by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
May, 1940
A MUTUAL COMPLAINT.
“Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; when His candle shined upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness: as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle” (Job 29:2-4). If Job here refers to the temporal prosperity which he had lost, we cannot condemn him for his complaint, neither can we commend him. It is but the expression of a natural regret, which would be felt by any man who had experienced such great reverses. But there is everywhere in the expressions which he used such a strain of spirituality, that we are inclined to believe he had more reference to the condition of his heart than to his earthly affairs. His soul was depressed: he had lost the light of God's countenance: his inward comforts were declining. his joy in the Lord was at a low ebb; this he regretted far more than anything besides.
No doubt he deplored the departure of those prosperous days when, as he words it, his roots were spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon his branch; but much more did he bemoan that the lamp of the Lord no more shone upon his head, and the secret of God was not upon his tabernacle. As his spiritual regrets are far more instructive to us than his natural ones, we will turn all our attention to them. We may, without violence, appropriate Job's words to ourselves: for I fear that many of us can with great propriety take up our wailing and mourn for the days of our espousals, the happy days of our first love.
First, regrets such as those expressed in our text may and ought to be very bitter. If it be the loss of spiritual things that we regret, then may we say from the bottom of our hearts, “Oh that I were as in months past.” It is a great thing for a man to be near to God; it is a very choice privilege to be admitted into the inner circle of communion, and to become God's familiar friend. Great as the privilege is, so great is the loss of it. No darkness is so dark as that which falls on eyes accustomed to the light. The poor man who was always poor is scarcely poor—but he who has fallen from the summit of greatness into the depths of poverty is poor indeed. The man who has never enjoyed communion with God knows nothing of what it must be to lose it; but he who has once been pressed upon the Saviour's bosom will mourn as long as he lives, if he is deprived of the sacred enjoyment.
The mercies which Job deplored in our text are no little ones. First, he complains that he had lost the consciousness of Divine preservation. He says, “Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me.” There are days with Christians when they can see God's hand all around them, checking them in the first approaches of sin, and setting a hedge about all their ways. Their conscience is tender, and the Spirit of God is obeyed by them; they are, therefore, kept in all their ways, the angels of God watching over them, lest they dash their foot against a stone. But when they fall into laxity of spirit and walk at a distance from God, they are not so preserved. Though kept from final and total apostasy, yet they are not kept from very grievous sin; for, like Peter who followed afar off, they may be left to deny their Master, even with oaths and cursings. If we have lost that conscious preservation of God, which once covered us from every fiery dart; if we no longer abide under the shadow of the Almighty; and feel no longer that His Truth is our shield and buckler, we have lost a joy worth worlds, and we may well deplore it with anguish of heart.
Job had also lost Divine consolation, for he looks back with lamentation to the time when God's candle shone upon his head, when the sun of God's love was as it were in the zenith, and cast no shadow; when he rejoiced without ceasing, and triumphed from morning to night in the God of his salvation. The joy of the Lord is our strength, the joy of the Lord is Israel's excellence; it is Heaven upon earth, and consequently, to lose it, is a calamity indeed. Who that has once been satisfied with favour, and full of the blessing of the Lord, will be content to go into the dry and thirsty land, and live far off from God? Will he not rather cry out with David, “My soul thirsteth for God: when shall I come and appear before God?” Surely his agonizing prayer will be, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit.” Love to God will never be content if His face be hidden. Until the curtain be drawn aside and the King's face be seen through the lattices, the true spouse will spend her life in sighing: mourning like a dove bereaved of its mate.
