Breaking the Spell

Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 4

by Dave Wilkinson November 16, 1997

I’m really not much of one for the spooky stuff. I like a good scary movie but that’s Hollywood. I don’t go looking for it in real life. Occasionally I find it anyway.

The year after I graduated from college I went with a group of friends on a six week mission trip to Mexico and Guatemala. Our hosts in Guatemala took us to the Mayan Indian town of Chichicastenango on Sunday which was market day. It was the Fourth of July but the fireworks were not what I had expected.

Chichicastenango is a place where the Guatemalan Indians worship the old gods. Many of them attend mass inside the Catholic Church which was built on the site of a destroyed Mayan temple. But then they leave the church and gather on the steps. There they worship the traditional local gods. They burn incense, pray, and share a bottle of beer with their deity -- "some for you god poured on the fire and a big swallow for me."

After a while a few of us left the plaza and walked up through the corn fields to a small hill above the town. That’s where the real action was taking place. A medicine man was going to sacrifice a chicken as a prayer for a good harvest.

The spiritual atmosphere on that hill was incredibly heavy and oppressive. We stood watching and listening from a short distance away. And as we watched and listened I began to be mesmerized by the chanting and the smell of the smoke. Then I looked around me and saw that my friend Ted was also being entranced. I didn’t stop to think. With the edge of my foot I drew in the dust in front of His eyes the symbol of the fish -- an ancient sign of Jesus Christ.

As soon as I did that two things happened. Ted immediately came back to full reality and so did I. The second thing that happened is the witch doctor. To this point he had ignored us. But when I drew the symbol of the fish he suddenly shouted aloud and picked up stones and threw them at us to drive us from his hill. This is not what I had expected. I was an American tourist. But we didn’t take a lot of convincing.

I still am not sure what happened on that hill. I’m not much of one for the dark side. But I do know that something was going on with our minds and that the symbolic appeal to Jesus Christ somehow broke the spell we were at least partially under. We knew it and the witch doctor knew it too.

In Romans 8 we have looked at the important themes of suffering and glory. In our look at Romans 8, I have quoted a powerful speech by C. S. Lewis called "The Weight of Glory." In this speech he talks about enchantments. He addresses the objections of people who might consider all his talk about glory to be fantasy, the weaving of a spell Lewis admits that perhaps that is what he was trying to do. But then he reminds his listeners that spells in fairy tales are of two kinds. Some induce enchantments. Others break them. He said, "You and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years." Lewis says that there is an enchantment on us in Twentieth Century society. This enchantment tells us that the material world is what really matters. And God needs to liberate us from this lie.

A symbol of Christ scratched in the dust was sufficient to break a spell of idolatry and witchcraft on a Guatemalan hill. But we need something else to break the enchantment of materialism. What we need are the logical reflections of a mind that has been renewed by Jesus Christ. We need to learn to think as biblical people.

As Paul writes in Romans 8:18, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us."

This is an astounding statement. It is even more astounding that Paul should apply it to himself. When his ship was not sinking or he was not being stoned or robbed, he was being whipped to within an inch of his life. He wasn't speaking poetically when he told the Galatians, "Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." Yet Paul says that the present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory.

Today is the International Sunday for the Persecuted Church. Our Christian brothers and sisters are being severely persecuted in many places such as China and Pakistan. Our U.S. State Department gets all hot and bothered about minor restrictions on Scientologists in Germany while it gives alliances and most favored nation trade status to governments that are persecuting the church.

There is a lot of evil everywhere. Yet Paul says that the future glory is greater!

How does Paul know this? He begins verse 18 by saying, "I consider," This means, "I have thought it over carefully -- I have weighed the evidence and I have determined that something is the truth.

Paul has used the phrase "consider" or "think it through" some fifteen times in Romans. Considering is a process by which we figure something out. A mind that is renewed in Jesus Christ has the power to break through the clouds that form over our lives. There is nothing magical about this. Magic is for fairy tales. We are dealing with God's real world. And we are instructed to think things out clearly.

The focus of Paul’s thoughts in verse 18 is suffering. Suffering has the power to keep us centered on the aches and pains of our lives in the material world instead of on the God who loves us and gave Himself for us. Suffering has tremendous power to put our noses into the dirt and take our eyes off of God’s promises. So Paul writes: "I consider -- I have thought it through -- that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." He invites us to think it through too and break the spell in our own lives. In the words of the hymn we sang at the start of worship, we are to "ponder anew what the Almighty can do -- Who with His love does befriend thee."

