The Refiner's Fire

Thank you, Melody. What a beautiful special music. Certainly appreciate that. We had an announcement that didn't get caught. We have Sabbath class next Sabbath. So for you young kiddos, there is Sabbath class next Sabbath, March 3rd after church. Be ready for commandment number 8. And then also, for those of you that are into playing a little bit of basketball tomorrow night, once sun goes down, we have gym night. Next Sabbath as well, March 3rd. It's getting later, but we get one more in here before the time change, and then we'll be done for this season. So please make sure that those of you that are interested in shooting a little bit of hoops after sundown, next Sabbath, please bring some clothes with you. Otherwise, it's very difficult to play basketball in a suit. Not impossible! Difficult. So just wanted to also welcome our visitors. We do have some visitors here. It's good to have you all, and it's also certainly wonderful to have all of you with us on the webcast today. I always forget to do that during the announcements section.

Well, brethren, today is going to be a little more of a technical sermon than what I typically end up giving. We're going to be digging into some Greeks, so I'm going to ask you to be patient with me and come along with me. Try not to fall asleep. Try not to check out halfway through. Bear with me. There's a point. We're getting there. It will get loaded up as we go. January 24, 1848. Some of you might recognize that particular date, January 24, 1848. On that date outside of a very small town called Coloma, California, a carpenter named John Marshall found a couple of nuggets of gold in a tailrace at Sutter's Mill, which sparked what became known as the American Gold Rush.

American Gold Rush occurred right around that time between the years of 1848 and 1855. It was estimated that 300,000 people migrated to the California Territory from other parts of the United States and around the world to try their hand at striking it rich. As history records, very few miners were successful. Very few of the miners were actually successful. I got a kick out of it. We were together in this weekend last year, and the farm we were staying is in Placerville, California, which is not far outside of this particular area.

Placerville, I mean, it's a gold-based name, right? And Sunday afternoon, a couple of the men decided they were going to build a giant sluice down on the creek, and they went and went and went and went and went. And I think there was maybe a flake or two of gold to be able to show for it. But very few of the miners made their fortunes in the Gold Rush.

But merchants and entrepreneurs made money hand over fist. In fact, some of you may have heard of Sam Brannon. He became California's very first millionaire because he found a way to monopolize on the rush of all these immigrants to the territory. It's genius, honestly. It's genius. He was also credited with really hyping the Gold Rush throughout San Francisco. What he did was, he was one of the first men to run through the streets of San Francisco. You know, you've heard of Archimedes, who ran through the streets screaming, Eureka, Eureka, I have it.

Okay? At least Sam Brannon was clothed, but he ran through the streets of San Francisco and he was screaming, they found gold! There's gold in the American River! There's gold and everybody'd say, no, there isn't! And he'd say, yes, there is! And he'd show it to them. And you'd see, you know, the cartoon at that point, their eyes would turn to dollar signs.

And everybody'd go, oh, I'm going to get rich, I'm going to find a way. Well, coincidentally, Sam Brannon did all of these things after he had purchased every pickaxe, metal plate, and other mining tool in town. And in the three towns surrounding the area. And he sold them all out of his general store for incredibly marked up prices. What was once a very inexpensive metal plate was now a very expensive gold pan.

And he made a killing. He made $36,000 in nine weeks, which at that time was an incredible amount of money. He turned around, reinvested it in real estate, purchased additional mining inventory, bought land holdings, and kept in trading and moving and starting businesses and selling businesses. And eventually he was California's first millionaire. Became a very fabulously wealthy man off of the individuals that were trying to strike it rich in California.

You know, he wasn't the only one. Some of the companies that were founded during those seven years of the gold rush, some of them are still around and very successful today. Wells Fargo got its big push during the gold rush as they came out west and reestablished things.

Levi Strauss and company, you know, most everybody's got a pair of Levi's kicking around. At that point in time, pants weren't holding up to the mining and to the work that these gentlemen were doing. And so Levi Strauss made out of some very durable materials, a good solid pair of pants that ultimately have stood the test of time. Armor Meats! That's one I didn't realize. Philip Armor, who was the founder of Armor Meat, came out and made money off of the folks that were out there in San Francisco at that time and ultimately became a company that's still around today.

You know, Armor Hot Dogs or Armor Meats. All of them got their start during this particular time. But from all over, men from all over the country, all over the world, arrived searching for this elusive metal that was going to make them rich. I don't know how many of you have tried panting for gold. I'll admit, I've tried. I bought a gold pan.

