How To Face Hard Times

Difficult times are here for our country. That is no surprise. But, of course, what perhaps will come along with it are serious, hard times for the church. So, how is a Christian to respond to difficulty, persecution, and the like? Rev. Alexander Peden pastored in difficult times, and he related the following story:

"There was a poor widow woman in the countryside, as I came through, that was worth many of you. She was asked how she did in this evil time. 'I do very well,' she said. 'I got more of one verse of the Bible now than I did of all the Bible in times past. He hath cast me the keys to the pantry door, and bidden me take my fill.'"

Rev. John Livingstone

I have been reading the memoirs of Rev. John Livingstone, a Scottish Puritan of the 17th century. Rev. Livingstone was a member of the Westminster Assembly that met in the 1640's, while he pastored a church in Ireland. Within twenty years of the Assembly, some of the divines were thrown out of their churches due to the "Great Ejectment" of 1662. Let's listen to the words of Livingstone regarding this time:

He was brought before the ecclesiastical council in Edinburgh and "they required me to subseryve the oath which they called the Oath of Alleadgeance, wherin the king was to be acknowledged supream governour over all persons, and in all causes, both civill and ecclesiasticall. This I know was contrived . . . that it might import receding from the covenant for reformation, and the bringing in of the bishops. . . Therefore, I refused to take that oath. They desyred to know if I would take some time to advise anent the matter, as some who had been before them had done. . . I told I needed not take tyme, seeing I was abundantly clear that I could not lawfully take that oath."

The ecclesiastical council pronounced banishment . . . Livingstone had 48 hours to leave Edinburgh and two months to depart all the king's domains. He left his church and went to Rotterdam. Within a year, his wife came to him with two of their children, although five children remained in Scotland. Livingstone, a Scottish lion of the covenant, died in Rotterdam on August 9, 1672.

In my ordination examination for the PCA, the first question I was asked was, "Who is head of the church?" The answer is, "Jesus Christ alone." Livingstone and others paid a heavy price for that truth . . . and perhaps someday we will be called to stand our post as well.

The Believer's hope

Horatius Bonar gives us these wonderful words on the hope of the Christian:

"The hope of the Christian is a hope full of immortality; a hope which God himself gives, and of which no man can rob us. It is divine and everlasting. It brings with it the peace which passes all understanding; and it contains in it a joy unspeakable and full of glory. There is no disappointment in it ... It is sure and glorious, like Jesus Christ, from whom it comes. It is connected with a crown, with an inheritance, with a kingdom, with a glory that does not fade away, and with an eternity of joy. "

May we live each day in the light of this sure hope - a hope as sure as the savior on whom it rests!!

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Abigail Townsend

Abigail Townsend was the daughter of a man who was great friends with George Muller, the Christian preacher who started numerous orphanages in England in the 19th century. She knew Muller quite well, and there is a short biographical sketch about her titled The Adventures of Sister Abigail. One story from it is worth mentioning:

One morning she was playing in the garden at one of the orphanages, and Rev. Muller came, took her hand, and said, "Come and see what our Father will do." He led her into the dining room where all the children were standing in line waiting for breakfast. But there was nothing but empty dishes on the tables. Lifting his hand, Muller prayed, "Dear Father, we thank thee for what Thou are going to give us to eat." Immediately there was a knock on the door, and a baker was standing there. He said, "Mr. Muller, I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn't have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at two o'clock and baked some fresh bread, and have brought it." Almost immediately they heard a second knock, and this time it was a milkman. "Mr. Muller, my milk cart has broken down outside the orphanage. I would like to give the children the cans of fresh milk so that I can empty the waggon and repair it."

I heard someone recently say that he was tired of hearing these stories about Muller because things don't happen that way. Really?

David Dickson

Rev. David Dickson was a Scottish Puritan of the 17th century, and he was one who participated in many of the great events of that century in the Church of Scotland. He was pastor of a congregation at Irvine for 22 years, then became Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow in 1641, and then held the same title at Edinburgh University. He was one of the drafters of the Directory of Public Worship of the acts of the Assembly in 1643. He was turned out of the church during the "Great Ejection" of 1662.

In 1662, David Dickson lay on his death-bed. He was visited by Rev. John Livingston, another great worthy of the Scottish Puritans. Livingston asked the professor how he was doing . . . he answered, "I have taken all my good deeds, and all my bad deeds, and cast them through each other in a heap before the Lord, and fled from both, and betaken myself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and in him I have sweet peace." At the end, he called his family together, and spoke to each one in turn, and then he pronounced upon them all the apostolic blessing of 2 Corinthians 13:14, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." He immediately raised his hand, closed his eyes, and died in the arms of his son.

