1. It is present joy. God’s service is gladsome even now (1Pe_1:8; Php_4:4). Nor is this joy for advanced believers only, but for all true-hearted seekers after God (Psa_105:3).
2. It is great joy (Psa_68:3).
3. There are many sources of the Christian’s great joy, but the particular one here mentioned is the present happiness afforded by a believing expectation of the joys laid up for him in eternity.
4. There are important reasons why we all ought to be joyful Christians.
(1) It is our privilege as Christians. When we may be so much happier than we are, what folly not to exercise our right!
(2) Our influence for good over others depends greatly upon the apparent result which religion produces in our own case.
(3) Very much of our own stability as Christians depends upon our joyfulness (Neh_8:10).
II. The Christian’s trial. There is nothing whatever unchequered here below-no joy without sorrow, no sunshine without shadow, no harmony unmixed with discord, Life is like an April day.
1. “Ye are in heaviness”-pressed down, forced to the earth, as if under some cruel load. The Christian’s joy is from heaven, his grief from earth. These two are ever at war with one another.
2. “Ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.” Persecutions abounded. The devil aimed his fiery darts at them. The world spread its allurements for them.
3. Yet this state of trial has its alleviations.
(1) It is only “for a season,” whereas the Christian’s joy endures forever (Psa_30:5; 2Co_4:17).
(2) It is only “if need be”-if there is a necessity, if some good can be effected by it.
III. The union of joy and trial in the Christian’s earthly lot. Does the text teach that times of trial are destroyers of the Christian’s joy, even for a season? On the contrary, St. Peter speaks of the “heaviness” only to give us a more exalted idea of the mighty power of the “joy.” “Ye greatly rejoice, though ye are in heaviness”; your hearts remain glad in spite of your trials. Clouds come, but the sun breaks through them and goes on shining still. Obstacles arise, but the bright river of the Christian’s peace flows past and over them, deep and glad as before. The one great peculiarity of the Christian’s joy is its comparative independence of outward circumstances-nay, its triumph over them. Worldly men can rejoice when all is prosperous. If, therefore, the Christian’s joy vanished at the approach of sorrow, men might well ask wherein the Christian differed from others?(J. Henry Burn, B. D.)
The Christian’s joy and the Christian’s sufferings
I. The Christian’s joy.
1. Its greatness. “Wherein ye greatly rejoice.” There are only three things really great in the universe-God and the soul and eternity, and as religion has to do with them all its dealings have something superior in them all.
2. Its ground.
(1) The Christian’s joy is not unfounded.
(2) The Christian’s joy is founded principally upon spiritual and eternal things.
II. The Christian’s grief.
1. The nature of the Christian’s sufferings.
2. The number.
3. Their influence.
4. Their expediency.
5. Their duration. (W. Jay.)
The Christian’s heaviness and rejoicing
I. His heaviness.
1. If we were not in heaviness during our troubles we should not be like our Covenant Head-Christ Jesus.
2. If we did not suffer heaviness we would begin to grow too proud, and become too great in our own esteem.
3. In heaviness we often learn lessons that we never could attain elsewhere. “Ah!” said Luther, “affliction is the best book in my library,” and let me add the best leaf in the book of affliction is that blackest of all the leaves, the leaf called heaviness, when the spirit sinks within us, and we cannot endure as we could wish.
4. This heaviness is of essential use to a Christian if he would do good to others. Who shall speak to those whose hearts are broken but those whose hearts have been broken also?
II. His rejoicing. Mariners tell us that there are some parts of the sea where there is a strong current upon the surface going one way, but that down in the depths there is a strong current running the other way. Two seas do not meet and interfere with one another, but one stream of water on the surface is running in one direction, and another below in an opposite direction. Now the Christian is like that. On the surface there is a stream of heaviness rolling with dark waves, but down in the depths there is a strong undercurrent of great rejoicing that is always flowing there. The apostle is writing “to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus.”
1. The first thing that he says to them is, that they are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God,” “wherein we greatly rejoice.” Ah! even when the Christian is most “in heaviness through manifold temptations,” what a mercy it is that he can know that he is still elect of God!
2. The apostle says that we are “elect through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”-“wherein we greatly rejoice.” Is the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ girt about my loins, to be my beauty; and is the blood of Jesus sprinkled upon me to take away all my guilt and all my sin, and shall I not in this greatly rejoice?
3. But the great and cheering comfort of the apostle is, that we are elect unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us. And here is the grand comfort of the Christian.
4. There is one more doctrine that will always cheer a Christian, this perhaps is the one chiefly intended here in the text. “Reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” This will be one of the greatest cordials to a Christian in heaviness, that he is not kept by his own power, but by the power of God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The sweetest joys learned in trial
Verymany of the sweetest joys of Christian hearts are songs which have been learned in the bitter ness of trial. It is said of the canary bird that he will never learn to sing the song his master will have him sing while it is light in his cage. He learns a snatch of every song he hears, but will not learn a full separate melody of its own. And the master covers the cage and makes it dark all about the bird, and then he listens and learns the one song that is taught to him until his heart is full of it. Then, ever after, he sings the song in the light. With many of us it is as with the bird. The Master has a song He wants to teach to us, but we learn only a strain of it, a note here and there, while we catch up snatches of the world’s songs and sing them with it. Then He comes and makes it dark about us till we learn the sweet melody He would teach us. Many of the loveliest songs of peace and trust sung by God’s children in this world they have been taught in the darkened chamber of sorrow.
Triumph of the soul over trial
There are even many facts in our ordinary human experience that render quite conceivable this triumph of the soul over all surrounding tribulations and distresses. What cares the patient, toiling man of science for the incredulity and jeers of his neighbours, or the vexations of poverty, when first the obscurity and meanness of his lonely chamber are lighted up by the flash of some great discovery? How superior to threats and discouragements of every kind was the mighty heart of Columbus as he calmly forced his way through the veil of waters toward this unseen world! Nay, how often has the bitterness of death itself been overcome to the soldier on the battlefield and the patriot on the scaffold, by the silent anticipation of the freedom and glory which their agonies secured for the country they loved! And need we then wonder if the confessors of Jesus have gone singing to the stake, and their shout of victory has been stifled only by the flames into which they sank?(J. Lillie, D. D.)
