Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
~ Psalm 119:67
Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:
~ Job 5:17
My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction:
~ Proverbs 3:11
The LORD’S voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.
~ Micah 6:9
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
~ Revelation 3:19
What Lessons God Teaches by Affliction, by Thomas Case. The following contains Chapter One of his work, “A Treatise of Affliction”.
Chapter 1.
What Lessons God Teaches by Affliction
“Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O LORD; and teach out of your law.” Psalm 94:12
This psalm being without a title, it is not so easily determined, when, or by whom it was penned. Probably by David, when himself and the rest of the godly, were under a sore and bitter persecution by Saul.
Briefly, in the psalm the prophet does these three things:
I. He appeals to God for vengeance on the persecutors, describing them by . . .their pride (verse 2),their profaneness (verses 3-4),
their intemperate virulence of speech (verse 4), their cruelty and bloody practices (verses 5-6), and lastly, by their atheistic security (verse 7).
II. He diverts to the enemies, endeavoring to convince them of the brutishness and folly of their atheism, the mother and nurse of the other impieties charged on them (verse 8), and that by a three-fold argument:
1. The power and skill of God in creating the hearing and seeing organs in man (verse 9).
2. The sovereignty of God, and the righteousness of his judgments, which he executes in the world (verse 10).
3. His wisdom and knowledge, in enduing man with such an excellent intellectual faculty, whereby even the creature itself is able to attain to admirable degrees of knowledge (verses 10-11).
III. He labors to comfort the godly against all the pressures and persecutions under which they groaned and languished.
The first argument which the psalmist uses to this purpose is in the text: the sweet fruit which is to be gathered from the bitter root of affliction. The root indeed is bitter, but the fruit is sweet, even divine instruction; which therefore is no longer to be esteemed a punishment, but a blessing, “Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O Lord, and teach out of your law.”
This being the subject I intend to insist upon, I shall contract it into this doctrinal point of observation, namely:
The man whose chastisements are joined with divine teachings, is a blessed man. Or, it is a blessed thing when correction and instruction go together. The rod and the Word make up a complete blessing.
I shall take chastisements here in the utmost latitude, for all kinds and degrees of sufferings, whether from God, or man, or Satan; whether sufferings for sin, or sufferings for righteousness’ sake. And for the doctrinal part of the point, I shall endeavor these four things:
I. To show you what those lessons are which God teaches his people by his chastisements.
II. To show you what the nature and properties of divine teachings are.
III. To show you what in what tendency correction lies in order unto these teachings; or, what use God makes of affliction for the carrying on of the work of instruction in the hearts of his people.
IV. I shall lay down the grounds and demonstrations of the point; or considerations to evince the happiness of that man whom God is pleased to teach by his corrections.
I begin with the lessons which God usually teaches his people in a suffering condition. Among the many which may fall within the experience of the suffering saints, I shall observe unto you these twenty lessons:
1. In the school of affliction, God teaches compassion towards those who are in a suffering condition. Truly we are very prone to be insensible of our brethren’s sufferings, when we ourselves are at ease in Zion. This is partly by reason of that sensuality which is in our natures, whereby we lend out our hearts so inordinately to the creature-comforts which we possess, so as to quench the tenderness and sense which we ought to have of the miseries and hardships of other men. It is also partly out of the delicacy of self-love, which makes us unwilling to sour the relish of our own sweet enjoyments, with the bitter taste of strangers’ afflictions. It is partly through sluggishness of spirit, which makes us unwilling to rise up from the bed of ease and pleasure, to travel in the inquiry of the state of our brethren, either abroad or at home, so that (as the apostle says in another case) we are willingly ignorant, and are not only strangers, but are content to be strangers to their miseries and calamities.
One way or another, even Christians themselves, and such as are truly so called, are more or less guilty of the sin of the Gentiles—
without natural affection, unmerciful, without tender-heartedness, without compassion.
Hence you may find that it was one of the errands upon which God sent Israel into Egypt, that, in the brick-kilns there—their hard hearts might be softened and melted into compassion towards strangers and captives. Therefore when God had turned their captivity, that was one of the first lessons of which he puts them in mind, “You shall not oppress a stranger” (Exodus 23:9). There is the duty, which, though negatively expressed, yet (according to the rule of interpreting the commandments) includes all the affirmative duties of mercy and compassion. And the motive follows, “for you know the heart of a stranger” (verse 9b). How did they come to know it? “Seeing you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (verse 9c).
As if God had said, ‘I knew you had a heart of iron, and affections of brass within you, cruel and without compassion; and therefore I sent you into Egypt on purpose, that by the cruelty of the Egyptians I might make your hearts tender; and that by the experience of your own sufferings and miseries, you might learn to lay to heart the anguish and agonies of strangers and captives; that whenever you see a stranger in your habitations, you may say, ‘O here is a poor sojourner, an exile! I will surely have mercy upon him and show him kindness, for I myself have been a stranger and a bond-slave in Egypt.’
And upon this very account God still brings a variety of afflictions and sorrows upon his own children. He allows them to be plundered, banished, imprisoned, and reduced to great extremities, that by their own experience they may learn to draw out their souls to the hungry, and mercies towards such objects of pity that they might say within themselves, ‘I know by experience the heart of this afflicted soul. I know what it is to be plundered, to be rich one day, and the very next day to be stripped naked of all one’s comforts and accommodations. I know what it is to hear poor hunger-starved children cry for bread, when there is none to give them. I know what it is to be banished from dearest relations—to be like limbs torn out of the body, and to lie bleeding in their separation. I know what it is to be cast into prison, to be locked up alone in the dark, with no other company but one’s own fears and sorrows. I know what it is to receive the sentence of death in one’s self. Shall not I pity, and pray, and pour out my soul over such as are bleeding and languishing under the like miseries?’
And this argument makes a deeper impression when a Christian compares and measures his lighter burden of affliction, with another’s more grievous yoke; and reasons thus within himself: ‘Imprisonment was grievous to me—and yet I enjoyed many comforts and accommodations which others did not have; I had a sweet chamber and a soft bed, when some poor members of Jesus Christ, in the Spanish inquisition and the Islamic slavery, were cast into the dungeon and sunk into the mire; their feet were hurt in the stocks, and the irons entered into their soul. Others lie bleeding and gasping upon the cold ground with their undressed wounds, exposed to all the injuries of hunger and nakedness in the open air. But I saw the face of my Christian friends sometimes, enjoyed refreshment in converse with dearest relations; while some of God’s precious people were cast into dark and noisome prisons, and did not see the face of a Christian, not of a man in five, ten, or twenty years together, unless it be of their tormentors. I had fresh diet every day, not only for necessity, but for delight—while other precious servants of God lacked their necessary bread, and lie starving in the doleful places of their sorrowful confinement. Oh! Shall not my heart yearn, and my compassion be moved towards such objects of misery and pity?’
Truly, we see it daily in case of the stone, gout and the like evils—how experience of these melts the heart into tears of sympathy and fellow-feeling; while strangers to such sufferings stand wondering at, and almost deriding the heart-breaking lamentations of poor wretches. Brethren, that you may not wonder at this, I beseech you to consider what the apostle speaks of Christ himself, “It behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren—that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God” (Hebrews 2:17). And again, “We do not have a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are” (Hebrews 4:15).
A man would say within himself, ‘Why, what need had the Lord Jesus to invest himself with a body of flesh, that he might know the infirmities of our nature—since he was God, and knew all things?’ Nay, but my brethren, it seems the knowledge which Christ had as God, was different from that knowledge which he had as man. That knowledge which he had as God was intuitive—that knowledge which he had as man was experimental. Experimental knowledge of misery is the heart-affecting knowledge. Therefore Christ himself would afflict his own heart, as Mediator, by his own experience. And if the Lord Jesus—who was mercy itself—would put himself into a suffering condition that he might the more sweetly and affectionately act those mercies towards his suffering members—then how much more do we—that by nature are selfish, uncharitable and cruel—need such practical teachings to work upon our own hearts? Certainly we cannot gain so much sense of the saints’ sufferings by the most exact relation that the tongue of men or angels is able to express, no nor by all our Scripture knowledge, though sanctified—as we do by one day’s experience in the school of affliction, when God is pleased to be the school-master.
2. In the school of affliction, God teaches us how to prize our outward mercies and comforts more—and yet to dote upon them less. We are taught to be more thankful for them—and yet less ensnared by them. This is a mystery indeed to nature, and a paradox to the world. For naturally we are very prone either to slight or to surfeit God’s blessings. And yet (sad to consider) we can make a shift to do both at once! We can undervalue our mercies—even while we glut ourselves with them! We can despise them—even when we are surfeiting upon them.
Witness that caution by Moses and Joshua: “When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land He has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe His commands, His laws and His decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth.” Deuteronomy 8:10-18
Behold while men fill themselves with the mercies of God—they can neglect the God of their mercies! When God is most liberal in remembering us—then we are most ungrateful to forget him. Now therefore that we may know how to put a due estimate upon mercies, God often cuts us short—that we may learn to prize that by lack, which our foolish unthankful hearts slighted in the enjoyment.
Thus the prodigal, who while yet at home could despise the rich and well furnished table of his father; when God sent him to school to the swine-trough—would have gladly filled his belly with the pods which he was feeding to the swine! “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough, and to spare!” (Luke 15:17). He would have been glad of the reversion of broken pods that was cast into the common basket.
I do not believe David ever slighted the ordinances, yet certainly he never knew so well how to estimate them as when he was banished from them. Then the remembrance of the company of saints, the beauty of the ordinances, and the presence of God—fetched tears from his eyes and groans from his heart, in his sorrowful exile. Oh how amiable are the assemblies of the saints, and the ordinances of the Sabbath—when we are deprived of them!
