Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Prayer of Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:10) | Charles Spurgeon

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The Prayer of Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:10) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Usually when we talk about asking for a blessing, there is
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this well, this underlying assumption of precision.
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Yeah, like it's a very clean transaction.
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Right. It feels very transactional.
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You go to a vending machine, you put in your coin, you press the
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button for a soda, and boom, the machine drops the soda right
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into your hands. Cash in, product out.
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Spot on. It is clean, it is categorized,
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and it is entirely within our control.
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But then you step into the actual landscape of divine
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Providence, and suddenly that vending machine is just it's
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totally broken. Oh, completely broken.
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You see answered prayers, you see denied requests and granted
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desires that end up hurting, and a whole picture gets incredibly
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murky. So welcome to reform thinking.
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Today we are looking at Charles Spurgeon's sermon on the Prayer
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of Javez from First Chronicles, but we are not doing a broad
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overview. No, we're zooming way in.
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Yeah, we are dissecting one single highly specific word from
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that prayer that explains why the vending machine mentality
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fails us so miserably. And that word is indeed JV has
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praised. Oh, that was blessed.
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Me indeed. OK, let's unpack this.
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What constitutes a blessing indeed, as opposed to, you know,
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a superficial or imaginary 1. The addition of that one little
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word forces us to just completely re evaluate our
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baseline assumptions, because when we ask for a blessing, we
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typically have a very rigid, prepackaged definition of what
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that looks like. We want comfort.
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Right. We want comfort.
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We want resolution. We want an easy path.
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But investigating this single word strips all of that away.
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It introduces a reality where the things we assume are curses
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might actually be our greatest. Wow.
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Yeah. And the things we desperately
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want might be fatal to our souls.
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So to figure out the nature of what Jabez is asking for, we
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have to look at his origins. His background is the key to his
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prayer here. Right, because the biblical
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record tells us he was named Jabez because his mother bore
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him in sorrow. Yes, that is his starting point.
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And yet he became more honorable than his brethren.
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So the source establishes A theological principle right
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away. Sorrow is the required precursor
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to gladness. I see works for Christ that cost
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the most Tears yield the highest honors.
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I want to dig into that mechanism.
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Yeah. Why is sorrow the required
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precursor? Because I mean, we live in a
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culture that views sorrow as a glitch in the system.
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You know for sure we hate it. Right.
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If you are sad, if you're struggling, the immediate
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assumption is that something has gone wrong or that God is angry
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with you. But here sorrow is described as
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a harbinger. Yes, the harbinger that prepares
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the ground. You cannot just skip the sorrow
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and get to the gladness, because the sorrow is the very tool
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doing the preparation. It really comes down to what the
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sorrow accomplishes in the human heart.
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Natural human expectation insists on a painless
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progression. We want the easy Rd., but the
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divine pattern works on an entirely different axis.
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Sewing in tears is a prerequisite for a joyful
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harvest because, well, because tears soften the soil of a
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hardened heart. That makes a lot of sense.
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We see this dynamic constantly. Look at the naming of Benjamin
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in Genesis. Oh yeah, that's a great example.
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Right. His mother, dying in childbirth,
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names him Benoni, which translates to Son of My Sorrow.
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That name is an anchor to grief. It's a permanent marker of a
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terrible day. But then faith steps in.
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Spot on Faith steps in through his father and renames him
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Benjamin, son of my right hand. The origin point of agonizing
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grief is redeemed into a position of high honor and
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delight. The sorrow was real, it was
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physical, but it was the doorway to the honor.
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There is a fantastic analogy in the source material about a ship
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delayed at sea. A merchant is waiting for his
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vessel to return to port and it is late.
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Always a stressful situation. Right.
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To the natural mind, a delay means disaster.
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The ship must be lost or attacked or sunk.
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But the reality is that the ship is delayed because it is heavy
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with an excess of cargo, the very thing causing the agonizing
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wait. The massive amount of freight
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means the eventual arrival will be vastly more profitable.
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The tears and the waiting, or the weight of the cargo?
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And that excess cargo requires A sturdier vessel.
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It requires a more patient captain.
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We are so prone to demanding immediate light shipments, you
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know. Yeah, we want overnight delivery
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for everything. Exactly.
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We want a quick skiff to dart across the water and drop off a
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tiny package of immediate gratification.
