The Forge, The Fire, And The Foundry

Q: What does the Bible say about affliction and trials?

The Bible teaches that affliction is a means of refining faith and bringing believers closer to Christ. The Scriptures affirm that God uses affliction to refine His people, as seen in Isaiah 48:10, where it says, 'I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.' This refining process removes impurities and prepares us to be conformed to the image of Christ. Lamentations 3:33 reminds us that God does not afflict willingly, underscoring His purposeful design behind our suffering. Trials are intended for our spiritual growth and draw us nearer to our Lord, preparing us for eternal glory.

Q: How do we know God's election is true?

God's election is evident in His sovereign choice and is foundational to the Christian faith. The assurance of God's election lies in the Scriptures, where it is taught that God chose His people before the foundation of the world, as stated in Ephesians 1:4. This doctrine is central to Reformed theology and provides comfort amid trials. It is God's unilateral decision that ensures the salvation of His elect, underscoring His sovereignty and grace. As we see in various biblical accounts, like that of Abraham's faith, God's promises are fulfilled regardless of human action, confirming the truth of election.

Q: Why is Jesus' assurance to not let our hearts be troubled important?

Christ's assurance encourages believers to trust in His promises and peace despite life's challenges. In John 14:1, Jesus commands His disciples, 'Let not your heart be troubled.' This directive is profound as it speaks to the believer's need for peace amidst turmoil. Christ's words remind us of His sovereignty and omniscience, offering us comfort in the face of uncertainty. By placing our faith in Him, who has overcome the world, we can find solace in all circumstances. His promise assures us that we are never abandoned and that He intercedes for us, as noted in Luke 22:32, where Jesus affirms, 'I have prayed for you.'

Q: How does God refine our faith through trials?

God refines our faith by using trials to remove impurities and strengthen our reliance on Him. God refines our faith through trials by applying the 'fire' necessary to burn away our impurities, much like a blacksmith uses a forge to refine metal. As 1 Peter 1:7 states, 'The trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire.' These experiences teach us to trust Him more deeply, showcasing His power and our dependence on His grace. This refining process is essential in conforming us to the likeness of Christ, as we learn to withstand afflictions with faith and perseverance.

Q: Why is it essential to believe in Jesus Christ?

Believing in Jesus Christ is essential for salvation and assurance of eternal life. Belief in Jesus Christ is vital for salvation, as He is the only way to reconciliation with God. John 14:1 expresses this necessity when Christ asks us to trust in Him just as we trust in the Father. This belief gives us the assurance that we are covered by His righteousness and that our sins are forgiven. Moreover, this faith is not merely intellectual; it involves a deep-rooted trust in His person and work, enabling us to find peace and hope in every circumstance, knowing that our salvation is secure.

