Your Saviour is Leading You

A portion of a letter written to Paul Wolfe by a friend. Paul learned that he had cancer when he was a senior at Westminster Seminary. Paul had surgery and went through several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. God spared his life and taught him many lessons along the way. Those lessons are the subject of a book he has written, published by the Banner of Truth, which is a great encouragement to believers who face cancer, or for that matter, who face any life-threatening ailment. The following was written to him by a friend four days after he was diagnosed with cancer. It was written April 27, 1999.


Dear Paul, surely your Saviour is leading you and Christy through the deepest waters, and is asking you both to trust him with your lives. What else can you do, dear friend? This dark providence has consternated us all, and we cry out for you both. But it is only our dear Elder Brother who understands your sufferings, and through them is changing you from one degree of glory to another. We ever look to his mercy.

My God is True: Lessons Learned Along Cancer's Dark Road, Paul D. Wolfe, The Banner of Truth Trust, 2009, p. 110.

Depend Upon His Promises

A selection from a letter by John Newton to Sarah Pearce, on hearing of the death of her husband. Sarah was married to Samuel Pearce, pastor of Cannon Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, England, from 1790 to 1799. He was only 33 years old when he died but he was a tremendous preacher and more importantly, a godly man. Very near his death, Sarah repeated to him the final verse of Newton’s hymn, “Begone, Unbelief.” Grant Gordon says, “Upon hearing of his death, Newton sent his widow a letter of condolence. He identified with her loss as he shared how God had helped him through the painful loss of his spouse. Then he expressed strong words of encouragement filled with scriptural allusions.” Pearce died October 10, 1799. The letter was written in November of that year.

You are a widow, yet not strictly so, for your maker, your redeemer, the Lord of hosts is still your husband… he is unchangeably the same, and because he lives, you shall live also. My friend Ryland informs me that you have five children, but your living husband knows their number and the names of them all. I doubt not but you and your husband, who has lately exchanged earth for heaven and a bed of languishing for a seat near the throne, offered up many prayers for them both jointly and separately. And you know the Lord our God is a hearer of prayer. Has he not said, ‘Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let your widows trust in me’ [Jer. 49:11].


Depend upon his promises, madam, they will bear you up. He has not bid his people seek his face in vain. All hearts and means are in his hands and he could as easily provide for fifty children, if you had so many, as for five, as for one.

Wise Counsel: John Newton’s Letter to John Ryland, Jr., edited by Grant Gordon, The Banner of Truth Trust, 2009, p. 367.

Delight Yourselves in Christ Alone

A letter by James Renwick, a Covenanter known as the last Scottish martyr, to a company of believers that had been condemned to banishment for their faith. He himself would be put to death by the enemies of Gospel in 10 months. His letter is filled with encouragement for those who stood for Christ and Scottish liberty. The letter was written April, 1687.

Beloved Friends,

As my time will not allow me to write largely unto you, so you must accept this short and insignificant line, as a token of my consideration of your lot, and concernedness with it.

Your case is somewhat singular, for banishment will readily be looked upon as a great trial for you, through the prospect of many snares, fears and distresses, whereunto you may be subjected. Howbeit, you may have no small peace and consolation from the consideration that you could not evade it, unless you had denied truth. Whatever sufferings you may meet with from your countrymen, for the seas, and from foreigners, you may reckon it all upon the honorable account of your duty.

But, my friends, O do not fear the difficulties and perplexities that sense and reason may apprehend to be abiding you. For the Lord’s children have often found it by experience, that their present fears have been greater than their future troubles, and that they have oftentimes been more frightened than hurt. He that made a passage for His chosen through the Red Sea and the swellings of Jordan can give you a dry foot passage through all the waters and floods of your afflictions.

Take your eyes off the vain things of this world. Look not back on old lovers, but delight yourselves in Christ alone, who is your exceeding rich reward, your satisfying and everlasting portion. Take Him with you. O, He is sweet company! And He ‘will never leave you, nor forsake you.’ Yea, in the time of your greatest trouble He will be most near you, and in your greatest distresses He will be most kind. Be careful of nothing but how to please Him, and to honour Him in all places whither you may be scattered.

Now, commending you to His grace, which I pray may be sufficient for you, I am, your sympathizing friend and servant in the Lord,

James Renwick

The Life and Letters of James Renwick: The Last Scottish Martyr, by Rev. W. H. Carslaw, published by Solid Ground Christian Books, taken from the 1893 edition, pp. 224-25.

How Is It With Your Soul?

A selection from a letter by Augusta Toplady to a friend, inquiring about the state of her soul. The preacher who has brought encouragement to us all with his wonderful hymns also encouraged many with his letters. He once said, “Letters are but conversation committed to paper.” Here he has, as it were, a conversation with a friend about her relationship with the Lord. The letter was written November 20, 1772.

