppose that we are vulnerable to sin!
Let us not dream that because we have been church-members so many
years, or even because we have sustained a long and useful ministry, we
are therefore beyond gun-shot of the enemy, or without necessity to
seek daily strength for daily duty. My brethren, we cannot perform the
smallest duty aright apart from the help of God; neither can we be
secure against even the grossest sin, apart from the perpetual guard of
him that keepeth Israel. If we, in our self-conceit, write ourselves
down among the mightiest, and forget our entire dependence upon
heavenly grace, we may be left to prove, by unhappy experience, that
pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Let us note another point. I have known certain Christian people who
thought themselves singularly strong in the matter of wisdom and
prudence. They have been gifted with clear insight and a measure of
shrewdness, and have, therefore, felt that their judgment on most
subjects was that of an umpire. Have you ever noticed that the raw
material of a very grossly foolish person is a cautious individual? The
cunning are the readiest dupes when craft is busy in taking its prey.
So, too, a wise man is needed if there is to be exhibited the worst
form of folly. If we were called upon to select a man who, as to his
life as a whole, perpetrated the greatest folly, we should mention
Solomon. Yet he was the wisest of man. Yes, the cream of wisdom, when
curdled, makes the worst of folly. Was ever man so insanely
enthusiastic in vain pursuits as this master of all knowledge? Then,
brethren, whenever we feel sure of our own superior intelligence, let
us suspect ourselves of weakness. Let the same fear come upon us when
we feel sure about our way, so sure that we think we need not pray
about it, or in any manner wait for divine direction. Beware of those
matters in which you think you cannot err. Men who have been wise in
great difficulties have blundered fearfully where all was simple. The
Israelites thought that the men who came to them begging for a league
of brotherhood could not deceive them. It must be safe to be on good
terms with these interesting strangers. Why, look, their shoes are
well-nigh worn from their feet, and patched and clouted to the last
degree! Their clothes, which we doubt not were new when they left their
distant homes, are now threadbare, and their biscuit, which they took
fresh from the oven, is stale with age. It is evident, upon the face of
it, that they must have come from a very remote part of the world, and
therefore a treaty with them will not interfere with the divine
command. There can be no need to pray about a case so clear. Thus the
Gibeonites overreached them, as we also shall be overreached when we
are so exceeding sure of our course. Brethren, let us not be wise as to
dispense with our heavenly Counsellor and Guide. Would not that be the
height of madness? It is a salutary thing to feel that your case
requires you to trust the helm of your ship with the divine Pilot. It
is even a blessed thing to feel that you are shut up to faith, and must
by absolute trust in God throw the responsibility of your action upon
him. I will give you an instance. Abraham, the father of the faithful,
is placed in a peculiar position. God has commanded him to take his son
Isaac, and offer him for a sacrifice. Here is a terrible puzzle. Here
was enough to stagger any human mind. Surely it could not be right for
a father to slay his son! How could it be wise to kill the son in whom
all the promises of God were vested? The more you think of the case
from a father's standpoint, the more it will perplex you. Abraham could
not make any thing out of it by his judgment, but he met it all by
faith. All that he could say to Isaac was, "My son, God will provide
himself a Lamb." He was thus saying to himself, "The Lord will get me
out of this difficulty." He had no wisdom with which to conjecture how
the affair would end: he had to cease from guessing, and just trust in
his God. Abraham made no mistake in this. Oh that we could do the same!
Observe that same Abraham when he goes down to Egypt. His wife is
exceedingly beautiful, and he fears that the king of Egypt will kill
him in order to obtain his wife; what will he do? I can see a great
many ways in which he might have warded off that evil. He was not
called upon to go to Egypt at all, if he thereby risked his wife's
honour; or, if he must go, he should have gone boldly, acknowledging
his wife, and trusting both her and himself with the Lord. Instead of
that, the patriarch begins by inducing Sarah to join with him in
equivocation. "Say thou art my sister." She was in some sense his
sister; but it was using a word in a double sense for a deceitful
purpose, and it was a pitiful thing for Abraham to do. Nor was it a
prudent scheme after all: in fact it was the cause of the very trouble
which it sought to prevent. Sarah would not have been taken away from
Abraham at all if Pharaoh had known that she was his wife; so that the
wise was snared by his own craftiness. The Lord graciously delivered
him, but in that very act left a root of bitterness behind to be his
future plague. Pharaoh gave to him women- servants, and I doubt not
among the rest was Hagar, who became the object of sin, and the source
of sorrow to the household. In the fancied strength of Abraham, by
which he emulated the craft of other Orientals, he displayed his
weakness; but in the other case, where no wit or wisdom could assist
him, he cast himself upon the Lord, and in his weakness he behaved like
the grand man that he really was. Brothers, let us confess ourselves
fools, that we may be wise; for otherwise we shall fall into that other
condition, of professing ourselves wise, and becoming fools. Let us
ignore our wisdom, even if we have any. God alone is wise: he that
trusteth either his own heart or head is a fool. Lean not to thine own
understanding, but lean wholly upon the Lord; so shalt thou be
established.
