The word, “affliction” comes from roots that mean “to cast down” or “to strike.” This, in the words of e.e. comings, brings us to “the root of the root and the bud of the bud.” Who is striking me? Who is casting me down?
Who is behind my affliction?
Troubles seem to come from all directions. Some are the result of my own sinful choices or the sinful choices of others. Some are the indirect result of living in a world that has poisoned by sin from the time of Adam onward. Still come from the hand of our enemy, the devil.
“Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.”
God has laid out a good path where a man can walk without hurting himself, but I often leave that path. “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” When I leave God’s path, I become defiled—banged up, covered in dirt and leaves, hurt and ashamed. I do things that hurt myself and others.
The sins of others hurt me. We see this sort of thing every day. Alcoholics, for example, can impoverish their families for generations. Unfaithful spouses destroy entire families. Drunk drivers kill people who are just trying to buy milk or go to work.
Troubles seem to grow naturally from the soil of this world, without any connection to the actions of myself or others. The world is wonderful and ought to inspire praise and respect for the God who made it. Yet there is also a disastrous brokenness in this world that is linked, in ways that I don’t understand, to that great break that mankind made with God so long ago. This wonderful, broken world groans for deliverance from the burden of the sins of mankind. (Romans 8:21-22) In the meantime, freak accidents, natural disasters, and disease fall like rain on the just and the unjust.
And then, there’s Satan. Satan hates God. He hates mankind because we’re made in God’s image, every last one of us. He especially hates Christians because God is changing us to be more and more like his son, Jesus Christ. Satan comes only “to steal, kill, and destroy,” roaming the earth “like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”
I began writing this book several months ago during a time of extreme trial. Although God has been faithful to meet my needs, comforting me in moments of divine reassurance, and giving me strength for each day, the trial has not ended. God has sustained me but not delivered me.
The troubles that have darkened my life for more than a year are the product of many forces: my sin, the sin of others, a genetic predisposition to anxiety and depression, and the hatred of the enemy of my soul.
But is this the whole story? Do sin, the world, and Satan have the final say in my quality of life?
Scripture says, “no.”
God made this universe and rules over every square inch of the place. No joy or sorrow can come to anyone, ever, unless God allows it. In times of affliction, no matter what we know to be true about our sin, the sin of others, the brokenness of this world, and the hatred of Satan, God has the final word in all things.
This is the nub of the nub. It is the transformational truth, the light in which all else can be seen clearly. In our trials, we are afflicted, cast down, and stricken by God himself.
This is a hard thing to accept, but scripture is very clear on this point: God is in control of every aspect of his creation at all times. This fact seems innocuous enough until you consider its implications in times of bitter suffering. Whatever trouble you’re facing, God could deliver you from that trouble completely. Instantly. In fact, he could have prevented the trouble altogether.
The fact that God chooses to allow troubles to come into our lives and chooses to allow them to remain even when we’re asking him daily for deliverance, calling out in our sleepless nights to a God who seems not to hear and not to care—this is a hard truth for even the strongest among us. Christ himself cried out, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?!”
Whether we see in our troubles connections to our own sins, the sins of others, the broken condition of this fallen world, or the direct workings of Satan himself, each trouble in our lives comes from the very hand of God. He could have prevented it and chose not to. He could deliver us this moment and he does not. My sins, the sins of others, the workings of the physical universe, and Satan himself are subject to God at all times.
Whatever may be said of the hatred of our enemy, the devil, whatever may be said of the natural consequences of our own sins and the sins of others, we must admit that no good or bad thing ever happens that God could not have prevented.
A Lesson from Job
This message comes through loud and clear in the book of Job. Satan asked God to “stretch out his hand” against this man. God does so by giving Satan permission to torment Job—“all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person."
Job was a rich man with a large family. In a single day, he lost everything except a wife who urged him to curse God and die. Job is told about how his flocks and children were lost to thieves and disaster, but Job attributed his troubles to God himself, saying:
"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the LORD."
“The LORD has taken away.” Job blamed God for his troubles and, according to scripture, was not wrong when he did so. “Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.”
God agrees with Job’s assessment of the situation. After Satan brought all these troubles onto Job, God asked Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil. And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him without cause.”
We see something similar in the Book of Jonah. After Jonah confessed to being the cause of God's anger displayed in a storm that threatened to destroy their ship, the sailors "took up Jonah and threw him into the sea." Five verses later, we find Jonah attributing this act to God in prayer: "You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the sea." [Jonah 1:15, 2:3]
Our troubles seem to come from a lot of directions, but God is the ruler of his universe, working in all things to bring about his own good will (Ephesians 1:11). Even sin is restrained by God in ways that make it serve the good will of God.
Satan himself is subject to God and is allowed to vent his hatred of God in only those ways that support God’s purposes. The most hateful, evil act of Satan was used by God to bring about our salvation and Satan’s own undoing.
What to Make of All This
Knowing that God works in all things for our good doesn’t mean that we can understand what he’s doing. Job’s friends tried this and failed. The vast majority of the book of Job is filled with their speculations about why God was afflicting Job, and Job’s attempts to defend himself from their accusations.
The doctrine of Job’s friends is reasonably sound. But they made the foolish mistake of trying to put God in a box. Knowing a lot of things about God doesn’t mean we can predict his next move. Even a full grasp of all truth contained in Scripture doesn’t allow us to do this. As far as the heavens are above the earth, God’s ways are above our ways.
I think the best I can do is to identify key truths to hang on to in times of trouble. They don’t work like variables in an equation that will point to a definite answer. Instead, they are like large stones that mark out the boundaries of a field, Even when I’m uncertain of the answer, I know it cannot lie beyond the bounds of these truths:
1. God is the ruler of his universe. Jesus told Pilate that he “could have no power at all against me unless it had been given you from above.” [John 19:11] There is not one square inch of the universe or one moment of time that is not God’s and his alone. No man or demon can act in any way, except that God permits. His control over his universe is complete. In him, we live and move and have our being.
2. God is good. “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, gracious in all his works.” [Psalm 145:17] It is impossible to understand the acts and mind of God, but we can be certain that he is always and everywhere zealously working good.
3. God cares. “…casting all your cares upon him, for he cares for you.” [1 Peter 5:7] God’s work in us is not merely clinical. It is the work of a loving father who is making us fit to live with him. We are saved from sin. This is true. But it is equally true that we are saved for God who loves us dearly. “Can a mother forget her own nursing baby? Not likely, but it’s possible,” says God. “Yet I will not forget you.” [Isaiah 49:15]
4. God uses our sin, the sins of others, and even Satan himself to accomplish his good will. “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” [Romans 8:28]
These Biblical principles aren’t enough to tell us why God is afflicting us or what he’ll do next. But we do know the answer must lie somewhere within these boundaries and not beyond them.
If in our troubles we begin to think that God is not in control of his universe, that he is not good, or that he doesn’t care about us, then we’re thinking all wrong. Whatever the answer, it cannot lie outside the boundaries established by Biblical truth.
Like Job’s friends, I think I see several pieces of the puzzle clearly. Unlike them, I’ll resist the urge to put the pieces together to explain “why bad things happen to good people.” God is too big for any theological box we can ever create. No matter how much we know, God’s ways remain mysterious.
So, How is This Supposed to Make Me Feel Better?
In our trials, we have the assurance that, though we face troubles that come from our sin, from the sins of others, from the brokenness of a broken world, or from the hand of a vicious enemy, God is at work for good in all things.
Sometimes, life just feels like a bad beating. In such times, the advantages of affliction are not to be found in the nature of the rod, nor in the nature of the blows, but in the nature of him who strikes. “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”
In 1857, a girl died in Charleston, South Carolina at eight years of age. Her tombstone doesn’t mention the immediate cause of her death, whether disease or accident. Instead, the words are those of parents looking beyond the immediate circumstances to the broader purposes of a loving God who is working for good in all things.
It is well! Nor would we our child recall
But soothing and sweet are the tears we let fall
It is well since the Savior’s word is given
That, of such as she was, is the host of heaven
It cost us sore pangs in our grieving breast
When we laid her down in the grave to rest
But, ‘tis well, and chastened we bow to the rod
For the wielding hand was the hand of God
To ascribe to God’s chastening the death of an eight-year-old girl offends the modern sensibilities. But however we understand such a loss, the truth cannot lie beyond the stone that says “God is the ruler of his universe” nor the one that says “God is good.”
If we believe God to be all-powerful, it is intellectually dishonest to ignore his connection to the tragedy that comes to us. If we believe him to be good and loving, this connection will be very troubling. But this is the truth, whether we can handle it or not.
And rolled up in this uncomfortable truth is the comforting fact that, in their trials, God’s children are never alone. They are not simply facing troubles or being afflicted. They are being afflicted by a loving father who is with them every moment, loving them every moment, and fully committed, every moment, to their well-being.
This has become easier to understand after nearly 30 years of being a father to five children. Much of what I do on their behalf breaks my heart and theirs. I do what would be much easier to leave undone because I love them.
God is never nearer to us than in our suffering. It is God himself who brought us to this place and he is there with us, loving us with an everlasting love.
In our affliction, we are not alone.
God is with us and is at every moment zealously working in us to make us like his son. He uses even sin, Satan, and this fallen world to bring about his perfect will. John Newton wrote the following to a friend:
I pray that you may be enabled more and more to honour the Lord by believing His promise: for He is not like a man that should fail or change, or be prevented by anything unforeseen from doing what He has said. And yet we find it easier to trust to worms than to the God of truth. Is it not so with you? And I can assure you it is often so with me. But here is the mercy, that His ways are above ours, as the heavens are higher than the earth. Though we are foolish and unbelieving, He remains faithful; He will not deny Himself. I recommend to you especially that promise of God, which is so comprehensive that it takes in all our concernments, I mean, that all things shall work together for good. How hard is it to believe, that not only those things which are grievous to the flesh, but even those things which draw forth our corruptions, and discover to us what is in our hearts, and fill us with guilt and shame, should in the issue work for our good! Yet the Lord has said it. All your pains and trials, all that befalls you in your own person, or that affects you upon the account of others, shall in the end prove to your advantage. And your peace does not depend upon any change of circumstance which may appear desirable, but in having your will bowed to the Lord's will, and made willing to submit all to His disposal and management. Pray for this, and wait patiently for Him, and He will do it. Be not surprised to find yourself poor, helpless, and vile; all whom He favours and teaches will find themselves so. The more grace increases, the more we shall see to abase us in our own eyes; and this will make the Saviour and His salvation more precious to us. He takes His own wise methods to humble you, and to prove you, and I am sure He will do you good in the end.
The real question in times of affliction isn’t “what have I done to cause this pain?” or “why does God allow this person to do this to me?”
The real question is this: can God be trusted?
This is “the bud of the bud.”
In times of affliction that are exacerbated by the lies, threats, and accusations of the devil, remember that "God is not dead nor doth he sleep."
He can be trusted.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
A Note on Suffering in the Year 1575
Some poor man being assaulted...shall perchance say, "How is it? Does God regard me? No, for behold I pine away and call upon him and yet I find no comfort and therefore it is a sign that he has shaken me off." And afterward, his sins come to his remembrance and the Devil stirs up stories of such stuff as are horrible. Thus you see a poor creature that is utterly overwhelmed.
When this is past, then comes God to make all whole again. The conscience that was tormented before becomes quiet. Where there was nothing but darkness before, there He now shines, there shows He a sweet and amiable countenance after the manner of fair weather.
--John Calvin, in a Sermon on Job 9:17, "Behold he smites me down with a whirlwind and wounds me without a cause."
"Then comes God..."
When this is past, then comes God to make all whole again. The conscience that was tormented before becomes quiet. Where there was nothing but darkness before, there He now shines, there shows He a sweet and amiable countenance after the manner of fair weather.
--John Calvin, in a Sermon on Job 9:17, "Behold he smites me down with a whirlwind and wounds me without a cause."
"Then comes God..."
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The Depth of Affliction
So far in this book, I’ve had more to say about our enemy, Satan, than I’ve said in my whole life thus far. I’ve known Christians who seem obsessed with Satan, attributing their inability to find a good parking space to his direct opposition. I’ve tended to the other extreme, acknowledging his existence but marginalizing the fact that we live our Christian lives in opposition to a terrible enemy.
In affliction, it becomes painfully clear that we have such an enemy to contend with. The troubles themselves can be attributed to many things. Financial troubles, for example, can be attributed to poor choices by ourselves or others, poor health, the world economy, or being born into a poor family. Broken relationships can be attributed to external conflicts, differences in upbringing or disposition, and past sins by ourselves or others.
But whatever the root cause of our troubles, they seem to energize Satan who torments us with lies, threats, and accusations. He points to our misery as proof that we are not loved by God. At times, our misery is so great that he seems to be telling the truth.
Those who are dearly loved by God sometimes find themselves in profound misery. The bitterness of our circumstances creates bitter misery. But in such times, we are no less loved by God than at any other time and no less loved than those enjoying happier circumstances. At every moment, God is zealously working for our good, motivated by the love that moved him to make Christ sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God.
Even those who accept this can be surprised by the depth of the misery in which God’s dearly loved children sometimes find themselves. Satan will point to the depth of our misery as proof that God doesn’t love us. Granting that Christians sometimes suffer, he’ll point to the depth of our suffering and say, “but they don’t suffer like this.” This, too, is a lie designed to discourage and paralyze us.
The truth that comes from God makes it clear that God’s dearly loved children sometimes suffer terribly.
Elijah suffered terrible mental anguish while he was running from Israel’s king and queen, who wanted to kill him. Just a few days earlier, God had given Elijah the courage to confront the false prophets who supported them as they abused their power and led God’s people in the worship of false gods. Despite the dramatic intervention of God on that day, Elijah was filled with despair as he fled.
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, "It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah? [1 Kings 19:4, 9]
Elijah played a unique role in his generation, speaking for God as he confronted the leaders of a wayward nation. But as they sought his life, he showed that, in fact, he was just an ordinary man who was being used in extraordinary ways. He ran, he hid, and he lost hope. He lost his desire to live and prayed to die.
God’s people sometimes feel like this in times of great trial.
I’m not an Old Testament scholar and I haven’t studies the sociology of ancient cultures, but I have to believe that hiding in a cave is negative in all cultures and at all times. Elijah sat by a brook and prayed to die. Then, he went to a cave and sat down.
David seems to have spent a lot of time hiding in caves. One such occasion is mentioned in 1 Samuel 22:1, “David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.” It was in this cave that David wrote Psalm 57, where he says he will hide in the shadow of God’s wings until his calamities have passed by.
Certainly the gloomiest of the Psalms is Psalm 88. This psalm was written by Heman the Ezrahite, a wise and respected man who lived at the same time as Solomon. In describing the wisdom of Solomon, 1 Kings 4:31 says that he was even wiser than Heman. Yet this good and wise man wrote this gloomiest of psalms, which begins: O LORD, God of my salvation, I have cried out day and night before You. Heman still has faith that God is the not only the God of salvation but the God of his salvation. But there is no other positive language in this psalm that speaks of a soul full of troubles in a man put by God in the lowest of pits, alone in darkness and terror.
Charles Spurgeon, commenting on this psalm, spoke of himself when he wrote that “he who now feebly expounds these words knows within himself more than he would care or dare to tell of the abysses of inward anguish.”
Like Elijah, this psalmist seemed to look forward to his own death. “It is a sad case,” writes Spurgeon, “when our only hope lies in the direction of death, our only liberty of spirit amid the … horrors of corruption.” Spurgeon goes on to write about the depths of sorrow and sadness in which God’s children may sometimes be found:
How low the spirits of good and brave men will sometimes sink. Under the influence of certain disorders everything will wear a somber aspect, and the heart will dive into the profoundest depths of misery. It is all very well for those who are in robust health and full of spirits to blame those whose lives are sicklied over with the pale cast of melancholy, but the evil is as real as a gaping wound, and all the more hard to bear because it lies so much in the region of the soul that to the inexperienced it appears to be a mere matter of fancy and diseased imagination. Reader, never ridicule the nervous and hypochondriacal, their pain is real; though much of the evil lies in the imagination, it is not imaginary.
The inward assaults of Satan are no less dangerous and wearying than those he sends in our outward circumstances. Heartache can be more crippling than an amputated leg or a broken arm. Though our torments lie in the realm of the imagination, they are not imaginary. Nor are they of our own making.
Commenting on Psalm 40, Spurgeon writes:
In the grim gloom the soul is haunted with phantom fears, while horror peoples the place which is empty of human beings; the heart is worried with evil imaginations, and pierced with arrows of distress; grief takes hold of the spirit, and alarm conquers hope.
Godly people sometimes find themselves in deep sorrow. To those blessed with inexperience in such things, the psalm and Spurgeon’s commentary sounds exaggerated. “Those who know this bitterness by experience will sympathize,” writes Spurgeon, “but from others it would be idle to expect pity, nor would their pity be worth the having if it could be obtained.”
