I want to begin by telling you a little bit about William Cooper. You might know him. His name is spelled C-O-W-P-R, P-E-R, and so sometimes people call him William Cowper. That might be what you refer to him as, but I think he's pronounced Cooper. Anybody know who that is? Anybody know anything about him? John? Hymn writer? Okay, yes. Do you know any of the hymns that he's written? So he wrote God Moves in a Mysterious Way, and There is a Fountain Filled with Blood. Those are, I think, the two most well-known. And he's written some, well, many others. He was friends with John Newton, and this is how we know a lot about his life. And they were friends partly because they were both poets and hymn writers. But they came to get to know each other and Newton essentially became his pastor because Cooper was a believer who struggled with deep depression. And that's why I want to talk about his life as we look at the bruised reed today. His depression affected him spiritually, but he probably had what we would call a mental illness where even before he was a believer, He was put into an insane asylum because of his problems with depression, but it was in an asylum that he found the Bible and picked up the Bible and read it, and God used the Bible to convert him, so he became a believer. But after he became a believer, he still struggled a lot with depression. And so, like I said, Newton was writing him letters to try to help him throughout his life, and they lived close to each other at one point in time. He went to Newton's church. So this is how we know all about his struggles. But maybe the worst point in Cooper's life was when he was in his early 40s, and he claims that he had this dream. some sort of vision or dream that he had, and he says he heard a voice of God, and God said to him, it is all over with you. You are lost. And so he was absolutely convinced that he was going to be condemned by God. And he wrote a poem about it called, Hatred and Vengeance, My Eternal Portion. So that tells you what he was thinking, that his eternal portion was to receive God's hatred and vengeance. And in the poem, he says he is more of Horde than Judas. So he had this awful experience, right, in his early 40s, believing this about himself. But this is what John Newton wrote to him about that. He said, how strange that your judgment should be so clouded in one point only, meaning this point about his salvation, and that a point so obvious and strikingly clear to everybody who knows you. Though your comforts have been so long suspended, I know not that I ever saw you for a single day since your calamity came upon you, your depression, I know not there was one day in which I could not perceive as clear and satisfactory evidence that the grace of God was with you as I could in your brighter and happier times." So he's saying, you know, your judgment is so clouded in this conviction that you're condemned by God when everybody else around you sees evidence of God's grace in you. And Newton says, I myself see abundant evidence of grace just as much now as in your happier times. Well, Cooper continued to struggle with depression throughout his life and spiritual depression. Even at the point of his death in the last days of his life, he said that he was dying feeling utter despair, utter despair in his moments of death. But this same man wrote words like this. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take. The clouds you so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head. And he wrote, ever since by faith I saw the stream, thy flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die. Interesting contrast, isn't it? Redeeming love will be my theme until I die. And yet, he says, he feels utter despair. In another poem, not a hymn, but a poem he wrote, he said, "'Tis sweet to taste a savior's love, though in the meanest fare. To Jesus, then, your trouble bring, nor murmur at your lot. While you are poor and he is king, you shall not be forgot." So I bring up his life and his example to think about this question of how can both things be in the same person? How can one person write those poetic words and those words and those hymns that are full of faith, full of love to God, even in the troubles he's clinging to God, and yet he experiences those other things where he's so full of despair? I don't wanna make his life sound like, you know, it's okay to have these feelings or to glorify him in any way for the way that he experience those things, but his life, I think, is an encouragement to people who struggle, people who sincerely want to follow Christ, and yet they have these feelings of despair. He shows us in his life that God really does hold on to his people. This is grace, right? This is grace, that God doesn't let his people go. Even someone like Cooper who would experience things like that. And so we could call William Cooper the smoking flax. We might even say that he was one of those people that had just one little spark on the flax or the wick. He was almost at the point of dying out, being snuffed out in his faith, but God's grace did not allow him to be snuffed out. If you're wondering if this is a biblical idea, I think we can look at an analogy in the Gospel of Mark. So turn to Mark chapter eight, verses 22 to 25. And this doesn't make Exactly the same point as what William Cooper's life was an example of, but it's a very similar idea, I think. And I read about this in another book on this subject by Martin Lloyd-Jones. Maybe some of you have read Spiritual Depression by Martin Lloyd-Jones. And he writes a whole chapter on this passage in Mark 8, 22 to 25. And so Lloyd-Jones is making this point that I'm gonna try to make from here. Mark 8 verse 22 says about Jesus, the disciples, they came to Bethsaida and some people brought to Jesus a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. And when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see men, but they look like trees walking. Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. So did Jesus heal the man the first time? When Jesus, spit on his eyes and put his hands on his eyes, and then he took them off. Was the man healed? Well, the story tells us, I mean, his first words are, I see. So he does see. He says, I see men, but they look like trees walking. Did Jesus need two tries, you think? No, Jesus has healed blind men before on one try. So clearly Jesus is doing this on purpose. He's putting his hands on his man and maybe we could say he's half healing him, but I wouldn't even say that. I would say he really is healing, he does heal him. But all the man sees are men like trees walking. And then the second time Jesus puts his hand and the man is healed. So why, why does Jesus do this? Well, we don't have time to go through all the Gospel of Mark, but this is at a very important point in the Gospel of Mark, and so this story is placed here for a reason. And this is in the middle of the Gospel of Mark. Jesus is about to go to Jerusalem and be killed and rise from the dead. But here, right in the middle, at the end of chapter 8, there are 16 chapters, so we're right in the middle at the end of chapter 8. The next story, look at, starting verse 27, I won't read it, but the next story, Jesus asks the disciples, who do you say that I am? Peter says, you're the Christ, in verse 29. So is that faith? I think we'd say yes. Peter and the disciples, they have faith. They see that Jesus is the Christ. But look what happens right after this. Jesus begins to tell them about how he must suffer and be killed and then rise again. Verse 32 says, and he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. So, why is the double healing of the blind man right before this story of the disciples? because Mark is trying to tell us that this is the problem of the disciples. It's a picture of a spiritual issue. The disciples sort of have faith, they do have faith. They say, you are the Christ. But they don't really have the fullness of faith. They see men as trees walking, spiritually speaking. They see that Jesus is the Christ, but then they rebuke him for being the Christ who's gonna suffer and die. So because of where that story is and how it connects to the context, I think we can confidently say that this is why Jesus heals the man in two stages. To tell us that you can have real faith but have weak faith, to have a lot of struggling in your faith. You can spiritually be the person who can see Jesus, and yes, you believe in Jesus, but it looks to you as if men looking like trees that are walking. So I hope that makes sense. And I think that's what William Cooper is. William Cooper is a man who was spiritually seeing men as trees walking. Or we could say, he was a smoking flax, this blind man is a picture of the smoking flax, with a little bit of spark but not a whole lot of flame. So we're gonna keep going through what Sibbes says about the smoking flax here in chapter six. Now he's talking about how do we know if we're the smoking flax, how do we get help for our faith, to increase our faith, as we struggle with what Lloyd-Jones calls spiritual depression, or in the words of Cooper, feeling that you are condemned by God, even though you might be a true believer. So how do we deal with that? So Sibbes is gonna go through this in six and a few chapters after this. So he starts in chapter six with a few symptoms to look for. Symptoms to know if you're a smoking flax, page 39. Number one, see if you check any of these boxes. Number one, do you see only your imperfections? Do you see only imperfections in yourself and you're not able to see what is good in you? He says in the second sentence, we must have two eyes, one to see imperfections in ourselves and others, the other to see what is good. So if you're only focusing on the negative in yourself and spiritually, you're a smoking flax. Number two, he says, do you judge yourself based on present feelings? Do you judge yourself based on present feelings? We go through times where we have ups and downs. Sometimes we feel good, sometimes we feel bad. We feel like we really love God and have great faith, and other times we don't feel that way. But do the feelings determine what is actually true? No. So don't judge yourself based on feelings. So you're a smoking flax if you're judging yourself on feelings. Number three, he says, we must not compare ourselves to others. Don't compare yourself to others. So he says there at the bottom of page 39, because our fire does not blaze out as others, therefore we think we have no fire at all. So we think, well, I don't have fire because I look at the other person and I see the bonfire. Look how much grace they have. Look how much faith that person has. And because I don't have that, that must mean that