You must remember, Kelvin writes in one of his letters, the cross of Jesus Christ will follow us. Kelvin knew very well that cross bearing is central to the Christian life, and he knew this from his own life, what that meant. And that is why this evening I want to focus our attention on Kelvin under the cross. You know, when we think of the Reformation, then we tend to think of the doctrines of grace, and rightly so. We think of the five solas, sola gratia, by grace alone, sola scriptura, by scripture alone, sola fide, faith alone, sola Christus, Christ alone, and sola Deo gloria, to the glory of God alone. And certainly these Reformation truths are central. But one of the neglected themes that the men of the Reformation would want us to remember as well is how a Christian should undergo suffering. And all the reformers, they suffered much. They suffered in body and soul. They suffered as refugees. They suffered in their families. But is that not the real test? The test of the usefulness of the doctrines on which we cling. The test, will these doctrines of grace sustain us through tribulation, even a tribulation that is of the worst kind? Well, that is what we want to look at in the life of John Calvin. I'd like to give you some glimpses into the suffering of John Calvin throughout his life. First, let's look at the suffering in his youth, the suffering in his youth. Calvin's parents had seven children, but as was more common in his days, some of them died in infancy. Of the seven born to Calvin's parents, two of them died at a young age. That meant that grief entered into the home of John Calvin, as it still happens when a child dies. The second event, also a sad event, happened when John Calvin's mother died when John was only six years old. Again, grief entered into their home as they had to go to the grave to bury their mother, a mother who had been a devoted mother. A third event of John Calvin's suffering in his youth was that at the age of 14, John Calvin went to study away from home at different schools, and some of the schools where he studied were pleasant schools, but not all. At one of the schools where he studied, things were not pleasant at all. Another student who had studied there during the time of John Calvin, he recalled hard beds, sleepless nights, spoiled food. Many left this school with bad health, many lice and fleas. Some even called it the College of Lice. And it's clear that Calvin, too, would receive from this college a weakened constitution. However, it was here, too, that Calvin made good progress in his studies. He was a diligent student with an impressive memory. But nonetheless, there we have a small glimpse into Calvin's suffering in his youth. The next picture I want to give is a picture of Calvin suffering in his work, and then especially his work in Geneva. But before we come to look at that picture, a question is fair to ask. How did he ever end up in Geneva? Well, then we must say two things. For one, he was converted. How did that happen, you ask? Well, it was during his college years that Calvin also secretly read the books of Luther and others in support of the Reformation. But he himself tells us that he was too obstinately devoted to the superstitions of potpourri. So he was devoted, he says, to superstitious life, the superstitions over the Romanist church. On top of this, he was addicted to spiritual darkness, as it is for all of us. Addicted to spiritual darkness. So was Kelvin, addicted to it. But by a sudden conversion, things changed. God's light began to shine upon him. The eyes of his understanding were opened and he came to see his sin and he came to see, he writes it himself, he came to see himself as an arch enemy of God and that there was not the least obedience to God and that he was full of pride and maliciousness and arrogance and he was an obstinate rebellion against God. and that though he went to church and though he studied and he read the scriptures, but he realized that he was plunging himself into eternal death had it not been for God who showed mercy. And then he began to condemn his past life. And he began to do so with groans and with tears. And instead of defending himself, He admitted his guilt and earnestly begged God to show mercy. Quite a change took place in John Calvin. Such a change, in fact, that after this Calvin began to preach and people began to come to him for counsel. The second thing that happened then as a result was not only that he was converted, but he became a refugee. You see, at the same time when the Reformation movement was growing, France and the Pope of the Romish Church considered the Reformation to be a threat, and the leaders of the Reformation realized that they had to flee France in order to avoid arrest, and Calvin was among them. He realized he, too, had to flee, and that's how he became a refugee. And so he arrived in Geneva, and our children, maybe hearing the story of Calvin in recent days, will know that Calvin only planned to stay overnight in Geneva. and the next day go on his way again to Strasbourg. But William Farrell stopped him. William Farrell, himself a reformer at work in Geneva, needed help. And when Farrell realized that Calvin was in the city, he found him and he told Calvin that it was God's will for him to stay in Geneva. Calvin did not want to hear this. He was seeking a quiet place in order to study. He wanted to avoid conflict. But Pharrell insisted that Calvin had to stay and said that God would curse his rest and peace if he did not stay in Geneva. And as a result, Calvin was filled with terror and he gave up his plans and