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But a blessing indeed is a heavy galleon.
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It rides low in the water. It takes time to cross the
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ocean. It battles storms.
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When it finally arrives, the value of the cargo is
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staggering. There's that poetic quote from
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Cowper. The source brings in the path of
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sorrow, and that path alone leads to the place where sorrow
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is unknown. It's beautiful, and it
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challenges our modern obsession with immediate comfort.
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It makes me wonder about our modern allergy to difficulty.
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Think about it for you listening How many worthwhile pursuits
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have you abandoned prematurely simply because you hit a
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roadblock? We shed a few tears, we feel
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some friction, and we immediately assume we must be on
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the wrong path. We equate ease with divine
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favor, but Jay Biz contradicts that entirely.
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His devotion was the key to his promotion, and it was born out
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of intense sorrow. The text even specifies that the
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honor he enjoyed would not have been worth having if it had not
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been vigorously contested, but I want to push back on that a bit.
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This concept of equitably 1 honor.
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Can you clarify how Jacob's night of wrestling illustrates
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that? Because it seems like true honor
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requires A vigorous contest in prayer, rather than just being
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handed out as a flattering distinction.
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The contest is the point. An honor that is simply handed
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to you requires no relational friction.
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It does not alter your nature. If a king hands you a title, you
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get a new piece of paper, but your character remains
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untouched. You are the same person, just
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with a fancy new name. Yes, but consider Jacob
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wrestling in the dirt at Paynell.
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He spends the entire night in agonizing, physical, desperate
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struggle with the divine. And he walks away with a limp.
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He walks away with a dislocated hip and a new name.
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Israel. The struggle itself was the
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communion. The vigorous contest in prayer
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changes the one praying. The honor of the name Israel had
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massive weight because it was forged in the fire of direct
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contact with the Most High. Yes, true honor combines the
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award of grace with the acknowledgement of service and
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struggle. It is an active altering
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encounter. So if true honor is forged in a
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struggle with God, why do we constantly settle for the cheap
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knock off? I think it is because human
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approval is just so much easier to get.
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Oh, entirely you. Do not need to wrestle all night
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in the dirt to get your peers to applaud you.
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You just have to tell them what they want to hear.
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And the deep dive shifts here to contrast divine blessing with
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our craving for human approval. We want the blessing of our
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parents, our friends, even the gratitude of the public.
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We gravitate toward human blessings because they are
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visible, they are right in front of us, and they are immediate.
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And you know, they are conciliatory.
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Yeah, a parent's blessing is a sweet thing it.
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Is the gratitude of someone you helped is encouraging, but those
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human words lack actual authority.
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Society praises success and condemns adversity based on
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incredibly shallow metrics. Furthermore, flatterers only
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praise you for their personal gain.
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Human approval is fickle. So fick.
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The critical distinction here is the nature of God's Word versus
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human words. God created the universe with a
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verbal command. Let there be light is a
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performative utterance. Meaning the Speaking of the word
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creates the reality. Precisely.
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Therefore, when God speaks a blessing, it is an effectual,
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concrete reality. When a human says I bless you,
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they are expressing a nice sentiment or a wish they lack
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the means to fulfill. The text uses a courtroom
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analogy that I think clarifies this perfectly.
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Imagine you are on trial for your life.
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The stakes are absolute. Life or death?
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The applause of the public is like the verdict of a policeman
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standing by the door, or some random spectator up in the
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gallery, right? It might feel nice to hear them
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cheer for you. You might get a rush of
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dopamine, but their opinion amounts to absolutely nothing
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regarding your actual freedom. The only verdict that dictates
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your reality is the sentence of the judge.
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And yet we spend a staggering amount of energy trying to win
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over the spectators in the gallery.
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We really do. We tailor our lives, our careers
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and our public personas to get the policeman by the door to nod
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an approval. We do this to secure the
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applause of the crowd, completely ignoring the fact
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that the judge is watching. The scales of public approval
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are entirely different from the balances of the sanctuary.
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And this becomes even more dangerous when we factor in
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flattery. The text brings up the fable of
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the fox and the crow. The fox praises the crows
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Beautiful singing voice. And the Crow is not a good
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singer. No, the crow sounds terrible,
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but the fox wants the cheese the crow is holding in its beak.
