5 Good Reasons to Read "Searching Our Hearts in Difficult Times" by John Owen
Image courtesy of Banner of Truth; used with permission.
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Difficult times are never welcome, and they are often unexpected, creating confusion and far more questions than answers. As the world strives to contain and conquer the deadly novel coronavirus, shutdowns, quarantines, and social distancing have given most of us a break from our usual activities—and extra time to think and reflect. And now our country is struggling with how to rightly respond to the senseless death of George Floyd and resulting violent protests, riots, looting, and loss of life and property. During these last few months we have searched the internet for information, answers, and hope in the midst of great suffering. Yet, the most critical search we need to do now, according to Puritan theologian John Owen (1616-1683), is right within our own hearts.
In Searching Our Hearts in Difficult Times, the publisher Banner of Truth has compiled a number of Owen’s lectures and sermons from 1672 to 1680. Widely considered the greatest of all British theologians, Owen lived in England during the time of the Great Plague of London (1665-1666) and the Great Fire (1666). People continued to die of the plague through the 1670s in London, and the devastation clearly weighed heavily on Owen’s heart as he preached and taught in those years.
In the first pages of Searching Our Hearts, it becomes readily apparent to the reader that Owen is particularly focused on helping us to thoughtfully and thoroughly examine our hearts in order to assess any decay in our spiritual state and to rightly respond to divine warnings. Just as Owen saw difficult times, such as the Great Plague, as God’s judgment and warning to professing Christians to wake up from their spiritual lethargy, it is reasonable and wise for us to also consider God’s purposes in permitting the current pandemic and social unrest. Here are five good reasons to read Owen’s Searching Our Hearts in Difficult Times:
1. You will begin searching your heart whether or not you intended to do so—and you will be glad for it.
In part 1 Owen covers critically important aspects of self-reflection, including the need for conviction of sin before conversion, seeking evidence of assurance of salvation, our part in the sins of our day and age, potential spiritual backsliding taking place within us, how we pray to Christ and apply to him for grace, how to strengthen our weak faith, and more. Owens explains why such reflection is essential for bearing fruit:
We are prone to store up truth in our heads and talk about it often, and not let it affect our hearts, and this greatly weakens our spiritual life. (p. 20)
It was impossible for me to read Owen’s words here without searching my own heart. I grieved over the realization that I had not previously considered these aspects in such depth before having Owen gently guide me through them. This mourning, however, gave way to a sense of peaceful clarity from the spiritual housekeeping that was going on in my heart.
2. You will uncover sins in your heart that are weakening your faith.
Owen points out how the secret sins we indulge in our hearts affect our confidence that God will answer our prayers (p. 33). Our failure to mortify such sins will have the consequent effect of weakening our faith that God will even hear us, because we know that our willingness to indulge sinful thoughts is not pleasing to him:
When a heart is enticed by a sin, sin and grace are both at work, having opposite aims. The aim of grace is to humble the heart and the aim of sin is to defile it. (p. 39)
Stressing our great need to recognize the great danger of prevailing sin in our lives, Owen exhorts us to “burden the conscience with the guilt of it” (p. 50), “pray for deliverance” (p. 51), and “treasure up every warning and every word that [we] are convinced is aimed at [our] particular corruption” (p. 51) that God brings our way through providence and Scripture in order to mortify our besetting sins.
3. You will better understand your Christian duties during dark times of judgment.
Owen expounds upon four specific duties of the Christian during a difficult dispensation of providence: 1) to meet together with fellow saints and discuss the origins and causes of such circumstances (p. 58); 2) to “privately resort to Jesus Christ in prayer and supplication” (p. 59); 3) “to mourn for the sins that are in the world” (p. 60); and 4) to hide ourselves in the ark of God’s promises to us (pp. 60-62).
