Trials # 7

Trials # 7

The Value of Trials

Peter tells us that the trial of our faith is "much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire" (1 Peter 1:7). The question which now confronts us is whether we place such a value as that upon our trials.

What will men undergo to get gold? They will scale lofty mountains and wade through deep snows. They will face piercing winds and all sorts of perils, if they may but have the hope of getting gold.

Our trials are still more precious than gold, and it seems that we ought to be willing to bear them when we view them from that standpoint. However, there are a great many Christians who shrink from trials. Why do they? if they believe that trials are so valuable - then why do they shrink from them? Ah, that is the trouble - they do not believe what Peter said. They can see no gold in their trials. They see no value in them whatever. They are something to be gotten away from.

The trouble is that we often look at the wrong thing. If a man goes after gold and looks at the hardships instead of the gold - then he will not get any gold. But the gold-hunter does not look at the things that lie between him and the precious metal. He looks at the gold. He keeps his mind and his heart upon that. He presses forward through everything to gain that gold. There is gold for the believer in every trial. The trial lies between us and the gold.

If we look at the trial, we may forget the gold, and that is just what is the trouble with so many. They can see nothing but the trials. Beyond these lies the gold, yes, something far more precious than gold. Get your eyes off the trial. Look beyond it to the gold. Keep your mind and your heart set upon the gold, and you will find that you can face the trial a great deal easier than if you saw nothing beyond it. The gold of Christian character comes only through stress and storm. Fair-weather Christians never amount to much - nor do they develop stellar Christian character. They are always contented with little fruit.

Results of Trials

God always works out something worth while from our trials, if we are true in them. He does not try us, merely to be trying us. He has a definite purpose to accomplish. Of Israel He said, "He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you" (Deut. 8:16). The humbling and the proving were only that He might do them good at the latter end. So it is with us: God humbles us and tries us just to do us good later.

God's purpose is also made very plain in the parable of the figs in the twenty-fourth chapter of Jeremiah: "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Like the good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians. My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with all their heart." (Jere. 24:5-7).

God did not permit them to be carried into captivity simply as a punishment. It was that, to be sure; but His purpose was greater and more kindly than that. It was that He might do them good - that they should turn to Him with their whole heart, and that He should bring them back to their own land and make them a holier and more trusting people than before.

Job knew the good that was going to come out of his trial, and he said, "He knows the way that I take - and when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold!" (Job 23:10).

The Psalmist learned this same lesson. He says: "Praise our God, O peoples, let the sound of His praise be heard; He has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. For you, O God, tested us; You refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance" (Psalm 66:8-12).

This is the way the Bible speaks throughout when it speaks of trials well borne. Affliction may be laid upon us; men may ride over our heads; we may go through fire and through water; but the outcome of it will be that we shall come out into a place of abundance. And then, like the Psalmist, we can say, "Oh, bless our God!" Take your Bible and read also James 1:12; 1 Peter 1:7; and 4:12-13).

There is another text that we shall do well to study over and over: "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us." (Romans 5:3-5). "Suffering produces perseverance." Is not perseverance that which we desire? Let us, then, bear suffering. Perseverance brings character. Character in turn brings hope. Suffering well borne, therefore, works out in all these things.

~Charles Naylor~

(The End)