We also rejoice in our afflictions
because we know that affliction produces endurance. Endurance
produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. Romans 5 verses 3 and 4. The
chastisements of Christ are precious to those who believe. The believer's
love to Jesus Christ not only continues under the rod of correction,
but is quickened and increased by it. Thus it is distinguished
from that pretended love which exists only in times of prosperity. The afflicted Christian is enabled
to consider that whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges
every son whom He receives, and that He only afflicts us for
our profit, to make us partakers of His holiness. The Lord can
so manifest Himself to His afflicted people that the season of affliction
shall be to them a season of great consolation. He is to them
a fountain of life, of strength, of grace, and comfort in the
afflictive hour. Of His fullness they receive
as their necessities require. The Lord Jesus Christ is a sun
to enlighten and cheer his afflicted followers, and a shield to defend
them. He is a hiding place from the
storm, a covert from the tempest, and as the shadow of a great
rock in a dry and weary land. All the afflictions of God's
people are designed, under His gracious management, to test,
to make manifest, and to exercise those graces and virtues which
He has implanted in them. Though afflictions in themselves
are not joyous, but grievous, nevertheless they yield the peaceable
fruits of righteousness in those who are exercised thereby. Afflictions
serve to quicken the spirit of devotion in us, and to rouse
us from that formality and indifference which frequently attend a long
course of ease and prosperity. We are constrained to seek God
with sincerity and fervor when His chastening hand is upon us,
since we then feel our absolute need of that help and deliverance
which He alone can give us. When the loss of any temporal
enjoyment casts us into excessive despondency and dejection, it
is evident that what we have lost was the object of our inordinate
love. The most innocent attachments
cease to be innocent when they press too strongly upon us. To
cleave to any created object and to look for happiness from
it is to make an idol of it and to set it up in God's place. Should this object be a friend,
a brother, a wife, or a child, the idolatry is still odious
in the eyes of that God to whom we owe our chief affection. Our
warmest passions, our most fervent love, desires, hopes, and confidences
should always have God for their object. It is his desire that
our happiness should not center in any of the good things of
this life. Losses and disappointments are
the trials of our faith, our patience, and our obedience. When we are in the midst of prosperity,
it is difficult to know whether we have a love for our benefactor
or only for his benefits. It is in the midst of adversity
that our piety is put to the trial. Afflictions serve most
effectually to convince us of the vanity of all that this world
can afford, to remind us that this is not our rest, and to
stir up desires and hopes for our everlasting home. They produce
in us a spirit of sympathy towards our companions in tribulation. They give occasion for the exercise
of patience, meekness, submission, and resignation. Were it not
for the wholesome and necessary discipline of affliction, these
excellent virtues would lie dormant. Afflictions serve to convince
us more deeply of our own weakness and insufficiency, and to endear
the person, the grace, the promises, and the salvation of our Redeemer
more and more to our hearts. Thus we are taught to esteem
His very chastisements as precious, on account of the benefits we
derive from them. Afflictions are not to punish,
but to purify the believing soul. They are not in wrath, but in
mercy. Amidst the distresses and miseries
of life, it is a felicity to belong to Christ, without whose
permission and appointment no evil can befall us. He always
sends afflictions for our good, and knows by experience what
it is to suffer them. His kind hand will speedily put
an end to all the pains we feel when we have derived from them
all the good which He intends to do for us by them. How many, how suitable, how sovereign
are the supports our Heavenly Father affords to His afflicted
children. They make the affliction, which
in itself would seem heavy and tedious, appear to be light and
but for a moment It is happier to be in the furnace of affliction
with these supports than to be in the highest prosperity without
them. Blessed with the hopes and comforts
of Christ, the true Christian would prefer the lot of Lazarus,
with all the poverty and distress which he endured, to the lot
of the rich man, who, amidst all the splendor and affluence
which this world could afford, lived a life of alienation from
God, and destitute of the sovereign supports which can only be enjoyed
by those who love and fear him. This Puritan devotional has been
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