God's People Melted and Tried

Charles Spurgeon is one of my heroes; his writings have had such a tremendous impact on my life. I came across this link (click here) while searching for a photo of Spurgeon. I know this article is long, but it is well worth reading. It will be a blessing to you as it was to me.

The following sermon preached by Spurgeon sums up my thoughts lately. I don't think we can hear too much on the subject of pride. If Satan just stepped out of the picture, our pride alone would be our destruction. Truly, we are our worst enemies! Let God speak to your heart!

The sermon God's People Melted and Tried was preached by Spurgeon less than a year before he died...

God's People Melted and Tried

"Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?"
Jeremiah 9:7

All that is of human fashioning is lost in the melting-pot. Were you ever in the melting-pot dear friends? I have been there, and my sermons with me, and my frames and feelings, and all my good works. They seemed to quite fill the pot till the fire burned up, and then I looked to see what there was unconsumed; and if it had not been that I had a simple faith in my Lord Jesus Christ, I am afraid I should not have found anything left. This is what God will do with all His people unless they walk very humbly with Him. "He that is down need fear no fall." He that is pure gold will lose nothing in the melting; but he that is somebody in his own opinion, will have to come down a peg or two before long. It is well that it is so; for if it were not, we should soon grow proud, and worldly, and careless, and even licentious; for it is strange, but it is true, that the next thing to a boast of perfect holiness has almost always, throughout history, been intense licentiousness. How it comes to be so, perhaps they who study metaphysics can tell; but so it has constantly been in the history of mankind. When you fancy that you are out of gunshot, there is an enemy close at hand. When you dream that the road is safe, there is a pitfall just before you. When you say, "I am perfectly holy," the very pride that makes you say so is an indication of a deadly cancer of self-righteousness that is eating into your very soul.

Now, beloved, the result of melting is truth and humility. The result of melting is that we arrive at a true valuation of things. The result of melting is that we are poured out into a new and better fashion. And, oh, we may almost wish for the melting-pot if we may but get rid of the dross, if we may but be pure, if we may but be fashioned more completely like unto our Lord!

If any of you who have been converted are undergoing a melting just now, do not be staggered at it. It is no strange thing that has happened unto you, and it is no evil thing. You have, no doubt, needed it. You were growing too gross, too careless, and it was necessary for you that you should be melted. Now God has given you the highest proof of his love in this melting, this scourging, this suffering, this down-breaking, this annihilating of carnal confidence, this hanging up of Mr. Presumption by the neck that he may die, that self may fall, and that Jesus may be all in all. God grant that it may be so!