You want your life to matter. Maybe you look back with regret at years of trifling or lusting or swearing or drinking. You’ve wasted so much time dead in your trespasses and sins that now you awake anxious to make up for lost time. You’ve been asleep to great things for so long.

For as long as you have left to live, you want to live for Jesus. So many friends and family don’t know him. So much to do. So little time. You think you hear the Lord say, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Your heart cries, “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). Holy ambitions fly high; practical knowledge runs low. What do you do now to make the best use of the time you have left?

My first word to young men, especially those with ministry aspirations, is to grow deep.

Grow Deep

Young man, you feel a keen ambition for holy usefulness. You wish to serve Jesus with a strength double that with which you formerly served evil. Good. True Christianity is no listless, small, insignificant call that demands nothing, risks nothing, toils for nothing, expects nothing. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Only by God’s power and grace will you sustain your race, complete your soldiery, arrive safely home — let alone bring others with you.

You dedicate your bow, your sword, your spear to his service. He doesn’t need them, but he accepts them. Wherever he points, you will ride. You are willing to be deployed now: What sermons need preaching, what neighbors need gospeling, what Bible study needs leading?

My aim is not to dissuade these actions, but to ensure their success. To this end, I offer one simple principle well-attested in Scripture: Relentlessly attend to what lies beneath the soil — your personal holiness and communion with the Lord. While many others focus great exertions on growing upward — on their visible, public ministry — you grow, and grow deep, in the unseen places.

I wish to channel your ambition ever downward into the soil, into secret communion with God. To the eyes of natural ambition, this seems like a detour. But it is the secret detour to real and sustained usefulness in the kingdom, just as the disciples went away and waited in the upper room for power from on high. Take opportunities to be used of God as they arise, immerse yourself in good works, fan your abilities into flame, but do not make your usefulness the greater priority. This secures not only greater effectiveness in the long run but greater joy and strength in the work.

Vine and Branches

One text that has checked me in the best ways over the years is John 15. When I stare outward too long, this text returns my eyes downward. The Spirit reminds me that my fruitfulness grows from depth with my Lord and personal holiness.

Jesus, using a slightly different metaphor than the tree imagery of Psalm 1, tells his disciples on the eve of his death: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). You and I are not the vine. We do not have life in ourselves. Our best ambitions, broken off from Christ, are powerless. We are the branches. We derive all life and fruit from the vine, who is Christ.

On several walks with unbelievers, I have stopped to pick up dead branches from the ground. They lay fruitless at the foot of the tree. I hold it up and say something like, “Jesus Christ makes a startling claim when he says that this is a man’s life apart from him — withering and soon to be cast into the fire and burned (John 15:6). But look at those branches up top, connected to the tree — healthy, vibrant, fruitful. This is a man’s life trusting, believing, and following him.”

So it is with you and me. The ground has seen many dry branches once named pastors who withered because they allowed their desire to do for God crowd out their desire to be with God. They stared at their branch, constantly assessing their productivity, and lost sight of the vine. The less fruit they saw, the more they strained to extend themselves out to benefit others instead of sending themselves deeper into the source, to get life for their own souls.

But whom does Jesus teach will bear much fruit? “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus wants you to be fruitful. As does the Father. Jesus tells his disciples, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8). Go after much fruit, for much fruit brings much honor to your Father and proves you to be a disciple of Christ.

But how does Jesus teach you to go after this fruit? You go after him. You stay with him in prayer, in obedience, in hidden communion. “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). And what can you expect from abiding in him? Much fruit, and with it, much joy. “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). Apart from him, what can you expect to accomplish? Nothing, except unhappiness and futility. We want the Vine because we love and find joy in the Vine. And the Vine bestows life and fruit because he loves the branches.

Need of the Hour

What does the world need? The world needs men who have grown deep and keep growing deeper.

The world does not need men whose zeal to teach outpaces their zeal to abide. It needs men with deep roots. Men who know their God, walk humbly with him, cry out to him, burn with his flame, warm with his love.

God’s men study hard and read great thoughts of other men, but they know that diligent study alone cannot make a man of God. These are spiritual men, men tarrying in God’s presence, men who spend much time upon the mountain with the Lord. Give us these men, men who grow deep before God makes them tall, for these men turn the world upside down.

So, young man, grow deep. While others clamor for the seat of honor, seek to assert themselves over planting themselves, let your Lord strengthen you, build you up, humble you, and call you to a higher seat as he sees fit and in his good timing.

To remind myself of this advice, I wrote this poem years ago.

The Master throws seed all over the groundThey hatch and mature without making a sound.In quiet depths while tired eyes sleep,You, small seed, grow and grow deep.

Let other plants dream of reaching the sky,Extending their arms to birds passing by,Of harboring nests adorned with green leaves,Of all they can do, but you must receive.

They shoot themselves up to stand as the oak,But you burrow down to drink and to soak.They straighten their backs where living things creep,But you, little seed, grow and grow deep.

They take great delight as they sprout from the earth.They spread forth their hands to show forth their worth.No time for that kingdom where low things abound;Their trusted way up is the quickest way down.

For they swayed above ground and lived among brutes;They had stem, they had leaf, but they never had roots.They only desired to dance tall in the breeze,Not knowing great oaks grow tall on their knees.

But you, little seed, cling to the Giver.Plant yourself deep, that your leaves never wither.Don’t rush to the high; rather sink to the low.Let Christ welcome up; let God make you grow.

Is your Christian life too private, too indoorsy?

“You are the light of the world,” our Lord declares. “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14). Some of us, it seems, mean to test that claim.

We can yell about Jesus as loudly as we want in our homes and church buildings — but we must keep it behind those walls. Public life is off-limits. The good of society requires it, you see. How can a multicultural, multireligious community flourish with the Christians insisting that all other gods are false and that Jesus is the only way to heaven? What about the atheists? Muslims? Jews? Our lofty ideals tell us to leave all the high places intact.

Though the heavens cannot contain him, though earth is his footstool, do we — his grasshoppers leaping upon his lawn — try to cage the living God in church buildings and around dinner tables? They say he is too wild and transgressive to be unleashed into the community. They are not wrong. He came to bring division: light from dark, the truth from the lie, his sons from Satan’s. Our God holds up his Son; his Son holds out his ring for all other gods and men to kiss. Refuse, and his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessing is only for those who take refuge in him.

Man does not like a God who lays claim on everyone and everything. And we, his ambassadors, too quickly grow tired of discipling them to observe all that he commanded. We comply with society’s red tape above our Savior’s red letters. Sheep, too happily sheepish. The Sunday gathering soon becomes the one (and virtually only) place for overt Christianity. Christ must be left out of malls, sports, restaurants, workplaces, and anywhere else he is unwanted. We quickly feel we have done enough to huddle once a week in that fenced green pasture. We are well-fed, happy enough, and sleepy.

Will Stones Cry Out?

Charles Spurgeon, a man who went to the people in open-air preaching and evangelism, states my main burden well:

We ought actually to go into the streets and lanes and highways. . . . Sportsmen must not stop at home and wait for the birds to come and be shot at, neither must fishermen throw their nets inside their boats and hope to take many fish. Traders go to the markets, they follow their customers and go out after business if it will not come to them; and so must we. (Lectures to My Students, 224)

How do you bring the gospel to where the people are? Christ teaches us to be fishers of men, but do we drop our nets in the boat instead of the sea?

How much of Christianity is lived among ourselves, for ourselves? The gathering of God’s people is the most notable event a calendar can contain. Heaven and earth meet when the saints gather to hear from their Lord. Yet, as much as the church is an end, we also harness together to bring others in. We are refreshed, equipped, and emboldened to go out on mission and return, in coming weeks, with more souls.

