Tribulation

“ This blessed apostle, I say, for all these tribulations that he himself suffered in the continuance of so many years, calleth all the tribulations of this world but light and as short as a moment, in respect of the weighty glory that it winneth us after this world: "This same short and momentary tribulation of ours that is in this present time, worketh within us the weight of glory above measure on high, we beholding not these things that we see, but those things that we see not. For those things that we see are but temporal things, but those things that are not seen are eternal." ”

“ Trouble makes earth undesirable and causes heaven to loom up large in the horizon of hope. There is a world where trouble never comes. But the path of tribulation leads to that world. Those who are there went there through tribulation. What a world set before our longing eyes which appeals to our hopes, as sorrows like a cyclone sweep over us! Hear John, as he talks about it and those who are there ”

“ HOW THAT WE OUGHT TO CALL UPON GOD, AND BLESS HIM WHEN TRIBULATION IS UPON US.
LESSED be Thy Name, O Lord, for ever; for that it is Thy will that this temptation and tribulation should come upon me. ”

“ For both by temptation the devil persecuteth us, and by persecution the devil also tempteth us. And as persecution is tribulation to every man, so is temptation tribulation to a good man. Now, though the devil, our spiritual enemy, fight against man in both, yet this difference hath the common temptation from the persecution: Temptation is, as it were, the fiend's snare, and persecution his plain open fight. And therefore will I now call all this kind of tribulation here by the name of temptation, and that shall I divide into two parts. ”

“ Tribulations are many, and in every tribulation unto God must we flee; whether it be a tribulation in our estate, or in our body’s health, or about the peril of those dearest to us, or any other thing necessary to the sustaining of this life, refuge ought there to be none at all to a Christian man, other than his Saviour, other than his God, to whom when he has fled, he is strong. ”

“ In such wise witches, and in such mad medicines, have many fools a great deal more faith than in God.
And thus, cousin, as I tell you, all these folk who in their tribulation call not upon God, but seek for their ease and help elsewhere—to the flesh and the world, and to the flinging fiend—the tribulation that God's goodness sendeth them for good, they themselves by their folly turn into their harm. And those who, on the other hand, seek unto God therein, both comfort and profit they greatly take thereby. ”

“ What fruit to the just man? “We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, but patience probation, but probation hope: but hope confoundeth not: because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, that hath been given to us.” ”

“ This is tribulation, brethren. Surely now we do good works, when we deal bread to the hungry, home to the stranger, and the like: tribulation even this is. For we find pitiful objects upon whom we show pity; and the pitiful case of pitiful objects maketh us compassionate. ”

“ Affliction may be keen and bitter, but brief; tribulation is long and wearing. We speak of an affliction, but rarely of a tribulation, since tribulation is viewed as a continuous process, which may endure for years or for a lifetime; but we speak of our daily trials. ”

“ Here ye have the figure of the great tribulation that is about to come; which, if you please, shall be nothing to you.
29 When she had spoken thus much, she departed; but I saw not whither she went. But suddenly I heard a noise, and I turned back, being afraid, for I thought that the beast was coming toward me. ”

“ Before thou camest to the water, what anxiety didst thou bear on thee! what fastings didst thou practise! what tribulations didst thou carry in thy heart! what inward, pious, devout prayers! Slain are thine enemies; all thy sins are blotted out. In tribulation thou didst call upon Me, and I delivered thee. ”

“ He who in tribulation turneth himself unto worldly vanities, to get help and comfort from them, fareth like a man who in peril of drowning catcheth whatsoever cometh next to hand, and that holdeth he fast, be it never so simple a stick. ”

“ A man may many times, well and without sin, desire of God that the tribulation be taken from him. But neither may we desire that in every case, nor yet very well in any case (except very few) save under a certain condition, either expressed or implied. For tribulations are, as you know well, of many sundry kinds. Some are by loss of goods or possessions, some by the sickness of ourselves, and some by the loss of friends or by some other pain put unto our bodies. ”

“ So surely, if we accustom ourselves to put our trust of comfort in the delight of these childish worldly things, God shall for that foul fault suffer our tribulation to grow so great that all the pleasures of this world shall never bear us up, but all our childish pleasure shall drown with us in the depth of tribulation. ”

“ Wrath is coming for the world, but the Lord Jesus delivers His church from the wrath to come (1 Thess. i:10) . "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. v:9) .
II. What is the Tribulation?
The Word of God speaks of tribulation. Tribulations, distresses and all that goes with it are in the world on account of sin. Believers, though saved and no longer of the world, but delivered from this evil age, have tribulation and persecution likewise. ”

“ I suppose now that you will agree that tribulation is every such thing as troubleth and grieveth a man either in body or mind, and is as it were the prick of a thorn, a bramble, or a briar thrust into his flesh or into his mind. And surely, cousin, the prick that very sore pricketh the mind surpasseth in pain the grief that paineth the body, almost as far as doth a thorn sticking in the heart surpass and exceed in pain the thorn that is thrust in the heel. ”

“ For if they say that he who suffereth tribulation and martyrdom for the faith shall have high reward, not for his work but for his well-working faith, yet since they grant that have it he shall, the cause of high comfort in the third kind of tribulation standeth. ”

“ And when a man so doth, cousin, is this no tribulation to him because he doth it himself? For I know you would agree that it would be, if another man did it against his will. Then is tribulation, you know, tribulation still, though it be taken well in worth. ”

“ For tribulations are in their own selves a goodly thing. How so? It is because they anoint us unto patient abiding. Wherefore after saying we glory in tribulations, he has added the reason, in these words, “Knowing that tribulation worketh patience.” ”

