The Sitting of the Refiner

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"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 3:3.

THIS is spoken of as one of the results of the coming of the Lord–He
would test and try all things, destroy the false and the evil and make
those pure whom He permitted to remain. Behold, the Promised One has
come! He whom Israel sought suddenly appeared in His Temple as the
Messenger of the Covenant. Glad were the eyes of Simeon, Anna and all
those who waited for Him–and glad, this day, are our voices as we
proclaim that the Messiah has appeared! The glorious Son of God, the
Anointed of the Most High has been among men and faithful witnesses
have testified concerning Him, "We beheld His glory, the glory as of
the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and truth."

That coming, heralded by songs of angels and prophetic of countless
blessings, should have been a day of unmingled light to men, but
because of hypocrisy, pride and self, it was not so. On the contrary,
it was to many a day of darkness and not of light. We have abundant
historical evidence that our Lord's first Advent was a day of great
trial to the Jewish people and when we remember the siege of Jerusalem
and kindred events, we do not marvel that the Prophet asked, "But who
may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap."

His ministry tried the religion, the orthodoxy and the saintship of the
period–and because it revealed the hollow-ness of the whole of the
profession of the day–it awakened all the enmity of the religious
classes. Those who were the leaders of the so-called religious thought
of the age were awakened to hate the Lord Jesus and to take a delight
in nailing Him to the Cross, for His teaching was so true and good that
their word-chopping and ceremony-making could not endure it! Our Lord,
when He came, sat as a refiner and assayed the age then present–and
ever since then His Gospel in the world, His Spirit, His teaching, yes,
the very fact of His life–these all together have been a test, a
trial, a sort of standard of weights and measures among men.

All things are on trial. You are constantly hearing of this time and
that time as being "crises" and the saying is true. There is always a
crisis of something or other during these days of the Lord's sitting as
a refiner. All things are being thrust into the furnace and the fire is
kept burning at a white heat–and nothing evil can abide the flame.
Everything that is good shall be conserved, purified, made
brilliant–but all that is evil, be it what it may, the whole world
over– since Christ has come, shall be tried and dissolved as by fire.
When our Lord comes the second time, the trial will be still more
intense. "Who shall abide the day of His coming" when He shall still
further be revealed and when His purpose shall be that of judgment
rather than of mercy?

It is well for us to know that whenever Jesus Christ draws near to a
soul He comes in utmost mercy to make it clean. Because He is, in
Himself, the Incarnation of ineffable Love, His coming always means
that He is about to purify the soul, for the highest mercy is to rid us
of sin. The grandest thing that God, Himself, can do in the purpose of
His love is to purify us into His own glorious holiness! Christ loved
His Church and this is how He showed it–"He gave Himself for it, that
He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or
wrinkle, or any such thing."

The Well-Beloved seeks to purify His chosen by the washing of water
through the Word of God. It is the way His love takes, for true love
does always choose the way of holiness. That love which would lead its
beloved into sin is lust– it deserves not the name of love! But true
love will always seek the highest health and wholeness (which is
holiness) of its object. Pure affection will grieve to see a fault,
mourn over a folly and seek to remove a blot.

Perfect love seeks the perfection of the thing it loves. Such is the
perfect love of Christ–whenever He comes to a soul in love He comes as
a refiner. He comes with this objective–to take away the dross from
the silver and to make the fine gold still purer. In His sharpest
dispensations He means no ill to us, but the most good, seeking not to
grieve, but to lead

us to the eternal blessedness of which the root and flower are both
found in absolute perfection. If any of you, my Hearers, are seeking
the Lord at this time, I want you to understand what it means–you are
seeking a fire which will test you and consume much which has been dear
to you.

We are not to expect Christ to come and save us in our sins! He will
come and save us from our sins and, therefore, if you are enabled by
faith to take Christ as a Savior, remember that you take Him as the
Purger and the Purifier, for it is from sin that He saves us. "They
shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their
sins." This is the particular salvation which He aims at. Though He
does deliver men from Hell, it is by delivering them from the sin which
is the fuel of Tophet's flame. Though He does give us Heaven, yet His
way of bringing us to Heaven is by giving us a heavenly mind–a heart
obedient to the holy and loving Father.