he stayed in Geneva. And it is there in Geneva that Calvin suffered much. In his work, I said, Yes, he was a hardworking man. After all, there was much to do in Geneva. And Calvin writes on one occasion to Pharrell, I cannot think of a day this year in which I was so overwhelmed with all kinds of things as today. He tells Pharrell he was busy with the manuscript. He had to look over that manuscript. On top of that, I had to lecture, preach, write four letters, settle several disputes and receive more than 10 visitors. He got up at four o'clock every morning. He barely took any time for himself, and even when he was sick he tried to keep working. And when his friends who stood around his bedside encouraged him to take some rest, he said to them, What, shall the Lord find me idle? He also met with much opposition in Geneva. At night some citizens tried to keep him from his work by making a lot of noise outside of his house, even firing their rifles. in the dark of night to keep him from his work. As he walked the streets, people sent their dogs after him, and they shouted at their dogs, sick him, sick him. Certain people called Calvin a heretic and a teacher of false doctrine. He faced many false accusations. And certainly, you can understand that the result was much stress in his life. The work of the Reformation was difficult, and the time even came when Calvin was banished from Geneva for three years. And after three years, the city council of Geneva tried to get him back, and they pleaded with him, come over and help us. And Calvin, for himself, had no desire to go back. In a letter he wrote, he said that it would be better to perish once for all. than to be tormented again in that place of torture and suffer repeatedly on that torture rack. He dreaded going back to Geneva. But in September 1541, Calvin returned to Geneva. Of course, that meant more difficulties and more trials. He found life in Geneva very hard, so difficult. that one time he wrote, today I urgently prayed and begged God at least twenty times that he might let me die. So far a picture of him in his work. I come now to look at a picture of him suffering in his family. At the age of thirty-one he married Idilet Van Buren, a woman who would also become a refugee who had come to flee for her faith. She was several years older than Calvin, but she looked young. She was a widow, had two children by her first husband. She was a woman of whom Calvin wrote that she would have gone with him into exile, misery and death. She was a devoted woman. Almost two years after they were married, Idilet gave birth to a son. whom they named Jacques. The baby was born premature and was not well and passed away only after 22 days. Calvin writes, The Lord has given me a son, but he has also taken him away. God himself is a father and knows what is best for his children. This meant pain for Calvin, having lost a son. And it filled him with sorrow, the loss of his son, even until the time he died. Etelet, his wife, also had a weak health, and she could not get over the death of her son, Jacques. And Calvin, in his letters, writes often of the illnesses of his wife. One time he writes, My wife is recovering slowly. Now she also has hemorrhoids. added to that are her coughing fits, which increase her pain, nor has she shaken her fever. Her weakened condition continued for years, and after nine and a half years of marriage, her end drew near. And Kelvin himself came to her bedside many times in that night to encourage her with God's grace, and then he would leave her bedside to go and pray for her. But her end came in the morning when she quietly breathed her last breath. And Calvin wrote, I am no more than a half a man since God recently took my wife home to himself. And writing to someone else who had lost also his wife some seven years later, he says, what a terrible injury, what pain the death of your wife has caused you. And I speak from my own experience, for even now I fully know how difficult it was seven years ago now to deal with such grief. Calvin did have two stepchildren, but very little is known of what happened to them except that one stepdaughter, he wrote, has brought shame to the family. More suffering in the life of Calvin. But I also want to give a glimpse of Calvin's suffering in his body. He was often sick. He writes on September 3, He writes this in a letter. On September 3, I had a very bad headache, but I'm so accustomed to them that they barely bother me any longer. As I suddenly began to feel hot while preaching on the following Sunday, I noticed that the fluids that had stuffed up my head were suddenly turning liquid. Even before I left the church, I caught a punishing cold that left me with a constantly running nose until Tuesday. When I preached on that day, as usual, I had a very hard time speaking because my nose was so congested from the flow and I was so hoarse that I almost felt like I was being choked. And then I suddenly felt a shudder go throughout my whole body. He suffered from kidney stones, which caused him to lose all sense of feeling. On one occasion, the doctor prescribed a horseback ride, thinking that the jolting would discharge the kidney stone, but instead he only had more unbearable pain. He tried to rid himself of a kidney stone a day later by shaking his whole body for a half hour, but it was not till a day later that the stone passed the size of a hazelnut. These kidney stones were caused by a severe case of gout. The treatment for his gout was some kind of oil which was rubbed on his foot, an oil that was so repulsive that it made him want to vomit. His