“ First, as I before have at length showed you out of all question, continual wealth interrupted with no tribulation is a very discomfortable token of everlasting damnation. Thereupon it followeth that tribulation is one cause of comfort unto a man's heart, in that it dischargeth him of the discomfort that he might of reason take of overlong-lasting wealth. Another is, that the scripture much commendeth tribulation as occasion of more profit than wealth and prosperity, not only to those who are therein but to those who resort unto them too. ”

“ Howbeit, what if the man have this desire of God's comfort: that is, that it may please God to comfort him in his tribulation by taking that tribulation from him—is not this a good desire of God's comfort, and a desire sufficient for him who is in tribulation? ”

“ And I will bring men to tribulation, and they shall go as if they were blind, because they have offended our Lord, and I will pour out their blood as dust, and their flesh as the dung of oxen, and their silver and gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of our Lord. And in the fire of his zeal shall the whole earth be consumed, when the Lord shall accomplish his absolute end, and bring solitariness upon all the inhabitants of the earth. ”

“ For then he shall see that all the woe and tribulation that he hath done to them shall be turned to increase of their joy, without end; and all the pain and tribulation that he would have brought them to shall endlessly go with him to hell. ”

“ Thy holy covenant is sure;
Thy bow is in the cloud!
548. 7 & 6s. M.
Montgomery.
In Time of Tribulation.
1 In time of tribulation,
Hear, Lord, our earnest cries;
With humble supplication
To Thee the spirit flies.
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2 Remembered songs of gladness,
Through night’s lone silence brought,
Strike notes of deepest sadness,
And stir desponding thought.
3 Hath God cast off forever?
Can time His truth impair?
His tender mercy never
Shall we presume to share?
4 Hath He His loving-kindness
Shut up in bitter wrath?
No! it is human blindness,
That cannot see His path. ”

“ I think indeed tribulation so good and profitable that I might doubt, as you do, why a man might labour and pray to be delivered of it, were it not that God, who teacheth us the one, teacheth us also the other. For as he biddeth us take our pain patiently, and exhort our neighbours to do also the same, so biddeth he us also not forbear to do our best to remove the pain from us both. ”

“ For this Mine heart hath been proved by the visitation of tribulation. “Thou hast examined Me by fire, and iniquity hath not been found in Me.” Now not night only, in that it is wont to disturb, but fire also, in that it burns, is this tribulation to be called; whereby when I was examined I was found righteous.
4. “That My mouth may not speak the works of men” (ver. 4) . That nothing may proceed out of My mouth, but what relates to Thy glory and praise; not to the works of men, which they do beside Thy will. ”

“ For we may fear loss of goods or possessions, or the loss of our friends, or their grief and trouble or our own by sickness, imprisonment, or other bodily pain. We may be troubled most of all with the fear of that thing which he feareth least of all who hath most need to do so—that is, the fear of losing through deadly sin the life of his blessed soul. And this last kind of tribulation, as the sorest tribulation of all, though we may touch some pieces of it here and there before, yet the chief part and the principal pain will I reserve to treat apart effectually at the end. ”

“ If we lay first, for a sure ground, a very fast faith, whereby we believe to be true all that the scripture saith (understood truly, as the old holy doctors declare it and as the spirit of God instructeth his Catholic church) , then shall we consider tribulation as a gracious gift of God, a gift that he specially gave his special friends; a thing that in scripture is highly commended and praised; a thing of which the contrary, long continued, is perilous; a thing which, if God send it not, men have need to put upon themselves and seek by penance ”

“ Here the judgments, the tribulation and the wrath are made known which will visit the earth during the last seven years of the age. Revelation vi-xviii cover the history of the last week of Daniel. In these chapters we read nothing of the true church as still on earth.
Another important fact as to the tribulation period must be dealt with. During this time of trouble there are those on earth who suffer and whom God owns as Saints. Satan through his instruments, the little horn and the Antichrist is persecuting these Saints and they pass through this awful time of trouble. ”

“ Those who through grace can glory in tribulation ought to glorify God in tribulation, and give him thanks for their comforts, which abound as their afflictions do abound. We must in every fire, even the hottest, in every isle, even the remotest, keep up our good thoughts of God. When, though he slay us, yet we trust in him—when, though for his sake we are killed all the day long, yet none of these things move us—then we glorify the Lord in the fires. ”

“ To whatever place We may be banished, however great the tribulation We may suffer, they who are the people of God must, with fixed resolve and perfect confidence, keep their eyes directed towards the Day Spring of Glory, and be busied in whatever may be conducive to the betterment of the world and the education of its peoples. ”

“ And therefore in this kind of tribulation is there good occasion for a double comfort; but that is, I say, diversely to sundry diverse folk, as their own conscience is cumbered with sin or clear. Howbeit, I will advise no man to be so bold as to think that his tribulation is sent him to keep him from the pride of his holiness! Let men leave that kind of comfort hardly to St. Paul, till their living be like his. But of the rest men may well take great comfort and good besides. ”

“ We may therefore well prepare ourselves for suffering, even as the Lord told his apostles: “In the world ye shall have tribulation; yea, the world shall rejoice, but ye shall weep and be sorrowful; for a woman that is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come.” ”

“ In other tribulation—as loss, or sickness, or death of our friends—-though the pain be peradventure as great and sometimes greater too, yet is not the peril nowhere nigh half so much. For in other tribulations, as I said before, that necessity that the man must perforce abide and endure the pain, wax he never so wroth and impatient with it, is a great reason to move him to keep his patience in it and be content with it and thank God for it and of necessity make a virtue, that he may be rewarded for it. ”

“ Every tribulation that we fall in, either cometh by our own known deserving deed bringing us to it, as the sickness that followeth our intemperate surfeit or the imprisonment or other punishment put upon a man for his heinous crime ”