Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.
The Lord has special dealings with each one of His saints, and refines each one by a process peculiar to the individual, not heaping all His precious metals into one furnace of silver, but refining each metal by itself. "I have refined thee." "I have chosen thee." Not "you," but "thee." I. Between God's election and the furnace there is this connection — that THE FURNACE WAS THE FIRST TRYSTING-PLACE BETWEEN ELECTING LOVE AND OUR SOULS. Before one solitary star had begun to peer through the darkness the Lord had given over His people unto Christ to be His heritage, and their names were in His book; but the first manifestation of His electing love to any one of us was — where? I venture to say it was in the furnace. Abraham knew little of God's love to him till the voice said, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee." I do not think that Isaac knew much about God's choice of him till he went up the mountain's side, and said to his father, "Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offerings." So was it with Jacob. Little did he understand the mystery of electing love till he lay down one night with the stones for his pillow, the hedges for his curtains, the skies for his canopy, and no attendant but his God. Certainly, Israel as a nation did not understand God's election till the people were in Egypt; and then, when Goshen, the land of plenty, became a land of brickmaking and sorrow and grief, and the iron bondage entered into their souls, their cried unto God, and began to understand that secret word — "I have called My son out of Egypt." They knew then that God had put a difference between Israel and Egypt. God finds His people in the place of trial, and there He reveals Himself in His special character as their God. Did He not say to Moses, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry?" When did you first know anything about God's choice of you? Was it not when you were in trouble — in many cases in temporal trouble? I make no kind of exception to another rule, namely, that we first began to learn electing love when we were in spiritual distress. II. It is very clear that THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION DOES NOT CHANGE THE ELECTION OF GOD. If He chose us in it, then His choice stands good while we are in it and when we are out of it. If the very first knowledge we had of His electing love found us at the gates of despair, we can never be worse than we were then, nor can His love see less to rest upon. Yet have I known a great many fears cross the mind of God's anxious people when the smoke of the furnace has brought tears into their eyes. No amount of trouble, no degree of pain, no possibility of grief can change the mind of God towards His people. The furnace may alter the believer's circumstances, but not his acceptance with God. The furnace very often alters our friends. And the furnace changes us very wonderfully. Believe very firmly in the fixity of the Divine choice. III. THE FURNACE IS THE VERY ENSIGN OF ELECTION. The escutcheon — the coat of arms — of election is the furnace. You know that it was so in the old covenant which God made with Abraham. He gave him a type when the victim was divided. When a deep sleep fell upon the patriarch there passed before him a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, two signs that always mark the people of God. There is a lamp to light them, but there is also a smoking furnace to try them. "No cross, no crown." If you think of our great Master's dying will and testament, what is its prominent codicil? "In the world ye shall have tribulation." That the Lord refines us shows His value of us. IV. THE FURNACE IS THE WORKSHOP OF ELECTING LOVE. God has chosen us unto holiness. There is no man in this world chosen to go to heaven apart from being made fit to go there. Electing love uses the furnace to consume our dross. The Lord uses the furnace also to prepare the soul for a more complete fashioning. The metal must be melted before it can be poured into the mould, and affliction is used by the Holy Ghost to melt the heart and to fit it to receive the fashion and take the shape of the sacred mould into which heavenly wisdom delivers it. Besides, affliction has much to do in loosening a Christian from this world. V. THE FURMACE IS A GREAT SCHOOL WHEREIN WE LEARN ELECTION ITSELF. 1. In the furnace we learn the graciousness of election. When a child of God in the time of trouble sees the corruption of his heart he begins to say, "How can the Lord ever love me? If He has loved me, His affection must be traced to free sovereign grace." 2. There, too, we learn the holiness of election, for while we lie suffering, a voice says, "God will not spare thee, because there is still sin in thee: He will cleanse thee from every false way." 3. Then, too, we see what a loving thing election is, for never is God so loving to His people consciously as when they are in the flames of trouble. 4. It is at such times that God's people know the power of electing love. 5. And it is at such times that the sweetness of God's electing love comes home to the Christian heart, for he rejoices in his tribulation while he is conscious of the love of God. VI. BY THE FURNACE SOME OF THE HIGHER ENDS OF A YET MORE SPECIAL ELECTION ARE OFTEN REVEALED, for there is not only an election of grace, but there is an election from among the elect to the highest position and to the noblest service. Jesus Christ had many choice disciples, but it is written, "I have chosen you twelve." Out of the twelve there were three; and out of the three there was one, elect of the elect — that loving, tender John, who leaned upon his Master's bosom. The furnace has much to do with this, as a rule, since it usually attends and promotes the higher states of grace, and the wider ranges of usefulness. 1. With the preacher this truth is seen; affliction makes him eminent. I do not think that the preacher will long feed God's saints if he does not read in that volume which Luther said was one of the three best books in his library, namely, affliction. That book is printed in the black letter, but it has some wonderful illuminations in it, and he who would teach the people must often weep over its chapters. Men never bake bread so well as when the oven is well heated, nor do we prepare sermons so well as when the fire burns around us. 2. So is it with the Christian hero, he could never lead the host if he had not been chastened of the Lord in secret places.Calvin, that mightiest master in Israel, clear, upright, and profound, suffered daily under a list of diseases, any one of which would have made a constant invalid of a less courageous man; and, although always early in the morning at the cathedral delivering his famous expositions which have enriched the Church of God, yet he always bore about with him a body full of anguish. Nor could England find a Wycliffe, nor Scotland a Knox, nor Switzerland a Zwingle, except it be where the refiner sits at the furnace door. It must be so. No sword is fit for our Lord's handling till it has been full oft annealed. So it will be with us if we would rise.
( C. H. Spurgeon.)
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