Few may sympathize with those who suffer so deeply. Few will, but one is enough, since that one is Christ himself. Spurgeon notes that “[i]t is an unspeakable consolation that our Lord Jesus knows this experience right well, having, with the exception of the sin of it, felt it all and more than all in Gethsemane when he was exceeding sorrowful even unto death.”
In your deepest of sufferings, you are not alone. Those used by God in great ways knew great anguish. Christ himself knew the feeling of being sorrowful even unto death. Our high priest is not one who is unable to understand and sympathize with our troubles. No, Christ himself was tempted in every way that we are. The only difference is, he faced it without sin. He did this for us.
In the depths of sorrow and misery, remember that Christ himself suffered the very same way. You are not alone in your misery.
Satan will point to the depth of your affliction as proof that God no longer loves you and maybe never did. But the Bible was written by godly men moved by the Holy Spirit. Psalm 88 was written by such a man. David Dickson, a Sixteenth Century Scottish pastor wrote this about Psalm 88:
Such as are most heartily afflicted in spirit, and do flee to God for reconciliation and consolation through Christ, have no reason to suspect themselves, that they are not esteemed of and loved as dear children, because they feel so much of God's wrath: for here is a saint who hath drunken of that cup (as deep as any who shall read this Psalm,) here is one so much loved and honored of God, as to be a penman of Holy Scripture, and a pattern of faith and patience unto others.
Rather than being a sign of God’s disfavor, extraordinary suffering may be evidence of the strength of God in the sufferer. Dickson writes of this, too, in his commentary on Psalm 88:
They are not all men of weak minds and shallow wit who are acquainted with trouble of spirit, and borne down with the sense of God's wrath; for here is Heman, one amongst the wisest of all Israel, (and inferior to none for wisdom, except to Solomon alone), under the heaviest exercise we can imagine possible for a saint. …When it pleaseth God to exercise a man of parts, of great gifts and graces, he can make his burden proportionable to his strength, and give him as much to do with the difficulties he puts him to, as a weaker man shall find in his exercise, as appeareth in the experience of Heman.
In other words, if God allows suffering to come in proportion to the strength he has given us, great suffering may be taken as a sign of great grace. To whom much has been committed, much will be required. These words should bring comfort to those who feel like God, in their trials, is asking a lot of them. It is a token that much has been committed to you.
It is another evidence that you are not alone.
In affliction, it becomes painfully clear that we have such an enemy to contend with. The troubles themselves can be attributed to many things. Financial troubles, for example, can be attributed to poor choices by ourselves or others, poor health, the world economy, or being born into a poor family. Broken relationships can be attributed to external conflicts, differences in upbringing or disposition, and past sins by ourselves or others.
But whatever the root cause of our troubles, they seem to energize Satan who torments us with lies, threats, and accusations. He points to our misery as proof that we are not loved by God. At times, our misery is so great that he seems to be telling the truth.
Those who are dearly loved by God sometimes find themselves in profound misery. The bitterness of our circumstances creates bitter misery. But in such times, we are no less loved by God than at any other time and no less loved than those enjoying happier circumstances. At every moment, God is zealously working for our good, motivated by the love that moved him to make Christ sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God.
Even those who accept this can be surprised by the depth of the misery in which God’s dearly loved children sometimes find themselves. Satan will point to the depth of our misery as proof that God doesn’t love us. Granting that Christians sometimes suffer, he’ll point to the depth of our suffering and say, “but they don’t suffer like this.” This, too, is a lie designed to discourage and paralyze us.
The truth that comes from God makes it clear that God’s dearly loved children sometimes suffer terribly.
Elijah suffered terrible mental anguish while he was running from Israel’s king and queen, who wanted to kill him. Just a few days earlier, God had given Elijah the courage to confront the false prophets who supported them as they abused their power and led God’s people in the worship of false gods. Despite the dramatic intervention of God on that day, Elijah was filled with despair as he fled.
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, "It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah? [1 Kings 19:4, 9]
Elijah played a unique role in his generation, speaking for God as he confronted the leaders of a wayward nation. But as they sought his life, he showed that, in fact, he was just an ordinary man who was being used in extraordinary ways. He ran, he hid, and he lost hope. He lost his desire to live and prayed to die.
God’s people sometimes feel like this in times of great trial.
I’m not an Old Testament scholar and I haven’t studies the sociology of ancient cultures, but I have to believe that hiding in a cave is negative in all cultures and at all times. Elijah sat by a brook and prayed to die. Then, he went to a cave and sat down.
David seems to have spent a lot of time hiding in caves. One such occasion is mentioned in 1 Samuel 22:1, “David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.” It was in this cave that David wrote Psalm 57, where he says he will hide in the shadow of God’s wings until his calamities have passed by.
Certainly the gloomiest of the Psalms is Psalm 88. This psalm was written by Heman the Ezrahite, a wise and respected man who lived at the same time as Solomon. In describing the wisdom of Solomon, 1 Kings 4:31 says that he was even wiser than Heman. Yet this good and wise man wrote this gloomiest of psalms, which begins: O LORD, God of my salvation, I have cried out day and night before You. Heman still has faith that God is the not only the God of salvation but the God of his salvation. But there is no other positive language in this psalm that speaks of a soul full of troubles in a man put by God in the lowest of pits, alone in darkness and terror.
Charles Spurgeon, commenting on this psalm, spoke of himself when he wrote that “he who now feebly expounds these words knows within himself more than he would care or dare to tell of the abysses of inward anguish.”
Like Elijah, this psalmist seemed to look forward to his own death. “It is a sad case,” writes Spurgeon, “when our only hope lies in the direction of death, our only liberty of spirit amid the … horrors of corruption.” Spurgeon goes on to write about the depths of sorrow and sadness in which God’s children may sometimes be found:
How low the spirits of good and brave men will sometimes sink. Under the influence of certain disorders everything will wear a somber aspect, and the heart will dive into the profoundest depths of misery. It is all very well for those who are in robust health and full of spirits to blame those whose lives are sicklied over with the pale cast of melancholy, but the evil is as real as a gaping wound, and all the more hard to bear because it lies so much in the region of the soul that to the inexperienced it appears to be a mere matter of fancy and diseased imagination. Reader, never ridicule the nervous and hypochondriacal, their pain is real; though much of the evil lies in the imagination, it is not imaginary.
The inward assaults of Satan are no less dangerous and wearying than those he sends in our outward circumstances. Heartache can be more crippling than an amputated leg or a broken arm. Though our torments lie in the realm of the imagination, they are not imaginary. Nor are they of our own making.
Commenting on Psalm 40, Spurgeon writes:
In the grim gloom the soul is haunted with phantom fears, while horror peoples the place which is empty of human beings; the heart is worried with evil imaginations, and pierced with arrows of distress; grief takes hold of the spirit, and alarm conquers hope.
Godly people sometimes find themselves in deep sorrow. To those blessed with inexperience in such things, the psalm and Spurgeon’s commentary sounds exaggerated. “Those who know this bitterness by experience will sympathize,” writes Spurgeon, “but from others it would be idle to expect pity, nor would their pity be worth the having if it could be obtained.”
Few may sympathize with those who suffer so deeply. Few will, but one is enough, since that one is Christ himself. Spurgeon notes that “[i]t is an unspeakable consolation that our Lord Jesus knows this experience right well, having, with the exception of the sin of it, felt it all and more than all in Gethsemane when he was exceeding sorrowful even unto death.”
In your deepest of sufferings, you are not alone. Those used by God in great ways knew great anguish. Christ himself knew the feeling of being sorrowful even unto death. Our high priest is not one who is unable to understand and sympathize with our troubles. No, Christ himself was tempted in every way that we are. The only difference is, he faced it without sin. He did this for us.
In the depths of sorrow and misery, remember that Christ himself suffered the very same way. You are not alone in your misery.
Satan will point to the depth of your affliction as proof that God no longer loves you and maybe never did. But the Bible was written by godly men moved by the Holy Spirit. Psalm 88 was written by such a man. David Dickson, a Sixteenth Century Scottish pastor wrote this about Psalm 88:
Such as are most heartily afflicted in spirit, and do flee to God for reconciliation and consolation through Christ, have no reason to suspect themselves, that they are not esteemed of and loved as dear children, because they feel so much of God's wrath: for here is a saint who hath drunken of that cup (as deep as any who shall read this Psalm,) here is one so much loved and honored of God, as to be a penman of Holy Scripture, and a pattern of faith and patience unto others.
Rather than being a sign of God’s disfavor, extraordinary suffering may be evidence of the strength of God in the sufferer. Dickson writes of this, too, in his commentary on Psalm 88:
They are not all men of weak minds and shallow wit who are acquainted with trouble of spirit, and borne down with the sense of God's wrath; for here is Heman, one amongst the wisest of all Israel, (and inferior to none for wisdom, except to Solomon alone), under the heaviest exercise we can imagine possible for a saint. …When it pleaseth God to exercise a man of parts, of great gifts and graces, he can make his burden proportionable to his strength, and give him as much to do with the difficulties he puts him to, as a weaker man shall find in his exercise, as appeareth in the experience of Heman.
In other words, if God allows suffering to come in proportion to the strength he has given us, great suffering may be taken as a sign of great grace. To whom much has been committed, much will be required. These words should bring comfort to those who feel like God, in their trials, is asking a lot of them. It is a token that much has been committed to you.
It is another evidence that you are not alone.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Feeling of Affliction
In the mind of most Christians, the book of Job goes something like this: God allowed Satan to do really bad things to Job. Then, things got better again and Job ended up with twice as much stuff as he had in the beginning.
This is the setting and context of the book, but it accounts for only about 5 percent of the total narrative. The main message is found in the other 95 percent of the book that lies between those two bookends beneath the discourses of Job and his friends as they struggle to make sense of the intense suffering of an apparently good man.
These men make a lot of long speeches about God and try to relate what they know about God to the troubles of Job. Their theology is basically sound but they still get everything all wrong. They reach faulty conclusions, not because their theology is inaccurate, but because it is inadequate. The message of Job is this: God is inscrutable. He is too big to fit into any of our theological boxes. No matter how well-constructed, they cannot prevent God from stepping outside their framework to surprise us.
Job and his friends gather to speak when God surprises them with Job’s terrible affliction. They are silenced when God surprises them again, by speaking for himself.
When God speaks, he doesn’t address any of their arguments, because these men were asking all the wrong questions. Instead, God poses a few questions of his own. Who are you and why are you questioning me? Have you given one moment’s thought to what the creator of this universe must be like? Why are you surprised that you don’t understand my actions? Like the audience watching a reporter floating in the flooded streets of Wayne, New Jersey, they’re astounded when God himself comes splashing through the scene.
When God speaks, the truth snaps into focus with stunning clarity. Job felt abandoned and alone, but he was every moment in the care and presence of the infinite and eternal Presence. The men who came to help Job ended up asking for Job’s help. However, many questions appear to remain unanswered for Job and his friends. There is no there is no indication that Job or his friends ever knew why these terrible things happened.
There are two other lessons in this book. The first is this: our affliction can be attributed to the work of both God and Satan. Satan, motivated by cruel hate for God and all that is his, intends to steal, kill, and destroy. But Satan is created by God and subject to God’s authority. He can do nothing except that which God allows, and God allows only that in which he is working for good.
When Joseph’s brothers sold him as a slave into Egypt, they were motivated only by jealousy. Years later, when he and his brothers were reconciled, Joseph told them the truth that although they meant to do harm, God used it to do good. Joseph and his entire family were saved from a terrible famine by the spiteful acts of Joseph’s brothers.
Although all of our affliction can be traced back to Satan and the sin that he introduced into our experience, he uses our affliction as an occasion to accuse us. He points to our misery as evidence that we’re not really loved by God. This lie is addressed by the other lesson in the book of Job: while it is true that “those who sow in tears shall reap in joy,” sowing and reaping are separated by a season of blistering heat, terrifying storms, and lots of waiting. The long, agonizing discourses of Job and his friends tell us about the mindset of men and women living between the sowing and the reaping.
In the long seasons of Christian suffering, men and women who are dearly loved by God feel weak, afraid, sad, depressed, and ashamed. They feel alone and abandoned by God. Sometimes, they just want to hide. Sometimes, they feel like they could die. When they pray, God doesn’t always answer their prayers immediately. They worry that he might not answer at all.
This truth reinforced throughout the Psalms.
The Feeling of Affliction in the Psalms
Weakness
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled. [Psalm 6:2]
My knees are weak through fasting, and
my flesh is feeble from lack of fatness. [Psalm 109:24]
Troubles do not create spiritual weakness, but reveal it. Troubles scatter our illusions of strength and reveal our complete dependence upon God. They show us the good sense of praying that God would give us this day our daily bread. We need God moment by moment.
In trials, our spiritual weakness is often compounded by physical weakness. This is certainly true of those whose trials consist of a struggle with disease and injuries. It is also true of those whose grief robs them of their appetite, sucking the health and strength from their very bones. In the worst of my own sorrows, I lost my appetite and lost almost 30 pounds.
The terrible enemy of our souls is at work against us in all of our troubles. We are no match for him. But God is also at work in all of our trials for our good. And if God be for us, who can be against us? Martin Luther said it well:
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.
Fear
The pangs of death surrounded me,
And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. [Psalm 18:4]]
My heart is severely pained within me,
And the terrors of death have fallen upon me. [Psalm 55:4]
Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me,
And horror has overwhelmed me. [Psalm 55:5]
Faith is not an absence of doubt and fear, but a truth-based response to doubt and fear. In times of trouble, good people are afraid. God has provided everything that I need in my current affliction. I wrote some specific concerns in my journal six months ago and prayed that God would meet my need. I asked for a specific answer and did not get it. In fact, I can think of no good thing that happened in response to my prayers—nothing specific, anyway.
But none of the things I worried about happened. I don’t know why they didn’t happen or how God prevented them from happening. But somehow, in ways invisible to me, he took care of me. He takes care of me today. Now, I see him doing for me some of the things I asked. At this point, his response is just cream, or icing on the cake.
And yet, I’m still afraid. Although God provided in mysterious ways without answering my prayers directly and although I now see him at work in my life for my benefit, I find myself afraid that everything will unravel and that nothing will really work out for my good.
A little thing can send me into a deep attack of anxiety and depression. I find myself gripped, not by rational troubles, but irrational fears. It is as if the very demons of hell are suggesting all sorts of unhappy endings, threatening me, accusing me, and mocking me.
“If you were a real Christian, you wouldn’t feel so fearful. Some Christian you are!” Satan says this to discourage us.
“If you were doing what God wants, you wouldn’t feel this way.” Satan says this, trying to use our fears to turn us from the works that God has called us to. “Just give up,” he says.
“You’re just kidding yourself. Everything will come crashing down around your feet.” Satan works to bring a crippling uneasiness and dread.
I’m nearly sure the most commonly repeated commandment in scripture is, “Fear not.” There is much to be afraid of. Although the love of a mighty God means that we should never be afraid, we often are.
Sadness and Depression
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me? [Psalm 13:2]
For I am ready to fall,
And my sorrow is continually before me.
For I will declare my iniquity;
I will be in anguish over my sin. [Psalm 38:17 – 18]
I am weary with my crying;
My throat is dry;
My eyes fail while I wait for my God [Psalm 69:3]
I am weary with my groaning;
All night I make my bed swim;
I drench my couch with my tears. [Psalm 6:6]
My tears have been my food day and night,
While they continually say to me, "Where is your God?" [Psalm 42:3]
God’s own children will know long periods of great sorrow. Jesus himself was a man of sorrows, well-acquainted with grief. He wept for Lazarus, he mourned for Jerusalem, he was sorrowful and deeply distressed as he faced the penalty for our sins on the cross.
Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work in us, but sorrow is not a sin. Godly sorrow brings repentance, turning from sin to God. This is a good thing, turning us from death to life, from the source of sorrows to the source of all gladness.
But in the mean time, we cry until our throats and eyes are dry and our couch is drenched in tears. I am writing these words at 3 a.m. It has become a habit, when I find myself too sorrowful to sleep, to write in this book. I’m making a lot of progress on the book these days.
Shame
My dishonor is continually before me,
And the shame of my face has covered me, [Psalm 44:15]
You know my reproach and my shame and my dishonor;
All my adversaries are before you. [Psalm 69:19]
No one is proud of their weakness, fear, sadness, and depression. No one is proud to be floundering in troubles, especially when those troubles are of their own making. We feel ashamed. God’s own dearly loved children feel ashamed in times of trouble.
It’s now April, and I’ve been talking about my own troubles pretty openly about my troubles since last July. One friend, who had known of my own struggles with anxiety and depression, confessed just yesterday of his own struggles in the same arena. Shame silences us in our affliction, creating an isolation that magnifies our fear, sadness, and depression and that leaves us alone in our weakness.
Somehow, we have to find the courage to ignore our shame and speak truthfully about ourselves to those who love us.
Alone and Abandoned
Reproach has broken my heart and I am so sick.
And I looked for sympathy, but there was none,
And for comforters, but I found none. [Psalm 69:20]
And do not hide your face from Your servant,
For I am in distress; answer me quickly. [Psalm 69:17]
Be not far from me,
For trouble is near;
For there is none to help. [Psalm 22:11]
In times of trouble, I feel alone even in a crowd. I smile in response to the smiles of others, respond appropriately to their conversation, but there is no communion, no human connection. I am alone in my sorrows, no matter who is nearby.
God himself is nearby. His Spirit is in me. But I feel far from God. I’m haunted by fears that he has forgotten me or ceased doing good for me. I know these fears are from Satan, but that makes them no less fearful.
I speak the truth in faith: God is good. He that began a good work in me will see it through to completion. God is faithful. God does not change. He loves with an everlasting love. He who gave his son for me will not withhold any good thing from me.
On some occasions, the Holy Spirit surprises me with refreshing and reassuring affirmations of God’s unchanged affection for me. But much of the time, I feel alone and lonely.
Wanting a Place to Hide
In You, O LORD, I have taken refuge;
Let me never be ashamed;
In Your righteousness deliver me. [Psalm 31:1]
For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock. [Psalm 27:5]
Be my strong refuge,
To which I may resort continually;
You have given the commandment to save me,
For You are my rock and my fortress. [Psalm 71:3]
You are my hiding place;
You shall preserve me from trouble;
You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. [Psalm 32:7]
The strength and beauty of this poetry makes it easy to overlook the tragic and plain meaning of the words—there are times so bad that God’s dearly loved children just want a safe place to hide. The thought of God’s people looking for a place to hide might shock me if the feeling were not so familiar to me.
Some mornings, I wake up feeling ok. Then, as the reality of my circumstances and the familiar sorrow begins to settle on me, I can barely force myself to get ought of bed to face another day. I catch myself scowling and sighing. I think it was in response to this frame of mind that Augustus Toplady wrote the words,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee
Waiting
Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body. [Psalm 31:9]
Answer me speedily, O Lord;
My spirit fails! Do not hide Your face from me,
Lest I be like those who go down into the pit. [Psalm 143:7]
For my life is spent with grief,
And my years with sighing;
My strength fails because of my iniquity,
And my bones waste away. [Psalm 31:10]
“Waiting, I wait.” This is the literal translation of Psalm 40:1. Matthew Henry wrote that those who expect to find help from God should be fully confident of finding it. He is powerful enough to help the weakest and gracious enough to help the most unworthy. But they must add patience to their confidence because the relief that always comes does not always come quickly.
When God’s children face affliction, they sometimes face hours of tears and long days of waiting when our body, soul, and spirit waste away. For some of his dearly loved children, the affliction spans years or even a lifetime—those, for example, who are given the special task of raising a child with special needs or those with permanent problems with physical or mental health. Although God’s love is certain, his blessing is ours, his provision is adequate, and his grace is sufficient, there is plenty of trouble for each day of our lives.
Worried That God May Not Answer
Let me not be put to shame, O LORD,
For I call upon you; [Psalm 31:17]
O my God, in You I trust,
Do not let me be ashamed;
Do not let my enemies exult over me. [Psalm 25:2]
No matter how consistently God provides, no matter how many times the Holy Spirit comforts me with supernatural tokens of God’s affection for me, I still find myself tortured, at times, with the haunting fear that things won’t end well for me. Maybe it’s my own sin, maybe the work of Satan, or maybe both, but I worry that God won’t help me.
This completely unbiblical and therefore untrue thought leaves me worried that I’ll be put to shame. Everyone who knows me knows of my trust in God. If he doesn’t come through, I reason, they’ll wag their heads and say “Aha! Aha!” [Psalm 40:15]
I’m not saying it’s right to feel this way. I’m just saying that, in my worst moments, I do.
This is the setting and context of the book, but it accounts for only about 5 percent of the total narrative. The main message is found in the other 95 percent of the book that lies between those two bookends beneath the discourses of Job and his friends as they struggle to make sense of the intense suffering of an apparently good man.
These men make a lot of long speeches about God and try to relate what they know about God to the troubles of Job. Their theology is basically sound but they still get everything all wrong. They reach faulty conclusions, not because their theology is inaccurate, but because it is inadequate. The message of Job is this: God is inscrutable. He is too big to fit into any of our theological boxes. No matter how well-constructed, they cannot prevent God from stepping outside their framework to surprise us.
Job and his friends gather to speak when God surprises them with Job’s terrible affliction. They are silenced when God surprises them again, by speaking for himself.
When God speaks, he doesn’t address any of their arguments, because these men were asking all the wrong questions. Instead, God poses a few questions of his own. Who are you and why are you questioning me? Have you given one moment’s thought to what the creator of this universe must be like? Why are you surprised that you don’t understand my actions? Like the audience watching a reporter floating in the flooded streets of Wayne, New Jersey, they’re astounded when God himself comes splashing through the scene.
When God speaks, the truth snaps into focus with stunning clarity. Job felt abandoned and alone, but he was every moment in the care and presence of the infinite and eternal Presence. The men who came to help Job ended up asking for Job’s help. However, many questions appear to remain unanswered for Job and his friends. There is no there is no indication that Job or his friends ever knew why these terrible things happened.
There are two other lessons in this book. The first is this: our affliction can be attributed to the work of both God and Satan. Satan, motivated by cruel hate for God and all that is his, intends to steal, kill, and destroy. But Satan is created by God and subject to God’s authority. He can do nothing except that which God allows, and God allows only that in which he is working for good.
When Joseph’s brothers sold him as a slave into Egypt, they were motivated only by jealousy. Years later, when he and his brothers were reconciled, Joseph told them the truth that although they meant to do harm, God used it to do good. Joseph and his entire family were saved from a terrible famine by the spiteful acts of Joseph’s brothers.
Although all of our affliction can be traced back to Satan and the sin that he introduced into our experience, he uses our affliction as an occasion to accuse us. He points to our misery as evidence that we’re not really loved by God. This lie is addressed by the other lesson in the book of Job: while it is true that “those who sow in tears shall reap in joy,” sowing and reaping are separated by a season of blistering heat, terrifying storms, and lots of waiting. The long, agonizing discourses of Job and his friends tell us about the mindset of men and women living between the sowing and the reaping.
In the long seasons of Christian suffering, men and women who are dearly loved by God feel weak, afraid, sad, depressed, and ashamed. They feel alone and abandoned by God. Sometimes, they just want to hide. Sometimes, they feel like they could die. When they pray, God doesn’t always answer their prayers immediately. They worry that he might not answer at all.
This truth reinforced throughout the Psalms.
The Feeling of Affliction in the Psalms
Weakness
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled. [Psalm 6:2]
My knees are weak through fasting, and
my flesh is feeble from lack of fatness. [Psalm 109:24]
Troubles do not create spiritual weakness, but reveal it. Troubles scatter our illusions of strength and reveal our complete dependence upon God. They show us the good sense of praying that God would give us this day our daily bread. We need God moment by moment.
In trials, our spiritual weakness is often compounded by physical weakness. This is certainly true of those whose trials consist of a struggle with disease and injuries. It is also true of those whose grief robs them of their appetite, sucking the health and strength from their very bones. In the worst of my own sorrows, I lost my appetite and lost almost 30 pounds.
The terrible enemy of our souls is at work against us in all of our troubles. We are no match for him. But God is also at work in all of our trials for our good. And if God be for us, who can be against us? Martin Luther said it well:
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.
Fear
The pangs of death surrounded me,
And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. [Psalm 18:4]]
My heart is severely pained within me,
And the terrors of death have fallen upon me. [Psalm 55:4]
Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me,
And horror has overwhelmed me. [Psalm 55:5]
Faith is not an absence of doubt and fear, but a truth-based response to doubt and fear. In times of trouble, good people are afraid. God has provided everything that I need in my current affliction. I wrote some specific concerns in my journal six months ago and prayed that God would meet my need. I asked for a specific answer and did not get it. In fact, I can think of no good thing that happened in response to my prayers—nothing specific, anyway.
But none of the things I worried about happened. I don’t know why they didn’t happen or how God prevented them from happening. But somehow, in ways invisible to me, he took care of me. He takes care of me today. Now, I see him doing for me some of the things I asked. At this point, his response is just cream, or icing on the cake.
And yet, I’m still afraid. Although God provided in mysterious ways without answering my prayers directly and although I now see him at work in my life for my benefit, I find myself afraid that everything will unravel and that nothing will really work out for my good.
A little thing can send me into a deep attack of anxiety and depression. I find myself gripped, not by rational troubles, but irrational fears. It is as if the very demons of hell are suggesting all sorts of unhappy endings, threatening me, accusing me, and mocking me.
“If you were a real Christian, you wouldn’t feel so fearful. Some Christian you are!” Satan says this to discourage us.
“If you were doing what God wants, you wouldn’t feel this way.” Satan says this, trying to use our fears to turn us from the works that God has called us to. “Just give up,” he says.
“You’re just kidding yourself. Everything will come crashing down around your feet.” Satan works to bring a crippling uneasiness and dread.
I’m nearly sure the most commonly repeated commandment in scripture is, “Fear not.” There is much to be afraid of. Although the love of a mighty God means that we should never be afraid, we often are.
Sadness and Depression
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me? [Psalm 13:2]
For I am ready to fall,
And my sorrow is continually before me.
For I will declare my iniquity;
I will be in anguish over my sin. [Psalm 38:17 – 18]
I am weary with my crying;
My throat is dry;
My eyes fail while I wait for my God [Psalm 69:3]
I am weary with my groaning;
All night I make my bed swim;
I drench my couch with my tears. [Psalm 6:6]
My tears have been my food day and night,
While they continually say to me, "Where is your God?" [Psalm 42:3]
God’s own children will know long periods of great sorrow. Jesus himself was a man of sorrows, well-acquainted with grief. He wept for Lazarus, he mourned for Jerusalem, he was sorrowful and deeply distressed as he faced the penalty for our sins on the cross.
Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work in us, but sorrow is not a sin. Godly sorrow brings repentance, turning from sin to God. This is a good thing, turning us from death to life, from the source of sorrows to the source of all gladness.
But in the mean time, we cry until our throats and eyes are dry and our couch is drenched in tears. I am writing these words at 3 a.m. It has become a habit, when I find myself too sorrowful to sleep, to write in this book. I’m making a lot of progress on the book these days.
Shame
My dishonor is continually before me,
And the shame of my face has covered me, [Psalm 44:15]
You know my reproach and my shame and my dishonor;
All my adversaries are before you. [Psalm 69:19]
No one is proud of their weakness, fear, sadness, and depression. No one is proud to be floundering in troubles, especially when those troubles are of their own making. We feel ashamed. God’s own dearly loved children feel ashamed in times of trouble.
It’s now April, and I’ve been talking about my own troubles pretty openly about my troubles since last July. One friend, who had known of my own struggles with anxiety and depression, confessed just yesterday of his own struggles in the same arena. Shame silences us in our affliction, creating an isolation that magnifies our fear, sadness, and depression and that leaves us alone in our weakness.
Somehow, we have to find the courage to ignore our shame and speak truthfully about ourselves to those who love us.
Alone and Abandoned
Reproach has broken my heart and I am so sick.
And I looked for sympathy, but there was none,
And for comforters, but I found none. [Psalm 69:20]
And do not hide your face from Your servant,
For I am in distress; answer me quickly. [Psalm 69:17]
Be not far from me,
For trouble is near;
For there is none to help. [Psalm 22:11]
In times of trouble, I feel alone even in a crowd. I smile in response to the smiles of others, respond appropriately to their conversation, but there is no communion, no human connection. I am alone in my sorrows, no matter who is nearby.
God himself is nearby. His Spirit is in me. But I feel far from God. I’m haunted by fears that he has forgotten me or ceased doing good for me. I know these fears are from Satan, but that makes them no less fearful.
I speak the truth in faith: God is good. He that began a good work in me will see it through to completion. God is faithful. God does not change. He loves with an everlasting love. He who gave his son for me will not withhold any good thing from me.
On some occasions, the Holy Spirit surprises me with refreshing and reassuring affirmations of God’s unchanged affection for me. But much of the time, I feel alone and lonely.
Wanting a Place to Hide
In You, O LORD, I have taken refuge;
Let me never be ashamed;
In Your righteousness deliver me. [Psalm 31:1]
For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock. [Psalm 27:5]
Be my strong refuge,
To which I may resort continually;
You have given the commandment to save me,
For You are my rock and my fortress. [Psalm 71:3]
You are my hiding place;
You shall preserve me from trouble;
You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. [Psalm 32:7]
The strength and beauty of this poetry makes it easy to overlook the tragic and plain meaning of the words—there are times so bad that God’s dearly loved children just want a safe place to hide. The thought of God’s people looking for a place to hide might shock me if the feeling were not so familiar to me.
Some mornings, I wake up feeling ok. Then, as the reality of my circumstances and the familiar sorrow begins to settle on me, I can barely force myself to get ought of bed to face another day. I catch myself scowling and sighing. I think it was in response to this frame of mind that Augustus Toplady wrote the words,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee
Waiting
Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body. [Psalm 31:9]
Answer me speedily, O Lord;
My spirit fails! Do not hide Your face from me,
Lest I be like those who go down into the pit. [Psalm 143:7]
For my life is spent with grief,
And my years with sighing;
My strength fails because of my iniquity,
And my bones waste away. [Psalm 31:10]
“Waiting, I wait.” This is the literal translation of Psalm 40:1. Matthew Henry wrote that those who expect to find help from God should be fully confident of finding it. He is powerful enough to help the weakest and gracious enough to help the most unworthy. But they must add patience to their confidence because the relief that always comes does not always come quickly.
When God’s children face affliction, they sometimes face hours of tears and long days of waiting when our body, soul, and spirit waste away. For some of his dearly loved children, the affliction spans years or even a lifetime—those, for example, who are given the special task of raising a child with special needs or those with permanent problems with physical or mental health. Although God’s love is certain, his blessing is ours, his provision is adequate, and his grace is sufficient, there is plenty of trouble for each day of our lives.
Worried That God May Not Answer
Let me not be put to shame, O LORD,
For I call upon you; [Psalm 31:17]
O my God, in You I trust,
Do not let me be ashamed;
Do not let my enemies exult over me. [Psalm 25:2]
No matter how consistently God provides, no matter how many times the Holy Spirit comforts me with supernatural tokens of God’s affection for me, I still find myself tortured, at times, with the haunting fear that things won’t end well for me. Maybe it’s my own sin, maybe the work of Satan, or maybe both, but I worry that God won’t help me.
This completely unbiblical and therefore untrue thought leaves me worried that I’ll be put to shame. Everyone who knows me knows of my trust in God. If he doesn’t come through, I reason, they’ll wag their heads and say “Aha! Aha!” [Psalm 40:15]
I’m not saying it’s right to feel this way. I’m just saying that, in my worst moments, I do.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The Fact of Affliction
The advantages of afflictions, when the Lord is pleased to employ them for the good of his people, are many and great. –John Newton
Christians have troubles. This is evident from the witness of scripture. It is evident from the witness of centuries of human history.
Satan points to the affliction in your life as evidence that you’re not really a Christian. Or he says that, if you are a Christian, that God has stopped loving you in his anger. But this is not true.
If you’re tempted to interpret trouble as a sign of God’s anger, rejection, or absence, look to Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Our faith begins and ends with Jesus Christ, who suffered pain, humiliation, abandonment, and death.
“Think constantly of him enduring all that sinful men could say against him and you will not lose your purpose or your courage.” J.B. Phillips, Hebrews 12:3
If you’re tempted to doubt that God is your father because of your troubles…
…you have perhaps lost sight of that piece of advice which reminds you of our sonship in God:
'My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him; for whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives'.
Bear what you have to bear as "chastening" - as God's dealing with you as sons. No true son ever grows up uncorrected by his father. For if you had no experience of the correction which all sons have to bear you might well doubt the legitimacy of your sonship. After all, when we were children we had fathers who corrected us, and we respected them for it. Can we not much more readily submit to a heavenly Father's discipline, and learn how to live?
For our fathers used to correct us according to their own ideas during the brief days of childhood. But God corrects us all our days for our own benefit, to teach us his holiness. Now obviously no "chastening" seems pleasant at the time: it is in fact most unpleasant. Yet when it is all over we can see that is has quietly produced the fruit of real goodness in the characters of those who have accepted it in the right spirit. So take a fresh grip on life and brace your trembling limbs. Don't wander away from the path but forge steadily onward. On the right path the limping foot recovers strength and does not collapse. Hebrews 12:4-13, J.B. Phillips
This passage has much to say about the suffering of God’s people.
