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WisconsinChristianNews.com
Volume 26, Issue 5
Bible Teaching Opening up the Word of God
Purpose In Our Trials
By Rev. Christopher B. Cain September 2025
that require fire in order for them to be able to germinate and grow into the plant that God intended for them to become. Fire can also be creative. In the hands of
is burned which allows you to draw the impurities out of the molten metal. These impurities are called dross. The dross is removed from the metal and discarded as
“Beloved, do not think it
it is worthless. Through the repetition of this process of fluxing the refiner purifies the metal and can then pour the molten alloy into whatever molds or ingots he wishes to.
strange con- cerning the fiery trial which is to try
you, as though some strange thing happened to you.” (1 Peter 4:12 NKJV) Why do we Christians think that we are to be ex- empted from trials, suffer- ing, and the pain of living in a fallen world? If those things are common to all who live in a fallen world, how much more so should we, as Christians, expect to have fiery trials come upon us for the purpose of refine- ment? Fire can be destructive
The life of a believer is re- ally no different, in that we have a Refiner who can see the finished product in us, yet He must apply the right fire at the right time to burn away the impurities. It has been my experience that we shun the idea of suffering such trials in the American Church. We would rather worship at the altar of comfort and greed than to surrender our lives fully to Christ to allow Him to refine us. I have taken some very gray and dirty metal and refined it down to a mirror fin- ish, but in order to do that I burnt off a lot of worthless stuff that was attached to it before I even got to the molten stage where I could remove the rest of the dross. I know this is true in my life as well. Before there was any reflection of Christ in me as the Refiner looked into the mirror like finish, a lot of worthless stuff had to be burnt away by many fiery trials in my life. Those trials are not pleasant in the midst of the trial, but the result at the end was absolutely worth enduring them. We, as believers, know what I am say- ing is true. We know God wants to see Christ in us, and He is capable of making that happen. However, in order for Him to do that we must let go of the worthless things of this world and yield ourselves to Him trusting that He who is outside of time itself already knows how this ends and what needs to happen in our life. I did not write this article to encourage you to enjoy the pain of life, but to en- dure the sufferings of this present age knowing that they cannot compare with what is to come! When we face fiery trials, we must trust that the Refiner knows what He is doing. We must recognize that we are not yet at the place of perfection, and we must allow Christ to do the work in us to bring forth who He has truly created us to be. Any trial God allows us to go through has a purpose for His Glory and Honor.
the blacksmith, the right amount of fire, for the correct time, can turn twisted old junk metal into a beautiful work of art.
and brutal. However, fire can bring forth new life out of the ashes. There are seeds
Serious Bible Study... For Your Kids!
The Bible speaks of God as the Refiner. I think that we have this imagery in Scripture, and others like it, to preserve the message intended to be re- ceived across different cultures and through different periods of time. To communicate truth in a way that many people can understand it over thousands of years the Word of God uses imagery that we can easily un- derstand. It may require some to do a little research to understand how the refiner goes about pu- rifying metal with fire, but I am happy to share my own experi- ence with you to explain. To refine a pure metal, or a blend of metals, called an alloy, it requires that you place the source material in a crucible, or pot which can handle the in- tense heat required to liquefy the metal and remove the im- purities. Once you have the metal in your crucible you put the fire to it. All metals have a melting point, and it is this temperature that you are trying to reach to turn the solid metal into a liquid that can be puri- fied. Once you reach the right tem- perature the process of fluxing begins. A flux is an organic ma- terial that you use to allow the impurities to bind with it as it
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