Tested by Fire

 

Two homes burned this week in our city and news footage showed terrible destruction. My thoughts of fire are usually negative. However, today’s reading is a reminder that God uses it to describe His great love. I was accepted and died for — even while a sinner, but He loves me too much to leave me in that condition. He will not permit evil to linger undiscovered and uncured in me and allows trials like fire to refine my life.

As the reading says, this is not severity but mercy and character building. I am to be a friend of God throughout all eternity, far grander than even redemption and it requires a deep harmony with His will. It is an unspeakable boon that He loves me enough to do whatever is necessary to make me fit for companionship with Himself. To this He says:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:6–11)

Part of the purpose for trials also affects this life. He wants to equip me to know and do His will while I’m here on earth:

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20–21)

He also wants to protect me from lies, so He continually intercedes for me as He did for Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31–32)

He is gracious to explain His purpose for trials. I am saved, promised eternal life, and can rejoice in it, even though… “Now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:3–7)

The fire thing is described in the OT:

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. (Isaiah 48:10–11)

For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. (Psalm 66:10–12)

The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts. (Proverbs 17:3)

Even Job understood trials, experiencing far more than I ever will yet his reaction was twofold:

But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food. But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back? What he desires, that he does. For he will complete what he appoints for me, and many such things are in his mind. Therefore I am terrified at his presence; when I consider, I am in dread of him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me… (Job 23:10–16)

PRAY: Jesus, I sometimes dread Your power, yet like Job can also trust Your refining plan. You use fire, but Your heart is for me, not to destroy me but my sinfulness, and draw me deeper and closer to Your heart. Enable me to focus on the image of refined gold, not on the fire that enables its purity.

In the Fire?

In Bible times, refining metals required high heat to bring the impurities to the surface where they were skimmed off, if the heat had not already burned them off. This process is used as an analogy to the testing and purifying of God’s people.

The Hebrew word means “to be treated or prepared so as to remove impurities or put in a usable condition.” That idea is repeated in the NT, but also clarified because God’s tests may seem like temptations to do wrong but James 1:13–17 says this is not so:

“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

God wants the good stuff, the righteous of Christ to come out in my life, particularly when the going gets tough. When trials test me, I’m not to revert to my own way, which is fleshy, sinful and without eternal value. Tests are to bring out the goodness that God has put in as well as purify my life. Refined metals were pure when the refiner could see his reflection on their surface!

God is the REFINER. The process is not usually comfortable. The OT story of Abraham’s loyalty test is a prime example. He was asked to sacrifice his only son. Also, Deuteronomy 8 suggests that the wilderness test of deprivation was to purity the dependence of the people. God was not just their source of food; they were to be loyal to Him, relying on Him for everything else.

Throughout their history, they were constantly put to the test. Sadly, many failures happened yet those failures revealed the power of sin and the need for a Savior. They had to learn that, “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.” Their lessons came as Isaiah 1:25 describes: “I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy” and that God was doing the testing “in the furnace of affliction for my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.”

His refining work was not confined only to the disobedient. Daniel’s words, although in a different context, describe the way God works. In Daniel 11 He says, “And the wise among the people shall make many understand, though for some days they shall stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder. When they stumble, they shall receive a little help. And many shall join themselves to them with flattery, and some of the wise shall stumble, so that they may be refined, purified, and made white, until the time of the end . . . .”

The NT backs this up in John 15 with a different metaphor: “Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

Zechariah 13:7–9 also points to the purpose of God’s refining work: “ . . .  In the whole land, declares the Lord, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive. And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY: Bottom line is Proverbs 17:3. “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts.” He tests to ascertain my heart, to reveal imperfections and to bring out the righteousness of His Son. This week, I’m in that furnace with many decisions to make and no strong indication which are in the will of God or how to respond to them.

When the NT tells me to “know the will of God and approve” it (Romans 2:18) God is asking me to test just as He tests or discerns. What pleases Him, not what my old nature wants, or what the pressures of peers and this world want, nor anything the enemy wants? I’m to “test the spirits to see if they are of God.” and “test everything” else. I must remember these words from my Refiner:

1 Thessalonians 5:19–24. “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”