A proper view of suffering will remind us that God is our father, because good fathers correct and rebuke their sons and daughters when it is needed. Many years ago, my second son was grounded. I don’t remember why, on this occasion. With him, it wasn't uncommon. One of his friends wanted him to play and found out he was grounded again. "Why is your so psycho?" he asked. My son told him, “Well, think about it. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want me to turn out... like you.”
We shouldn’t despise our troubles or allow them to discourage us. That’s not to say that we should enjoy troubles. But like Christ, who despised the shame of his death on the cross, we should endure suffering for the joy that is set before us—God is making us into the sort of people who are fit to live with him. He is remaking us into the very image of his son, Jesus, using everything, good and bad, that comes our way to accomplish this great purpose [Romans 8:28-29]. Look ahead to the good thing God is doing in you. Have faith in his promise to make you like his son.
In our troubles, God is sometimes correcting us. (Sometimes, a much greater purpose is being served; more of this later.) As he corrects us, God proves that he loves us and accepts us as his own sons and daughters. No true son ever grows up uncorrected by his father. Satan will say exactly the opposite, but he is a liar and the father of lies, speaking lies as his native language.
It’s the absence of correction that ought to cause you to doubt the legitimacy of your sonship. The wicked, as Asaph writes in Psalm 73, don’t have troubles. They prosper. Their faces are fat. They are always at ease, always increasing in riches. “On the other hand,” he complains, “I’m righteous but I’m continually being corrected. Every morning, I wake up to fresh criticism.” This all seemed pretty unfair until he started thinking about the end of the story—the wicked are happy and prosperous now, but face destruction. The righteous are being guided by the counsel of a loving father who will receive them into his glorious home forever.
When we were children, our fathers corrected us and we respected them for it. Even good fathers are far from perfect, but they do their best to help their children grow up to be good men and women. Often, they did some pretty unpleasant things because they wanted us to have a more pleasant future.
Our heavenly father is just like that, at work in all things, good and bad, for our own improvement.
Our troubles discourage us and make us feel rejected by God when, in fact, they are the evidence of our acceptance by him and of his love for us.
So far, this can sound pretty glib. There is suffering in the world too bitter to be justified by any benefit in this life or any other. There is no human perspective in which the suffering seems acceptable or less than pure evil. At such times, the best you can do is to insist that “Truly, God is good,” maintaining a “deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.”
With such confidence, we can give into God’s care “sad hearts, difficult circumstances, deep loss, great disappointment,” trusting to find in the God who is a father to the fatherless “our confidence, our hope, our friendship.” [Alistair Begg, a Scottish pastor who somehow ended up in Cleveland, Ohio]
This is the confidence expressed by Rich Mullens in the song, “Bound to Come Some Trouble.”
There's bound to come some trouble to your life
But that ain't nothing to be afraid of
There's bound to come some trouble to your life
But that ain't no reason to fear
I know there's bound to come some trouble to your life
But reach out to Jesus hold on tight
He's been there before and He knows what it's like
You'll find He's there
There's bound to come some tears up in your eyes
That ain't nothing to be ashamed of
I know there's bound to come some tears up in your eyes
That ain't no reason to fear
I know there's bound to come some tears up in your eyes
Reach out to Jesus hold on tight
He's been there before and He knows what it's like
You'll find He's there
Now people say maybe things will get better
People say maybe it won't be long
And people say maybe you'll wake up tomorrow
And it'll all be gone
Well I only know that maybes just ain't enough
When you need something to hold on
There's only one thing that's clear:
I know there's bound to come some trouble to your life
But that ain't nothing to be afraid of
I know there's bound to come some tears up in your eyes
That ain't no reason to fear
I know there's bound to come some trouble to your life
Reach out to Jesus hold on tight
He's been there before and He knows what it's like
You'll find He's there
Christians have troubles. This is evident from the witness of scripture. It is evident from the witness of centuries of human history.
Satan points to the affliction in your life as evidence that you’re not really a Christian. Or he says that, if you are a Christian, that God has stopped loving you in his anger. But this is not true.
If you’re tempted to interpret trouble as a sign of God’s anger, rejection, or absence, look to Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Our faith begins and ends with Jesus Christ, who suffered pain, humiliation, abandonment, and death.
“Think constantly of him enduring all that sinful men could say against him and you will not lose your purpose or your courage.” J.B. Phillips, Hebrews 12:3
If you’re tempted to doubt that God is your father because of your troubles…
…you have perhaps lost sight of that piece of advice which reminds you of our sonship in God:
'My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him; for whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives'.
Bear what you have to bear as "chastening" - as God's dealing with you as sons. No true son ever grows up uncorrected by his father. For if you had no experience of the correction which all sons have to bear you might well doubt the legitimacy of your sonship. After all, when we were children we had fathers who corrected us, and we respected them for it. Can we not much more readily submit to a heavenly Father's discipline, and learn how to live?
For our fathers used to correct us according to their own ideas during the brief days of childhood. But God corrects us all our days for our own benefit, to teach us his holiness. Now obviously no "chastening" seems pleasant at the time: it is in fact most unpleasant. Yet when it is all over we can see that is has quietly produced the fruit of real goodness in the characters of those who have accepted it in the right spirit. So take a fresh grip on life and brace your trembling limbs. Don't wander away from the path but forge steadily onward. On the right path the limping foot recovers strength and does not collapse. Hebrews 12:4-13, J.B. Phillips
This passage has much to say about the suffering of God’s people.
A proper view of suffering will remind us that God is our father, because good fathers correct and rebuke their sons and daughters when it is needed. Many years ago, my second son was grounded. I don’t remember why, on this occasion. With him, it wasn't uncommon. One of his friends wanted him to play and found out he was grounded again. "Why is your so psycho?" he asked. My son told him, “Well, think about it. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want me to turn out... like you.”
We shouldn’t despise our troubles or allow them to discourage us. That’s not to say that we should enjoy troubles. But like Christ, who despised the shame of his death on the cross, we should endure suffering for the joy that is set before us—God is making us into the sort of people who are fit to live with him. He is remaking us into the very image of his son, Jesus, using everything, good and bad, that comes our way to accomplish this great purpose [Romans 8:28-29]. Look ahead to the good thing God is doing in you. Have faith in his promise to make you like his son.
In our troubles, God is sometimes correcting us. (Sometimes, a much greater purpose is being served; more of this later.) As he corrects us, God proves that he loves us and accepts us as his own sons and daughters. No true son ever grows up uncorrected by his father. Satan will say exactly the opposite, but he is a liar and the father of lies, speaking lies as his native language.
It’s the absence of correction that ought to cause you to doubt the legitimacy of your sonship. The wicked, as Asaph writes in Psalm 73, don’t have troubles. They prosper. Their faces are fat. They are always at ease, always increasing in riches. “On the other hand,” he complains, “I’m righteous but I’m continually being corrected. Every morning, I wake up to fresh criticism.” This all seemed pretty unfair until he started thinking about the end of the story—the wicked are happy and prosperous now, but face destruction. The righteous are being guided by the counsel of a loving father who will receive them into his glorious home forever.
When we were children, our fathers corrected us and we respected them for it. Even good fathers are far from perfect, but they do their best to help their children grow up to be good men and women. Often, they did some pretty unpleasant things because they wanted us to have a more pleasant future.
Our heavenly father is just like that, at work in all things, good and bad, for our own improvement.
Our troubles discourage us and make us feel rejected by God when, in fact, they are the evidence of our acceptance by him and of his love for us.
So far, this can sound pretty glib. There is suffering in the world too bitter to be justified by any benefit in this life or any other. There is no human perspective in which the suffering seems acceptable or less than pure evil. At such times, the best you can do is to insist that “Truly, God is good,” maintaining a “deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.”
With such confidence, we can give into God’s care “sad hearts, difficult circumstances, deep loss, great disappointment,” trusting to find in the God who is a father to the fatherless “our confidence, our hope, our friendship.” [Alistair Begg, a Scottish pastor who somehow ended up in Cleveland, Ohio]
This is the confidence expressed by Rich Mullens in the song, “Bound to Come Some Trouble.”
There's bound to come some trouble to your life
But that ain't nothing to be afraid of
There's bound to come some trouble to your life
But that ain't no reason to fear
I know there's bound to come some trouble to your life
But reach out to Jesus hold on tight
He's been there before and He knows what it's like
You'll find He's there
There's bound to come some tears up in your eyes
That ain't nothing to be ashamed of
I know there's bound to come some tears up in your eyes
That ain't no reason to fear
I know there's bound to come some tears up in your eyes
Reach out to Jesus hold on tight
He's been there before and He knows what it's like
You'll find He's there
Now people say maybe things will get better
People say maybe it won't be long
And people say maybe you'll wake up tomorrow
And it'll all be gone
Well I only know that maybes just ain't enough
When you need something to hold on
There's only one thing that's clear:
I know there's bound to come some trouble to your life
But that ain't nothing to be afraid of
I know there's bound to come some tears up in your eyes
That ain't no reason to fear
I know there's bound to come some trouble to your life
Reach out to Jesus hold on tight
He's been there before and He knows what it's like
You'll find He's there
You Are Not Alone: The Suffering of God's People
In times of suffering, you feel alone, but that is not true. You are part of a great crowd of sufferers that includes all of God’s people. God’s people suffer. It’s impossible to look inside the cover of the Bible without seeing this.
We call Hebrews 11 the “honor roll of the faithful.” These are the heroes of the faith, men and women who were “moved with godly fear,” who were tested, who choose “to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.” God’s people faced the lions, the “violence of fire,” and “the edge of the sword.”
“Others were tortured…had trials of mockings and scourgings, … of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.”
It is against this backdrop that the opening words of Hebrews 12 are to be understood.
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
It is not my point to compare our suffering with the suffering of others. It is simply to remind us that, as we suffer, we are part of a great cloud of suffering witnesses.
You are not alone.
From cover to cover, the Bible is filled with the accounts of God’s loving care of people who suffer. Adam and Eve suffered the loss of a unique, innocent fellowship with God, hiding in shame and being driven from the garden. They also suffered the loss of two sons: one murdered and the other, his murderer. Noah suffered the mockery of a wicked generation and he, too, “lost” a son to the curse of sin.
Abraham and Sarah endured a lifetime of childlessness before God promised them a son; they waited years and years for this promise to be fulfilled. Hannah was inconsolable because of her inability to bear children, as was Rachel.
Isaac family was divided by deception and theft for most of his life. Joseph lived for years as a servant and a prisoner. Judah buried two sons and his daughter-in-law, Tamar, lost two husbands. Although she was twice widowed, Tamar was abandoned by Judah’s family; in despair, she resorted to prostitution to draw attention to this unfairness.
God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was that their offspring would be blessed. Over time they grew from a family to a small nation, consisting of twelve tribes. This happened over a period of four hundred years while they lived as slaves in Egypt in persecution and hard labor. At the time of Moses birth, Egypt’s pharaoh had commanded that every male child be killed.
The LORD said, "I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry. I am aware of their sufferings.” They were God’s people and they suffered for 400 years.
Under Joshua’s leadership, Israel faced a crushing defeat at Ai because of the sin of one man.
Naomi lost a husband and two sons, Ruth lost a husband, and the two of them came empty-handed into Israel as little more than beggars. Although the great king David would descend from these two women, nothing in their circumstances indicated that God had a special plan for them as Ruth collected the leftovers during harvest.
Then, there is David—the great sufferer. So much of the Psalms deals with David’s faith-struggle in the face of suffering, opposition, and personal failure.
The normal experience of God’s prophets was rejection, persecution, and violent death. The same is true for the apostles, starting with James the brother of John, who was killed “by the sword.”
The persecution of the early church was so severe that they fled in all directions in fear for their lives. Although this was a powerful tool for spreading the gospel, persecution is persecution. Many were killed. Those who were not abandoned much of what was precious to them—family, friends, land, and homes.
Church history tells much the same story. To this very day, God’s people suffer. They cry out to God in their misery and he hears them.
Psalm 88 begins: O Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried out day and night before you. The author had found salvation. He was certain of that fact and certain that his salvation was from God. But the author of this psalm was suffering greatly:
My soul is full of troubles,
And my life draws near to the grave.
I am counted with those who go down to the pit;
I am like a man who has no strength,
Adrift among the dead,
Like the slain who lie in the grave,
Whom You remember no more,
And who are cut off from Your hand.
You have laid me in the lowest pit,
In darkness, in the depths.
Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
And You have afflicted me
This dark psalm offers great comfort to those who find themselves in a similar place and worry that those who are truly God's would not suffer in such a way. Charles Spurgeon wrote about this psalm, saying that those who feel this way shouldn't imagine that a strange thing has happened to them. Instead, they should look around and take comfort as they see the footprints of others who have walked this desert before them. And he offers the revelation that "he who now feebly expounds these words knows within himself more than he would care or dare to tell of the abysses of inward anguish."
To those who suffer, I write: you are not alone.
We call Hebrews 11 the “honor roll of the faithful.” These are the heroes of the faith, men and women who were “moved with godly fear,” who were tested, who choose “to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.” God’s people faced the lions, the “violence of fire,” and “the edge of the sword.”
“Others were tortured…had trials of mockings and scourgings, … of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.”
It is against this backdrop that the opening words of Hebrews 12 are to be understood.
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
It is not my point to compare our suffering with the suffering of others. It is simply to remind us that, as we suffer, we are part of a great cloud of suffering witnesses.
You are not alone.
From cover to cover, the Bible is filled with the accounts of God’s loving care of people who suffer. Adam and Eve suffered the loss of a unique, innocent fellowship with God, hiding in shame and being driven from the garden. They also suffered the loss of two sons: one murdered and the other, his murderer. Noah suffered the mockery of a wicked generation and he, too, “lost” a son to the curse of sin.
Abraham and Sarah endured a lifetime of childlessness before God promised them a son; they waited years and years for this promise to be fulfilled. Hannah was inconsolable because of her inability to bear children, as was Rachel.
Isaac family was divided by deception and theft for most of his life. Joseph lived for years as a servant and a prisoner. Judah buried two sons and his daughter-in-law, Tamar, lost two husbands. Although she was twice widowed, Tamar was abandoned by Judah’s family; in despair, she resorted to prostitution to draw attention to this unfairness.
God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was that their offspring would be blessed. Over time they grew from a family to a small nation, consisting of twelve tribes. This happened over a period of four hundred years while they lived as slaves in Egypt in persecution and hard labor. At the time of Moses birth, Egypt’s pharaoh had commanded that every male child be killed.
The LORD said, "I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry. I am aware of their sufferings.” They were God’s people and they suffered for 400 years.
Under Joshua’s leadership, Israel faced a crushing defeat at Ai because of the sin of one man.
Naomi lost a husband and two sons, Ruth lost a husband, and the two of them came empty-handed into Israel as little more than beggars. Although the great king David would descend from these two women, nothing in their circumstances indicated that God had a special plan for them as Ruth collected the leftovers during harvest.
Then, there is David—the great sufferer. So much of the Psalms deals with David’s faith-struggle in the face of suffering, opposition, and personal failure.
The normal experience of God’s prophets was rejection, persecution, and violent death. The same is true for the apostles, starting with James the brother of John, who was killed “by the sword.”
The persecution of the early church was so severe that they fled in all directions in fear for their lives. Although this was a powerful tool for spreading the gospel, persecution is persecution. Many were killed. Those who were not abandoned much of what was precious to them—family, friends, land, and homes.
Church history tells much the same story. To this very day, God’s people suffer. They cry out to God in their misery and he hears them.
Psalm 88 begins: O Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried out day and night before you. The author had found salvation. He was certain of that fact and certain that his salvation was from God. But the author of this psalm was suffering greatly:
My soul is full of troubles,
And my life draws near to the grave.
I am counted with those who go down to the pit;
I am like a man who has no strength,
Adrift among the dead,
Like the slain who lie in the grave,
Whom You remember no more,
And who are cut off from Your hand.
You have laid me in the lowest pit,
In darkness, in the depths.
Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
And You have afflicted me
This dark psalm offers great comfort to those who find themselves in a similar place and worry that those who are truly God's would not suffer in such a way. Charles Spurgeon wrote about this psalm, saying that those who feel this way shouldn't imagine that a strange thing has happened to them. Instead, they should look around and take comfort as they see the footprints of others who have walked this desert before them. And he offers the revelation that "he who now feebly expounds these words knows within himself more than he would care or dare to tell of the abysses of inward anguish."
To those who suffer, I write: you are not alone.
Walking in the Light
I made a few false starts as I tried to write this chapter. I kept thinking about the distinction that scripture makes between the ways of man and the way of God. The ways of man seem right, but end in death. The way of God is narrow, hard to find and hard to stay on, but it leads to life. Those walking in the ways of God emerge undefiled, while those walking in the ways of man emerge unclean. God did not call us to uncleanness, but to holiness.
