DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"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.
We rejoice as we read the life of David because he seems to set us all
forth. David is to the Church of God what Shakespeare is to the world–
"A man so various, that he seems to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome," and yet David is totally distinct
from any of the other saints. There are not and could not be two
Davids! So you and I may travel in lines almost parallel and we may,
therefore, know each other's griefs and tenderly sympathize, but there
is a turning in my life which you have never reached and there is a
dark corner in your life which I have never seen. The skeleton in any
one person's house is of a different sort to that which haunts any
other dwelling. No one man is the exact replica of another.
In all this, Divine Sovereignty operates in connection with Divine love
and Divine wisdom, purifying all the sons of Levi, giving to each one
his own separate purification according as his need may be. "I have
refined you, but not with silver. I have chosen you." Mark–a distinct
personal word is used and is addressed to each separate saint. "I have
refined you, but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of
affliction."
Having thus sufficiently shown that distinguishing Grace is to be seen
even in the trials of the chosen, we will now turn to the subject of
this evening which is the sweet connection which exists between God's
election and the furnace. I have many things to say to you and,
therefore, I will say them as briefly as I can, asking you to jot them
down upon the tablets of your memory and enlarge upon them when you are
alone.
I. And first, 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. God did not choose His people in the
furnace in any sense in which it can be said that He never chose them
before they were there, for He chose them before the foundation of the
world! 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 of us was–where? Well, I venture to say it was in
the furnace!
Abraham knew little of God's love to Him till the voice said, "Get you
out of your country and from your kindred, and from your father's
house, unto a land that I will show you." This was a grievous trial for
him–the breaking up of family ties and associations was a furnace to
him–and then it was that he knew that God had chosen him, for the same
voice said, "And I will bless you and you shall be a blessing." 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 offering?" When he found out
that the burnt sacrifice was to be himself, it was there that he, like
his father, knew Jehovah-Jireh and learned the Covenant!
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. As he slept, even there at the mouth of the furnace–an exile
from his parents and his home–he began to understand that God had
highly favored him in His electing love. 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 brick making
and sorrow and grief and the iron bondage entered into their souls–it
was then, I say, that they 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.
The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied. The more they
were afflicted, the more God blessed them! They perceived that the hand
of God was in this and that He had met with them there in the furnace
of affliction. Yes, if you want the trysting place of the electing God
with the chosen soul, it is just there–at the back of the desert where
the bush burns with fire and yet is not consumed! Now may you take off
your shoes, for the place where you stand is holy ground, while out of
the bush there comes the voice–"I am the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac and the God of Jacob." God finds His people in the place of trial
and distress–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"? We will settle
this matter by personal experience. 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? You had prospered in the world for years and
you knew not God, but you were like the prodigal son, wasting your
substance in riotous living. By-and-by things went against you and you
became poor, sick and sorry. And then it was that you began to think of
the Father's house and resolved to fly to it. Then it was that electing
love began to deal with you! I admit that it was not so in all cases.
With some of us it was very different, but I make no kind of exception
to the rule, namely, that we first began to learn electing love when we
were in spiritual distress.
When that fine righteousness of ours turned out to be a spider's
cobweb; when that hope on which we had built so fondly began to rock
and reel beneath our feet; when we found ourselves on the borders of
death and at the gates of Hell–it was then that Free Grace and dying
love rang out most sweetly in our ears. We had often kicked against the
doctrine of Free Grace before, but now we clutched at it as a hungry
man at a piece of bread which before he had despised! We saw that it
was the only hope for us and we turned to it and, blessed be God, we
found salvation! Would our proud wills have ever bent before the
scepter of Sovereign Grace if they had not, first, been melted in the
furnace of soul-trouble?
