Posted on 04/17/2021 12:08:23 AM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts” (Proverbs 17:3 KJV).
Websters 1828 defines “fining” as “Clarifying, refining, purifying.”
Men refine precious elements through a furnace of fire, while God refines men through various tools at His disposal.
He refines man through the Word of God: “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3 KJV). “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:25-26 KJV). The daily reading of God’s Word amounts to a spiritual cleansing.
A man told his son to carry a bucket to the river, fill it up, and bring it back to him. The boy did this, but by the time he returned to his father the bucket was empty. The bucket had a leak in it. The father said, “fill it again.” After a few times of this the exasperated son asked his dad, “The bucket has a hole in it! Why do you want me to keep filling it up?” His dad told him, “Son, I need a clean bucket, and that bucket is a picture of our Christian life. We too have a leak where God’s blessings and cleanness spill out as we are buffeted by the world, so we need to constantly have God’s spirit fill us with His presence to keep us clean.”
God refines man through chastening: “Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10 KJV). Israel was too stubborn than to learn in any other ways. “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12:11 KJV). New Testament Bible-believers are too stubborn than to learn in any other way.
God refines man through testing: “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:5-7 KJV). “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience” (James 1:2-3 KJV).
God refines man through the indwelling Holy Spirit: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Corinthians 3:18 KJV).
Jesus Christ spoke of His future church and predicted much of what we see today, even God’s refining, or purifying, of the church during the Christian dispensation: “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: 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” (Malachi 3:2-3 KJV).
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