First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1951, Vol 29-4
"And not only so, but
we also rejoice in our tribulations: knowing that tribulation
worketh stedfastness; and stedfastness, approvedness; and
approvedness, hope: and hope putteth not to shame; because the
love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy
Spirit which was given unto us" (Rom. 5:3-5).
Experience
Gained Through Tribulation
"Stedfastness
(worketh) approvedness".
There are different
translations of the word which is here rendered 'approvedness' -
in the Authorized Version it is 'experience', in the Revised it
is 'probation' and in the American Revised it is 'approvedness' -
showing that it must be a rich word, a word of some meaning and
content. It really means approvedness as the result of testing,
and I really think that the Authorized Version gives the best
rendering in using the word 'experience', because from the same
root we get our word 'experiment' - a try-out and the result; and
that is just the essence of the word here. "Tribulation
worketh stedfastness" (or patience, if
you like) and stedfastness (or patience), experience".
In the New Testament, not only
in statements but in many ways, experience has a very high place
indeed in the work of God and is of very great importance and
value in God's sight. Experience really is the quality or essence
of stature, of maturity. There is a grave absence of outstanding
leaders in our time in every realm, leaders of whom we could say
that they are head and shoulders above their fellows. There was a
time when it was otherwise. In politics and statesmanship, in art
and literature and music, there are great names, but they very
largely belong to a past generation. Such men are not with us
today, and there is this serious lack of leadership, of men of
stature, men who count. The Lord places such great importance
upon experience, and shows that there is nothing that can be a
substitute for it, and that He Himself is prepared to take very
great and serious risks with lives in order to work experience
into them.
It does sometimes seem that the
Lord is experimenting with us. Whether that is a right way to put
it or not, what I mean is right. Because of its very great value
and importance, the Lord is prepared to put us into situations in
which the most serious consequences may develop, in order to get
this one thing; for here is the heart of usefulness and value to
Him - experience.
Experience
Cannot Be Transferred
Experience with God is much
more than knowledge. We may be very greatly informed, and have a
great deal of knowledge, but, lacking experience, our knowledge
will remain purely technical information. Experience is more than
knowledge. It is also far more than human cleverness. Clever
people may be able to do a lot of things and seem to be
successful. The absence of this quality of experience will find
that their structures will sooner or later come crashing down,
for there is no body there. Experience is something that we can
never inherit, nor can it be transferred from one to another in
any other way; it has to be bought. It is therefore the sole
possession and property of the individual who has it. It is
something very personal. If it had been possible for the Father
to bring His own Son, the Lord Jesus, to the designed and
determined end in any other way, He would have done it. The only
way was experience: "...yet learned (he) obedience by
the things which he suffered" (Heb.5:8); He was made "perfect
through sufferings" (Heb. 2:10). Even Jesus
Christ (and I speak in a certain sense) had to buy His
experience. He had to come to the full end, or the end of
fulness, to be made perfect, made complete, by the way of
experience.
The Holy Spirit, with all that
the gift of the Spirit means of enduement and endowment and
instruction and strengthening, is not a substitute for
experience. We are very often found asking that certain things
shall be done for us by the Holy Spirit which the Holy Spirit
will never do. He has to lead us into experience. It is the only
way in which He can answer our prayers. Many prayers are answered
through experience. You ask the Lord to do something, and He
takes you through experience, and you arrive at the answer in
that way. You had not meant that, of course: you wanted the Lord
to do the thing there and then as a gift, as an act; but that
would have been merely objective, something given, whereas He
wants to make it a part of yourself, and so He answers prayer by
some experience. 'Stedfastness worketh experience', and if there
is no experience, what is the good of anybody or anything?
So then, experience is of
greater importance than being delivered from tribulation.
'Tribulation worketh experience'. Oh, how often we have asked the
Lord why He allowed this and that, or why He did not do this or
that. Why did He not hinder Adam from sinning? Why has He not
stopped the world in so many things that have had most terrible
results? Experience is very largely the answer.
Experience
the Very Quality of Service
Experience is very important
because, after all, it is the very quality of service. When we
come to real life, and we are really up against things and the
issues are of the greatest consequence, we do not want just
information, we want experience, and we go where experience can
help us. Is that not so? Thus experience is the very body and
quality of service and usefulness to the Lord.
