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Charles Spurgeon’s Text by Frank Boreham

January 2, 2010 by ADMIN

Frank Boreham was a pastor in New Zealand and Australia in the late 1800s and early 1900s. One Sunday evening, he began a series of sermons entitled, “Texts That Made History.” He began that first Sunday with “Martin Luther’s Text,” and continued the series for 125 Sundays!

This article deals with Charles Spurgeon’s text. Spurgeon was perhaps the greatest preacher of the nineteenth century. Through his ministry, many thousands were led to Christ and hundreds of preachers were trained for the gospel ministry. Boreham’s message here focuses on the text used in Spurgeon’s conversion.

I

SNOW! Snow! Snow!

It was the first Sunday of the New Year, and this was how it opened! On roads and footpaths the snow was already many inches deep; the fields were a sheet of blinding whiteness; and the flakes were still falling as though they never meant to stop. As the caretaker fought his way through the storm from his cottage to the chapel in Artillery Street, he wondered whether, on such a wild and wintry day, anyone would venture out. It would be strange if, on the very first Sunday morning of the year, there should be no service. He unbolted the chapel doors and lit the furnace under the stove.

Half an hour later, two men were seen bravely trudging their way through the snowdrifts; and, as they stood on the chapel steps, their faces flushed with their recent exertions, they laughingly shook the snow from off their hats and overcoats. What a morning, to be sure! By eleven o’clock about a dozen others had arrived; but where was the minister? They waited; but he did not come. He lived at a distance, and, in all probability, had found the roads impassable.

What was to be done? The stewards looked at each other and surveyed the congregation. Except for a boy of fifteen sitting under the gallery, every face was known to them, and the range of selection was not great. There were whisperings and hasty consultations, and at last one of the two men who were first to arrive — “a poor, thin-looking man, a shoemaker, a tailor, or something of that sort” — yielded to the murmured entreaties of the others and mounted the pulpit steps. He glanced nervously round upon nearly three hundred empty seats. Nearly, but not quite! For there were a dozen or fifteen of the regular worshippers present, and there was the boy sitting under the gallery. People who had braved such a morning deserved all the help that he could give them, and the strange boy under the gallery ought not to be sent back into the storm feeling that there was nothing in the service for him. And so the preacher determined to make the most of his opportunity; and he did.

The boy sitting under the gallery! A marble tablet now adorns the wall near the seat which he occupied that snowy day. The inscription records that, that very morning, the boy sitting under the gallery was converted! He was only fifteen, and he died at fifty-seven. But, in the course of the intervening years, he preached the gospel to millions and led thousands and thousands into the kingdom and service of Jesus Christ. “Let preachers study this story!” says Sir William Robertson Nicoll. “Let them believe that, under the most adverse circumstances, they may do a work that will tell on the universe for ever. It was a great thing to have converted Charles Haddon Spurgeon; and who knows but he may have in the smallest and humblest congregation in the world some lad as well worth converting as was he?”

II

Snow! Snow! Snow!

The boy sitting under the gallery had purposed attending quite another place of worship that Sunday morning. No thought of the little chapel in Artillery Street occurred to him as he strode out into the storm. Not that he was very particular. Ever since he was ten years of age he had felt restless and ill at ease whenever his mind turned to the things that are unseen and eternal. “I had been about five years in the most fearful distress of mind,” he says. “I thought the sun was blotted out of my sky, that I had so sinned against God that there was no hope for me!” He prayed, but never had a glimpse of an answer. He attended every place of worship in the town; but no man had a message for a youth who only wanted to know what he must do to be saved.

With the first Sunday of the New Year, he purposed making yet another of these ecclesiastical experiments. But in making his plans he had not reckoned on the ferocity of the storm. “I sometimes think,” he said; years afterwards, “I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair now, had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm on Sunday morning, January 6th, 1850, when I was going to a place of worship. When I could go no further I turned down a court and came to a little Primitive Methodist chapel.” Thus the strange boy sitting under the gallery came to be seen by the impromptu speaker that snowy morning. Thus, as so often happens, a broken program pointed the path of destiny! Who says that two wrongs can never make a right? Let them look at this! The plans at the chapel went wrong; the minister was snowed in. The plans of the boy under the gallery went wrong: the snowstorm shut him off from the church of his choice. Those two wrongs together made one tremendous right; for out of those shattered plans and programs came an event that has incalculably enriched mankind.