The refinement of our nature and character is the way in which His
infinite love most wisely displays itself. We are going to talk of this
purifying process. "He shall sit as a refiner." How is the refining
carried on? It is carried on in part by the Word of God. "Is not My
Word like a fire?" Wherever the Gospel is preached thoroughly, out and
out, it is a wonderful consumer of dross! I have known certain
congregations that have been dead in worldliness–the haunts of wealthy
professors whose love to Christ was a mere pretense. Close to them I
have seen another Church which has been lively in spirit and full of
zeal for the Lord. What was the difference? The reason has usually been
this–that in the one case there was man's ministry and in the other
there was the Word of the Lord!

Ministries of the Spirit worldly people cannot bear. They are
displeased with a plain testimony. It rasps their conscience. There is
no need to turn them out of the Church–they drop away of themselves.
It is not the place for them; it is too hot for them, I mean too holy,
too spiritual, too devout. By-and-by they are offended and murmuring,
they prepare to emigrate. There are so many things that they do not
approve of–they see so much that is dreadfully orthodox, narrow-minded
and bigoted–that they trot off among their own cattle. Yes, and so
they should. That is God's way of keeping His flock to itself. Those
that are rooted up by the Word of God are best rooted up. We may always
be practicing this kind of separating the tares from the wheat, for it
leaves the testing with God and a man's own conscience and, therefore,
no injustice will be done.

It would be ill by excommunications to seek to root up the tares from
among the wheat, lest we root up the wheat with them, but by the Word
of God, if it is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, the process
will be always going on. God's furnace stands in Zion. If any of you
are ever displeased by the Word, I pray you are displeased–we shall
certainly never alter the Word for you! If the Truth of God comes too
closely home to your consciences and angers you, be angry, not only
with him that speaks it, but with Him from whom it comes–and then you
will see the folly of such anger and humble yourselves before God,
accept His Truth–which will live and your sin shall die. God grant it
may be so!

Another purging operation is by causing His chosen to have more
fellowship with His own blessed and glorious Self. Of all the means of
purging the heart, none surpasses this, for when the Lord, in great
mercy, draws His child near to Him and makes Him feel His love and know
it beyond a doubt, then the favored heart longs to be holy in all
things. When the Lord fills His servant full of His love and makes him
to be overjoyed with the sweet consciousness that he is the Beloved's
and that the Beloved is his, then a holy jealousy burns within the soul
and the heart cries, "Is there anything that can grieve the Beloved?
Let it be slain! Is there anything that I think, or wish, or say, or
do, that might break the sacred spell of communion and cause Him to be
gone? Let it be driven out at once!"

The heart institutes a diligent search that, if possible, it may put
away the accursed thing so that Christ may not be grieved. Of all fires
that ever burned, this is one of the fiercest. Jealousy is cruel as the
grave and a holy jealousy does stern work in our hearts with sin! It
hangs up the darling sin before the face of the sun and calls upon the
fowls of Heaven to come and feast upon the slain! Oh, that we knew
Christ better and lived more in the Light of His Countenance, for then
we would be purged as with the spirit of burning! After all, the Holy
Spirit is the great fire that burns in Zion to purge Believers from the
love of sin. It is He that makes use of the Word, makes use of
fellowship and makes use of everything else to sever sin from the saint
and take away the dross from the silver. He is the immediate Agent of
our sanctifica-tion–all else we must regard as only the means in His
skillful hands. To Him be our love and our praise evermore!

As a subsidiary means the Lord uses Providence. I have no doubt that He
very frequently uses gracious Providences, as we call them–that is,
Providences which please us by gratifying our natural wishes. Some
people have been sanctified by prosperity, but I do not think very many
have. Few good medicines are pleasant to the palate. If we were as we
ought

to be, every joy that comes to us would tend to make us grateful and so
it would make us love God–and what is that but to be more like God and
more holy? But, alas, in that we are weak through the flesh, the
gentler modes of Love more often fail than her rougher processes. It
remains then, that if we cannot be preserved in honey, we must be
salted with fire lest corruption should take hold upon us.

