 Chapter 11 of the Crook in the Lot, or the Sovereignty and Wisdom of God in the Affliction of Men Displayed This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Crook in the Lot, or the Sovereignty and Wisdom of God in Affliction of Men Displayed by Thomas Boston Chapter 11. What they will get by the lifting up promised to the humble We shall now consider what they will get by this lifting up promised to the humble. They will get, one, a removal of their humbling circumstances, God having tried them a while and humbled them, and brought down their hearts, world at length, take off their burden, remove the weight so long hung on them, and so take them off that part of their trial joyfully, and let them get up their back long bowed down, and this one of two ways. Either in kind by a total removal of the burden. Such a lifting Job got when the Lord turned back his captivity, increased to gain his family and substance which had both been desolated. David, when sought his persecutor fell in battle, and he was brought to the kingdom after many a weary day, expecting one day to fall by his hand. It is easy with our God to make such turns in the most humbling circumstances, or in equivalent, or as good, removing the weight of the burden, that though it remains it presses them no more. Two Corinthians 12, 9 and 10, and he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities. Though they are not got to the shore, yet their head is no more under the water but lifted up. David speaks feeingly of such a lifting up. Psalm 27, 5 and 6, For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me upon a rock, and now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies round about me. Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea I will sing praises unto the Lord. Such had the free Hebrews in the fiery furnace. The fire burnt, but it could burn nothing of them but their bonds. They had the warmth and light of it, but nothing of the scorching heat. 2. A comfortable sight of the acceptance of their prayers, put up in their humbling circumstances. While prayers are not answered but trouble continued, they are apt to think they are not accepted or regarded in heaven, because there is no alteration in their case. Job 9, 16 and 17 If I had called and he had answered me, yet would I not believe that he had harkened unto my voice, for he breaketh me with a tempest. But that is a mistake. They are accepted immediately, though not answered. 1 John 5, 14 And this is the confidence we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he heareth us. 2. The Lord does with them as a father, with the letters coming thick from his son abroad, reads them one by one with pleasure, and carefully lays them up to be answered at his convenience. 3. And when the answer comes, the son will know how acceptable they were to his father. Matthew 15, 28 A heart-satisfying answer of their prayers, so that they shall not only get the thing, but see they have it as an answer of prayer, and they will put a double value on the mercy. 1 Samuel 2, 1 Accepted prayers may be very long about answering many years, as in Abraham and David's case, but they cannot miscarry of an answer at length. Psalm 9, 18 The time will come when God will tell out to them, according to the promise that they shall change their note, and say, Psalm 116, 1 I love the Lord, because he have heard my voice and my supplication, looking on their lifting up as bearing the signature of the hand of a prayer here in God. 4. Full satisfaction as to the conduct of providence, in all the steps of the humbling circumstances, and the delay of the lifting up, however perplexing these were before. Revelation 15, 3 Standing on the shore and looking back to what they have passed through, they will be made to say he have done all things well. Those things which have bittered to Christians in the passing through, are very sweet in the reflection on them, so it's someones riddle, very thide in their experience. 5. They get their lifting up together with the interest for the time they lay out of it. When God pays his bonds of promises, he pays both principle and interest together. The mercy is increased according to the time they waited, and expenses and hardships sustained during the dependence of the process. The fruits of common providence are soon ripe, soon rotten, but the fruit of the promise is often long of ripening, but then it is durable, and the longer it is of ripening it is the more valuable when it comes. Abraham and Sarah waited for the promise about ten years, at length they fought on a way to hasten it. Genesis 16 That soon took in the birth of Ishmael, but he was not the promised son. They were coming into extreme old age ere the promise brought forth. Genesis 18, 2 But when it came they got it with an addition of the renewing of their ages. Genesis 21, 7 and 25, 1 The most valuable of all the promises was the longest in fulfilling, namely the promise of Christ. That was four thousand years. 6. The spiritual enemies that flew thick about them in the time of the darkness of the humbling circumstances, will be scattered at this lifting up in the promise. 