A MERRY HEART IS BEST MEDICINE!
OPENING STATEMENT by Robert
Over the past number of weeks through the articles and videos I have sounded the Trumpet to live by faith, in faith, and with faith, as the clouds descend upon the world. This walk is not an easy one, it takes courage determination and perseverance. The following I believe will bring forward understanding knowledge and wisdom to do just that.
It is healthful to be cheerful. The Lord is for the body and has provided for it, not only meat, but medicine, and has here told us that the best medicine is a merry heart, not a heart addicted to vain, carnal, sensual mirth; Solomon himself said of that mirth, it is not medicine, but madness; it is not food, but poison.
Solomon means a heart rejoicing in God, and serving him with gladness, and then taking the comfort of outward enjoyments and particularly that of pleasant conversation. It is a great mercy that God gives us leave to be cheerful and cause to be cheerful, especially if by his grace he gives us hearts to be cheerful.
This does good to a medicine (so some read it); it will make physic more efficient. Or it does good as a medicine to the body, making it easy and fit for the business. But, if mirth is a medicine (understand it of diversion and recreation), it must be used sparingly, only when there is an occasion, not turned into food, and it must be used medicinally, sub regimen – as a prescribed regimen, and by rule.
- The sorrows of the mind often contribute very much to the sickliness of the body: A broken spirit, sunk by the burden of afflictions, and especially a conscience wounded with the sense of guilt and fear of wrath, dries the bones, wastes the radical moisture, exhausts the very marrow, and makes the body a mere skeleton. We should therefore watch and pray against all melancholy dispositions, for they lead us into trouble as well as into temptation.
Here is, 1. The cause and consequence of melancholy. It is a heaviness in the heart; it is a load of care, and fear, and sorrow, upon the spirits, depressing them and disabling them to exert themselves with any vigour on what is to be done or fortitude in what is to be borne; it makes them stoop, prostrates and sinks them. Those that are thus oppressed can neither do the duty nor take the comfort of any relation, condition, or conversation. Those therefore that are inclined to it should watch and pray against it
- The cure of it: A good word from God, applied by faith, makes it glad; such a word is that (says one of the rabbis), Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee; the good word of God, particularly the gospel, is designed to make the hearts glad that are weary and heavy-laden, Matthew 11:28. Ministers are to be helpers of this joy.
Isaiah, a prophet, was qualified for the work to which he was called, so were the rest of God’s prophets, and others whom he employed as his messengers but Christ was anointed with the Spirit above his fellows.
To make the man of God perfect, he has,
- The tongue of the learned, to know how to give instruction, how to speak a word in season to him that is weary, Isaiah 50:4. God, who made man’s mouth, gave Moses the tongue of the learned, to speak for the terror and conviction of Pharaoh, Exodus 4:11,12.
He gave to Christ the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season for the comfort of those that are weary and heavily laden under the burden of sin, Matthew 11:28. Grace was poured into his lips, and they are said to drop sweet-smelling myrrh.
See what is the best learning of a minister, to know how to comfort troubled consciences, and to speak pertinently, properly, and plainly, to the various cases of poor souls. An ability to do this is God’s gift, and it is one of the best gifts, which we should covet earnestly.
Let us repose ourselves in the many comfortable words which Christ has spoken to the weary
- The ear of the learned, to receive instruction. Prophets have as much need of this as of the tongue of the learned for they must deliver what they are taught and no other, must hear the word from God’s mouth diligently and attentively, that they may speak it exactly, Ezekiel 3:17.
Christ himself received that he might give. None must undertake to be teachers who have not first been learners. Christ’s apostles were first disciples, scribes instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, Matthew 13:52.
Nor is it enough to hear, but we must hear as the learned, hear and understand, hear and remember, hear as those that would learn by what we hear. Those that would hear as the learned must be awake, and wakeful for we are naturally drowsy and sleepy, and unapt to hear at all, or we hear by the halves, hear and do not heed. Our ears need to be wakened we need to have something said to rouse us, to awaken us out of our spiritual slumbers, that we may hear as for our lives.
We need to be awakened morning by morning, as duly as the day returns, to be awakened to do the work of the day in its day. Our case calls for continual fresh supplies of divine grace, to free us from the dullness we contract daily.