Such is the stubbornness of our flesh, that the Lord uses for fuel in
His furnace sharp and heavy trials of different kinds. Adversity
assumes many forms and in each and all of its shapes the Lord knows how
to use it for His people's benefit. Christ sits as a Refiner when He
takes away prosperity and brings the wealthy down to poverty. He often
refines men by the losses which they sustain of beloved friends.
Bereavement burns like a furnace blast and, oh, how much of carnal love
has been consumed by it! We have known persons greatly purified by the
Holy Spirit by passing through depression of spirit, inward grief and
soul sorrow. Spiritual pain has been blessed to some and physical pain
to more.

In itself, pain will sanctify no man–it may even tend to wrap him up
within himself and make him morose, peevish, selfish. But when God
blesses it, then it will have a most salutary effect–a softening
influence. Sorrow is made to act as a kind of flux upon the hard metal
to make the dross separate from the precious ore. Yes, affliction is
what most Believers think of when they read such a passage as this, but
I warn them not to think too much of it, for that is not the Refiner's
only fire, nor is it even His best fire. Affliction is but one part of
the machinery of the Royal Refinery–one of the fluxes by which the
great Lord separates the precious from the vile.

I desire to call your attention to the text by leading you to mark
three things. First, I want you to watch the attitude of the Refiner.
"And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." Secondly, the
object of His refining–"He shall purify the sons of Levi and purge
them as gold and silver." And, thirdly, the result of the refinement,
"That they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness."

I. Notice carefully THE ATTITUDE OF THE REFINER–"He shall sit." The
posture would not have been mentioned had it not been instructive.
Sitting looks like the attitude of indifference. There is the metal
vexed with a white heat–here is the Refiner sitting down! There is the
child of God upon the bed of pain and he cries, "My Lord, come and help
me!" And there the Refiner sits–He looks on, but does not stir a hand.
The child of God is sinking in trouble. He fears, like Peter, that the
next step may drown him and there is his Lord, calm and unmoved! When
the Apostolic ship was out at sea and tossed in the tempest, Christ was
asleep in the back part of the vessel! Unbelief dares challenge His
love because of this apparent apathy–how can He sit still and see us
suffer?

She mutters–"He is indifferent! He does not care." "Don't You care
that we perish?" is the cry of Unbelief and before the heart actually
utters it, it begins to think, "Where is the tenderness of Christ?
Where is the gentleness of God? Am I thus to be tortured? Am I thus to
be tried? Am I thus to be tossed from billow to billow without a
Helper?" Yet after all our crying and tears the Refiner still sits!
Yes, He, to all appearances, disregards our prayers and entreaties and
fulfils the description of the text–"He sits." It is amazing how often
God seems utterly indifferent to His people and how Christ, filled with
compassion because He has been tried in all points like as we are, yet
seems to look down upon our sorrows with undisturbed serenity.

I once heard a Welshman preach in his own native tongue. It was a
sermon in which he got into the spirit of his subject and spoke as one
Inspired. He used a very simple illustration when he said, "The mother
has her dear babe upon her knee. It is time for washing. She washes its
face. The little one cries. It loves not the soap; it loves not the
water and therefore it cries. Here is a great sorrow! Listen to its
lamentations! It is ready to break its heart! What does the mother do?
Is she sorrowful? Does she weep? No! She is singing all the while
because she understands how good it is that the child should suffer a
little temporary inconvenience in order that its face, all smeared and
foul, should become bright and beautiful again! Thus does the great
Father rest in His love and rejoice over us with singing while we are
sighing and crying."