Nady, if you would, turn with
me to John chapter 14. Actually, John 13 is where we'll
start. Start reading in John 13, verse
33. This is the Lord speaking to
His disciples before He was crucified. Little children, yet a little
while I am with you. You shall seek me, and as I said
unto the Jews, whether I go, you cannot come. So now I say
to you a new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another
as I have loved you, and that you also love one another. By
this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you
have love to one another. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord,
whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I
go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me
afterwards. And Peter said unto him, Lord,
why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy
sake. And Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for
my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
the cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice. Let
not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. When I was drawn to this passage
of scripture in verse one of chapter 14, let not your heart
be troubled, I kind of put myself in Peter's shoes and thinking
about everything the Lord just said to them and to him, and
then he says, let not your heart be troubled. How can these things
be so? Everything you've said troubles
my heart to the fullest. The Lord's words are, let not
thy heart be troubled. Well, why does the Lord say this?
Well, first, he's the Lord. They'd walked with him, the disciples.
They'd seen his power. They'd seen and known and believed
that he was the Son of God. And he's the only one who can
say this, let not thy heart be troubled. Secondly, He can say,
let not thy heart be troubled because he knows something that
we don't. See, he's omniscient. He knows everything. He knows
the end already from the beginning. So when he says, let not thy
heart be troubled, it's because he knows something that we don't
and we can't see. The third reason is he has the
power and authority to bring it to pass. If he says, let not
thy heart be troubled, it's different than if I say that to you. Say
if you're sick, you find out you've got some horrible disease.
You don't know if it can be treated. You don't know if you're going
to suffer. You don't know what's going on
other than you've just found out. And you tell me about it. And I say, don't worry about
it. It'll be OK. Well, that doesn't give me a
lot of comfort because my words can't do anything for you because
I don't have a disease and it doesn't affect me. But if you
go to the doctor, the one who can actually treat you, and he
says, don't worry about it. Everything's going to be fine.
We can take care of that. That gives you a different sense
of how you take that in. So it's just as important as
who is saying it as what they're saying. So he has that power
and authority to bring these things to pass. Let not your
heart be troubled. And the fourth reason why is
because he's the one who knows that your heart is troubled.
You see, I'm glad that he does know that. These are things that
I may not be able to express to even my wife, that my heart
is troubled over my sin, that I'm grieved over what I am as
a man before God, but yet the Lord knows that. He can see that
and he can know that, and I'm thankful that he does. You see,
my trouble is over my sin. There are many things I can say
that trouble me in terms of things in this life, but really what
troubles me is that at the end of the day, you can take all
those things away and those circumstances may change, but I'm still a sinner
before God. And I've sinned against God and
I'm unable to stop sinning. That which I hate to do, I can't
stop it. You see, it's because it's my
nature. My nature controls what I do. So if my nature is to sin,
then that's all I can do. So the illustration I give is
my son Wyatt, most of you have seen him, he has big bright blue
eyes. And he didn't choose those eyes,
but he was born with those eyes. And even if later in life he
decides he doesn't like those eyes, he can't change those eyes.
He's going to have blue eyes no matter what. And the reason
he's gonna have blue eyes no matter what is because his daddy
had blue eyes. And he couldn't change them either.
And so, this is what I'm saying with regard to our sin. All the
way back to Adam. Adam was the only man when faced
with a situation, fell and then doomed the entire human race
to sin. Because in every man born after Adam, born in sin.
So you see, because of my father, my father's father, and everyone
before me, They're all sinners, so therefore I'm a sinner, and
I can't change that. That which is born of the flesh
can only be flesh. So I have a sinful nature that
I can't ever get rid of, and I'm doomed if left right here. So first, I can't change it,
and secondly, I can't please God in sin. See, God hates sin. And if all I can do is sin, then
that means God hates me and my sin. So that puts me in a predicament
before God. Take everything else away, where
do you stand before God? Because that's all that really
matters. Where we stand before each other as men and women,
we may say one's a little bit nicer, one's taller, one's shorter,
it doesn't matter. What matters when everything's
over with is where do I stand before God? Am I in Christ? Do I know Him? and does he know
me? What hope is there for somebody
like me, whom when God looks at can only see me as what I
am, my nature, as a sinner? Well, I can only conclude that
any hope that I have, it's gotta come outside of me. Because my
