Spurgeon at his best!

These are powerful words from 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon.....
"He led them forth by the right way."
-- Psalm 107:7

Changeful experience often leads the anxious believer to enquire "Why
is it thus with me?" I looked for light, but lo, darkness came; for
peace, but behold trouble. I said in my heart, my mountain standeth
firm, I shall never be moved. Lord, thou dost hide thy face, and I am
troubled. It was but yesterday that I could read my title clear; to-day
my evidences are bedimmed, and my hopes are clouded. Yesterday I
could climb to Pisgah's top, and view the landscape o'er, and rejoice with
confidence in my future inheritance; to-day, my spirit has no hopes,
but many fears; no joys, but much distress. Is this part of God's plan
with me? Can this be the way in which God would bring me to heaven?
Yes, it is even so. The eclipse of your faith, the darkness of your
mind, the fainting of your hope, all these things are but parts of
God's method of making you ripe for the great inheritance upon which
you shall soon enter. These trials are for the testing and
strengthening of your faith-they are waves that wash you further upon
the rock-they are winds which waft your ship the more swiftly towards
the desired haven. According to David's words, so it might be said of
you, "so he bringeth them to their desired haven." By honour and
dishonour, by evil report and by good report, by plenty and by poverty,
by joy and by distress, by persecution and by peace, by all these
things is the life of your souls maintained, and by each of these are
you helped on your way. Oh, think not, believer, that your sorrows are
out of God's plan; they are necessary parts of it. "We must, through
much tribulation, enter the kingdom." Learn, then, even to "count it
all joy when ye fall into divers temptations."

"O let my trembling soul be still,
And wait thy wise, thy holy will!
I cannot, Lord, thy purpose see,
Yet all is well since ruled by thee."

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"The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me."
-- Psalm 138:8

Most manifestly the confidence which the Psalmist here expressed was a
divine confidence. He did not say, "I have grace enough to perfect that
which concerneth me-my faith is so steady that it will not stagger-my
love is so warm that it will never grow cold-my resolution is so firm
that nothing can move it; no, his dependence was on the Lord alone. If
we indulge in any confidence which is not grounded on the Rock of ages,
our confidence is worse than a dream, it will fall upon us, and cover
us with its ruins, to our sorrow and confusion. All that Nature spins
time will unravel, to the eternal confusion of all who are clothed
therein. The Psalmist was wise, he rested upon nothing short of the
Lord's work. It is the Lord who has begun the good work within us; it
is he who has carried it on; and if he does not finish it, it never
will be complete. If there be one stitch in the celestial garment of
our righteousness which we are to insert ourselves, then we are lost;
but this is our confidence, the Lord who began will perfect. He has
done it all, must do it all, and will do it all. Our confidence must
not be in what we have done, nor in what we have resolved to do, but
entirely in what the Lord will do. Unbelief insinuates- "You will never
be able to stand. Look at the evil of your heart, you can never conquer
sin; remember the sinful pleasures and temptations of the world that
beset you, you will be certainly allured by them and led astray." Ah!
yes, we should indeed perish if left to our own strength. If we had
alone to navigate our frail vessels over so rough a sea, we might well
give up the voyage in despair; but, thanks be to God, he will perfect
that which concerneth us, and bring us to the desired haven.
We can never be too confident when we confide in him alone,
and never too much concerned to have such a trust.