“In those days the word of the Lord was precious!” (1 Samuel 3:1). When was it not precious? It was always precious in the worth of it— but now it was precious for the lack of it; prophets and prophecies were precious, because rare; so it follows, “there was no open vision.”
The absence of common mercies, will teach us the inestimable worth of them!
Our liberties and dearest relations, how cheap and common things they are, while we possess them without any check or restraint. While we have the keeping of our mercies in our own hands, we make but small reckoning of them. Oh, but let God threaten a divorce by death or banishment; let taskmasters be set over us and our comforts, who shall measure out unto us at their own pleasure; let us be locked up awhile under close imprisonment, and there be kept fasting from our dearest enjoyments; then the sight of a friend (though but through an iron grate), the exchange of a few common civilities with a yoke-fellow under the correction and control of a keeper—then how sweet and precious!
When months and years of God’s mercies and blessings are passed through—we scarcely take one serious view of them; we seldom send up one thankful prayer to God for them. We pass by our mercies as common things, scarcely worth the owning. Whereas in times of famine—the lees and dregs of those mercies will be precious, which while the vessel ran full and fresh, we could hardly relish. In famine the very gleanings of our comforts are better than the whole vintage in the years of plenty!
And as God teaches us to prize our mercies—so he also teaches us moderation in the use of them, and not to glut ourselves on them.
Indeed it is the inordinate use of outward comforts, which renders us unfit to prize them; we lose our esteem of mercies, in the excess use of them. Gluttony usually render those things nauseous, which formerly had been our delicacies. By our excesses in creature enjoyments:
reason is drowned in sense,
judgment extinguished in appetite, and the affections being blunted by excess—even pleasures themselves become a burden.
Now this distemper, God many times cures by the sharp corrosive of affliction. By hardship, he teaches us moderation. God does this, partly by accustoming us to afflictions and needs, whereby what at first we considered necessity, afterwards grows to be our choice. Hence says the apostle, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” (Philippians 4:11-12). How is this? God has taught him to live off a little. In the same way, by feeding us sparingly—God abates and slackens the inordinancy of the appetite.
But especially, God takes off our hearts from inordinate indulgences in a suffering condition, by revealing richer and purer satisfactions in Jesus Christ. It is God’s design by withdrawing the creature—to fix the soul upon himself. The voice of the rod is, “O taste and see how good the Lord is!” (Psalm 34:8). When the soul has once perceived the beauty of Jesus—he thrusts the creature away with contempt and indignation! He opens his soul to God, saying, “Whom have I in Heaven, but you? And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of you!” (Psalm 73:25). Surely it was in the school of affliction that David learned that lesson, even when the wicked prospered—and himself, with the rest of the godly, “were plagued all the day long, and chastened every morning” (Psalm 73:14). “When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me—till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny!” Psalm 73:16-17
3. In the school of affliction, God teaches self-denial and obedient submission to his will.
In our prosperity we are full of our own wills, and usually we give God counsel—when he looks for obedience; and so we dispute our cross—when we should take it up. But now by bearing a little affliction, we learn to bear more. The trial of our faith works patience. The more we suffer—the more God fits us for suffering:
a.) By working us off from our own wills, “Folly is bound up in the heart of (God’s) children; but the rod if correction drives it from them” (Proverbs 22:15).
b.) By accustoming us to the cross. The bullock which is unaccustomed to the yoke, is very impatient under the hand of the farmer; but after it is used to labor, it willingly puts its neck under the yoke.And so it is with Christians; after a while the yoke of affliction begins to be well-settled. By bearing much, we learn to bear with quietness. A new cart makes a great noise and squeaking—but when once used, it goes silently under the greatest load. None murmur so much at sufferings, as those who have suffered least! Whereas on the contrary, we see many times that those who have the heaviest burden upon their backs are most patient. “He sits alone, and keeps silence, because he has borne it upon him” (Lamentations 3:28). In other words, he is patient, because he is acquainted with sorrows. When people cry out, ‘Oh, none ever had such sufferings as mine!’—it is an argument they are strangers to afflictions.
c.) Because by chastisements God works out by degrees, the delicateness and fragility which we contract in our prosperity. Prosperity makes us tender; those who are always kept in the warm house, dare not put their head out of doors in a storm. None are so unfit for sufferings—as those who have been always dandled upon the knee of providence. The most delicate constitutions, are most unfit for hardship.
d.) Lastly and chiefly, this comes to pass because by sufferings: We come to taste the fruit of sufferings. “No chastening for the present seems joyous, but grievous; but afterwards it yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto those who are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12:11). Thus, one way or another, God works his children into a sweet obedient frame by their sufferings. It is even said of Christ himself, “He learned obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). By his own experience, he came to know what it was to be subject to the will of his Father.
It is equally true of God’s adopted children—they learn obedience by the things which they suffer; and that not only in a passive sense, but in an active sense. By suffering God’s will, we learn to do God’s will. God has no such obedient children as those whom he nurtures in the school of affliction. At length God brings all his scholars to subscribe:
what God will, when God will, and how God will.
“May Your will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10). This is a blessed lesson indeed.
4. In the school of affliction, God teaches humility and meekness of spirit. It is one of God’s designs in affliction, to debase the pride of man. God intends to spread sackcloth upon all man’s glory, so that man may see no excellency (wherein to pride himself) in all the creature. God led Israel forty years in the wilderness to humble them. By the thorns of the wilderness, God pricked the bladder of pride, and let out the windiness of self-exaltation which was in their hearts.
Prosperity usually makes men surly and haughty towards their poor brethren. The rich man answers roughly, even while the poor man uses entreaties and addresses him with all humility. He holds up his head or turns his back upon him with scorn and contempt, and thinks himself too good to give his poor neighbor a soft and peaceable answer.
Pride is a disposition which naturally runs in our veins, and it is nourished by ease and prosperity. And therefore, to tame this pride of spirit that is in man, God takes him into the house of correction, puts his feet in the stocks—and there teaches him to know himself. “He humbled you, and allowed you to hunger” (Deuteronomy 8:3). Hunger ate out that proud flesh which began to rankle in Israel’s stomach.
Hence it is, that if you take the children of God either yet in the furnace of affliction, or just come out it—you shall observe them to be the humblest, meekest creatures upon the earth; as it is said, “A little child may lead them” (Isaiah 11:6). Whereas before bring cast into this furnace of affliction—perhaps they were so proud and arrogant, that an angel of God could not tell how to deal with them. But now the lowest of God’s servants may reprove and counsel them.
David put his poor Ammonite prisoners and captives to death in cold blood (2 Samuel 12:31). But banishment and persecution made him so tame, that not only the righteous might reprove him; but even the wicked might reproach him, yet he holds his peace; or if he speaks, it is in words of patience and submission: “So let him curse, because the Lord has said, ‘Curse David’” (2 Samuel 16).
A man by affliction, comes to know his own heart—which in prosperity he was a stranger to. He then sees the weakness of his grace—and the strength of his corruption. He then sees how nothing is weak but his grace—and nothing is strong but his sin. This lays him in the dust: “Oh what a wretched man I am!” (Romans 7:24). And truly when a man has learned this lesson, he is not far from deliverance; “Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth, seek righteousness; seek meekness, it may be you shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger” (Zephaniah 2:3).
This is God’s design: first, to humble his people by affliction, and then to save them from it. “For the Lord takes pleasure in his people, he will beautify the meek with salvation” (Psalm 149:4).
5. In the school of affliction, God reveals the unknown corruption in the hearts of his people. “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years—to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.” (Deuteronomy 8:2). In other words, to make you know what was in your heart: what pride, what impatience, what unbelief, what idolatry, what distrust of God, what murmuring, what unthankfulness was in your heart— which you never noticed.
Sin lies very hidden and deep, and is not easily discerned—until the fire of affliction comes and makes a separation of the precious from the vile. ‘What shall I do,’ says God, ‘for the daughter of my people? They are exceeding bad, and they know it not. What shall I do with them? I will melt them and try them. Into the furnace they shall go—and there I will show them what is in their hearts!’
In the furnace we see more corruption than ever appeared before, or was suspected. ‘Oh,’ says the poor soul whom God has taught in the school of affliction, ‘I never thought my heart so bad as now I see that it is. I could not have believed this vain world had had so much place in my heart—and Christ so little. I did not think my faith had been so weak—and my fears so strong. I find that faith weak in danger, which I thought had been strong out of danger. Little did I think the sight of death would have been so terrible; and parting with nearest friends and dearest relations so piercing to me. Oh how unskillful and unwise am I to manage a suffering condition, to discern God’s ends, to find out what God would have me to do, to moderate the inordinancies of my own passions, to apply the counsels and comforts of the Word for their proper ends and uses! Oh where is my patience, my love, my zeal, my rejoicing in tribulation? Ah, I never thought that I would find my heart so discomposed, my affections so out of command, my graces so weak—when I would fall into afflictions! What a great deal of self-love, pride, distrust in God, creature confidence, discontent, murmuring, rising of heart against the holy and righteous dispensations of God does my heart contain! There is seething and fretting within me! Woe is me, what a foul heart have I!’
And besides all this, in the hour of temptation God brings old sins to remembrance. “We are truly guilty concerning our brother” (Genesis 42:21). Joseph’s brethren could say this twenty years after they had sold him for a slave, when they were in danger to be questioned for their lives, as they supposed.
Thus when the Israelites cry to God in their sore distress for rescue and deliverance, God puts them in mind of their old apostasies: “You have forsaken me, and served other gods. Go, and cry to the gods whom you have chosen!” (Judges 10:13-14).
Suffering times are times of bringing sin to mind. “If they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong and acted wickedly!’” (2 Chronicles 6:37). Afflictions bring to heart the remembrance of sin—it is a time of turning in upon ourselves, and bringing back to heart our wayward doings. Thus David under the rod could call himself to account: “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto your testimonies” (Psalm 119:59).
