For The Troubled

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 12, 1873,

BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Your wrath lies hard upon me, and You have afflicted me with all Your
waves." Psalm 88:7.

IT is the business of a shepherd not only to look after the happy ones
among the sheep, but to seek after the sick of the flock and to lay
himself out right earnestly for their comfort and succor. I feel,
therefore, that I do rightly when I, this morning, make it my special
business to speak to such as are in trouble. Those of you who are happy
and rejoicing in God, full of faith and assurance, can very well spare
a discourse for your weaker Brothers and Sisters–you can be even glad
and thankful to go without your portion that those who are depressed in
spirit may receive a double measure of the wine of consolation.

Moreover, I am not sure that even the most joyous Christian is any the
worse for remembering the days of darkness which are stealing on apace,
"for they are many." Just as the memories of our dying friends come
over us like a cloud and "dampen our brainless ardors," so will the
recollection that there are tribulations and afflictions in the world
dampen our rejoicing and prevent its degenerating into an idolatry of
the things of time and sense. It is better, for many reasons, to go to
the house of mourning than to the house of feasting–the quassia cup
has virtues in it which the wine cup never knew–wet your lips with it,
young man, it will work you no ill. It may be, O you who are today
brimming with happiness, that a little store of sacred cautions and
consolations may prove no sore to you, but may, by-and-by, stand you in
good stead.

This morning's discourse upon sorrow may suggest a few thoughts to you
which, being treasured up, shall ripen like summer fruit and mellow by
the time your winter shall come round. But to our work. It is clear to
all those who read the narratives of Scripture, or are acquainted with
good men, that the best of God's servants may be brought into the very
lowest estate. There is no promise of present prosperity appointed to
true religion so as to exclude adversity from Believer's lives. As men,
the people of God share the common lot of men and what is that but
trouble? Yes, there are some sorrows which are peculiar to
Christians–some extra griefs of which they partake because they are
Believers. But these are more than balanced by those peculiar and
bitter troubles which belong to the ungodly and are engendered by their
transgressions, from which the Christian is delivered.

From the passage which is open before us we learn that sons of God may
be brought so low as to write and sing Psalms which are sorrowful
throughout and have no fitting accompaniment but sighs and groans. They
do not often do so–their songs are generally like those of David
which, if they begin in the dust, mount into the clear heavens before
long. But sometimes, I say, saints are forced to sing such dolorous
ditties that from beginning to end there is not one note of joy. Yet
even in their dreariest winter night the saints have an aurora in their
sky and in this 88th Psalm, the dreariest of all Psalms, there is a
faint gleam in the first verse, like a star-ray falling upon its
threshold–"O Jehovah, God of my salvation."

Heman retained his hold upon his God. It is not all darkness in a heart
which can cry, "My God," and the child of God, however low he may sink,
still keeps hold upon his God. "Though He slays me, yet will I trust in
Him," is the resolution of his soul. Jehovah smites me, but He is my
God. He frowns upon me, but He is my God. He tramples me into the very
dust and lays me in the lowest pit, as among the dead, yet still He is
my God and such will I call Him till I die. Even when He leaves me I
will cry, "my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Moreover, the
Believer, in his worst time, still continues to pray, and prays,
perhaps, the more vigorously because of his sorrows. God's red flags
drive His children not from Him, but to Him. Our griefs are waves which
wash us to the Rock.

This Psalm is full of prayer. It is as much sweetened with supplication
as it is salted with sorrow. It weeps like Niobe, but it is on bended
knees and from uplifted eyes. Now, while a man can pray he is never far
from light–he is at the window, though, perhaps, as yet the curtains
are not drawn aside. The man who can pray has the clue in his hand by
which to escape from the labyrinth of affliction. Like the trees in
winter, we may say of the praying man, when his heart is greatly
troubled, "his substance is in him, though he has lost his leaves."
Prayer is the soul's breath and if it breathes it lives and, living it
will gather strength again. A man must have true and eternal life
within him while he can continue, still, to pray, and while there is
such life there is assured hope.

Still, the best child of God may be the greatest sufferer and his
sufferings may appear to be crushing, killing and overwhelming. They
may also be so very protracted as to attend him all his days and their
bitterness may be intense–all of which and much more this mournful
Psalm teaches us. Let us, in pursuit of our subject, first give an
exposition of the text. And then a brief exposition of the benefits of
trouble.

