Tag Archives: Affliction

Thomas Adams, The Sinner’s Mourning Habit.1 Contemplating God

13 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in Job, Thomas Adams, Thomas Adams

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The verse for the sermon is Job 42:6, “Wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” It is a curious verse coming at the end of Job. Just Job having been afflicted ends up repenting.  

Adams begins with the observation of the effect of affliction

Affliction is a winged chariot, that mounts up the soul toward heaven; or do we ever so rightly understand God’s majesty as when are not able to stand under our own misery.

There are many ways which God can use to get one’s attention, but affliction is most effective

But among them all, none despatcheth the business surer or sooner than affliction; if that fail to bring a man home, nothing can do it….Do we complain of incessant blows? Alas! He doth but his office, he waits for our repentance. Let us give him the messenger his errand, and he will begone. Let him take the proud man in hand, he will humble him; he can make the drunkard sober, the lascivious chaste, the angry patient, the covetous charitable; fetch the unthrift son back again to his father, whom a full purse had put into an itch of traveling. (Luke 15:17)

Having established that affliction should leave us to repentance, Adams considers three “degrees of mortification” of sin: the sickness, the death, and the burial of sin. 

The humility of Job which brings about this repentance comes from a knowledge of God:

To study God is the way to make a humble man; and a humble man is in the way to come unto God.

(Again, this is consonant with Kierkegaard’s contention that one finds God in confession of sin: the wonder of being confronted with the eternal God brings about this humility, a knowledge of one’s sinfulness. This a sort of confession and humiliation which cannot be brought about by the skill of some preacher; it is a humility which flows from knowing God.)

Job’s humility flowed from two aspect of God’s nature: majesty and mercy. First majesty,

Of his majesty, which being so infinite, and beyond the comprehension of man, he considered by way or comparison, or relation to creatures [Since God’s majesty cannot be understood directly, God compares his strength to creatures which Job could know.]…Mathematicians wonder at the sun that, being so much bigger than the earth, doth not set it on fire and burn it to ashes; but here is the wonder that God being so infinitely great, and we so infinitely evil, we are not consumed.

And then mercy. If it were not for this mercy, we could not come to God. 

This meditation on his mercy, than which nothing more humbles a heart of flesh. 

We can understand a more powerful being withstanding us. But for one who has just cause against us, to show mercy in the midst of our knowledge of his power; that brings humility. 

It is a certain conclusion; no proud man knows God.

How humility makes this possible:

Humility is not only a virtue itself; but a vessel to contain other virtures: like embers, which keep the fire alive that is hidden under it. It emptieth itself by a modest estimation of its own worth, that Christ may fill it. It wrestleth with God, like Jacob, and wins by yielding; and the lower it stoops to the gound the more advantage it gets to obtain the blessing. All our pride, O Lord, is from the want of knowing thee.

This knowledge of God in turn brings about the repentance for and mortification of sin. 

At this point, it perhaps best to consider something which so often is missing in contemporary Christian life: the contemplation of God for his own sake. Americans (I cannot speak for others) want always to know what this information does; but is the practical application. 

Now application is a great thing. But one sort of application which is noticeably absent is the application of contemplation: Just steadily thinking one, mediating, considering the thought that God is ….

It is nature of persons, that we can know one another only through some attention. We may gain a very superficial knowledge of a word or a sight; but actual appreciation for another person requires time and attention. 

Perhaps our trouble with sin stems from too little knowledge of God. God is an abstraction; not personal. But a true knowledge of God would work humility and humility repentance. 

Here is a thought. God is Father. Even before creation (if it makes any sense to say “before” when it comes to God), God is Father. The creation is an overflow of the joy and love of the Father. Our redemption flows from the love of God for us. Our glorification flows from the headwaters of God’s love as Father. 

Sit alone with those thoughts. Consider that one truth and see what it brings about in you.

The wilderness had been changed into green pastures

14 Monday Oct 2019

Posted by in Psalms, Uncategorized

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You remember how Greatheart in the Pilgrim describes the Valley of Humiliation as the best and most fruitful land in all those parts, and how that Mercy protested that she was as well in that Valley as she had been anywhere else in all their journey. That is only the old Dreamer’s way of saying that bare and sterile places have often turned out to be “green pastures.” And that is why God “makes us to lie down” in places from which we shrink. That is why He allows loss and trouble and disappointment to befall us. He knows what graces these things and their like beget in the soul, how they breed sympathy and tenderness and humility and dependence on God. They are indeed amongst the richest and most succulent pastures. And so God makes us to lie down in them in spite of ourselves. And later we come to recognize His wisdom. We realize the gain that has come to us. “It was good for me that I was afflicted.” That was a man for whom the wilderness had been changed into the “green pastures.” It is only in retrospect we recognize all this. While we are in the midst of life’s hardnesses and difficulties and trials they may appear to us to be anything but “green pastures.” But when we look back, in the mellow light of life’s evening time, we shall realize we owe some of life’s richest blessings to its troubled times, and shall be ready with David to confess “Thou makest me to lie down in green pastures, thou leadest me beside the still waters.