6. In the school of affliction, God teaches us to pray. Those who never prayed before, will pray in affliction. “Lord, in distress we searched for you. We prayed beneath the burden of your discipline.” (Isaiah 26:16). Those who kept their distance with God before, yes, that said to the Almighty ‘depart from us’—in their affliction they turn to God. Those who never prayed before, or at least did but now and then drop out a sleepy sluggish wish—can now pour out a prayer when chastisement is upon them. Rebels, fools, mariners, even the worst of men, often cry to God in their trouble. The heathen mariners fall to their prayers in a storm, and can awaken the sleepy prophet to this duty, “What do you mean, O sleeper! Arise and call upon your God!” (Jonah 1:6). Hence some say, “He who cannot pray—let him go to sea.”
Thus, I say, affliction opens dumb lips, and unties the strings of the tongue to call upon God. Those whom God teaches in affliction, learn to pray in another manner—more frequently and more fervently. More FREQUENTLY. God’s people are vessels full of the spirit of prayer—and affliction is a piercer, whereby God draws it out. David was always a praying man, but now under persecution he did nothing else, “I give myself unto prayer”. As wicked men give themselves up to their wickedness—so David gave himself up to prayer, he made it his work. Hence you may observe that all the Psalms are almost nothing else but the runnings out of David’s spirit in prayer under a variety of afflictions and persecutions. As his troubles were multiplied—so his prayers multiplied. The holy man was never in that condition wherein he could not pray.
Alas, it is sad to consider, that in our peace and tranquility, we pray by fits and starts many times—we allow every trifle to come and jostle out prayer; but in affliction God keeps us upon our knees, and as it were “ties the sacrifice to the horns of the altar” (Psalm 118:27). More FERVENTLY. As he teaches us to pray more frequently, so also to pray more fervently. It is said even of Christ himself, that “being in an agony—he prayed more earnestly” (Luke 22:44), more intensely. He prayed until he sweat, yes until he sweat great drops of blood. The reason being because he had not only the pangs of death, but also the sense of his Father’s wrath to dread. So it is with believers many times. Outward afflictions are accompanied with inward desertions.
Truly Christians, those prayers which you contented yourselves with in the day of your peace and prosperity—will not serve your turn in the hour of temptation, when you will call to mind your short, slight, cold, dead, sleepy, formal devotions in your families and closets, and are ashamed of them. Then you will see need of praying all your prayers again, and stir up yourselves to take hold on God.
Indeed for this very end God sends his people into captivity, that he may draw out the spirit of prayer, which they have allowed to lie dead within them. “O my dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” (Song of Solomon 2:14).
Christ’s dove never looks more beautiful in his eyes, than when her cheeks are bedewed with tears! Nor does she ever make sweeter music in his ears, than when she mourns to him from the clefts of the rock, in a dark and desolate condition. Then, says Christ, “Your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely!”
7. In the school of affliction, God brings his children into more acquaintance with the Word. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted—that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71). God sent David into the school of affliction, to learn his statutes there.
By correction, the people of God learn:
a.) to converse with the Word of God more abundantly, b.) to understand it more clearly,
c.) to relish it more sweetly.
a.) By affliction, we come to converse with the Word more abundantly. It is our duty at all times to study the Word, to “let it dwell richly in us in all wisdom” (Colossians 3:16). Job “esteemed the words of God’s mouth more than his necessary food” (Job 23:12). It is our happiness, as well as our duty. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, “but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:2).
But through distraction without, and distemper within—the children of God many times grow strangers to their Bibles. We allow diversions to interpose between the Word and our hearts, and therefore God deals with us as we do with our children—we whip them to their books by the rod of correction. “Princes sat and spoke against me” (Psalm 119:23a), says David. In other words, they sat in council to take away his life, that they might condemn him as a traitor against Saul. And what did he in the meantime? It follows, “but your servant meditated on your statutes” (verse 23b). And again, “Princes have persecuted me without a cause—but my heart stands in awe of your Word” (Psalm 119:161). While the persecutors are consulting with the oracles of Hell to sin against David—he is consulting with the oracles of Heaven, that he might not sin against God; while they sinned and feared not—David feared and sinned not.
b.) By affliction, we learn to understand the Word more clearly. As it was with the disciples in reference to Christ’s resurrection, “At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him.” (John 12:16). So it is with the people of God many times in reference to affliction—the rod expounds the Word, and providence interprets the promise. We would never understand some Scriptures, had God not sent us into the school of affliction. Then we can remember how it is written: we can bring God’s Word and his works together.
c.) Affliction makes us relish the Word more sweetly. In prosperity many times we allow the luscious enjoyments of the world, so to distemper our palates that we cannot relish the Word, nor taste any more sweetness in it than in the white of an egg, as Job speaks in another case (Job 6:6).
But when God has kept us for weeks, months, and years it may be, fasting from the world’s dainties; when we are thoroughly hunger- bitten in the creature, then “How sweet are your words to my taste! Sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103). These are the words which David spoke in his affliction. The rod sweetened the Word: ‘It is my delight, my joy, a nest of sweetnesses.’ “The full soul loathes the honey-comb”; when we are crammed with creature comforts, we nauseate many times the very Word itself; “but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet” (Proverbs 27:7). Let God famish the world round about us—then how cordial is a word of Scripture consolation! How precious then are the promises!
“Oh,” said a gracious woman reduced to great straits, “I have made many a meal upon the promises, when I have lacked bread.” The Word is never so sweet, as when the world is most bitter. Therefore God lays vinegar upon the treats of the world, that we might go to the breasts of the Word, and there “suck and be satisfied with the milk of consolation” (Isaiah 66:11). “This is my comfort in my affliction—for your Word has quickened me” (Psalm 119:50). Blessed be God for that affliction which sweetens the Word unto us.
8. God, in the school of affliction, especially in life- threatening dangers—shows them the necessity of sound evidence for Heaven and happiness.
Alas, with what easy and slight evidences do we often content ourselves in the time of our prosperity, when the candle of the Almighty shines in our tabernacles, and when all is peace and quiet round about us! The heart being taken up with other fruitions, we lack both the time and will to pursue the trial of our own estates. People mind only what will serve their turn for the present and quiet their hearts, so that they may follow their pleasures and profits with the less regret. Therefore to save themselves a labor, they take that for evidence, which their sluggish carnal heart wishes were so. But now in the hour of temptation, fig-leaves will cover nakedness no longer; nothing will serve the turn but what will be able to stand before God, and endure the trial of fire in the day of Christ.
O, then one clear and unquestionable evidence of saving interest in Christ, and the love of God, will be worth ten thousand worlds! Shadows and appearances of grace will vanish before the Searcher of Hearts. Only truth and soundness of grace, can give boldness in the day of judgment.
Ah, what lazy and deceitful hearts are in us, which can be satisfied with vain hopes, and venture to die upon them? And yet good and upright is the Lord, who will teach sinners his way—that by the thunderclaps of his righteous judgments will awaken the vain creature out of these foolish dreams in which if they should die, they were undone forever. Well, let us be still urging and pressing these questions upon our souls: ‘Will this faith save me when I come to stand before the throne of the Lamb? Will this love give me boldness in the day of judgment? Will this evidence serve my turn when I come to die?’ O Christians, let us be afraid to lie down with that evidence in our beds—with which we dare not lie down in our graves.
9. In the school of affliction, God causes us to see what an evil and bitter thing it is to grieve his good Spirit.
When we are in the bitterness of our spirits, and want the Comforter, then we begin to call to mind how often we have grieved the Spirit who would have been a Comforter to us and have sealed us to the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30). We say within ourselves in reference to the Spirit of God, as once the sons of Jacob said one to another in reference to Joseph, “We are truly guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us” (Genesis 42:21).
In some such language, I say, will the soul in the hour of temptation bespeak itself. ‘Ah, I am truly guilty concerning that tender Spirit of Grace and Comfort who has often said, “O! Do not this abominable thing which I hate!” (Jeremiah 44:4); but I would not hear. Is not this He whose rebukes I have slighted, whose counsels I have despised, whose warnings I have neglected, yes whose comforts I have undervalued, and counted them as a small thing? Ah wretch! How just is it now that the Spirit of God should withdraw? How just is it that he should despise my sorrows, and laugh at my tears. How just is it that he should shut out my prayers, quench my smoking flax, and break my bruised reed? (cf. Isaiah 42:3). Well, if the Lord shall indeed be pleased to bring my soul out of trouble, and to revive my fainting spirit with his sweet consolations—then I hope I shall carry myself for the future more obedient to the counsels and rebukes of the Spirit of grace.
10. In the school of affliction, God draws the soul into sweet and near communion with himself. Outward prosperity is a great obstruction to our communion with God. Partly because by letting out our affections inordinately to the creature—we allow the world to come between God and our hearts, and so intercept that sweet and constant fellowship which should be between God and us. God’s people offend most in their lawful comforts, because there the snare being not so visible as in grosser sins, they are the easier taken in it. We are soonest surprised, where we are least jealous.
Outward prosperity also obstructs our communion with God, because we fail to keep watch against lesser sins. While our hearts are warmed with prosperity, we think many times small sins can do no great harm. But in this we woefully deceive ourselves—for the least sin has the nature of sin it, as the least drop of poison is poison. In smaller sins, there is the greater contempt of God, inasmuch as we defy God for a trifle as we count it, and venture his displeasure for a little sensual satisfaction.
I say, besides these and many other considerations which may render our small sins great provocations, this is one unspeakable mischief: that small sins interrupt our communion with God as much as great sins, and sometimes more. For whereas great sins, by making deep wounds upon conscience, make the soul go bleeding to the throne of grace, and there to mourn and lament, and never to give God rest until he gives rest to the soul, and by a fresh sprinkling of the blood of Christ, to recover peace and communion with God— smaller sins, not impressing such horror upon the conscience, are swallowed in silence with less regret, and so do insensibly alienate and estrange the heart from Jesus Christ.
