Tried With Fire

"You have not passed this way before." Joshua 3:4 How solemn is the reflection that with a new cycle of time, commences a new and untrodden path with each traveler to Zion. New events in his history will transpire; new scenes in the panorama of life will unfold; new phases of character will develop; new temptations will assail; new duties will devolve; new trials will be experienced; new sorrows will be felt; new friendships will be formed; new mercies will be bestowed. How truly may it be said of the pilgrim, journeying through the wilderness to his eternal home, as he stands upon the threshold of this untried period of his existence, pondering the unknown and uncertain future, "You have not passed this way before." But there is another thought inexpressibly soothing. Untried, untrodden, and unknown as that new path may be, it is each step mapped and arranged, and provided for in the everlasting and unchangeable covenant of God. To Him who l...

"My times are in Your hand!" Psalm 31:15 Our times of  adversity  are also in God's hand. As every  sunbeam  that brightens, so every  cloud  that darkens, comes from God. We are subject to great and sudden reverses in our earthly condition. Joy is often followed by grief; prosperity is often followed by adversity. We are on the pinnacle today; tomorrow at its bottom. Oh! What a change may one event and one moment create! But, beloved, ALL is from the Lord! Afflictions  do not spring from the soil, nor do  troubles  sprout from the ground.  Sorrow  cannot come until God bids it. Until God in His sovereignty permits — health cannot fade, wealth cannot vanish, comfort cannot decay, friendship cannot chill, and loved ones cannot die.  Your time of sorrow — is  His appointment.  The  bitter cup  which it may please the Lord that you shall drink this year, will not be mixed by...

The painful and inexplicable dispensations, which at the present moment may be thickening and deepening around your path, are but so many mysteries in God’s government, which He is working out to their certain, satisfactory, and happy results. And when the good thus embosomed in the lowering cloud of some crushing providence, accomplishes its benevolent and heaven-sent mission, then trial will expand its dark pinions and fly away—and sorrow will roll up its somber drapery and disappear! All things under the government of an infinitely great, all-wise, righteous, and beneficent Lord God, work together for good. What that good may be—the shape it may assume—the complexion it may wear—the end to which it may be subservient—we cannot tell. To our dim view it may appear an evil, but to God’s far seeing eye it is a positive good. Oh, truth most divine! Oh, words most consolatory! How many whose eye traces this page, it may be whose tears bedew it, whose sighs breathe over it, whose prayers h...