THIRD QUARTER 2022
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #11
SEPTEMBER 10, 2022
“WAITING IN THE CRUCIBLE”

 

Our Sabbath School lessons this quarter deal with crucibles. Crucibles are vessels used for melting a substance with high heat. The same word also applies to severe tests or tough situations that influence change or development. Crucible experiences can cause materials to melt, fizzle, or burn brightly depending on what they are made of. Another crucible could be the simple experience of waiting, and that is what the lesson this week is about. The memory text taken from Galatians 5:22, focuses on one fruit of the Spirit which is, “But the fruit of the Spirit is …longsuffering”. Longsuffering implies patience, endurance, waiting, or perseverance. James 1:2-4 (NKJV throughout) says, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” We learn then that trials, the testing of our faith, produces patience and that patience has a work. That work is to produce perfection and completeness, lacking in nothing. This is why James says to count our trials all joy. The Psalmist David says in Ps 27:13-14, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!” And in Ps 37:7, “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him.” What strengthens David and gives him the patience to wait is that he knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that he will see the goodness of the Lord. We are urged then to be of good courage, wait on the Lord, and He will strengthen our hearts. He is the one that does this because every good and perfect gift is from the Father.

 

There is a passage in Scripture that really connects three realities: the goodness of the Lord, trials/crucibles, and patience, a passage which we find on Sunday’s lesson this week, and that is Romans 5:1-6. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” This passage is a marvelous sandwich. Romans 5, verses 1 and 2  constitute the first slice of bread, the great news of the gospel, the goodness of the Lord, which caused David to not lose heart. From this idyllic, lofty height it proceeds to the inside of the sandwich in verses 3 and 4, which he describes as tribulation, before returning to the second slice of bread verses 5 through 11, the amazing, good news of the gospel, the goodness of God. Let’s explore the passage.

 

Having declared mankind’s need for justification in Romans 1:18-3:20, and the means of justification in verses 3:21-4:25, he now reveals the fruit of justification in Romans 5:1-11. We know this because chapter 5 begins with “therefore.” “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” That is the first fruit. Waggoner says this, in Waggoner On Romans: “What is peace? Most people have the idea that it is a sort of ecstatic feeling. They think that peace with God means an indescribable heavenly feeling; and so they always look for that imaginary feeling as evidence that they are accepted with God. But peace with God means the same thing that it means with men: it means simply the absence of war. As sinners we are enemies of God. He is not our enemy, but we are his enemies. He is not fighting against us, but we are fighting against him. How then may we have peace with him? Simply by ceasing to fight, and laying down our arms. We may have peace whenever we are ready to stop fighting.” WOR 85.2. “Righteousness is peace, because our warfare against God was our sins that we cherished. God’s life is righteousness, and he is the God of peace. Since the enmity is the carnal mind and its wicked works, peace must be the opposite, namely, righteousness. So it is simply the statement of an obvious fact, that being justified by faith we have peace with God. The righteousness that we have by faith carries peace with it. The two things cannot be separated.” WOR 85.4.

 

The second fruit of justification is “access by faith into this grace in which we stand.” Grace that is His undeserved, unsolicited, and unconditional love. The third fruit of justification is rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God. Commenting on this hope, Paul in Colossians 1:27 says, “To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The believer’s hope is not uncertain, like our everyday routine hopes for job success, health, financial stability, families living in loving relationships, a new car, and the like. This hope that Paul speaks of rests on the promises of God which includes the ultimate promise of the second coming. “We have this hope that burns within our hearts, hope in the coming of the Lord,” the hymn says. So far we see that the fruits of justification based on this passage relate to the past, present and future. We have peace with God as a result of our past forgiveness. We are standing in grace, which is our present privilege, and we rejoice in the hope of an eternal future with God. This is such great stuff, but Paul moves to his fourth fruit in verse 3 of chapter 5. “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations.”. Paul is telling us that we have peace in tribulation as well as when things go smoothly. Not that we seek for tribulation, but in the midst of the tribulations we can still have peace and joy. There is a purpose for tribulations. “Tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:4). Perseverance and patience and endurance can be used interchangeably. Patience implies waiting. We quoted the passage from James 1 where he said that trials test our faith which produces patience and that patience has a work which is making us perfect and complete. What is being perfected and completed are character and faith. Waggoner says this about patience- “What is patience? It is endurance of suffering. The root of the word ‘patience’ means suffering. We see this in the fact that one who is ill is called ‘a patient.' That is, he is a sufferer. People often excuse their petulance by saying that they have so much to endure. They think that they would be patient if they did not have to suffer so much. No, they would not be. There can be no patience where there is no suffering. Trouble does not destroy patience, but develops it. When trouble seems to destroy one’s patience, it is simply showing the fact that the person had no patience.” WOR 86.3.

