The worker and things as they are - Chambers, Oswald
2 Corinthians 6:110
We have an idea that we have to alter things, we have not; we have to remain true to god in the midst of things as they are, to allow things as they are to trans- mute us. Things as they are are the very means god uses to make us into the praise of his glory. We have to live on this sordid earth, amongst human beings who are exactly like ourselves, remembering that it is on this plane we have to work out the marvellous life god has put in us. Holiness in a human being is only manifested by means of antagonism. Physically, we are healthy according to our power of fight on the inside; morally, we are virtuous according to our moral calibrevirtue is always acquired; and spiritually, if we are drawing on the resurrection life of jesus, spiritual stamina comes as we learn to score off the things that come against us, and in this way we produce a holy character. The life of a worker is not a hop, skip and a jump affair, it is a squaring of the shoulders, then a steady, steadfast tramp straight through until we get to under- stand gods way. It takes the energy of god himself to prepare a worker for all he wants to make him. We need a spiritual vision of work as well as a spiritual vision of truth. It is not that we go through a certain curriculum and then we are fit to work; preparation and work are so involved that they cannot be separated. The apostle paul always comes right down to the practical. One of the outstanding miracles of gods grace is to make us able to take any kind of leadership at all without losing spiritual power. There is no more searching test in the whole of christian life than that.
1. The worth to god
We then, as workers together with him . . . (2 corinthians 6:1)
When a worker has led a soul to christ his work has only just begun. Our attitude is apt to be so many saved; so many sanctified, and then we shout hallelujah. But it is only then that the true work of the worker begins. It is then that we have to be held in gods hand and let the word of god be driven through us. It is then that we have to be put under the millstone and ground, put into the kneading trough and be mixed properly, and then bakedall in order to be made broken bread to feed gods children. Go ye therefore, and make disciples (rv ). How many disciples have you made? Have you made one? Discipling is our work. When gods great redemptive work has issued in lives in salvation and sanctification, then the work of the worker begins. It is then that we find the meaning of being workers together with him, and the meaning of the apostle pauls agony of heart and mind over his converts my little children, of whom i travail in birth again until christ be formed in you waiting and watching and longing and praying and working, until he can see them rooted and grounded in god. Look at the laborious way of a scientist in finding out the secrets of nature, and then look at our own slipshod ignorance with regard to gods book. If the worker will obey gods way he will find he has to be everlastingly delving into the bible and working it out in circumstances, the two always run together. It requires all the machinery of circumstances to bring a worker where god wants him to be co-workers with god.
We are apt to say now i am fitted for this particular work because of my natural temperament and i intend to work only along this line. An exclusive worker is excluded by god, because god does not work in that way. The gifts of the spirit are divided to every man severally as he will; they are entirely of god and they all work together with god. The worth of a worker to god is just the worth of a mans own fingers to his brain.
2. The wooing of god
. . . Beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of god in vain . . .
The wooing of god is not the wooing of man. The wooing of a mans personality may often hinder the wooing of god. The apostle pauls pleading is caught up into the entreaty of the spirit of god so that it is the wooing of god that is working through him as though god did beseech you by us. This is the entreaty that is learned at calvary and made real in the worker by the holy ghost. It is not the tones of a mans speech, or the passion of a mans personality, it is the pleading power of the holy ghost coming through him; consequently the worker has no sympathy with things with which gods spirit has no sympathy. We are in danger of being stern where god is tender, and of being tender where god is stern. The apostle paul so identifies his own beseeching and passion with the entreaty of god that the two are identical. He is afraid lest by any means . . . [their] minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in christ (2 corinthians 11:3).