Would we have ever known that the Lord kills and makes alive if we had
not, ourselves, been slain by the fire of His Word? Had He not
permitted us to lie like Nebuchadnezzar's guards, slain at the furnace
mouth, we would never have known the Truth of God! "It is not of him
that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy." While
we heard the thunder roll–"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy
and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion"–we bowed
our heads meekly, accepted the Grace which was in Christ Jesus and, at
the furnace mouth, for the first time in our lives, we understood this
text, "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction."
II. We will now pass on to a second remark which grows out of this. 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. If He loved us at our worst, when we were dead in sin, and
yet quickened us, much more, then, now that we are quickened and
forgiven, He will continue to love us!
Yet I have 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.
So let me declare plainly–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. You were a fine gentleman once–you had a large house and
grounds, but now you have to be satisfied with a small room and scant
fare. You were a fine well-built young fellow once–but now you are a
gray old man. Everybody bade you good morrow once–nobody knows you
now. Forsaken by flatterers and forgotten by friends, you might sit
down and weep were it not that the only Being worth caring for loves
you, now, as much as ever and selects this as a season for declaring
His love towards you!
Ah, your Lord did not love you for your coat, nor for your house, nor
for your health and beauty, for He "takes not pleasure in the legs of a
man." He loved you of old for reasons known only to His own sacred
heart and He loves you now the same as ever. O dear Soul, do not be at
all discouraged because you are going down the hill into deep
adversities, for His love will go with you! The Lord's love does not
rise and fall like the thermometer according to the temperature of the
surrounding air. Oh no, but it abides the same to His people whatever
their condition! The furnace very often alters our friendship. Our
friends knew us before we got into the furnace–we were so fresh and
fair they were glad to know us! But
we have come out of the furnace so wrinkled and scorched that they are
ready to run away from us! Like Job, we have to mourn that our familiar
acquaintances forget us.
Yes, but God does not thus change! He is not "a man that He should lie,
nor the son of man that He should repent." "I am God," says He, "I
change not." Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, and
His friendship never turns to hate or to forgetfulness. Blessed be His
name, He has known my soul in adversity and made the valley of Achor to
be a door of hope to me! And therefore I must and will speak well of
His name. Yes, and the furnace changes us very wonderfully. Do you
think some of you would know yourselves of 20 years ago if you were to
meet yourselves in the street? I hardly think you would. You have
undergone a marked change, have you not?
Aches and pains of body have altered you terribly. Your juvenile
elasticity of spirit has altogether vanished and your outward
appearance is very much the worse for wear. Ah, you have altered, but
your God has not! What a mercy it is that though eternal ages roll over
His Immutability, they cannot effect the shadow of a turning. He stands
fast like the great mountains, but we, like the clouds that melt upon
the mountain's brow, come and go, for we are and are not–the mists of
an hour! He is the same and of His years there is no end–and this is
our consolation while we sing with Moses, "Lord, You have been our
dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought
forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from
everlasting to everlasting, You are God."
I want you to believe very firmly in the permanence of the Divine
choice so that when you next enter the furnace you may have no doubt
about eternal faithfulness. When you lie sick by the weeks or by the
months together, or when you are driven away from home, or plunged in
poverty, or bereaved of friends, do not say in your heart, "God has
forgotten to be gracious. He has cast me away from His heart." It
cannot be, for the bonds of Divine love cannot be snapped! To prevent
its being supposable that the Lord casts away His people because they
are in adverse circumstances, the text says the very contrary–"I have
chosen you in the furnace of affliction."
III. So now we hasten onward to notice another Truth of God. Thirdly,
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," was true
of old as it is true now! It is the escutcheon of the Covenant.
If you think of our great Master's dying will and testament, what is
its prominent codicil? "In the world you shall have tribulation." You
may be quite sure that if you belong to Jesus, "in the world you shall
have tribulation." Do you want to erase that sentence from the will?
Then you must give up the whole deed of gift! You must give up the
sweet blessing as well as that which looks like a bitter warning! The
child of God must feel the smarting rod. Sooner or later, in some form
or other, the Lord sets His mark upon His people–and His mark is the
furnace mark! Some of you youngsters have not received it yet. You will
have it. Before you get to Heaven you are sure to have it. As the king
sets a broad arrow on all his stores, so does the King of kings set His
mark on all His people!
