The benefit of trials is lost when we either “despise the chastening of the Lord,” or “faint when we are rebuked of Him.” It is only when they are borne with Christian “patience” that “experience” is their happy fruit. The word signifies properly “proof”: and there are various things proved to us by our trials, endured with patience.
I. The love, care, faithfulness, and power of our father. He has assured us that “whom He loves He chastens.” He has encouraged us to “cast all our care upon Him,” by the declaration, and, in the gift of His Son, the convincing evidence, that “He careth for us.” He has promised “never to leave, never to forsake us.” He has reproved the fears of His people by reminding them that the “everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not neither is weary,” and assuring them that “He giveth power to the weak.” When “patient in tribulation,” we learn, by sweet “experience,” that God is indeed to His people all that He declares Himself to be.
II. Our own weakness and emptiness, and the all-sufficiency of Jesus. We feel the repugnance of our nature to suffering; the difficulty of bowing to the Divine will, our proneness to doubt and to rebel. But when we are enabled to bear our trials with patience, they teach us, by “experience,” which imparts present delight, and encouragement for the future, that “His grace is sufficient for us”; “that we can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth us.”
III. The vanity of all earthly things, when sought after, and depended upon, as a portion. Sanctified trouble dissolves the delusive charm of prosperity. When the cup of worldly enjoyment is at our lips, the bitter that is infused prevents its deadly influence. The heart is brought back to the relish, which it was losing, of higher joys. And at the same time we feel the gladdening influence, and the inestimable preciousness of the truths of God, and of the good hope which the faith of them inspires. Thus the case of the prophet’s little book is reversed. The trial itself is bitter to the taste; but the experience resulting from it is sweet.
IV. The Divine excellence and sufficiency of the Word of God. How precious has this volume of inspiration ever been felt by the children of God in their seasons of trial! How rich the treasures of its “exceeding great and precious promises,” when our worldly resources have “made themselves wings and flown away”--how sweet the celestial music of its devotion, when our “harp has been turned to mourning, and our organ to the voice of them that weep!”--how delightful the “still small voice” of a Saviour’s love, amidst all the harassing turmoils of a turbulent world! The believer now learns to clasp this Divine treasure to his heart, and to say, “The law of Thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver!”
V. The reality of our faith in Jesus and of our consequent interest in his salvation. We judge from the fruit of the soundness of the root and stem. The man whose professed faith allows him to fret and murmur under his trials has good cause to suspect that the gospel has come to him “in word only.” But when the faith of the truth inspires tranquil resignation, and “patience has her perfect work,” we have “the witness in ourselves” of our connection with Him who said, “The cup which My Father hath given Me shall I not drink it?” By “adding to our faith--patience,” we “make our calling and election sure.”
VI. The value and certainty of the gospel hope. Whatever bears testimony to the truth of those doctrines which the Christian believes serves to establish the hope of which these doctrines are the foundation. His experience, therefore, confirms his faith; and the confirmation of his faith gives additional confidence to his hope. It settles and animates its exercise. He “abounds in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.” (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
Experience confirms men in the right
A man propounds the wonderful discovery that honey is not sweet. “But I had some for breakfast, and I found it very sweet,” say you, and your reply is conclusive. He tells you that salt is poisonous; but you point to your own health and declare that you have eaten salt these twenty years. He says that to eat bread is a mistake--a vulgar error, an antiquated absurdity; but at each meal you make his protest the subject for a merry laugh. If you are daily and habitually experienced in the truth of God’s Word, I am not afraid of your being shaken in mind in reference to it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Experience expensive
Experience is an excellent schoolmaster; but he does charge such dreadful fees. (T. Carlyle.)