Does it bother you when additions to your church body grow stagnant? Are you concerned that so many in this world are perishing without hearing of Christ? If the gathering continues, kids’ programs run smoothly, and some spiritual benefit is exchanged from Sunday to Sunday, is all well with your soul?

Will that building that saw nearly all of our light testify against us on the last day? Will the walls testify that we knew that great name by which men must be saved, knew that souls outside were perishing, knew that a vast eternity stretches before every soul and that most run to ruin, and yet, like the rich man with Lazarus, kept feasting inside?

How about the windows? How much of that beautiful stained glass is stained with our neglect of the people on the other side? How many of these painted lookouts are but kaleidoscopes through which we peer at people who have never heard the gospel from our lips?

“Let us bring Christ to the people that we might bring the people to Christ.”

Or how about the pews? Surely they will protest their innocence. They were meant to be a training ground, a place of equipping. They meant to send their bearers along on their mission. Instead, these pews, looking down upon so many dress shoes, high heels, and boots in our congregations, saw so few beautiful feet going out to publish the good news of happiness and salvation among the people (Isaiah 52:7).

What of the roads leading to and away from the gathering? They had heard rumors about “The Great Commission,” though they saw evidence of only “A Nice Suggestion.” They would have been stones crying out, most willing preachers for their Lord, if only given such a chance. They pointed out into a wide world in need of Christ. But alas, so few returned week by week with a testimony of conquest.

Go

Horatius Bonar says the part we’d rather leave unsaid:

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man, what a soul in hell must suffer forever. Lord, give us bowels of mercies! We too ought to pray, “Give us thy tears to weep; for, Lord, our hearts are hard toward our fellows. We can see thousands perish around us, and our sleep never be disturbed; no vision of their awful doom ever scaring us, no cry from their lost souls ever turning our peace into bitterness.” (Words to Winners of Souls, 12)

Brothers and sisters, souls are dying, hell is gaping, an awful doom awaits the perishing. We have been entrusted with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Go and tell it on the mountains, over the hills, and everywhere. Go and do street evangelism, or hand out gospel tracts, or knock on doors, or preach in the open air, or move overseas as a missionary, or engage in mercy ministries, abortion witnessing, or letter-writing. Be simple or get creative, but go — across an ocean, across a taboo, across a street. Go — to unbelieving family members, to classmates, teammates, neighbors. Go — to the least of these, to the forgotten in prisons or nursing homes, to the poor, orphans, and widows. Go.

What has our Lord left us here for? “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). If you know the excellencies of Christ — who he is, what he has done, and what he has done for you — go and proclaim them.

“Well, they don’t want to hear about his excellencies.” So be it. Jesus does not remind us of his supreme authority for nothing: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18–19). Because of his supreme authority over heaven and earth, there is never a place where the gospel has no place. Where the King says, “Go!” you may go — you must go — no matter what man threatens. When they strictly command us to no longer speak in the name of Jesus, disciples of the cross reply, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19–20).

Let us bring Christ to the people that we might bring the people to Christ.

Paul’s last letter brought the manly business of Christian pastoring uncomfortably close to young Timothy. Uncomfortably close, as the front line to the soldier.

The heat of “fanning his gift into flame” made his palms sweat; was he willing to pastor at Ephesus after all that has happened . . . would soon happen? Timothy didn’t need a reminder about the cost of ministry; his tears were memorial enough (2 Timothy 1:4). Paul, his father in the faith, wrote him once more before his execution: “The time of my departure has come” (2 Timothy 4:6). Finally, they were putting down the lion.

Paul welcomed the cost of leadership. He lived ready to suffer for Christ in whatever city the Spirit directed (Acts 20:22–23). “I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13). As Jesus made good on his promise — “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16) — Paul received his orders manfully. Here at the end, he writes to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Triumph.

But what of Timothy? With shackles around Paul’s wrists, a blade above his neck, would he point his dear son away from the conflict? Just as Timothy seems to flinch and takes steps back, Paul stops him: “Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God” (2 Timothy 1:8). Mount the horse, Timothy. Lead God’s people forward — come what may.

Pastoring, my son, is a manly business.

Fraught with Danger

The context of Timothy’s ministry — the context of ours — was (and is) a crucified Messiah. Jesus promised his first preachers, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). As Timothy enters his ministry, he associates the pastorate not so much with microphones as with martyrdom; not merely with preaching but with persecution for that preaching. He hesitates to exercise his gifts among a public who crucified his Lord, stoned the prophets, and hunted the apostles, as we might hesitate to minister in the heart of a Muslim country.

Fellow shepherds, have you considered the physical threat of our calling? I, for one, never had until a potential danger lingered around the flock. The gravity of what-ifs fell upon me. But what startled me most was not wondering whether I — father to four young children — should rush in if the worst came, but realizing that I had already chosen to by becoming a pastor. I enlisted to teach, preach, shepherd, and guide — but also to suffer, defend, and die, if the Lord should choose. As a son with his mother, a husband with his wife, a father with his children, so a pastor with his sheep. I am to defend them against all enemies foreign and domestic — spiritual and physical.

Brothers, receive it now: “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:3). Yet like young Timothy, we ask Paul, How? Consider his counsel:

I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (2 Timothy 1:6–7)

Yes, Nero. Yes, false teachers. Yes, a church slow to support you. Yes, youth and inexperience. Yes, persecution and possibly martyrdom (2 Timothy 3:12). But I call heaven to witness my charge to you: preach the word, Timothy (2 Timothy 4:1–2). Or have you forgotten your God-given Spirit?

Spirit of the Pastor

Pastors, consider your Spirit. Interpreters debate whether the given “spirit” is only new nobility in our own spirits or includes the Holy Spirit himself. I take it to be the latter, which forges the former (see 2 Timothy 1:8, 14). Regardless, we know this: the new spirit of a man in Christ relies utterly on the Spirit of Christ in that man. Both must be in view.

Here is the point: Shepherds, remember that the Spirit of God empowers you for your life’s work. Your Spirit is one of courage, power, love, and self-control. Brothers, consider your Spirit.

Spirit of Courage and Power

God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power . . .

Paul first reminds Timothy what Spirit he does not have: one of fear, or more exactly, cowardice. In extrabiblical literature, the Greek word (deilia) “refers to one who flees from battle, and has a strong pejorative sense referring to cowardice” (The ESV Study Bible). God’s Spirit does not send him fleeing as a coward but makes the man the very sculpture of courage. And he bestows power and makes the man more than a man — even if, like Paul, he goes forth to die like a man.

To illustrate, consider the effect of God’s Spirit upon three men in the Old Testament — Samson, Saul, and David — and the apostles in the New.

SAMSON

Notice the Spirit’s influence on Samson. First, “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat” (Judges 14:6). Next, “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil” (Judges 14:19). And greater still,

the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men. (Judges 15:14–15)

The Spirit of God rushes upon him, and he rushes upon the enemy — lions, towns, legions.

SAUL AND DAVID

Or consider the Spirit’s influence on goatish Saul. While the Spirit was with him, he was “turned into another man” (1 Samuel 10:6–7). The Spirit straightened his back and rushed upon him, and he bellowed a war cry to rally the twelve tribes together (1 Samuel 11:5–7). Saul was mighty, for a time, but that might came from the Holy Spirit, and when Saul rejected the Lord and his word for fear of the people, the Spirit flew, as it were, to David.

