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Gold, Silver, Precious Stones
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Working Together

AUTHOR:

Gold, Pleasant Daniel

MANY EVENTS, such as trials and afflictions, may not be, in themselves, good things. Many prosperous steps of man may not, in themselves, seem to have any seeds of disease, nor any latent sorrows. Jacob saw no good in his supposed bereavements and the grievous famine; nor was there, seemingly, any token of want in the seven plenteous years in Egypt; yet how one is framed for the other, and the super abundance of one is swallowed up by thirst of the other. One is set over against the other and nothing is left.

Human life is an illustration of God’s abounding goodness and man’s hunger that feeds on it, of prosperity followed by adversity. Often, if one has all that heart could wish, he is denied the appetite or power of enjoyment; if one has the sharp appetite, he has not so much to try it on. So man is hedged and fenced by metes and bounds. Yet this is right and good. In christian experience there is so much of sorrow where we had expected joy, and so much of joy where we had expected sorrow, that we know not which to choose, and could not do well without either: one involves the other.

Afflictions are in themselves grievous, yet under the rod we are chastened into the sweetest humility, and the best fruit bearing, and ourselves eat of the fruit: “it was good for me to be afflicted,” &c. Prosperity is joyous and exhilarating in its nature, and its tendency is to exaltation, hence the need of the thorn, lest we be exalted above measure. Both, then, are needful in their time, season, and place.

Throughout the whole journey of life, or in the entire history of the church, there is equally as much wisdom as power shown in sustaining the entire chain of events, foreknown and purposed by Him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will; so that each and every event, whether good or evil in its isolated, individual nature and bearing, is needful, and all, put together, work for good to them who love God and are the called according to his purpose. They work together, not separately: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”