Value of Trials: March 2008
Table of Contents
Enduring and Entering Into Temptation
Every trial we pass through in this life is guided and controlled by the hand of the Lord for our good. He alone fully understands us and what we need to experience for our good and for His glory. In love He acts through trials to reveal Himself to us and through us, and to expose our own hearts to us so that we might judge ourselves and become partakers of His holiness.
Our natural hearts do not want trial, and when in it, we naturally want (and may ask) to be taken out of it. Yet, God often glorifies Himself, not by taking us out of the trial, but by sustaining us in it. He is glorified when we trust Him in the trial, for such trust displays His work in our hearts, and His worthiness is to be depended upon at all times and in all circumstances.
Our Lord submitted to the greatest of all trials, saying, “Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). Never was God so glorified as in that trial; moreover, our eternal blessing depended upon it.
Only in trial do we learn to know our God as a God of all comfort. If we did not have trial on earth, we would never know Him as a comforter.
When trial comes, may we learn to trust the Lord and give thanks for it: “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus towards you” (1 Thess. 5:18 JND). When we are in the Father’s house, we will look back on every trial we ever experienced and thank God for it.
The Value of Trials
We test various things with the object of displaying either their badness or their goodness, and God often works with men in the same way. When God allows special trials to overtake natural men, it is to lead them to turn to Him in them, to teach them that “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will” (Dan. 4:17), and that He is able to abase those who walk in pride.
But trials similar to those found among the “children of this world” are found also among God’s children. Often God’s desire in dealing with them in this way is to show them the evil of their own natural hearts, although this is not always necessary. What is always necessary and of far greater importance in God’s sight is to make their faith shine more brightly. This was the desired end in His dealings with His servant Job, though in the same trials Job also learned deep lessons as to his own vileness (Job 42:56). God sees faith in His children, and because He values it, the trial is a trial of faith. Thus God takes the distinct ground in our trials of helping us. This is in order that faith may be strengthened. I believe there is no exception, but that every trial of a Christian is a trial of faith (1 Peter 1:7).
It is evidently not always the desire of God to manifest to me (or to anyone else) the evil that is in my nature — evil which always rebels against the trials He sends. If I bow to the trials and to the Word of God, which tells me God is taking the ground of helping me in and by them, nature gets no place and no voice; that is, it is not displayed, though there.
Preventative and Remedial
These trials are called “chastenings” in Hebrews 12:58 and “purging” in John 15. In both we see that God is helping us — dealing with us as with sons. Chastening is either to prevent or to remedy our running into evil. First, it is by the Word of God, which always runs counter to my will. Second, where this fails, it is by trials of various kinds, for God seeks to keep me in a right path and to prevent me from going wrong. Both of these are chastening, but neither is because of any wrongdoing. (If chastening and trial are for something wrong done, they are remedial, not preventive.) I believe God always chastens to prevent before He chastens to remedy. But to be without that, of which “all are partakers,” would mark me as not of the family. If trials and chastenings to prevent my going wrong as well as trials and chastenings to restore me when I have gone wrong should both fail to effect this object, God may repeat them, or act in judgment (1 Cor. 11:30-32; 1 John 5:16). We have then to “count it all joy,” according to James 1:2, when we “fall into divers temptations.” God sees in me something that He desires to help — hence the trial, and hence also my joy. The trials are occasions of manifesting my faith, opportunities given to me to prove God in a way that I have not done previously.
For Our Blessing
What is the meaning of James 1:13-14? “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” I believe God’s desire is by the trial to manifest the good that is in us; that is, to bring out that faith which He has given (Eph. 2:8). If the trial manifests only the evil that is in me (rebellion, or plans of my own to get out of the trial), I am drawn away by my own evil lusts. But this was not God’s first object in sending the trial. He may see it necessary to point me out to myself, but even with the ungodly, their trials are allowed in order to turn them to God. (See Job 33:19-29; see also Psalm 107.) Trials test faith or they stir up the evil (such as rebellion) that dwells in my nature. The one casts me on God; the other carries me farther and farther away from Him, as to the experience of my soul. I believe that God never tries a man merely to expose the evil that is in him to the man himself, as if this were the end or prime motive of the trial, though this may come out (as with Job), and we in His dealings may see what we are. God has a higher object than this, even our blessing. In this way I understand Genesis 22:1.
