An Emerging Church blogger recently took aim at the Family Worship resource that I reviewed last year. His postmodernism apparently conflicted with the male/female family roles, and the call for a return to an emphasis on family devotions the old way: "I am especially interested in hearing from women and parents . . . is the solution to the problem of the family really going to be a 'present return to the old paths'?" You don't have to look far for disdain towards past Christianity; there's not much use for it today. But in this post, Chad reminds us of yet another resource from the past that you can use to deepen your present understanding of the Lord. It's another timeless Puritan classic on the wisdom and sovereignty of God displayed in the afflictions of men. Tomorrow I'll be back with a short example of it, being lived out in the life of a brother who God has been sustaining for years under incredible trials. Chad now continues:
Ecclesiastes 7:13 - Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?
Affliction and pain are common to the life of a Christian. Along with the joy of having sins forgiven and being saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Christian is guaranteed to suffer in this present evil world. It is a promise of scripture that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution in this present evil age (2 Tim 3:12). We are even to suffer chastisement at the hand of the Lord for our correction, to wean us from our reliance upon the world, to draw us closer to God and cause us to seek him all the more, being made to see our utter hopelessness and the depth of our sin, and to keep in the front of our minds that only Christ's righteousness gives us any hope. Chastisement is for our good, to grow us in holiness, cf. Heb.12:1-11. By contrast the message coming from so many pulpits today is exactly the opposite. People are told that God wants them to be successful and happy in the things of the world. Some of the largest mega-churches base their entire ministry on teaching you how to gain possessions, wealth, and happiness by having Christ as your savior. They often teach that blessing means worldly gain and that if you are suffering in affliction then you are not living to the potential that God has planned for your life. Wealth and prosperity are to be expected, hardship and pain, they say, means your faith is low and weak. Another teaching common today is that affliction and hardship is something that comes from Satan, from a spirit of oppression, that God would never subject one of his children to trial and hardship, that hardship and trial is of the Devil. Many say that God loves us too much to allow us to suffer. It is your duty, they would say, to shake free of trial and hardship. They say that you have the power to break free of hardship and that if you do not do so - then you are weak in faith. True and strong faith, however, is shown by the one who meets affliction and trial with faith that the Lord is in charge of all circumstances, that our lot in life is from the Lord. It is true and strong faith that seeks the Lord to straighten the crook in one's lot. Instead of trying to raise ourselves up we are instead to humble ourselves under God's hand and providence. "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him", Job 13:15.
In his book, "The Crook in the Lot", Thomas Boston expounds upon the bible's teaching that the crooks in our lots are of God's making. That the rough places in life are from God to humble us and to break us of our pride and to wean us from this present world. Boston teaches us that we are to seek the Lord for the remedy to our troubles and to wait on the Lord's timing and that to fight against God's providence and lift ourselves up is to strive with our maker. Here is an excerpt from his book which shows us how all of our circumstances are directly from the hand of the Lord, that they are His making.
The crook in the lot whatever it is, of God's making, appears from these three considerations.1. It cannot be questioned that the crook in the lot, considered as a crook, is a penal evil, whatever it is for the matter thereof; that is, whether the thing itself, its immediate cause and occasion, be sinful or not, it is certainly a punishment or affliction. Now, as it may be, as such, holily and justly brought on us, by our Sovereign Lord and Judge, so he expressly claims the doing or making of it. Amos 3:6, "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord has not done it?" Wherefore, since there can be no penal evil but of God's making, and the crook in the lot is such an evil, it is necessarily concluded to be of God's making. 2. It is evident, from Scripture the doctrine of Divine providence, that God brings about every man's lot, and all the parts thereof. He sits at the helm of human affairs, and turneth them about whithersoever He listeth. "Whatever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven and in earth, in the seas and all deep places," Psalm 135:6. There is not anything whatsoever that befalls us without His overruling hand. The same providence that brought us out of the womb, bringeth us to, and fixeth us in, the condition and places allotted for us, by Him who "hath determined the times, and the bounds of our habitation," Acts 17:26. It overrules the smallest and most casual things about us, such as "hairs of our heads falling on the ground," Matt 10:29,30; a "lot cast into the lap," Prov. 16:33. Yea, the free acts of our will, whereby we choose for ourselves; for even "the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water", Prov. 21:1. And the whole steps we make, and which others make in reference to us; for "the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps," Jer. 10:23. And this, whether these steps causing the crook be deliberate and sinful ones, such as Joseph's brethren selling him into Egypt; or whether they be undersigned, such as man-slaughter purely casual, as when one hewing wood kills his neighbor with "the head of the axe slipping from the helve," Duet. 19:5. For there is a holy and wise providence that governs the sinful and heedless actions of men, as a rider doth a lame horse, of whose halting, not he, but the horse's lameness is the true and proper cause; wherefore, in the former of these cases God is said to have sent Joseph into Egypt, Gen 45:7, and in the latter, to deliver one into his neighbor's hand, Exod. 21:13. 3. God hath by an eternal decree, immovable as mountains of brass, Zech 6:1, appointed the whole of everyone's lot, the crooked parts thereof, as well as the straight. By the same eternal decree, whereby whereby the high and low parts of the earth, the mountains and the valleys, were appointed, are the heights and the depths, the prosperity and the adversity, in the lot of the inhabitants thereof determined; and they are brought about, in time, in perfect agreeableness thereto. The mystery of providence, in the government of the world, is, in all parts thereof, the building reared up of God, in exact conformity to the pan of his decree, "who worketh all things after the counsel of this own will," Eph.1:11. So that there is never a crook in one's lot but may be run up to this original. Hereof Job piously sets us an example in his own case: Job 23:13,14 "He is in one mind, and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth that he doth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me; and many such things are with him."
