The Tried Man The Blessed Man

To be blessed is to be happy, favored, prosperous, etc.

But it has a secret, sacred emphasis all its own; for the favor and prosperity are such as only God himself can bestow.

Who would not desire to be blessed of God?

Most men mistake the whereabouts of blessedness.

It is not bound up with wealth, rank, power, talent, admiration, friendship, health, pleasure, or even with a combination of all these.

It is often found where least expected: amid trials, temptations, etc.

I. THE BLESSED IN THIS LIFE.

1. Blessedness is not in our text connected with ease, freedom from trial, or absence of temptation.

   • Untested treasures may be worthless; not so those which have endured the fire. No man may reckon himself blessed if he has to fear that a trial would wither all his excellence.

2. Blessedness belongs to those who endure tests.

   • These have faith, or it would not be tried; and faith is blessed.
   • These have life which bears trials; and the spiritual life is blessed.
   • These possess uprightness, purity, truth, patience; and all these are blessed things.

3. Blessedness belongs to those who endure trials out of love to God. The text speaks of “them that love him.”

   • He who has love to God finds joy in that love.
   • He also finds blessedness in suffering for that love.

4. Blessedness belongs to those who are proved true by trial.

   • After the test comes approval. “When he has been approved” is the rendering of the Revised Version.
   • After the test comes assurance of our being right. Certainty is a most precious commodity.

5. Blessedness comes out of patient experience.

   • Blessedness of thankfulness for being sustained.
   • Blessedness of holy dependence under conscious weakness.
   • Blessedness of peace and submission under God’s hand.
   • Blessedness of fearlessness as to result of further trial.
   • Blessedness of familiarity with God enjoyed in the affliction.
   • Blessedness of growth in grace through the trial.
   • He who, being tested, is supported in the ordeal, and comes out of the trial approved, is the blessed man.

II. THE BLESSED IN THE LIFE TO COME.

Those who have endured trial inherit the peculiar blessedness—

1. Of being crowned. How crowned if never in the wars?

   • Crowned because victorious over enemies.
   • Crowned because appreciated by their God.
   • Crowned because honored of their fellows.
   • Crowned because they have kept the conditions of the award.

2. Of attaining the glory and “crown of life” by enduring trial, thus only can life be developed until its flower and crown appear.

   • By trial brought to purest health of mind.
   • By trial trained to utmost vigor of grace.
   • By trial developed in every part of their nature.
   • By trial made capable of the highest glory in eternity.

3. Of possessing a living crown of endless joy. “Crown of life” or living crown: amaranthine, unfading.

   • If such fierce trials do not kill them, nothing will.
   • If they have spiritual bliss, it can never die.
   • If they have heavenly life, it will always be at its crowning point.

4. Of receiving this life-crown from God.

   • His own promise reveals and displays it.
   • His peculiar regard to those who love him doubly ensures it.
   • His own hand shall give it.

Let us encounter trial cheerfully.

Let us wait for the time of approval patiently.

Let us expect the crown of life most joyfully, and gather courage from the assurance of it.

Extracts

“Blessed”; that is, already blessed. They are not miserable as the world judges them. It is a Christian paradox, wherein there is an allusion to what is said (Job 5:17). “Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects”; it is a wonder, and therefore he calls the world to see it. Behold! So the apostle, in an opposition to the judgment of the world, says, Blessed.

Afflictions do not make the people of God miserable. There is a great deal of difference between a Christian and a man of the world: his best estate is vanity (Psalm 39:5); and a Christian’s worst is happiness. He who loves God is like a die; cast him high or low, he is still upon a square: he may be sometimes afflicted, but he is always happy.—Thomas Manton.

Times of affliction often prove times of great temptations, and therefore afflictions are called temptations.—Thomas Brooks.

The most durable and precious metal in the ancient arts was the Corinthian bronze, which was said to have first been caused by the fusing of all the precious metals when Corinth was burned. The most precious products of experience are got in the fire of trial.—John Legge.

An old sailor was asked for what purpose shoals and rocks were created, and the reply was, “That sailors may avoid them.” A Christian philosopher, using that axiom, upon being asked for what purpose trials and temptations are sent, answered, “That we may overcome and use them.” The true dignity of life is not found in escaping difficulties, but in mastering them for Christ’s sake and in Christ’s strength.

—Dean Stanley.

Many were the sorts of crowns which were in use among the Roman victors; as first, corona civica, a crown made of oaken boughs, which was given by the Romans to him that saved the life of any citizen in battle against his enemies. 2. Obsidionalis, which was of grass, given to him that delivered a town or city from siege. 3. Muralis, which was of gold, given to him that first scaled the wall of any town or castle. 4. Castralis, which was likewise of gold, given to him that first entered the camp of the enemy. 5. Navalis, and that also of gold, given to him that first boarded the ship of an enemy. 6. Ovalis (and that of myrtle), which was given to those captains that subdued any town or city, or that won any field easily, without blood. 7. Triumphalis, which was of laurel, given to the chief general or consul who, after some signal victory, came home triumphing. These, with many others, as imperial, regal, and princely crowns (rather garlands or coronets than crowns), are not to be compared to the crown of glory which God has prepared for those that love him. Who is able to express the glory of it; or to what glorious thing shall it be likened? If I had the tongue of men and angels, I should be unable to decipher it as it worthily deserves. It is not only a crown of glory, but has divers other titles of pre-eminency given unto it, of which all shall be true partakers that are godly; a crown of righteousness, by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness; a crown of life, because those that have it shall be made capable of life eternal; a crown of stars, because they that receive it shall shine as stars forever and ever.—John Spencer.

The same who crowns the conqueror, will be

A coadjutor in the agony.

—Robert Herrick.