The least hair casts its shadow; an acorn put directly in front of the eye, keeps out the light of the sun as well as a mountain. The eye of the soul that will see God, must be kept very clear: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Little sins, though they do not disturb reason so much as great sins—yet they defile conscience, and the conscience under defilement (unlamented) is shy of God, and God shy of it.
But affliction sanctifies; as it deadens the heart to the world—so it awakens and softens the conscience against sin. The soul is made sensible of her departure from God, and of the bitter fruits of that departure, and now begins to lament after God in Augustine’s language, “Lord, you have made my heart for yourself, and it is restless and unquiet until it can rest in you.”
The soul has many turnings and windings, but like Noah’s dove, it can find no place for its foot to rest on, until it returns into the ark from whence it came. In the same way, when the soul has been weather-beaten abroad—if God is pleased to put forth his hand and take it into himself, if God comes and gives the soul a visit when the poor creature is in darkness and can see no light—then for God to lift up the light of his countenance and shine with a gracious smile upon the soul, and say unto it, “I am your salvation” (Psalm 35:3)—of what sweet and unspeakable refreshment and consolation is this to the afflicted heart?
What a gracious condescension is this in God, that in times of prosperity “when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ” (1 Timothy 5:11), and sported itself in unspouselike familiarities with strangers—Jesus Christ should send it into the house of correction, and there by the discipline of the rod, correct and work out the sensual desires of the flesh. And when he has made it fit for his presence, he takes it into sweet and social communion with himself again! This is astonishing mercy and goodness which cannot be paralleled in the whole creation!
11. In the school of affliction, God makes affliction the exercise and improvement of grace. In times of prosperity, grace many times lies dead in the soul—which affliction awakens and draws forth into exercise. The winter of our outward comforts, often proves the spring of our graces; frost and snow starve the weed—but nourish the good grain. Though faith and patience are of a universal influence in a holy life, yet affliction gives them their perfect work.
Of the times of persecution it is said, “Here is the patience and faith of the saints” (Revelation 14:12); that is, now is the time for the saints of God to exert their faith and patience, and to let them have their perfect work. There is a work of patience, and there is a perfect work, “the trial of faith works patience” (James 1:3). It works, or as the word signifies, it perfects. The cross exercises—and exercise perfects the grace of patience. As sufferings arise, so patience arises also, “Be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7) —in other words, bear the affliction until Christ comes and takes it off. Let your patience be of the same extent with your sufferings. As patience is perfected by afflictions, so faith is perfected by afflictions. Sometimes the soul finds its faith lively in a suffering condition—which before it questioned whether it were alive or not. Or if affliction does not find it lively, it makes it lively. In the same furnace of affliction wherein God tries our faith—he refines it, and purifies it more and more from the dross of worldliness.
They are the purest acts of faith, which the soul puts forth in the dark. Faith never believes more, than when it cannot see—because then the soul has nothing to stay itself upon but God. Sense, while it seems to help, renders the work of faith more difficult by doubling it. A man must first believe the insufficiency of what he sees, before he can believe the all-sufficiency of him who is invisible, “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
It is harder to live by faith in a state of abundance, than in poverty. The soul is a step nearer living upon God, when it has nothing to live upon but God. Yes, when God is not seen—he is most believed. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Observe, and you shall find a great deal more of precious faith in that desertion, than of complaint; faith breaks forth first, ‘My God,’ before ‘forsaken’. You have two words of faith, for one of despair, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Faith speaks twice before sense can speak once. Again, faith speaks confidently and positively, you are ‘my God’. Sense speaks dubiously, ‘why have you?’ as if sense dared not call it a forsaking, while faith dares say, ‘my God.’ Surely faith is never so much faith, as in spiritual desertion. Faith’s triumphs lie in the midst of despair, and even in this sense also, “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy!” (1 Peter 1:8).
How greatly is godly sorrow enlarged by sanctified affliction! That stream which was accustomed to run in the channel of worldly crosses, now is diverted into the channel of sin: “I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned” (Micah 7:9). Any burden is light in comparison to sin, the very indignation of God. The soul that God teaches by his chastisements, can stand under the burden of God’s indignation for sin—when it cannot stand under sin which has kindled that indignation.
Ah, cries Job upon the dunghill, “I have sinned, what shall I do unto you, O preserver of men?” (Job 7:20). He forgets his suffering in his sin; he says not, ‘I have lost all my substance. I am now upon the dunghill as naked as ever I was born, save that I am clothed with scabs. My friends reproach me, my wife curses me, or that which is worse, she bids me curse God. Satan persecutes me, and God himself has become my enemy. All this has befallen me—what will you do unto me, O preserver of men?’ But instead it is, “I have sinned, what shall I do unto you?” Sufferings convict of sin—and the sense of sin swallows up the sense of sufferings.
And what shall I say more? The time would fail to instance in other graces, love, fear, holiness, and so forth. “By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin” (Isaiah 27:9).
Grace is never more grace, than when besieged with afflictions. The battle draws forth that fortitude and bravery which in time of peace lay chilled in the veins for lack of opposition and exercise. Tribulation works patience.
12. In the school of affliction, the necessity and excellency of the life of faith is learned.
a.) The necessity of living by faith. Where sense ends—faith begins. “The just shall live by faith” (2 Corinthians 5:7). We live by faith—or die in despair. When God pulls away the bull-rushes of creature supports—the soul must either swim or sink. God teaches this lesson:
(1.) By the uncertainty of second causes, and the vicissitudes which are in creature expectations. We have a little hope today—but tomorrow we are reduced to despair. We have good news today: Pharaoh says that Israel shall go free—but bad news tomorrow: Pharaoh rages and swears that “if Moses sees his face any more, that he shall surely die” (Exodus 10:28).
O the ebbs and flows of sublunary hopes! One speaks a word of comfort—another speaks words of terror. Now we receive a parcel of good words—and shortly thereafter a solemn threatening. The sick man is in hopes of reviving today—but tomorrow at the point of death.
What a woeful heart-dividing life is a life of sense, a life that is worse than death itself; to be thus bandied up and down between hopes and fears; to be baffled to and fro between the maybe’s of second causes! To be like mariners upon the billows and surges of the tempestuous sea! “Their ships were tossed to the heavens and plunged again to the depths; the sailors cringed in terror. They reeled and staggered like drunkards and were at their wits’ end!” (Psalm 107:26-27).
(2.) By the disappointment of the creature. How often does the creature totally fail and disappoint our expectations! Like the deceitful brook, to which Job most elegantly compares his brethren, which mocks the traveler who comes for a draught of water to quench his thirst—but is sent away with confusion and shame. “Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie” (Psalm 62:9). Men of low degree would help, but cannot—there is vanity. Men of high degree can help many times, but will not—no, not when they have promised and sworn—there is a lie! Both disappoint, the one by the necessity, the other by deceit!
Disappointment is one of the greatest torments that a rational creature is capable of. Says David, “I look for someone to come and help me, but no one gives me a passing thought! No one will help me; no one cares a bit what happens to me.” (Psalm 142:4). Peter-like, they “knew not the man” (Matthew 26:72)—they made as if they had never seen him before. Just so that churl Nabal, “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse?” (1 Samuel 25:10). And it was not Nabal only who stood at this distance from him, his nearest and dearest acquaintance cast him off: “You have taken away my companions and loved ones. Darkness is my closest friend.” (Psalm 88:18). “Refuge failed me, no man cared for my soul!” (Psalm 142:4).
Paul was in no better condition in the persecution which befell him at Rome, “At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me!” (2 Timothy 4:16). There was not a man of all them that sat under the famous apostle’s ministry who would dare appear to speak a word for him, or to him. Oh bitter disappointment —had not he Paul had faith to support him under it! Sorrow and shame are the fruits of creature-expectation.
But now on the contrary, “Those who look to Him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces.” (Psalm 34:5). Faith meets with no disappointment—for God is always better than our expectation, “Nevertheless the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me—and I was delivered from the mouth of the lion” (2 Timothy 4:17).
By such experiences do we learn the necessity of living by faith, “I would have perished in my affliction, unless your law had been my delight” (Psalm 119:92). Unless David had learned to live by God’s promises, he would have been a dead man.
Surely he dies often, whose life is bound up in the dying creature. As often as the creature fails—his hope fails and his heart fails. When the creature dies, his hope is disappointed. He alone lives an unchangeable life, who by faith can live upon an unchangeable God.
We hear such things indeed in the Word; but we do not believe them until our own experience convinces us of our infidelity. A long time do we rely totally upon the creature, knowing no other life than that of sense and reason, “Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet” (Habakkuk 1:16).
And because the Word tells us much of living by faith, we would eagerly patch up a life between faith and sense, which indeed is not a life of faith. Though we may use means—we must trust God and trust him solely; and therefore to bring us to this, God allows us to be tried and vexed with the mockery of second causes. And when we have spent all upon these physicians of no value—then, and never until then, we resolve to live by faith.
When David had sufficiently experienced the falseness and hypocrisy of Saul and his parasites, “They delight in lies, they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly,” then he resolves never to trust a creature more: “My soul wait only upon God, he alone is my Rock and my salvation” (Psalm 62:4-6).
Unmixed trust in God—is the fruit of our experience of the creature’s vanity. We never resolve exclusively for God, until with the prodigal, we are whipped home naked to our father’s house. When the Church had run herself barefoot in following her lovers, who answered her expectation with nothing but fear, and sent her away with shame instead of glory—then she went home, and confessing her atheism and folly, gives up herself purely to divine protection: “Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount war-horses. We will never again say ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made, for in You the fatherless find compassion.” (Hosea 14:3).
b.) By the mutability and disappointment of the creature, God teaches his people the excellency of the life of faith. David, when he learns it in the school of affliction, publishes it for the use and benefit of after ages: “Blessed is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God” (Psalm 146:5). He had before entered a caveat against creature confidence, “Put not your trust in princes—nor in man”; and gives the reason of it, there is no help or salvation in the best of men—”nor in man, in whom there is no help” (verse 3).