Then, I continued on the thought that ended the last chapter—that the truth of God is not a collection of facts to be remembered but a way that we are to walk in.
All those things are true, but they are not the point that I need to make in this chapter. I do have one thing to say on the subject before moving on the real point of this chapter: God has saved us so that we can walk in his ways. He does not save us because we walk in his ways, nor does he cleanse us to walk in the paths of uncleanness.
But the real point of this chapter is to reiterate the message of the previous two chapters: we need the truth that comes from God for all of life. This is especially true in times of affliction.
God provides three means of communicating his truth to us, and these three means work together. I wrote about how the truth of God is written in scripture and I wrote about how the Holy Spirit helps us understand the truth that is written in the Bible and to believe that it is true about us.
In this chapter, I want to write a little about how God communicates his truth through the lives of fellow Christians. This is one of the main points of 1 John 1:5-10:
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
Walking in the light implies not only obedience but outspoken honesty about our disobedience. If we walk in the light, we are cleansed. If we confess our sins, we are cleansed. See the connection?
This passage has much to say about confession.
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. It is really hard to imagine a life with God that includes secrets about who we really are. Light shows things for what they really are. The better the light, the more you see.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. We naturally prefer darkness to light because we think that, in the darkness, no one will know the uglier truths about us. But God, who knows all things, tells us not to pretend to be sinless. It’s a lie and he knows it.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. Speaking the truth about ourselves is necessary for true fellowship. Christians get the idea that they have to pretend to be something they’re not in order to fit in with the church. That way of life is a thin lie that anyone can see through. It separates us from God and from one another. If you want to be warmly embraced by those who love God most, then be honest about your own sins. The blood of Christ cleanses us from those sins, so it’s ok to talk about them. The fellowship we have in honest relationships with other believers is vital. If we fail to live honestly and lose the fellowship that comes through confession, in times of affliction, the accusing, condemning voice of Satan may be the only one that we hear.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. “But what if I confess my sins and people just look down on me?” You should pray for anyone who does that, because they’re deceived and living a lie. Even the followers of Christ are sometimes like that. Those who don’t follow him almost always are.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But God isn’t like those people. If we confess our sins—not just as an occasional act, but as the continuous honesty that this passage calls “walking in the light,” then we get the opposite of what we would expect. We’re afraid we’ll be condemned and seem dirty, but we’ll be forgiven and cleansed. God is faithful to forgive and cleanse, and he’s just in doing so. I love the words “and just.” This means that, in light of what Christ did on the cross, it would be wrong for God to do anything else. God laid all our sins on Jesus. There is therefore now no condemnation.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. In case you haven’t gotten the point yet: don’t pretend to be without sin. God knows better. Your wife knows better. Your kids know better. Your dog knows better. Who do you think you’re fooling? Jesus came to save sinners.
So, like the Scottish proverb says, “confession is good for the soul.” On the other hand, silence about our sin is poisonous. Psalm 32 opens with these words:
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit.
When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groaning all the day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
The sins we hide in darkness will eat away at our bones.
I’m not saying that you should openly confess everything to everyone. Don’t apologize to the woman for saying that her child is ugly. Don’t tell your wife about the time you said, under your breath, that her dress really does make her look fat. Confession isn’t to make us feel better at the expense of others. You don’t need to confess to the gossips. You should be careful of what you confess to young Christians who might be tempted to use your weakness to justify their own destructive behaviors.
I think walking in the light of confession involves two things. First, everyone should know enough about your life to be certain that you understand your constant need of mercy and grace. When the details are needed, share them. When they’re dangerous, talk around them. But the sum of your conversation should clearly communicate your own understanding of your own need for a savior, now as much as ever. Second, you should cultivate a few relationships where you can be honest about the sins that God is bringing to your attention most pointedly. When you confess to someone the embarrassing details of embarrassing sins, you are bringing that sin into the light. Everything that was so appealing in the darkness is appalling in the light. When you enter into a relationship of confession with another Christian—keeping that sin in the light—its power over you will weaken. You will be cleansed when you confess.
And now, for my confession. I started this book just after Christmas. Now, it’s Passion Week. Three months into this project, I’m still struggling with all the problems that brought me to this point. I’ve had high moments and low. Almost daily, Satan has haunted me with threats of complete ruin. He tells me God doesn’t hear me, God doesn’t care. Some nights, I wake up and can’t get back to sleep because of the anxiety. Often, I’m not anxious “about” any particular thing. It’s more like a general sense of dread.
But God has promised that he will never leave me nor forsake me. I have seen the reliability of this promise a number of times as the Holy Spirit has convinced me of God’s love for me in my prayers and as I see God’s fatherly care every day. None of the worst of Satan’s threats have come to pass. I have not come to ruin. God has not left me.
A few days ago, I read about the Last Supper. After the meal, Jesus became “sorrowful and deeply distressed.” We think it’s strange when we find ourselves troubled and deeply distressed. But the truth is that Christ had troubles and we will, too.
In his troubles and distress, Jesus walked in the ways of God. For him, God’s path included betrayal, abandonment, false accusations, beatings, mockery and, finally, crucifixion. In his sorrow and distress, Jesus walked this path.
Troubles are not a free pass for disobedience. There are no sick days in the Christian life. It is God’s will for us to continue in the good works that God has called us to, even in times of affliction [1 Peter 4:19].
I lead a Bible study for men and I mentor younger Christian men. I help lead a mission organization, and help out with local ministries, like Prison Fellowship. I am a husband, a father, and an employee. People depend on me.
When I found myself in troubles and fears that I could not bear alone, I didn’t just drop out of these things. Nor did I put on a fake smile and try to hide my sorrows from everyone. But as I continued in all these good works, I told others of my experience of sorrow, fear, and disappointment.
And just like the Bible says, my effectiveness increased. When I am weak, THEN I am strong.
As he died the death that brought us life, Jesus didn’t try to cover up his sorrows. He told his disciples that he was so upset he felt like he could die. He cried out in pain. He told his executioners that he was thirsty. He called out to God, “My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me?”
God also wants us to walk in his ways, even in times of trouble. It’s not enough to read about the way of God in the Bible or even to have the Holy Spirit show us the way by helping us understand what is written in the Bible. God wants us to walk in his ways and to do so honestly, facing our sorrows and calling them by name in prayer and in truthful confession.
Failing to walk in God’s ways in times of trial robs us of joys, magnifies our sorrows, and adds new ones. Some of the greatest joys during this time of great trouble have come through my own acts of service. Even though I need help, I can still help others. Most of my greatest joys over the past few months have come in response to helping others.
Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive. This is true in a literal sense—the richest happiness is to be found in giving to others. In times where joy is sorely needed, don’t miss the mother lode that is found in giving yourself away to others.
Walking away from God in times of affliction puts us at a distance from our only source of strength and help. We walk with God when we walk in God’s ways, even when it feels like we’re walking alone. Walking in another way will only magnify our sorrows.
In times of affliction, Satan will speak to us as he did to Job through his wife: why don’t you curse God and die? The temptation to become angry with God or use our sorrows as a justification for sin is self-defeating.
Sin brings only sorrow. New sins bring new sorrows.
Then, I continued on the thought that ended the last chapter—that the truth of God is not a collection of facts to be remembered but a way that we are to walk in.
All those things are true, but they are not the point that I need to make in this chapter. I do have one thing to say on the subject before moving on the real point of this chapter: God has saved us so that we can walk in his ways. He does not save us because we walk in his ways, nor does he cleanse us to walk in the paths of uncleanness.
But the real point of this chapter is to reiterate the message of the previous two chapters: we need the truth that comes from God for all of life. This is especially true in times of affliction.
God provides three means of communicating his truth to us, and these three means work together. I wrote about how the truth of God is written in scripture and I wrote about how the Holy Spirit helps us understand the truth that is written in the Bible and to believe that it is true about us.
In this chapter, I want to write a little about how God communicates his truth through the lives of fellow Christians. This is one of the main points of 1 John 1:5-10:
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
Walking in the light implies not only obedience but outspoken honesty about our disobedience. If we walk in the light, we are cleansed. If we confess our sins, we are cleansed. See the connection?
This passage has much to say about confession.
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. It is really hard to imagine a life with God that includes secrets about who we really are. Light shows things for what they really are. The better the light, the more you see.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. We naturally prefer darkness to light because we think that, in the darkness, no one will know the uglier truths about us. But God, who knows all things, tells us not to pretend to be sinless. It’s a lie and he knows it.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. Speaking the truth about ourselves is necessary for true fellowship. Christians get the idea that they have to pretend to be something they’re not in order to fit in with the church. That way of life is a thin lie that anyone can see through. It separates us from God and from one another. If you want to be warmly embraced by those who love God most, then be honest about your own sins. The blood of Christ cleanses us from those sins, so it’s ok to talk about them. The fellowship we have in honest relationships with other believers is vital. If we fail to live honestly and lose the fellowship that comes through confession, in times of affliction, the accusing, condemning voice of Satan may be the only one that we hear.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. “But what if I confess my sins and people just look down on me?” You should pray for anyone who does that, because they’re deceived and living a lie. Even the followers of Christ are sometimes like that. Those who don’t follow him almost always are.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But God isn’t like those people. If we confess our sins—not just as an occasional act, but as the continuous honesty that this passage calls “walking in the light,” then we get the opposite of what we would expect. We’re afraid we’ll be condemned and seem dirty, but we’ll be forgiven and cleansed. God is faithful to forgive and cleanse, and he’s just in doing so. I love the words “and just.” This means that, in light of what Christ did on the cross, it would be wrong for God to do anything else. God laid all our sins on Jesus. There is therefore now no condemnation.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. In case you haven’t gotten the point yet: don’t pretend to be without sin. God knows better. Your wife knows better. Your kids know better. Your dog knows better. Who do you think you’re fooling? Jesus came to save sinners.
So, like the Scottish proverb says, “confession is good for the soul.” On the other hand, silence about our sin is poisonous. Psalm 32 opens with these words:
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit.
When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groaning all the day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
The sins we hide in darkness will eat away at our bones.
I’m not saying that you should openly confess everything to everyone. Don’t apologize to the woman for saying that her child is ugly. Don’t tell your wife about the time you said, under your breath, that her dress really does make her look fat. Confession isn’t to make us feel better at the expense of others. You don’t need to confess to the gossips. You should be careful of what you confess to young Christians who might be tempted to use your weakness to justify their own destructive behaviors.
I think walking in the light of confession involves two things. First, everyone should know enough about your life to be certain that you understand your constant need of mercy and grace. When the details are needed, share them. When they’re dangerous, talk around them. But the sum of your conversation should clearly communicate your own understanding of your own need for a savior, now as much as ever. Second, you should cultivate a few relationships where you can be honest about the sins that God is bringing to your attention most pointedly. When you confess to someone the embarrassing details of embarrassing sins, you are bringing that sin into the light. Everything that was so appealing in the darkness is appalling in the light. When you enter into a relationship of confession with another Christian—keeping that sin in the light—its power over you will weaken. You will be cleansed when you confess.
And now, for my confession. I started this book just after Christmas. Now, it’s Passion Week. Three months into this project, I’m still struggling with all the problems that brought me to this point. I’ve had high moments and low. Almost daily, Satan has haunted me with threats of complete ruin. He tells me God doesn’t hear me, God doesn’t care. Some nights, I wake up and can’t get back to sleep because of the anxiety. Often, I’m not anxious “about” any particular thing. It’s more like a general sense of dread.
But God has promised that he will never leave me nor forsake me. I have seen the reliability of this promise a number of times as the Holy Spirit has convinced me of God’s love for me in my prayers and as I see God’s fatherly care every day. None of the worst of Satan’s threats have come to pass. I have not come to ruin. God has not left me.
A few days ago, I read about the Last Supper. After the meal, Jesus became “sorrowful and deeply distressed.” We think it’s strange when we find ourselves troubled and deeply distressed. But the truth is that Christ had troubles and we will, too.
In his troubles and distress, Jesus walked in the ways of God. For him, God’s path included betrayal, abandonment, false accusations, beatings, mockery and, finally, crucifixion. In his sorrow and distress, Jesus walked this path.
Troubles are not a free pass for disobedience. There are no sick days in the Christian life. It is God’s will for us to continue in the good works that God has called us to, even in times of affliction [1 Peter 4:19].
I lead a Bible study for men and I mentor younger Christian men. I help lead a mission organization, and help out with local ministries, like Prison Fellowship. I am a husband, a father, and an employee. People depend on me.
When I found myself in troubles and fears that I could not bear alone, I didn’t just drop out of these things. Nor did I put on a fake smile and try to hide my sorrows from everyone. But as I continued in all these good works, I told others of my experience of sorrow, fear, and disappointment.
And just like the Bible says, my effectiveness increased. When I am weak, THEN I am strong.
As he died the death that brought us life, Jesus didn’t try to cover up his sorrows. He told his disciples that he was so upset he felt like he could die. He cried out in pain. He told his executioners that he was thirsty. He called out to God, “My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me?”
God also wants us to walk in his ways, even in times of trouble. It’s not enough to read about the way of God in the Bible or even to have the Holy Spirit show us the way by helping us understand what is written in the Bible. God wants us to walk in his ways and to do so honestly, facing our sorrows and calling them by name in prayer and in truthful confession.
Failing to walk in God’s ways in times of trial robs us of joys, magnifies our sorrows, and adds new ones. Some of the greatest joys during this time of great trouble have come through my own acts of service. Even though I need help, I can still help others. Most of my greatest joys over the past few months have come in response to helping others.
Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive. This is true in a literal sense—the richest happiness is to be found in giving to others. In times where joy is sorely needed, don’t miss the mother lode that is found in giving yourself away to others.
Walking away from God in times of affliction puts us at a distance from our only source of strength and help. We walk with God when we walk in God’s ways, even when it feels like we’re walking alone. Walking in another way will only magnify our sorrows.
In times of affliction, Satan will speak to us as he did to Job through his wife: why don’t you curse God and die? The temptation to become angry with God or use our sorrows as a justification for sin is self-defeating.
Sin brings only sorrow. New sins bring new sorrows.
Monday, March 29, 2010
A Second Footnote on Worship
“The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." [John 4:23-24]
In our worship, we speak the truths that are in alignment with the horizon of heaven. There is something about the truth revealed in scripture that realigns, not just to our perceptions, but us to heaven’s gravity. Only then is it possible to walk uprightly.
Maybe this is part of what Jesus meant by worshipping God in spirit and in truth. As we hear God’s word, the Holy Spirit helps us understand it and aligns us with the truth. We worship God with spirits that have been filled with truth and realigned to truth.
In our worship, we speak the truths that are in alignment with the horizon of heaven. There is something about the truth revealed in scripture that realigns, not just to our perceptions, but us to heaven’s gravity. Only then is it possible to walk uprightly.
Maybe this is part of what Jesus meant by worshipping God in spirit and in truth. As we hear God’s word, the Holy Spirit helps us understand it and aligns us with the truth. We worship God with spirits that have been filled with truth and realigned to truth.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Spirit of Truth, Conclusion
“The Spirit and the Gifts are Ours Through Him Who With Us Sideth”
Have you ever wished that you could spend a day with Christ? The disciples traveled with him, shared meals with him, slept under the same roof with him. I’ve often thought how easy it would be to trust in God if I’d had the advantage, as Thomas did, of seeing and feeling the wounds of the cross.
However, Christ himself did not share this opinion. He said it was very important for him to go away because he was going to send the Holy Spirit to be with us. The work of the Holy Spirit in the people of God is indispensable. Like all of God’s works, the sending of the Spirit to the church was unimprovably good.
However, over the past 100 years or so, the church has been weakened by disagreements about the work of the Holy Spirit in the present age. Some Christians have become so open to spiritual things that they’ve forgotten that the scripture commands us to try the spirits to see if they are from God. Others have developed a severe allergy to all things supernatural—forgetting that that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of spirit is spirit. The Christian life is profoundly spiritual in nature. But there are many spirits, and not all are from God.
If you look back at the work of Christians who lived more than a hundred years ago, you’ll find them writing with clarity on topics that now have the air of controversy. To map out some of what I think out to be common ground for the church on the present-day ministry of the Holy Spirit, I turned to the work of Christians whose views on the subject weren’t tainted by the controversies of the past century. Much of what I have to say draws heavily from the structure and content of an essay by the Puritan writer, John Owen, on “The Things in Which We Have Communion in the Holy Spirit.”
As I said in previous chapters, we need the truth that comes from God at all times. This need is most desperately felt in times of affliction. God has given us his Holy Bible as the only authoritative source of this truth. He has also given us his Holy Spirit to help us understand the truth that comes from God, to align ourselves with its heavenly perspective, and to walk in its way. Owen’s essay has much to say on the Spirit’s work to reveal the truth in scripture, refine Christians based on this truth, and empower us to walk in its ways.
