The Lord teaches all persons who are willing to be taught of Him. The text-book is His word, and the knowledge to be gained is the knowledge of Him. To know Him is to become wise unto salvation, but to be ignorant of Him is to walk in the path of darkness and death.
It is a mistake to say that: "The proper study of mankind is man."--Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man.
The study of man by man, with a view to learning moral and spiritual truth, is heathenism. The proper study of mankind is God; and the proper teacher for mankind is God. Only God himself knows what knowledge is essential for man's highest welfare, and only He is competent to teach us the truth concerning himself.
But God's school, in which He instructs mankind, is the school of adversity. This is so not because God ordained it thus, but because of the perversity of human nature. Men are very rarely able to learn what is good for them to know through prosperity. And therefore, while God delights to bless His creatures with the good things of this life, He is very often obliged to withhold them in order that men may learn that lesson so necessary to life, of entire dependence upon Him.
When we remember that the best men of all ages have been fitted for their work in this way, and that only so have they been able to learn the highest lessons of truth, we should view adversity in a different light from that in which it is seen by the world, and should meet it not with a rebellious or despairing spirit, but with a spirit of resignation and even of welcome. The Psalmist says, "Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of your law." (Psalm 94:12)
When chastening comes, it is but the hour of the Lord's instruction, when He will reveal to us wondrous things out of His law. We shall then learn precious lessons if we do not close up the avenues of communication with Him by murmurings and repining. "That You may give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked." (Psalm 94:13)
In that hour we must see with the eye of faith, and by that we shall understand that what seems a grievous calamity is in reality a blessing, and that it is sent in order that in the real day of adversity we may be hid. For that is never a calamity which does not sever the soul's connection with God, and whatever binds the soul more closely to Him is the greatest blessing.
If we understand the meaning of adversity, we shall know that it does not mean that God has forsaken us. For faith says, "The Lord will not to cast off His people, neither will He forsakeHis inheritance." (Psalm 94:14)
The idea which comes so naturally at such times that God has forsaken us, is from the devil; he suggests it to us, for from the first, in his warfare against God, he has sought to gain his point by misrepresentation. So he suggests that God has cast us off, that we have done nothing to deserve such affliction, and that therefore God is unjust and not to be depended upon, and His service unprofitable.
It was the devil who brought the trouble, and this was his object in bringing it. But God turns the weapons of Satan into a means of grace to all those who will let Him do with them as He will; and through the very clouds and darkness cast about man by the prince of evil, He reveals more clearly the light of His love and mercy, and His power unto salvation.
Happy is that man who is able to discern the Divine hand in his afflictions, as well as in the blessings that belong to prosperity. If men will but open their minds and hearts to Him, it will not take Him long to teach them the great lesson of entire dependence upon Him, and Him alone. "He does not willingly afflict, nor grieve the children of men." (Lamentations 3:33)
But because men are slow to learn, the affliction and grief are often long drawn out. Job sat many days in sackcloth and ashes while God was teaching him the lesson of justifying Him rather than self, but when at last the time came for God to reveal himself, a single glimpse of Him caused Job to exclaim, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:6)
And no man, having the view of God that Job then had, could have said otherwise. It is only because men know not God and will not let Him reveal himself to them as He longs to do, that they continue to admire and trust in themselves.
No one who will let God teach him of himself as fully as God desires himself to be known, can fail of eternal life. "As You have given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him." (John 17:2)--Present Truth, September 20, 1894--Psalm 94:12-14.