Christian Affliction… Being Exercised… Blessed Fruits — C H Spurgeon

C H Spurgeon’s sermon title was, Chastisement, Now and Afterwards.

From the YouTube site: Christian Sermons and Audio Books 

Feb 13, 2024

Video-page link:   https://www.youtube.com/@ChristisLord/videos

[Links and narrative from YouTube site are below highlight points and definitions.]

Highlights on sermon [bracketed statements, emboldening and underscoring are mine]:

• Sermon text: Hebrews 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. [KJV]
• C H Spurgeons’ words: In our former lesson we learned that by the application of the blood of Christ the guilt of sin and it’s defilement cleansed
• Today, we are considering the destruction of the power of sin
• It is by God the Holy Ghost, and is not part of the doctrine of justification; but of the doctrine of sanctification
• When the Holy Ghost sits as the Refiner [of the born-again Christian], His furnace IS affliction
• The trials and troubles through which we have to pass are the glowing coals which separate the precious from the vile
• Divine grace is the means of restraining and destroying the power of indwelling sin in us prior to glorification
• The three points of this sermon: 1) the outward appearance of our trials, or sore chastisements
• 2) The result of our chastening, or [in other words] blessed fruitfulness; and 3), those benefitted by being exercised, or favored sons
• [Seemeth = all that carnal reasoning can see of our present chastisement / trials / troubles]
• [The eyes of reason are contrasted with the eyes of faith throughout]
• The eye of reason cannot discover the real value of tribulation or sanctification; such discernment is the privilege of [the eye of] ‘faith’
• To give one of his examples: the rotation of the earth around the sun. We appear to be still, but we are moving…
• Regarding the movement of the earth, we are aware that things are not as they seem; we can be sure that affliction is not what it seems to be
• When we are under some affliction fear and unbelief exaggerate our perception of the situation and diminish hope…
• Unbelief causes us to misperceive the meaning of troubles; ignorance and superstition create more darkness for us, distorting and magnifying our chastening
• Spurgeon made a reference to The Pilgrim’s Progress, about Christian and Hopeful being caught by the Giant Despair and placed in his dungeon. He noted that Christian had the ‘key of promise’ and didn’t realize it would free him and his friend.
• The ‘key of promise’ is a reference to prayer [link to an article on The Pilgrims’ Progress below]
• We are so selfish, fond of ease, unwilling to be cut by God’s lancet of affliction
• Consider: if a man knows his leg must be amputated to save his life, he can resolve to let that happen and will not fear the surgeon’s knife; while another man who has not come to such resolve, trembles at that knife
• Our love of pleasure and ease causes us to view God’s rod of chastening that way
• “With the clouds of fear, the dust of unbelief, the smoke of ignorance and the mist of selfishness, it is little wonder that we do not perceive the TRUTH, thus, no chastening seemeth to be joyous
• The text indicates that carnal reason judges afflictions only for the present”
• Consider: when in the midst of affliction and old sins are coming to mind, present temptations are harassing; Satan is roaring in one’s ear; God is hiding…; one ought to hold his peace as Aaron did [likely a reference to Leviticus 10, when God sent fire to consume two of Aaron’s sons for offering strange fire]
• Since carnal reason only sees the ‘seeming,’ in the pale light of the present, affliction never seemeth to be joyous
• But if it were joyous, would not that be ridiculous? [C H Spurgeon gave examples]
• Solomon stated it is the blueness [sadness?] of the wound that makes the heart better
• [I remember discovering that God wants us to feel the chastening He sends us, as I read through a book my brother gave me during my cancer treatment: The Afflicted Man’s Companion]
• If one’s chastening were easy, joyous, then it would harden one in sin
• The Lord hits one in a tender place when He chastens [Spurgeon seems to be describing ‘chasten’ with several words: trials, problems, discipline, correction, punishment…]
• In the work of image breaking, the Lord crushes our most cherished image [idol] first
• Example given of King David and his children [incest, murder, treason…]
• The Lord always strikes the object nearest to His child’s heart first, to cause it to smart [suffer physical and / or emotional pain]
• We are tempted to think, ‘If the difficulty had not been so great, then I could have borne it.’
• We think it came at the wrong time – who would pick a time?
• We say, ‘I could have borne poverty; but to be slandered, I cannot endure…’
• In no respect regarding the object, the instrument, the time, or the force of it, can an affliction ever seem to carnal reason to be joyous
• Every affliction seems to be grievous, even to the mature Christian who might complain, “I cannot see the benefit of it.”
• Instead of doing good, afflictions seem to do harm, he says
• That he cannot see the good is grievous to him, but he should not expect to see, he should walk by faith
• Sometimes the trial knocks us down… faith reels, hope dies, murmuring and discontent trip us up, and we say, ‘Is there any good in this’
• WHAT CAN BE THE GOOD OF AN AFFLICTION THAT BY THE INFIRMITY OF MY FLESH DRIVES ME TO EVIL AND DEVELOPS THE DEVIL THAT IS IN ME?
• Many, at such times, receive serious wounds because they have spoken against the Lord via their impatience; some are even killed
• Not that the spiritual seed in them dies, but the life of their religion seems to have expired and they don’t believe they are Christians at all
• They feel like a wild bull that is caught in a net… filled with ill humors and bad tempers, yet this is often the experience of God’s people
• All this is only ‘seeming’
• Faith triumphs in trial, when reason is sent into the background, then faith comes in and cries “I will sing of mercy and of judgment unto thee O Lord”
• FAITH pulls the black mask from the face of trouble and discovers the angel beneath
• Faith looks up at the cloud and says “tis big with mercy and it shall break with blessings upon my head’
• Faith finds a subject for song even amid the smarting of the rod
• Faith sees that in the worst sorrow there is not a drop of God’s wrath, it is all sent in love
• Faith sees love in the heart of an angry God; the rod is a badge of honor; the child must have the rod… her sorrows work lasting good
• So, Faith sits down on the black throne from which she has expelled reason and carnal sense; and she begins, to the praise of divine wisdom, to lift up her voice in a joyous song
• POINT 2: the result of chastening / blessed fruitfulness
