2 Timothy 2:12—Romans 8:17,18; 1 Peter 3:14,15—4:16,19—Hebrews 11:25
If we suffer, we shall also reign with him—If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
If ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear—If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf…Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator—choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.
THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): As the way to Canaan lay through a howling wilderness and desert, so the path to heaven lies through much affliction.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): “We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God,” Acts 14:22. Luke speaks not in this place only of the persecutions which the adversaries raise against us with drawn swords and flaming fires; but he comprehends under the word “tribulations,” all the sorrows and miseries whereunto the life of the godly is subject; not because the faithful alone are miserable; because this is the common state both of the good and bad…For besides common molestations, they are oppressed peculiarly with many discommodities, and the Lord doth humble them with such exercises, keeping their flesh under correction lest it wax wanton; He awakens them, lest they lie sleeping upon earth. Unto these are added the reproaches and slanders of the wicked.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): The believer should never fail to remember that the present is, by the appointment of God, his state of affliction. It is God’s ordained, revealed will that His covenant children here should be afflicted. When called by grace, they should never take into their account any other state. They become the disciples of the religion of the cross, become the followers of a crucified Lord, put on a yoke, and assume a burden: they must, then, expect the inward cross and the outward cross. To escape it is impossible. To pass to glory without it is to go by a way other than God’s ordering, and in the end to fail to arrive there.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): “He performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with Him,” Job 23:14. We are here assured that our afflictions are not casual or accidental. Nothing in any of our trials occurs by chance. With us there may be contingencies, seeing we are not acquainted with the plan to be developed and executed in the arrangements of an all-wise Providence; but all events are “determined by Him Who sees the end from the beginning, and Who is working all things after the counsel of His own will,” Ephesians 1:11. Nothing transpires without Him. He strikes no random blows: His arrows never miss their object. He is performing the thing that is appointed for us; and the appointment is in all respects perfectly equitable…It is also intimated that these afflictions are not peculiar. “Many such things are with him;” and when writing to the Thessalonians the apostle Peter says, “The same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren which are in the world,” 1 Peter 5:9.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): So it “must” be—there is a necessity of it, partly on account of the decrees of God, who has appointed afflictions for His people; and partly on account of the predictions of Christ, Who foretold His disciples, that in the world they should have tribulation; as also, that there might be a conformity to Him, that as He the head must, and did suffer many things, and enter into His glory, so must they His members: as well as likewise for the trial and exercise of the several graces of the Spirit, and to make the saints meet for heaven, and to make that the sweeter to them.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: The gate is strait and the way is narrow that leads to life, and a man must become nothing if he would enter and be saved. He must deny himself; he must become a fool that he may be wise, and receive the sentence of death in himself that he should not trust in himself. The wise man must cease to glory in his wisdom, the mighty man must cease to glory in his might, the rich man must cease to glory in his riches, and their only ground of glory in themselves must be their insufficiency, infirmity, poverty, and weakness. Their only ground of glory outside of themselves must be that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” John 3:16.
WILLIAM JAY: “In the world ye shall have tribulation,” says the Saviour Himself, John 16:33: “but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” And with respect to the final results, these “light afflictions which are but for a moment work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,” 2 Corinthians 4:17; and while our heavenly Father is performing the thing that is appointed for us, we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose, Romans 8:28.”
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): A Christian man is seldom long at ease,
When one trouble’s gone, another doth him seize.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: If bitter adversity, if deep affliction, if the daily and the heavy cross be your portion, do not breathe one murmur, but rather rejoice that you are led into the path that Jesus Himself walked in, to go “forth by the footsteps of the flock,” Song of Solomon 1:8, and that you are counted worthy to thus share the circumstances of Christ and His people.
WILLIAM JAY: He who is bringing to pass the appointments of His providence, so loved us as not to spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Let us take this principle with every circumstance of life, and say, “The cup which my Father giveth me, shall I not drink it?” It is “the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good.” “I will cry unto God most high, unto God who performeth all things for me,” Psalm 57:2. And we are not only allowed, but invited—yea, required, to cast all our cares on Him, with the assurance that He careth for us.
JOHN GILL: And God sometimes lays His afflicting hand upon His people, when they have been negligent of their duty, and He has not heard of them for some time, in order to bring them near to Him, to seek His face, pay Him a visit, and pour out a prayer before Him.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Pray—Because it is the conduit of comfort, and hath a settling efficacy. Besides, there is no time for hearing of prayers like the time of affliction. Then the saints may have anything of God with reason, for then His heart is turned within Him, His repentings are kindled together, Hosea 118; Zechariah 13:9; Psalm 91:15. Then it was that Lot had Zoar given to him; David, the lives of his enemies; Paul, all the souls in the ship.
JOHN CALVIN: But this is the best comfort, and which is sufficient enough to confirm their minds, that this way, though it be hard and sharp, leads unto the kingdom of heaven.
JOHN GILL: The sufferings of the saints are but for a time, but their glory is eternal.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: The believer in Jesus, then, must nor forget that if the path he treads is rough and thorny, if the sky is wintry and the storm severe, and if the cross he bears is heavy, yet this is the road to heaven.
