2 Corinthians 7:5-7
The God Who Comforts the Downcast
Derek Thomas

Now, turn with me to II Corinthians chapter 7, and our text is verses 5, 6, and 7. Picking it up at verse 5:

"For when we came into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest. But we were afflicted on every side, conflicts without, fears within. But God, who comforts the depressed or downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. And not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you. As he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced even more."

Amen. May God bless to us the reading of His holy and inerrant word. Now let us come before God in prayer. Let us pray.

I’ve been pondering over the last few weeks, and especially days, as to what exactly to do this morning. What passage of Scripture, where do I go? Old, New Testament, history book, poetry book, travel, narrative? Where do I go? And I thought I might ask you to raise your hands and say how many of you, how many of you need a word of encouragement? I’m pretty certain that the vast majority of you do. Life is hard, difficult, stressful, and Christian lives are often hard and difficult, and stressful. And in our text this morning, we uncover a particular word of the apostle Paul that ministers to the downcast and to the despondent.

Now, if you’re not downcast and despondent and you haven’t a notion of what I’m talking about this morning, then pray for the person next to you. While I envy you, you can pray for the person next to you because God in His word meets us this morning at the very point of our need.

There was a famous southern Baptist preacher. I’ve never met this man. He’s known to many of you, I’m sure—Vance Havner. Somebody in the early service was telling me a little about him, and heard him preach on many an occasion up in Greenville. Vance Havner has written many books, and some of them I’ve been reading of late. They’re a bit like, I suppose, A. W. Tozer’s books and writings, full of aphorisms and wisdom, and wonderful observations about the nature of the Christian life. One of his observations goes like this: the Christian life, he says, has three levels. The first is what he calls the mountaintop. These aren’t levels that we come across very often. I think in my own Christian life—I’ve been a Christian for almost 30 years—and I think I can say with some degree of honesty and self-reflection, that I’ve had a few mountaintop experiences. Experiences of God’s presence, nearness, sometimes in a sermon that’s so gripped me, it’s as though God Himself was speaking to me. Sometimes in a moment of great need, God has been pleased to draw nigh, and you’ve almost felt the warmth of His embrace around you. But those days are few and far between—The mountaintop experiences.

The second Havner calls ordinary days—the vast majority of days. Days which we might call hum-drum, but better to call them days when nothing extraordinary happens. But we walk in God’s ways, we feed upon His words, we observe His provisions. We are conscious that we are His.

And then there are what he calls Macedonian days. And he’s referring to this text. Days like the apostle Paul in Macedonian. Days when the apostle tells us he was depressed or downcast or despondent or dispirited. Do you know what he means? Do you have any idea what the apostle Paul is thinking about here? Are you one of these people scratching your head and saying, "What in the world is Paul talking about when he says that ‘Christians can know times of discouragement and despondency?’" Probably there are very few of you thinking along those lines.

Paul is writing a second letter to the Corinthians. It’s one of the lengthiest letters in the New Testament. It seems to have been written over a span of time. It feels and reads as though he’s taken this scroll with him on his journey and added little bits of information as the time went by. What he’s doing here in chapter 7:5 is picking up on something that he said way back in chapter 2 when he had been speaking about Titus. He had been looking for Titus in Troas, but hadn’t been able to find him. And he says, because I did not find my brother Titus there, I said goodbye to them and went to Macedonia. Now he’s picking that theme up again. He said a lot of interesting things in between, none of which concern us now.

I. Christians can be discouraged. "When we came into Macedonia, this body of ours had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn - conflicts on the outside, fears within" (v.5).

Let’s pick up the thread once again in verse 5. He’s in Macedonia and he is discouraged. And Titus comes to help. I want to say three things to you this morning. Three very simple things. Three very elementary things. The first of which is this: that Christians can be discouraged. Christians can be discouraged. This is Paul speaking. This is the mature Paul speaking. This is Paul, a relatively old man. We’re not quite sure how old he is, but he is relatively mature. Let’s put it like that. And Paul is giving vent here to his emotions, he’s giving vent here to his life, and he’s saying, there are days when I am discouraged. There are days when I am downcast. There are days when I am despondent. There are days when I am restless. There are days that are surrounded by harassment. Harassment at every turn. Conflict without, fears within. Do you see what the apostle is saying? He’s saying that there’s no guarantee, just because you are a Christian, just because you know the lord, just because you are in union with Jesus Christ, just because you are justified by God’s Spirit, just because you have experienced what Paul goes on in II Corinthians to say that he has experienced the third heaven, whatever that means. That he’s had this mountaintop experience, and just because you’ve had all of that, doesn’t mean to say that there won’t be days when you are discouraged, days when you’re despondent, days when you don’t know which way to turn. And it does not mean because there are such days that you’re not a Christian.

