WEAKNESS

D. L. Stewart

1 Corinthians 1: 18–25; Hebrews 11: 4, 7, 8, 24–27, 32–34

What is in mind is to draw attention to two expressions in these scriptures, first in Corinthians “the weakness of God”, and the other “became strong out of weakness”. This is a marvellous expression, “the weakness of God”. We would not have used it. Not one here would dare to have used that expression, but Scripture uses it, the apostle Paul uses it. He says that “the weakness of God is stronger than men”—the weakness of God. Did you ever think of that—the weakness of God? This morning most of us were at the Lord’s Supper, which is one of the great ordinances of christianity. Without it true christianity would not exist in this world and the Lord’s Supper has been maintained through the dispensation since the Lord Jesus instituted it. We commenced this morning with the hymn that we have just sung tonight—‘We see Thee, Lord of glory’, a hymn that was written by Mr. Darby at the beginning of the last century, and we could not but be impressed by these lines—

We gaze upon Thy weakness—
The manger and the cross.

What we are going to speak about is Jesus. ‘We gaze upon Thy weakness’, Thy weakness. Think of that expression. It tells us the way that love has operated in Jesus, the way that God has operated in a Man, in one Man, where every other man had failed. From Adam right down the dispensations every man that came before God proved an utter, an absolute and complete failure in God’s sight; all had sinned and come short of His glory. Every man, every woman had sinned; children born into this world had the deadly virus of sin in their moral beings. Man as a race has hopelessly and completely failed as far as God is concerned. Then one Man came upon this scene—Jesus. The gospel is about Jesus, God Himself, come into manhood. The amazing fact is that Jesus is no other than God Himself. There, Mr. Darby says—

We gaze upon Thy weakness—
The manger and the cross.

Have you ever gazed upon it? Have you ever gazed upon that manger and seen the Lord of glory coming into conditions of babyhood and childhood? What a, story is the story of the gospel! God does not only present truth to you; He does not only present the facts of the gospel. He presents the gospel to you in a way that is calculated to attract your heart, attract your mind, engage you—oh the marvel of what God has done, done in Jesus!

Now there were persons in that day, shepherds, out in the hills around Bethlehem and suddenly there comes an angel—we have had this already today—and a multitude of the heavenly host, and what are they telling of? They are telling of glad tidings, they are telling of the marvellous fact that there are glad tidings for men—“for today a Saviour has been born to you in David’s city, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2: 11). A Saviour—that is what men need. Every man needs a Saviour, I need a Saviour, you need a Saviour, and Jesus is the Saviour. There we gaze upon His weakness—not moral weakness, never! ‘We gaze upon Thy weakness’—it is the way that He came, in weakness—a Babe in Bethlehem’s manger, a Man upon a cross—what an expression of weakness.

That is the way God has come, that is what He has done, that is the way He has done it, this is the way He has chosen to do it to bring to an end all man’s pride, all man’s intelligence, and all man’s power and his mighty thoughts of himself. That is what the race of man is like, that is what you and I are like, lifted up with high thoughts of ourselves. Satan has impregnated the human race with thoughts of man’s own greatness “ye will be as God” (Genesis 3: 5), he said in the garden. Man loves to exalt himself. Yet this is the way God in Jesus came, came in the manger, came upon the cross, to bring to an end all man’s pride and all man’s haughtiness.

Why should it be the cross? Would every one of us here accept it as a fact that we deserve nothing else than the death of the cross, the death of a malefactor? The cross was the end of a man’s life as having failed in responsibility. He was put on a cross—that is what they did in those days—it is the death of hanging, it is the death of a malefactor, and that is the death that we deserved. I do not know whether we would all be prepared to admit that that is what we deserve. I think that every man finds it very difficult to admit that he deserves the death of the cross, but that is the truth of it. You and I will not come into blessing unless we accept it that Jesus took our place there. He died vicariously upon the cross—that is to say, not for Himself—He deserved nothing but glory, but instead of glory, He went out of this scene by the way of a malefactor’s death.

