I first read The Bruised Reed at the end of 2007. Cornerstone Community Church had closed and I was reeling. Like Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ I found it a good balm to my soul.
It is 2022, and after 5 years of difficult ministry I find myself on sabbatical and turning again to Richard Sibbes and The Bruised Reed. My previous review was very short. Uncharacteristically short. This is probably reflective of the condition of my soul at the time. The book itself is short (my edition is 128 pages), and the 16 chapters aren’t long as a result. This makes for more meditative reading.
The book is Sibbes’ reflection on Isaiah 42 and the beginning of the Servant Psalms. Jesus would apply this to Himself and His ministry in Matthew 12. While the sentences are longer than usual today, Sibbes is one of the easier Puritans to read.
“This is my servant; I strengthen him,
this is my chosen one; I delight in him.
I have put my Spirit on him;
he will bring justice to the nations.
2 He will not cry out or shout
or make his voice heard in the streets.
3 He will not break a bruised reed,
and he will not put out a smoldering wick;
he will faithfully bring justice. Isaiah 42
The Reed and the Bruising
Sibbes begins with Christ’s calling to provide the proper context for this passage and his book. He develops this in Trinitarian fashion to help us see that in Christ God is for us though we may be struggling with sin, temptation or affliction. In Christ we have a Mediator who gently carries out His ministry to the elect leading to their conversion, and afterwards.
Yes, we are often bruised and smoldering leading up to our conversion. And we are often bruised reeds and smoldering wicks after our conversion as well. To be bruised is to be in some misery: sin, temptation or affliction. To be smoldering is to be overcome with fears and doubts.
Jesus does not abandon us to our misery or our fears & doubts. Jesus does not destroy us, but gently ministers to us to restore us and reinvigorate faith.
Ministry is not easy. While a real sinner who really sins, some of the accusations made against me amaze me. Ministry can be undermined in the eyes of others, and yourself. Betrayal, fear of betrayal, loss of joy and so much more, can be overwhelming.
This is not simply true for pastors. Everyone experiences betrayal of various kinds. We all struggle with temptations that keep returning. We can doubt God could love such wicked failures such as ourselves. The ministry of Jesus matters. We will all find ourselves as bruised reeds and smoldering wicks. He doesn’t break us. He doesn’t put us out. He came to heal and restore.
Bruising humbles us and exalts Christ. At first we can be focused on our pain and fear. But the ministry of the gospel turns our eyes back to Jesus. We see our weakness and folly, and His greatness and mercy. We learn, as Sibbes says, that we are not oaks but reeds: fragile and weak.
Christ Will Not Break the Bruised Reed
Part of Jesus’ ministry to bruised reeds and smoldering wicks is interceding for them as their Great High Priest. He is the Great Physician who works to heal us. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah does not use His strength against us, but for us.
Sibbes applies this, encouraging us to seek God’s mercy for He shows Himself merciful in Christ. While Christ may wound, it is as a surgeon to restore health rather than to destroy us. These bruises are signs of His love, not His hatred. He bruises that we may see our sin and turn to Him for relief.
Jesus is making war on our sin and hard-heartedness. We need to remember that He was bruised for our transgressions. He creates a holy despair in us that only He can remove in His gospel.
“Christ’s sheep are weak sheep, and lacking in some thing or other; he therefore applies himself to the necessities of every sheep.”
The Smoking Flax
He sounds like Newton (whom he predates)in briefly discussing the several stages in Christian experience. Grace often has small beginnings and we should not despise those small beginnings. Sibbes returns to humility and humbling ourselves.
Grace is mingled with corruption in our lives. Our corruption is not removed at conversion, but at glorification. Until then, the Christian experiences both grace and corruption. At times we are focused on God’s grace in our lives, and at other times our corruption. When we focus on the later we experience those doubts and fears characteristic of smoking flax. We think we have no grace, and no part in Christ.
