Spurgeon's Words of Cheer - Are You Troubled?

Just one more portion of Spurgeon's Word's of Cheer. A small portion that can turn large profits for your soul:

Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.—Psalm 50:15

Of all things in the world to be dreaded, despair is the chief. Let a man be abandoned to despair, and he is ready for all sorts of sins. When fear unnerves him, action is dangerous; but when despair has loosed his joints and paralyzed his conscience, the vultures hover around him waiting for their prey. As long as a man has hope for himself, you may have hope for him. But Satan's object is to drive out the last idea of hope from men, that then they may give themselves up to be his slaves forever.
Let me just say to those who are in trouble, which I hope every faithful Christian will repeat again and again: There is hope. There is hope about your financial difficulties, your sickness, your present affliction. God can help you through it. Do not sit down with your elbows on your knees and cry all day. That will not get you through it. Call upon God who sent the trouble. He has a great design in it. It may be that He has sent it as a shepherd sends his black dog to fetch the wandering sheep to him. It may be He has a design in making you lose temporal things so that you may gain eternal things. Many a mother's soul would not been saved if it had not been for that dear infant which was taken from her bosom. Not until it was taken to the skies did God give the attracting influence which drew her heart to pursue the path to heaven. Do not say there is no hope. Others have been in as terrible a set of circumstances as you are. Even if it seems as if it has come to a crisis of bread, yet still there is hope. Go and try again on Monday morning. God's providence has a thousand ways of helping us if we have but the heart to pray.
...“Ah,” says one, “but you do not know my case.” No, my dear friend, and I do not particularly desire to know it, because this sweeping truth can meet it, whatever it is. “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men” (Matthew 12:31). “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7). Noah's ark was not made to hold just a few mites, but the elephant, the lion, and the largest beasts of prey all entered and found room. So my Master, who is the great ark of salvation, did not come into this world to save a few who are little sinners, but “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him” (Hebrews 7:25). See Him over there, see Him on the cross in extreme agony, bearing griefs and torments numberless and sweating in agony, all for love of you who were His enemies. Trust him. Trust Him, for there is hope and lifting up. However bowed down you may be, there is hope even for you in the Gospel.
...Still, nothing will avail unless there is much prayer. We need to pray that God may give efficacy to the counsels he has given us, and reward our obedience to them with abundant fruit. Oh, brethren, prayer is the grand thing after all for us who have no might of ourselves. It is wonderful what prayer can do for any of us. A dear friend said the other day, “Look at Jacob. In the early part of his life there was much that was unseemly in his character, and very much that was unhappy in his circumstances. Crafty himself, he was often the victim of craft, reaping the fruit of his own ways. But one night in prayer—what a change it made in him! Why, it raised him from the deep poverty of a cunning supplanter to the noble peerage of a prince in Israel!” Bethel itself is hardly more memorable in Jacob's history than Peniel.
And what might one night spent in prayer do for some of us? Supposing we were to try it instead of the soft bed. We need not go to the brook. It is enough that, like Jacob, we were left alone in some place where sighs and cries would be heard by none but God. One night spent thus in solitary prayer might put the spurs on some of you and make you spiritual knights in God's army, able to do great exploits. Oh, yes! May all other gracious exercises be started in prayer, crowned with prayer, and perfected by much prayer.

Let us praise God for these men who have gone before us and left us a written legacy from their lives and from their preaching and teaching on how we today may attain a greater love for our Lord.