In the sermon 'The Refiner of Hearts,' Peter Allison explores the concept of God testing the hearts of believers, drawing from Proverbs 17:3. He emphasizes that God's testing is akin to a refiner's fire, purifying and revealing the true nature of one's faith and character. The sermon distinguishes between 'testing'—a trial or challenge—and 'tempting'—an inducement to sin, underscoring God's authority and ownership over our lives. Biblical examples, such as the testing of Abraham, the Israelites, and Hezekiah, illustrate the various ways God tests His people to reveal their faith, strengthen them, and conform them to His image. The speaker encourages believers to view these tests as expressions of God's love and opportunities for spiritual growth, urging them to respond with faith and obedience, drawing strength from Christ's example.

Please turn with me to your copy of God's Word, Proverbs 17. I'd like to read the first three verses. We'll be looking mostly at verse 3 today. Hear God's word. Better is a dry morsel with quietness, than a house full of feasting with strife.

A wise servant will rule over a son who causes shame and will share an inheritance among the brothers. The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the hearts." Thus far God's Word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Heavenly Father, We ask that your Word might be a light to our path, that you might open the eyes of our understanding, that your Word may be powerful. May your Holy Spirit work through it, that it might be a living and active word within us.

In Jesus' name we ask, amen. The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the hearts. Testing, We all probably have taken tests. You want to drive, you have to take a test. If you want to get a degree, pass a course, you have to take a test to prove that you have earned that degree.

If you want to become a citizen of the United States, you have to take a test to see whether you have the requisite knowledge to be a citizen. If you want to be a doctor, there are tests that have to be taken. If you want to be an accountant, there are tests that have to be taken. To see whether you have the knowledge, to see whether you have the ability. Some tests are easy and some are obviously more difficult.

When I was in the Navy, we had to take a test to be able to be qualified as an engineer to operate, to be the responsible for the operation of a nuclear plant. And it was a two-day test. It was written, there were oral questions and so on. But a test, to test somebody is to exercise authority over that person. When you test somebody, you are exercising an authority over them.

You are trying them. You are trying them. And it's saying that the Lord or Jehovah tests our heart. The Lord is asserting His authority over us. His right to rule us, His right to direct us, His right to see what's in us.

It says the Lord, and where your Bible has that word in all capital letters, it's usually a way of signifying that it is the word Jehovah. You could think of it as Jehovah. And In the chapter in Numbers that we read, it spoke about the Lord saying to my Lord. If you looked, the first Lord is the capital, that is Jehovah saying to my Lord, the earthly rulers. Jehovah is God's name, it's His personal name.

He told Moses in Exodus 6 that He had appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but by His name Jehovah, by His personal name, He was not known to them. He didn't come to Abraham and say, I am Jehovah. But He came to Moses that way, and he comes to us that way. That is his covenant name, Jehovah. It's his personal name.

So Jehovah, our Father, the Lord, tries us because He owns us. In saying that the Lord tries our heart, He is saying that He owns us. That it is His prerogative to test us. We are His property. We are the people of his pasture.

We are his slaves. Maybe we don't like to think about that. We don't like to think that maybe we're a slave, but that's the way Paul opened many of his letters. A slave. Not a servant, but a slave.

A slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. This authority is His. This right belongs to Him because we are His creation. He made us. And He has the right of the Creator over us.

He is the one that gave us life. And so He has the legal authority and the legal prerogative to direct our entire life. And that includes testing us. And he's created us to worship him. And he tests us.

He tests us to see whether we are fulfilling the purpose for which he has created us. That's what any teacher does. He teaches the material. He says, this is the way God runs his world. And then he gives us a test to see, did you understand?

Have you learned the things that I have taught you? God is our teacher, he is our instructor, and he tests us. We are not to tempt God, we are not to try God, Except for he tells us that we ought to. He says that we are not to tempt God. See, for us to tempt God is for us to try and exert ownership or authority over the Lord.

And we don't have that right. And so when Satan came tempting Jesus to cast himself off, and he quoted scripture and said his angels will give you charge concerning you lest you dash your foot against the stone. What was Jesus answer? You shall not tempt the Lord your God. We do not have that authority because we are His creatures, we are under His authority.

