All Things For Good: Chap. 2 Pt. 4

All right, so we are continuing in all things for good. We are still in chapter two because it's just chock full of good stuff. And we've been considering four evils that work for good as Thomas Watson is explaining to us how even the worst things work for good to the godly.

And so we discussed in depth affliction and last week we spoke about temptation. And now this week we'll be discussing the evil of desertion. So I'm going to read the section and I'll share some thoughts, but this is interactive.

If you have questions, if you have comments, please raise your hand or if I don't see you, just call out and we'll consider this topic together. So number three, the evil of desertion works for good to the godly.

Desertion as Spiritual Withdrawal and the Soul’s Darkness

The evil of desertion works for good. The spouse complains of desertion. My beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. There's a twofold withdrawing, either in regard of grace when God suspends the influence of his spirit and withholds the lively actings of grace.

If the spirit is gone, grace freezes into a chillness and indolence. Or a withdrawing in regard of comfort when God withholds the sweet manifestations of his favor. He does not look with such a pleasant aspect but veils his face and seems to be quite gone from the soul.

God is just, he goes on, in all his withdrawings. We desert him before he deserts us. We desert God when we leave off close communion with him, when we desert his truths and dare not appear to him, when we leave the guidance and conduct of his word and follow the deceitful light of our own corrupt affections and passions.

We desert God first, therefore we have none to blame but ourselves. Long section here. I'm gonna keep reading, we'll come back. Desertion is very sad, for as when the light is withdrawn, darkness follows in the air.

So when God withdraws, there is darkness and sorrow in the soul. Desertion is an agony of conscience. God holds the soul over hell. The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinks up my spirits.

It was a custom among the Persians in their wars to dip their arrows in the poison of serpents to make them more deadly. Thus did God shoot the poisoned arrow of desertion into Job under the wounds of which his spirit lay bleeding.

In times of desertion, the people of God are apt to be dejected. They dispute among themselves and think that God has quite cast them off. Therefore, I shall prescribe some comfort to the deserted soul.

The mariner, when he has no star to guide him, yet he has light in his lantern, which is some help to him to see his compass. So I shall lay down four consolations, which are the mariner's lantern, to give some light when the poor soul is sailing in the darkness of desertion and needs the bright morning star.

Okay, that's a bunch of stuff, but I wanted to finish,.

Sorry, I just wanna put this on silent.

I wanted to finish that thought, but before that we get into the consolations, let's talk about the evil of desertion. When he references, what is that, canticles?

Canticle of canticles.

Thank you, the Song of Songs, the Song of Solomon, yeah. I think, no, actually, because I looked up the reference and it was, it's the Song of Solomon, yes, because it, I wouldn't be surprised,.

But I don't know if Thomas Watson.

Would use the Apocrypha book to share something. That's a good question. You know, it's interesting when you hear about the Puritans talking about desertion, and it almost seems like it's feelings, and what, did the Puritans have feelings back then?

That's not how we view them, but the Puritans had a thriving relationship with the Lord, vibrant. You know, they had deep feeling, and if anyone gives them a fair read in their writings, you see that, that they were on fire for the Lord, and so they understood these things about the idea of worship, and drawing near to God in prayer, and having communion with him, and I think that's something that is either, there's a ditch on both sides of the road, right?

We have some of our brethren who seem to be all about feeling, and not enough, you know, we might complain grounded in the word, and grounded in truth, and then you have the other ditch on the other side, the frozen chosen, where we have all the doctrine, and none of the emotion, and it's packaged one way or another, but again, these are ditches on both sides of the road.

We should have a deep relationship with the Lord. We should feel his presence. Just recognizing he is always with us, and we should be aware of that, and viewing life through the lens of understanding his presence is with us, his comfort is with us.

I think sometimes we recognize it the most in times of trouble. He mentions about the withdrawing of comfort, and so the twofold withdrawing that he says, God suspends the influence of his spirit, and withholds the lively actings of grace, and then grace freezes into chillness and indolence, and things just seem wrong, they seem off, and then there's times where we're not seeing comfort, we're dealing with difficult things, and it doesn't seem, there's no assurance, there's no reassurance, and so we feel as though we have been deserted.