H. C. Anstey, adapted from
The Christian Friend, 13:149
God in Everything
Nothing helps the Christian to endure the trials of his path as the habit of seeing God in everything. There is no circumstance, be it ever so trivial or ever so commonplace, which may not be regarded as a messenger from God. The Book of Jonah illustrates this truth in a very marked way. There we learn that there is nothing ordinary to the Christian; nothing is a course of random events; everything is extraordinary. The most commonplace things — the simplest circumstances— exhibit in the history of Jonah evidences of divine interference. To see this instructive feature, it is not necessary to enter upon a detailed exposition of the Book of Jonah. We need only to notice one expression, which occurs in it again and again, namely, “The Lord prepared.“
A Great Wind
In chapter 1 the Lord sends out a great wind into the sea, and this wind had in it a solemn voice for the prophet’s ear, had he been wakeful to hear it. The poor pagan mariners, no doubt, had often encountered a storm, yet it was special and extraordinary for one individual on board, though that one was asleep in the sides of the ship. In vain did the sailors seek to counteract the storm; nothing would avail until the Lord’s message had reached the ears of him to whom it was sent.
A Great Fish
Following Jonah a little further, we perceive another instance of God in everything. He is brought into new circumstances, yet he is not beyond the reach of the messengers of God. The Christian can never find himself in a position in which his Father’s voice cannot reach his ear or his Father’s hand meet his view, for His voice can be heard, His hand seen, in everything. Thus, when Jonah had been cast forth into the sea, “the Lord had prepared a great fish.” Here, too, we see that there is nothing ordinary to the child of God. A great fish was not uncommon —there are many such in the sea. Yet the Lord prepared one for Jonah, in order that it might be the messenger of God to his soul.
A Gourd
In chapter 4, we find the prophet sitting on the east side of the city of Nineveh, in sullenness and impatience, grieved because the city had not been overthrown and entreating the Lord to take away his life. He would seem to have forgotten the lesson learned during his three days’ sojourn in the deep, and he therefore needed a fresh message from God. “The Lord God prepared a gourd.” This is very instructive. Surely there was nothing uncommon in the mere circumstance of a gourd, but Jonah’s gourd exhibited traces of the hand of God and forms a link — an important link — in the chain of circumstances through which the prophet was passing. The gourd now, like the great fish before, was the messenger of God to his soul. “So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.” He had before longed to depart, but his longing was more the result of impatience and chagrin than of holy desire to depart and be at rest forever. It was the painfulness of the present rather than the happiness of the future that made him wish to be gone.
A Worm
This is often the case. We are frequently anxious to get away from present pressure, but if the pressure were removed, the longing would cease. If we longed for the coming of Jesus and the glory of His blessed presence, circumstances would make no difference; we should then long just as ardently to get away from pleasant circumstances as those of pressure and sorrow. Jonah, while he sat beneath the shadow of the gourd, did not think of departing, and the very fact of his being “exceeding glad of the gourd” proved how much he needed that special messenger from the Lord. It served to make manifest the true condition of his soul. Yet the gourd was but a link in the chain, for the Lord “prepared a worm,” and this worm, trifling as it was when viewed in the light of an instrument, was, nevertheless, as much the divine agent as was the “great wind” or the “great fish.” A worm, when used by God, can do wonders; it withered Jonah’s gourd and taught him, as it teaches us, a solemn lesson. True, it was only an insignificant agent, the efficacy of which depended upon its conjunction with others, but this only illustrates more strikingly the greatness of our Father’s mind. He can prepare a worm, and He can prepare a vehement east wind, and He can make them both, though so unlike, instruments of His great designs.
In the Great and the Small
In a word, the spiritual mind sees God in everything. The worm, the whale and the tempest are all instruments in His hand. The most insignificant, as well as the most splendid agents, further His ends. The east wind would not have proved effectual, though it had been ever so vehement, had not the worm first done its appointed work. How striking is all this! Great and small are terms in use only among men and cannot apply to Him “who humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven,” as well as “in the earth” (Psa. 113:6). Jehovah can tell the number of the stars, and while He does so He can take knowledge of a falling sparrow. Nothing is great or small with God.