So we are not to try the Lord except where he says that we are to, and he does say that we are to, with respect to the tithe. We are, he says, to try him, test me, he says, and see if when you tithe I do not supply all of your needs. See if I don't bless you and open the storehouse of heaven." He says we can test him in that. We can give and expect him to bless us. But other than that, it's not our role to test Him.

The Lord is our master and our Lord. He is our Creator. He is the one that owns us. We are His property. We're called the people of His pasture.

Just like we have sheep in our pasture, the Lord has people. He has us. But He's also our Father. He is Jehovah. He's given us His life, and He's made us after his own image.

As our Father then, he shapes us. He teaches us. He molds us. And then he tries or tests us to see what we have learned. And so first, in saying that God tries us, God is establishing His ownership over us, His authority to run our life, to direct us.

But then he's also, as it explicitly says, he's testing us. He does test us. The scriptures sometimes speak of God's testing as tempting. And that can be confusing because the word tempt is used in two different ways. And we need to be clear and understand that difference or it can be very confusing.

We need to distinguish between two uses of the word tempt. One way that word is used is an inducement to sin. To tempt is an inducement to sin. To be tempted in that sense is to have a desire to sin. So to tempt somebody in this way is to put an inducement, to put a thought in their mind, to give them an idea, to try and create in them, to try and arouse in them a desire to sin so You can think of many things that might be in that category That's evil But there's another way that the word tempt is used, and that is as a test or a challenge.

James says, Let no man say when He is tempted, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts He any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed." And that lust when it is full born brings forth sin and sin brings death. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust, his own, in this case, sinful desire. God does not give people sinful desires. God does not induce people to sin.

God clearly says that God does not tempt any man and cannot be tempted by evil. So that is the one use of that word. But Jesus was tempted by Satan. Now, Satan tried to induce Christ to sin, but Christ had no desire. There was no desire in him to sin, because that would have been itself a sin.

When Eve saw that the fruit, that it was good to eat, she was saying she was already sinning. She was already desiring to eat What God has said was not good to eat. And so we can be, in that sense, tempted. And we mean by that we have a desire to do something that is wrong. But we can also be tempted in the sense that that Christ was tempted in that it was a trial that was put before him and so that's the primary way that we are using this word if I use the word tempted this morning.

It's in this second sense, that of a trial, that of a test. And so God tests us. He tries us. Like a refining pot or a furnace for silver and gold. What happens, what's in a refining pot?

It's a hot oven and you heat up the metal until it's melted, until it's molten. And when you heat that metal and it becomes molten, then the different elements that are locked into that metal when it's solid become liquids and they and they will separate out the lighter fall down the rise and the heavier fall down and and so by melting a metal you can remove the impurities from the silver and the gold. But it is a trying process. You have to heat the metal very, very, very hot. It's hotter than we can really imagine.

It's hotter than we have can experience anything in our in our homes, in our kitchen stoves. It gets very very hot. So hot if you've been in a in a place where they melt steel, so hot that you can be 50 feet away and all they have to do is open the door to the oven and you can feel a blast of heat wave rush over you even from a great distance. To refine metal requires you to heat it very, very, very hot. Hotter than the temperatures at which anything else would just burn up.

All the cushions on the chairs just would instantly incinerate at these kinds of temperatures. So that's why it's a very good analogy for the Lord's testing of us, because he is putting us, our heart, in this furnace as it will, and turning up the heat in order to test us. Now, why does he do that? Why does he refine us like this? Well, the answer is, because we need it.

We have impurities in us that need to be refined away. He tests us to know what's in us. Let's just look at a few of the times that God has tested many people. He tested Abraham in Genesis 22. Came to pass after this covenant with the Bimelech that God tested Abraham.

What was the test that God gave to Abraham? It was a hard test. God told Abraham, take your only son, the one through whom the covenant promises were to be fulfilled, your son Isaac, not Ishmael, the son that you had to send away, or all the other sons of Keturah, but take Isaac the son whom you love, the one who is precious to you, special, The one who is that child that I promised that you waited for 25 years for. Take that son and go offer him as a sacrifice. It's an interesting test.

You think, what? God is commanding Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice? Isn't that wrong? Isn't that be terrible? For us, yes.

That would be horrifying. That would be an unspeakable evil. It goes on all the time in the abortion clinics. But it's an unspeakable evil. But remember, wait, God owns us.

