Thomas Boston, Crook in the Lot.33, Study Guide

27 Saturday Apr 2024

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How then should we think about the relief we do receive in “this life” (as opposed to full restoration which we will receive in “the life to come”)? Should we despair that there will be no relief here? How should I think about any rest I might have? Why would I hope for that in the future which I cannot receive now?

2. However, there are some cases wherein this lifting up does take place. God gives his people some notable liftings up, even in time, raising them out of remarkable humbling circumstances. The storm is changed into a calm, and they remember it as waters that fail. Psal. 40:1–4. Two things may be observed on this.

The Psalm provides as follow:

Psalm 40:1–4 (ESV) 

            1           I waited patiently for the Lord; 

he inclined to me and heard my cry. 

            2           He drew me up from the pit of destruction, 

out of the miry bog, 

                        and set my feet upon a rock, 

making my steps secure. 

            3           He put a new song in my mouth, 

a song of praise to our God. 

                        Many will see and fear, 

and put their trust in the Lord. 

            4           Blessed is the man who makes 

the Lord his trust, 

                        who does not turn to the proud, 

to those who go astray after a lie! 

The Scripture here gives us counsel. We we wait and call unto God. He sees our trouble to draw us out. When we have been saved, we give him praise.  There is here a ground for consolation:

All sorrow can be borne when we feel that God has not forgotten us; we may be calm when all the world forsakes us, if we can feel assured that the great and blessed God “thinks” on us, and will never cease to remember us.

John Peter Lange et al., A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Psalms (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), 276.

(1.) One may be in humbling circumstances very long, and sore and hopeless, and yet a lifting up may be abiding them of a much longer continuance. This is sometimes the case of the children of God, who are set to bear the yoke in their youth, as it was with Joseph and David; and of them that get it laid on them in their middle age, as it was with Job, who could not be less than forty at his trouble’s coming, but, after it, lived one hundred and forty, Job 42:16. God by such methods prepares men for peculiar usefulness.

Look at your trial. Let us assume your trial has gone on longer than you think you can bear. God can lift your trial and give you rest for a longer time still. God is not a sadistic tyrant who gains joy at our distress. He seeks merely our good. God does not even take pleasure at the death of the wicked.

Ezekiel 18:23 (ESV)

23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?

If he has hope and compassion for the wicked, how much more for us.  There are many things which we must learn which seem too great to bear. Yet when they have gone past, we can rejoice in how we have changed for the good.

The knowledge that our trial will resolve makes our current trouble a matter to bear. 

(2.) One may be in humbling circumstances long and sore, and quite hopeless in the ordinary course of providence, yet they may get a clear and warm blink of a lifting up, ere [before] they come to their journey’s end. The life of some of God’s children is like a cloudy and rainy day, wherein in the evening the sun breaks out from under the clouds, shines fair and clear a little, and then sets. “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark—But it shall come to pass, that at evening-time it shall be light,” Zech. 14:6, 7. Such was the case of Jacob in his old age, brought in honour and comfort to Egypt unto his son, and then died.

Have you lost hope, thinking that God could not relieve your trial? Jacob spent 20 years or more thinking his (favorite) son had been killed by a lion, even after his son had been raised to the second highest position in Egypt. 

It is often the case that we read the Old Testament as an utterly foreign world. Paul raises an event from Israel crossing the wilderness where God had brought judgment upon the people for their rebellion. Having applied the incident to the church at Corinth he writes:

1 Corinthians 10:11 (ESV) 

Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. 

The Old Testament has been given, in part, for “our instruction.” Jacob’s decades of sorrow for the loss of his only together with his unexpected revival of his son, have been given for our instruction:

Luther knew that human beings experience life in narrative form. The biblical stories present a picture of human life that can be described in other forms, but the narrative form conveys a special sense of reality as it records the events in which God interacts with his human creatures. The stories of Scripture beg for comparison with the lives of its readers.

Kolb, Robert. Luther and the Stories of God: Biblical Narratives as a Foundation for Christian Living (p. 31). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Rather than only believe the direct propositions given in the New Testament such as a command or a promise or the ground of our thinking, we must realize that the narratives in the Old Testament have been given for our instruction also.

(3.) Yet whatever liftings up they get in this life, they will never want some weights hanging about them for their humbling. They may have their singing times, but their songs, while in this world, will be mixed with groanings, 2 Cor. 5:4. “For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.”—The unmixed dispensation is reserved for the other world: but this will be a wilderness unto the end, where there will be howlings, with the most joyful notes.

John Bunyan begins his book The Pilgrims Progress with the words, “As I walked through the wilderness of this world.” We live in a wilderness. We were created in a garden. The temptation of our Lord took place in a wilderness. We must not begin to think that even a moment of rest and blessing means that we are free of the wilderness. An Oasis does not transform a desert into a forest.

When we find that a difficulty persists even when a great trial has been lifted, we must not lose heart. We should not conclude from a momentary difficulty that we have been abandoned by God. In our best moments we will not be free from the weight of futility which still hangs upon creation:

Romans 8:20–21 (ESV) 

20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 

Lastly, All the liftings up the humbled meet with now are pledges, and but pledges, samples, and earnest of the great lifting up abiding them on the other side; and they should look on them so.

(1.) They are really so, Hos. 2:15. “And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came out of the land of Egypt.” 

Our Lord Jesus is leading his people now through the wilderness, and the manna and water of the rock are earnests for the time of the milk and honey flowing in the promised land. They are not yet come home to their Father’s house: but they are travelling on the road, and Christ their elder brother with them, Cant. 4:8. who bears their expenses, takes them into inns by the way, as it were, and refreshes them with partial liftings up, after which they must get to the road again. But that entertainment by the way is a pledge of the full entertainment he will afford them when come home.

An engagement ring is given as a promise of marriage. A down payment is given as a promise to complete the purchase.

God gave his people food and water in the wilderness. They were not to conclude that they had reached the promised land because they were being fed in a miraculous manner. They were to look upon the present kindness as the promise of a greater reward.

On a piece of paper write down the trials you have suffered. Match that with the relief God has granted you. You have not been abandoned by God. But you are not yet home. Look upon the relief as a token given to give you ground and comfort in your faith and hope.

Song of Solomon 4:8 (ESV) 

            8           Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; 

come with me from Lebanon. 

                        Depart from the peak of Amana, 

from the peak of Senir and Hermon, 

                        from the dens of lions, 

from the mountains of leopards. 

The trials and the promises of God are mixed in this world; so that we neither feel at home, nor are we overly discouraged upon the way.

Just as all the testament narratives may appear distant not part of our life, so to the promises of the world to come may seem less real than our present experience. The difficulty to rightly understand the scriptures, because they stand in the past, and the new creation, because it stands in the future, stem from the weakness of our faith. The mix of trial and relief in this world are given to strengthen our faith.

Hebrews 11:1 (ESV)

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 

What if my trouble is the result of my sin? I am burdened because of my own foolishness and sin, so I cannot expect anything from God. Boston cites to Hosea 2:15, that a place of misery becomes a door of hope. Read Hosea 2. God has brought trouble upon Israel, but does not leave Israel in trouble.

Yet is is easier for us to doubt than truly hope and believe, because the insistence and present reality of trouble is all around us:

Objection. But people may get a lifting up in time, that yet is no pledge of a lifting up on the other side: how shall I know it then to be a pledge?  

Ans. That lifting up, which comes by the promise, is certainly a pledge of the full lifting up in the other world: for, as the other life is the proper time of the accomplishing of the promises, so we may be sure, that when God once begins to clear his bond, he will certainly hold on till it is fully cleared. 

“The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me,” Psal. 138:8. So we may say as Naomi to Ruth, upon her receiving the six measures of barley from Boaz, Ruth 3:18. “He will not be in rest until he have finished the thing this day.” There are liftings up that come by common providence, and these indeed are single, and not pledges of more: but the promise chains mercies together, so that one got is a pledge of another to come, yea, of the whole chain to the end, 2 Sam. 5:12.

He cites to Psalm 138:8, in greater context it reads:

Psalm 138:7–8 (ESV) 

            7           Though I walk in the midst of trouble,

you preserve my life; 

                        you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, 

and your right hand delivers me. 

            8           The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; 

your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. 

Do not forsake the work of your hands. 

The KJV does read, the Lord will “perfect that which concerneth me.” The phrase does present some translational difficulties. For instance, the NET has 

Psalm 138:8 (NET)

    138:8 The LORD avenges me. 