life was not easy. but he knew that all of this belongs to the life of the Christian. Union to Christ means union to him in his suffering. How different that is from the gospel that is preached from so many pulpits, saying that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, all shall be well and you will be wealthy and healthy. No, it means union to Christ in his sufferings. He says, for whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of his fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life crammed with very many and various kinds of evils. It is the heavenly Father's will thus to exercise them so as to put His own children to a definite test. Beginning with Christ, His firstborn, He follows His plan with all His children. Suffering. The times in which Calvin lived were not easy. They lived in a time when death threatened a person's life at every turn in the form of robbers ready to rob, war, plague, spoiled food, and other enemies. A time when there was more than enough cause for fear. And Calvin describes the life of man. He says, as humans, we are like dry grass We can wither away at any moment. We are never far from death. Indeed, it is as if we are already living in the grave. Our life hangs, as it were, from a silk thread, and we are surrounded by a thousand deaths. There are dangers everywhere. Listen to Kelvin. If only you look up, how many dangers threatened us from there. But if you look down at the ground, how many poisons do you find there? How many wild beasts that can tear you to pieces? How many snakes? How many swords, pits, stumbling blocks, ravines, caved-in buildings, stones, flying spears? In short, we cannot take a single step without encountering ten deaths. And it is true, he says, in the city many accidents are waiting to happen. In the forests, we are not free from dangers. Even our bodies are full of all kinds of diseases. There are so many threats. Kelvin says, if you step onto a ship, you are only one step away from death. If you climb onto a horse, your foot only needs to slip and your life is in danger. Just walk through the city streets one time and there are as many dangers as there are roof tiles on the houses. If you or your friend are carrying a weapon, injury lies in wait. But are the times of today any different? Today there continues to be much suffering. Also at present there's the threat of disease, H1N1. And there are many wars being fought in many places, on many fronts. On December, just to recount some of the suffering in this world, on December 24, 2004, an underwater earthquake sent a tsunami over the coastal regions of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India, and Thailand. The death toll reached over 150,000. and the homes of nearly a million people were destroyed. On a quiet morning in September 2001, hijacked airplanes ran the twin towers of the World Trade Center, killing 3,000 people. And in many places, Christians are persecuted. Muslims killed some 600 Christians in Nigeria during one week in May 2004. In that same area, mobs of Muslim youths went from house to house looking for Christian victims, and in some cases they trapped them in their homes and torched their homes. Now, what does Calvin have to say on this subject of suffering? He has quite a bit to say, and I am hoping to turn to that now. Calvin writes on the subject of suffering, and for this I am indebted to a book by Joseph Hill, who has taken many of the selections from the writing of John Kelvin on this subject and put it into a wonderful book called Suffering, Understanding the Love of God. So first then, providence and suffering. Of course, that is one of the first questions that is raised in the face of suffering. If God is good, why is there so much evil? In the face of the terrorist attacks in the United States, September 2001, Few people mention the providence of God as being behind these events. Many attribute it simply to bad luck or chance. But Calvin says there is no such thing as fortune or chance. This erroneous opinion has prevailed in every age, namely that all things happen by chance and hereby the truth of God's providence has been obscured and almost buried. If one falls among robbers or ravenous beasts, if a sudden gust of wind at sea causes shipwreck, if one is struck down by the fall of a house or a tree, if another, when wandering through desert paths, meets with deliverance, or after being tossed by the waves arrives in port, makes some wondrous hair-breaths escape from death, all these occurrences, prosperous as well as adverse, will be attributed by the worldly sense to fortune, but those who have learned from the mouth of Christ that all the hairs of their heads are numbered will look farther for the cause and hold that all events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God. Also in your life, and also in my life, all things come by His fatherly hand. And now, what advice does Calvin have if we are in difficult providences? Remember the hand of God. He governs all things. And the necessary consequence of knowing this are gratitude and prosperity, he writes, patience in adversity, and a wonderful security respecting the future. Very similar to Lord's Day 10, maybe you picked up on that. What must we do when things are well? Lift up our hearts to God. He has done it. He has given it. And what if things don't go well? Again, Calvin says, immediately lift up our hearts to God, whose hand is most capable of impressing us with patience and peace of mind. If Joseph, and then Calvin refers to the life of Joseph, an account you know well, sold into slavery, ended up