Isn’t that an extraordinarily profound thing to say? That here is the apostle Paul, and every single one of us here this morning would reckon the apostle Paul a mature, godly, Christian man. He’s one of our heroes. In the gallery of the faithful, Paul is right up there amongst the best of them. And yet, here is Paul saying, there are days when I am discouraged, and there are days when I am despondent, and there are days when I am downcast, and there is no need to conclude because there are such days in my life, that I am not a Christian.

Let’s look a little deeper at what the apostle Paul is saying here. He says, first of all, days when the body has no rest. Our flesh has no rest. Days of sleeplessness. Days when you go to bed at night and you turn the light off, and you put your head down on the pillow, and you think, "Right. I’m about to go to sleep," and 1,000 storm troopers come into your head. Excuse the Star Wars illustration. Do you know what Paul is talking about? Days when you go to bed and you can’t sleep. Days when dawn is approaching, and you say to yourself, "Well, I might as well get up." Days when you go to bed and you rise more tired than when you went to bed. Do you know such things? And Paul is saying, Paul is saying here, our flesh, our flesh had no rest. Days when we were harassed at every turn. If he decides to evangelize, he is opposed. If he preaches on the great truths of union with Christ and the sovereignty of God, he is persecuted. If he goes into the synagogue and debates on the finer points of the Christian faith, he is harassed. If he talks to the Greek philosophers, he is harassed again. The Roman governor and the priests in the temple are harassing him. Teenagers are breaking up his meetings. They are setting their dogs at him. They were spitting in his face. Days when he is harassed at every turn. Days of conflict without and fears within. Trouble on the outside. I think he’s thinking in particular of the church in Corinth with all of its disunity and factions, and there is trouble on the outside, and there are fears within. Yes, I think Paul had days when he wondered what he was doing. Yes, I think there were days when Paul wondered what was the point of it all. Yes, I think there were days in Paul’s life when he looked at the providence of God and didn’t have an idea how to understand or explain it. Yes, I think there were days in the life of apostle Paul that he didn’t know what tomorrow might bring, and it caused him to be downcast and despondent. And Paul is saying something extraordinary. Just because you have such days, it doesn’t mean that you’re not a Christian. It doesn’t mean that you’re not a believer. It doesn’t mean that God has left you. It doesn’t mean that God has forsaken you. You can be a mighty believer like the apostle Paul, and it is perfectly possible for you to have days like that. I find that quite extraordinary.

You know, there’s a book in the bible that’s entirely given over to this very theme. The Lamentations of Jeremiah. I wonder if you’ve read the Lamentations of Jeremiah recently? It’s not bedtime reading, to be sure. We call him the weeping prophet, the wailing prophet, when Jeremiah is despondent and discouraged by all that’s going on around him. There are psalms which speak to this. Psalms 69, and 88, and 102. Psalms that sing the blues. They say things like this: "The waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths where there is no foothold. My soul is full of trouble and my life draws near to the grave. My days are like the evening shadow. I wither away like grass."

You know, Joseph Scriven’s beautiful hymn, "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grieves to bear, what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer." And the second verse of that hymn: "Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? You should never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer." It’s a beautiful hymn. It’s one of my favorite hymns. And yet, and I hesitate to criticize a hymn, there’s something sacrosanct about criticizing a favorite hymn. I understand that and I realize that. But, there’s something about those lines, "You should never be discouraged, take it to the Lord in prayer." I understand Scriven’s sentiment, and he’s right. But there’s something about those lines that could possibly indicate that Shriven is saying we should never have days of discouragement. And if that is what is he is saying—and I don’t necessarily think that is what he is saying—but if that is what he’s saying, then it’s a little trite, because the reality is that such days do exist and such days do come into the lives of even the most mature of God’s saints. And you see it, my friends, in the very life of Jesus Himself.