They're like four bucks at whatever GI Joe's back in the day, and I thought, well, that sounds like fun. If I'm fishing and I'm out on the river and nothing's biting, I can at least pan for gold. Give me something to do, right? So I kind of half-heartedly tried panting for gold a couple of different times and always unsuccessfully. I never found anything. I mean, I wasn't super serious about it, thankfully, but there were times, though, where I thought I did. I'd catch a glint of something.

It sparkled just a little bit different than other things, and I thought, oh, oh, and I'd ask the person with me that knew more about gold panning than I did, and he'd just laugh at me and say, that's not gold. You'll know it when you see it. And he told me, over and over, the quote he always said was, nothing shines like gold. Nothing shines like gold. It just has this characteristic luster.

Gold's a pretty incredible element. Like all other metals, gold has certain metallic properties that make it very desirable in a wide variety of applications. It's one of the most ductile metals in existence. You can take one gram of gold and you can stretch it into a very thin wire 165 meters in length. It's incredibly ductile. It's extremely malleable, meaning you can hit it with a hammer and form it and shape it, and you can take that same gram of gold and you can beat it into a square meter of unbelievably thin gold leaf.

So it's a metal that can be worked very, very well. It has a very high conductivity. It can conduct heat and electricity very well, and of course it has that characteristic luster that is very desirable. And as a result, it's frequently used in computers and electronics today. It's used in dentistry. You may know somebody or have a gold tooth yourself or a gold-cap tooth. It turns out it's not terribly bioreactive, and so you can have it in your mouth, you can have it on your body, and it doesn't end up ultimately reacting with much.

It's used in jewelry, art, and a whole lot more. It has been so thought after that it's been estimated that in the entirety of human history we have managed to mine approximately 187,200 tons of it out of the Earth's crust. Now, because I like to do math sometimes, that comes out to 411 million pounds, comes out to 6.5 billion ounces, and that 6.5 billion ounces comes to a value of about 8.75 trillion dollars at today's spot price. Ironically, the U.S. debt is 20 trillion, so it wouldn't touch the U.S. debt. But it's getting there, you know, it's working on it. But we all know, too, gold doesn't come out of the ground in these pretty little trapezoidal gold bars that you have at Fort Knox, lined up on the sides that, you know, it doesn't look like that when it comes out of the ground. It's ugly. Sometimes it's mixed with rocks, sometimes it's all lumpy, it doesn't look nice like that. It's dirty, it's mixed with other things. And so one of the processes that is used to extract gold from ore is significant, the smelting process, where you use chemicals, you use fire, you use heat, you use other things to be able to get the gold out of whatever it is that it's found in. Smelting involves submitting the ore to very high temperatures and then mixing it with elements like mercury, mixing it with lead, mixing it with carbon, to get certain things to bind and move out of and away from the gold so that when you're done you have molten gold that is as pure as it can get. But even then, it's still not pure. There's still impurities, and you have to submit it to more heat and melt it down again and then scrape the impurities off the top and then keep doing that process until eventually it is completely and totally pure gold. And you can pour it into coins, you can pour it into ingots, you can pour it into casts, etc. It's difficult to tell by sight whether a sample is pure. There can be impurities even in some of the pure gold samples that are out there, and especially to the uneducated eye, it's difficult. So they developed this system known as the carrot system that grades gold's purity. Perfectly pure gold is 24 carats, okay? 24 carats. Most of the jewelry that we wear is 14. It's alloyed with something, okay? It's a little less than half of the stuff or a little more than half, I'm sorry, is gold. And so you can tell the difference between 14 carat gold and 24 carat gold by sight. Even I can. I have untrained eyes. I can look at something that's 14 carat and 24 carat and say, okay, that's pure gold, that's not. But when you get into 18, 22, 24, I don't have the ability to see the difference anymore, personally. You know, I don't. I'm untrained when it comes to that kind of thing. I'm sure certain asthayers would be able to tell right off the bat. And there's always the trick of turning it over and seeing what's stamped on it, you know? The hallmark usually will give it away. But when you start getting into that situation where you're trying to figure out exactly what grade of gold you're dealing with, it requires an assayer. And what an assayer does is they grade the purity of metal that they're looking at. So they go through and they look at the gold, whether it was gold, silver, copper, whatever it might be, and they grade it based on a litany of tests. There's a litany of tests. There's chemical tests. You know, there's, now there's like x-ray tomography type tests that you can tell. Better stuff. I mean, that wasn't available in the late 1800s, obviously. But one of the most accurate systems of a saying, which unfortunately destroys the sample in its form and melts it down into something else, is a fire assay.