III

Snow! Snow! Snow!

And the very snow seemed to mock his misery. It taunted him as he walked to church that morning. Each virgin snowflake as it fluttered before his face and fell at his feet only emphasized the dreadful pollution within. “My original and inward pollution!” he cries with Bunyan; “I was more loathsome in mine own eyes than a toad. Sin and corruption would as naturally bubble out of my heart as water out of a fountain. I thought that every one had a better heart than I had. At the sight of my own vileness I fell deeply into despair.”

These words of Bunyan’s exactly reflect, he tells us, his own secret and spiritual history. And the white, white snow only intensified the agonizing consciousness of defilement. “I counted the estate of everything that God had made far better than this dreadful state of mind was: yea, gladly would I have been in the condition of a dog or a horse; for I knew they had no souls to perish under the weight of sin as mine was like to do.” “Many and many a time,” says Mr. Thomas Spurgeon, “my father told me that, in those early days, he was so storm-tossed and distressed by reason of his sins that he found himself envying the very beasts in the field and the toads by the wayside!” So storm-tossed! The storm that raged around him that January morning was in perfect keeping with the storm within; but oh, for the whiteness, the pure, unsullied whiteness, of the failing snow!

IV

Snow! Snow! Snow!

From out of that taunting panorama of purity the boy passed into the cavernous gloom of the almost empty building. Its leaden heaviness matched the mood of his spirit, and he stole furtively to a seat under the gallery. He noticed the long pause; the anxious glances which the stewards exchanged with each other; and, a little later, the whispered consultations. He watched curiously as the hastily-appointed preacher — “a shoemaker or something of that sort” — awkwardly ascended the pulpit. “The man was,” Mr. Spurgeon tells us, “really stupid as you would say. He was obliged to stick to his text for the simple reason that he had nothing else to say. His text was, “Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in the text, and I listened as though my life depended upon what I heard. In about ten minutes the preacher had got to the end of his tether.

Then he saw me sitting under the gallery; and I dare say, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. He then said: “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance. However, it was a good blow, well struck. He continued: “And you will always be miserable — miserable in life, and miserable in death — if you do not obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved!” Then he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist can shout, “Young man, look to Jesus! look, look, look!”

I did; and, then and there, the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun! I could have risen on the instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ and of the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me before! In their own earnest way, they sang a Hallelujah before they went home, and I joined in it!”

The snow around!

The defilement within!

“Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth!”

“Precious blood . . . and simple faith!”

“I sang a Hallelujah!”

V

Snow! Snow! Snow!

The snow was failing as fast as ever when the boy sitting under the gallery rose and left the building. The storm raged just as fiercely. And yet the snow was not the same snow! Everything was changed.

Mr. Moody has told us that, on the day of his conversion, all the birds in the hedgerow seemed to be singing newer and blither songs. Dr. G. Campbell Morgan declares that the very leaves on the trees appeared to him more beautiful on the day that witnessed the greatest spiritual crisis in his career. “I was now so taken with the love of God,” says Bunyan — and here again Mr. Spurgeon says that the words might have been his own — “I was now so taken with the love and mercy of God that I could not tell how to contain till I got home. I thought I could have spoken of His love, and told of His mercy, even to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable of understanding me.”

As the boy from under the gallery walked home that morning he laughed at the storm, and the snow that had mocked him coming sang to him as he returned. “The snow was lying deep,” he says, “and more was falling. But those words of David kept ringing through my heart, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow!” It seemed to me as if all Nature was in accord with the blessed deliverance from sin which I had found in a moment by looking to Jesus Christ!”