choice, my influence, and my thoughts can only be sin. So
I'm gonna ask you to turn with me over to Isaiah chapter 48. This is the Lord God speaking
to Israel, the house of Jacob. In verse 1, He says, Hear this,
O house of Jacob, which are called the name of Israel, and are come
forth out of the waters of Judah, and which swear by the name of
the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel. It all sounds
pretty good. Got a good pedigree, good background. They make mention
of the God of Israel, but then what's it say next? But not in
truth. Not in righteousness, from the
outside it might look that way, but that's not what's going on
in their heart. See, something else is going on. They call themselves
the holy city and state themselves upon the God of Israel. The Lord
of hosts is his name, even further. So they say we're children of
the highest. We're Jews. I mean, we're the chosen people
of God. And so this is God's response
to them. He says, I've declared the former
things from the beginning. And they went forth out of my
mouth, and I showed them. And I did them suddenly, and
they came to pass. Why did I do that? Because I
knew that thou art an obstinate, and that thy neck is an iron
sinew, and thy brow is brass." So he said, you're a hard-hearted,
hard-hearted rebel, and with a hard-headed people. And I have
even from the beginning declared it unto thee. Before it came
to pass, I showed it thee, lest thou should say, My idol hath
done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, they have
commanded them. Thou hast heard, see all this,
and you will not declare it? I have showed thee new things
from this time, even hidden things, that thou didst not know them.
They are created now. He's saying, I'm not declaring
these from the beginning, I'm doing it right now, so that you
can't say later that you'd heard them not, and behold, you'd say,
oh, I knew them. So he's saying, I'm creating
it now because otherwise you'd say, oh, I knew that was gonna
happen. So he's saying, you don't know the mind of God. Verse eight. Yea, thou heardest not. Yea,
thou knowest not. Yea, from that time thine ear
was not opened. For I knew that thou wouldest
deal treacherously and was called the transgressor from the womb.
For my name's sake will I defer my anger. And for my praise will
I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold, I have
refined thee, but not for silver. I have chosen thee in the furnace
of affliction. For my own sake, even for my
own sake will I do it. For how should my name be polluted?
I will not give my glory to another. So you see what the Lord is saying
here to the Jews by their flesh is that I had to do it this way
because you glory in it, because you're a bunch of hard-necked
rebels and you profane my name, but yet for my namesake, for
my namesake, will I not cut you off? And he says, I've refined
thee, but not for silver, and I've chosen thee in the furnace
of affliction. So what is this thing of refining?
And I started to look at this, and growing up in Eastern Kentucky,
we lived in Ashland, Kentucky, where there is Armco steel, or
AK steel, as it is today. They made steel there. And so
I looked into this, and it's funny that I lived there all
this time and really didn't think much about it, even though my
father worked there growing up. So this thing of refining, great
heat is applied to extract something. It's to burn up the unwanted
portion. So we say, why is something refined?
Well, it's refined because it's impure. In and of itself, the
way it is, it's no good. So the impurity is what we're
talking about when he says, I've refined thee. Well, who is doing
the refining? God's doing the refining. If
it were just me and if it were just my work, if I stood before
God as myself and God refined me, I'd be all burned up. You
see, everything in me is impure. There would be nothing left after
he put his holy fire to me, I would be completely consumed. There'd
be nothing. If anything's left, anything that's left at all over
that's been refined, it's because God put it there. It had to have
been outside of me. He said, I've refined thee, but
not for silver. Oh no, this is worth much more
than this, than that of silver. If you will, turn over to 1 Peter,
first chapter. 1 Peter 1 and look at verse 6. Wherein you greatly rejoice,
though now for a season, if need be, you 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 under the praise and honor and glory
at the peering of Jesus Christ. So what he's saying here The
trial of your faith, much more precious than gold. So this is
again talking about the refining. It's tried with fire because
what's left over when you burn all the dross out of the gold,
what's left is the pure gold. That's kind of what he's talking
about here with the trial of your faith. Anything that's left
over, that's what the praise, the honor, and the glory is.
That's what the leftover part is. The trial of your faith.
Praise, the honor, and the glory. But you see, that doesn't have
anything to do with me. That has to do with what He put there.
It's not what I earned. It's not what's in me. It's what
He put there. In Isaiah 48, He says, I've chosen
thee in the furnace of affliction. We read that. No one enjoys affliction. When
I read that, I read that years ago, and thought about it, and
I've come back to it again now, and tried in the, refined in
the furnace of affliction, that's not the way that we would choose
to do things. That's not the way that nobody enjoys affliction.
And there's some people who might say, well, if God does that,
I don't wanna go that route. I don't wanna go the way of affliction,