And you submit it to incredible heat, and when it's done, when it's completely molten, if there is slag on the top of it, it is an impure sample. You then remove that slag and let it cool, and theoretically, you have purified it. You've refined it. You've made it purer than it was when it started through that fire. Assayers in those days examined and tested the sample to prove its quality, and once it was tested, they approved it. They put an official Hallmark stamp on it that said, this is pure gold. I certify it as an assayer. And at that point in time, it became legal tender in those days, or was able to be sold for whatever. If you turn over to the book of 1 Corinthians, we'll go ahead and get started today with this backdrop in mind, this concept of gold and a saying and fire and refining. With this backdrop in mind, we'll look at 1 Corinthians 11. 1 Corinthians 11, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 23.

1 Corinthians 11 and verse 23, we get a description of the upcoming spring holy days, particularly in this case the commemoration of the Passover. 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 23, the apostle Paul records, For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And then in verse 26, he says, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. The apostle Paul made the point to the church in Corinth that he specifically received from Jesus Christ the instructions for the Passover. He had delivered those exact instructions as they were given to him to them, gave them the specific setup, said, On the night he was betrayed, on the evening prior to that Passover day, he instituted the symbols of the new covenant Passover, see the institution of the bread and the wine, and then he connected that to him. He connected that specifically to him, that they were to eat the bread and drink of that cup in order to proclaim his death until he returned. He goes on in verse 27, however, with an admonition to the Corinthian church, and of course, ultimately throughout history, because this was not just written for the people who received it. This was written for all who would come later as well. And so, as we look at verse 27, to us as new covenant Christians, this is also an important admonition, just as it was to those who were in the Corinthian church at that time. Verse 27, Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, verse 29, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason—well, we'll wait on that for just a second—he makes the specific statement that whoever eats of this bread or drinks this cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. This is one of those passages in Scripture that can be difficult to ascertain its meaning. And if we're not careful, we can come to a conclusion that is incorrect.

When we consider our lives, when we think about our lives and the commitment that we made to Jesus Christ, to God the Father in baptism, we compare our lives with the perfect example that Jesus Christ gave us while he was here on this earth. And for us, when we examine our lives, the only conclusion that we can come to year after year after year after year is that we have fallen short of the example that has been provided for us.

Obviously, that's the point. The point is that we look at our life in comparison with the eventual ideal and we say, I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. We know, Paul stated in Romans 3, 23, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And we should certainly be growing and becoming more like him as time goes on. Every year, we should look at our lives and recognize, hey, there's one thing that I've overcome this year and I'm better at this than I was last year.

You know, and as time goes on, we should become more and more and more like our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. We need to be repenting of the sins in our life, actively overcoming that sin in our lives on a daily basis and recognizing the need for his sacrifice as Savior on our behalf.

But because of that sin in our lives, does that mean that we shouldn't take the symbols of the Passover? Does that mean that we should look at our lives and go, I have fallen short, therefore, I am unworthy of taking the Passover? And I've heard this argument made.

No, not necessarily. The answer to that is no, not necessarily.

The Greek word for unworthy that is used here is an axios. It's an axios. And that word translates to irreverently, disrespectfully. And what Paul is admonishing the Corinthian Church and us today is to take the sacrifice of Jesus Christ seriously, to revere it, to recognize the precious blood that was shed on our behalf so that we don't have that death penalty that all of us have earned, to recognize that the blood that was shed and the body that was broken for us, as was mentioned, the scourging that he received, the stripes that he received which allow us to be healed, was done for us. And to not take that sacrifice irreverently and to be kind of flippant in how we look at that. Because if our attitude is one in which we say things like, well, I'm human, I'm going to sin, God understands it's okay, we're on very dangerous ground. We're on very dangerous ground. Brethren, it's not okay. Sin is sin. Sin is a transgression of God's law. Sin is sin. Does God understand? Yes. Does he accept it? No. No. He expects that we are going to work to overcome in our life. We know from Scripture that sin earns us the death penalty, that atonement is necessary to reconcile ourselves to God when we sin, and that that atonement was made possible by the shed blood of Jesus Christ being applied in our lives, in your lives, my life.

He goes on in verses 28 and 29. He goes on in verses 28 and 29 of 1 Corinthians 11. It says, Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he that eats and drinks in an irreverent or disrespectful or, again, we might say flippant in today's terms, way, well, that person eats and drinks judgment to themselves as they're not discerning the value of that sacrifice on their behalf. You know, if we had a Passover that was full of only perfect people, it'd be a pretty sparse Passover. I wouldn't be there, you know, and neither would any of you.

