There are quite a few people here this
morning who have not been with us in
the earlier part, the earlier three days of
this conference.
And some of you who were with us
on Friday and Saturday were not able to
be with us yesterday.
So a little word by way of linking
up will be necessary.
We are in this time occupied with the
question in the first verse of the prophecies
of Isaiah chapter 53, to whom hath the
arm of the Lord been revealed.
We are putting it more in the present
tense, to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed.
We are circling around this matter of the
arm of the Lord.
That is, the Lord coming out in power,
in the behalf of his own interest, as
bound up with a people of his own
choice.
Now we occupy much of the early time
with the whole of that chapter of Isaiah
53, as we show that in it the
cross of the Lord Jesus, in all its
comprehensiveness and in all its details, is God's
way of securing ground upon which he could
show his arm.
The cross is the ground and the way,
the only ground, the only way by which
the Lord will reveal his mighty arm.
Of course in the first place the answer
to the question is found in the Lord
Jesus himself.
It is to this one described here in
all the terrible details of his cross that
the arm of the Lord has been revealed,
and is still being revealed.
But we have seen that this is carried
over to the Lord's people and made the
foundation upon which the Lord shows himself mighty.
The only ground, that is, in so far
as they stand in to the good of
Christ crucified.
The cross of the Lord Jesus, in so
far as that is made a reality in
their life, individually and collectively, just so far
does he reveal his arm.
There is no other way.
Well that occupied us for quite a time,
all day on Friday really, and a bit
of Saturday.
And then yesterday, I may say to the
friends who missed yesterday that you only missed
one part of this, and I can give
you the sum of it in a very
few words.
Yesterday we passed over on to the resurrection
side of the cross with Isaiah 54, and
saw there the eight features of resurrection life,
when the cross is an accomplished and established
fact.
In that chapter we have these eight features
of resurrection, movement from barrenness to fruitfulness, from
straightness to enlargement, from shame to honor, from
forsakenness to fellowship, from wrath to mercy, from
affliction and desolation to comfort and glory, from
oppression to security, from reproach to vindication.
That's all resurrection ground into which the Lord's
people are brought if, if this great reality
of the cross has become their own spiritual
experience.
Now this morning we are going on further.
We are going to move into this next
chapter, having, as I have said, moved from
the death side or aspect of the cross
on to the positive resurrection side, the constructive
side of the cross.
We find that one thing comes very much
into view in these following chapters of Isaiah.
Of course it would have been very helpful
if you had had notice and had been
reading these chapters from Isaiah 53 on to
the end, and it is quite impossible for
us to read the chapters through.
You will have them before you, and with
a rapid glance down these pages you will
recognize what I am saying to be the
case.
There is one thing that comes very much
into view after the cross on resurrection ground,
and that is the recovery of God's testimony
in the city and in the nation.
That really is a key to these chapters
of Isaiah from 53 or with 54 onward.
The whole matter of the recovered testimony of
the Lord in the city, because Zion is
so much in view here as you notice.
You just run along and circle that word
Zion and Jerusalem, you will see that that
is the center, the focal point of the
testimony.
But again the nations are very much in
view.
That will come out more and more fully
as we move on through this day.
We have one particular thing for the present
hour.
As you notice when you come to chapter
55, there are two things which are marked
by that chapter.
Verses 1 to 9, the release or the
freedom and the abundance of grace coming to
the people of God on this ground, this
resurrection ground.
Free and abundant grace.
O everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the
water.
He that hath no money, come ye.
Buy and eat, yea, come by wine and
milk, without money and without price.
And so on.
This is free and abundant grace which we
find on the other side of the cross,
on resurrection ground.
How much of the New Testament we could
just crowd into that space.
The other thing from verse 10 to verse
13 is the sure word.
My word shall not return unto me void.
God's sure word in verse 11.
Now, by the way, we usually appropriate that
promise when we're going to preach.
We lay hold of it when we're going
to give a message.
My word shall not return unto me void.
Well, of course, the principle is our general
application.
