PRÉCIS ON GODLY AFFLICTION AND WHY IT’S SO VERY NECESSARY: SOME PERSONAL TESTIMONY

SCRIPTURE. “Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.” – JAMES 1:2, AMPC

KEY TERM: “TRIALS.” ‘Peirasmos’ [πειρασμός]: “A putting to the proof (by Divine experiment for good); the experience of evil, solicitation, discipline or provocation; by imp., adversity – i.e., a temptation; to make trial of one’s character, integrity, constancy or virtue; done in order to encourage and prove one’s faith and confidence in Him [‘or to draw the unredeemed to salvation in Christ’].”

QUOTATION. “Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before–more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle … Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.” – CHARLES DICKENS, Great Expectations, 1861; edited

COMMENTARY. “‘Count it all joy’ – Regard it as a thing to rejoice in; a matter which should afford you happiness. You are not to consider it as a punishment, a curse, or a calamity, but as a fit subject of felicitation.

‘When ye fall into divers temptations’ – Oh the meaning of the word ‘temptations.’ It is now commonly used in the sense of placing allurements before others to induce them to sin, and in this sense the word seems to be used in James 1:13-14 of this chapter. Here, however, the word is used in the sense of ‘trials’ [or tests] to wit, by persecution, poverty, calamity of any kind. These cannot be said to be direct inducements or allurements to sin, but they try the faith, and ‘they show whether he who is tried is disposed to adhere to his faith in God, or whether he will apostatize.’” – ALBERT BARNES, Notes on the Old and the New Testament, 1884; edited

DK. I have been spending a good deal of time on what the Scriptures describe as ‘Christ’s Winnowing Fan’ in the Last Days, as He separates wheat from chaff, the True disciple from the False disciple. It is a most holy endeavor by our King and not to be taken lightly. In fact, all those who take it lightly shall be swept into The Fire, says the Baptist (Matthew 3:10-12).

Thus my message remains as simple as this saying: Whether you think of yourself as a Christian or a Pagan, an atheist or a casual deist, a hater of the good or a lover of the world – God beckons still one more time as Historical Dusk begins to settle on this increasingly tumultuous planet.

 ^“On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” – JOHN 7:37-38, NKJV

I have said it a hundred times and more, and God, tens upon tens of thousands: The Hour wanes, the Day is nearly gone, beloved. Therefore, waste not another moment to repent and rejoin the Company of the Remnant, whose Final Joy shall be brighter than a trillion suns!

[TESTIMONY]

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/MIU25v485Ms