The Christian in Complete Armor - Choice Extracts!

and outward deliverance, when you had put out the candle of hope, given
over looking for Him, and been ready to lay yourself down on the bed of
despair? Were you never at so sad a pass, the storm of your fears so great
that the anchor of hope even came home, and left you to feed with misgiving
and despairing thoughts, as if now your everlasting night were come, and no
morning supply expected by you? Yet even then, your God proved them all
liars, by an unlooked-for surprise of mercy, with which He stole sweetly in
upon you.
Suffering and glory. There are few who are greedy hunters after the world's
enjoyments, that do drive their worldly trade without running in debt to
their consciences. And I am sure he buys gold too dear, who pays the peace of
his conscience for the purchase. But Heaven is had cheap, though it be with
the loss of all our carnal interests, even life itself.
"Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His
glory?" (Luke 24:26). And truly the saints' way to salvation lies in the same
road (Romans 8:17): "If so be that we suffer with Him — that we may be also
glorified together," only with this advantage, that His going before has
beaten it plain, so that now it may be forded, which but for Him had been
utterly impassable to us.
O comfort one another, Christians, with this: though your life is filled with
troubles — yet it is short; a few steps — and you are out of the rain. There is a
great difference between a saint, in regard of the evils he meets with, and the
wicked; as two travelers riding contrary ways, both taken in the rain and wet
— but one rides from the rain, and so is soon out of the shower; but the other
rides into the rainy corner, the further he goes the worse he is. The saint
meets with trouble as well as the wicked — but he is soon out of the shower;
but as for the wicked, the further he goes, the worse: what he meets with here
is but a few drops — the great storm of God's wrath is to come!
When the Christian's affairs are most disconsolate, he may soon meet with a
happy change. The joy of that blessed day comes "in a moment, in the
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