You must, I say, pass under the rod of the Covenant–it is the ensign
of God's love. Do you not see that thus He shows His love to His own?
You do not think of giving a flogging to a boy who is none of yours. A
stranger may do as he likes, but if it is your own boy who is caught in
mischief, you will not spare the rod. If you are a child of the devil,
you may go and sin as you please and may even prosper all the more in
worldly things. But if you are one of God's children, you will be
scourged as sure as you transgress! Has He not, Himself, said, "You
only have I known of all the nations of the earth, therefore I will
punish you for your iniquities"?
That the Lord refines us shows His value of us! A man does not build an
elaborate furnace and then cast into it odd stones and heaps of useless
slag. You would say, "What are you wasting all your fuel for?" And he
could not give you a rational answer. But if you see ingenious
contrivances, lavish use of fuel and the application of refining
apparatus. And the person who is using them says, "This is silver," or,
"this is gold," you know at once that the ore is worth the fuel and
will repay the labor and expense. So, dear Friends, if we are precious
in the sight of the Lord, He will bring us through the fire–rest
assured of that!
If He regards us as mere refuse, He may let us rest in quiet. But for
precious ore there are many torturing processes in store! A man does
not take his knife and go through the wood and prune all the dog roses,
the blackberries and the haw
thorns–he does not care anything about them! But if he is a gardener,
see how he purges the vines and cuts the fruit trees! My gardener cut
my roses back so very much that I thought no flowers could ever come,
but when I saw the luxuriant roses, I acknowledged that he and his
knife knew more than I! Good roses must be cut back! And God's saints
must be afflicted! God's people will pay for pruning, but wild vines
will not. So it is a type and mark of the love which God has for them
that He chooses them in the furnace of affliction.
And it is a mark, in another way, that when God afflicts His children,
it shows that He is not going to let them have their portion in this
life. It was a deed characteristic of Martin Luther when a great man
called to see him and, having spent some few hours with him, gave him,
I think, a hundred crowns. Martin said, "I must get rid of this. I will
not have my portion in this life–I must give this to the poor at
once!" He used to talk in this fashion–"God gives His dogs plenty. See
how rich the Pope and the Grand Turk are–they can have any quantity of
gold and silver–but I am not His dog and I am not going to be fed so.
He is not going to put me off with gold and silver. I am looking for my
heritage in the world to come!"
Now, my Brothers and Sisters, the Lord does not try many of you in that
manner. He keeps you on short commons, embitters your bread and mingles
wormwood with your cup. Why is this? Why, because you are not to have
your portion here! You once half thought you might have two heavens,
but you were deceived. The other day you began feathering your nest,
but a sharp thorn has been put into it of late. You are one of the
Lord's birds and He wants you to be much on the wing and little in the
nest–therefore does He make it uneasy for you. This is not your
rest–make it as comfortable as you may–this world is not your rest!
Though godliness has the promise of the life that now is, yet this is
not our rest and woe unto us if we try to make it so! All the trees in
this forest are marked with the axe and they are all to come down! You
may build up there, Sir Crow, as fine a nest as you desire, but it must
come down! Build your nests, my Brothers and Sisters, on the
everlasting rocks where God's eagles make their nests–high above the
reach of time and change, in the eternal purpose and everlasting love
of God–for your portion is not for the present, neither can you be
satisfied with the world, try as you will!
Enough upon this point–it is plain that the furnace is one of the
ensigns of the election of Grace.
IV. Fourthly, THE FURNACE IS THE WORKSHOP OF ELECTING LOVE. What are we
elected to, if God has chosen us? Why, He 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! We are chosen to be made the children of God;
chosen to be made like Christ. Well, now, in the hands of God, the
blessed Spirit, the furnace often becomes very helpful to this end, for
it consumes much of our dross! Do you ask me what sort of dross does a
man lose in the furnace? I answer, affliction helps to remove many a
superfluity of naughtiness, but there is one which I will tell you of
at once and that is mushroom faith and wild-fire joy.
