Matthew 17:14-21. 

Now, if you read the blog “This Kind Goeth Out but by Prayer and Fasting,{making this a link to the blog}” then you will remember this Scripture passage. And I believe in this passage that Jesus was talking about the unbelief in the disciples, not the devil in the child. Jesus was talking about the things inside of them that hindered them from healing the child.

Job 23:8-12. Have you ever been in the will of God, but still couldn’t find Him? Have you ever sought God, and it felt like He hid His face from you? You worship and the Heavens are brass, you feel so empty inside, and God feels so far away, and yet you know there’s no sin separating you. We’re always looking for the right hand of God and sometimes He’s working on the left hand, and you don’t see it.

Proverbs 25:4. Proverbs 17:3 This is what I really want to touch on. I looked up the word ‘dross’ in the dictionary and dross is ‘the scum or the unwanted material that forms on the surface of molten metal.’ Psalm 51:6. Genesis 17:1.

Malachi 3:1-5. I also looked up some things about gold ore. When discovered in nature, it’s usually found combined with stones and other minerals. It’s not ready to make a wedding band out of it, or a bracelet. Gold refiners use many different methods to achieve a 24-karat purity in gold. And this has been done for thousands of years.

Now, you may find, if you are doing this fast with MDT or even just in your everyday life, stuff goes on that aggravates you, and you find yourself easily irritated. You may discover you have a short temper, are a little weary, and you’re battling some things.

But, I want to let you know that if you’ve been trying your best to live for God, He’s not mad at you. He’s not about to throw you away or punish you. God has such a great plan for you. What He’s doing, though, is reaching down and turning up the fire.

This is not to hurt you.

He doesn’t want to destroy you or break you. God is trying to allow another level of purity to become obtainable in your life. He’s bringing you to a place where He can put a deeper anointing in you. He wants to take us to a place where He can give us His authority and power. To do that, there can’t be anything in us that’s unlike Him. There can’t be any flesh and wrong motives. We have to die daily so Jesus can live.

The End of Time.

No country, no ruler, no government has the end of time in their hands. Jesus is going to present to Himself a bride, and that bride will be without spot or wrinkle. This thing is not going to end until then. It won’t end until the body of a church arises that Jesus can set His head down on.

They heat the gold.

The refiner will put the gold into their melting pot and heat it up. As they heat it, they begin to stir it. There are a bunch of tests they can use to see if the gold is pure or not. In the old days, letting it settle and then seeing your perfect reflection on the surface would do just fine.

We are the gold, Jesus, our Refiner. He is looking for us to be in His perfect image. He’s not just going to base it off of what He sees when you’re in church praising Him. He’s going to watch you when they are driving nails in your hands and cursing you and mocking you. 

The dross will rise to the surface.

Periodically, the refiner will skim the top of the gold and throw out the impurities and unwanted material.

Now, God is so concerned about us that He has the hairs of each of our heads numbered. When the fire gets too hot and is going to hurt us the wrong way, He picks us up and sets us in Heavenly places. He’s going to strengthen us, answer prayers, and make a way for us. He does this because He doesn’t plan to take us from kindergarten to college. We get out of first grade, He gives us the summer off, and then He brings us back to the fire to move us up to the second grade, taking us from glory to glory. Just like the refiner, repeating the process until there’s no more dross rising to the surface.

God can’t come to us in His full glory.

If God came in His full glory right now and there was all this impurity and sin in the church, millions in churches would just fall dead as they did in the book of Acts. We want the full glory, but He can’t come to us in full glory because He would consume us.

So, in His kindness, He works on us and as we decrease, He can increase. He draws out our broken, Adam-nature ways, so that we may stand pure before Him. He’s not going to hurt our lives and take out some of the gold. He’s just going to take everything out that hinders the character of Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t want us to look like the Baptist, the Methodist, the Oasis Ministries, the Church of God. He wants us to look just like him.

1 Corinthians 3:13-17. Fire is the best way to purify gold. You are more valuable to gold than a whole flock of sparrows, and He notices each one that falls to the ground. Jesus will put you through the fire of tests, but do not fear that fire for it is designed to burn away the impurities.

1 Peter 1:7. 1 Peter 4:12-13. Zechariah 13:9.

God allows us to go through tough times, but like Daniel and Joseph, He will be with us and save us. Going through the refiner’s fire is part of God’s redemption work in our lives. We can find hope that God will use these circumstances to bring us closer to Him, and take out anything in us that’s unlike Him. 

We are being changed, going from glory to glory!

–Pastor Anthony Wynn