He's the one who gave us life. He's the one who takes our life. And so what God is commanding here is His by right. And He's perfectly just in doing it because Isaac is a sinner, born in sin, and under God's wrath and condemnation. That's what we all profess, that we are under God's wrath and condemnation, that we are deserving of death.

And so when God is commanding Abraham To offer his son here, he is not commanding him to do anything that is wrong or unjust. God owns us. He has authority over us. Isaac is a sinner. He is under God's condemnation and God is simply telling Abraham to carry out the just sentence.

But it's still a test for Abraham. The canon is closed, so that's never going to happen again. Because God doesn't speak outside of His Word. There is no new revelation. And so we follow the revelation that we have, which forbids us to take people's lives, except where they are convicted of murder or other capital sins.

So, if somebody comes to you and says, well the Lord told me to take the life of my son, you can say no, that is not the Lord speaking to you. That is a demon. But the Lord appeared to Abraham. The Lord revealed Himself to Abraham as the Lord. And commanded him to sacrifice his son.

Let that sink in a minute. Those of you that have sons, or those of you who have children, or those of you who are sons. Even what would Isaac think? Abraham began to obey. And it took several days because where he was commanded to go to the land of Moriah was several days journey away, three days journey.

And so he got Isaac, he got Wood. He took these things with servants and he began his journey to this mountain, Moriah. And along the way, Isaac asks, well we have the wood for the sacrifice, but where is the sacrifice? There's another part of this test. What's Abraham going to say?

Who does he believe here? Is he angry at God? Is he frustrated at what God is calling him to do? And here's his son whom he loves, who's followed him, saying, where's the sacrifice, father? Is he angry at God?

God was testing him here to see what was in Abraham's heart and how he would answer his son Isaac. Would there be bitterness in his voice? Would there be regret? Would he be frustrated that God had put him in this kind of condition? We don't read anything like that.

Abraham demonstrates his faith, his trust, his implicit trust in the Lord with his answer. My son, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering." It's been very easy there to show his frustration, to say something about this God that we serve. He's wanting me to kill you. But he didn't say anything like that. So the two of them go on together.

As Isaac goes through the motions, taking his own son, putting him on top of the wood, binding him down, tying him down, just think about doing that. Just think about doing that. And then he takes the knife and he lifts it up to kill his own son because God in testing him called him to do that and it's at that point just as he is ready to plunge a knife into his son the angel says Abraham Abraham Abraham says here am I see he's still submitting himself to the Lord and to this testing. Here am I. Speak Lord for your servant hears.

He said, do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me." Abraham recognized the Lord's authority over his life and the life of his son Isaac to command even that he give up his son's life. Now Abraham believed the Lord. He knew that if God could give him a son when he was 99 years of age, and cause his wife who was well past the years of childbearing at 90 years, to have a son that he could certainly raise Isaac from the dead. And so he believed God. God tested him to see what was in his heart and to bring out the beauty of Abraham's obedience and of Abraham's faith and his trust in the Lord and his recognition that the Lord is the sovereign over heaven and earth and over our lives and the lives of our family.

God tested all of Israel a few hundred years later, actually fifteen hundred years later, in Deuteronomy 8, when he led them into the wilderness for 40 years. He did that to test them. You'll remember that in Deuteronomy 8, you'll remember verse 2, that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness to humble you and to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And so he humbled you and allowed you to hunger, as a test to see what was in their heart, and that what was in their heart was not the faith that was in Abraham's heart. Remember, this is the generation that God destroyed because of their unbelief.

He swore in his wrath they would not enter into his rest. And so, instead of the faith that we see in Abraham, there is a grumbling and a complaining against God just because they didn't think they had enough food. It wasn't anywhere near the test of Abraham. I allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna which you did not know." That's what manna means. What is it?

You didn't know what it was. "...nor did your fathers know that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, that man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Your garments did not wear out, nor did your foot swell these forty years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord chastens you." He sent those trials on them to test them, to prove them, and he showed the unbelief in their hearts. Jesus tested people the same way.

In Matthew 15 he is approached by a woman who wants to be healed. He is up in the region of Tyre and Sidon and a woman of Canaan comes out of that region and asks him to have mercy because her daughter is demon possessed and Jesus doesn't answer her. There's a test. He ignored her. And the disciples are saying to him, send her away, send her away, she's crying out after she's ruining your presentation.