Joy in heaviness
They say that springs of sweet fresh water well up amid the brine of salt seas; that the fairest Alpine flowers bloom in the wildest, ruggedest mountain passes; that the noblest psalms were the outcome of the profoundest agony of soul. Be it so. And thus amid manifold trials souls which love God will find reasons for bounding, leaping joy. Have you learnt this lesson yet? Not simply to endure God’s will, nor only to choose it, nor only to trust it, but to rejoice in it. Of such joy there are two sources: first, the understanding of the nature and meaning of trial; second, the soul’s love and faith in its unseen Lord. There is enough in these two for unsullied and transcendent joy; in fact, we may question whether we ever truly drink of Christ’s joy till all other sources of joy are eliminated by earthly sorrow, and we are driven to seek that joyous blessedness which no earthly sun can wither and no winter freeze (Hab_3:17-19). (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Christian joy
Greek,
á̓ãáëëéá͂óèå
, Ye dance for joy, ye dance a galliard, or as children do about a bonfire: ye cannot but express your inward joy in your countenance, voice, and gesture. (J. Trapp.)
Variableness of Christian moods
The variableness of Christian moods is often a matter of great and unnecessary suffering; but Christian life does not follow the changes of feeling. Our feelings are but the torch; and our life is the man that carries it. The wind that flares the flame does not make the man waver. The flame may sway hither and thither, but he holds his course straight on. Thus oftentimes it is that our Christian hopes are carried, as one carries a lighted candle through the windy street, that seems never to be so nearly blown out as when we step through the open door, and, in a moment, we are safe within. Our wind-blown feelings rise and fall through all our life, and the draught of death threatens quite to extinguish them; but one moment more, and they shall rise and forever shine serenely in the unstormed air of heaven. (H. W. Beecher.)
The needs be
When our hearts grow a grain too light, God seeth it but needful to make us heavy through manifold temptations. (J. Trapp.)
The duality of Christian life
Asthere are two men in every true Christian, a new man and an old one, so heaviness in manifold temptation and rejoicing may readily co-exist. (J. P. Lunge.)
In heaviness through manifold temptations.-
Why the godly must undergo many troubles
1. To drive them to repentance (2Sa_12:18; Gen_42:21). They are as the shepherd’s dog, to fetch us out of the corn, to bring us into compass again (Psa_32:4-5; Psa_119:67; Psa_119:71).
2. To keep them from sin, being therefore compared to a hedge of thorns (Hos_2:6; Job_33:17; 2Ch_20:37).
3. To humble them. We have a proud nature, and while in health we think our heads half touch the clouds; therefore God pulls us down by troubles.
4. To make them more holy, to scourge off the rust, purge out some of the remnant of the old man, and renew the inner man (Isa_4:4; Heb_12:10; Isa_27:9).
5. To wean them from the world, to which even the best are too much addicted, and to make them willing to die and to be gone hence, so setting them on work to look after and make sure of a better inheritance.
6. To prove the devil a liar (Job_1:9).
7. To keep them from hell and condemnation.
8. To bring them to heaven. (John Rogers.)
Heaven’s discipline of the good
I. The disciplinary elements are very manifold.
II. The disciplinary elements are very painful. “Ye are in heaviness.” Or, as Dr. Davidson renders it, “made sorrowful.” “Heaviness” is a relative term. What is heavy to one would be light to another. Paul gloried in tribulation.
III. The disciplinary elements are only temporary. “Now for a season.”
1. The trials of life are short compared with the enjoyments of life. They are exceptional.
2. The trials of life are short compared with the blessedness of the future.
IV. The disciplinary elements are very necessary. “If need be.” As storms in nature are necessary to purify the air, so trials are necessary to cleanse the atmosphere around the soul.
V. The disciplinary elements are always beneficent. “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth.” Nothing is more important to man than that it should be genuine. (Homilist.)
The uses of grief
What! would you choose that you alone may fare better than all God’s saints? that God should strew carpets for your nice feet only, to walk into your heaven, and make that way smooth for you which all patriarchs, prophets, evangelists, confessors, Christ Himself, have found rugged! Away with this self-love, and come down, you ambitious sons of Zebedee, and, ere you think of sitting near the throne, be content to be called unto the cross. Now is your trial. Let your Saviour see how much of His bitter portion you can pledge. Then shall you see how much of His glory He can afford you. As snow is of itself cold, yet warms and refreshes the earth, so afflictions, though in themselves grievous, yet keep the soul of the Christian warm and make it fruitful. Let the most afflicted know and remember that it is better to be preserved in brine than to rot in honey. After a forest fire has raged furiously, it has been found that many pine cones have had their seeds released by the heat, which ordinarily would have remained unsown. The future forest sprang from the ashes of the former. Some Christian graces, such as humility, patience, sympathy, have been evolved frown the sufferings of the saints. The furnace has been used to fructify. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Needful afflictions
Consider that all thy afflictions are needful, and work for thy good. Nothing is intolerable that is necessary. “If need be,” whilst we have diseased bodies, physic is as needful as food; whilst we have diseased souls, misery is as needful as outward mercies. The winter is as necessary to bring on harvest as the spring; affliction is as necessary to bring on the harvest of glory as any condition. (W. Swinnock.)
Trials and glory
Look upon a painted post or sign whose colour is laid in oil, how the rain beats upon it in stormy weather, that one would think all the colour would be washed off, yet how the water glides away and leaves it rather more beautiful than before. And thus it is with every child of God, being well garnished with graces of the Spirit, let the wind of persecution blow, and the floods of affliction lift up their voice, they shall never deface, but rather add unto their beauty; such is the condition of grace, that it shines the brighter for scouring, and is most glorious when it is most clouded. (J. Spencer.)