but yet, He doesn't afflict willingly. It's not that God looks at men
and says, well, you know, I'm just going to afflict them for
no reason. He has a purpose in what he does. And Lamentations
3 says, he does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
The Lord has a purpose behind all that he does. And if the
way is the furnace of affliction, then he
has a purpose in doing so. It's easy to trust in God when
all things are going well. And so when things are going
according to my plan, not the way God chose to do things. How
about when your world's turned upside down though? There's not,
living in this life, there's not a person in here that's not
been in a situation or is going through a situation now where
it seems that everything, the way we would have things go,
is totally the opposite. You feel healthy one day and
then you find out you've got a chronic illness that's going
to be around for as long as you're on this earth. You lose your
job. You've got a family to provide
for. I didn't plan this. How am I going to get out of
this? The things that you once found joy in, you find no more
joy in them. or you lose your sense of purpose,
you become depressed. You can talk about the loss of
physical things, but how do you combat depression? You deal with
something like that. Or even spiritual loss, where
I come to sit and worship and I don't hear anything. I pray
to the Lord to hear my prayers and I feel like He doesn't hear
me. I feel like I can't commune,
I can't feed. It creates a sense of panic in
us. So, our question is, how do we react to these things?
How do we deal with these things? If you'll turn over to Revelation
chapter 2, I believe this sheds some light for me. Revelation 2 and verse 10. The Lord says, Fear none of those
things which thou shalt suffer. where he says we're gonna suffer.
It's not a question of if. He said, thou shalt suffer. Behold,
the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that you may
be tried. You shall have tribulation ten
days. Be thou faithful unto death,
and I will give thee a crown of life. So we see that we're
refined in the furnace of affliction. We see that we're tempted, tempted
of the devil, and that our faith is gonna be a trial. So all these
things, you know, where are you going with this, Andy? You know,
kind of get to the point here. This is, these things are, you
know, dragging me down. The title of my message tonight
is The Forge, the Fire, and the Foundry. And these are also my
three points. The forge, the fire, and the
foundry. And these all have to do with
refining. The forge, is another word for furnace. So, what's
a furnace for? A furnace is there to contain
a great heat. The furnace, before you have
pure steel, pure gold, pure iron, you first have to have refining. So there had to be a great amount
of heat applied. There has to be a flame that's
put to it. You had to burn up all the impurities,
otherwise we're left with something that is impure. So we have to
do refining. And so why do we refine? What's
the purpose of removing these impurities? It's not strong. It's not pure. So if you put
stress on metal that's impure, that has these impurities in
it, it'll break. So when the blacksmith goes,
you know, we don't have blacksmiths today, but you think of a blacksmith
beating a sword out of a piece of iron. He could only do that
if the impurities were removed from that sword, because as those
things heated up and those impurities come out, it becomes malleable,
or you can bend it. But without that, if he was to
beat on it, it would break. And so this is why impurities
are removed, because when pressure is applied, it would break. So
before the fire, or before the flame can be applied, there had
to be a furnace, or a forge. And it didn't just come to be,
so you didn't just walk and, oh, there's a furnace. No, somebody
planned it. There had to be a purpose behind
it. So they said, we have to have refining, so we're gonna
build this furnace. It was built for the purpose of refining.
The forge was built to contain the heat of the fire, to make
it more intense. God had a purpose in eternity.
He had a chosen people unto himself before the foundation of the
world. Chosen in the purpose, in the person of Jesus Christ.
And this, I wrote this mainly to myself. Don't you know the
only way that I could be chosen is in the person of Jesus Christ.
If God had to look to me for anything that he had to see me
to be when I was alive, to look to me to say, I choose that one,
he wouldn't find that in me. He had to look to the Lord Jesus
Christ before any of this stuff started or else I'd mess it up.
So that's the only way we could be chosen is in the person of
Jesus Christ. Election is what the entire Bible
is built around. All the events to ever occur
or ever will occur in this earth are purposed, predetermined,
and are hedged around the complete salvation of all those whom are
in Christ Jesus. Everything. You think about that.
Everything that goes on, all the events that happen, we may
not be able to understand what the connection is, but I guarantee
you the one thing is they're all purposed and planned around
the salvation of all of God's people. And there is no such
thing as coincidence. All things are God's providence.
We tend to think, well, the things that go our way, that worked
out the way where we benefited and could have, you know, drastically
been the other way where we didn't work out so well for us all,
well, that was providential. No, it's all providential, whether
it worked out the way I thought it would be or not. And I'm thankful
it's providential because that means it's God's purpose, not