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The flattery is a transaction designed to extract something
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from you. The text gives this incredibly
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sharp advice. Keep flatterers at arm's length
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while pressing censurers right to your bosom.
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Yeah, the people who criticize you to your face are not trying
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to make a market out of you. There's.
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Such a harsh reality to accept though.
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It is. I think the psychology of self
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complacency here is fascinating. We know intellectually that
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people flatter others to extract value, but when the flattery is
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directed at us, our critical faculty is just they shut down.
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We eat it up. We accept exaggerated praise,
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rationalizing it by thinking, well, maybe it is a bit
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overstated, but it is exceedingly near the truth.
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We love the honey on the tongue, and we completely ignore the
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trap hidden underneath it. We convince ourselves that the
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gallery's applause is the judge's verdict.
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So what does this all mean for you listening right now?
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Are you currently living for the applause of the courtroom
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spectators? Are you making life choices
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based on what the gallery thinks of your performance?
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Or are you waiting for the judge's verdict, hoping to hear?
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Well done, good and faithful servant.
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It's a tough question. It is, and if human words prove
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inadequate or fickle, the natural pivot for the human
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heart is to look for tangible assets.
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If words will not secure a sense of blessing, maybe material
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goods will. Which leads right into a heavy
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critique of wealth and fame. Wealth and fame are the twin
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pillars of secular salvation. That's a great way to put it.
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We assume that accumulating resources creates a fortress
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against sorrow. But the argument here is that
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wealth brings heavy anxieties. It fails you completely when you
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were sick, when you were lying on a hospital bed.
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A massive bank account does not ease your physical pain.
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No, it doesn't do a thing. And worse, it makes the pang of
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death much sharper because you have so much more to leave
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behind. Fame is shown to be equally
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hollow. The pursuit of fame brings more
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pleasure in the chase than it ever does in the possession.
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Do you have it? It becomes a burden.
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Right. And dead men do not benefit from
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earthly chatter. What's fascinating here is the
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concept of wealth cozening or deceiving its owner.
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It is a striking picture. The text describes a person who
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inherits a massive fortune. They pursue pleasure
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relentlessly, thinking the money guarantees happiness, but
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eventually sport becomes irksome.
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The wealth promises freedom but delivers a specialized form of
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slavery. Yeah, the lavish food is on the
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table, but the appetite is completely gone.
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The musicians are playing, but the ears are deaf to the melody.
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The external abundance, masks and internal starvation.
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This is illustrated by the image of the bass miser.
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He sits surrounded by his massive store of gold, griping
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for more, pining away and fully believing he is poor.
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He is starving in the middle of a grocery store, Yes.
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It is a terrifying kind of psychological blindness, and
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fame receives an equally piercing metaphor.
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Fame is compared to snow that whitens the ground in the
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morning it. Looks beautiful.
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It does. It covers all the dirt and it
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seems so permanent when you wake up, but it completely disappears
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the moment the heat of the day arrives.
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It is a windy, mocking blessing. What good is having your name in
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1000 miles if God rejects you? The text makes a claim that
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really requires some thought. It says that if we could see how
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little a wealthy man actually enjoys, we would pity him rather
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than envy him. We look at the estates, the
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investments, the external trappings and we think if only I
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had that, I would be blessed indeed.
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We assume the internal reality matches the external display.
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But we confuse the scaffolding for the building.
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That is a great analogy. The external trappings are just
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scaffolding. If the internal building is
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crumbling, the scaffolding does not matter at all, right?
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This highlights the necessity of asking God for the gold of His
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favor. If you do not actively seek the
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gold of divine favor, you will inevitably make idols out of
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secular investments. You will ask for the husks,
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fully convinced they are the main course.
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Wealth and fame are relatively easy targets for critique,
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though most of us can intellectually agree that money
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and popularity will not save our souls, even if we still secretly
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want them. But now the text moves into
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territory that is much closer to home.
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Oh, this part is difficult. It is.
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What about universally recognized, completely wholesome
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goods, things like physical health and a loving family?
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The argument is that even these, as wonderful as they are, fall
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short of being a blessing indeed.
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This requires careful theological nuance.
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Health is described as a massive mercy.
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It is infinitely better than sickness.
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To trifle with your health is the madness of folly.
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Yeah, we aren't saying health is bad.
