"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17).

Here we see a vivid contrast_the contrast between affliction and glory. You have known much of affliction as you have gone along the way. You have not failed to know suffering and bereavement and disappointment. There are times when the tears have flowed. But now God puts in contrast to the affliction which you have known down here the glory that is coming by-and-by, and if the affliction has oppressed your heart, how the glory will overwhelm you when you are at home with Christ.

He speaks of the affliction as "light affliction," but of the glory as a "weight" of glory. You have sometimes felt as though your affliction was very heavy, but it has no real weight at all in comparison with the glory that is coming. Therefore, if the affliction seems to have been very heavy when God calls it light, you can get some idea of the glory that awaits us. He says, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment." It does not seem as though it has been just "for a moment." I was talking to a dear saint who for over twenty years had been sitting in a wheelchair, and I said, "It is good to know that the Lord is coming, and then all this trouble will be over."

"Oh, yes," "she said, "but it is so long, it has lasted so long. I wonder when it ever will come to an end."

It seemed a long time, yet he says it is but for a moment. Suppose that one had spent his whole lifetime in this world in affliction and had lived to be seventy, eighty, or ninety years of age; after all, what is that compared with eternity? Our years pass as "a watch in the night" (Psa. 90:4).

But notice what awaits us on the other side. "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." How strongly he puts that! It gives some conception of what is coming, what it will be by-and-by, when earth’s trials are past and we are at last in the glory with the Lord Jesus.

(From Addresses on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.)