mine. If I didn't know that, then I
would despair. But in Revelation 2.10, he says, the first two
words, fear none, fear none of those things which thou shalt
suffer. Now, he doesn't say that to everybody. He's speaking to his brethren.
He's speaking to the children, children of God. And not if,
but when you do, when you do suffer. Fear not. How can he
say that? How can he say that? In Isaiah
46, he says, remember, remember the former things of old, for
I'm God and there's none else. I'm God, there's none like me.
I have what? Declared the end from the beginning.
He said, I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen in the end before
I've ever even started. And from ancient times, a long
time ago, the things that are not even yet done. Isaiah 48,
remember, even from the beginning, I declared it to you. Before
it came to pass, I showed it to you. So, remember that. The Lord's telling us what He's
going to do. And we're going through kind
of playing out of eternity now, but He's already told us the
end, the way it works out. Remember, fear none of those
things which you shall suffer." Ought we not to listen to that?
Fear none of those things? He didn't say he wouldn't, he
wouldn't, but he said, don't fear it. But my faith is weak. I see this and I fall apart and
I can't deal with it. My faith's weak. Don't you think
he knows that too? Don't you think he won't give
you the grace to hold you up? Don't you think he doesn't see
that? If you're saved by your faith, or your works, or your
righteousness, then you're doomed. You're gonna be consumed in the
furnace. And he knows this, and that's why he's provided all
things we will ever need in his son. But that doesn't mean that
we won't go through the valley of the shadow of death. But remember,
it's still just a shadow. A shadow can't hurt you. because
it's over with, it's already been done. So when the Lord told
Peter, let not your heart be troubled, it's because he knew
it was. Peter was told all these things
and he was, I mean, it would destroy you to hear that. So
the Lord's purpose in eternity built the forge, built the furnace
to contain the fire. So secondly, This is the fire,
this is where we come to where Peter's at, bringing eternity's
promises to pass. His disciples had just been told
that the Lord was leaving them. He said, whether I go, you can't
come. He said, I'm gonna die on a cross. Not only am I leaving, I'm gonna
die. And not only am I gonna die, I'm gonna be betrayed from
within. from within this group right
here, those of you who would call yourselves my disciples.
He said, one of you shall betray me. No one knew who it was. They began to look at one another
and say, is it I? Is it I? Let's tell you that
they knew something about their sinfulness and that they knew
that if the Lord left them alone, they were capable of being the
one who was the betrayer. Peter's told And only Peter is
told, you'll deny my person, not once, but three times. I'm leaving you. I'm going to
die. I'm going to be betrayed. And Peter, you're going to deny
me three times. Don't you think that Peter probably
thought he was the betrayer? He didn't tell him who it was.
And when he told John what was going to happen about the one
who dips his bread in when I dip mine, he said, that's the one
that's going to betray me. He said they didn't understand
it, they didn't perceive it, even though he just told them. So,
in Peter's mind, he probably believed that he was the betrayer
because none of these things had come to pass yet. The illustration
I give here is, if someone came to you, those of you who are
married and have a spouse, and said, tonight, your spouse is
going to commit adultery on you. It would be a horrible thing
to hear. It would be a devastating thing to hear. The one you love,
your spouse, is going to commit adultery on you, and what a horrible
thing this would be. You try to make it work, you
try to forgive them, you try to keep on going. But what if they went on to say,
not only once tonight, but three times? How much differently does
that take on a picture than if just saying, well, we might say
once, some degree of indiscretion, but what if they said three times?
You'd say, there's no remorse in that person that did that.
It's much more than saying, well, you know, they had a, you know,
whatever. But three times, it's much more
serious. No one else was told that you'll
deny me. Peter was though. Then he did deny the Lord and
he had to believe. After all these things I've just
been told, I'm cut off. There's no more mercy left for
me. There's no more forgiveness for what I've done. Turn over
to Luke chapter 22 with me. Read part of this account. Luke 22 and verse 31, And the
Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you,
that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that
thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted,
strengthen thy brethren. Then he said unto him, Lord,
I'm ready to go with thee both to prison and to death. And he
said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day
before thou hast thrice denied that thou knowest me. Remember
that verse I quoted out of Isaiah? Remember declaring the things
before they happen? Look at verse 32. I prayed for
thee that thy faith fell not. And when thou art converted,
strengthen thy brethren. But yet, While Peter was in this,
he couldn't see it. He couldn't see that the Lord
was saying, and when thou art converted, all he saw was, I've
denied the Lord. I've gone apostate. There's no mercy for me. He felt
himself cut off, but yet the Lord told him this right before
