returning tonight for our Bible reading to psalm 119 psalm 119 and we're going to read from verse 65 the eight verses that constitute that section of the psalm just for the boys and girls information psalm 119 is an alphabetic psalm there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet And there are 22 sections, and every little word there that commences at the start of the section, that is the Hebrew letter. So if you want to learn the Hebrew alphabet, get your mom and dad to teach you that way by reading through Psalm 119. And then every verse that commences, or every verse in that section commences with that particular letter. So it's a very interesting psalm from the very structure of it. Tonight we're coming to Teff. verse 65 and we'll read down that little section of the psalm. Let's hear the word of the Lord. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I have believed thy commandments. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept thy word. Thou art good, and doest good. Teach me thy statutes. The proud have forged a lie against me, I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart. Thy heart is as fat as grease, but I delight in thy law. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver. Amen. We'll finish there at verse 72, and pray the Lord will bless his precious word. to our heart. It's verse 71 that we're coming to tonight, and the statement at the very commencement of that verse, it is good for me that I have been afflicted. It is good for me that I have been afflicted. Some months ago now, in conversation with someone or in company with a number of people, someone made the statement, a statement you often hear, good grief. Good grief. I was reading through the psalm as I was after that time, and it had nothing to do with my reading of the psalm at all, but that little phrase stuck in my heart, good grief. And then I read verse 71, it's good for me to be afflicted. So here is grief that has been turned to good. for the psalmist, and so that's what I want to look at tonight. Good grief for the proper use of trials. It's what the psalmist is dealing with here in this verse. It's good for me that I have been afflicted. So let's bow in a moment of prayer with our Bibles open there at that particular passage. Let's pray for the Lord's help tonight as we come around his precious word. Father in heaven, we come before thee tonight thankful for thy love to us. Thankful for thy grace, we do thank thee, our Father, for every good and perfect gift that we receive from thy hand, and we thank thee for thy good word tonight. We pray for help now as we turn to it. As we come, Lord, to the closing part of this service, as we come to meditate upon thy truth, we do pray that thou would open our eyes, that we might behold wondrous things out of thy law. Lord, we are in need day after day to hear a word from thee. in the midst of a world of trials and troubles and difficulties, affliction. We pray, Lord, we might have a proper view of our trials. We might know that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord. Lord, even tonight that I would come and speak to our hearts and encourage us. We pray, Lord, for any who are in the midst of deep trial just now that I would be especially close to them, especially bless thy word to their heart. Lord minister to all of us we pray fill me with thy spirit give help in the preaching and in the hearing of thy word tonight we ask for Jesus sake amen the words before us tonight in this verse of scripture contain a personal word of testimony from a man who had experienced deep trials and deep troubles in his life I say deep trials because the word afflicted carries the idea of being oppressed or chastened or hurt. In one place in scripture the term is translated by the phrase deal hardly. It's a very intense word conveying the idea of something severe and extremely hard to bear. fact the same word appears in Isaiah chapter 53 in verse 4 where it is used to speak of Christ being smitten and afflicted of his father and therefore when the psalmist uses this term to speak of his own experience he is referring to the fact that he had come through a fiery trial of his faith he had been brought very low by the hand of God Although no particular details are given, I would be very unwise and pointless to try and speculate regarding the exact nature of this trouble, it's fairly obvious that this man, as he writes these words, had endured a time of suffering. God had appointed troubles for him. Unexpected hardships had come. Unpleasant things had been brought into his life. He had been tested. He'd been brought into a dark valley of great difficulty. Now in a sense, of course, there is nothing really unusual about that in the life of a believer. The child of God is often exposed to trials and troubles in his Christian life. Being a believer does not exempt us from affliction. Just ask old Jacob. a time when he believed that his son Joseph had been killed by a wild beast he had his coat of many colors in his hand stained with blood to suggest that that was exactly what had happened to him and then there was the fact that he had lost Simeon in Egypt it seemed and there was the potential