I'm not a believer or I have no faith. And he says, by false conclusions, we may come to sin against the commandment and bearing false witness against ourselves. So you bear false witness against yourself when you come to that conclusion by looking at the grace of others. So you're one of these people, you're a smoking flax, if all you see is your imperfections, if you're judging yourself based on your present feelings, and if you're always comparing your faith to others who you think have greater faith. So, what do we do then? If this is our problem, what do we do? So Sibbes first reminds us in this chapter to look to the covenant of grace. We always have to look to the covenant of grace. And he tells us that it is a special help to know the difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. Moses and Christ. Maybe you've heard people say things like, preach the gospel to yourself, or remember the gospel every day. Have you heard that? Can somebody, what does that mean? How do you do that? What does that mean in any way? Yeah. Chris? Okay, yeah. Remind yourself of the grace of God? Yeah. So this is, in some ways, what Sibbes is saying, to always remind yourself of this, but he's even getting a little more specific here. And he says, remember the covenant. Remember the covenant of grace. And so there's more than just remembering maybe the death of Jesus, but what's behind the death of Jesus? It's the covenant of God. Father, Son, and Spirit agreeing together that they want to save you. You, the people of God. You, the children of God. And so the love of the Father is what brings about the death of Christ. So this is what he means by the covenant of grace. So one of our problems, Sibbes is saying, is that when you struggle with this discouragement, is that there's some sense in which we always go back to legalism. We always become legalists. Even those few questions at the beginning that he's asking us, notice they're all about you. What are you doing? And so what I mean by legalism is that we always tend to think my relationship with God, my faith, is dependent upon something that I need to do or I haven't done or I am doing. So you look at the bonfire, the blaze of faith in others, and you think, wow, that person is doing something well. They're doing something right. I'm not doing something right. And so you think that your relationship with God depends on something that you do, whether it's your feelings, your obedience, your love for God. So here's what he says, Sibbes on page 40. We must acknowledge that in the covenant of grace, God requires the truth of grace, not a certain measure of it. And a spark of fire is fire, as well as the whole element. Therefore, we must look to grace in the spark as well as in the flame. All have not alike the same strong, though they have the like precious faith, 2 Peter 1, whereby they lay hold of and put on the perfect righteousness of Christ. A weak hand may receive a rich jewel. A few grapes will show that the plant is a vine, not a thorn. It is one thing to be deficient in grace, another thing to lack grace altogether. God knows we have nothing of ourselves. Therefore, in the covenant of grace, he requires no more than he gives, but gives what he requires and accepts what he gives. Okay, so God has requirements in the covenant of grace, but he gives you what he requires, and he accepts what he gives. So he accepts your faith, your weak faith, as a gift that he himself has given to you. Let's turn to Galatians chapter three, just as a brief reminder again of this as he contrasts Moses and Christ. So by the covenant of works, he's talking about the law that's given at Mount Sinai, the covenant that the nation of Israel was under. And I know you know these verses very well, but we remind ourselves of them. Galatians 3, verse 10 to 13. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for, quote, the righteous shall live by faith. but the law is not of faith. Rather, the one who does them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. So that's what we always need to remind ourselves of. If you wanna live under the law of Moses, if you wanna live under the law of a relationship of God based on your obedience, you're gonna be under a curse. And so you always need to remind yourself that the people of God are not under that covenant of the law as a covenant of works where you have to earn righteousness before God, but you're under the covenant of grace. I heard someone say recently, the law is good, and the gospel is good, but when you mix up the law and the gospel, you get a bad law and you get a bad gospel. Okay, so the law is good, so we're not saying we don't have to obey God's law anymore, but we're not under the law as the covenant of works that will bring the curse of God upon us. So you use the law as a good thing to guide you as a Christian to obey God, but it becomes a bad thing if you're living under it as something to try to earn your favor with God. So that's our problem. We mix the law and the gospel. You have to distinguish law and gospel in your own heart, in your own life. So this is basically what Sibbes is saying. So he goes on, he says, Christ comes with blessing upon blessing. even upon those whom Moses has cursed." So, Moses, the covenant of works, brings curse and curse, and yet Christ comes with blessing upon blessing to the true believer, okay? So, remember