Last time we looked at the first three helps for the season of adversity: (1) God is orchestrating all for the end of making us holy; (2) while God lovingly disciplines us with affliction, He never takes away His loving kindness; and (3) just as a loving father wants what is best for his children, so the heavenly Father, far perfectly beyond any earthly father, is the one who designs all for our good. So, all affliction and hardship are to the believer love carefully crafted and sent from God, our Father. Here is help number four from Flavel:
4.) God regards you as much in a low as in a high condition; and therefore it need not so much trouble you to be made low; nay, he manifests more of his love, grace and tenderness in the time of affliction than in the time of prosperity. As God did not at first choose you because you were high, he will not now forsake you because you are low. Men may look shy upon you, and alter their respects as your condition is altered; when Providence has blasted your estate, your summer-friends may grow strange, fearing you may be troublesome to them; but will God do so? No, no: “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” says he. If adversity and poverty could bar you from access to God, it were indeed a deplorable condition: but, so far from this, you may go to him as freely as ever. “My God will hear me,” says the church. Poor David, when stripped of all earthly comforts, could encourage himself in the Lord his God; and why cannot you? Suppose your husband or son had lost all at sea, and should come to you in rags; could you deny the relation, or refuse to entertain him? If you would not, much less will God. Why then are you so troubled? Though your condition be changed, your Father’s love is not changed.
God’s regard for us is not based on what we own, who we know, our level of influence, our skills or abilities, or any such thing that the world regards. Yes, even with all of those things removed, His steadfast love endures. Man looks at the outside and at the appearance, but God looks at the heart. And even if our hearts stray from our Father, He is loving to orchestrate our lives to bring it back. In fact, in what seems to be entirely contrary to what the world values, being brought low by their standards often results in being exalted by God’s standards. How can He regard you any less when adversity itself is sent for our good? When we are put in a place where we can better seek Him? So speaking of adversity and affliction as proof of God’s disappointment or dislike of you becomes absurd. Was it beyond God and by your own power that you have amassed any wealth, or beyond God that you gained any certain influence, skills, talents, or any other thing? No, God is the sole bestower of those things. Because of this, having them is no credit of our own, but God’s. Once again, we can see the absurdity of viewing the loss of things, the gain of which is entirely of God, as somehow reflecting God’s disfavour or dislike. The heart, dear Christian, the heart is what God sees, and the heart is what He is after, to shape and mould after all eminent good. Therefore, look to your own heart, and set it after Him.
5.) What if by the loss of outward comforts God preserves your soul from the ruining power of temptation? Surely then you have little cause to sink your heart by such sad thoughts. Do not earthly enjoyments make men shrink and warp in times of trial? For the love of these many have forsaken Christ in such an hour. The young ruler “went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” If this is God's design, how ungrateful to murmur against him for it! We see mariners in a storm can throw over board the most valuable goods to preserve their lives. We know it is usual for soldiers in a besieged city to destroy the finest buildings without the walls in which the enemy may take shelter; and no one doubts that it is wisely done. Those who have mortified limbs willingly stretch them out to be cut off, and not only thank, but pay the surgeon. Must God be murmured against for casting over that which would sink you in a storm; for pulling down that which would assist your enemy in the siege of temptation; for cutting off what would endanger your everlasting life? O, inconsiderate, ungrateful man! are not these things for which thou grievest, the very things that have ruined thousands of souls?
