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The searching, burning, purifying
fires of Christ's furnace!
(Winslow,
"Daily Need Divinely Supplied" 1870)
"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver;
He will purify the Levites and refine them like
gold and silver. " Malachi 3:3
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 imperatively demand the searching, burning,
purifying fires of Christ's furnace!
Jesus is the Refiner and Purifier of His Church.
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.
My soul! your Refiner and Purifier is Jesus!
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 the ore 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,
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 polished stones; and
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!
Be still, humble, submissive.
The knife is in a Father's hand!
The flame is under a Savior's control!
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