 

Jesus warned His disciples that in this world we will have troubles, and similarly Paul, in Acts 14:22, warned his converts that they must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God. And what is it that gives us this patience? It is the love of God that has been poured into our hearts. “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” (Rom 5:5,6). Peter, appreciating the inevitability of suffering, while keeping our eyes steadfastly on the indescribable gifts that we have in Jesus says, this in 1 Peter 1:3-8a: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love.” But why do we love Him? This question is best answered in the events of the Great Controversy.

 

The book of Job is a window into the issues at stake in the Great Controversy. There was a council meeting and Satan went to the meeting. The Lord asked him where he came from. This was the conversation that ensued. “Then the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?’ So Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!’” This accusation in the great controversy needs to be answered by all believers. Is Jesus Christ attractive?

 

Do we just serve God because He answers all our prayers every time to our specifications, avoiding any suffering, trials and tribulations? Do we know what He is to us? Are we faithful to God only in the good times, but when trouble comes we respond like Job’s wife, “Curse God and die?” Is He worthy of our adoration, praise and obedience because He is altogether worthy and altogether lovely? Our faith is tried in the crucible, the furnace of affliction and the reason for our love for Him is manifest in those crucibles. Will we show ourselves to be “fair weather friends?” One of my favorite theologians, Marilla, said “God doesn’t want us for a fair weather friend.” Peter in the passage above says, “that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love.” Despite the crucibles of life we love Him still, because He is worthy. Trials and waiting, with the prayer on our lips, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,” is what a waiting universe needs to see. A patient faith tried in the fire with a character refined after the divine similitude.

 

There is a quote in the book the Great Controversy page 299 that goes like this, “One of the most solemn and yet most glorious truths revealed in the Bible is that of Christ's second coming to complete the great work of redemption. To God's pilgrim people, so long left to sojourn in ‘the region and shadow of death,’ a precious, joy-inspiring hope is given in the promise of His appearing, who is 'the resurrection and the life,’ to ‘bring home again His banished.’ The doctrine of the second advent is the very keynote of the Sacred Scriptures. From the day when the first pair turned their sorrowing steps from Eden, the children of faith have waited the coming of the Promised One to break the destroyer's power and bring them again to the lost Paradise.” Why is this quote significant? Christ’s second coming completes the work of redemption and is the keynote of the Sacred Scriptures.

 

“By the power of His grace manifested in the transformation of character the world is to be convinced that God has sent His Son as its Redeemer. No other influence that can surround the human soul has such power as the influence of an unselfish life. The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian.” MH 470.1. “Trials and obstacles are the Lord's chosen methods of discipline and His appointed conditions of success.” MH 471.1. “The fact that we are called upon to endure trial shows that the Lord Jesus sees in us something precious which He desires to develop. If He saw in us nothing whereby He might glorify His name, He would not spend time in refining us. He does not cast worthless stones into His furnace. It is valuable ore that He refines. The blacksmith puts the iron and steel into the fire that he may know what manner of metal they are. The Lord allows His chosen ones to be placed in the furnace of affliction to prove what temper they are of and whether they can be fashioned for His work. MH 471.2.

 

Paul says, “we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men (1 Cor 4:9).”And in Eph 3:10, “the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,” One day very soon we will say, “Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the LORD; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation (Is 25:9).” And while we wait we are not idle, nor are we complainers, distrustful of the God who knows the crucibles we are allowed to endure. We look forward to, and hasten the coming of God, in which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat. We are heartened by the promise for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

 

Amen, and may God keep us faithful.

 

~Lyndi Schwartz