THE CHOOSING PLACE I have chosen
you in the furnace of affliction. the furnace of affliction. It
is God's meeting place with His people. I have chosen you, says
He, in the furnace of affliction. I will keep you there until the
purifying process is complete, and, if need be, in a chariot
of fire I will carry you to heaven. Some fires are for destruction,
but this is for purification. He the refiner is sitting by
the furnace, regulating the flames, tempering the heat, not the least
filing of the gold, but what is precious to him. The bush
is burning with fire, but he is in the middle of it, a living
God in a bush, a living Saviour in the furnace, and has this
not been the method of his dealing with his faithful people in every
age? first trial, then blessing, first
difficulties, then deliverances, Egyptian plagues, darkness, brick
kilns, the Red Sea, forty years of desert privations, then Canaan,
first the burning fiery furnace, then the vision of one like the
Son of God, Or, as with Elijah on Carmel, the answer is first
by fire, and then by rain. First the fiery trial, then the
gentle descent of the Spirit's influences, coming down like
rain upon the mown grass and as showers that water the earth. Believer, be it yours to ask,
Are my trials sanctified? Are they making me holier, purer,
better, more meek, more gentle, more heavenly-minded, more Savior-like? Seek to glorify God in the fires. Patience is a grace which the
angels cannot manifest. It is a flower of earth. It blooms
not in paradise. It requires tribulation for its
exercise. It is nurtured only amid wind
and hail and storm. By patient, unmurmuring submission,
remember you, a poor sinner, can thus magnify God in a way
the loftiest angelic natures cannot. He is taking you to the
inner chambers of His covenant faithfulness. His design is to
purge away your dross, to bring you forth from the furnace, reflecting
his own image, and fitted for glory. Those intended for great
usefulness are much in the refining pot, His children, says Romaine,
have found suffering times, happy times. They never have such nearness
to their Father, such holy freedom with Him, and such heavenly refreshment
with Him, as under the cross. Beloved, think it not strange,
concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, but rejoice.