The believer, therefore, must not look upon anything as a random event, for God is in everything. True, he may have to pass through the same circumstances — to meet the same trials — as other men, but he must not meet them in the same way, nor do they convey the same report to his ear. He should hear the voice of God and heed His message in the most trifling as well as in the most momentous occurrence of the day. The disobedience of a child or the loss of an estate, the failure of a servant or the death of a friend, should all be regarded as divine messengers to his soul.
God’s Unsearchable Designs
So also, when we look around us in the world, God is in everything. The overturning of thrones, the crashing of empires, the famine, the pestilence and every event that occurs among nations exhibit traces of the hand of God and utter a voice for the ear of man. The devil will seek to rob the Christian of the real sweetness of this thought; he will tempt him to think that, at least, the commonplace circumstances of everyday life exhibit nothing extraordinary, but are only such as happen to other men. But we must not yield to him in this. We must start every morning with this truth vividly impressed on our mind — God is in everything. The sun that rolls along the heavens in splendid brilliancy and the worm that crawls along the path have both alike been prepared of God, and, moreover, could both alike cooperate in the development of His unsearchable designs.
I would observe, in conclusion, that the only one who walked in the abiding remembrance of the above precious and important truth was our blessed Master. He saw the Father’s hand and heard the Father’s voice in everything. This appears preeminently in the season of the deepest sorrow. He came forth from the garden of Gethsemane with those memorable words, “The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?” Thus, He recognized in the fullest manner that God is in everything.
C. H. Mackintosh, adapted
The Greatness of God Shown in His Dealings With Job
The Book of Job shows us, as no other book, how God controls all things to accomplish His purposes of blessing for His own. The complex way God blends together the actions of Satan, Job’s wife, his three friends and humble Elihu to bring about His purposes is a witness to His great power, wisdom and understanding. Job was a special object of the favor of God, and the book is given as a demonstration of how the trials through which He puts us are for our good and blessing. The best blessing in reading the book is not found in understanding all the complex discussions, but in seeing the end of the ways of God with Job — that He is merciful. We believe the Lord has given us this book to help us as we go through trials.
Satan’s Work
Satan is the first agent used. Jehovah calls to his attention the perfect and upright life of Job. Satan suggested that Job was pious because of the protection and blessing that God gave him and promptly proposed a plan which he thought would cause Job to curse God. The Lord Jehovah allows this with certain restrictions that would not allow him to go beyond God’s reason for the trial. Satan may be an agent in our trials, but God is over all, and Satan cannot go beyond what God allows. Satan immediately went to extreme measures of death and destruction, bodily sickness and suffering, seeking to disprove what God had said to him and to cause Job to fail. There was no care for the well-being of Job with Satan, nor did his terrible ways accomplish his prediction. Job maintained his integrity and did not curse God. It would seem that Satan’s final effort was to sow a seed of distrust or despair in the heart of Job’s wife, causing her to say, “Curse God, and die.”
But the Lord had other reasons for allowing Satan to do what He did. He desired the good and blessing of Job. He saw something in Job that was a hindrance to that blessing. The blessing that the Lord had in store for Job was much better than what Job could obtain by his own righteousness. This plan necessitated a trial to cause Job to cease from his own righteousness and cling to God alone. The three friends then are the agents used by God to continue the trial.
Job’s Three Friends
After Satan finished all he could do, Job’s friends came to comfort him. But instead of being a direct help to Job by leading him to God, they use their own experience, logic and tradition. Their efforts to teach him why all these things had happened, being off the mark, could only lead Job down a path of resistance and self-justification. Though their words are often true in themselves, they missed the mark of the reason for the trial. The mighty work of God in our lives is too great to be explained by human understanding. We must go into the sanctuary to learn why God allows trials.
God used the three friends to bring out of Job what no one else could see. This was necessary to bring out what needed to be exposed and judged. Job in his defense against their wrong accusations wrongly attributed injustice to God (ch. 27:2). For Job always to seek to be upright and righteous would have been right, but to defend himself was wrong. God alone is our judge. No man placed on trial is at the same time the evaluator or judge. When we begin to defend ourselves we are sure to err, although it is especially difficult not to defend one’s position when the accusations are false. God was faithful to have on hand a man that would properly represent Him at the right moment.