We have a great store of the fictitious and unreal, especially when we
begin. Then we are mighty big Christians and are likely to surpass all
that have gone before us! I do not know whether we have not reached the
higher life, but certainly we are quite near it, for we are very rich
and increased in goods and have need of nothing! It is wonderful what
fine saints we are until we are tried–and then our beauty consumes
away like a moth. The Lord puts us into the furnace three or four days
and we wonder where one-half of us has gone! He keeps us there another
week or two and we shrivel in a most satisfactory manner.
What have we lost? Any Divine Grace? No, Brothers and Sisters, no man
ever lost any Grace in the furnace! What have we lost? Well, we have
lost what we thought was Grace–we have lost spiritual gas. We have
parted with vast accumulations of self-conceit, self-confidence and
self-esteem–and instead of glorying in ourselves, we begin to cry for
mercy out of the very dust! I have known a child of God so big that he
could hardly get inside the door of any ordinary Meeting House and by
the time that the Lord had given him a twist or two, he was glad enough
to creep into a mouse hole, so long as he might be somewhere near the
people of God!
Sanctified affliction is a wonderfully diminishing process, but that is
the way we grow–we grow by becoming less and less in our own esteem!
The Lord uses the furnace on purpose to this end–to take away
fictitious Grace! Some of our young friends all of a sudden descend
into the pit of despair and we are very grieved for them–but it is the
best thing that can happen to them–for when they find their feet,
again, they will have learned how to walk in a much more careful and
godly manner than they did before! So you see that electing love uses
the furnace to consume our dross.
The Lord uses the furnace to also prepare the soul for a more complete
fashioning. The metal must be melted before it can be poured into the
mold and affliction is used by the Holy Spirit to melt the heart, to
make it tender and pliable and to fit it to receive the fashion and
take the shape of the sacred mold into which heavenly wisdom delivers
it. Besides, affliction has much to do in loosening a Christian from
this world–and this is a great and necessary part of his education,
seeing that he is not to be here long–and yet is as apt to cling to
earth as if he would dwell here eternally! He is soon to be up and away
to his estates on the hilltops, yet he clings to this poor earth and
would hug it yet more if it were not that the Lord makes it bitter to
him!
One said of old, "My soul is even as a weaned child." A great many
might far more truly say, "My soul is even as a weaning child–very
fretty and very willful–but not at all ready to give up its childish
delights." A blessed thing it is when there has been enough furnace
work to make a man say, "I have done with the world. Now all my
thoughts rise towards the world to come, for there my treasure, by
God's Grace, is laid up."
My time flies so rapidly that I cannot stop long on any one branch of
this very fruitful topic. There is no doubt that electing love does use
the furnace as its workshop and that there the vessels of mercy are
made to receive many a line of beauty and marks of Divine Grace.
V. But now, fifthly, THE FURNACE IS A GREAT SCHOOL IN WHICH WE LEARN OF
ELECTION ITSELF.
First, 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–the little Hell, the perfect Sodom which reeks within his
nature–he begins to say, "How can the Lord ever love me? If He has
loved me, His affection must be traced to Grace, Free Grace, Sovereign
Grace, Divine Grace and nothing but Grace." Now that is a great thing
to learn!
Then, too, we learn the holiness of election, for while we lie
suffering, a voice says, "God will not spare you because there is still
sin in you. He will cleanse you from every false way." Then we learn
what a holy thing God's election is! Then we learn how clean they must
be who are to stand in His Presence. Then we see how He would have His
favorites loathe every sin! Then we learn how God sees it better that
His children should always smart than that they should sometimes sin!
He will sooner make them bleed at every pore than He will allow their
hearts to go after their idols. What a holy thing election is when it
involves rebukes and chastisements in order to our perfecting!
