Where's your comfort now?

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Frank Turk, from parts unknown

May I say, first of all, that I have just had one doozer of a week. It comes from doing things like being a reliable manager and a guy who calls a pig's ear a pig's ear when someone presents it as a silk purse. But in the midst of it, two things have come to my attention: John Piper's podcasts this week on the meaning of God's sovereignty in the light of suffering, and Spurgeon on a part of Hebrews 12.

You can read the whole sermon here, but the end is worth putting here to put you in the right state of mind. Especially since Monday is 9/11.

In closing, let me ask those who are afflicted and have no religion, where they get their comfort from. The Christian derives it from the fact that he is a son of God, and he knows that the affliction is for his good

Where do you get comfort from? It has often puzzled me how poor tried worldlings get on. I can somewhat guess how they can be happy, when the glass is full, when hearts are glad and joyous, when hilarity and mirth sparkle in their eyes, when the board is covered, and the family is well. But what does the worldling do when he loses his wife, when his children are taken away, when his health departs and he himself is nigh unto death? I leave him to answer. All I can say is, I wonder every day that there are not more suicides, considering the troubles of this life, and how few there are that have the comforts of religion; Poor sinner, even if there were no heaven and hell, I would recommend to thee this religion; for even if in this life only we had hope, we should be of all men most happy, really, in our spirits, although we might seem to be "of all men most miserable." I tell you, if we were to die like dogs, if there were no second world, so happy does the Christian religion make the heart, that it were worth while having it for this life alone.

The secularist who thinks of this world only, is a fool for not thinking of Christianity, for it confers a benefit in this world as well as in that which is to come. It makes us bear our troubles. What would break your backs are only feathers to us; what would destroy your spirits are to us "light afflictions which are but for a moment." We find light enough in our hearts, in the depth of darkness. Where you find darkness we have light; and, where you have light we have the brilliance of the sun.

May God put you in the number of his saved family, and then if he chastens you, I ask whether you will not think his rod light when compared with that sword which you deserve to have smitten you dead. God give you, if you are chastened now, that you may be chastened and not killed, that you may be chastened with the righteous, and not condemned with the wicked.

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