We are not right or not wrong at
any time in taking hold of that if
it is really the word of the Lord
that we have to deliver.
We cannot just put it upon any word
that we're going to say and call it
the word of the Lord.
If it is really the word of the
Lord, then the principle of this promise applies.
But what I want to point out is
that there is not here the particular meaning
of the statement.
You will notice in the 11th verse.
So shall my word be that goeth forth
out of my mouth.
It shall not return unto me void, but
it shall accomplish that which I please.
And it shall prosper in the thing whereto
I sent it forth.
He doesn't stop there.
Ye shall go out with joy and be
led forth with peace.
Mountains and the hills and so on.
Now, the immediate meaning of the promise of
the sure and effective word is this people,
this people have been promised by God deliverance.
They have been assured that the Lord was
going to bring them back from captivity.
He had given his word that they should
go out with joy and peace.
And in these conditions, that was the word
and that word was not going to fail.
Well, that is just parentheses.
That is by the way.
When you come to chapter 56, you find
that everything centers in the house of prayer
for all people.
There are seven, even them will I bring
to my holy mountain.
And to make them joyful in my house
of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be
accepted upon mine altar.
For mine house shall be called a house
of prayer for all peoples.
You see, you are moving in relation to
the recovery of testimony, the Lord's testimony.
And it is to be found in his
house.
My house of prayer.
You pass into chapter 57 and here you
have some further warnings to the Lord's people
against any recurrence of that which had destroyed
the testimony before.
It seems necessary always for the Lord to
say and say again, just be careful of
the coming back of those old things which
wrecked your testimony in the past.
The things which, to use Jeremiah's phrase, from
the potter's house marred the vessel.
This chapter has to do with warnings and
with admonitions concerning the perils that are ever
present to again mar the vessel and spoil
the testimony.
Then as you notice in verse 15, the
ground of the Lord's presence and committal is
mentioned.
Thus saith the Lord, the high and the
lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is
holy.
I dwell in the high and holy place
with him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit to revive the spirit of
the humble, to revive the heart of the
contrite ones.
The conditions of the Lord's presence in which
his testimony will be reconstituted.
Chapters 58 and 59 are full of more
warnings, more admonitions, and more instructions by way
of clearing the sky of the clouds that
would obscure the testimony.
Notice verse 8 has to do with the
shining.
Then shall thy light break forth as the
morning.
It's the question of this testimony that is
governing everything with the Lord.
These warnings and admonitions are in order that
the clouds that are lingering about the sky
and trying to obscure the shining shall be
removed so that there shall be the clear
shining.
All that then leads us to chapter 60.
It is preparing the way.
It is always this in view.
Arise, shine, for thy light is come and
the glory of the Lord is risen upon
thee.
Here then we come to this matter of
the recovered testimony, the shining light of the
Church in the midst, as you see, of
a dark world, of very dark conditions.
For darkness shall cover the earth and gross
darkness of people, but the Lord shall arise
upon thee and his glory shall be seen
upon thee.
It is the Church's testimony, the Church's light
in the midst of dark, dark conditions.
That is the thing I repeat which is
uppermost in this last section of Isaiah's prophecies.
Here then the testimony is restored.
Verse 1.
The nations are affected by it.
Lift up thine eyes round about and see.
They all gather themselves together.
They come to thee.
Thy son shall come from far and thy
daughter shall be carried in thine arms.
Then thou shalt see and be enlightened and
thine heart shall tremble and be enlarged because
the abundance of the sea shall be turned
unto thee.
The wealth of the nations shall come unto
thee.
When the testimony is clear, when the shining
is undimmed, when God has in his house,
in his people, conditions that answer to the
cross, to all that the cross means, then
you have this effect all around.
This effect all around.
The nations are affected.
Peoples are touched.
Something happens and there comes back to the
church a wealth, an enrichment, a fullness, if
the Lord has seen according to his mind.
Or in other words, if he really does
have his testimony without clouds, without shadows, in
fullness, undimmed, in the midst of his people,
in the vessel of his house, then the
nations feel the effect of that, the impact
of that.
