What They Said

“All our difficulties are only platforms for the manifestations of His grace, power and love.”

J. Hudson Taylor

“We, for whose comfort Job's experience was written, know how it was that the patriarch was afflicted, and have seen the end of the Lord.  There was a purpose to be fulfilled,—an end to be brought about.  We learn that howsoever mysterious our sufferings may be, they are not sent without a wise and loving purpose.  Mysterious, but not purposeless: our own is the fault if they are profitless; for the issue of the believer's affliction,—the end of the Lord,— is the humility and confidence of patience. Yes! rich in truest blessings is submission to God's will. We count them happy which endure.

Oh, that I may feel the happiness of endurance,—the peace of waiting patiently under the rod of correction!  Oh, for faith to realize that sickness comes to me in mercy!  I desire to feel that I am being chastened,—and chastened in tender love.  So may my own soul prove, realize in experience, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.”

Walter Purton

“The promise of God is, that His saints shall be as the stones of a crown: yea, shall shine in the Royal diadem! The Lord vouchsafes to call them His jewels!

"What a price has been paid for the saints! The Son of God purchased them with His own blood! Are they not valuable in His sight? How precious are they whom Jehovah calls His jewels! Bought with what a price!

But the saints are likened unto jewels also because our souls need cleansing. A diamond seems a mere pebble before the jeweler's hands give shape and smoothness: skill and patient toil so transform it, that every one takes pleasure it its beauty and brightness. Likewise is it with our souls. Divine grace removes defects, and beautifies: the sharp edge of pain, directed by the hand of Infinite Love, makes perfect. No longer rough and unsightly, but beautiful and glorious, the precious workmanship of God becomes His delight; it is made fit for the Royal diadem, in which it will shine throughout eternity,—reflecting all-gloriously the majesty of the King of Kings.”

Walter Purton

“God Almighty knows that we are often purged more in one hour by a good sound trial--than by a thousand manifestations of His love. It is a fine thing to come purified, to come pardoned out of the furnace of affliction. The furnace is intended to purge us to separate the precious from the vile, the chaff from the wheat. And God, in order to do this, is pleased to put us into one fire after another.”

George Whitefield

"Let us mark this well.  There is nothing which shows our ignorance so much as our impatience under trouble.  We forget that every cross is a message from God, and intended to do us good in the end.  Trials are intended to make us think -- to wean us from the world, to send us to the Bible, to drive us to our knees.  Health is a good thing; but sickness is far better, if it leads us to God.  Prosperity is a great mercy, but adversity is a greater one, if it brings us to Christ.  Anything, anything is better than living in carelessness, and dying in sin.  Better a thousand times be afflicted, like the Canaanitish mother, and like her flee to Christ, than live at ease, like the rich "fool," and die at least without Christ and without hope. (Luke 12:20.)"

 J.C. Ryle

"How would the great work of sanctification go on in a person if they had no trial? Trouble is often the only fire which will burn away the dross that clings to our hearts. Trouble is the pruning–knife which Christ employs in order to make us fruitful in good works. The harvest of the Lord’s field is seldom ripened by sunshine only. It must go through its days of wind, rain and storm."

J.C. Ryle

"God’s people have their trials. It was never designed by God, when he chose his people, that they should be an untried people. They were chosen in the furnace of affliction; they were never chosen to worldly peace and earthly joy. Freedom from sickness and the pains of mortality was never promised them; but when their Lord drew up the charter of privileges, he included chastisements amongst the things to which they should inevitably be heirs. Trials are a part of our lot; they were predestinated for us in Christ’s last legacy. So surely as the stars are fashioned by his hands, and their orbits fixed by him, so surely are our trials allotted to us: he has ordained their season and their place, their intensity and the effect they shall have upon us. Good men must never expect to escape troubles; if they do, they will be disappointed, for none of their predecessors have been without them. Mark the patience of Job; remember Abraham, for he had his trials, and by his faith under them, he became the “Father of the faithful.” Note well the biographies of all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and you shall discover none of those whom God made vessels of mercy, who were not made to pass through the fire of affliction. It is ordained of old that the cross of trouble should be engraved on every vessel of mercy, as the royal mark whereby the King’s vessels of honour are distinguished. But although tribulation is thus the path of God’s children, they have the comfort of knowing that their Master has traversed it before them; they have his presence and sympathy to cheer them, his grace to support them, and his example to teach them how to endure; and when they reach “the kingdom,” it will more than make amends for the “much tribulation” through which they passed to enter it."

Charles Spurgeon

“Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.” 

Matthew Henry