Author: Meredith Beatty

Samuel Rutherford and his friends endured many trials. When I read about shipwrecks and deaths of children, of the plague raging through the countryside and the king determining by fiat the liturgy of the church, I feel like a wimp. But each of us must bear his own load no matter what century we live in. We may have different trials now but there’s always a temptation to question God’s providence. We all struggle to believe he is in control. When we go through these times we reach for what is true, for words that will comfort. When I was a new believer I learned this, “When you cannot trace his hand, trust his heart.” Rutherford may not have known those words, but he understood the truth. When we can’t understand we need to remember who he is. He is omniscient and perfectly wise. His will is always good and his providence is always trustworthy even though at times one side of it looks black. But as Rutherford often mentions in his letters, God’s providence has another side, a better side that we may not be able to comprehend now, but one day we will be able to see. In the meantime we live by faith. Here is an example of Rutherford’s advice to a friend who had endured some severe trials:

I would not have you to think it strange that your journey to New England hath gotten such a dash. It indeed hath made my heart heavy; yet I know it is no dumb providence, but a speaking one, whereby our Lord speaketh His mind to you, though for the present ye do not well understand what He saith. However it be, He who sitteth upon the floods hath shown you His marvellous kindness in the great depths.

However it be with you today, know that your King is on his throne, ruling and reigning over all with perfect wisdom and goodness.

God doesn’t need us to accomplish his will. He is perfectly capable of executing his divine decrees without us. So why pray? Have you ever really thought about that? I’ve heard others say that in light of who God is, with all his power and wisdom, prayer seems pretty clumsy and inefficient. After all, if God owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10) and is incomparably wise and inimitably strong (Isaiah 40:28-31), why does he delight to hear my prayers concerning my recently widowed aunt? Why would he graciously come alongside me to translate my groans over my mother’s failing health or my friend’s troubled marriage? God knows what is best. He could give us and those we love everything we need without us asking for it and he could accomplish all his will without our ever being involved.

Of course, prayer is more than making requests. It’s also about fellowship with God. In Psalm 62 we are exhorted, “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” In this pouring out of our hearts we express our deepest longings and receive the comfort only God can give. In prayer we also learn how to confess our sins and delight in his forgiveness. Between the Fall and the Consummation, Spirit empowered and Spirit directed prayer enables us to enjoy communion with the Lord until we see him face to face.

But consider again the intercessory aspect of prayer. If we’re honest, we don’t have the wisdom or foresight to know how to pray. And many times we’re not privy to how God is responding to and answering our prayers. His ways are wonderful and inscrutable. But in Revelation we get a peek into how God sees prayer and responds to it. In Revelation 5 and 8 we read these descriptions of prayer:

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

Revelation 5:8

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.

Revelation 8:3-4

While the content of these prayers is not clear, they at least refer to the cry of the martyrs in Revelation 6:10 where they lament, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” If Revelation is written to give us a heavenly perspective on earthly events, what do we learn about our prayers from these passages?

Our prayers are heard and remembered.

Our prayers are precious.

Our prayers are part of God’s unfolding plan in redemptive history.

Some of us are good at making prayer lists and recording answers. I am not one of those people. Oftentimes, I forget to pray for people and am overwhelmed by all the needs around me. But God does not forget and he is never overwhelmed. He hears every prayer and records every lament. The image given to us includes a golden bowl, incense, an altar, and heavenly beings offering up our prayers before the throne of God. Psalm 56:8 gives us a complementary image that further emphasizes the truth that our prayers matter. They are not lost in the spiritual ether somewhere. God keeps track of them. “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?”

Our prayers are also likened to incense contained in golden bowls. In Exodus 30:1-10 God instructs Moses on building the golden altar of incense. This was placed in front of the veil, in front of the mercy seat. Aaron was to burn incense on it continually. The incense would rise before the mercy seat, which represented the throne of God in the tabernacle, symbolizing the prayers of the priests and the people rising to heaven. I am very particular about smells. I am not a fan of scented candles or perfumy deodorizing sprays. But for God, our prayers are likened to a sweet aroma rising before him. Our prayers are precious to him. Psalm 141:2 contains the same image: “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

If you read the context of Revelation 8 you learn that the prayers of the saints are used by God in fulfilling his plans on earth. And part of that plan is judgment. The prayers of the saints rise before God from the hand of the angel and immediately afterward the angel takes a censer, fills it with fire from the altar, and throws it upon the earth resulting in loud thunder, lightning and an earthquake. After this we’re told of the seven trumpet judgments. Connecting our prayers to God’s judgment is a little unsettling and raises some prickly questions, the same questions we have when we read the imprecatory sections of the Psalms. Is it right to pray this way? What about Jesus’ admonition to love our enemies? But God’s judgment is real and it is righteous. And there is real evil in the world and in the deep recesses of the human heart. What if the cries for justice in the Psalms that sometimes confuse and embarrass us are related in some way to the martyrs’ cries in Revelation 6 and the unfolding of God’s will in Revelation 8? What if there was a way to pray for God’s justice to be realized while at the same time maintaining a burden for the lost who are in danger of experiencing it?

