A Proving of Character by W. W. P.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 25, 1911

A Proving of Character

By W. W. P.

“Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble; each man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it [the day] is revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man’s work of what sort it is.”

The foundation, the different kinds of material for building, the proving of the work, and the means through which the work is to be proved, are all set forth in this scripture. The foundation is Jesus Christ; the material is according to each man’s choosing. It may be the gold, the silver, the precious stone; it may be the wood, the hay, the stubble. But whatever material one uses in the building, the day of God will set it forth, because the day of God is ushered in, is revealed, in fire, and the fire itself will prove every man’s work.

This advent message is a message of proving. The day of the Lord is a day of testing, and the whole question with us is whether the testing and the proving shall come before the day of mercy closes, or whether we shall wait until after that day before this proving process takes place.

The foundation has been tested and tried, and will endure. The material that is offered us for the building will stand; it is proved material. But if we refuse the way of God and his instruction, we can take such material, and build upon this foundation, as may appear outwardly good, as if it would endure the test, yet it may fall when the time of proving comes. The whole question, then, is a question of character building — the material that we choose to put into this building.

Note this scripture in 1 Peter 4:12: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto 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.” This might with perfect propriety be read following this way: Beloved, think it not strange concerning “the burning” among you. This is exactly the same word that we have in the eighteenth chapter of Revelation, in that account of the overthrow of Babylon when it is said that they stood afar off at the smoke of her “burning.” Now there is a burning that is to come upon Babylon, and there is a burning that is to come upon God’s people. The only question about it is, When shall it come? and what shall the result be? Shall it come in that time when everything that is not of God may be purged out, may be removed from the building, and right material may be builded into it? or shall we have a building that we shall hold intact, as it were, until the final day, and then be consumed?

The burning, or the cleansing process, is simply the glory of God among the people, just as when the children of Israel looked afar off, on the mountain where Moses was in the presence of God, and the sight of the glory of the Lord, on the top of the mountain, was as devouring fire in their eyes: yet Moses was up there in the mount with God. Face to face he talked with him in the presence of that burning; in the presence of that devouring fire Moses stood, and he partook so much of the shining of that glory that when he came down from the mount, his face shone so that the people of Israel could not look upon it.

Now the fiery trial, the burning, which is among us, which is to prove us, is the partaking of the glory of our Lord, as revealed in his sufferings, the cleansing process; this is the burning. It is the revelation of God’s glory among his people for cleansing and purging, that every bit of character material which will not stand the fires of the last day may be removed, no inflammable material built in, until there shall be a building that will endure the revelation of his glory; not in suffering and in purging and in cleansing now, but in the full revelation of that glory of God in Jesus Christ when he comes the second time without sin unto salvation.

W. W. P.