Elihu’s Faithful Words
Usually, it is only after we have ceased talking that we begin to learn, and Elihu wisely waits for that moment, before beginning to speak. He justifies God first of all and then points out the errors of Job and his friends. He does not take a position of superiority and hardness, but speaks as one made of clay. He is careful to not accuse Job of the unseen things in his heart; rather, he takes up only what each one had said and faithfully speaks the truth. After giving Job opportunity to respond, Elihu finishes the discourse with an admonition to fear God. He truly brings Job into the presence of God, and then he, too, is silent.
The Lord then takes up where Elihu left off. He brings Job into a fuller understanding of who He is and of His great power. Job recognizes his own vile condition after the first discourse. After the second, Job sees God as He is, and he is restored to Jehovah.
The great purpose of God to bless could then be graciously poured out in Job’s life. Job receives double all that he had lost through the trial. These things that were “written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). “Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:11).
D. C. Buchanan
The Sanctuary and the Sea: the Twofold Ways of God
Psalm 77:13,19
His way is “in the sanctuary,” and His way is “in the sea.” Now there is a great difference between these two things. First of all, God’s way is in the sanctuary where all is light, all is clear. There is no mistake there. There is nothing in the least degree that is harassing to the spirit. On the contrary, it is when the poor troubled one enters into the sanctuary and views things there in the light of God that he sees the end of all else — everything that is entangled, the end of which he cannot find on the earth.
We have the same thing in Psalm 73. “When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.” That is, in the sanctuary of God everything is understood, no matter how difficult, trying, and painful, as regards ourselves or others. When we once enter there, we are in the place of God’s light and God’s love, and then, whatever the difficulty may be, we understand all about it.
But not only is God’s way in the sanctuary (and when we are there, all is rest and peace), but God’s way is in the sea. He walks where we cannot always trace His footsteps.
In the Sea
God moves mysteriously at times, as we all know. There are ways of God which are purposely to try us. I need not say that it is not at all as if God had pleasure in our perplexities. Nor is it as if we had no sanctuary to draw near to, where we can rise above it. But still there is a great deal in the ways of God that must be left entirely in His own hands. The way of God is, thus, not only in the sanctuary, but also in the sea. And yet, what we find even in connection with His footsteps being in the sea is, “Thou leddest Thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.” That was through the sea; afterward, it was through the wilderness. But it had been through the sea. The beginnings of the ways of God with His people were there, because from first to last God must be the confidence of the saint. It may be an early lesson of his soul, but it never ceases to be the thing to learn.
In the Sanctuary
How happy to know that while the sanctuary is open to us, and God Himself is there, He is nearer still to us. As it is said, “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). This is a most precious thing, because there we are in the sanctuary at once and brought to God Himself. And I am bold to say that heaven itself would be but a small matter if it were not that we are brought to God. This is better than any freedom from trial, better than any blessing, to be in the presence of the One to whom we belong, who is Himself the source of all blessing and joy. That we are brought to Him now is infinitely precious. There we are in the sanctuary brought to God.
But still there are other ways of God outside the sanctuary — in the sea. And there we often find ourselves at a loss. If we are occupied with the sea itself or with trying to scan God’s footsteps there, then they will not be known. But confidence in God Himself is always the strength of faith. May the Lord grant us increasing simplicity and quietness in the midst of all that which we pass through, for His name’s sake.
C. H. Mackintosh
The Trial of Your Faith
It is clear from the Word of God that the benefit to us of the trials in our lives depends on how we accept them. We may either “despise . . . the chastening of the Lord” or “faint when . . . rebuked of Him” (Heb. 12:5), both of which are wrong. If we are “exercised thereby,” we will find that those trials yield the “peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:11).
In 1 Peter 1, we find another aspect of trials that is most helpful for our souls and a balance given that is necessary to keep in mind. After encouraging the saints by telling them that they have “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (vs. 4), and that the saints themselves are “kept by the power of God through faith” (vs. 5) for that inheritance, Peter reminds them that they are still in this world, and thus subject to “manifold temptations.”