The King of Love, J D Jones (1922)

The two sorts of trouble in this world

12 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by in affliction, Hope, trial, Uncategorized

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In Pilgrim’s Progress, Apollyon stops Christian and seeks to turn him aside from the way. One argument which Apollyon presses is the sheer difficulty of seeking to follow after Christ in this world,

Consider again, when thou art in cool blood, what thou art like to meet with in the way that thou goest. Thou knowest that for the most part his servants come to an ill end, because they are transgressors against me and my ways. How many of them have been put to shameful deaths! And besides, thou countest his service better than mine; whereas he never yet came from the place where he is, to deliver any that served him out of their enemies’ hands: but as for me, how many times, as all the world very well knows, have I delivered, either by power or fraud, those that have faithfully served me, from him and his, though taken by them! And so will I deliver thee.

John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come. As Jesus says, “In the world you will have tribulation.” John 16:33.

The Beatitudes which begin the Sermon on the Mount list out poor of spirit, mourning, meekness, hungering and thirsting (after righteousness), showing mercy and making peace, capped with two promises of persecution: first to the first persecuted, then he shifts and says “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

The Church is sent out as lambs among wolves. And, this side of the age to come, there is little promise of respite.However, there is a comfort in all of this.

There are two evils which come from trouble: first there is the trouble itself, second there is the response to the trouble. We can do very little with the first trouble: the world is cursed and a grave stands at the end of every life. For those who seek to follow Christ, there is often an extra measure of trouble. These troubles are largely unavoidable.

But the second trouble comes from how we think about the first.

We have many difficulties which we undertake willingly to bring about a better end. A joint replacement surgery is quite painful (from what is reported), but the end result is worth the pain. Therefore, the pain is not experienced as an unmitigated tragedy, but as a moment to be endured for a better end. We encourage children with school by pointing to the good of an education. Athletes undergo great privation to compete.

This evil which comes from the response to the unavoidable trials of life brings the greatest pain and sorrow. When we look through the first trial to see the end, we can persevere and endure. We are commend to look “to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross”. Jesus lived through the cross for the good that would result.

It is hope which makes helps us to endure sorrow. We can afford to mourn, for we shall be comforted. We can afford the cost of showing mercy and making peace, because we shall receive mercy and be brought into God’s family. This will require hope and expectation and patience. But our hope and patience will be well rewarded.

William Perkins on the Blessings of Suffering

24 Thursday Aug 2017

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Let us then bear them, they will have an end [Ps. 37:37]; joy will follow [Ps. 126:5]; they show us our weakness [Isa. 38:10]; they move us to pray [Hos. 5:15]; they show we are in the pathway to heaven [Luke 24:26]; and [they] make us condemn this present world [Eccl. 1:2]. By them we learn to repent us of sin past [2 Sam. 24:17], to take heed of sin present, and to foresee sin to come [Gen. 39:9]. By them we receive God’s Spirit [Acts 2:2]; are like to Christ [Phil. 3:10]; are acquainted with God’s power [Dan. 3:17]; have joy in deliverance [Ex. 15:1]; know [the] benefit of prosperity; made more hardy to suffer; and have cause to practice many excellent virtues [1 Peter 1:6–7]. They cause us (as one says) to seek out God’s promise; the promise to seek faith; faith to seek prayer; and prayer to find God. Seek, and you shall find [Matt. 7:7]; call, and He will answer [Job 21:27]; wait, and He will come [Hab 2:3].

If we were at peace, we would be asleep

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Now, it is much better for things to be in a state of confusion so we will wake up, for if we were at peace, we would be asleep, we would no longer be aware of anything, anything at all. But if things go badly, we are forced to think about God and put our senses on alert and think about a judgment that is prepared, which is not yet apparent, and that is how our Lord leads us to hunger for the last day and the resurrection which has been promised. But the fact remains that men continue to surround themselves with false and wicked fantasies. For, as I have already said, inasmuch as events do not happen as we would like, we are tempted to suppose that God does not think of us or watch over us any longer, that serving him is a wasted effort and that there is no difference whether we live an upright life or not and that the good gain nothing by walking in fear under him.
John Calvin, Sermon on Job 24:1-9

The Conclusion of Edward Polhill’s Preparation for Suffering

30 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by in affliction, Edward Polhill, Uncategorized

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PREPARATION FOR SUFFERING

IN

AN EVIL DAY:

SHEWING

HOW CHRISTIANS ARE TO BEAR SUFFERINGS,

AND WHAT GRACES ARE REQUISITE THEREUNTO

SUITED FOR ALL CHRISTIANS IN THIS PRESENT TIME

 

Edward Polhill, 1682.

