God's chastening rod!

(Charles Simeon)  LISTEN to Audio!  Download Audio

"Man is born to trouble, as surely as the sparks fly upward." But to those who have sincerely received the Gospel, there are consolations that bear them up above all their afflictions:

  They know from whence all their trials spring—even from the hand of God Himself!

  They see their afflictions to be the fruit of their heavenly Father's love, sent for the production of the most gracious ends.

  They feel within themselves the humbling, sanctifying efficacy of their afflictions.

  They perceive that their trials are instrumental to the carrying on of God's work within them, and to the enhancing of that weight of glory which shall be granted to them at the last day.

  They know that their afflictions, of whatever kind they are, "do not spring out of the ground!" Job 5:6

  They understand that their trials are all appointed by God—in number, weight, measure, and duration.

If it is disease of body—it is God who inflicts the wound. If the trial comes from any other quarter—it still is God's chastening rod that strikes us, with a view to our spiritual good, "that we may be made partakers of His holiness."

  They realize that "no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:11

"Though now for a little while you may have had to suffer distress in all kinds of trials," God sees that there is "a needs be" for them. 1 Peter 1:6

Our trials, of whatever kind, are . . .
  to humble us,
  to purge away our dross,
  to make us cleave more closely to our Savior,
  and to fit us for our eternal rest!

To view them in this light will greatly compose our minds. Instead of murmuring against the Lord—we shall be thankful to Him. Instead of increasing our misery—our trials shall be a source of joy.

"Hear the rod and the One who appointed it!" Micah 6:9. There is no rod which has not a voice to us.

By putting us into His furnace, we shall be purged from our dross, and come out of it as vessels better fitted for His service! Malachi 3:2-3

Well therefore may the consideration of the end for which afflictions are sent, and of the benefit to be derived from them; reconcile us to the difficulty of them, and dispose us patiently to wait for the removal of them. Could Job have foreseen the outcome of his troubles, they would have been deprived of more than half their weight!

All of our afflictions, of whatever kind they are, will endure but a little time! The Apostle speaks of all, even the heaviest afflictions, as "light and momentary!"

"What is your life? You are but a mist that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away!" James 4:14. And when once this frail life is ended, there is an everlasting termination of all our sorrows! Every genuine believer enters immediately into "God's presence, where there is fullness of joy for evermore!"

Into that blissful world, nothing that is afflictive can ever enter to disturb their peace! "God will wipe every tear from our eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever!" Revelation 21:4

How little will the transient clouds that once occasioned a momentary gloom be remembered, when our dwelling is forever fixed in the full splendor of the Sun of Righteousness. Surely we need not be much cast down at trials, however painful to flesh and blood—when we consider that their duration is but as the twinkling of an eye, and that they will so soon terminate in inconceivable and everlasting felicity!

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all!" 2 Corinthians 4:17