Thomas Boston, Crook in the Lot, Study Guide.36

10 Friday May 2024

Posted by memoirandremains in Philippians, Study Guide, Thomas Boston

Tags

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

Six Things to Prepare for Relief

There are six things, I conceive, belong to this humiliation, preparatory to lifting up.

Humility:

Boston references Job’s repentance when brought before God. Job is well known for his suffering under the trial provoked by Satan and permitted by God. Job’s friends urge him to repentance, You surely have done something peculiarly evil to warrant this degree of suffering. Job protests his innocence. None of them realize that Job’s obedience and devotion to God provoked the Accuser’s slander of God, “Does Job fear God for no reason?” Job 1:9. It is because God has taken care of Job that Job is devoted to you. It is just a quid pro quo (this for that) relationship. At the end of the trial God grants Job an audience. Job wishes to defend himself to God and so God asks questions.

God has an interesting method of counseling Job. God begins with Creation: Do you know, Job, how I, God, created all things? Do you know how I order and maintain all things. I will make it easier, how do I take care of the animals? God’s majesty and Job’s inability to answer leaves Job utterly at a loss for himself:

Job 40:1–9 (ESV)

And the Lord said to Job:

² “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?

He who argues with God, let him answer it.”

³Then Job answered the Lord and said:

⁴ “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?

I lay my hand on my mouth.

⁵ I have spoken once, and I will not answer;

twice, but I will proceed no further.”

⁶Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

⁷ “Dress for action like a man;

I will question you, and you make it known to me.

⁸ Will you even put me in the wrong?

Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?

⁹ Have you an arm like God,

and can you thunder with a voice like his?

Boston has made plain throughout this work that our fault is in ourselves. The crook in the lot is a good work of God brought about by kindness. He humbles us to cure us. We can be like a drunk who will not give up his bottle at the cost of his family and job and life. It is only when he can no longer stand the pain of his rebellion that a restoration be effected.

Hence, like the drunk, we cling to our damage and until we relent we cannot be restored. God brings Job to a place of utter weakness and there Job’s restoration finds a possibility. We like Job must give up our own power:

1. A deep sense of sinfulness and unworthiness of being lifted up at all, Job 40:4. “Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” People may be long in humbling circumstances ere they be brought this length: even good men are prejudiced in their own favours, and may so far forget themselves as to think God deals his favours unequally, and is mighty severe on them more than others. Elihu marketh this wrong in Job under his humbling circumstances, Job 33:10, 11, 12.

But God is a jealous God, and when he appears sufficiently to humble, he will cause the matter of our honour give way, like a sandy brae under our feet, while we shall be obliged to gripe hastily to the vindication of his.

Boston provides some necessary counsel in this paragraph.

People may be long in humbling circumstances ere they be brought this length: even good men are prejudiced in their own favours. We make excuses for our faults and think too highly of those matters we admire in ourselves. When it comes to ministry work, we can be even more prejudiced and more deluded, “Look at all the great work I do for God” as if God needed our help.

And I believe it will be found there is readily a greater keenness to vindicate our own honour from the imputation the humbling circumstances seem to lay upon it, than to vindicate the honour of God in the justice and equity of the dispensation. Rather than think well of God and what good God does, we look for defenses and excuses and praise of our work. Notice how Job finally gives up such a pretense and is left with God has done good.

The blindness of an ill-natured world, still ready to suspect the worst causes for humbling circumstances, as if the greatest sufferers were surely the greatest sinners, Luke 13:4. gives a handle for this bias of the corrupt nature. When looking at others, we cannot think that their trial is the result of some peculiar sin. That all our not tried more severely is the more difficult question. Why does God not strike us all harder? Why do the wicked prosper?

Look at yourself in a trial:

Do you look for excuses for yourself?

Do you complain against God?

Do you think the matter inexplicable?

Do you cling to your pride?

Do you bless God for and in the midst of your trial? If no, what reason do you give to do otherwise?