for Benjamin to be taken away as well when all of these things were considered by Jacob he cried out in despair all these things are against me he had been brought very low in his life at that time. Job could testify to a similar thing. His entire family, with the exception of his wife, had been taken in death. And Job confessed, the Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away a very heavy burden for that man of God to carry. And then his own health failed, and he cursed the very day of his birth. And Job, though he was a godly man, had a very, very hard life. The apostle Paul was the same. His Christian life was full of hardship. As we noted this morning, bonds and afflictions, sufferings and trouble, life-threatening situations seemed to be his lot in life as he served the Lord Jesus Christ as a missionary. The true course of Christian discipleship is not always an easy one for the child of God. As believers, we face trials. There are times of great and heavy afflictions that come into our lives, into our Christian experience. Peter picked up on that truth, and he warned the believers of his day, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. In many ways, there is nothing strange about being an afflicted Christian. However, it's not so much the reality of affliction that is the focus of this text as it is the response to that affliction. Look at the words of verse 71, the psalmist says, it is good for me that I have been afflicted. Now understand carefully what's happening here, the psalmist is looking back over his life. And as he views things from that perspective, looking back over life, he comes to the conclusion that it had been a good thing for him that he had been afflicted. A good thing that he had suffered those times of trouble. He may have not have thought that way at the particular time, but with hindsight he had valued and appreciated the hard things of life. He could now see the benefit of them. He could see that there was a purpose in all that God had sent his way. He could see that good had come to him in the midst of those trials and that God had a purpose in bringing him through those particular difficulties. In other words, it was good for him to have been afflicted. I think I need to stress something here, though, that not everyone feels that way, even looking back. Some people grow very bitter because of affliction in life. I was interested to read a pastoral comment by Spurgeon, the Baptist preacher of London, on this theme. He said, I have known individuals in a family who seemed to have a spite against everyone they saw, simply because they were disappointed in early life or had made a venture and suffered a loss. They grew sour, they kept sour, and they grew sourer every day. sadly that happens. There are some who look back over life and they feel that God has dealt very harshly with them, that they've suffered things they never really deserve to suffer, they've fallen into some kind of trouble and have become disgruntled and irritated and annoyed with everything around them. You go through life with a chip on their shoulder and the origin of that little phrase is a very interesting one. It's an American statement from the 1800s where little boys who are about to fight or one boy who was always angry and always spoiling for a fight would put a wood chip on his shoulder and he would tempt someone to knock it off and if they did that was an indication the fight was about to start. So to walk about with a chip on your shoulder would indicate you're always ready to fight someone. There was a contentiousness about you. some some people are like that when they look back on trials of life and the difficulties of life left to themselves they would never say what the psalmist is saying in this verse in fact it seems like foreign language to them it seems very bizarre and strange and almost unthinkable to say that it has been good for me to have been afflicted do you know what part of the problem is when we begin to think Contrary to this text, we're failing to make a proper use of our trials. Psalmist is different here. He's looking at the ups and downs of life with spiritual discernment. Although he may not have understood everything at the time, he may even have resented the trial at the time, he comes to the position where he acknowledges before God, it is good. It is good for me. that I have been afflicted. It's good grief. It's good for him. And I pray tonight that all who have endured trials or all who have suffered afflictions will be able to come and see things in this particular light. I don't know, but maybe someone here tonight is in the midst of terrible troubles. Family problems, maybe, or facing financial disaster. Problems in the home, children going astray, your health breaking down, things that are only known to you and perhaps a very close circle of friends or perhaps just to you and to no one else but the Lord. And maybe it seems to you it's just one problem after another, affliction after affliction. You're in the depth of affliction. But let me suggest tonight that you don't harbor bitter thoughts of God. Look at the text and ask yourself, can I say this? And I pray this becomes your