"Not
that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in
whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. I know how
to be abased, and I know how to abound: in everything and
in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled
and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. I can
do all things in him that strengtheneth me"
(Philippians 4:11-13).
If
there is one statement in Scripture that finds us out, it
is this one. It was Paul who said it; but I wonder how
many of us could say it, with the same positive
affirmation? You will notice, however, that the Apostle
is stating it as the result of a life-long schooling.
'This', he says, 'is the issue of my schooling with
Christ. I have learned the secret. "I have
learned... I know... I can do..."!'
The
course of things is learning through experience, and thus
coming to knowledge - knowledge which is not theory at
all, but which works out in practice: "I can
do". That is the meaning for us of life with Christ.
If we, His children, want to know the meaning of our
experiences in this very exacting school - for it is an
exacting school: we don't get away with anything; nothing
escapes; we are held to it, severely and strictly, though
behind all is wisdom and love - the meaning of our
experiences in the exacting school which the Christian
life is, and is intended to be, it is that we may LEARN,
that we may KNOW, that
we may DO. God's end is always a
practical end, and the end is DOING. 'Ihave learned... I know... I can do!'
And,
of course, the way to that end is learning that you CANNOT
do, and that you do NOT know.
I suppose that that is the truest thing that could be
said of anyone in the School of the Spirit. The thing
that they are learning is that they cannot do, and they
do not know. That is the way. It does seem, on the one
hand, a negative process; it does seem to be an undoing
experience; but God's ends are always positive. And an
absolute necessity to our arriving at the position,
"I can do all things" -a tremendous statement!
- which is His will for every one of us, is a deep,
fundamental consciousness and realisation of how bankrupt
we are of knowledge and of ability apart from Christ. For
the all-governing clause or fragment is: 'in Him - that
is, in Christ - who strengthens me'.
But,
while this is a message of rebuke and correction,
demanding adjustment, here is a word of tremendous hope,
tremendous comfort.
Self-Mistrust
I
was reading recently Boreham's Oliver
Cromwell. When Cromwell was a
young fellow, farming in Huntingdonshire, he wrote a
letter to his aunt, in which there occurred the following
words:
'I am a poor creature; I
am sure that I shall never earn the least mite.'
There
is the foundation of a man who hurled kings and thrones
from their places; turned a regime upside down; became
the terror of evil-doers; and was, if not the greatest,
one of the greatest champions of God in the history of
this country. 'I am a poor
creature; I am sure I
shall never earn the least mite'! You should hear what
Thomas Carlyle says about him. Someone said that Cromwell
was one of the four greatest men in history. Says
Boreham: 'Carlyle would laugh: "Four! The other
three are mere puppets compared with Cromwell - they are
not in the same world with him!"'
But,
Carlyle goes on to say, there was a turning point in
Cromwell's life. From the Huntingdonshire farmer, with
the consciousness of his weakness, his insufficiency, his
worthlessness, there came a turn. Carlyle's way of
expressing it, because he did not know in experience what
he was talking about, was: 'It was what Cromwell would
call his "conversion".' We know what that
means. And then, away ploughing in his field, Cromwell
heard of the great need: 'Everything in this country',
says Boreham, 'rushing pell-mell toward turgid crisis,
wild tumult, red revolution, and the cry for a man, a
good man, a strong man, a great man.' As he heard that
cry, whilst ploughing his field, something inside him
said: 'You are that man! The world needs a man, a good
man, a great man, a strong man - Thou art the man!'
Cromwell
set to weighing up his assets and his liabilities: 'I
cannot be that man; I can
never answer that call, meet that demand.' But then, as
he was thinking about it after the day's work, in his
country home, by the fire, with his wife at his side, and
the little child in the cradle, he took down the big
Bible, and opened it to read; and turning the pages, he
came to the letter to the Philippians, and began to read
chapter 4. He stopped at verse 13: "I can do all
things through Christ which strengtheneth me" - and
that was the beginning of the history that we know. It
carried him through to the end. When he was at Hampton
Court, passing from this life, he called for the Bible,
and asked them to read; and they said: 'What shall we
read?' And he said: 'Read from Philippians 4:13 - "I
can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth
me".'
Now,
you and I are not going to be Oliver Cromwells; we need
not begin to get big ideas! But the principles are the
same. 'I am a poor creature' - is that how you feel
today? Most of us feel like that! 'I shall never earn the
smallest mite.' Our worth, our 'worthfulness', is NIL.
The Apostle Paul, with all his great endowments, was one
man who was ever ready to tell us of his own
worthlessness: 'Chief of sinners, chief of sinners'; 'I
am what I am by the grace of God'; and much more like
that.
The School of Christ
We
have said that Paul arrived at this position through a
long and difficult schooling. We have some catalogues
given us by him as to what he encountered, in that School
of Christ, of opposition and adversity, of trials and
difficulties, of suffering and affliction. He is telling
us that that was the nature of the school; they were the
things that made up his schooling. But what he is saying
is not: 'I have arrived today at this conclusion, after
all that' - but: 'It was in the schooling, when I was in
persecution, that I discovered this. When I was in hunger
and nakedness and peril, my reaction to my situation was
such as to make that experience yield a secret; to wring
a knowledge, a secret, out of the very situation itself.'