A dead experience
In my Bible at home I have in the Old Testament a folded sheet of paper, in which are tastefully arranged some flowers and leaves. I was looking at it this morning, and it was very beautiful. Every colour was fading; but I saw, by the help of imagination, what they had been. If, however, I had no other summer than that it would be poor indeed; but I have roses and daisies, and honeysuckles and asters, and various other flowers, all of which are fresh every year, and some of which are fresh almost every month of the year; and I am not obliged to make this herbarium leaf of dried flowers my only summer. But I have known Christians that had but three or four old leaves in their Bible which they would go and pull out and show you every time they alluded to their religious history. They would say, “I was converted so-and-so,” when they would exhibit these dry memorials, and then they would put them up again very carefully, and leave them; and the next time they talked with you they would show you these old experiences again--the same dry flowers and leaves--no more and no less. (H. W. Beecher.)
Experience and faith
Faith, in its reproductive power and progress of growth, may be compared to the great Oriental banyan tree. It springs up in God, rooted in God’s Word; and soon there are the great waving branches of experience. Then from these very branches the runners go down again into God’s Word; and thence spring up again new products of faith, and new trees of experience, till one and the same tree becomes in itself a grove, with pillared shades and echoing walks between. So experience first grows out of faith; and then greater faith grows out of experience, the Word of God being all the while the region of its roots; and, again, a still vaster, richer experience grows out of that faith, till every branch becomes not only a product, but a parent stock set in the same word, and all expanding into a various magnificent and enlarging forest. (G. B. Cheever, D. D.)
Experience, knowledge by
Practical sciences are not to be learned but in the way of action. It is experience that must give knowledge in the Christian profession, as well as in all others; and the knowledge drawn from experience is quite of another kind from that which flows from speculation or discourse. It is not the opinion, but the path, of the just, that the wisest of men tells us shines more and more unto a perfect day. The obedient, and the men of practice, are those sons of light that shall outgrow all their doubts and ignorances, that shall ride upon these clouds, and triumph over their present imperfections, till persuasion pass into knowledge, and know, ledge advance into assurance, and all come at length to be completed in the beatific vision, and a full fruition of those joys. Which God has in reserve for them whom by His grace He shall prepare for glory. (R. South, D. D.)
Experience, power of
Said a poor pious widow to a scoffing sceptic, when he asked, “How do you know your Bible is true? What proof have you of its truth?”--“Sir, my own experience--the experience of my heart.” “Oh,” said he, contemptuously, “your experience is nothing to me.” “That may be, sir; but it is everything to me.”
Experience, various
You are too apt to feel that your religious experience must be the same as others have; but where will you find analogies for this? Certainly not in nature. God’s works do not come from His hand like coin from the mint. It seems as if it were a necessity that each one should be, in some sort, distinct from every other. No two leaves on the same tree are precisely alike; no two buds on one bush have the same unfolding, nor do they seek to have. What if God should command the flowers to appear before Him, and the sunflower should come bending low with shame because it was not a violet; and the violet should come striving to lift itself up to be like a sunflower; and the lily should seek to gain the bloom of the rose; and the rose, the whiteness of the lily: and so each one, disdaining itself, should seek to grow into the likeness of the other? God would say, “Stop, foolish flowers! I gave you your own forms and hues and odours; and I wish you to bring what you have received. O sunflower! come as a sunflower; and you, sweet violet, come as a violet; and let the rose bring the rose’s bloom; and the lily the lily’s whiteness.” Perceiving their folly, and ceasing to long for what they had not, violet and rose, lily and geranium, mignonette and anemone, and all the floral train, would come, each in its own loveliness, to send up its fragrance as incense, and all wreathe themselves in a garland of beauty about the throne of God. Now, God speaks to you as to the flowers, and says, “Come with the form and nature that I gave you. If you are made a violet, come as a violet; if you are a rose, come as a rose; it you are a shrub, do not desire to be a tree; let everything abide in the nature which I gave it, and grow to the full excellence that is contained in that nature.” (H. W. Beecher.)
And experience hope.
