God designs to refine all of us, and therefore He desires that all should be taught to study, should learn to read and write, should learn all they can from the schools, should be taught to work, should be taught to expect trials and self-denials, and should be led to expect sickness and disappointments, and all these things by which God designs to make us better from year to year. But, just the same as the iron would cry out against being cast into the fire and being beaten upon the anvil, so do boys and girls, and men and women also, cry out against the providences by which God is refining them and making them better for this world and fitting them for the world to come.
If we desire to be of largest service in this world, and to occupy a place of honor in the world to come, we must expect that God will deal with us, as He has told us in the ninth verse of the thirteenth chapter of Zechariah, in which He says, "I will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried." And in the book of Malachi He says that He, that is God, is "like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap, and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and purge them as gold and silver."
When the gold and the silver is cast into the crucible to be purified, the fire is made very hot, and the metal is left in the crucible until the man who is refining it and who sits looking into the crucible can see his own image reflected in the metal. So we are cast into the fires of affliction, and God looks down upon us; but when we become like Him, so that God sees His own self reflected in our character, and in our disposition, and in our temper, then we shall have been refined as God desires, and He will then be ready to receive us into His own home on high.
Questions.—Can you name different things made from iron? Is a horse shoe as valuable as a watch spring? What makes the difference in their value? How are iron and steel refined, or made more valuable? Are unrefined and untaught boys and girls all quite alike? What makes them become different? Do some boys and girls become more useful and valuable in the world than others? What causes the difference? Would the iron cry out against being refined? Do boys and girls object to being taught and disciplined? How does the Bible say that God refines us? Can the refiner see his image in the melted metal? Does God want to see His own image reflected in us?
"Joseph in the Pit."