“I was now so taken with the love of God,” says Bunyan — and here again Mr. Spurgeon says that the words might have been his own — “I was now so taken with the love and mercy of God that I could not tell how to contain till I got home. I thought I could have spoken of His love, and told of His mercy, even to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable of understanding me.”

As the boy from under the gallery walked home that morning he laughed at the storm, and the snow that had mocked him coming sang to him as he returned. “The snow was lying deep,” he says, “and more was falling. But those words of David kept ringing through my heart, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow!” It seemed to me as if all Nature was in accord with the blessed deliverance from sin which I had found in a moment by looking to Jesus Christ!”

Whiter than snow! Whiter than the snow!

Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow!

VI

Look unto me and be ye saved!

Look! Look! Look!

I look to my doctor to heal me when I am hurt; I look to my lawyer to advise me when I am perplexed; I look to my tradesman to bring me my daily supplies to my door; but there is only One to whom I can look when my soul cries out for deliverance.

Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth!

“Look! Look! Look!” cried the preacher.

“I looked ,” says Mr. Spurgeon, “until I could almost have looked my eyes away; and in heaven I will look still, in joy unutterable!”

Happily the preacher, however unlettered, who knowing little else, knows how to direct such wistful and hungry eyes to the only possible fountain of satisfaction!

Edited and excerpted from Frank Boreham’s Life Verses.

The current formatting and editing is copyrighted by Jim Ehrhard, 1999. You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author; (2) any modifications are clearly marked; (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction; and (4) you do not make more than 100 copies without permission. If you would like to post this material to your web site or make any use other than as defined above, please contact Teaching Resources International

Posted in Frank Boreham |

The Suffering Christian and the Holy Spirit by A. W. Pink

January 2, 2010 by ADMIN

A child of God oppressed, suffering sorely, often driven to his wit’s end–what a strange thing! A joint-heir with Christ financially embarrassed, poor in this world’s goods, wondering where his next meal is coming from–what an anomaly! An object of the Father’s everlasting love, and distinguishing favor tossed up and down upon a sea of trouble, with every apparent prospect of his frail boat capsizing–what a perplexity!

One who has been regenerated and is now indwelt by the Holy Spirit daily harassed by Satan, and frequently overcome by indwelling sin–what an enigma! Loved by the Father, redeemed by the Son, his body made the temple of the Holy Spirit, yet left in this world year after year to suffer affliction and persecution, to mourn and groan over innumerable failures, to encounter one trial after another, often to be placed in far less favorable circumstances than the wicked; to sigh and cry for relief, yet for sorrow and suffering to increase–what a mystery! What Christian has not felt the force of it, and been baffled by its inscrutability.

Now it was to cast light upon this pressing problem of the sorely tried believer that Romans 8 was written. There the apostle was moved to show that “the sufferings of this present time” (v.18) are not inconsistent with the special favor and infinite love which God bears unto His people.

First, because by those sufferings the Christian is brought into personal and experimental fellowship with the sufferings of Christ (Romans 8:17; cf. Phillipians 3:10).

Second, severe and protracted as our afflictions may be, yet there is an immeasurable disproportion between our present sufferings and the future Glory (Romans 8:18-23).

Third, our very sufferings provide occasion for the exercise of hope and the development of patience (Romans 8:24,25).

Fourth, Divine aids and supports are furnished us under our afflictions (Romans 8:26,27) and it is these we would now consider.

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities” (Romans 8:26). Not only does “hope” (a sure expectation of God’s making good his promises) support and cheer the suffering saint, leading him to patiently wait for deliverance from his afflictions, but the blessed Comforter has also been given to him in order to supply help to this very end.

By His gracious aid, the believer is preserved from being totally submerged by his doubts and fears.

By His renewing operations, the spark of faith is maintained, despite all the fierce winds of Satan which assail.

By His mighty enabling, the sorely harassed and groaning Christian is kept from sinking into complete skepticism, abject despair; and infidelity.

By His quickening power, hope is still kept alive, and the voice of prayer is still faintly heard.

And how is the gracious help of the Spirit manifested? Thus: seeing the Christian bowed down by oppression and depression, His compassion is called forth, and He strengthens with His might in the inner man. Every Christian is a living witness to the truth of this, though he may not be conscious of the Divine process.

Why is it, my afflicted brother, my distressed sister, that you have not made shipwreck of your profession long ere this?

What has kept you from heeding that repeated temptation of Satan’s to totally abandon the good tight of faith?

Why has not your manifold “infirmities” annihilated your faith, extinguished your hope, and cast a pall of unrelieved gloom upon the future?

The answer is, because the blessed Spirit silently, invisibly, yet sympathetically and effectually helped you.

Some precious promise was sealed to your heart,

Some comforting view of Christ was presented to your soul,

Some whisper of love was breathed into your ear;

And the pressure upon your spirit was reduced, your grief was assuaged, and fresh courage possessed you.

Here, then, is real light cast upon the problem of a suffering Christian, the most perplexing feature of that problem being how to harmonize sore sufferings with the love of God. But if God had ceased to care for His child, then He had deserted him, left him to himself. Very far from this, though, is the actual case: the Divine Comforter is given to help his infirmities.

Here, too, is the sufficient answer to an objection which the carnal mind is ready to make against the inspired reasoning of the apostle in the context: How can we who are so weak in ourselves, so inferior in power to the enemies confronting us, bear up under our trials which are so numerous, so protracted, so crushing? We could not, and therefore Divine grace has provided for us an all-sufficient Helper. Without His aid we had long since succumbed, mastered by our trials. Hope looks forward to the Glory to come; in the weary interval of waiting, the Spirit supports our poor hearts and keeps grace alive within us.

The current formatting and editing is copyrighted by Jim Ehrhard, 1999. You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author; (2) any modifications are clearly marked; (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction; and (4) you do not make more than 100 copies without permission. If you would like to post this material to your web site or make any use other than as defined above, please contact Teaching Resources International

Posted in A. W. Pink |

How We Ought to Think about God’s Providence by Thomas Boston

January 2, 2010 by ADMIN

1. Beware of drawing an excuse for your sin from the providence of God. . . .

for it is most holy, and is in no way any cause of any sin you commit. Every sin is an act of rebellion against God; a breach of his holy law, and deserves his wrath and curse; and therefore cannot be authorized by an infinitely-holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity without detestation and abhorrence. Though he has by a permissive decree allowed moral evil to be in the world, yet that has no influence on the sinner to commit it. For it is not the fulfilling of God’s decree, which is an absolute secret to every mortal, but the gratification of their own lusts and perverse inclinations, that men intend and mind in the commission of sin.

2. Beware of murmuring and fretting under any dispensations of providence that you meet with; remembering that nothing falls out without a wise and holy providence, which knows best what is fit and proper for you. And in all cases, even in the middle of the most fflicting incidents that happen to you, learn submission to the will of God, as Job did, when he said upon the end of a series of the heaviest calamities that happened to him, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). In the most distressing ease, say with the disciples, “The will of the Lord be done” (Acts 21:14).

3. Beware of anxious cares and fearfulness about your material well-being in the world.

This our Lord has cautioned his followers against (Matt. 6:31). “Take no thought, (that is, anxious and perplexing thought,) saying, what shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall we be clothed?” Never let the fear of man stop you from duty (Matt. 10:28, 29); but let your souls learn to trust in God,who guides and superintends all the events and administrations of providence, by whatever hands they are performed.

4. Do not think little of means, seeing God works by them.

And he that has appointed the end, orders the means necessary for gaining the end. Do not rely upon means, for they can do nothing without God (Matt. 4:4). Do not despair if there be no means, for God can work without them, as well as with them (Hosea 1:7). “I will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” If the means be unlikely, he can work above them (Rom. 4:19). “He considered not his own body now dead, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.” If the means be contrary, he can work by contrary means, as he saved Jonah by the whale that devoured him. That fish swallowed up the prophet, but by the direction of providence, it vomited him out upon dry land.

