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Trials Will Come, February 20
For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
Lamentations 3:33
.
Our heavenly Father does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.
He has His purpose in the whirlwind and the storm, in the fire and in the flood.
The Lord permits calamities to come to His people to save them from greater
dangers. He desires everyone to examine his own heart closely and carefully, and
then draw near to God, that God may draw near to him. Our life is in the hands of
God. He sees dangers threatening us that we cannot see. He is the Giver of all
our blessings; the Provider of all our mercies; the Orderer of all our experiences.
He sees the perils that we cannot see. He may permit to come upon His people
that which fills their hearts with sadness, because He sees that they need to make
straight paths for their feet, lest the lame be turned out of the way. He knows
our frame, and remembers that we are dust. Even the very hairs of our head are
numbered. He works through natural causes to lead His people to remember that
He has not forgotten them, but that He desires them to forsake the way which, if
they were permitted to follow unchecked and unreproved, would lead them into
great peril.
Trials come to us all to lead us to investigate our hearts, to see if they are
purified from all that defiles. Constantly the Lord is working for our present and
eternal good. Things occur which seem inexplainable, but if we trust in the Lord,
and wait patiently for Him, humbling our hearts before Him, He will not permit
the enemy to triumph.
The Lord will save His people in His own way, by such means and instru-
mentalities that the glory will be returned to Him. To Him alone belongs the
praise....
Every soul that is saved must be a partaker with Christ of His sufferings, that he
may be a partaker with Him of His glory. How few understand why God subjects
them to trial. It is by the trial of our faith that we gain spiritual strength. The Lord
seeks to educate His people to lean wholly upon Him. He desires them, through
the lessons that He teaches them, to become more and more spiritualized. If His
Word is not followed in all humility and meekness, He brings to them experiences
which, if rightly received, will help to prepare them for the work to be done in
His name. God desires to reveal His power in a marked manner through the lives
of His people.—
Manuscript 76, 1903
, February 20, 1902, “The Burning of the
Sanitarium.”
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