Moreover, Job deplored the loss of Divine illumination. “By His light,” he says, “I walked through darkness,” that is to say, perplexity ceased to be perplexity: God shed such a light upon the mysteries of providence, that where others missed their path, Job, made wise by Heaven, could find it. There have been times when, to our patient faith, all things have been plain. “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine” (John 7:17). But if we walk far off from God, then, straightway, even the precious truth of God is no more clear to us, and the dealings of God with us in providence appear to be like a maze. He is as wise as Solomon who walks with God, but he is a very fool who trusts his own understanding. All the wisdom that we have gathered by observation and experience will not supply us with sufficiency of common sense if we turn away from God. Israel, without consulting God, made a league with her enemies: she thought the case most plain when she entered into hasty alliance with the Gibeonites, but she was duped by cunning because she asked not counsel of the Lord. In the simplest business we shall err, if we seek not direction from the Lord; yet where matters are most complicated, we shall walk wisely, if we wait for a voice from the Oracle and seek the good Shepherd's guidance. We may bitterly lament, therefore, if we have lost the Holy Spirit's light. If now the Lord answers us not, neither by His Word nor by His providence, if we wander alone, saying, “O that I knew where I might find Him,” we are in an evil case.
Moreover job had lost Divine communion: so it seems, for he mourned the days of his youth, when the secret of God was upon his tabernacle. Who shall tell to another what the secret of God is? Believing hearts know it, but they cannot frame to pronounce aright the words that could explain it, nor can they convey by language what the secret is. The Lord manifests Himself unto His people as He does not unto the world. We could not tell the love passages that there are between believers and their Lord—even when they are set to such sweet music as the Song of Solomon, carnal minds cannot discern their delights. They cannot plow with our heifer, and therefore they read not our riddle. As Paul in Heaven saw things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, so the believer sees things and enjoys in communion with Christ what it would not be lawful but impossible for him to tell to carnal men. Such pearls are not for swine. The spiritual discerns all things, but he himself is discerned of no man.
Now it is a high privilege, beyond all privileges, to enter into familiar intercourse with the Most High, and the man who has once possessed it, and has lost it, has a bitterer cause for regret than if, being rich, he had lost his wealth; or being famous, he had lost esteem; or being in health, he were suddenly brought to the bed of languishing. “No loss can equal the loss of Thee, my God. No eclipse is so black as the hiding of Thy face. No storm is so fierce as the letting forth of Thine indignation. It is a grief upon grief to find that Thou are not with me as in the days of old.” Whenever, then, these regrets do exist, if men's hearts are as they should be, they are not mere hypocritical or superficial expressions, but they express the bitterest experiences of our human existence. “Oh that I were as in months past” is no sentimental sigh, but the voice of the innermost spirit in anguish as one who has lost his firstborn.
Secondly, but let me remind you that these regrets are not inevitable: that is to say, it is not absolutely necessary that a Christian should ever feel them, or be compelled to express them. It has grown to be a tradition among us, that every Christian must backslide in a measure and that growth in grace cannot be unbrokenly sustained. It is regarded by many as a law of nature that our first love must grow cold, and our early zeal must necessarily decline. I do not believe it for a moment. “The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day,” and were we watchful and careful to be near to God, there is no reason why our spiritual life should not continuously make progress both in strength and beauty. There is no inherent necessity in the Divine life itself compelling it to decline, for is it not written, “it shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life,” “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”?
Grace is a living and incorruptible seed that lives and abides forever, and there is nowhere impressed upon the Divine life a law of sinning and decay. If we do falter and faint in the onward path, it is our sin, and it is doubly sinful to forge excuses for it. It is not to be laid upon the back of some mysterious necessity of the new nature that it should be so, but it is brought as a charge against ourselves. Nor do outward circumstances ever furnish a justification to us if we decline in grace; for under the worst conditions believers have grown in grace; deprived of the joys of Christian fellowship and denied the comforts of the public means of grace, believers have nevertheless been known to attain to a high degree of likeness to Christ Jesus. Thrown into the midst of wicked companions and forced to hear, like righteous Lot, the filthy conversation of the ungodly, yet Christians have shone all the brighter for the surrounding darkness, and have been able to escape from a wicked and perverse generation. Certain it is that a man may be an eminent Christian and be among the poorest of the poor: poverty need not make us depart from God; and it is equally certain that a man may be rich and for all that walk with God and be distinguished for great grace. There is no lawful position of which we may say, “it compels a man to decline in grace.”
