January 6

Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: - Job 5:17.

CHRISTIANS should be able to derive this confidence with regard to their afflictions. Although “man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,” yet the believer is not only supported under his troubles, but he derives some of his choicest mercies from them through the sanctifying influence by which they are often accompanied. If a person has no outward troubles, his heart may be filled with inward bitterness, which is known only to himself. Well, but while the cup of affliction is going round from family to family, and individual to individual, while one is saying, “I am made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed me;” and while another is saying, “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness;” he may find these afflictions to be very salutary. They may be so sanctified to us as to subserve and promote the very purpose of our salvation; and they are much more likely to do so than our successes.

The Christian’s character is far more formed from his trials than his indulgences. “Blessed is the man who endureth temptation.” How many can bear similar testimony to David as to the benefits of affliction!-“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept thy word.” How many have found in “the valley of Achor” a “door of hope;” having met God at first in the chamber of sickness. “Oh,” says one, “if it had not been for these trials and bodily infirmities, I might have gone further from God. I might have lived according to the course of this world, and perished at last along with it.” “Blessed,” says David, “is the man whom thou chasteneth, and teachest out of thy law.” Nor did he speak from reason or faith only, but from experience. Luther says, “I never knew the meaning of the word till I was afflicted.” “We fear,” says Bishop Hall, “our best friends. For my part, I have learned more of God and myself in one week’s extremity, than the prosperity of a whole life had taught me before.”

If the vine had reason, it would be thankful for the sharpest cutting of the gardener’s knife; or if the fallow ground had reason, it would be thankful for the ploughshare which tears it up, and is prepared by this process for the reception of the seed. Oh, to be able to say in our trouble, I know that these trials are “working for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Oh, what to the believer are all the afflictions of the present time, compared with the glory that shall be revealed in them?

What are all outward losses to those who can say, I “have in heaven a better and an enduring substance”?