We often fail to see how much prosperity and good times lend to times of laxness and neglect of all that matters in life. For instance, in the clutter of a life pursuing wealth, higher standards of living, hobbies, entertainments, and even a clean house, if we are not ever diligent to keep our hearts, those things work to muscle out what really matters: the things of God. I have heard this described as the tyranny of the immediate. Whatever is placed before us to complete quickly moves to take precedence over what is important. Without careful discipline and a life prioritized according to God’s Word, the business of life and the pursuit of prosperity takes over. Take this from me Lord! Steal it away and destroy it forever, if only I can live according to your standards and follow your precepts from the heart! May we be as Paul, who said, “But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:7-8). Productivity and business can be good things. It is not wickedness of itself. Yet, when it comes to show a heart after things and not after the priorities of God, it becomes a great evil. It becomes something that masters us, and we its servants. Rather, all that we do with diligence, including immediate things, are to be subjected to the One to Whom we owe our very selves. He becomes the principle purpose and means of all we do, and not other things, which, divorced from a heart after God, only lead us away. So it is that when God brings affliction and takes away the clutter and “stuff” of our lives, He protects us from true ruin. He preserves us through sending loving affliction. What a great and loving God!
6.) It would much support thy heart under adversity, to consider that God by such humbling providences may be accomplishing that for which you have long prayed and waited. And should you be troubled at that? Say, Christian, hast thou not many prayers depending before God upon such accounts as these: that he would keep thee from sin; discover to thee the emptiness of the creature; that he would mortify and kill thy lusts; that thy heart may never find rest in any enjoyment but Christ? By such humbling and impoverishing strokes God may be fulfilling thy desire. Wouldst thou be kept from sin? Lo, he hath hedged up thy way with thorns. Wouldst thou see the creature’s vanity? Thy affliction is a fair glass to discover it; for the vanity of the creature is never so effectually and sensibly discovered, as in our own experience. Wouldst thou have thy corruptions mortified? This is the way: to have the food and fuel removed that maintained them; for as prosperity begat and fed them, so adversity, when sanctified, is a means to kill them. Wouldst thou have thy heart rest no where but in the bosom of God? What better method could Providence take to accomplish thy desire than pulling from under thy head that soft pillow of creature-delights on which you rested before? And yet you fret at this: peevish child, how dost thou try thy Father's patience! If he delay to answer thy prayers, thou art ready to say he regards thee not; if he does that which really answers the end of them, though not in the way which you expect, you murmur against him for that; as if, instead of answering, he were crossing all thy hopes and aims. Is this ingenuous? Is it not enough that God is so gracious as to do what thou desirest: must thou be so impudent as to expect him to do it in the way which thou prescribest?
It is important to remember that the prayer God answers in the affirmative is the prayer that accords with His will (1 John 5:14; Matt. 6:10; Rom. 1:10; Col. 1:9; John 16:15). Keeping the heart fixed on God is the state in which our prayers are most effective, because the content of our prayers is better aligned with the same ends and purposes of God. This is not some mystical thing, as if we somehow have some new secret knowledge, but that God can better use our prayers according to His perfect plan. It is the prayers of one who seeks answers to satiate their lusts that are rejected and counted as evil. So, what are we to expect when we grow in keeping our hearts fixed upon God? What we pray for! And these answers will often lead us into blessed adversity, which are the means to fulfill our prayers. Surely, the weak heart can hardly bear having prosperity until it has become wise in adversity. Jesus said of this, “Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much, and whoever is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much” (Luke 16:10 HCSB). Think of it this way. We tend to look at worldly wealth as real wealth: that which is inherently valuable. Yet, God will gladly take it away to teach us how to be stewards of true riches. And that is what He is doing when He places us in adversity! Not only will the penitent heart learn how to steward worldly wealth, which is here one moment and gone the next, but we will learn and be made into stewards who can responsibly manage the eternal riches of God! Jesus said the same, when He said, “Don’t collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal” (Matt. 6:19-20). This is the result of the prayers of a heart after God! So, into the kiln! Blessed are we when God gives such hearts what they desire! God, the consuming fire, consuming the wicked in the heat of His just and holy wrath (Ps. 21:9), but for the one in Christ, His fire only burns away the dross and worthless things (Mal. 3:2): our former selves that are to be mortified day-by-day, that we can steward true riches in the Lord. Blessed be the Lord! He is our wonderful God and Father. Steadfast love and patience are for all His children.
Next time, we will be looking at three more helps for times of adversity.