7. 1 Samuel 2, 1 and 5. And Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoiceeth in the Lord, my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies. 8. They that were full have hide out themselves of bread, and they that were hungry ceased. 9. For Middiel was fair as host behind the Israelites, while they had the Red Sea before them, but when they were through the sea they saw the Egyptians dead on the shore. Exodus 14, 30. Such a sight would they that humble themselves under humbling circumstances get of their spiritual enemies when the time comes for their lifting up. We come now to the due time of this lifting up. That is a natural question of those who are in humbling circumstances. Watchmen, what of the night? Isaiah 21, 11 and 12. And we cannot answer it to the humbled soul, but in the general. The lifting up of the humble will not be longsome, considering the weight of the matter. That is to say considering the worth and value of the lifting up of the humble. When it comes it can by no means be reckoned long to the time of it. When you sow your corn in the fields, though it does not ripen so soon as some garden seeds, but you wait three months or so, you do not think the harvest long are coming, considering the value of the crop. This view the apostle takes of the lifting up in humbling circumstances. 2 Corinthians 4, 17. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worker for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. So that a believer looking on the promise of an eye of faith and perceiving its accomplishment and the worth of it when accomplished, may wonder it has come so slowly. Therefore it is determined to be a time that comes soon, Luke 18, 7 and 8, soon in respect of its weight and worth. When the time comes it and only it will appear the due time. To everything there is a season and a great part of wisdom lies in discerning it and doing things in this season thereof. And we may be sure infinite wisdom cannot miss the season by mistaking it. Deuteronomy 32, 4. He is a rock, his work is perfect for all his ways of judgment. But whatever God doth will abide the strictest examination, in that as all of her points. Ecclesiastes 3, 14. I know that whatsoever God doth it shall be for ever. Nothing can be put to it nor anything taken from it, and God doth it that men may fear before him. It is true many times appear to us as the due time for lifting up, which yet really is not so, because there are some circumstances hid from us which render that season unfit for the thing. Hence John 7, 6. My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready. But when all the circumstances always foreknown of God shall come to be opened out, and laid together before us, we shall then see the lifting up is come in the time most for the honour of God, and our good, and that it would not have done so well sooner. When the time comes that is really the due time, the proper time for the lifting up a child of God from his humbling circumstances, it will not be put off one moment longer. Habakkuk 2, 3. At the end it shall speak, it will surely come, it will not tarry. Though it tarry it will not linger, nor be put off to another time. O what rest of heart would the firm faith of this afford us? Though it is not a child of God but wood with the utmost earnestness, protest against a lifting up before the due time, as against an unright fruit cast to him by an angry father which would set his teeth on edge. Since it is so then, could we firmly believe this point, that it will undoubtedly come in the due time, without losing of a minute, it would afford a sound rest. It must be so, because God has said it, were the case ever so hopeless, where mountains of difficulties lying in the way of it at the appointed time, it will blow. Habakkuk 2, 3. A metaphor from the wind rising in a moment after a dead calm. The humbling circumstances are ordinarily carried to the utmost point of hopelessness before the lifting up. The knife was at Isaac's throat before the voice was heard. 2 Corinthians 1, 8 and 9. For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure above strength, in so much that we despaired even of life. But we have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raise of the dead. Things soon seen to us arrived at that point, such as to hastiness of our spirits. But things may have far to go down after we think they are at the foot of the hill, and we are almost as little competent judges of the point of hopelessness, as of the due time of lifting up. But generally God carries his people's humbling circumstances downward, still downward till they come to that point. Herein God is holding the same course which he held in the case of the man Christ, the beloved pattern copied after, in all the dispensations of providence toward the church and every particular believer. Romans 8, 29. He was all along a man of sorrows, as his time went on the water swelled more, till he was brought to the dust of death. Then he was buried, and the gravestones sealed, which done the world fought they were quit of him, and he would trouble them no more. But they quite mistook it, then and not till then, was the due time for lifting him up. And the most remarkable liftings up that his people get, are fashioned after this grand pattern. Another end which providence aims at, is to carry the believer clean off his own, and all created foundations, to fix his trust and hope in the Lord alone. 