Spurgeon in the Furnace of affliction

[Ascetic X]

Does your personal physical or mental suffering harm you spiritually? Can it increase or decrease your faith in God?

What trials of sickness, injury, anxiety, or other misery are you going through now, or have you endured in your past?

Right before Christmas Eve, I slipped on black ice in my driveway, broke my left hip and left shoulder. Pain was excruciating. Hospital gave me fentanyl and morphine. I had hip surgery, but the shoulder was not operated on, to let it heal itself.

Spent a month in a nursing home, which was nightmarishly miserable and frustrating.

I had to fight tooth and nail for every little thing — baths, clean clothes, fingernail clippers, nurse to empty my catheter bag, help to get to the bathroom, have a hair cut, more drinking water, get to a doctor appointment, etc. I am home now, barely limping around, unable to drive my car. Home health services provide therapy. I feel so like a helpless cripple hermit shut-in.

I see these negative events as tests. God looks down from heaven to watch how I will react. The worse things get, the more stubborn I grow in trusting God, even when my peace, joy, and hope are severely diminished. I would like to maintain this attitude to the end of my life.

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) endured lifelong, severe physical and mental suffering while pastoring the Metropolitan Tabernacle. His primary afflictions included chronic painful gout, Bright’s disease (kidney inflammation), rheumatism, and intense, "dark night of the soul" depression.

• He battled prolonged periods of extreme sorrow, anxiety, and "melancholy", often triggered by overwork (sometimes 18-hour days) and a 1856 tragedy where a false fire alarm at his service resulted in seven deaths.
• Illness and Frailty: He suffered from smallpox, which severely impacted his health.
• Long-Term Impact: His health deteriorated so significantly that he spent nearly a third of his last 22 years away from the pulpit.

Despite these, he viewed suffering as a refining tool of God, famously calling it "the best bit of furniture in my house". Spurgeon believed his suffering deepened his empathy and made him a more effective preacher to brokenhearted people.

He found strength in scripture, noting that affliction drove him to the Bible for comfort and revival.

Spurgeon is called the Prince of Preachers. His ability to continue his work, despite such intense suffering and pain, made his ministry, particularly his preaching on consolation, incredibly poignant.

 

[Van]

Yes, his life, like others, demonstrated an incredible commitment to serving our Lord as God gave him the light to channel his service.

Here is one of his blurbs, from the internet:

Believers in Christ's atonement are now in declared union with those who make light of it; believers in Holy Scripture are in confederacy with those who deny plenary inspiration; those who hold evangelical doctrine are in open alliance with those who call the fall a fable, who deny the personality of the Holy Ghost, who call justification by faith immoral, and hold that there is another probation after death… It is our solemn conviction that there should be no pretense of fellowship. Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin.​

Here he seemed to claim those who did not believe in "Limited Atonement" were making "light of it." So if we believe Christ died as a ransom for all, we lack understanding?

On the other hand, many if not all of us, accept the writers of our Bible were inspired, thus our bible is the word of God.

And at least many of us believe in the fall of humankind, that we were "made sinners" as a consequence of Adam's sin. Whether the fall resulted in "total spiritual inability" is, however, much contested.

Hopefully, everybody allowed to post on this forum believes in the Trinity, One God in Three Persons.

And hopefully, most of us believe justification is accessed by faith in the provision of Christ's sacrifice for our salvation.

Finally, I expect all of us believe we face sure and certain judgement when we physically die, there is no second chance for salvation AFTER we die.