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Not at all. Yet we must recognize it's
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incredible fragility. A strong, muscular person can be
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reduced to a skeleton in a matter of weeks by a microscopic
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virus. And regarding family, the home
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fireside is beautiful, but every single one of those earthly ties
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will inevitably be sundered by death.
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They are temporary by design. Yes, there's a quote here about
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chronic pain that is so visceral your bones are become an Almanac
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in which you know the changes of the weather.
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Anyone who has lost their bodily autonomy to illness understands
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the heavy reality of that statement.
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Notice how the text handles this, though.
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It points out that God takes no pleasure in the mere physical
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legs of a man. Muscular strength is not an
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inherent sign of divine favor. No.
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In fact, sickness is often utilized as a necessary pruning
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knife. Wait, I have a hard time
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accepting that society tells us physical health is the ultimate
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good. How can we honestly look at
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someone suffering through a wearisome, agonizing night of
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pain and call that a fertilizer for the spirit that borders on
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offensive to modern ears? We treat bodily autonomy as the
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highest possible reality. It is a radical shift from
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secular thinking, I admit. When you are healthy, the
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illusion of control is absolute. You wake up, your body does what
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you tell it to do, and your brain naturally assumes I am the
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master of my reality, Right. Sickness is a shock to the
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system because it shatters that illusion.
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It removes the physical autonomy we use to ignore our
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vulnerability. Sickness enforces dependence.
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The text provides an anecdote about a sixth sister who
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confessed that she felt closer to God during her severe illness
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than she ever did when she was healthy.
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Oh wow. She had such full assurance and
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joy during her sickness that upon recovering, she almost
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wished to be ill again just to renew that intense communion.
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That is wild to think about. It is the pruning knife cuts
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away the Deadwood of our self-sufficiency.
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The wearisome night forces the soul to look for a dawn that is
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not of this world. The logic applied to family is
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similar. A mother's love or a father's
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care is wonderful, but those earthly relations must point to
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a higher reality. God must act as the Father,
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Christmas act as the Bridegroom and the brother born for
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adversity. If our earthly home becomes our
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ultimate reality, we miss the point entirely.
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The text offers comfort for the widow and the fatherless here,
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assuring them that all severed relationships are made whole in
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the Almighty. Consider your own physical
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health right now, or your domestic tranquility.
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Are these good things actually distracting you from your
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eternal welfare? Are you so comfortable in your
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earthly home that you have stopped looking for the heavenly
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1? Blessing indeed ensures that
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these temporal gifts are used rightly to glorify God rather
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than functioning as substitutes for Him.
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Having taken apart temporal blessings, the deep dive enters
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its most rigorous theological segment.
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We were moving from fake earthly blessings to fake spiritual
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blessings. Imaginary spiritual peace is a
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deadly delusion. It's the worst kind of
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deception. You might realize money cannot
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buy happiness, but if you have a false sense of spiritual
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security, you are in far greater danger.
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The source outlines 2 specific types of people caught in this
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delusion. The self-righteous Pharisee and
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the presumptuous, evidenceless believer both firmly believe
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they have God's favor, but both are entirely deceived.
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Let's talk about the Pharisee first.
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The Pharisee stands in the Lord's house with a quiet
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conscience because he tides the odd Farthing on mint and cumin.
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He goes through all the ceremonial motions.
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He assumes he is the pattern for the whole parish.
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The text calls him a mere windbag.
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A windbag, Yes, His blessing is just his own overweening
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conceit. The Pharisees delusion is based
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on his own actions. But then there's the other
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extreme, the person who claims grace but possesses no evidence
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of it. This person sings I do believe,
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I will believe, but has experienced absolutely no vital
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change of heart. They have no actual repentance.
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They. Do not hate the sins they used
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to love. They think repeating a phrase or
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getting emotional during a song secures their salvation.
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But a true blessing requires the inward operation of the Holy
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Spirit, not just vocal. Repetition.
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To illustrate this presumption, the text brings up the Old
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Testament historical account of Uza touching the Ark of the
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Covenant. Oh, this is a heavy story.
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Very heavy. Uzza reached out his hand to
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steady the ark. When the oxen stumbled to the
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natural mind. He was doing a good thing.
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He was protecting a holy object. Yeah, he's just trying to help.
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But he acted presumptuously against strict divine
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instruction. He assumed his own hands were
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cleaner than the dirt the ark was about to fall onto.
