Afflictions!

(Charles Spurgeon)

"Many are the afflictions of the righteous." Psalm 34:19

"For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives!" Hebrews 12:6

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Health is the greatest temporal blessing that God ever sends us-besides sickness, which is far better.

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There is no attribute of God more comforting to His children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty.
Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles-they believe . . .
   that Sovereignty has ordained all their afflictions,
   that Sovereignty overrules them, and
   that Sovereignty will sanctify them all.

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I bear my witness that the worst days I have ever had, have turned out to be my best days. And when God has seemed most cruel to me, He has then been most kind. If there is anything in this world for which I would bless him more than for anything else-it is for pain and affliction. I am sure that in these things, the richest tenderest love has been manifested to me. Our Father's wagons rumble most heavily, when they are bringing us the richest freight of the bullion of His grace.

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Love letters from Heaven are often sent in black-edged envelopes!

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I have got more good out of my afflictions, than out of all my prosperity! I would not be without a cross for all the world!

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I have learned to kiss the stormy waves which throw me up against the Rock of Ages!

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Those who dive in the sea of affliction-bring up rare pearls!

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The Lord gets His best soldiers, out of the highlands of affliction.

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The tears of affliction, are often needed to keep the eye of faith bright.

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The best remedy for affliction, is submitting to God's providence.

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To be one of the Lord's saved ones-is joy enough to bear up the heart under every affliction!

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The discerning of the hand of God in all our afflictions, is a sweet lesson in the school of experience.

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What can't be cured, must be endured!

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As for any affliction that you ever can have to endure on earth, it is not merely light, it is absolutely unworthy of mention in comparison with the eternal woe that is the portion of the lost!

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The furnace of affliction is a good place for you, Christian.
It benefits you-it helps you to become more like Christ, and it is fitting you for Heaven.

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Our trials and troubles, afflictions and adversities-are among the best medicines of our Great Physician.

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Suffering is better than sinning. There is more evil in a drop of sin-than in an ocean of affliction!

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Some day you will thank God for all your afflictions.

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The most sympathizing, loving and Christlike-are generally those who have the most affliction.
The worse thing that can happen to any of us, is to have our path made too smooth.
One of the greatest blessings the Lord ever gives us, is a cross.

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It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me-to think . . .
   that I have an affliction which God never sent me,
   that the bitter cup was never filled by His hand,
   that my trials were never measured out by Him, nor
   sent to me by His arrangement of their weight and quantity.

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Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble. They must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction-otherwise we shall not truly receive them.

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The Lord's mercy often rides to the door of our heart, upon the black horse of affliction!

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What a blessed affliction it is-which leads us to a Savior's love!

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Our afflictions may come distinctly from man, as the result of persecution or malice-and yet they come with even greater certainty from the Lord, and are the necessary outcome of His special love to us.

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Many believers think that their afflictions were punishments sent from God on account of their sins. The thing is impossible! God has punished us, who are His people, once and for all in Christ-and He will never punish us again! He cannot do it, seeing He is a just God. Afflictions are chastisements from a Father's hand-they are not judicial punishments!

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I would never have known the Savior's love half as much-if I had never been in the storms of affliction.

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The Christian is sometimes in the furnace of affliction. The fire will soon be over when he can say, "May the Lord's will be done." It is a sign that the dross has gone, when you can see the image of the Refiner in it-when the heart reflects the face of God and says, "Not as I will, but as You will."

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Very few of Christians will fully ripen without affliction. The vine produces little fruit-unless it makes acquaintance with the knife, and is sternly pruned.

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The jewels of a Christian are his afflictions!

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 Our afflictions become the black velvet on which the diamond of God's love glitters all the more brightly!

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Heaven shall make amends for all!