God’s Palliatives
Fifthly, our text seems to intimate that God has in store something to go with our temptations. He ‘will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’
You know how you treat your own child. There is a dose of nasty medicine to be taken, and the little one does not like it. The very sight of the spoon and cup makes the child feel worse. But mother says, ‘Now, Johnny, take this medicine, and then you shall have this lump of sugar or this fruit, to take away the taste of it.’
And when God sends a trial or trouble to one of his children, he is sure to have a choice sweetmeat to go with it. I have heard a child say, ‘I do not mind taking the medicine so long as I get the sugar,’ and I have known some of the Lord’s people say, ‘We will willingly bear sickness, pain, bereavement, temptation, persecution, if we may but have our Saviour’s presence in it all.’
Some of us will never forget our experiences in sickness; when our pain has been sharpest and worst, it has also been sweetest and best, at the same time. What do I not personally owe to the file, and the anvil, and the hammer in my Master’s workshop?
I have often said, and I say again, that the best piece of furniture in my house is the cross of affliction. I have long ago learned to prize it, and to praise God for it, and for that which has come to me with it, for I have often found that, with the trial, the Lord has made a way of escape, that I have been able to bear it.
Even with the temptation to sin, the Lord often sends to the tempted soul such a revelation of the sinfulness of sin, and of the beauty of holiness, that the poison of the temptation is quite neutralised. Even with temporal trials, the Lord often gives temporal mercies; sometimes, when he has been pleased to take away a man’s wealth, he has restored to him his health, and so the man has been a distinct gainer.
I have known several instances in which this has occurred. When one dear child has been taken away out of a family, there has been the conversion of another of the children, which has been a wonderful compensation for the trial. And often trouble has been attended with an unusual delight in the Lord. The Word of God has been peculiarly sweet at such a time, and the minister has seemed to preach better than ever he did before, his message exactly fitting your condition just then.
You have been surprised to find that the bitterness, which came with the trouble, has passed away almost before you were aware of it; and, as death is swallowed up in victory, like one bitter drop in a glass of water, so your trouble has been diluted with sweetness, and you have scarcely tasted its bitterness. Thus the Lord, by his grace and presence and comfort, has made you so glad that you have hardly known that you have been in such trouble, because of the super-abounding mercy which came with it. Ought not that to comfort us, and to make us ready for whatever the Lord pleases to send to us, or to permit to come upon us?
Fifthly, our text seems to intimate that God has in store something to go with our temptations. He ‘will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’
You know how you treat your own child. There is a dose of nasty medicine to be taken, and the little one does not like it. The very sight of the spoon and cup makes the child feel worse. But mother says, ‘Now, Johnny, take this medicine, and then you shall have this lump of sugar or this fruit, to take away the taste of it.’
And when God sends a trial or trouble to one of his children, he is sure to have a choice sweetmeat to go with it. I have heard a child say, ‘I do not mind taking the medicine so long as I get the sugar,’ and I have known some of the Lord’s people say, ‘We will willingly bear sickness, pain, bereavement, temptation, persecution, if we may but have our Saviour’s presence in it all.’
Some of us will never forget our experiences in sickness; when our pain has been sharpest and worst, it has also been sweetest and best, at the same time. What do I not personally owe to the file, and the anvil, and the hammer in my Master’s workshop?
I have often said, and I say again, that the best piece of furniture in my house is the cross of affliction. I have long ago learned to prize it, and to praise God for it, and for that which has come to me with it, for I have often found that, with the trial, the Lord has made a way of escape, that I have been able to bear it.
Even with the temptation to sin, the Lord often sends to the tempted soul such a revelation of the sinfulness of sin, and of the beauty of holiness, that the poison of the temptation is quite neutralised. Even with temporal trials, the Lord often gives temporal mercies; sometimes, when he has been pleased to take away a man’s wealth, he has restored to him his health, and so the man has been a distinct gainer.
I have known several instances in which this has occurred. When one dear child has been taken away out of a family, there has been the conversion of another of the children, which has been a wonderful compensation for the trial. And often trouble has been attended with an unusual delight in the Lord. The Word of God has been peculiarly sweet at such a time, and the minister has seemed to preach better than ever he did before, his message exactly fitting your condition just then.
You have been surprised to find that the bitterness, which came with the trouble, has passed away almost before you were aware of it; and, as death is swallowed up in victory, like one bitter drop in a glass of water, so your trouble has been diluted with sweetness, and you have scarcely tasted its bitterness. Thus the Lord, by his grace and presence and comfort, has made you so glad that you have hardly known that you have been in such trouble, because of the super-abounding mercy which came with it. Ought not that to comfort us, and to make us ready for whatever the Lord pleases to send to us, or to permit to come upon us?
No comments:
Post a Comment