2 Corinthians 1, 9. That we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead. The life of a Christian here is designed to be a life of faith, and though faith may act more easily when it has some help from sense, yet it certainly acts most nobly when it acts in opposition to sense. Then is it pure faith when it stands only on its own native legs, the power and word of God. Romans 4, 19 and 20. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. And thus it must do, when matters are carried to the utmost point of hopelessness. Again, due preparation of the heart for the lifting up out of the humbling circumstances, goes before the due time of that lifting up, according to the promise. It is not so in every lifting up. The liftings up of common providences are not so critically managed. Men will have them, or wait for them no longer, and God flings them in anger ere they are prepared for them. Hosea 13, 2 I gave thee a king in mine anger. They can by no means abide the trial, and God takes them off as reprobate silver that is not able to abide it. Jeremiah 6, 29 and 30. This due preparation consists in a due humiliation, Psalm 10, 17. And it often takes much work to bring about this, which is another point that we are very incompetent judges of. We should have thought Job was brought very low in his spirit by the providence of God bruising him on the one hand, and his friends on the other for a long time. Yet after all that he had endured both ways, God saw it necessary to speak to him himself for his humiliation. Chapter 38, 1 By that speech of God himself he was brought to his knees. Chapter 40, 4 and 5 And we should have thought he was then sufficiently humbled, and perhaps he thought so too. But God saw a further degree of humiliation necessary, and therefore begins again to speak for his humiliation, which at length laid him in the dust. Chapter 42, 5 and 6 And when he was thus prepared for lifting up he got it. There are six things I conceive belong to this humiliation preparatory to lifting up. 1. A deep sense of sinfulness and unworthyness of being lifted up at all. Chapter 44, 4 Behold I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. People may be long in humbling circumstances, ere they be brought this length. Even good men are much prejudiced in their own behalf, and may so far forget themselves as to think God deals his favours unequally, and he is mighty severe on them more than others. 2. Elihu marketh this fault in Job under his humbling circumstances. Job 33, 8 to 12 And I believe it will be found, though is readily a greater keenness to vindicate our own honour from the imputation the humbling circumstances seem to lay upon it, then to vindicate the honour of God in the justice and equity of the dispensation. The blindness of an ill-natured world were ready to suspect the worst causes for humbling circumstances, as if the greatest sufferers were surely the greatest sinners. Luke 13, 4 gives the handle for this bias of the corrupt nature, but God is a jealous God, and when he appears sufficiently to humble, he will cause the matter of our honour to give way to the vindication of his. 2. A resignation to the divine pleasure as to the time of lifting up. God gives the promise, leaving the time blank as to us. Our time is always ready, and we rashly fill it up at our own hand. God does not keep our time, because it is not the due time. Hence we are ready to think his word fails, whereas it is but our own rash conclusion from it that fails. Psalm 116, 2. I said in my haste, All men are liars. Several of the saints have suffered much by this means, and thereby learned to let alone filling up that blank. The first promise was first used by believing Eve. Genesis 4, 1. Another promise was so by believing Abraham, after about ten years waiting. Genesis 16. If this be the case of any child of God, let them not be discouraged upon it, thinking they were over rash in applying the promise to themselves. They were only so in applying the time to the promise. A mistake that saints in all ages have made, which they repented and saw the folly of, and let alone that point for the time to come. And then the promise was fulfilled in its own due time. Let them in such circumstances go and do likewise, leaving the time entirely to the Lord. 3. An entire resignation as to the way and manner of bringing it about. We are ready to do as to the way of accomplishing the promise, just as with the time of it, to set a particular way for the Lord's working of it. If that be not kept, the proud heart is stumbled. 