We consider some of the psalmists crying out to God, and in their humanity, but here the Holy Spirit is still authoring this, and he says, wake up, how long will you be far off? And these are the people of God crying out to him, feeling very much deserted, and yet you continue to go through the psalm, and you come to the understanding that while they struggled, they recognized their doctrine was pure, that God was not far off, though at times it felt like it, and so we have this, and Job who was struggling, and not feeling comfort, and we'll talk later on about Christ, for that momentary desertion, but this is something that a Christian who, we'll get into a little bit with the terms of the consolation, but you might very well find yourself feeling deserted at times in your walk, feeling as though God was far off, and not feeling the same presence, the same favor that you once did.

We should be somewhat concerned if we never had this feeling, if we're just straight through even, how much are we reflecting on God, and on his goodness, are we basking in his presence, and then having those times of sweet community, where we feel like oh God is blessing,.

And he's close,.

And he's doing that, where other times there's more difficult. Now hopefully desertion is not something that we feel often, this is something where, as Thomas Watson mentions, there's usually a reason behind the desertion, we've deserted God first, we have gone astray, and then we realize that he seems to be astray from us.

Go ahead Maria.

No right,.

It's like he is faithfulness, and steadfastness embodied, like that is who he is, and he's unchangeable, so it's always us.

Right, right, I mean the reality is he is always there, but there are times where we don't feel his comfort, and so dealing with that feeling, dealing with that sort of awareness of a change in things, or at least it feels that way, and he's gonna give us some comfort to consider it, and to go through it.

Jerry.

One of the things I remember way back when I was in my early teens, I attended a Southern Baptist church, one of the sayings that I remember hearing was, you feel far from God, guess who moved?

Right.

Because so often people say, God's left me, he's abandoned me, he's forgotten me.

Yes.

Not at all.

Right, of course not. Even if we are faithless, you know he is always faithful right, he cannot betray himself, and his own character, his own principles. But consider the song of Solomon, chapter five verse six, where the spouse complains, my beloved has withdrawn himself, and was gone.

And so we talked about the two different types of withdrawing, and Thomas Watson makes it clear, as Jerry pointed out, if you feel far off from God, take a look around, because guess who moved? The Lord is just in all his withdrawings, we desert him before he deserts us, we desert him in many ways, and in many times, and we have none to blame but ourselves.

Desertion is sad, when the light is withdrawn, and God is light, darkness always follows. And so he talks about the agony of conscience, and talking about Job, feeling as though, not only was he shot through with arrows, but those arrows were poisoned, and he was just, he was in bitterness and despair.

Poisoned arrows making them deadlier, the saint is liable to think that they have been completely cast off, but there is comfort. And so that is what we're going to, you know, as we consider the topic of the book, all things work for good.

We've considered the bad news, the bad circumstances that we are struggling with, but where is the comfort? And I really appreciate what he said about the mariner, you know, where the clouds have descended, you can't see the stars, but you got a lantern, and you can see the compass, and we know that the word is a light, right, to our path.

I just wanted to make one more comment.

Sure.

He abandoned, as we were talking about just a minute ago, with Ezekiel, for instance, when God deserted the temple, he left the temple.

Right.

He left the people that were still in Jerusalem. However, he went to the people in exile.

Right.

The people in exile were still living wicked life, but there was a remnant.

There was.

So he did not desert his people.

Right, he doesn't desert his people. So there are times where we're dealing with feelings, you know, and we're not stoics. We do struggle with feelings and emotions, but what is our consolation, and how do we respond?

And how can we turn even these difficult times, find comfort, and reorient ourselves back towards the Lord? So before I get into the consolations, are there questions or comments? Any more questions or comments, I should say?

No, not yet? Okay, very good.

Do you have one here as well?

Oh, I'm sorry, Mike, go ahead.

No, it's fine.

I'm thinking of, you know, in Ephesians 1,.

Psalms,.

My God, my God,.

Why have you forsaken me? Ephesians has that.

He has a moment of desertion, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And we're going to get into that later on, and discuss that. But that was desertion, right? I mean, not that the Lord is no longer there, but as he, as a benediction, is his face shining upon him? Or is he, he's taken on our sin, and the Father has turned away?