Lastly, Happy is the people whose God is the Lord: for all things shall work together for their good.

They may sit secure in exercising faith upon God, come what will. They have good reason for prayer; for God is a prayer-hearing God, and will be inquired of by his people as to all their concerns in the world. And they have ground for the greatest encouragement and comfort in the middle of all the events of providence, seeing they are managed by their covenant God and gracious friend, who will never neglect or overlook his dear people, and whatever concerns them. For he has said, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5).

The current formatting and editing is copyrighted by Jim Ehrhard, 1999. You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author; (2) any modifications are clearly marked; (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction; and (4) you do not make more than 100 copies without permission. If you would like to post this material to your web site or make any use other than as defined above, please contact

Posted in Thomas Boston |

Suffering Compensated by A. W. Pink

January 2, 2010 by ADMIN

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” ROMANS 8:18

Ah, says someone, that must have been written by a man who was a stranger to suffering, or by one acquainted with nothing more trying than the milder irritations of life. Not so. These words were penned under the direction of the Holy Spirit, and by one who drank deeply of sorrow’s cup, yea, by one who suffered afflictions in their acutest forms. Hear his own testimony: “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of robbers, in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in castings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Cor. 11:24-27).

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” This, then was the settled Conviction not of one of “fortune’s favorites,” not of one who found life’s journey a carpeted pathway, bordered with roses, but, instead, of one who was hated by his kinsmen, who was oft-times beaten black and blue, who knew what it was to be deprived not only of the comforts but the bare necessities of life flow, then shall we account for his cheery optimism? What was the secret of his elevation over his troubles and trials?

The first thing with which the sorely-tried apostle comforted himself was that the sufferings of the Christian are but of brief duration–they are limited to “this present time.” This is in sharp and solemn contrast from the sufferings of the Christ-rejecter– his sufferings will be eternal: forever tormented in the lake of Fire. But far different is it for the believer. His sufferings are restricted to this life on earth, which is compared to a flower that cometh forth and is cut down, to a shadow that fleeth and continueth not. A few short years at most, and we shall pass from this vale of tears into that blissful country where groans and sighs are never heard.

Second, the apostle looked forward with the eye of faith to “the glory.” To Paul “the glory” was something more than a beautiful dream. It was a practical reality, exerting a powerful influence upon him, consoling him in the warmest and most trying hours of adversity. This is one of the real tests of faith. The Christian has a solid support in the time of affliction, when the unbeliever has not. The child of God knows that in his Father’s presence there is “fullness of joy,” and that at His right hand there are “pleasures forever more.” And faith lays hold of them, appropriates them, and lives in the comforting cheer of them even now. Just as Israel in the wilderness were encouraged by a sight of what awaited them in the promised land (Num. 13:23-26), so, the one who today walks by faith, and not by sight, contemplates that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, but which God by His Holy Spirit hath revealed unto us (1 Cor. 2:9-10).

Third, the apostle rejoiced in “the glory which should be revealed in us.” All that this means we are not yet capable of understanding. But more than a hint has been vouchsafed us. There will be:

(a) The “glory” of a perfect body. In that day this corruption shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal, immortality. That which was sown in dishonor shall be raised in glory, and that which was sown in weakness shall be raised in power. As we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (1 Cor. 15:49). The content of these expressions is summarized and amplified in Phil. 3:20-21: “For our conservation is in heaven: from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.”

(b) There will be the glory of a transformed mind. “For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor. 13:12). 0h what an orb of intellectual light will be each glorified mind! What range of light will it encompass! What capability of understanding will it enjoy! Then will all mysteries be unraveled, all problems solved, all discrepancies reconciled. Then shall each truth of God’s revelation, each event of His providence, each decision of His government, stand yet more transparently clear and resplendent than the sun itself. Do you, in your present quest for spiritual knowledge, mourn the darkness of your mind, the weakness of your memory, the limitations of your intellectual faculties? Then rejoice in hope of the glory that is to be revealed in you–when all your intellectual powers shall be renewed, developed, perfected, so that you shall know even as you are known.