I have underappreciated the Spirit in the David story. Just before the legend of his giant-slaying is born, we read, “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13). David is admirable in many ways, but what is David apart from God’s Spirit? Without the Spirit, his courage is folly, his story unremembered, his songs unsung. But the Lord’s Spirit was with David: writing, worshiping, warring. And David knew what made him great. When he too sins horribly, he pleads mercy from Saul’s fate: “Take not your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11).

APOSTLES

On to the New Testament. What are the apostles apart from God’s Spirit? Sheep, who in their own spirits flee from their Master in the garden and then bleat timidly behind locked doors. But these sheep became lions at Pentecost. They obeyed their Lord: “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). When Christ baptizes with his Spirit, tongues of fire fill their mouths, Peter stands to preach, and thousands are saved. Here, a mighty Samson slays the enemies of God with the sword of the word — not one thousand, but three.

Spirit of Love

God gave us a spirit . . . [of] love.

When the Spirit of power leads men, they leave behind a holy legacy. One unsought expression of this is the power to suffer. It takes one kind of courage to ride forth to slay; it takes another to ride forth to be slain. The power of a lion to lie down as a lamb.

“Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8). Full of grace, full of power, he preached mightily: “They could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking” (Acts 6:10). And when that speech turns on them, they grind their teeth and rush upon him. So he dies the first Christian martyr. Note his final prayer: “Falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’” (Acts 7:60). The Spirit, not just of power to preach, but of love to pray for the hearers murdering you.

This Spirit must empower the mission: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5). A love that preaches, a love that serves, a love that is willing to be “poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith” and “rejoices” to be so slain if it means others’ good (Philippians 2:17–18). Timothy, writes Paul, “I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Timothy 2:10). His wounds are not for his salvation but theirs.

Remember, brothers, we have Christ’s Spirit to love his people with Christ’s love (Philippians 1:8). When faced with imprisonment or execution, the man of God is divinely resourced to respond as John Buyan did while he sat in prison for preaching: “I did often say before the Lord, that if to be hanged up presently before their eyes [his church’s] would be means to awake in them and confirm them in the truth, I gladly should consent to it” (The Pilgrim’s Progress, xxvii). No greater love exists than this: that someone lay down his life for his friends or his sheep. That is the love of Jesus wrought by God’s Spirit.

Spirit of Self-Control

God gave us a spirit . . . [of] self-control.

The Spirit of God and the spirit of evil is contrasted in the story of Saul. The Spirit of God rushes away at Saul’s sin, replaced by a tormenting spirit from God. It makes him rabid.

The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand. And Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, “I will pin David to the wall.” But David evaded him twice. (1 Samuel 18:10–11)

He goes on to throw a spear at his own son.

The Spirit of God works self-mastery in those he masters. God’s power is aimed at a man’s dearest lusts. And the flesh dies hard. He bears his fruit in our lives — fruit lethal to the deeds of the body. Young Timothy ought to justify his ministry by the Spirit’s influence in his life: “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12). Samson slayed a thousand with a jawbone, David killed his ten thousand on the field, yet even both of these men fell at home to lusts of the flesh.

The minister of Christ, the conqueror in Christ, the sufferer for him, will be a self-controlled man. When he hears threats nearby, he will not panic or renounce Christ or flee from his people. He will be collected, calm, a presence that has his wits about him when the wolves come around. Our people need our self-control: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16).

Good Shepherds

Pastoring is a manly business. Maybe soft men slipped in during the twentieth century. It will not be so in the decades to come. Pastors put the target on their backs. Men, manly men, must preach because they assume the violent responses to their preaching that can come. Egalitarian fantasies and feminist fictions would return to the dark chasm whence they came if more pastors were dragged mid-sermon into the town square and flogged with 39 lashes for their testimony (2 Corinthians 11:24), or if we held in our hands final letters from now martyred pastors. Women “pastors” are a luxury of peacetime.

Pastor, it is a hard word, but if the Lord Jesus wants to make you his paper and write his sermon in your flesh, shall we not bless his holy name? If, like Paul, you bear on your body some marks of the Lord (Galatians 6:17), then “share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God” — yes, and go away “rejoicing that [you] were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name,” if you still can go away (Acts 5:41).

Flesh and blood cannot abide this word. We shouldn’t expect it to. Pastoring is not merely a manly business but a spiritual business.

Brothers, we need to remember our Spirit — the Holy Spirit of courage, of power, of love, and of self-control. Follow Christ into suffering, if it comes to that. Remember: a good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. By the Spirit he has given, we will be good shepherds until the Great Shepherd returns.

Once I had a friend who dated this woman.

She was nice, as I recall her, smart and extremely studious. She had ambitions to be top of her class. Yet her drive to excel wound her up a bit tight, in my opinion. She had this wide, bright smile — when she allowed her face to relax. She lived braced for the next exam, which, for her, seemed a year-round sport. Comparing her work with mine, it’s almost as if we attended different universities — or as if she were secretly training for the CIA.

My friend dated this woman, and he assured me they enjoyed “fun” times together. But all I remember is their study dates, quick trips to the cafeteria between library marathons, and endless flashcards. They were a power couple, too busy for a normal life, destined to leave their mark on this world. Until they broke up. I don’t have all the details, but soon after the relationship ended, I heard him do what I hadn’t truly heard before: he laughed.

Sure, I had heard him chuckle before, but never laugh. That’s the difference between grinning and smiling, speaking and praying, singing and worshiping. And his laugh was music not easily forgotten. Colorful as Joseph’s coat, alive as a rainforest, the sound of his joy brightened his listeners. His laugh, unkenneled, became a trademark. The contagious sound erupted from far deeper than the chest.

My friend was happier. And to all appearances, that newfound bliss was due to ending the relationship with this woman. The whole situation serves as an illustration of why Satan is so relentlessly after your joy in God. Let’s connect those dots.

Killed Joys Point to Killjoys

The mathematics of my friend’s gladness seem obvious: friend minus girlfriend equals happiness.

Fairly or unfairly, her presence and his deepest laughter couldn’t coexist. As one disappeared, the other appeared — like Clark Kent and Superman. Such a sudden change in demeanor reflected unfavorably upon the relationship and, right or wrong, upon her influence on his life. With her gone, he loosened up enough to laugh his real laugh; the clouds parted.

Back to Satan. He knows all too well about this connection between our joy (or not) in relation to some person, and how onlookers perceive that person. If the other kills our joy, others will see them as a killjoy. And so, Satan seeks to make us look miserable in relation to God.

Our audible joy (or not) says something about our God. No matter how we assure them otherwise, unbelievers assume our Christian lives are little more than morning study dates in Scripture, making flashcards of rules to memorize, and sneaking brief guilty pleasures during the week between Sunday services. They need to see our delight in God, hear the newfound happiness in our voices. Do they? They often see us more serious than we used to be, but do they also see us happier? Do they suspect we were more satisfied in our previous lives, dead in sins and living for the world?

You see, spiritual warfare rages over who appears to make people most satisfied: God or Satan.
Thus, sounds of human gladness in God taunt Satan’s ears. Saints have understood their joy as a polemic: “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound” (Psalm 4:7). This kind of combatant joy affronts Satan, especially when the boast comes from the man deprived of all worldly explanations for his happiness. Such a man provokes the darkness. He causes onlookers to wonder, gets them talking: What does he have that we don’t?