“If Need Be” Trials
In connection with these manifold temptations (or trials), Peter uses the words “if need be” (1 Peter 1:6). These three words bring out one aspect of the trials through which God puts us, in that He sees in us that which needs adjustment or correction. It may be positive sin, for we all know in our own hearts “the sin which doth so easily beset us” (Heb. 12:1). In His government and because we belong to Him, God may allow something in our lives because we are pursuing a willful course. However, it may be that we are pleasing the Lord, but the Lord wants more fruit, and thus, “Every branch in Me . . . that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:2). It may also be that He wishes to get our attention, in order that we may learn more of Him. Whatever the reason, He alone knows the “need be” of each trial in our lives and allows that which accomplishes His purpose if we accept the trial from Him.
Trials for Faith
However, the next verse mentions “the trial of [our] faith” (1 Peter 1:7). Here is something different, for no “need be” is involved. Rather, it is God testing our faith in order to prove the reality of what He has given us and of the new life that we have in Christ. If the believer always had an easy life and everything went well for Him, it might well provoke from the world the same reaction that Satan gave to the Lord concerning Job. When God called to Satan’s attention the exemplary life of Job, Satan replied, “Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land” (Job 1:910). The trial that God subsequently allowed in Job’s life proved, among other things, the reality of Job’s faith.
So, today, God may allow trials in the lives of His own, even when they are walking well before Him. When they accept the trial from Him and honor Him in spite of the difficulties, it only proves that their eye is on the Lord, and not on their circumstances. We note too that their faith is “much more precious than of gold that perisheth” (1 Peter 1:7). God values that faith, and it is precious in His eyes to see His own fully trust Him, no matter what He may allow in their lives. In this way He is glorified and a real testimony is rendered to the world (and to other believers) as to what God can work in a believer. Scripture tells us that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28), and when a believer acts on this promise and trusts God implicitly, God is honored before the world. This type of trial will be found “unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7), for when the judgment seat of Christ takes place and rewards are given, no doubt some of the highest rewards will go to saints who have patiently lived for God’s glory while enduring the severest of trials.
Both Kinds of Trials Present
In these two things — the “need be” and the “trial of your faith” — we find, then, different aspects of trial in the lives of believers. Often we are tempted to look at our trials in only one of these two aspects. We may look at every trial as having a “need be” and feel that the Lord is seeking to bring something before us. Or, we may regard anything adverse in our lives as simply a test of faith, and perhaps even as an attack of Satan, who allegedly is seeking to spoil our work for the Lord.
I would suggest that in most, and perhaps in every, trial in our lives, both of these two aspects are reflected. On the one hand, there is usually some “need be” present, and we must get into the Lord’s presence to find it out. On the other hand, there is also the “trial of [our] faith,” where God is proving the reality of what is within. We see both of these aspects of trial in Job’s case. As far as Satan was concerned, the trial only proved to him that Job would not react in a wrong way, even if all his material possessions were taken away, his children killed, and his own health ruined. But then God took over and used the trial to teach Job something about which Satan knew nothing.
So today, others who look on may see the trials in our lives as being a trial of our faith, and no doubt this is true. However, we ourselves, in getting before God about it, may well learn the “need be” that only God can see. In most of our trials there is a mixture of the two.
The Onlooker
For us who are looking on, let us be slow to judge the meaning of a trial in another. Only the individual involved, in weighing the matter in the Lord’s presence, can see where one aspect leaves off and the other takes over. It is tempting to judge another by our own standards and observations, as did Job’s three friends. As we all know, their comments, although well-meant, were wide of the mark and did not help at all. Elihu, who was finally able to shed light on the matter, wisely did not try to interpret what God was doing. Rather, he pointed Job back to the Lord, telling him first of all to justify God in the whole matter, and then to say to Him, “That which I see not teach Thou me” (Job 34:32). In doing this, Job was able to see the trial through God’s eyes, and eventually get the blessing God intended. Let us be ready to do the same!