Ours is but a child's sorrow, sharp and shallow, of which the greatest
source is our own ignorance of the great designs of the Perfecter of
men! The Lord pities our childish sorrow, but He does not regard it so
as to stop His hands from His cleansing work. "Let not your soul spare
for his crying," said Solomon–and our wise Father, when He is
chastening us, does not spare us for our crying. What if the metal that
is put into the furnace should be sensitive when the crucible is hot
and should cry out, "Oh, take me out! The fire is too hot! I cannot
bear it. I am dissolving! I am melting! Take me out"? Would the assayer
regard the entreaties of the metal? Ah, no! And so, when we are in the
furnace, the Refiner

sits still. Why should He be flurried? He knows what He is doing and He
knows that His Divine methods are wise and

Infallible.

He is not hurting the silver, but doing it lasting service. He is not
even putting it through a needless process. He is taking the shortest
way of working when He seems to be longest in His assays. There is a
haste that is not good speed and God uses not such haste as that–He
moves at the pace of perfection and that may seem slow to us. He shall
sit as a Refiner till you shall ask, "Does He care at all for me?"
Carnal reason may judge as it pleases as to the indifference of Him who
seems to sit at ease while His people are melted in the flames, but
faith is full-well assured that in the attitude of the Divine Refiner
there is real attention. Why does the Refiner sit, but because He is
resolved to steadily watch the crucible? He will not go away and leave
it, even for a moment, lest the heat should grow too great or a certain
point should be passed over when His Presence would be essential to the
success of the process.

I have often heard that a refiner sits and looks at the silver till he
can see his own reflection in it. Though I have heard that venerable
story many times and can see the evident moral of it, I have my
suspicions as to its being a matter of fact. I certainly should not
like to be the refiner who had such a task to do, for when a crucible
is in the white heat of the furnace, it is almost enough too burn out
your eyes to look at it even for an instant! I do not believe that any
human being could watch a mass of molten silver glowing in the furnace
till he saw his own image there. Christ's eyes can bear the blaze and
He can watch us in the fires, but I do not use the illustration because
I have my doubts about the truth of it.

Our Lord sits as the Refiner at the furnace mouth because He is all
attention. He has, as it were, given up all other cares just to sit
there and watch His treasure. He is determined that His servants shall
be purified–that the sons of Levi shall be purged–and so there He is,
everything else laid aside, giving His whole heart and soul to those
whom He is refining. "Oh" you say "but you exaggerate if you talk about
the Lord's giving all His heart and soul to one of His people." No, I
do not. The Lord Jesus watches each one of His people as intensely as
if He had no other. Finite minds must have a center, somewhere, and as
that center changes, so our circumference of thought and action shifts.
But God's center is everywhere and His circumference is nowhere!

Each one of us may be in the center of the Divine mind and yet none of
the redeemed may be any the less near because of it. Jesus watches each
one–you, me, 50,000 others–all of them His chosen ones that are
undergoing the purifying process. He watches each one as if there were
never another for His blessed eyes to rest upon. He is all attention,
watching not as children gaze on soldiers in the fire, but as practical
refiners watch their precious metal! Poor, bowed Heart, Jesus is all
attention! His sitting down is not because He forgets, but because He
remembers!–

"God's furnace does in Zion stand, But Zion's God sits by, As the
refiner views His gold, With an observant eye." Always observing,
always watching. Jesus shall sit–"He shall sit as a refiner."

But we may notice more than this. I think I see in the sitting down of
the Refiner a settled patience, as if He seemed to say, "This is stern
work and I will sit down to it, for it will need care, time and
constant watchfulness. This metal may need to be purified in a furnace
of earth seven times, but I am set upon the perfecting of the work and,
therefore, here I place Myself. I shall bear with this man till I have
delivered him from his faults. I shall bear with this woman till I have
made something of her–till I have taken away that which weakens and
injures her character. I mean to bear with this poor, petulant,
unbelieving, complaining, selfish, groaning mortal–My Spirit has given
him some love for Me and some life in Me–and, therefore, I will bear
with him till his life and love shall have conquered all earthly
grossness and he shall be a lump of pure metal fit for My Father's
treasury."