Satan’s Sermon

So count on it. If Satan cannot break you from God, he will attempt to make you look as miserable as possible while serving God. He means to preach about God through you, his manuscript. Your sighs and groans and complaints under the lordship of Christ begin his sermon:

Friends, relatives, neighbors, look at this man formerly free of religion now wasting away under its yoke. He was happy once, bright once, knew how to have a good time and carry a normal conversation to entertaining ends. But now the miserable creature has found God, receiving the wage of anxious toil. Further, he would attempt to evangelize you all into his same burdens and groans. He offers all that which he unhappily bears. Mark him well. Beware this uphill, narrow, and laughterless life of the Christian.

The point is not that we audibly laugh in every circumstance. There is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). The point is that we should be known for bursts of laughter and dancing, not endless weeping and weightiness. Our regular expressions of joy serve as an act of spiritual warfare against one who labors tirelessly to make us curse God to his face and grumble behind his back.

Here is the inconsistency that the enemy loves. God is my Father, you say — yet you’re always fretful. He is the Joy of my joy — yet you’re consistently gloomy. He is my all in all — yet even your children weary from your dissatisfaction. Christ is my Prince of Peace — yet you’re short-tempered. Jesus is my Good Shepherd who gives all by grace — yet you’re seldom grateful. Everyone can see it but us.

In other words, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him — and God is greatly dishonored in us when we are consistently curmudgeonly and dissatisfied in him.

Laugh, Christian

Our duty, then, is to make it abundantly clear: Our best joys and laughter were had not before coming to Christ but after. We aim to make it plain that before the Spirit made us new, we did not know what real happiness was. But now that we have him, we have more than we could ask for, more than we deserve. We live in the desert, testifying that we have water the world knows not of.

Consider how this relates to the use of our mouths. One reason God hates the grumbling of his children is this relation between our satisfaction and his glory. “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14–15).

Consider what disrespect this respectable sin of grumbling offers to God. It says we have no Father in heaven, no Friend on earth, no Shepherd able to provide for us. The sound of our anxieties indulged ignores the birds of the air and the splendor of the flowers, claiming that whoever cares for these has not been caring for us. Complaining tells the sad tale of the orphan. But our God has not left us orphans.

So laugh, Christian. Make a habit of smiling. Relax those face muscles and rejoice, for he has destined you not for wrath but for eternal life. Put to death those grumbles and petty complaints that consume those without our hope. Yes, weep with those who weep, and sing of God’s goodness to you, of his love for you, which towers over every creeping dissatisfaction of this life. Show a world desperate for answers, desperate for life, desperate for a cure that you have happily found all in him.

Are you happy? Are you satisfied?

You tour the zoo with your daughter and peer into the glass with the gorilla. You stare at the gorilla; he stares back. Are your lives all that different? He lives one outdoor-time to the next, one feeding to the next — what is a jungle? You live one entertainment to the next, one bite of sin to the next — what is true happiness? It’s as though you live outside of your joy’s natural habitat.

Yet you are a man and not an ape; you can consider your cage, the prison of your own choices. But when you stop to think about life, you sink — is this really it? Perhaps life was brighter when you were younger. Perhaps you and the future-you were once best friends, but now you talk with less and less pleasure. He doesn’t know what you’re searching for either, and you both are running out of guesses.

Are you happy? Are you satisfied? No? Then why continue to search in vain?

Why?

This is not my question but God’s:

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,      and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Isaiah 55:2)

God translates your sighs: You are spending money for what is not bread, laboring for what does not satisfy. You chew on gravel; you reap the wind. So much energy, so much time, so much dedication to what isn’t working. You are making bad purchases, eating the undigestible. The God of heaven and earth asks you: Why?

Why do you insist on digging the desert for water? Why enter into the cave for light? Why the mindless living, the endless scrolling, the watching until your eyes hurt — have these ever flooded your soul with happiness? What are you getting from this life you’ve chosen for yourself?

Your decisions leave behind dry lips, a thirst preparing you for God’s invitation:

Come, everyone who thirsts,     come to the waters;and he who has no money,     come, buy and eat!Come, buy wine and milk     without money and without price. (Isaiah 55:1)

Come, be satisfied. Come, be made happy. Come, God summons you. Simply come.

Wanted

The God of heaven hears your life of little whimpers and responds, Stop filling your mouth with sand; come to the waters. Stop intoxicating your heart with the world; come gladden it with my wine. Why labor for what leaves you hungrier? Will you not have real bread and water, wine and milk for free? Joy, life, substance, purpose — do these not interest you?

“Why will men not be happy?” we can almost hear one angel ask another. Why does the branch run from the tree, the egg from the nest, the fish from the water? You can answer from experience: you did not want this happiness if it is only found in God. Read the terms carefully:

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,     and delight yourselves in rich food.Incline your ear, and come to me;     hear, that your soul may live. . . .Seek the Lord while he may be found. (Isaiah 55:2–3, 6)

God can be your Uber driver and deliver the meal, but if it requires eating with him, well, you will see what you have in the back of the fridge. Pride speaks, Better king over your own unhappiness than a happy servant of your Creator. You will not “enter into the Master’s joy” because you cannot abide that word — “Master.” You will find another way back to Eden. You leave no cheap pleasure untried, and yet, a heaven stands open before you and you will not enter because the entrance is as low as a bow and as heavy as a cross.

In other words, We are sinners. God’s offer is not simply to the unsatisfied; it’s to the unrighteous.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;     call upon him while he is near;let the wicked forsake his way,     and the unrighteous man his thoughts;let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,     and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6–7)

We do not just need better pleasures; we need abundant pardon. Justice, not just your heart, needs satisfaction. The gospel addresses not merely your discontent in happiness apart from God, but your disobedience in seeking happiness apart from God. The Lord Jesus does not just extend forever ecstasies; he stays final executions. We are creatures not just wanting but wanted.

Genius

What does your past (or present) life of fornication, lying, gossip, anger, or drunkenness have to do with your search for happiness? Everything. Alone, you have no right to this blessedness. Justice disallows sinners from the inheritance of the righteous. Should you who have sown hell reap heaven? Should God be mocked? How can God make you happy? His mercy, not his wrath, begs for explanation in the next verses.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,     neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.For as the heavens are higher than the earth,     so are my ways higher than your ways     and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8–9)

Your thoughts of grace and mercy inch upon the forest floor; God’s thoughts of grace dwell far above the heads of the seraphim. His gospel ways of pity and pardon hang above us from crossbeams of rugged wood upon a hill. In other words, the gospel is not man’s genius but God’s. We had no clue how justice and mercy could kiss. Man couldn’t fathom a way for his own forgiveness; he couldn’t dream how to be adopted into God’s family. The happiness in God we never sought was given to us through a plan we couldn’t have imagined.

Joy

God’s plan features God’s Son. He would send his only Son to take on human flesh, live the perfect life you didn’t, die your death, and rise from your grave. He suffered the wrath you deserved so you could have the heaven Christ deserved.

God welcomed back a banished people through covenant, foretelling, “I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David” (Isaiah 55:3). And amid the promise, he turns to another and says,

Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know,     and a nation that did not know you shall run to you,because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel,     for he has glorified you. (Isaiah 55:5)

Hundreds of years later, one man rises to his feet to reissue God’s invitation to the thirsty:

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37–38)

Jesus invites all who will to come to him. He is the Lamb who was slain for the sins of the world. He is the man who, when lifted up by his Father, draws sinners to himself.

Whether you accept Christ’s happy terms of surrender, the promised bliss for God’s people will arrive. His word will not return to him empty (Isaiah 55:11). The consummation of this everlasting covenant will spill over creation. Mountains and hills shall sing for his saints; the forest and the trees applaud us. The curse of thorn and thistle shall be overturned, displaced by the fertile green of blessing (Isaiah 55:12). And the happiness of his people in a new heaven and a new earth will “make a name for the Lord” as an “everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah 55:13).

