Isaiah 48:10

Then we learn why God had not cut them off. For His own name's sake, and for His praise, Jehovah had spared them. Yet for His own sake God had also chastened them, passing them through "the furnace of affliction."

This is the language of pure and inflexible justice. Immediate destruction is the work of justice. To keep them safe fully and finally is the glorious work that marks out divine grace — grace reigning through righteousness. If God had dealt with the people in mere justice, He would never have declared His name, since His name holds far more than justice. There is love, mercy, goodness, kindness, patience, deep and unfailing compassion. If God had consumed the people in a moment, no one would have seen any of this.

Two pictures sum up the whole of Israel's history: the "furnace" and the "lamp." The first shows us the times when they came into suffering and trial. Think of the long years of Egyptian slavery, their subjection to the kings of Canaan, the Babylonian captivity, and their present scattered and degraded condition. Through all these periods we may think of them as passing through the smoking furnace. Then in the burning lamp we have those points in Israel's history when God graciously appeared to give them relief. … The inheritance must be reached through the furnace, and the darker the smoke of the furnace, the brighter and more cheering the lamp of God's salvation.

Could not the Lord have preserved His beloved servants from being cast into the furnace? No doubt. This would have been a very small matter to Him. He did not, however, do so. It was His will that the faith of His servants should be tested — tried in the furnace, passed through the most searching crucible — so that it might "be found to result in praise and glory and honor." Is it because the refiner sets no value on the wedge of gold that he puts it into the furnace? No; but because he does. And, as someone has beautifully remarked, "His object is not merely to remove the dross, but to brighten the metal."

Proverbs tells us that "the crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the LORD tests hearts" (17:3). And, blessed be His name, He sits by the crucible and watches until He sees His own face reflected in the molten silver. He walks in the middle of the fire with His own. The furnace may be heated seven times hotter, yet it can only burn away the ropes — or, to change the picture, purge the dross from the gold.

During this time God is choosing His own people "in the furnace of affliction." He lets the scorching heat of the beast's fury fall on them, so that He may purge away all their dross. So the war against them succeeds, and the beast's triumph looks complete.

Do you not know that Christ woos His wife in the furnace? "Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." He casts His love on you when you are in the furnace of affliction. You might indeed be cast down if He brought you in and left you there. But He leads you through the waters. Do you not think He has a sweet, soft hand? You know His love-grip already; you shall be delivered, wait on.