• reveal: teaching us the meaning of scripture, helping us to remember the words and promises of Christ when they are most needed, and convincing us that they apply to us because we are God’s dearly loved children
• refine: helping us to pray correctly and effectively and leading us in the ways of God
• empower: serving as a sign that someday we will live in the presence of God without sin and sorrow, bringing joy to our hearts, and comforting us in our affliction
The Holy Spirit Reveals Truth
“When…the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.” [John 16:13] The Holy Spirit reveals God’s truth to us, not by providing us with new scripture, but by shedding light on the scripture that God has already given us. I have read and sung the words, “O God, you are my God,” many times over the 43 years of my Christian life. It was not until this past year that I learned the significance of knowing, when your life is crashing down around your feet, that God is YOUR God. Now, it is like a light has gone on. Everywhere I look in scripture, I find this vital truth that was there all along: through the gospel, the great God who is spoken of in scripture is MY God. As Owen wrote, if we are to receive the truth of scripture, its spiritual meaning must be communicated to us by the Holy Spirit. This is one of the present-day ministries of the Holy Spirit that sustain us in affliction. There are many others.
“The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” [John 14:26] Although this promise applied directly to the Apostles who wrote the gospels and letters of the New Testament, Owen notes that it was also spoken for the “comfort of believers.” The promises of Christ had little effect on the hearts and lives of the Apostles when they first heard them. The same is often true of us as we read the words of scripture. But when God’s truth is brought to mind by the Holy Spirit in times of affliction, they produce joy and comfort. “A believer may be in the saddest and darkest condition imaginable,” writes Owen. “Sometimes the heavens are black over them and the earth trembles under them. Disasters and distresses appear which are so full of horror and darkness that they are tempted to give up in despair.” But when the Spirit “…brings to mind the promises of Christ for our comfort, neither Satan nor man, neither sin nor the world, nor even death itself shall take away our comfort…Thus,” he writes, “believers are not dependent upon outward circumstances for their happiness.”
“The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” [Romans 5:5] God’s love for us is much more powerful and constant than our love for him because it is grounded, not in the inconstancy of our behavior but in his own unchangeable character. His love for us includes his will to do us good and our acceptance and approval by him. In times of affliction, we’re tempted to doubt God’s love for us. But in the darkest of hours, the Holy Spirit is able to persuade us of God’s love so thoroughly, Owen writes, “that our souls are filled with joy and comfort. This is his work and he does it effectively.”
“You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” [Romans 8:15-16] It is not uncommon, in times of trouble, for the Christian to wonder if he belongs to God or not. We look for evidence that in our lives and in scripture to help us maintain our belief that we are God’s children, but, as Owen writes, the devil accuses us and “opposes us with all his might.” It is the work of the Spirit, however, to assure us, in our hearts, of the truth of what we find in scripture, convincing us that we are really God’s and he is really ours.
In affliction, most children of God will at some point question their standing with God, and doubt their adoption by God. In most legal systems, there is some sort of paperwork to verify that a valid adoption has taken place, “but it is God’s prerogative, when he adopts, to give a spirit of adoption-the nature of children. The Spirit of adoption works in the children of God a filial love to God as a Father, a delight in him, and a dependence upon him, as a Father. A sanctified soul bears the image of God, as the child bears the image of the father. Whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Praying is here called crying, which is not only an earnest, but a natural expression of desire; children that cannot speak vent their desires by crying.” [Matthew Henry]
The Spirit Refines Us
“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication.” [Zechariah 12:10] Owen writes that, when we don’t know how we should pray, the “Spirit of Supplication” helps us do this by “exalting the faculties of the soul,” enabling us “to pray rightly and effectively.” By bringing to remembrance the promises of Scripture, he helps us pray as we ought to pray, asking for the things that have been promised to us. He helps us pray in faith, asking and not doubting the trustworthiness of him to whom we pray. In my own experience, this help is something I can sense. I have come with a deep sense of need, but with weak faith and no real idea of what to say or even where to start. Sometimes, I read a written prayer or use a Psalm to guide me in my prayers. But on occasions, in the middle of a rambling prayer, or a written prayer, or a prayer guided by the scripture, the Holy Spirit has filled me with faith and given me the words to express my needs to God.
In times of affliction, listen to the voice of the Spirit who tells you that God is your God. As the Spirit prompts you, cry out, “Abba, father,” like the child that you are. When you are weak and don’t even know how to pray, let the Holy Spirit help you, making intercession for you with groaning that words can’t express. [Romans 8:26] Referring to this passage, Matthew Henry writes of times when we’re “in such a hurry with temptations and troubles, we know not what to say, nor how to express ourselves.” In such times, he says, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us “with groans that cannot be uttered.” This is how Hannah prayed (1 Samuel 1:13). The priest who saw her thought she was drunk. But such prayers and the holy, humble boldness in which we pray them is the work of the Spirit.
“Having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance.” [Ephesians 1:13-14] This work of the Spirit is in a way invisible to us. It is important, though, because it tells us the implications of all of his more visible workings: God has placed his mark on us. The practical implication is this: when we see the Spirit at work in any way, we should interpret this as evidence that God has marked us as his. It is a guarantee of the inheritance that is to come. But there’s more to it than this. When you write your name inside a book, you can’t return it to the bookstore for a refund. You have permanently marked it out as yours. In the same way, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, not just to give us an assurance of the heart, but to give us safety, body and soul, as property of God, purchased by God with the blood of his son. This hidden work of the Spirit in marking us as God should allow us to give ourselves up to the care of God. The weak do not benefit from a religion that relies on their ability to hold onto it, but they do benefit from the gospel that seals us as God’s who will hold onto us in trials, weakness, and fears.
“God, Your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness.” [Hebrews 1:9] The Holy Spirit is the oil of gladness and he brings joy to us. The Holy Spirit brings us this joy when we first receive the word of God. The Thessalonians “became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit.” [1Thessalonians 1:6] He continues bringing this joy to us throughout our Christian lives through his other works: assuring us of the love of God, our acceptance with God, our adoption into his family. “When we think about this,” Owen writes, “the Holy Spirit brings the truth home to us with joy.”
And sometimes, he writes, “the Holy Spirit produces joy in the hearts of believers directly without using any other means…He secretly injects this joy into the soul, driving away all fears and sorrows, filling it with gladness and causing it to exult, sometimes with unspeakable raptures of the mind.”
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” [Galatians 5:22-23] The ongoing work of the Spirit in us is to make us like Christ. The fruit of his work is the increase of the attributes of God in us. In times of trouble, the sin that was so enticing is seen for what it really is—something that stands between us and the good things of God, an ugly and destructive diversion from our ultimate happiness. “Before I was afflicted, I went astray.” [Psalm 119:67]
The Holy Spirit Empowers Us to Walk in God’s Ways
“When the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.” I come back to this passage in the end to make another important point: the truth of God is not information to be learned, but a path to walk in. Our need for the truth of God in all of life is the central focus of Psalm 119. Its blessings are pronounced, not on those who know God’s ways but those who walk in the law of the Lord (verse 1), who walk in his ways (verse 3). The psalmist asks that his ways would be directed by God (verse 5) and explains that a young man can cleanse his way by doing what God’s word says (verse 9). And so it goes. In the psalm’s 176 verses, God’s “way” is mentioned over 100 times. As Christ said, God’s truth provides a foundation, not to those who hear it, but those who do it. This will be the focus of the next chapter.
Conclusion
God gives us the truth that we need in the Holy Bible. The same Spirit that moved holy men to write these books is at work in us to ensure that we enjoy all the benefits of God’s truth. In my own affliction, the work of the Holy Spirit in my life has been far more conspicuous—assisting in my prayers, “injecting” joy into my darkest of moments, shining light on the truth of scripture, and confirming its truth to me. He convinces me that God is my God and prompts me to cry out, “Abba, Father!” in my troubles. It is for the present-day ministry of the Holy Spirit that Christ left us in order for the Spirit to come. He is here and his work in us in our troubles and our joys alike, is wonderful.
On the way to work this morning, I was listening to a sermon on Jonah. The pastor made the point that this is a book about reluctance. First, it is about the reluctance of Jonah to warn Nineveh of God’s plans to judge the city.
Jonah’s reluctance to carry this message was linked to what he knew about God’s reluctance to judge wrong-doing. When Jonah saw that God mercy on Nineveh, he was “very upset about this, and he became angry. So he prayed to the LORD, ‘LORD, isn't this what I said would happen when I was still in my own country? That's why I tried to run to Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, patient, and always ready to forgive and to reconsider your threats of destruction.’”
But the book is also about God’s reluctance to deal harshly with Jonah. In response to Jonah’s rebellion, God prepared a fish. In response to his complaints, God explained himself to Jonah.
I woke up this morning feeling well. Less than half an hour into my morning, I began to feel worse. The troubles that are pressing on me from the outside are taking a real toll on the inside. But as I listened to the truth of God being preached, there came this definite moment where everything snapped into focus. I knew that God loves me. I knew that, even in my wrong-doing, he is reluctant to judge, preferring mercy. I was suddenly filled with faith that caused me to ask God plainly for the assistance that I need in full expectation of receiving it.
There was joy.
There were tears.
And now I sit in a day not much different from the one before. My outward circumstances have not changed. But I sit thinking about that moment where the Holy Spirit powerfully and suddenly helped me to see the truth of God, trust in it, and respond to it in faith. Just as powerfully and suddenly, he filled me with joy that brought tears to my eyes.
In times of trouble, we have the written word of God and his Spirit living in us that makes that word a living word.
Have you ever wished that you could spend a day with Christ? The disciples traveled with him, shared meals with him, slept under the same roof with him. I’ve often thought how easy it would be to trust in God if I’d had the advantage, as Thomas did, of seeing and feeling the wounds of the cross.
However, Christ himself did not share this opinion. He said it was very important for him to go away because he was going to send the Holy Spirit to be with us. The work of the Holy Spirit in the people of God is indispensable. Like all of God’s works, the sending of the Spirit to the church was unimprovably good.
However, over the past 100 years or so, the church has been weakened by disagreements about the work of the Holy Spirit in the present age. Some Christians have become so open to spiritual things that they’ve forgotten that the scripture commands us to try the spirits to see if they are from God. Others have developed a severe allergy to all things supernatural—forgetting that that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of spirit is spirit. The Christian life is profoundly spiritual in nature. But there are many spirits, and not all are from God.
If you look back at the work of Christians who lived more than a hundred years ago, you’ll find them writing with clarity on topics that now have the air of controversy. To map out some of what I think out to be common ground for the church on the present-day ministry of the Holy Spirit, I turned to the work of Christians whose views on the subject weren’t tainted by the controversies of the past century. Much of what I have to say draws heavily from the structure and content of an essay by the Puritan writer, John Owen, on “The Things in Which We Have Communion in the Holy Spirit.”
As I said in previous chapters, we need the truth that comes from God at all times. This need is most desperately felt in times of affliction. God has given us his Holy Bible as the only authoritative source of this truth. He has also given us his Holy Spirit to help us understand the truth that comes from God, to align ourselves with its heavenly perspective, and to walk in its way. Owen’s essay has much to say on the Spirit’s work to reveal the truth in scripture, refine Christians based on this truth, and empower us to walk in its ways.
• reveal: teaching us the meaning of scripture, helping us to remember the words and promises of Christ when they are most needed, and convincing us that they apply to us because we are God’s dearly loved children
• refine: helping us to pray correctly and effectively and leading us in the ways of God
• empower: serving as a sign that someday we will live in the presence of God without sin and sorrow, bringing joy to our hearts, and comforting us in our affliction
The Holy Spirit Reveals Truth
“When…the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.” [John 16:13] The Holy Spirit reveals God’s truth to us, not by providing us with new scripture, but by shedding light on the scripture that God has already given us. I have read and sung the words, “O God, you are my God,” many times over the 43 years of my Christian life. It was not until this past year that I learned the significance of knowing, when your life is crashing down around your feet, that God is YOUR God. Now, it is like a light has gone on. Everywhere I look in scripture, I find this vital truth that was there all along: through the gospel, the great God who is spoken of in scripture is MY God. As Owen wrote, if we are to receive the truth of scripture, its spiritual meaning must be communicated to us by the Holy Spirit. This is one of the present-day ministries of the Holy Spirit that sustain us in affliction. There are many others.
“The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” [John 14:26] Although this promise applied directly to the Apostles who wrote the gospels and letters of the New Testament, Owen notes that it was also spoken for the “comfort of believers.” The promises of Christ had little effect on the hearts and lives of the Apostles when they first heard them. The same is often true of us as we read the words of scripture. But when God’s truth is brought to mind by the Holy Spirit in times of affliction, they produce joy and comfort. “A believer may be in the saddest and darkest condition imaginable,” writes Owen. “Sometimes the heavens are black over them and the earth trembles under them. Disasters and distresses appear which are so full of horror and darkness that they are tempted to give up in despair.” But when the Spirit “…brings to mind the promises of Christ for our comfort, neither Satan nor man, neither sin nor the world, nor even death itself shall take away our comfort…Thus,” he writes, “believers are not dependent upon outward circumstances for their happiness.”
“The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” [Romans 5:5] God’s love for us is much more powerful and constant than our love for him because it is grounded, not in the inconstancy of our behavior but in his own unchangeable character. His love for us includes his will to do us good and our acceptance and approval by him. In times of affliction, we’re tempted to doubt God’s love for us. But in the darkest of hours, the Holy Spirit is able to persuade us of God’s love so thoroughly, Owen writes, “that our souls are filled with joy and comfort. This is his work and he does it effectively.”
“You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” [Romans 8:15-16] It is not uncommon, in times of trouble, for the Christian to wonder if he belongs to God or not. We look for evidence that in our lives and in scripture to help us maintain our belief that we are God’s children, but, as Owen writes, the devil accuses us and “opposes us with all his might.” It is the work of the Spirit, however, to assure us, in our hearts, of the truth of what we find in scripture, convincing us that we are really God’s and he is really ours.
In affliction, most children of God will at some point question their standing with God, and doubt their adoption by God. In most legal systems, there is some sort of paperwork to verify that a valid adoption has taken place, “but it is God’s prerogative, when he adopts, to give a spirit of adoption-the nature of children. The Spirit of adoption works in the children of God a filial love to God as a Father, a delight in him, and a dependence upon him, as a Father. A sanctified soul bears the image of God, as the child bears the image of the father. Whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Praying is here called crying, which is not only an earnest, but a natural expression of desire; children that cannot speak vent their desires by crying.” [Matthew Henry]
The Spirit Refines Us
“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication.” [Zechariah 12:10] Owen writes that, when we don’t know how we should pray, the “Spirit of Supplication” helps us do this by “exalting the faculties of the soul,” enabling us “to pray rightly and effectively.” By bringing to remembrance the promises of Scripture, he helps us pray as we ought to pray, asking for the things that have been promised to us. He helps us pray in faith, asking and not doubting the trustworthiness of him to whom we pray. In my own experience, this help is something I can sense. I have come with a deep sense of need, but with weak faith and no real idea of what to say or even where to start. Sometimes, I read a written prayer or use a Psalm to guide me in my prayers. But on occasions, in the middle of a rambling prayer, or a written prayer, or a prayer guided by the scripture, the Holy Spirit has filled me with faith and given me the words to express my needs to God.
In times of affliction, listen to the voice of the Spirit who tells you that God is your God. As the Spirit prompts you, cry out, “Abba, father,” like the child that you are. When you are weak and don’t even know how to pray, let the Holy Spirit help you, making intercession for you with groaning that words can’t express. [Romans 8:26] Referring to this passage, Matthew Henry writes of times when we’re “in such a hurry with temptations and troubles, we know not what to say, nor how to express ourselves.” In such times, he says, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us “with groans that cannot be uttered.” This is how Hannah prayed (1 Samuel 1:13). The priest who saw her thought she was drunk. But such prayers and the holy, humble boldness in which we pray them is the work of the Spirit.
“Having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance.” [Ephesians 1:13-14] This work of the Spirit is in a way invisible to us. It is important, though, because it tells us the implications of all of his more visible workings: God has placed his mark on us. The practical implication is this: when we see the Spirit at work in any way, we should interpret this as evidence that God has marked us as his. It is a guarantee of the inheritance that is to come. But there’s more to it than this. When you write your name inside a book, you can’t return it to the bookstore for a refund. You have permanently marked it out as yours. In the same way, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, not just to give us an assurance of the heart, but to give us safety, body and soul, as property of God, purchased by God with the blood of his son. This hidden work of the Spirit in marking us as God should allow us to give ourselves up to the care of God. The weak do not benefit from a religion that relies on their ability to hold onto it, but they do benefit from the gospel that seals us as God’s who will hold onto us in trials, weakness, and fears.