So when we take a look at this and when we consider what it really means to examine ourselves, we have to recognize our shortcomings. And we do have to recognize our shortcomings. We need to look at our life and we should feel, absolutely should feel, appropriate, godly sorrow over the shortcomings that lead us to repentance and to turning to God. We don't want worldly sorrow. We don't want something that's going to lead to more sin. We want godly sorrow that leads to repentance and turns us to our God. Talks about that in 2 Corinthians 7, which you can drop that down if you'd like. We won't turn there. Paul goes on, though, in verse 30 of 1 Corinthians 11.

And he makes this statement. He says, For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. He went as far as telling the people of Corinth that their illnesses, their deaths were due to their irreverence toward the sacrifice of Christ. And he implored them. He implored them, judge themselves so they wouldn't be judged, so they wouldn't be chastened by God as a result in various ways. You know, this period that leads up to the Passover in the spring holy days each year is an important time of self-examination. Those of us as members of God's ecclesia, it's an important time for us to reflect back on the year. And it's a focused time where we look back over that year, we look back over our lives, and we reflect on the commitment that we made to God. And we look at, do the two line up? The life that I lead and the commitment that I made, do these two things line up? Or maybe an even more appropriate question is, do they line up more than they did last year at the same time? Am I growing? Or am I stagnant? Am I moving backwards? I don't want to be moving backwards. But are we growing?

We are instructed to examine ourselves in order to properly prepare for the Passover and for the spring holy days. And today, with the time that we have left, what I'd like to do is explore this concept and really look at what does examination look like? How do we examine ourselves appropriately in order to prepare for the Passover and really explore how does God refine His people? How does God refine His people? So the title for the second split today is The Refiner's Fire. The Refiner's Fire. And gold itself is one of those precious metals that God's people are described as in Scripture. Talks of them being as gold. It also describes them as being silver, iron, lead, bronze, and tin, and not always in a positive context. Sometimes those other lesser metals are like, and you should have been like gold, but now you're really like this.

So God records a number of metallurgical analogies through Scripture. And I don't know about any of you. I've never smelted metal. I've never smelted metal. I've never, you know, melted down and ingot of something and casted or made anything. My neighbor, not anymore, they just moved unfortunately, but my neighbor is a blacksmith. He literally, his full-time job is he makes armor.

I'm not even joking. He makes armor. That's what he does for a living. And he makes a great living off of it, making armor for people. So who knew? But anyway, I asked him one time if he buys all of his own metal because I asked him, well, how come you don't like smelt your own, go get metal, and melt it down? He goes, you'll be very thankful that I don't because the process is stinks. It's black smoke everywhere. It's miserable. You would hate it. And I said, well, I appreciate that you don't smelt metal in the backyard. And all I hear is, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, as he's making his things. But I've never done that directly. And so for me, when I read things like this, in some ways, if I'm being perfectly honest, the analogy is a little bit lost on me because I just don't have that connection. So I wanted to dig into this. I wanted to dig into this since we are in a society that is so far removed from smelting and casting and purifying metals directly. But it's really important that we understand these things because this is how God operates with us as his people. This is how we are refined. This is how we grow is through this process of the refiner's fire. There's a number of places where this connection is made. Let's start today in Zechariah 13. Let's go ahead and turn over to Zechariah 13, and we'll begin to establish this particular analogy. Once you get there, make sure you're actually in Zechariah and not Zephaniah. They both start with a Z, and they end in an I-A-H. And sometimes you realize, that's not that's actually not what my Bible says, Ben. Zechariah 13 and verse 9, and actually we'll pick it up in verse 7 for the context. Zechariah 13 and verse 7 says, Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion, says the Lord of hosts. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. Then I will turn my hand against the little ones, and it shall come to pass in all the land, says the Lord, that two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, but one-third shall be left in it. I will bring the one-third through the fire. I will refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. And so we see at this time Zechariah brought his burden, his prophecy, to the remnant, the returned remnant of God's people. But we also see that there is end-time fulfillment of this particular prophecy. He made it clear to them the purposes of affliction and trial, of difficulties and struggles. One-third would be brought through the fire, and those passed through the fire would be refined as silver was refined, tested as gold was tested. The word test here in Zechariah 13 verse 9 is the Hebrew word bakan. It's the Hebrew word bakan.

The phonetic spelling is B-A-W-K-A-N. It's H-974, if you would like to look it up and do words, study on it later in Strong's, H-974. And it's translated as tried, it's translated as examined, as test, or prove. But what I found fascinating about this, as I started to dig into this, is that that particular word bakan has very specific context to the proving or trying of metals to test their worth. It is a metallurgic term. Its specific context is metallurgic in nature, that you are testing and you are trying and you are proving metal as to its quality and as to its worth.

