Job 9:12; Job 2:10; Ecclesiastes 7:14
Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, What doest thou?
What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?
In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other.
JOHN OWEN (1616-1683): The time of affliction is a time of consideration; and if men are not extremely hardened, they cannot but bethink themselves who sends affliction, and for what end it is sent.
JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): Often in prosperity folks are partial in examining and judging themselves, and therefore God brings on affliction, strips them of worldly comforts, makes them sit alone, and examine matters over again.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Consider what? This: that “God also hath set the one over against the other,” and, therefore, thou must take the one as well as the other.
WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): Whatever the providence may be that turns your joy into grief, it is a chastening from the Lord.
WILHELMUS à BRAKEL (1635-1711): Consider where your affliction originates. It does not originate with yourself, for you love yourself too much for this. It does not originate with men, for they cannot so much as move without the will of God, nor pull one of your hairs out. Rather, it is the Lord Himself who sends this upon you—the sovereign Lord whose hand none can stay and to whom no one can say, “What doest Thou?” It is your reconciled Father in Christ who sends this upon you in His wisdom, goodness, and love, doing so to your advantage. “For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth,” Hebrews 12:6.
JOHN TRAPP: God hath not only a permissive, but an active hand in all our afflictions.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): Dear child of God, your afflictions, your trials, your crosses, your losses, your sorrows―all―all are in your heavenly Father’s hand. They cannot come unless sent by Him.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Let us mark that God intendeth to try His faithful ones. For as much as He suffereth and ordaineth them to be grieved and vexed during this earthly life, so as they pass through many troubles, and things fall not out as they would have them: He seemeth to have forsaken them, yea and even to be their enemy. But we must understand that He doeth it not without cause, and that we have need to be so exercised. And in good faith if a man should deliver us gold or silver, we should fain know whether it were good or no: and if we doubted of it, we would make it pass through the fire. And is not our faith more precious than all the corruptible metals that are tried so carefully? Then is it good reason that so worthy a thing as our faith is should have the fear of God, that it might be tried in good earnest; which thing is then done, when God sendeth us afflictions.
GEORGE MÜLLER (1805-1898): God delights to increase the faith of His children. Our faith, which is feeble at first, is developed and strengthened more and more by use. We ought, instead of wanting no trials before victory, no exercise for patience, to be willing to take them from God’s hand as a means. I say—and say it deliberately—trials, obstacles, difficulties, and sometimes defeats, are the very food of faith.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Trials are the winds which root the tree of our faith.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?” James 2:5. Rich in faith—not that they were so, or considered as such when chosen, and so were chosen because of their faith—but the sense is, that they were chosen “to be rich in faith.”
MARY WINSLOW (1774-1854): A dear old Baptist minister once remarked that “when God means to make a man rich, He takes away his money.”
GEORGE MÜLLER: To have our faith strengthened, we must feel a willingness to take from God’s hand the means for strengthening it. We must allow Him to educate us through trials and bereavements and troubles. It is through trials that faith is exercised and developed. God affectionately permits difficulties, that He may develop unceasingly that which He is willing to do for us, and to this end we should not shrink, but if He gives sorrow and hindrances and losses and afflictions, we should take them out of His hands as evidences of His love and care for us in developing more and more that faith which He is seeking to strengthen in us.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: The goodness of God to us, combined with a jealous regard to His own glory, constrains Him to conceal the path along which He conducts us. His promise is, “And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not: I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them,” Isaiah 42:16.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): He hath said, “I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made,” Isaiah 57:16. The time may seem long, but I shall not be detained a moment longer than the case requires. He hath appointed the hour of deliverance, and His time is the best time; for He is a God of knowledge, and blessed are all they wait for Him.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The great Shepherd and Head of the Church has an appointed time and manner for the accomplishment of all His purposes; nothing can be effectually done, but when and where He pleases; but when His hour is come, then hard things become easy, and crooked things straight; His Word, His Spirit, and Providence then will all concur to make the path of duty plain to those who serve Him; though, perhaps, till this knowledge is necessary, He permits them to remain ignorant of what He has designed them for. By this discipline they are taught to depend entirely upon Him, and are afterwards more fully assured that He has sent and succeeded them.
C. H. SPURGEON: Our sorrows shall have an end, when God has gotten His end in them.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): If we cry to God for the removal of the oppression and affliction we are under, and it is not removed—the reason is not because the Lord’s hand is shortened or His ear heavy, but because the affliction has not done its work…Afflictions are continued no longer than till they have done their work.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: Bow that stricken heart, yield that tempest-tossed soul to His sovereign disposal, to His calm, righteous sway, in the submissive spirit and language of your suffering Saviour, “Not my will, but thine, be done!” Luke 22:42. “My times of sadness and of grief are in Thy hand.”
ALEXANDER CARSON (1776-1844): It is God who raises the storm; and it is God who stilleth it. See Jonah 1:1-16.
WILLIAM JAY: And it is this that God Himself has enjoined: “Be still, and know that I am God,” Psalm 46:10. This turns submission into acquiescence; this enables the Christian to say, with his Lord and Master, “The cup which my heavenly Father giveth me, shall I not drink it?”