    O LORD, your loyal love endures. 

    Do not abandon those whom you have made!

The difficulty stems from the Hebrew word, which can mean either “fulfill” or “avenge”. With either way of taking the word, the general thrust of the passage is the same. Though I am in trouble, God will not abandon me to trouble.

Question. But how shall I know the lifting up to come by the way of the promise? 

That which comes by the way of the promise, does at once come the low way of humiliation, the high way of faith, or believing the promise, and the long way of waiting hope and patient continuance, James 5:7. “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.” 

Humility qualifies for the accomplishment of the promise, faith sucks the breast of it, and patient waiting hangs by the breast till the milk come abundantly.

The imagery he uses is certainly different than we may expect in a pastoral volume.

Boston wants us to see that the very act of waiting and trusting while in a time of humiliation is the manner in which we are prepared to expect God to fulfill his promise to us.

If we are impatient or demanding or untrusting, we have no good ground to expect God to fullill His promise on our time schedule. Look carefully at the manner in which you have spent your time in this trial and ask whether you have a need to repent.

(2.) But no lifting up of God’s children here are any more than pledges of lifting up. God gives worldly men their stock here, but his children get nothing but a sample of theirs here, Psal. 17:14; even as the servant at the term gets his fee in a round sum, while the young heir gets nothing but a few pence for spending-money. The truth is, the same spending-money is more valuable than the world’s stock, Psal 4:7. “Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.” But though it is better than that and their services too, and more worth than all their on-waiting, yet it is below the honour of their God to put them off with it, Heb. 11:16. “But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.”

Our trials are a time to evaluate our relationship to God and the world. Do we have more hope and what we may have now than in what God has promised us for the future?

For some, their hope is solely upon what they may amass in this world. The promise of a future world means nothing to them.

Boston gives the picture of the distinction between an employee and an heir. The one performs his service and expects his wages at the completion of his work. The one who stands in place to receive an inheritance may actually receive less in the moment than the employee. Yet the employee will never receive more than his wages. The sun stands to inherit all his father owns. Should we judge their material state upon what it appears to be at the moment or what it will become?

We stand with an expectation to inherit along with Christ the whole of creation. The worldling may have more the present world which will soon be burnt than we. If you were on the Titanic would you prefer a state room with the knowledge that you will drown or a small cabin and a place upon a life raft?

When we stand to have more of this world, we are easily tricked and the hoping for the most of this world. It is when we have little of this world, that our attention and our affections are turned more clearly toward the world to come.

Der Untergang der Titanic

Thomas Boston, Crook in the Lot. 32, Study Guide

26 Friday Apr 2024

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Having raised the potential for a reprieve in this world presents a number of questions. We have been spared one trial and then experience another. Psalm 88 presents a trial from the inside where there is no relief granted. When we consider our own life and our own experience, we easily begin to find exceptions and questions. 

Having made the general statement that God grants an ease within this life, Boston now develops the nuance of that doctrine.

Secondly, I proceed to a more particular view of the point. And,

I. We will consider the lifting up as brought about in time, which is the partial lifting up. And,

First, Some considerations for clearing the nature thereof.

He begins with the obvious caveat, a general rule always has an exception. Not every Job is restored:

1. This lifting up does not take place in every case of a child of God. One may be humbled in humbling circumstances, from which he is to get a lifting up in time. We would not from the promise presently conclude, that we, being humbled under our humbling circumstances, shall certainly be taken out of them, and freed from them ere we get to the end of our journey. 

For it is certain, there are some, such as our imperfections, and sinfulness, and mortality, we can by no means be rid of while in this world.

 And there are particular humbling circumstances the Lord may hang about one, and keep about him till they go down to the grave, while, in the mean time, he may lift up another from the same. Heman was pressed down all along from his youth, Psal. 88:15. others all their life-time, Heb. 2:15.

If you are in the midst of a trial, you cannot conclude you will certainly get some sort of temporal benefit following this trial. To believe that every trial turns into an in-this-life benefit is twice wrong. 

First, it is the logic of prosperity preacher who promises wealth (when Jesus told the young man to give away his wealth). 

Second, it is typically premised upon a faulty exegesis of Romans 8:28. However, when we look at this in context, we see that the “good” is defined in 8:29:

Romans 8:28–29 (ESV) 

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 

The word “good” is ambiguous when it stands alone. It is only when it is read in context can the good have substance.

Next examine your trial. What is the nature of the trial? What is the source of the trial?

Now consider Boston’s, caveat, “For it is certain, there are some, such as our imperfections, and sinfulness, and mortality, we can by no means be rid of while in this world.”

It would be a wonder to be freed of sin, but we will not be utterly freed until we have been made new. The sin and imperfection and death are the tolls imposed by living here in this world before we are made new. “The body is dead because of sin.” (Rom. 8:10)

Look at your trial, is it such a thing as God will not deliver you, such as a final illness? Cancer in a child is a torment for everyone, but we have no promise that children will not die.

He here references Psalm 88. Stop and read that Psalm, twice. The man who wrote that Psalm was given a place in the Scripture. John Owen somewhere mentions how this godly man was not delivered from his trial.

As for Boston’s reference of Hebrews 2:15, I cannot conclude his use of that sentence is appropriate for this point.

Boston then asks the next question

Objection. If that be the case, what comes of the promise of lifting up? Where is the lifting up, if one may go to the grave under the weight? 

And answers:

Ans. Were there no life after this, there would be weight in that objection; but, since there is another life, there is none in it at all. In the other life the promise will be accomplished to the humbled, as it was, Luke 16:22. 

Consider, that the great term for accomplishing the promises, is the other life, not this. “These all died in the faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them,” Heb. 11:13. And that whatever accomplishment of the promise is here, it is not of the nature of a stock, but of a sample or a pledge.

A child one a family vacation may complain, “This is taking forever!” The parents may not relish the hours in the car, but they know the trip is not the vacation.

Take to heart the possibility that your current trial may not end. Then consider, it may even get worse.

From that you would wrongly conclude, God will not help, or God does not love me. But such thoughts begin with the wrong assumption. We begin with the idea that God would do we good if he loved me. 

Consider the crucifixion of Jesus. From one perspective, Herod and Pilate are the privileged pair. But such an assumption is false. The one being tormented and murdered is the King. The apparent kings are the damned.

Read Hebrews 11.

As you read this chapter, carefully consider the life of each person mentioned. These are not plaster saints, but someone like you.

Consider the manner of life they led, the trials they suffered.

Consider Abraham who was promised a land, but the only property he owned was a tomb to bury his wife.

We are promised the world, but not before it has been burned by God and remade.

You may not receive ease. Your ease when it comes may only last a moment. Why then try at all? Why not simply give up?

You cannot choose “depression” as solution. We are called to be Christians who hope, not those are resigned to trouble.

Question. But then, may we not give over praying for the lifting up in that case? 

Ans. We do not know when that is our case: for a case may be past all hope in our eyes, and the eyes of others, in which God designs a lifting up in time, as in Job’s, Job 7:11. “What is my strength that I should hope? and what is mine end that I should prolong my life?” 

But, be it as it will, we should never give over praying for the lifting up, since it will certainly come to all that pray in faith for it; if not here, yet hereafter. 

The promise is sure, and that is the commandment: so such praying cannot miss of a happy issue at length, Psal. 50:15. “And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” 

The whole life of a Christian is such a praying waiting life, to encourage whereunto all temporal deliverances are given as pledges, Rom. 8:23. “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit; even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” And whoso observes that full lifting up at death to be at hand, must certainly rise, if he has given over his case as hopeless.

It is easier to counsel, Do not despair, than it is to work through trouble and to persist in hope:

Job 30:26 (ESV)

            26       But when I hoped for good, evil came, 

      and when I waited for light, darkness came.

Read the following Psalm.

Memorize verse 5

Psalm 62 (ESV) 

62 To the choirmaster: according to Jeduthun. A Psalm of David. 

            1           For God alone my soul waits in silence; 

from him comes my salvation. 

            2           He alone is my rock and my salvation, 

my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken. 

            3           How long will all of you attack a man 

to batter him, 

like a leaning wall, a tottering fence? 

            4           They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. 

They take pleasure in falsehood. 

                        They bless with their mouths, 

but inwardly they curse. Selah

            5           For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, 

for my hope is from him. 

