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[Music] Gold by Moonlight, a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. Let us give reverent attention to the reading of God's word as it is recorded in the second letter to the Corinthians, the chapter numbered 12, beginning the reading at the verse numbered 3.

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"And I know that this man was caught up into paradise, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.

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Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth, but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated.

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Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ might rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

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For when I am weak, then I am strong." And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his words. It was a night rather like this a few years ago, that I was sitting in my study back east, and a member of the Church, a fine Christian, arriving for an evening meeting, entered the office.

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I was reading a meditation by the great English mystic John Donne, and I was so caught up in it that when Joe entered the room, after greeting him, I shared with him a few lines from this meditation. And he looked at me and he said, "I wonder if you realize how blessed you are to have the time to read."

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Well, I do understand how blessed I am. Of course, from a purely professional perspective, I know that if I don't read, I won't have anything to say. When things stop going in here and in here, they'll stop coming out here. But beyond that, I understand that I am indeed blessed that in my work, in the responsibilities which are mine,

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I have the opportunity and the responsibility to soak myself in the literature of the ages. And there are good people who often help me with this. They share with me some of the treasures they've discovered on the printed page. Such a one is Jerry Smith of our congregation.

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About two years ago, shortly after my arrival, she gave me a book by Miss Amy Carmichael. Amy Carmichael was a famous missionary to India. She is now with the Lord. And this book was entitled "Gold by Moonlight."

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Now, it's not until page 41 of the book that Miss Carmichael explains the meaning of that phrase. Her point is this, that it's easy to discover the gold of God's blessing when your days are filled with sunlight and happiness, joy, and success. But, Miss Carmichael goes on, when your days are filled with darkness,

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when your hours are shadowed, when you're experiencing one of those black midnights of the soul, then, when you have no sunlight but only the moonlight of your hopes, then can you still discover God's blessing. Can you, Miss Carmichael asks, find gold by moonlight?

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And that's a very good question. Robbie Burns, the great Scots poet, is pushing his plow between the hard surface of the dark Scots earth and he overturns a little field mouse's nest. And as the mouse hurries away, he thinks a thought, and later that day he puts it down.

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The best laid plans of mice and men gang apt aglease, and leave us not but grief and pain for promised joy. Now, that's what I want to talk about this morning. Not finding gold in your best laid schemes,

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but are you able to find gold when things gang apt aglase? And as I thought about this, I was led immediately to ponder Paul. He was a very strong, a very affirmative, a very positive, a very dynamic man. And it's hard for people like that to share their weaknesses,

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to reveal their hearts in great intimacy. But there's one page in the writings of Paul which is so tender and so intimate that you can only really read it when things are quiet about you. And that's the page which I've already read in your hearing this morning.

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On that page, Paul, this strong man, talks about a thorn in the flesh which was his. He describes it as an emissary of evil, a messenger of Satan. Now, scholars have debated for a long time what this thorn in the flesh was. Calvin said it was persecution. Luther said it was temptation.

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Some have said that Paul was an epileptic. Others have suggested that he had serious eye trouble. Still others have said that he had a malarial fever, which was very common in that part of the world at that time.

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I don't know what the exact nature of this painful infirmity which Paul had was. And perhaps we'll never know. I'm only going to these lengths now to point out that Paul did know what it was to experience days that were shadows.

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Paul didn't live always in sunlight. Not every day was filled with the brilliance of success and victory. There were hours of darkness. There were times of great tragedy. And there was wearing away at him all the time this agonized suffering,

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this thorn in the flesh, this painful thing in which he saw no good. Paul knew what it was to live in the moonlight. But on this very personal page in the letter to the Corinthians, he tells us how he found gold there.

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And he says, first of all, that he three times asked God to relieve him of the thorn. The first point that he makes is that he tried to get out of the moonlight and back into the sunlight again. And I think that's a very important point,

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because you and I both know that some people, when they get caught up in dark times, in shadowed times, in hard times, immediately surrender to the circumstance. They have a kind of morbid sentimentality,

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like that woman of whom it was said, "She enjoys ill health." There are individuals, you know, who seem to delight in suffering. Well, Paul wasn't like that. Three times he sought the Lord to be relieved of this thorn.