Of these four, I was most convicted by the third duty. How much had I mourned for the sins outside of my own? How much had I grieved over the atrocities of war, the killing of innocent children from countless millions of abortions worldwide every year, the ongoing oppression of the poor, weak, and needy, God being repeatedly dishonored and the Spirit of God blasphemed, and the grave persecution of the saints around the globe that is even now growing more intensely in my own country? Owen points to Ezekiel 9 and God’s judgment on the idolaters of Jerusalem. The only ones who were spared were those who grieved the sin in their midst:
And the Lord said to him, “Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” (Ezek. 9:4)
If we do not mourn for the abominations of others, according to Owen, then we are not sanctifying God’s name. To not be deeply affected by the sins of others is to not take God’s holiness and rule seriously, nor his unfathomable grace to us in Christ. As God’s children we do not want to find ourselves to have “hard hearts and dry eyes” (p. 97) anytime, let alone when difficult times are about to come upon us or have already arrived.
4. You will be more likely to take notice of dangers the church is facing today.
Part 2 of Searching Our Hearts is comprised of a sermon Owen preached in 1676 entitled “Perilous Times.” Here Owen focuses on “the duty of all believers to be aware of present and imminent dangers” (p. 76):
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. (1 Tim. 3:1)
It is pretty much impossible not to think of the current coronavirus pandemic and social unrest when reading Owen’s words on how such evils will be introduced:
These times shall so come—they will be so decisive in the coming—that nothing can keep them out. They shall press themselves upon us and prevail. (p. 78)
Owen continues,
It would be wise for us, therefore, to recognize God’s displeasure in difficult times, in that God’s judicial hand is to be seen in them, and we recognize in ourselves reason enough why they should come. (p. 78)
And why should such difficult times come? Because, according to Owen, people profess to be religious while being “clearly under the predominance of horrible lusts and wickedness” (p. 80), and they are particularly prone to leaving the truth and allowing seducers to gather them up (p. 85). Owen exhorts believers in such times to “love the truth” (p. 88), “to labour to have the experience of the power of every truth in our hearts,” and “to be full of zeal for the truth” (p. 89).
5. You will learn how to particularly live by faith in difficult times.
Part 3 contains a series of four sermons Owen preached in 1680 entitled “The Use and Advantage of Faith.” The series is based on Habakkuk 2:4, “the righteous shall live by his faith.” As Owen notes, this is the first place in Scripture where these words are mentioned, but we also find them quoted three times in the New Testament (see Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38). Owen references 2 Peter 2:5 and Hebrews 11:7 in relationship to Noah building the ark in his reverential fear of God. According to Owen,
Where faith has filled the soul with a reverential fear of God, its first work will be to bring the soul to prepare and provide an ark for itself. (p. 109)
And what is the ark that will be our escape? Christ alone. Faith in Christ is necessary, for “there is no other way, no other ark” (p. 110). Like Owen, we too must confess:
I do not look for any safety or deliverance in the trials and afflictions ahead, except for what is obtained by believing. I see no help in anyone who thinks otherwise. Bless God, who has provided for us this door of entrance before the flood comes and the rain falls. Bless God for it, I say, and make use of it, and be able to plead it before him. And let God know you have made your choice; that you are under his protection and not that of the world. I do not say you will be saved in time, but you shall be saved to eternity. I cannot say that you will have peace with men, but you shall have peace with God. I cannot say that you will not lose your lives, but I will say that you shall not lose your souls—and they are our greatest concerns.
Owen reassures us that true faith works through persecution and difficulties to wake us up and call our hearts to account. While such trying times may put an end to the profession of belief for some (p. 119), faith will enable God’s children to survive what is to come and rest in the authority of Christ, giving us the “same composed and resolute spirit” as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3:17-18 (123).
If you’re wanting a godly mentor who will help you grow stronger in your faith for the perilous times at present and to come, Searching Our Hearts in Difficult Times is a wonderful opportunity to have John Owen minister to you personally. Such reflection is needed now as much as ever in a chaotic world where the church is being increasingly pressured to conform to cultural norms instead of standing for God’s truth against the culture. Let Owen patiently and pastorally apply Scripture to your heart, for your own sake, your neighbor’s sake, and the sake of Christ’s kingdom.
For more outstanding Puritan writings, be sure to check out Banner of Truth’s website banneroftruth.org.
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Searching Our Hearts in Difficult Times by John Owen
