Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1430
“Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.” Isaiah 48:10.
THE Lord refines His people, but He exercises great discrimination as to the means by which He does so. A silver furnace is one of the very best for the removal of dross and would seem to be well adapted for refining the most precious things, but it is not choice enough for the Lord’s purpose with His people. It is prepared with extreme care and has great separating power, but the purging away of sin needs greater care and more cleansing energy than a silver refinery can supply. The greatest delicacy of skill is exhibited by the refiner who watches over the process and regulates the degree of heat and the length of time in which the precious metal shall lie in the crucible—this, then, might well serve as a figure of the best mode of sanctification—but evidently the figure falls short in its delicacy.
The process of silver refining is, no doubt, one of the best arranged and most ably conducted of the works of man, but when the Lord sits as a Refiner, He executes His work with greater wisdom and art. Silver refining is but rough work compared with the Lord’s purification of His people and, therefore, He says, “I have refined you, but not with silver.” The Lord has a furnace of His own, as it is written, “His furnace is in Jerusalem,” and in this special furnace He purifies His people by secret processes unknown to any but Himself. He has a fire of His own kindling in Zion, compared with which all other flame is strange fire and only in this peculiar fire will He, in His own singular fashion, consume His people’s dross and sin.
His saints are more precious than silver or gold and, therefore, while in one place it is written, “You have tried us as silver is tried,” yet in another He declares that He has gone about it after a more Divine sort and has refined us, “but not with silver.” No one would think of refining silver by the same rough means as they smelt iron, so neither will the Lord purify His precious ones, who are far above silver in value, by any but the choicest methods. More subtle and yet more searching, more spiritual and yet more true, more gentle and yet more effectual are the purifying processes of Heaven! There is no refiner like our Refiner and no purity like that which the Spirit works in us!
Note, then, that distinguishing and discriminating Grace finds room to exercise itself even in the trials of the elect— “I have chosen you in the furnace, yet not in the best furnace that man could make, but in a furnace of My own, which I reserve for My peculiar treasures.” There is distinguishing Grace in all the trials of God’s people. Every man in the world has a measure of trial for, “we are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,” but there is a distinction between the sorrows of the wicked and the trials of the righteous—a very grave distinction between the punishments of the ungodly and the chastisements of them that fear God! There is a furnace for each metal, but the more precious the ore, the more special the refining.
There is a furnace for all men—for kings upon their thrones—to whom sickness and bereavement come as freely as to the poor! There is a furnace for the rich in the midst of their wealth—from whom their substance departs or their power to enjoy what they have heaped together! But there is a special fire, a reserved furnace into which neither the great ones of the earth nor the wealthy ones shall ever be placed. It is kept for more precious material than the unregenerate children of men! God’s furnace in Zion is especially meant for His own people. Of each of these right royal jewels He says, “I have refined you, not with the precious things of earth—the kings and princes, the silver ones among mortals—but I have refined you in a different manner and thus I make My election to be visible, even in connection with the furnace in which I refine My treasures.”
I will push the thought a little farther, dear Friends, and remark that the Lord has special dealings with each one of His saints and refines each one by a process peculiar to the individual. He does not heap all His precious metals into one furnace of silver, but refines each metal by itself. You do not know my trials—I am glad you do not—and neither do I know yours, nor do I wish to bear that which you may have to suffer. There is a common sympathy, for we all go into the
furnace—but there is a distinction in the case of each one, for to each one the furnace differs. Some tender hearts would be utterly crushed if they were afflicted as others are. Does not even the farmer teach us this? He does not beat out the tender cumin and fitches with the cartwheel which he turns upon the heavier grain. No, he has different modes of operating upon the different kinds of seeds.
They must all be thrashed, but not all thrashed in the same way. You, Brother, may be as a sheaf of the best corn. Be grateful! But remember you shall feel the sharp thrashing instrument having teeth. And you, my Brother, may be one of the tender seeds, the minor seeds of the Master’s granary. Be grateful, for you shall feel a lighter flail than some others. But do not compliment yourself upon it, for you might regret that gentler flail because it proves that you are of lighter stuff, although still true grain, of the Master’s sowing. Beloved, I would venture to go so far as to say that the lines have not fallen to any two men in precisely the same places.