W. J. Prost
Lessons Learned Under the Rod of Affliction
If the soul walks with God, it is not hardened, but is submissive, and there is no softer spirit, nor one which is more susceptible of every feeling, than a spirit of submission, for submission takes the will out of the affections without destroying them, and that is very precious. So it was with Christ — He felt everything. His tenderness was perfect, and yet how perfect His submissiveness!
How God exercises the heart by these things! It is not simply that the heart is tried by the sorrow itself, in which we can count on the most tender sympathy of Christ, but when the heart is thus brought into the presence of a God who is dealing with us, all our ways — all the interior of our heart — all His ways with us and His appeals to us often in such cases rise up within. If the will is unbroken and no clearness as to grace be known, a perplexed and anxious judgment ensues. If not this, often a humble and lowly judgment of self ensues, for the knowledge of grace makes us lowly, when it is real.
It is astonishing how much often remains as a sediment at the bottom of the heart, in a man mainly gracious in his life, which the rod of God stirs up when He thrusts it in, often underlying all the contents of the heart, yet always to be carried off by the living stream of the waters of His grace. In the heart are not merely faults, but a mass of unjudged materials of everyday life, a living under the influence of what is seen or unjudged affections of every kind.
All that is not up to the measure of our spiritual height is then judged in its true character, as connected with flesh before God. But it is not always so, nor wholly so, but it is always if there is a “need be.” God may visit us to bring out the sweet odor of His grace, not indeed even so without need, as the soul itself will own, for in such case it will feel the need of realizing all the communion, which in its closer character was hindered by that for which God is dealing with us. But when grace is fully known and there is submission, the practical result is, in fact, a sweet odor of willing bowing before God and others, and brings forth even thankfulness in the midst of sorrow. When this is real, it is very sweet.
He too is very present in it, and it is thus we make real progress in such exercises. It is astonishing what progress a soul sometimes makes in a time of sorrow. It has been much more with God, for indeed that alone makes us make progress.
There is much more confidence, quietness, absence of the moving of the will, much more walking with and dependence on Him, more intimacy with Him, and independence of circumstances, a great deal less between us and Him, and then all the blessedness that is in Him comes to act upon the soul and reflect in it, and oh how sweet that is! What a difference it does make in the Christian, who, perhaps, was blameless in his walk in general previously.
If the needed work can be done without the sorrow, He will not send the sorrow. We might even dread if it be needed. His love is far better than our will. Trust Him. He may well be trusted. He has given His Son for us and proved His love. Present your requests to Him. He would have us do it, and then lean fully on His love and wisdom. If He strikes, be assured He will give more than He takes away.
J. N. Darby, adapted
from a letter to a brother
whose wife was very ill
Grace for Trials
There is not a trial or difficulty that Christ has not passed through before me and found His resources in God the Father. He will supply the needed grace to my heart.
J. N. Darby
Enduring and Entering Into Temptation
There is a vast difference between “falling into temptation” (or “enduring temptation”; James 1:2,12), on the one hand, and “entering into temptation” (Matt. 26:41), on the other. We do well, therefore, to have it clear and settled in our souls, for, as the one is blessed, the other is the utmost possible danger for the soul. There is nothing more strengthening than to “endure temptation”; nothing more perilous than to “enter into” it. There seems little difference in the words, and people might easily slur over the difference in their thoughts. But the difference is complete, for in the one case it is an honor that God puts upon us, and in the other a snare that Satan presents to us.
Which of these two things do we know best? How far do our souls know what it is to fall into various temptations, or to endure temptation? Blessed are we if we do, for falling into temptation or enduring it is that which God delights in. In Genesis 22 we find that Abraham was in a condition in which God could try him, and He loves that we should be in such a condition that He can try us. But this is not so when we are not governed by the sense of the presence of God, and the flesh is not judged.
Not Enduring
Salvation is not merely an incomparable favor that God has shown to us in the depths of our need, but is inseparable from the dealing with self in the presence of God, so much so that where this is not learned at the beginning, it must be more painfully taught in the course. And then what dishonor to God! How grieving to His Spirit! Such failure, to teach us what we are, is not enduring temptation, nor is it in the least the same as God’s trying us. In such a state the Lord has rather to buffet us for our faults, as those who bear the name of the Lord Jesus in an uncomely way.