personal testimony. It is good for me that I have been afflicted. Tonight I want to probe a little deeper into that thought of the proper use of our trials and answer the question, how can it be good? How can it be good that we have been afflicted? And I have five thoughts here. First of all, affliction. affliction verifies the reality of our faith it verifies the reality of our faith the free as i have been afflicted indicates very clearly that the affliction the psalmist is speaking of here was not something he had done to himself he had been afflicted by another the inference is that the Lord had dealt with him. This affliction that he speaks of in the text had come to him from the Lord in the providence of God. It had been sent by divine appointment. This was the Lord's work in his life. The Puritan Thomas Watson said, whoever brings an affliction to us, it is God that sends it. Whoever brings it, and it can be brought in different ways, but whoever brings it, it is God who sends it. And the trials that God sends are designed, among other things, to prove the reality and the authenticity of our faith. How often do you read in Scripture of faith being tried? Peter talks that way in 1 Peter 1 verses 6 and 7 he says wherein you greatly rejoice though now for a season if need be you are in heaviness through manifold temptations that the trial of your faith be much more precious than that of gold that perisheth though it be tried with fire might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ the trial of your faith The word that's used there relates to the testing of metal with the design or the desire to prove how true it really is, to test the metal and to sanction something as real. It has to do with proving something. That thought is further developed by the word found in verse 7, found unto praise and honor and glory. It's a word that means to discover something after scrutiny. just to stumble upon something and find it, but to discover something after searching it, after proving it, after it being placed under some kind of scrutiny. The whole picture here is taken from the process of testing gold to make sure that it's true gold and not some kind of fake product. Believers are tested and tried by the Lord. They are brought into affliction so their faith can be shown to be true faith. Let me take you back into the Old Testament for a moment and down into the wilderness with the children of Israel. They've come out of Egypt now and have been delivered by the gracious, mighty hand of God, and then they commence those 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. 40 years of bitter experiences, we might say. At times, they had no food or water. At times, their enemies refused to leave them alone. At times, it seemed that their way forward was blocked. At times, they faced sickness and strife. At times, they met with grave disappointments. And it seems that over that 40-year period, it was trial after trial after trial, 40 years of trial. Why did God do that? Why did God order their steps in such a way that they face these afflictions, these trials on a constant basis? Well, Deuteronomy 8 and verse 15 and 16 provides the answer to that question. Speaking of the Lord, we read, who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, where there was no water, who brought thee forth water out of the rock of Flint, who fed thee in the wilderness with manna which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee. and that he might prove thee to do thee good at thy latter end." Why did the Lord allow them to wander for 40 years in the wilderness? Why did he bring them into the midst of fiery serpents? Why did he bring them to places where there was no water, or if there was water, the water was bitter, and they began to complain? Why did he do all of that? To prove them. It's a trial of their faith. And believer, the Lord sends afflictions so that our faith can be tested. The affliction is sent to test the sincerity of our trust in God. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. False faith will never do. False faith is not saving faith. False faith cannot unite us to Jesus Christ and therefore it really counts for nothing. Our faith must be genuine. And if through the trials that you face, if through the afflictions and the problems and the difficulties that you face, your faith has been shown to be true faith, then those trials and afflictions have been good for you. I think of what Paul wrote to the Hebrew Christians in Hebrews 12. He said in verse 5, My son, despise not now the chastening of the Lord. faint when thou art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." Those are precious words. We don't like to be chastened, but whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, Whereof all are partakers, then ye are bastards and not sons." The Lord chastens his children. He chastens them out of love. The affliction sent from God proves that we are the sons of God. Believer, thank God for the trial of your faith. It might be tough. It will be hard. there will be times when you will be in despair and you'll find it difficult to see the purpose of that trial at that particular time, but look back. Look back