Father, we want to praise you for this day. We thank you for the rain which has watered the earth. We thank you that you are so kind and gracious that you send your rain and your sun both on those who are redeemed by you and justified but also on the unbeliever. Our Father, we pray that we may learn to have that same perfection of character that you have. We may have the same compassion. For those who are outside your kingdom, as we think together about Francis Schaeffer, we thank you Father for the compassion you gave him and for his readiness to be constantly thinking about how to reach out to the unbeliever. We pray Father that we may like him reflect that longing of you to extend your kingdom to bring people to yourself. So be with us Father and teach us we pray in Jesus name. Amen. We have been, we are going through basic Bible studies and we were in the second section looking at some of the things that Schaeffer says about human persons. We got, I think through point number one, where we were discussing the uniqueness of human beings as persons made in the image of God and what that meant.
A second point I want to mention just briefly here is Schaeffer's emphasis on the goodness of life before the fall, the goodness of life before the fall. Schaeffer commenting on Genesis 3 verse 8 says, man is shown here to be in perfect harmony with God so that man and God could walk together in the cool of the day. Being in harmony with God, man was also in full harmony with his wife, with nature, and with himself. There was no place for divided personality or schizophrenia and man as he was originally made. So an emphasis on the goodness of life before the fall and he repeats this in a comment on Genesis 2, 16 and 17 that God or that man had constant fellowship with God and that he was surrounded by a perfect environment. You may ask why I am emphasizing this. I think the point here is and I'll move on to the second part of this in a little while, but he's trying to constantly get across to people that the Bible isn't operating in some area of religious truth, but that it really is describing what to place in the world. In history, what life was actually like before the fall, it's so easy for a modern person to simply read the Bible as a kind of collection of legends and fairy stories. And Schaeffer was constantly aware of that, but when you're commenting on any part of Scripture, when you're preaching on any part of Scripture, if you're going to communicate to 20th century people, you need to emphasize, in any way you can that we're talking about truth here, we're talking about reality here, not about some religious thing in some separate area. Because that's how our whole culture is taught to read the Bible and particularly the early parts of the Bible, particularly the book of Genesis. So he is stressing that at a point in the past, there truly was a situation which Schin had not entered that human beings, men and women were living in perfect harmony with God, with themselves, with each other, with the environment in which they lived. That brings us to the next point, point number three, his stress on the present abnormality of life on page 21. This is in the American edition, he writes, they lost communion with God, and were put out of the garden, he's commenting on Genesis 3.24, both the body and the soul felt the effects of sin. And then commenting on Genesis 3, 17 and 18, the external universe is now abnormal, it is not as God made it, it was changed because of man's sin. All that was under man's dominion was affected, he's brought out several points there in thinking about abnormality. Now you may ask, why doesn't he simply use a word like the fall, like fall, or just like sin, or whatever. Again, he was constantly trying to find ways to express what the Scripture is teaching so that it will communicate both to the non-Christian who's completely unfamiliar with biblical terminology. And also to the person who is familiar with the Bible, who's so familiar with biblical terminology that they no longer understand what is being said. Now I would say that for all of you, again in all of your preaching, in all of your teaching, you need to be constantly thinking about different words to use, which actually get through that problem. First, the problem with the unbeliever that they're now completely unfamiliar with our language, so we understand we're living in a culture which doesn't understand biblical language anymore. But secondly, for people in the church too, who are so familiar with the language they no longer hear it, you can think of the way Jesus is constantly quoting that passage from Isaiah, they have ears and they don't hear, they have eyes and they don't see. He's talking about the hardness of people's hearts, and that's one of the problems we face. We are so familiar in our churches with biblical language, it doesn't touch us any longer. And in all of our communication, we need to try to break through that. CS Lewis says in the introduction to the line in the witch in the wardrobe that that's what he was trying to do. He actually says that, that people are so accustomed to hearing the message of Scripture, they no longer hear it at all, so he told his story of the lion and the witch and the wardrobe to present the gospel of Christ in a very different way to break through that barrier of familiarity and the contempt which comes from familiarity. It may not be a purposeful contempt, sometimes it is, but it is a contempt nonetheless, even if it's not purposeful. So he speaks about the abnormality of the universe. We are now living in a fallen world and an abnormal world that there is nothing his point is as we look around ourselves which is the way God originally created it, but everything in our existence is now set or rye. Schaefer would later come to call this the five pointed curse. The five pointed curse, there's a sermon of his up there in the Schaefer Institute on that subject and he