In Romans 8:18 Paul compares the future glory to be enjoyed by God's people to their present sufferings. He says that the glory far outstrips the suffering They aren’t worth comparing.

Paul says essentially the same thing in 2 Corinthians 4:17 "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison. No matter what we have gone through, are presently going through, or will go through, the sum total is not worth comparing with the glory that awaits us. We can compare a thimble of water with the Pacific Ocean, but we cannot compare our sufferings with the coming glory.

The verbal adjective translated "not worth comparing" in Romans 8:18 is the Greek word axios. Axios refers to something that is heavy enough to to tip the scales in a balance. Now when we remember that the word glory itself means something that is weighty or has substance, it is clear what Paul is saying. He is saying that the future glory laid up for us is so heavy that our present sufferings are like a canary feather compared to a blue whale . They cannot even begin to move the scales.

Romans 8:18 and 2 Corinthians 4:17 suggest three areas of non-comparison between our present sufferings and the glory that is to come.

The first area of non-comparison is between the intensity of the suffering and the intensity of the glory. Suffering is heavy. It hurts. It can hurt so intensely that we scream with terror or cry out with pain. But, Paul says, the intensity of our sufferings is not worth comparing with the glory. And he should know. Paul suffered as much as any person has suffered. But he also had a vision of heaven's glory, having been "caught up to the third heaven" as he tells us in 2 Corinthians 19:2. In Paul’s considered and informed opinion, the intensity of the suffering is not to be compared to the grandeur of the glory that will be in us.

The second area of non-comparison is between the location of our sufferings and the location of our glory. Now that is an awkward way of putting it but it is hard to think of something better. In Romans 8:18 Paul says that the glory of God is to be revealed "in us." He uses a word that literally means "internally" or "in our very being." This should be contrasted with the words "though outwardly we are wasting away," which he uses in 2 Corinthians.

The idea seems to be this: Suffering, though felt deeply, only affects our outward persons, our bodies. It does not affect the real "us," -- those redeemed beings that, says Paul, are "being renewed day by day. It is the "real me," the inner me, that is going to participate in the glory. As C. S. Lewis said: We are not just going to observe the beauty; we are going to share in it: "God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendor of the sun." The experience of outward suffering is not to be compared to our assured participation in this glory.

The final point of non-comparison between suffering and glory concerns their duration. In Romans Paul distinguishes between "present sufferings," which means those belonging to this present age, and the glory "that will be revealed," -- the unchanging and eternal glory of the age to come. In 2 Corinthians he calls the sufferings "momentary" and glory "eternal."

Now you and I do not think much about eternity. While the Bible says in Ecclesiaistes that God "has placed eternity in our hearts," eternity is not an easy concept for our minds. But if we can make ourselves think this way, it is evident that there is no comparison between the glory of the eternal state and the sufferings of this passing earthly time -- however painful our sufferings may be while we are going through them.

I believe that one reason Paul talks about this subject in Romans and in Corinthians is that he is very aware of many non-Christian approaches to suffering. They were around then, and they are around today.

One unbiblical response to suffering is anger. This is common with unbelievers, who blame or even curse God for their misfortunes. But it is also true of some Christians. They blame God because he has not done something for them that they wanted forgetting that Jesus has not promised us an easy life here, much less the fulfillment of all our desires. He has called us to discipleship. The glory is hereafter.

A second non-Christian approach is avoidance. If the path looks hard or even undesirable, some people turn from it and try to find something easier or more rewarding. Or, if the path cannot be avoided, they try to balance it with other things that are more attractive. The ancient name for this approach is hedonism. People are advised to do only whatever makes them happy or "feels good," which ignores the truth that real growth comes by working through our hardships rather than by avoiding them.

The third non-Christian approach is apathy -- detachment from the problem. It is the attitude that says, "It just doesn't matter," and then tries to think about something else. One form of apathy is stoicism, the philosophy of the stiff upper lip. Stoicism may help you get by, but it is far removed from Christian joy.

Paul was surrounded by these non-Christian philosophies, just as we are today. And we need to know that these approaches are all less than truly Christian. We need to know that, for the Christian, suffering is an arena in which we participate in the ministry of Christ and develop greater spiritual maturity.