The Lord has had boundless patience with some of us already, for we
required a world of purifying and we have been very slow to receive it.
How many sermons have we heard and yet how little have we been purified
by the Word of God? How often has the Spirit striven with us and yet
every thought is not yet brought into captivity? How often have we had
near and true fellowship with Christ and yet have again forsaken Him?
How frequently have we had to endure the furnace of affliction and yet
our dross and tin are not removed? The Refiner still perseveres with
settled resolve of ceaseless love. He will not give up His gracious
task. He did not come hastily to the furnace door and shut us in and
then leave us while He minded other matters. He has been sitting near
His work ever since He began it–even as the refiner sits close to his

work–and He means to stay as long as the work remains unfinished. He
will not be gone till all is over. Here, then, Faith sees Divine
attention and settled patience where Unbelief dared to suspect
unfeeling indifference!

I find, in looking at the original, that the word for, "sit," is one
which is used many times in Scripture for the posture of a king upon a
throne–it is a sort of regal sitting down. So that we have here the
posture of power. "He shall sit as a refiner," signifies, then, I take
it, that He who seems indifferent, but who is constantly observant and
patient, is seated on His Throne possessing infinite power over all
things so that the process which He is watching can be checked or
quickened according to His own will and wish. He reigns as a Refiner.
He has power over every coal, over every single jet of gassy flame! He
has power over every breath of air that fans the fire and over the
furnace to its inmost center and its utmost vehemence. He has power
over the metal, itself, and its dross and all that is excellent about
it as well as all that is vile.

Oh, this is a grand consolation! He that has undertaken to purify us
can do it, for He sits on the Throne of boundless might! Nothing short
of an Omnipotent Savior could have saved me! It were ill news for me if
men could show that Christ were not Divine, for short of a Divine
Redeemer I know I shall never be perfected! No strength but that which
made me can make me new! Only He that says, "I kill and I make alive,"
can ever kill my sin and make me alive unto God. Oh, Christian, this
ought to be a delight to you, that He who sits as a refiner sits on the
Throne while He is refining you and exercises Sovereign Grace and
infinite power while dealing with your soul! Jesus reigns in the work
of sanctification, having all things at His disposal, and He can and
will perform that which He has begun–

"Grace will complete what Grace begins, To save from sorrows or from
sins. The work that wisdom undertakes Eternal mercy ne'er forsakes."
Eternal power performs what everlasting love designs.

So I conceive that the text may also teach us the perfect perseverance
of Christ in the work of the purifying of His people. "He shall sit as
a refiner." Might not your backsliding, after you had once reached a
great height of sanctity, have disappointed Christ and made Him leave
you? Yes, if it were not true of Him, "I am God: I change not," He
would have left you to be consumed! But you are not consumed because,
from His blessed purpose He will not swerve. Oh, how many times you and
I have seemed to make advances towards purity but have gone back,
again, to folly, thus manifesting the abundance of our alloy! It did
seem as if, at last, the blessed flame of Grace had begun to make us
bright and yet we have dulled again back to the old state.

And where is the Refiner? Has He gone? By no means. There He is! He has
been sitting as a refiner and He is still sitting! That is a blessed
text–"He shall not fail nor be discouraged." There is much to
discourage Him, but He is not discouraged! There is much to make Him
relinquish the work, but He determines not to fail in it. His mind is
made up and well it may be, for He has paid in bloody sweat and in His
heart's blood, the ransom price to purchase us and He will never leave
half-effected what He has spent His life to achieve! What He has
redeemed, He will refine! Gethsemane and Calvary have bound the Refiner
to His task.

He undertook a stupendous labor and He went through with it till He
shouted from the Cross, "It is finished!" And, therefore, we may rest
assured that He will go on with the further portions of His great
enterprise till, from His Throne above He will say, "It is finished,"
as He surveys every one of us, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such
thing"–pure lumps of gold and silver brought Home by Himself without a
speck of dross about us. Oh, blessed hope! Where should we dare to
indulge it but in the Presence of an almighty Savior whose Immutable
oath has bound Him to carry out the work of our perfection?

