12 Faithful Men by Collin Hansen

Author:Collin Hansen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living / Biography;Suffering—Religious aspects—Christianity;Christian biography;BIO018000;REL074000;BIO006000
ISBN: 9781493414154
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2018-04-26T16:00:00+00:00

School of Affliction

Fuller was a man who lived with great heartbreak throughout his ministry. In addition to his own physical maladies and weaknesses, he also endured the loss of a young child, the mental illness and eventual loss of a wife, and the agony of a wayward son. Fuller persevered through each of these trials with confidence in the sovereignty and goodness of God.

In his letter to Sarah’s father informing him of her passing, Fuller signed it with the closing, “Yours, in great affliction.”24 Fuller endured this affliction, as all others, with confidence in God’s sovereignty and goodness. He also clung to a view that the suffering of ministers was for their people’s good. In a sermon preached eight years after Sarah’s death from one of the texts that provided him comfort during his wife’s illness (Rom. 8:28), Fuller expands on this idea:

It is an interesting thought, that the afflictions of ministers are described in the Scriptures as generally sent them for the people’s good. St. Paul speaks of the afflictions that befell him and his brethren as designed to qualify them to comfort others with the same comfort wherewith they themselves were comforted of God. . . . Perhaps the greatest qualifications, the best instruction, the most useful learning, that any Christian minister can attain, without any disparagement of other kinds of learning, is that which is attained in the school of affliction; it is by this he becomes able to feel, to sympathize, and to speak a word in season to them that are weary.25

The school of affliction is difficult, but it is God’s ordained means of equipping his ministers for usefulness. Not only was Fuller faithful to God during his heartbreaking trials, but also God was being faithful to Fuller and his congregation by equipping him for greater usefulness through the means of trials and suffering. God still prepares his ministers in this way. May the example of Fuller encourage us to submit to this severe mercy as well as he did.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.