Another place where this same word is used is Psalm 66 verse 10. If you'd go ahead and turn back to Psalm 66 verse 10, we'll see the same word in essentially the same type of context, just once again to help us to establish how this word is used. Psalm 66 and verse 10. Psalm 66 and verse 10 says, For you, O God, have tested us, you have bakan us, you have refined us as silver is refined, you brought us into the net, and you laid affliction on our backs. And so through this process, just as in a sayer, proves and refines the purity of metal through heat and through flame, so too does God prove and refine His people. In what we would term the refiner's fire, through adversity, through trial, God melts away impurities and He purifies and refines His people.

Proverbs 17.3 takes it one step further. Let's go over just a little bit to Proverbs 17 verse 3. We'll see the word bakan used again, and this time very clearly linking it to what God does in our lives with struggles and with adversity. Proverbs 17 and verse 3, it's almost like a comparison here. Like these things, so too then does God do this. And so we see it in that kind of capacity. Proverbs 17 and verse 3 says, the refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold. So like these two things, it then says, but the Lord tests the hearts. The Lord tests the hearts.

So just as a refining pot is used for silver, a furnace used to purify gold, God bakan, again, H 9 7 4 in Strong's Concordance, proves, tests, and tries the heart of His people.

Now, in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation essentially of the Old Testament, so we can kind of see this is the Septuagint helps sometimes when you're trying to make connections between Greek words and Hebrew words. In this case, in the Septuagint, the word bakan in Zechariah 13 9, Psalm 66 10, and Proverbs 17 3, as well as other places, is substituted with the Greek word dokimatsu. Dokimatsu. D-O-K, this is the phonetic spelling, D-O-K-I-M-A-Z-O. D-O-K-I-M-A-Z-O, dokimatsu, which is G 1 3 8 1. The Septuagint substitutes G 1 3 8 1, dokimatsu, for the word bakan in Zechariah 13 9, Psalm 66 10, and Proverbs 17 3, and a number of other places.

And so it is also translated examine, test, and try. Let's take a look at the use of that word in context in the New Testament. If you turn over to 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 1, we'll see that particular word used in context to help us to establish its use and how it's used. 1 Peter 1, and we'll go ahead and pick up the account in verse 6. Verse 6 of 1 Peter 1. Throughout the entirety of the epistle of 1 Peter, he's expounding on the concept of Christian suffering. He's expounding on the concept of trials and difficulties and adversity in the Christian life. And he's really making the point as to its purpose to those who are reading this particular epistle. So 1 Peter 1 verse 6, and we'll go ahead and read it through verse 9. 1 Peter 1, 6 says, In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. Now that word's not dokimatsu, but it's a kind of a conjugation of that same root. Verse 7, That the genuineness of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested, dokimatsu by fire, may it be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love, though now you do not see him, yet believing you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Peter uses this word, dokimatsu, in verses 6 and 7, as the Greek word that the translators chose to translate trial and tested. Trial and tested come from these two words. I'd like to read you a snippet from Kenneth West's word studies in the New Testament. It's actually a phenomenal four-volume set that digs into a lot of the classical Greek uses of these particular words. West is spelled a little weird. It's W-U-E-S-T. Kenneth West, and he's got a four-volume series called Word Studies in the New Testament. He says the following about this particular word. It says, in this verse we are informed as to the reason and purpose of these trials, namely that the trial of our faith might result in praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

The word trial is the translation of dokimion, which is the noun, which is dokimatsu, is the verb, essentially, of that same root. The latter refers to the act of putting someone or something to the test with a view of determining whether it is worthy of being approved or not. The test being made with the intention of approving, if possible. The word was used of the act of examining candidates for the degree of doctor of medicine. It says, it is the approval of our faith, which is to resound to the praise of the Lord Jesus Christ. Testing times put our faith to the test. And as we are submissive to God and remain faithful to Him and are ready to have Him teach us the lessons He would have us learn through them, we demonstrate by our actions that the faith we have is a genuine, God-given, Holy Spirit-produced faith, that it is the genuine article. This faith and its working in our lives is to the glory of the Lord Jesus. It is not the testing of our faith that is to the glory of God, but the fact that our faith has met the test and has been approved.

That redounds to His glory. This is made very clear by the Greek grammar involved in the statement. It is not the approved faith, but the approval itself that is in the Apostle's mind here.