            6           He only is my rock and my salvation, 

my fortress; I shall not be shaken. 

            7           On God rests my salvation and my glory; 

my mighty rock, my refuge is God. 

            8           Trust in him at all times, O people; 

pour out your heart before him; 

God is a refuge for us. Selah

            9           Those of low estate are but a breath; 

those of high estate are a delusion; 

                        in the balances they go up; 

they are together lighter than a breath. 

            10         Put no trust in extortion; 

set no vain hopes on robbery; 

if riches increase, set not your heart on them. 

            11         Once God has spoken; 

twice have I heard this: 

                        that power belongs to God, 

            12         and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love. 

                        For you will render to a man 

according to his work. 

Answer the following questions:

Verse 1:

For whom does he wait?

Does he complain?

What does he expect from the Lord?

Verse 2

Why will he not be able to endure?

What is God to him?

If God can create the universe, why do you doubt him in trouble?

Verse 3

He turns to those who trouble him

Does he consider himself one who cannot be shaken in himself?

Does he seem to trust in his own strength?

How does he describe himself?

Do you trust in your own strength and then find it will not suffice?

Verse 4

He explains those who are troubling him.

What is their goal?

Have you ever experienced one who lies?

Have you ever experienced a turn-coat “friend”?

Why then would think God does not care about such things, when God has included these troubles in Scripture?

Verse 5

Having looked at his tormentors, he turns back to God.

For whom does he wait?

God trains us to trust in the Creator not the creature. Has God give you a trial of “friends” so that you will leave off from trusting them and not him. Read Isaiah 2:22

Where is his hope?

Where (for real) is your hope?

Verse 6

What will be the effect of trusting in God?

Read verse 3 and compare this verse. What is the difference in how he understands himself and how he understands God.

Do you trust yourself more than you trust God? Read Daniel 4:28-37

Verse 7

Consider how he describes God. What good is there for him that is not in God?

Verse 8

He lists two commandments, what are they?

Consider “pour out your heart”.

“Ye people, pour out your heart before him.” Ye to whom his love is revealed, reveal yourselves to him. His heart is set on you, lay bare your hearts to him. Turn the vessel of your soul upside down in his secret presence, and let your inmost thoughts, desires, sorrows, and sins be poured out like water. Hide nothing from him, for you can hide nothing. To the Lord unburden your soul: let him be your only father-confessor, for he only can absolve you when he has heard your confession. To keep our griefs to ourselves is to hoard up wretchedness. The stream will swell and rage if you dam it up: give it a clear course, and it leaps along and creates no alarm. Sympathy we need, and if we unload our hearts at Jesus’ feet, we shall obtain a sympathy as practical as it is sincere, as consolatory as it is ennobling

C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 56-87, vol. 3 (London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 51.

Verse 9

Notice how he goes back and forth between his trouble and God. Having disclosed himself to God, he turns back to his trouble.

Look squarely at your trouble and think, Oh this situation is so powerful, my trouble is so great, who can overcome him? And the consider further.

How are the powerful described? List the particulars on a piece of paper and consider it carefully. You have considered God, now consider your trouble in light of  God’s evaluation of your tormentor.

Verse 10

It seems like some-thing, some-stuff, some thing of this world will save you you. You may be tempted to sin to relieve your situation. You may hope that money alone will cure your ill.

If you had all the money in the world, what good will it ultimately do for you?

If you walk into the Getty museum in Los Angeles, there is a bust of Getty in the lobby. He is dead and he never saw that museum.

Verses 11 & 12

What belongs to God (two things).

The last line may sound like a warning, but it can also be a comfort if you have taken this Psalm to heart.

(And it does not teach salvation by “works”.)

Thomas Boston, Crook in the Lot.31, Study Guide

23 Tuesday Apr 2024

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What then should our hope be grounded on? Is there something which can bear the weight of my hope in the midst of trial? Boston places it upon the promises set forth in Scripture. There is an interesting trick of observation. Once we have been attuned to some fact, we see that fact everywhere. I buy a model of car, I see that car everywhere. When I see how God embeds the promises of restoration in the midst of trial, I will that everywhere”

3dly, The word of God puts it beyond all peradventure, which, from the beginning to the end, is the humbled saint’s security for a lifting up, Psal. 119:49, 50. “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction; for thy word hath quickened me.” His word is the great letter of his name, which he will certainly see to cause to shine, Psal. 138:2. “For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name;” and in all generations has been safely lippened to, Psal. 12:6. Consider,

Spurgeon writes of Psalm 119:49:

Our great Master will not forget his own servants, nor disappoint the expectation which he himself has raised: because we are the Lord’s, and endeavour to remember his word by obeying it, we may be sure that he will think upon his own servants, and remember his own promise by making it good.

C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 111-119, vol. 5 (London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 239–240. He quotes Cowper a bit later on this verse:

Verse 49.—“Thou hast caused me to hope.” Let us remember, first, that the promises made to us are of God’s free mercy; that the grace to believe, which is the condition of the promise, is also of himself; for “faith is the gift of God”; thirdly, that the arguments by which he confirms our faith in the certainty of our salvation are drawn from himself, not from us.—William Cowper.

C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 111-119, vol. 5 (London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 244.

The verse calls upon God to remember what God has promised. Praying God’s promises back to God is a matter we see routinely demonstrated for us in the Scripture as a means for our spiritual development.

If we find ourselves discouraged in the midst of a trial, Psalm 119:49 is a promise we should plead with God.

And Dickson writes of Psalm 138:

There is more to be seen and felt in the experience of God’s children, than they could promise to themselves out of God’s word; for they find that God in effect is better in his payment than in his promises; for thus much this commendation importeth: thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name; that is, I have found more effect in the performance of thy promise, than the promise seemed to me to hold forth in thy name, and this is the first reason of David’s engagement to thankfulness.

David Dickson, A Brief Explication of the Psalms, vol. 2 (Glasgow; Edinburgh; London: John Dow; Waugh and Innes; R. Ogle; James Darling; Richard Baynes, 1834), 471. God is indeed better than even his promise might seem to be.

1. The doctrines of the word, which teach faith and hope for the time, and the happy issue the exercise of these graces will have. The whole current of scripture, to those in humbling circumstances, is, “Not to cast away their confidence, but to hope to the end;” and that for this good reason, that “it shall not be in vain.” See Psal. 27:14. “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” And compare Rom. 9:33. Is. 49:23. “For they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.”

The concept of “wait” and “hope” are routinely joined intoa single word. Often it is unclear which word in English captures the original.

I difficulty we have with hope is that it frequently seems to delay. God often seems to take too long. Read Exodus 14.

In what circumstance do the Israelites find themselves when they are backed against the Red Sea?

What does Moses do?

When does God finally provide a rescue?

Consider the whole of Exodus and Numbers. One could ask, why didn’t God just march them into Promised Land? What does God with these people?

Consider how long God delays from sending the Messiah, from the Garden until Bethlehem.

Psalm 27, quoted by Boston, ends with the note of hope.

Read the Psalm and list

The danger the Psalmist faces.

The promises the Psalmist pleads.

The direction the Psalmist gives to himself to make it through the trial.

How does the Psalmist change from the beginning of his trouble until he claims hope.

Now set out your current problem. Set out the difficulties you face.

Look at this Psalm and adapt the promises into a prayer (write the prayer).

Now comes conclusion, Hope.

2. The promises of the word, whereby Heaven is expressly engaged for a lifting up to those that humble themselves in humbling circumstances. James 4:10. “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” Matth. 23:12. “And he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” It may take a time to prepare them for lifting up, but that being done it is secured: Psal. 10:17. “Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble; thou wilt prepare their heart; thou wilt cause thine ear to hear.” They have his word for deliverance, Psal. 50:15. And though they may seem to be forgotten, they shall not be always so; the time of their deliverance will come, Psal. 9:18. “For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.” Psal. 102:17. “He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.”

This brings up an interesting issue: humble yourself, and being humbled.

It is possible to misunderstand this dynamic as meaning, God is just hard on you and then decides to be nice. But that is to fundamentally misunderstand this dynamic. While there is quite likely more to this, at the very least it amounts to putting our hope in someone other than ourself.

Read 2 Cor. 1:1-11

What is Paul’s state?

What purpose does God intend by this trial?

Read 2 Cor. 12:1-10

What trial does Paul face?

What good does God intend?