the covenant of grace. We've got about 15 minutes, and Sibbes gives us 10 ways, okay? So he just goes through this list, 10 ways to know if you're a true believer. If you have this smoking flax, you have these spiritual doubts and depression, and how to help with that smoking flax. So we'll try to go through these 10, okay? And he starts this on page 42, if you have the book with you. So first, if there is any holy fire in us, it's kindled from heaven. If there is any holy fire in us, it's kindled from heaven. And so he mentions Isaiah 8, verse 20. If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. There is no dawn in them. So unbelievers can't see the lights. They can't understand truth. So you ask yourself, do you have spiritual understanding of truths about God? So, not just do you know the Bible, do you know facts of the Bible, do you find some things in the Bible interesting, but do you truly grasp these things in the faith, like that God is three in one? Okay? I mean, I'm not saying that you perfectly understand that, but you wholeheartedly believe that. There is one God and God is three persons. Well, you realize an unbeliever doesn't grasp that at all. They think it's all nonsense. Or that Jesus Christ is God and man. Or that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Well then, if you grasp these spiritual things, this is one of the signs that there's likely a light of the spirit in you. I don't know if you've heard about this called thing, it's called Pascal's Wager by Blaise Pascal. Pascal had this argument for God and why you should believe in God. There's, you know, we could talk a long time about some problems with what he's saying, but the basic point, I think, I'm bringing it up because I think it's good. Pascal says you have to wager your soul, okay? You're making a bet, which is essentially what faith is. You're gonna die, what's gonna happen to your soul? So he lays it all out. in a more complicated way, but if God is real, he says, if God is real and I deny that God is real, I don't have faith, what do I miss out on? What's gonna happen to me? Well, I'm gonna go to hell and I'm gonna miss out on heaven. So that's what's true. If God is real and I deny it, I miss out on a lot. If God is not real, he says, but I believe in him anyway, What do I lose? I lose maybe a life of pleasure on earth that I could have just, I could have just eat, drink, and be merry, because I'm just going to die and nothing's going to happen to me. That's all I've lost out on, if I believe in God, even though he's not real. So like I said, it gets more complicated. We can go into more explanation. But here's why I bring it up. This is basically what SIBS is getting us to think about. Are you gonna stake your soul on Jesus being God and man? Jesus rising from the dead. God as Father, Son, and Spirit. If you say no, well then that's evidence that you're not, you don't have faith. If you say yes, then this is a sign that you understand true light. So it's sort of like in John 6, at the end of John 6, when Jesus says, are you gonna leave me also? And the disciples say, well, where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. That's what we're getting at here. Where else are you going to go? Are you really going to deny all these things? Are you going to stake the eternity of your soul on your denial of the resurrection? Well, if you're not going to do that, that's a sign of faith. So that's what he's saying in the first point. Second, he says, the least divine light has heat with it in some measure. So light goes with heat. And what he's talking here is about the affections. So not only do you understand spiritual things, but you have affections for Christ. So again, the same question of John 6, where else will you go? Where are your affections? Are you going to live a worldly life? Are you gonna live a selfish life and just live for pleasures and entertainments and making money? Well, if you're not gonna do that, why not? Why not? Well, it's because you have affection for Christ. So he says, in the godly, holy truths are conveyed by a way of taste. Gracious men have a spiritual palate as well as a spiritual eye. Grace alters the spiritual taste. Now again, some of you might say, well, I don't have a lot of spiritual taste. But that's not the question. Do you have any? Do you have any? Do you have a taste for these other things? Would you rather go after those things? If not, this is a sign of faith. Okay, number three. Number three, where this heavenly light is kindled, it directs in the right way. And he talks about betraying religion or denying Christ's name. So if you have a spark of grace, if you have true faith in you, you're not gonna deny Christ. You're not gonna fall away from Christ. So it's basically the same question again. Are you ready to betray Christ? Are you ready to fully deny him? No, you're not. So that means you have sparks of faith in you. See, all of these things, he's just trying to get you to stop focusing on what you don't have, stop focusing on your lack of faith, but look at what's really there and let God's grace grow that. Number four. Where the fire is, it severs and shows a difference between gold and dross. So fire shows a difference between gold and dross. And what he's talking about here is that God is able to separate your pure from impure, the pure and the impure from