{"id":1971,"date":"2018-09-28T09:35:14","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T14:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/?p=1962"},"modified":"2018-09-28T09:35:14","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T14:35:14","slug":"laid-aside-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/2018\/09\/28\/laid-aside-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Laid Aside: Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[By Charles Spurgeon. Excerpted from an article in The Sword and Trowel<\/i><\/em>, May 1876. I read a quote from this article in the September 23 sermon – Coty]<\/p>\n

Mysterious\u00a0are the visitations of sickness. When the Lord\u00a0is using a man for his glory\u00a0it is singular that he should all of a sudden smite\u00a0him down, and suspend his usefulness. It must be right, but the reason for it does not lie\u00a0near the surface. The sinner\u00a0whose every act pollutes the society in which he moves is frequently permitted year after year to spend an unabating vigor in infecting all who approach him. No sickness removes him even for an hour from his deadly\u00a0ministry; he is always at his post, energetic in his mission of destruction. How is it that a heart\u00a0eager for the welfare of men and the glory\u00a0of God\u00a0should find itself hampered by a sickly\u00a0frame, and checked in its utmost usefulness by attacks of painful\u00a0disease?<\/p>\n

We may ask the question\u00a0if we do so without murmuring, but who shall answer it for us? When the advance of a body of soldiers\u00a0is stopped by a galling fire\u00a0which scatters painful\u00a0wounds\u00a0on all sides, we understand that this is but one of the natural\u00a0incidents of war; but if a commander should check his troops in mid-battle, and proceed with his own hand\u00a0to render some of his most zealous\u00a0warriors incapable of service, should we not be at a loss to conceive his motives? Happily for us our happiness\u00a0does not depend upon our understanding the providence of God: we are able to believe where we are not able to explain, and we are content to leave a thousand\u00a0mysteries\u00a0unsolved rather than tolerate a single doubt as to the wisdom\u00a0and goodness\u00a0of our heavenly Father. The painful\u00a0malady which puts the Christian\u00a0minister\u00a0h<\/i><\/em>o<\/i><\/em>rs de combat <\/i><\/em>[\u201cout of action due to injury\u201d] when he is most needed in the conflict\u00a0is a kind\u00a0messenger from the God\u00a0of love, and is to be entertained\u00a0as such: this we know, but how it can be so we cannot precisely tell. Let us consider awhile. Is it not good for us to be nonplussed, and puzzled, and so forced to exercise\u00a0faith? Would it be well for us to have all things so ordered that we ourselves could see the reason for every dispensation?<\/p>\n

Could the scheme of divine\u00a0love\u00a0be indeed supremely, infinitely, wise\u00a0if we could measure it with our short line of reason? Should we not ourselves remain as foolish and conceited\u00a0as spoiled\u00a0and petted children, if all things were arranged according to our judgment\u00a0of what would be fit and proper?<\/p>\n

Ah, it is well to be cast out of our depth, and made to swim\u00a0in the sweet waters of mighty love! We know that it is supremely blessed\u00a0to be compelled to cease from self, to surrender both wish and judgment, and to lie\u00a0passive in the hands\u00a0of God.<\/p>\n

It is of the utmost importance to us to be kept humble. Consciousness of self-importance is a hateful\u00a0delusion, but one into which we fall as naturally as weeds grow on a dunghill. We cannot be used of the Lord\u00a0but what we also dream\u00a0of personal greatness; we think ourselves almost indispensable to the church, pillars\u00a0of the cause, and foundations\u00a0of the temple\u00a0of God.<\/p>\n

We are nothings and nobodies, but that we do not think so is very evident, for as soon as we are put on the shelf we begin anxiously to enquire, \u201cHow will the work\u00a0go on without me?\u201d As well might the fly\u00a0on the coach wheel\u00a0inquire, \u201cHow will the mails be carried without me?\u201d Far\u00a0better men have been laid in the grave\u00a0without having brought the Lord\u2019s work\u00a0to a standstill, and shall we fume and fret because for a little season\u00a0we must lie\u00a0upon the bed\u00a0of languishing? If we were only put on one side when apparently we could be easily spared, there would be no rebuke\u00a0to our pride, but to weaken our strength\u00a0in the way at the precise juncture when our presence seems most needed, is the surest way to teach\u00a0us that we are not necessary to God\u2019s work, and that when we are most useful he can easily do without us. If this be the practical lesson, the rough\u00a0schooling may be easily endured, for assuredly it is beyond all things desirable that self should be kept low and the Lord\u00a0alone magnified.<\/p>\n

May not our gracious Lord\u00a0design a double honor\u00a0when he sends a double set of trials? \u201cAbundant in labors\u201d is a high degree, but \u201cpatient in suffering\u201d is not less so. Some believers\u00a0have excelled\u00a0in active service, but have scarcely been tried in the other and equally honorable\u00a0field\u00a0of submissive endurance; though veterans in work, they have been little better than raw recruits as to patience, and on this account they have been in some respects but half developed in their Christian\u00a0manhood. May not the Lord\u00a0have choice designs for some of his servants\u00a0and intend to perfect\u00a0them in both forms of Christly imitation? \u2026<\/p>\n

