Christ literally walked in our shoes and entered into our affliction. Those who will not help others until they are destitute reveal that Christ’s love has not yet turned them into the sympathetic persons the Gospel should make them.
– Tim Keller
Affliction | Jesus
Affliction brings out graces that cannot be seen in a time of health. It is the treading of the grapes that brings out the sweet juices of the vine; so it is affliction that draws forth submission, weanedness from the world, and complete rest in God. Use afflictions while you have them.
– Robert Murray McCheyne
Affliction | Health
Those who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.
– Charles Spurgeon
Affliction
Afflictions are but conductors to immortal life and glory.
– James H. Aughey
Affliction
Afflictions are but the shadows of God’s wings.
– George Macdonald
Affliction
Afflictions add to the saints’ glory. The more the diamond is cut, the more it sparkles; the heavier the saints’ cross is, the heavier will be their crown.
– Thomas Watson
Affliction
Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.
– Blaise Pascal
Morality | Knowledge | Affliction
When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord’s choicest wines.
– Samuel Rutherford
Affliction
Do not be despondent when fighting against the incorporeal enemy, but even in the midst of your afflictions and oppression praise the Lord, Who has found you worthy to suffer for Him, by struggling against the subtlety of the serpent, and to be wounded for Him at every hour; for had you not lived piously, and endeavored to become united to God, the enemy would not have attacked and tormented you.
– John of Kronstadt
Affliction | Satan | Piety
As sure as God puts His children in the furnace of affliction, He will be with them in it.
– Charles Spurgeon
Affliction
The task of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
– Vance Havner
Preaching | Comfort | Affliction
As every mercy is a drop obtained from the ocean of God’s goodness, so every affliction is a drachm weighed out in the wisdom of God’s providence.
– James H. Aughey
Mercy | Affliction | Providence
There are some things good but not pleasant, as sorrow and affliction. Sin is pleasant, but unprofitable; and sorrow is profitable, but unpleasant. As waters are purest when they are in motion, so saints are generally holiest when in affliction.
– William Secker
Affliction
Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed; and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrance and hidden strength in the remembrance of Him as “in all points tempted like as we are,” bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us.
– Alexander MacLaren
Affliction | Grief
Labor to grow better under all your afflictions, lest your afflictions grow worse, lest God mingle them with more darkness, bitterness and terror.
– John Owen
Affliction
Affliction may be lasting, but it is not everlasting. Affliction was a sting, but withal a wing: sorrow shall soon fly away.
– Thomas Watson
Affliction
Providence is wonderfully intricate. Ah! You want always to see through Providence, do you not? You never will, I assure you. You have not eyes good enough. You want to see what good that affliction was to you; you must believe it. You want to see how it can bring good to the soul; you may be enabled in a little time; but you cannot see it now; you must believe it. Honor God by trusting Him.
– Charles Spurgeon
Providence | Affliction
A believer may pass through much affliction, and yet secure very little blessing from it all. Abiding in Christ is the secret of securing all that the Father meant the chastisement to bring us.
– Andrew Murray
Affliction | Chastisement
The readiest way which God takes to draw a man to himself is, to afflict him in that he loves most, and with good reason; and to cause this affliction to arise from some good action done with a single eye; because nothing can more clearly show him the emptiness of what is most lovely and desirable in the world.
– John Wesley
Affliction
What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! These, how crabbed so ever, are our best friends. They are not indeed for our pleasure, they are for our profit.
– Abraham Wright
Affliction
Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride.
– Richard Sibbes
Affliction | Pride
It seems to me that doubt is worse than trial. I had sooner suffer any affliction than be left to question the gospel or my own interest in it.
– Charles Spurgeon
Doubt | Affliction
If you do not understand what God’s present claims over you are, you may depend upon it that as days of testing come on you will not be able to keep your footing.
– G.V. Wigram
Affliction
Not to be afflicted is a sign of weakness; for, therefore God imposeth no more on me, because he sees I can bear no more.
– Joseph Hall
Affliction | Weakness
Whoever be the instruments of any good to us, of whatever sort, we must look above them, and eye the hand and counsel of God in it, which is the first spring, and be duly thankful to God for it. And whatever evil of crosses or afflictions befalls us, we must look above the instruments of it to God.
– Thomas Boston
Affliction
Affliction doth not rise out of the dust or come to men by chance; but it is the Lord that sends it, and we should own and reverence His hand in it.
– Thomas Boston
Affliction
Sanctified afflictions are like so many artificers working on a pious man’s crown to make it more bright and massive.