into prison. If Joseph had dwelt on a review of the deceitful treachery of his brothers, he never could have recovered his fraternal affection for them. But as he turned his mind to the Lord, he forgot his injuries, and was so inclined to mildness and clemency, as even voluntarily to administer consolation to them, saying, It was not you that sent me here. But God sent me here before you to save your lives." Calvin knew that, too. After all, after Calvin's son passed away, remember what he wrote? After those brief twenty-two days, the Lord has given me a son, but he has also taken him away. Calvin knew that the way that he had to go was not always so easy. expelled from Geneva. Many Christians were persecuted. The people whom he trained at his seminary there in Geneva, he would send back, many of them who would not live very long, but die for the sake of the gospel. Why would the Lord send all these things? Calvin wrote in a letter once, the punishments he sends are for your good and salvation. Yes, let us remember the hand of God. Let us remember God governs all things. Knowing this, young people, when things don't go the way that you had thought that they would go, knowing this, that God is in control of all things, should keep you from becoming despondent and impatient when trouble comes your way. Secondly, punishment and suffering. I already hinted at the question, when suffering comes our way, then the question is often asked, why? Why is this happening to me? Yes, then it is clear that sometimes God does it to punish. The Bible teaches us that God punishes. the disobedient. For instance, in the days of Noah, the people had become so wicked. The people had become so alienated from God. How could you tell? You could tell by their violence, their love of aggression. It was not so safe to walk the streets in Noah's day. Aggression was everywhere. And God punished them. The violence is already a judgment from God, but then the flood is another punishment. Now look at the streets that we live on, and the times in which we live, and the entertainment world. What is it that man loves? Violence. That's a punishment from God when our culture loves violence. God shows His anger, and He shows His anger at times in punishing the world. But now someone says, what about in the lives of His children? Does He also punish His children sometimes? Yes. The word that we are more used to is the word, chasing. Hebrews 12 verse 4 to 11 tells us this, that He is a God who chases His people, His children. It's for our good. And the writer to the Hebrews also says that no chastening for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous. But when a father disciplines his child, the child does not see its benefit. But the father is seeking the child's good. And that's what God is seeking too. As the psalmist also discovered, Psalm 119, verse 67, Now it's true that God does not always send punishment because of sin. And we should not always try to see if there is a connection, a direct connection, between a punishment and a sin. Sometimes God sends chastisement to prove us. when he wants to test our obedience, as he did in the life of Abraham, when he called him to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah. The test that God sends to Abram is, will Abraham now obey me? Or sometimes God sends suffering and trials to train us for patience. Of course, this is the question that many people are busy with, the question why. But I've said already that sometimes that question is not answered. There is that account of the man born blind in John 9. The disciples wanted to know who sinned. Did this man sin or did his parents sin? And Jesus said neither this man nor his parents sinned. And Calvin says this, Christ does not absolutely say that the blind man and his parents were free from all blame, but he declares that we ought not to seek the cause of blindness in sin. God sometimes has another object in view than to punish the sins of men when he sends afflictions to them. Consequently, when the causes of afflictions are concealed, we ought to restrain curiosity so that we may neither dishonor God nor be malicious towards other people. Therefore, Christ assigns another reason. This man, he says, was born blind so that the works of God should be revealed in him. So long as he was blind, that was exhibited in him a proof of the severity of God, from which others might learn to fear and humble themselves. It was afterwards, followed by the benefit of his cure and deliverance, in which the astonishing goodness of God was strikingly displayed. You have heard of the life of Joni, Eriks and Tadda, who had a serious accident while swimming. at a low tide, left her paralyzed. And she realized, too, that people with disabilities can look for answers to the question, why did this happen? And she realized that such a question can also lead to despair and greater helplessness. And she wrote, people with disabilities are a vivid reminder to us that God, in His holy and sovereign will, uses suffering to achieve his ultimate end in our lives. And that brings us to the purpose of suffering. The purpose of suffering. And that is perhaps the better question, not the question why so much in our lives, but where unto? And Calvin recognizes that God has different purposes in view in our suffering. And I don't know what the suffering is in your life, what the suffering has been, what the suffering will be in your life, but let us seek to also learn and seek also to find God working these things in our lives. The first one that I should mention is the purpose of patience. After all, Reverend Hamster read it for us also, Romans 5. 