The Refiners fire

 

 

I’m not sure who originally wrote this story, but this story is definitely one of my favorites. I felt fitting to put it into my sermon “A promise of persecution.”

Mal 3:1-3

3 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.

² But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:

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.

A young man went to a silversmith who refined silver and gold from raw materials and found him sitting in front of his fire. “Why do you heat the metal?” he asked?

The Refiner answered, “In order to make precious silver I have to remove all the impurities that make it worth less than it really is.” The young man thought about his own life and how one time of fiery suffering or another was required to remove some of the ‘junk’ in his own life.

“Why do you sit while you work?” inquired the visitor?

The Refiner replied, “I have to watch the fire closely. Too little heat and the impurities will not be removed; too much heat and the precious metal will be destroyed and made worthless.” The young man reflected how his life of comfort had brought a sense of complacency that led him to abandon his dreams, settling instead for a humdrum life. But he had also come through painful fiery times with character and strength that he would not have found elsewhere.

Then the young man asked The Refiner, “How do you know when the silver is at the right temperature?”

The Refiner smiled and answered, “I know the purifying is complete when I can see my reflection in the silver.” The young man marveled at the answer thinking, “That is true in my life. My own fiery trials were only complete when My Refiner’s image could be seen in me.”