God’s Will as to Time

In our trial, we can only think of our pain. We think our pain sufficient and the time to be relieved of that pain is now. But we measure our trial in the wrong way. We do not look at the cure, we only look at the relief. Suppose you think, I am humbled now. Well, such a thought proves the point. We falsely think we are humbled when we think God should do other than correct our pride. If you were humbled, you would not think, See, I am humbled! Let us say that you were humbled, perhaps the cure is too light. A false belief can be corrected, only to find it resurrected and fully present in the face of a trial. I trust God! Is an an easy thought when I am full and my bills paid. But when cancer comes or a job is lost or a slander is spread, do I still trust God?

Boston refers to this as “resignation”. He means a leaving-off of our will and putting our trust solely in the wisdom of God.

Isaiah 2:22 (ESV)

²² Stop regarding man

in whose nostrils is breath,

for of what account is he?

2. A resignation to the divine pleasure as to the time of lifting up. God gives the promise, leaving the time blank as to us. Our time is always ready, and we rashly fill it up at our own hand. God does not keep our time, because it is not the due time. Hence we are ready to think his word fails; whereas it is but our own rash conclusion from it that fails, Psal. 116:11. “I said in my haste, All men are liars.” Several of the saints have gotten on the finger-ends by this means, and thereby learned to let alone filling up that blank. The first promise was thus used by believing Eve, Gen. 4:1. Another promise was so by believing Abraham, after about ten years on-waiting, Gen. 16. Another by David, forecited, Psal. 116:11.

If this be the case of any child of God, let them not be discouraged upon it, thinking they were over-rash in applying the promise to themselves: they were only so in applying the time to the promise; a snapper that saints in all ages have made, which they repented, and saw the folly of, and let alone that point for the time to come; and then the promise was fulfilled in its own due time. Let them in such circumstances go and do likewise, leaving the time entirely to the Lord.

God promises us relief – that is an unquestioned promise. But God’s promises will come at the appointed time, even though we live like children anxious for Christmas or a roadtrip to finally end at grandma’s house.

Boston gives the example of Eve. God had promised her “seed” which would crush the Serpent’s head. She seemingly misinterprets the birth Cain as that child. In the end, Cain was a follower of the Serpent who murdered his own brother.

God promised Abraham a son. That son did not come. Finally Abraham and Sarah decide to have Sarah’s servant bear a son for Abraham. This rudimentary form of surrogacy was matter approved in a number of ancient contracts and legal systems. For example:

A Neo-Assyrian text: (41) “If Ṣubetu does not conceive (and) (42) does not give birth, she may take a maidservant (and) (43) as a substitute in her position she may place (her). (44) She [Ṣubetu] will (thereby) bring sons into being (and) the sons will be her [Ṣubetu’s] sons. (45) If she loves (the maidservant) she may keep (her). (46) If she hates her she may sell her”

Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990), 444.

They appear to be following this legal (in many places) custom. While the custom of surrogacy presents enormous moral issues, Boston’s point concerns their lack of faith. God had told Abraham he would have a son, by Sarah. They cannot wait for God’s relief and so they press the matter themselves—which results in great pain for everyone involved. (The Bible never explicitly condemns these complicated families; but no family is ever smooth that operates like this. God may still use the sinful relations for His ends, but it is never approved in the narratives. The story shows what is wrong rather than the narrator saying what has gone wrong.)