Further, dear friends, we shall often find that our strength will lie
in patiencein extreme weakness which yields itself up to the will of
God without the power or will to murmur. We sang in our hymn just now'
"And when it seems no other chance or change
From grief can set me free,
Hope finds its strength in helplessness,
And, patient, waits on thee."
I am sure that in reference to power, either to do or to suffer
rightly, we are not strong when we compliment ourselves upon our
ability; and we are strong when, under a sense of absolute inability,
we depend wholly upon God. That sermon preached in the glory of our
oratory turned out to be mere husks for swine; while that discourse
which we delivered in weakness, with a humble hope that God would use
it, proved to be royal meat for the Lord's chosen. That work which you
performed in the vigour of your unquestioned talent came to nothing,
while that quiet act which you washed with your tears, and perfumed
with your prayers, will live and yield you sheaves. Creature strength
brings forth nothing which has life in it: only the seed which the
Creator puts into the hand of our weakness will produce a harvest. It
is well to be nothing: it is better still to be "less than nothing." We
ought to dread a sense of capacity, for it will render us incapable;
but a sense of utter incapacity apart from God is a fit preparation for
being used by the Lord. "Unto them that have no might he increaseth
strength."
So it is in bearing as well as acting. If we say concerning sickness,
"I shall never be impatient. I can bear it like a stoic." What if that?
You will then have done no more than many have done before you, with no
great gain to themselves or to others. But if, bowing your head before
the Lord, you wait his sovereign will, and say, "Lord help me. If thy
left hand shall smite me, let thy right hand sustain me. I am willing
to drink this bitter cup, saying, 'Not as I will, but as thou wilt.'
Lord, help me!"'you shall bear up triumphantly, and come out of the
furnace refined, to the praise and the glory of your God. When you
fancy that you are strong to suffer, you will fail; but in conscious
weakness you will be enabled to play the man.
I have now done with the text, as I have turned it upside down. May God
bless it to any here who feel high and mighty, by causing it to put
them in their proper place.
II. Now, let us take our text THE RIGHT WAY UPWARDS. "When I am weak,
then am I strong." "When" and "then" are the two pivots of the text'the
hinges upon which it turns.
"When I am weak." What does that mean? It means when the believer is
consciously weak, when he painfully feels, and distinctly recognizes
that he is weak, then he is strong. In truth, we are always weak,
whether we know it or not; but when we not only believe this to be the
fact, but see it to be the fact'then it is that we are strong. When it
is forced home upon us, that we are less than nothing and vanity'when
our very soul echoes and re-echoes that word, "Without me ye can do
nothing."'then it is that we are strong.
When he is growingly weak. Yes, for he sees his own weakness more and
more clearly as he advances: as he grows stronger in faith he is much
more conscious of the weakness of the flesh. I talked about my weakness
from this platform five-and- twenty years ago; but I stand here and
tremble under it now to a far greater degree than I did in my younger
and more vigourous time. I knew it three-and-thirty years ago, when I
first spoke to you, but I did not know it as I know it now. I was then
weak, and I owned it: but I am now weak, and groan about it almost
involuntarily. Yes, and I sometimes sing because of my weakness,
learning to glory in my infirmities because the power of Christ doth
rest upon me. When we are growingly weak, when we become weaker and
weaker, when we seem to faint into a deeper swoon than ever as to our
own strength, till death is written upon every power that we once
thought we had, and we feel that we can do absolutely nothing apart
from the Holy Spirit, then we are strong indeed.
We are strong, too, when we feel painfully weak. It is well when we
mourn because we are so weak, and cry out to ourselves, "My weakness,
my weakness, woe unto me! When I would do good, evil is present with
me. When I would rise to heaven, the body of this death detains me. I
would do great things for God, but I have no might. Alas for my
weakness!" At such a time we are really rising, and are bringing most
glory to God. These are growing pains'agonies such as none know but the
truly and growingly spiritual. A painful weakness is strength. It may
seem a paradox, but it is true.
