The Message of Invincible Consolation - Chambers, Oswald

Kathleen daily Prayer
Father lead me day by day,
Ever in Thine own sweet way;
Teach me to be good and true,
Show me what I ought to do.

In Loving Memory of
Kathleen Mary Cheal Clarke7
From God 27th December, 1924
To God 29th September, 1930

Again I shall behold thee, daughter true;
The hour will come when I shall hold thee fast
In God’s name, loving thee all through and through.
Somewhere in His grand thought this waits for us.
Then shall I see a smile not like thy last—
For that great thing which came when all was past,
Was not a smile, but God’s peace glorious.
—George MacDonald

For which cause we faint not; but though our out- ward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and 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; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 corinthians 4:1618

In these verses the apostle Paul is interpreting the most sacred realities of a saints life. We deal so much with the joyful and the happy and the exuber- ant in our experience that we are apt to forget that life externally is continually full of the things Paul mentions here. Pauls own life was one of the most distracting and tumultuous and terribly spilt lives ever recorded in history.

1. The beyond within

Wasting outward manwinged inner man (2 corinthians 4:16)

For which cause we faint not [the word faint is used in the sense of cowardly surrender]; but though our out- ward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Paul puts the great emphasis on what god has put within; he builds up his confidence in that. The perishing of the outward man is not always indicative of old age. Look at your own life; you have had the experience of sanctification and have been lifted into the heavenly places in christ jesus, and yet gods hand has been laid upon you. He has allowed the finger of decay to come to your body and lay you completely aside, and you begin to see what a slight hold you have on life, and the thought comes well, i expect i will have to cave in, i have not the strength i once had; i can never do the things i thought i would for god. This message is for you though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

The experience may not come with years but in the ordinary circumstances of life. It may come in a hundred and one ways and you realise that the out- ward man is wasting, that you have not the might you once had, and this is where the cowardly surrender is apt to come inonly we give it another name. The great craze to-day is be healthy, be sane; a sound mind in a sound body. Very often the sound- est minds have not been in sound bodies, but in very shaky tabernacles, and the word comes though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

Paul faces the possibility of old age, of decay, and of death, with no rebellion and no sadness. Paul never hid from himself the effect which his work had upon him, he knew it was killing him, and, like his master, he was old before his time; but there was no whining and no retiring from the work. Paul was not a fool, he did not waste his energy ridiculously, neither did he ignore the fact that it was his genuine apostolic work and nothing else that was wearing him out. Michel- angelo said a wonderful thing the more the marble wears, the better the image grows, and it is an illustration of this very truth. Every wasting of nerve and brain in work for god brings a corresponding uplift and strengthening to spiritual muscle and fibre.

A good test for a worker is to ask this question: does my inner life wing itself higher with every wear- ing of the body in work for god? If we are going to walk in the experimental knowledge of sanctification and live where god wants us to live, we must be willing to spend and be spent to the last ebb. But if the outward man is perishing because of an injudicious waste of physical strength or because of wrong habits, then it will always make us faint, i. E. , cave in; and if we give up prayer and communion with god, then the decay goes on to a terrible extent; there is no cor- responding inward weight of glory, no inner winging.

The apostle paul continuously had external depression, he had agonies and distresses, terrible persecution and tumults in his life, but he never had the blues, simply because he had learned the secret that the measure of the inner glory is the wasting of the outward man. The outer man was being wasted, paul knew it and felt it, but the inner man was being renewed, every wasting meant a corresponding winging on the inside. Some of us are so amazingly lazy, so comfortably placed in life, that we get no inner winging. The natural life, apart altogether from sin, must be sacrificed to the will and the word of god, otherwise there is no spiritual glory for the individual. With some of us the body is not wearing away, our souls are stagnant, and the vision spiritually is not getting brighter; but once we get into the heavenlies, live there, and work from that standpoint, we find we have the glorious opportunity of spending all our bodily energies in gods service, and a corresponding weight of moral and spiritual glory remains all the time.

One of the most enervating things that can come across your life as a saint is the sympathy of others who do not understand the vision of your heart, and they say poor woman, you do suffer; so many people misunderstand you; you are put in such awkward circumstances. The thing to realise is that god enlarges us on the inside, not externally, and that every bit of nervous energy spent by us in gods work means a grander weight of glory and spiritual insight. No matter how wearied or expended the body may be in gods work, there is the winging of the inner man into a higher grasp of god.

We have to beware of the pagan notion that our spirit develops in spite of our body, it develops with our body, and the way that spiritual insight develops 670 the love of god the message of invincible consolation

In the worker is, as Paul states here, in the wasting of energy for god, because in this way the inner man is renewed. It is not a question of saying oh, my body is so lazy, i must drag it up to do something, but a question of working on gods line to the last lap, spending and being spent for one purpose only, and that purpose gods. If we put the body and the concerns of the body before the eternal weight of glory, we will never have any inner winging at all, we will always be asking god to patch up this old tabernacle and keep it in repair. But when the heart sees what god wants, and knows that the body must be willing to spend and be spent for that cause and that cause alone then the inner man gets wings.