Psalm 116

11. “I said in my haste, All men are liars.” In a modified sense the expression will bear justification, even though hastily uttered, for all men will prove to be liars if we unduly trust in them; some from want of truthfulness, and others from want of power. But from the expression, “I said in my haste,” it is clear that the Psalmist did not justify his own language, but considered it as the ebullition of a hasty temper. In the sense in which he spoke his language was unjustifiable. He had no right to distrust all men, for many of them are honest, truthful, and conscientious; there are faithful friends and loyal adherents yet alive; and if sometimes they disappoint us, we ought not to call them liars for failing when the failure arises entirely from want of power, and not from lack of will. Under great affliction our temptation will be to form hasty judgments of our fellow men, and knowing this to be the case we ought carefully to watch our spirit, and to keep the door of our lips. The Psalmist had believed, and therefore he spoke; he had doubted, and therefore he spoke in haste. He believed, and therefore he rightly prayed to God; he disbelieved, and therefore he wrongfully accused mankind. Speaking is as ill in some cases as it is good in others. Speaking in haste is generally followed by bitter repentance. It is much better to be quiet when our spirit is disturbed and hasty, for it is so much easier to say than to unsay; we may repent of our words, but we cannot so recall them as to undo the mischief they have done. If even David had to eat his own words, when he spoke in a hurry, none of us can trust our tongue without a bridle.

C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 111-119, vol. 5 (London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 70.

This is a matter which bears inspection

What is your trouble? (This has been dealt with at length in the first portion of the treatise.)

How do you hope to be delivered?

Are you content with the Lord’s timing?

Have you been tempted to “take matters into your own hands”? Have you actually gone further and forced the “solution”? What has been the result of your efforts? Have you learned patience, or are you frustrated with God? Is there a matter here from which to repent?

God’s Will as to Manner

Naaman was a Syrian general who was encouraged to see Elisha to see if God would heal him of his leprosy. Elisha met this man and told him to bath in the Jordan river. Naaman was frustrated at the instructions. He thought the action was merely direction to clean off. He could have cleaned off at home, why this trip? What he did not understand is the directions were for obedience and submission to Israel’s God, not cleaning dirt from his skin.

God dictates not merely the time, but often dictates the way in which we must respond or proceed in a circumstance. And often God’s means may seem insufficient:

3. An entire resignation as to the way and manner of bringing it about. We are ready to do, as to the way of accomplishing the promise, just as with the time of it, to set a particular way for the Lord’s working of it; and if that be not kept, the proud heart is stumbled, 2 Kings 5:11. “But Naaman was wroth, and he went away, and said, Behold, I thought he will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place.”—But the Lord will have his people broke off from that too, that they shall prescribe no way to him, but leave that to him entirely, as in that same case, verse 14.—“He went down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God—and he was clean.” The compass of our knowledge of ways and means is very narrow, as if one is blocked up, oft-times we cannot see another: but our God knows many ways of relief, where we know but one, or none at all; and it is very usual for the Lord to bring the lifting up to his people in a way they had no view to, after repeated disappointments from these [actions] whence they had great expectation.

What then is our duty in a situation? We do not have the precise instructions which Abraham or Naaman had for future conduct. (And it is that precise instruction that we often desire when seeking “God’s will”. Such desire for precise instructions leads to any manner of technique to discern God’s hidden will.)

The Bible is filled with many general instructions which we must follow. You may not murder to solve a personal conflict—and slander is murder of one’s name.

We have duties which we must fulfill. Love your neighbor. Do your work well unto the Lord.

When it comes to matters of preference that do not involve sin (should I vacation here or there? For instance), we can choose which ever we happen to think best or desire more.

But we may to sin to rescue ourselves from a difficult situation.

God’s Will as to Degree

We do not know what is good for us. We cannot rebel against the “crook in our lot” nor may rebel against God’s relief.

A parent instructs a child to straighten her room on a bright, sunny day. The child would prefer to be with friends, “But not before you do your chores.” The parent knows that the child learning to defer gratification and to be obedient will be of more use to than the child than seeing her friends 30 minutes sooner.

God knows what is right for us, but in our benefits and in our trials. The child does not get to skip dinner and go directly to desert. Likewise, we must receive God’s blessings as fit for us—even when we wanted more. We cannot sin in complaining of a good God has given.