There is an extraordinary essay written by Benjamin Breckenridge War field called The Emotional Life of Our Savior. His—Warfield, that is—reformed credentials are impeccable, and yet, in the course of that essay, he reminds us that there were days in the emotional life of Jesus Himself when He sang the blues without ever transgressing, without ever crossing the mark, without ever sinning. There were days in his life when He sang the blues. Go to Gethsemane, go to those hours in which the realization of His messianic identity as the Suffering Servant of the Lord became more and more conscious to Him. And you remember how the gospel writers describe Him in the garden when "He sweat, as if it, were great drops of blood falling to the ground? That His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Yes, there were days even in the life of our blessed Lord and Savior when He knew what it was to be unable to interpret the divine providence of good in His human nature, yielding to it, saying "Not My will but Thy will be done." Days in which even our blessed Lord Himself knew the heaviness of spirit that can accompany such days. And all I’m saying this morning is, believers can have days like that. Believers, true believers, believers in union with Christ can have days like that.

II. God comforts the downcast. "But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us" (v.6).

    The second thing I want us to see is this: that God comforts the downcast. Look at what he says in verse six: "the God who comforts the discouraged." In 1648, a man by the name of William Bridge preached a series of 13 sermons on this passage. Those sermons are still available. You can pick them up in the bookstore, I’m sure. It’s in a book form now, Lifting Up of the Downcast by William Bridge. It’s a marvelous, marvelous book. If you’re going on vacation, get a copy of that book and take it with you. It’s a wonderful series of sermons that is guaranteed to encourage you. A Lifting up of the Downcast.

What we have in this text is the assurance that God comforts His people. God comforts His discouraged people. The God who gives our bodies no rest. The God who brings the harassment into our lives. That same God effectually ministers to His people. I think of Horatio Spafford. It’s a story that’s been told a million times. And it’s worth telling a million and one. In 1871, in the fires of Chicago, he lost all that he had. He sent his wife and four daughters across to England on a ship, the S.S. Lochern. Somewhere in mid-Atlantic the ship collided with another ship and went down. Horatio Spafford’s wife survived, got to England, telegraphed her husband with two words, "Saved alone." Saved alone. Spafford’s four daughters had been drowned at sea. He got the next ship that was going to England, and so the story goes, halfway across the Atlantic the captain of the ship stops at the very spot where his four daughters were drowned. And Spafford writes those words, "When peace like a river attendeth my way. When sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul." God comforts the downcast.

I think of Richard Cameron in the 17^th century in Scotland, of the time of the Killing Fields when simply for not being an Episcopalian, for not worshipping in accord with the liturgy of Espiscopalianism, this persecution broke out. Many, many men and women were killed, including Richard Cameron. He was imprisoned. His head and hands were severed. They were put in a bag, taken to another prison to Richard Cameron’s father, and poured out on the floor. Asked if he recognized this severed head. "Yes," he said. "I know them, I know them. They are my son’s, my own dear son’s. It is the Lord. Good is the will of the Lord who cannot wrong me or mine, but has made goodness and mercy to follow me all the days of my life." Isn’t that extraordinary? Isn’t that extraordinary that a man would say that about the severed head of his own son lying on the floor. I tell you, I tell you again, God comforts His people. God comforts His people in the midst of their sorrow.

I was reading this week, once again, part of the story of Joni Earecksen. This time it was given by her friend, Elisabeth Elliot. The two of them were at a conference speaking somewhere, and Elisabeth Elliot was telling the story of how she had gone into the motel to see Joni Earecksen early in the morning and witnessed something that she described as extraordinary. She witnessed how long it took Joni to get out of bed in the morning. She had two ladies with her, attendants. It took two hours to get her ready. You all know the story of Joni, of course. As an 18 or 19 year-old girl diving off a cliff into the sea, and hitting the floor of the sea, and now she’s a quadriplegic. God has used her in an extraordinary way to minister to so many Christians. And Elisabeth Elliot made some remark to Joni, and Joni said in reply, "Do you know what I call my accident?" That glorious intrusion is what she calls it. "That glorious intrusion. I count it the best thing that ever happened to me." Isn’t that extraordinary? Isn’t that extraordinary? I tell you again, my friends, God comforts the downcast. God comforts the despondent. God comforts the dispirited.

III. God comforts through the ministry of other Christians. "But God ... comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming but also by the comfort you had given him. He told us about your longing for me, your deep sorrow, your ardent concern for me, so that my joy was greater than ever" (vv. 6&7).

