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August 29 Daily Devotional

A First Book of Daily Readings

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)

The heirs of salvation, I know from His word,
Through much tribulation must follow their Lord

This man [Psalm 73] had been taking the blessings and the joys for granted. We all seem to assume that we have the right to these things and that we should have them always. Therefore the moment they are denied us we begin to question and to query. Now the Psalmist should have said to himself, T am a godly man, I believe in God. I am living a godly life and I know certain things about the character of God.... Now certain painful things are happening to me.... But, of course, there must be some very good reason for this.’ Then he should have begun to seek for reasons, and to look for an explanation. Had he done so he would undoubtedly have concluded that God had some purpose in all this.... He would have to come to the conclusion that even though he might not understand it, God must have a reason, because God never does anything irrational. He would have said, ‘I am certain of that, and, therefore, whatever the explanation is, it is not what I thought at first’. He would have thought it out.

But how slow we are to do that. We seem to think that, as Christian people, we should never have any trouble. Nothing should ever go wrong with us, and the sun should always be shining about us, while ah who are not Christians, on the other hand, should know constant trouble and difficulty. But the Bible has never promised us that. It has rather promised ‘that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God’. It says also, ‘Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake’ (Philippians 1:29). So the moment we begin to think, we see that the idea that came to us instinctively is utterly false to the teaching of the Bible.

Faith on Trial, pp. 81–2

 

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