The Searching, Burning, Purifying Fires Of Christ's Furnace!

Mal 3:3  And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

Zec 13:9  And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.

O my soul, what deep need is there for this refining and purifying of your Lord . 

What inward corruption, what carnality, what worldliness, what self-seeking, what creature idolatry, what God dishonoring unbelief!
 

All these imperatively demand the searching, burning, purifying fires of Christ's furnace!

My soul...your Refiner and Purifier is Jesus!

It is a consolatory thought that our refining is in the hands of Jesus-in the hands that were pierced for us on the cross!

Jesus shapes all your trials!

Jesus sends all your afflictions!

Jesus mixes all your sorrows!

Jesus shapes and balances all the clouds of your pilgrimage!

Jesus prepares and heats the furnace that refines you as silver and purifies you as gold!

Then, O my soul, tremble not at the knife that wounds you, at the flame that scorches you, at the cloud that shades you, at the billows that surge above you.
 

Jesus is in it all...and you are as safe as though you had reached the blissful climate-where the vine needs no pruning, and where the ore needs no purifying, where the sky is never darkened, and upon whose golden sands where no storms of adversity ever blow, or waves of sorrow ever break.

Mark the Refiner's position. "He will SIT as a refiner and purifier of silver."

It would be fatal to his purpose, if the human refiner were to leave his post while the liquid mass was seething in the cauldron.

But there he patiently sits, watching and tempering the flame, and removing the refuse and the dross as it floats upon the surface of the molten ore.

Just so, Christ sits as a Refiner and with an eye that never slumbers, and with a patience that never wearies, and with a love that never chills, and with a faithfulness that never falters, He watches and controls the process that purifies our hearts, burnishes our graces, sanctifies our nature, and impresses more vividly His own image of loveliness upon our soul.

If He places you in the fire, He will bring you through the fire, "that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

But sweet and soothing is the truth that the believer is not alone in the fire!

The Refiner is with us, as with the three Hebrew children passing through the king's burning furnace.

The Lord will have us be polished stones.

As some believers are more rusty and some more alloyed than others...they need a rougher file, and a hotter furnace!

This may account for the great severity of trial through which some of the Lord's precious jewels are called to pass. Not less dear to His heart, are they for this refining.

Look up, my soul, to your Refiner!

The knife is in a Father's hand!

The flame is under a Savior's control!

Be still, be humble, be submissive. 

Mic 6:9  The LORD'S voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.

Psa 39:9  I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.

~Octavius Winslow~