Alas, man is but a little breathing clay; and when that breath goes forth, he returns to his native earth. When the breath is gone, there is nothing but a little lump of clay remaining. In that very day his thoughts perish. When the man dies, all his counsels and plots and projects die with him. Having thus put in his caution against creature dependence, and given in the account of the vanity thereof—David shows the difference between trust in a dying man, and a living God.
Only trust in God is able to make a man blessed. Those who have the great men of the world to trust in may seem happy, but only he who has the God of Heaven to trust is truly blessed, “Blessed is he who has the God of Jacob for his help.” Why so? Because while those who trust in princes shall be disappointed—those who trust in God shall never be disappointed; for he is Jehovah. His hope is in the Lord, or in Jehovah, his God: “He made Heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is” (verse 6); and he who gave being to every creature, can give being to his promise also. Can anything be too hard for a creating God? He keeps truth and promises forever. Heaven and earth may pass away, but not one jot or tittle of his promise shall pass away until all be fulfilled (Matthew 5:18).
Men may prove unfaithful, but God will never prove unfaithful. He keeps truth forever, “Faithful is he who has promised” (Hebrews 10:23). And thus the soul comes to see the sweetness and excellence of a life of faith, while others are mocked, abused, and slain, by disappointment from the second causes. “He is kept in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on God—because he trusts in him” (Isaiah 26:3). He lives indeed, who lives by faith in the ever faithful God.
THE EXCELLENCY OF A LIFE OF FAITH REVEALS ITSELF IN THESE FOUR PARTICULARS:
It is a secure life.
It is a sweet life.
It is an easy life.
It is an honorable life.
(1.) The life of faith is a SECURE life. “This is the man who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the impregnable rocks. His bread will be supplied, and water will not fail him.” (Isaiah 33:16). How securely does he dwell, whose fortifications are impregnable, inaccessible rocks! In the Hebrew it is, “He shall dwell in heights,” or rocks so high that none can scale them, rocks so thick that no breach can be made in them, rocks within rocks, “impregnable rocks”. Rocks so deep that none can undermine them. Surely a person thus defended on every side, need not fear storming.
OBJECTION. Yes, though rocks may be a good fence—they are but ill food, a man cannot feed on rocks; rocky places are barren, though impregnable; he may be starved, though he cannot be stormed!
ANSWER. No! The words following relieve that fear also, “His bread will be supplied” (verse 16). He shall have bread enough, and it shall cost him nothing—it shall be given to him.
And whereas a rock is but a dry situation, without either springs or streams, and thereupon a man might be exposed to perishing for lack of water. Thirst will slay, as well as hunger. Therefore it is likewise added, “His water will not fail him” (verse 16). He shall have waters which neither summer’s heat nor winter’s frosts shall be able to dry up—never-failing waters shall fill his cisterns from day to day “His water will not fail him.”
Under such an excellent metaphor is the security of a life of faith described, and this metaphor is expounded in another place: “Our city is strong! We are surrounded by the walls of God’s salvation.” (Isaiah 26:1). Walls shall not be their salvation, but salvation shall be their walls. How safely do they dwell, who are walled about with salvation itself! The walls are salvation, and that salvation is Jehovah; for so it follows, “Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength” (verse 4). The Lord Jehovah is the rock of all ages! His refuge will be the impregnable rocks; and the Lord Jehovah is those rocks, a rock of ages. Ages pass away, one after another—but the rock abides, and abides forever. “In the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength” (verse 4).
He who rained manna in the wilderness, will give bread; and he who fetched water out of the rock, will be a never-failing fountain—his water will not fail him.
(2.) The life of faith is SWEET. Is it not a sweet thing to fetch all our waters from the fountain, from the spring-head, before they are degenerated or muddied by the miry channel? Faith says to God, “All my fresh springs are in you!” (Psalm 87:7). Is it not sweet to be fixed and composed in the midst of all the changes and confusions under the sun? This is the privilege of him who lives by faith, “No evil tidings shall make him afraid, his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord” (Psalm 112:7). And again, “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3). The Hebrew has it “peace, peace”—that is, multiplied peace; pure, unmixed peace. Constant and everlasting peace, is the portion of him who lives by faith—so far as he lives by faith. Unless sense and reason break in to disquiet him—he lives in a most sweet and constant serenity.
(3.) The life of faith is an EASY life. It is an easy life to have all provisions brought in to a man, without any care or trouble. Such is the privilege of a believer; he has all his cares provided for. “In nothing be anxious, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). Faith leaves a believer nothing to do but to pray and give thanks! Topray for what he needs, and to give thanks for what he has—that is all he has to do.
It is true, believers must labor and travel in the use of means, as well as the rest of the sons of Adam—but it is without worry—without anxious, heart-rending, soul-distracting care. Worry is the thorn, the sting which the sin of man and the curse of God has thrust into all our labors. Faith pulls this thorn out, so now all the labor of faith is an easy labor, like the labor of Adam in paradise. Faith uses means, but trusts God. Faith obediently closes with the providence of means, but sweetly leaves the providence of success to God. Yes, faith can trust God when there are no means to use, and say; “Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the LORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!” (Habakkuk 3:17-18).
Faith can live upon God, when there is a famine upon the whole creation. The peace of God fences the heart from all surprises of fear and trouble, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6- 7). As faith enjoys God in all things in the greatest abundance—so she can enjoy all things in God in the deepest need.
(4.) The life of faith is an HONORABLE life. It is the honor of the court favorite that he can go immediately to his prince—when strangers are not admitted. Yes, without all question, it is an honorable life to live as God himself lives. This is the glory of God, that he lives in himself and of himself. And in their proportion, such honor have all his saints. They live in God and upon God here by faith—and they shall live in God and upon God hereafter by sight, in the beatific vision.
This is the excellency of the life of faith, and this the people of God experience by their sufferings, whereby God calls them out of the world, and taking them into himself, he reveals to them by degree, the mystery and privilege of living upon God, and upon God alone.
13. In the school of affliction and distresses, God takes us off from self-confidence, and teaches us to trust him more, and ourselves less.
This is the same with the former—except only that we speak now of trust in God—in opposition to confidence in ourselves, and not in others; a distemper that prevails much in our natures. Ever since we rendered ourselves able to do nothing but sin—we think ourselves able to do anything; we imagine to ourselves to have a kind of omnipotence. Naturally we are prone to entertain and nourish high presumptions of our own strength, and of our own wisdom.
a.) Of our own STRENGTH. In our prosperity we think ourselves able to carry any cross; we imagine ourselves strong enough to bear away even Samson’s gates upon our shoulders, and prepared to encounter any affliction in the world. But when the hour of affliction actually comes, we find we are but like other men, and are ready to sink, with Peter, if but one wave rises higher than another.
Usually sufferings, before they come, are like a mountain at a great distance, which seems so small that we think we could almost jump over it. But upon nearer approaches, when we come to the foot of it, it appears as if it would fall upon us, and crush us in pieces. Peter is so big with love to Christ, that he will die with him rather than forsake him. Yes, though all the rest should betake themselves to their heels—Peter will stand by Jesus to the last drop of blood. Yet behold, when it comes to the actual trial, a weak silly damsel is able with a single question to frighten him out of his confidence—and Peter not only forsakes, but forswears his Lord.
Pendleton, in the book of martyrs, boasts that he will fry his fat body in flames of martyrdom, rather than betray his religion; but when the hour comes that Christ and religion had most need of him—he had not one drop of all that fat to spare for either.
b.) As we are prone to presume of our own strength, so we are very apt to idolize our own WISDOM. We are prone to lean to our own understanding—and think by our sagacity, to wind ourselves out of any labyrinth of trouble and perplexity. But we find
it otherwise when we actually come into the snare. We then are forced to cry out with the Church, “He has hedged me about that I cannot get out—he has made my chain heavy” (Lamentations 3:7). Like a malefactor who has broken out of prison—he thinks to run away, but he has a heavy chain upon his heel that spoils his haste; and being fenced in round about, he goes to this corner, hoping to find some gap, but there he finds the hedge made up with thorns; and to another corner, and there also the briars stop him.
But that is not all; read on in the Church’s complaint, and you shall find greater obstructions, “He has enclosed my ways with hewn stones” (verse 9). Suppose a man would venture the scratching of his flesh to break through a hedge to save his life—yet that would not do, as God had taken away the hedge, and built a wall instead of it—a wall so high that they could not climb over, a wall so thick that they could not dig through.
The meaning is, man in affliction thinks to make his way through by his own art and cunning—but upon the attempt, he finds difficulties arising still higher and higher, so that when all is done, escape is impossible without an immediate rescue by the arm of omnipotence!
This was Paul’s case, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.” (2 Corinthians 1:8). In all probability, this was that uproar at Ephesus, wherein Paul was likely to have been pulled in pieces, for it was a trouble that befell him in Asia (Acts 23:10). It was a strait wherein the apostle was at his wit’s end; he despaired even of life, ‘We were bereft of all counsel how to expedite ourselves out of the danger.’
So David complains, “How long shall I take counsel in my soul?” (Psalm 13:2). When he was persecuted by Saul, and beset with innumerable dangers—he took counsel within himself. He thought of this means and the other means. He cast about this way and that way how to escape, but in vain; all his counsels left him as full of sorrow and despair as they found him. “How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart?” He had his sorrow for his pains.
