What comes out of your furnace?  

Weird question, right?  Let me give some context.  Last Sunday we looked at worship and one of the things I mentioned was the Israelites at the base of Mt Sinai waiting for Moses to come back from ascending the mountain.  When he had been gone too long, in their estimation, they requested Aaron to make them gods that they could worship since they didn’t know what had happened to Moses.  So, Aaron put gold into a furnace and out came a golden calf. At least that is the way Aaron told it to Moses when he returned. (Very angry, by the way.)  And they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.”  (Exodus 32:1-35)  Once Moses returns there are great consequences for their great sin.  One of the things that he does is grind up the golden calf, spread it on water and make the people drink it.  

So again, what comes out of your furnace?  Whatever you put into it, right?  What are you putting into the furnace of the fire of our devotion and worship?  What are you worshiping?

There is another furnace story in the Old Testament, in the book of Daniel 3.  Nebuchadnezzar has an image made for the people to fall down and worship.  (I cannot help but think this is his hubris after the vision of Daniel 2, even though he has been told he is only the head.)  Only when the music blares and everyone else falls to worship the idol of Nebuchadnezzar, three Jewish young men remain standing, unwilling and unable to worship a false god.  As a result, they are cast into a fiery furnace (heated 7 times hotter than normal, which shows that the king really was angry with them).  Through faithfulness to God their bodies are cast into the furnace and what comes out are three young men not even smelling of smoke, no marks or burns anywhere.  They told the king they would trust and worship God alone, who is able to save them, but even if He doesn’t, they still would not worship his false gods or the idol he had set up.

Today there are many temptations to cast something lesser than our whole devotion into the furnace of worship.  Let us worship without reservation the Giver of Life, the Savior of Man, the Only Truth, the Faithful Father, our Holy God – knowing that when we do, whatever comes out of the furnace will be pleasing to Him, and a blessing to us.  What are you casting into your furnace today?  Whatever you cast in determines what will come out.

Pressing On…

Ron Tipton, Senior Pastor