2. The beautifying work

Balancing the ways (2 corinthians 4:17)

The apostle paul soars above the things which were wearing out his physical life, not by sublime indifference, but by realising the weight of glory which these very afflictions are working in him. Have you got hold of this secret that if you are right with god, the very thing which is an affliction to you is working out an eternal weight of glory? The afflictions may come from good people or from bad people, but behind the whole thing is god. Whenever paul tries to state the unfathomable joy and glory which he has in the heavenlies in christ jesus, it is as if he cannot find words to express his meaning. In order to try to express it here he balances his words for instance, affliction is matched with glory; light is matched with weight; and moment is matched with eternal. I wonder if we balance our words like that? In Romans 8:18 (for i reckon that the suffer- ings of this present time are not worthy to be com- pared with the glory which shall be revealed in us) paul is stating that it is the standpoint of the worker which determines everything. If you think of suffer- ing affliction you will begin to write your own epitaph, begin to dream of the kind of tombstone you would like. That is the wrong standpoint. Have your standpoint in the heavenlies, and you will not think of the afflictions but only of the marvellous way god is working out the inner weight of glory all the time, and you will hail with delight the afflictions which our lord tells us to expect ( john 16:33), the afflic- tions of which james writes ( james 1:2), and of which peter writes (1 peter 4:12). Our lord presented truth in nugget form, and in the epistles the apostles beat out these nuggets into negotiable gold. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; the apostle seems to be putting things the wrong way round. Surely the affliction is the heavy thing and the glory the light thing! No, paul is put- ting it in the right way; he puts the emphasis on the weight of glory resulting from the light affliction. Again, everything is determined by the standpoint you take. Stand in the heavenly places in christ jesus and when the afflictions come you will praise the lord, not with a sickly smile but with every bit of you, because you have learned the secret of the eternal weight of glory, and you know that his yoke is easy. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment . . . Paul seems to say even if it were all tribulation it would not matter, because the glory beginning already and the glory to come would make amends for it all. This law of glory working out of decay is gods beautifying work in a saint. The soother of all affliction is the steadfast thought of the glory which is being worked out by the afflictions. Paul here beats out the nugget of truth in our lords rebuke to peter: pity thyself, lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto peter, get thee behind me, satan. Self-pity is taking the wrong standpoint, and if self-pity is indulged in, before long we will take part in the decaying thing instead of in that which grows more and more into the glory of gods presence.

3. The blessed vision

The watchword of other-worldliness (2 corinthians 4:18)

The sanctified saint has to alter the horizon of other peoples lives, and he does it by showing that they can be lifted on to a higher plane by the grace of god, viz. , into the heavenly places in christ jesus. If you look at the horizon from the sea shore you will not see much of the sea, but climb higher up the cliff, and as you rise higher the horizon keeps level with your eye and you see more in between. Paul is seated in the heavenly places and he can see the whole world mapped out in gods plan. He is looking ahead like a watchman, and his words convey the calm, trium- phant contemplation of a conqueror. Some of us get distracted because we have not this world-wide out- look, we see only the little bit inside our own band- box. 8 the apostle paul has burst his bandbox, he has been lifted up on to a new plane in christ jesus and he sees now from his standpoint. The preacher and the worker must learn to look at life as a whole. When we are lifted up to where jesus is, it is not as if we were standing on a high pinnacle like a spiritual acrobat, balancing on one leg for two seconds and then tumbling. God lifts us up to a totally new plane where there is plenty of room to live and to grow, and To understand things from his standpoint and we see life as a whole; we see not only the glory which now is, but the glory which is yet to be. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. The things not seen refer not only to the glorious reward and the life yet to be, but to the invisible things in our present life around which our lords teaching centres, and around which the afflictions centre. So many of us think only of the visible things, whereas the real concentration, the whole dead-set of the life, should be where our lord put it in the huge nugget of truth which we call the sermon on the mount. There our lord says, in effect, take no thought for your life; be carefully careless about everything saving one thing, your relationship to god. Naturally, we are apt to be carefully careless about everything saving that one thing. The afflictions tackle these unseen centres of our life and we have to face them in the power of the indwelling spirit of god, and if we have been lifted up into the heavenlies we shall find that the battlings are bringing out more and more the eternal weight of glory, while we look at the things which are not seen. Do not think only of what is yet to be; think of the invisible things which are here and now. Think of the weight of glory that may be yours by means of that difficult person you have to live with, by means of the circumstances you are in, the people you come in contact with day by day. The phrase a means of grace comes with a wonderfully new meaning when we think of it in this light. These words of the apostle paul bring to us a message of invincible consolation. If you are a child of god and there is some part of your circumstances which is tearing you, if you are living in the heavenly places you will thank god for the tearing thing; if you are not in the heavenly places you cry to god over and over again o lord, remove this thing from me. If only i could live in golden streets and be surrounded with angels, and have the spirit of god consciously indwelling me all the time and have everything wonderfully sweet, then i think i might be a christian. That is not being a christian! A christian is one who can live in the midst of the trouble and turmoil with the glory of god indwelling him, while he steadfastly looks not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. We have to learn to think only of things which are seen as a glorious chance of enabling us to concentrate on the things which are not seen. God engineers external things for the purpose of revealing to us whether we are living in this imperturbable place of unutterable strength and glory, viz. , the life hid with christ in god. If we are, then let the troubles and difficulties work as they may on the outside, we are confident that they are working out a grander weight of glory in the heavenlies.