• No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous
• Fruit bearing is not natural; it is not the natural effect of enduring affliction
• As the Refiner takes a mass of alloyed metal and heats the coals and begins to stir the pot, you say, “What are you doing; you’re spoiling that precious metal”
• “See how foul is the scum on the surface?”
• THE NATURAL EFFECT OF THE REFINER’S FIRE IS TO MAKE THE SCUM SHOW ITSELF
• THE FIRE CANNOT DO THE REFINER’S WORK, HE, HIMSELF, MUST SKIM OFF THE SCUM FROM THE SURFACE OF THE POT
• Affliction makes the sin rise to the surface; it makes the devil in us come up
• WHILE WE ARE BOILING IN AFFLICTION, WE ARE WORSE THAN BEFORE; IT IS THE SUPERNATURAL WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND OUR LORD TO SKIM IT OFF
• Affliction in itself does us no good; the natural fruit of affliction is rebellion
• [Hearing those words was very meaningful to me, as I have been troubled by the rebellion I have seen in my own life as I have been under affliction; hope and encouragement to continue abiding in His word and prayer]
• To kiss the hand that smites us is grace
• The sea is not made clear by being stirred up by a storm; the deep may have been moved from the bottom and the waves full of sand and seaweed
• Trials breed discontent, anger, envy, rebellion, enmity and murmuring
• But God overrules these and makes trials minister to His children in holiness and spirituality
• Such fruit is not instantaneous
• Many believers are deeply grieved because they do not believe that they have profited from their afflictions
• One cannot expect fruit to grow on a tree that was planted only a week before
• Children plant seeds and look for growth in an hour or two
• Sometimes the good of our troubles won’t be seen for years; sometimes when we get into a similar experience, we are then helped by our prior learning, the fruit of our previous trials
• Affliction brings forth the fruit of righteousness which is peaceable
• John 15:2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit
• John 15:8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples
• By the fruit of affliction, the Christian is not made more righteous that he was after being justified; but he is apparently more righteous – to onlookers
• Several statements from Pilgrim’s Progress to describe the blessed state of the Christian when experiencing the peaceable fruit of righteousness: one example taken from Exodus 15, when the Israelites danced after their enemies were drowned in the Red Sea
• POINT 3: those benefitted by being exercised, or favored sons
• Trials bear blessed fruit only to those who are exercised by them
• Not all are exercised: some run from trials
• When the Father holds a rod over them, they run
• Some under trials are stoic, callous, like a stone
• Like the bullock that ‘kicks against the pricks’ [definition after highlight points]
• The term ‘exercise’ is from the Greek gymnasium training, wherein the training master challenged youth to meet him in combat [longer definition below]
• Such training was part of their preparation for the public games
• Those who shirked the trials would have been flogged as cowards; they certainly would not have benefitted in any way
• If, like a man, you say, “Now is my time of trial, I will play the man, wake up my faith to meet the foe; take hold of God, stand with firm foot, let all my graces be aroused for here is something I can be exercised by”
• Then your bone, sinew and muscle will grow stronger [mostly spiritual strength; strengthening faith, he seems to mean]
• Those who strive for the mastery ‘keep under’ their body [defined below], that they may come to the contest prepared
• So must the Christian use his affliction: to the keeping down of the flesh; to the conquest of his evil desires
• What in the Christian is exercised by affliction?
• EVERYTHING NEWBORN
• When affliction does us most good, it exercises the whole man, sets every power to work; strains his patience; tests his faith; proves his love; glorifies his hopes; strengthening every part; the peaceable fruits of righteousness become his
• Pray to God to that He will enable you to want to be exercised by affliction when you get the opportunity, so that you might possess its benefits
• THREE PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS [some paradoxes as in Dr. Boice’s sermon posted a few days ago, Dying, We Live]
• See the happy estate of the Christian: his worst things are his good things; his smarts are his joys; his losses are his gains
• He is a man who gets health by being sick; he gets rich by his losses; he goes on by being pushed back; he lives by dying [by losing / denying self; and the kingdom of self]
• He grows spiritually by being diminished; full by being emptied
• If his bad things bring so much good; what must his best things do?
• If he can sing in a dungeon; how sweetly will he sing in heaven?
• If he can praise the Lord in a fire; then how will he praise Him before His eternal throne?
• If evil is good to him; then what will the overflowing goodness of God be to him in another world?
• TWO: See where the believer’s hope mainly lies; not in the ‘seeming:’ He may seem to be rich; seem to be poor; seem to be sick; seem to be in health… he sees all that is the ‘seeming’
• The thing seen is the thing that ‘seemeth’
• The thing that is believed is the thing that IS
• He knows that his eye sees only the surface; he touches only the external
• But what his heart believes, that is the substance, the depth, the reality
• So, he finds all his joy in the nevertheless afterward: Hebrews 12:11 …nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby
• Looking to the ‘afterwards,’ he rejoices in that tribulation worketh patience; patience, experience; experience, hope…
• The Christian after learns his best lessons about heaven by contrast; by understanding misery [during the past several years, I have learned a lot about what the Bible calls evil from what is happening while our society morally unravels]
• While one has a trial, he has a ground of hope
• Tribulation says, “Thy God has forsaken thee,” he says, “My God said, that in the world, ye shall have tribulation”
• So, the Christian begins to think: this is a place of work; heaven is a place of rest; this, a place of sorrow; heaven a place of joy; this, of defeat; there, triumph; here, shame; there, glory; here, a place of being despised; there, of being honored…
• Afterwards is where the unconverted feel the pinch – the one who lived in a paradise on earth can have none in heaven; if one had honor and wealth here, then…
• The unconverted view the present life as a place wherein they hope to prosper
• They believe they can be happy without Christ …afterwards there is the judgment and those without Christ… eternal destruction [meditate on Matthew 25…]