And, brethren, there is no period of our life in which it is necessary for us to go back. The young Christian, with all the strength of his animal passions, can by grace be strong and overcome the Wicked One. The Christian in middle life, surrounded with the world's cares, can prove that “this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.” The man immersed in business may still be baptized of the Holy Spirit. Assuredly old age offers no excuse for decline: “they shall bring forth fruit in old age: they shall be fat and flourishing, to show that the Lord is upright.” No, brethren, as Christ said to His disciples, when they would feign have sent the multitude away to buy meat, “they need not depart,” so would He say to the whole company of His people, “ye need not depart”— there is no compulsion for decline in grace. Your sun need not stand still, your moon need not wane. If you cannot add a cubit to your spiritual stature, at any rate, it need not decrease. There are no reasons written in the book of your spiritual nature why you, as a believer, should lose fellowship with God, and if you do so, take blame and shame to yourself, but do not ascribe it to necessity. Do not gratify your corruptions by supposing that they are licensed to prevail occasionally, neither vex your graces by conceiving that they are doomed to inevitable defeat at a certain season. The spirit that is in us lusts to evil, but the Holy Spirit is able to subdue it, and will subdue it if we yield ourselves to Him.
Thirdly, the regrets expressed in our text are exceedingly common, and it is only here and there that we meet with a believer who has not cause to use them. It ought not to be so, but it is so. How grievously often will the pastor hear this among other bleating of the sheep: “Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me.”
“What peaceful hours I then enjoyed,The commonness of this lamentation may be somewhat accounted for by the universal tendency to undervalue the present and exaggerate the excellence of the past. Have you ever noticed this in natural things? We are prone to cast a partial eye upon some imaginary “good old times.” It is gone, and therefore it was good; it is here, and therefore it is dubious. In the middle of the summer we feel that the heat is so relaxing, that a frost would be the most delightful thing conceivable; we love, we say, the bracing air of winter; we are sure it is much healthier for us. Yet usually, when winter arrives, and the extreme cold sets in, we are all most anxious for the advent of spring, and we feel that somehow or other the frost is more trying to us than the heat. I met with an illustration of this tendency the other day. I went down a steep cliff to the sea shore, and during the descent every step tried my weak knees, and I felt that going down hill was the most difficult travelling in the world. Soon I had to return from the sands, and climb the steep path again; and, when I began to pant and puff with the difficult ascent, I changed my opinion, and felt that I would a great deal sooner go down than come up.
How sweet their memory still;.
But they have left an aching void,
The World can never fill.”
Then again, regrets may in some case arise from a holy jealousy. The Christian, in whatever state he is, feels his own imperfection much, and laments his conscious shortcomings. Looking back, he observes with joy the work of grace in his soul, and does not, perhaps so readily recollect the then existing deficiencies of nature; hence he comes to think that the past was better than the present. He is afraid of backsliding, and therefore he jealously fears that he is so; he is so anxious to live nearer to God, so dissatisfied with his present attainments that he dares not believe that he advances, but fears that he has lost ground.
I know this in my own experience, for when lying sick I have frequently lamented that pain has distracted my mind and taken off my attention from the Word of God, and I have longed for those seasons of health when I could read, meditate, and study with pleasure; but now that I have risen up from the sick bed and am growing strong again, I frequently look back to the long nights and quiet days spent in my sick chamber, and think that it was better with me then than now; for now I am apt to be cumbered with much serving, and then I was shut up with God.
