Laid Aside – Why?

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) was a famous British preacher and pastor for 38 years of New Park Street Chapel, later called the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Adapted from C. H. Spurgeon, “Laid Aside. Why?” in The Sword and the Trowel (1876). London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1876, pp. 195–198.

Mysterious are the visitations of sickness. When the Lord is using a man for His glory it is singular that He should all of a sudden smite him down and suspend his usefulness.

It must be right, but the reason for it does not lie near the surface. The sinner whose every act pollutes the society in which he moves is frequently permitted year after year to spend an unabated vigor in infecting all who approach him. No sickness removes him even for an hour from his deadly ministry; he is always at his post, energetic in his mission of destruction. How is it that a heart eager for the welfare of men and the glory of God should find itself hampered by a sickly frame, and checked in its utmost usefulness by attacks of painful disease? We may ask the question if we do so without murmuring, but who shall answer it for us?

When the advance of a body of soldiers is stopped by a galling fire which scatters painful wounds on all sides, we understand that this is but one of the natural incidents of war; but if a commander should check his troops in midbattle, and proceed with his own hand to render some of his most zealous warriors incapable of service, should we not be at a loss to conceive his motives?

Happily for us our happiness does 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 mysteries unsolved rather than tolerate a single doubt as to the wisdom and goodness of our heavenly Father.

Let us consider awhile. Is it not good for us to be nonplussed, and puzzled, and so forced to exercise faith? Should we not ourselves remain as foolish and conceited as spoiled and petted children, if all things were arranged according to our judgment of what would be fit and proper? Ah, it is well to be cast out of our depth, and made to swim in the sweet waters of mighty love! We know that it is supremely blessed to be compelled to cease from self, to surrender both wish and judgment, and to lie passive in the hands of God.

It is of the utmost importance to us to be kept humble. Consciousness of self-importance is a hateful delusion, but one into which we fall as naturally as weeds grow on a dunghill. We cannot be used of the Lord but what we also dream of personal greatness; we think ourselves almost indispensable to the church, pillars of the cause, and foundations of the temple of God. 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 inquire, “How will the work go on without me?” As well might the fly on the coach wheel inquire, “How will the mail be carried without me?”

Far better men have been laid in the grave without having brought the Lord’s work to a standstill, and shall we fume and fret because for a little season we must lie upon the bed of languishing?

If we were only put on one side when apparently we could be easily spared, there would be no rebuke to our pride, but to weaken our strength in the way at the precise juncture when our presence seems most needed, is the surest way to teach us that we are not necessary to God’s work, and that when we are most useful He can easily do without us. If this be the practical lesson, the rough schooling may be easily endured, for assuredly it is beyond all things desirable that self should be kept low and the Lord alone magnified.

May not our gracious Lord design a double honor when he sends a double set of trials? “Abundant in labours” is a high degree, but “patient in suffering” is not less so. Some believers have excelled in active service, but have scarcely been tried in the other and equally honorable field of 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 manhood. May not the Lord have choice designs for some of His servants and intend to perfect them in both forms of Christly imitation?

There seems to be no natural reason why both a man’s hands should not be equally useful, but few men actually become ambidextrous, because the left hand is not adequately exercised. A change in the mode of our spiritual exercises may 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 instruments of pain scrapes away the obnoxious parasite.

Great walkers have assured us that they tire soonest upon level ground, but that in scaling the mountains and descending the valleys fresh muscles are brought into play, and the variety of the exertion and change of scene enable them to hold on with less fatigue: pilgrims to heaven can probably confirm this witness. The continuous exercise of a single virtue, called forth by peculiar circumstances, is exceedingly commendable; but if other graces are allowed to lie dormant, the soul may become warped, and the good may be exaggerated till it is tinged with evil. Holy activities are the means of blessing to a large part of our nature, but there are other equally precious portions of our newborn manhood which are unvisited by their influence.

It is good for a man to bear the yoke of service, and he is no loser when it is exchanged for the yoke of suffering. May not severe discipline fall to the lot of some to qualify them for their office of under-shepherds?

We cannot speak with consoling authority to 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 which the Lord hath blessed. The “word to the weary” is not learned except by an ear which has bled while the awl has fastened it to the doorpost.

“The complete pastor’s” life will be an epitome of the lives of his people, and they will turn to his preaching as men do to David’s psalms to see themselves and their sorrows, as in a mirror. Their needs will be the reason for his griefs. As to the Lord Himself, perfect equipment for His work came 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 still remain in our churches to whose deep and dark experience we shall never be able to minister till we also have been plunged in the abyss where all Jehovah’s waves roll over 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’s sake it shall be joy to endure all things; to bear a part of “that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church,” shall be bliss to us.