4. Resignation as to the degree of the lifting up, yea, and as to the very being of it in time. The Lord will have his people weaned so, that however hasty they have sometimes been, that they behoved to be so soon lifted up, and could no longer bear, they shall be brought at length to set no time at all, but submit to go to the grave under their weight, if it seem good in the Lord’s eyes, and in that case they will be brought to be content with any measure of it in time, without prescribing how much, 2 Sam. 15:25, 26.—“If I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again.—But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee: behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him.”

The application of this point is obvious.

Praying and Waiting

We have clear instruction to pray. But when we are praying “for” some particular outcome, we may give up “because it doesn’t work” (“makes people give over praying and waiting”). Boston places the cause of our quitting prayer as a matter of pride.

The trial came upon us if no other reason to cure of us pride and to bring us to humility.

We pray to be freed from our trial.

We will cease to pray due to our pride.

Have you prayed to be relieved of a trial?

Have you given up on prayer?

5. The continuing of praying and waiting on the Lord in the case, Eph. 6:18. “Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance.”—It is pride of heart, and unsubduedness of spirit, that makes people give over praying and waiting, because their humbling circumstances are lengthened out time after time, 2 Kings 6:33. But due humility, going before the lifting up, brings men into that temper, to pray, wait, and hang on resolutely, setting no time for the giving it over, till the lifting up come, whether in time or eternity, Lam. 3:49, 50.

Philippians 4:4–9 (ESV)

⁴Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. ⁵Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; ⁶do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

⁸Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ⁹What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Notice the context of Phil. 4:6

He writes this letter from prison.

What chapter?

Read Phil 1:15-18. What is sufficient to give Paul “joy”, despite the circumstance?

Memorize Phil. 1:21

What conflict does Paul suffer? Phil. 1:19-24

How are we called upon to live (this is a complicated passage, but look to the main point): Phil 2:1-11

How are you called upon to live when suffering in this world? Phil. 2:14-16

How should we consider our losses? Phil. 3:7-8

How should we weigh what we lose and what will gain? Phil. 3:12-14

For what are we called upon to wait? Phil. 3:20-21

Now consider the command to pray.

What is the context in which we pray? What is our hope? Phil. 4:4-6

We are promised what? Phil. 4:7

What things are supposed to fill our thoughts? Phil. 4:8 Look back over the questions concerning chapters 1-3. Which of those passages concerned something which is “true”? (and so on)

Read Phil. 4:9 How are we to live, what are we to practice?

Look back on Phil. 4:6 having briefly considered the context. Can you rightly say, prayer “didn’t work” when it takes place in the context of a life filled with these thoughts and this conduct?

Consider Paul’s example. He was writing from prison. It is believed that he was released upon coming to Rome, but at the time he wrote he was facing what could easily be execution. How does Paul’s letter in the face of actual prison and (perhaps) death (he will be executed eventually by Rome, apparently after a second imprisonment) exemplify the doctrine Boston has been teaching in this letter?

Repentance

Here is a seeming paradox in the Christian life: our trial prepares to repent even when we receive relief. Job repents at the time God presents God’s case, which is a promise of Job’s relief.

Our repentance comes most clearly when we can see how our pride has misled us. When we know God’s goodness (God’s speech to Job is largely a discussion of how God does good to the nature world and has power over the greatest forces which could threaten Job), we come to see our holding out against God is folly itself.

Lastly, Mourning under mismanagements in the trial, Job 42:3.—“Therefore have I uttered that I understood not, things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.” The proud heart dwells and expatiates on the man’s sufferings in the trial, and casts out all the folds of the trial on that side, and views them again and again. But when the Spirit of God comes duly to humble, in order to lifting up, he will cause the man to pass, in a sort, the suffering-side of the trial, and turn his eyes on his own conduct in it, ransack it, judge himself impartially, and condemn himself; so that his mouth will be stopped.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 47.1

10 Friday May 2024

Posted by memoirandremains in Edward Taylor, Literature

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Edward Taylor, Puritan Poetry, 17th Century Poetry, Poem Analysis, Poetry Analysis, Edward Taylor Meditation 47

