“After that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.” — 1 Peter 5:10
You have seen the arch of heaven as it spans the plain: glorious are its colours, and rare its hues. It is beautiful, but, alas, it passes away, and lo, it is not. The fair colours give way to the fleecy clouds, and the sky is no longer brilliant with the tints of heaven. It is not established. How can it be? A glorious show made up of transitory sun-beams and passing rain-drops, how can it abide? The graces of the Christian character must not resemble the rainbow in its transitory beauty, but, on the contrary, must be stablished, settled, abiding. Seek, O believer, that every good thing you have may be an abiding thing. May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but an inscription upon the rock! May your faith be no “baseless fabric of a vision,” but may it be builded of material able to endure that…
awful fire which shall consume the wood, hay, and stubble ofthe hypocrite. May you be rooted and grounded in love. May yourconvictions be deep, your love real, your desires earnest. May your wholelife be so settled and established, that all the blasts of hell, and all thestorms of earth shall never be able to remove you. But notice how thisblessing of being “stablished in the faith” is gained. The apostle’s wordspoint us to suffering as the means employed — “After that ye havesuffered awhile.” It is of no use to hope that we shall be well rooted if norough winds pass over us. Those old gnarlings on the root of the oak tree,and those strange twistings of the branches, all tell of the many storms thathave swept over it, and they are also indicators of the depth into which theroots have forced their way. So the Christian is made strong, and firmlyrooted by all the trials and storms of life. Shrink not then from thetempestuous winds of trial, but take comfort, believing that by their roughdiscipline God is fulfilling this benediction to you.
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Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen