1 Peter 1:6,7; Micah 6:9; Psalm 85:8
Now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
Hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.
I will hear what God the LORD will speak.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): When visited with affliction, it is of great importance that we should consider it as coming from God, and as expressly intended for our good.
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (1600-1661): I would wish each cross were looked in the face seven times, and read over and over again. It is the messenger of the Lord, and speaks something.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): I sometimes think that the whole art of the Christian life is the art of asking questions. Our danger is just to allow things to happen to us and to endure them without saying anything apart from a groan, a grumble or a complaint. The thing to do is to discover, if we can, why these things are taking place. Try to discover the explanation, and in this connection the apostle uses the following terms. “Wherein,” he says, “ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.”
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Let us settle it firmly in our minds that there is a meaning, a “needs-be,” and a message from God in every sorrow that falls upon us—every cross is a message from God, and intended to do us good.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: “If need be!” Ah, that is the secret—Peter says: “You are at the moment enduring this grief, because it has proved needful that you should do so.” Now there, then, is our principle: there is a definite purpose in all this. This does not happen accidentally. These things happen, says the apostle, because they are good for us, because they are part of our discipline in this life and in this world, because―let me put it quite plainly―because God has appointed it.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Every rod is appointed―what kind it shall be, where it shall light, and how long it shall lie. God, in every affliction, performs the thing that is appointed for us, Job 23:14; and to Him therefore we must have an eye, to Him we must have an ear; we must hear what He says to us by the affliction. “Hear it, and know it for thy good,” Job 5:27.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law,” Psalm 94:12. Though he may not feel blessed while smarting under the rod of chastisement, yet blessed he is; he is precious in God’s sight, or the Lord would not take the trouble to correct him.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The Lord teaches by His Spirit, His Word, and His providences, even by afflictive ones.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Therefore you are commanded to “hear the rod,” Micah 6:9―What does it say?
JOHN GILL: When God afflicts, it is either for sin, to prevent it, or purge from it, or to bring His people to a sense of it, to repent of it, and forsake it, or to try their graces, and make them more partakers of His holiness; and when good men, as Job, are at a loss about this, not being conscious of any gross iniquity committed, or a course of sin continued in, it is lawful, and right, and commendable, to inquire the reason of it, and learn, if possible, the end, design, and use of such dispensations.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Here, then, God must be sought unto for direction.
C. H. SPURGEON: At such times it is our wisdom to apply to the Lord Himself. Frequently the dealings of God with us are mysterious, and then also we may appeal to Him as His own interpreter, and in due time He will make all things plain.
WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Indeed, when God afflicts, He puts an especial season for prayer into our hands.
J. C. RYLE: Trials are intended to make us think, to wean us from the world, to send us to the Bible, and to drive us to our knees.
WILLIAM JAY: “In the day of adversity, consider” the ends He has in view in afflicting you, Ecclesiastes 7:14. What are those ends? They all show that resignation is the most beautiful and becoming thing in the world—but they are various—a Christian will often find it necessary to turn to each of them before he can obtain an answer to the prayer, “Show me wherefore Thou contendest with me?” They include Correction; Prevention; Trial; Instruction; and Usefulness.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): Of all things in the world to be avoided, a stony heart, or a stupidity under God’s afflicting hand, is most to be deprecated.
WILLIAM JAY: Nothing is more trying than what an old divine calls “a dumb affliction;” so that when we put our ear to it, we can seem to hear nothing as to what it implies or intends. Job was in such a state of ignorance and perplexity: “Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him: on the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him: He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him,” Job 23:8,9. In such a condition, it affords relief to be able to add, “but He knoweth the way that I take,” Job 23:10. Yet duty requires that we should have some knowledge of it ourselves. A natural man is only concerned to escape from trouble, but the Christian is anxious to have it sanctified and improved. He is commanded to hear the rod. While God chastens, He teaches. I must therefore be in a learning frame of mind. I must say unto God, “Show me wherefore thou contendest with me,” Job 10:2. “I will hear what”—by this event—“God the Lord will speak.”
MATTHEW HENRY: Hear what the rod says to you―what convictions, what counsels, what cautions, it speaks to you. Every rod has a voice, and it is the voice of God that is to be heard in the rod of God, and it is well for those that understand the language of it, which, if we would do, we must have an eye to Him that appointed it.
JOHN CALVIN: No chastisements, however severe, will drive us to repentance, if the Lord do not quicken us by His Spirit—that we may clearly see what is our rebellion and obstinacy against God, and what remedies are necessary for curing our diseases.
MATTHEW HENRY: Though affliction drive us to God, He will not therefore reject us if in sincerity we seek Him, for afflictions are sent on purpose to bring us to Him.
JOHN CALVIN: Let our miseries drive us to seek Christ.
C. H. SPURGEON: Affliction is God’s black dog that He sends after wandering sheep to bring them back to the fold. Do not begin fighting the dog, and trying to struggle with him, for you will get nothing by that, but run away to the Shepherd. One of these days you will be glad of all the rough treatment that the black dog gave you in the day of your tribulation.
WILLIAM JAY: It is an awful thing to come out of trouble: for it always leaves us better or worse than it finds us. We should therefore ask with peculiar concern―“What benefit have I derived from such a visitation of divine providence? The rod spoke―did I hear its message?