Do you thirst? Come to the waters. He promises to forgive you, satisfy you, adopt you as his own treasured possession. Leave behind the pornography, the living for your own name, your unsatisfying affair with the world, and let the Lord usher you into fullness of pleasures forevermore in his presence. Your joy, to his glory, forever.

What if we recorded talk in the pews one Sunday morning? The sermon ends, the preacher descends, we sing in response, the benediction is given, voices break out, and the recording begins. As people speak to one another, what does one overhear?

Men talk of recent house projects, that afternoon’s football game, the weather, global news, politics, a sore knee, irritations at work, retirement. Women discuss kids, homeschooling, upcoming events, anxieties.

Ask an impartial judge: Is this a group of Christians? It might be hard to tell. Are we overhearing talk from a food court, a bus stop, or a church? Did these people just meet with the God of heaven and earth? The almighty Creator has just spoken to us through his preached word. Yet what if it has little to no consequence on our conversations directly afterward?

The contrast may be obvious with how happily we discuss other interests — for example, our entertainments. When you see a great movie or show, do you not make a point to discuss the plot twist at the end, the heartbreak of that character’s death, or the glory of this character’s redemption? Isn’t the experience somehow incomplete until you express what you think and feel and how deeply this or that moved you? Well, what about the sermon?

I am not giving a rule but questioning a culture. The problem is not that we talk about lunch or the game or earthly concerns, but that we lack deliberate conversation about the best things we just heard. Do we redeem the time? Would the recording detect much edifying, thoughtful, beautiful conversations about the soul and the Lord Jesus, or something closer to saltless, unspiritual, and rather idle conversation?

Consider how John Owen describes our blessed duty:

Believers, in their ordinary daily discourse, ought to be continually mentioning the Lord in helpful, profitable conversation, and not waste opportunities with foolish, light, frothy words that are out of place [especially on a Sunday]. (Duties of Christian Fellowship, 54)

A culture of frothy conversations seems to me the result of a more foundational assumption: that we really gather to hear the preacher speak, and not to further the grace in each other’s lives by our own speaking.

That All Were Prophets

What if we prayerfully arrived ready to speak words that “give grace to those who [need to] hear,” words the Spirit has equipped us to speak (Ephesians 4:29)? What if the culture of our churches were more potluck than single dish from the head chef?

I believe Paul has this in mind when he teaches the church that God gave us evangelists, shepherds, and teachers “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Note what ministry: “for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12–13). Pastors equip the saints not just to make disciples from the world out there, but to make mature disciples of each other in here. We are equipped by sermons, classes, and pastoral care not just to arrive the next week to receive again, but to use what we hear to speak into each other’s lives.

Thus, Paul continues,

Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15–16)

How many members of the body are not working properly because they consider themselves mere consumers? While speaking is not the only way we build others up, it is the means Paul mentions here. The community that builds itself up in love is built not merely by the pastor with the microphone. Instead, that pastor equips us to take the truth of Christ and echo it into each other’s lives during the rest of Sunday and throughout the week.

Very practically, what should we say when the service ends?

1. Discuss the Sermon

As book clubs discuss books, saints should discuss sermons. Ask how God met them; be ready to share how God met you.

I remember being taught that when God’s word is faithfully preached, the responsibility to steward that word shifts from the preacher to the hearer. You now hold a duty to love, meditate upon, apply, share, and further speak the truth preached (including with those next to you).

Consider how we can influence each other — positively and negatively — by our worldward or Godward conversation.

God is convicting or uplifting or correcting a brother’s heart with the word — I interrupt to get his take on the Vikings game. Jesus teaches that Satan steals sermons from hearts; how often are we his unwitting accomplices? The seed was sinking into the soil; I blew it away. His spirit burned just now — I doused the flame. His heart was being pierced; I parried the blade.

“Just be a humble, simple lover of God and souls, and the good you can do is unspeakable.”

But imagine if I discerned his unspoken heaviness, asked the Lord if I should go speak to him, and, going over, said, “Brother, tell me how God met your soul this morning.” You can do so much good by joining the preacher in ministry, seeking to further impress the truth upon souls by simple conversations about Christ after the service. Here is an idea: take sermon notes for yourself first and then also for others. You don’t need to be another pastor. Just be a humble, simple lover of God and souls, and the good you can do is unspeakable.

2. Care for the Soul

Thomas Watson gave his assessment after listening in on Christian conversations:

It is the fault of Christians that they do not in company provoke themselves to good discourse. It is a sinful modesty; there is much visiting, but they do not give one another’s souls a visit. In worldly things their tongue is a ready writer, but in things of religion it is as if their tongue did cleave to the roof of their mouth. (Heaven Taken by Storm, 38)

Consider how we rewrite Hebrews 10:24–25 by our Sunday conduct: “Let the pastors alone consider how to stir us up to love and good works, and let us not neglect to meet together to receive their words, as is the habit of some, but be encouraged by the pastors, and all the more as the Day draws near.”

Now the actual passage: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24–25). We consider others, stir them up to love and good works. “Meeting together” is linked with “encouraging one another.”

So we ask questions about each other, we check in on each other’s souls, we stir each other up, and we “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of [us] may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). “Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom,” we form each other’s souls (Colossians 3:16).

3. Pray for One Another

It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” (Matthew 21:13)

You may not possess many words of wisdom. You may not think well on your feet. You may get nervous and awkward and unsure of what to say in response to other’s questions. Here is one thing that eloquent and plain, wise and simple, young and old in Christ can do for one another: pray.

God’s house should be called a house of prayer. Intercession should fill the place before the service, during the service, and after. Ask others how they are doing. Ask how you can pray for them. And then bless yourself and them and the church by asking, “Can I pray for you right now?” “Right now” — two words that (when consistently added) can transform a stagnant culture.

Heaven’s Microphone

Some of the most shaping words spoken in the Christian assembly come not from the pulpit above but from the pew below. A church taught to make the most of the time together, to come to speak and not just to listen, to fill the building with holy conversation, experiences a foretaste of that country where we shall speak forever of all that God has done.

The pew is a powerful place. Marriages are saved there; sermons get engraved forever; souls pass from death to life. The pew or aisle or foyer is a grand place to “let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6).

The illustration I began with is not entirely hypothetical. Recording devices may never catch our conversations, but be sure that God does. He hears and remembers the holy speech of his people then and now:

Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. (Malachi 3:16)

When we who fear the Lord speak to one another this Sunday, what will the Lord overhear?

Life within the prison of despair is a misery hard to explain. The darkness makes dumb, leaving groans too deep for words. Isolation becomes both a constant friend and a chief affliction. The other birds of the world chirp along merrily. Perhaps you used to sing among their branches, but now you wonder, What do these creatures know of the deep caverns of the world? How can they understand? They feed upon worms; you live with worms, if living it can still be named.

John Bunyan described such a state as mere breathing. When Bunyan personified despair in The Pilgrim’s Progress, he depicted it as a giant who battered his prisoners mercilessly. After the first round of beatings, Giant Despair visits his captives (Christian and Hopeful) and finds them “still alive, though barely alive at that. They could do little but breathe, because of their great hunger and thirst and due to the wounds they received when he beat them” (The Pilgrim’s Progress, 198). Inhale, exhale . . . inhale, exhale — and even this with pain.