Read James 1:3-4

What trial do we face?

What good does God intend?

Read 1 Peter 1:3-9

What trials are faced?

What good does God intend?

3. The examples of the word sufficiently confirming the truth of the doctrines and promises, Rom. 15:4. “For whatsoever things were written afore-time, were written for our learning; that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” In the doctrines and promises the lifting up is proposed to our faith, to be reckoned on the credit of God’s word: but, in the examples, it is, in the case of others, set before our eyes to be seen, James 5:11. “Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord: that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. There we see it in the case of Abraham, Job, David, Paul, and other saints; but, above all, in the case of the man Christ.

Read 1 Samuel 16-31

An objection: Isn’t that a lot of Scripture? You need to know the promises to plead the promises. You need to know the stories to gain the comfort which is put there for you. Perhaps a reason the trial is more difficult than it should be is your courage is less than it could be.

Boston lists five men and “other saints”. The text concerns only David. 

Read Psalm 3-7 & 18 

What trials are faced?

What promises are given?

What is the end?

Lastly, His intercession is always effectual, John 11:42. “And I knew that thou hearest me always”—It cannot miss to be so, because he is the Father’s well-beloved Son, his intercession has a plea of justice for the ground of it, 1 John 2:1.—“We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Moreover, he has all power in heaven and earth lodged in him, John 5:22. and, finally, he and his Father are one, and their will one. So, for the present time, both Christ and his Father do will the lifting up of the humbled ones, but yet only in the due time.

Abraham Kuyper, 33

19 Friday Apr 2024

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Why Does God not Destroy His Creation? Chapter 33

Kuyper gives it a different title, but this theme interested me. Adam sins and here is the ur-rebellion. Why then does God not end the creation at this point? It has been defiled. Why does God not end at least humanity? We have been less than exemplars of our promise or our ideals. Could God not have simply created a couple again and started once more? What sin could have been avoided! There are many things which God could have done than simply allow this continue.

And why does God strike Adam on the moment? God tells us elsewhere why he delays:

6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 

Exodus 34:6–7 (ESV) It was the patience and mercy of God which stayed His hand for nothing else could. 

God plainly has a plan for his creation which includes the continuation the creation. God is patient, but nothing in creation could require this patience or God’s willingness to let the creation be despite the sin which has defiled the creation.

Kuyper puts the reason at God’s unwillingness to see his creation lost to the works of the Devil. In argument which reminds me of Anselm’s argument in Curs Deus Homo, “That man, therefore, owed this obedience to God the Father, humanity to Deity; and the Father claimed it from him.” God would not lose that to which was entitled, the honor due the Creator. Kuyper comes to this point without citing Anselm, “how the honor of God ultimately stands higher than the salvation of the creature” (290-291).

God must also do something more, sin cannot take its full course. Unrestrained, we would have soon ended our existence. But God will not permit such an outcome. 

Kuyper does make an interesting observation, it is to the Serpent not to Adam or Eve that God announces the evangel in seed:

Genesis 3:14–15 (ESV) 

14 The Lord God said to the serpent, 

                        “Because you have done this, 

cursed are you above all livestock 

and above all beasts of the field; 

                        on your belly you shall go, 

and dust you shall eat 

all the days of your life. 

            15          I will put enmity between you and the woman, 

and between your offspring and her offspring; 

                        he shall bruise your head, 

and you shall bruise his heel.” 

While we humans receive the benefit, the victory is over sin and the Serpent will be judged and punished in this process. It is God’s honor which is preserved. 

Think how different this event would have been had God merely announced the temporal trials we brought upon ourselves. But by beginning with the Serpent, God’s honor is foregrounded.

How then will humans continue. At this, Kuyper gives the best summary of common grace, “The restraining of sin and its consequences, which constitutes the real essence of common grace.” It is because of the restraint of sin Adam and Eve felt shame. It is the restraint upon sin which gives place for shame, because shame is the recognition that I should be different. Satan however has no shame. He revels in rebellion.

This is a place in which Kuyper differs from his contemporary Freud who found restraint to be merely a sociological trait internalized and acting as the Superego. Kuyper sees restraint as a remanent of the image of God. That shame shows that something of God’s restraint and knowledge still available to Adam.

Let us consider even the false repentance of others. Kuyper gives two examples, Esau and Judas. Even a false repentance shows something of sin’s restraint. How different Satan’s pride in his crimes. (And this raises the issue of the one with a seared conscience. I recall seeing one who sought to excuse her behavior and lack of conscience with “I Always Knew I Was Different. I Just Didn’t Know I Was a Sociopath.” https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/i-always-knew-i-was-different-i-just-didnt-know-i-was-a-sociopath-68ebe08b There is also the seeds of that strain when Adam blames Eve (and also God). 

Kuyper brings these two strands of human psychology into the present when we think about children and see either their repentance or nonchalance at wrongdoing. It is the nonchalance which is the more dangerous and devilish.

It is the restraint of sin, however slight it may be, that gives rise to God’s approach. Although not raised in this chapter, our return to God begins with the recognition of sin and repentance therefor.

And the Serpent? He is full of sin and has no desire to be other than destroyed. God never searches for the Serpent (as Kuyper notes).

Thomas Boston, Crook in the Lot, Study Guide.30

18 Thursday Apr 2024

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We come now to the second basis upon which we can rest assured that God will relieve our trial and work us good, God’s sovereign control over all things:

2dly, The providence of God, viewed in its stated methods of procedure with its objects, insures it. Turn your eyes which way you will on the divine providence, ye may conclude thence, that in due time the humble will be lifted up.

The first evidence of God’s providence comes from the regularity of nature. We live in a moment when it is commonly believed that nature has been pried loose from its moorings and has gone off on a dangerous course which only we human beings can resolve. This is a profoundly atheistic and rebellious understanding of creation. None of this is to deny human bad actions will result in bad outcomes.  But we believe that we have done more than cause a problem; we think we have come upon an existential crisis which will end seasons and humanity. 

If we as a species can commit collective suicide then God is wrong. I think the matter otherwise:

1. Observe the providence of God, in the revolutions of the whole course of nature, day succeeding to the longest night, a summer to the winter, a waxing to a waning of the moon, a flowing to an ebbing of the sea, &c. Let not the Lord’s humbled ones be idle spectators of these things: they are for our learning, Jer. 31:35–37. “Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; the Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.” Will the Lord’s hand keep such a steady course in the earth, sea, and visible heavens, as to bring a lifting up in them after a casting down, and only forget his humbled ones? No.

The continued regularity of nature despite our stupidity and greed (and despite the false predictions of the end with a regularity which makes The Watchtower Society less fallible by comparison), nature has remained nature and regular (within the bounds set by God. Of course things were generally different in the past. Comets and volcanos have caused “climate change” but things have returned). This should give us comfort in God’s providence, not fear of our own behavior.

Let us next consider how God worked in the life of Christ. We have here a pattern of trial then glory:

2. Observe the providence of God in the dispensations thereof about the man Christ, the most noble and august object thereof, more valuable than a thousand worlds, Col. 2:9. Did not providence keep this course with him, first humbling him, then exalting him, and lifting him up? first bring him to the dust of death, in a course of sufferings thirty-three years, then exalt him to the Father’s right hand in eternity of glory? Heb. 12:2. “Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Phil. 2:8, 9. “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him.” The exaltation could not fail to follow his humiliation, Luke 24:26. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” And he saw and believed it would follow, as the springing of the seed doth the sowing of it, John 12:24. There is a near concern the humbled in humbling circumstances have herein.

If God humbled then raised Christ in accord with God’s will, how then should we expect something different?

Boston then mentions the passage in Romans 8 concerning our good. But he fails to quote the entire section, which reads as follows:

Romans 8:28–30 (ESV) 

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 

The good is that we will be conformed to Christ. We have no ground for balking at his pattern or God’s will, that is our “good”:

(1.) This is the pattern providence copies after in its conduct towards you. The Father was so well pleased with this method in the case of his own Son, that it was determined to be followed, and just copied over again in the case of all the heirs of glory, Rom. 8:29. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born amongst many brethren.” And who shall not be pleased to walk through the darkest valley treading his steps?

One reason a trial appears dark is the degree to which that trial differs from our expectation. If you expect to suffer a deadly disease and end up with a nasty cold, it is not so bad. We expect to reign with Christ even now:

8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things. 

