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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
The purification of the people of God cannot be accomplished
without their suffering. God permits the fires of affliction to consume
the dross, to separate the worthless from the valuable, that the pure
metal may shine forth. He passes us from one fire to another, testing
our true worth. If we cannot bear these trials, what will we do in the
time of trouble? If prosperity or adversity discover falseness, pride, or
selfishness in our hearts, what shall we do when God tries every man’s
work as by fire, and lays bare the secrets of all hearts?
True grace is willing to be tried; if we are loath to be searched by
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the Lord, our condition is serious indeed. God is the refiner and purifier
of souls; in the heat of the furnace the dross is separated forever from
the true silver and gold of the Christian character. Jesus watches the
test. He knows what is needed to purify the precious metal that it may
reflect the radiance of His divine love.
God brings His people near Him by close, testing trials, by show-
ing them their own weakness and inability, and by teaching them to
lean upon Him as their only help and safeguard. Then His object is
accomplished. They are prepared to be used in every emergency, to fill
important positions of trust, and to accomplish the grand purposes for
which their powers were given them. God takes men upon trial; He
proves them on the right hand and on the left, and thus they are edu-
cated, trained, disciplined. Jesus, our Redeemer, man’s representative
and head, endured this testing process. He suffered more than we can
be called upon to suffer. He bore our infirmities and was in all points
tempted as we are. He did not suffer thus on His own account, but
because of our sins; and now, relying on the merits of our Overcomer,
we may become victors in His name.
God’s work of refining and purifying must go on until His servants
are so humbled, so dead to self, that, when called into active service,
their eye will be single to His glory. He will then accept their efforts;
they will not move rashly, from impulse; they will not rush on and
imperil the Lord’s cause, being slaves to temptations and passions
and followers of their own carnal minds set on fire by Satan. Oh,
how fearfully is the cause of God marred by man’s perverse will and
unsubdued temper! How much suffering he brings upon himself by
following his own headstrong passions! God brings men over the
ground again and again, increasing the pressure until perfect humility