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###### Advantage: Decays Help Convince You of the Vanity and Uncertainty of Things Lower than God

{Since the Heavenly Trade Is the Best Trade…

Exhortation and Counsel to Earthly Traders

Counsel Five: Get Advantage from Decays to Further Heavenly Trade

Advantage: It Helps Convince You of Vanity and Uncertainty}

Your earthly losses may convince you of the vanity and uncertainty of all things that are lower than God. People are apt to take too much pleasure in their booths until God sends a devouring worm to remove their shade (Jonah 4:5–7).1251 People are too apt to sit down in their shade with great delight; therefore God makes their shade vanish like shadows and flit away. People have great expectations concerning their growing comforts; they think their mountains are so strong they will not be moved until the Lord, by some leveling providence, soon corrects their fond opinion (Job 9:5–6)!1252 How greatly we depend on uncertain things and lean so hard on our reeds until they break under us and send splinters into the arm that leans on them (Isaiah 36:6).1253 Oh, the contentment, pleasure and profit that people fancy is in creatures, friends, relatives, honors, and estates—until by some disaster, they see that they are deceived! What mercy is it then to meet with disappointments in these groundless hopes, so that we may see before it is too late, what poor, empty, perishing things all the wares of this lower world are! In this way, David’s error was seasonably corrected.1254 And Solomon, by a serious review of past enjoyments, came to see that all was vanity and vexation of spirit (Ecclesiastes 2:1).1255 “Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!” (Psalm 39:6 ESV).

1251“Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered” (Jonah 4:5–7 ESV).

1252“It is God who removes the mountains, they know not how, When He overturns them in His anger; Who shakes the earth out of its place, And its pillars tremble” (Job 9:5–6 NASB).

1253“Look! You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him” (Isaiah 36:6 NKJV).

1254Possibly Ashwood refers to David’s intent to kill Nabal: “But Nabal answered David’s servants and said, ‘Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are each breaking away from his master’” (1 Samuel 25:10 NASB). “Now David had said, ‘Surely in vain I have guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; and he has returned me evil for good. May God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, if by morning I leave as much as one male of any who belong to him’” (1 Samuel 25:21–22 NASB). “Then David said to Abigail, ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me, and blessed be your discernment, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodshed and from avenging myself by my own hand’” (1 Samuel 25:32–33 NASB). Perhaps David had been too fondly looking for some return from Nabal for having been guarded by David and so on.

1255“I said in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.’ But behold, this also was vanity” (Ecclesiastes 2:1 ESV).

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