“And I will give thee the treasures of darkness.” (Isa. 45:3)
When God made this promise to Cyrus, He was speaking of material treasures from lands of darkness that Cyrus would conquer. But we are not doing violence to the verse when we take it and apply it in a spiritual sense.
There are treasures that are discovered in the dark nights of life that are never found in days of unrelieved sunshine.
For instance, God can give songs in the darkest night (Job 35:10) that would never have been sung if life were completely devoid of trials. That is why the poet wrote:
And many a rapturous minstrel among those sons of light
Will say of his sweetest music, “I learned it in the night;”
And many a rolling anthem that fills the Father’s home
Sobbed out its first rehearsal in the shade of a darkened room.
There is the darkness of what J. Stuart Holden calls “life’s inexplicable mysteries—the calamities, the catastrophes, the sudden and unexpected experiences which have come into life, and which all our forethought has not been sufficient to ward off; and life is dark because of them—sorrow, loss, disappointment, injustice, misconception of motive, slander.” These are often the things that make life dark.
Humanly speaking, none of us would choose this darkness, and yet its benefits are incalculable. Leslie Weatherhead wrote, “Like all men, I love and prefer the sunny uplands of experience, when health, happiness and success abound, but I have learned far more about God and life and myself in the darkness of fear and failure than I have ever learned in the sunshine. There are such things as the treasures of darkness. The darkness, thank God, passes. But what one learns in the darkness, one possesses for ever.”
Be the first to react on this!
His more than over eighty-four works published in North America are characterized by a clarity and economy of words that only comes by a major time investment in the Word of God.
MacDonald graduated with an AB degree from Tufts College (now University) in 1938 and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 1940. During the 1940's he was on active duty in the US Navy for five years.
He was President of Emmaus Bible College, a teacher, preacher, and Plymouth Brethren theologian alongside his ministry as a writer. He was a close friend and worker with O.J. Gibson.
MacDonald last resided in California where he was involved in his writing and preaching ministry. He went to be with the Lord in 2007.