“God, Your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness.” [Hebrews 1:9] The Holy Spirit is the oil of gladness and he brings joy to us. The Holy Spirit brings us this joy when we first receive the word of God. The Thessalonians “became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit.” [1Thessalonians 1:6] He continues bringing this joy to us throughout our Christian lives through his other works: assuring us of the love of God, our acceptance with God, our adoption into his family. “When we think about this,” Owen writes, “the Holy Spirit brings the truth home to us with joy.”
And sometimes, he writes, “the Holy Spirit produces joy in the hearts of believers directly without using any other means…He secretly injects this joy into the soul, driving away all fears and sorrows, filling it with gladness and causing it to exult, sometimes with unspeakable raptures of the mind.”
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” [Galatians 5:22-23] The ongoing work of the Spirit in us is to make us like Christ. The fruit of his work is the increase of the attributes of God in us. In times of trouble, the sin that was so enticing is seen for what it really is—something that stands between us and the good things of God, an ugly and destructive diversion from our ultimate happiness. “Before I was afflicted, I went astray.” [Psalm 119:67]
The Holy Spirit Empowers Us to Walk in God’s Ways
“When the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.” I come back to this passage in the end to make another important point: the truth of God is not information to be learned, but a path to walk in. Our need for the truth of God in all of life is the central focus of Psalm 119. Its blessings are pronounced, not on those who know God’s ways but those who walk in the law of the Lord (verse 1), who walk in his ways (verse 3). The psalmist asks that his ways would be directed by God (verse 5) and explains that a young man can cleanse his way by doing what God’s word says (verse 9). And so it goes. In the psalm’s 176 verses, God’s “way” is mentioned over 100 times. As Christ said, God’s truth provides a foundation, not to those who hear it, but those who do it. This will be the focus of the next chapter.
Conclusion
God gives us the truth that we need in the Holy Bible. The same Spirit that moved holy men to write these books is at work in us to ensure that we enjoy all the benefits of God’s truth. In my own affliction, the work of the Holy Spirit in my life has been far more conspicuous—assisting in my prayers, “injecting” joy into my darkest of moments, shining light on the truth of scripture, and confirming its truth to me. He convinces me that God is my God and prompts me to cry out, “Abba, Father!” in my troubles. It is for the present-day ministry of the Holy Spirit that Christ left us in order for the Spirit to come. He is here and his work in us in our troubles and our joys alike, is wonderful.
On the way to work this morning, I was listening to a sermon on Jonah. The pastor made the point that this is a book about reluctance. First, it is about the reluctance of Jonah to warn Nineveh of God’s plans to judge the city.
Jonah’s reluctance to carry this message was linked to what he knew about God’s reluctance to judge wrong-doing. When Jonah saw that God mercy on Nineveh, he was “very upset about this, and he became angry. So he prayed to the LORD, ‘LORD, isn't this what I said would happen when I was still in my own country? That's why I tried to run to Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, patient, and always ready to forgive and to reconsider your threats of destruction.’”
But the book is also about God’s reluctance to deal harshly with Jonah. In response to Jonah’s rebellion, God prepared a fish. In response to his complaints, God explained himself to Jonah.
I woke up this morning feeling well. Less than half an hour into my morning, I began to feel worse. The troubles that are pressing on me from the outside are taking a real toll on the inside. But as I listened to the truth of God being preached, there came this definite moment where everything snapped into focus. I knew that God loves me. I knew that, even in my wrong-doing, he is reluctant to judge, preferring mercy. I was suddenly filled with faith that caused me to ask God plainly for the assistance that I need in full expectation of receiving it.
There was joy.
There were tears.
And now I sit in a day not much different from the one before. My outward circumstances have not changed. But I sit thinking about that moment where the Holy Spirit powerfully and suddenly helped me to see the truth of God, trust in it, and respond to it in faith. Just as powerfully and suddenly, he filled me with joy that brought tears to my eyes.
In times of trouble, we have the written word of God and his Spirit living in us that makes that word a living word.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The Spirit of Truth
No further argument is necessary to prove that men do not understand the mind of God in the Scripture in a due manner, than their supposal and confidence that they can do so without the communication of a spiritual understanding unto them by the Holy Ghost. This self-confidence is directly contrary unto the plain, express testimonies of the word. --John Owen
In other words, “you’re crazy if you think you can get anything from the Holy Bible without the help of the Holy Spirit.” It is the present-day work of the Holy Spirit help Christians understand the truth, re-orient us to its heavenly “gravity,” and empower us to walk in its paths. We need God’s help to see God’s truth.
John Owen, a Seventeenth Century pastor, wrote a lot about the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers to:
• reveal: teaching us the meaning of scripture, helping us to remember the words and promises of Christ when they are most needed, and convincing us that they apply to us because we are God’s dearly loved children
• refine: helping us to pray correctly and effectively and leading us in the ways of God
• empower: serving as a sign that someday we will live in the presence of God without sin and sorrow, bringing joy to our hearts, and comforting us in our affliction
In times of affliction, we are not alone. The Holy Spirit is with us and at work in us, often invisibly and undetectably but always effectually. He helps us to see, helps us to walk, helps us to change, and fills us with God’s love and joy. That’s not to say we won’t be filled at times with sorrow, bitterness, and fear. It is to say that the affliction will be overcome by God’s salvation and interrupted, often unexpectedly, with peace and joy “that passes all understanding.”
So, what does this look like in real life? I can’t answer that for you, but I can tell you what it looked like in my own life a few weeks ago when I was reading Psalm 40, which begins:
I waited patiently for the Lord; and
he inclined to me, and heard my cry.
He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
out of the miry clay, and
set my feet upon a rock, and
established my steps.
Charles Spurgeon commented on the opening of Psalm 40: “Neither Jesus the head nor any one of the members of his body shall ever wait upon the Lord in vain.” Next to Spurgeon’s words, I wrote:
But Satan will accuse and threaten us all the while, and he will accuse God. He reminds us that is was our own sin that brought us to the pit and, for that reason, he says, God will not save us. This is an insult to God’s character and an assault upon his grace. The chief business of God in the sacrifice of his son and the present work of his Spirit is the saving of sinners.
Today, I am in a miry pit. Every step slips. Every foothold inspires confidence before giving way, as if designed to discourage. In the depths of this horrible pit, this day, Satan says there is no God; all my hopes have been misplaced.
For me, this affliction has been a time of faith assaulted by doubt. Of strength and weakness—God’s strength and my complete weakness. Of long periods of pain shattered inexplicably in moments of complete peace, faith, and joy—like a man sitting in heavenly places—moments that give way too soon to the dull ache and dread of affliction.
In 2 Samuel 16, we read about a time of great affliction in the life of David. In Psalm 63, which was written by David during this time of affliction, we see how his sorrow was shattered by truth from the Holy Spirit.
A Divine Revelation: O God, you are my God!
David’s son, Amnon, raped David’s daughter, Tamar. Tamar was the half-sister of Amnon and the full sister of Absalom. Absalom was furious with David’s failure to take action against Amnon, so he took matters into his own hand, murdering his half-brother, and running away. Again, David failed to act. He didn’t punish Absalom or forgive him, but just ignored him for three years.
Even after David’s friend, Joab, convinced David to allow Absalom to come home, Absalom lived in Jerusalem two more years without seeing his father. One day, Absalom decided he’d had enough. He evidently didn’t think he’d be able to work things out with David, so he decided to go through Joab. To get his attention, Absalom set fire to Joab’s fields.
This got his attention.
Joab spoke to David for Absalom, telling the king that his son wanted to be reconciled with his father. David agreed. Absalom came to the king, bowed down before him, and David kissed his son, but the relationship was never restored. Some time later, Absalom decided to overthrow his father and sit in his place as king of Israel. He was a powerful man with lots of influence. Much of the army sided with Absalom, so David fled into the wilderness of Judah.
On the way, David met a relative of Saul named Shimei who came out to meet David, “cursing continuously as he came. And he threw stones at David…”
David’s daughter had been raped by one son, who was then murdered by another son. David was running for his life from the murderer who was now trying to take over David’s kingdom. On the way, he met the curses and stones hurled by Shimei. These are the circumstances surrounding David's flight into into the wilderness of Judah.
At this point in his life, David wrote Psalm 63, which opens with words that are startling when you consider the setting:
O God, you are my God!
Like those two feet splashing through the streets of Wayne, New Jersey, David speaks a truth in the wilderness of Judah that changes the way we understand everything we read in 2 Samuel 16.
David contributed to his own problems. He should have done something about the rape of Tamar. He should have done something about the murder of her rapist and half-brother, Amnon. He should have addressed the many major problems with his son, Absalom. David had plenty of reasons to blame himself for his troubles.
He was running away to the wilderness, and being cursed by an enemy as he went. There was no outward evidence of blessedness or divine favor.
But the Holy Spirit is with us in our time of affliction. The Holy Spirit helped David to look beyond his failures, beyond his troubles, beyond the wilderness of Judah, to see a God who was HIS God.
A few weeks ago, I wrote this in my copy of The Treasury of David:
I don’t often doubt the truth of scripture or the promises of God that are found there. But I often doubt that they are true for me. For a long time, Psalm 54:1 was a puzzle to me: Save me, O God, by thy name. How can anyone be saved by a name?
But now I see that God’s name can be said to save because he tells us his name. The attributes revealed in the various names of God make him someone who is well able to save. But he tells his name to those he is saving. I am the Lord, thy God… We learn that God isn’t just a mighty savior, a helper, a shelter, but he is my savior, my helper, and my shelter.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit to teach us to cry out, like David, “O God, you are my God.” Charles Spurgeon wrote that David “…has no doubts about his possession of his God; and why should other believers have any? The straightforward, clear language of this opening sentence would be far more becoming in Christians than the timorous and doubtful expressions so usual among professors.”
David had many reasons to believe that God might no longer be his God. His cry, claiming God as his God, shows that David had a point of view that was aligned with the horizons of heaven. Creating this point of view within us is the work of the Holy Spirit. In times of affliction, it is a precious work.
In other words, “you’re crazy if you think you can get anything from the Holy Bible without the help of the Holy Spirit.” It is the present-day work of the Holy Spirit help Christians understand the truth, re-orient us to its heavenly “gravity,” and empower us to walk in its paths. We need God’s help to see God’s truth.
John Owen, a Seventeenth Century pastor, wrote a lot about the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers to:
• reveal: teaching us the meaning of scripture, helping us to remember the words and promises of Christ when they are most needed, and convincing us that they apply to us because we are God’s dearly loved children
• refine: helping us to pray correctly and effectively and leading us in the ways of God
• empower: serving as a sign that someday we will live in the presence of God without sin and sorrow, bringing joy to our hearts, and comforting us in our affliction
In times of affliction, we are not alone. The Holy Spirit is with us and at work in us, often invisibly and undetectably but always effectually. He helps us to see, helps us to walk, helps us to change, and fills us with God’s love and joy. That’s not to say we won’t be filled at times with sorrow, bitterness, and fear. It is to say that the affliction will be overcome by God’s salvation and interrupted, often unexpectedly, with peace and joy “that passes all understanding.”
So, what does this look like in real life? I can’t answer that for you, but I can tell you what it looked like in my own life a few weeks ago when I was reading Psalm 40, which begins:
I waited patiently for the Lord; and
he inclined to me, and heard my cry.
He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
out of the miry clay, and
set my feet upon a rock, and
established my steps.
Charles Spurgeon commented on the opening of Psalm 40: “Neither Jesus the head nor any one of the members of his body shall ever wait upon the Lord in vain.” Next to Spurgeon’s words, I wrote:
But Satan will accuse and threaten us all the while, and he will accuse God. He reminds us that is was our own sin that brought us to the pit and, for that reason, he says, God will not save us. This is an insult to God’s character and an assault upon his grace. The chief business of God in the sacrifice of his son and the present work of his Spirit is the saving of sinners.
Today, I am in a miry pit. Every step slips. Every foothold inspires confidence before giving way, as if designed to discourage. In the depths of this horrible pit, this day, Satan says there is no God; all my hopes have been misplaced.
For me, this affliction has been a time of faith assaulted by doubt. Of strength and weakness—God’s strength and my complete weakness. Of long periods of pain shattered inexplicably in moments of complete peace, faith, and joy—like a man sitting in heavenly places—moments that give way too soon to the dull ache and dread of affliction.
In 2 Samuel 16, we read about a time of great affliction in the life of David. In Psalm 63, which was written by David during this time of affliction, we see how his sorrow was shattered by truth from the Holy Spirit.
A Divine Revelation: O God, you are my God!
David’s son, Amnon, raped David’s daughter, Tamar. Tamar was the half-sister of Amnon and the full sister of Absalom. Absalom was furious with David’s failure to take action against Amnon, so he took matters into his own hand, murdering his half-brother, and running away. Again, David failed to act. He didn’t punish Absalom or forgive him, but just ignored him for three years.
Even after David’s friend, Joab, convinced David to allow Absalom to come home, Absalom lived in Jerusalem two more years without seeing his father. One day, Absalom decided he’d had enough. He evidently didn’t think he’d be able to work things out with David, so he decided to go through Joab. To get his attention, Absalom set fire to Joab’s fields.
This got his attention.
Joab spoke to David for Absalom, telling the king that his son wanted to be reconciled with his father. David agreed. Absalom came to the king, bowed down before him, and David kissed his son, but the relationship was never restored. Some time later, Absalom decided to overthrow his father and sit in his place as king of Israel. He was a powerful man with lots of influence. Much of the army sided with Absalom, so David fled into the wilderness of Judah.
On the way, David met a relative of Saul named Shimei who came out to meet David, “cursing continuously as he came. And he threw stones at David…”
David’s daughter had been raped by one son, who was then murdered by another son. David was running for his life from the murderer who was now trying to take over David’s kingdom. On the way, he met the curses and stones hurled by Shimei. These are the circumstances surrounding David's flight into into the wilderness of Judah.
At this point in his life, David wrote Psalm 63, which opens with words that are startling when you consider the setting:
O God, you are my God!
Like those two feet splashing through the streets of Wayne, New Jersey, David speaks a truth in the wilderness of Judah that changes the way we understand everything we read in 2 Samuel 16.
David contributed to his own problems. He should have done something about the rape of Tamar. He should have done something about the murder of her rapist and half-brother, Amnon. He should have addressed the many major problems with his son, Absalom. David had plenty of reasons to blame himself for his troubles.
He was running away to the wilderness, and being cursed by an enemy as he went. There was no outward evidence of blessedness or divine favor.
But the Holy Spirit is with us in our time of affliction. The Holy Spirit helped David to look beyond his failures, beyond his troubles, beyond the wilderness of Judah, to see a God who was HIS God.
A few weeks ago, I wrote this in my copy of The Treasury of David:
I don’t often doubt the truth of scripture or the promises of God that are found there. But I often doubt that they are true for me. For a long time, Psalm 54:1 was a puzzle to me: Save me, O God, by thy name. How can anyone be saved by a name?
But now I see that God’s name can be said to save because he tells us his name. The attributes revealed in the various names of God make him someone who is well able to save. But he tells his name to those he is saving. I am the Lord, thy God… We learn that God isn’t just a mighty savior, a helper, a shelter, but he is my savior, my helper, and my shelter.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit to teach us to cry out, like David, “O God, you are my God.” Charles Spurgeon wrote that David “…has no doubts about his possession of his God; and why should other believers have any? The straightforward, clear language of this opening sentence would be far more becoming in Christians than the timorous and doubtful expressions so usual among professors.”
David had many reasons to believe that God might no longer be his God. His cry, claiming God as his God, shows that David had a point of view that was aligned with the horizons of heaven. Creating this point of view within us is the work of the Holy Spirit. In times of affliction, it is a precious work.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
"Thy Word is Truth," Conclusion
A child of God cannot but greatly desire a more enlarged and experimental acquaintance with his holy word; and this attainment is greatly promoted by our trials.
The Long Psalm
In my own time of trouble, I have found much help in the Psalms and in Charles Spurgeon's commentary on the Psalms--A Treasure of David. Psalm 119 was particularly helpful. Sadly, I neglected Psalms 119 for most of my life. I thought it was (1) too repetitive, (2) too long, and (3) too repetitive. (Sorry. Bad joke.) Charles Spurgeon wrote this about people like me: “Many superficial readers have imagined that it harps upon one string, and abounds in pious repetitions and redundancies; but this arises from the shallowness of the reader's own mind.”
But in this time of affliction, I’ve read, prayed, and re-read this psalm. Its words have been a great comfort to me, sometimes quickly reviving my spirits like medicine and other times just providing nourishment like a hearty meal.
The message of Psalm 119 is that the word of God contains essential truth for all of life. Its message is simple: for all of life, we need the truth that comes from God. Each verse has two parts. The first describes some aspect of life and the second speaks to the importance of God’s truth in that setting. The descriptions of different aspects of life range far and wide. They’re like the melody for this Psalm.
