Day Off Week 38 2025

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t was back to the more traditional day off on Tuesday as my wife had to work. In the evening I had a church officers meeting so the length of the day was truncated. I sill had time to read a little book o the fascinating Josiah Wedgwood, most of an art book on Seascapes and a little book on Lust by Flavel. I also did some work on this blog and my sermon blog and had a coffee out.

Banner Conference 2015 04

Our second morning session was Mike Reeves on the Puritans and suffering. What was to take three Puritans (Flavel, Bunyan and Goodwin) and draw out some of their teaching on suffering and stressing (in the first two cases that they were men who knew what they were talking about).

Flavel says that

"The wisdom of God is much seen in the choice of his rods. It is usual with God to smite us in those very comforts which stole away too much of the love and delight of our souls from God; to cross us in those things from which we raised up too great expectations of comfort. These providences bespeak the jealousy of God over us, and his care to prevent far worse evils by these sad, but needful strokes. It is a good sign our troubles are sanctified to us, when they turn our hearts against sin, and not against God."

Flavel points us to Scripture, to God and to the future.

When in prison, Bunyan found comfort in Jeremiah 49:11 and in 1 Corinthians 11.

Goodwin expounded Hebrews 4:11 in his Heart of Christ in Heaven towards Sinners on Earth.

Busy Past Week

Last week was so busy that there was no time to make note of it all. On Monday morning I got myself over to the LTS where I had planned to meet with one of the students (Paolo Patuelli, who is from Italy). We are so glad to be mentoring someone again this year, especially a family man. Then it was on to the Evangelical Library to hear a very good lunch time lecture on the Pentateuch from Dr Ian Densham. This was a helpful look at some of the issues and included helpful pointers on preaching from that part of the Word. I was only sorry that we didn't have more people there. I picked up a couple of books on Jansenism which I have begun to read. I then drove to a home in Wembley to visit the oldest member of my church. It's always good to see Lilian. In the evening I was over in Ashford for a Bible Preaching Trust committee. The Bible Preaching Trust makes small grants to ministers in financial need. It was good to agree on grants for men in Scotland, the north of England and Spain this time.

Then on Tuesday I was supposed to be involved in a prison Bible study but that was not possible so I went over to Highbury and Andrew King very kindly helped me get my forms sorted out for getting into this work more thoroughly with CPR. I then went on to the Royal Free Hospital to visit my longest standing church member. It's always good to see Ken too.

Wednesday began with attendance at a funeral at Golders Green Crematorium. I got to know South African David Strauss when he moved in next door to the church and started attending. The place burned down a few years later and he ended up in the north of the borough and keeping contact was difficult, although we would see him from time to time and he would phone fairly often. David was a most interesting character and not always the easiest to deal with, very much an Afrikaaner I guess he was a professing Christian. I then headed down to Clerkenwell to meet up with Tom and Donna Drion (like the Kings, home schoolers I discover) for lunch in the chapel there where Tom is heading up the GraceLife work with Ross Orgil. Tom studied in John Macarthur's Master's Seminary. They seem to be making real progress with a multi-national congregation,. It was good to meet. From there I went on to a regular appointment speaking at a BUPA home in Golders Green. In the evening it was our midweek meeting on Providence, making further use of John Flavel's excellent Mystery of Providence.

The rest of the week was less busy in some ways but with a regular meeting with my fellow elder, sermons to prepare and a newsletter plus two short talks for the Friday night clubs I was not twiddling my thumbs and appreciated the extra hour.

Reading the Bible F

“The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.”

John Flavel

Flavel and Providence

One of the ways that God reveals himself is through his providence. It is a fascinating thing as this article found in the brand new April edition of the Banner of Truth Magazine (the electronic version arrived this morning) demonstrates. Do subscribe to the Banner, those of you who don't. It always contains something interesting and heart warming.

Ryan Kaupas is a member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington DC, where he has served as a pastoral intern. The editor says that while visiting the USA last May he heard Kaupas tell the story at Capitol Hill. He now works as a private consultant for the US Federal Government. The article was originally reproduced with permission and I am assuming this use infringes no copyright. The aim is rather to urge you to buy the mag!

A MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE by Ryan Kaupas

I trust that you will appreciate this story, for it concerns a Puritan Preacher, a pastoral intern, a homeless man looking to run away, and our great God.
Earlier this week I arrived in Crystal City to meet friends for dinner. I turned up early so that I might snatch a few minutes to finish the last three pages of a book I was reading and benefitting from immensely - John Flavel’s The Mystery of Providence. I sat down at an empty table outside on the terrace and began to open the book. No sooner had I begun to turn the pages than a man riding a bike stopped right in front of me. Interrupting my reading he asked rather forcefully, ‘What is that book?’ I grasped my belongings thinking that this was some kind of ruse
to distract me so that he might steal my stuff. I could tell that he had been drinking, but my suspicions quickly dissipated when he proceeded to sit down next to me and again ask in his somewhat brazen manner, ‘What is that book about?’ I began to explain. The book was written by a nonconformist preacher of the seventeenth century ... but I soon realized that I would need to give a simpler explanation. I told him that this preacher, John Flavel, wrote many helpful things about suffering and the providence of God. My keen listener then asked me to tell him more about what was in the book. I opened the book and began to read some of the sentences I had previously highlighted.
I kid you not ... the man hung on my every word. The antiquated, seventeenth-century, Puritan style of writing didn’t seem to get in the way of my eager enquirer or put him off in the slightest. At times he even repeated parts of Flavel’s sentences and as he did so it seemed that the words were having a sobering effect upon him. Now and then he interjected and asked me to repeat something I had just read, but to do so more slowly than before. Occasionally, and with a hint of frustration, he would blurt out, ‘Now what does that mean?’ It was as if Flavel was reading his heart like a book. My new-found friend opened up and confessed that he was a believer in Christ but that his faith was weak. He said that he was tired and ready to end his life. He admitted he was struggling with unbelief amidst many afflictions. I think he was homeless and without family at hand, and he had clearly turned to drink. I couldn’t really tell the extent of his problems. But the strange thing was this: he wasn’t sitting next to me because he wanted to befriend me. No, from the beginning he had a preoccupation with the book in my hand. The following excerpt from Flavel brought evident relief to his soul:
No stroke of calamity upon the people of God can separate them from the love of Christ. Who shall separate them from the love of Christ? (Rom 8:35). Shall tribulation? There was a time when Job could call nothing in this world his own but trouble. He could not say my estate, my honour, my health, my children, for all these
were gone; yet then he could say; my redeemer! (Job 19:25) Well then, there is no cause to sink while interest in Christ remains sure to us. All your calamities will have an end shortly. The longest day of the saints’ troubles has an end; and then no more troubles forever. The troubles of the wicked will be to eternity, but you
shall suffer but a while (1 Pet. 5:10). If a thousand troubles are appointed for you, they will come to one at last, and after that no more. Yea, and though light afflictions are but for a moment, yet they work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Cor 4:17). Let that support your heart under all sufferings. By this time the friends I had come to meet arrived and I signalled the need to go.

We both marvelled at the mysterious providence of God! I offered him the book as a gift. He broke down in tears. He told me that he had planned to run away to Florida, but now decided against it.

Two days later I shared the story with a friend. He suggested that I read the remaining three pages of Flavel’s book. Honestly, it hadn’t even crossed my mind to do so before! So I borrowed the book from my roommate. The last section exhorts its readers to write down their experiences of providence in special seasons for the benefit of others. And that’s just what I did!

10 Puritans Called John

Which John is this?

1. John Owen, premier theolgain
2. John Bunyan, allegory king

3. John Flavel, practical preacher

4. John Howe, later puritan

5. John Winthrop, New England Governor

6. John Trapp, pithy commentator
7. John Cotton, New England divine
8. John Davenant, wrote on Colossians
9. John Lightfoot, scholar
10. John Shower, God's thoughts and ways

[Ans: nohj levalf]

Archive 3 Desert Island Books

Some while ago I sent my very good friend Darby Gray to a desert island to see what books he might like to read there. The Bible, Calvin's works, Matthew Henry's commentary and Pilgrim's Progress were already provided he just had to add five more. He wrote

