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As a Dying Man to Dying Men

There is an article making the rounds in which David Letterman was asked if he ever ‘said a prayer’ before a show. He mentions an interview with Warren Zevon, who, at the time of the interview, had cancer:

I wouldn’t call it a prayer, but I would sometimes have a conversation with myself in the shower before the show. Warren Zevon was on years ago, and we all knew he was dying. I was at a loss because I couldn’t think of an entry point for a conversation with a dying man on a television show that’s supposed to be silly. “How are you doing? You look great!” doesn’t exactly work. I was really dissatisfied with my part of that conversation. I was ill-equipped to connect with a friend who was going through something like that.

Do you find it hard to imagine that a man who conversed for a living had difficulty talking to a dying man?

I spend more time in hospital rooms, and more time praying for the sick in general, than I prefer. But the lack of preference is for their illness, not for the inability to engage. Do you have something more than your wit to give to the dying?

Anyhow, the only reason I bring this up is because it reminded me of a famous quote from Richard Baxter:

I preached as never sure to preach again,
As a dying man to dying men.

Christ is all the comfort we have to give to dying men – and we are all dying men.

20 Principles for Christian Parents (Richard Baxter)

Here I offer a condensed summary of Richard Baxter‘s The Duties of Parents for their Children:

1. Understand their need of a Savior and dedicate them to God’s covenant mercy

2. Teach them the principles of their relationship to the Covenant of Grace

3. Serve as an authority and do not let them be self-willed

4. Serve as a loving authority, both to be feared and befriended

5. Teach them to have reverence for the Scriptures and holy things

6. Always speak with reverence and seriousness about the things of God

7. Teach them by example to respect those who are worthy of respect and to loathe the life of sin and godlessness

8. Teach them and show them that the way of holiness is the way of happiness

9. Teach them of the dangers of sensuality and encourage them to care for their minds before their bodies

10. Teach them to care for their bodies and exercise physical self-control

11. Allow them to engage in sports and hobbies, but not to the point that those things become central priorities

12. Discourage pride and promote humility

13. Teach them of the dangers of materialism and seeking riches

14. Teach them to control their tongues from lying, crudeness, and taking the name of the Lord in vain

15. Guard them from company that will further corrupt them

16. Teach them to value time, improve time, and consider that their time is short

17. Use corrective discipline (a) not too often but not too little, b) according to the temperament and ability of the child, c) primarily for sins rather than pet-peeves, d) never when you are angry, e) with tenderness and love, f) with the aid of Scripture texts

18. Teach by example (not ‘do as I say; not as I do’); strive to be the person that you would desire them to emulate

19. Be proactive, not just a spectator, as they seek someone to marry

20. Especially for mothers: 1) Look for every opportunity to teach them throughout the day and 2) be especially concerned with teaching, and encouraging, them to read

A word for those who cannot have children:

But if God deny you children, and save you all this care and labour, repine not, but be thankful, believing it is best for you. Remember what a deal of duty, and pains, and heart’s grief he hath freed you from, and how few speed well, when parents have done their best: what a life of misery children must here pass through, and how sad the fear of their sin and damnation would have been to you.

Read the original work in its entirety HERE.

Recent Reading: The Cure of Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow, By Faith, by Richard Baxter

I have said before that a single sermon by a given Puritan may contain more than many of the fluffy books of our day. The Puritans were such that a single sermon could be turned into a book. Case in point: Richard Baxter’s The Cure of Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow, By Faith. I ordered this book from Amazon after hearing a hearty recommendation by Martyn Lloyd-Jones in a talk available HERE (note, I am only linking the second part of the talk).

UPDATE: I also found Lloyd-Jones’ treatment of Baxter in book form. I have written about it HERE.

In the sermon, which is available as a book, Baxter expounds upon the words of 2 Corinthians 2:7: ‘…so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.’ Baxter’s term ‘melancholy’ would be better understood by modern ears as ‘depression’ – being ‘overwhelmed with excessive sorrow.’ What do you do when your sadness is overwhelming?

Baxter is concerned first to show us that there is such a condition, that the condition could be physical in nature (due to biological issues or temperament), or that it could be the result of demonic activity, that it could be something easily treated, or it could be something very difficult to treat. Since the condition varies so greatly, he is concerned that we be able to diagnose it and treat it properly according to the diagnosis.