I. I will endeavor, in a few observations, to EXPOUND THE TEXT. In the
first place, its strong language suggests the remark that tried saints
are very prone to overrate their afflictions. I believe we all err in
that direction and are far too apt to say, "I am the man that has seen
affliction." The inspired man of God, who wrote our text, was touched
with this common infirmity for he overstates his case. Read his
words–"Your wrath lies hard upon me." I have no doubt Heman meant
wrath in its worst sense. He believed that God was really angry with
him and wrathful with him, even as He is with the ungodly, but that was
not true. As we shall have to show, by-and-by, there is a very grave
difference between the anger of God with His children and the anger of
God with His enemies.

And we do not think Heman sufficiently discerned that difference, even
as we are afraid that many of God's children even now forget it–and
therefore fear that the Lord is punishing them according to strict
justice–and smiting them as though He were their executioner. Ah, if
poor bewildered Believers could but see it, they would learn that the
very thing which they call wrath is only love, in its own wise manner,
seeking their highest good! Besides, the Psalmist says, "Your wrath
lies hard upon me." Ah, if Heman had known what it was to have God's
wrath lie hard on him, he would have withdrawn those words, for all the
wrath that any man ever feels in this life is but as a laying on of
God's little finger!

It is in the world to come that the wrath of God lies heavy on men.
Then, when God puts forth His hand and presses with Omnipotence upon
soul and body to destroy them forever in Hell, the ruined nature feels
in its never-ending destruction what the power of God's anger really
is! Here the really sore pressure of wrath is not known and especially
not known by a child of God. It is too strong a speech if we weigh it
in the scales of sober truth. It outruns the fact, even though it were
the most sorrowful living man that uttered it. Then Heman adds, "You
have afflicted me with all Your waves," as though he were a wreck with
the sea breaking over him and the whole ocean–and all the oceans were
running full against him as the only object of their fury.

His boat has been driven on shore and all the breakers are rolling over
him. One after another they leap upon him like wild beasts, hungry as
wolves, eager as lions to devour him–it seemed to him that no wave
turned aside, no billow spent its force elsewhere–but all the long
line of breakers roared upon him, as the sole object of their wrath.
But it was not so. All God's waves have broken over no man, save only
the Son of Man! There are still some troubles which we have been
spared, some woes unknown to us. Have we suffered all the diseases
which flesh is heir to? Are there not modes of pain from which our
bodies have escaped? Are there not, also, some mental pangs which have
not wrung our spirit? And what if we seem to have traversed the entire
circle of bodily and mental misery, yet in our homes, households, or
friendships we have surely some comfort left and therefore from some
rough billow we are screened. All God's waves had not gone over you, O
Heman! The woes of Job and Jeremiah were not yours.

Among the living none can literally know what all God's waves would be.
They know, who are condemned to feel the blasts of His indignation!
They know in the land of darkness and of everlasting hurricane! They
know what all God's waves and billows are–but we know not. The
metaphor is good and admirable, and correct enough poetically, but as a
statement of fact it is strained. We are all apt to exaggerate our
grief–I say this as a general fact. Those who are happy can bear to be
told, but I would not vex the sick man with it while he is enduring the
weight of his affliction. If he can calmly accept the suggestion of his
own accord, it may do him good, but it would be cruel to throw it at
him. True as it is, I should not like to whisper it in any sufferer's
ear because it would not console, but grieve him.

I have often marveled at the strange comfort persons offer you when
they say, "Ah, there are others who suffer more than you do." Am I a
demon, then? Am I expected to rejoice at the news of other people's
miseries? Far otherwise! I am pained to think there should be sharper
smarts than mine and my sympathy increases my own woe. I can conceive
of a

Fiend in torment finding solace in the belief that others are tortured
with a yet fiercer flame, but surely such diabolical comfort should not
be offered to Christian men! It shows our deep depravity of heart, that
we can decoct comfort out of the miseries of others–and yet I am
afraid we rightly judge human nature when we offer it water from that
putrid well.