In almost every verse you hear the steady percussion: we need the truth that comes from God. A number of different terms are used in this Psalm to designate God’s truth: “word,” “law,” “precepts,” etc. I think these terms are used like the base drum, snare, tom tom, and cymbals, to beat out a single rhythm. Together, the melody and percussion sound like this:
Do we hope to have a happy life? We need the truth that comes from God.
Are we in trouble? We need the truth that comes from God.
Are we oppressed by the wicked? We need the truth that comes from God.
This is a teaching psalm, written for a younger audience. Despite it’s great length, I think it was meant to be memorized. It is arranged in a way that makes it easier to memorize. Yes, all 176 verses were meant to be memorized. I have not done so, but William Wilberforce did and, in a time of political conflict, he wrote in his journal that he “…walked from Hyde Park Corner repeating the 119th Psalm in great comfort.”
It is organized into 22 stanzas that correspond to the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Each stanza has eight verses that begin with the Hebrew letter that corresponds to that stanza—aleph, beth, gimel, etc. An English equivalent would be if the first word in each line of the first stanza started with “a,” and the first word of each line in the second stanza started with “b,” and so on.
Here is my sense of the melody line that runs through this long Psalm. I learned from Psalm 119 last fall.
Aleph: The truth that comes from God makes us happy when we walk in it. “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.” Walking in God’s pathway keeps us from getting covered in the muck of life. “I would not be ashamed when I look into all your commandments.” God’s commandments forbid the things that fill us with shame.
Beth: So learn it right away. “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.” Don’t wait until you’re older to begin walking in God’s way of truth. “Your word have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against you.” Apply yourself to the way of truth; it will keep you out of lots of trouble.
Gimel: Trials will come. “Remove from me reproach and contempt…Princes also sit and speak against me.”
Daleth: These trials are complicated by our own weakness. “Revive me…teach me…make me understand…my soul melts from heaviness…do not put me to shame…”
He: We are really, really weak. “Teach me…give me understanding…make me walk in the path of your commandments…incline my heart to your testimonies…turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things…revive me.” I’m a total disaster.
Waw: So call on God when you’re in trouble. “ Let your mercies come…your salvation” Think more about God than the trials and to cry out to him: SAVE!
Zayin: God’s promises give us comfort and hope in times of affliction. “You have caused me to hope…this is my comfort…your statutes have been my songs.” Even God’s statutes—those commandments whose earthly benefits are not obvious, like the dietary restrictions—are the proper subject of singing. Why? Among other things, because they show us the intimate detail of God’s thoughts towards us.
Heth: God’s promises are comforting because of the nature of the one who makes those promises. “You are my portion, O Lord…The earth, O Lord, is full of your mercy.” I find myself asking for many things in my prayers, but God is what I need.
Teth: In trial, I still see good, good, and good. In the original Hebrew, five of the eight verses in this stanza begin with the word “good.” This emphasis is lost in the English translation. Even the affliction is good: “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word.” In affliction, sin loses a bit of its appeal. God’s word and prayer are not duties, but necessities and privileges.
Yod: God is a mighty savior. He designed us and made us. He is faithful to bring good things to us, even in affliction. “I know, O Lord, that your judgments are right and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.” I am not troubled by the idea that God himself sends my afflictions because of what I know of God’s character and attitudes about me.
Kaph: David’s troubles—he is at rock bottom. “My soul faints…my eyes fail…how many are the days of thy servant?” I’ve felt like that, looking forward to my death, just wanting it to be over. Sometimes, it hurts too much and too long.
Lamed: But God is eternal… Compare my focus on endings with God’s permanence: “Forever you word stands firm in heaven…you established the earth and it stands…your faithfulness endures to all generations.” These are the things we need to know. “Unless your law had been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.”
Mem: …and his word is good… An important focus of this stanza is the effect that God’s truth has on us, especially in times of affliction. It makes us wise—wiser than our enemies, our teachers, and the ancients. It changes our heart, making us hate false ways and love the way of truth. “How I love your law…how sweet are your words…sweeter than honey.”
Nun: …but I am still afflicted. I can see because “your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Not only do I see, but I have also “…sworn and confirmed that I will keep your righteous judgments.” Even so, “I am afflicted very much.”
Samek: There are other ways to live… Without the truth that comes from God, men are double-minded and evil, straying from God’s path.
Ayin: …but God’s way is the right way. “I see that all your ways—all of them!—are straight, pleasing, and good. All other ways are false. I hate them.” After walking in God’s good way, paths that lead through the briars and mud aren’t very appealing.
Pe: God’s way is good. God’s testimonies are wonderful. When I hear his word, it’s like the light comes on and I can suddenly see everything clearly—even the simple-minded can understand when God speaks. That’s why it’s such a shame that men don’t listen to God—“rivers of water run down from my eyes” when I think about it.
Tsadde: God’s way is morally right and true. God is righteous and his word is righteous. His word is very faithful and very pure. His word is absolute truth. Even though trouble and anguish have found me, your word is still a source of delight.
Qoph: So I pray. This is why I have the confidence to “cry out with my whole heart—hear me, O Lord!...Save me!” Your word gives me a hope that wakes me up in the morning ready to pray—even before the sun rises—I cry out to you because your word gives me hope. I lie awake at night, not in worries, but talking to myself about your word. Your word is like an ancient city, standing in splendor, build to last forever. This is why I dare to hope.
Resh: I pray expectantly. “Look at me, see my misery, and deliver me. Fight for me. Consider my troubles. Consider how I love your truth. Give me life again.”
Shin: Earthly rulers fail us, but God’s truth does not. Even the princes disappoint, but God’s truth inspires praise, love, and obedience.
Tau: So again, I pray. Listen to me. I cry for help, I praise you, I talk continuously about your truth. And it’s not just lip-service. I rely on your commandments to keep me out of trouble, I prefer your ways to the ways of this world, and my deepest joy is in your truth. Having said that, I’m lost. Please find me.
The melody line of this psalm twists and turns around hope and despair, cries of anguish and cries of praise, an earthly focus on the details of life's afflictions and a heavenly focus on the good ending that God has promised to his children. It is the stuff of real faith--not the absence of doubt, anguish, and hardship, but a way of thinking and acting in the face of those things.
The truth that is found in God's word gives us a perspective that interjects hope into hopeless circumstances and moments of joy into seasons of great sadness. This truth is found in many forms in Psalm 119:
• law, way: teachings about the paths that God wants us to walk in (torah, derek). [Note that “law,” or “torah,” more literally means instruction that point out the way forward and does not usually encompass the sanctions against lawbreakers]
• testimonies: reminders of God’s power, love, faithfulness, and mercy (edut)
• commandments, judgments, statutes: the rules and sanctions God (mitzvah, mishaptim, and ch’okim)
• precepts: teachings about the things that God places under our direct care (pikudim)
• word: the words, sayings, speeches, and hymns of God (davar, ‘imrah), and
• righteousness: God’s own righteous ways (tzedek)
The steady percussion throughout the twisting and turning melody of this psalm is this: we need the truth that comes from God for all of life.
The various terms used to speak of God's truth in this psalm makes it clear that his truth is more than just a collection of facts. It’s a way of living. Having a firm foundation for life isn't simply a matter of being able to trace out the ways of God on a map. The man with a firm foundation is the one found walking in this way. “…whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock,” Matthew 7:24-25
Conclusion
At every moment, everything we see, hear, and feel is pulling us into alignment with the bent perspective of this fallen world. Without the truth of scripture, we will see everything all wrong. In time of affliction, we will fall victim to the lies, threats, and accusations of our enemy, the devil, and be swallowed up in despair, bitterness, anger, or fear. We need the truth that comes from God, the truth that is found in the Bible. The rest of this book will show what I've learned from the Bible in my time of affliction. It will show the truths that kept me from despair.
We need something else, too. The truth that comes from God is spiritual and only those with spiritual life can benefit from it. To the Christian, God has given us his Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. Without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, it impossible to understand the truth that comes from God, to align ourselves with its heavenly perspective, and to walk in its way. The present-day work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer --to reveal, refine, and empower-- is the subject of the next chapter.
The Long Psalm
In my own time of trouble, I have found much help in the Psalms and in Charles Spurgeon's commentary on the Psalms--A Treasure of David. Psalm 119 was particularly helpful. Sadly, I neglected Psalms 119 for most of my life. I thought it was (1) too repetitive, (2) too long, and (3) too repetitive. (Sorry. Bad joke.) Charles Spurgeon wrote this about people like me: “Many superficial readers have imagined that it harps upon one string, and abounds in pious repetitions and redundancies; but this arises from the shallowness of the reader's own mind.”
But in this time of affliction, I’ve read, prayed, and re-read this psalm. Its words have been a great comfort to me, sometimes quickly reviving my spirits like medicine and other times just providing nourishment like a hearty meal.
The message of Psalm 119 is that the word of God contains essential truth for all of life. Its message is simple: for all of life, we need the truth that comes from God. Each verse has two parts. The first describes some aspect of life and the second speaks to the importance of God’s truth in that setting. The descriptions of different aspects of life range far and wide. They’re like the melody for this Psalm.
In almost every verse you hear the steady percussion: we need the truth that comes from God. A number of different terms are used in this Psalm to designate God’s truth: “word,” “law,” “precepts,” etc. I think these terms are used like the base drum, snare, tom tom, and cymbals, to beat out a single rhythm. Together, the melody and percussion sound like this:
Do we hope to have a happy life? We need the truth that comes from God.
Are we in trouble? We need the truth that comes from God.
Are we oppressed by the wicked? We need the truth that comes from God.
This is a teaching psalm, written for a younger audience. Despite it’s great length, I think it was meant to be memorized. It is arranged in a way that makes it easier to memorize. Yes, all 176 verses were meant to be memorized. I have not done so, but William Wilberforce did and, in a time of political conflict, he wrote in his journal that he “…walked from Hyde Park Corner repeating the 119th Psalm in great comfort.”
It is organized into 22 stanzas that correspond to the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Each stanza has eight verses that begin with the Hebrew letter that corresponds to that stanza—aleph, beth, gimel, etc. An English equivalent would be if the first word in each line of the first stanza started with “a,” and the first word of each line in the second stanza started with “b,” and so on.
Here is my sense of the melody line that runs through this long Psalm. I learned from Psalm 119 last fall.
Aleph: The truth that comes from God makes us happy when we walk in it. “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.” Walking in God’s pathway keeps us from getting covered in the muck of life. “I would not be ashamed when I look into all your commandments.” God’s commandments forbid the things that fill us with shame.
Beth: So learn it right away. “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.” Don’t wait until you’re older to begin walking in God’s way of truth. “Your word have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against you.” Apply yourself to the way of truth; it will keep you out of lots of trouble.
Gimel: Trials will come. “Remove from me reproach and contempt…Princes also sit and speak against me.”
Daleth: These trials are complicated by our own weakness. “Revive me…teach me…make me understand…my soul melts from heaviness…do not put me to shame…”
He: We are really, really weak. “Teach me…give me understanding…make me walk in the path of your commandments…incline my heart to your testimonies…turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things…revive me.” I’m a total disaster.
Waw: So call on God when you’re in trouble. “ Let your mercies come…your salvation” Think more about God than the trials and to cry out to him: SAVE!
Zayin: God’s promises give us comfort and hope in times of affliction. “You have caused me to hope…this is my comfort…your statutes have been my songs.” Even God’s statutes—those commandments whose earthly benefits are not obvious, like the dietary restrictions—are the proper subject of singing. Why? Among other things, because they show us the intimate detail of God’s thoughts towards us.
Heth: God’s promises are comforting because of the nature of the one who makes those promises. “You are my portion, O Lord…The earth, O Lord, is full of your mercy.” I find myself asking for many things in my prayers, but God is what I need.
Teth: In trial, I still see good, good, and good. In the original Hebrew, five of the eight verses in this stanza begin with the word “good.” This emphasis is lost in the English translation. Even the affliction is good: “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word.” In affliction, sin loses a bit of its appeal. God’s word and prayer are not duties, but necessities and privileges.
Yod: God is a mighty savior. He designed us and made us. He is faithful to bring good things to us, even in affliction. “I know, O Lord, that your judgments are right and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.” I am not troubled by the idea that God himself sends my afflictions because of what I know of God’s character and attitudes about me.
Kaph: David’s troubles—he is at rock bottom. “My soul faints…my eyes fail…how many are the days of thy servant?” I’ve felt like that, looking forward to my death, just wanting it to be over. Sometimes, it hurts too much and too long.
Lamed: But God is eternal… Compare my focus on endings with God’s permanence: “Forever you word stands firm in heaven…you established the earth and it stands…your faithfulness endures to all generations.” These are the things we need to know. “Unless your law had been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.”
Mem: …and his word is good… An important focus of this stanza is the effect that God’s truth has on us, especially in times of affliction. It makes us wise—wiser than our enemies, our teachers, and the ancients. It changes our heart, making us hate false ways and love the way of truth. “How I love your law…how sweet are your words…sweeter than honey.”
Nun: …but I am still afflicted. I can see because “your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Not only do I see, but I have also “…sworn and confirmed that I will keep your righteous judgments.” Even so, “I am afflicted very much.”
Samek: There are other ways to live… Without the truth that comes from God, men are double-minded and evil, straying from God’s path.
Ayin: …but God’s way is the right way. “I see that all your ways—all of them!—are straight, pleasing, and good. All other ways are false. I hate them.” After walking in God’s good way, paths that lead through the briars and mud aren’t very appealing.
Pe: God’s way is good. God’s testimonies are wonderful. When I hear his word, it’s like the light comes on and I can suddenly see everything clearly—even the simple-minded can understand when God speaks. That’s why it’s such a shame that men don’t listen to God—“rivers of water run down from my eyes” when I think about it.
Tsadde: God’s way is morally right and true. God is righteous and his word is righteous. His word is very faithful and very pure. His word is absolute truth. Even though trouble and anguish have found me, your word is still a source of delight.
Qoph: So I pray. This is why I have the confidence to “cry out with my whole heart—hear me, O Lord!...Save me!” Your word gives me a hope that wakes me up in the morning ready to pray—even before the sun rises—I cry out to you because your word gives me hope. I lie awake at night, not in worries, but talking to myself about your word. Your word is like an ancient city, standing in splendor, build to last forever. This is why I dare to hope.
Resh: I pray expectantly. “Look at me, see my misery, and deliver me. Fight for me. Consider my troubles. Consider how I love your truth. Give me life again.”
Shin: Earthly rulers fail us, but God’s truth does not. Even the princes disappoint, but God’s truth inspires praise, love, and obedience.
Tau: So again, I pray. Listen to me. I cry for help, I praise you, I talk continuously about your truth. And it’s not just lip-service. I rely on your commandments to keep me out of trouble, I prefer your ways to the ways of this world, and my deepest joy is in your truth. Having said that, I’m lost. Please find me.
The melody line of this psalm twists and turns around hope and despair, cries of anguish and cries of praise, an earthly focus on the details of life's afflictions and a heavenly focus on the good ending that God has promised to his children. It is the stuff of real faith--not the absence of doubt, anguish, and hardship, but a way of thinking and acting in the face of those things.
The truth that is found in God's word gives us a perspective that interjects hope into hopeless circumstances and moments of joy into seasons of great sadness. This truth is found in many forms in Psalm 119:
• law, way: teachings about the paths that God wants us to walk in (torah, derek). [Note that “law,” or “torah,” more literally means instruction that point out the way forward and does not usually encompass the sanctions against lawbreakers]
• testimonies: reminders of God’s power, love, faithfulness, and mercy (edut)
• commandments, judgments, statutes: the rules and sanctions God (mitzvah, mishaptim, and ch’okim)
• precepts: teachings about the things that God places under our direct care (pikudim)
• word: the words, sayings, speeches, and hymns of God (davar, ‘imrah), and
• righteousness: God’s own righteous ways (tzedek)
The steady percussion throughout the twisting and turning melody of this psalm is this: we need the truth that comes from God for all of life.
The various terms used to speak of God's truth in this psalm makes it clear that his truth is more than just a collection of facts. It’s a way of living. Having a firm foundation for life isn't simply a matter of being able to trace out the ways of God on a map. The man with a firm foundation is the one found walking in this way. “…whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock,” Matthew 7:24-25
Conclusion
At every moment, everything we see, hear, and feel is pulling us into alignment with the bent perspective of this fallen world. Without the truth of scripture, we will see everything all wrong. In time of affliction, we will fall victim to the lies, threats, and accusations of our enemy, the devil, and be swallowed up in despair, bitterness, anger, or fear. We need the truth that comes from God, the truth that is found in the Bible. The rest of this book will show what I've learned from the Bible in my time of affliction. It will show the truths that kept me from despair.
We need something else, too. The truth that comes from God is spiritual and only those with spiritual life can benefit from it. To the Christian, God has given us his Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. Without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, it impossible to understand the truth that comes from God, to align ourselves with its heavenly perspective, and to walk in its way. The present-day work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer --to reveal, refine, and empower-- is the subject of the next chapter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