he told him he would deny him. Despite this, it didn't matter.
The Lord's purpose was still accomplished. The will of the
creature can never thwart the will of the creator. But it took
this event to humble Peter that he was converted. There's no
glory left in you and there's going to be no place for it.
This is what the conversion of Peter required and what the conversion
of me will require as well. What would we have known of salvation
by grace apart from the Apostle Paul? He persecuted the church. He had men and women taken to
Jerusalem, condemned, and killed for what they believed. If we
had to look at him as a person, Saul of Tarsus, as somebody whom
the Lord would have chose, you have to know if he was chosen,
somebody who had done those things, that's why Paul preached salvation
by grace. He's saying this is the only
way somebody like me can be saved. What would we have seen in Job
apart from having no righteousness at all when he said, behold,
I'm vile. But yet it took the whole book
of Job for him to be brought to that point. The Lord had to
basically show him that he was completely vile. All that he
saw in himself as righteous, all that he said that recommended
him to God, the Lord had to show him it meant nothing. And that
before God he was vile in and of himself. The forge and the
fire are used together to apply just the right amount of pressure.
You see, you can't have one or the other. You can't have the
fire by itself without the forge because the fire, the heat can't
be condensed. It dissipates out and goes away,
but yet the furnace contains it. So the forge and the fire
are used together to apply just the right amount of pressure
as God determines each of us needs. And the thing is, it's
different for each one of us. See, we all go through a different
experience. And another thing I've said to myself is, I don't
want to be... It's easy for us to look at somebody
else going through a trial and think, I wouldn't do that. I
wouldn't have made those decisions. They must not believe anything
at all the way they're handling this trial. I wonder what they're
doing. I wonder what they're doing that
has brought this trial upon them. What's the Lord trying to teach
them? I'm in the midst of my own trial if I think that. And
I know that what I'm guilty of in my own heart, and I pray the
Lord deliver me from that. God's purpose in predestinating
and electing a people is nothing in the course of time if He doesn't
eventually call them. So He has to predestinate it,
that's the forge, and in the course of time, this is the fire,
this is the calling. Can't you see that if God didn't
do both these things, that you would never seek Him? You see,
the only reason we love Him is because He first loved us. And
he had to call us and to pre-nestinate us. If it were left up to me,
I'd fail. See, Abraham trusted God. He
was fully persuaded that what God had promised, he was able
also to perform. See, he believed God before God
did anything. But yet, God told him what he
was going to do before he did it. And this is the same thing
we read about in Isaiah. He said, I'm going to tell you
what I'm going to do before I do it. Abraham believed God, and
in time, did God not do what he said? He did. God was faithful
to his word. This is faith. Our Lord told
Peter, let not your heart be troubled. Fire seems awfully
hot right now. I'm told I'll deny the Lord three
times. I might even be the betrayer,
I don't know. I've already escaped by the skin of my teeth in so
many blunders." You look at the blunders that, you know, Peter
was part of. Who said in the Mount of Transfiguration
when, you know, the Lord saw him in his glory, let's build
three temples? God himself answered him for that one. Who said, you'll
never wash my feet? Who sank because he looked at
the waves, he started looking away from Christ? This is all
Peter. Our Lord told Peter, let not your heart be troubled. It's
only when the element is heated hot enough do all the impurities
burn out of it. The impurities are what make
the metal weak. The blacksmith only beats that metal after it's
hot. Otherwise, it'll break. The Lord
has to burn it out of us. Peter's faith was tried by fire. In this passage in Luke we just
read, it said, Satan hath desired you. Do you ever stop to think
about what did Satan want? What did he desire in Peter?
Well, he desired Peter's faith to be broken because if Peter
fell away eternally, then he could go and say, see, this is
one whom you've said is one of your people, whom is one of the
people in Christ and that you shed your blood for and he didn't
make it. That makes God not able to deliver
on what he said he'd do. Makes God not God. But the Lord
said, Satan hath desired thee, but I prayed for thee, that thy
faith fail not. Satan tormented Peter in the
furnace of affliction. God allowed Satan to do that.
But he was not able to break him utterly. You see, we focus
in the moment the trial by fire. We see We read and know the promises
of God, but yet we see what we're in day by day. We see what we're
going through, and we can't see outside of it sometimes. Peter's
looking at the fire, and that's all he can see. He can't see
the end. All he sees is the fire, even though he was just told,
Peter, when you're converted, strengthen your brethren. He
couldn't see it for the fire. We can't always see the end result.
He said the waves were boisterous when Peter had stepped out onto
the water. He started looking around at things around him and
looking away from the Lord that had called him out on the water
to Him. He started thinking, I can't stand on this water,