There is, however, a form of comfort akin to it, but of far more
legitimate origin–a consolation honorable and Divine. There was ONE
upon whom God's wrath pressed very sorely. There was ONE who was, in
truth, afflicted with all God's waves. That One is our brother, a Man
like ourselves, the dearest lover of our souls. And because He has
known and suffered all this, He can sympathize with us, this morning,
in whatever tribulation may beat upon us. His passion is all over now
but not His compassion. He has borne the indignation of God and turned
it all away from us–the waves have lost their fury and spent their
force on Him–and now He sits above the floods, yes, He sits King
forever and ever! As we think of Him, the Crucified, our souls may not
only derive consolation from His sympathy and powerful succor, but we
may learn to look upon our trials with a calmer eye and judge them more
according to the true standard. In the Presence of Christ's Cross our
own crosses are less colossal. Our thorns in the flesh are as nothing
when laid side by side with the nails and spear.

But, secondly, let us remark that saints do well to trace all their
trials to their God. Heman did so in the text– "Your wrath lies hard
upon me, You have afflicted me with all Your waves." He traces all his
adversity to the Lord his God. It is God's wrath. They are God's waves
that afflict him and God makes them afflict him. Child of God, never
forget this–all that you are suffering of any sort, or kind, comes to
you from the Divine hand! Truly, you say, "my affliction arises from
wicked men," yet remember that there is a predestination which, without
soiling the fingers of the Infinitely Holy, nevertheless rules the
motions of evil men as well as of holy angels. It were a dreary thing
for us if there were no appointments of God's Providence which
concerned the ungodly–then the great mass of mankind would be entirely
left to chance–and the godly might be crushed by them without hope.

The Lord, without interfering with the freedom of their wills, rules
and overrules, so that the ungodly are as a rod in His hand with which
He wisely scourges His children. Perhaps you will say that your trials
have arisen not from the sins of others, but from your own sins. Even
then I would have you penitently trace them still to God. What though
the trouble springs out of the sin, yet it is God that has pointed the
sorrow to follow the transgression–to act as a remedial agency for
your spirit. Look not at the second cause, or, looking at it with deep
regret, turn your eyes chiefly to your heavenly Father and, "hear you
the rod and who has appointed it."

The Lord sends upon us the evil as well as the good of this mortal
life! His is the sun that cheers and the frost that chills! His the
deep calm and His the fierce tornado. To dwell on second causes is
frequently frivolous, a sort of solemn trifling. Men say of each
affliction, "It might have been prevented if such-and-such had
occurred. Perhaps if another physician had been called in the dear
child's life had still been spared. Possibly if I had moved in such a
direction in business I might not have been a loser." Who is to judge
of what might have been? In endless conjectures we are lost and, cruel
to ourselves, we gather material for unnecessary griefs.

Matters happened not so–then why conjecture what would have been had
things been different? It is folly! You did your best and it did not
answer–why rebel? To fix the eyes upon the second cause will irritate
the mind. We grow indignant with the more immediate agent of our grief
and so fail to submit ourselves to God. If you strike a dog he will
snap at the staff which hurts him, as if it were to blame. How doggish
we sometimes are, when God is smiting us we are snarling at His rod!
Brothers and Sisters, forgive the man who injured you–his was the sin,
forgive it, as you hope to be forgiven–but yours is the chastisement
and it comes from God, therefore endure it and ask Grace to profit you
by it. The more we get away from intermediate agents the better, for
when we reach to God, Grace will make submission easy. When we know "it
is the Lord," we readily cry, "let Him do what seems good to Him."

As long as I trace my pain to accident, my bereavement to mistake, my
loss to another's wrong, my discomfort to an enemy and so on, I am of
the earth, earthy–and shall break my teeth with gravel! But when I
rise to my God and see His hand at work, I grow calm, I have not a word
of repining, "I open not my mouth because You did it." David preferred
to fall into the hands of God–and every Believer knows that he feels
safest and happiest when he recognizes that he is in the Divine hands.
Quibbling with man is poor work, but pleading with God brings help and
comfort. "Cast your burden on the Lord" is a precept which will be easy
to practice when you see that the burden came originally from God.

But now, thirdly, afflicted children of God do well to have a keen eye
to the wrath that mingles with their troubles. "Your wrath lies hard
upon me." There is Heman's first point. He does not mention the waves
of affliction till he has first spoken of the wrath. We should labor to
discover what the Lord means by smiting us–what He purposes by the
chastisement–and how far we can answer that purpose. We must use a
keen eye clearly to distinguish things. There is an anger and an anger,
a wrath and a wrath. God is never angry with His children in one sense,
but He is in another. As men, we have all of us disobeyed the Laws of
God and God stands in relationship to all of us as a Judge. As a Judge,
He must execute upon us the penalties of His Law and He must, from the
necessity of His Nature, be angry with us for having broken that Law.
That concerns all the human race.