Then, too, in the furnace 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. How tenderly He presses them to His bosom in
their hour of grief! The mother always loves her child, but let that
child be ill, let it pine away, let it become weaker and weaker and you
will see the mother's heart! She loves that child better than the
others because it needs more love! And when the Lord allows His dear
children to grow poor, or to become distressed in mind or in body, then
He lets out His heart to them–then will He show them His love in such
choice and delicate ways as perhaps they never knew before. It is at
such times that God's people know the power of electing love!
"Ah," cries the instructed Believer, "I can now see how the decrees of
God preserve my soul! I am in the furnace and if He had not kept me,
the vehement heat would long ago have utterly consumed me." If you want
to see what the power of God can do for a Believer you must stand where
Nebuchadnezzar stood and look into the red mouth of the furnace! Those
who threw in the holy children perished by reason of the vehemence of
the flames so that there was no fancy about the fire–it was a real and
killing flame! Look steadily in–your eyes can bear the gaze. You see
three men walking. They were cast in bound, but they are walking loose!
Three, did I say? There are four! There is a mystic Stranger with
them–One who wears a crown brighter than all the crowns of earth–but
who is He? "The fourth is like unto the Son of God." Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego had never seen the Son of God so near them as when they
trod the glowing coals! Is it not written, "I have chosen you in the
furnace of affliction"? When you go through the fire you shall not be
burned. The Lord's choice of you shall be shown by His bearing you
company! Yes, Beloved, and it is at such times that the sweetness of
God's electing love comes home to the Christian heart, for he joys and
rejoices in his tribulation while he is conscious of the love of God! I
would not change my estate–no, not in the furnace–with the bravest
worldling that lives! When everything else is gone, if electing love
remains, I am rich to all the intents of bliss! Let me be sure of
almighty love and all the rest is not worth a thought!
So, Beloved, you learn election in the furnace and, though I do not
desire any Believer the slightest harm, but wish him every blessing,
yet as to some of my Christian Brothers and Sisters who never go very
far into the deep things of God
and are very cloudy about the Doctrines of Grace and cannot, indeed,
say, "Grace," without somehow stuttering, "free will," I would to God
that they had a little touch of the furnace for their eternal good! A
scorch or two might do them good and they might, perhaps, be better
able to speak to the praise of the glory of that infinite eternal Grace
which chose the saints of old and will not cast them away!
VI. Now, lastly, 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 12 there were
three–you know their names and out of the three there was one, elect
out 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 Divine Grace and the wider
ranges of usefulness. First 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 black letters 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.
When we have been in heaviness, ourselves, we are able to talk
experimentally to the tried children of God. When the Lord means to
train any of His servants for eminent usefulness in the building up of
His people, He passes him through the fire–edification comes of
tribulation. 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. Men who
have stood in the front of the armies of God have been trained by
adversity. Martin Luther–grand, brave man–have you ever read his
private biography? He was a man so tempted, so tried and so frequently
the victim of depression of spirits and dire despondency that he was
often ready to die in despair!
There were times when he did not know whether he had any part or lot in
the glad tidings which he loved so well. Though he went on thundering
out the Gospel for other people, he sometimes could get no comfort
himself. Those awful conflicts of his with the devil were the means of
confirming his spirit in his public controversies! How could he be
afraid of the Pope when he had faced the devil, himself? He could not
fear to go to Worms because of the devils on the housetops of which he
spoke–for he had faced all the infernal legions in his own house and,
by God's Grace, had overcome them!
Look at Calvin, again, that mightiest master in Israel–clear, upright
and profound! He suffered daily under a list of diseases, any of which
would have made an 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 him a body full of anguish. Nor could England find a Wycliffe,
nor Scotland a Knox, nor Switzerland a Zwingli, except it were 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 often annealed. Well, as it is with the preachers and heroes, so
it will be with us if we would rise. I would have you greatly aspire in
holy things! Labor after a perfectly consecrated life! Renounce all
selfishness and live for the salvation of souls and the glory of God!
