If God be our God, He will give us peace in trouble. When there is storm without, He will make peace within. The world can create trouble in peace, but God can create peace in trouble.
– Thomas Watson –
Persecution
Hold on and persevere – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The messengers of Jesus will be hated to the end of time. They will be blamed for all the division which rend cities and homes. Jesus and his disciples will be condemned on all sides for undermining family life, and for leading the nation astray; they will be called crazy fanatics and disturbers of the peace. The disciples will be sorely tempted to desert their Lord. But the end is also near, and they must hold on and persevere until it comes. Only he will be blessed who remains loyal to Jesus and his word until the end.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer –
Affliction of the godly and wicked – Thomas Watson
Affliction of the godly is like bruising spices, which are most sweet and fragrant. Affliction of the wicked is like pounding weeds, which makes them more unsavory.
– Thomas Watson –
Stony paths and strong shoes – Corrie ten Boom
If God sends us on stony paths, He provides strong shoes.
– Corrie ten Boom –
Losing all but Jesus – Charles Spurgeon
It is no loss to lose all but Jesus.
– Charles Spurgeon –
Affliction quickens prayer – Thomas Watson
Affliction quickens the spirit of prayer. Jonah was asleep in the ship—but at prayer in the whale’s belly! Perhaps in a time of health and prosperity we pray in a cold and formal manner—we put no coals to the incense; we scarcely minded our own prayers, and how should God mind them?Then God sends some cross or other affliction to make us take hold of Him. Now their prayers pierced the heavens! In times of trouble, we pray earnestly and fervently.
– Thomas Watson –
What makes us complain – Hudson Taylor
It is not so much the greatness of our troubles, as the littleness of our spirit, which makes us complain.
– Hudson Taylor –
If you want to be like Jesus – Leonard Ravenhill
If you want to be like Jesus, remember, He had a wilderness, a Gethsemane, and a Judas.
– Leonard Ravenhill –
Entering the Kingdom through tribulation – Dr. JH Jewett
We are not “born again” into soft and protected nurseries, but in the open country where we suck strength from the very terror of the tempest. We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.
– Dr. JH Jewett –