A Remnant Are Always Saved And Always Refined

“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.” (Zechariah 13:7-9)

There are a chosen people of God, but they’re not chosen because of their belief in God or for their goodness. God doesn’t look into the future to seek out the true and faithful and then predestine these yet to be born folks to be His elect.  God’s elect believes and are good because they are chosen, and this is no idle matter.

God’s fire does three things to God’s people. The heat from fires’ flame has the power of separation. Like a parasite, sin latches on to us. The insufferable heat of God’s flame causes the parasite to let go and detach. Now the fire can perform its second task, to consume and destroy this unwanted leech called sin. 

Sin is the only parasite that we embrace and latch onto our self. Sin has us, but we also have a firm embrace on our sin. Notice the possessive “our” sin. It’s personal. It’s our very own. It’s a symbiotic relationship and is why divine intervention is required to remove it.

Finally, God’s fire refines. We come through the sin and fire experience a new thing. The old is done away with. What was, is no more. Our substance and form have been forever altered, refining us into a new creature. The sin man who did good is now the good man who occasionally sins. The good man is still human so sin will still happen, but not by design. The change in substance and form has created a person geared for righteousness. It’s as if our DNA has been completely changed.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

“And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

“And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Colossians 3:10).

We are able to survive the fire because we rest in the knowledge of God. We know in our heart we are His. This supplies us with the strength to be refined. And like any athlete who goes through a training program or a soldier who makes it through boot camp, we emerge from the fire a child of God, refined towards perfection by our Father.

God will say, “It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.”

Bill Hitchcock