THE MYSTERY OF CONTENTMENT
12. A GODLY HEART ENJOYS MUCH OF GOD IN EVERYTHING HE HAS, AND KNOWS HOW TO MAKE UP
ALL WANTS IN GOD HIMSELF.
That is another mystery, he has God in what he has. I spoke about that somewhat before, in showing the dew of God’s blessing in what one has, for God is able to let out a great deal of his power in little things, and therefore the miracles that God has wrought, have been as much in the little things as in great. Now just as God lets out a great deal of his power in working miracles in smaller things, so he lets out a great deal of goodness and mercy, in comforting and rejoicing the hearts of his people, in little things, as well as in great. There may be as great riches in a pearl as in a great deal of lumber; but this is a different thing.
Further, just as a gracious heart lives upon God’s dew in the little that he has, so when the little that he has shall be taken from him, what shall he do then? Then, you will say, If a man has nothing, nothing can be got out of nothing. But if the children of God have their little taken from them, they can make up all their wants in God himself. Such and such a man is a poor man, the plunderers came and took away everything that he had; what shall he do now that all is gone? But when all is gone, there is an art and skill that godliness teaches, to make up all those losses in God. Many men whose houses have been burnt go about gathering, and so get together by many hands a little; but a godly man knows where to go, to get up all, even in God himself, so that he may enjoy the quintessence of the same good and comfort as he had before, for a godly man does not live so much in himself as he lives in God. Now this is a mystery to a carnal heart. I say a gracious man does not live so much in himself as in God; he lives in God
continually. If anything is cut off from the stream, he knows how to go to the fountain, and makes up all there. God is his all in all, while he lives; I say it is God who is his all in all. ‘Am not I to thee’ said Elkanah to Hannah, ‘instead of ten children?’ So says God to a gracious heart: ‘You lack this, your estate is plundered−Why? Am not I to you instead of ten homes, and ten shops, I am to you instead of all; and not only instead of all, but come to me, and you shall have all again in me.’
This indeed is an excellent art, to be able to draw from God what one had before in the creature. Christian, how did you enjoy comfort before? Was the creature anything to you but a conduit, a pipe, that conveyed God’s goodness to you? ‘The pipe is cut off,’ says God, ‘come to me, the fountain, and drink immediately.’ Though the beams are taken away, yet the sun remains the same in the firmament as ever it was. What is it that satisfies God himself, but that he enjoys all fullness in himself; so he comes to have satisfaction in himself. Now if you enjoy God as your portion, if your soul can say with the Church in <250324>Lamentations 3:24: ‘The Lord is my portion, saith my soul’, why should you not be satisfied and contented like God? God is contented, he is in eternal contentment in himself; now if you have that God as your portion, why should you not be contented with him alone? Since God is contented with himself alone, if you have him, you may be contented with him alone, and it may be, that is the reason why your outward comforts are taken from you, that God may be all in all to you. It may be that while you had these things they shared with God in your affection, a great part of the stream of your affection ran that way; God would have the full stream run to him now. You know when a man has water coming to his house, through several pipes, and he finds insufficient water comes into his wash-house, he will rather stop the other pipes that he may have all the water come in where he wants it. Perhaps, then, God had a stream of your affection running to him when you enjoyed these things;
yes, but a great deal was allowed to escape to the creature, a great deal of your affections ran waste. Now the Lord would not have the affections of his children to run waste; he does not care for other men’s affections, but yours are precious, and God would not have them to run waste; therefore he has cut off your other pipes that your heart might flow wholly to him. If you have children, and because you let your servants perhaps feed them and give them things, you perceive that your servants are stealing away the hearts of your children, you would hardly be able to bear it; you would be ready to send away such a servant. When the servant is gone, the child is at a great loss, it has not got the nurse, but the father or mother intends by sending her away, that the affections of the child might run more strongly towards himself or herself, and what loss is it to the child that the affections that ran in a rough channel before towards the servant, run now towards the mother? So those affections that run towards the creature, God would have run towards himself, that so he may be all in all to you here in this world.
A gracious heart can indeed tell how to enjoy God as all in all to him. That is the happiness of heaven to have God to be all in all. The saints in heaven do not have houses, and lands, and money, and met and drink, and clothes;
you will say, they do not need them−why not? It is because God is all in all to them immediately. Now while you live in this world, you may come to enjoy much of God, you may have much of heaven, while we live in this life we may come to enjoy much of the very life that is in heaven, and what is that but the enjoyment of God to be all in all to us? There is one text in the
Revelation that speaks of the glorious condition of the Church that is likely to be here even in this world:
‘And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it, and the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof’ (<662122>Revelation 21:22).
They had no need of the sun or moon. It speaks of such a glorious
condition that the Church is likely to be in here in this world; this does not speak of heaven, but of a glorious estate that the Church shall be in here, in this world; and that appears plainly, for it follows immediately in the 24th and 24th verses, ‘And the Kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it’; why, the Kings of the earth shall not bring their glory and honor into heaven, but this is such a time, when the Kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor to the Church. And in the 26th verse, ‘And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it’; therefore here it must mean this world and not heaven. Now is there is to be such a time here in this world, when God shall be all in all, and in comparison there shall be no such need of creatures as there is now, then the saints should labor to live as near that life as possibly they can, that is, to make up all in God.
Oh, that you would consider this mystery, that it may be a reality to the hearts of the saints in such times as these. They would find this privilege that they get by grace worth thousands of worlds. Hence is that statement of Jacob’s that I have mentioned in another case; it is remarkable, and is very pertinent here. In that remarkable speech of Jacob, in Genesis 33, when his brother Esau met him, you find in one place that Esau refused Jacob’s present; in the <013308>8th verse, when Jacob gave his present to him, he refused it, and told Jacob that he had enough: ‘What meanest thou by all this drove which I met? And he said, these are to find grace in thy sight: And Esau said, I have enough.’ Now in the <013311>11th verse Jacob urges it still, and, says Jacob, ‘I beseech thee, take it, for I have enough.’ Now in your Bible it is the same in English−I have enough, saith Esau, and I have enough, saith Jacob−but in the Hebrew Jacob’s word is different from Esau’s:
Jacob’s word signifies I have all things, and yet Jacob was poorer than Esau. Oh, this should be a shame to us that an Esau can say, I have
enough. But a Christian should say, I have not only enough, but I have all.
How did he have all?−because he had God who was all. It was a remarkable saying of one, ‘He has all things who has him that has all things’. Surely you have all things, because you have him for your portion who has all things: God has all things in himself, and you have God for your portion, and in that you have all, and this is the mystery of
contentment. It makes up all its wants in God: this is what the men of the world have little skill in.
Now I have many other things still to open in the mystery of contentment. I should show likewise that a godly man not only makes up everything in God, but finds enough in himself to make up all−to make up everything in himself, not from himself, but in himself−and that may seem to be stranger than the other. To make up everything in God is something, nay, to make up everything in himself (not from himself but in himself)−a gracious heart has so much of God within himself, that he has enough there to make up all his outward wants. In <201414>Proverbs 14:14 we read, ‘A good man shall be satisfied from himself’, from that which is within himself−that is the meaning. A gracious man has a bird within his own bosom which makes him melody enough, though he lacks music. ‘The Kingdom of heaven is within you’ (<421721>Luke 17:21). He has a Kingdom within him, a Kingdom of God; you see him spoken ill of abroad, but he has a conscience within him that makes up the want of a name and credit, that is instead of a thousand witnesses.
13. A GRACIOUS HEART GETS CONTENTMENT FROM