English Puritan and preacher Thomas Brooks reflects upon his own experience of grace in the midst of great trial and distress. He calls suffering saints to accept God’s seemingly harsh dealings with them quietly and with calmness of soul. “The Lord is in his Holy Temple: Let all the Earth keep silence before him,” (Habakkuk 2.20)

The thoughts conveyed in the excerpt below express an understanding of God’s grace that can only be known when we see our suffering in light of our own depravity. While it is true that many of us suffer in this fallen world as innocent parties, it is also true that none of us, before the Lord, stand as innocent men and women.

When we are tempted to push back on the sad and darker providences of life — when we suffer injustice as a consequence of someone else’s sin — when our hearts cry out, “Lord, I don’t deserve this!”, let us be quick to repent and praise God for his tender mercies that are all found in Jesus Christ. For it was he who stood in our place and drank the full cup of God’s wrath so that we might stand forgiven and fully accepted in the sight of God.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Now that’s mercy!

“To move you to silence under your sorest and your sharpest trials, consider, that you have deserved greater and heavier afflictions than those you are under, Lam. 3:39 and Mic. 7:7-9.3

Has God taken away one mercy? You have deserved to be stripped of all.

Has he taken away the delight of your eyes? He might have taken away the delight of your soul.

Are you under outward wants? You have deserved to be under outward and inward together.

Are you cast upon a sick-bed? You have deserved a bed in hell.

Are you under that ache and that pain? You have deserved to be under all aches and pains at once.

Has God chastised you with whips? You have deserved to be chastised with scorpions.

Are you fallen from the highest pinnacle of honor to be the scorn and contempt of men? You have deserved to be scorned and contemned by God and angels.

Are you under a severe whipping? You have deserved an utter damning.

Ah Christian, let but your eyes be fixed upon your demerits and your hands will be quickly upon your mouths; whatever is less than a final separation from God, whatever is less than hell, is mercy; and therefore you have cause to be silent under the sharpest dealings of God with you.”

“When circumstances seem impossible, when all signs of grace in you seem at their lowest ebb, when temptation is fiercest, when love and joy and hope seem well nigh extinguished in your heart, then rest, without feeling and without emotion, in the Father’s faithfulness; abide in the fact that He loves you infinitely, and even now is working in you faithfully; and honor Him, and put the enemy to flight by taking to yourself the words of Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” – D. Tryon

“So long as men are in prosperity, and have their leaves on, they do not see what nests of sins and lust are in their hearts and lives; but when all their leaves are off, in the day of their affliction, then they see them and say, I did not think I had such nests of sin and lusts in my soul… ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray,’ says David, Psa 119:67. And Job 36:10, ‘He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity.’ Yea, these afflictions and sufferings of the saints not only reveal and heal their sins, but also put them upon the excerse of grace: ‘In their affliction (says God) they will seek me early,’ Hosea 5:15. Yea, they not only draw out their graces but reveal their graces too, which possibly they never too notice of before.” – William Bridge, “A Lifting Up for the Downcast”

“The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at the moment.” Eugene Peterson

“I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” – Richard Baxter

“The very thing that you think was designed to destroy you, could actually be God’s tool to heal you and make you whole.”

“The grace of God does not find men fit for salvation, but makes them so.” – Augustine

“Christ is so in love with holiness, that at the price of his blood he will buy it for us.” — John Flavel

“The work which His goodness began, the arm of His strength will complete.” – Augustus Toplady

“To say “Never mind doctrine, let’s get on with evangelism,” is as ridiculous as a football team saying, “Never mind about a ball, let’s get on with the game.” — Peter Lewis

J.I. Packer, from “The Heart of the Gospel” in Knowing God (also in In My Place Condemned He Stood, p. 32): Has the word propitiation any place in your Christianity? In the faith of the New Testament it is central. The love of God [1 John 4:8-10], the taking of human form by the Son [Heb. 2:17], the meaning of the cross [Rom. 3:21-26], Christ’s heavenly intercession [1 John 2:1-2], the way of salvation—all are to be explained in terms of it, as the passages quoted show, and any explanation from which the thought of propitiation is missing will be incomplete, and indeed actually misleading, by New Testament standards.

In saying this, we swim against the stream of much modern teaching and condemn at a stroke the views of a great number of distinguished church leaders today, but we cannot help that. Paul wrote, “Even if we or an angel from heaven”—let alone a minister, a bishop, college lecturer, university professor, or noted author—”should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” (“accursed” KJV and RSV; “outcast” NEB; “damned” Phillips—Gal. 1:8). And a gospel without propitiation at is heart is another gospel than that which Paul preached. The implications of this must not be evaded.

Packer approvingly quotes John Murray’s explanation of propitiation:

“The doctrine of propitiation is precisely this: that God loved the objects of His wrath (the world) so much that He gave His own Son to the end that He by His blood should make provision for the removal of His wrath. It was Christ’s so to deal with the wrath that the loved would no longer be the objects of wrath, and love would achieve its aim of making the children of wrath the children of God’s good pleasure.” — John Murray, The Atonement (Philadelphia: P&R, 1962), p.

“The first rule of holes: When you’re in one, stop digging.” – Molly Ivins

“When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do, love one day and hate another; or as princes, who make their subjects favourites and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God’s call is founded upon His decree, and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out His people’s sins, but not their names.” – Thomas Watson

“No one preaches the whole counsel of God who is a man-pleaser.” – R.C. Sproul

“Longing desire prayeth always, though the tongue be silent. If thou art ever longing, thou art ever praying.” – Augustine

“We are fallen enough to even have a clear conscience and still be wrong.” – Mark Dever

“The prayer which moves the arm of God is still a sinful prayer, and only moves that arm because the Sinless One, the great Mediator, has stepped in to take away the sin of our supplication.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“The obedience of the life of Christ was for us, is imputed to us, and is our righteousness before God; – by His obedience are we “made righteous,” Rom.5:19 – John Owen

“The universe is far too big to be made for man alone. It is just the right size, however, to be made to manifest the glory of God.” – R.C. Sproul, Jr

“If your knowledge of doctrine does not make you a great man of prayer, you had better examine yourself again.” — Martyn Lloyd-Jones