1 Corinthians 4:8–13 (ESV) 

Our expectation should be this pattern trial before glory, that we can see God’s providence over all:

(2.) This is a sure pledge of your lifting up. Christ in his state of humiliation, was considered as a public person and representative, and so he is in his exaltation. So Christ’s exaltation ensures your exaltation out of your humbling circumstances, Is. 26:19. “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise: awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust.” Hos. 6:1, 2. “Come, let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us: he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us, in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.” Eph. 2:6. “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Yea, he is gone into the state of glory for us, as our forerunner, Heb. 6:20. “Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever.”

“Public person” means that Christ is not a private man whose life we consider alone. He is public, his life is our life:

Colossians 3:4 (ESV) 

4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

That promise shows us the end of God’s providence laid out in the pattern of Christ’s life. 

But there is more. Christ does not merely lay out the pattern, he paid the price. The trials are our own by right. All trials find their seed in Adam’s sin.  All trial we could suffer is native to our nature in Adam, as the history of humanity proves. We need to explanation for trials. We need an explanation for our hope and any glory we obtain. Christ suffering is the price that pays us in glory:

(3.) His humiliation was the price of our exaltation, and his exaltation a full testimony of the acceptance of its payment to the full. There are no humbling circumstances ye are in, but ye would have perished in them, had not he purchased your lifting up out of them by his own humiliation, Is. 26:19. Now, his humbling grace in you is an evidence of the acceptance of his humiliation for your lifting up.

The history of those who seek to walk after God has shown that this world has cost them much.  Perhaps our ignorance of history both in the Scripture and in the Church’s history has left us vulnerable to faulty thinking. As an exercise, read through Acts and make a list of the trials suffered by primitive Church. Read 2 Corinthians 11 and list Paul’s trials. Carefully consider that list then ask, Why do I think I deserve better?

3. Observe the providence of God towards the church in all ages. This has been the course the Lord has kept with her, Psal. 129:1–4. Abel was slain by the wicked Cain to the great grief of Adam and Eve, and the rest of their pious children: but then there was another seed raised up in Abel’s room after, Gen. 4:25. Noah and his sons were buried alive in the ark more than a year; but then they were brought out into a new world and blessed. Abraham for many years went childless; but at length Isaac was born. Israel was long in miserable bondage in Egypt; but at length seated in the promised land, &c. We must be content to go by the footsteps of the flock: and if in humiliation, we will surely follow them in exaltation too.

The next section quotes 1 Peter 5. Read through 1 Peter and make a list of what does God tell us to expect? What promises are there? Not all promises are of ease:

1 Peter 4:12 (ESV) 

12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 

You need not understand every passage (there is some difficult material in this letter). But do note the pattern which runs through the letter from front to back:

1 Peter 1:3–9 (ESV) 

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 

Journal what you see and understand as you note the repeated pattern of trial then joy.

Our trouble so often is we expect joy without trial.

4. Observe the providence of God in the dispensations of his grace towards his children. The general rule is, 1 Pet. 5:5. “For God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” How are they brought into a state of grace? Is it not by a sound work of humiliation going before, Luke 6:48. And ordinarily the greater measure of grace that is designed for one, the deeper is their humiliation before, as in Paul’s case. If they are to be recovered out of a backslidden case, the same method is followed: so that deepest humiliations ordinarily make way for the greatest comforts, and the darkest hour goes before the rising of the Sun of righteousness upon them, Is. 66:5–13.

Our trials make it possible for us to receive joy and grace. It is not cruelty in God but an inability to receive in us which so often limits our lives. Imagine an extreme. You are made emperor and given unlimited wealth. When you seek God’s grace? You are like one who has been stuffed on sandwiches unable to receive the gourmet dinner.

Lastly, Observe the providence of God at length throwing down wicked men, however long they stand and prosper, Psal. 37:35, 36. “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree; yet he passed away, and lo he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.” They are long green before the sun, but at length they are suddenly smitten with an east-wind, and wither away; their lamp goes out with a stink, and they are put out in obscure darkness. Now, it is inconsistent with the benignity of the divine nature to forget the humble to raise them, while he minds the proud to abase them.

We end with the lesson of history. What tyrant lives forever, however well he lives for a while? A friend’s father used to often say, “They hanged Mussolini.”

Thomas Boston, Crook in the Lot, Study Guide.29

16 Tuesday Apr 2024

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III. The certainty of the lifting up of those that humble themselves under humbling circumstances. 

When we are in a difficult place, we feel our pain most acutely; it draws all our attention. We discount a hope that things may be different, such things seem impossible. Our pain makes our trouble seem like an eternal now. Hence, to protect us from such discouragement, we need to be certain things will change.

This aspect of Boston’s argument may be the most necessary when counseling someone in a trial. While his argument does move in a logical order, it does not move in the order needed while giving counsel to one in trouble. 

The statement that “God will do good” seems incongruous or dismissive when in pain. It can easily come across like a platitude. God will do good will often need to be quickly followed with the certainty that the trial will not be everlasting.

If one would assure you, when reduced to poverty, that the time should certainly come yet, that ye should be rich; when sore sick, that ye should not die of that disease, but certainly recover, that would help you to bear your poverty and sickness the better, and ye would comfort yourselves with that prospect. However one may continue poor, and never be rich, may be sick and die of his disease; but whoever humble themselves under their humbling circumstances, we can assure them from the Lord’s word, they shall certainly, without all peradventure, be lifted up out of, and relieved from their humbling circumstances; they shall certainly see the day of their ease and relief, when they shall remember their burdens as waters that fail.

Now the proof of the point:

And ye may be assured thereof from the following considerations.

He first grounds the assurance in the nature of God. It is not because we are worthy of good (for then we would doubt). It is because God is indeed merciful:

1st, The nature of God, duly considered, insures it, Psal. 103:8, 9. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide; neither will he keep his anger for ever.” The humbled soul looking to God in Christ, may see three things in his nature jointly securing it.

Before proceeding with Boston’s further arguments, it may be best to think through – or ask one being counseled—what gives pause to truly believe that God will do good here. It is one thing to hold open or give a weak statement of faith and trust. Statements which contain an unstated doubt will not rescue on the midst of the trouble.

If someone advances a doubt, it is possible to then direct attention to the attributes of God which answer that trouble.

The first point made by Boston answers the nagging doubt that perhaps God really cannot do something. Here is where getting a clear statement of concern will help. Someone who has made it to this point in Boston’s work is unlikely to deny God’s power. Then when the matter is sounded to the bottom, we may found there is a hesitancy. So here is the answer:

1. Infinite power that can do all things. No circumstances are so low, but he can raise them; so entangling and perplexing, but he can unravel them; so hopeless, but he can remedy them, Gen. 18:14. “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?” Be our case what it will, it is never past reach with him to help it: but then is the most proper season for him to take it in hand, when all others have given it over, Deut. 32:36. “For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants; when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.”

The reference to Deuteronomy may be a bit confusing. First, the verse in a modern translation:

Deuteronomy 32:36 (ESV) 

            36         For the Lord will vindicate his people 

and have compassion on his servants, 

                        when he sees that their power is gone 

and there is none remaining, bond or free. 

This verse is on point for our discussion, because it concerns God rescuing his people who had been corrected for their sin:

The Lord, then, had the sole prerogative to avenge, no matter the means that was used, for it was he who was offended by sin (v. 35a). It was he, therefore, who brought judgment when and as he pleased (v. 35b–d). But it also was he who acted with compassion even in the midst of judgment (v. 36). When he saw that they had turned to gods that could give no help or hope and that they were therefore completely debilitated, he still responded with pity for, as suggested already, his people were “a nation without sense,” a people lacking in discernment (v. 28)

Eugene H. Merrill, Deuteronomy, vol. 4, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 423. And:

Thus, then, Moses here teaches the same thing which God afterwards more clearly unfolded to David: “If thy children forsake my law, … I will visit their transgressions with the rod of man, … nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not take away from them,” &c.1 (Ps. 89:30, 33; 2 Sam. 7:14, 15.) For nothing is more fitted to sustain us in afflictions than when God promises that there shall be some limit to them, so that He will not utterly destroy those whom He has chosen. Whenever, therefore, the ills which we suffer tempt us to despair, let this lesson recur to our minds, that the punishments, wherewith God chastises His children, are temporary, since His promise will never fail that “his anger endureth but a moment,” (Ps. 30:5,) whilst the flow of His mercy is continual. Hence, too, that lesson which is especially directed to the Church:2 “For a moment I afflicted thee, but I will pursue my mercies towards thee for ever.” (Isa. 54:8.)

