The Slough of Despond
The Slough of Despond
While not many of us use the word "slough" every day, and while not many of us even know how to pronounce it, let alone what one is, most of us at one time or another have suffered from despondency. We may not call it that, but we have all been there. If we at all are indwelt by the Spirit, if we are in union with the Son, then surely we have, at one time or another not only been despondent but been so over the state of the Bride. Just as the creation continues to groan as it awaits the consummation of the kingdom, so to does the church continue to parade around looking more like a chimney sweep than a spotless bride. She looks as if she has been wallowing in the slough of adultery.
The temptation to despair is all the greater for those who take up the prophetic mantle. A cursory read through the Old Testament prophets will show that there weren't too many party animals among them. They were a dour crowd. Their ministry was to come face to face with the infidelities of the Bride. On the wall of my office, always right before me, hangs a woodcutting of one such prophet, the epitome of the weeping prophet, Jeremiah, as he laments over the destruction of Jerusalem .
There is an appropriateness to the lamentation. When we delight in the folly of the church, when we laugh at the shamelessness of the bride, we are less like the prophets and more like Ham, the son of Noah. We ought to weep to see the church parading around like the Great Whore of Babylon. And we ought to labor to cover her.
This covering, however, is not a cover-up. We do the kingdom no favors if we pretend the church is doing just duckie. Instead what covers the Bride is the Groom. He is our covering. You see, the church is such a mess because we are such a mess. But because we are covered by the righteousness of Christ, we do not despair as those who are without hope.
When we find ourselves in the Slough of Despond, our first temptation is to try to crawl out. We try to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps. But the more flail about trying to escape, the more deeply we sink. We didn't get in the slough, however, because we saw the sin. We got there because we refused to see the promise. There is but one way out of the slough of despond, whether we are mourning our own individual sins, or the corporate sins of the body- faith. We have to believe the gospel. We have to believe God.
See how Paul believes the gospel as he writes to the church at Philippi, "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you with all joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." Thus Paul begins his letter. Why did he write the letter? Principally to correct some fairly serious problems in the church. This church is besmirched with pride and haughtiness. The same folks that Paul daily thanks God for are also puffed up, full of themselves and their attainments. This foolishness is bearing fruit- a spirit of grumbling and complaining. Sound like any churches you know'?
Paul takes the time to highlight his own resume, noting the honors it contains. lf anyone could, by sheer force of will, pull themselves out of the muck, it is Paul. But these attainments he considers as rubbish to be thrown overboard, the very source of his sinking. Instead all that he wants is Jesus, "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain resurrection from the dead" ( 3:10 —I I.)
Is Paul then spotless? By no means. "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me" (vs. 12). No, he is a part of the bride, not set apart
from it. He too is a sinner saved by grace, and saved for perfection. "Brethren, I do not count myself to be apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things that are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (vss. 13-14).
Paul is looking forward, and looking with the eyes of faith. He knows what he was like each of us, the chief of sinners. But he looks forward to what he will become. He is able to press on because he is keeping his eye on the prize. If we would divert our gaze from the besmirched Bride, let it be to look at the Groom. He is pure and spotless. He likewise is sovereign in power and authority. Thus when He promises that we will be washed clean, we can know that it is certain.
This same Paul, writing to still others of the Bride, the Hebrews, reminds us that faith means believing God, that we must not only look back to what Christ accomplished for us at Calvary, but that we must look forward to what He is accomplishing in our sanctification, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Faith in the thing hoped for, our individual and corporate sanctification, alone has the power to lift us from the slough of despond. The Bride is ugly and dirty. The Groom has promised to cleanse her. When we fail to believe the promise, we only become more dirty. When, by His purifying grace, we believe it, we progress onward to the Celestial City . We will indeed make it over the river Jordan . Our husband has promised. Do not, therefore, despair, but rejoice.