The first post in this series may be found here.

Polhill ends his treatise on preparing for suffering with a description of the blessing of suffering.  This is of two sorts, first how suffering well blesses God. Second, how God blesses the one who suffers.

How Suffering Well Glorifies God.

First,

Pious sufferers do glorify God in a very signal eminent manner. What is said of St. Peter’s death? that “It was a glorifying of God,” (John 21:19). The same may be said of the death of all other martyrs; we glorify God by offering praise; much more by offering our lives for him. We glorify him by giving some of our estates in charity; much more, by giving our blood for his name…..As it was with Christ, his power appeared in miracles; but above all, in that he triumphed over principalities and powers upon the cross: so it is with christians; the divine power appears in other graces, but above all in that patient suffering which overcomes the world. The truth of God is in martyrs practically proved to be exceeding precious. The fathers, in the first general councils, were so earnest for the truth, that they would not exchange a letter or syllable of it.

Second, “Pious sufferers do propagate and multiply the church.”

Third,

Pious sufferers do give an evident token to the persecutor, that the wrath of God will come upon him…. “Stand fast,” saith he, “in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel, and in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God,” (Phil. 1:27, 28). The persecutor comes with his torments and engines of cruelty, to terrify the martyr; but the martyr, by his Christian patience and courage, gives the persecutor an evident token that the wrath of God will come down upon him at last. If bloody persecutors, who look upon the suffering martyrs, had but their eyes open, they would see cause enough to reflect upon themselves, and say, Surely these men have a patience more than human, and therefore they suffer for God; and, if so, we in persecuting them fight against him, and may expect that his wrath should come down upon us, as it hath upon former persecutors.

How God Blesses Those Who Suffer Well:

First, “Pious sufferers are happy here and hereafter. They are happy here upon a double account.”

They give the highest proof of their sincerity that can be given. …The highest proof of grace is in suffering. That faith must be right that endures the fiery furnace; that love must be pure, that practically lifts up God above all other things; that hope must be lively that lets go a present world for a future one; that obedience must be glorious that continues unto the death.

As they give the highest proof of their sincerity, so they have the gracious presence of God in the most eminent way with them. All his glorious attributes do, as it were, pitch their tents round about them, and put forth their virtues in a gracious manner for their good. His power rests upon them to bear them up, how weak soever, in the fiery trial; his wisdom directs them how to carry themselves under the cross; his mercy melts over them, while they are under man’s cruelty; his love is shed abroad in their heart while they bear the world’s hatred: the presence of God will be to them instead of, nay, infinitely more than all other comforts. They may say, “If God be for us, who can be against us, (Rom. 8:31).

Again: They are happy hereafter, and this stands in two things:

  1. They are freed from all evils. In heaven they shall have no corruption within, nor oppression without; no noise of passion in the heart, nor rout of turbulent persecutors to disquiet them; the will of the flesh shall have a total circumcision; the infirmities of the body shall have a perfect cure; the serpent cannot hiss in paradise; no temptations or miseries can fasten on a saint in glory. There is day without night, love without fear, joy without sorrow, life without death, all happiness without the least mixture of evil. There the blessed martyrs shall be freed from all their troubles and miseries.
  2. They are endowed with all good and happiness, The promises made to the overcomer in the Revelation of St. John, shall be made good to them; they shall eat of the tree of life in a blessed immortality; they shall have the white stone in a perfect absolution; they shall be clothed in robes of glory; they shall be pillars in the heavenly temple, standing there as ornaments in an immoveable felicity; they shall sit down with Christ in his throne, and judge their enemies that condemned them; they shall inherit all things; they that lost all for God shall inherit all in him who is goodness itself, and the fountain of it; they shall see him who is the original and crystal ocean of all truth; they shall enjoy Him who is the supreme good and sabbath of souls; they shall be swallowed up in the joy of infinite truth and goodness; and their happiness shall not be for a time, but run parallel with eternity itself; they shall be for ever in the Lord in the blessed region. There, as St. Austin hath it, God who is all in all, Sine fine videbitur, sine fastidio amabitur, sine fatigatione laudnbitur: “Shall be seen without end, loved without disdain, and praised without weariness.” In the next world there will be a vast difference between persecutors and sufferers. The pride and cruelty of the one will be paid for in torments and endless misery in the prison of hell; and the patience and suffering of the other will be returned in joys and eternal felicity in the blessed heaven.