(c) Best of all, there will be the glory of perfect holiness. God’s work of grace in us will then be completed. He has promised to “perfect that which concerneth us” (Psa. 138:8). Then will be the consummation of purity. We have been predestined to be “conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29), and when we shall see Him, “we shall be like him” (I John 3:2). Then our minds will be no more defiled by evil imaginations, our consciences no more sullied by a sense of guilt, our affections no more ensnared by unworthy objects.

What a marvelous prospect is this! A “glory” to be revealed in me who now can scarcely reflect a solitary ray of light! In me–so wayward, so unworthy, so sinful; living so little in communion with Him who is the Father of lights! Can it be that in me this glory shall be revealed? So affirms the infallible Word of God. If I am a child of light–through being “in Him” who is the effulgence of the Father’s glory–even though now dwelling amid the world’s dark shades, one day I shall outshine the brightness of the firmament. And when the Lord Jesus returns to this earth, he shall “be admired in all them that believe” (II Thess. 1:10).

Finally, the apostle here weighed the “sufferings” of this present time over against the “glory” which shall be revealed in us, and as he did so he declared that the one is “not worthy to be compared” with the other. The one is transient, the other eternal. As, then, there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite, so there is no comparison between the sufferings of earth and the glory of heaven.

One second of glory will outweigh a lifetime of suffering. What were the years of toil, of sickness, of battling with poverty, of sorrow in any or every form, when compared with the glory of’ Immanuel’s land! One draught of the river of pleasure at God’s right hand, one breath of Paradise, one hour amid the blood-washed around the throne, shall more than compensate for all the tears and groans of earth. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” May the Holy Spirit enable both writer and reader to lay hold of this with appropriating faith and live in the present possession and enjoyment of it to the praise of the glory of Divine grace.

From Comfort for Christians (edited and excerpted).

The current formatting and editing is copyrighted by Jim Ehrhard, 1999. You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author; (2) any modifications are clearly marked; (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction; and (4) you do not make more than 100 copies without permission. If you would like to post this material to your web site or make any use other than as defined above, please contact Teaching Resources International

Posted in A. W. Pink |

Suffering and Consolation by C. H. Spurgeon

January 2, 2010 by ADMIN

As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so the consolations of Christ abound. Here is a blessed proportion: God always keeps a pair of scales–in this side he puts his people’s trials and in that he puts their consolations. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation nearly in the same condition; and when the scale of trials is full, you will find the scale of consolation just as heavy; for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, even so shall consolation abound by Christ. This is a matter of pure experience. Oh, it is mysterious that when the black clouds gather most, the light within us is always the brightest! When the night lowers and the tempest is coming on, the heavenly captain is always closest to his crew. It is a blessed thing, when we are most cast down, then it is that we are most lifted up by the consolations of Christ.

Trials make more room for consolation. There is nothing that makes a man have a big heart like a great trial. I always find that little, miserable people, whose hearts are about the size of a grain of mustard-seed, never have had too much to try them. I have found that those people who have no sympathy for their fellows–who never weep for the sorrows of others–very seldom have had any woes of their own. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. The spade of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper, and makes more room for consolation. God comes into our heart–he finds it full–he begins to break our comforts and to make it empty; then there is more room for grace. The humbler a man lies, the more comfort he will always have.

I recollect walking with a ploughman, one day, a man who was deeply taught, although he was a ploughman–and really plough men would make a great deal better preachers than many college gentlemen–and he said to me, “Depend upon it, if you or I ever get one inch above the ground we shall get just that inch too high.” I believe it is true; for the lower we lie, the nearer to the ground we are–the more our troubles humble us–the more fit we are to receive comfort; and God always gives us comfort when we are most fit for it. That is one reason why consolations increase in the same ratio as our trials.