3 and 4 says that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience. And now when Paul says this, Calvin writes, Paul is explaining the lessons taught by suffering. God has promised to be with believers during times of trial. And when they feel the truth of this promise supported by his hand, they endure patiently. They could never do this by their own strength. Patience, therefore, gives believers experiential proof that God does indeed provide the help that he has promised whenever there is need. Patience. Is that perhaps something that you need to learn? Purify. Secondly, the Lord needs to purify his people. He needs to purify our faith so that our faith wholly leans on Christ the solid rock. Purify also to purify the heart. And Calvin, he gives a good illustration of iron in the fire. As the iron which has become rusted and is no use until it is heated again in the fire and beaten with the hammer So in the same way, no one can give himself cheerfully to prayer until he has been softened by the cross and thoroughly subdued. So what would you say if your life, what would you say if your heart has become rusted, maybe? Then God uses the fire of suffering in order to give His people softness. Thirdly, pity. God's people need to pity those who suffer. How can we pity them? How can we pity those on the bed of suffering unless we know what it is to suffer? Calvin says, let us pity those who suffer to comfort them and aid them. And when we are unable to do them any good, to wish for their salvation. Pity, understanding, sympathy. Another purpose of this cross of Christ in the lives of His people. Fourthly, to humble Paul, in a vision, was caught up to the third heaven. He tells us of it in 2 Corinthians 12. And now such a vision of being caught up into the third heaven could give him reason to boast. But the Lord prevented him from boasting by giving him a thorn in the flesh. And now whatever malady that thorn was, Paul was kept back from pride and he learned humility. And how much do we not need of this humility? Calvin writes, whatever the infirmity is under which we labor, let us bear in mind that we are, as it were, buffeted by the Lord with the intent of making us ashamed and in this way of teaching us humility. Those who are mature in the faith, whose lives display much spiritual fruit, should be especially careful to reflect on this if they are persecuted by those who hate and revile them. These things are not merely rods of the heavenly master, but buffetings intended to humble them and beat down all presumption and pride. And have you perhaps not been uncovered to that pride in your heart? Have you not seen how dangerous it is? Pride is dangerous, Calvin says. It is a poisonous thing. Fifthly, a fifth purpose for suffering is the pattern. To become more like the pattern of the Lord Jesus, or you can say conformity to Christ. Isn't that what God seeks in the sufferings that he sends the way of his people? Calvin says, beyond all else, God desires us to be conformed to the image of His Son, as it is fitting that there should be conformity between the head and the members of the body. He wants His people to be more like Christ, to look more like Christ, also in their meekness and humility. Romans 8, verse 29, For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate. to be conformed to the image of his son. Fourthly, prayer and suffering. Prayer and suffering. Yes, that is a good question. What should we do in times of trial and in times of suffering? What should we do when it seems like, and maybe I'm speaking to some of us right now, when it seems like God's hand has gone out against us and we feel overwhelmed? Well, in the words of David, Psalm 62, verse 8, trust in Him at all times. Ye people, pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us. Galvin says, we are bound to honor his name by remembering in our greatest extremities that to him belong the issues of life and death. And as we are all inclined at such times to shut up our afflictions in our hearts, in other words, to close our hearts, to keep them close to God. a circumstance which can only aggravate the trouble and embitter the mind against God, David could not have suggested a better remedy than that of turning over our cares to God. What must we do with the load of distress in our lives? Calvin says under trying circumstances, we must comfort ourselves by reflecting that God will extend relief provided we just freely roll our burdens over upon Him. Calvin knew this himself, this comfort in prayer. He knew what it was to pour out his heart before God, a heart that was wounded, a heart that was troubled. And we do well to encourage each other to do the same in trouble and in woe. Pour out your heart before God. For as the poet Thomas More has said, Earth has no sorrows that heaven cannot heal. When troubles come, what are we tempted to do? I don't know if it's a temptation you know of. It's a temptation to turn to a sympathetic friend before turning to God. But Calvin says this is one reason why people receive no profit from their complaints, because they do not bring their prayers and sighs to God. And even the psalmist of Psalm 88 went to God. Psalm 88, composed by Heman, a man who looked around and who looked within and he felt hopeless, but he turns to God in prayer. And Calvin says of this psalm, although this psalm does not end with thanksgiving, but with a mournful complaint, as if there remain no place for mercy, yet it is so much the more useful as a means of keeping us in the duty of prayer. The psalmist in