The use of trials
Suppose I made a very wonderful steam engine, and put it intoa ship, to make it into a steam packet. It is all beautifully made, and complete, and I want to “try” whether it is all good; whether the machinery is right and works well. Where should I send it, into a smooth sea or a rough sea? I should send it “up the rapids”-up the river-against the stream, to see whether it would go up, I should. So God does with you. He furnishes you with everything you want-then puts you up “the rapids,” sends you on the rough water, just to “try” you, to see what you are made of.
The trial of your faith.
The trial of faith
I. The Christian’s temptations.
1. They are manifold in their nature. What a world of change and sorrow we live in t
2. They are difficult to bear; for they cause heaviness or depression of mind (Heb_10:32). If you are in heaviness bear it manfully, but do not show it openly. Speak of your troubles to your bosom friend, but do not talk of them to men of this world. Above all, tell them to Jesus.
3. They are temporary. The longest trials, and those which leave the deepest wounds, are but for a season.
4. They are necessary. “If need be.” Oh, there is “a needs be” for every stroke, and though we do not now understand why this trial or the other falls upon us, yet we shall know hereafter.
II. The end and aim of these temptations must be carefully observed. “They are for the trial of our faith.”
1. The value of faith cannot be overestimated. Gold perishes, but faith lives-lives in death, and far beyond it (1Co_13:13).
2. But it must be tried, and sometimes in a very severe furnace. It is proved, tested, or verified by trial, and the faith which cannot stand the ordeal is of little or no value (Job_23:10). There are many ways in which faith is tried.
(1) It is tried by Divine commands. God gives His servants some difficult task to perform. True faith will surmount all difficulties.
(2) Faith is often tried by doubts.
(3) And faith is tried by fire-the fire of discipline, of persecution, of protracted bodily affliction.
3. The ultimate design of the trial is that it may “be found,” nothing of it being lost, “unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” (Thornley Smith.)
The testing of religious faith
I. The process of testing a man’s faith involves much pain. This we gather-
1. From the use of the word that describes the process-“temptation.”
2. From the fact that those who are being tested are often possessed with “heaviness,” “grief.”
3. From the nature of the elements employed in the process.
(1) No material element causes more pain than “fire.”
(2) These elements are “manifold.” With those to whom Peter wrote it was Gentile scorn, slander, persecution, martyrdom.
II. The process of testing a man’s faith is of such supreme worth as to compensate for all such pain.
1. The testing is only temporary.
2. The worth of the soul is tested.
3. The purpose of the process.
(1) To try the genuineness of faith.
(2) To remove alloy.
(3) To train for highest uses.
(4) To lead to highest destiny. (U. R. Thomas.)
Afflictions a test of faith
1. To try whether we have any faith.
2. To try whether our faith be as much as we take it to be or more; this, affliction will discover.
3. To purge and purify that true faith which we have, and increase it. (John Rogers.)
The trial of our faith
Theapostle here expresses his very cordial sympathy with his Christian brethren under the circumstances of trial to which they were exposed. “Ye greatly rejoice in that last time,” or, as the passage might be rendered, “Wherein ye shall greatly rejoice.” “Now for a season ye are in heaviness, but in the last time-the time of Christ’s appearing-the time of your entering upon the inheritance that is incorruptible, ye shall greatly rejoice.” But still the prospect of the great rejoicing in the last time gives some measure of rejoicing in the present. It is impossible for us to hope with anything like assurance for something that will make us very joyful without feeling in a measure joyful now. We can in a somewhat cheerful spirit bear the most dismal wintry weather, as we have the assurance of the spring and summer that are to follow. But this joy is mingled with sorrow. “Now for a season ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.” And this brings us to the subject of our text-namely, the trial of our faith. Now your faith is your confidence in God. Your faith is your confidence in God’s being, and doing all that in His Word He is represented to be and to have done; your confidence in God as infinitely wise, and mighty, and righteous, and merciful; your confidence in Him as having provided a full and free redemption for mankind through the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ; your confidence in Him as certain to fulfil all the great promises that He has given to His people. That is your faith, your confidence in God. And concerning the trial of this the apostle here speaks. But, first, of this faith he says that it is more precious than gold. I think I can appeal to every Christian here, and say, “Now, you would be sorry to lose your property, no doubt?” Quite natural. But still, do not you as Christians feel that we would rather be beggared today than lose this precious faith of which the Apostle Peter speaks? Well, this faith, he tells us, is to be tried. That is to say, our faith is subjected to proof-put to the test. If we profess to be Christians, it is very important that the world and the Church and ourselves should have some proof of our Christianity that this profession of ours is a right, honest thing, and neither a piece of hypocrisy nor a piece of self-delusion. And so for our own sakes first of all, but also for the sake of the Church, which we have no right to deceive, and for the sake of the world, which also has a claim to know the genuineness of our religious profession-it is necessary that our faith should be proved. Now, unfortunately, we have in our religious phraseology nearly lost sight of this very common sense meaning of the word “trial.” When you talk about the trial of a steamship or the trial of a hundred-ton gun, well, we understand that it is putting these things to a proof. But in our religious phraseology, a trial, forsooth, is simply a calamity-some terrible thing. And that is almost the only light in which we regard it, with scarcely any recognition of God’s design, and of His design being the proof of character. But that is His design. Now here is an alleviation at once, and a very great alleviation of the trials that you and I may have to pass through. Here is a man who comes forward and professes to be a seaman. Well, it is a very reasonable thing that he should be required to prove his seamanship by having, sometimes at any rate, to navigate his vessel amid the perils of a storm. And here is another who professes to be a soldier. Well, no injustice is done, but very much the contrary, if this man be required to prove his courage and skill by being sent, occasionally at any rate, upon some exceedingly hazardous military duty. And here is one who professes to be a servant of God, and do not let him be surprised if God, like any other master, shall subject him to proof, and ascertain, by practical experiment, what he is worth and what he can do, and whether he really be what by his profession he ought to be. So our faith is