Alright, turn over together in the book of Malachi, last book in the Old Testament, a prophet who prophesies at the end of an age, at the end of a time of God's dealing with His people in the Old Testament, entering into a silent years until God would usher in the age of the New Testament with the last Old Testament prophet, which would be John the Baptist, who comes preaching in the wilderness. And as we see in Malachi, as we come to the last two chapters, really, of the whole Old Testament, in a conclusion, what is God's final message? What are they going to be carrying into these dark times? as they conclude the canon of the Old Testament Scripture and the minor prophets. But Malachi is minor, not in any way that his message is less important than the major prophets, but he is the last of the Twelve. the 12 minor prophets. But as we have studied this passage in this book, we recognize that there is definitely a modern message for us to heed to in this book. In fact, when we understand the times and the condition of people's hearts and the prophets and the messages that they preached, it's very similar to the times and the hearts of man today. And we have to filter through God's dealing with Israel and God's dealing with the church. And we even see some of that this evening. But we understand all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And it is all profitable for us in every area, whether that's doctrine or instruction or correction. or helping us to understand what we need to do in our life. We in 2021 can look back at a book that was written in 400 BC and realize our hearts are just as deceitful. And the message of God is just as relevant today as it was over 2,400 years ago. And so as we look at this in chapter three, God is responding to a criticism. He's responding to a question. These Jews have asked the question in verse 17, wherein have we wearied you, Lord? How is it that we have caused you to be weary? And the Lord says, in your words, where you have questioned my character, you have questioned my dealings. You viewed me as seeing evil as good. You think that I desire and delight in wicked deeds of the unbelievers. And you state that I'm unjust, that I overlook evil, and I let evil go free. You ask the question, where is my judgment? And in chapter three, God answers, I'll tell you where my judgment is. You see, the Jewish people in Malachi's day are dealing with powerlessness. They don't understand why they come, make sacrifices, pray, confess their sins, come to the temple, do the duties, say the prayers, sing the hymns, and yet there's no power from God. Where is the glory? Where is the power? Where are the miraculous deeds? Where are the miracles? Where's the Holy Spirit? Where's the glory of God back in Jerusalem and back in the temple? And they are coming and they're saying, Lord, where's the day of revivals? Where's the day of Elijah and Elijah? Where's the day of the promise of David's son who would rule and reign? Where's the Messiah? Where's your judgment? Where's your dealing with the enemies of your people? How come we're not living in the land flowing with milk and honey anymore? How come we're living in this desert? How come we have this temple? that's small and menial. These are questions that the Jewish people are asking, and they think it's God's fault. And God is telling them, listen, it's your fault. And so we've come to these two chapters, and now they're still asking a question. God, how is it that we have wearied you? Where is your judgment? And God responds. He says behold look at this pay attention Starts in my Bible the you know capital B behold Listen up. I will send My messenger another word God is saying there is coming a day I am doing a work. My plans, my purposes, my power, I am doing a work. I will send my messenger. My promises have not been void. My covenant has not been put away. I will keep my portion of the bargain even though you are unfaithful in the portion of your part of the bargain. He says he will come and he will prepare the way for me. because I'm gonna come after him. This messenger is gonna come out and point out the roadblocks. He's gonna prepare the way. He's gonna make straight, Isaiah says. In fact, turn over to Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 40, I don't know if we read this last week, but Isaiah chapter 40, the promise of the coming one and the message of comfort Comfort my people in Isaiah chapter 40 talking about the time of judgment In verse three, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of Yahweh, Jehovah. Make straight, this is what the voice is gonna do. This is what the one crying in the wilderness is gonna do. He's gonna make straight, or make smooth in the desert, a highway for our God. And every valley is gonna be exalted, and every mountain and hill will be made low, and the crooked places are gonna be made straight. The rough place is going to be made plain and so in this verse It's a prophecy and a promise of that messenger who would come and this is reflected in Malachi chapter 3 in verse 1 He's going to send his messenger and he shall prepare the way before me. This is the same same connection of that in fact, look at Malachi chapter 4 in verse 7 and Or verse 5, behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet. Notice the last two verses of the Old Testament. I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful or terrible day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. And so, here is connected to the promise of the one who will come. He will be Elijah. Now, who is this messenger, this first messenger? Well, the New Testament tells us directly who it is, and it's connected to, it is John the Baptist. Listen to what, in fact, we're only a couple pages away, turn over to Matthew chapter three. Matthew chapter three, in verse one, and in those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew says for this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Elias saying the voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord makes his path straight Look at Matthew chapter 