Then trouble exercises our graces, and the very exercise of our graces tends to make us more comfortable and happy. Where showers fall most, there the grass is greenest. I suppose the fogs and mists of Ireland make it “the Emerald Isle;” and wherever you find great fogs of trouble, and mists of sorrow, you always find emerald green hearts; full of the beautiful verdure of the comfort and love of God. 0h Christian, do not thou be saying, “where are the swallows gone? they are gone they are dead.” They are not dead; they have skimmed the purple sea, and gone to a far-off land; but they will be back again by-and-by. Child of God, say not the flowers are dead; say not the winter has killed them, and they are gone. Ah! no; though winter bath coated them with the ermine of its snow; they will put up their heads again, and will be alive very soon. Say not, child of God, that the sun is quenched, because the cloud hath hidden it. Ah! no; he is behind there, brewing summer for thee; for when he cometh out again, he will have made the clouds fit to drop in April showers, all of them mothers of the sweet May flowers. And oh! above all, when thy God hides His face, say not that He has forgotten thee. He is but tarrying a little while to make thee love Him better; and when He cometh, thou shalt have joy in the Lord, and shalt rejoice with joy unspeakable. Waiting exercises our grace; waiting tries our faith; therefore, wait on in hope: for though the promise tarry, it can never come too late.

Another reason why we are often most happy in our troubles is this–then we have the closest dealings with God. I speak from heart knowledge and real experience. We never have such close dealings with God, as when we are in tribulation. When the barn is full, man can live without God; when the purse is bursting with gold, we somehow can do without so much prayer. But once take your gold away, you want your God; once cleanse away the idols out of the house, then you must go and honor Jehovah.

Some of you do not pray half as much as you ought. If you are the children of God, you will have the whip; and when you have that whip, you will run to your Father. It is a fine day, and the child walks before its father; but there is a lion in the road, now he comes and takes his father’s hand. He could run half-a-mile before him when all was fine and fair; but once bring the lion, and it is “father! father!” as close as he can be. It is even so with the Christian. Let all be well, and he forgets God. Jeshurun waxes fat, and he begins to kick against God; but take away his hopes, blast his joys, let the infant lie in the coffin, let the crops be blasted, let the herd be cut off from the stall, let the husband’s broad shoulder lie in the grave, let the children be fatherless–then it is that God is a God indeed. Oh, strip me naked; take from me all I have; make me poor, a beggar, penniless, helpless; dash that cistern in pieces; crush that hope; quench the stars; put out the sun; shroud the moon in darkness, and place me all alone in space, without a friend, without a helper; still, “Out of the depths will I cry unto thee, Oh God.” There is no cry so good as that which comes from the bottom of the mountains; no prayer half so hearty as that which comes up from the depths of the soul, through deep trials and afflictions. Hence they bring us to God, and we are happier; for that is the way to be happy–to live near God. So that while troubles abound, they drive us to God, and then consolations abound.

Some people call troubles weights. Verily they are so. A ship that has large sails and a fair wind, needs ballast. Troubles are the ballast of a believer. The eyes are the pumps which fetch out the bilge-water of his soul, and keep him from sinking. But if trials be weights, I will tell you of a happy secret. There is such a thing as making a weight lift you. If I have a weight chained to me, it keeps me down; but give me pulleys and certain appliances, and I can make it lift me up. Yes, there is such a thing as making troubles raise me towards heaven. A gentleman once asked a friend, concerning a beautiful horse of his, feeding about in the pasture with a clog on its foot, “why do you clog such a noble animal?” “Sir,” said he, “I would a great deal sooner clog him than lose him: he is given to leap hedges.” That is why God clogs his people. He would rather clog them than lose them; for if he did not clog them, they would leap the hedges and be gone. They want a tether to prevent their straying, and their God binds them with afflictions, to keep them near to him, to preserve them, and have them in his presence. Blessed fact–as our troubles abound, our consolations also abound.

The current formatting and editing is copyrighted by Jim Ehrhard, 1999. You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author; (2) any modifications are clearly marked; (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction; and (4) you do not make more than 100 copies without permission. If you would like to post this material to your web site or make any use other than as defined above, please contact Teaching Resources International

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