Bunyan, in his allegory, has a
man called Experience, one of four shepherds on the Delectable
Mountains - Knowledge, Experience, Watchful and Sincere - all, of
course, parts of one whole ministry, and not to be regarded as
separate. There is a knowledge which, if it is in the hands of or
in company with experience, is all right, and one does not
discount the value of knowledge; but it has to be experimental
knowledge, it has to be in the company of experience. And of this
Experience, the shepherd, what does Bunyan say? A visitor to the
country of the four shepherds described him like this: 'Firmly
knit in form and face, a shrewd but kindly eye, a happy readiness
in his bearing, and all his hard-earned wisdom most evidently on
foot within him as a capability for work and for control'. That
is a good definition of experience: 'capability for work and for
control', 'hard earned wisdom'. He was a shepherd, and we know
that the Bible idea of the shepherd is different from ours. A
shepherd in our land has to go scouring for sheep to try to get
them together, using dogs and other means to collect them. A
shepherd in Syria only had to go to a certain spot and begin to
sing a psalm and the sheep knew his voice and gathered to him,
and he could lead them anywhere while he was praying his prayer
or singing his psalm. They knew his voice and followed him. And
so it is today: leadership is shepherdhood; shepherdhood is
leadership. But experience is the shepherd, therefore experience
is the leader.
Of course, it will entirely
depend upon whether we are concerned to be of the greatest value
to the Lord and to others, or whether we are self-centred. If we
are thus concerned, this matter of experience will make appeal to
us, but if otherwise, then what I am saying will not amount to
anything. But here it is, the Lord puts value upon the matter of
usefulness, and whether we are mentally interested in it or not,
and whether or not our hearts have become as yet bound up with
it, we cannot get away from the fact that the Lord is actively
engaged on this work; He is seeking to make us useful. What is
the why and wherefore of experiences, of the difficult and hard
way that God takes us, and of the way in which He, so to speak,
takes terrible risks with us? He does indeed seem to take risks.
He risks our rebellion, He risks our bitterness, He risks our
misinterpretations of His dealings with us, He risks our 'kicking
over the traces' and breaking away and running off. He risks a
lot when He puts us into difficult situations, but He thinks it
is worth while for experience; for even our wrong reactions will
make for experience in the long run. Even our rebellion and
bitterness He will sovereignly control, and we shall come to know
we can learn something along that line; we shall be able to help,
instruct and advise where such help is acceptable and needed.
Yes, He is doing it all to get experience, to make of us not
professional pastors but men who are shepherds, 'firmly knit in
form and face', with that 'shrewd but kindly eye', that
readiness, with all the 'hard-earned wisdom', to be of help to
those who need it. That is what the Lord is doing with us, to
bring experience.
Experience
Practical, Not Theoretical
So experience is the very sum
of what is practical. It is experiential, experimental, it is the
practical side of knowledge. That is almost too obvious to need
saying. Tribulation is very practical, very real, you cannot get
away from that. The demand for patience in tribulation is very
practical; that is no theory. And if the object of the
tribulation in its working of patience is steadfastness, is
experience, it is exceedingly good. We may lack many other
things, we may not have great knowledge or learning, great
capabilities or cleverness, by which the world sets such store.
Should it come to our being tested by this world's standards of
ability, and we were to answer and say, 'I have only experience',
it would not go down at all. They would say, 'What degrees have
you, what examinations have you passed?' To say that we have had
some experience would not be sufficient, whereas if we had all
the other without experience, we should very likely be acceptable
in this world. But it is not like that with God. The examinations
that are held are on another basis altogether. We may not have
many things, we may not be very much, we may be despised when it
comes to what we have accomplished in the academic way, what
titles we carry, what degrees we have - we may not be much in
that world, but remember that God puts a very great deal more
importance upon experience than upon all the rest, and that is a
thing we can all have. From the least to the greatest, we can all
have experience, and because in the sight of the Lord it is so
important, He sees fit to let us know a good deal of tribulation.
"Tribulation worketh... experience".
Have you got the full meaning
of that word that is translated into our English word
'tribulation'? Tribulation is a picture word in the Greek - the
picture of a farm instrument that we call the harrow; and you
know what we mean when we say we have had a harrowing experience.
Oh, the tearing and the cutting and the lacerating from the
harrow! That is the word here, literally, actually; the harrow
going over our backs, and it works experience. Experience is of
such value.
Experience
of Eternal Value
What more can one say other
than that it must be of eternal value? The value must be
eternal, otherwise life is an inexplicable mystery and an enigma.
The time may come when you young people, having passed through
deep experiences and having bought your experience at great
price, and thus having in your possession something of very great
value, find that younger people do not want your experience, nor
think anything at all of it, and never consult you. When what you
have through deep experience has very little outlet in this
world, a very limited scope for expression, what an enigma! All
this you have gone through, all you have bought at so great a
price, what is the value of it? It must be eternal. God must be
working to get something with a longer range than this poor life.
With tribulations increasing perhaps as you get older, what is it
all for? Well, He is working with a longer view, and there must
be something that counts with Him beyond time, and so He allows
the tribulation to produce patience, and patience experience;
"Whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away";
but experience shall abide and serve in the eternal ages.