your actions. The pure and the impure from your actions. So you have maybe some good works full of dross, and you look again at the person with the bonfire of faith, and you see they have so much pure gold over there. They have so little dross, and here's all my dross. I bring to Jesus all my dross. but remember that the fire severs the golden troughs. In grace, God accepts those works, even if they're impure. And so, back to William Cooper, this is, I think, how that man was able to write great hymns and yet say these really despairing things. because there was that seed of truth in him. And there were those moments where that truth would come out as he was writing those hymns. So even in those dark days, that seed was still in him. So Sibbes says, you know, apply this to yourself. You can say, well, nothing I do is good enough. Or you can say, well, you know what, God accepts my sincere desire to do good for him. God desires that I would do these things. Okay, number five, number five. So far as a man is spiritual, so far is light delightful to him. Another example of this would be maybe when people ask about the unpardonable sin. And people always wonder, they always come asking the question like, have I committed the unpardonable sin? And really the answer is, if you're worried about committing the unpardonable sin, you haven't committed it. Because people who have blasphemed the Holy Spirit, rejected God altogether, they don't care. They're totally hard-hearted to the spiritual things of God. And this is what Sibbes is saying about this issue. If you're worried that you're such a smoking flax, that's a sign that you are spiritual. So instead of saying you're not spiritual because you're a smoking flax, he says turn that around. It's actually a sign you are spiritual. This is the way he says it in page 46. Feeling strife with your own sin, gracious men often complain that they have no grace, but they contradict themselves in their complaints, as if a man that sees should complain he cannot see. So think about sight. You go outside and it's dark. And you say, it's dark. Well, what does that tell you about yourself? It tells you that you have eyesight. You're able to see. And so you're complaining that you can't see is proof that you have vision that works. And so this is what he's saying spiritually. When people complain that they have no grace, it's a sign that they have grace. because people with no grace don't care that they have no grace. Number six, fire where present is in some degree active. Similar point, you either have fire or you don't, it's either active in you or it's not in you. Number seven, fire makes metals pliable and malleable. So are you pliable or are you obstinate? Gets sort of to the same point. If you're worried that you're a smoking flax because you have all these doubts and questions and because you want more grace, then it shows that you're not obstinate. Fire makes things malleable. So the spark of the fire of the grace in you makes you desire more grace. Number eight, fire, as much as it can, sets everything on fire. Fire sets everything on fire. So now he's talking about your relationships with other people. Do you want other people to deny Christ? Do you want others to live worldly and godless lives and immoral lives? No, you don't. You want them to have faith in Christ, right? So that's a sign that actually you have faith in Christ. Number nine, two more left. Number nine, sparks by nature fly upward. Desires, he says, are counted a part of the thing desired. So your desire shows where your heart is to grow in grace. Then number 10, fire, if it has any matter to feed on, gets higher and higher, and the flame becomes pure. So just like in a real fire, there's a lot of smoke, it's because the fire is not really hot enough. The hotter the fire gets, the less the smoke gets, and so it is with the smoking flax of your faith. You might have little faith, you might have a lot of smoke, but God, completes his work and his children. God holds on to his people. Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And so we can grow in faith. So if you are a smoking flax, you don't have to think that you will always be in that state, but the fire can grow. God's grace can help you with that. This is Sibbes' chapter six, these lessons on how to think about ourselves. May God help us as we struggle with these things to grow in his grace. Let's pray. Our Lord, we thank you that we, your people, are under the covenant of grace. We thank you for your eternal love and that we are united to Jesus Christ, the son of God that we have been adopted. Lord, we pray for the grace of your Holy Spirit, the spirit that is sent by Christ to overcome sin. to overcome our weaknesses, our sinful giving in to the temptations of Satan, that we would look to the gospel, we would look to your word, we would look to the covenant of grace. We pray that you would work more and more of that in us. Lord, we pray that we would not be the smoking flax for we long to believe in you more and more. And so we ask that you would help us even as we Spend this time in fellowship today that we would encourage and exhort one another in following Jesus Christ. We pray that you would help us as we worship you, as we hear your word throughout this day. Use these things to increase our faith, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.