Many a man is really strong in Christ; but because he does not feel all the juvenile vivacity of his early days, he fears that spiritual decrepitude has come upon him. He is now far more solid and steadfast, if not so quick and impulsive; but the good man in his holy jealousy marks most the excellence of his juvenile piety, and forgets there were grave deficiencies in it; while in his present state he notes the deficiencies, and fears to hope that he possesses any excellence at all. We are poor judges of our own condition, and usually err on one side or the other. All graces may not flourish at the same time, and defalcations in one direction may be more than balanced by advantages in another. We may be deeper in humility, if we are not higher in delight. We may not glitter so much, and yet there may be more gold in us. The leaf may not be so green, but the fruit may be more ripe. The way may be rougher, and yet be nearer Heaven. Godly anxiety, then, may be the cause of many regrets which are, nevertheless, not warranted by any serious declension.
And let me add, that very often these regrets of ours about the past are not wise. It is impossible to draw a fair comparison between the various stages of Christian experience, so as to give a judicious preference to one above another. Consider, as in a parable, the seasons of the year. There are many persons who, in the midst of the beauties of spring, say, “Ah, but how fitful is the weather. These March winds and April showers come and go by such fits and starts that nothing is to be depended upon. Give me the safer glories of summer.” Yet when they feel the heat of summer and wipe the sweat from their brows, they say, “After all, with all the full-blow of beauty around us, we admire more the freshness, verdure, and variety of spring. The snowdrop and the crocus coming forth as the advance-guard of the army of flowers have a superior charm about them.” Now it is idle to compare spring with summer: they differ, and each has its own beauty.
We are in autumn now, and very likely instead of prizing the peculiar treasures of autumn, some will despise the peaceful Sabbath of the year, and mournfully compare yon fading leaves to funeral sermons, replete with sadness. Such will contrast summer and autumn, and exalt one above another. Now whoever shall claim precedence for any season shall have me for an opponent. They are all beautiful in their season, and each excels after its kind. Even thus it is wrong to compare the early zeal of the young Christian with the mature and mellow experiences of the older believer, and make preferences. Each is beautiful according to its time. You, dear young friend, with your intense zeal, are to be commended and imitated; but very much of your fire I am afraid arises from novelty, and you are not so strong as you are earnest: like a new-born river you are swift in current, but neither deep nor broad. And you, my more advanced friend, who are much tried and buffeted, to you it is not easy to hold on your way under great inward struggles and severe depressions, but your deeper sense of weakness, your firmer grip of Truth, your more intimate fellowship with the Lord Jesus in His sufferings, your patience and steadfastness are all lovely in the eyes of God. Be thankful, each of you, for what you have, for by the grace of God you are what you are.
After making all these deductions, however, I cannot conceive that they altogether account for the prevalence of these regrets; I am afraid the fact arises from the sad truth that many of us have seriously deteriorated in grace, have decayed in spirit, and degenerated in heart. Alas! in many cases old corruptions have fought desperately, and for awhile caused partial relapse, grace has become weak, and sin has seized the occasion for attack; so that for a time the battle is turned, and Israel's banner is trailed in the mire. With many professors, I am afraid, prayer is neglected, worldliness is uppermost, sin has come to the front, nature leads the van, and grace and holiness are in the background. It should not be so, but I am afraid, sadly afraid, it is so.
Fourth, since these regrets are exceedingly common, it is to be feared that in some cases they are very sadly needful. Now let the blast of the winnowing fan be felt through the congregation. Behold the Lord Himself winnows this heap. Are there not many among us who once walked humbly with God and near to Him, who have fallen into carnal security? Have we not taken it for granted that all is well with us, and are we not settled upon our lees like Moab of old? How little of heart-searching and self-examination are practiced these days! How little inquiry as to whether the root of the matter is really in us! Woe unto those who take their safety for granted, sit down in God's house and say “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we.” Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion. Of all enemies, one of the most to be dreaded is presumption. To be secure in Christ is a blessing; to be secure in ourselves is a curse. Where carnal security reigns, the Spirit of God withdraws. He is seen with the humble and contrite, but He is not with the proud and self-sufficient.—C. H. Spurgeon, 1871.
(Completed in the June Issue).
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