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He died on the spot. Wow.
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This is contrasted with the sons of Kohath, who carried the ark
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rightly, according to the prescribed law, bearing the
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weight on their shoulders. Uzi's death is a stark warning
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against treating the holy things of God casually.
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The text mentions people today who base their entire salvation
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on having a vivid dream, or getting emotionally excited
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during a church service, or miss applying a random text they
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heard in a sermon. They have an anchor, but it has
18:31
no fluke. Right.
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It has nothing solid to grasp onto in the sea bed.
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They were relying on their own subjective experience rather
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than the objective, finished work of Jesus.
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Here's where it gets really interesting.
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Yeah, there's a massive distinction here between the
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false piece of callousness and genuine full assurance.
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We often assume that having no doubts means we have great
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faith. But the text suggests that some
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people have no doubts simply because they have no spiritual
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life in them. A dead body feels no pain, but
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that is not a sign of health. Exactly.
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Their calmness is just spiritual numbness.
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They have no heart searching because there's no vital life to
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prompt the search. True full assurance is rigorous.
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It comes from deep heart searching, from hating former
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sins, from a vital change of mind.
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Is your assurance based on a solid foundation, or is it a
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brazen presumption that claims a right to something it does not
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actually possess? It's a question we all need to
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ask ourselves. For sure, If imaginary spiritual
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peace is that dangerous, what about actual answered prayers?
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This brings us to a concept that completely up ends our vending
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machine mentality. Getting exactly what you asked
19:39
for might actually be a curse. We assume an answered prayer is
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automatic proof of divine favor. If I ask for something and I get
19:46
it, God must be pleased with me. Right, that's the logic.
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But believers must always qualify their prayers with the
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phrase, not as I will, but as thou wilt.
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Why? Because God might grant a
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request in anger. That is a terrifying thought.
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It is. He might give you what you want,
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but the granting of the request causes immense grief.
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The text brings up the historical example of the
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Israelites in the wilderness. They were tired of manna, so
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they asked for flesh. They demanded meat.
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And God gave them whales. He gave them precisely what they
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demanded, but the text notes that while the meat was still in
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their mouths, the wrath of God fell upon them.
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The answered prayer was the mechanism of their punishment.
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They got what they wanted and it ruined them.
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There is a harrowing anecdote share to drive this home.
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It is the story of a Puritan minister and a desperate mother.
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Her little child was near death. The minister prayed earnestly
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for the child, but he added the caveat.
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If it be, thy will save this child.
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And the mother interrupted. Him.
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Yeah, she interrupted him right there.
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She demanded that he prays for the child to live without any
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ifs or buts. She demanded her will be done,
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completely ignoring divine wisdom.
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And the child lived. The child lived, but 20 years
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later, that mother was standing. Oh, wow.
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Yeah, she was standing beneath the Tyburn Gallows tree.
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Wait, really? The gallows.
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Yes, she watched that very same son be executed as a felon.
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That is unbelievable. Getting what she demanded
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without submitting to divine wisdom resulted in a tragedy far
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worse than childhood illness. It proves that getting every
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earthly desire met is not necessarily a sign of a blessing
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indeed. In fact, unbroken tranquility
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can lead to severe spiritual stagnation.
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The text uses the image of Moab being settled on his leaves
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rather than being emptied from vessel to vessel.
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For those unfamiliar with ancient winemaking, wine was
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left to sit on its leaves, the sediment and dregs to ferment.
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Right. But if it sat too long without
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being poured into a new vessel to filter out the dregs, it
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became thick, syrupy and ruined. The pouring from vessel to
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vessel represents the agitation of trials.
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The constant disruption prevents the soul from settling into
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complacency. The Valley of Humiliation, with
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all its friction, is often a far greater blessing than standing
21:59
comfortably on the mountain top. So if you were listening to
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this, and you are currently distressed by a lack of peace,
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if your circumstances are constantly changing and
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agitating you, consider this. That very agitation might be God
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filtering out your drag. Might be making you sick of self
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and fond of him. We all want an unruffled life.
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We all want things to be smooth. But the text gives a stark
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warning. It is better to go to heaven,
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halt and maimed, than to March confidently and comfortably down
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to hell. Are you willing to be maimed if
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it means you are blessed indeed? It's a heavy, heavy reality, it.
