Sword & Trowel 2016: Issue 1


destruction. Depend upon it, most of us cannot endure great prosperity long. Just as some constitutions can- not bear certain meats, a long run of spiritual ease is much too strong a thing for the constitution of average Christians.


The pools of our heart are apt to


grow stagnant unless stirred by afflic- tion. Peace and quietness are hotbeds for shams and superficialities; but when sharp troubles and keen temp- tations assail us, nothing will stand but that which is real and lasting. We should be very grateful to our gracious Lord for sending his rough providences to strip us of our sup- posed excellency, and lay bare the poverty and nakedness of our natural estate. Traders with rotten businesses are afraid to have their books over- hauled, but judicious men long to know their true position; and if they are shown by a wise accountant that supposed gains are real losses, they are thankful for the information, and change their mode of business at once. Soul trouble does this for our spiritual trading. It finds out the bad debts, the risky speculations, the worthless paper, the spurious securi- ties which the soul has been dealing in, and sets our spiritual efforts upon a less cheering, but much more cer- tain footing.


Painful but truthful work


This painful but truthful work within the heart is a preparation for manifestations of the Lord Jesus’ sweetest love. The saintly Ruther- ford has written, ‘I never find myself nearer Christ, that royal and princely One, than after a great weight and


sense of deadness and gracelessness. I think that the sense of our wants when withal we have a restlessness and a sort of spiritual impatience under them, and can cry out because we want him whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open door for Christ. When we think we are going backward, because we feel deadness, we are going forward; for the more sense the more life, and no sense argueth no life. There is no sweeter fellowship with Christ than to bring our wounds and our sores to him.’ Our own experience comes to the same result; it is only as we are brought low in self, that we are lifted up in the ways of the Lord. A harsh faced providence has proved itself to be a good friend. For ever blessed be the hand which covers me with wounds and bruises, and so leads me to seek the Physician of my soul. Glorious is the poverty which endows me with the riches of Christ; happy is the shipwreck which casts me helplessly upon the shore of divine love. Thus, out of the lion we gather honey, and the flinty rock drips with oil. After all the defacing work had


been done, the workmen passed on to something more satisfactory, and first one, then another, busied himself according to his trade, until the house became fair to look upon, as we see it now. Your eye now sees nothing of the scraping and the peeling, but you see the result, and are content with it. Believe that it shall be so with your heart after you have fully known and felt the evil of sin. All the undoing is necessary to the renewal; all the


On Returning to the Renovated Tabernacle


 page 23


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