Glued & fettered
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The Lord has promised, that in the world we shall have tribulation.
But how this staggers a child of God! He cannot understand that his allotted path in the world should be tribulation. And yet how needful—how indispensably needful it is—to have tribulation in the world—for how closely bound up our heart is in it. How glued and fettered our carnal heart is to the things of time and sense!
What proneness—what daily, hourly proneness there is—to go after idols—to amuse our vain mind with passing shows—to take an interest in the smallest trifles which surround us—and thus forsake the Fountain of living waters—and hew out to ourselves cisterns—broken cisterns, that hold no water. What a veil of enchantment, too, is often over our eyes—and therefore, what a series of troubles—what days, and weeks, and months, and years of trial does it take to convince us that the world is—not our home—not our rest—not our enduring habitation.
But the Lord mercifully and graciously makes use of tribulation in various shapes and forms, to bring us out of the world—that we may not be condemned with it—nor make it our rest and home. Thus He draws us to His blessed feet, that in Him we may find that peace which we never have found—which we never can find anywhere else. In the world we never can have—we never will have—anything but tribulation and trial. But what is the effect—the merciful effect, of these troubles?
Is there not a voice with them? When the ear is opened—tribulation speaks. Are there not most beneficial fruits and effects that flow out of tribulation? For instance. Is not our heart by nature very much glued to the world? Do we not naturally love and cleave to it? As we watch the varied movements of our hearts—are they not perpetually going out after something idolatrous—something to gratify and amuse, to interest, occupy, and please our carnal mind?
It is in order to bring us out of the world, and make us feel it is not our abiding place, and that no happiness is to be found in it—that the Lord sees necessary to lay tribulation upon us—and tribulation of that peculiar nature which will genuinely separate us from the world. When we are passing through tribulation, what a poor vain thing the world appears to us!
We need inward consolation—the world cannot give it. We need balm for our conscience—the world, instead of pouring in that balm, rather rips the wound asunder. So that we need—tribulation after tribulation—trial upon trial—affliction upon affliction—stroke upon stroke—grief upon grief—sorrow upon sorrow—to cut asunder that close affinity which there is between us and the world, and to convince us in our very heart and conscience that there is—no rest—no peace—no happiness—no consolation—to be found in anything that the world presents!
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