Satan Wants To Help You

Satan wants to help you—to help you sin. He is hell bent on taking you to hell with him. Thomas Books, in his book Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, drew up a list of the devices Satan uses to draw you—yes you!—to sin. Here are six of them:

He presents the bait and hides the hook. Satan shows you the pleasure and the profit that may flow out of yielding to sin, but hides the wrath and misery that will inevitably result. This is, of course, exactly what he did with Adam and Eve: he displayed the benefit of eating that fruit, but hid all the cost. "There is an opening of the mind to contemplation and joy, and there is an opening of the eyes of the body to shame and confusion. He promises them the former, but intends the latter, and so cheats them."

He paints sin with the colors of virtue. Satan knows that if he were to present sin accurately, you would run away from it rather than be attracted to it. Therefore, he conceals sin behind the camouflage of virtue so you can more easily be overcome by it and take more immediate pleasure in committing it. When he does this, pride comes in the form of neatness, covetousness in the form of thrift, and drunkenness in the form of a good time. Whatever temptation you are prone to he will likewise dress up as a virtue.

He convinces you this is only a little sin. Satan tries to convince you the temptation you face, the sin you are drawn to, is just a small and a harmless one. He wants you to believe this is a sin you may commit without any great danger to your soul.    Continue at Tim Challies

But God Has Deserted Me…

What would you say to a friend who thought that God had deserted them?  Would you tell them that they are wrong and that God would never withdraw himself?  Would you tell them that it is their own fault (albeit in nicer and more pious terms)?  One of the advantages of immersing myself in the writing of a guy who has been dead for 300+ years is that he thinks differently than me.  The advantage is that he reveals my blindspots; that is, the things I have not thought through correctly due how I have been taught and what I have chosen to learn.  The Puritans have a reputation for being masters of soul care.  I do not know exactly how I would have answered before, but I know that I will answer differently now because of Thomas Brooks.

The eighth objection he faces in calling suffering Christians to refrain from complaints is for the person who says “but God has deserted me! He hath forsaken me! and ‘he that should comfort my soul stands afar off!’ how can I be silent?  The Lord hath hid his face from me; clouds are gathered about me; God hath turned his back upon me; how can I hold my peace?” (I-372; all quotations in this post are taken from I-372-379).   Keep Reading >>>

Thomas Brooks On Temptation

Since Thomas Brooks’ “The Mute Christian” is written to a fairly specific situation (people under severe afflictions who are tempted to complain against God) I have worried at times that some of this is missing the mark for a bunch of you.  I think every single post has been tagged under “afflictions” and while we all will be afflicted, we are not all afflicted right now.  There is a need to prepare before trials come and to reflect after they have gone but I have wondered if I should have gone faster through the book or skipped between a few of his works. 

However, this post can be taken by everyone all of the time.  You may not be afflicted today but you will be tempted.  The seventh objection to abstaining from murmuring is “my outward affliction is attended with sore temptations; God hath not only outwardly afflicted me, but Satan is let loose to buffet me; and therefore how can I be silent?” (I-366).  The situation is again afflictions but what Brooks says about temptations will be a help for whatever temptations you face today.  Here are his answers (taken from I-366-371).

1)  “No man is the less beloved because he is tempted; nay, those that God loves best are usually tempted most (Ephesians 6:12)….Those that were once glorious on earth, and are now triumphing in heaven, have been sorely tempted and assaulted.  It is as natural and common for the choicest saints to be tempted, as it is for the sun to shine, the bird to fly, the fire to burn.”

2)  “Temptation resisted and bewailed, will never hurt you, nor harm you….If thy heart trembles and thy flesh quakes when Satan tempts, thy condition is good enough…”    Keep Reading >>>

Too Much And Too Many

Let me remind you of where we are at so you can get your bearings.  “The Mute Christian” is written is show Christians that it is their duty to refrain from complaints and murmuring in trials.  We are now on the last main division where he gives answers to ten objections to this silence.  Today we will cover two objections and Thomas Brooks’ answers because, as both objections are really similar, so are the answers.  When told that it is their great duty to refrain from murmuring against God in afflictions, some will say “my afflictions daily multiply and increase upon me; like the waves of the sea, they come rolling over the neck of one another; and how then can I hold my peace” and others will say though “they were many, yet if they were not great I would be mute, but alas! they are very great”.  If you have a copy of “The Mute Christian” yourself and try to follow along it is going to be tough because I am going to weave together some of his answers to both of these objections.  The following is taken from pages 359-364 of volume 1 in my Banner of Truth edition.    Continue Reading>>>

Groan, Do Not Grumble

How many excursions into sin could have been avoided if in our suffering we groaned but did not grumble? When discontent over our lot in life gets the best of us, any form of relief (be it of the destructive kind) suddenly takes on the appearance of the best of graces, and grumbling makes way to giving in.

