Lamentations 3:31-36 For the LORD will not cast off for ever:… I. AFFLICTIONS ARE PECULIARLY INSTRUCTIVE. Griefs and pains are very unacceptable. Most men find it difficult to bear them with commendable patience. And as the mind is troubled under them, nothing is more natural than to inquire whence they come and why they are sent. And thus the mind is led away to God, and reminded of the justice of His character. If there had been no suffering here, if all around us was fair, and bright, and happy, every face dressed in smiles, and every heart bounded with joy, men would have asked where is there any proof of God's anger? of His aroused and operative justice? of His great displeasure against sinners? And by such courses of thought the natural atheism of the human heart would have fortified itself against the truth. II. GOD SENDS AFFLICTIONS UPON MEN FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR INFLUENCE AS THEY BEAR UPON THE PASSIONS AND PURPOSES OF LIFE. 1. Amid the prosperities of life, when pains, disappointments, and distress are strangers, pride is very apt to be strong and influential. The miseries of this life are sent to repress this pride. They rebuke it. They check it. They stand in its way and hinder its influences. Pain and pride do not thrive well together. Far from it. There is little manifest arrogance and haughtiness, or even ambition, on Caesar's bed of sickness. When amid the burnings of his fever he cries: "Give me some drink, Titanius," like a sick girl, he is a very different man and different example from what he was at the head of his legions, his strong hand upon his sword. He cares very little now for his eagles — very little for glory. 2. These afflictions of life also repress worldliness of spirit. What a lecture a fever gives to it! or a funeral! What a lesson the graveyard reads in its ears! What a rebuke when the man bears to the tomb the son for whom he thought he was hoarding his thousands! 3. These miseries, too, have an influence upon disappointed ambition, envy, and such like. They are seen to be impartial. 4. Our miseries, too, affect our purposes. Indeed there are very few of our lost purposes that are formed without them. 5. Our afflictions tend strangely to impress us with a sense of our dependence on God. III. THE AFFLICTIONS EXPERIENCED BY THE PEOPLE OF GOD FURNISH OPPORTUNITY AND MEANS FOR THE CULTIVATION OF THE HIGHEST AND MOST DIFFICULT VIRTUES. If there were no instances of distress, we should have nothing to excite our pity. If there were no instances of want, there would be nothing to call forth our charity. If nobody injured or offended us, we should have nobody to forgive. Aside from something to distress or annoy us, the virtue of patience would not be called into action and cultivated. Our fortitude, if not much of our faith, could never be exercised at all, if there were no burdens to bear, no distresses to endure, no furnaces of trial to burn upon us. IV. HOW COULD YOU, THEN, JUDGE WHETHER YOU WERE A CHILD OF GOD OR NOT? The temper we have and the demeanour we exhibit in afflictions, and toward the afflicted, constitute more just criterions of our character than any other. If there were no afflictions here, we should have no "good Samaritan" to copy, and no priest and Levite, whose irreligious example to shun. God may have sent us trials and filled His world with sorrows, not willingly, but to furnish us opportunity to test our faith and find whether we are on the way to heaven. V. AFFLICTIONS MAKE DEMONSTRATIONS OF MEN, PROOFS, EXHIBITS TO THE WORLD, OF THE POWER AND DIVINITY OF FAITH. The world needs such demonstrations. The wicked are not to be convinced by principles merely. In trial grace brightens — it shines — it demonstrates. For this reason God sends trials. VI. IT IS JUST IN TIMES AND BY MEANS OF AFFLICTIONS, THAT GOD BESTOWS UPON YOU HIS MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS. (I. S. Spencer, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the Lord will not cast off for ever: |
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