John Calvin and Charles William Bingham, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony, vol. 4 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 366.

Even if God has corrected us, he has not withdrawn his mercy. God has the power to save us from the judgment of God. This brings us to the next basis for assurance:

2. Infinite goodness inclining to help. He is good and gracious in his nature, Exod. 34:6–9. And therefore his power is a spring of comfort to them, Rom. 14:4. Men may be willing that are not able, or able that are not willing; but infinite goodness joining infinite power in God, may ascertain the humbled of a lifting up in due time. That is a word of inconceivable sweetness, 1 John 4:16. “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love: and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. He has the bowels of a Father towards the humble, Psal. 103:13, “Like as a father pitieth his children: so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” Yea, bowels [guts, God is merciful to his core] of mercy, more tender than a mother to her sucking child, Is. 49:15. Wherefore, howbeit his wisdom may see it necessary to put them in humbling circumstances, and keep them in them for a time, it is not possible he can leave them in them altogether.

The first citation here is to Moses’ request that God show his glory; this passage is God’s self-disclosure of who He is:

Exodus 34:6–9 (ESV) 

6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. 9 And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.” 

The emphasis in Exodus is on the mercy of God. Israel has only just rebelled against God by worshipping the golden calf. God does not destroy them. Moses then asks, Who are you? God discloses himself.

The book of Judges can read as the mercy of God in light of Israel’s repeated apostacy. And there is no greater demonstration of God mercy than the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

The hardest case will be one who suffers as a result of foolishness and sin. We may think that God cannot forgive or relent now. But that is not true.

Finally we come to God’s wisdom. It was God’s wisdom to bring the trial and will be God’s wisdom to release us from that trial:

3. Infinite wisdom, that does nothing in vain, and therefore will not needlessly keep one in humbling circumstances, Lam. 3:32, 33. “But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies: for he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” God sends them on for humbling, as the end and design to be brought about by them: when that is obtained, and there is no more use for them that way, we may assure ourselves they will be taken off.

The trial is not God’s goal, it is merely God’s school. In fact, the trial itself is not the reason: it is the humbling which God seeks. To be humbled is to be reduced so as to give up the stubbornness which holds us in rebellion. When we give up the rebellion, God can loosen the trial. It is like chemotherapy with cancer; it seems like it might kill but it is only to save.

Thomas Boston, Crook in the Lot.28, Study Guide

10 Wednesday Apr 2024

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There is a full rest from our burdens. We may set our hope upon that rest. There will be end to our trouble. God will straighten the crook in the lot and there will be no further trouble.

But not every time is fit for our relief. While God does not afflict us from malice, nor does he lay upon burdens without purpose, there are often times where our trouble is for our good and his glory. The movement between these poles of rest and burden are laid in the Scripture for our encouragement. Boston seeks to emphasis this balance. First, he considers the partial relief:

  1. For the partial lifting up. Every time is not fit for it; we are not always fit to receive comfort, an ease or a change of our burdens. God sees there are times wherein it is needful for his people to be in heaviness, 1 Pet. 1:6. To have their hearts brought down with grief, Psal. 107:12. But then there is a time really appointed for it in the divine wisdom, when he will think it as needful to comfort them, as before to bring down, 2 Cor. 2:7. “So that, contraryways, ye ought rather to forgive, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with over-much sorrow.” We are in that case in the hand of God, as in the hand of our physician, who appoints the time the drawing plaister [a covering, often a “cast” for broken bones] shall lie to, and when the healing plaister shall be applied, and leaves it not to the patient.

1 Peter 1:3–7 (ESV)
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Boston’s emphasis is upon the words, “if necessary” in verse 6:

The source of the variety of trials remains unstated, although the context would imply a divine source rather than satanic origin, since part of the comfort to be derived from this letter by readers who currently confront persecutions of various sorts comes from the fact that even such unfortunate circumstances are not beyond the control of the benevolent God who in Christ will rescue those who remain steadfast

Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter: A Commentary on First Peter, ed. Eldon Jay Epp, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 101.

The trials we experience are for our good. And there are times when the trial cannot be spared if our good God intends:

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

“Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.”

“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.”

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”

“E’en down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And then, when grey hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.”

“The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake!”

I am not convinced that his reference to Psalm 107 supports his argument well:

Psalm 107:10–14 (ESV)
10 Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
prisoners in affliction and in irons,
11 for they had rebelled against the words of God,
and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
12 So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor;
they fell down, with none to help.
13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
14 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
and burst their bonds apart.

First, the reference appears to concern those who purposely rebelled against God and suffered a negative consequence. God’s deliverance of those who repent, concerns a very particular kind of relief. In addition, the relief reference in the Psalm does not concern a partial reprieve.

2 Corinthians 2:5-7 is similar to Psalm 107:10-14:

2 Corinthians 2:5–7 (ESV)
5 Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you. 6 For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, 7 so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

There are other times when our good is not merely a reprieve or a lessening of the burden, but one in which we could not continue and thus need the rest:

  1. For the total lifting up. When we are sore oppressed with our burdens, we are ready to think, O to be away, and set beyond them all, Job 7:2, 3. “As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work: so am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed for me.” But it may be fitter, for all that, that we stay a while, and wrestle with our burdens, Phil. 1:24, 25. “Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all, for your furtherance and joy of faith.” A few days might have taken Israel out of Egypt into Canaan; but they would have been over soon there, if they had made all that speed; so they behoved to spend forty years in the wilderness, till their due time of entering Canaan should come. And be sure the saints, entering heaven, will be convinced that the time of it is best chosen, and there will be a beauty in that it was no sooner.

And thus a lifting up is secured to the humble.

Here the reference to Israel entering Canaan Is apposite; the entrance into the promised land being a common way to refer to go to heaven. Without question, our final rest will be a rest from all of our troubles.

Consider the manner in which the previous trouble has been of good to you. In what way today previous trouble try you? How did you respond in that trouble? In what ways did God perpetuate the trouble when it seemed particularly difficult to bear? How did you learn to persevere in the midst of that difficulty? How and when did God provide either temporary or full relief from that trial?

Crook in the Lot.27

09 Tuesday Apr 2024

Posted by in Thomas Boston

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Boston continues with encouraging us to suffer well. He here shows that hope can be in the midst of a trial:

II. A word in the general to the lifting up abiding those that humble themselves. There is a twofold lifting up.

1. A partial lifting up, competent to the humbled in time during this life, Psal. 30:1. “I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.” This is a lifting up in part, and but in part, not wholly; and such liftings up the humbled may expect while in this world, but no more. These give a breathing to the weary, a change of burdens, but do not set them at perfect ease. So Israel, in the wilderness, in midst of their many mourning times, had some singing ones, Exod. 15:1. Numb. 21:17.

There is relief which may come in this age, in this world. The relief is not to be free of all troubles. The Lord himself was designated:

Isaiah 53:3 (ESV) 

            3           He was despised and rejected by men, 

a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; 

                        and as one from whom men hide their faces 

he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 

If the Lord was afflicted, why should we believe ourselves immune from trouble? Consider the matter with careful introspection: Do you really believe that you should not suffer trouble? Do you think of trouble as something which afflicts “them”? When you do have a 

Job 5:6–7 (ESV) 

            6           For affliction does not come from the dust, 

nor does trouble sprout from the ground, 

            7           but man is born to trouble 

as the sparks fly upward. 

There are those who sell the offer of a “Best Life Now”—now, before God has remade all things:

2 Peter 3:10–13 (ESV) 

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 

11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. 

John MacArthur has a pointed evaluation of our best life now:

Out of curiosity, I want to know what’s in the book and so I found this on page 5, “God wants this to be the best time of your life.” On another page it says, “Happy, successful, fulfilled individuals have learned how to live their best life now.” On another page it says, “As you put the principles found in these pages to work today, you will begin living your best life now.” And that is absolutely true, if you’re not a Christian. This is it. You better get the book, because your next life is going to be infinitely worse than this one. This is your best life now. In fact, it’s your only life because in the world to come, you will only exist in a perpetual state of dying with no hope, no satisfaction, no meaning, no joy and no future, and no relief from eternal suffering. That’s the worst life possible. And this is your best life, if your next life is in hell.

https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/80-334/your-best-life-now-or-later

The application is plain:

Is your hope set upon the present or upon the Lord making all things new?