Christ Will Not Quench the Smoking Flax
Sibbes uses a number of biblical illustrations to remind us that corruption does not erase grace. Jesus supports and cares for the smoking flax, or smouldering wick. He bears with the many imperfections of His saints. This is good news for us.
Here Sibbes reminds me of 1 Thessalonians 5, the text I may one day use for a DMin dissertation on the heart of pastoral ministry.
14 And we exhort you, brothers and sisters: warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 1 Thessalonians 5
The smouldering wick is discouraged and weak. Such a person does not need warning or rebuke (the word for admonishment is used). We must be careful to address people properly. Jesus does this, and all things, perfectly. He comforts and helps as needed. He doesn’t rebuke the smoking flax.
“Where Christ shows his gracious power in weakness, he does it by letting men understand themselves so far as to breed humility, and magnify God’s love to such as they are. .. Christ refuses none for weakness of parts, that none should be discouraged, but accepts none for greatness, that none should be lifted up with that which of so little reckoning with God.”
Jesus is so not like us!
Jesus uses timely words to make us better.
The Spirit of Mercy Should Move Us
His mercy leads us to repentance, according to Paul (and the Westminster Confession of Faith). True faith apprehends God’s mercy toward us displayed in Christ’s cross. Mercy draws us near to God. Mercy humbles us further.
Sibbes warns against taking up Satan’s ministry against yourself (or others, I add). To not use timely, appropriate words is to accuse the brethren or yourself instead of comforting and encouraging. Perhaps it has happened to you, it has happened to me. You are honest with another about your fear & doubts, and instead of praying with and for you they begin to accuse and chide. You plunge deeper into darkness because they hide the mercy of God from you, expressing judgment and condemnation.
We can take up these accusations ourselves. We can join the accusing chorus. Been there, done that. These accusations are like thorns in your side, growing infected.
We need to recall, as Sibbes reminds us, that the Church is a hospital. While we may not all suffer the same symptoms, we all have a spiritual disease.
Marks of the Smoking Flax
“Those who are given to quarreling with themselves always lack comfort, and through their infirmities they are prone to feed on bitter things as will most nourish that disease which troubles them.”
Sibbes answers this with talk of the double transfer. The law breaks bruised reeds and quenches smoking flax, but the gospel protects and nourishes them. Sibbes speaks of the Spirit’s secret operations that we don’t recognize in the present, but which sustain us.
Here he discusses how to distinguish the presence of the heavenly fire (grace) and the carnal man who is lost in their sins.
Help for the Weak
He begins with the temptations that hinder receiving comfort from Christ. One is lacking assurance, forgetting that even our best actions continue to smell of smoke. Weakness of body can lead us to forget God’s grace. In a paragraph similar to William Still, he speaks as well of Satan’s attacks with out of character, and grievous, temptations. And there are the persistent temptations that arise from our sinful corruption. He reminds us that we can only see these sinful desires because we are in the light (partakers of grace), but we often think it means we have no grace.
The carnal man is not troubled by his corruption. Those who have received grace are troubled. They are humbled. They are in the place of grace. God is not opposing them, as they fear (1 Peter 5:5).
Sibbes encourages us to continue with duty despite our weakness and fear. God is not expecting us to wait for the “perfect moment” or full strength. We are to obey when the opportunity arises, rather than let our weakness win the day.
“Let us not be cruel to ourselves when Christ is thus gracious.”
He explores this more fully in Duties and Discouragements. He provides gospel advice for overcoming discouragements.
“Suffering beings discouragements, because of our impatience. … But if God brings us into the trial he will be with us in the trial, and at length bring us out, more refined. We shall lose nothing but dross.”
In this he does address the problem of our sin which can rob us of a sense of our justification. Not our justification, but the sense or feeling we are justified. We continue to struggle with sin, of this Sibbes is clear. Such struggle is discouraging, but it is not a sign of gracelessness! He perfects His power in these weaknesses. He covers over our infirmities and the sins that flow from them. These struggles drives us deeper into Christ when we grasp the gospel. Satan is the one who whispers that we should hide or run from Christ for they are signs He is angry with us.