And the church itself is greatly enriched.
Surely the isles shall weep for me.
Ship the Tartish first to bring thy sons
from far, their silver and their gold with
them.
For the name of the Lord thy God
and for the Holy One of Israel, because
he hath glorified thee.
The enrichment of the church.
Now this we know is Old Testament prophecy.
We recognize that the prophet was saying more
than he knew.
But there were two things in this.
There was history that was in the making
so far as Israel was concerned.
But you see all the way through this,
pointing on as in chapter 53, to the
Lord himself, the Messiah, to the cross, and
on into what follows in resurrection.
There's that other side of this, that spiritual
side which the Holy Spirit always saw and
had in view in history.
There was the temporal and the passing.
But there was the spiritual and the eternal.
And so we are in every connection as
we have seen so far, in every connection
we are handed on, so to speak, by
these prophecies to the New Testament.
The counterpart of what we have been saying
is found particularly in one letter in the
New Testament.
It is the second letter to the Corinthians.
That is the counterpart of all this about
the Recovered Testament.
The great issue in both of the letters
to the Corinthians was that of the testimony
of the Church in the city and in
the world.
When we read those letters, of course we
become very much taken up with all the
details.
In the first letter, the miserable details.
The many things that are being dealt with,
it's not a happy and pleasant letter to
read.
And perhaps you've given it up many times
before you've got to the end.
Not understanding much and not liking a good
deal more.
It's like that.
But you've got to stand back from it
and say, what is it all about after
all?
Let's not trouble ourselves about all the details
for the moment.
They all go to make up some one
particular issue.
What is the issue?
Well, the issue of Corinthians is the Lord's
testimony in the Church, in the city and
in the nation.
Make no mistake about that.
You see, there is very much said in
that letter about the world and how the
Church in Corinth was failing to overpower the
world because the world had already overpowered it
from the inside.
The testimony was destroyed on the inside and
therefore there was no real impact upon the
world.
The natural and the carnal man had found
his way into the Church and the Church
therefore had lost its testimony.
It will always be like that.
If anything of a natural man and the
carnal man makes inroads into the Church in
any locality, you may say goodbye to the
testimony in that Church.
And in that locality, in that city, and
so far as that company is concerned in
relation to the world, the testimony goes out
when the natural man comes in.
In the first letter then, it was the
whole question not merely of local conditions, but
of local conditions destroying the testimony of the
Church in the city.
But in the second letter, this comes out
on the positive side.
The first letter, all those conditions destroying testimony
have to be dealt with, have to be
mentioned, exposed, uncovered and brought to the cross,
Christ crucified.
Between the two letters, something has happened.
Something has happened.
Change has taken place.
May I pause there and say this again.
What we have here in 1 Corinthians is
Satan's second great strategy toward paralyzing the Church's
testimony.
His first strategy, of course, is open persecution.
That's his first line.
That was his first line with the Church.
Open persecution to try to destroy, obliterate the
Church's testimony in Jerusalem, in the city, and
in the nation.
It failed.
But Satan comes back again along a second
line of strategy, and that is to bring
in men, according to his own mind, right
onto the inside of the Church.
The natural men, the carnal men, carnal elements.
They serve the devil's purpose so well.
They effect this very thing that the devil
is after, which he cannot, cannot succeed in
doing by open persecution.
But he comes around, as it were, to
the back door, and he gets carnal and
natural elements in people in through the back
door, and that's done it.
Testimony goes out.
It's destroyed.
But, as I was saying, between these two
letters, something happens.
You look at chapter 7, the second letter,
and you see, For
godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance
which bringeth no regret.
The apostle has quite a bit to say
about what had evidently taken place after his
first letter.
There was repentance.
There was judging of themselves and of the
conditions.
There was, as he says, a clearing of
themselves.
There was a real distress and exercise about
their condition.
It had taken place between the two letters.
We may say that they had brought it
to the cross, or they had brought the
cross to it.
Something had happened which had changed the situation.