But the moment a man believes in the Lord Jesus Christ his offenses are
his offenses no longer–they are laid upon Christ Jesus, the
Substitute–and the anger goes with the sin. The anger of God towards
the sins of Believers has spent itself upon Christ. Christ has been
punished in their place. The punishment due their sin has been borne by
Jesus Christ. God forbid that the Judge of all the earth should ever be
unjust–it were not just for God to punish a Believer for a sin which
has been already laid upon Jesus Christ. Therefore the Believer is
altogether free from all liability to suffer the judicial anger of God
and all risk of receiving a punitive sentence from the Most High. The
man is absolved–shall he be judged again? The man has paid the
debt–shall he be brought a second time before the Judge as though he
were still a debtor?

Christ has stood for him in his place and therefore he boldly asks,
"Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that
justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes,
rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also makes intercession for us." Now, then, the Christian man takes up
another position–he is adopted into the family of God–he has become
God's child. He is under the Law of God's house. There is in every
house an economy, a law by which the children and servants are ruled.
If the child of God breaks the law of the house, the Father will visit
his offense with fatherly stripes–a very different kind of visitation
from that of a judge.

There are felons in prison today who, in a short time, will feel the
lash on their bare backs–that is one thing–but yonder disobedient
child is to receive a whipping from his father's hand–that is quite
another thing. Wide as the poles asunder are the anger of a judge and
the anger of a father. The father loves the child while he is angry and
is mainly angry for that very reason. If it were not his child he would
probably take no notice of fault. But because it is his own boy who has
spoken an untruth or committed an act of disobedience, he feels he must
chastise him because he loves him. This needs no further explanation.
There is a righteous anger in God's heart towards guilty impenitent
men. He feels none of that towards His people. He is their father and
if they transgress, He will visit them with stripes–not as a legal
punishment, since Christ has borne all that–but as a gentle paternal
chastisement, that they may see their folly and repent of it–and
awakened by His tender hand, they may turn unto their Father and amend
their ways.

Now, child of God, if you are suffering today in any way
whatever–whether from the ills of poverty or bodily sickness, or
depression of spirits–remember there is not a drop of the judicial
anger of God in it all. You are not being punished for your sins as a
judge punishes a culprit–never believe such false doctrine! It is
clean contrary to the Truth of God as it is in Jesus. Gospel doctrine
tells us that our sins were numbered on the Great Scapegoat's head of
old and carried away once and for all, never to be charged against us
again. But we must use the eyes of our judgment in looking at our
present affliction to see and confess how richly, as children, we
deserve the rod.

Go back to the time since you were converted, dear Brother and Sister,
and consider–do you wonder that God has chastened you? Speaking for
myself, I wonder that I have ever escaped the rod at any time! If I had
been compelled to say, "All the day long have I been plagued and
chastened every morning," I should not have marveled, for my
shortcomings are many. How ungrateful have we been! How unloving and
how unlovable! How false to our holiest vows! How unfaithful to our
most sacred consecrations! Is there a single ordinance over which we
have not sinned? Did we ever rise from our knees without having
offended while at prayer? Did we ever get through a hymn without some
wandering of mind or coldness of heart? Did we ever read a chapter
which we might not have wept over because we did not receive the Truth
in the love of it into our soul as we ought to have done? O, good
Father, if we smart, richly do we deserve that we should yet smart
again!

When you have confessed your sins, let me exhort you to use those same
eyes zealously to search out the particular sin which has caused the
present chastisement. "Oh," says one, "I do not think I should ever
find it out." You might.

Perhaps it lies at the very door. I do not wonder that some Christians
suffer–I should wonder if they did not! I have seen them, for
instance, neglect family prayer and other household duties and their
sons have grown up to dishonor them. If they cry out, "What an
affliction," we would not like to say, "Ah, but you might have expected
it. You were the cause of it"–but such a saying would be true. When
children have left the parental roof and gone into sin, we have not
been surprised when the father has been harsh, sour and crabbed in
temper. We did not expect to gather figs from thorns, or grapes from
thistles. We have seen men whose only thought was, "Get money, get
money," and yet they have professed to be Christians! Such persons have
been fretful and unhappy, but we have not been astonished. Would you
have the Lord deal liberally with such surly ill-tempered persons? No,
if they walk stubbornly with Him, He will show Himself stubborn to
them. Brother, the roots of your troubles may run under your doorstep
where your sin lies. Search and look!