So God has just made foolish the thoughts of men. Men would build up something in this scene. The great idea that is inherent in man’s heart is that you can always improve things, that man has got something in him, that you and I have got something in us, and if this something is given encouragement and put in suitable conditions, and so forth, something better will result. One generation will go and another generation come and things will gradually get better. You know quite well that the facts of history do not support this theory, it is certainly not the truth of God, but the lie of the enemy of our souls. Man is going from bad to worse.

One day God is going to clear the whole scene in judgment, but He is presenting Christ lifted up upon the cross as the only answer to man’s need and the answer to God’s righteousness. A marvellous expression that—“the weakness of God”. I trust that every one of us will carry it away with us and ponder it and think of it—“the weakness of God”.

Now I want to speak about Hebrews because of these men we have read about there, and I want to link this on with the expression in that chapter, “became strong out of weakness”. This chapter speaks of persons like ourselves. They are picked out in the history of mankind, one person after another person after another, and what marks these men is faith—faith in God. Faith in God in the soul is the answer from our side to the way God presents things to us in Christ. Faith is an answer. God presents the truth to us and faith in the soul lays hold upon what God says. It does not lay hold on what is in man; it turns away from man, and lays hold upon God and what God says as to Christ. That is what comes out in these men in type, and that is how this strength out of weakness is going to come about in you and me, in your history and my history.

Much is in this passage, and I can only touch it lightly, but we have before us Abel, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, four outstanding personalities in the line of faith. The line of faith is a wonderful thing. I wonder if everyone of us is in it or desires to be in it. See the glimmerings of light from God coming in in regard to Adam in the coats of skin in the garden, and then Abel presents to God an offering which speaks of Christ. This man came to it in his soul, right back in the earliest days of the history of the human race, that there is no acceptance with God in his own strength, or in his goodness. There is another man beside him, Cain, who approached God with his own productions, presenting something to God that he had produced. That is what everyone of us tries to do, to come before God with something of ourselves, something of our goodness, of our works, of our piety, of our righteousness. There is no acceptance with God on any other ground but on the ground of the death of Jesus. Abel presented to God an offering more acceptable than Cain.

Have you ever approached God? I ask everyone here. Has there ever been a moment in your soul’s history when you drew near to God? In your own bedroom, with the door shut, and on your knees, have you had to do with God? Have we all done that? Have the young people here done that? Do you know what it is to approach God? God in heaven, I upon earth, all the smallness and puniness of man—you say, How can I approach God? Every man on earth can approach God in the acceptability of Jesus that blessed sacrifice at the cross we have been speaking about, the acceptability to God of the sacrifice of Jesus. He will accept any one on that ground. He will never refuse a soul of man that approaches Him upon the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus. God will refuse no one on that ground. So Abel comes to God and he gets a sense of being accepted by God. Wonderful experience to feel and know in your soul that God accepts you, not because of what you are, but what Christ is!

I can only touch on these men. We could speak all night about the histories of these persons, the great line of faith. I just want to touch on some features of it. What comes in as to Abel is acceptance on the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus, and then Noah represents men in a scene that is marked by impending judgment. I trust we all know that this world is shortly coming under judgment. The word of God tells us that this world in which we are, and mankind of which we form part, are assuredly coming under God’s hand in devastating judgment. This part of the earth in which we are—this European part of the earth—is coming under judgment in an outstanding manner because of the refusal of the gospel. It has been spread abroad here and men have refused it, have turned to atheism, to Christian Science, to Jehovah’s Witnesses, turned to anything, anything but God.

God is patient. He is marvellously patient. We are living in the day of His patience, but there is a day coming when the gospel will no longer be preached. In this hall here in Cullen one day there will be no gospel. I trust that we will take warning from these things. Noah represents a Man who in faith took warning—warned of God, he “prepared an ark for the saving of his house”. You cannot prepare an ark; I cannot prepare an ark; God has prepared the ark. It is really Christ again, that vessel was a type of Christ in His capacity to provide salvation from the judgment for every soul of man. There is room in Christ for every one.