Believe Christ, Not Satan
Here is the call to believe Christ as His speaks in the gospel. To receive comfort and help, listen to Christ and stop listening to the Accuser. He speaks here of what Ferguson calls a legal spirit, which views God as hard and immovable. He speaks here of what Ortlund speaks of in Gentle and Lowly.
Jesus may seem to be our enemy, but only that He might show us greater mercy. Sibbes points to Joseph pretending to be his brothers’ adversary, knowing that he is and will be gracious to them.
“Satan, as he slanders Christ to us, so he slanders us to ourselves.”
Run, therefore, to Christ. Stop your ears lest you hear the satanic call and crash upon the rocks of law and condemnation instead of resting in the meadows of mercy and streams of grace Jesus provides.
Quench Not the Spirit
Sibbes speaks of both the false despair, and false hope, of Christ’s mercy. False despair forgets Christ’s mercy despite faith in Christ. At times it can resist His mercy, thinking oneself unworthy of it (which is the point). False hope presumes on His mercy without actually having faith in Christ.
He encourages us to make use of the ordinary means of grace, and believe the message of grace. He advocates communion or fellowship with other Christians, prayer, the preaching of the Word, and exercising grace.
“Infirmities are a ground of humility, not a plea for negligence, nor an encouragement to presumption.”
Pride leads people to despise these means of grace as mean. They are the means by which Christ descends to meet us in mercy.
The final section of the book addresses Christ’s victory through establishing His judgment in the heart. Sibbes brings out the establishment of Christ’s judgment. He will ultimately prevail over our corruptions. It begins by the judgment of sin in our hearts. We recognize our sin as sinful, repent and seek redress in Christ alone. The Spirit fights with the contrary desires of the flesh. The Spirit changes our desires over time. He also grants us holy affections.
His government in us is gentle as He brings us into submission. It is the resistant rebels that He will crush with His iron scepter. He gives “us grace to fight, and to subdue in some measure our base affections.” Christ’s pardon leads us to obedience. We receive not only justification but also sanctification from Christ (Calvin’s double grace). He gives us love for Himself to motivate and guide us. We serve voluntarily (Ps. 110).
Jesus also gives us wisdom. He provides the heavenly light we need. He governs us by this wisdom in our hearts.
In Grace Shall Reign he addresses why the enemy so often seems victorious. We overcome by suffering, not by avoiding suffering. It is Christ, whose pattern we follow, who triumphed over sin through suffering. God works “by contraries”. We are foiled that we may later overcome. Our roots grow deeper when shaken by the wind. Our weakness is revealed and we look to Christ for help. Grace, he notes, conquers us so that we then conquer our corruption by grace. Sibbes repeatedly reminds us that this victory is not easy nor early. He returns to the means of grace to sustain us in the battle against sin and corruption. But Christ shall triumph, publicly.
“We are reeds shaken with every wind. We shake at the very noise and thought of poverty, disgrace or losses. We give in immediately. We have no power over our eyes, tongues, thoughts or affections, but let sin pass in and out.”
Christ triumphs by exposing our weakness, revealing our dependence and coming as our strong support. Our victory comes through conflict. We should expect opposition. The flesh opposes the work of the Spirit. Each move toward holiness is opposed. Our victory comes only in Christ.
Yes, this book can feel a bit repetitive but sermons are frequently repetitive. Scripture often repeats the most important things. Sibbes follows suit. Sibbes also keeps bringing us back to Christ. This is why the Doctor found it so helpful. This is why The Bruised Reed is a balm to the soul. If you are in misery and tossed by doubts and fears, I’d suggest this book. One of my friends who’s a counselor recommends it often. This is helpful for better understanding how to minister to people as well- applying Christ’s ministry to them.
Cavman Considers 
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