No ills to the believer!

On the previous Lord's Day, when I ought to have been changing nappies, I had the privillege of hearing a preacher who is, it would seem, nearer 30 than 80. There are some things that you can preach differently when you can look back on most of your life. It is wonderful to hear aged believers testify that God has been good to them for more than 3 score years and 10.

This preacher could quote The Rev'd Charles Haddon Spurgeon with conviction:

It is impossible that any ill should happen to the man who is beloved of the Lord; the most crushing calamities can only shorten his journey and hasten him to his reward. Ill to him is no ill, but only good in a mysterious form. Losses enrich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his honour, death is his gain. No evil in the strict sense of the word can happen to him, for everything is overruled for good. Happy is he who is in such a case. He is secure where others are in peril, he lives where others die.

http://www.spurgeon.org/treasury/ps091.htm