Hebrews 2:18
In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.
THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): Afflictions ripen the saints’ graces.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Affliction, doubtless, is “not joyous, but grievous.” But it qualifies us for services for which we should be otherwise unfit.
A W. PINK (1886-1952): If we have never trod the vale of sorrow and affliction we are really unable to “weep with those that weep.” There are some surgeons who would be more tender if they had suffered from broken bones themselves. If we have never known much trouble, we can be but poor comforters to others. Even of our Saviour it is written, “For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.” How clearly is all this brought out in 2 Corinthians 1:4 “Who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”
STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): Christ had temptations offered to Him by the devil in his wilderness retirement, that, from an experimental knowledge, he might be able more “compassionately to succour us.”
CHARLES SIMEON: Our blessed Lord was tempted in all things like unto us, sin only excepted, on purpose that He might be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and be qualified―so to speak―“to succour them that are tempted,” and from that very consideration we are encouraged to come to Him for relief under our troubles.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The power to sympathize can only come by personal suffering.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): But these feelings would be very faint, if we did not in our experience know what sorrows and temptations mean.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): One Christian who has been tempted is worth a thousand who haven’t.
C. H. SPURGEON: There is nothing that makes a man have a big heart like a great trial. I always find that little, miserable people, whose hearts are about the size of a grain of mustard seed, never have had much to try them. I have found that those people who have no sympathy for their fellows—who never weep for the sorrows of others—very seldom have had any woes of their own. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles.
CHARLES SIMEON: The man who has no sympathy with persons under such circumstances, shows, that he knows but little either of temptations or deliverances; since these deep experiences are vouchsafed to some for the express purpose, that they may thereby be both qualified and disposed to administer to others the consolations with which they themselves “are comforted of God.”
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Those that have themselves been in distress, and have found mercy with God, should sympathize most feelingly with those that are in the like distress and be ready to show kindness to them.
C. H. SPURGEON: By experience some men have learned far more than others and hence they are useful helpers.
CHARLES SIMEON: Many are brought into deep waters, where, like David, they are apprehensive of being swallowed up, and utterly destroyed, Psalm 69:2. They “pass through fire and through water,” Isaiah 43:2; and if they were not succoured from on high by more than ordinary communications of grace, they would sink and perish. Now, these persons can enter into the feelings of others who are cast down by reason of their afflictions; and can suggest to them many suitable reflections, such as perhaps the angels suggested to our Lord, when tempted in the wilderness, Matthew 4:11, and when agonizing in the garden of Gethsemane, Luke 22:43.
JEREMY BURROUGHS (1599-1647): As we read in Psalm 107, “those who go down into the sea see the wonders of the Lord,” much more do those who come into the seas of troubles and afflictions. How do they see the wonders of the Lord? They can tell their friends much of the wonders of the Lord towards them.
C. H. SPURGEON: He knows the water best who has waded through it. There is nothing like personal experience.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Knowledge learnt by experience is the most efficacious. Therefore Christ Himself, Who knew all things already, yet ‘learned,’ in the school of experience, ‘by what He suffered.’
WILLIAM BRIDGE (1600-1670): Suffering times are teaching times.
C. H. SPURGEON: Suffering enlarges the heart by creating the power to sympathize. If we pray eagerly for ourselves, we shall not long be able to forget our fellow-sufferers. None pity the poor like those who have been, or are still poor; none have such tenderness for the sick as those who have been long in ill health themselves. We ought to be grateful for occasional griefs if they preserve us from chronic hard-heartedness; for of all afflictions, an unkind heart is the worst, it is a plague to its possessor, and a torment to those around him.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Thus men become softened by their own afflictions, so that they do not despise others who are in misery; and, in this way, common sufferings generate sympathy. Wherefore it is not wonderful that God should exercise us with various sorrows; since nothing is more becoming than humanity towards our brethren, who, being weighed down with trials, lie under contempt. This humanity, however, must be learned by experience.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): There are no lessons so useful as those learned in the school of affliction.
CHARLES SIMEON: Shall we not, then, be content to learn, in the school of adversity, the lessons which He designs us to convey to others?
C. H. SPURGEON: What better wealth can a man have than to be rich in experience? Experience teaches. This is the real High School for God’s children. It is a great gift to have learned by experience how to sympathize.