I mean, hell is not, hell is not the absence of God, but it is the absence of his favor, of his grace. There's no more common grace there. There's no more, even the common comfort for the unbeliever to have the ability to go on each day, because the unbeliever still has a hope of sorts, right?

Each day we have another breath, and we can hope things will get better. When that time comes, there'll be no more hope.

The aspect, in my mind, of a believer, right, who feels deserted, or feels like he's been separated, or he doesn't feel that comfort, one would hope that they would compare that to the time when they were in comfort, and when they were in God, what they felt was God's light.

But unfortunately, sometimes our sin causes us to be blinded to that.

Okay.

Yeah, you guys are already touching on some of the things that we're gonna cover. So before you get too far ahead of me, we'll start considering these consolations. I really, again, appreciate how he said that the sailor depends on, you know, the mariner, the sailor, depends on the stars for guidance.

So he swayed back when, before all the fancy technology. But even without it, if you have a lantern to see the compass, to know which direction you're headed, and we have that lantern in the word of God, we are not ever without hope.

And so let's read the first consolation. None but the godly are capable of desertion. Wicked men do not know what God's love means, nor what it is to lack it. They know what it is to lack health, friends, trade, business, but not what it is to lack God's favor.

You fear that you are not God's child because you are deserted. The Lord cannot be said to withdraw, I'm sorry, the Lord cannot be said to withdraw his love from the wicked because they never had it. The being deserted evidences you to be a child of God.

How could you complain that God has estranged himself if you had not sometimes received smiles and tokens of love from him?

Not yet.

All right, so to feel the desertion of God is a contrast because you felt something else before. You felt his favor, you felt his blessings, you felt his love. And for a believer, you hopefully have a contrast.

I know it might be a little bit more difficult perhaps, although I don't know if we give him enough credit sometimes for younger people. You know, if you were raised in the church, you're raised in a Christian home, you get saved at an early age.

And for some of us, we think, oh, we hear, you know, perhaps the dramatic testimonies of people who were saved that have all sort of wretched sin and they have this huge contrast going from being an unbeliever and a rebel against God to being saved and just feeling the difference in their life, seeing how God has changed them.

They really understand what it means so that their desires and affections have changed and they have felt the love of God. And it's a dramatic change. And so sometimes young people growing up at the church and they get saved at an early age, they're like, I don't know, because they never felt.

And they're almost like our Presbyterian brother. They're just like, I always loved God, ever since I grew up. I grew up loving God. And they couldn't even tell you when their conversion was necessarily because they just always had this understanding.

Go ahead, Alex.

I think there may be potentially, especially young people who do grow up with families, a danger of perhaps, because even though a child who is raised in a Christian home but not saved, they could still feel the love of God upon the family.

Right.

So that's not an assurance of salvation.

That's right.

I actually kept in mind as well.

That's a good point. Excellent point.

God doesn't have grandchildren.

God doesn't have grandchildren. That is the truth. Yeah, you know, getting to the point where coming to embrace Reformed theology, and I remember talking to some Presbyterian brethren and talking about, you know, covenant children.

And, oh, they're covenant children because they were baptized. I'm like, no, you can still be a covenant child because you are in a home with at least one person who is in covenant with God. And so that family is under the blessing of God for the sake of one spouse, you know, ideally both.

But they are in relationship with God. They're a child of God. They have blessings from God. And there's certain protection and graces that go along with that. How much more so if both parents are saved, if both parents are living for the Lord?

That household is a blessed household because they have the gospel, because they have Christ, because they have the Holy Spirit. And so, yeah, you can be a young person growing up in that situation and thinking, look, I'm a child of God.

Well, that's why, you know, as Baptists, we want to encourage you to now understand, you know, God has been gracious to you just like he was to all the children of Israel. And when I say the children of Israel, I mean children of Jacob, all his descendants, the entire nation.

They experienced so much kindness, and yet some of them were destroyed for their unbelief. All the grace that they were given, all the truth that they had, all the blessings, and yet they still had hard hearts.

And God destroyed them. Christ destroyed them. And so we want to be aware. We want to be examining ourselves. We want to see if we're truly in the faith as we're encouraged to by the scriptures. But we can sometimes have that understanding.