Definitions of several terms in the sermon:

***KJV: 1 Cor. 9:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

Brief excerpt from Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, from Bible Hub:

…The word is derived, of course, from the athletic exercises of the Greeks. It then comes to mean, “to treat anyone with harshness, severity, or cruelty;” and thence also, so to treat any evil inclinations or dispositions; or to subject one’s-self to mortification or self-denial, or to a severe and rigid discipline, that all the corrupt passions might be removed. The word here means, that Paul made use of all possible means to subdue his corrupt and carnal inclinations; to show that he was not under the dominion of evil passions, but was wholly under the dominion of the gospel….

[If you have seen the movie, The Accountant, staring Ben Affleck, there is a part wherein his military father has a martial arts instructor give hard training to both him and his brother, to make them ready to deal with the world. That is the image I get from Spurgeon’s and Barnes’ descriptions.]

***‘To kick against the pricks’ from: https://www.gotquestions.org/kick-against-the-pricks.html

“It is hard for you to kick against the pricks” was a Greek proverb, but it was also familiar to the Jews and anyone who made a living in agriculture. An ox goad was a stick with a pointed piece of iron on its tip used to prod the oxen when plowing. The farmer would prick the animal to steer it in the right direction. Sometimes the animal would rebel by kicking out at the prick, and this would result in the prick being driven even further into its flesh. In essence, the more an ox rebelled, the more it suffered. Thus, Jesus’ words to Saul on the road to Damascus: “It is hard for you to kick against the pricks.”

***’Key of promise’

The phrase or idea is from The Pilgrim’s Progress:

Link to notes on Pilgrim’s Progress, ‘key of promise’

Notes and Commentary by Ken Puls on John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress

‘Christian and Hopeful have now suffered the misery of Doubting Castle for almost four days. They were captured by Giant Despair on Wednesday morning. Now it is Saturday, almost midnight, and they begin to pray.

It is worth noting that the pilgrims’ escape from Doubting Castle begins with prayer. In his commentary on The Pilgrim’s Progress, William Mason explains:’

To continue reading:   https://www.kenpulsmusic.com/pilgrimsprogress97.html