by Dr. Blaine Bishop
COMFORT IN TRIALS
When Paul and Silas were thrown into prison at Philippi, they counted it all joy. That night the jailer was saved in addition to his entire house hold. A church was well established in Philippi. Only walking in the love of Christ can give us such joy. The reason for testings is that we might see patience increased. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the reason for your trials is that God wants to teach you one of the great est of all Christian virtues, which is patience? In a church which I served earlier, a comparatively young Christian told me, “I have been go ing through such a terrible time of testing and I can’t understand it.” I read her this portion as the Holy Spirit had led me. She stopped me in astonishment, “Patience! That’s ex actly what I've been praying for.” She came to the sudden realization of the perfect way the Lord was an swering her sincere petition. Peter tells us that our trials will produce praise at the appearing of Jesus Christ. When one’s faith is genuine, tribulation will only increase our per severance. The apostle Paul rightly
H ave you ever thought that there might be “blessings in irrita tion” ? Try as we may, there is no escaping the fact that God’s great saints have been schooled in the uni versity of testings. To us at the moment, the entire picture seems wrong. Why should they be called upon to endure such fieiy trials and thorns of afflictions? Then we see how God in His wisdom later brought them to a place of untold blessing that could not have other wise been possible. This is the pic ture given to us in James 1:2-4. The apostle introduces this por tion with the words, “My brethren.” As a matter of fact, he uses the term or its equivalent 17 times in the five short chapters. This is a good foun dation on which to build his next promise chapters which show that we are to rejoice in testings. We are really startled by this strange para dox. We are to be joyful when sud denly overwhelmed by misfortunes of every possible kind. We are not to ignore trials and troubles, acting as though they didn’t exist. In the book of Hebrews we discover that there is no chastening which for the present seems to be joyous. We can thank God, however, that there is always an “afterward” for each trial. Usually we count it all joy when we escape tribulations. This portion, however, tells us just the opposite; we are to be joyful in tribulations. I heard of a Christian here at home who was telling a missionary how small she felt since unlike the foreign missionaries, she had made such seemingly small sacrifices. Re plied the missionary, “You must not think that at all. I t is we who feel sorry for you because you don’t have the joy of seeing souls saved out of heathen darkness as we do.”
The separate Music Department of Biola Col lege is headquartered in Crowell Hall which has a 450 seat auditorium and a number of classrooms, faculty offices, and practice rooms.
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