2 Kings 5, 2. But Naaman was rough, and he went away and said, Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me, and stand, and call in the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place. But the Lord will have his people broken off in that too, that they shall prescribe no way to him, but leave it to him entirely, as in that case. Verse 14. He went down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the sowing of the man of God, and he was clean. The compass of our knowledge of ways and means is very narrow, as if one is blocked up. Oftentimes we cannot see another. But our God knows many ways of relief, where we know but one or none at all. And it is very usual for the Lord to bring the lifting up of his people in a way they had no view to, after repeated disappointments from those quarters whence they had great expectation. 4. Resignation as to the degree of the lifting up. Yea, and as to the very being of it, in time. The Lord will have his people weaned so, that however hasty they have sometimes been, that they behold to be so soon lifted up and could no longer bear, they shall be brought at length to set no time at all, but submit to go to the grave under their weight, if it is seen good in the Lord's eyes. And in that case they will be brought to be content with any measure of it in time, without prescribing how much. 2 Samuel 15, 25 and 26. If I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again. But if they dare say I have no delight in thee, behold here am I, let him do a seem of good unto him. 5. The continuing of praying and waiting on the Lord in the case. Ephesians 6, 18. Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching there on to with all perseverance. It is pride of heart and unsurjudeness of spirit that makes people give over praying and waiting, because their humbling circumstances are lengthened out time after time. 2 Kings 6, 33. But due humility going before the lifting up brings men into that temper to pray, wait and hang on resolutely, setting no time for the giving it over till the lifting up come, whether in time or eternity. Lamentations free, 49 and 50. 6. Morning under mismanagements in the trial. 7. Job 42, 3. Therefore had I uttered that I understood not, things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. 8. The proud heart dwells and expiates on the man's sufferings in the trial, and casts out all the folds of the trial on that side, and views them again and again. 9. But when the spirit of God comes duly to humble, in order to lifting up, he will cause the man to pass, in assort the suffering side of the trial, and turn his eyes on his own conduct in it, ransack it, judge himself impartially and condemn himself, so that his mouth will be stopped. This is that humility that goeth before the lifting up in time in the way of the promise. We proceed to consider the lifting up as brought about at the end of time in the other world, and first, a word as to the nature of this lifting up, concerning it we shall say these five things. 1. There is a certainty of this lifting up in all cases of the humbled under humbling circumstances. Though one cannot in every case make them sure of a lifting up in time, yet they may be assured, be the case what it may, they will without all per-adventure, get a lifting up on the other side. 2. Corinthians 5.1. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we hath a building of God, and house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Though God's humble children may have both breakfast and dine on bread of adversity and water of affliction, they will be sure to subsweetly and plentifully, and a believing expectation of the latter might serve to qualify the former and make them easy under it. 2. It will be a perfect lifting up, Hebrews 12, 22. 3. They will be perfectly delivered out of their particular trials and special furnace, be what it will, that made them weary many a day. 4. Lazarus was then delivered from his poverty and sores, and lying at the rich man's gate, Luke 16, 22, and fully delivered, yea, they will get a lifting up from all their humbling circumstances together. 5. All imperfections will then be at an end, inferiority in relations, contradictions, afflictions, uncertainty, and sin. 6. If it was long in coming, there will be a blessed moment when they shall get all together, free. They will not only be raised out of their low condition, but they will be set upon high as Joseph, not only brought out of prison, but made ruler over the land of Egypt, and they will be lifted up into a high place, Luke 16, 22. 7. The beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. 8. Now they are at best, but in a low place, upon this earth. 9. There they will be seated in the highest heavens, Philippians 1, 23, with Ephesians 4, 10. 10. Often in their humbling circumstances, they will be obliged now to embrace dung-hills. 11. Then they will be set with Christ on his throne, Revelation 3, 21. 12. To him that overcomer, for like grant, to sit with me on my throne. 13. Though they now cleave to the earth, and men say, bow down that we may pass over you, they will then be settled in the heavenly mansions above the sun, moon, and stars. 