The morning, when our spirits are most lively, is a proper time for communion with God then we are in the best frame both to speak to him (my voice shalt thou hear in the morning) and to hear from him.
The people came early in the morning to hear Christ in the temple (Luke 21:38), for, it seems, his were morning lectures. And it is God that wakens us morning by morning. If we do anything to purpose in his service, it is he who, as our Master, calls us up and we should doze perpetually if he did not waken us morning by morning.
God is pleased sometimes to make choice of those as his messengers who have fewest of the advantages of art or nature, that his grace in them may appear the more glorious. Christ’s disciples were no orators, till the Spirit made them such.
We may take great encouragement in looking upward to God when round about us we see nothing but what is discouraging. It is sad to see how regardless of most men are of their own happiness, but it is comfortable to think that the wise and faithful God will, however, effectually secure the interests of his own glory.
Jesus answered and said, I thank thee. Note, Thanksgiving is a proper answer to dark and disquieting thoughts and maybe an effectual means to silence them. Songs of praise are sovereign cordials to drooping souls and will help to cure melancholy. When we have no other answer ready to the suggestions of grief and fear, we may have recourse to this, I thank thee, O Father let us bless God that it is not worse with us than it is.
In all our approaches to God, by praise as well as by prayer, it is good for us to eye him as a Father, and to fasten on that relation, not only when we ask for the mercies we want, but when we give thanks for the mercies we have received.
Mercies are then doubly sweet, and powerful to enlarge the heart in praise, when they are received as tokens of a Father’s love, and gifts of a Father’s hand Giving thanks to the Father, Colossians 1:12.
It becomes children to be grateful and to say, thank you, father, as readily as, Pray, father. When we come to God as a Father, we must withal remember, that he is Lord of heaven and earth which obliges us to come to him with reverence, as to the sovereign Lord of all, and yet with confidence, as one able to do for us whatever we need or can desire to defend us from all evil and to supply us with all good.
Christ, had long since blessed God as the Possessor, or Lord of heaven and earth and in all our thanksgivings for mercies in the stream, we must give him the glory of the all-sufficiency that is in the fountain.
CLOSING STATEMENT by Robert
Here we must come to the reality the cloud descending contains the Lord’s judgment on those who refuse to repent and turn. In the old testament, Isaiah explains what the Lord had him warn those Israelites who refused to repent of their sins.
They see indeed (for the vision is made plain on tablets, so that he who runs may read it) but they perceive not their own concern in it, it is to them as a tale that is told. Note, there are many who hear the sound of God’s word, but do not feel the power of it.
The caution here is how many warnings have been placed before the Ecclesia in regards to walking and remaining in Luxury Sins. The following is an extension of the warnings and the inability of those receiving them to heed and make the changes required because in their minds they believe their walk is right.
That the generality of the people to whom he was sent would turn a deaf ear to his preaching, and willfully shut their eyes against all the discoveries of the mind and will of God which he had to make to them (Isaiah 6:9): “Go, and tell these people, these foolish wretched people, tell them their own, tell them how stupid and sottish they are.”
Isaiah must preach to them, and they will hear him indeed, but that is all they will not heed him they will not understand him they will not take any pains, nor use that application of mind which is necessary to the understanding of him they are prejudiced against that which is the true intent and meaning of what he says, and therefore they will not understand him or pretend they do not.
I believe the following is what will occur when the cloud descends and the church is being cleared of those who are walking in error, and unrepentance.
They kept their mind in the dark, or at least in constant confusion and tumult, lest, if they should admit a considerate sober thought, they should understand with their heart how much it is both their duty and their interest to be religious, and so by degrees, the truth should be too hard for them, and they should be converted from the evil ways which they take pleasure in, to those exercises to which they have now an aversion.
Observe, God’s method is to bring people first to see and he and so to understand with their hearts, and then to convert them, and bow their wills, and so heal them, which is the regular way of dealing with a rational soul and therefore Satan prevents the conversion of souls to God by blinding the mind and darkening the understanding, 2 Corinthians 4:4.