Welsh

Rev. John Welsh was a Scottish Puritan who, in the seventeenth century, was for a time prisoner in Edinburgh Castle before he was sent into exile in France. One evening as he was sitting at supper with a number of the prisoners as he usually did . . . and he would preach to the prisoners and have godly and edifying conversations about the gospel. His teachings in prison were well received, except for one young Catholic prisoner. He would laugh at Welsh, make faces at him, and mock his teachings. At this dinner, Welsh told his men to be silent and watch what the Lord was about to do to this profane mocker. Almost immediately the young man sank down beneath the table and died, and he did not return to life "to the great astonishment of all the company."

Doctrine Preached

Charles Spurgeon comments on why ministers ought to preach doctrine from the pulpit:

"My experience goes to show that there have been persons converted to God by doctrines that some might have thought altogether unlikely to produce that result. I have known the doctrine of the resurrection to bring sinners to Christ; I have heard of scores brought to the Savior by a discourse upon election, -- the very sort of people who, as far as I can see, would never have been reached if that truth had not happened to be an angular doctrine that just struck their heart in the right place, and fitted into the crevices of their nature. I have often preached a terrible sermon upon the law, and afterwards found that sinners had been comforted by it. God frequently blesses the Word in the very opposite manner to that in which I thought it would be blessed, and He brings very, very many, to know their state by nature by doctrines which I should have thought would rather have comforted believers than awakened the unconverted"

John Welsh

I have recently been reading about Rev. John Welsh. He was one of John Knox's sons-in-law, and he was a stalwart for the reformed faith in Scotland. Because of his godly stand Welsh was driven from Britain for a time and pastored some churches in France for a number of years. There is an interesting story about Welsh when he was ministering in one of these French villages. One evening a Catholic friar was traveling through the country and he needed a place to stay the night. He knocked on Welsh's door, and he was kindly received . . . although supper was over, the family made some special for the friar and then they led him to his bed chamber. In the middle of the night the friar awoke because he heard this constant whispering noise . . . he was greatly troubled by it and didn't know what it was. Next day the friar was walking in the fields in the area, encountered a local man, and told him all about the previous night staying with a Huguenot minister. The friar told the man that he thought the minister and the devil were conversing all night long. The local man told him he was mistaken, but that Welsh prayed more than any man in France and that is what he had heard.

That night the friar imposed on the Welsh family again because he wanted to test the minister. Late in the night the friar heard the same whispering . . . so he crept to John Welsh's bedroom to listen. He heard the minister praying to God in such a way as he never heard before. Next morning the friar came to the minister and said that he had been born in ignorance and raised in darkness . . . but now he wished to venture his soul with Rev. Welsh, and at the very moment declared himself a Protestant. Rev. Welsh welcomed him, encouraged him, and the man remained a fervent, constant Protestant until the day he died.

The Relevancy of the Word

Writing earlier this century, Professor John Murray diagnosed a main issue facing the church: "There is no [denying] the fact that the situation in which we are placed today is one of peculiar gravity. There is ... the intense secularism of the man of today. It is the challenge of the secularized mind, and the supposed irrelevance [of the historical gospel], that have constrained the leading exponents of today's Protestantism to reconstruct the gospel so that it will be relevant. This is the capital sin of our generation."

Murray goes on, "But the question for us is: how are we, holding to the sufficiency of Scripture, going to meet the secularism, or whatever else the attitude may be, of this modern man?"

In other words, what is the church to do in the face of the increasing compromise of the word of God? The answer John Murray gives? Proclaim the word of God in all its majesty and fullness!

"If Scripture is the revelation of the gospel, then it is this revelation in all its fullness, richness, wisdom, and power, that must be applied to man in whatever situation he is to be found. We must bring forth from its inexhaustible treasures, in exposition, proclamation, and application, what is the wisdom and power of God for man. There will then be commanding relevance, for it will be the message from God in the unction and power of the Spirit."

"The word of God is living and active and sharper than a double-edged sword" (Hebrews 4:12).

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Time Well Spent

The world in which we live offers us many things that can supposedly bring us peace and joy: material prosperity, positive self-esteem, and on and on. But the great 19th century Scot, Robert Murray McCheyne had a different view, "All my ideas of peace and joy are linked in with my Bible; and I would not give the hours of secret converse with it for all the other hours I spend in this world." For it is in the written word that we meet the living Word who is the bread of life and the living water, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us never give up our time meeting with the Lord in the Scriptures.

"Do not love the world or the things in the world ... For all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions - is not from the Father, but is from the world" (1 John 2:15-16).

"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11).

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Newton's Epitaph

John Newton died on December 21, 1807, and he was buried in the graveyard at St. Mary Woolnoth next to his beloved wife Mary. (Their remains were reinterred in the Olney churchyard in 1893.) Newton wrote his own epitaph and it was carved on a plain marble tablet over his grave:

JOHN NEWTON

CLERK

ONCE AN INFIDEL AND LIBERTINE

A SERVANT OF SLAVES IN AFRICA,

WAS,

BY THE RICH MERCY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR

JESUS CHRIST,

PRESERVED, RESTORED, PARDONED,

AND APPOINTED TO PREACH THE FAITH

HE HAD LONG LABOURED TO DESTROY.

