The third device that Satan hath to hinder souls from holy and heavenly services, and from religious performances, is,
Device (3). By presenting to the soul the difficulty of performing then. Saith Satan, it is so hard and difficult a thing to pray as thou shouldst, and to wait on God as thou shouldst, and to walk with God as thou shouldst, and to be lively, warm, and active in the communion of saints, as thou shouldst, that you were better ten thousand times to neglect them, than to meddle with them; and doubtless by this device Satan hath and doth keep off thousands from waiting on God, and from giving to him that service that is due to his name.
Now, the remedies against this device of Satan are these:
Remedy (1). The first remedy against this device of Satan is, To diel more upon the necessity of the service and duty, than on the dificulty that doth attend the duty. You should reason thus with your souls: O our souls, though such and such services be hard and difficult, yet are they not exceeding necessary for the honour of Godand the keeping up his name in the world, and the keeping under of sin, and the strengthening of weak graces, and so the reviving of languishing comforts, and for the keeping clear and bright your blessed evidences, and for the scattering of your fears, and for the raising of your hopes, and for the gladding the hearts of the righteous, and stopping the mouths of unrighteous souls, who are ready to take all advantages to blaspheme the name of God, and throw dirt and contempt upon his people and ways. Oh, never leave thinking on the necessity of this and that duty, till your souls be lifted up far above all the difficulties that do attend religious duties.
Remedy (2). The second remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider, That the Lord Jesus will make his services easy to you, by the sweet discovery of himself to your souls, whilst you are in his service. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways,’ as the prophet Isaiah saith, Isa. Ixiv. 52 If meeting with God, who is goodness itself, beauty itself, strength itself, glory itself, will not sweeten his service to thy soul, nothing in heaven or carth will.
Jacob’s meeting with Rachel, and enjoying of Rachel, made his hard service to be easy and delightful to him; and will not the soul’s enjoying of God, and meeting with God, render his service to be much more easy and delightful? Doubtless it will. The Lord will give that 1 Peulisper O senex, oculos claude, nam statim lumen Dei videbis.—Sozomen, lib. ii. cap. il.—G.: The necessity of doing your duty appears by this, that you are his servants by a threefold right; you are his servants (jure ereationis, jure sustentationis, jure redemptionds) by right of creation, and by right of sustentation, and by right of redemption.
sweet assistance by his Spirit and grace, as shall make his service joyous and not grievous, a delight and not a burden, a heaven and not a hell, to believing souls.! The confidence of this divine assistance raised up Nehemiah’s spirit far above all those difficulties and discouragements that did attend him in the work and service of the Lord, as you may see in Nehemiah ii. 19, 20, But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king? Then answered I them, and said unto them, The God of heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build: but you have no right, nor portion, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.” Ah, souls, while you are in the very service of the Lord, you shall find by experience, that the God of heaven will prosper you, and support you, and encourage and strengthen you, and carry you through the hardest service, with the greatest sweetness and cheerfulness that can be. Remember this, that God will suit your strength to your work, and in the hardest service you shall have the choicest assistance.
Remedy (3). The third remedy against this device of Satan is, To dwell upon the hard and difficult things that the Lord Jesus hath passed, through for your temporal, spiritual, and eternal good. Ah, what a sea of blood, a sea of wrath, of sin, of sorrow and misery, did the Lord Jesus wade through for your internal and eternal good!? Christ did not plead, This cross is too heavy for me to bear; this wrath is too great for me to lie under; this cup, which hath in it all the 1ngredients of divine displeasure, is too bitter for me to sup off, how much more to drink the very dregs of it? No, Christ stands not upon this; he pleads not the difficulty of the service, but resolutely and bravely wades through all, as the prophet Isaiah shews: The Lord God hath opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away my back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting,’ chap. 1. 6. Christ makes nothing of his Father’s wrath, the burden of your sins, the malice of Satan, and the rage of the world, but sweetly and triumphantly passes through all. Ah, souls! if this consideration will not raise up your spirits above all the discouragements that you meet with, to own Christ and his service, and to stick and cleave to Christ and his service, I am afraid nothing will. A soul not stirred by this, not raised and lifted up by this, to be resolute and brave in the service of God, notwithstanding all dangers and difficulties, is a soul left of God to much blindness and hardness.
Remedy (1). The fourth remedy against this device of Satan is to consider, That religious duties, holy and heavenly exercises, ave only difiicult to the worse, to the ignoble, part of « saint. They are not to the noble and better part of a saint, to the noble part, the soul, and the renewed affections of a saint. Holy exercises are a heavenly pleasure and recreation, as the apostle speaks: ‘1 delight in the law of God, after the mward man: with my mind I serve the law of God, though with my flesh the law of sin, Rom. vii. 22. To the noble part of a saint, Christ’s “yoke 1s easy, and his burden is light, Mat. xi. 30.1 All the commands and ways of Christ (even those that tend to the pulling out of right eyes and cutting oft of right hands) are joyous, and not grievous, to the noble part of a saint.? All the ways and services of Christ are pleasantness, in the abstract, to the better part of a saint. A saint, so far as he is renewed, is always best when he sces most of God, when he tastes most of God, when he is highest in his enjoyments of God, and most warm and lively in the service of God. Ol, saith the noble part of a saint, that it might be always thus! Oh that my strength were the strength of stones, and my flesh as brass, that my worser part might be more serviceable to my noble part, that I might act by an untired power in that service, that is a pleasure, a paradise, to me.
Remedy (5). The fifth remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider, That great reward and glorious recompence that doth attend those that cleave to the service of the Lord in the face of all difficulties and discouragements. Though the work be hard, yet tiie wages 1s great. Heaven will make amends for all. Ay, one hour’s being in heaven will abundantly recompense you for cleaving to the Lord and his ways in the face of all difficulties. This carried the apostle through the greatest difficulties. He had an eye “to the recompence of reward;” he looked for ‘a house that had foundations, whose builder and maker was God,” and for ‘a heavenly country.’ Yea, this bore up the spirit of Christ in the face of all difficulties and discouragements: “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God, Heb. xii. 2.3
Christians that would hold on in the service of the Lord, must look more upon the crown than upon the cross, more upon their future glory than their present misery, more upon their encouragements than upon their discouragements. God’s very service is wages; his ways are strewed with roses, and paved “with joy that is unspeakable and full of lory,” and with peace that passeth understanding Some degree of comfort follows every good action, as heat accompanies fire,