And now, now the things had been dealt
with on the inside.
The whole matter of the testimony to the
world in the city could be reconsidered, and
a counterattack could be made by the church
upon the enemy and upon the world.
And that is what is in this second
letter.
The recovery of the testimony in the locality
and out to the world.
Paul brings out into very clear relief the
constituents of effective testimony.
Or, to use Isaiah's word, clear shining.
Clear shining.
And in this letter you see some of
the things that he says about those constituents
of effective testimony.
Chapter 2, verse 4.
For out of much affliction and anguish of
heart I wrote unto you with many tears,
not that ye should be made sorry, but
that ye might know the love which I
have more abundantly to you.
That is a constituent of effective testimony and
clear shining.
What is it?
The value of triumphant love.
This clearly has its two sides in the
apostle.
For if ever a man might have found
his love exhausted, the apostle might well have
been that man where these Corinthians were concerned.
For he did say, the more I love
you, the less I be loved.
Well, that's enough to put any man off,
isn't it?
All his outpouring and outgoing and giving in
love only means that less love and less
love comes back.
Love is being withdrawn.
And what a situation.
What a situation has to be.
Yes, his love triumphed.
His love triumphed.
But it seemed to have had an effect
in them too.
And something of what he had written in
his first letter, chapter 13, seems to have
come about.
Yes, the triumph of 1 Corinthians 13 can
be traced in this second letter to some
very real degree.
The love that suffereth long and is kind,
and so on.
The constituent of triumphant love.
That is, we might very well say, the
first and primary factor in effective testimony.
The Lord Jesus said that.
By this shall all men know, if you
have love one for another.
This is the testimony.
This is how it will be known, if
ye have love one for another.
Dear friends, it does matter very much whether
the world is affected by what it sees.
It does.
We cannot close the doors on ourselves and
say, oh well, the world in any case
is always inimical.
It's always hostile.
It's always unsympathetic.
Why take any account of it?
Let's shut ourselves in and get on with
our jobs.
You can't do that.
You cannot ignore the world.
You are here.
We are here to affect the world.
That is the only reason why the Lord
leaves us here, unless it is to train
us for the hereafter.
But certainly it is a very, very real
reason for our being here.
Not just to live here, cloistered and closed
in, ignoring the world, indifferent to the world,
and saying, well, the world doesn't want us.
Let it get on with it.
We'll just live our lives to ourselves and
get on with our business.
No.
Our business is to affect the world.
We cannot separate and detach ourselves from the
world.
And the world is going to find out
in some way what's happening inside the church.
The world will know the condition of the
church.
Make no mistake about it.
What's happening in your local assembly, you cannot
close doors and windows on that and keep
it in.
All around will know.
It will be known.
And I say it's the most important thing
that the world could be affected by, not
what it hears us say, but what it
sees in us.
And the only thing that it can really
see that will affect it will be the
mutual love which we have one for another.
By this, shall all men know, if ye
have love one for another.
See, one of the most effective ways of
testimony is not preaching, it's loving.
It is.
If that is there, it will do far
more than our preaching, but it will give
a tremendous backing up to our preaching.
All our preaching must be supported by this
one thing behind, a strong, triumphant love in
the midst of the Lord's people.
Triumphant love is the first constituent of recovered,
established testimony, or the clear shining.
The second thing in testimony is the value
of suffering with Christ.
Notice here, if you look at chapter 1,
and there is much in this second letter
about this matter.
Chapter 1, verse 4, Who
comforteth us in all our afflictions, that we
may be able to comfort them that are
in any affliction, through the comfort wherewith we
ourselves are comforted of God.
For as the sufferings of Christ abound unto
us, even so our comfort also aboundeth through
Christ.
The tremendous value and potency of suffering with
Christ.
First of all, the return that it brings
in our discovery of the consolations of Christ.
It's a very important thing in a world
like this that we should have some comfort
in it.
Yes, there's a lot, a great need of
comfort.
In the church and outside the church.
A great ministry of comfort.
We come back to Isaiah, comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, bless the Lord.