11 Jesus is speaking here in Matthew chapter 11 of John the Baptist in Matthew 11 in verse 10 and Verse 9 says, and what went ye out to see, a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet, for this is he of whom it is written, behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women there is not risen a greater than John the Baptist, notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. So you got it right now right out of the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ in red letters. that this is he, pointing to Malachi chapter three, this is John the Baptist. And in Luke chapter one and verse 17, the prophecy that is given to John the Baptist's father and mother, that he will be the one who will come in the spirit of Elijah, who will prepare and repent, he's got a message. And then in Luke chapter seven and verse 27, Luke says this, for this is whom it is written. from Isaiah chapter 40 and Malachi chapter three in verse one. So the point being that you can't argue that the person who this messenger who is talking about was and is John the Baptist, who will come out of the wilderness preparing the way for the Messiah. So if John the Baptist is the voice, if John the Baptist is the messenger in Malachi chapter three in verse one, then who was Jesus? Who was Jesus? The answer to that question is Jesus was the one he was preparing the way for. Jesus was and is the Messiah. Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. So I don't know how Jewish people come to the passage, or I do know how they ignore the New Testament when they come to these passages. How they can say the Messiah has not come. when the New Testament is clear to us to say that John the Baptist is the fulfillment of Malachi chapter three and verse one and Isaiah chapter 40. And if John the Baptist is the forerunner of the Messiah, then Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary is the Messiah. And there's no argument about that other than the fact that you have to reject the whole New Testament. You have to reject Jesus Christ And his words and and the New Testament authors as as being inspired scripture And that's often how the Jewish people even today are able to reject the Lord Jesus Christ as being Messiah is because they don't recognize John the Baptist as being the one who has come but we look back and we don't have a problem with that or at least we shouldn't have a problem with that and But what Malachi, when we go back to Malachi chapter three and we ask the question, well, what is going on? What's the point here? The point is God is telling these people in Judah and in Jerusalem, they are not ready for the Messiah. Their hearts are not prepared. Their hearts are far from the Lord. They're giving God lip service and mouth service, but they don't have a heart for the Lord. And he is saying, God has to do a work in Israel first. And he's gonna send a messenger who will come and prepare the way. What does it mean to prepare the way? To prepare the way means to remove the roadblocks. This was terminology used in the ancient world for when a king was coming to town, he would come and he would clean up the roads so that when the king came into town, he didn't have to deal with the potholes that the normal people have to deal with. There's road construction being taken place. There's obstacles that are gonna be removed from the road. So what kind of obstacles that need to be removed for the Lord Jesus Christ to come and to be presented as King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Well, the hardness of the heart of his people. That's why John the Baptist came and he said, repent, deal with sin, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The Messiah is near. Prepare your heart. What do we do to prepare our heart? That means we have to deal with sin. It means we have to confess. We have to come to God on His terms. We have to get rid of the fake and phony Christianity, the fake and phony religion, and we have to come to God and show God that we mean business. What's the condition of the Jewish people in the Holy Land during Malachi's prophecy? What kind of sacrifices are they bringing to the Lord? Trash. What kind of worship are they bringing to the Lord? Words? Liturgy? They don't mean anything. Lip service? God is frustrated and weary with them. And the reason is, is because they say they're looking for the Messiah. But they're not ready. There's some work that needs to be done. However, in chapter three in verse one, it also states of another messenger that is gonna come. Not just John the Baptist, but there are two messengers mentioned in chapter one, chapter three in verse one. And the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. Now I believe the two messengers that are mentioned here are not one and the same person, but one is the forerunner, the messenger, the voice crying out in the wilderness, the other is the actual one of the covenant. Remember the word messenger can be translated the word angel. And so here it would be taken as the angel of the covenant, the bearer of the covenant. This was often a term that was used in the Old Testament, the angel of the Lord. This term that was used oftentimes to describe a Christophany or a Theophany. the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in person, when he would come. And whether he met with Abraham, or he saw Joseph, or Jacob, or he saw Joshua, or these Theophanies or Christophanies that were met of the angel of the Lord. And here, this terminology that is used here, the angel or the messenger of the covenant. He's speaking of Yahweh. He's speaking of the Messiah. The Messiah is the Lord. He is the one whom they are waiting for. He will come to his temple. The temple is his possession. He will come and make this covenant. Now what is this covenant that he's gonna make? What is the connection of this messenger of the covenant? We'll turn over in Jeremiah chapter 31. Jeremiah 31 in verse 31 if you don't know Jeremiah 31 you need to make sure you have this verse underlined and Recognized because it's a key passage of scripture for the New Testament In fact, it is the promise of the new covenant. And this is what the Messiah will do. This is the covenant that he will make with Israel. Verse 31, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in that day, I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they broke, or they break, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord. That's talking about the old Mosaic covenant. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inner parts. I will write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. They shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity. and I will remember their sin no more. The promise of the new covenant is a promise of redemption, final redemption. This is a promise of a redeemer who would come and create a new heart, would give his spirit to them, and he would indwell with them. He will forgive them of their sins and of their iniquity. This is final forgiveness. Remember under the old covenant, they had to continue back on the day of atonement. Over and over and over again and really it was just a temporary forgiveness that was looking forward to the coming of the Messiah But this is a promise that one day the Messiah is going to come and he will give final forgiveness He will remember their sins no more He's going to create in them a new heart a new life, he's gonna bring forgiveness. And the Lord Jesus Christ stood in the upper room with his disciples and he held up that cup and he said, this cup is my blood in the new covenant. What's another word for covenant? It's testament. So you have here from the book of Matthew to the book of Revelation, you have the New Testament, the new covenant that is written and established and it is written in the blood of the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sins of the world. He came to bring final forgiveness and final redemption. And here is a promise and a prophecy in the book of Malachi that there is coming a Redeemer who's going to fulfill that new covenant. He's bringing back language from Jeremiah several hundred years before, and Ezekiel several hundred years before, and he's saying, God has not forgotten that. And that Messiah is gonna come, and he's gonna put into his people a new heart. He's gonna put into his people a knowledge of him. Not a knowledge of just a head knowledge, but a heart knowledge, a relationship with God. His people are gonna be his people, and they will know him and they will worship him. And He will know them. He will come suddenly. The term that is used in this passage talks about this word suddenly is used 25 times in the Old Testament, and all but one place it is talking about judgment. It means unexpected judgment, unprepared. And they were completely ignorant about the coming of the Messiah. So God answers them for them the question of what the coming of the Messiah is going to be like they had no idea What the Messiah and his coming was going to be like they were thinking of their terms. They were thinking of blessing They were thinking of prosperity. They were thinking of Of their own possessions. They were thinking of no more wars. They were they were thinking of the benefits of The coming Messiah and what we know as the Millennial Kingdom for Israel, but they wanted it without the repentance They wanted it without the Redeemer. They wanted it without the atonement of their sins they wanted to be able to have their sin and their pleasure and their life with the benefits of God at the same time and God is saying no and All of it is gonna be included. All of it, all at one time. The Messiah is gonna come. And he's basically telling them, you're not ready. You're not ready. And so when the Messiah comes, what is he going to do? Look at verse two. Who may abide the day of his coming? Or who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire and like a fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and a 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. Let's keep on. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord. Instead of the putrid sacrifices that were coming up that God was snuffing at because it was not pleasant to His sight. Instead, there will be a day where Judah and Jerusalem will offer sacrifices that will be pleasing in the Lord's sight. Just as in the days of old, as in the former years. Notice verse five and six. and I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against the false swearers, against those that oppress the hirelings of his wages, the widows and the fatherless, and turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts, for I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. And so, let me just walk through very quickly and then give you a couple of applications of way of what the Lord is asking. He asked two questions in verse two. Who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? You see, the Jewish people had failed to understand the important application, the personal ramification of what it meant for the Messiah to come. They thought that they were ready for the day of the Lord. And he asked this question, this Hebrew term, may abide. He says, who's gonna be able to endure? Who can sustain when the Messiah comes? Who's gonna be able to stand when the day of the Lord comes and the Messiah comes like a hurricane during a storm? Who is gonna be able to keep their footing and stand before the Lord? Now I wanna answer that question for you from scripture. When the Lord comes and the Messiah comes, who is able to withstand the judgment of God? When the Messiah comes, who is able to escape the wrath and bear it? Well, maybe an obvious answer would be no one, because no one is worthy, but actually the Old Testament gives us an answer that there are some. Turn over to Psalm 15. Psalm 15 in verse one. Listen to what the psalmist says in Psalm 15 in verse one, two passages. Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Two questions that are asked in Psalm 15 verse one. The answer is verse two. He that walketh uprightly. And he that worketh righteousness. He that speaketh the truth in his heart. Okay, so who is gonna stand before the holy hill of God and in his tabernacle and his temple? Those who are upright. Those who are righteous. Those who speak truth in his heart. Turn over to Psalm 1. A few verses, a few chapters before, books before. Listen to verses five and six. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. So we're given the answer to the questions that are asked in Malachi chapter three in verse two, who are going to stand in the day when the Messiah comes? All of those who are upright and righteous. All of those who have a clean heart. All of those who have been purged. All of those whose sins have been dealt with in iniquity and have found the righteousness of God and who are found worthy. answer it, then we have to ask the question instead of, well, how then is man made worthy? If the scripture tells us that there is none righteous, no, not one. If we are all like sheep who have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way. That's exactly what Malachi is telling us from the terms of God. The Messiah is gonna come, cut a covenant, spill his blood, make a sacrifice that is gonna appease God's anger and God's wrath. And if you align yourself with the covenant of God and you align yourself with that which is righteous and find the redeemed, then you yourself are gonna have the righteousness of God. The only way that you can be ready for the Messiah is if you get on board with God's agenda and God's terms. And what are God's terms? Look to the cross. Look to the lamb. Look to the one who has purchased our redemption for us. Have your heart changed. Find repentance, just as John the Baptist said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So that when the Messiah comes, you're prepared and you're ready. That's exactly what Malachi is trying to tell the people of Judah. You can be prepared if you'll stop playing games with God. if you'll stop pretending, if you'll stop living on two ends, if you will actually come before the Lord with a broken and a contrite spirit, if you will come before the Lord on his terms and understand the seriousness of your sin and allow God to work in your heart and to purge your sin and to clean your heart instead of continuing to live and do as you please. You're not gonna work your own righteousness. Because the scripture says all our righteousnesses, as Isaiah says, is like filthy rags. It is short of God's glory. And so the only person who is able to stand when the Messiah comes, when he appears, is those who have already been covered in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who have already been put and their penalty has already been paid for. Now when he moves into verse two and three, he talks about, for he is like a refiner's fire and like a fuller's soap. The two metaphors that are used here of refiner's fire is talking about fire of judgment. You see, the Messiah would come, but he would come in judgment to deal with sin. But a refiner's fire does not come and consume, it comes and refines, okay? It's not a fire like Gehenna that burns to bits. When you take silver and gold and you're talking about the refiner, you're talking about a furnace that purifies, a furnace that gets rid of the dross, a furnace that separates the material that is pure and the material that is trash. It is a purifying process. And the judgment that is described here is a judgment of purging and discipline, not of consumption, not of annihilation, or ultimate judgment. A refiner's fire here is describing the Messiah as a searcher of the heart, a searcher of men's souls, a purifier. You see, the Jewish people were thinking that the Messiah would only come as a conquering king and bring gifts and bless Israel and get rid of their enemies. And here, Malachi is saying, when the Messiah comes, he's gonna do a work in your life. He's gonna take his people, Israel, and he's gonna refine them and bring them back to him the way they should be. That means he's gonna have to purge them. The fuller's soap, the fuller's soap is used as another metaphor. It's a different kind of metaphor. It's about clothing. A fuller is someone who doesn't necessarily work with soap, but actually works with clothing. And the soap is the process of washing clothes, washing wool, and dyeing. It's manufacturing clothing, or articles of clothes, where they would stretch them out, and they would use a certain type of lime, or a certain type of soap, and they would wash all of the particles, all of the dirt, all of the mess, all of the grime out, so that they could get that cloth to its purest form. And it was a process of stretching and it involved beading and cleaning the material. A special soap was used in the process so it could strip away the grime and the stains and the grease and make the cloth soft so it could be used and worn. How many of you use a shout out or bleach or something in your washing of your clothes when you get a spot on your garment? or when you've got grime and you've got grease and you gotta go a little step further and you gotta scrub it out in the sink and wash it off. This is exactly what the Lord is talking about. He's using these two metaphors to talk about what the Messiah is gonna do with his people. He's gonna come and strip his people of the spots of unbelief. He's gonna deal with his people and their blindness. He's not gonna annihilate them and destroy them, but instead he's gonna take them through a process of beating, stripping. He's gonna bring them to the point where they will see the Messiah and recognize him and accept him and subject themselves under him. You see, the goal of the coming of the Messiah is to purify his people back to what they should be so that they will accept him. This is a cleansing. Notice that he will sit as a refiner and a purifier. This sitting process, anytime this word sitting has the idea that he will sit and he will reign, he will rule over them. He will watch, he will oversee the process that is going on and he will orchestrate that. He's gonna refine the sons of Lebi, that means it's gonna start with