II. Now, dear Brothers and Sisters, suffer a few words upon THE GREAT
OBJECTIVE OF OUR LORD'S REFINING WORK. This point has come up all
along. May the Spirit of God instruct us concerning it. The great
objective of His refining is that He may deliver us from all evil and
make us perfect. Remember, the subjects of purifying are His own chosen
ones–"He shall purify the sons of Levi." Levi was the tribe taken out
of the rest for God's service. The Lord has a people whom He has set
apart unto Himself and these He will purify! Do others think that He
does them an injustice by this act of choice?

Would they like to be purified? Then, depend upon it, He will not
refuse them! No, the quarrel lies in words and has no truth in it. Men
pretend to be angry with electing love, though they have no desire for
it, themselves! God's election is

an election to holiness and this is a thing which men, in their heart
of hearts, do not desire. Sirs, if you do not wish for purification and
holiness, why should you quarrel with God because He doesn't give it to
you? Yet unholy men rave at election to holiness and call it partiality
and I know not what, besides! You dogs in the manger, will you always
howl at God because He gives to His own sheep that which you will not
care to have? If you wish for it, you may have it! Free is the Gospel
to every soul under Heaven that desires it!

The Lord proclaims, "Whoever will, let him come and take the Water of
Life freely," but if men turn their backs on Heaven's ever-flowing
Fountain, shall they, afterwards, quarrel with the election of God
because He causes some to come whom He makes willing in the day of His
power? They may quarrel if they will, but high overhead rolls the dread
thunder of that awful Word of God, "He will have mercy on whom He will
have mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have
compassion." God is Sovereign in His gifts of Grace and does after His
own mind. He refuses Grace to none, but yet He will have a people of
His own on whom His sanctifying work shall be wrought. "He shall purify
the sons of Levi."

The Refiner begins His work by convicting His people of their need of
purity. "What? Purify the sons of Levi? Do they need it? Surely,
Reuben, Manasseh, Gad–these might need purifying–but Levi opens and
shuts the door of the House of God! It is a Levite that sacrifices,
that enters within the veil. Does he require purifying?" Yes, that he
does. "He shall purify the sons of Levi"–the best, the very best, the
holiest–those that come near to God–the true silver and the real
gold! He shall purify these! Brother, Sister, have you a notion that
you do not need purifying? Discard it, for if we walk in the light as
God is in the light and have close fellowship with God, yet we still
need the cleansing blood. "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son," still
cleans us from all sin." Still we need the purging Spirit or else there
remains enough of evil about the man that is nearest Heaven's gates to
make a Judas Iscariot of him if Grace does not prevent. "He shall
purify the sons of Levi"–the pure shall be purified and the clean
shall be yet further cleansed.

Did you ever notice that the branch which feels most of the knife and
gets most of the pruning is not the dead branch? Not that withered,
crooked branch does the gardener wound with the knife! No, the best
branch that bears most fruit is most worthy of the gardener's visits
and shall be most favored with them. That ore which has the most gold
in it, in proportion to the quartz, is the likeliest to get into the
fire. He that has most of refinement is he on whom Christ will carry
out his refining work. "He shall purify the sons of Levi."

Further, observe that He not only convinces them of their need of this
purity, but He remedies their impurity. He shall actually purify them
as gold and silver! The point is the thoroughness of it. This piece of
wood which makes my pulpit, if it is defiled, it is dusted and it is at
once sufficiently cleansed. Your platters are washed–that is all. Your
furniture may need beating, dusting and many processes, but there is
nothing thorough in them compared with the metaphor of the text–"He
shall purify them as gold and silver." They must go into the fire. The
purging that God gives His people is not the washing of the outside of
the cup and platter! It is the cleansing of the soul, the heart–the
purging of the man– a fiery purging! Fire does not merely go about–it
penetrates and passes right into it. The metal is hot! It is melted! It
flows–the fire has dissolved the mass.