Let us therefore humble ourselves under God's mighty hand. If you are experiencing hardship or trial, know that this is from the hand of the Lord and let that knowledge humble you. Search the scriptures and you will see that no one who suffered affliction was able apart from the Lord to raise himself up, it was only in the Lord's timing and according to his good pleasure that trials were abated. No man has in his own power to make straight that which God has made crooked.
Ecclesiastes 7:13 - Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?
Affliction and pain are common to the life of a Christian. Along with the joy of having sins forgiven and being saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Christian is guaranteed to suffer in this present evil world. It is a promise of scripture that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution in this present evil age (2 Tim 3:12). We are even to suffer chastisement at the hand of the Lord for our correction, to wean us from our reliance upon the world, to draw us closer to God and cause us to seek him all the more, being made to see our utter hopelessness and the depth of our sin, and to keep in the front of our minds that only Christ's righteousness gives us any hope. Chastisement is for our good, to grow us in holiness, cf. Heb.12:1-11. By contrast the message coming from so many pulpits today is exactly the opposite. People are told that God wants them to be successful and happy in the things of the world. Some of the largest mega-churches base their entire ministry on teaching you how to gain possessions, wealth, and happiness by having Christ as your savior. They often teach that blessing means worldly gain and that if you are suffering in affliction then you are not living to the potential that God has planned for your life. Wealth and prosperity are to be expected, hardship and pain, they say, means your faith is low and weak. Another teaching common today is that affliction and hardship is something that comes from Satan, from a spirit of oppression, that God would never subject one of his children to trial and hardship, that hardship and trial is of the Devil. Many say that God loves us too much to allow us to suffer. It is your duty, they would say, to shake free of trial and hardship. They say that you have the power to break free of hardship and that if you do not do so - then you are weak in faith. True and strong faith, however, is shown by the one who meets affliction and trial with faith that the Lord is in charge of all circumstances, that our lot in life is from the Lord. It is true and strong faith that seeks the Lord to straighten the crook in one's lot. Instead of trying to raise ourselves up we are instead to humble ourselves under God's hand and providence. "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him", Job 13:15.
In his book, "The Crook in the Lot", Thomas Boston expounds upon the bible's teaching that the crooks in our lots are of God's making. That the rough places in life are from God to humble us and to break us of our pride and to wean us from this present world. Boston teaches us that we are to seek the Lord for the remedy to our troubles and to wait on the Lord's timing and that to fight against God's providence and lift ourselves up is to strive with our maker. Here is an excerpt from his book which shows us how all of our circumstances are directly from the hand of the Lord, that they are His making.
The crook in the lot whatever it is, of God's making, appears from these three considerations.1. It cannot be questioned that the crook in the lot, considered as a crook, is a penal evil, whatever it is for the matter thereof; that is, whether the thing itself, its immediate cause and occasion, be sinful or not, it is certainly a punishment or affliction. Now, as it may be, as such, holily and justly brought on us, by our Sovereign Lord and Judge, so he expressly claims the doing or making of it. Amos 3:6, "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord has not done it?" Wherefore, since there can be no penal evil but of God's making, and the crook in the lot is such an evil, it is necessarily concluded to be of God's making. 2. It is evident, from Scripture the doctrine of Divine providence, that God brings about every man's lot, and all the parts thereof. He sits at the helm of human affairs, and turneth them about whithersoever He listeth. "Whatever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven and in earth, in the seas and all deep places," Psalm 135:6. There is not anything whatsoever that befalls us without His overruling hand. The same providence that brought us out of the womb, bringeth us to, and fixeth us in, the condition and places allotted for us, by Him who "hath determined the times, and the bounds of our habitation," Acts 17:26. It overrules the smallest and most casual things about us, such as "hairs of our heads falling on the ground," Matt 10:29,30; a "lot cast into the lap," Prov. 16:33. Yea, the free acts of our will, whereby we choose for ourselves; for even "the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water", Prov. 21:1. And the whole steps we make, and which others make in reference to us; for "the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps," Jer. 10:23. And this, whether these steps causing the crook be deliberate and sinful ones, such as Joseph's brethren selling him into Egypt; or whether they be undersigned, such as man-slaughter purely casual, as when one hewing wood kills his neighbor with "the head of the axe slipping from the helve," Duet. 19:5. For there is a holy and wise providence that governs the sinful and heedless actions of men, as a rider doth a lame horse, of whose halting, not he, but the horse's lameness is the true and proper cause; wherefore, in the former of these cases God is said to have sent Joseph into Egypt, Gen 45:7, and in the latter, to deliver one into his neighbor's hand, Exod. 21:13. 3. God hath by an eternal decree, immovable as mountains of brass, Zech 6:1, appointed the whole of everyone's lot, the crooked parts thereof, as well as the straight. By the same eternal decree, whereby whereby the high and low parts of the earth, the mountains and the valleys, were appointed, are the heights and the depths, the prosperity and the adversity, in the lot of the inhabitants thereof determined; and they are brought about, in time, in perfect agreeableness thereto. The mystery of providence, in the government of the world, is, in all parts thereof, the building reared up of God, in exact conformity to the pan of his decree, "who worketh all things after the counsel of this own will," Eph.1:11. So that there is never a crook in one's lot but may be run up to this original. Hereof Job piously sets us an example in his own case: Job 23:13,14 "He is in one mind, and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth that he doth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me; and many such things are with him."
Let us therefore humble ourselves under God's mighty hand. If you are experiencing hardship or trial, know that this is from the hand of the Lord and let that knowledge humble you. Search the scriptures and you will see that no one who suffered affliction was able apart from the Lord to raise himself up, it was only in the Lord's timing and according to his good pleasure that trials were abated. No man has in his own power to make straight that which God has made crooked.
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