tried. A reasonable and perfectly right thing that tried it ought to be, as I said just now, for our own sake, if for the sake of nobody else. And, as the apostle reminds us here, the trial of our faith is conducted through manifold temptations. Let us take the word “trials,” not “temptations,” for God does not tempt any man in this evil sense of the word “temptation.” We are tried through manifold trials. That is to say, our faith is subjected to more proofs than one; and so it ought to be. I suppose that when they try a ship they make her go through many manoeuvres; and when they try a horse there is more than one sort of test to which the creature is put. And when a student goes in for examination, success in which is to be crowned with some distinguished honour, he is subjected to a considerable number of trials in order that the height and breadth and length and depth of the man’s mind, if there be any height and length and depth and breadth in it, may be ascertained. And he is subjected to various manifold trials, because the very brilliant capacity in one direction may, unfortunately, be accompanied by miserable incapacity in another direction, and so the man is subjected to manifold trials. And faith, likewise, is subjected to more trials than one. We find that poverty tries our honesty. A sad reverse of circumstances, such as is very frequently witnessed, does certainly try the integrity of a man’s principles as a man of business. And then I need not say that unkindness, injustice, is a great trial of our charity; and persecution would be a severe trial of our courage. Insolence is a trial of our meekness. And there are trials of a peculiar character, not very peculiar either, for they are not uncommon. I mean the trials of our faith that are often experienced by men who really find it difficult to retain their confidence in the revelation of God’s will in His Word. And you must not at all suppose that because a man never knew what bad health is, and never knew anything of poverty, and never had the slightest reason to be anxious about a single secular concern, that that man’s faith is going untried. It may be being tried a great deal more than yours in the midst of sickness and of poverty. There may be a terrible war going on within that man’s mind and heart as he is endeavouring, with all earnestness, but often finds himself failing, endeavouring to retain his confidence in the great principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus our faith is tried, and severe is the trial sometimes, as the apostle indicates when he says, “Though it be tried with fire.” It has been in the most terribly literal sense tried with fire, for, as you know, for a long time burning to death was the method commonly resorted to in the persecution of those who stood faithful to the truth as it is in Christ. And so the faith of men like John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, and Bishop Latimer, and thousands upon thousands more in the noble army of martyrs, was in the most literal and severe sense tried with fire. But, of course, we can understand this expression “tried with fire,” in a metaphorical sense, as indicative of any peculiarly severe trial to which faith may be exposed, such as a long and wearisome and painful illness. And now to notice some of the alleviations that we have graciously granted to us in these trials of our faith. Do not let us give way to a hopeless sorrow over the matter, for God has mingled very much comfort with all this distress. In the first place, as the apostle reminds us, it is only for a season, or, as we might render his words, “Now for a little while ye are in heaviness through manifold temptation”-for a little while. It will not be long. It cannot be long. And then, again, there is a necessity for it. “If need be,” but not if need not be. Only “if need be,” and only in proportion as the need really is. And we really must allow God to be the judge and the only judge of this need. We leave it, of course, to the goldsmith to determine how he is to deal with the gold that he is to make up into an article of use or adornment; and we leave it to the lapidary to decide how to cut and to polish the jewels which he intends to set in this fashion or in that. It would be an impertinent thing for persons not skilled in such work even to venture an opinion, and an impertinent thing to venture opinions about the manner in which God Almighty should deal with and make up the gold and the gems whereof He is preparing a glorious crown for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. No, “if need be,” and only if need be. The sculptor, you know, would not on any account chip off a block of marble one atom more than in his judgment is necessary to the realisation of his idea in the statue. And no surgeon or physician of ordinary humanity will give his patient any more pain than is unavoidable in order to the healing of the wound or the curing of the disease. And we, as the children of God, are in very wise hands, in very tender hands, in very safe hands. And then there is a great object secured by these trials, that this faith thus tried is found to be unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Unto whose praise and honour and glory? Not unto ours-at least, not unto ours in the first place, but unto our Lord’s, an Archbishop Leighton says, “God delights to bring out His strongest champions, that they might fight great battles for Him.” And although, certainly, it is sad to think of a good man being cast into prison, and sadder still to think of his being committed to the flame, yet I can imagine that God, not although He loves His people, but just because He loves them, rejoices over such a scene as that. I can imagine God rejoicing to see how His grace strengthens a poor, feeble, mortal man, and makes him firm and enduring unto the end. And at the last it will be found that this trial of their faith was ever unto the praise and honour and glory of their Lord, and to their own praise and honour and glory likewise. But, again, there is this alleviation in the trial of faith suggested in the words, “Whom having not seen ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing”-the love that we bear to our Lord Jesus Christ will greatly help us in the trial of our faith. You know that for a person whom you love you will do and suffer things that you would never think of doing or suffering for a person towards whom you felt no particular regard. How much a man will do, and how much he will suffer for his wife and for his children! And so, in proportion to the love we bear to Jesus Christ will be the lightness of the infliction involved in any trials to which our faith is subjected. Once more, there is this alleviation, that “believing in Christ we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls.” But some will say, “Have not we already received the salvation of our souls?” Now salvation is a great compound blessing, if I may so speak, and some of it we have received already, and some of it is in reserve. In fact, salvation is a blessing, of which a Christian is receiving something every day. I had so much salvation yesterday; I have got more today, and I shall have more tomorrow, if I am living the Christian life, that is to say. Now, in so far as salvation is the forgiveness of sins, salvation is ours now. (H. S. Brown.)