also writes a length about it in his book Genesis in space and time. What did he mean by the five pointed curse? Well, what he says here, first that our relationship with God is broken. They lost communion with God. Secondly, that we ourselves have become abnormal both physically and spiritually. He says the body in the soul felt the effects of sin. We ourselves have become abnormal. As he said earlier before the fall, there was no divided personality or schizophrenia in matters he was originally made. There were no psychological problems, but now every human being is psychologically damaged. There isn't any person who is psychologically spiritually whole. Every person is damaged and every person's body feels the effects of sin, of the abnormality, all of us experience sickness and pain and death. We all have mortal bodies. So the first part of the curse is five pointed curses are the loss of fellowship with God, with the creator whom we're made for fellowship with him and that is broken. Secondly, that we have if you like lost communion with ourselves, nobody knows themself anymore. Our hearts are now deceitful. You can't really know who you are. Never let alone knowing anybody else. Really well, perfectly. Thirdly, our relationship with others is broken. Shafer spoke about the way Adam had harmony with his wife and that too, that harmony has gone. You see that in Genesis 3 where immediately Adam starts accusing Eve and says it was her fault. That's what sin is about, shifting blame, but it shows the brokenness of their relationship with each other and that relationship of marriage which is broken for everyone to some degree is true of every other human relationship as well. That's the third aspect of the curse of his five pointed curse. Our relationship with other people is now abnormal, is now damaged. Fourthly, our relationship with nature. As he says, man's dominion is affected. Our relationship with nature is affected. Man is no longer able to exercise dominion as he was. That's the point that he's making. Now instead of having dominion ruling over the earth under God as man and woman are commanded in Genesis 1 to rule over it, to be God's vice-regions on the earth, we're now in a situation where the earth has dominion over us. We labor in the sweat of our brow. It produces thorns and thistles to us and then it claims us and we return to the dust rather than us having dominion over the earth as dominion over us. It's the fourth aspect of the curse. And the fifth is, as he puts it, the external universe is now abnormal. The world itself is under a curse. As Paul expresses it, it groans, Romans 8, in travail, under the bondage of decay. The physical world around us is no longer as it came from the hand of God. Anyone have any questions here? So we're going to look here. For it seems between point 4 and 5. Well, point 4 is that our dominion is lost. Obviously they're connected to each other. Point 4 is our dominion is lost. We no longer are able to rule the earth as we should. And Schaeffer draws this out at much greater length in his little book, Evolution in the Death of Man. But everywhere, in fact, we see the results in the physical universe of man's loss of dominion over nature. We see it in pollution, in the destruction of the environment, in the tearing down of the rainforests, with complete disregard for the effect that's going to happen and anything else. We see it in people littering the wayside. As Schaeffer puts it in that book, our fair sister is ravaged that we ravage creation because our relationship with nature now expresses our sin. And further than that, we have lost dominion over it, even where we try to have dominion over it rightly, because of the brokenness of nature itself, which brings us to point number 5, that we cannot exercise dominion over it. You try to be a farmer. I'm not a farmer. My father knows a farmer. I'm a gardener. That is what I love to do to grow things, but you're constantly wrestling with weather problems, with pest problems, with weed problems, with fungus problems. You have all kinds of problems, quite apart from children throwing their balls in your garden, or running over it, or whatever, or rabbits eating your tomatoes, or whatever it happens to be. Now, you have so many problems to face. Now, that loss of dominion as Schaeffer expresses it, it says, all that was under man's dominion was affected. Now, it's obvious we, Genesis uses the situation of Adam's control over nature, that when he tried to grow crops, it would take every effort. In the sweat of his brow, work was no longer something simply pleasant, not simply an exercise as dominion now, but now it's something which is back breaking and soul breaking for many people, and it is for many people in the world. It is back breaking and soul breaking. You go to the third world, and you see, well, there are plenty of places in this country you can go, and you can see the effects of overwork and boring work and soul destructive work on human beings. Man's dominion is affected, and nobody ever has a perfect work situation any longer. Nobody does. It is impossible for us to create Utopia because the creation itself is under a curse. Utopia cannot be created. There is no longer perfect harmony anywhere in this world. Now, again, these are very powerful points to make in any kind of apologetic presentation of the Christian message. See, the point he's getting at is this. Well, there are all sorts of points which can be drawn out of this in terms of presenting the Christian message to the unbeliever. One is simply that the biblical account of reality really is the way things are. We don't have some pie in the sky view of the way reality is. When the Scripture describes, as it does in Genesis and everywhere else, our life has abnormal. That is what people actually experience. People often think of Christians as having some kind of naive and romantic and sentimental of reality. We don't at all. We ought