We are strong when we are contritely weak. When we confess that much of
our weakness is our fault'a weakness which we ought to have
overcome'even then we have in that weakness a real strength. The sort
of weakness that makes a man say, "I cannot be any stronger, I am doing
my best," is not strength but folly; but that weakness which makes you
lament your failures and deplore your shortcomings, has in it a holy
stimulus and force. That weakness which makes you dissatisfied with all
you are and all you do, is goading you on to better and stronger
things. If you feel that even when most earnest you have not prayed as
you could wish, there is evidently strength in your desires, and your
desires are prayers. If after any service you pour forth showers of
penitential tears because the service was imperfect, there is evidently
a strong soul of obedience within you. When you can neither repent, nor
believe, nor love as you wish to do, you are repenting, believing, and
loving with a strength which is more true than apparent. It is the will
with which we act which is the strength of the action; and when the
will is so powerful that it makes us mourn because we cannot find how
to perform its bidding, then are we strong according to the divine
measurement of strength. Contrite weakness is spiritual strength.
When a man is thoroughly weaknot only partially, but altogether
weak'then is he strong. When apart from the Lord Jesus, he is utter
weakness, and nothing more'then it is that he is strong. Let me
persuade you to make a full confession of weakness to the Lord. Say,
"Lord, I cannot do what I ought to do: I cannot do what I want to do: I
cannot do what I used to do: I cannot do what other people do: I cannot
do what I mean to do: I cannot do what I am sure I shall do: I cannot
do what I feel impelled to do; and over this sinful weakness I mourn."
Then add, "Lord, I long to serve thee perfectly, yet I cannot do it.
Unless thou help me I can do nothing aright. There will be no good in
my actions, my words, my feelings, or my desires, unless thou continue
to fill me with thine own holy energy. Lord, help me! Lord, help me!"
Brother, you are strong while you plead in that fashion. You can do all
things through Christ who strengtheneth you; and he will strengthen
you, now that you are emptied of self. How true it is, "When I am weak,
then am I strong!"
I have brought out the "when." Now lend me your ears and hearts for
just a minute, while I bring out the "then." "Then am I strong." When
is that?
Why, a man is strong when he is consciously weak, because now he has
reached the truth. He really is weak; and if he does not know that he
is so, he is under the influence of a falsehood. Now a lie is a thing
of weakness. Lying strength is all fluff and foam: a mere appearance, a
mockery, a delusion. Nothing hinders from getting the reality like
contentment with a mere appearance. The true heart is heartily sick of
shows and shams, and it cries, "Lord, help me to get rid of these
shadows! Help me to come at the truth! Help me to deal with realities!"
When you are made to feel your utter weakness you are on sure ground of
truth' unpleasant truth, no doubt, yet sure truth. You are now on safe
ground touching fundamentals, and making sure work. What you now do
will be soundly done. All the while that we keep building on a sandy
made-up foundation, we are piling up that which will, in all
probability, come down even faster than we put it up. While the rotten
rubbish remains on the spot, you cannot do anything worth doing; but if
that accumulation can be carted away, there will seem to be a great
hole, but you will get down to the real bottom, and get a foundation;
and then what you build will be worth putting up, because it will
stand. Therefore, a man becomes strong when he is consciously weak,
because he is on the truth, and is not being flattered by false hopes.
Next, he will be strong because he will only go with a commission to
support him. He will not be eager to run without being sent. He says
within himself, when he proposes a service to himself, "No, I am too
weak to undertake anything of my own head." He will wait for a call.
This is not the kind of man that will climb up into a pulpit, and from
a dizzy brain pour out nonsense. He will not crave to lead, for he
feels that he needs much help even to follow. He feels himself too weak
to set up for a master in Israel. This is not the kind of man that will
venture into argument with sceptics for the fun or for the glory of the
thing. Oh, no; he is too weak for that. He says, "If I am called to
defend the faith, I will do it in God's strength, hoping that it will
be given me in the same hour what I shall speak. If I am called to
preach, I will preach, and nobody shall stop me; for the Lord will be
with my mouth. But, you see, until the man is conscious of his own
weakness, he will run without being sent; and there is nobody so weak
as that man. No one so weak as the man who has no commission from God,
and no promise of help from him. Such a man will be thinking of this,
and thinking of that, and running for this, that, and the other,
because he has a lot of waste energy which he wants to use somewhere or
somehow. Could we once see him consciously weak we should hear him say,
"Here am I, send me!" in answer to the question, "Whom shall I send?"
Then he would not go a warfare at his own charges, but he would draw
upon the all-sufficiency of God, and find himself equal to every
emergency.
The man who is consciously weak is strong, next, because of the holy
caution that he will be sure to use. He will be on his guard, because
he does not feel able to cope with adversaries. He will ask for a
convoy for his little barque, for he is aware of pirates. If this weak
man has to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, depend upon
it he will carry in his hand the weapon of All-prayer, like a drawn
sword. The man that has strength goes hurrying on over hedge and ditch,
and soon comes into mischief; but the consciously weak pilgrim keeps to
the high-road, and travels carefully; and hence he is strong. Fear is a
notably good housekeeper: she may not keep a luxurious table, but she
always locks the doors at night, and takes care of all under her
charge. Holy caution begets prudence; and prudence, by fostering
vigour, and crying for heavenly aid, becomes strength.
