CONTENTED OR DISCONTENTED?---THOMAS WATSON

Okay, Okay, by now, if you are reading my blogs, my other writings, or listening to my sermons at Sermon Audio, you realize that I am very fond of the Puritans. There have been many bad things said about them, mostly untrue. You see, they were not perfect but most genuinely strived to follow God's word. I won't say I agree with every one of them on everything. If you know anything about them, you know that there were differences among them. Some were Anglicans, some Presbyterians, some Baptists, while most were Congregationalists. One common thing among them. They had a love for the word, they were diligent students, gifted teachers, and passionate preachers. We would do well in our apostate day to read them more often. Now, I wouldn't want to live in their day. I like modern conveniences like electricity, automobiles, airplanes, central heat and air, refrigeration and many other things the 16th and 17th century Puritans could not have dreamed of. But they definitely had us on the word of God, brothers and sisters. If we could focus our attention on that; the word of God, we could yet see great things for God. On two out of my three blogs currently are my favorite Puritans; Thomas Brooks, and here, Thomas Watson. Give these short excerpts a careful read, will you please?

"The discontented person thinks everything he doth for God too much, and everything God doth for him too little. The way for a man to be contented is not by raising his estate, but by bringing his heart lower. Whatever trouble a child of God meets with,it is all the hell he shall have. Death begins a wicked man's hell, but it puts an end to a Godly man's hell. A contented spirit is never angry, unless it is with himself for having hard thoughts of God. Shoulds't thou have no evil about thee, who hast so much evil in thee? Thou art not fully sanctified in this life,how then thinkest thou to be fully satisfied? If we have not what we desire, we have more than we deserve."

"The torments of hell abide for ever.... If all the earth and sea were sand, and every thousandth year a bird should come, and take away one grain of this sand, it would be a long time ere that vast heap of sand were emptied; yet, if after all that time the damned may come out of hell, there were some hope; but this word EVER breaks the heart."

"If mercy is not a magnet to draw us nearer to God, it will be a millstone to sink us deeper into hell."
(Thomas Watson lived between 1620-1686, but being dead yet speaketh).

CHARLES SPURGEON ON JOHN 19:16:

"Let us muse upon the fact that Jesus was [brought outside] the gates of the city. It was the common place of death. That little rising ground, which perhaps was called Golgotha, the place of a skull, from its somewhat resembling the crown of a man's skull, was the common place of execution. It was one of Death's castles; here he stored his gloomiest trophies; he was the grim lord of that stronghold. Our great hero, the destroyer of Death, bearded the lion in his den, slew the monster in his own castle, and dragged the dragon captive from his own den. Methinks Death thought it a splendid triumph when he saw the Master impaled and bleeding in the dominions of destruction; little did he know that the grave was to be rifled, and himself destroyed, by that crucified Son of man."
— from "The Procession of Sorrow," delivered on March 1, 1863, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

WALK WITHOUT STUMBLING---CHARLES SPURGEON

"He will not suffer thy foot to be moved" (Psalm 121:3).

If the LORD will not suffer it, neither men nor devils can do it. How greatly would they rejoice if they could give us a disgraceful fall, drive us from our position, and bury us out of memory! They could do this to their heart's content were it not for one hindrance, and only one: the LORD will not suffer it; and if He does not suffer it, we shall not suffer it. The way of life is like traveling among the Alps. Along the mountain path one is constantly exposed to the slipping of the foot. Where the way is high the head is apt to swim, and then the feet soon slide; there are spots which are smooth as glass and others that are rough with loose stones, and in either of these a fall is hard to avoid. He who throughout life is enabled to keep himself upright and to walk without stumbling has the best of reasons for gratitude. What with pitfalls and snares, weak knees, weary feet, and subtle enemies, no child of God would stand fast for an hour were it not for the faithful love which will not suffer his foot to be moved.

Amidst a thousand snares I stand
Upheld and guarded by thy hand;
That hand unseen shall hold me still,
And lead me to thy holy hill.

(From Faith's Checkbook for November 10th)