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Is so To conclude the analysis, the source consolidated its
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criteria for identifying this true blessing.
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How should we evaluate our daily work in our trials?
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The primary rule is that true service must be built to last.
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Flashy, rapid religious growth is often completely meaningless.
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It's just a show, yeah. A true blessing always bears
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specific marks. They come from Calvary.
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They are a result of the spirits inward operation.
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They draw the soul closer to God and they prepare the soul for
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eternity. Notice how different these
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metrics are from human metrics of success.
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Radically different. A blessing indeed might humble
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you. It might strip you of your
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wealth or your pride. It might even kill the fleshly
23:13
desires within you. Spurgeon uses intense
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agricultural imagery here. He says that even if the Harrow
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goes over your soul and the deep plow cuts into your very heart,
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leaving you maimed and wounded, if the Spirit of God is holding
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the tool, it is a blessing indeed.
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The text offers a sharp critique of certain religious movements.
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To illustrate this point, it talks about revivalists who
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pretend to build up a church in a few evenings, using patent
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manures to force rapid, unnatural growth.
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Texan lures, yeah. In agriculture, patent manures
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might make a plant shoot up quickly, but the plant has no
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root system to sustain it. In architecture, they build what
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the text calls a stubble Spire reaching to the heavens.
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It looks impressive for a moment, but it is just a wooden
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house. One spark falls and the whole
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thing goes up in smoke, leaving the next worker to sweep away
24:02
the ashes. The source also uses the phrase
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sham compo. Back in the 19th century, compo
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was a cheap stucco material builders used to make a house
24:11
look like it was built of solid stone.
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It is the equivalent of a cheap veneer.
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It gives the illusion of structural integrity.
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But the frost will eventually cause it to crumble.
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That is contrasted with the slow, unseen work of laying a
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single piece of gold or silver masonry.
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A true builder might only lay 1 little corner of stone in their
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entire life, a corner that no one else will ever see or talk
24:34
about. But because it is made of
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precious material, it will outlast the stars.
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Genuine blessings carry what the text calls the broad arrow.
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The broad arrow was a literal stamp used by the British Office
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of Ordinance to mark government property.
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It meant this belongs to the Crown.
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So a blessing with a broad arrow has the immutable stamp of
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eternity on. It yes, if it lacks that eternal
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mark it is just sham combo waiting for the frost.
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This brings up the concept of the disguise.
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The text talks about Faith snatching the visor, the mask
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off a terrifying trial. You are faced with sickness or
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poverty or the contempt of your peers.
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The mask looks like a curse. The visor is terrifying, but
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Faith reaches up, pulls off that mask, and reveals the beautiful
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face of a blessing underneath. Anything that draws you closer
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to God is a blessing, regardless of its external appearance.
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A cross that raises you is better than a golden wall that
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separates you from the divine. This has intense practical
25:32
application. The text specifically mentioned
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Sunday school teachers and local track distributors.
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If you are doing the quiet, unglamorous work in your local
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church, aim for lasting masonry. Do not be discouraged if you are
25:45
not building a cathedral. Right.
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Build your one piece of the temple with pure motives and it
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will stand. As we synthesize all of this,
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Spurgeon leaves us with three final directives. 3 words to
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govern our approach to blessings.
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Search, weigh, pray. Break those down for us.
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First, search the origin of your comforts.
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Are they tokens of grace or just temporal accidents?
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Second, weigh them. Put your possessions and your
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peace and the scales of eternity and see if they actually confer
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grace upon your soul. And third, pray.
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Pray that your earthly joy does not intoxicate you.
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Pray that your sorrow does not make you think hardly of God.
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If you have the blessing of God's presence, you are wealthy
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to all the intensive bliss, even if your bank account is empty.
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If you lack His presence, you are utterly destitute, no matter
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how much plenty fills your store.
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It alters the entire landscape of how we view our lives.
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Which brings us to a final lingering thought.
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The text quotes a massive statement from Moses.
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If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up.
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Hence. The ass of the core of it all.
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Think about that blank check we talked about at the beginning.
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Look at your most desired unfulfilled wish right now, the
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thing you've been begging God for.
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If God handed it to you today, but His presence refused to
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accompany it, would you still want it?
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That is the litmus test for a blessing indeed.