And what is worse, some of those locked in the dark tower know they have themselves to blame. Christian had advised they take an easier meadow-path that paralleled the narrow and hard way. They got lost, caught in a storm, and then they were discovered trespassing on Giant Despair’s property. The pilgrims’ imprisonment was not due so much to tragedy as trespass; theirs was not simply grief but guilt. God seems distant; the two believers grow silent: “They also had little to say, for they knew they were at fault” (196). They’re caught in Doubting Castle. Their hearts condemned them; conscience grabbed a branch to club them; why wouldn’t God leave them there?

Have you ever been imprisoned here? Are you there now?

Escaping Doubting Castle

Whether you wandered from the way into a great sin or whether some calamity stole you from your peace, a voice may come to you and suggest the unthinkable. Giant Despair brings the sinister temptation:

So when morning came, he went to them in an unfriendly manner, as before. Knowing they were still very sore with the stripes that he had given them the day before, he told them that since they were never likely to leave that place, their only way out would be immediately to make an end of themselves — either with knife, noose, or poison. “For why,” said he, “should you choose to live, seeing it is accompanied with so much bitterness?” (197)

A lion hunts among the wounded. He loves the stray, the despairing, the disgraced. This temptation never made you pause before, perhaps — when life was happy, hope was bright, God was near. But now, the lights are out. Now, the wages of sin overwhelm you. Now, with Christian, you find yourself considering the counsel. If you wonder the same, I pray God gives you strong aid through Bunyan’s five lessons concerning Christian and Hopeful’s escape from Doubting Castle.

1. Expose the Temptation

If you struggle with suicidal thoughts, a first step is to expose them. Christian says to Hopeful,

Brother, what shall we do? The life that we now live is miserable. For my part, I do not know whether it is best to live like this or to die without further notice. My soul desires strangling rather than life, and the grave is more desirable for me than this dungeon. Shall we listen to the counsel of this giant? (198)

I have had conversations with Christians who confessed they were tempted to harm themselves. Isn’t this one of the best first steps out of such despair? Satan brings a lethal combination of temptation along with lies about his temptation. In this case, he tells those he tempts that they must be false Christians for even being tempted. He holds out the poisoned apple and smirks to see your hand twitch. Do true Christians really long to die? Can they actually be tempted toward suicide? Our soul’s enemy is not just “the father of lies,” but “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).

No matter who you are, you are not the first to be “so utterly burdened beyond [your] strength that [you] despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8). You are not the first to wonder, “Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave?” (Job 3:20–22). Nor would you be the only one ever to pray for death, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4).

Bunyan’s first help for us is this: Expose the temptation. Follow Christian and go to a Hopeful, a trusted and mature believer or a faithful shepherd, and tell him how your Despair now counsels you.

2. Fear God’s Judgment

The second help comes with Hopeful’s response.

Indeed, our present condition is dreadful, and death would be far more welcome to me than to abide forever in this way. Even so, let us consider that the Lord of the country to which we are going has said, “You shall not murder.” If we are not to take the life of another man, then much more are we forbidden to take the giant’s counsel to kill ourselves. (198)

Beloved, to choose to destroy the life God has given you is not just a great tragedy but a heinous sin. With the euphemisms given for suicide today, we must not overlook that “God’s law, self-interest, and future judgment — all cry out against . . . the man who flees as a fugitive from life, and presents himself unbidden at the bar of God” (Commentary on John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, 94).

Bunyan goes on in the original to teach that suicide is “to kill body and soul at once,” arguing his position from 1 John 3:15: “You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” While I do not believe that every person who commits suicide goes to hell, I do not doubt it in many cases. I believe some who have traveled this deplorable path will be in heaven, but dear brother or sister, never test the Lord in this matter. The high-handedness of this sin, the destruction it leaves behind, the precarious end before a sure judgment ought to make us tremble and restrain the hand of self-harm.

“Oh, the liberation of promises believed! How they send us forth beyond the prison walls to better days.”

O despairing soul, this is not the voice of your Father in heaven, “for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13). This darkness playing upon your mind is not the wisdom from above — first pure, then peaceable, full of good fruit (James 3:17). No, demonic wisdom tempts you to such a dark act, and these spirits would lead you off the cliff if you would let them, as they did when they entered the herd of pigs. Life — abundant life — is what your Savior came to bring you. Do not commit an offense so great as self-murder against your Lord.

3. Remember Past Rescues

Prosperity preachers will not tell you this, because prosperity preachers do not preach the whole counsel of God, but Bunyan shows in his allegory how life can go from bad to worse, even for Christians. Giant Despair returns, incensed to find the pilgrims still alive, and vows to make them regret the day of their birth. At this, Christian faints in terror. After he regains consciousness, he again confesses his inclination to take Despair’s counsel. To which Hopeful, that brother born for the day of adversity, reminds him, “My brother, do you not remember how valiant you have been before now?” (200). Hopeful reminds him of all he has overcome and how many times he has played the man, God helping him. This remembrance is not so much about him but about his God with him, a recollection similar to the psalmist’s: “You have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy” (Psalm 63:7).

We face down our Giants of today and tomorrow as David did his: by remembering the God of past deliverances and every-morning mercies. “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:37). The Lord that delivered in the past will deliver now. He lives above and beyond our lightless castles, ready to raid our cells with grace and help in time of need, just as he has done before.

4. Grasp Great Promises

What finally breaks Christian and Hopeful free from Doubting Castle? Not vague ideas or renewed resolves or wishing upon a distant star, but believing upon living promises.

What a fool am I to lie in a stinking dungeon when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my pocket, called Promise, that I am sure will open any lock in Doubting Castle. (202)

Despair forgets the “precious and very great promises” of God and their Yes and Amen in Christ (2 Peter 1:4; 2 Corinthians 1:20). Forlorn, we feel the blows of sorrow, attend to the gashes of guilt, but fail to search the pocket where the promise lies waiting. What a fool we have been to remain in a stinking dungeon when Christ would have us walk at liberty. Recall keys that have worked mightily on many a door in Despair’s penitentiary.

Guilt’s door:

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:7)

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. (Micah 7:18)

Despondency’s door:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

Whoever comes to me I will never cast out. (John 6:37)

They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

This is the promise that he made to us — eternal life. (1 John 2:25)

Temptation’s door:

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)

Oh, the liberation of promises believed! How they send us forth beyond the prison walls to better days — often before our situations even change. Robert Maguire captures the beauty of promise: “Promise sees the dawn from the midnight, anticipates the sunrise from the sunset, recognizes in the leafless trees and cheerless snows of winter the harbinger and earnest of the fruits and flowers and seasonable enjoyments of the summer-tide” (Commentary, 96).

O wintered soul, by faith in your great and compassionate God, who has not spared his beloved Son for you, send your heart ahead into coming spring by believing what he says is soon to come.

5. Crawl to Sunday

A final help Bunyan offers us comes by noticing the chronology.

Here, then, they lay from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, without one bit of bread, or drop of drink, or light or any to ask how they did. So they were in a dire situation, far from friends and acquaintances. (196)

Is it coincidental that Bunyan identifies the time frame as Wednesday morning till Saturday night? It is not. Sunday is the day of jubilee for the oppressed, the day to be reminded together of God’s certain promises with his redeemed people. “Is it not true that [Sun]day, by its holy rest and hallowed ministrations of the Word and prayer, breaks many a fetter, frees many a slave, dissolves the doubts of the week past, and delivers many a soul from the bondage of Despair?” (Commentary, 96). Can you not add your own testimony?

Giant Despair holds no authority in God’s house. The Lord of love lives here, the Lord of compassion, the Lord of life — the Lord in whose presence there is fullness of joy. He is the one who condemned sin in the flesh, crushed the skull of the dragon, and has sat down at his Father’s side — who is coming again for us. The Light of the world shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome him yet.