And the case is very sad when the sinner joins with him herein, and puts out his own eyes. Ut liberius peccent, libenter ignorant–They plunge into ignorance, that they may sin the more freely. They are in love with their disease and are afraid lest God should heal them like Babylon of old, we would have healed her, and she would not be healed, Jeremiah 51:9.
This was the sin (2) “That which was the great judgment of God upon them for this sin is his judgment upon you, and that is, you shall be blind. God will give you up to a judicial infatuation: Hearing you shall hear–you shall have the word of God preached to you over and over–but you shall not understand it because you will not give your minds to understand it, God will not give you strength and grace to understand it.
Seeing you shall see–you shall have an abundance of miracles and signs done before your eyes–but you shall not perceive the convincing evidence of them. Take heed lest what Moses said to your fathers should be true of you (Deuteronomy 29:4), The Lord has not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day and what Isaiah said to the men of his generation (Isaiah 29:10-12), The Lord has poured out upon you the spirit of a deep sleep, and has closed your eyes.”
What with their resisting the grace of God and rebelling against the light, and God’s withdrawing and withholding his grace and light from them, –what with their not receiving the love of the truth, and God’s giving them up for that to strong delusions, to believe a lie, –what with their willful and what with their judicial hardness, the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing.
They are stupid and senseless, and not wrought upon by all that can be said to them. No physic that can be given them operates upon them, nor will reach them, and therefore their disease must be adjudged incurable, and their case desperate.
How should those be happy that will not be healed of a disease that makes them miserable? And how should those be healed that will not be converted to the use of the methods of cure?
And how should those be converted that will not be convinced either of their disease or of their remedy? And how should those be convinced that shut their eyes and stop their ears? Let all that hear the gospel, and do not heed it, tremble at this doom for, when once they are thus given up to hardness of heart, they are already in the suburbs of hell for who shall heal them, if God does not?
If God withholds abused grace, and give men over to indulged lusts, –if he permits the evil spirit to do his work on those that resisted the good Spirit, –and if in his providence he lay stumbling-blocks in the way of sinners, which confirm their prejudices, then he blinds their eyes, and hardens their hearts, and these are spiritual judgments, like the giving up of idolatrous Gentiles to vile affections, and degenerate Christians to strong delusions.
Observe the method of conversion implied here, and the steps taken in it
[1] Sinners are brought to see with their eyes, to discern the reality of divine things and to have some knowledge of them
[2] To understand with their heart, to apply these things to themselves not only to assent and approve, but to consent and accept
[3] To be converted, and effectually turned from sin to Christ, from the world and the flesh to God, as their felicity and portion
[4] Then God will heal them, will justify and sanctify them will pardon their sins, which are as bleeding wounds, and mortify their corruptions, which are as lurking diseases. Now when God denies his grace nothing of this is done the alienation of the mind from, and its aversion to, God and the divine life, grow into a rooted and invincible antipathy, and so the case becomes desperate (2) Judicial blindness and hardness are in the word of God threatened against those who willfully persist in wickedness, and were particularly foretold concerning the Jewish church and nation.
Known unto God are all his works, and all ours too. Christ knew before who would betray him, and spoke of it, John 6:70. This is a confirmation of the truth of scripture prophecies, and thus even the unbelief of the Jews may help to strengthen our faith. It is also intended for caution to particular persons, to beware lest that come upon them which was spoken of in the prophets, Acts 13:40.
Because God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you, therefore be ye followers of God, imitators of God. Resemble him, especially in his love and pardoning goodness, as becomes those beloveds by their heavenly Father. In Christ’s sacrifice, his love triumphs, and we are to consider it fully.
Is this a deep calling “Yes”? Is it worth our effort, “Yes,” Are we answering our Father’s call to return to following His Laws “Yes”? It all started here where we were given a choice who to follow as we see in this link and, in so doing, have been lead and taught by the Holy Spirit in preparation for these battles.
https://romboughrobert.wordpress.com/2017/10/13/its-your-choice/
Remember, I am just the messenger, and the choices to be made are yours. Keep in mind what the Watchman is obligated to in Ezekiel 33 I believe applies to all who have received the knowledge of the warning and messages applies to you as well. It boils down to the choices of the individual. May our Lord continue blessing you as you go forward, walking in His light and peace.
Robert
