the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 2
Psalms 105:18—He was laid in chains of iron. (R.V.)
The margin of the R.V. suggests another rendering: "His soul entered into the iron." May we not yet again turn the sentence round, and say that the iron entered into his soul? When we first meet him, Joseph is a tender, yielding lad, with dreams of rule, but no conspicuous power. Yet he emerges from his captivity well qualified to take the helm of Egypt, just then sore driven and tossed by tempest. How can this striking transformation be accounted for, save that he had taken iron into his moral nature through his painful experiences?
The physician often prescribes an iron tonic for anemic patients: and what iron is to the outer man that also the captivity of circumstances, deferred hope, and anguish of soul are to the inner. You have been fickle and uncertain of late; dreaming of power, but powerless; yearning for the only good, but greedy of trifles; you must have a course of iron. God wants Iron Dukes, and Iron souls. And there is a process also by which He can turn Iron to Steel. It means high temperature, sudden transitions, and blasts of heavenly air.
"If call’d, like Abraham’s child, to climb
The hill of sacrifice,
Some angel may be there in time—
Deliverance shall arise!
"Or if some darker lot be good,
Oh, teach us to endure
The sorrow, pain, or solitude
That make the spirit pure!"
Life is very mysterious. Indeed, it would be inexplicable unless we believed that God was preparing us for scenes and ministries that lie beyond the vail of sense in the eternal world, where highly-tempered spirits will be required for special service.