We say in the hymn, "Refining fire, go through my heart," and that is
the nearest approximation of language. But fire does something more
than go through the metal. It seems to get into the very essence and
nature and character of the metal and fuses it all, making it all feel
its supreme force. The Lord's purification of His people, in order to
make them fit to be with Him in Heaven, is a fire process–it is
mysterious, inward, penetrating, consuming, transforming. His Spirit
burns like fire! His Word, like fire, goes through and through the
soul! His holy fellowship causes us to say, "My heart melted while my
Beloved spoke." And His fiery trials, too, when blest by the Spirit,
seem to melt the very being of the man.

This process is intended to be thorough, that it may be abiding. If you
get a piece of gold or silver, though it has been through the fire, it
may grow dull but it cannot, again, become impure and alloyed. Silver
will soon oxidize upon the surface, but for all that, the bulk of the
silver vessel is not injured at all–it remains pure silver after it
has been through the fire. The work is done and done thoroughly. The
purifications of God will last throughout eternity. Have you ever
reflected upon the fact that when Christ's refining work is done upon
us there will never be any need for it again? Blessed be God, there is
no purgatorial fire! We need not dread that we have yet to pass through
purging flames in another world, for Jesus has well-refined the sons of
Levi and they are clean every whit!

Believers are taken up to Heaven at once–as soon as they quit this
world. If we were not thoroughly purified before we entered there, we
should be under a strong temptation to pride. Only think of yourself
with a palm branch, my Brothers and Sisters! You fought very badly,
too. You with a harp in your hand! Is there not a temptation to strike
just one gentle string in praise of what you did or suffered? Say not
that you could not be thus tempted–why, an angel fell from Heaven! The
Son of the Morning–a greater being than you–could not stand amidst
the glories of Paradise! Pride dragged Lucifer from Heaven and hurled
him down to the darkest deeps!

Oh, joy, joy, joy! The same shall never happen to you! You will never
be proud in Paradise–you will never be discontented in Heaven. Do you
say, "I should think not"? I do not know. If you could go to Heaven as
you are, you would be. You would be sorry to think that there is no
temple there and no more sea. And a great many things might make you
dissatisfied, but you will not be discontented, for you will be
purified! You will not speak sharply to your neighbor in Heaven! You
will not think he sings too loudly or is too demonstrative in his
worship! You will not quarrel with anybody in Heaven, for you will have
nothing in you which can lead to sin!

See how splendidly the Refiner will do His work, then, so that
throughout eternity, when this poor world shall all dissolve in smoke
and the sun shall have burnt out like an expiring coal–when the moon
shall be black as a sackcloth of hair and all earth-born things shall
have grown hoary and given way to corruption's finger–you shall still
be young and fresh and pure and perfect as the God that loved you and
that made you so! Oh, well may we be content to let the fire burn and
let the coals glow as much as they will since it can be only for a very
little while and then come the ages, the eternities, the God, the
Christ, the Heaven which He has prepared for us when we are prepared
for them!

This, then, is the objective of His refining.

III. Thirdly, and to conclude, WHAT WILL BE THE IMMEDIATE RESULT OF
THIS REFINING AS CHRIST

CARRIES IT ON? It will be this–"That they may offer to the Lord an
offering of righteousness." First, these Levites shall attend to their
business. They ought to have been working at the Temple, but they had
forgotten their high calling. The sons of Levi had taken up their
portion in the world, though their God had never given them any, for He
gave no portion to Levi when the land was divided among the tribes.
"The Lord's portion is His people" and the Lord is the portion of their
inheritance. The Levites had gotten away from their spiritual calling
and had given themselves up to mind this and that–but it is pleasant
to observe that when God purifies them, they begin to do their own
business–"That they may offer to the Lord."

