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Trials Educate, Purify, and Strengthen, December 14
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you....
But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when
his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
1
Peter 4:12, 13
.
Looking forward with prophetic vision to the perilous times into which the
church of Christ was to enter, the apostle [Peter] exhorted the believers to stead-
fastness in the face of trial and suffering. “Beloved,” he wrote, “think it not strange
concerning the fiery trial which is to try you.”
Trial is part of the education given in the school of Christ, to purify God’s
children from the dross of earthliness. It is because God is leading His children
that trying experiences come to them. Trials and obstacles are His chosen methods
of discipline, and His appointed conditions of success.
He who reads the hearts of men knows their weaknesses better than they
themselves can know them. He sees that some have qualifications which, if rightly
directed, could be used in the advancement of His work. In His providence He
brings these souls into different positions and varied circumstances, that they may
discover the defects that are concealed from their own knowledge. He gives them
opportunity to overcome these defects and to fit themselves for service. Often He
permits the fires of affliction to burn, that they may be purified.
God’s care for His heritage is unceasing. He suffers not affliction to come
upon His children but such as is essential for their present and eternal good. He
will purify His church, even as Christ purified the temple during His ministry on
earth. All that He brings upon His people in test and trial comes that they may
gain deeper piety and greater strength to carry forward the triumphs of the cross.
There had been a time in Peter’s experience when he was unwilling to see the
cross in the work of Christ. When the Saviour made known to the disciples His
impending sufferings and death, Peter exclaimed, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this
shall not be unto thee” (
Matthew 16:22
). Self-pity, which shrank from fellowship
with Christ in suffering prompted Peter’s remonstrance. It was to the disciple
a bitter lesson, and one which he learned but slowly, that the path of Christ on
earth lay through agony and humiliation. But in the heat of the furnace fire he was
to learn its lesson. Now, when his once-active form was bowed with the burden
of years and labors, he could write, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning
the fiery trial which is to try you.... But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of
Christ’s sufferings.”—
The Acts of the Apostles, 524, 525
.
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