Meditation 47

In the 7^th chapter of Romans describes a conflict with takes place within the heart of one man. The poem likewise takes a look at the inconsistency of the human heart. Paul, in Romans, writes:

Romans 7:14–25 (ESV)

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ¹⁵For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²²For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

There is a debate which takes places among exegete’s as to whether Paul writes of a believer or one merely instructed in the Law, or some other person. For our purposes, John Owen’s reference to this passage will suffice:

The seventh chapter of the Romans contains the description of a regenerate man. He that shall consider what is spoken of his dark side, of his unregenerate part, of the indwelling power and violence of sin remaining in him, and, because he finds the like in himself, conclude that he is a regenerate man, will be deceived in his reckoning. It is all one as if you should argue: A wise man may be sick and wounded, yea, do some things foolishly; therefore, every one who is sick and wounded and does things foolishly is a wise man. Or as if a silly, deformed creature, hearing one speak of a beautiful person, should say that he had a mark or a scar that much disfigured him, should conclude that because he hath himself scars, and moles, and warts, he also is beautiful. If you will have evidences of your being believers, it must be from those things that constitute [true] believers. He that hath these things in himself may safely conclude, “If I am a believer, I am a most miserable one.” But that any man is so, he must look for other evidences if he will have peace.

John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 6 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 49–50.

Taylor begins his mediation with the agonized prayer that his heart is indeed “strange”. It is strange because it can reach in joy to the goodness of God and plummet almost instantly down. His heart “rowels” with grief and joy when he was dressed with an angel’s livery. And there at the height of his joy a spider spit poison upon him:

Strange, strange indeed. It rowell doth my heart

With pegs of grief, and tents of greatest joy:

When I wore angels’ glory in each part

And all my skirts wore flashes of rich dye

Of heavenly color, hedg’d in with rosy reeches 5

A spider spits it venom in my cheeks.

It creates a fascinating image with the interplay of “pegs” and “tents”, because these are each part of a whole. That whole here is grief and joy, as his exaltation and fall where all part of one construction. Hence the sorrow of the believer who both possesses the highest right and is chained to such inconsistency in this work.

Taylor makes use of angel’s as an emblem for the highest position a creature can bear before the Creator. He does not busy himself with the choirs of heaven as Pseudo-Dionysus in the Celestial Hierarchy. There are “angels” of all ranks.

“Rowell” is either a wheel or spur, and both make sense here. The “It” in line one can only refer back to either “strange” or “heart.” Since “heart” is the object of “rowell”, “strange” must be the actor. What is missing from this reference is then what is “strange”? His heart suffers the state of being strange, but what strange actor does his heart suffer to alternate high and low in this manner?

There is a spider which causes grief at the end of the stanza, but that seems to be an agent of this unstated trouble at the beginning. It could be Sin, not as a discrete action but as a force which ruins this world. However, Sin could not bring about joy.

Perhaps we could untangle the thought, It is strange that my heart spins from grief to joy. Here the actor is made into an unnamed entity which remains unnamed. In that case, the irrationality of Sin interrupting joy is the actor. Joy acts, and then irrational Sin acts.

The action is recast in the second half of the stanza from the subjective states of joy and grief to the objective pollution of the spider.

I was dressed in the finest livery possible. I was decked out in the robes of angels. The colors were so spectacular, the robes “flashed.” I was at the exaltation I could most experience in this life, and there the spider befouled the whole.

The Christian can be the greatest range of glory. There is an old song I heard as a child,

I’ve been on the mountain

And I’ve seem the otherside

I spent the day with Jesus

And my soul is satisfied.

The image of the spider spitting on him is the objective picture of the subjective sin. I have had such joy, and then I fell into such sin.

The sin does not need to be the most despicable of wrongs. No sin can be present in that place. Holiness is not a dour restraint. It is a joyous glory. It is not painful to be freed from sin. Temptation does not offer me something good, it offers me something false.

