Expect Thorns and Thistles
Eing forewarned that there will be thorns and thistles, should brace up your soul to expect them.
The finest men in all the world are not to be found in the warm, genial climates, where the earth has only to be tickled with a hoe, and it laughs with plenty; but the strongest and the most enterprising spirits have been found at the back of the north wind, where there are frosts and ice, and long, dreary winters, and men have a hard struggle for a livelihood. They become really men under that stern training. Now, if there were no thorns and thistles, no struggles and no trials, should we have any brave Christians? Should we have any great and noble souls at all? When did the Church yield her best men for her Lord’s service? It was in the persecuting times, when they had to swim through seas of blood to hold fast the truth of Christ. These are silken days, and we have wretched specimens of Christians everywhere; but if the times of persecution were to come once more, with the rough winds blowing, and the whole sea of the world tossed in tempest, we should then find brave sailors who would put the ship’s head to the wind, and ride safely’ over the stormy billows in the name of the Eternal God. It is, perhaps, the worst thing that can happen to us to be without any kind of trouble. We do not grow
-in grace very quickly without trial, and we do not then
develop the graces of the Spirit as we do when God sends the thorns and thistles to grow up around us.
The knowledge that we may expect the thorns and the thistles should prevent our clinging to this world. should not want to stop here always, when all that I have as a warranty of this farm is this, “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” There is a land —
“Where everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers.” Oh, let my heart be set upon the world to come! Let me cheer my soul with the prospect of being for ever with the Lord, where nothing can distress or annoy my glorified spirit for ever. The Lord does not mean believers to be satisfied with this world. If you are His child, however fair your portion here, He means you to be always restless until you rest in Him, and never to be fully satisfied until you wake up in His likeness. Wherefore, be thankful for the thorns and thistles, which keep you from being in love with this world, and becoming an idolater, as so many of your fellow-men are.
Does not the Lord intend by these trials and troubles to bring us to seek after higher things? Are there not many men, who would have been themselves lost, if they had not lost their all? I talked with one, the other day, who said to me, “I never saw until I lost my eyes.” Another said to me, as I noticed that he had lost a leg, “Ah, sir, it was the loss of that leg that made me think, and brought me to my Saviour’s feet!” Some of you cannot go to heaven with all your possessions, and with all your prosperity. It will be necessary to-have these things cutaway. You are like a ship that is going down through overloading, and you will have to be unloaded that you may float: and blessed is that hand of God which does unload you of many an earthly joy, that you may find your all in the world tocome!/ Affliction is God’s black dog, that He sends after wandering sheep to bring them back to the fold, Do not begin fighting the dog, and trying to struggle with him, for you will get nothing by that, but run away to the Shepherd. One of these days you will be glad of all the rough treatment that the black dog gave you in the day of your tribulation. Thorns and thistles shall the earth bring forth to thee; but if these bring thee nearer to thy God, they are the best crop the ground can grow.
These thorns and thistles should make us look to Christ to change all things around us. The world will always go on bringing forth thorns and thistles until HE come; and when He comes, our glory and delight, then “instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.” Only His grace and His own glorious presence can change this visible creation, as it shall be changed, when “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock.” We look for that happy transformation; but as for moral transformations, they take place every day where Jesus comes. He constantly turns thorns and thistles into fir trees and myrtle trees. He makes what was our sorrow to become the base of sweet content, and out of all our griefs we gather gladness, blessed be His name!
If any say that this is a dreary subject, remember -how much more dreary it was to Him than it ever can be to you, for when He was crowned on earth, the only crown He ever wore was a crown of thorns. This curse of the earth was on His head, and wounded Him full sore, Was He crowned with thorns, and do you wonder that they grow up around your feet? Rather bless Him that ever He should have consecrated the thorns by wearing them for His diadem. Be willing to wear the thorn-crown, too; and if that be not given you to prick your temples, and to make every thought an agony, be satisfied to go on treading a thorny path, for your Lord has been that way before. The day shall come when all these thorns will make us sing more sweetly. The special music of some of the redeemed is due to their special trials.
“The deeper their sorrows, the louder they’ll sing.”
The transports of heaven will reach a height in those who have passed through great afflictions which they cannot attain otherwise. “These are they which ’ came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple.” Wherefore, be not sorry that the earth shall bring forth thorns and thistles to you, for without these you could not come through these great tribulations, and enter into so great and glorious a rest.
I would to God that some who have no portion in the world to come, would lay all this to heart. So you have come to London, young man, and you attend theatres, and music-halls, and so on? Well, they will bring forth thorns and thistles to you. That is the kind of ground where they grow very large, and with very sharp thorns on them. Oh, but you, my young friend, do not go to such places, you are getting on nicely in business? Yes, but you have no guarantee that it will always be so. Thorns and thistles will it bring forth to you, as well as to others; and suppose that you should prosper; suppose that you should make 410,000; suppose that you should make much more than that? Do you not know that, with. all that, there will come great care, and that, after all, there is no satisfaction in it, and that when all that makes success in life is summed up, apart from laying hold of eternal things, it is all nothing but smoke. Thorns and thistles for dying beds are often made out of riches. There are more thorns and thistles to the rich than to the poor when they come to die, if they have lived an ill-spent life. Oh, sirs, if you could have all the world, it would only be a bigger plot of thorns and thistles for you without Christ; but if you get Him, if Jesus be your portion, then if your trials should be heaped up as high as heaven, you would not mind, for Christ would come, and be with you in the worst of them; and you would still rejoice and glory in tribulation also, and your tribulation would work in you patience, and patience experience, and that experience would work in you the likeness of Christ, and so bring you nearer heaven!
It matters not to the believer what form his life may take when once Christ has become his life, and it will not matter much to you who are not saved what form your life takes if you continue without the Saviour; it will be death all the same, and it will land you in eternal death. Oh, God, grant that we may never settle down upon this thistle-plot, and try to - make it to be our heritage; but may we find our portion in the Lord Jesus Christ!