How grievous that those who have such a salvation should so little have used it to deal with self, the most hateful of all things to God! There is nothing so bad as self, yet this is the very thing that every one of us carries with us. The question now is, How far has grace acted upon our souls to lead us to fully judge it in the presence of God? Where this is the case, the Lord can try us, that is, He can put us to the proof by what is not at all a question of evil of any kind, because God does not tempt by evil any more than He is tempted by evil things.
Abraham
When God asked Abraham to give up his only son, this was not evil, but a most blessed trial. It was proving whether Abraham had such perfect confidence in God that he would give up the object that was dearest to him, in whom were centered all the promises of God. And by grace Abraham could. Of course, he did it with the perfect certainty that if Isaac were then to die, God would raise him up, for Abraham perfectly well knew, before the sacrifice was asked, that Isaac was to be the child of promise. It was, therefore, really the good of God’s own heart that was reflected in what He asked of Abraham’s heart, and Abraham was brought into greater communion with God in that which was the counterpart of the gift of His own Son.
Just so it is with the trials by which God is pleased to try us. It is a proof of the greatest confidence on God’s part if there is in us such a groundwork of walking before God that He can try us with something that is like Himself — some prize to give up, some suffering to endure in grace — whatever it may be that is according to His own mind. It is in this sense that temptation is spoken of in James 1:2,12.
After this (James 1:1315) we immediately turn to temptation spoken of in a bad sense, and this connects itself with Matthew 26:41. Both are words of most salutary character for our souls. The Lord had looked for His disciples to watch with Him. He says to them, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation,” for remember this, it is not any power conferred by the Spirit of God that keeps, even though He be the Spirit of power — it is not energy which keeps, but dependence; it is the sense of weakness that watches and prays, and thus has the power of Christ resting on us. His strength is made perfect in weakness.
The greater our knowledge of the Word of God, the greater our need of watching and prayer.
There is nothing that so tends, where it is severed from Christ, to destroy dependence, as a large knowledge of the Word of God. The greater our knowledge of the Word of God, where it is separated from the sense of utter weakness, and consequently from the need of watching and praying, the greater the danger. This is a solemn warning for our souls. There is no doubt plenty of knowledge of Scripture and of what is called intelligence of truth, but do our souls keep up this sense of our need and weakness, and the expression of it to God? “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.”
The Will at Work
What does our Lord mean by “entering into temptation”? It is the will going into a place where nothing but a judged will, leaning on Him, can be kept, that is, the will goes in where failure is inevitable, just because it is the will at work. So Peter himself soon proved. He went where Peter could not stand, unless the Lord had called and kept him by faith. He entered into temptation and fell. He would have endured, had he gone in by grace, obedience, watching and praying, instead of trusting in his own willingness to die for his Master. When our Lord says, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,” He is looking at nature in man, and nature is incapable of such a trial. None but God can sustain, and therefore it would require God’s will expressed in His Word to lead us rightly into such a scene of temptation, and His grace sustaining in faith to keep us in it.
It would have been an abomination in Abraham to sacrifice his son, unless God had spoken the word. But faith, where self is judged, strengthens the soul to endure temptation. We do not enter into temptation where we abide in dependence and self-judgment. Then when we fall into various temptations, we count it all joy, and as we did not enter of our own will, so we do not fall in them, but by grace endure.
The Lord give us to watch and pray, so much the more because He has blessed us with such a knowledge of His Word and of Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ.
W. Kelly
The Trials of Poverty and Riches
“Give me neither poverty nor riches” was a wise request, and “Be content with such things as ye have” is often a needed injunction, for we are not always mindful that He has said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” None, perhaps, know the trials connected with poverty or riches but those who are actually brought into such circumstances. But many of the Lord’s people have been tried by one or the other. Poverty is easily understood to be a trial. When it really comes, its pinch is keenly felt. To be rich is more congenial to human selfishness and often gives the owner a place of honor and distinction among men, so that it is only realized to be a trial by those whose consciences are exercised before the Lord.