It gives a great analogy. For instance, a gold mining company wishes to buy a proposed site where gold is said to have been found. But it's not sure whether the metal is real gold or not, and whether it's there in sufficient enough quantities so that a mine, if sunk, would be a profitable venture. It engages an assayer of metals to take samples of the gold ore to his laboratory and to examine them. The assayer sends his report to the effect that the ore contains true gold and that the gold is found in sufficient quantity so that the venture will pay. The report of the assayer providing or approving, sorry, the gold, is of far more value to the mining company than the gold that he returns with the report. For upon the basis of report, the company can go ahead with assurance and buy the land and begin mining operations. The fact that God finds our faith to be one which he can approve is of far more value to him and to his glory than the approved faith, for he has something to work with. A faith that he knows can stand the testings and the trials which may come to the Christian. The fact that God can trust a Christian as one that is dependable is of great value to him because God is looking for faithful, dependable workers, not necessarily gifted, educated, or cultured, I should say, ones. It is a well done, thou good and faithful servant that will greet the ears of the saint at the judgment seat of Christ.

Peter tells us this approval of our faith is much more precious than the approval of gold, even though that gold be approved through fire testing. The words of gold of the authorized version are an excellent rendering for a literal word-for-word translation, but the words the approval of are necessarily supplied to make sure or make clear the Apostle's thought. It is not the approval of our faith that is compared to gold, but to the approval of gold. The picture here is of an ancient goldsmith who puts his crude gold ore in a crucible, subjects it to intense heat, and thus liquefies the mass. The impurities rise to the surface and are skimmed off, and when the metal worker is able to see the reflection of his face clearly mirrored in the surface of the liquid, he takes it off the fire, for he now knows that its contents are pure gold. So it is with God and his child. He puts us in the crucible of Christian suffering, in which processed sin is gradually put out of our lives. Our faith is purified from the slag of unbelief that somehow mingles with it so often, and the result is the reflection of the face of Jesus Christ in the character of the Christian. This, above all, God the Father desires to see. Christ-likeness is God's ideal for his child. Christian suffering is one of the most potent means to that end.

1 Thessalonians 5 verse 21, just jot it down, we won't turn there, tells us to prove all things.

That word is dokimatsu, prove all things. Submit it to the heat and prove it worthy.

Acts 17, the Bereans were commended because they proved dokimatsu, all things, to be so. It wasn't that they were, you know, picking apart Paul's arguments. They heard it, they listened to it, they put it to the fire, and they approved it. They decided that it was worthy based on what they heard. And it is this same word, dokimatsu, that is used in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 28. 1 Corinthians 11 verse 28, but let a man examine dokimatsu himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Once again, prove, try, test, approve. What's interesting, though, is there's another word that is used in Paul's second epistle that is translated the exact same way in English. It's translated to the word examine, and frankly, I think it's really important that we come to the distinction between the two to better understand our examination prior to the spring holidays. That's in 2 Corinthians 13 and verse 5. 2 Corinthians 13 verse 5. And I've heard sermons that use both of these passages when it talks about examining oneself. They use 1 Corinthians 11, they use 2 Corinthians 13, and I've done that. I've done it too. I've used them both, but they're different words, very different contexts, and so I wanted to kind of go through that today to kind of establish it. 2 Corinthians 13 and verse 5. The Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians in his second epistle, and we keep, we've got to keep in mind a lot happened between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. There was a lot that happened. We'll talk about that in just a second. But 2 Corinthians 13 and verse 5 says, examine yourselves. Dokimatsu, right? No.

The word is piratso. P-E-I-R-A-Z-O. It's G-3-9-8-5. Piratso yourselves. Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you are disqualified? So this is a different Greek word with a different context, and it's important to have a distinction between the two. Piratso means to test. It also means to try and to scrutinize, but the Greek context is extremely important. West, Kenneth West again, in his work, and I've got to find the title to make sure that I have it accurate here. I wrote it on the other page. Word Studies in the New Testament. It's a four-volume piece. He explains, talking about these two Greek words that are translated, examined. The other word is piratso, which is G-3-9-8-5. The word meant in the first place. So in early Greek, it meant to pierce, to search, or to attempt. But as Greek culture went on and meanings changed, language develops, it moves, it changes. Then it came to mean to try or test intentionally. And with the purpose of discovering what good or evil, what power or weakness was in a person or a thing, this is where I found it very interesting. But the fact that men so often break down under this test gave piratso predominant sense of putting to the proof with the intention and the hope that the one put to the test may break down under it. Thus the word is used constantly of the solicitations and the suggestions of Satan, which is interesting. Matthew 4, the parallel scripture to the one that Mr. Miller went to earlier today in Luke 4. When we see that Satan tempted and he tried and he was the tempter, all of those words come from piratso. They all come from piratso. In fact, he goes on to say, Dokimatsu is used generally of God, but never of Satan. Dokimatsu is never used in reference to Satan because Satan never puts to the test in order that he may approve because that's the context of Dokimatsu that is put to the test in order to approve. Satan doesn't do that. Satan puts to the test to destroy, to ruin, to accuse.