Thus it was with the apostle, all his counsel left him in the hand of despair, “We despaired even of life”. His case was no other than the prisoner at the bar, at the time the sentence of death is passed upon him. He looks upon himself (and so do bystanders) as a dead man; he is legally dead, dead to all intents and purposes of the law; there lacks nothing but the execution. So it was with Paul, “We had the sentence of death in ourselves” (2 Corinthians 1:9); the sentence was passed in his own heart, and now says Paul, ‘I am but a dead man!’
This was his strait, and it seemed God had a design in it, and what was that? He himself will tell you, “We had the sentence of death in ourselves—that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.”
See here that the design is expressed both negatively and affirmatively.
NEGATIVELY, “that we might not trust in ourselves,” for God saw even in that great apostle himself a disposition to self-confidence, a proneness to be exalted above measure, through the abundance of revelations. And therefore so as to prick the bladder of pride, God gave him a thorn in the flesh to work out this self-trust. God reduced him to a state of despair, as to outward and visible probabilities.
AFFIRMATIVELY, “But in God who raises the dead”—by this desperate experience, God would teach Paul ever after where strength and counsel were to be had in the like extremities—nowhere but in God—and in him abundantly. The God of resurrections can never be baffled. He who can raise the dead can conquer the greatest difficulty; he who can put life into dead men, can put life into dead hopes and raise up our expectations out of the very grave of despair.
That God can put life into dead bones, is a consideration able to put life into a dead faith.
To this purpose it is observable that even those to whom God has indulged the largest proportions of faith and courage, he has allowed not only to languish under fears, but even to despair under insupportable difficulties—before they could recover holy confidence in God.
We find David, that great champion of Israel, more than once surprised with dreadful fear: “I said in my haste” (Psalm 31:22; 116:11). The Hebrew signifies, ‘in my trembling’—when I was almost beside myself for fear. Well, what did he say then? Why he said, “I am cut off from before your eyes” (Psalm 31:22). That is, ‘God has cast me out of his care, he looks no more after me, I am a lost man.’
And again, “I said in my haste: All men are liars” (Psalm 116:11). ‘Even Samuel himself, who told me I would be a king, he has seen but a false vision, and a lying divination; God never said so to him. No, I shall one day fall by the hand of Saul.’
And thus the prophet Jeremiah laments, “You drew near in the day that I called upon you; you said: Fear not” (Lamentations 3:57); but before God spoke a ‘fear not’ to his soul, he was afraid—hear what he says, “They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me; waters flowed over my head, then I said: I am cut off!” (verses 52-54). Mark, with Paul, he had received the sentence of death in himself, he looks upon himself as a dead man, yes as already in his grave, and his gravestone laid upon it, “They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me”—I am dead and buried, and a stone rolled to the mouth of the sepulcher.
And thus you may hear Jonah crying in the whale’s belly, “I am cast out of your sight!” (Jonah 2:4).
And thus you may hear Zion, in the dust, tuning her lamentations, “The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me!” (Isaiah 49:14). It were easy to multiply instances.
Now this is continually our case—and this is still God’s design. We are proud creatures, full of self-confidence, and therefore God, by strange and unexpected providences, hedges up our way with thorns, and walls up our path with hewn stones—bringing to despair even of life, bereaving us of counsel, driving us from all our own shifts and policies, bringing us under the very sentence of death—all that we might not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.
He unbottoms us by despair. He convinces us of our impotence and folly. He shows us what babes and fools we are in ourselves—so that in all our future hazards and fears, we might know nothing but God, “Go in the strength of the Lord, and make mention of his righteousness, and of his alone” (Psalm 71:16).
And thus you see Peter, who before was so confident that he thought all the world might forsake Christ sooner than himself—afterward he was convinced of his own infirmity and instability, when Christ, to put him in mind of his three-fold denial, put him upon that three- fold interrogatory: “Simon Peter, do you love me more than these?” (John 21). In other words, ‘do you love me more than the rest of your fellow disciples?’ He dared make no other answer but this, “Lord, you know!”—he pleads nothing but his sincerity; and for that also, he casts himself rather upon Christ’s trial, than his own: “Lord, you know.”
14. In the school of affliction, God makes himself known unto his people. How long do we hear of God, before we experimentally know him? We often get more experimental knowledge of God by one affliction, than by many sermons. “I have heard of you often by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you! Therefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes,” cries Job upon the dunghill (Job 42:5-6). In the Word we do but hear of God— in affliction we see him.
Prosperity is the nurse of unbelief. The understanding being clouded with the streams and vapors of those lusts which are incident to a prosperous estate—men grow brutish, and the reverence and sense of God is little by little defaced. But now by affliction, the soul (being taken off from sense-pleasing objects) has a greater disposition and liberty to retire into itself. And being freed from the attractive force of worldly allurements—the mind is accustomed to be more serious and fertile—and so more capable of receiving divine illumination.
The clearer the glass is—the more fully does it receive in the beams of the sun. When the warm breath of the world has blown upon us—we are not so capable of the visions of God.
The wicked, through the pride of his heart, will not know God. They say to the Almighty, “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of your ways!” (Job 21:14). “Who is the Lord?” says Pharaoh (Exodus 5:2).
Likewise, the very godly themselves are exceeding dark and low in the apprehensions of God—our ignorance of God being never perfectly cured until we come to Heaven, where we shall see him face to face, and know him as we are known (1 Corinthians 13:12). In the meantime, by the strokes of divine vengeance God makes the wicked know him to their cost. In the same way, by the rod of correction, he makes his people to know him to their comfort. As God brought all his plagues upon Pharaoh’s heart, that he might know who the Lord was in a way of wrath—so he lays affliction upon his people, that they may know him in a way of love: “Israel shall cry unto me, ‘My God, we know you’” (Hosea 8:2).
Moses never saw God so clearly, as when he descended in a cloud. And truly that dispensation was but a type of the method which God uses in making himself known unto his saints. He puts them into the clefts of the rock, covers them with his hand while he passes by, and then proclaims his name before them, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious” (Exodus 33:19-23).
The people of God have the most sensible experience of God’s attributes in their sufferings: His holiness, His justice, His faithfulness, His mercy, and His all-sufficiency.
a.) His HOLINESS. Affliction shows what a sin-hating God our God is; for though his chastisements on his Church are in love to themselves—they are in hatred to their corruptions. While he saves the sinner, he destroys the sin, “By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin” (Isaiah 27:9). If the soul is to live—then sin must die.
b.) His JUSTICE. Afflictions are correction to the godly—and punishment to the wicked. In both God, is righteous. Thus Israel knew God; “Howbeit you are just in all that has come upon us, for you have done right, but we have done wickedly” (Nehemiah 9:33). In the severest dispensations, they judge themselves and justify God. Yes, when they cannot discern his meaning—then they adore his righteousness: “You are always righteous, O LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?” (Jeremiah 12:1). When the soul is unsatisfied—yet God is not unjustified.
c.) His FAITHFULNESS. We see God’s faithfulness in the very affliction itself, “I know, Lord, that your judgments are right, and that you in faithfulness have afflicted me!” (Psalm 119:75).
We see God’s faithfulness to his covenant—for affliction is not so much threatened as promised to believers; but of this hereafter. The more David was afflicted, the more God’s faithfulness appeared. ‘Oh,’ says the holy man, ‘I could not have lacked a stroke of all that discipline with which my heavenly Father has chastised me.’
We see God’s faithfulness in hearing prayer. “This poor man cried and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” Even when David lacked faith, God lacked not faithfulness. “I said in my haste: I am cut off from before your eyes’—nevertheless you heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto you” (Psalm 31:22). Unbelief itself cannot nullify the faithfulness of God. I conceive these words of the apostle to bear this sense, “If we believe not—yet he abides faithful, for he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). It is not to be understood of a state of unbelief, but of an act of unbelief; not of a lack of faith, but a lack in faith; neither of which can render God unfaithful, who is engaged not so much to our faith, as to his own faithfulness to himself, to hear the prayer of his troubled servants. “Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:15).
Believers experience the faithfulness of God best in their sufferings, because:
(1.) Then they are most prayerful. When our elder brother Esau is upon us—then we can wrestle with our elder brother Jesus, and not let him go until he bless us.
(2.) Then they are most vigilant to observe the returns of prayer. “My voice shall you hear in the morning, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto you, and will look up” (Psalm 5:3). In adversity, we are early with God in prayer, “In the morning shall you hear my voice, in the morning will I direct my prayer”. This implies double earliness, and double earnestness in prayer.
And when we have done praying, we shall begin waiting, “I will look up.” In prosperity, we put up many a prayer that we never look after; God may deny or grant, and we hardly take notice of it. But in affliction, we can press God for the returns of prayer, “Hear me speedily, O Lord, my spirit fails, hide not your face from me, lest I be like to those who go down into the pit” (Psalm 143:7). Not only denials, but delays kill us—then we can hearken for the echo of our voice from Heaven, “I will hearken what God the Lord will say, for he will speak peace to his people” (Psalm 85:8).
As God cannot easily deny the prayer of an afflicted soul, so if he grants, we can take notice of it, and know our prayers when we see them again; “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him” (Psalm 34:6)—and this endears the heart to God and to prayer. “I love the Lord, because he heard my voice and my supplications; because he has inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live” (Psalm 116:1-2).
As faithfulness in hearing prayer, so also in making good the promise. The afflicted soul can witness unto God, “as we have heard —so have we seen” (Psalm 48:8). What we have heard in the promise —we have seen in the accomplishment; God was never worse than his word. As affliction is a furnace to try the faith of God’s people—so it is also to try the faithfulness of God in his promises. And upon the trial, the Church brings in her experience, “The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6). Let a man cast the promise a thousand times into the furnace, it will still come out full weight! “As for God, his way is perfect, the word of the Lord is tried” (Psalm 18:30). It is to be understood in both places of the word of the promise. A man may set Heaven and earth upon a promise, and it will bear them up.
d.) His MERCY. God is merciful in the MODERATION of chastisements. In the midst of judgment, he remembers mercy. “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not” (Lamentations 3:22), cries the Church in Babylon. It is banishment—but it might have been destruction! We are in Babylon—but we might have been in Hell! It of the Lord’s mercies, and his mercies alone, that we are not there.