HE MINISTERED

NEAR XVI YEARS AS CURATE AND VICAR

OF OLNEY IN BUCKS

AND XXVIII AS RECTOR

OF THESE UNITED PARISHES.

ON FEBRY THE FIRST MDCCI HE MARRIED

MARY

DAUGHTER OF THE LATE GEORGE CATLETT,

OF CHATHAM KENT,

WHOM HE RESIGNED

TO THE LORD WHO GAVE HER,

ON DECR THE XVTH MDCCXC.

Muller

George Muller, of course, founded three orphanages in England in the 19th century that housed thousands of children. It took great sums of money to operate these institutions. But Muller refused to ask for money from anyone except the Lord. He comments on a most difficult period: "Of all the seasons that I had ever passed through since I had been living in this way, up to that time, I never knew any period in my faith was tried so sharply as during the four months from December 12 1841 to April 12 1842."

Although the children never wanted for food or clothing, there were some very narrow escapes during this time. For example, on February 8, 1842, there was enough food for that day, but no money to buy any food for the next day. Muller though that they had never been poorer. He commented, "Truly we are poorer than ever; but, through grace, my eyes look not at the empty stores and the empty purse, but to the riches of the Lord only." Next morning Muller walked to the orphanages to see how God would meet their need, only to find that it had already been met. A Christian businessman was that morning walking to his place of employment when the thought came to him that the children in the orphanages might be in need. So he thought that in the evening he would go visit the homes to see what he could do. But he later explained, "I could not go any further and felt constrained to go back." He went directly to the orphanages and gave them enough money for two days of food.

Shaftesbury

In our day and age when politicians are often unwilling to say where they stand on religious issues, it is refreshing to hear the words of Lord Shaftesbury who was a Christian politician during the 19th century:

"I think a man's religion, if it is worth anything, should enter into every sphere of life, and rule his conduct in every relation. I have always been -- and, please God, always shall be -- an Evangelical of the Evangelicals, and no biography can represent me that does not fully and emphatically represent my religious views."

People today, of course, would scream "separation of church and state" if they heard these words from one of our politicians. But Shaftesbury is right: there should be no separation of religion and the state.

Ash Heap Lives

In a sermon entitled, "Ash Heap Lives," Francis Schaeffer discusses the reality that many in the church spend their time and effort storing up treasures on earth. He writes, "Tragically, all too many of us live out this antithesis of true (i.e. Biblical) spirituality. We all tend to live 'ash heap lives'; we spend most of our time and money for things that will end up in the city dump." But the outlook of the Christian, Schaeffer says, "... is supposed to be different. We must never live in the perspective of this life alone ... Jesus himself taught this, 'Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and thieves break in a steal; but store up for yourself treasure in heaven, where moth and rust do not corrupt, and thieves do not break in and steal' (Matt 6:19-20)." True and lasting riches are found only in our great and awesome savior, Jesus Christ.

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Delusion?

This past week I saw a short interview with Richard Dawkins. He is a British biologist and the author of the best selling The God Delusion (2006). He made the following statement, "Not all religious people are ignorant, but all ignorant people are religious". Not only did I find this statement arrogant and ignorant, but Dawkins is a great illustration of what Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 1:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (vv. 18-25)

So, then, who is truly deluded? Who is truly ignorant?

Trusting and Waiting

In a letter dated October 12, 1776, John Newton wrote to Captain Clunie, "I long to have a more entire submission to his will, and a more steadfast confidence in his word, to trust him and wait on him, to see his hand and praise his name in every circumstance of life great and small. The more of this spirit, the more heaven is begun upon earth. And why should we not trust him at all times? Which part of our past experience can charge him with unfaithfulness? Has he not done all things well? And is he not the same yesterday, today, and forever? O my soul, wait thou only upon him."

O Lord, let us trust only in you and be satisfied only with you!
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Milner

I believe a lot of people in the church deal with the issue of not being recognized for all the labor that they do in the church. Do you deal with this issue? Are you faithful to labor behind the scenes at church? Are you faithful to labor for those who are up front, indeed, for those who get more recognition for Christ? Does it make you bitter?

Consider a man named Isaac Milner, who was, for the most part, an unknown tutor at Queen's College in Cambridge University. This man, though little known, labored diligently and faithfully for Christ. Much of his work was behind the scenes labors for Christ. He led William Wilberforce to Christ. Wilberforce later became an influential British politician, and he had a great role in ending the slave trade in England. Milner also had a great Christian impact on Charles Simeon as a student. Simeon later served Christ faithfully in a church in Cambridge for over fifty years and many people came to Christ through his labors. But who has ever heard of Isaac Milner? Yet, this seemingly minor figure had a great impact upon Britain for Christ (John Piper).