And sometimes I was saying, you can have children who do acknowledge and realize they're sinners, and they've come to embrace the gospel, but they feel like there's not a big change in their life. But what they don't appreciate, and they'll come to appreciate later on, especially if they do fall into sin, but how, you know, how much more so that grace of God has been in their life.

The person who's lived the life of a scoundrel for decades, how they wish they could go back and undo that time, how they wish they could have been saved at an earlier age and done more for the Lord, or at least not carry so much scars and beg and done so much harm.

You have to recognize coming to faith at an early age is a blessing, but you are responsible as well for your relationship with the Lord, for drawing close to him, not taking him for granted, and not just like the Israelites of old, experiencing the blessings without giving him the glory, without giving him the gratitude.

And yet, so if you have that relationship, you're gonna have times, especially if you decide to live faithfully before him, where you're gonna have difficulties and trials. And sometimes it comes from persecution, you know, and so you draw near to God and you find comfort in him.

And then there's times where you're going your own way and you feel like I'm making a mess of things and I don't feel like the Lord is looking after me. And perhaps he's just given us some leash to allow us to fall into our own hands and recognize how we need to turn back to God.

Did I see a hand back there?

Yeah, so I've already gone over it in this chapter, but I think he points out that humility of falling for a believer is also very important.

Right.

Reminds me of grace.

Right.

And that it's like rising up.

Right. Yeah, discussed that last time at certain areas with temptation and being foiled by temptation. And there'll be some of that to still come even still because we're gonna talk about desertion and we're gonna talk about sin as the fourth thing.

Sin of others and sin of ourselves where God can overrule and use it for good. But to come to the point, only the godly are capable of desertion. So if you've experienced the love and mercy of God, if you've had those times of sweet communion, you've had times of feeling his favor, that can be an encouragement to you even in your desertion that you see the contrast, but that means that you have been in relationship with the Lord.

And this is a temporary because you have experienced and we know that he who begins a good work will complete it, right? So he will bring us back to himself. Number two, there may be the seed of grace where there is not yet the flower of joy.

The earth may lack a crop of grain yet may have a mind of gold within. A Christian may have grace within though the sweet fruit of joy does not grow. Vessels at sea which are richly fraught with jewels and spices may be in the dark and tossed in the storm.

Tell you, Puritans were poets. You see the ground and you don't see anything growing and yet the seed is there or perhaps a mine of gold that's under the ground that's just filled with riches and treasure and grace and the storm-tossed ship on the sea and yet it's loaded within with all things that are good.

And so we can feel those times of darkness, we can feel like we're tossed and yet God is still there and there is still comfort to be had. I think there was more to say on this here. A soul enriched with the treasures of grace may yet be in the dark of desertion and so tossed as to think it shall be cast away in the storm.

David, in a state of dejection, prays, take not your Holy Spirit from me and he does not pray, says Augustine. Augustine, Augustine, Augustine, whichever your reformed preference is. Lord, he does not pray, Lord, give me your Spirit but take not away your Spirit so that he still had the Spirit of God remaining in him.

So that prayer, take not the Holy Spirit from me, restore the joy of my salvation, not give me salvation, but restore the joy of it, of being in right relationship with you. And please don't take your Holy Spirit, which means he has the Holy Spirit.

So though there was darkness, though there was trials and tribulations, and in David's case, those of his own making and doing, and often that's the case for us, all hope is not lost. There is still the Spirit of God within.

Question or comment on that?

No?

Okay.

Desertion Is Temporary and Meant to Bring the Soul Back

Number three, these desertions are but for a time. Christ may withdraw and leave the soul a while, but he will come again. In a little wrath, I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you.

When it is low water, the tide will come in again. I will not always show my anger. The tender mother sets down her child in anger, but she will take it up again into her arms and kiss it. God may put away the soul in anger, but he will take it up again into his dear embraces and display his banner of love over it.

Is there more on that? And again, for the believer, we are faithless, but he is always faithful. And so even though we might have times of feeling lost and abandoned, those times are temporary for the believer.

And he gives some Old Testament examples, and that's Isaiah 54 .8, not 64 .8, if you're searching for it. Didn't think we'd get through a whole section here without a couple of errors in the numbers, right?

But it says, in an overflowing anger for a moment, I use the ESV to bring some of these out, because I think he's using the King James. But in an overflowing anger for a moment, I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love, I will have compassion on you.