Are you surprised that this life is bounded and flooded with troubles?

Do you confuse the present world for the world to come?

John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress has a useful image. Two children Passion and Patience are given gifts. Passion tears his open immediately, but the gift is soon worn out. Patience waits and opens his later. Passion mocked Patience at first, but in the end Passion had nothing. The Interpreter explained the image as follows:

So he said, These two lads are figures; Passion of the men of this world, and Patience of the men of that which is to come; for, as here thou seest, passion will have all now, this year, that is to say, in this world; so are the men of this world: They must have all their good things now; they cannot stay till the next year, that is, until the next world, for their portion of good. That proverb, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” is of more authority with them than are all the divine testimonies of the good of the world to come. But as thou sawest that he had quickly lavished all away, and had presently left him nothing but rags, so will it be with all such men at the end of this world.

We may have rest in this life, but we have no promise it will be continual. Yet although we are crushed, we are not overcome. We are in our troubles, but not alone:

Yet I do persuade myself, ye know that the weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you lieth upon your strong Saviour; for Isaiah saith, “In all your afflictions He is afflicted” (Isa. 63:9). O blessed Second who suffereth with you! and glad may your soul be even to walk in the fiery furnace with one like unto the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God. Courage! up your heart! When ye do tire, He will bear both you and your burden (Ps. 55:22). Yet a little while and ye shall see the salvation of God.

Samuel Rutherford and Andrew A. Bonar, Letters of Samuel Rutherford: With a Sketch of His Life and Biographical Notices of His Correspondents (Edinburgh; London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1891), 34.

The difficulty of this life is no reason to lose heart. The rest in this is a blessing to be enjoyed. But we must remember that no blessing in this age is permanent. 

John 16:33 (ESV) 

33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Our hope is in the Lord who has overcome the world.

And let us not overestimate the burden we face:

Christ has a yoke for us to wear, so let us wear it seriously; but it is an easy yoke, so let us wear it hopefully. He has a burden for us to carry for him, so let us be in earnest in bearing it; but it is a light burden, so let us be full of joy at the very prospect of carrying it

C. H. Spurgeon, “Christ’s Yoke and Burden,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 49 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1903), 241.

2. A total lifting up, competent to them at the end of time, at death, Luke 16:22.—“It came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom.”—Then the Lord deals with them no more by parcels and halves, but carries their relief to perfection, Heb. 12:23. Then he takes off all their burdens, eases them of all their weights, and lays no more on for ever. He then lifts them up to a height they were never at before, no not when at their highest. He sets them quite above all that is low, and therein fixes them, never to be brought down more. Now there is a due time for both these.

There is a full rest from our burdens.  We may set our hope upon that rest.  There will be end to our trouble. God will straighten the crook in the lot and there will be no further trouble.

Crook in the Lot.26 Doctrine II

31 Sunday Mar 2024

Posted by in Thomas Boston

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DOCTRINE II

Doctrine II. There is a due time, wherein those that now humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, will certainly be lifted up.

This section begins some consolation and a basis for hope. The previous section read alone can be discouraging standing alone. We can think of God’s work as solely “law”. But rather the “law” is to protect us from ruin. The doctrine of repentance is our cure. If someone were dying of cancer, chemotherapy could offered. The cure is often very painful even if it results in cure. If cure meant merely the pain of treatment with no hope of a life afterward, it would be no difficult to carry. But God offers us more merely than a reprieve from a deserved hell. The purging of our sin (which in and of itself may be very painful, hence a “crook”), leads us to a blessing.

Yet, we must realize that even in our trials, Christ is there:

My love in Christ remembered to you. I was indeed sorrowful at my departure from you, especially since ye were in such heaviness after your daughter’s death. Yet I do persuade myself, ye know that the weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you lieth upon your strong Saviour; for Isaiah saith, “In all your afflictions He is afflicted” (Isa. 63:9).

Samuel Rutherford and Andrew A. Bonar, Letters of Samuel Rutherford: With a Sketch of His Life and Biographical Notices of His Correspondents (Edinburgh; London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1891), 34. To Boston’s general observations:

We shall take,
First, A general view of this point. And consider,
I. Some things supposed and implied in it. It bears,

  1. That those who shall share of his lifting up, must lay their accounts, in the first place, with a casting down, Rev. 7:14. John 16:33. “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” There is no coming to the promised land, according to the settled method of grace, but through the wilderness; nor entering into this exaltation, but through a strait gate. If we cannot away with casting down, we will not taste of the sweet of the lifting up.

A song I learned as a child begins:
“Oh, you can’t get to heaven in a rocking chair,
‘Cause a rocking chair won’t get you there.”

There is no “easy way” glory:

21 When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, 22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
Acts 14:21–22 (ESV) However, that does not mean the tribulation saves us. We do not earn salvation by suffering. There is no merit to our suffering. Rather, Paul’s statement is an observation, but not a theology that suffering has merit:
Let’s not try to find a theology of suffering in the latter part of verse 22. Some popular religions today argue that people must find salvation through suffering. I have watched faithful followers of Catholicism plod forward on bleeding knees at the shrine of Lourdes in Portugal. I have seen flagalantes beat their backs bloody in the Philippines to earn favor with God. No, salvation does not come through suffering, nor were the missionaries talking here about salvation since their encouragement came to people already in the family of God. Rather, they reflected the word of the Lord Jesus about sharing his sufferings along the way to heaven (Rom. 8:17; Phil. 3:10–11; Col. 1:24).

Kenneth O. Gangel, Acts, vol. 5, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1998), 236.
Jesus makes a similar observation: “33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (ESV)
Thomas Boston, Paul, and Jesus raise the issue of suffering as an encouragement. Yes, will be humbled. If God were to leave us, that would be a curse to us:

If God should have let us alone to our own desires, we were posting to hell. It is the greatest misery in the world, next to hell itself, to be given up to our own desires. A man were better to be given up to the devil than to his own desires. He may torment him, and perhaps bring him to repentance; but to be given up to his own desires, leads to hell. It is merely of grace, grace. It was the grace of God the Father that gave his Son; and it was grace that the Son gave himself.

Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 4 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1863), 512.

To see this as encouragement will be an act faith and cognition. Without this knowledge, we would not experience a trial as a step along the way to our destination. We will not come to this realization other than through coming to know and believe this to be true; to match our knowledge with hope and trust.

  1. Being cast down by the mighty hand of God, we must learn to lie still and quiet under it, till the same hand that casts us down raise us up, if we would share of this promised lifting up, Lam. 3:27. It is not the being cast down into humbling circumstances by the providence of God, but the coming down of our spirits under them by the grace of God, that brings us within the compass of this promise.

Lamentations 3:25–27 (ESV)
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.

The key to understand this passage is the word “wait.” The word “wait” has the connotation of at best “cooling your heals.” There might be resignation, there may be frustration in the delay, but the word “wait: has not element of hope. However the word used here. For instance:
Psalm 71:14 (ESV)
14 But I will hope [or “wait”] continually
and will praise you yet more and more.
Or:
Psalm 119:49 (ESV)
49 Remember your word to your servant,
in which you have made me hope.

Our trials must not crush us, but rather change us. The object of our hope is to change. The trial teaches us the things in which we hope are vain.

Consider the trial you are in or most recently have suffered. What thing that you trusted in have you learned to no longer trust?

  1. Never humbled in humbling circumstances, never lifted up in the way of this promise. Men may keep their spirits on the high bend in their humbling circumstances, and in that case may get a lifting up, Prov. 16:19. But note this, that what they get will be a lifting up, to the end they may get the more grievous fall. “Surely thou didst set them in slippery places, thou castedst them down in a moment,” Psal. 73:18. But they who will not humble themselves in humbling circumstances, will find their obstinacy a need-nail, that will keep their misery ever fast on them without remedy.

What means to humble oneself in a humbling circumstance. We are to not trust in ourself or anything in creation. It is not a degrading but a change in the object of our hope.

If cling more fully to ourself and the false hope and use that false hope to apparently climb out of our circumstance, we have merely made our situation worse. This does not mean we do not make use of lawful means. It does mean that we do not pin our hope upon such things:
Proverbs 16:19 (ESV)
19 It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor
than to divide the spoil with the proud.