Edward Polhill, The Works of Edward Polhill (London: Thomas Ward and Co., 1844), 356–359.

 

How to Have Hope

01 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by in affliction, Hope, Romans, Uncategorized

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Romans 5:1–5 (ESV)

5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

This is a seemingly confused passage: why and how does Paul jump from justification to suffering?

Note the argument:

 A.Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have

B. peace with God

C.  through our Lord Jesus Christ.

C’. Through him we have also obtained

B’.  access by faith into this grace in which we stand,

A’ and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God — being justified — is the subjective state of the one justified. Col. 1:27. This hope of glory is a great subjective benefit of the Christian life.  Paul next turns to, how does one have more of this hope? The next section which discusses suffering, actually answers the question of “So how then do we obtain more hope, now?”

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,” — but not because suffering is good (it is not, if it were “good”, it would not be suffering), but because of what suffering does:

knowing that

suffering produces endurance, 4

and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope,

This, however, is not the sum total of Paul’s argument. Paul makes a similar argument in chapter 8, but this time he develops more of the psychology which produces home. Using language deliberately allusive to Ecclesiastes (all is vanity), Paul explains that present suffering is unavoidable in this world (the creation has been subjected to futility), but this suffering can cause us to long for the age to come (glory):

Romans 8:18–25 (ESV)

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Samuel Rutherford on how we Misjudge God

07 Friday Apr 2017

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Samuel Rutherford in Sermon 1 of the Trial and Triumph of Faith explains why we often do not understand what God is doing. First, we must understand that God’s Providence is complex: God uses even sin for His own ends:

The Providence of God hath two sides; one black and sad, another white and joyful. Heresy taketh strength, and is green before the sun; God’s clearing of necessary and seasonable truths, is a fair side of that same providence. Adam’s first sin, was the devil and hell digging a hole through the comely and beautiful frame of the creation of God; and that is the dark side of Providence: but the flower of Jesse springing up, to take away sin, and to paint out to men and angels the glory of a heaven, and a new world of free grace—that is a lightsome side of Providence

Second, we look upon only a portion of God’s work; it as of we judged the outcome of a story but stopped in the middle or sneered at house which was not complete;

—It is our fault, that we look upon God’s ways and works by halves and pieces; and so, we see often nothing but the black side, and the dark part of the moon. We mistake all, when we look upon men’s works by parts; a house in the building, lying in an hundred pieces; here timber, here a rafter, there a spar, there a stone; in another place, half a window, in another place, the side of a door: there is no beauty, no face of a house here. Have patience a little, and see them all by art compacted together in order, and you will see a fair building

We are impatient of our ease and want our heaven while we are upon earth.

Understand before you speak

27 Monday Feb 2017

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Advice from John Calvin on comforting others:

Here we have Eliphaz telling Job that God punishes the wicked to show that he is Judge of the world and that they are wasting their effort fortifying themselves because they will not be able to escape his hand, for despite their great numbers and cooperation, God will destroy everything. But if that language is applied to Job, Job would have to believe that God is his enemy because he is wicked and filled with hypocrisy. That is not the case. Job has good reason to say, ‘Well, I know all of that, and if I needed it now, I would use it, but it does not apply to me.’ Job understood that he was not being afflicted because of his sins and that this was not God’s intention. It is not that Job did not feel guilty and deserving of worse if God had wanted to examine him rigorously, but he knows that God is not dealing with him the way he is because of his sins, but that God has another purpose. Knowing that, Job rejects the accusation they charge him with. Why? Because it does not fit his situation. ‘You are,’ he says, ‘a sorry lot of comforters.’ Why? Because they do not offer him appropriate consolations.

That tells us that when we want to comfort our neighbours in their distress and sorrow, we are not to approach them unmindful of their situation, for there are many comforters who, without regard for the person they are addressing, have only one pat thing to say. We must address each person and situation differently. We must speak one way to a person who is stubbornly opposed to God and another way to a pitiful creature who has always walked in simplicity. And depending on what the affliction is, we need to know how to proceed. For example, if men are morally insensitive, we must reproach and reprove their indifference so they will feel God’s hand and humble themselves under it. So we need great wisdom when we want to comfort appropriately those whom God afflicts. That is what we have to remember about this passage when it says that those who were intending to comfort Job were sorry comforters because they offered nothing that could help him. That is the main thing we have to remember.

