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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 3
Devotional: April 1st

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Ezekiel 22:15—I will consume thy filthiness out of thee.

The idea here, and in the following paragraph, is of the smelting furnace. We are refined by fire. Fire is pain. It is the symbol of all that our nature shrinks from. But affliction is all this. It may be anxiety about money-matters; or the chronic ill-temper of some member of your family; or a random word; or a telegraphic message; or a whispered secret; or anxiety about your health: but your soul is filled with fire—keen, strong, alive, devouring. Do not wonder at this; for only so can you be delivered from your dross and filth.

But God appoints it. As much as the process of refining implies the presence of the refiner, the afflictions of the believer imply the presence and purpose of the Lord. The process could not be carried on without Him. We are sure that in every sick chamber where his servant lies, besides the attendant wife or nurse, sits the Great Refiner of silver; closer than close; nearer than near; tenderer than the tenderest. You may not see Him now; but some day when you look back on your present sufferings, you will understand, and say: "I could not have lived through it had not the Master been with me."

The trial is a sign of preciousness. You do not cast a stone into the crucible, or winnow chaff, or prune a bramble, or put a cinder in the lap-dog’s meal. So, when Jesus subjects us to trial, it is only because, amid all our dross his keen eye detects the precious gold which cost Him Calvary, and is capable of becoming his ornament of beauty for ever.

"Through the test of sharp distresses,

Those whom Heaven most richly blesses,

For its joys are purified."

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