the priesthood. In other words, judgment starts at the house of God. Judgment starts with the leadership. And God is gonna take the leaders of Israel, and he's gonna bring them back, and he's gonna cause them to see, and instead of being a hindrance to God's people, they will turn around and they will say, he is the Messiah, listen to him, come with me, bring your sacrifices, and let's repent. Very similar to what happens in Nineveh when Jonah comes to Assyria, and you remember the king of Nineveh says, we're gonna repent, we're gonna put on sathcloth and ashes, and it's gonna start with the leadership and go all the way down to the beast of the field. This is the type of revival. is going to be a purging as gold, a purifying. And then the results of this purging and purifying is that at the end of 3 and verse 4, that they are going to make offerings that are righteous. No longer are they going to bring putrid sacrifices, but they're going to bring offerings that are righteous. and they're gonna bring offerings that are gonna be pleasant to the Lord. They will return to the former days and the earlier days as the days of old. There will be a revival. In verse five, he will come near to them and bring judgment and justice. He will deal swiftly with those who are sorcerers and adulterers and false witnesses and those who oppress and those who oppress the widows and the orphans. He will set things straight. Because the Lord has not changed. And then the closing comment in verse six is you sons of Jacob, it's because of the mercies and the righteousness and the graciousness of God that you're not burned up right now. You're not consumed right now. Because God's still so patient and long-suffering. Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. talking about the stubbornness of his people, that God longs to bring his people, God longs to bring them back to him. So as we see, I believe what we are seeing here in these verses, we are seeing the two comings of the Lord, the Messiah, in kind of one under one umbrella. His coming to be their redeemer, to purchase the sins, to cut the new covenant, to create a new heart in his people, then we are seeing the second coming of the Messiah that when he comes after the portion of a time of Tribulation where Israel will be pulled back. They will be purged. They will be cleansed They will be pressured during that tribulation which is called in the Old Testament the time of Jacob's trouble where they eventually will become so pressured that So refined like silver that God will separate their their unbelief and their belief and what will be left is a people a remnant of God who will believe him and who will turn to the one that they pierced and say Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. Israel to this day has never recognized Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. But one day, after seven horrible years of the most horrible holocaust that will ever take place, Jesus describes it as there has never been a day like it and there will never be a day like it. And it is this time where God will focus his attention on Israel and the nation of Israel to fulfill this promise in the prophecy. So God has not abandoned his people. Paul picks up on that in Romans chapter 10, 11, 9, 10, and 11. That God desires his people that one day all Israel will be saved. And one day they will see him and they will recognize their folly. They will recognize they rejected him the first coming. And they will acknowledge him at his second coming. and then they will be again his people. I believe we are seeing millennial benefits of Jesus Christ who will rule and reign over the nation of Israel and there they will make sacrifices and it will be sweet and it will be pleasant to the nostrils of God as his people, as they should have been and as they should be. So then what is the application for the church? for the people of God in this dispensation from Malachi chapter three. Listen, I believe God's purposes for Israel and God's purposes for the church are two different purposes. And that those two different purposes are distinct in the dispensation that he had them in or that he has them in. However, The way God deals with his people, whether it was in the Old Testament or it's in the New Testament, is the same. Because God doesn't change. What is God's goal? What was God's goal? And what is God's goal for the nation of Israel? That they would be purified and that they would recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. And that purification process is gonna be a time of testing and trial that will separate what is true and what is false. So that in the end, Israel will reflect God's name as he intended them to do. Let me ask, what is God's purpose for you? What is God's goal for you? What is God's goal for his church? I would contend that it's to purify us, that it's to separate the world that is in us. Remember, we have been taken out of this world, but the world's not yet been taken out of us, okay? We still struggle with it, do we not? And so the process by which the Lord is preparing us on this earth is to purify us and to refine us and to ultimately make us into the image of His dear Son. So that when He comes, we are ready. And we shine as lights. We shine with the glory of God. I like what Adrian Rogers concludes a portion of his section on this passage of Malachi when he talks about the steps of refinement. Just making practical application as we close. Number one, how do you refine silver? How do you refine gold? Well, number one, you have to extract it. You have to go down deep in the mine and you have to find it. You have to chisel it away, and you have to take it out of the earth. And that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did when he purchased our redemption, and he paid for our penalty of our sin, that he created within us a new heart. And if you've trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, you've been taken out of the earth, you've been separated as a new person for the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you have