It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes. Psalms 119:71 I complain without a cause, seeing it is good for me to be afflicted. Whatever be food to the soul, surely affliction is a good medicine. There is a necessity for affliction, to preserve the health of the soul. Can a much esteemed flower…

Jesus, my advocate above,My friend before the throne of love,If now for me prevails Thy prayer,If now I find Thee pleading there,If Thou the secret wish convey,And sweetly prompt my heart to pray;Hear, and my weak petitions join,Almighty advocate, to Thine. Fain would I know my utmost ill,And groan my nature’s weight to feel,To feel the clouds that round me roll,The night…

. . . He careth for you. 1 Peter 5:7 For that child of God who is laboring under some present distress, there are no words sweeter than these — “He careth for you!” He cares for your soul. He cares so much that he gave his only begotten Son to redeem you from sin and supply you with every spiritual need.…

He can tell you that he was so blind — but now God has given him eyes to see sin to be the greatest evil, and Christ to be the choicest good. He can tell you that once he was so deaf — that though God called very often and very loudly to him — yet he could not hear! But now…

There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that Sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children ought more earnestly to contend than the doctrine of their Master over…

With these words, our Lord Jesus Christ assures us that none of God’s elect shall ever be in any real danger or suffer any real harm, for we are under the special care and protection of God himself. I see six things in this sentence, which are a constant source of peace and encouragement to me. 1.      The Blessed Fact of Divine Predestination…

The very trials and afflictions, and the sore temptations through which God’s family pass, all eventually endear Christ to them. And depend upon it, if you are a child of God, you will sooner or later, in your travels through this wilderness, find your need of Jesus as “able to save to the uttermost.” There will be such things in your heart,…

Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins. Psalm 25:18 It is good for us when prayers about our sorrows are linked with pleas concerning our sins — when, being under God’s hand, we do not focus exclusively on our pain, but remember our sins against God. It is also good to take both sorrow and sin to…

The very storms through which the believer passes, will only strengthen him to take a firmer hold of Christ. As the same wind that blows down the poplar tree, only establishes the oak tree; so the very storms which uproot the shallow professor, only root the child of God more firmly in Christ. Though these storms may shake off some of his…

Perhaps no figure of speech represents God in a more gracious light than when he is spoken of as stooping from his throne, and coming down from heaven to attend to the wants and to behold the woes of mankind. We love him, who, when Sodom and Gomorrah were full of iniquity, would not destroy those cities until he had made a…