The Path of Tribulation Heb. 10:32–34. (128)
“God has not promised His people a smooth path through this world; instead, He has ordained that “we must through much tribulation” enter His kingdom Acts 14:22…Seeing then that there still is a world of sin both without and within each one of us, we are made to taste the bitterness of its products! The word “tribulation” is derived from the Latin “tribulum,” which was a flail used by the Romans to separate the wheat from the chaff. How much “chaff” remains even in the one who has been genuinely converted! And one of the principal instruments which He employs in that blessed work is the “tribulum” or flail. By means of sore disappointments, thwarted plans, inward fighting, painful afflictions, does He “take forth the precious from the vile” Jer. 15:19, and remove the dross from the pure gold.”
“Tribulation worketh patience” Rom. 5:3. Patience is a grace which has both a passive and an active side. Passively, it is a meekly bowing to the sovereign pleasure of God, a saying, “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it”? Jn. 18:11. Actively, it is a steady perseverance in the path of duty. This is one of the great ends which God has in view in the afflicting of His children: to effect in them “a meek and quiet spirit.” “Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience, and experience, hope” “Consider Him that endured such contradiction… lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds” Heb. 12:3. The saint is predestined to be conformed to His image Rom. 8:29, first in suffering, and then in glory… O for grace to say with the beloved apostle, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me” 2Cor. 12:9. “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye” 1Pet. 4:14. “No man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto” 1Thess. 3:3… God is sovereign in this, as in everything else. He knows what will best promote the spiritual good of His people. All is ordered by Him in infinite wisdom and infinite love.
Afflictions are not all that the Lord sends to His people: He daily loadeth them with His benefits Ps. 68:19.
“Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee” Deut. 8:2. Sit down and review God’s previous dealings with thee: bring before your hearts His tender patience, His unchanging faithfulness, His powerful interpositions, His gracious gifts. There have been times in the past when your own folly brought you into deep waters of trouble, but God did not cast you off. You fretted and murmured, but God did not abandon you. Then remember this and let the realization of past deliveries comfort you” Pink Arthur W
- “But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions” (v. 32). The apostle now bids them to recall the earlier days of their profession, and to consider what they had already ventured, suffered and renounced for Christ, and how they had been supernaturally sustained under their trials. The Holy Spirit had revealed to them their depravity and impotency, their lost and miserable state by nature. He had brought before them the unchanging demands of God’s righteous law, and their utter failure to meet those claims. He had pointed them to the Lord Jesus, who, as the Sponsor and Surety of His people, had assumed all their liabilities, kept the law in their stead, and died for their sins. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness…” 2Cor. 4:6. By nature, we are in the dark, and while in it we meet with no opposition from Satan or the world; but when we were soon brought into the fellowship of His sufferings. God has called us to the combat… we are to “endure hardness” 2Tim. 2:3 and need to take the armor of God Eph. 6:10–18
- The attitude toward and the conduct of the Hebrew Christians under this “great fight of afflictions” during their “first love,” is that they “endured.” They had not fainted nor had they renounced their profession. They failed in no part of the conflict but came off conquerors. They had been wondrously and blessedly supported under their sufferings. From Acts 8 we learn that when the church at Jerusalem was sorely persecuted, its members so far from abandoning Christianity, were scattered abroad, and “went everywhere preaching the Word” 8:1–4; 9:1, 2, Phi. 1:29, 30, 2Tim. 2:3. How greatly was the Captain of their salvation honored by this valor of His soldiers. It is a noticeable fact of history that babes in Christ have often been the bravest of all in facing suffering and death: perhaps because the freshness of the great and glorious change involved in the passing from death unto life.
- If we remember our sufferings only as unto what is evil and afflictive in them, what we lose, what we endure, and undergo; such a remembrance will weaken and dispirit us, as unto our future trials. But we call to mind what was the Cause for which we suffered; the honor that is in such sufferings, outbalancing all the contempt and reproaches of the world; the presence of God enjoyed in them; and the reward proposed unto us; the calling these things to mind, will greatly strengthen us against future trials; provided we retain the same love unto, and valuation of the things for which we suffered, as we had in those former days” John Owen