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And that doesn't mean that he just prayed three prayers. The implication is that three times in long series of prayers, in long courses of prayers, in conversations with the Lord which extended over continuous lengths of time,

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three times he went after the Lord ardently to find the sunlight again. There was a famous violinist whose daughter took up the study of the same instrument. But not from her father, from another teacher. And when her father was asked,

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"Why isn't your daughter taking from you?" he replied, "Because she has never asked me." I'm convinced that our Father has a lot of blessings for us that we never get because we never ask for it.

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And the first thing I would say to any person who suffers is remember the example of Paul. He prayed to be relieved of that suffering. Some Christians say, "I never pray for myself."

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Well, Paul was a Christian and he prayed ardently for himself. To be relieved of the thorn, to find his way to sunlight. But, when the relief did not come, he went on to discover gold. The first thing he discovered is that God was with him in his suffering.

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H.G. Wells wrote a short story called "The Invisible Man" and it was made into a very poor movie. The only thing that distinguished the movie were some rather sensational special effects. And I still remember one of them.

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It was a field of snow and the footprints of the invisible man appeared in the snow as if he were walking right before you. And of course there was no person visible at all. It was really quite mysterious to watch it.

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Now that's a very crude and a very unsophisticated illustration of the truth. That when we walk in shadows in moonlight times, Jesus Christ is walking right beside us. And precisely at the moment when we cannot see or feel him,

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his footprints are still there for us to follow. You remember that great scene in "Tale of Tea City" when the cart is on its way to the place of execution and Sidney Carton, the man who lost his soul and then found it again,

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is in the cart and there's a young girl there. And she looks at him and she sees the confidence and the courage in his face. And she says, "I am not afraid, but I am very weak. Would you mind if I held your hand?"

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And of course he said no. And they went off to face death together, hand in hand. And just as they came to the scaffold to Madame Diotene, she turns to him and says,

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"I think that you were sent to me by heaven." Well the first thing that Paul says to us here is this, that at the very moment when we're in the cart of suffering and there's no sunlight, only moonlight about us,

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at that precise moment they're sent to us from heaven. Nothing left in the presence of Christ himself. Paul puts it this way, "God's power is most perfectly revealed in our weakness."

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That means God's presence is most all-encompassing, most uplifting and strengthening in the very moment when we feel most weak. I've had many occasions in which I've had to watch great saints suffer.

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And I've noticed, first of all, that they're very silent in their suffering. Oh, they're people who whine and complain, are always ready to share their misery and their bitter against everyone and everything.

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But the greatest saints have about them in their suffering silence. Why? Because they walk with God and He was silent in His suffering. "If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross."

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And He said nothing. "Come down from the cross and then we will believe you." And He said nothing. Not only priests railed against Him, but thieves called out subserviently.

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And He said nothing. "Perhaps Elijah will come and save Him." And He said nothing. In the midst of His suffering, Christ was silent.

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And those who walk with Christ in suffering discover the gold of silence from the Savior who's at their side. And the other thing I've noticed about suffering saints is this, that they're steady.

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There's a magnificent steadiness about them. You cannot tell me that when Christ hung there on that cross and looked down and saw men who would die without Him and suffer eternal separation from Him,

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that He didn't want to come down from that cross and preach to them at least one last time. You can't tell me that as He hung there on that cross and looked down and saw little children who had come

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because this was a spectator sport in those days, that He didn't long to come down from that cross and take them on to His lap once again to breathe into their ears the word that could mean for them eternity.

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You can't tell me as He suffered there and saw His mother fainting at His feet that He didn't want to come down and catch her and hold her tight. That as He looked down and saw John, that disciple whom He most loved,

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He didn't want to take His hand and put His strong arms around John's young shoulders and explain to him the tragedy that was unfolding before His eyes. And if none of these things led Christ to want to come down from that cross, then surely the pain of it, the agony of it, the suffering, strangling agony of it.

