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Home›Topics›Suffering›Historical Examples

Historical Examples — Suffering

156 illustrations

All (971)⛪ LensLines™ (702)🏛️ Historical Examples (156)⛪ Tradition Perspectives (61)🌍 Contemporary (14)📖 Stories & Illustrations (10)🕊️ Prayers (8)🙏 Devotionals (7)🔍 Biblical Insights (6)🎯 Application Points (3)🎬 Movie Analogies (2)✨ show dont tell prompt (2)

Gold Tried in Fire: From Judgment's Throne to Mercy's Seat

The seer of Patmos reveals a startling truth: every human heart has constituted itself a throne of judgment over others.

Revelation 1:18Universal

moral authority through struggle

sympathy rooted in experience

Joseph S. Exell

215 words

The Persecutor Persecuted: Saul's Reaping and Sowing

Consider the remarkable arc of this one man's life: the persecutor became persecuted.

Acts 8:3Universaldivine retribution and mercytransformation through trial

Joseph S. Exell

Yoke-Fellows in Sin, Yoke-Fellows in Pain

The soul is punished for informing; the body for performing.

Psalms 6:3Universaldivine timingconsequences of sin

Joseph S. Exell

Virtue Embodied: Why Goodness Provokes the World's Hatred

The pattern repeats throughout Scripture: Saul bribed assassins to hunt David (1 Samuel 22:6–19); the Jewish leaders later bribed Judas to betray the Son of David into their hands.

Psalms 25:10Universalopposition to righteousnessvirtue persecuted

Joseph S. Exell

Ancient Afflictions: The Plowman's Deep Furrows

First, these afflictions possess antiquity—they reach back to youth itself, even to infancy and conception.

Psalms 129:1Universalperseverance through afflictionGod's sustaining grace

Charles H. Spurgeon

God's Strength to the Poor: Three Hebrew Words of Affliction

*Dal* means "wavering, tottering, infirm"—those whose foundations crumble.

Isaiah 25:4UniversalGod's compassion for the marginalizedDivine strength in human weakness

Joseph S. Exell

God's Mountains: Obstacles Transformed into Highway

Yet Elohim uses these very obstacles to stimulate human strength and ingenuity.

Isaiah 49:11Universaldivine sovereignty over adversityobstacles as spiritual formation

Joseph S. Exell

The Allegory Born in a Prison Cell

In 1660, a tinker-turned-preacher named John Bunyan stood before magistrates in Bedfordshire, England, charged with holding unlicensed religious services. The sentence was simple: stop preaching,...

Hebrews 12:1-2Universalperseverancefaith

When the Walls Became a Writing Desk

In 1660, a traveling tinker and lay preacher named John Bunyan was arrested near the village of Lower Samsell in Bedfordshire, England, for conducting a...

2 Corinthians 4:8-9Universalperseverancefaith

The Forsaken Son: Understanding Christ's Desolation on Calvary

The Divine nature could not be separated from the human; He remained eternally God.

Matthew 27:46Universaldivine wrath and judgmentthe cost of redemption

Joseph S. Exell

Prosperity as Trial: Israel's Moral Collapse Under Jeroboam II

Exell (1887) observed that adversity, though bitter medicine, purifies nations—but prosperity proves far more perilous.

Ezekiel 7:11Universalmoral consequences of prosperitydivine judgment through deprivation

Joseph S. Exell

Grass on the Housetop: The Fate of Persecutors

This grass withers without the sickle ever touching it.

Psalms 129:6Universaldivine vindicationpatience overcomes oppression

Charles H. Spurgeon

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