John Calvin. Sermons on Job, Volume 2: Chapters 15-31 (Kindle Locations 1243-1258). The Banner of Truth Trust.

The Spiritual Chymist, Upon Mixtures (Meditation XLII)

17 Friday Feb 2017

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From The Spiritual Chymist, William Spurstowe, 1666:  Upon Mixtures, Meditation XLII

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The wise God has so tempered the whole as state of man in this life, as that it consists altogether of mixtures. There is no sweet without sour, nurse our without sweetness. All simples [something simple is something without compound or mixture], in any kind, would prove dangerous and be as uncorrected drugs, which administered onto the patient would not recover him, but destroy him. Constant sorrow without any joy would swallow us up; and simple joy without any grief with puff us up: both extremes would agree alike in our ruin. He being in as dangerous a case who is swollen with pride as he was overwhelmed with sorrow.

This mixture then, though it seem penal and prejudicial to our comfort, is yet medicinal and is by God, as a wise physician, ordered as a diet most suitable to our condition. And if we did but look into the grounds of it, we shall find cause to acknowledge God’s Wise providence, and to frame our hearts to a submission of his will without murmuring at what he does.

For have we not two natures in us, the spirit and flesh, the old and new man? Have we not twins in our womb, our counter-lustings and our counter-willings? Are we not as plants that are seated between the two different soils of heaven and earth?

Is there not then a necessity of a mixed diet, that is made up of two contraries? The physician is not less loyal to his prince if he give to him an unpleasing vomit, and to a poor man a cheering cordial, because his applications are not according to the dignity of the person but to the quality of the disease: neither is God the less unkind when he puts into our hand the bitter cup of affliction to drink out of, then when he makes us to taste of the flagons of his sweetest wine.

Paul his thorn in the flesh, what ever the meaning of it be, was useful to keep down the tumor of pride which the abundance of revelations might have exposed him onto (2 Corinthians 12:7); and so join together they were like the rod and the honey which enlightened Jonathan’s eyes (1 Samuel 14:27): when he had tasted the sweetness of the one, God would have him feel the smart of the other. At the same time also when God bless Jacob, he crippled him (Genesis 32:32), that he might not think above what was meet of his own strengths, or ascribe his prevailing to the vehemency of his wrestlings, rather than to God’s gracious condensation.

Yea, who is it that has not experienced such mixtures to be the constant methods which he uses towards his dearest children? What are the lives of the best Christians but as a rainbow which consist half of them moistures of a cloud and half of the light in beams of the Sun?

Weeping, says David, me endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning (Psalm 30:5). And what other thing does the apostles speak of himself, when he gives the Corinthians and account of his condition? As dying, and behold we live: as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, and yet always rejoicing; as poore, yet making many rich; as having nothing, but yet possessing all things (2 Corinthians 6:10).

Blessed then is he who does without repining yield himself to the dispose of divine providence rather then accuse it, (who) looks not so much too what at present as grateful to the sense, as to what for the future will be profitable to the whole. For in these mixtures, Magna latent beneficial et si non fulgeant, Great advantages do lie hid, though not shine forth.

Hereby we are put upon the exercise of all those graces which are accommodated to our imperfect state here below, whose acts shall not be completed in heaven, but shall all cease, as being not capacitated for fruition: and yet are of great use while we are up on this side of heaven. How greatly does hope temper any presents sour by its expectation of some happy change that may end will follow, and so works joy in the midst of sadness? How even to wonder does faith manifest its power in all distresses, when it apprehends that there are no degrees of extremity unrelievable by the arm of God, or inconsistent with his compassions and friendship?

Again, such mixtures serve to work in us a greater hatred of sin and an earnest longings after glory; in which our life, light, joys are all pure and everlasting. Our life is without any seed of death, our light without any shadow of darkness, and our joys endless hallelujahs, without the interruption of one sigh.

We should the more groan to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven (2 Corinthians 5:2). Therefore yet have we the reminders of sin, by which we are unlike God; and the first-fruits only of the Spirit, by which we resemble him; that we might long and wait for the adoption and redemption, wherein whatever is blended and imperfect should be done away. When not to sin, which is here only our duty, shall be the top branch of our reward and blessedness.

Oh holy lord, I complained not of my present lot,
for though it be not free from mixture,
yet it is greatly differing from what others find and feel
whose lines are not falling in so fair a place:
But still I say,
when shall I dwell in that blessed country were sorrows die, and joys cannot?
Into which enemy never entered,
and from which a friend never parted?
When shall I possess that inheritance which is the kingdom for its greatness,
and the city for its beauty,
where there is society without envy,
and rich communications of good without the least diminution?