Thirdly, The due time of this lifting up. That is a natural question of those in humbling circumstances, “Watchman, what of the night?” And we cannot answer it to the humbled soul but in the general, Isa. 21:11, 12. So take these general observations on it.

The timing of a “lifting up”, proceeds according to God’s perfect will. (1) The duration of trouble depends upon the purpose of God. (2) It will come at the right time. (3) When the time arrives, it will come then. (4) But it seem to come too late. Often it will come at the very last possible moment. (5) It will come only when we have been humbled.

Our emotional response is the proper measure of time for a trial. He uses an example which is likely to seem foreign to a contemporary reader. When we plant seeds, they will not all sprout at the same time. For instance, weeds (which have been spread seeds blown or tracked about) seem to grow over night. Some seeds germinate more quickly than others. When you are familiar with the expected time for seed germination, the seeds do not come up “slowly”, seeds germinate as quickly as we expect.

Here then is the trouble. We do not know from God’s perspective how long we should expect. While we want the trial removed immediately, we have no basis upon which to judge God’s work. We cannot say this has gone on “too long” when we do know the full intention and effect to be produced. In our ignorance, we misjudge God:

1. The lifting up of the humbled will not be longsome, considering the weight of the matter; that is to say, considering the worth and value of the lifting up of the humble; when it comes it can by no means be reckoned long to the time of it. When ye sow your corns in the fields, though they do not ripen so soon as some garden-seeds, but you wait three months or so, ye do not think the harvest long a-coming, considering the value of the crop.

He quotes 2 Cor. 4:17. Our affliction, when seen from the right perspective, will be “short” and “light.” Notice also that way in which we value the trial is premised not merely from the trial being over but from the effect of the trial. Consider painting the ceiling. Is four years a long time to complete the task? If I am using a roller and painting the ceiling a single color, four years would be extraordinary. But what of Michelangelo spending four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

This view the apostle takes of the lifting up in humbling circumstances, 2 Cor. 4:17. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” So that a believer looking on the promise with an eye of faith, and perceiving its accomplishment, and the work of it when accomplished, may wonder it is come on so short on-waiting. Therefore it is determined to be a time that comes soon, Luke 18:7. soon in respect of its weight and worth.

Read 2 Corinthians 4-5

Make a list of ten observations about this text. For, nake two lists, things which we can perceive with our senses. Make a separate list of things which cannot be seen. For example 2 Cor. 4:8 “We are afflicted in every way” It is possible to see Paul’s afflictions. He will list quite visible afflictions in 2 Cor. 11:32 Yet, there is an invisible element, “but not crushed”. 2 Cor. 4:8b. Perhaps we can see the results of the resilience, but we cannot see the resilience itself.

Read verse 2 Cor. 4:16
What is wasting?
What is being renewed?

“He is not opposing body and soul, but the inner human being from the outer human being, existence determined by worldly circumstances and possibilities from existence determined by the power of the One who raised Christ from the dead. The outer person is what belongs to this world that is temporary and crumbling and what those who only evaluate things from a fleshly perspective can see. By contrast, the inner person belongs to what has ultimate significance and is being transformed and prepared for resurrection life through God’s matchless power.” David E. Garland, 2 Corinthians, vol. 29, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 240.

Memorize 2 Cor. 4:17
What a short prayer of thanksgiving for this promise. For a week, re-read 2 Cor. 4. Recall your prayer of gratitude to God for the promise made in this verse.

At the end of the week, write out on paper what you believe would be strengthened or changed in your life were you truly thankful for this promise.

Boston next next explains how God will not bring our relief before its time. By “due season” he means the appropriate time. For instance, light from the sun is due when the earth (our side of the earth) faces the sun.

2. When the time comes, it and only it will appear the due time. To every thing there is a season, and a great part of wisdom lies in discerning it, and doing things in the season thereof. And we may be sure infinite wisdom cannot miss the season by mistaking it, Deut. 32:4. “He is a rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment.” But whatever God doth will abide the strictest examination in that as at all other points, Eccles. 3:14. “I know that whatsoever God doth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doth it, that men should fear before him.”

Take this to heart: God is sovereign. This is not a matter to doubt, which is easiest to do when our life takes a hard turn. But we must not let our circumstances dictate our faith.

It is true, many times cast up to us as the due time for lifting up, which yet really is not so, because there is some circumstance hid to us, which renders that season unfit for the thing. Hence, John 7:6. “My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready.” But when all the circumstances, always foreknown of God, shall come to be unfolded, and laid together before us, we will then see the lifting up is in the nick of time, most for the honour of God and our good, and that it would not have done so well sooner.

When we become impatient with God’s sovereignty over our troubles, what has happened in our heart?

Do we truly know ourselves so well that we can anticipate exactly what will be necessary to mortify our flesh?

Why do we think we understand a treacherous enemy like sin so well that we know we have a place of some additional safety?

Do we truly know the depths of our own heart?

When the time appointed by God for relief has come, it will come at that moment. God does not delay its coming. He does not need to put it in the mail and hope that it will be delivered. His will or relief makes a thing so.

