Oh That YOUR HOLY SPIRIT May Bless My Adversities To This END!

Lord, I thank you for shaking me!
(Charles Spurgeon, "Flowers from a Puritan's Garden" 1883) 

"When the tree is soundly shaken, 
the rotten apples fall to the ground. 
Just so, in great trials, unsound 
professors will fall away."

First, trials and afflictions test me, that 
I may see how far my supposed graces 
are real and vital. Those which are 
unsound will soon be lost; only 
the living and growing graces will remain. 

Secondly, trials and afflictions relieve me, 
for it is a hurtful thing to the tree and to its 
living fruit to be cumbered with rottenness, 
in which may breed noxious worms, which 
when they multiply may come to be 
devourers of the tree's life! 

We are enriched when we lose 
fabricated virtues. Stripping of filthy 
rags, is an advance toward cleanliness--
and what are counterfeit graces but 
mere rags, worthy to be torn off 
and cast into the fire?

In the end, such a result of affliction 
also beautifies me. For as rotten apples 
disfigure the tree, so would the mere 
pretense of virtue mar my character 
in the sight of GOD and holy men. 
It is always better to be openly without 
a virtue, than to bear the form of it 
without in reality possessing it. 
A sham--is a shame!
An unreal virtue--is an undoubted vice!

LORD, I thank you for shaking me, 
since I now perceive that all this good 
and much more is designed by the process; 
and is, I trust, in some measure accomplished 
thereby. Oh that your HOLY SPIRIT may 
bless my adversities to this end!

   ~  ~  ~  ~ 

GraceGems has published Archibald Alexander's powerful short article,
 "The king of terrors!"