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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
E.M. Bounds
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June 8, 2020 - March 2, 2021
Temptation is really a solicitation to evil arising from the devil or born in the carnal nature of man. Trial is testing. It is that which proves us, tests us, and makes us stronger and better when we submit to the trial and work together with God in it
The third word is trouble itself, which covers all the painful, sorrowing, and grievous events of life. And yet temptations and trials might really become troubles.
And such days of trouble are the lot of all men.
Enough to know that trouble, no matter from what source it comes; becomes in God's hand His own agent to accomplish His gracious work concerning those who submit patiently to Him, who recog...
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Trouble naturally belongs to God's moral government, and is one of His invaluable agents in governing the world.
There is a distinct note of comfort in the Gospel for the praying saints of the Lord, and He is a wise scribe in Divine things who knows how to minister this comfort to the broken-hearted and sad ones of earth.
All the foregoing has been said that we may rightly appreciate the relationship of prayer to trouble.
Prayer is the most appropriate thing for a soul to do in the "time of trouble." Prayer recognises God in the day of trouble.
Prayer sees God's hand in trouble, and prays about it.
Blessed is he who knows how to turn to God in "the time of trouble."
If trouble is of the Lord, then the most natural thing to do is to carry the trouble to the Lord, and seek grace and patience and submission.
How natural and reasonable for the soul, oppressed, broken, and bruised, to bow low at the footstool of mercy and seek the face of God? Where could a soul in troubl...
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Alas! trouble does not always drive men to God in prayer. Sad is the case of him who, when trouble bends his spirit down and grieves his heart, yet knows not whence the...
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Blessed is the man who is driven by trouble to his...
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"Trials must and will befall; But with humble faith to see Love inscribed upon them all-- This is happiness to me. "Trials make the promise sweet, Trials give new life to prayer; Bring me t...
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Prayer in the time of trouble brings comfort, help, hope, and blessings, which, while not removing the trouble, enable the saint the better to b...
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Prayer does not interpret God's providences, but it does justify them and...
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Alas! for vain, ignorant men, without faith in God and knowing nothing of God's disciplinary processes in dealing with men, who charge God foolishly when troubles come, and who are tempted to "curse God." How silly and vain are the complainings, the murmurings and the rebellion of men in the time of trouble!
And how useless is all our fretting, our worrying over trouble, as if such unhappy doings on our part could change things!
How much wiser, how much better, how much easier to bear life's troubles when we take ev...
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"O who could bear life's stormy doom, Did not Thy wing of love Come brightly wafting through the gloom Our peace branch from above. "Then sorrow, touched by Thee, grows bright, With more than rapture's ray; As darkness shows us worlds of light We never saw by day."
Present troubles are the ones requiring attention and demanding prayer.
Some troubles are self-originated. We are their authors. Some of these originate involuntarily with us, some arise from our ignorance, some come from our carelessness.
All this can be readily admitted without breaking the force of the statement that they are the subjects of prayer...
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Why should we not carry our hurts, our wrongs and our privations, caused by the acts of others, to God in prayer? Are such things outside of the realm of prayer? Are they exceptions to the rule of prayer? Not at all.
Owhat a comfort to see God in all of life's events! What a relief to a broken, sorrowing heart to see God's hand in sorrow! What a source of relief is prayer in unburdening the heart in grief!
"O Thou who driest the mourner's tear, How dark this world would be, If, when deceived and wounded here, We could not fly to Thee? "The friends who in our sunshine live, When winter comes are flown, And he who has but tears to give, Must weep those tears alone. "But Thou wilt heal the broken heart, Which, like the plants that throw Their fragrance from the wounded part, Breathes sweetness out of woe."
But when we survey all the sources from which trouble comes, it all resolves itself into two invaluable truths: First, that our troubles at last are of the Lord. They come with His consent He is in all of them, and is interested in us when they press and bruise us. And secondly, that our troubles, no matter what the cause, whether of ourselves, or men or devils, or even God Himself, we are warranted in taking the...
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Prayer in the time of trouble tends to bring the spirit into perfect subjection to the will of God, to cause the will to be conformed to God's will, and saves from all murmurings over our lot, and delivers from everything like a rebellious heart or a spirit critical of the Lord. Prayer sanctifies trouble to our highest good. Prayer so prepares the heart that it softens under the disciplining hand of God. Prayer places us where God can bring to us the greatest good, spiritual and eternal. Prayer allows God to freely work with us and in us in the day of trouble. Prayer removes everything in the
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The end of trouble is always good in th...
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Trouble proves a blessing or a curse, just according as it is received and treated by us. It either softens or hardens us. It either draws us to prayer and to God or it drives us from God and from the closet.
The same sun softens the wax and hardens the clay. The same sun melts the ice and dries out the moisture from the earth.
"If pain afflict, or wrongs oppress, If cares distract, or fears dismay; If guilt deject, if sin distress, In every case, still watch and pray."
As He had overcome the world and its tribulations, so might they do the same.
But these present afflictions can work for us only as we cooperate with God in prayer. As God works through prayer, it is only through this means He can accomplish His highest ends for us.
The greatest value in trouble comes to those who bow lowest before the throne.
He here couples up tribulation and prayer, showing their close relationship and the worth of prayer in begetting and culturing patience in tribulation.
In the school of prayer is where patience is learned and practiced.
Prayer brings us into that state of grace where tribulation is not only endured, but where there is under it a spirit of rejoicing.
It is in the fires of suffering that God purifies His saints and brings them to the highest things. It is in the furnace their faith is tested, their patience is tried, and they are developed in all those rich virtues which make up Christian character. It is while they are passing through deep waters that He shows how close He can come to His praying, believing saints.
God's highest aim in dealing with His people is in developing Christian character.
He is seeking to make us like Himself. It is not so much work that He wants in us. It is not greatness. It is the presence in us of patience, meekness, submission to the Divine will, prayerfulness which brings everything to Him. He seeks to beget His own image in us.
It is not punishment in the accurate meaning of that word, but the means God employs to correct and discipline His children in dealing with them on earth.
Just as prayer is wide in its range, taking in everything, so trouble is infinitely varied in its uses and designs.
Many a man who has forgotten God has been arrested, caused to consider his ways, and brought to remember God and pray by trouble. Blessed is trouble when it accomplishes this in men!
There is a world where trouble never comes. But the path of tribulation leads to that world. Those who are there went there through tribulation. What a world set before our longing eyes which appeals to our hopes, as sorrows like a cyclone sweep over us!
"There I shall bathe my weary soul, In seas of heavenly rest, And not a wave of trouble roll, Across my peaceful breast."
Rather what is the end He seeks in His great work? It is nothing short of holiness of heart and life in the children of fallen Adam.
God's entire plan is to take hold of fallen man and to seek to change him and make him holy. God's work is to make holy men out of unholy men. This is the very end of Christ coming into the world:
God is holy in nature and in all His ways, and He wants to make man like Himself.