to have a far more realistic view of the effects of human sin than anybody else if we read the Bible faithfully. And that's really the point he's trying to make here. The Bible really tells us the way things are. It calls a spade a spade to use an English expression. I don't know if that's an American expression too. You call a spade a spade. You really tell it the way it is so that the unbeliever, as he reads through these studies and goes through him, he says, yes, this is describing the world as actually is. Genesis is not a legend. It's not a fairy story. It's telling us about something that happened in history to change the world. And now the world as we see it is this way. But the second thing that it tells you, the first thing then is to start speaking in this way using slightly different language. The one might normally use helps people to see that we are talking about reality. So that's the first thing. This biblical account actually fits reality. The second is that the biblical account of the fall describing a situation where there was perfect harmony in our relationship with God in our own psyche in our relationship with one another in our relationship with nature and in nature itself. And then the damage that sin does to that bringing abnormality into all these five areas that that gives us an answer to the problem of evil. The people can understand from the Bible why the world is the way it is. And of course one of the points that Schaeffer is making here implicitly which he'll bring out at much greater length in other places is that God is not responsible for the brokenness of the world. The world isn't the way God created it. Human beings aren't the way God created them. Everything now is abnormal. Everything is distorted by sin. So don't blame God for the way things are. It's human sin which has made things the way they are. This is the effects of sin as he expresses it here. So in stressing this he's making several points which have tremendous value in communicating the Christian message to the unbeliever. It's a very important point. I hardly ever hear Christians talking about the abnormality of the world. And if we don't talk about the abnormality of the world we have absolutely no answer to give to people who have problems with suffering and evil.
What we end up saying is well really it's okay. Somebody comes to us and they've got somebody dying of cancer and we say well this is really fine. God will take care of it. Everything is going to work out well in the end or some superficial answer like that which simply doesn't meet the person's needs and isn't true and is not faithful to Scripture.
Unless we understand the reality of the four and that's the point he's getting at here we have nothing to say to the person who is suffering. You know Scripture forbids us to heal people's wounds lightly or and it also forbids us to heal people's wounds lightly that is to try to just soothe them with immolient words which pretend that really things aren't as bad as they are. One of the wonderful things about Scripture is it takes the brokenness of our situation really seriously. It says yes that is the way it is that's why it tells you to weep with those who weep not to heal their wounds lightly. Just go and weep with them. Jesus is described as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief and that's the way every Christian ought to be. A person of sorrows acquainted with grief who really takes people's suffering to heart that we understand that they are going through experiences which are abnormal, which are not the way God created them to be, that their reality and their experience of reality is a broken one. But our call is to weep with them and have compassion on them rather than healing their wounds lightly. And the second thing it tells us as well is that we don't have a superficial answer to the problem of suffering like Job's comforters and the Pharisees who just said well it's your own fault. It's because you're sinful that's why these dreadful things have happened to you. As if there was a direct equation here and now between people's behavior and what happens to them. And Scripture makes it very plain that that is not so. But that is a superficial answer there is not a balancing of the books in this life, not a perfect one. That's one of the themes of the book of Ecclesiastes. But the same thing happens to the good man and the evil man, the wise man and the fool. The drunkard and the sober. Of course there's an element of the judgment of God in the present. But things aren't perfectly straight here and that's why the book of Ecclesiastes finishes by saying the answer to this problem is there is a judgment of God in the end which is actually going to set it all straight where there really is a balance in the end. Where it is it really dealt with because God sees everything and pronounces his judgment. So this has tremendously important points and I passionately believe and I think Schaeffer is absolutely right here to stress this that the fall is one of the most neglected Christian doctrines. Even by those who believe firmly that Genesis is literal history, in England what often happens is that many evangelical Christians are so frightened of being thought foolish by believing in Genesis one to three as actual history that they never talk about creation in the fall for fear of what unbelievers will think of them. And so most of the people from England who ever came to stay at the English branch of the tree had never heard anybody talking about the fall or saying that the universe was abnormal it was a completely new idea to them. I mean really a radically new idea. Now if that is so you really do end up with superficial answers to the problem of evil and I would say even worse you end up really making God the author of sin. If you don't recognize a historical fall what you're really communicating is that the world as it is is the way God made it. The God is directly