3. The worlds coarse thumb
giving no offence in any thing . . . (2 corinthians 6:3)
The worldling is annoyed at the worker because the worker is always dealing with a crisis that he does not see and does not want to see. No matter what he touches on, the worker always comes back to the claim of god, and the worldling gets annoyed at this. The man of the world analyses the easy parts of life and tells you that these are all quite obvious, all the practical outcomes of life are within his reach; but when the worker begins to touch on gods message he says, that is nonsense, you are up in the clouds and unpractical. That is why the workers voice is always an annoyance to the worldling. That the ministry be not blamed . . . The world is glad of an excuse not to listen to the gospel message, and the inconsistencies of christians is made the excuse. Woe unto the world because of offences! Said our lord. For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! Offence means something to strike up against, and the world is on the watch for that kind of thing. If a worker is tripped in private life, the world strikes against that at once and makes it the excuse for not accepting the gospel. The perilous possibility of being an occasion of stumbling is always there. Paul never forgot the possibility of it in his own life. . . Lest that by any means, when i have preached to others, i myself should be a castaway. The only safeguard is living the life hid with christ in god, and a steady watchfulness that we walk in the light as god is in the light.
4. The wheel of circumstances (2 corinthians 6:46)
. . . But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of god. (v. 4)
Read the life of the apostle Paul and you find that he drank to the last dregs the experience of every one of the things mentioned in these verses. Paul is not indulging in oratory, he is stating the things god put him through. All his experiences called for patience. Holiness can only be worked out in and through the din of things as they are. God does not slide holiness into our hearts like a treasure box from heaven and we open the lid and out it comes, holiness works out in us as it worked out in our lord. The holiness of god almighty is absolute; that is, it knows no development by antagonism. The holiness exhibited by the son of god, and by gods children, is the holiness which expresses itself by means of antagonism.
There are some wonderful words in verses 4 and 5in much patience. Patience is the result of well- centred strength; it takes the strength of almighty god to keep a man patient. No one can remain under and endure what god puts a servant of his through unless he has the power of god. We read that our lord was crucified through weakness, yet it took omni- potent might to make him weak like that. Where is the impulsive enthusiasm which was manifested at the start of the christian life, has it all gone? No, it has been transmuted into the strength that can be weak. In afflictions affliction is something that crushes like a weight until you have not a word to say. In necessities the loss of liberty, confinement. A happy heart and an unpaid salary; a high head and an empty pocket! That is the way it works out in reality. In distresses perplexities such as sickness, the loss of friends, the inscrutable ways of gods providence; but through it all the grace of god comes, it is an inner unconquerable- ness. In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastingsin all these things manifest the drawing on the grace of god that makes you a marvel to yourself and to others. Draw now, not presently. The one word in the spiritual vocabulary is now. Let circumstances bring you where they will, keep drawing on the grace of god. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of god is that you can be humiliated without manifesting the slightest trace of anything but his grace in you.
Verses 410 are pauls spiritual diary, they describe the outward hardships which proved the hot-bed for the graces of the spirit the working together of out- ward hardships and inward grace. You have been asking the lord to give you the graces of the spirit and then some set of circumstances has come and given you a sharp twinge, and you say well, i have asked god to bring out in me the graces of the spirit, but every time the devil seems to get the better of me. What you are calling the devil is the very thing god is using to manifest the graces of the spirit in you. By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report. The worker learns the secret of the camp fires where he can recount with other christians the great hours when the son of god walked with him in the fiery furnace. The thing that keeps us off enchanted ground is to remember that we are on gods campaigns, that we have no certain place of abode, no nesting place here.
He fixed thee midst this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, would’st fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.
Robert Browning
The fiery furnaces are there by gods direct permission. It is misleading to imagine that we are developed in spite of our circumstances, we are devel- oped because of them. It is mastery in circumstances that is needed, not mastery over them. We have to manifest the graces of the spirit amongst things as they are, not to wait for the millennium.
5. The wine of god (2 Corinthians 6:710)
In these verses the apostle paul is giving out golden truths from his own experience. Pauls external life had been spilt and rent, and crushed and broken, then out of it came the wine of god. Wine comes only from crushed grapes, and the things paul is mentioning here are the things which bring out the wine that god likes. You cannot be poured-out wine if you remain a whole grape; you cannot be broken bread if you remain whole grain. Grapes have to be crushed, and grain has to be ground; then the sweet- ness of the life comes out to the glory of god. Watch the circumstances of life; we get them fairly well mixed, and if we are getting more than enough of one kind, let us thank the lord for it; it is producing the particular grace that god wants us to manifest.