3. When the time comes that is really the due time, the proper time for lifting up a child of God from his humbling circumstances, it will not be put off one moment longer, Hab. 2:3. “At the end it shall speak—it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Though it tarry, it will not linger or put off to another time.

O what rest of heart would the firm faith of this afford us! There is not a child of God but would with the utmost carefulness protest against a lifting up before the due time, as against an unripe fruit casten to him by an angry father, that would set his teeth on edge. Since it is so then, could we firmly believe this point, that it will undoubtedly come in the due time, without losing of a minute, it will afford a sound rest.

Take this last point to heart: Do we carry a secret doubt that God will fail? That some problem is too great for his will?

It must be so, because God has said it: were the case never so hopeless, were mountains of difficulties lying in the way of it, at the appointed time it will blow, Heb. Hab. 2:3. A metaphor from the wind rising in a moment after a dead calm.

Boston here considers another subjective element in our trial. It will always seem too long.

4. The humbling circumstances are ordinarily carried to the utmost point of hopelessness before the lifting up. The knife was at Isaac’s throat before the voice was heard. 2 Cor. 1:8, 9. “For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, in so much that we despaired even of life: but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.”

Consider the history of God’s interaction with human beings?

When does God comes to look for Adam and Eve? (Gen. 3:8) Before or after the Fall?
When does God come to look for Cain? (Gen. 4:9)
Read Genesis 22, when does God stop Abraham?
Read Exodua 14, when does God rescue the people from Pharaoh?
When does God rescue Jesus from his persecutors? (Matt. 28)
Will God delay and then instantly rescue when He has accomplished his will?

Things soon seem to us arrived at that point: such is the hastiness of our spirits. But things may have far to go down, after we think they are at the foot of the hill. And we are almost as little competent judges of the point of hopelessness, as of the due time of lifting up. But readily God carries his people’s humbling circumstances downward, downward, still downward till they come to that point.

Two reasons hereof to be noticed.

(1.) One from the explanatory cause of it. Herein God is holding the same course which he held in the case of the man Christ, the beloved pattern copied after in all the dispensations of providence towards the church, and every particular believer, Rom. 8:29. He was all along a man of sorrows: as his time went on, the waters swelled more, till he was brought to the dust of death; then he was buried, and the grave-stone sealed; which done, the world thought they were freely quit of him, and he would trouble them no more. But they quite mistook it; then, and not till then, was the due time of lifting him up. And the liftings up that his people get most remarkable, are only little pieces fashioned after this grand pattern.

Why do we think that God will grant to us that which he would not grant to Jesus?

Think of the trial Jesus’ death was to his disciples.

Memorize Romans 8:28-29. How is “good” defined in this text?

Read Romans 31-38

We must trust in God for our good, not ourselves.

(2.) Another from the final cause, the end and design providence aims at in it, and that is to carry the believer cleanly off his own entirely, and all created bottoms, to bottom his trust and hope in the Lord alone, 2 Cor. 1:9. “That we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.” The life of a Christian here is designed to be a life of faith: and though faith may act more easily, that it has some help from sense, yet it certainly acts most nobly, when it acts over the belly of sense. Then is it pure faith, when it stands only on its own native legs, the power and word of God, Rom. 4:19, 20. “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead—neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God:” and thus it must do, when the matter is carried to the utmost point of hopelessness.

Read 2 Cor. 1:9. Whom are we not to trust? Whom are we to trust? How do we humans routinely get this wrong?

When we come to “hopelessness”, what hope must we lose? What hope must we gain?

Lastly, Due preparation of the heart, for the lifting up out of the humbling circumstances, goes before the due time of that lifting up according to the promise. It is not so in every lifting up: the liftings up of the common providences are not so critically managed; men will have them, will want them no longer, and God flings them to them in anger, ere they are prepared for them, Hos. 13:11. “I gave thee a king in mine anger.” They can by no means abide the trial, and God takes them off as reprobate silver that is not able to abide it, Jer. 6:29, 30.

This due preparation consists in due humiliation, Psal. 10:17. And it often takes much work to bring about this, which is another point that we are very incompetent judges of. We would have thought Job was brought very low in his spirit, by the providence of God bruising him on the one hand, and his friends on the other for a long time. Yet, after all he had endured both ways, God saw it necessary to speak to him himself, for his humiliation, chap. 38:1. By that speech of God himself he was brought to his knees, chap. 40:4, 5. “And we would have thought he was then sufficiently humbled, and perhaps he thought so himself too. But God saw a farther degree of humiliation necessary, and therefore just begins anew again to speak for his humiliation, which at length laid him in the dust, chap. 42:5, 6. And when he was thus prepared for lifting up, he got it.

Read Psalm 10
What is the general circumstance portrayed in this verse?
Does God come to rescue immediately?
What does the Psalmist do with the trouble he faces?

Read Psalm 42-43
In the midst of his trouble, what does the Psalmist tell himself?
In the midst of your own despair, how have you responded? How should you respond?