And Isaiah 57 .16, I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry. And so there are times where the consequences of our sins make us feel deserted, because sometimes we're feeling the discipline, we're feeling that the curse is no longer on us, the condemnation is no longer there.

But as I shared earlier in sermons in Jude, there are consequences to our sin. And Hebrews 12 talks to us about being chastened as sons and disciplined as sons from the Father. And if we weren't, we would be illegitimate children.

And so even though there are times of consequences and times of perhaps feeling like God is far off, just because we're experiencing our consequences and not just blessing, blessing, blessing in our sin, we can recognize that it is temporary, it's for a moment.

And there again, we'll be embracing. I think Russ had a hand and then Jerry.

Yeah, with that said, going back to David, do you think that it's still proper?

Say again?

With what you just said, and then going back to David, do you think it's proper for a believer to ask God not to take the Holy Spirit?

Yeah, I should clarify that. He says, restore the joy of my salvation, right? He's already saved. He understands the forgiveness that's found in God and the grace that's found in God. When he says, take not thy Holy Spirit from me, I don't think he's saying, please don't take away my salvation.

We associate salvation, rightly so, with the regeneration by the Holy Spirit and an indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And yet, Old Testament workings of the Spirit versus New Testament, think about Moses, where he had the Holy Spirit upon him, and then God poured out the Spirit on 70 elders and they're prophesying in the camp.

And Joshua's like, stop them. He goes, I wish everyone had the Spirit, because he's recognizing the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, in the way that Moses had and the way David has. When God had work to do, he put an anointing of the Spirit on his people to do that.

Saul had a different Spirit when he was prophesied over that he was gonna be king, and then God took his Spirit away. Did he have salvation and God took it?

No.

Yeah, because you would have seen that firsthand,.

The Spirit that departed from Saul.

He, yeah.

I mean, David had intimate acquaintance with that, because here, David, Saul, rather, was anointed and had God's anointing to do this work and to be this great king, and yet, when the Holy Spirit departed from him, evil demon, an evil spirit, had run of the house with him and tormented him, and so much so that Saul was trying to pin David to the wall with his spear.

Spear, not spirit. And so I think when he's saying that, he's asking that the Lord would not remove him, not take away that anointing, not do that. He's not talking about, please don't take away my salvation.

So we have the Holy Spirit as believers, and yet we also have, you see in Pentecost that the baptism of the Spirit, and we don't hold to a second blessing, as some of our brethren do, in thinking that the baptism of the Spirit is somehow different from salvation, but we recognize that we have the Spirit upon us, that we are to be working for the kingdom, to be advancing it, and we have this calling on us to serve.

So does that make sense? Did I clear that up?

Jerry?

I was actually gonna comment on that as well, but the other thought I had is another side, is the idea of excommunication. In a sense, we kind of excommunicate ourselves sometimes because of our sin, and God uses that to bring us back to Him.

Any desperate situation that we're put in, God uses for His people to bring it back, just like where the prayer and hope is, obviously, if the believer, quotes, because we don't know for sure, is put out of the church and put into the world, the hope is that the realization of that loss of that, those blessings and the means of grace, et cetera, is going to draw the person back.

Right, church discipline and excommunication, specifically there, that is meant to be a grace. It's meant to be something that brings about restoration. The person who's excommunicated, saying, you're outside of the body, it's to be a warning to them, you're at a step with the body, you're very likely at a step with the head, who is Christ, and you are off, and you are, your soul's in danger, and so hopefully recognizing that, and again, being part of a covenant community, your household, first and foremost, but then the greater covenant community of the church, there are blessings there, you know?

There's grace there, and so to be outside of that protection, I mean, Paul says it stark terms. You know, I delivered him over Satan for the destruction of his flesh that his spirit might be saved. So he's recognizing, he wants to see this person saved, and yet tough love requires, if there's a stubborn refusal to repent, they must be put out.

They must recognize the danger that they're really in, and hope that God will use that grace of shame, of being cut off, and dealing with the consequences of their sin in full to bring them back. And so our prayer is always to see them restored.

That's why we have, that's part of our church prayer list, is to pray for those who have been excommunicated, who have been under church discipline and refuse to repent, that the Lord would have mercy and restore them, and we've seen it restored.