Above all, Madam, how is it with your soul? What are your views of God and Christ and heaven? Lively, I trust, and full of glory. Yet if our views are dim and languid, still He abideth faithful, and cannot deny himself. Not upon our frames, but upon the adorable Giver of them, is all our safety built. If we cannot follow him in the light, God help us to follow him in the dark; and if we cannot follow him so, to fall down at his feet, and sink into nothing, under the feelings of our own vileness. They who are enabled thus to fall, shall be raised in due time. I know not why, but I could not forbear writing to you. May the Spirit of the living God write his consolations on your heart, and cause your triumphs in Christ to abound more and more.

The Works of Augustus Toplady, Bookshelf Publications, reprint from the 1794 edition, pp. 834-35.

Nobody Knows But Jesus

A selection from a letter by the beloved hymn writer, Francis Ridley Havergal, to a young correspondent who needed encouragement in the midst of a great trial. The letter was written in 1877.

I can most fully enter into your somewhat complicated trials. I will hand on to you what comforted me exceedingly a night or two ago, though not a text. It is the refrain of an old slave hymn, ‘Nobody knows but Jesus!’ Does it not draw one very near to feel that? Say that to yourself next time you feel troubled, and have no relief of telling it to a human ear. It is so sweet. Just a secret between one’s own sore heart and the dear Lord’s loving heart!

Another thought struck me for you as to the special trial you tell me of. ‘Consider Him, who endured such contradiction!’ [Hebrews 12:3]. There is a whole mine of cheer and help in that. And consider further—if it is a far keener trial to see—‘enduring’ it than if you only had it to bear. ‘Consider’ how God the Father for His great love wherewith He loved us, saw and endured all the contradiction of sinners to His dear Son, and let them go on contradicting and never interfered, and let Him endure it to the bitter end, all because He loved us, so He ‘spared not His own Son’ even in this.

Letters by the Late Frances Ridley Havergal, edited by her sister, Maria V. G. Havergal, first published in 1885, reprinted by Kessinger Publishing’s Legacy Reprints, p. 92.

Pray for Two Things

A selection from a letter by John Calvin to the church in the city of Angers, located in the duchy, Anjou, in western France. Calvin often wrote letters of counsel and encouragement to churches with which he was acquainted. This church had been sorely persecuted for the gospel of Christ. The letter was written from Geneva on April 19, 1556.

We can only groan in prayer to God that he would be graciously pleased to preserve you, by the hand of that good and faithful Shepherd to whose keeping he has entrusted you... If, after having given you his support for some time, it should please him to give loose to your enemies, you have to pray him for two things: that you be not tempted beyond your power, and that in the mean time he should fortify you with such courage that you be not so dismayed by whatever may happen to you as to fall away from him. We ought to be all thoroughly convinced that our life is dear and precious to him, and that he will be our protector in all assaults. But this is not to exempt us from persecutions, by which it is his will to put to the proof, the patience of all his children.

John Calvin: Tracts and Letters, edited by Jules Bonnet and translated by David Constable, first published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1858, republished by The Banner of Truth Trust, 2009, vol. 6, p. 262.

He Will Not Be Hindered

A selection from a letter by John Newton to Miss Mary Barham, the daughter of one of his dearest friends, a Moravian, J. Foster Barham. The Barham’s lived in Bedford, Bunyan’s town, not too far from Olney. Mary recently “had entered in the way of salvation” and Mr. Newton wrote this letter of challenge and encouragement to her. This letter was written November 11, 1775.

In a sense, we are often hindering him by our impatience and unbelief; but strictly speaking, when he really begins the good work, and gives us a desire which will be satisfied with nothing short of himself, He will not be hindered from carrying it on; for He has said, I will work, and none shall let it. Ah! had it depended upon myself, upon my wisdom or faithfulness, I should have hindered him to purpose, and ruined myself long ago. How often have I grieved and resisted his Spirit! But hereby I have learned more of his patience and tenderness than I could otherwise have known. He knows our frame, and what effect our evil nature, fomented by the artifices of Satan, will have; He see us from first to last.

Letters of John Newton: with Biographical Sketches and Notes, by Josiah Bull, first published in 1869, reprinted by the Banner of Truth, 2007, pp. 217-18.

Make Haste to Seek that Pearl

A selection from a letter by Samuel Rutherford, imprisoned at Aberdeen for nonconformist views, and no longer permitted to preach from his pulpit in Anwoth. The letter was written to Thomas Corbet, a member of the parish church in Anwoth. It was written in 1637.

If you depart from what I taught you in a hair-breadth, for fear or favour of men, or desire of ease in this world, I take heaven and earth to witness that ill shall come upon you in the end. Build not your nest here. This world is a hard, ill-made bed; no rest is in it for your soul. Awake, awake, and make haste to seek that Pearl, Christ, that this world seeth not. Your night and your Master Christ will be upon you within a clap; your hand-breadth of time will not bide you. Take Christ, howbeit a storm follow him. Howbeit this day be not yours and Christ’s, the morrow will be yours and his. I would not exchange the joy of my bonds and imprisonment for Christ with all the joy of this dirty and foul-skinned world, I am filled with Christ’s love.

Letters of Samuel Rutherford: A Selection, The Banner of Truth Trust, the first edition of letters was published in 1664, this selection was published in 1973, p. 147.