So says the afflicted soul: ‘If my burning fever had been the burning lake of fire; if my prison had been the bottomless pit; if my banishment from society had been expulsion (with Cain) from the presence of God, and that forever—then God would have been righteous in it.’ It is never so bad with the people of God, but it might have been worse! Anything on this side Hell is pure mercy.
And as there is mercy in God moderating the afflictions of his people —so there is mercy in SUPPORTING his people under afflictions. “When I said my foot slips”—now I sink, I shall never be able to stand under this affliction, I cannot bear it, “Your mercy, O Lord, held me up” (Psalm 94:18). When David was sinking, God put under him his everlasting arms and held him up—just as Christ stretched forth his hand to save Peter when he began to sink. Even when God’s suffering people have not any great raptures—yet then they find sweet supports, “His left hand was under me, his right hand embraced me” (Song of Solomon 2:6).
And yet it is not supporting mercy only which they experience in their sufferings—but often his REFRESHING, his rejoicing mercy. So it follows in the psalm above cited, “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, your comforts delight my soul” (Psalm 94:19). My thoughts were dark and doleful, and full of despair, and not a few of them; multitudes broke in upon me, and even swallowed me up. But your comforts were light and life, and delight to my soul. My thoughts did not sink me so deep, but your comforts raised me up as high. My thoughts were a Hell, but your comforts were a Heaven within me.
The soul hears of God’s mercy in prosperity—but it tastes of his mercy in affliction. And as it were overcome with enjoyments, can call to others, “O taste and see how good the Lord is!” (Psalm 34:8). Hence it is, that of all the days of the year the apostle would choose as it were a Good-Friday—a passion day, to rejoice in: “God forbid I should rejoice in anything but in the cross of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14); Christ’s sufferings for him—and his sufferings for Christ.
e.) The ALL-SUFFICIENCY of God is the last attribute I mentioned, which God proclaims before his suffering people. “Now you shall see,” says God to Moses, “what I will do to Pharaoh” (Exodus 6:1). Hitherto you have seen what Pharaoh has done to Israel—now you shall see what I can do to Pharaoh. And so they did see that the doubling of their burdens. was the dissolving of their bondage; the extinguishing of their nation, was the multiplying of their seed; the same waters which were Israel’s rocks—were the Egyptians’ grave.
“I will pursue, I will overtake them. I will divide the spoils; I will gorge myself on them. I will draw my sword and my hand will destroy them!” (Exodus 15:9)—so boasts the proud tyrant. ‘I will, I will, I will’. But not so fast Pharaoh, let God speak the next word, “But You blew with your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters!” (Exodus 15:10). O sudden turn! There lies Pharaoh with all his boastings, drowned in the sea. Thus did God appear to his oppressed Israel in the very nick of their extremities. “Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians; and the people feared the Lord” (Exodus 14:31).
“Israel saw.” In prosperity God works—but we see him not. Affliction opens our eyes! When we see our dangers, then we can see God in our deliverances. God could have brought Israel into the Land of Promise by a shorter way, in forty days. But he leads them about in a howling wilderness forty years (not a more likely place in all the world to have starved them and their flocks), and why? But to proclaim to Israel and all succeeding generations, “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” (Deuteronomy 8:3).
Israel learned more of God’s all-sufficiency in a land of drought, than she could have learned in the land flowing with milk and honey; namely, that God can feed without bread, and satisfy thirst without streams of water; that he can make the clouds rain down food, and the rock give out rivers; that the creature can do nothing without God, but God can do whatever he pleases without the creature.
Instances are endless—In a word, suffering time is the time wherein God makes his attributes visible, “The Lord will be a refuge to his people, a refuge in time of trouble”; and what follows? “And those who know your name will put their trust in you” (Psalm 9:9-10). In the school of affliction God reads lectures upon his attributes, and expounds himself unto his people—so that many times they come to know more of God by half a year’s sufferings, than by many years’ sermons.
15. In the school of affliction, God teaches them to mind the duties of a suffering condition, to study duty more than deliverance, and seriously to inquire what it is which God calls for under the present dispensation. The soul cries out with Paul, when laid for dead at Christ’s feet, “Lord, what will you have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). There is no condition or trial in the world, but it gives a man opportunity for the exercise of some special grace, and the doing of some special duty. It is the work of a Christian in every new state, and in every new trial—to mind what new duty God expects, and what new grace he is to exert and exercise.
To mind deliverance alone, is self-love, which is natural to man, “The captive exile hastens that he may he loosed, and that he should not die in the pit” (Isaiah 51:14). Man in affliction would eagerly be delivered, have the burden taken off, and the yoke broken; he makes more haste to get his afflictions removed,than sanctified. ‘O,’ thinks one, ‘if God would heal me of this sickness, deliver me out of this distress—I would walk more closely with him; I would be more abundant in family duties; I would be more fruitful in my converse; I would do thus and thus,’ and so on. Now though men should sit down in their afflictions, consider their ways, and make new resolutions for better things if God shall give better times—yet if this is all, it may be nothing else but a wile of the deceitful heart, a temptation and snare of the devil; a mere diversion to turn aside the heart from the present duty which God expects. And therefore when God intends good and happiness to the soul by the present chastisement, he pitches the soul upon the present duty, which is to “hear the rod, and he who has appointed it” (Micah 6:9); to discern God’s aim, and to find out the meaning of the present dispensation—to say to God, “I am guilty, but will offend no more. Teach me what I cannot see; if I have done wrong, I will not do so again.” (Job 34:31-32). To reflect upon our ways and hearts; to complain of sin—and not of punishment, “Why does a living man complain? A man for the punishment of his sin? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord” (Lamentations 3:39-40). To think the present condition as the best, “I have learned in whatever state I am, therewith to be content” (Philippians 4:11). In patience to possess our souls, to rejoice in God even in tribulation. To mind the public calamities of the Church more, and our private sufferings less; to pray for the welfare of Zion, “In your good pleasure do good unto Zion” (Psalm 51:18). To live upon Jesus Christ, and to make him glorious by our afflictions, “That Christ may be magnified in our bodies, whether it be by life, or by death” (Philippians 1:20). Paul studied more how to adorn the cross, than to avoid it; how to render persecution amiable; and if he must suffer for Christ, yet that Christ might not suffer by him; that Christ might be exalted, and the Church edified. And lastly, to commit the keeping of our souls to God in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
16. In the school of affliction, another lecture which the Holy Spirit teaches is, the fruits and advantages of a suffering condition. There is in every state of life a snare and a privilege; and it is the folly and misery of man, left to himself, that he willingly runs into the former but misses the latter. He is only able to add to his own misery, and to make his condition worse than he finds it.
Those whom God loves, he teaches. He teaches them to study, as the duty of their present state, so the advantage. When God takes away creature comforts, he does not only necessitate, but by the secret impressions of love upon the heart, he emboldens the soul to look out for reparations, and to urge God for a recruit in some richer accommodations. “Lord,” says Abraham, “what will you give me, seeing I go childless?” (Genesis 15:2).
In like manner, ‘Lord, what will you give me,’ says a suffering saint, ‘since I go wifeless, and friendless, and pennyless, and houseless,’ and so forth. So the disciples, “Lord, we have forsaken all and followed you—what shall we have therefore?” (Matthew 19:27). Faith may be a loser for Christ, but it will not be a loser by Christ. And accordingly Christ makes answer, “Truly I say unto you, there is no man who has left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s—but he shall receive a hundred-fold now in this life” (Mark 10:29-30).
Advantage enough! A hundred for one was the best year that ever Isaac had—but how shall this be made good? Why with “a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.” (verse 30): this must make up the account. It is very observable, that year wherein Isaac received his hundred-fold, was Isaac’s suffering year; the year wherein famine had banished him from his own country to sojourn with Abimelech in Gerer; yet Isaac’s best harvest was in a year of famine; and this was typical to all the children of promise: they must receive Isaac’s increase, “a hundred-fold—and with them, persecutions.”
And I conceive our Savior may allude to this type in this promise. In persecution, the people of God find their hundred fold; when they make a Scripture inquiry, they find sufferings, especially those for Christ’s sake, to be . . .
their letters testimonial for Heaven; the pledge of adoption;
a purge for corruption;
the improvement of holiness;
and, the enhancement of glory.
In a word, whatever the affliction is, that shall be the soul’s gain, “All things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28). This God teaches his people; it is the very design of the eighth chapter to the Romans, and of the twelve first verses of the twelfth chapter to the Hebrews, to show that God’s rod and God’s love go both together. This quiets the heart, and supports the soul under its burden, “For this cause we faint not”. Why? because “though our outward man perishes, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). As if he had said, ‘What we lose in our bodies, we gain in our souls; what we lose in our estates, we get in grace’; thus they bear up and comfort themselves in their deepest sorrows, while those who lie poring upon their afflictions, only aggravate every circumstance of a suffering condition, sink their own spirits, vex their souls, dishonor God by slandering his dispensations, and bring up an evil report upon the Cross of Jesus Christ.
The spiritual privileges of God’s suffering people are therefore called, “the peaceable fruits of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11) because the taste of this fruit brings such peace and comfort into the soul as makes it rejoice not in God only, but in tribulation; and in all these things to account itself “more than conqueror through him who has loved us!” (Romans 8:37).