over that trial and see the reality of your union with Jesus Christ and the certainty of your faith in God and say with the psalmist, it's good for me that I have been afflicted. Because affliction verifies the reality of your faith. It's good, therefore, for us to be afflicted at times, and the Lord knows. He knows how much we can bear. He doesn't tempt us above what we are able, but the affliction verifies the reality of our faith. Another reason why it's good, affliction proves the sufficiency of our Savior. It proves the sufficiency of our Savior. When God adds affliction to His people, he does not subtract Christ from them. I want you to think about that. When Christ adds affliction, God adds affliction to his people, he does not subtract Christ from them. Rather, he often reveals more of Christ to them. It has been said that Christ is the fountainhead of all practical Christianity. To live christianly in affliction necessitates spirit, work, faith to look to him, to depend on him, to die with him, and to live out of him. That's how we live in the midst of affliction. Spirit, work, faith to look to Christ, to depend on Christ, to die with Christ, to live out of Christ. In other words, affliction teaches us that all that we need is found in our Savior. If we merely look at the trial, follow me carefully here, if we merely look at the trial, we will be plunged into a dark hole of doubt and despair. But if in the midst of our trial we look at Christ, We will find a Savior who is able to meet us at the very point of our need, and that trial will become the means to show us just how precious Christ really is. God does not send us trial to separate us from Christ. He sends us trials and afflictions to draw us to Christ. And many a Christian can testify to this. their very darkest hour they have seen something more of the Savior. The affliction has made them think more deeply of Christ's affliction on their behalf. You ever think in the midst of your trial, in the midst of your trouble, When things are pressing in against you, and you think things are going in the wrong direction, and all these things are against you, and you wonder what is taking place, have you ever thought about the afflictions Christ suffered on your behalf? He was smitten and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we're healed. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. And anything we suffer by way of affliction is nothing in comparison to the affliction Christ suffered. So as we consider our affliction, our minds are drawn to consider him and the affliction that Christ has suffered on our behalf. The affliction also has made us often recognize the value of our union with Christ. You ever stopped and pondered that in the midst of your darkness, in the midst of your despair, just to remind yourself, listen, if everything else goes wrong and everything else falls apart and everything else is stripped away, I am still in union with Jesus Christ. Paul taught that way in Romans chapter eight. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, not life or death or persecution or peril or nakedness or sword, not anything. And in our affliction, when it seems things are being taken from us, the joys that we have are being taken from us, it seems we are reminded that nothing can sever our union with the Savior. That's a precious thing. The affliction has made us often lean more upon him than ever before. We come to understand that we're not sufficient for these things, that we have no strength of our own. We can't do it. We can't cut it in life on our own. We lean more upon our beloved like the one in the Song of Solomon leaning upon her beloved coming up out of the wilderness. We lean more upon Christ in our times of affliction. Is it not true also that our affliction has made us appreciate the worth of Christ's prayers like never before? There are times in affliction we can't even put words together in prayer. Times we can't even bring our thoughts together in prayer. But we remind ourselves that when we cannot pray, Christ is praying for us. The affliction has made us understand more of his sympathy and love. He's touched with the feeling of our infirmities. It may seem that friends have deserted us and no one has a word of comfort for us. And even if they did, the word that they would bring seems so, so empty. Well-meaning maybe, but so empty it doesn't seem to do anything to help us. And then we remind ourselves, but Christ is touched with the feeling of my infirmities. He understands. Because we have in glory a true man. A true man who understands us. The affliction has made us keener to hear his voice. We come to the word with the prayer, Lord, speak to me. give me a word. Lord, have something, have a message for me in the midst of my darkness." And what are we saying there? Lord, we're keen to hear your voice. The affliction has made us value his fellowship. Just to have a consciousness that the Lord is with us, he has not forsaken us, he has not failed us, he has not forgotten us, is a tremendous thing in the midst of affliction. affliction also makes us realize that he alone can calm our hearts and soothe our souls. Christ is the friend born for