And now, to be stained in part is to be stained in all. I have heard it explained that the law of God is like a window which a hole in one part ruins the whole. It is not a “small” sin. To use the old saying, no one is a little bit pregnant. It is all or nothing. Likewise, the spider’s venom is not in one place but infests the whole:

This ranckling juice bindg’d in its cursed stain

Doth permeate both soul and body: soil

And drench every fiber, and infect each grain.

Its ugliness swells over all the ile. 10

Whose stain’d misshapen bulk’s too high and broad

For th’entry of the narrow gate of God.

He becomes swollen with this sin, he no longer fits through the “strait gate” (as dire strait, a narrow place). It swells him and keeps out of the gate and thus out of the Lord’s presence

Thomas Boston, Crook in the Lot.35, Study Guide

06 Monday May 2024

Posted by memoirandremains in Study Guide, Thomas Boston

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read 2 Corinthians 4-5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do we truly know the depths of our own heart?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two reasons hereof to be noticed.

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

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

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

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

Read Romans 31-38

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas Boston, Crook in the Lot. 34, Study Guide

01 Wednesday May 2024

Posted by memoirandremains in Study Guide, Thomas Boston

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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

If we do receive some relief from the pain of the trial, what will happen? What can we expect when God lessens the trial?

Secondly, The partial lifting up itself. What they will get, getting this lifting up promised to the humbled. Why, they will get,

1. A removal of their humbling circumstances. God having tried them a while, and humbled them, and brought down their hearts, will at length take off their burden, remove the weight so long hung at them, and so take them off that part of their trial joyfully, and let them get up their back long bowed down: and this one of two ways.

Examine again, why does God humble us?

“For I, not yet humble enough, did not apprehend my Lord Jesus Christ, who had made himself humble; nor did I yet know what lesson that infirmity of his would teach us.”

Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine’s Confessions, vol.1, ed. T. E. Page and W. H. D. Rouse, trans. William Watts, The Loeb Classical Library (London; New York: William Heinemann; The Macmillan Co., 1912), 389.

How has your (past or present trial) changed you?

How do you understand your own strength and weakness?

Do you rely more upon yourself, or upon God?

How have your hopes changed?

What do you hope from your trial being removed?

(1.) Either in kind, removing the burden for good and all. Such a lifting Job got, when the Lord turned back his captivity, increased again his family and substance, which had both been disolated. David, when Saul his persecutor fell in battle, and he was brought to the kingdom after many weary days expecting one day to fall by his hand. It is easy with our God to make such turns in the most humbling circumstances.

Why did God completely remove Job’s trial?

Read Job 38 – 42.

God comes to Job at the end of Job’s trial? What does God do first?

How does Job respond? Job 40:4-5, and God respond? Job 40:6

Job’s second response: 42:1-6

What does God seek from us in our trials? Is God impressed with our efforts and strength? Consider the nature of the faith which God seeks from us. Hebrews 11:1-7 (and so).

If a physician stopped chemotherapy after the first unpleasant round and left the cancer in place, would that physician’s “kindness” be true kindness?

(2.) Or in equivalent, or as good, removing the weight of the burden, that though it remains, it presses them no more, 2 Cor. 12:9, 10. “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities.”—

Though they are not got to the shore, yet their head is no more under the water, but lifted up. David speaks feelingly of such a lifting up, Psal. 27:5, 6. “For in the time of trouble he shall hide me, in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me, he shall set me upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy, I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord.”

Such had the three children in the fiery furnace; the fire burned, but it could burn nothing of them but their bonds: they had the warmth and light of it, but nothing of the scorching heat. Sometimes God lifts up his people this way in their humbling circumstances.

Boston provides three examples of when God provided help though the circumstances had not changed.

Read 2 Corinthians 12:1-10.

What had Paul received from God?

What happened to humble Paul? (The thorn is not defined by Paul. Various commentators will argue for a physical ailment, a supernatural attack, or a human oppressor. All three are possible. Whatever trouble you face, the “thorn” will describe such a condition.