17. In the school of affliction, God teaches what Christ taught Martha—that is, the one thing needful. Affliction reveals how much we are mistaken about our necessities. In our health and strength and liberty, we think this and that thing must be done; we think riches, honors, and a good name in the world to be necessary; we must get estates and lay up large portions for our children; we must raise our families and call our lands after our own names, and the like. But in the day of adversity, when death looks us in the face, when God causes the horror of the grave, the dread of the last judgment, and the terrors of eternity to pass before us—then we can “put our mouths in the dust, smite upon our thigh, and groan with broken heart and bitter grief.” (Lamentations 3:29; Jeremiah 31:19; Ezekiel 21:6). O how have I been mistaken? “How have I fed upon ashes, and a deceived heart turned me aside, so that I could not deliver my soul, nor say: Is there not a lie in my right hand?” (Isaiah 44:20)
Only then can we see that pardon of sin, a saving interest in Christ, a sense of God’s love, a life of grace, and an assurance of glory, are the only indispensables. In a word, that Christ alone, is the one thing needful—and that all other things are but “loss and dung” in comparison of “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord, and of a saving interest in him, and in his righteousness” (Philippians 3:8), without which the soul is undone to all eternity!
Oh that Christians would be wise, that they would not “spend their money for that which is not bread, nor their labor for that which satisfies not” (Isaiah 55:2)—but labor for faith which might realize and substantiate unseen and spiritual things! Those who will not learn this lesson in the school of the Word—shall learn it in the school of affliction if they belong to God. Therefore set your heart to it.
18. In the school of affliction, the redemption of TIME is another lesson which God teaches. In our tranquility, how many golden hours do we throw down the stream, which we are likely never to see again; for one moment whereof in the future, when we would give rivers of oil, the wealth of both the Indies, mountains of precious stones (if they were our own)—and yet neither would they be found a sufficient price for the redemption of any one lost moment.
It was the complaint of the heathen moralist, and may be much more our complaint, “Who is there among us that knows how to value time, and prize a day at a due rate?” Most men study rather how to pass away their time—than to redeem it. They are prodigal of their precious hours, as if they had more than they could tell what to do with them. Our life is short, and we make it shorter by wasting our time. How sad a thing is it to hear men complain, ‘O what shall we do to pass away the time?’
Alas, even Sabbath-time, the purest, the most refined part of time— time consecrated by divine sanction—how cheap and common is it in most men’s eyes, while many do sin away, and the most do idle away —those hallowed hours?
Seneca was accustomed to jeer the Jews for their ill husbandry, in that they lost one day in seven, meaning their Sabbath. Truly it is too true of the most of Christians, they lose one day in seven, the Sabbath for the most part is but a lost day; while some spend it totally upon their lust, and the most, I had almost said the best, do fill up the void spaces and intervals of the Sabbath from public worship, with idleness and vanity!
But oh, when trouble comes, and danger comes, and death comes— when the sword is at the heart, the pistol at the breast, the knife at the throat, death at the door—then how precious would one of those despised hours be?
Evil days cry with a loud voice in our ears, ‘Redeem the time!’ That caution was written from the tower in Rome, “Redeem the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). In life-threatening dangers, when God threatens as it were, that time shall be no more— then we can think of redeeming time for prayer, for reading, for meditation; for studying and clearing our evidences for Heaven; for doing and receiving good, according to opportunities presented; yes, then we can gather up the very broken fragments of time, that nothing may be lost. Then God teaches the soul what a choice piece of wisdom it is for us to be before-hand with time; for usually it comes to pass through our unskillfulness and unwatchfulness, that we are surprised with death; and we that reckoned upon years— many years yet to come, have not possibly so many hours to make ready our accounts. It may be this night the summons may come, and then if our time is done, and our work to is begun—in what a case are we! The soul must needs be in perplexity at the hour of death—that sees the day spent, and its work yet to do. A traveler that sees the sun setting when he is but entering on his journey, cannot but be aghast. The evening of our day, and the morning of our task—do not well agree together. The time which remains, is too short to lament the loss of past time. By such hazards God comes upon the soul as the angel upon Peter in prison, and smites upon our sides, bids us rise up quickly and gird up ourselves; and bind on our sandals, that we may redeem lost opportunities, and do much work in a little time. It is a pity to lose anything of that which is so precious and so short, as time.
19. In the school of affliction, God teaches us how to estimate, or at least to make some remote and imperfect guess, at the sufferings of Jesus Christ. In our prosperity we pass by the Cross carelessly and regardlessly; at the best we do but shake our heads a little. The reading of the story of Christ’s passion stirs us up some pity towards Him—but it is quickly gone; we forget as soon as we get into the world again.
But now . . .
let God pinch our flesh with some sore affliction;
let Him fill our bones with pain, and set us on fire with a burning fever;
let our feet be hurt in the stocks, and the irons enter into our souls; let our souls be exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud;
let us be destitute, afflicted, tormented, and so forth—
then we sit down and look upon Him whom we have pierced, and begin to say within ourselves:
“Are the chips of the cross so heavy? What then was the cross itself, which my Redeemer bore?
Are a few bodily pains so bitter? What then were those agonies which the Lord of glory sustained in His soul?
Is the wrath of man so piercing? What was the wrath of God, which scorched His righteous soul, and forced His very heart’s blood through His flesh in a cold winter’s night, so that His sweat was as great drops of blood falling down to the ground?
Are the buffetings of men so grievous? What were the buffetings of Satan, which our Lord sustained, when all the brood of the serpent lay nibbling at His heels?
Is a burning fever so hot? How then did the flames even of Hell itself scald my Savior’s soul?
Is it such a heart-piercing affliction, to be deserted of friends? What was it then for him, that was the Son of God’s love, the darling of his bosom, to be deserted of his Father, which made him cry out to the astonishment of Heaven and earth, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).
Is a chain so heavy, a prison so loathsome, the sentence and execution of death so dreadful? O what was it for Him who made Heaven and earth to be bound with a chain, hurried up and down from one unrighteous judge to another, mocked, abused, spit upon, buffeted, reviled, cast into prison, arraigned, condemned, and executed in a most shameful and accursed manner?
O what was it for him to endure all this contradiction of sinners, rage of the devil, and wrath of God—in comparison of whom the most righteous person that ever was, may say with the penitent thief on the cross, “And we indeed suffer justly—but he, what evil has he done? He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth” (Luke 23:41; Isaiah 53:9).
Blessed be God . . .
my prison is not the bottomless pit,
my burnings are not unquenchable flames, my cup is not filled with wrath.
In a word, my sufferings are not Hell. Blessed be God for Jesus Christ, by whom I am delivered from wrath to come.
And thus, as the Lord Jesus by the sensible experience of his own passion, came perfectly to understand what his poor members suffer while they are in the body—so we by the remainders of his cross, which he has bequeathed us as a legacy, come in some measure to understand the sufferings of Christ, or at least by comparing things of such vast disproportion, to guess at what we cannot understand.
20. The last lesson which God teaches in the school of affliction, is how to prize and long for Heaven. In our prosperity, when the candle of God shines in our tabernacles, “when we wash our steps in butter, and the rock pours us out rivers of oil” (Job 29:6)—we could set down with the present world, and even say with the disciple (though not upon so good an account), “It is good for us to be here; let us build tabernacles here” (Matthew 17:4). While life is sweet—death is bitter. Heaven itself is no enticement— while the world gives us her alluring entertainments.
But when poverty and imprisonment, reproach and persecution, sickness and sore diseases, pinch and vex our hearts with a variety of aggravations—then we are not so fond of the creature, and are pleased to parley with death, and take Heaven into our consideration. Not that merely to desire to be in Heaven, because we are weary of the world, is an argument of grace, or a lesson which needs divine teaching; self-love will prompt as much. But because like foolish travelers, we love our way though it be troublesome, rather than our country. God by putting us in the school of affliction, takes off our hearts by degrees from this present world, and makes us look homeward; being burdened we groan—and with the dove we return to the ark, when the world is sinking round about us.
When David was driven from his palace, then “Woe is me that my pilgrimage is prolonged” (Psalm 120:5-6). We would be contented with the garlic and flesh-pots of Egypt—if God did not set cruel taskmasters over us to double our burdens. And when God thus lessens our esteem of the world, He reveals to us the excellency of heavenly comforts, and draws out the desires of the soul to a full fruition: “When shall I come and appear in Your presence?” (Psalm 42:2). “Even so, come Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
Afflictions make Heaven appear as Heaven indeed.
To the weary, Heaven is rest;
to the banished, it is home;
to the scorned and reproached, it is glory; to the captive, it is liberty;
to the soldier, it is conquest;
to the hungry, it is hidden manna;
to the thirsty, it is the fountain of life;
to the grieved, it is fullness of joy; and
to the mourner, it is pleasures forevermore.
In a word, to those who have lain upon the dunghill of affliction, and walked in holiness—Heaven is the throne on which they shall sit and reign with Christ forever and ever!
Surely beloved, Heaven thus proportioned to every state of the afflicted soul, cannot but be very precious—and will make the soul desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is best of all. A Christian indeed is comforted by faith, but not satisfied; for here we are absent from the Lord, and walk by faith, not by sight. Hope, though it keeps life in the soul, yet it is not able to fill it; he longs, and thinks every day a year until he is at home. Those who walk by faith, cannot be quiet until they are in the sight of those things which they believe.
Jacob, when he heard that Joseph was alive, though he did believe it, yet could not be satisfied with hearing of it; but says he, “I will go and see him before I die” (Genesis 45:28): so the believing soul, ‘He, whom my soul loves, was dead, but is alive, and behold he lives forevermore. I will die that I may go and see him!’ Just as Augustine, upon that answer of God to Moses, “You cannot see my face and live” (Exodus 33:20), makes this quick and sweet reply: “Then Lord let me die that I may see your face.”
Thus have I presented you with those twenty various lessons which Jesus Christ, the great Prophet of his Church, teaches his afflicted ones in the school of affliction.
https://takeupcross.com
takeupcross
Take Up the Cross 