adversity. He's the friend that sticks closer than a brother. He's the one who will not fail us. And then the affliction makes us realize, too, that our final security is in Christ alone. He's the one that will see us safely home. affliction shows us the sufficiency of our Savior. We're cast upon him. That's why David prays in Psalm 61 in the midst of Absalom's rebellion when everything is against him, his heart is overwhelmed, he's praying from the ends of the earth and what does he pray? Lead me to the rock that's higher than I. knows the sufficiency of Christ. He knows his own insufficiency, but he knows the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. The trial of our faith is often used to show us the wonder of the Lord. I think of the disciples in Mark chapter 4 in the ship, and Christ has sent them forth They're not out very far across the lake, but the storm comes and threatens to destroy them, and Christ is not with them. And Christ comes and meets with them, and he's sovereign over the storm, and he calms the storm, and he calms their fears, so much so that they say in Mark 4, verse 41, what manner of man is this? Christian Christ never feels. Where he leads us, his grace will sustain us. He is sufficient for every trial. So we can look back on the trials of life and we can say, what manner of man is this? Sometimes it takes us the trial to show us that. It's good for us to be afflicted. Because in our affliction we learn the strength, we learn of the sympathy, We learn of the security and we learn of the sufficiency of our great Savior, Jesus Christ. And things that we can learn in the trial, we may not learn apart from the trial. We learn the sufficiency of our Savior. And when we do, what do we say? It's good for me to have been afflicted. I've seen something more. That's a blessed thing. Affliction verifies the reality of our faith. It proves the sufficiency of our Savior. It promotes the maturity of our graces. Promotes the maturity of our graces. What do I mean by that kind of phrase? I mean that the trials of our faith are designed to help us grow in grace and mature as believers in Christ. I want you to think of this. If we weren't never tried, we were never tested, if we were never brought into affliction, we might not learn patience, we might not become wiser, we might not increase in faith, we might not learn to pray as we do, we might not value the Word, we might not appreciate the fellowship of the saints, for those are the very things that tend to happen when we are in affliction. Take the words of Romans 5 verses 3 and 4, and Paul says, not only so, but we glory in tribulations also. There's the same kind of idea. We glory in tribulations. We thank God for them. We praise him for them. We glory in our tribulation, knowing that tribulation does what? Worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. Or the words of James 1 verse 3, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. We have need of patience. And see the connection there, the trial of our faith, it does something. It promotes something. It's an aid to something. It's a help because we're told here, it worketh patience. The word worketh there means to work fully or to accomplish or to fashion. In other words, the trial of our faith causes patience to be advanced in us, but not just patience, love, meekness, trust. Other graces, too. Trials have a tendency to make us grow more like Christ if we have the proper use of them. You see, facing trials, what's it like? It's like the pruning of a fruit tree. Every now and again, and it's different for different trees, every now and again that fruit tree needs to be cut back. They need to feel the knife. They need to feel the saw or the blade. The old wood needs cut away. cut away so the branches can be trimmed so that air can circulate a little better around them, so the branches aren't rubbing against each other and damaging them, and the branches are trimmed back, there's a pruning work, and as a result of that pruning work, what happens? The fruit tree the next season bears forth more fruit. It's more productive. It brings forth much more of a harvest. Effective pruning is an important part of good husbandry. So the man comes at the right time of the year with the right instrument, the right implement, and he cuts back, he prunes back at the right place, at the right time, in the right way, and he knows it's going to produce more fruit in the days to come. And Christ is our husband, man. And at the very right time, in the very right way, in the very right method, he sends us crooning afflictions so that we bring forth more fruit of the Spirit of God in our lives. That's a vital part of the Christian life. we bring forth more fruit have you ever realized that that's why we have been chosen john 15 verse 16 christ said you did not choose me but i chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide and whatsoever he shall ask of the father in my name he may give it you we have been chosen to bring forth fruit the lord often afflicts us often afflicts us so that we would bear fruit for His glory. It helps us to mature as believers. It promotes the maturity of our graces. And when we see that, as we