Sorrowing Believer! what couldst thou wish more than this? Thy furnace is severe; but look at this assurance of Him who lighted it. Love is the fuel that feeds its flames! Its every spark is love! Kindled by a Father’s hand, and designed as a special pledge of a Father’s love. How many of his dear children has He so rebuked and chastened; and all, all for one reason, “I love them!” The myriads in glory have passed through these furnace-fires,—there they were chosen,—there they were purified, sanctified, and made “vessels meet for the Master’s use;” the dross and the alloy purged, that the pure metal might remain. And art thou to claim exemption from the same discipline? Art thou to think it strange concerning these same fiery trials that may be trying thee? Rather exult in them as thine adoption-privilege. Envy not those who are strangers to the refining flames,—who are “without chastisement;” rather, surely, the severest discipline with a Father’s love, than the fullest earthly cup without that Father’s smile. Oh! for grace to say, when the furnace is hottest, and the rod sorest, “Even so, Father!” And what, after all, is the severest of thy chastisements in comparison with what thy sins have deserved? Dost thou murmur under a Father’s correcting love? What would it have been to have stood the wrath of an unpropitiated Judge, and that, too, for ever? Surely, in the light of eternity, the heaviest pang of earth is indeed “a light affliction!”
“REMEMBER THIS WORD UNTO THY SERVANT, UPON WHICH THOU HAST CAUSED ME TO HOPE!”
16th Day.
“He is Faithful that Promised.”
“If need be.”—1 Peter i. 6.
A Condition in Chastisement.
Three gracious words! Not one of all my tears shed for nought! Not one stroke of the rod unheeded, or that might have been spared? Thy heavenly Father loves thee too much, and too tenderly, to bestow harsher correction than thy case requires? Is it loss of health, or loss of wealth, or loss of beloved friends? Be still! there was a need be. We are no judges of what that “need be” is; often through aching hearts we are forced to exclaim, “Thy judgments are a great deep!” But God here pledges himself, that there will not be one redundant thorn in the believer’s chaplet of suffering. No burden too heavy will be laid on him; and no sacrifice too great exacted from him. He will “temper the wind to the shorn lamb.” Whenever the “need be” has accomplished its end, then the rod is removed—the chastisement suspended—the furnace quenched. “If need be!” Oh! what a pillow on which to rest thy aching head,—that there is not a drop in all thy bitter cup but what a God of love saw to be absolutely necessary! Wilt thou not trust Him, even though thou canst not trace the mystery of His dealings? Not too curiously prying into the “Why it is?” or “How it is?” but satisfied that “So it is,” and, therefore that all must be well! “Although thou sayest, thou canst not see Him, yet judgment is before Him, therefore trust thou in Him!”