    But there’s a third thing that I want us to see this morning. Not only that Christians may know such days as this, and not only that God comforts Christians in days like this, but, thirdly, that God comforts through the ministry of other Christians. He comforts through the ministry of other Christians. Now, there’s a certain specificity about our text that we need to root now in what Paul is saying with regard to Corinth and with regard to this man Titus. He had been eager to meet up with Titus in Troas. He had failed to do so, and now that he has come into Macedonia, he has met with Titus again. I don’t know what Titus did. I don’t know what kind of man Titus was, but his very presence encouraged the apostle Paul. He says in verse six, "God comforted us by the coming of Titus—his very coming." I don’t know what Titus did. Did he offer to make Paul his supper every night? Did he come to the apostle and say, "Now, look. You get on with the things that you need to do and I’ll do all the shopping. I’ll wash your clothes. I’ll do all the work that needs to be done so that you can get on with doing what you need to do." Is that what he did? I have no idea. Would it simply be the charisma of his presence? Perhaps. There are such people. People you haven’t met in several years, and as soon as you meet them you just pick up where you left off. Their smile, their words, their encouragement, their demeanor, their personality. Maybe Titus was a person just like that, and his very presence was an encouragement to the apostle Paul. There are some folk in here, your very presence, your demeanor is an encouragement in and of itself.

But not only Titus’ presence, but notice in verse seven, not only by his coming, but also by "the comfort with which he was comforted in you," that is the Corinthians, "as he reported to us" three things: "your longing, your mourning, and your zeal for me." Now, there’s something specific about that. Needn’t detain us too long, but the point is that Paul had written, first of all, a stinging letter. You wouldn’t want this letter. God in His providence hasn’t kept this letter, or at least so most of us think. It may be lodged somewhere in the middle of one of the Corinthian epistles, but I don’t think so. It’s probably been lost. It was a stinging letter of rebuke from the apostle Paul. It was hard, and the Corinthians needed it. And then Paul had written a long letter, First Corinthians, and no doubt part of Paul’s pain and angst was the concern that maybe the Corinthians would never speak to him again. Maybe the concern that the apostle Paul would never be able to minister in Corinth ever again, and what a word of encouragement now that Titus brings—that the Corinthians actually long to see the apostle again. And not only that, but they’ve also mourned—I think it means to repent—they’ve turned from their errors and their sin, and their zeal for the apostle. Maybe now they were eager to send to Paul’s needs, the church of Corinth. All of that is very specific.

If we were preaching a series of sermons on Second Corinthians, perhaps it would be of value to go down all of those little alleys and little byways and see some of the nuances of what that might mean in relation to the Corinthian church. But forgive me if I don’t go down all of those rows. I just want to pick up one strand and one thought only—that God ministers comfort through the encouragement of other Christians. God can bless our words of encouragement to another Christian. It may be just a word. It may be just a phrase. It may be just a sentence. It may be a little note. I’ve told my students at the seminary they should always keep a blue file for days when they’re feeling blue. And in that blue file you put in all the little notes that people have sent you encouraging you, thanking you, saying God has used you, sinner that you are. God has used you to minister to someone else, to help someone in their time of need, in their time of concern, in their time of anxiety. That’s my application to you this morning. Is there someone in this church that you need to minister a word of encouragement to? I thank God for people like Titus. I thank God for people like Barnabus, the son of encouragement, who ministers by their very presence and especially by their words, comfort and encouragement.

There may well be some of you here this morning, and you don’t know which way to turn. You can’t see far enough ahead to decide what you’re going to do tomorrow. You’re just trying to get through today, one day at a time. And, oh, that there might be a Titus here who will come alongside you and say to you words like, "I’ve been praying for you this week." That’s all. Do you know how encouraging that can be? To send a little note in the mail saying you have been on my heart and on my mind this week.

You know, if Paul needed to be encouraged, I’m sure there’s 100 people in this audience this morning who are just like him. Who are conscious of the trials on the inside and are conscious of the trials that are within their mind. And this God, this great God, this God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, this God who knows what it is to walk through Gethsemane, this God who knows what it is to climb up to that cross, this God knows what it is to be discouraged. And He knows how to minister encouragement in days like that.

May God use you this morning to minister a word of encouragement to someone else for His praise and glory. Let’s pray together.

Our Father in heaven, we thank You for Your word. We thank You that holy men of old wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And now especially we pray for those in our fellowship who are deeply downcast and despondent. And from their depths, we pray, reach down with Your powerful arm and lay hold of them and draw them to Yourself and use our brothers and sisters in this congregation to be the instrument by which you do that so that great praise may be given to You. And hear us Lord, for Jesus’ sake, amen.