I will not review the book, but I want to make a few statements about it. First, this book, along with the Doctor’s talk on it, are extremely helpful in regards to pastoral counseling. The nuances of the book are tremendous. Baxter wants us to be careful not to lump all cases of sadness into the same mould. So, let’s say for instance, you have two women come to talk to you on the same day. Both are depressed. But their depressions are very different. The tendency, I think, is for the pastor to tell them to read their Bibles and pray. Baxter counters such thinking by saying that could be the worst thing this person could do. It all depends on the situation.

If you tell a severely depressed person to pray, and that is your primary counsel, then what if they find that they can’t pray? Or what if they do pray, but find that their prayers only serve as a further opportunity to brood over their problems, thus making them worse? What if you tell them to read their Bible and they find that they can’t? What if the do read and decide to turn to the imprecatory psalms? It is to the benefit of the one being counseled that we refrain from blanket answers. We must have a better understanding of the situation. We must have some understanding of the myriad of ways in which the effects of sin, and weak bodies, show up.

Baxter’s approach is also a great relief to pastors, or at least I found it to be so. I have dealt with individuals over the years who always want to talk about the same thing. And it can go on for months, even years. They cannot get over a certain, single issue. What do you do? Baxter’s answer is that this is a psychological problem (that’s certainly how MLJ understood Baxter). It is a spiritual problem to be sure, but it is not a problem that can be solved with pastoral counseling. I can recite John 3:16 100 times in 100 days to someone, but I do not have the power to make that word come to a person with force. There is a time for the pastor to realize that he cannot go on counseling someone who cannot be counseled ‘lest he himself become ensnared.’ That alone, from this book, made it worth it for me. Because I’ve been there. I’ve had to accept that I can’t fix all problems. Jesus can fix problems, but Jesus does not fix the problems of those who are not trusting in him.

To give a couple of examples of Baxter’s words: First, on the fact that not all such depression is within the power of a pastor to counsel or solve, he notes that problems can be medical – that medicine, in some cases, can do more than a pastor. He goes so far as to say that in some sense the right medicine can repel Satan himself:

If it were, as some of them fancy, a possession of the devil, it is possible that physic [i.e. medical treatment] might cast him out, for if you cure the melancholy, his [that is, Satan’s] bed is taken away, and the advantage is gone by which he worketh. Cure the choler, and the choleric operations of the devil cease. It is by means and humours that he worketh.

I rail on the overuse of antidepressants regularly, but to say that they have no purpose is just plain wrong. They can be the very tool God uses to make someone teachable.

Another quote: We often say that those who are in pain need to talk about their troubles, but this is not always the case. Baxter writes,

Let not all men know that you are in your troubles: complaining doth but feed them.

Here we can distinguish between talking about problems and complaining about problems. Be careful when you talk that you are not complaining. Talking may help, but complaining likely won’t.

Don’t even let your prayers, Baxter says, focus on the problems:

Especially, when you pray, resolve to spend most of your time in thanksgiving and praising God. If you cannot do it with the joy that you should, yet do it as you can.

We tell people to think through things. Baxter counsels:

Avoid your musings, and exercise not your thoughts now too deeply, nor too much. Long meditation is a duty to some, but not to you, no more than it is a man’s duty to go to church that hath his leg broken, or his foot out of joint: he must rest and ease it till it be set again, and strengthened.

He tells people, when they can’t pray in a helpful way, to sing psalms and hymns. He tells overwhelmed minds to take a rest.

The quotes are a bit of a hodgepodge here. But they serve to show how different his counsel is from what often passes as pastoral counseling these days. I cannot recommend this book too highly. But I warn you that it will probably take several readings to begin to digest the content. You can read it for free HERE. And, all the more, I recommend Lloyd-Jones’ talks HERE and HERE.

Early on in my Christian life I was introduced to that hymn that says, ‘Sunshine, blessed sunshine, when the peaceful happy moments roll. When Jesus shows his smiling face, there is sunshine in my soul.’ There is not always sunshine in the soul. We need to be weathermen who can see the storms and act according to the situation.