WHAT is a trial?—It is the fire that tests the soul. Without these soul fires the Christian's experience would be robbed of its strength and power. The lives of the primitive Christians shine forth with such a brilliant luster because of the severe trials through which they passed. Remove from their history an account of these and their lives become commonplace. "But they had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy); they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." "Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection." Hence, or because of this, the halo of their lives permeates the darkest solitude of this sinful world.
Trials is the furnace in which God would consume the dross of our nature. The hundred and forty-four thousand stand before the throne without fault because of the heat of the furnace through which they pass. "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." They have lived the life of the Lamb, and that was one of great suffering. It was hatred for love, cursing for blessing. It was weary days and painful, agonizing nights. It was barren deserts and flowerless gardens, abuse and cruelty, with nails and cross and spear and thorny crown.
"Behold, I will send My Messenger, and He shall prepare the way before Me. . . . But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appearth? for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap; and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." Mal. 3:1.
In order, then, that we may be able to offer unto the Lord an "offering in righteousness," the refining process must be applied. Peter says, "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." 1 Peter 4:12, 13. "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations." James 1:2. We can see, then, that these trials should be the subject of rejoicing, as they are ordered by a kind providence to fit and prepare us for some better place which God has for us. Peter declares we are "living stones," built up into a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." Then how precious in God's sight are these trials that He permits to come to us! They are hammer and chisel in His loving hand to remove the rough corners. They are brush and sandpaper to fit and polish us for the place He would have us fill in His glorious temple. No wonder that "the trial of your faith is more precious than gold." Why?—That ye "might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."
No act in the life of the great Bernard Palissy, the potter preacher, shows more fortitude than when by careful thought he had come to the conclusion that the glazing on the Italian pottery had been placed there by intense heat, and he, determining to prove it, stood six days and nights by the blazing furnace, hoping to see the glazing fuse, but, finding it would not, and his fuel fast going, and no money to buy more, seized the chairs, smashed them to pieces, and threw them into the flame.
His family, who had been watching him as he watched the furnace, began to think him insane, and they pleaded with him, but his only reply was, "More heat, more heat;" and when the chairs gave out, he broke the table to pieces and threw it onto the fire, and then other articles of furniture, until the limit of his power and strength was exhausted, when, lo and behold, the glazing melted, and with a cry of victory upon his lips, he fell exhausted to the floor!
God could use a man like that, and we soon find him one of the leaders in the great reformation in France. As the intense heat puts the gloss on the pottery, so the fires of affliction polish the human soul and cause it to shine to the glory of its heavenly Father. Then welcome the cross, that brings us nearer to our God.
By the dim light of the candle, Paul could write from his narrow inner prison in Rome, while by faith he pillowed his head on the breast of Jesus, "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." And let all God's faithful children say, "Amen."