May 26

I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe. - John 11:15.

THE sufferings of some are designed for the good of others. Here Jesus stays away from the sick Lazarus, and from his sorrowing relatives. At length the sweat of death bedews his brow and he expires! The sisters are filled with anguish; the servants are sobbing over the loss of one of the best of masters! Here is a scene of distress and wretchedness! And all this is not for the benefit of the individual, but for the advantage of the disciples of Christ. “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.” And this has a connection with Christian experience. As Christians suffer in various ways, so they suffer for various ends. Sometimes they are afflicted by way of correction. This is the law of the house:-“If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my statutes, then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.”

Sometimes they suffer by way of prevention. Prevention is better than cure. Thus, Paul “had a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him,” not because he was proud, but “lest he should be exalted above measure.” He was not aware that he was becoming inflated; but the Lord saw and prevented that. Sometimes by way of probation. Hence afflictions are called trials, because they are a test to ourselves and others: they show the real state of grace and corruption. Sometimes they are for usefulness to ourselves and others. Ezekiel was forbidden to weep when the desire of his eyes was taken from him; not on his own account, but that he might be “a sign.” So it is with ministers. They are often poor, that they may sympathize; they are afflicted, that they may have “the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to them that are weary.”

Thus Christians suffer for others. What is it we most admire in them? Is it their dress, their wealth, their equipage, their abilities? No; but we admire the social feeling; the heart that is tender; the eye into which the tear suddenly starts; the ear that is chained by the tale of distress; the hand that slides into the pocket before it is aware; the feet that lead them to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction. And where do we learn these fine feelings? In the house of affliction. “Be kind to strangers,” said God to the Jews, “for ye know the heart of a stranger.” We naturally weep with those that weep, when we have felt what they have felt. We never pass by him that says, “Have pity on me, O my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me!”

Christians ought never to glorify God more than when they are in the fires. God, by placing his people in trials, designs to show the tendency of the gospel and the excellency of his grace. Nothing strikes like facts. “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” By nothing may we be more useful than by the exercise of the passive graces.

Christians are called to be useful, and, while they suffer according to the will of God, they comfort the feeble-minded, while, by the grace of God which they display, the inhabitants of Zion may praise God afresh for them:-“For we are a spectacle to angels and to men.”