The ministry of comfort, but you can't fulfill
a ministry of comfort just in nice platitudes.
Getting alongside of difficult and troubled situations and
saying nice things.
If somebody is really in trouble and in
distress and you begin to talk to them,
the first thing they have a right to
say to you is, well, what do you
know about it?
Have you ever been in my position, my
condition?
Have you ever had any deep, deep sufferings?
What do you know about it?
Perhaps it's one of those sovereign, providential ways
of God, purposes of God, in allowing his
people to know much suffering that they might
derive this wonderful value of the consolations of
Christ in order that they may have that
with which to comfort others.
See, after all, the testimony is that, isn't
it?
The testimony of real comfort to the suffering,
to the sorrow.
And what have you got to give?
Well, that we may comfort with the comfort
for which we ourselves have been comforted of
God.
And what have you got to give?
Well, that we may comfort with the comfort
for which we ourselves have been comforted of
God.
If there is anyone here today who is
having a difficult, painful, suffering time, going through
a dark patch, might I try to transfigure
it for you by saying to you, just
look at it in another way.
Say, I can make a discovery of the
Lord in this which will be stock in
trade for future service.
I can find some comfort on the Lord
in my distress and trouble, which is going
to be of tremendous value to somebody else
or to some others in the future.
That is how ministry is made, dear friends.
Man or a woman who is ambitious to
minister, to be in the ministry, to be
speaking and taking meetings and going about doing
that sort of thing, who has not gone
through the depths and found the Lord in
the depths and has something which has been
brought up from the depths of some pearl
of great price, that man or that woman's
ministry is merely professional.
It's artificial.
It's not real.
The true minister of Jesus Christ will be
taken down to the depths to discover there,
right down there, these pearls, these precious things
to bring up for the sake of the
Church.
Did you notice that phrase in Isaiah?
The abundance of the sea shall be turned
unto you.
The abundance of the sea.
Yes, but the sea can be a very
deep place, you know, and a very dark
place.
A very terrible place.
But there are treasures there.
That is a way of testimony.
But then notice in verse 8 of this
first chapter, For we would not have you,
ignorant brethren, concerning our affliction which befell us
in Asia.
We were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power,
insomuch that we despaired even of life.
Yea, we ourselves have had the answer of
death within ourselves, that we should not trust
in ourselves, but in God, which raiseth the
dead.
This is how ministry is made, when you've
got a real experience of and testimony to
the power of His resurrection, when everything seemed
hopeless.
Everything seemed hopeless in your own personal situation.
Everything seemed hopeless in your company of believers.
And the providence of God led you that
way, to make a discovery of the power
of His resurrection.
You should not trust in yourselves, but in
God, that raiseth the dead.
And this, this constitutes the ministry.
You've gone that way, you're a minister, all
right.
You need not take the name, you need
not be set apart for anything.
You're a minister if you know the power
of His resurrection.
You've got something that is most, most greatly
needed, the knowledge of that mighty power of
resurrection.
Number three, in chapter four, this first section
from verse seven to verse eighteen, we have
this treasure in earthen vessels, exceeding greatness of
the power may be of God and not
from ourselves.
We are pressed on every side, yet not
straightened, perplexed, yet not unto despair, persued, yet
not forsaken, smitten down, yet not destroyed, always
daring about in the body, the putting to
death of Jesus, that the life also of
Jesus may be manifested in our body.
We which live are always delivered unto death
for Jesus' sake, that the life also of
Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So then, death worketh in us, but life
in you.
So on to verse eighteen, and you'll notice
that this section has as its real message
the value, the tremendous value of the quality
of brokenness and weakness.
We perhaps don't put much value on brokenness
and weakness, but here very much value is
put upon that.
We have this treasure in vessels of fragile
clay.
What the apostle says in that section, in
effect, is this, that we are broken, broken
men.
We are weak vessels.
The one thing about us, more than anything
else, is our capacity for being broken.
It seems that we've just been made to
be broken.
Yes, he's speaking about brokenness, about weakness, and
then he's saying that there's an infinite value
attached to that.