14. They will also be lifted up into a high state and condition, a state of perfection. 15. Out of all their troubles and uneasiness, they will be set in a state of rest. 16. From their mean and inglorious condition, they will be advanced into a state of glory. 17. Their burdened and sorrowful life will be succeeded with a fullness of joy, and for their humbling circumstances, they will be clothed with eternal glory and honour. 18. For it will be a final lifting up, after which there will be no more casting down forever. Revelation 7, 16. 19. When we get a lifting up in time, we are apt to imagine fondly we are at the end of our trials, but we soon find we are too hasty in our conclusions, and the cloud returns. 20. Psalm 30, 6 and 7. 21. In my prosperity I said I shall never be moved, thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. 22. But then indeed the trial is quite over, the fight is at an end, and then is the time of the retribution and triumph. 23. Five. There will not be the least remaining uneasiness from the humbling circumstances, but on the contrary they will have a glorious and desirable effect. 24. I make no question, but the saints will have the remembrance of the humbling circumstances they were under here below. 25. Did the rich man in hell remember his having five brethren on the earth, how sumptuously he fared, how Lazarus sat at his gate, and can we doubt that the saints will remember perfectly their heavy trials? 26. Revelation 6, 10. 27. But then there will remember them as waters that fail, as the man recovered to health remembers his tossings on the sick bed, and that is a way of remembering that sweetens the present state of health beyond what otherwise it would be. 28. Certainly the shore of the Red Sea was the place that of all places was the fittest to help the Israelites to sing in the highest key, and the humbling circumstances of saints on the earth will be of the same use to them in heaven. 25. Revelation 15, 3. 26. Secondly, a word to the due time of this lifting up. There is a particular definite time for it in every saints case, which is the due time, but it is hid from us. We can only say in general, 1. Then is the due time for it when our work we have to do in this world is over. God has appointed to everyone his task, fight, trial and work. Until that is done we are in assault immortal. John 9, 4 and 11, 9. That work is doing work, work set to us by the great master, to be done for the honour of God and the good of our fellow creatures. Ecclesiastes 9, 10. We must be content to be doing on, even in our humbling circumstances, till that be done out. It is not the due time for that lifting up till we are at the end of that work, and so have served our generation, and it is suffering work. There is a certain portion of suffering that is allotted for the mystical body. The hair is divided to the several members, their proportions thereof, and it is not the due time for that lifting up till we have exhausted the share thereof allotted to us. Paul looked on his life as a going on in that. Colossians 1, 24. 2. When that lifting up comes we shall see it has come exactly in the due time, that it was well it was neither sooner nor later, for though heaven is always better than earth, and that it would be better for us absolutely speaking to be in heaven than on earth. Yet certainly there is a time wherein it is better for the honour of God and his service to be on the earth than in heaven. Philippians 1, 24. Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you, and it will be no grief of heart to them when there, that they were so long in their humbling circumstances that were not brought sooner. Use 1. Let not then the humble cast away their confidence, whatever their humbling circumstances be. Let them assure themselves there will come a lifting up to them at length, if not here yet to be sure hereafter. Let them keep this in their view and cover themselves with it, for God has said it. Psalm 9, 18. The needy shall not always be forgotten, if the night were ever so long the morning will come at length. 2. Let patience have her perfect work. The husband man waits for the return of his seed, the merchant for the return of his ships, the store master for what he calls year time, when he draws in the produce of his flocks. All these have long patience, and why should not the Christian too have patience, and patiently wait for the time appointed for his lifting up? You have heard much of the crook in the lot, the ecstasy of humbleness of spirit in a low lot, beyond pride of spirit, though joined of a high one. You have been called to humble yourselves in your humbling circumstances, and have been assured in that case of a lifting up. To conclude, we may assure ourselves, God will at length break in pieces of pride, be they ever so high, and he will triumphantly lift up the humble, be they ever so low. End of chapter 11. End of crook in the lot, or the sovereignty and wisdom of God in the afflictions of men, displayed by Thomas Boston. Recording by Ruth.