Examples from the Bible of how God protects the Just in the hour of trial

November 20, 2021 • 2 min

From The Sinner’s Guide, page 212
By Venerable Louis of Granada

Hence the calmness and fortitude of the just under suffering. They are strong in the protection of a powerful Friend who constantly watches over them.

Witness the three young men who were cast into the burning furnace. God sent His angel to accompany them, and

He drove the flame of the fire out of the furnace, and made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew, and the fire touched them not, nor troubled them, nor did them any harm. …

Then Nabuchodonosor was astonished, and rose up in haste, and said to his nobles: “Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?”

They answered the king and said: “True, O king!”

He answered and said: “Behold I see four men loose, and walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no hurt in them, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” [Dan. iii.]

Does not this teach us that God’s protection never fails the just in the hour of trial?

A no less striking example is that of Joseph, with whom God’s protection “descended into the pit, and left him not till he was brought to the sceptre of the kingdom; and power against those that had oppressed him, and showed them to be liars that had accused him, and gave him everlasting glory.” [Wisdom x. 13, 14.]

Such examples prove more powerfully than words the truth of God’s promise, “I am with him in tribulation; I will deliver him and I will glorify him.” [Ps. xc. 15.]

Oh! happy affliction which merits for us the companionship of God! Let our prayers, then, be with St. Bernard: “Give me, O Lord! tribulations through life, that I may never be separated from Thee.” [Serm. 17 in Ps. xc.]