In the first letter to the Corinthians, the
Church was not broken.
It was not broken.
It was hard.
It was trying to hold itself intact.
It was proud.
It was judging.
It was cruel.
It was unkind.
Anything but broken.
But now, look again in this second letter,
and you'll find that the softness about the
Church, it's broken, it's melted, it's soft.
And you can talk about ministry now.
You can talk about testimony now.
Couldn't talk about that before.
No, no.
Until the vessel is broken, there's nothing to
flow out.
It all flows out when the vessel is
broken.
That is the way.
Well, the apostle is saying that that was
how it was with him personally, and of
course he is, by inference, passing it on
to the Church at Corinth and saying our
weakness and our brokenness is of tremendous importance
and value.
It's only then that the real treasure comes
out, shows itself, manifests itself.
You talk about the testimony.
Have you got a phraseology of testimony?
You talk about ministry, good ideas about ministry.
My dear friends, the Holy Spirit is saying
to you and to me this morning that
testimony and ministry is only real when it
comes from broken men and women.
Make no mistake about it.
I know it's the hard way, but it's
the only way.
You have no right to minister.
You have no right to talk about the
testimony or about the Church, the vessel, or
any of this sort of thing unless you
know something of this brokenness and this weakness.
You see how true it is to what
we recognize.
The Lord says in my house of prayer,
my house of prayer shall be a house
of prayer for all nations, but thus saith
the Lord, the High and the Holy One,
who inhabiteth eternity, also I am with the
one who is of a broken, a contrite
spirit.
You find him at converted Corinth, chastened Corinth.
You feel in this second letter the unction
of the Spirit, don't you?
The beauty of the Lord, something new is
here.
You missed in the first letter, oh yes,
the Lord is here now, because they're brutal.
And it is very true that that unction
of the Lord is only found with men
and women who really have had a breaking,
and an emptying, and a weakening, and have
lost all confidence in their own flesh, all
their own self-strength.
That is the way of the shining, that
is the way of recovered testimony.
So we look just at this verse in
chapter 6 and verse 11.
Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians.
Our heart is enlarged.
Ye are not straightened in us, but ye
are straightened in your own affections.
Now for a recompense in like kind I
speak it unto my children, be ye also
enlarged.
What was the cause of the loss, the
broken-down testimony in Corinth?
They were too small.
They were too little.
They were too peevish.
Paul said that they were like babes.
He had to treat them like babes.
They're peevish.
Children can be like that, can't they?
Just like that.
They're too small, too little, too petty.
Little things are far too important.
He says, be enlarged, be enlarged.
Let your heart be enlarged.
Be bigger people.
Really be bigger people.
Be too big to come down, to stoop
to those mean things of one Corinth.
Don't be contemptible.
Without self-importance and self-inflation, have big
thoughts.
Have big feelings.
Have a large heart.
Love, love.
What does love do?
Rejoice it, not in unrighteousness, but in the
truth.
Love, believe in all things.
It's a large heart to do that, isn't
it?
Never ready to believe the wrong report, but
always prepared to believe that there's something, even
in a wrong report, that may be set
off against it.
Maybe another explanation.
Love, rejoice it, not when the one who
has done the harm suffers for it.
Oh, that's portrait.
This is where even David is such a
rebuke to us, isn't he?
Look at him.
What a life Saul gave him during those
years.
What a life.
Hunted him, as he said, like a pig,
like a partridge.
Chased and pursued him from rock to rock
and cave to cave through the wilderness to
get him and destroy him.
Gave him no rest and no peace, day
nor night.
Determined, determined that David should die.
The day came when in one of these
pursuits, Saul with his armor bearer and his
army, his army to catch a man, arrived
at a certain place at night and lay
down to sleep.
Not knowing that David was so near.
Right on the spot.
Don't know that he would have slept if
he had known.
He lay down and his armor bearer lay
down and they all went to sleep and
David came with his men and looked.
Looked on them.
And David's man said, now is your chance.
God has given him into your hands.
