Christ Will Not Quench the Smoking Flax

The second observation concerning the weak and small beginnings of grace is that Christ will not quench the smoking flax.  This is so for two principal reasons.  First, because this spark is from heaven: it is his own, it is kindled by his own Spirit.  And secondly, it tends to the glory of his powerful grace in his children that he preserves light in the midst of darkness, a spark in the midst of the swelling waters of corruption.

The Least Spark of Grace is Precious

There is an especial blessing in that little spark.  “As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes” (Isa. 65:8).  We see how our Savior Christ bore with Thomas in his doubting (John 20:27), and with the two disciples that went to Emmaus, who wavered as to whether he came to redeem Israel or not (Luke 24:21).  He quenched not that little light in Peter, which was smothered:  Peter denied him, but he denied not Peter (Luke 22:61).  “If thou wilt, thou canst,” said one poor man in the Gospel (Matt 8:2). “If thou canst do anything,” said another (Mark 9:22).  Both were smoking flax.  Neither of them was quenched.

If Christ has stood upon his own greatness, he would have rejected him that came with his “if”. But Christ answers his “if” with a gracious and absolute grant, “I will, be thou clean.”  The woman that was diseased with an issue did but touch, with a trembling hand, and but the hem of his garment, and yet she went away both healed and comforted.  In the seven churches (Rev. 2 and 3), we see that Christ acknowledges and cherishes anything that was good in them.  Because the disciples slept due to infirmity, being oppressed with grief, our Savior Christ frames a comfortable excuse for them, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41).

Support the Weak

Here see the opposite dispositions in the holy nature of Christ and the nature of man.  Man for a little smoke will quench the light.  Christ, we wee, ever cherishes even the least beginnings.  How he bore with the many imperfections of his poor disciples!  If he did sharply check them, it was in love, and that they  might shine the brighter.  Can we have a better pattern to follow than this from him by whom we hope to be saved? “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak” (Rom 15:1).  “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22).

Oh, that this gaining and winning disposition were more in many!  Many, so far as in us lies, are lost for want of encouragement.  See how that faithful fisher of men, the Apostle Paul, labors to catch his judge: “I know that thou believest the prophets” (Acts 26:27), and then wishes him all saving good, but not bonds.  He might have added them too, but he would not discourage one that responded.  He would therefore with Agrippa only that which was good in religion.

How careful our blessed Savior of little ones, that they might not be offended!  How he defends his disciples from malicious imputations of the Pharisees!  How careful not to put new wine into old vessels (Matt. 9:17), not to alienate new beginners with the austerities of religion (as some do indiscreetly).  Oh, says he, they shall have time to fast when I am gone, and strength to fast when the Holy Ghost is come upon them.

It is not the best way, to assail young beginners with minor matters, but to show them a more excellent way and train them in fundamental points.  Then other things will not gain credence with them.  It is not amiss to conceal their defects, to excuse some failings, to commend their performances, to encourage their progress, to remove all difficulties out of their way, to help them in every way to bear the yoke of religion with greater ease, to bring them to love God and his service, lest they acquire a distaste for it before they know it.

For the most part, we see that Christ plants in young beginners a love which we call their “first love” (Rev 2:4), to carry them to crosses before they have gathered strength; as we bring on young plants and fence them from the weather until they are rooted.  Mercy to others should move us to deny ourselves in liberties oftentimes, in case of offending weak ones.  It is the “little ones” that are offended (Matt 18:6).  The weakest are most ready to think themselves despised; therefore we should be most careful to give them satisfaction.

It would be a good contest among Christians, one to labor to give no offense, and the other to labor to take none.  The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others.  Yet people should not tire and wear out the patience of others: nor should the weaker so far demand moderation from others as to rely upon their indulgence adn so to rest in their own infirmities, with danger to their own souls and scandal to the church.

Neither must they despise the gifts of God in others, which grace teaches to honor wheresoever they are found, but know their parts and place, and not undertake anything above their measure, which may make their persons and their case obnoxious to scorn.  When blindness and boldness, ignorance and arrogance, weakness and willfulness, meet together in men, it renders them odious to God, burdensome in society, dangerous in their counsels, disturbers of better purposes, intractable and incapable of better direction, miserable in the issue.

Where Christ shows his gracious power in weakness, he does it by letting men understand themselves so far as to breed humility, and magnify God’s love to such as they are.  He does it as a preservative against discouragements from weakness, to bring men into a less distance from grace, as an advantage to poverty of spirit, rather than greatness of condition and parts, which yield fuel for pride to a corrupt nature .