How does grace respond to a trial?

Let us say, you are being physically attacked by a malefactor. Now let us say, that rather than being yourself, you are as strong as the heavyweight champion and as quick as an MMA fighter (or as Chuck Norris for both). The assailant is still there, but is the assailant still a threat to you?

Read Psalm 27

What is David’s trouble? (vs. 2-3, 6, 10, 12)

What is David’s protection? (v. 1, 3, 6, 10, 13)

What does David seek? (v. 4-14)

How does this promise give you hope in your trial?

If this seems unreal, what is the nature of your believe that God will not help or cannot help in your circumstance?

Memorize Psalm 27:4

Draft a prayer built upon Psalm 27, particularly verses 13-14.

Boston here provides excellent counsel concerning our prayers:

2. A comfortable sight of the acceptance of their prayers, put up in their humbling circumstances. While prayers are not answered, but trouble continued, the hangers on about the Lord’s hand are apt to think they are not accepted nor regarded in heaven, because there is no alteration in their case, John 9:16, 17. “If I had called, and he had answered me, yea would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice; for he breaketh me with a tempest.”—But that is a mistake; they are accepted immediately, though not answered, 1 John 5:14. “And this is the confidence we have in him, that if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us.” The Lord does with them as a father with the letters coming thick from his son abroad, reads them one by one with pleasure, and carefully lays them up to be answered at his convenience. And when the answer comes, the son will know how acceptable they were to his father, Matt. 15:28. So, &c.

Restate and explain the parts of this instruction as if you were teaching this to someone else.

Are our prayers heard immediately?

Does God receive our prayers immediately?

Does God determine how to respond to our prayers immediately?

If God determines at the first to provide us help, why then does God wait to give an answer so that we know the outcome?

3. A heart-satisfying answer of these prayers, ibid. so as they shall not only get the thing, but see they have it as an answer of prayer; and they will put a double value on the mercy, 1 Sam. 2:1. Accepted prayers may be very long of answering, many years, as in Abraham and David’s case, but they cannot miscarry of an answer at length, Psal. 9:18. The time will come when God will tell out to them according to the promise, that they shall change their note, and say, Psal. 116:1. “I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice, and my supplication.” Looking on their lifting up as bearing the signature of the hand of a prayer-hearing God.

Consider again the interesting fact that God writes so much of the Bible in Hebrew which has this interesting characteristic, that a single word can mean “hope” or “wait” depending upon the circumstance. To wait and to hope are concepts which come together.

As we hope for God’s response, how does that affect our relationship to God?

Let us say, you face an emergency and you call for help. The police or ambulance or fire department is sent to you and you are told so. You are waiting during that time, but how do you wait? Are you casual or intent upon the response?

Read 1 Peter 1:13

The first clause (which is variously translated) means to tie up your robe about your waste so that you can run. How do we look for the Lord’s coming?

What do you suppose we are more concerned with God fixing some temporal problem when we have a far greater hope that God will relieve our every trouble? (see Rev. 21-22)

A child is impatient while the family waits on a dock for a marvelous ocean voyage. A parent hands the child a candy to ease the child in the wait, but ship is coming. If the child cares only for the candy on the dock and forgets about the ocean trip, what does that say? As one Puritan wrote, You are wise and know how to apply it.

4. Full satisfaction, as to the conduct of providence, in all the steps of the humbling circumstances, and the delay of the lifting up, however perplexing these were before, Rev. 15:3. Standing on the shore, and looking back to what they have passed through, they will be made to say, “He hath done all things well.” These things which are bitter to Christians in the passing through, are very sweet in the reflection on them: so is Samson’s riddle verified in their experience.

Rather than considering your present trouble, consider a previous burden which God lifted. Can you see any benefit or relief worth remembering? (If you are unable to remember previous relief granted by God, what does that say of your thankfulness. [I am assuming you have been a Christian for some time if you have made it through these comments to this point.] Luke 17:11-18).