Narrowing down to just five books is no easy task. One is thankful to have the Bunyan, Henry, and Calvin available. In thinking about this, a number of great favourites have had to be by-passed, such as Spiritual Disciplines by Don Whitney, a book I have very much enjoyed more than once.
1. Like many other castaways I am keen to take a biography with me. Reading the lives of others is both pleasant and instructive. The two volumes by Iain Murray on Dr. Lloyd-Jones instantly spring to mind as does Roland Bainton's volume on Martin Luther. Dallimore's two volumes on Whitefield or even his single one on Spurgeon are attractive possibilities too. Dallimore and Murray are superb biographers. The latter's large work on Edwards and his smaller one on John Murray are also contenders. However, I think I will plump for Ned B. Stonehouse's wonderful Biographical Memoir of J. Gresham Machen. There is a slight degree of hagiography involved here no doubt and much of the attraction is the atmosphere the book breathes - leisurely, verbose, refined, from a bygone age. Machen's life was no easy one, however, as he struggled with the attractions of German liberalism, served in France in the Great War and defended the faith in face of a vicious onslaught from modernism, being instrumental in founding Westminster Theological Seminary. His attitude to fundamentalism, temperance, Billy Sunday, church relations, the Sabbath, etc, are interestingly revealed. It is hard to think of a more moving or a more challenging 20th century biography.
2. The 'Princeton' atmosphere is so fine that I really would like more than just one smattering for my desert island reading. I did think of trying the trick that others have used and ask for a set of works, namely 10 volumes of B B Warfield. However, some of that would involve hard work on my part and so I will instead take the easy option and go for the next best thing to biography, Church history, and order the two volumes by David B. Calhoun on old Princeton Seminary, Faith and Learning 1812-1868 and The Majestic Testimony 1869-1929. Partly it is the writing but chiefly it is the subject matter of these lovely descriptions of experiential Calvinism that hooks me. From log college to premier university, the story is a fascinating one on many fronts. The glimpses of the Alexanders, the Hodges, Machen, Warfield, as well as a host of lesser known men, is fascinating. The persistent re-emergence of vital godliness amid thoroughgoing and painstaking theology is no small part of the attraction that the books hold.
The one snag with such a book would be the references to other books just out of reach. There is an interesting description, for instance, of J A Alexander beavering away in a New York hotel during the summer months on his commentaries on Psalms, Acts, and Mark, lost deep in thought or getting frustrated and breaking for a half an hour of Dickens or a walk in the streets. 'Well, this is the most delightful and exciting occupation I can conceive of,' he said, 'it is better than any novel that I ever read.'
3. At the risk of wallowing and basking even more in the glory of old Princeton and Westminister let me add a third less obvious choice. If I wanted another obvious one I would have gone for J W Alexander's Thoughts on Preaching. However, I want something doctrinal. I know little of the late Edwin H Palmer except that he was a Christian Reformed pastor, a lecturer at Westminister Seminary and executive secretary of the committee that produced the NIV Bible. The same clarity he brought to that project is found in the two books he authored, one a study guide on The Five points of Calvinism and the other (my choice) on The Holy Spirit, His Person and Ministry. Here are 16 clear, well set-out, warm-hearted, simple studies that it would be a joy to re-read and to study again.
4. My final two choices would both be by Puritans. I notice too that like two out of my last three choices these have both been published or republished (these two as Puritan paperbacks) by the Banner of Truth Trust. How thankful we ought to be to God for the Trust's continued commitment to the Reformed faith.
First, I mention John Flavel's Mystery of Providence (as it is known). I will never forget reading it for the first time and being introduced to the whole idea of providence. It led to my seeing things and discovering things about God's goodness that I never would have seen otherwise. Originally published in 1678 there is not a book like it for opening up the subject of God's providence. What a joy it would be to contemplate, even if banished to a desert island, the goodness of God revealed in providence. The book is in three parts. Firstly it deals with the evidence for Providence; then the duty, method, and advantages of meditating on it; and finally the practical implications and problems and the advantages of keeping records.
5. My final choice was written just over 25 years earlier. Another Puritan work, Thomas Brook's Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices was first published in 1652. The very title teaches a lesson and the contents pages themselves contain more lessons than many books produced since, for all their boasts. I believe he lists some 41 devices and over 200 remedies. Obviously time has moved on and written today such a book would no doubt have different things to say, but as a manual for the daily fight with Satan (from which a desert island would offer no rest) nothing can beat it. Perhaps the section warning against the false inferences from the cross actings of Providence would begin to come alive on a lone desert island. Brooks would help me to see that many things contrary to our desires are not contrary to our good and that God's hand against me does not mean his love and heart are not set on me. He would help me to see that such a cross providence would do me good (no doubt through reading these books) and help me on my way to heaven.

This article originally appeared in The Evangelical Library Bulletin, Banner of Truth Magazine and elsewhere.