Trials
Trials are of many kinds. Some are very slight; but often a little thing is more severely felt than one that is greater. There are all the little annoyances which happen every hour; things go contrary to our wishes; we have to give up our wills; we are disappointed of our hopes. There are pains of body and sickness; there is the sickness of our dear friends. Now trial is natural to us: it belongs to us as children of Adam. But to Christians trials come in a somewhat different way. They belong to us as members of Christ.
I. The first thing to be thought when we have any trial, is that it comes from God. It is not a proof of any special wickedness in the person to whom it is sent, nor of God’s being specially angry with that person. Quite the contrary. God feels towards each of you the very same tender fatherly love that you feel to your dear boy; and so He corrects you as you correct that boy. And just as you take the trouble to prune and attend to the fruit tree which bears well, in the hope that it will bear still better, so God sends trouble to them who are doing good, in the hope that they will do still better. In all troubles, then, look to God-receive them from Him as the best things which your loving Father can send you.
II. Think, next, what are they sent for? They are punishments for sins, that is true; but see the wonderful goodness of God: these punishments His love turns into mercies and blessings. What does He send them for?
1. To remind us of our sins; to make us remember our sins, that through His mercy we may repent of them.
2. To draw our thoughts towards Himself. “In their affliction they will seek Me early.”
3. They are called trials-that means things which try. What do they try? They try us, whether we can trust God when matters seem to be going wrong.
4. To make us patient. Patience is that great gift which most especially helps to make us perfect Christians. “Let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” When we quietly give up our way to others-when we are disappointed and do not fret-when we ourselves have sharp pains to bear and we do not repine-then we are learning to become more perfect Christians-then we are becoming holier-we are really growing into what God intends us to be.
III. They lead us on to the crown. To conclude.
1. Try to think in this way of all troubles whatsoever, of all the little vexations of life, as well as of the heavier afflictions which come more seldom.
2. Look on continually to the end-the end of all things-heaven and eternity! This will encourage you to bear what now seems so painful. The hope of what is coming will cheer you up.
3. And especially look continually to Jesus Christ, and the example He has set us. Look to Him continually, “lest you be weary and faint in your minds.” (W. H. Ridley, M. A.)
Trials
These words are spoken to Christians, to persons called by the apostle “elect according to the foreknowledge of God,” and “begotten to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.” How great a privilege to be chosen to eternal life I Well may the Christian be delighted with such thoughts, “wherein,” says St. Peter, “ye rejoice.” But before the enjoyment of these things there are many troubles to be encountered; we may be glad, yet may we perchance, when we look at intervening difficulties, “be in heaviness.” It is well known that the most devout Christians are sometimes “in heaviness.” Do not think it any strange thing for the Christian man to be “in heaviness,” even as to his salvation. The Lord often lays the severest trial, that is, this feeling of desertion, on the most perfect, as you would place the boldest soldier in the front of the battle. Hence, then, assurance is not necessary; the spiritual atmosphere is variable.
1. Poverty is a great temptation-a temptation which throws many “into heaviness.”
2. But again, the temptations of the rich lie in another direction.
3. The heaviness which sometimes arises from the oppression and power of sin.
4. And some persons are in heaviness-they themselves know not why. None are more to be sorrowed with. There seems to be no known cause-and yet they are in lowness of spirits, and weary of the world. (J. M. Chanter, M. A.)
Trial as fire
Trial is here compared to fire; that subtle element which is capable of inflicting such exquisite torture on our seared flesh; which cannot endure the least taint or remnant of impurity, but wraps its arms around objects committed to it with eager intensity to set them free and make them pure; which is careless of agony, if only its passionate yearning may be satisfied; which lays hold of things more material than itself, loosening their texture, snapping their fetters, and bearing them upwards in its heaven-leaping energy. What better emblem could there be for God, and for those trims which He permits or sends, and in the heart of which He is to be found?
1. But this fire is a refiner’s fire (Mal_3:3).
(1) It is He who permits the trial. The evil thing may originate in the malignity of a Judas, but by the time it reaches us it has become the cup which our Father has given us to drink. The waster may purpose his own lawless and destructive work, but he cannot go an inch beyond the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. The very devil must ask permission ere he touches a hair of the patriarch’s head. The point up to which we may be tested is fixed by consummate wisdom. The weapon may hurt and the fire sting, but they are in the hands which redeemed us.
(2) It is He who superintends the trial. No earthly friend may be near, but in every furnace there is One like the Son of Man.
(3) It is He who watches the progress of the trial. No mother bending over her suffering child is more solicitous than He is. Suiting the trial to your strength.
2. Trial is only for a season. “Now for a season ye are in heaviness.” The great Husbandman is net always threshing. The showers soon pass. Our light affliction is but for a moment.
3. Trial is for a purpose. “If needs be.” There is utility in every trial. It is intended to reveal the secrets of our hearts, to humble and prove us, to winnow us as corn is shaken in a sieve, to detach us from the earthly and visible, to create in us an eager desire for the realities which can alone quench our cravings and endure forever. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The theology of sufferings
I. Temptations or trials reveal faith.
1. On the one hand, they show us the evil that is in us. More evil dwells in the heart than we have ever realised. “I never before could believe,” exclaims the afflicted man, “that so many hard thoughts of God were nestling in my brain, and so many rebellious passions lodging in my heart.” God sends trouble to bring out and make palpable that which is latent.
2. Not only so, but afflictions further serve to evoke our good, to lead forth into visibility the faith, the hope, and the charity God in His loving kindness has infused into our souls. Certain things will not disclose what is in them save under pressure. Aromatic herbs will not diffuse their aroma till they are bruised.
II. Temptations or trials strengthen faith.
1. Bitters are the best tonic for the spiritual man as for the physical. All who are a little acquainted with gardening operations know how careful the gardener is to lop off all redundant growths which genial weather calls forth, growths which he significantly calls “suckers,” because they drain away the sap which would otherwise go to form fruit. On just the same principle the Divine Husbandman treats the “Trees of Righteousness” growing in His vineyard-He mercilessly lops off the worldly “suckers” which steal away the juice, the fatness, of your religion, and thereby drives the whole energy of your spirit back upon your faith.