Now interestingly, piratso is used at times in reference to God. I'll show you a couple of examples here, but only in the sense of testing in order to understand or discover what evil or good may be in a person. So let's look at this again in two different contextual examples here.

First one is Luke 14 verse 19. If you turn over there, please. Luke 14 verse 19. Again, trying to establish and understand what does this pre-passover examination look like?

What is the intent? How do we approach it? Luke 14 and verse 19. We've been in Luke 14 a little bit as we've gone through some of the discipleship stuff because there's a big section in here that talks about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. There's also a parable in here of the Great Supper and all these individuals that made all kinds of excuses as to why they couldn't come to this particular banquet. So, Luke 14 verse 19, we see that people start making all sorts of excuses. One of those who sat at the table with him heard these things. Verse 15 of Luke 14. He said to him, Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. He said to him, a certain man gave a great supper, invited many, and he sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, Come for all the things are now ready. Table's set. Food's good to go. Come on in. Sit down. Let's eat. But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, I bought a piece of ground and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused. Verse 19. Another said, I bought five yoke of oxen and I'm going to test them. Some translations say prove, some say scrutinize. I'm not scrutinize, I'm sorry. Some say prove, some say, oh, what is the other one? Try. Sorry. Test, try, or approve. It says, I ask you to have me excused. That word test there is dokimatsu. It's dokimatsu. It's not pirazzo. It's not pirazzo because the man who bought the oxen needed to go and examine them, not to discover their good points or to see whether they had defects. He purchased them as sound, healthy stock. And he was going with the full expectation that they were what the seller represented them to be.

He was simply desirous to go and to put his personal approval on his new purchase. And so, he wants to go and approve them to see that they lived up to what the expectation was.

John 6, on the other hand, is an example of pirazzo. John 6 is an example of pirazzo.

John 6, we see the disciples in Christ as they approach Passover finding themselves before a large group of people and the need for this great miracle to feed everybody. Now, I don't know if you've ever had people over to your house and realize we don't have enough food. It was kind of that moment where there's this many people following behind and they're going, we don't have enough food. You know, what are we going to do? But it's interesting we see John 6, verse 6. Christ tests or examines the word pirazzo, Philip with his question, to determine Philip's response. It was done in order to gauge where Philip's viewpoint really was. Would he think spiritually? Would he respond with faith or would he respond naturalistically with a lack of faith? John 6, verse 5, we'll pick it up in the context. John 6, verse 5 says, Then Jesus lifted up his eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming towards him, he said to Philip, here's the test, hey Philip, where should we buy bread that all these people, that these may eat? Verse 6, But this he said to test, pirazzo, to test him. For he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little. Christ has a little, oh, Philip, little moment with Philip where he's kind of like Philip, Philip, Philip. In this particular case, Philip illustrated a naturalistic viewpoint of things. He thought somehow they could run out with the money that they had in their purses and buy enough bread, maybe, to be able to cover it, to take care of it. And as a result of that question, Jesus Christ saw Philip's thought process. He knew how he was going to respond before. But he was able to examine or he was able to prove or test, depending on your translation, where Philip's viewpoint was at that time. There is a definite difference between these two words that are translated, examined into English.

One, Dokimatsu, is examining with the expectation of approval. The other, Piratso, is examining with the expectation of failure.

