Encouraging Words from the Past
In 1857, Charles Hadden Spurgeon was capturing the English-speaking world by storm. He had to move his congregation from the New Park Street Chapel to the Music Hall in the Royal Surry Gardens where he preached to more than 10,000 people every week. You would think that this tremendous success would be all a young preacher would need to cheer his heart but on October 4, 1857 Spurgeon, preaching from Isaiah 41:14, said this:
I have to speak today to myself; and whilst I shall be endeavoring to encourage those who are distressed and down hearted, I shall be preaching, I trust to myself, for I need something which shall cheer my heart – Why I cannot tell, wherefore I do not know, but I have a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffer me; my soul is cast down within me, I feel as if I had rather die than live; all that God hath done by me seems to be forgotten, and my spirit flags and my courage breaks down…John Henry Jowett pastored the famous Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. After G. Campbell Morgan died, Jowett went to pastor Westminster Chapel in London. This pastor of great churches once wrote a friend and said:
You seem to imagine that I have no ups and downs, just a level and lofty stretch of spiritual attainment, and unbroken joy. By no means.John Knox the great Scottish Reformer prayed:
Lord Jesus receive my spirit and put an end to my miserable life.Adoniram Judson, America’s first missionary, having lost several children and then his wife while serving on the mission field, withdrew from ministry and people altogether. He sat for days beside an open grave and just grieved. He wrote:
God to me is the great unknown. I believe in Him but I can’t find Him.David, we are told, “waxed faint.” Paul stated that he had a thorn in the flesh, that he had been in labor and hardship, that he had seen many sleepless nights. He also spoke of the daily pressure of the concern for the churches that weighed on him. Then think about Moses and Elijah, the two men who met with the Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. They were the same two men who had asked for God to let them die.
There was Jeremiah who cursed the day he was born, and there was Jonah who asked for God to take his life. Then there was Job, who no doubt suffered to a greater degree than anyone else in the word of God except for Jesus Christ.
It is not unusual for the people of God to suffer through periods of suffering, hardship, even depression. It is unusual if they don’t. Job said in 3:26:
I am not at ease, nor am I quiet, and I am not at rest, but turmoil comes.What Job was saying was, “I have no peace, and no rest. All I have are problems and heartaches and despair.” Now maybe that is where you find yourself. Or perhaps someone you know is in that place right now and you hurt for them. Realize that even the most mature believers can become discouraged. Take heart Christian, God preserved the record of Job’s grief so that through the encouragement of Scripture we might have hope. Stay plugged into the book. Stay plugged into prayer. Stay plugged into Sunday School, and fellowship. The tendency will be to disconnect from all three, and in so doing you will become obsessed with the “whys” of life. As a Christian you and I do not live by the “whys,” of life, but we trust in the “Who.”