responsible for all the appalling things that happen including human sinfulness which of course is the very opposite of what Scripture teaches. God is not tempted with evil and he does not tempt with evils as James. Now you can only say that if you're living in a world which is not the way God created it which has been destroyed by human sin, by our rebellion against God. But that's the one problem you know there in England be in a situation where hardly any Christians would talk about the historicity of Genesis. In fact this is describing the world as it truly is as a broken and damaged and abnormal world but it gives you such wonderful answers when you start speaking that way. But also even Christians who do believe in Genesis literally don't talk about the abnormality of the world and don't have answers to the problems that people struggle with. Schaefer used to make the point over and over again in thinking about this in looking at this of Jesus response to the death of Lazarus. When Jesus came to Lazarus sisters and to the grave of Lazarus Schaefer made the point Christ weeps with sorrow and he's angry. The Greek words that use there are very strong he's snorted in anger and distress. I mean that's what it actually says. And the point Schaefer makes is simply this. Jesus is God he's the creator of the universe the creator of the human race but he is angry and he has filled with sadness when he is faced with death with the abnormalities caused by the fall. He is not the one who made human beings to die he made them to live he is filled with compassion when he sees people in their suffering because their life is now distorted broken abnormal whatever expression you want to use. And Schaefer used to relate that over and over again to Albert Camus story that passed the plague where the struggle one of the struggles in that story is in this city where there is a plague and the people are being killed by it. How can you fight against the plague if the world as it is came from the hand of God you can't fight against it without fighting against God. And how can you fight against God but Scripture Genesis 3 makes it plain God is not responsible for the plague he's not the author of the plague. It's the sinfulness of human beings there a bellion against God which has brought this brokenness into being. And therefore and Schaefer would draw the conclusion I heard him I say this I don't know how many times in discussions. Therefore the Christian can be a doctor the Christian can be a nurse the Christian can have sorrow real compassion for the person who is suffering without thinking they're fighting against God for a moment. But we are citing with God who hates evil who has come into the world in Christ to deliver us from evil to deliver us from the abnormality of our situation. This is a very important point we're talking about here any questions sorry I'm getting carried away here preaching at you instead of having a class here. That's a very good question I should try and repeat that yes okay we've been talking about the abnormality of suffering suffering being the consequence of the Paul how does that relate to the positive things that Paul says about suffering well it relates in several ways and let me try and suggest some answers to that. Let's take an illustration if we think the most central possible illustration that is the death of Christ okay we may look at the death of Christ in several different ways first of all you may say this is the most appalling event in the history of the world. And scripture presents that way but here a man who is perfectly righteous and not just a man the son of God is put to death at the hands of sinful wicked men that it is brought about by among other things the activity of Satan himself whose intention is totally evil. He enters Judas so the Judas will betray Christ he is trying to destroy the Messiah and what Judas does is seen by scripture as absolutely wicked he is called the son of perdition of damnation because of what he does he knows who Christ is he hasn't have any data about it and yet he sells him he betrays him for money. It is presented then as a dreadful thing as the result of the working the purposes of Satan in the world Paul expresses it in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 8 by saying that the rulers of this world by which he means both Satan as the ultimate wicked ruler of this world and the human rulers sinful human rulers of this world pilot Caiaphas anus herod. I've conspired together to crucify the Lord of glory now we may look at it from another perspective and say God uses that wicked event to bring about our salvation God's purposes are good what happens is an expression of his love to us he is able to take the choices and actions of the wicked even if Satan himself. And because their wisdom isn't as great as his he uses them to bring about our redemption and that's what Paul says there in Corinthians he says if they had understood the secret wisdom of God decreed before the ages for our salvation they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory but they didn't understand the secret wisdom of God decreed before the ages for our salvation. So God is able to take events which the wicked intend for evil and which really are evil and which bring their judgment before God like Judas and he is able to use them for our salvation he's able to use them for good. Now the same thing can happen in your and my personal life we may think of for example Paul's thought in the flesh Paul calls it a messenger of Satan which has been sent to Harrison now whether it was a physical disability some kind of sickness or whether it was a temptation a setting sin that he was struggling with or whatever it is we don't know because he doesn't tell us enough about it's there's no point in speculating. But whatever it was that he was struggling with I used to think that it couldn't possibly be a physical problem how could Paul describe