that's against the law of gravity. He started saying, these waves
are awful big, they're going to knock me down, but yet the
Lord called him out there and he was walking on the water,
but when he looked away, when he looked away from Christ, that's
when he began to sink. He started looking around him.
May God grant me the faith to do as Job, and say, though he
slay me, yet will I trust in him. I want to remain faithful
unto death, as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when they stood
before King Nebuchadnezzar in the burning, fiery furnace, said,
I'm going to throw you in this if you don't bow down. Are gods
able to deliver us out of thine hands, O king? But if not, be
it known unto thee, will not worship thy gods, nor bow to
thy golden image. Despite the circumstances, whatever
it may be, give me faith to trust in God to do for me what I need,
according to his will and not mine. God used Peter's trial
in denying him to strengthen his faith. You see, the element
was heated white hot to consume the impurities. I'd much rather
endure the fire that is in this life than endure the fire in
the life to come. Then for those who find their
life in this world who find what they love here. My life is in
Christ. He's my life. And I want to give
you four things about the fire for the believer. First, God's
the one who sent it. God's the one who sent the trial.
Secondly, it's temporary. It says in Revelation 2.10, that
verse, it said you shall have tribulation ten days. That just
means it's temporary. It's a fixed amount of time.
It's not going to be forever. And it's the third thing about
the fire for the believer is it's given for the salvation
of your soul. It's not given for no reason. It does not afflict willingly.
It was purposed. It's given for a purpose. And
the fourth thing, you're never going to be given more than you
can endure. Your impurities, yes. But that which remaineth,
your soul, no. It won't be more than your soul
can endure. It won't be more than your faith
can endure. David said, many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the Lord delivereth him out of all of them. The Lord caused
me to remember these things. He says he's gonna deliver out
of them all, but yet we focus on the affliction. Lord, grant
me the ability to remember that. The forge was purposed by God
in eternity. The fire is eternity executed
for the salvation of all of those whom Christ came and died for.
This is what causes men to flee to Christ. And the third point
of my message is the foundry. The foundry is where after this
metal has been heated up, all the impurities have been burned
out of it, you've got this hot liquid metal. The foundry is
where the metal is poured into a mold. All the impurities gone
and it's conformed to the shape of the mold. So a familiar verse
from Scripture to us, for whom He, God, did foreknow, forelove,
He also did predestinate to be conformed. Just like the pouring
into this mold. Conformed to the image of Christ.
Conformed to the image of His Son. Poured into a mold. That's
what a foundry is. Can you pour cold metal into
a mold? No. Only the white hot liquid metal
can be poured. You see, made just like Christ. And there's another thing about
the mold. There's no diversity here. They're all the same. Conformed to the image of Christ.
You see, the diversity we have, see, that's the stuff that's
burned up. That's the impurities. That's the stuff that's in our
flesh. The stuff that makes me me. The stuff that I, you know,
think I'm pretty special about. That's vanity. And that's burned
up. But what's left over, God put
there. That's what's poured into the
mold. Make me just like Christ. That which is not like Christ,
our flesh. You see, when we're talking about
the refining of our faith, We're saved by the faith of Christ.
It's not my faith through these trials becomes more and more
strong. What it is, is these trials burn
away more and more the impurity that's within me to reveal the
faith of Christ. That's what the trial is. It's
not my faith. We live by the faith of the Son
of God. Would you have any comfort if it was any other way? How
would you know if it was pure enough, if it was your faith?
You wouldn't know. It has to be burned away, all
our impurities, all our flesh. The only thing that I want the
Father to see when He looks at me, and when He looks, He doesn't
look at the outside like you and me. See, I put a suit on.
I look pretty nice. I got a shower before I came.
He sees on the inside. And when He looks at me, within
and without, on the inside and outside, even the secret things
that are in my heart. He says, holy, unblameable, and
unreprovable in His sight. Because when He sees me, He sees
Christ. You know why? Because I'm conformed
to His exact image. That's all that He's pleased
with. Doesn't that give you confidence and comfort in knowing that when
He looks at me, it's not something I have to provide, it's not something
I have to do. The only thing I have to do is
to trust in Christ. And with that in mind, can each
heart here ask, Lord, make me like Christ? Conform me to His
image? How? Believe the gospel. Have
faith in the Son of God. How do you do that? Asking for
it. This can't be done in our experience until our sin's gone.
You see, you know, we've talked about this poured into the mold,
poured into the foundry. That's the new man in Christ.
I can't see that in me until this flesh is gone and I'm on
the other side of glory. What happens after the molten
metal is poured into the mold in the foundry? Well, it cools. See, there's no more need for
the heat. Trials are over. That's why when we die, when