Poverty
In poverty, if God be not the refuge and strength, if He be not trusted for sustainment and deliverance, the heart soon becomes despondent or busy to invent contrivances, sometimes not very honorable, to force a way of escape. Efforts of this kind, under such circumstances, are by no means uncommon. They may end the painful nature of the trial and are often pleaded in justification of unbelieving ways. But worldly wisdom is not the wisdom that comes down from above, nor is carnal stratagem after the pattern of the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ. The contrivances of unbelief only cripple faith, and, sooner or later, bring dishonor on the name of the Lord. A sense of the grace of God in not having spared His own Son, but in having delivered Him up for us all, often wakes up faith and puts unbelief to shame. But how many have dishonored the Lord in time of poverty!
Prosperity
In earthly prosperity, if God be not hearkened to and obeyed, some may have painfully to learn that “riches make themselves wings; they fly away,” or their path may be beset with humiliations, disappointment, spiritual leanness and regrets, with faith weakened and hope sadly dimmed.
That soul alone is happy who knows he is the Lord’s and can truly say, He “loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Assured by the Word of God that he is accepted in the Beloved and loved by the Father as He loves the Son, he enters into the truth that he is kept here only to do His will. To such, every question resolves itself in this, What is the Lord’s will? The dependent, obedient heart lives not to itself, but to Him who died and rose again for us.
Perhaps there is no greater trial to which a child of God can be exposed than the rapid pouring in of wealth. Few have been able to bear it. Many have fallen grievously by it. Some have been drawn back again into the world, who seemed for a while to have run well in ways of separation from it, while others who began this new responsibility as God’s stewards have grown to seek a place of honor among men by it.
In fact, whatever be our circumstances, all God’s people have painfully to learn that in us, that is in our flesh, dwells no good thing, and that we cannot bring forth fruit except we are abiding in our Lord Jesus. Nothing else can possibly preserve us in the path that glorifies God.
From Things New and Old
God’s Faithfulness in Trials
While trials must be felt, God pledges His faithfulness, that with each temptation He will make a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it. He will never try us above what we are able to bear. Though it may seem that we are shut up on every side, He knows how to deliver! What a trial to Isaiah, when sent to tell the people of Israel that their hearts should be made fat, their ears heavy, and their eyes shut, lest they should be converted and healed! What a trial to Abraham, to go out of his country and from his kindred, and come into a strange land, not knowing whither he went! What a trial to Noah, to be mocked and regarded as a fool while building the ark, according to the command of the Lord! How Isaac’s faith was proved in Jacob; how Jacob’s was in Joseph; how Moses’ was in choosing rather to suffer affliction, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches. When we seek to place ourselves in the condition of each of these sufferers and consider every accompanying feeling, how it makes our trials say to us, “O ye of little faith”!
T.A.P., Christian Truth, 12:28
He Is Near
“Whom the Lord does love He chastens,”
One of Scripture’s precious truths;
And we call to mind the testing
Of those much-tried Hebrew youths,
Who, within a fiery furnace,
For their faithfulness appear;
But whose chastening was tempered
By the Presence that was near.
For the burning fiery furnace
Not alone by them was trod;
Oh, they had the blessed company
Of that One—the Son of God;
What a joy amidst their trial!
How it must have calmed their fear
In the hour of their affliction,
Just to know that He was near!
So, as we go o’er life’s pathway,
Trials and sorrows we must meet;
But they will not overpower us
If we are at Jesus’ feet,
Within hearing of His whisper
That will fall upon our ear
In the roughest, darkest places,
“Trust and fear not; I am near.”
Oh, the lonely hours we pass through,
E’en those nearest cannot share;
We to Him our hearts unburden,
Take our grief to Him in prayer;
Then it is He loves to hear us,
Loves to comfort and to cheer;
Into joy He turns our sorrow,
By His whisper, “I am near.”
Of His love He does assure us,
Shows us that the trial was meant
But to draw us closer to Him,
And in tender love was sent,
That we might rely more fully
On His love while we are here,
And be ever conscious listeners
For His whisper, “I am near.”
And be ever waiting, watchful
For His coming in the air,
When us to Himself He’ll gather,
Aye to dwell with Him up there!
Then in every waking moment,
May this thought our spirits cheer—
He is coming, coming for us,
And, blest hope, His coming’s near.
M.E.B.