THE
GARDINER
SPRING
Chapter Two
SORROW-DESERVED
One design of afflictions is to teach us that we deserve all that we suffer. No
man who has a conscience will question what he justly deserves. Instead of
murmuring and cherishing with a heart of a rebel, one would think that with the
afflicted prophet he would say, “I will bear the indignation of the Lord,
because I have sinned against him” (Micah 7:9 ESV.
Afflictions have a moral as well as an efficient
cause. God never afflicts simply because he chooses to do so. Arbitrary choice
and power have no place in his government. Suffering is the sentence of
justice, and not an act of sovereignty. Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a
swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight” (Proverbs
26:2 ESV). There is no suffering where there is no sin. The reason for all the
suffering in this sinful and sinning world is the mournful fact that it is a
sinful and sinning world. "Remember:
“who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?” (Job 4:7 ESV).
The unfallen angels are not sufferers. AS long as
the fallen remained sinless, they were not sufferers. When this planet on which
we dwell came from the hands of its Maker, it was a happy world, because it was
a holy world. The Tempter’s foot had not trodden it, nor had it been poisoned
by the venom nor polluted by the slime of the old Serpent. Our first parents
were created capable of sensation, thought, and volition; their every sense and
faculty was but an inlet and avenue of joy. The image of him that created them
had not been eradicated from their pure minds, nor was it obscured or
discolored. God himself was their supreme good and they were happy. The heavens
and the earth, every creature, and every object and event around them
ministered to their enjoyment. The ground was not at that time cursed, nor was
it smitten with barrenness. There were no thorns and thistles which it brought
forth, nor did savage beasts roam its mountains or its plains. There was no poisonous
atmosphere, nor burning sun, nor stormy wind, nor creeping pestilence, nor
bloody sword. Men did not get sick and die upon it, nor had it yet entered upon
its sad career of mourning and tears. Everything was fair, because it was
unblemished—everything beautiful, tranquil, and joyous, until its beauty was
marred, its tranquility disturbed, and its joys infected by sin.
Then all was changed. The ground was cursed. The air was cursed. The streams
were cursed. The very flowers and plants of
Such is the light in which the divine oracles represent human suffering. “Therefore,
just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so
death spread to all men because all sinned” Romans 5:12 (ESV) The terror by night and the arrow that flies by
day, the restless bed of sickness and of pain, and the pestilence that walks in
darkness, are faithful monitors “When you discipline a man with rebukes for
sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him; Psalms 39:11 (ESV) The
kingdom of suffering stands abreast with the kingdom of sin; there never was a
sufferer who was not a sinner.
It is no cause for self-congratulation when we are
suffering, when we have brought the suffering upon ourselves. Yet WE cannot
plead that we are guiltless. “Your ways and your deeds have brought this upon
you" Jeremiah 4:18 (ESV). See now
that “Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God;
the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts” Jeremiah 2:19 (ESV). If pain invades
these senses, which were formed to be the avenues of pleasure, it is because we
have sinned with our eyes and ears and hands and these senses have been our
tempters. If lover and friend are put far from us, and our acquaintance into
darkness, it may be because they have seduced our hearts from God. If riches
take to themselves wings and fly away as an eagle towards heaven, it may be
because we have made our wealth our strong city, and said to the gold, “I have
made gold my trust and fine gold my confidence” Job 31:24. If our fair name has
been tainted by the breath of slander, or exposed to disgrace by indiscretions
of our own, it is that we may be reminded how enormously we have been “lovers
of ourselves.”
These are humbling thoughts, we know; yet is it no
small satisfaction to know that God does not—afflict us unjustly. It would be a
fearful impression to struggle with, if we had the consciousness of not
deserving rebuke, or if we were so deluded as to persuade ourselves that these
painful dispensations are uncalled for. I have met with more instances than one
of this sort in the course of my ministry, and have always felt that while they
called for faithful instruction and reproof, they also demanded compassion and
sympathy. It is a perilous position which a creature assumes in contending with
his Maker, and hasn’t the ability to diminish or alleviate his grief. Our very
dreams might cure us of this presumption. “In thoughts from the visions of the
night,” says the old patriarch, “Dread came upon me, and trembling, which made
all my bones shake,” says the old patriarch, when, 15 “A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood
up. 16 It stood
still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there
was silence, then I heard a voice: 17
'Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure
before his Maker? 18 Even
in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error; 19 how much more those who dwell
in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the
moth. Job 4:14-19 (ESV). We all
confess that these are just sentiments. And they soothe the troubled heart.
They charm away his grief when the sufferer thus bows before the throne,
accepts the punishment of his iniquity, and ascribes righteousness to his
Maker.