Moreover, when a man is weak, then is he strong, because he is sure to
pray, and prayer is power. The man who laments his weakness is sure to
cry to the strong for strength. The more his weakness presses on him,
the more he will pray. While he can do without his God he will do
without his God; but when his own weakness becomes utter and entire,
and he is ready to perish, then he turns unto his Lord, and is made
strong. The utterly weak cry out unto God as nobody else does. He is
too weak to play at praying: he groans, he sighs, he weeps. In his
abject weakness he prevails, as Jacob did. He wrestled all night; but
now at last the angel has touched the hollow of his thigh, and made his
sinew shrink, and he cannot wrestle any longer. What will he do now? He
falls; and as he falls he grasps his antagonist, and holds him fast,
crying, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me." As much to say,
"I cannot wrestle with thee, I cannot try another fall; but I can and
will hold thee fast. The dead weight of my weakness makes me hold thee
as an anchor holds a ship. I will not let thee go except thou bless
me."
The weaker a man is in himself the stronger he is in prayer, if he
makes use of his weakness as an appealing argument'"Lord, if I were
strong, thou mightest leave me. Do not leave me, for I am weakness
itself. I am the feeblest child in all thy family, leave me not,
neither forsake me. If thou leavest any, leave not thy poor dying
infant, that can hardly wail out its griefs." Weakness, as a plea with
God in prayer, becomes a source of strength.
When we are weak we are strong, again, because then we are driven away
from self to God. All strength is in God, and it is well to come to the
one solitary storehouse and source of might. There is no power apart
from God. As long as you and I look to the creature, we are looking to
a cracked, broken cistern, that holds no water; but when we know that
it is broken, and that there is not a drop of water in it, then we
hasten to the great fountain and well-head. While we rest in any
measure upon self, or the creature, we are standing with one foot on
the sand; but when we get the right away from human nature because we
are too weak to have the least reliance upon self whatever, then we
have both feet on the rock, and this is safe standing. If thou
believest in the living God, and if all thine own existence is by
believing, thou livest at a mighty rate. But if thou believest in God
in a measure, and if, at the same time, thou trustest thyself in a
measure, thou art living at a dying rate, and half the joy which is
possible to thee is lost. Thou are taking in bread with one hand, and
poison with the other: thou art feeding thy soul with substance and
with shadow, and that makes a sorry mixture. When the shadow is clean
taken away, and thou hast nothing but the substance, then art thou a
strong man, fed upon substantial meat.
Last of all, dear friends, I believe that, when a man is weak, he
becomes strong to a large extent, because his weakness compels him to
concentrate all his faculties.
A sense of weakness brings out all the forces of a resolute spirit, and
leads him to call in all the energy within his reach. When I have
preached to you in extreme weakness, as I have often done, when I have
afterwards read the sermon, I have been much more satisfied with it
than I have been with others in which I felt more pleasure at the time.
God helps us most when we most need his help; and, besides that, the
man himself is, by his weakness, forced to use himself right up. When a
man feels himself to be rather a large vessel, he puts in the tap
somewhere near the top, and only a small supply flows out to the
people; but when he is, in his own feelings, like a poor little cask
with only a small supply in it, he puts the tap right down at the
bottom, and permits all that is in the barrel to flow forth. Many a
poor, weak brother, who says all the little that he knows, give forth
more instruction than the learned divine who only favours his people
with a small portion of his vast stores. When a man, in serving God,
spends himself to the last farthing, he will often far more enrich his
hearers than the man of ten talents who uses his resources with a
prudent parsimony. Dear brother, it will often be a good thing for you
to feel, "Now, God helping me, I must do my very utmost at this time. I
have so little ability that every faculty within me must be wide awake,
and serve God at its best." Thus your weakness will arouse you, and set
you on fire, and, by the blessing of God, it will be the means of
gaining you strength.
Very well, then, let us pick up our tools and go to our work rejoicing,
feeling'Well, I may be weaker, or I may be stronger in myself, but my
strength is in my God. If I should ever become stronger, then I must
pray for a deeper sense of weakness, lest I become weak through my
strength. And if I should ever become weaker than I am, then I must
hope and believe that I am really becoming stronger in the Lord.
Whether I am weak or strong, what matters it? He who never fails and
never changes will perfect his strength in my weakness, and this is
glory to me. Amen.