Trials—Thorns and Thistles

Will tread upon delicate ground. I am afraid that many have felt that, even in che ettle family world, they are not left without trials. God, when He took away Paradise as our home, gave us home to be our paradise; and if there be a place where all felicities are to be found, it is around the family hearth. “East and west, home is best.” “There is no place like home;” yet where is there a home without affliction? The dear child whom you love sickens and dies; perhaps the wife or the husband may be taken away to the long home; or poverty comes in; or one whom you love dearer than yourself pines daily with constant sickness and frequent agony. No, we must not expect perfect peace, perfect felicity, even in the home which is blessed with morning and evening prayer, where God locks up the door at night and draws the curtains in the morning; no, not even there shall we be free from the curse that sin brought into this fair world. Still will this word follow us into the sacred precincts of our own dwellings, “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.”

And it is so if you get a little closer home still, to the microcosm or /zttle world of your own self. There is no part of man which does not yield him its thorns. Many of us have a thorn in the flesh. Is there any part of the body which may not, if God so wills it, become the subject of disease, and consequently the source of pain to us? I know some

whom God dearly loves, — I know He loves them, for He favours them very highly, — who nevertheless find that in the body of this flesh there are the seeds of corruption. There are the bitter wells of Marah by reason of sharp pain of body; and as to the mind itself, what mind is there that is fullest of faith, and most joyful in the Lord, which is not naturally still the subject of grief? There will come times of depression, seasons of apprehension, nights when the light of God’s countenance is withdrawn, or when, though we know that we possess the love of God, it is not shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost to the same extent as in our brighter hours... Yes, and even in the soul itself, by reason of the imperfection of our sanctification, from the fact that we are not so filled by the Spirit, and not so conscious of the abiding of the Spirit within us as we yet shall be, thorns also and thistles are brought forth to us. I may be speaking to some who can say, with an emphasis, that they oftentimes find great crops of thistles springing up in their hearts, and they have to keep the sickle of sacred mortification going to cut them down, and they try if possible to dig them up by the root. But thus it is; you cannot expect a perfect life of happiness in an imperfect world like this. No; your Saviour carried the cross, and you will have a cross of some kind or other to carry after Him. “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.”

Spontaneously trials will come. Nobody is so foolish as to sow thorns and thistles. I have often wondered who that great fool must have been, who, being a Scotsman, desired to see the old Scotch thistle growing up in New Zealand, and therefore sent a packet of seed out there to poison, with his precious thistle, that land where there were none before. I think the man who would venture to sow even one seed of a thistle in such a world as this, where thistles grow quite plentifully enough, must have gone a long way in folly. But if, dear friend, you never cause trouble to others, and do nothing that can bring trouble to yourself, — and you will be a wonderfully wise man if that is the case, — yet, still, troubles will come of themselves. If you want a herb of the field that you are to feed upon, you must sow it. Your wheat and your barley, you must sow with care. As to the thorns and thistles, you need not take any trouble about sowing them; they will spring up of themselves spontaneously; and so will the afflictions and tribulations of this life come to you without any effort on your part.

And, as they come spontaneously, so ¢rzals well come unavoidably. J mind not how careful a man may be with his farm, he will find thorns and thistles springing up, and needing to be destroyed. He may have ploughed and harrowed, and done his best to get rid of every thistle in autumn before it has seeded, and yet he cannot keep the troublesome things out; they will be sure to come. So you may rest assured that troubles of heart, and troubles of body, and troubles of mind will come to you, watch and guard against them as you may. All the prudence and care, ay, and all the prayer and faith that you can summon to your help, will not keep you clear of these thorns and thistles. As they are spontaneous, so are they unavoidable.

To many, also, trials are very abundant. “Thorns also and ¢histles”; not a thorn and a thistle, but thorns and thistles, and plenty of them, shall it bring forth to you. If any of you are vexed with trial after trial, I pray you do not think it a strange thing; you are not at all alone in such an experience. Many of you, because of your troubles, will get alone, and say, “I am the man that hath seen affliction.” Stop; I can find you another man who can equal you, and many women who can surpass you in their afflictions. The path of sorrow is trodden by thousands of feet; it is hard with traffic; but as it leads to the eternal kingdom when a believer’s foot is upon it, we need only rejoice to follow the footsteps of the flock, and look upon our trials as the tokens that we are where the great Shepherd leads us.

Thorns and thistles come abundantly; and ¢rzals come very variously. It is not one form of trouble alone, but other forms also: “Thorns also and thistles.” You may think that it is bad enough to be yourself ill; but to be poor as well, to have also a sick child, and to be assailed by a slanderous enemy, seems more than you can bear. Ah, well, you are to expect these things! If you had only one form of trouble, perhaps you would grow used to it, and therefore it might lose its effect.. It is the very fact that it wounds that makes it useful to us. Solomon says, “By the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.” No tribulation for the present is joyous; if it were, it would not be tribulation at all. If the rod does not make the child smart, what is the use of it? And if our troubles do not make us grieve, why then they are not troubles, and there is no room for grace to support us under them! We may expect to have trials of every sort and size, for they attend the followers of the Lamb as long as they are in the world that lies under this curse, “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.’

Trials will come very frequently, for thorns and thistles seem to spring up very early in the morning, and very early in the spring, and very late in the autumn, and even far into the winter. When is there a time when a man in this world, ay, a Christian man, too, can be sure that he will be perfectly free from trouble?

And trials come universally. 1 have seen thorns and thistles on the tops of the Surrey Hills, growing by myriads, enough to seed a kingdom with them; and if you go down into the valley, into the poor man’s little plot of ground, you will find thorns and thistles there. They grow in the gardens of Windsor Castle as well as in the backyard of your lodging-house. Thorns also and thistles grow anywhere, on dunghills or in conservatories; they seem to be universally scattered. The downy wings carry the thistle-seed everywhere, and it springs up in most unlikely places. If you think that other people are to be envied because of their freedom from trial, it is possible that, if you knew. more about them, you would find that they were to be pitied, and that your lot, after all, is much better than theirs.

Now know this, and then zt wal, prevent disappointments, If you begin your Christian life imagining that, because you are a Christian, everything is to go smoothly with you, and that you are henceforth never to have any more troubles, you will be bitterly disappointed when the thorns and thistles begin to

spring up; but expect them, look forward to them, and then, when they do come, half of their sting will be gone. You will say, “Well, when I took this farm, I knew that thorns and thistles would spring up, I calculated upon seeing them. JN ow that they have come up, to be forewarned is in great measure to be forearmed 7 I shall not sit down and weep with bitter disappointment, for what I suffer is no more than I expected.”