“Almighty power, to thee we
bow;
How frail are we, how glorious Thou:
No more the sons of earth shall dare
With an ETERNAL GOD compare.”[i]
Man is the creature of appetite and passion; and although
a creature of reflection and conscience, he often complains of the severity of
God’s judgments. He says within himself, wherefore is the heat of this great
anger; what have I done to deserve a blow like this? Come now, and let us
reason together. Let such a one honestly attend to his own convictions, and
inquire whether he is truly awake to a accurate sense of his obligations as
God’s creature. His conscience may not be so enlightened and sensitive as to
lead him to feel the burden of his sins and the full weight of a
self-condemning spirit. He may never have honestly made the divine law the rule
of his duty, nor seen how broad it is. He may have congratulated himself on a
decent exterior, not thinking that “man looks on the outward appearance, but
the Lord looks on the heart” 1 Samuel 16:7. He may have thought of his
fellow-men more than he has thought of God; honored them more than he has
honored him, and sought their approval and favor more than God’s.
Although you do not condemn yourself for your
immorality, have you no reason to criticize yourself for your ungodliness? You
may have overlooked your high privileges, and lost sight of those ends of
divine love in the many and discriminating favors of a kind and gracious
With such a state of mind as is often cherished by persons in affliction, it is
no wonder they complain of the rod. They do not feel that they deserve it. Oh
it is a dark state of a mind—dead, lazy, unfeeling state; sensitive to
bereavement and sorrow, but insensitive to unworthiness and indwelling sin. The
burden of sin is of all burdens the heaviest; but there is a state of mind that
makes light of sin, even when the heart stoops and bleeds under the burden of
sorrow. You son, you daughter of sorrow, look into your own heart, look into
your closet and into your Bible, and then ask your conscience whether your
afflictions aren’t deserved.
Good men are not always faultless in this matter, but are sometimes like a
bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. “Oh,” says the venerable patriarch, 3 “when his lamp shone upon my
head, and by his light I walked through darkness, 4 as I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon
my tent, 5 when the
Almighty was yet with me, when my children were all around me,” Job 29:3-(ESV). “But now you have
become cruel to me; with your strong hand you oppose yourself against me.” This
was a bitter and unjustifiable complaint; yet it was from lips that had just a short
time earlier said, “Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we
not receive evil?” Job 2:10 KJV. Complaints like this were not the true index
of Job’s character; for not long after this, and in the issue of his trials, he
makes that memorable confession, 5
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees
you; 6 therefore I
despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Job 42:5-6 (ESV).
The children of God are not rebels. Even under the
severest afflictions they have the consciousness of their sinful character and
of their indebtedness to his forbearing mercy; and the thought cools the hot
agitation of their heart, and bids it be still. “I am the man ,” says the
weeping prophet in his mournful Lamentations,” who has seen affliction under
the rod of his wrath; 2 he
has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; 3 surely against me he turns his
hand again and again the whole day long. 12 he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow”
Lamentations 3: 1-3, 12 (ESV). “He
has filled me with bitterness; He has made me drink to excess and until
drunken with wormwood [bitterness]. 16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel (stones); He has
covered me with ashes.” Lamentations
3:15-16 (AMP). Language is not easily found which is more vividly
expressive of grief and despondency. He trembled beneath the rod.
But did his pensive harp echo no cheering strain?
Listen while God his Maker gave him “songs in the night.” He had time for
reflection, for self-inspection and prayer; and in these retrospective and
introverted thoughts, mourning and gratitude, the pensiveness and confidence of
piety was sweetly combined. “Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the
wormwood and the gall! 20 My
soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. 21 But this I call to mind, and
therefore I have hope: Lamentations
3:19-21 (ESV). Nor does the triumph end here. There is the song of joy
from the midst of the furnace. “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not
consumed; because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great
is thy faithfulness” Lamentations 3:22-23 (KJV). It was the light of heaven
illuminating his darkness. And when he subjoins, 27 “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone
in silence when it is laid on him; 29
let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope; Lamentations 3:27-29 (ESV) and then
adds, 31 “For the
Lord will not cast off forever, 32
but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to
the abundance of his steadfast love;” Lamentations 3:31-32 (ESV) and at last affirms the great and precious truth, 33 “for he does not willingly
afflict or grieve the children of men” Lamentations
3:33 (ESV). It is the strength of heaven, making him strong in weakness;
it is the smile of heaven, chasing all gloom from his solitude and depression;
it is the faithfulness of heaven, leaving upon the receding cloud “a rainbow
round about the throne.”
Few thoughts have a more salutary influence upon the afflicted than a sense of
their own unworthiness and ill-desert, especially when they contrast their afflictions
with the abounding mercies of a bountiful
“If smiling mercy crown our
lives,
Its praises shall be spread;
And we‘ll adore the justice too
That strikes our comforts dead.”