She's causing a ruckus, a disturbance. She's ruining the peace of your gathering here. They sort of fed off of his ignoring, his test of ignoring her. But he said to them, he rebuked them, he said, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And she came out again crying out saying Lord help me and Jesus answers her again.

You remember what he says to her probably do It's It'd be easy to be insulted by his words Jesus words It's not good to take the children's bread and give it to the little dogs. Did he just call her a dog? It's not good, he told her, to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs. Now she could have gotten offended because Jesus called her a dog. She was outside of the covenant.

But she didn't. She had a beautiful answer. An answer that acknowledged the sovereign right of Jesus Christ, the one to whom she was appealing for healing, acknowledged His right to test her. It acknowledged that she was a dog. And with great faith, she said, Yes, Lord, but even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the table of the children.

Jesus tested her and showed the beauty of her faith. Jesus answered her, O woman, great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire. Because of her faith, because she answered this test. By submitting herself to the authority of God, God granted the desire of her heart that her daughter be delivered from the demons.

Be delivered from the demons. In Deuteronomy 13, God gave another test, a general test, somewhat interesting. It is somewhat interesting. He says in Deuteronomy 13, If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder and the sign or wonder comes to pass of which he spoke to you saying, let us go after other gods which you have not known and let us serve them. You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul the Lord your God is testing you To know whether you love him Whether you are going to follow this other God, or whether you are going to follow the Lord, You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him and keep His commandments and obey His voice.

You shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. But that prophet, that dreamer of dreams who came to entice you and induce you to sin, you shall be put to death. Because He has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage to entice you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk so you shall put away evil from your midst even the person who wants to entice you you're to put away as the evil but he said I'm doing that to test you to test you to see whether you love me more than anything else. He tests us to show our weakness even in those who are his redeemed children. The children of Israel, that was a generation of unbelievers.

But Hezekiah was a good king. He feared the Lord. He prayed to the Lord that The Lord would deliver him and give him life and the Lord did. The Lord extended his life. In 2 Chronicles 22, In summarizing the life of Hezekiah, how he humbled himself when he prayed to the Lord and asked a sign of the Lord to extend his life.

It also says that God granted that. But it says, Hezekiah did not repay according to the favor that was shown him, for his heart was lifted up. And therefore wrath was looming over him and over Judah and Jerusalem. Then Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And so the wrath didn't come upon Hezekiah in his day.

But you remember the occasion that showed his pride, that revealed the pride in his heart, he had very great riches and honor, and he had a fair amount of wealth, silver, precious stones, and so forth. The ambassadors of the King of Babylon came to inquire about the wonder that was done in the land. And it says when they came to inquire, they had heard these wonderful things about what Hedekiah had done, how all the wealth he had and all the things that he had done in the city. They came to inquire about all these wonders and God, it says, withdrew from him in order to test him that he might know what was in his heart. God withdrew his grace From Hezekiah and tested him to reveal what was To reveal what was in Hezekiah's own heart and we have the whole story of what what that That test was in second Kings It's not given there in 1 Kings, but 2 Kings 20.

When Baradoc Baladam, the son of Baladam, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah. He had heard Hezekiah had been sick and had gotten better and so on. Then Hezekiah was attentive to them and showed them all the house of his treasures, the silver, the gold, the spices, everything, the armory, all his weapons, all his defenses, all that was found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion that Hezekiah didn't know showed them. And then God sent him a prophet and he said, What did these men say and where did they come from?

Hezekiah. That was a testing of Hezekiah. And it showed the pride that was in his own heart. It showed his weakness. To show that we can't do anything apart from Christ, apart from his Spirit enabling us.

He tests us also to strengthen us, to purify us. It's through these trials that we are purified. In Malachi Chapter 3, he says that he would send his messenger who would prepare the way before him. It says in verse 2, Who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears?

For He is like a refiner's fire, and like launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness. God tests us to purify us and to refine us so that we are refined like gold and the dross is removed so that we can offer to the Lord an offering of righteousness. And then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the Lord, as in the days of old. And I will come near you.

For I, the Lord, do not change, therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob." God tests us to conform our character to Him. To conform ourselves. We've been made in the image of God, but that image has been marred and damaged. And it needs restored. God sends temptations, trials, afflictions to try us, test us, and refine us.