If we can appreciate what Paul tells us in Romans 8:18 and get it fixed in our minds, we will change the way we look at life and the way we live. We will break the spell of the materialistic age in which we live our lives. We will begin to see life here as it really is.

We have two problems at this point. First, we are limited by our concept of time. We think in terms of the seventy something or eighty something or ninety something years as being the length of a life. We do not have a long view. Second, we are limited by our materialism. Our reference point is what we perceive through our senses, so we have the great difficulty thinking of "the spirit" and other intangibles. And we need to be delivered from this bondage and awaked from spiritual blindness.

In the words of Malcolm Muggeridge: "The world's way of responding to decay is to engage equally in idiot hopes and idiot despair. On the one hand some new policy or discovery is confidently expected to put everything to rights: a new fuel, a new drug, détente, world government. On the other, some disaster is as confidently expected to prove our undoing. Capitalism will break down. Fuel will run out. Plutonium will lay us low. Atomic waste will kill us off. Overpopulation will suffocate us, or alternatively, a declining birth rate will put us more surely at the mercy of our enemies."

Muggeridge continues: "In Christian terms, such hopes and fears are equally beside the point. As Christians we know that in this world we have no continuing city, that crowns roll in the dust and that every earthly kingdom must sometime flounder. We acknowledge a King men did not crown and cannot dethrone, and we are citizens of a city of God they did not build and cannot destroy.'

"Breaking the spell" of materialism will give us strength to endure whatever hardships, temptations, persecutions, or physical suffering that come to us. Suppose there were no glory. Suppose this life really were all there is. If that were the case, I for one would not endure anything, at least nothing I could avoid. And I would probably break down under the tribulations I could not avoid. But knowing that there is an eternal weight of glory waiting, I will try to do what pleases God and hang on in spite of anything.

Recently I have read the reports of our Board of Deacons on their fall calls. Our Deacons are doing a great job and I really appreciate their ministry. Their reports help Sheri and me know places for intervention and places for prayer.

But you can’t read those reports without realizing that there is a lot of pain to go around. The reports tell of places of growth and victory. But they also reveal the pain in marriage relationships, in health concerns, in raising children.

You have pain in your life. So, aware of the pain, I ask, "Isn't what the Paul says true? Isn't the glory to come worth anything you might be asked to face here,"

In the early 1970s Margie McCoy wrote a book about dying. On a winter Saturday in 1985, Margie McCoy faced her own death.

Margie was an effective seminary teacher and a popular author. In addition to her book about death, she had written a book about Mary, the mother of Jesus, and co-authored a book about the cross. At the time of her death she was almost finished with the manuscript of yet another book, but, before she could complete it, she began to develop strange and troubling physical symptoms. She had, it was soon discovered, a malignant brain tumor of the most aggressive kind. Surgery, then radiation therapy, and finally chemotherapy were required, but none of these treatments did more than delay the inevitable.

As her condition rapidly deteriorated, she continued to work on her book. Students, family, and friends helped out by doing those labors her weakening body was unable to perform. When she could no longer hold a pen in her hand, she would discuss her thoughts with Charles, her husband, and he would write them down. Near the end, when she could no longer speak, Charles would say what he thought she would want to say, and she would respond with a squeeze of his hand.

Most people in Margie's situation would probably have been thoroughly defeated by the pain and the relentless malice of the disease. Margie looked instead to her faith and to the people around her, telling them that they had helped change "difficult days into times of wonder and joy."

Something she said in her book, now published, perhaps best reveals the shape of her faithful and final struggle. She writes: "Suppose that we could step into faith wholly, cast off from the anxiety of the tension, and dwell fully in the mystery. Suppose that we could learn really to trust. Is this not what the Gospel calls us to... ?

"And why not? I am here and might as well, through trust in God, make the most of it -- being on my own particular journey, wrestling with and sometimes overcoming my own anxieties, in the midst of mystery."

Paul writes: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." Margie McCoy discovered what that looked like in her own life and broke the spell of pain.

After Margie's death, Charles discovered a piece of paper with some words in her own handwriting. They were probably the last words she ever wrote. "I am discovering," she had written, "that, when all is lost, all will be found, because the end of all our journeys is in God, with the dancing of stars and angels at the heart of the world. So save a dance for me."