– Assorted Authors
Affliction | Sanctification | Piety
God intermixeth mercy with affliction: he steeps his sword of justice in the oil of mercy; there was no night so dark, but Israel had a pillar of fire in it; there is no condition so dismal, but we may see a pillar of fire to give light. If the body be in pain, conscience is in peace, –there is mercy: affliction is for the prevention of sin, –there is mercy. In the ark there was a rod and a pot of manna, the emblem of a Christian’s condition, mercy interlined with judgment.
– Thomas Watson
Affliction | Mercy
Afflictions are light when compared with what we really deserve. They are light when compared with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. But perhaps their real lightness is best seen by comparing them with the weight of glory which is awaiting us.
– A. W. Pink
Affliction
In times of affliction we commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of the love of God.
– John Bunyan
Affliction
Why should I ever resist any delay or disappointment, any affliction or oppression or humiliation – when I know God will use it in my life to make me like Jesus and to prepare me for heaven?
– Kay Arthur
Perseverance | Heaven | Affliction
Pour not on the comforts you want, but upon the mercies you have. Look rather at God’s ending in afflicting, than to the measure and degree of your affliction.
– Assorted Authors
Affliction
The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.
– Charles Spurgeon
Affliction
One of the greatest evidences of God’s love to those that love him is, to send them afflictions, with grace to bear them.
– John Wesley
Grace | Affliction
Oh, it is sad for a poor Christian to stand at the door of the promise, in the dark night of affliction, afraid to draw the latch, whereas he should then come boldly for shelter as a child into his father’s house.
– William Gurnall
Apathy | Affliction
The agony of man’s affliction is often necessary to put him into the right mood to face the fundamental things of life. The Psalmist says. Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I have kept Thy Word.
– Oswald Chambers
Obedience | Affliction
Few are made better by prosperity, whom afflictions make worse.
– William Gurnall
Prosperity | Affliction
The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory.
– Richard Sibbes
Affliction
Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them.
– Charles Spurgeon
Affliction
The highest honor that God can confer upon his children is the blood-red crown of martyrdom. The jewels of a Christian are his afflictions. The regalia of the kings that God has made, are their troubles, their sorrows, and their griefs. Griefs exalt us, and troubles lift us.
– Charles Spurgeon
Affliction
What if we have more of the rough file, if we have less rust! Afflictions carry away nothing but the dross of sin.
– Thomas Watson
Affliction
A believer may pass through much affliction, and yet secure very little blessing from it all. Abiding in Christ is the secret of securing all that the Father meant the chastisement to bring us.
– Andrew Murray
Affliction | Chastisement
Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion of Christ.
– C.S. Lewis
Affliction | Passion
Affliction shows the power of Christ’s blood, when it gives peace in an hour of trouble, when it can make happy in sickness, poverty, persecution and death. Do not be surprised if you suffer, but glorify God.
– Robert Murray McCheyne
Affliction | Peace | Happiness
Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed; and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrance and hidden strength in the remembrance of Him as “in all points tempted like as we are,” bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us.
– Alexander MacLaren
Affliction | Grief
I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty, and strengthened by my weakness.
– Abraham Wright
Affliction | Strength
No marvel if the worldling escape earthly afflictions. God corrects him not. He is base born and begot. God will not do him the favor to whip him. The world afflicts him not, because it loves him: for each man is indulgent to his own. God uses not the rod where He means to use the Word. The pillory or scourge is for those malefactors that shall escape execution.
– Joseph Hall
Affliction
It is not affliction itself, but affliction rightly borne, that does us good.
– James H. Aughey
Affliction
Afflictions have the same use and end to our souls, that frosty weather hath upon those clothes that are laid and bleaching, they alter the hue and make them white.
– John Flavel
Affliction
I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty, and strengthened by my weakness.
– Abraham Wright
Affliction | Strength
God has no pleasure in afflicting us, but He will not keep back even the most painful chastisement if He can but thereby guide His beloved child to come home and abide in the beloved Son.
– Andrew Murray
Affliction | Chastisement
We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God.
– Dwight L. Moody
Affliction | Prosperity
When old companions, old lusts, and sins crowd in upon you, and when you feel that you are ready to sink, what can save you, sinking sinner? This alone – I have a high priest in heaven, and he can support in the hour of affliction. This alone can give you peace – I have a high priest in heaven. When you are dying – when friends can do you no good – when sins rise up like specters around your bed – what can give you peace? This – “I have a high priest in heaven”
– Robert Murray McCheyne
Affliction | Jesus | Peace
If we suffer persecution and affliction in a right manner, we attain a larger measure of conformity to Christ, by a due improvement of one of these occasions, than we could have done merely by imitating his mercy, in abundance of good works.
– John Wesley
Persecution | Affliction
The most generous vine, if not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems and grows at last weak and fruitless: so doth the best man if he be not cut short in his desires, and pruned with afflictions.
