Morning By Morning #68

We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

Acts 14:22

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

Facing trials is a reality of God’s sovereign design, for His people were “chosen…in the furnace of affliction” (Isa. 48:10 KJV)—not chosen to worldly peace and earthly joy. Freedom from sickness and the pains accompanying mortality were never promised to them. In fact, when the Lord drew up His will, listing the privileges His people would inherit, He included chastisement, correction, and discipline.

Trials are part of our allotment in this life and they were predestined for us in Christ’s inheritance. As surely as the stars were fashioned by His hands and the orbits of the planets were determined by Him, our trials are allotted to us. He has ordained their place, duration, intensity, and their effect on us.

Godly people must never expect to escape difficulties, for if they do they will be severely disappointed. Certainly none of their predecessors were able to avoid them. Look at “Job’s perseverance” (James 5:11) through calamity, and remember Abraham and his trials and how through faith he endured them, ultimately becoming known as “the father of faith.” If you fully consider the lives of all of the patriarchs of Israel as well as God’s prophets, the apostles, and Christian martyrs, you will discover that all those whom God has chosen as His vessels of mercy were required to pass through “the furnace of affliction.” Long ago God ordained that the cross of trials should be engraved on each and every vessel of His mercy as the royal mark denoting the King’s vessels of honor.

Although tribulation is the path God’s children must take, they can take comfort in knowing their Master has traveled that way before them. More than that, they have His presence with them, His sympathy to encourage them, His grace to support them, and His example to teach them how to endure. Then when they finally “enter the kingdom of God” it will more than make amends for the “many hardships” through which they have been required to pass to enter it.

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

Hebrews 11, often called “the roll call of faith,” reiterates the necessity of suffering trials but also shows us their eternal value. After sharing various examples of the trials of many Old Testament saints, the writer continues:

What more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them.

Hebrews 11:32-38

No, “the world was not worthy of them,” but praise God—heaven is!