The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11 by Thomas Watson. Excerpt 41

Watson continues discussing reasons to be contented, or "contentation," as he puts it.

7th. excellency. Contentment hath this excellency, it is the best commentator upon providence; it makes a fair interpretation of all God’s dealings. Let the providence of God be never so dark or bloody, contentment doth construe them ever in the best sense. I may say of it, as the apostle of charity, “it thinketh no evil.” (1 Cor. 13. 5) Sickness (saith contentment) is God’s furnace to refine his gold, and make it sparkle the more: the prison is an oratory, or house of prayer. What if God melts away the creature from it? he saw perhaps my heart grew so much in love with it; had I been long in that fat pasture I should have surfeited, and the better my estate had been, the worse my soul would have been. God is wise; he hath done this either to prevent some sin or to exercise some grace. What a blessed frame of heart is this! A contented Christian is an advocate for God against unbelief and impatience: whereas discontent takes every thing from God in the worst sense; it doth implead and censure God: this evil I feel is but a symptom of greater evil: God is about to undo me: the Lord hath brought us hither into the wilderness to slay us. The contented soul takes all well; and when his condition is ever so bad, he can say, “truly God is good.” (Ps. 73. 1)

Thomas Watson lived from 1620-1686, in England. He wrote several books which survive. This blog, God willing, will post excerpts from his The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11, over a number of weeks, on Sundays.

My source for the text is here, and I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this text (and many others) available. The previous excerpt is here.
  
Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. (World English Bible, public domain.)  

Why do sickness and death bother us so much?

Why do sickness and death bother us so much? Every one reading this, and the vast number who won't, will die, barring some miraculous event. All of us get sick, sometimes as a minor inconvenience, sometimes as a crippling incapacitation, and sometimes to death.

Why, then, don't we just accept this state of things? Why do we expect things to go right, when they almost never do?

There are probably a lot of different reasons for our rebellion against the way things are. I hope I understand part of the reasons.

I think that, deep in our DNA, or our unconscious, is the knowledge that things shouldn't be like this. So we complain, and rebel against the way things are. What do I mean, things shouldn't be like this? The Bible teaches us that the first humans lived in a world without human sickness and death. (Plants and animals probably died, or were killed by humans.) But that world changed drastically, because those first humans disobeyed God, the Creator. I believe that we somehow know that there has been a change, and long for it to be reversed, and complain at the consequences of that change, the Fall.

Some of us question God's goodness, or even His existence, because of the consequences of sin in the world. How could a loving God allow such terrible things to happen? If I had the full answer to that, I would be God, which I certainly am not. But part of the answer is that God suffers with us, probably more than we suffer ourselves. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus also took the consequences of our sin upon Himself, for those who are willing to let Him do so for them. In the process, Jesus, Himself, suffered. Granted, He didn't suffer as long as, say, a burn victim, but He did suffer.

Another part of the answer is that God is going to provide a Heaven for those who believe, free from sickness and death.

It is not wrong to want to do something about sickness. Jesus healed every person who asked Him to do so. He also raised a few people from death. The Bible suggests that we pray for sick believers. But healing everyone is not God's final answer. (See here for more of what the Bible says on that subject.) Consider, also, that everyone Jesus healed died, most likely of sickness, later in their life. Those He raised from the dead  
died a second time. The Bible says that death is the last enemy to be defeated.

I think we, including me, concentrate too much on sickness. Although all the churches I have attended, and can remember, prayed most of their prayers for the sick, the New Testament church didn't pray in that pattern.

Thanks for reading.

Healing and Faith

"You do not have to be sick because God wants to heal you, and if you'll have faith, He will heal you!" (Tom Brown. There are other examples of the same sort of thing -- I hold no ill-will toward Tom Brown. His web page comes up early in a Google search.)

This man, probably from the best of motives, has some of the truth on this subject, but he doesn't have it all, and the truth he has presented can be dangerous. God does often want to heal us. Some people don't believe He can, and may sinfully lack faith. But being sick, or not being healed, isn't necessarily because we don't have enough faith. Equating not being healed with lack of faith is the dangerous aspect of this. Why do I say so? Here are five reasons:

1. 1 Kings 14 tells the story of Ahijah the prophet, and Abijah, the young son of one of the kings of Israel named Jeroboam. Abijah was sick, and the king sent his mother to Ahijah to ask about the future of this boy. Ahijah told his mother that the child would die of the sickness, but he also said this: "14:13 And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something pleasing to the Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam." (ESV) This boy was said to have pleased the Lord, but he died of a sickness.

2. Then there's the story of Job. God allowed Satan to afflict Job physically, not because he was a sinner, but because He wanted Job to be an example of faith in spite of suffering endured. (Eventually, Job was healed.)

3. Paul advised Timothy, one of God's ministers, to drink wine, rather than water, because he was frequently sick (1 Timothy 5:23).

4. Paul, himself, certainly a man of faith, and one who had been God's instrument for miracles of healing, was afflicted, apparently physically, with something that God did not remove, even though Paul prayed that He would, presumably praying in faith. (2 Corinthians 12) Also, Paul left Trophimus behind, because Trophimus was sick (2 Timothy 4:20).

5. Although most of the early apostles, probably including Paul, died martyrs' deaths, apparently John didn't. We don't know how he died, but he most likely got sick and died (counting the deterioration of old age as a sickness). So have many wonderful, faithful, Christians throughout the years, including some who have prayed effectively for healing in others, and in themselves.

Christ healed everyone who came to Him for healing during His earthly ministry. Christians are told to pray for the sick. (James 5:14) God often allows healing now, through a miracle, through medical treatment, or the body's own restorative powers, but, based on the Bible, we shouldn't always expect it, or assume lack of faith when it doesn't happen.

Healing, if it comes, is not principally so we feel better, but so God can be glorified. Suffering, too, can show God's glory. It's wrong to preach that God always heals those who have faith. Tom Brown, and I, will probably die from some illness associated with aging, and I hope that both of us die as believers in God's redemption, and His occasional healing.

Thanks for reading.

On January 28, 2012, I added the last sentence of point 4, and some labels/tags. I thank Ken Schenck, who recently wrote a good, short article on this subject.

On January 14, 2014, I am adding a link to a post, quoting my late father, who argued, in a letter to my mother, that going to see doctors was not usually wrong for a believer.