I don’t have full answers to those questions, but what I am seeing in these passages is that God desires us to pray and even uses our prayers to fulfill his purposes. Stop and think about that for more than a minute! The God who needs nothing and is able to do all his holy will invites us to participate in his work. What a sobering privilege. What a challenging responsibility. It makes me think about two people from Luke’s gospel. Simeon and Anna. You can read about them in Luke 2:22-38. They show up at the beginning of Jesus’ life and we never hear about them again. But I believe their years of prayer and fasting, their faithful seeking for the first advent of Christ can teach us a lot about what our devotional posture should be as we wait for the second advent of Christ. Luke says Simeon was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And after Anna saw the baby Jesus presented in the temple, Luke says she went out speaking to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Simeon and Anna spent years prayerfully devoted to the Lord, straining their eyes of faith to look for the Christ who is the consolation of Israel and the redemption of Jerusalem. God heard them, counted their prayers as incense before him, and I believe he used their prayers to hasten the coming of the Messiah. What if we followed their example, prayerfully devoting ourselves to the Lord, eagerly waiting for our Lord’s return? He hears us. Our prayers are precious to him. And who knows how he could use them to hasten the Day when the Lord Jesus will come again?

When things got chaotic in our life, my husband would say, “I can’t wait for things to get back to normal.” Things have been pretty chaotic and frankly very hard for us in 2025 and I think we’re both beginning to see that what we defined as ‘normal’ is actually an outlier. Life is hard and we’re not meant to bed down and take it easy until Jesus comes. Actually it’s just the opposite. If we follow Christ we’re told we will encounter hardship and pain. Those things are normal in a world racked by sin. But the followers of Christ are also told that everything they go through, the good and the bad, is filtered through the loving and sovereign hands of our Father so that all things work together for good and in all the trials and hardship, we are more than conquerors. (Romans 8:28-39) We make a mistake when we see afflictions and trials as an anomaly, or a grin and bear it period of time until things get back to normal. Through the kind providence of our Father, our afflictions and trials are actually working for us. Samuel Rutherford saw his own afflictions this way.

The dross of my cross gathered a scum of fears in the fire – doubtings, impatience, unbelief, challenging of Providence as sleeping, and as not regarding my sorrow; but my goldsmith, Christ, was pleased to take off the scum, and burn it in the fire. And, blessed be my Refiner, He hath made the metal better, and furnished new supply of grace, to cause me hold out weight; and I hope that He hath not lost one grain-weight by burning His servant.

In 1 Peter 1:3-5, the apostle speaks of our being born again to a living hope and our glorious and undefiled inheritance that is secured for us in heaven. But then he transitions in verses 6-7 to speak about trials and God’s purpose in them. He says, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” This process of being tested by fire is what Rutherford is talking about. His cross is his trial. The dross that is burned off from the gold gathers with it all the things that so easily entangle him – the doubt, impatience, and unbelief – and Christ himself burns those things up in his refiner’s fire, making his faith stronger and better.

Trials are normal for the Christian for we follow a crucified Savior. His pattern is our pattern. But thanks be to God that our trials and crosses are not random! He is in control of the fire, the heat and the duration. Notice what Peter says about these trials – “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary.” God brings us into the fire only if necessary and only for a little while. Yes, the first half of 2025 has been hard for us and it has seemed to stretch on for a long time, but we are not alone and God has a good and glorious purpose in it all. Amen.

In Hebrews 3:12-13 we read this command: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Praise God for the assurance of salvation. As Paul says in Romans 8, those whom he has foreknown will be called, justified, and finally glorified. But I’m convinced that part of the way God keeps us is through the exhortation of our fellow brothers and sisters.