2. Sorrows further invigorate faith, because they call it into frequent, yea, constant exercise. And it is an universally admitted truth that all our natural faculties and spiritual graces grow in exercise. To be a robust Christian you must battle with difficulties.
III. Temptations or trials purify faith.
1. They release it from the impurities which attach to it. Religion in this world lives among pots, and, as might be expected, it does not quite escape “the corruption that is in the world through lust.” And God in His wisdom judges it expedient to cast it into the sea; but, as Leighton quaintly remarks, He does it “not to drown it, but to wash it.” But this process of separation is not an easy one, pleasant to flesh and blood; rather it requires the penetrating action of the flame.
2. Adversity, moreover, throws faith more upon its own proper resources, making it draw its aliment and inspiration more directly from God as revealed in His Book.
IV. Temptations or trials beautify faith.
1. Trials evolve the latent beauty of faith. Faith is intrinsically a beautiful grace, but to disclose its beauty it must often undergo the severe operations of chisel and hammer.
2. But it is also true that sorrows impart beauty to faith, a kind of weird-like fascination that makes it, in its struggle with obstacles, a “spectacle worthy of the gods.” God throws the Christian into “many-coloured” afflictions that he may be thereby adorned and made meet to enter the society of heaven. He makes His Church a coat of many colours to show His love to her and appreciation of her. (J. C. Jones, D. D.)
The trial of faith
I. The value of faith
1. Even considered intellectually, as a mere belief of revealed truth, faith is of the highest possible value, as the great instrument by which we obtain religious knowledge and wisdom.
2. But its value-as it is not merely an intellectual exercise, but an act of trust, and thus a work of the heart-is shown by this, that it connects us immediately and personally with the merits of the great Atonement.
3. The value of faith is seen in this, that it not only connects man, as guilty, with the meritorious atonement of the Saviour, but man, as weak and helpless, with the omnipotence of Divine grace.
4. Another proof of the value of faith is found in that wonderful property which the Apostle Paul assigns to it, and which, indeed, we find by actual experience that it possesses-the property of fixing its eye on invisible and eternal realities, and keeping the soul continually under their influence.
II. The trial of faith.
1. In its lower sense-merely considered as belief of truth-faith will be tried. This may occur in many circumstances, and especially from infidel sophistry.
2. But our faith will not only be tried by sophistry; it will be tried also by what may be termed practical unbelief. This is especially the ease in all temptations to sin.
3. Faith, in that higher sense in which the word is used-as implying a simple trust in the atonement of the Saviour-will be tried by our proneness to self-dependence.
4. Faith is also tried by afflictions and sorrows. In sorrows our faith has to repose entirely on the great doctrine that all that concerns us is in the hands of God, that here there is no chance, no oversight, no delegation of the Divine power to the creature.
III. The final honours of faith. It has, indeed, its honours now, far greater than any of which unbelief can boast. Is it not that which brings man to God for the blessings of reconciliation and adoption? Is it not that which brings with it the mighty influence of that Holy Spirit which works in man the death unto sin and the new life unto righteousness? Is it not that which is the source of our spiritual victories, which gives us strength to do and strength to suffer? Is it not that which enables us to resist the temptations with which the present world continually surrounds us? And is it not that which extracts the sting of death? Such are the honours of faith here on earth. Where shall we look for those of formality and unbelief? But the apostle refers to its future honours, to the praise and glory in which our faith shall issue at the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then shall the faith which has received the mysteries of God be honoured. (R. Watson.)
The trial of faith
I. Faith is much more precious than gold.
1. Gold is of an earthly, but faith of a heavenly origin.
2. Faith has its object, as well as its origin, in God; whereas gold, unless placed in the hands of him who has the new nature, tends to the place whence it came, and is often also in the child of God the means of dragging hint too much to earth.
3. Faith always enriches the possessor, but gold often impoverishes.
II. This faith must be tried, and that with fire.
1. The world is a great trial to faith.
2. Satan is always attempting to try and to overstep the faith of God’s people.
III. What is the great end and purpose for which faith is so tried? It is that it may be proved to be faith, just as the gold is tried in the fire. (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
The trial of your faith
I. Your faith will be tried surely.
1. Faith, in the very nature of it, implies a degree of trial. God never gave us faith to play with. It is a sword, but it was not made for presentation on a gala day, nor to be worn on state occasions only, nor to be exhibited on a parade ground. It is a sword, and he that has it girt about him may expect, between here and heaven, that he shall know what battle means. Faith is a sound sea-going vessel, and was not meant to lie in dock and perish of dry rot. To whom God has given faith, it is as though one gave a lantern to his friend because he expected it to be dark on his way home. The very gift of faith is a hint to you that you will want it, and that, at all points and in every place, you will really need it.
2. Trial is the very element of faith. Faith is a salamander that lives in the fire, a star which moves in a lofty sphere, a diamond which bores its way through the rock. Faith without trial is like a diamond uncut, the brilliance of which has never been seen. Untried faith is such little faith that some have thought it no faith at all. What a fish would be without water or a bird without air, that would be faith without trial.
3. It is the honour of faith to be tried. He that has tested God, and whom God has tested, is the man that shall have it said of him, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
4. The trial of your faith is sent to prove its sincerity.
5. It must also be tested to prove its strength.
6. The trial of our faith is necessary to remove its dross. “Why, a week ago,” says one, “I used to sing, and think that I had the full assurance of faith; and now I can scarcely tell whether I am one of God’s people or not.” Now you know how much faith you really possess. You can now tell how much was solid and how much was sham; for had that which has failed you been real faith, it would not have been consumed by any trial through which it has passed. You have lost the froth from the top of the cup, but all that was really worth having is still there.