look back over life, what will our testimony be? It is good for me that I have been afflicted. verifies the reality of our faith, it proves the sufficiency of our Savior, it promotes the maturity of our graces. Fourthly, affliction restrains the iniquity of our hearts. It restrains the iniquity of our hearts. Look at verse 67 of the Psalm, Psalm 119, verse 67. The Psalmist says, before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word. Before I was afflicted, I went astray." The word there means to err or to be deceived or to sin. So as he thinks back on his life, he looks there and he sees that he was on a path or a course that was contrary to the ways of the Lord. He was following his own path, and then he was afflicted. He was going astray, but it was good for him to be afflicted because he was no longer going astray after the affliction. Lord used that to restrain him and to bring him back look at verse 71 our text he said it is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes the word learn there is connected with the the practice of prodding an ox with a gold sharp instrument to make it go in the right direction if you have lived on a farm or have been to a farm will know that when you're bringing the cattle in or dealing with animals they can go in any direction they care to go it's just their nature they go all over the place so the farmer comes with a a sharp instrument to prod them and and push them in the right way and that's what the psalmist is saying here it's the very word he uses the word goad he had been goaded or he had been learning statutes of God. The Word of God was acting as a goad to him to keep him in the right way, and it's all connected with his affliction. The affliction was good for him, because it brought him back to the right path. It was corrective. It restrained him. It was used by the Lord to draw him from his own course, his own pathway, and bring him into the way that he ought to be going. Ruth chapter 1 verse 21 gives me an Old Testament illustration of that. Naomi said as she returned to Bethlehem, remember her and her husband and two sons had gone to Moab to escape the famine. Her husband dies there and her two sons die there as well and by that time they had married two Moabite girls and Naomi has left, her husband is dead, her two sons have died and she's left with these two daughter-in-laws and word comes to her that God has visited his people and given them bread. So Naomi determines to go back to Bethlehem, the house of bread, and she should never have left that place, but she had with her husband, and she determines to go back. And Orpah and Ruth initially indicate that they're willing to go. Orpah eventually turns back to her false gods and her own way of life, but Ruth determines to go with her, and so together Naomi and Ruth make their way back to Bethlehem, and they come at the beginning of the barley harvest, And as they come towards Bethlehem, the people of the city begin to notice these two women, and they begin to ask, is that Naomi? Is it really her? She'd been away for 10 years. Is it really her? Look at how she's changed. And they begin to talk, and they begin to speak to her about what has happened, and they call her Naomi. And she says, don't call me Naomi, call me Mara, which means bitter. And then she added, I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me, Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me? See what she's doing there. She's tracing her affliction back to the hand of her Heavenly Father. She says, the Almighty hath afflicted me, but now where is she? She's back where she should have been. She's back in Bethlehem, back among the Lord's people, back in the house of bread, back in the place of mercy, back in the place where the Lord had visited his people. That's where she should have been, and although the Lord had afflicted her, he had afflicted her and brought her back. He had sent the affliction to bring her back to himself. Sometimes the Lord does that. He does send afflictions and troubles so that we might have cause for self-examination and have the sin that's there dealt with. I have vivid memories as a child of being asked to paint iron gates and iron railings and parts of trailers that had become rusted. Before you could paint them, you had to scrape them with a scraper of some sort or a wire brush or something to get the rust off of them, and then you'd paint them. It was a long time scraping and rubbing and sandpapering and trying to get the thing cleaned up in order to get it ready for painting. It wasn't a very pleasant job. I'm sure we often thought it was an affliction to us, and it was, but it had to be done. Sometimes the afflictions in life do the very same thing. Thomas Watson said, affliction carries nothing away but the dross of sin. The Lord sends us affliction. If we're drifting away from him, he sends affliction to bring us back. And I've known many a man, the course of my ministry, many a man stopped in his tracks, stopped in his back sliding by some affliction. And God can do it. He can take away your health. He can bring sickness into the home. He can take away your wealth. He can strip away everything in order to bring you