Christ refuses none for weakness of parts, that none should be discouraged, but accepts none for greatness, that none should be lifted up with that which is of so little reckoning with God.  It is no great matter how dull the scholar is when Christ takes upon him to be the teacher.  As he prescribes what to understand, so he gives understanding itself, even to the simplest.

The church suffers much from weak ones, therefore we may assert our liberty to deal with them, though mildly, yet oftentimes directly.  The scope of true love is to make the party better, and concealment oftentimes hinders that.  With some, a spirit of meekness prevails most, but with some a rod is necessary.  Some must be “pulled out of the fire” (Jude 23) with violence, and they will bless God for us in the day of their visitation.

We see that our Savior multiplies woe upon woe when he has to deal with hard hearted hypocrites (Matt. 23:13), for hypocrites need stronger conviction than gross sinners, because their will is bad, and therefore usually their conversion is violent.  A hard knot must have an answerable wedge, otherwise, in a cruel mercy, we betray their souls.

A sharp reproof sometimes is a precious pearl and a sweet balm.  The wounds of secure sinners will not be healed with sweet words.  The Holy Ghost came as well in fiery tongues as in likeness of a dove, and the same Holy Spirit will vouchsafe a spirit of prudence and discretion, which is the salt to season all our words and actions.  And such wisdom will teach us “to speak a word in season” (Isa 50:4), both to the weary, and likewise to the secure soul.  And indeed, he has need of “the tongue of the learned,” who shall either raise up or cast down, though in this place I speak of mildness towards those that are weak and are aware of it.  These we must bring on gently, and drive softly, as Jacob did his cattle (Gen 33:14), according to their pace, and as his children were able to endure.

Weak Christians are like glasses which are hurt with the least violent usage, but if gently handled will continue a long time. This honor of gentle use we are to give to the weaker vessels (1 Pet. 3:7), by which we shall both preserve them and likewise make them useful to the church and ourselves.

In diseased bodies, if all ill humors are purged out, you will purge life and all away.  Therefore, though God says that he will “refine them as silver is refined” (Zech. 13:9), yet he said the had “refined thee, but not with silver” (Isa. 48:10), that is, not so exactly as that no dross remains, for he has respect to our weakness.  Perfect refining is for another world, for the world of the souls of perfect men.

Analytical Envy

Great quote here about Economists trying to be cool like physicists:

The success of mathematical physics led the social scientist to be jealous of its power without quite understanding the intellectual attitudes that had contributed to this power.  The use of mathematical formulae had accompanied the development of the natural sciences….Very few econometricians are aware that if they are to imitate the procedure of modern physics and not its mere appearance, a mathematical economist must begin with a critical account of these quantitative notions and the means adopted for collecting and measuring them.

Apparently, the hard sciences were a real kick in the gut to every major branch of study – from economics to literature to psychology to art.  It’s as though math was so impressive that they all developed inferiority complexes and went off on quests to prove they were just as good.  So economics went all Keynesian and literature went all deconstruction and reader response.  But across the board, every major field of study that didn’t have something hard to measure either faked it, fudged it, or abandoned all pretense of logic.  What I don’t get is how people forgot that numbers aren’t the only way of thinking.  Rhetoric and inductive logic predate calculus by thousands of years.  These things don’t wear out with time; they just go out of fashion.

Vacuum Salesman

Okay, Mr. hard-sell vacuum cleaner salesman. I think you made a bad decision, pitching me your vacuum. I mean, I let you in because I was curious, and I hate turning away a stranger. Honestly, at first I thought you were here to tell me about your religion, and I have a soft spot for those guys. Never turn away a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness, is my policy. And then again, there’s my religion’s teaching on hospitality. There’s alway’s the stray chance that you could be an angel.

So I let you give me the late evening pitch about your vacuum. And I expected from the start that your product would be better than what’s already sitting in my closet. The question was if it would be so much better that it would justify the additional expense. I’m the kind of guy who intends to never buy a new car in his life. Plus, I’m still on the rebound from the foolish purchase of a time share. So it’s like, fool me once, ya know?

And yeah, it’s an awesome piece of equipment. You almost had me thinking I might eventually save up for one. And then you did the hard sell. Now I’m running the numbers.

The original price you pitched me was over three thousand dollars. That’s crazy talk. That’s more than I paid for my car. But you know, maybe some day. Then you rolled your eyes and dropped your price. By a thousand dollars. This is where you started to lose me. That happened too fast. I still can’t afford it, but now I’m thinking I just narrowly avoided giving a thousand dollars to charity. Is this why you don’t sell through department stores – so you can flex on a 35% margin?