we lay down this flesh in Christ, There's no more tears, no more
sorrow, no more sickness, no more anything, no more sin. You
see, there's no need for the heat, there's no need for the
furnace, no need for the flame. All that stuff's already been
burned out, so all you're left with is pure. You can keep burning
and it's not going to get any more pure. So there's no more
need for it. We pour it into the mold and
that's removed. It's got to cool. Let not your heart be troubled.
Peter, I know you're in the fire. That's why I've prayed for you
that your faith fail not, which is the faith of Christ. That's
the new man. It can't fail. If you have the
faith of Christ, if you have the new man in you, you have
the assurance that you cannot fall away. There's no, it's no
possible way. And then the Lord gives two commands.
Flip back over to John 14, verse one. Let not your heart
be trouble. Two commands, you believe in
God, believe also in me. And the way that reads, when
you kind of read that first part, it kind of says, it's not saying,
you believe in God, don't you? And that you're reassuring yourself
that, and then he says, believe also in me. Because that's the
way it kind of reads. Actually, when you look at the
way these words are originally translated, it says, believe
in God, believe in me. And so these are in the form
of a command. Believe in God, who hath elected
and who hath called you, who is sovereign, holy, and almighty. Believe in God, because he loved
you, whom hath he elected so much that he sent his son, his
only son, to die. And believe also in me, believe
in Christ, who has sent to the Father to gather all the lost
sheep. Believe in Christ, who hath lost
none of them. He tells them that before that
was accomplished. He said, of all that my father
giveth me, I've lost none. You know what? He's telling them
the end before, at the beginning of it. So we know that it's true.
And who bears his wounds in glory from the cross, Believe in me,
whose death paid for your sins, making them his very own, whose
blood covers all spots, giving you the righteousness of Christ,
the new man, who hath the power to save you. Believe in Christ.
Before Jesus Christ, as our pastors pointed out, all sacrifices were
consumed. Why were they consumed? Because
they were impure, all sacrifices before him. But after Christ,
after he died, he's still there. The fire was applied to it, but
yet what's left is pure. It can't be consumed. There's
no possible way. So there's nothing to consume
in him. And if you look over in verse
27 of this chapter, he says also at the end of that verse, let
not your heart be troubled again, neither let it be afraid. Fear
none of the things with that which thou shalt suffer. This
is the comfort that he gives his people. Fear none of the
things that you're going to suffer. The devil casts some of you into
prison that you may be tried. Satan wanted Peter too. But he
prayed for him, and Satan couldn't have him. Not ultimately. You'll
have tribulation for 10 days. It's going to be for just a fixed
time. But be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a
crown of life. If you're faithful, this I can
promise you, it wasn't by your faith. I'm saved by the faith
and works of Christ. He says, Peter, I've prayed for
you that your faith fail not. That's the only reason Peter's
faith didn't fail is because the Lord prayed for him. We're given this example in Peter
to see if I'm saved, it's all because of him from beginning
to end. Can everyone who's going through
the fire take comfort in this? Well, no. Christ said, if you
believe not that I am, you'll die in your sins. Everyone doesn't
believe that. You may just be in the fire you've
kindled at your own feet. I may be in a fire, you know,
that we've talked about, I think Todd said maybe a few weeks ago,
was talking about being persecuted for the gospel, saying, well,
you may be persecuted because you're a jerk. You know, so I
may be in a fire that I've kindled at my own feet because I've done,
you know, something, you know. But he tells us to fear not. and we're commanded to believe
on Christ as the Lord as our only way that a vile, hell-deserving
sinner such as we are can be saved. If you ask with your whole
heart, yearning for this, looking for nothing else to save you,
He's given us the promise that He'll come to us and that we
won't be cast away. We may just be put into the forge,
but it burned with God's holy fire, which burn away all of
our impurities, which is our sin, our flesh. This won't be
over until our flesh is put down, but that which remaineth. The
new man which is in Christ Jesus will be poured into his foundry
and conformed to the image of his son, being just like Christ
in his image, looking that way exactly before the Father, because
as he is, so are we in this world. May the Lord bless His word,
the forge, the fire, and the foundry.

The Forge, The Fire, And The Foundry

What does the Bible say about affliction and trials?

How do we know God's election is true?

Why is Jesus' assurance to not let our hearts be troubled important?

How does God refine our faith through trials?

Why is it essential to believe in Jesus Christ?

Sermon Transcript

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The Forge, The Fire, And The Foundry

What does the Bible say about affliction and trials?

How do we know God's election is true?

Why is Jesus' assurance to not let our hearts be troubled important?

How does God refine our faith through trials?

Why is it essential to believe in Jesus Christ?

Sermon Transcript

Comments

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