COMMENTS
It is your faith that is on trial now. In the calmer days when the sun of favor shone brightly upon you, you were quietly laying the foundation of a knowledge of the Truth, and rearing the superstructure of Christian character. Now you are in the furnace to be proved; summon therefore all your courage; fortify your patience; nerve yourself to endurance; hold fast to your hope; call to mind the promises, they are still yours; and "cast not away your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward." "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him," and faith has gained her victory.
As the assayist in putting the gold ore into the fiery crucible seeks not its destruction, but its separation from the dross and its refining, so God gives us fiery experiences, not to destroy our faith, but to separate from it the dross of sin, error, selfishness and worldliness, and to make it in every way valuable, which will be manifested as worthy of praise, honor and glory at our Lord's revelation—during His Epiphany.
1 Chron. 29:17; Psa. 26:2; 81:7; Matt. 13:19-22; 2 Thes. 1:3-5; Heb. 6:13, 18; Jas. 1:3, 12; Heb. 11:7, 17-19, 25, 29, 30, 32-39; Job 1; 2; Ezra 8:22; Matt. 8:23-27; 15:21-28; 9:28; 14:25-33.
