My favorite John Flavel anecdote

My favorite anecdote on the life of John Flavel is the story of how a fifteen year old lad named Luke Short heard Flavel preach in Dartmouth, England before immigrating to America and was converted by the message many years later:

Luke Short was a farmer in New England who attained his hundredth year in exceptional vigour though without having sought peace with God.  One day as he sat in the fields reflecting upon his long life, he recalled a sermon he had heard in Dartmouth as a boy before he sailed to America.  The horror of dying under the curse of God was impressed upon him as he meditated on the words he had heard so long ago and he was converted to Christ—eighty-five years after hearing John Flavel preach (Michael Bolond in the Publisher’s Introduction to John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence, p. 11).

Not only does this anecdote remind us of the potency of Flavel’s preaching but, more importantly, it demonstrates that God’s word never returns to him void (Isaiah 55:11).  Flavel never knew on this side of the kingdom how God would make the sermon he preached effectual to Short’s conversion.  It is also a reminder to preachers to labor faithfully, even when we do not see immediate, visible results.

JTR

The Vision (3/1/12): Flavel: Sanctified afflictions are cleansers

Would you indulge me with one more quotation from John Flavel’s The Mystery of Providence? Here are some of Flavel’s comments on how “afflicting providences” work toward our sanctification:

It is a sure sign that afflicting providences are sanctified when they purge the heart from sin, and leave both heart and life more pure, heavenly, mortified, and humble than they found them. Sanctified afflictions are cleansers; they pull down the pride, refine earthliness, and purge out the vanity of the spirit…. How many Christians can bear witness to this truth! After some sharp affliction has been upon them, how is the earthliness of their hearts purged! They see no beauty, taste no more relish in the world than in the white of an egg. O how serious, humble and heavenly are they, till the impressions made upon them by afflictions are worn off, and their deceitful lusts have again entangled them! And this is the reason why we are so often under the discipline of the rod. Let a Christian, says a later writer, be but two or three years without an affliction, and he is almost good for nothing. He cannot pray, nor meditate, nor discourse at that rate he was wont to do; but when a new affliction comes, now he can find his tongue, and come to his knees again, and live at another rate (pp. 201-202).

Has God given you an “afflicting providence”? How has it made you grow stronger in your faith?

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (2/23/12): Consider how near you are to the change of your condition

I have been blessed of late by reading John Flavel’s classic The Mystery of Providence (Banner; first published 1678; Banner ed.1963). In good Puritan fashion the book is an extended meditation on a single verse: “I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me” (Psalm 57:2).

At one point, Flavel reminds his fellow saints that all the circumstances of this present life must be viewed through the lens of the life that is yet to come:

Consider how near you are to the change of your condition. Have but a little patience, and all will be as well with you as your hearts can desire. It is no small comfort to the saints that the world is the worst place that they shall ever be in; things will get better every day with them. If the traveler has spent all his money, yet it does not much trouble him if he knows himself to be within a few miles of his own home. If there are no candles in the house, we do not much trouble over it if we are sure it is almost break of day; for then there will be no use for them. This is the case with us; ‘for now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed’ (Rom 13:11) (p. 138).

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Flavel: "O, it is no common mercy to descend from pious parents."

I have been greatly blessed in reading John Flavel’s The Mystery of Providence. It’s one of those books that as you read you think, “Why didn’t I discover and read this book before now?” The "Paperback Puritan" version from Banner is very easy to read (more like reading Thomas Watson than John Owen). I highly commend it. Here’s another nugget as Flavel reflects on the blessing of Providence toward those born to Christian parents:

O, it is no common mercy to descend from pious parents (p. 54).

And was it not a special favour to us to have parents that went before us as patterns of holiness, and beat the path to heaven for us by their examples? They could say to us: ‘those things ye have heard and seen in me, do’ (Phil 4:9); and ‘be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ’ (1 Cor 11:1). The parents’ life is the child’s copy. O, it is no common mercy to have a fair copy set before us, especially in the moulding age; we saw what they did, as well as heard what they said. It was Abraham’s commendation, ‘that he commanded his children, and his household after him, to keep the way of the Lord.’ And such mercies some of us have also had (p. 55).

Flavel: "by what weak and improbable instruments"

Here's another nugget from John Flavel’s The Mystery of Providence on the surprising means God used to begin and spread the Christian movement:

On the contrary, how successful have weak and contemptible means been made for the good of the Church! Thus in the first planting of Christianity in the world, by what weak and improbable instruments was it done! Christ did not choose the eloquent orators, or men of authority in the courts of kings and emperors, but twelve poor artisans and fishermen; and these not sent together in a troop, but some to take one country to conquer it, and some another. The most ridiculous course, in appearance, for such a design as could be imagined, and yet how short a time was the Gospel spread and the Churches planted by them in the several kingdoms of the world! (pp. 33-34).

Flavel: "tools of all sorts in the shop of Providence"

I'm reading John Flavel's The Mystery of Providence (orig. 1678; Banner 1963).  Here's one choice nugget:

Even in viewing the accurate structure of the body of a man, the figure, position, and mutual relationships of the several members and vessels has convinced some, and is sufficient to convince all, that it is the work of divine wisdom and power; in like manner, if the admirable adaptation of the means and instruments employed for mercy to the people of God are carefully considered, who can but confess that there are some tools of all sorts and sizes in the shop of Providence, so there is a most skillful hand that uses them, and that they could no more produce such effects of themselves than the axe, saw, or chisel can carve or cut a rough log into a beautiful figure without the hand of a skillful artificer (p. 32).

Flavel on "Binge Drinking" and fearing God's displeasure more than men's

At the last Society for the Preservation of Baptist Principles and Practices meeting in Roanoke, Lloyd Sprinkle gave out a free selection from the "Pocket Puritans" series from Banner of Truth books and I picked up several.

Last week I read the title "Binge Drinking" with selections from John Flavel and C. H. Spurgeon on the spiritual dangers of drunkenness.  I was able to use a  Flavel quote in Sunday's message on Nabal from 1 Samuel 25.

The Flavel selections are taken from "A Caution to Seamen:  A Dissuasive against Several Horrid and Detestable Sins" from volume 5 of his Collected Works.  When I read through Beeke's "Building on the Rock Series," which primarily features devotional stories from the 17th-19th centuries, in our family devotions, my children picked up on the fact that many of the conversion stories were about young men who went to sea and fell into the sins of swearing and drunkenness before coming to Christ.  It was a reminder that military men, even today, are probably especially vulnerable to this temptation.

Flavel also introduces his denunciation of drinking with this interesting explanation of the dangers that minister run of offending men when they speak the truth:

"First, that if this close and plain dealing be necessary, in order to your cure, and you will be offended by it, it is better you should be offended than God.  Ministers are often put upon lamentable straits, they sail between Scylla and Charybdis--the wrath of God upon one side, if we do not speak plain and home, as the necessity of the case requires, and man's wrath if we do.  What shall we do in this strait?  Either God or you, it seems, must be offended; and it cannot be avoided, I shall rather hazard your anger than God's, and think it more tolerable" (p. 7).

JTR