"Diseases, aches, sicknesses, pains—they are all the daughters of sin, and he who is not sensible of them as the births and products of sin, does but add to his sin and provoke the Lord to add to his sufferings (Isaiah 26:9-11). No man shall ever be charged by God for feeling his burden, if he neither frets nor faints under it. Grace does not destroy nature, but rather perfects it. Grace is of a noble offspring; it neither turns men into stocks nor to stoics. The more grace, the more sensible [one is] of the tokens, frowns, blows, and lashes of a displeased Father.

Though Calvin, under his greatest pains, was never heard to mutter nor murmur, yet he was heard often to say 'How long, Lord, how long?'

A pious commander being shot in battle, when the wound was searched, and the bullet cut out, some standing by, pitying his pain, he replied, 'Though I groan, yet I bless God I do not grumble.' God allows his people to groan, though not to grumble. It is a God-provoking sin to lie stupid and senseless under the afflicting hand of God. God will heat that man's furnace of affliction sevenfold hotter who is in the furnace but feels it not." (Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod [Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, 2007], 26, italics original).

Let us feel the weight of our sin and of being alive in a fallen world. Savor it to the core, mindful of the truth that all this is from the hand of God, exclaiming along with the Psalmist, "Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation" (Ps. 68:19). HT: Underdog

That Deadly Darling

God cures David of adultery by killing his endeared child. There is some Delilah, some darling, some beloved sin or other that a Christian's calling, condition, constitution, or temptations leads him to play with and to hug in his own bosom. As in a plot of ground that lies untilled, among the great variety of weeds there is usually some master-weed, which is more plenteous and more repulsive than all the rest. So it is also in the souls of men, though there be a general mixture and medley of all evil and corrupt qualities, yet there is some one sin which is usually paramount, which is most powerful and prevalent, which sways and manifests itself more eminently and evidently than any other of them.

So, though the root of sin and bitterness has spread itself over all, yet every man has his inclination to one kind of sin rather than another. And this may be called a man's besetting sin, his bosom sin, his darling sin.

Now, it is one of the hardest works in this world to subdue and bring under control this bosom sin! Oh! the prayers, the tears, the sighs, the sobs, the groans, the distress that it will cost a Christian before he subdues this darling sin! Continue Reading>>>

Little Sins????

The following is from Thomas Brook’s classic, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices.  It is long, but powerful stuff to aid us in putting to sin to death.

That even those very sins that Satan paints, and puts new names and colors upon, cost the best blood, the noblest blood, the life-blood, the heart-blood of the Lord Jesus. That Christ should come from the eternal bosom of his Father to a region of sorrow and death; that God should be manifested in the flesh, the Creator made a creature; that he who was clothed with glory should be wrapped with rags of flesh; he who filled heaven and earth with his glory should be cradled in a manger; that the almighty God should flee from weak man—the God of Israel into Egypt; that the God of the law should be subject to the law, the God of the circumcision circumcised, the God who made the heavens working at Joseph’s homely trade; that he who binds the devils in chains should be tempted... Continue Reading>>>

It Turns Our Weak Perfomances into Spiritual Sacrifices

Seven Characters of False Teachers

A couple of years back I spoke on "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Heretics" at the Eccentric Ministers Conference. At the time I wasn't aware that the Puritan Thomas Brooks (1608-80) had beaten me to it.

Brooks is very quotable. Here are his headings and some highlights taken from his pastoral masterpiece Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices published by the Banner of Truth Trust:

"Satan labours might and main, by false teachers, which are his messengers and ambassadors, to deceive, delude, and forever undo the precious souls of men."

He cites Jer. 23:13; Micah 3:5; Matt. 7:15; Philippians 3:2; Prov. 7

"Now the best way to deliver poor souls from being deluded and destroyed by these messengers of Satan is, to discover them in their colours, that so, being known, poor souls may shun them, and fly from them as from hell itself." Read it all HERE

Deflecting Satan’s Arrows of Discord