Alas, there may be far more humiliating causes for our bodily afflictions! The Lord may see in us that which grieves Him and provokes Him to use the rod. “Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me” (Job 10:3) should be the prompt petition of the jealous heart. “Is there not a cause?” (1 Sam. 17:29). It can never be superfluous to humble ourselves and institute self-examination, for even if we walk in our integrity and can lift up our face without shame in 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 room for tender confession before the Lord. Yet it is not good to attribute each sickness and trial to some actual fault, as though we were under the law, or could be punished again for those sins which Jesus bore 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 and unchristian so to judge concerning our fellow Christians, and therefore we shall be very unwise if we apply so erroneous a rule to ourselves, and morbidly condemn ourselves when God condemns not.

Just now, when anguish fills the heart, and the spirits are bruised with sore pain and travail, it is not the best season for forming a candid judgment of our own condition, or of anything else; let the judging faculty lie by, and let us with tears of loving confession throw ourselves upon our Father’s bosom, and looking up into His face believe that He loves us with all His infinite heart.

“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15)—be this the one unvarying resolve, and may the eternal Spirit work in us a perfect acquiescence in the whole will of God, be that will what it may.

6 Truths About Sickness

sicknessBrian Najapfour fever, incurable disease, chronic ailment, or terminal illness like cancer. And since sickness is a part of our existence, understanding it properly is of great importance. Therefore, in this post we will examine what the Bible teaches about illness.

1. Sickness is a consequence of original sin; and in this sense, sickness is a punishment from God for sin.
In Genesis 2:17 God commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that he eats of it he shall surely die. Adam disobeyed God. And the moment he sinned, his body started dying. His body became subject to illness. God punished Adam for his sin. If Adam had not sinned, there would be no death, there would be no sickness.

Hence the presence of sickness shows the reality of sin in this world. Sickness exists because sin does. In the new heaven and new earth there will be no sickness because there will be no sin (Rev. 21:4). Sickness is a sad reminder of the fall of Adam, our federal representative. It is one of the effects of original sin.

2. Your sickness may be a consequence of your personal sin; and in this sense, your sickness is a chastisement from the Lord.
In James 5:14-15 the author asks, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him…And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” Here it is possible that the person is sick because of particular sin in his life. Writing to the Corinthian church, Paul proclaims,

27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died (1 Cor. 11:27-30).

Notice the connection between sickness and sin here. Many members of the Corinthian church are sick because of their sin regarding the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper.

It is therefore possible that God has given you infirmity in order to chastise you (Heb. 12:6). Perhaps it is a consequence of your irresponsible care of your body (e.g. bad diet). Nevertheless, in this context, affliction comes to us from the loving hand of God. Affliction is like a rod that God uses to bring back his wandering sheep to the fold.

3. Your sickness may not be a consequence of your personal sin; and in this sense, your sickness is a test from the Lord.
The word “if” in James 5:15 also allows the possibility that the sick person has not committed sins and in this way his sickness is not a result of his personal sin. Job is an excellent example of this truth (Job 2:4-7).

Sickness became an instrument in the hand of God to mold Job into the person that God wanted him to be. Sickness became a blessing for Job, for it brought him closer to God. The wheelchair- bound Joni Eareckson Tada once declared, “Suffering provides the gym equipment on which my faith can be exercised.”

4. Sickness can be a consequence of the personal sin of another person.
2 Samuel 12:15 tells us that “the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick.” David’s child died as a result of his sin concerning Bathsheba and Uriah. David committed adultery and murder. It is thus possible for a child to suffer the consequence of his parents’ sins. It is possible that your child is sick because of your sin.

5. Sickness can neither be a consequence of our personal sin, nor a consequence of the personal sin of another person. In this sense, sickness is simply a demonstration of God’s absolute sovereignty.
Remember the man born blind in John 9:1-3. In that passage the disciples asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus replied, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” No one sinned. God is simply practicing his absolute prerogative to do whatever pleases him. And his purpose in doing this is to display His sovereignty—to remind us that we do not control our health. He does!

6. Sickness comes to us from God ultimately for His glory and for our good.
In John 11 when Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Whatever kind of sickness you have, pray that through it God may be glorified.

While sickness is for God’s glory, it is also for our good. Paul notes in 2 Corinthians 12:7, “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh…to keep me from becoming conceited.” In short, God has given Paul “a thorn in the flesh” in order to keep him from the sin of pride.

Maybe God has given you that illness that you have in order to keep you from pride. And God may not heal you in order that you may learn more to depend on his grace (2 Cor. 12:9). Once you have learned the lesson, you can sing with the psalmist, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71).