But sometimes the cause of the chastisement lies further off. Every
surgeon will tell you that there are diseases which become troublesome
in the prime of life, or in old age, which may have been occasioned in
youth by some wrong doing, or by accident–and the evil may have lain
latent all those years. So may the sins of our youth bring upon us the
sorrows of our riper years–faults and omissions of 20 years ago may
scourge us today. I know it is so. If the fault may be of so great an
age, it should lead us to more thorough search and more frequent
prayer. Bunyan tells us that Christian met with Apollyon and had such a
dark journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death because of slips
he made when going down the hill into the Valley of Humiliation.

It may be so with us. Perhaps when you were young you were very
untender towards persons of a sorrowful spirit. You are such yourself
now–your harshness is visited upon you. It may be that when in better
circumstances, you were known to look down upon the poor and despise
the needy–your pride is chastened now. Many a minister has helped to
injure another by believing a bad report against him and, by-and-by, he
has, himself, been the victim of slander. "With what measure you mete,
it shall be measured to you again." We have seen men who could ride the
high horse among their fellow creatures and speak very loftily–and
when they have been brought very, very low–we have understood the
riddle. God will visit His children's transgressions. He will
frequently let common sinners go on throughout life unrebuked–but not
so His children!

If you were going today and saw a number of boys throwing stones and
breaking windows, you might not interfere with them. But if you saw
your own lad among them, I will be bound you would fetch him out and
make him repent of it. If God sees sinners going on in their evil ways,
He may not punish them now–He will deal out justice to them in another
state. But if it is one of His own elect, He will be sure to make him
rue the day. Perhaps the reason of your trouble may not be a sin
committed but a duty neglected. Search and look–and see where you have
been guilty of omission. Is there a sacred ordinance which you have
neglected, or a doctrine you have refused to believe? Perhaps the
chastisement may be sent by reason of a sin as yet undeveloped–some
latent proneness to evil. The grief may be meant to unearth the sin,
that you may hunt it down.

Have you any idea of what a devil you are by nature? None of us know
what we are capable of if left by Divine Grace. We think we have a
sweet temper, an amiable disposition! We shall see!! We fall into
provoking company and are so teased and insulted–and so cleverly
touched in our raw places that we become mad with wrath–and our fine
amiable temper vanishes in smoke, not without leaving blacks behind! Is
it not a dreadful thing to be so stirred up? Yes it is, but if our
hearts were pure, no sort of stirring would pollute them. Stir pure
water as long as you like and no mud will rise. The evil is bad when
seen, but it was quite as bad when not seen. It may be a great gain to
a man to know what sin is in him, for then he will humble himself
before his God and begin to combat his propensities. If he had never
seen the filth he would never have swept the house! If he had never
felt the pain the disease would have lurked within, but now that he
feels the pain he will fly to the remedy. Sometimes, therefore, a trial
may be sent that we may discern the sin which dwells in us and may seek
its destruction.

What shall we do, this morning, if we are under the smiting of God's
hand, but humble ourselves before Him and go as guilty ones desiring to
confess most thoroughly the particular sin which may have driven Him to
chastise us, appealing to the precious blood of Jesus for pardon and to
the Holy Spirit for power to overcome our sin? When you have so done
let me give one word of caution before I leave this point. Do not let
us expect, when we are in the trouble, to perceive any immediate
benefit resulting from it. I have tried, myself, when under sharp pain
to see whether I have grown a bit more resigned or more earnest in
prayer, or more rapt in fellowship with God–and I confess I have never
been able to see the slightest trace of improvement at such times–for
pain distracts and scatters the thoughts. Remember that word,
"Nevertheless, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of
righteousness."

