A Vessel for the Finer

In this world we live in, everyone is doing that which is right in their own eyes.  No one wants to change, especially if that change involves turning away from what they know and enjoy.  Even saved people have a hard time changing.  Turning (repenting) of the wrong doing in their own lives.  In this verse, it explain how we can be better used of God by refinement. 

Silver is the metal mentioned in the verse above.  But did you know that silver comes out of lead when the lead is being refined? (Refinement consists of purifying an impure material, in this case lead. When the lead is melted at a very high heat it separates the lead and the silver).  Lead is a type of weight, or a heavy heart in the bible.   Silver is a type of redemption, or one that is redeemed.  If you are saved, you have been redeemed by the blood of Christ!  So in this scripture, the silver is a type of a saved individual that has separated from the lead.   Do you remember when you were weighted down with the sins of this world, and so heavy hearted because you had no hope?  But God, put you in that fiery furnace of conviction to separate you to Himself, and purify you, once you accepted His free gift of salvation. Then He brought you out from the heaviness, into the peace of redemption! 

After redemption, the silver still needs refinement!  Take away the dross from the silver....  what is dross?  Basically, dross is waste matter; refuse (that which is rejected); any worthless matter separated from the better part; impure matter.  In this scripture it speaks of taking away the dross, or waste, from the silver....  The dross is all the impure, worthless things in ourselves that needs to be extracted.  Just like when the lead was refined, the silver needs to be refined.  In the  refinement of the silver, the final material is usually identical chemically to the original one, only it is purer.  We are still that saved individual, but purer.  Have you ever felt like you were in a fiery trial?  Why do you think that's so? 

1 Peter 1:7  That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: 

 It's so we might be refined, made purer, that we might be found unto the praise and honour and glory when we stand before God!  I don't know what your dross might be...it may be spending to much time on the Internet, or watching TV.  It maybe your lack of bible reading/studying and prayer.  What about your thought life?  Is their bitterness or strife in your heart towards someone.  Have you been content, or are you coveting? Are you doing things for the Lord through vain glory, or for His glory alone? 

Philippians 2:3-4  Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

We need to seek God's face....

 James 4:8  Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

Ask Him to search you, as David did....

Psalms 139:23-24  Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. 

God sends us through fiery trials to test our faith.  But there is a way to be refined also, and that is through the reading and studying of God's Word! 

Jeremiah 23:29 Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

God's word is like a refining fire. It can make you purer.

1 John 3:2-3  Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

In the Bible, you can compare yourself.  Not to others, but to the Word.  There you can line yourselves up with the perfect law of liberty.  As it say in James 4:8....cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.  This is not speaking to the lost, for the lost can not cleanse themselves, only the blood of Christ can do that.  But after salvation, we need to continually keep our hands clean.  Never doing anything, where someone else's blood will be on our hands because we failed to do that which the Lord lead us to do. 

Ezekiel 3:18-21  When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul. 

And the last part of the verse says...and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer.  The finer being God Himself.  We want to be vessel that God can use, a pure vessel.  Let us strive to be pure, in every part of our life's, so God can use us and work through us.  God can't use a dirty vessel.  If you read in the law...many time a vessel became unclean because of different reasons and could not be used.  And many times the vessel would be broken and never used again because it was so defiled.  Let us not be that vessel that's broken, but strive to stay clean so we can be a useful vessel to the Lord.