" There are more men ruined by prosperity than by adversity. If we had our own way in life, before this we would have been impersonations of selfishness and worldliness and disgusting sin, and puffed up until we would have been like Julius Cæsar, who was made by sycophants to believe that he was divine, and the freckles on his face were as the stars of the firmament."
"It was out of Dante's suffering came the sublime "Divina Commedia," and out of John Milton's blindness came "Paradise Lost," and out of miserable infidel attack came the "Bridgewater Treatise" in favor of Christianity, and out of David's exile came the songs of consolation, and out of the sufferings of Christ came the possibility of the world's redemption, and out of your bereavement, your persecution, your poverties, your misfortunes, may yet come an eternal heaven."
New Tabernacle Sermons: T. De Witt Talmage
I remember hearing a sermon where the preacher said, "If you are a Christian, you will be happy all the time." I thought, "He has never suffered a great loss." Even Jesus wasn't happy all the time. And we have this comfort, that if we never suffered we would be hard-hearted. We would think about people, "Why can't they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps? I can do it, why can't they?
Prosperity ruined Solomon and King Saul. David fell into adultery and murder when he was prosperous. Joseph did better. He was righteous in slavery, in jail and in a palace sitting next to Pharoah. Sometimes God tests us in prosperity and in suffering. Let us pray we will all pass these tests.
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