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And He could have come down. Twelve legions of angels were at His disposal. But He did not move. There was steadiness there. And the great saint I've seen suffer

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walked so close to Him that the steadiness which was His in suffering becomes theirs. You know, my friends, there's no darkness in all the world that cannot be penetrated by the white wings of angels.

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And the first thing Paul says to us about living in the moonlight is this. God is with you there. His power is made most perfect in your weakness. And the next thing that Paul says to us is this.

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That not only is God with you, but in a very special sense, you are with God. I want to say that again. You are with God. Now all of us understand that the great things in life are not accomplished without cost.

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Beethoven could write magnificent music, but before the splendors of the Ninth Symphony could be his, he had to suffer deafness. Milton could write splendid poetry, but before the majesty of Paradise Lost could come from his pen, he had to suffer blindness. Michelangelo could paint and could sculpt like no other one who'd ever lived before him, but before he could create the magnificent immensity of the fifteen chapels,

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he had to endure conflict with Pope Julius the Second. It was out of suffering that victory came. Now Jesus tells us the same thing. He tells us that life is not easy.

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He tells us that life is full of hardship. He says you're going to build a house of faith and build the kind of a house that will stand up against storm because the rains are going to come and the wind is going to blow and the storms are going to break around that house. In the world, Christ says, you're going to have tribulation.

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He makes no effort to conceal that fact. But then he goes on to say that you can make that suffering, you can make those moonlight hours golden if you offer that suffering to God. Like all other suffering, you can find great treasure in it if you give it to God.

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You see, it's almost as if God says to us when we're called upon to suffer, "Here, my child, this is part of the world's suffering that you can bear for me." You see, what's true about this is true also of God. The greatest plans and providences of God were only accomplished when he suffered.

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And so when we suffer, if we offer that suffering to him, if we offer that pain to him, he takes it and helps to use it to redeem the world. I know that that is hard to see. But isn't everything hard to see?

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You walk outside now and look up into the sky and you don't see a blue sky. But it's still there, isn't it? There are just clouds between it and you. If the clouds were not there and it were a sunny day, you would look up and see the blue sky.

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But would you see the starry constellations that are still moving across the heavens? No, and yet they're still there. If you go to the edge of some lake and look out across it, you see the beautiful surface of that lake, but you can't see the fairyland of beauty and activity which is occurring beneath that surface.

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If you look at one another this morning, what do you see? Skin, flesh, bones, hair. But is that us? Aren't we infinitely more than that?

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When you look at the cocoon in which a soul lives, have you really seen the soul? We go through life again and again in almost every experience, unable to see everything that is there to see. So why should it amaze us that when we're called upon to suffer by God, to bear part of God's burden for Him, why should it amaze us that we can't immediately see what is being accomplished by what we do?

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Paul says, "In my suffering, the power of God rested in me." Please turn your cassette to the other side. You see, God deceived in His suffering. Evil did everything to God on the cross that it could, and He took all that it did and choked it to death on its own hatred.

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And if we offer our suffering to Him, we will have the same victory over our suffering that God won for all of us so long ago. See, this goal that we find by moonlight not only blesses us, it blesses others also. We live in a world that doesn't listen very often. But one of the few things that the world does listen to is the testimony of a suffering soul.

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It's almost heard through a delirium, but they hear it still. You know, they teach you in seminary that you must never assume that a person in a sickbed in hospital cannot hear what you're saying. Hearing is the last of the senses to go. A person can be in deep coma or delirium and still hear.

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And I've had the experience countless times of being in a hospital room where the person is in great physical pain and coughing and turning and crying out, and no one is able to comfort them. And then I begin to pray, and somehow or other, that prayer penetrates the consciousness of that person, and they become still. Well, the world is in a delirium, a delirium of hatred and violence, of ugliness, of treachery, of awful things. And I oftentimes think that the only thing the world can hear in its delirium is when someone who's suffered a very great deal affirms with Paul, "I've found gold in my moonlight."

