Psalms 88:7

Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast afflicted me with all Thy waves.

For the troubled

As men, the people of God share the common lot of men, and what is that but trouble? Yea, there are some sorrows which are peculiar to Christians, some extra griefs of which they partake because they are believers, though these are something more than balanced by those peculiar and bitter troubles which belong to the ungodly, and are engendered by their transgressions, from which the Christian is delivered.

I. Expound the text.

1. Tried saints are very prone to overrate their afflictions.

2. Saints do well to trace all their trials to their God.

3. Afflicted children of God do well to have a keen eye to the wrath that mingles with their troubles. God will visit His children’s transgressions. He will frequently let common sinners go on throughout life unrebuked; but not so His children. If you were going home to-day, and saw a number of boys throwing stones and breaking windows, you might not interfere with them-, but if you saw your own lad among them, I will be bound you would fetch him out, and make him repent of it. Perhaps the reason of your trouble may not be a sin committed, but a duty neglected. Search and look, and see wherein you have been guilty of omission. When you have so done let me give one word of caution. Do not expect when in the trouble to perceive any immediate benefit resulting from it. Remember that word, “Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” The gardener takes his knife and prunes the fruit trees to make them bring forth more fruit; his little child comes trudging at his heels and cries, “Father, I do not see that the fruit comes on the trees after you have cut them.” No, dear child, it is not likely you would, but come round in a few months when the season of fruit has come, and then shall you see the golden apples which thank the knife. Graces which are meant to endure require time for their production, and are not thrust forth and ripened in a night. Were they so soon ripe they might be as speedily rotten.

II. The benefits of trouble.

1. Severe trouble in a true believer has the effect of loosening the roots of his soul earthward and tightening the anchor-hold of his heart heavenward. How can he love the world which has become so drear to him? Why should he seek after grapes so bitter to his taste?

2. Affliction frequently opens truths to us, and opens us to the truth. Blessed is that man who receives the truth of God into his inmost self; he shall never lose it, but it shall be the life of his spirit.

3. Affliction, when sanctified by the Holy Spirit, brings much glory to God out of Christians, through their experience of the Lord’s faithfulness to them.

4. Affliction gives us through grace the inestimable privilege of conformity to the Lord Jesus. We pray to be like Christ, but how can we be if we are not men of sorrows at all, and never become the acquaintance of grief?

5. Our sufferings are of great service to us when God blesses them, for they help us to be useful to others. Luther was right, when he said affliction was the best book in the minister’s library. How can the man of God sympathize with the afflicted ones, if he knows nothing at all about their troubles? (C. H. Spurgeon.)