October 4, 2019 – Job 37:10 KJV

By the breath of God frost is given.
—Job 37:10 KJV

The leaves are down.2 The warmth has gone out of the air. The birds have winged southward. The landscape has been scarred by the autumnal equinox. Another element now comes to bless and adorn and instruct the world. It is the frost. The palaces of this king are far up in the Arctic, glittering winter palaces of ice, [and] from those hard, white, portals King Frost descends and waves his silvery scepter over our temperate zone. You already feel his breath in the night wind. By most considered an enemy, the frost is a friend, charged with lessons potent and tremendous.
There are passages of Scripture that once were enigmas and impossible for you to understand, but the frosts of trouble after awhile exposed the full meaning to your soul. You said, “I do not see why David keeps rolling over in his psalms the story of how he was pursued and persecuted.” He describes himself as surrounded by bees. You think, What an exaggeration for him to exclaim, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord” (Ps. 130:1). There is so much lamentation in his writings you think he overdoes it. But after awhile the frost comes upon you in the shape of persecution, and you are pierced with censure, wounded with defamation, and stung with lies in swarms [that] are buzzing about your ears, and at last you understand what David meant.
For a long while a disproportionate amount of the Bible seemed given to consolation. Why page after page and chapter after chapter taken up with comforts [and] consolations? The Book seems like an apothecary, one-half of the shelves occupied with soothing salves. But after a while, bankruptcy, sickness, and bereavement. Now the consolatory parts of the Bible do not seem disproportionate. You want something off almost all the shelves of that sacred dispensary. What has uncovered to you the usefulness of so much of the Bible that was hidden before? The frosts have been fulfilling their mission.
Thank God for frosts. What helped make Milton the greatest of poets? The frost of blindness. What helped make Washington the greatest of generals? The frost of Valley Forge. Special trials fit for special work.
Without complaint, take the hard knocks. It will not take long for God to make up to you in the next world for all you have suffered in this. Trouble comes for beneficial purpose, and on the coldest nights the aurora is brightest in the northern heavens.
—T. DeWitt Talmage