Comfort When Your News Feed Is Full Of Chaos

Posted on by metroupe

Last year I purchased a devotional collection of the letters of John Newton from Banner of Truth. This book is a great introduction to one of Newton’s most valuable contributions to the church. And each selection is just one page. He has a heart warming, though rambling style and a powerful way of expressing the truth.

This morning I read the entry for February 26th and felt its relevance to our current moment. He had read a book of history and was explaining how it shows God’s purposes through both good and evil. His explanation practical to our own troubled times. The news is full of chaos and disaster. What can steady our hearts? God is at work in mysterious ways.

“I have lately read Robertson‘s history of Charles V, which, like most other histories, I consider as a comment upon those passages of scripture which teach us the depravity of man, the deceitfulness of the heart, the ruinous effects of sin, and the powerful, the secret, rule of divine providence, moving, directing, controlling the designs and actions of men, with an unerring hand, to the accomplishment of his own purposes, both of mercy and judgment.

“Without the clue and the light which the word of God affords, the history of mankind, of any, of every age, only presents to view a labyrinth and chaos; a detail of wickedness and misery to make us tremble; and a confused jumble of interfering incidents, as destitute of stability, connection, or order, as the clouds which fly over our heads… But with the scripture key, all this plane, all is instructive. Then I see, verily there is a God, who governs the earth, who pours contempt upon princes, takes the wise in their own craftiness, overrules the wrath and pride of man to bring his own designs to pass, and restrains all that is not necessary to that end; blasting the best concerted enterprise is at one time, by means apparently slight, and altogether unexpected, and another times producing the most important events from instruments and circumstances which are at first thought to feeble and trivial to deserve notice… What an empty phantom do the great men of the world pursue while they wage war with the peace of mankind, and butcher (in the course of their lives) perhaps hundreds of thousands, to maintain the shadow of authority over distant nations, whom they can reach with no other influence than that of oppression and devastation! 

“But though the effects of this principle of self are more extensive and calamitous in proportion as those who are governed by it are more elevated, the principal itself is deep-rooted in every heart, and is the spring of every action, till Grace infuses a new principal, and self, like Dagon, falls before the Lord of hosts.”

Miller, Ferrie. Jewels from John Newton. 1st ed., Banner of Truth, 1992. p. 403.

John Newton on Monasticism, Mission, and the Desert Fathers

Posted on by metroupe

I stumbled across a book of daily readings from John Newton and it has been great. He was an Anglican Pastor in the 18th Century. He is most famous for his hymns and testimony of being saved from a life of sin that included being the captain of a slave ship. Some consider him to be the premier English writer on pastoral subjects. He has such a simple and tender way of expressing deep truths. I came across this excerpt this morning on the topic of being avoiding conformity to the world, and he rightly talks about the false approach to this.

“It is not necessary, perhaps it is not lawful, wholly to renounce the society of the world. A mistake of this kind took place in the early ages of Christianity, and men (at first, perhaps, with a sincere desire of serving God without distraction) withdrew into deserts and uninhabited places, and wasted their lives at a distance from their fellow-creatures. But unless we could flee from ourselves likewise, this would afford us no advantage; so long as we carry our own wicked hearts with us, we shall be exposed to temptation, go where we will. Besides, this would be thwarting the end of our vocation. Christians are to be the salt and the lights of the world, conspicuous as cities set upon a hill; they are commanded to “let their light shine before men, that they, beholding their good works, may glorify their Father who is in heaven.” This injudicious deviation from the paths of nature and providence, gave occasion at length to the vilest abominations; and men who withdrew from the world, under pretense of retirement, became the more wicked and abandoned as they lived more out of public view and observation.

“Nor are we at liberty, much less are we enjoined, to renounce the duties of relative life, so as to become careless in the discharge of them. Allowances should, indeed, be made for the distresses of people newly awakened, or under the power of temptation, which may for a time so much engross their thoughts as greatly to indispose them for their bounded duty. But, in general, the proper evidence of true Christians is, not merely that they can talk about Divine things, but that, by the grace of God, they live and act agreeable to the rules of his word, in the state in which his providence has placed them, whether as masters or servants, husbands or wives, parents or children; bearing rule, or yielding obedience, as in his sight. Diligence and fidelity in the management of temporal concernments, though observable in the practice of many worldly men, may be maintained without a sinful conformity to the world.”

You can read the rest here. He goes on to talk about asceticism ( “A man may almost starve his body to feed his pride…”) and several other important topics. He summarizes that we must not conform to the spirit of the world, the maxims of the world, and the amusements of the world. As is so often the case, hearing someone talk about this while situated several centuries away is helpful.