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You ever gone swimming at night with other people? You know how it is. You dive into the water, and as you're coming up to the surface, you can see the moonlight before you get to the surface. And you can hear the voices of the others who are there while you're still underwater.

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Well, the world is underwater, going down perhaps for the third time. But it can still see the moonlight, although dreamily, and it can still hear the voices, although muffled, when it's the testimony of a person who's suffered, saying, "Even in my moonlight, I found gold." St. Teresa, the great Roman Catholic mystic, she knew God so intimately that she talked to him in a way that's shocking to us.

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In one of her journals, she's written this, "Oh, Father, why is it that thou dost strew our path with obstacles?" And God answers, and she has written down his answer, "Do not murmur, for I always so treat my friends." And St. Teresa then replies, "Ah, yes, Father, and perhaps that's why thou hast so very few of them." And that's true, you know. If having faith made life a bed of roses, then everybody would have faith, and all for the wrong reasons.

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So God does not offer that kind of faith. He offers a faith which is a cross, and he says no one will sneak into heaven by any other road than that of conflict and pain. But he also says that through that conflict and pain, they will know glory. They'll find gold by moonlight. Paul puts it, "His grace is sufficient, his power read in me." Well, all of you know about our tape ministry. You know how the sermons that are preached here are taped,

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and they go around the world. They've been translated into other tongues, and I get many letters from all over the country and from other nations about those tapes. I'm grateful for every one of those letters, but I'm most grateful when I get letters from people who are shabby, from people who are in iron lungs, or I think of some who are in wheelchairs, or who never get outside their room. God's great sufferers. So this message this morning is for them.

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It will be taped and sent to them. It's for those who are walking a path they do not want to walk, but who understand that the one who loves them the most has chosen that path. It's for those who have great hopes, but who know that most likely in this life, their hopes will not become reality. I'm talking to the Moonlight people today, and I'm saying to them what Paul said a long time ago.

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Ask God to take the thorn away, but if he doesn't, then accept the prison of your illness as the palace of his grace. Know that he is in your suffering with you, and know too that your suffering can be used by him to redeem the world. The battle gets hard, I know. Little things annoy, people chattering in the hallway, visitors who come and drum their fingers on the bed rail, people who bump the bed, little impatiences creep in,

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pictures that are crooked, colors that are inharmoniously placed together, books that are upside down, indestimable little objects that lose themselves amongst the bedclothes. It becomes almost more than you can bear, my suffering friend. But in those moments, still look for gold, even though it's by moonlight. Gold can be very beautiful in moonlight, you know. Have you ever stood in a Pennsylvania farmyard when it's moonlight?

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And the Moon goes overhead dragging a silver train, and everywhere she peers she sees silver fruits on silver trees. And the farmhouse windows catch the silver, clutch it for a little while, and hurl it back again. And the doves rustle their feathers in silver-feathered sleep. And a harvest mouse goes scampering by with silver claws and a silver eye.

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And moveless fish in the water gleam by silver reeds in a silver stream. It can be beautiful in the moonlight. Henry Light lived there. He suffered like a lot of other sufferers. He was an orphan, and not only an orphan, but a very poor orphan.

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He managed to make it into the ministry and gave the first years of his ministry to taking care of his best friend, who died a terrible death. And in spending himself to take care of his friend, he weakened himself, so that throughout all the rest of his life he suffered great physical pain. His only charge was at a place called South Brixham.

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It was a difficult charge where people fought against his ministry and did not receive the love and the grace that he had to share. So one day he resigned his pulpit, and very near death he walked down to the harbor at Brixham. He sat on the rocks, and he looked out over a sea that was molten because the sun was setting over Dartmoor. And taking a piece of paper in his hand, he wrote the credo of all God's moonlight people.

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He wrote, "Abide with me, fast falls the even tide. The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and other comforts flee, O thou who changest not, abide with me. Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes. Shine through the gloom and point me to the sky. Heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee. In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me."

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Let us pray. We pray now, Father, thy special blessing on all of the world's suffering. Let there be gold by moonlight. [silence]