In reading The Life
and Diary of David Brainerd, I observed that Brainerd wrote often about his
daily, personal struggle with sin.
Here are three examples of his sin-focused entries:
Lord's day, June 13:
Felt something calm and resigned in the public worship: at the sacrament saw myself very vile and worthless. O that I may always lie low in the dust. My soul seemed steadily to go forth after God, in longing desires to live upon him.
Thursday, May 13:
Saw so much of the wickedness of my heart, that I longed to get away from myself. I never before thought there was so much spiritual pride in my soul. I felt almost pressed to death with my own vileness. Oh what a body of death is there in me! Lord, deliver my soul. I could not find any convenient place for retirement, and was greatly exercised.
Lord's day, May 2:
God was pleased this morning to give me such a sight of myself, as made me appear very vile in my own eyes. I felt corruption stirring in my heart, which I could by no means suppress; felt more and more deserted; was exceeding weak, and almost sick with my inward trials.
A little morbid, isn’t it?
Ah, but maybe these entries were rare in the diary of
Brainerd? I mean, doesn’t Edwards himself say Brainerd struggled with
depression? Come on, isn’t everyone allowed to have a bad day, here and there?
In response to the question above, the opposite was true regarding the young missionaries’ diary. The majority of the entries dealt at some length with the corrosive effects of his personal sin.
Of course, let us be quick to applaud Brainerd for at least
examining his own heart, rather the sins of others, which seems to be a
besetting transgression for many Christians.
The issue for me is this: Is it normal to think this much about our sin?
What Brainerd got right:
Right: The hatred of sin reveals a fear of God.
A sense of your own unworthiness comes from the knowledge of
God. To see Him more clearly means to see ourselves more clearly.
Proverbs 8:13 The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.
Furthermore, we must remember that this hatred of evil
begins first by hating the evil inside you. This hate grows with the concurrent
growth of loving God and also loving what God loves.
The classic example of what great hate and great love looks
like is found in the person of Phinehas.
The context was this: Israel has joined themselves to Baal,
God became angry and sent a plague. During this idolatry, a leader of Israel
brought a foreign woman back to his tent. Phinehas didn’t like that.
Numbers 25:7 When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand 8 and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped.
This is right out of a scene in the movie Braveheart. Anyways, look at
God’s words.
Numbers 25:11 "Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy.
Phinehas was consumed with jealousy for God and His glory. He hated sin
because it offended God. He loved God and cared about what He cares about. I
believe many (though not all) of Brainerd’s entries reflected this type of
hatred of his sin.
Right: The road to holiness
deals with sin.
David Brainerd was a holy
man. Not perfect, of course, but the fruits of his holiness were obvious to
those who walked with him.
Is simply “hating sin” the
way to become holy? No, but scripture puts great emphasis on it.
2 Corinthians 7:1 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
Hebrews 12:10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians that defilement hinders the
journey to holiness. The author of Hebrews makes it clear that sharing in Christ’s
holiness requires fatherly discipline. Fathers discipline their children when
their sinful actions obstruct the path to becoming like Christ. And yet active purging
of sin only increases your holiness when it is accompanied by active pursuing
of the fruits of the Spirit. Throwing out your television, burning your
records, washing your mouth with soap does not produce holiness without the
renewing of your mind. Idols can be destroyed, but destroying idolatry is much
more difficult.
Brainerd was holy because he battled with his sin. He strove
to never give up any ground to the enemy. His militancy pleased the Holy One of
Heaven.
Right: Grace is cherished when
sin is seen as vile.
Brainerd saw both the
vileness of his sin and the unspeakable grace of God. The smell of sin still
captured his affections and he was overwhelmed that God would place His love on
such a wretched sinner. He studied his sin in such detail that he saw the grace
of God differently. He saw grace like a poor Haitian child (or any child from a poverty-stricken country) looks at a Christmas
gift….with pure shock and amazement.
James 4:6-8 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Only
a deep, disturbed knowledge of sin brings this understanding of grace.
Indifference towards our sin is rampant in areas with minimal suffering and coexisting
comfort. Also, local churches that preach sin-silent sermons are undoubtedly
churches that preach gospel-silent or gospel-light sermons. Nominal Christianity
is the progeny of such churches.
What Brainerd got wrong:
Wrong: Too much
introspection is harmful for your spiritual health.
Puritans are often accused
of this: They were really, really, really hard on themselves.
Is this accurate? I think
for many Puritans it was. Yet life was different then. It was hard, brief and
death could come at any moment. Most families had 4-6 children die in infancy.
Plagues ravaged towns.
Also, the doctrine of
predestination was taught in many pulpits during that era. People often asked,
“Am I one of God’s elect?” Pastors advised concerned congregants to examine
their fruit and their heart affections. This advice led naturally to deep,
personal introspection. Every thought, every motive, every action was
scrupulously examined. It is in this era the great David Brainerd lived.
Personally, I believe this
is part of the reason why Brainerd
struggled with bouts of depression (but I will write on this topic at a later
time).
To be clear, some
introspection is good, necessary and biblical.
2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?- unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
So, test yourself. Ask
others to assess your spirituality. Pray that God reveals to you the
pervasiveness of your sin. Small portions of this are necessary to become like
Christ (Rom. 8:29). Excessive reflection is idolatry. Your sanctification
becomes the idol. Mind you, this type of idolatry is rare (in my opinion), but
if the heart is a factory of idolatry (as Calvin says), then each heart molds
different idols since each heart belongs to a uniquely created person.
If I was counseling Brainerd
(a humbling thought, indeed), I would encourage him to connect his mission to
his sanctification.
Ummm…isn’t this
self-evident….he was a missionary who intensely desired to be holy, wasn’t he?
Yes, but this is always an important question to ask. We are commanded to be
missionaries, global or local, but we often get distracted. We forget we are a
part of God’s drama, on the grandest level, acting (i.e. participating) for an
audience of One. Yet we tend to focus on our drama, in a little community
center, with only our idols in the audience.
I think Brainerd neglected
to consider that his mission was part of his sanctification. Practically, I am
not sure the hours of meditation and isolated prayer was good for a man with
this type of disposition. I have come to realize that in the same way that God
uses marriage to sanctify us, He uses our mission to help His children focus on
others (Phil. 2:1-11) and live out the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2).
Lastly, I would communicate
to Brainerd (and myself, since I am prone to unhealthy introspection), the profound
words of Robert Murray McCheyne:
"For every look at self, take ten looks at
Christ."
Amen.
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