Again, afflictions overtake us, and now the Holy Spirit encourages our hope and makes it to abound by such promises as these: "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18). But such a promise as that only mocks us if we do not believe. "In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them: in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and He carried them all the days of old" (Isaiah lxiii. 9). And He is just the same to-day. To some He says: "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" (Isaiah xlviii 10), and nestling down into His will and "believing," they "abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost." He turns our eyes back upon Job in his loss and pain; upon Joseph sold into Egyptian slavery; Daniel in the lions' den; the three Hebrews in the burning fiery furnace, and Paul in prison and shipwreck and manifold perils; and, showing us their steadfastness and their final triumph, He prompts us to hope in God. When weakness of body overtakes us, He encourages us with such assurances as these: "My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever" (Psalm lxxiii. 26), and the words of Paul: "Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. iv. 16). When old age comes creeping on apace, He has promised to meet the need that our hope fail not. Listen to David! He prays: "Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.... Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have showed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to every one that is to come" (Psalm lxxi. 9, 18). And through Isaiah the Lord replies: "Even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you" (Isaiah xlvi. 4). And David cries out, "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing, to show that the Lord is upright" (Psalm xcii. 12-15). These are sample promises of which the Bible is full, and which have been adapted by infinite wisdom and love to meet us at every point of doubt and fear and need, that, in believing them, we may have a steadfast and glad hope in God. He is pledged to help us. He says: "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness" (Isaiah xli. 10).