heaving these sighs and discharging them, as it were, into the bosom of God. Doubtless did not cease to hope for the salvation of which he could see no signs by the eye of sense. After all, he called God the God of my salvation. Fifthly, prospect and suffering. For there is a prospect that God sets before his people also in the way of suffering. as the patriarchs also had. We're told of it in Hebrews 11. They looked for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God. They looked for a better country. And so, that's what the Hebrews were also to do. A people who also were facing trials and temptations and in the time of suffering, tempted to go back. And the writer of the Hebrews sets before them hope which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. Hebrews 6 verse 11, I think. And Calvin in his commentary writes, it's a striking picture when the writer of the Hebrews compares faith leaning on God's Word to an anchor. Doubtless, as long as we sojourn in this world, we do not stand on firm ground, but are tossed here and there, as it were, in the midst of the sea. Perhaps something that you may know of. Tossed about in the midst of the sea, which indeed is very turbulent, for Satan is incessantly stirring up innumerable storms which would immediately upset and sink our vessel, were we not to cast our anchor fast in the deep. For nowhere does a haven appear to our eyes, but wherever we look water alone is in view. Waves also threaten us, but in the same way that the anchor is cast through the waters into a dark and unseen place and lying there, it keeps the vessel beaten by the waves from being overwhelmed, so must our hope be fixed on the invisible God. There is this difference, Calvin says. The anchor is cast downward into the sea, which has the earth as its bottom. But our hope rises upwards and soars aloft, for in the world it finds nothing on which it can stand, nor ought it to cleave to created things, but to rest on God alone, the hope of glory. Friends, there are many disappointments in this life. Maybe you have them. They're carefully made plans. Don't turn out the way you had hoped. The job that you had wanted is given to someone else. Our earthly hopes are not always realized, but the hope of salvation never fails. And that's what Job was convinced of. He looked at his skin and he saw its pathetic condition. But he said, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. And Job is speaking of the great resurrection. He's not speaking of an earthly restoration. Job's thoughts go up above the earth He confessed, Galvin writes, that the Redeemer would be present with him when lying in the grave, and he must have lifted his eyes to a future immortality. Death could not destroy the hope of Job, for though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Friends, let us put our hope on things to come. After all, Paul says in Romans 8, verse 18, that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Calvin says it ought not to be grievous to us if we pass through various afflictions into celestial glory, since these, when compared with the greatness of that glory, are of the least importance. Paul implies that the afflictions of the world are such as pass away quickly. The comparison of sufferings with the greatness of glory lightens the heaviness of the cross in order to confirm the minds of the faithful in patience. Calvin writes on one occasion of a woman who was a child of God. He was by her side early in the morning of her death and his words comforted her. And then she spoke to those at her bedside and she said, The hour draws near that I must needs depart from the world. This flesh asks only to go away into corruption. But I feel certain that God is withdrawing my soul into his kingdom. My confidence is his goodness and in the death and passion of his son. His suffering is my only hope. Therefore, I do not doubt of my salvation since he has assured me of it. And Calvin's advice is this, when God's children suffer abuse or poverty or disease, let them lift up their eyes above this world and they will not have any difficulty to maintain their peace of heart under such calamities. Well, the end of Calvin also drew near. He preached his last sermon on February 6, 1954. when he was carried to the pulpit on a bed. Perhaps that's the picture that I would like to leave with you. Calvin brought to the pulpit on a bed. On Easter Sunday, April 2, he was once again carried to the church on a bed to celebrate the Lord's Supper. On April 25, he made out his will. His friend and successor, Theodor Beza was present at his deathbed and wrote this. On the day of his departure, the 27th of May, he seemed to be stronger and to speak with less difficulty. But it was nature's last effort, for in the evening, eight o'clock, symptoms of approaching death suddenly appeared. I had just left him a little before, and on receiving intimation from the servants, immediately hasted to him with one of the brethren. We found he had already died, and so very calmly, without any convulsions of his feet or hands, that he did not even fetch a deeper sigh. Indeed, he looked much more like one sleeping than dead. On that day, then, at the same time when the setting sun, this splendid luminary, was withdrawn from us, understandably an earthly loss. A man who had suffered for the Lord Jesus went to His eternal resting place. A man who suffered, who came to His home, a place to which all of God's people will come. And then it will not be because of their sufferings, but it will only be because of the sufferings of Christ, whom Calvin preached and clung to.