Now,
when you and I are in trouble, going through a difficult
time, having a difficult experience, perhaps our first
thought is to pray that we might get out of it, be
delivered from it. We groan in it, and long for a change
of the situation, some way of escape. That is usually our
reaction. 'How long will this last? when will the Lord
deliver me from this? when will He change this whole
thing? when will it pass?' But I gather, from what Paul
says, that his was another reaction. He took in this
situation, and he said to himself: 'I have something to
learn in this - something that is going to make me able
for more later on. There is a secret buried in this, and
I am going to extract that secret. I am going to make
this yield something for the Lord and for the future.'
With Paul it was not, 'HOW can
I get out of it?', but, 'WHAT
can I get out of it?' We usually say, in the presence of
very real difficulties, sorrows and trials: 'I cannot...
I just cannot go on; I cannot bear this any more. I just CANNOT!'
Paul was saying to his situations: 'I am
going to make you teach me how I CAN!'
A Positive Attitude
You
see, it is a question of a positive attitude toward
things, is it not? It makes such a difference, the
attitude that we take. "I have
learned...": I have learned the
secret; I have made everything yield something of a
positive character. The result is: "I
know...": I know how
to be abased, to be set at nought, to be walked over,
trampled upon, ignored, regarded as worthless; I know how
to take hold of that - how not to go down under it, but
to make it serve spiritual ends. I know how to abound:
when people are kind and good - when, as you Philippians,
they send me gifts, so that I can say, "I have all
things, and abound" - I do not get proud and uppish,
and conceited and self-sufficient, and think myself
something: I know that is ruination! I have learned the
perils of prosperity just as much as the perils of
adversity; I have found the secret. And so, come what
may, for or against; be as I may be - and I am today in
prison at the end of my life - I can! I
do not say - After all this, I cannot bear any more; but
- I can do all things, through Christ who strengtheneth
me.'
I
pass on this message, not as an elaborate address or
discourse, but as a word from my heart. It is a challenge
to us all as to our attitude. Our natural condition -
which is not mere imagination, but undoubtedly something
very real - would so often argue: 'I cannot! The
situation is utterly disconcerting, utterly devastating,
both inside and outside. Naturally, it is the end: it is
paralysis: I cannot, I just cannot.' That is the
situation, if we just look at ourselves: if we in
ourselves represent the sum-total of everything. If we
look at the situation, that argues finality; we may as
well give it up and say: I cannot, I cannot! But what
about Christ? Is there not another off-look from
ourselves to 'Christ who strengthens me'? This is not a
question of a psychological effect upon ourselves, in
trying to be more cheerful, and to make ourselves believe
something that is not true. There are the facts - in
ourselves, and perhaps in our circumstances: they ARE
the FACTS - they are stark
facts: and there is no getting away from them.
A Greater Fact
Nevertheless,
there is a greater fact than ourselves, and than our
circumstances: the fact of Christ. And so you and I will
have to seek from the Lord this grace, morning by
morning, and day by day, perhaps even hour by hour, as we
face our own inability and disability, our own utter
futility and helplessness - the grace to say:
Nevertheless, I can through Christ. I say again, it is
not just a psychological reaction, or fillip, which will
make us ignore facts. No! this is the act of faith; this
is the link of faith; this is the plank of faith, across
which we pass right over from ourselves and our condition
to Christ. And today, when we are as weak, as helpless,
as overwhelmed, as perplexed, as distracted by things as
ever - nevertheless, today, and tomorrow, and all the
days, I CAN - I CAN THROUGH CHRIST! If
it is real faith in Christ, you will find that the Spirit
comes in, and enables you to do what you never would have
done, or could have done, but for that positive attitude.
May we be helped to find the way of deliverance from the
'I cannot... I cannot... I cannot...' into the 'I can do
all things through Christ.'
No
doubt, with many this represents a very practical
situation. As we look on ahead, we dread some things, for
we know that those things are beyond us altogether; but
we have got to take this position. We must look at our
situation today, and say: 'This situation holds
something. The Lord is not answering my prayer and
getting me out of it; He is not changing it, He is just
not doing all that I am longing for, and praying for, and
craving for, and waiting for - changing my position and
circumstances, and getting me right out of it. I pray,
and there is nothing; there is no getting through; He is
not doing it. Therefore, I must look at it in another
way. There is a secret in this, and I have got to get
hold of that secret. What does the Lord intend to teach
me and to give me in this situation, that I can bring out
of it as fruit, as stock-in-trade for the work in the
days to come? What is it? I must get it!'
If
we take that attitude toward things, I think we shall
probably find that that is our way of deliverance, our
way out, our way through. Let us ask for grace to do
this, not only now, in our present situation, but as to
everything that the Lord may require of us in the future
- perhaps things that we never thought of. I am quite
sure that that young fellow of twenty-three, in
Huntingdonshire, pushing his plough, never, never thought
of himself as becoming the Lord Protector of England, the
ruler of this whole country, the changer of the whole
constitution, the one who overthrew the mighty system of
evil. Cromwell never saw himself as we see him, and know
him to be, but his life was built upon this: 'I can do
all things through Christ who strengthens me.' While we
may never rise to such eminence, or become great historic
figures, nevertheless, through Christ things can be,
which would go far beyond any dreams that we ever had,
more than we ever thought.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1958, Vol 36-2