II. Your faith will be tried variously.
1. There are some whose faith is tried each day in their communion with God. That is, God in Christ, who is our God, is a consuming fire; and when His people live in Him, the very presence of God consumes in them their love of sin and all their pretentious graces and fictitious attainments, so that the false disappears and only the true survives. The presence of perfect holiness is killing to empty boastings and hollow pretences.
2. God frequently tries us by the blessings which He sends us.
(1) Riches.
(2) Praise.
3. Another trial of faith is exceedingly common and perilous nowadays, and that is heretical doctrine and false teaching.
4. The trial of our faith usually comes in the form of affliction. I remember Mr. Rutherford, writing to a lady who had lost five children and her husband, says to her, “Oh, how Christ must love you! He would take every bit of your heart to Himself. He would not permit you to reserve any of your soul for any earthly thing.” Can we stand that test? Can we let all go for His sake? Do you answer that you can? Time will show.
III. Your faith will be tried individually. It is an interesting subject, is it not, the trial of faith? It is not quite so pleasant to study alone the trial of your faith. It is stern work when it comes to be your trial, and the trial of your faith. Do not ask for trials. Children must not ask to be whipped, nor saints pray to be tested. The Lord Jesus Christ has been glorified by the trial of His people’s faith. He has to be glorified by the trial of your faith.
IV. Your faith will be tried searchingly. The blows of the flail of tribulation are not given in sport, but in awful earnest. The Lord tries the very life of our faith-not its beauty and its strength alone, but its very existence. The iron enters into the soul; the man’s real self is made to endure the trial.
V. Your faith will be tried for an abundantly useful purpose.
1. The trial of your faith will increase, develop, deepen, and strengthen it. We may wisely rejoice in tribulation, because it worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and by that way we are exceedingly enriched, and our faith grows strong.
2. The trial of our faith is useful, because it leads to a discovery of our faith to ourselves. I notice an old Puritan using this illustration. He says, you shaft go into a wood when you please, but if you are very quiet, you will not know whether there is a partridge, or a pheasant, or a rabbit in it; but when you begin to move about or make a noise, you very soon see the living creatures. They rise or they run. So, when affliction comes into the soul, and makes a disturbance and breaks our peace, up rise our graces. Faith comes out of its hiding, and love leaps from its secret place.
3. Besides, when faith is tried, it brings God glory. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The trial of faith precious
It is not faith, but the trial of faith, that is here pronounced to be precious. Precisely because faith is the link by which the saved are bound to the Saviour, it is of unspeakable importance to have faith tested in time and proved to be true. Here the fire and the crucible are the most valuable of all things for the investor. These are his safeguards, In like manner, it is dangerous to venture our eternity on a fair weather profession; an assay in some form is essential to determine whether there is life or only a name that you live. The trial of faith by affliction is com pared to the testing and purifying of gold by fire. The greatest results will be seen within the veil. When Christ comes the second time to reign, the effect of these trials will appear to his praise. (W. Arnot.)
The trial of faith
This trial is made upon faith principally, rather than any other grace, because the trial of that is, in effect, the trial of all that is good in us. (M. Henry.)
Trials are tests
The surest way to know our gold is to look upon it and examine it in God’s furnace, where He tries it for that end, that we may see what it is. If we have a mind to know whether a building stands strong or no, we must look upon it when the wind blows. If we would know whether that which appears in the form of wheat has the real substance of wheat or be only chaff, we must observe it when it is winnowed. If we would know whether a staff be strong or a rotten, broken reed, we must observe it when it is leaned on and weight is borne upon it. If we would weigh ourselves justly, we must weigh ourselves in God’s scales that He makes use of to weigh us. (Jonathan Edwards.)
Burnt in
Yonder is a porcelain vase just fashioned; it is now in the decorator’s hands, who paints on it various pretty and delicate figures-here and there he paints a passage of Scripture. Presently he passes it into the hands of another who glazes it, who in his turn passes it on to a third. But what is the third doing? Why, he is putting the vase into a hot oven. “Sir,” we exclaim, “you will spoil your ware, and your labour will be in vain.” Smiling at our alarm, he placidly replies, “Gentlemen, I will take care that the vase suffers no injury. I put it into the oven to enhance its value, for I mean thus to burn in what has been painted on it, which would otherwise wash off. There-it is finished now,” he adds, “and you may wash that vase for twelve months without making any impression on the colours. They are burnt in, sirs, burnt in.” Similarly God burns in verses of the Bible into our experience. Having infused His grace into us in regeneration, and made wholesome impressions on the mind through the ministry of the Word, He consigns us to the furnace of affliction that they may be burnt into the very core of our being, so burnt that nothing will ever again erase them. (J. C. Jones, D. D.)
Much more precious than of gold that perisheth.-
Tried faith more precious than gold
1. Gold comes out of the earth; faith from heaven, whence every good and perfect gift is.
2. Faith is more rare, termed therefore the faith of God’s elect, whereas most, even of the wicked, are not without gold.
3. Faith cannot be purchased with all the gold in the world.
4. It is hardly gotten and hardly kept, and has many and strong enemies-our own nature, the world and the devil are all against faith, but not against getting of gold.
5. It apprehends salvation and life eternal, and so is the instrument of our happiness. So is not gold but the instrument of many a man’s damnation; by unconscionable getting, and covetous keeping the same, many cast away their souls.
6. It will comfort a man with true comfort in his life, carry him strongly through troubles, and boldly through the gates of death.
7. Gold perisheth, here canker and rust consume it; we may be taken from it, as it from us; but faith endureth till Christ’s appearing, to our full redemption, as the fruit thereof forever.
Uses:
1. To them that want gold, and yet have faith. Know that thou art richer than he that hath thousands of gold and hath not faith.
2. To the rich. Rejoice not that thou art rich, but that thou hast faith. Again, think all your pains to become you well, and well bestowed in getting this precious faith.
