HE SHALL SIT AS A REFINER.
“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. A few ladies met at each other’s houses to study the Scriptures. When they came to the third chapter of Malachi, the conversation turned on the method of purifying silver. One lady undertook to inquire of a silversmith how he conducted the process. “Do you sit during the operation?” “Yes,” was the reply, “for I must keep my eye steadily on the furnace, lest the silver become injured by the intense heat.” The Lord sees it needful to put his children into the furnace of affliction, but he sits by the side of it, intent on purification, not destruction. “The ‘fiery trial’ shall not be greater, either in intensity or in duration, than is requisite for this end.” As the lady was about to retire, the silversmith said that he knew the process was perfect when he saw his own face in the metal. When the Saviour sees his own image—the counterpart of every grace that is in himself—in our hearts, our sanctification becomes a reality. The molten silver continues in a state of agitation till all impurity is thrown off, and then it becomes quite still. God knows that you can not desire suffering for itself. Bitter must always be bitter; yet for the blessing which sanctified affliction brings, your Heavenly Father can so bend your will in sweet submission as to incite the prayer, “Lord, put me into any furnace, so that I come forth more like my Saviour, who himself learned obedience by the things that he suffered.”—Sel.