The Effects of Trials

“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.”

Have you ever noticed how believers who have been SEVERELY tried under the hand of God become more CAUTIOUS and HUMBLE? They do not speak quite so fast as they used to speak; they do not have a ready solution for every problem; they do not boast of what they HAVE done, WILL do, or WOULD do under certain circumstances; they are not quite so critical of others who fail; they have little to say about their own doings and much to say about the wonderful grace of our Lord.

Afflictions and trials have a way of MELLOWING believers and creating a certain character which cannot be mistaken or imitated. David wrote in Psalm 119:71, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn…”

Pastor Henry T. Mahan (bulletin article 1985)

On Praise and Prayer-Ezra 3

Praise is the very highest mood and exercise of the believing heart or soul. It is the expression towards God of the holiest emotions of which we are capable; reverence, obligation, gratitude, love, adoration. Whenever these are uplifted to God in homage and admiration, there is the worship of praise. When we pray, we are urged by necessities, fears and sorrows. It is the cry of our troubled helplessness, often of our pains or our fear. We are impelled by feelings of unworthiness, memories of sin, longing for forgiveness.

Praise brings not a cry but a song. It does not ask, it offers. It lifts not its hands but its heart. It is the voice, not of our woe but of our love, not of beseeching but of blessing. It comes before God, not clothed in sackcloth but with its singing robes on, not wailing litanies but shouting hosannas.

Prayer expresses only our lower religious moods of necessity and sorrow. Praise expresses our highest religious moods of satisfaction and joy. Prayer asks God to come down to us. Praise assays to go up to God. The soul that prays falls prostrate with its face to the ground often being in agony. The soul that praises stands with uplifted brow and transfigured countenance ready to soar to heaven. The birthplace and home of prayer is on earth. The birthplace and home of praise is in heaven. Pastor Scott Richardson

Every sermon sent by God Almighty through His means of revelation to His people, the preaching of the Gospel, finds Christ Jesus as its only subject. Only in rightly hearing of Him does a redeemed and regenerated sinner find comfort for his soul. If the Scriptures are preached aright, according to the word of the Lord to two on the road to Emmus, Luke 24, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, the message will set forth His glory, His work, and His honor….in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself will be the only declaration. Pastor Marvin Stalnaker

Jesus Christ our Great Physician

I am bound to speak well of my Physician — He treats me with great tenderness, and bids me in due time to expect a perfect cure. I know too much of Him (though I know but little) to doubt either His skill or His promise.

It is true, I have suffered sad relapses since I have been under His care. Yet I confess that the fault has not been His — but my own! I am a perverse and unruly patient! When I have brought myself very low — He has still helped me. Blessed be His name — I am yet kept alive only by means of His perfect care.

Though His medicines are all beneficial — they are not all pleasant. Now and then He gives me a pleasant cordial; but I have many severe disorders, in which there is a needs-be for my frequently taking His bitter and unpalatable medicines!

We sometimes publish in the newspapers, acknowledgments of cures received. Methinks, if I were to publish my own case, that it would run something like this:

"I, John Newton, have long labored under a multitude of grievous disorders:

A fever of ungoverned passions…
A cancer of pride…
A frenzy of wild imaginations…

A severe lethargy, and a deadly stroke!

In this deplorable situation, I suffered many things from many physicians, spent every penny I had — yet only grew worse and worse!

In this condition, Jesus, the Physician of souls, found me when I sought Him not. He undertook my recovery freely, without money and without price — these are His terms with all His patients! My fever is now abated, my senses are restored, my faculties are enlivened! In a word, I am a new man! And from His ability, His promise, and the experience of what He has already done — I have the fullest assurance that He will infallibly and perfectly heal me — and that I shall live forever as a monument of His power and grace!"