Oh, Beloved, if you have been refined by the Word of God; if you have
been refined by the Spirit; if you have been refined by heavenly joys;
if you have been refined by sanctified sorrows, you wish to serve God
much more than ever you did before. You now pray that if you have lived
to self in any degree, you may be forgiven, for you wish to live to
Christ and to Him alone! Now, as a Levite, you say, "What can I do for
God? There is nothing here worth living for, but to love and serve Him.
Here, Lord, tell me what You would have me to do. I desire to do it at
once." Brothers and Sisters thank God for every trial you have suffered
if it leads you to offer your sacrifice! I will bless God for all I
have endured, myself, if I am enabled to fulfill my priesthood, for are
we not a nation of priests, a peculiar people, set apart to offer
sacrifice to God? And this is to be the result of refinement–that we
do good work and service unto God.

Some of you need a little pushing on in this direction, for I know a
great many Christians who live as if the main point in religion was to
enjoy yourself. "I enjoyed that sermon. I enjoyed that Prayer Meeting."
Yes, that is quite right. But have you done anything? Have you served
the Master? Have you offered anything to Jesus? Have you brought forth
fruit to His Glory? Oh, it is a good thing to be watered! It is a
blessed thing to stand in the warm sunlight and grow! But after the
watering and the sunshine must come the fruit-bearing or we shall be
barren fig trees, after all! And so it is in the text, you see–"That
they may offer unto the Lord an offering."

And then, next, they are not only to do their work, but they are to do
it well. "They must offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness,"
for, oh, we may do much for God that looks very pretty, but when we get
into trial and look back upon our service by the furnace light we do
not think much of it! Have you ever taken a little time to look back
upon your service to God and have you not wondered at yourself that you
have done it so badly? Have you not said, "Please, God, may I address
that class again? By Your Grace I will be more passionately in
earnest." Have you not said, "Please, God, may I get out to that
village to preach again? This time, by Your Grace, I will speak with
all my soul and nothing else but Christ shall be my theme."

Have we not often wished we could do our lifework over again that we
might do it better? I do not think that there is any use in that wish.
Let us improve what is to be done in the future rather than wish to
undo the past! Let us buckle on our harness and ask God to give us more
spiritual intensity that what is done may be a sacrifice offered in
righteousness unto the Lord. And then another result of this
purification is that they were accepted, for the next verse says, "Then
shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord as
in the days of old." When God accepts our persons, He accepts our
offerings–but if we are not ourselves accepted–then that which we do
is rejected. When the Lord Jesus Christ enables us to live by faith in
Him and to see that we are "accepted in the Beloved," and when that
faith helps us to work in a right spirit and serve God from a pure
motive, then we, ourselves, and our work are pleasant unto God as in
former days.

God grant that the blessed processes of His Providence and of His Grace
which are being carried on in His people may be carried on in you and
me that we may serve God with perfect hearts all our days! I think I
heard somebody say, "I do not want putting through that process. I do
not wish for such purifying." Have you seen the great masses of slag
that they throw out from the furnace? They lie in great heaps at the
pit's mouth. Will these be a picture of you and your eternal condition?
Reprobate silver shall men call them because God has rejected them!
Will you be the slag cast away? The dross left forever? Oh, Eternity!
Eternity! What must it be to be shipwrecked on your shoreless sea and
drifted forever as a waif and stray from God and hope! Eternity!
Eternity! What must it be to be rejected and cast away from the
Presence of God and from the Glory of His power–thrown out upon the
waste heap of the universe, forever given up!

God save any man from that! Oh, it were worth wading through a thousand
Hells to obtain that which makes existence worth having–namely,
rightness with God! But, oh, if there were nothing else to lose but
God's love; nothing else to earn by neglect of Divine things but to be
rejected of God, I would plead with you with my whole soul that you
would seek the Lord now! Cry mightily to the Divine Savior that He may
now purge you with His precious blood from all the guilt of sin! Cry to
Him that He may then go on with the second process by which He shall
purge you from the power and habit and defilement of sin–and make you,
like Himself–immaculate before the Omniscient! God grant it, for
Jesus' sake. Amen.
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The Throne of God and of the Lamb