Romans 15:4 For whatever things were written aforetime were written for our learning… Among the manifold changes and chances of this mortal life, there are three things which we all need, and which, the more we have, the happier we shall be. These are patience, comfort, and hope. The three are closely connected. Hope produces patience, and in the patience of hope there is comfort amid all the trials of life. All these three are to be sought from God. 1. Patience. How much need we all have of it! How it sweetens life and lessens its ills! On the other hand, what mischief impatience does! Patience finds difficulties in God's Word, mysteries too deep for human intellect. Impatience turns away in a rage from these and takes refuge in the dreary darkness of unbelief. But patience waits in quiet trust upon God for mysteries to be unfolded. Patience is not blind to the many dark problems in the history of the world and in human nature. It sees them. It grieves over the slow progress of good, the seeming triumph of evil. But impatience scoffingly denies that there can be a God and a superintending Providence. 2. Comfort. Ah, what a rich store of that is to be found in the Scriptures of God! There the soul that is weighed down by the burden of its sin, the heart that is broken learns how though its sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow. There the afflicted learn that they are not suffering under the strokes of an angry God, but that "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." They see the Captain of their salvation made perfect through sufferings. 3. Hope. Ah, how richly hope is sustained by the glorious promises of which the Scriptures are full! (J. E. Vernon.) Parallel Verses KJV: For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. |
    |