– Joseph Hall
Apathy | Affliction
Affliction is then come to the height and its complete measure, when the sinner is made sensible of his own weakness, and doth see there is no help for him, save in God alone.
– David Dickson
Affliction | Weakness
What sorrow, troubles, and afflictions attend all the followers of the Lamb!
– William Tiptaft
Affliction
Afflictions are but as a dark entry into our Father’s house.
– Thomas Brooks
Affliction
Hope is the last lingering light of the human heart. It shines when every other is put out. Extinguish it, and the gloom of affliction becomes the very blackness of darkness – cheerless and impenetrable.
– James H. Aughey
Hope |The Heart | Affliction
The furnace of affliction is a good place for you, Christian; it benefits you; it helps you to become more like Christ, and it is fitting you for heaven.
– Charles Spurgeon
Affliction
God’s way of answering the Christian’s prayer for more patience, experience, hope and love often is to put him into the furnace of affliction.
– Richard Cecil
Prayer | Affliction | Patience
God has no pleasure in afflicting us, but He will not keep back even the most painful chastisement if He can but thereby guide His beloved child to come home and abide in the beloved Son.
– Andrew Murray
Affliction | Chastisement
The Lord afflicts us at times; but it is always a thousand times less than we deserve, and much less than many of our fellow-creatures are suffering around us. Let us therefore pray for grace to be humble, thankful, and patient.
– John Newton
Affliction
Knowing the truth concerning the deep workings of the evil spirit helps the individual not only to overcome sins but to eliminate unnecessary afflictions as well.
– Watchman Nee
Truth | Affliction | Overcoming
Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.
– George Washington
Affliction | Charity | The Heart
What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! These, how crabbed so ever, are our best friends. They are not indeed for our pleasure, they are for our profit.
– Abraham Wright
Affliction
The wisdom of God appears in afflictions. By these He separates the sin which He hates, from the son whom He loves. By these thorns He keeps him from breaking over into Satan’s pleasant pastures, which would fatten him indeed, but only to the slaughter.
– James H. Aughey
Affliction
God often lays the sum of His amazing providences in very dismal afflictions; as the limner first puts on the dusky colors, on which he intends to draw the portraiture of some illustrious beauty.
– Stephen Charnock
Affliction | Beauty | Providence
The best helps to growth in grace are the ill usage, the affronts, and the losses which befall us. We should receive them with all thankfulness, as preferable to all others, were it only on this account, — that our will has no part therein.
– John Wesley
Grace | Affliction
Even in the greatest afflictions, we ought to testify to God, that, in receiving them from his hand, we feel pleasure in the midst of the pain, from being afflicted by Him who loves us, and whom we love.
– John Wesley
Affliction
Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces. Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions.
– Matthew Henry
Grace | Affliction
Your afflictions may only prove that you are more immediately under the Father’s hand. There is no time that the patient is such an object of tender interest to the surgeon, as when he is bleeding beneath his knife. So you may be sure if you are suffering from the hand of a reconciled God, that His eye is all the more bent on you.
– Robert Murray McCheyne
Affliction
Should pain and suffering, sorrow, and grief, rise up like clouds and overshadow for a time the Sun of Righteousness and hide Him from your view, do not be dismayed, for in the end this cloud of woe will descend in showers of blessing on your head, and the Sun of Righteousness rise upon you to set no more forever.
– Sadhu Sundar Singh
Affliction | Blessings
A great many people wonder why it was that Christ did not come at once to Martha and Mary, whom He loved, whenever He heard of their affliction. It was to try them, and it is the same with His dealings toward us. If He seems not to come to us in our affliction, it is only to test us.
– Dwight L. Moody
Affliction
A believer may pass through much affliction, and yet secure very little blessing from it all. Abiding in Christ is the secret of securing all that the Father meant the chastisement to bring us.
– Andrew Murray
Affliction | Chastisement
Afflictions make the heart more deep, more experimental, more knowing and profound, and so, more able to hold, to contain, and beat more.
– John Bunyan
Affliction
If the sun of God’s countenance shine upon me, I may well be content to be wet with the rain of affliction.
– Joseph Hall
Contentment | Affliction
The more afflictions you have been under, the more assistance you have had for this life of holiness.
– John Flavel
Affliction
God has no pleasure in afflicting us, but He will not keep back even the most painful chastisement if He can but thereby guide His beloved child to come home and abide in the beloved Son.
– Andrew Murray
Affliction | Chastisement
The sorest afflictions never appear intolerable, but when we see them in the wrong light; when we see them in the hand of God, who dispenses them; when we know that it is our loving Father who abases and distresses us; our sufferings will lose their bitterness and become even a matter of consolation.
– Brother Lawrence
Affliction