WERE THE PRAYERS OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD A FAILURE?
Scripture: II CORINTHIANS 12:8-9
Were The Prayers Of President Garfield A Failure?
T. DeWitt Talmage
II Corinthians, 12: 8, 9: " I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee."
There was something the matter with Paul in the text. He spoke of something that irritated him, or annoyed him or hurt him or mortified him, under the figure of a "thorn in the flesh." Some think it was a crooked back. Others think it was a stuttering tongue. More persons think, and among them the learned Kitto and Dr. John Brown, the Scotch essay- ist, that it was diseased eyes, amounting almost to total blindness. They think this because he almost always wrote by the hand of an amanuensis, once men- tioning it as a rare occurrence that he had written a large letter with his own hand; and they think this also because he was always accompanied wherever he went, although he was much of the time a poor man and could not have paid attendants; and also because he seems to refer to his trouble with his eyes when, in describing the enthusiastic love of the Galatians he says: "ye would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me." In other words, "you love me so much you would have been willing to trade off your good eyes for my poor eyes." Those lands al- ways have been afflicted with ophthalmia, and dam- aged eyesight was as common there and then as good eyesight here and now. But whatever may have been the trouble, Paul prayed to have it cured. I suppose he prayed hundreds of times on this matter, but he made three agonizing prayers. Did God an- swer those prayers? He did, by giving something better than Paul asked for. Not by straightening the back, or by unloosing the tongue, or by curing the disordered eyesight, but by giving him grace to turn into glorious advantage that which had been an irri- tating detriment. Instead of curing the physical mis- fortune, he sanctified that trouble until Paul became the greatest apostle of the Gentiles, the ...
T. DeWitt Talmage
II Corinthians, 12: 8, 9: " I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee."
There was something the matter with Paul in the text. He spoke of something that irritated him, or annoyed him or hurt him or mortified him, under the figure of a "thorn in the flesh." Some think it was a crooked back. Others think it was a stuttering tongue. More persons think, and among them the learned Kitto and Dr. John Brown, the Scotch essay- ist, that it was diseased eyes, amounting almost to total blindness. They think this because he almost always wrote by the hand of an amanuensis, once men- tioning it as a rare occurrence that he had written a large letter with his own hand; and they think this also because he was always accompanied wherever he went, although he was much of the time a poor man and could not have paid attendants; and also because he seems to refer to his trouble with his eyes when, in describing the enthusiastic love of the Galatians he says: "ye would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me." In other words, "you love me so much you would have been willing to trade off your good eyes for my poor eyes." Those lands al- ways have been afflicted with ophthalmia, and dam- aged eyesight was as common there and then as good eyesight here and now. But whatever may have been the trouble, Paul prayed to have it cured. I suppose he prayed hundreds of times on this matter, but he made three agonizing prayers. Did God an- swer those prayers? He did, by giving something better than Paul asked for. Not by straightening the back, or by unloosing the tongue, or by curing the disordered eyesight, but by giving him grace to turn into glorious advantage that which had been an irri- tating detriment. Instead of curing the physical mis- fortune, he sanctified that trouble until Paul became the greatest apostle of the Gentiles, the ...
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