3. To those who have not faith. Poor souls, labour after it, that you may be made inwardly rich.
4. To rich men who have toiled for gold. Seek this that is so much better. (John Rogers.)
Genuine faith more precious than gold
I. Gold cannot satisfy the soul. Genuine faith does. As a rule it will, perhaps, be found that he who has the most gold is the most discontented and restless in heart. Faith fills the soul with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
II. Gold cannot strengthen the soul. Genuine faith does. In what does the strength of the soul consist? In force of sympathies generous and devout; force of determination to pursue the right; force to bear up with buoyant magnanimity under all the trials and sorrows of life. Gold cannot give this strength. How strong were the men mentioned in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews!
III. Gold cannot ennoble the soul. But genuine faith ennobles the soul, enthrones it above the tide of passion and the force of circumstances. (Homilist.)
Peter’s list of valuables
Peter is very fond of this word “precious.” He uses it more frequently than all the other New Testament writers, with the exception of John in the Revelation, where, however, it is only employed in reference to things of material value, such as jewels and costly woods. Paul uses it only once, and in a similar connection, speaking about “gold, silver, and precious stones.” James employs it once in regard of the fruits of the earth; and all the other instances of its use are in Peter’s writings. Here are the cases in which he uses it. First, in my text, about the process by which Christian faith is tested; then about the blood of Jesus Christ; then, in a quotation from Isaiah, about Christ Himself as the cornerstone. These three are the instances in the first Epistle. In the second we find two, where he speaks of “like precious faith,” and of “exceeding great and precious promises.”
I. That our true treasures are all contained in, and clustered round, the person and work of Jesus Christ. Now, in order to estimate the value of a thing, the first necessity is a correct standard. Now, if we are seeking for a standard of value, surely the following points are very plain. Our true treasure mast be such as helps us towards the highest ends for which we are fitted by our make. It must be such as satisfies our deepest needs; it must be such as meets our whole nature; and it must be such as cannot be wrenched from us. I do not want to undervalue lower and relative good of any kind, or to preach an overstrained contempt of material, transient, and partial blessing. Competence and wealth, gold and what gold buys, and what it keeps away, are good. High above them we rank the treasures of a cultivated mind, of a refined taste, of eyes that see the beauty of God’s fair creation. Above these we rank the priceless treasures of pure reciprocated human love. But none of them, nor all of them put together, meet our tests, simple and obvious as they are. They do not satisfy the whole, or the depths, of our natures. Only God can fill a soul. So Peter is right after all, when he points us in a wholly different direction for the true precious things. “Christ is precious.” Now, the word that he employs there is slightly different from that which occurs in the other verses. The speaker in the original words of the prophet is God Himself. It is the preciousness in God’s sight of the stone which He “lays in Zion” that is glanced at in the epithet. Let me suggest how the preciousness of His beloved Son, in the eyes of the Father who gave Him, enhances the preciousness of the gift to us. God obeys the law which He lays upon His servants; and He “will not give” to us “that which costs Him nothing.” But Christ is precious to us. Yes, if we know ourselves and what we want; if we know Him and what He gives. Do you want wisdom? He is the wisdom of God. Do you seek power? He is the power of God. Do you long for joy? He will give you His own. Do you weary for peace? “My peace I leave with you.” Do you hunger for righteousness? “He of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness.” Do you need fulness and abundance? “In Him dwells all the fulness of God; and of His fulness have all we received.” Whatever good any soul seeks, Christ is the highest good, and is all good. Let us turn our hearts away from false treasures and lay hold on Him who is the true riches. Further, Christ’s blood is precious. Peter believed in Christ’s atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, and of each single soul therein. If you strike that element out of the work of our Lord, what remains, precious as it is, does not seem to me to so completely satisfy human necessities as to make Him the one all-sufficient and single treasure and riches of men’s souls. And then there is the third precious thing, clustering round and flowing from Jesus Christ and His work-and that is, the “exceeding great and precious promises,” which are given to us “that by them we may be partakers of a Divine nature.” I presume that these promises referred to by the apostle are largely, if not exclusively, those which have reference to what we call the future state. And they are precious because they come straight to meet one of the deepest needs of humanity, often neglected, but always there-an ache, if not a conscious need. What about that dark, dim beyond? Is there any solid ground in it? Christ comes with the answer: “I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Then it is not mist; then I can fling my grappling-iron into it and it will hold, and I can hold on to it.
II. That which puts us in possession of the precious things is itself precious. So the apostle speaks, in his second Epistle, about “like precious faith,” using a compound word, which, however, is substantially identical with the simple expression in the other verses. The only preciousness of that faith which the New Testament magnifies so greatly is that it brings us into possession of the things that are intrinsically precious. Suppose a door, worth half a crown. Yes! but it is the door of a storehouse full of bullion. Here is a bit of lead pipe, worth twopence. Yes, but through it comes the water that keeps a besieged city alive. And so your faith, worth nothing in itself, is worth everything as the means by which you lay hold of the durable riches and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Therefore cherish it. A cultivated mind is a treasure, because it is the key to many treasures. Refined tastes are treasures because they bring us into possession of lofty gifts. AEsthetic sensibilities are precious because they make our own a pure and ennobling pleasure. And, for precisely the same reason, high above the cultivated understanding, and refined tastes, and the artistic sense, ay, and even above the loving heart that twines its tendrils round another heart as loving, we rank the faith which joins us to Christ.
III. The process which strengthens that faith is precious. My nominal text speaks about “the trial of your faith” as being “much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire.” Peter meant that the process by which faith was tested, and, being tested, is purified and perfected, is a precious treasure. If Christ and what pertains to Him are our real wealth, and if our faith is the means of our coming into possession of our property, then everything that tightens our grasp upon Him, and increases our capacity of receiving Him, is valuable. Let us lay that to heart, and it changes all our estimates of this world’s mistaken ill and good. Let us lay that to heart, and it interprets much. We do not understand life until we have got rid of the prejudice that enjoyment, or any lower thing, is th
