Your ShelfYour Projects

Hope in Affliction

20%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 24, 1874

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 44, No. 22.

Read the full edition

Hope in Affliction.

By D. T. Bourdeau

It is in tribulation that the hope of the Christian is of the greatest value. In times of temporal prosperity, we are not naturally inclined to desire greater blessings, to hope for an improved condition beyond the present life. Hence it is that in order to inspire in men that hope which will lead them to desire the blessings of the future state, God, in the rich counsels of his grace, sees fit to dissever them from temporal blessings and worldly prospects by affliction.
God generally chooses his children in the furnace of affliction. He suffers pecuniary loss to come upon some that they may see the vanity of worldly goods in their selfish and perverted use, and the importance of seeking the true riches by laying up treasure in Heaven. He permits sickness to come upon others that they may realize how fleeting is this short life with its sinful joys and pleasures, and lay hold on eternal life and the true and lasting pleasures awaiting the righteous.
The use that we make of our afflictions, will determine whether we will profit by them; whether they will lead us to die to selfishness and to this vain world, and serve as a key to open unto us the fadeless glories and durable riches of the world to come, or whether they will tend to the opposite results. It is by confession of sin and submission to God in affliction that hope, light, and joy, spring in the heart, that clouds disappear, that we are calm, and composed amid the most adverse circumstances, that the things we most dread become to us friendly aids in our journey heavenward. In such a frame of mind, with such a blessed hope, death loses much of its terrors, and although this last enemy may make us feel its cruel power, with Job we may exclaim, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” We can also say with David, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” We know that the Lifegiver is coming, and that if God sees fit to hide us in the grave, we will soon have a glorious waking, having escaped the awful wrath of God and other troubles that are coming on the earth.
Whether we live or sleep, we need such a hope as this. D. T. BOURDEAU.