We've seen people restored, and what a blessing that is. It's sad when people excommunicate themselves. They don't even go through the process. They just depart, and they're left to themselves and their own devices, but we continue to pray that, Lord, bring them back, help them to see, and God is merciful.

So there's times of desertion, but left to ourselves, it can be worked for good and to be brought back, and as Thomas Watson shares here, it is, but for a time, it's temporary, and embraces will follow, because he's the perfect father, right?

Waiting for that prodigal son a far way off, waiting for him to return, and so that's our comfort in it. And so these desertions work for good to the godly. Desertion cures the soul of sloth. We find the spouse fallen upon the bed of sloth.

I sleep, and that was earlier in Song of Solomon, before they say, my beloved withdrew. First, the spouse is asleep and very reluctant to get up and to meet the bridegroom, and presently Christ was gone, he says.

My beloved had withdrawn himself. So 5 -2, 5 -6, Song of Solomon. Who will speak to one that is drowsy? Desertion cures inordinate affection to the world.

I wanna take a moment there.

Just, yeah, that verse before about the beloved saying, I sleep, right? And, you know, my beloved is at the door, and they can't arouse themselves. No time for intimacy with Christ. No time for prayer.

No time to be in the word. You know, all those things that Thomas Watson started off with, that we desert him before he deserts us, he's there at the door. And we know that, not only from Song of Solomon, but even Revelation, where he says, I stand at the door and knock.

And he's talking to the church. He's not talking to unbelievers. He's talking to his own people. He's there to have communion with them. Will they acknowledge him? And we realize that these churches, some of them, most of them are facing sin that needs to be dealt with, where they were losing their fellowship with Christ.

Just one quick comment on that,.

And more. A personal comment.

I find that myself, sometimes, obviously, we don't want to study, we don't want to play. And it becomes harder and harder when we put it off. But then, when we do, and I think we can all relate to this, I go, what a, it's like a thrill.

It's like a shot of adrenaline. It's like, why did I put this off, type of thing. I think, my point being that, as we separate ourselves, it becomes easier and easier to separate, and harder and harder to do.

But then, when we do, those blessings are just abundant.

Right, he's there to embrace us immediately. We are the ones who were going astray from him. We didn't want to spend time in prayer. We didn't want to spend time in the study. We didn't want to go to church.

We didn't want to embrace those means of grace that he gives us, and so we astray from him. And then, all of a sudden, we feel deserted, because he's just kind of pulled back and allowed us to have our space, knowing the folly of it, but helping us to discover it ourselves.

So, who will speak to one who is drowsy? And then, he says, desertion cures inordinate affection to the world. Love not the world. We may hold the world as a posy in our hand, but it must not lie too near our heart.

We may use it as an inn where we take a meal, but it must not be our home. Perhaps these secular things steal away the heart too much. Godly men are sometimes weighed down with an overabundance of temporal things, and drunk with the luscious delights of prosperity.

And having spotted their silver wings of grace and much defaced God's image by rubbing it against the earth, the Lord to recover them of this hides his face in a cloud. This eclipse has good effects. It darkens all the glory of the world and causes it to disappear.

The blessings that we have are blessings that God has given us. And yet, when we look to the gift, rather than the gift giver, right, we start to lose sight of God. We, again, you know, these things are written for our example about the Israelites.

He warned them ahead of time. You're gonna live in houses you didn't build and benefit from vineyards you didn't plant, and you're gonna forget you're God. And that's what we do. God gives us everything, you know?

And when we gather for worship, there's certain things that we should be just having in mind as part of how we order our life. We gather on the first day of the week to remember that God has made us a new creation.

He has made all things new. And we were always called to honor God with our time. And if he sets aside a day for himself to say, this is the day you'll rest, and it's a day you're gonna honor me and worship me, he is the priority.

And so we should order our time according to him and his ways. We give our tithes and offerings, and we recognize everything I have is from you. That job I have is because you gave it to me. The fact that I'm healthy enough to go and work that job is because you sustain me day by day.

And so he says, give me the firstfruits. Again, we prioritize all of our resources, our time, our money, our energies. Everything we have belongs to him, knowing that when we honor him, he is the one who has been blessing us this entire time.