The English translation simply doesn't carry the same weight as the Greek words themselves. West goes on to give the distinction between the two in the context of 1 Corinthians 11 and 2 Corinthians 13 and our personal examination. It says both words are translated, examined, in 1 Corinthians 11.28 and 2 Corinthians 13.5. In the former passage, it's expected that the believer partake of the bread and the wine at the Lord's table only when he can approve his life after having examined himself. If he finds nothing between him and his Savior, then he's in an approved state eligible to observe the Lord's Supper. This is Dokimatsu. In the second passage, the members of the Corinthian assembly are exhorted to examine themselves to see whether they are true believers or not. This is in accord with the meaning of Piratso, namely, that of finding out what there is of good or evil in a person. If the examination showed that they were true believers, Piratso, then they could prove themselves. Both words are actually used in 2 Corinthians 13.5, that they could prove themselves, but there are approval upon that, and the word proved being the translation of Dokimatsu. We talked earlier that there were some changes that happened between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. We know in the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote a pretty scathing rebuke that ultimately we see in the second epistle to the Corinthians was accepted. They went through, they made changes, they were led to repentance by the rebuke that he had. But additionally, there were also individuals coming in who were kind of turning the congregation a little bit against Paul. And ultimately, there were some dynamics there that Paul was working on addressing. So when he put this section in there, it immediately follows that discussion. He's saying, look, test Piratso, test yourself to see whether you are true believers or not. Are you in the faith? Searching out whether there's good or evil in that particular person. And if that examination showed that they were true believers, then they could prove themselves. They could officially put that hallmark on it that said, yes, I definitely am. I definitely am. Otherwise, they would be a dokimatsu, which is disqualified. And in Greek, he throw an A in front of a word, and it negates the word essentially and turns it into the opposite. When it came to a refiner's fire, metal was quickly exposed for what it was. If you were to put a solid gold coin into a crucible of some variety and heat it up, you're going to end up with gold. But if you've got a lead coin that is gold-plated, you're going to know immediately that what you're dealing with is a forgery.

That it's not true. That it's not standing up. It's not proven. It's not approved. Because the fires of that crucible show it for what it really is. And only through fire could it be seen.

Lead's soft, just like gold. You see the old miners in the shows where they take the big gold coin and they go, and they'll always only have one tooth. Because they've been biting metal—no, that's not the reason why. But dentistry in the old 1800s was never real solid. But you'll see them pop up and bite into it, and it'll depress a little bit. That was one way to test whether it was gold. But lead's pretty soft, too. Gold-plated lead? You could pass it over on somebody, but fire ultimately revealed it for what it was. It immediately revealed it for what it was.

You know, this tells us there is a possibility that we might not stand the test.

There is a possibility that we might not be approved of God, that we need to make sure that we are sincere, that we are honest with ourselves, and that we're not acting or pretending when we go through this particular period of examination. Which brings us back to 1 Corinthians 11, 28, and 29. 1 Corinthians 11, 28, and 29. It says, For, But let a man examine, again, Dokimaso himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, in an irreverent or disrespectful or flippant manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.

Passover in the spring holy days are a little over a month away. And every year it is amazing to me how quickly they seem to come around again. It feels like we were just at the Feast of Tabernacles and just at the last great day. And here we are again six months later, roughly, at the spring holy days. But if we're not careful, they can sneak up on us.

And they can sneak up on us without us having the opportunity to really sit down and think about our life and think about what it is that we've committed to and what it is that we told God when we went under those waters in baptism and ultimately had hands laid on us to receive the Holy Spirit. During this time when we do this examination, we have to be honest with ourselves, we have to be sincere, and we have to recognize where we lack that God will help us by bringing it to our attention and helping us to overcome with the power of His Holy Spirit. But what is critical to recognize, I think, personally, what's critical to recognize is the word choice that Paul used in 1 Corinthians 11, 28. He could have used parazzo. He could have used a number of other words.

But he used dokematsu. He used that particular word. And brethren, it means that you're not expected to fail the test. You're not expected to fail the test. God has purchased you, His children, with the expectation that you will be approved, that you will be living your life in accordance with what you profess to believe. He went into the assayer's office, so to speak, with the anticipation that that ore was going to produce, that that ore was going to produce, that those oxen were going to be exactly what the seller said they were going to be, and that ultimately they're going to work, just like the seller told them that they would work, that they're going to perform exactly as anticipated. And brethren, we're not perfect.

Not yet. We make mistakes. We struggle with attitudes and thoughts as we work to bring them into captivity. We don't always live in a manner that is befitting Christ. But as life goes on, as we are purified through struggles, through trials, through difficulties in our life, as those impurities rise to the surface and they get scraped up and scraped off by the refiner, and we become more pure, and the next time around it heats us again, and as impurities are scraped off the top and we become more pure, eventually we begin to get closer to the point where the refiner can look into that crucible and see his own face shining back and reflecting from us. New refiners fire both as they's metal as well as purifies it, and as our life goes on, God places us in the fire, allows us to be in the fire to remove the impurities, and as we're heated in that refiner's fire, God purifies his people. He helps them to shine like none other.

Gold shines like nothing else. Helps him to be malleable, to be able to be conformed to his teachings, and ultimately to become more conductive, to be able to conduct the fire of his holy spirit among his people in the unity of the spirit. This is a lifelong process and one that we are immensely blessed to have an opportunity to be a part of. Wish you all a wonderful pre-passover season, and I hope you have a great Sabbath.