That is the gospel. Men did not accept it in that day: It says in the New Testament, “Into which few, that is, eight souls; were saved through water” (1 Peter 3: 20). You think of a world coming under devastating judgment and eight souls being saved—“few, that is, eight”.

Well, the invitation is to come—not a soul needs to be lost. Come and participate, come and secure this salvation. Know it in faith for yourself that when the judgment falls it will not fall upon you. It fell upon Christ, the spotless Victim, blessed Man who took man’s place upon the cross, bore God’s judgment and exhausted it. That does not alter the fact that God is going to hold men in the world responsible. The day of judgment is surely going to come. Noah took warning—that is faith—“found strength in faith”—“became strong out of weakness”—laid hold upon God’s word in faith and escaped the judgment.

There is more than that in it, of course, I am going to speak of Abraham for a moment—“By faith Abraham, being called, obeyed to go out into the place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and went out, not knowing where he was going”. Wonderful that God should intervene in a man’s life in Mesopotamia. How God appeared to him we do not exactly know, but God did appear to him and called him to leave his house—his father’s house—to leave his country, to leave everything and come out to a place that God would show him.

This is the gospel as well. This is the heavenly gospel. God is proposing to persons like us that we leave all that side of things, what belongs to us naturally, family, associates, all that kind of thing, and as we hear His voice and as we obey He will bring us into a sphere of things where the enjoyment may be secured now of what is actually to be known in heaven.

This is the heavenly gospel—men like ourselves being called out of the world and called out in faithfulness to Christ to have a part now, even now, in heavenly things. I wish I could present this! I wish I could attract somebody here out of this world and its religious connections and all that marks it—the word is that he “obeyed to go out”. This would need faith. This path needs faith—“became strong out of weakness”. How do you feel as God makes this proposal to you?—Weak indeed? They “became strong out of weakness”.

A call like this went out at the beginning of the last century. Persons were called out of this world. A hymn in this hymnbook speaks of it. Mr. Darby there speaks about that heavenly voice coming to him, not just a voice that in grace won his heart earlier, but a voice that attracted him out of the world, attracted him to Christ’s world. I wonder if there is a heart here that could be attracted out of this world to this heavenly line of things. Christ is in heaven. He has been here upon this scene as a Man. He did not come here to improve this world; He did not come for that purpose. He did not come to make things better. Christianity was never intended to make this world a better place for men to live in. Christ died, rejected and refused of men, and that is still true today.

Then the Spirit of God came from an exalted Christ. This is part of the gospel, not only that Christ came but that the Holy Spirit has come and having come He has formed souls in this scene into the assembly, baptised by one Spirit into one body, so that Christ’s body is upon earth. It is not in heaven. Christ is in heaven, but His body is here. This is part of the great wonder of God’s operations, the great mystery of them. Man cannot understand it, but souls that have been enlightened and souls that have been awakened and have heard that heavenly voice will not be content until they have found something here on this earth that answers to Christ in heaven—a place where there is inheritance. This scripture speaks about what Abraham should receive for an inheritance. This God is prepared to give to everyone who in faith answers to the call, comes out in answer to the heavenly gospel, and answers to Christ now in the time of His absence when He is refused.

Now, just to complete the scriptures, I would speak of Moses. It says in this chapter that time would fail. There is so much to speak of in this great line of faith. Moses is spoken of as refusing and choosing. We need definiteness like this to refuse the world which caters for our lusts and even for the most refined tastes—the world that crucified Christ outside the gate. We need definiteness in choosing to cast in our lot, as Moses did, with a despised and afflicted people—but nevertheless the people of God—to leave Egypt, as he did, and to have strength to persevere “as seeing him who is invisible”.

May the Lord grant that we may all be affected by the way God has moved on man’s behalf—“the weakness of God” and be moved to respond in faith and become “strong out of weakness”

Preaching at Cullen
13 May 1973

 

Published by F. C. Mutton, 22 Christchurch Road, Ilford, Essex IG1 4QY, England Printed by High Speed Printing Limited, 43 Conduit Street, London, W1S 2YJ