May 15
9
“We know that all things work together for good—to those who love God.” Romans 8:28
The believer is absolutely sure, that an invisible hand is always on the world’s helm, and that wherever providence may drift, Jehovah steers it. That reassuring knowledge prepares him for everything. He looks over the raging waters—and sees Jesus treading the billows; and he hears a voice saying, “It is I, do not be afraid!” He knows also, that God is always wise, and, knowing this, he is confident that there can be no accidents, no mistakes; that nothing can occur—which ought not to arise. He can say, “If I should lose all I have, it is better that I should lose than have—if God so wills. The worst calamity is the wisest and the kindest thing that could befall to me—if God ordains it.”
“We know that all things work together for good—to those who love God.” The Christian does not merely hold this as a theory—but he knows it as a matter of fact. Everything has worked for good as yet; the poisonous drugs mixed in fit proportions, have worked the cure; the sharp cuts of the lancet, have cleansed out the proud flesh and facilitated the healing. Every event as yet has worked out the most divinely blessed results; and so, believing that God rules all, that He governs wisely, that He brings good out of evil—the believer’s heart is assured, and he is enabled calmly to meet each trial as it comes. The believer can in the spirit of true resignation pray, “Send me what you will, my God—so long as it comes from You! A bad portion never came from Your table—to any of Your children.” Charles Spurgeon
COMFORTING GRACE
“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” — John 14:18
Blessed Jesus! How Your presence sanctifies trial; takes loneliness from the chamber of sickness; and the sting from the chamber of death! Bright and Morning Star! Precious at all times, You are never so precious as in “the dark and cloudy day!” The bitterness of sorrow is well worth enduring — to have Your promised consolations.
How well qualified, Man of Sorrows, are You to be my Comforter! How well fitted to dry my tears — You who shed so many Yourself! What are my tears — my sorrows — my crosses — my losses, compared with Yours, who shed first Your tears, and then Your blood for me! Mine are all deserved, and infinitely less than I deserve. How different, O Spotless Lamb of God — those pangs which rent Your guiltless bosom!
How sweet those comforts which You have promised to the comfortless, when I think of them as flowing from an Almighty Fellow Sufferer, “A brother born for adversity” — the “Friend that sticks closer than any brother!” — one who can say, with all the refined sympathies of a holy exalted human nature, “I know your sorrows!”
My soul! calm your griefs! There is not a sorrow you can experience but Jesus, in His treasury of grace — has an exact corresponding solace: “In the multitude of the sorrows I have in my heart — Your comforts delight my soul!” John McDuff
“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.”–1 Peter 4:12
The “fiery trial,” then, is not a strange thing which happens only to a few of the Lord’s family, but is more or less the appointed lot of all. Do we not hear the Lord saying to his Zion, “I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction?” All then who are chosen, must pass through the furnace of affliction, and all know experimentally the fiery trial, for by it they are made partakers of Christ’s sufferings.
But this is indispensable in order to be partakers of his glory. “If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” Thus they suffer with him, “that when his glory shall be revealed, they may be glad also with exceeding joy.” And this suffering with and for Christ in the furnace of affliction salts the soul, preserves it from corruption, communicates health, gives it savor and flavor, is a token of interest in the everlasting covenant, and is a seal of friendship and peace with God. J.C.Philpot