The gardener takes his knife and prunes the fruit trees to make them
bring forth more fruit. His little child comes trudging at his heels
and cries, "Father, I do not see that the fruit comes on the trees
after you have cut them." No, dear child, it is not likely you would,
but come round in a few months when the season of fruit has come and
then shall you see the golden apples which thank the knife. Graces
which are meant to endure require time for their production and are not
thrust forth and ripened in a night. Were they so soon ripe they might
be as speedily rotten.

II. Now, as time is failing me, I will take up the second part of my
discourse and handle it with great brevity. I want to give a very short
EXPOSITION OF THE BENEFITS OF TROUBLE. This is a great subject. Many a
volume has been written upon it and it might suffice to repeat the
catalog of the benefits of trial, but I will not so detain you. Severe
trouble in a true Believer has the effect of loosening the roots of his
soul earthward and tightening the anchor-hold of his heart heavenward.
How can he love the world which has become so dear to him? Why should
he seek after grapes so bitter to his taste? Should he not, now, ask
for the wings of a dove that he may fly away to his own dear country
and be at rest forever?

Every mariner on the sea of life knows that when the soft zephyrs blow,
men tempt the open sea with outspread sails. But when the black tempest
comes howling from its den, they hurry with all speed to the haven.
Afflictions clip our wings with regard to earthly things so that we may
not fly away from our dear Master's hands but sit there and sing to
Him! But the same afflictions make our wings grow with regard to
heavenly things–we are feathered like eagles, we catch the soaring
spirit–a thorn is in our nest and we spread our pinions towards the
sun. Affliction frequently opens Truths of God to us and opens us to
the Truth of God–I know not which of these two is the more difficult.

Experience unlocks Truths which otherwise were closed against us. Many
passages of Scripture will never be made clear by the commentator–they
must be expounded by experience. Many a text is written in a secret ink
which must be held to the fire of adversity to make it visible. I have
heard that you see stars in a well when none are visible above ground
and I am sure you can discern many a starry Truth when you are down in
the deeps of trouble which would not be visible to you elsewhere.
Besides, I said it opened us to the Truth as well as the Truth to us.
We are superficial in our beliefs–we are often drenched with Truth and
yet it runs off us like water from a marble slab!

But affliction, as it were, plows us and sub-soils us and opens up our
hearts so that into our innermost nature the truth penetrates and soaks
like rain into plowed land. Blessed is that man who receives the Truth
of God into his inmost self–he shall never lose it, but it shall be
the life of his spirit. Affliction, when sanctified by the Holy Spirit,
brings much glory to God out of Christians through their experience of
the Lord's faithfulness to them. I delight to hear an aged Christian
giving his own personal testimony of the Lord's goodness. Vividly upon
my mind flashes an event of some 25 years ago. It is before me as if it
had occurred yesterday, when I saw a venerable man of 80, gray and
blind with age, and heard him in simple accents–simple as the language
of a child–tell how the Lord had led him and had dealt well with him
so that no good thing had failed of all that God had promised. He spoke
as though he were a Prophet, his years lending force to his words. But
suppose he had never known a trial? What testimony could he have borne?
Had he been lapped in luxury and never endured suffering he might have
stood there dumb and have been as useful as if he had never spoke. We
must be tried or we cannot magnify the faithful God who will not leave
His people!

Again, affliction gives us, through Grace, the inestimable privilege of
conformity to the Lord Jesus. We pray to be like Christ, but how can we
be if we are not men of sorrows and never become the acquaintance of
grief? Like Christ and yet never traverse through the vale of tears?
Like Christ and yet have all that heart could wish? Like Christ and
never bear the contradiction of sinners against yourself? Like Christ
and never say, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death"? O,
Sir, you know not what you ask! Have you said, "Let me sit on Your
right hand in Your kingdom?" It cannot be granted to you unless you
will also drink of His cup and be baptized with His Baptism! A share of
His sorrow must precede a share of His Glory. O, if we are ever to be
like Christ, to dwell with Him eternally, we may be well content to
pass through much tribulation in order to attain to it!

Once more, our sufferings are of great service to us when God blesses
them, for they help us to be useful to others. It must be a terrible
thing for a man never to have suffered physical pain. You say, "I
should like to be the man"? Ah, unless you had extraordinary Grace, you
would grow hard and cold–you would get to be a sort of cast-iron
man–breaking other people with your touch. No, let my heart be tender,
even be soft if it must be softened by pain, for I would rather know
how to bind up my fellow's wounds. Let my eyes have a tear ready for my
brother's sorrows even if in order to that I should have to shed 10,000
of my own. An escape from suffering would be an escape from the power
to sympathize and that were to be deprecated beyond all things!

