June 5

How awful that day will be! None will be like it! It is the time of Jacob’s distress, but he will be saved out of it. — Jer 30:7 BSB

This “day of trouble” is when a man’s conscience is weighed down by the heavy burden of sin. It’s when guilt presses him down into the dust, and his sins seem more numerous than the hairs on his head. He fears that he will be cast into hell, sharing the fate of the hypocrites.

The “day of trouble” isn’t literally a day—it isn’t measured by the hours on a clock or the rise and fall of the sun. This day represents a season, whether short or long, whether a day, a week, a month, or a year. And just as the season can’t be measured in length, the depth of the trouble can’t be measured either.

God, in His wisdom, gives His people different measures of affliction. Not everyone sinks to the same depth, just as not everyone rises to the same heights. Not everyone drinks equally from the cup of suffering, but each person, in their own way, passes through this “day of trouble.” In this season, their outward religiosity is broken down, their self-righteousness destroyed, and their presumptuous hopes crushed, leaving them like the leper crying, “Unclean, unclean.” Until a person has gone through this day of trouble, until they have experienced some measure of soul-wrestling, guilt, and condemnation, they can’t fully know the power of Jesus’ atoning blood or feel the strength of His resurrection.