to your senses. And in certain cases where I've seen that happen in a very dramatic way, the person comes back some years later and says, it's good for me that I have been afflicted. That affliction was not seen to be some kind of curse. It was seen to be an act of mercy from God. Because sometimes the afflictions restrain the iniquity of our hearts, and we're made to stop and think, where am I with God? What path am I on in life? Where am I? Where am I? I'm not saying for a moment that every affliction is because of some particular sin, not at all. When afflictions come, it's good for us to ask ourselves the question, as David did. David's been hunted by Saul. and his life's in danger, and he's going from cave to cave to cave, and he goes from man to man to man to try and find some kind of help, and he comes eventually and he asks, what have I done? He engages in self-examination. And it wasn't because he had done something wrong that Saul was after him. The sin was Saul's there. Sometimes we need to ask ourselves the question, Where am I with God? That affliction God sends in circumstances like that, believer, it's good for us. Where would we be if God just left us alone? But affliction, affliction sometimes is the means that God has to show us our sin, to show us our backsliding, to show us our coldness. Make a stop and think. When we realize that, then we say with the psalmist, you know, it was good for me to have been afflicted. It was good for me to have been afflicted. verifies the reality of our faith, it proves the sufficiency of our Savior, it promotes the maturity of our graces, it restrains the iniquity of our hearts. The last thing it does, it advances the ministry of our lives. The ministry of our lives. As we have been afflicted, we then can comfort others who are afflicted too. Christ was tempted, and now he suckers us when we are tempted. those who have been afflicted in certain ways very often have a very keen sense of sympathy for those who are going through the very same thing. We are commanded to bear one another's burdens, and afflicted souls often look out for afflicted souls. The Lord teaches us during those times, and He comforts us, he draws alongside, he sends someone with a word and season for our hearts, and as we come through that affliction, we learn from that, and we seek to give comfort to others in their affliction. Affliction is not always easy to bear. We find it hard, but God sends them for our good. Of course, this affliction that we suffer here on earth, whatever it might be, is but a light affliction compared to the glory we shall enjoy in heaven. Therefore, we ought to always view our afflictions in the light of God's eternity. It will sweeten our eternity, and certainly our thoughts of eternity, when we remember God has a purpose in all of this for his glory. for our good. All things work together for good. I know that's easy to say when things are going well. It's easy to say when we're healthy, we have enough to get through with the necessities of life financially, and everything is taking place as we think it should. But even when things are not like that, all things are still working together for our good. And when we look back over life, we will have occasion to say, without a shadow of a doubt, it is good for me that I have been afflicted. Remember, the affliction comes from the loving hand of our heavenly Father. He never causes us a needless tear. He's working all things together for our good. It's good grief, though it's grief at the time, and it yields forth, as Paul tells us in Hebrews 12, it yields forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness. So, believer, if you're in the midst of trial tonight or have come through trials, or you sense that trials are just around the corner for you and things are beginning, the storm is beginning to rise, it seems, don't just look at the trial. See Christ in that. Trust your heavenly Father, for he does all things well. Lean upon him. Seek Him, get into the Word as the Lord enables you to, and pray that God will sanctify the trial to your heart. Bring glory to His name and good to your soul for Jesus' sake. Let's bow in a word of prayer together. Father in heaven, we pray tonight that I will take Thy Word and write it upon our hearts. We do thank Thee for Christ our Savior who was afflicted for us He was wounded for our transgressions. He was scourged and spat upon and bore the wrath of God on our behalf. We thank thee tonight for the one who is now able to succor and strengthen and bless us and help us. Lord, give us a proper view of our trials, we pray. We would not be blinded by the things of this world or by our own notions. Thou art sovereign. Lord, thou art sympathetic to thy people. We pray tonight that thou would write thy word upon our hearts. Remember any who are not saved here tonight, who do not know Christ and who face the trials and afflictions of life all on their own. Lord, I pray thou will speak to them tonight, and they face the greatest trial and affliction and sorrow and torment imaginable if they die without the Saviour. Lord, have mercy upon them. Bless thy word to our hearts tonight, we pray. we ask in Jesus' name, amen.