p. 167 | Precious Promises

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 8, 1858

Precious Promises.

THERE is not a promise more true, or more encouraging to the christian, than that proclaimed by Paul to the church at Rome—"All things work together for good to them that love God." Not a single event, whether apparently propitious or adverse—no calamity, no sickness, no affliction, but shall work—and they shall all work together—for the good of that man or woman who loves God.

It is true that the afflictions and trials of the righteous are often many and grievous, while with the ungodly it is not so; they seem not in trouble like other men; but beneath the surface, beyond the reach of our vision, God assures us there is a secret history being written—angels are the historians, and in the archives of heaven are the histories. Both for a season may be tossed upon the billows of life's troubled ocean; but let each cast out his fathom-line, and the one shall soon make his sounding, while the other shall lengthen and lengthen and lengthen, finding no resting-place.

If prosperity were the test of God's love, and happiness in this world the only good, Paul's language would be inexplicable. Abraham, who is the type of every christian, being called, went out, not knowing whither he went, wandering in a strange country; but his faith taught him to look for "a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."

If God sometimes surrounds his child with darkness, it is not all dark about him. In, through the gold-fringed clouds, there comes a gleam of sunlight that sends more joy to the heart than floods of sunshine, for it is the Shekinah of God's presence, and the token of his unforgetful love. Though sometimes he may be led to say, "All these things are against me—there is no sorrow like unto my sorrow," God may take away his little "Agnes," whose baby-life had interwoven itself into the very fibres of his own being—in an hour his heart and home may be made desolate; yet when the night of sorrow has passed away, and the bitterness of grief subsided, he shall bless God for the golden chain that binds his soul to heaven. Adversity, like a strong man armed, may to-day strip him of his earthly all; yet he will say, "the Lord lent it to me for a while, and now he has taken it to lend to another." Sickness may overtake him on his journey toward the celestial city, his eye become dimmed, his form bent, and his once stalwart frame tremble for very feebleness; yet the patient sufferer shall look up in the face of his Father and exclaim, "all things shall work together for good to them that love God." Paul closes up this whole matter, when exultingly he exclaims, "but we glory in tribulations also," knowing that "tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto us."—Moore's Rural New Yorker.