A number of years ago, my wife and I were taken on a tour of the Rand Refinery in South Africa. There we saw gold that was 88 percent pure being heated in crucibles to 1100 degrees centigrade. It was at this extreme temperature that this gold became 99.996 percent pure, which is the purest form of gold possible. To our amazement, we learned that the last metal to be purified from gold is silver. Silver is very valuable in itself. However, it must be refined from the gold if the gold is to be totally pure.
Even in our lives, quite often the last things the Lord purifies and removes from us are those things that are very precious and good in themselves. He removes from lives those things that may be good and yet are not part of God's perfect will for us.
Therefore, He asks us to lay them upon the altar before Him and to allow Him to consume them. God wants to purify our hearts so all that is left is His nature and His faith.
The director of this refinery told us that when they boil gold at 1100 degrees, it is a very crucial moment. Refiners have to be extremely careful not to overheat gold at this temperature because gold cannot hold up under any higher temperature. That is why the refiner must sit and watch the gold. He cannot just walk by and casually monitor this refining process. He must concentrate on the gold. The director went on to tell us that when the refiner can see his own image in the gold, then he knows the work is finished.
This is exactly how the Lord Jesus deals with His people. He tries our faith through many fiery trials. Yet He is sitting in the heavenlies watching us ever so carefully to make sure that our crucible is not overheated, for we can be ruined if the heat of our pressures becomes too hot. Many times we think we are at our breaking point where we cannot take any more. However, the Lord says to us, "No, you can take a little more."
All of our trials and pressures are working for our eternal good. The Lord's image is being produced in us, and faith is being created in our hearts so that we do not trust in ourselves, but only in Him.
Another very important aspect of the trial of our faith is that there is a specific time for our trial to begin and specific time for it to come to an end.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Some preachers say: "You can be healed anytime---just have faith!" Yet the Lord spoke through Solomon and said that there is a specific "time to heal" (Eccl. 3:3). God has appointed time for everything in our lives to happen.
Remember that trials have a beginning, but they also have an ending. God never leads His people into caves, He always leads them into tunnels. The reason for this is that there is light at the end of a tunnel. All tunnels come to an opening of light at the end, whereas caves do not.
