Stating the obvious, bumper stickers and church signs are often poor venues for declarations requiring nuance, and perhaps one should not put too much effort in analyzing them.  That being said, I ran across a church sign near my house recently that read  “Too Blessed to be Depressed.” These are the same guys whose sign once read “God’s Stimulus Package: The Rapture.” (more on it here) After reading this sign I thought of  the following verses and the tensions contained therein.

Matthew 5:1-4 (NASB)

When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

I think about the inference of that sign that it is normative that Christians should always be happy and never depressed.  What that sign can  be is a slap in the face to someone who mourns.  There are strains of Christianity that really think that Christians are never to be in any kind of want, physical or otherwise.  In light of that church sign, I find it ironic that there is a book in the Bible titled Lamentations.  The Psalms are full of lament; some flirt with utter despair. Psalm 88 comes to mind.

Here are a couple of pertinent quotes that I ran across recently to reflect upon in light of the all the aforementioned:

A. W. Tozer: “It is doubtful God can bless any man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.”

Alan Redpath: “When God wants to do an impossible task he takes an impossible man and crushes him.”

HT: Abide In Christ

In light of the above:

“…your poverty is no hindrance, for my Master asks nothing from you – the poorer the wretch, the more welcome to Christ. My Master is no covetous priest, who demands pay for what he does – he forgives us freely; he wants none of your merits, nothing whatever from you; come as you are to him, for he is willing to receive you as you are. But here is my sorrow and complaint, that this blessed Lord Jesus, though present to heal, receives no attention from the most of men. They are looking another way, and have no eyes for him…. My Master is not wrathful with you who forget him and neglect him, but he pities you from his heart. I am but his poor servant, but I pity, from my inmost; heart, those of you who live without Christ. I could fain weep for you who are trying other ways of salvation, for they will all end in disappointment, and if continued in, will prove to be your eternal destruction.” -Charles Spurgeon

HT:“Did I Stutter?”

An excerpt from a sermon on Psalm 116 by Spurgeon titled Precious Deaths delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on February 18th, 1872.

The church embalms the memories of her martyrs wherever they die-precious in God’s sight must their deaths be. The deaths too of those who work for Christ, until at last weary nature gives out, when body and brain are both exhausted, and the man can no longer continue in his beloved labor, but lays down his body and his charge together, never putting off harness until he puts off his flesh-methinks the deaths of such men must be precious in God’s sight. But, not more so, mark that not more so than the departure of the patient sufferer, scarcely able to say a word, solitary and unknown, only able to serve God by submissively enduring pains which make night weary and day intolerable. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the consumptive girl who gradually melts into heaven; the death of the pauper in the workhouse, without a friend, but uncomplainingly bearing God’s will, is as precious (not perhaps under some aspects), but as truly precious in the sight of the Lord as that of the most useful preacher of the word. Precious to Jehovah is the death of the least in the ranks, as the death of those who rush to the front and bear the brunt of the battle well. There are no distinctions in the text; if you be a saint no one may know you, you may be too poor and too illiterate to be of much account in the world, you may die and pass away, and no record may be among the sons of men, no stone set up over your lonely grave, but precious in the sight of the Lord in every case is the death of his saints. There is no limit as to whom. (emphasis mine)

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”-Psalm 116:15.

1 Corinthians 15:53-57 (ESV)
For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes-that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit as well as the sun in the heavens-that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence-the fall of sear leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.

(Charles Spurgeon, ‘God’s Providence’, sermon on Ezekiel 1:15-19, 1908.)

HT:The Sola Panel

Found the following at Borrowed Breath:

“Jesus said unto them, ‘If ye seek me, let these go their way.’”

(John 18.8 KJV)

“Mark, my soul, the care which Jesus manifested even in His hour of trial, towards the sheep of His hand! The ruling passion is strong in death. He resigns Himself to the enemy, but He interposes a word of power to set His disciples free…The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, and pleads that they must therefore go free…The thundercloud has burst over the Cross of Calvary, and the pilgrims of Zion shall never be smitten by the bolts of vengeance. Come, my heart, rejoice in the immunity which thy Redeemer has secured thee, and bless His name all the day, and every day.”

Charles H. Spurgeon

Morning and Evening (March 26)

“It is today as it was in the Reformers’ days. Decision is needed. Here is the day for the man, where is the man for the day? We who have had the gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it . . . Look you, sirs, there are ages yet to come. If the Lord does not speedily appear, there will come another generation, and another, and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to His truth today. We have come to a turning-point in the road. If we turn to the right, mayhap our children and our children’s children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.” (C. H. S., Sermons, 1888, 83-84; cited in Iain Murray, The Forgotten Spurgeon, 192).

I do not come into the pulpit hoping that somebody
of his own free will, will return to Christ. My hope
lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master
will lay hold of some of them and say, “You are
mine and you shall be mine. I claim you for
myself”. My hope arises from the freeness of
grace not the freedom of the will. A poor haul of
fish will a gospel fisherman make if he takes
none but those who are eager to jump into the net.

Charles H. Spurgeon