Samuel Rutherford’s Letters are full of these kinds of exhortations. He is constantly asking his friends to examine their spiritual condition, eager to know whether they are staying faithful to Christ and enduring in trial. How are we at doing this? Are we afraid to dig under the surface with our friends and really ask them about the state of their souls? Do we even know them well enough to have earned the trust to ask that kind of question? Here is an example of how Rutherford exhorted one of his young parishioners:

Happy is your soul if Christ man the house, and take the keys Himself, and command all, as it suiteth Him full well to rule all wherever He is. Keep Christ, and entertain Him well. Cherish His grace; blow upon your own coal; and let Him tutor you.

That kind of exhortation may be common between a pastor and his congregant, but here is a different exhortation given to someone he calls “a very dear and worthy friend”:

I long to hear of your growing in grace, and of your advancing in your journey to heaven. It will be the joy of my heart to hear that ye hold your face up the brae [slope of a hill], and wade through temptations without fearing what man can do.

He exhorts parishioners and friends, young and old, male and female. This last example is from the beginning of a letter to Lady Busbie, the mother-in-law of one of Rutherford’s close friends:

I am glad to hear that Christ and ye are one, and that ye have made Him your “one thing,” whereas many are painfully toiled in seeking many things, and their many things are nothing. It is only best that ye set yourself apart, as a thing laid up and out of the gate, for Christ alone; for ye are good for no other thing than Christ; and He hath been going about you these many years, by afflictions, to engage you to Himself. It were a pity and a loss to say Him nay.

Reading of the concern Rutherford has for the spiritual growth of his friends, parishioners, and even the mother-in-law of a friend (!) challenges me in my own relationships. Do I pursue others in such a way that they know of my concern for their souls? Am I following the command in Hebrews to exhort my fellow brothers and sisters every day, as long as it is called ‘today’? What about you?

As I’ve been reading Samuel Rutherford’s Letters I have been struck with how he uses the language of Revelation to encourage and exhort his friends and parishioners. A lot of us approach Revelation as a puzzle to solve, but it’s actually a picture of the drama we’re all called to participate in as we go through this world. Will we patiently endure as followers of the Lamb or will we be seduced by the temptations of Babylon? In this excerpt of a letter to his friend John Ewart, Rutherford uses the imagery of Revelation to exhort him to steadfast faith until Christ comes.

It were good that we prisoners of hope know of our stronghold to run to, before the storm come on; therefore, Sir, I beseech you by the mercies of God, and comforts of His spirit, by the blood of your Saviour, and by your compearance before the sin-revenging Judge of the world, keep your garments clean, and stand for the truth of Christ, which ye profess. When the time shall come that your eye-strings shall break, your face wax pale, your breath grow cold, and this house of clay shall totter, and your one foot shall be over the march, in eternity, it will be your comfort and joy that ye gave your name to Christ.

A couple years ago I started writing a series of Sunday posts about various Puritan authors. I thought I would bring that back. But instead of dedicating each post to a different author, I’d rather share quotes and reflections from the Puritan authors I’m currently reading.

I shared a post a little while ago that included a quote from Samuel Rutherford. Since last summer, I have been making it a habit to read from his Letters on Sunday mornings before church. Very quickly I realized how quotable he is and found myself agreeing with Charles Spurgeon who held that the Letters were as near to being inspired as anything written by a mere man.

Rutherford was a minister in 17th century Scotland during a very tumultuous time. His letters show a deep love for his flock, a passion for the beauty and worth of Christ and an understanding of suffering that few in the 21st century West can relate to. Here is something I read this morning concerning the love of Christ.

Alas! I can speak nothing of it, but wonder at three things in His love: – First, freedom. O that lumps of sin should get such love for nothing! Secondly, the sweetness of his love. I give over either to speak or write of it; but those who feel it, may better bear witness what it is. But it is so sweet, that, next to Christ Himself, nothing can match it. Nay, I think that a soul could live eternally blessed only on Christ’s love, and feed upon no other thing. Yea, when Christ in love giveth a blow, it doeth a soul good; and it is a kind of comfort and joy to it to get a cuff with the lovely, sweet, and soft hand of Jesus. And, thirdly, what power and strength are in His love! I am persuaded it can climb a steep hill, with hell upon its back; and swim through water and not drown; and sing in the fire, and find no pain; and triumph in losses, prisons, sorrows, exile, disgrace, and laugh and rejoice in death.

Are you as challenged as I am reading through that? If only I knew the love of Christ like this. But I’m afraid my spiritual appetite is too weak and willing to settle for a bite here and there instead of sitting down to the banquet feast that he offers. May we, like Rutherford, learn like the psalmist to feast on the abundance of God’s house, slaking our thirst from the river of his delights (Psalm 36:8).