Despairing saint, Sunday is coming. Make it to his people, his shepherds, his ordinances. Crawl, if you must. Sunday, dear brother or sister, is the day of resurrection, the day of life — the Lord’s Day. A day to anticipate the arrival of the last promise he made to us: “Surely I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:20).

Saul stands as a controversial first king in Israel’s history.

At times, he fought valiantly against the Philistines and judged them on behalf of the Lord. At other times, we see a man selective in his obedience. Still at other times, we see him with a King Lear paranoia, hurling spears at David, raging at his daughter, and threatening to kill his own son. He had the Spirit, and he had the Spirit taken away; he had the kingdom, and he had it torn from him; he ascended to the throne and then was violently cast down.

King Saul was worthy of death and worthy of song honoring him at his death. When Saul and Jonathan fall together in battle, David, the victim of Saul’s demon, leads Israel in the dirge: “Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:19).

He is a conflicted character in the storied history — more like Boromir (we hope) than Smeagol. We can sympathize with him. He never asked to be king, after all; he hid from the crown behind the baggage. Though a head taller than everyone else in Israel, he seemed small in his own eyes. Most know the temptation to feel unequal to the task and tiny before others.

I want us to learn from his origin story. How did Saul, an unassuming Benjamite from the humblest clan of the least tribe, ascend to the throne once reserved for God himself? In this article, I want to remind you of the meticulous sovereignty of our gracious God, his care then and his care now, and his ordering of seemingly irrelevant details to further his great name and our great good. Saul stumbled onto the throne at the end of a long search for donkeys.

Scene One: Out with the Old

In 1 Samuel 8, Israel has just asked Samuel to find them a human king so they might be like the nations. Samuel is getting old; his sons are taking bribes; why not catch up to modern times and find a human king? Samuel tries to reason with them, yet Israel will not be moved, no matter the cost.

“Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you,” the Lord tells Samuel, “for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). Samuel relents and sends the people home. Where is he to find this new king?

Scene Two: Lost Donkeys

The next verse introduces us to Saul’s father, Kish. A wealthy man of Benjamin, his son is the handsome giant of Israel: “From his shoulders upward [Saul] was taller than any of the people” (1 Samuel 9:1–2). But the first domino falls rather unexpectedly: “Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, were lost. So Kish said to Saul his son, ‘Take one of the young men with you, and arise, go and look for the donkeys’” (1 Samuel 9:3–4).

Saul and his servant pass through territory after territory but fail to find them. Saul wants to return: “Come, let us go back, lest my father cease to care about the donkeys and become anxious about us” (1 Samuel 9:5). But before they turn, an idea just happens to come to the servant’s mind: “Behold, there is a man of God in this city, and he is a man who is held in honor; all that he says comes true. So now let us go there. Perhaps he can tell us the way we should go” (1 Samuel 9:6). Saul asks what gift they might offer the man for his help. “Here, I have with me a quarter of a shekel of silver, and I will give it to the man of God to tell us our way” (8). Persuaded, Saul goes forth to meet the man who would make him king.

Now, here is what should amaze us. Rewind to the previous day:

Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: “Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have seen my people, because their cry has come to me.” (1 Samuel 9:15–16)

Behold the God of meticulous, donkey-dispersing sovereignty. A God who brings forth a king from a nobody wandering after lost beasts of burden. A God who brings along just the right companion to bring him into his destiny. And a God, not just of meticulous sovereignty, but of meticulous mercy. Did you catch it? “I will send to you a man. . . . He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have seen my people, because their cry has come to me.” This God has no equal. When rejected as king over the people, he nonetheless sees and hears their cries and brings his replacement to deliver them.

“Trusting God to govern our lives quiets many anxieties and affords much peace.”

At any point, the plan could have aborted; yet it couldn’t have, because at every point the Lord guided the plan. He told Samuel to expect Israel’s deliverer “tomorrow about this time” — and in stumbles the clueless Saul from stage left. When Samuel sees Saul, the Lord tells him, “Here is the man of whom I spoke to you! He it is who shall restrain my people” (1 Samuel 9:16–17).

Providence, Not Puppetry

Can’t we be reminded of God’s minute orchestration in Saul’s life and learn how to better read our own stories?

First, consider the nature of our God’s “sending” of Saul to his fate. From lost donkeys, to the right servant chosen, to the idea about going to Samuel for help — these were finely tuned secondary causes (or means) used by the First Cause to fulfill his will and achieve his ends. Westminster helps us understand the mysterious interplay: “Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly: yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently” (5.2).

In other words, the Lord sent Saul to Samuel, not by taking over Saul’s mind and puppeteering him against his choices, but by creating the precise circumstances (secondary causes) to guide his will this way and that. As God guides the stream of a king’s heart, so he directs the steps of kings-to-be (Proverbs 21:1). So, over the same event, it can be spoken: Saul chose to obey his father and search for the donkeys and go to the man of God, and God sent him to Samuel. God placed the walking stones that he knew Saul would freely step upon to bring him to Samuel. I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin.

Lost in the Fields

Saul remains a controversial first king in Israel’s history. I do not know whether those lost donkeys led him down a path that ended in eternal life. God will judge. But we do know that for his children, minute sovereignty is working for them, not against them, for their eternal good.

Apply this lesson to your own life, Christian. If we believe in this God of meticulous providence, we will put more confidence in him than in our meticulous planning. “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). We do our little planning, but if we know this God, we will mostly pray that he will establish our steps and keep us open to his many surprises along the way.

Trusting God to govern our lives quiets many anxieties and affords much peace. Think of it: isn’t the unfolding of our lives wrapped in mystery? One small step this way and not that, one thoughtless act, one unexpected conversation, one small tilt in the rudder, and all is changed. One insignificant donkey hunt ends in a throne. If left to navigate ourselves, ours are perilous waters below and a sky of shifting stars — we would be lost before morning. How vital for us not to play Captain: Lord, establish my way!

And praise be to God that he hears our cries and will deliver us, even after we once rejected him as King. Lay hold of the promise: “For those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28). And he will not merely wave the wand at the end of time and renew our shipwreck, but he is working all things for good now — even that thing you never chose. He surrounds his children with inescapable good — even though his providence can be hard and confusing, and we foolish and sinful. His promise to us shall not break.

You cannot see now how a path of pain or fields of pointlessness lead to eternal good, but he does. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6) — even when those straight paths follow wandering donkeys.

My evening reading that night was Romans 1–8. As the final page fell, sleep seized me, and I drifted into a dream.

I stood outside of a courtroom called Judgment Seat. August and austere, that courthouse appeared to me as the one great destination of all the earth. I entered willingly, though I later wondered if I had any choice.

Inside, demons and angels swarmed. “Judgment,” I overheard one angel say to another, “must begin at the house of God.” I took my seat in the courtroom, although some eyes rested upon me as though I did not truly belong.

Before I could spare the matter another thought, the doors flung open, and silence grabbed each creature by the tongue. Even the malevolent ones, those gods of the nations, were reduced to muffled sneers. The man entered enchained, head fallen, Amartōlos1 his name — though he shuddered to own it. He moved, so it seemed, like a man to his execution. He sat down in his seat — called Shame — with strange willingness, judging by the surprise of one angel behind me, who claimed that most sat down only after a great struggle.

“Holy, holy, holy” shook the courtroom as the Judge took his seat, a sight that I can only now liken to the sun ascending his throne at high noon. The proceeding commenced, and the prosecution began their case by calling one Spirit of the Age to bear his testimony on behalf of his business partner, World.

