Praise the Lord for this new day. Praise the Lord for the American
Missionary doctor Dr. Kent Brantly, who had
contracted Ebola disease while serving in West Africa. He was flown back to
the States where received medical care in Atlanta. He is healed and released.
In his statement he gave thanks to the Lord and to His faithfulness. Jesus
reigns. We will gather tomorrow, Saturday August 23, for a time of celebration
at 5:30 PM at the Union Center United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, which
will again be transformed in to a banquet hall. In a world marred by sadness
and sorrow we are taking time to celebrate the goodness and the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ. The menu will include all sorts foods and desserts followed
by special musical presentation by our friends Dave Berry and Aric
Phinney.
I have been blessed by the writings
of some Scottish theologians like Donald Bailey, his brother John Bailey, and
hymn writers like Horatius Bonar. Another Scottish Theologian who has been
blessing to me is Thomas Boston. Thomas Boston was a great writer and great
theologian. He was a faithful pastor of a rural parish in Scotland for 25
years. I have written about him in one my blogs some time ago. I repeat my
self here today because I am inspired and encouraged by Thomas Boston's
perseverance through suffering. Thomas Boston was a melancholy man, prone to
seasons of discouragement in the Christian life. He was often in poor health,
even though he never missed his turn in the pulpit. His wife suffered from
chronic illness of the body and, most likely, the mind, but perhaps the couple's
greatest trial was the death of their children: they lost six of their ten
babies.
One loss was especially tragic. Boston had already lost a son
named Ebenezer, which in the Bible means "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us" (1 Samuel 7:12). When
his wife gave birth to another son, he considered naming the new child Ebenezer
as well. Yet the minister hesitated. Naming the boy Ebenezer would be a
testimony of hope in the faithfulness of God. But what if this child died, too,
and the family had to bury another Ebenezer? That would be a loss too bitter to
bear. By faith Boston decided to name his son Ebenezer. The child was sickly
and, despite the urgent prayers of his parents, he never recovered. As the
grieving father wrote in his Memoirs, "It pleased
the Lord that he also was removed from me."
After suffering such a heavy loss, many people would be
tempted to accuse God of wrongdoing, or to abandon their faith, or at least to
drop out of ministry for a while. Thomas Boston, however did not quit. He
believed in the goodness as well as in the sovereignty of God. For this reason,
rather than turning away from the Lord in times of trial, he turned
towards the Lord for help and comfort. Boston's perseverance through
suffering is worthy not only of our admiration, but also of our imitation. One
way to learn from his example is to read his classic sermon on the sovereignty
of God, which is one of the last things he prepared for publication before he
died. Boston called his sermon "The Crook in the Lot." It was based on the
command and the question that we read in Ecclesiastes 7:13:
"Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?"
Of course, the answer to this question is, "no one". We do not have the ability to overrule the Almighty.
When "the Preacher" from Ecclesiastes spoke of something
"crooked," he was not referring to something that is morally out of line, as if
God could ever be the author of evil. Instead, he was talking about some trouble
or difficulty in life which we wish we could change, but ultimately cannot
alter. It happens to all of us. We struggle with the physical limitations of
our bodies. We suffer the breakdown of personal or family relationships. We
have something that we wish we did not have, or do not have something that we
wish we did. According to Ecclesiastes, God has given each of us a different
situation in life. To quote again from Thomas Boston:
"In that train or course of events, some fall out cross to us, and against the grain; and these make the crook in our lot. While we are here, there will be cross events, as well as agreeable ones, in our lot and condition. Sometimes things are softly and agreeably gliding on; but, by and by, there is some incident which alters that course, grates us, and pains us …. Every body's lot in this world has some crook in it …. There is no perfection here, no lot out of heaven without a crook.
He was telling us that, whether things seem crooked or
straight, we need to see our situation in terms of the sovereignty of God.
Trusting in the sovereign goodness of God helps us know how to respond to all
the joys and trials of life. Whether we are having a good day or a bad day,
there is always a way for us to glorify God. "The Preacher" said, "In the day
of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the
one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be
after him" (7:14).
The Book of Ecclesiastes puts today and every day under the
sovereignty of God. Some days are full of prosperity, when the sun is shining,
the birds are singing, and all is right with the world. To be joyful is to find
our fundamental satisfaction in God, and then to receive every blessing in life
as a gift of his grace.
Not every day is like that, of course. Some days are full of
adversity rather than prosperity, when it seems that the sun is not shining, the
birds are not singing, and nothing seems right with the world. "The Preacher"
further stated that it is impossible for us to know what will happen in the
future. Given what he said at the beginning of verse 14, we might assume that
the righteous people are the ones that prosper, while the wicked always suffer
adversity. Yet sometimes exactly the opposite occurs, causing the righteous to
suffer adversity, while the ungodly prosper. It is impossible for us to predict
what will happen in coming days. As "the Preacher "says, "man may not find out
anything that will be after him" (7:14). We have no way of knowing whether the
coming days will bring us greater prosperity or more adversity.
Living with this kind of uncertainty need not cause us anxiety
or despair; rather, it should teach us to leave our future in the hands of
Almighty God. Most of us would prefer to control our own destiny, but we
should, rather, entrust our lives to the loving care of our sovereign God. If
we do this, we will be well prepared for both the good days and the bad days. In
his comments on this verse, Martin Luther gave the following pastoral advice:
"Enjoy the things that are present in such a way that you do not base your
confidence on them, as though they were going to last forever … but reserve part
of our heart for God, so that with it we can bear the day of adversity." We are invited to praise God for all our prosperity and trust
God through every adversity.
In Christ,
Brown