5. They get the lifting up, together with the interest for the time they lay out of it. When God pays his bonds of promises, he pays both stock and interest together: the mercy is increased according to the time the man waited on, and the expenses and hardships sustained during the dependence of the process. The fruits of common providence are soon ripe, soon rotten: but the fruit of the promise is readily long a ripening, but then it is durable: and the longer it is a ripening, it is the more valuable when it comes. Abraham and Sarah waited for the promise about ten years, at length they thought on a way to hasten it, Gen. 16. that soon took in the birth of Ishmael, but he was not the promised son. They were coming into extreme old age ere the promise brought forth, Gen. 18:11. But, when it came, they got it with an addition, the renewing of their ages, Gen. 21:7. and 25:1. The most valuable of all the promises was the longest in fulfilling, viz. the promise of Christ, that was four thousand years.

We are very impatient.

When God does us good, the good that he matches the trouble which came. This does not mean we will receive wealth (like Job) or become second ruler in a Kingdom (like Joseph) or a child (like Abraham and Sarah). Our relief may be escape (like Paul 2 Cor. 11:30-33)

God’s rest is meant for our good as much as our trials.

I can recall a time where we faced a tremendous problem without any clear sight of how God could give us relief. And a call came from a friend I had not spoken with for years. That friend as an instrument of God met exactly the need we faced.

I one time was with some friends who faced a tremendous trouble they had tried for weeks to resolve. There was no apparent way to solve this problem, which would soon go from bad to catastrophe. Having no other solution, we prayed. Then at the last minute (quite literally it was when there was no time to spare), they received a phone call and God met exactly that need.

I could present stories I have read, for instance about George Muller. I did not because a man like Muller is someone. But the answers I saw were to a no one and for no ones. God is that good.

God spared my life (at least twice or thrice that I knew the danger).

So make a list and answer, what has God already done for me? Nothing gives strength to faith like recollection of prayers answered.

Lastly, The spiritual enemies that flew thick and throng about them in the time of the darkness of the humbling circumstances, will be scattered at this lifting up in the promise, 1 Sam. 2:1, 5. “And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord,—my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies. They that were full have hired out themselves for bread, and they that were hungry ceased.” Formidable was Pharaoh’s host behind the Israelites, while they had the Red-sea before them; but, when they were through the sea, they saw the Egyptians dead on the shore, Exod. 14:30. Such a sight will they that humble themselves under humbling circumstances get of their spiritual enemies, when the time comes for their lifting up.

Look back up your troubles, like a pursuing army washed up dead. And the trials you face today, may show up dead tomorrow. And if “worst” comes and you are to die, then what trial is left?

Just a few more weary days and then, I will fly away

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

27 Saturday Apr 2024

Posted by memoirandremains in Study Guide, Thomas Boston

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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

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)

²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope ²¹that 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.

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

26 Friday Apr 2024

Posted by memoirandremains in Study Guide, Thomas Boston

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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

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)

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

Posted by memoirandremains in Study Guide, Thomas Boston

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Bible, Crook in the Lot Study Guide, Faith, Hope, Psalm 119, Psalms, Study Guide, Thomas Boston, Thomas Boston Crook in the Lot

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

Posted by memoirandremains in Abraham Kuyper

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abraham Kuyper Common Grace, Common Grace

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:

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)

¹⁴The 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

Posted by memoirandremains in Thomas Boston

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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

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)

²⁸And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹For 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. ³⁰And 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:

⁸Already 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! ⁹For 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. ¹⁰We 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. ¹¹To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, ¹²and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; ¹³when 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)

⁴When 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)

¹²Beloved, 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)

³Blessed 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, ⁴to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷so 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. ⁸Though 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, ⁹obtaining 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

Posted by memoirandremains in Thomas Boston

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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

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:

1^st, 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)

⁶The 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, ⁷keeping 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.” ⁸And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. ⁹And 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.