Remember that character we saw last week. That character of the Holy Spirit that is so much better than wealth and so much better than bloodline. That is the character that God wants and builds in us. That's His will for us, our sanctification. And He accomplishes that will in us through these trials.

But he not only tries us, he also delivers us from these trials. He delivers us. He sees us through them. He watches us as we do go through them in Zechariah. I will bring the one third through the fire, Zechariah 13.9.

I will bring the one third through the fire. Zechariah 13, 9. I will bring the one third through the fire and test them as gold is tested. See, here's the picture of a father, Jehovah, our father, who is watching that fire, who has promised to us that he will never try us beyond what we are able to endure but will with The trial will with the temptation provide a way of escape that we may be able to endure. He will make the way of escape so that we can endure it.

Here is this picture in Zechariah of this refiner who is carefully watching the fire. This is gold in that fire. I will refine them as silver and as gold as tested. I will bring them through the fire. He will carry us through.

So the same God that owns us, the same God that tests us, is also Jehovah who delivers us, who brings us through the furnace of affliction. They will call on my name and I will answer them. I will say this is my people. And each one will say, this is my God. You see, Not one particle, not one atom of gold is lost by God as He brings us through the furnace of affliction.

It is only the dross that is consumed. See we can respond in two ways when God tries us. We can respond with frustration and anger. We can ask, Lord, why are you doing this? We can accuse God of not being fair, of not treating us like other people.

We can be filled with self-pity. Woe is me. I'm this poor, suffering person. Other people don't have to do this. We can be filled with self-pity, we can be filled with anger.

How dare God do this to us? Or we can respond by recognizing that God tries us, He tempts us, He tests us, because He loves us. God is love. He is good. And His testing is a sign that He loves us.

It's actually a seal. It's actually a seal of our election. Our testing, Isaiah says, is a seal. It's a seal of our election. It's a seal that we are His precious possession.

Remember when Job was tried. Remember when Job was tried. There wasn't anything that Job had done. It was to prove to Satan that Job was a righteous servant of the Lord. The Lord was commenting to Satan about the character of Job, how he was a just man.

And Job challenged that and God ordained for Satan to try Job. But when it was all done, and Job was humbled, Job was purified through that. Job did learn. But when it was all done, remember Job's friends throughout that had kept accusing Job of, well it must be some secret sin in your life and that is why God is doing this. Job you just need to confess this secret sin." And Job said, no, I am upright.

It didn't mean he was sinless, but he was saying, I have no secret sins. But these very friends who had accused Job of suffering because of his sin, says that Job prayed for them. He prayed for those friends to be forgiven for that. And the Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. When he prayed for these people who had said that he was a terrible sinner and that's why all the afflictions had come on him.

He was doubly blessed when he prayed for his friends. See, God delivers us and he provides the way of escape. Peter says that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." And so when the Lord tests us, Remember that He is sovereign. It is His right to test us. And that He is testing us because He loves us.

He is testing us to refine us, to purify us, that our faith might be found into praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And also remember this too brothers and sisters, that Jesus Christ, our great high priest, was also tempted, was also tested, and there was no sin in him. He willingly endured these tests. He willingly took to Himself a human body with its limitations and inherent weaknesses in order that He might redeem us to Himself, a peculiar people who are zealous for good works. And so remember Christ's example.

Christ's example in suffering. And none of us can say that we are righteous like he was and that we don't deserve everything that the Lord sends to us. But so look to Christ. He is our example, He is also our strength, and it is in Him, it is in His riches that The Lord will give and make for us the way of escape. Let us pray.

Almighty Father in heaven, we thank you that you do love us. And that there is nothing that can separate us from your love. There is neither height nor depth nor angels nor powers nor principalities nor things created nor things in heaven or earth or in the things under the earth. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can separate us from the love, your love, the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. You know Father, we ask that in those times of testing, we might remember to draw our strength from you, to look to you as our example, to remember those who are held up to us as examples of faith who didn't doubt, those of whom the world was not worthy, those who were sawn into, those who wandered about as vagabonds in caves for your sake, for the sake of your kingdom.

Father may you strengthen our faith and may you enable us to count it a joy when we do fall into various temptations, knowing that this testing of our faith, if we endure through it, will produce patience. And so, Father, we look to you with gratitude, with love, and with adoration. That you are mindful of us, and that you love us, and that you care for us. And even yes, that you test us. Father, may you find in us a living faith and obedience.

Through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.