How many a false professor has been tried and cast by this hour of affliction!

Posted : 3 Jun, 2013 02:17 AM

Psalm 119:92 Unless Your law had been my delights, I should then have perished in my affliction.





The support of the word is as sure as its basis-and that in the

time when other supports sink-in affliction. David-like his great

prototype-was a man of affliction,-sometimes ready to perish always kept up by the law of his God. How many a false

professor has been tried and cast by this hour of affliction! But

he who has been sifted by temptation-who has "endured the

hardness" of persecution, as a "good soldier of Jesus Christ,"-

and who is ready rather to be "consumed upon earth," than to

shrink from his profession-this is he whom his Master "will lift

up, and not make his foes to rejoice over him." It is the

established rule of the kingdom-"Them that honor Me I will

honor." "Because you have kept the word of My patience, I

also will keep you from the hour of temptation, which shall

come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the

earth."

The law of God opens to us a clear interest in every perfection

of His Godhead-every engagement of His covenant. What

wonder then, that it brings delights, which the world can never

conceive, when bowed down with accumulated affliction?

However the believer's real character may be hidden from the

world, the hour of trial abundantly proves, both what the law

can do for him, and what a lost creature he would have been

without it. In affliction, friends mean well; but of themselves

they can do nothing. They can only look on, feel, and pray.

They cannot "speak to the heart." This is God's prerogative:

and His law is His voice. But for this support, Jonah probably would have perished in

his affliction. In the belly of the fish, as "in the belly of hell," he

appears to have recollected the experience of David under

deep and awful desertion; and in taking his language out of

his mouth, as descriptive of his own dark and terrific condition,

a ray of light and hope darted upon his dungeon-walls. Indeed

it is a mystery, how a sinner, destitute of the support and

comfort of the word of God, can ever uphold himself in his

trials. We marvel not, that often "his soul should choose

strangling, and death, rather than his life."

But in order to derive support from the law, it must be our

delights-yes- that it may be our delights it must be the matter

of our faith. For what solid delight, can we have in what we do

not believe? Must it not also be our joy in prosperity, if we

would realize its support in affliction? For this, how ineffectual

is the mere formal service! Who ever tasted its tried

consolations in the bare performance of the outward duty? It

must be read in reality; it will then be taken as a cordial. Let it

be simply received, diligently searched, and earnestly prayed

over; and it will guide the heavy-laden to Him, who is their

present and eternal rest. The tempest-tossed soul will cast

anchor upon it.-

"Remember the word unto Your servant, upon which You

have caused me to hope." One promise applied by the Spirit

of God is worth ten thousand worlds. And each promise is a

staff-if we have but faith to lean upon it-able to bear our whole

weight of sin, care, and trial.

Is then affliction our appointed lot? If "man is born"-and the

child of God twice born-"to trouble, as the sparks fly upward,"-

how important is it to lay in a store of supply from this

inexhaustible treasury, against the time when all human

support will fail! Supplied hence with heavenly strength, we

shall be borne up above the weakness and weariness of the flesh. And as the riches of this storehouse are "the riches of

Christ," let those parts be most familiar to us, which mark His

person, His character, offices, life, sufferings, and death,

resurrection and glory, together with the promises,

encouragements, and prospects directly flowing from this

blessed subject-and oh! what a treasure-house shall we find,

richly furnished with every source of delight, and every ground

of support!



by

Charles Bridges

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