a physical problem so seriously it must be some spiritual struggle that he's having until I got really all myself for a couple of years and I thought well I understand perfectly well this could have been a physical problem. I have a very dear friend of mine in England the moment who is struggling with what my wife did several years ago when she had severe back problems and was on her back for six months and was in constant pain and she would sometimes often wish she was just dead when you're in pain all the time you just want to die I have a very dear friend in England I just got a letter from him the other day or about in the other day where she said his quality of life is zero he's got back problems he's been on his back for months and months. He's an acute pain all the time now when you have those kind of physical problems you know that they are sufficient to be a thorn in the flesh from Satan which can destroy you which can tear you apart so don't ever be naive about the seriousness of physical problems and try to pretend they aren't as you know that's you know they're not the real problem well they may very well be. But if you think about Paul's thorn in the flesh which he longs to be delivered from because his is indeed part of the abnormality which is brought about by the fall the power that Satan has in this world and the brokenness of our bodies and minds Paul says he prayed that God would deliver him from it and God didn't why because God knew Paul's heart. That Paul, like the rest of us, has his fundamental problem pride that is our fundamental problem as human beings it's Adam and Eve's rebellion against God is a rebellion of pride of exalting themselves against the creator of a Satan's problem pride and Paul acknowledges that he's had these wonderful revelations some God and he says God didn't take this away to prevent him becoming puffed up by the surpassingly great revelations that God had shown him so that Paul was able through that suffering to learn the lesson that God's power is made perfect in his weakness and that God's grace was for sufficient for him no matter what he had to endure as he struggled with his thorn in the flesh. Now what our calling is to try to do as we as we experience suffering of one kind and another it seems to me we always pray for two things one is to be delivered from temptation to be delivered from the physical suffering that we face or at least to have it eased and scripture encourages us to pray for that because these are parts of the brokenness of reality and we long for to be delivered from them that's the first thing it encourages us to do the second though is to encourage us to pray that because God has our good at heart in his design for us but we can trust him no matter what we have to endure to bring about the glory of his kingdom and the honor of his name even if he doesn't deliver us from the situation. So we always pray both for deliverance in the situation but also for deliverance in the other sense of praying that we may learn to say that God's grace is sufficient for us you know there some things so that is why the New Testament is able to say whether Paul or James that the trials we go through test our faith and that testing produces endurance and that endurance produces strength of character and hope. I would say another thing that it does it enables us to be able to to really be a comfort to other people who are suffering the Christian past or teacher who's got naive ideas about suffering has almost nothing to say to people who really struggle and that's why Hebrews emphasizes so strongly that point have have have Jesus is able to be a high priest to us because he has been tempted in every way like we have and he has suffered in ways even beyond our imagining.
And he really sympathizes with us like us he learns obedience he learned obedience through what he suffered that's how he brings expresses it and we know he really understands what we're struggling with. So he doesn't review us now Jesus was so gentle with people who suffered people he was harsh with people like Pharisees who's very gentle with people who suffered we're often just the other way around. We bruise the broken read where he didn't we say put your act together what do you think you're doing full of self pity lying there in your in your misery you know exercise some significance be responsible put your life back together you know see Jesus speaking that way to people there are some people who are really broken people. And when you look at those descriptions of the Messiah there in in the latter part of Isaiah yes it's Isaiah is it 49 or 50 I don't remember which chapter exactly but where he speaks about the servant the Messiah as one who doesn't bruise the broken read or quench the smoking flex he's a person who is really gentle with people in their brokenness and we have to really learn to be that way too. And as we go through things which which really are painful we learn to have a gentle spirit towards others rather than hardness and arrogance and so there are many things that we may learn as we struggle with suffering in our own lives. But we must never turn from that turn that round a little bit and say actually evil is good. Normus we ever say that evil comes some God's hand God is not the author of evil and we must never declare you will to be good. And encourage you to read CS Lewis's book out of the silent planet it's the second one in his trilogy space trilogy or Parallandra maybe what's the American edition called is it out of the silent planet or I mean not I mean the second that's the first one the second one is voyage to Venus or Parallandra what's the American edition called Parallandra at the English editions usually called voyage to Venus. But if you read that second one voyage to Venus or Parallandra he deals with this issue because the devil in the story tries to suggest that evil is good and that the fall is fortunate the fall is a good thing that