If you can only get divine support for
something, that's all you want, isn't it?
You want somebody to say, it's the Lord's
will and how you'll go for it if
it serves your own interests.
It's something that you naturally would very much
like if somebody says, well the Lord would
have you do that.
It's a very, very strong temptation, isn't it,
when it's supported by the Lord.
And so this one said, the Lord has
delivered him into your hands, now is your
chance.
Let me smite him and I won't have
to smite him twice.
One blow and I'll finish the whole thing
for you.
David said, no.
God forbid that I should touch the Lord's
anointed.
That's a big miss, you know.
To his own hurt.
Yes, to his own hurt.
He knew not how many more years of
suffering he would have.
He accepted them.
He could have ended all that with one
blow.
He said, no, no.
I must not touch the Lord's anointed.
He said, the Lord's anointed may be wrong.
He may be doing the wrong thing.
I may be in the right and he
may be in the wrong.
Nevertheless, it's not for me to touch him.
I leave him with the Lord.
I mustn't speak against him.
I mustn't lift my hand against him.
God forbid that I should touch the Lord.
I say, that's a big miss, isn't it.
That spiritual greatness.
Oh, in a life of recompense, be ye
also enlarged.
The Lord make us big people in this
spiritual sense.
Well, to sum up all this.
All this as to the constituents of recovered
testimony.
Testimony in any locality.
Testimony in the world.
It must be born out of these things.
First of all, what we know of divine
comfort in suffering.
Then, what we know of resurrection when all
has seemed to be hopeless.
That is individual.
That is collective.
That is local.
Then, what we have learned of divine love
through our own failure.
I'm sure that was a great factor in
Corinth, you know.
Oh, their recognition of their failure.
They went down, right down in the dust.
Under the sense of what a miserable failure
they had been as a local company.
Down in the dust.
And they discovered love.
Pouring through this apostle.
Pouring from the heart of God to them.
They discovered love.
When they discovered and realized what a failure
they themselves had been.
And that constituted their new testimony.
That discovery.
Then what brokenness and enlargement of heart has
come through the consciousness of weakness.
I suppose if any people ought to have
had a consciousness of their own weakness, it
was those people at Corinth.
There are indications in this second letter that
they themselves came almost to the point of
despair about themselves.
This consciousness of their own failure, of their
own weakness, of their own untrustworthiness.
I think it overwhelmed them.
It overflowed them.
But through that, they came to this enlargement
of heart.
An enlargement of heart.
That's the way.
You and I are smitten with the consciousness
of our own failure.
We are not going to be petty and
mean toward other people's failures.
We're going to be larger of heart where
other people's wrongs are concerned.
Very much more patient.
Very much more understanding.
We're going to say, well, they have failed
where I have had to walk very carefully.
And there goes myself, but for the grace
of God.
That's largeness of heart, you see.
Through brokenness.
And then finally, I
think that is what arises here.
A sense of tremendous responsibility for the honour
of the Lord.
I'm quite sure that if that were not
present, then all the other means nothing.
It must have been brought home to them
that they were letting the Lord down.
In the city.
In the locality, they were letting the Lord
down.
Their situation was just bringing dishonour to Him.
And that provoked a sense of responsibility.
Oh, oh, we cannot afford to let the
Lord down.
Whatever it costs, we must put things right
amongst ourselves.
For the Lord's sake.
For the sake of the name of the
Lord.
Much in Isaiah, later chapters, about the name
of the Lord in Zion.
When recovered.
It's just that.
The name of the Lord.
And so this sense of responsibility for His
name and for His honour in that vicinity,
in that city, and in the world, produced
an utterness, a new utterness for the Lord.
We come back to our question.
To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed?
Well, to those, to some.
It's like that.
You see, this is all the outcome, the
outworking of the cross.
It all comes out of Isaiah 53.
This all follows.
Recovered testimony of this kind is the result
of the cross.
The cross is always the basis of everything,
and in the everything, of testimony.
The testimony of our life, the testimony of
the Church, locally and universally.