But remember that you will not reach it except by many a trial! Do you
aspire to be Christly? I trust you do. But you never will be like Jesus
if you never bear a cross! If your life is one of ease, can you be like
He who had no place to lay His head? If you never know self-denial, if
you never have reproach heaped upon you–if no man ever calls you
devil, or mad–if everything goes swimmingly with you, how can you know
fellowship with the Despised and Rejected of Men? God's true people are
opposed by the current of the times, even as their Master was!
Oh, yes, it will cost you many a sorrow, many a tear if you are to
follow your Master fully! But do not, therefore, hesitate. Do you want
to be heavenly? I know some that are already, in a measure, so. I could
indicate some members of this Church whose speech is savored with
eternity and glory–they cannot speak half-a-dozen sentences but their
speech betrays that they have been with Jesus! Mark well this
fact–they are tried people–they are mostly sick people of whom I
would dare to say that they are heavenly! We ought all to be so, but
oh, my Brothers and Sisters, we are very little what we should be till
we are put upon the anvil and the Lord uses the hammer upon us! If He
is doing that, now, with any of you and you have crosses to bear, do
not repine, but let the soft whisper of the text sustain you–"I have
chosen you in the furnace of affliction."
There are tokens of consumption about you, dear Sister–I see that
hectic flush, but do not dread the future, for the Lord says–"I have
chosen you in the furnace of affliction." You have struggled hard, my
Brother, to rise out of your situation, but as often as you have
strived, you have fallen back, again, with broken wings to your
somewhat hard lot. Do not be despondent, but abide in your calling with
contentment since the Lord has said–"I have chosen you in the furnace
of affliction." Young man, you have been to college and you were near
taking your degree, but your health is failing you and you will never
become a renowned scholar as you hoped. Do not distress yourself
because your part will be passive rather than active, for the Lord
says–"I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction."
Merchant, your firm is going to pieces–you will be poor–but have
faith in God. It is the Lord's will that you should go struggling
through the rest of your life, but He says–"I have chosen you in the
furnace of affliction." Mother, you have lost three or four little ones
and there is another sickening and you say, "I cannot bear it." Yes,
you will bear it, for the Lord says, "I have chosen you in the furnace
of affliction." And are you here, Hannah? Are you here, tonight, you
woman of a sorrowful spirit? Is your adversary bitter of spirit toward
you? Are there those about you that grieve you and make you fret? Weep
no more, for the Lord loves you when no one else does and He says, "I
have chosen you in the furnace of affliction"!
Some of you are like ferns. You never flourish except in the damp and
in the shade. Too much sunlight would not be good for you. Some plants
need a marsh and a fog to develop them and, perhaps, you are such.
Perhaps your Master knows that if He puts you where you would like to
be, it would be deadly to you and therefore He writes, "I have chosen
you in the furnace of affliction." Now, I take my leave of you all by a
morsel of personal experience. My Lord met me tonight and said, "I have
chosen you in the furnace of affliction," and I endeavored to reply to
Him, "My Lord, inasmuch as You do graciously condescend to say, 'I have
chosen you,' I leave the rest of the sentence entirely to Your will and
ask not whether it is in the furnace or out of it. Choose me and then
choose everything for me. If you choose the furnace, I would choose the
furnace, too."
Remember the good woman who, when they said to her, because she was
very ill, "Would you rather live or die?" replied, " I would rather
God's will were done"? "Oh," they said, "but if God would let it be
just as you wish, which should it be?" She replied, "If the Lord were
to leave it to my will, I would beg Him to be so good as to let it be
His will and not mine." O, Beloved, pray, "Not as I will." Grief is
almost ended when self is slain! Sorrow well near ceases to be sorrow
when you take the sting of self out of it! The Lord be with you, for
Christ's sake. Amen.