The well-grounded hope
“Experience worketh hope.” Take that principle in its largest sense, apply it to the interests of this life and this world, and who is there that does not know that the apostle’s statement would be utterly wrong? The inexperienced man is all buoyant anticipation; he sees no difficulties in the way; he looks for brilliant success in life. How different with the man who has had some experience of the realities of life, how modest are his hopes of earthly happiness and success! But it was not of earthly experience that the apostle spake, nor of earthly hope. As regards our blessed Saviour, His grace and preciousness and love: as regards the solid peace and happiness to be found when we find a part in His great salvation: as regards the sanctifying and comforting influences of the Holy Spirit: as regards the power and prevalence of earnest prayer: as regards the rest and refreshment the weary soul may find in a Lord’s day duly sanctified: as regards the consolation which religion can impart amid earthly disappointments; as regards the peace that Christ can give in death: as regards such things as these, “experience worketh hope”; the more you know of Jesus, His promises and His grace, the more you will expect from Him; and instead of experience leading us to say, as it does lead us to say of most earthly things, “I have tried it, it cannot make me happy, I shall trust it no more,” experience of God leads us rather to say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day”; “I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplication; because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live”; “The Lord hath been mindful of us: He will bless us still!” And now, concerning St. Paul’s declaration that “experience worketh hope,” let me suggest to you two thoughts which are implied in the apostle’s principle, and which are the great reasons why the apostle’s principle is true.
I. First, then, in the great concern of religion you are sure, if you seek in the right way, to get what you seek. Now here at once we find a point in regard to which there is a total contrariety between worldly and spiritual things. Who is there that needs to be told that one great cause of human disappointment in worldly things lies in this, that however anxious you may be to get something on which you have set your heart, and however diligent you may be in using all the means which you think tend towards your getting it, you may yet entirely fail of getting it? But when we pray for spiritual blessings, for repentance towards God and faith in Christ and a sanctifying Spirit, we may pray with the absolute certainty that our prayer will be granted, because we pray with the absolute certainty that we are asking that which it will be for our good to get, and for God’s glory to give.
II. Another fact on which the principle in the text founds is, that in the matter of spiritual blessings you are sure, when you get what you seek, to find it equal your expectations. There never was the human being who said, I was earnestly desirous to gain the favour of God, to gain the good part in Christ, and now I have gained them, I find they are no such great matter after all, the prize is hardly worth the cost. God is indeed my Father, Christ is indeed my Saviour, the Holy Spirit dwells within my breast, and I know that heaven is my home; but these things leave me still unsatisfied and unhappy. No; experience never brought any human being to such a mind as that. That is the strain in which experience has taught men to speak of earthly ends after they were won. But the man never breathed who would say the like of the blessings of grace. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
The hope of faith and the hope of experience
The hope of the fourth verse is distinct from, and posterior to the hope of the second, and is derived from another source. The first hope is hope in believing; a hope which hangs direct on the testimony of God. The second hope is the fruit of experience, and is gathered, not from the word that is without, but from the feeling of what passes within. I make a two-fold promise to an acquaintance--the lesser part of which should be fulfilled tomorrow, and the latter on this day twelvemonth. If he believe me, then will there be a hope of the fulfilment of both, and, for a whole day at least, he may rejoice in this hope. Tomorrow comes, and if tomorrow’s promise is not fulfilled, the hope which emanated from faith is overthrown, and the man is ashamed of his rash and rejoicing expectations! But if instead of a failure there is a punctual fulfilment without shame or without suspicion, he will now look to the coming round of the year with more confident expectation than ever. It is quite true that there is a hope in believing, but it is just as true that experience worketh hope. Now in the gospel there are promises, the accomplishment of one of which is far off and the other of which is near. By faith we may rejoice in hope of the coming glory, and it will be the confirmation of our hope if we find in ourselves a present holiness. He who hath promised to translate us into a new heaven hereafter has also promised to confer on us a new heart here. Directly appended to our belief in God’s testimony may we hope for both these fulfillments; but should the earlier fulfilment not take place, this ought to convince us that we are not the subjects of the latter fulfilment. A true faith would ensure to us both, but as the one has not cast up at its proper time neither will the other cast up at its time--and, having no part nor lot in the present grace, we can have as little in the future inheritance. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
