Sunday 13 January 2013

What The Bible Considers "Trouble"

A good word from one of the blogs I follow:

What The Bible Considers "Trouble": "No ill befalls the righteous, but the wicked are filled with trouble" (Proverbs 12:21).

When the Bible talks about the follower of Christ being free from trouble, it isn't talking about temporal trouble. Jesus promised his disciples in John 16:33 that "in the world" they will have tribulation. What the Bible is saying is that the Christian will not be ultimately harmed but will be brought safely through all the trials of this world and into Heaven at the last.

The Bible also does not say that "the wicked" (all of us who scorned and rejected Christ) will necessarily lead troubled and unhappy lives on this earth. But the Bible does make clear that the rejector of Christ is '"storing up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will appear" (Romans 2:5). In this way they are "filled with trouble" and this trouble certainly begins in this temporal life, even though it may not be outwardly apparent.

This is a brief, brief life; begun and then quickly over, and then eternity, and the great settling of all accounts before God. The righteous will suffer no harm in that accounting, because they have placed all their hope for rescue from wrath in the work of Christ on the cross.

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