Luther was right when he said affliction was the best book in the
minister's library. How can the man of God sympathize with the
afflicted ones if he knows nothing at all about their troubles? I
remember a hard, miserly churl who said that the minister ought to be
very poor so that he might have sympathy with the poor. I told him I
thought he ought to have a turn at being very rich, too, so that he
might have sympathy with the very rich! And I suggested to him that
perhaps, upon the whole, it would be handiest to keep him somewhere in
the middle that he might the more easily range over the experience of
all classes. If the man of God who is to minister to others could be
always robust, it were, perhaps, a loss. If he could be always sickly
it might be equally so–but for the pastor to be able to range through
all the places where the Lord suffers His sheep to go–is doubtless to
the advantage of His flock.

And what it is to ministers, it will be to each one of you according to
his calling, for the consolation of the people of God. Be thankful
then, dear Brethren, be thankful for trouble! And above all be thankful
because it will soon be over and we shall be in the land where these
things will be spoken of with great joy. As soldiers show their scars
and talk of battles when they come, at last, to spend their old age in
the country home, so shall we in the dear land to which we are
hastening, speak of the goodness and faithfulness of God which brought
us through all the trials of the way! I would not like to stand in that
white-robed host and hear it said, "These are they that come out of
great tribulation, all except that one." Would you like to be there to
see yourself pointed at as the one saint who never knew a sorrow? O no,
for you would be an alien in the midst of the sacred brotherhood! We
will be content to share the battle, for we shall soon wear the crown
and wave the palm.

I know that while I am preaching some of you have said, "Ah, these
people of God have a hard time of it." So have you. The ungodly do not
escape from sorrow by their sin. I never heard of a man escaping from
poverty through being a spendthrift. I never heard of a man who escaped
from headache or heartache by drunkenness–or from bodily pain by
licentiousness. I have heard the opposite! And if there are griefs to
the holy there are others for you. Only mark this, ungodly ones, mark
this–for you these things work no good! You pervert them to
mischief–but for the saints, they work eternal benefit! For you your
sorrows are punishments. For you they are the first drops of the red
hail that shall fall upon you forever. They are not so to the child of
God. You are punished for your transgressions–he is not.

And let us tell you, too, that if this day you happen to be in peace,
prosperity, plenty and happiness–yet there is not one child of God
here, in the very deeps of trouble, that would change places with you
under any consideration whatever! He would sooner be God's dog and be
kicked under the table, than be the devil's darling and sit at meat
with him. "Let God do as He pleases," we say, "for while here we
believe our worst state to be better than your best." Do you think we
love God for what we get out of Him and for nothing else? Is that your
notion of a Christian's love to God? We read in Jeremiah of certain
ones who said they would not leave off worshipping the Queen of Heaven.
"For when," they said, "we worshipped the Queen of Heaven, we had bread
in plenty, but now we starve."

This is how the ungodly talk and that is what the devil thought was
Job's case. Said he–"Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not set a
hedge about him and all that he has?" The devil does not understand
real love and affection, but the child of God can tell the devil to his
face that he loves God if He covers him with sores and sets him on the
dunghill. And by God's good help he means to cling to God through
troubles ten-fold heavier than those he has had to bear, should they
come upon him. Is He not a blessed God? Yes, let the beds of our
sickness ring with it–He is a blessed God! In the night watches, when
we are weary and our brain is hot and fevered, and our soul is
distracted, we yet confess that He is a blessed God! Every ward of the
hospital where Believers are found should echo with that note!

"A blessed God?" "Yes, that He is," say the poor and needy here this
morning and so say all God's poor throughout all the land. "A blessed
God?" "Yes," say His dying people, "as He slays us we will bless His
name. He loves us and we love Him and, though all His waves go over us
and His wrath lies sorely upon us, we would not change with kings on
their thrones if they are without the love of God."

O, Sinner, if God smites a child of His so heavily, He will smite you
one day! And if those He loves are made to smart, what will He do with
those who rebel against Him and hate Him? "Praise the Son, lest He be
angry and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a
little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." The Lord
bless you and bring you into the bonds of His Covenant, for Christ's
sake. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-Psalm 88.
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