"In all their affliction He was afflicted." That is one of the
lay in the casket, he knelt down and promised God to take Christ as his Lord and Master. But he lied to God, and forgot all about his resolution. Some time after he came home again, and his wife said, "Porter, the other child is sick." In a few days she also lay cold and dead. Once more he knelt down and promised God that he would become a Christian, and accept his word. All the holiest, deepest, purest joys of life had come from his great sorrow. Are you in sorrow? It is because God loves you. Are there some here resisting the entreaties of God's mercy and grace? I beseech you to repent. I tremble for some men and women, for those who know the way of life, with whom God is striving by His Holy Spirit, but who will not come to Him. I tremble for them, because I know that God loves them. You think that is a very strange reason for trembling for a man. No, I know God loves you, and so loves you that, if He cannot bring you in any other way, He will bring you by sorrow and heartache. A friend of mine in Chicago, Colonel Clark, spent his fortune in saving the lost. He went down every night to preach the Gospel in a mission. There was one man who had been attending and resisting God's entreaties of mercy for a long time; and one night as he came along Col. Clark said, "George, if you do not turn from sin pretty quick, I believe God will take away your wife and child from you, and will lock you up." The man was very angry, and said, "Colonel Clark, you mind your own business; I will mind mine." One month from that night George woke up on the floor of Rochester Jail. His wife was dead, his child had been taken away from him to be put into better hands than his. Right there he took Christ as his Sariour, and now he is a preacher of the Gospel. Remember, God loves you, and "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." 3. God shows His love for us by sympathizing with us.Isaiah Ixiii. 9: "In all their affliction He was afflicted." That is one of the wonderful sentences of this book. The prophet is speaking about the children of Israel. Their afflictions were appalling, and the direct consequence of their own sin, a judgment sent by the hand of God, and yet the prophet said God suffered with them in their sorrow. It is true. There is not a man or woman here who is in trouble but God sympathizes with you. It may have come in any way, but if you have any trouble God sympathizes with you in it. Some of you may know what it is to have a child sick for a long time. At first friends came and sympathized with you, but their sympathy has grown cold; and, as you have watched day and night by that fading life you have said: "There is no one who sympathizes with me." Yes there is. God sympathizes with you. There are men and women who have a sorrow of such a character that they cannot confide it to any human ear; and they say: "Nobody knows it. Nobody sypathizes with me." Yes, there is One who knows, and He sympathizes with youGod. 4. God shows His Love by His Gifts.I cannot dwell upon that. I just want to speak of one gift 1 John iii. 1, 2: "Behold, what manner of