Trials

C. H. Spurgeon once said that a trial is not a trial if a person doesn't feel it. In other words, if a person could take a difficult situation, step back and analyze it, it would no longer be a trial. For the most part, it means very little to simply know that one is going through a trial. The person still feels it, and stating what it is merely intellectualizes it and does nothing for his or her emotions. So in a trial, one has a definite sense of the intellectual side and the emotional side. The intellectual is easily controlled and analyzed. The emotional is a cyclone.

Perhaps the most interesting part of a trial is the amount of worry even in cases of vast experience. For instance, no matter how many times a person experiences the providence and faithfulness of God, when a trial comes, he or she will simply break under the pressure into worrying. This is perhaps the most vivid example of human weakness. From my personal experience, I can relate to unnecessary worrying. In fact, I have spent many trials looking straight at it intellectually and trying to convince my emotions that worrying is illogical. If God has always been faithful, why do I doubt? It is completely absurd except to show human weakness and instability.

However, one of the best things in a trial is the fellowship of a brother or sister who has been through it before and experienced it all and can tell you about the weakness, the numbness, the waiting, the worrying, the crying, and...of course...the never-failing providence and faithfulness of God.

-8/7/08

*note 1/26/09

Perhaps I should somewhat correct my words and say that sometimes a person gets to a point where they cannot even intellectualize their state anymore, and it is not easily controlled and analyzed anymore.  A person's emotions get into such a cyclone, and the circumstances of life refuse to let that person even reach an intellectual stability.  In times like these, one must cling to that thread-string of faith that God is in control and He wants us to realize that we are frail human beings that cannot control even our minds at times.   But even through that, He has not let go of us; and He will not.  He will reconcile us to Himself once again.  His sovereignty in the Gospel is the only thing that will carry you through times like that.

Darkened Days

As I began to see more and more of God's glory, I realized that many occurrences in the book of Acts did not measure up to the present day. As I gained more understanding of what the writers were saying in the New Testament, I realized still that the people who sat in church did not seem to measure up to the beliefs of the Bible. This was obviously a big objection to make; but in my mind, it stayed waiting and watching throughout my spiritual growth. Of course, the more I would learn about the Word, the more that objection would be fed. Finally, Paul Washer came along with his "Shocking Youth Message" that helped me understand that the world was right about one thing: most American church-attenders are hypocrites. No one has the right to call himself or herself a follower of Christ unless there is the evidence of fruit in his or her life.

That was the beginning. From there, God introduced me to John Piper. What caught my attention about Piper (as most Piper fans I know will also agree) was his grand view of God. Piper's God was not small like the God depicted in every church building I had ever attended in West Kentucky. Piper's God was big. Piper's God was powerful. Piper's God lined up so clearly with Biblical texts that I had no doubt that the God of John Piper was the one and only God who had been working in my entire life.

Perhaps after a year of renewal by the Word of God through John Piper and Paul Washer, I met a brother who was changed in the same way as Piper. Furthermore, this brother had grown up with me in my same culture and could understand the objections that came when the "churches" were compared to the Bible. Therefore, through late night Huddle House meetings, band trips, and the sharing of sermons, God used this brother to introduce me to what true fellowship in the Spirit is like.

So where am I now? What do I understand about this objection? First, everything that God has brought me through still falls in line with Paul Washer's "Shocking Youth Message." Second, this day in which we live is similar to 1 Samuel 3:1 which describes the days in which Samuel was called as days when "the word of the LORD was rare"; and "there was no frequent vision."

Third, I have recently been reading Jonathan Edwards on Revival in which Edwards quotes a Mr. Howe who grew up in a similar time: the time well after the Reformation yet just before the First Great Awakening. What do I see in many church buildings in America today? The same thing Mr. Howe saw:

It is plain, too sadly plain, there is a great retraction of the Spirit of God even from us. We know not how to speak living sense unto souls; how to get within you: our words die in our mouths, or drop and die between you and us. We even faint when we speak; long-experienced unsuccessfulness make us despond: we speak not as persons that hope to prevail, that expect to make you serious, heavenly, mindful of God, and to walk more like Christians.

So what needs to happen? Well, the title of Mr. Howe's discourse is particularly appropriate: "Prosperous State of the Christian Church before the End of Time, by a plentiful Effusion of the Holy Spirit." In other words, in his book, Mr. Howe described what it would look like if God arbitrarily chose to pour out His Spirit upon His Church once again. Edwards then goes on to describe that what we know as the Great Awakening had already begun and much of what Mr. Howe had described had come true. Therefore, the only thing we need for revival today is what we have always needed for everything: the grace of God poured out.

So what do I do in the meantime while many Sundays I only hear reluctant preaching, dead words, and routine prayers? I trust the grace of God to remind me of His promises and sustain me in resting perseverance moment by moment.

