Psalms 119:67

Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept Thy Word.

The fruits of sanctified affliction

1. Your afflictions, if sanctified, will lead you to searchings of heart. Many sins, long forgotten, are now recalled to remembrance. Then, retiring, into the secret recesses of the spirit, where latent evils are concealed, you view yourselves in a true light, and form the right estimate of your characters.

2. Will dispose you to justify God even under the most trying dispensations. When you reflect on all that God hath done for you, and on your own sinfulness and ingratitude, you will perceive abundant cause to condemn yourselves, and to justify God.

3. Will greatly enhance your estimate of Christ and His salvation. In all His offices, characters, and relations He is most precious to you.

4. Will lead you to a more perfect understanding of the Scriptures.

5. Will work in you patience and submission to the Divine will. “Tribulation worketh patience.”

6. Will enhance a spirit of sympathy with others similarly situated.

7. Will enable you to form a correct estimate of the things of the world.

8. Will induce in you a more unreserved consecration to the service of Christ.

9. Will excite in you more ardent desires for that glorious condition of existence where sorrow will be unknown. (T. Swan.)