  1. Humility of spirit in humbling circumstances ascertains a lifting up out of them some time with the good-will and favour of Heaven, Luke 18:14. “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself, shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” Solomon observes, Prov. 15:1. that “a soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” And so it is, that while the proud through their obstinacy, do but wreathe the yoke faster about their own necks, the yielding humble ones, by their yielding, make their relief sure, 1 Sam. 2:8, 9, 10. “He raiseth the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory—He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces.”—So the cannon-ball breaks down a stone-wall, while the yielding packs of wool take away its force.

These examples illustrate Boston’s point well:

Luke 18 is the story of a pair of men who stand before God. One man trusts in himself and his “righteous” life. One man knows himself to be a sinner in need of grace. The one has humbled himself by confessing his sin and relying up grace has humbled himself.

  1. There is an appointed time for the lifting up of those that humble themselves in their humbling circumstances, Hab. 2:3. “For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” To every thing there is a time, as for humbling, so for lifting up, Eccles. 3:3. We know it not, but God knows it, who has appointed it. Let not the humble one say, I will never be lifted up: there is a time fixed for it, as precisely as for the rising of the sun, after the long and dark night, or the return of the spring after the long and sharp winter.

Our waiting is a waiting upon God We hope in God and for God’s resolution of our trouble. We do not know when God will resolve our trouble. Our trials are for our good and will last as best we need.

  1. It is not to be expected, that immediately upon one’s humbling himself, the lifting up is to follow. No, one is not only to lie down under the mighty hand, but lie still waiting the due time; humbling work is longsome work: the Israelites had forty years of it in the wilderness. God’s people must be brought to put a blank in his hand, as to the time, and while they have a long night of walking in darkness, must trust, Is. 1:10. “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.”

The very act of waiting of being humbled, of humbling ourselves, is the process of change which the crook in the lot seeks to effect. It is not the bare act of being troubled which is the aim and method of God. The act of being humbled and waiting – that is trusting and hoping in God—which is the process of change.

  1. The appointed time for the lifting up is the due time, the time fittest for it, wherein it will come most seasonably. “And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not,” Gal. 6:9. For that is the time God has chosen for it: and be sure his choice, as the choice of infinite wisdom, is the best; and therefore faith sets to wait it, Is. 28:16.—“He that believeth shall not make haste.” There is much of the beauty of a thing depends on the timing of it, and he has fixed that in all he does, Eccles. 3:11. “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time.”

There are two points made in this section. First that we continue in the midst of our waiting:

Christians have been justified by faith and cleansed from guilt, they have received the Spirit, but they must persevere in holy living and not rest on their oars. Paul knew the necessity of this in his own life (cf. 1 Cor. 9:26f.).

F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1982), 265.

A second point, that God works a trouble into a thing of beauty. Even the timing of the thing is beauty.

Lastly, The lifting up of the humbled will not miss to come in the appointed and due time, Hab. 2:3. Time makes no halting, it is running day and night: so the due time is fast coming, and, when it comes, it will bring the lifting up along with it. Let the humbling circumstances be ever so low, ever so hopeless, it is impossible but the lifting up from them must come in the due time.

He ends with the point of encouragement. There is no point so low that God will not reach to it. That is a Resurrection: The legions of Hell sent their minions. The legions of this world sought to destroy him. He suffered even the Judgment of God But even there, God’s power is present. God will prevail:
Psalm 2:1–6 (ESV)
2 Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6 “As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”

How can you believe. John 5:44

27 Wednesday Mar 2024

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, John

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This is my first draft of a lecture for this years ACBC conference. (Break Out 2) https://biblicalcounseling.com/about/events/2024-annual-conference/#speakers I always tinker with these things, so what I have here may change. This just the intro

Jesus often speaks in such a way that each statement presents more conflict and difficulty than the statement before. In John chapter 4, Jesus speaks with a woman about living water, but then he asks her to go and get her husband. Something she cannot do. A man offers to follow Jesus as soon as he can bury his parents. Jesus responds, “Let the dead bury their dead.” A young man asks how shall he inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to sell all that he owns and give it to the poor. In John 6, Jesus ratchets up the difficulty. In the end, he tells the people that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.

Jesus stacks up the difficulties until one could not possibly answer. The woman of John 4, the woman at the well, sees through his impossible command and realizes Jesus is a prophet. This knowledge led to her salvation. The crowds of John 6 find the statement that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood incomprehensible. Only his disciples stay. The 5th chapter of John is left unresolved.

Jesus heals a man beside the pools of water. This leads to a conflict which Jesus does not seek to settle–except as he would see fit. Our text follows a series of escalations. If we fail to see this text coming at the end of the escalation, we can easily fail to understand the difficulty of this statement.

We cannot possibly take the time to exegete this passage. But we can select a few moments in the escalation which will enable us to see how the difficulty increases as Jesus speaks with this crowd. It begins with Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath. Nothing beyond the man’s extraordinary need singles him out for this attention.

When asked why he has healed on the Sabbath, Jesus responds, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (5:17) This first move is difficult, but perhaps it can be made out as a figure of speech. At this point some of the crowd seek to kill him. But rather than seek to deescalate the crowd, he says, “for as to the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whom he will.” (5:21) He then claims that God has given him the power of judgment.

A man is standing before the crowd, a man. This man claims to have the power of judgment. This is baffling. But Jesus offers a way out.

24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life. 

John 5:24 (ESV) If you will believe him there will be a resolution to the seemingly impossible situation. The woman at the well is asked to bring her nonexistent husband to see Jesus. This leads to a recognition of sin and a reconciliation with Jesus. But no one in the crowd is willing to accept this offer.

Jesus returns to the crowd and sets before them a far more difficult problem. Jesus has not merely the power of Judgment. Perhaps a mere man could judge. There are human judges. But Jesus claims far more than just the right of being a judge. He next claims the power to bring about the resurrection.

You must put yourself in the crowd on that warm afternoon. About you stands a crowd of those people whom you know and trust. The people who will be in your shop tomorrow. The people who know you and your family and your parents and your grandparents as far back as you do. These people are who you are. To step outside of their agreement is nearly unimaginable. Would you give away your parents or your children because someone said something striking, there standing on the stairs of a public building?

Jesus now makes a statement far more difficult than any statement made heretofore.

25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

John 5:25 (ESV)

This man claims not merely the ability to raise someone from the dead, as remarkable as such a thing may be. He claims more than the power to heal a man who has been sick for 38 years. He claims more than the power to stop a storm or command a demon. He claims to be the one who will bring about the resurrection of the world. This man whom you are watching from the midst of a crowd claims to be God.

Soon Jesus seeks to evaporate whatever approval he could possibly have held with this crowd. He says that he was on interested in receiving their approval. He says he knows that they do not have the love of God. He then comes to the text we will consider.

Having made intellectual demands upon them, which they cannot possibly bear. Having told them that they do not have the love of God within them. He next tells them that they do not, and they cannot have faith. We know from elsewhere in the Bible that without faith no one can please God. (Heb. 11:6) the third chapter of John tells us that eternal life is given to those who believe.

Therefore, you must read this verse as Jesus escalating the difficulty for those who hear him. But this difficulty may land on us at this late date with the same intellectual trouble faced by his first hearers. Jesus is going to bring together two ideas which we do not normally consider in tandem.

And as we consider the difficulties presented by this verse, we may soon find that we could not easily separate us from the trouble which Jesus has created. We think ourselves to have surmounted the various hurdles which stumbled Jesus first hearers. We know Jesus is the son of God that judgment and resurrection have been committed unto him. We say we believe these things. But when we come to verse 44 of chapter 5, Jesus may rattle that security:

44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? John 5:44 (ESV) 

Perhaps you intend to avoid the net which he has laid with his words by merely asserting I do seek glory from God. And well I hope you do. But before anyone is certain this first does not submit a problem for them, we should first consider what it means. And when we come to understand what it does in fact mean, we can begin to see how this verse should affect the way in which we bear one another’s burdens, pray with and for one another, weep and laugh with one another and give our lives for one another. For all these things we must do if we claim we can give biblical counsel to one another.

When a counselee sits before you, and seeks your help and lays out their trouble, you will most likely hope they think well of you. You want to be clever. You want to know how to respond. You want to be approved. You want to do what is right, and that is others think you do what is right. If it is not you, someone else in this room will have had such thoughts and hopes. It is easy to think the counselee is in danger of being self-centered. But you?