Okay, I’m running the numbers again. Your vacuum is nice, but I paid less than $200 for the one I have. Is your vacuum ten times as good as mine? I expect my machine will last about two years, so I guess if yours lasts at least twenty years I’ll break even. But keep in mind, I have to decide right now if your machine will work better than whatever’s on the $200 market two decades from now. I’m no expert on vacuums, but I know that would be a poor bet for any other small appliance in my house. I mean, you’re asking me to pay as much for my vacuum as I will for my carpet.

And you’re at it again. I just explained to you that, under no circumstances will I be making an impulse decision about a major appliance today. I just told you that the only way I could even consider it is if your vacuum cost essentially the same as the one I bought in a pinch at Walmart when the last one broke. Any purchase that requires me to actually adjust my budget will also require a significant waiting period. I see that I have hurt your feelings. I’m terribly sorry about that. I am grateful for this particularly clean square in my living room. Oh, this is where you explain to me your business model before making a final pitch? Please don’t do this. I really don’t think it will have the intended effect…

Well, you did it. Now I will never buy your brand of vacuum. Yes, I understand $1500 is an incredible price. But I also understand that you’re offering that price at a personal loss in order to meet a quota. I understand why your company will never sell its product through a major retailer. Major retailers have experienced purchasing professionals and highly paid lawyers to ensure that they won’t be taken advantage of. They buy wholesale, and are able to drive down the price of the product, and pass that savings on to the customer, in an effort to gain market advantage over other retailers in the region.

Up till now, I was under the impression that you were an employee of your company. You have just led me to believer that you are an independent retailer, forced to sink an investment into this vacuum before attempting to sell it to me, and that it’s entirely possible for you to sell every vacuum in your stock, and only just break even. You, my friend, are being exploited, much more surely than any sweat shop worker in Bangladesh. I sincerely hope you are able to get out of this situation as quickly as possible, but you do not have my sale.

On Listening

I’m coming to the conclusion that my conservative friends are wrong on the Trayvon Martin issue. Specifically, I mean my politically conservative Christian friends, who have been listening too closely to people whose job it is to drum up support for their side of the issue.  If you can take delight in an event that causes genuine grief to a Christian brother, you are probably wrong.  I’d like to suggest that, instead of scoring rhetorical points, you should close your mouth and listen.

Here’s your homework assignment:  find somebody, a Christian brother or sister, who thinks George Zimmerman was a wicked man for what he did, and ask them to explain it to you.  Do not respond.  Do not tell them why they are wrong.  Do not explain to them how the justice system works.  Just listen.  Mourn with those who morn.

If your Christian brother or sister feels personally assaulted by the news and the culture, it’s not the time to tell them that they’re wrong, that their experience doesn’t have anything to do with reality.  It’s an experience; they experienced it.  The feelings are real; they really do feel that way.

Thabiti Anyabwile has two posts up that I found helpful – One on his personal response to the trial, and one on advice for young black men.  I also thought this post on moving on by Trip Lee was helpful. I’d also recommend Kevin DeYoung’s suggestions on race relations.

One major misconception I’m having to address is that it looks like my views on racism are off.  I was raised on Ben Carson, and with the idea that my job, in order to create a nation “where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” was to ignore race as a category.  It’s starting to look as though I can deny race as a category and do well, but I had better not deny the existence of racism.  Racism is quieter now, and more personal, baked into our cultural assumptions.  But it’s real, and pretending it isn’t there just helps it along.

The Smoking Flax (Pt 2)

In pursuing his calling, Christ will not quench the smoking flax, or wick, but will blow it up till it flames. In a smoking flax there is but a little light, and that little light is weak, since it’s unable to flame, and what is there is mixed with smoke. The observations from this are that in God’s children, especially in their first conversion, there is but a little measure of grace, and that little grace is mixed with much corruption which, like smoke, is offensive; but that Christ will not quench this smoking flax.

Grace is Mingled With Corruption

But grace is not only little, but mingled with corruption; therefore a Christian is said to be smoking flax. So we do see that grace does not do away with corruption all at once, but some is left for believers to fight with.  The purest actions of the purest men need Christ to perfume them.  And this is his office.  When we pray, we need to pray again for Christ to pardon the defects of our prayers.  Consider some instances of this smoking flax:

  • Moses at the Red Sea, being in a great perplexity, and knowing not what to say, or which way to turn, groaned to God.  No doubt this was a great conflict in him.  In great distress we know not what to pray, but the Spirit makes request with sighs that cannot be expressed (Rom. 8:26). Broken hearts can yield but broken prayers.
  • When David was before the king of Gath (1 Sam. 21:13), and disfigured himself in an uncomely manner, in that smoke there was some fire also.  You may see what an excellent psalm he makes upon that occasion – Psalm 34 – in which, on the basis of experience, he says, “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart” (Psa. 34:18).
  • “I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes.” There is smoke. “Nevertheless thou heardest the voice of  my supplications” (Psa. 31:22). There is fire.
  • “Lord, save us: we perish” (Matt. 8:25), cry the disciples.  Here is smoke of infidelity, yet so much light of faith as stirred them up to pray to Christ. “Lord, I believe.” There is light.
  • “Help thou mine unbelief.” There is smoke (Mark 9:24). Jonah cries, “I am cast out of thy sight.” There is smoke.  “Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.” There is light (Jon. 2:4).
  • “O wretched man that I am!” says Paul, with a sense of his corruption.  Yet he breaks out into thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 7:24).
  • “I sleep,” says the church in the Song of Solomon, “but  my heart waketh” (Song of Sol. 5:2).
  • In the seven churches, which for their light are called “seven golden candlesticks” (Rev. 2 and 3), most of them had much smoke with their light.

The reason for this mixture is that we carry about us a double principle, grace and nature.  The end of it is especially to preserve us from those two dangerous rocks which our natures are prone to dash upon: security and pride, and to force us to pitch our rest on justification, not sanctification, which besides imperfection, has some stains.  Our spiritual fire is like our ordinary fire here below, that is, mixed.  Fire is most pure in its own element above [ed: i.e., the stars] ; so shall our graces be when we would be also in heaven, which is our proper element.

From this mixture arises the fact that the people of God have so different judgments themselves, looking sometimes at the work of grace, sometimes at the remainder of corruption, and when they look upon that, then they think they have no grace.  Though they love Christ in his ordinances and children, yet they dare not claim so near acquaintance as to be his.  Even as a guttering candle sometimes shows its light and sometimes the show of light is lost, so sometimes they are sure about themselves, and sometimes at a loss.

The Smoking Flax

In pursuing his calling, Christ will not quench the smoking flax, or wick, but will blow it up till it flames.  In a smoking flax there is but a little light, and that little light is weak, since it’s unable to flame, and what is there is mixed with smoke.  The observations from this are that in God’s children, especially in their first conversion, there is but a little measure of grace, and that little grace is mixed with much corruption which, like smoke, is offensive; but that Christ will not quench this smoking flax.

Grace is Little at First

There are several ages in Christians – some are babes, some young men.  Faith may be as “a grain of mustard seed” (Matt 17:20).  There is nothing so little as grace at first, and nothing more glorious afterward.  Things of greatest perfection are longest in coming to their growth.  Man, the most perfect creature, comes to perfection by little and little; worthless things, such as mushrooms and the like – like Jonah’s gourd, soon spring up, and soon vanish.  A new creature is the most excellent creature in all the world, and therefore it grows up by degrees.  We see in  nature that a mighty oak rises from an acorn.

It is with a Christian as it was with  Christ, who sprang out of the dead stock of Jesse, out of David’s family (Isa. 53:2), when it was at the lowest, but he grew up higher than the heavens.  It is not with the trees of righteousness as it was with the trees off paradise, which were created all perfect at the first.  The seeds of all the creatures in the present goodly frame of the world were hid in the chaos, in that confused mass at the first, out of which God commanded all creatures to arise.  In the small seeds of plants lie hidden both bulk and branches, bud and fruit.  In a few principles lie hidden all comfortable conclusions of holy truth.  All these glorious frameworks of zeal and holiness in the saints had their beginning from a few sparks.

Let us not therefore be discouraged at the small beginnings of grace, but look on ourselves as selected to be “holy and without blame” (Eph. 1:4).  Let us look on our imperfect beginning only to enforce further striving to perfection, and to keep us in a low opinion of ourselves.  On the other hand, in case of discouragement, we must consider ourselves as Christ does, who looks on us as those he intends to fit for himself.  Christ values us by what we shall be, and by what we are selected unto. We call a little plant a tree, because it is growing up to be so.  “Who has despised the day of small things?” (Zech. 4:10).  Christ would not have us despise little things.

The glorious angels disdain not attendance on little ones – little in their own eyes, and little in the eyes of the world.  Grace, though little in quantity, yet is much in vigor and worth.  It is Christ that raises the worth of little and mean places and persons.  Bethlehem was the least (Mic. 5:2; Matt. 2:6), and yet not the least.  It was the least in itself, and not the least in respect that Christ was born there.  The second temple (Hag. 2:9) came short of the outward magnificence of the former; yet it was more glorious than the first because Christ came into it. The Lord of the temple came into his own temple.  The pupil of the eye is very little, yet sees a great part of the heaven at once.  A pearl, though little, yet is of much esteem.  Nothing in the world is of so good use as the least grain of grace.