First Witness: Spirit of the Age

“Judge and jury and good spirits among us,” the spirit began, “I wonder if you have not realized already one who has no true place among the congregation of the righteous.”

At this, I swallowed so hard I thought I heard it echo.

“This man” — pointing at the man they nicknamed Tolos — “oh, how reluctantly do I bear my witness to his disgrace before you, Great and Holy One! I wonder, did you not say in your great book of law that this man ought not to love the world or the things in the world? Indeed, you did. I have it here: ‘Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world’ — and note this next part, good Judge and jury — ‘the love of the Father is not in him.’2 Or, if you’d rather, ‘You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.’3

“The precept is unmistakable, but did this poor villain transgress it? I submit as evidence the first two decades of his life — for the tree must be known by its fruit. Look with the eye of justice, not mercy — ‘Your eye shall not pity him’4 — and you will see ample proof in every word and deed. His whole life flows from one foul source. Unmistakably, he has served a willing slave to the lust of his eyes, the lust of his flesh, and the pride of life.5

“Consider how many varieties of sin lie before you now, sins cataloged by the apostle under divine inspiration: gossip, slander, hating of God, insolence, haughtiness, boasting, disobedience to parents, and even new inventions of evil.6 Look at the criminal — faithless, foolish, heartless, ruthless!7 What could be known about the Most High was plain to him — he knew well enough his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature — but the man neither honored God nor gave him any thanks.8 Instead, he exchanged the glory of the Most High for created things and went into partnership with me and my esteemed colleague here.9 He knew the truth but suppressed it in unrighteousness. Does the defendant deny any of these charges? Should he be true and God a liar?10 Is he not left ‘without excuse’?”11

The eyes of that other world focused on the man, who to them was no older than a boy. Without lifting his head, he stammered, “I have no defense, your Honor. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.”12

Second: Accuser of the Brethren

At this, the proceedings might have ended, but the examination continued with a most adept prosecutor given the title Accuser of the Brethren.

“Excellent start, great Spirit. Now, I must state my relations to the defendant from the onset so as not to indulge unjust scales. The man before you is my son; from birth he has been mine, and I most fraternally his. We have the case clearly given in the eternal decrees: ‘Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.’13 Or, a few verses further, the dividing line is drawn even plainer, the chasm more manifest — phanera, if I may quote the original. ‘By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.’14

“Now, though I do not mean to inconvenience the cosmos with family matters, note that he is not merely guilty, but in fact he is my son and no son of the Most High. He is mine and shall share in my inheritance, come what may. Did not the Most High swear that the woman’s offspring and mine shall have ‘enmity’?15 And while I will not dispute the fact here, let it be known that in identifying with me, in following my course and my way, in producing my works, he cannot but share my fate — as the great laws clearly teach. If some form of justice should prosecute me, then justice, by that same principle, must prosecute mine. Equal scales, I now ask of the court.

“If the dead dog desires to refute my claim over him or deny his service to me, then I shall forgo my gracious manner in this assembly and hail accusations violent — and most true — upon him, my own son. Jealousy for his soul, you see, would drive me to it. He already admitted to sinning not just against law, but against you, the Most High — and the villain now attempts, I fear, to do the same to me. If I be his father, where, dear assembly, is my honor?”16

At this the man stirred not. Only a groan was heard: “Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”17

Third: Conscience

Finally — and this witness was, in my opinion, as damning as the last — the man’s conscience spoke forth a fiery testimony against him, as though he had only this opportunity to speak after many years. Oh, how lengthy and eloquent and exact this witness! He read aloud numberless trespasses, many of which he had been present for, giving his most ardent protest, only to be harshly dispensed with, laughed at, mocked, and finally silenced. These deep secrets of the soul were stripped bare for the rest of us to see — of such an exhaustive nature that the Great Accuser himself recorded new evidence with smiling satisfaction. Rather would I live in a sewer, with most loathsome rats chewing my flesh and disease gnawing at my bones, than ever subject myself to such a precise and detailed record of my sins.

Tolos’s Plea

Finally, the man himself responded.

“I never knew to hate myself as I do at this moment,” Tolos replied, scanning the evidence. “What a villain I have been. My great pleasures have but stored up wrath for myself.18 My throat is an open grave, full of curses and bitterness.19 I have chosen ruin and misery and lived without the fear of God, not deeming it worthwhile to acknowledge him in my thoughts. My mouth is stopped. I am accountable to God. I stand condemned — and this by my own testimony.20 I plead guilty, guilty, guilty on all counts. If you have only justice to give, my due is wrath and fury unending.21

“But this is why I have come.” He finally lifted his head. “I have come to be tried before my time because I have read more in your Book than of law and my sin. ‘Righteousness apart from law’ — ‘the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.’22 All seems a wide word to awaken my hope.

“I can be declared not guilty, legally innocent, and even positively righteous ‘by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.’23 When I, who am evil, give my children gifts, I do not expect them to pay me for it. An open hand is all I require. So, here is my hand — empty of its own merits, stained, tinctured with sin, culprit to countless crimes — yet open to receive mercy from nail-pierced hands. For as plainly as I’ve read the record of my crimes, I’ve read the record of my Savior’s merits. How he fulfilled every jot and tittle of the law. How he was sent ‘for sin’ to ‘condemn sin in the flesh’24 — condemning what stood to condemn me. Wretched man that I am, but wretched man was he made for me, ‘whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.’25 I do receive him!

“The book says — and I faint to believe it — that to all who believe, the verdict upon a whole life of carnal wickedness has been punished at the tree. There you proved that God is ‘just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.’26 My plea is the same as Abraham’s, who ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’27 This is the faith to justify and bequeath ‘peace with God.’28

“So, I bear witness against myself, yes, and plead most certainly and horribly guilty. But next, I draw the court’s full attention to the finished work of Jesus Christ on my behalf. By his blood, I am justified — and much more, he saves me from the wrath of God.29 I believe with my heart and am made righteous; I confess him and am promised salvation.30 I appeal not to the law of works — ‘for by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight.’31 I appeal to the law of faith, the law of the Spirit of life that sets me free from the law of sin and death.32 I hold, I can only hold, that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.33 I draw your attention to the gospel decree:

To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing [my blessing!] of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,     and whose sins are covered;blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.’34

“So, I have come of my own accord before being summoned by death, believing, simply believing. I have pled guilty; I am worthy of eternal death. But you, O Judge, have promised life to those who come, and you promise them a spotless righteousness, my Savior’s righteousness. He shall deliver me from this seat of shame, for I am promised, ‘Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’35 He bore my sin, wore my wrath, ‘was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.’36 He is all my plea. If I be damned, come pry my arms from his feet, for there alone I cling.”

Verdict

A silence, a moment when even the gods are stilled, filled the courthouse. Then, a voice like the roar of many waters spoke from the throne words that shall be etched into my mind forever:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”37

At this, the foundations of the courtroom rocked, shaken by howls quickly drowned in song. The small host of hellish spirits shrieked and shrank in fury while the mighty host burst into a new song to the Judge:

“Worthy are you to take the scroll     and to open its seals,for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God     from every tribe and language and people and nation,and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,     and they shall reign on the earth.”38

And the Judge, looking rather annoyed by the blasphemous rage, cut short the cries of the fiends, exclaiming,

“Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? I am he who justifies. Who is to condemn? I am the one who died — more than that, who was raised — who sits at the right hand of power, who indeed is interceding for my people.”39

As the Judge closed the Book, I thought I glimpsed scars upon his hands and a name graven upon his palms: Amartōlos.