Some days were more trying than others. While passing through the
severest tests I learned that it was very helpful to look for some other
tried or tempted ones and do my best to cheer and comfort them. Just a
few doors from where I roomed was a lady past middle age, who had been a
sufferer for eleven years. She had been helpless during the greater part
of that time. I went to see her often and did what I could to lighten
her burdens. She knew nothing of my sufferings, however. She was so
grateful for everything I did for her, and the Lord's presence was so
real every time I talked or prayed with her that invariably I was
abundantly helped in the very efforts put forth to cheer and comfort
her. Sometimes my heart carried an almost intolerable burden; but after
a call in this home of affliction, my burden would grow light and I
would sometimes wonder which had been helped the more, she or I. Also,
when I considered what she had endured for so long, I was ashamed to
tolerate anything like discontent concerning my own lot, which, though
seemingly so hard at times, was so much better and easier, in some
respects at least, than hers.
There were times when, to add to my sufferings, Satan would bring
against me accusations that I could not have borne without special help
from God. Often the old temptations to doubt my experience of salvation
would return with tremendous force, and if I had listened to the enemy's
suggestions, I should have cast aside my experience in spite of all
that God had ever done for me. The accuser would sometimes begin by
suggesting that I had never been truly sanctified. (I obtained the
experience of entire sanctification soon after entering the work of
the ministry.) Then the enemy would become more bold and would suggest,
"You know that you have often had serious doubts concerning your
experience of justification, and after all, perhaps you have never been
truly converted."
After annoying and distressing me in this manner, Satan would fling at
me such taunts as these: "You are a pretty example of a minister who is
supposed to be truly called and qualified of God to preach his Word."
Many times I would have a conflict like this just before rising to
preach. If I had given way to feelings, I would rather have sought some
place of quiet seclusion than to have faced the waiting congregation
before me. But then the thought would come, "Perhaps in the congregation
there are tempted and tried souls who need special help"; and so I would
decide to preach, not according to how I felt, but according to actual
knowledge of God's Word, which is ever unchanging. It seemed that
whenever I was most severely tried in this manner, I would get the
greatest victory and blessing by moving out in the performance of
whatever duty confronted me. Indeed, I do not remember a single instance
when I failed to preach at the appointed hour on account of the state of
my feelings.
I sometimes wondered why the conflict was so long, for I suffered thus
month after month. Sometimes I comforted myself with the thought that
some day death would bring relief; but I learned at last that God was
only permitting these sufferings in order to refine the gold. My best
and most helpful sermons were preached while I was in the very midst of
the deepest suffering.