a new heart, a new purpose, a new goal, and you're a new person. And we thank God for the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin. And now as he separated us, we still have sin, we still deal with the flesh. And so the next process is the fact that it goes from the extraction to now the crushing. The refiner will take that ore and he will begin and use a mallet and he will begin to chop at it. He will break the pieces of dirt and the pieces of the mountain and the mine and he will break it off and he will begin to crush it down to where he can put it into the fire and the refiner's fire to then to melt it down. But that crushing is a hard job and we don't like to be crushed, do we? It's interesting that when the type of people, we take things that are broken and we give them to the goodwill or we throw them in the trash. God doesn't use things until they are broken. That's why the Lord said in the scripture that God is looking for a person who is broken and of a contrite spirit. He is looking for those people who realize they need a savior. They need a refiner. It's exactly what God did for Job. He put him in the pressure place, in the tight spots where he could crush him and bring him down to the point where he could then be used as a potter would the clay. Then you go from extraction to being crushed to now being melted. That means to be put in the fire. That means to turn up the heat. None of us like to be tested. None of us like to be put into the place where we are tested in our faith and put in a place where we begin to feel the pressure and the heat of the moment and of the trials. When God turns the furnace up and he begins to drip away the sin and the selfishness and the greed and the things that are in our life that must be dealt with. And I don't know what's going on in your life. You see, God is more concerned with your purity and your refinement and your melting down so he can get you to the point where you shine for his glory. He's more concerned with that than he is your job or your car or your house or your hobbies or the things that you view as important. And sometimes the Lord has to take those things that we have as a crutch that we're leaning upon for our dependency. And he's saying, do you really trust in me? Do you really have faith in me? So I've gotta put you in this melting pot. I've gotta put you in this place and turn the furnace up and maybe take your job away from you. Or maybe show you, like Joe, maybe put you in a place to see if you really mean business. And then the last portion of the refinement is to purify. This is where he takes it out, cools it off, and takes a buffer and begins to wipe it down until it's pure. And someone said, how do you know that the silver and gold is pure? How do you know that the dross is all gone away? The term purify that is used in this passage means to shine. It's when the point when it's rubbed so much so that the refiner can look into the silver or look into the gold and he can see his reflection in the material. That's when he knows he's gotten to the point where now it's just pure gold or pure silver. And that's the point of what the Lord is doing in your heart and in your life even today. His purpose and his plan for you is to shine you up, to do whatever it takes to put you and to make you into his image. And sometimes when we're in the pressure point, we're in the melting pot, when the heat is on, if we're not careful, we can think that God doesn't love us or that God isn't good. that maybe in our sickness, or maybe in our hurt, or maybe our pain, or the suffering that we're experiencing, maybe like Job, we look out and we say, maybe God's lost control. Maybe God doesn't love me as much as he loves someone else. You remember that the refiner is sitting at his seat, and he's in control of everything that is going on, and nothing comes into your life that is not for your good. He loves you and He cares for you. The question is, how do you respond? How do you respond to the good, benevolent hand of God? when sometimes He does things to you that just put you in a place that you are put face to face with your sin and with the presence of the Lord. You see, God wants to see His reflection in your life. And that will not happen until you deal with sin. Father, I pray as we close this evening, This process of refinement and purifying can be a very difficult thing to go through. When we read of the tribulation and what the children of Israel are gonna face and the nation of Israel is gonna face, such a terrible day. Lord, we plead with any person that they would accept Christ before that day comes. because the tribulation is gonna be a terrible time of refinement. But Lord, even now in your church, you are in the process of molding us and making us into your image. The way you deal with us, the character and the nature that you treat sin in our life and how you work in our life, even as a New Testament believer, is in similar fashion to the way you dealt with the Old Testament believer. getting rid of sin, dealing with sin in our life, and bringing us to the point that our offerings and our sacrifices are a sweet-smelling savor in your nostril. That means you've gotta do a work on our flesh, and we don't like that. When things get tough and our faith gets tested, we begin to question and complain and argue. when we are to yield to the mighty hand of God, knowing that you love us and care for us, and that all things work together for good, that even in the trying of our faith, it worketh patience, so that we are brought forth as a precious material, such as gold or silver. And Lord, I pray that you would be pleased. Maybe there's someone this evening that is in a pressure point. Either someone is getting ready to go into one, someone's just come out of one, or someone's right in the middle of one. Lord, would they respond in the right way, knowing that you love them and care for them, and the pressures and the things that they're going through are for their good if they will respond in the right way. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.