A change in the mode of our spiritual\u00a0exercises\u00a0may also be highly beneficial, and avert unknown but serious evils. The cumbering engendered by much service, like a growth upon the bark of a fruit tree, might become injurious, and therefore our Father, who is the husbandman, with the rough\u00a0instruments\u00a0of pain\u00a0scrapes away the obnoxious parasite. Great walkers have assured us that they tire soonest upon level ground, but that in scaling the mountains\u00a0and descending the valleys\u00a0fresh\u00a0muscles are brought into play, and the variety of the exertion and change of scene enable them to hold on with less fatigue: pilgrims\u00a0to heaven\u00a0can probably confirm this witness. The continuous exercise\u00a0of a single virtue, called forth by peculiar\u00a0circumstances, is exceedingly commendable; but if other graces are allowed to lie\u00a0dormant, the soul\u00a0may become warped, and the good may be exaggerated till it is tinged with evil. Holy activities are the means of blessing\u00a0to a large part of our nature, but there are other equally precious portions of our new-born\u00a0manhood which are unvisited by their influence. \u2026<\/p>\n

May not severe discipline\u00a0fall to the lot of some to qualify them for their office\u00a0of under-shepherds? We cannot speak with consoling authority\u00a0to an experience which we have never known. The suffering know those who have themselves suffered, and their smell is as the smell of a field\u00a0which the Lord\u00a0hath blessed. The \u201cword to the weary\u201d is not learned\u00a0except by an ear\u00a0which has bled while the awl has fastened it to the door-post. \u201cThe complete pastor\u2019s\u201d life\u00a0will be an epitome of the lives of his people, and they will turn to his preaching\u00a0as men do to David\u2019s Psalms, to see themselves and their sorrows, as in a mirror. Their needs will be the reason for his griefs. As to the Lord\u00a0himself, perfect\u00a0equipment for his work\u00a0came only through suffering; so must it be to those who are called to follow him in binding up the broken-hearted, and loosing the prisoners. Souls\u00a0still remain in our churches\u00a0to whose deep\u00a0and dark\u00a0experience we shall never be able to minister\u00a0till we also have been plunged in the abyss\u00a0where all Jehovah\u2019s waves roll\u00a0over our heads, If this be the fact – and we are sure it is – then may we heartily welcome anything which will make us fitter channels of blessing. For the elect\u2019s sake it shall be joy\u00a0to endure\u00a0all things; to bear part of \u201cthat which is behind of the afflictions\u00a0of Christ\u00a0in my flesh\u00a0for his body\u2019s sake, which is the church\u201d shall be bliss to us.<\/p>\n

Alas, there may be far\u00a0more humiliating causes for our bodily afflictions! The Lord\u00a0may see in us that which grieves\u00a0him and provokes him to use the rod.\u00a0\u2026\u00a0It can never be superfluous to humble\u00a0ourselves and institute self-examination, for even if we walk\u00a0in our integrity\u00a0and can lift up our face without shame\u00a0in this matter, as to actual sin, yet our shortcomings and omissions must cause us to blush. How much holier we ought to have been, and might have been! How much more prevalently we might have prayed! With how much more of unction we might have preached! Here is endless\u00a0room\u00a0for tender confession before the Lord.<\/p>\n

Yet it is not good to attribute each sickness and trial\u00a0to some actual fault, as though we were under the law, or could be punished\u00a0again for those sins\u00a0which Jesus\u00a0bore in his own body on the tree. It would be ungenerous to others if we looked upon the greatest sufferer as necessarily the greatest sinner; everybody knows that it would be unjust\u00a0and unchristian so to judge\u00a0concerning our fellow-Christians, and therefore we shall be very unwise\u00a0if we apply so erroneous a rule to ourselves, and morbidly condemn\u00a0ourselves when God\u00a0condemns not. Just now, when anguish\u00a0fills the heart, and the spirits are bruised\u00a0with sore pain\u00a0and travail, it is not the best\u00a0season\u00a0for forming a candid judgment\u00a0of our own condition, or of anything else; let the judging faculty lie\u00a0by, and let us with tears\u00a0of loving\u00a0confession throw ourselves upon our Father\u2019s bosom, and looking up into his face believe that he loves\u00a0us with all his infinite heart. \u201cThough he slay\u00a0me yet will I trust\u00a0in him,\u201d \u2014 be this the one unvarying resolve, and may the eternal\u00a0Spirit work\u00a0in us a perfect\u00a0acquiescence in the whole will of God, be that will what it may.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[By Charles Spurgeon. Excerpted from an article in The Sword and Trowel, May 1876. I read a quote from this article in the September 23 sermon – Coty] Mysterious\u00a0are the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,15],"tags":[85,272,420,548,751,756,1086,1132,1423,1450,1519,1565,1579,1623,1696],"class_list":["post-1971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-church-leadership","category-devotions","tag-abundant-in-labors","tag-charles-spurgeon","tag-disease","tag-fly-on-the-coach-wheel","tag-how-will-the-work-go-on-without-me","tag-humility","tag-nothings-and-nobodies","tag-patient-in-suffering","tag-self-importance","tag-sickness","tag-suffering","tag-the-sword-and-trowel","tag-though-he-slay-me","tag-trust","tag-why-me"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}