2 Corinthians 1:4 Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble… I. AS A SCHOOL OF COMFORT. Affliction and comfort — a remarkable connection of two apparent opposites, and yet how indissoluble! For heavenly, as distinguished from mere earthly gladness, is inseparable from suffering. It was so in the life of Christ; it was immediately after the temptation that angels came and ministered to Him; it was in His agony that the angel strengthened Him. And as in His life so in ours, these two are never separated, for the first earnest questions of personal and deep religion are ever born out of personal suffering. As if God had said, "In the sunshine thou canst not see Me; but when the sun is withdrawn the stars of heaven shall appear." II. A SCHOOL OF ASSURANCE. 1. There is nothing so hard to force upon the soul as the conviction that life is a real, earnest, awful thing. Only see the butterfly life of pleasure men and women are living day by day, flitting from one enjoyment to another; living, working, spending, and exhausting themselves for nothing else but the seen and temporal and unreal. 2. Nothing is harder than to believe in God. When you are well, when hours are pleasant and friends abundant, it is an easy thing to speculate about God; but when sorrow comes, speculation will not do. It is like casting the lead from mere curiosity, when you have a sound strong ship in deep water. But when she is grinding on the rocks, then we sound for God. For God becomes a living God, a home, when once we feel that we are helpless anti homeless in this world without Him. III. A SCHOOL OF SYMPATHY. 1. Some Christians are rough, hard, and rude: you cannot go to them for sympathy. They have not suffered. Tenderness is got by suffering. Would you be a Barnabas and give something beyond commonplace consolation to a wounded spirit? then "you must suffer being tempted." 2. Now here we have a very peculiar source of consolation in suffering. The thought that the apostle's suffering benefited others soothed him in his afflictions, and this is a consolation which is essentially Christian. Consider how the old Stoicism groped in the dark to solve the mystery of grief, telling you it must be, and that it benefits and perfects you. Yes, that is true enough. But Christianity says much more; it says, Your suffering blesses others; it gives them firmness. Here is the law of the Cross: "No man dieth to himself"; for his pain and loss is for others, and brings with it to others joy and gain. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. |
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