Words

The knowledge of God is communicated to man through the means of a language of words. Through the words of the Gospel, God has ordained that we be supplied with faith. Consequently, it makes perfect sense that we rest from our works by having our minds renewed by hearing the words of God. Consider these two examples: David and Joshua.

First, David.

Psalm 1:1-3 (ESV)
1Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.

Do you see the characteristic of the man of God? "His delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night." Notice that God's word is his "delight." Not an obligation. Not a work of the flesh. The flesh does not naturally respond in delight to the law of God! This is a description of the fruit of a man who has been changed by the Gospel. Speaking of fruit, see how fruit is directly related to the man who meditates day and night on the law of God? This is the secret to the life of David.

Now look at Joshua.

Joshua 1:8 (ESV)
8This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Where is the success in the Christian life found? It is only found in meditating on the word of God day and night. But as we saw in the first passage, if meditating on God's law is not a delight, there is a deeper problem. Of course, whenever saints fail to delight in God's law, they are humbled into a renewed declaration of dependence upon the free, sovereign grace of God. Remember, the fruit comes in its season.

Patience

As the years progress, I am astounded of the emphasis of patience in the believer's life. Consider the argument for existentialism. Existentialism, as represented in the play Waiting for Godot, says that every human is given an existence. However, whether or not you find the essence of life is up to you. The play is essentially about two people who sit waiting under a tree for Godot. Towards the end of the play, a little boy comes and tells them that Godot is not coming. The play ends while the two people still wait for Godot. This depicts the existentialists' view of Christians. Christians are waiting and waiting for something to happen that they simply have to make happen themselves.

Existentialists view waiting as counter-productive to the human's essence-discovery. However, Jesus had a different perspective. Jesus says, "You want to find the essence of life? You want to take control of your life and make something happen? You want to possess your own soul? Be patient. Wait" (Luke 21:19). It is so contradictory it becomes almost a sarcastic response to the existential view.

Therein lies the secret to the Christian life. You want to find the essence of life? Be patient and endure various trials. Wait for your faith to be made complete by fire. All your striving apart from Christ striving through you is counter-productive. Persevere by grace that completely supplies the staying-power needed.

Cease from your works, enter His rest

One of the most beautiful parts of the Gospel is the blessed rest that our Savior gives to His children. However, it is amazing how much this doctrine is bombarded in the name of "getting things done" and "not being lazy."

Consider this, is a person "lazy" when he realizes his pitiful state and desires to strive to enter the rest of God by meditation on His Word? Furthermore, how can a saint "get things done" when he realizes the dead state in which he is? There is nothing that he can do.

Nevertheless, mature saints will realize that resting in the Faithful One is no mere excuse for laziness. It is, rather, a declaration of dependence upon the free grace of the sovereign Christ to accomplish every good thing in this life. The only thing you will accomplish by trying to "get things done" is seen as filthy rags in the eyes of the Creator.

What is there left to do then? Well, understanding that anything that is worked out through us by God is "done" by His grace alone will help define the word "do." Consequently, Christ becomes the "doer"; and we remain the vessel. Therefore, we never need to use the word "do"; but in all cases, we use the word "be." For therein lies the blessed truth of producing fruit as a result of who we are in Christ, the true vine. When we understand that fruit is the result of resting in the Faithful One and not the result of our running, striving, or working, we can rest in who Christ has made us by continually ceasing from our dead works that bring only sin and strife and entering into the rest of trusting Christ to do the work and produce the fruit through us.

This, all of this, is based on the foundation of the Sovereign, Creator God. If God is not completely sovereign, our rest is not complete. Our rest begins in His sovereign grace which must be more stubborn than our sin in order to actually bring rest. Anything else is a rest made out of straw. It is a surface rest and nothing else.

Think of the implications, if God is sovereign and He does completely save and He does produce the fruit through us and He does command us to rest completely from our works, then Christ truly does give rest to the weary and burdened.

I ask you, O eternal-security based believer, do you rest from your works or hide your failures?

Do not sell the Gospel

There is no room for selfishness in the Gospel. See Jesus' encounter with the rich, young ruler in Matthew 19 for more information...

clipped from www.desiringgod.org

Loneliness in Ministry

Charles Leiter once gave a sermon on the loneliness of Christ. Many saints, if not all, experience loneliness in the ministry, specifically in the area of doctrine. When God's grace establishes His Word as the foundation for a saint's life and that saint no longer looks to his own experiences and reasoning for wisdom but wishes that all his reasoning and interpretation of his experiences be conformed to the Word of God, he finds very few followers of Christ who understand that exactly to follow alongside. Praise God! that in these darkened days where there are no frequent visions of the LORD, He has provided the few thirsty saints with a fountain flowing from many pastors and evangelists such as John Piper, R. C. Sproul, and Paul Washer who have their messages available on the internet. Nevertheless, that falls short of fellowship; and if there is one thing that I often find myself wishing, it is that I could simply find others who are in the same situation.

Well, if you understand the loneliness of reformed believers in America today, you are not alone. I am with you; and yes, He is with us.