This poignant statement from Luther on tribulation in our lives can be applied to the Church when she enters into the Great Tribulation. May we cultivate this spiritual self-control if God calls this generation to suffer at the hands of Satan and his Antichrist:
We have the promise and hope of heaven, and the recompense and reward of our present misery will be so great that we shall rebuke ourselves severely for ever having dropped one tear or sigh on account of this contempt and ingratitude of the world. Why, we shall say, did we not suffer even worse things? I never would have believed that there could be such surpassing glory in eternal life; else I should not have so dreaded to suffer even much worse things (St. L. II:1237; Erl, Exeg. Opp. Lat. 9, 235.)