he should be praised to bringing about the fall because of what God was able to do through it and sending his son into the world that this evil is really good because it brought forth greater good. Now Christians often speak that way would don't speak that way scripture doesn't speak that way evil is evil and I've spoken about how we pray for deliverance and secondly how we learn to grow in our trust of God and in our capacity to be a help to others through suffering but the third thing is that scripture holds out before us and that is the hope that we have the one day we will be delivered completely from this suffering that every tear will be wiped away see the whole goal of the work of Christ is to overcome the abnormality of this world to overcome every aspect of this five-pointed curse that Schaefer speaks of that to restore us to fellowship with God, to make us whole psychologically and physically so that our bodies will be raised from the dead and there won't any longer be any deceit and brokenness and shame in our hearts but rather integrity and wholeness to restore us to our perfect relationships with one another so there will be no longer brokenness and disarmony in any of our relationships in our family with our friends with anyone to restore our relationship with our environment so we will again have dominion over nature and to restore creation itself so there will be a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells where the curse is completely removed it's because evil is evil it really is evil and we must never call it anything else and we will not pretend it's all right that we are able to look forward with such hope and such expectation and such joy to the transformation of everything to deliverance from it I mean that's why the scripture uses words like redemption, salvation, restoration, regeneration, renewal why? because the old what is now is abnormal it's bad and God hates it so don't ever look at somebody suffering from cancer and say well this is a good thing now it isn't a good thing it's a horrible thing and until you learn to see it as a horrible thing you won't really help people who are dealing with it now it's a good question a question is is every bad thing that happens to us? does every bad thing that happen have a purpose or a meaning? is it naive to think that way? no it isn't but it's important to understand what we mean when we say that Paul says very clearly that God works all things together for our good all things you know that the very hairs of our head are numbered that there is nothing that comes to us that is outside of the sovereign control of God and it's wonderful to be able to say that it gives me complete confidence with which to take the future face the future I'm not going to face something which God is not aware of which God doesn't have his hand over which God isn't strong enough to help me through with every time every single temptation that we will face God provides a way of escape now he doesn't send the temptations and Scripture says that very plainly so we've got to ask what do we mean when we say purpose and I think this is part of the problem do we say that God is sitting there kind of designing nasty things for us with the purpose that I will grow through through this? well Scripture doesn't speak that way God is not the author of evil he's not the one who's bought let's say cancer into the world or the chemist or traffic accidents or the breakdown of insurance companies or whatever else we can think of all of disasters that we face or job losses let's say that the shutdown of the Chrysler plant here in St. Louis so all these families without means of income I mean God doesn't bring those into the world they are all the results of human sin and its consequences as they work themselves out in the individual's life and in society and in human history as a whole and in the brokenness of our created reality now and in the rule of Satan but having said that we know that God is the ultimate sovereign and Lord and Satan brings nothing into our lives sin brings nothing into our lives which God is outside of or out of control on and he does have a purpose for everything that comes our way so that we may grow in fellowship with him no it's not automatic it isn't automatic there is nothing automatic you won't necessarily grow as you struggle with the flu let's say or longing for employment or a better place to live or whatever it happens to be you don't automatically grow we grow as we learn to trust God and as we learn to look to him for strength for help in our weakness and in our times of need but the resolution isn't something to praise God for everything that happens if you've probably seen Merlin Carruth's book some prison to praise and power in praise well he has it as a kind of formula and there was a whole movement like that for a while you praise God for everything that happens so your child gets drunk or somebody gets cancer you praise God well that's not what scripture says I have to learn to praise God in every situation I face because he is always greater than the difficult circumstances that come my way and he's always able to help me grow as I learn to trust him and that's why Paul is able to say therefore I'll all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses and I will even glory in all these difficult things that happen to me because God's power is made perfect in my weakness because our fundamental problem is trusting in ourselves and Paul says well I'm going to boast then about the things which have taught me to really trust God and to see that it's his power that can transform other people and me and extend his kingdom and not mine but that's not the same as saying these things good after all let's turn them around the other way and pretend they're really all right it's a very different thing and so there's a very careful line that we mustn't go over there otherwise we're going to be unfaithful to scripture